The Calligrapher

by Edward Docx

  Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.

  Must I, who came to travel through you,

  Grow your fixed subject, because you are true?

  This is not merely sport or showing off. There’s a freight of cruelty travelling with that ‘travel through you’ – all the more so because on the surface it seems so casually delivered, a nonchalant relative clause passing time on the way to the next big verb: ‘Grow’. (Calligraphers love their capital Gs.) Plus, by way of further compression, ‘travel’ can also be glossed as ‘travail’, and of course, whichever word actually appears on the page, the homophone’s meaning will be bound to sound in the reader’s (or listener’s) mind – exactly as Donne intended. Then there’s the mock (and mocking) indignation at the curse of women’s faithfulness. But it’s in the third verse that he delivers my favourite bit of the poem.

  Venus heard me sigh this song,

  And by love’s sweetest part, variety, she swore,

  She heard not this till now; …

  It is not enough for Donne that the goddess of love grants that variety is her most delectable aspect; he must have her swear upon it. Yet when you read, and indeed write, the verse as a whole, the crucial line gives the impression of being incidental to the guiding contour of the argument. However, nothing in Donne is ever en passant and those seemingly innocuous commas turn out to have been the means by which he has smuggled in the central credo of the entire poem: for Donne, ‘variety’ was what it was all about.

  And so it was for me.

  But how to explain this to Lucy?

  The silent telephone calls began the day after the disaster and continued with increasing frequency in the week that followed. At random times of the day or night – just as I was poised to stroke the difficult stem of a ‘k’, or when I had at last cast myself into bed and was about to close my eyes – the spiteful persecutor would suddenly screech into life. The vicious ring would send me racing madly into the hall, where I would lunge for the receiver and quiet my tormentor until the next attack, two minutes or seven and a half hours later, at three thirty-six in the morning. Lucy never spoke but I knew it was she. She did not even bother to withhold her number.

  For several days, I soldiered doggedly on, seeking to make light of the situation, blaming myself and quietly reflecting that if I was going to make such an unholy balls-up of my affairs then relentless telephonic harassment was no more punishment than I deserved. Most trying of all was the necessity of keeping up a breezy manner in case the call turned out to be somebody else.

  By the middle of the second week I could take it no more. I pulled the phone from its socket and temporarily suspended all contact with the outside world. What else was I to do? I had tried talking into the receiver. I had tried ringing the poor girl back. I had even tried to out-silence her: the two of us just sitting there on either end of the line, listening to one another’s breathing, both parties bleakly determined not to hang up first as we clung on, hour after hour, into the wordless night. All to no avail.

  I was aware that Lucy had not deserved my stupidity. And I knew well that only an idiot could have created such a banal mess. Indeed for a day or two, I considered going round to see her at her mother’s house, but I feared this would cause more damage than it might repair. No – Lucy was clearly no longer interested in discussion. Even abject apology would sound sickeningly glib to her. As for attempting to explain that I had recently discovered that I shared something of the outlook of a hopelessly contradictory, sybaritic metaphysical poet and that I was of the strong opinion that fidelity (let alone marriage) most often resulted in a state of physical torpor closely resembling death – forget about it.

  Still, something had to be done. So that Saturday, the last in March, I sat down to pen her a short letter in the hope that its burning or shredding or chewing or flushing might have a worthwhile therapeutic effect.

  Choosing for the occasion my finest italic, I constructed a devilish paragraph or two in which I painted as black a picture of myself as I thought she would believe, mixing truth and falsity so that they couldn’t be distinguished. And having thus fully ceded to her the moral high ground – that most unscenic of human viewpoints – I went on to point out, in as careful and delicate a manner as I could, that she was well advised to forget all about me and get on with the rest of her life.

  Even so, my letter was, I confess, a little disingenuous. Maybe I exaggerated my behaviour just a fraction too far in order that she might sense a deliberate attempt to manipulate her into detesting me, and thereby identify a perverse strain of kindness on my part. Too convoluted? Possibly. But the truth was I knew from experience that few people had the heart to destroy my letters and I was confident that in all likelihood Lucy would read it through more than once, if not keep it for ever. And perhaps, in time she would perceive my hidden intention.

  Fuck it all, I thought, after I had finished. Saturday night approaches. It was time to break my self-imposed exile and embrace the coquettish world once more: collect my linen from the launderette and pick up some provisions from Roy, the fat Hitler.

  Around four that same Saturday afternoon, I tentatively plugged the phone back in. And before it could ring, I set off down the stairs with my bundles.

