Once Id gone fruit picking in summer time. That didnt pay much, but I enjoyed myself. Id tried a lot of things. Id been a waiter in a third-class hotel, life guard on a summer beach, Id sold encyclopaedias and vacuum cleaners and a few other things. Id once done horticultural work in a botanical garden and had learnt a little about flowers.
I never stuck to anything. Why should I? Id found nearly everything I did interesting. Some things were harder work than others but I didnt really mind that. Im not really lazy. I suppose what I really am is restless. I want to go everywhere, see everything, do everything. I want to find something. Yes, thats it. I want to find something.
From the time I left school I wanted to find something, but I didnt yet know what that something was going to be. It was just something I was looking for in a vague, unsatisfied sort of way. It was somewhere. Sooner or later Id know all about it. It might perhaps be a girl I like girls, but no girl Id met so far had been important You liked them all right but then you went to the next one quite gladly. They were like the jobs I took. All right for a bit and then you got fed up with them and you wanted to move on to the next one. Id gone from one thing to another ever since Id left school.
A lot of people disapproved of my way of life. I suppose they were what you might call my well-wishers[7]. That was because they didnt understand the first thing about me. They wanted me to go steady with a nice girl, save money, get married to her and then settle down to a nice steady job. Day after day, year after year, world without end, amen. Not for yours truly! There must be something better than that. Not just all this tame security, the good old welfare state limping along in its half-baked way! Surely, I thought, in a world where man has been able to put satellites in the sky and where men talk big about visiting the stars, there must be something that rouses you, that makes your heart beat, thats worthwhile searching all over the world to find! One day, I remember, I was walking down Bond Street. It was during my waiter period and I was due on duty. Id been strolling looking at some shoes in a shop window. Very natty they were. Like they say in the advertisements in newspapers: What smart men are wearing today and theres usually a picture of the smart man in question. My word, he usually looks a twerp! Used to make me laugh, advertisements like that did.
I passed on from the shoes to the next window. It was a picture shop. Just three pictures in the window artily arranged with a drape of limp velvet in some neutral colour arranged over a corner of a gilt frame. Cissy, if you know what I mean. Im not much of a one for Art. I dropped in to the National Gallery once out of curiosity. Fair gave me the pip, it did. Great big shiny coloured pictures of battles in rocky glens, or emaciated saints getting themselves stuck with arrows. Portraits of simpering great ladies sitting smirking in silks and velvets and lace. I decided then and there that Art wasnt for me. But the picture I was looking at now was somehow different. There were three pictures in the window. One a landscape, nice bit of country for what I call everyday. One of a woman drawn in such a funny way, so much out of proportion, that you could hardly see she was a woman. I suppose thats what you call art nouveau[8]. I dont know what it was about. The third picture was my picture. There wasnt really much to it, if you know what I mean. It was how can I describe it? It was kind of simple. А lot of space in it and a few great widening circles all round each other if you can put it that way. All in different colours, odd colours that you wouldnt expect. And here and there, there were sketchy bits of colour that didnt seem to mean anything. Only somehow they did mean something! Im no good at description. All I can say is that one wanted terribly to go on looking at it.
I just stood there, feeling queer as though something very unusual had happened to me. Those fancy shoes now, Id have liked them to wear. I mean I take quite a bit of trouble with my clothes. I like to dress well so as to make an impression, but I never seriously thought in my life of buying a pair of shoes in Bond Street. I know the kind of fancy prices they ask there. Fifteen pounds a pair those shoes might be. Hand-made or something, they call it, making it more worthwhile for some reason. Sheer waste of money[9] that would be. А classy line in shoes, yes, but you can pay too much for class. Ive got my head screwed on the right way.
But this picture, what would that cost? I wondered.
