Some Trick: Thirteen Stories

by Helen Dewitt

  ‘The Wykeham’s a bit of a walk, but it’s a nice day.’

  ‘We’ll go back to my place, then, shall we?’

  The easy habit of Trevor’s stride, as he turned down the fork which led out to Norham Gardens by Lady Margaret Hall, reproved the false answer as clearly as his words. Lily was in general more acute, but was distracted by the impression that she was rising, for the first time, to the level at which Trevor’s conversation was pitched. The prospect of scones and sandwiches and cake might have leavened her earnestness; intellectual endeavour seemed only right, however, now that a note of austerity had been sounded, and discussion was to march forward on rations of crumbling chocolate digestives, vanilla sandwich cremes, pink wafers and ginger nuts. ‘We know that he is not — but how do we justify it?’

  Alas that the Socratic method should be at times so mal à propos! Trevor was patting his pockets for his keys, he glanced up with a charming rueful smile as they reached the street. ‘Oh, you Americans! Are you ever not philosophical?’

  ‘Oh, but you started me off! You launched us into aesthetics!’ cried Lily playfully, for the descent to personalities was too marked a change of subject to be missed, and flirtation seemed the only apology for her earlier obtuseness.

  ‘I strike a generality once an hour, I believe. And then, like a good British worker, I break for tea.’

  The tin of St Michael’s Tea Assortment lay open on a low table. A ginger nut and two sandwich cremes reposed, undisturbed, on a plate on Lily’s lap; a plate by Trevor’s side held half a plain digestive, crumbs from whose other half drifted down his delightful tie. Two cups, half-drunk, of Earl Grey flanked the biscuit tin. Half a pot of Earl Grey sat stewing within a red knitted tea cosy.

  The scene was, to Lily, a little dreary. Her gaze moved about the familiar room — the dark brown wall-to-wall carpet, the Morris armchairs upholstered in a repeating pattern of a hunting scene in pale brown on off-white, the huge squashy red-and-brown striped sofa on which they were sitting. Snatches of colours, of textures, of patterns she had come across came to mind, like felicitous phrases, fragments of Cicero or Tacitus to the mind of a Latinist glancing through a poor composition. On the walls were a couple of daguerreotypes of Trevor’s great-grandparents (appropriated not without some acrimony from other members of the family); two black-and-white enlargements of photographs of Cretan peasants; a small oil of a young gentleman with his horse, c. 1772, clothes, expression, posture, horse all carelessly comme il faut — a several greats grand-uncle of Trevor (more spoils from family property); and a Dutch genre painting of a woman mending. Lily considered these in relation to the question of kitsch. Trevor leant back into the corner of the sofa, crossed his legs, finished off his digestive.

  ‘What was that you were saying about Botticelli?’ he asked now benignly, brushing crumbs off his fingers. The modest comforts of the squashy sofa, the St Michael’s biscuits, the Cretan peasants had, it seemed, fortified him for argument.

  Lily felt, for her part, somewhat chilled by the largely glum décor. ‘I thought that might work as an example of paintings of beautiful subjects which succeed in being genuinely beautiful themselves.’

  ‘But it’s precisely the success, isn’t it, that sets them apart? That’s not much of a conundrum.’

  ‘Well . . .’ She thought that she could, after all, have spoken more fluently over, say, a plate of scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam. ‘Does that mean, then, that any unsuccessful painting of a beautiful subject must be kitsch? Isn’t there more to it than that? Aren’t there all kinds of mediocre paintings of beautiful things that aren’t, I don’t know, in bad taste?’

  ‘I suppose it’s the note of sincerity, a sort of shamelessly yearning, passionate sincerity, that’s so damning. It’s embarrassing to watch, isn’t it — like seeing someone in a state of ecstasy with his fly open.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s it.’

  ‘So what I was getting at earlier,’ he grinned, ‘was that a state of ecstasy leaves one terribly prone to forget to “adjust one’s clothing”.’

  Lily smiled.

  ‘Can I tempt you to another cup of tea? I’ll make fresh.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ she said brightly, and began eating one of the sandwich cremes in the interests of conviviality. The red knitted tea cosy was borne off to the kitchen.

