by Edward Docx
A third, middle-ranking, mop-haired flunkey tested the microphone. Then a woman, one of the gallery staff, stepped up from a group of people close by and stood behind the lectern. She tapped the microphone a second time. The room stilled.
Wesley left his arrangements man whispering into a mobile phone by the fire exit behind us and took a moment to summon his public persona.
The buzz turned itself down to a hum and the woman spoke. ‘Ladies and gentlemen – I guess we’re all just about in here now – I can see a few people still drifting in on the balcony up there’ – she raised her arm – ‘so come on in, come on in folks … OK. So, I’ll get right to it. He doesn’t really need any introduction from me, but anyway, it’s my job to introduce to you all our favourite benefactor … and tonight’s host – Gus Wesley.’
There was a robust and professional round of applause. Wesley gave one last grin in our direction on his way past. Then he crossed to the lectern and began:
‘Ladies and gentlemen, first off, thanks to you all for coming in here tonight. Right now, I see a lot of familiar faces and it’s good to see ‘em. Most of you I know and love as friends … and the rest of you I recognize and accept as colleagues!’
Laughter – mostly, I suspected, from the colleague contingent.
‘I wanna keep tonight relaxed and let people enjoy … This is a party after all. But first I do wanna talk just a little about art, since that’s one of the reasons we’re all here.’ He paused, assuredly, and adjusted his stance to convey just a little more gravitas and aggression.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I feel that the time has come for us to reclaim serious art work – serious works of art – reclaim them for mainstream culture.’
There was some clapping – less professional but more spontaneous. Wesley continued with even more confidence: ‘I, for one, am through with the concept. I’m through with gesture. It’s no longer thought-provoking and thought-provoking is no longer good enough. Provocation is a poor second to engagement.’ He paused again. ‘You know … in my humble opinion, the twentieth century was fatally attracted to horseshit. But that fatal attraction is now over.’
The crowd put down their drinks and began to clap whole-heartedly, partly because we were (in the main) gathered-together my-fellow-Americans, partly because Wesley paid our bills, but also partly because people felt the guy had a point.
Wesley, however, was just warming up. He nodded. ‘I say again: we have for too long been fatally attracted to horseshit … in our politics, in our social programmes and – yeah – most of all in our art. But I also say the twenty-first century is gonna be different. From now on we’re going to pay attention to people who can actually do a thing like it’s supposed to be done.’
Now there were whoops and cheers, especially from the journalists at the front, most of whom worked on his newspapers or thought or hoped or certainly didn’t discount the idea that one day they might. Even the people on the balcony at the back joined in. I caught William’s eye. He was leaning casually over the rails beside Nathalie. He gave me a royal wave.
Gus Wesley allowed himself a smile. ‘So that is why I wanted to bring together four artists, all of whom, in different ways, represent what I like to call New Contemporary Art. Four artists whose work you have all seen tonight. And each of whom, in my humble opinion, is gifted and talented in real and measurable and endurable ways. Let me introduce them. First of all,’ – he extended an arm in our direction – ‘Candy Bukowski, whose portraits, I know, have already all sold tonight. There’s not a single one left. You couldn’t buy a Bukowski now, even if you had all the money in the world!’
There was more applause, some hooting and a few cries of ‘Yeah – go Candy!’
Candy, who was standing next to me, blushed deeply – or rather, her freckles joined up.
Gus Wesley looked over again – a chat-show host with his special (but sensitive) guests: ‘Candy, as you know, I love your work – we all do – but I just had to ask – why babies and old men side by side for this collection?’
Candy started to speak. But without the microphone, her voice sounded quiet and insignificant.
Wesley invited her up to the lectern. Bashfully, she went over.
I let my eyes drift again. Saul and his wife were right up at the front and they nodded and raised their glasses a fraction. I also recognized some of the journalists from lunch. Nathalie had her arm around William and I saw that Don had arrived with Cal.
My jet-lag came in waves. It occurred to me that there was no natural light or fresh air in the gallery, except for the unexpected and freezing draught that blew in from behind me whenever the fire exit door was momentarily opened by Wesley’s assistant.
It was Ezra’s turn to speak. He was from Belgrade. Nothing scared him. My mind drifted out of the gallery surrounds altogether and fell to fighting with itself somewhere far away.
Gus Wesley was speaking to me, or about me, or at me, or with me, or towards me, or maybe even through me …
‘… And last of all, but by no means least – a personal indulgence which I wanted to include on the bill tonight. The man responsible for the beautiful manuscript copies of the work of John Donne, the great Renna-sonts poet, you have all seen and admired on these walls around you. Ladies and gentlemen, all the way from London, England – Jasper Jackson!’
Like the jet-lag, the applause also came in waves and I now found myself standing alone on a narrow isthmus out where the two tides met.
Wesley grinned. ‘Jasper, there are so many questions that we all want to ask you, but right off I gotta say: where did you learn so beautiful a hand? I think that’s the right word – “hand” – yeah?’
