Conversations With Mr. Prain

by Joan Taylor

  “Monique,” I said. “But why should she want to take anything from the lawnmower?”

  “For her monstrosities,” he said, as if stating the obvious. “Haven’t you seen them? They’re all over the place, over there.” Another gesture in the same direction. “If you ask me she’s bloody bonkers. I’m surprised she doesn’t take the whole ruddy lawnmower and exhibit it at the Royal Academy.”

  If my jaw dropped, he saw it.

  “It’s not what I’d call art neither,” he continued. “I mean, she can do figures all right. I’d even say she had a bit of a flair for it, you know. But then she goes and sticks on all my stuff I use for repairs, and God knows what else. She says she gets it from the ironmonger’s, but then explain why this ruddy lawnmower packed up today, with bits missing. Put two and two together. You tell him that.”

  He continued further, explaining the hardships he had suffered as a result of Monique’s use of his bolts and cogs for her sculptures, but I was barely listening. I was trying to re-order my comprehension of things to accommodate this new and surprising item. It was Monique, then, who had created the sculpture of Perseus and Medusa, the classical and the mechanical. She was “Empty” Martin, or rather M. T. Martin; he had given me initials. Smart, I thought. Mr. Prain had pronounced her name as if it were English. Monique Martin. He had not wished me to guess immediately that she was a sculptress. She was just the woman who made delicious cream cakes. Or did she? What was her role in this curious plot? Was she posing as a cook? Mr. Prain had called her a friend, “a sculptor friend.” Was she some wealthy Parisienne who had a secret passion for sculpting, a French heiress to whom he had lent his country house while he was, in the main, in London, so that she could create in secret, in England, whilst living in the manner to which she was accustomed? No wonder I detected mystery. They were covering up her true identity. Cherchez la femme! I had found out. The game was up. Mr. Prain had wanted to see how I reacted to the sculpture as an entertaining diversion with which he could amuse Monique by recounting it over their cosy games of chess, and over what else? Why should they not be conspirators and lovers at the same time? What an ideal combination.

  But why all this secrecy for my sake?

  “That’s very interesting,” I said to the gardener, not quite sure if this was the correct response to his further unheard complaints. “I think I’ll go and have a word with Monique. She’s over there?” I pointed.

  “You won’t get anywhere with her. She suits herself.”

  “Well, I’ll just try,” I said, eager to find Monique now before Mr. Prain discovered my whereabouts. “I hope you get the lawnmower fixed,” I added as I walked off. I had a sense that the gardener felt I was making a swift exit. No doubt he could have told me much more, but I wanted to confront Monique alone. I would use my newly acquired knowledge to singe her composure. I would show I was no fluffy-brain.

  chapter five | the studio

  I walked quickly through the criss-crossing order of the garden paths towards the door where I had seen Monique disappear. Upon reaching it, I hesitated, undecided whether I should knock or barge in. I decided on a surprise entry. I turned the round metal handle and strode into a dingy room full of castaway bits of machinery—engines, pipes and cogs—which seemed like a mechanic’s workshop, whether the gardener’s or Monique’s I could not say.

  I closed the door behind me, and eyed the long cobwebs drooping from the corners of the ceiling. An open door in front of me led to a large garage where there was a sizeable tractor, two motor-cycles and other equipment. On the right there was a small closed door leading somewhere else, to another garage or shed at the front of the outbuildings.

  I tip-toed through the workshop and opened this door. Noiselessly I entered a large room which I realised must be Monique’s studio. She was there at the far end of the room, partly turned away, wearing a protective mask and white coat, and listening to an iPod. She was carefully applying an item of hardware on to something complex by means of a soldering iron. I stayed very still for a moment, and looked around.