  ‘I think that’s rather sweet, don’t you?’ He returned to find her standing in front of the young man and his horse. ‘Early Gainsborough has even been suggested. I don’t totally buy that, but it’s nice that the thought is in the air.’

  ‘Is that based on style, or is there some Gainsborough it might be?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know the ins and outs of it. There are far too many, unfortunately, that it couldn’t possibly be — all the really good ones, I’m afraid. But Gainsborough or no, it has a certain charm. Or does family pride make me partial?’

  ‘Oh no, it’s delightful!’ she cried, for if politeness required assent, a note must be struck of firm conviction if assent was not to sound merely polite.

  ‘I came by it by rather devious means, which some might say don’t do me much credit — but my trophy more than makes up for the occasional pang of conscience. The pangs, in any case, are far more occasional than is entirely decent. It’s a rather amusing story, though it may shock you — or have you heard it before?’

  This was a question which admitted of only one reply, which she promptly gave, as plausibly as a person could who had heard the story twice before.

  ‘It belonged to my great aunt Sophy,’ Trevor explained, as he returned to his seat and began to pour out. ‘She lived in the same house for fifty years, a big old Victorian monster crammed to the attics with everything she’d picked up over the years — most of it junk. She never threw anything away, and never let anyone else in the family do so either, it was a kind of family joke — if anyone said they were thinking of getting rid of something, it was always the very thing she was looking for. She’d no children of her own, so it was always assumed that her treasures, such as they were, would go to her brothers’ and sisters’ children. Eventually, no doubt, things would trickle down to the great nieces and nephews, but my chances of getting anything worth having were pretty thin. The odds were that I’d get a box of chipped crockery or a pair of mildewy opera glasses. No one imagined for a moment that she’d bother to make individual bequests, so there were understandings about suitable recipients for some of the more interesting items. There was an understanding — a pretty vague one — that Great Great Great Uncle Harry here would go to my cousin Harry, who’d said he fancied it because of the name. I’d seen it on a couple of visits to Great Aunt Sophy, and wanted it, but couldn’t see much chance of getting it.’

  ‘So how did you get it?’

  ‘Sheer opportunism! I happened to be staying with some friends down in Sussex one year, and ended by seeing quite a lot of Sophy. (Don’t smile!) I suggested to her that it would be a terrible shame if everything were to be auctioned off indiscriminately. Of course it was highly unlikely, but it worried her. She asked my advice; I suggested that everyone be asked to pick out the items of particular interest to them. She insisted I take my pick on the spot! I allowed myself to be persuaded, and ended by taking home with me the Gainsborough query portrait of Harry. My cousin Harry will hardly speak to me, which is a kind of added bonus — he is probably the most boring man in the country.’

  She had by now, of course, a certain amount of practice in replying to this story, but still found it hard to know how one should react to an anecdote which showed Trevor in so disagreeable a light. Why did he tell the story? Why did he tell it to her?

  ‘Have you ever thought of having your own portrait done?’ she took a running leap at what looked the nearest patch of solid ground in the marsh. ‘Or do you have a portrait of yourself?’

  ‘Only what you have given me.’


  What was he talking about?

  ‘Come and see.’

  The adjoining room was fitted up as a small study (Trevor was an editor at the University Press, but also kept up with ‘his own work’). Six-foot-high bookcases surrounded the walls, except for a space left clear for the desk; above the desk, in a Perspex frame, is an enlargement of a photograph of Trevor taken by Lily several months earlier. Lily has a copy of it herself, it is one of the best things she has done. The grain of the black and white, the gaze directed in contemplation quite inaccessible to the camera; the three-quarters profile, permitting the face the interest of the unobserved, neither closing itself off from nor grinning manically at the camera, but reflective, full of its secrets — all these have worked so happily together that the particular features of Trevor — the very flat, broad forehead, the long straight eyebrows, pale grey eyes, the long, thin, mobile mouth, seemed in the very nervous texture of their individuality to be the occasion of harmonious tranquillity.

