The Offing

by Benjamin Myers

  The next poem was called ‘Unmothering’. I read that too. I read them all, and then when I finished I went back to the beginning and read them all again.

  There was still much I did not understand, yet I did not feel daunted by the unfamiliar form of poetry in The Offing, nor confused by the complicated language; far from it, in fact. Whoever she was, Romy Landau’s lines were clear and brought to life a world I recognised. Here were images that I knew, of places that I had recently experienced, and her choice of words almost alchemical or incantatory in their effect. These were works written right here where I sat, in this very shack, a world alive with sea fog swirling across the meadow and birds’ nests and, yes, badgers skulking through the predawn murk. Each read like a message folded into a bottle and cast away on the tide of time directly to me. The poems were freshly sprung from this quiet corner of this hillside overlooking this coastline. I felt the poems, and that was enough.

  I returned the papers to the briefcase and lay back down on my sleeping bag as the waking sun painted long fingers of light across the ceiling of the shack, and the meadow steamed with morning dew, and it was as if a switch had been flicked inside me. I was tired but wide awake as the voice of the poet echoed long after I had set the manuscript aside. The feeling was not that of exhilaration but unease. Heavy with images of doom and foreboding, her work was both haunting and haunted and quite unlike the archaic and incomprehensible verses we had been forced to learn by rote in school. Whoever Romy Landau was, her writing felt modern, as if shaped by recent, very real events. The poems were like a series of mirrors turned inwards, forever reflecting themselves into nothingness. Death stalked the pages, of that I was certain. Each poem raised questions.

  I lay there pondering The Offing as all of the colours of the summer’s morning appeared to flood the room at once.

  I worked on the shack all the next day. It soon became apparent that if it was to be wrestled back from the encroaching meadow, from the damp and the creepers and the mould and the rodents, then there were a number of small tasks that needed doing.

  First of all I set about removing the front door and then reattaching it so that it was airtight. I did this by shaving, sanding and varnishing the frame, and then installing a new set of hinges; it was a two-man job and therefore took twice as long as it should have, and there was much huffing and puffing, and one jammed fingernail beneath which a blood blister quickly blossomed. I then replaced a window latch that had come loose, cut a square of roofing felt to replace a section in the corner that had perished, and then adjusted the taps in the tiny bathroom, which, aside from a patina of mould that covered part of one wall and minimal adjustments to the cistern, was otherwise fine.

  Late in the morning Butler heralded Dulcie’s arrival with a single bark as she pushed through the long grass. She was carrying a tray of sandwiches.

  ‘I’ll leave these here for you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Do you want to see what I’ve done?’

  ‘Not especially. I trust your judgement, Robert.’

  She seemed reluctant to enter the shack, whose contents were scattered about in the grass. She cast her eyes across them now.

  ‘I can smell a fox.’

  ‘A fox?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dulcie. ‘The acrid funk of a vulpine interloper. Can’t you?’

  ‘I’m afraid my head is full of varnish fumes.’

  ‘Look – Butler has picked it up too.’

  I turned and watched as the dog sniffed the ground behind the shack, his nose hovering an inch above it like a metal detector being waved across the surface of a ploughed field. He stopped and cocked a leg.

  ‘I doubt you’ll see old Reynard,’ said Dulcie before I could tell her about the badger’s early morning visitation. ‘Not with Butler dribbling piss everywhere.’

  ‘Who’s Reynard?’

  ‘The fox, of course.’

  ‘Do they all have names?’

  ‘All foxes are Reynard.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Well, the fox plays a significant role in our indigenous folklore, though – believe it or not – his moniker is German in origin. As I recall, it comes from Reinhard, or some such derivative. An anthropomorphised fox-man figure has seemingly stalked European mythology since time immemorial. He’s there in Chaucer, haunting the dreams of a talking cockerel. He’s a trickster, a villain to many but an anti-hero full of merciless guile to others.’

  ‘The farmers kill them round our way.’

