Sunday July 1st
Audley End
Yes, I remember Audley End –
The name intrigued me, I don’t know why,
As the train pulled up beside it.
It was the first day of July.
The doors beeped. An announcement
Was made. I stepped down from the train,
Unwittingly. The sign I saw
Said Audley End – only its name
Was then followed by other words,
Ones to strike a note of caution.
Five words to fill a heart with dread:
Alight here for Saffron Walden.
And, for that minute, a church bell tolled,
Close by, and round it, clangier,
Louder and louder, all the bells
Of Essex and East Anglia.
It being one of those uncommonly pleasant and sunny English days, I decided to take myself off upon a train journey. The destination was irrelevant; what counted was the time to sit and reflect, to watch the countryside rattle by from the window of my three-quarters-empty train.
Two and a half unwonten hours later, I got off in search of air. The station was called ‘Audley End’ and seemed as good a place of disembarkation as any other. It was only having strolled to the end of the platform and read the poster pinned to the white lattice fence that I recalled the station was but a short stroll to Saffron Walden where, it appeared, a Poetry Festival was about to begin. What a stroke of luck! I’d forgotten all about this event, but there were some excellent poets on the bill (as well as some awful, pretentious ones).
I checked into the hotel on the high street and unpacked the clean shirt and cardigan that I’d carefully folded and placed in my suitcase last night, hanging them in the wardrobe to prevent further crumpling.
Monday July 2nd
Saffron Hall was busier than I’d imagined. Some ticketing issue with one of the more interesting, popular poets, I supposed, had meant that festival visitors had been given some free tickets to Toby Salt’s talk instead. I squeezed in at the back of the auditorium, hidden beneath my balaclava.
A rather weaselly man with a goatee beard and nasal condition introduced Toby Salt. This was Django, editor and owner of Shooting from the Hip. He described Toby Salt as ‘one of this country’s finest poets’. I was thankful that my balaclava muffled my laughter.
Toby Salt began, as he invariably does, with a Petrarchan sonnet. It concerned itself with human fragility and the restorative power of Lake Como. I concerned myself with the crossword which I had brought with me to fill just such moments of tedium. I fished out my dictionary to check my answer to 17 down:
NUDNIK (noun): a tiring, dull or boring person.
As I was pencilling it in, I noticed that the rest of the audience, rather than staring embarrassedly at their shoes or gazing blankly into the mid-distance, appeared to be actually enjoying this stuff. A lengthy exploration in free verse on the nature of hermeneutics was greeted with a ripple of warm applause. There were gasps and strangled cries at his graphic retelling of the story of the Rape of the Sabine Women. Selected readings from his advance proof copy of This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave, which he shook in the air like a TV evangelist, provoked tears, laughter, melancholic reflection and a thunderous response from the audience.
And it was then, amidst the sighs and swoons, the squeals and the whoops, that I saw Liz. She was gazing up at him, with an expression paused somewhere between unexpected admiration and unbounded wonder. I scrambled blindly to my feet, and out of the auditorium, my mind reeling with its imprint of her beautiful, treacherous face.
Tuesday July 3rd
Somehow, I took the first train of the day out of Audley End. To distract me from myself, I attempted to write a poem about the view from my carriage window:
A pylon looms up suddenly like a sini-
Two birds puncture the early morning blue as th-
Cows stare into the distance and wonde-
Fields sleep drowsily, waiting for-
Buddleia bubbles up along the tr-
A woman waves at her youn-
Some buildings.
Graffitti.
King’s Cross Railway Station.
It was no use. The world was passing me by too fast and everything was hopeless.
Wednesday July 4th
I had a dream that I’d murdered Toby Salt.
Liz was running a workshop on how to lay out a newspaper. We were looking at text alignment and I was experiencing some difficulties with a ragged right side. Toby Salt began to mock me.
I’d always been a marginal figure, he said. I should climb back into the gutter where I belonged.
Liz laughed at his awful puns. I flushed angrily, then proceeded to bludgeon him with the keyboard from an old nineteenth-century Linotype machine.
