‘Just let me get the projector.’
There was a sound like that of a stalling car engine and then a very loud snap. Oscar dashed into the projection room. The print had coiled, and it was feeding out all over the floor uncontrollably, writhing around like a gathering of worms. He reached over and flicked a switch as Bloch joined him.
‘I had a feeling this was going to happen,’ he muttered, kneeling down to disentangle some of the ribbons.
‘Can you do anything with it?’
‘I don’t know; I don’t know. It’ll take ages. Maybe you should go; I don’t want you to sit here getting bored.’
As he stared into the still trembling film ribbons Bloch was struck by what he thought was a brilliant idea.
‘I could write a story about you,’ he said.
‘What would you say? There’s nothing interesting enough to write about.’
‘I’ll make it interesting.’
‘Then it wouldn’t be about me.’
‘It would be about your potential.’
‘I’m not sure I have any. Why?’
‘I’d like to imagine a different life for you, a parallel reality. I could nail down a possible future in words.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘If I reinvented your life in fiction it might allow you to step to the side of your actual life, and see it from a different angle. Success needn’t be as elusive as you think. Success is work. And a story with you as its subject might give you some self-respect, might help you to take action, to paint again, to be someone, as you say. It’s just a thought.’
But as Bloch talked something created a block of foreboding, as if his words were committing him to the obligation of working miracles.
Oscar stopped what he was doing and stood up. He was touched by his friend’s concern and ashamed of his own inertia. For a few seconds he caught a glimpse of a different kind of life rising up to snatch him from the empire of boredom. He had an impression – that shot through his mind like a lightning bolt, gone before it could be grasped – of great architecture, colossal trees, shimmering flowers. He could hear Bloch as he started speaking again but his words were far away, registering only as shapeless sound; and in the instants that made up this reverie he was surprised to find the future calling to him seductively.
Then he saw a face, a woman’s face, with autumnal eyes. Her full mouth was raised in a smile. He turned to Bloch, to say something. But his mind was blank; he couldn’t form words and he was tired.
Her name was Lilliana. She was standing in her flower shop in South Kensington, filled with pink hyacinths, and indigo-blue delphiniums, pink and red roses, red and white carnations. Pots of green, majestic calathea were gathered on shelves and hung from the ceiling, their sprawling leaves forming a fragmented canopy. The shop was popular, not only because of its slightly magical atmosphere, but also because of Lilliana’s friendliness, as she single-handedly fussed over her customers, trimmed stalks, arranged their flowers, always attempting to capture the most beautiful combination, the most arresting image. The flowers provided her with both her livelihood and surroundings, in the shop and in her small house in Kentish Town.
She was rushing here and there, getting ready to open up the shop. She wore a broad, mustard-colored hat on her head and her strawberry hair, normally long and untamed, was tied beneath it. A few strands escaped the knot and shivered alongside milky white skin. She moved some giant earthenware pots into place beside candles as wide as tree trunks. They stood clustered together in front of a white spiral staircase, creating a theatrical effect.
She went to unlock the door. The first customer of the day, an agitated man with a moustache, had been waiting outside and he marched in after muttering his thanks brusquely.
‘I’d like some white roses,’ he declared.
As he did so a tanned young woman strode in, walked up to the counter and was on the point of asking Lilliana something when the man turned to the newcomer, and rumbled, ‘Najette, don’t ignore me.’
Najette looked around, visibly astonished. She gave herself a moment to regain her composure and said, ‘Didn’t we just say goodbye?’
‘I can’t help it if we’re both after the same thing.’
‘I doubt that very much.’
‘I was talking about the flowers. Don’t twist everything around.’
‘Must we? Again? I wasn’t ignoring you as I didn’t see you.’ And then, in the manner of an afterthought she added, ‘Well, seeing as I can’t get rid of you, do you want to go to Hyde Park? For the morning light. There’s nothing like it, either for painting or sunbathing. Have you noticed how I’m making progress?’
‘With what? Painting or skin cancer?’
In place of a verbal answer she rolled her face slowly, inviting him to examine her features, the elegant line of her tanned neck. Like some magnificent bird displaying its feathers, she was proud and imperturbable.