  ‘I shouldn’t wonder, the brutes. An act of true barbarism.’

  ‘But they kill the chickens.’

  Dulcie sighed. ‘And so do humans. But should we be hunted, trapped, maimed, poisoned, ensnared, shot or torn to pieces by a pack of idiot beagles?’

  I smiled. ‘I could think of one or two people who I’d do that to.’

  Dulcie laughed and offered me a sandwich. I took one.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘There was one boy at school. Dennis Snaith.’

  ‘I dislike him already,’ said Dulcie. ‘For that is the name of a snitch or a bully, I’d wager.’

  ‘Both,’ I said.

  ‘And what did this worthless slug-boy do to incur your wrath?’

  ‘He broke my nose in a game of British Bulldog.’

  ‘The rotten runny shit.’

  ‘Yes. I thumped him for it, though.’

  ‘Good for you. Good for you. Sometimes you have to speak the only language these people understand.’

  I bit into my sandwich and chewed a mouthful of egg and cress. Dulcie reached into her pocket.

  ‘I have salt.’

  ‘Oh, no, thank you.’

  She reached into another. ‘Pepper?’

  ‘It’s great as it is.’

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it.’

  ‘But I haven’t shown you what else needs doing, and what I found.’

  ‘Found?’

  ‘Yes. There was some rubbish that I thought perhaps could be thrown out – empty bottles and the like.’

  ‘Get rid of it. Get rid of it all.’

  ‘But there was also this.’

  Dulcie followed me into the shack. I wiped my hands on my trousers and reached for the suitcase, then pulled out the manuscript of poems.

  ‘I don’t have my spectacles, I’m afraid,’ said Dulcie. ‘And I have a million things to do.’

  She turned away.

  ‘It’s a collection of poems,’ I said. ‘Dedicated to you. It’s called – ’

  ‘The Offing.’

  Dulcie looked at me for a moment, and I saw for the first time something in her face I had not yet seen – a quiet despair, perhaps. Something desperate contained behind a rigid facade. A pained reluctance.

  ‘I know,’ she said, her voice strained. ‘And you’ve read some of it?’

  ‘A little,’ I lied. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Why would I? It’s not my work.’

  ‘Still.’

  ‘Poems belong to the world. One chooses to read or not. They are bigger than any one person.’

  ‘Would you like to see them?’ I held the manuscript out.

  ‘See them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Robert, I practically lived them. I don’t need to read them.’

  ‘There was also this.’ I held up the item made from rags. ‘I wondered what it was.’

  Dulcie did not take it. Instead she half-turned towards the meadows. Towards the sea.

  ‘If you really must know, it’s called a maiden’s garland.’

  ‘I saw one very similar in the church along the lane.’

  ‘You went to the church?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s symbolic.’

  ‘What does it symbolise?’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Purity.’

  When I didn’t respond, Dulcie said: ‘Sexual purity. They’re made for funerals.’

  ‘In the church they were hangin
g from the ceiling like decorations.’

  She sighed. ‘As I said, it is symbolic. They’re placed on the heads of those who are purported to have died chaste.’

  ‘Chaste?’

  ‘Pure. Allegedly. Virginal. They are for those who have died before their time. Hamlet’s poor Ophelia wore one when she was found in her watery grave, put there by her own volition.’

  She frowned, took a breath and then continued.

  ‘Yes, in days gone by, death by one’s own hand meant a burial in non-consecrated ground; no Christian churchyard would accept them, which is nothing less than callous in my book, but of little surprise. To his credit, Shakespeare at least had his king bend the rules a little: “Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants / Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home / Of bell and burial.” “Crants” is another word for the garland. So her “peace-parted soul” departed with such an item atop her flowing fiery locks.’

  A silence fell upon on us and I was suddenly aware that the shack was a room built for one. Its dimensions encouraged a physical closeness that in this moment felt awkward as that silence sat there, a vacant space waiting to be filled.

  ‘Why do you have one, Dulcie?’

  ‘Because I do.’

  I hesitated.

