The World According to Bertie

Matthew smiled. An idea was coming to him.

“Antonin Artaud,” he muttered. He looked up at Angus. “You know something, Angus. I would like to try to sell something of yours. I really would.”

“You know that I don’t sell through dealers,” said Angus.

“Even a semi-decent one like you. Why should I? No thank you, Mr Forty Per Cent.”

“Fifty,” corrected Matthew. “No, I’m not asking for any of your figurative studies. Or even those iffy nudes of yours. I’m thinking of something that wouldn’t involve you in much effort, but which would be lucrative. And could make you famous.”

“You’re assuming that I want to be famous,” said Angus. “But 44

Artaud’s Way Proves to Be an Inspiration actually I can’t think of anything worse. People taking an interest in your private life. People looking at you. What’s the attrac-tion in that?”

“It’s attractive to those who want to be loved,” said Matthew.

“Which is a universal desire, is it not?”

“Well, I have no need to be loved,” snorted Angus. “I just want my dog back.”

It was as if Matthew had not heard. “Antonin Artaud,” he said.

“Who?” asked Angus.

14. Artaud’s Way Proves to Be an Inspiration This was something that Matthew knew about. “Antonin Artaud,” he pronounced, “was a French dramaturge.”

Angus Lordie wrinkled his nose. “You mean dramatist?”

Matthew hesitated. He had only recently learned the word dramaturge and had been looking for opportunities to use it.

He had eventually summoned up the courage to try it on Big Lou, but her espresso machine had hissed at a crucial moment and she had not heard him. And here was Angus making it difficult for him by questioning it. Matthew thought that a dramaturge did something in addition to writing plays, but now he was uncertain exactly what that was. Was a dramaturge a producer as well, or a director, or one of those people who helped other people develop their scripts? Or all of these things at one and the same time?

“Perhaps,” said Matthew. “Anyway . . .”

“I don’t call myself an arturge,” Angus interrupted. “I am an artist. So why call a dramatist a dramaturge?”

Matthew said nothing.

“Simple words are usually better,” Angus continued. “I, for one, like to say now rather than at this time, which is what one hears on aeroplanes. They say: ‘At this time we are commencing Artaud’s Way Proves to Be an Inspiration 45

our landing.’ What a pompous waste of breath. Why not say:

‘We are now starting to land’?”

Matthew nodded, joined in the condemnation of aero-speak.

At least this took the heat off his use of dramaturge.

“And here’s another thing,” said Angus Lordie. “Have you noticed how when so many people speak these days they run all their words together – they don’t enunciate properly? Have you noticed that? Try to understand what is said over the public address system at Stansted Airport and see how far you get. Just try.”

“Estuary English,” said Matthew.

“Ghastly English,” said Angus. He mused for a moment, and then: “But who is this Artaud?”

“A dram . . .” Matthew stopped himself, just in time. “A dramatist. He was very popular in the thirties and forties. Anyway, he painted monochrome canvases and gave them remarkable titles.

It was a witty comment on artistic fashion.”

This interested Angus. “Such as?”

Matthew smiled. “He came up with a totally white painting – just white – and he called it Anaemic Virgins on Their Way to Their First Communion in a Snowstorm.”

Angus burst out laughing. There were white canvases in the public collections in Scotland. A suitable title, he thought.

“And then,” Matthew went on, “he painted a completely red canvas which he called Apoplectic Cardinals Picking Tomatoes by the Red Sea.”

Angus clapped his hands together. “Wonderful!” he said.

“Now let me think. What would we call a canvas that was simply blue?”

Matthew thought for a moment. “Depression at Sea?”

“Not bad,” said Angus. “A bit short, perhaps? What about A Depressed Conservative at a Risque Film Convention?”

“Except that people don’t use the term ‘blue film’ anymore.”

“But we do talk about turning the air blue,” said Angus. “One turns the air blue with bad language. So how about A Sailor at Sea, Swearing?”

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