Tender (38 page)

“Hi!” Catherine said instead now, almost squawked it, like a person hanging helplessly out of an upstairs window, having to attract help from below. “Hi, hi!”

“Hi, hi,” James said, a deliberate—probably, yes, mocking—echo, as he leaned in, with that same half-smile, and kissed her lightly, quickly, on each cheek. She lifted her arms, jerked her body forward, for a hug, but he was already straightening up again, so she pulled herself back, and staggered a little, her lips moving too much, too madly, a stiffness already at the base of her skull as she gazed up at him. Had he always been so tall? Well, yes. You did not grow in your twenties. Not physically; not upwards.

(Had his eyes always been that startling shade of blue?)

“So, I saw you were moderating a panel,” he said, in an older, rounded-off version of the voice her memory so often thrust at her, “and I thought—”

“I thought you were in bloody Venice!” Catherine interrupted him, having remembered, as soon as he opened his mouth, the bantering, art world line with which she had decided, soon after spotting him from the stage, to begin any conversation which might ensue; having used it now, though, it sounded unduly aggressive, not to mention stalker-ish; yes, someone in her profession would naturally know that James was about to represent Ireland at the Venice Biennale, but they would not necessarily know, from James’s Twitter stream, that he was to spend this weekend there taking the measurements of the appointed space. “Didn’t I hear something,” she said now, scrabbling for ground, “about you being there?”

James nodded. “Well,” he said slowly, his gaze sliding to the side. “I was there, actually, until around eight o’clock yesterday evening.”

“And now you’re
here?
”

“Now I’m here. And so are you.”

“Well.”

“Well indeed,” he said, indicating the auditorium exit. “Do you have a bit of time?”

Probably, it was the fancy artificial light in here, futuristically white and almost breathlessly clear, that made his eyes seem that unfamiliar blue, Catherine thought, as they walked towards the front of the tent, making jumpy small talk about the panel, James’s strides long and hurried in his red jeans and scuffed leather work boots, a pair of green braces looped over his blue oxford shirt. The braces, or rather the look which involved brightly colored braces, she had seen before, in a studio visit streamed on the Greene website and from recent photos on Scene & Herd; it was even more surreal to her in reality, but that was just how things worked; years passed, and the surreal, more and more, was simply the real. James had a beard now, and his red hair was fairer, but also with strands of gray at the temples and in the beard, and his skin, like hers, was now just skin, its textures on show, its pores like dirt flecks, its creases and their tributaries beginning. Probably, if someone’s eyes had been that shade of blue always, that would be the thing, or at least one of the things, you would remember about them most strongly; that would be one of the things you carried with you, wouldn’t it?

That would be one of the things you had, for instance, noticed. What with living your every breath for that person. What with being in love with them.

(The real became the surreal, and the surreal turned its impossible face towards you, and was the real.)

(Emmet’s eyes: they had been blue.)

“Good flight?” she said, because it was the thing you said in these situations, marching along beside someone, with a folder of notes under your arm, in your jacket pocket your BlackBerry buzzing—but she would look at that in another moment, she would deal with that when she had dealt with this.

“Well,” James said, and he gave a short laugh, “it was the kind of flight you’d feel guilty complaining about.”

“Oh,” Catherine said, confused.

“Seen those?” he said, pointing to a trio of Alice Neel portraits as they passed the Zwirner booth. “They’re so perfect.”

“Oh, yeah,” Catherine said, blinking at them; the dour faces in their exaggerated play of shadow and light, the vivid red lips, the bare-chested man with the dark circles around his eyes and his partner by his side. “I can see why you like them,” she said, not even knowing what she meant.

“I love them,” James said, his eyes still on the paintings.

“And that photo of yours in the Greene booth is amazing.”

“I want to stop by there for a minute now,” James said, nodding as though she had said something obvious. “Is that OK with you?”

“Sure.”

“Oh, and thanks, I should have said. I like that piece too. I wanted to keep it back for the show next week, but they wanted it for here.” He glanced at her. “Will you still be here for my show?”

