The Bat Tattoo

  ‘Yes, whew. Actually I’ve never described them to anyone except the technician who did the motors and connections and the remote control.’

  ‘Take your time. Sounds fascinating.’

  ‘Now I wonder what you’ll think of me when I tell you about them.’

  ‘We’ll never know unless you do it.’

  ‘True. Well, these were toys of a special kind. First there were the two human figures, male and female crash-dummies, thirty centimetres high, articulated and anatomically complete.’

  ‘You mean, with genitalia?’

  ‘Yes. Working genitalia, and when you pressed a button, they had sexual intercourse. There was a car-crash soundtrack to go with it.’

  ‘Did they have working mouths too?’

  ‘No, just the regular blank dummy faces.’

  ‘So they couldn’t even kiss properly.’

  ‘I think that would have compromised their dummyhood. In any case, Delarue didn’t ask for working mouths and I didn’t suggest them.’

  ‘Delarue is the man who commissioned these figures?’

  ‘Yes, Adelbert Delarue. He lives in Paris.’

  ‘You said those two came first. What came next?’

  ‘A crash-dummy mastiff to the same scale and then a crash-dummy gorilla.’

  ‘Both with working genitalia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Soundtracks?’

  ‘From Traviata with the dog: Callas and “E strano!”; Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor with the gorilla, Schweitzer on the organ.’

  ‘Delarue specified those?’

  ‘No, the soundtracks were my idea but he was delighted with them.’

  ‘And the four dummies going at it in all possible permutations.’

  ‘I suppose so; he liked everything I did.’

  ‘What did he pay you for these figures? Forgive my asking but we market traders always ask these things.’

  ‘Seventy thousand pounds altogether.’

  ‘Crikey! That man must have money to throw around. How did he come to commission you?’

  ‘He got in touch with me after buying the Crash Test toy.’

  ‘What sort of man is he?’

  ‘All I know is that he lives in the Avenue Montaigne, has a girlfriend named Victoria Fawles and a very large chauffeur called Jean-Louis Galantière.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘He hasn’t said, but I have a feeling he’s a little older than I am, maybe between fifty and sixty.’

  ‘Men!’ said Sarah, shaking her head. ‘There’s another bottle on top of the fridge.’ I opened the bottle, refilled our empty glasses, and we clinked. ‘Well,’ she said, with a smile that hinted at corruptibility, ‘this reveals a whole new side of you, not to mention a front and back. Should I be prepared for special requests as we get to know each other better?’

  ‘I’m not the kinky one, Sarah. Delarue told me what he wanted and I did it for the money.’

  ‘What came after the gorilla?’

  ‘I’ve had no more commissions but he wrote me a letter in which he hoped that his money would buy me time and he wondered what new themes my talent was dreaming of. Not that he wanted to put any pressure on me but of course he did, and so did you.’

  ‘How did I put pressure on you?’

  ‘You know — with your gnostics and your wooden hand and generally wanting me to be better than I am.’ I heard myself sounding like a petulant child.

  She leaned against me and her lips brushed my face. ‘I’m sorry, Roswell,’ she murmured, ‘I really am. I’ll try to do better, I’ll work on improving myself.’ I couldn’t see if her tongue was in her cheek.

  ‘No need to go overboard with it,’ I said.

  ‘All right then, let’s get back to the matter at hand: what was there between the bonking toys and the crucifixion?’

  ‘Nothing special.’ As I said that, St John’s in the North End Road, Abraham Selby and the fibreglass Jesus came to me with the freshness of rain and the earth smell of yellow leaves. ‘I fainted,’ I said. ‘His eyes went blank in the rain.’

  ‘Whose eyes?’

  ‘The fibreglass Jesus at St John’s in the North End Road.’

  ‘His eyes went blank and you fainted?’

  ‘I’d been drinking that morning. Father John got me out of the rain and into the church.’

  ‘Are you religious, Roswell?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you were what — standing in the rain looking at Jesus on his cross?’

  ‘He was in the rain too; I don’t know why they bother with that little tiny roof over the INRI.’

  ‘Do you often stop to look at him?’

  ‘Now and then. Sometimes I get into a conversation with one of the guys from the low-budget drinking community.’

