No curtain at the window and the hot August sunshine plays randomly on Scott's face, he wakes up naturally around nine o’clock ... twenty minutes yoga then making himself a cup of real coffee using the jug method. Just how Patricia has managed to keep the electric and gas connected at number Seven Milner Square is a minor miracle. Scott has no real idea how she manages it. When asked she laughs and changes the subject, usually with a coarse joke or sexual innuendo. If Scott was squatting in Elgin Avenue right now he would be using a gaz cylinder and washing his face in the morning in cold water.
Feeling lucky. A cup of real French coffee and a joint to get the day underway. A quick glance at Albert Camus’ The Plague to settle the mind and urge the counting of one’s daily blessings …
Recently, Scott has taken to filling the Cortina's petrol tank in a garage at the top of Upper Street. Above St Mary’s church with the interesting graveyard. It pays to do it early before the day really takes a hold ... navigating the overcrowded roads of the city and making it to the Hollywood Road office before eleven o’clock ... the routine of going into the stockroom at the rear of the basement with Dom Patel, replacing the velvet paintings from yesterday's sales ... the usual small talk and office gossip with Dom. Humour. A laugh and a shared spliff. The question at the end invariably, will Scott come over tonight after the hand-in to sort him out with some Charley? ‘Sure Dom.’ Always the answer and a way out of stock room. Fortunately, Scott maintains a stash which saves him going in to see Ricky when he drops off young Angie; that’s if she turns up today. She’s taken to missing a few days of late. Too caught up in the life of Elgin Avenue.
All too soon in the day, Nicky and Scott are providing the sales theatre for this day’s interactive talk in the office front room. With its grimy windows looking up into the glaring August sunshine parading over Hollywood Road today ... At least five newcomers have answered ‘Bread for Heads’ ad, plus another one here via word-of-mouth. Two walk out, as they sometimes do, before Nicky and Scott have concluded the sales demonstration.
Thursday can be a dreary day, even though all days merge into one eventually ... except Sundays! It’s important to remain constantly aware of the time and rhythm of the different days and events that so affect the lives of folks you wish to sell to … A full crew sat looking at Scott in the salesroom. Bill Hannah, Chris Clark, Michaela O'Rourke and young Angie. The specialist, Mike, hardly ever shows now, he seems to have settled for every other Friday …
Scott joshing with Nicky about his membership of the Playboy Club. What on earth possessed him? ... What is an attractive young dude like Nicky doing playing around with young Bunny Girls ... Scott's reminded of the phrase ‘It takes all sorts, I guess’ and heh, we all have our very own strange peccadilloes which we are reluctant to confess to, even late at night. Well, don’t we! ...
Scott electing to head out as far as Beckenham today. Opting to stay in close for once and not venture too far afield. He decides against any long drives out to Newbury or Colchester. Orpington and Buckingham seem much too far on such a baking hot, August day as this. All this good weather is spoiling the crew. The sweet sound of Van Morrison’s Slim Slow Slider still reverberating around Scott’s head from the office. All a part of the Advanced Art milieu. The Hollywood Road experience they have created, The walls of the salesroom are lined and splashed with glossy posters of Abbie Hoffman, Salvador Dali, Allen Ginsberg, Marilyn Monroe, Jimi Hendrix, John F Kennedy, Jane Fonda, Janis Joplin and William Blakes’ Visions of the Daughters of Albion. It helps to capture the feel of young artists out on the road selling velvet paintings.
Scott supplies Bill Hannah and Chris Clark with the dope they want to score. A quarter-ounce for each of Afghani Black hashish at twelve pounds, baby blue. And they should be so lucky. Always take good care and look after the crew ... Scott still calls them the new crew even though they’ve already been in place for over five weeks now. Time plays tricks. The old crew seemed to go on and on forever, but in fact it was just the best part of eleven weeks, from the middle of April and running aground at the end of June at the Reading Music Festival. The energy was shot in the last two weeks after that experience.
Driving out through North West London to Beckenham in the South East. You always take your life in your hands when you travel south of the river ... Scott switching on the car radio under protest. This crew hate hearing the news even more than the old one. Telling them how it’s important to have some idea of what’s taking place in the world when they go to knock on people's doors doesn't seem to wash with them.
“Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip and Princess Anne are touring Canada and were greeted today in the capital, Ottawa, by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his wife, Margaret …”
“Who gives a fuck about Her Majesty the Queen and her bloody family!”
“Thank you, Michaela, for those Irish Republican sentiments,” smooths Scott.
“Fuck off!”
