The Art School Dance (38 page)

‘
Can
it?’ Barney asked.

‘
Well,’
said McCready, and struggled to quote from past lectures, from
books read and articles only vaguely remembered. Facts could only
be stated about objects which were perceived, he recalled, and the
only facts which could be stated were those which can be perceived.
There was not much that his dim recollections could offer, but it
was enough for Barney, who accepted what little was said and asked
what conclusions could be drawn.

‘
I
suppose,’ McCready ventured, ‘that if we can make statements about
ordinary objects then we can also make statements about art
objects. After all, they’re nothing more than wood and paint and
canvas and whatever.’

‘
But is
the object on which we slap the title ‘art’ the same as the work of
art?’ Barney paused a moment, to let the two of them consider the
question, then continued: ‘There’s a body of opinion which suggests
that a work of art only has existence during those moments when it
is recognised as such. An object is identified as art because of a
process it undergoes, so that a urinal is a urinal until Duchamp
signs it, bricks are bricks until they’re put on show at the Tate.
Then these ordinary objects become art objects. Years previous to
these processes occurring the bricks and the urinal were everyday
objects, not considered art.’

‘
But
what happens when these objects become art?’ McCready asked. ‘Do
they cease to function on an ordinary level? After all, you can
still piss into Duchamp’s urinal.’

‘
Best
thing to do with it,’ Griff grumbled.

‘
And
what about the opposite case?’ McCready went on. ‘If you turn a
Rembrandt into an ironing board, reversing the process, does that
deny you the right to still consider it as a work of
art?’

Barney
smiled.

‘
Well?’
McCready pressed, and of course he received no reply, of course he
returned home that night in a mood.

Chapter
Eight

It was a
fortnight later that people were invited to share in what McCready
termed his first success, a couple of dozen students who went down
to London in the college van, a couple of carloads of staff who
followed after. It was a Friday, some of the tutors had homes or
families or friends in London, so for them the trip served a
two-fold purpose.

The exhibition
proved to be something of a disappointment to everyone but
McCready, though there were people there of obvious culture there
were none who were instantly recognisable, no celebrities, and the
paintings which dotted McCready’s exhibited walls were almost as
blank and featureless as the walls themselves. There were no
Hockneys or Hamiltons on show.

‘
So this
is what sells in London?’ said Griff in disgust.

‘
I
suppose the work poses certain questions,’ said Barney, but even he
spoke without conviction for once.

It was a
strange introduction to the commercial world of fine art for many
of us. As many people were standing between the paintings, staring
at the blank expanses of wall, as there were looking at the equally
blank expanses of canvas which were enclosed by frames.

‘
Precocious’, ‘enigmatic’ and ‘searching’ were among the
opinions we heard voiced in hushed and reverential
tones.

One by one,
first Teacher and then others, people drifted away from the gallery
to regroup in the nearest pub. It was as if by prior arrangement
that we found ourselves there, as if the similar sickness of
disillusionment with the capital affected us all at the same time;
with the exception of those tutors such as Bobby, who had already
made their homes there, it was generally agreed that London was not
a nice place to live. For many of us students it would be necessary
to move there after college, however, we knew this, both graphic
designers and fine artists alike; London was the only place where
artists, if they were ambitious, could hope to succeed. As McCready
said, it was all very well believing that the work we did could be
done anywhere, but there was only one place to market it and that
was the capital. The statement was the cause of much dissent and
discussion, there were purists like Griff who thought that art was
much too precious to be ‘marketed’, like any other commodity, but
the realistic point of view as proposed by McCready was perhaps the
one that we all secretly knew to be true. To be able to afford to
paint, once we left college, we would have to be able to sell the
work we did.

Bobby was the
one the champion the capital, the most effusive in praising it.
Perhaps this was on account of her being American, she saw it in a
different light; for her it was not so much a city, like New York
or Chicago, as a collection of villages, each a self-contained
community.

‘
I don’t
think of myself as a Londoner,’ she said.

‘
Because
you’re not,’ Barney told her.

‘
I’ve
lived here as long as I’ve lived anywhere else, though. I’d have
the right to call myself one if I chose to. I don’t, though. I see
myself as cosmopolitan. That’s how the district is where I
live.’

Keen that
everyone should see the place as she did, she issued an open
invitation for everyone to join her at a party that night; it was
being given by friends of hers, they wouldn’t mind a few unexpected
guests and she could put people up for the night, she had couches
aplenty and a spare bed or two.

‘
How
about it?’ she said. ‘See for yourselves that this place isn’t half
as bad as you think. Not everyone in London is like those
pretentious pricks in the gallery.’

McCready
wanted to take her up on the offer, stay overnight.

‘
I
can’t,’ I told him. ‘I’ve got too much work to do this
weekend.’

And Griff
couldn’t stay either, he had to return the van to college first
thing in the morning, so our party was split in two.

‘
You
stay if you like,’ I told McCready.

‘
You
wouldn’t mind?’

‘
Of
course not. Just as long as you behave yourself.’

Rose was at
his side, in her best black party outfit, and I thought of how
McCready had described her on the night of Ceri’s party -an angel
of death, was it?- saw her hover at his shoulder like a lamp-black
succubus.

‘
I’ll
look after him, honey,’ Bobby promised. ‘You can trust me. He’ll be
back to you intact tomorrow.’

I wondered
which of the two females he would be safest with.

*

The party-goers
left with Bobby, those tutors who had come by car also got on their
way, and of the dozen of us who’d travelled in the college van less
than half were left. Outside the pub at closing time we decided
that we were hungry. The only place we could find open was a
late-night delicatessen, where we bought the makings of sandwiches
-cheese, salami, pate- which were made up in the back of the van
while Griff drove us out of the city.

