Was it really an immense privilege to sit here and talk to these little…these little…In an awful moment of existential understanding, Miss Campbell thought: these little savages. And then she thought: I must not think things like that.
She became aware that Olive was staring at her.
“Excuse me, Miss Campbell,” she said. “But I think you need to use your hanky.”
Flustered, Miss Campbell took her handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabbed at her nose. Little cow, she thought.
8. Mitigated Beige
Angus Lordie and Domenica Macdonald had settled into the routines of married life rather more quickly—and comfortably—than either had thought possible. Both had lived a solitary existence for long enough to fear that sharing Domenica’s flat in Scotland Street would involve more than a few compromises and adjustments; yet both had determined in advance that they would not allow themselves to be irritated by any aspect of the change. Angus had seen such irritation bring to an untimely end the marriage of a friend who, having married for the first time at forty-three, had found his new wife’s minor idiosyncrasies to be unbearable. The straw that eventually broke the back of that marriage had been her insistence on pronouncing Gullane as it was written, rather than as Gillane, which was what it really was—a highly divisive issue in Scotland, even if not one that might be expected to bring a marriage to an end.
For her part, Domenica remembered the difficulty that her university friend, Janet, had encountered in persisting with the second marriage she had contracted after her first husband’s parachuting accident, he having inadvertently left his parachute in the plane before the jump. The problem had revolved around physical matters—not those connected with the marital bed, but more the marital bathroom. She had confessed these to Domenica one afternoon when the two of them had been having tea together in the Portrait Gallery tearoom on Queen Street.
“He’s a very generous man,” Janet had said. “He’s kind and considerate too.”
“Everything one might want in a husband,” remarked Domenica, wondering what was to follow.
Janet lowered her voice; a woman at a neighbouring table, bored with her own company, was straining to hear their conversation. “The problem is more personal.”
Domenica looked away. “Oh well, that side of things can be awkward, but there are always people who can help, you know.” She paused. “One should not be ashamed to talk about these matters.” She said that even while reflecting on the intense embarrassment that must inevitably accompany any discussion of such things.
Her friend gasped. “Oh, it’s nothing to do with that,” she said.
Domenica was relieved. She noted that Janet used the term that. That was what that was often called, and there was rarely any difficulty in understanding exactly what that meant.
“So it’s not that,” said Domenica.
“Oh no,” said Janet, with the sort of philosophical sigh that women often utter when discussing that. “That’s not a problem. It’s more…well, it’s more to do with his pores. Johnny, you see, is a very greasy man. He’s utterly charming—but greasy.”
The eavesdropper at the next table, catching this, gave a start. Her eyes widened.
Domenica felt that this would have to be handled very delicately and was considering her response when Janet continued, “When he has a bath there is always a line of grease around the surface of the bathtub. I feel it when I use the bath myself. You know how it is? It’s rather like the feeling you get when you get in and discover that the last person has used bath oil. It’s slippery.”
Domenica winced. She knew the feeling. But surely one might rise above such a minor thing. Or one might take steps to deal with it, asking that the bath be cleaned after use—there were abrasive powders that were designed to deal with just such issues.
“And he’s ruined the furniture in the sitting room,” Janet continued. “There are dark patches where his head has been.”
Antimacassars, thought Domenica; they were designed specifically for that problem. Of course it would be difficult to find them these days, although they were exactly the sort of thing that might be sold by the Royal Edinburgh Repository and Self-Aid Society, one of the few remaining places to sell hand-knitted models of the Queen. As a child she had walked past the “distressed gentlewomen’s” shop in Castle Street and had marvelled at the term.
“Why are they distressed?” she had asked. “What’s upset them?”
Her mother had explained. “They are not distressed in the sense of being upset,” she said. “Their circumstances are distressed.”
“Which means?”
“Which means they have very little money. So they spend their time knitting cardigans and socks—such as you see in the window—and crocheting covers for various things. Distressed gentlewomen are very keen on covering things with crochet work—it is one of their consolations, I think.”
And there had been antimacassars in the window—pieces of white embroidered linen in squares of such a size and shape as might rest neatly on the top of any chair in which a pomaded man might sit. But then they had disappeared, although there still seemed to be an abundance of doilies for other purposes—to put on tea trays or to cover jugs of milk.
She had mentioned antimacassars to Janet, along with a suggestion that her husband might find some soap or lotion that could reduce greasy exudations, but this advice, if it was ever followed, had not been enough to prevent a parting of the ways. She herself would never allow a minor matter of physical squeamishness to imperil her marriage, although no such thing ever arose, except, perhaps, in relation to Angus’s wardrobe, which had to be rationalised, as she put it.
This process of rationalisation had involved the throwing out of most of his shirts (frayed at the collar) and trousers (frayed at the bottom of the leg). His jackets, or most of them, had been donated to a charity shop in Stockbridge, and his shoes, with the exception of a couple of newer pairs, had been consigned to the bin. This dramatic pruning had been followed by the making by Domenica of an unaccompanied trip to Stewart, Christie in Queen Street where she had engaged in a private consultation with a sympathetic assistant.
