Patrick Parker's Progress

by Mavis Cheek

  A little bit of the dam broke. 'Edwin,' she said. 'What we have just done in my bedroom is not seemly. Shall we also dispense with that in case it offends?'

  'My dear,' he said with mocking gallantry, a touch of the old Edwin emerging (he could be intransigent, oh how he could be), 'if that is what you wish - and it is certainly not what I wish - I will go from your life immediately.'

  And in the usual way of proceeding, she ran to him and tucked her arm though his and kissed him and said, "That is not what I meant. Not what I meant at all.' She always submitted to the way of things. But this time - bloody well bugger it and my arse - she would not. More ways to skin a cat, as her dear old mother used to say. She closed her lips with a smile.

  By way of consolation Audrey was presented with a handsome, clothbound, limited edition copy of the catalogue. She wondered, but without much hope, if she was acknowledged in the Foreword. She was not. She therefore wrote the Director a thank-you note and ended it with her congratulations on the exhibition and a desire to know wherever he had found such a clever idea. He did not reply.

  So far as Gallic opinion was concerned, the success of the previous 'Turner and His World' exhibition laid to rest the ghost of Waterloo. The new exhibition, 'Tribute to Genius: Brunel and his World' would cause an even greater sensation. The British, if they thought about him at all, considered Brunel to be an English Victorian through and through. But this exhibition would show that he was Normandy Man to his backbone. The Anglo-French detente of the European Union was parchment thin, tightly drawn, prickable by the first tiny pin of rancour. And rancour there would be. For if the Curator's Turner exhibition was limited to the visual arts - and it was well known everywhere but in England that the English were visually illiterate and therefore might not feel quite so proprietorial - this time, in his capacity of Director, the exhibition would include everything. Even original lengths of the famous - or notorious - seven-foot-gauge rail. And of the huge, dramatic chains that held down the Great Eastern. Japanese money had seen to that. There would be artefacts, books, paintings, photographs . . . Let the Modernists squeal, said the Director. The Louvre was an ancient institution. 'Brunel and his World' fitted it supremely well.

  Their cousins across the water trembled yet again. But there was no way out of it. La France had been very generous in the matter of lending works for both a Toulouse-Lautrec and a Renoir show in London and Birmingham (sell-outs, obviously, as the French shrugged to themselves, since even the Philistine English had heard of them) so it would look nothing but mealy-mouthed if British institutions refused to comply with French requests now. The Cultural Establishment of the British Isles was privately biting its knuckles. It wished it had never gone for the easy options of Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir, and it wished - above all it wished that it had thought up and executed the Brunel idea first. But It Had Not. To the French was the victory. Again.

  The exhibition took the halfway stage in the century as the closing point of the Great Victorian Enlightenment. The moment, the Director averred, when the British took too much Empire with their brandy, and lost out to the rest of the world, could be pinpointed to a quotation from Walter Bagehot's letter to his father, written in 1851, year of the Great Exhibition in London, year of Louis Napoleon's coup d'etat in Paris, the discovery of which delighted the Director. For the young Walter was visiting Paris and observed the street fighting and wrote to his anxious parent that, 'If you go calmly, and look English, there is no particular danger...' This statement, maintained the catalogue, was the high point of the golden age, after which the great days of benign politically inspired social reform were at an end. After that the Victorians descended into absurdity - Doers became gentlemen and Did no longer. The exhibition would celebrate the days before men allowed themselves to become imprisoned in the petty notion that there was a superior purity to science and maths known only to initiates, and that visual art and literature were inferior, feckless, non-absolutes. Darwin was allowed in since, even though he published The Origin of Species in 1859 - he was working on it throughout the preceding decade. The French could be very fair like that.

  Audrey, who was feeling very sorry for herself, and angry, as she looked through the catalogue, smiled a little sourly to note the lack of the feminine in all this. Presumably some Victorian women were also not imprisoned by this inferior, feckless thinking? It seemed not. Apart from a little sensitive and ground-breaking botany and whatnot, women did not climb the trees, they planted them. Women did not build the bridges - they sketched or painted them once they were designed, built and functioning. And the only drawings of buildings women drew were of the sweet, domestic variety - with rose bushes in the garden and the sun glinting warmly on the bricks. Why didn't they do something about it? she wondered. It was a wondering that made her feel quite uncomfortable.

  The Director concluded that 'Looking back to a Golden Age of Paternalism and Intelligently Applied Generosity and the sacrifice of self for the common weal seemed entirely wise. Brunel was just such a man. Whence comes such another ...?'

  Audrey thought she knew one such another who thought he might just be whencing it right now.

  In bed alone one evening, shortly before the Grand Opening, Audrey sat up surrounded by books on Brunel, the Brunel exhibition catalogue, and her new Architecture Today with a picture of the Great Man on its cover. Together with a picture of the other, more recent, Great

  Man. And she was reading everything avidly and sulkily. The latter, she felt, even though she was now a supposedly mature woman, was allowable under extreme provocation. Patrick Parker. Designer. Smiling his toothy smile, told the world of the ziggurat bridge links between the new tower and the old palace. Blah, blah, blah, she thought. Blah. Since her mother's death she no longer received any information or cuttings about him so she studied his photograph carefully. He looked, she thought, well cared for and not so old as his years, but certainly not as young as she looked by comparison. This pleased her. Even though, she thought, feeling sorry for herself again, even though it seemed to be all the ammunition she had.

