Seeing Stars (5 page)

The opening of the new exhibition space at the Sculpture

Farm had been a wonderful success. “Would all those

visitors returning to London on the 3:18 from Wakefield

Westgate please make their way to the main entrance from

where the shuttle bus is about to depart,” announced a

nasaly Maggie over the PA system. She’d been having

trouble with her adenoids. The London people put down

their wine glasses and plates and began to move through

the concourse. “Great show, Jack,” said Preminger,

helping himself to a final goat’s cheese tartlet and a

skewered Thai prawn. “And not a pie in sight!” “Thanks

for coming,” said Jack. “Put that somewhere for me, will

you?” said Preminger, passing Jack his redundant cocktail

stick before shaking hands and marching off towards the

coach. A proud and happy man, Jack asked his staff, all

eight of them, to assemble in the cafeteria, and he thanked

them for their effort. “Have all the Londoners gone?” he

asked Maggie. “Yes,” she said through her nose, peering

out of the window as the back wheels of the bus rattled

over the cattle grid. “Very good. So here’s your reward,”

said Jack. He clapped his hands, and in through the double

doors of the kitchen came Bernard driving a forklift truck,

and on it, the most enormous pie. A wild, ecstatic cheer

reverberated among the tables and chairs. “Fill your

wellies!” cried Jack. Tina from the gift shop could not

restrain herself; she ripped off a section of the crust,

dunked her arm in as far as her elbow, and smeared her

face with rich brown gravy. Seth the gardener wasn’t far

behind, gnashing frenziedly at the crimped edging,

followed by Millicent from publicity who hooked out a

juicy piece of steak, went down on all fours and gorged on

it like a starving dingo. Soon everyone was devouring the

pie. And like all the great pies of history, the more they

ate, the bigger it became. Jack threw his jacket into the

corner of the room and whipped off his shirt and trousers.

He was wearing blue swimming trunks. Standing on the

rim of the metal dish he lowered himself through the light

pastry topping. Maggie followed suit in her bra and pants,

until all the staff of the Sculpture Farm were rolling or

wading or lolling or lazing or helping themselves in the

great slow pool of the pie. Now the forklift doubled as a

diving board as Bernard bellyflopped from one of its

prongs into the warm mush. It was only after retrieving a

baby carrot from between his toes that Jack looked up and

saw Preminger, who’d forgotten his wallet. “You people,”

he seethed. His face looked like the smell of a broken

sewer in high summer. Jack stood up. “I can explain

everything,” he said. A chunk of braised celery slithered

over his sternum. Preminger spluttered, “You told me the

pie thing was over. Finished. You said it was safe in the

north, Jack Singleton. But look at you. Call yourself a

Sculpture Farmer? You couldn’t clean out a hamster cage.”

“Forgive us,” said Jack. “We’re pie people. Our mothers

and fathers were pie people, and their mothers and fathers

before them. Pies are in our blood.” “Don’t tell it to me.

Tell it to them,” said Preminger, pointing to the window.

On the other side of the glass stood the idling coach. Like a

row of gargoyles, the faces of critics, sponsors, trustees,

rich benefactors and famous names from the world of

animal art looked out disgusted and appalled. Preminger

swivelled on his heel and exited. The bus revved and

departed.

Leaving gravy footprints behind him, Jack wandered out of

the building and into the landscape beyond. And the

crocodile of staff followed him, past the iron pigs, up to the

granite bull on the hill, then along by the pit pony carved in

coal and the shimmering flock of stainless-steel geese in the

far meadow. Finally they found themselves in a small

temple in the woods, with tea lights on the stone steps, the

flames of which looked like the sails from a flotilla of tiny

yachts in a distant bay. Torches to each corner of the

building burned with an imperial pride. In front of Jack,

soaked in pie juice, stood his loyal staff: Jethro with his

three fingers; Maggie with her shopping problem; Tina

who’d fallen in a quarry; Conrad who’d done time. Jack

said, “In the horse I see the plough, in the bull I see the

wheel, in the goat I see the scythe, in the pig I see the stove.

Bernard,” he shouted into the shadowy woods behind them,

“bring out the custard.”

