Prologue

When the clammy hand of modernity loomed into view, tall, elegant, forty-plus Roger Fraser met it head on, his impenetrable shield of defiance protecting him from its harmful rays.

His life had become a whirl of misadventures and unforeseen potholes. Déjà vu memories haunted his waking and sleeping hours, and in the main, had a nasty habit of reappearing and reinventing themselves in alternative guises, designed to test his patience. Little surprised him, and though he forearmed himself with the necessary prerequisites to counter the threat, invariably something unexpected happened to rip apart his careful planning. Convinced he had been hexed by a distant lover, a disgruntled client or a malevolent tax inspector, his caution to the unanticipated had become heightened to the point of alarm bells ringing as soon as his mobile squawked, or the postman delivered the mail.

Used to being lithe with boundless energy, recently Roger had put on a few pounds, begun to go grey, and sought the easy life away from bothersome restriction and interfering regulation. He was married to Charlotte, a striking siren retaining her youthful appearance, and finding new things every day to enrich her life, whilst making Roger’s miserable. She said his shorter grey barnet made him arise as scholarly, but her husband missed his dark floppy mop.

Though lovable, Wendy, James and Heather, their three tricky and testing children, constantly challenged Roger’s sensibilities on a whole variety of subjects. The Frasers’ friends thought the children were angelic, but when offered for sale, they quickly retracted the accolade. Roger always questioned why.

Recently noticing Wendy had developed into a young woman, Roger realised with pleasure she took after her mother, being gifted with a gorgeous face and slim figure. He also wondered if the boys from the grammar school had noted her metamorphosis into blossoming doe.

James had grown into a young version of his father, or at least what Roger used to resemble a million years ago, or so it seemed to him. At that halfway house between manly pursuits and girl discovery, James found himself eternally attracted to the former, but snared by desires to explore the latter.

An inquisitive bundle of blonde curls and huge blue eyes, Heather, the Frasers’ youngest, had an elephant’s memory, and often became her father’s foremost ally in his hour of need.

They lived in Hazelwood, a little out-of-the-way backwater in the suburbs of Kent, near enough to London to make for short journey times and sufficiently far away from the capital to ensure insulation from its incessant noise, foul odours of indeterminate origin and overcrowded streets.

When not working for the man, Roger’s whole being became mainly consumed by the family, and some of his in-laws and outlaws. Their demands called for him to surrender to the prevailing beat and back-pocket his rebellious condemnation of all things contemporary, and as he put it, designed to please the lowest common denominator.

Reality TV, false celebrity and the mendacious political classes all appalled him. In a world of crumbling values, they represented the stench of plasticity and the downward spiral into the abyss of everything he held dear, including the encroachment of urban sprawl on his beloved Kent countryside, striving for excellence, and the correct use of the Queen’s English. Somehow, the whole nation had been hoodwinked by this trio of fake gods. Voyeurs by proxy, audiences tuned into the inconsequential meanderings of the talentless, got sucked into fatuous debate about mediocrities, applauded badly performed old rock ‘n’ roll standards, and paid homage to self-appointed, self-interested social commentators, claiming to be bastions of moral virtue.

Roger had to make a stand, push back at the overwhelming onslaught, kick against the pricks and become an avant-garde warrior, bursting their counterfeit bubbles and exposing their transparent cant.

 Chapter  1: Art for Art’s Sake

One fine sunny Saturday morning in downtown Kent County, the Fraser clan prepared to go to the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. Charlotte had acquired some knowledge through attending an evening art course at the local tech, and Roger’s Aunt Jemina was somewhat of an art buff. Already Roger pondered what rapacious devils waited to add further angst and torment to defy his powers of calm and calculation.

“Do I really have to go?”

“Yes, Roger,” Charlotte replied, “you know Jemina expects it. She’ll be very disappointed if you don’t come.”

“What does she see in this modern art thing anyway? I mean, it’s hardly in-keeping with her sophisticated tastes, is it?”

“She’s scouting her dark side, besides, she’s your aunt, so have more respect for her.”

