‘It’s empty because it’s been purged; all that’s left is the orange peel of me!’ said Weedy with a vein throbbing in his forehead.
‘Then presumably you’ve eaten the orange?’
‘I was the orange. It isn’t easy talking Art with you.’
‘Show me some Art and we’ll talk it,’ said Sarah.
At that point Weedy gave up on her and started a conversation with a buxom blonde woman behind him who was entering a canvas covered with a brown-paper flap. Weedy showed her his and she showed him hers and although it was a picture of three kittens he seemed to find that he could talk Art with her.
The snow began to fall, the queue inched forward as slowly as ever, and there were no public toilets in sight. Some of those in the queue got others to hold their places while they went into the museum; others who were entering buckets and dustbins may possibly have augmented their entries while screened by sympathetic conceptual artists. Sarah and I took it in turns to visit the museum conveniences and were impressed by them and the exhibition space; the snow sky now had a bright overcast and the variously angled skylights provided a coolly critical daylight that intensified the reality of the entries so far booked in.
There were two men in front of a reception desk and a woman behind it. The men, both heavyset with expressionless faces, looked like builders or movers; the woman might have been cast as a seaside landlady in a black-and-white film. Entrants handed their entrance cards to the woman and were logged in by her. The stamped bottom half of the card was then attached to the entry by the artist. The two men helped unwrap the wrapped entries and waved people on to park their works where they could.
There were many dustbins variously presented along with other concepts and found objects and there were also paintings done by hand and sculptures of recognisable human and animal figures that had the unconfident air of tourists who’d wandered into a rough neighbourhood. Quite possibly there were great works among the entries; I couldn’t take in much in a passing glance. I imagined The One for the Many among them and I was filled with doubt and confusion. I thought of the eight listening figures in the Orpheus fountain at Cranbrook and shook my head. Sarah had accepted the fact that I myself didn’t know what this crucifixion meant and that didn’t seem to bother her. She’d confessed that she was a man-improver and I wondered if she saw this work and the entering of it in the competition as an improvement.
The snow stopped, the sun appeared and shed a thin watery light on the wet winter pavement and our queue as we moved slowly forward along the railings, many of the entrants talking into their little telephones. Behind the three-kitten woman was another woman, young, tall, haggard, scraggy, with what looked like a bag of laundry. She was on the phone rather loudly. ‘Of course I did,’ she declaimed, ‘and I brought your black ones too. No, I didn’t; the smell is half the story. Yes, Marcia, it is a new idea, because every pile of dirty knickers is different, that’s what conceptual is all about: there are no two things the same.’
‘There,’ said Sarah. ‘Now we know what conceptual art is all about.’
‘What worries me,’ I said, ‘is, can you catch it from a toilet seat?’
‘Easily. Also from oral Zeitgeist. Best thing is not to swallow and never sit all the way down.’
‘Maybe it’s already too late; maybe I’m already conceptual.’
‘There’s a simple test: if you see vomit on the pavement and don’t give it a title you’re still OK.’
‘Right. I’ll keep my eyes open this Saturday night.’
‘And now that we’ve used the c-word,’ said Sarah, ‘I’m going to come right out and ask you if this might be a concept that we’re entering?’
‘The one thing I’m sure of is that concepts are not what I’m about.’
‘Can you say what you are about? I’m just asking — I don’t know that I could answer that question myself.’
I pondered that question for a long time. I was thinking about the bonking toys I’d made for Adelbert Delarue; I’d never told Sarah about those. I saw them now in action in all their possible permutations. Those four miniature crash-dummy orgiasts had got me into wood and made me begin to feel like an artist. Feeling that way, I did what artists do: I put an idea into visible form; I couldn’t say what the idea was but maybe it would come to me in the fullness of time.
What about religion? To me Christ was not divine, only a charismatic man who died in a horrible way. And as far as I could see, Christianity had done more harm than good in the world. And yet, the idea of a man crowned with thorns dying on a cross — was that something to be taken liberties with? The crucified Christ at St John’s in the North End Road was shiny fibreglass but it had no pretensions. Could I say the same for mine? I put my hand in my pocket and felt the small wooden hand Sarah had given me. This whole project had gone from me and I was tired. The salt of it had lost its savour and I wanted to go home.
‘UFO Number One, come in, please,’ said Sarah.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Where were we?’
‘Just before you disappeared I asked you what you were about.’
‘I can answer that one now, Sarah. I’m about to get all this lumber out of here and go home.’
‘How come?’
‘Because this thing has gone from me and now it’s time for the next thing.’
‘What will that be?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘Maybe the next thing is to finish this thing.’
‘Oh God, you’re going to improve me.’
‘I warned you.’
‘Go ahead, improve.’
‘Maybe entering this competition was a bad idea but walking away from it now would be a failure and I need you not to fail.’
‘Why do you see it as a failure?’
‘Because whatever this is, you have to get all the way into it before you can get out of it.’
I remembered boyhood fights, not those that I won but the others. When Joe Milanic dared me to knock the chip off his shoulder I did and he made short work of me but at least I hadn’t walked away. What about now? From what shoulder had I knocked the chip when I took adze and mallet to the limewood? Well, I’d probably find out if I stayed with it and I’d probably lose Sarah’s respect if I didn’t. Maybe lose her altogether.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘you’ve convinced me.’
She looked at me as if my head were transparent and every one of my thoughts was visible to her, especially the last one. ‘I think you convinced yourself,’ she said, and kissed me.
Now that I had shown Sarah who was in charge I felt a lot better and I also felt like a canoeist being swept towards the edge of Niagara Falls. In no time at all I was over the edge, plunged blindly through the thundering waters, and rose to the surface in front of the builders and movers and the seaside landlady as Annunciation was checked in by Ms Menses whose name was actually Philippa Crutchley-Sweet. ‘Annunciation, number seven six o,’ said the landlady.
It was very warm in the museum, and the bulkier of the two men had by now rolled up his sleeves to reveal a Sacred Heart tattoo on his left arm and a harp on his right. ‘Are you a builder or a concept?’ he said as I approached with my timbers.
‘You tell me,’ I said, indicating the parcels on Sarah’s dolly.
‘On a building site a two by four is a two by four but here you never know,’ he said. ‘Let’s be having these wrappings off.’
I took a deep breath, undid the twine, and removed the paper from the first parcel. ‘Jesus!’ he exclaimed as the head and torso came into view.
‘The One for the Many,’ I said.