  ‘And it was after the fainting that you started your crucifixion?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘I ordered the wood the next day, started work on the figure two days after that. The adze bit me the first time I hit it with the mallet. That’s all I know about where that crucifixion’s coming from. Does that make it all clear to you?’

  ‘No. You’re a man of mystery.’

  ‘How about that. Did you ever think you’d meet one?’

  ‘Not really, but I kept hoping. Some day my prince will come, I thought.’

  ‘Well, here I am: you wished long enough and strong enough and wishing made it so.’

  No answer. She was asleep with her head on my shoulder and the second bottle was empty.

  31

  Sarah Varley

  One day followed another while the judges deliberated. Roswell and I spent every night together, sometimes at my place, sometimes at his; falling asleep together made the world look a lot better when we woke up. Mostly I cooked for us but at the end of our first week Roswell took me to The Blue Elephant in Fulham Broadway: we sat among the plants in the moist and jungly air and listened to the splashing of water while we drank house white and ate little golden parcels of spicy Thai esoterica followed by more advanced esoterica with unknown vegetables.

  I’m surprised at how often drink occurs in my narration. One Monday evening after my return from Covent Garden I was unwinding with my feet on the table and a glass of Australian Chardonnay in my hand when Roswell turned up. ‘You’re looking at a rejectee,’ he said, and showed me a card from the R. Albert Streeter Museum. It said simply that his entry had not been accepted for the exhibition and gave the hours when it could be collected.

  ‘I suppose I’m out of touch with the art world,’ I said. ‘I was sure it would be accepted.’

  ‘I’m glad it wasn’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve done my part — that thing’s finished now and I can move on to the next thing.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘I don’t know yet: whatever it happens to be.’

  He certainly seemed happier than he’d been when we entered the piece in the competition. We went to his place after we’d eaten; he took me up to the studio, produced a large cartridge-paper drawing pad and a stick of conté sanguine, and asked me to disrobe.

  ‘What have you got in mind?’ I said.

  ‘Short poses,’ said Roswell. ‘You can undress behind the screen and there’s a clean robe for you to put on in the rest periods.’

  ‘Very professional!’

  ‘I have to keep my mind on my work.’

  ‘Sketches for a Boadicea, are these?’

  ‘Don’t make fun of yourself — you’re not a small woman, but you’re a beauty.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve been called that before.’

  ‘Get used to it. Having seen you naked, I want to draw you, just for the pleasure of doing it.’

  ‘I can deny you nothing,’ I said, and retired behind the screen to get naked. When I reappeared I saw that Roswell had moved a Lloyd Loom chair to the centre of the room and placed a couple of pillows on it. The drawing pad was on an easel facing it. He arranged me
on the chair, humming a little to himself, then stepped back and looked at me purposefully. I felt my nipples stiffen and reminded myself to think pure thoughts. My left arm was at an angle that allowed me to see the bat tattoo on my shoulder and I smiled, fancying that Roswell’s bat was talking to mine.

  The conté crayon rasped on the paper as his hand moved quickly. He finished the sketch, tore it off the pad, laid it on the floor, and began another. He was looking different from how I’d seen him before — more like a person to be reckoned with. Each pose lasted only five minutes, and after twenty minutes Roswell called a rest period. I modestly put on my robe and went to look at the sketches that were lying on the floor. I was surprised at how good they were, how authoritative: with a few strokes he’d caught the gesture of each pose and the gesture contained the whole body. ‘I didn’t know you could draw like this,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t either,’ he said. ‘Best not to talk about it or it might go away.’

  The next poses were standing, then he put a blanket and cushions on the floor and drew me lying down or half reclining. Altogether we worked for about an hour with a rest after the second twenty minutes. At the end of the hour he said, ‘Thank you, Sarah,’ and hugged me and kissed me. All of the sketches were good; they were fierce with life, and I marvelled at their having come from looking at me.

  The next day Roswell phoned Nigel and that afternoon we went to Hoxton to collect The One for the Many. Traffic around the museum was heavy but not gridlocked. Rejected entries and their owners cluttered the pavement waiting to be picked up while newer rejectees swarmed into the museum. Nigel dropped us off and we went inside with our dolly, brown paper, and twine. The rejected entries were ticketed with red cards. ‘Nice touch, that,’ said Roswell.

