Mike McCormack - Solar Bones

I saw it on your face, it took you by surprise

yes, I conceded, a bit shocked, it wasn’t what I had expected, nothing like your previous work and

while the puzzlement in my voice was genuine it did nothing to hide the hurt which I feared would swell up in that surge of self-pity that was boiling within me and which was aggravated by the patient, conciliatory tone with which Agnes began telling me that

yes, it’s a bit of a departure all right, I don’t think I’ll ever fully get away from oils — nor would I want to — but over the last couple of months I’ve wanted to try something else, an experiment — to step outside the idea of oil painting towards something new and

this is it

yes, she said, with a frown, and however successful this exhibition is, my next work will probably be a return to oil, oil with blood on canvas, some sort of new amalgam possibly, I don’t know yet

she said, smiling and

leaning forward in the chair to offer me her full face, her shoulders straining out of the folds of her shift as if anxious to give clear evidence of both her commitment to the idea and her wish to set my mind at rest, all of which undid me so that in a gulping lurch I found myself explaining that

what I found difficult about the whole piece wasn’t just the blood

I should have warned you

it wasn’t just any blood, it was your blood

it’s ok, I took precautions

it’s a mutilation

no it’s not Dad, it was just a jab for god’s sake and she threw up her hands and smiled so

I felt assured now, ready to grasp this moment and press ahead with my own thoughts because

what I found difficult was the mixture of finger pointing and sanctimony in the whole piece, your righteous standpoint over the material, I wasn’t so sure about that

you think that’s a cheap shot, that I’m standing on some urban stage and poking fun at culchies with

her voice threaded through with that steely edge which always gratified me — a response all her own and so different to what would have been her brother’s evasive clowning in such moments — Agnes was always likely to go toe to toe on any point she felt strongly enough on so that

I’m not sure my accusation is that you are taking a cheap shot or

that maybe I’m Uncle Tomming here, gratifying urban audiences with the comedy capers of their country cousins

something like that, cheap ridicule, although I would be disappointed if you hadn’t thought of that yourself, you’re smarter than that

yes, that crossed my mind, but that’s not the same as saying I managed to circumvent it and

the choices you made were soft options, just the sort of stuff that would make us look ridiculous, all those drink-driving convictions, common assault, public order offences — as crimes there was something almost comic about them so that

yes, I agree, there is more comedy than danger in some of them — even the incidents of assault — but all the cases were taken from reports of the circuit and district courts and it was that sense of local reckoning which appealed to me — why, I cannot honestly say, but it was as if there was something manageable about the transgressions and sins that go to trial there — I don’t know, as an idea it’s still not fully formed, I’ve given it a lot of thought but it’s still not fully clear to me and

she looked serious now and I had a moment in which to consider that maybe I’d got ahead of myself in an attempt to understand the whole thing as these were not words that normally came tripping off my tongue, or more accurately I had never found myself in the sort of places where words of this type were necessary, but now they flooded ahead of me, threatening to carry me off to some sort of disaster so I drew hard on the reins and pulled back from wherever it was I was going because nothing good could come from losing the run of myself at an hour of the evening when it was nearly won, especially now with Agnes herself in such a conciliatory mood and winding up the topic by admitting

there’s nothing to worry about Dad, yes, there might be finger-pointing and accusation but it wasn’t personal, none of it was at you or Mam for that matter — you’re exonerated of all charges — it’s an idea in embryo and

she turned her whole face towards me with an expression of such open appeal that I softened instantly as some wiry tension in my gut unravelled to something warmer which drew the edge off the moment so that we could raise our glasses now, allowing us to settle into the knowledge that we had tested the moment severely and could let it rest for the time being, a conclusion confirmed in the relaxed expression on Mairead’s face who, till then, had studiously faded into the background but now, sensing the difficult moment had passed, was refilling her glass from the water carafe in the centre of the table and raising

a toast to our daughter on her big day, that it may be the first of many, and

so the moment was solved and we raised our glasses and clinked them together with a lingering note that hung over the table, taking a long time to fade

like the Angelus bell

which still reverbs in my head now, a single note ringing on in the brightness of the day as if the whole world were suspended from it

mountains, rivers and lakes

past, present and future with

the whole moment so complete now and tidied away that we could settle easily into each other’s company and turn to safer topics — specifically Darragh and his adventures down under, a subject which drove each of us in turn to different types of disbelief and frustration because

have you seen the head on him

the beard and the hair

that Methuselah look he’s cultivating

is it Methuselah or Mad Max

you can hardly see his face now when he comes on screen, just two eyes stuck in a bush

he reminds me of your father with that hair

Jesus, don’t go saying that

I don’t think he’s shaved since he crossed the equator

it’s more scarecrow than Old Testament prophet, if that’s what he’s going for

he say’s it’s hard work, that whole Waltzing Matilda thing, no time for personal grooming or

hard work my arse, the only photos he’s posted are of himself and the lads around a campfire in a woollen hat, skulling cans of Four X so

he had to go the other side of the world to do that and

but I think he’s moving on to some other job shortly, they’ve picked all the fruit in the greater Brisbane area and now they’re thinking of doing some time on a dairy farm and

what does he know about dairy farming when

as ever, when Darragh was the subject we fell easily to our separate roles — Agnes, the contentious older sister who looked on his antics with a mixture of admiration and jealousy, Mairead, the doting mother who saw something to be proud of in the blithe way he had set aside his studies to take to the road and myself, the father whose patience was sorely tested and who found himself in a constant state of grating irritation with him — a topic of conversation enlivening and productive of so many different themes and moods that to be reminded

later, as we drove home, by Mairead of how completely overthrown I had been earlier in the evening reduced me instantly to a shamed helplessness which she probed in that way of hers, warning me there may have been every chance I had reacted more aggressively than I thought so that it was now advisable that I should bethink myself and come to a clearer assessment of what had happened because

you were frightened

how do mean

you were, I was worried you might lash out at someone

when have I ever lashed out at anyone

I know, that’s what worried me

Mairead said, with the darkness passing in a wet glare on the windscreen as we made our way along the narrow secondary roads connecting the sleepy villages of our homeward journey, me in the passenger seat, unused to someone else behind the wheel of my own car, so finding it doubly hard to cope with Mairead’s questions but eventually admitting