The House of Pure Being Read online

  Terry and I were invited to have dinner in the Hodson Bay Hotel with Chris Forde and Eileen Donohoe (who has since become the Principal of Athlone Community College) before their awards night, at which I was to be the keynote speaker. Eileen shocked me with how she began her speech in front of the 750-strong gathering of pupils and their parents. ‘First I want to welcome Michael Murphy and his partner, Terry O’Sullivan.’ While her remark was a polite expression of good manners, her recognition that the two of us shared a reality, overtook a reticence, a silence, that I’d imagined appropriate for the secondary-school atmosphere of a town in the centre of Ireland, although I hadn’t been inside a secondary school for upwards of forty years. The principal’s founding statement outed the narrowness of my own homophobic prejudice. With hindsight, she was also speaking to those children in her school whose sexual identity was homosexual, recognising their inalienable equality in her eyes, and that of Athlone’s Community College.

  Unconsciously I’d painted in advance a portrait of a gay man, which I’d always known was hanging neglected on the wall of a corridor in my house, but which her greeting had forced me to pause and to confront, really examine for the first time, noting the slap-dash nature of the work, the thin, inadequate texture of the paint, the deployment of garish colour, and the unsubtle modelling of the figure which seemed to be lost in the deepest shadow. As I glanced around the ballroom trying to read a momentary reaction on the blank faces in the close ranks of seats, it was borne in upon me that my depiction was of a gay man set against the context of the powerful massed ranks of heterosexual society, a painting which had been coloured in by memories of my shameful secret growing up in Castlebar, which I’d always pretended to ignore, but which had left me solitary. There’s an Old French word which expressed my attitude perfectly: desdeignier, which means to do the opposite of treat as worthy, to take from worthiness. Eileen’s gentle perspicacity enabled me to see that as a person I was de-centred, that I’d painted a self-portrait from the outside using someone else’s perspective. I’d so hated the loneliness of that likeness, that I’d smothered it with silence. She gently showed me that I was the only one who turned up at the party wearing a mask and a fancy-dress costume, which was the real reason that I was feeling out of place.

  It was the second part of her sentence, ‘… and his partner Terry O’Sullivan,’ that hit home. Backstage, when I met the elegantly suited Spanish singer, Diana Navarro, after her concert in the football stadium in Marbella in August, Terry reminded me on the way home, that in company, I often neglect to introduce him as my partner, and I treat him as though he’s invisible. He had to say to her, ‘Yo soy su compañero,’ that he was my companion. The push of Terry’s interpellation interrupted the business of giving her a copy of my book in which she’s mentioned twice, whereas the dowry of his daily life interest in my estate is absolute, and reiterated daily. I’m full of gratitude for his recurring forbearance on so many levels. It was salutary to realise that unconsciously I’ve afflicted him with my own disdain, which hurts him, because the brushstrokes which have blackened his ebullient personality paint him with my Shadow. This is a character I’ve rejected and consider inferior, made up of traits which I’ve attempted to cleanse from my conscious persona, in a vain attempt to fit in with what I took to be the prevailing public mood. The perspective of exile seems to have nurtured this ambition, like a pointless yearning for the illusory innocence of the past. I also diminish myself by holding back from speech a vital part of who I am, an energy bursting with the rude and playful, priapic vigour of the primitive, but whom I’ve been unwilling to let loose through fear of censure and humiliation.

  I took a further step forward into the light when I appeared on Spirit Level, a religious television programme hosted by Joe Duffy, in which I talked about Cardinal Ratzinger’s document of 1986. In it, he describes homosexuals as ‘intrinsically disordered … with a tendency towards evil.’ I pointed out to Joe on air, ‘If I were to say to you that I think all Jews are intrinsically disordered, and that Jews as a race have a tendency towards evil, you’d be horrified!’ I had to consciously take that step, and not falter: I am never to detract from another’s humanity. And yet, I’ve been guilty of disparaging my partner, and treating him as if he were of lower rank, an untermensch. It’s not the truth, and as I can see from the lessons of history, my contemptuous attitude is dangerous.

  Ironically, the theme of my speech to the students in Athlone that evening was ‘Inhabit who you are …’ Following on the principal’s introductory words, the mantra became for me an avant-garde dwelling place of open spaces and light. The moment of epiphany was reminiscent of the time when the floor in Benalmadena’s Torrequebrada Casino began to turn around in a circular movement at the end of the Flamenco Tablao, and the principal dancers stepped forward to the edge of the stage. In the end, it was they who warmly applauded us as we went sailing past them and out into the balmy smoothness of the Spanish night. As my gift to the students, I offered them a defiant poem called ‘The Poppy’, and promised that in whatever collection or book it would appear, the poem would carry the dedication, for the Athlone Community College Student Award Winners 2010.

