A Sculptor's Gift (part 1)
Chapter 1
You only need one thing...
Apparently...
According to The Beatles.
"Just poppin’ out, Ringo - what ya want for tea?"
"Love please, Pet. P'raps some of that Italian Amore stuff we had the other night." One can imagine Paul wanting romance (Marks and Spencer), John’s fervour sporting a twist of citric sharpness and George choosing the one with naan.
When it came to our own endeavours, Annabel had been very patient, but along came David (a superior brand in the Supermarket Of Life) and it wasn't long before I discovered his latex wrappers.
I don't blame Annabel for looking elsewhere - this place is a bit of a hole, and my 'memoirs' are a tad obsessive.
Here's a sample:
"I was never meant to be a stocking designer. A blue painted truncheon found in a bush behind our bungalow was all the prophecy I needed. Yes, I was to be a riot policeman - not a bossy one, but a nice one who sits with old ladies and eats macaroons from a paper doily."
No, I don't know either.
But I digress, so back to the present and the relatively everyday where it's morning and I'm pondering my tatty manuscript while I gather random pages from the bed. Standing up, I catch my reflection in a small, grubby window.
I am ‘nonstandard’.
Apparently.
And this is what Annabel didn’t like.
Apparently.
Oh, Annabel, Annabel; where did it all go… Wrong? Right? I look at the empty spaces on the bookshelves and realise that the correct question is just ‘where did it all go?’ Mind, as the only thing I had brought to the happy household was my banjo, a snooker cue, fifteen tins of baked beans and a minimal income, she had been quite generous in leaving what she did.
I stand up straight and attempt (in futility) an air of superiority in the mirror. My attempt at normality is blown a raspberry by impudent strains of ‘I’ll be there for-hor you-hoooh’ emanating from the alarm clock on the upturned box that has been a temporary bedside cabinet for about three and a half years.
And I'm still clueless about turning it off. This 'Souvenir Of Central Perk' was, in fact, a present from the seriously gorgeous (but serially unfaithful) Annabel, a celebration of our obsessive 'Friends' marathon a few years ago when we revisited the whole box set from end to end.
It was, strangely, the box itself that finally sealed our fate as a couple; we couldn't agree on whether the choice of white as the background was either highly derivative or an act of sheer genius to be ranked with Cosi Fan Tutti, space exploration and those little wrapped biscuits you get with a coffee.
“We’re even arguing about a sodding box… just why the heck are we still together?”
Annabel was nothing if not direct.
And Annabel was probably right, too: after all, she could read a situation like a dog’s nose reads a pavement. Me? I can't even see the street.
The alarm - desperate to have the last word - emits a final simpering fart and I reckon there is just time for a snoop at the busy shops below. Now, different locations trigger different daydreams and the graffiti on the snooker hall opposite always takes me from the back end of a small English town to an exotic Bronx. Yes, fantasy is kicking in and I’m in overdrive now. I used to dread such odd moments, but now I’ve learned to just pitch, to roll and just enjoy the ride.
I sit down on the kitchen chair and turn to my non-existent interviewer (today it’s Johnny Depp/George Clooney/Oprah Winfrey) to share my 'observations' regarding Life.
"Ah, childhood," I say to the audience, deciding to start at the beginning. "You see, childhood is when you have a colour chart and there are only two shades on it, namely black and white. There are other colours, but they are 'blue' (sky, water), 'green' (anything scary, e.g. vegetables and aliens), 'red' (Father Christmas, blood, total annihilation), 'yellow' (sun, the beach and custard) and orange and purple if it's Halloween."
"Sir," says Johnny/George/Oprah, "I'm sure the viewers would be very interested to know what inspired you to write your memoirs."
"I was trying to remember what my existence was like before I moved on from the primary colours of life and noticed such delights as 'Flamingo Rose' (audience laughter - what a hilarious name for a colour!): the result? The memoirs."
In what passes for the real world, the kettle has boiled, so I make my tea and wander through to the bedroom to choose my clothes for the day. All the while, the interviewer in my head is firing questions at me.
