Seen from the coach window, England slips by as a parade of semi-detached houses, each with a bay window. In the downstairs bay window is a glimpse of the backs of two plates, or a glossy vase, or a geranium. In the upstairs bay, the back of an oval dressing table mirror. The rest is obscured by net curtains. Why do the British have net curtains? Is it to filter out the last feeble rays of wan sunshine that have survived the grey cloudcover, so that the rooms beyond are uniformly gloomy? Is it to shield those inside from the interminable traffic of cars, buses and lorries that rumbles past, or is stationary outside, just lurking? Or is it to hide what is going on inside the house from the prying eyes of those outside? What are they trying to hide? What perversions are going on inside that necessitate this constant guard against external observation. Do the British walk around their houses naked? Of course not -- even at their most undressed they wear ridiculous pajamas or dressing gowns. Do they leap on each other with uncontrollable lust and make outrageous love on the front room settee? No, sex is something that, if it happens at all, occurs upstairs behind heavy closed curtains and usually in the dark. A voyeur is likely only to see old codgers in grey long johns and women in bulging roll-ons. Perhaps it is to cover up a British insecurity about good taste. The Dutch leave their curtains open at night, creating in their front rooms a series of stages on which their good taste and prosperity can be set and paraded to the world. In contrast, the British light their rooms with 40 watt bulbs and close the curtains tight, in case anyone sees their bare walls and assorted nick-nacks. And if, by some mistake, a dim light shows behind a net curtain, the room is rendered as gloomily sad as only a British living room can be -- cold, with a few musty books, an old record player, a mirror to double the depression, some cheap figurines or a collection of thimbles, a never-played upright piano -- and it is a relief when the light is extinguished. Perhaps net curtains represent a national coyness, a desire to hide a life that contains little excitement and certainly nothing of interest to the average passer-by, the average coach passenger. Perhaps by making life secret they imagine that it is given a slight frisson of mystery, when although we know that in some back room the television is glowing, a cat is asleep, a clock is ticking and tea is stewing in a brown pot...perhaps instead, on the other side of the nylon netting, torrid affairs are being engaged in with wanton and juicy abandon, or great inventions are being soldered together on kitchen tables, or superb watercolours hang on intellectual wallpaper, or revolutionaries plot and chain-smoke, or gangsters play poker, or ...
April, 1998 |
