[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
viewer, her left leg raised, creating a triangle, while in the fore-
ground Entwistle himself may be seen, in profile, starkers, a
self-portrait from head to mid-thigh, his member huge and
pendulous. It is, arguably, his most well-known painting. I men-
tion it because of the mirror above Mumsy s left shoulder, in
which may be seen the muted reflection of a head peering
around a half-open door, a head that is mine. On the back of
the canvas is the title Entwistle originally gave to this painting,
'A Guilty Thing Surprised'.
Actually, I got on rather well with him. He liked, he said, the
cut of my jib. I remember that he painted white cricket stumps
against the door of the shed where he stored his work, and he
would bowl me over after over, happy to bowl me out ('Owzat!
Owzat!'), happy to catch me out ('Owzat! Owzat!'), happy to
26
leap about and race after the ball. He had enormous energy in
those years. And, of course, I remember the advice he gave me
before I went up to university. 'The trick is to get 'em to take
off their own knickers, both literally and metaphorically. You have
to approach 'em with feigned indifference and with a feigned
assumption that you're going to succeed. "That's all ye know on
earth and all ye need to know." ' This was not the sort of useful
advice that I might have expected to receive from my own father,
had he lived. What was at once irritating and strangely attrac-
tive in Entwistle was his total lack of concern about what anyone
else might think. He barged on through, confident he would
carry the day.
I continued to see him over the years, usually by accident,
sometimes by design, long after he had sent Mumsy weeping
back to London and to her years-long quest for a suitable sur-
rogate, for equal he had none. In her old age she still spoke of
her time with 'frisky Cyril' as the zenith of her life, patting the
trembling, mottled hand of her beagle-eyed last husband the
while, 'There, there, Charley. Never mind.'
" * "
SHOULD I TELL STAN ANY OF THIS? While he surely knows the
names of all Entwistle's models, there is no reason that he should
associate Lady Nancy Smyth-Turdant with Robin Sinclair, and
even if he discovered that she was once Nancy Sinclair, it would
be something of a stretch for him to suppose that she was my
mother. The wonder is that Entwistle has not given him my
name as one worthy of an interview. Still, I don't doubt that the
wily old bastard had his reasons. How many other possible leads
has he quiedy denied Stan? How total is the access he has granted
him?
Actually, I'm not certain that I am worthy of an interview.
27
Yes, ascertainable facts are facts. Birth certificates, marriage cer-
tificates, divorce papers, school and university records, and so
on, conform to the truths I've recorded here. The painting in
the National Portrait Gallery, for example, has the title on its
verso that I say it has. But is that dim reflection in the mirror
really me? It's hard to say. I've always supposed it was, but, to
be honest, I have no memory of coming upon my mother and
Entwistle in flagrante, whether purposefully or by chance. Can
I have wiped it out? I do not know what I know. Non nosco
ergo sum. The best I can offer Stan is unreliable gossip. Besides,
is his an enterprise in which I wish to engage? Do I really want
to help him?
" " "
WITHIN THREE YEARS OF MY RETURN TO LONDON after my stint
at Mosholu I was back in New York again, this time delivering
a lecture at the UCNY Graduate Center. The Center was spon-
soring a conference on the birth of the English novel. Frankly,
I was surprised and a trifle flattered to have received an invita-
tion, but since UCNY undertook to pay all my expenses and
offered a decent honorarium, I immediately accepted. The
Center's midtown building was aswarm with scholars, an inter-
national array. I was to offer a twentieth-century novelist's take
on the eighteenth-century novel of my choice. I had attended
a few lectures by J . R. R. Watts while at university, and with those
of my notes on Fielding that had survived, my memory of Tom
Jones (the film, the one with Albert Finney and Susannah York)
and a quick run-through of Fielding's elaborate chapter titles in
my old paperback edition, I had cobbled together a fifty-minute
talk on the novel. Well, I was not a scholar, and besides, I was
to talk as a novelist. As I recall, my remarks were not without
merit.
28
Nevertheless, I was somewhat cowed at the thought of an
audience of specialists, people for whom Tom Jones was not
merely the subject of arcane research and publication in learned
journals, but also the content of ordinary and casual discourse.
What I feared most was the question-and-answer period that
was to follow.
