'A British chieftain who fought the Romans in-'
'Look, baby, baby, cool it, okay?' said Alun. 'We've had enough history for one morning. William Penn and Cassivellaunus - next, the Patagonians, many of whom, my friends, are bilingual in Welsh and Spanish.'
'I think it's a pity you ditched Mr Pugh,' said Gwen. 'He and Malcolm sound as if they were made for each other. Can't you get him back?'
To Charlie's ear there was a bit extra there, but when he looked up ~t was to see someone of consequence joining the group. Nobody was to ask who he was and he knew all he needed to about who they were. In appearance, including hair-style and clothes, he was like a good average town councillor, from Yorkshire rather than South Wales, in a black-and-white film of twenty-five years before. Two lesser persons were with him.
'Well now,' he said in the kind of husky alto often put down to massive gin-drinking, 'what's the state of feeling about our new piece of sculpture?'
'Oh Christ,' said Alun as if before he could stop himself. 'Er... actually we haven't discussed it, have we? It's not what I'd call my field. Gwen, you're good on art.'
'That's sweet of you, Alun. Well, it hasn't got any holes in it. You can say that much for it.'
A short guessing-game followed and ended with the disclosure that the start-to-finish, all-in cost of having the sculpture there was ?98,000.
'Makes you think, doesn't it?' said Alun. 'You could get a couple of torpedoes for that.'
'Oh, surely they're much more expensive,' said Malcolm. 'I was reading - '
'To hell with it - half a bloody torpedo, then. A quarter, I don't care.'
'It's the principle of the thing,' said Gwen.
'If you don't mind,' croaked the questioner, 'could we forget about torpedoes for the moment and get back to the sculpture? You, Mr... ' he turned to Charlie, 'you haven't said anything yet.'
'No, well... I thought it wasn't at all figurative,' said Charlie rather complacently.
'Is that all? Has nobody anything more, er, more, er, more constructive to put forward?'
Nobody had.
'So nobody here shares my feeling that the Brydan monument is an exciting breakthrough for all of us in this town?'
Like everyone else, Charlie at once ruled out the possibility of any son of irony being intended. There was general silence, with eyes on the floor, until Gwen said in a voice not intended to carry far, 'If you're going to call that, or anything like that, exciting, what do you call the late-night horror movie? When it's slightly above average?' She frowned and smiled as never before.
Alun nodded weightily. 'Very good point,' he said.
'My colleagues and I had hoped for a little bit of encouragement. Here we are going all out, fighting to bring the best in modem art to the people, to whom after all it belongs and not to any fancy elite, and people like you, educated people, don't want to know. You don't, do you? You're happier with your cosy, musty Victoriana. Safe I suppose it makes you feel. Anything challenging you give a wide berth to. Well, I take leave to doubt whether your reaction is typical. Good day to you.'
The man of position jerked his head at his aides to signal a move in a way that recalled a boss in a different kind of film, returning from a few paces off long enough to add, 'You're entitled to your opinions, it goes without saying, but they're clearly based on ignorance, whereas the artist in question was selected and instructed by a panel of experts. Kindly take due note of that.'
When he was clear, Alun said with great emphasis, his voice shaking slightly, 'It's all right when little turds and turdettes, especially the latter, go on about exciting breakthroughs in advertisements and arts pages, well of course it isn't _all right__ but we're used to it, we've got our defences against it. And it was all right when buggers like that were fighting to stop _Desire under the Elms__ being put on at the Royal and going all out to get Joyce and Lawrence _and T. S__. _Eliot__ off the shelves of the public library. You're too young to remember a bloody old fool and by the bye frightful shit called Bevan Hopkin who called the police in at a Renoir exhibition at the Trevor Knudsen - in 1953, not 1903. That's how he was supposed to behave. Imagine him in favour of anything challenging. Imagine him _knowing the word__. When Labour councillors in South Wales start blathering about taking modern art to the people everyone's in deep trouble. Come back, Bevan Hopkin, all, repeat all, is forgiven. Well, _Iesu Crist__ and no mistake.'
'_Grist__,' said Gwen. '_Iesu Grist__. With the soft mutation.'
'Oh, bugger it. I'm going to give up. Had enough. Oh God here's another lot,' said Alun, turning to Charlie. 'We'd better be off soon.'
'I'm off now but I'll be back.'
Charlie just made it round the flank of the mayoral contingent and, picking up a fresh glass on the way, dodged into the lavatory. Here he waited for the two already present to leave, filled the glass at a basin, locked himself in a compartment and let go the ultimate coughing-fit that had been hanging about him for the last hour. Somebody else came in and used the urinal during it, groaning a lot as if in sympathy. He drank more water and took some deep breaths, feeling much weaker but clearer in the head, like a man in a book by John Buchan after an attack of fever. On departure he noticed that, as he put it later, the place reeked like an Alexandria knocking- shop.
He walked up the corridor, on carpet very luxurious to the eye but somehow disagreeable underfoot, until he reached a row of telephones separated from the outside only by small roofs shaped like Romanesque arches.
Victor answered his ring and sounded pleased. 'How are you, Charles? How reads the latest bulletin?'
'One of the more magical days. Look, er, I'm afraid I shan't be able to manage the lunch idea. There's a pub-crawl thing in Harriston I said I'd go on I'd completely forgotten. Sorry.'
'Charlie, I'm afraid I've no idea what you're talking about. A lunch...?'
