Patrick Parker's Progress (23 page)

12

Endures the eternal clown
’
The eternal clown
’
A naked woman
...

Westminster Bridge, one of the widest and most graceful bridges in Europe, consists of seven low segmental iron arches, supported on granite piers. It is
1160
feet long and
85
feet wide and was opened in
1862.
Wordsworth wrote of the view from the bridge of his day, 'Earth has not anything to show more fair
...'

The Charing Cross Railway Bridge had not then been built.

Guide to London

Well, Audrey forgave him everything, of course, and Patrick, overjoyed to be back in London, the very next day took her to the British Museum. He stroked his hand lovingly over the curves of Danae, admired the bits of frieze with their naked urgent warriors, he stared up at Winged Victory and the way her breasts pushed out against her drapery.

'Pheidias,' he said.

'My goodness,' said Audrey, picking her words carefully, 'Pheidias, eh?'

Despite being Modern she was still slightly embarrassed at the very obvious nakedness of it all.

'Mmm,' said Patrick. And then added, just to clear things up for her, which it didn't but which she was too polite to say, 'Controller of Pericles' buildings.'

Audrey then rested her chin on her hand and looked up at them pensively. 'Ah yes,' she said.

'And Mnesicles. Mmm,' she said. 'Well, well.'

He nodded, a little thrown by her easy reference. 'Metopes from the Parthenon. Those ancient Greeks knew a thing or two.'

'Well, I can see that,' she said.

They were both peering closely at them now. The delineation really was very clear. Given that the room was fairly crowded and the masculine gender of the marble riders was very obvious she did not, exactly, know where to look. In the end she settled for a horse's tail.

'Big frieze,' said Patrick, nodding sagely.

'Yes,' she said. 'But hardly surprising if they wore so little.'

Patrick burst out laughing, making everyone stare. 'You can be quite witty sometimes, Aud,' he said, and put his arm round her. She laughed too, wondering what was funny.

They sauntered on, arm in arm, and she felt close to heaven.

"The body,' he said, 'is probably the most perfect piece of engineering in the Universe.'

Audrey looked into his eyes.

He took a deep breath. Might as well, he thought, and added, 'And yours is pretty near the top of the pile
...'

Fortunately it did not occur to her to ask if she was 'pretty near' the top, who then was actually 'top of the pile' or Patrick, coming over all Modern and bohemian again, might have told her.

'Now,' he said, suddenly whirling her around a plinth so that attendants wagged their fingers and visitors stared. 'Now - back for tea and crumpets and I'll show you what I've been doing for the Gold Medal.'

Breathlessly she ran out into the Bloomsbury streets, following him on to a bus, running up the stairs, racing to the seat at the front. The conductor disapproved and tutted as he clipped their tickets making her feel happy and young and alive. They held hands and looked about them.
‘I
know what we'll do,' said Patrick. And they hopped off that bus and on to another so that they could ride over Westminster Bridge. Because, as Patrick said, it was one of the best bridges in London. 'And doesn't Mr
Brunel
's baby add to the view?' He pointed as the bus juddered over the river.

'I'll say,' she said, nodding vigorously, and thinking that it looked rather ugly really and blocked her view of St Paul's. But of course she wouldn't say. She felt so happy that she could have died at that moment. To be entrusted with his hopes and aspirations, to share in everything, including his body and hers, was total fulfilment. She forgot about Lilly, she forgot about being rejected, and her heart soared, once again, with hope and happiness.

Patrick extolled the virtues of being back in the Great City, saying how wonderful London was and denouncing Coventry. She asked him about the funeral. He had little to say. Neither had her parents her mother being unusually reticent about the experience. When asked how Patrick managed, Dolly just said, 'Well enough,' and clamped her mouth shut.

Dolly was praying it would pass. All of it.

'He's sensitive,' said Audrey.

'My elbow,' said her mother. 'I don't think either of them shed a tear.' Then she turned to her daughter and asked her if she was truly serious about Patrick. 'More to the point,' she added, 'is he serious about you?'

'Of course he is,' Audrey said. 'But we are not going to do anything Bourgeois.'

'I'm very glad to hear it
’
said her mother dubiously. 'All the same, I think you should hurry up and get that ring on your finger and marry him. Before someone else steps in.'

"The funeral
’
said Patrick, almost joyously, 'is over. And that is all you need to know. All right?'

Of course it was. She was in love with Patrick, in love with London, in love with Westminster Bridge. And it seemed, for the first time ever, that Patrick might also be in love with her.

With this in mind, and borne aloft on a cloud of feminine expectancy, Audrey started removing her clothes as soon as she walked into his room - a piece of boldness that she had never dared before. Patrick went ahead of her into his dear, beloved workplace that he had missed so much, and opened his portfolio. He spread out the copies of the Gold Medal drawings in order on the floor, kneeling above them, beckoning her, without looking up. 'See
’
he said, pointing. 'It's fantastically revolutionary.
Fantastically . .
. And full of bloody humanity . . .' He touched the drawings lovingly, delicately, as if they might bruise. "Notice
’
he said, 'that I have used the colours Corbusier used - red and blue and green - and this is a cross section of the rubber mat
...'

Now normally Audrey had a good instinct for what to do and what not to do and when. But on this particular occasion, buoyed up by their separation and with Patrick's enthusiasm and the idea of his glorying of her body - she misread the position. While he leaned admiringly over his work she removed the last of her clothing and knelt on the floor and leaned over him, actually putting her knee on one of the drawings. And then she said, rather seductively she thought, 'Can't we put those things aside for a little while?' She picked one up and tossed it gently away. 'Just for now? I've missed you so much.'

