AN
UNEXPECTED CRISIS
"To be truly
modern," Michael Reid was saying, "one must live in the city,
preferably the metropolis, and thus cease to have regular contact with
nature. For the city does, after all,
bear witness to the extent of contemporary civilization, being the focal-point,
as it were, of human evolution to-date.
Beyond the city there is nothing higher, at any rate not on earth,
whereas beneath it ... well, one finds a descending scale of town, village,
farm, and country, with the most uncultivated country at the bottom."
Tina Hewitt briefly turned her pretty brown face towards him in
polite acknowledgement of these remarks and said: "Yes, I suppose so. But, fortunately, there isn't that much
uncultivated country around these days.
Most of it seems to have been quite pleasantly cultivated. Like the fields round here, for instance."
They each looked out through the car windows in opposite
directions, in confirmation of the fact that the country through which they
were currently driving was pleasantly cultivated. On the left-hand side of the road an expanse
of freshly-ploughed earth, whilst on the opposite side, nearest to Reid, a
gleaming wheat field stood almost motionless in the noon-day heat. Farther on, other fields and expanses of
ploughed land could be discerned to either side, all of which attested to the
agricultural mastery of man.
Keith Shearer, who was driving, was less interested in looking
at land, however, than in continuing the conversation with his back-seat
passenger. "Presumably those who
don't live in the biggest cities are behind the times to varying extents,
then," he remarked.
"That's more or less my opinion anyway," Reid
responded. "Naturally, we all live
in the current century so far as dates and the use of modern inventions are
concerned. But we don't all live in it
on the same spiritual or evolutionary level.
A farmer lives in it on a different and, in my opinion, lower level than
an avant-garde artist, whilst a small-town shopkeeper lives in it on a
different level than, well, a metropolitan chain-store worker. I mean, it isn't just a question of class or
occupation. We're also dealing with the
varying influences of widely different environments on the lifestyles and
mentalities of their respective inhabitants.
There have been farmers and farm labourers from virtually the very dawn
of human civilization, but there haven't always been avant-garde artists. The former still tend to live on a level not
all that far removed, in certain respects, from primitives, whereas the latter
are the fruit of thousands of years' civilized evolution and progressive
sophistication. One could have milked
cows or tilled the earth three or four thousand years ago, but one couldn't
have painted like Piet Mondrian or Wasily Kandinsky then, nor have composed
music like Michael Tippett or Pierre Boulez, nor have written novels like Alain
Robbe-Grillet or Lawrence Durrell."
"Quite so," Shearer conceded, as he artfully steered
his bright-red 2cv6 Citroën round a sharp bend in the road, to the slight
displacement of his passengers.
"What you're in fact saying is that the modern artist only became
possible because of the city, that the city gave birth to the contemporary
artist."
Michael Reid nodded his head at the reflection of Shearer's face
in the driving mirror. "Yes, I
doubt if the bulk of contemporary art would have come about at all, had it not
been for the continuous development of our towns and cities into ever-larger
conurbations of the artificial, the man-made.
For abstract art reflects this development and therefore speaks directly
to the intelligent man of the big city.
If it had to wait until the twentieth century to come about, that was
only because until then none of the towns or cities was large enough to warrant
it, not having expanded away from the sensuous influence of nature to an extent
which made such a spiritual, transcendental art possible. Man was still tied to dualism in a kind of
balanced compromise between nature and civilization, and thus given to both
sensual and spiritual kinds of representational art - the former issuing from
the natural world, the latter from the civilized one, and embracing not only
urban and domestic scenes but religious projections as well."
Tina had listened more attentively to these remarks than her
boyfriend, and now ventured to inquire of the controversial young artist
whether such a dualism wasn't to be found in abstract art, too? In other words, whether there wasn't both a
sensual and a spiritual mode of it?
"Indeed, there certainly is," Reid replied, shifting
his attention from the driving mirror to the dark-haired young woman who sat in
front beside the driver.
"Impressionism was a mode of sensual abstraction to the extent that
it primarily dealt with the natural world, including animals and men. However, it rendered that world not in
concrete representational terms but in abstract and, hence, impressionistic
terms. And after Impressionism of one
sort or another had run its dreary course, well, there was Expressionism to
take over and focus not so much on the external or natural world ... as on the
transformations such a world underwent through the influence of emotions,
especially the strongest and most negative.
