Saturday September 1st

A bell was clanging in my head. I attempted to open my eyes. The operation met with limited success.

I tried again. The clanging continued. It was coming from downstairs, I realised.

I crawled downstairs and opened the door. Dylan was there. With Sophie

‘Brian, we’ve been waiting outside for ages,’ she said.

‘I . . .’ My voice trailed off because I couldn’t think of any more words.

‘Can I come in for a few minutes? We need to talk.’

I made a vague invitational gesture and they came inside. I noticed them both appraising the empty bottles and cans strewn across the kitchen floor. Dylan went into the sitting room to stroke the cat while I stayed with Sophie in the kitchen and watched as she made tea.

She started talking about their plans. My mind wandered back and forth as she spoke but I heard the key words: America – January – Stuart. They were followed by vague reassurances about the future: Cheap flights – Holidays – Skype. But I’d almost stopped listening by that stage.

I hadn’t spoken a single word throughout. Sophie thought it best perhaps if Dylan didn’t stay with me today. She understood that this would be a shock for me. It was a lot to absorb in one go. She wondered whether it might be helpful for me to talk to somebody about my problems. A professional. She knew that I didn’t really like talking about things but, who knows, it might be of some use.

I continued to sit in silence, heard them leave.

Sunday September 2nd

This month’s book may have been The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde but it was The Pictures of Toby Salt that were foremost on display as I made my way around the bookshop. There were posters everywhere, advertising the launch of This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave on Thursday.

I did my best to lock up the picture of his stupid face in the attic of my mind and focus on the rest of my shopping: Chatterton by Peter Ackroyd; Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson; A Time to Kill by John Grisham; In Cold Blood by Truman Capote; Murder Most Vile: 18 Shocking True Crime Murder Cases; and, because it was on special offer at the till, The Little Book of Hugs.

Monday September 3rd

My unsuitability for employment knows no bounds; I am a jack of no trades and a master of none. The rejection letters keep flooding in. Four more today, including this one from the University of Oxford:

Re: Your Application for the Position of Oxford Professor of Poetry

Dear Brian,

Thank you for applying / I hope you don’t find this too distressful / but your application was unsuccessful / Your verse is unsatisfactory to the nth degree / a cross between a dog’s dinner and a catastrophe / It’s the kind of drivelling doggerel / more suited to a sheet of bog roll / Your villanelles are vile / your haikus quite hopeless / your sonnets have as much class as soap-on-a-rope. Yes / and I’m afraid your ballads are bollocks / We wish you suffered from more writer’s blocks.

You write about buses and bin bags and crocs / you think you’re profound but you’re actually pro-lost. / And as for your poems on Clarkson, they’re close to litigious. / On the plus side, your spelling’s quite good / and your output’s prodigious.

Yours sincerely,

Professor A. P. Brearley

In other news, Toby Salt has tweeted that he has been appointed Poet-in-Residence for the BBC.

Tuesday September 4th

Thief

You caught me stealing a glance at you.

Ordered me to empty out my pockets.

I shook my booty onto the table:

a swiped charge card,

a nose I’d pinched,

one poached egg,

a ruler (half-inched),

a gaze I’d shifted,

some spirits lifted,

and selected other stolen moments.

You told me to stop thieving

and start behaving.

Fat chance.

I’ve even nicked myself

shaving.

Oh, what have I done? What on earth possessed me to do it? All is lost, irretrievably! I am cast out! I am forsaken!

I had meant to pay it back. It was only a temporary measure until I was back on my feet. There were yurts and holidays and all those books to pay for, and as soon as I’d landed a job or earned some money from my funeral poems, I was going to put that £10,000 back. With interest, probably. Everyone would have been happy. I didn’t think this would happen. Not this.

I thought the response to my poems had been more muted than usual. I sat back down to silence. Mary was the first to break it:

‘Where’s the money gone, Brian?’ she hissed. All eyes were on me.

‘I don’t – I don’t know what you mean?’ I stammered.

‘Yes, you do. Our money. Our battlefields money. I checked the account and it’s all gone.’

‘Oh, that money!’ I replied, thinking how I might calm the situation down. ‘Dr Miller needed it. To sort out all the payments and everything.’

‘I’ve spoken to Dr Miller already,’ she said, stonily. I stared down at my pistachios, knowing the game was up. ‘He’s been trying to get in touch with you since April. He’s not received a penny from you.’

