Man with a Seagull on His Head Page 5

  Six

  On Mondays Jennifer was on her own in the dress shop. Tuesdays she had Jacqueline, Wednesday was her day off, Thursdays and Fridays there was Linda, and then Rachel, the young one, helped out on Saturdays. Monday was the quiet day. On this particular Monday she’d had only three customers all morning, although all of them had resulted in a sale, which was often the way with Monday.

  Her husband, Vito, was next door, which took her back to the old days when they’d first bought the two shops, both owned by Enid Scott, who’d bought them as a single premises but chopped it down the middle, taking one half for herself (Enid Scott’s, the dress shop), and renting the other one out. It had been a hairdresser’s when Jennifer knew it but by the time she and Vito took it over it was a florist’s. Even when they’d gutted the place, the smell of chrysanthemums and wet earth had seemed to linger in the air. Mr. Cobbles opened on September 15th, 1978. The name was Vito’s choice and a bad one in Jennifer’s opinion, for it gave no reference to the dry cleaning aspect. Cobble & Clean had been her suggestion, but Vito had never had his heart in the dry cleaning end of things and had always wanted to be Mr. Cobbles. And Jennifer, a wife now, had taken a little pleasure in letting her husband have his way. Now, ten years later, there were six Mr. Cobbles around and about Southend, and Vito spent very little time here on Hamlet Court Road.

  Jennifer had kept the name of her shop. Enid Scott, who had been Jennifer’s first boss, had not been a happy woman and death, toying with her for years while she battled one illness after another, had not been kind to her either; replacing her name with that of her former young assistant was a final injury Jennifer couldn’t bring herself to inflict. The new Enid Scott’s was not the same as the old Enid Scott’s, however. Jennifer had had the sign repainted in an elegant gold italic script and revamped the stock, for what was the point of carrying on with lines that had proved themselves so unpopular? And she now offered an alterations service, which picked up a lot of business from next door, and bespoke dressmaking, which was getting increasingly popular; a lot of the ladies who came through the door did have the most extraordinary figures.

  This morning Jennifer had walked to work with her husband for the first time in years. Steve, who managed the Mr. Cobbles next door, had been having trouble with an ingrown toenail and the other boy, Andrew, had also fallen ill over the weekend. So Vito had had to step in. He and Jennifer were each alone in their shops so they couldn’t go popping next door to see each other, but that was like the old days too, and there was something different, warmer, about the noise of the machines through the wall when she knew it was Vito operating them and not one of the other two.

  When she’d straightened out the changing room after her last customer and picked up a stray hearing aid that had found its way under the bench, there was a rare silence from beyond the partition. Suddenly remembering what they used to do, she went over to the wall and, reaching her free hand deep in between a row of tweed skirts, she knocked twice. She waited, her hand flat against the wall, her cheek brushed by the rough fabric, and a few seconds later her knocks were answered with two more from the other side of the wall. She smiled. He hadn’t forgotten.

  Then she heard another knock, on the window glass this time, and turned to look. It was one of the blond little things that belonged to Amanda Parsons. Or Mandy Matheson as she liked to call herself these days. She often passed by Enid Scott’s on her way to an afternoon toddler group at the far end of Hamlet Court Road, and her acquaintance with Jennifer from the Keddies days had been enough of a foundation upon which to build a silent sort of friendship from opposite sides of the shop window. A knock and a wave and a smile and on they’d go. From behind her counter, Jennifer had watched the family grow. One little blond girl had soon become two, then three, and now four, each identical to the last.

  But today, after the knock, the bell rang and the four little blond things ran in as though unleashed into the wild, immediately hiding and giggling in between the racks of skirts and blouses and summer jackets. Their mother walked directly to the counter, and Jennifer walked over to it too, positioning herself behind it just in time to meet her there.

  “Jennifer Mulholland!” It was a long while since Jennifer had seen Amanda at such close quarters and she noticed with surprise how her face was gathering detail around the eyes, how they’d sunk just enough to make you wonder what life was like in there.

