The Girl in a Swing Page 5

emotion was present it was controlled and in the correct proportion;

  that is, to the extent that emotion in living creatures

  is a functional, constituent part of the entire created order.

  And Bach himself, if not exactly anonymous, in his own time

  possessed the status and reputation, not of some Gauguinesque

  genius on his doomed way to self-sanctified immolation,

  but rather of an honest, competent craftsman not

  greatly dissimilar from his clay-handling Staffordshire contemporaries

  - Robert Wood, say; or Astbury, making practical

  use of Dwight's powdered calcined flints to increase

  whiteness much as Bach made use of Reiser's music in the

  development of his own ecclesiastical style. To be sure, one

  did indeed become excited over pottery. It was Mark Twain,

  of all people, who said, with characteristic American hyperbole,

  that the very marks on the bottom of a piece of

  crockery were able to throw him into gibbering ecstasy. (I'd

  like to have seen that.) I have found my own hands trembling

  dangerously while handling a Whieldon mug, with its

  abstract decoration of runny, manganese glaze streaked with

  green. But - or so I felt - much as Bach's fervour made no

  direct, secular assault upon his hearers' private and personal

  emotions, approaching them rather upon the (to him) universal

  ground of Christian belief and the scriptures, so the

  emotional excitement stimulated by the potters, their shapes,

  glazes and decorations, was kept decently and soberly at

  one remove by the utilitarianism of their work, by their

  necessary concentration upon the practicalities of craftsmanship

  and, ultimately, by the plain fact that they belonged

  to an age when it was not the job of their sort, even when innovating,

  to shock and disturb, but on the contrary to enhance

  and beautify the accepted order of existence. In addition

  they had, and retain, one all-important source of charm

  - namely, all their imperfections on their head. Again and

  again I have found delight in the clodhopping provincialism

  of Felix Pratt, Obadiah Sherratt and their fellows. It is from

  their very naivet6 and maladroitness that their appeal flows.

  Do they not exemplify the very essence of the human situa39

  tion - scrabbling in the mud to get their bread by creating

  something attractive at a price which ordinary folk can

  afford?

  I worked hard at the business in Northbrook Street, not

  because I felt I ought to, but because I enjoyed it; and certainly

  not on account of any pressure on my father's part.

  Indeed, within a year he and I had got into the habit of

  driving to work in two cars, for as often as not he would be

  ready for the cool verandah, the six o'clock news and a limejuice

  and gin while I stayed to set up a window-display of

  Royal Doulton, write to an agent about a consignment of

  Spode, or perhaps, over dinner at the Chequers, pick the

  brains of some new sales representative. For - and this, in my

  view, is the second touchstone of a vocation - I found I was

  not content simply to do what I was told. Though diffident

  in other walks of life, when it came to buying and selling

  ceramics I was not afraid of making mistakes and must continually

  be learning someone else's job, or setting myself to

  master the ins and outs of some fresh aspect of the business

  with which, strictly speaking, I need not have bothered.

  For recreation I fished, drank beer in pubs, walked over the

  downs and through the fields and copses of Enborne and

  Highclere, or sometimes, on a Saturday, drove over to Bradfield

  to watch a match. London I seldom went to, except to

  buy and sell or to see an exhibition.

  Soon I began to travel and to use my languages; first,

  simply in order to widen my knowledge of ceramics, but later

  in the way of serious business. Of course I had been to Paris

  several times before, but never for the express purpose of

  visiting the Sevres Museum and talking to the people who

  run it. I went, too, to the Schlossmuseum in Berlin, to Nymphenburg

  and to the Bayerisches National-Museum at

  Munich. With less difficulty than I had expected, I obtained

  a limited visa to visit East Germany, and made my reverent

  way not only to the Kunstgewerbemuseum and the Landesmuseum

  at Leipzig, but also to the Meissen factory itself. On

  this trip I encountered no Iron Curtain complications. As

  with chess players, so with lovers of ceramics: the barriers

  dissolve.