“But there’s live golf on the telly, and—”

She cut him short. “Programme the DVD recorder.”

Running out of patience apropos his slow reaction, Charlotte folded her arms and tapped her foot on the kitchen floor in rhythmic syncopation; the usual warning signs the red mist was about to descend.

“Very well,” he agreed, “I’ll record it. What time are we leaving?”

“Roger, you’re hopeless, I’ve told you already. Nine o’clock.”

~ * ~

They packed the kids into the MPV, and headed over to Longfield Hill to pick up Aunt Jemina, Roger’s favourite aunt. Still sprightly and game for new adventures, she had a heart of gold, and consistently enjoyed her nephew’s company, at least when he concurred with her perspectives on the world. In presentation, she always reminded him of Joan Hickson playing Jane Marple, her bright probing peepers and measured demeanour cementing the impression. Soon after Roger knocked on her front door, Aunt Jemina materialised wearing a formal hat at a jaunty angle, and a modest summer dress, ideal attire for the day’s purpose, according to Charlotte.

“Beautiful morning, Charlotte,” Aunt Jemina remarked, taking in the cloudless sky. “Let’s trust Roger refrains from his usual sarcasms, and keeps his temper.”

“Quite.”

Irritated, Roger shot a biting glare at his critics.

After collecting Aunt Jemina and having barely gone a few miles along the A2, the Frasers saw a roadworks sign, traffic coming to a near standstill.

“You’d think they’d give us a break from it at the weekend, wouldn’t you?” Roger complained, exhaling noisily in frustration. “It’s more annoying than that singing git in the GoCompare adverts perpetually flooding our TV screens.”

“Now don’t start getting bad tempered, Roger,” blasted his equally intolerant wife.

She knew her husband knew she thought the same, but wanted to demonstrate her calm side to Aunt Jemina. Further antagonised, Roger gave Charlotte a disdainful stare, but it just bounced off her.

“What’s Roger getting annoyed about?” Aunt Jemina canvassed, breaking off from talking to Wendy about her homework assignments.

“Oh, it’s nothing, Jemina…just a short delay,” Charlotte assured.

“Short delay!” Roger venomously barked. “More like intentional sadism. The Minister for Transport knows it’s a Saturday, so he’s elected to be a complete twat, and cone off two lanes for ten miles, so Costain’s workers can sweep the road, under supervision from health and safety jobsworths.”

“What’s a twat, Daddy?” enquired seven-year-old Heather.

Peering through the rear-view mirror, Roger saw her blonde locks splayed against the back seat, and her blue eyes pinpointing him.

Gawking at her nephew, Auntie abruptly stopped talking to Wendy. Aggrieved, Charlotte nodded at Roger, her body language commanding an explanation.

“Well, sweetheart, it means someone is—” Flustering around, he tried for the appropriate softening words.

“Does it mean, someone who is annoying you, Daddy?” Heather prompted.

Roger could always rely on their youngest to get him out of delicate situations with a plausible vindication.

“Absolutely right, Heather,” he affirmed with enthusiasm, brooding what a lucky escape.

“Is Mister Jones from next door a twat?” Heather guesstimated.

Bemused, Charlotte and Roger stared at each other, whilst Wendy and James sniggered. Shaking her noggin in a gesture of rebuke, Aunt Jemina then stared out of the window. She wanted to remain incognito until the episode concluded.

Just about to ask Heather what she meant, before her father’s lips started moving, his youngest daughter came in again.

“That’s what I heard Mummy call Mister Jones, when he lit a bonfire last week, and Mummy had to wash all the bed sheets again.”

Lost for words, Charlotte grimaced, a mollifying glower settling in her lineaments. She stared forward, in an attempt to disenfranchise herself from embarrassment.

“Roger, the traffic’s moving,” she snapped out. “Come on, we don’t want to be late for the exhibition, do we?”

