Thursday November 1st
Next door’s Halloween party was still raging on even as the morning sun was bravely daring to peek its head above its rooftop duvet. In honour of All Saints’ Day, I tried to have the patience of one but there are only so many times it’s possible to hear ‘Monster Mash’ before murderous thoughts emerge.
I said a prayer in the hope that the saints might intervene:
O holy saints, I thank you.
St Eadfast and St Alwart, for always being there for me.
St Urdy and St Able, for making me stand on my own two feet.
St Agger and St Umble, for helping me to keep going even when the journey was hard.
St Ubborn, for teaching me to stick to my principles.
St Alactite, for giving me something to look up to.
St Alagmite, for keeping me grounded.
St Artle for your endless surprises.
St Atistics for showing me that deviation can sometimes be normal.
St Ockholm-Syndrome, for holding me in thrall.
St Raddle, for always letting me see both sides.
St Upendous, for just being terrific.
And St Anza, for introducing me to poetry.
Whether it was my prayer or not, the music died down next door shortly afterwards and the final St Ragglers left. I went out to the shed to continue the unsaintly task I had begun.
Friday November 2nd
The money arrived in my bank account today. There’s enough in there to settle my Poets on the Western Front debts although whether I will now be accepted back into Poetry Club, I don’t know.
Mr Bloomer and Cora Nesmith from the Mongolian Yurt Company will have to wait for future instalments.
Saturday November 3rd
Villainelle
A hero is fine but boring as hell.
Where is the fun if there isn’t a foe?
A good story needs a villain as well.
Heroes win out and they then get the girl.
The end of the tale we already know.
A hero is fine but boring as hell.
Luke without Darth is a difficult sell.
The Lion and the Wardrobe’s plot is too slow.
A good story needs a villain as well.
Sherlock’s OK but Moriarty’s a swell.
A Joker-less Batman, I’d gladly forgo.
A hero is fine but boring as hell.
Every Beowulf needs their Grendel.
Borg sans McEnroe? I’d have to say no.
A good story needs a villain as well.
Harry’s less dull under Voldemort’s spell
And Jekyll is best when Hyde’s in full flow.
A hero is fine but boring as hell.
A good story needs a villain as well.
No Dylan today. He was going to see Stuart compete in an iron man triathlon. Ugandan cleft-lip and palate sufferers. I confess to feeling rather let down by this: we have so very few Saturdays left. For him to spend one of them in the company of that serial overachiever rather than me (a cereal over-eater) is hard to stomach. He had been doing so well, too.
I buried myself in the Saturday newspaper as distraction. I was reading yet another article about This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave and how well it was selling when I was struck by a sudden notion: perhaps, in a similar fashion to how he felt threatened by my verse, Toby Salt in turn had his own rival in the poetry world, someone upset by his own rise to prominence.
A faint memory stirred of Sefton Warbrick’s recent review. I quickly found the section I wanted:
“And it may be time for Bramwell Price to step down – as gracefully as he can – from the stage. For we have a new Il Divo waiting in its wing, and his name is Toby Salt.”
Bramwell Price. For many years considered the enfant terrible of British poetry. A man famed as much for his violent temper and petty feuding as for his verse. Just the kind of poet to take umbrage at Toby Salt’s inexorable rise. I checked online. He was giving a reading next Thursday. There were plenty of tickets still available.
Sunday November 4th
I continued with my research. It seems that there had been literary fireworks between Bramwell Price and Toby Salt. Toby Salt had reviewed Price’s latest collection Spunk in one of the broadsheets and absolutely panned it:
Price’s continued efforts to shock us – while entertaining enough, perhaps, back in the early 90s – now seem nothing more than a puerile cry for attention, a desperate plea of relevance to an audience, who have long since moved on. It seems the enfant terrible grew up to be nothing but an enfant ennui.
Bramwell Price responded in typical fashion in the following week’s letters column:
‘Toby Salt is a twat,’ he wrote laconically.
I must admit I rather like the sound of this Bramwell Price.
Monday November 5th
The Bonfire
As I warmed myself by its fire,
I noticed on that burning pyre
a poem of mine, long since penned,
now in flame from end to end
and next to it, another one,
the words alight and quickly gone,
its rhymes and rhythms up in flame,
just like the letters of my name.