"And what's the next exciting phase of your glittering, meteoric career?"
"Next? Next I have a meeting with the Mayor... this very morning". I actually do - that bit is real. It makes a good scenario, so it's back to the make-believe studio with it and I continue. "I've made a sculpture - a large one - and it needs to be seen: I'm hoping the Mayor will have some suggestions as to where I can put it."
Audience laughter.
And now my head is away from the studio and back into the bedroom because I find myself in front of the mirror. I'm in my mid-thirties, clean-shaven and still in possession of dark hair which, although long (ish), is kept fairly tidy.
I gaze into the glass and address my hung-over physique in the boxer shorts and Marge Simpson t-shirt.That woman's got one hell of a figure - even better than Annabel’s; just why did she have to end up with Homer (Marge, that is – Annabel is far too sophisticated for him)? Pulling back my shoulders, I speak to the reflection of my chest in the mirror.
"Marge, I’d just like to say the cartoon version of myself is available... Hey, how you doing?" But this ever-optimistic Inner Joey (yes, he’s around too) doesn’t last long as he’s deleted by the ‘Friends’ alarm clock as it stutters again and falls off the box.
If Annabel were here, she’d have felt obliged to pick her disorganized partner out a tie, shirt and suit the day before and made sure they were pressed, because her aforesaid feckless man is pretty clueless about such things.
Which is why she is now with David.
Who he? Lord knows. The only bit of him I ever saw was the occasional by-product trapped in a knotted condom.
Back in the bedroom, the mirror tells me its final decision.
"The suit."
"Good choice." I then want to ask my tee shirt "What do you reckon, Marge?" But I need my ego intact for today, so it's probably best not to ask her. I go through to the kitchen, put the kettle on again and scan my memoirs as the water boils.
"The blue plastic truncheon was, for ages, my sole inspiration in life...
… And I knew exactly what being a policeman would be like. I’d wake each day and put on my helmet before having a breakfast of a boiled egg with soldiers: I would then start my daily routine of teetering on the ledge of a skyscraper to rescue a beautiful girl before knocking off at eleven for a cup of tea. At four o’ clock each afternoon, the Queen would give me a medal for dragging her from the burning wreckage of yet another crashed helicopter."
Annabel hated my memoirs: she said they were utter bollocks and that their world was more real to me than ours was.
Ok... she had a point.
Now the fantasy television interview is back in my head again.
"And that, Johnny/George/Oprah, was just the start of my struggle to stay in the real world, but it gets worse. My fantasies were already hardcore stuff, addictive, but each had to be greater than the previous if it was to give me that buzz."
"What were you on?"
"Good question, but nothing stronger than Ribena."
"But what about your family?" cries an audience member (I'm back on TV again). "Were they nuts?" Studio Security want to cart him off to the dungeons, but I hold up my hand and grant clemency, for it is important - especially at moments such as this - to display the generous nature and merciful demeanour that my disciples have come to expect from me.
"My parents were 'challenged', it is true. I disapprove of the expression 'nuts' because my dad was a hero, but not many people remember that. No, they just remember the eccentric him."
Bloody hell - look at the time.
2
And now I have arrived at the Town Hall and signed in the security guard's desk. His hard face smirks and then smiles lasciviously at the rolling, pink-clad bottom of the girl who precedes me up the stairs to the Mayor's office.
In the inner sanctum at last, I am sitting in front of Our Leader's desk where the small man's lacquered bouffant of grey is catching the sun and lending him a haloed holiness. Judging by the photo of the Mayor on the desk, he is satisfied he has the kind of lean, athletic body one shows off in the town's annual half-marathon, but the more uncharitable would call him 'scrawny'.
I am, however, blessed to be sitting opposite the Mayor at this particular moment as the light coming through the leaded window is the kind of light that makes the orange glow of his tanned skin harmonise with the ancient patina of the Tudor oak-panelled walls in a rather pleasing way. I don't mention it to him because, although as an artist I can be genuinely moved by colour, comments are not always appreciated.
