Ménage

by Ewan Morrison

  One incident on the footage that some have found contentious is as follows. When the first man wakes he tries to stop the filming, covering the lens with his hand. The sudden abrupt movement and violence of the action is in stark contrast to the preceding three hours and forty-one minutes of restful peace. This aggression seems to imply that a violation of consent has taken place. Other feminist readings of the work have found Shears’s blurring of boundaries around gender and interpersonal consent highly problematic – as ‘violation’, ‘an inverted rape fantasy’.fn3

  It has been noted that numbers of viewers watch the footage for in excess of fifteen minutes.fn4 As with other duration-based artworks there is considerable debate as to whether the piece must be viewed in its entirety for complete appreciation of the work to be possible.fn5

  A point of interest is that this footage was shot in 1993 but not exhibited till 1997. Over the issue of consent, this could only be addressed if the men in the footage had been identified. To date, the sleeping men have not come forward or raised objection to their portrayal.

  IT WAS THEIR first attempt at shopping together. Molly was sitting in the trolley baby chair, even though all had acknowledged that she was too ‘grown up’ for that now. Owen was pushing the trolley as Dot marched on ahead and Saul followed behind. Owen stared down at the almost empty trolley – so far, after many squabbles over brand names and whether they should be shopping organic or free range and exactly what it was they should be buying for dinner for four, all they had managed to buy was a bunch of bananas. The idea, which Owen was growing tired of, was that collectively they could decide on a meal together. Dot was fed up with the bickering and left them to it.

  ‘Something big, to feed us all,’ she said. ‘I’m off to find some nuts.’

  Owen pushed Molly to the poultry aisle with Saul in tow. An elderly woman with a basket of leeks had stared at them passing, perhaps, Owen thought, assuming they were a gay couple. Stupid bitch, he thought. Yes, he was a bit tetchy, since Saul was round every day now, and sleeping over twice a week.

  A large chicken was thrust in his face. ‘You think this’ll do?’ asked Saul.

  Molly giggled. ‘Tofu!’ she said.

  Owen turned to her. ‘Sorry, Mummy wants a big thing.’

  ‘Tofu.’

  ‘You know you need more meat, don’t you,’ Saul said, ‘if you’re going to grow up big and strong? Chicken tastes just like tofu anyway.’

  This week Saul had convinced Dot that her largely vegetarian diet was not suitable for a growing child. In subtle ways Saul, Owen thought, was starting to be his old controlling self.

  ‘Oops. This one’s not organic,’ said Saul. And rummaged around getting another. Owen saw the price.

  ‘No way, fourteen pounds for a bloody chicken.’

  ‘Bloody chicken. Bloody chicken,’ Molly repeated.

  ‘Shh,’ Owen hissed.

  ‘Don’t talk to her like that,’ Saul said.

  Enough, thought Owen as he grabbed another chicken. Already Saul was shaking his head.

  ‘Uh-uh, full of chemicals, hormones, all kinds of shit. Dot’ll never agree to it.’

  Really, how would you know what she’d agree to, you dole-scrounging scum? Owen thought.

  Owen put his chosen chicken in the trolley. Saul picked it back out again and got the first one back.

  ‘I’m not paying for that!’ Owen said. ‘You can buy it for yourself if you want.’ A low blow, he knew, since Saul was after all in the pay of Dot.

  ‘Tofu!’ shouted Molly.

  Saul walked off. ‘Where you going?’ Owen called after him.

  ‘To get some bloody tofu.’

  ‘Bloody tofu, bloody tofu,’ Molly sang.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, we can’t cook chicken and tofu.’

  ‘Why not, since we can’t agree? Molly can have tofu, you can have cheapo chicken and me and Dot’ll have the organic one.’

  That was it. That made him mad.

  ‘That would require three ovens!’

  Owen pushed Molly at speed towards Saul in the tofu aisle.

  ‘That’s just typical of you, why don’t we all eat in separate rooms too, for that matter, in different houses?!’

  Molly had reached into the trolley and yanked a banana off the bunch. She pointed it at Saul’s face, making peeooow peeooow gun noises, then at Owen’s. He grabbed it from her.

