Spirit of Progress

by Steven Carroll

  So instead of saying the words she wants to say, she says words that anybody could say, nods in greeting, noting that there is distance in his manner, not regret, when he nods back. You were never my eyes, his manner says. My eyes are mine, always were. Here, this is what they see. I don’t need anybody. At least, this is the way she reads it. A painting was promised, a painting has been delivered. This is, his manner says, a transaction. Nothing more. What was, was. And the future, to which I will soon go without you, is just outside that door. But their talk doesn’t say any of this. It is detached, even light. In fact, for some time she simply stands and stares at the painting, noting that her first impressions were right, that the paint has not yet dried and that the brush has only just left the board. It sparkles. It is an event. But, so as not to show any favouritism (for the other three have gathered round), she is reserved in her comments.

  ‘Good. Now everybody’s here. We can get on with things. Shall we?’

  Nothing about the painting itself. And her brief comments he takes as resentment, not reserve, resentment that her eyes were not consulted and that the painting, quite possibly, is a lesser painting because of that. Inwardly, however, she sees immediately that the painting is worthy of the place reserved for it. And the other two painters, on closer inspection, nod in approval. They are, she recognises, like the whole assembly, a mixed lot. The painter beside her calls himself a Marxist and wears a suit (even when he paints, a smock over it), a painter and a party member, no decadent bohemianism for him. The other has a goatee, a glint in his eyes like Toulouse-Lautrec, goes his own way, always has, and won’t be told what to do or say by anybody or anything. And, she knows full well from years of working with him, has (like so many of the others) the capacity to ‘turn’. Without warning. Like so many unexploded bombs, just waiting to go off.

  Together, they all carry the painting across the floor and lean it against the wall where it will hang when there is time to hang it. And it is then, as they stand back observing the work, that the door of the gallery opens and a stranger enters.

  They stare. As well as carrying a Gladstone bag, he carries an air of unease, uncertainty, of never having been in such a place before, which, in the minds of the others, immediately raises the question of why he is there. He has, they all conclude without as much saying, the look of ‘the people’ about him. And, as much as they might paint ‘the people’, they are ill at ease with them. Don’t even like them much, and are quite sure that, in turn, ‘the people’ don’t like these arty types too much either. And so there is a feeling among Sam and his kind that there is an ‘us’ and a ‘them’. And that it is one of ‘them’ who has just entered the gallery.

  It is then that Tess steps forward. It is her gallery, after all. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m looking for somebody called Sam.’

  There is no threat in the stranger’s voice and Sam turns from his painting and looks at him, noting as he does that although he is one of ‘them’, there is a certain tribal resemblance. A familiarity that Sam detects immediately, which is why he felt no threat in his voice or manner. In fact, although they don’t know it, Vic and Sam were born in the same year, a month apart, and grew up in the same suburb. It is, in this way, a small city. But it is not just the familiarity, for this stranger gives no hint of hostility or dismissiveness like most people in this city do upon discovering that you’re a painter, looking you up and down as if they are dealing with a petty criminal or a spiv on the street selling dodgy goods at high prices.

  ‘I’m Sam.’

  Vic, awkwardly, produces the card Sam left with Katherine that afternoon and explains that he is there on Miss Carroll’s behalf, that she is his aunt, and that she has asked him to come. He is vaguely apologetic, but not too much. There is a silence and Vic continues, explaining that his aunt has considered Sam’s offer, and, after thinking things over, has changed her mind. That she will sit. For … and here Vic is distinctly awkward (as much to let them know that it’s not his idea as anything else), for a fee. But it is at this point that the small group parts and Vic sees, directly in front of him, the unmistakable figure of Aunt Katherine, striding across the sodden ground of her block of land towards him. And clearly in no mood to be disturbed. And, with this, Vic allows himself a trace of a smile, concluding that this young painter will have realised what he was up against from the moment he met Aunt Katherine, but also conceding that he has caught Katherine, and all her ways, in one go. But as soon as he has formed this thought, he suddenly remembers that he has seen this image before and remembers that it is the newspaper photograph. That this painter has copied it, and not copied it. That it is the same as the photograph but different. And, in the same instant, he comes to the conclusion that he prefers the painting. He also realises that his visit is a waste of time. The painting is done.

