by Alan Burns
He walked down streets, strange ones. Camden Town. He sat on a seat placed on a triangle of grass between busy roads. Good to sit down, lots to look at. Bless the Victorian philanthropist. Then women carrying shopping gooped at him.
Parkwandering, somewhere, he set a deckchair on its feet, wiped the birdshit off, sat. Got up, altered the back strut, sat again, more stretched out, nearer the ground. An attendant tinged close by. He leapt up, sat on a wooden seat, a free one. Nowhere to sleep. Lucky it was warm.
He went to the free lavatory. The door was lower than the penny lavs. He moved with bent knees so that his head should not be seen. A spade and two brooms were kept there. One broom soft for dust, the other thick copper, red spines wet with disinfectant. No pick-up seat; only a rim of stained wood. Advertisements for venereal diseases. A metal notice above an empty box: “Toilet paper must be obtained from the attendant”. A tramp with dirty bum must hobble out and ask for paper, please.
He found a sheltered place to sleep, protected from the slight evening wind. He took off his jacket, bunched it into a pillow, lay his cheek on it. Shivered. Picked up a fallen log for a pillow. Beetles. Flung it away. Stood still. Bells rang ArangArangArang.
“A-a-a-a-l Out! A-a-a-a-a-a-a-l Out!”
Hide. Down quick on his knees in the leaves, heart bumping. No. He got up, brushed the earth off his clothes, ambled out of the main gate. It was damp and cold now.
Raw noise. Tens of thousands of wheels on roads. Heaps of persons, hives of them, pouring from and into buildings, crowding up steps from underground, crouching in cars, stopping up the street gaping at gadgets in windows, getting pinched elbowed killed drunk dazed, reading evening papers, obeying policemen, selling (and buying) fruit. He bored through them, out to Holborn and the dead City where the daytime money-magnet was switched off, and it was empty. Greenish light lay on the windows of banks, insurance houses, tobacconists. Policemen shone square lights at doors and tested locks.
Blitz sites. He was walking with conscious leverage from leg to leg. His legs weighed impossibly heavy. He came to a thudding hellplace, gleams of fires, men swung shovels, the ground shook, it was between mountains.
“What’s happening?”
“Government contract. Double shifts.”
The steepening road grew bendier, slummier. Tramlines whipped away, shining. He looked at the headlamps of cars spinning round roadbends, coming and going, like spies signalling, but not to him. Asphalt now, to fall and cut your knee on. Everyone’s got a scar on his knee from falling off a bicycle or something, onto a gritty road; an inch of blue-grey dead. The regular street lights passed him one to the other. He was lit by two lights making two faint shadows; the third substantial shadow where the two overlapped had an unhuman shape. Tremendous lorries bound for Glasgow, Strasbourg, Benghazi thundered past him onwards, paralysing as panzer divisions. A dog barked. Bing beng, quarter past something. He found a nameless place with smashed windows and swinging door and a man on a backless chair. He crept in, lay on the floor, felt his head and spine against stone. His feet swing high and round and round in gorges, canyons.
Slammed in the ribs by boulders:
“Out you get, out of it. Railway’s property. Out with you. Come on, out of it.”
Very slowly the morning sun warmed him. It was going to be another fine day. He stood with his back to a lamppost, turned his face into the sun for a moment. He’d ended up at Billingsgate, of all places. The insane fish smell drove him up the hill, spitting. He passed a dead bus stuck in a hole, and early workers whistling.
“Ullo Ken, ’ow yer goin’?”
“Can’t complain.”
He had been here before, ages ago, with his father. He found a halfpenny on the pavement. A kid pointed at his shoe: “Look mum, it’s got its mouth open.”
Policemen glanced at him.
He finished the tea and the ham roll and walked slowly to the door.
“Not so fast. That’s tenpence.”
“So sorry. I clean forgot.”
He felt in his trouser pockets. Halfpenny. He looked intently into his wallet. An old woman pushed in, past him. A wrinkled stick from an Irish hedge, crimson hair tangling from under her hat, which had berries on it. She hooked her man’s umbrella onto the counter, and in a sharp Belfast voice asked for a cup of tea. But the man looked past her:
“Well?”
“I haven’t a penny on me,” Dan called from the door, keeping his grip on the handle. “Now what do we do? I’m really most dreadfully sorry. A cheque for tenpence, of course, would be ridiculous.”
“Buzz off. Go on, get moving. And don’t come this way again in a hurry. I’ll know your mug for next time.”
He had to get decent. He got back to his father’s home, knowing his father would be at work in the afternoon. Helen came to the door, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Dan! What a state you’re in! So that’s how you’ve been carrying on. I thought you were meant to be studying.”
“I’d like some lunch, please.”
“It’s half-past three. Nearly teatime.”