This, too, was a kind of abstraction, for it dispensed with literal
concrete representations, preferring to distort external reality under pressure
of internal reality. However, since they
were still partly representational, one might describe these art-styles as
transitional between sensual representation and the sensual abstraction that
was to follow in the guise of Abstract Expressionism, where a depiction of the
feelings, or the effects of external reality upon the self rather than vice
versa, was attempted. Such an art-style,
largely focusing upon strong emotions, may indeed be described as sensual abstraction,
in contrast to the spiritual abstraction which was to materialize in the guise
of Neo-Plasticism and the genius, most especially, of Piet Mondrian. Now since the path of evolution tends away
from the sensual towards the spiritual, it follows that intellectually-biased
subjective art signifies a superior development to emotionally-biased
subjective art, and accordingly has more relevance for our time, as indeed for
the future. It's the higher abstraction,
being religious as opposed to secular, insofar as whatever pertains to the
spirit stands in opposition to whatever pertains to the senses, the sensual,
the worldly. So, in following the
overall tendency of evolution towards the spirit, one might claim that it was
and remains the fate of sensual abstraction to give way to spiritual abstraction,
which is the ultimate art."
They were still passing fields as Michael Reid spoke and, from
time to time, would glance to either side of the road in order to feast their
nature-starved eyes upon the scene before them.
It was over a year since any of them had actually been out of London
and, despite their sophisticated urban sentiments, they were privately grateful
for a change of scenery, especially Tina, who lived in a more built-up part of
the metropolis than her two companions, and had a greater need of vegetation in
consequence. She was particularly
looking forward to the afternoon walk they were intending to take across the
According to him, dogs were altogether too subconsciously-dominated
to be acceptable companions of people who had evolved to a radical level of
superconscious affiliation, and were therefore unworthy of incorporation into
any truly-advanced civilization.
Already, he was looking on them from a kind of advanced viewpoint
himself, suffering from the gross noise they made every time they barked,
suffering from the excretory filth they left behind in the street which not
only looked bad but smelt bad, suffering, above all, from the fact of their
subconscious orientation, which led to their spending so much time every day
either dozing or sleeping, cocooned, as it were, in sensual torpor. A dualistic people inevitably tolerated dogs
because, being balanced between the subconscious and the superconscious in the
ego at its prime, they took a large amount of the evil in life for granted,
deeming it indicative of the nature of reality.
But a transcendental people would increasingly come to look upon all
forms of evil, including the beastly, as subject to human control and, ultimately,
elimination. They would not claim that
good was dependent on evil for its existence but, on the contrary, that the
less evil there was in life, the more room would there be for good, to the
benefit of the living. These big-city
people would inevitably set about increasing the sum-total of good in life at
the expense of evil, and gradually reduce the latter to negligible proportions,
eventually doing away with it altogether ... as they transcended the body for
the realm of pure spirit.
And so a day would eventually come when they decided to rid
themselves of dogs and thereby minimize or eliminate contact with the
beastly. When that day would come for
certain, and in what form, Michael Reid didn't of course know. But he hoped, anyway, that it wouldn't be too
far into the future, since he was hopeful that such a 'Judgement Day', as he
liked to think of it, should come about in his own lifetime and thus grant him
the satisfaction of dying with the knowledge that the world had extended its
progress over evil and consequently become, for succeeding generations, a
better place in which to live. However,
he didn't expect small-town, village, or country people to sacrifice their dogs
together with city people or, indeed, be required to do so at exactly the same
time. To his way of thinking, they
generally lived on a lower evolutionary plane in closer contact with nature,
and therefore weren't subject to the same pressures as city people.
To be sure, it was a point he had touched upon earlier that
morning, as they drove out of
"Yes, I absolutely agree," said Reid, grateful for an
opportunity to expand on his contentions.
"For it's the product of large-scale urban civilization and
consequently isn't likely to win much support in the country, where people are,
for the most part, less spiritually evolved, since more under nature's sensual
sway. An abstract or biomorphic
sculpture stuck-out in the middle of a field or on the brow of a hill somewhere
- what can it possibly mean? What
relationship can it have with its surroundings?