  Sam smiles, a smile that says it’s too late for all that, and adds in an accent not unlike Vic’s that nobody has any money for fees. That he’s come to the wrong place. But Vic is distracted. He has taken his eyes off the painting of Aunt Katherine and is now looking about at the strange images all around him: back lanes, pick-ups, GIs, marines, Diggers, uniforms and more uniforms, lipstick smiles, trams like roller-coasters about to leave the rails, children in grimy streets, mothers stooped over coppers, brawlers in alleys, grins halfway to becoming sneers, jokes halfway to becoming jests, a hand waving in greeting not far from being a fist. And, immediately, he knows it all, the place, the people and the sad and violent years they have all just lived through. He knows it all, and yet doesn’t. It is the same place but not the same place. For he feels as if he is standing in the middle of a freak-show. And, what’s more, as though the likes of Vic and Paddy Ryan and all the others who gather at the public bar of The Railway and have no idea of the Concept of Too Much could easily be freaks in this show. And he’s not sure if he likes that.

  Tess and the others follow his eyes as he glances from wall to wall, trying to gauge what he is thinking, for he is not what they have come to expect in the gallery. He is, yes, one of the people. And although they (including the man in the suit who calls himself a Marxist and paints scenes of everyday working-class struggle) rub shoulders with the people, it is more than likely as subjects, not as viewers in the gallery, for the subjects rarely come to galleries. Along with Sam, George, whose work brings him into contact with all sorts, feels a sense of familiarity with the stranger. May even sense a story. If it wasn’t for the note in his pocket that was passed on to him just a little while ago, a brief one, from the editor of the newspaper, telling him to be in his office at one-thirty the next day. There is, for George, something ominous about the note. It has that look. Short, no nonsense. A sort of summons, really. And it is this, more than the stranger, that is preoccupying him.

  Vic looks back at the group, some of those who have created this freak-show, he assumes, and nods. ‘I guessed there’d be no money. Who’s got money?’

  ‘Money? What’s that?’ the man with the goatee grins, but like the paintings around the hall, it is one of those grins that comes with the hint of a sneer and shows every sign of turning nasty in an instant.

  ‘What do you do?’ Sam asks, curious, because as well as possessing a tribal resemblance, the stranger also possesses something of what he can only call the unconventional, someone not born for either factory or office.

  ‘I drive engines. I’m an engine driver.’

  And Sam nods, for it is almost rhythmic in its delivery, a touch of poetry in the way he says it, the statement of a free spirit. And a proud one. And as Vic speaks, as Sam informs him that his father was a tram driver, as they all ease into conversation, Vic begins to realise that there is something familiar in the nature of this company. For soon they stop talking to him and are asking this Sam, who has caught Aunt Katherine in one go, what paint he used. What brushes. What preparation. And soon they are all lost in talk of paint, canvas, board, brushes and oil. And more that Vic doesn’t take in because h
e is asking himself why this is all so familiar. Why he feels as though he’s heard conversations such as this before. Participated, even, in such conversations. But where? And with whom? And it is as he is contemplating all of this, as he is listening to their talk about their different methods and styles, those touches of difference, their various ways that are theirs and theirs alone, or the mystery of how so-and-so gets such-and-such an effect, that he realises he could just as easily be sitting in the drivers’ shed at the railway yards, listening to drivers talking about other drivers, about their styles, about their little tricks and touches (that other drivers notice or hear about), such as the stories of Paddy Ryan, the master of the smooth ride, and the spoon in the metal tea mug beside him in the cabin, whose most minute tinkle tells Paddy that adjustments are required so that the journey returns to one of smooth progress.