I ran out into the street in panic and bumped straight into a newspaper seller, who was brandishing the evening edition. I stared at the headline: ‘POET FOUND MURDERED!’. The front page had been printed in red ink. I inspected it more closely. It wasn’t red ink, it was blood. It looked like poet’s blood.
I woke up with a shudder and consulted my Dream Dictionary. But there was nothing in it about Linotype machines and so I am none the wiser as to what it all might mean.
Thursday July 5th
My phone buzzed. There was a message from Liz:
Are you around for a drink tonight?
We need to talk.
I need to know where we stand.
I felt like responding that I knew exactly where she had been standing, i.e. next to Toby Salt at an inexplicably oversubscribed poetry reading in Saffron Walden. But I restrained myself; I am not one to bear grudges. My reply was measured and courteous:
Can’t make tonight.
There is an old episode of A Touch of Frost on ITV4
that I’m planning to watch.
There were no further messages from Liz so I can only assume that has drawn a line under the matter.
Friday July 6th
I nearly forgot about bin day! The distant rumble of the lorry woke me up and I jumped out of bed in horror. I got my bags out just as the bin men were pulling up in front of Mrs McNulty’s house. The Man at Number 29 had his bags neatly stacked outside and awaiting collection.
I went back inside and attempted to write a poem; an exercise in futility, as it turned out, as I was interrupted constantly. Every five minutes or so, I would be forced to check my phone only to discover that – yet again – there was no message from Liz. She kept up this stream of non-communications through the day. It was very infuriating. After many hours of this, I looked down to see the unripened fruits of my labours: a sequence of discarded first lines and no more.
I put them in a drawer where I keep all the abandoned first lines of poems I shall never write. Perhaps one day I shall make a book out of them.
Index of First Lines
| Also, I am bleeding profusely so please stay for a while .......... | 8 |
| Carter called again today, enquiring of his ladder ..................... | 22 |
| For that was the winter we listened to Enya ............................... | 31 |
| her eyes were a question mark, her mouth a semi-colon .......... | 36 |
| I am a bowl, chipped at the rim .................................................... | 43 |
| I remembered Newport Pagnell and wept ................................... | 5 |
| I see you forgot the fabric softener again ................................... | 25 |
| In the vacuum between when and how, I squat ............................ | 3 |
| Me and you in matching tank tops ............................................... | 39 |
| Oi Oi! ............................................................................................. | 78 |
| Our love is a broken oatcake ....................................................... | 61 |
| Please don’t do that, it’s disgusting ............................................ | 27 |
| She loved his unfinished similes like ......................................... | 52 |
| That, my dear, is a diphthong ........................................................ | 73 |
| The sky is darkening and yet the dove ......................................... | 11 |
| Today, we shall make strudel ........................................................ | 4 |
| Whither the hair tongs? I have seen them not ............................. | 19 |
Saturday July 7th
I opened the door to Dylan. Standing next to him was a man clad in Lycra. He looked to be in his late thirties. His jawline was chiselled and his cheekbones delicately planed. He was as healthy as an Alp and wore the look of somebody who knew his way around a velodrome.
‘Brian!’ he exclaimed. ‘Stuart! Stuart Mould!’ He pointed to himself then reached forward and shook my hand before I had the chance to withdraw it. I could sense him taking in my shabby tartan dressing gown and Mr Men mule slippers.
‘Sophie sends her apols but she’s got a few things on – haven’t we all! – and said you wouldn’t mind if I brought Dylan over for once! Sometimes you just gotta be pragmatic! That which works, works!’
He looked at me expectantly for a response. I silently willed him to go away.
‘Err . . . anyway, Bri, I’ve got an eighty-mile bike ride ahead of me! Fundraiser for Syrian orphans! You know how it is! So great to meet you at last! Absolutely love those slippers!’
He bounced off down the path. I went back inside to Dylan.
‘How do you put up with it?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied glumly. I realised that it had been several weeks since I’d heard Dylan mutter a single inspirational quote. There was hope for him yet.
Sunday July 8th
This month’s book is The End of the Affair by Graham Greene.