One might as well transplant a modern skyscraper to the country ... for
all the applicability such a work would have there! For abstract art is essentially an
anti-natural or transcendental phenomenon and, as such, one can hardly expect
it to harmonize with nature! Its proper
place is in the city, not in the wilderness.
Likewise, the proper place of the abstract artist is in the city, not in
the country, village, or small town. For
it's the artist's duty to relate to his environment and further the cause of
progress by being in the creative vanguard of his time. Such, at any rate, is the case for any
genuine, truly great artist, who functions as a kind of psychic antenna, or
reflector of the extent of evolutionary progress in the world at any given
time, and who may even anticipate progress by being a step or two ahead of his
contemporaries. Like Mondrian, he lives
in the city and relates to the artificial nature of his environment by
producing a correspondingly artificial, non-figurative art. But if he learns the tricks of his trade in
the city and then goes to live in the country, where he continues to produce
abstractions - well, to some extent he is a sham, a hypocrite, and not a
genuine or great artist, because creating out-of-context with his rural
environment. He may even find himself
relapsing, after awhile, into some form of representational art in consequence
of its sensuous influence, which would simply result in works of, by city
standards, a largely anachronistic order.
This would automatically lead to his becoming a minor artist, because
all the major ones would be producing work which stemmed from or owed something
to contemporary urban civilization."
"Is all this intended as an oblique criticism of the
estimable likes of Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, and Ben Nicholson?"
asked Shearer on a faintly reproachful note.
They were passing through
"Not really," Reid replied, blushing slightly in spite
of his back-seat immunity from the driver's quizzical gaze. For he knew that Keith Shearer was a great
admirer of these three artists.
"Though I'm convinced it must have some relation to them, insofar as
they lived and worked outside
"And would the fact of his dedication to landscape detract
from claims to true artistic greatness in your eyes?" Shearer asked him.
"To a certain extent it would," Reid admitted,
"since the highest art of the age is decidedly anti-natural and/or
pro-spiritual, like Mondrian's and Kandinsky's, particularly the latter's late
work. It's obviously less good to
preoccupy oneself with trees, fields, hills, etc., than with abstractions, no
matter how linear one's technique may happen to be. It's less good, but, there again, if one's
insufficiently spiritually-advanced to be capable of concentrating solely on
non-figurative work, then it's virtually inevitable, and must be accepted. Nicholson's best work is, I believe, his
abstract reliefs, of which there are many choice examples, all of them a silent
testimony to his transcendental capability.
But bearing in mind his penchant for the figurative and natural, it's
only fair to conclude him a lesser artist than, say, Mondrian or Kandinsky, who
were more consistently and systematically transcendental. I mean, the fact that he lived in such
relatively small places as St Ives and the Ticino for so long would seem to
suggest a desire to be closer to nature, which can only be out-of-keeping with
the greatest artists' urban opposition to it.
Okay, he may not have liked city life, but that's only another reason
for considering him a comparatively minor or, at any rate, lesser artist. All truly great artists should like the city, should see in it the sum of
our evolutionary progress to-date. It's
our passport, if you like, to ultimate salvation in the millennial Beyond, the
future culmination of human evolution.
Without it we would be lost, remaining in some kind of dualistic
twilight between nature and civilization in small towns and villages. Needless to say, a lot of people do remain in that state
and will doubtless continue to remain in it until their environments are
changed and, thanks to the expansion of their towns or villages, they become
more cut-off from nature and thus correspondingly more civilized - biased
towards the spirit. Ultimately, you can
only be what your environment permits or encourages you to be. But if, because of its proximity to nature,
it doesn't permit or encourage you to be particularly transcendental, well
then, you can only be dualistic or perhaps even pagan, as I'm sure a fair
number of real country people effectively are, despite appearances to the
contrary. Which brings us back to what I
was saying earlier, about the evolutionary differences between people,
differences moulded, over and above class, by environment."
"And presumably the fact that we don't all live in the same
time," Shearer remarked, recalling the gist of the previous topic of
conversation.
