by Tot Taylor
Neither were the sparkling clusters that both John Jnr and John Snr were fixed on. The Nightly family was well aware that Life often necessitated a suspension of belief. As in Hitch’s fantasies, Endy’s flashback matinees. Events that special never do take place in real time. A movie being nothing more than time-compressed reality; as with John Nightly’s entire career, taking place on the other side of the lens.
Real life is the stuff behind the lens, the set-ups, the lighting, the pulling and focussing. What happens on the other side is that magic, the fantasy that in turn creates the person, or ‘personality’, as opposed to the already existing Self. The star and collapsed star, the Newton/Hawking genius – ‘other Self’ as opposed to ‘Self’. One generation or ‘clone’ along. The seventh seal having been broken, the seventh son born, and the seven… brides of seven brothers… ah… Endy’s all-time favourite film matinee. Was it on today? She asked Mawg.
As Jani would often teach, it’s what happens on the other side of music composition that matters. According to Ronnie: violence > experience > behaviour > phantasy / creation is what makes us. What we create, creates us. Gives us personality. Changing our names, our physical and psychological selves, the groups and worlds we choose to exist within. The unreal makes us real. The imagined makes us real. Makes us new.
Johanna Zorn was an expert on both sides of the line, as Laing had been. According to Johanna, John Nightly’s Self was so buried, so submerged, she wondered if it would ever re-surface; come back, come home. Bring him back.
Frieda suffered similar problems. John’s mother may have been a frustrated talent long before her son came along. Maybe Frieda, a charismatic ‘comet child’ herself, would have been a singer-songwriter, poet or novelist had she been given the chance. Never having had the opportunity to express herself or present her gifts; she may never have discovered where her abilities lay, may never have known what the hell her gift was. That made her frustrated, and that made her crazy.
Frieda sent her husband into hiding. John Snr’s escape, or retreat, was to remain at his place of work of a day or evening for as long as possible in order to escape the turmoil and abuse he suffered at home. John Nightly spent his childhood against such a background. What he regularly described as ‘idyllic’ or ‘quite perfect’ was quite the opposite. The young boy was smothered – violently so, to the extent that he was sometimes barely able to draw breath.
Music became John’s way out. He had only to pick up his guitar or sit down at the piano and he would immediately feel able to exist again. Music transported John Nightly to that other side – as Alice said. And in that place he found like-minds. There would never be any need to return home. When JPG & R visited the Maharishi’s retreat, they were literally in retreat. In 1696, aged 53, Isaac Newton published works about religion and philosophy rather than science. He became director of the Royal Mint, a job given as a sinecure, which Newton took seriously. In his sixth decade he needed to make money (literally) and enjoy life. It was Newton’s work in this capacity (rather than his contributions to science) that earned him a knighthood.
Irving Berlin, Frieda’s favourite, the greatest songwriter of the century, maybe of all time, gave it all up to become… a painter. Not because he was in a dry spot. Berlin’s recent musical-theatre works had been stellar successes. He was hardly coming to the end of his life either – he was only half way through. The songwriter would live for another 50 years, dying at the age of 101. But Berlin didn’t know that at the time.
There were other breakdowns and stoppages – and ‘comebacks’. Sinatra made a habit of it4. Horowitz came back in the same place he bowed out5. Most often a breakdown was not due to lack of success, but rather to too much of it. Laing re-termed the breakdown a ‘breakthrough’. When the author John Fowles decided to completely rewrite/revise and then republish The Magus in 1977 the book was already an international bestseller. The Magus was first published in 1965, but Fowles admitted he had been writing it ‘since the early 1950s’.
Jean Sibelius, continually industrious throughout the first 50 years of life, struggled for the next 30 to complete just one work – an eighth symphony. The score was eventually burned in the garden of his home, Ainola6. Richard Wagner spent twenty-five years off and on writing Parsifal, during which time he completed Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger and the Ring Cycle. Van Gogh first picked up a paintbrush aged 27. Ten years later he had killed himself.
