A Temporary Life, page 12
The metal scoop, after some further hesitation, is inserted in the jug.
A thin, watery liquid is lifted out.
‘No finer sustenance came from God’s good elements,’ Wilcox says.
The woman’s bowl is filled, then his.
Finally, scraping the scoop in the bottom of the jug, she turns to mine.
The liquid filters in.
‘Potato. Grown in the ground outside that window there.’ Wilcox, it appears, is drinking his. There’s the slurping of liquid against his lip, a smacking of the lip against the spoon; then comes a kind of gulp and a rasping sigh. ‘What better sustenance could you find than that.’
The woman, in shadow till now, stoops, briefly, towards the light; dark, cavernous eyes look out, sharply, first at Wilcox and, then, less feverishly, at me.
‘Could you pass the salt?’
‘Salt?’
‘In front of you.’
She’s already taken her place at the end opposite to Wilcox. Apart from sliding the salt along the blackened wood there’s no means of conveying it to her other than by getting up.
I push back the chair, pick the cellar up and take it down the table.
I wonder, for a moment, whether I might take it back.
The white grains settle on her soup. Without waiting for the cellar I go back to my chair.
No sooner have I sat down than Wilcox smacks his lips again.
‘It could do with a bit of salt. You’re right.’
He looks at me: I can see the two shadows where his eyes belong and the bold protuberance of his nose between.
‘Be a chap.’
I get up from the chair again.
I reclaim the cellar, take it down the table, wait for Wilcox to use it then take it back. Passing my own bowl I shower it with several grains: I replace it in front of the woman’s plate.
There’s a kind of groan. I wait. No other sound, however, follows it. I go back to the chair.
‘Minerals; carbohydrates: the potato’s got almost everything,’ Wilcox says. ‘With that and milk you could live a long and exceedingly healthy life,’ he adds.
The woman herself, apart from an identical smacking of the lips, makes no comment of any sort at all.
Only now, accustomed to the gloom, do I see the pictures hanging on the wall, their subject-matter indistinguishable in the feeble light. A fireplace is overhung by a wooden beam; in a metal grate stand several blocks of wood, unlit, above them a metal cauldron attached to a chain which disappears into the shadows of the chimney overhead.
Apart from two chairs, half-upholstered, set either side of the unlit fire, there’s no other furniture in the room at all.
‘Damn cold.’
I nod my head.
‘Outside.’ He gestures round. ‘Appreciate it,’ he says, ‘when you get in here. It’s the straw, you know. Not like your modern tiles.’
A spoon is scraped round the bottom of a bowl: from the opposite end of the table comes a kind of groan; lips are smacked. A chair scrapes back.
‘Finished, Freestone?’ Wilcox says. His own spoon, as if in illustration, he rattles in the bowl. ‘One large potato, per person, per day, fresh from the garden: this nation wouldn’t be what it is today. You’d see some difference, then. You would.’
The woman reappears, her bowl in her hand, moving down to the opposite end; she picks up Wilcox’s plate, takes mine, sets them on the tray with the ladle and the empty jug and then, like some manifestation of Kendal’s light-machine, vanishes abruptly.
‘Heavy meals late at night.’ The Principal shakes his head. ‘No good. Digestive juices: they never get a chance. They need to recuperate, you know, themselves. Need the rest. What sort of stomach do you have if the juices are champing up food all night as well?’ He smacks his lips. ‘Treat your stomach right, the rest will follow. Good digestion, Freestone, is the key to a well-directed life. If you don’t digest things well everything else, you’ll find, will go astray: work, concentration, application, anything you care to mention.’
My hands, it seems, have begun to tremble.
My teeth, a moment later, begin to chatter.