"Quite so," Reid responded, casting the driving mirror
an emphatic nod. "The provinces are
always more traditional or, depending on your viewpoint, less advanced than the
cities. Indeed, in some respects, they
hardly seem a part of the current century at all, even given all the modern
trappings to be encountered there. For
whatever is truly modern stems from the big city, and although small-town
people may to some extent be influenced by it, they remain moored, as it were,
to the relatively conservative influence of their dualistic environments and
therefore aren't in a position to appreciate it properly. This applies, I believe, as much to religion
and politics as to, say, science and art.
For there are undoubtedly a great many people in the provinces for whom
Christianity and parliamentary democracy have more relevance than some of our
metropolitan progressives would like to believe!"
"Yes, I'm quite sure that's true," Tina conceded,
smiling a shade maliciously. "And
it must go some way towards explaining why such countries as Eire and Spain,
for instance, are given to Catholicism, since largely rural and thus more
natural."
Michael Reid nodded his head again, albeit this time less
emphatically. He had already come to a
similar conclusion some months ago, having equated Catholicism with a lower,
quasi-pagan form of Christianity and Protestantism, by contrast, with a higher,
quasi-transcendental form of it which signified, in his estimation, a kind of
transition to transcendentalism-proper.
Catholic countries, he had noted, were generally or traditionally less urbanized
and industrialized than their Protestant counterparts, altogether closer to
nature. Like everything else, religion
and environment hung together, the one couldn't be completely dissociated from
the other. Overlappings and exceptions
there undoubtedly were, but, basically, the big city wasn't a Catholic
phenomenon. On the contrary, it was
decidedly transcendental, and could only become more so the further it
expanded.
Yes, he was quite proud of the fact that he was a city man and,
as he stared through the car's side windows at the Sussex countryside, he felt
a contempt for the world rising in his soul, a good healthy Christian contempt
for the natural status quo which, at this juncture, appeared in such rural
profusion. Oh yes, the contempt he felt
was justified all right, even in this day and age! Nietzsche had never been able to understand
the Christian contempt for the world and had consequently castigated it,
deeming it symptomatic of decadence. But
Michael Reid understood it all right, and was able to reinterpret it in
contemporary post-Christian terms.... Not that one had to feel it all the time,
or indeed could do so. Still, it was
reassuring to note that evolution was a fact, and that its goal in spiritual
bliss was what ultimately mattered. We
knew the future would be far superior to the present, and so we avoided the
error of systematic complacency in the present, as though this was the best of
all possible worlds which could never be improved upon. Sure, the world had made considerable
progress over the past two-thousand years, and many of the things currently to
be found in it were quite admirable and pleasant. Yet there was still room for contempt. There was still reason to think: 'The world
is undoubtedly better now than it has ever been, but, by God, that's no excuse
for believing it can't become even better in the future, or that what we see
before us is the best that can be done!'
Yes, a little contempt every now and again for the status quo,
especially in its natural manifestation, was by no means a bad thing! For the world man had made was, by and large,
a more admirable or, depending on your standpoint, less contemptible thing than
the subconsciously-dominated world of nature and, as such, it was fitting that
one's greatest contempt should be reserved for the latter and, needless to say,
its principal upholders, whether literary or otherwise. Admittedly, the man-made world was still a
material, and hence imperfect, phenomenon.
But at least it was a means of getting us, or our future descendants, to
the climax of evolution in transcendent spirituality. Without the big city, we would always be
nature's playthings.
But the big city, being of the world, wasn't an end-in-itself,
and accordingly it was worthy of at least some contempt every once in
awhile. For beyond and above the highest
civilization on the planet would come the formation, in Michael Reid's
considered opinion, of the highest possible development in the Universe - namely
the development of pure spirit, which, in its transcendence, would not be of
the world or anything in it. This
ultimate manifestation of divinity would certainly constitute a beyond, nay, the Beyond that Christian
man had long believed in, albeit in his own necessarily narrow, personal, and egocentric
way, with particular reference to posthumous salvation. This would be above any 'happiness on earth'
or 'happiness of the greatest number' that modern socialists believed in and
strove after, since the logical development beyond it. Not so much a millennial climax to evolution,
then, as a transcendental climax, issuing in the Omega Point, de Chardin's term
for Heaven.
