William Boyd - Sweet Caress

He walked me back through to the lobby, apologising for cutting our conversation short as he had another appointment. We shook hands at the main entrance. He wasn’t a tall man — taller than me, of course — but there was something spry and limber about him, as if the body beneath the smart tailoring was muscled, fit.

‘What happens next, Miss Clay?’

‘What? Sorry, what do you mean?’

‘Your work. Your photographs.’

‘Oh. I’m not thinking beyond the exhibition,’ I said, then lied. ‘I’ve already had some intriguing job offers.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ he said, smiling. ‘Your photographs are very. . intriguing. You have a real eye for capturing people. Please do let me know if you ever come to New York. I can promise you an excellent dinner.’

Out on the Strand the night had turned wet and squally with sharp bursts of rain stinging like hail. The street lamps shone with a watery nimbus as I made my way to the Underground in something of a brandy-and-soda daze.

THE TELEPHONE RINGING IN my sitting room woke me at seven. I stumbled through in my nightdress and snatched it up.

‘It’s happened,’ Greville said. ‘The Daily Express. I think we might be in a spot of trouble.’

I quickly pulled on some clothes, grabbed my coat, jammed a hat on my head and ran to the newsagent at Walham Green Tube station and bought a copy of the Daily Express. There was a tea room near the entrance of the Underground so I went in, ordered a pot of tea and a currant bun (lightly toasted) and, slowly collecting myself, sipping and munching, began to leaf carefully through the newspaper. I found the article on page 11. The headline ran: ‘A Vile and Obscene Display of Photographs’. The secondary headline below it was: ‘Outrageous exhibitionism masquerading as art’. I read on in a curious numbed way as if I were reading about a war in a distant country. ‘Miss Clay dips her camera in the most putrid and decadent slime she could find. . Leering men consort with barely clothed women. . It is hard to imagine visions of a more bestial and degrading nature.’ My numbness deepened. However, it became clear to me as I read of my utter viciousness that what had really offended this man — the man with the prominent Adam’s apple — or, more to the point, excited him, were the photos of half-naked women unconcerned to be in the presence of other half-naked women. He went on and on about it and yet there were only three photographs in the entire exhibition that showed this juxtaposition. Not a word of Volker and his candid nudity or the girls fooling around in bed or sunbathing on the balcony in their underwear. There was a shrillness in his condemnation that in its near-hysteria was too revealing — as if, having mounted this exhibition, I should be stoned to death or taken to the ducking stool and be tried as a witch. ‘This repulsive display of photographs in the heart of our great city, in the heart of our great empire, is an affront to every God-loving, decent-thinking British citizen.’

I sipped at my cooling tea, coming out of my daze, feeling a corresponding new chill beginning to overwhelm me, as I realised what trouble I might be in. I had my notoriety now, all right.

Back in my flat I telephoned Greville — no reply. I telephoned the gallery. He answered with a discernible tremor in his voice, keeping it low as if he might be overheard.

‘The police are here. The photographs have all been seized. They’re being taken away in a van—’

‘Seized? Taken away?’

‘And there are three hundred people queuing to get in.’

‘Should I come?’

‘You might as well. But there’s nothing we can do.’

He sounded frightened — and that wasn’t like the Greville I knew. I took a taxi to Brewer Street and when I arrived I found the queue of photography-lovers had dispersed and there was a solitary, smiling police constable standing on guard outside the gallery. Greville opened the door to me and, as I stepped in, I experienced a visceral shock — seeing the walls now rudely bare.

‘Where have they been taken to?’ I asked, beginning to understand Greville’s untypical fear. The ‘authorities’, the guardians of public decency, the state, having been affronted, had acted, and had had their decree fulfilled.

‘Savile Row police station.’

‘What next?’

‘The unpleasant-looking but perfectly civil police inspector informed me that the gallery is going to be prosecuted for obscenity.’

‘The gallery? You mean me.’

‘Well, you are the leaseholder, darling.’

In a new and more unpleasant form of daze I wandered back into the rear room and made us both a cup of strong tea. When you’ve got a problem to solve always do something practical, my mother used to say. Suddenly I was seeing the sense in the bland adage. We sipped our tea and discussed our predicament.

‘I thought that because we were a club we were more or less safe,’ I said.

‘So did I,’ Greville said. ‘Or so I’d been advised.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘The problem was, it seems, that the photos were for sale. If they hadn’t been for sale we might have been fine. Possibly. But now they can prosecute you for exhibiting obscene pictures for “sale or gain”. That’s the issue.’

I felt my fear mounting — and I wasn’t being helped by the evident funk that Greville was in. I’d never seen him so abjectly insecure and jittery.

‘What do I do now?’ I asked, feebly.

‘I think you should find yourself a lawyer.’

The lawyer I found — a solicitor — was the brother of my best friend at school, Millicent Lowther. Millicent’s eldest brother, Arthur — in his early thirties, I calculated — was more than happy to take up my case, so he said when we met at his offices in Chancery Lane. He was a gaunt, solemn young man, almost bald. I thought he might have been quite attractive if only he’d allow himself to smile, now and then. Although he was very thin his features were even and his eyes were kind. But he had armoured himself in this persona, all serious intent and rigid efficiency.

‘Yes, they’re sticking with the obscenity charge, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘As the leaseholder of the gallery, you’re to appear at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday week.’

‘What do you advise?’ I asked, weakly. Following the assault by the Daily Express there had been other pieces written by journalists quick to condemn me even though they had never seen the exhibition, so swiftly had the pictures been confiscated. It didn’t matter — the epithets mounted: depraved, sordid, shameful, mentally unbalanced, scandalous, degenerate, vile, disgusting, and so on, were the words whirling around my name. Easy defamations produced by total strangers — it was a perfect vilification.

Arthur Lowther asked if I minded if he smoked his pipe. I had no objection, I said, and lit a cigarette to keep him company. A good two minutes later he managed to produce a thin curl of smoke from his small briar. It made him look foolish rather than grown-up but I knew he was doing it for my benefit, to add weight to his deliberations.

‘I suggest you plead guilty,’ he said.

‘No! Categorically, no!’

He closed his eyes. Waited. Opened them again. They were a nice shade of greyish-brown.

‘In that case, we could try and present a defence showing that the photographs were works of art.’

‘Yes, good idea.’

‘But we would need eminent people to vouch for them. In that light.’ He took out a penknife device from his waistcoat pocket and tamped the glowing tobacco in the bowl of his pipe. It seemed to go out at this point. He put it down, irritated. He looked back at me.