“Your husband undoubtedly has very good taste in clothes,” said the assistant. “But perhaps he keeps them too long. Many men do that, you know.”
Domenica agreed, and then had moved on to the choice of several tweed jackets, a waistcoat, a dozen shirts, a pair of corduroy trousers, and two pairs of chinos, one in crushed strawberry and one in mitigated beige. She then arranged for Angus to call and have these clothes fitted and, if necessary, taken in or let out according to need.
“In my experience,” said the assistant, “men require slightly larger sizes after a year or two of marriage. It’s undoubtedly something to do with the contentment that their new state brings, and to the effect of improved diet. This is just a general observation, please understand: there are some men who diminish on marriage. One person we know virtually disappeared a year or two after his wedding. Mr. Lordie, I am sure, will not fall into that category.”
9. The Ethics of Portraiture
And Angus was indeed content. Not only was he rather pleased with his new wardrobe of clothes—particularly with the mitigated-beige chinos, which he wore rather too often, at the expense of the older, crushed strawberry pair, which remained more or less untouched in their drawer—but he was also delighted with the encouragement Domenica gave him in his artistic life.
Over the years, Angus had acquired a reputation as one of the most sympathetic portrait painters in Scotland. This sympathy was for his sitters, with whom he usually developed a strong rapport even in the earliest minutes of the first sitting. Having a portrait painted is a potentially stressful experience for anybody: how will I look? Will both my chins be painted? Will I appear older than I am? Will I look ridiculous? These are the questions that even the most selfless, least egotistical sitters will ask themselves, for, after all, who does not hope to be remembered in
the best possible light? Who, if given the choice, would not opt to be portrayed at sixteen rather than at sixty? Who does not have at least some feature, some minor imperfection perhaps, that he or she would not want at least softened, if not totally obscured, by a more forgiving rather than a harsher light?
The fact that Angus was so gentle in his treatment of his sitters meant that they relaxed and, in the ensuing state of trust, allowed their true personality to emerge. In most cases he judged this true personality to be benevolent, but even where the qualities that emerged were unattractive, Angus was still inclined to play these down and to look for something positive in an otherwise unpromising personality.
This could give rise to a challenge, as it did when he was asked by a Glasgow industrialist to paint his fourteen-year-old son, a boy whose dismaying appearance would be difficult to disguise. The diplomatic problem was exacerbated by the fact that the father looked very much the same as the son—both were of simian appearance, with heavy, beetle brows, wide mouths, and the flared nostrils usually found on chimpanzees. They had come to see Angus in Edinburgh, father and son, visiting him in his studio.
“They say my boy is very much a chip off the old block,” said the father, smiling with pride. “And I suppose when I look at the photographs of me as a youngster I can see it too.”
Angus made a noncommittal response.
“He’s a keen tennis player,” went on the father. “Maybe you could paint him on the tennis court, about to serve.”
Angus stared at the boy, who was sitting awkwardly in his studio chair. The similarity to a monkey was quite striking, he thought. Perhaps he could be painted sitting in a tree, or foraging for berries, as chimps do…
“What’s that stink?” the boy suddenly asked. “There’s a real stink here.”
Rather than reproaching his son, the father sniffed at the air, his already copious nostrils widening even further.
“I can’t smell anything,” said the father.
“Turpentine,” said Angus, glaring at the boy. “I use it to clean my brushes. The oil paint, you see, would dry on them if I didn’t and then the bristles would be ruined.”
“See,” said the father. “You see, Billy, that’s something you’ve learned already. You come through to Edinburgh and you learn something.” He laughed. “And the other way round, of course.”
“Hah!” said Angus. And it was then that a possibility occurred. “Tennis,” he continued. “You know, that’s a rather intriguing idea. A portrait of Billy playing tennis would be rather interesting—rather like Raeburn’s picture of the Skating Minister.”
“You hear that?” said the father. “That picture we saw in the National Gallery of the minister on his skates—remember it?”
The boy nodded vaguely.
“And I think,” said Angus, coming to the point of his idea, “that it would be best to paint Billy from behind, just as he’s tossing the ball up into the air for his serve. It could be a powerful portrayal of the…of the sheer physicality of the game—the power of the serve. Beyond us, so to speak, would be the trajectory of the ball, the open court stretching out before him—symbolic of life’s challenges, perhaps. Billy, though, would fill the foreground with his shoulders and with his racquet up in the air ready to be brought down upon the ball.”
The father looked thoughtful. “That sounds very interesting, Mr. Lordie. But would Billy be recognisable? You see, I assume that we would just see the back of his head, not his actual face.”
“You don’t need to see my face,” said Billy. “You and Mom know what I look like.”