  ‘OK, OK,’ Saul said. ‘Tofurkey!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tofurkey, tofurkey.’ Molly repeated.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Saul held the package up to his face.

  Tofurkey. Turkey-flavoured tofu in breast-like strips.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Owen shouted. A teenager with her mother scuttled past, embarrassed.

  ‘Look, it’s my money, we’re eating in my house so I’m choosing, OK?!’

  ‘Tofurkey, tofurkey,’ yelled Molly.

  ‘Fine, abandon democracy then, it’s always easier to have a dictator.’

  ‘Tofurkey! Tofurkey!’

  ‘Are you attacking my fucking politics now?’

  ‘I’m going to hold my breath!’ Molly shouted.

  Oh, Jesus. She took a deep breath and held it. Saul stared at her, perplexed.

  ‘We have to get her to stop, she faints. Dot’ll kill us!’

  ‘Ridiculous,’ Saul said.

  The kid was turning bright red, eyes tight shut.

  ‘Fine,’ Saul declared. ‘I’m going to hold my breath too, till she starts behaving!’

  Saul took a very audible deep breath and crossed his arms. All around in the aisles, shoppers were staring. This was madness. Molly was turning purple and Saul competing in a bloated crimson.

  ‘Please, both of you, stop it. Everyone’s looking. Mummy will be here soon.’

  Just then he saw Molly open one eye and peer at Saul. Saul was turning light blue, his cheeks like balloons. Molly took a deep breath and reached to shake Saul.

  ‘MUMMA! MUMMA, HELP!’

  Owen turned and there was Dot standing before them with armfuls of food. ‘My God, what’s wrong?’

  Saul finally gasped for breath and started wheezing. Molly hugged him.

  Sheepishly, Owen tried to explain, but Molly interrupted.

  ‘He went all like a balloon and zombie, Mumma, scary.’ She promised she would never ever hold her breath again. ‘Ever ever ever.’

  ‘Good, well, I’m glad we’ve achieved something here,’ Dot said. ‘But I see you still haven’t decided what we’re eating tonight.’

  ‘Chicken,’ Owen said.

  ‘Turkey,’ Saul.

  ‘Tofurkey,’ Molly.

  That was it. Owen started laughing and Saul did the same. They had to hold each other to stop themselves from falling back into the substitute meats section as Dot pushed Molly away, shaking her head.

  ‘Boys.’

  Owen had to admit that there were basic material improvements, what with Saul taking Molly to nursery each morning, then picking her up at three and taking her to the park and then feeding her. Which all gave Dot an extra three hours in her studio each day to prepare for Zurich and extra time to resume her apartment search.

  And yes, Saul could cook. To Owen’s great surprise Mister Pot Noodle had become the new Jamie Oliver. In the last week they’d eaten ratatouille, fricasseed chicken with plum sauce, Thai green curry, and Moroccan bean stew with a ‘harissa sauce’ that Saul and Molly had ground from the unused spices in the rack that had for years been little more than decoration.

  And Saul had a way with the child. He talked to Molly in a quiet voice, slow and clear, sometimes so quiet that she had to come closer to hear. In only two weeks the holding of breath and the tantrums had vanished completely.

  It had been lunchtime and Owen could hear them next door in the kitchen.

  ‘If you have ice cream and want to bounce on your trampoline at the same time then what would happen if you bounce too high?’

&nb
sp; ‘I’ll drop my ice cream.’

  ‘And it would be all over the trampoline, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And would you want to bounce on a trampoline covered in ice cream?’

  ‘Yuck!’

  ‘So we do one thing at a time,’ Saul told her. ‘We sit down and eat the ice cream and it tastes so much better because we’re concentrating on every mouthful, and when we go on the trampoline it’s better, isn’t it, not with the ice cream?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Do we see a man riding a bike and eating pizza at the same time?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do we see an elephant making paintings and jumping at the same time?’

  ‘No, that’s silly.’

  ‘And why’s that?

  ‘Cos if you do two things at the same time it always gets into a mess.’