Yes, not so much a 'happiness on earth', stuck in front of the
most sophisticated ultra-modern television with the ultra-modern furniture of a
state-subsidised apartment all around one, and regular food, drink, sex, sleep,
perhaps even work (assuming such an activity hadn't been exclusively entrusted
to the machine by then), to prevent one from feeling underprivileged. No, not so much all these constituents of a
'happiness on earth' but, as the eventual outcome of socialist progress, a
happiness far superior to the earthly, in which the spirit reigned supreme and
only the Holy Ghost or the Omega Point, as you prefer, prevailed ... as
ultimate divinity. A perfect happiness
in spiritual bliss rather than an imperfect happiness in material comfort. All Becoming having been resolved in perfect
Being, all Becoming having achieved the calm beingfulness of Eternity.
Such, he believed, would be the final outcome of evolution, for
which, in the meantime, a material comfort was necessary, if only to prepare
the ground, as it were, for the spiritual impetus that would take us on the
last lap to Heaven. A comfort strictly
regulated, however, always kept within certain carefully-prescribed bounds for
fear that a reaction to excessive materialism should set-in and thereby impede
evolutionary progress. Not materialism
in any feudal or capitalist sense, then.
Only the materialism necessary to a society bent on launching itself
into the millennial Beyond through the systematic practice of transcendental
meditation. A lesser materialism, by all
accounts, than anything that had preceded it in the overall development of
civilization. The socialist materialism
appertaining to the ultimate civilization!
Yes, and as Michael Reid continued to stare through the windows
of Shearer's small red Citroën at the predominantly rural environments through
which they were driving, he felt his contempt of nature giving way to an
admiration for human progress and the admirable creature that man in fact was,
especially higher or progressive man. To
be sure, man had done brilliant things in the world and even beyond it, in space. He had written truthful books, composed
lovely music, painted beautiful paintings, fashioned graceful sculptures,
erected enduring monuments, invented sophisticated machines, built impressive
buildings, launched fantastic ships, acted breathtaking parts, climbed
prodigious mountains, designed superb costumes, won important victories,
sustained ingenious systems, etc. etc., to the greater glory of man! But all that, no matter how brilliant, was as
nothing compared with what he had still to do and, if fortune favoured him,
undoubtedly would do in establishing the Omega Point in the Universe and thus becoming
ultimate divinity. All that he had done
would pale to insignificance by comparison with what he would become at the
climax of evolution. Only the Holy
Spirit that evolved out of man's spirit would live for ever. Everything else, including the stars and
planets, would eventually fade away, leaving the Universe to its ultimate
perfection in true divinity. Even the
greatest works man had ever fashioned would fade away, be destroyed as the stars
burnt themselves out and collapsed into nothingness. And all of it - works, nature, planets, and
stars - was contemptible in relation to the Omega Point. Not just the world of which we were a part,
but the material universe as a whole, especially that part of it which may be
deemed the original creative force behind all the habitable planets, and which
Reid regarded as synonymous with the Devil.
Yes, the stars!
Especially were they contemptible in all their infernal heat and
manifold separateness! Not quite
consummate evil though, at least not these days. For time had eaten into them and rendered
them less hot and powerful than they used to be in their cosmic youth, so to
speak. If the Devil was still alive he
or, rather, it wasn't as evil as formerly, but had devolved a fair way along
its diabolic life-span of so many billion years. Yet it was still evil enough, and no matter
for human complacency! Stellar
devolution had quite some way to go before the Devil reached old age and
eventually died. In the meantime, we
could only do our best to further the cause of God, continue human evolution
along the most transcendental lines, extend the realm of civilization over
nature, and so become ever more civilized.
The European nations, reflected Reid, were on the whole pretty
good at this and had a worthy tradition of civilized evolution behind
them. Britain, in particular, had played
a leading role in extending civilization, especially in the nineteenth century,
when its colonial power extended across four continents. A year ago, Reid would have been
anti-colonial. Now, however, he
understood that the soldier who was facing-up, in some hostile African or Asian
terrain, to native opposition ... symbolized the cause of good and not, as
might at first appear, the reality of evil.
