by Alex Monroe
Good old Adam and Eve. I’m not about to get theological about this. You can’t call ideas of this kind thinking, not really. It’s more of a train of thought. But one thing leads to another. Original sin is great because without it we would have nothing. No death, no toil, no sauciness either. And everyone would be walking round naked, which would be fairly unpleasant in real life. Without original sin nobody would have been begat, and nobody would have murdered each other and the whole world might have been quite dull. It’s an odd sin because it had to happen. Temptation was always going to win. I like it because I can thoroughly identify with it – here’s everything you could ever need, endless supplies of it all. Just don’t touch that one little thing over there and you’ll be fine . . . Of course, they were going to bite into the apple. It’s human nature. And you can see in his face that Cranach’s Adam knows it.
I like this painting a lot. The crispness of each detail: the subtle curve of Eve’s big toe; the gentleness of the animals and the way each one seems to fix you with a forgiving gaze. But then I realise that I like Cranach’s painting Cupid Complaining to Venus even more. Funnily enough, the pale crags and pine trees in the far distance remind me a little of Grindelwald. Here’s another tree, more apples, another beautiful elongated nude with a branch twining suggestively through her bare legs. Venus’s toe is remarkably similar to Eve’s, and they stand in just the same way too, one straight leg slightly crossed in front of the other.
And there’s poor little Cupid, hand on golden head just like Adam, quite baffled at what’s happened. Bees are crawling all over his fleshy arm, bees on skin and feathery wings; huge bees, one with a head like a grinning skull and bizarrely, an extra pair of hairy legs. Cupid looks thoroughly fed up with them, as if he can’t believe his bad luck. He hasn’t even had the sense to drop their honeycomb yet. And I look at him and think, You suck the honey, you pay the price. Adam and Eve learned that one the hard way too. The inevitable pain of love.
Exhibitions and books and gardens and parks. I need information. This painting has belonged to London’s National Gallery since the 1960s, so I can easily see it again. Much later I discover that it once formed part of Hitler’s looted collection, and I’m glad I didn’t know that before. At this stage I’m more preoccupied with natural history. What plants were there in the Garden of Eden? Figs, of course, and pomegranates. Ah well, artistic licence . . . let’s put some passion flowers into the collection too, and a gorgeously textured snake, which means I can look forward to a trip to the zoo. And apples, and plenty of loving, and insects, and the bee. Don’t forget the bee. The bee is the key, the sting in the tale.
I find out more about Lucas Cranach, too. He had a sense of humour all right. You can see it in those poses. He was a friend of Martin Luther, a close friend, and he believed in his ideas. A good man. And he lived for ages. I find a portrait of him in old age – badger hair, white double-pointed beard, very plain, with just his own shadow in the background. He might have painted it himself; it could be by his son. He looks a kind man, and there’s a softness about him you see in his work. I like him a lot. Looking again at his other paintings, I see respect and pathos. That’s what I want too, for my bee.
More thinking and more research. I collect a million twigs and leaves and flowers. And I draw and I make notes and draw some more and I daydream. Finally it’s time to start at the bench. There’s only so much you can do on paper. I need to get into the workshop.
First things first: some serious procrastination. I tidy my bench, and in the process more distractions appear: something to repair or a half-finished project that demands attention. When the sum of the guilt of not getting started is equal to or larger than my ability to stall, I start the proper work. Apples and snakes and passion flowers all present their own challenges, but my plan is to focus first on one piece to tie the whole collection together. That centrepiece. The agony that comes with sweetness. The unavoidable sting. The bee.
Cranach is in my thoughts as I sit low at my bench. Searching through a small cardboard tray full of scraps of silver rod, I pull out a piece 15mm in diameter. It’s about 10cm long so I can carve the bee from one end while holding the other. This is a piece that needs to have some weight. Physical weight, that is. But it’s looking for presence too. Sorrow, regret, pathos. And also strength and femininity. Taking my piercing saw, I cut into the silver. I cut away the shape I’m imagining, first from above, and then from either side. Where my cuts seem wrong, I file away. The piece becomes too square, so I cut and file off the corners. Hours pass. My left hand hurts and I notice it’s bleeding where I’ve been holding the sharp metal. I should have rounded off the ‘handle’ end of the job first.
Day One is a catastrophic failure. There’s no point in persevering with this one. But I can’t throw it away. I stand and stretch and take my bee to the office, where I pull a cigar box down from a shelf. A small junkyard of experiments and not-quite-right pieces. My eye scans its contents. Ha! That sputnik ring. I’ll get that right some day. And a little box of melted nuggets. There are bugs and leaves and textured offcuts. I smile as I remember each disaster. It’s like browsing through an old sketchbook, full of embarrassing mistakes with a few interesting experiments. Plop! I drop in the unfinished bee and snap the lid shut.
The weekend comes as a relief. An early morning cycle ride and a few hours on the allotment. The usual ferrying of children to and fro. Sunday is warm and I’m hoping to potter about in my shed with my bikes. But the kids run in with an emergency.
Hi there, girls, what’ve we got here?