‘Don’t you think you might be overdoing it?’ the man asked.
‘Just an hour in the park, that’s all, before the tourists and philistines descend,’ she continued, ‘and then to the shoebox to finish a canvas. Are you sure I can’t persuade you to take anything? I know I’m doing something wrong, but I won’t accept that my work’s too grand for the Earl. Anyway, I look nice, don’t I? By the way, I have a feeling that soon the sun will be something we’ll all be paying for. It’s depressing, isn’t it?’
Lilliana felt it might be a good idea to join in and diffuse the tension between the two and said, ‘I’m trying to imagine what a sun meter would look like.’
‘It’s a horrible idea,’ said the as-yet-unidentified man.
‘Believe me, it’ll happen,’ Najette declared merrily. ‘Everything will happen sooner or later. Artificial love, wine recycled from lemonade, women begging to be relieved of their nipples. Just for fun.’
‘What exactly is artificial love? Wait, don’t tell me; you’re an exponent,’ said the stranger, then added emphatically, ‘Are my roses ready yet?’
Lilliana handed them over nervously and he disdainfully pressed a twenty-pound note into her palm. She had wrapped the flowers in delicate, transparent paper and tied them up with a beautiful coppercolored bow, but he didn’t appear to notice any of this.
Najette said, ‘Don’t be so serious; we were only talking.’
‘I have to go. These are for Georgia.’
Najette was about to say, ‘I’ll see you,’ but he bolted out in a melodramatic whirl and she was left hanging.
‘An obvious, botched attempt to make me jealous. Georgia indeed! He’s a little touchy, isn’t he?’ she said in a low voice to Lilliana.
‘Who is he? Who’s Georgia?’
Najette was about to reply when three women streamed in and, speaking loudly, began to circulate, holding their overlapping conversations from different ends of the shop. All three wore multi-colored shawls and their faces were disconcertingly similar, so that Lilliana assumed they must be sisters. One of them, who had silvery blonde hair, moved toward the shelves, crowded with the large potted plants. Lilliana turned to Najette, anxious to resume their conversation, trying to ignore the confusing babble of voices.
‘Your friend – though he didn’t really seem to be much of one – you were going to tell me who he is,’ Lilliana continued.
‘Yes. The monster. Lately I’ve been referring to him as Oscar....I think it suits him better.’
The largest pot of calathea came crashing down from its shelf, stalks and petals buried underneath the weight of the soil, as it landed the wrong way up. Its spreading, fibrous leaves were instantly ruined. The blonde woman uttered a small cry. Lilliana walked across and stared into the mangled plant. Her first reaction was one of disbelief, but it instantly gave way to sadness.
‘I’m terribly sorry – I just touched it – I don’t know what happened – it’s like it wanted to fall – I’m really sorry,’ the blonde woman was saying.
Lilliana’s face
changed imperceptibly. As Najette studied her she could discern the subtlest film of unshed tears in her eyes. The blonde woman instinctively reached inside her pocket. Her first thought was that money would make everything all right again. But she was mistaken. Najette watched them both attentively, already framing the scene in her mind as a painting; two women, one kneeling in melancholy and the other in consolation. To Najette, Lilliana suggested a madonna poised in a world of intense and incommunicable feeling. She had taken off her hat and more strands of her gossamer hair fell about her face. Najette watched as the blonde’s hand found Lilliana’s tentatively. The spilled soil was everywhere, firing out in random directions, forming brittle lines. In an instant Najette produced a digital camera – she carried one around with her to record moments like these, moments that might feed her painting – slipped a finger over the button, snapped a shot and tucked the camera away. Nobody noticed.
Lilliana got up slowly. The other woman followed and glanced at her companions, now huddled together in the corner. She turned back to Lilliana and said, feeling her way through the words, ‘I work...down the road. Maybe I can buy you lunch sometime...to make up for the mess?’ She handed over a card and Lilliana took it without a word. The ghost of a smile formed on her lips.
After a pause, the party of three shuffled out together in obvious relief.
‘That was pretty weird. After that I need a drink. Do you have any booze?’ said Najette.
‘I think...I’ve got some white wine in the fridge upstairs. Shall I fetch it?’