‘Take Kendal, for example. These weird ideas he has. They come, primarily, from an unbalanced diet. His juices, as a consequence, get out of hand; they send garbled, or over-sensationalized messages to the brain: the brain reacts: instead of an artist, modelling with his clay, or painting at his canvas, you get a man who ends up making electric bells. And he’s not aware. He’s not aware. When I talk to him he thinks I’m mad: you can see his stomach inwardly revolting. What it sends to the brain the brain can’t understand. It obeys whatever directions the stomach gives, but in essence the brain is as confused as Kendal is himself: after all, we are, first and foremost, a living body: and the reason that we live is because we eat. Only by consuming certain elements of our environment do we survive: if those elements are in any way unbalanced then our existence itself becomes unbalanced. We can only put things right by a conscious act of will.’
The door once again has opened: the tray appears, the whitened head beyond.
‘Kendal comes from the new brigade: the let-it-happen boys. They think life’s made up of all sorts of instincts: sit back and let it happen. You can see it in his face.’
The tray, clutched in a pair of claw-like hands, is set down once more at the end of the table. It contains three apples, three plates, two knives and a piece of cheese.
‘He doesn’t realize that art, like life, is a conscious act of will. It comes from the stomach: it needs direction. Direction implies discipline: discipline implies skill, skill implies tradition, taste, tuition. In other words, in a nutshell, it demands a school of art.’
One plate, one apple, one knife are carried down to the end of the table. A second plate and an apple are brought to me. The third apple remains with the woman at the opposite end.
‘Like potato, cheese is one of life’s organic foods. One of the mind’s ingredients,’ Wilcox says. His knife, in anticipation, is already raised.
I get up, pick up the cheese, and carry it down to the opposite end; the woman herself, for a moment, appears surprised. She gives a groan; there’s a rasping in her throat: she moans.
Wilcox, as if alarmed, has coughed the other end.
‘No. No. Go ahead. Ladies first. Even if they haven’t put in a day’s hard work,’ he says.
The woman cuts a piece. She lays it on her plate, beside the apple. Having put down the knife beside her plate she makes no other kind of move at all.
I carry the cheese to the other end.
‘Here it comes: life’s providence,’ Wilcox says.
He takes over half of the remaining lump.
The remnant I carry back to where my apple stands, knife-less, beneath the light.
I rub my hands.
‘No need to peel the skin. Half the goodness lies beneath the skin. People don’t realize that, you know. The same with potatoes: a good wash, that’s all they need. And often,’ Wilcox adds, ‘not even that.’
The cheese is hard.
‘Fresh cheese,’ he says, ‘of course, has not had time to conglomerate.’ He chews his apple. ‘By conglomerate I mean, not had time to synthesize. The elements are not, as it were, in equilibrium. They need time, like all things, to settle down. To achieve harmony. To acquaint themselves with one another.’
A soft, hesitant munching comes from the opposite end.
‘That’s why we’re here. A new element in the college. It demands acquaintance of all the rest. It needs time, as it were, to conglomerate.’
I feel now he’s speaking, not so much for my benefit, as for that of the woman at the other end; it might, for all I know, be a nightly homily which passes one way along that blackened table whenever Wilcox comes home from work.
‘The same principle applies to a work of art; each part is separate yet an integral part of all the rest.’
‘All for one, and one for all.’
The room, the sound of munching apart, grows quiet.
I’m aware of the silence, too, outside the house.
‘Reality disintegrates,’ Wilcox says, ‘in direct proportion to the amount of synthetic foods that people nowadays are encouraged to consume. The last war, for instance, the greatest catastrophe the world has ever known, was a direct consequence of certain elements on the continent eating too much bread.’
I look across: the eyes, faintly, have glistened in the light. The familiar image of Wilcox fades away: it might, quite easily, be another man who’s sitting there. I’m reminded again of the strange distortion of objects effected by Kendal’s eccentric lights.
‘Too much carbohydrate, for instance, can affect the brain in any number of ways. Not only,’ Wilcox says, ‘does the body grow fat, but it uses up energy in a way which nature never intended. The history of bread-eating peoples, for instance, would indicate that strife, particularly inter-denominational strife, is a natural consequence of the consumption of too much bread.’
