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 to leave everything to my father, and they left my father to sort out Gerard’s affairs. My father allowed Arthur Armstrong to buy out Gerard’s 50 per cent interest in the house at a knock-down price.
All Molly wanted from her brother’s estate was twenty-five oil paintings from Gerard’s West of Ireland period. My father simply gave her the works, but she then insisted on having his diaries. I was first to read the diaries in the days after my uncle’s death. My father read them much later and, contrary to my advice, erased all comments in them about Molly and Vincent, hoping to save them embarrassment. He also blacked out criticisms directed at some leading figures in the Dublin art world. On learning of the dairies, Uncle Gerard’s brother, Fr Vincent, who was by then retired and living in Texas, asked Molly to send them to him. I suspected then, and still do, he was anxious to discover if they contained any scandalous revelations about him. Because of this, his relationship with my parents suffered when the diaries were passed to Molly. The rift between Vincent and my parents was so deep he never got his wish to be buried in Belfast with Joe and Gerard.
Molly subsequently claimed she sent the diaries to Fr Vincent Dillon, but there was no proof she ever did. I was not made aware of everything my father erased in the diaries. I believe there were at least two journals that were undated. I told my father I was sure Molly returned to London in the weeks after my Uncle Gerard’s death with one or two of these journals, which were additional to the ones my father passed to her months later. My father did not wish to challenge her. When she learned that the diaries I read in the days after my uncle died contained revelations about his sexuality, she demanded them from my father. I never saw those writings again.
In fact, no one in my family ever saw the journals after they were in Molly’s hands. She was evasive when I asked her about them a decade later. When I pressed her, she hinted they had been destroyed, although she refused to be specific. They were not among her possessions after her death, and there was no evidence Fr Vincent ever had control of them. It is possible Molly lied about having sent them to her brother in Texas. She may have destroyed them because she was reckless with some of Uncle Gerard’s possessions. While sorting out papers and art works in the days following his funeral, she lit a small bonfire in his garden and proceeded to burn letters and more disturbingly drawings, which she felt did not measure up to his talent. She was a single-minded, capricious and wilful woman. She was the type of person one could not reason with, a fact Gerard found out to his cost when he lived with her in London.
Before Uncle Gerard’s death, his Dublin art dealer, Leo Smith, launched a clever ‘wine-and-dine campaign’ to court my parents, certain they would inherit a large art collection. Leo owned and ran the Dawson Gallery, one of Dublin’s finest and most celebrated galleries. He was a shrewd, sophisticated man with a wealth of knowledge of the art world, having worked for years in Bond Street in London. According to George Campbell, the fact he was gay partly determined his close, personal rapport with Gerard. When Leo dined with my parents, he sometimes exhibited his artsy, bohemian side and treated my mother in particular to scandalous stories and risqué jokes about well-known Dubliners. He adored the letters she wrote to him and was fond of quoting lines from them to business acquaintances. He convinced my father if anything happened to Uncle Gerard he was the person to secure his legacy. It would be important he stressed, to ensure only one person managed and sold the work Gerard left behind. It was clear from Leo Smith’s comments to my parents that my uncle had told him he was bequeathing his work to my father.
Leo
