Quieted

one day it will be too late
and all those things I should have said
or wanted to say
will be lost
because I will not be here to say them
nor remember they needed to be said
in the first place

from The Homelessness of a Child

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TWENTY

There were no formalities at the airport. Neville and Samuel simply walked away from the plane and towards the waiting taxi in which Binky was already installed. Samuel had divested himself of his flying gear, returning it to its place of origin before leaving the plane. As Neville watched him, he realised that he had forgotten his companion was essentially an old man; how old it was difficult to say, but his reference to “the war” was intriguing.

Binky was sitting on the back seat of the cab, nursing a shoulder wound.

‘Hah! We showed those rotten blighters, didn’t we boys! Blasted the bounders from the sky!’

Neville caught the scent of medicinal brandy on Binky’s breath.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Me? Never better, old boy! Just a spot of shrapnel in the shoulder, you know. Always gets me there. Fainted clean away! Thank God for the skipper, what!’

Binky turned to offer Samuel a congratulatory thump on his shoulder, but as he did so the pain from his wound sent him swooning in a heap to the floor of the car. Neville bent forwards.

‘I’d leave him Sir, if I were you. He’s probably better resting there.’

As they pulled away, Neville wondered how close Binky’s “resting” had been to finding a permanent heavenly abode — and how long it would be before he was plundering the skies again in his ancient machine. He looked out of the back of the cab to see the old bi-plane being pulled from the runway to a waiting hanger. Presumably it would sit there until Binky had recovered sufficiently well to fly it home.

‘The hospital; then the docks, please.’ Samuel gave the instruction to the driver, then turned to Neville. ‘Are you OK, Sir? Would you like to take that jacket off?’

Neville was still wearing the sheepskin from the plane.

‘I’d like to keep it — just for a while, if that’s OK.’

‘Still cold?’

‘The shivers. That’s all.’

It was a half-lie, but sufficient to allow him to extend his loan of the garment. He was uncertain as to his exact feelings at that precise moment. There was, he suspected, a degree of shock yet to emerge as a result of the flight, and he was unsure how that might manifest itself. It was certainly warmer on the ground than it had been in the air, but Neville was taking no chances.

Half-way to the hospital, Binky roused himself with a cry of “Blighters never fight fair!” followed by half a chorus of “There’ll always be an England” before passing out again. Locating a cushion, Samuel pushed it under the pilot’s head.

‘Has that happened to you before, Samuel?’

‘What, Sir?’

‘That; the dog fight.’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘I don’t know; you seemed quite “natural” as a pilot. And you said something about the war.’

Samuel smiled.

‘Yes, I did.’ He paused. ‘Let us say that I have flown an aeroplane on more than one occasion — and something not dissimilar to that we flew in today.’ He paused again. ‘But you, Sir; you have a fine eye, if I might say so!’

Neville, buoyed by Samuel’s praise, abandoned his original line of enquiry.

‘I was just lucky, that’s all.’

‘Nonsense Sir. The way you took out that second chap; most impressive. Most impressive.’

‘Well, perhaps I’d got the hang of it by then.’

The conversation trailed off, and the journey was soon broken by their arrival at the hospital. Three porters were waiting to haul Binky from the floor of the cab and onto a waiting trolley. His cry of “Give my love to Blighty!” was the last they heard as he disappeared through the swing doors of the casualty unit.

With Binky taken care of, they were off again, the taxi rolling sedately through the narrow streets of St. Peter Port. Neville had lost track of time — was it Thursday or Sunday, he had no idea — and was consequently uncertain whether or not to be surprised by the relatively small number of people out and about.

The volume increased a little as they came to the waterfront. In the marinas, dozens of boats bobbed hopefully in the water, criss-crossing their masts in animated — if silent — conversations while their owners discussed the state of the tides or the winds whilst knotting ropes or sipping pink gins. Further along the quay, a large and impressive vessel was moored: the S.S.Pilgrim.

As they approached the ship, Neville could see a few people walking the various decks and hanging over the railings looking back into St. Peter Port. He tried to remember what “M” looked like, but could only conjure a vague image in pink; certainly insufficient to locate her among those he could see now.

A couple of taxis pulled away as they drew up. There was a single walkway up to the deck, and this was covered with a white cloth awning which rippled in the breeze. Neville expected this to bear the name of the ship, but it displayed the name of the port instead. At its base a young dockhand stood, his hands in the pockets of slightly grubby overalls. He looked up at their approach, and seeing them get out of the taxi, walked over.

‘You the two daft gits who missed the boat in Southampton then?’

It was not the sort of greeting Neville would have expected. The Channel Islands had a certain reputation, a certain image in his mind; this man did not match that.

‘We did miss the boat in Southampton, yes.’ It was Samuel who replied.

The young man looked after the retreating taxi.

‘No bags?’

‘I believe everything has been taken care of. May we board?’

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘It’s up to you, Daddio. I mean, we’ve only been waiting for you, haven’t we?’

Neville sensed Samuel stiffen, ruffled by the abusive treatment they had just received. Neville noted the man’s last comment which suggested he was one of the ship’s complement, rather than an islander.

‘Come along then, Samuel,’ Neville prompted, ‘let’s get on.’ And as they walked past the dock hand, Neville managed to tread — with a deliberate degree of force — on the young man’s left foot. ‘Sorry; my fault.’

The look Neville received in consequence was sufficient to suggest he might not have seen the last of this particular character.

They passed under the awning, and began the climb up to the deck. At the top, one of the ship’s officers was waiting for them; this time the greeting was a sharp salute.

‘My name’s Porter; I’m the Bursar. Glad to have you on board, Gentlemen. May I show you to your cabins?’

And with that he turned on his heel and began to walk away, safe in the knowledge that Neville and Samuel were bound to follow him. Voices now rose from somewhere else on the ship, and Neville looked back to see the insolent dock hand running onto the ship from the walkway just as a crane began to haul it away. From the jetty, men appeared to be suddenly busy with ropes, and a “whoop, whoop” from the ship’s whistle set the seal on their preparations for departure.

As they followed the Bursar along the deck, a number of the passengers leaning on the rail waved towards the shore, but Neville could see no-one to wave back. Perhaps somewhere in the town — and armed with binoculars — there might be relatives invisibly signalling.

Porter took a sharp turn through an open doorway and into a corridor.

‘Mind your head, Sir,’ said Samuel, indicating the slightly low lintel.

‘I’m fine Samuel, thank you.’

A few yards along the corridor they came to a stairway leading upwards. Porter, this time after a brief glance behind and a slight, professional smile, took these stairs to the next deck. At this point they came across another corridor and another set of stairs. Once again Porter ascended.

At the top of the second set of stairs, the Bursar waited for his two new passengers.

‘If I can explain,’ he said, once they had joined him, ‘you arrived on-board on deck “C”. We have just come through deck “B”, and are now on “A” deck; this is where your cabins are.’

He began to walk along the short corridor, a little more slowly this time, talking as he did so.

‘You gentlemen were quite lucky with your bookings, as it happens. I understand you arranged passage a little late? We had a couple of cancellations and both twenty seven and twenty eight became available.’

They had arrived at two doors, set close together, with numbers on them Porter had indicated.

‘They are adjoining cabins, with a door between them should you require such a facility.’

‘Thank you’, said Samuel.

‘You take twenty seven, Samuel,’ Neville suggested, thinking instantly of the bus. ‘Is that OK?’

Both other men nodded their approval.

‘Your baggage is here I believe,’ the Bursar said. ‘I’ll let you get settled in, then arrange for Bursar, the Porter, to come and check that everything’s “ship shape”.’

‘”Bursar”?’ said Neville.

‘Yes?’

‘No; sorry, Bursar. I mean the Porter; his name’s Bursar?’

The uniformed man smiled.

‘Yes; and my name’s Porter, and I’m the Bursar! Don’t worry; it confuses everybody, especially the Captain!’ And with that, the Bursar bowed and left them.

Samuel opened the door to his cabin to reveal a rather spacious interior which looked, for the most part, like a very expensive hotel room. Neville followed him in. The adjoining door to his own room was open and, having had a brief scan round twenty seven, Neville walked into twenty eight. This cabin was identical to Samuel’s, with the sole exception of the door’s location.

His bags were at the foot of the bed. He wondered how they had managed to get here before him, whether there had been some other way of getting across the Channel, or if, at the end of the day, it was another of Samuel’s “tricks”. It seemed unimportant.

‘Nice cabins, Samuel.’

‘Very nice, Sir. We should be comfortable here, don’t you think?’

Neville felt the ship begin to roll slightly underneath him as they got underway.

‘Do you want to have a wander round on deck, Samuel? Wave Guernsey goodbye?’

‘If you don’t mind, Sir, I think I’ll just have a rest. A little nap perhaps. I suspect they will be calling us for dinner in a couple of hours or so.’

‘Fine. I’ll see you a bit later then,’ and with that Neville closed the door dividing the rooms.

His first instinct was to go searching for “M”, but practicality suggested it might be wise if he unpacked his bags first and then perhaps freshen up. It was a little after five and, as Samuel had suggested, they had no wish to be late for their first evening meal on board.

The two bags on the bed were familiar to him, though, on opening them, he discovered some new items of clothing: bright T-shirts, some shorts, and a pair of sandals that had obviously been included as a nod to the Mediterranean. His suit was there (of course!) as were the other items of casual wear he had expected. There were also two new pairs of shoes: one in smart black leather; the second, a kind of blue canvas deck shoe.

As he toyed with the idea of slipping into the naval shoes, there came a knock at the door.

‘Yes?’

The door opened to reveal an exceptionally tall man, dressed in a uniform similar to the Bursar’s. The first thing Neville noticed about this new man, as he bowed low in order to be seen, was the large bandage he wore around the top of his head.

‘M-m-m-may I, Sir?’

‘Please.’

As the man stooped to enter, he failed to duck low enough and banged his head right about where the bandage was.

‘F-f-f-flaming doors,’ he muttered. Neville wondered if the bandage was there to tend an old wound or prevent a new one.

‘Can I help you?’

‘N-n-n-no Sir; c-c-c-can I help you,’ the man bowed, showing Neville the full extent of the bandage which, from this new angle, resembled nothing less than a full turban. ‘I’m B-b-b-bursar; the P-p-p-p...’

‘Porter,’ Neville offered.

‘Is there anything I can d-do for you, Sir? Would you like any d-d-d-drinks, or anything?’

‘No, I’m fine thank you, Porter.’

‘C-c-c-call me B-b-b-bursar, Sir, if you would. P-p-p-porter’s the B-b-b-b...’

‘Bursar. Yes, I’ve met him.’

‘N-n-n-n....’

‘Nice chap; yes.’

Bursar looked around a little helplessly.

‘Well Sir, if that’s all. J-j-j-just to t-t-t-tell you that the C-c-c-c...’

‘Captain?’

‘Has invited you to d-d-d-d...’

‘Dine?’

‘With him this evening, Sir. Eight o’clock; main b-b-b-ballroom, Sir.’

Neville smiled.

‘Thank you Por — Bursar; I dare say we shall see you later.’

The Porter considered replying, thought better of it, then bowed again. Neville watched him as he left, waiting for what he assumed would be the inevitable dull thud as his skull hit the door frame on the way out. Bursar paused at the door, then made a special effort to bow low. It made no difference: “thump!”

‘F-f-f-f....’

And the door closed with a naval “click”.

Neville went back to his bags and completed the remainder of his unpacking. The voyage to the Mediterranean would, he assumed, take a few days; after that, they would spend some time visiting the islands themselves. The clothes available to him would seem to be adequate to cover that period, but what about after that? As he sat on the bed, once again he recognised there was no clue as to what might happen at that point, nor where he would be going. Had there ever been such clarity, he wondered? Presumably there might come a time where there would be no “next” for him to consider.

As he slipped closer to philosophy, a voice whispered ‘”M”’ at the back of his brain, and he decided to take a quick tour of the ship before dinner. He donned the canvas shoes and opened his cabin door.

TWENTY ONE

Once outside his cabin, Neville paused. He looked right to the stairwell from which he, Samuel, and Porter had emerged a little earlier, then left to the end of the corridor which was delimited by a single door. He decided to walk left.

The numbers on the cabins continued ascending until forty was reached, this being the last cabin before the grey door. Neville looked back. He guessed from the length of this particular passageway that there were perhaps twenty or so rooms — presumably much like his and Samuel’s — leading from it. He placed his hand on the handle of the exit and pushed it open.

He was immediately hit by fresh sea air which carried with it the hint of salt spray. The front of “A” deck was not a large affair, boasting a few recliners and deckchairs, and the odd wrought iron table welded to the superstructure. Neville walked to the front rail and leant over. Just below him he could see both “B” and “C” decks, and beyond them the bow of the ship complete with capstans, ropes and the like.

The two lower decks were kitted out for a number of pastimes; Neville could make out the markings of games’ courts of various kinds, including one he assumed was used for some form of curling. There were a few people milling around, fewer than he had expected, but the weather was not as brilliant as it might have been.

Despite the flying jacket, he now felt a little chilly. Turning, he noticed a second door leading back inside from “A” deck and, as he walked towards it, couldn’t fail to see the bridge of the ship above it. Neville looked up. He was greeted by a sharp salute from someone behind the glass; he guessed the Bursar, though he could not be sure.

The corridor beyond this second door was much like his own; indeed, the similarity was so great that Neville immediately remarked to himself on the enormous potential for confusion. The first door to his right bore the number one, and — as he suspected — ascended from there; the numbers proving to be the only distinguishing feature of this passageway from his own. At twenty there was a stairwell down to “B” deck — presumably in parallel to that he had so recently climbed on the other side of the ship — and once there a further set of cabins.

Rather than another door at its end, this passage bore round to the right by ninety degrees and revealed another, shorter corridor. At the end of this, another turning which mimicked the “U” shape of the “A” deck walkway above. From the bottom of the “U”, a single, much larger double staircase dropped down to the deck below. Neville checked his watch. He had enough time before he needed to prepare for dinner to push on with his exploration.

The bottom of the stairs opened out into a large lobby, adorned with soft sofas and parlour palms. There were one or two notice boards, and a place specifically designed to leave messages. Neville scanned this. It was much like the pigeon-hole system used in hotel lobbies. Finding his own room — “A-28” — and the empty slot assigned to it, he then decided to take a brief rest on one of the sofas. The lobby was deserted at present, though he had seen a couple leave just as he arrived.

From his new vantage point, Neville noticed again the remarkable degree of symmetry the ship possessed. Indeed, here it was not only left-right symmetry as he had already noticed on “A” deck, but fore-aft symmetry too. In each corner of the lobby, an archway led off in its own discrete direction, yet all appeared identical.

He had not been studying the ship’s architecture for long when a voice assailed him from behind the settee.

‘Bastards!’

Neville turned. An exceptionally large Venus fly trap was leaning towards him, its two major leaves open like a single eye complete with lashes. The leaves suddenly snapped shut with a vengeance, and another pair became the plant’s mouth.

‘Bastards!’

‘I’m sorry; but who are you referring to?’

‘You. Them. Everyone,’ the plant snapped back, swaying slightly closer to him with the motion of the ship.

‘Who is “everyone”?’

‘The bastards who put me here, on a bleeding ship, miles from anywhere.’

‘Is there something wrong in that?’ Neville asked, moving away to the edge of the settee and relative safety.

‘I suppose you’ll be having dinner tonight with the Captain, won’t you? Stuffing your bleeding faces, I bet!’ The plant snapped open and closed again. ‘And me? Starving bleeding hungry. Not a fly in slight. Stuck on board a bleeding ship; don’t they know I’m supposed to be carnivorous?’

Neville was beginning to feel vaguely uneasy about his aggressive companion.

‘I’m sure they must have flies here somewhere, if only to feed you.’

‘And my mates.’

Neville looked nervously around, but could see no evidence of any similar species.

‘Of course; and your chums.’ He paused, eyeing the plant with a degree of mistrust; just how carnivorous could one of these things be? ‘Look,’ he said rising, ‘if I find any flies, I’ll keep them for you. OK?’

‘Sure,’ snapped the plant, ‘that’s what they all say!’

Without waiting for a more suitable conclusion — if there could be any such thing — Neville made a move down the nearest corridor.

There were cabins on “B” deck too. Neville noticed that they also bore numbers in the same range as the level above, but here the doors to the cabins appeared to be slightly closer together and just along the outside of the corridor. On the inside there were other doors that bore legends such as “Staff Only” and “Laundry Room: B3”. As he continued his stroll, he even came across one marked “Bursar: A.Porter”. “B” deck was obviously not quite so desirable as his own. There would be more comings and goings here, more noise, and the cabins were probably less spacious.

After a few strides he came to the end of the corridor. He had evidently been walking towards the rear of the ship as the corridor now gave way to another lobby, this time with large glass doors opening out onto the aft deck. This lobby was also deserted, though out on deck a number of people were standing at the rail, wrapped up warm against a strengthening breeze, and watching the wake of the ship as it pointed back to the now invisible Channel Islands.

Neville contemplated joining them, but decided against it. Checking his watch, he decided that it was probably time for him to return to his cabin. As he walked back — exactly the way he had come to avoid getting lost — he realised he had not been given a map of the ship. This would have been useful at this present moment — and would probably be so in the future should he wish, say, to find the ship’s Doctor. At some stage, he would ring for Bursar and get him to fetch one.

When he got back to the Venus lobby, there were a few people at one of the notice boards. Neville joined them and discovered that they were examining the seating plan for that evening’s dinner. A large diagram, filled with circles representing tables, had been annotated in a practised hand with the names of the passengers. He found his own surname next to the Captain’s on the top table. He recognised none of the others on his table, and wondered which of them — if any — belonged to Samuel. There was also — of course — nothing which said simply “M”. Neville nodded politely to his fellow passengers as he left the lobby, and made his way back up the staircases to “A” deck.

When he reached his cabin, he found the adjoining door open and Samuel moving between the two. On his bed, a white shirt lay ready for him to wear at dinner, and Samuel was currently making sure his suit trousers had a sharp crease in them.

‘Hello, Sir. Had a nice stroll?’

‘Just a quick wander, that’s all.’ Neville took off his flying jacket and threw it on a chair. On the small table near the porthole, steam rose from a pot of tea.

‘I’ve just made that Sir; please, help yourself.’

Neville went to the table and began to pour the tea.

‘It is a nice ship, don’t you think? Have you seen very much of it?’

‘I just wandered down to “B” deck; had a look round the lobby, you know.’

‘Porter said he saw you at the front of “A” deck, outside.’

‘Porter?’

‘The Bursar, Sir. He just popped in to let us know where we were sitting for dinner.’ Samuel, having finished working on the trousers, placed them on the bed alongside the shirt. ‘The Captain has invited us to dine with him.’

‘I know,’ said Neville, between sips of tea, ‘I saw a plan of the tables and where everyone is sitting.’ He realised that one of the names on top table had to belong to Samuel. ‘There seemed to be quite a few tables too.’

‘Oh, I think this is quite a large boat; probably a couple of hundred people on it.’

‘It seemed very quiet when I was out, that’s all. Hardly anyone about.’

‘Perhaps they were all unpacking, Sir.’

This seemed reasonable enough. Neville caught sight of an open drawer and realised that Samuel had completed the job he himself had started half-heartedly. He sat on the bed, sipped his tea, and watched Samuel as he finished brushing his suit jacket. Samuel, aware that he was being watched, offered a slight nod and smile. It was more a fatherly kind of gesture rather than that of a manservant, which is what he seemed to be half of the time. Neville felt he was being protected by this old man, as if — an addition to everything else, “tricks” included — he was offering him the benefit of his wisdom.

‘Is that all right, Sir?’ Samuel had finished with the suit which now hung on the outside of the wardrobe along with the shirt. ‘I’ve given your shoes a bit of a polish too, so you should be all ready.’

‘Should I choose the tie?’

‘Second drawer down.’

‘Thank you, Samuel.’

Again the older man nodded, paused as if he wanted to respond to Neville’s suddenly inquisitive gaze with something solid, but then turned silently back into his own cabin, closing the door behind him.

Almost simultaneously there came a knock at the main cabin door. It was a hesitant kind of knock, and sounded like one which had difficulty getting going; “k-k-k-knock, knock”! Neville walked to the door and opened it to reveal almost all of Bursar.

‘S-s-s-sir,’ the Porter said, bending his head beneath the level of the door to effect the greeting. ‘I’ve g-g-g-got you these.’

He extended his hand, and presented Neville with a number of small pamphlets, the topmost one was entitled “Your Ship”.

‘I thought they m-m-m-m-’

‘Might?’

‘B-b-b-’

‘Be?’

‘Useful, S-s-s-sir.’

Neville took them and nodded.

‘Thank you Bursar; just what I was looking for.’ He felt as if he was patronising this tall man in some way, almost without intention; as if there was something in the other which brought such an attitude out of him. A brief pause ensued, during which time Neville became a little unsettled by the thought.

‘Is that all?’ he asked somewhat brusquely.

Bursar thought for a second, then nodded.

‘Enjoy your d-d-d-dinner, S-s-s-sir.’

‘Thank you.’

Neville watched the porter as he turned, straightened, then banged his head on one of the lower ceiling beams as he walked away down the corridor. Neville closed his cabin door on the sound of Bursar’s “F-f-f-f-” as it came back up the corridor. Throwing the pamphlets on the bed, he decided to take a quick shower before dinner.

The bathroom was compact, boasting only a shower, a toilet, and a washbasin. Neville would have preferred at bath — indeed, at that particular moment, he had a strange desire to be back on the bus, bathing in the company of the yellow plastic duck. As he switched on the shower, he remembered the shower head in Paris and wondered — for the briefest of moments — if he were to be in for the same kind of experience here. There was a splutter and a hiss, but then that was it.

He got into the shower in a rather disturbed frame of mind. He felt slightly angry now, though unable to locate the root cause of this emotion; it seemed to be flapping about inside him, without a focus, looking for something to scar as it lashed around. Bursar had been an easy target, and Neville was angry with himself for that. Samuel might have been a target once too, but there was now a little too much between them to allow Neville to even consider it.

As he stood under the jets of hot water — refreshingly strong and slightly stinging — Neville tried to imagine the force of the shower cleansing the anger from him, washing it out of his body, and away down the plug hole. He looked down at where the water swirled away and had an image of someone, somewhere — perhaps the overalled man from the quay side — waiting with a watering can to catch all his anger ready to feed it to the Venus fly trap. He smiled to himself at the picture — as if any more anger were needed there! — and the tension left him.

It was replaced, without any conscious bidding on Neville’s part, by the rather blurred image of “M” as she turned to wave goodbye at the restaurant. He could remember pink, the colour that dominated the image; and if he tried hard, he kidded himself that he could remember her shoulders too. This was a lie, he knew; he remembered Bob’s words, and that was about it. If she were to walk past him in the corridor and he not realise it, then what kind of a crusade was he embarked on?

He thought about that single, neatly folded sheet, and tried to imagine how he might fit into her plans; if she too was on her way to Option 3 — “A” or “B” — where did he come into the frame?

From outside he heard Samuel open the adjoining door and walk into his cabin.

‘Just coming, Samuel,’ he called out, beating the other to the punch. Then, pulling the soap from its holder, he began to wash himself vigorously.

Ten minutes later, he was sitting on the edge of his bed. He could see Samuel in the other cabin looking remarkably smart in a pale grey suit with a rather magnificently patterned tie. Neville wondered what people meeting him for the first time this evening would think of him, of what he did, of his history. And what would Samuel say, to introduce himself?

Neville, in shirt and trousers, had chosen a rather brilliant red tie from the small collection presented to him by Mister Bossiman, and had already remarked on how the suit seemed to be able to complement the colour; however, his immediate concern had become the location of his shoes.

‘What did you do with my shoes, Samuel?’

‘In the bottom of the wardrobe, Sir,’ came the reply from the other room.

Neville checked where directed. The only suitable shoes there were the new ones he had seen earlier, and he had been looking for comfortable old shoes. As he was about to turn away, a voice from the floor called him back to the wardrobe.

‘Hey! Try us!’

‘Yes,’ said another, not dissimilar voice, ‘try us; we’re tailor-made for you, honest!’

The shoes — in bold and shining black leather — had a subtle brogue pattern in them which, to Neville at least, resembled something of a face; or at least, half a face in each shoe. This impression was endorsed when the left shoe — the one that had spoken first — winked knowingly at him.

‘You won’t regret it, will he?’

‘Never!’ exclaimed the right shoe, ‘can’t regret it, can he?’

‘Ever danced, Mister?’

‘Sorry?’ Neville was again sitting on his bed, though with the shoes now in front of him.’

‘Danced,’ said the left shoe again.

‘You know, the old quick step; one-two, one-two-three.’

‘Ah the thrill of the ballroom!’

‘Sorry,’ Neville interrupted, ‘but what’s this got to do with me?’

The shoes winked conspiratorially at each other.

‘You’ll see!’ they said in unison.

‘Ready, Sir?’ Samuel had popped his head round the door, ‘I think we should be going.’

‘Yes, OK; I’ll be right there.’

Neville slipped on the shoes, and stood to get his jacket. As he took a pace forwards he needed to look down to check that he was indeed wearing the shoes. They felt so comfortable, it seemed as if they were not there at all.

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Were I to write a memoir I suspect I would navigate via other people. People and places. Would that make the book less about me and more a story about others and some kind of loose ‘travelogue’? Or is that not only how we re-tell our stories, but how we live our lives too; lives defined more by attachment than action? I think in many ways it may be.

