by Michel Faber
However, one Wednesday evening, when the prospect of the coming two days without her seemed too grim to bear, I decided to give her phone manner another chance.
‘Hello, Karen?’
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s Mike.’
‘Who?’
‘Mike!’
‘Oh, right. Look, you’ll have to shout. Darren’s got his music on.’
‘Couldn’t he turn it down?’ (I felt queerly unreasonable saying this, because though I could hear some dance music in the background, it didn’t sound that loud to me.)
‘Never mind that. What do you want? Why did you ring?’
‘Well, I … uh … I wanted to tell you … I wanted to ask you … damn it, I want to have a relationship with you. I mean, be your lover. I mean—’
‘Look, there’s no point talking about it on the phone. Can’t it wait? I’m at home now, I’m off duty, I want to relax and not have to think about anything to do with the Tunnel of Love. Can you understand that? Good, I’ll see you tomorrow – no, Saturday. Bye.’
And she hung up. I went to bed three hours earlier than usual, and masturbated for the first time since starting my new job.
The next day, my spruiking went badly. I felt universally rejected, and passers-by avoided me for the lowlife I was. Fearing to venture out too far from the anonymity of the Tunnel of Love’s entrance, I was unable to look anyone in the eye. Darren was visited by a gay friend from interstate, so they went out to lunch together. I just stayed in the doorway, on duty but totally ineffective, avoiding George’s raised eyebrow.
At the end of the day, I went home exhausted and humiliated, and found a letter in my mailbox with a Philippines postmark and stamps. It was a job offer from an advertising agency in Manila, the biggest one there. Accommodation and car were thrown in.
I thought about it long and hard, then decided to leave the Tunnel of Love without notice. After all, I didn’t want a reference, and it wasn’t as if my unannounced departure would seriously inconvenience anybody. I wrote my letter of acceptance to the advertising agency, and immediately felt so godawful I didn’t know whether to weep, smash furniture or masturbate again. Finally I decided to phone Karen one last time.
As soon as she picked up the receiver and said, ‘Hello,’ I didn’t waste words: I told her about the job offer, and that I’d be mad not to take it, but that I was in love with her, and I didn’t want to go. She said she couldn’t see what it had to do with her, that she was on her day off, that if I had a problem I should just make a choice and see it through. With a pathetic show of bravado, I said I would have to go, then.
‘Fine, fine,’ she said. ‘You do that. See you around. Bye.’
The next day, I travelled into town to buy my ticket to Manila. The ad agency wanted me as soon as I was ready, and I was ready now.
I had no intention of setting foot in the Tunnel of Love again, but on the way back from the airline office I literally ran into Darren, who must have been on his way to work. Much as I would have liked to run away, we’d already established eye-contact, so it was too late. Besides, what eyes the guy had! I was so mesmerised by them that within fifty seconds, standing there in the street, I’d confessed everything to him.
‘I really don’t want to go,’ I said. ‘I was hoping there could be something between me and Karen, but it’s obvious she doesn’t want me in that way.’
‘Have you talked it over with her?’
‘I’ve tried to. She’s happy to talk to me as a workmate, and she wants to keep it that way.’
‘I’m surprised,’ said Darren, gesturing that we should sit down together. ‘I got the impression she was growing kind of fond of you.’
‘Yeah? Well, Karen gave me to understand that you and she were “kind of partners”,’ I retorted, giving in to masochism.
Darren smiled and stretched his thin legs out from the bench. ‘Karen and I take turns cleaning the shower recess and making toast in the mornings. I’m not sure if she understands that I’ve got slightly more romantic fantasies of partnerhood myself. Besides, she is the wrong sex for me.’
‘She kind of implied that didn’t matter.’
‘Yeah? Well, you know, the sign of a really intelligent person is that they can make you believe something that’s totally stupid.’
I checked his face to make sure he wasn’t making fun of me. He wasn’t, but I blushed anyway.
‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘Karen doesn’t seem very susceptible to any romantic ideals of love.’
‘Are you kidding? Everyone is susceptible to those. We just have different ways of expressing it, that’s all.’