I glanced up. Mary was furious. Liz had turned away in disgust. Kaylee looked as if she was going to thump me. Disappointment dripped from Chandrima’s eyes.

I tried to explain but Chandrima interrupted me before I’d even got as far as the yurt.

‘I think it is best if you leave, Brian.’

‘And don’t reel your ugly head in here again,’ said Kaylee, ‘except to give us our money back, you stupid, pathetic, self-centred mother—’

I was out the door before she’d finished so I had no idea how her sentence ended.

My sentence was just beginning.

Wednesday September 5th

not a poem

this is not a poem

only a combination of words

broken up in such a way to make

you think it is

spacing is important

as is the series of

line breaks

that I have skilfully

manoeuvred on the page (note, too, the absence of

upper-case characters

see how

they make it seem

deeper somehow)

it is still not a poem, though

enough of this now

What the hell is poetry anyhow? The tearing open of a heart? The baring of a soul? The sharing of a universe? Or is it all mere posture and pantomime?

Ask someone who cares.

I have far more important things to think about.

I am thinking about how I have been cast out.

I am thinking about how all I hold dear is slipping away from me.

I am thinking about everything that has led me to this point.

And I am thinking about Toby Salt.

And I am thinking about when to do it and where to do it.

And I am thinking about how it might be done.

 

September 6th to September 16th deleted.

Monday September 17th

Nothing to See Here

I was carefully coating my life

with a thick layer of creosote,

when – suddenly – out of the blue,

nothing much happened of note.

Life somehow got back to normal,

its rhythms flat and mundane,

but one evening – to my surprise –

nothing much happened again.

Now they come with endless abandon –

I’m spinning around like a top –

all these incessant non-happenings.

Oh, how I wish they would stop.

Nothing much to report today. Just like yesterday and all the days before.

I absolutely did not go out to the shed again.

Tuesday September 18th

An awful night’s sleep. Another ghastly dream to destroy the night and haunt the day to come. I have been dragging the ghost of it around with me all day. Not as far as the shed, of course. No, not that far because I obviously didn’t go back in there today.

Wednesday September 19th

Take this Hand in Yours

Take this hand

in yours,

bury it

beneath the trees,

and I will get

the rest of him

out of the

deep freeze.

Midnight. I was in a forest, digging. Digging further and further down into the blackness. The thing I’d carried with me from the shed was lying next to the hole. It had been wrapped in an old, moth-eaten blanket. Digging. I had to keep digging. The grave needed to be deep. Deep beyond discovery. And, as I drove the spade into the soil once more, I sensed the thing beneath the blanket begin to twitch and come to life . . .

I woke up with a gasp. All further sleep was futile. I picked up The Picture of Dorian Gray to take my mind off things. It made me think of all the secrets we carry around with us and how many of them ever see the light of day.

Other people, that is. Not me. I have no secrets. I’m an open book.

I wear my heart on my sleeve.

Thursday September 20th

The Man with the Enya Tattoo

Precious, secret watermark
above my left elbow.
Your ink flows like a river,
as multi-channelled as your vocals.	Fade away, fade away, fade away . . .
My dark-haired Donegal beauty,
you’ve been mine since nineteen eighty-nine,
the year the world held its breath
at your mystical feet.	Please fade away, fade away, fade away . . .
No, of course you do not embarrass me!
I cover you up only to avoid
a chill in my upper arm.
Do not cry now. Your ink will run.	Fade away, fade away, fade away . . .
Hey, Eithne Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin!
Guess what, my pretty Celtic pixie?
The scientists have named a new species
of fish after you! In the Orinoco River!	Please fade away, fade away, fade away . . .

The rejection letters are still rumbling in; to think of all that hard labour wasted in the pursuit of gainful employment. And people wonder why I rarely roll my sleeves up!

After I didn’t go out to the shed, I checked in to Twitter for the first time in ages. My Twitter following seems to have stabilised at forty-three. I may have reached my social media pinnacle but Toby Salt hasn’t. His numbers continue to rise; he now has more than ten thousand followers, despite not having tweeted for nearly two weeks.

Perhaps, at long last, he has run out of things to say.

Friday September 21st

In Vimto Veritas

I am sorry

but I have no real ale

or genuwine left.

I would offer you

some proper tea

but all proper tea is theft.

Dave, Martin and Marvin are back. They popped round to ask whether I could lend them a teabag. We shared a pot of tea and they talked about their studies. It’s their final year, and they’re planning to really get down to things this time: no more heavy drinking, no more parties, just good old-fashioned studying. By the time they’d left and their guests had begun to arrive next door, they’d somehow managed to deprive me of the three-quarters-full bottle of red wine that was out on the kitchen table, as well as an unopened bottle of white and six beers that were in the fridge.