‘That would be glorious.’
As Lilliana climbed the spiral staircase Najette gathered up the cracked pieces of the pot and the disfigured plant and set everything down on the counter. She found a pan and brush and deftly swept up the soil. A minute later Lilliana returned with two filled glasses and said, ‘That beautiful plant, the ruined one, was intended for a friend of mine, another Oscar. Oscar Babel.’
‘Actually, my friend’s name is Nicholas. But he’s always fancied himself as a bit of a dandy, so sooner or later he had to be Oscar.’
‘Nicholas is your ex-lover?’
‘Well-spotted. That’s why he was angry. Because of that little prefix: ex. As if the fact that he once had his penis up me gives him a divine right to be a shit because I no longer want it there. Imagine!’ There was an infectious joviality about her as she conjured with the words a defiance which registered in the glow of her eyes. She was feeling the rush of eloquence. Lilliana tried not to look shocked.
They pulled two stools toward the counter and sat down. Najette said, ‘So tell me about Oscar. The real Oscar.’
‘That plant was meant to be his birthday present.’ She ran a finger along the gnarled, twisted stem.
‘When’s his birthday?’
‘Last week. I was late. I usually am. He’s a projectionist. Doesn’t like it. Or says he doesn’t.’
‘Why doesn’t he change jobs?’
‘I’m not sure; fear of the unknown, perhaps. He likes things to be predictable, the same. He doesn’t like experimentation.’
‘Does he have any passions? Apart from the cinema?’
‘The cinema isn’t a passion, more of an addiction. I just think he likes being locked up in dark rooms.’
‘Has he tried S&M? Photography? Confession boxes? Would he look good in a cassock?’
‘Better in a hammock. He always looks...slightly out of place. Like he’s just stepped off a flying saucer. But he’s got a pretty face.’
Najette nodded and swept aside the ebony, twirling strands of hair that had been moving slowly across her face and the full glory of her sun tan was again revealed; this time, however, it quite took Lilliana by surprise. She also noticed her startlingly long eyelashes. When a customer came in a few moments later they were too preoccupied to notice him. They were also a little drunk.
*
Daniel Bloch returned to his flat at around ten in the evening. He had been to a drinks party, thrown by his publishing house, in the Serpentine Gallery, which was currently exhibiting the work of a celebrated installation artist called Tracy Pearn. Her work consisted of giant cauliflowers, immense leeks and gargantuan colanders with blades and knives emerging threateningly from the holes. Bloch had told his editor he was no longer happy writing books that sold but said nothing about life. He added that he wanted to try his hand at serious fiction. He wanted to offer something to the world, to be illuminating, no longer merely entertaining.
The sky was on the point of turning dark, though here and there some flecks of orange and burnished gold remained. As Bloch watched a feeling of infinite possibility came to him, flowing from the sky’s rapidly changing, molten condition. The sun had turned into a slowly sinking dome of blood red. A few pink clouds nestled near it. One by one they vanished.
He was considering the story about Oscar. He sat at his desk and mused on this grand plan of his, which, in the end, Oscar had been extremely enthusiastic about. But, he reflected, Oscar’s life didn’t exactly provide fertile material for development. He decided his fictional Oscar would have to have a different profession, and considered some random choices. Usher. No – too passive, too much like a projectionist. Undertaker. Too morbid. Architect. Too scientific. A model. Maybe. A nude model. Yes, that had interesting possibilities and was related to painting. He would be a nude model who eventually realizes his ambition to paint. Then, rather more groundlessly, he decided that his Oscar would live with a cat and be an opera fan.
Oscar lived on his own, in a bedsit in Elephant and Castle, and didn’t much care for opera. The landlord who owned, and also resided in, the half-ruined building that housed Oscar’s bedsit was a rather unsavory character and unknowingly tormented Oscar by playing opera; in particular, works by Richard Wagner (which gave Bloch the idea of turning Oscar into an enthusiast), the music roaring through the floorboards. Bloch decided that the landlord would also appear in the story, but in a radically altered form, and that his odious traits would give way to generous ones.
