I've got
lots more Pattaya stories but you'll have to wait. The author isn't happy.
These Pattaya stories are all very well Dick but what about Simon and Arthur?
All these words, he says, are just an approximation of what we’re after. It's
going nowhere. Well you started it I say. So you may as well keep going. Didn’t
Samuel Beckett have the same problem?
I’m just the narrator. It’s all the same to me. Don’t
know why I’m apologizing. It’s my bloody blog. I’ll write what I want. If I
want to ramble on I will. It’s the way the fiction process works….don’t give me
a hard time about it.
You want more Simon and Arthur? Alright here’s more bloody Simon and Arthur.
Arthur has done his best to slip into the routine without complaint and as far as the world is concerned he and Alice have become Mr. And Mrs. Tobacconist happily dispensing nicotine and sweets to unsuspecting customers. Newspapers too. Blaring headlines designed to shock and intimidate.
Arthur gets up early to sort newspapers and organize the paperboy’s rounds. Lorraine stocks the shelves. Cynthia has started school and seems happy enough. Arthur’s beatnik days are well and truly over. He wears a brown overcoat in the shop and a pleasant smile to mask his anguish. Lorraine likes to watch TV and eat, especially chocolate. She is beginning to put on weight. Arthur enjoys reading. Telly upsets him. Especially anything to do with pop music. He finds Pete Townsend singing about his generation particularly irritating.
He knows there’s more to life but he can’t just abandon his wife and daughter can he? Being a tobacconist is dull and boring but it’s safe. People will always need cigarettes and sweets and Arthur has built up a nice little clientele over the years.
Boring? Arthur doesn’t see it that way. He doesn’t feel as though he has much choice. He had made his bed and he’s lying in it. And things could always be worse. At least he isn’t languishing in a Turkish prison or living under a bridge. He’s his own boss too or so he tells himself. Alice is a good wife….yes things could definitely be worse. It’s only when he thinks about Simon that he feels any misgivings. Simon who always seems to know what he’s doing. Simon with his exciting life in town. But is it really so exciting…hanging around with glamorous pop stars? It’s a shallow kind of life when you think about it.
Arthur does a lot of thinking. He has plenty of time for it. He plumbs the depths of his mind as far as he dares. There’s a point where the thoughts pile in on themselves and become too confusing. And a few places Arthur doesn’t like to go. Right at the bottom is a deep self-loathing.
So Arthur tells himself he’s happy, or not unhappy among the Cadbury’s Caramel Bars and the Gold Flake. But is it contentment he feels…or obligation? Of course there are reminders of a huge unexplored world outside the shop but he prefers to ignore them. And of course he knows there’s more to life than stocking display cabinets and making sure the local kids don’t help themselves but he likes the security of the shop.
One thing he does enjoy, on his occasional visits to London, is browsing in the Tate Gallery. He likes the Impressionists, their vague, ethereal way of looking at life, and he especially likes Gauguin. Those golden brown Tahitian women. What is it about them? The mysterious eyes? The silky black hair? They seem to possess some mysterious arcane knowledge. Did they really exist?
He can’t remember exactly when his interest in Gauguin began. Reading ‘Moon and Sixpence’ maybe? Old Somerset Maugham had visited Tahiti not many years after Gauguin’s death. The paintings had captivated Arthur the first time he saw them. They were a way of escape. It didn’t take much effort to step into the lush tropical paradise, to hear the women’s voices on the beach above the distant roar of the surf breaking against the coral reefs, to enter the bamboo hut with its naked golden female form, to see the fireflies flicker and to taste the exotic fruit. Would anyone ever paint like that again? They make Picasso look like a cartoonist. And what’s all the fuss about Francis Bacon? Just blobs of paint smeared on canvas as far as Arthur can see.
‘Ah there you are,’ says Simon. ‘Thought I might find you here.’
They study the Gauguin together. ‘Beautiful isn’t it?’ says Simon. ‘Robert Fraser tells me art is a scam.’
You want more Simon and Arthur? Alright here’s more bloody Simon and Arthur.
Arthur has done his best to slip into the routine without complaint and as far as the world is concerned he and Alice have become Mr. And Mrs. Tobacconist happily dispensing nicotine and sweets to unsuspecting customers. Newspapers too. Blaring headlines designed to shock and intimidate.
Arthur gets up early to sort newspapers and organize the paperboy’s rounds. Lorraine stocks the shelves. Cynthia has started school and seems happy enough. Arthur’s beatnik days are well and truly over. He wears a brown overcoat in the shop and a pleasant smile to mask his anguish. Lorraine likes to watch TV and eat, especially chocolate. She is beginning to put on weight. Arthur enjoys reading. Telly upsets him. Especially anything to do with pop music. He finds Pete Townsend singing about his generation particularly irritating.
He knows there’s more to life but he can’t just abandon his wife and daughter can he? Being a tobacconist is dull and boring but it’s safe. People will always need cigarettes and sweets and Arthur has built up a nice little clientele over the years.
Boring? Arthur doesn’t see it that way. He doesn’t feel as though he has much choice. He had made his bed and he’s lying in it. And things could always be worse. At least he isn’t languishing in a Turkish prison or living under a bridge. He’s his own boss too or so he tells himself. Alice is a good wife….yes things could definitely be worse. It’s only when he thinks about Simon that he feels any misgivings. Simon who always seems to know what he’s doing. Simon with his exciting life in town. But is it really so exciting…hanging around with glamorous pop stars? It’s a shallow kind of life when you think about it.
Arthur does a lot of thinking. He has plenty of time for it. He plumbs the depths of his mind as far as he dares. There’s a point where the thoughts pile in on themselves and become too confusing. And a few places Arthur doesn’t like to go. Right at the bottom is a deep self-loathing.
So Arthur tells himself he’s happy, or not unhappy among the Cadbury’s Caramel Bars and the Gold Flake. But is it contentment he feels…or obligation? Of course there are reminders of a huge unexplored world outside the shop but he prefers to ignore them. And of course he knows there’s more to life than stocking display cabinets and making sure the local kids don’t help themselves but he likes the security of the shop.
One thing he does enjoy, on his occasional visits to London, is browsing in the Tate Gallery. He likes the Impressionists, their vague, ethereal way of looking at life, and he especially likes Gauguin. Those golden brown Tahitian women. What is it about them? The mysterious eyes? The silky black hair? They seem to possess some mysterious arcane knowledge. Did they really exist?
He can’t remember exactly when his interest in Gauguin began. Reading ‘Moon and Sixpence’ maybe? Old Somerset Maugham had visited Tahiti not many years after Gauguin’s death. The paintings had captivated Arthur the first time he saw them. They were a way of escape. It didn’t take much effort to step into the lush tropical paradise, to hear the women’s voices on the beach above the distant roar of the surf breaking against the coral reefs, to enter the bamboo hut with its naked golden female form, to see the fireflies flicker and to taste the exotic fruit. Would anyone ever paint like that again? They make Picasso look like a cartoonist. And what’s all the fuss about Francis Bacon? Just blobs of paint smeared on canvas as far as Arthur can see.
‘Ah there you are,’ says Simon. ‘Thought I might find you here.’
They study the Gauguin together. ‘Beautiful isn’t it?’ says Simon. ‘Robert Fraser tells me art is a scam.’
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