Fred Donohue backed out of the way and I took my cue, standing next to Wesley himself at the, lectern. Unlike a lot of people you see in the papers or on television, he was still good-looking close up. Clean cut, fair-haired, he had the bearing of a famous actor cast as a charismatic politician. And there was no doubt from his manner that even at forty-two, he continued to consider himself an enfant terrible. But now I could also see where the perspiration was softening his collar, I could smell his aftershave turning thin and threadbare in the over-used air, and I felt somehow immune to his spell.
The mop-headed flunkey popped up before us and swivelled the microphone towards me. I spoke automatically at first. ‘Yes, that’s the right word.’ I looked out over the gathered heads. ‘To be honest, I am just very lucky – I was taught by my grandmother … she’s a keeper of medieval manuscripts in Rome now. And she has always worked in the field. She tutored me. Right from when I was very young.’ Slowly, I was waking up. ‘But mostly it’s about copying the masters over and over until you can do it on your own. Most of calligraphy is copying.’
The microphone was swivelled. Wesley addressed the room again: ‘Well, I think they are truly beautiful works of art. And, you know, it’s so rare for people whose day-to-day life is words – like so many of us here – to actually get the time or the opportunity to read and consider poetry – and you have really brought these Songs and Sonnets to life for all of us. I can only imagine how many hours you must have lived them. And my second question is really to do with that.’ He looked over. ‘What – with the benefit of the time you have spent working on John Donne – what, in your opinion, do you think the poems are about? What’s the one thing you learned?’
I thought for a moment. ‘Well … I have to say that one of the things that I have learnt is that Donne’s work resolutely resists simplistic –’
Wesley interrupted, catching the mop-head off-guard. ‘Hey, come on – you gotta have a view. You English guys you’re always’ – now the microphone was turned his way and his voice was suddenly amplified again – ‘hiding behind ambiguity. Come on. Level with us.’ Wesley grinned. ‘Right now – just today – what do you think – what do you feel these poems are all about? We won’t hold you to it.’
Laughter in the crowd. There was something combative i
n Wesley’s tone that pulled me up, out of the last of my jet-lag. Loitering behind all the money and generosity was a neighbourhood bully. At my back, the freezing air was blowing again. I wished that Wesley’s assistant would just keep the bloody door shut instead of going in and out all the time. I leant forward and fixed my eyes on the middle distance. So let him have his answer, I thought.
‘Well, Gus,’ – using his first name somehow reduced him – ‘like everybody, I suppose, I came to the poems in ignorance. And I definitely believed they were love poems at first.’ I paused. ‘But then … then I thought they were all about the disappearance of God from human affairs; then I thought they were about the collision of the mind and body; then I thought they were all about the male psyche; then I thought they were about the hopeless divide of sex – both in the gender sense and in the sense of intercourse.’ There was a low hum of amusement. ‘And then I thought they were about all of those things at the same time – which they are.’ I took a quiet breath. ‘However – just a few weeks ago – when I was completing the work I had the opportunity to go through all the poems again for a final time. And I made an interesting discovery.’
Now I had the attention of the room. After Wesley’s brash Chicago drawl, my voice sounded somehow soothing: ‘When I re-read one of the early poems that I had begun with – a poem called “Confined Love” – it’s over there’ – I pointed – ‘I came across a word that I did not understand. That word was “jointures”.’
I quoted the lines from memory:
Beasts do no jointures lose
Though they new lovers choose …
I glanced up towards the balcony. ‘On the face of it, Gus, “Confined Love” appears to be about a man complaining about not being allowed to be unfaithful. A man feeling trapped – confined – by the woman in his life – or by women more generally.’ There were more murmurs of amusement, and a few counter-murmurs of light-hearted opposition. ‘In any case, that’s definitely what I took it to mean when I worked on the poem the first time. But I wasn’t reading hard enough and I didn’t know what “jointures” meant. So I looked it up in an old dictionary and discovered that it referred to’ – I did a dictionary definitions voice – ‘the estate settled to the wife for the period she survives her husband.’
I paused. ‘This was quite a breakthrough for me. Because understanding what “jointures” meant reversed the polarity of the whole poem. Instead of it being a poem about a man complaining about not being allowed to be unfaithful, it meant that the poem had to be delivered – narrated – by a woman. It meant that what the poem was really about was a woman complaining about not being able to be unfaithful. Because, in Elizabethan England, as part of an argument for greater – shall we say sexual flexibility?– only a woman would, or could, make the point that beasts do not lose their “jointures” if they choose new lovers. It would make no sense for a man to say that – to use that particular word.’
Some people at the front laughed. Saul was wide-eyed. I continued: ‘Though written by Donne, the speaker of the poem, I realized, had to be a woman.’ My hands felt hot but I was totally relaxed. ‘So, anyway, once I realized that Donne’s last trick – and, Gus, there are so many tricks in Donne – once I realized that Donne’s. final trick was that some of his poems were actually written as if spoken by a woman, I went through the whole lot again with an eagle eye … which brought me to the last poem of the sequence that I completed for you. The poem over there at the back.’
I pointed. Heads turned. ‘It’s a poem called “Woman’s Constancy”. It’s often thought of as something of a signature poem for Donne. And I do think that it gives us one of the best clues as to what his work is about.