Which, if so, provokes a further question: what responsibility do we have to those about whom we write? Presumably there’s a responsibility to be accurate (or as accurate as memory allows) and the imperative to be honest, always walking the tightrope between fact and mis-remembered fiction; and would we choose to put ourselves through such trauma — both of memory and of writing — knowing that those concerned (especially from our most recent past) might one day read what we’ve written? One assumes they may be less focussed on us and more on themselves. Indeed, they will judge the accuracy of our story by navigating according to their own versions of events. Under such circumstances, perhaps in our story they become the stars.

Aged six or so we moved back to Portsmouth (the south coast city where I was born) to live with my newly widowed grandmother in Cleveland Road, Fratton. For some three or four years prior to that we had lived in a pre-fab just north of the city.

Built in the aftermath of the war, these were awful places probably filled with asbestos: hot in the summer and cold in the winter; walls so hard you couldn’t drive a nail into them. Not too many years later we were to return to another pre-fab for a short while, this time in Gosport across the other side of the harbour. It was one of the fourteen or so stops in ten years of nomadic domestic wandering.

Cleveland Road was a terrace of small three-bed houses whose front door opened straight onto the street. My nan bought the house off-plan for something like £6000. It was never intended we live there, but when my grandad died I suppose the move seemed a logical one. We stayed in the house until a little while after she died and then in 1968 were forced to leave by two of my aunts (who wanted the money from gran’s house sale) and moved across the harbour to Gosport.

For those four years, I attended Somers Road Junior School. Those were the days when parents were happy to let their six-year-old children walk to school on their own — and Cleveland Road to school wasn’t a simple or safe walk!

And the relevance of all this context? A way of introducing Grace, Lisa and Terry. Yes, there were obviously ‘events’ in my life up to that point, but in terms of the real emotional narrative, the nuts-and-bolts of people who were 100% attached to me alone (not gifted via my parents or our extended family) Grace, Lisa and Terry are the triumvirate I always come back to. They were my first people.

Think of the young Elizabeth Taylor in ‘National Velvet’; this is how I choose to recall Grace Campbell: dark, slightly curly hair; slim; very pretty. A group of us occasionally played ‘kiss chase’ in the playground; the boys chasing the girls with the prize for a ‘catch’ being a peck on the cheek. To be honest, I think the group engaged in the practice was pretty small in number — but I’m also certain that at least 50% of the time I chased Grace. One day, overflowing with what I probably imagined was love, I decided to get Grace a present. To facilitate this I told my mum it was her birthday, so that lunchtime we went to the Post Office on Fawcett Road where I bought a do-it-yourself necklace and bangle kit. On reflection it would have been horrendous: cheap and plastic! My mum made me wrap it in paper — and then insisted she come with me to deliver it to Grace! (she may have lived on either Britannia Road North or Victoria Road North, see above). It was a statement of affection and probably my first romantic gesture…

In comparison, Lisa Crook was entirely different in terms of how she looked. I see her now as marginally less ‘girlie’ but with undoubted magnetism nonetheless. Lisa played ‘kiss chase’ too — and was another of my favourites. If it was possible to be doubly besotted then I’d be guilty as charged. I know what you’re thinking, around seven years old and I was already something of a lady-killer! Or worse…

In those days much of our education was rote-learned — and we were tested constantly. We used to have tests every Friday (sums and spelling) and the score you achieved dictated where you sat the following week: the brightest at the tables front left, fading away to those in the dark back right corner. Also there were tests — and prizes (usually a book) — at the end of every year. Terry Walker and I always used to come first and second in those annual tests; one year I’d come out on top, the next year he might. (There was a lad who consistently came third, but I’ve lost his name.) The whole thing was a regime which, in addition to knowledge, instilled competitiveness and aspiration — and, I suspect, a little intellectual snobbery which (if I’m honest) I still carry with me today.

Whichever way you look at it — and leaving family and ‘events’ to one side — Grace, Lisa and Terry were critical to a child growing up in what would soon enough prove to be horrendously difficult circumstances. They were the first emotional attachments I’d chosen for myself. Is that choosing one of the ways of telling we’re becoming our own person? Whether or not I’ve remembered them correctly, I know my gratitude to them is well-placed.

So to finish, a poem. I often used to feign sickness to skive off school. My mum and dad were never hard on me, so it was easily done. I think she liked having me around for company. As an only child, my ‘at home’ days were usually spent in my own world (I started writing stories when I was five) — and the library at Elm Grove was one of my favourite haunts…

Elm Grove Library

it sat back from the road      apologetically
barricaded by modest gardens and a low wall
a municipal bungalow
	the antithesis of splendour and promise

yet inside was a treasure trove
the spot the ‘X’ marked
yards of books on low-slung shelves
	child-high      alluring

feigning illness to bunk-off school again
the boy took possession
imagining a moat around ‘A’ to ‘D’
then drawbridge up
honed-in on Blyton
		famous
			secret

what seeds were sown then
not those of adventure
but saplings of a different kind
	of imagination
		of invention
of the power of putting one word in front of another
and seeing where they took you

‘Elm Grove Library’ is published in The Homelessness of a Child.

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If you asked me what the trigger was for my 25th June post “The Myths of Native Trees” I’d have to confess that it was partly the positive reader reaction to my second Substack, New Contexts, but also a request from a friend that perhaps I should consider posting a little more of my own poetry here

The immediate follow-on from that combined impetus was a decision to share a few poems from my 2020 collection, The Myth of Native Trees (and thus the post that appeared on the 25th June).

The process of selecting which pieces to include in that article forced me to read through the whole collection and — perhaps not surprisingly — make just one or two very minor tweaks (which are now incorporated in the published edition). But at the same time I also understood that there was something more complex in play.

Throughout 2025 I really struggled with poetry — not just my poetry but poetry in general. In the entire year I perhaps wrote just three or four pieces. Therefore I decided to ‘take a break’, resigned from a poetry group I’d been chairing for eight years, and prepared myself never to darken poetry’s door again!

Yet something seems to have shifted — and there are multiple reasons for this too: working on the publication of collections for a couple of friends; re-starting the ‘Contextual’ poetry reading events; and deciding to stand-up the New Contexts Substack site in order to further promote others’ work already published in that particular series of anthologies. Feedback on both the new site and the now bi-monthly ‘Contextual’ events has been remarkably uplifting — and working on collections for others is, as ever, immensely rewarding.

But perhaps trumping all of that is my beginning (tentatively at first) to start writing poetry again — an exercise which has continued to gain momentum and, it appears, which may lead to something concrete at the end of the process.

So back in love again? Well, maybe it’s too early to say.

What I can say, however, is that my working through The Myth of Native Trees has encouraged me to re-examine some of my back catalogue.

First-time Visions of Earth from Space was published in 2019 and, having just read my way through it once again, I was pleased to uncover that same degree of pride and ‘worth’ I’d found in Trees — and, following on from that, the entirely predictable notion that maybe I should highlight some of that collection too.

In the end — and rather encouragingly — I found it difficult to settle on three pieces to share. Having finally done so, I offer you:

• ‘Passion’ - inspired by the meeting of two ex-lovers;

• ‘Did we know those days were golden’ - inspired by a line in the magnificent Elbow track, ‘Lippy Kids’ (from the album ‘Build a Rocket Boys!);

• ‘Diagnosis’ - written following a health scare suffered by my late father (but which, in the end, proved to be nothing too serious).

Passion

where did it go
slipping like rainwater through 
cracks        in        the        pavement
a deluge lost
fated to remain nothing        but a memory
a tale to be retold over tea and scones
as if we were just old friends
catching up
not people who were once 
	caught out
		by the rain

Did we know those days were golden?

There is bravado in our voices 
when we talk about the past,
recall episodes as jewels
inherited from a celebrated ancestor,
pretend we had known all along
they were sparkling points of learning
not moments lost to the breeze 
like insignificant dandelion seed.
We smuggle away regret, keep it hidden
like an embarrassing Aunt 
who constantly knits unshapely things, 
murmuring and click-clacking her needles
while we feign not to notice the impact
of a persistent lack of personal hygiene.

Perhaps we might have marked it back then,
the incremental decay that stalked us,
invisible, defying recognition.
				              We know it now.

Diagnosis

“There is a lump” he says, as if it’s new.
There is a tone in this sudden-old voice
he’s finally trying out,
a tone like a baby’s inconsolable wailing,
a blend of anger and bemused disbelief
as if it’s all someone else’s fault.
It had been skulking in the shadows forever,
nurtured unknowingly across the years,
fed with worry, watered with failed schemes.
“I’m no gardener” he said once,
confused by a scrub of burnt lawn,
wilted phlox, horsetail run amok.
Soon they will christen it, as if giving it a name
makes it more personal, one of the family.
They will tell him that nothing is coincident;
the pain, the inability to hold fast to weight
or hit double-top like he used to.
“All these were signs” they’ll say
- but he never paid any heed to signs.

His voice echoes on the telephone
as footsteps might a stone corridor,
betraying hollowness and emptiness 
rather than the dull thud of a hostile invader.

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SEVENTEEN

He was eventually roused by Samuel’s cheery ‘Good Morning!’ and the aroma from the cup of tea which simultaneously landed on the cupboard by his bedside. It seemed one of those unfair awakenings: being disturbed before one was well and truly ready. He had managed to get some sleep, though for how much of the night it was impossible to say. All Neville knew was roughly the time he went to bed, and that it was now a little after seven.

Having checked his watch, he replaced it on the cupboard by the tea.

‘Isn’t this a little early, Samuel?’

His words felt blurred as he spoke them, crawling tiredly from him, as if they too were exhausted by a lack of sleep.

‘Early, Sir? I don’t think so. I suspect we may need to make an early start today.’

It was a comment which Neville failed to register. Unwittingly, he found himself returning to the root cause of his disturbed night, his trying to understand recent events; but he could only come up with things that seemed dream-like in themselves: “Mirelle” turning into a seagull; ‘Bob’, the talking fish.

‘Don’t let your tea get cold, Sir.’

Neville watched Samuel disappear round the edge of the curtain, and reflected on how his Mother had, for countless years, contrived to use those same words at least once a day. And if you substituted ‘dinner’ for ‘tea’, then he had heard it more often than that. Just now, however, it seemed a reasonable command to take seriously. It forced him to sit up a little — to ‘shake himself’, as Bob might have offered — and think about the day ahead.

The first few sips of tea (which was actually very hot) somehow placed a frame around the night, parcelling it up, and allowing Neville to file it away. It was something that was over, there was nothing residual left; it was time to move on. As he half-lay there, he contemplated the inside of the bus — a mobile home which, by the day, was becoming more like a home and less like anything mobile!

Neville drained the tea and climbed out of bed. Pulling on his dressing gown, he made his way through the curtains and towards the smell of bacon that was, under Samuel’s command, frying on the galley stove.

‘How are we this morning, Sir?’ Samuel said, as Neville reached him.

‘Fine, Samuel. A little tired, but fine.’

‘I have taken the liberty of running your bath.’

‘Thanks.’

Neville deposited the tea cup on the small sink unit and went through into the bathroom. The filled bath awaited him, but this time there was no duck floating on its surface. Neville looked for it briefly, but it was not in evidence. As he slid into the water, he wondered if it might have been pleasant to have spoken to it again — but then again, perhaps its absence suggested it had served its purpose.

As it was, Neville emerged a few minutes later after an undisturbed and relaxing bath. Samuel was still at the stove, though now tending sausages. The bacon had disappeared, though its smell lingered.

‘Everything all right, Sir?’

‘Fine, Samuel; thank you.’

‘I’ve put your clothes out on the bed.’

Neville nodded and walked through to his small compartment.

As Samuel had said, Neville’s attire for the day awaited him: slacks, a polo shirt and light cardigan. He pulled back the curtain at the window and looked out. It seemed a little too grim outside for such light clothes, but then presumably Samuel knew what he was doing — or, indeed, what they both would be doing.

At the foot of the bed, Neville noticed the suit trousers he had worn the night before lying there, awaiting return to the small wardrobe. He was surprised to find them, partly because he thought he could recall some form of discussion from the previous evening about putting them away, and partly because, given Samuel’s faultless efficiency, it seemed something of an anathema to find them still out.

He thought about calling to Samuel, but decided it would be simplest to just put the trousers away himself. As he lifted them from the bed, a small rectangle of white paper fell from one of the pockets and down to his feet. Neville, with the trousers resting over one arm, bent to pick it up. In the moments between bending and standing upright again — just about to open the folded paper — he tried to imagine what it might be: a receipt for the meal? Had the fat man given him something? He could recall nothing.

The paper, which was of reasonable quality vellum, was folded accurately into halves and opened easily. Neville could tell by the pristine state of the paper, that it had been folded once — firmly and with conviction — and no more; there had been no unfolding to reconsider its content. It was headed with the crest of the restaurant, and its contents were formed in a free-flowing hand. About half-way down, Neville read:

I hope you enjoyed the Duck and the Monkfish - they were really very good, weren’t they?! I wonder if your evening turned out anything like mine; something of a “sting in the tail”...?

I am going on a cruise — but perhaps you know that already! S.S.Pilgrim; leaving Southampton tomorrow.

Perhaps we might meet again one day...

M.

The note could only have had one author. Neville, rather than digest its content, was intrigued as to how it could have found its way into his pocket. The woman — “M” — must have written it on her way out; on that basis, did Gustav slip it into Neville’s trousers at some stage? Or perhaps it had been the fat man? Neville could not reconcile himself to the latter option; at least Gustav would have had the chance — and the “agility” — to perform the required operation.

He turned his thoughts to the content after a moment. They threw an interesting light on the discussions he had had with Samuel the previous evening. “M” was obviously “in the same boat” as he, and their shared experience — even down to Bob (surely “sting in the tail” was a reference?!) — was patently real enough. He raised the note a little higher, as if doing so would confirm its authenticity, and prepared to call Samuel.

In the instant between raising his hand and engaging his vocal chords, Neville’s reaction to the note shifted from the intellectual to the emotional. Questions savaged him from all sides: why was this woman, “M”, telling him where she was going? What did she mean by “perhaps we might meet again”? Was she really part of his plot — that pink dress! — or had they somehow become entangled?

‘Samuel!’

The curtain drew back and Samuel, holding a tray containing Neville’s cooked breakfast, stood before him.

‘Sir?’

‘Southampton, Samuel. We’re taking that cruise of mine.’

‘Very good, Sir. Would you like me to keep your breakfast hot for you while you dress, or will you eat it now?’

‘I’ll be dressed in a minute; you can leave it with me.’

Samuel put the plate by the side of the bed.

‘Shall I get us underway, Sir — if you’ll pardon the nautical turn of phrase.’

‘Please.’

‘Can I enquire the name of the ship?’

‘The S.S.Pilgrim; why?’

‘Just so I know where to go when we get to the docks, Sir. That’s all.’

‘Presumably you know where she’s sailing, Samuel?’

‘I believe it’s the Mediterranean, Sir.’

Neville looked at the clothes laid out for him on the bed.

‘And presumably you also knew we were bound to be going there?’

Samuel smiled.

‘I’ll get us moving, Sir; I don’t think we’ve too much time to spare.’

EIGHTEEN

When Neville made his way to his customary seat a few minutes later, the bus was already in motion. He put the plate containing his bacon, sausages and eggs down on the adjacent table and looked along the road. They were in the country, presumably south of Birmingham, though as he knew it was difficult to tell exactly where the bus might be at any one time. Samuel acknowledged his arrival with the merest glance, then returned his attention to the road ahead. Neville fell to his breakfast.

He believed he had managed to instil a degree of urgency into their prospective journey; indeed, he assumed this was confirmed by Samuel’s apparent willingness to get the bus underway immediately. Despite this however, their progress was limited to the mandatory twenty seven miles per hour, and as they meandered through the countryside Neville felt inclined to ask Samuel if he couldn’t possibly manage to go a little faster.

History — thus far, at any rate — suggested Samuel’s judgement in terms of timing was impeccable, and Neville had no real cause to doubt they would arrive in Southampton in plenty of time to board the boat. He speared the remains of his last sausage and raised the fork to his mouth.

‘I take it you have made reservations for the voyage, Sir?’

‘Reservations? I thought you took care of that sort of thing. There don’t seem to have been any problems in the past.’

The sausage segment became suspended three inches from Neville’s mouth.

‘When I can. But you seem to have taken this decision rather suddenly.’

‘You’re telling me you didn’t know where we were going?’

‘Of course not, Sir. How could I?’

‘But the clothes you laid out seemed so suitable. And your attitude. You weren’t at all surprised.’

Samuel glanced round. In the brief pause, Neville pulled the sausage from the fork with his teeth.

‘I like to think that I am prepared for anything, Sir.’ Samuel took a breath, allowing for any potential contradiction. ‘The clothes? You had talked about a cruise. Perhaps I made a lucky guess.’

‘Perhaps.’ Neville was doubtful. ‘Does that mean the cruise is off?’

‘Oh, not at all, Sir. If we can make a quick stop, perhaps I might be able to phone ahead.’

This seemed a strange departure from the ritual as Neville had experienced it thus far. Samuel seemed perfectly genuine, yet something about the situation ran contrary to the general pattern of the adventure. Neville — whose desire to make the boat had been steadily growing since the idea first struck him — was powerless to do anything except concur.

Five minutes later the bus was stationery, and Neville was watching through his window as Samuel rang Southampton docks from a roadside telephone kiosk. There was little spectacle in this, Samuel remaining motionless and non-expressive for the duration of the call apart from a slight inclination of the head at one point, and a more definite nod immediately before he put the phone down.

‘All booked, Sir.’ Samuel announced on his return. ‘The S.S.Pilgrim sails on this afternoon’s tide, which doesn’t leave us too much time — but I’m sure we’ll make it.’

The last remark was offered with one of his knowing winks which meant that, when they set off at their snail’s pace again, questioning their progress was the last thing on Neville’s mind.

Slowly they rolled through the countryside; the roads were quiet and, apart from the occasional flock of sheep or herd of cattle, the scenery was relatively bland too. Samuel had retrieved an atlas of the world from somewhere, and presented it to Neville with the suggestion that he might like to study the islands of the Mediterranean in order to familiarise himself with them prior to their arrival.

‘”Our” arrival?’ Neville had echoed.

‘Yes, Sir. I think it might be wise if I were on hand, don’t you?’ Neville recalled Paris and reflected on how valuable Samuel’s ultimate intervention had been.

As he took in details of Malta, Corsica and Sardinia, he felt the bus gradually descending downhill. It seemed a hill without a bottom, and without any adverse gradient to counter it. He could hear Samuel in his driver’s seat reciting poetry —

I must go down to the seas again,

to the lonely sea and the sky,

and all I ask is a tall ship

and a star to steer her by,

and as he spoke it seemed the bus was — quite literally — going down to the sea as there, in the distance, the Solent shimmered in the early afternoon sun. There were no tall ships — at least not as John Masefield would have known them — but Neville could make out one or two large vessels and the jibs of the tall cranes working them.

The bus turned a corner and Neville lost sight of the docks. He wondered which of the two ships he had seen was the S.S.Pilgrim — or if neither, then where on the docks she might be. Samuel would probably know, but Neville was ill disposed to disturb him as he feared they had come as close to “racing against the clock” as they were ever likely to.

When they reached Southampton it seemed as if humanity had descended on the town. The roads were full of cars, and the pavements packed with people.

‘Must be some kind of event, Sir,’ Samuel said after they had been stationary in a traffic queue for a few minutes.

‘Is there any way out of this, Samuel? How much time do we have?’

‘I’ve been following the signs for the docks, Sir. We’ll get there as soon as we can.’

Neville spotted a policeman walking their way; he was chatting with other pedestrians, apparently unconcerned by the congestion. Neville — who was by now on his feet and leaning against Samuel’s seat — pointed him out. Samuel lowered his window.

‘Excuse me, Officer. We’re trying to get to the docks, and I’m afraid we’re in rather a hurry.’

‘Hurry, eh?’ The Policeman laughed. ‘Well you won’t get there through the middle of the town; there’s a big “do” on, see? It’s where all these people are going.’

Neville, although intrigued to know what kind of “do” would bring people out in such numbers, had his mind firmly set on making the docks in the shortest possible time.

‘Can we go some other way? Not through the centre of the town?’

‘Well, Sir; let me see.’ And the Policeman paused long enough to effect a professional frown before replying. ‘You might try going west, and then back in from that side. I think it should be less busy that way.’

‘Thank you, Officer. Now, which way’s that?’

‘Why, over there.’

And as the Policeman pointed, a gap appeared in the traffic to the right, just where another road branched off. Samuel swung the bus out of the main stream.

‘Try a couple of miles or three,’ the Policeman shouted after them, ‘then head back in!’

As they headed west, cutting across the threads of traffic and people all aiming for the town centre, their progress — though still not rapid — improved. After two miles, Samuel began to look out for signs that indicated “Docks” and, on finding the first one, took the designated route. The Policeman had been correct in his judgement, and, though they were now in a position where Neville would have been glad of twenty seven miles per hour, at least they were making forward progress.

When the “Docks” signs eventually drew them out of the throng and away downhill once again — and back to twenty seven miles an hour — it had been nearly an hour since they had lost sight of the Solent, the ships and the cranes. Samuel had been silent for virtually all of that time, and even now — with open road again ahead of them — remained quiet. Neville, having returned to his seat, felt a degree of tension in the air undoubtedly caused by Samuel’s unspoken concern that they might actually be late.

The first entrance they came to proclaimed Dock Gate Twelve. Neville looked at Samuel.

‘Which one do we want, Samuel?’

‘Three, Sir.’

The gates seemed impossibly far apart, and although they were no longer hampered by traffic, it was taking an age to get from one gate to the next. When they reached Four, Neville thought he could see a gentle plume of smoke rising from beyond the wharf-side sheds ahead, and wondered if that might be the Pilgrim making ready to get under way.

On finally pulling through Dock Gate Three and driving down to the pontoon, they discovered the smoke was indeed coming from the S.S.Pilgrim — however, the ship was not making ready, she was actually sailing away. Perhaps by as little as ten minutes, they had missed the boat. Samuel shut down the bus engine, and the two of them sat in silence watching the S.S.Pilgrim grow ever smaller, churning a white wake with seagulls dancing in the foam. The cawing of the gulls carried back to them, mockingly almost.

‘I’m sorry, Sir.’ Samuel broke the silence, though without taking his eyes off the ship. ‘I don’t know how this happened. I don’t think I have ever been late before.’

Neville wondered about the Eiffel Tower, but admonishment never occurred to him.

‘You couldn’t have known about the traffic or the crowds, Samuel. Otherwise we would have made it.’

Samuel choose not to reply. Again they both stared after the boat. The dockside was deserted apart from them.

‘I guess that’s it then,’ was all Neville could offer, as he struggled with the disappointment of not making the boat, of not taking the cruise, and — most importantly — of not renewing his acquaintance with “M”.

Samuel rose from his seat.

‘Excuse me, Sir; I won’t be a minute.’ And with that he was off the bus and out of sight.

For some reason, Neville had a brief image of Captain Oates at the South Pole — “I may be some time” — and wondered, not without some concern, why Samuel had left the bus.

The minute Samuel promised to be away extended to thirteen, but when he returned — boarding the bus as suddenly as he had left it — the smile on his face immediately suggested that all was not lost.

‘We are in luck, Sir!’ he said as he started the bus.

‘Samuel?’

‘The S.S.Pilgrim is making a special stop in the Channel Islands before she heads for Gibraltar. There is an airport just north of the town and I have arranged a plane for us. We can overtake the ship and board her in Guernsey.’

Neville could say nothing. He sat back in his seat as the bus moved away from Gate Three and out into the city again. Might his hopes not be dashed after all? And what should expect to find once he stepped on board the ship?

The bus began the steady incline away from the docks, occasionally offering a view of the sea and the speck the S.S.Pilgrim had now become. Samuel had taken to whistling, evidently relieved that all was not yet lost, and Neville — to take his mind off their renewed chase — had picked up the atlas again and was contemplating the rather complex geography of the Caucasus Mountains.

They left the city behind and, for a few miles, travelled once again through open country. The aerodrome — signified by its tower, radar and windsock — came upon them suddenly: one minute they weren’t there, the next they were. Samuel steered the bus through the main gate, past the car park, and out onto the fringe of the runway. As they descended the bus, Neville looked for the plane that would speed them to the Channel Islands and his longed-for rendezvous. Expecting a small jet or some such, the only plane he could see was an old World War One bi-plane.

From a building which housed hangars and administration as well as the control tower, a figure emerged and began walking towards them. As the man drew closer, Neville, recognising the portent of his leather helmet, handlebar moustache, white scarf and jodhpurs, put two and two together. He looked back at the old bi-plane. Could that get them to Guernsey in time?

The pilot and Samuel were in conversation when Neville turned to them again. The pilot smiled and walked towards him, offering his hand.

‘”Binky” Bingham’s the name!’ he boomed in a B-movie accent. ‘Hear you chaps want a quick recce over the water, what?’

Neville smiled as he took Binky’s hand, then winced politely under the pressure of the cast-iron grip.

‘Have you over there in a jiffy!’ Binky continued, ‘No Huns about today, what?’ And with that, he marched off to the plane.

