The Transfiguration of Mister Punch (10 page)

Expertise! That is where
I
excel, my friend.

Oh, do excuse my levity. I have never been able to master that singular passion that makes for a focused and productive life. What do they say
—a Jack of all trades
! And you’ll find no jollier
Jack
than me!

Oh, do forgive me, how rude—please help yourself to a glass of Manzanilla, there’s plenty, and of a particularly fine example I feel, with a gorgeous salty tang. I have toasted a few almonds for us to enjoy with it too.

Shall we begin? As I’m sure you are aware Mr Hawling’s collection started with the usual posters and playbills, postcards and signed photographs, programmes and manuscripts, before branching out into lithographs and twopence coloureds, gramophone recordings and the like. Gradually an obsession with toy theatres developed and his passion for collecting was such that all the means available to him were driven towards the acquisition of materials relating to these miniature theatres. Then, with the discovery of an early card from William West, depicting a Punch and Judy booth, the collection took its final turn towards the art of puppetry, and at its heart there beats the pulse of that great anarchic spirit, Mr Punch, although time this evening will allow us to touch upon the history of this famous aspect of the collection only tangentially.

Throughout Hawling’s collection one can discern many lives. Those I will describe evoke only the briefest of glimpses into the rich history that the collector maintains; an invisible performance that plays out through the rustle of carefully archived papers, treasured ephemera and painstakingly preserved objects. For I have taken the liberty, before we explore the deeper elements of the collection, to select four striking examples of Hawling’s wide-ranging, and discerning, eye. And for each I have reconstructed something of a story from the hints and mysteries that his archive contained.

I do hope we can enjoy our time together. As I mentioned, I would so hate to think that we were mired in something as crude as a mere transaction. These materials deserve their proper home, a place where they might dwell with all the grandeur and majesty that they so rightfully deserve.

And what do we have here, to start us off on our merry adventure? Let me tell you, my friend, this is perhaps the most remarkable item in our entire evening. Yes, I can see the delight in your eyes already.

You have discerned correctly, it is none other than a ticket for the one and only performance of that company of anonymous puppeteers.
The Pütershein Authority...
Why, no, it was not just a rumour! Do you doubt the authenticity of the materials I present to you? I can assure you that the Authority existed. I have evidence of it. Although
I
was not there, a very close acquaintance of mine
was
and attests to the event, and its remarkable quest for the limits of the form of such a theatre.

What does it say here
, Admit the bearer to the performance of ‘After Eden’ on the evening of 30
^th
April, 1956, at 30 Elysium Gardens. A token of the performance of marionettes under The Pütershein Authority.’
Do you note the ‘PA’ stamp upon it? Further proof that it was presented at the performance. And see here, if we hold it up to the lamp, we find the watermark that is so famous now, and yet so few have ever seen it. Well, we two are amongst that select band, are we not? Can you doubt me now?

Well, while you look it over, as the first piece of evidence of the quality of this fine collection that awaits your perusal, I will prepare us a drink to accompany our first little tale?

What should we have, do you think? That Manzanilla has given me a monstrous thirst, so perhaps it should be refreshing, but rich—we can’t lower our standards now can we. Something well-crafted, but earthy. Let us enjoy a jug of porter!... Why not indeed, we will allow its thick nourishment to take us back to the histories of hands at work and the simple pleasures of labour... Oh, the quotation on the back of the card, that serves very well to introduce us to the story. One that I have entitled
,

The quotation reads
,

‘... grace will be most purely present in the human frame that has either no consciousness or an infinite amount of it, which is to say either in a marionette or in a god.’

Heinrich von Kleist,
‘The Puppet Theatre’

The workshop had outgrown its original confines. It had been generous of Dorothy to have given up her dining room for Stanley’s hobby, but then she had been a wonderful, caring and understanding woman. What was more important, their social lives or his happiness? Puppets were his life, and the making of them his only real pleasure. They had few guests anyway, he was so often on the road with his little touring show, and during the few days he was at home she wanted him to be content, and able to work upon the quaint little figures that brought in their meagre, and only income.

But that was then, Dorothy had been dead a decade now. He had watched her beautiful face age, as the possible time of children passed, but that had not worried them; it had been a joint decision. Then he had watched her eyes sink into the bruised caverns of the disease she cradled within her, fighting and nurturing it in equal measure over three long years. The undertaker had made her perfect again, smoothing away the pain and sorrow of her wrinkled, broken face. The art of cosmetics reaches its peak in the hidden world of the funeral parlour—every one of us emerging a pristine sculpture, dressed in our best for the caress of searing flame or the embrace of damp soil.

It was the image of her in that coffin that had haunted Stanley for seven years until he had been driven to recreate her one desperate morning as the sun rose after another night without sleep. Within twenty-four hours she was made. Two-foot tall, of pine, with a simple white gown, fashioned from a nightdress he hadn’t the heart to part with. He made a small coffin, with the same purple satin lining he had chosen for the real one. No detail was lost to his memory.

He burned the whole morbid affair in the garden later that week, once the guilt and eccentricity had overcome him. He felt he was finally going mad. He welcomed it. Insanity would, he hoped, erase his memory with an oblivion of estrangement.

And in the unbearable lacuna of his despair the letter arrived.

It read,

Dear Mr Headingley,

Please forgive us for contacting you in this rather formal fashion. We are all craftspeople and we should very much have preferred to have met with you in person.

The growing nature of our society and the increasing administrative burdens that such a body entails prevents it however.