A velvety bumblebee has got trapped in the house and exhausted itself. So they’ve put it in an open matchbox with some cotton wool and come for help. It must be on its last legs this late in the year, I think to myself. But three little girls are looking up at me, full of concern, and trusting me to know what to do.
Will it be OK, Dad?
Let’s have a look now. A buff-tailed bumblebee, I think. Bombus something . . . We’ll look it up.
And into the house we go to find my soft green copy of The Observer Book of Common British Insects. Bombus terrestris, I discover. Ah, a female, of course, I say. She’s bigger and prettier than a male. Do you see the sting in her tail? Look how smooth it is. Not like a honeybee’s. No, she wouldn’t die if she stung you, however many times. But she probably won’t sting you either, if you keep on the right side of her. She’s a gentle little thing.
We put her in a bigger box, a cook’s-size matchbox this time, with a little water. I suggest a snack for her so the kids rush off to pick a geranium flower or two. We fuss and try our best. The girls are a bit upset and I’m not at all sure how to fix poorly bees; I suspect we should let nature take its course and leave her be. But I go through the motions of tucking her up with a good selection of pollen-laden flowers and a drink in a comfy bed. We decide to let her alone, and find a sunny secluded spot in the garden to set her down.
Back with my bikes I keep thinking about her. She’s our bee now. The kids really care for her and she’s just what I’ve been looking for. She can be my muse and my model. I like the fact that she’s a bit under the weather, that there’s something a little sad about her. I go back to check on her, and find the kids still fussing over her box.
Leave her alone. She needs space and air to breathe.
And then I run back to the house for my camera and start photographing her, and I get my sketchbook and I take notes. The sitting only takes half an hour and I have all I need. I can’t wait to get back to the studio.
It’s not till after lunch on Monday that I can cut myself off from the outside world again. Surrounded by my notes and my pictures and my drawings, I start again on Day Two with a fretsaw whose blade is as thin as a hair. Again I begin to cut out the essential form from a thick silver rod. Filing away, holding the rough silver against my work-worn bench pin, I try to discover the shape inside, as if I can simply uncover something already hidden within the silver. It’s a feeli
ng you only get when you’re carving. There are other techniques that give you a sense of something growing instead, but when you’re cutting away at metal there’s a real sense of revelation.
When I look up I notice it’s dark outside. Where did the day go?
Back at my bench on Tuesday morning and there’s my bee, just as I left her. But this morning my eyes are fresh. I pick her up. A little flash of doubt is followed by a skip of the heart. Then fear. But I’m pretty sure this is the one. So I sit down quickly, pull out a needle file and get straight back into it. The shape’s all there, but there are some scruffy patches that need tidying up.
I pull on my dust mask and optivisors – the super-magnifying headgear that turns us all into hybrid insect species – and my surroundings retreat: the sound of the radio, the movements of other people filing and sawing or chatting about the jobs they’re doing.
Mask and goggles shut me into my own little world and as I peer at my bee, we’re on our own again. This is going to be just the job for my new tool, I decide. It’s a setter’s tool, bought it from Germany especially for something like this. It fits onto my micro-motor but instead of spinning, it taps, like a mini pile driver. It was designed for tapping over settings for stones, to keep them in place. But now I file it into a point and set it in motion with the foot pedal. Rat-tat-tat-tat like a ticker-tape machine. Working in small circles, I begin to texture the thorax. Each leg then has to be carved out separately and soldered on. Last of all the wings, tiny shapes traced from my sketchbook and cut out in wafer-thin silver. Each one is cautiously soldered in place, with care not to melt the solder of the previous joins. Then I engrave the fragile vein pattern into all four wings.
Me, working at the bench, in my Elephant and Castle workshop.
I sit back and look at her, and she looks wonderful. Just as I’d imagined. Everything I wanted to say, all my thoughts and emotions over the past months, finally encapsulated in this little piece of silver. How could you not love her? She’s soft and warm, she’s very strong, and she’ll sting you if you get in her way. But somehow she looks a little mournful as well, and there’s something unreachable about her too. She could fly away any time.
The original bee taking shape on my workbench.
The closest I ever came to flying went down in family history as the Battle of the Barn. Flying, or falling?
A hot afternoon in the middle of August. We were lying in the cool darkness of the hayloft and doing very little. You could hear insects buzzing, and chickens scratching about below. In the distance a lazy-sounding lawnmower was chugging away. There were visitors of course; there were always visitors in summer. Their voices rose and fell as they chatted in the walled garden.
We were getting a little bored.
Out on the road, a car engine changed gear. It was coming this way. We heard the slamming of doors, and new voices. Another family had arrived and they joined the party in the walled garden.
All very nice.
A couple of children said please and thank you for their squash and biscuits and talked politely with the grown-ups. Roddy and I looked on from our hideaway. There was a shout from below, and some of our mates came shimmying up the ladder.
What’s up, boys?
Would you take a look at this?
Mummy’s boy, sucking up to the grown-ups.
We all peered down at the scene of tranquillity in the garden.
That’s horrible, that is. We should get them with everything we’ve got.
We looked at each other and we made a pact. Death and destruction to the visitors.