By Blackheath, as the Minister for Transport’s cones became a distant memory, the MPV zinged along at a reasonable speed. Hot and bothered, and already exhausted by the early morning hindrances, Roger speculated as to what additional mantraps lay ahead in the day to ensnare him. To use an Americanism, he could virtually bet the farm on the prospect of something occurring from left field to cause him grief and distress, with the indisputable knowledge his gamble remained safe. Segueing out of his melancholia, he became aware of the frivolities emanating from the vehicle’s other occupants. The kids, bless them, he mused, were toying with some tag game, whilst Charlotte talked to Aunt Jemina about the finer points of modern art, to prime her for the Royal Academy show. Back in absorption mode, as they continued to have fun, he wrestled with irate motorists, and cyclists riding in the middle of the road. He also tried to avoid getting caught on speed cameras, another prickly subject wounding him to the core.

About to launch into an impassioned rendition of I got the Chicken Shack, Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall can’t fail blues, before Roger could get one note out, a dispatch rider sped past, almost taking off his wing mirror. Leaning out of the window Roger let rip, and the air went blue with a hail of incendiary curses.

“Roger!” exclaimed his wife.

“What?”

“Concentrate on your driving.”

“But I am,” he replied, popping up suitably justified with his actions. “If I wasn’t that sod could have taken off my wing mirror.”

She whispered in his ear. “What will Jemina think?”

Realising the gravity of his deserved but emotional outburst, he apologised. “Sorry, Aunt Jemina. Sorry, kids.”

“Was that another twat, Daddy?” the Frasers’ youngest daughter queried.

Still inwardly angry, he couldn’t resist replying with, “it sure was, Heather.”

“Roger!” admonished his wife.

With the MPV parked at New Cross, the contingent headed for the London Underground. Three train changes, and forty-five minutes later of enduring the most unspeakable smells, principally on the District Line, they emerged gasping for oxygen at Piccadilly.

Having a splendid time, the children gaped at the London freaks and strained their necks gazing up at skyscrapers, while Charlotte and Aunt Jemina jabbered away, oblivious to everything. A tornado could have decimated Greater London, but they’d have been blind to it. Instead, the anal chat, anal as far as Roger was concerned, became about Tracey this and Damien that, Charlotte trying to impress with her recently acquired knowledge of post-modernism. Absorbing the stream of consciousness, Aunt Jemina leisurely took it in but without exposing any real enthusiasm for the subject. As well as chauffeur and financier for the whole damn trip, Roger also acted as navigator. He got the ‘Oh really, Roger’ visage, if they took a wrong turn, or jumped on the wrong Tube train. However, with the Royal Academy only a few hundred yards west down Piccadilly, he judged the worst to be over, or was it?

~ * ~

Filled with vibrant anticipation, the day-trippers sauntered into the academy courtyard, eyeballing a stainless-steel sculpture over twenty feet tall, emitting pastel shades in its reflected images. Gathering around the edifice, they turned to Charlotte.

“It’s a Jeff Koons, called Colouring Book,” she announced, having already done her homework.

“Can I climb to the top of it, Daddy?” Heather begged.

“Better not, darling,” Charlotte chimed in before Roger could answer. “We don’t want you falling off and hurting yourself, do we? Or Mister Koons suing Daddy for damages.”

No, we certainly don’t want that, Roger meditated. Then suddenly he remembered the artist’s name. “Ahh, I’ve heard of Koons. He’s a septic, isn’t he?”

“A septic?” Aunt Jemina aped.

“Don’t take any notice, Jemina,” Charlotte directed, moving towards her husband with a threatening manner. “He means, he’s a Yank.”

“Septic tank, Yank. Ohh, good one, Dad,” James praised.

“Thank you, son, I knew I could rely on you to twig the connection.”

“Oh, I see,” Auntie took note, as she swivelled to engage Charlotte. “He always was a bit of a wag, even as a schoolboy.”

Grinning, Roger basked in the adulation, before Charlotte muttered in his ear, if he wanted to continue to receive the pleasures of the flesh, he should refrain from his brand of vulgar rugby-dressing-room humour.

“Yes, dear,” he told her. “Message received and understood.”

