Portrait of the Artist as a Madman

I never know whether I've got it right. Not until I've sold it and there's my proof. Helen always says the same—my paintings are great she says, but with no tonal validation, no fucking clue. My voices are unreliable, too, but they always tell it like they see it. And, sometimes, when the mood is on them, they inspire.

This latest is a portrait—I don't do portraits—of a royal. I hate the fucking monarchy, me. The man who would be King. I'm meeting him today. Best of a bad bunch, I'm guessing. Someone more fucked up than me, agonising over all the whys and wherefores but buttoned up tighter than a duck's arse.

You may wonder why they asked me—you'll never have heard of me—but one thing about the royals is they have damn good art advisors. Shirt lifters, fudge packers most, but they know their stuff. "Original," "Off the wall," "Colours so bright you can taste them," blah de fucking blah. Don't really know me though. They think I'm safer than Damian, not queer like Gilbert or George. Those guys are seriously weird but not mad. I am.

How do I know? Well, you have to have periods of sanity to know you're crazy, and that's the tragedy maybe. When I'm sane, I can't paint; when I'm crazy, I can't relate to anything except the canvas, the paint, the texture, the light, the visions, the voices—my head exploding, my gut on fire. On balance, I'd rather be mad. But it can cause problems. Ask Helen.

She wanted to come with me today, even rang a flunkey. Flunkey monkey, he said no.

"At least, take these pills, John," she said to me.

"Pills, what pills?" I shout. And then I remember. Straightjackets of my soul, alone without my voices, swimming in cotton wool. Visionless, dry, desiccated—I didn't paint for a month. No pills, not me, no, never.

"Vincent," I say, "you know it's Vincent." Vincent Vega just after the Chuck Berry dance contest. Vincent Van Gough, sad, mad and dangerous to know. Vincents in my head, crazy, hazy, dark and light shaded voices.

We might have had a row, I don't remember. So off I go to Highgrove, not alone, oh no. My Vincents are with me.

You'll want to know how it went, my audience with Chas, the once and future King. There's light, there's dark. I remember the light. Wish I could remember more of the darkness, hot, black, brimming with danger and possibilities is all I know.

A flunkey—the same or different? They're always the same.

"Bow… never touch… Your Majesty."

That's light because it made me laugh. Not out loud, oh no. They may be mad, my voices, but they're not stupid.

"Have you travelled far?" said Charles. That's light as well, a light fucking cliché, but I didn't laugh even then, oh no, not yet.

I said something, anything, because I wanted the meat. To paint this man I want his soul. Buried deep, there had to be one, angst driven, a failure—I know—my voices told me.

"Where would you like me?" Standing, sitting, inside, outside—in my lady's chamber would be good, I thought.

The garden, I said. Talking to his plants, was what I wanted. At least I had people inside my head. Animal, vegetable, mineral in descending order. I was one up on him.

Don't remember much after that. They say there was shouting, foul language, physical intimidation. And that was just him. Ha! They say I tried to attack him, but I'm sure it was just me loosening him up. I paint my pictures fluid. Stiffness has no part in them.

And so, I'm here in a room with no voices except those outside my head. I'm frightened, alone in the dark until my Helen comes and rescues me.

"I'm here to take you home, John. You're lucky. No charges. He doesn't need any more bad publicity. One condition, though…"

"Which is, my sweet, my love, my rescuer in shining armour?" My voices never liked Helen, but I think I'm in love with her now.

"You've got to have psychiatric counselling. You've got to, John. They'll section you otherwise."

I did it, of course. For her, I told myself, but I knew I hated the dark, the cold, empty dark.

She came with me to the shrink. Made sure I took the pills. A red one to bring me up, blue to take me down. I took red ones more.

I got a job teaching art. I talked about technique, colour, light. But they were empty, my light and dark.

"How do you paint a picture that sells?" A girl, hard, eager, bitter brightness.

"Is modern art a con?" A boy, big, brash, thoughtless. He should have been outside, playing rugby. Lead the scrum to glory, the best he could hope for.

