A Funny Way To Die

A Funny Way To Die

Celia Sedgeton-Beuleigh lived and died for Art. I first met her as a beautiful young debutante in the Twenties when she graced the society events of the English aristocracy. She had been accepted by St. Martin's College of Art. She was clever, modern independent and I was in love with her, but then so was every other young man about town. Of course she knew this and enjoyed a certain skill at keeping admirers in their place. When I asked her if she liked me she said I was sweet, so sweet in fact that she would call me pudding and, from that day on, she did.

We lost touch when she travelled to Paris where she was rumoured to have shared a special relationship with Picasso, modelled for Braque and inspired Dali. When she returned to London nine years later she became a key member of the Kensington Set, that select group of high-brow bohemians who arbitrated the cultural tastes of the early thirties. To my distress at the age of thirty one she married acclaimed artist Sir Hilary Gilbert, leader of the Post-Futurist Brotherhood movement and author of the influential philosophical treatise “The persistence of transience/concrete perception”. Together they reigned as the royalty of the London Art world. She had made a name for herself as a sculptress and was exhibited at the Royal Society of Art. I was merely a struggling musician but I was invited to many of the parties they threw at their large house in Chiswick as Celia loved to hear her Pudding play rag-time piano. These were lavish affairs, attended by the big names in the Art establishment, nobility and celebrities of all kinds.
It was at the last of these parties when the first of series of unfortunate events overtook what till then had seemed a charmed life for Celia. The hour was late and the atmosphere was gay. The guests were liberally helping themselves to the contents of Sir Hilary’s wine cellar, the servants having been dismissed to spare embarrassment or awkward gossip. Sir Hilary was enjoying himself immensely, entertaining a young Hollywood actress by pretending to be a wild boar when he accidentally killed himself by pushing his face into a trifle and choking on a raspberry.

As the ambulance took his body away I sat with Celia who was obviously in shock moaning repeatedly, “A raspberry! A raspberry!”

The second, unfortunate event occurred at Sir Hilary’s burial service. Lady Margaret Gilbert, sister to the deceased, overcome with grief, fainted into the open grave and broke her skull on the mahogany coffin-lid. The incident was briefly reported in her Obituary in the Times, the record noting that she had died immediately and was buried a week later four feet to the left.

Emotionally fragile Celia moved from London to a smaller house in Devon near to her parent’s estate. At first she walked on the moors alone everyday for hours. Her family became so concerned about her mental health that they persuaded Alice, her younger sister, to walk with her. Alice’s companionship gently helped her through those days of grief and Celia began to take enjoyment in the natural beauty of the landscape. She painted and sculpted and her reputation as an artist grew. I hope you won’t think me uncharitable when I say I suspect partially as a result of the increase fame bought about by London gossip concerning the notorious manner of the deaths of her husband and sister-in-law.

I went to visit her after she had been down in Devon for a couple of years. Uncharacteristically, she had sent me a short letter inviting me down to stay. Despite its brevity there was enough in the letter to convey a sense that all was not well. I packed enough clothes for a week and set off immediately.

When I arrived Celia was sitting in the garden. She looked worn and tired. As she saw me approach her eyes brimmed with tears.

“Whatever is the matter?” I asked before even saying hello.

“Oh Pudding, It’s happened again,” she sobbed.
“What’s happened?”

“My sister, Alice. She’s dead!”

“Oh Celia, I’m so sorry.” I said “How did it happen?” I said sitting beside her.

At this she broke into a long wail which trailed off into loud sobs. Then suddenly the crying stopped.

“You are going to think terribly of me Pudding” she said matter-of-factly. “Thinking of myself at a time like this, but you see I’m so terribly mixed up about everything. I mean after poor Hilary going in such a horrible way with the raspb… and then the dreadful thing with Margaret and the grave and now…”

“Now what?” I said.

“Well, you mustn’t think I’m being beastly, but you see I can hardly bring myself to tell you how poor Alice… It’s so.. So ridiculous” again she broke into sobs. I put my hand on her shoulder. The first time I had touched her I think.

“Oh Pudding where is the dignity?” she wailed “Surely that is not too much to ask is it? That at the end of our lives we leave with just a little decorum.”

Not really knowing how to respond I said comfortingly, “I’m sure Alice is in a state of Grace.”

Celia shook her head angrily. “She was sat on by a cow! Crushed by careless cattle. How much grace is there in that?” she spat in disgust. A coldness came into her eyes “I won’t have it!” she said defiantly “I won’t go in such a pathetic way. I’ll go on my own terms. My death will not be a joke. I refuse to be run over by an ambulance or be burned alive in a fatal fondue accident” she was shouting angrily and shrugged my hand from her shoulder. She slumped with her head in her hand.

“I have devoted my life to Art,” she said, “I have no children. My art is my legacy. I can’t bear the thought that when I’m gone, someone will mention my name, and instead of realising what I have achieved, say ‘Oh yes, what a funny way to die!’.

A sudden change in her posture and demeanour signalled some realisation. Her lips pursed in a determined way. She nodded a confirmation of whatever decision she was formulating. “On my own terms.” She said grimly. Then she turned back to me and patted my hand. “Thank you for coming,” she said, “You have been such a help. Goodbye Pudding dear.” Then she stood up and walked into the house leaving me just enough time to run for the last train back to London.

Now forty years later I stand before the memorial she created for herself, a white monolith of carved marble standing forty feet high on a Dartmoor peak. Inscribed in the stone are four words; “On my own terms”. Standing back to look at the smoothly curving form of the giant phallus at which she laboured for six years I wonder if her resolution to determine the manner of her own death was born on that day I visited her in the garden. .

Certainly it was soon afterwards that she became notoriously eccentric in her behavior and fanatically driven in her work which became infamous for its obsessive focus on life, death and legacy. The following decades saw her work become darker and more introverted. Francis Bacon famously described her sculptures as "frighteningly fearful".

In the hedonistic sixties whilst the rest of contemporary art toyed playfully with the boundaries between art and ephemeral pop culture Celia was caught in a self-imposed duty of transforming her life into a solemn and revered memory. Her mission, to bequeath to the world a respected and admired inheritance

Her fixation on the theme of mortality led her to adopt a private and obscure personal symbolism in which the male member came to represent not only life but the negation of death. And so it is that I stand on this windswept peak before her magnum opus, eighteen tons of marble carved into the form of a huge penis which Celia had endowed upon the world as testament to her lifelong devotion to the enrichment of humankind.

It is heartbreaking that this woman, once so full of promise and talent, became so frightened and twisted by circumstances. It is ironic that she became so fearful of her death and so obsessed with her legacy that she lost perspective on both her art and her life and it is tragic that, on the historic occasion that this monolithic memorial was erected under her supervision, it toppled on top of her.