Only then did it dawn on me,
the whole thing was my poetry,
a blazing bonfire of bon mots,
all my writing up in smoke.
More and more got thrown upon it:
haiku, villanelles and sonnets.
The people’s faces overjoyed
to see my work at last destroyed.
They hoisted up an effigy,
which turned out to be really me,
lighting up the evening sky.
Brian Bilston: what a guy.
Dave, Martin and Marvin invited me to join them at the local bonfire night celebrations but I turned them down, on the pretence I had a poem to write. What I didn’t tell them was that I’ve been terrified of organised firework events ever since I was a child. Even the smell of candyfloss sends me into a flap.
Instead, I settled in to watch Prime Suspect but dropped off to sleep on the sofa, beneath the cat. I had a dreadful dream in which all my poems were set on fire and everyone cheered. I looked this up in my Dream Dictionary but the book is clearly faulty and I have put it in my bag for Oxfam.
Tuesday November 6th
‘Oh, look. The black sheep has returned,’ said Mary as I walked in through the door.
I wore a cowed, hangdog expression as I silently returned the money to each of them.
‘You’re a dark horse,’ said Kaylee. ‘Where did that come from?’
I kept my mouth shut.
‘I thought we’d have to wait donkey’s years for it,’ said Chandrima.
‘Can’t have been easy,’ said Liz to the rest of the group, ‘being ostrichised like that.’
They laughed but stopped when I tried to join in.
I asked whether I might sit and hear a few poems but Mary said that perhaps under the circumstances, it might be better if I left; it should not be forgotten that I was responsible for the cancellation of the club’s Poets on the Western Front trip. They would discuss whether any re-enrolment might be possible in my absence. Besides, she said, there was only one free chair and they had a new member joining them later.
I glanced back as I reached the door. Liz was smiling at me. I walked home, with a spring in my step, and unread poems in my duffel-coat pocket. Somewhere, amidst the hurt and anger, I detected the faint traces of forgiveness and the beginning of my rehabilitation.
Wednesday November 7th
I had just settled down to watch Countdown when the phone rang. It was DI Lansbury.
‘You are the salt of the earth,’ he said. ‘But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Matthew. Chapter 5, Verse 13,’ he said.
‘Sorry, I don’t quite follow.’ The consonants and vowels were being doled out.
He sighed. ‘You mention it in your poem “Bloodshed”.’
‘Do I?’ I said, looking at my letters and writing down ‘splat’ on my piece of paper.
‘You do, indeed.’
One of the contestants had got a seven-letter word, the other a six.
‘Any reason for that particular choice of Bible quotation, sir?’
The contestant with six letters said the word ‘pistol’.
‘Can’t remember.’
‘He says he can’t remember,’ said DI Lansbury. I could hear Sergeant Tuck in the background.
The contestant with seven letters said the word ‘spatula’.
‘Anyway, sir, we just wanted to let you know that we’ve not forgotten about either you or your poems. In fact, you might say that you are our “rhyme” suspect.’
He was still chuckling as he put the phone down.
Susie Dent had got the word ‘autopsia’. I wrote the letters into 18 down of the crossword. ‘An alternative word to “autopsy”,’ she told us, ‘a post-mortem examination of a corpse.’
I went back out to the shed to review where things had got to.
Thursday November 8th
My meeting over-ran. By the time I got there, Bramwell Price was climaxing with a piece from his seminal collection, Emanations. The room was half-empty and it was clear that this was a poet whose star was on the wane, no matter how forceful and arresting his ejaculations were.
The audience dissipated quickly at the end of his performance and I seized my chance.
‘That was quite something,’ I said.
‘Was it really?’ he replied disinterestedly. ‘That’s a deeply unfashionable view to hold these days, you know.’
‘Yes. After what Toby Salt had said about you, my expectations were low. But . . . wow! That was . . . terrific!’
I knew it hadn’t come out quite right. His eyes narrowed as he looked at me. ‘Who are you?’
‘A new fan?’ I tried.
‘Well, whoever you are, understand this. Toby Salt is someone of absolute inconsequence to me. And before you ask: no, I don’t have any idea where he is. He could have disappeared up his own arse for all I care. One more thing, if you don’t leave right now, I’ll call security.’