I have decided not to return to Bloomer’s, having taken something of a dislike to the shop after receiving a rather brusque letter concerning my overdue payment for Robinson Crusoe.
It felt good to be back in the bookshop on the high street although, as is customary, I came away with rather more than I’d intended: Carson McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter; Elizabeth Smart’s By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept; Harold Pinter’s Betrayal; Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness; and John Gray’s Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.
I also bought a book entitled Deaths of the Poets. This was a rather morbid exploration of the stories behind the demise of famous poets: Dylan Thomas and his eighteen straight whiskies, Sylvia Plath and her Primrose Hill gas oven, John Berryman and his leap into the frozen Mississippi, and so on. It is grisly but fascinating! Who’d have thought there could be so many ways for a poet to snuff it?
Monday July 9th
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The arrival of Well Versed – The Quarterly Magazine for the Discerning Poet becomes more foreboding every quarter and today’s issue was no exception. My poem was unplaced, as per usual. And there, of course, was the competition winner, Toby Salt, with the latest impenetrable example of his inexorably rising star.
1905
Порви все портреты, rage, my comrades / place the telephone back upon its cradle / I spent these years waiting for you / like the crocodile who basks / inside the handbag / fashioned from its own hide! / The walls are crumbling now / Even Mme. Vissilovich knows that / She with her head full of wool / and her hands that are never still / Hush! царские солдаты идут / It is safe here / inside the past / where the future cannot find fault / Safe behind this barricade / of paper/ Watch how it burns! / This paper / These walls that crumble / The future that turns in / upon itself / And the bear who weeps / his tears of iron.
What on earth does all this mean? Even the boffins at Bletchley Park would be baffled. Toby Salt’s prize is a hamper from Fortnum and Mason. I hope he chokes on his salted caramel Florentines. He will be even more insufferable than usual at Poetry Club tomorrow. Beautiful, funny, perfidious Liz will be there, too. I don’t think I’ll go.
Tuesday July 10th
I went. I was persuaded by a news item this morning which suggests that people who read and listen to poetry are likely to live longer than those who don’t. Poetry reduces stress levels, researchers claimed; its rhythms and cadences alleviate high blood pressure. My own experience seemed to contradict this but I may be the exception that proves the rule. In the absence of any other discernible lifestyle choices regarding healthy living, I decided to brave it.
Fortunately, Toby Salt wasn’t there. He was being interviewed on the radio. I hope the listeners were warned that exposure to his poetry may result in dizziness, diarrhoea and vomiting. In his absence, he’d given Mary some invitations to hand out for the launch of his This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave next month. I crumpled mine up in my cardigan pocket.
Liz and I didn’t exchange a single word all evening. I thought her poems lacked their usual fizz and heady allure. I tossed off a light-hearted piece about the pain of betrayal and rejection, but my heart wasn’t really in it either.
After we’d all had our turn, we sat down to discuss arrangements for the Poets on the Western Front trip, which is now only three months away. Mary took the chair.
‘First up, finances,’ she said. ‘Brian, how much have we raised?’
I consulted my notebook. ‘We now have £9,855.27 in the bank.’
Kaylee whistled. ‘That’s ten grand, to all intensive purposes,’ she said, impressed.
‘Yes, but don’t forget that nearly half of that is ring-fenced for Dr Miller and his expenses,’ I said.
‘And have you been in touch with him to finalise the itinerary?’ Mary asked.
‘Not yet, I’m afraid,’ I said. ‘I’ve been very busy recently. But I’ll get that done by next month’s meeting – things are easing up.’ I glanced at Liz. ‘Some of my previous commitments have reneged on me.’ I was struck by a pistachio shell.
Mary quickly moved the agenda on.
‘Chandrima and Kaylee,’ she said, ‘you had something to share with us all.’
‘We’ve put together a suggested reading list for the trip,’ explained Chandrima, pulling some sheets of paper out from her bag. ‘Kaylee has organised the books and poems by theme.’
I glanced at the headings: Imperialism and Jingoism. The Exploitation of the Working Classes. Women to the Rescue! Death and Futility.
