When Olivia met K
Chapter XII
Olivia and the End of Else
written by: Michael McCarthy
@FlateyeFiction
Somebody said my father, Dirk, ‘‘had a good death.’’ He didn’t wake up one day, that was it. I was of course sad when he died. I shed some tears. I thought about him a lot after he passed away. But after a few months, that was it, he was dead. Dirk wasn’t an easy person to get to know. It wasn’t entirely his fault. I only realized much later that the fault lay with me and Else, or at least a portion of it; I didn’t have enough or any patience, and my mother, Else? Well Else was Else.
My mother told me when he was younger, before he took over at the helm of the family businesses, he was light hearted and easy going; but responsibility became a burden when the buck stopped with him.
‘‘Dirk was always obsessed about the small things. He was always that way. He worried about not having something to worry about. ‘That’s why I’m a success.’ He said, even when he wasn’t, especially when he wasn’t.’’
My mother was an alcoholic and an artist who had enjoyed limited success; on the other hand, although she slowly deteriorated over a long period of time, she never complained.
When Else died I was literally engulfed in a tidal wave of grief. I cried myself raw for days on end. I felt the unbearably heavy burden of guilt like I’d let a part of myself die. I had always been, a spoiled brat. But I could comfort myself with the knowledge that Else and Dirk had brought me up that way. I had free rein and never wanted for anything.
But I got over it. Even in my deepest depths I could always see a chink of sunlight and I knew that one day I would yearn for fresh air and my brilliant life again. And so it was.
But until then I hid it. Nobody knew how low and lost I felt. ‘‘I’ve had a truly great life.’’ Else often said when I visited her in the private nursing home, which was not as often as it should have been but nearly more than I could endure. I found the home through the auspices of Ernst. The name of the place alone would have put me off, ‘Tranquil Evenings.’
‘‘I’ll probably be dead within the next few days.’’ Else said on what turned out to be my last visit.
‘‘How can you say such a thing?’’ The tears rolled down my cheeks as though I was melting, that’s how I felt internally. It was like a knock out blow, but she said it in much the same tone she would have used when compiling a shopping list, which I’m not sure she ever did. The mere thought of a shopping list had never even occurred to me. She was sitting in bed wrapped in a thick, white blanket with a rainbow design, she’d made herself. Apart from a blue chest containing stacks of her paintings and drawings, and all her drawing and painting tackle she’d given away most of her clothes and sold all the furniture.
I comforted myself with the thought that she could go on for a while yet. No doctor had given her the death sentence of a few months or a year to live. She wasn’t ill. Just aging.
A sketch pad was balanced on her knees but I didn’t think she was capable of drawing anymore. But the pad and pencils were always within reach. It was a bright, warm, day and we were looking out at the immaculately kept rolling lawns populated by dutiful relatives pushing their well wrapped, almost mummified, declining elders in wheel chairs. When I was younger, and still living at home, Else had had a lot of male visitors, all younger than her, well, Dirk was away a lot. I saw them from the back entering or leaving the house, or shirtless looking out of Else’s bedroom window into the garden where I was soaking up the sun in a mini bikini. It was rumored that Else had the sons of a couple of show business legends in her stud.
Else’s insatiable lust for sex and young men lasted into her seventies. Ernst had ensured that there was always somebody on tap for her. Nobody told me this, I just knew it, call it osmosis, but I knew Else. I remember overhearing a part of a phone call she made to Ernst during school holidays, obviously I only overheard one half of the call but it was clear to me what they were talking about, my mother was twittering into the phone like a love sick teenager.
‘‘I know I’ve said it before, Ernst, but I wanted to thank you again for all your efforts and discretion over the years. I don’t take anything for granted. It means an awful lot to me, more than I can express.’’
‘‘No, Ernst. It’s more than that, much more than that.’’
‘‘If you’re free on Saturday night, perhaps we could meet at the usual place?’’
‘‘Of course, Ernst. That’s the very least you deserve.’’
‘‘Until then, dear Ernst.’’
That last sentence was uttered with a clearly discernible longing in her voice.
When I got home from visiting Else, I poured myself a glass of rosé, rolled a cigarette and sat by the window.
It was strangely cold, but that probably came from within, and I think I was anticipating the coming crushing and inevitable void of loss. I wasn’t a great fan of Else’s work, to be honest I found it all a bit gaudy and over the top. I may not have liked my mother’s paintings, but what I couldn’t deny was her skill at drawing, how she was able to almost reproduce every detail of her subjects with the exactitude of a camera. I didn’t think she had the hunger to be a successful artist. She became something of a minor celebrity; people talked about her work but not that many people were prepared to cough up for it.
She could be stubborn and, regarding her art, not prepared to compromise. Not unusual I think among the artistic types. I drained my glass and poured another. Else said me once, when she was a bit the worse for wear,
‘‘One day Olivia when you have time you really must take a peep at my rogues’ gallery; I draw all my lovers you know.’’
‘‘Including my boy friends.’’ I retorted. ‘‘How many of them have you had?’’
She was sitting in the dining room nursing a bottle of white wine and a glass. As I remember it was only about ten o’clock in the morning.