‘You can’t know that for sure.’
He laughed and zipped open his attaché case, pulling out a magazine called Well Hung. ‘It’s the only thing I know for sure. Look – look,’ and he flipped through the pages cursorily until he found what he wanted to show me. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing out a man with biceps the size of motorcycle saddles, a prick like a crowbar and an expression that seemed to say, ‘Come here, boys, and I’ll tear you apart.’ Darren waited until I’d had a good look, and then put his face very close to mine and murmured, ‘I can promise you that even this guy, in his little heart of hearts, stored deep inside all that beef, is yearning for someone to love him truly, tenderly, exclusively, permanently. That’s what it’s all about, God help us.’
I chuckled nervously, and out of the corner of my eye noticed two pedestrians stopping near us and whispering to each other. I caught the word ‘disgusting’, but whether it referred to the copy of Well Hung fluttering on Darren’s lap or to the spectacle of two homosexuals almost kissing on a public bench, I couldn’t judge.
‘I got the impression Karen isn’t very interested in sexual love or affection,’ I went on.
‘I know what you mean,’ sighed Darren. ‘I think with all this fake passion all around her, she’s become very inhibited about showing any of her own. You know, we were in a bank together once and two other people in the queue were snogging really enthusiastically. Karen got this awful expression on her face and said to me, “Who do they think they’re fooling?” Maybe the couple heard her. Anyway they started giggling and smooching and squealing like a couple of happy dogs. Karen looked as if she might be sick, and left.’
‘That’s sad.’
‘Yes, well, her childhood can’t have helped: being sexually abused and watching her parents beating each other up. But really, I think a lot of it is probably caused by her deafness.’
‘Her what?’
‘Her deafness. You did know she’s almost completely deaf?’
‘What?! No!’
‘Sure. Her father beat her around the head with a ping pong bat when she was eight, and that was more or less the end of her hearing. Oh, she reads lips very well, but I think tone of voice is so important, and she misses out on all that. Sincere people and complete bastards can say exactly the same thing, after all, and if you can’t hear them speak I guess it’s tempting to just decide everyone’s insincere.’
‘Deaf …’ I echoed dazedly, leaning closer to Darren as if for support. Another couple of passers-by stared at us, assuming with disgust and pity that I had just learned I’d got aids.
‘She’s so proud, though,’ Darren went on. ‘She just carries on as if there’s nothing wrong. She even has a little routine worked out for taking telephone calls that’s basically one-size-fits-all, if you know what I mean.’
‘Oh Darren,’ I exclaimed as the full implications filtered through to me. ‘I’m so grateful you told me all this. This changes everything!’ And once again we were, in the eyes of yet more passers-by, two homosexual lovers on a bench, sharing a tender moment.
‘So, what are you going to do now?’ asked Darren.
‘You go to work now,’ I advised him. ‘I’m not sure how this will end. Maybe you’ll see me later, in the Tunnel of Love. Thanks for everything.’
Poised as ever, he embraced me and left.
> I went straight to a quaint old-fashioned bookstore and bought a pad of Wind in the Willows notepaper. In the inside breast pocket of my jacket I found the essential tool of my old career, a felt-tipped calligraphy pen. Establishing eye-contact with the lady behind the counter, I explained that I had an important letter to write, for which I needed just a little corner of her counter to rest this beautiful notepaper on, which I was so happy she had been able to sell me. I continued to look at her and smile, and as soon as it was all right to take my eyes off her I put pen to paper and began:
Dear Karen,
Sheep
IN ORDER TO get to the Alternative Centre of the World, the five chosen artists did not set off together; they set off individually, in their own peculiar ways.
Their plane tickets were pre-paid, courtesy of the curators of the Alternative Centre: all they had to do was get to JFK international airport on the day, which shouldn’t have been very difficult, given that all five of them lived in New York City.
Come the time, however, only Gerrit Plank did the conventional thing of packing his suitcase the night before and catching the bus into JFK the next evening. It would never have occurred to him to do anything else.