  ‘You should have asked me for the negative,’ said Lily. She has given Trevor a print, since it is always nice to have a good picture of oneself; she had not realised how much Trevor would like it.

  ‘It’s very soothing to my vanity to have this. Mine’s really a very boring face — or else the mirror has been lying for years.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. They say the camera never lies. Of course, there are always passport photos — it makes you wonder if all cameras can be telling the truth.’

  ‘I sometimes wonder whether the mirror doesn’t tell us only how we see ourselves. Cameras may be truthful about the way others see us — I shouldn’t expect passport photographers to have a particularly agreeable perception of humanity.’

  ‘Probably not.’ But did she have an agreeable perception of Trevor? Did the photograph not suggest, in any case, that to be interesting was all that mattered? Was hers an interested eye?

  ‘Have I ever told you about my youthful passion for photography? I was a sort of infant prodigy with a Brownie — even won prizes in national competitions, though in the amateur category, of course. I’ve got the scrapbooks somewhere or other — must show you them some time, if you wouldn’t find it too boring.’

  ‘I’d love to see them.’

  ‘I’ll see if I can find them. Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Lily stood in a corner of the sitting room. She held a glass of dry sherry (she preferred cream). In a mirror above the mantelpiece she saw, mute tones further muted, the backs of the two armchairs, one row of biscuits in a tin, the edge of a teapot in a red tea cosy, a red-and-brown striped squashy sofa in three quarters profile. Reflected, framed, the room had charms foreign to the original, just as an ordinary or even ugly object gains beauty and dignity when painted or photographed. Trevor came in with a fat scrapbook and sat down on the sofa.

  ‘The reflection gives the room great charm, don’t you think?’ said Trevor. ‘But it depends a great deal on where you stand. Move a little this way, that will give you the best angle of vision.’

  She moved a few steps towards the door. Trevor’s knee, an arm resting on the knee appeared with the frame.

  ‘No, just a bit further over.’

  A few more steps, and Trevor came fully into view.

  oxford, 1985

  Plantinga

  You reach a stage where they ask you for a biography or a CV. Sometimes it’s for a catalogue. Sometimes it’s for a grant application. And of course, if you’re a photographer, this is alien to your practice. It doesn’t matter whether you use a darkroom or digital manipulation; the image always develops over time, in ways beyond your control. So what does it mean to put a label on this or that event?

  Plantinga was born in Berlin in 1956 to an Estonian mother and unknown father, thought to have been a journalist.

  You can say that she was given her first camera at the age of 17. That she was working as an au pair in Amsterdam. That it was a Leica; that it was the prized possession of Maarten, dead brother of Matthias, father of the family. It seems as though you should say, she was bitterly disappointed, because she wanted a Polaroid: it’s definitely the case that our timebound relation to technology has been a preoccupation. She has 100 cameras and lenses beyond count. The name Plantinga marks the acquisition of the mechanical eye.

  This is the case: when she uses the Leica, she always wonders what dead Maarten would have made of what she sees.

  She had read Stanisław Lem’s Bajki robotów in German, Robotermärchen. Robot tales. She could not find it in Dutch. She told the stories to the children, playing robot games. This would turn out to be important.

  This is the case: if she had done a degree she could put down the degree.

  She took a job as au pair with a family in Oxford. The husband was a barrister, the wife a solicitor. They told her for £30 she could go to lectures at the university. Her English would not have been good enough to do a degree. If she had been doing a degree she would have been tied to a syllabus. When the children were at school she went to lectures on philosophy, on Linear B, on the Umayyads.

  There was a Czech dissident, Julius Tomin, who lectured on Plato. He had given illegal seminars on Aristotle in Prague, where he had had to dodge the secret police; a group of Oxford philosophers had rescued him. At first the lectures were crowded, he filled a big hall. Later he was ostracized. He was stubborn in the way that dissidents have to be. He could not teach to the syllabus. He had a controversial theory that the Phaedrus was Plato’s first dialogue. He would give a class in the Philosophy Sub-Faculty and maybe two people would come. The rest of the time he would do something no professional academic could do, he would sit all day every day in the Bodleian. There are signs saying no photography is allowed, but the staff are not always in every room; she could get pictures of this wrongheaded Platonist at work. She could go to all these lectures on philosophy because she was an au pair, and he could give them but nobody would come because they were not useful for the syllabus.