  The Poppy

  Because there is no point to anything anyway

  It is necessary to be defiant and protesting

  Like a single red poppy in a field of yellowing corn

  And because I care so desperately that there is no point

  I keenly feel the deadly sadness underlying it all

  I know there is no voice that is like unto mine

  There never was nor will there ever be again

  For my time under the warmth of the sun which will set

  And so there is no reason never to be

  Outrageous or resplendent as a poppy

  Bright-red

  erect

  and generously

  Giving difference to the sameness of that field of corn

  Shouting out that I was born for better or for worse

  Waving my flag and making my colourful noise

  And frightening away the darkness for as long as possible

  To become the best poppy that ever there was

  Is no mean ambition because it means

  To take on the responsibility of caring for myself

  And not to lean on or to take from other’s kindnesses

  And for today’s eternity how glorious a thing it is

  To be alive and laughing in the wind

  Extravagantly scattering my seeds of happiness and hope

  And being wild

  and flagrant

  and dancing

  Like a single red poppy in a whole field of yellowing corn

  Experiencing events like the Athlone awards night have helped me to build a more authentic personality, by joining words together in a way which would have seemed unthinkable before. I see now that my reality is a linguistic one, discursively constructed. I swim each night and each day in a river of words, which has the effect of pitching me into the truth. When I was growing up in Ireland, being gay was something I had to hold back from passing into speech, because I feared the violent release of energy from the word would have upended me onto the left-hand side of God. The life-changing revelation triggered by that Athlone awards night is that I can act out of who I am through finding that all of language is allowed. Words don’t have to be silenced, and certain words that give a person life should never have to be incarcerated. This disclosure has permitted me to use an open-hearted speech that has strength, forcefulness and vigour, which represents all of me fully in performance. Such liveliness has released me and my partner, Terry, from the shadows, and a self-imposed repression that attacked at the basis of who we are, through wearing a respectable outer cloak and the mask of invisibility, essentially through my silence. It frightens me that I could so easily have ended up living an anonymous life. I have cancer to thank for changing the poverty of that outlook.

  Having to cope w
ith the fear and pain surrounding cancer, and handle the reality of the ultimate physical assault from Death resolutely knocking on the hall door of my heart, has already developed in me the courage to face danger head-on. The imperative of survival has led me to battle and to overcome all of these obstacles like a man. What I need for the future is the courage of confidence, to act in accordance with my own truth, without undue care for the baggage that others will bring to the idea of who I am. I’ve already entrusted into Terry’s keeping the disclosure of my secret self, so I’ve a positive experience of what it means to be known intimately by another. His love is shown in the Charles Eames chair he bought in secret, and had installed for me when I arrived home from hospital after the prostatectomy. This was the chair that was made for the film director, Billy Wilder, when he was directing Some Like It Hot: ‘I thought it would be appropriate for an RTÉ Producer/Director,’ he’d said, delightedly. He fills the coffee machine for me the night before I go to the radio station to read the early morning news, and leaves my flask ready, to involve himself in the effort I make getting up at four in the morning to work. It’s out of such big and little acts of continual thoughtfulness that love has taken hold. Terry upholds my being through the commonplace interactions surrounding cooking and cleaning and plans and duties. I love his smile, and the way that his blue eyes light up with enthusiasm. This daily engagement has led me on to accept my inalienable freedom, which is growing stronger under the care of his love, and simple well-wishing.

  Benedicite

  Benedicite means a blessing – literally, to say well.

  ‘Yes’ is a courageous commitment

  As delicate as the air that it displaces

  To be received with reverence

  And venerated for its holiness

  ‘Yes’ is an assent to life

  An annunciation heard

  Nine months before the nativity

  A foundation stone with which

  To build a home within

  ‘Yes’ is a sacred word

  She shyly proffered us the ring

  A glittering diamond crystal

  That seemed to be floating on air

  ‘We got engaged this Christmas Eve’ she said

  They both were beaming happily

  Inviting praise and recognition

  Commending themselves to each other

  And to us for their achievement

  ‘I had a dream that I was choosing children’s names’ he said

  ‘Middle-class names of saints like Paul and Mark

  She was sure of the ring in the window

  So I asked her marry me’

  She said ‘Not like this not now outside a jeweller’s shop’

  And then she said ‘Why not …?’

