Katherine Bucknell - What You Will

Now Roland laughed, a murmur in his chest, pleasure, interest, leaning down towards her. ‘Part of art?’ he asked, as if she knew what he meant. And when she looked bemused, he went on, ‘To please the audience, to give them pleasure? Nowadays all parts of our culture are infected by a kind of marketing mentality. Even Lawrence. What do the people want? That question shapes everything – politics, education, health, transport. But can one ever be right in thinking one knows what the people want? And do the people want the right things in any case?’

Gwen poked at a nearly invisible fish bone on her plate, pushed it to the very edge, and without looking up said dreamily, almost as if she were thinking aloud, ‘When I’m out in the landscape, looking, or even just being there, I don’t think of any of that. It’s something else – something that carries you right out of yourself, out of normal experience. Like some loophole you can get through in time, where it’s slower or deeper – and actually real –’

‘That’s quite a palatable form of religion – nature worship. But quite primitive, eh? Pantheism, Wordsworth, the Druids. A sense of awe before the natural world? What about mankind, Gwen? What about civilisation? Or God, for that matter. Far more complex and intriguing.’

‘What about God ? What are you saying?’ she demanded, sitting right up into the flow of his talk. ‘I’ve copped out? Picked the easiest subject matter?’

‘Not necessarily,’ Roland said, smiling a smooth, almost syrupy smile, as if he were stroking her mind to quiet it. ‘You’re a painter after all.’

This was worse. ‘So it’s painting that’s not good enough for you? What is wrong with this country, that painting isn’t anything? And you’ve had so few great painters!’

He fell silent, looking confused. Then he said, ‘Your paintings please me enormously. And I think art should please; it should be beautiful. Marketing, after all, is a lowbrow commercial name for something that has always been going on – and going on for perfectly good reasons. I like to see you think hard, that’s all. You could do anything you wanted to. You might be more thoughtfu—’ he corrected himself, ‘more analytical – if you were pushed to it.’

‘Watch your step, Henry Higgins!’ Though she joked, Gwen was hurt. I reveal something personal, she thought, and he comes at me with that arrogance. Why does everything have to be an argument or a theory supported by evidence, a proof of something true or untrue? Who the fuck does he think he is?

Roland looked at her, down at his plate, at her again. Gwen sensed that he wanted in some way to apologise. She glanced at Hilary, wondering how the evening seemed to her, safely chatting with Lawrence.

‘Of course I have my own favourites,’ Hilary was saying, eyes on the hem of her napkin which she was folding and unfolding on the tabletop. Then she leaned a little towards Lawrence’s reply.

‘You won’t ever be content if you let someone else get their hands on those. Will you?’

‘I don’t talk about it. It’s not really appropriate to have my own opinion about the collection.’ Hilary was demure and self-contained.

‘But that’s ridiculous!’ Lawrence offered friendly outrage. ‘You must have your own opinion! How can you ever have been a student of mine and not have an opinion? You must summon some nerve and tell me what it is! I’m longing to hear it!’

Hilary’s cheeks darkened with his enthusiasm.

That’s more like a conversation, Gwen thought. And it dawned on her that Roland was hardly coping with life away from Oxford. He was stuck after all in the tone of voice, in the useless style of put-downs and sparring. Roland only wants to please, she thought. Wants to be noticed and admired. But he doesn’t know how to give ground. He doesn’t believe as much as he pretends to believe in anyone else’s vitality. He just knows how to question.

Tonight he had a chance – in theory, he had a chance for love. And he blew it. Before he even got into the room. He’s the one who recommended the heartless Paul to be Hilary’s assistant. So he’s taking revenge on me as well as on Hilary. He won’t even risk considering whether or not he likes Hilary, or how he ought to talk to her; he’s just leaving her to Lawrence. He must have failed at this a hundred times, agonisingly, and he’s trying to prove to us that he doesn’t care – about women, about romance. Which shows that he’s terrified. Gwen saw it all so suddenly and so clearly.

Oh, she thought with pain, he doesn’t set out to hurt. He only needs someone to encourage him. To straighten his hair and spruce him up a little. Then he could shine. It occurred to her that, until tonight, she herself had been able to bring out what was generous and alive in Roland because she wasn’t a chance for love. She was already taken; with her, he was safe from failure, and so with her, he succeeded.

As she thought of this, she looked up at Roland with such warmth, such forgiveness, that he blushed brick red, almost purple, like a bruise, and the blush made a bond between them, a certain understanding. She could easily be the one if she cared to; he’d admitted it. It made the insides of her nostrils burn with surprise; she felt a flush of energy in her chest. She looked over at Hilary again, thinking, this should be you, Hil. And yet she felt a furtive pleasure that Hilary was still deep in conversation with Lawrence.

Gwen smiled a long easy smile at Roland. She felt gratified. She liked knowing she could be the one with him. She liked considering him as if she were single like Hilary. It was a long time since she had looked at a man with unmarried eyes.

When they talked about it, getting up the next morning, Gwen thought the party had been something of a success.

‘Of course it was,’ Lawrence announced. ‘Everyone there was completely remarkable. What a privilege to be in the room with such people. And oh, the pudding!’ He kissed his fingertips and tossed them in the air, then went back to scouring his teeth, toothpaste foaming from his jaws.

Gwen laughed, squeezing in at the sink. He had devoted himself to the store-bought chocolate cake.

Hyperbole often characterised Lawrence’s most serious statements. It was like a superstition with him, making fun. He feared to value anything too much in case he lost it.

‘But what do you mean by success? You want Roland to ask her out by himself?’ He shook his head.

‘You don’t think he will?’ Gwen whined a little, feeling mocked.

‘With the wound of Paul that he and I inflicted on her? It’s too much to expect him to make that up to her. Anyway, darling, you’re the one he wants. He doesn’t want her!’

She made an astonished face. ‘Come off it, Lawrence. He wants a woman who will make sacrifices for him. You remember he told us that once? I don’t make sacrifices for anyone!’

‘You make sacrifices for Will every thirty seconds.’ His voice trailed away as he went through the hall into the bedroom.

She scoffed at the mirror, spat into the sink. ‘Not the same thing at all.’

Lawrence reappeared, buttoning his shirt, grinning devilishly. He watched her reflection over her shoulder and she watched, too – watched him, watched herself. Then she blushed, more from shyness than anxiety. They both knew he had a point, but it did them no harm at all, this tiny gratification she had enjoyed, Roland’s attention. They laughed a little. It wasn’t serious. It was like being caught eating ice cream straight out of the carton with the freezer door open; she felt slightly embarrassed. Why not sit down, have a bowlful? But a chair and a bowl would formally acknowledge the appetite; a chair and a bowl would make it impossible to pretend that the ice cream wasn’t wanted, wasn’t even really being eaten. As good as being caught; so who was kidding who? It was a delicate torture, to remind them both how intimately Lawrence knew her appetites and her sensibility.