Patrick Parker's Progress

by Mavis Cheek

  'If you go on like this,' her tutors said, when she returned, 'you will be unemployable.'

  'Of course I won't,' she said, more bravely than she felt. 'I'm going to build good things. People will want them. You'll see.'

  The one thing she knew for sure, and which made her brave, was that the bursary could not be taken away from her no matter - almost - what. So long as she did not burn the college down ... Though looking at the building, it could certainly do with it. The marble pillars of Grand Imperialism. Never, ever, again if she had anything to do with it in future. And she would.

  After Paris, Patrick Parker never spoke to her in any willing form again. Except when he was forced to, on the platform, as she was handed the College Gold Medal. 'Congratulations,' he said, in a voice that meant 'Rot in Hell, you ungrateful little bastard.'

  Audrey decided to drop the accent which was growing tiresome. Happily Patrick did not seem to notice. As they stood at the entrance to the first tier of the bridge and looked along its glass path, underlit and ethereal in the night, she told him how clever she thought the concept. He was so rapt by the sudden sight of his work and by her words, and still so bruised from the encounter with his Bursary Student that morning, she could have started speaking Swahili and he would not have noticed.

  To refocus his attention, she pinched him. On the back of his hand. Which was so unexpected he found it - well - almost erotic.

  Tt is very fine, very strong, but feminine, too,' she said, thinking that just about covered all possibilities. She kept her arm tight through his, her bosom pressing into him. 'So regular. Like the webbing of a spider.'

  He brought himself back into the world of speech. What did stupid little Bursary Students know? He nodded into his thinker's knuckles again. 'A good metaphor,' he said seriously. 'Delightful.'

  How she longed to say, you've changed your tune . . . But no. TVe must hurry' She raced him along.

  'You think it is successful?' he asked. Rhetorically, obviously.

  'Very fine,' she repeated. 'Very.''

  'Feminine?' he sounded worried.

  'Very sexy' She gave her little Sayonara giggle again.

  What a sensitive woman, he thought.

  Madame Koi kept her arm firmly in place. She had him now and by tofu she wasn't going to let him go. ‘I mean, gentle on the eye,' she said, and picked up speed. The little beaded dragon shoes were a shuffling blur as they raced along. It makes you want to get right into it - to experience it from within. Like a woman.'

  She giggled very foolishly again and surprised herself. Ancient Knowledge.

  Patrick pressed his thinker's knuckles firmly against his lips. Less from any Rodinesque requirement than the need to control any sounds emanating. That's more like it, he thought.

  The bridge's glow had a greenish tinge that was not, entirely, flattering. 'It would perhaps have been kinder to make the lighting rose.' He stopped, stricken.

  She pulled him onward again. 'But that is just a whim - who wants to light up such an august institution like a bordello? He certainly would not approve.' She pointed at the wall with its hologram of Brunel. 'Something of a hero of yours, I think,' and she hurried on.

  'Madame ...?' he said cautiously. ‘I am sorry I don't know -'

  She noticed that his flat Midlands accent had now been completely replaced by a carefully modulated English Received.

  'You are from Coventry originally, I think?' she said. 'Ah yes. Godiva's city. The Naked Lady. I know it well. And yet you have no trace of an accent... Why is that?'

  A man who was interested in the world might question how a curiously dressed Japanese woman came to know Coventry and its Naked Lady so well and to distinguish such things. She waited for him to ask. He did not. In general, for Patrick, how other people lived and what motivated them was not his concern. How they related to him was. And this Japanese woman was relating to him just fine.

  ‘I have been in London for many years,' he said shortly. ‘I scarcely remember Coventry.'

  'David Hockney has been living in California for about the same . ..' she said crisply. 'He still talks in Yorkshire but then I suppose if one is insecure about one's breeding ...'

  'Do you know David Hockney, then?' He was impressed. An Englishman more well-known than him.

  ‘I know everyone,' she said.