I wasn’t in the mood to be scuffled so I made myself scarce. But I left the building with the knowledge that Toby Salt’s disappearance had left Bramwell Price a very worried man.
Friday November 9th
Why I No Longer Write Love Letters
Oh b oody he !
My keyboard has a broken ‘ ’.
It seemed to work OK ast night,
as far as I cou d te .
h n ! The ’ ‘ has g ne as we ;
yet an ther key that’s damaged.
Such misbeha i ur’s ery weird.
And n w my ’ ‘ has anished.
It isn’t easy t write ike this.
My w rds are p aced in fetters.
k! N w th ’ ‘ has disapp ar d!
That’s th last f my tt rs.
Sergeant Tuck has been to collect the typewriter from my shed; DI Lansbury was attending a murder-scene health and safety course in Loughborough, he told me.
Forensics want to take a look at it, apparently, to see how the typography might compare with various correspondence found in Toby Salt’s house. I told Sergeant Tuck that he was welcome to it; the keys always got stuck and I’d never quite worked out how to change the ribbon.
Before he left, Sergeant Tuck asked rather awkwardly if he might borrow a few copies of Well Versed magazine for ‘background reading’ so he could try and understand a little more the ‘mind of a poet’. I loaded him up with the last three years’ worth and was glad to relieve some of the pressure on my bookshelves.
Saturday November 10th
Exclamation Mark
Mark was his name!
He would shout and proclaim!
Every sentence he wrote
would end just the same!
He would assert! He would blurt!
He would ejaculate and spurt!
Each line was a screamer!
A gasper! A slammer! A shrieker!
A literary loudspeaker!!!
It all began to needle and nark!
Why did no one think to question Mark?
Stuart was on the doorstep again, exclaiming at me.
‘Brian! What a beautiful autumnal day! Such magnificent colours!’
I closed my eyes and willed him to disappear.
‘You know, days like this almost make me wish we weren’t upping sticks and heading to New England!’
I opened my eyes. It hadn’t worked. He was still there.
‘Still, what an exciting time for Dylan. He’ll love it! Anyway, gotta dash! Sponsored hop! Indonesian lepers!’
Back inside, I asked Dylan about last Saturday but he looked all shifty and tried to change the subject. The poor boy looks increasingly ground down by all of Stuart’s high energy and positivity. I played him some Radiohead to help restore his equilibrium and then we settled down on the sofa to watch a Mike Leigh film, our happiness warming us like a blanket.
Sunday November 11th
The Book of My Enemy Has Been Selling Rather Well
The book of my enemy has been selling rather well
And I am distraught.
In huge quantities it has been shifting
Like drugs on a street corner, bought
By customers looking for a quick fix
Of culture. My enemy’s much-praised effort is stacked
Twenty copies deep on the front tables,
A sticker which denotes ‘3 for the Price of 2’ is attached –
Among all the cocksure and pre-ordained
Paper skyscrapers from big-budget
Marketing campaigns.
His volume – described as a ‘tour de force’ –
By the Sunday Times poetry critic –
No longer keeps the company
Of Seamus Heaney and Maya Angelou.
That worldly wise lyrical beauty is two floors up.
No, my enemy’s acclaimed collection
Prefers to rub its shoulders with Joe Wicks,
The ‘Body Coach’, and his 15-minute schemes
To keep you lean and healthy.
The book of my enemy has been selling rather well
And I’m as sick as hell.
I may be free from the shackles of book group and its monthly reading impositions but I am not free of the lure of the bookshop. There was a big pile of This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave on the front table – and one in the window, too. Someone must have made an ordering error. Oh dear!
In a new spirit of economy, I was modest with my purchases: Bramwell Price’s Spunk, Clive James’ Unreliable Memoirs, Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, Joe Wicks’ Lean in 15, Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Travelling to the US on a Shoestring.
Monday November 12th
I was reading some Tolkien when my phone sounded. I picked it up after just the one ring. It was DI Lansbury.
‘Acrostics,’ he said.
‘What about them?’
‘Write them much, do you, sir?’
‘From time to time. Why?’