Suppose I were to buy that picture? Youre crazy, I said to myself. You dont go for pictures, not in a general way. That was true enough. But I wanted this picture Id like it to be mine. Id like to be able to hang it and sit and look at it as long as I liked and know that I owned it! Me! Buying pictures. It seemed a crazy idea. I took a look at the picture again. Me wanting that picture didnt make sense, and anyway, I probably couldnt afford it. Actually I was in funds at just that moment. А lucky tip on a horse. This picture would probably cost a packet. Twenty pounds? Twenty-five? Anyway, there would be no harm in asking. They couldnt eat me, could they? I went in, feeling rather aggressive and on the defensive.
The inside of the place was all very hushed and grand. There was a sort of muted atmosphere with neutral-colour walls and a velvet settee on which you could sit and look at the pictures. А man who looked a little like the model for the perfectly dressed man in advertisements came and attended to me, speaking in a rather hushed voice[10] to match the scenery. Funnily, he didnt look superior as they usually do in high-grade Bond Street shops. He listened to what I said and then he took the picture out of the window and displayed it for me against a wall, holding it there for me to look at as long as I wanted. It came to me then in the way you sometimes know just exactly how things are, that the same rules didnt apply over pictures as they do about other things. Somebody might come into a place like this dressed in shabby old clothes and a frayed shirt and turn out to be a millionaire who wanted to add to his collection. Or he could come in looking cheap and flashy, rather like me perhaps, but somehow or other hed got such a yen for a picture that he managed to get the money together by some kind of sharp practice.
A very fine example of the artists work, said the man who was holding the picture.
How much? I said briskly.
The answer took my breath away.
Twenty-five thousand, he said in his gentle voice.
Im quite good at keeping a poker face. I didnt show anything. At least I dont think I did. He added some name that sounded foreign. The artists name, I suppose, and that it had just come on the market from a house in the country, where the people who lived there had had no idea what it was. I kept my end up and sighed.
Its a lot of money but its worth it, I suppose, I said.
Twenty-five thousand pounds. What a laugh!
Yes, he said and sighed. Yes indeed. He lowered the picture very gently and carried it back to the window. He looked at me and smiled. You have good taste, he said.
I felt that in some way he and I understood each other. I thanked him and went out into Bond Street.
Twenty-five thousand pounds. What a laugh!
Yes, he said and sighed. Yes indeed. He lowered the picture very gently and carried it back to the window. He looked at me and smiled. You have good taste, he said.
I felt that in some way he and I understood each other. I thanked him and went out into Bond Street.
Chapter 3
I dont know much about writing things down not, I mean, in the way a proper writer would do. The bit about that picture I saw, for instance. It doesnt really have anything to do with anything. I mean, nothing came of it, it didnt lead to anything and yet I feel somehow that it is important, that it has a place somewhere. It was one of the things that happened to me that meant something. Just like Gipsys Acre meant something to me. Like Santonix meant something to me.
I havent really said much about him. He was an architect. Of course youll have gathered that. Architects are another thing Id never had much to do with, though I knew a few things about the building trade. I came across Santonix in the course of my wanderings. It was when I was working as a chauffeur, driving the rich around places. Once or twice I drove abroad, twice to Germany I knew a bit of German and once or twice to France I had a smattering of French too and once to Portugal. They were usually elderly people, who had money and bad health in about equal quantities.
When you drive people like that around, you begin to think that money isnt so hot after all[11]. What with incipient heart attacks, lots of bottles of little pills you have to take all the time, and losing your temper over the food or the service in hotels. Most of the rich people Ive known have been fairly miserable. Theyve got their worries, too. Taxation and investments. You hear them talking together or to friends. Worry! Thats whats killing half of them. And their sex lifes not so hot either. Theyve either got long-legged blonde sexy wives who are playing them up with boyfriends somewhere, or theyre married to the complaining kind of woman, hideous as hell, who keeps telling them where they get off. No. Id rather be myself. Michael Rogers, seeing the world, and getting off with good-looking girls when he feels like it!