  40

  I went to Rorstrand in Stockholm, where the idea first

  occurred to me of expanding the family business into the

  fields both of antique pottery and porcelain and of fine modern

  ceramics. It was here that I first saw high-quality modern

  wares which I thought I could sell in the shop, and found out

  what I needed to know about importing them. I knew I

  would be risking precious capital, yet somehow I felt little

  anxiety. What I meant to do was so obviously right and important

  that if the Berkshire public did not like it they could

  make that their question and go rot. I would go down with

  the ship.

  However, it didn't go down. From the outset my idea was

  so successful that I determined to spread a wider net in

  Scandinavia. And thus it was that, ten years after my parting

  from Kirsten, I came at last to Copenhagen - sea-girt, greenspired

  K0benhavn - on the Sound.

  For me, K0benhavn leapt forth immediately as the nearest

  thing I had found to the ideal city. I did not actually go the

  length of deciding that you could burn Paris, Rome and

  Madrid, but from the outset I fell headlong in love with

  K0benhavn, and was never so foolish as to try, from any

  misplaced respect for generally-accepted values, to reason

  myself out of this spontaneous joy. Le cceur a ses raisons

  que la raison ne connait point.

  Paris, Florence, Venice - those cities have become selfconscious

  in their beauty and crowded with people who go

  there because they have read or been told that they should;

  but K0benhavn possesses, as an integral part of the baroque

  splendour of its churches and palaces, a natural ease and

  modesty, like that of an aristocrat too well-bred to draw

  attention to riches or grandeur. The Amalienborg Palace,

  thank God, never set out to rival Versailles. The two were a

  long way apart in the eighteenth century, when it was cornpleted,

  and to one walking today in that quiet square, where

  the black-coated, blue-trousered Royal Lifeguards still stand

  sentinel, they seem even further apart now. Peter the Great

  could still ride his horse up the 105 feet of the Rundetarn

  to the top, but fortunately he happens to have disappeared,

  while it - less cruel, nasty and bumptious - has not. In any

  41

  other city the green, spiral tower of the Frelserskirke might

  seem no more than an amusing curiosity, but in K0benhavn

  it expresses rather the natural grace an
d light hearts of Danish

  people, who have never seen reason to be unduly solemn

  or serious-minded even in the matter of churches. And as

  for the less obvious, more secluded delights of the city - the

  silver birches by the pool in the Bibliotekshaven, or the wonderful

  porcelain collection in the Davids Samling - these are

  like treasures which the kindly aristocrat prefers not to talk

  about, but lets you discover for yourself, if you wish, having

  told you that you are free to go wherever you like and amuse

  yourself until dinner. No other city's quality is so unassuming

  and unself-conscious, and therefore so friendly and reassuring

  to the heart, as K0benhavn's. How beautiful, as

  Keats remarked, are the retired flowers.

  Now the plain truth is that Copenhagen is easily the most

  attractive of all contemporary porcelain - Meissen, Wedgwood

  and all. Among its beauties is a certain creamy, smoky

  quality which fairly wrings the heart. I became well-known,

  in due course, both at the Royal Copenhagen factory and

  also at Bing & Gr0ndahl, where Per Simonsen, the manager,

  would open the private museum for me and show me yet

  again the Crusader-and-Saracen chessmen, the complete

  series of Christmas plates and the under-glaze blue-and-gold

  Heron service of Pietro Krohn. It is not, of course, necessary

  for retailers - nor the practice of even a minority of them

  - to visit or make themselves known at porcelain manufactories.

  As far as mere business is concerned, the retailer deals

  with the agent who, if up to his job, is perfectly competent

  to tell and show him all he needs to know. Strictly speaking,

  my peregrinations were as unnecessary as those of a jeweller

  going to see for himself what happens at Kimberley, or a

  publican's with a passion to visit Glenlivet and Burton-onTrent.