Annabel kept me away from situations like today because I can’t handle confrontation, but it’s alright because I’m not here to cause friction. I realise after a while that I am staring inanely at the man across the desk, so I just say "Good morning, Mr. Mayor, how are you today?" and get to the point.
The point is that I have, on a piece of paper, a solution to a) my obscurity and b) the Mayor's current dip in popularity. Placing it on the desk in front of him, I remind myself of salient facts. The salient facts are, namely, that the Mayor cheated on his wife recently and is currently regretting leaving his microphone on after a television interview. It was then that thousands of people heard him whisper in a colleague's ear the (now immortal) quote of “and, what's more, those women's libbers had the temerity to judge me without knowing what an irritating little cow she is".
You have to give it to him – so many shots in the foot... In so few words.
Glancing at a photograph of my sculpture, the Mayor tosses it dismissively onto the red and gold leather blotter that is lying redundantly on the acreage of his desk. Fingering a red and gold leather pen-tidy, he sighs and presses the intercom to his personal assistant. Magenta O' Hara is slight and softly-spoken but she has members of the Security Department in the palm of her hand (literally so, if rumours are to be believed), so I can see this is my one shot before getting thrown out.
"Wait, sir!" The Mayor looks at me quizzically and shrugs, apparently an admirer of tenacity. He gets up to look out of his office window.
There is, in the square below, a thermometer with a caption imploring people to give generously to the Mayor's fund supporting a women's refuge. The Mayor gazes at it.
Sighing again, he picks up the photo of my sculpture and, getting a rough idea of the size by the chair in the picture, holds it at arm's length.
"Ok," he mutters. "And what's this pile of scrap about?"
"Whatever you want."
"Pardon?" I look at the Mayor's vacant expression as he grapples with the picture of intertwining metal flames.
I try a different tack.
"Sir, it could, for example, represent your tenure of office and its conjoining with the aspirations of the populace." He is looking blank. I point at the photograph and say, slowly and emphatically, "This bit of fire is you and this one’s the people." A smile kicks into life but soon disappears, only to be replaced by a sneer at the expression 'The People'. "By that,'" I interject hastily, "I mean 'your public'".
'The people'? What a twat. I decide on a little more caution as all I want is a public platform for my art and I am not too fussed about how it happens. The Mayor returns safely home behind his desk and looks at the picture again; this time he is a little more interested.
"Is it safe?"
"Of course, sir, but how about we get it in place at, say, two or three in the morning? Less likely to be bothered then. Excitingly clandestine, as well." I watch him struggle with ‘clandestine’ and add “Top Secret… Just like spies.” I repeat the time again: it seems best to talk about it as if it is a done deal and we are simply tweaking the finer details.
My eyes range the massive terrain of mahogany that separates us and then search the wrinkled orange face for signs of enthusiasm as opposed to merely interest. It seems that I am not to be disappointed as he is now studying the picture with a faint smile and a faraway look. I jump in at what seems an opportune moment.
"I can just picture it, sir - you in jeans, sneakers and a tracksuit top on the back of a flatbed truck, that hint of rebellion that people love but still on the right side of the law. You will be there directing the installation yourself, overseeing the installation of an art piece that celebrates the Common Man". Even I register a wince at 'Common Man’ and catch him just in time with an added "But mostly, of course, it will be celebrating your own achievements, sir".
Picking up a red and gold leather mouse mat, he places the picture in the middle as if in a frame and holds it against the antique oak paneling of his office wall beneath the large portrait of himself in the full regalia of office. I lean forward and whisper in a mock-conspiratorial manner.
"Sir, I can of course provide you with a much better print than that… Larger, as well... Much larger, with you in the foreground". He leans forward and looks at me, searchingly. "Oh, yes," I continue, "and canvas-effect, too." He is trying to look blasé but not really managing it any more. "And how about a luxurious gold frame, sir?" That does it. The man is now beside himself. I get up to go, safe in the knowledge that my departure is now up to me, not him.
Like many others, I recognise shallow opulence but am still somehow seduced by it and I admit I covet his vintage red and gold leather desk set. Seeing it in here in these hallowed halls of tradition and ceremony is the stationery equivalent of raiding an ancient tomb and finding a hoard of prawn cocktails and a bathroom suite in avocado green complete with gold taps.
