Incredible Bodies

by Ian McGuire

  E tried to remember the names of recently missing children: Chelsea Craddock, little Joey Ogg. It was easy to lose track – they blurred into each other. The woodland searches, the parental appeals, the dredging, the combing of the family home. By now there was a routine, a pattern, a profile. Everyone knew the stages.

  The screen went blank and then began again. You could see a portion of patio, half a barbecue; a mother was calling ‘Jennifer, Jennifer’. Light glanced off painted metal, white flesh. The fuzzed-out heads bobbed, veered, like balls of summer insects. The figures were too big, designed to unsettle, she assumed, to discomfort the viewer. The voices were echoey and disturbed. The little girl flashed her smile at the camera. On then off. She waved and dashed away. Children can be so brisk, E thought. The adult hand waved belatedly. In the top right was a dark triangle – the eaves of the house? A fault with the camera? There were speakers in every corner of the little room – noises swirled and lassoed around her.

  E sighed and closed her eyes. She felt tired, but she could also feel, somewhere below, the gentle slosh of emotion. She could hear a faint humming from another room and smell the soupy scent of the gallery bistro. The loop began again. Soon she would have to leave to go back to the office, but at least this was a peaceful way to end. If it was meant to be troubling (the fuzzed-out heads), it really wasn’t. It achieved, in spite of itself, a kind of gentleness. The boy hung from the climbing frame, the man finished his beer, the little girl theatrically held her ribs. The same every time.

  ‘Jesus Christ, what have they done to the sound?’ Someone was standing in the doorway. E squinted. It was Nick Kidney. Tall, pompadoured, wearing a Versace shirt and multipocketed fisherman’s vest. ‘It sounds like they’re down a fucking well.’

  ‘Actually, I like it,’ said E. ‘It’s really peaceful.’

  Kidney hadn’t noticed her. He pushed his sunglasses down to the tip of his nose and peered. He stuck out his hand.

  ‘Nick Kidney. Who are you?’

  E introduced herself. Kidney stared for a moment at her belly, then looked her in the eye.

  ‘I loved the flayed dogs,’ said E. ‘They’re quite witty.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he replied, as though he had forgotten all about the flayed dogs until E mentioned them. ‘They usually go down well. Excuse me.’ He began walking round the room listening to each loudspeaker in turn. After he had listened to them all he stopped walking and looked again at E.

  ‘That took me six months,’ he said, nodding at the wall-sized image. ‘Every shot is different.’

  ‘But they’re all the same.’

  ‘They all look the same, but they’re different – there are eight hundred and fifty different shots of exactly the same thing.’

  E looked again.

  ‘That’s not possible,’ she said. ‘Look at the shadows, the sky.’

  ‘Artificial lighting. Hard to believe I know; we did it all in a warehouse in Clapton. Does that bother you?’

  He glanced at her and waited. It seemed clear to E that he wanted it to bother her. That he would take that as a sign of success. She walked over to the wall text: ‘The Myth of Eternal Return’, Nick Kidney, 1999.

  ‘That must have been hard work,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Exhausting. You’ve no idea how difficult it is keeping things the same.’

  The loop began again. E stared at the chalk-marked sky. Now she looked at it more closely, the blueness did appear too intense, too ideal to be true.

  ‘Do you really like the flayed dogs?’

  ‘Not really.’ E was surprised by her own sudden glumness. Why should the news that this was an elaborate piece of trickery trouble her?

  ‘No,’ agreed Kidney casually. ‘You didn’t strike me as the flayed-dog type.’

  The flayed-dog type, thought E. What a presumptuous twerp. Do men ever stop insisting on their own cleverness?

  She watched the girl (an actress presumably) run once more over the artificial lawn. Cherry lips, blameless skin. E’s spark of anger softened to sadness. Suddenly, she was on the verge of tears. She swallowed and turned her face away from Kidney. Bloody hormones.

  ‘Are you crying?’ he asked after a moment.

  E shook her head. ‘No, I’m not. Does your work often reduce people to tears?’

  Nick Kidney stared for a second then began to laugh. The adult fingers waved once more across the bottom of the screen. The naked boy dropped his piece of cake.