  For the matter of that, Mahomedans, many of them

  desperately poor, have for hundreds of years pinched and

  scraped to get themselves to Mecca; and little enough there

  is to see when you get there, by all I ever heard. Yet to them

  it seems otherwise. It is not what they see, but what they

  feel in their hearts.

  42

  My feelings, though secular, were scarcely different in

  kind. People in Berkshire knew too little about ceramic

  antiques and fine modern porcelain. I was going to change

  all that, and whether I made or lost money was not what

  mattered. What mattered was the work - the vital and

  necessary work. Of course, I would have to start in a small

  way. After all, the shop and its capital were not mine and

  even to myself I could not justify the idea of urging my

  father, at his time of life, to re-orientate the business he

  had been running for thiry years. However, he and I had

  always got on well, he was pleased with my enthusiasm and

  hard work and I had no difficulty in persuading him to let

  me borrow, as floating capital, a small sum which I thought

  I would be able to repay (plus at least fifteen per cent) within

  three years. Thus armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe, I entered

  upon a systematic attendance of sales within striking

  distance of Newbury and began to cultivate the acquaintance

  of travelling dealers who sold to antique shops. Soon afterwards

  I turned over part of the shop - near the entrance,

  where people would be bound to see - to the sale of antique

  pottery and porcelain.

  Throughout these years I never felt anything more than a

  general, sociable interest in girls. Many people, I suppose,

  might feel that this was unnatural, but I was perfectly content

  to remain a non-starter. No doubt I retained something

  of my childish belief in my physical unattractiveness (the

  attitude of years is not easily changed) but if this was indeed

  a reason it must have lain deep, for I was seldom

  troubled by desire and certainly felt no particular inadequacy.

  Indeed, without thinking much about it I was rather proud

  of my self-sufficiency, of being absorbed in my work and

  content with my friends and somewhat solitary recreations.

  In so far as I ever reflected, the idea of taking the trouble to

  pay close attention to any individual girl seemed a complication

  and distraction not worth anything to be got out of

  it. If something like that was ever going to happen to me,

  then it would have to be capable of penetrating a sizeable

  barrier of diffidence. As for my parents, they made no

  43

  attempt to influence me. Perhaps they felt in no hurry for my

  affections to wander.

  I know, now, that in some ways I must have seemed - in

  fact I was - rather staid and old-fashioned. For a start, an

  unreflecting, orthodox Christian (how 'square'!); fastidiously

  detached; even, perhaps, a shade precious - though I could

  always get on with people and never lacked for friends. But

  things - beautiful things - were so much easier and more

  dependable than people; consistent, predictable and on that

  account satisfying. Porcelain was a simplification, a refinement

  of fallible, often-disappointing reality. To be sure, the

  style and beauty of girls' clothes had power to delight me. I

  could gaze, and take in every detail: but frequently their

  owners struck me as frivolously wayward, trivial and demanding,

  all-too-liable only to taint or spill the cool pleasure

  flowing from pottery or counterpoint. As the sixties advanced

  into ever-greater discord and confusion, shattering, in one

  sphere after another, the very idea of acquiescence, or of the

  need for any commonly-accepted values or restraints, I found

  myself, though not yet thirty, less and less in accord with

  the spirit of the times, preferring my own world of fragile

  craftsmanship, secure, like a walled mansion (so I imagined

  it), situated in some quiet street away from the turbulent

  market-place given over to protest and half-baked mysticism.

  This - as I myself realized - was a too-negative view of a

  decade which included much gaiety and sincere ardour, but

  I could not help it. There were moments, indeed, when I

  acknowledged to myself that Tony Redwood, dog-collar or

  no, was more up-to-date than I; both in heart and inclination

  more warmly in sympathy with much of what was happening;

  and also with those to whom and through whom

  it was happening. ' "Proud youth! fastidious of the lower

  world" - it'll catch up with you one of these days, Alan,' said

  Tony one evening, when I had been remarking how much I

  disliked some popular movement or other. He was smiling we

  both were - but he half-meant it none the less.

