Constable's Clouds

By Peter Nagels

The universe moves forward at a rate of 24 hours a day, however episodes of deja vu force David to query this obvious progression of time’s arrow. When he realizes the need for certainty in his relationship with Hannah and a friend becomes obsessed with the archetypal “mysterious stranger” inhabiting her dreams, the world becomes as enigmatic and unexpected as Constable’s clouds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Nagels
• Release date: Oct 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9780646566962

Peter Nagels

Dream researcher, librarian, cinéphile.

Book preview

Part I

__________________________

Chapter 1

The more it rains, the less I feel like leaving the house.

Suddenly this works for me as I’ve just finished updating every electrical item in my home – finally becoming a 21st century boy.

New flat screen TV (analog is dead), digital recorder (the VCR stopped turning), refrigerator (the seals were stuffed / food froze and gad I dig the ice-maker), vacuum cleaner (which really does suck up everything) and last but not least a dishwasher (can’t call me one of those any more).

Now all I have to do is sit back and enjoy life, but it’s not quite as simple as that. Hannah still seems reluctant to come over even after everything is wonderful and new. I don’t think the new stuff impresses her, and to be truthful, why should it?

I suspect that deep down she’s still wondering whether I’m the one. But then is she the one? It’s a question I try never to answer for I’m old enough to know it has no answer. There have been a number of the ones in my life and something has always happened to make it not so.

Consequently I lie longways on the new leather three-seater couch alone and enjoy my sixty inch TV whilst sipping a vodka on the rocks (from my fabulous ice-maker) with freshly squeezed orange juice. The only problem now is the two new remotes in my hands which are as unintuitive in their operation as the controls of a jumbo jet would be to a cave man.

Looking at all the new junk surrounding me, I realize that this is how the rich people live, but they don’t think about it. All the expensive stuff is just there for them, they have people to work it all out, whilst they keep living their rich lives, oblivious to the machinery that maintains their luxurious surroundings. Well it’s good to know I am now on a par with all these folk – nothing exists that could provide them with greater pleasure – apart from their 200 acre estates of course.

I approached the updating of the electrical items in the house in a matter of fact kind of way. It had simply become time for the change (for the reasons listed above). This was not a plan to lure Hannah into my web of gleaming new technological objects of desire, though it did occur to me that having everything perfectly laid out like in the houses of the rich and famous, would make her visits a much more comfortable experience. Her favorite movies on the big screen, her favorite coffee from the new espresso machine, and I was also hoping she’d think of me as her favorite man – to be in her arms in a non-stop kind of way.

Then came the argument.

She was watching one of her favorite movies on the big screen and I had just handed her a glorious cup of coffee.

Stop looking at me like that.

What do you mean? Can’t I want you?

It had been raining and her soggy dress was on the heated towel rack in the bathroom. This seemed like a wonderful opportunity.

A centimeter above the top of her dark grey briefs there’s a reddish band where the elastic has left an indentation on the pale skin of her lower abdomen.

Are your underpants too tight?

I’m not taking them off if that’s what you’re hoping.

Doesn’t look like I’ll get to her. The shutters are up. Some genius once wrote a line about the flesh being weak… or was it willing? Or perhaps it was the spirit that was weak.

I reach into my shirt pocket and pull out my iPhone. Moments later my uncertainty is cleared up.

The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Jesus to Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane [Matthew 26:41]. My context appears to be utterly different and rather devoid of gravitas.

Don’t you just love this thing? I say, waving my iPhone in her direction.

Why don’t you put it away. It’s an addiction. You’d be lost without your little toy.

Correct Dr No.

What?

You are quite contrary tonight – taking the negative in everything – even the hanky panky.

I don’t give her her right of reply but barrel on.

It doesn’t worry me in the least. I get my kicks by just being with you. I know you don’t mean to be abrupt and –

You really do love the sound of your own voice don’t you. You haven’t a chance of knowing what’s going on in here [pointing to her head]. Even I don’t know that – just like all those existential heroes of yours who in the final analysis just don’t give a shit because they can’t make head or tail of what’s going on either. Sometimes you just need to sit back and take stock.

Don’t worry. I’m doing that as we speak. You know you have a perfect body. It’s a real privilege to be sitting on this couch with you.

I can never tell when you’re pulling my leg.

I take hold of her ankle which is right next to me and run my hand up her calf.

You have a looseness... There’s an ease about you... Sure your face may seem a little rigid from time to time, especially when you are contraire, but seeing everything like this, your body, I realize once again that this is the best of all possible worlds.

Hannah places her empty cup on the glass-topped table at the head of the couch, then wipes her mouth on a Prussian blue linen napkin. She smiles.

Did you really get all this for me?

Hannah, it’s nothing. My other stuff was worn out and obsolete. I bought stuff I thought you would appreciate – to make your visits more bearable and perhaps even give you the inclination to stay. As you know I’ve tried almost everything else.

How about a ring… on this finger?

She laughs.

Chapter 2

The first episode in the second series of Lewis titled And the Moonbeams Kiss the Sea contains a short exchange about John Constable and the painting of clouds.