We have the greatest of pleasure though in approaching you to fulfil a small commission for us. We have heard of the fine puppet figures you have produced, and of your own accomplished performances. We would be honoured if you would undertake the production of a marionette we have designed. The designs are enclosed herein. We call her ‘Lilith’ and while her role will be brief in our little play, it is imperative that the balance and comportment of the figure appear absolutely realistic. We have therefore selected only the finest materials, their weights and properties having being particularly calculated to produce for the audience the supreme quality of life. This is achieved not through the artifice of representation and the ridiculous farce of character, but by the absence of such. Instead the suggestion of poise, the elegance of form and the true manifestation of inertia will create a being that is, in essence, all of us, and none.

It is our greatest hope that you will find within this puppet the heights of your craft and can see in her the hope of our shared art.

We will reward your time, skill, and knowledge, handsomely. Whereas once our little theatres were the supreme expression of poverty we are confident the day is now dawning wherein our work can be most widely appreciated, and through the expression of the play of wooden beings we might find a space, however brief, to call home again. Such is our aspiration, lofty or even foolhardy as it may be. An eternal combat with the absurd and the impossible has ever been the work of the travelling showman.

We hope to count you amongst our humble fraternity. Please return the finished puppet to the enclosed address as soon as you have completed her, in whatever timeframe is necessary.

Yours sincerely,

The Pütershein Authority

Stanley ran his calloused and gnarled fingers across the fine cream parchment paper; broken though they were with the work of wood, metal and fabric they had evolved through patient and dedicated craft solely for the detection of quality, and beauty. It was the finest paper he had ever touched, thick and durable, yet silken and smooth. He caught sight of the watermark in the gentle morning light that illuminated his workbench. It was a familiar figure to him—Pulcinella, intricately rendered in the trace of luminous lines glowing strangely within the paper; his distended belly and hunched back (that looked more like a great fin, so exaggerated was it), and that ridiculous crooked hat, hooked nose and those absurd, spindly legs, and, of course, his ominous stick. How many times had he brought this little being into existence before the excited screams of children and the uneasy laughter of their parents. Yes, the rebellious Mr Punch. And how many of those little Punches, along with all of his extended family of characters, had Stanley fashioned over the years, for fellow professors? He had always returned to that peculiar, traditional show, and had performed it on beaches and at festivals across the country. As the tides of death gathered steadily within his beloved Dorothy he had squandered his hours with a glove puppet, all for the nostalgic evocation of a vanishing world.

Returning from self-pity he sighed and thought to himself what a kind gesture this group had made. They must think a lot of his work, although how they had come to know of it he really couldn’t fathom. Few knew of his puppets, save from the dwindling band of other puppeteers that used him. Someone must have passed his details on, Stanley surmised. He chuckled, it sounded a bit like one of those secret societies, like the Freemasons;
The Pütershein Authority
, he said in a booming bass voice, with outrageous melodrama. Perhaps this was his
initiation
—how silly!

Anyway, with a smile on his face he looked over the plans for ‘Lilith’. It was rare to encounter such detailed designs. The drawings themselves were works of art, let alone the puppet they proposed—for always Stanley’s mind had been able to translate even the most basic of diagrams into a three dimensions within moments of study. But
this
, this was nothing short of remarkable. Every pinion and joint, each careful curve of wooden limb, drop of string and knot of assembly seemed so perfectly calculated that he could almost see the thing dancing in his mind. And Lilith was indeed the most appropriate name for her. She was a powerful temptress. Wooden she may have been, but in every element she spoke of perfection, her movements more sure of absolute command than anything he had previously seen, or heard of.

He made a start on her immediately, bringing the delicate curvature of her back and the intimate suggestion of her breasts into being. It seemed that the wood was with him, its grain bending and relenting beneath the precision of his chisel and the gentle caress of the graded planes and rasps he set to work with.

The figure comprised many separate wooden components, each of which Stanley dutifully manufactured according to the specifications laid out for him in the incredibly detailed plans. What seemed significant, already, was the simplicity of the pieces he was constructing. So far, only the upper torso in any way resembled a being of any kind. Even the hands seemed somewhat indistinct, approximating, he thought, a pair of mittens without apparent fingers.

After the first two days had elapsed, with long hours spent working long into the night at his workbench, he had finished the basic wooden elements and could attempt a first construction through the elaborate stringing mechanism proposed. Even the control jig was far advanced in its design, but spoke of simplicity and organicity that meant that just holding it, even without the puppet attached, felt natural and comforting.

The next stroke of genius, Stanley discovered, lay in the threading of the thorax, abdomen and pelvis, through a spinal cord offset by two free-running cords anchored in the pelvis and playing through screw-eyes beneath the shoulders. Then, once strung and anchored to the thighs, the wooden blocks of the torso—which had seemed so abstract—took on the posture and gait of a young woman. It seemed strange to him that the designer, who must have been an incredibly gifted puppeteer and craftsman, had not wished to make the puppet himself. There is no way, Stanley thought, that he would have given such a task over to another, however good their work might have been.

The whole puppet was balanced through the head strings which held it upright, with slack shoulder strings to take up the weight as the head moved to give expression—and what
expression
! For, despite possessing only the most rudimentary of features, she seemed so capable of suggesting emotion through even the simplest of inclinations of the head, or shoulders. Again, the quality of the design further revealed itself once the hands were attached to the forearm by a free joint, and then fixed to the control jig. The expressivity in something of such basic form was extraordinary. Even the feet, anchored in similar manner, but without control strings, were capable of precise angle, purely through the weight of the limbs and the structure of the trunk that kept all points of support along a single plane.