Read by Patsy Prince & Silas Hawkins
Note: sadly the damn video camera didn't capture the first two sections of the story, which are reproduced below for your reading pleasure. The video picks up at section 3, where it appears embdded below.
When I first saw her across the gallery she was a blob. A dash of black. Not even a stick. A person definitely, but only a blob below a line that led her along. She was the young child of a stick person in an L S Lowry industrial scene. A mere crowd extra. ‘Snowing In Leeds’ it was called, all brick patterns on townscape contours, spiralling smoke and chimneys, hundreds of people. So many blobs, but I studied them all, each one a potential spirit of life and love, however small.
I was already a solo spirit by then, resident in a Joseph Wright composition of the philanthropist Brooke Boothby. One gloved hand on a volume of Rousseau, the other nestling my chin as I engaged the viewer in philosophical contemplation. I was lying amongst fallen leaves in a wood. Very strange when I think about it. Elegant hat though.
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I was sick of being a stick, after I made it up from being a blob. Stick dog, stick child, stick adult. And it's colder without clothes, especially if you don't have a body with anything to show.
I envied Mister. We all did. More than refined, there was something dashing about him. I knew he spotted me because I fidgeted a lot. I so longed to leave home.
I wanted dimension. I wanted breasts. Buttocks particularly. I aspired to have shape. Any shape. Yet I had to wait.
My break came with an Italian student. He came up close to look at my brush strokes and considered what he saw. He held me in his mind as he sauntered towards a Whistler, ‘Harmony In Lilac & Turquoise: A Young Girl’. I jumped. There was a vacancy there. Now I could fill out and smile in a silk dress, a Japanese fan held open in my hand. There was just one more essential accessory I needed: a name. I decided on Whistler's signature motif. I would be called Butterfly.
Butterfly inspires me. Her selections have been spot on. Such harmony in Frampton’s ‘Portrait Of A Student’. A young woman standing – say, eighteen, nineteen – a cello – deliberately more rounded than the young woman – an exquisitely-shaped urn. Everything in Art Deco clarity, against a backdrop of duck-egg blue. A hint of anxiety in her face. She knows she mustn’t waste her potential.
I suggested the occupancy myself.
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I’m not so sure about Mister’s mentoring. I just wanted some of his attention. His voice sends ripples through me. I find his image addictive.
Yet here beside the urn and cello, I feel like an object, part of an exercise in draughtsmanship. It’s all too much in good taste.
I want to be nude. I want to cavort. A naked dancer, a flying Venus. Forget subtlety. I want some life and I want to be adored. Let’s celebrate love.
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The problem with Butterfly is that she has no ambition. I could have been Chatterton, the dead poet strewn majestically across his bed, the garret light dim, his face silver-grey with self-administered poison, his torn poems across the floor. Not for me. I’m a winner. You won’t see me as a rustic in a harvest scene. I have the bearing of an ambassador. I am the reason to paint a picture. A patron of the arts, a symbol of achievement. Though what is there to strive for in the galleries of London? I want to be in a masterpiece, an undisputed world classic. I know I can project myself with mystery as well as gravitas. I was thinking, maybe, the self-portrait of Raphael, though that’s in the Uffizi. I’ll have to be part of an international tour for that, then jump and jump to get closer.
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Mister soon spotted me as a nymph in a Botticelli. I traded a solo for a group scene to be closer to him. He won’t share, of course. Not yet. He took the eye of a tourist that transported him to an alcove of Peter Lelys, so I’ll have to move again. I know how to magnify my presence now, make my cheeks slightly rosier, my eyes a little larger. Exude, exude. Look at my beautiful body, I say. Be enthralled. Desire me.
Then I’ll hop again in a few seconds.
Other changes could be afoot. My name, for instance. Which brings us to Gainsborough’s ‘Mr and Mrs Andrews’. It’s just around the corner, opposite Mister’s current residency. I’d so like him to pop in. Mister with his gun would then be standing near me as I look at you all from my park bench. And when I say ‘park’, I mean we own the park, mansion included. I’m in blue silk again, in a dress you’d never venture outdoors in unless immediately into a carriage or out of one. But that’s not the point of what a lavish garment as wide as the bench is meant to show.
I’m so excited at what his reaction will be on seeing me directly opposite him. He’ll understand the inference, I know.
Let’s try it now. A gallery regular is doing the standing back, coming close, standing back routine, at every picture in the room. Very methodical. It’ll be such an easy jump. Here we go. Into his left eye, roll around his retina, up his optic nerve, into his mind, have a quick look at his memories, then slide down his optic nerve again. Done it! He went straight to Mrs Andrews. I’m home. Now just wait for the viewer to leave and I’ll see Mister gawping back at me.
Oh, no. Disaster. Just a caption: ‘This Exhibit Is On Loan’.
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Butterfly wouldn’t like the Guggenheim. I hate the Guggenheim. I’m forever having to holler ‘Get out of my picture’ to opportune jumpers. They’re so rude round here. They don’t seem to know the meaning of quietude in New York.
Even worse, I’ve been placed right at the end of figurative art. I certainly won’t be jumping round the corner. It’s all Pollocks there.
I’m not budging from these oils. The Hermitage is the next tour stop.
