Requiem for nothing very much

Requiem

It was almost dark as he drove the Volvo along the road which ran
immediately behind the Festival Hall. He had done so many times but he
did not know the name of the road. He wondered if anyone did, even taxi
drivers. The first attractive parking sign that he saw turned out to be
the artists' entrance and he pulled up sharply to avoid continuing the
gentle curve he had plotted as his entrance to the magic world of
culture. Fortunately there was nothing behind him and he drove on
another fifty yards or so to find an entrance more suited to one of his
status. He took the ticket from the man in the cabin which was on the
left side and meant you had to get out of the car (which he did) or
perform incredible acrobatics to take it through the left window. He
found a parking space not more than twenty yards inside the park which
was only one level below the ground. As he congratulated himself on his
good fortune he placed his foot in the three inches of water which had
ensured that more observant drivers would leave the space for someone
like Jon. But there was nobody here to see him shake his foot and the
water did not go over the top of his shoe. Jon locked the car doors,
listening to the all-round tumbler-like action of the central locking
and tip-toed without dignity to dry land. The wind was howling through
the concrete darkness and he struggled to control his flapping raincoat
as he wrestled his arms into the sleeves.

By the time he emerged from the park, past the little cabin where the
attendant sat for ever and ever, Jon had regained his poise and looked
believably like a middle-class, middle-aged culture vulture. Which, in
a less than adequate way, he was. He leaned forward against the wind as
he walked past the signs to the Museum of the Moving Image. It still
gave him a slight tingle in the tummy to contemplate the sign, let
alone the reality of that place, but it was quickly dispelled as he
observed the young skateboarders and roller skaters rumbling and
clacking in the semi-darkness. They seemed purposeful in an aimless
sort of way, pirouetting on the rear wheels of skateboards or whooshing
across the cold darkness on their silent skates. Many wore
American-style soft caps and had portable stereos plugged into their
ears. He noticed one young man who was decked out in full skating
regalia, sitting down and patiently rolling a cigarette in the gloom.
But Jon could not rejoice for long in the youthful exuberance of these
cool, self-sufficient, stylish and to him vacuous people. He was
reminded of the others who he knew were within a stones throw and did
not parade themselves with sophisticated pride. The ones who lived in
cardboard city. Poor Jon could not rejoice in much without considering
the down-side of things. Which made it even more appropriate that he
should be going to hear Mozart's Requiem. And he was not unaware of
this as he contemplated the cold yet womb-like darkness of this
sub-cultural environment. Were those skaters happy, he wondered. Were
they happier than he, or the people in cardboard city? What he might
have asked was whether they could get that dull glow and richness in
the melancholy of it all, or whether they were cut off from such subtle
pleasures. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the
countenance the heart is made better.

He turned sharp left and the wind met him with equal and opposing
force so that he stood still for an instant, before mustering just that
little bit of extra energy to tip the balance in his favour. There were
no other pedestrians around to watch his inconsequential tussle with
nature, though it was only just five. That meant there were two hours
until he had to meet Veronica. He was married to Veronica and they came
to concerts from time to time. About once every six weeks to be
accurate, but that accumulated to a tidy number over the years. And
they had been to plenty of other functions in the past. In fact, Jon
had first been here with his mother and father when they visited the
Festival of Britain in 1951. He had been most impressed by the Skylon,
just because it was there. A pointed, fragile, thrusting wire mesh
cigar. It appealed to Jon because it had no purpose. It had also been
his first encounter with a whole school of aesthetics with which he was
to spend a great deal of his future career. As he battled towards the
entrance with the slate grey Thames churning at eye level, or so it
seemed, he also remembered the shot tower. It must have stood very near
where he had seen the skateboarders just moments before. Not many
people seemed to know of its existence any more, but it was the
absolute highlight of his first trip to London. Inside the tower, which
looked rather like a lighthouse on top of which there was no light, the
Festival organisers had arranged carefully illuminated spheres of
metallic silver in their thousands. They were intended to give the
illusion of the lead dropping from the top of the tower before it
disintegrated into a million fragments of lead shot. It had been a dark
and magical link with a past that was not the main theme of the
Festival. It also shared with the Skylon an immaculate purposelessness
and complemented the latter's modernity with its, to Jon, giant ancient
brickwork. It was gone now. Jon often wondered, however, whether the
thrill he experienced whenever he visited the South Bank complex did
not date back to the day he had spent trailing around behind his
parents.

He was also supremely conscious of his recent tendency to reminisce as
though fighting the present with a never-ending montage of flashbacks.
But they got him from A to B. He was now inside the unblinking light of
the Festival Hall and browsing in a distant way through various
brochures about forthcoming events. He was aware that at the top of the
stairs was the salt beef stall where he was due to meet Veronica. And
the bookshop where he could spend a pleasant twenty or thirty minutes
fingering books he, and he hoped many others, had no intention of
buying. Biographies of Norman Mailer and James Dean. Andy Warhol's
Diaries. Voices from the past with which he had been a contemporary but
which were never part of his present. The voices of dissent with which
Jon could identify tended to be voices of the dead from earlier
generations. Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were
better than these? For thou dost not enquire wisely concerning
this.