In the event, my fears were groundless. Hardly anyone turned [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl ocenkijessi.opx.pl
viewer, her left leg raised, creating a triangle, while in the fore-
ground Entwistle himself may be seen, in profile, starkers, a
self-portrait from head to mid-thigh, his member huge and
pendulous. It is, arguably, his most well-known painting. I men-
tion it because of the mirror above Mumsy s left shoulder, in
which may be seen the muted reflection of a head peering
around a half-open door, a head that is mine. On the back of
the canvas is the title Entwistle originally gave to this painting,
'A Guilty Thing Surprised'.
Actually, I got on rather well with him. He liked, he said, the
cut of my jib. I remember that he painted white cricket stumps
against the door of the shed where he stored his work, and he
would bowl me over after over, happy to bowl me out ('Owzat!
Owzat!'), happy to catch me out ('Owzat! Owzat!'), happy to
26
leap about and race after the ball. He had enormous energy in
those years. And, of course, I remember the advice he gave me
before I went up to university. 'The trick is to get 'em to take
off their own knickers, both literally and metaphorically. You have
to approach 'em with feigned indifference and with a feigned
assumption that you're going to succeed. "That's all ye know on
earth and all ye need to know." ' This was not the sort of useful
advice that I might have expected to receive from my own father,
had he lived. What was at once irritating and strangely attrac-
tive in Entwistle was his total lack of concern about what anyone
else might think. He barged on through, confident he would
carry the day.
I continued to see him over the years, usually by accident,
sometimes by design, long after he had sent Mumsy weeping
back to London and to her years-long quest for a suitable sur-
rogate, for equal he had none. In her old age she still spoke of
her time with 'frisky Cyril' as the zenith of her life, patting the
trembling, mottled hand of her beagle-eyed last husband the
while, 'There, there, Charley. Never mind.'
" * "
SHOULD I TELL STAN ANY OF THIS? While he surely knows the
names of all Entwistle's models, there is no reason that he should
associate Lady Nancy Smyth-Turdant with Robin Sinclair, and
even if he discovered that she was once Nancy Sinclair, it would
be something of a stretch for him to suppose that she was my
mother. The wonder is that Entwistle has not given him my
name as one worthy of an interview. Still, I don't doubt that the
wily old bastard had his reasons. How many other possible leads
has he quiedy denied Stan? How total is the access he has granted
him?
Actually, I'm not certain that I am worthy of an interview.
27
Yes, ascertainable facts are facts. Birth certificates, marriage cer-
tificates, divorce papers, school and university records, and so
on, conform to the truths I've recorded here. The painting in
the National Portrait Gallery, for example, has the title on its
verso that I say it has. But is that dim reflection in the mirror
really me? It's hard to say. I've always supposed it was, but, to
be honest, I have no memory of coming upon my mother and
Entwistle in flagrante, whether purposefully or by chance. Can
I have wiped it out? I do not know what I know. Non nosco
ergo sum. The best I can offer Stan is unreliable gossip. Besides,
is his an enterprise in which I wish to engage? Do I really want
to help him?
" " "
WITHIN THREE YEARS OF MY RETURN TO LONDON after my stint
at Mosholu I was back in New York again, this time delivering
a lecture at the UCNY Graduate Center. The Center was spon-
soring a conference on the birth of the English novel. Frankly,
I was surprised and a trifle flattered to have received an invita-
tion, but since UCNY undertook to pay all my expenses and
offered a decent honorarium, I immediately accepted. The
Center's midtown building was aswarm with scholars, an inter-
national array. I was to offer a twentieth-century novelist's take
on the eighteenth-century novel of my choice. I had attended
a few lectures by J . R. R. Watts while at university, and with those
of my notes on Fielding that had survived, my memory of Tom
Jones (the film, the one with Albert Finney and Susannah York)
and a quick run-through of Fielding's elaborate chapter titles in
my old paperback edition, I had cobbled together a fifty-minute
talk on the novel. Well, I was not a scholar, and besides, I was
to talk as a novelist. As I recall, my remarks were not without
merit.
28
Nevertheless, I was somewhat cowed at the thought of an
audience of specialists, people for whom Tom Jones was not
merely the subject of arcane research and publication in learned
journals, but also the content of ordinary and casual discourse.
What I feared most was the question-and-answer period that
was to follow.
In the event, my fears were groundless. Hardly anyone turned [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]