John Constable passed through the glass. Though we may like to imagine otherwise, the Hay Wain, his and British paintings’ all-time Greatest Hit, was painted not in front of his father’s mill in Suffolk but at his Keppel Street painting-room in London, a short walk from Tottenham Court Road. Constable asked his friend John Dunthorpe, a local handyman, to make a sketch of the scene for him and the Hay Wain, a masterrendering of both imagination and technique, mixed fantasy with actuality. Re-ordered and refigured, the mill repositioned, the sky elongated, the vertical light drawn to fall at the very centre of the scene; the hay-wagon itself compressed. The result ‘perfectly artificial’ like a Photoshopped jpeg or 24 bit audio. The painting failed to sell, and it took the French to make the English aware of the genius they had borne7. Constable travelled to the other side to create his most commercial ‘six-footers’. He’d cut and edit, redraw, ‘improve’. His true self, the self of the oil sketches and drawings, lay in the chest of drawers beside his bed in Charlotte Street; out of sight, unexhibited, unseen, until after the artist’s death.
Or Daphne Mpanza – the abuse she suffered due to her colour, instead of being celebrated for her talent. Daphne became one of the African continent’s most significant educators, taking deprived but gifted children on scholarships to Britain and the US, just as she herself had lodged with Jani and Valerie. And Jana… Jana, the original facilitator of John’s spark. Jana’s mistake was to continue to expect life to be as simple and straightforward as she had experienced it to be so far. Jana believed in giving her all, and became disfigured by the person she had patronised; never able to hear one note of John Nightly’s music or to trespass upon one syllable of his name after he abandoned her. Jana became one of the world’s most innovative architects, a pioneer of eco-friendly and sustainable practices, perhaps able to build physically what she had been deprived of building emotionally. Or Iona. Iona had another face, a ‘second Self’, too. Though it took her twenty years to walk through the narrow gate that opened into the meadow leading down to the widening coastal path. And RCN himself, a presence never developed, never printed out. RCN had escaped once; but then returned, went backwards, flashed back, committing the sin of actually ‘coming back’.
Robert Kemp, repressed and frustrated, a more printed-out Englishman would be hard to find. Robert was certainly old before his time, and growing older – fifty last birthday. Likely he would remain unfulfilled, unless he behaved uncharacteristically bravely. And finally Endy, content with her lot, happy to serve others who were undoubtedly happy to be served. Maybe Endy did experience a kind of genuine satisfaction. As one who was never tempted to even gaze through any kind of glass except with the intention of cleaning it.
‘Do one thing for me,’ whispers the blind Fredo to his young companion in Cinema Paradiso as Toto prepares to leave for active service. ‘Never come back… never return.’ The most important line in the movie for Mawgan Hall, who watched an old VHS of the film one night from Trewin’s home-cinema selection. Fredo’s wisdom would have resonated with all the inhabitants of the house.
The grads and undergrads who sat for hours in the Dandelion, mixing small amounts of Mary Jane into their roll-ups. How many of them would make proper use of inherited gifts? Discover their true abilities? How many of those visionary tea-drinkers were to end up as college administrators or local councillors, all Terylene slacks and a comb-over? How many get the chance – have the guts – to travel… really travel?
‘I am a Traveller –,’ sang John Nightly; ‘I am a Traveller,’ sang the audien
ce. Get up out of your armchairs! Out of your beds! Out of your heads! Go somewhere. Do something. With your lives, your precious lives. For God’s sake don’t waste it. Don’t waste it! Renounce the television, the telephone, the radio, the computer. Renounce the councillors, the government and the state. Do not spend time with people you do not want to be with for any reason. Do not erase time, remain in places, situations and circumstances where you do not want to be. Move! Move! That’s what he meant. That’s what they meant.
* * *
1 Guru. Etymologically ‘darkness’ (gu) and ‘light’ (ru). Leading the follower from darkness into light.
2 Statistics, General Medical Report, ‘Cycles of Abuse in the System’, here, rep. ed. A Freely, September 1970.
3 d. Stacey Peralta (2004)
4 Following half a lifetime’s worth of farewell concerts and comebacks, Frank Sinatra sang in public for the very last time on the evening of 25 February 1995 for the guests of the Frank Sinatra Desert Classic Golf Tournament near the singer’s home in Palm Springs. His final song to the world being The Best is Yet to Come.
