Some Trick: Thirteen Stories

Trevor

‘It is really a very sobering thought,’ said Trevor, ‘and one which the local talent, I’m afraid hasn’t quite cottoned on to, that a painting of a beautiful subject is almost invariably a rotten picture. Guaranteed kitsch, in fact, don’t you think?’

Lily and Trevor were sauntering along the Cherwell in the University Parks; it was late afternoon in early July, and the drowsy calm of the sky, the languid sway of the trees, the deep shadows cutting sharply across the grass, all so fondly, so lamentably repeated on a dozen or so canvases, did seem to bear him out. The faintest, merest, tenderest hint of a blush in the sky reminded, with beautiful delicacy, that evening was coming on; several paintings gestured at this moment, but even the least little touch of pink gave them an air of digging an elbow in the side of the spectator, of announcing ‘the approach of even’ in a carrying stage whisper.

‘It just goes to show that a little pink really does go an awfully long way,’ said Trevor.

‘And how,’ said Lily. She spent most of her conversations with Trevor agreeing with Trevor, so much so in fact that the conversations were at times positively Socratic — at least in the variety of ways Lily found to express assent. But as they stood looking back across the park (they had reached the duck pond) she was struck by the unity of tone of the pale hot sky, the pale trees moving on the hot air: the wonderful tranquillity of the scene seemed to owe something to its evocation of sketches in chalk or pastel. And those stands of trees in open ground or clustered by the river — those lovely masses of foliage — for Lily, at least (but then she was American), part of their charm lay in being so very much the sort of thing she had admired in the Constables in the Ashmolean. That did not, of course, mean that the principle was wrong. There were all those wrecked ships by moonlight, naked girls with dabs of impasto at the nipple, all those sunsets over the desert to sustain it.

But then, she pursued doggedly, what about Botticelli? Did one not suppose him — had he not supposed himself — to have been painting beautiful paintings of beautiful subjects? Venus? Primavera? Was it perhaps simply a sign of our time that it was impossible to be Botticelli — that now painting the beautiful remained firmly within the province of Maxfield Parrish? So that the relation of painting to beauty was perhaps something that must be referred ultimately to socioeconomic factors: and all because Botticelli was not kitsch. Or perhaps — and here she nearly stopped in her tracks at the audacity, the sophistication which she fathomed, suddenly, in Trevor’s aperçu — perhaps an argument could be made, taking a larger view, that by certain lights Botticelli was kitsch.

And it was only at this point that her speculations, at first a mere trickle which might as well flow subterraneously as not, swelled to a stream which must come to the surface sooner or later, ought indeed to have been out in the open all along.

‘Was Botticelli kitsch, would you say?’ she ventured. Who can say what Meno or Polus was thinking underground, to give themselves such an appearance of being incapable of proper argument?

‘Oh,’ Trevor exclaimed now, ‘if everyone were a Botticelli…’ a little impatiently, for his own stream of remarks had been gurgling and chattering in the sunlight briskly on, and had just been coursing down a little cascade of cheery murmurs about tea, so that the abrupt cessation of the agreeable warm undercurrent of consent, the eruption of an earlier current of conversation in a geyser at the foot of the fall, were chilly, unwelcome surprises. They had turned up the avenue which runs parallel to Norham Gardens (Trevor lived at the top of a mustard-coloured house overlooking the park), and after a brief pause (the waters eddied furiously around the intrusion),

‘What shall it be?’ Trevor resumed genially. ‘Shall we go back to my place? Or shall we try a tea shoppe?’

Lily weighed disagreeables: Trevor’s square tea of St Michael’s Tea Assortment, the longer walk to the nearest tea room.

‘The Wykeham’s a bit of a walk, but it’s a nice day.’

‘We’ll go back to my place, then, shall we?’

The easy habit of Trevor’s stride, as he turned down the fork which led out to Norham Gardens by Lady Margaret Hall, reproved the false answer as clearly as his words. Lily was in general more acute, but was distracted by the impression that she was rising, for the first time, to the level at which Trevor’s conversation was pitched. The prospect of scones and sandwiches and cake might have leavened her earnestness; intellectual endeavour seemed only right, however, now that a note of austerity had been sounded, and discussion was to march forward on rations of crumbling chocolate digestives, vanilla sandwich cremes, pink wafers and ginger nuts. ‘We know that he is not — but how do we justify it?’

Alas that the Socratic method should be at times so mal à propos! Trevor was patting his pockets for his keys, he glanced up with a charming rueful smile as they reached the street. ‘Oh, you Americans! Are you ever not philosophical?’