He shoved past her into the kitchen. She followed, stood holding the door. He opened the fridge, took out a bottle of milk, a cold roast chicken, a carton of potato salad.
“That’s your father’s supper.”
“He’ll understand.”
“But there’s nothing else in the house. What am I going to tell him? What will he say?”
They stood over him.
Note on the Text
The text in the present edition is based on that in the first edition of New Writers 1, published by John Calder (Publishers) Ltd, 1961. The spelling and punctuation in the text have been standardized, modernized and made consistent throughout, with the exception of words deliberately run together by Burns, which have been retained.
The unusual formatting in the text – the non-
indentation of paragraphs – has been replicated from the first edition in order to follow the author’s wishes as closely as possible, preserving the aleatoric device and his professed wish to “cock a snook at the body of traditional literature”.
Notes
p.9, Mr Chamberlain: Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1937 until his death in 1940; he gave a memorable speech, which is alluded to here, saying “this country is at war with Germany”, which marked the beginning of the Second World War.
p.14, ‘The Marseillaise’… Republic: ‘La Marseillaise’, now the national anthem of France, was a rallying call during the French Revolution.
p.18, War and Peace… Pierre: Count Pyotr Kirillovich (“Pierre” Bezukhov) is the central character in Leo Tolstoy’s (1828–1910) novel War and Peace (1869).
p.18, Seccotine: A brand of glue.
p.19, Hooper coachwork: Hooper & Co. was a London coachbuilder.
p.22, Left Book Club, Thinker’s Library: The Left Book Club was a subscription-based publisher with strong left-wing leanings. Thinker’s Library was a series of essays and extracts from greater works.
p.23, Radio Malt: A brand of malt extract.
p.24, Lasker and Capablanca: Emanuel Lasker (1868–1941) and José Raúl Capablanca (1888–1942) were famous chess players.
p.25, “Quel sang froid! Quel savoir-faire!: “What cold blood! What manners!” (French).
p.26, Tom Paine: Thomas Paine (1737–1809) was an English-American philosopher, and the author of the influential treatise, Rights of Man (1791).
p.26, Johnson in the Modern Eye: This essay was allegedly written by Burns, aged sixteen, and published in the school magazine.
p.30, NAAFI: An acronym for the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes.
p.32, CO: Commanding Officer.
p.34, CB… fatigues: “CB” means “Confined to barracks”; “fatigues” are menial task
s doled out as punishment.
p.35, Civvy Street: Civilian life. In this instance, life before joining the forces.
p.35, Queens Regulations: A set of rules and regulations governing the personal conduct of officers in the armed forces.
p.36, blanco: To treat with blanco, a preparation used for whitening.
p.55, Lenin on Imperialist War: ‘Turn Imperialist War into Civil War’, a 1915 pamphlet written by Lenin and Grigory Zinoviev (1883–1936).
p.62, DJ: Dinner jacket.
p.65, RSMs: Regimental sergeant majors.
p.66, the twenty-five-pounders: The British army’s primary artillery field gun during the Second World War.
p.66, Audi alteram partem: “Listen to the other side” (Latin) – the principle that no one should be judged without being given a fair hearing.
p.70, NCOs: Non-commissioned officers.
p.70, Pte.: Private.
p.79, Danny Kaye: Danny Kaye (1911–87) was an American actor.
p.80, MacArthur: Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) was the General of the US Army.
p.93, the Garden: Covent Garden market.
calder publications
edgy titles from a legendary list
Heliogabalus,
or The Anarchist Crowned
Antonin Artaud
Babel
Alan Burns
Buster
Alan Burns
Celebrations
Alan Burns
Dreamerika!
Alan Burns
Europe after the Rain
Alan Burns
Changing Track
Michel Butor
Moderato Cantabile
Marguerite Duras
The Garden Square
Marguerite Duras
Selected Poems
Paul Éluard
The Blind Owl
and Other Stories
Sadeq Hedayat
The Bérenger Plays
Eugène Ionesco
Six Plays
Luigi Pirandello
Eclipse:
Concrete Poems
Alan Riddell
A Regicide
Alain Robbe-Grillet
In the Labyrinth
Alain Robbe-Grillet
Jealousy
Alain Robbe-Grillet
The Erasers
Alain Robbe-Grillet
The Voyeur
Alain Robbe-Grillet
Locus Solus
Raymond Roussel
Impressions of Africa
Raymond Roussel
Tropisms
Nathalie Sarraute
Politics and Literature
Jean-Paul Sartre
The Wall
Jean-Paul Sartre
The Flanders Road
Claude Simon
Cain’s Book
Alexander Trocchi
The Holy Man
and Other Stories
Alexander Trocchi
Young Adam
Alexander Trocchi
Seven Dada Manifestos
and Lampisteries
Tristan Tzara