‘That should be very helpful. Thanks very much to both of you,’ said Mary. ‘Anything else from anyone?’
Douglas put his hand up.
‘I was wondering,’ he said, a little bashfully, ‘whether it might be a good idea for us to dress up as infantrymen while we’re over there – in order to experience at first-hand what life would have been like for the poets in the trenches.’
After some discussion the idea was vetoed, although Douglas was granted the concession of being allowed to wear a Brodie helmet for the duration of the tour.
Wednesday July 11th
I have now had time to reflect upon developments over the last few weeks – or ‘Saffrongate’ (as I inwardly refer to it). I must admit to being surprised – and, frankly, a little disappointed – to see Liz there, hanging on Toby Salt’s every word. Things between us had been going along so promisingly up until ‘Shedgate’ (as I inwardly refer to it) but I wonder now, in hindsight, whether the breakneck pace of our affair had frightened her.
We are all free to make our own choices, however – no matter how stupid and ghastly they may be (and it is hard to think of a choice that is stupider or ghastlier). Regardless, I’m not the kind of person to harbour ill-feelings even if it does seem as if I’ve been led up the garden path (and all the way to ‘Gardengate’, as I inwardly refer to it).
But if there’s one thing I refuse to do, it’s to dwell on such matters. Yes, sure, Liz and I had some good times but that’s all in the past now. I need to look forward, not back. It’s time to move on.
Thursday July 12th
I was spending the morning busily moving on when I came across a playlist that I’d compiled for Liz. It had taken me days to put together. I’d planned to send it to her weeks ago but had never quite got around to finishing it.
I consider myself something of an expert in such matters, regarding the playlist as one of the most powerful weapons in my armoury of love. Years ago, it was a series of perfectly constructed compilation cassettes that were able to break down Sophie’s defences. It’s not simply a case of bunging one song down after another and hoping for the best. Each track needs to be carefully deliberated over and assessed, appraised for content, fit and flow. Every song choice represents a tiny glass fragment of your inner self; put them all together and the playlist becomes a window into one’s soul.
I could have spent the whole day listening to it while staring dejectedly out of the window. But, having moved on from Liz and the whole Saffrongate thing, I didn’t do that at all.
Friday July 13th
I was staring dejectedly out the window, listening to a playlist, when the doorbell rang. It was Mrs McNulty in a state of some excitement. She’d come over to inform me that my cat has been possessed.
‘Possessed?’
‘Yes. By an evil spirit. Or maybe just by another cat.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I saw her today in the garden and she’s not herself. Just look at her!’
I looked at the cat. She looked very much like my cat, asleep.
‘I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.’
‘My point exactly. That’s what she was doing.’
‘I thought you said she was possessed by an evil spirit or another cat?’
‘Well, the evil spirit might belong to a dog. Or a cat with a sense of mischief.’
I remembered it was Friday the 13th. Mrs McNulty gets even crazier on such days. I ushered her out of the house with a hasty promise that I’d look into the matter in hand before she called the RSPCA or a priest.
Saturday July 14th
Dylan and I heard the VW Beetle sound its customary parp as it rounded the corner and Dave, Martin and Marvin were gone, leaving behind a trail of beer cans, cymbals and surgical gloves in their wake.
We went back inside and I saw Dylan surveying the mess in the sitting room: the carpet was covered with records, most of which had been left out of their sleeves and were covered in cat hair; on the sofa lay plates of half-eaten food and empty tubs of houmous; piles of books towered precariously on the floor and it was clear from even the briefest of glances that a number of titles on the bookshelves themselves had fallen out of ISBN order; custard-cream crumbs were everywhere, having settled on the room like a layer of biscuity dandruff.
Dylan sat me down and gave me a talking to. He’s worried about me, he says. Even Mum is worried about me, he says. I have lots to be positive about, he says. I need to think about all the good things around me, he says, and talks about my poems and the cat and how much he enjoys our Saturdays together. Most importantly, he says, I mustn’t stop hoping.