  Was the Phaedrus Plato’s First Dialogue? : 1982–88

  Of course she took pretty pictures of the pretty town. She sold them for postcards.

  She read Calvino’s Invisible Cities. She read Goffman’s Interaction Ritual. She read Crozier’s Le phénomène bureaucratique. It was in the Philosophy Sub-Faculty that she found A. C. Danto’s The Transfiguration of the Commonplace. She took pictures of graduating students; she talked about Linear B, the Umayyads, interaction rituals. She would say: How is it possible for physically indistinguishable objects to be different works of art? The students had lively, engaged, yet poignant expressions: destined for Arthur Andersen, for merchant banks, they discovered too late their lost chance to learn Linear B. Of course these were popular photographs. Of course it was easy to get more commissions. Of course it was easy to be asked to weddings and bar mitzvahs. It was not so easy, of course, to know what dead Maarten would have made of it.

  The Woodfords taught her to play bridge. This would turn out to be important.

  An economist taught her to play poker. This would turn out to be important.

  This could go on and on but it can’t go on.

  Cultiver son jardin : 1988–2002

  In 1988 Plantinga rented a room in East Dulwich from the Estonian minimalist Liis Rüütel. Rüütel had squatted a house in Bermondsey with the installation artist Andrew Hopkins; had learnt construction techniques (plumbing, wiring, plastering, carpentry); had taught at Goldsmith’s and Central Saint Martins; had bought a condemned house for peanuts, restored it, rented out rooms, and given up teaching. She would say that her painting got all this energy from the fact that she was not teaching, she was not putting all this energy into the students. Because Plantinga was not a student, because she was just living in the house, she was there at this burst of energy. The attention was directed entirely at the art and not at her, so that’s para
doxical, that she would get more than she would get from the thing you put on a CV. She could go to the studio and hear the words that happened to come, words hitting the air the way paint strikes a canvas, not congealed to the illusion of authority, of definitiveness, that you get from a text on a printed page. She could see something you don’t see so much in a gallery, the historical development of the artist, the work the artist has left behind next to the new. And then there was this other thing, there was the transmission of the praxis of Andrew Hopkins into the plumbing and a kitchen cabinet and a light fixture and after a while a conservatory at the back, you would have these dense minimalist paintings next to the fixture, these different flows of things going through the hands. It goes without saying that you can take pictures. Of course after a while they want you to take pictures for catalogues.

  It doesn’t go without saying. When she was a child she blocked out Estonian. If her mother spoke to her aunt she would disunderstand, because her mother spoke comical German and it was embarrassing. But Liis Rüütel had this mastery of English, she could articulate a point about the Kantian sublime and explain how to disconnect the water supply to a sink and then effortlessly use words like wally and boffin and bollix, if she wrote an advert on eBay to sell a toaster you were completely transfixed. So it was as if Estonian had been developing for 30 years in the brain of Plantinga, if Liis got on the phone to her sister comprehension would click into place, Liis would get off the phone and Estonian words would come suddenly to the mouth that would not speak to its aunt or its mother, and at the same time it was as if the brain had been waiting for concrete proof that English was possible for an interloper, it clicked into place — if you are a photographer you notice when something teaches you about time.

  And then there was a different period. Rüütel’s gallerist took 20 paintings to Frieze and it was a sensation, they all sold within hours, so of course Liis thought it would not be necessary to rent rooms. But the gallery kept not sending money, there were these long conversations on the phone, and each time Liis would go into the garden and dig and plant and put down paving stones. Plantinga wasn’t living there any more but each time she went back there would be this new transformation of the garden or maybe a new upstairs kitchen. So of course these are pictures that have to be taken before you know what to do with them, you come back and there is a pond with a natural waterfall and a rocky basin and carp and a Japanese maple. It’s like, if you go to the Colorado River you see where the water has cut down through the layers of rock through the millennia.