Glimmer and other Stories by Nicola McDonagh Page A

go.’ He walked over to them and wiped his finger along the top of the frames. ‘They’re covered in grease already. Why can’t you just leave this wall bare? It’ll be easier to clean.’ He stepped back and put his hand over his mouth and nose, then shook his head again. ‘No, sorry, but they’ve got to go,’ he said and took them all down.
    Esther put the painting back amongst the others and reached out for a pot of crimson emulsion. She stopped abruptly. The bones in her left leg made a clicking noise, and a sharp pain stabbed at her calf. She knelt down and took a deep breath. Then wiped away the moisture from her eyes, and blinked.
    An old magazine stuck between a blank canvas and a wooden pallet caught her attention. She pulled it out and held it up to the net-curtained window. Faded and moth-eaten, but perfectly legible, it was the magazine that Peter had published an article about her, more than thirty years ago.  
    Opening it, she flicked through the pages until she found the article. Esther squinted and read it out loud. “Purple and green tumble over one another in swirls and twists until they meet in the middle. Paint thrown and plastered onto canvas, wood and cloth ignite with tangled colours. The beginning and the end blur into a mesh of intriguing lines and shapes that baffle and beguile the eye.” She ripped out the page. She’d gotten her one and only exhibition on the strength of the piece.  
    The event was grand. Her mother laid on nibbles and drinks, and Peter contacted the local newspaper. Esther, dressed in a red maxi skirt and purple tank top, grinned at the visitors that scrutinised her work. She overheard a young couple talk about one of her favourite pieces.  
    ‘God! It looks like someone fell into a bucket of emulsion and sat on a piece of paper.’
    ‘I know what you mean, Justin. Did you see that huge canvas at the back? You know the one called “Fire in my Soul”’
    ‘Yeah. Dear god Trina, it’s just a swirl of red and orange. I mean, a chimp could paint something like that.’
    ‘Or a blind jellyfish.’
    The couple laughed until their cheeks went red, then went to the refreshment table to top up their glasses. Esther stared at her paintings and saw them through their eyes.
    ‘What’s up?’ Peter said and touched her on the shoulder.
    ‘I don’t think people like my stuff.’
    Peter took her hand and kissed her fingers. ‘They do. Look at how many turned up.’
    Esther gazed at the dozens of well-dressed men and women. She half closed her eyes and they became blurry shapes, randomly moving about, making back-throated noises and laughing at their own jokes. ‘They’re only here for the booze.’
    ‘Don’t be silly. You’ll see. It’ll be a sell-out.’  
    She sold one painting, to her mother. The newspaper covered her debut with a heading entitled ‘Esther Gibbons - don’t give up your day job.’ The last line simply said, ‘Degenerate scrawls from an unpromising young artist.’ Peter took the critique hard, and never wrote again.  
    ‘Always was too sensitive,’ Esther said to the small picture of Peter at the bottom of the magazine article. She sniffed and searched the shelves for an empty frame to put it in, and found one face down next to a photograph of her as a child, with Jenny, the Alsatian puppy. She put the article on the shelf, picked up the photo, touched the image of the dog and said, ‘It was you that made me want to become an artist.’
    Esther was fourteen when the large-eared Alsatian ran into a pot of paint her father was using to cover up a crack in the ceiling. Egg shell blue that matched the colour of the flowers on the black and yellow sofa. Jenny ran through the house spreading dashes of colour across the floor, walls and skirting boards. Esther followed marvelling at the haphazard patterns the dog’s tail and paws made.Her giggles ended when her father saw the mess.
    She hid Jenny in the coal-hole for two days. Waiting for her