In the context of colonial war, it was the British who symbolized good
because closer, in evolutionary terms, to our projected omega culmination of
evolution than were the natives. The
fact that evolution is effectively a journey from the Devil to God, as from
alpha to omega, inevitably implied, in Reid's view, that those further up its
ladder were morally superior to those beneath them and therefore closer, in a
manner of speaking, to the ultimate creation of God. They might not be entirely good, but, in
comparison to their pagan opponents, they were certainly symbolic of progress,
light, change, etc., and consequently worthy of greater respect. Their overriding task is to bring the primitive
to a higher level of evolution by imposing superior criteria upon him, and if
they achieve this, the struggle, no matter how costly, will have been
worthwhile. They are friends of the
primitive in disguise - hard, cold, merciless friends, it may be, but friends
nonetheless! For in the long run they
deliver him from his backwardness and coerce him into something better, drag
him up by the scruff of the neck, as it were, to a higher stage of
evolution. This, to Reid, was good and
necessary, and Britain had done more than its share of dragging up primitives,
over the centuries, to deserve a rest and perhaps even the gratitude of those
now profiting from its example. The
responsibility of leading the way in this respect had now passed, it seemed,
elsewhere, to hands no less capable, one imagined, of achieving their
objectives. But the new world leaders,
while they may be to some extent justified in dealing with Europe, weren't
perhaps the most relevant influence in places like Africa, whose historical and
environmental precedent would suggest that Christianity and democracy have a
future there which it would be foolish to deny.
After all, Africa isn't on the same evolutionary level as Western
Europe, having only comparatively recently been dragged out of its primitive
past.
To be sure, as the car sped towards the Sussex Downs, it
occurred to Reid that what applied to Africa and to a variety of other Third
World regions also had some applicability to the country folk of European
countries, where the contrast between rural and urban life presupposed
different levels of evolution within society as a whole. No use expecting someone in regular contact
with nature to espouse anti-natural sentiments in the manner of a sophisticated
Manichaean city-dweller. No use
expecting him to turn against nature with a transcendental contempt. No use preaching higher spiritual standards
to him, as though words alone were sufficient to bring them about. Words were fairly powerless before the forces
of nature. The only words to which he
could be expected to relate would be written by someone like John Cowper Powys,
himself a long-term country-dweller, whose work blended-in, so to speak, with
his rural surroundings and accordingly reflected nature's sensuous
influence. Viewed from a higher
transcendental vantage-point, Powys might not be the finest of writers, but at
least he was generally at one with his environment, not a countryman
play-acting at transcendentalism or a transcendentalist striving to become a
countryman! If he denounced such
essentially post-dualistic writers as Huysmans, the de Goncourts, Baudelaire,
and Oscar Wilde, one needn't be surprised or offended. He could hardly be expected to eulogize works
like À
Rebour or Les Fleurs du Mal, under the circumstances.
Yet, then again, one could hardly expect a sophisticated
big-city person to eulogize such obviously rural-inspired works as In Defence of
Sensuality or A Philosophy of Solitude, which have the ring of
another age about them, an age when nature played a far greater role in most
people's lives than it did today.
Naturally, there are people for whom Powys would be more
relevant, but they're a dwindling minority confined, for the most part, to
small towns and villages scattered around the country. By far the largest number of people are city
dwellers and, if sophisticated, more likely to find the sort of authors Powys
denounced to their taste. That, at any
rate, was what Michael Reid found to be the case for himself, since he hadn't
touched a Powys tome or any kindred rural-inspired work in years, fearing that
it could have a negative influence on his transcendentalism and accordingly
weaken his resolve to look upon nature with a kind of Mondrianesque disdain.
No, he wasn't going to run the risk of becoming a nature-monger
himself, no matter how depressed the city made him feel at times. If Tina and Keith wanted to indulge in a bout
of Elementalism, or nature-worship, from time to time, good fucking luck to
them! But he wouldn't allow himself to
be dragged into such a venture on a regular basis if the idea caught on. Oh, no!
Once in a while was okay, provided one kept a relatively straight face
about it and didn't convey the impression, like Tina, that one was only too
keen for an opportunity to flounder about amid so much plant life, as though it
were a matter of life-and-death to one!
