An Eye For An Eye. Arthur Klepfisz
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Peter Owen was a wealthy benefactor of the Union, having lived in the commune when younger, and then deciding to leave and make his mark in the world when he was in his mid-twenties. Deborah had been comfortable with his decision at the time, as she needed people of influence on the outside as well as the more pliable followers on the inside.
Peter was now married for the second time. After twenty-five years of marriage and two children, he had felt the need for change and new challenges in his life. He had achieved his financial goals as a land developer and investor, and as his marriage punctured and started to feel flat, he sought an injection of excitement. He lived alone for a year until in his late fifties he married a woman half his age. Their initial contact was made through an online agency with the not too subtle title of sweetdaddy.com, where attractive young women could make contact with very wealthy, older men.
Lilli, a young Chinese woman who was living in Hong Kong and had recently graduated from the University there, majoring in politics and economics, responded to Peter’s advertisement and was happily chosen. She ran Peter’s gallery proficiently, having entered into the marriage in the same manner, meeting both their needs. She had not been briefed about Peter’s past connection with Deborah, but seemed wary of her, sensing that Peter's friendship with Deborah was something that she needed to keep an eye on.
Today she and Deborah had nodded their heads in greeting without the wish to chat further.
The gallery space had been filled with temporary seating for an art lecture, which was a monthly fixture at the Owen gallery. Deborah had come partly out of interest, but primarily to enlist Peter’s financial help. The Union depended on benefactors for sustenance, as the group did not generate any significant income of its own.
Rather like a religious order, Deborah chuckled to herself, but we are more creative in our bookkeeping.
At the conclusion of the lecture, Deborah intended to follow Peter into his study for a brief meeting without Lilli, which she and Peter had prearranged. They could have met privately in a coffee lounge or wherever, but she enjoyed the thought of taunting Lilli, as well as publically promoting her image as a person of culture and learning.
Like herself, Peter was a physically striking man, over 6'1" in height, and with a physique that had once been athletic, but now was witness to the excesses of his life. Peter still had the same face but it had now doubled in size, and his girth had followed a similar path. It was many years since Deborah had slept with Peter, but the mutual attraction remained, and neither had ruled out the possibility of sex in the future. However, it was less complicated putting that aside for the moment and letting the desire bubble on.
Sex was always on tap for Deborah, beginning with her live-in partner, Bill, and a range of other men she might choose to sleep with. She continued to enjoy sex with Bill, with little else in their relationship and Bill accepted whatever crumbs were thrown to him. His role in The Union was that of a maintenance/handyman-handy indeed, she thought wryly to herself.
Deborah enjoyed watching the theatre acted out by the devotees of these art lectures. They appeared to use language of their own, and sincerity wasn't a word included in that language. As they chatted with each other, she could see people's eyes roving the room, looking to see who else might be present that they would prefer talking to.
The lecture for this day was on contemporary art and she heard a lot of words being uttered and observed people around her sagely nodding their heads in agreement. At the same time Deborah struggled to make any sense out of what had been said. Could I really be the only one struggling to understand? but she doubted that she was. She thought the whole scene was a jigsaw approach to culture, where one had to go through the whole maze of lectures and learning, trying to put it together and still exit unable to find the meaning that one had been seeking.
There seemed to be no limits as to what constituted Art, and she wondered that if anything could be called Art, then what criteria could the critics apply in assessing it.
Whilst considering herself an atheist of art, she still knew that with correct advice such as Peter was able to give her, it could be a lucrative area of investment. She believed that a squiggle on paper could be of value if one knew who had drawn it. A squiggle drawn by Picasso could be worth a small fortune, whilst the same squiggle drawn by someone totally unknown would be viewed as worthless and the object of scorn. Notwithstanding her sceptical approach, she realised that this was one area where it was worthwhile playing the game by other people’s rules. If anyone knew the value of words and acting out a role, then Deborah certainly did. She was looking for value not sincerity, and knew that Peter was of a like mind.
As she looked at some of the art hanging in Peter's gallery, she was unable to detect any skill being required to produce it. Peter told her it was an example of the Sandcastle phenomenon. She was not prepared to admit that she didn't know what he was referring to, but he burst out laughing, confessing that he also couldn't see any intrinsic worth in that particular oil painting.
He said that so-called experts had told him that it was a significant piece of work, and that it was the underlying concept that made it important. When he heard that, it brought to mind a time years back when he was on holidays with his eight-year-old nephew, Billy, who had entered a sandcastle competition. As the judges approached to assess Billy’s effort, the castle suddenly collapsed, leaving a pile of sand and no time to rebuild it. On the spur of the moment he had suggested to Billy that they call it ‘I Never Promised You a Rose Garden’. Laughingly he said that he could hear the judges discussing whether it was likely that Billy had thought of this title himself or whether an adult connected with Billy had come up with the idea.
Still chortling, Peter said that the judges ended up awarding first prize to his nephew, and since then whenever Peter found himself confronted by art that appeared to consist of a pile of something without any differentiating features, he would refer to it as a ‘Sandcastle phenomenon’. He explained that he only dealt with this type of art because art experts would extol its virtues and he sensed that he could make money out of it.
CHAPTER SIX
Before they married, Andrew had very little contact with Karen’s family – not that it troubled him, as he barely noticed its absence. Only later did he become gradually aware that Karen preferred it that way, and the more he came to know her family the more apparent it became.
Not long after they married, Karen gradually began to describe the environment she had grown up in. She told him how her father, Tony Duncan, ran a small law practice in the downmarket, outer suburb of Broadmeadows, where many of his clients were hard working migrants who valued his assistance and demonstrated their appreciation with gifts of home grown vegetables, lemons and olives.
He enjoyed the feeling of helping people unable to help themselves, but Karen became increasingly aware that constantly niggling away at her father was his failure to achieve a lifelong dream of going to the Bar and building a practice as a high-flying barrister. She came to believe that what troubled him most was the knowledge that he had never found the courage to test himself, and try out for that goal. He had always come up with reasons for deferring his attempt, but when honest with himself, he couldn't avoid facing the harsh reality that underlying those reasons was his fear of failure. He came to believe that his marriage and family life had failed and fought against the feeling of career failure as well.
Of his four children, he regarded Karen, his youngest, as the one most likely capable of realising the ambitions that he had originally had for himself; some people are crushed by adversity, while others grow vigorously, as if making humus of the crumbling decay around them. Karen felt she had always flourished in defiance of her environment and knew her father dreamt that one day she would join his legal practice, make something of herself and give meaning to his own life efforts. She told Andrew that at first she felt weighed down by her father’s expectations of her. She knew, for he had repeatedly told her, that he foresaw her being the shining light of the family, rising above her sibs.
At first she dreaded letting him down, feeling failure was not an option open to her. In time, she