Knowing it cheaper to see a double-header at Twickenham, Roger handed over a small fortune for three adults and three juniors to the receptionist. Moving on, the group sashayed inside the hallowed building, the much-vaunted encounter moments away, their imaginations pregnant with expectation, Roger’s survival training about to be stress tested.

Immediately, Heather surged forward to an unfathomable artificial decoration hanging from the ceiling, her intention to swing from it. Pleasing her father, he hoped they’d get thrown out, and he’d see the live golf, after all. But no, just as Heather took a mighty leap, Tarzan style, policewoman Charlotte stepped in.

“Heather,” she shrieked, the youngest Fraser superficially coming to a halt in mid-flight. “Before you even think about swinging on that art exhibit, don’t.”

“That’s an art exhibit?” Roger blurted, unable to hold back his sense of amazement.

Not amused, Charlotte issued him a rueful deportment, nothing more to be said.

Undeterred, Heather found another distraction, whilst sixteen-year-old Wendy, and the slightly younger James, who wished he was eighteen, decided they wanted audio dialogue. ‘It’s a cool thing for teenagers to do,’ they told their father, the threesome reversing to the foyer, Roger playing involuntary financier again.

Passing over the headphones, the male attendant beamed at him joyfully, and cackled, “lovely day for a family outing, isn’t it, sir?”

Scowling back, Roger pictured going head-to-head with him on a rugby pitch in the depths of winter, and blabbing, ‘Lovely day for a scrum down, isn’t it?’

Returning to the fold, they found Charlotte and Aunt Jemina involved in serious inspection of the items on display, though the latter manifested herself as dumbstruck by the incredulity of the exhibits.

“Oh, take a gander at this sensational sculpture, Jemina,” Charlotte enthused. “Hasn’t it got the personification of power and passion about it?”

Taking a step back, Aunt Jemina ogled at it sideways, Wendy breaking into a titter at her unintentional lampooning antic.

“Well, my dear,” Jemina assessed, “I can see what the artist is trying to achieve, but it’s hardly Auguste Rodin, or even Henry Moore, is it?”

Just about to give it his two penneth, saying it reminded him of a sawn-off tree trunk, Charlotte saw her husband’s lips about to move. Reading his mind perfectly, she delivered another caustic broadcast of reprobation.

“Yes Roger, we can all see what you think. No need for you to say anything.”

Whistling adjacently to himself, hands behind his back conveying innocence, he gazed at the ornate ceiling. “Oh, that’s magnificent.”

“What’s magnificent?” Charlotte probed, twirling sharply to scrutinise him.

Pointing upwards, he smiled a smile of cultural appreciation.

Shaking her noodle from side-to-side, Charlotte descended into exasperation. “Roger, we’re not here to observe ceilings.” She rotated to behold Aunt Jemina, obviously intent on soliciting moral advocacy.

Auntie’s features blanked, then as her optics fell on the ceiling, she broke into an admiring countenance, the kids following suit.

Taking a disinterest in her family’s apparent fascination, Charlotte tutted. “We’re here to immerse ourselves in this fabulous array of modern art, not approve of gold-leaf ceiling decoration. Come.”

Majestically zooming her arm forward, she nearly knocked over one of the exhibits. Gulping in air, and near-to breathless she nearly destroyed the work, her complexion dimmed. With contrition written into her facade, she peeped around nervously, convinced one of the gallery staff had clocked her indiscretion.

“Yes, darling,” Roger whooped, delighted by her unintentional recklessness.

Then he glanced forward, and saw what lay ahead on the tour, his entertainment transforming into a mope. Oh God, he devised, this is a mountain to climb. Momentarily, he transported himself to Wentworth, the gallery ceiling having a strong symbolic effect, he floated along on fairways made by angels from gold leaf, Lee Westwood about to take his second shot at the eighteenth for a championship winning birdie and…he felt a dig in the ribs.

“Roger, stop daydreaming,” his wife intoned.

