the value of passivity, much less laziness.
Sometimes she wondered if Nuala understood anything else. Before her arrival, Claire had been worried that she would be bored in the country. Now that she was installed in the house, Claire was amazed that the tedium didn’t get to her, but it didn’t appear to botherher in the slightest. She spent more time reading the papers every day than Claire would have thought possible: even old papers from under the stairs. ‘It’s all news, isn’t it?’ she would say, settling down. ‘Just because something terrible happened a month ago, or even years ago, doesn’t mean that it deserves less attention than something that happened yesterday.’
Washing newsprint off her hands before beginning to prepare lunch she said one day, ‘I always think it’s right, somehow, that you’re filthy by the time you’ve finished reading the paper. I always feel grimy inside, so why not outside too?’
Another day she remarked casually, ‘The difference between papers and magazines is that they’re both like mirrors, but only one of them flatters you when you look into it.’ Claire knew what she meant, but pretended she didn’t, because she was interested to know how Nuala would explain it.
‘Well, look at it this way: there was a piece in the paper yesterday about a woman who had a neurosis about touching things when she was out. She felt she had to buy everything she touched in shops, and it was in the paper because she got into trouble with debt. Bought all sorts of things she didn’t want and couldn’t afford. Now, that’s a very rare problem, but I bet lots of people know at least the germ of the feeling behind that. In magazines you get the idea that everybody is, or could be, perfect, but in papers you get the sense that everybody is at least slightly mad. And sometimes that can be a comfort, because you see you’re not the only one. You know, Claire, people are afraid of the most everyday things, but they’re too ashamed to admit it. A friend ofmine confided in me that she’s afraid of going to the hairdresser’s. She’ll go to the dentist without a second thought, but has to steel herself for days to get her hair cut. After she told me I thought about it, and I watched people, and I came to the conclusion that there’s nothing so mundane that someone, somewhere, doesn’t feel uneasy about it. Things like using the telephone, even. Or eating out. I see it in the restaurant quite often. But we all go around thinking everyone is more confident than we are, and that no one else knows what it’s like to feel insecure or ill at ease with some everyday thing.’
It wasn’t a consolation to Claire to think about this: the idea stuck in her mind like a hook, making her think of her own inadequacies. That might be constructive during the day, but fatal when lying awake at two in the morning, and she tried frantically to get her mind on to another track.
Painting. Think of her work, yes, think of that. She was glad she was a painter, she’d rather be that than anything else, no matter that it brought her up frequently, painfully , against her own limitations. Sometimes people said painting had come to the end of its natural life. Sometimes she believed them. Strangely enough, this did not make an enormous difference to her. Claire’s father had been a devout Catholic, and once when she was in her teens, she’d asked him, teasing but genuinely curious too, ‘What would you do if somebody proved to you that there’s no God? I mean, beyond any doubt?’
‘Ah, it wouldn’t make much odds,’ he’d replied mildly. ‘I wouldn’t let it keep me from Mass of a Sunday, whatever else.’ Claire’s own dedication to painting was something in the order of this line of reasoning.
Her exchanges with Markus on the subject had always been interesting, not least because there was almost nothing on which they agreed. He used to lament being a sculptor, and insist that the visual
Sometimes she wondered if Nuala understood anything else. Before her arrival, Claire had been worried that she would be bored in the country. Now that she was installed in the house, Claire was amazed that the tedium didn’t get to her, but it didn’t appear to botherher in the slightest. She spent more time reading the papers every day than Claire would have thought possible: even old papers from under the stairs. ‘It’s all news, isn’t it?’ she would say, settling down. ‘Just because something terrible happened a month ago, or even years ago, doesn’t mean that it deserves less attention than something that happened yesterday.’
Washing newsprint off her hands before beginning to prepare lunch she said one day, ‘I always think it’s right, somehow, that you’re filthy by the time you’ve finished reading the paper. I always feel grimy inside, so why not outside too?’
Another day she remarked casually, ‘The difference between papers and magazines is that they’re both like mirrors, but only one of them flatters you when you look into it.’ Claire knew what she meant, but pretended she didn’t, because she was interested to know how Nuala would explain it.
‘Well, look at it this way: there was a piece in the paper yesterday about a woman who had a neurosis about touching things when she was out. She felt she had to buy everything she touched in shops, and it was in the paper because she got into trouble with debt. Bought all sorts of things she didn’t want and couldn’t afford. Now, that’s a very rare problem, but I bet lots of people know at least the germ of the feeling behind that. In magazines you get the idea that everybody is, or could be, perfect, but in papers you get the sense that everybody is at least slightly mad. And sometimes that can be a comfort, because you see you’re not the only one. You know, Claire, people are afraid of the most everyday things, but they’re too ashamed to admit it. A friend ofmine confided in me that she’s afraid of going to the hairdresser’s. She’ll go to the dentist without a second thought, but has to steel herself for days to get her hair cut. After she told me I thought about it, and I watched people, and I came to the conclusion that there’s nothing so mundane that someone, somewhere, doesn’t feel uneasy about it. Things like using the telephone, even. Or eating out. I see it in the restaurant quite often. But we all go around thinking everyone is more confident than we are, and that no one else knows what it’s like to feel insecure or ill at ease with some everyday thing.’
It wasn’t a consolation to Claire to think about this: the idea stuck in her mind like a hook, making her think of her own inadequacies. That might be constructive during the day, but fatal when lying awake at two in the morning, and she tried frantically to get her mind on to another track.
Painting. Think of her work, yes, think of that. She was glad she was a painter, she’d rather be that than anything else, no matter that it brought her up frequently, painfully , against her own limitations. Sometimes people said painting had come to the end of its natural life. Sometimes she believed them. Strangely enough, this did not make an enormous difference to her. Claire’s father had been a devout Catholic, and once when she was in her teens, she’d asked him, teasing but genuinely curious too, ‘What would you do if somebody proved to you that there’s no God? I mean, beyond any doubt?’
‘Ah, it wouldn’t make much odds,’ he’d replied mildly. ‘I wouldn’t let it keep me from Mass of a Sunday, whatever else.’ Claire’s own dedication to painting was something in the order of this line of reasoning.
Her exchanges with Markus on the subject had always been interesting, not least because there was almost nothing on which they agreed. He used to lament being a sculptor, and insist that the visual
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