He has written me a poem. It’s called ‘Hope on a Rope’. He asked if he could include it in my diary. I watched him quietly as he wrote it down:
If you don’t
want to lose hope,
tie it to a rope and pull
yourself to safety. Because
hope has the power to lift
you up – whether your
problems are
light or
w
e
i
g
h
t
y
Sunday July 15th
I got my house in order. For once, I did not fight the chores but embraced them with renewed vigour: laundry, ironing, vacuuming and cleaning. It was late afternoon by the time I’d finished. I sat down and picked up The End of the Affair.
And I read it. Not quite all of it but, by the time I turned out the light, I was within whistling distance of the final page.
Monday July 16th
The cat has gone missing. I was reflecting on all the progress I’d made yesterday when I realised that it was achieved with – or perhaps, because of – the absence of cat. I rattled her food bowl at regular intervals throughout the day but with no success. I have checked all her usual sleeping places. I must confess that I am worried; this is not like her at all.
In brighter news, I have finished reading The End of the Affair. This month, I will actually be going to book group having read the book!
Tuesday July 17th
It’s my birthday on Friday. Most years I do what I can to avoid it, shunning all human contact three days before and after its occurrence. But this year, in an attempt to re-establish my life on a more positive footing, I’ve decided to grasp it by the celebratory nettle and host a small party.
I have sent invitations out to Mary, Chandrima, Kaylee, Douglas, Darren, Tomas, Mrs McNulty, Dylan and the Man at Number 29. I also wrote an invitation out to Liz but then thought better of it, scrunched it up and threw it in the bin: there is only so much that my new growth mindset can withstand. I would have invited Toby Salt but the party invitations came in a pack of ten and I’d run out by the time I got to him.
There’s still no sign of the cat. I do hope she returns in time for the party. She would feel sad to have missed out on the opportunity of all those fresh laps.
Wednesday July 18th
I went to ask Mrs McNulty whether she’d seen my cat. She was in the middle of vehement denial of any involvement in its disappearance, when I noticed a piece of paper pinned to a door off her hallway. On it was written “EXORCISE ROOM” in shaky felt-tip pen.
‘I didn’t know you had a gym, Mrs McNulty,’ I said, striding past her and following the steps down into her cellar.
And there was my cat, surrounded by candles on top of a wooden crucifix-shaped table. She was fast asleep and smelt of sage. Beside her was a book entitled Spiritual Warfare: A User’s Manual, with the pages open at some kind of prayer or incantation.
I picked up the cat, went back up the stairs and confronted Mrs McNulty.
‘What have you been doing to her?’
Mrs McNulty fiddled distractedly with the umbrella stand in her hallway.
‘MRS McNULTY!?’
‘Let’s just say she’ll be having no more problems with evil spirits,’ she declared, winking and tapping her nose, before proclaiming triumphantly: ‘There’ll be no more barking from her!’
I held onto the cat tightly and hurried out the door. If anyone was barking, it was Mrs McNulty.
Thursday July 19th
I have received six items of post today, all of them bills. Among them was a reminder from Bloomer’s about my outstanding payment for Robinson Crusoe and an invoice from the hotel in Saffron Walden for undeclared mini-bar items from my final evening there. I fail to understand how the invoice can be so big when the fridge had seemed so small.
I put the invoices under my bed in a box with all the other ones and got on instead with my party preparations.
Friday July 20th
Birthday Party, Alone
Wearing my most daring tank top,
I arrived downstairs fashionably late,
at a quarter to eight;
the invitations that I forgot to send out
some days before
clearly stated it was to begin at 7:34.
I put on ‘Russians’ by Sting.
It wasn’t long before the party
was in full swing.
Hanging out in the kitchen
with the Cheese Singles
I met the Pringles,
whom I thought delightful,
far better company than the rather nonchalant
wild mushroom vol-au-vents.
Six skittish tins of Fosters enticed me
to play a game of Hold the Parcel
(forty-two minutes – a new record),
Musical Statues (until I got cramp
attempting to out-statue a Victorian floor lamp),
and finally, Sardine,
in which I hid in the airing cupboard
for three days, on an inexpertly folded sheet
until I found myself.
