Six

Kate’s official title was delightfully vague – she was simply called administrator, the kind of tag Poetry Plus went for, like all the other organisations sort of the same, the small cultural institutions that were not really part of the public service but were funded by grants from dast and the ac and the acni, and last but not least, the eu. The thing was that as the cultural and heritage industry had expanded in Ireland, art, and artists, needed more and more administrative back-up and, as a response, the number of small cultural organisations grew. Every county, practically, had at least one arts officer now, and as well as that there were heaps of organisations dealing with books in Irish, books for children, books for people with limited reading ability, books in translation, artists in schools, artists in libraries, artists in prisons, artists in hospitals, public visual art, statues on roundabouts, pictures in shopping centres, murals at railway stations, and so on. The list was endless, it really was. They used to say that Ireland had a standing army of a thousand poets, but now it had an even bigger army of arts administrators whose job it was to give the poets and their fellow artists funding, to send them off, abroad or around the country, giving exhibitions or readings, and generally to organise their lives for them. The Celtic Tiger had really let it all take off, there was loads of dosh sloshing around now in the coffers of the state and they liked to toss a good lot of it at The Arts. The Arts were a good thing, somehow, and politicians liked to be associated with them. Loads of photo opportunities with classy backgrounds, that was what they liked.

Kate was one of those artistic bureaucrats. Once, she had hoped to be an actual artist. While a student, she had published poems in the college magazines and she collected a ton of reject slips. Dear Miss Murphy, I regret to tell you that your poem is absolute shite. After getting squillions of these nice little notes from little and big poetry magazines and attending innumerable poetry readings, lectures, launches, and other events, she saw the light: writing poetry was for losers.

Listening to an officer from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland make a speech somewhere, Kate realised that there was a way to get her own back. She stopped writing poetry and started administering it. It was so gloriously simple! Already she was one of those deciding which poets got which grant, and who went to which conference. It was just brilliant! She took her revenge on those fucking editors who sent her the reject slips as soon as she was in the door. They never knew what hit them.

Now she organised poetic events from a small office down a back lane off Gardiner Street, the headquarters of Poetry Plus; her pay was crap, but it was much more regular and about ten times higher than that of the poets she worked with. But they didn’t need money in the same way, artists were different, she believed. They sort of liked the freedom being strapped for cash gave them, and it was great for them to sort of learn to make their own way. Kate, to be honest, was against the grant culture. Even though she was still participating in it – selecting poets for bursaries and so on – she didn’t hold with it. It was past its sell-by date, it was last century really. But anyway, she liked it for the moment.

Did she like her job? She adored it. It was fabulous. Really really really hard work, twenty-four seven, it took everything you could give it and she gave it everything she could. But it was brilliant. You got to meet loads of really interesting people, there was a fantastic social life, receptions every night, too many but she enjoyed them, they were just what she loved.

And there was more. She really really really liked the challenge of it all. She’d figured out – actually, she figured it out after about two days! – that administration was an activity at least as creative as writing poems. Tell that to the Arts Council! Her ambition was to climb the very complicated career ladder of the arts administration universe, a career game that was more like snakes and ladders than most. She had a five-year plan for herself. She knew where she wanted to be when she was thirty … ohmygod! You had to. If you didn’t have a plan, you were a loser.

It was a funny old world: of mysterious alliances, delicate negotiation, careful manipulation. The thing you needed to understand real fast was that the real rules weren’t written down anywhere, and nobody was going to explain them to you even if they knew them. You had to figure them out as you went along, noticing who was in favour and who was out, who should be flattered and who ignored, when to talk and when to shut your gob. Kate had experience. She’d been in a school yard for about twelve years, for God’s sake, and where better to learn a thing or two about intriguing? There was no point in moaning about things. None at all. She learned instead to enjoy figuring out the complex web of the arts world, with its circles within circles, its cunning civil servants, its publicity-ravenous politicians, its inquisitive journalists. The foxes, the wolves, the jackdaws, she thought of them as, although she’d like to find a better metaphor for the journalists. ‘Jackdaw’ was much too kind. She saw herself as a dove among them. A downy, innocent pigeon. But not a stupid one, one who could read the signs. She had, she thought, the skills and gifts of a meteorologist rather than of an explorer or cartographer.