“A crisis is looming in West Germany. The government in Bonn is considering taking unilateral action in floating the Deutschmark.”
“Who cares!”
“And I thought the Irish Republican Party were big pals with the Germans.” Deadly silence at Scott’s last remark ...
Switching the radio off. Trying to calm Michaela O’Rourke down. Scott swiftly lighting up two joints and passing them both around. The crew seem half-dazed in the overbearing sunshine. Looking out of the Cortina windows at the passers-by and the hot August sun reflecting off the paving stones. Scott already knows where there's a fresh, new, smart, semi-detached property to be had. He’s been out this way before with the old crew. Careful not to tell the latest crew that. Never, ever, give people a reason not to sell. Salespeople are the worst at finding an excuse to explain away failure. Duck the real issues which always have to be dealt with head on otherwise they linger, and failure in sales, like sport, can be infectious ... Scott did briefly check with Nicky and James that they weren’t thinking of coming out this way. The fellow Nigel, who seems to be making a go of it since Larry's kneecapping, isn't that co-operative when it comes to Scott. Don’t really know why. But he did mention something about Enfield ... Scott making sure they check the prop all the same. Careful never to use young Angie. The way she looks today she could get taken off the streets in a thrice and sold into white slavery before you could whisper Diana Dors …
It always pays to check the prop, you never know. Bill Hannah is very good at it. You have to find out what is going down in a place. Young housewives only too happy to chat with smiling Bill Hannah and his young boy-grin … It’s too hot to sit in a traditional English cafe today. The smell of fried food lingering on the air. Most unappetizing. Scott’s immediate mission is to find a pub with a goodly sized garden somewhere in and around Beckenham ... no sooner on the lookout than the Shepherd’s Inn beckons with the sign of a shepherd boy and his crook ... the food on offer is simple and limited. Scott buying the crew chicken and chips in a basket and a pint of beer each. You need food. Vital sustenance to keep you going, energized, when you're out there on the street. When it can so easily seem that all the world and its dog are against you. Why, even the friendly cats can ignore you sometimes …
Scott dropping the crew off one by one. He'd remembered exactly where the best new, semi-detached property was to be found. Memory plays a great part in a successful sales operation ... The Children of the Empire reading like a sales manual again! Always make sure you are very clear about the pick-up points. You need a rough time guide because the nature of the task has to remain flexible. Scott once sold velvet paintings in a house in under ten minutes, and another time spent over two hours with a couple eager for company. The moment of the drop-off is very important. It’s so easy to slip into bad habits and be casual or think only about yourself. It can be dangerous out there at night. Particularly where young Angie and Michaela O’Rourke are concerned. The Paris green Cortina is home base, sanctity, a safe place. The crew look for it to save them from the streets, even in a place like Beckenham. Encourage them when you wish them luck. Some need cajoling, others a sharp word, some a funny one-liner. Young Angie needs to be warned about her sensual behaviour. Mike the Specialist and red-headed Tom never needed a word at all. They were gone. Mystery Girl would linger looking at Scott and wouldn't leave until he’d kissed her on the cheek and wished her good luck. It became a ritual. The night Mystery Girl blanked, after two successful weeks on the trot, as they travelled back into London she said, “I didn't sell tonight because you didn’t kiss me, Scott, the way that you always do.” ... Just goes to show that even the coolest of people, deep, deep down, can reveal superstitions ... Eric the Artist from the Land of the Long White Cloud, needed a firm handshake and almost had to be pushed down the street he was so nervous. Bill Hannah doesn't need any encouragement. He’s full of good cheer. Emitting good vibes. A joke and a sharp exchange with Chris Clark sends him off in fine humour ... You have to be extra careful with the girls. Scott having to tell young Angie today to button up her pink blouse, to keep her young wits about her, then finally
‘You look so sexy this evening you should sell the whole folder!”
Michaela O’Rourke needs that kiss on the cheek and a constant gee up! She can switch all the time, from caustic sarcasm, to the smiling girl with the hidden knife, then the furtive thief desperate for the thrill, to one of nature’s manic depressives … Scott’s attention is caught by Beckenham Place Park as he drives around searching for a likely prop for himself. He stops. Fatal. Parking the Cortina. Standing by an old oak tree. The park is very crowded. It’s seven-fifteen on a hot, sunny evening on a Thursday in early August. Families seem to be everywhere. Laughing, chatting, arguing, sunbathing, eating food and drinking. Children and adults playing impromptu games of football, cricket, tennis, shuttlecock, leapfrog, catch. Girls skipping with gaily coloured ropes. Boys pretending to fire toy guns. Folks flying kites. Frisbees whizzing back and forth like miniature flying saucers. Babies crying in the early evening heat ... Beckenham Place Park is truly abuzz this evening. The feeling of energy pervading the air. Joy and amusement seem in endless supply. Couples laid on the grass kissing for all the world to see. Some enterprising vendors have sneaked into the park and are enjoying a busy trade selling ice-creams, snacks and drinks. Keeping a watchful eye out for the Beckenham Place Park keepers ... Love has never seemed so free and easy, as good as this, on a hot Thursday evening in Beckenham ...
