Drinks with Dead Poets

by Glyn Maxwell

‘So you say.’

  It comes and goes, it’s saying what I’m doing. In the second person.

  What are you doing

  ‘Urn. Perhaps you need to sit down.’

  Is it you who’s doing that. The voice, it said What are you doing.

  ‘No, there’s no one, it’s Halloween, come on. Nevermore, nevermore, croaked the raven! you do it better.’

  *

  ‘Barman, show me the whiskies. I wouldn’t usually, but I think in the circumstances. Do you know about whiskies Maxwell.’

  You don’t know anything at all

  Glen-morran-jee. Glenma-ran-jee.’

  You will sling your hook tonight

  ‘Glenma-rang-ghee? Oh is it?’

  Do you dance Minnaloushe do you dance

  ‘It’s Glen-morren-jee with a J, the barman’s informed me, you know I think I rescued you from a fate worse than death!’

  You know this isn’t real

  ‘Cheers then! Clink glasses. You have to catch my eye though.’

  You can do it she’s a dream

  ‘Or not, hmm that’s good, is that a peaty flavour is it, I caught your eye but you didn’t catch mine, is that even possible?

  Ask her to come home

  ‘What’s funny now Maxwell.’

  Nothing.

  ‘You giggled. What a mess you are.’

  You will ask her to come home

  Where’s the whisky.

  ‘Pardon?’

  Ask her to come home

  Someone’s commenting on everything.

  ‘What do you mean commenting?’

  Yes, what do you mean commenting

  Like a third voice. In the second person.

  Hello

  Coming out of that portrait.

  Top o’the morning to ye

  Leave me the hell alone.

  Leave ye the hell alone

  That’s really childish that is.

  ‘Um: time out. Who are you looking at?’

  Whom

  Shut up.

  ‘Charming. You’re in a state you are.’

  Not you. There’s a voice over there, from the, the picture.

  ‘Pardon me?’

  There’s a voice coming out of the portrait.

  ‘Is there really, there’s a word for that.’

  You are going to ask her to come home with you

  No. It’s not home, I’m not home.

  ‘Pardon? You’re not home? No one’s home, professor. You think you’re the only one who’s not home? I’m not home. I miss my little flat, I miss Baxter. Poppy and Steve are feeding him. At least I hope they are. They had one thing to remember!’

  Ask her to come back to your digs No.

  ‘No what?’

  I’m not doing that.

  ‘Not doing what?’

  I think I’m going for a walk now.

  ‘I see. And am I just going to wait here am I?’

  I’m just going for a walk. I may be, six minutes.

  ‘Very precise you are! Off you go then. I will guard your Glenma-ran-jcc. No I’ve got that wrong again. Barman – pardon? Claude, I need a refill, and a pronounciation lesson.’

  *

  The cold air hit him

  Shut up

  And the fog was in his bones

  No it’s not

  And no one knew him any more

  You do, you’re talking to me

  The light of the last friendly house receded like the land’s end

  Whatever

  Her gentle soul was the last of the souls

  Leave her out of it asshole

  This lamp was the last of the lamps of the world

  Depends which way one’s walking squire

  And all about him was the sea

  Look I get it it’s quite dark

  There was nothing to be done now

  Yeah except narration

  He tried to make light of it

  He did, he does, he does what he likes

  But we all come to the Third Person

  I don’t, I’m I, I am here, I am now

  We all come to the Third Person

  I don’t know where I am but I am walking where I am

  His words lie still on the sunlit pages

  Words can do what they like

  The reader closed her book and rose from that place she had forgotten his words

  Well sod her frankly

  And life was without him

  Without me it’s not life

  Life was without him

  Sod what was written, I can hear my breathing

  No one could hear him

  Bloody I can hear him I mean me can hear me

  He was coming at last to the Third Person

  I was I am I I I I

  He seemed to be climbing, the ground was getting steeper

  Is is is is

  He was stumbling up the hill, turned back to see the dwindling lights

  Turning turning

  His words mere whispers

  Just getting my freakin breath here

  He was unaccustomed to the effort

  Will you shut the fuck up

  The lights down there were like a fairy bracelet, the great black shire of the lagoon in the distance, the wooded isle upon it even blacker than that