I try - and, to my extreme surprise, pull off - a dismissive gaze at the Mayor. Usually rendered impotent and gelatinous by the trauma of social interaction, my mouth has gained a coordination and clarity from goodness knows where. Actually, I do know from where... Quite simply, this gig is mine. I don't know how - or why - but it is. I place a scrap of paper on his desk.
"That is where I am holding the sculpture, sir. Shall we say Thursday morning, two a.m.? The Mayor gives a dazed nod as I give a wave from the door and call out “Thank you, sir. Thursday morning, then."
In my youth, I would have made myself feel less nervous by fashioning a little Mayor out of modeling clay, sitting it at a Lego desk and ritually bombing it - in a Voodoo kind of way - with a kit model of a Spitfire plane.
"Die, Mayor, you Harbinger Of Doom and Purveyor Of Quite A Lot Of Things That Are Really Not Very Nice! Your chain of office is but dross of lead and your hair is made out of nylon!"
However, I'm not sure such an exorcism is needed today.
The Mayor is outside my workshop at two a.m. with Prada sneakers, Armani jeans, a tracksuit top (Hugo Boss, emblazoned with the legend 'Mayor's Fund Against Sexism'), a crane, a flatbed truck and a camera crew from the local television station, the last an interesting addition considering the clandestine nature of the operation but it would appear that any publicity is to be eagerly embraced.
And I'm dreading questions about my work.
"Are you the artist?"
"Yes."
"Am I right in thinking that this piece is about the inner struggles of a person's soul, the angst and turmoil of a person in their mortal state and the intertwining of the physical and the emotional needs and aspirations of Humankind?"
"Buggered if I know."
But I haven't thought as far as an interview, so I refuse and it doesn't happen. Anyway, I want to keep my head down as I am now having misgivings about the Mayor as patron, but I keep reminding myself that the most magnificent Renaissance artworks were as often as not sponsored by warmongering popes, power-mad dukes, poisoners, torturers and general all-round baddies... Albeit rich, influential and aesthetically-aware ones.
One of the council workmen is leaning on the side of the truck as his friend lowers the hoist. I can tell by the way he is looking at my sculpture that he is impressed, in awe.
"So what's with this pile of shit?"
"Buggered if I know".
Oh.
I have a few hours sleep and then get down to the square. It means I'll be late starting work, but my studio is at home and any timetable is self-imposed so it's hardly a problem. I reach my sculpture and check the base - no name plaque. I'm not so much disappointed as relieved.
I still don't want to be associated with the Mayor.
3
The sculpture's been in the square for a few days now and here I am, stood next to it.
A man with a microphone has arrived, one of a few amongst the crowd that is growing day by day. It has started and it looks like this is my first interview, only this one's real life.
"Yeah, well, I did it in memory of my dad who was a very brave fireman. I think some people reckon it's a bit of a publicity stunt. I suppose it might have been once, but now it's moved on now and is more of a, er, focal point. More than that, people are finding something in it that they cannot quantify and that means it's thought provoking, that they're thinking about it."
No, I'm not good at microphones yet because as soon as one is shoved at me I come out with all sorts of crap. If I'm going to be a serious artist, I'll have to sharpen up my act a bit.
A policeman is on a radio and I reckon a Sergeant is watching on CCTV and asking him a question which, I am guessing, is along the lines of:
"Whassat shit?" The police officer is looking intent and pretending it is a serious, official call. Really, though, he is saying:
"Buggered if I know."
I built this sculpture myself and it’s my first metalwork project since a fourteen year-old attempt at a mild steel nutcracker. That nutcracker was displayed on the sideboard at Christmas like a nuclear missile in Red Square at a Soviet May Day Parade.
"Look, Boris, the English they are produce nutcracker thingamajig. Now we are be surrender… Is yes?"
"Ooh, Vladimir, is indeed yes - our times is it up, Comrade!"