  Patrick was also quoted in the catalogue as saying 'At the very best, Modernism is free of its chains. I look to the past for my inspiration in the future. Brunel, in particular, is a very great hero of mine and he would applaud this celebration of the first half of the nineteenth century in England. I am honoured to design the bridges that will link and lead you around the exhibition. Thus proving that the design of buildings and great structures is the most enduring and international of all the plastic and graphic arts. This building is neither Museum as Shrine, Museum as Temple, nor Museum as Spectacle, but a living, organic building in which the exhibits are as important as the spectators and the building is a beautiful, fulfilling space. I think the Babylonians would have liked it. And its international, cross-cultural relevance is clearly recognised by the fact that after Paris it will travel to Tokyo, and Yokohama, the new heartlands of futuristic design investment.' Blah.

  Babylonians? He had never mentioned them before. She lay back on her several pillows and gazed at the ornate mouldings in the ceiling - cherubs, flowers, fruit and frolicking naked ladies - and she smiled to remember how Patrick would have hacked them all off, smoothed the surface, painted it all white or perhaps cream. And she would have agreed. Well - she liked the cherubs and the fruit and the frolickers (indeed, since Edwin was hardly Lochinvar in the saddle nowadays, she had quite a lot of time to study and grow fond of them all). She smiled to herself, and closed her eyes, and made a mental note to look up the Babylonians. Patrick's ego, she thought, might one day be Patrick's downfall. She also thought, remembering long ago, that sometimes, when he got too much on his high horse, what Patrick needed was sex. The only way to stop him - she yawned -was sex, sex, sex. The one thing she was very good at. Which set, in her sleepy, sulky mind, an idea. Cinderella shall not attend the ball, she thought, as she drifted into oblivion, but someone else might. The shadow of Delphine Bolle made her shudder for
a moment with the memory of the humiliation, and then drifted away again. It need not be like that. She would think of something, she would. And with that comforting thought she was soon, very soundly, asleep.

  Delphine Bolle's shadow might flee, but the idea of attending the opening did not. Indeed, the following morning the idea had grown considerably more solid. Patrick would be there. And it seemed that she would not. Faceless again. Voiceless again. Hidden away. The Director's lack of acknowledgement for her idea made the sting of it all the sharper. For all anyone knew half of his blessed Victorian males in his bloody old show had got their ideas from women in the first place.

  'Oh, Charles - don't you think that amoeba has the look of our little Samuel about it?'

  'Oh, Isambard - how my garters do keep breaking so - if only I could have iron suspenders

  'Well,' she said to herself angrily, tearing at her breakfast croissant. 'Well. And who's to say the women had not?'

  Le Monde that morning was full of tributes to Le Temps Japonais -theatres, art, music, dance - which had grown out of the nucleus of the Louvre show. Paris now embraced a cultural invasion by the exotic east.

  By the time she had eaten her croissant, Audrey knew what she was going to do. She would after all and in a manner of speaking Dress That Puppet.

  She telephoned the Director's assistant and said that she was calling from the Japanese Embassy and that they wished to send one more dignitary. A Madame Koi. 'Is that C-o-y?' asked the assistant. 'No,' said Audrey, much amused, 'it is not.'

  The assistant assumed that all Japanese women giggled, having seen Sayonara with subtitles, and Audrey spoke in what she imagined was the slight sing-song of a Japanese voice, as she had seen Sayonara too. The ruse worked. They all agreed that since there was only a week before the Grand Opening and the post was not good, it would be best if the Embassy sent a chauffeur to collect the invitation.

  The deception went smoothly. Audrey had been doing deception for nearly thirty years and she was good at it. With pleasure she removed the deckle-edged card from its thick white envelope and placed it in the cupboard with the yellowing linen and the Brunel books. Another little secret. If it worked it would be very very funny.

  Naturally enough Edwin could not visit Audrey on the Big Day for he had to attend his wife. Which was just as well, really. If he had called on his mistress of nearly thirty years' standing (or lying) he would not have found her at home. Instead he would have discovered a Japanese Lady of strange and distinguished appearance, pouting and pirouetting in his Dearest Audrey's place. The shock might have killed him.