He picked up a pen and paper. As he started to make notes he felt his skull grow heavy, as if his brain had doubled in size and weight. Yet his thoughts flowed quickly and connections followed fast. To his surprise, he found that the subject of Oscar was opening a door to unexplored and unfamiliar territory. He felt he was on the brink of finding a completely different voice from that of his previous work – analytical, with a hint of urbanity, and more than a little autobiographical. He wrote with frenzied ease, correcting and revising as he went. After a few hours he put the pen aside and read the scrawled pages back to himself.
Oscar Babel. No doubt you’re all familiar with his name. Reputation. Shoe size. Unsuspected ability to levitate amongst ethereal angels and plummet toward the despicable villains that inhabit the deepest pits of hell. Oscar Babel is arguably the finest life model of his generation. I’m joking. Life modeling has too often been pushed to the sides; it’s my task to try and rectify this sorry state of affairs. Keeping as inert as a corpse, stark naked, for long periods of time can be tricky. Usually it’s only those possessing inner peace and outer poise who are up to it. Thus, Mr. Babel: the great painter. He has them when he’s transmogrifying a canvas. Though for the longest time, before, he was like a parasol caught in a gale. Before he became the great painter he is today, he was something else entirely. He was filled with self-loathing; he squandered his talents. He was as ill-adapted to purpose as a surgeon who operates while wearing boxing gloves. I knew him then. I know him now. I have a fond memory of him watering plants. As he fooled around with the watering can he looked up and asked, ‘Who will water me?’ An enigmatic remark, but it lingered like an Irishman at closing time. At that period he was living in a hovel in South London, his love of opera driving his landlord – Mr. Grindel – half-mad each morning as his tenant rose to the sounds of Wagner. Oscar’s cat shared his musical tastes. This cat, a black, fat thing that purred when hungry and also when fed (a purring machine), would freeze a
s the first notes sounded, looking almost human. Mr. Grindel had a heart of gold, and he tolerated these intrusions. Oscar needed the music; it fed his shrinking soul and reignited some of his lust for life.
I have many theories about Oscar’s early unhappiness. Perhaps it was something to do with the fact that his most treasured companion departed from his life when he was six years old. His goldfish, Humphrey. Humphrey met its end one afternoon when Oscar’s mother saw fit to wash the bowl, depositing the fish in the sink, and pulling the plug out by accident. Or so she claimed afterwards. It was the First Catastrophe. Afterwards, he felt a part of himself had also died with the pet he’d spent countless hours feeding and watching. No other fish, he realized, could replace Humphrey. It wouldn’t be the same. The fragility of life. Yes, there were billions of fish floating in the sea, but this wasn’t the point. He was already initiated into futility. A minor tragedy, perhaps. This, I hasten to add, is only one of many theories. At that time, the time of his early unhappiness, I had a sense of the man as emotionally crippled. How else can one explain his inability to grasp life and savor its juices? The huge melon had been offered, but Oscar suspected that inside it there was a rotten core that would ultimately taint the taste of the good bits. And so, he passed the melon on for someone else to enjoy. The germ of imperfection sabotaged the moments of contentment when they came.
I went swimming with him. He advanced up and down dutifully, but his movements made me think of a punished schoolboy writing out lines. When he finished I asked if he’d enjoyed the swim. He turned to me with bloodshot eyes and muttered,‘I did it for the water.’ Another of those cryptic remarks that I grew tired of decoding.
He lived, as I have said, in a hovel. Peeling wallpaper and a sagging bed made me long to slip him some mazuma. Would it, I thought, make any difference? Some nights I’d stay over at the hovel when it was too late to do anything else. His nervous movements as he undressed reminded me of a gazelle sensing it’s being observed. (And yet he took his clothes off in public by way of a profession.) I looked away as he slipped on his pyjamas. Oscar didn’t feel comfortable when there was another human being around. While I made a final cup of tea for him he tossed and turned, his body fusing with the mattress; his limbs entwined with the bedsheets, as if they were glued to him. When the kettle finally boiled he was already asleep and I would drink the tea myself, resigned to his state of oblivion. The cat purred and arched its back. I would try and engage with it, in some form, as he lay snoring. But the cat had time only for its master. As I approached, it retreated.
The Fabrications Page 2