  A-minus english language

  He looked so small on the hillside

  I’m the same size I always was

  He looked so forlorn

  I’m not forlorn I’m alive

  His words faded on the wind

  No

  His words faded on the cold night wind

  And he was heard no more

  The entrance to the railway tunnel began faintly to glow, and from its lip could be seen by now, several hundred yards inside, a zigging and zagging upright stick-man, a dot of a child in a spotlight, a spot on a sun, a mote on an eye, upon a bright beam growing, widening, whistling, howling, rendering whatsoever creature that was as a black star, limbs outspread like the Leonardo sketch, then it was whited out by thundering noise and no one on earth was watching.

  •

  Week Seven — November 7th

  In our lives we are blessed

  On the day we love best,

  In the north, and the south, and

  The east, and the west!

  He was woken by the sound of a school choir singing out like bells in a long bright school hall

  There is only one day

  We are blessed in this way,

  Only one soul to sing to,

  Only one tune to play!

  The melody was familiar to him, but he looked in vain for the source of the angelic sound

  Though we dwell far and wide,

  Through the darkness we ride

  On the highways and byways

  To be here by your side!

  He looked in vain —you looked in vain – nobody’s here but you and you are not at school at all

  We arrive on your shore,

  Take the road to your door,

  And we waltz by the moonlight

  As in evenings of yore!

  You are waking from a dream and dream and waking are both real

  When the time is just right

  We will turn out the light,

  Light the dear little candles

  See them burning so bright!

  You are alive, have survived, am hungry, and what’s more: I have, there’s no you, there’s only this song

  We have known you for years

  Through the hopes and the fears,

  Through the good times and bad times.

  Through the laughter and tears!

  I am lying in my clothes on the jumbled tartan bedspread. I am agitated by an as-yet-inexplicable joy. I see the sky’s pure empty blue and that must be the cause.

  Through the sun and the rain,

  Through the joy and the pain,

  We have sung this song gladly,

  Now we sing it again!

&
nbsp; But it isn’t the cause. It’s the effect. Because it’s only my freaking birthday.

  Happy Birthday to you,

  Happy Birthday to you,

  Happy Birthday, dear Glyh-hin,

  Happy Birthday to you!

  It’s only my freaking birthday, and I wrote this poem about it. It cannot be said hereafter that I’ve done no creative work this term.

  *

  So you think November’s icy and dreary – not me, you think that, you — but I remember some brilliant blue sevenths.

  On one I was still at school, all by myself in the Upper Upper Sixth, moody layabout tilting at Oxbridge. A term like a dream: sunlit, quiet, edgeless, ranging. I had three teachers one-to-one and no classmates. All my friends had left. I signed in and out as I pleased, tea-time with my Chaucer books, lunchtime with my files on Lear, go home, to the shops, to the woods, to the fields. Those free empty afternoons with the new world beginning. . .

  Then on one bright Saturday morning I was picked for the first team. The lads wondered why I was still around. And I was normally a reserve but that bright day I scored twice like in a comic. After the match my cheery mud-streaked teammates were asking me which birthday? Nineteenth, I said, and I remember our beaten opponents looking up suspiciously from the far end of the changing-rooms, as if we’d cheated, fielded someone with a superpower.

  On another glorious cold blue-sky birthday I saw a game going on in the distance. I hurried over a car-park to watch. This was Western Massachusetts and football was soccer. I was in my late thirties. The players turned out to be college girls, skilled, determined, brave, fair. I was too old to be some boyfriend, and too vain to admit I could be some father. This made me what exactly? I fled. This stuff comes up on birthdays.

  Well. Here I am where I was, and the sky is blue, the sun low, the colourful village is stock-still and nordic, the distant meadows sheened with first frost. And did I mention I don’t have class?

