Drinks with Dead Poets

by Glyn Maxwell

  I have no idea if this is what Coleridge means. It’s what I mean now. I say it to myself in a cold and lonely room off a village hall.

  I think it to myself in Café Maureen by the station, my latest bolt-hole. I look out through the window up at the distant hillside and that forlorn far black vowel of the railway tunnel.

  I fancy I hear a horse-drawn carriage clip-clopping up the lane bringing Samuel Taylor Coleridge to the village.

  I imagine my heart beats two-for-one because I’m about to meet him.

  *

  Incidental life intervenes. As I leave the Café and start walking back towards the Cross, I hear a loud brisk conversation in my wake and when I glance round it’s blonde wind-blown Tina Yeager in blue jacket and matching skirt, talking to two young men in parkas.

  She spies me and I won’t slow down. If she wants to explain herself her footsteps will have to quicken, but I listen and they don’t. On we go, their talk just out of earshot as I reach the Cross. I see Coleridge’s little walnut-brown carriage bouncing down towards the Saddlers, and I follow, turning once to see Tina’s party halting by Student Services. I would have ignored her, but she’s holding one of Kerri’s amber flyers for tonight, grinning and calling in my direction: ‘Will we be seeing you later professor?’

  I stride on irritated, only to find the carriage has stopped outside the Saddlers Inn, the coachman dismounted, no one emerges. I ready my fatuous query:

  ‘Is this for Mr Coleridge?’

  The coachman says: ‘Dropped Sam at the tavern, sir. Where might I find the ostler? Horse is hot, I’m cold.’

  *

  It doesn’t take Coleridge long. He’s thoroughly ensconced by the fire in the snug of the Cross Keys in a haze of ancient smoke and – given he’s only had about twenty minutes – a remarkable count of bottles and pints and listeners. Of the six or seven grouped around him I see there’s Isabella and her classmates Kornelia (slim, awestruck) and Molly (boozy, bespectacled) come from Doug Spore’s Is Fiction Fiction seminar, there’s also Roy Ford, a Jamaican, one of the actors, who stood me a drink on my first night, he winks as I enter, and a couple of other fellows look round briefly and turn back to the story.

  Coleridge, to the fascination of all, is trying to light a pipe: ‘Sunday morning – Hamburg packet – set sail from Yarmouth. . .’

  As I pull up a little stool at the corner, Bella is pleading through the smoke, ‘Do you really enjoy that habit, Mr Coleridge?’

  ‘God forbid, four times a day – breakfast, half an hour before dinner, afternoon at tea, just before bed-time – but I’ll give it all up,’ and he gets it piping blue smoke as Bella and her pals merrily fake coughing spluttering and dying. Roy Ford’s pouring me some red, brings him back: ‘You set sail from Yarmouth. . .’

  ‘For the first time in my life,’ Samuel tells us, ‘beheld my native land retiring from me – all the kirks, chapels, meeting-houses -Now then, said I to a gentleman near me, we’re out of our country. Not yet! he replied, and pointed to the sea: This too is a Briton’s country. . .’

  Ironic Britannic whoops as the smoke stole over the table, and the gang sat back and royally quaffed. I wondered when I’d get a chance to introduce myself, there was still pale light outside – are we far from the sea? I wondered, are we far from the land. . . I could see this ship had sailed and I needed to join the crew.

  ‘We were eighteen in number,’ said the poet, ‘five Englishmen, an English lady, a French gentleman and his servant, a Hanoverian and his servant, a Prussian, a Swede, two Danes, a mulatto boy. . . ’ Here most of them glanced at Roy Ford to know how to play this, but his mild gesture and grin said let it go, it’s his story, ‘a German tailor and his wife – the smallest couple I ever beheld – and a Jew.’

  I wanted to catch up: A packet is a boat, right?

  And ‘Did you hurl?’ someone needed urgently to know.

  He glanced my way: ‘Far superior to a stage-coach – as a means of making men open out to each other.’

  ‘Did you throw up?’ Molly pestered.

  ‘Faces assumed a dolefulyh frog-colour – I was giddy but not sick. I found I’d – interested the Danes. I’d crept into the boat on the deck and fallen asleep, but was awaked by one of them about – three o’clock in the afternoon – told me they’d been seeking me in every hole and corner, insisted I should drink with them.’