Tina being a woman, Reid supposed that she probably had greater need of
the elemental than him. And it wasn't as
though she was one of the most spiritual of women, either! On the contrary, there was a fair amount of
flesh on her - enough, at any rate, to make her more sensual than himself. A year or two ago he might have fancied
her. Now, by contrast, he was quite
resigned to her being Shearer's girlfriend.
She was insufficiently slender for him.
He had acquired other standards.
"Not much farther now, is it?" he thoughtfully
inquired of the driver, feeling it was time he said something again.
"Almost there actually," Shearer replied, half-looking
over his shoulder. "Just another
mile or two."
Tina's face appeared to acquire a new lease-of-life with these
words. "We could certainly do with
some exercise, being cooped-up in here for so long," she affirmed. "My legs have gone all stiff."
"Yeah, well I'm sure we'll have plenty of opportunity to stretch
our legs," her boyfriend rejoined with a reassuring smile. "Let's hope the weather stays
fine."
There were a few, thin, innocent-looking clouds in the sky, but
nothing to excite undue alarm or pessimism.
The sun shone down brightly in front of them, and it was an altogether
very warm day, even with the breeze that had sprung-up, causing sporadic
fluctuations in temperature. The car's
interior was rather stuffy though, despite the half-open status of the driver's
window.
"I do hope there won't be too many other people
there," said Tina, following a conversational pause. "It would be so nice to have most of the
place to ourselves."
Shearer smiled sympathetically.
"I rather fear, from the amount of traffic on the road, that
there'll be no shortage of like-minded people about," he declared. "Unless, of course, most of them are
going to the coast. However, let's not
jump to conclusions. Even if there are a lot of others there,
it'll still be relatively deserted by comparison with London, won't it?"
"Yes, I guess so," Tina conceded with a forced
sigh. "As long as we can find
somewhere nice to picnic in peace. I'm
quite famished now."
"So am I," Shearer said.
"Me too," Reid admitted, though he was also beginning
to feel a shade apprehensive, as they approached their destination, and more
concerned about his spiritual integrity than the well-being of his
stomach. He hadn't set foot on the land
of a large open space in over a year and wasn't particularly confident that he
would like the experience. On the
contrary, he was becoming more pessimistic the nearer they got to the Sussex
Downs. So much so that, by the time they
actually arrived at their journey's end, his heart was beating twice as fast as
normally and he had virtually broken into a cold sweat, much as if he were
afraid of turning into a cat or something.
"Here at last!" Tina exclaimed with obvious relish, as
the car drew to a stop on the near side of a large parking area, with the
spectacle of open grassland looming before them. "And not too crowded either, by the look
of it."
"No, I think we'll find plenty of space to wander about in
and act the part of 'noble savages' all afternoon," Shearer confirmed
humorously.
They got out of the car and stood for a moment gazing intently
about them, breathing-in the fresh Downs air which the breeze wafted hither and
thither with wilful ease. Then Tina
attended to the picnic hamper, lifting it from the boot, while Shearer, having
secured his window, locked the doors.
Only Michael Reid continued to stand where he was and survey his new
surroundings - not, however, with pleasure but with mounting horror! For the prospect of having to walk across the
space before them and thereby abandon himself to the vegetation there quite
chilled him, making him feel strangely faint.
How could he, the disciple of
Mondrian and staunch advocate of transcendentalism, possibly allow himself to
be surrounded and well-nigh swamped by so much raw nature, so much
subconsciously-dominated sensuality? How
could he possibly set foot
across the Sussex Downs in order to sit and have lunch amid the Devil's own
creations, when he was a man of God, a pioneer of the spirit in Manichaean
disdain for the sensual? The question
arose in his mind and fairly tormented him.
He hadn't bargained for anything like this when he set out with Tina and
Keith earlier that day, not having been confronted by such a dilemma
before. He hadn't realized just how
spiritually earnest he had become over the past year, how much a man of the
city. Now that he found himself
confronted by so much untamed nature, it seemed as though his very existence as
a spiritual leader was being not merely threatened, but called into
question. He scarcely heard what his
companions were saying to each other, as they came up alongside him with the
hamper. He was far too engrossed in his
thoughts.
