Op.
14
SECRET
EXCHANGES
Long
Prose
Copyright
©
2011 John O'Loughlin
_____________
CONTENTS
Chapters
1-10
____________
CHAPTER
ONE
He
was
so
very pleased to be sitting in such close proximity to the paintings he
had
specifically brought Gwendolyn Evans along to the Tate Gallery to view;
to have
them all round him in a dazzling profusion of light and colour.
Yes, it was fundamentally
here, with these
largely abstract-looking canvases, that
modern art
began. Here, with Peace,
Burial
at
Sea,
Around the fifteenth and
sixteenth
centuries in particular, when Western man was in full-flower, there
could not
have been the slightest possibility of an art arising which betrayed a
distinct
predilection for the spirit - for light and colour over form and
substance. Had, by any quirk of
evolutionary fate,
something approximating to a late Turner been produced then, it would
have
struck people as a mess, not art but rather something akin to an
artist's
palette - one that had taken a number of diverse paints and suffered
them to be
experimentally blended. With the
nineteenth century, however, a great change came over the Western mind,
a
change initiated by the Industrial Revolution, itself a product in part
of the
Napoleonic Wars, and the subsequent growth of towns and cities to a
size quite
unprecedented in the entire history of mankind.
No longer was civilized man finely balanced between the sensual
and the
spiritual, the subconscious and the superconscious
minds, but in the process of becoming increasingly biased on the side
of the
transcendent - in short, to whatever reflected his growing isolation
from
nature in the artificial urban and industrial environments he had
created for
himself in response to evolutionary necessity.
From the nineteenth century, it was becoming increasingly
evident that
Western man had passed his prime as an egocentric being, a recipient of
dualistic tension, and accordingly entered a post-egocentric epoch of
transcendental lopsidedness, in which the influence of the superconscious
came to play an ever-more decisive role in shaping his destiny. Hence Turner's late canvases, which reflected
the imbalance that was characterizing modern man. And
hence,
too, their great importance and
significance to such eyes as could be expected, at this more evolved
juncture
in post-egocentric time, to appreciate them - a greater number of
minds, it
should be evident, than would have done so shortly after they were
first
painted.
Yet, despite the eulogistic
comments which
Matthew Pearce was making on behalf of the half-dozen or so brightly
painted
canvases in front of him, Gwen's eyes weren't all that appreciative,
her mind
remaining rather unmoved by them, even though, thanks in large measure
to the
esoteric information being imparted to her by Matthew with regard to
the
general direction of human evolution, she was now in a better position
than
ever before to understand them. Had she
been honest with her boyfriend, instead of trying to please him by
feigning
enthusiasm for the works, she would have confessed, there and then, to
the sad
fact that a majority of the paintings on display in this particular
section of
the Turner bequest left her stone cold, absolutely failed, for one
reason or
another, to interest her. But from
feminine tact, which embraced a certain fear of what Matthew would
think of her
if she disappointed him in this way, she did her best to appear
sympathetic, to
share his unquestionable admiration for those exhibits upon which he
specifically chose to comment.
However, it was far from
easy! For even with the best will in the
world, she
couldn't bring herself to view paintings like Mountain
in
Landscape
and
Not that Matthew Pearce was
unduly
garrulous or imposing, and therefore necessitated one's constant
attention on
his conversation. Yet he was certainly
not a man to allow himself to be led from
painting to
painting at a rate corresponding to the disinterestedness of his
partner! On the contrary, standing or
sitting in front
of a Turner from 3-5 minutes, as he devotedly did in a number of
instances, it
was obligatory for her to fix her attention on the relevant painting
for a
corresponding period of time, even when it wasn't of any particular
interest to
her. A sign of impatience would almost
certainly have offended him, a cursory inspection of the other
occupants of the
room no less than a tendency to flit from one painting to another
independently
of his guidance and running commentary.
Feminine tact was enough to tell her this - now no less than
previously!
Yet it wasn't enough to tell
her that,
after a couple of minutes' silent inspection of Stormy
sea
with
dolphins, Matthew would suddenly change mental tack and, for
the first
time since setting eyes on the Turners, launch out on a swift stream of
criticism concerning the manifest turbulence of the scene portrayed,
which he
considered the worst aspect of Romanticism and the one he could least
abide. For, to his way of thinking, the
turbulent was by nature Satanic, opposed to evolutionary progress
towards blissful
passivity, and, for that reason, something to be condemned. "God knows," he continued, speaking
in a fairly quiet though firm tone-of-voice, "Delacroix and Gericault were worse offenders against 'the
peace that
surpasses all understanding' than ever Turner was!
Yet that doesn't mean to say that he wasn't guilty, from time to
time,
of following suit and producing works which, in their Romantic
turbulence,
correspond to the demonic. That and the
one next to it, the Snow Storm, are typically Romantic in this
respect. They seethe with negativity,
with horribly tortuous activity. Not my
favourite Turner, by any means!"
He broke away from the
canvas in question,
as though from an evil spell, and briskly led Gwen towards the next
room, which
contained works by other English painters.
He looked quite stylish in his tight black denims and puffy
zipper-jacket, stylish enough, at any rate, to attract the passing
attention of
two young women, who caused Gwen to look at him from a broadly personal
viewpoint herself and reflect upon his tidy, if informal, appearance. His dark-brown hair, gathered into a short
pigtail that gently curved down from the back of his head to his neck,
had been
washed only the night before and looked perfectly docile.
With his aquiline profile and large blue
eyes, he was certainly more handsome than the previous men in her life,
which
was of some consolation. He was also
more intelligent, though not perhaps more highly-sexed.
As yet, it was still too soon for her to get
him into proper sexual perspective, since she hadn't known him long
enough. But time would doubtless tell,
and thus enable her to extend her assessment of him to such matters as
were of
specific importance to her as a woman, not simply as an intellectual.
Before entering the next
room, however,
Matthew halted near the exist in front of one last Turner, a relatively
small
work entitled The
Angel
Standing in the Sun, for which he confessed a special
fondness, deeming it one of the master's most spiritually noble
productions - a
shedder of dazzling light.
"Admittedly, not one of his most abstract-tending works," he
softly remarked. "Yet the whole
concept of angelic transcendence and light is really too beautiful. Not altogether surprisingly, it was one of
his last works, dated 1846. I can't help
but admire its mystical symbolism. It is
virtually an epitome of the coming post-human millennium, of man become
superman, or angelic being, surrounded by spiritual light in blissful
self-realization. For, of course, the
essential light of the post-human millennium won't be the sun, though
that will
doubtless continue to exist in heathen selflessness for some time
thereafter,
but the light of spirit in the superconscious
- the
clear, as opposed to unclear or chemical, light. Yet
before
his death, Turner left us this
magnificently paradoxical symbol of mankind's future destiny, one which
will
continue to shine in the hearts of men throughout the coming decades."
He looked sideways at Gwen
to gauge her
response, which, as before, appeared to be fairly sympathetic. She smiled back at him but remained
silent. She didn't have much to say,
since it was all rather bewildering to her, and he sensed as much from
her
reticence. He sensed, too, that she was
probably too shy or reserved to talk in art galleries and was slightly
embarrassed by his speech. Nevertheless
he felt that he had to say something, if only to justify being in her
company. It would have seemed stranger
to him had they gone through the rooms without exchanging a word, as
some
couples evidently did. Hitherto he had
always gone along to the Tate Gallery alone and had remained wrapped-up
in
himself, enshrouded in silence and thoughtful contemplation of the
paintings. Now that he was accompanied by
a woman,
however, he considered it his duty to speak, to offer comments on
several of
the exhibits which particularly impressed or even depressed him. And, besides, he had a burning desire to
instruct, to enlighten, to expatiate. He
hoped he wouldn't be wasting his breath on Gwen who, after all, was an
intelligent young woman - intelligent enough to have gone to college,
at any
rate, and got herself a teaching diploma in French, which she was
currently
justifying in her capacity as French teacher in a south London
comprehensive. So, if that was anything to
judge by, she
ought to be appreciative of the merits of a great painter when she saw
one, and
accessible, moreover, to such evolutionary theories as he was only too
keen to
impress upon her for her own good.
Leaving the last room of the
Turner
bequest, they stepped across the threshold of the next room, which was
divided
into two sections, one small and the other large, and were immediately
confronted by the turbulence of a huge canvas by Francis Danby entitled
The
Deluge,
at which Matthew quickly took umbrage for its Romantic ferocity - the
sight of
so many twisted, struggling nude or semi-nude bodies endeavouring to
climb to
safety from the rushing flood-waters onto the rocks and trees that lay
to-hand,
offering the victims of the deluge a temporary shelter from the waters
of
death. Not a particularly agreeable
spectacle, by any means; though a work of undoubted ingenuity,
reminiscent of
the turbulent waterscapes favoured by Gericault,
Delacroix,
and,
on occasion, the great Turner himself. Compared
with
John Martin's The Plains of
Heaven, which was exhibited, curiously, in the same section of the
room, it
was indeed a hellish context, its violence in complete contrast to the
blissful
serenity of one of Martin's greatest works, the only work on view of
which the
latter-day artist would allow himself to think highly.
In fact, the three canvases by this artist on
display here could be assessed, according to him, on the basis of a
descending
order of merit, The Plains of Heaven, being wholly
transcendent,
signifying the apex of tranquil spirituality, The Last Judgement,
with
the
Saved blissfully to one side of the canvas and the Damned
agonizingly to
the other, presided over by Christ and His angels, signifying a
compromise
between Heaven and Hell, and, finally, The Great Day of His Wrath,
focusing
on
a cataclysmic upheaval in which numerous naked bodies were hurled
with the falling, lightening-cleft rocks into a dark abyss of raging
hell,
signifying virtually the furthest possible remove from blissful
tranquillity. One shuddered at the sight
of it, of so many panic-stricken people plunging helplessly to their
doom in
the ugly black abyss between the sundered rocks! Romantic
pessimism
could go no further. The great
evil at the root of life was
indubitably manifest.
"So far as I'm concerned,"
said
Matthew, suddenly breaking the horrified silence into which he had
fallen in
the presence of this gruesome work, "the scene before us is positively
primeval in its cataclysmic turbulence, a record, one might argue, of
pagan
man, or man tyrannized over by the moral darkness of his subconscious
and
living in fear of a wrathful and largely materialistic deity. It seethes with negativity, it knows no
compromise. Unlike the scene depicted in
The
Last
Judgement, which could be said to signify the
mentality of Christian man, or man torn between the hell of
materialistic
damnation and the heaven of idealistic salvation, half-way up the
ladder of
human evolution in some egocentric compromise.
And there, at the apex of evolution, one finds not a trace of
Hell. For the compromise has been
superseded, and
instead of seething negativity one has blissful positivity,
instead
of
death - life!"
He was of course referring
Gwen's attention
to The
Plains
of Heaven, which he considered significant of the
culmination of transcendental man's spiritual aspirations.
As yet, we were still too close to the
dualistic compromise for comfort; we still had a long way to go before
attaining
to a life of transcendent bliss. Yet we
were certainly heading in the right direction, our spiritual bias on
the side
of the superconscious was becoming more
evident all
the time and would doubtless continue to develop over the coming
decades ...
until such time as not a trace of egocentric dualism remained, and we
entered
the post-human millennium - the heaven that John Martin had ingeniously
symbolized through a tranquil, otherworldly landscape peopled by the
Blessed.
Oh yes, there could be
little doubt that we
were now closer to that heavenly culmination than Western society had
ever been
in the past! We were no longer as
dualistic, thank goodness, as our egocentric forebears in the heyday of
Christianity. We didn't give much
credence to Hell. We didn't like the
concept of compromise. Still less what
had preceded it. The
Great
Day
of His Wrath could hardly be expected to attract all that many
enthusiastic admirers these days, least of all for its cataclysmic
subject-matter! No, it was to The
Plains of Heaven that the enlightened modern man instinctively
turned, eager
to see there the goal of human evolution.
This painting had relevance to him.
The others didn't. This was John
Martin's highest conceptual achievement, a fact which Matthew was keen
to impress
upon his girlfriend as they stood in front of the large canvas for
about three
minutes, admiring and studying. And he
was no less keen to impress upon her the fact that, taken together, the
three
canvases in the vicinity of where they were standing signified a
summary of
human evolution, beginning with the pre-Christian, progressing to the
Christian, and culminating in the post-Christian - the wholly
transcendent. A
journey, as it were, from agony to bliss via a dualistic
compromise.
"Yes, I see your point,"
Gwen
admitted, smiling coyly.
"Psychologically, one could argue that The
Deluge
is on a similar plane to The Great Day of His Wrath," she
added,
turning back towards the Danby, plunging from the heights of Heaven to
the
depths of Hell in a split second.
"Indeed!" concurred Matthew,
following her across the room.
"Although Danby does at least provide one with an angel weeping
over the death, it would appear, of a flood victim.
Yet that's psychologically inept, in my
opinion, since angels shouldn't weep. As
symbolic representatives of transcendent spirituality, they should be
incapable
of indulging in negative emotions. They
should pertain to the blissful tranquillity of Heaven, not weep like
poor
wretches from a more mundane realm. They
should be spiritually consistent - bringers of love and joy. A weeping or angry angel would seem to be a
contradiction in terms."
"Well, Francis Danby
evidently
considered it symbolically apt to have a representative from the divine
realm
saddened by all the evil afoot," Gwen declared pithily.
"So it would seem," Matthew
conceded, smiling wryly. "Yet is
still strikes me as rather surreal, if you see what I mean. An angel in Hell? Very unlikely! Unless, of course, it was a
fallen angel. But, then, fallen
angels aren't really angels in the true sense, are they?"
Gwen couldn't very well
argue with
that! She simply moved on a few paces to
a canvas by Samuel Colman entitled The
Destruction
of the Temple (c.
1830) which, with its lightening-stricken crumbling stone and
panic-stricken
inhabitants, appeared unequivocally hellish, unequivocally on a
psychological
level with the pre-Christian.
Undoubtedly a very imaginative work, but hardly one guaranteed
to
inspire one with any great confidence in the coming post-human
millennium! Nevertheless, as they were
about to take
their leave of it for the larger section of Room 16, Matthew elected to
say a
few words in praise of the transparency of a majority of the figures
therein
portrayed which, so he maintained, were agreeably transcendent.
No such comment, however,
could he allot to
the Pre-Raphaelite and associated paintings which now confronted his
weary gaze
as, reluctantly, he shuffled after Gwen and stepped into a world of
late
Victorianism. Ugh, how he had come to
loathe the Pre-Raphaelites! How
reactionary they seemed to him these days, in light of what the
Impressionists
had been doing in
Not that the Middle Ages
were as black or
bleak as was sometimes thought by contemporary liberals.
Yet they were by no means as agreeable as a
spell in the fanciful illusions of Pre-Raphaelitism might have led one
to
suppose! Nor would
they have offered one much consolation for the upheavals of modern life. There was nothing particularly heavenly about
an age of mounting dualism. Nothing charitable about the great castles which had
been erected
to protect the nobility from fellow noblemen, popular unrest, and
foreign
invasion. Compared with the
present, it was undoubtedly closer to Hell, even given all the horrors
and
limitations which beset the modern world.
Yet the Pre-Raphaelites didn't want to see that.
They preferred to turn their back on
industrial progress and large-scale urbanization for the sake of a
comforting
illusion which medievalism seemed to offer them. They
preferred
to think in terms of an
illusory Golden Age of the English past in which chivalrous knights
came to the
timely rescue of beautiful damsels in distress, and people lived in
harmony
with nature. They had no desire to learn
from Constable or Turner and follow in their progressive footsteps by
adopting
a transcendental approach to painting.
That was left, on the contrary, to the Impressionists, those
glorifiers
of spirituality in light and colour, those disintegrators of matter. The Pre-Raphaelites, by contrast, appear to
have had scant taste for spiritual leadership - assuming they would
have known
how to recognize it in the first place.
Instead, they preferred to thematically regress not merely to
the
previous century but some five or six centuries, and to paradoxically
pretend
that such a regression was effectively a kind of progress.
To them, an aristocratic society would have
made more sense than a proletarian one.
It would have corresponded to a Golden Age, whereas what was
going on
around them in the industrial world signified a tarnishing of the mean,
a
societal 'fall' from natural grace, which no right-thinking person
could
possibly condone. Therefore back to the
days of old when knights were bold and
It was with some
psychological displeasure
that Matthew Pearce observed the titles and subject-matter of the
paintings on
display here, in the larger section of Room 16.
He was not at all resigned to what seemed like an enthusiasm for
them on
the part of Gwen, who peered eagerly into the canvases, let fall a
whispered
"too beautiful!" or a respectful "so choice!" every now and
then, as though to assure him that she had a fairly developed aesthetic
sense
and was confident he would agree with her as a matter of course - a
thing
which, to some extent, he was superficially prepared to do, since the
paintings
here, as elsewhere, of the leading Pre-Raphaelites were of course
generally
quite beautiful and obviously the work of highly skilled artists. Yes, naturally! No-one
with
an ounce of culture could
possibly deny that such exhibits had beauty and were accordingly
deserving of
some respect. Yet all that was somehow
beside-the-point, painfully irrelevant to the evolution of modern art,
and he
was disappointed with Gwen, after all he had said to her, that she
couldn't see
it. To her, they were skilfully painted
representational works with noble subject-matter. To
him,
by contrast, they were traitors to
the age, down-dragging influences in an age of mounting
transcendentalism.
Yes, of course King
Cophetua and the Beggar Maid, The Lady of Shalott, and The Knight Errant,
painted by
Bourne-Jones, Waterhouse, and Millais
respectively,
were accomplished works, done with loving care and an eye for detail. One couldn't doubt that! Yet
how
frightfully anachronistic they
seemed, how devoid of contemporary significance when compared with
Turner's
most revolutionary works - works, for example, like Scene in Venice,
Venice
from the Salute, or even Interior at Petworth,
the
abstract
impression of which was to set the tone for the next century
and
influence all or most of the leading painters of the age!
Could one say the same of the
Pre-Raphaelites? Not if one knew
anything about modern art! Theirs was a
lost cause, as lost as that of the French Symbolists, with their fin-de-siècle
decadence. From Turner, the torch of
modernism had passed to the Impressionists, especially to Monet, Sisley, and Pissarro,
and
from
them it was handed down more diversified to the twentieth century via
the
Post-Impressionists, Nabis, and Divisionists
who, in their various ways, were to keep the belief in progress alive
and
weather the storms of decadence and reaction which swept all about them. But The Lady of Shalott,
in
front
of which Gwen was now standing, rapt, it appeared, in
wholehearted
admiration, had very little faith in progress and nothing to say to
modernity. The stream which bore its
heroine away from Camelot was only a variant on the current of
reactionary
sentimentality which enabled Waterhouse, its Tennysonian
creator, to be borne away from the nineteenth century towards an
imaginary
realm of medieval romance. There was
little about the work to suggest that a new era of human evolution had
recently
got under way, superior to anything in the past. Strictly
speaking,
it wasn't an integral part
of late-nineteenth-century art. It had
no real relevance to the age. It had
simply been imposed upon it out of a longing for mythical escape. To Matthew Pearce, however, it was something
to be escaped from! He had no desire to
tally there any longer in the world of the reactionaries.
He couldn't share Gwen's respect for Pre-Raphaelitis.
"But don't you like it?" she
protested, as he tugged her away from the Waterhouse, as though from a
bedbug,
and made for the room's nearest exit.
"No, I bloody well don't!"
he
firmly and almost categorically asseverated, not bothering to look at
her. "I've no respect for
down-draggers!"
She didn't quite understand
him, but said
no more. She was disappointed that he
didn't share her tastes in art, yet in no
way anxious
to quarrel with him. She knew that he
had his reasons and wouldn't be diverted from them by anything she said
on
behalf of her own. She had to accept
him. Yet she was conscious, as they
walked back through the earlier rooms again and on towards the main
exit, that
an apocalyptic-like rift had opened-up between them - one doubtless
born of
their dissimilar wavelengths - into which they were now tumbling, as
into a
hell of their own contrivance. No matter
how hard she tried to learn from him and accept his views as her own,
she
couldn't surmount her previous conditioning overnight, so to speak, and
thereby
climb straight onto his level of awareness.
The words she heard him speak made no real impression on her
soul. She wasn't ready for them. Her pretence of complicity in awareness had
been exposed in Room 16, and she knew he resented it.
Now she was secretly angry with herself for
having allowed her natural response to the genius of the
Pre-Raphaelites to be
aired in such obviously eulogistic terms, completely overlooking the
fact that
Matthew might not think so highly of it.
Instead of continuing to play second-fiddle to him, she had
suddenly taken
the lead, and it was not one that he had any intentions of following. It had been a foolish miscalculation on her
part!
CHAPTER
TWO
"Any
sign
of
them yet?" Thomas Evans casually inquired of his wife, as she
peered out through the sitting-room's large front windows onto the
driveway
leading up from the wooden gateposts, some thirty yards away, to their
front
door.
"Yes, I didn't think my ears
were
deceiving me," Deirdre Evans replied, automatically turning away from
the
windows. "They're half-way up the
drive." She hesitated a moment,
looked back over her shoulder, and smiled to herself.
"I must say, Gwendolyn appears to have
found herself quite a good-looking boyfriend at last!
Neatly dressed and handsome with it! That's
not
a combination one sees that often
these days."
"You saw it often enough in
my
day," Mr Evans declared, putting down his newspaper and casting an
exploratory glance through the front windows - a glance, alas, which
was too
late to catch the approaching figures outside.
For they had already reached the front door
and
disappeared from view. The
driveway was once again empty and silent, its copious gravel no longer
responding to the regular clump of purposeful feet.
The afternoon August sun shone down brightly
into the house, illuminating a patch of carpet and part of the tea
table to one
side of the seated man. At the sound of
the doorbell, his wife had swiftly passed in front of him, leaving, in
her
excited wake, a trail of patchouli perfume which tickled his nostrils
and, in
conjunction with the swishing sound of her nylon stockings, aroused him
to a
momentary lasciviousness. There was an
expectant pause while the door opened and then, characteristically, a
gush of
exuberant greetings, as mother and daughter spontaneously embraced in
the
watchful presence of their guest, whom Gwen duly introduced.
"So glad to meet you,
Matthew,"
announced Mrs Evans, extending to the artist a small graceful hand. "My daughter has already told me all
about you in one of her recent letters to me, so I wasn't altogether
unprepared
for you." She let go of his hand
and gently smiled into his face.
"How did the journey go?" she asked, in due course.
"Oh, quite well, thanks," he
replied. "The train ran on time
anyway."
"Yes, and thanks to the fine
weather,
it was a pleasure to gaze at the passing countryside," said Gwen.
"Or such of it as is left
between
"Quite."
Glancing from the one to the
other, Matthew
discovered that Gwen's face had very little in common with her
mother's, other
than a slightly retroussé
nose. For the eyes and hair of both women
were of
different colours and the chins of different shape - Mrs Evans' curved,
Gwen's
quite straight. One would hardly have
taken them for mother and daughter at first glance; though a more
lingering
comparison might have led to one's discovering similarities here and
there, the
most pronounced of which undoubtedly being the type of nose. Yet Deirdre Evans seemed further to elude the
status of Gwen's mother by dint of an appearance at once youthful and
seductively attractive, which suggested not so much motherhood as elder
sisterhood. In fact, Matthew was
somewhat surprised to find her so youthful-looking, though he assumed
from
Gwen, who had just turned twenty-two, that she must be at least forty. In point of fact, she was thirty-nine, having
conceived her daughter at the tender age of seventeen, a mere six
months into her
marriage. But such information wasn't to
be imparted to the artist there and then, as he stood next to his
girlfriend
and endeavoured to compare the two women while they talked. He would have to content himself with
guesswork, which, in any case, had been pretty close.
Turning away from her
daughter, Mrs Evans
suddenly said: "Now then, Matthew, come and meet my husband, whom I'm
sure
will be delighted to see you."
"Yes, I'd almost forgotten
about
dad," Gwen murmured, catching hold of her boyfriend's sleeve and
well-nigh
dragging him in her mother's turbulent wake.
"He's evidently in the sitting room."
Which of
course he was,
and still seated in his favourite armchair with pipe in mouth and the
daily
paper on his lap. He rose
unsteadily to shake hands with the visitor, cast his daughter a
welcoming nod,
and, no sooner than these social obligations had been perfunctorily
dispatched,
gratefully relapsed into his chair again, pipe still in mouth. One might have supposed from his behaviour
that the reception of a stranger into his house was nothing
out-of-the-ordinary, even if that stranger did happen to be his
daughter's
latest boyfriend. At any moment,
disdaining ceremony or curiosity, he might have picked up his paper
again and
carried on reading as though nothing had happened.
But that was only a surface impression. For,
in
reality, he welcomed the prospect of
finding out what kind of a young man Gwen had got herself involved with
this
time.
It wasn't therefore long
before, having
taken the chair offered him shortly after entering the room, Matthew
found himself drawn into conversation with Mr Evans on the subject of
Gwen,
which of course was common to them both, if from rather different
angles. "She told me you wrote to her a
few
weeks ago," Mr Evans stated, by way of an opening gambit, "and
invited her to meet you somewhere in north London, if that was
possible."
"That's right," Matthew
admitted,
blushing slightly in the presence of the two women.
He wondered whether he hadn't let himself in
for some kind of interrogation on the subject.
"Hampstead Heath, to be precise," he added, for Mr Evans'
benefit.
"And you apparently hadn't
written to
her for well over two years prior to that?"
"No,
quite true. The previous letter I'd
sent to her didn't
receive an answer, so I assumed she had no desire to contact me. I'd also written one even earlier than that
... about three-and-a-half years ago, but she didn't respond to that
either. I didn't realize, at the time,
that she might have changed address beforehand and not had the letters
forwarded-on
to her. Since they weren't returned to
me, I had no way of knowing. Indeed, it
didn't even occur to me to use the second address she had given me that
day we
first met, namely yours - not, at any rate, until quite recently, when
I began
to consider the possibility of writing to her again.
I must have been too pessimistic about the
fate of the earlier letters."
"Which, presumably, had
simply gone to
an address she was no longer resident at?"
"Yes,
precisely! But I didn't discover
that until we got into
correspondence quite recently, I having decided, after all, to send a
letter to
her care of you, a letter which I must thank you for having
forwarded-on to her
Mr Evans vaguely waved a
hand in the
direction of the women, who were seated together on a nearby couch,
before
saying: "Don't thank me, dear boy, thank my wife. It
was
she who re-addressed it."
Matthew deferred to Mrs
Evans with a polite
smile. He was still feeling embarrassed
by the turn of conversation, but did his best not to show it.
"I hear you first met my
daughter
outside Kenwood House in Highgate, north
"Yes, a Sunday afternoon
about four
years ago," he obliged. It was so
hateful to be reminded of the fact.
Obviously Gwen had spoken to her mother on the subject!
"And that was the last you
saw of her
until a couple of weeks ago, when she met you in
"Unfortunately so," Matthew
confessed, feeling more than a shade disgruntled by this further
example of
parental curiosity concerning his relations with their daughter. "Had she not changed address, a few
months after we met, I might have received a reply sooner.
But she decided against notifying me, so I
continued to send futile letters to her old one instead.
Since I didn't get around to writing to her
until some five months after our brief acquaintance, she imagined, in
the
meantime, that I'd lost interest in her and that it therefore wasn't
desirable
or necessary for her to notify me of any change of address. However, by the time I finally got round to
writing - and writing letters, alas, has never been my forte
- she had already moved house over a month previously, which
is why
I didn't receive a reply."
"You ought to have written
to her care
of us after that," Mr Evans commented, pipe in hand.
"Yes, so I realize," the
artist
admitted, feeling still more disgruntled with himself.
But he hadn't and that was that! He
had ignored their address and preferred to
concentrate on the
"Well, at least he wrote to
me care of
you eventually," said Gwen, offering her admirer some moral support.
"Better late than never, I
suppose," Mr Evans conceded.
"Though you could well have been deeply attached to someone else
at
the time and therefore not in a position to answer it in quite the way
Mr
Pearce would have hoped."
This was hardly the kind of
suggestion to
win the latter's approval. Yet he
retained a discreet silence, in spite of its essentially baleful effect
on
him. He was beginning to regret that he
had ever written the damn letter at all and wasn't still in London,
miles away
from this rather cantankerous individual who sat opposite him with an
evil-smelling pipe in his mouth and an even more evil-looking newspaper
on his
lap. Better, perhaps, to have forgotten
about Gwen than to have dragged her into his life again after so long. Yet, deep down, he knew that his recent
letter to her was virtually inevitable, insofar as he had no other
woman to write
to and was still desperately searching for love. Gwen
had
not been his first and truest
love. As yet, she was scarcely even his
second. But she possessed the dubious
distinction of being the only woman he had met, during the past four
years, who
bore a strong physical resemblance to his first love, and it was
primarily for
this reason that he had written to her in the hope of establishing some
degree
of intimate contact. His judgement had
told him that if he couldn't find his first love again - and he had no
way of
contacting her since she disappeared from his life one sad August
afternoon
several years before - he would be well-advised to find someone like
her,
someone with whom it would be possible to form a deep and lasting
relationship. Hence Gwen, being the
nearest thing to her,
had gradually acquired a special significance in this respect, despite
the
relative brevity of his prior meeting with her and the subsequent
time-lag in
their correspondence. Had someone else
come along in the meantime, to fill the void in his love-life, he would
never
have dreamt of contacting her.
Unfortunately for him, however, no-one else had, so the void had
remained unfilled.
Even now that he had
established close
contact with Gwen and made her his girlfriend, he was far from
convinced it was
being filled. For, as already noted, he
hadn't yet succeeded in falling in love with her and was privately
disappointed
by the fact that, in a number of respects, she existed on a completely
different wavelength from himself, not, by any means, as spiritually
close to
him as he had imagined, on the dubious basis of their first meeting,
that she
would be.
That day, outside Kenwood
House, they had
talked for ages about art and travel and religion and other substantial
subjects
of mutual interest, and Matthew had come away with the impression that
he had
at last met a kindred spirit - a person with whom intimate conversation
was
possible. Yet now, all these years
later, it seemed to him that he may have been mistaken in his initial
impression or, alternatively, inclined to modify it in his imagination
in the
meantime, since his recent relations with Gwen had exposed numerous
disparities
between them and accordingly caused him to cast suspicion upon his
previous
assumptions.
For instance, that afternoon
at the Tate, a
few days ago, he had become gravely disillusioned by her manifest
admiration
for and enjoyment of the Pre-Raphaelites, which seriously conflicted
with his own
attitude, based on radically post-Raphaelite taste.
She had only come to cultural life,
it seemed to him, when they entered the Pre-Raphaelite
section of Room 16. Her responses to
Turner, on the other hand, had been decidedly cool, especially where
the more
abstract-looking works were concerned.
It was as though she didn't comprehend the creative significance
of what
Turner had done and was consequently all-too-inclined to undervalue his
work,
to see in the gradual reduction of concrete representation a mess and
incompetence rather than a radical breakthrough to a higher level of
spiritual
awareness. Only with the more
conventional early works did she appear to have any spontaneous
interest, to
stand in front of them with any degree of pleasure and occasionally
make some
eulogistic comment. With the later and
less conventional ones, on the other hand, it didn't take Matthew long
to
realize that she wasn't really there, didn't really appreciate what
they
signified in the development of modern art.
She appeared to withdraw into herself and clam-up, to respond
but weakly
to his enthusiasm. Even The
Angel
Standing
in the Sun didn't appear to make any great impression on
her, no
matter what he said on its behalf.
Yes, it was evident that
Gwen wasn't quite
as kindred a spirit as Matthew had initially imagined,
or that if, by any chance, she had once been closer to him, she had
evolved in
a different way during the course of the past four years.
Of the two possibilities, he wasn't quite
sure which one to attribute more importance to, though he had a growing
suspicion that the first was probably nearer the truth.
For time could only be subordinate to
essence, since people who were essentially alike in their spiritual
predilections remained so, no matter how long separated by time. Still, it was perhaps too early, as yet, for
Matthew to dismiss Gwen as a mistake on his part, and he was grateful,
in spite
of the cultural differences which existed between them, for the
friendship she
had granted him. At least that was
something to be pleased about!
Meanwhile, the conversation
had switched,
much to Matthew's relief, to the subject of art, and specifically to
his art,
which Mr Evans seemed anxious to investigate after a rather cynical
fashion. "I mean, you're not one of
these abstract artists, are you?" he fairly snorted, momentarily
removing
pipe from mouth. "One
who throws or flicks paint over the canvas and calls the deplorable
result a
work of art?"
"Not quite; though I do
indulge in a
form of Post-Painterly Abstraction on occasion," the artist confessed
in a
slightly defensive tone-of-voice.
"What-on-earth's that?" Mr
Evans
asked condescendingly.
"Well, it's a kind of
simple,
geometrical abstraction employing only a few colours to create a
predominantly
classical as opposed to, say, romantic type of modern art," Matthew
informed him. "One might argue that
it generally looks neater than Abstract Expressionism, since primarily
a matter
of form rather than feeling. Essentially
an American phenomenon of the 'forties, it's now somewhat out-of-date,
which is
why I don't indulge in it very often.... Art styles change very rapidly
these
days, you know."
"Perhaps that's just as
well," Mr
Evans averred sarcastically. "So
what do you generally indulge in, if that's not too sweeping a
question?"
"Well, I work in a variety
of styles
actually, sometimes veering in the direction of Op Art, with the use of
closely
knit wavy or angular strips of paint to create an illusion of movement,
like
one finds in Bridget Riley. Sometimes
veering in the direction of still life influenced by Pop Art, with the
use of
simple outlines painted in bright or matt tones of pure paint, like one
finds
in Patrick Caulfield. Sometimes even
veering in the direction of Computer Art, with the use of more complex
geometrical shapes which reflect the influence of technology, like one
finds in
Eduardo Paolozzi.
And sometimes making use of minimalist techniques, in which only
a few
lines or dots or other simple forms are painted onto the canvas, and
the result
is extremely simplistic, suggestive of a greater degree of abstraction
than had
been achieved by most of the earlier abstract artists ... with the
notable
exceptions of the Italian, Fontana, and the Frenchman, Klein, who
preferred to
leave the canvas blank or to paint it white."
"And you call all that art?"
Mr
Evans exclaimed, almost choking on his pipe.
"A blank or monochromatic canvas - art?"
"Certainly modern art,"
Matthew
admitted as calmly as possible. He had
anticipated some such outburst on his interlocutor's part.
"The general tendency being towards
increased abstraction in one form or another, the most radical modern
art
completely breaking away from the traditional three-dimensional,
representational concept of art."
"But why-on-earth does it
have to do
that?" Mr Evans objected obdurately.
"Because it does," the
artist
matter-of-factly stated, instinctively shying away from the immense
abyss of
dissimilar awareness which had suddenly opened up, hell-like, between
them. He didn't have the nerve, at
present, to attempt bridging it, nor much confidence that such an
attempt would
meet with any success. It was obvious
that the reactionary philistine in front of him had no real desire to
find out
why modern art had to be modern. If he
had, he would have found out long ago!
No, it was perfectly clear that he was more interested in
discrediting
it than in seeking to justify its radicalism in the light of industrial
and
environmental change.
"But surely an artist should
put
something recognizably artistic onto a canvas," Gwen's father
protested,
before Matthew could add anything to his initial reply.
"I mean, what's the point of a
monochromatic canvas or, alternatively, of a canvas covered in
geometrical
patterns, zigzag lines, or whatever? How
can that have any relationship to genuine art?" He
stared
sternly, almost offensively so, at
his guest, as though wholly confident of the fact that he represented
the voice
of sanity and the artist, if not insanity, then certainly folly.
"I don't know whether it has
any
relationship to conventional art as such," Matthew replied,
endeavouring
not to show his impatience. "But it
definitely has one to modern art. So far
as Western art is concerned, there are essentially three kinds, viz.
the
pre-Christian, the Christian, and the post-Christian, each of which
follows its
own rules within carefully prescribed boundaries."