Neville looked at Samuel. He refrained from articulating the questions — and fears — which were bouncing around in his head. Samuel’s silent nod of understanding and meek smile of acknowledgement were sufficient. They followed Binky to the plane, where, after the appropriate degree of “Boy’s Own” bonhomie, they were installed in the two passenger seats. Ahead of them, Binky planted himself firmly in the pilot’s seat and, pulling his goggles down, bawled “Chocks away!” to no-one in particular.

The bi-plane’s archaic engine spluttered into life and with a cavalier wave from their pilot, they began to bump roughly across the apron to the end of the runway. As they paused for the engine to work up the appropriate enthusiasm, Neville noticed another hanger near the tower outside of which numerous modern aircraft sat idle. He tapped Samuel (who was sitting in front of him) on the shoulder, ready to suggest they abort Binky for something a little more modern, when the bi-plane suddenly lurched forwards.

Rather than smoothly, they accelerated along the runway in pulses. Binky appeared to have several goes at yanking the joystick to lift the plane into the air, but each of these met with failure. Indeed, they came within a few yards of the end of the runway — and Neville contemplating the failure of his quest in some “total” sense — when the plane’s wheels hit a large bump (almost, he would reflect later, like a Sleeping Policeman) which threw the craft from the tarmac and up into the air.

For a few seconds, the plane seemed suspended, uncertain as if it would manage the rest itself; but then, roaring like a wounded lion, the single engine pulled them upwards and towards the heavens.

NINETEEN

After the initial scare, the flight began to feel a little more like a conventional excursion. They ascended to something in the order of a thousand feet, at which point the engine seemed to give up its quest for more height and insisted on levelling off. As far as Neville could tell, Binky had managed nothing as yet to suggest he had any control over their fate. He wanted to talk to Samuel about arrangements for their immediate future, but was forced to abort any such plans when his first and only attempt was completely thwarted by the noise of the engine. Powerless to do anything but sit there and wait, he decided to make the most of the flight.

The plane banked over Southampton Water — though whether this was due to Binky it was impossible to say — and began to follow the Hampshire coastline west. Neville felt reassured that, for the first time since he had met Samuel, they were travelling between two distant points and were using a means which allowed him to verify the nature of their progress. Although they were not flying particularly high, Neville soon began to feel cold as the wind rushed about him. Binky, at one stage, turned and gave them a “gung ho!” kind of wave, apparently oblivious to the conditions his passengers were facing. Samuel had, very soon after take-off, rummaged around in the cockpit he was sitting in and managed to retrieve a leather flying jacket and hat, both similar to Binky’s. Within minutes, from the rear view he had of them Neville found it impossible to tell the two apart.

With Samuel proving the benefit of initiative, minutes later — and a fair distance along the coast — Neville decided it could be worth his while to see if there was additional clothing secreted somewhere for him. A few seconds searching around where he sat rewarded him with a rather tatty white scarf which, despite its somewhat careworn appearance, was soon adorning his neck. He tried to tie it in a manner appropriate for an aviator, but suspected all he managed was a clumsy kind of knot. In any event, it was a little warmer, though still insufficient for his present needs. As he looked about, craning his neck to examine every reachable space, he discovered a small lever on the side of his seat which, when depressed, allowed him to rotate a complete 180 degrees. In doing so, he was rewarded by two things: first was the welcome sight of a sheepskin jacket in a recess by his feet; second was the realisation that the plane boasted a primitive anti-aircraft gun mounted on the fuselage and pointing to the rear. He pulled on the coat, wondering as he did so, how he had managed to miss the gun; presumably this had been due to excitement — or fear.

Warmer now, Neville rotated in his seat again, then looked out in a more contented frame of mind. They had progressed along the Devon coast and, banking left, ahead of them lay the western half of the English Channel. It was a bright, clear day, and Neville thought he could make out their destination. If that were the case, then surely at some stage they might also fly over the S.S.Pilgrim. He turned to the east, scanning the surface of the water, attempting to discern the cruise ship from the various other craft plying their respective trades. Tankers were easy to spot because of their bulk; yachts easy to miss because of their lack of it. The S.S.Pilgrim should, from what he could remember, reveal herself as something between the two.

He had just caught sight of a ship that met his expectations — right sort of size and steaming in the right direction — when his view changed instantly and he found himself looking at nothing but water. Worse than that, it was water that seemed to be getting closer, and rather quickly. They were in something of a steep dive. Ahead, Binky’s scarf flew stiffly behind him as they accelerated downwards. Neville was about to tap Samuel on the shoulder when a sudden manoeuvre from the pilot resulted in them being thrown back in their seats; all he could see now was the blue of the sky.

If the engine had roared on take-off, its complaint now was less feline and more like that of a dinosaur. Up and up it pulled them — certainly higher than before — until it they began to lose momentum. At the last minute, just as they seemed about to stop dead still, the plane banked and began to swoop away to the right.

Neville — who by this time had not only lost all sense of direction, but was beginning to wonder if he might not lose his breakfast too — doubted such an extreme exhibition was part of the normal in-flight entertainment; though with Binky at the controls, anything might be possible. Indeed, he was beginning to search for other reasons for their present course when a second roar greeted his semi-deafened ears; another bi-plane appeared suddenly ahead of them, crossing their path.

Although they were not travelling particularly fast, the two planes seemed to cross in a split second, and Neville had to rotate in his chair to follow the progress of the newcomer. His tracking of this second red plane revealed the presence of a third; the latter now bearing down on them from behind and slightly above. He could not be exactly certain what first confirmed it — perhaps it was the fact that these new planes were bright red; perhaps it was their markings; or perhaps it was the flashes from their forward-mounted machine guns — but Neville knew they were in trouble.

He felt Binky begin to steer the plane into a dive again, and as they began to drop, Samuel tapped him on the shoulder.

‘What!’ Neville shouted, convinced Samuel could not hear him.

‘The gun!’

Samuel must have made a superhuman effort to get himself heard above the din, but hear him he did. He turned back to the gun and took its butt in his hands. It was heavy and cumbersome, and at first Neville could do little but wave it round.

As they dived, the second red plane buzzed above them. Neville could see the first turning their way, preparing to attack again. No way was this a simple drama. Remembering to aim away from the rudder, Neville tried to fire off a couple of trial shots. He pulled the trigger and nothing happened.

‘Safety catch!’ came Samuel’s voice again.

Glancing along the gun, Neville found a small lever that appeared might do the trick. He flicked it and tried again. The gun kicked into life, the recoil far stronger than he expected (despite its mounting), and he simply sprayed the rounds in a broad arc. This would be more difficult than he had anticipated.

As the first of the intruders swooped towards them, Neville took careful aim and fired. After a short burst, the gun ended up pointing at least twenty degrees away from the target, Neville just able to make out the fading traces of his initial attempt falling tamely away. The red plane opened fire. Neville could not see the traces of the bullets as they came towards him and, although he had nothing to back this up, he sensed their adversary’s shooting was a little better than his own.

The planes crossed again as Binky slipped into a slight dive, then pulled up and away to the right. Considering its age, the bi-plane was performing remarkably well, and Neville was beginning to re-evaluate his opinion of Binky as an “Ace”. Samuel was once again silent, watching helplessly as the drama unfolded either side of him. Neville hoped that a little instruction might come his way, but there was nothing further.

In the distance — it seemed miles away — the two red planes came briefly together then began another attack. They were faster than Binky’s old crate and, it appeared, could out-manoeuvre them too. Neville flexed his hands and prepared to pick up the cudgels again. He had learnt much from his first attempt and had decided that it would undoubtedly be best not to aim directly at his target but away from it, allowing the gun’s natural travel to strafe the plane’s path.

From either side the red planes began their swoop. Closing in, it appeared that they would cross on completion of their attack, peel away, and come in for another run. Neville licked his lips. Fire spat from the oncoming bandits before Neville opened up — “don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” He aimed well to the right of the plane attacking from that side and pulled hard on the trigger. The gun swung violently around, spraying a wide array of bullets which, in its enthusiasm, peppered their own tail before coming to a glorious end by hitting the plane on their left-hand side — the one Neville had not been aiming at.

There was a slight puff of black smoke, a cough, and then the stricken plane began to fall out of the sky like a wounded bird. Neville’s exhilaration was immediate and intense; he had just about enough time to imagine Samuel reciting some war poem or other, when he realised that they too were beginning to lose height. He looked about; he could see no sign of smoke. Turning to face the front of the plane once again, he failed to see the cause of their present predicament immediately — though the fact that they were in trouble was evidenced by the increasing rapidity with which they were losing height and the slight spin they also seemed to be adopting.

Past Samuel’s shoulder, Neville noticed Binky slumped forwards. He thumped Samuel on the shoulder, and pointed ahead. He could see nothing of Samuel’s face, nor hear any reply that might have been forthcoming; but what he did see was Samuel raise the thumb of his left hand. Was this reassurance or understanding? Or did he have a parachute?

As his mind raced to find some kind of solution, he felt the spin steady then stop. Then he felt the plane’s descent ease. He craned his neck in an attempt to see round Samuel’s body. His bus driver was now proving that he was something of a pilot too — or was it all the same thing? A second set of controls adorned the portion of the cockpit where Samuel sat and, for a while at least, things were back under control.

Samuel’s other hand jerked out over the side of the plane and upwards. There, above them, the second red devil was beginning another run. Neville swung back into his firing position and prepared himself. There was a flash, then another. He heard a strange “whing” then saw — in slow motion almost — a small hole appear in the body of the plane just by his left leg. Driven on by anger, Neville pulled the gun round and opened fire. This time it remained steady and his aim unswerving.

A puff — the tell-tale smoke — and then the beginnings of a spin. The enemy pilot leapt from his cockpit to abandon the dying craft. Again Neville’s burst of joy was short-lived as the red plane began to hurtle towards them. He spun round and thumped Samuel on the back of the head. Samuel looked round and Neville closed his eyes.

The asthmatic cough of the attacker’s dying engine was the next thing of which Neville was aware, then the rush of the red plane as they themselves fell from the sky in the opposite direction. He opened his eyes to see the second plane spinning harmlessly away like a broken toy. The two parachutes of the defeated pilots looked like flowers above a sea-green flower bed; and there, just where he would have expected it to be, the outline of the S.S.Pilgrim — no doubt oblivious of the drama being played out in the skies above it — making its way towards Guernsey.

Samuel levelled the plane and banked to head in the same direction. After a few minutes flying, the island presented itself as a welcome haven. It seemed ridiculously small, and the runway — when Neville eventually made it out — an impossibility. They circled twice before there was suddenly silence.

From ahead, Samuel shouted one word — “Fuel!” — and, almost on command, they began to lose height.

As the ground gained on them — Neville now able to make out individual houses and fields, the old fortifications and the new hotels — he closed his eyes once again. It was not lack of faith that prompted such an action, but cowardice. It seemed an age for nothing to happen. And then there was a bump. And then another. And then, in the silence, the sound of squeaking wheels on less than smooth tarmac. Neville opened his eyes; they were down.

Their arrival was greeted by a small crowd of airport staff who, to their credit, behaved as if having a slightly wounded bi-plane landing on their runway without fuel was an everyday occurrence. Once they had come to a complete halt, Neville sat motionless and silent. Samuel, flicking a lever on his own seat, turned to face him.

‘Sir? Are you all right?’

Neville looked into Samuel’s concerned face.

‘Thank you, Samuel.’

At the front of the plane, a moan escaped from Binky.

‘I didn’t know you could fly.’

‘I learned in the war, Sir.’

Again a moan from Binky.

‘I didn’t know you could shoot, Sir.’

Neville laughed.

‘I can’t!’

‘Tally Bloody Ho!’

Binky was now standing on his seat, waving his arms and sending his scarf into spasms. Unsteadily he turned to face his two charges.

‘Bloody good show! Bloody good...’

But the rest of his words were interrupted by him losing balance and falling out of the plane completely. Three airport hands prepared to scrape him from the runway.

‘Is he OK?’

‘Probably just a scratch, Sir. Couldn’t stand all the excitement.’

Neville caught Samuel’s smile.

‘He wasn’t the only one!’

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I have no idea what I had originally been searching for, nor therefore what I hoped to find. Perhaps I was doing nothing other than being engaged in the Google equivalent of ‘doomscrolling’. Whatever the reason or the route, I landed on a site whose specific subject was myths associated with native British trees.

At first blush hardly the star prize — or so you could be forgiven for thinking.

Yet as I read the brief descriptions of the myths — pagan, mystical, religious — I began to settle on a notion: there were some poems here just begging to be written. Over the course of 2019 and 2020 that’s exactly what I did. Not only that, these poems (there are sixteen in all) offered themselves up as the bedrock of a new collection, and which, using the general themes of myths and history, gave me the underlying tone of the book.

The poems themselves — about Alder, Ash, Aspen, Birch, Cherry, Elder, Elm, Hawthorn, Hazel, Holly, Juniper, Oak, Rowan, Scots Pine, Willow, and Yew — are not particularly long, nor are they especially about the trees themselves. I used the myths attached to the trees as a jumping off point, a segue into essentially contemporary topics related to the myths’ primary subject matter; some trees had multiple myths attached to them.

I offer below three poems from that collection: ‘Ash’ — where the myth relates to it being the perfect wood for making spears; ‘Cherry’ — where there is a pagan belief that the tree is associated with fertility; and ‘Juniper’ — fertility again, and the tree it’s said Jesus hid beneath to escape from King Herod.

Ash

"my passion is animals" you said
	your voice in the mid-distance
		off-hand
	as if it belonged somewhere else
		to someone else

"the serpent and the eagle" you said
	after I queried your favourites
"they are full of insight and wisdom"
	your voice betraying a longing
	for something mystical or magical
		of another place

"did you know" you said
"from the antlers of a deer
sprang the rivers of the world?
that the serpent and the eagle
protect the purity of springs?"

	I was always confused in your world
		as if it were not my home

"you belong in the underworld" you nearly said
	watching me as I fashioned
	spears from the bough of an ash
		then concentrating
			took aim

Cherry

in the tree
the cuckoo watches
as the bough
		      bends
with a force it never knew it had
to kiss the hand of a woman
heavy with her own fruit

the bird has no song for this
and feels
	       for the first time
an interloper

silently it unfurls its feathers
and moves on

Juniper

we had become all calculation
governed by the calendar      and cycles

	in wanting something so much
	we had forced it to retreat
	overwhelmed by our onslaught

I resorted to research
to mythology      and old wives’ tales

we played a game	of word association
and when I said “juniper”
	you	quick as a flash
	      “gin”

I smiled
you said “what”

your eyes left mine
glancing to where they could burrow
through the wall to the casket of the fridge
to see if there was lemon there

	I saw the computation of volume
	of days since opening
	and whether there would be fizz
	left in the tonic
			or fizz in my tonic

you had your doubts
	unlike Herod
	from whom Jesus was hidden
		beneath a tree

juniper
infuser of gin
symbol of fertility
shelter for prophets

These poems come from The Myths of Native Trees.

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As writers, we’re inevitably influenced by what we read. How can we not be? We unconsciously take something from the material to which we expose ourselves, making note of what does — or does not — work. For us at least. With that in mind, I wonder how often we consciously try to mimic the form, style, or ‘feel’ of another writer?

It will be different for each of us I’m sure. And when we do — if we do — how close to the line threatening pastiche do we tread?

Poetry is probably the easier medium in which to experiment; after all, is anyone going to write a 100,000 word novel on the off-chance it might echo Sartre or Hardy? A short story, maybe. But poetry’s brevity — and the more easily identifiable style of the poets concerned — make it ripe for mimicry.

But you have to be careful. It can be all too easy to find yourself in a groove in which you only write one ‘kind’ of poem, where you eschew variety and challenge is favour of comfort and the familiar. I know someone who only ever writes sonnets, so you always know what you’re going to get — and how they’re going to sound.

I have rarely deliberately attempted to sound like someone else, preferring to tease at what might make up my own ‘voice’ — if that doesn’t sound too pretentious! But I do recall two attempts to borrow a style from others (there may be a few more). This, by the way, can be a great exercise for a writing group: “write something in the style of…” Indeed, I recall one evening where someone took a piece by someone like Ted Hughes or Seamus Heaney (I forget who exactly) and attempted to re-write it in the style of Pam Ayres ‘I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth’. Hilarious!

If prompts and exercises have a role to play, surely one of the most vital is to take us out of our comfort zone and force us to try something different.

I offer below two relatively old pieces: one is deliberately written in the style of Brian Patten and The Beat Poets; the other is supposed to be akin to Philip Larkin and is more tribute than mimicry. I won’t tell you which one I think is the more successful…

It was a Party

It was a party
and in the dark
I asked your name,
saw your face illuminated by garden lights.
As we danced I held your hand.

Then stooping,
from the grass I raised
a fragment
and presented it to you:
"a piece of my broken heart
to wear on your dress".

It was a party
and in the dark
you went into the house to examine my gift,
to look disappointedly
at that given you:
"no heart at all
but a piece of broken glass".

Re-reading Larkin

All the while I can sense him
looking over my shoulder
as if marking my homework,
a dubious figure in a grubby raincoat
loitering at the back.
Is that expression the resentment
he has to loiter there at all
or merely suburban anger at time 
wasted on me?

Annoyed at the intrusion
he tuts under his breath
as he might a noisy bookworm.

“How many more fucking times
do I need to tell you?”

Waving a stubby pencil at a half-rhyme
he shakes his head
then shoulders his camera
determined to capture more of this miserable life
before it gets too late.

Left alone,
I weigh-up the merits of pairing
'blarney' with 'money'
and ask myself why I like to go into churches.

Both pieces are included in my Selected Poems.

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I’m now about three-quarters of the way through the first draft of a new poetry project (I’ve shared snippets here before: there are two readings from mid-May). Occasionally I come across lines I’ve written that I simply like, which feel as if they’re almost fully-formed and won’t need too much work.

But then I suspect we all do that from time-to-time, take the risk of being bold enough to ‘like’ our own work.

Yet such a feeling worries me given my default position is that every line will need work, that a first draft is no more than laying down a marker for what will follow. Scaffolding.

A passionate believer in editing, I am inherently sceptical of poets who never edit: “It just came to me” is often proudly uttered as the introduction to a sub-standard piece of poetry…

I include below two tiny extracts from the latest piece on which I’ve been working — and which, I confess, have already been ‘tweaked’ slightly. Think of my sharing as ‘kicking the tyres’…

We measure our horizons in language,
our heads sand-stuck;
our cries, muffled by the earth,
are serenades to waiting worms.

~

Sitting on our own sidelines
we watch others
as they pirouette through life

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FIFTEEN

Neville opened the menu and was confronted with two pages, listing — in a highly stylised script — the dishes on offer. Unable to resist habit, he scanned the pages for looking for prices but found none. There was also no mention of wines, and Gustav had failed to leave him a wine list. Undeterred — and already slightly relaxed by the gin — he decided to press on with his selection.

The left hand page of the menu summarised the Entrees; the right, the main courses. As he scanned for his starter he was immediately impressed by not only the range of dishes available, but their sophistication. He was not in the mood for fish, nor the more traditional starters such as pate or soup — even though these, as described, encouraged selection. Consequently he expected to find making the final choice difficult, but this proved not to be the case. One dish stood out: Salad of Roast Duck, served on a bed of wild rice; dressed with a light pepper and gherkin salad, and finished with a Cherry and Rose glaze. Thus decided, he turned his attention to the second page.

Over time he had become aware that, in certain circles, there was a kind of etiquette regarding the “construction” of a meal. Starting with duck, for example, would in theory limit the number of dishes available for a main course. But things were not, of course, subject to the “norm” at present (in almost any sense, as far as Neville could see) so he immediately decided to consider all options fair game. In Paris, Neville had seemed to take his food “on the run” as it were, and — to his chagrin — failed to take any advantage of the city’s distinct cuisine. It felt as if he should have been in a similar situation to this whilst there — sitting in a restaurant, choosing a meal — but this had not materialised. On the basis of his entrée, he bypassed the chicken dishes and the fowl; this left him with meat, fish, or vegetarian.

Neville had dabbled with vegetarianism in the past, but unsuccessfully. For him it felt like something he would have to work at rather than instinctively adopt. For this reason, if none other, he was drawn to either the meat or fish. Logic having taken him this far, he took another sip from his gin, and undertook the final selection. As before, the task seemed simpler than he imagined possible; and once again the choice was obvious: Fillet of Monkfish pan-baked in fresh cream, dressed with a subtle dill and thyme sauce, and complemented with nuggets of honey-glazed carrots, buttered mange tout, and lightly dusted mustard potatoes. Satisfied, he closed the menu.

‘Great choice! “On the money”, Bob!’

The voice game from his side, and he turned to find a large, bright blue fish addressing him from the mural.

‘Monkfish; great! They do it so well, it’s “out of this world”.’

The fish had large, bulbous eyes that were slightly out of alignment, giving it a peculiar stare. In addition, the artist — whom, Neville judged, could never profess that painting fish was his strongest suit — had given the creature a strange lop-sided leer. Neville glanced along the rest of the mural. The style throughout was similar, but this fish a shade exceptional. Gustav returned.

‘Sir?’

‘Yes. The duck, followed by the monkfish, please.’

‘Sir.’

‘Is there a wine list?’

‘We are proud to think that we know our wines at this establishment, Sir, and it is our policy to provide our customers with precisely the correct wine for each of their courses. That way, you do not have to worry over the selection, and we ensure you get the best experience. Is that satisfactory, Sir?’

‘Sounds fine. Thank you.’

As Gustav removed both the menu and himself, Neville was left impressed with the restaurant’s efficiency.

‘Really “on the ball”, isn’t it?’ — the fish again — ‘taking all the hassle out of it. And he’s right, Bob; the wine’s exceptional.’

‘I’m sure.’

Neville glanced round the room. All the other diners appeared to be eating and drinking with such an air of satisfaction to suggest that there was some truth in what the fish had said. One well-dressed middle-aged lady glanced across from her table, and gave him a slight smile. She looked vaguely familiar.

‘And yep, “you know your onions”! The duck; wow!’

Neville glanced back at the leery fish, frozen in the mural.

‘It’s exactly what the woman had; duck and monkfish.’

‘Woman?’

‘Yes; the broad who was here before you. The one with the pink dress.’

‘Really?’

The fish lowered his voice.

‘If I’d had been just a few inches further that way Bob, I could have spent the entire meal looking down her cleavage!’

Neville was taken aback. Perhaps that kind of attitude went with the fish’s rather lascivious look.

‘”You bet your boots”, she had a great pair of...’

‘Enough, I think, don’t you?’

‘Sorry, Bob; just “passing the time of day”.’

‘And don’t call me Bob!’

‘”Keep your hair on”, Bob. “Can’t teach an old dog, new tricks”, eh?’

Neville returned the leer with a little contempt, but refused to respond to the fish’s last remark. In addition to the continual reference to “Bob”, he was beginning to be annoyed by the fish’s ruthless use of cliché — even where marginally appropriate. He thought about changing his seat, but recollected that there was unlikely to be an alternative available. Perhaps, if it was in danger of spoiling his meal, they might like to paint out the fish on the wall.

‘Hey, Bob; “horses for courses”. I can’t help being me, can I? How much choice did I get, “hear what I’m saying”? Shoot the artist if you like, but “don’t shoot the messenger”.’

Neville felt vaguely guilty at being hostile, and his desire to obliterate the fish altogether.

‘OK; just be a little quieter, maybe.’

‘Quiet, Bob? “Like the grave”!’

A few moments later, Gustav returned with a trolley on which were Neville’s Entree and a half bottle of red wine. He laid the plate on the table with a slightly extravagant air.

‘Your duck, Sir.’

The food presented looked nothing less than sculpted: slices of duck nestling on their wild rice bed, couched within the pepper and gherkin salad, all on the shoreline of the red cherry dressing. It was — as the fish might have said — “too good to eat”.

‘White is normal for the Entree,’ Gustav said, pouring the wine, ‘but as you were having the duck followed by fish, we felt that this red — a light Beaujolais — would best suit. If Sir would care to taste...’

Neville lifted the wine to his lips. It was smooth, and skipped lightly across his palette.

‘Very pleasant, thank you.’

Gustav nodded and withdrew. For a short while Neville began to delicately dismantle the food on this plate. The duck was immaculate, and the combination offered with it such a stunning mixture of flavours and textures, that his taste buds were thrown into something of a frenzy.

‘A little better than you’re used to, Bob? “Home cooking”, eh?’

‘Yes’, Neville looked at the fish, deciding to be a little nicer to him. ‘And you were right; the food is truly excellent.’

‘The smell gets me every time. Well, the taste can’t, can it?! Turns me “green with envy”’. And is if to prove it, the fish flashed from blue to green, and then back again.

Neville sipped the wine. With the remnants of duck and peppers still on his palate, the Beaujolais tasted better than before.

‘”Compliments to the chef”, eh Bob? That’s exactly what the Broad said. She called Gustav over and said “Compliments to the chef”. People always do.’

‘I don’t blame them. The food is wonderful.’

Gradually the first course disappeared, and it was with some satisfaction that Neville closed the knife and fork on his plate, and poured himself the remainder of the red wine. On cue, Gustav came over to remove the plate.

‘That was excellent,’ Neville hesitated. ‘Compliments to the chef.’

‘Bob!’, the fish said, after Gustav had gone, ‘I knew you’d say that! Didn’t I say they always say that!’

‘Who?’

‘Customers. They are always so impressed; that’s what they say.’

‘Just like they say other things?’

‘Sorry, Bob?’

