Awkward Steps

“How is work going on the giant mobile phone?” she asks.

They’re walking through the art gallery, and he’s mentally tallying how many tourists have worn away its floors over the years.

She squeezes his hand and repeats her question.

“Sure to be finished soon,” he says, snapping out of his footprint census. “We’re working how to place it into the gallery.”

He’s working on a huge mobile phone that’s inspired by the ‘Dance On’ Floor Piano at FAO Schwarz in New York: his project is a gadget with a monumental number pad and screen that will insert into the floor of the gallery here. The idea is that visitors will hop from number to number to key in the phone sequence they want - or to create a text message that will be projected across the gallery walls. Or just silly meaningless emoticons to add some digital whimsy to a sober museum visit.

“You’re here in 3-D shape and form, but your mindset is some frequent flyer miles away,” she quips.

They turn the corner and head past the Egyptian Antiquities department. It’s true, he’s a bit foggy since returning from New York. In fact his brain feels as old as the stone reliefs they are pacing past.

“I’m about 14 time zones behind,” he admits. “And there were some strange things I did while I was away.”

She doesn’t feel like pushing through that ugly-sounding door and learning what he means.

They keep their silence until they enter the Impressionists wing. And he stops.

“That sounds really bad, doesn’t it? God, my brain is just so scrambled today,” he admits. “I’m totally totally scatty, I’m so embarrassed.”

She pretends to be hyper-focused on the light brush strokes of a woman’s bonnet in the nearest painting.

“You know what I had to do while I was away - I had to learn how to dance on the FAO Schwarz floor piano.”

She admits herself a smile - after all, he’s such a groove-disobeying klutz. His body never can keep to any metronomic beat, or hip-shaking melody. He’s the guy who checks his phone messages when everyone else swarms to the dancefloor.

“Just by yourself?” she asks.

“No, they have a choreographer who teaches you. Complete with the emphatic wind-wiper arm gestures and foot-swivelling moves. I think I was his toughest case,” he concedes. “Anyway, we’ve got this old-timer jazz dancer helping us with our giant phone installation. He’s going to teach gallery visitors how to hop and jump and, uh, shimmy from number to number on the key pad - if they feel like it.”

She moves onto the next picture - a paintstroke-hazy windmill by a river.

“Anyway, people don’t have to treat the phone like a dancefloor, they can just .... tap away some silly thought. Though we’ve rigged it up so that anyone who texts ‘where R u?’ will be surprised by a ringtone of shame.” He laughs. Then, embarrassed by her silent response, tries to bulldoze past his failed punchline.

“So, have you ever thought of making any art yourself? I mean, if you could make anything, what would you make?”

She stops in front of a bronze statue of a ballet dancer.

“If I could make anything, well, it would be an installation that would, I guess, simulate how your life would have panned out if you had taken certain different choices. There’d be some computer you’d have to feed a small amount of crucial but not entirely incriminating data and it’d fire up some algorithm that could display your alterna-life,” she says. “Though it’d probably be easier just to cast some ballerina in bronze, wouldn’t it?”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to accept your past?” he asks.

She lets go of his hand and moves towards a portrait of some stuffy dame from yesteryear. She’s slightly embarrassed by him, it’s true. And she’s not sure whether she’s right to be. She has to think about it for a while but she walks back to squeeze his hand anyway.

“The past is easier to swallow when you realise how unchangeable it is, that’s certain,” she says, trying to be positive.

They’re near the exit now. She’s going to collect her bag and jump on a nearby tram.

“Why don’t you give me a call tomorrow? Maybe stamp out a melody on your big unwieldy phone.”

He smiles and doesn’t say anything. Maybe she’s too harsh - his brain is probably jelly after that delayed entry back to normal non-New-York hours.

“I’m curious as to how you will be tomorrow,” she says. Then she decides to be generous: “Don’t worry, I’m using the future tense, so it means I still want to see you.”

And right then, she lets go of his hand and heads towards the bag-check.