by Glyn Maxwell
‘As it happens I have a thing for you, drum-roll if you please. . .’
He holds up his fist, and I go across the road to see what gives. His soft big hand lowers and opens to reveal a small cube of dark plastic.
‘Wilby to the rescue.’
Right. (I take it.) Right, and. What do you want me to do.
‘What you wish to do,’ says Barry, ‘Do what you wish to do.’
*
I’d estimated that Jakes modern rendition of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ – to restore it to its actual name – would take about forty minutes at a Polar-Jonesian pace, allowing me to slide back into my seat before the poet started, but I’d reckoned without certain cuts that Jake – or whomsoever had perpetrated this retelling – had made to the old ballad, as I was later drily informed. The poem had been sheared as well as simplified, so both that and Coleridge’s own brief slurred recital were now over. The hall had been pretty much returned to its shabby timelessness: house-lights up, too bright and dusty, dozens of empty chairs and litter, twenty or so people left. Sam was deep in his armchair stage-right, they’d brought the microphone to him. His red wine had been replenished, and a little blue glass phial was now deposited beside it by his coachman, who trod back to his seat in the front row and slumped there job done. He was alone in Row A, the Academy group having sailed some time ago.
Sam was mumbling into the mic: ‘I’d compare the human soul to a ship’s crew cast on an unknown island. . . suppose the shipwrecked man stunned, for many weeks in a state of idiocy, loss of thought and memory. . . then gradually awakened. Mrs Barbauld once told me she admired the Ancient Mariner very much, but there were two faults in it.’
‘No freakin way!’ cried Molly, who must have asked the question, ‘Mrs Barbie you’re so outta line you bitch!
‘It was – improbable, and had no moral. . .’
Bella and others tried to outgasp Molly with scorn and ridicule of Mrs Barbies perverted critical view, but Sam hadn’t finished: ‘As for the probability, that might admit some questions. . . but as to the want of a moral?’ he scoffed, ‘I told her the poem had too much. Too much!’ He shook some drops from the phial into his wineglass and drank whatever drug it was. ‘Too much. Ought to’ve had no more moral than the Arabian Nights – merchant sitting down to eat dates by the side of a well. . . throwing the shells aside. . . Genie starts up and says he must kill the merchant! Because, because, one of the shells put out the eye of the Genies son. . .’
‘Like the albatross, I see,’ said Caroline to end that: ‘Do you think of yourself as part of the Lake School, Mr Coleridge?’
He leaned forward steadily and glared at the floor, ‘Utterly unfounded, that we – that we – God forbid – belonging to any common school. . .’
‘You’re often associated with William Wordsworth,’ she pointed out, doing a good impression of being the only grown-up in the building.
Sam put a haughty posh voice on: ‘the School of Whining and Hypochondriacal Poets that haunt the Lakes!’
‘Can I ask my stimulants question?’ oh jesus Mimi, all we need.
‘If I should die,’ said Coleridge softly, and the sounds of druggy sniggering fade abruptly with these words, ‘and the booksellers will give you anything for my life. . . be sure to say. . . Wordsworth descended on him. . . from Heaven. By showing to him what true poetry was he made him know that he, himself, was no poet. . .’
You’re a great poet, sir (I had stood up beyond caring, one myself right now) and your work will last forever, and we’re going to let you go free now, so, Samuel Taylor Coleridge ladies and gentlemen!!!
As the feeble applause did its best to deafen the curious mice, I felt a tap on my shoulder, it was Lily Bronzo huddled in a great shawl.
‘Had my hand up, chief!’
You’re ill, you don’t count.
‘I’s gonna ask him what it’s like to be great mates with a Northern poet who’s more famous than him.’
You’re funny. Made a recovery have we.
‘It’s Coleridge, chief, come on!’
As I moved towards the stage, where the jubilant gang had surrounded the poet’s armchair with books and beermats for him to sign, the coachman stopped me with a blue leather glove on my sleeve. ‘I’ll take him off your hands, sir.’