"That may well be," the
pipe-smoker countered with an air of exasperation.
"But the way I see it, a lot of modern
art simply isn't art."
"It isn't Christian art, so
it can't
be judged by exactly the same standards as an art which was largely
representational," Matthew averred.
"You have to judge it from a post-Christian viewpoint - from the
viewpoint, namely, of twentieth-century transcendentalism.
Then it will make some sense to you. But
if
you think that there's only one kind
of art, viz. Christian, and that all art should correspond to it and be
judged
by it, then I'm afraid you're very much mistaken."
Mr Evans appeared to be
taken-aback, much
as though he hadn't expected Matthew to rebut his criticism so
confidently. And he appeared baffled
moreover, evidently uncertain of what the artist meant by 'Christian
art'. On the face of it the term seemed to
imply
crucifixions, visitations, resurrections, and the like, with strictly
Christian
associations. Was this so?
He put the question to his guest.
"No, by 'Christian' I don't
just mean
religious art," Matthew declared, "but any art, no matter how secular
its subject-matter, which was painted from approximately the 12-18th
centuries,
during the period, one might say, of strong Christian influence. In other words, an art which is dualistic,
reflecting Western man's compromise position between the subconscious
and the superconscious, rather than an art
reflecting one or other
of the psychic extremes, like one finds in the pre- and post-Christian
periods. Therefore Christian art is
balanced between illusion and truth, the sensual and the spiritual,
Hell and
Heaven, etc., through whichever dualities you care to name. It's largely a consequence of the
environmental position of Western man during the time he lived in a
more-or-less balanced condition between nature and civilization in his
towns. As soon as the balance began to
tip in favour of civilization and the superconscious,
however,
Christian
art started to decline and continued to decline the more
tipped the balance, so that only a post-Christian, non-representational
art was
possible or, at any rate, truly representative of the age."
"I'm afraid I don't quite
follow
you," Mr Evans confessed, not bothering to disguise his bewilderment. "I mean, what-on-earth is the superconscious? I
haven't heard of such a term before."
No, he hadn't.
And it was almost as though one should
congratulate him for it, congratulate him
for his
ignorance and average middle-class mediocrity!
Matthew was fairly annoyed for having allowed himself to get
drawn into
an explication of art in relation to environmental transformations, for
having
given way to his penchant for high-flown didacticism in this patently
philistine sitting-room. Yet, protest as
he might, it had been forced upon him by the necessity of justifying
modern art
and, through that, his own work in the face of unenlightened opinion. He had no option but to continue, to respond
to Mr Evans' ignorance.
"Well, to put it as simply
as
possible, the superconscious is the
highest part of
the psyche, the intellectually- and spiritually-biased part of the mind
as
opposed to its emotionally- and sensuously-biased part," he obliged. "It's that part signifying moral light
as opposed to moral darkness, good as opposed to evil, positivity
as opposed to negativity - in short, love as opposed to hate. It is spirit at its lowest and highest, the
spirit of intellectuality and the spirit, more importantly, of pure
awareness,
of timeless bliss. The former on the
lower level, the latter higher up ... at the apex, one might say, of
mystical
beatitude. Indeed, it has been contended
- and not without justification - that its topmost level is capable of
identification with the Infinite; that, through it, man can come to a
direct if
partial knowledge of the Godhead; that the inner light is indeed
commensurate
with the essence of spirit per
se, and thus equivalent to the truth
beyond all appearances. For one can
experience an intimation of ultimate reality through the superconscious
mind if one so desires or, to put it more accurately, if one is in a
position
to, that's to say, if one has the time, patience, inclination, and
determination to dedicate oneself to the cultivation of pure awareness. It won't come to one who hasn't properly
prepared himself in advance, who hasn't dedicated his life to regular
and sustained
bouts of mystical concentration. It has
to be earned."
"Presumably as the fruit of
Transcendental Meditation," Mr Evans observed in an impatient
tone-of-voice. "Frankly, I'm afraid
I can't accept what you say about the superconscious
being capable of identification, partial or otherwise, with God. It has never convinced me, this mystical
theory of God as a state-of-mind, 'a being withdrawn', or whatever the
quotation is, with which one can get into direct contact.
It all sounds too arbitrary. The
fact of a superconscious
mind may be true, but I don't see that one should be led to infer the
existence
of God from it. After all, there have
been other concepts of God as well, so what is there about this one
that should
single it out for special commendation?"
"Simply the fact that it's
true and
corresponds to ultimate reality," Matthew insisted.
"Oh, come now!" Mr Evans
protested. "Just because some
people - mystics or whatever they're called - believe it to be true,
that
doesn't mean to say it really is so!
Some people believe Jesus Christ to be God, but so what? Does that mean that, ultimately, Christ
really is God? I've never thought so,
anyway, and I'm nominally a Christian, not a Jew, a Moslem, a Hindu, or
whatever. To me, Christ is simply a man
who happened to get himself taken for God in some parts of the world
while the
legitimacy of an anthropomorphic viewpoint prevailed."
"In a sense, He's that for
me
too," Matthew confessed, blushing deeply in spite of himself. For he was aware of the relativity of the
term under discussion and felt that, while Christ wasn't exactly
ultimate
divinity, He was still divine to the degree of signifying a compromise
between
one level of divinity and another, the Father and the Holy Ghost, and
thus had
as much right, within relative terms, to be regarded as God as the
other and
more extreme parts of the Trinity.
"Yet I don't see why one should therefore disbelieve in a
spiritually achieved intimation of God as the mystics conceive of Him,"
he
went on. "I don't see why a lower
concept of God, founded as much on illusion as on truth, should prevent
one
from taking a higher concept of divinity seriously.
After all, there are plenty of people, these
days, who are too enlightened to believe in God when conceived, say, as
either
Jesus Christ or some white-bearded Creator lording it over the Universe. In other words, when conceived in traditional
anthropomorphic terms, and who therefore consider themselves atheist."
"I, for
one!"
Mr Evans declared.
"Yes, well, such people
often imagine
they're above belief in God simply because what has hitherto been taken
for
divinity fails to convince them," Matthew continued.
"They come to a halt two-thirds of the
way up the ladder of religious evolution under the delusion that
they've
actually reached the top or, rather, gone beyond it, transcended
religion
altogether, and then flatter themselves that they're too intelligent to
believe
in God. For it's a taken-for-granted
tenet of their philosophy that God, of whatever conception, is an
illusion, a
figment of the imagination which a less-enlightened ancestry were
inclined to
take too seriously. To them, religion is
a system of illusions or superstitions, beneath the dignity of an
atheistic
mind."
"Well, isn't that what it
essentially
is?" Mr Evans countered, his face turning red with consternation.
"No, no more than art is or
must
inevitably be," Matthew confidently retorted. "Like
art,
religion can be divided into
roughly three stages, corresponding to the nature of the environment
and the
degree of evolution manifested in it at any given time.
There's a religious sense largely founded on
the subconscious, which is dark and fearsome, involving propitiatory
sacrifice
to a cruelly vengeful deity. It's the
equivalent of Creator-worship and is totally illusory, having no basis
in
reality whatsoever. It isn't necessary
to slay animals or people to win the favours of this Creator-God for
the simple
reason that such a deity, conceived in anthropomorphic terms, is
largely if not
purely a figment of the imagination. Yet
those who exist in this pre-Christian context can't be expected to
realize
that, since they're victims of the subconscious, unable to transcend
its
dominion to any appreciable extent - least of all to an extent which
would
enable them to see through their illusions.
They're too primitive, too much under nature's sway, and
consequently
too sensual to have any qualms about worshipping or, rather, fearing
and
propitiating a deity who corresponds to their subconscious enslavement. Being predominantly sensual, they project
their sensuality on to their deity, and accordingly endeavour to
appease him in
an appropriately sensual manner, usually through blood sacrifices
though also,
as in the case of the ancient Greeks - a slightly less fearful and
generally
more egocentric people on the whole - through sexual orgies ..."
A titter of laughter erupted
from the
direction of the couch to Matthew's right, though Mrs Evans, less
amused than
her daughter, merely smiled her tacit acknowledgement of ancient Greek
religiosity or, at any rate, to such of it as their guest had alluded.
"Well, if these
pre-Christian or pagan
peoples are more under the sway of the subconscious than of the superconscious," Matthew continued, ignoring as
best
he could Gwen's non-verbal interruption, "then Christians represent an
evolutionary development which signifies a balance between the two
parts of the
psyche, between the sensuous illusion-forming part and the spiritual
truth-forming part, and are consequently more dualistic.
They aren't a people under the dominion of
nature, but a people, on the contrary, who have evolved, thanks in
large
measure to the gradual expansion of their villages into towns, towards
a
position midway between nature and civilization. To
them,
Heaven is as much a fact of life or
religion as Hell. For they're no longer
under the dominion of evil, but balanced between evil and good in what
I like
to regard as the ego in its prime, that's to say, the twilight
fusion-point of
the two main parts of the psyche.
Christianity, you see, is really a twilight religion between the
darkness of Creator-worship and the light of Holy Ghost experience,
between the
sensual and the spiritual. Thus it's a
religion half-illusion and half-truth - Jesus Christ, the actual deity
of the
Christians, having actually lived and been a man, religious requirement
having
endowed Him with supernatural significance, attributed all manner of
miracles
to Him which, though valid from a theological viewpoint, appear less
than plausible
from a rational one, and accordingly fail to impress us or, at any
rate, those
of us who are rational."
"Here, here!" exclaimed Mr
Evans,
banging the hand holding his pipe down on the arm of his armchair so
violently
... that some of its still-smouldering contents spilled out onto the
carpet. "I've never been able to
accept the divinity of Christ. To me,
the idea of God as man or of man as God seems
intrinsically
suspect."
"Yes, well that doesn't mean
to say
that the idea of God as spirit should also be so," Matthew calmly
responded. "For it's from
Christianity, with its illusion/truth dichotomy, that we progress to
the
post-Christian context, largely brought about by the expansion of towns
into
cities and our growing independence from the sensuous influence of
nature, in
which the balance between the two parts of the psyche no longer holds
sway and
we find ourselves becoming progressively biased on the side of the superconscious, on the side of truth, goodness,
peace,
spirituality - all those attributes of life, in short, which stand at
the
opposite pole to those worshipped by the pre-Christians, or pagans. No longer can God be conceived in terms of a
dualistic compromise between illusion and truth, still less in terms of
illusion alone, but only as truth, as God per
se, which
corresponds, in traditional terminology, to the Holy Ghost, the third
and
highest part of the so-called Blessed Trinity.
"Here, at last, is the
spiritual as
opposed to anthropomorphic awareness of God," Matthew went on, warming
to
his thesis, "the religious sense commensurate with ultimate divinity. No longer is it necessary to fear as well as
love God, but simply to experience and understand God as love, light,
bliss,
peace, etc. Nor need one conceive of
this God in terms of 'He', as an anthropomorphic projection of the ego,
for the
simple reason that one has transcended the balance between the
subconscious and
superconscious parts of the psyche, and
thus evolved
beyond egocentric projections. No longer
'He' but 'it', no longer Jesus Christ but the Holy Spirit of Universal
Consciousness or whatever else you prefer to term this manifestation of
true
divinity, which is one with the superconscious
mind.
"Thus religion, becoming at
last a
question of truth, evolves to its third and final stage," Matthew
continued, by now considerably fired-up, "beyond which it cannot
change. For once one has arrived at a
true conception of God, one cannot return to an earlier illusory or
part-illusory
concept. It's no good, once one has seen
through the nature of prayer - that mental
activity
founded on egocentric projection - pretending that one can return to a
religious framework endorsing it in due course.
One can't! A society growing
increasingly under the sway of the superconscious
can
only respond to that influence in an appropriately transpersonal way -
by
transcending egocentric selfhood. For
God, conceived in any ultimate sense, isn't there to be petitioned or
thanked,
praised or cursed, but simply experienced, as the heavenly side of Last
Judgement paintings has generally shown.
Bliss, peace, love - this is compatible with ultimate divinity,
not
action! Only an illusory or partly
illusory concept of God leads one to believe that He is a being capable
of
exerting Himself on one's behalf, or even against one.
And to assume it isn't possible to believe in
God because there's so much evil in the world ... is simply to betray
the fact
that one would have a rather simplistic and outmoded concept of God in
mind to
equate Him with such evil. For this
higher divinity is certainly not responsible for all the evil in the
world. How can it be when it has nothing
to do with evil, since a state-of-mind, a peace which 'surpasses all
understanding'? No, it's highly unlikely
that bliss can be held responsible for agony.
Only a dualist might think so, a man, in other words, who
signifies but
a phase of human evolution, when evil and good seem to be balanced in
the world
and it's possible to assume that the one must necessarily be dependent
on the
other. Yet just as human evolution is a
journey from the subconscious to the superconscious,
from
sensuality
to spirituality, illusion to truth, so it's a journey from
evil
to good - from Hell to Heaven. It's only
a combination of Hell and Heaven, so to speak, during the Christian
twilight
era of human evolution, when the darkness seems to be balanced by the
light."
Thomas Evans wasn't
particularly impressed
by this line of argument, since he had suffered a great deal in life
from poor
health (he currently had a smoke-fuelled weak heart), financial and
business
worries, personal anxieties of one kind or another, etc., and was
therefore
unconvinced that life, however one conceived of it, was becoming
progressively
more heavenly. To him, it was pretty
evident
that dualistic considerations still had to be borne in mind, and he
wasted no
time in saying so.
"Oh, I quite agree," said
Matthew
by way of a deferential response.
"There is still a large amount of evil in life.
For we haven't yet transcended the egocentric
balance to any appreciable extent, and accordingly still have a fair
way to go
before we get completely beyond dualism, since the subconscious hasn't
been
completely triumphed over at present. It
may take decades or even centuries before we evolve to a context where
Heaven
becomes more of a reality than at present.
But there's no way that you or anyone else can disprove the fact
that
we're evolving in the right direction for spiritual transformation, and
it
seems quite probable that if we persist long enough we'll eventually
attain to
our goal - attain, in other words, to what I am wont to call a
post-human
millennium, which, as the terms suggests, is more than merely
post-humanist,
being properly divine."
"No, I can't believe that
for one moment,
any more than I can believe most of what you say!" Mr Evans obdurately
retorted. "I expect you'll be
telling us, before long, that we're destined to turn into angels or
supermen or
something equally preposterous at this post-human millennium of your
fanciful
imagination."
"Thomas!" interposed Mrs
Evans,
somewhat annoyed by her husband's impertinence.
"It isn't necessarily as preposterous as you, in your bourgeois
short-sightedness, would seem to think."
Mr Evans glared ferociously
at his wife, as
though she had just committed a sacrilege in his house.
What right had she
to
interfere, least of all in a way which drew attention to the
limitations of his
ideological views? But he didn't say
anything to her. Instead, he turned his
attention back to Matthew Pearce and glared at him awhile.
The atmosphere in the room was by no means
pleasant. "And I don't quite
see," he confessed, picking up the thread of his retort again,
"exactly what all this has to do with modern art, which I recall we
were
discussing prior to religion. Am I to
take it that such art generally signifies a superconscious
bias, too?"
"Yes, that would be
helpful,"
said Matthew. "For I was saying
that Christian art was essentially a matter of dualism, not just
religious
subjects, and that post-Christian art couldn't be judged by the same
standards,
but had to be viewed in its own context of lopsided spirituality, had
to be
seen from the viewpoint of superconsciousness instead of mere egocentricity.
For, compared with traditional art, modern
art is largely a transpersonal phenomenon, transpersonal in its
abstraction and
transpersonal in what often appears as scrappiness or simplicity - a
refusal to
appear figuratively great, profound, overly objective, technically
brilliant,
or whatever else may be associated with an art form centred on the ego,
which
is to say, the dualistic fusion-point between subconscious and superconscious minds.
Thus when it really is
modern,
and
accordingly
reflects the most advanced creative tendencies of the day,
art is
essentially an abstract rather than a representational phenomenon, a
product of
the city environment.
"Most of
"However that may be, it's
still fair
to say that modern art is better characterized by transcendental
abstraction
than by surrealistic representation," Matthew continued, "that a
painting intimating of the Holy Ghost is more relevant to and
indicative of the
age than one with Christian associations, even if those associations
happen to
be radicalized by a nuclear or mystical technique."
"I'm afraid I know very
little about
If anything was guaranteed
to make Matthew
lose patience with the man, it was this kind of attitude.
For it was evident that Mr Evans couldn't
think of art in other than traditionally objective terms, and therefore
automatically
referred the present back to the past, regarding modern works as art
only if
they could be compared, to some extent, with those of the old masters,
and
considering all the rest, that is to say the bulk of twentieth-century
art, as
anti-art or even as no art at all. A
typically philistine viewpoint, but scarcely one to be wondered at, in
the
circumstances! After all, Thomas Evans
was the manager of an insurance company in
It was therefore important
for Matthew to
keep this in mind and thus make a determined effort not to be impressed
by the
reactionary opposition Mr Evans chose to offer, on the contentious
subject of
modern art. No, instead of losing
patience with him on account of his virtually inevitable unenlightened
viewpoint,
Matthew resolved to keep Mr Evans in perspective as a perfectly
ordinary
middle-class citizen whom it was unwise to expect to behave or talk
like an
artist, least of all a radical one. If
his viewpoint was somewhat limited, then so be it!
There could be no real reason, given his
critical temperament and occupational habits, why it should be
otherwise.
Yet to some extent it was
nonetheless
necessary for the artist to continue his defence and explication of
modern art,
if only because his own reputation and self-respect were personally at
stake,
and this he proceeded to do, albeit without any conviction that what he
had to
say would be appreciated.
The fact that art had once
primarily served
the emotions was perfectly true. Just as
it had also served, albeit at a later and more evolved epoch, both the
will and
intellect combined, and was now primarily serving the spirit. It had passed, like religion, from the realm
of illusion to the realm of truth, and would continue to evolve in
accordance
with the contemporary imbalance on the side of truth.
To claim, therefore, that art should only
serve illusion would be as ridiculous, in Matthew's view, as to claim
that
religion was only a matter of illusion and would cease to exist as
religion if
it wasn't. No, art hadn't ceased to
exist simply because the old criterion of dualistic balance had been
superseded. On the contrary, what now
existed was simply a different kind of art - more truthful and rational
than
hitherto. If, from a traditional
viewpoint, it appeared to be a lesser art than that relative to an
egocentric
age, it nonetheless existed on a higher level of evolution and had to
be
respected on its own terms. This much,
at any rate, the artist endeavoured to assure his sceptical host.
"Yes, but I still don't see
the
artistic significance of either a monochromatic or nearly blank
canvas,"
Mr Evans objected, unwilling to accept Matthew's attempted vindication
at
face-value. "You call it
minimalism, or some such term, and regard the result as an advanced or
extreme
form of abstraction. But, really, it
doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, is
that the ultimate truth in modern art?"
Matthew had to smile, in
spite of his
seriousness. "I don't know whether
it's the ultimate truth," he replied, "but it can certainly be
equated with spirit, light, and thus the truth of the superconscious
mind. Indeed, I incline to view
abstraction as a mode of religious art, the religious art of
transcendental
man. It signifies the victory of the
spiritual over the material, the transpersonal over the impersonal,
subjectivity over objectivity. A thing
which also applies, I believe, to most light art, especially where neon
tubing
is involved. And, of course, to a large
quantity of modern sculpture, or sculpture emphasizing light and space
as
opposed to the secular, to whatever reflects materialism, technology,
urbanization, scientific progress, and so on, in the world at large. It's the difference, if you like, between
that which emphasizes the influence of the Holy Ghost and that, by
contrast,
which emphasizes the influence of contemporary science and industry. Both kinds of art, now as previously, are
equally justified, but they aren't on the same level.
The religious, now as before, signifies a
superior tendency, one dealing with the more-than-human, dealing, in
short,
with the principal concern of human evolution - namely, the attainment
to
salvation in the millennial Beyond, the transformation of man into the
superhuman being which lies transpersonally
beyond him."
"Bah! I cannot accept that
interpretation of human evolution," Mr Evans confessed, glowering
defiantly.
"No?
Well, maybe that's because you're essentially a materialist and
therefore have no use for spiritual salvation," Matthew retorted. "Yet, to me, a person who is indisposed
to reconcile himself to the notion that science and technology are ends
in
themselves, it seems indisputably evident that evolution must be
conceived
primarily in terms of man's changing relationships to divinity and only
secondarily
in terms of how he sustains himself during the course of those changes. To see technological and industrial progress
as ends in themselves would seem to me a kind of insanity.
Yet neither would it be entirely sane if one
were to dismiss the secular and materialistic side of evolution
altogether, as
though it were of small account. For
it's only through our ever-changing environments that we come to attain
to a
better and more truthful relationship with divinity.
Only with the aid of our
materialistic progress in respect of new technologies."
"So that is presumably why
you
sometimes work in a genre or format in which complex geometrical
shapes,
suggestive of the influence of contemporary technology, play an
important role,
is it?" Mr Evans deduced, recalling to mind
an
earlier facet of their conversation.
Matthew nodded affirmatively. "Yes, though not very often, least of
all these days," he admitted. "For I like to think of myself as a predominantly
religious
painter, in the service of the Holy Ghost. In
point
of fact, I abandoned the
impersonality of geometrical concerns some time ago for a kind of
transcendental, symbolic art which sometimes makes use of a dove and at
other
times of an intensely luminous globe of light-suggesting paint."
"How d'you
mean?" asked Mr Evans, looking slightly puzzled, as well he might.
"Well, as you doubtless
know, the dove
is symbolic of the Holy Ghost, so I use it to signify our age's growing
allegiance, via the superconscious mind,
to
transcendentalism, and thus to the spirit.
Painted in white on a silver background, or occasionally on a
pale-blue
one, the dove becomes for me a symbol of contemporary religion,
equivalent to Teilhard de Chardin's Omega
Point. Now as the Omega Point is also a
symbol, a concept for Ultimate Godhead in pure spirit, I make use of
that as
well, and so paint canvases in which an intensely pure light, turned-in
upon
itself in blissful self-contemplation, exists at the centre of a silver
ground. But more recently, within the
past couple of months, I've begun to paint, in very minimalist outlines
reminiscent of Matisse's graphics and Caulfield's still-lives, figures
meditating, seated cross-legged in upright postures on a flat plane
with a kind
of seraphic glow about them."
"Oh,
really?"
Mr Evans responded in a mockingly indifferent tone-of-voice. He had never meditated in his life, nor did
he know anyone who had. "And are
they supposed to represent the Buddha, or what?" he almost
sarcastically
inquired.
"No, nothing of the kind,"
Matthew
maintained, ignoring, as best he could, the air of flippancy attending
his
host's sarcastic curiosity. "The
figures used in the compositions in question are perfectly Western,
designed to
reflect the mounting relevance of meditation to a post-Christian
society. They're not so much emissaries of
Eastern
religion or traitors to their cultural heritage ... as intelligent
Westerners
for whom the 'Third Person' of the Trinity has come to have more
significance
than the 'Second'. They pertain to
spirituality in a modern industrialized and urbanized society, to a
spirituality which reflects our severance from nature and consequent
post-dualistic bias. To them, sin and
fear of God are alike irrelevant. For they are too ascetic to be unduly exposed to sin,
and can only
conceive of God in terms of grace.
They're not Buddhists but transcendentalists.
And when they meditate, it's effectively with
a view to fulfilling Christian prophecy and bringing the Christian
aspiration
towards salvation closer to fruition. In
other words, to entering the '
Thomas Evans inflicted a
short, sharp snort
on the artist in supercilious response.
"I wish I could say the same," he caustically declared. "But, as it happens, I have to live in
this world, which, to the best of my knowledge, is decidedly dualistic. Your meditating figures seem far too
complacent for me, too much a figment of your self-serving imagination. They suggest a greater degree of optimism
concerning this life than ever I would wish to entertain.
They seem to me to have turned their backs on
reality and to be living in a kind of dream world."
"I'm afraid I can't agree
with
you," said Matthew.
"No, I don't suppose you
can," Mr
Evans retorted sarcastically, after which, to Matthew's relief, he
relapsed
into a silence disturbed only by the lighting and puffing of his pipe.
CHAPTER
THREE
Following
dinner
early
that evening, Gwen and Matthew went out into the large back
garden
to get some air and soak up a little of the sun which was now bathing
it in a
pool of soft light. They took a couple
of deck chairs and found a pleasant spot over by an imposing cluster of
rhododendrons, which stood to the right of the garden at a distance of
some
thirty yards from the house. It was
really Gwen's decision to sit there, for she hated to sit in the centre
of the
garden, where there was a total absence of plant life and one felt
exposed to
prying eyes all around one. Only by its
edges, where the flowers and bushes were reposing in loosely arranged
beds, did
she feel any degree of complacency, born of the privacy they appeared
to
provide. Besides, she liked the scent of
the plants, which was particularly pleasant where they were now sitting. The centre of the garden, about which only
pale grass grew, seemed to her relatively barren and devoid of life.
"I trust you didn't find dad
too
trying during dinner?" she gently inquired of Matthew, after a few
minutes'
respectful silence had fallen between them in the refreshing presence
of
temperate nature.
"No, not really," he
replied,
more out of a mechanical response to her probing statement than an
honest
answer. He looked at her
half-humorously, as though in ironic deference to the fact that Mr
Evans had
been more upsetting before
dinner than during it. Indeed, it might
have been truer to imply
that Mr Evans was pretty upsetting whether or not he was talking. But he had no real desire to compromise her
over
the thorny issue of her father, limiting himself, instead, to a
good-natured
dismissal of the matter, as though it were of small account. For anything more serious would probably have
led him to get up and make his way back to the station there and then,
in order
to be free not only of Gwen's father but of Gwen herself, who wasn't
exactly
the most kindred of spirits, either. Yet
he didn't want to make a scene of it, to treat this experience too
seriously. Better, on second thoughts, to
treat it with a
kind of scientific detachment, as though one had been entrusted with
the
responsibility of studying, at relatively close-quarters, a species of
life
which, though personally abhorrent to one, it was nevertheless
necessary to
treat with a modicum of respect, if only to complete one's studies. It might, after all, lead to some as-yet
unimagined revelation. At least it had
already led to a better understanding of Gwen, which was something.
"I really ought to have
warned you, in
advance, of what my father was like," she
remarked sympathetically. "But I
wasn't altogether sure of how he would react to you.
Besides, I was afraid that you might not have
agreed to come here, had I given you prior warning about him."
Matthew smiled dismissively. "Oh, don't worry yourself about
it," he advised her. "I didn't
exactly expect him to be an exact replica of myself.
He's entitled to his views, after all, even
if I can't share them."
There ensued a further short
period of
silence, before Gwen asked: "What d'you
think of
my mother?"
It was a question Matthew
had
half-expected, but he still blushed slightly as he replied: "She seems
quite pleasant really, quite polite and friendly; though I haven't yet
had a
chance to form a clear impression of her.
Like you, she tends to keep quiet when Mr Evans is speaking."
"Yes, that's true enough,"
Gwen
admitted. "She's not a particularly
talkative person anyway, even given the
fact that dad
doesn't exactly encourage conversation.
He mostly keeps to himself in the house."
"Don't your parents get on
very well
together?" Matthew asked, partly in response to this remark and partly
from a vague premonition to the contrary.
"No, not for the past five
or six
years," Gwen revealed, blushing slightly.
"Largely in consequence of dad's poor health - his fits of
depression and bad heart, his liver and bronchial trouble - which seems
to have
come between them and isolated them from each other to a certain extent. Not that mum's health is entirely good. But she does at least fare better than him,
as a rule."
"She certainly looks well,"
Matthew candidly opined. "And young, too.
Indeed, I was more than a little surprised to learn that the
woman who
answered the door to us was in fact your mother. She
seemed
more like an elder sister."
Gwen smiled faintly and then
said:
"Yes, she's only seventeen years older than me actually.
But that, too, is one of the reasons why my
parents don't get on as well as they formerly did.
For dad is ten years her senior and tends to
behave as if he were a member of an older generation ... which, when
you
consider the nature of his health, effectively appears to be the case. It's as though he has already crossed the
threshold into old age, while she has hardly entered middle age."
Matthew couldn't argue with
that
observation! "And you're their only
child?" he conjectured.
"Yes, though mum lost two
children
prematurely, and I had a brother who died of pneumonia at six," Gwen
answered on a note of sadness. "He
was two years younger than me."
"I'm sorry to hear it," said
Matthew, respectfully deferring to convention.
"It must have been rather upsetting for you."
"Yes, for a while," Gwen
admitted. "But more so for mum, who
was very fond of him. She had always
wanted a boy." There was a tinge of
self-pity in her voice, as though indicative of the fact that, as a
girl, she
had rated lower in her mother's estimation and grown to resent it. But she didn't say anything else about the
subject, and Matthew tactfully refrained from further inquiry.
Indeed, he was secretly
gratified when,
instead of continuing the conversation along other lines, his
girlfriend
relapsed into one of her characteristic silences, abandoning her face
to the
sunlight, which caused it to take on an almost angelic aura of
transcendent
spirituality, like Rossetti's Beatrice. To be sure, there was certainly something
Pre-Raphaelite about her at this moment, something ethereal and
not-quite-there. Yet such an illusion
was quickly dispelled from Matthew's mind as she turned her face to one
side
and caught some shadow from the nearby rhododendrons.
Now she was simply Gwendolyn Evans again,
devoid of spiritual nobility, the daughter of a provincial bourgeois. Her attractiveness, suddenly released from
transcendent pretensions, assumed more earthly proportions. But for her delicacy of build, one might have
taken her for an average sensualist.
Instead of which, one had no option but to acknowledge her for
the
dualistic compromise she was - both sensual and spiritual in
approximately
equal degrees.
Turning his gaze away from
her impassive
face, Matthew focused his attention on the detached house in front of
them, the
rear windows of which glinted in the soft sunlight.
Its perfectly conventional middle-class respectability
suddenly became a source of annoyance to him as he recalled, not
without a pang
of regret, that he had allowed himself to be drawn into a context for
which he
had no real sympathy and absolutely no desire to emulate in his own
life -
namely, the context of bourgeois compromise.
For the fairly large house that his vision now embraced stood as
a
symbol to him of most of the things he was in rebellion against and
preferred
not to see. It stood, above all, as a
symbol of the class which had come to power after the aristocracy and
now
prospered on the sweat of the proletariat.
Yet it also stood as a symbol, in large measure, of the class
which took
the middle road between the aristocracy and the proletariat, and
signified a kind
of midway stage of human evolution. Not
as materialistic as the former nor as spiritualistic as the latter, the
bourgeoisie were resigned to a compromise formula which, while leaving
them
cognizant of the fact that excessive wealth was a grave obstacle to
spiritual
enlightenment, precluded them from relinquishing the benefits of
materialism to
any appreciable extent, least of all to an extent which made them
candidates
for spiritual enlightenment personally!
Quite the contrary, the
bourgeois was very
firmly, now as before, a creature of the middle road, the dualistic
material/spiritual compromise which found its religious home in
Christianity
and its political home in parliamentary democracy.
If his house wasn't as grand as an
aristocrat's, well and good! He had no
great difficulty living with that fact.
But to suggest to him that he should go one stage further up the
ladder
of human evolution and relinquish private property altogether,
resigning
himself to life in a comparatively small council house or flat, would
be
tantamount to depriving him of his very existence, and such a
suggestion would
meet with very little approval! Indeed,
it would probably meet with none! For
the bourgeois was not an animal which could turn itself into a
proletarian, any
more than an aristocrat was an animal which could turn itself into a
bourgeois. If a bourgeois was
spiritually superior to an aristocrat, he was yet spiritually inferior
to a
proletarian, and could never alter himself one way or the other. By his very compromise nature, he was
condemned to the twilight stage of human evolution in between the
darkness and
the light - a perfectly legitimate position while the twilight was
inevitable,
but an increasingly questionable, not to say untenable, one the more
the
twilight changed to light and society accordingly progressed away from
its
former dualistic compromise towards a stage of life that transcended
dualism, a
stage in which only proletarian criteria were relevant.
As a creature who
signified a kind of dovetailed combination of aristocratic and
proletarian
elements within himself, the bourgeois could never emerge from the
moral
twilight. If it came to an end under the
sway of an increasingly strong barrage of light, the bourgeois would
perish
too. He wasn't capable of living solely
in the light, for it would be a refutation of his other half, an
abnegation of
his dualism. No, he could only flourish
and perpetuate himself while the twilight
prevailed. Once it had gone - whoosh, no
more bourgeois!
Whatever pertained to the
light was
proletarian; was man become wary of materialism and living in smaller
houses,
smaller apartments, or flats because he was too evolved to require
large-scale
property, because, in other words, his superconscious
predominated over his subconscious rather than existed in a balanced
compromise
with it; was man born and bred in the city, away from the sensuous
influence of
nature; was transcendental man. Yes, but
not the bourgeois, not Christian man.
There could be no question of his
transformation. This house, sparkling in
the sunlight, was destined to be superseded world-wide - and in a sense
already
had been - by a less materialistic scale-of-values.
In the overall progression
of evolution
through approximately three stages ... from a dominating materialistic
class to
a liberated spiritualistic class via a worldly compromise class, this
house
undoubtedly signified something morally better, higher, and more humane
than
the typical aristocratic dwellings which had preceded it.
It was certainly less glaringly materialistic
than the huge castles, palaces, and country houses favoured by the
nobility. It was not the repository of
so many possessions, and such possessions as it housed were generally
of a
less-ornate and expensive variety than those favoured by the overtly
materialistic class. They were unlikely
to distract the eye from spiritual preoccupations to anything like the
same
extent as those possessions which had been specifically designed to
glorify
matter. The library, for instance, would
not be nearly so large or contain as many weighty and
expensively-tooled,
leather-backed books. On the contrary,
it would be of moderate proportions, containing, at most, a few
thousand books,
and most if not all of those less-expensive hardbacks would have been
read, not
simply owned for the mere sake of collecting or signifying the extent
of one's
wealth and/or materialistic power.
Indeed, there may even be,
among the ranks
of such bourgeois tomes, a few paperbacks, as befitting an age in which
the
spiritual predominates over the material and a book is accordingly
judged more
by what it contains by way of intellectual or cultural nourishment than
with
what care or materials it was made. Yet
it was highly unlikely that such a library would house any great number
of
paperbacks. For the bourgeois would not
want to deprive himself of hardbacks to an
extent
which made his collection lack a certain amount of materialistic
elegance. Oh, no!
If he instinctively looks down on the extensive materialism of
an aristocrat's
library, he yet shies away from the prospect of relinquishing his taste
for
hardbacks to the extent required by a proletarian library, in which,
one may
surmise, only paperbacks would exist.
Furthermore, he would not wish to reduce the number of books in
his collection,
either. For the few thousand he owns
seems to him more becoming than the mere 500-odd books to be found in
the
average proletarian collection. After
all, his house is somewhat larger than the average proletarian
dwelling, and
therefore it's likely that his library will have to be correspondingly
larger,
if it isn't to look ridiculously out-of-scale with its surroundings. As the man of the middle road, he knows
exactly where he stands. His library,
like just about everything else about him, is somewhere in-between the
alternative extremes. It corresponds to
stage two of human evolution.
Yes, and although Thomas
Evans wasn't the
most scholarly or bookish of middle-class people, it could certainly be
said of
his
library - which Matthew had taken a glance at prior to dinner -
that it represented the requisite compromise of scale and favoured
books
in-between the extensive materialism of the previous historical class
and the
intensive spirituality of the ultimate one.
Nothing extreme would be found there!
A gentle sigh beside him
caused the artist
to abandon his philosophical reflections and turn his attention back
towards
Gwen who, with eyes closed, seemed perfectly resigned to the absence of
conversation and only too happy for a chance to vegetate in the warm
evening
air, feeling the caress of the sun upon her upturned face, which had
assumed a
mellow glow. Watching her thus,
seemingly oblivious of his presence beside her, Matthew experienced a
moment of
tenderness towards her and gently but firmly placed a hand on her
nearest leg,
just above the knee and below the rim of her pale-cream skirt, which
she had
drawn-up slightly in response to the sun.