‘What about the Chinese?’
‘The Chinese have rice, which is just as bad.’
My feet, in reaction to the cold, have banged against the floor; even the chair has begun to tremble.
‘Should we light the fire?’
‘The fire?’
I indicate the grate.
‘We don’t have a fire in there.’ He smiles; his teeth, discoloured, glitter in the light. ‘Except at Christmas, mind. We sometimes light it then.’ He rubs his hands. ‘There’s a fire in the other room, in any case,’ he says.
He clears his throat. His cheese has gone; he clatters his knife against his plate.
The woman rises.
As she passes round the table she collects the knives; she piles the plates, puts the apple cores on the tray and with the empty cheese plate carries them out.
‘We can go in the other room for toddy. The good lady,’ Wilcox says, ‘will bring it in.’
He pushes back his chair; we rise. I cross over to the door.
Wilcox, with a grunt, has followed me through. His shoulder catches mine as he pushes past.
‘Straight ahead.’
The door directly opposite is closed.
‘I shan’t be a second, old man.’
He disappears; his footsteps fade away to the back of the house.
I try the door handle.
I turn the handle, press my weight against it and feel it give.
Somewhere at the back of the house a chain is pulled.
Wilcox, his head bowed, has reappeared.
‘Anything the matter?’
I press against the door.
‘It’s stuck.’
‘Probably locked.’
He rattles a bunch of keys inside his pocket. He makes no attempt to try the door himself.
He fits a key: the door swings back.
‘Of course, a night like this, you don’t need a fire. The air being fresh,’ he says, ‘it’s more in the way of a stimulant than anything else.’
A faint glow erupts; a yellowish shade is mounted on a plastic bowl.
‘Heat, I always think, discourages circulation. I’m sure there must be a connexion between the incidence of heart disease and the prevalence of central-heating and open fires. In the old days, the fire was used primarily for cooking, little else. Vigorous exercise was the answer to people who felt the cold, you know. That,’ he says, ‘and work itself.’
The fireplace, in confirmation of these remarks, is standing empty. Made of brick it contains a rusted grate that appears never to have seen either coal or wood. Two chairs, identical to the ones in the other room, are set on either side. On a sideboard stands a photograph and, beneath a casement window, a narrow desk.
On the wall are hung a number of pictures in the style of the English post-impressionists, the simplified shapes reduced to an almost illustrative flatness: a nude, a landscape, the interior of a room.
The photograph on the sideboard is that of a young woman, her hair brushed back, her eyes starting, dark, piercing, with an almost maniacal intentness.
‘Daughter. Married,’ Wilcox says.
He sits down in one of the chairs and slaps his legs.
‘It’s good to get home of an evening. What d’you think?’
Expecting no answer, he doesn’t look up.
‘Home, too, is related to digestion in a way that people, on the whole, don’t understand. Family life, that of husband, wife and child, depends almost entirely, if it’s to achieve any kind of harmony, on the balance of nutrients that each member of the household gets. Once an imbalance in the intake of nutrients occurs – one member of the family eating out of tune, as it were, with all the rest – it’s like an orchestra with a discordant member: the emotional harmony of the whole of the family is, quite markedly, disturbed.’
The door has opened; the tray, clutched between two claw-like hands, manifests itself again.
The whitened head appears. The tray’s set down, cautiously, beside the empty hearth.
‘Sugar, too, is another enemy. Tooth decay, in certain native tribes, for instance, is virtually unknown. So is heart-disease,’ he says.
Having released the tray and straightened, the woman glances anxiously at Wilcox, sees there, evidently, no further desire maturing, and turns quietly to the door.
‘Would you like a chair?’ I ask.
She pauses for a moment, confirms from my expression that it’s her and not Wilcox who’s been spoken to, and, after a further moment’s indecision, glances over at Wilcox then slowly shakes her head.
‘I’ve one or two things to do,’ she says.
