Ménage (23 page)

THE SUBJECT IS
centrally placed with a strong bright light aimed directly into his eyes. There are traces of lipstick on his lips, and smears on his cheeks. His eyelids have been made up with mascara. Each time he attempts to open his eyes, the bright light forces him to close them again. As he does not shield his eyes we can infer that his hands may be restrained, although this is impossible to determine from the framing of the footage. He seems unable or unwilling to move. Intermittently, the frame is interrupted as others enter; they are seen only briefly and their actions are either kissing, slapping or stroking the subject’s face. The number of others is impossible to determine, as is their gender, as is the point of the exercise. A man is being repeatedly slapped and kissed for no apparent reason.

The subject may have been given instructions, such as ‘do not move’ or ‘do not talk’ but the viewer is not made aware of these. He appears to be intoxicated, but whether this is due to administered substances or from the experience itself is impossible to determine. The duration of the footage is thirty-two minutes and is one uninterrupted ‘take’ in real time. The footage repeats when completed. The camera relentlessly films from the same single tripod position
as
the subject waits for the next touch. Out of the thirty-two minutes, thirty-one of those are simply of the waiting face. While the face waits, noises can be heard from off-screen: footsteps, a glass smashing, a beating of leather on leather, sounds of whispering. The subject demonstrates a surprising range of facial expressions during this waiting, from acute anxiety to an almost ecstatic state. The effect is occasionally comical as the subject goes through what seems a process of excruciating anticipation, counting the seconds, holding his breath, screwing up his eyes, while waiting for a blow that does not come, or for a gentle kiss that turns out to be slap. It has been reported that audience members often experience emotions close to those of the subject, ‘a dreadful sense of anticipation’, ‘a kind of relief’. It has been noted also that viewers often ‘jump’ when a blow is administered. The work has been described in a wide range of emotive language from ‘abusive’ and ‘sick’ to ‘beautiful’.

The audio is in sync with the image. But unlike in a cinema where the audio seems to ‘come from the screen’, the audio is played from speakers at the opposite end of the gallery. This disembodied audio creates an alienation effect between sound and image. Some viewers have described how, hearing footsteps behind them, they had assumed that a real person had joined them in the gallery, only to discover that the sounds were part of the artwork.

Images evoked by the footage have frequently been described as those of interrogation, of consensual sadomasochistic ritual
^fn1
and of ‘devotional’ religious suffering. The artwork has been banned in several countries with differing laws on portrayals of violence.
^fn2
Islamic groups and women’s organisations have, rather surprisingly, joined forces in condemnation of the work, albeit for differing reasons. This kind of reception is typical of the radical ambiguity at the heart of Shears’s work.

A man is repeatedly slapped and kissed for no apparent reason, forcing us to ask: to what end? Shears offers no answers and so her work spawns a multitude of interpretations. Most recently,
Trust
has been interpreted as a prophetic critique of the illegal torture of detainees in Guantánamo Bay. But is Shears a political artist or, as others claim, an artist who is demonstrating the political apathy of Generation X –
Trust
being then quite literally a metaphor for the TV
viewer
who is caressed and bullied into a powerless consensual stupor? Or is her work symptomatic of that apathy and apathetic in and of itself?

Whatever her intent, something terrible and urgent seems to be at stake in
Trust
. It has, for some commentators, indicated the degree to which those who live ‘alternative’ lifestyles, who ‘drop out’, ultimately turn on each other in the isolated vacuum they have created. The games they play then, which start out as an escape from the real world, ultimately become psychologically loaded tortuous role plays, in which the repressed returns and the excluded world haunts in the form of an uncontrollable subconscious violence.
^fn3

‘WILL YOU STAY
with me? Not that I mean getting married or anything, but at least share childcare, like between two homes, if that would suit you, because I know I’m not even related to Molly, but it would, for me anyway, not that this is just about Molly, but me and you, in some kind of nonofficial commitment, cos I don’t think we can keep just busking it like this without some kind of plan, some kind of, not that I want to be the big man laying down the rules, given that you are in fact the real breadwinner and . . .’