‘Perhaps “don’t shoot the messenger”; or “can’t teach an old dog new tricks”; “horses for courses”?’

The fish was silent for a moment.

‘OK; yes, like those things. Those are the sorts of things people say, OK? Don’t take the piss out of the way I speak, Bob. How else am I supposed to learn except by listening to others; “leading by example”, “hear what I’m saying?” That’s all there is: “day in, day out”. I listen, I learn. OK? Sure, I’m just some dumb fish, but that’s it.’

‘OK, sorry.’

‘Sorry? Shit, you people, you’ve all got attitudes; “know what I mean?” That broad wasn’t quite as bad as you, but I bet the next guy will be; I can tell Bob, I’ve seen them all.’

Gustav’s arrival with the trolley once again interrupted them. Neville, who had become uncertain as to the direction the conversation with the fish was taking, found himself needing to refocus on food and the principle purpose of the evening. The waiter, having removed the red wine bottle and glass from the table, deposited a chilled bottle of white wine and fresh glass.

‘A Chablis, Sir. I think you will find it quite perfect for the monkfish.’ And then, with an even grander flourish than before, he removed the silver dome from Neville’s plate to reveal the glory of his main course.

The monkfish sat proudly in the centre of the plate, mange tout radiating outwards. In the segments created by the mange tout, the carrots and potatoes alternated, the whole arrangement encircled by the gentleness of the sauce. Neville simply nodded at Gustav, preferring this time to say nothing. He took a sip of the Chablis before picking up his knife and fork. Deciding where to start was not easy, as the very first incursion would disrupt the symmetry of the plate. He chose mange tout, and then everything followed from that. The fish kept a respectable silence for a while as Neville savoured the exquisite meal. It was difficult not to eat at a breakneck pace, and he found himself needing to be disciplined in order to progress at an acceptable speed. The monkfish simply dissolved in his mouth, and each of the accompanying vegetables were cooked to perfection.

Movement across the room attracted his attention as one of the parties stood up to leave. This was the table containing the lady who had smiled briefly earlier on. She was a largish woman with well tonsured hair; the kind of blue-grey perm so favoured by ladies of a certain generation. She glanced at him again as she moved away, and Neville once again had the sensation that he had seen her somewhere before.

‘So it’s OK then, the food?’

Neville would have expected that sort of question to come from the Maitre or Gustav, but it was the fish again.

‘Superb, of course.’

He expected more from the fish but there was no follow up. He looked at the large blue body, the strange eyes and the leer, and felt vaguely sorry for him.

‘What kind of fish are you anyway?’

‘Me? That’s tough. I’ve been “kept in the dark” over that one, Bob, so I’m not sure I can say. Does it matter?’

Neville paused, fork paused before his mouth.

‘No, I guess it doesn’t.’

‘No? That’s good. Hey, thanks.’

And Neville was sure that, had he been able to, the fish would have given him a wink of one of his bulbous eyes. He carried on eating, though there was little left now. Another couple entered the room and took up their places at one of the reserved tables, and another waiter — one Neville had not seen before — made an appearance. He checked his watch. It was nearly nine thirty; obviously they closed quite late here.

‘So where are you off to next, Bob?’

‘Next?’

‘I mean, once you’re out of here. Tomorrow, when the sun shines; what does the day have in store for you?’

Neville finished the last morsel from his plate and poured another glass of Chablis.

‘I don’t know; I guess I hadn’t really thought about it.’

‘See if “something turns up”, maybe?’

‘Maybe.’

Neville thought of Samuel outside in the bus, and wondered if there were plans for tomorrow about which he as yet knew nothing.

‘What’s on the schedule?’

‘Schedule?’

‘Yes. You guys always seem to have plans; “things to do, people to see”. People always talk about their plans — to each other, to Gustav, to me even.’

Gustav came and recaptured the now empty plate.

‘Take that broad who was here before you; she talked to me. She had plans, she said — though from what I could see, there was little left on her list.’

Neville began to wonder about the fish’s interest in the previous occupant of his seat. Perhaps there was a little more to it than lechery.

‘So where was she off to, then?’

He tried to sound as disinterested as possible, but from the tone of his reply the fish must have realised he had Neville hooked.

‘She said something about a Cruise; and another trip abroad, I think — though she wasn’t sure about the order in which she’d do things. Why?’

‘No reason.’

Neville’s concentration was now taken again by Gustav, who had reappeared at his table and — having presented him with some coffee — was beginning to relay it. He showed little interest in Neville.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Laying the table, Sir. For the next customer.’

‘But what about dessert?’

‘I’m sorry Sir.’ Meaning to complain, Neville looked up for the Maître. Gustav left the table and walked away to the hallway.

‘It’s always the same, Bob’, said the fish, attempting to console him, ‘there’s never enough time.’

‘What?’

Gustav appeared through the door, accompanied by a large, fat man. They approached Neville’s table. Gustav bowed, slightly.

‘Pardon, Monsieur; but this gentleman has arrived for his booking. I wonder if you would mind if he sat with you for an aperitif while you finish your coffee?’

Neville looked hard at Gustav. Those had been the very words he had used to the woman when he himself had arrived at the table. For a moment he felt a degree of panic, of uncertainty over what exactly was going on; and then, in an instant, the fog cleared. He looked from Gustav to the new arrival.

‘Of course not. I won’t be very long. That is, if the gentleman doesn’t mind.’ He offered a smile to the newcomer, who nodded.

‘See what I mean, Bob?’ whispered the fish.

‘Drink, Sir?’, said Gustav to the man.

‘Beer, ta.’

Neville smiled to himself. They were all in the same boat; him, the woman, this new chap. He could spill the beans now if he choose; let the big man know what was in store for him — even down to the leery-eyed fish — but that would not be playing the game. Hadn’t the woman toyed with the idea of recommending her own choice of meal, but not done so? Had he not chosen it anyway? He looked at the suit the newcomer was wearing. Although he was a very large man, the suit managed to make the best of what was there. In doing so, Neville recognised the handiwork of a certain A. Bossiman. With this, there came a flash of memory, and Neville suddenly knew where he had previously seen the woman’s pink dress.SIXTEEN

Neville spent a short while attempting to establish some kind of rapport between himself and the newcomer. The fat man was, however, ill-disposed to his efforts, possessing a level of taciturnity which blocked all attempts at social chit-chat. Neville wondered if he was facing another of those who had chosen Option 3; and guessed — perhaps rather unkindly — that if he had, this particular adventurer was surely destined for ‘3B’. He felt suddenly sorry for the big man because of this; yet things were never certain, and he could well be wrong. Who was to say how his experience might turn out?

He glanced at the fish. Judging by first appearances (which he knew to be an unwise move) he felt certain that the fish’s words regarding the “next guy’s attitude” were likely to be correct. As he left the restaurant, he wondered how ‘new’ the large man was to the particular game in which they were both engaged. How would he react to the fish, or at ten thirty, when the next customer would presumably arrive at Gustav’s elbow and be invited to share the table for a short while? For his own part, Neville felt he had tried to vary the script a little, perhaps to put a modicum of his own personality into the game in an attempt to make what was to follow a little easier for the subsequent diner. Perhaps? For all he knew, the woman — in that pink ball gown from Mister Bossiman’s — might have been doing exactly the same thing to him.

Samuel was sitting on his bed reading when Neville boarded the bus. The lighting had been changed and was a degree more practical. Samuel looked up, then placed his book — still open — face down on the bedside cabinet.

‘How was your meal, Sir?’

There was a hopeful tone in Samuel’s voice, rather than the air of certainty Neville had convinced himself he would find. He wondered how best to respond. He pulled off his tie as he thought of a reply.

‘The food was excellent, of course.’

‘Good; I was confident it would be. Perhaps you would like a little night-cap before retiring, Sir. I have a little brandy in the galley.’

‘That would be good — and please have one yourself, Samuel.’

Samuel smiled.

‘Thank you Sir, I think I might.’

By the time Samuel returned with the two glasses of brandy, Neville was sitting on his bed in his dressing gown. The suit hung over the door of the cupboard, and Samuel’s first move was towards this.

‘Samuel, please sit down.’

‘I thought I might put this away first, Sir.’

‘It can wait; please.’

Samuel responded by depositing himself in the driver’s seat which he swivelled round to face into the bus. He read Neville’s surprise.

‘Oh, just another little modification I made while you were out, Sir.’

‘You are a very ingenious man, Samuel.’

‘Thank you, Sir. I like to think I can turn my hand to most things.’

‘I hope you are not also ingenuous.’

‘Sir?’

Neville sipped his brandy and felt its warmth contrast the chilled Chablis he had so recently sampled. He was uncertain how to progress this conversation. There were many questions he wanted to ask; things that needed clearing up. He had his own theories too, and was looking for some form of confirmation. As he looked at Samuel, he wondered just how much the latter was in control — or knew, come to that. And how much he was still master of his own destiny.

‘Samuel, I have a feeling that this evening I met two other people who are in the same situation as myself.’

‘”Situation”, Sir?’

‘People who have chosen Option 3. You see?’

‘Indeed.’

‘And...’

‘And?’ Samuel offered a slight frown, suggesting clarification was needed.

‘Is that possible?’

Samuel paused. His eyes remain fixed on Neville’s as he too sipped his brandy. The earlier image Neville had conjured equating Samuel to his grandfather was back again and, because of this, he felt no sense of peril in the conversation to come. Neville pulled his legs up onto the bed, and crossed them beneath him.

‘Yes, it is possible. There are, of course, many people who may — at one time or another — find themselves in a similar situation to yourself. I think you might be surprised to find it is remarkably common.’

‘And do you know them all?’

‘Know them, Sir? No. Some perhaps, over time; but how can I know them all when I am with you?’

‘OK; what about the restaurant then? How come there were at least three of us in there this evening, sitting at the same table, eating the same food?’

‘You are certain of that?’

‘Yes.’

Samuel tipped his glass, and took a little more of the Brandy. He looked hard at Neville.

‘What if I told you that I was not aware of that being the case? Would you suspect me of not telling the truth?’

‘If you were in my shoes...?’

‘Yes,’ Samuel smiled, ‘point taken.’

Neville finished his glass and placed it on the cupboard. Almost before his hand had left it, ruby brown liquid had filled it again. He looked at Samuel.

‘Mere trickery; it is not important. Really.’

Neville nodded, prepared to let it go.

‘The restaurant,’ he pursued, ‘you use it a lot, I assume.’

‘Yes,’ Samuel nodded.

‘Because of the fish?’

‘The fish? Well, I hear that the fish is good there, but then the whole menu is supposed to be excellent.’

‘Samuel, that’s not what I meant — and you probably know it!’

‘I’m not sure I follow, Sir. If our clients decided — as you did — that they want to experience a high quality meal, then this is one of the restaurants we can suggest to them. That is all.’

‘So it has nothing to do with what happened to me inside?’

‘What happens to you inside is — to be blunt — entirely of your own making. What happened to you in Paris was also entirely of your own doing.’

‘OK, let’s forget Paris for a moment. In there,’ Neville nodded his head to indicate the restaurant, ‘I met — Bob. Bob told me that the lady who had been sitting at my table before me — and who I met — had ordered exactly the same food as me, was planning to do exactly the same sorts of things I was planning to do… There’s too much coincidence.’

‘I see.’ Samuel paused. Outside all was quiet, the silence only broken by their conversation. ‘”Bob” told you this, did he? And did you believe him? Was he telling you the truth, and about something that actually happened?’

Neville could not answer.

‘You assume so, yes? But you cannot know, Sir. Perhaps you wanted Bob to tell you these things.’

‘So what about her dress?’

‘Her dress? Whose dress?’

‘The lady at my table. Her dress. It was a flamingo pink ball gown; I saw the same dress at Mister Bossiman’s.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘It is true that, like the restaurant, we make full use of Mister Bossiman’s services; but I think you may be overlooking one thing?’

‘Yes?’

‘Mister Bossiman is a gentleman’s tailor. He has nothing to do with ladies’ garments.’

Neville wanted to tell Samuel about the dance he had witnessed, about the dress, the band. But he realised quickly enough that he might be on uncertain ground. If Samuel was right — and why should he not be? — and everything that happened to him was actually within his control, then why should Samuel know about these things? What influence could he have over them? He thought back to Paris, and to Pierre. He had assumed that Pierre was something out of his control — something with a degree of power over him. If Samuel was being completely frank with him, then this might not be the case. Pierre might actually have been a manifestation of some part of himself.

This was difficult. Neville took a large swig from his brandy, and allowed it to burn slowly down the back of his throat. All the while Samuel was looking unswervingly at him.

‘I’m not sure I understand, Samuel.’

There was a note in Neville’s voice that caused the smile to leave Samuel’s face.

‘Please don’t think that you are — how shall I say it? — going mad, Sir. You are not. Really.’ He paused, then with a small note of relief, said ‘Mrs Morris.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Mrs Morris. I saw her leave the restaurant while you were there. Do you remember her?’

Neville tried to regroup his thoughts.

‘Largish, well-dressed lady. With silvery hair?’

‘Indeed. Did you recognise her?’

‘Vaguely, yes.’

‘She was in the tea shop the day we met.’

‘The Conservative Lady.’

‘Sorry, Sir?’

‘Yes, Samuel, I do remember her.’

‘I see her about from time to time. She’s a pleasant enough character, don’t you think?’

Neville nodded. He was uncertain where he should place Mrs Morris in the general scheme of things. Perhaps it was enough for now that she was there in the restaurant and that he recognised her. As he sat pondering, he could almost feel night descending about the bus. Samuel, for the first time in a while, took his eyes from Neville and concentrated on finishing his drink. There was a sense of an averted crisis in the air; that the reality of Mrs Morris, both in Samuel’s world and his own, had anchored him somehow.

‘As a matter of interest, Sir, have you consulted your watch lately?’

Neville looked to his wrist, but the watch had already been put away in the cupboard.

‘No, I haven’t to be honest.’

‘And did you while you were in Paris?’

‘I can only recall looking at it once I was back on the bus; why?’

‘Do you not think it strange, Sir, that given your reasoning that your original situation arose because of money, you should be so unconcerned with how you are spending it now?’

‘But you said that it had nothing to do with value, and was all about worth.’

‘Indeed; but you still have a finite stock with which to play. And yet you seem unconcerned about it.’

‘Is that wrong?’

Samuel smiled again.

‘No, Sir; I am not saying it is wrong, I am just trying to understand your apparently more relaxed attitude.’

‘Perhaps it doesn’t seem so important any more. Perhaps there are other things that matter. Maybe, I was wrong…’

Samuel’s smile broadened.

‘That it’s not money that is the problem — and never was?’ Samuel followed up.

‘That perhaps it got in the way. Or the lack of it got in the way. Yet maybe that wasn’t the case after all.’

He wanted to go to his cupboard and check his watch. He wondered about the worth of his dinner, or of the brandy they were drinking now — or even the “worth” of this present conversation with Samuel. He guessed it might be expensive. A thought crossed his mind.

‘If I am right, Samuel…’

‘Sir?’

‘Do the rules change? Does money become irrelevant?’

Samuel shook his head.

‘I’m afraid not, Sir. The rules cannot change. You made your bargain with Hans, and that is the bargain to which you must adhere. Your search — for whatever it is you are looking, or whatever it is you need — has been underway for a little while. Perhaps only now are you beginning to realise just how things stand. Or how you stand. But, you have defined your limit; you cannot dishonour that.’

‘Cannot?’

‘Cannot.’

Finishing the remnants of his brandy, Neville nodded slowly. He was now quite tired — and, to be truthful, a little drunk. Their conversation had given him much to think about. Despite what Samuel said, it was like throwing away the rules of a game and being given a new set for the same game. Perhaps he had a new goal to consider. Perhaps he had never had a real goal at all. As he slipped out of his dressing gown and into bed, he wondered how much clearer things would be in the morning.

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Not that I’m a fan of hot weather — which is ironic given I chose to go and live in Singapore for a while, and where the lowest ever recorded nighttime temperature is about 19 centigrade!

Regardless of that (both my dislike of hot weather and the Singapore adventure) this morning I’ve decided to extract myself from my study for a while and sit here — in shorts for goodness’ sake! — and ramble on. It’s not that I’m bereft of things to do, but a little ‘freewheeling’ feels called for.

And I was very structured yesterday. I spent a fair amount of time trying to ensure that my profile (especially the list of my works) was up-to-date on the ALCS website, on the Public Library Lending site, with the Society of Authors, and on the Human Authored site. (Only one left to check now: ‘Contact an Author’.) It’s amazing how quickly such reference material can get out-of-date especially if — like me — you produce books as if they’re going out of fashion. Which, thankfully, they don’t seem to be.

Although that ‘fact’ depends on what you read, of course. Substack’s full of opinion pieces about the future of books (almost inevitably linked to AI), the stresses and strains on the publishing industry, how it’s tough for writers / agents / publishers (delete as appropriate). I guess the choice we all face is whether or not we engage with such material — and, if we do, exactly how much.

In general I tend not to. ‘Control the controllable’, isn’t that what they say? On that basis, by and large I’m happy to continue to plough my own furrow. And I certainly don’t give too much credence to ‘How to’ type articles even if a) one I saw recently prompted me to try something new and which then gained me a little traction, and b) on occasion, I’m happy to dish out advice myself. The only saving grace with regard that latter hypocrisy is that at least I “eat my own dog food” — one of those horrid and vacuous business-related phrases that used to regularly punctuate my former life and which I may choose to write about one day. (In fact, this paragraph is peppered with clichés!)

And talking about ‘thinking outside of the box’ (see what I did there?!) I’m a little nervous as to what happens with the next stage of the long chain of poems I’m about 65% of the way through in terms of the first draft. I know I plan to go ‘off piste’ at that point (for me, at least), but I’m not yet entirely sure what that will entail or end up looking like. Which makes it exciting and terrifying in equal measure — especially as part of ‘phase 2’ may involve illustration.

I know; wacky, right?

I’ve been thinking a lot about authenticity recently too. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why, over the last few days, I’ve set up a second Substack site: New Contexts. Over the last few years I have curated eight New Contexts anthologies. By and large I enjoy doing so, and — from a process and production perspective — I think I’m quite good at it. Knowing what it feels like to be published, to be able to offer that experience to others gives me a real buzz. Those volumes contain around 860 pages of contemporary poetry and short prose.

Anyhow, it occurred to me that it would be great (and ‘authentic’) to see if I could promote the work of my wonderful contributors even further — hence the new site. Every day I intend to publish one piece, chosen at random, from the anthologies. Feedback thus far has been very positive. Why not take a look? Think of subscribing as getting a little pick-me-up literature pill in your email every day…

And on the back of all that anthology experience I’ve also pitched the idea for an article to the Society of Authors. Their quarterly publication, The Author, is great, and I wondered whether an editor’s view from ‘the inside’ might not fit the magazine quite well. I’ll keep you posted on the outcome…

Ramble over. Time for another coffee.

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I haven’t shared a poem for a while so thought I’d rectify that.

deckchair

there comes a point
                                                                                                  neither before nor after
     not some perfect moment of balance
                                                                                        comes the absence of pivot
     where a mote of dust might tip us
                                                                                    something weighing nothing
     where the application of a little force
                                                                                         a potential turned kinetic
     of will or something more Newtonian
                                                                                               ephemeral to concrete
     might shift us effortlessly
                                                                                                      and tips the scales

     but rather where rigidity
                                                                                                         like rigor mortis
     makes movement impossible
                                                                                                 frozen at the fulcrum
     where mortified muscle and sinew
                                                                                                         akin to arthritis
     fix us in time’s deepening rut
                                                                                              and leaves us enslaved
     make it impossible to lift ourselves
                                                                                                        inevitably bound
from the slack grip of a deckchair
                                                                                           in cheerful sea-side canvas

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THIRTEEN

The weather broke after a few minutes’ driving, the clouds Neville had seen indeed anticipated the brief deluge that was to follow. For a while, as they made their way towards Birmingham, visibility was seriously reduced. Samuel, concentrating hard, adopted a resolute silence which seemed to carry with it a warning that, should he be forced to break it, some kind of penalty would be incurred. He had switched the headlights on, and the windscreen wipers moaned across the surface of the glass.

Occasionally, another vehicle would approach them from the opposite direction, lights blazing, and generate a cloud of spray for them to drive through. Silhouettes seemed to pass by at random moments: he detected a small wood, the odd building. It was not until a little later that he realised they were travelling through a built-up area. He heard Samuel sigh, and sensed a degree of relaxation which signified it was now permissible to open communications.

‘Where are we, Samuel?’

‘Birmingham, Sir.’

Neville peered through the window again. The rain, now held back by buildings on all sides, appeared to be lighter, and Neville was able to see more of their present environment. He had lived in Birmingham for a while and assumed he knew much of the city, but evidently this was not so.

‘You may not recognise this,’ Samuel offered prior to the question being asked, ‘but this area houses some of the best tailors in the city.’

‘Indeed.’

Instead of being in a commercial district, Neville found they were making leisurely progress through what appeared to be little more than residential streets. Samuel’s use of the word “houses” appeared to be doubly precise, as the buildings were indeed domestic — row upon row of terraced dwellings — and the only signs of entrepreneurial activity Neville could see was the occasional plaque above a door or window.

All the houses fronted directly onto the pavement, their small square windows adorned with net curtains of various persuasions and backed by multifarious draperies. Neville felt as if the dwellings were somehow leftovers from a previous generation; as if they should have been condemned years before and replaced by more modern constructions.

The bus swung from one identical street into another, then Samuel pulled the vehicle to a halt.

‘Here we are, Sir.’

They had come to rest outside a dark blue door whose paint had begun to submit to the ravages of time and was retreating in flakes to the paving stones below. Above it, a sign in a slightly different shade of blue, proclaimed “A. Bossiman — Tailor”.

Samuel opened the door and led Neville down the steps. As he knocked at Mister Bossiman’s establishment, Neville tried to peer through the front window, only to find his gaze blocked by a heavy net curtain which, judging by its off-white colour, had also seen better days. He wondered about Samuel’s assertion regarding “some of the best tailors in the city” and was going to challenge this when the door opened. Samuel stepped to one side to reveal a small man in a blue and white striped apron. He nodded to Samuel, then offered Neville a slight bow. Neville nodded back, then followed the man into the building.

‘Mister Bossiman,’ Samuel whispered, as Neville passed him on the threshold.

‘Are you coming in?’

‘I’ll wait on the bus, Sir; if you don’t mind.’

Mister Bossiman was, to put it bluntly, incredibly small. Neville followed him down the long hallway to where, at its end, Mister Bossiman turned through a door on the left and led Neville into a large and surprisingly bright room. At the far end was the net-bound window which opened onto the street, in front of which two small settees were placed facing inwards. Either side of the room, hanging on rack after rack, were suits, jackets and trousers, and near where he now stood, an evidently well-used tailor’s cutting table. It was difficult to make out where the light that illuminated the room was coming from. The front window admitted next to nothing, and the bulbs hanging from the ceiling seemed so dim as to be extracting light rather than contributing to it.

Mister Bossiman turned, and smiled up at Neville.

‘Pliss, your yacket.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Your yacket?’

‘Yes, sorry.’

Neville pulled off his jacket and placed it across the back of a nearby chair. Mister Bossiman smiled professionally, and pulled a tape measure from his apron pocket. As he was only about three foot tall, Neville wondered how he would be able to measure him effectively. He looked towards a second door at the back of the room, expecting an assistant to emerge and assist with the task.

‘Pliss, turn about,’ smiled Mister Bossiman.

Neville did so. Instantly he felt an expert hand at the nape of his neck, and a second tracing the tape measure down to the small of his back. He glanced sideways and caught a glimpse of Mister Bossiman in a mirror on the wall. It was indeed the small tailor doing the measuring but with arms Neville could only describe as telescopic.

‘Goud. Pliss, turn about’, said the small tailor.

Neville turned, and Mister Bossiman extended his small arms to measure his shoulders, his chest, and then his waist in turn.

‘Do you come from far away — originally, I mean?’ said Neville, for some reason having the impression that a tailor was like a hairdresser and that small talk was de rigueur during a consultation.

‘Yiss,’ Mister Bossiman smiled, evidently pleased to make such intimate contact with his customer, ‘I from Walsall.’

Neville’s natural desire to laugh at the response — joke or not — was tempered by Mister Bossiman’s manner, one which indicated that his reply had been given in all seriousness and with some personal import behind it.

‘I see,’ was Neville’s only possible option.

After a few more extensions of his arms, the tailor had completed the measuring exercise and — though he had committed nothing to paper — appeared ready to continue with the next stage of the process.

‘Pliss, you chooce fabric?’ and with a wave of his arm (now back to its normal proportions) indicated a large rack of cloth near the cutting table. The rolls of cloth showed, not unnaturally, a predominance of greys, blacks and blues. There were narrow stripes and wide stripes, but nothing as adventurous as Neville would expect to find in his local high street “man’s shop”. Somehow this seemed in keeping with the general tenor of the place.

‘Pliss, for what you wish suit?’

‘Actually, I was looking to buy a tuxedo.’

‘”Torpedo”? Pliss, what is “torpedo”?’

‘Tuxedo’, Neville corrected. ‘Well, it’s actually a very smart jacket; often velvety, I guess. Some kind of smooth fabric. A bit like a dinner jacket. You know; you can wear it with a bow tie and cummerbund. That kind of thing.’

‘”Come-undone”? Pliss, what is this?’