  When we found the crash-dummy crucifixion there was a small crowd around it that included the Hibernian man and the scripture-quoting one from our first visit. There was a babble of voices from those gathered around The One for the Many. ‘I saw it,’ said someone. ‘I saw a tear rolling down his face.’

  ‘From what?’ said a sceptic. ‘He’s got no eyes to cry with.’

  ‘Let’s not be blocking traffic here,’ said the Hibernian. ‘Them tears is condensation from the skylight — you get that with changes of temperature.’

  ‘O ye of little faith!’ said the scriptural one. ‘I’ve already moved it to a different position and a new tear rolled down his face.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said the Hibernian. ‘Jesus wouldn’t waste a tear on this lot. Let’s keep moving, folks — people are here to collect their entries.’

  ‘Excuse us, please,’ said Roswell, elbowing his way through. ‘This one’s mine.’

  ‘He’s not just yours,’ said a woman with bulging eyes. ‘He’s the one for the many, he crashed for our sins.’

  ‘Do me a favour,’ said Roswell, as a nearby camera flashed.

  ‘Move it again,’ said a man, ‘and let’s see if there’s a new tear.’ He grabbed Roswell’s arm.

  ‘You want something to cry about?’ said Roswell.

  ‘None of that here,’ said the Hibernian. ‘Take it outside.’ He cleared a space for Roswell who took the figure from the cross and dismantled it.

  ‘God sees what you do,’ said the bulging-eyed woman.

  ‘Right,’ said Roswell. ‘He’s got his eye on you too.’ We loaded the disassembled figure on the dolly and covered it with brown paper. Then Roswell gathered up the timbers of the cross and the easel and we made our way to the exit. Nigel and the van appeared shortly and we loaded up and headed for Kempson Road. Roswell and I sat there shaking our heads over the scene in the museum.

  ‘Jesus wept,’ I said.

  ‘Them tears was condensation,’ said Roswell. ‘Although that competition was enough to make a dummy weep. I’m glad it’s behind us.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said, and squeezed his hand.

  We found a parking space in Kempson Road and Roswell shouldered his cross (in pieces) and the easel up to the studio while I followed with the head and torso of The One for the Many and Nigel was behind me with the limbs and dolly. Roswell paid Nigel and there we were then, purged?

  ‘What now?’ I said.

  ‘It’s almost drinks time but not quite,’ said Roswell. If I’d just met him at that moment I’d never have thought of him as a failed person. He removed the chromium crown of thorns from the head, put it in a vice, and crushed it, then he clamped the torso in a larger wooden bench vice, plugged in a power saw, and started cutting. The action and whine of the saw and the smell of the sawdust made it very much a man thing, and I could see that he was feeling good about it. I was feeling good too. When Roswell finished with the torso and head he cut up the limbs, then the cross. It took rather a long time but I sat there patiently, dying for a drink.

  When The One for the Many was reduced to firewood Roswell fetched the firewood basket from the living room and loaded it up, then we carried it down between us. It was the right evening for a fire and the wood burned fiercely with blue flames and the sweetish smell of the glue and varnish. ‘OK, guv, what are we drinking?’ I said as I settled myself on the couch.

  ‘Champagne to start with,’ said Roswell. ‘There may be some in the fridge.’

  ‘What’re we celebrating?’

  ‘Feeling good. Is that reason enough?’

  ‘Always.’ Just then the doorbell rang.

  ‘I’m not expecting anyone,’ said Roswell, and went to answer it. I heard voices and after a while he came back, shaking his head. ‘That was a reporter from the Evening Standard,’ he said. ‘He was at the museum this afternoon and wanted to talk to me about the weeping Jesus. I told him it was condensation and then he wanted a closer look at the piece. I told him that wasn’t possible and got rid of him.’

  ‘That weeping was strange, though, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it was. I’m glad we got that dummy out of there before the hysteria really took hold.’

  ‘But you must have been a little bit spooked — I know I was.’