  My immediate impression was that I was surrounded by people, which made me feel inconspicuous, but of course these “people” were fakes. There were old window dummies, some bald, some with wigs, some dressed, some bare. There were wooden figures, small and smooth. There were a number of puppets of all kinds. There were carvings of human forms in stone, bronze figurines, plaster casts, and moulds. Everywhere, in between the figures, were bits of machinery. There were no marble figures like the Perseus. The only pieces of marble were two blocks just inside the door. Huge bits of rope hung from ceiling rafters. There were little windows, but the main light was from fluorescent tubes suspended from the high ceiling. There were figures made from bits of machinery. There was also an easel with a sheet full of sketches, apparently of another Classical god: Mercury/Hermes. He seemed languid and vaguely superior.

  I swallowed. My sense of indignation at the way in which I had been manipulated overcame any sense of culpability that I had trespassed, and so I walked on. And stopped. Should I hail her? Should I cry, “Fancy finding you here, Monique!” from the middle of the room? Should I sneak up behind her and give her a start? I took a few more paces. Then, snappily, she turned. She must have glimpsed me out of the corner of her eye. I tried to appear unruffled as she put down her soldering iron, ripped off her mask and iPod, and stared.

  “I hope I’m not intruding,” I said. “The door was open.” I pointed to it.

  She looked behind me, quickly. She was hoping to see Mr. Prain, to know this was all right, but he was not there. She could not understand why I had been allowed to roam. She too was trying to appear calm.

  “Edward’s on the phone,” I said. “A business call. I thought I would just explore a bit.” “Edward,” I said on purpose.

  “Ah,” she responded, with a smile, but I knew she was not relaxed. She was waiting for him to come and rescue her from this unfortunate predicament. It had not been part of the plan that I should come in here.

  “You do speak English?” I asked, recalling that she had asked if we wanted more tea in this language.

  She smiled again. She could have pretended ignorance, but she would not. “Of course.”

  “Edward showed me your sculpture of Perseus and Medusa. It’s really extraordinary,” I said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” How could I proceed? “It’s very post-modern.”

  She looked away for a moment, looked back. “That is Monsieur Prain’s term. It is a term for critics but not for artists.” Her eyes flicked behind me. “My teacher was Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, then the greatest living artist of this country, when he was at the Akademie der Bildende Künste in Munich. I went there to study under him when I was very young. Like Paolozzi, I feel in many ways I am a classical surrealist.” Her English, though strongly accented and slow, was good. I felt that she was talking for the sake of talking, trying to determine how much she should say, how much I knew, why I was here on my own.

  “Ah yes, of course it is. I think … I felt that,” I managed to say, as I calculated this. “The first Surrealists used Greek and Roman art, didn’t they? They used the prototypes, and subverted what you would expect. Dali, de Chirico.”

  “Of course,” she said, dismissively, a trifle amused. “We like to use myths, and icons that everyone recognises, and then combine them with popular culture, because this will challenge you to think about reality.”

  “Does Edward know that?” I asked. “He seems to think your work is a joke.”

  She smiled. She would not answer.

  “I mean—it amuses him.”

  Again, no response.

  “One of your sculptures was in the Summer Exhibition.”

  “Yes. You saw it?”

  “No. Edward told me.”

  She was wondering why he had told me she was a sculptress when, clearly, they had arranged that I would be unaware of this until later.

  “Did it sell?” I asked.

>   She seemed rather pleased, yet modest. “Yes. It sold to a private collector. I do not sell so much, and the marble is expensive. When I work in the marble, it is good to sell. I do not mind so much with the others. It is best to work for commission, but it is hard to get.”

  She brushed away a chestnut strand of hair. I observed then what was immediately around me. In such a room, it was difficult to see details at first. I was standing beside a plaster cast in a style imitating Rodin’s Le Baiser, a naked man and woman kissing, though in Monique’s version it was somehow more erotic, more fluid, and one of the hands was outstretched and indicated by spikes. There were holes around the outside in which, I suspected, something mechanical and menacing would be inserted. Below this was a chess-board with men arranged, I was sure, in the same positions as those in Mr. Prain’s modern room.

  “You like experimenting with different media, I see.”