‘We’ve had another look at your diary. And Sergeant Tuck here noticed your entry for 5th September is an acrostic. I must admit that I didn’t know what an acrostic was but Sergeant Tuck informs me that it’s a type of poem in which the first letters of every line spell out a word or phrase.’
‘Sergeant Tuck is correct,’ I sighed. ‘What does it say?’
‘Well, that’s the interesting bit, sir. It reads T-O-B-Y S-A-L-T M-U-S-T D-I-E.’
‘Does it? I had no idea. What a coincidence!’
‘Extraordinary, isn’t it? I mean, the odds of the letters forming unintentionally in that way must be, what, a hundred million to one?’
‘Yes, quite large, anyway.’
‘Do you enjoy word games, Mr Bilston?’
‘I suppose so, yes.’
‘Well, here’s one for you to crack today. Rearrange the following words to make a sentence: Watching. We. Closely. You. Are.’
‘Mmm . . . you closely are watching we?’
He hung up.
Tuesday November 13th
It is practically mid-November and there are Christmas songs on the radio. Even the cat was disturbed enough to make one of her rare excursions into the garden.
I stayed in the warm and delved further into the murky past of Bramwell Price. The man’s got previous: a brawl with an audience member at a literary festival; a charge for assault on a waiter at a central London restaurant; and, most alarming of all, a restraining order placed on him concerning his first wife after he was found to be posting deposits ‘of a sexual nature’ through her letter box, following their estrangement. Not the kind of poet content to settle a score merely by writing some mildly scabrous remarks and cryptically hiding them within an acrostic.
Wednesday November 14th
To the Forty-Three
Oh, my poor and helpless herd,
waiting on my every word,
through all these pointless weeks
without the comfort of my tweets.
Use this time to make a plan.
Get some sleep in while you can.
Read a book. Or climb a tree.
Don’t put your life on hold for me.
Easier said than done, I know.
It’s always hard to just let go.
But I’ll be back before too long.
Despair not. Chin up. Please be strong.
I’d not looked at my own Twitter account for several weeks. My follower count still numbers forty-three. I wondered whether they’d missed me – or been worried by my absence – but there were no notifications to help me corroborate this. Toby Salt’s account was still frozen in time, like a bedroom kept as a shrine to the child who never came home. Bizarrely, his followers were still increasing rapidly. Bramwell Price, it appeared, did not ‘do’ Twitter. I looked at some photos of cats set against a cosmic background. I watched a video of baby pandas.
It is all pure avoidance, of course.
I know I need to get back to it.
It’s just that I’m not sure I can bear to go back in there again.
Thursday November 15th
I lit the wood-burner but the shed is still freezing. You could catch your death in here.
Friday November 16th
Alibi
I didn’t write this.
Must have been someone who looks like me.
I keep my nose clean, see.
I’m not the type to get mixed up in poetry.
Don’t pin this poem on me.
Besides, I was out drowning kittens
when this poem got wrote –
I’d’ve had my hands round one’s throat
around about that time.
So don’t say this poem is mine.
Sergeant Tuck has visited again. He called to ask whether they might hold on to my typewriter for a little longer as it was proving very useful. I gave him my assent and he seemed unduly pleased.
He was about to leave when he noticed my copy of Bramwell Price’s book on the table and asked me if I was a fan.
‘Not really my kind of thing,’ I said. ‘I just like to keep up with what’s happening in the poetry world, that’s all.’
‘I know what you mean, sir,’ said Sergeant Tuck. ‘I just wondered because DI Lansbury and I met him a few weeks ago. Peculiar chap. He’s got a lot of “issues”. We thought he might have something to do with Mr Salt’s disappearance.’
‘Oh, really?’ I said, attempting to keep my tone as neutral as possible.
‘Yes, that’s right. Until we found out he was at an arts festival in Rio at the time. There were photos of him there the whole week. Watertight alibi. Shame, because he was just the kind of person we were hoping might be the murderer,’ he said.
He walked off up the garden path.
Saturday November 17th
Dylan tells me that Stuart takes part in an average of four charitable events a week. This year to date, he’s raised over £120,000 for over eighty different charities. Perhaps one day there will be a Stuart Mould Fundraiser for Beleaguered Poets.
