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…on everyday secrets
prominent proud perched
a phallus
of fluted column
thrusts an imperial fist
above the
everyday
the uncrowned King of Scotland
influential mocked
eyes heavy
made to distort
stares blindly over a city
lost
Sometimes the obvious is unseen. The Melville Monument, a 150-foot column, prominent in the centre of St Andrew Square, goes unnoticed. People walking through the square to offices, restaurants and bars don’t look up. The monument’s sheer size somehow cloaks its presence, its meaning and its symbolism, within its formal setting; an open space hemmed-in by a grid of Georgian architecture. A place to be proud of.
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The statue of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, a politician who used his influence to frustrate efforts to abolish the slave trade, his reputation tarnished over the alleged misuse of public funds, still towers over one of the most prestigious areas in Scotland. A one-time hub of Scotland’s influential financial world - and home to the British Linen Bank – now a successful commercial area, complete with window-wowing-high-end retail-outlets and restaurants and bars we dress-up-to-go-to.
Is this one of life’s everyday secrets? That when something is so big it becomes its own disguise, particularly when it’s right there, up-close? And when - if - we finally look up, is everything distorted?
Secrets are there for all to see. To hear. But are often hidden in the everyday…
A forty-something couple sit in a corner booth. Their bodies turned from each other. The woman, eyes on the menu, drinks too quickly; muscle memory keeping the focus on the imminent need for choice. She tugs her leather waistband and pulls the edges of her too-tight blouse together, aligning buttons. High-heeled shoes. Wedding ring. He looks around searching for a waiter who wafts in for the order and leaves. Eyes lowered into the balloon glass she knocks back the last dregs of deep-red wine. Eyes turning, tuning-in towards her, he leans forward, serious, hands clasped and speaks. Her head snaps round to connect. His mouth moves quickly, head shaking slowly from side to side. Her blouse strains once more - glimpses of black lace - as her body subtly slumps.
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Their unhappiness is obvious if you choose to observe. You must be there at that moment to witness her despair, his need – firm and uncompromising - to let her know that something is wrong. To witness his desire to get this over as quickly as possible - in a civilised way. Over lunch. Somewhere safe for him. No overheated emotions to deal with here. To see how carefully she dressed that morning in something figure-hugging, alluring, to give her confidence and hope; hope of reigniting something that might keep them together. Hope disappearing as quickly as her glass of red. To see the pain etched in her face; her carefully applied make-up unable to hide her fear. Her loves, plans, her safe haven – now perhaps - a thing of the past. To see a 150-foot shadow suddenly appear before her.
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Gilded cameos surround the cupola dominating the high ceiling of the old Telling Hall of The British Linen Bank, now The Spence restaurant in the main area of the Gleneagles Townhouse. Sir Walter Scott, Adam Smith and fellow Scottish influencers look down, all-knowing, on loved-up couples, clusters of ladies and businessmen who dine, gossip, and do business. Pleated lampshades, polished pink granite columns, burled-timber-art-deco-bar, scalloped pale-green banquettes. White-collared waiters walk briskly, carefully, between marble and polished wooden tables checking cutlery, crockery, glasses.
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I muse, from my own camouflaged-parlour-palm-cosseted-corner, if I am witnessing another familiar story of love lost. Another safe haven crumbling. A betrayal of promises and shared dreams. Their everyday irrevocably changed. Their secret – perhaps hidden for some time - soon to be another story told under this same bustling, life-infused room perhaps. Two fragmented lives with two very different narratives will be told side-by-side like a Mary Robison novel. Fractured and broken until the truth almost becomes unrecognisable. Distorted. To be retold and rehashed in different ways as the days, weeks and months go by, embellished with new characters, twists, and turns. Until something better comes along. Another story. Another heartbreak. Another secret. Secrets are like commodities. Traded.
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trading
midst parlour palms
friendships sealed
important deals
aim to enthral
bloated bankers basking
in The Telling Hall
from plush
pale-green banquettes
clients
manipulate debt
the perfect backdrop
information exchanged
news
everyday
in grandeur
looking for cues
leaning-in flutes full of fizz
space to hide
confide
quiz
building trust
respond
creating the all-important bond
I’ll have BETWEEN THE SHEETS – had it last time – sooo good! Havana seven-year-old rum, Hennessy VSOP…if you ask me, I could see it coming…Cognac, Cointreau, Lemon …it’ll have to be INCANDESCENCE for me…Tanqueray No.10 Gin, Rinquinquin…he’s been seeing someone else for months now apparently…Grapefruit, Pink Peppercorn, Fever-Tree Tonic…SLEEPING BEAUTY for me then. Fiona’s just not been looking after herself…Bramble, Jasmine, Coconut, Bubbles baked beetroot, baked fig, candied…let herself go a bit…walnut wild roe deer, red cabbage, bramble salsify…although he was looking a bit worn-out at Fiona’s birthday bash too…Gigha halibut, sea greens…we now know why…Ha! Ha! preserved lemons…Julia saw him yesterday in the gym working out, abs of steel, so she said…cornfed chicken breast…does Fiona know about it...? chicken leg hot pot, Jerusalem artichoke…tried it on with me about a year ago too…
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No! Really?
