When I saw Berrigan bounced back,
Anger painting his complexion red,
I turned white as a sheet;
He tried to calm himself,
Taking a long drag
on his cigarette.
‘Why the Hell are they blocking our path,
Surely… but no, we’ve been promised help
From the highest authority,
We just need to play it cool.’
I saw all too clearly how his words
Plastered over a niggling doubt,
And couldn’t help imagining the worst:
This is where our journey ends,
And there’s no way back.
Tentatively, I put the question to him:
‘Has anyone from your circle
Ever entered the halls before?’
At first he looked at me frowningly,
Then he chuckled,
flicking away his ash.
‘I see where you’re coming from,’ he said.
‘Only once in a blue moon
is someone foolish enough
To make this trip on which I go,
But in fact I’ve been down here
once before.
We were running out of weed,
Not to mention amphetamines,
And Ed Dorn bet me a quarter
I couldn’t blag my way in here to score.
Security wasn’t so tight back then,
I followed the beat up to the tenth floor
Where a guy called Rots used to have digs,
A maths student who supported himself by dealing.
To cut a long story short, I won the bet.’
He said more, too, but I forget the details,
For suddenly my eyes were drawn upwards
To a window near the top of the tower
Where three drunk students
Were leaning out, their hair dyed blonde,
Their look betraying a bad attitude.
They had fuck-off faces, heavily beslapped,
Their eyebrows studded with diamonds,
And round their bare waists hung gold chains.
Berrigan, who knew well the SU crowd,
Cried out:
‘Look! The Essex Girls!
That’s Big Meg, the one on the left,
And that one raving on the right’s Sexy Lexi,
Tiffany’s the one in the middle.’
In a flash they stuck out their tits
Then turned round
to show us their arses.
‘Jordan, over ’ere, we’ll give him a boner!’
They shouted, leering down at us
Through false eyelashes.
‘Turn around now and shut your eyes,’
Said my gentle guide, ‘for if Jordan comes,
No mortal can resist her charms.’
Thus spoke Berrigan, who stubbed out his fag,
And turned me around himself,
Putting his sticky fingers over my eyes.
(All of you here who understand textual
Analysis and hermeneutics, note
The symbolism in the above passage;
Any resemblance of the characters
To persons living or dead
Is coincidental.)
And then, across the filthy water,
Came an explosion of sound
Which made both sides of the lake tremble.
It sounded like one of those freak hurricanes
Whipped up by the clash of counter-temperatures
That tear through buildings and streets
Tossing trees and cars aloft like toys.
Berrigan freed my eyes and said:
‘Now turn round and take a look across
The pond, there where the mist is thickest.’
And as my eyes once more adjusted to
The light, I saw the figures
In the mud swim for all they were worth,
As frogs will flee a lawnmower,
To get out of the way of a jet-ski
Which tore across the swelling waters
Scything off ears and toes as it went
Carrying a man who must be the head porter.
I turned round to speak to Ted
But he made me a secret sign
Telling me straight away to zip the lip
In the presence of this man from security.
Oh, what scorn poured forth from his lips,
Aimed at the surly students,
As he reached the heavy gates
To the burning tower, pulled out his keys,
And opened them without resistance.
‘You bunch of utter wankers!
How dare you piss about like this
And get me out at this time of the night.
Any more trouble like this
And the lot of you will face disciplinary action.
And turn that fucking noise down while you’re at it!’
He turned round then and rode back,
Across the squalid swan’s road,
Answering a call on his mobile,
And on his furrowed brow you could see
The look of one with different worries
That were not those he found surrounding him.
We entered the tower without opposition,
And I, anxious to investigate the
Students who lodged in such a fortress,
cast my eyes about,
And saw in every direction
A dwelling of desolation and abjection.
As at Arles, where the Rhone stagnates,
Or as at St Mary’s in Colchester,
Where the lids of the sepulchres
Are broken
and cast about,
So the rooms here were in a mess,
And burning all about were fierce flames
Which kept the rooms far hotter
Than any summer barbecue.
Each room had its fire-door loose, torn off
at the hinges,
And from within came fierce laments.
‘Master,’ I asked, ‘what souls are these who,
Stuck in these stinking digs,
Make themselves known by their powerful sighs?’
And Berrigan replied: ‘Here lie wasters,
Addicts, gluttons and party-goers,
A lazy bunch who rarely leave their rooms
Except to get a fix or pick a fight.
All sorts are crammed in here,
Left to cook like baked potatoes.’
Then, after turning at the top of the stairs,
We passed a kitchen
bellowing acrid smoke,
And continued our ascent.