This presence of his hand on her flesh caused her to smile in a
subtly
sensual way, yet she kept her eyes closed.
She looked perfectly complacent, like a softly purring cat -
submerged
in soft sensuality. At any other time
Matthew would probably have raised the rim of her skirt until her
thighs were
completely naked and her panties exposed to view, content to focus his
attention upon that part of them behind which her crotch would be
gently
stewing in its own sexual gravy, leading a kind of vegetable existence
of its
own - soft and languid. But in the back
garden of her parents' house, what with the prospect of someone spying
on them
through one or another of the rear windows, he had to resign himself to
gently
patting her nearest leg instead, not exposing the outer reaches of her
more
private parts to his tender gaze.
And this he continued to do
even after his
thoughts had once more turned away from Gwen's body and become
entangled in
intellectual matters again, this time concerning the architectural
innovations
of Gottfried Semper, the
nineteenth-century German
architect who occasionally designed buildings with a view to reflecting
different stages of architectural evolution - the façade beginning on
the
ground floor with a coarse appearance and ascending, through successive
floors,
to a smoother one, with a corresponding change of materials in the
overall
construction. At present, Matthew
couldn't remember very much about the man from what he had read, some
years
before, in the local public library; though he knew that, if he were an
architect bent on illustrating evolutionary transformations from one
floor to
another, he would adopt a somewhat different approach from Semper
- one emphasizing the growing predilection for the light which
characterized
our evolutionary struggle.
Thus, taking the façade as
its most
representative component, his projected building would have a row of
small
windows on the ground floor spaced at regular, if quite distant,
intervals, so
that the overall impression was one of darkness or, rather, of the ego
- that
fusion-point of the subconscious and superconscious
minds - under subconscious dominion. The
subconscious would be represented by the concrete, the superconscious
by the windows, and the ratio of the one to the other would be
approximately in
the region of 3:1. Thus the ego of
pre-dualistic man would be represented as a predominantly dark
phenomenon. Aristocratic materialism would
have the
advantage.
With the first floor,
however, indicative
of stage two of human evolution, the ratio of concrete to windows would
be
transformed into a dualistic balance, so that the increase in window
space came
to signify a greater degree of superconscious
influence, commensurate with bourgeois consciousness, and the overall
impression was accordingly of an ego balanced, in twilight compromise,
between
the dark and the light. In this section
of the façade, the percentage which the material aspect had lost would
have
been gained by the spiritual one. Heaven
and Hell would be kept in dualistic equilibrium.
Not so, however, with the
second and final
floor, representative of the third stage of human evolution, in which
the ratio
of concrete to windows or, rather, of windows to concrete had become
the
converse of that exhibited on the ground floor, and the light of the superconscious accordingly prevailed over the
darkness of
the subconscious in the ratio of 3:1, reducing the material part of
this upper
section of the façade to but a quarter of the total space.
Here, then, it would be the turn of
proletarian man to advertise his predilection for the light, his ego
being
decidedly under the sway of the superconscious
and
thus partial to a spiritual bias. Here,
on the second floor, human evolution attained to its climax. And after that - well, it only remained for
proletarian man to transcend his humanity altogether, namely by
dispensing with
the remaining influence of the subconscious, for him to enter the
post-human
millennium and thus become divine. In
the meantime, however, a lot of work to be done, not least of all in
using more
window space than hitherto, which is to say, than the bourgeoisie could
countenance!
Such, at any rate, was the
plan Matthew
thought he would put into architectural operation, were he an architect
bent on
expanding and refining upon the techniques first propounded by
Gottfried Semper. Indeed,
he
might
even do a variation on that, in which the façade of his
evolutionary
building, while retaining the respective ratios of concrete to windows
on each
floor, was less part of one house than indicative of three different
buildings
built one atop the other - the one on the ground floor, so to speak,
three
times as large as its top-floor counterpart, while the one in the
middle,
suggestive of bourgeois compromise, signified a sort of cross between
the other
two.... Or, alternatively, to conceive of such a wedding-cake building
as one
house in which three separate apartments, viz. an aristocratic, a
bourgeois,
and a proletarian, were arranged in vertical juxtaposition, the overall
pyramidal shape of the building indicative of the diminishing scale of
materialism as one approached the top floor.
Thus one could speak of an aristocratic floor, a bourgeois
floor, and a
proletarian floor, each of which reflected the aforementioned
evolutionary
transformations in the psyche. It would
be an evolutionary building more comprehensive and profoundly
significant than
anything of which Semper had ever dreamed!
The sight of Mrs Evans
emerging from the
house suddenly put a stop to further musings on Matthew's part,
bringing him
sharply back to the provincial surroundings in which he somewhat
ironically
found himself. She was crossing the lawn
in their direction, heading, it appeared, for Gwen.
"It looks as though your
mother has
something to tell you," Matthew softly remarked, for the benefit of the
tranquil figure beside him.
"Oh?" She
opened
her eyes and cast the approaching
figure an inquisitive glance. She didn't
appear too disconcerted by this interruption.
"Your friend Linda's on the
phone," Mrs Evans informed her, as soon as she came within speaking
distance.
"Oh,
really?"
Gwen responded in a genuinely surprised tone-of-voice.
"I hadn't expected her to phone
today." She got up from her
deck-chair and turned towards Matthew, who was on the point of getting
up
himself. "You needn't disturb
yourself, Matt," she reassured him.
"I won't be long."
"No, and if Mr Pearce
doesn't object,
I'll keep him company in your absence, Gwendolyn," said Mrs Evans,
simultaneously sitting herself down in the space just vacated by her
daughter. "We mustn't allow him to
feel neglected, must we?" She
smiled at Gwen, who impulsively reciprocated, before setting off at a
fairly
brisk pace for the waiting call.
Strange things can happen,
for all of a
sudden Matthew found himself transformed from a rather bored and
meditative
dreamer into an alert and sensitive companion of Mrs Evans. It was as though, with the change of woman
beside him, a new lease-of-life had suddenly been instilled into his
veins,
making him conscious of himself as a man for virtually the first time
that
evening.
"Just the perfect weather
for being
out here, isn't it?" Mrs Evans observed, as she turned her dark-green
eyes
on the artist.
"Most assuredly," he agreed,
nodding profusely. He might almost have
blushed with shame for the (what seemed to him) too conspicuous
response to her
sensual presence beside him, the too-lingering consciousness of her
beauty,
tempered, as it was, by a whiff of patchouli perfume which mingled
almost
surrealistically with the natural scents of some nearby shrubs. A little extra daring on his part and he
would have cast a glance over her pale-blue skirt to the dark nylon-stockinged knees, as though to obtain a better
idea of her
beauty and achieve a more comprehensive assessment.
But such daring, he felt, would expose his
consciousness of her as a sensual being to an extent which could only
have
compromised him further, and he lacked the courage or audacity to
indulge
it. Besides, she might have taken
offence, considered him ill-mannered, and embarrassed him as never
before. No, it was not for him to play the
gallant
where Gwen's mother was concerned, even if she did possess an uncommon
degree
of feminine beauty.
"I must say, I was quite
intrigued by
some of the things you were saying to my husband before dinner," Mrs
Evans
revealed. "Especially by the types
of transcendental motifs you're currently painting.
It sounds rather fun."
Matthew felt agreeably
flattered. "Yes, it's certainly a new
direction in
my art, as in my sculpture too," he averred.
"You're also a sculptor?"
"Well yes, at least to some
extent. I mean, I'm first and foremost a
painter and only secondarily a sculptor, so to speak.
But I enjoy the one as much as the
other." Which
wasn't quite true, though he could hardly elaborate on his reasons for
preferring painting to sculpture at the moment.
"What sort of things do you
sculpt?" Mrs Evans wanted to know.
"Well,
quite a
number of things actually. Doves, for instance.
Symbols, one might say, of the post-Christian religious impulse."
"Not copulating
doves, by any chance?"
"Er,
no. Not like the ones favoured by
Jacob Epstein, and not particularly like Barbara Hepworth's,
either. Exclusively
single doves with outstretched wings, like they were gliding through
the air. Spiritual
doves
rather than
simply sensual ones."
"And how big are they?" Mrs
Evans
asked.
"Oh, about life-size, which
is to say,
quite small," Matthew informed her matter-of-factly.
"But I occasionally vary the scale,
sometimes making them as large as a football, sometimes reducing them
to
approximately the size of a cricket ball.
The smallest ones are the hardest to do, but they provide me
with a
fresh challenge, which is basically why I do them."
Mrs Evans smiled admiringly. "And what else do you do?" she
pressed him.
"Oh, figures meditating,
seated
cross-legged on a small pedestal or cushion, as in my paintings," he
revealed, blushing slightly. "There
are only a few of those at present, but they signify a development
which I
intend to expand on over the course of time, provided they meet with
public
approval. Otherwise I shall be stuck
with an unmarketable product. However,
all this is a comparatively recent development, not at all typical of
my
sculpture in general, which, in any case, tends to be less
representational, as
befitting the age."
"You
mean, it's
abstract?" Mrs Evans conjectured.
"Essentially biomorphic,
like the
sculptures of Henry Moore and Jean Arp,
two of my
principal influences," Matthew declared, smiling. "Like
Arp, I
generally tend to work to a small scale, using marble or lignum vitae. Yet, unlike him, I don't quite possess the
talent for naming works with such poetic skill or imagination! His titles are really quite surreal, you know,
usually having no apparent bearing on the nature of the work itself,
which, in
any case, is pretty nondescript.
Besides, he's such a great sculptor - as, of course, is Henry
Moore, who
is really the
sculptor of our time."
"Really?" responded Mrs
Evans
excitedly. "I'm afraid I know very
little about either of them, though I've seen photographic
reproductions of one
or two of
"Simply because it's
relevant to the
age," Matthew replied at once.
"We've gone beyond the merely representational, the
truth-to-nature
school, as one might term the more traditional sculptors.
Admittedly, there are exceptions - sculptors,
for instance, like Jacob Epstein and David Wynne, who are generally
more
traditional in their approach to sculpture, more given to
representations of
one sort or another. But sculptors like
Moore and Arp are, on the whole, more
representative
of the times. Indeed, even they are
being surpassed now, since they pertain to a generation whose approach
to
sculpture was less transcendent than the leading sculptors of my
generation,
like Phillip King and Bruce Beasley, who, naturally enough, have taken
sculpture one stage further in its evolution."
"In what
way?"
Mrs Evans queried.
"Well, it's not easy to say
in a few
words," Matthew confessed, frowning gently, for the reverse of a critic
like Mr Evans was not particularly easy to accommodate either, "but,
fundamentally, it comes down to the fact that they've dispensed with
such
natural materials as marble, stone, and wood, and constructed
lightweight
sculpture out of synthetic materials, like plastic, fibreglass, plexiglas, and acrylic, which tend to make their
works
transcendentally superior to those of their predecessors.
Superior on account of the fact that they're
made from synthetic materials and also because they're less heavy, less
solid -
altogether more lightweight in appearance.
They often have an effect of expanding space and dissolving or
disintegrating matter, making careful use of light and transparency,
perspective
and positioning. For instance, Dan Flavin has constructed sculpture from
fluorescent tubes,
which aptly illustrates what I mean by the more transcendental nature
of
contemporary sculpture. At times it
tends to merge with Kinetic Art, and it can be difficult to tell them
apart -
Kinetics sometimes making use of light, as in the work of Takis."
"I'm afraid you're going way
above my
head," Mrs Evans protested, offering him a revealingly bewildered
facial
expression. "I've never even heard
of such sculpture, never mind seen it!
Yet what especially puzzles me is why the transcendental? Why the use of synthetic
materials?"
Matthew had to smile
slightly. It was always the same with
average
people. Why this, why that, why not
something else? And, just as often, why
not something better? In Mrs Evans' case
it was evident that her ignorance was partly a consequence of her
husband's
hostility to such things, since an investigation of modern art and
sculpture
wouldn't have been encouraged or tolerated by the philistine in
question. And, of course, some of his
prejudices had
rubbed off onto her in any case, making her almost as suspicious as him
of
contemporary trends. She was, after all,
a bourgeois, even if a very attractive and relatively pleasant one. Yet the question she had raised was begging
for an answer.
"Well, it just so happens
that, being
a comparatively recent development, synthetic materials haven't been
used in
this context before," Matthew obligingly informed her.
"Now as the genuine artist is always
ready to avail himself of new procedures,
indeed is
virtually compelled to, it follows that the use of synthetics appeals
to
him. However, one could also claim that
the tendency towards enhanced artificiality is a consequence of modern
man's environmental
severance from nature, and is accordingly justified on that account. We live at such a remove from the country -
and consequently from its influence - in our great cities, that it
becomes
increasingly difficult for us to relate to natural patterns and
correspondingly
unattractive. Hence
the rise of non-representational art this century, with the use of
synthetic
rather than natural materials. We
wish to achieve a victory over nature, and the more our cities evolve
and the
more civilized we become, the greater, by a corresponding degree, is
the
magnitude of that victory. You see, the
city itself is essentially a victory over nature, a something apart
from and in
opposition to it, and everyone who lives in the city partakes of and,
sooner or
later, relates to that victory. At one
time, in the far-off days of our earliest civilizations, we were
dominated by
nature, under the sway of sensuous phenomena to an extent which made us
very
little different from the beasts. But,
fortunately, we continued to pit ourselves against it, to assert the
uniquely
human world over the impersonal and often hostile natural one, and
gradually we
got the better of it, evolved to where we are today - participators in
an
advanced civilization, anti-natural and/or transcendental men. Needless to say, most of this has come about
within the past 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution and the
consequent
expansion of our towns and cities to their current gigantic scales."
"I think it's all evil," Mrs
Evans opined, a gentle though earnest frown of disapproval on her brow. "All this severance from nature which
urban life seems to signify, it isn't good."
"That's where I believe
you're
wrong," Matthew retorted, if in a relatively gentle way.
"It isn't as bad as might at first
appear." Yet he was conscious,
once more, that he was speaking to a female bourgeois, a bourgeoise,
not to a proletarian, and that his words were consequently wasted on
her. For the bourgeoisie, he had little
need to
remind himself, were ever a compromise between nature and civilization,
the
sensual and the spiritual, and accordingly they had little taste for
the big
city, which, in both its extensive and intensive artificiality,
constituted a
threat to their integrity - indeed, a refutation of their very
existence. The bourgeoisie could only
tolerate life in
the big city provided
they had a country or suburban house to return
home to in the evenings, after their office work was over and done with
for
another day. They were constitutionally
able to manage this kind of compromise, and the bigger the city
professional
commitments obliged them to frequent, the
more they
preferred a correspondingly extreme rural retreat.
Oscillating between essentially proletarian
and aristocratic environments, they retained their class integrity and
were
relatively content.
Yet they would have been
still more content
if, as in Thomas Evans' case, business could have been conducted in a
medium-sized town and it wasn't therefore necessary to oscillate
between radical
extremes - his house being situated in a pleasantly residential section
of town
and affording him a welcome relief from its busy main streets. For the bourgeois was traditionally a man of
the town rather than the city, and although he could cope with the
latter in
small doses, i.e. for the duration of his working day, he felt much
more
at-home between the closer-to-nature walls of the town than in the
large-scale
artificial environments of the city.
Having both nature and civilization within easy reach was, after
all,
more reassuring for a dualistic mentality than being isolated or
threatened
with isolation in one or the other. To a
bourgeois, extremes were equally fatal.
Not to be countenanced! And, as
Matthew Pearce had been reminded, Mrs Evans couldn't possibly
countenance
them. She saw advanced civilization as
evil - like D.H. Lawrence, who, in this respect, was fundamentally a
bourgeois,
despite his partly proletarian origins.
And there was nothing that Matthew could do or say to convince
her otherwise. No use telling her that the
artificial
environment was a passport to the post-human millennium, to the
ultimate
victory of the spirit. The post-human
millennium wasn't something to which a bourgeois could relate. In the journey of man from the beastly to the
godly, the bourgeois could go no further than two-thirds of the way up
the
ladder of human evolution, having a life-span, so to speak, that lasted
throughout the time when the ego was in its twilight prime. Beyond that, he would cease to be a bourgeois
- indeed, cease to live. No wonder the
prospect of a post-human millennium met with no
sympathy or encouragement on his part!
It was a refutation of him!
"And do you also sculpt in
or with the
aid of synthetic materials?" Mrs Evans tentatively inquired of Matthew,
as
though the possibility that he did so was a kind of evil to be held
against
him.
"Naturally," the 'sculptor'
replied, somewhat paradoxically.
"After all, I'm a member of the younger generation of artists,
and
so I should be contemporary. There isn't
much point in trying to emulate Moore or Arp
now, if
you see what I mean. As an artist, one
should be a sort of spiritual antenna of the race, no matter in what
medium one
happens to work. For
if you write or paint or sculpt or compose in a style that's outmoded,
you're
either a reactionary or a dilettante, and therefore not strictly
necessary. In fact, you're more
than likely to be a
curse, assuming, of course, that you're given an opportunity to
advertise
yourself. So you've got to be up-to-date
if you hope to achieve anything worthwhile, and one of the best ways -
if not
the only way - of assuring that you are
up-to-date
is to live in the big city and thus relate to the foremost spiritual
thrust of
the age. You can't reflect late
twentieth-century civilization if you spend most of your time in a
village."
"No, I suppose not," Mrs
Evans
conceded begrudgingly. "One would
simply relate to the surrounding environment."
"Precisely!"
Matthew confirmed. "So if you're to
become a bona
fide
artist, you've got to relate to an advanced
environment, it's as simple as that! And
if, having once related to it, you subsequently abandon it for
something lower,
like, say, a small town, the chances are that you'll gradually come to
relate more
to the spirit of the town and consequently cease being an advanced
artist. You might well end-up an
unenlightened
dilettante, consciously or unconsciously praising the shit out of
nature and
bourgeois values generally."
It wasn't too difficult for
Matthew to see
that Mrs Evans had been slightly wounded by this, though she did her
best to
conceal the fact by distancing herself from the latter part of his
previous
remark. But, as usual, he couldn't
resist the temptation to be true to himself and speak his mind. If the bourgeoise
in her had been offended, it was just too damn bad!
He had no intention of betraying his
allegiance to something higher on account of her! After
all,
people who did that remained
victims of the status quo and not potential or actual victors over it.
"And do you have these, er, advanced works in your
"Yes, at least to see such
of them as
I haven't already sold," Matthew answered, somewhat surprised by the
nature of her second question. "Why
do you ask?"
"Simply because I'll be in
Matthew was indeed surprised. "Well, please take the
opportunity," he responded, a shade nervously under pressure of the
regret
that was now pervading his soul, like a dark cloud, for having
mentioned the
stuff in the first place. "I'll be
at hand most of next week, so you can come whenever you like."
"Thanks," Mrs Evans
responded
with alacrity. "I look forward to
seeing them," she added, principally alluding to his sculptures, though
also unconsciously including his paintings.
There was a pause, before she continued: "It will probably be on
the Wednesday. It's in the Highgate area
of north
"Yes," confirmed Matthew,
who
then verbally supplied her with the address of his studio.
"Right," said Mrs Evans,
making a
mental note of it. "I shouldn't
have any trouble finding my way there.
I'll get a taxi up from the
Mrs Evans' blunt frankness
had the effect
of making Matthew blush slightly.
"I don't normally see Gwen during the day in any case, because I
have my work to do," he assured her.
"She stays in her
"Yes, I'm sure she has," Mrs
Evans agreed, with what seemed to Matthew like a small sigh of relief. Then, turning her attention in the direction
of the house, she exclaimed: "Ah, here comes Gwendolyn now! My word, that was quite a long phone
conversation, wasn't it?"
"Just under twenty-five
minutes,"
the artist estimated, consulting his digital watch.
Gwen arrived back fairly
flushed. "Sorry to have deserted you for
so long,
Matt," she said in a lightly apologetic tone-of-voice, "but I haven't
heard anything from Linda for a few weeks because she's been unwell, so
I felt
it incumbent on me, as her colleague, to chat her up a bit."
"No problem," he assured
her,
smiling thinly. "Your mother has
kept me company." Which
was,
to be sure, obvious enough.
"Well, I'd better leave the
pair of
you to your private devices again, assuming, of course, you want to
stay out
here," Mrs Evans remarked, getting up from the deck-chair on her
daughter's return. She looked at both of
them with searching eyes.
"For a little longer, I
suppose,"
said Gwen. "Provided
you're not bored with it, Matt."
"No, not particularly," the
latter responded. "While the sun's
still up, we may as well continue to take heathen advantage of its
vitamin-shedding warmth a while longer."
"Yes, I guess so," Gwen
agreed. And with that, she sat down and
closed her eyes upon her mother's retreating form.
CHAPTER
FOUR
Linda
Daniels
gently
replaced the telephone receiver and returned to the company of
her husband, who was sitting in the adjoining room.
He was bent over the pages of a political
novel and briefly looked up at the approach of the medium-built,
dark-skinned
young woman who happened to be his second wife.
She tentatively smiled through closed lips and sat down opposite
him in
her customary armchair. He was anxious
to learn what she had been discussing all this time with Gwen.
"Principally her latest
boyfriend," she declared, with an ironic chuckle which momentarily
exposed
her brilliant white teeth.
"Oh?" Peter
Daniels
was instantly intrigued. "I didn't
realize she had a new
one."
"Well, she still sees Mark
Taber on
occasion, but apparently not with any real enthusiasm.
And she doesn't seem to be all that keen on
her latest boyfriend either, if what she told me about him is anything
to judge
by."
"How did she meet him?"
Peter
asked.
"Apparently quite by
accident outside
Kenwood House in north
"Four years?"
Peter looked as astounded as he sounded.
"Yes, but since she was
deeply engaged
in an affair at the time, she didn't give him much satisfaction," Linda
declared. "In fact, she was waiting
for her then-current boyfriend to meet her there, later that same
afternoon. But then this guy, Matthew
Pearce, suddenly
appeared out-of-the-blue and started chatting
her
up."
"How
curious!"
Peter opined, putting his book to one side and then leaning back in his
capacious armchair. "And didn't she
like him?"
"Well, she liked him enough
to give
him her address, and not only that, but her parents' one too," said
Linda. 'As she'd been obliged to spend
the best part of the afternoon by herself, just casually watching
people passing
to-and-fro from a bench outside Kenwood House, she wasn't averse to a
little
conversation with this fairly handsome stranger, who seemed to have
taken a
distinct fancy to her. She even
accompanied him back to his nearby bedsitter,
where
she
gave him the aforementioned addresses and I don't know what else
besides. But she got away from him in
good time anyway, evidently by telling him that she had a rendezvous
with some
friends, which was partly the case. And
so nothing more was heard of this Matthew guy until he wrote to her
parents'
address last month and invited her to meet him, which, curiously
enough, she
decided to do, if only because her relationship with Mark had become
such a
bore and she was accordingly anxious to expand her romantic horizons a
bit. She felt that Matthew, being an
artist,
would be more interesting or, at any rate, less boring.
The fact that he also lived in
"But what-on-earth induced
him to
write to her after four bloody years!" Peter exclaimed.
"I mean, surely he ought to have
forgotten about her by then, considering they hadn't had very much to
do with
each other in any case?"
"Yes, so one would imagine,"
Linda agreed. "But you know what
artists can be like. Evidently he's a
little cracked. Either that, or he must
have been extremely hard-up and desperate enough to try anything, even
contacting someone he hadn't seen in years who was basically a stranger
to him
at the time. Perhaps, on the other hand,
their brief meeting outside Kenwood House, that day, and subsequent
affair made
a stronger impression on him than either we or Gwen could understand."
"Well, it certainly seems
strange to
me," Peter confessed, smiling wryly.
"Be that as it may, this
Matthew
Pearce isn't quite as interesting as she had hoped," Linda rejoined,
"and principally because he's too serious-minded and so involved with
his
art as not to be particularly interested in her as a person. Or so it appears on the surface.
For she's now under the
impression that he's somehow disappointed in her and unable, in
consequence, to
take her seriously."
Patently puzzled, Peter
Daniels asked:
"Disappointed in what way?"
"She doesn't quite know,
though she
has a feeling it's because she isn't sufficiently on his progressive
wavelength
and may not be as sexually attractive to him as he'd remembered."
Peter Daniels chuckled
sarcastically. "One wonders what he could
have
remembered after four frigging years!" he remarked.
"If the poor fellow's disappointed in her,
it serves him bloody-well right for taking such a gamble.
You wouldn't catch me inviting a woman I
hadn't seen in years to meet me for a date or whatever.
No way!"
"Yes, well, we're all
different,"
Linda smilingly assured him. "And
different we'll doubtless remain."
"Humph!
What it really boils down to is that some
people are less sane than others," Peter bluntly declared.
Linda had to laugh. "One of your notorious
over-simplifications," she averred.
"But, seriously, Gwen seems rather upset by the fact of
Matthew's
apparent disappointment in her, despite her secret disapproval of his
serious-mindedness. After all, if he
severs connections with her she'll be back to square-one again, back to
occasional visits from Mark and the desire to find someone else. Not that he has shown any immediate desire to
break with her. But she isn't altogether
confident that he won't do so before long.
And she's afraid that her parents haven't made the best of
impressions
on him either, especially her father, who apparently started
questioning and
arguing with the poor guy almost from the moment he first clapped eyes
on
him! Jealousy at first sight would
appear to be the explanation of it."
"Why did she have to invite
him to
meet them anyway?" Peter remarked.
"I mean, it wasn't strictly necessary to drag him all the way up
to
"No, but I suppose she
thought he
might think better of her if she showed him where her parents lived and
how
respectable they were," Linda conjectured.
"Make him feel he was associating with the well-to-do, or
something
of the kind. You know how snobbish she
can be like that, eager to prove she comes from a solidly middle-class
background and all that. Funny really,
but I suspect it's a result of some kind of inferiority complex she
suffers
from, especially where the artistically and/or intellectually
perspicacious are
concerned. Yet it appears that her
method of ingratiation in this regard hasn't quite paid off. For Matthew seems not to like the place,
never mind her father. He hasn't said as
much, but she feels that he has somehow clammed-up on her, withdrawn
into himself and left her stranded on the
beach of his receding
interest. Rather than impressing him,
his visit to their place seems rather to have depressed him."
There then ensued a short
reflective
silence on Peter's part before he commented: "So that was the gist of
her
conversation, was it?"
"Yes, more or less," Linda
confirmed, nodding. "Not a
particularly inspiring one, to say the least!
But since I phoned her, I suppose I've only got myself to blame. Anyway, I was interested to find out how she
was getting on and what she was doing, not having spoken to her for so
long."
"You'd have found out soon
enough
anyway, had you waited for the new school term to start before talking
to
her," Peter averred. "I'm sure
she'll tell you all about her problems in more depth when you return to
the
teaching grind again."
"I dare say so," Linda
agreed,
slightly offended by her husband's lack of sympathy for Gwen. "But that's another week away, and, in
the meantime, we've been invited over to her flat to meet Matthew."
"Oh?
On which day?" Peter wanted to know,
turning defensive.
"Either the Thursday or
Friday of next
week, depending on his availability," Linda explained.
"She said she'd phone me on Tuesday to
finalize it. For she
didn't have Matthew to-hand when I spoke to her and could only give me
a
provisional date in consequence.
Had I not been ill, these past three weeks, she said she'd have
invited
us over to meet him before going up to
"I entirely agree!" said
Peter
gruffly. "Though
it might have more significance for Gwen."
"Yes, I incline to think so
too,"
Linda chuckled, "especially in view of her current romantic insecurity
and
incertitude. For she
seems to imagine that we'll get along well with him - me in particular."
"Not too far along, I hope,"
Peter snorted, throwing back his head in a posture of feigned reproach. "Though if he's an
artist, and a so-called progressive one at that, you ought to have
something in
common, since modern art is one of your specialities."
"Was
one of my specialities."
"Still is, so far as I'm
concerned. At least you still paint from
time to time, don't you?"
"Only
when I can do
so without running the risk of offending you with the nature of my
canvases or
the smell of my paints."
"Oh, come now!
I'm not as prohibitive as all that! You
needn't
wait until my back's turned
before dabbling in paint. I'm not a
bloody schoolmaster, you know. Nor a gaoler."
"No.
But you aren't exactly a champion of modern art, either. You don't like to see me indulging in
activities you personally take umbrage at."
Peter Daniels emitted a
heartfelt
sigh. "Well, of course, I'd much
rather you did something I could relate to, like, for instance,
photography," he asserted. "Yes, why not?
Since we live together we should do our level best to get on
together,
to refrain from doing things that will cause a rift to come between us. Now since you're my wife ..."
"I should presumably do my
utmost to
kow-tow to your desires!" Linda interpolated with sarcastic relish,
finishing off what she assumed to be the gist of his statement.
"Well, that's putting it
rather
crudely," Peter objected, blushing in the process.
"But you might at least do what you can
to prevent unnecessary friction. I mean,
it's too vulgar, too demeaning. My first
marriage was ruined by it, and I have no desire to encourage a repeat
performance in my second one. All I ask
of you is to back me up in my professional endeavours, to offer me
support in
my struggle against the decadent and feeble, the world-weary and
anarchic - in
short, the enemies of Western civilization! And to do that you've got
to refrain from behaving like an enemy of it yourself."
"But do you seriously
believe that my
paintings turn me into an enemy of Western civilization?" Linda
ejaculated
on a wave of intensely sceptical incredulity.
"Some of them do," Peter
averred. "I mean, they're such a
mess, dear. They're a species of
anti-art, not art. One gets the
impression that you simply throw paint onto the canvas without caring
where-the-hell it lands. Now I know
you're not a professional artist. But,
damn it all, why waste time behaving as though you didn't care a jot
about the
rules of composition and were only interested in making a pitiful mess!"
"But what are
the rules
of composition?" Linda angrily protested, losing patience with her
husband's conservatism. "After all,
there's no one eternal set of sacrosanct rules, you know!"
Becoming angry, as though by
contagion,
with his wife's intractability, Peter Daniels sternly countered: "Of
course there is! As far as Western
civilization is concerned, there's a set of rules that apply to
painting
techniques whatever the generation one happens to belong to."
"You're talking absolute
rubbish and
you know it!" Linda retorted no less sternly.
"Damn you, woman, how can
you be so
bloody thick? I mean, if you don't keep
to the rules, you can only frigging-well break
them."
"On the contrary, you can
only change
them," Linda asseverated defiantly.
"They're not something static, you know. There's
continuous
evolution. The rules you allude
to - and I'm far from
sure which ones you have in mind - were evolved from something earlier
and have
duly been superseded by rules more pertinent to the present."
"Rules?" snorted Peter
incredulously. "I can hardly
believe the efforts of most contemporary painters are governed by them!"
"Well, they are!" Linda
declared. "And
usually by pretty stringent ones, too!
But let's not waste our time arguing like this, Pete. It doesn't exactly contribute towards the
harmonious relationship you're always talking about."
"'Unnecessary friction' was
the phrase
I used," he reminded her, calming down a bit, "and this is something
I regard as a certain amount of necessary
friction,
if only to impress upon you the importance of avoiding the unnecessary."
"You're becoming quite
irrational," Linda objected, automatically succumbing to a degree of
forced amusement at his expense.
"Your distinction between the one and the other becomes
increasingly arbitrary." She stared
at him in light-hearted bewilderment a moment, then
continued: "Anyway, getting back to the subject of Gwen, I assured her
that we'd be available to meet Matthew on whichever evening she
specified. So it's up to her to confirm a
date."
"Humph! I wish you hadn't
done
anything of the kind, since I probably won't get on with him," Peter
sullenly rejoined. "If he's
avant-garde, he'll probably be too anarchic for my tastes - assuming
the word
'avant-garde' implies what I imagine it to."
"Well, she did say he was
into
minimalist and transcendentalist art, but she wouldn't enlarge on it,
even when
I pressed her," Linda revealed.
"Apparently, she isn't particularly keen on the subject."
"Then I can't see that I
shall be
either, considering our tastes are pretty close," said Peter,
frowning. "Like me, she shies away
from most of the modern stuff."
"Yes, but it's rather
unlikely that
we'll be confronted by his work at Gwen's place, isn't it?" Linda
remarked. "After all, it's not his
studio we'll be going to, so there's a fairly good chance you won't
have to
take offence at his work. Provided you
don't inquire too deeply into it and refrain from attacking modern art,
we
might get along quite pleasantly with him."
"Bah, I shouldn't wish to
get along
with an ideological enemy!" exclaimed Peter Daniels in a tone of
obdurate
defiance that always suggested to Linda a degree of arrested
development in her
husband. "If I don't find out what
kind of art he does, I shan't know how to treat him.
I mean, I'll have to probe him to some
extent, if only to get him into perspective.
And if he transpires to being as radical as I assume, from
Gwen's
attitude, that he is, then I'll have no option but to tell the bugger
what I
think of him and his kind and, if necessary, bloody-well send him to
"Really, Pete, you take
yourself far
too seriously!" Linda chided him.
"It's essentially my cause
that I take
seriously, my dear, not myself!" her husband reminded her.
"The cause of Western civilization and
all it represents. How can one not be
serious where the life or death of that
is
concerned? How can one allow it to
crumble to bits right before one's very eyes?
No, there are some of us who are too lucid to sit back and allow
the
destroyers of civilization to have their barbarous way.
We have to fight them, impede their
degenerate activities as much as possible.
Else all will be lost. The
libertarian trash will overrun us and we shall all perish.
Don't you believe me?"
"I try to, darling, but
sometimes I
think you indulge in hyperbole, exaggerating your Spenglerian
pessimism to a point where you're virtually fascist," Linda caustically
opined.
"Fascist?" echoed Peter
Daniels
in a tone of outraged innocence. "No, not that! Simply conservative."
"Maybe." And not for the first time an overwhelming
sadness descended upon Linda Daniels at the realization of the
fundamental and
seemingly ineradicable incompatibility
which existed
between them. She wished, at this
moment, that she had never married the man in the first place, never
been
gulled by his good looks and considerable wealth into taking him for a
lover. At the time, some ten months ago,
she hadn't known him long enough to be able to form a clear impression
of what
he was like, nor had she been confronted by his conservative views to
any
appreciable extent and, consequently, had no way of really comparing
herself
with him. Now, however, she was in
possession of all the information she needed to disillusion herself
with their
relationship, and she felt terribly humiliated by it.
Her efforts to align herself with his beliefs
were proving too much for her, and transpired to being a source of
self-betrayal with which she was becoming increasingly dissatisfied. Sooner or later a split would have to come, if
not in her own life, then certainly with him.
It was impossible to carry-on deceiving both him and herself
indefinitely. Impossible and, what's
more, morally indefensible!
CHAPTER
FIVE
Wednesday
afternoon
came
all too quickly and Matthew Pearce was resigned to awaiting the
arrival of Mrs Evans at his Highgate studio to see ('view' would hardly
be the
appropriate word in her case) the works, finished or unfinished, which
he kept
there. In all, there were at least
thirty canvases and twenty pieces of sculpture to-hand, as well as an
indefinite number of drawings and a few engravings.
Indeed, now that he had
cleaned and tidied
the studio up a bit, brought some of his old canvases out of hiding and
hidden
some of his new ones away, it seemed to Matthew that it was not so much
a
studio as an art gallery in which he was standing, even though there
was still
sufficient evidence of his painting utensils and a pervasive smell of
stale
paint about the fairly large ground-floor premises which left one in no
doubt
as to its actual purpose!
However, the rearrangements
which he had
seen fit to make, earlier that day, were not without some
justification, in
view of the customary anarchic state of his studio - a thing which Mrs
Evans,
with her provincial tidiness, would hardly have welcomed!