Oh. Would he like to have dinner maybe?
‘Better take him off your hands, sir. Might I give you one of these?’ Right. You had business cards?
‘Beg pardon?’
Nothing. Have we met?
‘Ned Stowey. We have now, sir.’
I advanced to the low stage, bid my adieux to Coleridge, who blinked at me from far away and began to introduce himself, then I was heading back through the hall with only one thing left to do.
Peter Grain was stacking the old chairs because no one else was doing it and it probably needed doing. He lowered a stack of five to the floor and looked puzzled as I reached him.
Your pencil-sharpener, squire. Read some Edgar Allan Poe. See you Thursday.
*
The Cross Keys was packed with folks from the Academy. I made the mistake of going into the saloon and there they all were -Jacob Polar-Jones sat blithely enthroned among fans and actors and students and guys high-fiving in their parkas. Tina Yeager was giggling with Jake. She saw me at the door and straightened: ‘Did you enjoy the show, professor?’
(I’m the same in heaven as I am on earth) Yeah well done Jake, nice job, very now.
(Jake glowed like his birthday, Tina nodded like his agent and said) ‘I believe the poet went home happy.’
We always go home happy.
‘Pardon? Professor we need to do this every week. Have you heard of a poem called The Raven? We’re going to ask the author if Jacob can perform it.’
Yeah good luck with that.
‘Are you going to join us?’
Nevermore. I ducked out and went round to the public bar, which was equally packed if slightly less annoying.
White wine, Norman.
‘Small or large.’
Gigantic.
‘He doesn’t need that, Norman,’ a voice heckled from the bar opposite, ‘he needs a Climbing For Honeycomb, that’s blackberries, basil, rum, cassis – ’
‘I ain’t talking to you, miss.’
*
Some bloke left the only bar-stool and I reached it and sat down. I raised my great big piss-gold wine so the green lamps leered inside it, and peacefully I spoke these words I’d been hoping to hear all day, now their maker had departed: Weave a circle round him thrice, and close your eyes with holy dread, for he on honey-dew hath fed, and—
‘’sup Max.’
Nothing. Kubla Khan. It never ends.
‘Jakey blew, didn’t he.’
Scare me.
‘You walked, I saw you, I’m gonna tell Miss Titmouse what did you just say?’
Scare me. Next week. It’s Halloween. Scare me.
‘Scare you how.’
You and your actor friends. Do something. Weave a circle round me thrice.
‘You serious Max? Cos you know we could’
Why do you think I’m asking.
‘You had a weird day, who knows. Guess we can scare you.’
I want you to. I want you to scare me to death. So I can go home.
‘Whatever.’
She sucks by straw from her blue cocktail, sets it on the bar, and stares down at me like I’m preposterous. Then she reaches, lunges for the back of my hair, looms down with her dark lips to mine and is suddenly drooling liquid in. It goes in and all over the bar and me and she’s wiping her mouth with her black suede sleeve, ‘That’s called a Gun Metal Blue. Mezcal, brandy, lime, what else. . .’
Curaçao?
‘Dur. Can you clear this up, Norman? Ha! Blood-bond, Max, deal’s done, I’m going back to the party. See you on Fright Night.’
* * *
Week Six – October 31st
There was a man dwelt by a church
yard—
Thats how far he gets, the little boy in The Winter’s Tale, when his mother’s asked him for a story – a sad tale’s best for winter!’ – but that’s how far he gets before the King bursts in, in a rage, mistaken, and sunders them forever. . .
I was cast in it, as the King, at school, but that never happened either, the Clown dropped out of the play with a week to go, he was moving to another town. He cheerfully told the aghast director not to worry, he’d still buy a ticket to see it! Clown. They cancelled. I was left wandering the corridors and classrooms for months muttering I have tremor cordis on me: my heart dances; but not for joy, not joy. . .