“I fly back Monday night, unfortunately.”

He said nothing, his attention seeming snagged by another piece, or perhaps by someone he recognized in one of the large German booths; his hand went to the back of his neck, she noticed, and rubbed it.

“I’ll just be a minute here,” he said, turning left into the long rectangular space given over to Greene; at a beautiful Danish modern desk, two gallerists were tapping on their laptops. As was the case in many of the booths, a bottle of champagne was open on the desk, and a couple of half-empty flutes stood nearby; nobody ever seemed to be drinking the champagne, but its visibility was crucial, signaling that the gallery was celebrating an already successful fair.

As they came further into the space, one of the women at the desk lifted her gaze, and on seeing James, who was now standing with both hands out as though demanding an answer, a broad grin on his face, she shrieked his name, jumped out of her swivel chair and rushed over to hug him.

“You’re not supposed to be here!” she scolded him, her arms still around him, as the other gallerist, waving madly, came over to do the same. “No artists at the fair!”

“I know, I know, I’m an awful fucker,” James said, and it was so strongly in the accent and the intonation of fifteen years previously that Catherine stared at him.

“I thought you were still in Venice,” the second gallerist said, her hands on his face now, patting his cheeks like those of a baby. “Your Twitter says you’re going to the British Pavilion this morning!”

“Keep the bastards guessing,” James said, in the same accent, which made the women peal with laughter, and then he shook his head. “No, no, I’m only joking. Jonathan was taking the plane back last night and he offered me a lift.”

“Oh, right,” the first woman said, as if to something which made utter sense.

“I was worn out from trying to work with those bloody Italian technicians, to be honest,” he said, and he extended a hand towards Catherine. “Meghan, Veronica, have you met Catherine Reilly from
Frieze
magazine?”

“We’ve met,” Catherine said, her words echoed by the two women as they shook hands. “I was in earlier.”

“How’d your panel go?” the first woman, Meghan, asked.

“Super,” Catherine said automatically. “A really good conversation, I think.”

“They all know how to tell us what we should be doing, but they’re not so keen to talk about what they should be doing themselves,” James said drily. “Is, I think, what Catherine means.”

Everyone laughed, Catherine watching James out of the corner of her eye; had he really been offended by something in the discussion? She could barely remember a single thing that had been said. Should she have asked him, as they had left the auditorium, what he had thought? Had it been a grave lapse on her part, a grave professional lapse, not to steer the conversation that way, to have assumed that what was between them as they walked was somehow, instead, personal? She realized, with an almost bodily jolt, her assumption: that James had come to the panel, indeed possibly come to the fair, to see
her,
to have a chance to meet with
her,
talk with
her
. When, actually, he was an artist, at an art fair. Yes, the gallerists had flapped at him for being here; yes, they had made all the expected noises about how artists should steer clear of these things, so crude, so commercial, the collectors lurching between booths like drunks between dive bars, but the fact was, plenty of the artists wanted to keep tabs on things just as much as did the people with the checkbooks. That James should be one of those artists: that did not surprise Catherine. That did not surprise her at all. She stepped away from him, pretending a sudden deep interest in the small set of Nielsen photographs on the side wall. She moved her face close to them. She did not permit herself to focus on what was reflected from behind her in the glass of the frame.

“And then, of course, it’s Christian’s birthday,” James was saying now to Meghan and Veronica. “That’s the
actual
reason I had to come home.”

“Oh! You’re surprising him!”

“You’re
such
a good husband.”

“I don’t know about that,” James said wryly. “Would a good husband force his husband to pose for the likes of that thing over there?”