Recalling the poor impression it had made on
Gwen, a week or so previously, he thought he might as well do what he
could to
save her mother from such a fate. After
all, if she was prepared to travel down from Northampton via the West
End, she
might as well be provided with something decent to look at, be given an
opportunity to learn something about contemporary art in relatively
congenial
surroundings, assuming, of course, that she was really interested in
doing so -
an assumption which, Matthew had to admit to himself, was by no means
guaranteed!
For it had occurred to him
more than once
during the past couple of days, and even before he arrived back from
Northampton on the Monday, that Mrs Evans might well have an ulterior
motive
for visiting him which was less concerned with his art than with
himself as a
potential or actual lover. After all,
she had certainly done her best, over the weekend, to make a favourable
impression on him, and, despite his distaste for her provincialism and
comparative ignorance of modern art, she hadn't entirely been without
some
success in that respect. She was
unquestionably a very attractive woman, superior to her daughter in
some ways,
and not simply because she was older or more sexually mature. One also had to take account of the fact that
she was better-proportioned, which is to say altogether more fleshy and
buxom
without being flabby or fat.
Such, at any rate, was how
she seemed to
Matthew, who had taken a certain low-key interest in her physical
person,
despite the ten-year age gap between them.
And he was mindful, moreover, of what Gwen had told him about
her
parents' growing estrangement from each other, the fact of her father's
ill-health having an adverse effect on their marriage.
Was it stretching the imagination too far,
therefore, to deduce from this the existence in Deirdre Evans of a
degree of
sexual frustration which resulted from her husband's inability to
satisfy her
any longer and consequently sought release elsewhere?
No, he didn't think so; though he wasn't
prepared to jump to any over-confident conclusions either.
Besides, he wasn't sure he
liked Gwen's
mother enough as a person to risk succumbing to carnal intimacies with
her,
even if what he supposed was true and she was only too willing, in
consequence,
to throw herself into the arms of the first able-bodied man who
presented
himself as a suitable replacement for her ailing and, in may ways,
distinctly
irascible husband, whether or not the two were connected.
Wasn't she a bourgeois, a member of a class
which, with his artist's independence and self-determination, Matthew
instinctively despised? Yes, all too
palpably! Yet, there again, so was her
husband who, if his lifestyle and opinions were anything to judge by,
was even
more bourgeois than herself, and consequently all the more despicable
from an
artist's standpoint.
Would it not be a kind of
revenge,
therefore, to 'have' Mr Evans' wife behind his back, more satisfying
even than
'having' his daughter? There was indeed
a vague possibility that it would be, though deep down Matthew wasn't
particularly impressed by the idea, which seemed of him somehow too
mean and
underhand. Better to 'have' her simply
because she appealed to him and genuinely desired to be 'had', rather
than from
a desire for cold-blooded revenge. But
that would depend on what happened when Mrs Evans arrived, how they got
on
together, what she said to him, and so on.
He had no intention of raping the woman just because she might
happen,
in due course, to be available and at his mercy. If
she
kept him at a distance and only
desired to see his art, well and good!
He had no intentions of forcing anything upon her, least of all
himself.
It was almost
"My, so this is it!" she
exclaimed, as they stepped across the threshold.
Matthew felt under no
obligation to answer,
so he simply closed the door behind her and, disdaining ceremony,
walked slowly
across to the nearest canvas - a large white one with the outlines of a
seated
figure painted in black. It was one of
his meditation illustrations.
Mrs Evans automatically
followed him across
the intervening space and stood beside him to contemplate it. She smelt strongly of patchouli, as
before,
and wore eye shadow and face powder.
There was more than a hint of bright red lipstick about her
mouth. Her fine dark-brown hair, framed by
two large
turquoise earrings, was tied-up in a thick plait at the back of her
head. Her nape, pale and slender, bore
evidence of
a thin gold chain that obviously formed part of a personal necklace. Her arms were bare but for a gold
bracelet. "So this is one of your
Western meditators, I take it?" she
commented,
after a short inspection of the canvas.
"In a kind of minimalist
technique," he confirmed. "Just the bare outlines."
"Hmm, I quite like it
actually,"
Mrs Evans admitted.
He felt strangely nervous
with the woman
standing so close to him, and also slightly unsure of how best to
conduct
proceedings. He reckoned he ought to
have offered her a seat before drawing attention to this painting,
asked how
her cousin was and what the baby was like, whether it was a boy or a
girl, etc. But partly through nervousness,
and partly
because of the nature of some of his previous reflections, he had felt
strangely inhibited before her and curiously shy, as though afraid to
appear
guilty of more than met the eye. The
painting in question served as a kind of support for his verbal
impotence at
this moment, but only for a short while.
For already the woman was showing signs of impatience with it
and
turning her head in the direction of some of the others.
He would have to act. "Well, would
you like a cup of tea or
something else to drink prior to your cultural sightseeing, as it were,
or
would you prefer me to show you around the, er,
studio
now?" He was aware that he
sounded false to himself and still more than a little nervous.
"I think you'd better show
me round
first and give me a cup of tea afterwards," she replied without
hesitation. "I really ought to earn
it."
"Yes, I suppose you ought,"
he
half-humorously agreed, cackling understandingly, and immediately led
her past
a couple of similar cross-legged meditating figures to a small canvas
on which
a brightly painted white dove appeared to be flying in a silvery-blue sky, as though in a halo of mystical
transcendence.
"Ah, so this is your
propaganda of the
Holy Ghost!" Mrs Evans deduced, recalling what he had told her husband
on
the subject over the weekend. "My,
it's really quite beautiful!"
Beauty hadn't been Matthew's
intention, but
he graciously thanked her for the compliment all the same, which was
only to be
expected from somebody who had only a conventional notion of the
meaning and
purpose of art. "This is one of my
more successful versions ... unlike the one to its right, which is a
shade too
animated," he went on. "The
objective of transcendent tranquillity in optimum truth hasn't quite
been
achieved there, owing to the fact that the dove appears to be flapping
its
wings rather than just gliding or hovering."
"I can't honestly see any
great
difference," she confessed, going up to the second version and
scrutinizing
it close-up. "Unless
you're alluding to the higher angle of the wings and to the forward
position of
its head in relation to the neck."
"Partly that, but partly
also to the
size of the wings, which are a shade too short, too contracted, it
might seem,
with the muscular effort of flying," Matthew informed her, unable to
suppress another cackle which was partly a result of the good lady's
powers of
observation.
Already Mrs Evans had grown
tired of doves
and slight variations in their physical deportment and was heading, to
her
host's horrified surprise, in the direction of the next related theme -
one
that took the form of an intensely pure globe of silver paint at the
centre of
a predominantly gold surround, which could be said to serve as a
transcendent
halo for the self-contained globe.
Matthew thought she would remember what this type of painting
was
supposed to signify, but she hadn't. Or,
at least, she appeared not to have done.
"This is a more abstract
painterly
interpretation of the millennial Beyond," he crisply informed her, as
they
came to a sudden halt in front of the work, Matthew fairly proud of his
achievement, Mrs Evans somewhat puzzled and even dazzled by it. "Another symbol of ultimate reality,
universal consciousness, or whatever you prefer to call that which
pertains to
pure superconsciousness - the spiritual
focus of
transcendental man." He could tell
she was quite impressed by the concept, if still somewhat puzzled. She stared intently at the painting's mystical
cynosure for some time, as though looking for a clue as to the nature
of
ultimate reality, but made no constructive comment, evidently because
it wasn't
something to which she could properly relate.
There were one or two other
equally
puzzling versions of the theme in question to pass before they arrived
at the
next variation on a transcendental theme - a medium-sized canvas
painted
silver. To Mrs Evans it came as
something of a let-down after the globular one, a thing to be slightly
irritated about. "And what,
exactly, does this signify?" she asked in a faintly condescending
tone-of-voice.
"It's one of my rare
experiments in
spatial reality," he calmly replied.
"After the manner of the late Yvres
Klein, who painted monochromes with a view to creating real space, in
which the
viewer becomes mystically and optically immersed rather than simply
passively curious. It
isn't
a
form of abstraction so much as a delineation of space.
Hence in this kind of work one is a spatial
realist."
"Really?"
Mrs Evans responded half-sceptically, the hint of a smirk upon her
luscious
lips. For it wasn't a work she was
prepared to take seriously. To her,
space was exclusively of the air and sky, not something one could
immerse
oneself in on a canvas! She didn't much
care for the idea of looking too intently at a bright silver
monochrome, nor,
for that matter, at the gold and pale-blue ones beside it.
There wasn't much there to look at, after
all.
Sensing her impatience,
Matthew drew the
woman in the direction of his sculpture, some of which he knew she
would
appreciate, if only because, in taking the forms of doves and
meditating
figures, it was largely representational.
He didn't think it expedient to impose the plexiglas
and acrylic biomorphic sculptures inspired by the more transcendental
sculptors, like Gabo and Beasley, upon her
at this
point, so led the way, instead, to his overtly religious works, which
stood
together on a small table to the right of his paintings.
Mrs Evans seemed decidedly pleased at the
sight of them all.
"So these are you sculptured
doves!" she exclaimed, automatically picking up the nearest one to-hand
and gently stroking its smooth back.
"I'd quite forgotten about them, actually."
She suddenly became self-conscious of her
action and blushed slightly. "I do
hope you don't mind my picking it up," she apologized, fearing that he
would be offended.
"Not at all," he assured
her. "They ought to bear being
stroked, considering that sculpture is fundamentally a tactile art."
She smiled her appreciation
of this
esoteric fact and turned the small dove over and over in her hands,
looking at
it from a variety of angles.
"That one, as you doubtless
realize,
happens to be in marble," he remarked.
"But I've also done one in lignum
vitae ..." he
pointed it out "... and another in bronze ..." which he also pointed
out. "More recently, however, I've
constructed one out of nylon strings and a steel frame ..." again he
pointed to the relevant sculpture "... which, from a transcendental
viewpoint, I regard as my best work to-date." He
was
conscious, as he spoke, that he had
lost his initial nervousness and become almost overbearing in his
eagerness to
inform her of his cultural achievements, to impress his creative
significance
upon her. She was no longer someone to
be feared as a potential critic, but simply someone to instruct,
enlighten, and
convert. Yet this consciousness,
momentarily intruding itself between the sight of his religious
sculptures and
his comments on them, caused him to lose a little of his didactic
absorption,
his self-confidence, and grow conscious of the figure standing beside
him as a
woman again, and a very attractive and sweet-smelling one, to boot! However, he was not to be thrown off course
but continued: "Hopefully I shall be able to proceed to more
transcendent
versions of the dove and, for that matter, the beatific meditators
in due course, making use of transparent plastic materials and possibly
acrylic
to obtain the desired effect. At present
I'm not altogether satisfied with the use of marble, bronze, and wood,
which
seem to me somewhat outdated. I need to
bring the symbol of the Holy Ghost more up-to-date, to spiritualize it
as much
as possible. Else I'll be working at
cross-purposes, if you see what I mean."
"Yes, I think I do," Mrs
Evans
assured him, returning the marble dove in her hand to its space beside
the
others on the table. "At least I
recall what you told me in the garden of my house about it - in other
words, of
the need to use synthetic materials in accordance with the artificial
nature of
the contemporary urban environment."
"Precisely," Matthew agreed,
not
a little surprised by the fact that she had in fact remembered all
that,
despite the manifest paradox of the phrase 'artificial nature'. "It's a matter of responding to the
environment in which one lives in an appropriately relevant way. And the modern city inspires a degree of
transcendentalism quite unprecedented in the history of man. Whether one is talking of acrylic, biomorphics, punk rockers with green or blue
hair, computer
dating, light shows, lasers, contraceptives, skyscrapers with more
window-space
than concrete or metal infills, supersonic
aircraft,
digital watches, or cassette recorders, it all comes down to the same
thing -
namely, our growing severance from the sensual and greater predilection
for the
spiritual, for the superconscious as
opposed to the
subconscious. That's why our art, no
less than everything else these days, is generally what it is, and why
an
ever-increasing number of us are more inclined to meditate than to
pray."
"Presumably including you,"
Mrs
Evans commented, turning her attention away from the small sculptures
of
meditating figures to the man beside her.
"Yes, from time to time," he
admitted, breaking into a mild blush at what appeared to be a gently
mocking
look in her bright eyes. "Not that
I'm a fanatic. But I do find it pleasant
to indulge in when the mood takes me.
It's a form of relaxation, you know."
"Really?" Mrs Evans seemed interested.
"And do you come face-to-face with the
Holy Spirit or whatever when you do it?" she asked.
"Yes, in a manner of
speaking I
suppose one does," he replied.
"At least one gets into a state of mind in which peace,
tranquillity, stillness, even bliss predominate, and that seems to me
very
heavenly. It brings one into contact
with the reality beyond appearances, beyond verbal concepts in the
ego-bound
self, which mystics tend to equate with the Godhead.
One gets out of one's shadow and into the
light. That's the important thing about
it, and that's essentially why one does it - to get away from the
illusory and
strive to experience undiluted truth.
One tunes-in to one's superconscious
mind and
is lifted above the petty worries and miseries of diurnal life. Lifted above the sway of
the subconscious to the realm of pure spirit.
It's a pleasant experience, believe
me, this wavelength of tranquillity and blessed
peace!"
"Well, seeing as you've
intrigued me
about it, perhaps you'd be kind enough to give me a lesson," Mrs Evans
proposed,
gently smiling. "If it's not a mode
of religious solemnity but a form of spiritual relaxation, I don't see
why I
shouldn't give it a try. Unless, however, you've got better or more pressing
things to
do?" She stared at him
half-curiously, half-mockingly.
Matthew Pearce was indeed
surprised! This was the last thing he had
expected her
to say! He didn't quite know how to
reply, never having been confronted with the prospect of teaching a
woman to
meditate before - least of all in his studio!
It was rather unnerving. But
there were, after all, a couple of cushions on the floor not far from
where he
stood, large puffy velvet-covered cushions which he habitually used
when
meditating or just resting prior or subsequent to work.
So there was no reason to suppose it wasn't
possible to utilize the studio for purposes of spiritual instruction. He had no real alternative, therefore, but to
consent to her proposal and teach or, at
any rate,
make a stab at teaching her to meditate.
"And you say it's easy," Mrs
Evans murmured, as he led her across the intervening space to where the
cushions lay.
"Very," he affirmed, bending
down
to arrange them in an acceptable manner, one in front of the other at a
distance of about three feet; though, in point of fact, he wasn't so
confident
where she
was concerned. Perhaps she
would be too egocentric?
She put her white handbag
onto a table not
far from where they were now standing and then proceeded to survey the
area in which
Matthew proposed to instruct her in meditation.
It was perfectly clean and brightly lit by a large window which
gave on
to a neatly trimmed and secluded back-garden - all in all, quite a
pleasant
prospect! The weather, fortunately, was
still unusually fine.
"Now, ideally, you should
sit down
upon one of these cushions, like this, and cross your legs," he
averred,
leading the way with an unselfconscious demonstration.
"Though if, on account of your close-fitting
dress, you would prefer to kneel ..."
But Mrs Evans had already
taken to her
cushion in a manner similar to Matthew and made an effort to cross her
legs,
exposing, to his startled gaze, the greater part of her copious thighs,
which
were not without a certain seductive potency.
Indeed, her dress had ridden so far up her legs, as she sat
down, that
he could see more than a little of her nylon panties, which were pale
pink,
about the area of her crotch. He was
unable to prevent himself from blushing a
similar
colour at the sight of them!
"Perhaps I ought to remove
my
dress," Mrs Evans suggested, realizing that its displacement had become
both a source of distraction for Matthew and not altogether comfortable
for
herself. "It might be better if I
had a bit more physical freedom."
"Well, it isn't absolutely
necessary
for you to sit cross-legged," he reminded her, blushing a shade
deeper. But before he could say anything
else she had got to her feet, turned her back on him, and started to
unzip her
dress which, because of its tightness, she was obliged to ease to the
floor,
revealing, to his astonished gaze, one of the most attractive figures
the mind
of man could ever hope to rest upon - a figure in which rump and thighs
conspired to seduce the eye to a mouth-watering appreciation of the
flesh. Then as she bent down to pick up
her dress,
threw it in the direction of the nearby table, and bent down again to
remove
her high heels, Matthew became so conscious of the curvaceous
seductiveness of
the flesh in question ... that he could scarcely take his eyes off it,
especially since she was wearing but the skimpiest of briefs through
which the
mound of her pubic bush was darkly visible.
He was almost drooling with incipient lust as she turned around
to face
him again and, aided by a no-less skimpy brassiere, confronted him with
frontal
charms the likes of which he hadn't seen in years.
"Sorry to have kept you
waiting,"
she nonchalantly remarked, as she sat down in front of him in the
rudiments of
a cross-legged position. "Now, what
do I do next?"
Matthew wasn't altogether
sure. Or, rather, he was beginning to
wonder
whether she could still be serious. But
he made an effort to pretend that he had been unaffected by her
impromptu
striptease, and duly proceeded with a word of advice concerning the
necessity
of emptying the mind of distracting thoughts.
"Just relax as much as possible and listen-in to such thoughts
as
still occur to you without passing judgement on them, as though they
weren't
really yours." He felt peculiarly
self-conscious with her sharp eyes directly focused upon him, drilling,
it
seemed, into the depths of his mind. He
wondered if she was secretly mocking him now, what with that cool
regard. Did he look more distracted than
he
felt? Somewhat
embarrassed perhaps? He tried not
to dwell on the possibility. "Now
that you are aware of your thinking mind as a kind of separate entity,"
he
continued, ignoring his subjective insecurity as best he could, "you
can
listen-in to your breathing as though that, too, came from outside you
and
wasn't strictly dependent on your conscious control.
Just let your breathing take care of
itself. Let it happen
to
you." He felt even more
self-conscious under the resolute fixity of her stare, which seemed to
indicate
a certain disappointment in him, an impatience
with
the pedantic course of events. He wanted
to escape from it, to hide from her.
"And as you become aware of your breathing, er,
happening
to
you, you'll find that you can increase its flow, making it
gradually deeper with the inhalation, smoother and more precipitant
with the
exhalation, allowing your breath to tumble out of you, so to speak, of
its own
accord." His words were sounding
increasingly false and strained to him, especially as her posture was
insufficiently straight. In fact, it
appeared to have sagged slightly forwards, causing the upper halves of
her
breasts to become more conspicuous than before.
A little further and she might have toppled over onto him, her
eyes
still fixedly staring into his face, as though for a clue to the
millennial Beyond.
Abandoning the relative
physical comfort of
his cushion, he crawled over to a position immediately behind her, as
much to
escape her Zen-like stare as to correct her posture, and advised her to
straighten up a little, placing a hand on her back to encourage such an
adjustment. He was made acutely aware,
in the process, of her perfume, which teased his nostrils and gave him
a degree
of nasal pleasure he had rarely experienced from standard perfumes
before. It seemed stronger and sweeter
than anything
Gwen was in the habit of using.
"Now continue to breathe more consciously with the inhalation
and
less consciously with the exhalation," he advised her, as soon as she
had
responded to his previous advice, "using gradually deeper and deeper
breaths, in and out, in and out, in ... and ... out."
He adjusted his position slightly and, as
though partly in response to his breathing instructions and partly in
response
to the inviting proximity of her body, slid his hands under her arms
and around
to the bulging contours of her breasts, cupping them in each hand and
applying
a little extra pressure in accordance with the demands of the
in-breaths,
relaxing his pressure with the out-breaths, so that the steady "in ...
and
... out, in ... and ... out" of her breathing routine acquired physical
support. He realized, all too soon, that
her breathing was becoming progressively quicker as well as deeper,
doubtless
due to his presence immediately behind her and the effect of his
physical
assistance. It was also acquiring, in
response to the variable pressure of his hands upon her breasts, a
certain
vocal accompaniment not ordinarily associated with meditation - a
sighing and
moaning which suggested the onslaught of sensual abandon.
He wondered whether he hadn't better draw
away from her before he got too physically involved.
But, as though in anticipation of some such
retreat, Mrs Evans suddenly reached her hands back behind herself and
unclipped
her bra, with the inevitable consequence that, following further
promptings on
her part, it slid away from her breasts, leaving his hands stranded, as
it
were, on the heaving mounds of naked flesh.
"In ... and ... out, in ... and ... out" he continued, growing
all the time more excited and sensuously committed to her physical
beauty
himself.
Yet now that he felt the
soft, smooth
surface of her naked breasts against his fingers, it was only a matter
of time,
more precisely a few seconds, before they closed over her nipples and
he
proceeded to caress them gently and slowly, backwards and forwards, to
the
mounting accompaniment, now somewhat more uninhibited, of her sighings and moanings. Already she had turned her head back towards
him, resting it on his nearest shoulder, and he found himself kissing
her neck
and shoulder blade, becoming ever more turned-on by the sweet perfume
behind
her ears. From the neck to the cheek,
the cheek to the mouth, and the mouth to the tongue ... required only a
slight
adjustment of their respective limbs, an adjustment which made it
perfectly
beyond doubt that he had been successfully seduced by Mrs Evans and was
now
unequivocally committed to exploring the potential for sensual
gratification
which her maturely attractive body held out to him.
"Ah, Matthew, you shouldn't
...” she
gently reproved him, as he became progressively bolder, stretching out
a hand
to caress her between the thighs while simultaneously applying his
tongue to
the protruding nipple of one of her breasts.
"You mustn't do this," she added. "I
thought
you were teaching me to
meditate, to gain spiritual insight.
You're not going to fuck me surely, not after what you said
you'd
do? Really, Matthew, I don't know how
..."
But he had already removed
from her heaving
body the final flimsy obstacle to his sexual objective, and was now
struggling
to remove his own rather more substantial obstacles to it, whilst
endeavouring
to maintain the impetus of his carnal assault and thus keep her
sexually
aroused. He knew enough about the devil
in woman not to be impressed by Mrs Evans' low-key reproaches, which
seemed, in
any case, specifically designed to channel and further inflame his
passion. He knew exactly what she wanted
and, as much from the promptings of the demon in himself as from the
devil in
her, he intended to let her have it, to make her squirm in an ecstasy
of
sensual abandon, forgetting who or where she was and even who she was
with. If her husband, with his failing
health, had been unable to satisfy her, then Matthew Pearce would make
doubly
sure he did, applying to her body the physical commitment which recent
circumstances had prevented him from applying to Gwen.
He wouldn't let her go until he had fully
expended himself on her, avenging himself not only on her beauty but on
her
husband as well - indeed, on the entire bourgeois establishment of
which this
woman was but an epitome, a microcosm of the whole.
If it was sensuality she was really after, he
would do his level best to make sure she got it, even if he had to go
through
hell in the process!
"Ah, Matthew ..." she was
moaning
as, freed from his constricting jeans and underpants, he applied
himself to her
distended sex with a vigour he never suspected himself capable of, so
long was
it since he had really screwed a woman - a real sensuous woman and not
a frigid
simulacrum of one, like Gwen.
"You'll kill me, Matthew.
You'll break me. Ah,
no,
not so violently, not so deeply!" Mrs Evans
feebly protested. "My God, I never
thought you'd be so virile! You'll
rupture me. Ah, free me, take me, do it harder, Matthew!
Still more, aaaaahhhgh ..." Her delirium mounted in intensity, reached a
peak of unintelligibility, and slowly trailed off after she had
succumbed to
her orgasm and been freed from the mounting tension which his thrusts,
ever quicker
and deeper, imperiously inspired. She
took his climax with scarcely a murmur, submerged, as she already was,
in a sea
of warm sensual gratification. Her body
had become sex from head to feet, not just in the pubic region where it
was
focused. Rather, it had been subtly
diffused throughout her, like a ray of bright sunshine, causing
sensations she
hadn't experienced in years to float to the surface and bask in its
gentle
warmth. She was left agreeably speechless
as his passion reached its consummation and began to ebb away,
gradually
withdrawing from her as from a foreign beach.
It was withdrawing, yes, but it had left its mark on her, left
the
imprint of its flow! She hadn't known
this degree of cathartic release in years.
She could hardly recognize herself.
"Don't leave me, darling," she murmured, reaching out a
restraining hand to her lover's neck as he began to disengage himself
from her
tender flesh. She was afraid that his
total withdrawal would cause her to plunge back into the memory of her
old
self, the self from which she had temporarily escaped.
Gently he bent down over her
again and
kissed her lengthily on the mouth, allowing his tongue to meet hers in
a
whirlpool of sensual caressing. He felt
that he could choke her with the force of his pressure on her tongue;
that, by
a renewed burst of passion, he could drive his tongue down her throat
whilst
simultaneously driving his penis deeper into her cleft vagina under the
perverse notion that the one would eventually meet-up with the other
somewhere
in the pit of her stomach, and so bring him into the utmost physical
and even
metaphysical intimacy with her. It was
as though, with the python-like tightening of her grip about him and
his sexual
responses to it, they were desperately trying to merge their separate
bodies
into one writhing being, to become fused together in an ecstasy of
undifferentiated carnality. But, of
course, he knew there were strict limits to the degree of his carnal
commitment
to her which could not be transgressed without the desire for increased
sexual
gratification turning into a form of sadism, so he wisely refrained
from
choking her with his tongue and began, instead, to playfully caress it
in
response to her wishes. He, too, was
afraid to abandon her and face-up, albeit from a different angle, to
the
immediate consequences of his actions.
It was easier, for the time being, to sample a little more of
her body,
to play along with the pretence of innocence which now prevailed
between them.
Yet it wasn't long before he
felt obliged
to desist from his attentions and repulse her renewed attempt to kindle
the
dying embers of his passion. The
weariness of having expended oneself and done what there was to do with
a woman
of her sort had come upon him, rendering
the pursuit
of further pleasure all but impossible.
The limit of sensual gratification had been reached. Beyond it, barring the possibility of sadism,
there was only the madness and futility of superfluous kissings
and fondlings, of a mere physical
engagement without
enthusiasm or passion, a fall from metaphysical grace.
Sated as he now was, her body had suddenly
become a repugnant thing to him, unable to perpetuate further pleasure.
He pushed her unreasonably
imploring hands
away from himself and stumbled towards his clothes, which lay heaped
together
on the floor not far from hers. He got
dressed quickly and quietly, almost self-consciously ashamed of his
nudity and
the concomitant fact that he was, after all, a separate person,
different and
remote. He didn't want his body to be
exposed as the repugnant thing Mrs Evans' body had suddenly become to
him. He was conscious of a sort of fall
from
spiritual grace. Conscious, too, that he
had allowed himself to be seduced by her at the very time when he was
most intent
upon teaching her to meditate. It came
as a kind of condemnatory blow to him, this secondary consciousness,
and made
him feel both ashamed and humiliated. It
was as though the illusion of his spiritual probity had been shattered
by the
ease with which Mrs Evans had achieved her carnal objectives. Hitherto, no such temptation had presented
itself, least of all from an attractive married woman, and he was
accordingly
able to sustain a comforting belief in the earnestness of his spiritual
endeavour and the commendable extent of his fidelity to it. Yet now that he had succumbed to the flesh at
the very time when he ought to have shown loyalty to the spirit, he was
less
confident that he was in fact as spiritually earnest as he had
previously
imagined himself to be! Perhaps, on the
other hand, his spiritual pretensions were largely a consequence of the
regrettable fact that social, professional, ideological, and financial
circumstances had not hitherto particularly favoured his romantic or
sex life,
making it necessary for him to seek compensation for and oblivion from
his
solitary plight in spiritual strivings?
No, that couldn't be! He refused to acknowledge the
possibility! It was far too humiliating,
altogether too self-effacing! He had
always known himself to be a predominantly spiritual being, an extreme ectomorph, or thin man, with intellectual
motivations. There could be no question of
his being
confounded with L'homme
moyen sensuel,
the
average
sensual man. But why,
then, had he succumbed to Mrs Evans' seductive influence with so little
hesitation or resistance? Was it
simply because of her exceptional good-looks?
Or was it because of the ten-year age gap between them which,
besides
exciting his curiosity, endowed her with a sort of moral authority over
him? Or was it, perhaps, because of her
bourgeois status and a correlative desire, on his part, to avenge
himself on
her in some way, either on account of her husband or Gwen or indeed, by
association, the bourgeois establishment in general?
In all probability, all three considerations
had played a part and possibly one or two others besides, though he
couldn't
determine to what extent. All he knew
for certain was that he felt somewhat ashamed of himself and deeply
humiliated
by what he had done. If his religious
pretensions could be shattered so easily, what hope was there that he
could
prevent the same thing from happening again in future, either with Mrs
Evans or
someone like her?
Indeed, how would those
pretensions now
appear to the woman herself, she who had so easily succeeded in
overcoming
them? How convinced would she
be,
on
the
evidence of his carnal appetite, that he
was in fact
as spiritual as, largely through his paintings and sculptures, he made
himself
out to be? She would probably be
laughing at him behind his back, mocking him for his inconsistencies. Yes, why not?
Hadn't she won a victory over him and exploited his moral
weakness at
the very time when it would be most vulnerable to attack, when his
spiritual
pretensions were most clearly exposed and a victory over them prove
correspondingly more gratifying? Yes,
indeed she had! Her sensuality had
overcome his spirituality at the very moment when it was most exposed
to its
own pretensions and had gobbled it up - lock, stock, and fucking barrel. No wonder she had implored him to stay with
her longer!
Turning round to face her,
he saw, with
resentful eyes, that she had got to her feet and was in the process of
getting
dressed, pulling her slender briefs into place over the mound of dark
pubic
hair that crowned her sex. She appeared
perfectly content with herself, which wasn't altogether surprising
really,
considering that she had got what she wanted.
To a certain extent she had no further need of him, just as he
had no
further need of her. No further sexual
need, at any rate; though he couldn't help admiring the ample bulk of
her
thighs and the generous curve of her hips, as she lowered her dress
over her
head preparatory to covering them. There
could be no denying her physical attractiveness!
She smiled warmly at him as
she eased her
dress back into place and invited him, with an appropriate twist on her
heels,
to zip her up, which he obligingly did, though not before taking one
last
lingering look at her smooth back, the smooth nature of which both
charmed and
fascinated him. "You aren't angry
with me, are you?" she asked, turning around to face him and placing an
affectionate, almost maternal hand on his arm.
"Of course not!" he
automatically
replied, a faint blush suffusing his cheeks in telltale
self-abnegation, as he
fought against the sordid temptation to reveal what he really felt. It was no use being frank with her.
"And not angry with
yourself, I
trust?" she inquired.
"No."
"Good!
That's as it should be. I was a
little worried about you actually."
"Oh, in
what
way?"
Mrs Evans resumed her warm,
teasing smile
and lightly squeezed his arm, as though to kindle a spark of his former
passion
from it. "About the extent of your
spiritual commitment principally," she revealed. "The degree of your
spiritual earnestness."
Matthew blushed more deeply,
almost like a
shy adolescent. "I don't quite
understand," he said.
"Well, I thought perhaps you
were a
little too spiritual for your own good, a little too ascetically
earnest,"
Mrs Evans informed him, vaguely waving a hand in the direction of the
paintings
and sculptures to their right. "I
was afraid, from the nature of your work, that you were rather too
preoccupied
with transcendentalism, virtually obsessed by it. But
I'm
glad to say that you aren't
altogether immune to fleshy enticements, and that I was accordingly
able to
broaden your horizon a little. And I'm
no-less glad to say that you gave me more sexual satisfaction than my
husband
has done, over the past five or six years.
You're not at all a bad lover, actually."
Matthew didn't know whether
to be grateful
for this unexpectedly frank piece of information or further ashamed of
himself,
so overwhelmed was he by conflicting emotions.
To some extent it delivered him from a number of pessimistic
suppositions concerning himself or, rather, his sexual performance. But, all the same, it didn't exactly flatter
his spiritual integrity! It was like a
kiss and a slap on the face at the same time.
He had been set up as a lover, only to be knocked down as a sage. Her frankness disarmed him.
"Yet all these doves and
meditating
figures had me worried for a time, I must confess," Mrs Evans resumed,
ignoring his ambivalent facial expression, "and got me to thinking that
perhaps you weren't really a man at all but a kind of deity or angel or
something. At least I now know that,
even with all your transcendental loyalties and noble strivings, you're
essentially a man, and a jolly good one too! For what is man, after all, but a creature
balanced between the sensual and the spiritual in harmony with the laws
of what
mankind should be?"
Matthew winced perceptibly
with this
paradoxical comment. For it was almost
painful for him to have to listen to it.
"Man isn't a creature that's fixed in its ways or being, like an
animal," he sternly countered, "but an evolutionary experiment, a
continuous transformation. If he began
as a beast, he must end as a god. Or, to
put it more concretely, he must slough off more and more of his
beastliness as
he evolves towards a higher state of being, one in which only the
spiritual
counts for anything."
"Now you're talking
nonsense!"
Mrs Evans opined half-jokingly.
"You're trying to contradict your own manhood no sooner than
five minutes
after I've had first-hand experience of it."
"Not at
all!"
Matthew protested. "I'm merely
saying that this balance you refer to is an illusion, a temporary
situation,
and that man needn't necessarily be forced into any particular mould." Yet, once again, he realized that he was
speaking to a bourgeois, a species of 'man' whose mean it was to be
balanced in
the aforesaid manner, and that she could no more be expected to share
his view
than he ... hers. What she understood by
'man' was essentially egocentric man, man in his prime as man -
the
middle stage in the spectrum of human evolution. It
was
the mean of D.H. Lawrence, as of Rampion,
the Lawrence-like character in Huxley's Point
Counter
Point, a mean that signified a sensual/spiritual integrity, an
all-roundedness of being which fought shy of saints and sinners alike,
being
prepared to brand all those who didn't or couldn't subscribe to its
dualistic
integrity as failures or perverts. To go
beyond the dualistic mean was, to its devotees, just as bad as, if not
worse
than, failing to come up to it. Either
way, one would not be a man, which, in a sense, was true.
That is to say, one would not be man in his
prime as man - a bourgeois. No,
one would be either an early or a late man,
a subman or a superman.
If early, then one would be lopsided on the side of the
subconscious and
thus ... predominantly sensual, fundamentally pagan.
If late, on the other hand, one would be
lopsided on the side of the superconscious
and thus
... predominantly spiritual, essentially transcendental.
The subman, being
closer to the beasts, would be inferior to the balanced, egocentric man. The superman, being closer to the godlike,
would be his superior. Now, naturally,
if one is in-between these two extremes one isn't going to endorse the
superiority of the spiritually lopsided man, even if, at least tacitly,
one
inclines to look down upon the pagan.
No, as a bourgeois, one remains loyal to oneself, since anything
else
would be self-defeating.
Accordingly one dismisses
the lopsided as
failures or perverts, content with the assumption that the mean is ever
dualistic and cannot be bettered. Yet
the fact is that, contrary to the bourgeois' complacent entrenchment in
relativity, it can
and is
being bettered, and by no less than the spiritually
lopsided! If they are not yet godly,
testifying to the complete sovereignty of the superconscious
over the subconscious, they are at least on the road to eventually
becoming
such, being a good deal closer to the culmination of human evolution in
the
millennial Beyond than ever their egocentric detractors or bourgeois
predecessors were, and consequently of a more fortunate disposition.
But Matthew had to admit to
himself that
such knowledge was hardly likely to make a profound impression on Mrs
Evans,
who seemed to be too resigned to the dualistic mean to have any use for
whatever stood above it. And so he
refrained from launching out in defence of lopsided spirituality,
contenting
himself, instead, with an ironic smile and shrug of the shoulders, as
though to
impress upon her the futility of their arguing about it.
Besides, hadn't his passion for her body
demonstrated that he was not all that far removed from such a balanced
dualism
himself, but only incipiently transcendental or, at any rate, of a
consciousness which was probably compounded of no more than two-thirds superconscious mind and one-third subconscious
mind,
leaving room for a fair amount of sensuality?
As it happened, he wasn't exactly in the strongest of positions
to
defend transcendentalism from the claims of dualism.