  ‘Sure I was. For a moment I thought it was weeping because it didn’t want to die for my sins. That’s how weird I am.’

  I started to say something but then I thought it better to leave him to his thoughts. And me to mine.

  He went down to the kitchen and came back with two flutes and the champagne in a plastic cooling bucket. He pulled the cork and filled our glasses with the bright foaming Moët & Chandon. ‘Here’s to you, Sarah,’ he said as we clinked. ‘You really have improved me.’

  ‘Here’s looking at you, Roswell, you’ve improved both of us.’ So we didn’t need to say anything more for quite a long time as we drank and leaned against each other and looked at the fire, while outside the winter evening breathed its cold breath on the windows and passersby in the darkness looked up at our golden oblongs of cosiness. It’s always surprising how things that are very complex and improbable become by degrees quite simple and as if they’re the only possible outcome of everything that has gone before. It was good not having to lean forward any more to help Roswell push his stone uphill.

  The next day on a sudden impulse I bought a Standard and turned, as if with prescience, to the page with the cartoon and the various snippets. There it was: a photograph of Roswell and the hyperthyroid woman in front of The One for the Many. The story followed:

  JESUS WEPT?

  Ms Ernestine Casey and Mr Roswell Clark discuss The One for the Many, Mr Clark’s rejected entry in the R. Albert Streeter competition. Ms Casey and several others claim to have seen tears rolling down the face of the crucified crash-test dummy. The museum staff say that this was caused by condensation from the skylight. Mr Clark had nothing to add to this when interviewed at his home, and said that the figure was not available for inspection.

  ‘Aha!’ I said to myself. ‘I bet Roswell gets one or two phone calls before the day is over.’

  When he came to my place that evening we both showed our Standards and said, ‘
Have you seen this?’ Then we both laughed and said yes, we had. ‘I had a phone call as well,’ he said. ‘Guess who from?’

  ‘George Rubcek?’

  ‘How’d you know?’

  ‘First name that came into my head. What’d he say?’

  ‘He said he was sorry my piece hadn’t been accepted for the exhibition but he’d been outvoted. Then he offered me seventy-five thousand pounds for it. When I told him I’d burnt it he laughed and said that was one way of making a creative experience complete and he hoped I’d stay in touch.’

  ‘Seventy-five thousand pounds! It takes me six years to make that much! Are you sorry you burnt it?’

  ‘No. It’s not as if the burning of it cost me that amount of money — I did what I needed to do to get from one thing to the next; I wasn’t manufacturing something for sale, and the value put on it by a would-be purchaser is irrelevant.’

  ‘My hero,’ I said.

  There were no other journalistic enquiries about the weeping Jesus and nothing further in the press that we heard of. In due course the R. Albert Streeter prize was announced. It was won by one of the dustbin entries, not Weedy’s orange-peel effort but one that featured eggshells and coffee grounds. A young woman called Prismatica Froude was the proprietor of this dustbin. Folsom Bray, as director of the museum and chairman of the judges, issued this statement:

  We live in a time of constant change and constantly changing perceptions. Governments are having to recognise that their world-views are not always shared by those they govern, and cultural establishments find themselves in the same situation. In art as in world affairs there are groundswells that compel us to reassess what we have always taken for granted and to redefine art itself.

  In the primeval caves of France and Spain, among the astonishing drawings of animals, there can be seen negative handprints made by placing the hand with outspread fingers against the cave wall and blowing powdered red ochre or blue-black manganese around it and between the fingers. Startling in its immediacy, this ancient image says, ‘Look! With this hand I take hold of the world.’

  Through the centuries the world has seen what the hands of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and other masters have achieved. Can the hand and the mind be separated? Or is the mind really the primal and the primary hand? Henri Focillon, in his classic meditation, The Life of Forms in Art, cites Hokusai’s demonstration in which he placed a scroll of blank paper on the floor, poured a pot of blue paint over it, then dipped the claws of a rooster in a pot of red paint and let the bird run across the paper. Those viewing the result found in it the image of a familiar stream carrying the red maple leaves of autumn. The mind of Hokusai used for its hand the feet of a rooster; and the minds of the viewers became the hand that drew a recognisable image.