top

It is a wheezy, rather inaccurate timepiece with a disconcertingly irregular tick-tock but its brassy bongs reverberating through the house give an accurate enough indication of the passing time.

Bongg! Bongg! Bonggg!

Half asleep I begin to count the chimes but after five or six my thoughts drift back to dreamland and, as the Grandfather clock completes the sequence, I turn on my side and, aware there is plenty of time yet, I go back to sleep.

………………..

Meanwhile, far away in the midnight darkness, a gentleman in a frayed tweed jacket and faded green corduroys leaned a long ladder against the sky and carefully opened the first of twenty three differently coloured tins of paint.

The gentleman’s full name, should you wish to know it, was Jay Emm Double Yew Tee, or at least that was how it looked when it was written down. Now everyone who knew this gentleman reckoned the name was a bit of a handful. Life is too short, they told him, to be saying a name like that every five minutes of the day so we are going to call you Jed.

This pleased the gentleman immensely although he made no comment to anyone. He was the sort of man you could always rely on; a man who took great pride in everything he did, so he just smiled, nodded his acceptance and got on with his work quickly and efficiently as always, making no fuss or mess or excuses about going home early.

Jay Emm Doubleyew Tee, or Jed, as you now know him, had a unique job to do in the immense and unknowable scheme of things. Quite simply he was the artist whose task it was to paint the colours of the morning sky.

So, as I slept and the grandfather clock tick-tocked away the hours, Jed climbed his ladder and set to work with brisk efficiency. With confident and colourful strokes he applied the colours, humming to himself as he did so, his brushes reaching each and every part of the vast canvas. He thought of his warm wife lying in bed waiting for him to return, her soft roundness rather like the shape of a cumulus cloud, her breathing as light as the breezes that formed the alto stratus.

After some time, when his paint kettle was empty, he climbed down the ladder, laid his brushes aside and prepared to open a different tin. Casually, he glanced at the label as he did so. The tin had been newly delivered from the central stores that morning. Number zero one seven, (aubergine) He’d have to go steady with that, he thought as he prised off the lid. If he remembered rightly it was a rather dark colour and, in his opinion, more suited to an evening sky than a morning. Still there it was! He’d have to use what ever they sent him from the stores. Like it or not, he was there simply to paint the sky, not to ask questions about anything. He charged his kettle, picked up his brushes and climbed to the top of the ladder again, then, thoughtfully selecting a softer brush, he applied a small amount of zero one seven (aubergine) carefully to the designated part of the canvas.

In the warmth of my bed I slept on peacefully, dreamily unaware of the potential disaster about to unfold above me. Aware as always of the necessity for haste Jed painted rapidly, changing colours wherever the canvas dictated, merging light with dark and bright with dull. No particular scheme had been called for that morning, no detailed instructions accompanied the score or more tins of paint. As was so often the case, he had a free hand to do more or less as he wished, which meant getting the job done quickly and then going home.

………………

The early, pre-dawn sky should have been a masterpiece of colours. Brilliant with pinks of every shade from three seven nine (pale flesh) to seven six one (early sunburn) fading softly into the distance to merge eventually with eight one eight (meadow violet) and one four seven (mucky grey) while the horizon ought to have been adorned with tiny, zero eight three (off white white) pre-pubescent clouds with feathery wisps of one five one (buttock) all along their outer edges. Instead, everything was marred by horrible blotches of zero one seven (aubergine)!

Hurriedly the gentleman stepped off his ladder and gazed at the sky above mournfully.

He was worried and very unhappy.

It should have been a clever variation on the theme of seven four eight (pussylip pink) Instead it looked like a wild combination of one one five (unsettled) and three seven two (rough muff) with a heavy period pain thrown in for good measure.

Something was wrong with that new batch of paint, he realised. He hadn’t asked for zero one seven (aubergine) specifically, just used, as always, whatever colours the dispatchers in their wisdom sent him. Well someone in quality control had certainly made a mistake this time!

With a shudder of revulsion he stared at the section of sky directly overhead. Even on a good day zero one seven (aubergine) was the worst colour to apply and the most difficult to match any others against. On a bad day the effects were nothing less than hideous and this morning, oh dear, even the words themselves were catastrophic!

He stared upwards hopelessly. The last time something like this had happened was.......... was......... he thought desperately. Was....... and suddenly it came to him. Wednesday 13 May 1876! Yes, that was when a load of Saharan sand accidentally mixed with a vat of ninety three (paler pale blue) had turned the morning sky a ghastly shade of khaki. Heads had rolled after that debacle and the vats and hoppers in the mixing rooms at central stores had been emptied and subjected to a thorough clean. For weeks afterwards an unsuspecting world awoke to dawns which were both boring and colourless. Fortunately they thought for once their summer had arrived early.

Desperately he hoped the same thing would not happen again.

So what could be done to remedy the problem? Carefully he considered all possible options. Maybe, he mused, an all over wash of transparent, neutral hues might do it. Fifty four (catspiss) with thirty three (albumen) over the top perhaps. Briefly he pictured the likely effect and dismissed it immediately. A transparent wash would only emphasise the awfulness of the zero one seven (aubergine) What about a quick splash of ordinary number ninety two (pale blue) then? Perhaps with one one six, (PMT) for highlights and thirty eight (nipple) for the edging. Hues like that would fade out towards the horizon very nicely and lead the eye away from the frightful zero one seven (aubergine)

Still not convinced he shook his head unhappily. Coloured washes then? A glaze of three six four (warm honey), a haze of oh four oh (cumstain) or one of four seven three (north sea blue) with a thinned out four forty nine (squashed peach) over the top. Experience told him the combination was unlikely and in desperation he wondered about four oh four (snowcloud greyblue) before remembering it was reserved for a different time of the year.