It becomes terribly hard to tear yourself away. That’s why it was fatal for Scott to stop. This carnival-like atmosphere of casual enjoyment is to be savoured. It’s special. But you have to realize that you are outside of it all. Scott is the stranger, permanently on the outside looking in. The thought overtakes you that you can never go back. Everything looks so wonderful, that is until you are in it. Then all the old hopes and fears, the aspirations, discontent and deep-down dissatisfaction, rear their ugly heads. The family bickering and control patterns re-emerge. And before you know it, you are caught up again in a hopeless march towards extinction …
Scott has to make a huge effort, to grasp this moment, or move away before he sits here on the grass, by the old oak tree, for two hours and whiles away this Thursday evening of delight. Scott pinching himself into action and being strong. So easy to get carried away and forget you are not one of these people. You rejected it years ago. Being forceful and dragging himself off, leaving the cram-packed and noisy Beckenham Place Park on a halcyon night like this …
Scott now slowly driving into a glowing twilight. Parking the Cortina nearly in the centre of Beckenham. Temptation abounds everywhere tonight. The local Gaumont Cinema is showing the film The Horseman. A film Scott has been looking out for. Directed by John Frankenheimer with a script by Dalton Trumbo, the leader of the Hollywood Ten. A good cast fits the bill perfectly, with Omar Sharif, Leigh Taylor-Young and Jack Palance. It’s been adapted from a book of the same name by the French writer, Joseph Kessell, born in Argentina. Scott’s read the novel and really liked it, a good read with interesting background. Afghan tribesmen competing in the famous Royal Buzkashi Tournament in Kabul. The son and anti-hero played by Omar Sharif trying too hard to live up to his great father’s reputation. Jack Palance would seem well cast as the father. In the mountains of the Hindu Kush exists ‘The Ancestor of All the World’. What ensues is a treacherous journey with a prized horse through the Hindu Kush. Deliberately taking the most forbidding route to gain glory. Leigh Taylor-Young playing the conniving female role ... Scott finding it hard to tear himself away from the colourful film poster on the wall of the Gaumont. It's always the same for Scott. He gets magically drawn in by books, paintings and films. Prone to forget about everything else. This is a danger moment for him. Fortunately, the film started screening at seven-forty and it is now eight o’clock. Scott hates not seeing the beginning of a picture. Remembering as a boy going to the cinema with his parents. They were always late. Forever going in to see films that had been showing for fifteen or twenty minutes. Clear memoirs of Victor Mature and Carole Landis in One Million BC. Richard Widmark and Jane Greer in Run for the Sun. Richard Widmark again with Felicity Farr in The Last Wagon. Many, many more. You’re always sat wondering in the dark. You feel, like a child, as if you’re missing out on something important in life.
Late back for the first week of a new year at school ... Scott resists the dubious temptation of remembering back. The gift of shredded time. These little moments clustered together and propelled into the future just to be let loose for one precious moment ... Nothing for it. Breaking self-imposed rules right, left and centre this evening. It must be the heat affecting Scott ... Just picking an ordinary, terraced street not far from the Gaumont Cinema …
At the second door that Scott knocks on, the impossible happens. A long-haired dude in his late twenties lets Scott into his terraced house. Straightaway Scott is captivated. The hallway is lined with Dali and Escher prints ... This hallway is so narrow there is only just enough room for one person to move along it ... The long-haired dude introduces himself as Ray and shows Scott into a front parlour with a window onto the street. This room is also full of Dali and Escher prints lining the walls. Scott also spots a Klimt amongst them. There are newspaper cuttings pinned to the green and white-striped wallpaper. Scott catches glimpses of articles on the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. A piece on political activist Peter Hain and the cancellation of the South African cricket tour to England last year through anti-apartheid demonstrations … Scott sitting on a comfy old settee and not saying much.