Neville, amazed at Mister Bossiman’s sartorial ignorance, was nonetheless disarmed by the naiveté of his smile. Under more conventional circumstances, he might have been inclined to storm off, but — considering Samuel had given Mister Bossiman his personal recommendation — felt such action would not only be churlish, but potentially unwise. He decided to compromise.

‘A tuxedo is a very, very smart suit; and a cummerbund is a kind of wide belt made out of bright fabric. Is that OK?’

‘OK, pliss,’ smiled Mister Bossiman. ‘Smart belt, I got.’

And with another wave of his arm, once again invited Neville to choose his material. Neville had decided against any of the plain greys or blues, and had — he was surprised to discover — something of an aversion to stripes. His ex-Boss had always worn suits with a stripe in them, and this had now invested such unpleasant connotations in the style that he could not countenance wearing it himself. Towards the bottom of the rack, he noticed some material that appeared to be vaguely green, yet, on closer inspection, seemed to even possess a degree of redness about it. He heard Mister Bossiman murmur to himself as Neville bent to consider it further.

‘I like this,’ he said, on straightening up, ‘may I see it, please?’

‘Pliss, remarkable fabric,’ said Mister Bossiman who then, without bending, simply extended his arms downwards, and pulled the entire roll effortlessly from the rack.

In an instant it was on the table, a metre or so unwound for Neville’s closer inspection. His first impressions — of a material that suggested both green and red — were not inaccurate. Neville struggled to identify exact what its base colour might be — grey? blue? something else? — but gave up almost immediately. Whatever it might be, it was certainly different enough to meet his requirements and taste.

‘That’s fine, thank you,’ and with that offered to shake the tailor’s hand and leave.

‘Pliss,’ suggested Mister Bossiman, and gestured to the settees by the far window, ‘I make for you, suit.’

‘Now?!’ Neville was stunned.

‘Pliss. You like tea, yes?’

‘Thank you, yes.’ And Neville walked to the settee where he discovered a cup of tea and small plate of biscuits awaiting him.

Mister Bossiman seemed intent on undertaking the construction there and then. Indeed, as Neville settled to his tea, he could see the tailor’s arms already flying about the table, flashing scissors and tape measure amidst the folds of the material. Satisfied that his wait would not, after all, be an impossibly long one, Neville turned to look out of the window. Through the net, he could just make out the outline of the bus which was still parked outside. He felt a small flush of relief at this; knowing Samuel was on-hand gave him a feeling of security, especially after his recent escapade.

His attention was, however, almost immediately drawn back into the room by the sound of an unnatural cough. He assumed that it was Mister Bossiman endeavouring to get his attention — presumably for further measurements — but when he turned, he found, facing the settee, a dark pin-stripe suit standing to attention in front of him. The suit thrust out an arm towards its right when three other suits were now sitting, each in possession of a musical instrument. The trio, thus invited, began the introduction to a slow, drawling jazz number led by a saxophone, and backed up by a base and — of all things — a harp. Neville looked to the centre of the room to find the dark suit had vanished and the stage was now held by a pale yellow suit and a flamingo pink ball gown — though where this latter had come from, Neville had no idea.

The trio picked up the sleazy beat of their tune and the yellow suit slid over to the ball gown and began to dance around it. For a few bars the gown feigned indifference to these advances, but then, drawn on by the hypnotic nature of the music, soon gave way, and the two of them embraced. For the next few minutes (with Mister Bossiman’s arms flying about in the background) Neville watched the yellow suit and the flamingo pink gown engaged in a remarkably stunning dance which reminded him of the Astaire and Rodgers routines he had occasionally seen in old movies. Gradually the trio — who were also remarkably accomplished — picked up the tempo of the piece to a thumping crescendo which climaxed in the yellow suit flinging the ball gown to the ground, then collapsing in a heap alongside it. Neville’s applause was automatic and unreserved. The yellow suit and pink gown rose to take their bow, and the trio stood briefly in acceptance of their guest’s appreciation.

Suddenly, from the far end of the room, there came a brief crash as Mister Bossiman’s scissors hit the table, and in an instant all the entertainers disappeared. Mister Bossiman now stood, hidden by the new suit his arms were proudly holding way above his head. Neville rose and walked towards him.

‘Pliss, is goud?’ came the disembodied voice from behind the waist of the trousers.

Neville felt the material and examined the seams. The workmanship was, without question, of the very highest quality, and the suit seemed more a work of art than artefact.

‘Very impressive.’

‘Pliss, you try.’

Slipping off his shoes and trousers, Neville donned the suit. It fitted everywhere to perfection, and felt instantly comfortable. He turned to look in one of the mirrors. In this light the green in the material was emphasised, and shone lustrously. He turned to look over his other shoulder at another mirror, and discovered that the redness in the cloth now appeared dominant, and gave the suit a warmth that was remarkably attractive. Remembering that he had wanted a tuxedo — and backing a hunch — Neville closed his eyes then turned to the mirror directly in front of him. When he opened them, he found he was indeed wearing a quite remarkable tuxedo. He smiled to himself.

‘Pliss, is goud?’ said Mister Bossiman.

‘Mister Bossiman, it is truly excellent!’ And the small tailor blushed at Neville’s praise.

‘My fist “torpedo” I make. So pliss, you like him.’

After a further glance in each mirror, Neville slipped out of the suit which then, of its own accord, folded itself and climbed into a waiting bag. Once he had restored his old trousers and jacket, Mister Bossiman offered both the bag and his hand to Neville who took the former with gratitude and shook the latter with warmth.

‘Thank you very much.’

‘Pliss, the honner is all mine, Sur,’ and the small tailor bowed low.

Samuel was waiting for Neville on the bus.

‘Was your visit a successful one, Sir?’

Neville held the bag aloft.

‘Yes, Samuel, it was. Thank you. Mister Bossiman is a remarkable tailor — and he has an interesting establishment.’

Samuel started the bus and began to roll it forwards.

‘Indeed, Sir; as you say, a remarkable establishment. Strange how, from the outside, you would not image that such a talent could exist there.’

‘But it does.’

‘And has for years, as Mister Bossiman might have told you himself.’

Neville regretted he did not engage the tailor in any further discussion beyond his place of origin.

‘These other houses, Samuel.’

‘Sir?’

‘Do they hide similar talents?’

‘”Talents”? Not necessarily. But they each have something about them I suspect.’

It was one of Samuel’s phrases which demanded nothing but silence and contemplation in reply, and, as usual, Neville respected it.

They drove on through one or two more similar streets — the terraced frontages, the fading signs — and then out onto open road.

‘I have taken the liberty of booking a table for you at a restaurant this evening, Sir’, Samuel informed him.

‘What sort of restaurant, Samuel?’

‘I think you had something exclusive in mind Sir, did you not? This particular establishment offers nothing but the highest quality in terms of food, service, and atmosphere. I am sure you will not be disappointed.’

‘Given your most recent recommendation, I am sure I won’t be.’

‘You will need, of course, to wear your new suit. It is important to create the right impression.’

‘Indeed.’

‘And to that end, I have taken the liberty of selecting a number of bow ties for you to choose from. They are on the seat behind you.’

Neville turned and lifted a small tray containing seven ties to his lap. They varied in colour and style, but also appeared of the highest quality.

‘Compliments of Mister Bossiman, Sir.’

‘Ah.’ Neville glanced up. ‘Will we be there soon?’

‘In a while, Sir. I suggest you relax; perhaps sleep a little.’

FOURTEEN

It was dark when Neville awoke; the bus was stationery. In the silence he could hear starlings about their early evening social activity, chaotic cries accompanying their manic business. From somewhere at the back of the bus, he could hear Samuel whistling gently to himself. He checked his watch: it was a little before eight.

‘Ah, so you’re awake, Sir! Good; I was worried that I might have to disturb you.’

Neville turned to discover that there had been something of a transformation to the interior of the bus since he had fallen asleep. All the remaining seats had been removed and the vehicle now appeared to be compartmentalised, with a narrow passageway running down one side. Curtains separated the various areas, but these were currently drawn back, so Neville had a full front-to-back view. The first two sections contained beds, each with a small cupboard by the headboard and a lamp on a tiny shelf set into the structure of the bus. Beyond the second of these arrangements, there appeared to be what could only be described as a small galley, and it was here Samuel was currently occupied. Beyond the galley was a door — not a curtain — and Neville assumed this could only be the bathroom. Samuel looked up from the small stove where he was tending his supper.

‘I took the liberty of making a few minor adjustments while you were asleep, Sir. I thought it best to allow for any future circumstance, you see.’

‘I’m impressed, Samuel; you have been busy.’

Neville left his seat and made his way towards the back of the bus. Passing the first compartment — ‘That one is yours, Sir’ — he felt the bed (it seemed remarkably soft) and opened the cupboard door. Inside hung his new suit, along with the remainder of his clothes. Samuel had evidently unpacked his bags too. Passing Samuel’s quarters, he reached the galley which, despite its size, seemed rather well equipped. The driver was in the process of making some kind of vegetable stew for his dinner.

‘Don’t worry Sir, this isn’t yours!’

Neville returned Samuel’s smile.

‘When will we get to the restaurant?’

‘We are there already, Sir. I took the liberty of parking in their car park a little early; your table is booked for eight thirty.’

‘I should be thinking about getting ready then.’

Samuel motioned to the door beyond the galley.

‘The bathroom is through there, Sir. Everything should be ready for you.’

Neville opened the door. The bathroom, though compact, still boasted a full sized bath and toilet. The bath was full, steam rising gently from the surface of the water. Above the toilet, a small mirrored cabinet stood half-open, revealing appropriate shaving and washing products.

‘I’ll lay out your suit, Sir; you go ahead.’

Neville closed the door behind him. Two towels waited on a rail beside the bath, and a small chair was provided to take his discarded clothes. He checked his face in the mirror. He would need a shave too, and was pleased to find an electric razor in the cabinet. Samuel appeared to have considered everything. He undressed quickly, then felt the bath water with his hand. The temperature seemed fine. Within seconds he was immersed. The bath was surprisingly deep, and reclining in it, Neville found his body completely covered. At the foot of the bath — where, to his surprise, there were no taps — a yellow plastic duck bobbed in the water. On a small rack to the side, a flannel, a sachet of shampoo, and some soap awaited his attention.

‘Comfy, ain’t it?’

The duck bobbed a little closer towards him.

‘Very, yes.’

‘Can’t stand those bloody shallow baths.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Can’t get enough water in ‘em. Sit down, but don’t get your arse wet; know what I mean?’

‘Yes, I do.’ Neville leant forward for the shampoo. ‘Excuse me.’

‘Sure; no worries. Don’t splash about too much though mate; can’t stand it when I gets soap in me eyes. Odd, ain’t it? A duck what don’t like water that much. Well, it ain’t the water so much as the soap, see? Makes me eyes smart. Ain’t natural, is it ; a duck and soap, I mean?’

Neville, having doused his hair, began to wash it. The duck, evidently to avoid as much discomfort as possible, bobbed away from him a little.

‘What you up to then?’

‘Sorry?’ Neville looked at the duck through the one eye that was not covered in soap suds.

‘I mean, here. In this bath. Like, I ain’t seen you before, have I? You ain’t like the last guy.’

‘Last guy?’ Neville stopped rinsing.

‘Yeah. Big feller; fat, know what I mean? Come to think of it, there was hardly room enough for me in here with him. Miserable sod too. Only saw him the once.’

‘You’ve seen lots of people have you?’

The duck gave a quacky laugh.

‘Course I ‘ave. Well, what do you expect; it’s a bleeding ‘otel, ain’t it?’ — and the duck quacked again.

From outside, Samuel shouted through a reminder about the time. Neville’s mind flashed back to the bathroom in Paris.

‘OK, Samuel. Won’t be long.’

‘Sam. That’s his name is it? The geezer who looks after the room. Sounds like an obnoxious git to me; always bossing blokes about. Can’t stand that, being bossed about. Know what I mean?’

‘Yes. Excuse me.’ Neville stretched for the soap and began to wash.

The duck bobbed around in a circle for a few moments, attempting to whistle as he did so; something that, thanks to his physiognomy, proved impossible and resulted in nothing more than a largely silent dribble.

‘’Ere; ain’t got any bread, ‘ave you? Shit, I could murder a nice crust! Bloody hotel keeps you on tight rations, know what I mean? My dad used to talk to me about rations in the war, poor bustard. But it weren’t like this though; eh?’

‘I expect not.’

Again Samuel shouted a reminder, and this time Neville rose and stretched for a towel.

‘’Ere, you’re quite a big bloke aren’t you? Tall, I mean. Fit are you; I mean, play football or something? Some blokes look like shit; know what I mean?’

‘I’m just skinny; that’s all,’ replied Neville through the folds of the towel as he dried himself.

After a minute or so, he turned his attention to his chin. The razor was fully charged and remarkably efficient. It seemed to take no time at all to remove the small amount of stubble that he had manage to accrue since Paris, and rubbing his hand across a now smooth face made him feel much more comfortable.

‘Nice talking to you,’ he said, turning back to the bath. But although the duck still bobbed, it did so lifelessly.

The door opened, and Samuel popped his head round.

‘Everything OK, Sir?’

‘Fine Samuel, thank you.’

‘I’ve laid out your suit Sir, and a white shirt. The ties are there too, if you would like to choose one.’

‘Thank you.’

And with a towel wrapped around his waist, Neville made his way back to his compartment through the now closed curtains. As Samuel had said, his clothes were ready for him, including a new pair of shoes and a selection of socks. Neville chose a rather flashy green patterned tie and green socks, hoping that the combination would bring out the best in Mister Bossiman’s handiwork. There was a mirror on the door of the cupboard, and within a few minutes Neville was able to consider his overall appearance.

He was, without doubt, pleased with the final composition. He had not looked as smart as this for a considerable period of time. Indeed, he found it impossible to recall the last occasion when he had needed to “dress up”, but felt certain that it would have had something to do with Mirelle wanting to impress someone. He checked his watch. It was nearly eight thirty. Pulling back the curtains, he found Samuel waiting for him.

‘I say, Sir!’ he said, warmly, ‘you do look just the part. Very dapper.’

‘Thank you, Samuel. You think I’ll do?’

‘I think you will do very nicely, Sir.’ And with a slight bow, Samuel opened the bus door and stood aside.

At the foot of the steps, Neville was greeted by a rather distinguished edifice gently illuminated by low-level exterior lights. The building was detached, and there appeared to be no other nearby. The faint breeze Neville felt on his cheek suggested they were out of the city and somewhere in the country. He looked for a nameplate to identify the building, but found none. Indeed, without knowing it to be a restaurant, one might be forgiven for assuming it was a small stately home and not open to the public. He made his way across the gravel car park to the front of the building where a large well-lit porch invited him on. In the hallway, an elegant man in evening dress moved forward to greet him.

‘I have a reservation for eight thirty.’

‘Ah, yes Sir. Very pleased to see you this evening. I trust you will enjoy your meal with us.’

‘Thank you; I’m sure I shall.’

The elegant man clicked his fingers, and another dark-suited man appeared.

‘Gustav; show this gentleman to table eight.’

‘Eight?’ said Gustav, ‘certainly.’

Gustav leant forward and whispered something in the Maîtres’ ear. The latter stiffened slightly.

‘I’m sorry, Sir,’ he said addressing Neville, ‘but it appears that the last diner is just finishing her coffee at your table — which, apart from that, is of course ready for you. Would you like to follow Gustav, please.’

Neville was about to suggest that he take a different table or that he might wait for the previous diner to finish, but there seemed some insistence that he follow Gustav, and this he did. The hallway opened out into a small dining area which was lit with a subtlety and elegance that matched the Maîtres’ own. It was not large — perhaps containing no more than ten tables — but furnished impeccably. Around half the tables were occupied, the remainder boasted “Reserved” notices. The diners already there looked remarkably smart. He followed Gustav to a table in the far corner of the room. Its current occupant, looked up from her coffee at their arrival.

‘Pardon, Madame; but this gentleman has arrived for his booking. I wonder if you would mind if he sat with you for an aperitif while you finish your coffee?’

She shot Gustav a strange look which seemed to display some kind of disquiet, though this was quickly superseded by a return to a more relaxed demeanour and even the beginnings of a smile. She glanced at Neville.

‘Of course not. I won’t be very long. That is, if the gentleman doesn’t mind?’

Neville returned her smile. ‘My pleasure,’ he said, and took the seat offered him by Gustav.

‘Drink, Sir?’

‘Gin and Tonic.’

Gustav nodded, and left.

As he scanned the room, Neville noticed a mural adorning the wall. From the back of his chair, it rose about two feet, and circumnavigated the whole of the room. Its theme appeared, appropriately enough, to be food. Neville was taking this in, when the woman spoke.

‘I’m awfully sorry about this. Perhaps I eat slowly. They came and started relaying the table, but I didn’t realise...’

‘Please, there’s no problem, really.’

The woman was, Neville supposed, a little younger than himself. She was on the interesting side of plainness, with an open smile which suggested a positive outlook on life and a bright eye confirming as much. He was surprised she was alone. Gustav returned with Neville’s drink, and placed a menu on the table in front of him. He was inclined to begin his selection immediately, but the woman seemed keen to make a little conversation.

‘You’ll like it here; the food is excellent.’

‘Good, I hope so. I have a very reliable recommendation.’

She nodded, still smiling slightly.

‘I would tell you what I had to eat and recommend that, but I don’t wish to influence your choice. In any event, I’m sure it is all wonderful.’

Neville smiled, raising the cold gin to his lips. The woman sipped her coffee then, after looking away, turned back to him.

‘I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but that’s a rather fine suit.’

‘Why thank you. It’s new, actually; the result of another recommendation.’

‘Your tailor has done you proud, I must say.’

The woman’s dress — a vibrant pink, Neville now noticed — was also quite exceptional; and when she stood (having now finished her coffee) he could see the cut of it. The skirt was quite full, and the bodice — which was strapless — decidedly flattering. He rose to allow her to move past him. She offered her hand.

‘It’s been a pleasure to meet you.’

‘The pleasure is all mine,’ he replied, a little taken aback.

And then, after a brief handshake and a further smile as she reached the door, he was left alone at his table. In a moment, Gustav was back at the table clearing away the coffee cup.

‘Perhaps Sir would like to take the seat vacated by Madame. I think you will find it more comfortable. I will return for your order in a few minutes.’ As Neville thanked him, Gustav turned on his heel, and moved away.

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I suspect I’m not the only one who has the fantasy that I’ll wake up one morning and find the last forty-plus years of my life have been wiped out and I’m back where I was in the early 80s.

“That was the rehearsal,” a voice will say. “Now’s your chance to live life properly…” Perhaps that notion’s partly why I’m drawn to this quote from Glenn Close in Robert Redford film The Natural: “I believe we have two lives: the life we learn with, and the life we live with after that.” My dream wants the ‘second life’ to be exactly that…

At a fundamental level Close is right of course; how can what she say not be true? But I do wonder how many of the lessons we should learn we actually do; and then — if learned — whether or not we subsequently act on as many as we could. Take a look at some of our so-called ‘leaders’ around the world right now (you know who they are!) and you’ll see far too many who appear determined to prove that they’ve learned nothing at all, and that they’re happy to make the same mistakes over and over — as long as it’s good for them, obviously.

But why go back? Ask people whether they’d like to be a teenager again and a huge proportion are likely to screw up their faces at the prospect. Or mime vomiting. The teenage years are difficult, full of angst and naïvety. Give them a choice and maybe they’ll pick a different point, when they were 30 or 42 or some age that was important to them for a specific reason — usually when things changed for the better. Or when they still had a chance to stop the ‘bad stuff’ from happening. But don’t forget, in my parallel universe you go back with all the knowledge you’ve gained in the interim…

So when would I return to?

That’s easy. I’d go back to being the person who wrote this, my whole writing life before me:

From the Lighthouse

So that was it,
the journey of a lifetime,
resolution of the myth.
There was no romance
only solitude in the echoes
on the dark stone stairway;
only discomfort in the harsh salt-spray.
Who could want this disappointment,
the looking back over the shoulder
at nothing in particular?

Perhaps it’s only here we attain
some understanding
of the soaring of a gull
upon the grey-white winds,
between the lighthouse and the land.

Perhaps.

But who can explain
why unsaved ships still blindly steer
onto waiting rocks?

If it were no more than dream
the lighthouse would be gone,
our search for meaning satisfied,
the intrusion relieved.
Looking back over the shoulder
at nothing in particular,
the lighthouse is there still.

That would be my launch pad. The thread behind the poem is an appropriate metaphor don’t you think, given the context of this post?

Having learned all my writing lessons since then — and a whole bunch of life lessons too! — I’d blast off into literary space from there.

However, this theory’s a balloon which is all too easy to prick. In the original version of this post I’d written '“Sadly however”, but on reflection I’m not so sure the ‘sadly’ is entirely appropriate. Or authentic. Especially as I followed it with this: If I hadn’t led the life I have I would never have reached this point, produced this Substack, written this post in this exact way. Maybe I’d never have lusted after my Bobby Ewing moment — after all I’d be a very different person. Wouldn’t we all?

It’s all very self-defeating.

Or at least that’s what I said 12 months ago. But what about the alternative viewpoint that “it’s all very self-affirming”? i.e. what we do now is testament to the life we have led, can be viewed in a positive way. There are still lessons to be learned of course. As a writer every time I put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard I am learning, refining the sculpture of myself that I’ve been working at for all these years. Okay, I may not end up looking like Michelangelo’s David — either physically or metaphorically — but I can take comfort from the fact that I’m also not like a whole bunch of other people (like the aforementioned leaders, for example).

Where does that leave me/us? Well, back with Glenn Close of course, and the recognition that living with what we’ve learned can only be practiced in our single-threaded existence, one populated with a myriad of learning points — and hopefully associated adjustments — along the way.

So I continue to beat the drum and try to ignore the noise: I write my words and read some others’; try and be the best version of myself I can (hard, that one!); keep my fingers crossed; hope for validation however that manifests itself.

But then that’s one dream you probably do share with me…

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On the sign-in screen of my computer and on a piece of A4 pinned to the noticeboard near my desk, the words “show up, dig deep, do the work”. I can’t exactly remember the source, but I’m pretty sure they came from someone on Substack. They’re designed to be less than an aide memoire and more a poke in the ribs.

And on the whole — in the world of showing, digging and doing — it’s not been too bad a week:

• around four hours on regular stuff like competitions, updating my old website, Coverstory books’ business, promoting New Contexts and the Contextual reading events;

• over six hours (plus the time it takes to write this) on Substack-related work;

• a little time processing entries for New Contexts: 9;

• nearly four hours finishing edit number 3 or 4 (I can’t remember which) for a new collection of short stories probably out in the Autumn (I have the 284 pages already printed out for the next edit);

• over four hours drafting new pieces for a collection of poetry that will see the light of day next year (assuming I finish it);

• and a little time putting the finishing touches to Sensitive Information, a debut collection of poetry I’m publishing for a friend.

I offer that detail not in any way as a boast, but rather to give you a flavour of what my weeks tend to look like. I was also supposed to attend a Society of Authors on-line event, but forgot and so missed it.

And next week? More of the same I expect.

Even so, I’m wrestling with disquiet — and on a number of fronts. Other than the poetry mentioned above, I have no other new work on the go (i.e. no new drafting), probably something that has seen a little extra focus on Substack as a result: slightly revised layout, new masthead. And I’m wondering about re-introducing paid subscriptions too. But that’s all tinkering at the edges when my real concern is why I’m not getting the traction here I’d hoped for; my subscriber volume has remained pretty much static for the last twelve months or so. I know I shouldn’t care, but… Time to try out some new ideas maybe?

And earlier this week I was unable to get an incident from my past out of my head; another source of disquiet. You know the kind of thing: that moment when you turn right and you should have turned left, and then the opportunity is lost forever and you’re left torturing yourself with ‘what if?’…

Then — and more universally — frustration with how our disfunctional world works today, and how a few power-crazed egomaniacs have a hold over us, our lives in their hands, and how we’re powerless to do anything about it. How the world could be so much a better place if it wasn’t populated by ignorance and bigotry. And how whatever I write makes no difference to the status quo at all — not where it really matters.

But then I guess that’s a boat we’re all pretty much in. We do what we can do, and the world? Well, it is what it is…

Though no matter how inevitable that may be, such resignation is simply not good enough, is it?

So next week? More of the same in terms of work, and probably ditto when it comes to the world at large; so the same frustrations, and angst, and being tortured both by memory — and by knowing that time’s leaking away.

“Show up, dig deep, do the work.” Indeed.

Increasingly I feel the acute sense that each day should be marked by something novel, or exceptional, or different, however small. That living — if you’re doing it right — should always be that way. But we can only achieve such a goal in arenas where we have control and influence and agency. For writers I guess that’s our writing — and maybe that simply means each day should be graced by something new, our putting our stamp on it, proving “I was here” — even if it’s only in our little closeted slice of the universe.

Maybe all that teases at some part of the meaning behind my poem “From the Lighthouse” (written decades ago and shared below). Or maybe not. All I know is that it was written by that younger version of myself who had yet to learn the lessons about turning right or left — and the pain that can be attendant with the road not taken…

From the Lighthouse

So that was it,
the journey of a lifetime,
resolution of the myth.
There was no romance
only solitude in the echoes
on the dark stone stairway;
only discomfort in the harsh salt-spray.
Who could want this disappointment,
the looking back over the shoulder
at nothing in particular?