The more he ran over the words, the more they became some pathetic apology for their own premise. It was the same with Dot’s essay. The more he wrote the more he was concealing the passion at the heart of her art.

Dot had wanted to make an offer on a place in Battersea in the next week. And in so little time the deadline for the essay would be up. Their lovemaking had ceased. Conversation had become practical. It seemed to Owen that they’d be stuck in a repeat loop of endless platitudes, until she secured her new home.

He had watched the tapes ten times over while she was away and wept for what they really showed. The growing gap between them. He now knew what it was.

She could not talk of how she healed, of her medication, her many years of therapy and diet, her parents’ care, her psychologists, her lovers, Molly’s father, of the first person who helped her walk again, or who gave her hope. And he had not asked her if she had ever had a relapse, or what her new drugs were, or if she thought her madness would return. They had perhaps both feared asking, if there
was
not in her madness a freedom, a blinding flash of total power, that perhaps she secretly longed for.

Old Street.

He turned the corner onto Whitmore Road. 102. It was covered in scaffolding and tarpaulin. The building was gutted, a shell. There would be no gazing in the front window to the dark within to the imagined mess of Saul’s front bedroom, the records splayed on the floor, Edna’s Hindu rugs hanging from the railing in place of curtains. The big new metal sign said: ‘SHOREDITCH TRUST: Changing Shoreditch for Good’.

Fluorescent yellow vests and hard hats passed. He turned and walked away.

The roundabout then, the statue in the middle with slogans cast in iron around it: ‘I LOVE HOXTON 2000’. A cast-iron woman painted many colours held a black kid and an Oriental kid in tow, all hand in hand in hand, in frozen running form, the mother’s metal finger pointing to Hoxton as if to salvation. She was ten feet high, with a Caucasian-or possibly Asian-looking cartoon face, purple stripy tights, dreadlocks and blue shoes. Like some futuristic manga/communist inspired statue, promoting the left-wing feminist post-colonial dream of a utopia rising from the ashes of the white patriarchal family. A smiling, multicultural, sexy, working single mother, dragging her two ethnically different children into a future of smiling prosperity.

On the walk home, he told himself that nothing short of a miracle could stop Dot from running out of his life.

Music and laughter were coming from inside his front door. It seemed to be many people, a party, Nirvana was playing and the laughter was definitely that of a man.

Molly had not run to greet him as he entered and there was no usual ‘Hiya’ from Dot. His curiosity pulled him down the corridor past Molly’s Lego homes to the sounds in the
kitchen
. As he opened the door he saw Dot doubled over in laughter, Molly throwing around paper aeroplanes, and someone sitting in the alcove, just another step and he would see who.

‘Owen, you wouldn’t believe it!’ Dot shouted.

A clean-shaven, gaunt, balding, grey-haired man, in an off-the-peg suit and white shirt, turned to face him, lowering his gaze as he tried to shake hands across the kitchen table. Molly’s paper aeroplane flew between them as she shrieked with laughter. The old man’s eyes at first seemed almost scared, then opened. A smile rising on the aged face as recognition hit.

‘No way . . . Saul. My God?’

‘May He rest in peace,’ the man-who-could-not-be-Saul said so quietly as he negotiated the table edge and stood with hand outstretched. ‘Good to see you again.’ Dot was on her feet in a frenzy of explanations. The old man opened his arms and pulled Owen awkwardly to his body. He was enfolded in the smell of cheap aftershave, washing powder and cigarettes. Dot said: ‘I plugged it in and it rang so I just picked it up and . . . the phone and . . .’

The old man patted his back and Owen awkwardly repeated the gesture. He almost said: ‘Good to see you too, old man.’

‘Saw her thing on the telly,’ the old man said.

‘God, fuck the telly,’ Dot laughed.

‘Lovely place you’ve got here,’ the old man whispered, and Owen felt the warm wetness of a kiss on his cheek. Then Owen was released and the old man stood silent, looking him up and down, smiling to himself.

‘Look at you, all grown up.’

Dot was lost for words as she stared at them both, trying to finish her story about the phone call but running to the freezer and shouting back about glasses and celebrating and bubbly.