He climbed the broad stairs to the ground floor with care and looked
aimlessly around. He had the dazed expression of one who has not been
in a palace of culture long enough to adjust to its pleasures but is
not yet a prisoner of its ethos. A man came down the stairs wearing a
fashionable but timeless camel coloured cape and a broad brimmed black
hat. Jon felt a pang of envy tinged with repulsion. He wanted to be
able to dress and look like that but hated all those who did. Or
perhaps he was taken with the idea of dressing as if to signal to the
world his unsung but daunting poetic spirit. Inside he was a seething
mass of non-directional venom. This manifested itself in smiles to the
unwary and smiles to the wary.

The bookshop was as he had expected, though his presence there was not
an act of cynicism but one of homage. For Jon held the written word in
awe. And the graven image. And the food of love. He was predictably
sensitive to the arts, but it was, for him at least, a real
sensitivity. A love. He had to hold this as a relatively private sense
of being. It was not something about which he felt able to talk with
honesty. This was not because of undue sensitivity, but because he
arrogantly assumed that most people who found time to talk about such
matters did not share the true depth of feeling which he experienced.
For this he endured a certain sense of guilt, but it was also another
of his reassurances. A protection. Not to speak of one's inner
convictions shielded them from serious attack or challenge. And there
were other kinds of conviction which were more susceptible to public
discourse.

He stood idly in front of a shelf of poetry, but was watching a man of
about thirty who was fingering a book of photographs which included
images of the rich and famous taken whilst they were pissed and
scantily clothed. The man seemed disinterested. It was a way of whiling
away the time. Perhaps this bookshop was actually a kind of therapy
centre for those who were aimlessly or purposefully waiting. Jon looked
at the man's collar. He was wearing a grey suit which was clearly his
working dress and there was a slight spattering of dandruff over the
top of his shoulders. The suit had small lapels and the top of the
collar was very slightly darkened. A single man probably, but then
perhaps not. Other figures drifted back and forth. Jon pulled focus and
looked through his bifocals at the books ranged in front of him. With
similar disinterest he pulled out a volume and found himself staring at
a translation of a poem by Rilke. He read to himself
I'd like, above all to be one of those
who drive with wild black horses through the night,
torches like hair uplifted in affright
when the great wind of their hunting blows.
His eyes moved down the page a little
blowing a black solitude through which we tear
like dreams that speed too fast to leave a trace.
Houses behind us fall upon their knees,
alleys cringe crookedly before our train,
squares break in flight: we summon and we seize:
we ride, and our great horses rush like rain.
He shut the book and put it back. This was a little beyond what his
poetic spirit could cope with and he edged along to where the man with
the grey suit had been standing. It reminded him of Tony Hancock
putting the volume of Bertrand Russell back on the shelf after a minute
or so, saying 'that's enough of that' or something. He picked up a copy
of Hollywood Babylon II and flicked through the pages. His eyes fell
upon a picture of Alan Ladd under which it said 'Like mother, like son'
and across the page 'he did himself in with "a high level of alcohol
combined with three medicines and sleeping pills".' Jon put the book
down and realised that it was time to leave. There were good times in
bookshops when he found pieces of wisdom or fagments of poetry which
elevated him. But not today. Today the words and images were arraigned
against him. He was not in the mood for the dark syrup of expressionism
or the heady cynicism of those who reminded him of what he knew and did
not wish to know - that the Hollywood Dream Factory was a living
nightmare.

Back in the more open, unblinking space of the ground floor he felt a
little more relaxed. People were arriving in larger numbers for the
events of the evening. There was a little more expectancy and a little
less hopelessness around. One or two people were smiling as they
ordered their coffees or dipped in to the large array of salads. Jon
felt the will to go on return to his fatigued limbs. It was not so bad
after all. It is good and comely for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy
the good of all his labour under the sun all the days of his
life.......

He went over to the bar and ordered a pint of lager from a smart young
man with a black waistcoat and white shirt. Standing next to him were
various members of the choir who would be singing later, wearing their
evening dress and drinking shorts. He sipped at his beer and looked
around at the men and women sitting and reading their programmes or
smoking a cigarette. A young woman walked by dressed in a black coat
and carrying a black leather bag. She carried herself with a certain
amount of quiet dignity and looked around as though expecting to meet
someone. He watched her as she moved off into the gathering crowd and
wondered who she was. But she was gone as quickly as she had appeared
and Jon could not get any kind of purchase on the relentless flow of
events. Not that they were of any consequence, but there were times
when he longed to be able to intervene and to evoke a friendly response
from one of the extras in this soap opera. Episode 423: Jon Blakemore
crosses the floor of the Festival Hall Foyer and speaks quietly to a
strange woman. She turns and smiles gently and they sit together in a
secluded corner. It is clear from the way they move that there is an
inexplicable magnetism building up between them. Future episodes will
tell... Jon was not a great rule breaker however, except within the
confines of his head. He finished his lager and walked over to the
exhibition of paintings which belonged to some kind of Festival Hall
Collection.