She had picked up and honed all these skills by the sheer force of her own intuition. If she had waited for anyone to teach her, she would have still been waiting.

In addition, she realised, with her quick insight, that in the arts world there was always an element of the unpredictable. A joker in the pack.

Namely, the artist.

This was not a thing many of the administrators, especially the male ones, knew about.

Most of the time, in the world of administration, once you got a grasp of the ropes, learned the tricky skills, you lived in an intricate but eventually predictable world where the smart succeeded and the naive went to the wall. It was the artist who brought an additional element of gambling to arts administration. Kate knew, she had to, just which ones counted and which ones didn’t – there were A lists, B lists, C lists, D lists, and more. But all of a sudden, all the lists could be skewed overnight. Out of the blue some rank outsider could leap into the picture and screw the whole bloody thing up! Someone who was an outcast, published by the lowest of the low or exhibited somewhere off the map, could, all of a sudden, produce some brilliant book, put on a great exhibition, win some big international prize. Then everything in the arts world had to go through a rapid process of readjustment; the players all had to be moved around and various strategies and values reassessed to take account of the new standard.

It didn’t happen very often, though. But when it did, it just added to the pleasure of the game. So thought Kate, in her good periods.

Kate was twenty-five. She had been brought up in Foxrock but for the past year had lived in an apartment on Gardiner Street in the centre of the city.

Did she have a life outside the office? Twice in her life she had been in love, once when she was a schoolgirl and once when she was a college student. The second relationship started at the end of first year and lasted until just two years ago, when the young man, now a law graduate, went off to Belgium on a stage and never came back, at least not to Kate’s life. She had been bored with him for about a year and a half before they finished, but as soon as he went to Bruges, she began to miss him. The main effect of this was to prevent her feeling attracted to anyone else. Not until she had bumped into Vincy Erikson at the House of Lords a few weeks ago had she felt anything for anyone, though she’d scored loads of chaps, in that meaningless way you do, after parties and things.

She’d bumped into Vincy again on two occasions in the meantime, although they hadn’t gone out together as yet. Fingers crossed. On both occasions they’d talked together for almost an hour, a very very long time at a reception, where, if Kate stuck to her own rule, she would never, ever, converse with any individual for longer than five minutes before moving on to the next group. Networking was her lifeline, after all, and she owed it to her poets and to her future to make as many new contacts as she possibly could whenever she was out and about. Like, it was expected.

But Vincy hypnotised her. Most journalists just annoyed her. Got her goat. They would telephone her for information when they needed it, then at receptions they’d brush her aside like she was a piece of shit. She always smiled anyway, exchanged a few words with them, and kept her feelings to herself when their eyes scanned the room for somebody famous.

Vincy was different. Totally different. He was not a cultural affairs journalist, so he had no professional interest in Kate’s world. What he had been doing at the Heaney launch she did not know. And he looked just great. Oh his crazy hair, down to his shoulders, electric hair. His long body, taut, toned like some animal’s, she wasn’t sure which, she didn’t do zoology. Cool dresser he was too. He was not everyone’s idea of a dish but he was definitely hers, her type. And the thing was, he was a real journalist, even in his personal relations. He could listen. Unlike most men, he asked real questions, and then shut up and listened while she answered them. He’d got it all, in a nutshell.

She knew, that evening, as she put on her make-up in the tiny toilet in the corner of the office, and prepared for another literary event, that she was falling for Vincy Erikson.

Not in love, she said to herself, combing her eyelashes with the black mascara brush, which was supposed to make them longer, thicker, and more tear proof than any of its competitors. In infatuation. I don’t know him. I don’t know anything about him – where he lives, who his parents are, what age he is even (she guessed thirty; it was a good age, for a man).

She outlined her lips with a red pencil and brushed a deep pink paint into the gaps. Then she pressed her mouth on a tissue covered in powder and brushed them one more time. She wished her lips were bigger, and regretted not having succumbed to the temptation to have a collagen injection last summer. Her mouth was definitely her worst feature.

Damn, she thought, surveying her body. She was wearing a perfectly fitting black suit, which she had bought in Paris for an enormous sum of money, and a tiny bodice-type top in bronze-coloured silk. Black suits were boring, but they worked. No getting away from it. She looked better in this than in any other garment she possessed (even than in her other five black suits).