  ‘So clever, did you work that all out for yourself?’

  And the old man was quiet, non-intrusive. He had not drunk a drop of alcohol since he’d arrived. Owen had even started to feel guilty about checking the bottle every day after Saul had been there.

  And Saul’s gentleness was not that of a scheming interlocutor. He seemed to really be a man who walked about as if any passing accidental thing might shatter his whole self. He was gentle with Molly because he needed to be gentle with himself. Saul now found cars and music too loud, and light too bright and avoided the television and seemed almost threatened when Dot talked about the daily news. So strange, Dot had even started trying to make up questions for him just to get him to speak. And the man’s silent smile. How he seemed to listen, to take his time to process what had been said, then smile as if it would take longer still. They had almost joked about it – how they almost missed the old Saul.

  On the nights when the adults stayed up late talking, it was agreed that it would be easier if Saul just slept over. Owen did not object and so prepared the sofa bed in his study.

  Owen came in with the bedding. Saul stood there, looking sheepish, holding his child psychology book.

  ‘You sure this is OK? I could get a taxi back.’

  ‘No, it’s fine, really.’

  ‘Sorry to be any . . .’

  It was a thing that Owen did not want to admit, but since Saul’s arrival, the intimacy between him and Dot had grown. They made love now with a careful attention to nuance in mood and sense and touch. Dot said it was because she was getting another two hours of sleep each night, as Saul put Molly to bed, but he sensed it was also something to do with Saul’s proximity.

  In their bed, as she reached for his cock beneath the duvet and laughed and whispered, ‘Shh, we’ll be quiet,’ Owen found himself replying to a question she had not even asked.

  ‘It’s OK, he can stay as many nights as you like . . . well, I mean, till things are sorted out.’

  On the video he and Saul lay fast asleep. Saul wrapped his toes round Owen’s and Owen reached back and held him. Dawn light was seeping in. Dot’s breath could be heard from behind the camera.

  It was midday and Owen was sitting alone before the PC and the VCR. The entire tape lasted nearly four hours and he had watched nearly all of it, transfixed.

  The text he had written read: ‘the sleeping men have not come forward or raised objection to their portrayal.’ It was a lie and it had him stumped. How could he write the names ‘Saul’ and ‘myself’ in the essay? If he did then he’d have to rewrite the whole damn thing, reveal that the ‘faces’ had names from the very first artwork to the last. The whole thing would have to be a memoir and the tabloids would get it and it would damage Dot’s career irreparably. But how could he erase himself and Saul from Dot’s history?

  He had to get out and walk.

  The walk led him three times round the block, past a screaming car alarm and nowhere but round his mind in circles.

  He was guilty of a thing or two. He had been doing all he could to postpone Dot’s finding of a new apartment, and he’d been postponing the end of the essay. So what was it that he feared in reaching conclusions? Maybe this weird life with Saul and her and her child could not face itself, could not face a conclusion; maybe this happiness was just a postponement of reality.

  ‘The sleeping men have not come forward.’

  Maybe an awakening was coming as violent as the one on the video.

  He walked for hours, postponing home.

  On opening the door there was laughter. And a chain of paper people that hung from the ceiling, festooned all the way to the kitchen. Saul, Dot and Molly were at the table all with scissors, absorbed in their work. It took a second then more for them to register his presence at all.

  ‘Hiya, we’re making people,’ Dot called out.

  ‘A community,’ Saul added, face not turning from the cutting of paper.

  ‘It’s so great. Saul and Molly found a whole bunch of posters at the Sainsbury’s paper-recycling thingie and we’re making people.’

  He pulled off his jacket.

  ‘We’re going to cover the world!’ Molly said earnestly, folding paper and aiming her scissors with the precision of a scientist. Saul, interrupting, telling her not that way, not too far or they’d all come out separate, just up a bit.

  Dot passed him the scissors. ‘My hands are tired, must be RSI from typing – you take over.’

  So then Molly was in charge. She traced the human outline on the folded pages and was so bossy when she taught him how to fold the paper and cut the outlines, don’t cut there cos that’s the hands. He did as she said. And when done, opened it, to screams of laughter from all. Chains of paper people holding hands.