  Madame Koi surveyed herself in the mirror. Something between a geisha and a high-class, traditional Japanese wife looked back at her. Madame Koi giggled and remembered to put her fingers to her cherry red lips. The wig would be hot, but it was correct and from the best theatrical costumiers in Paris. It was neither stylised split-peach geisha, nor a flat, black bob, but something in between, and it looked the part. Madame Koi's scarlet gown, embroidered with cherry blossom, was an elegant adaptation of a kimono, with a bright ochre belt that was wide enough to give the impression of the traditional obi. The costumier explained that to wear the full regalia - which Madame Koi had hoped to do - would render her more or less unable to move. This outfit, he explained with pride, came from the original stage production of The Teahouse of the August Moon - costumed by Molyneux no less - at the Theatre de Savoie - before the foolish American film version. Such a gown was designed - as perhaps only a French House could achieve - to keep the essence of Japanese style without the encumbrances. 'So that the wearer may move around the stage quite easily and freely'

  Since Madame Koi thought that she would probably have to move around her particular stage more easily and freely than most, given the number of people who would be at the gathering and from whom it was incumbent upon her to be able to move freely and easily away, she accepted the compromise. Indeed, as Madame Koi remarked to the startled costumier, it might be less a case of moving around a lot quite easily and freely than running away a lot and rather fast.

  'In which case, Madame’ he said, with the merest hint of a leer, 'you will not require the traditional okobo which are designed entirely so that the wearer may be caught...'

  He removed from her reluctant hands the shiny lacquered wedges and replaced them with flat, beaded shoes in the design of a dragon. "The sign of sin,' he said, 'in any language.' His hand had lingered on hers. Not bad, she thought, for a woman of fifty. It gave her courage.

  Once back in her apartment she told her maid, still the God-fearing Evie, that she would not need her that night. That she would probably go to bed early. Evie was glad. She thought she would go and watch the crowds of distinguished personnages arriving at the Louvre.

  'Good idea,' said Audrey. 'Say hallo to Gerard Depardieu from me . . .' she managed to sound wistful. 'And Catherine Deneuve.' Evie stroked her arm, said she was sorry, that it was such a sad life sometimes, and left. Audrey instantly began to dress.

  When she finally slipped on the beaded dragon shoes she smiled -as much as the heavy make-up allowed her to smile. Like the wig, her face was painted to look something between the full geisha face and the stylised application of a good Japanese wife at a formal evening function. In other words, Madame Koi looked the business. She bowed into the mirror three times and smiled. She felt oddly liberated. Oddly at one with the part. Unfettered, in fact. Strange how being in disguise could set you free.

  When Edwin rang at a few minutes to six, apparently to seek her reassurance before he left for the exhibition, she even found herself doing a little geisha knees-bend bob at the telephone. Never could she more honestly say 'Yes' to his 'Are you sure you are all right about this?' Indeed, it was all she could do to stop herself from saying 'Hai'.

  They usually spoke English but - without thinking - she ended their conversation with 'a tout a I'heure'.

  'Dearest’ said Edwin, 'you know that I have to accompany my wife back to the house tonight.'

  'Sorry,' she said lightly. ‘I forgot.'

  'Sleep well,' he said, and the telephone was replaced.

  'A bientot,' she said, before replacing hers. '.A-bloody-well-bugger-it-bientdt'

  Enter Madame Koi

  Bridges were interesting, thought Apsu. They were romantic, they were useful, they made connections and they divided. But, she asked herself, looking up at the mounting ziggurats, the harsh jaggedness, the soaring heroics, 'Why build a bridge? What effects, negative and positive, will it have on the people who use it? Who will use it and how much Heroic Requirement would they have? More to the point - why didn't Patrick Parker just install an entire bank of lifts?' Climbing from floor to floor would be so hard. Well, of course, there were other ways of getting to each of the floors on the new extension - by coming through the old building - just as they were planning for the Sainsbury Wing at the National - but that, at least, was gentle to the eye. To Apsu's mind, while this design was exciting, and she could not deny it, it was also - yes - no other word for it - Spectacular. God made Spectacular, she wrote in her notebook - Niagara Falls, Grand Canyon - Man made things for Humankind,

  Madame Koi's car pulled up a little late, which seemed wise. If she arrived too early the number of guests at the reception would be sparse and she would be too approachable. And while she wanted to make an impression (no doubt about that) she did not want to be taken under anyone's wing. She especially did not want to have to talk to Edwin, obviously, and he and his Madame would arrive early. It was his way. She was perfectly aware of the risk that nearly thirty years of intimacy created. There might be something in the movement of her wrist, or the way she walked, that gave her away. And if she was found out? She would probably lose everything, everything being dignity. She would certainly lose his trust, his respect and -possibly - whatever security she was supposed now to own. It was a risk. It was a very big risk. She had never, really, taken one quite so big before. Edwin might not have her murdered, but
he could very easily have her cast outside the city walls.

  One thing she knew about women in her position. Birds sometimes stayed in bushes. Marie, the pretty young woman of thirty-five who had dined at the Curator's, now the Director's side at L'Arlesienne was no longer at his side. She was living in a small, cramped, dusty apartment with her grey roots growing through and little to show for her years of loyalty besides a diminishing stock of trinkets and the small, cramped, dusty apartment. Audrey visited her once and came away quite shaken. So far, as they said in the movies, she had kept her nose clean, but if she offended Edwin's curiously old-fashioned morality there was potentially a great price to pay. And old men could be fickle. She had seen that side of him too. It seemed quite appropriate to be wearing a costume that hinted of the geisha.