  “Yes. Like Paolozzi. To move in different media is freedom. But mainly I work in plaster. Paolozzi believed that it is the pencil and paper of the sculptor. It leaves the maximum room for the muscles of the imagination.” She recited this last phrase as if it was a quotation.

  My knowledge of Paolozzi was unfortunately limited to the decorative mosaic work in Tottenham Court Road tube station, the “Piscator” in Euston Square, “Newton” outside the British Library, and various things I had seen in Tate Britain. Surely, he had presented figures as being amalgamated with machinery, fusing metal and flesh together. Monique appeared to have divorced the two, separating them out into elements that lay side by side: the classical, soft shapes of the body and the wild and strangely threatening angles of steel and mechanical paraphernalia.

  There was no doubt she was devoted to her late teacher. She possessed the traits of an adoring disciple, the faithful servant; traits which I distrusted intensely. Whatever her instructions were from Mr. Prain, she would endeavour to accomplish them to the letter.

  “So where do you get the marble from? I didn’t think people worked in that medium much anymore. You have to be wealthy to afford it.”

  “Yes, it is expensive. It comes from Italy. That is the best.”

  “You must have trouble making ends meet then, being employed here as a housekeeper. I don’t suppose he pays you much.” I watched her eyes flick. I was putting her in an awkward position. I relished it. “Or have you reached the stage where your sculptures can command high enough prices to cover such costly materials?” I tried to remain superficially pleasant.

  She did not reply at once. Then she said, “It is difficult. And finding time is difficult. You must excuse me if I return—”

  “But Mr. Prain,” I forgot my Edward, “he’s mostly in London, so you should have quite a lot of time here on your own to work without any disturbance at all.”

  She smiled. She could see now by my eagerness that I was itching to solve the mystery, that I had managed to overstep the bounds and break the rules. Mr. Prain had lost me. He had not strayed from their prearranged plan. It was I who had slipped from his fingers and gone rogue around the grounds. She would not disclose anything.

  “Maybe Monsieur Prain has finished his telephone conversation and will wonder where you are.” She said Prain like prennent. Ils prennent: they take. No “Edouard.”

  “Oh, I think it was going to take up quite some time,” I lied.

  “Then I can show you some sculptures here?”

  She became like a hostess. I would not trick her into saying anything she was not meant to say. She was like a tour guide in a nuclear power station. Nothing would be disclosed.

  “You’re very loyal, aren’t you?” I said.

  “I do not understand. Loyal?”

  “To Edward Prain.”

  She did not let me upset her. She did not reply at once. She took off a pair of work gloves she was wearing, calling a halt to her sculpting, disappointed to realise she would have to give me her undivided attention. Everything she did was elegant. She might as well have removed a pair of kid gloves. She is an heiress, I thought. How else could she afford the marble? She’s as rich as sin.

  She turned off the soldering iron, opened a bottle of hand lotion, and began applying it, slowly, considerately, sensuously.

  “He is a lonely man,” she said, with that look in her eyes again that indicated she knew much, and that there was meaning to her words.

  What did she mean? Loneliness was no excuse for manipulation. It did not justify his behaviour. Her words were a ploy to try to engage my sympathy, to make me malleable. I suspected the reason he had kept my typescripts upstairs was so that he could keep me hovering about the house against my better judgement until he had finished with me, in whatever way he deemed necessary. I could not leave without my box. The longer I stayed, the closer he and Monique moved to the accomplishment of their plans for the afternoon. They both wanted something from me. I should have bypassed the sculpture in the gallery, seized my box, and announced I was going back to London immediately. Instead, I myself had delayed things by asking about his family. Lonely. Rejected by his mother. Fulfilling his father’s wishes. Cold. Repressed. Who was this man?

  Then I saw Monique’s eyes move to focus on something, someone, behind me, and her expression soften. I knew I had been found, and too soon. Or should I now resist? Why play the lamb?

  I turned to face Mr. Prain, and folded my arms over my ribs, protective and confrontational.