Neither, for that matter, were the vast
majority of latter-day transcendentalists, who were probably little
further
advanced than himself along the long and narrow road that led to the
post-human
millennium, and thus to the possibility of ultimate salvation. Yet at least one had the consolation of
knowing that one belonged to a class of persons which would eventually
reach
paradise, even if it took a number of decades or even centuries.
Meanwhile Mrs Evans had put
on her black
high-heels, straightened her nylon stockings, and tidied her hair,
using the
small portable mirror she habitually carried in her handbag to check
and modify
her facial appearance into the bargain.
She seemed to have grown tired of discussing the nature of man
too,
since more interested in herself and the application of a smear or two
of
lipstick to her sensuously pouting lips.
Then she turned back to Matthew and, with gentle application of
a paper
tissue, wiped some lipstick from his face, commenting all the while on
his
funny appearance. "You could be
taken for some kind of half-arsed punk," she joked in quasi-American
fashion, as the last traces of its smear were gently removed from his
cheeks.
For an instant he wanted to
kiss her anew,
so attractive did she seem all of a sudden.
But he realized that he would only succeed in getting her to
reciprocate
and thereby mess-up his face all over again.
"Now we wouldn't want Gwen
to discover
you've been making love to a woman who wears bright-red lipstick, would
we?" she added, with a teasingly conspiratorial look in her eyes.
"No, I guess not," he
conceded. "Especially
when that woman was her mother."
"Quite!" Mrs Evans agreed. "It wouldn't help to improve your
relationship any." She turned away
from him and, with nervous hesitation, duly returned the crumpled,
lipstick-smeared tissue to her handbag.
Her face in profile appeared exquisitely refined, more so than
her
daughter's ever did. A sudden beam of
light
shooting through the window caused the bright red of her dress to be
momentarily intensified, making it appear as though she were on fire. A hairgrip on her piled-up mass of hair
sparkled like a diamond. She turned back
towards him, losing some of the otherworldly significance which the sun
had
gratuitously and even paradoxically granted her. "Now
then,"
she murmured,
"what about that cup of tea you promised me earlier?"
CHAPTER
SIX
The
following
Thursday
evening Matthew Pearce set off by taxi for Gwen's Chelsea
flat, in accordance with the invitation he had received, a few days
previously,
to meet a couple of her friends there - namely Peter and Linda Daniels. Since he hadn't seen Gwen since Monday,
following their joint return from
Arriving at Gwen's address
at about
seven-thirty, he rang the bell and was duly admitted by the young lady
in
person, who seemed pleased to see him and relieved that he had in fact
been
able to make it after all, contrary to his initial misgivings about the
evening
in question.
"Have your friends arrived
yet?"
he asked, following her up the thickly carpeted wooden stairs to her
second-floor apartment.
"Just a few minutes ago,"
she
replied, glancing over her shoulder at the denim-clad ascending figure
behind. "Which
was pretty good timing on their part, too."
He was led into the lounge
and introduced first
to Peter and then to Linda Daniels, the former extending a rather stiff
white
hand, the latter a more flexible black one.
"Glad to meet you," he
averred,
as he shook hands with each of the Daniels and briefly scanned their
faces -
the man's firm and set, rather hard and aristocratic; the woman's, by
contrast,
quite fluid and gentle, pleasantly serene.
He took an immediate liking to her, though the husband repelled
him a
little and immediately put him on his guard.
"So you're the artist Gwen
has been
telling us about," Peter Daniels remarked, no sooner than the
introductions had run their customary course.
"Yes, I guess so," said
Matthew,
smiling.
"Well, I'm a writer myself,
of mostly
journalistic tendency, though occasionally a poet and novelist as
well,"
Peter Daniels declared. "And my
wife is a fellow-teacher at Gwendolyn’s school."
"A physical education
teacher if I
remember correctly, isn't it?" Matthew responded, recalling to mind what he had already learnt from Gwen.
"Yes, unfortunately so,"
Linda
admitted, with a gentle self-deprecatory sigh.
"I think she would rather be
an art
teacher actually," Gwen opined, for the artist's benefit.
"Is that so?"
"Well, not specifically,"
Linda
admitted. "Though
I do have an interest in art, both ancient and modern."
Peter Daniels frowned
enigmatically, or at
least that's how it appeared to Matthew.
"I suppose your interest is chiefly in the modern, is it?" he
said to the latter, who, at Gwen's request, had just sat down in a
nearby
armchair.
"Well, as a practising
artist I guess
it has to be," he replied.
"I'm not one to either copy or strive to emulate the old
masters,
you know."
"Ah, so you're
anti-representational?" Peter Daniels conjectured enigmatically.
The inference struck Matthew
as a bit odd,
but he smiled and simply said: "Not so much anti-representational as
pro-transcendental."
Peter Daniels raised his
brows in acute
surprise. "And what exactly is
that?" he asked.
Matthew attempted to
explain, using as few
words as possible, the basis of his allegiance to the Holy Ghost and
correlative penchant for the superconscious. However, the journalist transpired not to
being particularly impressed by his explanation, having no prior
knowledge of
the superconscious and its role in shaping
the
arts. To him, it sounded like a figment
of the imagination. And not only that but, worse still, a threat to his egocentric
integrity,
with its empirical objectivity. He had
no desire to revise his philosophical viewpoint of Spenglerian
pessimism and opposition to decadence, including, not least of all, its
mystical manifestations. He was a
champion of Western civilization, with its scientific rationality, and
he lost
no time in letting the transcendentalist know it! Needless
to
say, Matthew was somewhat
taken-aback, suddenly confronted, as he now was, by a sense of deja
vu in the presence of what seemed to him like a carbon copy of
Gwen's father. "I don't quite
understand you," he confessed.
"Well, whether you realize
it or
not," Peter Daniels rejoined, with an air of didactic earnestness,
"Western civilization is seriously threatened by certain destructive
elements in contemporary society whose only desire is to bring about
its
complete and utter downfall, and so enable the opponents of
civilization to
triumph. The decline of the West, as
outlined by Spengler in his seminal work
of that
name, is an indisputable fact which cannot be denied, no matter how
repugnant
it may appear to us or, at any rate, to those of us with an interest in
preventing and perhaps even reversing its decline.
It's an extremely regrettable fact, but there
it is! The enemies of Western
civilization, who patently include mystical transcendentalists of a
non-empirical disposition, are slowly but steadily gaining the
ascendancy."
Matthew was virtually
thunderstruck. He could scarcely believe
his ears! Was this
what he
had come along to Gwen's flat to hear - the prejudices of a reactionary
bourgeois? He was almost on the point of
exploding with laughter. "But the
civilization to which you allude," he responded, as soon as he could
get
over the initial shock of what he had just heard, "is being superseded
by
that which stands above it and signifies the next and probably final
rung on
the ladder of human evolution. If
anything is in decline it's only the bourgeois world, which cannot last
for
ever but is destined to be superseded in due course.
Indeed, it has already been superseded to a
large extent, as a cursory glance at the contemporary world, with its
photography and films and pop music, would adequately confirm."
Peter Daniels seemed not to
have heard
aright. "Are you seriously trying
to tell me that what's currently happening to our civilization is for
the
better?" he objected incredulously.
"Yes, naturally," Matthew
maintained. "It may not be for the
better as far as the bourgeoisie are concerned, but it's certainly so
for the
proletariat, who have largely superseded them.
If bourgeois civilization didn't decline - and it's no longer in
effective operation anyway - there would be a frightful stasis, a
horrible
permanence of egocentric dualism, which it would be impossible to
endure. I mean, what could be more absurd
and
fundamentally tragic than that? The idea
simply doesn't bear thinking about!
Fortunately, however, life is a perpetual evolution, not a
permanent
stasis, so we needn't fear that the changes which are occurring to and
in our
society are inevitably for the worse.
We're climbing up higher, not falling down lower."
"Bullshit!" cried Peter
Daniels,
who had become flushed from suppressed rage.
"How can so many of the changes which have come over the Western
and, in particular, West European world this century possibly signify
progress? Are you seriously trying to tell
me that modern art, for instance, is superior to traditional art - to
the
representational art, shall we say, of the 16-19th centuries?"
"Superior in one respect it
most
certainly is," Matthew affirmed, trying to avoid thinking of Mr
Evans. "It's not so much balanced
between illusion and truth as distinctly biased on the side of truth,
distinctly a product of the superconscious,
with
its
non-representational subjectivity. Which
is why I said that, as a product of egocentric tension, Western
civilization is
effectively no longer in operation, having been superseded by what
stands above
it - the transcendental bias of post-egocentric man."
"Don't you really mean what
stands
beneath it?" Peter Daniels protested defiantly.
"On the contrary, what
stands beneath
it is the pre-egocentric, in which the balanced dualism to which you
evidently
subscribe hadn't yet come properly into existence," Matthew retorted,
"the reason being that, at that stage in his evolution, Western man was
distinctly biased on the side of the subconscious and thus given to an
art form
which reflected his sensual predominance and correlative predilection
for the
illusory. But modern art generally
reflects the opposite tendency and, consequently, is of a far superior
nature. At its best, its
most abstract, it tends to reflect a superior development to both the
religious
and secular art of the representational past, which is either
sensuously
lopsided or balanced between the sensual and spiritual realms in what
amounts
to an egocentric compromise. A
spiritualized abstract canvas is closer to truth, whereas a beautiful
representational one, particularly such as was produced during the
cultural
heyday of Western civilization, contains a great deal of illusion -
namely the
thing or person or whatever being represented, and the way in which the
subject-matter is handled. Now if these
days we, or at least the more spiritually evolved of us, prefer the
sight of an
abstract or monochromatic canvas to a fully representational one, it's
largely because
we've lost our taste and capacity for illusion, having evolved to a
point which
is so biased in favour of the superconscious
... that
only what intimates of or reflects truth has any real relevance to us. The other, though still intelligible, becomes
something of an anachronism for us."
Peter Daniels grunted his
animal
disapproval of this radical statement.
"Not for me it doesn't," he grimly declared.
"I take no pleasure in abstract or
monochromatic canvases. And neither, I
should imagine, does anyone with the least degree of sense, taste, or
intelligence!"
"I'm bound to say that's a
highly
presumptuous claim," Matthew averred, giving way to a degree of
emotional
contempt for the journalist. "The
fact is that the most enlightened people tend to relate more to modern
non-representational art than to any traditional art, great or
otherwise."
A smile of undisguised
satisfaction passed
across Linda Daniels' attractively oval face at this remark, whereas
Gwen's
remained rather stern. The former felt
secretly gratified by it, whereas the latter, conscious of her
inability to
understand most of Matthew's art, took it as a personal affront.
"Even where monochromatic
canvases are
concerned?" said Peter Daniels sarcastically.
"Yes, though it's not
necessary to
dwell on extremes or to equate the bulk of modern art with such radical
experiments," Matthew objected.
"There's a lot more to it than that, as I think you would
realize
if you visited any large gallery of modern art or glanced through the
pages of
any comprehensively illustrated encyclopaedia on the subject. Even my work, at present focusing on certain
religious ideals, with particular reference to the inner light of
meditation,
is not without a degree of variety."
"Humph, of a rather
simplistic order I
should imagine!" the journalist sneered, to the evident disapproval of
his
wife, who immediately reproved him with a curt, emphatic utterance of
his
Christian name.
But Matthew remained
unperturbed. "As a matter of fact, my work
is
generally rather simplistic," he confessed. "For
it
wouldn't serve my illustrative
purposes to make it otherwise. My basic
adherence to what are termed minimalist techniques is a reflection, in
large
measure, of fidelity to the superconscious
as opposed
to the ego. Or, to be more precise, of
fidelity to an ego which is more under the sway of the superconscious
than of the subconscious, and accordingly less given to egocentric
embellishments and self-aggrandizing complexities than would otherwise
be the
case."
"Bah! that's
only to say you'd be incapable of producing great art, which of
necessity demands
a high
level of complexity," Peter Daniels exclaimed.
"Yes, I dare say I am
incapable
of producing the kind of art that appertains to the egocentric past,"
Matthew admitted, anticipating some such objection on the journalist's
part,
"but that's exactly as it should be.
For I live in an intensely artificial environment and am the
recipient
of post-egocentric standards and predilections.
I'm very much a product of the big city and therefore don't feel
qualified to paint or sculpt in a manner which, strictly speaking,
pertains
chiefly to a medium-sized town or a small city, where nature and,
needless to
say, nature's sensuous influence are never very far away, and man is
accordingly more under the dominion of his subconscious, with its
penchant for
the illusory. No, if I were able and
qualified to paint in a style approximating to the representational
tradition,
I'd be an anachronism, not a bona
fide contemporary artist."
Peter Daniels snorted
contemptuously at
what seemed to him like a narrowly one-sided viewpoint.
"And you regard what you do
paint as
art rather than anti-art?" he asked sceptically.
"Yes,
most
certainly!" Matthew replied.
"Only, it's an art centred on truth rather than balanced between
truth and illusion, essence and appearance, the subjective and the
objective. In short, a
sort of superart.... However, the
fact that
there has
been an outpouring of anti-art this century is something I won't,
of course, deny. Yet even that was
partly founded on the delusion that art is essentially a matter of
illusion,
like religion, rather than a phenomenon which evolves into truth, as in
fact it
can do and subsequently has
done. No, I don't concentrate on anti-art,
any more
than on the negativity of Spenglerian
pessimism
concerning the West, because I prefer to take a positive line and thus
accept
the applicability of truth to art, whether in the realm of the
spiritual or the
secular, the transcendent or the mundane.
To me, art isn't simply something that comes to an end with the
passing
of an egocentric age, in which myth and sensuality play a significant
part, but
something that continues on up the ladder of human evolution to the
reflection
of a transcendental age, in which truth and spirituality are the
leading
factors. Why therefore should I waste
time producing anti-art - which, in any case, has already been produced
in
sufficient abundance this century, and seems primarily intended to
belittle and
undermine the old representational mode of art - when there's a new
art-sense
to consider and much work to be done in consolidating and perfecting it? Gone are the days when it was respectable or,
at any rate, credible to be an anti-artist.
If I knew anyone who was one these days, I shouldn't wish to
associate
with him. He'd only bore and confuse
me."
"Which is precisely what you
do to
me!" snapped Peter Daniels, to the verbal disapproval, once again, of
his
wife. "Whether or not it's because
I was born and bred in the country, I don't know. But,
whatever
the reason, I can't relate to
what you're saying. As a conservative, I
find a great deal of modern art, of whatever tendency, totally
unacceptable and
completely without justification. It
palls to insignificance by comparison with the greatest art produced by
European civilization right up to the mid-nineteenth century, which
seems to be
the turning-point, the beginning of the rot, the gradual decline in our
significance as a cultural power. One
need only read a work like The
Hour
of Decision by Oswald Spengler, to
obtain a fair idea of what is happening to us
and why we're in decline, not only as regards the arts but ..."
"Fortunately I have no use
for neo-royalist
solutions to the apparent dilemma which confronts us," Matthew
interposed,
on the crest of another wave of contempt which had built-up inside him
at the
mention of Spengler again.
"And no sympathy for the book to which
you refer, which, in my honest opinion, is one of the most depressing,
if not
reactionary, works ever written."
Peter
Daniels flinched
sharply, as though from a sudden blow to the face.
"I can hardly agree with that
statement!" he ejaculated, patently shocked and offended.
"Oh, so you're a
neo-royalist, are
you?" Matthew deduced.
"No, damn it, a
conservative, as I
told you a moment ago!"
"Ah yes, a democratic
royalist,"
the artist concluded inferentially.
There was a period of
strained silence
before, with an obvious air of constraint, Peter Daniels confessed:
"I'm
afraid I don't quite follow you."
"It simply means that you're
not as
extreme as your authoritarian counterparts," Matthew calmly remarked. "As a royalist, you can only be one of
three principal types, viz. a genuine royalist, a democratic royalist,
or a
neo-royalist."
"I fail to appreciate the
distinction
between a genuine royalist and a neo-royalist," said Peter Daniels with
a
thinly ironic smile on his lips.
"So do a lot of people,"
Matthew
retorted, "but that's only because they're ignorant."
"How dare you!"
The journalist had got to his feet and was
staring down at Matthew in a highly threatening manner, his fists
tightly
clenched at his sides.
"Peter!"
Linda Daniels had also got to her feet and
put a restraining hand on her husband's nearest arm.
"Are you going to behave reasonably, or
must we leave the room?"
"It would be better if we
left this
place altogether," rasped Peter Daniels, still staring down at the
seated
artist.
"Please, I'd rather you
didn't,"
pleaded Gwen, stepping up to his other side.
"I have some dinner on at the moment, after all."
The mention of dinner
appeared to calm
Peter Daniels down a little and induced him to return to his seat,
accompanied
by the faithful and ever-persevering presence of his wife.
Gwen sighed her
relief and excused herself on the pretext of having to return to the
kitchen. There was an uneasy silence in
the room, disturbed only by the heavy ticking of an old-fashioned wall
clock. It was Matthew, however, who first
broke it
or, rather, broke out of it.
"I didn't intend to offend
you
personally," he averred, speaking directly to the journalist, "but
was simply trying to point out a fact.
And if you're still interested in hearing my notion, erroneous
or not,
of the distinction between royalism and a
neo-royalism, I'll give it to you."
Peter Daniels emitted a
fulsome sigh of
regret. "Very well, what is
it?" he rasped.
"Essentially the difference
between a
Henry VIII or a Louis XIV and a Franco or a Mussolini," replied
Matthew,
blushing slightly in response to what he basically knew to be an
unorthodox
viewpoint, but one which circumstances had launched him into without
proper
preparation or indeed complete conviction.
"The difference, in other words, between a genuine aristocratic
dictatorship and a dictatorship which is anything but aristocratic. Genuine royalism
pertains to an epoch in which the aristocracy govern, an epoch
preceding the
bourgeois one of royalist/socialist compromise.
Neo-royalism, or fascism, is only
possible in
an age like our own, which is in transition to a proletarian one and
consequently subject to confusions and extreme reactionary tendencies. It's a species of authoritarianism which may
triumph for a time but never for very long, since the current of
evolution is
against it and, in the end, it must succumb to the prevailing Zeitgeist,
which,
especially
these days, is decidedly socialistic. Not
being a genuine article but a bogus,
anachronistic, plebeianized form of royalism, it is doomed to extinction and
failure, even if,
for a while, it has the appearance of strength.
No, the legitimate epoch for royalism
is one
in which man hasn't yet attained to a balance between the subconscious
and superconscious minds but is under the
dominion of the
former, and thus given to the perpetuation of a society which upholds
the
sovereignty of the sensual and materialistic over the spiritual and
idealistic. Royalism
is an elitist phenomenon, and therefore it emphasizes differences
between men,
as between the nobility and the commonality.
It is fundamentally dark, cruel, evil, illusory - in a word,
pagan. And its upholders are generally men
of
action, which, in any case, is what every genuine aristocracy should be. Only after they've been dethroned by the
bourgeoisie do the aristocracy - or such of them as are left - begin to
cultivate a more studious and contemplative mode of life.
Yet the more they feel obliged to do this,
the less genuinely aristocratic they become, with a result that, after
centuries of progressive atrophying of the truly aristocratic
instincts, one
arrives at the equivalent of the poor wretch whom Huysmans
delineates in his classic novel Against Nature through the
character of
Des Esseintes - a sickly dilettante and
dandy, the
degenerate consequence of bourgeois rule.
Of that race of proud and ruthless predators from which he was
descended, scarcely a trace remains. The
fact is you can't be a genuine aristocrat, and hence royalist, after
the
termination of your governing epoch. You
become progressively spurious to the point where, if you have any fight
left in
you, you may well be prepared to clutch at any fascist straw which the
wind of
reactionary conservatism may blow your way."
"Well, fortunately for me, I
happen to
be middle class," Daniels responded, "so I can't pretend it bothers
me all that much if the aristocracy are not what they used to be. And my politics are neither
royalist
nor
neo-royalist and/or fascist, as you define it, but
conservative."
"Yes, democratic royalist,"
Matthew repeated, "because the bourgeois is ever a compromise animal,
indisposed to the authoritarian.
Appertaining to the middle, or second, stage of human evolution
in
between the aristocracy and the proletariat, you divide into two main
camps -
one camp with closer ties to the dethroned aristocracy, the other with
closer
ties to the ascending proletariat. Thus
arises the prolonged parliamentary struggle between the right-wing
conservative
bourgeoisie and their left-wing liberal counterparts, with the former
growing
steadily weaker as the latter grow stronger, the political pendulum
gradually
swinging from the Right to the Left, even given all the relatively
minor
election oscillations coming in-between, as can be verified, I believe,
by the
increasing radicalism which the parliamentary progression from Whig and
Liberal
to Labour governments implies."
"Humph, you make it all
sound too
philosophically neat and simple!" Peter Daniels objected.
"Maybe
that's because I happen to look down on it all from a higher
vantage-point," Matthew declared.
"What, democratic
socialist?" the
journalist scoffed, turning briefly towards Linda Daniels for support.
"Totalitarian, if you
please," came the instant rejoinder.
"What, you a communist?" Peter Daniels was almost on the verge of
getting to his feet again, so taken-aback was he by the artist's
complacent
admission.
"Yes, in a manner of
speaking,"
Matthew admitted, blushing slightly in spite of himself, for he was
aware now
that part of what he said was not so much him speaking as an
argumentative
persona which the debate had conjured up from the nether depths of his
psyche
like some kind of demented demon of wilful intent.
"Which is to say, to the extent," he
rejoined, "that I perceive totalitarian socialism as
a means to social democracy and thus to the achievement of real
political power
by the proletariat."
"But you're an educated and
well-spoken man, you're not a proletarian!" Peter Daniels hotly
protested, exhaling what might have been
dragon's breath towards his
obdurate interlocutor.
"As a matter of fact,
whether I'm
educated and well-spoken or the converse has absolutely nothing to do
with
it," Matthew rejoined, unmoved.
"The fact remains that I can understand the development of
evolution
away from a royalist/socialist dualism towards what transcends it and
accordingly stands at the opposite pole to royalism,
being
the
dictatorship of the proletariat rather than of the aristocracy. Now whether or not I'm a genuine socialist is
another matter, seeing that, just as one cannot be a genuine royalist
when the
aristocracy are no longer in power but have been superseded by the
bourgeoisie,
so, it seems to me, one cannot be a genuine socialist when the
proletariat have
not yet attained to power, through the agency of totalitarian
socialism, but
are still subject to the control, no matter how tenuously, of the
bourgeois
status quo, with its capitalist base.
Democratic socialists, on the other hand, are no closer to being
genuine
socialists ... than democratic royalists, or conservatives, to being
genuine
royalists or, rather, neo-royalists and, hence, fascists.
They are tainted by the bourgeois brush of
dualistic compromise, they're part of the parliamentary tension between
royalism and socialism and, as such, they
pertain to a
parliamentary epoch, even if and when that epoch is drawing towards a
close. A genuine socialist, however,
could only look down on them from the idealistic vantage-point of one
who has
evolved beyond the middle, or twilight, stage of the political
spectrum, with
its capitalist exploitation. Standing in
the light of proletarian triumph, he would not care for the relative
darkness
appertaining to the epoch of bourgeois democracy. But
I
don't stand in such a light, not even
in the inceptive context of communist authoritarianism, when the
proletariat,
having wrenched power from the bourgeoisie through a revolutionary
elite, have
yet to come into their own political maturity and are accordingly
subject to
the paternalistic control of the Communist Party, like a child
dependent on the
guidance of a stern parent. No, I simply
realize that such a light is one day destined to materialize, and that
it's
therefore impossible to regard democratic socialism as an
end-in-itself, with nothing
higher above or beyond it. Thanks to my
knowledge and insight, I'm obliged to live as an outsider, unable to
commit
myself to the compromise integrity of democratic socialism, which is
Welfare
State socialism coupled to state capitalism, but simultaneously unable
to enter
into the true spirit of genuine socialism, and for the simple reason
that such
a spirit doesn't yet exist, the proletariat not having officially come
to
power, since still living under the economic heel of bourgeois
capitalism."
Peter Daniels could hardly
believe his
ears! It was as though the fact that he
found himself in close proximity to a man who belittled and
contradicted all
his own views and standards was too much to take, too difficult to
comprehend. He had never been politically
face-to-face with 'the enemy' before, with a person so unequivocally
and
radically left wing, and now it appeared that he was in fact
face-to-face with
such a person he found it strangely unreal, as though he were simply
the
hapless victim of a bad dream. It was
really quite different from what he had imagined it would be, and
largely
because he was no longer as confident as before about the virtues of
parliamentary democracy. He almost felt
humiliated! And not only on account of
Matthew Pearce but, no less evidently, also on account his wife, who,
although
sitting next to him, seemed spiritually far removed from him, drawn to
the
substance of the artist's remarks, wrapped-up in an attentive silence
which
somehow only served to emphasize the temperamental and ideological
incompatibility which he knew to exist between them but did his best to
minimize or ignore. There seemed to be a
conspiracy against him in the air.
But he would not be
humiliated, least of
all by a frigging advocate of totalitarian socialism!
His middle-class dignity rebelled against the
prospect. He would speak out, defend the
cause and reality of parliamentary freedom if it was the last thing he
did! And Matthew Pearce, socialist or no
socialist, would have to listen, irrespective of how abhorrent he found
it. Maybe there was a chance that he
could be reformed, made to see sense while the opportunity prevailed,
encouraged to grow up and put his wishful and largely over-simplistic
thinking
behind him.
Thus Peter Daniels responded
to the
challenge in the only way he knew how - with a wholehearted defence of
parliamentary democracy, a defence designed to remind Matthew Pearce
that,
although such democracy was not without its faults, it was still a damn
sight
better than the chaos and tyranny which inevitably accompanied
socialist
revolutions.
The artist listened
patiently but, even
with a consciousness of his own ideological shortcomings, remained
unimpressed. He had heard such arguments
before, accompanied by the usual welter of platitudes concerning the
virtues of
capitalist freedom and the superiority of liberal over totalitarian
systems. It was what one had to expect
from a bourgeois, that man of the compromise stage of evolution. To him, dictatorships of whatever description
were equally objectionable. And why? Because
they
deprived him of his
power, took away his
freedom to
exploit as he thought fit. Royalist
autocracies kept economic power in the hands of the aristocracy. Communist autocracies would share power
amongst the proletariat once they came of age and could be more
democratically
entrusted with its management themselves.
No wonder he feared and hated them!
Either way - with the possible exception of a fascist regime
partial to
the monied interests of the conservative
bourgeoisie
- a regression to feudalism or a progression to socialism signalled the
end of
his capitalist power. Consequently he
had no option but to uphold the parliamentary system, that compromise
of the
bourgeois world. Four years of a
democratic-socialist government, with its state capitalism, would be
easier or
less hard to bear, depending on one's viewpoint, than an indefinite
period of
totalitarian socialism which, if it didn't do away with one as an
individual,
would almost certainly put an end to one's economic exploitation. For after those four years had elapsed, there
was at least a chance, indeed a very good chance, a more than even
chance, that
the party closer to his own heart and economic interests would be
returned to
power, and matters accordingly take a turn for the better.
It was a compromise worth putting-up with!
But not for any socialist,
any genuine
socialist, that is. Oh, no!
Such a person had no patience with the
government, intermittent or otherwise, of a party in the pay of, and
thus
sympathetic to, the capitalistic interests of the bourgeoisie,
particularly the
grand-bourgeoisie. He wanted their party
done away with, so that the road would be clear for socialism. And with the end of the democratic royalists
would come the demise of the democratic
socialists
who, although left wing, were insufficiently extreme to function in the
guise
of genuine socialism. With the demise of
parliamentary democracy, an undiluted socialist party would prevail, to
signal
the beginnings of a new era of political development in which,
eventually, the
proletariat would take over from Big Daddy the economic, political, and
judicial management of their affairs.
That was what every progressive proletarian wanted to see and,
unless a
catastrophe of unimaginable horror or disaster overtook the world in
the near
future, it would surely happen, evolutionary progress continuing along
the path
opened-up by the growth of urban civilization.
Yet it was impossible for
Matthew to say
all this to Peter Daniels, who probably wouldn't have understood or
appreciated
it. Instead, he contented himself with
words to the effect that he had no use or respect for the type of
freedom, so
dear to the bourgeois heart, which enabled capitalist exploiters to
amass
private fortunes at the proletariat's expense, growing ever more
corrupt the
richer they became.
"Yes, but really," the
journalist
rejoined, his voice strained with self-righteous emotion, "surely you
must
realize that dictatorial regimes are essentially evil and cruel. I mean, just look at the examples the world
has seen this century, Stalin's most especially, not to mention those
currently
still in existence."
"Of course, I strongly
object to
fascist regimes," Matthew countered, "since they're against the grain
of evolution and a scourge to the most progressive people.
When I think of the number of socialists
killed or tortured by Hitler's accomplices, my blood positively boils
with
anger at the magnitude of the reactionary tyranny unleashed at the time. But there's one hell of a difference between
a neo-feudal regime and a socialist regime, and that's a fact which you
parliamentary people don't always appreciate.
You cite Stalin as an example of communist tyranny, and no-one
would
doubt that Stalin was effectively a cold-blooded autocrat who ruled the
"Oh, come now!" Peter
Daniels
protested, becoming red in the face with suppressed rage.
"I would hesitate to describe someone
responsible for the butchering of some twenty million people in quite
such
euphemistic terms!"
"Yes, but one must remember
that
Stalin was under a considerable amount of internal pressure from rival
factions
and consequently felt obliged to take extremely stringent measures to
safeguard
his regime," Matthew averred.
"As to the full facts of the matter, I'm not of course
sufficiently
well-informed, since that is something for the historian or politician. But I do know that I'd rather hear about the
erection of concentration camps by a Stalin than by a Hitler, or any
other
fascist dictator for that matter."
"Even with the murder of
several
million people?" queried Peter Daniels incredulously.
"Even
then."
"You mean you're not against
the mass
murder of millions of innocent people?" gasped Peter Daniels, patently
astounded.
Matthew was about to reply
in the negative,
but then wisely hesitated on the verge of speaking.
No, he wasn't going to be duped by bourgeois
humanism. "As to the mass murder of
millions of innocent people, I would most certainly object, and in the
strongest possible terms!" he averred.
"But not to the liquidation - an altogether more pertinent term
-
of millions of guilty
people, or people, in other words, whom it's
necessary for one to remove in order to further and safeguard the new
society. I strongly object to the
indiscriminate murder of millions of innocent people, such as was
sanctioned by
Hitler's regime on chiefly racial grounds.
For such cold-blooded genocide is patently criminal. It leads to the elimination of millions of
the best as well as the worst, socialists as well as capitalists, the
oppressed
as well as their class oppressors. It
doesn't hit the nail on the head, so to speak, and these days more than
ever
it's precisely the head which needs hitting - namely the bourgeois one!"
"You mean you wouldn't
object to a
purge of the bourgeoisie by any prospective socialist regime which came
to
power in the near future?" exclaimed Peter Daniels, his strained
tone-of-voice indicating a mixture of horror and accusation.
"No, of
course
not!" Matthew admitted.
"For it's pretty obvious that the bourgeoisie would be somewhat
incompatible with the socialistic requirements of such a regime. They would be far from enthusiastic about
sacrificing their competitiveness for the sake of a uniformly
co-operative
framework within the context of public ownership, and for the simple
reason
that such a sacrifice would run contrary to their material interests as
capitalist exploiters and free-market predators. One
couldn't
expect them to suddenly become
proletarians, as though by the wave of a magic wand.
You can't simply slip out of one soul and
into another, out of a private domain which has done a Faustian pact
with the
Devil and into a public one which repudiates any such pact. No, they'd have to be interned, and not
simply because they were adjudged incompatible with the socialistic
requirements of a truly co-operative society, but also as retribution
for their
capitalist crimes and exploitative past.
The proletariat would have to be avenged on their historical
oppressors!"
"And who exactly would those
oppressors be?" Peter Daniels wanted to know, a mildly ironic humour
replacing his previous sombre response to the artist's apocalyptic
revelations. For it
was as though the tragedy of what he had just heard had suddenly been
transmuted into farce, albeit of a slightly sinister order. He wasn't prepared to accept the guilt of the
bourgeoisie, since bourgeois blood ran in his veins.
He knew that, historically, the bourgeoisie
were justified, even if he wasn't prepared to admit to the fact that
their
justification was transitory.
"Obviously a great number of
them
would be businessmen," Matthew obliged, after a few seconds thoughtful
deliberation during which time he cleared his throat with guttural
relish, as
though in preparation for an arduous task.
"And, most especially, those businessmen, in
particular, who had oppressed the workers the most and reaped the
biggest
dividends from the capitalist system.
The largest sharks above all! But
also a number of smaller ones, staunch believers in free enterprise,
i.e. the
right of private entrepreneurs to pursue their capitalist interests
irrespective of the moral and spiritual cost to society in general, and
with a
view to becoming rich and powerful, like their more successful
exemplars. Then, of course, a number of
professionals,
including private doctors, private dentists, and public-school teachers
- in
short, those professionals who weren't salaried employees of the State
but
distinctly independent. And, needless to
say, fascists and conservative politicians, artists and writers of a
reactionary or conservative turn-of-mind, royals and peers, reactionary
priests, especially those who had belonged to the Established Church
and thus
recognized the monarch as head of the Church - a thing which no genuine
Christian would ever do, since alpha and omega, power and peace, are
quite
incommensurate, and the Church is supposed to be on the side of
ecclesiastic
truth and not, as would appear to be the case with the Church of
England, on
the side of monarchic strength! Such a
paradoxical Church, which has the embodiment of autocratic power as its
head
and a long tradition of invasive imperialism behind it, could only be
incompatible with socialist requirements."
"I see," sighed Peter
Daniels,
following a short but anguished pause during which he mopped his brow
with a
linen handkerchief. "And presumably
this hypothetical socialist regime would liquidate, if that's the
correct word,
journalists like myself, who profess to distinctly conservative
viewpoints."
"Naturally," Matthew
rejoined. "It would intern anyone
who was in any way opposed to its policies of socialist progress and
either
incapable of or unwilling to contemplate reform."
"Well, thank goodness it
doesn't exist
at present, and that a certain amount of sanity and decency still
prevail in
the world, especially the Western half of it!" cried Peter Daniels
triumphantly. "I very much doubt
that such a godforsaken regime will ever exist, and not only because
we, the
right-thinking individuals of society, wouldn't allow it to, but, no
less
probably, because the catastrophe that would most likely precipitate
such a
horrible state-of-affairs - namely a third world war - would more than
likely
result in the wholesale destruction of life on this planet and
consequently in
the elimination of all
political parties, whether
Right, Left, or Centre, moderate or extreme, and not in what I suspect
you
would hope to be a socialist victory!"
"Oh, let's not drag
Armageddon into
it!" protested Linda Daniels, breaking the long silence she had
patiently
kept while the two men waged their own verbal war in front of her - an
ideological one which she had tactfully preferred to keep out of. "A third world war would be too unspeakably
vile, too unspeakably horrendous! Let's
hope it will never come about, and that some sense and decency will
accordingly
continue to prevail. We want life, not
death!"
As though that were a signal
for a fresh
beginning, Gwen suddenly returned to the room and announced, rather to
everyone's relief, that dinner was ready.
Accordingly, Matthew followed the others out through the open
door and
into the dining-room across the hallway.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Consisting
of
roast
lamb and assorted vegetables, dinner provided a slight reprieve
from the
ideological tension and mutual antipathy which had sprung-up between
the two
men in the lounge. But only, alas, a
slight one! Although their conversation
was somewhat muted by preoccupation with food, the close proximity into
which
they had been thrown by the relatively small circular table at which
they were
sitting caused them to feel psychologically uncomfortable, especially
Peter
Daniels, who felt the physical closeness to his ideological rival as a
kind of
humiliation and personal betrayal. But for
the women, he would have got up from the table and sat himself down,
plate in
hand, on one of the spare chairs the far side of the dining-room (which
in any
case wasn't a particularly large room), in order to be delivered, in
some
degree, from the oppression of social intimacy with his political enemy. Indeed, he would have refused to eat dinner
altogether! But, of course, such a
refusal would hardly have pleased his hostess, who had put so much
effort into
getting it ready, and so he was obliged to resign himself, like
Matthew, to the
rather trying situation which circumstances had forced upon him. Taking refuge, as far as possible, in the
meal itself was the only solution, it
seemed, to
present itself to either man's imagination.