‘Oh, but you started me off! You launched us into aesthetics!’ cried Lily playfully, for the descent to personalities was too marked a change of subject to be missed, and flirtation seemed the only apology for her earlier obtuseness.

‘I strike a generality once an hour, I believe. And then, like a good British worker, I break for tea.’

The tin of St Michael’s Tea Assortment lay open on a low table. A ginger nut and two sandwich cremes reposed, undisturbed, on a plate on Lily’s lap; a plate by Trevor’s side held half a plain digestive, crumbs from whose other half drifted down his delightful tie. Two cups, half-drunk, of Earl Grey flanked the biscuit tin. Half a pot of Earl Grey sat stewing within a red knitted tea cosy.

The scene was, to Lily, a little dreary. Her gaze moved about the familiar room — the dark brown wall-to-wall carpet, the Morris armchairs upholstered in a repeating pattern of a hunting scene in pale brown on off-white, the huge squashy red-and-brown striped sofa on which they were sitting. Snatches of colours, of textures, of patterns she had come across came to mind, like felicitous phrases, fragments of Cicero or Tacitus to the mind of a Latinist glancing through a poor composition. On the walls were a couple of daguerreotypes of Trevor’s great-grandparents (appropriated not without some acrimony from other members of the family); two black-and-white enlargements of photographs of Cretan peasants; a small oil of a young gentleman with his horse, c. 1772, clothes, expression, posture, horse all carelessly comme il faut — a several greats grand-uncle of Trevor (more spoils from family property); and a Dutch genre painting of a woman mending. Lily considered these in relation to the question of kitsch. Trevor leant back into the corner of the sofa, crossed his legs, finished off his digestive.

‘What was that you were saying about Botticelli?’ he asked now benignly, brushing crumbs off his fingers. The modest comforts of the squashy sofa, the St Michael’s biscuits, the Cretan peasants had, it seemed, fortified him for argument.

Lily felt, for her part, somewhat chilled by the largely glum décor. ‘I thought that might work as an example of paintings of beautiful subjects which succeed in being genuinely beautiful themselves.’

‘But it’s precisely the success, isn’t it, that sets them apart? That’s not much of a conundrum.’

‘Well…’ She thought that she could, after all, have spoken more fluently over, say, a plate of scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam. ‘Does that mean, then, that any unsuccessful painting of a beautiful subject must be kitsch? Isn’t there more to it than that? Aren’t there all kinds of mediocre paintings of beautiful things that aren’t, I don’t know, in bad taste?’

‘I suppose it’s the note of sincerity, a sort of shamelessly yearning, passionate sincerity, that’s so damning. It’s embarrassing to watch, isn’t it — like seeing someone in a state of ecstasy with his fly open.’

‘Perhaps that’s it.’

‘So what I was getting at earlier,’ he grinned, ‘was that a state of ecstasy leaves one terribly prone to forget to “adjust one’s clothing”.’

Lily smiled.

‘Can I tempt you to another cup of tea? I’ll make fresh.’

‘Yes, please,’ she said brightly, and began eating one of the sandwich cremes in the interests of conviviality. The red knitted tea cosy was borne off to the kitchen.

‘I think that’s rather sweet, don’t you?’ He returned to find her standing in front of the young man and his horse. ‘Early Gainsborough has even been suggested. I don’t totally buy that, but it’s nice that the thought is in the air.’

‘Is that based on style, or is there some Gainsborough it might be?’

‘Oh, I don’t know the ins and outs of it. There are far too many, unfortunately, that it couldn’t possibly be — all the really good ones, I’m afraid. But Gainsborough or no, it has a certain charm. Or does family pride make me partial?’

‘Oh no, it’s delightful!’ she cried, for if politeness required assent, a note must be struck of firm conviction if assent was not to sound merely polite.

‘I came by it by rather devious means, which some might say don’t do me much credit — but my trophy more than makes up for the occasional pang of conscience. The pangs, in any case, are far more occasional than is entirely decent. It’s a rather amusing story, though it may shock you — or have you heard it before?’

This was a question which admitted of only one reply, which she promptly gave, as plausibly as a person could who had heard the story twice before.