‘‘I just break them in for you. You should be grateful. You don’t want to waste your time with all that virginal fumbling.’’ She slurred. She made a feeble attempt at a smile but it looked more like a lop sided grimace. Shakily she poured herself another white wine, most of it missing the glass and ending up on the table from where it began dripping onto the floor.
I simply uttered, ‘‘Tut, tut. What a lush.’’ Then I sashayed out. I knew I’d wounded her deeply because I heard her sobbing. I enjoyed that. I’d kept my cool and said enough to deeply shame and humiliate her. I’d always been good at exits and entrances; I started early.
I dozed off from my wine and was awoken by the vibrating of my mobile phone on my thigh. It was the nursing home. A young and caring sounding, male voice informed me very politely and sympathetically that Else had just died. I listened patiently and not a little shocked although I had half expected it. At the end of the conversation I assured him that everything would be taken care of in good time and that ‘my little man’ would handle all the details. Then I fell apart. But, as I said, it passed. It was like a lot of things in my life, I could totally immerse myself in something to the exclusion of everything and then when it was done, it was done.
The best way to grieve I would say. All through my mourning period, I confined it to mornings, a little thought was constantly fading and reappearing in my head like a lighthouse beacon, Else’s pictures. I thought maybe they had been destroyed or lost.
Ernst made all the arrangements as he had for my father. He was at both funerals, I knew he was, I felt him. He arranged to have Else’s room cleared and a short while later sent me a parcel containing photos, papers and keepsakes he thought I’d want, including a large, thick, tatty, old, brown folder covered with old taped on travel tickets, and phone numbers scrawled in every possible color. I instinctively knew what it was. I’d often seen it lying around the house although I’d never looked in it. I knew Ernst, he wouldn’t have looked inside, he would have seen it was some arty thing. Else had asked me to look in it, that’s why I hadn’t. The mere idea of it felt sordid. I had my standards, even then. But now it was different.
Fortified by a glass of rosé I looked at the folder on my lap it was tied together by thin leather straps so, with great care, I slipped the thongs and carefully opened the portfolio and was greeted by a gentle whoosh of stale air as Else’s memories were revealed.
Inside was an untidy pile of different sized sheets of paper, her ‘rogues’ gallery,’ and on the back of each drawing she’d written a paragraph or so about where she’d met them, and about her time with them. In the beginning, I’m going back over fifty years, it was notable that the earlier sketches had been drawn on whatever was to hand at the time, while the later ones were sketched on uniform A3 size paper of a professional texture.
At an initial glance it was clear, even to me, that her early artwork, while not as masterful as her later depictions, was realistic in its portrayal of facial features. The first picture was very faded and clearly decades old, it was of a young guy, about fourteen or fifteen, standing in what looked like rays of sunshine, his joints were clumsily drawn, but there was no denying his callow youth and the massive step he had just taken on the road of life.
I lingered over the pictures, losing myself in the emotions they prompted, especially the early ones where I delicately fingered the curling, yellowing paper; some I discarded with barely a look; the conceit of a number of subjects literally leapt off the paper.
Slowly and carefully I replaced each picture in its tracing paper cover, like tucking a child into bed, because that’s what Else would have done. The later ones were executed to her usual high standard with the perhaps unwanted result that the subjects were depicted exactly as they were: mostly young, embarrassed, modest, scrawny innocents but also a few older guys with all the signs of aging bodies; there were also a few gym bunnies.
In later life Else was certainly attracted to the innocent type; waifs and strays, or maybe they were the only ones Ernst could find (poor Ernst!). They were all identified by an initial in the bottom right corner, and usually drawn with little if any background. It was illuminating to consider the ages of some of her subjects, it seemed that as she aged, her lovers became younger.
I had obviously had expectations about what I’d find. Some stories were funny, some sad, all were revealing in what they told me about my mother and the men who’d played bit parts in her life. There was no leading man among them and she didn’t have an unkind word to say about any of them, but tellingly some of them were barely granted a comment. Self explanatory, I’d say.
One thing that did become clear from her writing was that men had always been attracted to her vulnerability and were intensely loyal to her. She’d always made it clear at the beginning of a relationship that she’d wanted fun, nothing else. I could only speculate on that.
My father was obviously among them and I must admit I didn’t feel ready to read her views on him and as for Ernst no trace although I’d always had my suspicions and still do, but unsurprisingly Rolly was there, she’d been enormously fond of him. K was also awarded a place among the chosen ones.
I’d suspected that he’d had something with my mother. I certainly couldn’t attach any blame to him, he was a young guy after all. The picture was just him lying on a bed in a beautifully depicted pool of faded yellow light. It was interesting, according to Else, to see that he’d been a thoughtful and caring person even all those years ago and had had no problem revealing it. I’d certainly show it to him. I just knew he’d be quite moved.
I found her words very poignant and clearly written from the heart. I could imagine Else had looked through these sketches one final time towards the end; if nothing else, I was sure it had helped her to while away her waking hours. Some of her essays were obviously written contemporaneously while others had clearly been written in her last days. I even wondered whether Else had had designs on it being published; to be blunt, who the hell would have been interested? Or had Else been trying to tell me something from beyond the grave?; that she could have had any man she’d wanted? (with Ernst’s help)?
- Else – My End - September 5, 2024
- Olivia and the End of Else - July 31, 2024
- The Seduction of K - June 24, 2024