5 Vladimir Horowitz made his US debut as a pianist at Carnegie Hall, on 12 January 1928. He retired from performance on 25 February 1953, bidding farewell at the same venue before making his comeback on the same stage 12 years later: at 3.38pm on Sunday, 9 May 1965, welcomed by a standing, shouting ovation from the 2,760-capacity crowd. In 1982, Horowitz began using prescribed antidepressant medications. Amid reports that he was drinking, his performances suffered. He retired, ‘for good’, but in 1985 returned, again at Carnegie Hall, and was back on form. For the LP release of his 1965 comeback, CBS engineers edited out the momentary slips and ambiguity that marred the pianist’s first comeback. What they failed to remove were the whoops, gasps and tears, the audible weeping that greeted this transcendent performance, including Horowitz’s demonic reading of Scriabin’s Sonata No. 9, the notorious Black Mass Sonata.
6 Sibelius’ wife Aino recalled later, ‘After this, my husband appeared calmer and his attitude was more optimistic. It was a happy time.’
7 Exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1824, The Hay Wain was singled out for a gold medal awarded by Charles X of France, a cast of which is incorporated into the picture’s frame. The works by Constable in the exhibition inspired a new generation of French painters, including Delacroix.
Trewin Farm, Porthcreek, Carn Point, Cornwall. Monday, 1 September 2006.
‘There’s one for you. And one for you!’
Mawg laid an A4 sheet on Endy’s lap and handed the other one to John. The housekeeper got up to rinse her hands before putting on her glasses.
‘And what’s this when it’s at home?’ Endy squinted at the beautifully laid-out page.
‘Natal charts… he’s done your horoscope for you,’ mumbled the boss amid his peanut-butter and burned toast.
The glossy laser print didn’t resemble any zodiac Endy had ever come across in the Daily Mail – none of the usual crabs or scales – but her employer understood exactly what it was. Mawgan bent down to attend to Alexandre.
‘Just downloaded it. It’s your natal star chart Endy. Position of stars at birth and… loads of other stuff… tells you everything you’ll ever want to know about yourself.’
‘I don’t think I want to know too much about myself, Mawgan. Dangerous, that is.’
Endy was oblivious to the implications of her comment. The man sitting opposite her had spent the past thirty or so years trying to discover just one little snowflake of something about himself.
‘… seen a lot of these before, but I guess that was… well, thirty years ago now.’ The boss adjusted his specs. ‘They were a bit… fancier than this. Of the more “mystical”… variety.’ John held his chart upside down, fixing on a couple of familiar patterns.
‘You can see a lot more detail online, man. Remember we had a look when I first got the machine? They do a 100-page readout if you want it.’ Mawgan went to get Alexandre’s biscuits. He shouted from the larder: ‘I did Karen’s this morning… Amazingly accurate… weirdly “real”.’
While Endy, glasses lodged on the tip of her nose, turned her chart this way and that, trying to make sense of the hieroglyphics, the kid grabbed a packet of Cappu-grain.
‘Good subject for a bit of music, John…’
The boss poured himself a glass of Ribena, sat back in his chair and folded the chart in two perfect halves, tucking it safely inside the Cornishman. Having no interest whatsoever in his natal pattern or in anything to do with the future in general, he figured he had given the item the required amount of attention so as not to disappoint his much-treasured friend.
Things were a bit like that now. Everything John Nightly did had to be figured and regulated. Time-allocated. The last thing John wanted was to erase any more time than he had done already – whatever amount he calculated he had left, each day already feeling like it was being somehow erased. Then again, neither did he want to appear ungrateful or impolite. If someone was considering his welfare, displayed kindness or decided to give him something, he wanted to appear grateful. But it had to be limited to the group. No PR or ‘fan’ stuff anymore – just family.
This was a big change. The lost art of giving and receiving. John Nightly had always been a good ‘giver’, an excellent giver; no doubt about that. At times generous to the point of his own detriment. But he was a rubbish ‘taker’. Whatever else his faults, John was not naturally a selfish boy. He was lost, yes, a dreamer, certainly, needed attention and time to himself, time inside his own mind of course – had always demanded that – but always been willing to be jolted out of his dream if someone needed help. As had been the case so many times over the years. Particularly towards the end of the golden decade. The end of various people’s ‘situations’. So many friends had needed all sorts of assistance. And he had given it, or his manager had. Made the calls, spoken to whoever he’d been asked to speak to, signed the cheques. A place to crash, some kind of job or introduction. But mostly it was just pure cash money. Money did after all sort out most things for most people. And in rock’n’roll as in any creative endeavour, they – the artists – seemed in need of a pretty much constant supply.
