On Saturday afternoon, while Keir sat recovering from the lurgy that’s been taking down all the kids in Beijing, Viggo declared that he wanted to paint my face. I’d already showered and done my makeup for the party we were invited to in the early evening, but I didn’t want Viggo’s muse to feel compelled to move on without him, so I said yes. While Viggo laid out some face paints and brushes by the basin in the bathroom, I put on a low-cut T-shirt and pushed my fringe back with a hairband to give him the biggest possible surface area for his art.
I loved the experience of being my son’s creation. I was a canvas with eyes and a heart. Sitting on the toilet seat with Viggo standing in front of me, I was in the best possible position to witness his artistic process. My eyes saw everything while my face was transformed, like a movie camera being sprinkled with raindrops as it recorded the scene played out for its benefit. Viggo’s eight-year-old hands are not quite big enough to easily wield the little spray bottle we use to dampen the paints in the plastic pallet we bought from Baopals. He uses his thumb instead of his forefinger to manipulate the little spray pump, which is awkward but effective. The first colour he sprayed then dipped his brush into was black.
For the next fifteen minutes, Viggo worked meticulously. He rinsed the brush under running water every time he chose to add a different colour. He painted with his right hand and rested his left hand on my body. I’d feel its warmth on my arm or my shoulder or my leg, as he moved around in the creation of his composition. The angle of his head would change as he contemplated what to do next. His tongue would stick out as he lost his self-consciousness in the act of throwing himself feet first into creativity.
When he’d deemed his creation complete, Viggo asked me to stand up and check myself out in the mirror. I saw his little face reflected beside me, eagerly awaiting my approval of his art. I told him that I looked like a portrait of Salvador Dali painted by Picasso. A purple Dali-esque moustache started at the bridge of my nose and curled onto my cheeks, never actually finding its way to my upper lip but celebrating the diversion with two extravagant curlicues. Beneath my mouth was an extra pair of smiling lips. There was a blue love heart on my throat with a red V inside it. On my chest was the mouth of a vampire, its teeth red with the blood of its latest victim. On my cheek and on the side of my neck, Viggo had calligraphed the Chinese character for “Wõ”, meaning “I”. On my forehead, in black, were the words, “Viggo is great.” I loved being the canvas upon which my son could celebrate his own brilliance.
I thought about leaving Viggo’s creation in place went we went to the party in the evening but decided against it in the end. It’s not often, these days, that I have the chance to present myself as anything other than my children’s mother, and I wanted to maximise the opportunity. I showered again, scrubbed off the paint, and redid my makeup, thinking all the while about the changing faces of motherhood. I put on a dress – another rare occurrence these days - and even took the time to curl my hair.
When we got to the party and I sat at a table with Mike’s colleagues, talking about China and diplomacy and the lasting psychological effects of the pandemic, I was conscious of the contrast between how things are for me now, and how they used to be. While everyone else at the party was drinking beer and red wine and eventually shifting onto snifters of whiskey, I quietly sipped a glass of water, and watched the onset of other people’s inebriation, partly with envy, and partly with relief that my tomorrow would involve neither a hangover nor the “hangxiety” that constantly plagued me during 30-odd years of drinking.
And yet… For much of the day on Saturday, when I wasn’t acting as an artwork for my son, I was wiping away tears as I watched YouTube videos of Shane MacGowan’s funeral, which took place just up the road from my friend Frances’ house in County Tipperary, Ireland. I loved that there was a massive, happy, sad, tragic, beautiful, heart-warming celebration for an artist, some say an angel, who was seemingly never sober for a second. I cried watching Nick Cave singing Rainy Night in Soho, just as I’d cried at the thought of him playing Into My Arms at Michael Hutchence’s funeral a million years ago. I laughed when the camera showed the look on the Catholic priest’s face when Glen Hansard and Lisa O’Neil belted out insults to one another over the sounds of tin pipes and accordions. I burst into tears when members of Shane MacGowan’s family clambered over the pews and danced to Fairy Tale of New York next to a red-rose-covered coffin. Some moments in life, I think, should really be accompanied by a glass of whiskey held high in tearful celebration. And some time should be spent watching tears fall into the foam on the top of a perfectly poured pint of Guinness.
I’m ashamed to say that I’d never heard of The Pogues when I first moved to London in 1993. The friend who introduced me to them once told me a story of having kissed Shane MacGowan at a gig. He’d seen him walking through the crowd and couldn’t think of a better way of expressing his adoration for MacGowan’s gap-toothed gorgeousness than holding his face in both of his hands and kissing him on the lips. My friend was amazed to have walked away from that encounter without having been punched, and knew that the punch would have been both deserved and well worth it. That friend is turning 60 today. I wish I could spend a rainy night in Soho with him in celebration.
The privilege of a long life, I’m discovering, is the chance to have the biggest possible surface area for your art. Sometimes you’ll cry while you celebrate the existence of angels among us, and sometimes you’ll be a canvas for other people’s creations.
I don’t think it really matters what’s in the glass that you raise as a toast, as long as you remember to raise the glass, and to be grateful for every second that your heart still beats inside your chest.
Whew Michelle, this is a powerful piece. Embracing life, death, love, creativity, sobriety, and love all at once. I could literally feel it in my body and, as we know, that's not a common reaction to plopping down to read an essay. Well done. I look forward to many more great reads. Thank you.
Tender and loving. A love heart on your throat with V in the middle. There's a tattoo in the making..... were it not so ouchy!! How sweet your little boys are.
I felt pride getting a mention in your moving description of the late, great Shane McGowan s funeral. It certainly was eye opening to see the priest facilitating a truly unique funeral. Oh times have changed, thankfully.