Angus smiled. “Billy has a point,” he said. “Art does not need to be too representational. We’ve gone beyond that now.” The Devil may quote scripture for his own devices, thought Angus, reproaching himself. Perhaps he should just grasp the nettle and paint this unfortunate boy with full frontal physiognomy; the notion of painting just the back of his head was no real solution to the delicate issue of truthfulness in portraiture.
“I suppose we’ll know it’s him,” said the father.
“That will be very clear,” said Angus. “Posture is very revealing. And the cranium itself, viewed from whatever angle, is quite distinctive.”
The father’s mind was made up. “Very well,” he said. “You’ve persuaded me.”
But then Angus changed his mind. He had been sorely tempted, but this option, he saw, was meretricious to the core, and he resisted it. “No,” he said. “I don’t think that will work. I shall paint Billy more or less as we see him here—seated in my studio. I shall capture him far better that way.”
There had been three sittings, and eventually the painting was complete. Angus had not flinched from presenting his subject as he saw him, but even with that truthfulness he had somehow painted the boy in such a way that in spite of his unprepossessing face he looked appealing, caught at that odd stage of transition between childhood and youth, to all intents and purposes like a Norman Rockwell portrait for the cover of Life magazine of some freckled, optimistic boy.
The boy’s mother had cried when she saw it, and had planted a kiss on Angus’s surprised cheek.
“Dear Mr. Lordie,” she whispered. “I know my son’s no oil painting but…” She sighed. “But now he is.”
Angus reflected on the truth of this statement as both metaphor and fact, and smiled in modest acknowledgement of the compliment.
10. Lions, Sociobiology, and Maleness
Domenica appreciated Angus’s ability to get the best out of his sitters. That, she thought, was one of his better qualities—a social ease that she felt she herself lacked. It was not that she was in any way awkward in her dealings with people—none of her many friends would have described her as being difficult to get on with—the difference between her and Angus was more subtle than that, residing somewhere in the tricky territory of male-female distinctions. The trickiness lay in the fact that in a society with an official commitment to removing salience, such matters as the differences between men and women were rarely talked about openly.
Both Domenica and Angus were in their late forties. Both were old enough, then, to have witnessed the dismantling of patriarchal society. Both had welcomed this change—Angus because he had never seen the justification for male assumptions of entitlement, and in Domenica’s case because, like any woman of her age, she had encountered male condescension—or, as she put it, male pushiness—and had resented it. She had never struck an overtly feminist pose, but had understood why there were those who felt they had to do just that. The walls of bastions had to be pulled down if a new, just architecture were to be established—she knew that had to happen—but she had never liked the anger with which that process was sometimes tainted. In claiming a right, Domenica felt, you did not necessarily have to humiliate whole swathes of humanity. So she had never felt comfortable with the distaste that some of the more aggressive warriors in the struggle for women’s rights expressed for men in general.
“Men may be misguided and, indeed, at times arrogant,” she said to a friend. “But try as I might, I can’t dislike them with quite the intensity that some feminists manage.”
The friend had smiled. “Nor I. In fact, I rather like men. I know that’s a very unfashionable view, but there we are. I suppose the issue is maleness, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes, but…”
The friend had expanded on the theme. “Maleness exists as a phenomenon in nature, doesn’t it? You can observe it in…well, I suppose, in any animals you care to examine. Lions. Cats. Elephants. Everything, come to think of it. The male is usually larger, stronger, and more assertive.”
Domenica looked thoughtful. “Perhaps.”
“No, not perhaps. Definitely. Male creatures tend to dominate. Look at lions. You have your head lion, or whatever he’s called…”
“Leader of the pride, I suppose.”
“Yes, him. And he’s the one who calls the shots. He’s the boss.”
Domenica shook her head.
“I’m not sure that these socio-biological arguments are going to get us very far. Human society is far more complex than that. Yes we have biology in the background, but social organisation is something that isn’t determined solely by biological impulses.”
Her friend sighed, as if faced with some nit-picking scholastic objection. “But these impulses drive it. They do! Men are the ones who do the hunting and fighting. Women do the nurturing.”
Domenica was cautious. “Possibly. But lionesses, you know, make the kill much of the time. Then the male comes along and eats what she’s caught.” She paused. “I don’t know where this is taking us. The trouble with sociobiological arguments is that they end up justifying a very bleak vision of what humanity can be or do. They’re a dead end because they see human society as being red in tooth and claw and that’s it.”
“But perhaps we are. Perhaps life—all life—is just a matter of competition for control of space and resources. Ultimately, most arguments are about who gets what.” She looked at Domenica with the expression of one who had uncovered some fundamental truth. “That’s what wars are, don’t you think? One group wants something—land, water, food, whatever—and another group wants it too. Result? Conflict.”
“Yes, but…” Domenica was struggling. The grim, reductionist logic of her friend’s position did not appeal to her, and yet was difficult to refute. Yet there was an answer, and that, she felt lay in reason. Reason was the straw at which we might grasp.
But her friend had lost interest, and was returning to the subject that had launched their debate: maleness.