Nobody came, of course. The list of excuses seemed entirely valid: Mary had her grandchildren visiting; Kaylee was at a talk on domestic abuse; Chandrima had judo; Darren, salsa; Tomas was giving a lecture on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations; Mrs McNulty was off to the bingo; the man at Number 29 dropped a note through my letter box to tell me he was going to be away on a course on effective planning and could I put his recycling out. Dylan rang to wish me a happy birthday, at least, but then apologised for not being able to make it. It is also Stuart’s birthday today, apparently, and Sophie had got them all tickets to a new West End musical.
It was only Douglas that I felt disappointed with. He didn’t even bother to tell me that he couldn’t make it.
As I sat beneath the disco ball in my shed, my growth mindset felt itself under severe pressure once more. But, thanks to a combination of vol-au-vents, cheap lager and The End of the Affair (which I have begun to re-read) I powered through. On reflection, this constitutes one of my more successful birthdays of recent years.
Saturday July 21st
Even my Saturday newspaper contains added Salt. He gazes smugly out at me from the Literature & Culture section, as he shares with the world what he’ll be reading on his holiday this summer. What a pretentious selection of books! They should put signs up on whatever Mediterranean beach he’ll be lying on:
‘READ AT YOUR OWN RISK’
‘SLIPPERY METAPHORS’
‘BEWARE: SUBMERGED MEANING’
They’re not for the likes of me. I’ll follow my usual practice of leaving my reading to the lottery of a holiday cottage bookshelf: all those potboilers, page-turners and bodice-rippers, with their pages crimpled from sun-cream and god knows what other kinds of liquids.
Dylan is off to Marbella for two weeks with Sophie and Stuart over the summer. I’d originally had hopes of something grand for the pair of us, too, but with another three bills arriving just this morning, I’ve had to downsize my dreams to a week in a cottage just outside Scarborough. Dylan took the news pretty well, all things considered.
Sunday July 22nd
Having now read The End of the Affair three times, I thought I’d attempt to get back on civil terms with the book group by sharing with them a deep analysis of its major themes, talking points, and literary strengths and weaknesses. I began work on the PowerPoint slides today. I think I shall print out packs for Thursday rather than bring along my own projector screen: how sad would that be!
Taking inspiration from Kaylee’s First World War reading list, I’ve organised the slides into the following sections:
- Betrayal
- Guilt and shame
- The corrupting power of human love
- Suffering
- Death
- Irony
All in all, we should be set for a fun evening.
Monday July 23rd
WE DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU
TELEGRAMS IN THEIR THOUSANDS
THE HEARTS OF LOVED ONES SINK
ALL THAT WASTED PAPER
ALL THAT WASTED INK
A hashtag is trending in my heart and it goes by the name of #DouglasRIP.
Chandrima called to tell me the news. He had met up with some fellow re-enactors last Thursday morning, she said, as part of a documentary commemorating the Battle of the Somme. Douglas was one of the first of the ‘Tommies’ out of the trenches but fell within seconds, amidst the smoke and pyrotechnics the production team had conjured up that morning. He lay there for four hours, face down in no-man’s-land, before one of his fellow re-enactors realised there was something wrong. It was thought he’d had a heart attack, perhaps triggered by the shock of a flare whistling overhead.
It is so very sad but this is how he would have liked to have gone, said Chandrima, seeking to console. I know exactly what she means: Douglas in uniform, on the battlefield, fighting for Queen, Country and Television Production Company.
Tuesday July 24th
It was in a state of Douglaslessness that I loaded up the dishwasher and scoured the work surfaces. And, as I did so, I found myself meditating deeply on the meaning of existence and the nature of death. What if I was suddenly struck down as I re-ordered this cutlery basket, for instance; what might others say of me? I imagined my gravestone:
BRIAN BILSTON
He never quite managed
to seize the day.
But he sure stacked a dishwasher
in an orderly way.
I found myself asking questions that went straight to the very heart of things. Sensing that this might be prime poetry-writing territory, I wrote them down:
a) what purpose serves a life?
b) what constitutes a life well-lived?
c) is happiness a social construct?
d) is there any rinse-aid left?
e) where do we go to when we die?
