by Peter Carey
The argument with Guston, he said, had been tape-recorded at the artists’ club. He wondered—turning his broad and slightly hunched back on the painting—did Marlene possibly have a moment to type it up for him.
And of course I was—just generally—provincial and not up to date, and a part of me was very bloody impressed to sit at Da Silvano and see Roy Lichtenstein and Leo Castelli eating liver and onions at the next table, and if I was as impressed as any hick could be, my reaction was no help to Lichtenstein’s art which is already moving rapidly towards deaccession, that is, the point at which curators begin to quietly dump their worst excesses.
New York, it is believed below Ninety-sixth Street, brings out the best in artists, but I cannot say that worked for me. Partly, of course, I was jealous. I knew what it felt like to be Lichtenstein in Sydney, but I could never be Lichtenstein in New York. I was a no-one. I went to Elaine’s like a tourist and meekly accepted my table by the kitchen. All this I had expected. Why would it be otherwise?
My error was, for a moment, believing that I might possibly be wrong and then permitting the dealers to look at I, the Speaker, to see their eyes glaze over, to realise they had never wanted to see it anyway, that they had come because they wanted something from Marlene. Yet, even that particular mortification should not be exaggerated. Artists are used to humiliation. We start with it and we are always ready to return to real failure, the shitty bottom of the barrel, the destruction of our talent by alcohol or misery. We live with the knowledge that, alongside Cézanne or Picasso, we are no-one, were always no-one, will be forgotten before we are in the ground.
Shame, doubt, self-loathing, all this we eat for breakfast every day. What I could not stand, what really, completely, made my teeth curl was seeing the complete certainty of total mediocrities when confronted with—let’s call it “art.” For the very same people who cast their glazed eyes on my canvas were often at the auctions at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Phillips. And that’s when something snapped, when I finally understood, not only their dull complacent certainty, but their lack of any fucking eye at all.
I went, one freezing February day, to Sotheby’s. They had two Légers, lots 25 and 28. The first painted in 1912 had six pages of supporting documentation which basically contained reproductions of really good Légers which Sotheby’s had once sold for a lot of money. These two were shit. These sold for $800,000. That was the real problem with New York for me. That $800,000. How can you know how much to pay if you don’t know what it’s worth?
There was also a de Chirico, Il grande metafisico, 1917, 41¾″ × 27⅜″, ex-Albert Barnes, a deaccessioned work. Did anyone think, for a bloody nanosecond, why it might be being deaccessioned? Authentic pre-1918 de Chiricos are rare as hen’s teeth. Italian art dealers used to say the Maestro’s bed was six feet off the ground, to hold all the “early work” he kept “discovering.” But suddenly this pile of crap was real? It was worth three million? It made me ill. Not so much the dirty money, but the complete lack of discrimination, the fashion frenzy. De Chirico is in. Renoir is out. Van Gogh is hot. Van Gogh has peaked. I wished I could kill the fucks, I really did.
It was just after this that Olivier finally signed the certificate. I did not enquire as to what had taken all the time, did not ask what acts of kindness were offered, what deal was struck, but my suspicion was that the poor neurasthenic darling had wrinkled his nose and then taken a dirty big slice of pie. Of course he could do whatever he wished, it was not my business. He could be the nursemaid to my brother and be the author of Hugh’s hostile eyes. He could steal old Slow Bones from me, if that is what he wished.
Marlene and I stayed on at Mercer Street. At first I understood this as an economy—why not? It was free—so it took a while to understand that we were hiding. We did have a kind of social life whereby I, by agreement, kept away from dealers, but we made good friends with restorers, authenticators, and one wonderful man, Sol Greene, a tiny little fellow, who ran a family paint business on Fifteenth Street. How much nicer it was to discuss the curious history of, say, madder red, than listen to the drama of the latest Sotheby’s circus.