  Tony Redwood and his wife, Freda, were my closest

  friends. I rather believe that on his arrival in 1965 Tony, who

  was only a few years older than myself, seemed to several

  44

  people in his parish both an alarmingly intellectual and also

  somewhat unconventional clergyman. Clever, quick and incisive,

  he was certainly a long way fr
om the kindly, noncontroversial,

  let's-not-say-anything-specifk-in-case-it-givesoffence

  type, with a challenging turn of mind and, often, a

  way of startling people by reacting in the opposite manner

  from what might have been expected. As it became known,

  however, that he was warm-hearted, sensible and unshockable,

  he began to gain the confidence of all kinds of people some

  of them a long way from Newbury. I remember vividly

  the summer evening when he and I got back from a walk beyond

  Kingsclere to find waiting in his drawing-room three

  hippies, who had hitch-hiked from London to seek his advice

  and help about a friend in trouble with the police.

  As the years passed and my father's confidence in me increased

  with my experience and proved staying-power, he

  gradually took a less and less active part in running the

  shop. Not that there was any question of supplanting him:

  I felt too much affection and respect for him to wish for anything

  of the kind. But there came to be an increasing amount

  of 'Well, just as you think best, my boy' or 'Perhaps I'll stay

  and give Jack a hand in the garden this afternoon'. We understood

  each other very well, and I can't recall that we

  ever had a serious disagreement about business - or, indeed,

  anything else.

  Though I remember clearly the February morning when

  Barbara Stannard came into the shop for the first time, this

  is mainly because of a matter that had nothing to do with

  her, but with my so-called secretary, Mrs Taswell. Miss Flitter

  and dear old Miss Lee had retired within a few months of

  each other - one to her cottage at Boxford, up the Lambourn

  valley, the other to live with a brother somewhere in south

  London - and had been succeeded by Deirdre, a perky schoolleaver

  from Donnington, whose Berkshire idiom ('I dunno as

  I thinks a great lot o' that, Mistralan') would have sounded

  familiar enough, I imagine, to Jack o' Newbury himself; and

  by Mrs Taswell.

  Mrs Taswell was one of those people you either have to

  harden your heart against and get rid of, leaving her on your

  45

  conscience even while you argue miserably with the Lord that

  you had work to do and it was no earthly business of yours

  that she subsequently fell among thieves; or else take on

  board on top of everything else. She was not young, she was

  not local and she was distinctly odd - though this was not

  immediately apparent. She came via an employment agency

  in Reading, on whose books we had been for several weeks,

  and initially she seemed a godsend, for she was well-spoken

  and had a pleasant manner. Not only that, but she could

  type and had done secretarial work in the civil service. For

  a little more money she was ready, she said, to throw these

  accomplishments into the kitty: she wouJd type letters and

  file papers as well as serve in the shop. We had known it

  was not going to be easy to replace Miss Lee and Miss Flitter

  - they were as much creatures of a bygone age as housemaids

  - and we engaged Mrs Taswell without more ado.

  It soon became clear that, although industrious, loyal and

  honest, she was possessed of such a quota of eccentric

  stupidity as was hardly in nature. 'She's naturally dull,' said

  my father, quoting Dr Johnson, 'but it must have taken her a

  great deal of pains to become what we now see her.' As I

  gradually learned, it had indeed. Ages long ago Mr Taswell

  had fled away into the storm, and there was an eleven-yearold

  daughter who had resolutely refused to live with her, running

  back to her father time after time, until even the court

  gave it up as a bad job. Naturally, this had made Mrs Taswell

  unhappy. On top of this, she was ludicrously incapable

  of managing her own money and when she first came to us

  was not only overdrawn, but writing dud cheques with no

  real understanding of why these were proving unpopular. In

  short, she was a person quite unable to cope with life unless

  there was someone to tell her what to do. I paid off the overdraft

  (it was not very large), transferred her account to our

  own bank and thereafter, with her relieved consent, looked

  after it for her, approving payment of the bills for her regular

  outgoings and telling her what spending money she could