The door, after a moment’s hesitation, is quietly closed.
A jug and two glasses are standing on the tray.
‘Fruit-juice toddy,’ Wilcox says.
He half-fills one of the glasses, sips it, then pours a slightly smaller quantity into the other.
He leans across, holds the glass out, motions for me to taste it, then, nodding, waits for my remark.
‘What kind of fruit?’
‘Citrus.’
He sips his own.
‘Unsweetened. Natural juices only, mind. With citrus,’ he adds, ‘you get the sun.’
He leans back in his chair.
He sighs.
‘I thought of inviting Kendal once. He’s been at the college, you know, two years. Studied in London. I don’t think, unless you feel someone’s sympathetic, you should invite them to your home. After all, invitations, like disagreeable food, can be a matter of digestion.’
He sips his drink again.
‘One of the reasons you got the job.’
‘The food.’
‘No, no. Well-built. Thick-set. Can knock them into shape. It’s what they understand round here.’ He waves his arm. ‘All art’s related, you know, to a particular place. You wouldn’t get Siennese painting, for example, going on in Florence. Nor would you find Constable painting his great landscapes in the middle of Madrid. It’s what these let-it-happen boys can never understand. Full of abstractions because they’re easy to transmit. Real art comes from particular places, from particular people doing particular things.’
He presses the glass against his lips.
‘That’s one of the reasons I asked you here.’ He takes a sip. ‘It’s a question of morality, you see, as much as anything else.’
I look across.
‘Of deciding what you want from life, determining its value, then pursuing it. The same principle,’ he says, ‘that you apply to painting. Or to any of the arts, if it comes to that.’
He finishes the glass, leans to the jug, half-fills it again and takes a sip.
‘You’ve been to the Newmans’, I understand.’
He looks across.
‘Mr Newman’s been a great benefactor since his daughter came to the college. He’s agreed to put money into one or two schemes I have.’ He says, ‘I can’t mention them, of course. As yet. When they come to fruition you’ll be the first to hear. The rest of the staff, that is, as well.’
He clears his throat.
‘I wouldn’t want to jeopardize these plans.’ He shows his teeth. ‘By a too intimate relationship with the family. I mean, by communicating to them ideas about art which might, as it were, contradict certain attitudes they may have formed themselves.’
‘Has he offered,’ I ask him, ‘to buy your work?’
‘No, no. It’s the college I’m talking about,’ he says. ‘If we want to attract a better kind of student, and recruit, as a consequence, a better kind of staff, we require facilities to do it with. What we have to offer at present isn’t adequate by any standards. For instance, in the study of the Old Masters we have scarcely anything at all to offer the aspiring student. Verrocchio and Donatello worked essentially from studios, you understand, where every facility for the student was provided by the master; in this age of diminishing public patronage it’s encouraging to find, as it were, a private patron; someone who’s prepared to accept the master’s insight into things and provide the material wherewithal with which, given good fortune, he can put his particular disciplines into practice.’
The jug is empty. He gazes at his glass.
‘It’s not often the opportunity provided by Mr Newman arises in the Arts. Usually assistance of this kind is given to the Sciences; it would be unfortunate if someone were to persuade him that the Fine Arts aren’t Fine, for instance, any longer, but responsible for turning out devices not unlike the ones that Kendal has. Mr Newman agrees with me that art is to do with the observation of real, verifiably present life. He doesn’t go in at all for these fashionable abstractions.’
He looks across.
‘I only thought I’d mention it. Not in the way of a warning, you understand. More in the nature of an invitation. A plea for help. The beneficiaries, after all, will be the college’s future students.’
He gestures round.
‘What do you think of the paintings, then?’
I get up from the chair. I stamp my feet. I bang one hand against the other.
‘You haven’t got a drop of Scotch?’
‘Scotch?’
‘Anything to warm you up.’
‘My dear Freestone,’ he says, ‘I’m warm already.’