The same bridge, in fact, where it had occurred to

him that the so-called Manic Street Preachers, for all

their hyperventilation and sulphuric aftershave,

were neither frenzied, credible or remotely

evangelical, just as the so-called Red Hot Chili

Peppers, for all their encouraging ingredients, were

actually no warmer than a baby’s bathwater and not

in the least bit
diablo,
whereas the Teardrop

Explodes, either by blind accident or through

careful purpose had kept every promise ever made.

Below him, the soupy canal acknowledged that final

thought with an anointing ripple then slouched

unknowingly yet profusely onwards.

We drove a couple of hundred miles north. To sip beer in

a log cabin. To taste the air from the mountains and feel

the DNA of our ancestors tingle in our marrow. We

hooked compliant fish from the lake, grilled them over a

log fire and ate with our hands as the sun melted into the

west. And on leaving, we left the place just as we’d found

it: cleaned out the stove, swept the veranda, made a

fingertip search of the meadow for the tiniest slivers of

silver foil and suchlike, and folded the cold ashes into the

earth. On the way south we pulled in at a roadside

recycling site to offload the rubbish. The woman on the

gate with the gun and the clipboard waved us over and said,

“Plastics in one, cans in two, cardboard and paper in three,

and there’s a bear in four, so mind how you go.” True

enough, in the last skip, a black bear was squatting in a pile

of junk. He was a sizeable creature and no mistake, could

have creamed my head clean off with one swipe of those

claws had the notion occurred. But he just sat there, on his

throne of trash, doing nothing, staring his five mile stare.

In the days that followed I thought a lot about that bear.

With every recollection he became more wretched and

undignified in my mind, and I couldn’t suppress the

escalation of inglorious imagery. First he was begging with

a paper cup. The next time I thought about him he was

wearing a nylon housecoat. Then a pair of Ugg boots, and

the tortilla wrap between his paws was a soiled nappy.

Then he was flipping burgers with a floral lampshade on

his head and a whitewall tyre around his neck, and the next

weekend, either for his sake or mine, nothing could stop me

jumping in the car after work and racing north to the tip. It

was two in the morning when I drew up. The gate was

locked but I hopped over, walked onto the gantry above the

dumping bays and shone a torch into the void. There he

was, asleep in the skip, snoring like a sawmill. But

swinging the car around to drive home the headlights made

one final sweep of the scene, and I saw him again, on his

hind legs now, the grapefruit in his mouth like a luminous

gumshield, pizza toppings and chicken bones hanging from

his matted coat, a red bandana knotted tightly around his

skinny thigh, leaning to his work, busy at his groin, the

gleaming needle digging for the sunken vein.

I fear for the long-term commercial viability of the new

Christian cheese shop in our neighbourhood. Poor old

Nathan, he’s sunk every penny of his payout from the

Criminal Injuries Compensation Board into that place,

but to me the enterprise seems doomed. Last Friday he

had to make a trip across town to the opticians. “Will you

mind the shop for me—I’ll pay you, of course?” he said.

“Nathan, it will be an honour to wear the smart blue

smock of the cheesemonger and to spend time amongst

such noble foodstuffs,” I replied. But in eight hours only

three people crossed the threshold of his emporium: some

knackered old dosser asking for a glass of water, a young

villain in bare feet looking for the needle exchange, and a

pregnant woman suddenly overwhelmed by a craving for

Kraft Cheese Slices, a product Nathan refuses to stock.

“Nathan, Nathan, Nathan, wouldn’t this business have

been better suited to one of the more fashionable

districts? Is it too late to relocate?” He blinked at me

through his new specs. “No, my work is here,” he said.

“Hope must put down its anchor even in troubled waters.

Today a cheese shop, tomorrow a wine bar or

delicatessen, next week a community centre or a

playground for the little ones, until ye church be builded.”

Then he went outside with a bucket of soapy water to

attack the graffiti scrawled across his front door.