In his mind’s eye he could see the different hues quite clearly. Little squares on numbered cards, rows of little sample jars on shelves in the pattern room at central stores. Normally there were at least three hundred and sixty six thousand colours to choose from but today everything between eighty nine and five twenty one would be too dark for his purposes. The choices were limited, he realised suddenly, and the longer he left it the less chance he would have to do anything really impressive.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a surly smear of six sixty six (real crimson) along the horizon and groaned. Sunrise’s flaming herald was on its way already. It must be later than it seemed!

He pulled out his pocket watch, snapping open the lid with practised ease and stared at the dial with dismay. The white face gleamed back at him accusingly, conveying at a glance all he needed to know and confirming his worst fears!

There were barely thirty five minutes left before Sunrise. Thirty five minutes in which to get almost an entire night’s work done again. Oh woe and botheration!

He could already see the report pinned up on the notice board: Wednesday April 6th 2011 – Dull. Murky and Boring. Two out of ten.

He’d never scored less than seven out of ten in his life. Nine point two was usual and on a good morning he was often back in his bed and fast asleep by first light! If he got a report like that he’d be a laughing stock! “You must have been drunk!” his mates would say when next they saw him. Worse, when he went to replace his brushes the storekeeper would probably peer haughtily at him over the top of his glasses then issue him with a broom.

Ninety one (iridescent magenta)? He’d sneer loftily. I can’t let you have that at this time of the year.

Oh woe and botheration indeed! What a shame it wasn’t early autumn instead of early spring. He might have got away with the nasty zero one seven (aubergine) if it had been.



With a resigned shrug he remembered numbers fifty four (shaven pubes) and two eight one (dead salmon) he’d spread so effectively with a number six brush almost an hour ago. Those had worked brilliantly until that horrible number zero one seven (aubergine) had intruded and ruined everything.

Inspiration came to him unexpectedly. Zero nine (virginal white)! Applied with the spray gun! Why hadn’t he thought of it earlier? He fumbled in his toolbox hurriedly fitting the parts together, airline and grip, trigger and reservoir. And where was that red rubber washer which sealed the joint. He hunted in his box once more.

Lost! Oh well, he’d have to use the sprayer without it.

Swiftly he scrambled up the ladder, the airline curling after him like a serpent seeking the morning sun.

The trigger on the spray gun was stiff with hardened paint from a haphazard clean last time. He squeezed the handle harder and recoiled abruptly from the mist of zero nine which clouded the air around him. That damned missing washer was to blame!

Holding the spray gun at arms length he squeezed firmly again. Better! At least he was not being covered all over by the spray. Just the top half of him! There and there! And then there and there as well! Much better he cried to no-one in particular as the zero one seven (aubergine) slowly faded.

Relieved he worked on steadily, ignoring his rapidly whitening shoulders and arms.

After a while the supply of zero nine (virginal white) ran low. The spray gun spluttered once or twice then stopped completely.

The gentleman climbed slowly down his ladder.

Standing back from his handiwork he gazed upwards. Well it didn’t look too bad he supposed. At least half of the zero one seven (aubergine) was covered up by the hastily added zero nine (virginal white)

Only just in time too, he noticed. Sunrise was due any minute!

Leaving the empty spray gun on the ground he climbed quickly up the ladder for the last time that morning and with a deft movement of his paint covered right hand he signed his handiwork.

“Well it may not be one of my better works but it is one of mine all the same,” he said to himself as he climbed down.

Somewhere close at hand a farmyard cockerel crowed and, distantly, the chime of a clock echoed it.

“Cock - a – doodle do!” Five thirty, time to go home!

Behind him the first rays of the rising sun burned into the oddly coloured sky with flames that were a breathtakingly bright golden.

…………………

As usual the wheezy old clock chimes five thirty a few seconds before my bedside radio comes on to wake me and give me the gale warnings of the shipping forecast. After a minute or two I get out of bed slowly, find my dressing gown and slippers then go downstairs and put the kettle on.

There is a lot to be said for a husband who works odd hours. He gets up early and goes to bed late and all the running around with paints and ladders and naked models in his studio always makes him very randy. I know when he gets home he’ll want it and, most probably, want it a lot.

By ten to six I am drinking my tea and looking out of the window at the sky which I am impressed to see is a masterpiece of pattern and colour. Brilliant shades of pink and purple, gleaming creams and vivid flesh tones, stripes and streaks in every hue. And over everything a pale opaque translucence which appears to make the entire sky glow.



“He’s done a stunning job this morning!” I say to myself. “Just like something his namesake and fellow painter Turner might have created in a moment of absent mindedness on the back of his studio door”

Close to the horizon, where the sun’s sharp edge is steadily burning a hole though the last remnants of the night, a collection of paler, semi transparent clouds straggle raggedly into the distance, their shapes reminiscent of a collection of scarecrows at a fashion show. Slowly they slip along the catwalk, pirouetting and curtseying to an avid audience, lit by long sunbeams of bright morning light. And in the wings, behind the homeward striding gentleman, whose eyes see only the road leading to his well earned rest, a shred of fluffy nothingness shaped a bit like a handprint, drifts across the sky serenely alone. …………………

Cheerily I greet him at the gate, savouring the smell of turpentine and paint which always precedes him. I let my dressing gown fall open so he can see me and know without having to ask that I am ready to fuck.

“Glad to be home” he says “Hell of a morning, I can tell you!”

Swinging round he points to the sky. “Look!”

The fluffy palm print and the ragged scarecrows have all gone now and, from horizon to horizon the sky is the most magnificent shade of blue. Except up there, seemingly right above our house, one last blob of purple lengthens, darkens and turns unmistakably into an aubergine shaped cloud.

“Looks like your prick!” I tell him and he laughs.

© Aahlu. 11.05. 2000.