Marlene was scratching around trying to free up some Leibovitzes—there was a collector waiting—but our best days were really just spent walking. Then, in the early days of fall, we began to rent cars, and trawl through junk shops and deceased estates along the Hudson. I won’t say it was not interesting to look at America this way, and it was on one of these trips, in a musty barn in Rhinecliff, that I found a mediocre canvas with the perfectly legible inscription—Dominique Broussard, 1944. It was a coarse synthetic cubist work, the type of object you might easily find on a weekend drive from Melbourne—heavy black lines, slabs of sloppy colour—an order of misunderstanding you probably see in Russia too, but hardly at 157 rue de Rennes.
The barn had an earth floor and the canvas was leaning against the wall. It was not art, was less than art. It had been there so long you could feel all the damp of Rhinecliff in its frame, but there was a way in which this neglect was unwarranted for it was as precious as the droppings of a termite until now thought to be extinct.
I spat and rubbed away a little dirt and what I saw then made me laugh because one could so clearly see her character. She was a thief—she had stolen her boss’s paint and canvas. She had no sense of colour—in her hands the Leibovitz palette was gaudy. She was complacent.
One could imagine her head held to one side as she admired her own brush moving like a poisonous snake through summer grass. She had no wrist, no attack, no taste, no talent. She was, in short, disgusting.
If this revulsion seems cruel or excessive, it was absolutely nothing compared to Marlene’s.
“No,” she said. “No way are you going to buy this.”
I laughed. I did not understand her, had no real sense of the degree to which she was still defending Olivier against his mother. Of course she knew the enemy’s brushstrokes, but never had she seen an original work and here was laid bare the complete and awful lack, not only of talent, but of anything at all. Finally grasping the great nothing, Marlene, so she told me later, was physically ill.
In perfect ignorance, I took the canvas into the little office which was set up like a shed within the barn. A pleasant grey-haired woman was watching football on television, her swollen legs exposed to an electric heater.
“How much?”
She looked over the top of her glasses. “You’re an artist?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Three hundred.”
“It’s shit,” said Marlene.
“It’s our history, babe.”
“I’ll burn the fucking thing,” said Marlene, “if you even try to bring it home.”
The woman looked at Marlene with interest. “Two hundred,” she said evenly. “It’s an oil original.”
I had, as it happened, exactly two hundred. So I ended up getting it for $185 plus tax.
“You folks married?”
“No.”
“Sure sounds like you’re married.”
She wrote her receipt slowly, and by the time she had wrapped my purchase in newspaper Marlene had walked out to the car.
“Now you go buy her something pretty,” the woman said.
I promised that I would, and then drove my lover back to New York City—the Taconic, then the Saw Mill—sixty minutes in icy silence.
44
Olivier signed the bogus document he was so weak he told me he could not even die. He was crawling back to life, old chum, returning to his previous employment at McCain.
They do not like me, Hughie, but I am the perfect bum boy for their client. Bum boy he called to the Irish barman who said, That’s right sir.
Olivier drank a SIDECAR and swallowed a blue capsule.
Here’s to honest labour, he said.
Jeavons was standing by his shoulder and now he DISCREETLY passed his big soft hand across his mouth. He had medicine to swallow too.
He said, Thank yo
ur mother for the rabbits, sir. This was an AUSTRALIAN JOKE I taught him many days before.
Then I had my capsule. What would happen to me now?
Sitting by the low round table Olivier asked me, Did you ever meet her father, Hughie? He meant Marlene’s father.
I said I had never been to Benalla.
He was a bloody truck driver can you imagine that?
Jeavons approved of truck drivers. He drifted away like a man at a ball, his arms out from his sides.
I imagined truck drivers. I saw them all lined up at the Madingley mine.
And that’s the thing, you see, that’s what I’m up against.
What did that mean? He was sad and silent as he unfolded a map of New York across the little table. With a cheese knife he began to slice it up.
I asked what about the trucks.
She likes big beefy chaps who smell of beer. That’s it, really. At the end of it. If you get a redneck who also smells of linseed oil, she’s like a cat on heat. Do you follow me?