  Ha! Danes, I say, still catching up, as Coleridge chuckled ‘Christened me Doctor Teology – dressed as I was!’

  All in black, this day on land as that day at sea, and his hair is brown and dirty, his eyes so blazing-bright from the firelight and his wet lips never stop themselves, ‘we drank and talked and sung – then we danced on the deck!’ He lifts his pint to drink, but engrossed as he is in reliving details, soon sets it down again spilling: ‘One came and seated himself by my side – his language, his accent were – so singular!’

  Now he smiles, raises a hand as if to indicate he’ll play the role, and plunges into crap comedy Danish – ‘My dear friend, is I not very eloquent? Is I not speak English very fine?’ Then he clears his voice to be himself: ‘Most admirably!’ – and again the Dane – ‘Vat an affection ve haf for each odher!’

  Coleridge is so very loud that most of the folks in the pub have by now congregated nearby. I see Heath, Niall, Iona at the far end of the group, probably wary of the bastard I’m being today, several drama students, the desk-boy from the Saddlers, Nathan, who now wears dark-glasses indoors, also format is present in a starling-glittery three-piece suit, he draws ringed planets as he listens.

  ‘Seven o’clock,’ says Coleridge, ‘the sea rolled higher – and the Dane – eliminated enough of what he’d been swallowing to make room for more!’

  ‘Yeeuuugggh, ’ say all of us.

  Then he reaches towards Roy and puts a hand on his shoulder, press-gangs him for the yarn: ‘His servant-boy, Jack, had a good-natured round face. . .’

  Roy frames his grinning face with his hands for they’re a doubleact now and the company cheer them on. Coleridge drinks, ‘the Dane now – talked like a madman – entreated me to accompany him to Denmark, he’d introduce me to the King etcetera, he declaimed the Rights of Man: Ve are all Got’s children! The poorest man haf the same rights with me. Jack! More brandy!’

  Still game, Roy lifts the poet’s drink towards him, and Sam-as-the-Dane gulps and claps him on the back: ‘Dhere is dhat fellow now! He’s my equal! Ve are all Got’s children. . . ’

  God’s kids all drank to that, and in the lull Coleridge, as himself, as if he hadn’t touched a drop, said: ‘I can hear him now. . .’

  ‘Wow,’ says Molly after consideration, while Isabella wonders from her heavenly lamp-lit corner: ‘Where d’you come from, Mr Samuel Taylor Coleridge?’

  Roy laughs: ‘Poor guy just got here and you want the life-story?’

  Of this, Sam catches only ‘life-story so of course he’s off. I suppose by now it’s crossed my mind that we could keep him here, hold him, keep him safe from tonight’s ‘performance’ of his work. . .

  ‘Family on my mother’s side inherited a pig-sty in Exmoor – and nothing better since that time. Father’s side. . . my grandfather was a woollen-draper in South Molton in Devon. He was reduced to poverty. My father walked off to seek his fortune, proceeded a few miles, sat down on the side of the road, overwhelmed, wept audibly.’

  He pauses to drink a long draught, as if drinking in his history once more among the sorrowful young faces.

  ‘A gentleman passed by, gentleman who knew him. Enquiring into his distress – took my father with him, settled him in a neighbouring town as a schoolmaster. He got money and knowledge, married his first wife, walked to Cambridge, entered Sidney College, distinguished himself for Hebrew and Mathematics.’

  He drinks again, returned safely to his station in life, and is ready when I ask him what books he liked as a boy.

  ‘I read incessantly. My father’s sister kept an everything shop at Credi
ton – I read through all the gilt-cover little books that could be had – Tom Hickathrift, Jack the Giant-killer, I used to lie by the wall and mope. Robinson Crusoe, Arabian Nights. . . One tale made so deep an impression I was haunted by spectres. . .’

  ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ says Bella after a silence.

  ‘No, madam. Seen far too many myself.’

  He looks grave, then snorts, then we all do at the unmistakable chime of wit, and at Bella being a madam, then he stops abruptly, looks around at us all as if groggy with waking: ‘I’m not fit for public life.’

  He sighs and stoops to sip his drink. A couple of conversations start up on the fringes. Roy Ford leans over to me: ‘Heard you’re teaching Drama in the spring, professor, is that so?’

  What? Who told you that?

