Ali Smith: Autumn

Were you just playing the Milky Ways? Zoe says coming through to the living room in Elisabeth’s mother’s bathrobe. What’s that burning smell?

She goes through to the kitchen whistling the chorus.

Elisabeth checks for the song on the online charts. It’s doing rather well. She search-engines the contact details for the supermarket’s head office.

What’s your second name? she says to Zoe.

Spencer-Barnes, Zoe says. Why?

Elisabeth calls a number on her phone.

Hello, she says. This is Elisabeth Demand, I’m calling from the Spencer-Barnes Agency, can you put me through to your marketing department? No, that’s fine, answerphone is fine. Thank you. (Pause.) Hello, I’m calling from the Spencer-Barnes Agency, my name is Elisabeth Demand, that’s D, e, m, a, n and d, and I’m calling on behalf of my client Mr Daniel Gluck whose copyright via your use in your current campaign of Mr Gluck’s 1962 hit song Summer Brother Autumn Sister is being infringed every time your latest television commercial is aired. Obviously if you or your agency partners will be so good as to contact me, which you can do on this number — clearly we’d appreciate your alacrity — and negotiate and then be ready to transfer immediately funds totalling what we agree is legally owed to our client Mr Gluck, then the matter will cease to be problematic for us as far as both our client and the question of infringement law is concerned. I’ll wait to hear from you that the situation has been resolved. If I haven’t heard within twenty four hours we’ll be taking action, and I’d suggest at least blanket suspension of your commercial until this has been taken in hand. Many thanks.

She left her number at the end of the message.

Infringement, her mother says. Alacrity. Via.

Elisabeth shrugs.

Do you think it’ll work? her mother says.

Worth a try, Elisabeth says. I bet they think he’s long gone.

What about the other people? Zoe says. What about Mike Ray? The Milky Ways?

My only concern is Daniel, Elisabeth says. I mean Mr Gluck.

Your girl’s a powerhouse, Zoe says.

Isn’t she. But never underestimate the source, her mother says.

The source? Elisabeth says.

Me, her mother says.

That’ll be the day, Elisabeth says.

Yet another good old song, Zoe says.

She starts singing it.

It is like magic has happened in my life, Elisabeth’s mother whispers to Elisabeth when Zoe’s left the room.

Unnatural, Elisabeth says.

Who’d have known, who’d have guessed, it’d be love, at this late stage, that’d see me through? Elisabeth’s mother says.

Unhealthy, Elisabeth says. I forbid it. You’re not to.

She gives her mother a hug and a kiss.

That’s enough, her mother says.

What’s this book? Zoe says.

She comes through from the hall.

Who’s this artist? she says. These are wonderful.

She sits down at the kitchen table with the old Pauline Boty catalogue open at the painting called 5 4 3 2 1.

One of the people my erudite daughter educates people about, Elisabeth’s mother says.

Artist from the 1960s, Elisabeth says. The only British female Pop artist.

Ah, Zoe says. I didn’t know there were any.

There were, Elisabeth says.

Victim of abuse, I expect, Zoe says.

She winks at Elisabeth. Elisabeth laughs.

Just the usual humdrum contemporary misogynies, she says.

Committed suicide, Zoe says.

Nope, Elisabeth says.

Went mad, then, Zoe says.

Nope. Just the usual humdrum completely sane occasional depressions, Elisabeth says.

Ah. Died tragically, then, Zoe says.

Well, that’s one reading of it, Elisabeth says. My own preferred reading is: free spirit arrives on earth equipped with the skill and the vision capable of blasting the tragic stuff that happens to us all into space, where it dissolves away to nothing whenever you pay any attention to the lifeforce in her pictures.

Oh, that’s good, Zoe says. That’s very good. All the same. I bet she was ignored.

She was after she died, Elisabeth says.

I bet it goes like this, Zoe says. Ignored. Lost. Rediscovered years later. Then ignored. Lost. Rediscovered again years later. Then ignored. Lost. Rediscovered ad infinitum. Am I right?

Elisabeth laughs out loud.

Have you actually done one of my daughter’s courses? her mother says.

What’s her story, then, this girl? Zoe says.

She’s looking at the photograph of Boty young and laughing, not yet twenty, on the inside fold of the catalogue cover.

Her story? Elisabeth says. Got ten minutes?

Autumn.1963. Scandal 63. Up till last night the most prominent Keeler was right here, centre canvas, shouldering her way into the upper balcony, poised at the midpoint of the upper echelon between Ward and Profumo — at least, one of the Christine images was. Till last night there’d been several Christine images at different points on the canvas. One Christine image was striding along, another was naked, smiling prettily at the foot of the frame, another was in ecstasy down below the feet of the central Christine walking above swinging her handbag. But then last night at the Establishment Lewis was there, he was at the bar.

Lewis took the press photo that had spread like Spanish flu. Iconic. He’d seen what Pauline was working on, he photographed it actually. He’d come to the studio and photographed her holding Scandal 63 on one side, Ready Steady Go on the other, kind of equivalents, and he saw her come in and he said, want to come up and see my Keelers? and Pauline said I say, what can you possibly mean, I’m a married woman you know, yes please. So they’d gone upstairs to his place above the club and he showed her and Clive the shots under the magnifiers, and she’d looked up close at the original, the image. Keeler with her arms up, chin on both her fists, it was splendid.

Then she’d noticed along from it on the contact sheet the slightly different version of the same.

So she said to Lewis, can you maybe make me that one up, please?

It was a good one, looked less coy, more self-protecting. One arm was down. You could see what Keeler looks like when she’s thinking.

I’ll do Keeler thinking, she thought. Keeler the Thinker.

Then she pointed at the marks on Keeler’s leg, quite visible the bruising in the magnification.

Gosh, she said.

Can’t see it in the money shot, Lewis said. Papers, too grainy.

So now she was repainting the commission. It would be full of questions now, not statements. It would still look like the image everyone thought they knew, but at the same time not be it. Keeler trompe l’oeil. And even an eye that didn’t at first notice, even an eye that took the pose for granted, would still know, unconsciously — something not quite as you expect, as you remember, as it’s meant to be, can’t quite put your finger.

The image and the life: well, she was used to that. There was Pauline and there was the image — feather boa flung about, winking at the camera, it was fun. High in confidence. Low in confidence. Dressed as Marilyn in the college revues, I wanna be loved by you. Playing Doris Day, every body loves my body. Little-girl song in a grown-woman voice, daddy wouldn’t buy me a bauhaus, I’ve got a little cat (gasps at how she made sure they knew cat meant cunt). Diamonds are a girl’s, my armpits are charmpits (gasps at the word armpits, not a word ever heard out loud). At the Royal College, where girls were so rare they made you stare, where the architects hadn’t bothered putting women’s toilets in the blueprint, she walked the corridors hearing the whispers as she went by, rumour is, that one there’s actually read Proust , she put her arm round the boy and said it’s true darling and Genet and de Beauvoir and Rimbaud and Colette, I’ve read all the men and the women of French letters, oh and Gertrude Stein as well, don’t you know about women and their tender buttons?