Yet the women, though
scarcely on the best
of terms with each other, were not prepared to allow the occasion to
sink into
a boorish silence, interrupted only by the mundane sound of chewing and
swallowing, but made an effort to lift it above the merely bestial
level by indulging
in a little sporadic conversation, Gwen especially doing her best to
raise the
atmosphere slightly, her sociability doubtless owing something to the
fact that
she had not been present throughout the greater part of the
male-dominated
conversation in the adjoining room.
Nor altogether surprisingly,
the principal
subject of their conversation was the new school term and the
likelihood of
their having to work harder then than during the previous one, which,
despite
the summer exams, seemed to them more like an anti-climax to the year. Linda Daniels, in particular, was especially
anxious to improve the quality of her teaching next term, since she
felt that
it had somehow suffered from her generally poor health in recent
months, while
Gwen, though not over-complacent about her own past teaching record,
was
confident that her talents would stand the test of time and be
adequately
rewarded when the next batch of examination results were due, come
Christmas.
The men listened in solemn
silence, rather
bored by the topic under discussion yet secretly grateful, all the
same, for
something external to cling-on to and relieve them, slightly, from the
psychological pressure of their mutual antipathy. Matthew
might
have questioned Linda Daniels
about her teaching of physical education had he not been constrained to
silence
by the brooding presence of her husband, who seemed equally disinclined
to ask
questions of Gwen. All in all, dinner
transpired to be more of an ordeal than a pleasure and, when it was
over, both
men were relieved to drift as far apart as possible, even if this meant
they
were obliged to enter into conversation with the women instead.
However, it wasn't about
school life that
Matthew talked, as he found himself being escorted back towards the
lounge by
Mr Daniels' attractive and curiously-interested wife, but about art
and, in
particular, his art, upon which he proceeded to enlarge to the extent
that
circumstances would permit. It was
evident that the women were determined to prevent a repeat performance
of the
bourgeois/proletarian antagonism by keeping the men apart (not that
they had
any desire to remain together!), Gwen likewise having battened-on to
Peter
Daniels' arm and escorted him in the opposite direction from Matthew,
so that
they would be out of harm's reach.
To be sure, this arrangement
soon proved to
the mutual satisfaction of both parties.
For it wasn't long before, warming to Linda's curiosity and
spurred-on
by the wine he had dispatched at table, Matthew forgot about his
antipathy
towards her husband and immersed himself in the subject to-hand - one
that was
always most dear to him, since the focal-point of his life's endeavour. He explained how he was striving to make his
art more transcendental by using minimalist techniques and exploiting
the
application of synthetics, like acrylic, nylon, and plastic, in order
to
divorce it still further from natural origins or influences.
Linda listened attentively. She recalled what he had said earlier, about
the synthetic nature of his art, and inquired a little more deeply into
some of
the subjects he had touched upon - namely, the fact of the superconscious
and its relation to the inner light. She
was also curious to learn who his chief influences were, who he
particularly
admired.
Matthew deliberated with
himself a moment,
as though the answer to this question required a meticulous mental
sifting
through dozens of possible names, before replying: "Of the painters, I
think probably Ben Nicholson and Piet Mondrian have had the greatest influence on my
development,
especially the latter, whose Neo-Plasticism
I particularly admire. He was very
spiritual, you know. Very
committed
to
reflecting the effects of urban environments on the psyche, to
making his work as internal and abstract as possible. And, of course, he was a mystic to boot - a
theosophist. From the modern viewpoint,
a tremendously significant and important artist! Not
one
of your anti-science and
anti-technology types, by any means. Nor
a traitor to evolution and bourgeois apologist, like certain other
so-called
modern artists. Very
much a believer in the big city and its spiritualizing effects upon our
lives. Very
much an artistic
leader."
"Yes, I do know a thing or
two about
him actually," Linda revealed, smiling appreciatively.
"He painted a work entitled Broadway
Boogie-Woogie, didn't he?"
"Correct.
One of his most complex and famous works,
paying due tribute to
"And what about Ben
Nicholson?" she
asked, anxious to keep the conversation on the same rails.
"How did he influence you?"
"Well, in pretty much the
same
way," the artist replied, "that's to say, by being so
transcendentally abstract and pertinent to the times.
I particularly admire his relief work,
especially the more formalized and geometrically congruous examples of
it
constructed largely in the 'thirties; though it has had less overall
influence
on me than his minimalist still-lives, which were to set the tone, to
some
extent, of my meditating figures, in which only the bare outlines,
executed in
acrylic on a monochromatic ground, are allowed to emerge.
That gives them a kind of transparency which
emphasizes the spiritual over the material, you see.
Makes them pertinent to the
superconscious and therefore to
transcendentalism. If I were more
egocentric, on the other hand,
I would undoubtedly have filled them in with various corporeal
elaborations and
embellishments, so they'd look more like traditional portraits of
seated
figures. But such a procedure wouldn't
really have established me as a modern artist, or enabled me to
consider myself
one of the spiritual antennae of the race.
It would simply have shown that I was backward, lagging behind
the
times, and therefore not entitled to consider myself a genuine artist. For such an artist is less a person who can
paint well or elaborately, displaying all manner of complex techniques,
than a
person who is relevant to the age and best capable of illustrating the
nature
of that age.... Which is why, in my opinion, an artist like Ben
Nicholson is
greater than, say, Stanley Spencer, who, though possessing a technical
facility
that suggests true greatness, lacks real relevance and is effectively
anachronistic. At times, you would
hardly think he lived in the twentieth century, especially where his Christ
at
Cookham works are concerned. Yet there could be no doubt in your mind that
Ben Nicholson did. For most of his work
is appropriately abstract and therefore indicative of a society biased
towards
the superconscious.
Thus, bearing in mind the criterion of relevance, one can only
conclude
Nicholson to be the greater artist.
Indeed, I'm inclined to regard him as the finest British artist
this
century, bearing in mind his sustained commitment to transcendentalism."
"Even
finer than
Graham Sutherland?" Linda queried.
"Certainly more consistently
abstract
than Sutherland," Matthew opined, "which isn't to say that the
latter's work is relatively inconsequential.
On the contrary, I'd place it above
"I'm afraid you've gone a
little out
of my depth," Linda confessed, feeling slightly puzzled.
"I know there's a kind of jaggedness to
some of Sutherland's works, if that's what you mean."
"Yes, at times a rather
fearsome
jaggedness," Matthew confirmed, smiling weakly. "Which
fact
doubtless owed something to
his experiences as a war artist, a recorder of the frightful
destruction which assailed
"How d'you
mean?" Linda asked, with a puzzled look on her pretty face.
"Well, I mean whatever
rebels against
the rise of technology and science, the expansion of the city, and
other
related phenomena, considering such developments pernicious to the
welfare of
mankind, is essentially bad art," Matthew responded almost
matter-of-factly. "For it misleads
people by giving them the impression that things are either worse than
or not
as good as they really are; that instead of progressing, we're
indulging in a
kind of suicidal regression which it's in the interests of art to point
out
and, if possible, correct and/or stem - assuming it were still possible
for
people to respond to it in terms of a desire to correct and/or stem. I mean, there's inevitably a point at which
such pessimistic art becomes merely fatalistic, with no other motive
than to
record the degree of that fatality, in relation to society, as the
artist
perceives it. Perhaps it's mostly like
that? I don't know. But
one
thing I am
sure
of
is
that such art is bad, because it has turned against the age rather than
accepted it, and accordingly refused to see the changes which have come
about
as manifestations of evolutionary progress.
One gets the impression that the artists concerned are either
too stupid
to recognize progress when they see it or, alternatively, are bourgeois
apologists, hirelings of a reactionary establishment who regret the
decay of
traditional, egocentric values. Whatever
the case - and they may even be both - their art isn't what I would
regard as a
reflection of the age but, rather, a distortion and denigration of it,
and
that's bad! It can cause a lot of
confusion in people's minds, and not only directly, by attacking the
modern
world, but indirectly, by turning away from it.
A truly great artist, however, can only be loyal and relevant to
the
age, not reactionary or anachronistic.
He doesn't seek oblivion in some imaginary Golden Age of the
past, or
endeavour to resurrect certain aristocratic values long after they've
ceased to
have any applicability to the times, but forges ahead, content in the
knowledge, like Mondrian, that life is
gradually
changing for the better, remaining faithful, again like Mondrian,
to the exigencies of evolution, and not either stagnating in a stasis
of
perpetual dualism or reverting to a context of pre-dualistic sensual
and
material one-sidedness. The true artist
is ever the advocate of his age, not a rebel against it!
And if the age demands that art becomes a reflection
of truth rather than a propagator of truthful illusions or illusory
truths,
well then, truthful his art must be, no matter how anti-traditional it
may
appear to the philistines!
"The representative art of
the past
hundred years, including that of the novel," he went on, growing in
confidence, "testifies to the mounting influence of the superconscious at the expense of the
subconscious. It aims at truth and light,
not their
negation. In literature it takes the
form of Flaubert and Zola rather than Huysmans
or
Wilde. It adopts a scientific
detachment, an impersonality and impartiality towards the facts under
surveillance. That humility and
painstaking patience before the phenomena of existence which is the
hallmark of
the true scientific temper - what is that if not a reflection of our
mounting
allegiance to the superconscious at the
expense of
mere egotistical self-indulgence? Was it
something that Descartes or Leibniz really understood?
No, they lived in an egocentric age which was
as much governed by illusion as by truth.
They wouldn't have understood the patience and self-effacing
intellectual humility of a Pasteur or a Darwin.
Still less would they have approved of the literature of
Flaubert or
Zola or any of the other great moderns.
Admittedly, they might have approved of Tolkien
in some measure, but that's only because he was one of the most
unequivocally
illusory writers who ever lived, an exponent of bad art, or art that
defies the
transcendental preoccupation with truth which characterizes our age and
propagates a species of illusion which stands out like a literary sore
thumb in
the march of evolutionary progress! Just
as politics has its Hitlers, so literature
has its Tolkiens. It
also
has
its D.H. Lawrences and John Cowper Powyses. But that,
I
think, is really quite another story!"
"In what
way?"
Linda eagerly wanted to know, becoming puzzled.
"Oh, in a variety of ways
actually," Matthew rejoined, pulling a wry face as though to indicate
his
distaste for the subject. "I mean, from
the viewpoint of relevance to the age, D.H. Lawrence was a very bad
artist, a
deplorable novelist. His rebellion
against science and technology, post-Christian transcendentalism, the
city, and
so on, was thoroughly misguided and unenlightened, eventually leading
him to a
kind of neo-pagan acceptance of nature and belief in sex as a mode,
nay, the
principal
mode of salvation, like Wilhelm Reich, his rather more sophisticated
German
counterpart. Whether in regard to The
Plumed
Serpent or Lady Chatterley's Lover or, indeed, half-a-dozen
other
novels, one is led to the conclusion that he was one of the most
reactionary
and worldly writers of his time. The
very fact that he ended-up virtually worshipping the 'dark gods of the
loins',
or whatever it was, speaks for itself.
Instead of being among the ideological antennae of the race, as
a
genuine artist should be, D.H. Lawrence became a kind of tail to it, a
down-dragging influence who related to pre-dualistic criteria, as
germane to a
pagan age, in which the senses predominate, under the auspices of subconsciousness, in response to the sensuous
presence of
untrammelled nature. One could hardly be
more anti-modern than him, not even if one were intent upon propagating
a
philosophy of nature-worship, or Elementalism,
like
John
Cowper Powys, who, to judge from his elementary books, wasn't the
most
genuine of artists either!"
"Wasn't he the one who wrote
In
Defence
of
Sensuality?" Linda
tentatively commented, recalling to mind
the only J.C.
Powys title she knew.
"So I recall," Matthew
admitted,
a faintly ironic smile appearing on his thin lips in response to
Linda's
prompting. "Hardly
the kind of book to have appealed to someone like Mondrian,
who
was
truly modern. But Powys
was essentially a bourgeois anachronism with a strong admiration for
people
like Rousseau and Wordsworth, and consequently much of what he wrote is
irrelevant or contrary to the trend of evolution, including his
paradoxical
belief in a two-faced First Cause, which he would have us all
ambiguously
responding to in an appropriately grateful or defiant manner, depending
on our
circumstances at any given time! Not
quite the religious viewpoint that Aldous
Huxley grew
to endorse, is it? But, then, artists of
Huxley's calibre are few-and-far-between anyway, so one can't be
particularly
surprised!
"For every genuine and truly
modern
artist," Matthew continued, unconsciously slipping into a terminology
more
congenial to himself, "there seems to be at
least
a dozen sham ones - men who lack both the nerve and the ability to come
properly to terms with their age. Powys
and Lawrence are simply two of the more conspicuous examples of bad
artists,
and not simply because of what
they
wrote
but
also in terms of how
they wrote. I mean, the most significant
twentieth-century novels aren't those which tell a story, and thus
promulgate
fictions in one context or another, but those which are overtly
autobiographical and/or philosophical, and thereby attest to the swing
of the
literary pendulum from illusion towards truth.
To produce fictions, in this day and age, is contrary to the
dictates of
transcendentalism and liable to result in one's
being
branded an anachronism. A novelist who
gives us something approximating to traditional literature, with plot,
characterization, long descriptive passages, narrative, and so forth,
is
equivalent to a painter who produces representational canvases, or a
composer
whose music is tonal and harmonic, or a sculptor whose sculptures are
figurative. He isn't truly contemporary,
for his head is full of traditional criteria and it's precisely those
criteria
which, in their classical objectivity, are no longer relevant. By not relating to the foremost developments
of the age he reduces himself to the level of an anachronistic
dilettante, and
consequently whatever he does is of little evolutionary import. His storytelling, accomplished or otherwise,
will simply make for bad art or, rather, for no art at all, insofar as
former
criteria of literature no longer apply - except, that is, in the
popular
context, where they both intimate of cinema and to some extent serve
the
insatiable hunger of the film industry for narrative productions. As a victim of atavistic inheritance or
historic class-fixation, his work will simply be out-of-place. It may be as good as if not better than
novels used to be when the canons of illusion applied.
But that won't alter its irrelevance to the
present by one jot! At best, one can
congratulate him for his ability to emulate past masters, his
antiquarian
capacities, but hardly anything else - least of all his refusal or
inability to
satisfy the demands of contemporary art!
For, these days, the artist is very much, to repeat, a man of
inner
truth and light, not their objective negation!"
"Which is presumably what
you
are?" Linda concluded sympathetically.
"I hope so," said Matthew,
blushing. "At least I try to be
such as much as possible, though only, of course, within the spheres of
painting and sculpture, which are my principal concerns.
As to literature, I don't apply myself, since
unable to practise three professions simultaneously.
But I had a friend who was a novelist and a
very progressive one, too! He used to
write more philosophically than autobiographically, but he also
experimented
with a variety of radical techniques, including a species of verbal
abstraction
which aimed at depriving his work of intelligibility."
"How d'you
mean?" Linda queried, not altogether unreasonably in the circumstances.
Matthew hesitated a moment
before
replying. For he was
obliged to stifle a degree of amusement at his late-friend's expense. "Well, he wanted some of his writings to
directly parallel, so far as possible, the development of abstraction
in
painting and music, since he believed that, due to commercial
pressures,
literature had fallen behind the other arts in this respect," the
artist
at length responded. "For instance,
he would write sentences like 'This munching got or placing use cat to
their
run taken over shoes,' or something of the sort. I
can't
remember his exact verbal
constructions but, anyway, words were arranged in such fashion as to
avoid all
sense or, at any rate, as much sense as possible."
Linda had to giggle at the
mention of this,
which sounded somehow crazy to her.
"You mean to say he used a kind of automatic writing
technique!" she doubtfully exclaimed.
"No, since he often
deliberated over
his choice of words for hours on-end," Matthew revealed.
"After all, when you write automatically
you still find yourself making some kind of sense here and there. Familiar words and phrases hang
together. But he wanted to reduce
meaning as much as possible in order to be thoroughly abstract, and
this he
systematically endeavoured to do, though mostly in short poems, which
were
really Mallarmé ten or twenty times over,
so to
speak. Not the sort of thing that would
have appealed to Tolstoy, who failed even to make any sense of Mallarmé, but arguably compatible with a kind of
avant-garde abstraction which the French poet seems to have anticipated. Anyway, before his death - he was killed in a
road crash early last year - my late-friend was working on what he
called an
avant-garde supernovel, using this
abstract technique
of his, which he regarded as more radical than anything James Joyce or
William
Burroughs had ever done. Had he lived to
finish the work, I'm confident it would have been the most
revolutionary
example of literary abstraction ever penned or, rather, typed. Yet such wasn't to be the case, and, so far
as I know, the world still awaits a novel which purports to make as
little
sense as possible."
"Maybe that's just as well!"
Linda commented, offering Matthew a wry smile.
"Well, however nonsensical
the idea
may seem," he rejoined, "it has a certain contemporary relevance,
insofar as similar if less radical experiments have
already
been made. Yet, in a way, the idea of
breaking-up meaningful language is no less significant than breaking-up
or
transcending representational form in art or diatonic melody in music,
and
corresponds to the same post-egocentric urge.
I, for one, wouldn't be at all surprised if we abandoned
language
altogether, in the future, and resorted to pure awareness and
non-verbal contemplation
as a means to enlightenment. After all,
if early man, grovelling in the dirt of prehistoric survival, was
beneath
language, not having evolved to a civilized framework, why shouldn't
late man
be above it, having evolved beyond such a framework and, thanks to his
mastery
of the machine, entered a non-verbal epoch primarily dedicated to the
attainment of spiritual salvation. It
seems a perfectly credible contention to me, at any rate.
And I'm convinced it would have seemed no
less credible to Aldous Huxley, who was an
advocate
of pure contemplation, or 'cleansing the doors of perception' through
the
removal of verbal distractions. For the
trend of evolution is certainly in the direction of spiritual
salvation, as our
growing allegiance to the inner light adequately attests, and, as such,
it's to
our advantage to transcend the constraints of language in due course,
since it
has no relevance to 'the peace that surpasses all understanding', i.e.
intellectuality."
"No, I guess not," Linda
conceded
doubtfully. "Though
it seems unlikely that we'll outgrow our verbal preoccupations for some
time
yet, even if certain avant-garde writers are anxious to break up
language at
present."
"Oh, I quite agree," Matthew
admitted, smiling. "Yet that isn't
to say the attempts which are currently being made to transcend such
preoccupations are without justification or meaning.
They're essentially symptomatic of a long,
slow process of de-verbalization upon which the modern world would seem
to be
embarked, not arbitrary indulgences imposed upon society out of mere
whim or in
consequence of a fad. They're bound to
have a significant influence upon our future development.
For the more godlike we become, the less need
we'll have of language. If the beast is
beneath speech, then the god is very much above it.
And modern man is closer to becoming godly
than to remaining beastly."
"Yes, though some modern men
are
evidently less far removed from the beastly than others," Linda Daniels
averred, jerking her head back in the general direction of her husband,
across
the far side of the room.
Matthew automatically smiled
and nodded his
head in tacit confirmation of Linda's suggestion, which left him
agreeably
surprised and even flattered. He hadn't
expected her to be quite so sympathetic to himself and contemptuous of
her
husband, and was somewhat relieved to discover that his preconceptions
about
her, in regard to Peter Daniels, had been proven inaccurate.
Indeed, judging by the
interest she had
shown in his art, it was difficult not to conclude that Linda was a
very
different type of person from her husband, much more culturally and
temperamentally akin to himself. He was
certainly intrigued by her and glad to have someone intelligent and
sympathetic
with whom to talk for a change, someone who, unlike Gwen and even Mrs
Evans,
suggested a wavelength similar to his own.
And he was well aware, as he sat opposite her, no more than
three feet
away, that she was a more attractive woman than Gwen, not to mention
Gwen's
mother, who, though far from unattractive, was probably a little past
her
prime.
Yes, he liked the look of
her richly
plaited hair, dark-brown eyes, aquiline nose, and nobly shaped lips,
which
suggested refined sensuality. He also
liked her dark-green satin minidress,
which was eye-catchingly décolleté,
and
the ample
contours of her breasts, which were not without a certain seductive
charm for
him. And then, too, her voice had a
pleasing resonance, a feminine depth and huskiness to it which was far
from
devoid of sensual overtones. All things
considered (or, at any rate, as much of her as he could see), she
struck him as
of superior physical quality to Gwen and much too good for the
reactionary fool
to whom she was married.
He wondered how she had got
herself hitched
to him in the first place, though he had no intention of asking her
about it
while Peter Daniels was still in the flat, even if at a fairly safe
distance
from them both, and with the suggestion of being too engaged in
conversation
with Gwen to be in a position to overhear anything.
Still, there was always the possibility that
he could find out in due course, say, through inviting her over to his
flat or
studio one evening. After all, if she
was as interested in his art as she appeared to be, why not invite her
over to
scrutinize it close-up, and thus have the opportunity to discuss art in
more
congenial surroundings? Particularly
since, according to what he had already learnt about her, she was
something of
an artist herself, with distinct leanings towards abstraction and the
avant-garde
in general?
Yes, it would be
refreshingly tonic to have
a kindred spirit to address, if not undress.
He was always on the lookout for understanding, and Linda
Daniels, with
her attentive nature, seemed more than adequately qualified to provide
it, even
if she was
less of an artist than a schoolmistress. At
least
she had a progressive disposition,
which was more than could be said for a fair number of professional
artists -
sculptors no less than painters. Yes, he
would definitely invite her over!
CHAPTER
EIGHT
"Had
a
busy
day at the office?" Mrs Evans asked her husband, as he entered the
kitchen minus his bowler hat and leather briefcase.
"Not really," he replied,
going
up to and giving her a perfunctory peck on the cheek, as per custom. "Pretty quiet, in the
main." He briefly glanced
round the kitchen, before asking her what was for dinner?
"Boiled bacon, potatoes, and
carrots," she replied. "Can't
you smell it?"
"I've got a blocked nose
actually," he informed her. "Must have caught another damn cold."
Mrs Evans made an effort to
appear
sympathetic, but, privately, she was disgusted with him and fearful of
catching
his germs. She'd had enough colds for
one year and didn't relish the prospect of catching yet another! Indeed, now that she had it in mind to send a
letter to Matthew Pearce, arranging to visit him again the following
week, a
new cold was the last thing she wanted!
How would he feel if she went to him snivelling or all
blocked-up with
her husband's stinking germs? Not
particularly amorous, she thought. So,
feigning concern for the food, she swiftly turned away from Thomas
Evans and
proceeded to apply a fork to the potatoes, gently prodding them through
the
turbulent water in which they were fiercely simmering.
Mr Evans took a seat at the
kitchen table
and then vigorously blew his nose.
"At least I haven't lost my appetite," he remarked at length.
"Dinner will be ready in
about five
minutes," Mrs Evans announced, with her back still turned on him.
There was a strained silence
before Mr
Evans next ventured to open his mouth, saying: "You might be interested
to
learn that I discovered a crumpled, lipstick-smeared paper tissue in
our
bedroom this morning."
"Oh?" Mrs
Evans
carried on prodding individual
potatoes as though the fact of this discovery was nothing
out-of-the-ordinary,
although she felt anything but comfortable at the mention of it.
"Found it in the bottom of
our blue
wardrobe while looking for my best shoes there," he went on. "It must have fallen out of a pocket or
something."
Mrs Evans recalled that she
had transferred
the paper tissue in question from her handbag to the side pocket of one
of her
dresses, the green one, shortly after arriving back from
"Since you were asleep at
the time, I
didn't care to make a fuss," Mr Evans continued calmly.
"But I picked the tissue up, all the
same, and put it in my trouser pocket. I
have it here now."
Mrs Evans turned around in
manifest
disbelief, as her husband dangled the said item between the forefinger
and
thumb of his right hand. She was on the
point of reaching out and snatching it from him, when a sudden
realization of the
fact it was the very same tissue upon which he had just blown his
snotty nose
made her hesitate and then recoil in disgust.
She stared at it speechlessly.
"What puzzles me about this
rather
soiled item," Mr Evans remarked, "is that you don't usually use red
lipstick these days, and that when you do very occasionally use any you
don't
wipe it off on a paper tissue, like this, but wash it off.
And you certainly don't make a point of
hiding such crumpled items in wardrobes."
"I wasn't hiding it!" Mrs
Evans
protested. "I had simply forgotten
to throw it away."
"What, after you had used it
to wipe
lipstick off someone else's face?" Mr Evans conjectured sarcastically.
Mrs Evans had begun to blush
as brightly as
the lipstick in question. "No, of
c-course not," she stammered.
"I must have used it on myself, some m-months ago, and then put
it
into the p-pocket of the dress I was w-wearing at the time."
"Which strikes me as being
singularly
uncharacteristic of your habits," Mr Evans declared in a brusque
manner. "Besides, a tissue directly
used on your lips would surely have more lipstick on it than this one
does. And the lipstick wouldn't be so
faint or widely diffused." He
paused for effect a moment, then continued:
"Now
if you had used it some time ago, you would surely have discovered it,
in the
meantime, and thrown it away, since you don't keep all that many
dresses in
that particular wardrobe, and those you do keep there are in fairly
regular
use."
Mrs Evans was beginning to
feel
insulted. "Are you suggesting I'm a
liar?" she shouted.
"I'm not suggesting anything
of the
kind, my dear," her husband calmly responded. "I'm
merely
intrigued by the discovery
of this item. Intrigued by that and by one
or two other things, including what appears to be a noticeable change
in your
behaviour recently, as though you had other and better things to think
about."
"Such
as?"
"Oh, that's not for me to
say, is
it?" Mr Evans retorted. "I'd
rather you told me."
Mrs Evans' blush had
attained to such a
blistering peak by now that she was obliged to turn back to the oven in
order
to hide her emotions from him as best she could. "I've
nothing
to tell you," she
confessed.
"I must say, I am surprised
to hear
that," Mr Evans resumed, his tone quietly confident, "especially
after the impressions I formed of your attitude towards that
artist-fellow whom
Gwendolyn brought here recently."
"I don't know what you're
talking
about," Mrs Evans declared.
"Ah well, perhaps I was
mistaken," Mr Evans conceded sceptically.
"Only it seemed to me that you took rather a fancy to him, even
to
the point of sitting next to him in the garden while Gwendolyn was on
the phone
that evening. I was observing you
through the sitting-room's rear windows a good deal of the time,
wondering what
the hell you could be talking about."
"Mostly about modern art, if
you must
know," Mrs Evans confessed.
Mr Evans fidgeted nervously
on his
chair. "Is that so?" he
remarked almost offhandedly. "Well,
the artist was evidently gratified by your company and not as
tongue-tied as
with Gwendolyn. Prior to your appearance
they hardly said a word to each other, you know. One
got
the impression they were bored with
themselves. But when you arrived on the
scene, my word, what a difference came over the fellow!
How delighted he seemed to be, having you
instead of Gwendolyn beside him!"
"I think you're imagining
things," Mrs Evans opined, bending over the carrots with fork
unsteadily
in hand.
"I rather doubt it," Mr
Evans
countered. "After all, my eyes
don't usually deceive me, no more, for that matter, than do my ears,
which were
well aware of the fact that you were very polite and hospitable towards
him at
dinner. Far more so
than you usually are towards strangers.
And you found him handsome too, if I remember your first
impressions
correctly. Better-looking
than
Gwendolyn’s
previous boyfriends."
Mrs Evans sighed in
exasperation. "I can't see how that can
have anything
to do with it, since one would have to be blind to doubt his
good-looks,"
she objected.
"Yet not
so blind to
doubt his sanity, if his theories on art and religious evolution were
anything
to judge by!" Mr Evans responded with a sarcastic relish that
belied his ill-health. "Why, the
man's cracked, positively cracked! All
that nonsense about transcendental meditation and abstract art, the
Holy Ghost
and ultimate truth - it didn't even begin to make sense to me! If that's the kind of enlightenment Gwendolyn
is getting herself involved with, then I have to say I feel sorry for
her! She ought to know better than to
bring a
pathetic little wimp like that into the house.
Indeed, she oughtn't to have replied to his letter in the first
place,
since he was virtually a complete stranger to her.... Writing to
someone he
hadn't seen in over four years, and then only very briefly and for the
first
time - what's that if not a clear indication of how cracked he is? D'you think any man in his right mind would have done
such a
thing? No, really, I'm both surprised
and disappointed at Gwendolyn for having taken an interest in him! She ought to have ignored his letter and left
him to his abstract doodles, the little fairy!
Had she not fallen out with her previous boyfriend, a couple of
weeks
before, I expect she would
have ignored it. Unfortunately for her,
she was at a loose-end
at the time.... Yet that colleague from her school, Mark bloody Taber
or something, was much more sensible and of
her type, the way I
saw it. Not one of these eccentric
avant-garde types anyway - bloody stuck-up Nazi subjectivists who
resent the
fact that photography has left them in the petty-bourgeois lurch and
that they
aren't really as contemporary or progressive as they like to
imagine.... A pity
he couldn't have made it up again, and thus prevented her from making a
damn
fool of herself with this artist character. After all, she's likely to gain more from a
kindred spirit like Mark than ever she will from this trumped-up
transcendentalist, or whatever he calls himself. At
least
Taber's down-to-earth and of a
decently solid middle-class background.
You know where you stand with him.
But the artist?"
Again he blew his nose, to Mrs Evans' renewed
distress and further disgust, on the lipstick-smeared tissue and,
getting up
from the table, deposited it in the plastic rubbish-bin with a sigh of
relief. Then he returned to his place and
poured
himself a glass of mineral water.
"No, I didn't like him one little bit. His
transcendentalism,
or whatever he called
it, strikes me as nothing more than a figment of his perverted
imagination. And his art, assuming he
wasn't bluffing us about it, strikes me as constituting a mode of
degeneracy
and charlatanism. Not really art at all
but anti-art - bogus, decadent, puerile, and feeble, like most of it
tends to
be these days! However, since you spent
so much time in compassionate discussion with him, I expect you have
different
opinions."
Mrs Evans frowned severely
and, turning
sharply around, glared ferociously at her husband a moment. "What if I do,
is that any damn business of yours?" she cried.
"Not particularly," conceded
Mr
Evans, who was slightly taken-aback by her anger. "Though it might have
some bearing on your strange behaviour these past four or five days. It might even have some bearing on the paper
tissue I had the ill-fortune to chance upon this morning.
After all, if you're not altogether opposed
to his art, I can't see that you need be opposed to certain other
things about
him, least of all his capacities as a lover.
I mean, he's likely to be more virile than me, despite his art."
"You don't know what you're
saying!" Mrs Evans weakly protested.
"Well, maybe that's because
I haven't
got all the facts and can only go on conjecture," Mr Evans declared. "Of course, I'm well aware that you went
to
"What are
you trying
to insinuate?" Mrs Evans exclaimed, turning completely away from the
oven
in order to look her husband squarely in the face.
"Well, through having phoned
Stephanie
from the office today, I'm aware that you only spent the morning with
her,
since you apparently had to dash off, shortly before lunch, to attend
to what
she described to me as some 'pressing business'," Mr Evans revealed.
Mrs Evans felt a lump in her
throat and a
sick feeling in the pit of her stomach at the mention of this. "You phoned Stephanie this
morning?" she gasped.
"This afternoon actually,
after I had
earlier deliberated over the possibility of your paying a visit to
someone
whose face needed wiping," Mr Evans calmly corrected.
"And she obligingly informed me that you
spent only a couple of hours with her.
Now since you didn't arrive back here till gone eight o'clock,
you must
have done something with yourself in the meantime - either paid a visit
to
someone else or walked around the West End all afternoon or ...
attended to
some 'pressing business'."
Mrs Evans flushed deeply. She wondered why she had said such a thing to
Stephanie at the time. Was it because
she felt guilty about what she had actually arranged to do and was
secretly
afraid that her cousin would be offended by her premature departure, if
she
didn't endow it with some more cogent excuse than merely wanting to
look around
town? Not surprisingly, Stephanie had
been delighted to see her again, after over five months, and keen to
make her
visit as pleasant as possible, which, of course, it had been,
especially since
the baby - a boy of six weeks - was such a treasure to behold. But ironically, what with the exciting
prospect of seeing Matthew Pearce in the afternoon, her visit had not
been as
pleasurable as it might otherwise have been, and it wasn't altogether
impossible that Stephanie had noticed a slight impatience on her part
which
made it seem necessary for her to invent a cogent excuse in the form of
pressing business. However, whether or
not Stephanie had
been offended by her premature departure shortly before lunch,
the fact remained that she hadn't inquired into its motive, which, in
view of
Thomas Evans' current suspicions, was probably just as well! Yet it didn't exactly make life any easier
for her at present. An explanation was
still required and, against the surge of embarrassment which had
overcome her,
Mrs Evans struggled to find one.
"As a matter of fact I went
along to
Gwendolyn’s school to watch her preparing things for the new term," she
blurted out, forced, on the spur-of-the-moment, to grasp at the first
seemingly
credible straw of an excuse that floated to the turbulent surface of
her
hard-pressed mind. It sounded false and
ridiculous, but she couldn't think of anything better, in the
circumstances.
Mr Evans raised an eyebrow
in a show of
ironic surprise. "And you call that
'pressing business'?" he sneered.
"No, not exactly," Mrs Evans
conceded. "But it just so happens
that I'd been invited by Gwendolyn to visit her while in London anyway,
so it
was like a kind of obligation to me, especially as I hadn't seen her
school
before. I ought perhaps to have told you
of her invitation while she was here.
But as I didn't think you'd be interested, I kept it to myself. In point of fact I was quite impressed by the
place, as also by her new flat, which is situated conveniently close by. You'd be surprised how spacious it is."
"Really?"
Mr Evans responded thoughtfully, with a vague nod.
"And presumably that's where you saw the
artist again and had recourse to the use of a paper tissue on his face?"
"Yes, I mean no, of course
not!"
Mrs Evans replied. "Gwendolyn and I
were alone together throughout the entire time." Once
again
she regretted her words, of having
been obliged to improvise such a flimsy excuse.
If Thomas Evans were to contact Gwendolyn and ask her what had
been
going on on the afternoon in question, it
would be
exposed for the blatant lie it was.
Fortunately, the chances of him telephoning her were pretty
slight,
since he was partly deaf in his right ear and generally averse to
making phone
calls to people out of the blue, especially to soft speakers like his
daughter,
so, short of visiting her in person, his most likely approach would be
to write
to her. Yet that didn't make matters a
great deal better either, especially if he got it into his suspicious
head to
write to her straightaway, before Mrs Evans could do anything to
influence her
daughter against him.
Really, it was very foolish
to drag
Gwendolyn into it, particularly as she would almost certainly become
suspicious
if her father started asking awkward questions and intimated that an
affair was
secretly going on between Matthew and her mother. It
was
hardly likely that she would prove the
most reliable of allies, under the circumstances! But,
alas,
no other idea vaguely
corresponding to the pitiful excuse of 'pressing business' had
presented itself
to Deirdre Evans' beleaguered imagination, so it was now a question of
sticking
to one's guns and hoping for the best, hoping, in other words, that
Thomas
Evans wouldn't contact Gwendolyn in due course.
And, needless to say, it was no less necessary to hope that
Gwendolyn
wouldn't get it into her capricious head to phone home, over the next
few days,
for the sake of a chat or in order to find out how her father, with his
persistently poor health, was faring. It
was, of course, to be hoped that he wouldn't be at home or available
for
comment if, by any chance, she did so.