  That evening at the opening, E handed out hors d’oeuvres. Molly, in a highly unstable post-nursery daze, clung to the tails of E’s cheesecloth maternity blouse and stumbled along behind. E knew she was taking a risk. Molly could explode at any moment, but with Morris in LA she had no choice. She hoped fervently that the hors d’oeuvres would soon be gobbled up and they could leave. Scanning the crowd of Coketown grandees, she looked in vain for the young or the hungry. Alison, enveloped in a cloud of chardonnay, ran across to embrace her.

  ‘You’re doing a superb job.’ She patted E’s tummy. ‘Would Molly like some orange juice?’ Molly’s face turned stoney.

  ‘Have an hors d’oeuvre, please,’ said E. ‘Have three. How are things going?’

  ‘Well,’ Alison took a frustratingly dainty bite, ‘despite my personal opinions, I’m trying to talk things up for the sake of the gallery. But really there’s only so much you can do. There are pickled penises out there.’

  ‘I thought they were replicas.’

  ‘Does it matter? Honestly, I fear such distinctions are lost on the Lady Mayoress. On the other hand, the artist himself is rather droll. Have you met him yet? Yes, of course you have – he mentioned your name. You must have made a good impression.’

  Around the pale, spotlit galleries, the guests gathered together in small, tight-knit groups, their backs turned as though to defend themselves against the art that surrounded them. Leading trade unionists huddled beside the flayed dogs; the Vice-Chancellor’s wife held court next to a mosaic made from human toenails. There was an air of wariness, hilarity and fear. Above the ambient music (chosen by Kidney, loathed by Alison) you could still hear the chant of the protestors. A rumour began circulating, passing swiftly from group to group, that the protestors had been hired by Kidney, that they were part of the show. People rather liked this rumour, as it made them feel they were involved in something clever, witty and slightly confused. After an hour or so, however, this rumour faded and died and another one took its place – that the protestors had not been hired by Kidney, but Kidney himself had started the rumour that they were. This was even more popular and was considered (by those in the know) a quite brilliant twist. To those not in the know it seemed as good an excuse as any to have another drink and to wonder out loud about the provenance of the pickled penises.

  Quite soon after the spreading of the second rumour, the protestors overpowered Godfrey and burst into the gallery. They were clattery and damp. After a moment of disorientated triumph, they gathered by the stool samples and began singing a Congregationalist hymn. Opportunistically, E offered them hors d’oeuvres; after conferring suspiciously they emptied the tray. Once the hymn was over, the protestors split apart and engaged in passionate dialogue with the people in the know. A rumour began circulating that Nick Kidney was in the thick of this, that he was overpowering them with the logic of scatology and several protestors had already ‘turned’.

  The ambient music became louder. People began to dance. This, according to Alison, was unprecedented and probably a health and safety violation. Molly had fallen asleep and was curled in a pile of coats near the ladies’. E, who was too tired to move her, decided recklessly to have a glass of white wine. In order to avoid the increasingly bacchanalian dancing, she sought refuge in ‘The Myth of Eternal Return’. Nick Kidney was already in there alone.

  ‘I heard you were arguing with the protestors,’ she said.

  ‘I did my fifteen minutes, so as not to discourage them, but really the vim’s gone out of it. They�
�ve been following me around for years; we exchange Christmas cards. Actually, it’s getting slightly creepy.’

  ‘Do they always break in?’

  ‘Almost always. Sometimes they attack the art but that involves bail, insurance. It’s a lot of paperwork, so I try to encourage them just to sing their hymn and leave it there. Thanks for offering them the hors d’oeuvres by the way, they appreciated that.’

  E nodded. The football was flying over the little girl’s head. There was an element of backspin she had not noticed before. The taste of the wine was astonishing, it was like drinking a short piece of poetry.

  ‘You may be right about this one,’ he said. ‘It is quite peaceful, isn’t it?’

  ‘I said that before I knew each shot was different.’

  ‘That changes your opinion?’ Kidney was smoking. He turned temporarily aside so as not to exhale in E’s direction.

  ‘It makes it sadder,’ she said. ‘Less real.’