I almost love Nathan for his dedication to the cause, but

the hour of my betrayal draws ever nearer. How did it

come to this, unemployed and lactose intolerant,

surrounded by expensive and rude-smelling dairy

products in a fleapit of a council flat during the hottest

summer on record? Pretty soon I’ll have to turn my back

on Nathan, slip away like the last visitor in the lamplit

oncology ward withdrawing his hand from the weightless

grip of his mumbling mother-in-law. From up here on the

third floor I can see Nathan right now in his ironed apron

and starched hat. Nathan, oh Nathan, silent and alone,

presiding over the faceless faces of Camembert and Brie,

the millstones of Buterkäse and Zanetti Grana Padano,

the dried teardrop of San Simon, the uninhabited planets

of Gouda and Chaumes, and the cowpat of Cornish Yarg,

mummified in its drab nettle-leaf skin.

Marlon said, “That was the school on the phone. They

want me to go in and talk to Jennifer’s class.” “You?

Why you? You don’t know shit about shit,” said his

significant other. “All the other dads have done it. They

say it’s my turn.” “Well, you’d better not make a pig’s

arse of it, for your precious little Jenny’s sake. But don’t

ask me, I’m only the wicked stepmother,” she said. Then

she went back to her online taxidermy lesson.

For the next week or so Marlon was in a muck sweat,

fretting about the talk he’d agreed to give. Finally he

decided a quick show-and-tell session should do the trick.

Something to focus their attention—concentrate their

minds. The morning duly arrived, and although Marlon

had visited the school on several occasions, today the

route seemed unfamiliar and through a part of town far

rougher than he remembered. After bottoming the car

on a truly formidable sleeping policeman he pulled up

at a barrier. A man in a serge blue uniform spoke to him

from behind the metal grille of a fortified kiosk. “ID,”

he said. Marlon scrambled for his driving licence in the

glove compartment. “I’ve come to talk to Class 9.” “Sign

this disclaimer,” said the guard, then pointed the way

without removing his gauntlet. As instructed, Marlon

parked up, passed through a metal detector then followed

a line of dried blood splashes to a room at the end of a

basement corridor. Halfway along he spotted his daughter,

who took one look at him—especially at his shoes—and

bolted. Inside the classroom about twenty young teenagers

were sprawled across tables and chairs, scratching and

yawning. Thinking that surprise was his best tactic,

Marlon gulped down a big breath of air, fetched a small rust-

coloured stone out of his pocket and said, “Has anyone here

ever seen a shooting star? Has anyone ever held a piece of

outer space in their hand? Does anyone know what this is?”

A boy at the back in a stabproof body warmer put his hand

up. “What’s your ride, man?” “Excuse me?” said Marlon.

“What kind of car do you drive, granddad?” said the boy.

“A Clio,” Marlon told him. “That’s a pussy’s car,” said the boy,

and the whole class sniggered. Marlon was still holding the

stone between his thumb and index finger, but awkwardly,

like a robot picking up an egg. Another boy with a swastika

tattoo on his earlobe strolled right up to Marlon and said,

“Have you got any money, or no?” “Not on me,” lied Marlon.

“Come on, we’re wasting our time with this muppet,” said the

young Nazi. With their hands rammed in their pockets the

rest of the class followed him out of the room. Only a petite,

bespectacled girl remained in her seat. She was very tiny

indeed—just a dot of a thing. In a voice like the squeaking

wheel of a pram she said, “That’s no meteorite. It’s just a

pebble you picked up on the road. Isn’t it, mister? Isn’t it?”

Marlon said, “Do you know my daughter, Jennifer?” “You’re

not Jenny’s dad. Jenny’s dad’s got no legs,” she piped.

Marlon wasn’t crying exactly, but behind his eyes tears

were streaming like rain down the windows of an all-night

café. “Look, I’ll show you the way to the caretaker’s office

then you’ll have to make a run for it,” said the girl. “But it’ll

have to look like there’s been a struggle. A black eye at least,

and maybe a broken nose, just to be safe.” Marlon thought

about the brittle, porcelain cheekbones beneath the pale

skin of her face. “I could never hit a child,” he said. “Stupid—

it’s me whacking you,” she said, pulling a telescopic

truncheon out of her book bag. Marlon turned away

from the blow. Just then Jennifer’s face appeared in the

panel of safety glass in the classroom door. Suddenly the

meteorite started to glow.