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Damn, Mister and his international career. We could have made a classic. I’m not following him. London has it all, including me.
And what does he intend getting up to while he’s out of my sight and beyond the reach of our gallery whispers? A guest star, perhaps, in a Renoir naturist scene. Mixed bathers, I heard. Scores of them. Total frolicking nonsense.
He better watch out at that end of the market. He could end up in a private collection. Then no one would see him. He might never escape, even if he wanted to. I do believe he would try. What would I do then? At least that scenario suggests a possible desire for him to return to me.
What I really fear are the Russian Surrealists. He’s in awe of them. A Chagall, say, ‘Love & The Stage’. There’s Mister standing in a meadow, one hand holding a dove that he’s about to set free. With the other he touches the fingertips of his lover as she rises into the sky, elevated by elation, so rapturously in love.
That will probably never happen to me. Not now.
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I became a Tsar, briefly. Dated 1535. Luckily, she wasn’t there to see me. Fine pose and perspective for the age, but I sensed a whiff of something that became a stench of blood. I couldn’t radiate anything positive. Just couldn’t fake it.
The Peter Lely had left for Chicago without me by then. I saw a Benjamin West available and jumped instantly. Wonderful detail on a maroon velvet jacket, flesh tone so life-like against my wig. Slave trader wealth though. No wonder there was a vacancy. I couldn’t stand it there.
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I don’t need Mister to lead a life. He’s too stuck-up. Maybe I’ll take a holiday from sobriety. Go Gauguin. Tahiti. Tropical colours. But you try standing there naked when they turn off the lights and there’s no one there to admire you.
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She would have enjoyed the Louvre. It’s very crowded. Lots of opportunities to try different canvases.
An Impressionists tour was bound for Milan, Rome and Florence. Leonardo, Tintoretto, Caravaggio. The finest career roles are there. Raphael.
I could have been transported there as a bystander in a shimmering Seurat. But it was pointless. I missed her. I never understood the workings of my own heart until then.
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Without Mister I plan to take the veil. The central figure in Millais’ ‘Vale of Rest’ draws me with its sense of destiny. Under a breaking dawn a young nun has been digging a grave for an older colleague, knowing that one day a grave will be dug for her there too. Even in that light the lustre of her skin is contrasted against her wimple.
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As canvas spirits we decide when to jump, but not when we are put away. No spirit would choose that. I’ll admit I made a wrong move, a stepping stone towards a Rossetti. A London exhibition was rumoured. I might never reach Butterfly now. I’ve been labelled and put into protective darkness with optimal humidity. No restoration planned. Just redundant. Me!
Could take decades before a curator takes a second look.
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I settled in a Holman Hunt, hung up high and seldom noticed. That suited me. A quiet corner with just enough light. Not many lookers. Over the years I’ve watched certain gallery viewers age. They come with partners. They come alone. They come with new partners. They come alone. Art is a constant in their lives.
I rarely bother with spirit gossip, but yesterday the whispers started buzzing with urgency. Another funding crisis, I presumed. Auction fears. Yet in the frenzy of the blurred words a familiar pattern kept coming through. Definitely his name. I listened intently. He’s returned. He’s come back as a goblin! I nearly fell out of my frame. The great man, reduced. Not even human.
I have to see him. No, I don’t. I don’t need him. I’ll move closer though. No, I won’t. He should move closer to me. Maybe, I’ll just shuffle along towards him. Just a token. No more than politeness. By then he might have made it up to a pixie. No, let’s not bother. He’s in the Sainsbury Wing. I’ll be losing dimension if I turn medieval. He’s not worth it. Well, just a look. And my first words will be, ‘Don’t waste my time. Yes or no?’
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I am a merchant. Respectable enough. Successful financially. Plus, I also know which painter should record us in our showcase fifteenth-century home.
Butterfly’s hand now rests in my hand. The statement is in the exact centre of the picture.
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We are ‘The Arnolfini Marriage’ by Jan Van Eyck.
Mister has an exquisite hat. He’s always had a weakness for them. I chose the dog. A little terrier. I also appear to have chosen something else. Those Flemish dresses have high waistlines, emphasising any developments. It’s been debated for centuries. Let them wonder for a million days. Our course is set. We’ll be here at the National whenever you have the chance to come and gaze.
(c) Paul Flack, 2014
Paul Flack grew up in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. He now works in London, writes on trains and sleeps in Surrey. A first novel is ready for the right, dynamic, fantastically astute, agent. A second novel is coming along when he’s not writing more short stories.
Patsy Prince trained at RADA & King's College London. Recently she appeared in Culture Shock, a feature directed by Steve Balderson which premiered at Raindance 2012. Credits include: Voices From September 11th (The Old Vic), Like Being Killed (Actors’Centre NYC) & Hidden Voices (Paradoxos Theatre, National Tour). Website: www.patsyprince.com
Silas Hawkins is continuing the family voiceover tradition (he is the son of Peter 'Dalek' Hawkins and Rosemary 'Emergency Ward 10' Miller). Favourite voice credits: Summerton Mill, Latin Music USA and podcasts for The Register. For countless voice clips see links on website www.silashawkins.com. Voice agent kerry@sugarpodproductions.com, acting agent katherine@actors-world-production.com
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