Morton Krauss, immediately upon receiving the tickets, sold them for half their value to a student at the university where he was artist-in-residence, and used the money to buy more drugs. Then, near the departure date, he telephoned an old lover in the north of England (reverse charges) pleading that he had an invitation to speak at a symposium in Scotland (what a chance to get his career back on course!) but couldn’t afford the air fare. The university had thrown him out on his ass, he said, after a controversial exhibition of homo-erotic photographs including, you know, that one of us.
June Laboyer-Suk incorporated the tickets into one of her shows, called ‘Trust’, whose centrepiece was a small windowless cubicle like a photo booth. Her airline tickets were pinned up inside, along with many other personal effects; also on offer were scissors, felt-tip markers, a cigarette lighter, glue, ketchup, and a sanitary towel disposal unit. After failing to tempt any of the audience to destroy, mutilate or steal the tickets (not to mention her birth certificate, passport, credit card, family photographs, keys, private letters and so on), June resolved to go to Scotland after all, but drove to JFK a day early, so she could get twenty-four hours’ worth of work done: in this case, close-up photographs of the expressions on people’s faces as they stood at the luggage carousel, waiting for theirs to appear. With an hour to spare before her own flight, she handed the camera and completed films over to her usual courier.
Nick Kline’s tickets had to pass through his agent first, a startlingly horrible woman called Gail Freleng. She faxed the Alternative Centre of the World for ‘clarification’ on a few points because ‘frankly, I’ve never heard of you’. Days later, she received a fat parcel of brochures and leaflets of the Centre’s previous exhibitions. Enquiries to the airline also proved that the tickets were fully paid for and legit. More faxes confirmed that Nick Kline would not have to share accommodation with any other artist or person and that at the symposium he would speak last. His name was spelled K-l-i-n-e and would appear on the promotional material first, or biggest or as part of a strictly alphabetical list. All this achieved, Ms Freleng tried to call Nick himself to tell him he was going to Scotland, but he was out at the scrapyard again, looking for Ford hubcaps.
Fay Barratt persuaded the airline to change her destination to Ottawa. She told the airline that her mother had come home from Scotland to Canada because she was dying of lymphatic cancer, and that the airline was surely not going to stand in the way of this last reunion. She wept uninhibitedly at the ticket counter, mentioned attorneys and Oprah Winfrey, and got her way, to Ottawa. She was sort of hoping that once she was reunited with her ex-boyfriend he would decide to come with her to the Alternative Centre of the World, and they could share the cost of the air fares. Instead, she ended up getting a lift back to New York with a woman she met in the YWCA hostel, and getting a loan for a new plane ticket from a gallery owner in exchange for her next three paintings.
At the airport on the day of departure, none of the artists met each other. They had no interest whatsoever in each other’s work and had never bothered to attend any of each other’s shows, preferring to read about them in reviews. They also had no hope of recognising each other because, having all been spiky-topped and gel-slicked during the ’80s, they had all grown their hair long and fluffy for the ’90s. (Long and greasy in the case of Morton Krauss.)
At Edinburgh airport, a special minibus was waiting to take them to the Alternative Centre of the World. The time was seven o’clock in the morning, a bad time of day for all the artists except Gerrit Plank, and they barely acknowledged each other as they stumbled into the vehicle. The driver was a uniformed employee of a chartered taxi company; he claimed to know nothing about the symposium except how to get there.
‘Everyone all right?’ he called over his shoulder as he revved the engine There was a murmur of grunts and mumbles, and a ‘Yes’ from Gerrit.
The minibus pulled out of the airport, made straight for the M9 motorway, and drove north for a very long time.
Morton Krauss, Fay Barratt and Nick Kline slept soundly through most of the journey, the darkly tinted windows shielding them from the spring sunrise; Gerrit Plank was awake but saw no point in asking questions; only June Laboyer-Suk spoke up.
‘I don’t think we’re in Edinburgh anymore,’ she said.
‘No, indeed,’ agreed the driver. Outside, beyond the highway boundaries, the countryside was getting short on buildings. In time, there were mountains.