Saturday September 22nd

Another disturbed night filled with disquieting dreams. Even Dylan has noticed how tired I look. I was expecting another team talk from him but it seems he’s through with the whole motivational-speech business. Stuart’s unflagging positivity has really begun to irritate him, he told me. I sympathised. That kind of relentless cheeriness can wear anyone down.

We began to plan our remaining Saturdays together, while we still have them. We decided that we’d go to the zoo next week. We used to go there a lot, before the break-up with Sophie and before his childlike wonder metamorphosed into something more adolescent and moody.

Today, though, we dripped around indoors. I asked him whether there was any homework I could help him with but he said he’d rather watch a film.

We settled down to watch Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I put my arm around him. We had nothing to hold on to – except each other.

Sunday September 23rd

The deadline for this quarter’s Well Versed competition is tomorrow. The chosen topic is ‘guilt’. I sat for a few hours mulling this over before deciding to give it a miss this time around.

Monday September 24th

Où est Toby Salt? Il a disparu! Pooof!

He didn’t even make it to his own book launch, by all accounts. The assembled rabble in the bookshop that evening waited two hours for him but he never showed up. They all shuffled off home, dejectedly clutching their unsigned copies of This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave.

I discovered this upon opening the door this afternoon to a magnificent beard, beneath which was a man. The beard was vibrant, well tended, possibly perfumed: everything, in fact, that mine hadn’t been. Its owner introduced himself as DI Lansbury and then nodded at his assistant behind him, a younger, fresh-cheeked figure, who he announced as Detective Sergeant Tuck.

They were making some general enquiries of anyone who happened to have seen Toby Salt in the last month or so. His disappearance had been causing some concern although they assured me there was no reason to view it as suspicious.

I told them I hadn’t seen him since early August, the last time he’d visited Poetry Club. Sergeant Tuck scribbled this down in his notepad.

‘And you’re sure you’ve not seen him since?’ asked DI Lansbury, his beard moving effortlessly in rhythm with his jaw.

‘Absolutely,’ I replied, smiling and unblinking.

‘And can I just ask what you were doing on the evening of Thursday 6th September?’

I thought for a moment.

‘Let’s see. I think I’d have just had a quiet night in. Yes, that’s right. I remember now. I was watching Murder, She Wrote. It was the one in which she investigates the murder of a popular neighbourhood greengrocer, who was found choked to death on his own kumquats. Do you know you share your surname with Angela Lans—’

‘Yes, of course I know that,’ he snapped, with some irritation, as if this coincidence may have been mentioned to him before. ‘A night in? I don’t suppose you have any witnesses for that, do you?’

‘Um, no, I don’t. Apart from the cat.’ I laughed loudly. He didn’t join in.

‘That’s fine. Not to worry, sir. As I say, we’re just making routine enquiries. It’s not as if we’ve found a mutilated corpse, is it!’ he joked, staring intently at me.

I smiled uneasily. ‘Quite,’ I said.

‘Now Sergeant Tuck just has a few brief questions to ask you for our records.’

I helped him fill in the form, experiencing that uncomfortable feeling of exposure I somehow always get when my particulars are taken down.

Tuesday September 25th

Custard Creams: A Love Sonnet

How do I scoff thee? Let me count the ways.

I dunk thee in my morning cup of tea,

thy vanilla centre dost gladden me

and gives me strength to face the darkest days.

My hunger for thee contains no bandwidth,

we meet at breakfast and elevenses,

at three o’clock and half-past-sevenses,

divine delectable biscuit sandwich.

Thou dost pick me up whene’er I stumble.

Thou dost make me feel I’m not a misfit.

Thou art always there. Thou dost never grumble.

To be with thee, my whole life I’d risk it,

For my love for you shall never crumble,

My beloved creamy custard biscuit.

There are times when there is simply no substitute for a custard cream. These times are typically from 7am to 10pm, at the following intervals: 00, 15, 30, 45. There is something about their vanilla-custard filling and the baroque carving of the outer sandwich layers which lends itself to the practice of contemplation and study. And never had I felt more in need of them than today.

They couldn’t seriously believe that I had something to do with Toby Salt’s disappearance, could they? But there was something in DI Lansbury’s manner which suggested they did. Regardless, the main thing was to play it cool. No one was pointing their finger – not even a Rich Tea finger – at me yet.