Straight lines, black and white everywhere. Not a curve, colour or stretch for glory. If I'd had a soul, it would have cried out in despair.
My fellow teachers? Competent artists to a woman. Surface, surface, bright despair—I see it now everywhere.

I went on TV later and talked about El Greco. Such visions, him, yearning figures nearly touching heaven. I could only look with green, green envy, but I didn't say so.

I painted still, oh yes. "Accessible art," one critic said. It sold well.

I wore suits like Gilbert and fucking George. Dare to be different by mocking the uniform, they said, but I wasn't mocking, and I wasn't different.One evening, the same as all the others (but it wasn't), I got back from teaching, poured myself a Scotch, and found a note by the TV. I'd been watching it a lot lately. Wildlife programmes were my favourites.

A Dear John letter, literally. Helen, of course—negatives litter the page, reasons for leaving—I had no spark, no lift, no fucking nothing. She was one to talk, boring, safe Helen. My hypocrite, ma semblable, ma soeur.

Left and taken nothing, which was worse. If she'd cleaned me out, stripped the walls, cut out the crotches on those fucking suits, I could have coped. Railed, raged against the dying of the light. But she wanted nothing, not a single part of what I had become, and she was right.

No red, no blue, no pills for me. No cable, digital TV. No WAP enabled mobile technology. You can shove your PDA where the sun don't shine. I want my art back, I want my voices, mine. A few days and I'm Vincent again. Light and dark now, they're just the same—aching possibilities all.

Can't sleep, can't paint, not yet. I've got some living to do. Outside it's dark, thick, velvet, fibrous night. Swirling, eddies of black touch, caress-grey faces. Unthinking, unknowing, they stumble past. Grey, undead, I see them stare. "I am Vincent, the victorious, the vicious, the venal!" They hurry away, scared they might catch something, might live a little.

In a pub by the river, swishing, slushing, sucking stones dry, I drink. Not to forget like so many here but to remember. The fire in my gut, colours creaming together like a technicolour orgasm. The ball-aching bliss of being right out suffocating, choking in thin air, but seeing, seeing—God, what I can see.

"Haven't you got a home to go to?" A round billiard ball face, white, smooth, no edges. Pink, little scared piggy eyes, flecked with red. Stomach bloated, padded from the ache he ought to feel. But not beyond redemption, I think as I draw back my arm, fist sinking into flabby flesh, meeting no resistance. He feels nothing, this man, but he's strong. I see the bottle breaking, smashed against a table, shards sharp, shining green. A bursting flash of pain around my eye, but I can still see, still hear. "Should have been the ear, the ear," Vincent says and then is quiet for a while.

Later still in A&E, bright fluorescent lights stab my eyes, my eyes. "Are you on drugs?" A kindly face, no soul but kind. "No, I'm off them, off the drugs," I laugh. "Can't you see, can't you hear, can't you tell?"

They stitch me up, send in the shrink—different but the same. Different because Vincent is older, wiser now. We know what to say, "Yes, sorry doctor. An oversight, an aberration. Yes, I have a supply of Thorazine. I know it's important I take them regularly. I just forgot." I'm John and I'm a schizophrenic, yada, yada. Same old, same old. Just know how to play them now is all.

At home, I start to paint. I paint what Vincent sees and hears and feels and knows. I paint in reds and browns and greens and blues and colours with no name. I paint with fingers and with toes, with nose and cock and balls. I paint because I can and am.

And then I sleep, the good sleep. "Do schizos dream?" I ask. "Of course," Vincent replies, "but it's me, not you. And I let my dreams leak slowly, drop by drop—too much and you would drown."

But I do dream, and in my dream Helen is there, face to face, fingertip to fingertip, side by side.

"But I'm Vincent now. John's gone, and it was Vincent you left."

"I know," she says. "I was taking pills too. I've stopped now."

When I wake, we laugh softly together, sunlight filtering through the curtains of my mind.