  It is as he is listening to these painters that he begins to understand that their talk is not so different. That they might not be so different. And it is at this moment, and probably for the first time in his life, that he begins to think about his work, about engine driving, as a sort of, well … art, in ways that are not so different from the ways these painters talk about their work. And, as mad as it first seems, the idea starts to take hold and the familiar feeling he experienced just then listening to their conversation is not such a mystery after all.

  An artist without an art is no artist at all. But perhaps, just perhaps, Vic’s art has been there in front of him all the time — he just never saw it. And it is while he is dwelling on this, turning this thought over (which goes from mad to plausible to mad again, even as he thinks it over), while he is turning over this way of looking at what he does every day of his working life in a completely new light, that Tess, sensing his interest in everything around him (and, perhaps, as compensation for the lack of a fee), hands him two invitations for the opening night of the exhibition the next evening. And Vic, distracted by his own thoughts, only vaguely aware of what she is saying, reaches out and takes the invitations, barely realising what they are.

  Then he is on the street, standing in front of his bicycle, which he had propped against a lamp-post only ten, fifteen minutes before. And although the bicycle is the same, and the lamp-post and the street, for that matter, the Vic who has walked out of the gallery is a different Vic from the one who walked in. Can it be that when we know something well enough, and perform it as well as we can so that it feels good and makes us feel better than we were before we were doing it, when we’re doing something as perfectly as we can, that we’re doing all we can ask of ourselves? And because of that we’re not just existing or getting by, but living. The trick being, Vic realises, standing at his bicycle and looking around the city, the trick being to find that something. And when and if you do, can it be that it changes you and that you look at things differently, the way Vic is looking at things now so that this business of going to and from work itself is changed? And was it there all the time in front of him, and did he fail to see it because it was just work, after all? Can it be, engine driving, a kind of art? Depending on how you do it and how you throw yourself into it?

  As Vic cycles away from the gallery, he touches the invitations in his coat pocket, recalling the talk inside, dwelling once again on that sense of familiarity that accompanied it. And as he pedals towards the North Melbourne Loco yards, the image of Aunt Katherine returns, arm raised as he has so often seen her do, storming across the sodden ground of her block of land, a woman and her tent, caught (like that feeling of taking an engine up a hill in one mighty wallop) in one go.

  26.

  A Simple Heart

  A simple heart does not mean a simple mind. But this is exactly what Skinner is thinking as he stands at the back of his farmhouse braving the early-evening cold and staring at the glow of Miss Carroll’s tent (who has now returned from calling on Vic and Rita). Vic is cycling to work from the gallery, Sam is hanging his painting on the wall space that was reserved for him, Rita prepares for another night of uncomfortable, broken sleep, and Skinner gazes upon the glow of Miss Carroll’s tent. Simple of heart, simple of mind. What you see on the outside is what you have on the inside. One a reflection of the other. The face, that happy, smiling face that he shows the world because it comes naturally, these arms and legs and pointed toes, this frame of his (with a lean that he has no memory of acquiring), this frame that he carts through life, this contraption that he seems to be, this is the outward appearance of Herbert — Bert — Skinner. And if he feels puzzled at referring to himself as Herbert, as if wondering who on earth this Herbert, this Bert, could be, it is because just as nobody else calls him Herbert he rarely thinks of himself as that. To the community he is simply Mr Skinner. Once upon a time, to his parents and his brother, he was Bert, even young Bert because his father was Bert as well. And he retained the title of young Bert while his father lived. Then, quite quickly, when his parents died (one after the other) and his brother was lost in what they then called the Great War, he became Mr Skinner. Or just Skinner, of Skinner’s Farm. And this contraption that is Skinner is what the world sees now. And it is possible that when people look upon the outer Skinner they also see it as a reflection of Skinner’s mind. A bit odd. Even silly. To some, possibly, even touched. Simple of heart, simple of mind. Yes, he is, he nods silently to himself, Miss Carroll’s tent glowing in the early-evening chill just on the other side of his paddock; yes, he is a ridiculous man. At least, this is the judgment that Skinner now passes on himself.