Sunday November 18th
The Postcard
Weather is disappointing as is the food. But Brenda and I trying to put our best face on things! Been to all the local attractions, inc. the castle. The hair museum was a highlight. Brenda had one of her tummies on Tues which meant I had to dispose of Cyril on my own. The look on his face when I hit him with that spade! Found a nice spot to bury him. Will tell you more when we’re back. Beach tomorrow if weather holds then home! Xx
If I am being honest with myself, my ISBN classification system has not been a success. It is simply proving far too difficult to find anything. I have decided to adopt a new organising principle – that of page extent. It was as I was in the act of re-sorting my bookshelves – moving all the slimmest volumes to the top shelves in the hope that this would remove Bramwell Price’s Spunk from my eyeline – when I noticed something sticking out of my copy of This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave. It was the postcard that had fallen out of it at last month’s book group.
The postcard was to promote his book. The front was a reproduction of the book cover. I flipped it over, expecting the back to be blank. Instead, I found a handwritten poem on it. I recognised it: it was Toby Salt’s winning poem about the wind from January’s Well Versed magazine.
I stared at it thoughtfully for a few minutes before returning to the problem of my piles.
Monday November 19th
Sophie called me. She thinks something is up with Dylan.
‘He spends all his time in his bedroom,’ she said. ‘He’s not been doing his homework. He answers me back. He avoids Stuart whenever he can.’
This was all wonderful news.
‘That sounds like completely normal behaviour for a sixteen-year-old boy to me.’
‘I knew you’d say that.’
‘Well, it is. I was just the same at his age.’
‘I can well believe it. I think this is all your doing,’ she said accusingly.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I replied, mildly bridling.
‘You’re a bad influence on him. Whenever I ask him what he’s been up to at your house, he always says “nothing much”. From what I can tell, the two of you seem to spend the whole day on the sofa.’
‘Perhaps he’s suffering from galeanthropy?’ I suggested.
‘What?’ I could sense Sophie’s levels of irritation rising.
‘It’s 21 across in The Guardian Bumper Christmas Cryptic Crossword. It’s the belief that you’ve become a cat. It’s from the ancient Greek – galéē, which means—’
‘Oh, shut up, Brian. It’s not about cats. It’s you. He’s even started listening to The Smiths.’
This was also wonderful news.
‘Ah, yes, that may be my influence. Better them than Huey Lewis and the News, though.’
‘It’s all a big joke to you, isn’t it? But this is our son we’re talking about, with his whole life ahead of him. He could do anything, that boy. He could really make something of himself. And I’m worried that he won’t. He’ll mess it all up. He’ll go wrong. He’ll end up like you.’
There. Sophie had said it and now it couldn’t be unsaid. There was a brief silence between us before I answered.
‘Has it ever occurred to you that he might be acting like this because he doesn’t want to go to America?’
She put the phone down on me.
Tuesday November 20th
I took another look at the postcard. It must have been handwritten by Toby Salt as a promotional giveaway at his book launch. There would have been similar postcards inserted in other copies, too. All the same, there was something about it that struck me as significant. I re-read the poem:
A rock for a jail
and nothing but the wind for company.
O Aeolian confidante! Dry my salty locks
and whisper the world into my ear.
The latest stockmarket news.
A child strangled. The shaming of a politician.
The pounding of the letterpress.
The jangle of my jailor’s keys as they bounce upon his hip.
But no. These chains. This rock.
What do you bring exactly? Only betrayal.
The dread beat of accipitrine wings,
the shooting pains,
and my ripped-out liver
shining at my feet,
surrounded by rock pools, ruby-red.
A queasy feeling of déjà vu washed over me as I remembered the hours I’d spent trying to understand it earlier in the year. But I’d got nowhere with it then and I got nowhere with it now.
Wednesday November 21st
DI Lansbury had returned and his beard was in an interrogative mood. It was Sergeant Tuck’s day off.
‘These eleven days that are missing from your diary. Can you tell me again what you were up to?’
‘I can’t really remember. Just this and that, I suppose.’
‘This and that? Can’t you be more specific?’
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘My mind’s a blank. Like my diary was. That’s why I ripped the pages out. I wasn’t in the mood for poetry.’