  “Can’t stay,” she continued, casting a half-hearted glance around the shop to check the whereabouts of her children. “I just had to come in and tell you what I saw in the paper yesterday.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a couple of torn-out pages, patting them clumsily down onto the counter. “It’s him,” she said with a firm, final pat. “Ray bloody Eccles!”

  A moment to breathe, and then she carried on:

  “He’s an artist! And … and look! It’s you!” She tapped her finger insistently upon the page. “That day you saw the bird falling he, well, God knows what happened, but it’s you, Jennifer! I’m sure of it. You see, there you are, right here, can’t you see? And no one knows but you and I. And Ruth Smithson I suppose, wherever she is. Listen here, it says … well you read it, you just read it. Penthouse on Green Park, his own show at—I don’t know, one of those big London galleries. Shacked up with a cheating no-good bitch but—imagine, just imagine, when he saw you on that beach he saw straight into your soul. It was … oh, you know, one of those moments, like a bright light shines and everything comes together. It’s what we’re all waiting for, it’s—” She paused for breath once again, her eyes scanning the pages as if she might find the word she was looking for there. “Anyway, I can’t stand here chatting all day, but you read it. You read it and then you get in touch with this journalist, this Lucy person, and tell her who you are.” She bent down and scooped up the smallest little girl—a child of around two—who had arrived by her knees. She hoisted the child onto her hip and smoothed her hand over the fine blond hair which, having gathered a static buzz among Jennifer’s stock, stood up like a dandelion clock around her little head. Amanda leaned in and whispered across the counter. “You inspired him, Jennifer, who would have thought it? If only we’d known. I could have written this, this could’ve been my big break, and you, well, you could be having tea at the Ritz, and—well it’s not too late,” she said, patting the pages down firmly on the counter. “Here’s your chance.”

  Jennifer found herself adrift, quite unable to think. In search of something to cling to she found the child. “Hello treasure,” she said, touching a finger against her soft, flushed cheek.

  “Say hello, Samantha,” said Amanda, standing upright again and smiling. “My little angel. They’re all angels, but … oh, they grow up so fast, I …” She sat the child on the counter and glanced quickly over her shoulder. “You know, Jennifer,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning in once more, “there comes a time in life, don’t you think? It kind of creeps up on you, when you start to suspect you’re not quite as marvellous as you once thought. I mean, that maybe nothing that great is going to happen. That life is just going to … well, carry on. I think it was then that I started to think it would be nice to have a child. Oh, it’s wonderful, it really is! I mean, look at her, she’s perfect, they’re all perfect, but … oh, I don’t know what I’m talking about. You read this article is all I’m saying.” She looked down at the paper. “This doesn’t happen to everyone, Jennifer, that’s what I’m trying to say. On posters it says, and mugs—your face, Miss Mulholland, on a mug!” She prised the child’s little fingers away from the edge of the page. “Don’t do that sweetie, please don’t do that, you’ll tear it. Chaos wherever we go!” Amanda laughed wearily. “Where are those little angels of mine?” She looked over her shoulder again. “Girls!” Then turned back briefly to Jennifer. “Half term. Horrible. We really should go. But you read it, Jennifer, you’ll see what I’m talking about.” She picked up Samantha and turned t
owards the door. “Come on girls. I’m counting to three. One … two … th—” The little blond things scurried out of their hiding places and grabbed onto various parts of their mother, the whole ensemble shuffling sideways out of the door. “You, Jennifer, are a great big mystery!” Amanda called over the jangle of the bell. And then they were gone.

  Jennifer stood there, a great big mystery, staring out over the small expanse of her shop. Her eyes dropped to the newspaper on the counter below, not focusing, noncommittal, and yet she could hardly help certain words lurching out at her: Ray Eccles; artist; Southend-on-Sea; 1976. She ran her hand over the surface of the paper, smoothing it, listening to the dry sound it made in the silence. There was a grainy reproduction of a painting, a portrait, and she traced her finger round and around the shape of the face. “Me,” she said quietly, and the word wriggled down deep into her belly. Maybe it really was her face; she could see that it could be. And yet it was utterly strange. Looking at it she felt the utter strangeness of her own being, straining feebly to make itself known. The fibrous contents of her shop—so much wool and linen and cotton—seemed a dry and tangled trap around her. But here was a face that opened up a space above her head that was cold and vast, like the sky over the sea. Her gaze floated up to the top of the page and she started to read.

