Angelica Lost and Found

Chapter 16. For Whom the Bell Clangs

It clanged for me as the car made its stops and starts on the way to Clancy’s, tolling out the years of my growing up. All in a jangle of tintinnabulation: Dad gone; Berkeley; Michael; Mom’s death. She’d boasted of being out for a good time but without the constant excitement of her ongoing war with Dad the future was too much for her to swallow and she got cancer of the oesophagus. So why did I buy the gallery? Why do people climb mountains of guilt, cross deserts of regret and travel long roads of too-late to give to the dead the love they couldn’t give the living? Because that’s what people do. While Dad was there Mom was just somebody at the other end of the table; my childhood scrapes and bruises were for Dad to kiss better and my report cards for him to admire. Lydia Katz continues to sell well: her paintings look good on any wall and she’s a lot cheaper than Bonnard.

I have always kept a journal, and at college I did a writing course and was told by Oscar Glock, who taught the course, that I had talent. He was not, however, terribly impressed by talent.

‘Talent,’ he said, ‘is cheap. The woods are full of talented people who will never do doodly-shit because they haven’t got the cojones to go in over the horns.’

Mr Glock was given to bullfighting and boxing metaphors. He was shorter than Hemingway but he had a full Hemingway beard and he had published a novel called Suit of Lights.

The gallery leaves me plenty of time for writing and I may very well have the cojones but I’ve not yet found the right horns to go in over. Of course my imaginary animal friend keeps me pretty busy one way and another but once I get my head sorted I’ll be better organised. Probably.