Perhaps it’s only here we attain
some understanding
of the soaring of a gull
upon the grey-white winds,
between the lighthouse and the land.

Perhaps.

But who can explain
why unsaved ships still blindly steer
onto waiting rocks?

If it were no more than dream
the lighthouse would be gone,
our search for meaning satisfied,
the intrusion relieved.
Looking back over the shoulder
at nothing in particular,
the lighthouse is there still.

Published in Selected Poems: 1976-2022.

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ELEVEN

When Neville awoke, he found himself lying on his bed. Judging by the light filtering through the faded curtains, it was morning. Moving, he discovered not only was he laying above the bedcovers, but that he was fully dressed — and in clothes he had not been wearing when he went out the previous day.

Unsure whether his head ached or not, he sat up slightly, leaning on his elbows. At the foot of the bed his two bags sat neatly side by side. In the far corner of the room, one of the doors of the wardrobe was open, revealing emptiness inside. Apparently his luggage had already been packed.

‘Bon jour, Monsieur!’

Neville’s jacket was lying across the back of a chair, and Pierre had been in prime position to watch his first stirrings.

‘Your last day in Paris, and you must not be late!’

‘Late?’ Neville was now sitting on the edge of the bed, looking for his shoes. ‘Late for what?’

‘For la Tour Eiffel, of course! You are leaving around mid-day, n’est-ce pas? So you do not have so much time.’

Having found his shoes neatly placed beneath the bedside table, Neville was pulling them on as Pierre spoke. The noon deadline was news to him, but presumably all part of the plan. He remembered that he would be seeing Samuel again, and then — this time with a sudden chill which physically shook him — came a recall of his experience of the previous day.

‘Pierre; did you say that this was my last day?’

‘Oui, Monsieur.’

‘Don’t I have one more day to go — to visit the museums?’

‘Again?!’ Pierre gave a short laugh. ‘Was yesterday not enough for you?’

Even though Neville could remember only the first part of his previous day’s excursion, he decided not to press Pierre for a breakdown on the remainder. Somehow he felt better not knowing what had happened — and was encouraged that Pierre seemed up-beat about the coming day.

‘Of course, yes.’ He stood up and went to the window.

Looking out, the view was much the same as it had been the previous two mornings; Paris awakening. It seemed slightly busier, and the clock on the wall confirmed he was some half an hour later stirring than before.

There was a knock at the door which Neville answered without moving from his position. Only when he heard the door open did he look over his shoulder. The doorman filled the door frame.

‘My bags?’ Neville surmised out loud. The doorman nodded, and walked into the room. Turning away from the window, Neville went to pick up his jacket, but then decided that prudence demand he use the bathroom first.

Unzipping his trouser fly, he heard a familiar hiss from the bath.

‘Leaving us then?’ The shower head’s observation sounded more like accusation than anything else.

‘Apparently so.’ Neville stared down into the toilet, and when he pulled the cistern chain, water began to swirl into the bowl and then away.

‘Had fun?’

Considering the shower head had actually tried to be helpful, he had difficulty in deciding the true nature of this particular character. Was he misanthropic or philanthropic?

Neville pulled the bathroom door closed a little further.

‘What you said, the other day. What did you mean?’

‘What I said?’ The shower head uncoiled itself and slid into the base of the bath. ‘What do you mean, “what I said”?’

‘About Pierre. The pierrot.’

‘Ah.’

‘You warned me about him.’

‘Did I?’ The tone of the reply was slippery in the extreme. ‘I wouldn’t say I warned you about him. Perhaps simply to be cautious; observant even. But not a warning. Why should I?’ A pause. ‘Did I need to?’

From outside, Neville heard a call of ‘Monsieur!’ and a reminder about the time. He looked back into the bath. The shower head was motionless, and its hissing had stopped. Neville decided he didn’t like deliberately ambiguous characters; they thought they were so clever, but were nothing more than cowards.

‘We must go!’ Pierre said when Neville reappeared in the room. ‘The taxi is waiting.’

‘No breakfast?’

‘Perhaps later.’

As he descended in the lift, watching the first floor creak past through the trellis-work gate, Neville wondered if he shouldn’t be a little more authoritative; perhaps he should put his foot down, send the taxi away, insist on breakfast. Under other circumstances he may well have done so, but this particular morning found him more like a boxer the day after a fight rather than one feeling bullish the day before.

As he walked through the hotel entrance, he saw the doorman putting his two bags in the back of a taxi parked half on the pavement. The rear passenger door was open, and he was greeted again by the unusual aroma of the taxi’s interior. The toad was leaning across the back of his seat as Neville got in.

‘Leaving us then?’ And the toad gave his croaky laugh. ‘Had fun?’

‘Not so fast today, please,’ was all Neville could offer.

‘Fast? Man, you English got no balls!’ And with that, the toad crunched the taxi into gear and pulled off the pavement with a leap.

Pierre was slightly more talkative this morning; excited even. Perhaps he was making a special effort because it was Neville’s last day. He pointed out minor things as the toad’s amazing lane-changing antics threw them from side to side. It suddenly occurring to him that the small porcelain figure could never leave Paris, Neville wondered what would happen to Pierre when he departed.

He would have asked the question but for their screeching arrival at the Eiffel tower. The toad hit the curb with a bang and the doors — all four of them — sprang open with the impact. Neville paid and made to get out.

‘Come back soon — and don’t forget me!’ And with that, the toad slammed the taxi into gear with such force that Neville’s bags bounced out of the boot and onto the pavement of their own accord. A dust trail followed the toad as he sped off into the city hubbub.

‘What do I do with those?’ Neville asked, looking at his bags.

‘There is a small office. They will take them.’

‘Good.’ And with that, Neville picked up his two bags and made for the ticket booth.

As he walked beneath the tower, he looked up through its centre, standing square between the four legs. All he could see was a pattern of steel repeated at each corner like some hypnotic mirror image. Above — and how high was that? — the first platform blotted out any residual image of the sky, and along one leg he could see a small lift making its way upward.

He walked on. It seemed that once again he was early, and because of this the queue was quite short. When he reached the booth he asked for a ticket.

‘To which level?’ came the rather short reply.

Neville glanced down to his lapel.

‘Well?’

‘Two,’ said Pierre, ‘there will be a long wait to get to the top.’

‘Is two high enough? As I’m here...’

‘Two,’ said Pierre, adamantly. ‘That should be fine.’

From behind the grille, the same question.

‘Sorry. Second level, please,’ Neville offered.

‘Deuxième étage,’ said the attendant.

‘And can I leave my bags?’

‘Of course, Monsieur. Please leave them at the door.’

Neville left his bags where he had been told and made his way to the lift. After ten yards or so, he glanced back to find the bags gone; efficiency was, to be honest, the last thing he had expected.

There was also a short queue — some twenty people or so — waiting for the lift. He looked up the nearest leg of the tower to see the cage on its way down, slowly descending towards them. From behind he heard the excited chatter of some Japanese tourists as well as the equally exited chatter from their cameras, the latter busily exchanging advice and tips on aperture sizes, filters, and exposure speeds. He remembered that he had wanted to buy a camera. He would ask Samuel about that.

Turning his attention to the front of the queue, he noticed a figure that seemed familiar to him, a woman he could only see in part-profile. She was wearing a white coat with a large grey collar, all of which contrasted with the darkness of her hair which was a mass of curls falling about her shoulders.

The sudden sound of a bell diverted his attention to the lift now upon them. It hit the ground with a small thump and immediately opened its doors on the far side, disgorging its passengers onto terra firma. Those arriving back seemed in good spirits, laughing and joking. He noticed one or two couples holding hands and talking half-secretively to one and other.

A nudge in the back prompted him to move forwards with the rest of the queue, and within a few strides he found himself on one side of the lift, pressed against its metal side by some of the Japanese visitors. Immediately to his left, the camera of one — slung casually across its owner’s shoulder — gave him a conspiratorial wink.

‘Guess what?’

‘What?’ Neville replied in a whisper akin to that in which the question was offered.

‘She’s forgotten to load any film!’ And the camera winked again, and chuckled to itself. This was obviously a tremendous joke, as a number of the other cameras nearby joined in with the merriment.

Neville thought the camera was a bit mean, but refrained from saying anything. This was partly due to his general reserve and decorum, but more because he had now noticed that the woman in the white coat was none other than his vision from the Rue St. Dennis. She stood, here and now, no more than eight feet away from him, half-turned, her profile set against the Paris skyline as the lift moved upwards. Eight feet — yet completely out of Neville’s reach as there were two Japanese, three Germans, and a Spaniard between them.

For two somewhat torturous minutes, the lift rose slowly towards the first level, all the while Neville trying not to stare at the woman — yet also trying to stare at her. The exit doors would open on the far side of the lift, and as they came to a halt, it occurred to him that she might get out here. If she did, he decided that he would follow. There was little else he could do.

In the event only two people got out, but a few more crammed in. The eight feet between them became squashed to around seven, and Neville faced the crawl to the second stage with the same dilemma of staring and not staring. The woman seemed to not be aware of him; at no point on their journey upwards did she look his way.

As they climbed, he allowed himself the occasional brief glance upwards to check on their progress — and outwards, in a faux show of interest — but there was really only one thing on his mind. Pierre had said nothing since they had stepped in the lift.

‘Pierre?’

‘Monsieur?’

But Neville’s potential interrogation was halted by the stutter of them arriving at their destination.

The doors opened and the lift began to empty. The woman was out quite quickly and it took Neville about twenty seconds longer to exit. Once outside he went to the rail and looked about. He could not see her. The platform was not that large, so she had to be there somewhere.

Neville gave a cursory glance to the city. He could pick out Notre Dame from where he stood, and made a stab at a building which might have been the Musée d’Orsay; but these were now minor considerations. Far from the original intent of the tower providing him with a memorable panorama of the city, it had apparently become the climax of some obscure quest. Pierre had known what he was doing when he suggested that Neville leave it to last.

Moving away from where he stood, he slowly walked anti-clockwise around the edge of the platform. His searching took him in towards the centre of the tower rather than away to admire the skyline as was the norm, and his visage was wreathed in a frown rather than the smiles so abundant on the faces of others.

He had nearly completed a circuit when he turned the final corner and came across her standing immediately in front him, a slight smile on her face. It was as if she had been waiting.

He stopped instantly.

‘Bon jour, Monsieur.’

She was, without question, the most captivating woman he had ever seen in his entire life. Her greeting seemed to drop from her lips with such elegant seduction that his ears felt unworthy to receive her words. Her eyes shone with a clarity that even the purest gem stones would have envied. And her beauty, would have defied the gods themselves.

From Pierre there came a slight whistle.

‘You have been looking for me, yes?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Pathetic.

‘I saw you the other day. I think you have perhaps been searching.’

Neville was now standing within two feet of her. His tongue felt glued to his mouth — and his brain hundreds of feet below, grovelling amongst the flower beds of the nearby park.

‘Yes,’ then, ‘no.’

She smiled.

‘I mean; I recognised you. From the street, the other evening.’

‘And the café, perhaps?’ she suggested.

So.

‘And what do you want of me?’

Still the smile; but this was the sort of question Neville had never expected to face in any normal life, let alone now.

‘Want?’ He could think of nothing — and everything. ‘Who are you?’

‘Who am I? You mean, what is my name, perhaps? Can you guess?’

Neville, for a moment lost, realised that there could be only one answer.

‘Mirelle?’

‘Bien sûr.’

But she didn’t look like Mirelle; she surpassed Mirelle in every way.

‘I’m sorry,’ he faltered, ‘but I don’t think I understand.’

He moved a step forwards. Her response was to lose the smile and to take a step away.

‘Careful, Monsieur.’

‘But, who are you?’

‘I am,’ she paused, ‘I am all you desire. I am the embodiment of your dreams. I am all you would have me to be.’ And as she spoke the smile returned to her lips, and a gleam came to her eyes. ‘But I am not yours. I am mine.’

Again Neville moved forwards, this time his hands a little outstretched. Again she moved away, maintaining the distance between them. She was now more than the most beautiful woman he had ever seen; she had become something intangible, something for which he had been searching, chasing; that elusive thing to which he could not give a name. Possession was what he desired. But he could see that she was not one to be possessed. Yet if this was indeed the case then he decided he would have to touch her, for even the briefest contact suddenly seemed to represent some kind of achievement.

After a moment’s silence he lunged forwards. It was step into the abyss. He was leaving behind so much that he knew, and throwing himself at the mercy of the woman that stood before him now.

As fast as he moved, so she retreated. In an instant, she was standing on the railing, suddenly towering above him. And as he looked up, his hands grasping nothing, she changed into a beautiful seagull. With one magnificent flap of her wings, she leant forwards and plucked Pierre from his lapel with her beak. Then, falling back, she was away from the tower and out into the air, sailing off into the city.

‘A bientôt, Monsieur’ came the feint cry from Pierre as he dropped out of sight.

It was only when he felt the hand on his waist that Neville realised he too was standing on the railing, preparing to throw himself into oblivion.

TWELVE

He had just missed him at the ticket office Samuel explained a few minutes later as they were descending in the lift. He had seen him arrive, buy his ticket, then deposit his bags by the office.

‘If I hadn’t grabbed them, who knows what might have happened to them!’

Neville was a little calmer now, though he had said nothing since his encounter with “Mirelle”.

‘You must have been very close. I mean; I turned around and saw the bags were gone.’

‘I decided to put them in the bus and then come back for you. Unfortunately I was just too late.’

‘You would have stopped me going up there?’

Samuel smiled. The lift had reached the ground with a bump and the doors rattled open.

‘I think I might have come up with you, Sir. I don’t think I could or should have stopped you.’

They walked past the refreshed queue — more Japanese, more winking cameras — and away from the tower. Neville took one last look up. He could make out one or two birds circling high above; the second level of the tower seemed a universe away.

‘I’m glad you weren’t too late.’ He tried to smile, but it proved a little difficult. Samuel squeezed his arm and offered a silent nod of understanding.

The old bus sat waiting for them in a small lay-by just off the main road. It looked a little less battered, and now sported a bright red coat of paint. Samuel intercepted Neville’s gaze.

‘Thought I’d give the old girl a little treat. Well, she deserves it really.’

Neville offered nothing; he knew he wasn’t supposed to. Instead, he let Samuel reach the bus first and open the door. Inside, his two bags were in their previous position, and his own seat — the one at the front alongside Samuel’s — had been recovered in new fabric and accessorised with a large soft cushion. There was a small table beside it too, and on this a fresh mug of tea steamed.

‘Tea,’ Neville said in a rhetorical manner. ‘Is that significant? I mean, it’s not coffee.’

‘I thought you might be just a little tired of coffee, Sir’, Samuel said, and he turned the key and started the engine as if to add weight to his words.

Neville raised the cup and took a sip.

‘Where to Sir?’

Samuel had that slight mischievous smile again as he glanced back at his passenger, then, without waiting for a reply, rolled the bus gently out into the traffic.

‘I don’t know yet,’ Neville said. ‘Perhaps we should just leave the city first, then decide. Is that OK?’

‘That’s fine, Sir,’ said Samuel. ‘How’s the tea?’

The bus rumbled slowly on — once more at twenty seven miles per hour (the coat of paint had done nothing to improve the speed) — twisting through the streets of the city. Neville sipped his tea, expecting at any moment to feel the beginning of the long drag up the incline from which they had first approached three days before. But there was no hill; instead Samuel kept steering along flat and uninspiring roads. Eventually Neville realised that, without ceremony, Paris had simply slipped away behind them.

He wondered if one last look might have been in order. Thwarted by events at the Eiffel Tower, the promised panoramic view had been partially denied him. Perhaps that was just as well. Samuel seemed, as ever, fully in control of the situation, and was pressing on to their next destination — as much he could ever give an impression of “pressing on”.

‘Samuel.’

‘Sir.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Going? Well, that’s up to you Sir, of course.’

‘You appear to be going somewhere though.’

Samuel gave him a brief glance.

‘Not quite. We are going away from somewhere. If you don’t mind me saying, Sir, you have to do that before you can go to anywhere else. Especially if you don’t know where it is you are going.’

‘That’s just semantics. They are, of course, both one and the same thing — simultaneously.’

‘Perhaps.’

Neville, without the appetite to pursue Samuel’s philosophical theory, drained the last of his tea and realised how much he had missed its unique flavour. He wondered what other things he had missed; days of croissants had presumably taken the place of something else too. The last time he drank tea had been in his office — perhaps just minutes before he became a “redundant” individual. It had only been a short while, but Neville already knew that his most recent job was one thing he was never going to miss. Perhaps Brian, Colin and David were managing things a little better than he had done; but quite frankly, he didn’t give a shit.

After a while, Samuel slowed the bus and indicated that he was going to pull over. Ahead was a small lay-by, vacant apart from a solitary, simple vending unit. As they crawled to a halt alongside it (and in the process allowing the stream of traffic that had been growing behind them to race away) Neville saw it was a fruit stall.

‘Fruit, Sir?’ Samuel enquired, and then continuing in a rush, ‘I hope you don’t mind me stopping but I’ve something of a fad for bananas, and the urge has just taken me.’

The sentence trailed away into hopefulness as Samuel, the bus now stopped, turned to look at his passenger.

‘Not at all.’

‘May I get you anything?’

‘Perhaps an apple.’

‘French?’

‘Whatever.’

As he watched Samuel descend and walk round the front of the bus, Neville marked the use of his word “French”. He looked on the awnings of the cabin, and craned his neck to see inside, but could find no evidence of signage of any kind. The countryside had lost some of its Gallic charm and seemed to possess a kind of nondescript uniformity: the gently rolling hills; the hedges; the odd stone wall. The sky — blue but peppered with puffy while clouds — gave nothing away. Neville sniffed the air. Nothing. The fields were empty, and there was no music in the background.

‘Samuel’ —who was half way up the steps when Neville next addressed him — ‘where are we? And don’t say “between here and there”.’

Samuel laughed, presuming a joke.

‘Very good, Sir; very good!’ And with that, he handed Neville a green apple.

Neville rubbed it on his jacket — force of habit — then took a bite. It was crisp and juicy.

‘Well?’

Samuel was peeling his banana. He looked up.

‘You weren’t joking, Sir? About being between here and there?’ Neville’s silence confirmed as much. ‘Oh, sorry. Pity.’

For a few seconds there was a kind of silence as the two of them chomped through their respective fruits. Samuel, finishing first, consigned his banana skin to the brown paper bag from which it had been produced.

‘We are, of course, between here and there. It’s a shame when you didn’t mean what you said, Sir, because you are absolutely correct. In our present context, “here” was Paris, and “there” is wherever you wish to go next. Of course, the saying should be “between there and there”, because we are most definitely here — but that doesn’t sound so well, does it?’ He waited for some kind of response. Neville took another bite from his apple. ‘We could, of course, talk about Paris if you wanted to? I mean, if I can help with any outstanding questions? Historical clarification, perhaps?’

Neville lobbed his apple core forward, and Samuel caught it deftly in the brown bag. He looked at little disappointed at being called upon to perform such a facile trick. The look lasted but a moment.

‘Paris? Clarification, yes; but not so much the historical.’

Samuel nodded, smiled, placed the brown bag down by his feet, and waited. Neville weighted his words.

‘What actually happened?’

A small laugh escaped from Samuel — somewhat involuntarily, Neville guessed — even though his face showed nothing but considered respect.

‘I don’t think I could manage anything quite so challenging, Sir. Could you be a little more specific?’

‘For a start, how about what happened on the Tower. Can you explain that to me?’

Samuel frowned.

‘To be honest Sir, I was hoping you might do me the honour there.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I arrived to find you standing on the edge about to throw yourself off! If I were more demanding, perhaps I should ask for an explanation of that circumstance.’

‘You didn’t see Mirelle?’

‘Your wife?!’

‘No, another Mirelle. Or at least, she said she was.’ He paused, looking for a subject that might be a little less contentious. ‘Or Pierre, the Pierrot.’

Samuel offered an “old boy” shake of the head, suggesting a degree of bewildered confusion.

‘I’m sorry, Sir. Perhaps if you would like to explain...’

Neville considered Samuel’s offer for a split second. Either he was dissembling and knew exactly what had happened, or he was genuinely in the dark. In each case any explanation from him would probably be in adequate.

‘Forget it.’

There was an uncomfortable silence. Neville picked over the images of his visit, thinking of morsels he might offer Samuel.

‘The Musée d’Orsay. Can you explain what happened to me in there?’

‘What was that, Sir?’

‘Samuel!’

Neville thumped the small table in frustration. Even if Samuel was in a position to shed some light on things, would he be able to understand what was said, or would there be more phoney here-there mumbo jumbo to confuse him? And if Samuel could explain nothing, was it because he wasn’t aware of what had transpired or because, for some reason, he was prevented from providing illumination? Neville knew he could resolve none of this.

‘Have you checked your watch, Sir?’

‘My watch? Do you need the time or something?’

‘I was thinking of the additional information.’

For once Samuel’s message was understood, and Neville remembered the display of his financial “balance”. He looked down. The number 16738 greeted him. He tried to remember the initial figure.

‘A little over nineteen thousand’, Samuel offered.

‘But that means I’ve spent a fortune!’

‘Nearly two and a half thousand by my calculation.’

‘We said Paris would cost a few hundred; a thousand at most! This can’t be right, Samuel.’

Samuel’s countenance became a degree more stern, verging on the school-masterly.

‘Correction, Sir; you said you anticipated such a sum, not I. You must remember the cost of the hotel, and the travel.’

‘Travel? But I only took a few taxis.’

‘I’m afraid I must include myself in your budget, Sir. The old bus may not be particularly quick, but I’m afraid she is a little expensive to run — especially given her particular talents.’

The last work hung ambiguously in the air, demanding definition; but Neville missed it, and pressed on.

‘And I bought nothing.’

‘There is the portrait I collected with your bags, Sir. And the Pierrot, you mentioned...?’

‘But surely...’ Neville lost his argument. He could not reconcile his brief visit with such vast expenditure.

Samuel waited for anything further. When nothing came, he continued.

‘Do you remember the General? The gentleman who purchased your car.’

‘Of course.’

‘He paid what you considered to be a ridiculous amount of money for it, did he not? But he had his reasons, as I explained. I also explained that what we were dealing with there was the concept of worth, rather than value. The General paid a sum matching the car’s worth to him, not one in accord with its value.’

‘Are you suggesting that, somehow, my visit to Paris was “worth” nearly two and a half thousand pounds to me?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘How come? Explain it, Samuel; I don’t understand!’

Samuel offered a smile of sympathy.

‘I don’t think I can, Sir. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s simply that I fear it is impossible. It is a lesson to be learned perhaps; nothing more nor less.’

Neville checked his watch again. Sixteen thousand. Was that how much his life was now “worth”? And based on the last three days, how could he possibly know how quickly he was spending it, or when one thing might cost him more than another?

‘I’m afraid you must trust us, Sir. We are, after all, on your side. I will help you all I can, but these are the rules we are playing with.’

‘Option 3?’

‘Indeed.’

Unable to comprehend exactly how things now stood, Neville looked out of Samuel’s side of the bus at the fruit stall. The boxes of fruit which had stood in neat racks had now vanished, and the stall was decorated like a Punch and Judy show with brightly coloured curtains adorning the sides of what was — to all intents and purposes — now a stage.

From within the stall (there was no-one visible) came a brief drum roll, which was followed by the appearance of a banana peeping nervously round the curtain. With a sudden lunge — as if pushed from behind — it flew out and came to a sliding halt centre stage. It bowed low. From somewhere Neville heard a small ripple of applause. The banana bowed lower, and the applause was louder.

With this second ovation, two apples — one red, one green — rolled onto the stage from the opposite direction. They appeared to be in conversation, though how Neville could actually know this was vaguely mystifying. They stopped suddenly on seeing the banana. The red apple moved round the banana to its other side, so that the apples now flanked it. The banana tried as best it could to straighten itself. Neville sensed some tension. An orange appeared from one side of the stage, paused, then rolled quickly across and out of sight on the other side.

The apples sidled up to the banana, squeezing it between them. The banana tried to bow and failed. From either side of the stage various other fruits, evidently attracted by the drama, made their appearance; spectators rather than participants. By this time the banana was looking even more uncomfortable as the apples, both redder with their efforts, pushed against it. Neville could only watch, mesmerised by the strange show.

Gradually the banana peeled back its skin, and, as it did so, the apples backed slightly away. The audience in the wings also moved back slightly. Then, without warning, the banana spun viciously round, whipping the apples with its flailing skin as it did so, sending them flying from the stage and onto the ground. With that the curtain closed.

Neville looked at Samuel, intending to ask him for some interpretation of these events, but he appeared to be asleep.

‘Samuel!’

The driver woke with a slight grunt, straightening himself in his chair in embarrassment.

‘Sorry, Sir. Must have just dropped off; apologies.’

‘Samuel,’ Neville paused. ‘Never mind. I think I’d like to go home.’

‘Home, Sir?’

Neville sensed another discourse coming on; something he wanted to avoid at present.

‘Birmingham. Let’s go back to Birmingham; I need cheering up. Perhaps that meal.’

‘And the tuxedo?’ Samuel offered with a smile.

‘The tux? Why not!’

As the bus crunched into gear, Neville felt a sudden chill breezing through his open window, and noticed that the sky had turned an angry grey. He sensed England might not be that far away, after all.