  The cigarette smoke caught the light from the video projector and vague curls of bouncy castle floated momentarily in the air.

  ‘All art is a form of mourning,’ Kidney said quite casually.

  ‘Even the penises?’

  ‘Especially the penises.’

  Nick Kidney sighed. From what E had read of him, a sigh was the last thing she expected.

  ‘Is that your little girl,’ he asked, ‘curled up by the bar?’

  ‘Yes. Is she causing problems?’

  ‘No, it’s just that several people have complimented me on how lifelike she is.’

  E spluttered out some wine. Kidney grinned.

  ‘My son Xavier lives with Gloria and Tony now,’ he said. ‘Did you know that?’

  ‘Actually yes, I did.’ E wasn’t sure whether she was supposed to know such things. It was semi-private and she was only an administrative assistant. Kidney seemed unconcerned.

  ‘That’s why I’m here. Coketown’s a hole, but it’s a chance to spend time with little X.’

  ‘A hole! I assume you’re unacquainted with the Museum of Artificial Fabrics.’

  ‘I’ve been given the official tour. Twice. Blood fortunately remains stronger than rayon.’

  ‘I wrote an essay about you in graduate school,’ E said.

  ‘God no. That’s awful.’ Kidney’s eyes widened with ghoulish interest. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t remember – scopophilia, abjection, something like that.’

  ‘Did you know there’s a book out now by someone from Aldershot College? And I believe there’s been a mini-conference. It’s horrible.’

  ‘You’re a cottage industry.’

  ‘It’s beyond me. If someone wanted to write a musical about my work, do a dance, sing a hymn even, that would make sense. But how could anyone come in here and feel the urge to organise a mini-conference?’

  ‘My partner’s an academic.’

  ‘So you tell me.’

  E paused. She felt a twitch of defensiveness.

  ‘Being an artist is a privilege,’ she said.

  ‘No it’s not. Making money from it is, I admit, a grotesque stroke of luck, like winning the pools, but being an artist is not a privilege.’

  ‘So what is it then, a burden?’

  ‘No. It’s just normal, it’s the way people are.’

  ‘Most people don’t pickle penises.’

  ‘I’m at one end of the artistic spectrum.’

  ‘Maybe mini-conferences are at the other end.’

  ‘No, no, no.’ Kidney was becoming quite vehement. Behind him the girl squealed, the man sipped his bottled beer. The triangle in the right-hand corner wobbled a little.

  ‘Mini-conferences are anti-art. It’s like matter and anti-matter: the two can’t co-exist.’

  ‘You’re exaggerating wildly.’

  ‘I’m an artist.’

  ‘Your reasoning is entirely circular.’

  ‘So what!’

  ‘Irrationalism is just another theory.’ E was digging deep; this was surprisingly exhilarating. ‘You can’t escape from signification.’

  Nick Kidney grabbed his crotch and threw one arm in the air like a rodeo rider.

  ‘Signify this baby!’ he yelled.

  Someone peered curiously into the room, then entered and watched a couple of loops. E looked at the floor so as not to laugh.

  When the person had gone, Nick Kidney grinned.

  The little girl held her ribs and waved. ‘Jennifer, Jennifer.’ E imagined being separated from Molly, having her live with someone else. It was like glancing casually through a window and seeing a fatal accident. She suddenly felt sick.

  ‘I can’t imagine that,’ she said. ‘Separation.’

  ‘No, to be honest, neither can I.’

  ‘Why don’t you come up and give a talk for us next week?’ she ventured. ‘Orpington Primary are coming in. Alison’s hopeless. You could see your son again.’

  Kidney stubbed out his cigarette and stuck his tongue in his cheek.

  ‘Isn’t that a ridiculous idea?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

  They both looked rather awkwardly ahead. The screen went black. And when the video clicked on again, Kidney was gone.