‘It must have been a difficult period for you. No job. No money. Alienated from all those around you. And there was Toby Salt, a man riding wave after wave of success. You must have resented that?’
‘What exactly are you insinuating?’
‘Nothing at all, Mr Bilston. Perhaps, though, if you were to be a little more forthcoming, it might help us in knowing where best to focus our efforts in this investigation.’
He left. I stroked the cat thoughtfully and wondered whether I should tell him.
Thursday November 22nd
I continued to wrestle with the postcard and at last it seems that I have made some progress. My Dictionary of Classical Mythology tells me that the figure in his poem is most likely Prometheus, chained to a rock by a wrathful Zeus for stealing fire from Mount Olympus and giving it to mankind.
But what was the significance of that? Did it mean that Toby Salt himself was being held captive? Was he Prometheus? If so, where was his rock? And who was his jailor? And why on earth wasn’t ‘accipitrine’ an answer in my crossword?
I opened another packet of custard creams in search of further inspiration.
Friday November 23rd
Poem Sequence in E Flat Major
One
word
followed another,
each line augmented,
dressed up, embellished and tormented,
like some poor Chopin polonaise performed by Liberace.
It was only then that I realised my poem had got all Fibonacci.
Twitter tells me it is Fibonacci Day, celebrating that remarkable sequence of numbers that governs the population of bees and the shape of snail shells. I set about Toby Salt’s poem once more in the hope that I might find some inner pattern or sequence to unlock its mystery – if it was a mystery that is, rather than just a sequence of dull, only loosely connected words.
I found myself going around in spirals for the rest of the day.
Saturday November 24th
Stuart had to dash. He was skydiving for Romanian orphans.
‘That’ll be another one ticked off my bucket list!’ he said before proceeding to tell me about a succession of fulfilled dreams, including a journey on the Orient Express, a swim with dolphins and – with more detail than was strictly necessary for a Saturday morning – how he became a member of the Mile High Club.
‘But enough about me! What’s on your bucket list, Brian?!’ he asked.
‘At this moment, kicking it, most probably.’
He paused for a moment to reflect on this and then burst out laughing.
‘Oh, Brian! Don’t ever lose your wicked sense of humour!’ he said with a broad grin. ‘Anyway, gotta run – or should I say jump!’
Mercifully, he bounded off, and Dylan and I sought refuge inside, where we made a pact that should one of us notice any Stuart-like behaviour in the other, we should tell them immediately.
Sunday November 25th
Three Thought Experiments
1. If a poem is printed in a book
but few people buy that book
and those that do, fail to understand the poem,
does it really exist?
2. Imagine a cat lying upon your lap.
It has been lying there for five hours.
During this time, it has not stirred once.
Its breathing is imperceptible.
Is the cat alive or dead?
3. Consider a group of people, each with a box.
They are told it contains a ‘custard cream’.
Each person can only look in their own box.
Might it be possible that each person
has something entirely different in their box?
A ‘digestive’ or ‘malted milk’, for example?
What then do we mean by the term ‘custard cream’?
I told Tomas about the poem. He was familiar with the story of Prometheus but even he was unable to decipher the poem further or determine whether it might provide some insight into the whereabouts or fate of Toby Salt. But he had a suggestion.
‘What Wittgenstein would do, in such circumstances, is conduct a thought experiment,’ he said. ‘He would concoct an imaginary situation and use that scenario as the basis for thinking through the consequences of a particular hypothesis.’
I gave it a whirl when I got home. I conjured up a scenario in which Toby Salt had been enclosed in a steel chamber, along with a phial of hydrocyanic acid and a radioactive substance. I’d intended to think through the consequences of what might then have transpired, but so pleasing was the scenario to me, I lingered on it for the rest of the day and found myself no further forward.
Monday November 26th
DI Lansbury again.
‘We’ve had a sighting of you, Mr Bilston – on 7th September, the night of Mr Salt’s book launch.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Yes – from a neighbour of yours, as it happens.’
I sighed.
‘She claims she saw you out in the garden. She’d seen you emerging from your shed. Late it was. About 2 a.m., she reckons. And then you decided to have a bonfire.’