  Half past four, and teatime at the Ritz is in full swing. The gilt-festooned Palm Court is alive with the tinkling cacophony that accompanies this afternoon ritual: silver teaspoons clinking against bone china, the trickle of tea falling from the pot in an elegant arc, the pianist putting the ivories through their paces, and the lilting cadence of laughter and inconsequential chatter. It’s all so English that most people here are American tourists. The last place you would expect to meet two luminaries of the contemporary art scene, the outsider art scene no less, which professes to trawl its artists from the very fringes of society, casting its net among mental institutions, urban slums, and prisons. And depositing them here, it seems, in London’s most expensive district, if the experience of Ray Eccles is anything to go by. For it is he I am here to meet. He and Grace Zoob his … minder?… dealer?… lover? It’s a question I mean to address later.

  The Ritz is what Ray Eccles does on a Friday afternoon. We are sitting around the Zoobs’ table, kept for them on a rolling booking. It’s in the corner, because Ray likes corners, and his seat faces the wall, because he likes to face a wall rather than a room full of people. Grace orders a pot of Darjeeling for three along with “the works” from a tall, equine, French waiter. While we wait I ask Ray how he likes the picture on the wall in front of him, a rusty-haired Renoir nude; reproduction, I presume. “She looks sad,” he says and Grace quickly nods in agreement. “It’s true—so sad, and yet it’s something no one ever says about Renoir. There’s something in the soft application of paint, as if one were looking at the painting through a great wash of tears. Of course there’s sadness in Ray’s paintings as well. In every painting I think, by virtue of its being … well … just a painting.”

  In Ray Eccles’ case, “just a painting,” or a group of paintings, has been his ticket to, if not superstardom exactly, then recognition by the art world establishment. His work is currently on show at the Hayward Gallery alongside that of some of the century’s major British portrait painters—Freud, Spencer, Hockney—which is the first time an outsider artist has been placed alongside mainstream artists in a major exhibition. Eccles is far from sidelined. He is placed as an equal in the lineup. Indeed it is his painting, She (which is the title of all of his paintings), from which the exhibition takes its name, and it is the image of this unnamed woman, staring out with an expression both enigmatic and revelatory against a backdrop of sea, that is the “face” of the show, plastered on Underground posters, on the banners that flap outside the gallery in the Thames-side breeze, and on the postcards, prints, and mugs on sale in the shop.

  His prominent inclusion has not gone unopposed by some critics, who claim there is a whole sea of difference between the works of recognised great artists and those of so-called outsiders. But the show’s curator, Sarah Dixon, vehemently defends Eccles’ right to be here. “This show is looking at how the artist has obsessively portrayed particular muses over the centuries, and Ray Eccles’ She series represents the most extensive study of one female subject in the whole of contemporary art. He may not have had the training of a fine artist but his work shows incredible skill and sensitivity, as well as an understanding of composition and the viewer’s relationship to the work, something that is often lacking in other outsider artists. Outsider or not, Eccles is a great artist of our time and fully deserves to be represented here.”

  Our waiter returns with a tray and deposits tea, hot water, milk, all in gleaming silver receptacles. He then brings a stand laden with scones, miniature cakes, and crustless sandwiches. A smile spreads across Eccles’ face and he dives shamelessly for the most indulgent confection of chocolate and cream on offer. He has a kind, quiet face, a complexion whose clarity and pallor seem to speak of a life spent indoors and which, were it not for the delicate latticework of wrinkles encircling his eyes, would seem unnaturally youthful for a man who has just turned 52. His hair is thick, dark, short, worn in a neat side parting, and his clothes—a dark pinstriped suit, white shirt, and blue tie—utterly conventional. It is the uniform of the city worker, although, having nothing of the bullish air that usually accompanies it, Ray Eccles could never really be mistaken for one of that breed. I shrink from calling it innocence—the likening of the outsider artist to the child being a rather trite observation—but there is something about him that cries out to be loved. Not admired, or applauded, but simply loved. It is undeniably endearing and, suddenly infected with the thrill of this teatime treat, I too bypass the cucumber sandwiches and head straight for the chocolate.