They continued with the dirge, as Roger later reported to his company colleagues. Of course, he meant, ‘The fabulous array of modern art’, if quoting his wife. Advancing, the party found themselves accosted by an assortment of the latest products from the wacky world of post-modernism. Ranging from fairly conventional oil and acrylic paintings, and photography, some of which he liked, through to weird concoctions of the bizarre, that wouldn’t be out of place on a building site, in a haberdashery shop, or a tart’s boudoir, Roger summed up all his inner reserves to survive the vexing ordeal.

He’d been dreading this day since Charlotte insisted the whole family visit Tate Modern at Bankside, six months earlier. Another Alice Through the Looking Glass happening, they were treated to modern art masquerading as refugees from an artificial flower shop, failed mechanical engineering leviathans, and various escapees from a kid’s playground, incorporating a huge helter-skelter. For the life of him, he couldn’t see any connection between the hotchpotch of tomfoolery, much of it presumably resultant from the consumption of copious amounts of LSD, and the stuff he’d seen at the National and the ‘real’ Tate, when he frequented school, twenty-five years earlier. Straightaway, the experience left him cold, but the kids had enjoyed it. Heather saw it as akin to Alton Towers, Wendy making notes on the gallery for her French homework assignment, and James spending most of the day eyeing up older girls, forever wanting to be eighteen. Roger kept telling him, it’d come soon enough, and he’d pine for his school days, but James appraised his father was weird, and didn’t like girls. Roger had told him, ‘I married your mother, didn’t I?’, but James replied, ‘Mums don’t count.’ Roger gave up long ago on trying for logic with their children.

Pressing on, the touring party then happened upon a clique of BBC pseudo-art intellectuals, Charlotte reliably notifying they had screened a programme about the 2011 Summer Exhibition the previous week. Immediately, Roger took an instant dislike to them. They came across as a supercilious bunch of condescending, castles in the sky, detached from reality types, with their trendy clothing, mock Oxbridge accents, and depiction of superiority. Worse, they were cut from the same haughty, satirical, patronising BBC bedrock spawning those arrogant pompous arseholes inhabiting Have I Got News for You, Mock the Week and QI. As the Frasers heard their falsetto tones, sermonising about the ingratitude of philistines, like Roger, to understand post-modernism, his dislike intensified into despising them. Scanning the troupe, they recognised Jannette Spliff Snorter replete with a plaster on her chin, extolling the virtues of one exhibit to someone clearly in vehement disagreement. Roger gauged it might be Brian Sewell, projecting a sulk signifying he loathed the pseudo-intellectual art set, as well.

“Daddy, why is that woman talking with such a strange voice?” Heather cross-examined.

He began to summon up an acerbic decipherment, but Charlotte had him in her sights, so he went for the conciliatory.

“Oh, she’s got some sort of speech impediment.”

Gratified, Charlotte gave him an approving gleam.

“Why has she got an Elastoplast on her chin?” Heather dug.

“Must have cut herself shaving,” Roger supplied.

Charlotte’s gleam mutated into a glower.

“Dreadful woman,” Aunt Jemina quietly criticised. “As if a sane person would take any notice of her opinions on anything. She’s always telling people how they must behave, but her own track record is hardly impeccable. She’s another one of those, ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’ puritanical television pundits.”

Roger’s blinkers lit up. “Oh, I do so agree with you, Aunt Jemina.” Then he detected Charlotte beginning to growl. “Well…she does have some good points,” he unconvincingly attached.

“What good points?” Heather disputed. “She looks like what Daddy calls a twat!”

Radiating nervousness, Roger put forward, “shall we move on?”

Before they could, Charlotte took her husband’s arm, excitedly gesturing forward. “It’s Veranda Greenwoman.” She pointed at what her husband considered to be a sour-faced presence, bordering on goose-stepping into their field of regard, her gleeful admiration plain to see.

“Didn’t she used to be an actress?” Roger explored.

“She is an actress…actor.”

“Oh yes, I forgot, the feminine tense has been outlawed, hasn’t it?”