This sculpture has been bent, welded and bolted, all in my father’s memory... Not that my mother knows that, or would probably even care. The sculpture is two spirals supposed to look like two eddying flames and is fashioned using only the choicest spoils and a fair bit of trial and error. Perhaps my mother has also taken one look at it and thought:
"Whassat shit?"
I know I have.
Be that as it may, it is causing a bit of a stir - in fact, so many people are gathering here now that a man has thought it worthwhile to bring a refreshment van.
In a random moment of curiosity, I look down and wonder what’s beneath our feet. I imagine a layer of Edwardian floral cups in the earth’s surface - above them, confident shards of Art Deco and, below them, fired clay scatterings of the Seventeenth Century. And below them? Probably Mediaeval jugs with crude, vulgar faces, guardians of a vast subterranean graveyard (can you have a subterranean graveyard?) littered with other abandoned items of ceramic.
I’m sure it’s all very ordered down there: from a lost iPhone just visible under a bush, right down to a dinosaur suspended in its deep pool of damp clay, everything will have its own stratum. The iPhone has been there for two days now so it might still be living, but only just. Mind, a geological upset could re-orchestrate matters in just a few seconds with the iPhone, the floral teacups and the dinosaur suddenly thrown together with a click of the dinosaur’s claw against Edwardian porcelain and music, all tinny and ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah’ as the earphones lodge themselves in the empty bone eye sockets.
Music? Never mind modern stuff, my mother has never held with even the Beatles. She used to tut constantly at their 'sloppy grammar and shoddy sentence construction'. She loves opera, though, because she doesn’t understand it and just thinks of it as beautiful noises, but the Beatles have never been cut that kind of slack. Whenever I ask what the opera singers are on about, I always get:
“They’re singing about love, laddie!” It doesn’t matter whether they are a couple embracing and going through his/her/their death throes or two beefy lines of spear carriers facing each other in battle, it is always, apparently, about love.
Speaking of the old girl...
She has come to see what all the fuss is about and is, true to form, wearing her polished tan lace-up leather shoes and dark blue mac done up to the neck. They are the only things visible apart from skinny shins in brown tights and even her watch is hidden as she sports the same social camouflage she would wear to parents' evenings at school and church, the covering-up of an inner eccentricity like Victorians dressing an asylum inmate to be let out, under escort, to attend a funeral. It’s obvious she doesn’t know whether to shout “Look, this is my son’s!” or keep a low profile.
My phone rings and a researcher from a local radio station is asking if I might be interviewed on air.
A policeman is squinting at me from beneath his hat.
"You one of them malcontent anarchists?"
"Ooh, no." I point at a severe, diminutive shape. "Look, there's my mum." The Keeper Of The Peace peers at my mother, but I can see this hasn't reassured him at all.
And now a local news reporter. She is, however, a little more imaginative than the others and starts to give an inventory of all the things that I have stuck together to make the sculpture. I answer her questions before she asks them.
"Yes, that is a shopping trolley, no I didn't ask permission before I took it, yes, there is a car door in there, no, a ten year-old Nissan." I look at the poor woman and elaborate in a way I hope sounds intellectual.
"Rusty metal. It was always going to be my first choice of material for the sculpture. People think that rusty metal is once-perfect steel that lost the final round - no, it’s steel that’s been singing in the rain, that’s perambulated round the party a few times, the kind of steel that has character and is proud to flaunt a texture, the medical record of a wild, dissolute life."
"Thank you, and now it's back to the stu-"
"To fix it all together, I have used all sizes of bolts salvaged from machinery, old men’s tobacco tins and a bridge. The wrecking ball, that would have been a good one; a vital bolt missing from it and the huge metal lump would have swung free and made a graceful parabola thence flattening a getaway car at the scene of a bank robbery. The crane operator would have received a pardon from the judge, the speech citing:
"And we give this medal in recognition of Walter who crushed the robbers, thus saving the good citizens’ money by avoiding the cost of an expensive trial and the expense of a lengthy incarceration. Walter, we salute you!"
But then I notice that the woman with the microphone has gone.
Bugger. Ah, well...
Next time.