  ‘Is it anything to do with these poems?’

  ‘You ask too many questions.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘And still you apologise too much.’

  I hesitated.

  ‘I’m not sorry about that.’

  ‘That’s the correct response. You’re nearly forgiven.’

  She held her hand out. I passed her the file and the maiden’s garland.

  ‘Everything,’ she said. ‘One has everything to do with the other.’

  She opened the file and glanced at the first page and then flapped it shut again. She turned away and looked back into the middle distance. I noticed then that her eyes were wet, and her face wore a look of ever-greater desperate concern.

  ‘Not once have I cried in front of anyone.’

  She turned away, shielding her face.

  ‘Not once, even at the funeral, did I come close. Even then. Until now, that is.’

  Butler appeared then and circled us, a look of curiosity on his face.

  ‘I’m sorry if I upset you.’

  ‘I told you to stop apologising.’

  The file dangled in her hand as she turned back to me.

  ‘Well, I suppose now is as good or as bad a time as any.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For me to explain everything.’

  I tried to speak. I tried to say something honest and wise and compassionate, but perhaps I was too young to fully possess any of these attributes. Instead my face reddened and I felt a little nauseous, and wished that the dog would choose this moment to make a demand. I was capable of uttering nothing but broken sentences.

  ‘You don’t have to – ’ I paused and then tried again. ‘What I mean is – ’

  ‘Too late,’ said Dulcie. ‘The floodgates are creaking under the strain. One thing, though.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re going to need a gallon of tea and I believe it’s your turn. Finish your sandwiches first, though. Then come up to the house.’

  ‘Her name meant “obstinate” or “rebellious”. Romy. We met in London. She was a poet fast becoming brilliant, even then. Not in her writing – she was still an undergraduate finding her way – but the manner in which she lived her life: unrestrained and not at all in possession of the vinegary disposition of German stereotyping. You see, Robert, her existence itself was poetic: her clothes, her humour, her laughter. The way she held herself. And, let me tell you, the pursuit of bohemian individualism in 1933 was not encouraged – ironic, given the geographical origins of the term.’

  We were in Dulcie’s living room – what she called the parlour. I was sitting in an armchair, but she preferred to stand. Twice she nearly banged her head on a small chandelier whose decorative pieces of glass cast patterns upon faded wallpaper that showed interwoven willow leaves on a beige background.

  ‘Anyway. So. The writing was on the wall, written in bold yellow stars. A person of her nature couldn’t be expected to stay in a country ruled by thugs and propped up by acolytes, so as soon as the Führer’s arse bones were firmly planted on the top pot Romy packed her bags. Wrote her way out, actually. A scholarship. She could have gone to Oxbridge but claimed that she couldn’t find it on the map so plumped for our fair capital instead. Which is where I met her. She was a magnet for many but none felt the pull stronger than me.’

  ‘You and her – ’

  ‘ – were quite impervious to a significant age difference, not to mention the judgement of others? Is that what you were going to say? In which case, affirmative, but please, no other questions, Robert. I’ll tell you what I tell you.’

  Dulcie continued.

  ‘So yes, just to further evoke the ire of the critics and the bores and bigots, she was a great deal younger than me, but then Romy was a great deal of everything to everyone, all of the time. Faster, funnier, gayer and with a rapier wit perfect for bursting the fat old-money fools that fell at her feet. She just had to find a way to express herself and with some gentle steering from yours untruly that outlet, it transpired, was poetry. By the time she graduated – a high second, she sobbed with disappointment for a week – I was tiring of London and the same dismal faces, the dreary get-togethers, the tittle-tattle and the fuss of it, the endless parade of lords and viscounts, ignoble scions and silly little minor royals, and it was clear she was in desperate need of total relaxation because, Robert, what you have to understand is that Romy’s mind ran at two hundred miles an hour all the time, and the both of us enjoyed more than a drink or two, but whereas I found a couple of aspirin, a raw egg and a big sleep would see me right as rain after we had tied one on, she would have these most awful mental and physical collapses where she would not be able to leave her room for days. Then she was a spent husk, an empty shell. Just an awful mess. It went beyond the boozing, and into something far deeper and darker. My father had kept this place as a bolt-hole for aeons, for his illicit weekend rendezvous I shouldn’t wonder, so we began to spend time here, in order for Romy to rest and write while I could garden and cook and paint and breathe and think, and the two of us could just be. Together. Here in the perfect refuge. We swapped gossip and gin and smoggy coughing fits for clean air, fresh food and, in Romy’s case, daily swims out there. She had a steeliness to her and took to it like – well, just like you. Claimed it helped refresh her mind, and certainly it seemed to work wonders. In these moments she looked lit up.’