  She speeded up. His stertorous breathing was music. He's taken the bait, she thought. He's taken it. She was busily scanning signs for Chamber Three as they climbed higher and higher up the ziggurat. It was - she knew - a crazy, brave design by any standards - the rising levels gentle enough, the views stunning from each of the ascending ramps. She liked it. But she was not convinced it looked right here. Presumably Babylonian terrain was rather different from the centre of Paris. She was getting puffed. Fortunately so was he.

  'No elevators,' she said.

  'Spoils the line,' he gasped. 'You can always come through the main building if you are disabled.'

  'Doesn't that stigmatise them?'

  Patrick ignored this. He knew the methods of the disabled lobby very well. A change of subject was required. 'Who did you say you represented?'

  'Nexus Tokyo. It was founded by Isozaki.' She gave him a quick look. "The great Isozaki who transformed modem Tokyo -'

  ‘I know, I know,' said Patrick peevishly. ‘I have worked with him. I am often in Japan.'

  ‘I know. I can see that from this design,' she said. 'The ziggurat is perhaps a homage - one would not care to say copy - to Santos. Adele Naude Santos? You know her work. The estate complexes?'

  Patrick nodded even more peevishly.

  'And you admire it?'

  'Of course I admire it. Those housing developments, that tight space she worked with - magnificent.'

  'And when we look at your bridge we see that you have taken the common Santos elements - the organic handling of light as an essential element for moulding spaces - and we see that you have reversed them.'

  'We do?' He shook his head. ‘I mean, I have?'

  'We certainly do. You certainly have. The underlighting you have placed under the glass walkways is so bold - whereas she is so subtle ... You are not interested in subtle, Mr Parker, are you?'

  Her elbow immediately came out of her sleeve. She quickly covered it as Patrick found himself - incredibly - peeping at a bloody elbow.

  'Now wait a minute -' he said. He was interested in subtle. Very much.

  She brushed his words aside. 'Now - let's get on to the interview room and while we do so you can explain to me about the Babylonian Principle and the influence of Mr Brunel. . . And also -’I think your wife is very much older than you?'

  'My wife? Well no. I think she's the same -'

  'You only think,' Madame Koi stopped and tapped his arm again. Any more of this, she thought, and he'd be quite justified in throwing me off his bloody bridge. But he showed remarkable fortitude. ‘I think we should stick to my professional life,' he said.

  Is there a difference? she wondered. 'Surely you should know the age of your wife ...?'

  'She is - the same -'

  "Then she looks a great deal older. Do you still sleep with her?' 'Of course -' he said indignantly.

  'Our readers’ she said comfortably 'want to know everything, everything.'

  'Brunel -' he said firmly, 'has been a great influence on my work and my thinking and -'

  'And you must even now be working on your design for the Queen's Millennium Bridge. Across the Thames? In Brunel's footsteps?'

  Patrick stared at her.

  There was something altogether delicious about the way he frowned, she thought. Ail broody and moody. Like an old-fashioned film star - if she could remember who. She sent up a silent thank-you to Architecture Today. 'And do you think you will win?'

  'None of this is official’ he said.

  'No’ she agreed. 'But we all know that it is your heart's desire and we all know that a bridge is to be commissioned. You have been tipped by the pundits, Mr Parker.
' She then winked.

  A very faint light, accompanied by a far-off little bell, floated into his subconscious. Something was not entirely right here ...

  Madame Koi observed how his colour now changed to quite a deep shade of rose. 'I am quietly confident’ he said. 'It has always been my one great sorrow that I have never put a bridge across my own, native, great river.'

  Yuk, thought Madame Koi. 'Your wife, Mr Parker? She supports you? She is your arbiter? Or does she merely wash your socks?'

  The rose deepened, the eyes flashed. He looked dangerous and exciting and angered by the impertinence. Madame Koi nearly laughed with excitement herself.