Why had she said damn? Because she was worried about her appearance. The wonderful advantage of being in a long-term, steady relationship, then not caring about men, was that worries about her looks had vanished from her life during all that period. Well, you know. Almost. She just picked the clothes for the occasion and left it at that. And that worked just fine. Now she wanted more. She wanted to be not just smart and presentable, or casual and presentable, the two main categories to which she had aspired for the past four years. She was asking herself to be mysterious, intriguing, bewitching, unusual, as well. She was asking herself to be beautiful. And the difficulty was, she could never tell if she was or not.

She might have to go the bohemian way after all, much as she hated it, if she was to get that intriguing look she wanted. But it sure as hell wouldn’t come her way tonight. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tonight it was the little black suit.

Damn!

The reception was on over at the Writers’ Centre, a great gaff really, very nice, especially since they did it up, but not on the map. Northside. Unfortunate, but there you go, nobody went there, but nobody. The big names had their launches on the other side of the river. Not their fault, had to, to attract the numbers. The A list wouldn’t be at this gig, at this launch of a collection of poems by some unknown nobody, Marina Baxter.

If Vincy showed his face there tonight, she’d take it as a yes. Interested. Because otherwise there was no reason why he’d be at something like this. Better things to do with his time.

Kate arrived a little late. The buzz of conversation and the smell of plonk floated downstairs to greet her; she could tell already that a large crowd had assembled. Well, wonders would never cease. That was the thing, you never could tell. Of course, the more minor the writer, the larger the crowd, of relations, neighbours, fellow members of writers’ groups, friends. The famous names sometimes made the mistake of ignoring the foot soldiers. Hadn’t it been blazoned about that John Marvell, who had won the Booker, had sold only a few hundred copies of his novel prior to scooping the big prize? Marina would sell more copies than that tonight – in fact, not being bitchy, the book would sell more copies tonight than it would during the remainder of its shelf life. Probably not more than five hundred had been printed, though, so the publisher would be happy.

The back room, where the wine was being served, was crammed. Kate scanned it with an expert eye. No Vincy. She squeezed into the front room, a big lovely room, such a shame it was stuck over here, with long windows looking into the trees of the Garden of Remembrance, and lovely paintings on the blue walls. One of the nicest rooms in Dublin.

The book table was set up in one corner. Nobody there of course, just the hopeful publisher’s assistant, twiddling her thumbs, rearranging the books in little piles. People, for some reason, left the book-buying until towards the end of the launch as a rule, postponing the evil moment for as long as possible, or until they were sufficiently sloshed not to resent parting with their cash for a book they didn’t really want. In the other corner the podium waited, like a gallows, for the speakers – hopefully not too many. Kate sometimes felt she would rather watch people hang than listen to them make speeches. Hanging must be faster.

Vincy was not in this room either.

Kate shrugged and made her way back to the wine room, where she began to work. Already she’d marked the territory, identified those individuals worth talking to. At events like this, socialising for its own sake was a waste of time (the encounters with Vincy were an aberration). Alcohol, the lubricant of the launches, lightening the atmosphere, raising the volume of sound, encouraging goodwill and good sales, she always had to avoid completely. Like an athlete in training, she knew that even half a glass would affect her performance. The wine was usually plonk, but even so, abstaining was a sacrifice, since it made these things much more enjoyable. Occupational hazard. Sobriety.

Only three people of any importance were in attendance … that she knew of. (What she missed was the Lord Mayor of Belfast, a cousin of the author of the book, and the director of one of the big banks, the author’s brother; both of their telephone numbers Kate would have been very pleased to add to her phone book. That was one of the disadvantages of her systematic method: it presumed that she recognised everyone and did not allow for the chance encounter.) First Kate approached a man who held a fairly menial post with the Arts Council. At the moment his influence was nil, but people like him could get promoted. Kevin was his name. He was in his late twenties, dark-eyed, dressed in a black shirt, black tie, and a loose black jacket. The literary uniform. He pretended not to know Kate, although he did. He was getting arrogant already. Creep.

She introduced herself and he became all friendly. His eyes sparkled as he made obvious remarks about the room. Yeah yeah it was lovely and the centre was looking good. ‘Take my card,’ said Kate, excusing herself with her usual ‘Oh look, there is someone I absolutely have to say hello to! Lovely to have met you. Take care!’