PHILIP MORTON

He [Constable] wanted to get better at painting clouds. So he went out day after day painting clouds. See. That’s the way the clouds looked on that day. They never looked like that before and they’ll never look like that again. I think that’s amazing. Nothing is ever the same again.

I am taken back to the astounding Constable exhibition at the Tate so many years ago. There were plenty of clouds on show. The idea of framed paintings just of clouds hadn’t occurred to me before. It was pure genius. What more do you need? – like one of those almost abstract Turners where the yellow orange swirls could be almost anything – including the stains on a public toilet wall.

Clouds. That’s the way they looked on that day. They never looked like that before and they’ll never look like that again.

But what if they did look like that again and you were overwhelmed by the sense that you had seen this before, that exactly the same thing as you had once experienced was recurring – the memory of identical clouds providing a transcendental moment. A moment of déjà vu.

I’ve often wondered about the true nature of déjà vu. It’s not simply a matter of being in the same place and the same time doing the same thing. I’m in that situation practically every day when I go to work… or go to bed. That’s not déjà vu – that’s Groundhog Day.

So what gives you that déjà vu feeling? How is time involved? And is it necessary to have been in a particular place for the sensation of déjà vu concerning that place to manifest itself?

Chapter 3

Visit to the gallery

Part I: St Kilda Rd

We’d been wandering around for quite some time when we finally enter the Turner / Constable room in the far corner of the second floor. Constable’s cloud study, now disappointingly under reflective glass, couldn’t be described as a major work, but his large sized Study of A boat passing a lock certainly is. If I remember correctly, in the Constable exhibition at the Tate, this study (and perhaps another) and the final work, were exhibited side by side – an incredibly exciting experience. To be able to compare the underdeveloped studies to the final work – ours containing some almost abstract areas – the finished work with an extra dog.

I would have to refer back to the handsome folio sized catalog to recall the nature of the clouds. Were they identical in both paintings… or is that impossible – as suggested by the chap in Lewis.

How come you always drag me to this corner of the gallery?

It’s quite simple really. No cloud nut can enter this building and not consult these paintings. Check out the Turner. You can’t be certain where the land ends and the sky begins.

Or whether there’s anything there at all.

You mad fool, I believe you are finally beginning to get it!

Part II: At the Potter

Hannah studies a painting in the indigenous art section rather intensely. An unstretched canvas painted in ochre pigment with a couple of white lines rendered in something that looks like chalk. I may be sounding a bit dismissive but that’s not how I feel about this sublime work. There’s a connection – a spiritual [?] connection – something that talks to me in a way most figurative works don’t. I know why Hannah’s not moving from in front of the painting. There’s a compulsion to keep looking at it. You may think: pigment and chalk – anyone could do that, but that thought doesn’t hang around too long. Most of the great abstract painters started out figuratively in art school and their early works were generally representational. When they matured, their work lost its connection with the visible world, and nearing death a super minimalism becomes dominant and the emotion present in their work is elevated. In the case of Rothko, his color fields, once so vibrant, lost their color to a very powerful dark monochrome.

If I supplied the materials, could you paint me one something like this? she asks.

I could try, but it wouldn’t have the context of this work. It’d just be a big canvas with some marks on it.

But they’ll be your marks and I’d know you made the marks for me… and your marks could be symbolic of something special… known only to us.

I look at her, then the painting, considering what my paint strokes would look like. I have studied art and dabble now and then, so I’m sure I could make a decent fist of it.

Firstly I must have genuine Belgian linen. I suspect I’ll be able to rustle up the ochre pigment from my Central Australian rock collection.

A girlfriend in the past had gathered the rocks during some of our forays into Australia’s dead heart. I was looking for fossils – she was more interested in color. Rainbows of red-orange-brown, some rocks almost yellow, others almost black.

One just has to file off pigment particles from the sandstone rocks and mix the dust with linseed oil and voilà – the medium is ready to be applied to the canvas.

The key issue for me is whether any painting done in this style would only be a copy and as a copy feel like a decorative exercise rather than a piece of art. Real art originates from creative imperatives. Emotion, and perhaps, to a lesser extent intellect, or to a greater extent if we’re talking about conceptual art.

OK I’ll do it. A bit of appropriation will be good for the soul.

We continue around the gallery looking at other works and soon start contemplating lunch. I want to go to a sushi place but I don’t suggest it for I know Hannah isn’t a big rap for raw fish. I could recommend the wafu steak, but perhaps it’d be better to go Greek – a meat platter for two plus a side salad – and I’m thinking grilled baby octopus for entré. And galaktobouriko for sweets.

When I still worked in the city I would patronize one particular Greek restaurant in the late afternoon after work – relaxing with a newspaper – sipping on a granita – hoping to bump into an acquaintance or two. There was a group of us who had made this our restaurant of choice. Back in those days we’d hang out forever, not wanting to go home – there wasn’t much at home for we had no money for stuff and as we were renting we tended to move around a bit – travelling light.

Hannah and I lunch at Kri Kri in the eastern end of the city. This is posh Greek, unlike the joints I frequented in my past where it was not unknown for crickets to crawl up your leg. One particular summer, the choral chirping of a large number of