Catherine’s whole body spun towards the portrait on the side wall. She had seen it earlier, but had not realized it was Christian; he looked nothing like the man from the photographs online. The pose, she realized, was actually very like a pose from an Alice Neel painting: Christian was sitting on a quite formal armchair, a velvet-upholstered thing with burnished wooden arms, and one bare leg was drawn up over the other, ankle almost to knee, and he was looking, seeming bored or resentful, to the side. Though maybe his expression was just neutral, or thoughtful, or distracted; with every passing second, Catherine felt less and less certain about what kind of expression it was, and after all it was a photograph, and not a painting like the Neel, and therefore just a moment, not a considered state, not even necessarily a caught mood. It was just one of the many, the countless moments a married couple spent in one another’s company, noticing one another, or not noticing one another; both things they were free to do, both options they were free to stretch into, to enjoy, and this man, this dark-haired, fine-boned man, with his lips that were still full, and his arms that were strong and muscled from his mornings or evenings at the gym, and his cargo shorts, army green and faded, and the dark hairs on his legs and the silver metal watch on his wrist; this man was—had been—in one of those moments. Over his shoulder, through a window, a flash of green: a field. Blue sky, no clouds in view. Somewhere, Christian had been passing time in a sitting room, a summer afternoon waiting for him to go back out into its warmth.

“That’s Carrigfinn,” James said, leaning closer to her. “I took it when we were visiting there last summer.”

“Oh,” was all Catherine could say, and she stepped closer, and she tried to see the very grass of the field.

“It’s such a great piece,” Veronica said, and Meghan gave a long, low sigh in agreement. “Such a great photo of Christian as well.”

“Christian’s not mad about it,” James said. “I told you that, didn’t I?”

“I think you mentioned—he thinks he looks old, or something?”

“Something like that,” James said, shaking his head. “If he wanted to look good in photographs, he should have married Juergen.”

The women laughed. “Not really an option,” one of them said.

“Ah, now, you wouldn’t know that either,” said James. “Don’t forget Christian is
very
persuasive.”

Then they were leaving, James having talked Meghan into telling him the name of the collector who was likely to be buying the portrait; as was often the case, there were a number of offers, and it was up to the gallery to decide on the most desirable buyer.

“Oh,” James had said, looking impressed. “OK. He’ll do.”

Meghan widened her eyes. “Right? But I didn’t tell you that.” She poked him in the chest. “I did not tell you that.”

“He’ll give Christian a good home. Possibly better than I do.” He checked his watch. “I need to get into the city to get him a gift.”

Meghan reached for her iPhone. “Do you want me to get you the car?”

“No, no,” James said. “It’s a beautiful day. I think I’ll walk over the thingy, the footbridge.”

Meghan made a face. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. It’ll be nice by the water. I can take a cab at First Avenue.” He looked at Catherine. “Will you walk me? Or do you have to be somewhere?”

They were looking at the East River, James explained, and the brown high-rise buildings on the other side were East Harlem, and the highway frantic with yellow cabs was the FDR. She was struck by the sounds of these names in his mouth, how thoroughly they seemed to belong to him, how he talked now about needing to get down to the Sixties and then down to Orchard and Hester for a meeting. Catherine had been to New York several times on business, but still the street names and the neighborhoods seemed so exotic to her, seemed somehow unreal; she felt self-conscious using them, and always expected others to be the same.

“Do you live near here?” she said to him. “Or, rather, where do you live? Not in Manhattan, right?”

No, not in Manhattan; she knew that. She knew that from the articles. He lived in Brooklyn, in a house for which he and Christian had paid $1.8 million.

“No, not in Manhattan,” James said, shaking his head as though she had mistaken him for someone else. “In Brooklyn. Fort Greene. Do you know it?”

“No. Sounds nice.”
Sounds nice?
What was she saying? She was gabbling. With every sentence, she was hissing at herself to stop, to slow down, to let him do the talking, but always already the next sentence had fallen out of her helpless mouth. James must surely have noticed. But he gave no sign of it. He paid, now, for the two iced coffees he had ordered for them from a truck parked at the tent entrance.

“Thanks,” she said, as he handed her the plastic cup. “I meant to say, I like the braces.”

“Oh.” He gave a short laugh, glancing down at himself. “
Bejaysus, you’re like old Barney Rodgers of the mountain.
That’s what my ol’ fella said when he saw them.”