‘Not for me!’ the old man said, raising a slender hand, as Dot uncorked the champagne Owen had bought for the hoped-for future occasion when she would announce to the world that they were a couple.

‘Twelve Steps,’ the old man whispered as he collapsed back into his seat. ‘The liver, five years clean now. Not for me.’

‘Mummy, Mummy,’ Molly was shouting, ‘can I have some?’

‘OK, sure, I’m sorry,’ Dot was saying to the old man and then to Molly: ‘No, of course you can’t. This is for grown-ups.’

In the silence that ensued Owen took his time to take the old man in: the shoes were brown loafers and worn thin around the edges, the shirt collar had a line of grime; the hair was shorn short and well receded at the hairline, thinning at the crown. He looked some kind of low-grade office menial, a mailroom man, or council bureaucrat.

Dot was unsure what to do with the bubbly, she poured one glass then stopped. Molly thrust a paper aeroplane almost into Owen’s eye.

‘Uncle Saul made it for me! I did the windows.’

Uncle already, was it? Owen thought. ‘That’s lovely, Mozzie . . . great,’ he said.

The old man was quietly seated and smiling to himself, as Molly climbed onto his knee, doing zoom noises.

‘Zoom, zoom,’ the old man repeated with a smile to the child.

‘Coffee then? Tea?’ Dot was asking him.

‘Water’s just fine by me.’

Say something, Owen was telling himself, but too many questions interrupted and the Nirvana was bothering him and he was becoming increasingly aware that Saul must have known that these last months he had been turning the phone off each night. Molly’s zooming paper planes saved
him
from speech and Dot was back with a bottle of Perrier and slices of lemon and was speaking on Saul’s behalf, the old man just nodding in affirmation as she checked she’d got the story right, while Molly got grumpy because the nose of one of her planes had got squished and the man called Saul quietly calmed her and took it in his hands to fix it.

‘Saul’s a childminder now.’

‘Really!’ Owen said, hoping that no one had heard that note of incredulity. Dot handed him the poured glass of bubbly as if sensing his nerves. ‘For a couple in Knightsbridge, architects. Can you believe it?’

No, he could not. His eyes fixed on the child on the old man’s knee, whispering in his ear.

‘So, you need to study for that or . . .’ Owen asked, ‘I mean, child-minding . . . is there a certificate or . . .?’

Saul turned to speak but Dot jumped in first.

‘Saul’s doing a degree in child psychology . . . through the Open University.’

‘Just a diploma,’ the old man smiled.

Molly hugged Saul, and Owen had to take his time to take it in, the quiet non-judgemental intimacy of the old man; the way he placed a hand so gently over the child’s soft blonde hair, not touching, then lowered his face to Molly’s level, his voice in little whispers, apeing the child’s, while on the stereo Cobain sang ‘Lithium’.

‘Saul’s got his own place in Dalston.’

‘Well, it’s council. Nice place, all new,’ Saul said. ‘Central heating.’

‘Imagine that, he’s been there all this time and we never even –’

‘Well, seven years.’

It was like they’d rehearsed this, Owen thought. Something was coming. No doubt some sob story had been in great intimate detail in the hours before as they replayed
Nevermind
. She and Saul had come to an agreement before
he
’d even stepped into his own home. She was reaching for his hand now and Saul was staring at the floor. Wait for it.

‘Hell of a schlep to this couple in Knightsbridge, every day. He was saying he was looking for something a bit more local, and then it just hit me.’

She looked at him as if he was the one that was supposed to guess what was coming next.

‘You know you’ve been saying you’ve not enough time to do the essay, and I’m never going to get the Zurich show ready with all the commuting, well . . .’

And she waited again, for him to speak. But he did not.

‘Well, hey presto! I thought Saul could take care of Molly till I get her a new day care. I mean, till I get the new apartment. It’d give us both so much more time in the day. Isn’t it brilliant?’

My God, they were cunning, using his ruse of postponing the apartment find against him. Turning his buying more time thing against him. Very smart.

‘It would just be for a bit . . . you know, he’d be popping round first thing in the morning, giving her lunch and dinner. What do you think, O?’