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Or you do have a vice but refrain from recognising it as such, preferring to couch it in softer, less problematic words. It’s a ‘habit’, a ‘characteristic’, a ‘foible’, a ‘thing “I’ve always done like that”…’

I’m talking about writing vices. Obviously.

Indeed, you may have more than one — there are enough to go around!

But what do I mean by ‘vice’? According to one dictionary definitions there are various flavours:

• immoral or wicked behaviour [the one we normally land on!];

• a tool to hold something in place;

• next in rank to (e.g. as in vice-captain).

“What’s the problem with admitting to the odd vice?” That might be your opening gambit. “Having a vice proves you’re human, doesn’t it?”

In terms of you as writer, your vices might spur you on to greater things — or stop you making any forward progress at all.

I suspect most often vices are hiding in plain sight; we know they’re there, but resolutely refuse to admit to them or call them out. In some cases these vices can be akin to the symptoms of a disease you have chosen not to recognise — though not recognising it might also mean you won’t do anything to find a remedy for it.

One common trait of writerly vices is that they are often chosen, the result of having come to some kind of writing-related decision, a contract with yourself. Let’s briefly look at three common ones.

Editing

You edit too little or too much. The result is either that your work is never as good as you could possibly make it or your production is incredibly slow and you never finish anything. This vice is painfully visible, certainly in the second instance as demonstrated by lack of output.

Maybe you kid yourself and make your habit acceptable by laughing it off: you tell yourself the next thing you write is going to be so much better than what you are currently working on that you simply have to move on and leave the existing project as it is (i.e. unfinished and sub-optimal); or you believe only perfection is good enough, and hence you embark on edit number 6 or 13…. That next great idea is going to have to wait.

Neither end of the spectrum is good for you. Based on my own experience, I would have to suggest that novice writers tend to occupy the not-editing-enough end of the spectrum in part because they don’t accept or understand that editing is writing — after all, writing’s the fun part! When mentoring at writing retreats I have also seen those glued to the perfection end of the spectrum… In both cases there are ways to break free, to self-educate yourself into a better balance, but only if you recognise the vice first.

Imposter Syndrome

Perhaps this is an even more common ailment. Obviously your work isn’t very good — and you know it. Everyone else’s writing is so much better than yours, and occasionally you don’t really know why you bother at all…

Let’s be honest, in some cases this will be true; just as most people could never become a competent sculptor, so many people won’t have what it takes to be an effective writer (or painter, or opera singer etc.). However, hopefully your work will have merit, some quality, you just need to find a way to have that affirmed — and the best way to do that is to have someone else tell you that it’s okay. Validation. So sharing is vital — but also quite difficult if you suffer from Imposter Syndrome.

Oddly, this is a vice which can also be positive. Recognising your attachment to IS can spur you on to try and improve; you can use it as a driver rather than something which holds you back.

But there’s also a darker side to this particular coin: those who believe their work is brilliant, who know IS only affects other people. How can they themselves possibly suffer from it? Such arrogance is, I suggest, unhealthy — and doesn’t mean the work produced is any better than anyone else’s. Everyone can do with a little IS from time to time.

Process

Vice as ‘a tool to hold something in place’? Well what about process, a method or routine to which you adhere rigidly, and by doing so allows you to convince yourself you qualify as a writer?

1,000 words a day? Word-smithing from 9-11 every weekday morning? Keeping a log? Always starting each writing session with a quick sonnet? Posting every week on Substack? etc. None of these are negative per se, and all can be useful in terms of building a framework within which to be creative. The danger arises when we carry on with them even if they’re not effective, when we instinctively know we’re just ‘going through the motions’. At this point you run the risk that adhering to ‘the process’ becomes as important as your writing — maybe more so. And maybe because certain processes work for other people — the real writers — we think we need those self same processes for ourselves.

There is no perfect writing process or routine. We each work in different way, have different lives into which to fit our homage to the craft. To find one that really works for you there’s no alternative than discovering the ones that don’t and then casting them aside. This can be painful. It can take years to discover what you’re looking for.

Based on your output, you should be able to feel when a process isn’t helping, when it has become no more than a crutch. The depth, quality, volume of your output will be a guide. Trust your gut, it’s not often wrong.

And what about ‘Writer’s block’: surely that’s an affliction? Maybe — though I don’t think so. But it be evidence of an issue with a part of your ‘process’ — or an excuse not to write...

But wait. None of the above fall into the ‘immoral or wicked’ bucket. So are there no vices which we can label as such? Well, there’s a new kid on the block: Artificial Intelligence. What AI actually is can be hard to pin down, especially for the layperson; to a certain extent it’s how you choose to perceive it. Is MS Word or a spellchecker AI? Or what about ‘Grammarly’ or ‘Scrivener’? For some people any and all tech could be tarred with the AI brush.

But at the other extreme?

At the furthest point of the spectrum some people confess to using AI to create plots — and then use ChatGBT (or some such) to actually ‘write’ their first draft. These abdications are not ‘writing’. Full stop. Indeed, if that’s where your vice resides, then to my mind that disqualifies you as a writer. Surely a writer is an individual responsible for the entire creative process beginning to end, from the generation of initial idea all the way through to production of the final full-stop.

There are now free tools available on the internet which will help assess if a piece of work is AI-generated or not. As an Editor of anthologies, I plan to use them from time-to-time — after all, AI-produced material has already won prizes and competitions…

For any of the ‘vices’ above, recognition is the first step: to able to see them for what they are is the prerequisite for tackling them. It’s probably a bit like standing up at your first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting: “Hello, my name’s Sam and I’m a writer…” Many of the other writers at that fictional ‘AA meeting’ will be in the same boat as you; some will be going through the Cold Turkey of giving up unending editing or abandoning a treasured process, and others will be coming out the other side.

The trick for you as a writer is to be honest about your vices and tackle them head-on, but not in an aggressive or confrontational way. Remember, there are benefits to be had from editing thoroughly, sticking to a routine, being modest about your work; you need to be striving for balance to turn your vices into virtues.

At the outset I asked whether you should have a vice. A bit tongue-in-cheek as I suspect every writer has at least one in some form or another. But if you don’t? If your writing life is in perfect balance? Well, I’m not sure I believe you; but if that’s so there still might be some merit in trying to throw yourself off kilter now and again — try a new process, more/less editing etc. — just to see… And having seen, then turn what you have discovered about yourself and your relationship to your work into another virtue!

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[Writing until the light goes out is free to read because I would much rather you buy one of my books than I charge you for engaging with my site.]

He was about twenty-five when he first saw her. They were in a small café in Bosham Walk, a small cluster of artisan shops located in Bosham Quay, West Sussex. The café was called ‘The Bay Tree’. The tiny mall is still there today, as is a café (though inevitably under different ownership and with a different name). She was in her late teens or early twenties, slim, with extraordinarily long straight hair the colour of pine. Although she wasn’t serving, she was behind the counter showing off a new dress to the staff there. It seemed she was among friends. If memory serves him well it was a vibrant, almost magical blue. She seemed very happy.

If hearts do miss a beat, he’s certain his did then.

After they left the café he and his late parents looking in the Norman church nearby. There’s a cross carved in the stone that surrounds the door. When the Crusade Knights returned to England they carved a cross in the doorframe of the first church they found; it was a sign of gratitude, thanks to God that they had returned home safely. But unlike those Knights, he was suddenly lost.

After that day he returned to the café more often than he needed to. He lived close by and all he wanted was to see her again. But he didn’t; at least not there.

He moved from Bosham into Chichester after a few months in order to be closer to work. There was a disco just outside of town that he and a friend used to go about once a month. That’s where he saw her the second time. Although with two young men, she seemed attached to neither. He probably danced within about twenty of thirty feet of her, once or twice risking a smile that seemed to be reciprocated — but her being accompanied dissuaded him from making any approach (though ironically he was approached by another young lady who had obviously mistaken his smile as being aimed at her)...

The anguish he felt when leaving that evening having seen her there and done nothing about it was indescribable. He hated himself for being so cowardly.

But then, one day soon after, he was doing his after-work grocery shopping in Waitrose. He was at the checkout packing away his things when he looked up to see that she was next in the queue. Not only that, but she was standing exactly where he needed to be standing in order to pay. She smiled when she moved to allow him to finish his transaction with the cashier, after which he walked a little way off, made out as if he was having trouble with his shopping, that a minor reorganisation of bags was called for. He was buying time.

When she finally came through the checkout, that was his chance. Hadn’t she chosen the same one he was in? Hadn’t she chosen to stand much closer to him than she needed to when he was packing? He didn’t need to say much; even “Hello” might have been enough.

But he didn’t. He said nothing. He bottled it.

And that memory has been crushing him ever since.

Somewhere there’s a parallel universe when a different course of action was taken — and he can’t help but wonder what happened there…

So, fact or fabrication? What do you think?

Well, although the question seems a binary one — simple enough, you would think — it may not be. There are ‘nuances’… Let’s take a look.

• You think it’s fiction and it is fiction.

Straightforward. No debate. Well done.

• You think it’s fact but the whole thing is actually made up - or you think it’s fiction but it turns out to be true.

Ah, not so well done. You’ve been had; we all make mistakes. (Though there’s a caveat here in terms of ‘true’; see below.)

• You think it’s fact and every morsel of the story is true.

Again, well done. But there’s a rider here, and it’s in the wording “every morsel of the story is true”. What if that’s not the case? What if the story is fundamentally true except that the events didn’t happen in Bosham but somewhere else? Or the café wasn’t called ‘The Bay Tree’? Or her dress was purple and not blue?

At what point does the story pivot from being fact into fiction?

Is it when there’s one part of the story that’s incorrect? Or two? Or three? And who’s to say?

Well, you are. As the reader you’ve been presented with a short narrative and it’s up to you to decide how it reads, how it feels. Discovering many of the ‘facts’ are incorrect, you might still be happy to think of the story as essentially a true one — or then again, knowing even one item is wrong, choose to dismiss it as truth. Unreliable narrator and all that.

But here’s a thing. How do you know it’s supposed to be true in the first place? Because the author tells you it is? That opens a whole new can of worms regarding the reliability and honesty of the author. Never mind the text playing with you, but what if they are too?

The line between fact and fiction in story-telling is a very fuzzy one, don’t you think? In non-fiction facts are easier to validate e.g. the Second World War started in 1939; Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. Indisputable. But a girl wearing a blue dress in a café on the south coast of England? Maybe it’s having a second source, some corroboration which proves the veracity of the tale. But when you don’t have that independent validation..?

This is the tightrope I think autobiography tries to tread: what you read is purported to be true and yet surely it’s inevitable that somewhere along the line the author has misremembered something, got a date or a place wrong. Without validation you can’t really know. But then again, do you care?

When you start reading something you do so with some level of pre-conception: “this is a novel” you tell yourself, or “this is factual”; and you bring certain assumptions with you to that reading. But if someone says “this may be fact or fiction”, what then?

Interesting isn’t it?

And the short story above? If I told you it was either fact or fabrication would you believe me? And what if I said there is a longer version of the story — called ‘The Bay Tree’ — in my 2017 collection Secrets & Wisdom, what would you say then? That one strays into fantasy so is definitely fiction — but underlying that…

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[Writing until the light goes out is free to read because I would much rather you buy one of my books than I charge you for engaging with my site.]

NINE

By the time he reached Montmartre, Neville had calmed down and was in possession of a more even temper. The journey across the city had not been particularly quick, which, under the circumstances, had probably been a good thing. Pierre had been noticeably silent throughout, not even offering the briefest of guide-book commentary.

The taxi dropped Neville off at the foot of a long hill which led up to the white church that dominated the summit. Ahead were two parallel chains of steps that zigzagged in a mirror image to the top. He was struck by the whiteness of the whole scene, and — as he placed his foot upon the first of the steps — the strangely solid nature of the stone.

At various stages, the steps were broken by large plateaux. These were populated with bench seats, boys playing impromptu games of football, and North Africans selling trinkets from brightly coloured blankets. Neville paused at one selling necklaces made from various materials; coral, ivory, wood. As their owner chattered away, the necklaces writhed in time with the music from a nearby ghetto blaster whose owner was busy showing off his break-dancing skills.

As they left the necklaces to move on, Neville detected a sound from Pierre that appeared less than approving.

‘Something wrong, Pierre?’

‘Monsieur?’

‘You don’t approve of these people selling things here?’

‘The selling? Mais oui. The people, perhaps non.’

‘Why? Because they are not French?’

Pierre said nothing. Neville assumed an affirmative answer.

‘But I thought Paris was proud of her multi-cultural background; of the variety it brought to the city.’

‘But these people are scum — pardonnez moi, but I have to say it. They turn areas of our city into slums. They do not know how to live like Parisians!’ Pierre paused. ‘But is it not the same in England?’

‘The same?’

‘Do you not have ethnics too? Are there not problems?’

‘Yes. And there are problems. But we must try to overcome them.’

Neville realised that he was in danger of sounding like a politician, and almost forgave Pierre the Gallic sigh that closed the conversation. A thump in the back from a football just at that moment also helped to terminate the debate. He turned to seek out the offending footballer, only to find the area deserted — except for the football which was trying to slink away unnoticed. From somewhere in the bushes Neville heard someone say “Gazza”, and then muffled laughter.

Suddenly taken by a desire for boyish revenge, he set his sights on the football, took one stride forward, then aimed at the bushes. With a strange “crack!” he sent the ball flying towards the undergrowth where it arrived with such velocity that there immediately came the sounds of breaking branches and the faint smell of singed wood.

‘Very good, Monsieur!’ Pierre was impressed.

Neville — resisting the temptation to relate the story of his schoolboy soccer prowess (which was average at best) — resumed his climb to the top of the hill. As he neared Sacré-Cœur, it seemed to grow ever larger before his eyes, its whiteness becoming brighter all the while.

Pierre had obviously relaxed a little thanks to the incident with the football, and was once again offering stories about Saints and Martyrs — and how, after each of whom, there was at least one avenue in the city named to commemorate them.

The cathedral was quiet and peaceful. Neville noticed the difference between his first impression here, and that from Note Dame just an hour or so earlier.

‘We are lucky, Monsieur,’ Pierre offered, ‘there is a service.’

In the body of the church, a few dozen people sat listening to a priest talking to them quietly. Neville remarked the lack of microphones which seemed to dominate modern English churches.

He made his way round to one side, glancing alternately between the service — to which he was getting closer — and the statues and figures set within the fabric of the walls. By a large pillar he paused.

‘What kind of service is it, Pierre; a wedding?’

‘Non, Monsieur. I believe it is the taking of vows by some novices from a Monastery in the country. Sometimes they come here, just for this purpose.’

‘So they’re tourists too?’ Neville suggested a little facetiously.

‘Non. They are more than that, n’est-ce pas?’

‘Yes; sorry.’

Neville resumed his walk which had now taken him a little ahead of the front row of pews. As he glanced back he saw seven young men, each dressed in brown, intently listening to the words of the Priest. He tried to interpret, but could understand little of the ecclesiastic litany. Strangely, however, he felt a sense of peace in the voice of the older man, as if he were imparting years of experience upon his young charges.

Then, as he finished speaking, the young men rose as one and began to hum a Gregorian chant. The melody was taken up by those sitting behind them, with strange harmonies being added from all around the church. Even the statues seemed to be contributing their voices. Standing silently, Neville became enveloped in a wave of emotion transmitted through the echoes and harmonics of the building.

This lasted for a few minutes, and then the young men sat down — their habits now changed to a radiant and peaceful blue — and the priest began speaking again.

‘Magnifique, n’est-ce pas?’ said Pierre, who had obviously been affected by the spectacle too.

‘Marvellous, yes.’

‘And only in Paris, Monsieur; only in Paris.’

Neville wandered for a little longer, his visit punctuated by the occasional deep bass of the organ. By the time he regained the sunlight outside, he found himself in a much more relaxed mood.

‘And now?’

‘Maintenant, la Place du Tertre!’

‘Where the painters are?’

‘Oui, Monsieur. Another famous Parisian institution.’

‘But,’ Neville paused, leaning against a balustrade and looking down the steps to the base of the hill and the city below, ‘there is Art tomorrow, isn’t there? The Louvre...’

‘The Musée d’Orsay,’ Pierre prompted.

‘Yes. Of course. So more paintings today?’

‘But Monsieur, one does not go to the Place du Tertre for the paintings; one goes for the atmosphere, for the spectacle. And I know a small café...’

‘Where they do a fantastic pastry, n’est-ce pas?’

Pierre said nothing for a moment, and Neville sensed a degree of embarrassment in his guide.

‘Where is it?’

‘Ah, nearby. Ten minutes, no more! Just down the hill, to the far side of Sacré-Cœur.’

Neville left the Cathedral behind and made his way down a side street. Pierre’s directions took him to a small cobbled lane where the houses seemed to belong to a different age, their slightly misshapen windows and doors giving him an echo of Charles Dickens’ London — something he dared not mention to Pierre for fear of offence.

After a few minutes, the crowd began to thicken perceptibly, and Neville emerged into a small vibrantly coloured square filled with people. At its centre was an inner rectangle defined by trees and lined with artist after artist working at their easels and surrounded by examples of their work. In the centre of the square — and all around its outskirts — dozens of café tables. Between artists and cafés, two streams of voyeurs made their respective clockwise and anticlockwise progress, watching the craftsmen in action and, in turn, being watched by those at the café tables.

Apart from the colour of the scene — which was quite unlike anything Neville had experienced before — he was struck by the volume of noise, which seemed quite extraordinary. It was the sound of conversation multiplied a hundred-fold, and backed by wave upon wave of music emanating from the buildings.

There were many different styles of work on display, many undoubtedly honed to exploit the market they were designed to serve. Certain styles seemed to appeal to the visitors, and the instant portrait in charcoal was a popular attraction. It did not take Neville long to realise that he was not looking at “great art”, and the last thing he wanted to do was to spoil the day he had planned for tomorrow.

‘Where’s this café, Pierre?’

When no immediate response came, he looked to his lapel to see Pierre in conversation with the portrait of a pierrot resident on an easel by which he was standing. It could almost have been Pierre looking in a mirror.

‘Pierre.’

‘Pardon, Monsieur. An old friend.’

Neville accepted the apology, and though he did not quite understand it, decided not to push for an explanation.

‘The café?’

‘We are here, voila!’

The establishment Pierre was referring to appeared to be the oldest and shabbiest on the square. For a moment he thought to question his guide’s judgement, but just then a little old man appeared from inside the café and ushered Neville to one of the empty tables. He sat down facing the painters, ordered a coffee and pastry (again in accordance with Pierre’s suggestion) and settled to watch the crowds.

His time in Paris seemed punctuated by cafés, coffee and food, and he wondered if this was a reflection on him or on the city. When it came, the coffee was as reliable as always and — this time — the pastry remarkably good. Pierre chatted a little, but gradually became silent. Neville, relaxing in the warmth of the day, began to soak up the atmosphere.

Almost directly in front of him sat one of the charcoal portrait artists. He was busy at a new piece, but had no customers at present. Neville glanced over the examples of the artist’s work on display and was suddenly surprised to notice a drawing of Mirelle staring back at him. It was not a recent work — she looked a little too young for that, a little too much how he would have liked to remember her — but there could be no doubt that it was indeed her. With a start, he suddenly realised that there were other people there whom he knew; there was even a drawing of Samuel (who until this moment had slipped from his mind) sporting a natty French beret and Breton shirt.

Neville took another sip of coffee and wondered if he should ask Pierre what was going on. And then he remembered that Pierre could read his mind so there was little point. Presumably, as he had volunteered nothing, Pierre had nothing to offer. Or chose to offer nothing.

In front of him, the artist rose from his small seat. As he did so, Neville saw the face of the woman he’d seen on Rue St Dennis staring back at him from a drawing which, until that moment, had been obscured from his view. He felt an arrow slice through him. She was truly amazing. For a second he froze.

‘Magnifique!’

Pierre’s voice interrupted him, and Neville looked up to suddenly find himself focusing on his own face, there in charcoal, being presented to him by the artist. Yes, it was his face, but it was a strange face too. There was something about it Neville failed to recognise, as if it were him from another time; past or future he was uncertain.

‘Every visitor should have one,’ Pierre extolled, ‘and such value!’

Neville went to his wallet and offered the artist some cash, which he took with a slight smile and handed over the portrait in return.

‘I thought you might like that, as a souvenir,’ Pierre said.

‘You asked him to do this?’

‘Monsieur; it is my city, this café and this seat was my choice. I wanted you to have this.’

And Neville looked up to see that the artist — and all his works — had vanished, and now someone else occupied his place. He was not surprised, but began to wonder again exactly how much control Pierre had over him.

Neville rolled up the portrait carefully and slid it inside the cardboard tube he had also been given. Dusk was falling, and for the first time that day, Neville felt a slight chill in the breeze. The crowds had begun to thin, and one by one the artists were packing up their wares. Things seemed to disappear rather than be put away, their owners more like magicians.

He watched two portraits conversing in front of him: one was of an attractive, bare-torsoed young man; the other a young woman, tears welling in her eyes. The drawing styles were different, and they were obviously about to be parted.

‘Good night, my Darling’, said the woman, stifling a sniffle.

‘Tomorrow, perhaps,’ came the reply.

‘Can you persuade him to stand here again?’

‘I can’t be sure; today we took very little money. He may want to try somewhere else.’

A woman appeared; evidently she was the owner of the female portrait, which she lifted from the ground.

‘À bientôt, my sweet,’ and in a moment the portrait had gone, gathered up in an armful of others.

‘Monsieur?’

The familiar voice of Pierre broke into the closing of the scene. Neville rose, and threw some money on the café table.

‘Monsieur?’

‘Yes, Pierre?’

‘She we go to la Pigalle now? There is much to see there.’

Neville walked into the centre of the now deserted square. All the artists had gone, all the café tables were empty, the lights hanging in the trees were dim. Without the magic, there was nothing. He felt the portrait in his hand.

‘No, Pierre. I just want to go back to the hotel.’

Pierre remained silent. Neville wondered whether the pierrot was aware how tired he felt or if he recognised the sense of doubt — about Paris, about his future — that had suddenly come upon him.

Neville looked up, hopeful of seeing a battered old yellow bus waiting for him on the street corner, Samuel standing by its door. But there was no bus; and Neville felt strangely alone except for memories of the past and dubious premonitions of the future.

TEN

At breakfast the next morning, Pierre began to harangue Neville over their failure to visit La Pigalle the previous evening. There was nothing venomous in Pierre’s nagging, but Neville began to wonder again if the visit Pierre had envisaged — or perhaps had already planned — was more for his own gratification rather than Neville’s. Because of that he did not feel disposed to consider the wants and wishes of his porcelain companion.

Inclined to something a little different — and regretting his rather meagre intake of food the previous day — Neville ignored Pierre’s advice and wanting some form of cooked breakfast, made his way down to the hotel’s restaurant. He assumed such a request would not be unusual for an establishment catering for English tourists, but when the feast eventually arrived Neville found himself staring at a single, rather wizened sausage, and three fried eggs. Accompanied by two slices of rather under-done toast, the whole was somewhat indecorously arranged on a willow pattern plate.

With a slight sigh — ‘Not what you had in mind, eh?’ was all Pierre offered — Neville picked up his knife and fork and made for the sausage. As he did so, the sausage rolled out from under the knife as if to avoid any incision. Two small figures in the pattern on the plate — a “typical” Japanese scene common on willow-patterned plates — also moved just as Neville’s knife made contact with the china.

He stared hard at his breakfast, then listened, waiting the inevitable voices. There ware none. The restaurant was virtually empty, and the only background noise came from the slurping of coffee at a table hosting two Germans. Neville prepared for another attack.

As his knife and fork once again made for the sausage, he heard the distinctive roar of an aeroplane (some kind of dive bomber) and then, unmistakably, the sound of anti-aircraft fire. It was an echo from Malvern. Again the sausage rolled away this time managing to get underneath one of the eggs, and the two figures — who had been standing on open ground — disappeared into a willow-patterned house. Again his unsuccessful knife hit the plate.

Frustrated, he dropped the knife and fork and grabbed one of the soft slices of toast, biting hard before it too could escape.

A waiter appeared at his side holding a small plate containing two hot croissants. He placed the these in front of Neville, removing the virtually untouched “English” breakfast with his other hand. Then — again unbidden — he topped up Neville’s coffee. As he went away with the willow plate, the sound of an “all clear” siren wailed. Neville took up one of the croissants. It was warm and moist and the first bite melted in his mouth.

At this particular moment, Neville’s desire was to talk about the things he had seen over the previous two days, but the only person he could really confide in he would not see until sometime the next day. Whatever he may have been, Pierre could in no way be considered a confidant. Neville no longer trusted him. It was hard to say why — or if his suspicions had been aroused by the shower head — but he could not help but question the course events seemed to be taking.

‘Monsieur?’ Pierre prompted, the tone of his voice showing no concern for Neville’s state of mind. Indeed, there appeared no recognition that his present master might be in the process of rebelling.

‘Yes, Pierre?’

‘The croissants; they are good?’

‘Of course. And the coffee.’

Neville sensed his small friend wanted praise or thanks, but he was in no mood to offer either. He wondered what today might have in store for him; where his Parisian roller-coaster might take him.

‘Where should we start today? The Louvre or the other one?’

‘The Musée d’Orsay, Monsieur. Bien sûr, the Louvre is the more famous, but she is — how shall I put it? — not so “moderne”. I think you will find the d’Orsay more immediate.’