  And perhaps he always was, for he is suddenly remembering when the news arrived — a brief telegram — telling the family that his brother had been killed. Somewhere in France. And he remembers, as well, the grim determination with which he told his parents the next morning that he was joining up, and the quiet acceptance with which they received the news. And how he’d come back to the house that evening and said nothing because he didn’t need to. Because they knew all along that no army would take a man approaching forty, with pigeon-toes and a lean like the Tower of Pisa. And, of course, Skinner knew this too. But he’d been told often enough that in a war the strangest things happen; rules that were once rules weren’t rules any more, and odd contraptions such as Skinner slipped into the army and found their place. No such thing happened and Skinner returned that evening feeling ridiculous. But the feeling left him, as feelings do, and as his parents faded away in front of him, he threw himself into the work of the farm. His parents died, young Bert disappeared, and Skinner, of Skinner’s Farm, took his place.

  And he discovered early in his adult life that the few young women he met were unlikely to take up with odd contraptions, especially at dances. Perhaps what they always saw was what Skinner himself now sees: that the outer Skinner is a reflection of the inner Skinner, and that the simple heart that he offers the world is a reflection of the simple mind inside the contraption. And, having concluded this, they decided upon not having much to do with him.

  It is the kind of thinking, he knows, that comes from being alone too often and for too long. For the mind of Skinner is far from simple — he knows that, but, nonetheless, this is the judgment that he passes upon himself right now as he stares across the paddock.

  Once again he sees himself as that young painter must have seen him. Simple, easy to lie to. He sees the young man telling him how he would like to paint the farm, and sees his own credulous eyes, all too ready to believe, imagining depictions of the farm that the family had owned for three generations hanging in the art galleries of the country, a record of all there had been before it ceases to be. And he recalls, once again, with maddening clarity, his open, smiling face, a wave at the ready (always a wave at the ready), as he walked across the paddock that afternoon to inspect the young man’s work, pleasantly surprised to see, as he approached, that the painter and Miss Carroll were conversing. And, eager to join the conversation, he waved and quickened his stride. And that was when he saw the sketches, and that was when the smile fell from
his face.

  But above all, that was when he saw the look on Miss Carroll’s face. Pronouncing him simple, inside and out. Even now he hears his voice afterwards, calling out across the divide of the dirt road, explaining himself, when, all the time, the explanation was written in the eyes of Miss Carroll. And although he first took the look to be an accusation, an accusation of betrayal, as he watched her glare soften he realised it wasn’t that at all. For she had drawn the conclusion that betrayal requires a calculating mind, and that Mr Skinner did not have one.

  He barely noticed the young painter leave (only the memory of a wave caught from the corner of his eye, which, this time, he did not return), but he did watch Miss Carroll depart the scene, turning her back on them both in a manner that suggested the world always lets you down, as Mr Skinner had just let her down; turning her back on him in the glare of the mid-winter sun, and walking away in search of firewood.

  Even now, standing on his back veranda, he could take that short walk to Miss Carroll’s tent. He could call to her in the dark and she would hear a voice calling to her from darkness and know that it was Mr Skinner. Know that he was calling because he had to. And she, Miss Carroll, hearing this voice in the night, would answer because she had to. For when someone calls in the night, you must answer. And he would be glad of the night and the darkness, for there may be tears in his eyes and he does not want the world to see his ridiculous tears, especially that part of the world that calls itself Miss Carroll, because, in all of the great world, that bit of it has, in these last few weeks, become the most important part. And what, after all, should he say? When she stands before him in the glow of her tent, what are the words he could offer?

  ‘I am a simple man. Yet, simple as I am, I have something to give. I have a gift. Much more than milk and butter and cheese. I can give you company. And, with company, I can give you comfort. When you go away I will be here when you come back. And you will know that there is someone out there, after all. And that you are not alone. And I will not be alone. I, too, will know that there is someone out there who lights the darkness. And, together, we shall, each day, reflect upon this fact in wonder. I am a simple man, and I have let you down. But I will never let you down again.’