  Having applied Molly’s cold wraps and successfully negotiated bedtime with her imaginary henchman, Hector, E lay in her own bed and waited like a cracked dam for the long-delayed flood of sleep. Nearly ten; Morris’s plane was already in the air. It frightened her to think of him so far away, dangling above a dark, foreign land. Now he was on his way back, her solitude felt worse than it had before. As the distance between them closed, his absence felt bigger and more real. She craved the old weightiness, the gloom, which pegged out their lives like a tent. From the back garden there was the whirling creak of a cat in heat. Poor thing, E thought. She had heard once that you could use a pencil for relief, the kind with a rubber, but you’d have to catch it first. ‘Sex Toys for Animals’, (rubber, graphite, wood), she thought, Nick Kidney, 1998.

  Chapter 17

  The Crocodile lay flat out on his specially engineered orthopaedic lounger and talked. His lips were glossed with spittle. His eyes had the blank intensity of a mystic.

  ‘Look at it this way,’ he said, poking his finger upwards for emphasis as if his auditor, Zoe Cable, were suspended from the office ceiling rather than seated comfortably in a Mies Van der Rohe armchair in the corner. ‘If this faculty goes digital, all bets are off. Everything happens online – teaching, marking, graduation. We can sell the buildings and move production overseas; all we need here is a control centre, a minimal administrative core. The cost savings are tremendous, and that’s not even counting the kudos.’

  ‘What about the staff?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘That’s the kicker. As you know, due to backward-looking employment laws I can fire people only on the grounds of gross misconduct or departmental closure. Although,’ he added sotto voce, ‘as you also know, I have on occasion explored rather less orthodox individual disembarkation strategies. Now, if the Digital Faculty Proposal goes through, there will inevitably be an interim period, a pause, a lacuna (as I believe it is now fashionable to say) between the old and the new.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Zoe Cable.

  ‘Precisely,’ said the Crocodile. ‘This interim period may only be a matter of hours, but it will carry a certain legal weight. For that brief, sad period there will be no Faculty of Arts.’ The Crocodile paused and when he spoke again his voice had a higher, more visionary timbre. ‘The weed-infested structure which has afforded shade and protection for decades to the backward and unprofitable practices of my most long-term colleagues will be swept away at a single stroke. The clear, disinfecting light of reform will shine in. It may not be pleasant.’

  ‘Contracts will have to be renegotiated,’ proffered Zoe.

  ‘Contracts will be shredded. We will begin from scratch. Year Zero.’

  ‘Mordred?’

  ‘Mordred Evans,’ the Crocodile whispered, �
�will have to fend for himself.’

  Zoe whistled. If the Crocodile had been a younger, more mobile man, she would have found him deeply attractive. Manic boldness like his was in short supply. Nevertheless, she was aware of the need to pull back, to compute the implications of this latest development for her many incongruent and overlapping projects, most notably the Research Hub.

  ‘The Hub would remain aloof,’ she suggested.

  ‘The Hub would be officially semi-autonomous, but in reality more autonomous than semi-. I won’t touch it. Your contract of course is your own. All I ask is that you hold your nerve.’

  Zoe Cable nodded. She had witnessed closing time at the Coketown Vomitorium; she had known the ladies’ loos in the Kum Bar on nights when alcopops were four for a pound; she had seen slashings, glassings, bottlings. Holding her nerve would not be a problem.

  The Crocodile turned his head to look at her. His eyes were moist; his moustache was, as ever, perfectly trimmed. It fringed his upper lip like a high-class draft excluder.

  ‘Zoe,’ he said, ‘may I tell you something about power?’

  ‘Are you about to become avuncular, Donald?’

  ‘Humour me.’

  She waved him on like a motorist yielding the right of way.

  ‘Power,’ he said, returning his gaze to the ceiling, ‘is not proud. Power does not boast or hog the limelight, neither does it shout or cause a fuss. Power does not vary with the times – it is firm, it is constant and it lurks. You will find some men – Mordred Evans, for example, may be one – who think they have power. And indeed it may seem that they do. Such men certainly have the trappings of power; money, perhaps, or influence, or the ability to force their will upon others. They have the predicates of power so we assume they are powerful, and they assume they are powerful, but that, you see, is their mistake. True power is invisible. Powerful men walk among us everyday, but we do not see them at all. All we see are glasses, suits, male-pattern baldness – the true reality is hidden. Who runs this university?’