“She’s in New Tricks,” Wendy informed.

Covertly spying on Greenwoman, Auntie narrowed her peepers, indicating she wasn’t a fan. “I know her, and she’s a nasty piece of work. I don’t know why those other three detectives don’t clock her one. I have the patience of a saint, but that dragon gives women a bad name.”

“She’s just acting, Jemina,” Charlotte defended.

“Hhmmm, she puts her heart and soul into it, like she’s a man-hater,” Aunt Jemina objected.

“She is,” Roger whispered to James, his son cracking up at the flout.

“What was that you said, Roger?” Charlotte bawled, exuding a menacing disposition.

“Nothing dear—” He winked at his son. “Just talking to James about the vagaries of television character casting.”

They watched Greenwoman make her way over to the BBC contingent. Presenting her fully-paid-up-member of the ‘I support anything trendy, and I’m a zealous do-gooder brigade affiliate’ pass, they welcomed her into their insular midst.

Bored with bogus luminary watching, Roger ushered the surveying party into the heart of the exhibition.

One huge gallery themed around the personal taste of a well-known artist, or he could be a curator, intrigued Roger. Charlotte said his name, and his occupation, but Roger instantly forgot it. He tried his best to keep from giggling, but some of the sponsored handiwork on show were no better than what he’d seen in Heather’s school class, where they used crayons and paint squirters to make deformed human and animal images.

He’d restrained himself for long enough since the wooden sculpture incident incurred his wife’s wrath, so resolved to ask what he premeditated to be quite a perceptive question.

“Charlotte.”

As if intuitively knowing her husband was about to make a derogatory comment, she revolved on her heels and faced him. “Yes.”

“Charlotte, what is it about these conceptions you find so appealing?” he investigated, venturing an encouraging glint to back up the query. “I mean, what in your estimation, is their particular excellence?”

Charlotte eyed him suspiciously. “Well, if you are being serious—” She twisted in Aunt Jemina’s direction, pursuing objective backup. “It’s the sheer exuberance of the creations, the lateral excogitation involved in their evolution, and the audacity of their uniqueness.”

About to cast doubt on her assertion, Roger thought better of it. Instead, he chose a nonconfrontational response.

“Well, that leaves nothing unexplained, but—”

“Yes, Roger?”

Examining his wife quizzically, and being careful how he framed his next words, he ventured, “do eh, do people really buy this stuff?” He started to lose it. “I mean, you’d have to be pretty much living with the fairies, to want to part with your hard-earned readies to buy demented pixies, lines of glassware, and bits of ‘Frank Spencer’ standard woodwork.”

Charlotte didn’t respond. In lieu, she shook her skull from side to side again, and walked on.

Spinning to rubberneck Aunt Jemina, Roger chanced, “was it something I said?”

“Oh, Roger, you’ll be in the divorce courts, if you carry on ribbing Charlotte. Try and be a little more empathetic.”

“But but I was. I, er, ohh…Charlotte, Charlotte…” he bleated, but she charged on.

Continuing to navigate through the melange, the day-trippers watched people’s reactions to the exhibits, collapsed in the odd chair to take a well-earned rest, and found relief from the heat under the air-conditioning outlets.

Undeniably, the drift of dedication and endurance characteristics some people employed to get through the spectacle, equated as faultless, Roger registering many in cabal parties unequivocally worse for wear, still sustained the trek. It’s a matter of honour, he supposed. They knew failure to complete the marathon reaped the indignation of their co-patrons, a permanent black mark, barring them from such future events.

Strolling through the concourses, Roger began to analyse why people visit galleries. He used to speculate it was because they inspired spectators, but few at the Summer Exhibition emerged as stirred. In the main, like him, they had their orbs set on the last bend, taking them to the finishing line. Once crossed, they’d beam relaxation, and charge headlong for the exits, breathing in fresh air, well, relatively fresh air. Liberated, they’d gasp, ‘Never again.’ But then he tempered his assertion. It might be wishful thinking anyway. Maybe he conjured up visions of despair on their facets that weren’t there. Perhaps he saw the ‘help-me’ insignia on his kisser, in theirs!