Everything a bit hand-to-mouth[12], of course, but I put up with that. Life was good fun, and Id been content to go on with life being fun. But I suppose I would have in any case. That attitude goes with youth. When youth begins to pass fun isnt fun any longer.
Behind it, I think, was always the other thing wanting someone and something However, to go on with what I was saying, there was one old boy I used to drive down to the Riviera. Hed got a house being built there. He went down to look how it was getting on. Santonix was the architect. I dont really know what nationality Santonix was. English I thought at first, though it was a funny sort of name Id never heard before. But I dont think he was English. Scandinavian of some kind I guess. He was an ill man. I could see that at once. He was young and very fair and thin with an odd face, a face that was askew somehow. The two sides of it didnt match. He could be quite bad-tempered to his clients. Youd have thought as they were paying the money that theyd call the tune and do the bullying. That wasnt so. Santonix bullied them and he was always quite sure of himself although they werent.
This particular old boy of mine was frothing with rage, I remember, as soon as he arrived and had seen how things were going. I used to catch snatches here and there when I was standing by ready to assist in my chauffeurly and handyman way. It was always on the cards that Mr Constantine would have a heart attack or a stroke.
You have not done as I said, he half screamed. You have spent too much money. Much too much money. It is not as we agreed. It is going to cost me more than I thought.
Youre absolutely right, said Santonix. But the moneys got to be spent.
It shall not be spent! It shall not be spent. You have got to keep within the limits I laid down. You understand?
Then you wont get the kind of house you want, said Santonix. I know what you want. The house I build you will be the house you want. Im quite sure of that and youre quite sure of it, too. Dont give me any of your pettifogging middle-class economies[13]. You want a house of quality and youre going to get it, and youll boast about it to your friends and theyll envy you. I dont build a house for anyone, Ive told you that. Theres more to it than money. This house isnt going to be like other peoples houses!
It is going to be terrible. Terrible.
Oh no it isnt. The trouble with you is that you dont know what you want. Or at least so anyone might think. But you do know what you want really, only you cant bring it out into your mind. You cant see it clearly. But I know. Thats the one thing I always know. What people are after and what they want. Theres a feeling in you for quality. Im going to give you quality.
He used to say things like that. And Id stand by and listen. Somehow or other I could see for myself that this house that was being built there amongst pine trees looking over the sea, wasnt going to be the usual house. Half of it didnt look out towards the sea in a conventional way. It looked inland, up to a certain curve of mountains, up to a glimpse of sky between hills. It was odd and unusual and very exciting.
Santonix used to talk to me sometimes when I was off duty. He said:
I only build houses for people I want to build for.
Rich people, you mean?
They have to be rich or they couldnt pay for the houses. But its not the money Im going to make out of it I care about. My clients have to be rich because I want to make the kind of houses that cost money. The house only isnt enough, you see. It has to have the setting. Thats just as important. Its like a ruby or an emerald. А beautiful stone is only a beautiful stone. It doesnt lead you anywhere further. It doesnt mean anything, it has no form or significance until it has its setting. And the setting has to have a beautiful jewel to be worthy of it. I take the setting, you see, out of the landscape, where it exists only in its own right. It has no meaning until there is my house sitting proudly like a jewel within its grasp. He looked at me and laughed. You dont understand?
I suppose not, I said slowly, and yet in a way I think I do
That may be. He looked at me curiously.
We came down to the Riviera again later. By then the house was nearly finished. I wont describe it because I couldnt do it properly, but it was well something special and it was beautiful. I could see that. It was a house youd be proud of, proud to show to people, proud to look at yourself, proud to be in with the right person perhaps. And then suddenly one day Santonix said to me:
I could build a house for you, you know. Id know the kind of house youd want.
I shook my head.
I shouldnt know myself, I said, honestly.
Perhaps you wouldnt. Id know for you. Then he added, Its a thousand pities you havent got the money.
And never shall have, I said.