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My God! what a pred!
Where? When?…and you didn’t TELL us!
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Hold on to your husbands, ladies…GRENACHE Bosman, Stellenboch,
South Africa, 2020; SOLI MERLOT, Merlot, Edoardo Miroglio, Thracian Valley, Bulgaria, 2019; MARGAUX, Cabernet Sauvignon, Maison Sichel, Bordeaux, France 2018.
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Secrets revealed, not only expose information that people care about or have an interest in – because if they don’t care about it, if there is no personal benefit, it isn’t a secret - but also fears. They tear open old wounds. Our Spence ladies are not just interested in the goings-on of their friends and people they know: good and bad. Their mirroring faces and animated chat show how much they enjoy the giving and taking of new information, picking it apart, having their opinions valued, being listened to and the shared excitement of being somewhere safe with others with similar lifestyles, interests, worries. Forging bonds and allegiances. Safe in the knowledge that - for the moment at least- they are spared. Moments to savour and relish. Champagne ordered – their subconscious relief almost palpable. Their safe havens remain, even if they are not untouched. Sharing secrets creates a sense of danger; a seductive frisson with the potential to thrill yet, they are also a reminder of our vulnerabilities. There is potential for underlying threats or warnings implicit in the sharing of secrets. Secrets can be powerful in revealing our own fragility.
Another French Martini from the bar arrives. Placed carefully in front of me, its frivolous froth and delicate colouring tempting but I know it’s ridiculously small (and expensive) for my afternoon’s pastime, so I pace myself, slow down in time to the waltz of waiters and mixologists working the room, creating a disciplined ambience full of lyrical counterpoint and harmony, with its coral pinks, teal, low-lit lamps, pale green booths, and cosy corners. Its familiar rhythm makes me feel safe. I forget the everyday tasks: dogs needing walked again, dishwasher needing emptied again, baking trays soaking in the sink again, dirty cups on the side again. No one would link me to that life in this setting. We can be whoever we want to be out with the normal parameters of our own lives, at least for a while. This is my secret. But I know it’s an illusion. This is a place to watch and be watched. And like those day-to-day tasks, there is no hiding here. They are still waiting.
Watching, listening to a group nearby, I quickly look down - a sharp glance a reminder of the need to respect others’ space. There is a mutual understanding here – even for a flaneuse. Or at least, for dignity’s sake, there is a need to keep people-watching pastimes discreet. And there lies another open secret - there is no ‘safe’. We are helplessly drawn to danger. My enjoyment of being in this place – watching, being watched perhaps - all the trappings that help you to forget life’s vulnerabilities and worries, merely serves to highlight them in my solitude.
I have searched for and created safe havens all my life - no doubt, like the woman in the straining blouse - in an attempt to make sense of my every day. They are still a mystery. I have looked for them in people - friends, husband, parents - and in those who are good at what they do. People who have made me feel safe. Animals too; dogs and cats have been a source of comfort and grounding all my life. But I’ve often got it wrong and still do: the schoolteacher who crossed the line; relationships that teeter when boundaries are pushed; the marriage that isn't working out; even the cat bites if he doesn’t get what he wants. But still, I cannot resist his soft, slow-blinking eyes, cutesy crossed paws and I cradle him even when he brings me decapitated baby rabbits and leaves entrails of recently culled mice in his wake, claws still bloodied. I have not learned.
Yet we continue to try to build another life. Search for other safe havens, temporary or not. A place to call home for the moment, regardless of circumstance; whether that’s under a war-torn Ukrainian bridge or steel works, a shop doorway, refuge, terraced house, flat or mansion. Strive to settle and attach importance to the things around us that are familiar, even when things seem hopeless: a photograph, ring, phone, teddy bear. We place them within the fragments of the past that we hang on to. Find safety and comfort in our everyday and walk past the big, close-up monuments that we often fail to look up to and see. Perhaps the secret is hidden within us – for us to find, to distract us, when we’re in need.
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separation
a silent ripple
of shattering glass
photographs paintings furniture books moving moved
in slow-motion
meaningless when
separate
splintered shards
entities
finding soft flesh
in boxes
the whole that it was
essence of family
years together
knocked down
divorced
like bricks
distorting the past
messing with
your
child’s
senses
Lego
your place in the
world
precious
pieces
lost
in the everyday
No wonder then, that we continue to fool ourselves, twisting and turning the truth when we can – or perhaps more accurately, allowing ourselves the luxury of our very own, little-white-lies. Like Henry Dundas’s statue, we distort ourselves – perhaps - in an attempt to be accepted, to be seen, to be ‘the best’ we can, especially from a distance. No wonder then, that the shelves of a near-by high-end department store - a favourite haunt of our well-heeled Edinburgh ladies - are filled with shapewear: made to define, reshape, compress, allowing body-skimming clothing to flow, their little flaws and folds going, almost, undetected. Perhaps it is more of an open secret then. But this shapewear – the Spanx and Skims – go undetected by millions every day. It should not then, be too much to ask of you, to consider that any one of our Spence ladies might be partial to a bit of tummy smoothing, waist cinching, booty enhancing and body sculpting to conform to today’s ‘reclaim your body’ zeitgeist. Just another one of life’s everyday secrets. And a very large monument indeed.