He was a
little drunk, not out of control but a little too exhilarated to
drive slowly; on the dual carriageway which led to the motorway no
other vehicle passed us. Once on the motorway, his foot down on the
accelerator and no need to change gear, he settled back in his seat
and shared in the sandwiches. Beside him in the passenger seat I
leant forward, my nose against the windscreen, gazing at the
luminous ribbon of white which shot ahead like a stream of tracers,
out of range of the headlights.

I was looking
ahead so that I could forget leaving McCready behind.

‘
It’s an
experience, isn’t it, driving at night?’ I said.

‘
The
best time,’ Griff agreed.

‘
That’s
the thing I’d enjoy most if I had a car, going off on my own at
night, driving along dark deserted country roads and forgetting
about everything else.’

‘
Forgetting that the world’s a bit grubby in places, you
mean?’

‘
That’s
it.’

Griff pushes
cigarettes along the dashboard, asked me to light one for him and
pass them around.

Some miles on
a road sign loomed out of the darkness, caught in the headlights,
giving warning of a service area ahead, and Griff suggested we stop
for coffee. He glanced over his shoulder, saw that most people in
the back of the van were dozing, no one was in a hurry to get home,
so pulled into the service area and switched off the engine. It
took some time for the engine to die, as if it too was exhilarated
by the night-time travelling.

He went to the
cafeteria while I went to the toilets, bought two coffees and was
sitting by a window when I joined him, watching the intermittent
traffic pass by. There were no more than a dozen people in a place
which could seat a hundred and he looked around at them, his gaze
switching from table to table.

‘
Whenever I’m in a place like this I always start to think
about everyone,’ he told me. ‘I want to know who they are, why
they’re here, where they might be going and what they might be
feeling.’

And what might
McCready be feeling at that moment, I wondered. What might he be
thinking? Might he be thinking of me?

‘
There
always seems to be something sad about places like this, if you
visit them at this time of night. It seems the people you see are
the ones who’re always travelling, unsettled, a bit like the
Wandering Jew.’

‘
Who?’ I
asked.

‘
The
Wandering Jew. It’s said he laughed at Christ when he was carrying
the cross up to Calvary, more or less told him to get a move on,
like a modern day heckler. Because of that he was to condemned to
wander the earth until Christ returned.’

‘
You
seem fond of sad people and sorry tales,’ I smiled.

‘
Perhaps
I am.’

Could this be
why he was so fond of me?

When we
returned to the van the others were still sleeping, they stirred
only slightly when Griff juggled the key in the ignition and pumped
the engine back to life.

‘
It’s
about time they had this thing serviced,’ he remarked, as we
coughed and juddered back onto the motorway.

Yes, a service
did seem in order, for the van became increasingly sluggish; it
choked and hiccoughed from time to time, then seemed to lose heart
totally when we were still four or five miles from home. It died
slowly and with dignity, coming to a gentle halt by the roadside.
Griff was no mechanic, had no idea what was wrong, so there was
nothing for us to do but walk. He roused the others, locked the
van, and we all began the trudge home. Soon Griff and I were at the
rear of the group, walking less briskly and falling further
behind.

‘
Aren’t
you cold?’ I asked him, for he was wearing only a thin denim jacket
over his tee shirt, and above us the stars dotting the sky seemed
to twinkle with amusement, as if they held some portent of what was
to happen.

Griff said no,
he was fine, but he gave a shiver of the involuntary kind, as
prompted by inspired music or a poetic phrase. A second shiver came
soon after, travelling his body and shaking itself out at the
shoulders like those rhythmic ripples with which a mongrel might
throw off a damp chill after an icy swim. I took him by the arm and
snuggled close, wondering if McCready might be doing something
similar. It should have been an innocent gesture, but it made me
glow; and Griff too, I supposed, to feel our bodies so close
together. In this manner we walked along, following the unlit road
through shadowy trees, towards the unseen city.

‘
Your
hand’s like ice,’ I told him, and tugged it into the pocket of my
coat, squeezing his fingers and making them nervous, like
frightened little children which had once picked noses and squeezed
spots.

Suddenly
headlights blazed behind from deep in the night, made fun of our
shadows and sent them flickering like funfair reflections at our
feet. Griff stuck out a thumb and the car came to a halt beside us,
its tyres kissing the kerb. I was hoping for a car with only one
occupant, so Griff and I could break free of each other and sit one
in the front, one in the back; though it was me who had first drawn
Griff to my side I was beginning to find the contact of our bodies
unsettling. As the courtesy light came on in the car, though, I saw
the driver stretch across, in front of the silent person in the
passenger seat, to ask where we were going.

Griff told the
driver, who said he was heading our way, and we got into the back
seat. Though the car was not small I sat close beside Griff, felt
the warmth of his body again, and of my own, an animal warmth which
misted the windows like a teenage passion. Smelling the leather
upholstery and hearing the hiss of the tyres on the road I felt a
comfortable security within the vehicle; again there was the
hypnotic streamer of white markings stabbing away into the
darkness, there were no street lights on that ghostly approach to
the city, no houses or landmarks save the trees which were all the
same in night’s anonymity. In addition, though, I felt a strange
sense of foreboding and vague suggestions of nightmare in the
gloom. I drew closer still to Griff, worried that even then
McCready could be drawing closer still to Rose. And would she be as
warm to him as Griff was to me?

When the hush
was broken by Griff’s voice it did nothing to lift the gloom which
hung like threatening weather. He told the driver he could drop us
there, just ahead, at the junction. We stepped out by the park, a
twenty minute walk from home, and waved our thanks at the bloodshot
tail lights as they receded, leaving us once again at the mercy of
the night and its shivering insinuations.