Somehow Mr Groves with his pale, certain face made Daniel fall in love with the world’s past. Always Daniel would tell everyone at home, with a story. A regular tale with clear directions and only brief drop off points for any kind of diversion. Focus your class on the direction of your story and the outcome will occur naturally.
So after Mr Groves passed away, Daniel would return to the pottery bower at his local museum to read the pots. Each pot had its own tale, some held the story in more than their rivals, some just gave away all their power in one blast of colour and bold ink. Daniel thrived on regular tales. If home was a disappointment, then this room was a joy. This silent room with its tranquil group of pots all held in a long display cabinet periodically bathed in a muted blue light by a special switch George had installed when the room was officially opened by the a short woman who wrote books about lost people. Apparently Daniel read she wrote all morning and then made sculptures she would later damage, as a reminder that life and art were transient and without respect for beauty.
Daniel inhaled the quiet of the room. Stories give stability and clarity. Dan loved the stories that the pot didn’t say outwardly, but said more inwardly. Inward tales. May be that was the beginning of his turning the pot the other way. Of reading differently. The anticlockwise tale.
The anticlockwise tale. A life changing phrase for another time.
Daniel convinced himself he knew what the tales were saying. He visited almost every week spinning several hours just watching the pots stand so perfectly still before moving them about in his mind’s eye, making even more certain of his certainty; certain tranquillity from a close reading of ceramic colour.
Crowds of young warriors bathed in fading sunlight marching towards a sea shore darkened by long ships emblazoned with blood. A solitary figure crouched behind a rock holding a wax tablet, secret witness to the impending battle. The boldest warrior held a shield emblazoned with the head of a bear. Such courage; tension so palpable that Daniel felt he could smell men’s sweat, hear their breathing.
Daniel wore white suede trainers and a long blue shirt every visit. Like a tunic. He felt armed and brave and his jaw became more definite and keen as he stood in that room surrounded by ancient pottery. My uniform so I know what I am doing and so does everyone at the museum. No enticements elsewhere. Even when winter brought in deep snow and a mean minded frost, Daniel remained faithful to his pottery tales, wearing his special uniform, marching rather than drifting into the museum. His mother approved of his hobby. She had a new love and Daniel’s regular visits in front of Heraldbrook’s ceramic pot, were bliss for all concerned.
Everything would have gone on in much the same regular way presumably until Daniel left for university, had one year’s bad ice not claimed its umpteenth rear drive victim in the shape of Antony Stockton-Smthe. Antony or Anthony as he preferred, was acting Museum Curator with a very special interest in running the art restoration room his own way. He spent many hours seeking to firmly mix and fix the exact colours of the Greeks Ad 200; it kept him awake at nights many times as an inveterate purist and connoisseur. Staff alternately loathed and feared him. Loathing his lofting vowels and patronising opinions, fearing his changeability and grudges.
Luckily for most, Anthony‘s car overestimated a junction and buried itself in a stone wall somewhat bizarrely not on his way home, just a hundred yards from Tanya Ralph’s home for Retired Race Horses. Tanya was away, so who could conclude anything there, though there were those who suspected Anthony‘s misty sense of time was the core of the problem. Two broken ribs, a cracked collar bone and fractured wrist. Doctors pronounced him very fortunate and in need of a long convalescence. Anthony decided to convalesce at the home of his mother’s richest friend on the unspoiled side of Crete. It may not have been Crete of course as Anthony proved to be rather more eccentric and liberal with the truth than anyone could have guessed, but all this is a longwinded way of announcing the appearance of Clara at the museum one Wednesday morning wearing turquoise glasses, a rose pashmina and light tan desert boots.
New blood. Her lingering Hellos even made dour Donna from the stockroom smile. Clara was a visiting Professor from a place no one dared to pronounce in public. Her glossy publications ran and ran and with all that the government was doing to squash the tried and the tested, well…Vogue sent a journalist with a special camera and the staff found themselves adjusting their clothing, restyling their hair and exchanging make up before assembling naturally before the huge replica of Ozymandias’s lower leg(in the Dictator’s Room on the Lower Mezzanine of the ground floor. )