There are also those who daydream their way out of reality. Think, dirty secrets. Think, Henri Michaux beating people up in My Pastimes. Some dirty secrets, however, are there for all to see if, like me, you take the time to observe. I wasn’t there to witness Michaux’s imaginary beating of a fellow diner, back in the day in the grease joint, but right there, on the plush-coral-pink-bar-stool, drinking a Negroni, under the stony gaze of Sir Walter Scott, is a perfect case in point. A modern Michaux. But unlike Michaux, his pastime is not beating up diners. Instead, he seduces women.
Most importantly perhaps, like Michaux, it is all in his head.
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He sought her out. The plush-coral-pink-bar-stool-Negroni-drinking-dreamer. You had to be there to see. Or, in a French Martini haze, I may just be imagining it, but…
…his change of body positioning, slight dilation of eyes, raising of eyebrows, the way he parts his lips, leans-in as his gaze descends on the young woman next to him. Long, carefully curled, dark hair. Slim. Fitted black dress. High heels. Long legs crossed. Manicured hands clasped. Red Prada clutch bag on the bar. She chats and laughs with a girlfriend. Scans the drinks menu. He leans back into the stool, collar open, legs splayed. Toes tapping. Mouth smirking. Eyes stalking.
As if he was thinking…
…Some women play right into my hands.
Here’s one now.
Notice how casually I look over and smile. That’s it. Come to me baby… Then I imperceptibly lean-in, take up some space, recommend she tries ‘Between the Sheets’ – such a great line. Come on baby, I’ll pay…Come to your sugar daddy. Pow! Bam! Thank-you-ma’am!
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Then I place my arm around her waist. Lift her up on to the bar. Take her in both arms. Kiss her. Kiss her again. I mean I really kiss her.
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Then I place her back on the stool. Tell her I don’t like her shapewear. Tell her, her secret’s out. Everybody knows now.
She’s in shock.
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I say it’s just not working out. She’s not my type. (By now I’m losing interest, this is going on too long). I crumple her up, roll her into a ball which I drop into my glass. Then I lift it in the air and spill it on the floor. “Waiter get me a clean glass will you?”
But I’m too fagged out. I leave in a hurry. She can pay the bill.*
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What all secrets have in common is that once they are out there in the world - explored - they have limited airing time. People lose interest. They move on in search of tantalising, new information – new people to seduce - to share, to pick apart. Perhaps you should never trust a secret.
Our unnoticed monument has had some recent attention; changed circumstances, heightened emotions and different perspectives voiced, create interest. Its narrative distorted, retold and rehashed in different ways as the days, weeks and months go by, embellished with new characters, twists and turns. Sound familiar?
The monument to Conservative politician Dundas at the Melville Monument in St Andrews Square, Edinburgh, became a focal point for discussion during Black Lives Matter demonstrations in June.
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(The Daily Mail, 2021)
A leading historian has called for the removal of a plaque critical of the role of Viscount Melville in the abolition of slavery, arguing that it amounts to “falsifying history”…she says it is wrong to suggest that Sir Henry Dundas, the leading Scottish politician of the late 18th century, was solely responsible for the enslavement of more than 500,000 Africans or that abolition would have been achieved sooner without his opposition.
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(The Sunday Times, 2022)
A myriad of new information and interpretations continue to unfold around us. Secrets within secrets. But whose truth? It becomes important only when people are made aware of what is in front of them. But as I leave Gleneagles Townhouse, still, not a single head is raised to Dundas’s distorted face amidst the busy square.
The individual, for the most part, is too preoccupied with their very own truths and stories. Their everyday secrets.
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*Henri Michaux’s short-short My Pastimes has been significantly modified
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References:
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Boothman, J. ‘Absurd’ Sir Henry Dundas plaque must fall, says historian. thetimes.co.uk [Online]. available from: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/absurd-sir-henry-dundas-plaque-must-fall-says-historian-fnkxjslgv?gclid=CjwKCAiAzp6eBhByEiwA_gGq5JadTp-rAOAgLM313-O1s5ehrunFFIe4RKTp07IBrR69lR4YFM02FxoC-9gQAvD_BwE Accessed: 18 January 2023
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Martin, H. (2021) Statue of politician Henry Dundas in Edinburgh will have a plaque added detailing his role in delaying the abolition of slavery after it was targeted during BLM protests
Mailonline [Online], 17 March, 2021, available from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9372191/Statue-Henry-Dundas-plaque-detailing-role-delaying-abolition-slavery.html Accessed: 18 January 2023
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