Free The Green Road by Anne Enright Page A

the waves dumping their heavy load of water, and the sea pulling it back, over and over. And he wanted Dan to meet Greg again, before he died.
    But September passed and Dan did not call.
    Various things happened. Massimo went off with Mandy to her family bolt-hole in the Caribbean, Billy held a dinner party which was a qualified success. Arthur published his book on Bonnard and wept for Max (who had detested Bonnard: who spat at the mention of Bonnard) at the launch. Then Emily von Raabs came to town and she hosted a large and informal supper in her wonderfully ramshackle house on East 10th. Emily had loved Christian, back in the day, so Greg brought Billy along as a kind of protection from all that, but the Countess had a new favourite young man now, an Irish dealer called Corban, who was the most charming man you could hope to meet. And Corban brought his old friend Isabelle, and Isabelle brought her interesting boyfriend Dan.
    Emily Gräfin von Raabs (originally from Ohio, now from everywhere) sat sixteen around an old oval table and kept everything simple. A main course was set, buffet style on a sideboard at the top of the room, salad was passed from left to right; it was very homely and hands-on with just one server topping up the wine.
    She had Richard Serra next to her, and he was incredibly handsome and, dare one say, monumental. And Kiki Smith was there, which always improved things. Artists, Greg said, are like wild animals in a room like that; it is like being in a a forest, suddenly, instead of a zoo.
    As for the rest of us, the wine went down and the volume went up and the question that idled around the table was: Who has slept with whom? And of course it does not matter, because past sex is not as exciting as future sex, it is just a low hum under the melody of what is yet to come. Billy looked Isabelle over, when they moved through the double doors for coffee: the unreliable little ribcage, with a pair of those flat little triangular breasts like flesh origami: also lumpy bits from waist to hip where her underwear was a bit too pragmatic – she would look better without, he thought, though Isabelle was not the sort of girl who would ever go without. The most surprising thing about her were the shoes, which were black to match the rest of the outfit, but with fabulous, bloody red soles. She walked in them like a child playing dress-up.
    Well, each to his own, Billy thought and he met Dan’s eye with the easy lack of interest he had learned all his life to show. He said, ‘You know Gregory Savalas? Greg does the Clements’ estate. And now Max Ehring’s, am I right?’
    They might as well have never met, never kissed. That was the code.
    ‘Oh no,’ said Greg. ‘That’s legally all very. That will take a while. I’m just, literally, collating what’s there.’
    ‘So sad,’ said Dan. ‘I am one of Ehring’s biggest fans.’
    ‘You are? That’s nice to hear.’
    ‘I am. I just think the work has such vitality, you know? So hard to believe he is gone.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Greg. ‘He was a dear friend.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Dan.
    They stood there. Greg who loved Billy Walker and Billy who loved Dan Madigan and Dan who loved Isabelle McBride. He really did.
    And Isabelle, who felt self-conscious for some reason she could not identify, took another slug of wine.
    ‘You know he left hundreds of uncatalogued pieces, just thrown about,’ said Greg. ‘Of course we left the main studio just exactly as it was.’
    ‘That’s amazing,’ said Dan.
    Billy couldn’t stand it. He had slept with both these men, and they were talking horse-shit: they were speaking some kind of non-language to each other.
    ‘I can’t help wondering,’ he said, ‘if dying wasn’t the best thing to happen to Max. As an artist, I mean. Is that a terrible thing to say?’
    Greg blinked, slowly. He turned to Dan. ‘You know, sometimes I think I am in the wrong business,’ he said. ‘Because I would prefer if Max