He looked at her amazed. Then coldly. Then he looked back at his beautiful drawings. Then back at her again. She began to display goosebumps. "They are not - as you put it -
those things.
They are my future.'

The silence was long and terrible. She broke it. 'Sorry
’
she said. She willed herself not to look at the poster or she knew she would cry.
‘I
suggest
’
he said, 'that you put your clothes back on.'

They did not meet for several weeks. Patrick remained silent, too busy to think or care beyond his work. The Galton Loggia - much photographed - was opened to the public. He did not take Florence to the ceremony - in his heart he knew she was not the kind of mother to impress - and the thought of her meeting Penelope in public was too awful to consider. But he did take her there afterwards. Already aware of the usefulness of publicity, he suggested to Henry (who was about to leave for his summer in Antibes) that he might -with his permission - invite the press along. The
Daily Graphic
and
The Times
were the only ones who showed up. But he was pleased. It was a start. And whatever else his mother could not do - she could certainly look quite smart. She brought a message of congratulations from Peggy, and he, feeling jubilant with everything, sent a friendly message back. His meticulous maquette of the children's playground was complete, all the drawings had already been submitted in sealed envelopes. All he had to do now was to sit back and wait.

He put Florence on the train, kissed her cheek, and watched her smile and wave from the train all the way out of the station.

'And hallo, Tokyo
’
he said to himself as he ran down the steps and back into the street. 'Not long now.'

Audrey, meanwhile, had two options - either to take to her bed or to do something positive; she chose the latter. Whatever had happened between her and Patrick could only be temporary - but while she had the time she would use it. She began looking at her French books in earnest. And she went back to the British Museum, and walked over Westminster Bridge - and past number eighteen Duke Street. Later she bought a postcard of Isambard Kingdom
Brunel
from the

National Portrait Gallery. Looking at it, studying it each night, propping it on her dressing table, she grew to hate him - hate the cocky stance, the cigar, the place he held in her lover's heart.

The press cuttings were sent on from Coventry and Audrey swallowed hard when she saw Florence standing there instead of her. But it was no more than she deserved. She had not been thoughtful enough. This was her period of self-awareness (a new concept) and she took it very seriously. She would put aside girlhood and become an adult, thinking woman. She ploughed on with the French.

When Dolly was told by Florence (of course) that Patrick had won his medal (of course), she sent him the
Brunel
postcard. She wrote:
‘I
congratulate you with all my heart. Please forgive me. Your loving Audrey.' And she waited. One thing she knew for certain. Patrick would never throw the postcard away. Not with bloody
Brunel
on the front of it.

Patrick, meanwhile, was introduced to the Grandees of Design as the College's most promising undergraduate. He noted that they wore suits and ties and spoke the Queen's English. Yet he knew for a fact that one of them (bathetically named Ronald Wilkins), with a practice in London, Toronto and Sydney now, and the title 'Sir', had been born in Bradford. Another had been a Barnardo's Boy. They were international men now - no trace remained in either of them of their humble origins. His instinct to remove the stigma of Coventry was right.

When the Gold Medal was announced and Patrick was presented with it, there was a dinner. And at the dinner Patrick sat next to the guest of honour, who happened to be the Great Man from Bradford. The Great Man from Bradford, who spoke so impeccably, congratulated Patrick on the Galton Loggia - he had seen it in the press. Clever stuff. Brave. Go far. Emboldened by a glass of wine and his own substantial achievement, Patrick asked the Great Man to tell him what else (after talent) was needed in the professional life he led that had enabled him to achieve and maintain his Greatness. The Great Man, having enjoyed his bumper, smiled broadly, picked up his glass and raised it to a straight-backed, sweet-faced women, with blue-grey hair in a tight perm (just the sort of neat little woman Patrick thought he despised) and said, 'Get yourself a good wife.'

The Great Man appeared to be serious.

'I only employ married men
’
said the Great Man, still apparently serious. "The unmarried ones are bound to be wild and go off at a tangent.'

Patrick studied the women sitting at the table. The staff and the Academic Hierarchs' wives were distinguishable by their short, grey hair and serviceable outfits and the way they got their heads down, saying Utile, eating much. The wives of the Grand Outsiders were distinguishable by their air of relaxed ease, their blue rinses or coiffures unflecked by grey, and their discreet but sparkly frocks. Nothing cool about them. Just nice ordinary women with one thing in mind. The success of their husbands. It made perfect sense. He envied them all - the Great Men and The Great Men's Women. He thought of Audrey with irritation. If she were only more conventional - less restless. None of these wives would have dismissed his work as 'those things' and suggested putting them aside for sex (clearly!). Food for thought. Definitely. He thanked the Great Man for his advice. 'Get a wife
’
he said, now very much further on with the port. 'And I might just employ you.'

He telephoned Audrey quite soon after. Out of the blue.

'OK?' he said.

'OK
’
she just about managed to reply. But it was not from anger, it was from relief. As she danced out of the house she called to her mother that she always knew it would be all right really . . . Dolly went on with her knitting. Maybe, was all she thought, maybe.

Just as Audrey arrived back in his life - and to be fair he was very happy about it.
..
yes - he could say it - he had missed her. Just as that happened Peggy Boxer began writing to him. He sent her one polite note back saying that he was very well and he hoped she was and thank you for the congratulations - and then - just as out-of-the-blue as his phone call to Audrey, Peggy Boxer appeared on the college steps one day. Off her own bat, and telling no one, she just appeared and waited for him. She had tightened her hair, pencilled in her eyebrows, which seemed to go on to infinity, and wore a very fetching little suede box jacket. She looked - as the other students (male) showed from their stares - pretty bloody sexy. The female students did not stare - not at all - which showed that they thought so too.