He walked absent-mindedly past some tin cans and a roll of felt. Then
round a galvanised iron bath which had a cover which had been carefully
welded to ensure that it could never again hold water. It was at least
exhibited on the floor. Anti-art had become auntie art. Clever stuff
this. Things had come a long way since the first urinal was exhibited.
That was something which Jon could understand, but the game had gone on
a little longer than Duchamp might have expected. The urinal had said
that art was a trick, but this bath said that the trick had become the
art. There was no shock, only the endless tedium of objects which
spelled out the cleverness of medocrity. That which was once so
carefully calculated to enrage the bourgeois sensibility now added to
the bourgeois comfort in its boredom and superior judgement. Most of
this stuff was of interest for its investment value, or lack of it. And
so Jon mused until he walked beyond a large screen on which was a
mammoth colour photograph of carefully arranged consumer goodies from
hair sprays to vibrators and came face to face with a Ben
Nicholson.

It was a painting he had seen reproduced many times in books, but
never stood in front of. And here it was. Involuntarily he went over to
the neat printed card on the wall beside the picture and read the
title. Without a title he was lost. There had to be a name for
everything, even a Ben Nicholson. A good name is better than precious
ointment. This one was simple and meant nothing but evocation of a lost
but worthy past. Bocque 1932. Jon did not know why, but even the
figures 1 9 3 2 took on a new significance when set beside a painting
which he could respect and which moved him. He had been moved by other
arrangements of letters and figures at different times in his life.
Each in their own way had been a magical experience. Toulouse-Lautrec,
Camus, Klee. Yes Klee. The Eighteenth Brumaire. Why was so much of it
French? He did not know, but he was sure that there was genuine
physical and spiritual pleasure to be derived from the contemplation of
words which had come to mean. Sometimes this was because of all the
engrossing ideas or the torment associated with them. And sometimes it
was because a word had become a painting. The form of each letter could
be a delight as the word came in and out of being. Bocque 1932. Jon
enjoyed this as much as any other foreplay he had experienced. He stood
back a little and let his eyes move over the canvass.

Nicholson was just another dead painter. But there was a sensuality
about the way he could touch a canvass that made you feel as though he
was nearby. Static electricity. There wasn't much in the painting after
all. A Jug, a cup, a bottle, a table and the magic word. But they held
together in the most exquisite tension. The line of the jug was nothing
more than a pencil drawn over a piece of fabric. Yet it was not
repeatable by a human because it had now been drawn. It could be
reproduced by a machine, but not by a hand. The pale textures of the
table surface and the harsh darkness pushing forward the cup, a line of
which has strayed into the shadow. The solid bottle which is not made
of anything but paint and does not look like a bottle. But in its shape
it is a bottle. There is no need for a likeness when what you have
painted is the object. Three lines around the neck of the jug; a dark
rectangle to the left and the whiteness of a glaze which has been
rubbed away and is translucent - cut across by the corner of a
rectangle which is tactile. Tactility. Texture, colour and line held in
musical tension. The silent but endless music of visual pleasure which
is often hinted at in documentary films. Mozart over Cezanne. Well,
whatever was chosen could never recreate that silent symphony which is
visual pleasure. It is a sign of the times that we are unable to watch
something in silence or listen to music without images. This is nothing
to do with cross fertilising the arts. It has more to do with a deficit
model of the public. And so mused Jon as his eyes spiralled around the
painting's surface.

It seemed as though he had been away a long time, but all this
pondering had taken little more than five minutes and he was returned
to the reality of the Festival Hall by a voice nearby which was not
addressing him. It said "Darling, I think we'll have to move now if we
want to catch Imogen." Jon shuddered and walked slowly over the shining
boards, round the bloody bath and up the bloody stairs back to the bar.
Would Imogen be caught? He was hot now and took off his raincoat. Maybe
Imogen was an OK person. He ordered a half of lager, remembering the
time he would have to sit without peeing. To carry a name like Imogen
aroung all day long must be quite a chore in itself. He hoped she would
only be caught if that was what she wanted.

There seemed to be many more members of the choir or orchestra
drinking in the bar now and Jon wondered how they all stayed sober
through such serious business, not to mention the state of their
bladders. There would be well over one hundred and fifty people on the
stage when Mozart began. Would they all be able to hold that volume of
urine. Put together they would piss a small ocean. Put on the stage
they would sing Mozart.