  Before I came to this village to teach – I stop at my wash-basin and examine that clause but it holds up fine as I floss my teeth -before I came to this village to teach I did have a superpower: I rose so early in the morning I could almost catch Time out. Who is that sitting there with his little candles burning? What’s his name again? Is he on the list? I am at my work already, while Time is stretching and cussing, throwing on a robe, not him again, not this again. . .

  I say almost catch Time out. It’s only after short deep sleeps in the early afternoon that I wake and find it gone. It gone, all gone, Earth gone. Find myself to be, in all honesty, a heartbeat in space. Accede with a wry smile that there’s nothing else anywhere, so be it, amen, we rise again – reviresco, motto of the lowland Maxwell clan – rise groggily, diplomatically quiet, to make a further coffee.

  But waking on my birthday is the opposite of that. Every move feels right, applauded, focused, minded, cherished. See me choosing socks as if my choice profoundly matters. Watch me magic-marking the calendar, inching another day towards Christmas, another happy hour towards home-time. Look out through my slanting windows at blue sky. The day of gifts begins with the sweet obstinate sense that – gifts presume a giver, and if’s making an appearance.

  So between these two great termini, Alles und Nichts, I ride my holy train.

  *

  I don’t have class because today there’s a ‘Field Trip’. No one has explained this to me. It does sound like the kind of thing Id schedule without planning, so maybe that’s what’s happened. I did mean to ask questions but I kind of got caught up. As I stroll in the sun to Saddlers I’m remembering last week and yes, I think you could safely say that one thing rather led to another. My last reliable memory has me stumbling down into nettles on a hillside – field – trip – oops there we go, the language finds me out. All the stings have faded.

  The Saddlers is closed. Still inside, no trace of Nathan or Mr Ridley or any guest, gingham tables set expertly for no one. No sign it’s opening later.

  Student Services is closed. Kerri’s indoor plants look dry and deserted, indignant plaintiffs I turn my back on. And as I do I remember more – whisky with Tina Yeager. . . a portrait on a wall. Face-masks? Scare me. . . The dimwit supernatural. Edgar in excelsis.

  The Village Hall is locked. VHB is bolted, the Cross Keys is shut, the whole place seems abandoned.

  On my birthday.

  Hmm, I relay to the cosmos, hmm. I include you in this. Whatever made me come here. Whatever sent me to sleep or knocked me out or turned my life so merrily improbable, I include you in the following contention: this does not seem fair on my birthday.

  Field Trip could have waited. Was there no one to say ‘Hang on a minute!’ ‘Where’s chief’? ‘Can’t leave without him!’ ‘Fetch Max he’s dead again,’ ‘Someone go and wake him, he wanted to come on this!’ Their voices ring the chimes until I shake my head silent. This does not seem fair on my birthday. As if my birthday includes in its embrace some bright enthroned Presence wielding Her scales.

  Yes well, I think, by the crimson bolted door of The Coach House, that’s Libra that, that’s Libra for you and you would insist on hanging back for Scorpio. . .

  At Z for Zodiac and fast running out of ideas, I set off along the residential lanes, with the college blocks looming behind their tidy red roofs. If all the students are gone somewhere. . . Mrs Kerr. Bob Tomlin. The McCloud children. Jessie. . . No one’s lonely when the bell rings. . .

  And here of course it comes, silently turning at the end of the road.

  *

  Rowena who drives the milk-float also rides a wheelchair, but she’s usually left the village by breakfast, so you don’t get to see that often. This is the first time I’ve really looked at her, when the milk-float clinks to a halt, full of empties, all delivered. She’s white-haired and rake-thin, with dark eyes, fine cheekbones. She wears dark blue and a bucket hat and only speaks when it’s worth it. But it’s Barry who told me that.

  ‘Fancy seein’ you here!’ greets that big friendly passenger.

  Whatever it was today, Barry, I’ve – missed, I think.