Ray talks enthusiastically about Salvador Dali and Scott finds himself doing an unusual thing in accepting a cup of tea. It seems to be a day for breaking hard and fast rules ... Ray never stops talking. His enthusiasm is infectious. Eventually, after what seems like an age, two cups of tea and the potted life history of Salvador Dali up until the present time. Ray starts looking through the red and black-edged art folder. As he's doing so, he declares himself to be a big Beatles fan. He holds up the George Harrison velvet in the late evening shadows, streetlights switching on. It's already lighting up time ... Ray offers Scott ten pounds for George Harrison on the spot. He’s already discussing where he’s going to hang it. Scott resists the wicked temptation to say it’s really Charles Manson and spoil what has been a very pleasant interlude on a hot, balmy day ... sliding along the narrow hallway with the art folder. Ray still talking about paintings. His obvious love of surrealism. Scott mentioning The Road to Ruin, the technique of collage invented by Max Ernst, Ray is all but purring. They part enthusiastically on the doorstep of the terraced house.
Scott debating with himself whether to just sit in the unwashed Cortina, roll a couple of spliffs, have a smoke and wait for the pick-up time. It has gone past nine o'clock by now. One of the unsung arts of selling is sheer persistence. He’s got to somehow try and make up for that time spent in Beckenham Place Park ...Scott drives out to some semi-detached houses on the far edge of Beckenham. Knocks on a couple of doors and amazingly finds himself once again invited in. Quickly wishes he wasn’t. Giles Singleton is an art schoolteacher. Dressed in the mode that all art schoolteachers seem to adopt. Orange shirt. Loosened kipper tie of many colours. The obligatory olive-green corduroy trousers and scruffy, brown suede shoes ... Giles Singleton immediately takes charge of the situation, as a teacher would, and sits Scott down in the lounge before Scott's had time to proffer some kind of excuse and make a fast exit. Giles Singleton is now glancing through Scott’s red and black-edged art folder with minimal interest.
“Well, what’s your theory on art then, Scott?” Slightly unnerved,Scott hesitates for a long second ... The orange shirt and the kipper tie seem very garish in this bright electric light.
“That's a very big, open-ended question. Full of pitfalls whatever I say, Giles...I don't know that I have any kind of theory. I just paint.” ... trapped by the tail. Scott knows he’s going to make a right fool of himself, but here goes. He’s never run into an art teacher before when selling the velvet paintings. Always a first time …
“Photography and its development, I guess. I mean …” Scott clearing his throat nervously …” My favourite art movements now I come to think about it, Giles, are probably Impressionism, Art Nouveau, Expressionism, Cubism and Surrealism. With a bit of Dada thrown in for good luck ... My heart belongs to Dada.” Giles laughs benignly at Scott’s attempt at art-humour …
“Why photography?” ...
Giles Singleton is putting Scott under the spotlight. Demanding a greater input for his evening's entertainment. Scott, flummoxed, just launches with whatever comes into his head and hopes for the best. Everything is instinctive.
“Well, I guess we can go all the way back to Homer and the Iliad in the West. Circa seven hundred BC ... Nothing much changed, Giles.”, offers Scott glibly.
“The Renaissance, yes, but in all that time up until the eighteen-sixties, portrait painters were highly prized and made a very good living. But then shazam! And along came the very first daguerreotype photograph in eighteen thirty-eight.”
Giles is pouring himself a whisky and offers one to Scott, gesturing with his eyes and hands. Scott shakes his head. He doesn't want to lose the thread. Feeling a bit like Ariadne sat here on the spot, under the spotlight …
‘By the eighteen-sixties photography was in full swing for the wealthy, the gentry and the upper classes. These, of course, along with kings and queens and the aristocracy, were the people who used to like to have their portraits painted. Suddenly, because of the invention of photography, art had to become three dimensional. Canaletto and his light and shade paintings of Venice could be captured in a photograph.” …
“Not in colour though!”, counters Giles.
“True. But you get the picture.” Scott stifles a giggle, the punning-habits of the crew are catching. Giles is nonplussed.
“So?”
“Well, Edouard Manet and Claude Monet, the Impressionists. Making you wonder, study and think. Let yourself relax and your eyes gain an impression, capture a feeling for what you are seeing. Then there’s Art Nouveau which I really love. With the likes of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Aubrey Beardsley and Gustav Klimt. The magic of art joining forces with real life. Becoming functional and developing new architectural designs. A good example would be Tiffany's and the famous lamps. Furniture design. Liberty’s. Art Nouveau, the delicate balancing act between functionalism and the organic ... Then the sensational arrival of Cubism. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.” Scott stopping to take a breath. Aware of Giles Singleton still watching him like a hawk.