Amazingly, John Nightly had never been in that situation himself. The cash rolled in more or less from day one – and when it rolled out again, some more rolled in. The reason being that the product on sale, whether it be exotic musical creations or exotic plants, was a great product.
Trewin Exotics, eighteen years in business, was now, as stated in the current edition of the Exotic Plant Grower’s Register for England and Ireland, the third-largest supplier of exotics in the United Kingdom. If the business had been run by a media-friendly power couple who could be photographed for the Sunday supplements with their water features and obelisks and too-cool kiddies instead of a couple of reclusive anoraks who resembled child molesters more than anything else, they’d have been Number 1. Top of the Pops – in the plant trade. So, taking into account the anonymity and the total TV-unfriendliness of its founders, Trewin Exotics was doing just fine. Established as a mark of quality in the industrial plant universe, it was also a properly fattened cash cow.
When wholesalers and exporters saw the tiny orange label Trewin – the lettering copied from the title page of Calve’s Survey of Cornwall – and the logo – a medieval woodcut of the haven-towne church – attached to the lip of each pot, they knew it meant quality of the highest order. The two Johns had even gone to the trouble, expensive though it had been, of having the tags sewn, like a designer label you might find inside a man’s bespoke suit. That was the idea anyway, rather than add another gummed label to the batch that would end up stuck to the pots once they had left the haven.
Plant stickers drove Endy crazy. Particularly those from the local garden centre. When she needed geraniums or chrysanths or anything that Trewin didn’t actually grow, Robert would bring back the healthiest specimens he could find. Endy would then spend a good half-h
our steaming the labels from their pots. Cursing and damning under her breath, using words few people outside the local area would recognise.
Under Robert Kemp’s direction no plant ever left Carn Point in anything other than tip-top condition. Each item going through a rigorous checking process before it was loaded up on overnight transport to foreign parts. Trewin lorries even boasted a primitive onboard irrigation system. Approximately twelve hundred stems could be watered at a time, a couple of hours before they were due to be unpacked and delivered to centrally located haulage warehouses before their final resting place in overlit supermarkets or handy Express stores.
It had been a hugely rewarding experience for all of them, building up such a highly regarded business. But hard work, too. With Trewin’s numbered canna strains being listed in the monthly gardening magazines and catalogues, the nursery was beginning to make a name for itself in history.
That was its real achievement. Difficult enough to reach the top in just one career during a single lifetime, but to achieve that in two entirely different fields? Hard to think of anyone who had managed it while having a proper day-to-day involvement in both businesses. Daly and Nightly had. The two Johns could be truly proud of themselves. They couldn’t be famous, or appear on Gardeners’ World or BBC Breakfast, like the wizards of Trelissick or St Michael’s Mount, but they could be proud.
The founders’ very anonymity was a triumph. It proved that it was still possible to create a successful business simply by delivering an honest product. Nor was Trewin dependent on a personality or celebrity-for-hire who promoted or endorsed the item while having no direct involvement in what was being offered. What the two Johns had managed to produce were simply just fabulous plants.
Success brought happiness. And in summer 2006 the inhabitants of Trewin were experiencing the happiest of times. A bunch of ill-matched misfits who had once found themselves in turmoil, more or less at the end of the road, had been somehow revived. Put back together again. Back on track. Trewin even had its own registered charity, donating half a million pounds per year to local causes. Playschools in Penzance, hospices in Helston, charities in cut-off communities along the coast… They would never know where the money came from. What they did know was that, for the past decade or so, regular funding kept coming through, unattached to the dread of community grants and government allocations. New roofs for schoolhouses, safer school buses and an increase in the amount of care workers were benefits felt in underprivileged areas of the county. The coastline from Zennor Head to Zawn Point was in so many ways a richer environment than it had been before the weirdos moved in.