  ‘All the faces are different!’ Molly protested.

  ‘So they should be,’ Saul said. ‘It’d be boring if they were all the same.’

  Molly had for some reason reached to hug Owen then, and her sudden movement had made him cut through the hands. He knew it had gone wrong but she asked to see.

  He held up the paper chain and it hung together, as long as an arm’s breadth, but then fell apart, all the paper people falling into twos.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Molly announced. ‘We have Sellotape.’

  As she went off to find it and Saul went to help her, Dot’s hand was on his.

  ‘You OK? How was your day?’

  He wanted to tell her that today he’d almost been afraid to come home again, but the failure of the paper chain made him reach for her open hands. Molly came back though with the Sellotape, and it was an unwritten rule not to let Molly see too much adult emotion so Dot’s arms peeled back from his neck, as Molly, enthusiastically, held up the tape, but then couldn’t find the end, and was so quickly screaming in frustration. Saul quietly took it from her and said that many things in life were like that, all it took was patience. Saul found the end and pulled out a length.

  ‘LET ME, LET ME!’ screeched Molly and Saul was laughing. Saul let Molly bite the Sellotape all by herself to make the tear. Beaming with pride, she passed it to Owen. Slowly he applied it to the broken hands and then the two were four. He held up the four, Dot squeezed his hand, but Molly was pointing at the pile of paper people on the table.

  ‘MORE SELLOTAPE!’

  He wanted to tell Dot then of how unbearable such happy moments were for him. She smiled as if to say ‘I know’ and squeezed his hand. Molly offered him the Sellotape, face beaming.

  ‘Why you sad?’ Molly asked. Her face so close to his.

  ‘Am I? I’m not really – see, I’m smiling.’

  Saul’s hand was on his shoulder as if he knew too. Squeezing hard.

  ‘Owen’s had a hard day at work,’ Saul said.

  Molly, content with the simple answer, fastened the last hands together and ran with her garland of paper people to the corridor to fasten it to the end of the last. Dot followed her. Saul ruffled up Owen’s hair and sat facing him.

  ‘Old man,’ he said, ‘you’re such a sentimental old fuck.’

  Owen stared at the floor.

&nbs
p; ‘I . . . just don’t know why . . . She is so . . .’

  ‘Isn’t she?’ Saul said, rubbing his shoulders.

  ‘I just don’t know how . . .’

  ‘I know, no one ever taught us how to be happy.’

  Owen put his hand back then and held Saul’s at they both stared out at the festooned hallway and the mother and child.

  There were poles in the middle of the playground where there once must have been swings. Molly was running round and round chasing a little black kid in fluorescent bodysuit.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t make it yesterday,’ Saul said, ‘I had something I had to do. I’ve been meaning to tell you. I mean, I’ve noticed, well, I thought it would be good for us to talk about what happened.’

  Owen sat on the roundabout next to Dot as Saul stood. They were still turning slightly, from when Molly had been on the roundabout minutes before. Owen was a little concerned by Saul’s tone of voice, almost confessional.

  ‘The desert,’ Saul said. ‘You have to see it. I mean breathe it,’ Saul started, then stopped. Then smiled. ‘Maybe it’s not the right time . . .’

  ‘Tell us,’ Dot said. ‘The desert? You were . . .’

  Owen stopped the roundabout from turning so they could face him.

  ‘Messiah syndrome,’ Saul said. ‘You ever hear of that?’

  Owen hadn’t, neither had Dot.

  ‘The security forces stop them at Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv. A thousand of them a year, still to this day, all these poor bastards from all over the world thinking they’re the next messiah, turning up in loincloths and all that. It’s like Monty Python or something.’

  Dot laughed. Owen was curious as to where this was heading.

  ‘I was there, seven years ago, my mum had just died. You sure you want to hear this?’

  Owen did not, as if if they all went into confession then it would be trauma and tears and blame. He stared up and located Molly. She was being chased by the little black girl; they were both hiccuping with laughter as the kid’s mother watched over them.