I thought long and hard. This was difficult stuff and the search for answers exhausting. After a few hours my brain could take no more; I looked down at what I’d written in response.
a) don’t know
b) not sure
c) probably
d) no idea
e) maybe check the cupboard under the stairs
I may have got some of the answers muddled up but it was a start, I suppose.
Wednesday July 25th
Ink Nothing of It
In that cheap rented room, he lay for weeks
upon the threadbare carpet, half-hid,
underneath virgin printer paper sheets
and some empty inkjet cartridges.
The finer things in life I always did lack
because of the cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
‘I knew him when he was up at Cambridge,’
said one at the funeral, ‘Not a loner,
then, by any means. Popular, quite rich.
And, back in those days, quite free of toner.’
Pity me, the penniless, penurious fellow,
because of the black, magenta, cyan and yellow.
In his twenties he would do what he liked,
never stopped to think before he would print.
In full colour, too, not just black and white.
The money bled away faster than ink.
I am off-colour, off-line, off-print, off-centre
because of the yellow, cyan, black and magenta.
Along with the body they found a note,
taped to the printer and stained with blood:
‘I have run out of ink, money and hope,
and now I am running out for good.’
There’s nothing left at all of who I am
because of the yellow, magenta, black and cyan.
My finances are fading faster than the pages that emerge from my inkjet printer. I began to print out The End of the Affair packs only to find my fine-tuned analysis streaked with nothingness. The subsection on The Roman Catholic Novel in the Twentieth Century was particularly affected and my Suggestions for Further Reading barely legible. I cycled into town, blanching as I handed over the money for new toner cartridges.
Thursday July 26th
Love Letters Carved in Rock
For you, no ordinary stick of rock,
not some standard candied stock
from a faded seaside town,
no kiss-me-quick before I drown.
Instead, this home made confection,
its letters engrained to perfection.
Five years I spent to create this art!
Your name runs through its heart,
as it runs through mine. Red strips
of sugar, glucose, water mixed
into molten calligraphic stasis,
white rock pouring in the spaces
to shape the letters of your name.
For you’re as sweet as candy cane
and my love is – what do you mean
that’s not how you spell Siobhan?
Anyone can make a mistake. That’s what I kept telling myself, anyway, as I sat quietly at the end of the table, listening to them all discuss Brighton Rock. That business with Liz at the beginning of the month had knocked me about a little – and I must have muddled it up in my head. Sure, that work on the Roman Catholic Novel in the Twentieth Century hadn’t been wasted, and a cynical worldview seemed to permeate through both books, but I didn’t have much to give beyond that. I could have counted all the characters I knew from Brighton Rock on my little pinkie.
It wasn’t until I was halfway home that I took the handouts out of my bag. I stuffed them in a bin.
Friday July 27th
It was all Darren’s fault. We should take 27th Club on tour, he said, and make a proper weekend of it. It had sounded so liberating a few months ago, as we anticipated our very own epiphanic Woodstock, in which we not only discovered a new soundtrack to our lives, but somehow better understood who we truly were, while sitting in a field somewhere deep in the haze of a golden English summer.
We hadn’t envisaged that the weather might be like this – lashing rain and blackened skies – nor that we would spend six hours queueing on the M62 for the turn-off to Hull. For much of the day, all we’d seen was Cars, Traffic and The Jam.
And we certainly hadn’t foreseen that confusion over the ticket-ordering which meant that we weren’t off to Tribeca, hipster festival of experimental music, after all, but Tribfest, advertised as the UK’s ‘second’ largest annual gathering of tribute acts.
By the time Darren had managed to pitch his tent in the driving rain and I’d settled into my yurt, the first day was nearly over, and we only just managed to catch the end of Phoney M murdering ‘Rasputin’.
Saturday July 28th
Pyramid Stage
I
think
he was
twenty-one
years of age /
when he went through
his pyramid stage. He did
not know what triggered that /
strange urge to be a ziggurat. He
reached his apex then had a seizure. /
I think about him to this day. Amazing Giza.