However, the reality of his
presence in
their house at present was no easy matter for Mrs Evans to live with,
especially as she felt that her excuses weren't really passing muster
with
him. On the contrary, her embarrassment,
coupled to the nervous and, at times, angry tone of her voice, had the
effect
of making her feel exposed and unconvincing.
She felt that he could see through her to the lie beneath. But she couldn't go back on it, not after all
she had said. Besides, she couldn't have
told him the truth at the beginning even if she had wanted to; for it
would
have led to her being disgraced to an extent beyond anything she had
ever
known. And not only with regard to him
but in the eyes of Gwendolyn as well, who would almost certainly get to
hear
about it in due course. No, better to
risk anything than that, even if one had to lie oneself red in the face!
Oh, what a mistake it had
been not to throw
the used tissue away, but to have
held-on to it as a kind of memento of her conquest!
Had she not been so infatuated with Matthew
Pearce, she would never have allowed herself to attach such sentimental
value
to it in the first place. Yet because it
had touched his face and bore the marks of her love, she had chosen to
hang-on
to it, like a young adolescent in the first flush of romantic passion. Now, of all her regrets, this was the worst,
the one she could least countenance. The
tissue ought never to have found its way into her handbag, let alone
the blue
wardrobe! It ought to have been
deposited in Matthew's wastepaper basket.
But where the self-recriminations ended, the sentimentality
began. And with that came the suffering,
not least
of all in relation to the fact that he, Thomas Evans, had blown his
snotty nose
on it! Blown his dirty nose on her love,
he who had been unable to inspire so much as a genuine kiss from her in
over
ten years! Really, she could have killed
the bastard! No doubt, his impudence had
achieved something by way of exposing her feelings for Matthew. He must have relished the fact!
But at that moment Mr Evans
had other
things to relish, including the impending prospect of his evening meal,
which
Mrs Evans was making a gallant effort, in spite of her nerves, to
transfer from
the various saucepans to his plate.
"I'll have a double helping of bacon while you're at it," he
requested, momentarily discarding his air of outraged innocence. "And one or two extra
potatoes."
Obediently his wife added an
extra sliver
of boiled bacon to the plate and another potato, before placing his
dinner in
front of him. Then she returned to the
oven and, having turned it off, put lids on the saucepans.
"Aren't you going to eat
anything
yourself?" asked Mr Evans, visibly surprised. For,
normally,
his wife sat down to dinner
with him.
"Not now."
Mr Evans looked genuinely
concerned, almost
worried. "Have I taken away your
appetite, then?" he said.
"For the time being, yes,
you
damn-well have!" cried Mrs Evans, who briefly flashed him a defiant
look
and then continued to busy herself about the oven, applying a damp
cloth to the
stains there. She was well-nigh
convulsed with hatred towards him, hatred for all the humiliations he
had
forced upon her, both today and in the past.
A tear welled-up in her left eye and slowly slid down her cheek. Then another, followed by
one in her right eye. She turned
away from the oven and mumbled some quick barely audible excuse. She couldn't stand his hostile, mocking
proximity any longer. Blindly, she
dashed out of the kitchen and ran upstairs, heading for their bedroom.
Once there, she locked the
door behind her,
threw herself down on the bed, and sobbed
like a
child, wept out the bitterness that had welled-up inside her during her
ordeal
downstairs. Her tears were like poison
to taste, bitter with pain. Not for
years had she cried like this, out of a deep-seated loathing for her
legal
oppressor and the fate he had so callously inflicted upon her. What if she had
been
unfaithful to him, was that a crime under the circumstances of his
inability to
satisfy her, to bring her true knowledge of her womanhood?
Did his ill-health mean she would have to
continuously suffer as well, to rot away in sexual deprivation? Hadn't she suffered enough from it already? God, what a nerve he had, to interrogate her
like she was some kind of wayward adolescent who needed correcting! What if he had
noticed a
change in her since her return from London - wasn't that a change for
the
better, a consequence of the fact that she had experienced a new
lease-of-life
through Matthew Pearce, been brought back from the dead and given fresh
strength, hope, and courage for the future?
To think he begrudged her what little satisfaction she could
find
elsewhere, as though she should always be a member of the sick-house in
which
he bad-temperedly languished, a hired nurse with no right to a life of
her own
- really, his selfishness could go no further!
One was indeed unfortunate to be married to such a pig!
Raising herself from the
pillows onto which
she had plunged her tear-drenched face, Mrs
Evans
unlocked the bottom drawer of her bedside locker and extracted from it
the
novel she was currently reading. Since
her eyes were too dimmed by tears for her to see clearly, it was
necessary for
her to make an attempt to dry them before opening the book and taking
from
between its pages the letter she had written, during the morning, to
Matthew. Unfolding it, she slowly and
not without physical difficulty began to read:-
Dearest
Matthew
Just a short letter to thank
you for the warm hospitality you showed me last Wednesday.
I was indeed grateful for the opportunity to
view your paintings and sculptures at first-hand, and, although not
properly
qualified to judge in such matters, I am of the opinion that they are a
credit
to your powers of imagination and invention.
Of the sculptures, I particularly admired the small white dove I
had the
pleasure to examine closely, whilst your painting of 'ultimate
reality', with
its centripetal essence, made a profounder impression on me than
anything else
I saw on canvas that day. I can still
see it before me as I write, which doubtless speaks highly of its
clarity, or
perhaps I should say memorability?
Anyway, it wasn't so much
your work which gave me most pleasure in the long-run as - need I say?
- you yourself, what with that pleasantly
mundane body of
yours, a pleasure which is still to some extent with me whenever I
think of
you. Had you actually taught me to
meditate, as for a while I feared you might, I would never have known
the sweet
thrill of your love, nor the peace that comes from satisfied desire. I am sincerely glad I persuaded you to
abandon your transcendentalism for a while.
It seemed to me that you needed a reprieve from its ascetic
demands on
you.
But don't be angry with me
now, I beg you! I'm not quite the enemy
of the spirit that you might take me for, even if I may now appear a
shade more
mundane in your estimation than you would like.
I am not entirely devoid of spiritual aspirations, despite my
matrimonial alliance to a rather unprepossessing materialist in the
ungainly
form of Mr Thomas Evans! No, if you'll
allow me to say so, I'm still interested in learning to meditate, in
continuing
the lesson we were nobly embarked upon prior to the intrusion of the
senses in
such a delightfully subtle fashion.
Consequently I would
appreciate an opportunity to visit you again in the near future -
possibly next
week or the week after, if you aren't otherwise engaged.
My best days are always Wednesdays and
Thursdays, though, should either of these prove inconvenient for you, I
can
always arrange to visit your studio some alternative weekday, the
middle of the
morning as well as early afternoon. I
hope such a request won't strike you as in any degree importunate or
unreasonable, bearing in mind the fact that you're obviously a busy man. But as we got on so well on Wednesday, I
can't see why we shouldn't get on still better, if you follow me, in
future -
provided I can learn to meditate properly and we both keep a cool head
about
it.
So if you're prepared to see
me again, would you please pen me a brief reply, addressing the letter
to me
personally.... On second thoughts, why
bother to reply
at all? Why not simply allow me to
assume that a Wednesday or, failing that, Thursday afternoon visit will
be
acceptable to you anyway, and that, if not, you'll let me know by
return
post. That way no-one but me will be any
the wiser, least of all my husband. After all, I would rather avoid arousing his
suspicions, as I'm sure you can appreciate.
So, until next week or the
following one, I look forward to not hearing from you, but to seeing
you in
your true light.
Yours
sincerely
Deirdre
Evans.
Having read the letter, she
refolded and
returned it to its hiding place.
Already, no more than five hours after putting pen to paper in
such
thoughtful fashion, it was out-of-date, certainly as far as the
reference to
her husband's assumed ignorance of their affair was concerned! Indeed, it had been out-of-date in that
respect even while she wrote it, since he had discovered the paper
tissue
earlier that morning and therefore had his suspicions aroused a good
three
hours before. Now one
need hardly fear that a reply from Matthew Pearce would necessarily
arouse his
suspicions any further, since they had already been aroused to an
extent which
made them the precursors of certain knowledge.
If anything, it would only confirm him in his
opinion of what was going on between them, provide him with fresh
evidence of
her betrayal - assuming, of course, she didn't get to the post before
him or it
didn't arrive after he had gone to the office, as was sometimes the
case.
In the event of her getting
to the post
first or in his absence, she wouldn't have anything to fear. But due to his habit of early rising and
leaving for work just after
No, it was certainly wiser
not to encourage
Matthew to write to her personally, even though there was no guarantee,
under
the terms she had suggested, that he wouldn't do so.
But was there really any point in sending him
the letter now, seeing her husband wasn't altogether unaware that
something was
going on between them and could hardly be depended upon to encourage
further
developments in that direction? Surely
it was safer, in the circumstances, to drop the affair altogether and
resign
oneself to living in sexual frustration again, lest Thomas Evans became
still
more beastly towards her and dedicated himself to making her life even
more of
a misery than at present. After all, he
wouldn't take kindly to any future visits to
Besides, there was no
guarantee that
Matthew would welcome her again, that he would want to get involved
with her on
a regular basis. His relationship with
Gwendolyn could only suffer in the process, and there was no real
evidence, as
yet, that he welcomed the prospect of deceiving her.
Either way, it seemed unwise to send the
letter - firstly because of her husband's strong suspicions, and
secondly
because of Matthew's relationship with her daughter and the correlative
possibility
that Gwendolyn might get wind of it, one way or another, in due course.
But even with those
prohibitive factors,
even taking into account the additional shame which could befall her if
Gwendolyn got to learn of the affair, she still felt the lure of her
desire for
Matthew, felt the emotional commitment which had imperiously thrust
itself upon
her, following their clandestine meeting, and made her conscious of a
richness
of emotional depth she hadn't experienced in years and had virtually
ceased to
regard as possible. Yes, even given all
the prohibitive factors founded upon what other people would think of
her, the
voice of her own soul still clamoured for attention, spoke to her of
the duty
she owed to herself and the indisputable reality of her feelings for
the
artist. No matter how foolish or
dangerous it appeared, on the surface, to send the letter to Matthew in
the
face of the other, external voices which spoke to her, this personal
and unique
voice of her self-interest would not be quietened but, rather, grew
increasingly insistent the more she endeavoured to suppress it!
Now it
reminded her that
she was thirty-nine and would soon be forty, soon have crossed the
threshold
into an age-group which was resigned to growing progressively less
attractive,
less sensuously seductive, as, one by one, the years slipped away. To some extent fortune had been kind to her, it had at least enabled her to preserve a
fairly
youthful appearance well into her thirties - an appearance which even
now was
not devoid of a certain juvenile charm.
Perhaps this was in part due to the quiet life she generally led
in
As yet, she still had a few
months to go,
possibly even years, if fate continued to favour her with a youthful
longevity. Why therefore should she
waste what precious time remained before the curtain of old age, with
its
introspective painfulness, closed down upon her, shutting her off, for
the
remainder of her life, from such pleasures as were still within her
grasp? Hadn't she wasted enough valuable
time
already, thanks in large measure to the wretched health of her husband
in
recent years? Wasn't it therefore
fitting to atone, in some degree, for the neglect she had suffered at
his hands
throughout the time in question? And how
better to atone for this enforced celibacy than by visiting Matthew
Pearce in
person - he who had brought her back from the dead and enabled her to
feel
powerful emotions again? Not as
powerful, admittedly, as those she had experienced in her late teens
and early
twenties, but still more powerful than anything she had known either
before or
since. Surely he wouldn't turn her down, he whom fate would seem not to have treated
particularly kindly as far as regular sexual satisfaction was
concerned,
either. Had it done so, he would never
have written to Gwendolyn after so many years and requested her company. After all, there were plenty of women in
But if Gwendolyn was one
straw, then
Deirdre Evans felt herself to be quite another and, in her own
estimation, a
much bigger and tougher one - almost a log.
He couldn't, surely, turn her away if she visited him again,
especially
if she took every precaution to make herself as attractive as possible? No, she owed it to herself to exploit this
channel of satisfaction to the hilt, no matter how much opposition
Thomas Evans
might choose to place in her way. She
would send the letter regardless, just as Matthew had sent his own
letter to
Gwendolyn without any guarantee of a positive response, and hope for
the
best. For Matthew's approval would far
outweigh any disapproval from her husband - of that she was in no doubt
whatsoever!
CHAPTER
NINE
It
was
in mid-September,
a week or two after the beginning of the new school term, that Linda
Daniels
literally responded to Matthew's invitation to visit him, whenever she
liked,
by calling at his Highgate flat, one fine evening, following a brief
pre-arrangement over the phone. To
Matthew's satisfaction it happened to be an evening when Gwen had
decided to
stay at home to mark school work, while to Linda's satisfaction it
happened to
be an evening when her husband had apparently gone to a journalist's
conference, leaving her relatively free to please herself.
Thus it was to their mutual
satisfaction
that Matthew answered the door to his small ground-floor flat. He had so looked forward to seeing her again,
and she, for her part, had not been without a similar desire in regard
to him -
one fostered as much on her interest in modern art as on a need to get
away
from the oppressive conservatism of Peter Daniels and expand her
somewhat
limited social horizons, which, until then, had been mostly confined to
the conflicting
currents of fellow-teachers and journalistic colleagues of her husband. So the advent of Matthew into her life,
coming completely out-of-the-blue, wasn't without its secret
allurements,
especially as she'd had so little contact with anyone even remotely
resembling
him in the past.
"Did you tell Gwen you'd be
coming up
here this evening?" he asked, as soon as she was comfortably seated in
one
of the two small armchairs in his living room.
"In point of fact, I hardly
saw her at
all today," Linda confessed, blushing slightly. "But
when
she did briefly cross my path,
I made no mention of any intention of visiting you.
Why, are you afraid she might
disapprove?"
He smiled dismissively in
response to her
ironic humour, and said: "No, but I'd rather she wasn't given grounds
for
becoming jealous, that's all. You never
know how she might decide to take it out on me in future."
Linda giggled a bit. "Perhaps she's already taking it out on
you by staying in tonight," she remarked.
"What d'you
mean?" he ejaculated, wondering if she could have found out about Mrs
Evans through Gwen or something.
"Oh, nothing in particular,"
Linda chuckled. "Just
a little private joke. Though,
now I come to think of it, she did seem somewhat distant and ...
abstracted
today. Yes, it was as if something was
troubling her and she didn't want to discuss it or commit herself to
the usual
social camaraderie which is all the time going on between her and
various other
members of the teaching staff, myself included.
I recall someone else remarking that she wasn't quite her usual
self."
Matthew became puzzled and
vaguely worried
on Gwen's behalf. "Maybe she still
hasn't got used to being back to school," he suggested half-facetiously.
"Yes, that could be it,"
said
Linda, nodding ironically. "It's
certainly the case with me, at any rate!
However, let's not discuss school now.
I usually try to forget about my work in the evenings."
"I'm sure you do," he
sympathetically responded, smiling.
"What would you like to drink - a beer or a cola?"
"I think I'll have a beer,"
she
answered, without much hesitation.
Matthew disappeared into the
kitchen and,
in view of the fact that Linda was wearing a skirt, came back with two
full
glasses of lager in his hands. There
then ensued a brief silence while they tasted their respective drinks,
though
it wasn't that often he had recourse to anything alcoholic these days,
since he
preferred cola in view of his transcendental predilections.
"Do you mind if I ask you a
personal
question?" Linda inquired of him in due course, the lager evidently
to
her taste.
"Not at all," he replied,
licking
some froth from his upper lip.
The P.E. teacher cleared her
throat and
swallowed hard, so to speak. "Are
you in love with Gwen?" she asked.
The artist almost choked
with
astonishment. "Good God, no!"
he exclaimed impulsively.
"I see."
Linda seemed slightly relieved.
"Why, were you afraid I
might
be?"
"No, not
specifically. Though, to be
honest, I didn't think you were."
Matthew gently smiled his
approval. "And what about you?" he
asked. "Are you in love with your
husband?"
"No, although there was a
time,
shortly before and after our marriage, when I thought I was. But, these days, I rather doubt
it." She felt consumed, all of a
sudden, by a piercing stab of self-pity and remorse, took a large gulp
of beer,
as though to drown her feelings, and stared ruefully at the afghan
carpet just
in front of her feet.
"Somehow I didn't think that
you and
he were really cut-out for each other," Matthew opined, desiring to
break
the slightly oppressive silence which had fallen between them, like a
ton-weight of psychological debris.
"You strike me as being an altogether more radical person. Or perhaps I should say less
conservative?" he added, as an afterthought.
Linda had to smile at this
remark, which
struck her as slightly impertinent.
"Frankly, I don't consider myself at all conservative - at any
rate, not politically," she revealed.
"On the contrary, my political bias tends towards the Left, but
such a bias isn't encouraged by my husband, as you well know. Unfortunately, I only discovered that after
I'd
married him. Had I realized what his
true inclinations were before
our
marriage,
I
would never even have got engaged to the sod!"
"How come you got involved
with him in
the first place?" Matthew wanted to know, becoming intrigued by the
apparent implausibility of their marriage.
"Well, I had the
ill-fortune, I can
now say, to be invited along to a party, shortly after I'd graduated
from
college, at which we met," Linda confessed, blushing faintly in spite
of
her apparent calm, "and as he rather took a fancy to me and was quite
good-looking, I allowed things to develop from there.
Coming from a relatively poor background,
both my parents being Jamaican immigrants, I allowed myself to become
foolishly
impressed by his wealth and social status.
For I thought it would open up new doors to me and at last bring
happiness within my grasp. His father
was a prosperous banker actually, and when he died, a few years ago, he
left
most of his wealth to Peter, including a large detached house in
Dulwich. Personally, I dislike the place
because it's
too big and requires so much upkeep. But
since I'd never lived in anything even remotely resembling such a place
before,
I suppose it appealed to my curiosity and sense of adventure, not to
mention my
pressing desire to escape from the rather cramped flat I'd been sharing
with a
couple of fellow-undergraduates. So I
plunged into the deep end, as it were, only to belatedly discover that
I
couldn't swim there. Unfortunately there's a lot of me that I have to suppress when
in Peter's
company, including my penchant for modern art.
Yet even if I am
of a relatively socialistic
disposition, I can't pretend that I'm as left-wing as you seemed to be
when in
conversation with him the other week. I
don't think I could go as far as sanctioning purges or dictatorships!"
Matthew smiled
understandingly and quaffed
back some more beer. He was by no means
surprised to hear this, since it stood to reason that the conservative
environment in which she lived wouldn't permit her bias for socialism
to
develop particularly far. The worldly
influence of the monied bourgeoisie would
always be
around her, thwarting her political development. Given
a
change of environment for the better,
that is to say, within a less materialistic and naturalistic context,
one
needn't be surprised if her political orientation underwent a
corresponding
transformation, and thus became more radical.
As things stood, however, she was fundamentally a victim of her
suburban
milieu, and consequently what she said would have to be evaluated in
terms of
that. It wasn't something which any
radical socialist need be impressed by, anyway.
"Well, most of what I said to your husband was inspired by an
uncharitable impulse to shock and bewilder him," the artist at length
confessed, placing the by-now near-empty beer glass by the side of his
chair,
"in that I took an immediate dislike to the bugger and thought it
fitting
to display my contempt for his politics.
I didn't imagine that he'd feel very comfortable, under the
circumstances of my professed allegiance to socialism, so I tried my
best to
make him feel damned uncomfortable.
Which, as you'll doubtless recall, he most certainly did feel
after a
while!"
"Yes, you needn't remind
me,"
sighed Linda, a mock frown in attendance.
"Had it not been for my restraining influence, he'd probably
have
come to blows with you or stamped out of the room or something. For I'd never seen him
lose
his cool so quickly before."
"How flattering for me!"
exclaimed Matthew, feeling perversely proud of himself. "Still, I had to impress upon him my
extreme distaste for his politics somehow, and an unabashed advocacy of
something closer to what I believe in seemed to me the best way of
doing
so. It's good to speak out, to give
one's thoughts free rein when the need or opportunity presents
itself.... Not
that I believe in free speech as such.
Oh, no! The society I want to see
come about certainly wouldn't encourage people of a reactionary
turn-of-mind to
air their capitalist views - assuming there were any such people left. But the society in which we're living at
present hasn't evolved to a stage where the capitalist/socialist
dichotomy
which characterizes it has been transcended in favour of socialism,
or ownership of the means of production by a politically sovereign
proletariat. And so a situation prevails
in which the mouthpieces of the bourgeois right continue to promulgate
their
capitalist policies at the proletariat's expense. Yet,
one
way or another, the future belongs
to the proletariat, and consequently you can rest assured that the said
mouthpieces won't be able to continue in their well-worn tracks for
ever. At present, however, free speech
still
prevails, and so one is obliged to tolerate the views of people whose
politics
run contrary to one's own and who, by their grasp on power, effectively
prevent
the advent of a better and fairer society - one in which there are no
privately
owned firms but only publicly owned ones, in line with the
impersonality of the
Holy Ghost. Although the balance of free
speech is tipped against people like us, that's no reason why we should
abdicate our principles and better knowledge to suit the vested
interests of a
fundamentally immoral status quo, in which some individuals can become
extremely wealthy, while the great majority of people languish in
abject
poverty and neglect. The struggle for a
better world can only be an uphill one, since contrary to the
materialistic
grain of life ... with its predatory roots, and therefore it behoves us
to
carry-on with it, no matter how tough the going in this respect. Good things take time, after all, and we
cannot
expect a social revolution to come about without an immense struggle,
one of
probably global dimensions."
He realized, by now, that he
must have
sounded somewhat pompous, if not conceited, to her.
Yet, despite his intense dislike of entering
into political discussions with women, he knew that her husband's
extreme
conservatism had, even in recollection, carried him away in a torrent
of
righteous indignation ... such as he usually succumbed to within the
concealed
confines of his mind. When such a torrent
assailed him, as unfortunately it all-too-often did these days, he
would end-up
cursing his lucidity and status as an ideological outsider, an
Irish-born
though English-raised outsider who, owing to circumstances which had
catapulted
him through both a Catholic and a Protestant upbringing in painful
succession,
could take neither the Father nor Christ seriously but only the Holy
Ghost, the
third and, as yet, unrealized part of the Trinity, each of whose
components he
believed to be subdivisible into
autocratic,
democratic, and theocratic parts, with Communism signifying the
autocracy of
the Holy Ghost no less than Social Democracy its democracy and, for all
he
knew, some kind of socialistic transcendentalism its future theocracy. He would see himself as a kind of martyr and
dissident, obliged, through ideological lucidity, to turn his gaze
towards a
brighter future and take the existing state-of-affairs, with its
liberal
democracy of Christ and protestant theocracy of Christ (the Cromwellian
autocracy of Christ having been consigned to the rubbish heap of
history some
three centuries ago), with a considerable pinch of sceptical salt. He couldn't enter into the spirit of this
existing state-of-affairs - it just wasn't for him, the Christic
British never having done much for his native land, neither
autocratically,
democratically, nor theocratically. All he could do was look down on it from what
he regarded, not without moral justification, as a higher
vantage-point, namely
that of the Holy Ghost, and hope that, one day, it would be swept away,
so that
the more progressive and enlightened people could be delivered from
their
current political spleen, and enter into a positive relationship to
society
which would both redeem and save them.
However, Matthew was anxious
not to spoil
the rest of the evening for both Linda and himself with any more such
weighty
talk, being mindful, by the rather pained expression on the young P.E.
teacher's ordinarily passive face, that most of what he had said must
have
sounded somewhat strange to someone who lived in a detached house and,
despite
an inclination towards socialism, was the recipient of much
conservative
influence. No doubt, she would have come
to appreciate it better had she been living with him for any length of
time! For there was certainly something
about her that suggested a kindred spirit.
But she was a kindred spirit, alas, who had come to experience
such a
dissimilar pattern of environmental and social influence, in recent
days, that
one might have taken her for a bourgeois philistine, might have taken
her for
someone whose spiritual orientation was fundamentally contrary to and,
hence,
incompatible with one's own - not perhaps diametrically opposed to it
(for she
wasn't an aristocrat and therefore aligned with either the royalist
autocracy, the
peerist democracy, or the anglo-catholic
theocracy of the Father), but certainly of an order which could never
be
transmuted into something higher!
However, bearing in mind her dissatisfaction with her husband's
conservative lifestyle, it seemed indisputable that Linda Daniels was
essentially a proletarian intellectual who'd had the grave misfortune,
through
her exceptionally fine looks, to get herself tied-up with a damned
bourgeois, a
man who related, in his parliamentary disposition, to the democracy of
Christ. At least she was progressive
rather than reactionary.
"Can I get you another
beer?"
Matthew offered, by way of seeking to conciliate her in some measure. For he didn't like to see
her consumed with self-pity.
"Yes, I'd like that very
much,"
she said, holding out her glass to him.
Within less than a minute he
was back from
the kitchen with two further full glasses of ice-cold lager, the fridge
being
well-stocked with cans of beer and soft drinks at present.
Returning to his armchair, he asked:
"Does your husband drink regularly?"
"No, not in my company," she
replied. "But he does drink both
light ale and wine quite heavily at times.
Like his intellectual hero, Oswald Spengler."
"Who also smoked cigars, I
believe?"
"Well, fortunately, Peter
smokes
nothing worse than small cigars, so I don't have to put-up with too
much nasal
inconvenience or tobacco pollution - not at table, at any rate! His drinking and smoking mostly take place in
private, or in the company of some of his
journalistic
colleagues from 'The Cultural Heritage', who occasionally pay us a
visit."
Matthew self-consciously
gulped down a
rather large mouthful of beer, since the habit of drinking from a glass
was
foreign to him these days, and he felt uncomfortably bourgeois in a
liberal
sort of way, which reduced him, in his own estimation, to the level of
Peter
Daniels or, at least, to how he supposed Daniels would drink. Nevertheless, he managed to shrug off his
subjective qualm sufficiently to be able to ask: "And are the people
who
contribute towards this 'Cultural Heritage', or whatever its
called, all like himself, meaning principally strait-laced
conservatives?"
"Mostly," Linda admitted,
smiling
in her customary ironic fashion.
"Though they aren't all neo-Nazi, Bible-punching, tight-lipped
paragons of bourgeois respectability, by any means!
One or two of them are even dandy in
appearance and behaviour. I mean, Peter
was himself a kind of dandy at one time, always wearing bright velvet
suits and
sporting flash silk ties. However, the
influence of Spengler and various other
right-wing
intellectuals evidently diminished his taste for such garish apparel. But he was decidedly beau
himself before his conversion to a sort of political activism. He admired the Decadents and Symbolists
immensely, and was all for turning himself into a late
twentieth-century
version of Oscar Wilde, albeit a Wilde minus the socialism. His sophisticated aestheticism even extended
to an admiration of Huysmans' Against
Nature,
which, for a time, he regarded as a kind of Bible.
Fortunately, he never went quite as far as
its reactionary protagonist, Des Esseintes,
in
his
disdain for and rebellion against modern trends. But
it's
not altogether surprising that he
subsequently gravitated from Huysmans to Spengler and took refuge in The Decline of
the West. After all, the lamentation
over the collapse
of Western and, in particular, Catholic culture, in the last chapter of
Against
Nature, isn't exactly irrelevant to the latter work, is it?"
"No, I guess not," Matthew
conceded, endeavouring to recall the said chapter to mind; for he was
in fact
familiar, through past reading, with Huysmans. "But I'm surprised to learn that your
husband was a kind of dandy," he continued, his mind turning
somersaults of
intellectual daring, as it began to conjecture the likelihood of a
bourgeois
dandy appertaining to the bureaucracy of Christ in worldly femininity. "I would never have suspected such from
his appearance and conversation last week.
He looked very plain and sounded even plainer.
I couldn't detect anything effeminate about
him. It seems that Spengler
must have made a man of him."
"Yes, up to a point," Linda
confirmed, smiling. "Though he
still wears a bright velvet suit from time to time and indulges in a
limited
amount of aestheticism, including a taste for various fin-de-siècle
artists and writers. Then there are
twentieth-century aesthetes like Drieu
Matthew winced slightly. He didn't care much for the Symbolists
personally, nor for the Aesthetes and Decadents, whose
pseudo-aristocratic
refinements and cultural snobbery struck him as constituting but
another instance
of the reactionary. Even Baudelaire,
that arch-dandy and forerunner of fin-de-siècle
decadence, had
been tarred by the aristocratic brush.
Excellent as an advocate of the modern, a champion of the new in
art, he
was yet tied to the past in a way which Zola, with his strong advocacy
of
socialist progress, never had been. He
would have preferred Schopenhauer or Nietzsche to Hegel or Marx, the
monarchical system to the dictatorship of the proletariat.
However, if he was politically reactionary,
he was spiritually progressive, a believer in the new, the city, the
anti-natural, the contemplative - in a
word, the
transcendent. And so Matthew found
himself forced into an ambivalence of mind over him - as, for that
matter, over
most of his decadent successors, whom he admired so far as the
anti-natural,
and hence pro-artificial, was concerned,
but despised for their allegiance to the aristocratic.
The cult of the artificial -
witness Wilde
and Huysmans - was thoroughly modern and
indicative
of spiritual progress, of a sophisticated response to large-scale urban
civilization. But the snobbish belief in
and insistence on caste, the emphasis on aristocratic detachment and
privilege,
was somewhat antiquated, and thus indicative of social regress and
rebellion
against the city. To have been
artificial and
socialist, like Oscar Wilde, seemed to him a more consistent
approach to the problem of modernity than that adopted by, say, Mallarmé, Huysmans,
Pater, or, indeed, Baudelaire himself. On the other hand, there were those who were
socialist or, at any rate, in favour of socialism, but not artificial,
like
Zola and Nordau, and even some who,
strictly
speaking, were neither socialist nor artificial, like the great Leo
Tolstoy,
who of course became a Christian, if a rather anarchic one!
"I used to be a bit of an
aesthete
myself, at one time, though that was before my conversion to
transcendentalism
and its modernist implications," Matthew confessed, blushing faintly
from recollective shame of the fact that
he had once worn purple
pants and written short lyric poems in deference to female beauty,
which
subsequently served as a springboard to art.
"Nowadays, however, I try not to have anything to do with works
of
art, whether literary, musical, or plastic, that
pertain
to the pre-modern. I find they are
largely irrelevant to me, since somewhat anachronistic.
Either they're too sensuous or too Christian
or too dualistic or too romantic or too naturalist or something of the
kind. They don't speak to me personally
- unlike, for example, the abstract works of Piet
Mondrian and Ben Nicholson.
They would only confuse me and weaken my modernism in some way,
were I
to become seriously involved with them.
So, as a rule, I confine myself to twentieth-century art,
occasionally
going back as far as the late-nineteenth century, but rarely or never
beyond. I imbibe whatever speaks to the
man of the big city - the post-cultural man of a superconscious
bias. 'The truly modern artist', wrote Mondrian in 1918, 'sees the metropolis as the
supreme form
of abstract life; it stands closer to him than Nature.'
And, in consequence, whatever he does should
pertain to the anti-natural and pro-spiritual, whether it is to exclude
representational elements from his canvas or to advocate, in suitably
modern
terms, the importance of light. He must
avoid the reactionary at all costs, and one of the best ways of
ensuring that
he does so ... is to turn his gaze away from the art of the past and
concentrate solely on the contemporary.
Not an easy thing to do, by any means, since I often feel
tempted to
study paintings by Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, Raphael, Tintoretto,
etc., but certainly not impossible! In
the future, it will doubtless come more easily.
But, at present, what with so much transitional activity going
on around
us all the time, it's often an uphill struggle.
After all, none of us is, as yet, that transcendental, even
granted all
the spiritual progress which has
been made
during the course of the past century.
We all have reactionary tendencies of one sort and degree or
another,
even if only in terms of preferring hardbacks to paperbacks or
materialistic
architecture to idealistic architecture.
And how many of us are fully committed to the idea of laser
beams as the
relevant weapons for transcendental man?"
"Not I, for one!" Linda
replied,
with a facial show of distaste for the subject.
"No, but the fact is that
the use of
light for military purposes corresponds to our growing allegiance to
the
spiritual, and must inevitably come to replace the old, materialistic
modes of
weaponry," Matthew averred confidently.
"Intensified beams of light would certainly constitute a more
transcendental mode of defence than the use of, say, bullets or
missiles. However, all that is simply by
way of saying
that, as yet, we're by no means as transcendentalist as we might be and
will
doubtless eventually become. We still
have a long way to go to the post-human millennium, the coming time of
a
transcendental lead!"
"In certain respects, that's
probably
just as well," Linda averred.
"Though I'm still not quite sure what this post-human millennium
of
yours exactly signifies?"
"Simply the ultimate point
of
spiritual triumph, the ultimate triumph, on earth, of the spiritual
principle," Matthew informed her, "and thus the reign of light,
peace, bliss - in a word, Heaven. Yes,
that's what it signifies to me, at any rate!
A kind of transcendent state in which man, having thrown off the
last
vestiges of his traditional dualism and thereby transcended nature,
becomes godly,
becomes something above and beyond man - as far above dualistic man as
that man
was above the beasts. But such a
metamorphosis is by no means in sight at present, even given the recent
spurt
in spiritual progress. All we can be
certain of is that man is a phenomenon in the process of evolving
towards
something greater, not a fixed form. The
changes he creates in his environment guarantee that he continues to
evolve,
not remain static like a beast. The
difference between us and the caveman is really quite considerable. Unlike him, we aren't living under a
subconscious dominion but have evolved to a point, the other side of
the ego,
where the superconscious increasingly
prevails."
"And so the chances are that
we'll
evolve even further and eventually enter a post-human millennium?"
Linda
deduced with, in spite of herself, a hint of scepticism in her voice.
"I can't see why not,"
Matthew
affirmed, smiling optimistically.
"Unless, of course, we're all killed in a nuclear apocalypse and
no-one survives to continue our progress.
Personally, however, I'd find that very difficult to believe. After all, we haven't evolved this far just
to blow ourselves to smithereens, have we?
Nuclear weapons may be terrible things but, given our
transcendental
progress generally, they would seem to be relative to the times, to an
age
which is splitting the atom and thus effectively engaged in the process
of
severing the proletariat from bourgeois and/or aristocratic control. It's highly unlikely that any future world war
would be waged solely with conventional weapons anyway, since, quite
apart from
the fact that one couldn't risk allowing one's own nuclear
installations to be
overrun, they would be largely irrelevant to the global nature of the
conflict
and inadequate, moreover, for purposes of permitting one side to
achieve an
ascendancy over the other."
"Yes, I suppose so," Linda
wearily conceded, resigning herself, it seemed, to the logic of
post-atomic
modernity. However, it wasn't a subject
she
particularly cared to dwell on, not really believing in the possibility
of
future world wars anyway, least of all of a nuclear order, so she made
an
effort to find something more congenial and, catching sight of an
abstract
painting behind Matthew's head, inquired of him whether it was one of
his
works.
"Actually it's a variation
on one of Mondrian's paintings, based on a
square and colour
composition," the artist replied on what sounded like a more cheerful
note, "like the one over there in fact." He
pointed
to a small painting hung above a
table across to Linda's right, which was of similar abstract design. "I did them both earlier in the year,
principally because I couldn't get hold of an original Mondrian
and wanted at least a copy or a variation on one of his themes to-hand. I flatter myself to think that they could be
mistaken for the genuine article, and a number of people have in fact
subsequently mistaken them for it."
"Really?"
Linda exclaimed, looking intently from the one to the other. She was indeed intrigued by them.
Their simplicity and purity of colour endowed
them with a certain classicism which she found agreeably reassuring. They blended-in well with the overall
neatness and cleanliness of the room, which was itself mostly in white,
like an
Ivres Klein void.
"You evidently think very highly of Mondrian's
art," she at length remarked, refocusing her increasingly beer-clouded
attention upon him.
"Yes, that has to be
admitted. In fact, I regard him as
the finest painter
of the early-twentieth century, the most consistently and
systematically modern
painter."
"Even
finer than Ben
Nicholson?"