  ‘But were ya happy?’ Molly resumes interrogating.

  ‘God forbid,’ Sam answers. ‘My father was very fond of me, and I was my mother s darling: in consequence I was very miserable,’ – Molly laughs so hard she spurts cider – ‘No, my father used to hold long conversations with me. Eight years old I walked with him one winter evening, from a farmers house a mile from Ottery. . . He told me the names of the stars, how Jupiter was a thousand times larger than our world. . . That the twinkling stars were suns that had worlds rolling round them. . . And when I came home he showed me how they rolled round. . . Profound delight. But – from reading fairytales, my mind had been – habituated to the Vast. Children should read romances, giants and magicians. I know no other way of giving the mind – a love of the Great, the Whole. . .’

  No one breaks the spell for a while, there are sighs and coughs and whispers. I notice Bella is fair trembling with questions, and now she leans in to ask, the only cure: ‘Mr Coleridge, why do you write?’

  ‘Because my life is short.’

  ‘Not true!’ but she has more: ‘Will you ever, I’m sorry, I’ll die if I don’t ask – will you ever finish Kubla Khan?’

  This gives him an old smile from the ages, and he reaches for his dormant pipe, knocks it, sits back against the plum leather and answers her: ‘Tomorrow’s yet to come.’

  I look and it’s night outside, it fell so fast, all the lamps on the Green are lit in the mist. I know what’s coming, here it comes. Academy folks arrive in their parkas, range around the edges smiling, they’ll be bringing him to the village hall.

  In the lull of more drinks arriving at the table I move in, face to face:

  It’s an honour to meet you, Mr Coleridge (and he ponders in a strange voice as his hand and mine are shaking) ‘Coleridge, Coleridge. . . Not so much harm in him. He’s a whirl-brain, talks whatever comes uppermost.’

  Are you happy here? (And all I meant was here right now, but he takes the long view out through the dark window) Another winter in England will do for me.’

  Ha! I hear ya! I’m a poet myself, as it happens.

  ‘Poets,’ he goes vaguely (christ I hope no one’s listening) ‘gods of love. Gods of love who tame the chaos,’ and he drinks to saying no more.

  Mr Coleridge. It’s. Do you. Do you really not mind if an actor reads your Ancient Mariner this evening? (The Academy guys stop dead with concern, their anoraks crinkle and uncrinkle. It’s on the flyer, it is printed what will be.)

  ‘It’ll be happiness and honour enough,’ he says, not remotely bothered, ‘I’ve now seen all the rainbows.’

  *

  Kerri was right, the village hall is rammed. The rabble from the pub pretty much fill what seats are left. The air is jovial, carnival. I sit disapproving in the midst of much yelling. I’ve slid in near the back, as the Academy folks lead Sam towards the stage. I didn’t set this up and I’ve told him so, my work is done. I see spotlights have been rigged, I see green gels, red gels, dry-ice machine, a rain-stick. I see Tina Yeager’s down there on the front row with the people dressed smartly, doubtless basking in the light of a full house. I know everyone here somewhere, people who never come, Kerri, Wayne, Maureen from the cafe? Clyde Mapping. There’s a bearded portly fellow I keep seeing, he’s on his own as usual.

  I see they’ve seated Coleridge in a throne-like blue velvet armchair on the stage-right side. I begged Roy Ford to see he was sorted for wine, and he’s done that. I see Sam imbibing serenely: a deposed king, my mind clanks and rumbles. . .

  The lights go down, there’s cheering, then a spotlight and the actor saunters in, all in black, his dyed cream hair like froth on a Guinness, and he freezes. The great dark hall goes quiet. Nothing happens. I ever so slightly die.

  He unfreezes, I freeze.

  ‘So I heard this tale from my man Sam,

  that there’s this old-time sailor-man,

  he’s messin’ with this gang of three

  he says You’ll do – guy says Why me?

  yer mad old geezer, hear that sound?

  that’s musicl time to party down

  and I’m Best Man so DO ONE, squire!’

  Past the lance of blue light in which the once-and-future Chocalux Man jives and jazzes the thing to dusty death, I see the gleam of a glass ascending to what must be Sam Coleridge’s lips, and I pray to Whomsoever that he’s too far gone to care but I don’t see anything else because I walk out. It being that sort of day.

