residents and was out-of-bounds for all but the Porter, the dust lay heavily. It had blunted every corner and, resting on foundations built by spiders’ webs, it had created phantom ceilings and phantom walls. The cellar was the length and width of the floors above it, it had a vaulted brick ceiling, the same ribbed pattern all over it, with plain columns at every segment, like roots to an enormous tree. These multitudes of columns that supported the house were ideal to hide behind. Ideal, I remembered from my childhood, for tying fishing line around at ankle height and watching servants trip over. And there was also a tunnel which began in the cellar and ran all the way to the nearest church, some half mile away. This tunnel was all that remained of the sixteenth-century manor house that had burnt down.
This is where I went. This is what I was searching for. Pastthe Porter’s flat, past the boiler rooms, past the sheets of plasterboards and rolls of blue and white striped wallpaper (remnants of the conversion of Tearsham Park to Observatory Mansions) was a door. I can see it now and as I see it I become vaguely tearful. A door marked DANGER – ENTRANCE FORBIDDEN. My door. Sealed with a heavy padlock to which I alone kept the key.
Stretching out across the long passageway that led to the church, kept in existence by numerous wooden beams which supported the roof and walls, with just enough space remaining to provide a narrow walkway, were the nine hundred and eighty-five objects of my exhibition.
It was possible to understand my history from this exhibition. Like layers in a rock face, the years and stages of my life were encoded there. The exhibition also revealed the life of the city, changes in taste, in fortune, in its people.
Each exhibit was placed inside a polythene bag and sealed with tape to keep away damage from condensation. At the foot of each exhibit was a small sign written on cardboard in standard biro black: the exhibit’s number.
I, the exhibition’s owner, archivist, attendant and public, wandered down the fringe enumerating: One, two, three … There they all were, all swaddled in polythene, all the dears, many years’ work. All my own.
I began the collection, my pride and joy, way back when at fourteen years of age I found a till receipt that had been exhaled by the wind on to the driveway of Observatory Mansions, a time ago when the house was called Tearsham Park. I was outside, ordered under the sky by my mother for the purpose of taking some physical exercise. My white, lace-up footwear, designed for sportsmen (a fraternity that I have never belonged to), was enjoying the pursuit of kicking a pebble up and down, forwards and back. I missed the object, scarred the earth and brought the till receipt accidentally to the surface. Lot number one, by the entrance:
Fine Quality Foods
Thank you for your custom
This seemingly dull piece of flotsam ensnared my inquisitiveness. I rescued the tear of paper. Who was at the shop? What did the person buy? Where did the person live? Male or female? Married or single? Ugly or pretty? Young or dying? Will I ever know you? All the questions were unanswerable, so I conceived people from my mind to fit the receipt. The receipt was wrapped in cling film and hidden under my bed and bothered daily for many a week and month until it was creased all over and became extremely fragile.
Other articles supplanted the love I felt for the first. New histories were created. At first I collected unimpressive objects: empty boxes, plastic bags, empty bottles and cans, used envelopes, pencil stubs – in short, objects that had been rejected, that had either been spent or disregarded, objects that other people might have termed collectively rubbish . Then one day I set out a new rule. I bought a hard-bound notebook, hereafter called the exhibition catalogue, and wrote on its first page: IT IS REQUIRED OF ALL EXHIBITS, FROM NOW ON, THAT THEY ARE TO BE EXHIBITED SOLELY FOR
This is where I went. This is what I was searching for. Pastthe Porter’s flat, past the boiler rooms, past the sheets of plasterboards and rolls of blue and white striped wallpaper (remnants of the conversion of Tearsham Park to Observatory Mansions) was a door. I can see it now and as I see it I become vaguely tearful. A door marked DANGER – ENTRANCE FORBIDDEN. My door. Sealed with a heavy padlock to which I alone kept the key.
Stretching out across the long passageway that led to the church, kept in existence by numerous wooden beams which supported the roof and walls, with just enough space remaining to provide a narrow walkway, were the nine hundred and eighty-five objects of my exhibition.
It was possible to understand my history from this exhibition. Like layers in a rock face, the years and stages of my life were encoded there. The exhibition also revealed the life of the city, changes in taste, in fortune, in its people.
Each exhibit was placed inside a polythene bag and sealed with tape to keep away damage from condensation. At the foot of each exhibit was a small sign written on cardboard in standard biro black: the exhibit’s number.
I, the exhibition’s owner, archivist, attendant and public, wandered down the fringe enumerating: One, two, three … There they all were, all swaddled in polythene, all the dears, many years’ work. All my own.
I began the collection, my pride and joy, way back when at fourteen years of age I found a till receipt that had been exhaled by the wind on to the driveway of Observatory Mansions, a time ago when the house was called Tearsham Park. I was outside, ordered under the sky by my mother for the purpose of taking some physical exercise. My white, lace-up footwear, designed for sportsmen (a fraternity that I have never belonged to), was enjoying the pursuit of kicking a pebble up and down, forwards and back. I missed the object, scarred the earth and brought the till receipt accidentally to the surface. Lot number one, by the entrance:
Fine Quality Foods
Thank you for your custom
This seemingly dull piece of flotsam ensnared my inquisitiveness. I rescued the tear of paper. Who was at the shop? What did the person buy? Where did the person live? Male or female? Married or single? Ugly or pretty? Young or dying? Will I ever know you? All the questions were unanswerable, so I conceived people from my mind to fit the receipt. The receipt was wrapped in cling film and hidden under my bed and bothered daily for many a week and month until it was creased all over and became extremely fragile.
Other articles supplanted the love I felt for the first. New histories were created. At first I collected unimpressive objects: empty boxes, plastic bags, empty bottles and cans, used envelopes, pencil stubs – in short, objects that had been rejected, that had either been spent or disregarded, objects that other people might have termed collectively rubbish . Then one day I set out a new rule. I bought a hard-bound notebook, hereafter called the exhibition catalogue, and wrote on its first page: IT IS REQUIRED OF ALL EXHIBITS, FROM NOW ON, THAT THEY ARE TO BE EXHIBITED SOLELY FOR
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