‘You mean accessible?’

Pierre paused, weighing Neville’s choice of word.

‘Accessible, perhaps. But I think immediate is a better word.’

From somewhere in his past, Neville remembered a rare trip to a circus. He had seen a clown there, face painted white, tall conical hat. This clown proved to be more of a ring master than a fool, directing those about him into situations which brought them nothing but humiliation or pain. He rose.

‘Shall we go?’

‘The Musée does not open for another demi-heure; but perhaps a short walk along the Seine then would be good. The weather is very fine.’

Outside, Neville waited in the hotel doorway for a taxi. The two lions eyed him with a degree of suspicion, but without imparting any sense of danger. A yellow cab juddered to a halt and Neville, without regard for its driver, opened the rear door and got in.

As he watched the streets roll by, he was aware he had managed to cultivate an undeniably fatalistic attitude towards the remainder of his visit; perhaps even beyond that. He could not say if it had come to him out of choice or as a result of his recent experiences; he was aware of a new sense of wanting to get it over and done with — whatever “it” was.

The taxi spun round a corner and headed towards the river. Pierre was silent (as seemed his want now) and Neville was in no particular mood to talk. Outside, the weather seemed a little less bright than previously, with an intermittent layer of cloud partially blocking out the sun.

They came to a halt by one of the many bridges over the river. Neville paid and found himself once again heading off under Pierre’s direction. Ahead in the distance he could make out Notre Dame, and his mind flitted back to the scene at the café and the disappointment that whole experience had given him.

Across the river, Neville saw a glimpse of the giant pyramid that was the remarkable entrance to the Louvre; an edifice strangely out of context with the solid and historic building to which it provided a gateway.

After a short while, Pierre pointed out the Musée d’Orsay; a large rectangular building on the other side of the road.

‘It looks like a railway station,’ Neville said, immediately unimpressed with its exterior appearance.

‘Monsieur!’ Pierre was pleased, ‘Bien sûr! It was a railway station! Only in Paris would you find such a thing transformed into a palace of wonder.’

Neville thought “palace of wonder” a little strong, and, despite the tone of Pierre’s voice being reminiscent of their initial few hours together, was not entirely convinced of its authenticity.

Having crossed the road, he joined the short queue that had begun to form. In the window, a poster proclaimed a special exhibition of works by a group of artists whose movement was known as Fauvism. Neville considered asking Pierre for a little background, but decided against it.

In the small square in front of the building, pigeons fluttered amongst the few tourists who were waiting on the seats, begging for crumbs from late breakfasts nibbled from anonymous paper bags. The sound of bolts being pulled back and keys being turned, drew Neville’s attention to the doors which were now opening.

The queue shuffled forwards and in through the glazed entrance hall. Once inside, they filed through one of two booths collecting entrance fees. Having paid, Neville loitered for a moment looking for a guide to the museum written in English, then, suitably armed, moved into the core of the building.

He was greeted by a large and remarkably bright open space. The roof had been generously panelled with glass, and the day’s light flooded in. Much of the interior of the building had been refurbished with white marble. The centre of the museum was dedicated to sculpture, and on this floor numerous alcoves opened off the central atrium, each boasting its own small collection of paintings dedicated to individual artists or schools.

Standing quietly, absorbing the breath-taking quality of the place, Neville found himself as thrilled by its interior as he had been non-plussed by its exterior.

Gradually he made his way from alcove to alcove. The ground floor seemed dedicated to Realists and Romantics, wall upon wall filled with both the famous and the unfamiliar. He was pleased he had come early as the gallery was still not busy, and he was able to relax as he toured in relative silence.

At the end of the building, an escalator rose to the first floor. Open to the body of the building, he was able to see others as they wandered below him, in and out of the alcoves just as he himself had done.

He consulted his guide. Each level existed as a ring about the central space, with balconies and walkways looking out across the museum and down to the sculptures below. The first floor was dedicated to more Realists and a few early Impressionists; the second offered the great and famous works of the Impressionists, and the Fauvism exhibition. Neville decided to try the special exhibition and work his way back down to the ground floor.

As he made his way up to the top floor, he pulled off his jacket and swung it over his shoulder, supporting it with his finger in the collar tab. Pierre, who had once again become silent, was lost amidst folds of cloth. ‘Out of sight...’ thought Neville.

Turning left at the top of the escalator, he found himself confronted by more of the posters he had seen at the entrance, then, turning right into the exhibition area, came face-to-face with the pictures themselves. There was a display on the wall offering a general introduction to the exhibition and the artists whose works were on show. Despite the paucity of Neville’s knowledge about Art, he recognised a couple of the names.

As he wandered slowly to the first wall, his eye was caught by a number of paintings by Andre Derain. They were landscapes; bright, attractive pieces that Neville found instantly appealing. Here was the quality missing from the Place du Tertre! One piece in particular drew him. It depicted a number of trees in the foreground of a brightly coloured landscape. According to the display, it was painted in 1906 and called — appropriately enough — “Les Arbres”.

He walked up to it and stopped three feet from the canvas. The trees were bright, wiry things in mauve and bold reds, and the landscape danced before his eyes with its bold brush strokes.

‘Enticing, isn’t it?’ Pierre had emerged somehow from the folds of Neville’s jacket and appeared to be admiring the work too. ‘Derain has a certain vitality,’ he continued, ‘a certain rawness, perhaps. As if he is in touch with — something.’

Not bothering to reply, Neville leaned a little forwards and took one single step closer.

His foot came to rest on a surface that felt entirely different from the hardness of the museum’s polished tiles. He looked down and found it softly embedded between great tufts of grass. But the grass was not green; it was amber and ochre. And looking up, he saw four trees immediately in front of him. The one nearest, to his left, was light purple deepening to a dark blue base; the others, various rusts and reds. He pushed out his hand and felt the firmness of the trunk.

About his body, he sensed the heat of a summer’s day; the sun shone brightly in the pale blue and yellow sky, and there was a breeze which carried with it the hint of water. In the distance rose mountains of blue and indigo.

He took a another step and moved further into the field. Just beyond the clump of trees — in whose midst he now stood — the land slipped away slightly, down to a yellow field. Beyond this field and some more trees — was that the green of figs or dates? — the river.

Lured on by the shape of the land, its invitation to explore, Neville continued walking, down through the yellow field and across the pale blue shadows cast by the dark trees with their solid fruits, pink in the sun.

The river flowed in blocks of solid colour, purple, blue. Away in the distance, riding on a mass of red, the ferry — little more than a splash of brown — plied its trade to the far bank. Neville looked down. His shoes had become misshapen rectangles of blue, and his crimson legs were apparently suffering from years of exaggerated rickets. He felt fine.

Over his shoulder, the four trees he had first encountered were now away across the field and up the hill. Ahead, beyond the river, the mountains; and to either side, stretching away, the strange mosaic of the landscape.

As he reached the river, the ferry was making preparations to leave. The ferryman — a misshapen man of black and blue — beckoned him facelessly, and with confident steps Neville climbed on board the strange vessel. It seemed to have no definite sides or edges to it, just layer upon layer of reds and fleshy pinks. He could make out no definite hull or waist, but managed to find a seat (a spotted white oblong) on which to sit. Silently the ferryman pulled on his oars, and with the wind pushing at the magenta and cobalt sail, they moved out onto the river.

The journey to the far bank was over in moments. Neville had hardly time to take in the sensation of travelling across a rippling surface of blue — the boat trailing a wake of green and yellow — when they arrived. Immediately in front of him, the mountains rose ever higher, their mass darker and more solid now. A road — strangely white — beckoned him towards the mountain pass, and effortlessly he carried on.

As he moved further into the hillside, he noticed that the colours had become more solid; they had begun to be defined by black lines around their perimeter, as if to hold the colours in. Gone was the freedom and the flowing beauty from the other side of the river; now things seemed a little darker. The yellow had gone from the sky which was a deeper blue; the lightness of the fields had moved towards orange; and Neville noticed that in one or two places, deeper shadows had begun to appear. Where there had been nothing but colour before — the blue shadows of the green fruit trees — now came true shade.

The road began to sweep downhill, and Neville was carried onwards by it. He tried to look behind, to check his progress, but to no avail. His legs were no longer irregularly shaped, but solid and more exact things; and on the white road, he had begun to cast a shadow.

The road swept down through the mountain pass, and as he travelled onwards he moved further into a darker landscape. He had begun to feel a little cold, and donned and buttoned his jacket against a chill breeze which had sprung up. The sky menaced before him; now ebony, it bore nothing but the promise of storm.

He turned a corner and was suddenly out of the landscape and into a bleak monotone flatness. The earth was a dull grey now, and large rectangular shapes of buildings loomed on either side. Black windows offered him nothing, and their long shadows cast a deep cloth in front of him. On the wall of one building, a plain clock began to dissolve under his gaze, its numbers melting down the brown brickwork. Ahead on the horizon — and how far was that? — strange creatures appeared to be moving in his direction.

The empty space became swallowed up the shadows of the building, and he found himself in an ever darker alleyway. Ahead was a single door through which he seemed compelled to go.

From one place of desolation, he entered another. Now there was no sky, and no walls. All seemed to blend together. Even the definitions between things had begun to blur in a monotony of tones. He suddenly longed for a splash of yellow; for a hint of green. He looked to his lapel, but Pierre was invisible in this light.

Ahead, from what appeared to be some kind of kitchen, came the throbbing sounds of a boiler as it beat against an invisible wall. Neville tried to stop, to turn back, but his progress was remorseless. Suddenly the boiler wrenched itself from the wall, spewing black water in his path. Steam poured from its pipes as it lowered itself to the ground, then, uncertainly at first, began to walk towards him.

Neville could see the flames within it burning ferociously; but even these possessed little colour. The boiler began to make better progress, growing larger before his eyes. The noise it was generating had become almost deafening, and Neville began to wince at the intrusion. He looked for help, for an exit, stairway, anything; but there was nothing he could distinguish, nothing remained.

The boiler stretched out its pipe-like hands, spraying water and steam towards him. It roared monstrously, and all Neville could do was to find his voice and scream.

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These reviews are hosted on iangouge.com - which used to be my ‘main’ internet presence but has now been superseded by Writing until the light goes out here on Substack. Hurrah! I still host my book reviews on the old site as well as links to individual web pages for my work (please check it out!).

Below are some of my more recent reviews going all the way back to September 25th, 2025. 20 reviews (and 1 non-review) in eight months. You won’t agree with all my assessments (why should you?) but please remember, in the words of Ernest Hemingway: “when you see anything of mine that you don’t like remember that I’m sincere in doing it and that I’m working toward something”.… Believe it or not, that quote’s from March 1925, just over 100 years ago.

Flesh - David Szalay

David Szalay’s Booker-winning novel Flesh is a brutal read; not in terms of the narrative – though it has its moments! – but in terms of its style: short staccato punchy and repetitive sentences which seem to strip the language down to its bare bones and remove any kind of lyricism at all. I can see why – in its difference – it would have appealed to the Booker judges.

There are passages later in the book – whole paragraphs indeed! – which one might regard as more conventionally descriptive or lyrical, passages where Szalay is more inside the main character’s head than describing the interaction between the characters.

The punchy stuff certainly draws you in (if it doesn’t repel you) and so you might find yourself motoring through the book. However – and there’s always a ‘but’ – I found the style too easy to read, I was almost able to skip over some lines assuming they would be irrelevant; and the excessive number of times characters say “Okay” made me want to reach in and punch them on the nose! That may be an accurate representation of how some people speak, but it doesn’t make for great literature.

I wouldn’t put you off reading it – I’ve read other novels by Szalay and enjoyed them – but a Booker winner? I’m not so sure.

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The Chemistry of Tears - Peter Carey

It has been a while since I read any Peter Carey, and The Chemistry of Tears is as solid a piece of work as you would expect from a two-time Booker Prize winner. I’m happy to recommend it, though with a couple of caveats.

Firstly, I wondered if the main characters were, towards the end, edging dangerously close to caricature. You knew exactly how interactions between pairs of them were going to turn out. Maybe it was repetition which let it down. And secondly I felt as if there were unresolved things at the end: the fate of the original automaton and the boy whose present it was to be; the proposed x-ray (and what that might find); and whether Amanda was truly barking mad or just brilliant.

Having said all that, I’m going to add Carey to my ‘to read’ list: perhaps Bliss or Illywhacker.

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Enduring Love - Ian McEwan

Let’s be honest, Enduring Love is a difficult read; not because of the way it’s written, but rather in the uncomfortable and challenging circumstance McEwan’s main character (MC) finds himself. Indeed, the situation is so disturbing – in the “I’m so glad that’s not me” sense – that I could only read it in short chunks.

All of which – if you think about it – goes to demonstrate just how well it’s written, especially as you begin to doubt the reliability of the first person narrator too. Ten out of ten.

However….I found the ending disappointing. Contrived, if I’m honest. First, in how the MC goes about resolving the core problem he’s been facing. And secondly, in how McEwan ties up two loose ends. For one – the relationship between the MC and his partner – the summary letter from her at the end seems so much tell rather than show it’s almost painful. And then, in order to resolve the other loose end, McEwan invents two entirely new characters in the final chapter in order to do so. Quite frankly unbelievable.

I’m a big fan of McEwan’s work, so I left the novel feeling disappointed – having been somewhat in awe by half-way through…

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Between the Acts - Virginia Woolf [re-read]

Some novels travel better through time than others, I feel; and maybe it’s not surprising that Virginia Woolf’s work can struggle a little. Between the Acts is, I think, one such novel. The technical artistry and innovation is clearly there to see, but the novel suffers in terms of distance because of the world it portrays: the world of village pageants staged in the gardens of a grand house with Bentleys and Rolls Royce parked on the drive is, nowadays, ‘rarified’ to say the least.

But none of that should get in the way of what Woolf was trying to do and how she was endeavouring to do it: the fluid yet fragmented language, the variations in pace, the unspoken asides (almost ‘fourth wall’ breaking) etc.

In the twenty-first century perhaps one more for the purists… but still worth a read.

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prisoner’s dilemma - Richard Powers

Although prisoner’s dilemma is an early Richard Powers novel (1988) it’s right up there: splendidly written; intricately constructed narrative; just enough tension – those big unanswered questions – which keep you going right to the end. And the characters – Pop and his clan – do indeed ‘pop’ off the pages.

There is a great deal to admire; the novel even treads on the boundary of that legendary landscape “I wish I’d written that”. If you like Powers and you’ve read his more recent stuff (like The Overstory) then I recommend you try out prisoner’s dilemma.

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Jealousy - Alain Robbe-Grillet

Weird. Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Jealousy is seriously weird. Structurally so. It’s as if he has taken a 3 or 4 page short story, photocopied it multiple times, then cut the pages up between paragraphs before throwing them up in the air and then entering them into the ‘narrative’ however they fell.

Consequently there is a great deal of repetition, and the story flits between timeframes, episodes – often multiple times on the same page. It’s like trying to see the picture presented by a jigsaw – but while all the pieces are still in a mess in the box. Or the unsorted tiles on a mosaic. The responsibility is on the reader to piece together what actually happened – which is made all the more difficult because the third person who is clearly somewhere in the narrative never actually appears. And there is one climactic moment which we only see once and it isn’t at the climax of the story (as presented to us).

As you may gather, you’ll either love or hate this. I found it fascinating and intriguing. But did I like it? The jury’s out…

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To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf [re-read]

The first time I read Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse was around forty-six years ago. I have just re-read it. Not only that, but I was reading from the self same book I purchased in 1980! Boy, are the pages yellowed and dry!

I had forgotten just how wonderful the novel was. It seemed to me as it Woolf was attempting to settle on something just out of reach, to describe the indescribable, and the way the narrative flits around and repeats itself is highly effective. Perhaps it’s also indicative of Woolf’s state of mind, fragile as she was. I can imagine her trying to describe something – especially emotion – and getting terribly frustrated with the impotence of words (just as Lily Briscoe is frustrated with her painting).

Isn’t it marvellous when you re-discover something? I’m not an avid re-reader, but I may just have to dip back into my Woolf collection…

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The Rest of Our Lives - Ben Markovits

For me, Ben Markovits’ The Rest of Our Lives really only got going once the protagonist was started on his road trip. Everything that came before seemed slightly confusing, as if I was being given too much information, too much back story. My conclusion was to wonder whether the book actually started in the wrong place, and whether all that up-front material might have been more effectively delivered in structured flashbacks.

I say ‘structured’ flashbacks because, although there are passages akin to flashback, they sometimes felt as if the story/narrator was just meandering off a straight line – though maybe that’s what we do. But hey, that may be me being over-critical, after all, the book made it to the Booker shortlist – which is, at the moment, something I can only dream of!

The ending (no spoilers!) was impressive in its recognition of process and detail. I was left wondering how much was research and how much either first- or second-hand lived experience…

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Marigold Mind Laundry - Jungeun Yun [unfinished; dreadful]

No review; it was that bad…

Sympathy Tower Tokyo - Rie Qudan

Bizarre. And confusing. Sympathy Tower Tokyo reads like a treatise on language and a personal philosophy shoehorned into a piece of fiction; the only issue – from my perspective at least – is that the narrative / story isn’t strong enough to do the heavy lifting. In that sense it failed to work as theory, philosophy, and novel.

Yet maybe context is the thing. In Rie Qudan’s native Japan – and within that culture – the book functions perfectly well. Indeed it must do because it has been lauded, won awards. I’m not sure where that leaves my assessment therefore; is it invalidated in some way? (Though I have to say I never have an issue of ‘failure’ with someone like Murakami.)

Maybe you can make up your own mind, but I wouldn’t rush out to buy it…

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Her Body & Other Parties - Carmen Maria Machado

I rarely agree with blurb on the front cover of books – but in the case of Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body & Other Parties I can only concur: “brilliantly inventive”.

This is a raw roller-coaster of a read which takes no prisoners. It shies away from nothing; indeed, Machado deliberately goes deep into her protagonists’ psyche, their traumas and experiences; she peels back layers of surface to expose what lies beneath. I’m not sure I have ever read anything quite like it.

Not a comfortable read – but a very good one.

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Shakespeare - Judi Dench [non-fiction]

Part biography, part critique, part chat – there’s an awful lot to like about Judi Dench’s depiction of her career in Shakespeare’s plays. Laid out as conversations with her friend and fellow actor Brendan O’Hea, Dench takes us through all the Shakespearean roles she’s tackled, play-by-play. And we are rewarded with so much: an actor’s insight into their craft; an insider’s take on the Bard and the process of acting; snapshots of other actors she has worked alongside and directors she’s worked with.

But most of all we get a sense of her love of the plays and their language (even The Merchant of Venice, which she really dislikes), her wicked humour, her stunning memory of the texts, the fact that the Bard is soaked into her very being. And we also appreciate a life well lived – from someone who, I suspect, still can’t believe how lucky she has been.

If you get the chance, seek out her 2023 appearance on ‘The Graham Norton Show’ when she recites one of Shakespeare’s sonnets from memory. Spellbinding. (you can find the clip on YouTube)

If you like Shakespeare, this is a super read from surely one of the greats…

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The Lantern of Lost Memories - Sanaka Hiiragi

There are three stories in Sanaka Hiiragi’s The Lantern of Lost Memories – and they are essentially the same. Yes, one of the protagonists changes in each story, but what happens to them (and thus the structure of the narrative) is pretty much identical. Once you’ve read the first story you find there is insufficient jeopardy in the remainder for the reader. At least that was my experience.

The other thing that struck me was that, with so much ‘soft fantasy’/magic realism coming out of Japan these days, the debt Japanese literature owes to Haruki Murakami is colossal. And let’s face it, Murakami is pretty much unbeatable.

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playground - Richard Powers

I got lost at the beginning of playground – so lost, in fact, that I nearly gave up on the book. It didn’t matter that it was Richard Powers, I simply couldn’t get into the chopping confusion of the first few dozen pages. But I persevered and eventually it all came together and was worth the effort.

But… there’s always a ‘but’ isn’t there? It could have been shorter; the opening might have been more coherent; some of the confusion of ‘voice’ cleared up a little earlier.

And I hate blurb hyperbole. My edition has a quote from the Observer on the cover: “ascends to the plane of true, indisputable greatness”. Really. Very good certainly – as all Powers’ work is – but “greatness”? Not in the gift of the Observer, I’d suggest. Maybe only bestowed by time and future generations…

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The Land in Winter - Andrew Miller

The challenge I had with Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter was its pacing. Part One (c. 180 pages) seemed to dawdle along, and then in Part Two (possibly partly because of the short ‘chapters’) the novel really took off; it became a much more enjoyable read at that point. When I got to the end I couldn’t help but wonder if the 360-page novel wouldn’t have been better had it been 260 pages… (I confess, not an uncommon thought.)

The correlation between chapter or section lengths and pace is an interesting one. Part Two was almost a collection of inter-related pieces of flash fiction – which made them so much more engaging; you had to pay attention in order to keep up. Enjoyed this chunk of the book so much more.

This is the first Miller I’ve read. Will I read more? The jury’s out.

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Dream of Fair to Middling Women - Samuel Beckett

I’m not ashamed to admit that some of the time I had little idea of what was really going on in Samuel Beckett’s Dream of Fair to Middling Women – nor that I failed to understand far too many of the words used in it… It’s an odd blend of Dubliners (1914), Ulysses (1922), Finnegan’s Wake (1924), and Beckett himself.

Written in 1932, the book failed to find a publisher (too ‘literary’? too ‘racy’?) until 1992 when it was published posthumously. His first ‘literary landmark’, it was the 26-year-old Beckett exploring both himself as a young man as well as flexing his literary muscles in the laying of foundations for what would come later.

Maybe it’s something of a Curate’s Egg now, but if you’re interested in Beckett it could be worth truffling out…

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The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson

If I had a problem with Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question it was this: it felt too interested in itself. That’s to say, it pursued what seemed to me a single thread over and over again, the characters’ primary purpose being to act as theoretical pegs that could be popped into various belief-shaped holes to see a) if they fit, and b) to arrive at a conclusion.

But this is, of course, unfair on the book. I like Jacobson’s writing very much, but perhaps in this case I simply couldn’t engage with the central topic i.e. what it means to be Jewish. (And to be fair, there is no compelling reason why I should be interested.) The characters are wonderfully interesting, and I think more could have been made of them outside the book’s main theme. Indeed I think we get a sense of this at the very end.

I got to the end feeling as if this was a missed opportunity for the characters involved – but then that’s probably because the central dilemma wasn’t as captivating for me as it clearly was for them.

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The Many Lives of Heloise Starchild - John Ironmonger

It would be unfair – not to say inaccurate – to call John Ironmonger’s work ‘whimsy’; it is far from that. Perhaps ‘fable’ might be better. Yet there are times when the latter may stray dangerously close to the former, and there was a short period in the middle of The Many Lives of Heloise Starchild when I feared it had done so.

Perhaps this was due to the structure of the book at a certain point, or a kind of inevitability inherent in it where you knew what was coming. Or even the repetition of theme – necessary for the book’s very existence, or course!

Don’t get me wrong, I like Ironmonger’s work (ever since The Whale at the End of the World), and will certainly return to it again. If you haven’t already sone so, you should consider it…

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Rare Singles - Benjamin Myers

Sometimes it’s perfectly fine to be able to predict – from very early on – how a story is going to turn out; and maybe it’s easier to do that when you’re convinced the ending will be a ‘happy’ one.

Benjamin Myers’ Rare Singles fits that bill: you can easily guess what’s going to happen to ‘Bucky’ Bronco, and that’s just fine. Perhaps the main reason you do so is that you’re rooting for him – and for Dinah his Scarborough guide, desperate for her to leave her drink-sodden git of a husband.

Isn’t it great when the ‘nice guys’ win?

Not all Myers’ work is so ‘amenable’; The Gallows Pole, for example, is entirely different gravy. Worth reading though….

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The Voyage Home - Pat Barker

Bandwagons. I don’t like them. I’m not sure what the catalyst might have been – perhaps Madeline Miller’s Circe or Stephen Fry’s dreadful Mythos (both books I have long since gifted to charity shops) – but something opened the floodgates on retellings of Greek Mythology (mythology I like, by the way). And the covers of these books are all of the same ilk too. Bandwagons, like I said.

Because it was Pat Barker (and thinking of the ‘Regeneration’ trilogy) I was prepared to give The Voyage Home a chance. It’s a retelling, yes, but it’s well enough written to earn – and keep -its place on my bookshelves.

But at the end of the day, it’s just a story.

It occurs to me that – intellectually snobbish or not – that may be the issue I have with ‘genre fiction’, the idea that they’re ‘just’ stories. Of course Conrad or Austen or Woolf are telling stories too, but there is something ‘extra’ in them, something other, an additional mirror held up to the human condition. I had no sense of such a mirror in The Voyage Home. But that shouldn’t stop you from reading it – if you like stories…

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Long Island - Colm Tóibín

When you start a review with “I like XYZ’s work” you know there’s a ‘but’ coming…

So. I like Colm Tóibín’s work, but Long Island was disappointing. Pretty much nothing happens, and what does is entirely predictable. And then when you get to the end you’re left hanging with three possible outcomes available to you. Sometimes this can work well, but in the case of Long Island it almost read as if Tóibín either hadn’t decided on which he preferred or couldn’t be bothered to write it out / work it out.

That’s massively unfair, I know, and yet this won’t stop me reading his work – I just won’t read anything else involving Eilis Lacey (should another volume appear).

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