She had called him O. For the first time in so long.

‘Mumma, who’s O?’ asked Molly.

Owen’s silence spoke louder than it should. If he could just get Dot alone, lay it out, take charge for once.

‘ . . . or if I moved back to mine. Put Molly back in the old place, none of this would be an issue,’ she said.

Now it was Owen staring at the ground and Saul who was speaking.

‘Sorry, don’t want to cause any trouble.’

My God, had he not learned already that everything Saul said meant the opposite, not only would he be trouble but no doubt had been working out this scam for years. His passive-aggressive strategies. The conniving Machiavellian two-faced dole-scrounging leech.

Just then Molly and Dot turned to him, perfectly in sync, with puppy-dog eyes.

‘OK, OK,’ Owen said. ‘I suppose we could do with an extra pair of hands.’

‘I love you,’ Dot shouted.

‘Thanks, bud,’ Saul said. And then Dot was reaching to hug them both but the table was in the way and she bashed her knee. Molly ran around collecting all her paper aeroplanes, asking Saul if he could help her draw windows and little people inside.

‘Well, I’ll be off then,’ said Saul. ‘Early start tomorrow.’

‘Oh but it’s too late. You’ll simply have to stay the night.’

Was there no end to this? Owen thought.

‘I’ll get the tube.’

‘But you’re nowhere near the bloody tube, Sozzle, I’m not having you walking round bloody Dalston.’

She’d called him Sozzle.

‘I can drive him back,’ Owen said.

‘You’ve had a glass and a half of wine!’

‘OK, OK, I’ll fix up the sofa bed.’

It was his study and his sofa bed and there was Saul standing beside him, with a book in his hand and a toothbrush, as if he’d planned this. Owen pulled out the old cranky springed base. It practically filled the entire room and was butted up against his PC desk.

‘Cheers, mate,’ Saul had said. ‘Appreciate this, really.’

‘It’s fine, no problem.’

But now that they were alone he couldn’t meet Saul’s eye.

A morbid curiosity had Owen scanning the spine of the book Saul was holding. It was called
Believe in Yourself
. A self-help book. Jesus, how far the guy must have fallen? He was staring at Saul’s socks then, they were grey and
worn
thin at the toes. He was having an almost sadistic pleasure in assessing the man’s poverty, asserting his territorial rights.

‘Well, you can use my desk light if you want to read. You can put your shoes out in the hall, and feel free to have a shower, it’s at the end down there, next to the room Dot and I sleep in . . . So is there anything else?’

‘Sorry to put you to this bother.’

Saul’s eyes met his and there was something there not seen before, as if about to break through. Saul was the first to lower his gaze.

‘Well, goodnight then.’

Owen shut the door and was out and into the hall. It was strewn with dozens of paper aeroplanes. As he bent down to pick one up he heard the faint trace of the voice of the long-dead Cobain floating through his home.

Owen must have sighed again because Dot set down her book on the bedside table and rolled over to face him.

‘OK, I know.’

‘What?’

‘Do I have to play shrink with you? Maybe you could try to be . . .’

No, he wasn’t going to finish her sentences tonight.

‘To be . . . be honest with me. Why don’t you start by saying “the thing is”.’

‘OK, the thing is . . .’

‘Keep going,’ she said and so he said: ‘Well, you know what he’s like, he makes a hell of a mess, he can’t hold down a job, he’s probably never even had one, he’s –’

‘He’s changed, really, been through a lot.’

‘I hope he’s not planning on moving in here.’

‘He has a place of his own.’

‘Does he, have we any evidence?’

She was looking at him now and it was him avoiding
her
gaze, searching for that bit of cornicing she’d found so fascinating.

‘OK, I didn’t want to say but he’s lived alone for a long, long time and been hospitalised twice for alcoholism.’

‘He told you that? Go on, Dot, you’re really selling this to me.’

‘He’s clean now, he just needs some . . .’

‘What?’

‘Well, a little encouragement. I think doing a bit of work, in a supportive environment, would do him good.’

‘Great, so, you’ve already decided without me. You’re giving him a job, now you’re planning on him moving in. Thanks, that’s just great!