  ‘No class today, senor, and there’s nothing wrong with the old lie-in!’

  Am I not (my heart heaves up but I do have to say this) am I not included in the Field Trip?

  ‘We’ll take you where you’re going,’ says Rowena, adjusting the windscreen mirror.

  Right. Right. It’s just it’s my – it’s the Field Trip and I suppose they’ve all gone there.

  Barry gets out of the cabin, lumbers round to the back of the float where I meet him. He’s carrying various dusty brown and orange cushions.

  ‘Don’t know about no Field Trip, was it on the Reading Series?’

  It was.

  ‘Hmm,’ and he’s clearing a space between crates of bottles, thumping the cushions into it, patting them down for comfort, well you heard the lady say it!’

  You’ll take me where I’m going.

  ‘She will do just that, old son, and most likely bring you back again!’

  Thanks Barry, thank you guys.

  And so we trundle along at first, with the bottles clanking and jingling till we’re past the last of the buildings, then to the north we leave the village, past the fence where I met Keats and on, out, off, away into country. Soon we’re moving along quite steadily through still-frosty silver fields and meadows, and I’m dispatching cherries, grapes and tangerines they gave me.

  Take me into the distance, I cry.

  ‘What’s that you say?’ calls Barry.

  I cry take me into the distance!

  They are silent for a long while then they talk, the pair of them, Barry in an unfamiliar, lower, private tone, Rowena lighter, musical, but I don’t pick out a single word. I listen to their sounds of sense rising and falling and watch the frost on the fields twinkle in the scope and reach of the sunlight.

  No one knows it’s my birthday and I’m taken where I’m going. I look for signs of habitation, signs of life, I look for ro
ad-signs, any sign but the existence of the road itself, but our milk-float chugs its way through how heaven looks on days like this, as I grow older and younger but not a whit the wiser.

  *

  The first sign is a long field we’re suddenly passing by. It has a fence instead of hedges, so someone must have fenced it. We’re also slowing down and at last make a right turn down a driveway, or the beginnings of a driveway. It curves and bends through the rippling trees for ages, and through them over the fields I glimpse some little buildings, sheds, cottages, outhouses. I think of asking Barry if we’re here but why should I, it’s my birthday.

  Presently through a gap in the trees, downhill a ways I see what must be the destination, a large white country mansion with several smaller wings, paths radiating from it, lawns and walks and water-features, worth the hours it took to drive here – worth the minutes it took, seconds it took? I have no idea how long.

  Worthy of my birthday!

  ‘What’s that you say, señor?’

  Nothing. Come a long way today!

  ‘Fine day for it, señor!’

  *

  Our journey ended at the front of the house, where we parked in a small oval of gravel. Finally there were people, some men chatting by the stone steps, some all in white, dressed for jogging. Lawns seemed to stretch away in all directions, bordered with elms or limes or poplars. A few stately oaks stood far off in solitude, mighty, misted.

  Right by where we’d parked there was a fellow leaning on an ornamental lion. He was tall, old-fashioned handsome, his hair dark and parted, he wore a favourite suit and a white shirt undone at the neck. He smiled as Barry greeted him with: ‘Jimmy!’ and Jimmy pointed at my friend: ‘Barry Wilby! By the left, give ’em a hand, Ted, step to it!’

  Another man, similarly at ease, helped Rowena out of the front of the milk-float and down into her wheelchair, chatting with her all the while, to which she answered ‘beat you to it,’ and steered the wheels in the gravel.

  I jumped down at the back, stretched, taking the scene in, and Barry called me over.

  ‘This is me teacher, Jimmy, better mind ya p’s and q’s!’

  ‘Right you are,’ Jimmy grins, and declares in a timbre sort of well-to-do with a soft Cheshire edge, ‘for Reading, Writing and Gazinta!’

  I shook hands gladly with whatever he meant, and Barry expanded on his introduction: ‘Poetry’s his field, you got some poets here, ness-par?’