I went out into the garden to check up on things in the shed.

Wednesday September 26th

The Picture in the Attic

I kept it in the attic –

under lock and key –

a youthful, fresh-faced picture

of who I used to be.

And this face you see before you,

I dragged around my life –

growing wrinkled, gnarled and ravaged –

for its vicissitudes were rife.

But meanwhile, in the attic,

that pure and hopeful face,

immune to life’s misfortunes,

bore not one single trace.

For years I hid it from her,

but in shame I did confess.

She listened to my story

then said, ‘That’s because it’s a photograph, you idiot.’

I hadn’t finished the book, of course, but I went anyway. I’d hoped to try and ingratiate my way back into the group through the use of some of Wildean witticisms:

‘To fail to read one book may be regarded as a misfortune; to fail to read every book looks like illiteracy.’

‘I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the bus.’

‘I can resist anything except pistachios.’

But they fell on resolutely deaf ears. The group turned to me after they’d finished their discussion. I was to be given one last chance: read next month’s book and make a proper contribution – or I was out.

The book: This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave by Toby Salt.

I stared morosely at the pub’s wallpaper. It was dreadful. One of us will have to go.

Thursday September 27th

‘I hear they’re all heading off, then?’ said Darren. We were pre-gig and for once he was not holding a big luminescent sign.

‘Yes.’ I gave him a look that suggested I didn’t want to talk about it.

‘America,’ he said, with an involuntary whistle to emphasise the enormity of the word.

I intensified my look.

‘Long way, that,’ he continued. ‘Very long way.’

‘Have you seen this guy before?’ I asked him, in an attempt to change the conversation. We were waiting for Little Floyd Wetherspoon to come on stage. He was a blues singer who was reinterpreting the genre for the modern age.

‘Still, at least it’s east coast. Three thousand two hundred and sixty-five miles to Boston, it is, or thereabouts. From Heathrow, that is.’ ‘I’ve heard Wetherspoon’s not his real name. He adopted it in an unsuccessful attempt to secure a nationwide deal with the popular pub chain of the same name.’

‘The flight time isn’t so bad,’ he mused. ‘Seven hours. But don’t forget you need to factor in all that hanging around at the airport, both sides. And then there’s the cost!’ He whistled again.

‘I don’t know for sure about the “Little Floyd” bit. But that sounds made up, too.’

‘Must be hard for you. An ocean between you and your son. A whole ocean.’

I was considering accidentally spilling my pint on him when there was some activity on stage and a man of remarkably average height and stature launched into ‘Can’t Get My Wi-Fi Working’.

The other rumour I had heard about Little Floyd Wetherspoon was that he’d sold his soul to the devil in return for the gift of the blues. I thought about the shed and whether I had left the door firmly locked and bolted behind me.

Friday September 28th

hipster cop

hipster cop

with his hipster well-cropped mutton chops

has a favourite case, for sure,

you won’t know it

it’s too obscure

hipster cop

with his hipster thrift-shop beach flipflops

rehabilitates hardened villains

he makes them listen

to early dylan

hipster cop

buys hipster chips from hip hop chip shops

gangland bosses he just don’t dig

he prefers their petty crimes

before they got big

After another troubled night, I opened the door again to DI Lansbury and Sergeant Tuck. They seemed preoccupied with the antics of Mrs McNulty, who was leaning out of her bedroom window, shouting, ‘It was him! It was him! He’s the one you want!’

I ushered the police officers inside quickly and mumbled an apology.

‘That’s just Mrs McNulty from next door!’ I told them, chuckling and shaking my head. ‘She’s such a character! Utterly bonkers, of course, but we all love her around here, the lovely crazy woman!’

I noticed DI Lansbury glance at Sergeant Tuck, who proceeded to write something in his notebook. He then asked:

‘Do you know anyone who might have wished to harm Mr Salt, sir?’

I pretended to think carefully before replying.

‘No, I don’t. Although I could think of plenty of people who might have wanted to harm his poetry!’

Neither man laughed at my joke. I could see DI Lansbury’s magnificent beard noticeably bristling.

‘How about yourself, sir? We’ve had it on good authority that you and Mr Salt had a small altercation the last time you met.’

Damn them in Poetry Club.

‘Well, I wouldn’t quite call it that. Just a mild disagreement about the nature of poetry. That kind of thing happens all the time amongst poets. We’re a passionate lot!’