‘Again, on the first reading, “Woman’s Constancy” looks like a piece of pure misogyny – a sarcastic title followed by seventeen lines of caustic grievance, delivered by a man with a cynical heart.’
I recited the first few lines:
Now that thou hast loved me one whole day,
Tomorrow when thou leav’st, what will thou say?
Wilt thou, then antedate some new made vow?
Or say that now
We are not just those persons, which we were?
I waited a moment. ‘But hear what happens when you assume the narrator’s voice to be a woman’s.’
I spoke the lines again.
Now that thou hast loved me one whole day,
Tomorrow when thou leav’st, what will thou say?
Wilt thou then antedate some new made vow?
Or say that now
We are not just those persons, which we were?
I was enjoying myself. ‘“Woman’s Constancy” still makes perfect sense, of course. But now, delivered by a woman, the meaning is reversed entirely. Much in the same way as I discovered in “Confined Love”. Now, instead of being a derisive poem about the transience of female fidelity, the work actually turns out to be an assertion of female constancy – and, in fact, the true target of the attack becomes men. In other words, the poem turns out to be precisely the opposite of what it first appears.’
I smiled. ‘Amazingly, the poem works perfectly well in either voice – male or female – as I am sure Donne intended. But it is only with the lines newly illuminated by our female narrator that we can see into the very heart of The Songs and Sonnets. Yes indeed, “Woman’s Constancy” is a signature poem, because here – more than anywhere else – constancy and inconstancy directly dispute. Not only that but they also depart, change sex and dispute again the other way round. And I really think that no subject is more vitalizing to Donne. You can feel it: it is inconstancy that animates his soul.’ I drew breath. ‘And so, to answer your question, Gus, right now the subject that I think is at the heart of Donne’s Songs and Sonnets is inconstancy. Inconstancy as animus. The inconstancy of women yes, but also, and at a deeper level, the inconstancy of men.’ I stood back.
The applause was loud and rang hotly in my ears. I’m sure that they clapped because there was nothing else to do. But I felt applauded all the same.
Half a minute passed before Wesley could cut it short: ‘Well … now … well now: there’s my answer.’ He held up his hand, palms out to the audience. ‘Well now. Thank you so much for that. The inconstancy of men. Well, there’s a thing.’ He glanced over my shoulder towards his principal assistant and smiled. ‘Thank you for that, Jasper.’
I stood away to let him have the lectern.
‘Well folks, we learn something every day. But right now, there is just one more thing. I said earlier that Jasper’s work has been a little indulgence of mine. And that’s certainly true. I love John Donne and I have always wanted a collection. But there is another sense in which the poems are an indulgence. One of the reasons – and some of you know this – one of the reasons that I first commissioned these thirty beautiful works of art was because I kinda wanted to make a special gift of them to someone who is, in turn, very special to me. Someone who has – in the last few years – totally changed my life.
‘I gotta confess. I got you here on a false pretence. Because, in fact, tonight is not just an art thing. Tonight is not just about hanging out. Tonight is also a surprise birthday party for the best and most beautiful woman in the world. All right! And we got champagne. And we got music. And we got more champagne!’ Again, he glanced around past me; and this time he grinned.
‘She came in a few moments ago, but ladies and gentlemen she didn’t realize these were for her’ – he indicated the poems – ‘and I know’ – now he had to raise his voice over the cheering and the applause – ‘I know that you will all join me in wishing my future wife a very happy birthday.’
I turned.
Madeleine was looking right at me. Her eyes were wide with shock and something else I had not seen before. She bit her lip. The green sign above her head said ‘Emergency Exit’.
Acknowledgements
My thanks go to Professor John Carey for a couple of richly informative Oxford afternoo
ns. All the John Donne quotations I have used are taken from his excellent edition. Interested readers may like to know of his biography: John Donne: Life, Mind and Art – still, to my mind, the last word.
A cordial thanks also to Tony Curtis, Fellow of the Society of Scribes & Illuminators, for his kindness and assiduousness in helping me ensure that, for once, I knew what I was talking about.
I owe a tremendous debt to Bill Hamilton, my agent, for his belief and for his wise counsel over these past few years. And likewise to my editors: Christopher Potter for his acuity and well-judged suggestions with the early drafts; Catherine Blyth for her unbelievable concentration and formidable acumen when it came to the manuscript crunch.
I must also acknowledge the assistance and support of my sisters, Charlotte, Claudia and Adelaide, each of whom helped me in different ways at different stages in the writing.
I am grateful to Sophie for taking the trouble (all that time ago) and to Lucy for her candour. And here a deep and heartfelt thanks to Sue Ellis – surely the most intelligent and perceptive reader any writer could ever wish for.
A mention too for the unaccountably galvanizing spirit of the glorious M’s: Antipodes, Wellington, Mr Pitt, Louis and even Lestopher – in such eloquent antipathy lies an important truth. Thanks as well to my friends in Rome: Daniel (the partisanship), Anthony (the knowledge), Gareth (the comedy) and Elizabeth (the insight). I am indebted to Lara for the fashion. Richard for his faith (and because there is always a way). Perry for the pies and sanctuary. And finally, to J.S. and B.D.– without whom nothing.