In Another Country

by David Constantine

  But then Arthur Barlow had a thought, his pale eyes bulged, his thin face, the wispy beard, the thinning colourless hair, all his physiognomy expressed unease. They’re not private things you’ll be asking, are they? he said. I’m not one for talking about private things.—Nothing of the sort, said Gladys emphatically. I would never take on a job like that. Only about activities and facilities. Your name and address will be kept separate from your answers. No individual will be identifiable from the results.—Then do you want to come in and ask me? Arthur Barlow asked. Or shall you ask me here on the doorstep?—Entirely as you wish, said Gladys.—Come in then, said Arthur Barlow.

  But as soon as he had closed the door behind Gladys and led her into the dining room Arthur Barlow knew that the shock was still with him and if he’d been alone he would have said aloud, Oh dear, this is very serious. By mistake he motioned her to sit where he had been sitting, at the head of the table, facing the wall and the picture of Wastwater, so that he stood uncertainly for a moment and folded back another half yard of cloth before seating himself at her right hand, facing the window and the garden fence.—And these must be your poems, said Gladys, not liking to put her folder down on Arthur Barlow’s fountain pen and papers. I’ve never sat at a poet’s table before. Not so far as I know, at least.—Arthur Barlow removed his belongings. It’s not exactly a poem, he said.

  Now, said Gladys briskly. This won’t take long. Your age, please, Mr. Barlow?—Fifty-five.—Single, married, widower, divorced?—Single.—And the ethnic group will be white British, will it?—I suppose it will, said Arthur Barlow.—And your occupation, Mr. Barlow?—Filing clerk at the hospital. Though not for much longer.—A career move, Mr. Barlow?—Not exactly, said Arthur Barlow. They’re making me redundant after Christmas. There’s less and less call for people like me.—Oh, I am sorry, said Gladys. But at least you’ll have more time for your poetry.—That’s what I tell myself, said Arthur Barlow.—Now, said Gladys: leisure. Are you more sport or culture?—I suppose I’m culture.—You don’t watch football, you don’t go swimming, you don’t play golf or engage in any other physical competitive activity, you don’t go to the gym, nothing like that?—Nothing like that.—Culture then, said Gladys. When was your last visit to the cinema, the theatre, opera, ballet, any kind of concert, an art gallery, a museum?—I don’t do any of those, said Arthur Barlow. I go to poetry readings when there’s one I can get to on a train or a bus.—And how many hours a week, on average, do you spend watching television?—I don’t have a television. I have a wireless and a tape recorder. I listen to poetry programs and to tape recordings of poets reading their work.—Do you have access to the Internet?—No, said Arthur Barlow, nothing like that.

  Gladys put down her biro and looked Arthur Barlow full in the face. It struck him that she was beautiful and radiant with life. Weakened by the vision (as it might be called) of Gran Benson in her scuffed armchair and now by Gladys’s manifest sympathy, Arthur Barlow shrugged and said, There’s not much to me, Gladys, I’m afraid. Only the poetry. Really, that’s all there is to me, the poetry.—The public library, said Gladys. You surely belong to the public library, Mr. Barlow?—That I do, said Arthur Barlow, animated. Couldn’t live without it. Especially the reference section. I use the dictionaries, you see, to try to follow the translations of foreign poets word by word. And from the lending library I borrow things that I can’t afford or can’t get hold of through the catalogues. And of course it’s in the library I find out who’s coming to read anywhere round here within striking distance. So at least you can put me down for that, Gladys. I’m a great user of the public library and the staff could not be nicer. They know me in there. They’re very kind to me. It’s a home from home. I’ve got my own library here, of course, but I couldn’t live without the public library too. Once a week at the very least I walk there and back, whatever the weather, so that keeps me fit, you might say, as much as going swimming would or playing golf.

  Gladys closed her folder and began to button up her golden coat. Thank you, Mr. Barlow, she said. I don’t need to take up any more of your valuable time.—You’ll see my books, won’t you? said Arthur Barlow. Then you’ll have a good idea how I occupy myself. There’s some next door, in the parlour, as Mother used to call it.—Gladys followed him through. The parlour was cold; the books lined all its walls; a three-piece suite, a glass cabinet, a stand for a pot or vase, had been moved away from the walls to accommodate the books. This is the third room, Arthur Barlow said. Alphabetically, starting upstairs, my bedroom and the spare room are the first two, it begins with S down here, the anthologies are in that corner by the window.—And all poetry?—And things to do with poetry, the lives and the letters of poets and what they said about poetry.—And not much space for any more, by the looks of it.—No, said Arthur Barlow. And that’s a big worry to me. I’m afraid I may have to use Mother’s bedroom after all, which I hoped would never happen. And pardon my asking, Gladys, would I be right in thinking that you don’t belong in these parts? Are you not from where I’m from, more or less?—Moss Side, where else? said Gladys. But I’d say you were more Ordsall way, across the river, more Seedley or Weaste?—Ordsall, said Arthur Barlow, but with the clearances we went to Pendleton. But the shock I referred to earlier came to me from Weaste. It was Gran Benson in her end-terrace house in Weaste. When I was a boy the trains ran past her gable end, so near and fast they shook the house. But when I visited her just before we left, the line had gone and they were building a bit more motorway and they wanted where her house stood for the width of it. What a noise, day and night! And the dust and the lights! My real gran, Gran Nuttall, was dead by then and Gran Benson, her sister, wouldn’t come down south with us. She said she wanted to die among her own people. Not that she had any by then, only Sam, the dog. Her daughter was dead long since and so was her son-in-law. And the grandsons went to Australia so there she was on her own with Sam. Mother kept calling in to see to her and trying to persuade her to come down south with us. But she was adamant. She might have gone into a council home only they wouldn’t let her bring her dog. So she stayed put. Not that we wanted to be in the south, you understand. But Father thought we might be better off and the hospital said they’d move him down here if he liked, filing.—I must leave you, Mr. Barlow, said Gladys. I have another call on your street, at Number 97.—One last thing, said Arthur Barlow. Did your grandmother or your grandmother’s sister ever say, ‘Sit thee down, lass’ or ‘Nowt lost where pigs are kept’ or ‘I’ll make one less’—and go slowly off to bed?—Gladys laughed, such a resplendent laugh. Bless you, Mr. Barlow, of course they never did. They said things like, ‘Walk-good keeps good spirit,’ ‘Hungrybelly an Fullbelly dohn walk same pass’ and ‘When lonely man dead, grass come grow a him door.’—Oh Gladys, said Arthur Barlow, you could read me the Caribbeans! I’ve only got the one voice and it’s very poor. If I could hear you read the Caribbeans, how those strong men and women would come off the page and be alive in the room with me!—But Gladys buttoned up her golden coat against the cold and shook Arthur Barlow’s hand and left his house.

  Arthur Barlow went into the kitchen. It was the time when he made his cup of coffee. He had been on the verge of asking Gladys would she join him, when she left. The place was neat and clean. His use of its facilities and utensils was regular and precise. Never an unnecessary pan or plate or spoon. The vision, still working, resumed in him, greatly intensified by all that Gladys had brought in, and he saw that he would no longer be able to decide for himself how much of his future life he would deal with at any one time. His rota henceforth would not be able to hold out the flood of loneliness of the years still needing to be lived. He might say I will read and write for two hours then make a cup of coffee, same for a further one and a half hours, then make some lunch, after which I will at once go shopping and visit the public library, he might say all that aloud in the empty house and raise it as a bulwark against the days and weeks and months and years to come, but
he knew the tidal wave was building and might at any time break in and bring it home to him in the here and now what the life of unalterable loneliness would be like. He looked out at the garden. It was rather a dank day. A yellow rose, still going strong, blooming abundantly over the right-hand fence, was the one bright thing to see. The kettle clicked off. Top of the list of my New Year Resolutions, said Arthur Barlow, is: restore this garden to its former glory.

  The doorbell rang. It was Gladys, smiling. Nobody in at 97, she said. So I’ve come back here.

  Coffee. What a pretty rose, said Gladys.—Yes, said Arthur Barlow, I bought it for Mother on her seventieth birthday. It flowers late and well into November.—I’ll have to leave in half an hour, said Gladys. My youngest is only looked after till one o’clock. We moved down here ten years ago. My husband thought it would improve our chances. He was an accountant, working for a charity. But three nights a week he drove a fork-lift in a warehouse and died in an accident, sadly. I thought of going back north but the children were settled here by then. My youngest is eleven but because of a problem she isn’t quite that grown-up yet. My kind neighbour looks after her while I do my Saturday job. My boys are big and strong. I hope they will find work they can enjoy. Do you enjoy your work, Mr. Barlow?—Arthur Barlow stood up abruptly and answered her staring into the garden. I used to enjoy it in a funny way but lately I’ve not enjoyed it even in that funny way. They moved me to the cull and destroy program and, to be honest, I have begun to find that particular job a bit depressing. I have to find the dead who have been dead eight years or more and dispatch them to the incinerator. You wouldn’t believe it, Gladys, there are twelve miles of medical records just in the place I work.—He turned and sat down again.—It’s very good of you, Gladys, to come back in for a few more minutes. Mostly when the bell rings it’s the postman with a new volume of verse and I thought it might be him but I was more pleased it was you. Otherwise it’s only the gas or the electric. And twice a year two lads come down all the way from North Shields selling fish. I generally buy from them though I don’t like cooking fish. The worst are the estate agents. They come asking would I like to sell. They know I’m in this house all on my own. They’ve got clients on their books would kill to have my house, being where it is, and make bedsits of it.—My mam and dad, said Gladys, looking Arthur Barlow full in the face, when they got off the boat at Salford Docks they stayed in Seaton Street with my aunty and uncle who had come over three or four years before. Next morning they signed on at the Labour Exchange and by the end of the week she’d got a job in a Jewish gabardine factory in Ancoats and he had started on the buses though at home he’d been a studio photographer. After a while they moved to a place of their own in Darcy Street and that’s where my two brothers and me were born. I went back looking for the houses before we left but Seaton Street and Darcy Street and all the other streets round there have gone. Good riddance, I say. There was no nice accommodation in those parts. It shocked my mam and dad to see how poor the locals were. And then the drizzle and the fog and never any music.

  Arthur Barlow again went to the window. Gladys, he said, I’m very likely getting worse. My shock this morning said as much. I keep thinking of those estate agents, if that is what they are. One night last month the noise at Number 19 was worse than ever. It was late on a Friday and I wanted to sleep so as to be fit for my Saturday morning trying to write a poem. In the end I thought they’ll surely not mind me asking them will they turn it down. And I put my shoes and dressing gown on and walked across. The door was open and I looked inside. I’ve never seen such a sight and it was as though they’d never seen anything like the sight of me there on the doorstep looking in. I asked them nicely would they mind turning it down or shutting the front door at least because I couldn’t sleep. And everybody laughed. Such a din of youngsters laughing at me because I feared I wouldn’t sleep. Then one of the lads said—forgive me, Gladys, this really is what he said—he said, Fuck off and die, granddad. Our sort live here now. I was very hurt by that—I mean, I’m not a granddad—and I suppose I must have stood there open-mouthed. And then a very big young man, very big and strong, walked over from among the girls and lifted me up. He lifted me up and held me in his arms as though the weight of me was nothing at all. And he said to the others, Where’s he from? and when they answered, Number 2, across the road, he carried me across like that and set me down at my own front door, which I’d left open, and said, Sleep tight.—Arthur Barlow came back to the kitchen table. Gladys averted her eyes and said, And you a gentleman with all those books.

  Gladys rose to leave. Arthur Barlow followed her towards his front door. But reaching the parlour, his downstairs library, she stepped inside.—So much poetry, she said. And the first two rooms of it upstairs. And the postman delivering more and more. And you yourself, Mr. Barlow, writing and writing. Tell me, have you shown what you write to any living soul?—I did once, said Arthur Barlow, in the year after Mother died. I was all at sea and I fell in love with a young woman in the hospital. I gave her the poems I wrote for her, every Monday morning I gave her a sheaf of them, I’m sorry to say.—Why sorry?—Because she did not want them, because it was bad manners, because she told me to lay off, because I let myself go, because nobody should let himself go the way I did with her. In the end she complained about me and the Supervisor gave me a warning. They moved me out soon after that, to the repository I spoke of where there are twelve miles of medical records.—I see, said Gladys. And when you read poetry, am I right in thinking, from something you said earlier, that you read it aloud?—Oh yes, said Arthur Barlow, it’s best read aloud. That way it comes more alive in you, if you see what I mean. And only by reading it aloud can you get it by heart, of course.—You know some poetry by heart, Mr. Barlow?—Indeed I do. I suppose like most people I wonder how I’d manage if I were put in solitary confinement or if I ever have to leave this place and can’t take my books with me, I ask myself how I’ll manage if I don’t have a store of poetry by heart.—Is there any for children here? Gladys asked. My Edith is a great one for poetry. You should see her face, Mr. Barlow, when she sings one of our songs or says a poem.—Over there, said Arthur Barlow, behind that armchair near the window, there’s two or three yards of poems for children. I’ve always collected them specially, old and new, from all over the world.—And do you have any by heart?—For answer Arthur Barlow straightened his tie, clasped his hands, stood very upright, looked through the window at the ugly street and said:

  The Forest of Tangle

  Deep in the Forest of Tangle

  The King of the Makers sat

  With a faggot of stripes for the tiger

  And a flitter of wings for the bat.

  He’d teeth and he’d claws for the cayman

  And barks for the foxes and seals,

  He’d a grindstone for sharpening swordfish

  And electrical charges for eels.

  He’d hundreds of kangaroo-pouches

  On bushes and creepers and vines,

  He’d hoots for the owls, and for glow-worms

  He’d goodness knows how many shines.

  He’d bellows for bullfrogs in dozens

  And rattles for snakes by the score,

  He’d hums for the humming-birds, buzzes for bees,

  And elephant trumpets galore.

  He’d pectoral fins for sea-fishes

  With which they might glide through the air,

  He’d porcupine quills and a bevy of bills

  And various furs for the bear.

  It carries on, said Arthur Barlow, but I think I’d better stop there.—Thank you, said Gladys. And now it’s time I went.—Again she shook his hand, again he led her to his front door. He said goodbye, he watched her turn the corner, golden, out of sight. He fiddled with the knot of his dark tie. Late morning, dank.

  At the far end of the street the postman was proceeding slowly towards Number 2. Jus
t as well stand here and wait and see, said Arthur Barlow. So he went to the gate and stood on the pavement watching the progress of Naz, the postman, who was always glad for him when his post looked like a book. Gladys, returning, got very close before he turned to see whose the footsteps were. Arthur, she said, if I came back here with my Edith on a day and at a time convenient to you, would you be so kind as to say her a poem and read her one or two out of your anthologies? And if you like, I’ll read you some of the Caribbeans in my voice from home so that they come alive in your room, as you put it, those strong men and women.—Naz came up. Good morning, Mr. Barlow, he said. Looks like another book for you.

  Trains

  The approach of a train. Above their heads it whistles and the pretty glasses shiver. In the silence then they listen to the clank of trucks. The Widow’s bosom heaves. I can’t bear hearing ’em, she says. I was born and brought up under the railway line but since that young feller went and did what he did I can’t hear a train without getting palpitations. There’s hardly a night I don’t start up in bed. Hook-nosed, white-powdered Mrs. Clack. Her podgy fingers fidget on the bar. Him with his wisp of beard and frightened eyes. He lay in bed. She thinks of him lying there listening to the trains, the north- and the southbound, the goods trains full and empty with their different beats. Who knew the trains and where they were coming from and where they were heading, and chose himself one, and having chosen it he chose a bit of track and went and watched his train go by. How many times? He turned away, back down the embankment and through the allotments where fathers of families were tending their leeks and dahlias. Kept turning away, until his courage was adequate, or his despair. The Widow remembers him coming for a room as though it were yesterday. Would you have a room? he asked, head on one side, standing in the gloaming in his thin clothes. They said you might have a room. How long for? she asked. He shrugged: For the foreseeable future. Those were his words, she says, I’ll never forget those words. Well, she had a room in Holly Street, just round the corner from her public house, in her dead father’s house, last one on the left, at the dead end, where the embankment blocks the street and where the trains go, fast or slow, after they’ve come over the viaduct or before they stretch themselves across it. Suited him fine, with his no possessions but a few funny books, under the trains, the windows rattling many times a day, many times also in the night. Whistle, and steadily approaching leap of devouring noise.