  By the side of the village hall I sigh a cold cloud of steam and remember I meant to sit at the front so everyone could see me do this. Oh well. I’ll let them know. As I quicken my steps west towards the green I hear the unearthly rumble of a sound effect, topped by the shriek of the actor – And now the storm-blast came and it was mental, it was postal’ as the cheap mic howled feedback in its futile protest, and I never did learn which word was doomed to rhyme with postal.

  *

  I cross the village green and keep going west, past the large low student halls, the double-doors of Cartwright, the weathered crimson picnic tables at De Vere, the cool sculptures outside Benson, this is Ollie’s hall and Heath’s, I heard them say that’s where they’re off to. After the halls are the narrow lanes of terraced houses, dotted with lamps and trees, Caroline lives down one of these streets, she said she was too old for dorms, and it’s here where Norman goes stomping home after a night of grumbling. There are bikes chained up in tiny gardens. A few lights in upstairs windows but no silhouettes, no shapes to test the heart.

  I turn right into what seems a cul-de-sac. Four Victorian lampposts guide the way to a wall at the end that’s black with ivy. From a house on the left there’s movement and I’m seized with the urge to hide – and yet that dream-paste fills my thighs to the top and fixes me where I am, where I wait to see or be seen.

  A man turns at the door of the house, is chortling to its tenant. The porch light goes on and off as he makes his way down the garden path. By the time he sees me I’m chuckling amiably:

  What would it take for you to actually come to one of these readings?

  ‘Riches, teacherman, beyond your wildest dreams.’

  We meet by the front gate of the now-dark home, shake hands for who knows why:

  I mean, the whole damn village is in the hall watching Celebrity Death-Gig, and you still find something else to do! Why did you take my class?

  Barry looks at me.

  ‘Whole dambustin village is not in the hall.’

  All right not the whole village.

  Barry breathes the night air and takes in the nearest houses, pointing off and further off: ‘Mrs Kerr. Bob Tomlin. The McCloud children. Jessie.’

  (I don’t know what to say) Well didn’t they want to come? There’s a Living Breathing Legend in the village hall right now, oh and some old poet showed up too (look I know Barry doesn’t do sarcasm, but I do and I need my fix).

  ‘No no, it’s a bit too much for ’em.’

  Too – much for them. So this is what you do. You visit.

  ‘Always do so, always done so. Shall we walk?’

  Anywhere Barry, it’s your village.

  ‘Now then. Could never abide the moth-light. Th
e lamp you all flock to, see all them moths there, dead and alive? It drives me off, it does I suppose, I can’t help but wonder, I never could help but wonder, how they all holding up?’

  How is who holding up? You mean – everyone.

  ‘Yes I suppose I do mean everyone.’

  How is everyone holding up. So if, let me get this straight, if people are gathering somewhere, you, Barry, have to be somewhere else.

  ‘The more people, the farther gone I suppose.’

  Who are all these people?

  ‘Old folks, señor, young folks, or sad folks, or anxious folks, all sorts really. People who don’t go out much.’

  Lonely people. You visit lonely people.

  ‘They ain’t lonely when the bell rings!’

  No. I suppose. So. . . Why did you take my class? I’m not lonely, Barry. Am I?

  ‘No one’s lonely when the bell rings.’

  Right. Right. No one’s lonely when the bell rings. By the way, been meaning to ask this, á propos and all that, am I dead, mate?

  (At the end of the little cul-de-sac we see the bright lights of Benson and De Vere. I don’t feel dead at all and he has the broadest smile on his big face)

  ‘You don’t half talk some cobblers!’

  (I laugh, I do) I do, I know. Can I ask you one more question? (He’s still grinning at my nonsense, enjoying the night air) What do I do for Christmas?

  ‘Now that,’ he stops, ‘I can’t help you with. How do I know what you do for Christmas?’

  I mean – may I – do what I always do? As in, as in, go home.

  (Barry Wilby claps me on the shoulder) ‘Do I look like the feller to stop you doing what you always do? No! So there, senor, so there.’

  Look I – I ought to get back to the reading.

  ‘Yes I better press on with me visits!’

  So we cordially part, and he lumbers off towards a dark end-terrace when I suddenly think to ask him –

  What do you do for Christmas, man?

  He wheels his bulky frame round, stands there in the road and, without answering, starts rummaging in the capacious pockets of his overalls.