‘How is Moneybags?’ he asked me when I walked into his hospital room one morning. It was his nickname for George Campbell, who had a knack of selling more work than Gerard. I told him George was fine and had promised to visit him despite his phobia about hospitals.
‘That’s not the only phobia he has,’ noted my uncle, in no way offended by George’s unwillingness to visit him. George did indeed have many phobias, though perhaps that is not the best way to describe some of his eccentric behaviours. Each morning, even in late spring, he insisted on wearing a jacket before he sat down to a breakfast of tea and toast with honey, followed by a Spanish cigarette. He would complain about Dublin’s air, saying it ruined his sinuses and gave him chills unlike the clean air of Spain, where he lived four to six months annually. After breakfast, he used to put on his beret and fill his pockets with old batteries to throw at neighbourhood dogs while he strolled to the centre of Ranelagh to buy the Irish Times. He disliked the mutts who poked their heads between garden fences to bite him.
When I was in public buildings with George, he always refused to use lifts, complaining he suffered from claustrophobia. He made me promise to make sure when he died he was ‘really dead’ before anyone put him in a coffin. He was afraid of being buried alive. In the event of his demise, I should install a window in his coffin lid and place in his hands a bottle of John Powers Gold Label whiskey and a glass. Then I should insist his coffin be buried upright with the window visible above ground to assure friends he had entered the afterlife with ‘the right priorities’. Hospital visits and wakes rated highest on his list of phobias.
One afternoon, the hospital allowed Uncle Gerard to leave for a few hours. At his request, my father and I drove him into County Wicklow to see Sugar Loaf Mountain. He was frail and did not talk much. At one stage, he asked me to buy him an ice cream, saying it would remind him of his childhood when ‘a day out was only special if there was ice cream’. That got me talking about my childhood in Belfast and how I loved a shop in Sandy Row where the owners displayed a massive, beautifully decorated chocolate egg in the window every Easter. Uncle Gerard loved storytelling and wanted to hear more of my childhood memories. That afternoon, all of a sudden he nudged me.
‘Tell me the one about the perfume,’ he said.
It was a story my mother had told him years before, but he wanted to hear my version of it. I began describing how as a boy I saved the few pence or shillings I earned for cutting sticks for my grandmother’s fire and running errands for my elderly aunts and their friends. In January 1959, I began saving earnestly to buy our mother a special Christmas present as a thank you for her hard work and kindness. I decided I had found the perfect gift for her when I spotted a bottle of perfume in a chemist’s window in Albert Street. I passed by the shop at least once a week to make sure it was still there.
One day I plucked up the courage to go into the chemist. Instead of asking for the price, I announced I was going to buy it for my mother for Christmas. I must have impressed the shop assistant and shop owner because they waved pleasantly to me when they subsequently saw me passing by. A week before Christmas, I counted my pennies and shillings, which I had successfully hidden in a box on the roof of our outdoor toilet. But the moment I came within sight of the chemist, my hands began to tremble. What if the perfume cost ten times what I had saved? There was nothing for it but to seek Divine help. So I made a beeline for St Peter’s where I said a decade of the rosary. By the time I left the church, I was brimming over with confidence, which evaporated the moment I walked into the chemist’s.
‘You’re here for the perfume for your mother,’ said the owner. I nodded and spread out my assortment of coins. When I had placed them in an order of value, the perfume was packaged and handed to me. I whispered ‘thank you’ and left as quickly as my legs would carry me. On Christmas Day I gave my mother the gift. She gasped when she opened the package.
‘Gerry, I can’t believe it. There must be a mistake. Maybe you should go down to the chemist,’ she told my father.
Two days later, he went off with the perfume and returned grinning from ear to ear.
‘There is no mistake. Your son bought it,’ he said.
When my mother unwrapped the package a second time, to my horror I saw it was not the bottle of Chanel No 5 I had been admiring all year, but my mother didn’t seem to care. I discovered later the shop owner told my father he knew I wanted the Chanel No 5, but thought my mother would be pleased with a less expensive but fashionable product. When I subsequently told my mother what I thought I had bought her, she said forever more she would remember only that I bought her Chanel No 5. Uncle Gerard loved the story, and it struck me his attachment to it was connected to the love he had for his mother.
Weeks after enjoying his company on the car ride, his condition appeared to improve. There was even talk of him going to London to stay with friends, and my father said he would accompany him. Sadly, on 12 June, his condition deteriorated, and he asked for a priest to hear his confession and give him the Last Rites. He died on 14 June, and in accordance with his wishes was buried in Milltown Cemetery, Belfast. He had stressed throughout his life he did not wish to be buried in a neat, tidy cemetery of the type he associated with London. Milltown was the antithesis of that.
In the aftermath of his death, decisions were made, which I feel should be known, especially to those who may write about him at some time in the future. During the final year of his life, he worked hard, using a large press to make etchings. Presumably, the strain of using the heavy press contributed to his declining health, especially in the spring of 1971. He never finished his etching series. But according to James White, who produced an illustrated biography of Gerard a short time after his death, the artist, Arthur Armstrong, who was sharing a house in Dublin with my uncle, spoke to John Kelly, Director of the Graphic Studios where Gerard worked. Kelly told Arthur there were more than fifty plates Gerard had etched and they ‘should be cancelled by scratching an X across each plate so if anyone wanted to make a print in the future the mark would show’. I never saw the fifty plates, but I did see plates my father later had in his possession, which were from a small series Gerard had all but finished. Arthur Armstrong convinced my father, in his capacity as one of Gerard’s heirs, to scratch those plates so they could never be used again. According to Armstrong, Gerard had always felt that when European artists died, they left behind plates that were used to create prints much like hand bills. It was Gerard’s philosophy anyone who bought a painting, drawing, watercolour or etching by him should be able to recoup their outlay by selling it in an emergency. I vehemently opposed the destruction of those plates, even when my father insisted he knew Gerard’s mind. My father said he was doing it on the advice of Armstrong. My father made X scratches across the plates and later gave them to my brother, Dr Patrick Dillon.
When I went to Uncle Gerard’s house after his funeral, I found someone had rifled through his belongings. His sister Molly thought it was George Campbell’s wife, Madge, looking for Gerard’s will, concerned about how it might impact the life of Arthur Armstrong. According to Molly, Madge was anxious to find out if Gerard had left his part of the house to Arthur, who was not in a position to pay the market value for Gerard’s half of it if it was not bequeathed to him. By viewing the will, argued Molly, Madge would be better placed to give Arthur advice. There was no evidence to support the allegation, though Madge declared after my uncle’s passing she would do whatever was necessary to protect Arthur’s rights. Uncle Gerard had promised my parents they would inherit everything he had. Weeks before his death, he told my mother he had written a will but none was found when we searched his possessions. Everyone in the Dillon family was convinced my uncle had intended