“Roger, you’re daydreaming again,” grumbled his peeved wife. “Stop ruminating about golf, and start appreciating these ground-breaking exhibits.”

“Yes, dear,” Roger replied, going into a mock Basil Fawlty voice, stopping short from saying, ‘Careful not to tread on any landmines, dear.’

In the central hall, the Frasers were waylaid by a curious stack of kitchen chairs at its epicentre. At first, Roger cogitated the gallery caretakers had stacked the chairs, but Charlotte assured the reviewing party it was in fact an artist’s exhibit.

Doing a three-sixty around the pile, James then carped, “oh, come on, Mum, this can’t be an exhibit. It’s just chairs, arranged to approximate a pyramid with the top cut off.”

Exasperated that as well as her husband, her son was also a barbarian, Charlotte breathed out scornfully aiming a vexed mannerism at James.

It became a similar story in Gallery Seven, where a Tracey Emin impersonator had added a telephone to an unmade bed. Staring at the exhibit, Roger and the kids blanched natural desires to want to make the bed, and put the phone back on its cradle. Difficult to believe a smart businessman like Charles Saatchi shelling out 150 thousand of the folding stuff for the Emin-like puerile attempt at post-modernism, Roger theorised. Making the point to Charlotte, she waved him away with a dismissive gesture underpinned by nettlesome words. Countering since Charlotte had post-modernist aficionado credentials, she should make Chas aware of their unmade bed, and in the process make them a fortune, only brought a second bout of wifey discontent. Her retort expanded into a flurry of expletives uttered in her husband’s ear, so the rest of the contingent couldn’t hear.

Whilst Charlotte drooled over another patently worthless object, subconsciously Roger propped himself up against one of the floor-mounted sculptures. Pondering how this little escapade could be brought to a swift conclusion, he heard a deep authoritative voice in his left ear say, “you’re leaning against an exhibit, sir.”

Startled, he encountered a gallery attendant having the form of a Zulu wars period British Army regimental sergeant major, replete with flashy moustache and long sideburns, his windows burning censure into Roger’s soul. As the modern art heretic balanced his weight away from the object, he gave Roger a disciplinary glare. Inclined to tell the sergeant major to go get himself treated by a taxidermist; Roger reconsidered. Charlotte had seen the incident, rushing back to intervene.

“I’m so sorry,” she pleaded to the RSM. “My husband is a bit clumsy.”

“That’s alright, ma’am,” he replied, almost saluting. “May I suggest you make sure he keeps away from the floor-standing exhibits, just in case he lapses again.”

“Of course,” Roger’s ingratiating wife confirmed.

Cheeky bastard, Roger deliberated, but bit his lip, forcing an agreeing glitter.

Later, the excursionists moved into a salon containing paintings and the occasional sculpture.

Noticing a circular object lying beneath two hung canvasses on a wall, Roger gibed, “oohh dear me, some workmen have left a piece of stonework. I bet the curator is furious about that.”

Sidling up to him, Charlotte enlightened, “that’s the winner of the Charles Wollaston Award.” Not for the last time at the show, she dug her husband in the ribs. “Now don’t embarrass me, Roger.”

“But it can’t be,” he trilled. “You’re joking. It’s just a round stone with a hole in it filled with resin.”

Another dig in the ribs came his way, this time harder, the pain acute, but temporary. “Don’t be sarcastic.”

“But I wasn’t, I—”

Not in the least interested, Charlotte forged ahead to the next room, leaving Roger probing Aunt Jemina’s phiz for sympathetic patronage.

“Roger, stop goading her,” Jemina implored. “I know most of this is complete rubbish, but she is on a voyage of discovery, so oblige her.”

“But Aunt Jemina, I wasn’t, I…oohh.”

Scowling, Auntie strode off in pursuit of Charlotte.

Sauntering up to her father, the youngest Fraser asked, “are you in trouble again, Daddy?”

“I’m always in trouble, Heather.”