  “Surprise, surprise,” he said, swiftly changing a look of breathless anxiety into one of calm. Fraudulence, I thought. Deceit. Mendacity. Evasion. Guile. I am not going anywhere. Hand over my work.

  “Stella wanted to see the garden, and came to find my sculptures,” said Monique. “I was telling her about them. She thinks that it is surprising that I can afford the marble at all when I work as a housekeeper for you here.”

  No French now, because she was saying this as much for my benefit as for Mr. Prain’s.

  I tried to seem light and not accusatory. “Why didn’t you tell me Monique was the one who sculpted the Perseus and Medusa upstairs? Why the secrecy? M. T. Martin.”

  “Stella,” Mr. Prain interrupted. “Let’s go back into the house. We don’t need to disturb Monique any longer, do we?” A velvet voice.

  Monique smiled an introspective smile and kept stroking cream into her hands.

  “N’importe,” she said. Then came the rapid French, like machine-gun fire. They knew I was not good enough at the language to understand them. In my effort to listen, hear, comprehend, and in my panic that I would miss all of the vital information that was being exchanged, I did precisely this. I understood nothing. All I deciphered was a swift, “Oui, je comprend. Très bien,” from Monique at the very end.

  chapter six | the drawing room

  As we walked around to the back of the house, I talked about how much I love the smell of country air and the summer. You can always rely on the fact that discussion of the weather will not seem in the least bit strange to an English person, and will make them feel slightly more relaxed. We were about to go up the steps to the back door entrance, when I said, “Monique tells me she isn’t post-modern. She’s a classical surrealist.”

  “Oh really,” he said dryly.

  A small silence.

  “And I had a chat with the gardener.”

  “I see.”

  “Yes. He said you appeared rather infrequently at Walton Hall. You really live in London.”

  “Yes. I have a flat near Sloane Square.”

  “Then why did I have to come here?”

  “To talk. To see the house and the sculpture. To meet Monique.” An answer, but no explanation. In frustrated silence, I peered at him blankly. “Excuse me,” he said, moving past me to open the door, opening the back door Monique had used earlier. “When you said you would be outside,” he continued, moving through into a kind of laundry, “I thought you meant outside the room in the hall, not outside, in the garden.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, fo
llowing him in. “I thought you might be delayed for a while. I didn’t make myself clear.”

  “No,” he said, as if he knew perfectly well what I had done. He marched me into the kitchen corridor, where there were utility rooms full of outdoor clothing, buckets and boots, and archaic tools hanging from hooks like carcasses in an old-fashioned butcher’s shop.

  He led me along the corridor, striding ahead, until he drew to an undecided halt in the entrance hall. I looked up the grand stairs sweeping up to the first floor as if it were the gateway to Hell.

  “Shall we return to our drinks?” he suggested.

  “You did want me to meet Monique,” I replied. “You did want me to know she was a sculptor, but just not immediately.”

  “I wanted you to meet her after I made you the offer.”

  “The offer.”

  “Yes. Shall we—”

  This was too much. “What offer? I don’t want to go up there and talk about art any more.” We hadn’t been talking that much about art, however, I thought. I had been asking him about his family. “What do you want?” I asked him outright, looking at him boldly.

  After a few protracted seconds, he said, “Please, come upstairs.”

  “Not until you tell me why—”

  “Wait here then,” he said, and decisively backed off, turned, took a few paces through a doorway to the kitchen corridor, and was gone. I was left alone in the foyer, with its inlaid marble floor, huge portraits and Georgian furniture, with its presumptuous stairway waiting to host ladies in ball-gowns, with its ornate ceiling decoration of trompe l’oeil cherubs, floral clusters and clouds.

  Whatever he had in store, whatever he wanted from me, he could not defer and protract the game. He had to act quickly to keep me in check. I was expected to proceed square by square, in accordance with his plans, but the pawn had, as in the cliché, become queen. I had sauntered off diagonally and endangered his schemes of how the afternoon should progress.