The Scrivener: Small Things
"Little Arthur has been a friend for some time. A nodding acquaintance, if you like. But today he expressed his affection for the first time — he licked my beard. When they venture close enough, floor-mop dogs think my beard is one of them...''
Who could resist reading through to the final word of a column which begins so delightfully? Brian Barratt's words are invariably entertaining, and always wise.
Little Arthur has been a friend for some time. A nodding acquaintance, if you like. But today he expressed his affection for the first time — he licked my beard.
When they venture close enough, floor-mop dogs think my beard is one of them. A good lick demonstrates acceptance.
Arthur’s owner is a gentle elderly lady named Maeve. Her name and her lilting accent tell you where she was born. She sometimes emerges through the rickety gate in her back fence, and we have long chats.
The fence is rather like those painted so beautifully 100 years ago by the Australian artist Frederic McCubbin. Tumble-down, time-worn, inundated by creepers.
At this time of year, the glorious green confusion is sprinkled with the rich orange of black-eyed Susan, the picturesque mystery of passion flower, and highly perfumed jasmine. And also small clusters of delicate pink and white rambling rose.
There’s a story behind that rose. It grew from a cutting taken from a bush planted by Maeve’s grandmother, far away in the mountains to the east. Do a bit of mental arithmetic — that rose had its origin in McCubbin’s era. It’s a living link with the past.
There are quite a few links with the past in my parlour, too. There are fossils of creatures that lived fifty-five million years ago, but also items which are closer to the heart. Books that have been handed down for 300 years, inscribed by ancestors. A daguerreotype, probably quite rare, of a very stern great-great-grandmother. An dusty but elegant miniature Meerschaum pipe which my father smoked in his heyday — also the McCubbin era.
Something caught my eye the other day when I was feeling miserable (as one sometimes does). In the Chinese section of the parlour museum, there’s one of those brilliantly coloured porcelain statuettes of a laughing Buddha, He holds his arms joyfully in the air and displays a capacious corporation, i.e., he’s fat.
My first boss in the book-trade was a tall, slim fellow, not unlike Frank Muir in his speech and whimsical sense of humour. His first lesson for this junior bookseller was, ‘You don’t have to know all the answers, but you must know where to find them’. That has remained a guiding principle for the past fifty years.
When he returned to England, he presented me with the fat, jolly Buddha, telling me with a wry smile, ‘Whenever you look at this, I hope it reminds you of me’. And it does, of course, in spite of the fact that it’s lost two fingers in the intervening years.
An untidy rambling rose. A dusty Meerschaum pipe. A porcelain Buddha with two fingers missing. They don’t have anything in common. Or do they?
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.*
Who was Jenny? Her exact identity doesn’t really matter. What matters are the small things, as well as the big things, which add colour to the picture of who and what we become.
* Leigh Hunt (1784–1859)
© Copyright 2005 Brian Barratt