He looked back at me, considering this statement.

‘So it would appear, sir. If anything does occur to you, then please don’t hesitate in giving us a call, will you? We’re beginning to think that Mr Salt’s absence may have been of a rather more permanent nature that we had originally thought.’

They left. Next door, Mrs McNulty was busy unfurling a bedsheet from her bedroom window, on which she’d written ‘HELP! I AM LIVING NEXT DOOR TO A MURDERER’ in red marker pen.

Saturday September 29th

Arklife

Competence was my reference as the scriptural voyager

on what is known as – Arklife!

And the monkey coop can be avoided if you take a route

straight through what is known as – Arklife!

Shem’s got puma poop, he gets intimidated by the dirty chickens

They love a bit of it – Arklife!

What’s that buzzard starting?

You should cut down on your squawklife, mate. Get some exercise.

All the creatures, so many creatures

They all go two by two,

two by two through their Arklife.

Know what I mean.

I get up when I want except on Wednesdays

when I get rudely awakened by the bison – Arklife!

I put on my apron, inspect myself for fleas,

and I think about lemurs and cows – Arklife!

I feed birds, fish, insects. I also feed the mammals, too,

it gives me a sense of enormous well-being – Arklife!

And then I’m happy for the rest of the day,

safe in the knowledge that I’ve remembered

to feed the unicorns at the end of it.

All the creatures, so many creatures

They all go two by two,

two by two through their Arklife.

Know what I mean.

It’s got nothing to do with your horse dung durch technik, you know.

And it’s not about you goldfish, who go round and round and round.

Our day at the zoo passed in a blur. We lingered with the lions, hung out with the Humboldt penguins, loitered splendidly with the slender lorises, lounged languidly with the langurs, moseyed with Geoffrey’s marmosets (Geoffrey didn’t seem to mind) and tarried with the tamarins.

We had hoped to see the silverback gorilla but he stayed in his enclosure all day, watching re-runs of Taggart on his television. I shook my head. Imagine a majestic creature wasting its life in such a way!

On the bus back, I asked Dylan about how he was feeling about America.

‘I don’t want to go,’ he said, turning his head to look out the window.

‘But won’t it be exciting? You’ve always wanted to go there.’

‘Only to visit, not to live. All my friends are here. I won’t know anyone.’ He pressed his head against the glass.

‘Oh, you’ll soon make friends,’ I said. ‘Lots of them. Never forget the hold an English accent has over an American.’

‘But they won’t be the same as my friends here. Everything will be different.’ He paused to reflect a moment. ‘They don’t even put an “s” on the end of “maths”.’

‘Well, that’s because they need it to put on the end of “sports”.’

Dylan smiled briefly.

‘Ah, yes. Of course. But you know what I mean.’

‘I do. Believe me, I do. I know it can be hard to make friends. Change is difficult. But it’ll be an adventure, too. Sometimes shaking things up is good. You don’t want to spend your life being dictated to by the waste-collection schedule. Or when your next book group meeting is. Don’t measure out your life in coffee spoons!’

‘Or in Wetherspoons.’

‘That’s true enough. I guess what I’m saying is . . . just don’t end up being a nobody like me, that’s all. You’re young and clever, funny and kind. Do something with your life. Be a somebody!’

‘That sounds like the kind of thing Stuart would say. Anyway, you are a somebody,’ he protested. ‘You’re my dad! And besides, I’d much rather end up like you than Stuart.’

‘I should think so, too,’ I said, managing to restrain myself from high-fiving all the other passengers. ‘I like to think that if I’ve taught you anything at all, it’s to maintain a healthy suspicion of anyone who wilfully chooses to play The Best of Huey Lewis and the News in public.’

Dylan smiled again and we settled back into thoughtful silence while the seats around us slowly emptied and we waited for our stop to come.

Sunday September 30th

Last Night, Sleepwalking . . .

I broke my arm

when I fell off a fence.

Got taken off

in a somnambulance.

Dave brought me back inside at 4am. He was smoking in his garden when he heard a noise from over the fence. He peered over and saw me in my dressing gown. I was talking to someone inside my writing shed, as I rattled the door and angrily fumbled with my keys. He told me all this after he’d guided me back to my kitchen and made me a cup of tea.

Stress and anxiety can contribute to sleepwalking, according to Dave, and he advised me to take it easy. He says Mrs McNulty thinks it has more to do with the presence of a full moon but we agreed that seems unlikely.