She had spotted a gap in the circle that surrounded Eamon McKeown, producer of the arts programmes on radio and television; miraculous that he should have been here. She guessed, correctly, that he had some personal connection with the author, something which made her make drastic revisions in her estimation of the book’s chances of success: if it had any merit at all, it would now get the requisite kick-start.

Eamon was an older man, well into his fifties. He was bald, small, chubby, and always rather grubbily clad. His trademark was a stain – it looked like egg, prehistoric egg – on his tie. Another creep, but he was really really popular with men and women of all ages; they said he’d had it off with half the woman in Dublin – you knew the kind of woman. As usual, he was knocking back glasses of red wine and holding forth to the little group of sycophants that surrounded him.

Kate, who’d met him several times, sidled into the circle and said quietly, ‘Hello, Eamon.’

He looked at her uncomprehendingly. His face was red and pudgy from overdrinking and overeating, and from being so fucking full of himself.

‘Kate Murphy,’ she said. ‘Poetry Plus.’

‘Oh yes, Kate, how are you today?’ he said.

As she was answering he turned to a waiter and grabbed another glass of wine. ‘I hear you are doing an interview with Harold Pinter tomorrow?’ she said, just to make conversation. Kate was always hearing things like that.

Eamon looked really really annoyed. ‘Who told you that?’ he asked crossly.

‘I forget,’ she lied. ‘I heard it on the grapevine. Is it a secret?’

‘Obviously not,’ Eamon snarled, and turned to speak to someone who had approached him from the rear.

Kate went to the drinks table and tried to get a glass of water. There were no glasses left, however – something that could happen at this sort of Mickey Mouse event, where the publisher had no real idea of how many people would turn up and no experience of ensuring reserve supplies. The wine bottles looked fatally empty too. Of course there’d been no grub to start with, not a crisp or a peanut. A waitress, who was about sixteen, probably the daughter of the publisher, offered her a bottle of Ballygowan without a glass, but Kate declined.

The speeches were about to start. Soon escape would be impossible.

She pressed from body to body, making for the door. Would she make it? Before they started and it was rude to go. She felt hot and angry. Being snubbed by these idiots should not have bothered her – it often happened, they were ignorant and often deaf, so they didn’t hear what organisation she represented or hadn’t heard of it.

The speeches started, and the publisher was bleating on, thanking everyone, from the woman who cleaned the toilets to the head of the Arts Council, for existing, and somehow by their existence supporting him in his Herculean task, publishing this slim volume of poetry. Anyone would have thought he had invented the art of poetry to listen to him, or built Notre Dame, or discovered America.

Kate managed to slip out the back door without too many people noticing her. She skipped downstairs, as silently as she could, hoping she would not bump into some employee of the centre en route.

She was in luck. She pulled open the heavy hall door and reached the steps outside without being caught.

The sun had not gone down yet, and it was quite a warm evening. Mild. She stopped for a few seconds at the top of the steps, breathed in the lead-laden air, and let her eyes rest on the golden autumn trees in the garden across the street. Above them, the sky was a bleached pale blue, streaks of white cloud stretched across it like rags on a thorn bush.

‘Hello there!’ His voice. She was lost in a daydream. She jumped.

Her face broke into a huge smile. Unprofessional. Deeply. Everything in her body and her heart and her soul lifted.

‘Gosh, I didn’t even see you coming,’ she said. She didn’t think before speaking now. From being on top of things, in control, she’d mutated into a flake – a spontaneous human being, if you prefer. He could do that to her.

‘You were in a world of your own,’ said the voice, and its owner kissed her lightly on the cheek. Vincy had had no intention of doing it, but she was so little, so cute in her black suit and tiny silk bodice, so lost-looking, on the top of the steps, that he couldn’t help it.

She laughed at him and touched his sleeve. His baggy tweed sleeve.

‘But are you leaving already?’ He glanced at his watch.

‘I had to … I felt a little bit sick,’ she said. ‘The speeches have begun and they will go on for a while, I think it’s safe to say.’

‘Oh!’ He was at a loss. ‘Why don’t I take you somewhere for a cup of tea? Would that help?’

She made some weak protestations, said he should go in and be seen even for a few minutes. But he brushed them aside and they walked off towards the east side of the old shabby square, where there were a few hotels in which you could get tea, or whatever else you wanted.