No one knows where the little boy was going with the story. Maybe he didn’t either. And soon he was dead too. And unlike his mother, whose statue would come alive in an hour or so, stayed dead.
*
It’s foggy outside, I dwell by a churchyard but can’t see it from these windows. We all dwell by a churchyard but can’t see it from these windows. Unless we’re the Brontës and can see it there and oh look there too, let’s make up a story. . . I think of the shipwrecked little stalwarts of the Unique Society, out there in the green woods in the mist this morning. Will the sisters play with them today? Will someone check on our Action Men?
Today! I remember what day. I’m actually standing by my slanting window, visible to spectres out there, wrapped in my pale-blue duvet, applauding my friends the tormentors so that my duvet slides to the floor and I’m freezing naked. Fog! FOG! Good start. Good move.
And you know, now you say, there was a man dwelt by a churchyard. . .
*
Out I go, all dressed in brown, the light is cold, my breath’s a genie, I can see some thirty yards. I feel my grin is widening, awaiting the first figure to loom of a sudden from this morning mist, I am ready for my first scare, Ms Bevan. . .
Clown, I see it’s early. Not even the dead get up this soon. How do I know it’s early? I turn at the sound of a creeping engine and here comes the milk-float moving through the cloud, overtaking me very slowly, with the figure of Barry’s lady-friend mildly signalling at the wheel, mildly signalling not turning. Turn! Scare me! Have a frightful face! Have any face! In the mean time: Good morning!
Instead, with her little legs swinging from the back of the float is a silver-blonde child of nine? ten? looking oddly at me. Her legs stop swinging.
The milk-float buzzes onward, clinking into mist. I scent everything that’s autumn – leaves, smoke, earth, cider, bygone books and inkpots, baked potatoes, fires burning, fall, fall, over and ember. . .
Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest. . .
The Saddlers Inn is open, I’m the first, I take a window seat, spread out with my books and things beside the great white oblong nothing. Bliss! The desk-boy Nathan is dressed all in black but he’s always dressed like that these days.
‘Just toast at this point, professor, but I’ll do you tea or coffee.’
Do me, do me coffee.
‘Up early this morning, professor,’ he says when he returns.
It’s Halloween. I like Halloween.
‘Oh man. I’m meant to wear a devil’s hat. Hat? Horns, I guess I mean.’
Did she tell you to?
‘Excuse me? No. Who?’
Never mind.
‘Mr Ridley handed them out last night. He got them at Mrs Gantrys. We could choose. Witch’s hat or devil’s horns. I don’t believe in it myself. Toast?’
I don’t believe in it either. I’m just – something’s going to happen. Toast yes, brown, no white, no brown!
‘What’s going to happen?’
That’s what I don’t know.
(Nathan pours milk into my coffee, the jug is in the form of a small cow, milk pours absurdly from its mouth, he lifts it away with a flourish.)
‘Hm, something’s going to happen, that’s the same as every day, right?’
You know what I mean.
‘I guess.’
He goes to fix my toast, and I realize he’s American, or he is now. Was he before? I’m ready for my frights, you see. Be ready, be prepared! Never did join the cubs or scouts and it’s too late now. I grin like a face and open my book up.
The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere –
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year,
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir –
It was down by the dark tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
After breakfast things get done: brisk walk to the wood for some books I need, stroll back dreaming up a class, clobber my cold pink hands together and swing by Student Services. Kerri has a little purple witch’s cloak but she’s put the conical hat on the floor.
‘It’s too big, it’s not working with my fringe. And push the door, it’s bitter.’
Where’s your familiar?
(She switches her typewriter on and it hums) ‘Where’s my what?’
Your familiar.
‘You mean I’m familiar – to you?’
Um. . . Is Mr Poe coming.
‘Yes. He is.’
On the 18.09?
‘I believe so.’
Did they ask him if JPJ could read his poem The Raven?
