FORTY FORTIES (by KATIE)

An unofficial entry for one of the gaps in Bill Drummond’s The Life Model by Katie (AKA The Foundation Doktor)

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I Am Sixty-Eight (under): 29th of April 2021 to 28th of April 2022

I usually love the number forty¹, in all its varieties. Τετρώκοντα (tetrṓkonta), चत्वारिंशत् (catvāriṃśát). Quadraginta, in Latin. Four tens. A quad. A courtyard. Something solid, enclosed, cloistered, a lawn in the middle. Peaceful, shaded, away from the rush and bustle.

I have a long history with the number forty². Forty³ beds. Forty⁴ pairs of shoes. Forty⁵ flags on forty⁶ islands. Forty⁷ bunches of daffodils. Forty⁸ paperback copies of a book, burnt. Forty⁹ second plays. Forty¹⁰ posters. Seventeen more than twenty-three.

I am sitting in my not-cloistered garden. It is early May. The daffodils have long faded. I rejoice in their shrivelled magnificence. I wonder about handing out forty¹¹ withered daffodils to strangers, but Covid lockdown rules might not allow that.

I have been writing, as usual, but other than that my options for artistic endeavours are limited. Numbered rules abound. The “rule of six” means that outdoor gatherings are allowed. Or “two households”. There are “thirty-three high risk” countries apparently.

Hotel quarantine is required if you arrive from one of these countries. I think about writing a letter of objection to the Government. Surely people will not be required to stay in the hotel for forty¹² days and forty¹³ nights.

I do not like the word quarantine. I have looked it up of course. I understand its origins. It originated in Venice in the time of the Black Death. Pox be on you, if that is not mixing my metaphors.

So, before people even understood bugs, or the role of rats and fleas, those clever Venetians had identified that there must be some way in which the plague was being spread. They took no chances, opting for that Biblical number.

I google the plague and check how quickly it would cause problems after infection. The CDC says that the incubation period is 2 to 8 days. So those poor souls languished on ships for weeks longer than was strictly necessary.

Quaranta giorni at anchor. Hellish. Imagine the heat, squalor, stench. I slumber gently in my garden, thankful for small mercies. I think about writing a forty¹⁴ day diary in solidarity, documenting the life and times of an artist during Covid lockdown.

I could make it into a painting, in forty¹⁵ neatly aligned squares. As I doze, I pick away at the idea. If I am going to represent forty¹⁶ as a quad, a square, then how do I divide it up?

Six point three two four treble five three two zero double three six seven five nine. Makes it sound like a phone number. Or 6.324555320336759 if you’d prefer, though perhaps it keeps going on to infinity like the number Pi.

So, to achieve a square I will need just over six words per line over a bit more than six lines. But the length of a word rarely matches its height exactly (except short ones like “a”). I give up.

I am not going to snip up words, shunting letters to the next line, or guillotining lines into “almost thirds”. Surely the artist’s job is to produce clarity from chaos, to help yourself and others find meaning. I change tack.

I am relieved when I wake up. The 25 Paintings are wondering why I have been neglecting them. The number is, after all, a perfect square. I sometimes miss the obvious. I labour over a 25+15 connection but give up.

Not that they would make a square of course. They would make a rectangle. The same is true of my “25 A5 sided knitted rectangles”. I can’t remember if the Million Stitch Blanket is a square, but it could be.

It is a huge relief when the Covid rules start to loosen. Strictly speaking I have been able to visit the barber for a few weeks by the time I turn 68, but customers and hairdressers alike have been hesitant.

We are still encouraged to stay locally. I yearn to travel. No need to be exotic. Forget the Congo. Penkiln Burn would do just fine. I have written some contemplations on finding its source, in a little book called 3”x1”.

My copy arrives from Cally early May 2021, along with some of his other “Ration Books”. He devised his plan for short, rationed reads in 2019. In 2021 they feel perfectly timed for our perpetual war (and recovery) against Covid.

3”x1” was published in 2020, but that was a “missing year”. Not one of the 9 Missing Years, but one of the Covid missing years, experienced by us all. I enjoyed writing as “me”, not one of my alter egos.

I open the book at random. Page 23. “This is me with all my ‘issues and insecurities and rampant ego’”. Yup, that’s me alright. I turn back to the beginning and read on. It is 1964, or is it 1962?