All I understood was the cheese knife was not the right tool to cut a map and it hurt to watch him botch it. Soon he tore half the map away. The big blue words WEST VILLAGE floated to the floor.
I held my head. I may have made a noise. Who wouldn’t?
What’s up old chap?
I told him he was making me giddy with Marlene’s daddy. I wished he would put the map away.
The map, old chap, will cure the giddiness. So stop lowing. Lowing, he said, that’s exactly what you do.
What about Marlene’s father?
Dead of lung cancer, he said, but causing trouble to this day.
He removed a lump of map. I caught it floating down but he snatched it back and crumpled it and threw it across the bar. THIS DID NOT CALM ME DOWN.
We have no use for Central Park he said.
But what about her father?
All I’m saying is your lumpen brother is a lucky man.
He tapped the map with a swizzle stick. Now! Remember! Everything is straight up and down except Broadway. Keep an eye on that one, chum. He marked Broadway with his pen. A snake in the grass.
Her father?
Broadway. Also West Broadway. Not to be confused.
To complete my map he ripped across the top at Fifty-fifth Street. World ends here, he said. My office. Top right corner of the map.
Now, he said, test drive.
We set off across to Fifth Avenue where we found a Duane Reade a CHEMIST SHOP where I was introduced to his client’s products the denture glue also the bubbling tablets the sufferers used to clean their teeth at night, poor Mum, she was what is called the TARGET MARKET.
On Sixth Avenue Olivier bought SUPPLIES including a flask of Bourbon which fitted nicely inside his coat. This is your town, old mate. Never let them tell you otherwise. He waited while I checked our map. I saw exactly where I was.
Now, old chum, we’re going to walk clean off the map. Don’t panic. Watch exactly how it’s done.
Soon thereafter, on Twenty-fourth Street, we found a group of men outside a church. Not all had chairs like mine, but at least four did. Others preferred the fire hydrant, church steps, SIAMESE CONNECTION. A close similarity to a gathering of PUDDING OWNERS with diseases that swelled their ankles and turned their legs all blue and black.
Fellow professionals, he said. Your peers.
I opened my chair. Olivier was wearing his shimmering grey suit and his poofter shoes. He didn’t have a chair but when he took out his flask of whisky he soon made friends.
New York is a very friendly town, he said to me.
The first person to take a swig gave us his business card.
Vincent Carollo
Film musician • Chelsea Diner
His black hair was due to boot polish. It made a straight line across his forehead and the hair was all swept back from there. He said call me Vinnie. He had played a banjo in Chelsea Diner, a famous film apparently. Also, we should never stay in the West Sixteenth Street shelter, and remember, the soup at St. Mark’s was better than what they give you at St. Peter’s. He also taught me never leave my chair unattended and then I sang “ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR.” He took back his card as he needed it for later. He said I would be in the next film too but when I invited him to the Bicker Club Olivier said it was time to go.
But he had showed me I could make friends. I didn’t need him now. That was his whole point. He was going to abandon me. I could not be permitted to sit with him in his office, nor to visit at any hour. He was hoping he could have this rule changed but don’t hold your breath, Hughie.
The thing is, old chum, he said, they are very superficial individuals.
I asked could I stand on the street outside.
He said you have UNIQUE TALENT, old chum. I mean, old chum, you do know how to BE.
He meant my talent for sitting on a chair while Butcher flew around in a mad frenzy, a willy wagtail trying to be a king. He did not know I had a TALENT for drawing. When they sent me home from school I did not burn them down. Instead I began to work peacefully with biro on my sheets and by the time Mum LOOKED IN ON ME I had all the Marsh laid out in pen across it. Blue Bones dealt with that one in his usual style.
The Marsh was my place as no other. Not only the chair, the footpath. I knew the drains and culverts, the length of every street and where they crashed together. From Mason’s Lane to the Madingley railway crossing was 6,450 heartbeats. In the whole 5,000 POP who else knew this simple fact? Yes it was a talent but I was allegedly too slow to go to school.