‘Oh, really.’
‘Funny time to have a bonfire, sir, if you don’t mind me saying.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d like to take another look at your shed. Shall I get a new warran—’
‘Yes, why don’t you,’ I snapped and slammed the phone down.
Tuesday November 27th
All That Jazz
Here’s the scene:
we’re booted, real hep,
feeling the step,
laying it loose,
Big Leon’s noodling in the corner.
Man, that cat! On tubs is Jack,
giving it some
and then some again,
Pretty Boy Lester’s gone,
sharp, feeling the heat,
digging deep,
totally wigged,
Leon’s sucking his popsicle stick
all slick licks,
until Den, in search of kicks,
suggests we all go out
and find a jazz band to listen to.
I have always nursed a deep suspicion of jazz. I think this may be due to the concept of improvisation; the prospect of having to think on your feet without every move carefully researched and rehearsed disturbs me at a profound level. Or maybe it’s just the haircuts.
Regardless, Darren and I had to confront it. It had been billed as an evening of free jazz but, annoyingly, we still had to pay at the door. The main draw was a nine-piece ensemble aptly named Vertigo (ft. Dizzy Malone) as they led to complications in my inner ear. The giddiness and nausea felt like an unwelcome reminder of having to read Toby Salt’s poetry.
Wednesday November 28th
DI Lansbury and Sergeant Tuck have taken my wood-burner off to forensics ‘for further analysis’.
They carried it up the front garden. Mrs McNulty was looking on interestedly out of her window. Dave, Martin and Marvin were at theirs, too, which was unusual as they always seemed to make themselves scarce whenever DI Lansbury and Sergeant Tuck came to visit.
‘Let me know if you find a body in there!’ I joked.
DI Lansbury and his beard wheeled around simultaneously.
‘You find all this amusing, do you, Mr Bilston?’ he said.
‘No,’ I responded sheepishly.
‘I’d like to remind you that a man has disappeared – and may very well be dead. Which, as far as I’m aware, is not the usual stuff of comedy.’
‘No, it’s not,’ I said in a small voice.
From the whoop that emitted from behind her net curtain, Mrs McNulty appeared to be most delighted by this whole exchange. There was some support on offer from Dave, who stuck his middle finger up at the policemen’s retreating figures as they continued down the path, only to pretend he was scratching his nose when DI Lansbury turned around suddenly and glared at him.
Thursday November 29th
I’d gone back to pondering Toby Salt’s poem. I was trying to read between its lines, and wishing it was comprised of only the bits between the lines and none of the actual lines at all, when the doorbell rang and there was Sergeant Tuck. He’d popped round on the off chance I was in so he could return the back issues of Well Versed I’d lent him, he said. As he brought them in, I could sense him nervously eyeing up my bookshelves.
‘Is there anything else you’d like to borrow while you’re here?’ I asked, keen to put him out of his misery.
Gratefully, he seized an anthology of twentieth-century poetry, and collections by Emily Dickinson and W. H. Auden.
‘I’ll get these back to you next week,’ he said and skipped off up the path.
I went back inside and took one final look at Toby Salt’s postcard poem in search of meaning. It stared back at me in defiance once more. No, that was it. I’d tried. I’d failed.
l ripped it up and threw it in the recycling. The lorry will come for it tomorrow.
Friday November 30th
Bring Your Cat to Work Day
It will look good on your CV, he said.
Pfff. What needs have I but to be fed,
stroked – when I wish it – upon my head,
and a lap that’s warm to call a bed.
This is how the photocopier works.
He thinks I’m his goddam office clerk.
I size up the A4 tray as it whirrs.
It’s not so comfy. But I’ve had worse.
Perhaps you could get on with some filing.
I wait until he’s walked out the door
and then file myself inside a drawer.
It’s peaceful here and I sleep some more.
It’s quite cosy here on this keyboard.
There’s a spot of sun I stretch towards.
I don’t know what he’s shouting for.
Hang on a minute . . . is that a mouse?
The deadline was approaching so it was time I got back down to it. Without my wood-burner, I was reduced to working back in the house with all its cat-induced limitations. Did T. S. Eliot have a shed? If not, it’s a wonder that he was able to write anything.