Anamorphosis. I am Hans Holbein. Painting, but in words. I have a skull. No need to hide it. I am 10 (or am I 8?) years old, holding it in my hand, fresh from the burn. Later it is hidden.

At 68 years old I find details like age and dates rather slippery. Other things run like clockwork. The bowel screening letter, with its little plastic stick, arrives with some late birthday cards. The postie commiserates about the task ahead.

I reread the book in a sitting. I am happy with it. Cally has done a good job. I do an internet search to answer my own question about sparling. They do still return to the River Cree each spring.

I would love to be able to pop down to the Cree on spec, stand in the water, hand in the water, waiting for the fish to struggle on past, upstream. But instead I am here, stuck in north London.

Fifty strides. That is all it took to break out of my lockdown haircut abstinence that first time around, July 2020. For this lockdown loosening, May 2021, I am back again at Metin’s and I have a proposal for him.

I rehearse my idea while waiting on a chair carefully distanced from a young guy waiting his turn. I’m before him. I’m relieved to see that he has headphones on. I don’t want him to hear me making my case.

I read through my proof copy of Antimacassar by Tenzing Scott Brown. That’s me by the way. Metin’s current victim is paying. I have jotted some ideas down, but as I sit down I am thinking about just one thing.

Metin drapes me and sets about his task. He is talking about masks. I nod, trying to hold my breath. I am not used to being this close to someone who is not family. I clench my nostrils when inhaling.

Metin is in his rhythm. I am still thinking how to frame my idea about selling books from his waiting area. Before that, however, I need to work out if 127 is a prime number. I give myself an ultimatum.

One hundred and twenty-seven is the age of one of the characters in TSB’s book. It is also, I finally decide, after working through the 17, 23 and other promising times tables, a prime number. Here goes with my idea…

After recounting the plot of my book, its two main characters, my various pseudonyms, including The Travelling Salesman, and my idea to translate it into Kurdish, I stop and look up.  The young guy has removed his headphones. He’s smirking.

Do not take your adult son with you to the barber. On the way home he chides me about cultural appropriation and my inconsistencies around flags. I don’t care. Metin is up for the idea. Luckily it’s only fifty paces.

Forty¹⁷ second plays. Forty¹⁸ Google searches. Seventeen Wikipedia pages. I am cycling through forty¹⁹ regular activities that I have listed like a Paul Daniels memory trick. I am doing everything I can not to think about Lily James’ Netflix haircut.

If I have eight times forty^20-27 second plays then that makes three hundred and twenty seconds, which is just over five minutes. I do a dry run of the TSB plays in Best Gent Hair Saloon, stopwatch at the ready.

Metin and two waiting customers pretend not to hear me reciting the lines. Forty²⁸ seconds later I have still not finished the first: Sofa. The actors will need to speak and move very quickly, or I have misled the reader.

The next plays – Hot Towel and Cut Throat – are done and dusted in around forty seconds²⁹ which is gratifying. I need to read the rest carefully to remember what would actually be performed in the plays and what is padding.

Eight forty^30-37 second plays in twelve minutes forty³⁸ one seconds. That totals 761 seconds. Another prime number. I discuss times with Metin. He worries that it would take longer with customers unfamiliar with the script and him so busy working.

That September I manage to travel all the way to Great Yarmouth for Prime Yarc. It is lovely to see the sea, the horizon. I feel rusty giving my performances at first, but Tam Dean Burn is a great help.

Original Projects produce a booklet for the event: The Edge of the World, by TSB. I do a show and an exhibition. People come to watch. We feel connected. We have all survived the great pause, back from the edge.

I perform some forty³⁹ second plays, reminisce about the forty⁴⁰ beds, soup, cakes, lines, my uncle, cannibals. Everything is getting back to normal. I walk along the beach, have an ice cream, avoid small talk. That is not my forte.

KATIE, pretending to be Bill Drummond, 9 April 2024

Pamphlet 30 of the #52Pamphlets

The last of the 9 Missing Years

Incorporating answer 7 (about the skull), answer 8 (on sparling) and answer 13 (on √40) of the 23 Questions.

If you can present this pamphlet of 40 x 40 in a square of 40 then please get in touch.