I said, ‘I pass it every day on my way to work.’
‘Small world,’ said Grace. ‘No unknown places any more. Except perhaps in people.’
‘I’d like to do a portrait of you,’ said Brian. ‘Will you pose for me?’
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ said Grace. ‘But I don’t do nudity unless it’s essential to the plot.’
‘Sometimes a plot can take you unawares,’ said Brian, and raised his glass to her. He’ll flirt with whatever female comes into his field of vision. He and Grace exchanged phone numbers and Brian and I said goodbye and got up to leave.
‘See you,’ said Grace. ‘Have a good whatever.’
It was twilight when we came out into Berwick Street. ‘Where to?’ said Brian.
‘Cheyne Walk?’ I said.
‘Bertha, you read my mind,’ he said. He hailed a cab and off we went. Hearing him call me Bertha made me think of Phil with a little twinge of guilt. Not a big twinge, just a little one. Phil and I still didn’t really know where we were with each other, but with Brian I knew exactly where we were and I was comfortable with it. No commitment, no problems, just a good time in bed in a beautiful house. Was I being amoral? Well, you know what they say: there are parts of the human body that have no conscience.
But the part of my body that has got a conscience is my brain. And lying there beside Brian I was feeling guilty about what I’d done and hadn’t done with my life so far. Here I was, thirty-seven years old and painting artificial eyes. Back when Brian was my teacher he’d told me to loosen up and I’d done that, but not on canvas. Then my attempts to develop as an artist had gradually faded away while my talents as a mistress improved all the time. Was it too late to find out if I could be any kind of a painter other than an eyeball one? On the other hand, if I’d had any real talent I’d have done something with it by now. It’s not just a matter of talent — you’ve got to have the drive and the character to do something with it, whether it’s painting, snooker, or tennis. Brian was asleep and snoring. ‘Cheryl,’ he mumbled. That wasn’t his wife’s name.
After a while I fell asleep and dreamt that Grace Kowalski offered to lend me her bat. ‘He ain’t heavy,’ she said. ‘He’s my Irving.’ But it was heavy, I could hardly lift it. I woke up and the room wasn’t as dark as it had been. There were framed sketches on the wall. Me, nude. No clothes but I hadn’t felt as naked when I posed as I did now.
5 Phil Ockerman
She was with another man; that was a certainty. It was as if I could feel his weight on her as he enjoyed what was now denied to me. I ground my teeth and tried to move my mind elsewhere. Without much success.
I could see a space without Barbara stretching out in front of me for miles and miles: a desert. And I was two vast and trunkless legs of stone standing in the middle of it with my shattered visage, half-sunk, lying nearby. Well, that’s how it is sometimes: boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away. Deal with it.
Ordinarily I get through each day by finding things to look forward to, like a mountain climber moving from one handhold to the next: breakfast; The Times; the post; scanning the TV schedule and setting the timer to record films that look promising; sending and answering e-mails; lunch and the first beer of the day; a few pages of Elizabeth Gaskell with my sandwich; then a nap. In between I put in some time staring at The Scent of Water, my lonesome title with no first line under it. That part of the day I haven’t really been looking forward to, and I do it again in the evening. And there are the classes I teach at Morley and the private workshops that use up three afternoons and two evenings every week.
If I could follow the advice I give my students I might possibly achieve even a whole first paragraph. I draw on haiku heavily for this. A common complaint is, ‘When I have a blank sheet of paper in front of me I feel lost.’ For this I have committed to memory lines by Ryusui:
Mayoigo no
naku naku tsukamu
hotaru kana
The lost child,
crying, crying, but still
catching the fireflies.
A blank sheet of paper is a very dark night in which we lost children can’t help crying, I tell them. The thing is to keep catching fireflies. I constantly remind myself of that but this seems not to be a firefly season.
I listened to the first track of the Enigma Variations; the theme came out of a distant silence, veiled and mysterious, then it grew and unfolded, always in the light and shadow of the larger unplayed theme. OK, I have no right to expect anything but the unfolding. Maybe there’s nothing in it for me. That’s life, yes?
I cursed myself for being so dependent on Barbara. Lots of men get through life without a woman; why couldn’t I? Also, this might not be a permanent condition — she might be back. But I didn’t like being kept dangling like this. It was cold, it was grey, it was raining. Good. I went to the National Gallery. I stood on the porch for a few minutes looking down on Trafalgar Square. Spray from the fountains drifting in the rain. Red sightseeing buses. Nelson on his column, secure in his place above it all. That’s the way to do it, I thought, and went inside.
I’m a heavy user of the National Gallery. Depending on what condition my condition is in I usually know what I need for my fix. Sometimes it’s Claude, other times de Hooch or maybe van Hoogstraten’s peepshow or the van de Veldes marine paintings. But today I didn’t know what would do it for me.
I was drifting from one room to another when I paused in Room 41 at the Daumier that shows Don Quixote on Rosinante charging a flock of sheep while Sancho on Dapple quenches his thirst from a gourd. Daumier didn’t do any large paintings — they’re all medium-sized to small. This one was 40 x 64 centimetres and it was a sketch, not a finished picture. But the thing about Daumier is that all of his pictures, regardless of size, are big. And his sketches are usually the biggest of all because they’re the freeest and the quickly done chiaroscuro is nothing short of metaphysical.
I was thinking about Don Quixote and Sancho when a tall young woman took up a position a foot or two away. Her close attention to the Daumier already marked her as someone to be reckoned with and her looks did nothing to dispel that impression. She stood there shaking her head a little and moving her lips, then she took a pad of music paper from her rucksack, sat down on the floor, and began to fill the staves with notes and words.
‘Does this happen often with you?’ I said.
She held up a finger to pause me while she finished a bar. ‘All the time,’ she said.
‘Not only with Don Quixote or Daumier, then?’
‘I like Cervantes and Daumier both — this painting is what got me going just now but it’s not specifically a Don Quixote song.’ A slight South African accent.
‘Can you say what it’s about?’
‘Yes, it’s about being true to your craziness.’
‘Will you have a coffee with me when you’re ready to stand up?’
She got up from her cross-legged position without using her hands. ‘I’m ready now, but it’ll have to be a fast coffee because I’m due in Soho in three quarters of an hour.’
‘The cafeteria won’t be crowded now, so we can get one there quickly. Are you here for a visit?’ I said as we walked towards the Sainsbury Wing.
‘Three weeks,’ she said, ‘mostly talking to record company execs. Then I go back to Cape Town.’
‘Have you got a contract?’