‘I have that information, where is it, here, yes, they did ask the agent that question and the agent answered anyone can read Mr Poe’s poem, everyone should read his client’s poems there’s no charge, they are more than happy, I don’t think he’s understood the question there. Anyway I got the template for the poster look and it doesn’t mention Jacob. It’s Mr Poe reading and lecturing, then refreshments.’
Good, get it printed before Miss Titmouse screws with it.
‘Pardon?’
Nothing. Halloween thing. Do you really not need the hat?
*
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived who you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me. . .
Lily loves that I’ve a witch’s hat on. She swanned into the Cross Keys late for noon, in a black cape, the gold DMs, and blood trailing from her mouth and eyes. I was busy reading a poem for class.
‘Got an idea for you, chief, what you drinkin’?’
She goes to get bottles of beer, the place is quiet. There are toy cobwebs and spiders and heads in all twelve corners. Norman seems weirdly in the spirit of the thing. He’s not gone as far as a costume, but he does seem nuttily cheerful, joking with Lily at the bar. Perhaps that’s the old boy’s take on Opposite Day.
Niall’s in a booth alone, gazing at what appears to be a blank sheet of paper. Quiet Kornelia from the Fiction Seminar is in another, making notes from a book. When she sees me she points above her head and smiles, meaning my hat.
Lily comes with the beers, ‘So I had this great idea in the night, right,’
I assume this relates to poetry in some form?
‘Got zero new poems, if that’s what you mean, been up to me friggin eyes!’
It’s alright, ma, they’re only bleeding.
‘D’you like it, you should get some, Mrs Gantry’s got all like slime? No, I been thinking about the shows, right,’
Yes let’s get TV actors to do them all, because what on earth is interesting about great poets coming to town to recite their poems many centuries after they’ve died?
‘Yeah I know, yeah,’ she’s pulling her witchy cloak around her, it has satin-look emerald lining, ‘it’s cool and shit, but stu
dents kind of need that little bit extra maybe in this day and age?’
You mean because you’ve paid.
‘No well there’s that, but it’s not about the dosh, chief, it’s more like getting us involved kind of thing? What’s the word, you know,’
Interactive.
‘Like hands-on, that’s two words, cos otherwise it’s kind of like elitist? but so my idea is, right, we like do a support slot.’
You do what.
‘A support slot. We, the students yeah, read our work before the main event. But it’s not like a boring reading yeah, like Blah blah the moon this and my soul that etc it’s like a slam, like a contest!’
This is definitely scary but not in the way I hoped for.
‘Eh? So maybe like three poets? E.g. Then there’s like judges, like you even, you could be a judge, chief, and then there’s like an interval yeah, then there’s the, you know, who’s next, my love is like, whatever, some flower or other.’
We drained our beers and she stared and waited for me to burst out cheering. I was trying to figure out how to kill it when she said: ‘It would totally get Yeager off our back, cos everyone would come to support their mates an’ that so the place would be rocking and I could totally organize it cos I do that shit in Camden for free.’
And I realized she was right, and I asked her to do just that.
‘You’re kidding.’
You can’t be in it, Lillian, you’re a performance poet, already I mean, it wouldn’t be fair, but how about you set it up, and you and me can judge it? You judge on performance, me on the poem – ’
‘I keep forgetting you’re a poet, mate!’
I. . . (gaiety the only option) yep, every day except Thursday I’m the finest poet in the village.
‘Dunno chief, you read Jeff Oloroso?’
Shut up and anyway, I’ll be dealing with the Guest, you and Jeff can judge it, and sometimes you can perform, but you can’t compete, okay? There’s no class scheduled next week. Have it ready for then.
She loved everything about what I just said. She sat back well impressed, as if I’d thought it all up myself. The first slam would be on Thursday 14th November. It would be called Night of the Living Living, and off she went to make it so, leaving this behind from weeks ago, with the words ‘Love, mysterious ways, etc.’