"Yes, though not perhaps a
great deal
so! Despite his considerable
achievement, however, Nicholson wasn't as systematically abstract or
transcendentalist,
as his drawings, usually done in a kind of minimalist representational
style
often focusing on landscapes, adequately demonstrate.
Then, of course, his reliefs,
which are undoubtedly his main claim to fame, could be described as a
sort of
cross between painting and sculpture rather than pure painting. Maybe even as a kind of decadent,
quasi-sculptural painting in which aesthetic considerations are
compromised by
materialism. But Mondrian
never deviated from painting, and, once he attained to his mature
abstract
style, what he painted was spiritually streets ahead of most other
painters,
even if, on the surface, its simplicity and impersonality superficially
lead
one to regard it as of a lesser importance than, say, the relatively
complex,
personal work of artists like Dali, Spencer, Ernst, Delvaux,
Bonnard, et al.
Yet that, paradoxically, is precisely why
it's
so
significant;
because it has abandoned the old cultural criteria of
greatness
and wholly adapted itself to the abstract, post-egocentric and, hence,
less-complex standards of transcendental man.
The greatness of someone like, say,
"I recall your having said
something
similar at Gwen's place the other week," Linda declared, alluding to
his
statement concerning the relative merits of Spencer and Nicholson on
the basis
of contemporary relevance. "Yet
what you're saying also presupposes that the more abstract or
transcendental an
artist's work becomes, the more significant he is in relation to the
present,
so that anyone who produces work of a consistently more abstract order
than Mondrian's should rank higher than
him as an artist."
Matthew nodded with alacrity. "To be sure, someone currently at work
in Mondrian's footsteps might well be
producing - if
he hasn't already done so - a corpus of work which excels his in
transcendental
standing, bringing the late-twentieth century to a painterly climax,"
he
averred. "But as far as his
generation
is concerned, I can't think of anyone who stands above him. To the best of my knowledge, none of his
contemporaries, not even Kandinsky, Klee, Miro, Bomberg,
and Balla, related to the urban milieu in
quite such
positive and philosophically systematic terms.
In fact, it would be truer to say that most of them were in
rebellion
against the city. However, I don't wish
to sound unduly pedantic or presumptuous.
Suffice it to say that, like life itself, art is ever a source
of
ambivalence and complexity, even when it endeavours to clarify or
simplify
itself! It could well be that Mondrian's art, with its geometrical patterns
and black
grids, signifies not so much a religious as a secular greatness, which
might
well find itself taking second place to a predominantly religious
art-form in
the eyes of future generations - an art form giving greater attention
to the
Light and the correlative significance of the Holy Ghost to the modern
mind."
"Such as
your
art?" Linda suggested light-heartedly.
"One shouldn't entirely rule
out that
possibility!" Matthew chuckled.
"Though I'm perfectly resigned to standing in Mondrian's
shadow at present." He realized
that the beer had gone to his head, making him slightly waver in his
judgement
and shed some of his intellectual inhibitions.
The extent to which Mondrian's art could
be
regarded as secular was indeed open to debate; though it seemed
unlikely that
such paintings as Broadway
Boogie-Woogie and Foxtrot
A could be classified as religious.
Abstract they might well be, but that didn't necessarily have
any
bearing on the Holy Ghost, the mystic's focal-point for ultimate
divinity, even
granted their creator's avowed commitment to theosophy.
The lines and colour areas of his Compositions,
for instance, seemed rather to suggest an in-between realm of
moral illegibility which could be interpreted neither solely in terms
of the
secular nor of the religious. The two
were somehow fused together - products of both a positive response to
the urban
environment and a spiritual aspiration towards the Infinite. There was little in the individual paintings
to suggest that the artist was endeavouring to portray, in somewhat
skeletal
terms, an outline of the city or, alternatively, to lead one towards a
contemplation of the Infinite. Their
abstraction was complete.
Yet this indeterminate
status, born of
their inscrutability, was precisely what Matthew had decided to turn
against
off late, preferring to be a specifically religious painter, and so
draw the
viewer's attention, by means of such transcendental symbols as doves,
globes of
infused light and meditating figures, towards the Holy Ghost. If Christianity had its painters, then he saw
no reason why transcendentalism shouldn't also be served by art,
though, of
necessity, in a much-less representational way.
To be sure, the concessions
to
representation which the symbolic illustration of superconscious
fidelity had forced upon him were not without their shortcomings in
relation to
contemporary abstraction, yet seemed impossible to surmount without
necessarily
appearing vague and indeterminate again.
Unfortunately, the production of bright monochromatic canvases
wouldn't
automatically have connoted with transcendental meditation and the
claims of
the spiritual life, but might just as easily have been confounded with Kleinesque experiments in spatial reality -
pertinent and
valid as such experiments undoubtedly were.
No, he somehow wanted to put people in mind of the fact that
they were
living in the age of the Holy Ghost, and to do this he felt he had to
have
recourse to a limited amount of symbolic representation.
Time would doubtless tell whether or not he
had made a mistake. For the present,
however, he was convinced of the validity of this specifically
religious
orientation.
But what
of Linda? Was that a hint she had
given him that she
wanted to see his art, since he had promised to show it to her at
Gwen's
place? He felt a sudden qualm at the
prospect of having to go to the trouble of taking her over to his
studio and
then go through the rigmarole of pointing out and explaining what was
what,
especially as he was beginning to succumb to beer-induced lethargy and
muddle-headedness. Surely she wasn't
expecting him to take her over there now?
No, it would be too
inconvenient under the
circumstances. Besides, the alcohol
would doubtless be having its effect on her too, making her unsteady on
her
legs and slightly incoherent. Now was
hardly the time to explore the studio!
Better, perhaps, to play some music in his flat and just take
things
easy. That way no-one would be any the
worse off - least of all himself!
He returned his empty glass
to the table
and ambled across to his midi system, which stood next to his bookcase
immediately in front of the brighter of the room's two side walls. "Would you like to listen to some
music?" he asked.
"Hmm, what have you got?"
Linda
wanted to know, automatically depositing her own empty beer glass on
the same
table.
"Come and see for yourself!"
he
advised her, stooping down in front of the racks which housed the bulk
of his
music collection.
Obediently, she vacated her
chair and knelt
down beside him. "Hmm, mostly
modern jazz," she observed, as her eyes scanned the titles of a number
of
albums by musicians such as Narada Michael
Walden,
Jean-Luc Ponty, Chick Corea,
Al
DiMeola, John McLaughlin, and Herbie
Hancock.
"I imagine your husband
doesn't
approve of or relate to this kind of music."
"No,
unfortunately
not! He avoids modern jazz of any
description - religious, secular, or in-between."
"And presumably that means
you have to
avoid it too, does it?"
Linda sighed
her
indignant confirmation of this inference and said: "Yes, generally
speaking; though I occasionally tune-in to some good soul or rap music
on my
radio, when he's out. But he certainly
wouldn't approve of my buying this kind of music and playing it on a
regular
basis - not while he's in, at any rate!
It has to be Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert,
Mendelssohn,
Schumann, or nothing. He's even against
modern classical, as a rule, with the exception of stuffy composers
like Elgar and Walton, who aren't really
that modern
anyway."
Matthew smiled ironically,
almost in
imitation of Linda. "Do you have to listen to them with him, then?"
he asked her.
"Not if I can avoid it, I
don't! For I usually contrive to be
elsewhere, in
some other part of the house. But he
occasionally takes umbrage at that and obliges me to keep him company
while he
listens to Mozart or Beethoven for the umpteenth frigging time! Fortunately for me, he doesn't indulge in his
musical tastes more than once or twice a week, so I don't have to
put-up with
it too often. Yet he seems not to
accredit me with any taste at all! The
mention of soul and he throws a fit!
There's no compromise in him.
Either one sacrifices oneself to him completely or he takes
umbrage and
flies into a reactionary rage."
"Sounds
positively
Victorian!" Matthew objected, wincing slightly in involuntary
revulsion. "Bourgeois snobbery
could hardly go any further!"
"So it would seem," sighed
Linda,
who by this time had her hands on a cassette by Narada
Michael Walden. "Do you think we
could play this?" she requested, holding it out to him.
"Sure," he agreed, taking it
from
her. Although it wasn't one of his
modern jazz tapes as such, its musical excellence was beyond dispute
and highly
appropriate, he thought, in view of Linda's close proximity to him at
this
moment, her close-fitting leather miniskirt having ridden up her black-stockinged thighs to a degree which made it
impossible for
him to ignore their seductive appeal.
The cassette in question, with its soulful fervour, seemed to
him an
excellent choice on her part and, no sooner had he set it in motion and
knelt
down beside her again, than he felt a consciousness of her sexuality
growing
inside him, pervading his mind and senses with a suggestibility it
would have
been not only impossible but imbecile to ignore. She
was
indeed a beautiful woman, and the
longer he was close to her, the more beautiful she seemed to become. So much so, that he soon found himself
irresistibly drawn, like a magnet, to the alluring oasis of her dark
flesh;
found himself endeavouring to quench a thirst from which he had too
long
suffered, even given his brief affairs with Deirdre and Gwen Evans. It wasn't sex as such ... so much as sex with
the right person, sex with someone one could genuinely respect and feel
proud
to possess - in a word, love. And now,
with Linda, it seemed possible this thirst would be quenched and an old
nagging
want finally laid to rest.
Instinctively, he drew
himself still closer
to her and, putting an arm round her slender waist, slowly brought his
lips to bear
on her face, applying himself to her nearest cheek and then, as she
impulsively
turned towards him, gently switching to her lips and mouth. She made no protest, not even verbally, but
submitted to his attentions with a willingness which suggested that she
had
been waiting for this all along and was only too relieved that he had
finally
got round to expressing his desire for her in more concrete terms.
She gave him responsive
access to herself
and he pursued his desire to the very best of his ability, caressing
and
kissing her in a mounting crescendo of passionate embraces which had
the effect
of diminishing whatever reserve may still have existed between them and
precipitating each into the sexual clutches of the other.
It wasn't long before his hands had reached
under her vest and up her skirt to more pressing objectives, freeing
her from
her underclothes and exposing the totality of her flesh to his sturdy
advance. They made love in the centre of
the room, on the afghan carpet between the armchairs.
It was superior to anything he had known with
women before, much better than with Gwen or her mother; better even
than it
probably would have been with the two of them together.
Linda was an altogether different kind of
woman - more responsive and sensitive, less bashfully self-conscious,
tougher
and slicker, altogether more to his liking.
She was neither frigid nor lascivious.
And to judge by her capacity for carnal pleasure, she was in
earnest
need of what he had to give her, in need of a reprieve from her
bourgeois
husband.
He thrust himself upon her
in a frenzy of
quickening lust and humped her like he had never humped anyone before,
catching
hold of her buttocks and driving himself deep inside her convulsed
flesh with
what seemed like a determination to get to the very centre of her womb,
the
kernel of her sex, which was the final goal of all passion, the
resolution of
all earthly desire, the heavenly resting place of the world. The contrast between his white skin and her
black skin only intensified his passion.
For it seemed like they were opposites who had come together to
cancel
each other out in the culmination of their coupling, thereby achieving
a golden
mean which would signify the overcoming of thesis and antithesis in a
dialectical synthesis of perfect racial harmony. He
held
nothing back, but gave it all to
her. For he had no shame in his
commitment to her and would gladly have accepted a child in the event
of her
becoming pregnant, far as the thought of pregnancy was from his mind
that
evening! He ejaculated every last
globule of sperm into her with a thoroughness which completely drained
him.
The Narada
tape
had progressed to side two by the time he relaxed his ardour for her
body and,
satisfied by his carnal achievement, duly abandoned the pursuit of
further
pleasure. They lay quiet and still for some time in each other's arms,
listening to the remaining tracks and just savouring the sensual warmth
in
which they basked, like softly-purring cats.
However, it was Matthew who eventually broke the silence by
asking if
she had expected him to make it with her that evening?
"Yes, I suppose so," she
smilingly confessed, blushing in spite of everything.
He smiled back at her. "So you hadn't come all the way up here
just to look at paintings and talk about modern art, then?" he teased.
"No, I was under the
impression that
you wouldn't have invited me all the way up here just to discuss art,"
she
bluntly declared.
"Even
after what I'd
said about my transcendentalism, or the spirituality to which I aspire?"
"Even
then. I could tell you had a
crush on me."
Matthew had to chuckle. "And what about Gwen, could you tell
that I was bored and frustrated by her?" he asked.
"Of
course! You wouldn't have been so
keen on my
conversation had that not been the case.
Besides, I learnt from Gwen that she was under the impression
that you
were somehow disappointed in her and consequently less than happy in
your
relationship."
"Oh?" Matthew
was
instantly intrigued. "When did she
tell you that?" he
pressed her.
"On the
phone one
day."
"I see."
He meditated in silence a moment, but didn't
desire to inquire any further into the matter.
Frankly, the subject of Gwen rather bored him, especially as
there was
another one on his mind which he realized would have to be dealt with
in due
course, since it would almost certainly lead to unfortunate
complications if
neglected. But, in the meantime, there
was Linda, who was something else or, at least, he hoped so. "Tell me, this little affair of ours - is
it a once-only thing, or are you prepared to visit me again in the near
future?" he asked.
"Well, if you really want to
see me
again, I'm more than prepared to come here," she replied, smiling
faintly. "Or to
go anywhere, for that matter, where we can be alone together."
He heaved a sigh of
gratified relief and
hugged her tenderly. "Good!"
he cried. "Then we'll see a lot
more of each other in future."
She smiled tenderly, happy
in the knowledge
that he was genuinely interested in her.
It seemed that love had returned to her life.
"But the next time we meet, I'd like to
see your studio and examine some of your works, if that's okay," she
reminded him.
"Sure.
I had intended to take you over there tonight, but, what with
the beer
and everything, it seemed somehow inappropriate." He
was
still feeling a bit tipsy, despite the
fact that he had drunk only two full glasses of beer.
It was doubtless due to his relatively high
metabolism and habitual abstinence. Due,
too, in some measure, to the presence of Linda and the delightful
experiences
he had shared with her. Yet he was not
so tipsy, all the same, that he couldn't see through the optimism their
evening
together had engendered and wonder whether they would, in fact, be able
to see
very much of each other in future? After
all, Linda's husband still had to be taken into consideration. He would doubtless become suspicious if she
were away from home too often. And what
about tonight - would he still be at the journalist's conference he was
apparently attending? Matthew glanced at
his watch and, noting it was now
"Fortunately, he won't get
home till
around
"And the
future?”
Matthew asked. "I mean, do you
think he'll prove a major obstacle?"
She had risen from the
carpet and started
to dress, putting on her pink bra and matching panties.
It wasn't a question she particularly cared
to answer. Speculation seemed futile to
her, since it partly depended on Matthew in any case, on whether he
would be
prepared to marry her if she got a divorce; on whether he would be
prepared to
put himself out a little in the meantime - to visit her after school
hours or
go down to Dulwich with her. It depended
on a lot of things, not least of all her husband's social and
professional
commitments. But she couldn't see why,
if he was really determined, they couldn't arrange to see each other
quite
regularly. After all, Peter Daniels
might be her legal spouse but he wasn't her gaoler.
He couldn't prevent her from going out. She
could
always plead school commitments or
invitations from Gwen. Besides, she had
a few relatives in town, including a rather ailing mother, who could
serve as
useful alibis if necessary. Thus Matthew
needn't worry himself about it, and, having imparted as much to him,
Linda
ventured to relieve her own mind of a nagging doubt by saying: "I take
it
you won't be seeing Gwen so much in future?"
"No, not if I can help it,"
he
smilingly assured her, pulling up his black jeans, which were the
tightest pair
of denims he had ever worn. "I
don't want to arouse your jealousy, do I?"
She giggled her approval of
this rhetorical
question and quipped: "As long as I know who you really want, you're
unlikely to do that!"
He advanced towards her
half-dressed, his
T-shirt still hanging loose, and kissed her tenderly on the lips,
proceeding to
caress her backside in a correspondingly tender fashion with both
hands, one of
which gradually worked its way back around and under her short skirt to
rest,
palm upwards, against her pantied crotch
in a gesture
of sly intimacy such that would convey his tender respect for her. To his further pleasure, she accepted without
demur. It seemed that she was his woman,
after all, and that nothing could alter the fact of their mutual trust
and
admiration. They had a pact with each
other, and it was not between incommensurables but, on the contrary,
partners
in love.
It had just gone
Yes, so now he was her
lover, more or less,
and what he had done with her had given him one of the most
gratifyingly
memorable evenings of his entire life.
He was her lover, and what he would do with her in future would
be no
less gratifying! He would have plenty of
time to gaze in voyeuristic rapture at her suspender-sporting thighs,
if that
was what turned him on. Or remove her
bra and fondle one or both of her mouth-watering breasts.
Or take instamatic photos of her in a variety
of erotic poses. Or make a video with
her which, together with the photos, might serve him usefully in old
age when,
lacking the will or ability to maintain coital relations with anyone,
he was
obliged to enter into the comparative salvation of a theocratic
sexuality, and
thus allow himself to be served by a combination of erotic material and
plastic
vibrator, his penis encapsulated, in centripetal smugness, by it
vagina-like
contours. As yet, however, there was no
real need or desire, in his life, for such a sexual salvation but,
rather, a
pressing desire to continue seeing Linda and thus maintain a democratic
sexuality on suitably socialistic terms.
Certainly, there could be no question of a masturbatory
autocratic one,
least of all since the collapse of Stalinism in
Yet Linda's entry into his
life did mean
that he would not now be in a position to carry-on seeing Gwen, as
though
nothing had happened. He would have to
get rid of her and, no less importantly, her mother as well. Indeed, especially Deirdre Evans, who, on the
strength of the importunate letter he had recently received from her,
was
becoming rather too demanding. He could
not have three women 'on the go' at once, nor even two, considering his
dedication to the spirit and the exacting claims of transcendentalism. Even one woman was, according to the highest
spiritual authorities, more of a hindrance than a help to the spiritual
life, a
worldly omega which, especially if she was so sensuously attractive as
to
demand too much of one's time, could become an end-in-itself, to the
exclusion
of the heavenly omega or, at any rate, the possibility of leading an
idealistic
lifestyle in pursuit of heavenly goals.
Of the three women in his
life at present,
Linda was certainly the one most suited to himself, the one with whom
he would
be most likely to succeed in seeing eye-to-eye on a variety of issues,
not to mention
in getting to meditate with him as well as to discuss art, politics,
religion,
etc., and have satisfying sex to a background, if mutually desirable,
of
soulful or funky music. She was the
promise of companionship and understanding.
The others, being fundamentally middle class, would have to go. He would not be swallowed-up or suffocated by
the flesh, even if he wasn't spiritually earnest or strong enough to be
able to
completely turn his back on it. His art
would only suffer, and that wouldn't serve his transcendental purposes
one
little bit. Had he not been so celibate
in the past his art would never have evolved to the extent and in the
way it
had, following, in Mondrian's sacred
words, 'The path
of ascension; away from matter'. But
prolonged celibacy had not left him free from depression and
self-deception,
nor was it something he particularly wanted to live with for ever. Provided he could keep his sexual commitments
in moderation, he was perfectly resigned to fairly regular contact with
at
least one woman, and Linda, with her beauty and intelligence, struck
him as
being the most suitable of the three.
Therefore the letter from Mrs Evans would have to be answered,
and
preferably as soon as possible. If he
wrote to her straightaway, that evening, and sent his reply off to her
early
the following day, she would almost certainly receive it by Monday or,
at the
very latest, Tuesday, and thus have no excuse for turning-up at his
studio, as
she had threatened to do, on the Wednesday afternoon.
Quickly, impatiently, he
rummaged through
the top drawer of his writing desk and extracted her letter which, out
of undue
prudence, he had hidden beneath a pile of envelopes.
Reading it through once more he was assailed
by a momentary qualm and pity for the woman,
reminded
of the sweet scent of her perfume and the generous curve of her hips. He was almost persuaded not to write to her
and so grant her the pleasure of another visit, especially as she still
seemed
interested in learning to meditate. Yet
he was afraid that if he gave way to her request now he would do the
same in
future too, thus jeopardizing and perhaps even destroying his budding
relationship with Linda. Frankly, he
couldn't risk further involvement with her, despite her obvious
attractions and
urgent desire to please him. The next
time she would be a little more ardent, a little more persuasive in her
caresses, and, in all likelihood, a little more possessive as well. If she wasn't already emotionally involved
with him, the chances were pretty high that she would almost certainly
become
so on or following her next visit. And
then where would he be? Shackled to a
provincial bourgeois in a monoracial
heterosexuality the equivalent of liberal democracy?
No, he would have to write
to her, giving
as excuse that he would be out of the country for a number of weeks on
overseas
business and therefore unable to comply with her request.
Anything would do, just as long as she didn't
continue to pester him. And if she was
foolish enough to ignore his response, she would find herself making
the trip
down to
Yet he was subject, all the
same, to a
certain amount of regret, as he reached for his writing materials and
began to
wield his felt-tipped pen, that he had to disappoint her, particularly
as she
was by no means bereft of feminine charms.
Had she been closer to him in spirit, he would almost certainly
have
succumbed to her influence. But, bearing
in mind her provincial background and philistine mentality, not to
mention the
prolonged and virtually ineradicable
influence of her
irascible husband, he was under no uncertainty concerning the right
course of
action. The pleasure she had given him
would be more than adequately replaced by the pleasure he would obtain
from
Linda. And if her husband got his hands
on the letter, it would be no loss to him.
On the contrary, it could only serve his purposes the more!
CHAPTER
TEN
Miss
Evans
scanned
the class for a suitable victim, someone she hadn't already
picked-on
during the lesson, and eventually her attention settled on the
fair-haired boy
in the second row. "Parfitt,
let's
have the present indicative of 'to
ring'," she demanded.
Parfitt
nervously
began to intone: "Je sonne,
tu sonne, il sonne,
er, nous sonnons, vous ... sonnez, ils sonnent."
"Correct."
She cast about her for another victim. "Now you, Brady. The present indicative of
'to smoke'."
Brady obligingly intoned: "Je fume, tu fume, il fume, nous fumons,
vous fumez, ils fumment."
"Bon! And you Cartwright,
go through the verb 'to go out'."
"Je sors, tu sors,
il sort, nous sortons, vous sortez,
ils sortent,"
was
Cartwright's correct response.
She was satisfied with their
performance
and quickly switched to another exercise, this time one which involved
the
possessive adjective. "Give the
first-person possessive adjective relative to Livre
est vert,
Hardy."
"Mon,"
Hardy replied
immediately.
"And you, Smith, provide the
third-person singular for livre
anglais est
bleu."
Smith scratched his head a
moment, and then
stuttered "S-S-Son."
Another
correct answer. He was duly passed
over without comment. "And, finally, the
second-person
familiar plural to yeux
sont gris. This
time let's hear from you, Marsh."
"Tes,"
the shy boy in question answered after a moment's thoughtful
deliberation,
during which time his face turned from pale cream to bright red.
"Très
bon!" cried Miss Evans, casting Marsh and the class in general an
approving glance. They were in form
today, which was more than could be said for the previous class of the
morning! She turned over the pages of
her textbook and decided to spring them a few adjectives.
"The adjective for 'brief',
"And what about 'jealous', Hargreaves?" continued Miss Evans.
"Jaloux!"
Hargreaves
replied in no uncertain manner.
"And
'clever',
The redhead to her left
scratched his curly-haired
head, but seemingly in vain. "Er, er ..."
"Tell him, Simpson!" she
intervened, losing patience.
"Habile,
Miss,"
"Bon!" She was more relieved to have found a chink
in their collective armour at last than to have got the correct answer
second
time round. "And finally Davidson,
you tell us the translation of 'reasonable'."
Davidson was ordinarily the
laziest member
of the class, and today was to prove no
exception. For his version of Raisonnable
was duly pronounced raison-able.
"Not 'able' but 'arble'!"
Miss Evans objected, over-emphasizing the 'ar'
sound. "You still tend to pronounce
your French 'a's as though they were
English 'a's. Make
them
more
like 'r' in future." She knew, from
bitter experience, that an approximation was the best that could be
expected
where he
was concerned. "D'accord?"
"Oui,
mademoiselle," Davidson meekly promised, the silent
'd' of the pronoun duly being replaced by an audible 'r'.
She smiled in half-hearted
approval and,
putting aside her textbook, turned to the volume of French poetry which
had
been reserved for last, instructing her pupils to follow suit. "Aujourd'hui, nous lirons un poème par
Paul Verlaine," she informed them,
selecting La Lune Blanche. "Page Quarante-neuf." She
began to read:-
"La lune
blanche
Luit dans les bois,
De chaque
branche
Part une
voix
Sous
la Ramée ...
O
bien-aimée.
L'étang
reflete,
Profound miroir,
La silhouette
De saule
noir
Ou le
vent pleure ..
Revons, c'est l'heure.
Un vaste et tendre
Apaisement
Semble
descendre
Du
firmament
que
l'astre irise
...
C'est l'heure exquise."
The pupils nervously
followed the lines in
their books.
"Now then, where does the
white moon
shine, Sinclair?" she asked the tall, thin, dark-haired boy in the back
row.
"In the wood, Miss," came his correct answer.
"And where does a voice come
from, Crabb?" she asked, turning to
Sinclair's plump
neighbour.
Crabb
looked
blank.
"From each branch," a boy to
his
right whispered.
"I didn't ask you, Ryan,"
countered Miss Evans, casting the offender a disapproving glance.
There was a tiny snigger
from someone a few
desks back from the front row.
"Perhaps you could tell us
what the
pond reflects then, Crabb?" she suggested,
changing tack.
"Er,
the
pond
reflects ...” An uneasy silence supervened while he endeavoured to
find
the right line.
"Second verse," Miss Evans
charitably informed him.
"Ah! the
silhouette of ... the black ... willow."
"In which,
"In which the wind ...” It
was obvious
he was stuck.
"Tell him, Ryan!" she
commanded,
losing patience as before.
"Cries, Miss," the whisperer
obliged.
"Bon! You must try to wake up,
"Good."
She smiled her approval and then asked
Davidson to tell them what the firmament itself was made iridescent by.
Surprisingly, the member of
the class who
was ordinarily the laziest confidently replied: "The star."
"Which is pronounced?"
He was on the point of
giving the 'a' of l'astre
an English pronunciation when he suddenly
checked himself and said: "L'arstre,
Miss," to general amusement around the class.
"C'est
meilleur," Miss Evans commented
half-jokingly, though, in truth, she would have preferred something
in-between
and was slightly afraid that he might become a bad influence on some of
the
others. But she had no time to tone down
his 'r' a little, for, at that moment, the
mid-morning
bell rang, obliging her to terminate the lesson. Altogether,
she
was satisfied with their
performance and dismissed them without further ado.
Yet at the back of her mind
she became
conscious, once more, of the dissatisfaction she was feeling with
herself or,
more specifically, with herself in relation to Matthew Pearce. As she headed along the noisy corridor
towards the staff room for a cup of tea, she couldn't help thinking
about this
dissatisfaction again and wondering whether the affair with the artist
had
indeed come to an end, as events during the past few days had induced
her to
suppose. Not that he had categorically
stated that he didn't want to see her anymore.
Yet there was definitely something reserved and even unfriendly
about
his attitude towards her off late, which suggested as much. Then, too, the letter she had received from
her father, the previous week, inquiring into her whereabouts and
activities on
the afternoon of Wednesday 26th August, made her feel distinctly
uneasy, not to
say bewildered, especially as he had never written such a letter before
and
usually preferred to keep himself out of her business.
No explanation, other than a brief word about
wanting to check-up on something her mother had said concerning her
doings at
the time. It was all very strange,
notwithstanding the fact that she couldn't quite remember exactly what
she had
been doing
then. Still, she was pretty certain she
had been alone and not in company, as the letter from her father seemed
to
imply. Yet even though she wrote back to
him with, to the best of her recollection, a resumé
of that
day's activities and asked what it was all about, why he had to contact
her
like this and request a written response, she still hadn't received a
reply,
and was now even more baffled by it than previously.
The fact that it probably had something to do
with Matthew seemed the most credible explanation for her father's
strange
behaviour, though she couldn't quite see how that could be linked to
his own
changed attitude towards her recently.
But perhaps she would find out in due course?
Resignedly, she pushed her
way through the
swing doors of the large, crowded staff room and proceeded towards the
tea urn
at the far end. A number of colleagues
were queuing to have their cups filled by a small black charwoman in a
green
overall and, as she slipped in behind them, one of them turned round
and
greeted her in a warmly polite manner.
It was Mark Taber, her former admirer, and, as she reciprocated,
she
felt herself blushing slightly, though she had known him long enough by
now not
to be embarrassed by his friendly attitude towards her.
However, the blush must have intrigued him a
little. For, having received his tea, he
stood aside to await her as she duly approached the urn.
That was something he hadn't done in ages!
With cup filled, she turned
towards
him. They stood a moment undecided what
to do, and then Taber, realizing they were in the way of those at the
rear of
the queue, gently drew her away in the direction of a less crowded and
quieter
part of the smoke-filled room. The air
stank rather of pipe and cigarette tobacco, which was always an
inconvenience
to those who, like them, were resolutely non-smokers.
So they went across to the proximity of one
of the open windows and stood within the radius of its fresh-air
ambience. Taber especially loathed the
acrid stench of
stale smoke!
"I haven't seen you that
much
recently," he averred, looking down at his fellow teacher from a
seven-inch advantage over her.
"No, I guess not," she
conceded,
casting him a brief but intentionally apologetic smile.
"I've been rather busy." She knew
that such a lame excuse for having
generally avoided the staff room since their return from summer recess
wasn't
likely to convince him. But, all the
same, she considered it the most expedient thing to say.
"And busy outside school as
well?" he asked, responding to her smile with one of his own - in the
circumstances rather more quizzical.
"For the most part," she
replied.
The hubbub around them gave
him the
confidence to be more explicit. "So
you're still seeing this Matthew chap, then?" he deduced.
She lowered her gaze and
took a couple of
deep sips from the steaming tea in her hand.
"To some extent," she at length admitted, not looking up.
"You don't sound very
confident,"
he observed.
"Maybe that's because I'm
not,"
she confessed.
"You haven't yet come to a
parting of
the ways, then?"
"No, though I dare say we
shall before
long. At least, we seem to have become
somewhat estranged from each other all of a sudden, as though the
affair had
petered out or lost whatever meaning it may once have possessed. He seems to be disappointed with me and,
quite frankly, I feel less than enthusiastic about him."
"Oh, on
what
grounds?" Taber was keen to ask.
At first Gwen appeared
reluctant to
specify, but then she relented and said: "Oh, largely as regards his
artistic and philosophical predilections, which I can't subscribe to. But also in regard to our sexual
relations."
"Really?"
Taber exclaimed, patently intrigued.
"Isn't he particularly virile, then?"
Gwen blushed anew, this time
more deeply,
and took momentary refuge in her still-steaming tea.
"Not particularly," she
admitted. "At least he doesn't
appear to be as far as I'm concerned, whether because he doesn't find
me
particularly stimulating or because he just lacks the drive, I'm not
absolutely
sure. Possibly a
combination of both."
"Poor you," Taber
sympathized,
instinctively lowering his voice.
"You seem not to have found the greatest satisfaction, after
all." This was said with a little
chuckle, as though something to relish.
"No, although when I
consider the
nature of his spiritual ambitions and their repercussions on his art, I
can't
be at all surprised," she rejoined.
"I ought to have known better in the first place, but I didn't
realize,
at the time, what kind of an artist he was.
I mean, I had no idea that he'd be so spiritually earnest, so
set
against the sensual. Even if I had seen
his works in advance, his sculptured doves and paintings of ultimate
reality,
as he calls them, I wouldn't necessarily have equated them with a kind
of
sexual inadequacy on his part. I
wouldn't have thought that because his work was transcendentalist, he
would be
a poor or, at any rate, perfunctory lover.
I'd simply have taken the art as one thing and the man as quite
another! But now I know better, having
come to realize that his art and his life are inseparable, and that the
one
tends to influence and reflect the other.
So if he was unable to satisfy me in bed, it's probably because
he's
less sensuous than myself and not therefore committed to the senses to
anything
like the same extent. A woman who was
less sensuous or more spiritual than me probably wouldn't find him so
inadequate - assuming he could find himself such a woman, that is!"
Across the crowded room
Linda Daniels could
be seen talking with a couple of elderly colleagues, and it was at her
that
Gwen cast a faintly derisory glance, as she sipped some more tea and
savoured
the aura of intense curiosity which Taber's towering presence had
already come
to signify. Mindful of Linda, she wondered
whether Matthew might not be better served by someone like her, despite
the
fact that she was hardly the most spiritual of women, and wondered,
too,
whether the apparent change which had come over him recently might not
be
ascribed to Linda's influence in some way.
After all, she wasn't unaware of the fact that Matthew had taken
a
distinct liking to her colleague on the first occasion that they had
met, a
couple of weeks before, at her flat in
But
would that mean that
she would then be reduced to the occasional visit from Pete Daniels, or
was
there some alternative, a possibility of more frequent satisfaction
from
someone already known to her? She glanced inquiringly at Mark Taber, who
appeared to be stunned by her revelation of the minute before. He was still interested in her, she could see
that, and no less handsome now than he had been prior to Matthew's
unexpected
intrusion into her life. True, he wasn't
the most interesting conversationalist, and his teaching of history
made him
somewhat conservative in his politics.
But at least he was a good lover and more on her social
wavelength.
Indeed, she hadn't quite
realized just
how
good until the affair with Matthew brought it home to her, until
contact
with a more spiritual being brought home to her the extent of her
dependence on
men like Taber who, for all their intellectual limitations and
shortcomings,
were more sensuously attuned to herself. In
that
respect, the experience with the
artist may well have been a blessing in disguise, if only on the
grounds that
it made her appreciative of what she used to have with Mark, and
consequently
gave her new insight into her own spiritual limitations.
After all, she was essentially conservative
in her political outlook too, the product of a strict middle-class
upbringing,
and not attuned to such views or attitudes as professed to by Matthew
Pearce. She was essentially
traditionalist too, and if the artist had done anything for her, it had
been to
bring this fact home to her in no uncertain terms!
The affair with him had been less of a
mistake than an eye-opener. And now that
she could see herself more clearly, it did indeed seem that the only
sensible
thing to do was to sever connections with him and, hopefully, return to
her own
level again - assuming circumstances would permit.
She had, at any rate, received a push in the
right direction from Pete Daniels, a push she could hardly fail to
appreciate,
especially with his wife standing no more than five yards away, still
busily
engaged in lightweight conversation with the two elderly colleagues.
Yet if Linda was five yards
away, Taber was
right beside her and duly reminding her of this fact as, all too soon,
the bell
sounded again and she heard him asking, in a slightly nervous
tone-of-voice,
whether she wouldn't care to have dinner with him that evening, since
he had no
specific commitments. "I mean, it
would be better to discuss such matters in private, wouldn't it?" he
added, glancing around the still-crowded and smoke-filled staff room. "Unless, however, you
have prior arrangements to honour?"
Gwen
thought of Peter a
moment, but the arrangements he had made with her were for another
night, and
therefore nothing that need interfere with today.
"None I can think of," she assured
him, smiling deferentially.
"Well?" he pressed.
"Yeah, that sounds a very
good
idea," she agreed, extending a grateful hand to his nearest arm. "I'd love to!"
"Good!" sighed
Taber with considerable relief. "In
that case we needn't talk any more about your, er,
sexual
problems
until then, need we?"
She gulped back the rest of
her, by now,
lukewarm tea and returned the empty cup to a nearby tray.
It was just like old times, except that this
time, thanks to the artist, there was an additional man in her life,
and he was
the husband of the woman in tight black slacks, who didn't in the least
suspect
that Peter was having an affair of his own with her best friend while
she was
so busily having one with that very friend's former lover, Matthew
Pearce. Well, what else were friends for
but to use
and deceive in the interests of lovers?