  'Oh, you must not mind what I ask. In Japan’ she said airily, 'we can discard our wives, or our husbands, with impunity if they do not please us in bed any more. Shinto, you know.'

  She hoped he was not, like some modern creative types, into exotic religions. And she apologised, in her head, to any Shinto god who might happen to be listening. But - needs must and the devil was surely driving her. In the distance she could see the men in suits looking anxious. 'I was interested in your interest in Appelles,' she said, Japanese-shuffling and kimono-wiggling him onwards. Her energy came from adrenalin but it couldn't last for ever and she was nearly passing out with both mental and physical exertion. Patrick, too, puffed along behind her. There was something in the gradient of a ziggurat bridge taken at a lick that did not sit well with a man of his years. 'You approve of Appelles?' he puffed.

  'Hai,' she said. And looked at him in a way that suggested there was truth behind the myth about Japanese women knowing how to treat a man. 'Alexander's artist in residence. Alexander would only be painted by Appelles, and Appelles would only paint him if Alexander gave him his beautiful mistress. Which he did. All to the artist, the artist is all.'

  'Well, that's not the only thing about him,' said Patrick grudgingly.

  I'll bet it's pretty high up on the list, she thought.

  'Do you have a mistress, Mr Parker?'

  'No,' he said. Patrick did not think that one of the juniors in the practice whom he occasionally saw for dinner and sex constituted the grandeur of the title. 'No,' he said again. 'I have not.'

  'You should have,' said Madame Koi sweetly. 'It is good for a man. It keeps him young and vital.' He began to wish - despite the pure beauties of the ziggurat - that they had used the lift in the main building.

  'And are you somebody's mistress?' he said.

  'Of course,' she replied. 'And for the duration of my being with you now, I am yours. We are like that in Japan, we women. We are generous.'

  There really was nothing, absolutely nothing, to say to that except 'How generous?' He felt he had better not risk it. They charged on. Quite where to at this stage he was unsure. Something about Chamber Three.

  They reached the top of the last curve of the ziggurat - nearer to the sky. Surrounding them was the city; pale blue dusky light, stars just beginning to glimmer, river sounds and traffic sounds drifting up to them. She would rather have turned the clock back and stood there gazing at it all as she once was - young, silly and in love, but that was never going to happen. So she might as well enjoy this little charade and get on with it. The momentum was too precious to be lost. She turned away from the dusky city and saw a neon sign in the distance with an arrow pointing towards Chamber Three. It directed them through the first of the exhibition rooms. In they went, nodding at the men in peaked caps who nodded back and picked their teeth. Patrick was very hot and shiny though it was not unattractive. Madame Koi dabbed delicately at her cheek with her fingertip - she was shiny too. It would be most interesting when they took their clothes off.

  Room One was a shrine to all things Brunel. Models of ships, a plaster cast of his hand, his measuring tools. She bowed her head at this most prettily. There was a statuette of Isambard, in Parian ware, showing him holding his quadrant as if it were the dagger of fate and with his sleeves rolled up over his elbows. 'Ah, the Great Man in all his glory,' she said, and touched one of the jutting elbows with her finger end. A peaked cap moved forward. 'Sorry,' she said. 'Irresistible.' She turned to Patrick and gave a little flutter of her eyelids. 'How lucky you men were then - how lucky you still are - with your bodies.' She gave his elbow a gentle, lingering squeeze. 'In Japan at that time they were considered ...' She leaned towards him and lowered her voice. 'Very intimate areas. On a woman. If a woman allowed a man to see up her sleeve - it was as if - in the West - she had invited him to look up her skirt.'

  Patrick felt it necessary to change the subject.

  They looked at bold drawings made by Brunel, exquisite in their detail - the Italianate pumping station at Starcross with its chimney disguised as a Venetian campanile (how Madame Koi giggled at it), the Gaz engine which cost him ten years of fruitless labour, a timber trestle viaduct built in Cornwall as a temporary measure and still there nearly one hundred years later. Even the little almost-doodles he made of king and queen trusses for use in the Stroud Valley bridges were framed and hung and made to look grand. Madame Koi admired the framing very much. Patrick was not at all sure if she was joking or not.