“Pablo Picasso fascinated by African art. Making you look. Like staring into a coal or wood fire where you see images and signs that correspond directly to you. Except that Cubist paintings are cleverly executed, geometric designs. Picasso and Braque saw the flaw in photography. That the act of looking from more than one viewpoint creates problems of time as well as space because there is not enough time within a single photograph to perceive the space being depicted. The photograph is rendered static.”
Scott is astonished at his own verbosity. Thanking the omnipresent power of the universe for the gift of having an exceptional memory.
“I love Surrealism and Salvador Dali. Fantasy taking shape, allowing you to soar and fly with your dreams. The age of Freud and Jung. Paris was the breeding ground. Fermenting with it all from say eighteen-eighty to nineteen-fourteen. And that Dada Movement. Political after the First World War.” Scott's easing up, he’s said more than enough.
“What happened to Expressionism in all of that?”
“I guess it went clean out the window. I was the personification of Expressionism.” At last, Giles Singleton is smiling with Scott’s last remark. The whisky must be having an effect.
“What are your favourite paintings then?” ...A honeyed art teacher’s voice to lure you into a trap.
Scott takes another deep breath. Talk about being on display. He would like to ask to smoke a spliff. But mustn't take the chance. Already broken enough self-imposed rules for one day ... Well, here goes. The things you do for art …
“Manet … Le Déjeuner Sur L’Herbe
“Why?” Giles, quick as a flash.
“He dares to show what appear to be prostitutes having a picnic with gentlemen. Very daring for the time.” Blessed silence.
“Aubrey Beardsley … I Kissed Your Mouth. A floating, demonic Salome holding the blood-dripping, Medusa-like head, is quite macabre and still frightening.” Scott warming to the task. This Giles Singleton will probably say thank you very much in a minute or so and show him to the front door. Without buying any velvet paintings.
“Picasso: The Dwarf Dancer and Au Lupin Agile. By ... The Persistence of Memory. Max Ernst, … The Road to Ruin ... Paul Nouge … A New Way of Juggling ... Kay Sage … Tomorrow is Never ... Rene Magritte, … The Son of Man ... Dorothy Tanning, bless her … Birthday. And a personal friend of mine, Eric, from the Land of the Long White Cloud, turned me on quite recently to La Joie de Vivre by Henri Matisse.”
Scott must have passed the improvised exam because art teacher, Giles Singleton, starts flicking through his art folder. Miracle of miracles. He takes out Shredded Time and A Cat’s Head. Doesn’t even discuss money. Just hands Scott fifteen pounds. Giles Singleton's wife, who’s out visiting, must love cats. There are two Siamese hovering around, watching, the way that they do.
Giles Singleton doesn’t say anything to Scott about his thoughts on all those favourite paintings of the moment. The answer was in him buying two of the paintings on velvet … Scott just so pleased to get out of that house. Careful to walk away at a normal pace. The first shades of twilight have now vanished completely. Scott is astonished when he looks at his wristwatch and sees, with the aid of a streetlamp, that it’s ten past ten. He was in that house for just over an hour, seemed much longer. Always does when you're under the pump. Flying by the seat of your pants. Isn’t that just what salesmen do!
The pick-up points around Beckenham sees each of the crew fed up. Disgruntled. Michaela O’Rourke spitting feathers when Scott gets to her last at nearly ten-thirty. Only Bill Hannah is still cheerful. He’s elated at having sold two large paintings. Their personalities fit the responses … The pay-in with Dom Patel at Hollywood Road then back to his flat on the corner of Harrington Road. Always offered a smoke by the buyer. It’s bad manners to decline. Scott finally making it to Milner Square gone one o’clock. Hardly in the door of his squat and Patricia comes barging straight through. Nearly naked. After all, why bother with clothes on a hot August night like this. Just let it all hang out, droop and bounce …
Freebasing some Charley with Patricia to keep her at bay ... It’s now gone one-thirty and it's been a long day. Scott pretending to yawn and making the excuse of tiredness as Patricia prattles on with a story about work. Scott’s been perpetually on the move since nine o’clock yesterday morning. Finally, Patricia drags herself off with Scott giving her some hash to take with her … Laid on the futon, suddenly desperate to hear some music before he goes to sleep. Putting Arthur Lee and the band Love on the record player. The album, Forever Changes. Scott reviewing the day’s events. Smoking the final spliff of the night. Staring at a book cover for George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff’s Meetings with Remarkable Men. Too tired to read. Really enjoying this spliff and the pleasure of cool, refreshing music. Alone again or …