~ * ~

After nearly two hours of wonderment or torment, depending on the ramblers’ take on post-modernism, the kids were on the verge of questing for new ventures, and Roger needed a drink, preferably a long cold beer, but his darling wife still had her modernity penchant to be satisfied. They’d actually gone around the complete works, but Charlotte wanted to revisit ‘The most interesting oeuvre’, whatever that was, her husband contemplated.

Morosely, they trudged along after her, notably Aunt Jemina doing a sterling support role. By now, Roger’s even temper had waned. All he really wanted to do was to smash most of the airy-fairy exhibits, and make a massive bonfire of them. Also bored, Wendy seemed on the edge of voicing, ‘When can we go home?’ which of course her father yearned she’d say. Though also jaded, James was still enthralled by the hordes of late teenage girls, trying so desperately to be hip, so he side-lined boredom, quite content playing the distant voyeur. Restless, Heather also exposed two minds. When focused on the fun the exhibits offered, she had a ball. To her, the exhibition still doubled with Alton Towers. She couldn’t wait to swing from the hanging exhibits, and trample over the floor-mounted sculptures. Beyond the fascination, her eagerness faded.

Needing temporary easement from the combat zone, Aunt Jemina went off to buy an exhibition catalogue. Roger could tell she’d just about had enough, but would retain an ambassadorial attitude.

“Oh, we missed that one earlier,” Charlotte cooed, pointing to what arose to be a child’s climbing frame in the Lecture Room, but in fact, according to her, intended to represent ‘The endless struggle of man, in his efforts to find freedom.’ His struggle as well, Roger sympathised with the artist’s intent.

Now packed with enthusiasts, the curious, and doubters like Roger, all searching their exhibition maps trying to find a reference point, the Royal Academy approximated Heathrow Terminal 5, vis-à-vis nobody quite knew how to find what they were seeking, but they knew it existed somewhere. As noon approached, the physical atmosphere became close, noise levels rising, waves of conversations hovering over the crowd, like balloons drawn by a cartoonist. Roger felt very hot, and beyond caring about cessation of bedroom pleasures.

Despite his new-found empathy, cynicism returned as he spotted an incomprehensible piece of valueless garbage.

“Oh, dear me,” he expressed to his wife. “This is a bit wanky, isn’t it?”

“It is not wanky at all, as you call it. It is superb,” Charlotte promoted in a determined, louder than normal voice.

“What does wanky mean, Daddy?” Heather solicited, ever the inquisitor with her ‘w’ questions.

About to invent something plausible on the hop, Roger’s mouth opened but again Charlotte beat him to the draw.

“It means Daddy might be sleeping in the spare bedroom tonight,” predicted his wife, a withering leer of evil intent devouring her anguished mug.

After taking a well-earned rest, Wendy wandered up to re-join the collective.

“What’s happening?” she checked.

“Daddy just said a rude word,” Heather declared.

Astonishment written on his dial, Roger’s mouth opened again, then closed. “Heather, how do you know it’s a rude word?”

“Oh, I’ve heard James say a word like that, and Mummy told him off.”

Still depleted in girl watching, on hearing the lecture-incurring comment, James needed to exit stage left.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he advised. “Just seen someone I know from school.”

“James,” his father called after him, but he’d vanished into the melee of modern-art addicts.

Careening to wrangle with Charlotte, tapping her foot and metaphorically throwing darts at him, Roger castigated, “you didn’t tell me James had said that word.”

Impervious to the affront, the foot tapping rate increased.

Sensing a losing position, he tried to diffuse the tumult with a lateral dodge ploy, Roger’s field angle settling on yet another example of obtuse buffoonery. “Oh, what an impressive sculpture.”

The ploy failed, Charlotte’s foot tapping reaching a crescendo.

“Roger, you’re absolutely hopeless.”

“What’s he done now, Charlotte?” Aunt Jemina sought, returning to the fray.

“Oh…molluscs,” she blathered.

“Daddy, you still haven’t told me what wanky means.”