"Now then, let's get going, shall we?" Shearer
suggested, smiling confidently at the vast expanse of green scenery that
stretched away before them.
"I say, are you alright, Michael?" asked Tina,
noticing the worried expression on the artist's thin face. He was also quite pale and appeared to be on
the verge of some kind of nervous crisis.
"Well, as a matter of fact, I'm feeling a bit queasy,"
he confessed, becoming shamefaced and slightly embarrassed.
"Good heavens! I hadn't noticed you were ill," Shearer
declared with an expression of spontaneous concern on his handsome face. "Was it the journey or something?"
"Possibly a combination of that and something I ate for
breakfast," Reid impulsively lied.
He couldn't very well tell them the truth!
Tina looked genuinely concerned and suggested to her boyfriend
that perhaps Michael ought to return to the car and rest there awhile. She had half-divined his problem.
Shearer looked puzzled.
"I'd have thought a little fresh air and exercise the best
remedy," he opined, casting the artist a slightly quizzical glance. "Come on, he'll soon be feeling better
once we get under way." And without
further ado, he started off across the grass, almost dragging Tina along with
him.
Automatically, if somewhat reluctantly, Reid followed suit and
accompanied them in the general direction they were heading. But it was as though he had entered a realm
that was hostile to him, a realm where civilization counted for nothing and
spiritual aspirations were negated. The
further away from the car he walked, the more hostile the environment seemed to
become, and he began to feel that he was suffocating in some foreign element,
growing estranged from his normal rhythms.
All around him the thick stubbly grass assumed a deeply menacing aspect,
as though contact with it was slowly sucking the spirit out of him, draining
him of life energy, mocking and undermining him. He shuddered with disgust and came to a
sudden halt. He felt on the point of
throwing-up, so vertiginous had he become.
Already the car was some 80-90 yards behind them. It looked somehow remote and abandoned,
almost betrayed. How could he go on?
Responding to his hesitation, Tina halted beside him, obliging
her hamper-carrying companion to reluctantly do likewise. She could plainly see how distressed he was
by the situation. "Would you rather
return to the car?" she asked on a note of unfeigned concern.
He stared apologetically back at her for an instant, then
quickly nodded his head.
Realizing the situation was beyond his control, Shearer dipped
into his pocket and handed Michael Reid the keys to the car. "I'm sorry you're not well enough to
come with us," he murmured, frowning gently. "But I hope you'll soon get over
whatever has upset you."
"Thanks," the artist responded, making a brave attempt
at smiling.
"You'd better take a couple of sandwiches and a carton of
milk with you," Tina advised him, opening the hamper and dipping her hand
into it for the items in question.
"Here. We can't let you
starve to death while we're away."
As he took the proffered
provisions, Reid thought he could detect in her expression an intuitive
comprehension of his predicament.
"If you become well enough to join us later-on this
afternoon, don't hesitate to do so," Shearer suggested innocently.
"Assuming you can find us, that is!" Tina joked. "Though I don't suppose we'll stray too
far away. We'll probably be back by
half-five or six at the latest." It
was now nearly half-past one.
"I'm sincerely grateful to you both," Reid managed to
say, "and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you."
"No problem," Tina affirmed, smiling reassuringly.
So it was that, with provisions and keys in hand, Michael Reid
quickly returned to the Citroën and gratefully let himself in. He was still feeling somewhat dizzy and
embarrassed, but gradually, adjusting himself to its 'civilized' interior, this
gave way to a feeling of relief, as though he had actually been sick and thus
unburdened himself of an upset stomach.
Never had the interior of a car seemed so pleasant to him as now, and it
wasn't long before he was able to avail himself of the food and drink which
Tina had so thoughtfully and generously given him. Here at least he would be relatively safe
from the Downs, surrounded by a protective shell of civilization. Later, for want of something to do, he would
read the novel he had brought with him and possibly listen to the car radio for
a while. Maybe he would take a walk
round the parking area after he had visited the nearby public
conveniences. And later still, when they
all got back to London, he promised himself that, to compensate his sensual
side for the indulgences he had just denied it, he would eat a large dinner,
take a stroll round the local streets, and go to bed an hour early. But never again would he allow himself to be
cajoled into setting foot on the Sussex Downs!