  I nodded. Dulcie seemed to be searching her memory for the correct words.

  I took a drink from my cup and then set it down. She continued.

  ‘And so she wrote the bulk of her first collection in this house, which I edited, and of course it went on to be a huge success that no one but I had envisaged because if I have a talent for one thing, Robert, it is seeing dormant potential, and then awakening it. Some create, others facilitate. I am the latter. A cajoler. A prodder. The perfect patron. Anyway, the critics were soon hailing a unique new voice in European poetry and Eliot wrote and young Wystan Auden wrote and Will Yeats said some lovely things and Robert Frost sent a telegram from over the water – Pound was sniffy but that was no surprise – and then that was that. Romy had arrived, and her life took on a new dimension. We travelled. We travelled to so many places. We saw the souks of Marrakesh. The temples of Tulum. The ruins of Pompeii. America, of course, which was marvellously gluttonous and vulgar, and suited us just fine. We even went to Iceland. And of course we visited most of the major European cities, where she gave readings and charmed the press everywhere she went. Romy was very much in demand, and once again the carousel of life spun faster still. Gin for breakfast, champagne for luncheon and a trail of unpaid room-service bills, all of that. Europe was so beautiful then.’


  She paused for a moment and then spoke in a faraway voice.

  ‘Perhaps it will be again soon.’

  Dulcie crossed the room and lifted a small framed picture from the wall. She passed it to me.

  It held within it a photograph of a young woman who was more beautiful than I had imagined. Her chin was tilted slightly upwards in a pose that made her look as if she was silently challenging the photographer somehow, and her skin was so clean and clear it appeared to glow. Her lips were unpainted and slightly parted to show her teeth, which were crooked in a way that I found exciting, and even though the picture was monochromatic I could see that she had brilliant blue eyes that were at odds with the colour of her hair, which was worn quite short and as black as Whitby jet. I immediately wanted to look at more pictures of her, to see her from other angles. To know more.

  ‘She looks very nice,’ I said, too embarrassed to express my truly feelings. ‘Like – ’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Like someone famous. A film star.’

  Dulcie took the picture from me and stole only the briefest of glances at it.

  ‘What was her book called?’ I asked.

  ‘The Emerald Chandelier,’ Dulcie said, returning the frame to the wall. ‘So back and forth we went, from sea to city, for engagements and readings and dinners where Romy was often the guest of honour because there’s nothing literature likes more than hailing a new darling – “fresh meat” might be a better way of putting it – and for a brief and brilliant moment she was it. There was something almost protean in the way she adapted to the various roles expected of her: commentator, comic, wit, visionary. But all the while things were deteriorating back at home.’

  ‘In London?’

  ‘No. In the motherland. Or rather the Fatherland. Germany, where her work was not in print. Nationalism was approaching fever pitch, the nescient pro-war bores were winning and those who were published faced one of two equally grim choices: either submit to censorship from those illiterate beasts who were in charge, or go into exile. Romy had already chosen the latter, though I know she dreamed always of one day returning. It wasn’t that life here with me, and with her writing success, was just not quite enough, but rather that she had a point to prove. The Führer and his types were the opposite of everything she – everything we – stood for, and to never return would be to submit entirely. To give up. Plus, of course, her family was there.’