‘It belonged to my great aunt Sophy,’ Trevor explained, as he returned to his seat and began to pour out. ‘She lived in the same house for fifty years, a big old Victorian monster crammed to the attics with everything she’d picked up over the years — most of it junk. She never threw anything away, and never let anyone else in the family do so either, it was a kind of family joke — if anyone said they were thinking of getting rid of something, it was always the very thing she was looking for. She’d no children of her own, so it was always assumed that her treasures, such as they were, would go to her brothers’ and sisters’ children. Eventually, no doubt, things would trickle down to the great nieces and nephews, but my chances of getting anything worth having were pretty thin. The odds were that I’d get a box of chipped crockery or a pair of mildewy opera glasses. No one imagined for a moment that she’d bother to make individual bequests, so there were understandings about suitable recipients for some of the more interesting items. There was an understanding — a pretty vague one — that Great Great Great Uncle Harry here would go to my cousin Harry, who’d said he fancied it because of the name. I’d seen it on a couple of visits to Great Aunt Sophy, and wanted it, but couldn’t see much chance of getting it.’

‘So how did you get it?’

‘Sheer opportunism! I happened to be staying with some friends down in Sussex one year, and ended by seeing quite a lot of Sophy. (Don’t smile!) I suggested to her that it would be a terrible shame if everything were to be auctioned off indiscriminately. Of course it was highly unlikely, but it worried her. She asked my advice; I suggested that everyone be asked to pick out the items of particular interest to them. She insisted I take my pick on the spot! I allowed myself to be persuaded, and ended by taking home with me the Gainsborough query portrait of Harry. My cousin Harry will hardly speak to me, which is a kind of added bonus — he is probably the most boring man in the country.’

She had by now, of course, a certain amount of practice in replying to this story, but still found it hard to know how one should react to an anecdote which showed Trevor in so disagreeable a light. Why did he tell the story? Why did he tell it to her?

‘Have you ever thought of having your own portrait done?’ she took a running leap at what looked the nearest patch of solid ground in the marsh. ‘Or do you have a portrait of yourself?’

‘Only what you have given me.’

What was he talking about?

‘Come and see.’

The adjoining room was fitted up as a small study (Trevor was an editor at the University Press, but also kept up with ‘his own work’). Six-foot-high bookcases surrounded the walls, except for a space left clear for the desk; above the desk, in a Perspex frame, is an enlargement of a photograph of Trevor taken by Lily several months earlier. Lily has a copy of it herself, it is one of the best things she has done. The grain of the black and white, the gaze directed in contemplation quite inaccessible to the camera; the three-quarters profile, permitting the face the interest of the unobserved, neither closing itself off from nor grinning manically at the camera, but reflective, full of its secrets — all these have worked so happily together that the particular features of Trevor — the very flat, broad forehead, the long straight eyebrows, pale grey eyes, the long, thin, mobile mouth, seemed in the very nervous texture of their individuality to be the occasion of harmonious tranquillity.

‘You should have asked me for the negative,’ said Lily. She has given Trevor a print, since it is always nice to have a good picture of oneself; she had not realised how much Trevor would like it.

‘It’s very soothing to my vanity to have this. Mine’s really a very boring face — or else the mirror has been lying for years.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. They say the camera never lies. Of course, there are always passport photos — it makes you wonder if all cameras can be telling the truth.’

‘I sometimes wonder whether the mirror doesn’t tell us only how we see ourselves. Cameras may be truthful about the way others see us — I shouldn’t expect passport photographers to have a particularly agreeable perception of humanity.’

‘Probably not.’ But did she have an agreeable perception of Trevor? Did the photograph not suggest, in any case, that to be interesting was all that mattered? Was hers an interested eye?

‘Have I ever told you about my youthful passion for photography? I was a sort of infant prodigy with a Brownie — even won prizes in national competitions, though in the amateur category, of course. I’ve got the scrapbooks somewhere or other — must show you them some time, if you wouldn’t find it too boring.’

‘I’d love to see them.’

‘I’ll see if I can find them. Can I get you a drink?’

‘Yes, please.’

Lily stood in a corner of the sitting room. She held a glass of dry sherry (she preferred cream). In a mirror above the mantelpiece she saw, mute tones further muted, the backs of the two armchairs, one row of biscuits in a tin, the edge of a teapot in a red tea cosy, a red-and-brown striped squashy sofa in three quarters profile. Reflected, framed, the room had charms foreign to the original, just as an ordinary or even ugly object gains beauty and dignity when painted or photographed. Trevor came in with a fat scrapbook and sat down on the sofa.

‘The reflection gives the room great charm, don’t you think?’ said Trevor. ‘But it depends a great deal on where you stand. Move a little this way, that will give you the best angle of vision.’

She moved a few steps towards the door. Trevor’s knee, an arm resting on the knee appeared with the frame.

‘No, just a bit further over.’

A few more steps, and Trevor came fully into view.