It’s more than Ivy can take. It’s all right while they’re at the hospital, in the waiting room, Newell never leaving them, keeping Hugh calm. The scan itself, being slid into the machine, seems to interest Hugh. She can be stable for him. The conversation about the drill, the—releasing. Watching a video of his head, the marking. For the piercing. The brain inside there, the sleeping snail of mind/memory/life. Then Ivy can’t remember where she put her car, or—no, she didn’t drive, she just ran over from Mimi’s, that’s all right.
Newell takes them to the gallery. Hugh is supposed to rest for the rest of—the rest of, what’s left of the day. Her eyes feel both hollow and swollen. “I’ll find Ruth,” Newell says. “She’s got the caterer coming at four, what’s that, two hours? I’ll come back to let him in, or she will. Get Hugh to lie down until then. And you lie with him, you could use a nap.”
She takes Hugh up the stairs, her hand on his back. All the stairs in this world.
No sign of Gareth or Léon—oh, Gareth was going over to look at L’s Republic, wasn’t he. They must have gone there. Hugh doesn’t comment, doesn’t speak, asleep on his feet, or dopey. She leads him down the hall and takes off his shoes. He doesn’t want to undress; he seems to hold the wine and cheese as the next necessary part of living, so she lets it go.
He lies back, cradling his head in one hand and lying very still. She covers him with the mohair blanket and closes the curtains.
Then she gets into the shower, where nobody can hear her, and cries for half an hour. Not knowing if Hugh is damaged, is dead.
I waited so long. I waited so long for you.
When the water turns cool she shakes her head and washes the tears off one more time. Now stop being selfish. Conrad said it’s a straightforward—trepan—terrifying prehistoric word. Calm down. Dress, and wake Hugh; have a good time at this wine and cheese. Charm Mighton so he brings more paintings to keep the gallery afloat, keep watch on Della and Ken so there’s no fighting. See that Ruth doesn’t do all the work. Bolster Hugh, make sure he doesn’t have an absent-minded drink.
Perfect. I can do those things. Okay, perfect.
They go down the stairs. Her mom stays up in the dining room where Gareth was looking at the other boats and more stuff she pulled, talking in a quiet voice for a long time. Now he and Léon go down the stairs. L feels the worst stabbing contortion-pain, right in her ovaries …
I see now—she sees it. It’s shit, it’s impossible, every piece of art is futile—what did Burton say, Art is useless. I have been fooling myself and I fooled Hugh too.
The gate, the warning, the sign: THE ISLAND REPUBLIC OF L do not enter Why didn’t she get there in time to take that down? Her hands are like wet cakes of soap.
Gareth looks at her, head tilted and mouth considering. Léon taps him.
They go in.
It’s just a rec room, too full—L closes her eyes, shuts off the voice inside her head. Turns to watch them walking through, like she watched Hugh on Monday. It’s not done, it’s not ready, shitted is not painted. She flicks her X-Acto knife inside her pocket.
Gareth examines the plans; the street of translucent portraits; makes his way through the Mylar brambles. Stops at a photographic print wrapped around a pillar, leans from one side to the other to see the two girls leaping in the air; steps right to get the whole view as they repeat and repeat around. The print watches Savaya and Nevaeh dancing on the street in front of the movie theatre. L’s just in it at the side holding the camera in the repeating mirror of the shop door, watching them, jealous. He points to the bra and garter belt display of the lingerie shop, vanishing over and over in the upper corner behind her head: a thought-bubble, she now sees.
This is good because there’s no need to talk, he’s not talking yet.
Léon holds out a long, black arm, taps once on the big silver frame Mimi let her have. It is suspended in air and Mimi is suspended in the frame, drawn from the back with the bones of her spine showing and her waist taut in a hanging basket chair; the frame revolves like the chair and there she is from the front. Hello!—eyes hollowed and fresh, crone and child, about to dance. One drawing L is sure of. It makes her happy to have this much left of Mimi. The pink gloves and the black gloves, there might be a way to—get inside them, if you had—
Gareth speaks. “The Voynich, of course. This is Jacques Callot you’re thinking of here? Walker? Ed Pien? Yes. The Kusama; but are you referencing Leonardo in this sector?”
L nods. “The Val di Chiana topographic map … colour-drained, bands, haze.”
Then she says, “But too, there’s this guy Aozaki making a map from directions people write out for him. Faces turning, hands—ways in, ways you find your way—” She stops, because staring at the face/map of Nevaeh she has just figured out that she doesn’t hate Nevaeh, she’s mad at her. She can still love her. The relief of that is intense.
Gareth stays in the Republic for more than an hour. L goes to sit on the stairs when it gets too hard to take. Her mom looks over the banister, and goes away quietly.
Then Gareth comes to the gate, motioning with his hand as if they’ve been talking all along, “Yes, undisciplined, ragged thought, ideas simply unspooled, juvenilia interspersed with oddly mature—well. Brilliance is not the same as depth. It’s a mess.”
L nods. He is entirely correct. She follows him in, in, farther in.
They stand in the core, all the strings leading up to nothing. She seems to be in stasis.
“You don’t have room to work here. It’s a straitjacket, ridiculous.”
Well. Yes.
“A relationship with a gallery is not the only route. You might choose to put your work on a website, YouTube, Flickr, whichever.” Gareth looks around the shifting web of paper and string and ribbon. “The structure of a gallery gives you the chance of significant critical response; makes it more likely that you will end up in museum collections, a validation many artists seek; and it will eventually help to raise your prices.”
L nods.
“We create a context for solo exhibitions, we connect you to the market. An ongoing conversation—not the mentorship you have experienced with Hugh, although he disclaims any responsibility for this piece. We ask for exclusivity, at least at the beginning.”
L nods.
“For our part: you may expect to feature in our inventory, to have prime exposure at the many major fairs we attend, and—eventually—sales. We will be investing in the hope that your work matures, expands, refines. The financial risk we incur justifies our 50/50 split. You might join an artist-run gallery; but we are in a position to spend five years developing both your work and the market for your work. With a piece like this, an installation, we’ll be looking at a solo exhibit sooner than later, once individual pieces begin to sell.”
L forces her head to stay still.
Gareth nods. “And we may have a room big enough to hold the vision.”