With hardly a word, we began to fill buckets with water. Our weapon of choice was a bicycle pump and the technique was simple but it worked. You sucked up a load of water then screwed a piece of Lego into the end. A sharp shove on the pump and the Lego would shoot out at speed, stinging your target then soaking them with a jet of water. In case things got serious, several crossbows were loaded and ready to fire. Hundreds of apples were hauled up and I’d already prepared a huge pile of nut-and-bolt bombs. These took hours to make: a nut was partially screwed onto a bolt and a cap-gun cap pushed into the cavity. The rest of the space was filled with ground red match heads and another bolt screwed into the other end, good and tight. All the weapons were stacked by each window. We were ready for war.
Hold your fire, boys – the first shot is mine.
Roddy took aim at the smartest grown-up, who was standing over a woman who was lying on an orange sunlounger. He was definitely showing off.
A crack and a hiss. Direct hit. The Lego plug hit the man in the face and he yelped. Then came the water. His look of shock and confusion delighted us. The woman on the sunlounger screamed and spilled her tea.
From the house ran a formidable figure, furious and shouting. He was an old friend of Peggy-Ann and Stuart, and the screaming woman was his wife. Roddy and I really looked up to him. Now he was looking up at us.
You bloody stupid kids! That could have been someone’s eye. Come down here at once for the bloody good thrashing you deserve.
As if. In the shadows of the Barn we didn’t need to see each other’s faces to know things were about to get serious.
Let ’em have it, lads. And we did.
There were four of us up there, all boys. We pelted and sprayed and chucked and shot and bombed. Most of the women and the other children ran for cover but the men fought back as hard as they could. They threw back buckets of water and stones and apples. We kept hurling the bolt bombs, which exploded with a terrific bang as they hit the ground, sending each bolt bouncing off brickwork to fearsome effect. The men turned the hose on and fetched umbrellas. The boys reached for their crossbows. As the battle picked up pace, more people appeared from the house. But we had all the advantages of height and preparation.
Look out! They’ve got a ladder! I rushed towards the open window with a fresh handful of bolt bombs. Something hit me, or maybe I was pushed, or maybe I simply slipped.
I enjoyed the most wonderful floating sensation as I fell, that slow-motion feeling when seconds pass at a standstill. It was the first time I’d ever experienced it, and so it was quite the most marvellous. I landed on my head two storeys down on the cobbled floor of the old forge, and was knocked out cold. I’m told that I lay in a pool of blood while my sisters went to find a parent, and I woke to an odd metallic taste in my mouth and the smell of Dettol, which still always makes me think of sick. The parent had issued instructions to carry me up to bed and wrap a towel around my head to stop the bleeding. Some time later, perhaps the next day, Peggy-Ann visited me herself. She knew Nikki and Debbie were taking perfectly good care of me, because they always did, and injuries were par for the course at The Old Parsonage. There was no need to fuss. No duffer, so not dead.
Six months after my bee has flown the studio, Sophie Dahl is looking out from the cover of a glossy women’s magazine. It’s a closely cropped shot, just head and shoulders. Against the bottle-blonde of her hair and the black of her leather jacket and little polka-dot scarf, the colour that stands out is the bright shiny red of her perfectly outlined lips. This red lends an unexpected suspicion of green to her blue eyes.
The bee hangs at her throat. It’s layered with another necklace, a pale stone on a very fine gold chain. Sophie’s very pretty, but there is a strength behind her eyes. The bee wears well on her, for they have a lot in common. Looking back at her are Emma and me. Emma is my PR manager, we’re in my studio, and I’m peering over her shoulder.
What do you think? she asks me.
The phone begins to ring.
Two Turtle Doves
London,October 2010
I’ve had another one of my ideas. An idea which involves other people and which we will all come to regret, but which seems perfectly simple to me at the moment. I call a meeting.
How about a special Christmas collection? Like an Advent calendar but with twelve windows. We make just one piece for day one, two pieces for day two . . . you get
it? Over twelve days. We’ll call it ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas Trunk Show’. The beauty of it is that every piece is an exclusive, but you don’t know what’s behind a window before it’s open. So do you rush to buy one of the pieces on day three, or wait and see what’s behind the day four door? It’ll be really fun!
About fifteen faces look back at me with a mixture of confusion and fatigue.
We call events where we make a special selection of one-off exclusive pieces a ‘trunk show’. It sounds odd now, but in the old days the dresses for a private sale would literally arrive from the fashion house in a trunk, and the name stuck. There was a time when we’d send out the invitations and I’d pack up a suitcase of jewellery to take to sell at an office or a film studio. Nowadays we do these trunk shows for special occasions, and tend to keep them local. It was the first time I’d thought of trying something similar on our website. My idea was to make twelve exclusive designs and release one of them each day for the first twelve days of December. Nobody would know what the next day’s design might be, but we’d tempt customers with clues in the form of rhymes and illustrations.
I’m having trouble explaining the project clearly, but one thing about it is apparent: it’s going to make lots of extra work for everybody, and they’re already working far too many hours. I need to infect them with my own excitement.