  Such is the logic of how lives intertwine

  The pattern of how decisions are arrived at

  Commitments are that are timed to coincide irregularly

  Cut like the facets of a diamond ring

  Facing away from each other

  They were walking back arm in arm

  To their car in the Phoenix Park

  When a stranger had called after them

  ‘You look well together’

  Setting them up to suit each other

  For a whole lifetime of continuous hope

  ‘Yes’ a feather-light kiss to the forehead

  ‘Yes’ a whispered grace

  ‘Yes’ the tenderest of looks

  And a determined proclamation

  ‘Yes’ is the bravest undertaking

  Of all the continuous covenants

  For unto us is born from heaven above

  On every Christmas morning of our lives

  Love the divine redeemer

  Benedicite

  Say ‘yes’

  The great prize of living above ground after cancer, that resurrection, has been to write my first book. This accomplishment was one of the effects of having been shocked back into life. I watched myself slowly emerge, like a colossus breaking free from the chains of others’ speech that had bound me tightly for so long. My body was newly clothed in diaphanous words which glittered free as the thousands of stars in the night sky when I rose up, up into the blue yonder from out of the dripping ocean of language: a being swollen with a primitive energy constructed out of the powerful words that I’ve made my own. When I saw Goya’s painting The Colossus, one of his black paintings in the Prado, I recognised it. The head and torso of a powerful man with his back to the viewer hangs over a fleeing procession of people and carts and wagons. This blinding vision, which I had painted with the words in my book, was my definitive reply hurled out like a thunderbolt at an unheeding universe, the living out of my truthful answer to the question that life poses as to who I am in my heart. And I’ve cancer to thank for bringing that analysis towards a completion.

  As my book was opened up, I imperceptibly began to shine before a group of like-minded individuals. Soon they sank to their knees in prayer before the supernatural vision that was occurring for them in their imaginations. The feelings that were evoked by my words reverberated off incidents from their own experience, to register a new amalgam which never had existed in the world before. It gave birth to angels with wings, spiritual beings attendant upon God who took unto themselves the likenesses of men, messengers and guardian spirits who brought to mind divine words and phrases, and conjured up patterns of light which focussed onto the retina representations that weren’t immediately present to their senses. And after this mystical ecstasy, those visionaries went forth, and spread the word abroad. They wrote an account of their rapture, and sent emails to me afterwards, saying that they were moved to tears, that they found my book to be beautiful. I registered their comments on my website, and gave there the authorisation of their Christian names as well, where they formed an online community of souls. These individuals had the ability to hear the poetry in my voice, because it had also resonated deep within them. The stream of images I continue to create draws strength from the magnanimity of their collective sustenance. We form a gathering of souls that emits much light into the universe. It shines ever brighter with intense and vivid colours.

  I found a genuine prophet in Steve MacDonogh. He was the herald who assented to make me appear by publishing my first book. The apparition when it happened was fulgent, radiating light. Jen Kelly, the couturier, and Garrett Fitzgerald immediately offered their beautiful Georgian mansion on North Great George’s Street in Dublin’s city centre as a backdrop for the book launch.

  ‘Where are you going to get the candles?’ asked Jen, in his soft Derry accent. And when he saw my incredulity, brought forward with a northern directness his insistence on the truth, ‘Of course you have to have candles; if you’re doing it, it has to be right.’

  This elegant house was decorated with enormous displays of sweet-smelling summer flowers and trailing ivy. Delicate Chiavari chairs in gold were placed in the two enormous reception rooms up on the first floor, where the caterers circulated amongst the crowd with several types of finger-food, offering glasses of rioja and a choice of juices. An a cappella quartet of former St Patrick’s Cathedral choristers in solemn suits sang baroque music on the return of the stairs. And everywhere, the large beeswax candles I’d sourced gently flickered on the ledges of the tall windows, and above the marble fireplaces, so that a magical atmosphere of shadows and light was created.

  Steve had arrived earlier with a portable stand which carried large posters of the book’s cover. On a table in front of this, he laid out copies of the paperback and hardback editions of the new book, which people could buy as they arrived. They came in their droves, despite the first major crash of the newly opened Luas light rail system, just off O’Connell Street, when the train ploughed into a bus and injured twenty-one people, three of them seriously. This major emergency had blocked off direct access to people arriving by the main road artery from the south side of the city. I spent the evening signing copies of my work
, so engrossed in greeting people, that I didn’t have time to eat or drink. Those snatched conversations, the embraces, were exhilarating and full of warmth. As a thank you to all of the supportive friends who took the trouble to turn out that evening, and to the Minister of State for Health and Children, John Moloney, representatives of the Irish Cancer Society, especially to Tom Lynch, the surgeon who’d operated on me in St James’s Hospital to correct the incontinence problem, I sang my heart out in a Spanish thanks to life, ‘Gracias A La Vida’, which was written by the Chilean songwriter Violetta Parra. Regrettably, she was unable to sustain what she’d written, and she committed suicide in 1967. The sadness of her death gave an added poignancy to her words, a stinging of which I was aware on the night: