The Offing

by Benjamin Myers

  ‘Is that really all true?’ I wondered.

  Dulcie first frowned at me, and then smiled, but she said nothing.

  Beneath the table Butler finished off a fistful of twice-fried chips, the best I had ever tasted, and then gently nudged my knee for more. I drifted out of another of Dulcie’s meandering monologues, though she did not appear to notice and carried on talking, her train of thought a slow-moving river gliding through the flatlands of the evening’s landscape. I fed the dog another chip that was dripping in vinegar the colour of a dozen drops of blood in a beaker of salt water.

  ‘But then what follows?’

  Dulcie’s question stirred me from my wine-and-carbohydrate reverie. I lifted my head, my smile sloppy. ‘Sorry, I was just – ’

  ‘What I mean to say is, do you have any inclination as to what else you might do with your life?’

  ‘Do?’

  ‘Yes, do. Beyond this Homeric voyage.’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure,’ I said.

  ‘That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Any young man who has his life planned is to be pitied, as plans rarely leave room for happenstance or serendipity, and furthermore each man – if he is man at all – is an ever-changing entity himself, as too is the world around him. What blighted lives those burdened by familial expectation or tradition lead.’

  ‘I think I’d like to be flexible. Maybe I could fly planes, like Douglas Bader.’

  ‘An interesting point about this new national hero of ours,’ Dulcie replied. ‘Did you know that he actually had his legs replaced by tin ones after he crashed his plane while messing about above a training ground? War and Bader’s capture in France in 1941 had nothing to do with it; at this point the Third Reich was little more than one madman’s pipe dream. The heroism lay in the fact that he was later brave or suicidal enough to fly with tin pins. Personally, I think it’s asking for trouble. I’ve also heard that he happens to be something of a git. But I digress. In my experience, those whose careers are predestined turn out to be fatuous bores. These are the men who become our bank managers, financiers and politicians power-drunk on their own sense of entitlement. The ignoble ones. Their palettes are dull, their imaginations stunted. They shrink their worlds down to nothing, you know, Robert, they really do. The 5:42 from Waterloo each evening back to the house in the shires, and the quiet desperation of a connubial marriage crumbling. No, thank you, matey. No, thank you.’

  ‘In a way it’s not that different to me and my father and his father and his father’s father, what with them all going down the pit,’ I said.

  ‘You must feel the burden of expectation like a sack of the black stuff on your back, then.’

  I shrugged. ‘I’ll expect my dad will try to set me on soon enough.’

  ‘Presumably it’s a profession fraught with danger.’

  ‘It can be. But it’s not all bad. The pit looks after you. The wages are good, and there’s the baths and the library and the club and all of that. Houses too, for those that want to start a family.’

  Dulcie emptied the last of the wine she had decanted into a carafe that appeared never to leave the table, then took a drink.

  ‘Have you considered higher education?’

  ‘Like university?’

  ‘Exactly like university.’

  I scratched the dog behind his ears and took more wine.

  ‘People like me don’t go to places like that.’

  ‘What do you mean by “people like me”?’

  ‘Coal folk.’

  ‘But you’ve got a working organ in your brainpan, haven’t you?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘You clearly have. And that’s all you need.’

  I smiled. ‘And the rest.’

  ‘However do you mean?’

  ‘You need the right clothes and the right way of talking, for starters.’

  Dulcie tutted. ‘Complete nonsense. You can hold your own, I’m sure. All you need is an appetite to learn and if it matches your appetite for food I imagine there’s no shortage.’

  I felt my cheeks redden at the possible embarrassment of being seen as gluttonous.

  ‘Do you read much?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ I replied. ‘We’ve not many books in our house.’

  ‘What do you enjoy?’

  ‘I liked comics for a while but that seems like kiddies’ stuff now. I like adventure stories.’

  ‘Like what?’

  I racked my brain. ‘The Thirty-Nine Steps was fantastic.’

  ‘Yes, Buchan. My father knew him.’

  ‘Your father knew the man who wrote The Thirty-Nine Steps?’

  ‘As I recall, he lent him money.’

  ‘Was he a writer too, your dad?’

  ‘Heavens, no, though he was good at writing cheques for mistresses. No, he knew Buchan in Canada. How did you get on with school?’

  I shrugged. ‘I’d rather have been outside.’

  ‘And now you are, so you’re already on top of things. Did they teach you much poetry at all?’

  ‘They made us read Shakespeare.’

  ‘The sonnets?’

  ‘Romeo and Juliet, I think it was.’

  Dulcie screwed up her face. ‘That’s not poetry,’ she said. ‘That’s archaic drama, written to be performed on theatre stages, not read aloud in stuffy classrooms. Presented incorrectly and out of context it will put you off for life, but a good poem shucks the oyster shell of one’s mind to reveal the pearl within. It gives words to those feelings whose definitions are forever beyond the reach of verbal articulation. Bill Shakey has his moments.’

  ‘The bits they made us read were boring. It made no sense to me. It was like a foreign language.’

  Dulcie gestured by prodding her glass towards me, slopping some wine on her wrist. ‘Then they were making you read the wrong ones. The wrong ones, I say. And that’s nothing short of a tragedy in itself. What you need is poetry you can relate to.’

  ‘I doubt there is any.’

  ‘My dear boy, of course there is. Of course there is. Trust me when I say that everything you’ve ever felt has been experienced by another human being before you. You may not think so, but it’s true. That is what poetry is. It exists to remind us of this very fact. Poetry is mankind’s way of saying that we are not entirely alone in the world; it offers a voice of comfort to resonate down through the ages like a lone foghorn’s mournful call in the nautical night. Poetry is a stepladder between the centuries, from ancient Greece to tomorrow afternoon. Your problem is you just haven’t been introduced to the pure poets – those who hit the head and the heart. The masters. But luckily for you, you have pitched at the right place. I’d say it is almost as if it were fate, if I could bring myself to believe in such an ethereal concept. Now: you’re a young man who has a romantic head on his shoulders, am I right?’

  ‘I’m not much into soppy stuff,’ I said, ‘no.’

  ‘And I didn’t say you were. Romance needn’t mean love hearts and red roses, you know. Romance is feelings and romance is freedom. Romance is adventure and nature and wanderlust. It is the sound of the sea and the rain on your tarpaulin and a buzzard hovering across the meadow and waking in the morning to wonder what the day will bring and then going to find out. That is romance.’

  ‘Well, if you put it like that,’ I said, ‘then yes, perhaps I am a bit romantic. I’d never really thought about it.’

  ‘So you need to read some like-minded souls. Here – wait a minute. I’ll see what I can find.’

  Dulcie stood and went into the house. The dog rose with her and went to follow but settled back down when she told him to stay. He lay beside her empty chair and glanced up at me twice and then sighed and lowered his chin to his outstretched oversized paws. I heard her feet on the stairs and then a thudding sound of books being moved and dropped. She reappeared with an armful of tomes and tipped them onto the table.

  ‘What about Lawrence?’ she asked. ‘You’ve heard of Chatterley, I expect?’
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br />   I adjusted myself in the chair. ‘Yes,’ I said, and then, realising that there was no point pretending, I said more quietly: ‘I mean, no.’

  ‘You really must read him. In fact, I shall keep you hostage until you do. I think a young man like you with blood in his veins and desire in his stones might take to him, though you’d be hard-pushed to get an unexpurgated copy like mine. This is writing that is full of the fecundity of life. At his best he pulses. The animal within and the world without, that is what Lawrence writes best about.’

  I must have pulled a face at this. Aware that I was confused, Dulcie elaborated.

  ‘Sex,’ she said. ‘Sex, and the poetry of it all. Indoor sports and outdoor gymnastics; he was obsessed, as many of the best minds are. In places his prose is practically tumescent. Of course they punished him for it.’

  My cheeks flushed with prickly heat, yet I wanted to know more. ‘Punished him – how?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear? They charged him first with obscenity then for spying in the Great War. Ridiculous. The only thing Bert spied on was shirtless farmhands and cuckoos’ nests. But they drove him abroad all the same, the publishers, the critics and puritans. Too many fucks and cunts for their liking, I expect, but to me that was missing the point.’

  The remainder of my wine caught in my throat and I covered my mouth with my hand, spluttering droplets into it. Beneath the table I discreetly wiped my palm on my trousers, as Dulcie carried on regardless.

  ‘Hasn’t history shown us that visionaries are rarely welcomed in their home countries, and so very often exiled?’ she said. ‘And he was such a nice boy, really. He only ever swore on the page, that’s the irony of it. Here – ’

  I turned the book over in my hand. It was Women in Love. In blue ink the book was inscribed to Dulcie.

  ‘Did you know him too?’ I asked.

  ‘I met him in New Mexico on more than one occasion when we were out there. He wasn’t hard to miss: auburn hair and skin the colour of mouldy flour. A beard in the heat. Very English. The whitest gringo on the continent, I’d say. Charming, though, and interested in everything. I called him Bert, after his middle name – Herbert. Frieda was a dear too, a friend of a friend. She was his wife. Another German. Actually, to merely call her “his wife” is to fall foul of man’s propensity to perpetually diminish the role of women: she was so much more. She was his patron, his muse, his lover, his salvation. The glue that held his bones together. She sacrificed a lot so that he might write – her own children, some have said. A formidable lady, Frieda. Our paths crossed several times after that, but that’s another story for another day. The tragedy of it all is, I doubt Bert could get arrested today even if he ran through Eastwood starkers.’

  ‘Are you still in touch?’

  ‘Not unless I go to New Mexico and dig up his yellow bones. Tuberculosis took him some time back. Even then the obituaries were hostile. These castrated critics somehow resented him for contriving to be decades ahead of his time. Yes, Bert was the best of men, though I take solace in the knowledge that the world will catch up one day.’

  Dulcie shook her head, then continued.

  ‘And that is why it is the responsibility of people like me to spread the good gospel to people like you, Robert, the next generation. The best minds are too often reviled, and complacency about such matters spawns little except mediocrity, but between us, the likes of you and I, we must fight to make the world a more liveable, colourful and exciting place. Lord knows it’s needed now more than ever. No one starts wars when they are fulfilled, that much is certain, and the pursuit of personal freedom can now be viewed as a radical act. And that is my point, Robert. You must live your life exactly how you wish to, not for anyone else. We are on the cusp of great changes, trust me. All innocence is gone, so now what? Freedom, and the pursuit of it: that’s what we must strive for at all times. The future may be uncertain but it is yours for the taking. Something good has to come out of all this senseless violence. Let poetry and music and wine and romance guide the way. Let liberty prevail. Here – try this for size.’

  Dulcie handed me another book. I read the spine. Lawrence again: Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

  ‘It’s as rare as rocking-horse dung, that edition. Thoroughly banned.’

  ‘Have you met lots of famous people, Dulcie?’ I wondered.

  ‘Over the years, yes, I suppose I have.’

  ‘Are you famous?’

  ‘No, thank God.’ Her face darkened. ‘I’ve seen enough of it at close quarters to know that fame, renown, notoriety – call it what you will – well, it’s nothing but a curse that breeds misery. Especially to those of a creative or artistic bent. For many years I have observed that the truly talented are invariably the most sensitive, and the public arena, where artifice is all that really matters, is no place for poets, and furthermore the critics, most of whom don’t know their bumholes from their earlobes when it comes to the written word, think everyone – private life and all – is fair game. Yes, the public arena is no place for those of, shall we say, a sensitive disposition. No poet should be famous – only read.’

  I looked at the book again. ‘Did D. H. Lawrence give you this copy?’

  ‘Actually a suitor bought me a rare uncensored edition when it sneaked out in ’32. Perhaps he had designs on being the Mellors to my Lady. It got him nowhere, though. For all the brouhaha, the book is not even about mindless rutting anyway, not really; it’s about class, and this fellow had very little of it, because if he had he would have taken the trouble to get to know me first, and then he might have found out a few things that would have turned his chubby cheeks puce. I suggest you read Bert’s poems too.’ Here she handed me a slim volume. ‘Yes, it’s a pungent England that he describes. A fertile place teeming with life, as I imagine some parts of it out there still are, beneath the grime and the growling bellies.’

  Dulcie rifled through the other books.

  ‘Now. What else. Well, Whitman. Leaves of Grass, of course, for an American perspective. A big influence on Lawrence, and many others. There’s Shelley. John Clare. Robinson Jeffers – another septic.’

  ‘Septic?’

  ‘Yes, a Sherman. A tank.’ Dulcie smiled. ‘A Yank, Robert.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘An interesting chap, Jeffers; worshipped across the water but little-known here. Also Auden, Keats. You should probably investigate some of the young boys on the other war too, but I suspect it’s the last thing you want just now. And I can’t give you works entirely by men, can I? So we must also turn to Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti and – for a bit of northern gritstone – Emily Brontë too. The Heathcliff story is worth a dabble, though it needs a bloody good editor.’

  She pushed a small pile of books towards me.

  ‘Have what you want.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll look after them.’

  ‘Take them, take them,’ said Dulcie. ‘It’s good to have a purgation. It’s not the books that really matter anyway, Robert. Books are just paper, but they contain within them revolutions. You’ll find that most dictators barely read beyond their own grubby hagiographies. That’s where they’re going wrong: not enough poetry in their lives.’

  It was a close evening and the sky was starting to moil. Clouds clustered and tumbled, eating themselves. The warmth of earlier had grown into a damp, cloying heat and there was a tightening of the air that matched a dull pain down one side of my neck that was threatening to spread into a headache. I stood and stepped up onto my chair to get a better view of the sea, where a foreshadowing curtain was being drawn across the water. Between the low-scudding rain clouds and the sea there was a mottled movement, a shifting shape like a swarm of insects, but which was in fact columns of sea-born rain coalescing and then separating again as they blew in on the cooler winds of the northern continent. It was as if the sea itself were being sucked up skywards.

  The rain was many miles out, yet here in the garden it had fallen suddenly still and noticeably silent. No b
irds were calling. No distant dog barked. The muscle in my neck throbbed with an almost electric pulse.

  Butler raised his gaze again.

  ‘They call it the offing,’ said Dulcie, quietly.

  I climbed down from the chair. She gestured down the meadow.

  ‘That distant stretch of sea where sky and water merge. It’s called the offing.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Know something else: I wouldn’t risk a ramble with that roarer rolling in. But then I am not you, am I? If I were I’d probably feel like I’d had my ear bent and been burdened with books, which, now that I stop and consider it, will be impossible for you to carry on your epic voyage. What am I thinking?’

  The sky rumbled. The dog’s ears pricked up: two furry sound mirrors pointed out to sea, tuned to the changing atmosphere.

  The first full drops of rain fell then.

  Dulcie said, ‘Might as well uncork another bottle and watch the show.’

  VI

  Plumb-line rain fell that night. Elongated drops as straight and true as stair rods. It fell so heavily that I hastily moved my camp into the shack. I barged the jammed door open and once settled was more than happy to share the space with the rats or whatever rodents seemed to skitter in the crawl space beneath the creaking floorboards.

  The wind lifted and then dropped and then lifted again, and a flat malevolent whistle shrieked around the corner of the cabin.