When Olivier left me on Monday morning I took the map and laid it on the carpet in the room. Explosions in my neck but nothing bad. I drew the Main Street of Bacchus Marsh down Broadway, and the Gisborne Road across Thirty-fourth Street. Lerderderg Street lying like a ghost along Eighth Avenue.
I felt better. I felt worse. Then I could not stand the map. I left.
Across to Third Avenue and up. That was my plan. Twenty-second Street, Twenty-third Street, and so on. There was no doubt I could reach Fifty-fifth. Heart closer to 200, great red lump of muscle in an uproar, never mind. Reaching Fifty-fifth Street I was denied access to the building by a man in a brown suit.
I walked back downtown. Followed the map of the Marsh and arrived at the Butcher Shop next door to Duane Reade where I bought a pack of Band-Aids it was HIGHWAY ROBBERY.
Olivier finally arrived back at the club BETTER LATE THAN NEVER I gave him the Band-Aids and instructed him to stick one on his window so I could see his office from the street.
Old Chum, he said, I will put up the Band-Aid at exactly ten past one.
When we set up in the bar, Olivier told me he was getting his life back.
Here, he said, have one of these.
He would now divorce Marlene.
He downed a big gin and tonic and crunched up the ice. This will totally fuck the bitch, he said. Once she was divorced she would never authenticate another painting or try to make him sign a form.
Here, he said, have one of these as well.
I pointed out the second pill was a different colour from the first pill. He replied that we were desperados not decorators.
He was on his HOBBY HORSE and galloping. She could go back to the typing pool, old mate, the pond from which she rose and then he listed the names of different SCUM that grew on top of ponds for instance SPIROGYRA.
Jeavons came to have a word.
BLOOD ON HER SADDLE he said the words from a song who knows which one. Jeavons made a sign to the bartender and I understood Olivier was going mad.
Next morning I knew I must take a holiday with my brother. It was his job to care for me. On arrival I requested sausages and eggs. He knew his obligation.
Marlene was asleep on the mattress on the floor. She had a bare leg sticking out beneath her quilt and I could see her batty bless me, it was so pretty I had to look away. For REASONS KNOWN ONLY TO HIMSELF my brother had purchased a sheet of glass and was grinding pigments, gathering and scrapi
ng the pigment with a spatula.
I asked him why he did not buy some nice one-pound tubes.
He said I could go and fuck myself.
Very nice. I sat and watched him until he asked me would I like a try. So I was needed to be the DOGSBODY.
He had no linseed oil but something else called AMBERTOL. I was pleased to show how well I produced the buttery texture he required. The colour very soothing before he made it into something angry. Oceans of yellow, colour of God, light without end.
So, said he, how is your mate Dr. Goebbels?
Who?
Olivier.
I told him Olivier was going to divorce Marlene. I intended to make him happy. Perhaps I did. In any case I heard Marlene shift in the bed but she might as well have been asleep because she did not say a word.
45
The face of Dominique Broussard’s dusty canvas was now turned permanently towards the wall, and if there was still a certain tension between the pair of us, it was entirely pleasant.
That is, my baby had a secret—how had she shrunk the painting? And I also had a secret of my own—jars of paint in colours I refused to explain to her. I left these five enigmas in full view on the blistered kitchen countertop, and I made sketches twenty feet away from them, in a corner by the windows, sitting on a wooden box with my back turned to the dirty street. What was I up to? I would not tell her and she would not ask. We smiled a lot, and made love more than ever.
Then she bought a bench press, assembling it in pretty much the same spirit that I worked on my paints and pencil studies. Sometimes I stepped away from my secret project to draw her lovely slender arms, the stretched tendons in her neck. She sweated readily when exercising but in these drawings, which I still have, it is my own desire that glistens on her skin.
It was 1981 and the only rule was DON’T BUZZ IN PEOPLE YOU DO NOT KNOW. But when, late one snowy morning, the street bell rang, I buzzed in the stranger and threw our apartment open to the fates. It was either that or walk down five flights to find no-one more interesting than the UPS guy.