  Then there were models of many designs - some contemporary like the fragile rniniature of Chepstow Bridge made by Isambard's own hand - some newly made like the massive model of the Great Eastern, his biggest ship, his biggest success, that the Design and Engineering faculty had constructed entirely from recycled cardboard. This towered over the room and even Madame Koi gasped inelegantly when she saw it. Patrick was entranced.

  'Oh,' he said, and ran his hands over a swag of chains fixed to the wall nearby. It was Madame Koi's turn to feel - somewhat warm -watching those familiar hands trace the massive links.

  "The originals, wouldn't you say?' said Madame Koi. 'From the stern checking drum.'

  'Yes,' he said a little testily. 'I do know that.'

  She could not resist touching the metal too. 'Oh,' she said, But the links are as thick as a man's thigh -' She touched his briefly. 'And high as his calf - nothing cardboard about them.'

  'No,' agreed Patrick. He loosened his tie.

  At the far end of the room, set out on the floor, lay two lengths of railway line -

  'Ah!' said Madame Koi, 'the famous track beds. The Gauge War. They've got the four-foot-eight-inch gauge and the seven-foot beside it. Quite a difference - yes? Your Mr Brunel's Sacred Cow.'

  The four-foot-eight-inch gauge preferred by Brunel's rival, Stephenson,' she read aloud from the plaque. 'Preferred by everybody actually,' said Madame Koi sharply. 'Except your old Isambard.'

  'It was a Great Design Revolution,' said Patrick firmly. 'Brunel was never wrong.'

  He could have sworn he heard her mutter, 'My arse.' In curiously familiar tones.

  Next to the four-foot gauge lay a length of Isambard's massive seven-foot replacement gauge as preferred by Mr Brunel.

  'Here we have the triumph of the intellect over the puerile,' announced Patrick. 'Stephenson had no conscience about human train travellers being shaken to hell and back by such an inadequate gauge.'

  'Nonsense,' she said briskly. 'It was just another case of Brunel's self-deception and godlike condescension. And quite unnecessary. It didn't make the slightest bit of difference what gauge was used for the comfort factor.'

  Patrick was about to defend his hero until Madame Koi did something quite peculiar with her knees - moving them sideways in a strangely seductive gesture - and then bent down. 'But still. . .' she said as she ran her hands over the seven-foot gauge. 'It is so big and strong and thrusting that -' She smiled up at him. "You could hardly blame him ...'

  'There's Chamber Three,' he said suddenly, in a voice that seemed slightly high. 'So there is,' she said.

  She smiled that affecting smile again and he helped her up. By the elbow. Intimate, he thought, and squeezed it just a little.

  She noticed, said nothing, except. 'Chamber Three. In we go then.'

  As she opened the door he reached up and slid ba
ck the slot above the handle to reveal the word Engage. So did she. Their hands met. Both of them smiled. And in they went.

  14

  The Brunel Strip

  Apsu pondered the problem of being young and female in her chosen profession. Which was - though she was laughed at when she said it - the design and building of bridges. Well... it would be... one day. It was not going to be easy. There were still people who thought they had better not invest in her because she would one day stop building and make babies, and that her vision for the future was necessarily clouded by the problem of which sort of nappy to use for them. Not that anyone would dream of saying such a thing to Apsu. To her they said that civil engineering was as open to women nowadays as it was to men. But this was only theory. So far no woman had had sole responsibility for the design of a bridge. Except, of course, back in the mists of time, when the placing of stones or the plaiting of grass or hemp or agave or the mud-plastering of bent reeds was considered women's work. Back in those days, she thought, everyone knew how to build bridges. In the best way possible to get to the other side.