By Rajeev Balasubramanyam
Location: College Road, Whalley Range
Our hero has fifteen tattoos:
On his back: his sons’ names, a winged cross, and the words ‘Guardian Angel’.
On his left arm: a picture of his wife, her name in Hindi, the words ‘Forever by Your Side’ and ‘Ut Amen Et Foveam’ − So That I Love and Cherish. On his right arm: the Roman numeral ‘VII,’ two angels, a classical design, the motto ‘In the Face of Adversity,’ and ‘Perfectio In Spiritu’ − Spiritual Perfection. Running from his nipple to his groin, a Chinese proverb: ‘Death and life have determined appointments. Riches and honour depend on heaven.’
His body was his work, his body was a work of art, and we have ruined it, Malini and I.
But no, my wife is not to blame.
I am a proud proud man. I have a scar running from my eye to my chin. I made the mark myself after I painted my last wedding portrait: Mr and Mrs Sanjeev Shah from North Harrow who requested that their Audi Q7 − ‘Keeps you and your family safe’ − gleam grey in the silence between them.
But this was how I paid my bills.
My name is K− and I am a political miniaturist. My works are vast, spacious, sweeping, panoramic − oh yes! − but with detail so tiny I can fit all humanity on a shrinking white canvas. The closer you look, the finer a story you hear:
Hiroshima: August 6, 1945: twenty seconds before impact.
Banks, restaurants, offices, cafes, brothels, railways, dentists, hospitals, schools. Children, parents, invalids, lawyers, thieves and priests. Above them all, three aircraft, cross-sectioned: the Enola Gay, the Necessary Evil, and the Great Artiste. Colonel Paul Tibbet, smiling, crying, erect. It has been my habit to strip away surfaces as I please. X-ray upon x-ray. Skin sheared. Walls removed. Life in all its allness. You can even see his semen.
New York: 9/11.
Similar to Hiroshima, but we cannot see inside the plane.
London: 7/7.
Sex, everywhere sex. London’s whores in basements and castles. Royals piercing bleeding mouths. Parliament and palace laid bare. In a Liverpool Street hotel, Netanyahu is on the phone. In Downing Street, Blair is too. In Russell Square, a bus spews arms and legs.
They didn’t like this one, and I was punished. ‘A propagandist.’ ‘An inciter.’ ‘Crudity of style.’ ‘A heavy hand.’ And then. Nothing. They simply left me alone.
We lived off one salary after that. I became aloof. In anger I cut tiny drawings all over my body, the pain loudspeaking to my brain in protest. I cut a whip into the sole of my left foot, a flame into my right; I was going to remove my toe when Malini intervened−
‘I’ve been to the doctor−’
And soon we had no income at all. Like these folk.
By Nicholas Royle
Location: Off Ringway Road, Moss Nook
I am interested in straight lines.
I was born in Manchester, but left at the age of 17 to go to London, where I lived for 20 years. London doesn’t really do straight lines. There are straight roads, of course; they stand out. The A5. The A1, for a bit. The A30 as it approaches Hatton Cross tube station and the perimeter of Heathrow Airport. No one can miss those. On the ground, on the map.
When I moved back to Manchester I became aware of a number of less obvious straight lines. If I stand in the bay window of my bedroom and look into the bay window of my neighbour’s bedroom, I can actually see through that bay into the bay of the next house and so on down the street.
If, on a dark night, you come off the M60 at junction 25 and head north up Ashton Road towards Denton, you see the road surface shining ahead of you in a straight line. Only at the last minute do you see that your road – Ashton Road – bends sharply to the right. The road that appears to continue in a straight line, Castle Hill, is actually a left turn off the main carriageway. To take it at that speed would lead you quickly into difficulties, even if it looks as if it’s the right thing to do.
Drive south down Holme Road in Didsbury, alongside Marie Louise Gardens, and turn right at the bottom into Dene Road West. Ahead of you the road is invitingly straight. Certain features conspire to conceal the much bigger and busier cross street, Palatine Road: an overgrown bush hides the stop sign, a speed bump obscures the white markings of the junction itself. I always want to drive straight across Palatine Road and into Mersey Road without stopping. It looks as if you should be able to. There’s a risk involved, perhaps, but it’s a risk worth taking. A risk you should take, even.