  He and Grace make an odd couple, if couple is the right word. An art critic colleague, hearing that I was conducting this interview, described Mrs. Zoob as “scary” and “thin.” Both are true, although her short, spiky silver hair, thin lips painted a bright scarlet, prominent cheek bones, and relentlessly black attire seem softened just by virtue of being next to Ray—and perhaps by the presence between her fingers of a scone laden with clotted cream.

  The two came together in 1976, at a time when Grace and her husband George were assembling their collection of outsider art, now by far the biggest and most important in the country. Quick definition of outsider art for the uninitiated (though definitions aren’t easy here): it is art by those who do not see themselves as artists, untrained and urged to create by something other than a desire to exhibit or to achieve recognition. A less kind definition would call it the art of the insane, which outsider artists commonly, though not exclusively, are.

  In the early ’70s, George Zoob was a struggling young gallery owner occupying cramped quarters in Marylebone who had become captivated by the art of non-artists and decided to dedicate himself to giving them a platform in the UK. One day, in swept Grace Harrison, daughter of an American cookie magnate who had been in London since the mid-60s. The two married in ’73 and, with Grace’s money behind him, George began amassing a collection in earnest, travelling the globe in search of the mad, bad, dispossessed, and talented. He came upon Ray after spotting a letter in a local newspaper, Southend-on-Sea’s Evening Echo, that detailed a neighbourly dispute, the menace in question being a chap who was disfiguring the walls of his rented home with a mural and generally causing the property—owned by an elderly woman living in a nursing home in Cumbria—to slip into a shoddy state of disrepair. “George was just overcome by the feeling that he had to go and visit this man, that he could be creating something truly extraordinary,” says Grace.

  “This man” was Ray Eccles, a man who had been working until that point as an admin assistant in the offices of Southend District Council, and what he was creating was indeed something pretty extraordinary. When Grace and George arrived in July of
1976, Eccles had covered almost every inch of his small suburban bungalow—walls, ceilings, doors, everywhere—with pictures of a woman standing on a beach, the same image over and over. Perhaps even more extraordinary were the materials he had used—biro, pencil, and crayon in some places, all naïve though unremarkable choices, but in others he had painted with food—the hotpots, stews, soups, and casseroles that were delivered on a daily basis by members of a neighbourhood watch committee intent on seeing just what he was up to in there. “He just used what he could get his hands on,” says Grace. “When he ran out of pens and pencils he started painting in food, and, sometimes, when he ran out of that, he even used his own blood and semen.” Ray tucks blankly into a mini Victoria sponge during this explanation of his first foray into painting, seemingly unembarrassed and uninterested. It is very hard to reconcile the clean, be-suited and—I give up—innocent man beside me with this picture of a crazed, masturbating visionary defacing the walls of an old lady’s bungalow. “Didn’t it, you know, smell a bit?” I ask Grace, who looks offended by the question. “We didn’t notice anything like that. We were overcome by the beauty of it. There was something in those faces so deep and soulful and true. We were just astonished, totally astonished.”

  What happened next not only saved Eccles from the wrath of his neighbours but saw him transplanted from his sleepy Southend suburb to the centre of London’s wealthiest neighbourhood. Grace and George offered £20,000 cash to the old lady in Cumbria, a figure way above the market value of her home, and took possession of the place. In the early months they invited friends and enthusiasts for visits, but as the work began to degrade they acted to preserve it, coating it with preservative and covering the walls with light-proof fabric. “We’ve had a few problems with squatters but the neighbours keep an eye on the place for us,” says Grace. “I think they like having it there, it’s something special, secret. When Ray had his first show at the Serpentine we arranged a minibus to bring them all to the opening night. They loved it. We employ a gardener to keep the garden looking nice, and we repaint the windows every so often. From the outside it looks like any other suburban bungalow.”