Beer Money: A Memoir of Privilege and Loss(41)
My father grunted at the painting and wandered off. I trailed behind him. Passing a tall ballerina sculpture, he looked shrunken beside her proud, lithe stance on the pedestal, his shoulders caved forward. He was getting old. I wanted to reach out and hug him through his khaki raincoat. But I didn’t.
The day before, we’d been at Harrods, where my father had bought Elisa a leather backpack costing ￡400. Afterward, while they looked on uncomfortably, I tried on a pair of earrings that cost ￡100. My father seemed torn, with Elisa watching, between pulling out his credit card and letting me buy them myself. It occurred to me, then, that any friendship that might form between Elisa and me would be contrived only for my father’s sake.
As I admired the gold earrings in the mirror, Elisa ruffled the tissue paper in her enormous Harrods shopping bag. The tension was stifling. My father wheezed through his cigar smoke, wondering out loud where we should have lunch. Finally, I pulled out my own credit card and handed it to the sales clerk. My Fulbright extension had just ended, and I could hardly afford the earrings, but I wanted to show my father that I could take care of myself, even as I was beginning to wonder if it was true.
Later, when Elisa was seated at the hotel bar downing yet another drink, my father led me into the lobby and gave me an envelope containing ￡400. “Happy birthday,” he said. “Maybe get yourself a new camera.” It was an apology, and I felt grateful for it, though the money was, I knew, a booby prize.
I spent every penny of the gift on black cabs to and from gallery private views, instead of taking the Tube, a luxury I rarely allowed myself. The money lasted just two weeks, until my thirtieth birthday had passed. I knew I was being reckless with my father’s money, reckless the way he was, and this somehow calmed me.
Elisa and I are engaged,” my father announced over the phone, just one week after their Concorde flight had touched down in New York.
I sat down on my futon sofa and studied the chips in my thrift store coffee table. “That’s great, Dad.”
“And look, you don’t have to worry. We’ll be signing a prenup. Bill Penner’s drawing one up.”
“I’m not worried about that.” I hadn’t even considered it, in fact, but felt reassured just the same, knowing that Bill Penner, the family lawyer, would handle the matter well.
“I hope you’ll come to the wedding, in the spring.”
“Of course,” I said.
“And I’m inviting you kids to join us out in Jackson Hole after Christmas. My treat.”
“Wow, thanks.” We hadn’t been on a family vacation since I was a teenager. But Charlie would be excluded from the trip, I knew, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for the family politics, particularly now. “Can I let you know as we get closer?”
“Of course.”
I felt surprisingly unburdened as I hung up the phone. With this frightful thing actually happening, there was at least one less catastrophe to fend off. I even felt happy for my father, remembering how Elisa had smiled at him at dinner, lit his pipe for him, laughed at his awful barroom jokes; she had a few of her own to share, too. Maybe it made a kind of sense, this odd May–December match.
The birds on the brick wall outside my conservatory chirped in the smog. A fake-sounding British siren bellowed down Wandsworth Bridge Road. Soon I’d go over to the Indian liquor store to buy my bottled water, and on my way home I’d stop to chat with the furniture makers who rented the storefront below me. What did it matter what went on in Michigan?
With just two weeks left to conceive and finish an installation, I still hadn’t decided what I’d present in the studio show. Usually I would spend months on a new piece. Knowing now that this effort would be rushed, I was reluctant to invite Trevor Atkins or any of the art dealers.
Trevor, who was moonlighting as a guest curator, had put some of my British friends into a show at the Hayward Gallery—but not me. When I’d run into him at a gallery private view in early November and asked him about his decision, he’d said, “It’s a survey of British artists, Frances. Nothing personal.” But it did feel personal, particularly after Trev or’s enthusiasm during my final MA exhibition at Chelsea back in September. The buzz from the visiting art dealers and critics had also been encouraging; Lisson Gallery and Interim Art had made special studio visits to preview my work. A mere two months later, Trevor was putting safe—and mostly male—British “art stars” into the Hayward Gallery show, and the art dealers, too, were radio silent.
I began to wonder if I was too much of an outlier as an American artist. When a well-known British artist offhandedly suggested I keep my contacts active in the States, “just in case,” my suspicions solidified, and I began to believe that coming to London had been a grave misstep in my career.
I should move to New York, I decided. Then again, the thought of establishing myself in yet another big city was exhausting. To say nothing of the expense. With my Fulbright income gone, I needed a teaching job in a college art department. The small income I received from our real estate trust in Detroit, while helpful, was not nearly enough to live on. I began to have fantasies of escaping the drudgery of life in London to some whitewashed village in Greece. There, I could build up reserves—both emotional and financial—before my next move.
With my momentum in London all but exhausted, I often forwent the hour-long Tube ride to the studio to work on a piece for the upcoming show. Instead, I became involved with projects around the house, like applying for studio programs in New York, or vacuuming. Or polishing camera lenses—the used ones I’d bought to replace the stolen lenses.