I feel like I’ve landed in one of those parallel worlds that Dylan sometimes talks about. Everything in it is the same as this world, only a little bit more rubbish. It rains here, only heavier. There is mud here, but it is gloopier. Instead of the Pyramid Stage, we have the Triangle Stage. And then, of course, there are the bands: Proxy Music, Fleetwood Mock, Mad Donna, The Velvet Underpants, Sample Minds, Punk Floyd, New Hors d’oeuvres, The Heebie Beegees.
The only noticeable improvement in this new world is that I live in a yurt. I found myself spending an increasing amount of time in it as the day wore on. Darren tells me that it’s not in the spirit of things, and I’m missing out on the authentic festival experience. Still, I couldn’t help but notice his look of envy when he visited my spacious accommodation – with its underfloor heating, Wi-Fi and shower-room – in the middle of the night, to tell me about the leak in his tent. Water had been pouring in for several hours, he said, and, judging by the state of him, it appeared it had.
But friendship knows no boundaries and so I sent him away with an old T-shirt of mine, having discovered it at the bottom of my suitcase, which was lying unpacked on the Egyptian cotton sheets of my spare bed.
Sunday July 29th
Everybody Yurts
When the day’s been long and the night,
The night chills you to the bone.
When you’re sure you’ve had enough
Of mudslides, well hang on.
Let your tent pegs go, let me please advise
That everybody yurts sometimes.
Sometimes standard camping’s wrong.
It’s only suited to the strong.
When the ground is hard as stone,
And it feels like ten below.
If you think you’ve had too much of this life, well hang on.
’Cos everybody yurts. Take comfort in king-size beds.
Everybody yurts.
No frozen hands. Oh no. No more frozen hands.
From sheep’s wool, it’s wove.
Oh, oh, oh, wood-burning stove.
If you think you may not survive, and your tent is not that strong,
When you think you’ve had too much of this life to hang on.
Well, when your body hurts most times,
As you try to rise . . .
Everybody yurts sometimes.
And everybody yurts sometimes.
The cold’s gone, cold’s gone.
Darren was strangely irritable today and barely had a civil word to say to me. I suspect this may be due to the heavy cold he seems to be coming down with. But we hung in there as best we could, sticking around for the headline act, an R.E.M. tribute band called Are.We.Them?
They were clearly not. Sophie and I had seen the genuine article all those years ago. Only a few hazy images of their performance have stayed with me: Peter Buck with an electric mandolin; Michael Stipe bizarrely wearing a football shirt; a cover played in tribute to Kurt Cobain. But I remember everything else about that night: Sophie in her denim jacket and DMs; the way she jumped up and down in excitement as they walked on stage; the look of wonder on her face as she watched the day’s sun sink slowly behind the stadium; the journey back, with Sophie’s head in my lap as she slept; and the reflection in the bus window of me, smiling back at myself, a shiny, happy person.
Monday July 30th
Breaking News
The news seems broken now,
nearly every day.
I shall gather up its pieces
and throw it all away.
Breaking news: I am broke.
My front door was almost wedged shut by the stack of mail that greeted me on my return. Amongst the reminders of unpaid bills for books, hotel bills, shed furnishings and luxury yurt accommodation was a bank statement coloured in red.
My redundancy money has gone and my overdraft limit is exhausted. There remains £10,000 in the account for the ‘Poets on the Western Front’ trip but that, of course, is untouchable. I need money – and quickly – before the mortgage payments and utility bills drag me further under.
Incredibly, the sun has emerged from all this rain; it shines down and gently mocks me.
Tuesday July 31st
The Met Office is forecasting a heatwave. I am in search of a brainwave. I have been attempting to identify possible solutions which might alleviate my financial difficulties. I didn’t get very far. I looked at the list I’d written:
- Sell all my books.
- Hire out my stupid, useless writer’s shed for garden parties.
- Get a proper job again.
- Earn money from writing.
Option 1 is possible but ill-advisable given the structural support provided to the house. Option 2 is also possible but income may be sporadic. Option 3 is possible but would squat on my life and crush my soul. Option 4 has proved to be impossible, and so I have decided to pursue that further.