The Kiss

Entering the Tunnel

The Flying Scotsman that carried my mother and me southwards to England was one of the fastest steam engines of its generation and therefore an adequate symbol of our escape. I sat gazing out of the window while my mother, always talkative, conversed with the other passengers. The rackety rack of the carriage wheels as they sped over the unwelded rails entranced me; this was excitement, this was adventure. Past Berwick-upon-Tweed my mother unloaded our carefully packed sandwiches as if to celebrate her return to England; because although she had been born in Scotland she never hesitated to point out that her family's roots were English and furthermore, as if to add ammunition to her claim, she had been born a Hogarth and was therefore distantly related to Charles Dickens. Whether or not this was true or merely an unfounded boast, hardly matters; it was her belief that counted. We took a taxi from Kings Cross to the Ivanhoe Hotel , close to Russell Square, where I spent a couple of sleepless and fretful nights because of the noise of the traffic. Two days later we found ourselves in a dismal boarding house in one of the burgeoning suburbs of London.

The Tunnel - An Introduction

We exist in a state of paradox; on the one hand we are told by science that matter consists of a considerable emptiness and that what we judge to be solid to our touch consists of atoms separated by space and held together by unseen but detectable forces and that solidity in the everyday and practical sense of the word is an illusion. The discoveries of the 20th century with their accompanying concepts created an existential unease since we are part of this objectified world and bound by laws which we barely comprehend. We were forced therefore to confront the immateriality of our own substance and the realisation that the old separation between Man and the material world was an outmoded conceit.

We are increasingly reminded of the interrelatedness of everything; that our presence in the world affects its reality so that even our most innocuous actions are part and parcel of its continuous flux. This expansion of consciousness which should be a cause for celebration is more often than not turned into a source of fear. Where previously we felt secure, we are now shown the incalculable effects of our actions and our appetites - from the polluted environment to the present collapse of the global economy. The existential anxiety which manifests itself in myriad form is the result of living within an unresolved contradiction - between the alienation created by a capitalist society which has thrived on fragmentation and a mixture of threats and promises and an underlying urge towards a cooperative Humanism in which the individual is valued for himself within a collective and not merely as an expendable peon

My New Shoes

Don't worry, I haven't thrown the old ones away and maybe I never will. I have placed them carefully under my bed alongside the small oil paintings that I dust down from time to time and the secondhand suitcase that I use when I visit the mainland. I decided that I needed a new pair of shoes and an unexpected windfall provided the oppertunity. There are three shoe shops in this small town but I'd already made up my mind and decided be dynastic and buy a pair as close as possible in style to the old ones - eccentric as they are. Not wanting to have the trouble of struggling with the complicated laces of my mountain boots I decided to wear my felt slippers, buy the shoes and then transfer the slippers to a paper bag. I wasn't the least embarrassed by this procedure because many men past retirement age go around in slippers all the time. When I got to Ben Calçat the shop was closed and in a state of irritation and dissappointmant I stepped off the pavement into a deep sludge of wet concrete. My slippers and my dignity were instantly ruined and I was forced to limp towards the next shop where I had previously noticed a pair of town shoes and, desperate to conceal my concrete encrusted slippers, I bought them without trying them on. Size 46, but a bargain at thirty euros and in exactly the style of which my aunt would have approved.

I need new shoes for the next part of the journey; the tunnel is not only dark, it's also slippery and there are shallow pools of stagnant water. It's not a nice place, fetid as it is with the excrement of broken souls.

New Shoes

Walking down Memory Lane

Naturally I've beeen selective in what I've written so far, but it is as close to the truth as is possible, given a gap of sixty years. There were many other moments that I could have chosen but they were either too indetirminate or else too much like something invented after the fact and a justification of later feelings. Once I had dipped my foot in this pond I pretty soon saw how I'd distorted and used many of these events as a well of disappointment. What had previously been loaded with rancor was suddenly bled dry of negative emotion and I began to see how those that had had such an early influence on me had acted within the framework of their own beliefs and not out of malice. It was unfortunate that my mother, who was still relatively young - forty-nine when my father died - had been saddled with a child that barred her from a more liberated widowhood. That I was not her son must have made her abandonment all the more disastrous. My aunt who, as a schoolmistress, worked with children seemed to understand exactly what I needed; if later on she was critical of my lifestyle and appearance, it was because she had the prejudices and expectations of her proffession. In other words, whatever events I recall involving these people and others who will be introduced later on, I must always bear in mind where they were coming from, even if their actions were often absurd and even cruel.

I am indebted to three women for my upbringing. My mother, my aunt and my mother's best friend, Morag Park. My aunt brought stability and an uncompromising sense of the world as it is; my mother, for better or for worse, introduced me to the whole spectrum of emotions and Morag Park encouraged me to paint. Male role-models of any substance or virtue were completely absent: My brother by adoption and seventeen years my elder, was a childhood hero but an inconsistant presence and he himself was damaged in ways that I could not have understood then. Nevertheless my love for him persisted and his sudden death marked a turning point in my life.

With my father's demise I entered a dark tunnel; that much is clear from what I've already written but I am equipped for such a journey. I'm already a person, albeit dependant as every small child is, but nevertheless anarchic, self aware and imaginative. It is exactly the latter quality which will save me in the end, but I still have a long way to travel.

But what about the shoes; don't they have something to say in this matter? Are they the worn out but dignified emblems of a long voyage or just a pair of dirty old clogs that should have thrown in the dustbin long ago?

Grail