We turn back towards the river; I tilt the umbrella against the newly pugnacious wind. Ariadne has fallen silent, although the nature of her thoughts do not remain a mystery for long. ‘These fucking banks,’ she exclaims, and then, ‘Sorry, you work in one, I keep forgetting.’
‘No, you’re right, some banks acted very badly,’ I concur. ‘But …’
‘I know, I know, your bank is an investment bank, not a retail bank.’
‘I wasn’t going to say that.’ In fact I was going to say it, but I also wanted to steer her around to the idea that bankers are capable of doing good. ‘Many corporates, as well as creating employment and contributing to GDP, do have significant charity programmes.’
‘Right, with the fun runs.’
‘Yes, but also we donate a percentage of profits to charity every year.’
‘As a tax write-off?’
‘Well, that’s not the primary reason —’
‘Pff, the only reason you do anything is money. Cheap tax, that’s why all of you are here.’
‘That’s a bit —’
But she cuts me off. ‘You think if the Irish government turns around and says, “We are putting up the tax, but we guarantee every penny can go directly to the people who need it the most, to schools and hospitals and homeless shelters,” do you think any of these companies would stay?’
‘Well, you see, a business has a legal obligation to its shareholders —’
‘Oh yes, just following orders, where do I hear that before?’
Is she serious? Is she genuinely comparing investment banks to Nazi war criminals?
‘I’m not saying they are the same —’ Ariadne’s cheeks are pink, and as she speaks she gesticulates vigorously with both hands, so that the trolley is unpiloted and is stopped from crashing off the kerb only by my shins. ‘I’m saying that once they have an excuse, people will do anything. They do what they are told, and they take their money, and they think it’s all okay because it’s just their job, while their real self is what happens after work, when they’re bouncing a baby on the knee, or writing poems about snowflakes or whatever.’
The trolley heads for my shins again; I am too despondent to get out of the way. Here I am with the woman of my dreams, and I feel more like I’m having a shouting match with my father.
We push on, silent again save for the metallic yammer of the trolley. There is no food left to deliver, meaning we are on our way back to the Ark. A part of me is glad: Cyrano himself might have trouble reviving this scene. For the sake of closure, however, I say, ‘Let’s talk about your work.’ Ariadne scowls, as if I have proposed we go to the dentist and have all her teeth extracted. Pretending I haven’t seen, I go on, ‘I must tell you, I admire your paintings very much. I think they are very beautiful. And that they deserve a wider audience. I would like to help you, if I can.’ She doesn’t respond; the trolley, which I suspect she is deliberately pushing over the bumpiest sections of the pavement, clatters unencouragingly. ‘Firstly, I want to exhibit them, in a proper gallery,’ I persist. ‘Perhaps hire a space that exists, perhaps find somewhere entirely new. Also, I would like to offer you financial assistance, so you can concentrate on painting full-time without having to do menial work.’
‘Menial work?’
‘The café. Waitressing.’
‘Oh,’ she says.
For a long time it looks like this is the full extent of her thoughts. ‘That’s very interesting,’ she says at last. ‘I am happy you like my paintings.’
‘And … ?’
‘What you are saying, you want to be my patron.’
‘Is it a bad thing? The greatest artists had patrons. Leonardo, Velázquez. Today the big banks sponsor a lot of the major art fairs, as well as buying a great deal of the work.’
‘Yes, “alternative assets”, that’s what you call art, isn’t it? It’s a good source of tax relief?’
I don’t reply; what is there to say?
‘Did you always want to be a banker?’ she asks sadly.
‘Not particularly,’ I say. ‘In college, I studied philosophy. Nietzsche, Foucault, Texier …’
As if I have pronounced a secret code-word, her head whips round and she comes to an abrupt stop.
‘Texier? You mean François Texier?’
‘Well, yes,’ I say. ‘From Paris, he died a couple of years ago —’
‘So, now we can talk,’ she says. ‘Because you know Texier is my great hero.’
Now it’s my turn to come to a halt. Can it be true? Was Paul right all along? ‘You have read his philosophy?’
‘A little bit. I read what he wrote about financial capitalism. He’s very critical, how did you manage to go from Texier to banking?’
‘It wasn’t something I planned.’
‘Anyway, you know he became a painter, late in his life?’ Seeing my confusion, she explains,
‘When he is quite old, he becomes disillusioned with philosophy. Philosophy, science, religion, they all start by saying they will tell you the truth, and from there they lead only to bigger and bigger lies. But art is different, because art tells you right at the start, “Okay, I’m going to tell you a whole lot of bullshit here …” Texier says that in modern times the only one we can still believe is the man who tells us he’s lying. And so he gives up philosophy and he starts to paint.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of his paintings.’
‘Oh, Claude, they’re so beautiful!’ She seizes my arm; her countenance has quite changed, become rapturous and light-filled. ‘Strange, you know? And dark? But when I see them, I feel like my heart is gonna explode. One little canvas, this big, makes you remember just how huge and weird the world is, and how fucking amazing it is to be here in it.’
I smile: it has been a long time since I felt like that.
‘And he has all these interesting ideas — for example, he wouldn’t ever sell his paintings, he only gives them to friends, because he thinks that when you sell them, the meaning changes? They start to become the false truth that he is trying to escape? But he can’t control it: eventually the friends sell them, or they die and their children sell them — anyway, they finish up with the price tag.
And in the end he gives up painting too, because he thinks that art is only making things worse.’
‘But you?’ I say. ‘You don’t feel like that — do you?’
She frowns, sighs, stops with her trolley in the middle of the path. ‘It’s very interesting. When I come here first, is because I want to be a painter. I hear there’s a boom, Celtic Tiger, and when I get here it’s so exciting, so much energy in the air, everyone talking about the future and progress and all that — very different from Greece where, you know, everyone has a name from a myth of three thousand years ago. And the best thing, the art market is so crazy back then, even someone like me can sell paintings. But after a little while, I start to realize the people who come to the galleries, they are not even looking at the paintings. They just in a race with each other to buy it. Paying all this money — you know the most expensive piece always sell the first — so they can belong in this special club.
‘An’ at the same time, I’m working in the café, I’m coming down here every day, this fucking street —’ She waves her hand; I look around at the litter-strewn gutters, the weed-split paving stones, the tenements doomed for the wrecking ball. ‘Every time I come here, is a little bit worse. Even with all this money, no one sees it, no one does nothing to change it. And it takes me a time to realize, No one wants to see it. That’s what this whole boom is about, it’s so people don’ have to see things. All the fucked-up stuff that is happening, or has happened in the past, they cover it up with money, with talk about the future, with new buildings, with drinking, whatever.’