‘I don’t believe this,’ said Fay Barratt, who had been woken by Morton Krauss’s head falling into her lap. ‘There’s snow on those mountains. Where am I gonna get warm clothes?’
‘It’s like a packet of Alpine cigarettes,’ blinked Morton. ‘It’s like the logo at the start of Paramount movies.’
After five hours, the minibus pulled in at a small village. The artists piled out of the vehicle, assuming that this was a fuel and toilet stop, but to their surprise the driver wound down his window, tossed out a large parcel, and, without warning, drove away.
‘Hey!’ yelled Morton, always first with paranoia. ‘Come back here! Come back here, you dumb fuck!’
It was the first time, without a doubt, that this particular form of address had been uttered in the little village of Inver, possibly even in the entire Scottish Highlands.
What the artists did not know, but would learn as soon as they read the typed letters inside the parcel, was that they were the victims of an elaborate hoax by a man who identified himself only as ‘An Art Lover’. This man had spared no expense to bring them here, though he had spared some expense in the opposite direction: their return plane tickets had been rendered null and void. However, to compensate them for this, he had bought each of the artists a copy of The Glory Of The Highlands, a book of high-quality reproductions of Scottish paintings, mostly from the nineteenth century and all vividly figurative. On the title page of each copy of the book was written in ink:
I am very phased to introduce you to the world of real Art, and the environment that inspires it.
Yours
An Art Lover.
The letters were personalised.
Gerritt Plank’s was a diatribe against abstract art in general and Plank’s large coloured slabs of concrete in particular.
June Laboyer-Suk’s was a diatribe against conceptual art and audience manipulation, in particular Laboyer-Suk’s shows which, in the opinion of ‘An Art Lover’, showed no skills of any kind except an infantile urge to pester and goad. He singled out her ‘People Factory’ exhibition, in which a succession of well-built young men in cubicles masturbated constantly, producing syringe after syringe full of semen, which were piled up on a table outside another cubicle, where female gallery visitors were invited to help themselves. This show, as far as ‘An Art Lov
er’ was concerned, represented some sort of low point in twentieth-century culture so far.
Nick Kline’s was a diatribe against installations. ‘An Art Lover’ was deeply disgusted that the gallery space which could have been used to display the work of talented and dedicated painters should be ‘cluttered with a literal obstacle course of junk’. He suggested that there was something fundamentally dishonest about giving a lofty, allusive title like Metamorphosis of Infinitesimals to a heap of sand. (Actually, the title of that work had been Gail Freleng’s.)
Fay Barratt’s was a diatribe against incompetence hiding behind sociopolitical flavours-of-the-month, which was all that ‘An Art Lover’ considered Barratt’s highly praised paintings of women in sexual crisis to be. He discussed in particular a picture called You may as well have this, too, recently purchased by the Guggenheim. He suggested that its idea, of a woman cutting her vulva out of her body with a penis-handled kitchen knife, was questionable enough to begin with, without adding the clogged mess of botched and murky impasto that arose out of basic ignorance about oil paint.
Morton Krauss’s was a diatribe against Morton Krauss, especially his notorious ‘Fistfucks with Extra Pepperoni’ exhibition of 1989. This show, Morton’s biggest brainwave, had offered people unframed original 8 × 10 pornographic photographs for $50 apiece. There were twenty copies of each photograph, all more or less identical (allowing for imperfections resulting from Morton’s famous ‘dishwash’ method of bulk developing). Anyone who bought one had to point at it, then a gallery assistant would tear it off its nail in the wall and hand it over to the purchaser inside a pizza box. Then another copy of the print would be nailed up, until they were all gone. They all went very quickly – Morton’s last major success. Since then, he’d had trouble thinking up something to top ‘Fistfucks’, especially since the ‘take-away’ angle had really been sort of someone else’s idea anyway, and she wasn’t talking to him anymore since he’d sold her camcorder for drugs. However, ‘Fistfucks’ had assumed almost legendary status, and had certainly made an impression on ‘An Art Lover’. In his opinion, no one had ever managed to squeeze so much nastiness, bad faith, poor workmanship and exploitative cynicism into one exhibition.