  It is a truth at least mutually acknowledged that without Roy and his son, Roy Junior, I would die. I buy pretty much everything I eat from them. (Supermarkets are no longer bearable – too many people forcing you into the audience of their domestic lives – the mothers and the fathers and the couples and the single folk, all with their look-at-us brand decisions and mutely signalled checkout-queue superiorities … That the glory of human life should have fallen so low.) For the sake of convenience, Roy’s Convenience Store is closed only on Christmas Day and when it is impossible for Roy himself to stay awake any longer. Roy Junior, a seventeen-year-old, thinner and slightly less deranged version of Roy Senior, is the only person allowed to assist him. Of the two, although it is sometimes irksome to be forced to listen to what Roy Junior believes is involved in ‘having it large’, the son is less alarming to deal with as he does not have his father’s sinister talent for psychological attrition, nor does he possess the menacing note of the older man’s lingering Yorkshire accent. Indeed, it’s not that much of an exaggeration to say that I have become friends with Roy Junior in a neighbourly sort of a way; he delivers whatever I need, whenever I need it, and he also helps me out (at extortionate charge) when I require odd jobs done reliably, such as providing a private minicab service. Most important, the sheer range and quality of the produce that the Roys stock is staggering; and, if by some chance there’s something I need which they haven’t got in, then they pride themselves on their unrivalled ability to get hold of any ingredient large or small at less than two hours’ notice.

  ‘And a packet of your cashew nuts,’ I said.

  Having offered up my basket, full of provisions, ready for the reckoning, I stood at the smooth wooden counter with my laundry folded over my arm.

  ‘Right you are, Mr Jackson,’ Roy Senior nodded, rotating to reach down a packet from the extensive nut display behind the counter.

  ‘How’s Roy?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s off in Keele this week. Organizing things.’

  ‘Right.’

  There was a pause. Roy Senior smoothed his little moustache. Then he said: ‘You know they’ve gone up again, don’t you?’ He dangled the cashews before me for a moment. ‘I’m afraid they’ll be five … er … sixty-nine. Er, yes: five sixty-nine.’ He punched the numbers in quickly and dropped the nuts into one of his blue plastic bags.

  ‘Why’s that? Is there a shortage?’

  ‘No shortage. No.’ He began going through the other items one by one, slowly and carefully, entering the price of each item, using only the index finger of his right hand.

  ‘Global price-fixing agreement?’ I volunteered, not that interested, and wondering idly how much Brylcreem he must get through in a year.

&nbs
p; Roy Senior stopped what he was doing. I looked up from his scrubbed-clean hands to his scrubbed-clean face. He seemed to struggle with private demons for a moment. Then he returned my glance with an expression that mingled concern with frustration: ‘Actually, Mr Jackson,’ he said, ‘I’ve been putting them up every seven days for the last fourteen weeks. Ten pence each week.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I was going to tell you before but I didn’t want to ruin my experiment.’

  ‘Experiment?’

  ‘Yes, my experiment, Mr Jackson,’ he said, smugly. Then, taking his time, he weighed my tomatoes on the electronic scales. He rang in the cost per pound. (The price came up as £1.435 and they were thus entered on the till at £1.43; Roy is scrupulous in all things and always rounds down to the nearest penny with fruit and up with vegetables, confirmation that the English eat more vegetables than fruit, I always think, and useful verification of the status of tomatoes if ever it is needed.) He turned his attention to my single green pepper and smiled in what he obviously believed to be a superior fashion before saying: ‘I have to own up, I have been using you as a guinea pig.’

  ‘Right.’

  He drew breath. ‘As you know, I am a capitalist. And like the great woman herself, I am a grocer –’

  I started to interrupt but he held up his hand.

  ‘I am a grocer. A while back, I thought to myself, why not try a little experiment? Why not? OK, I thought, so what are the facts?’

  ‘What are the facts?’

  ‘One: I know that Mr Jackson buys cashew nuts every week. Two: I know that he lives very locally. Three: I know that he doesn’t pay any attention to how much things cost. Witness this damson jam.’ He held it up and then entered £3.99 into the till. ‘So, I cogitated further and came up with an idea for an experiment in basic economics. Why don’t I put the price of his cashew nuts up by exactly ten pence every week, I thought, and that way find out what their true value is – their value, that is, to you as a customer?’

  He rang up the grand total and I got the impression that he was becoming more agitated. ‘And I have been doing this, as I say, for fourteen weeks now and still nothing. Nothing, Mr Jackson. Not a thing. You haven’t noticed.’ His index finger came up from the till. ‘I have had to tell you about the cashews.’

  ‘You mean these cashews should really be two pounds whatever it is? And I’ve been –’

  ‘I can no longer stand by and watch you pay such a ridiculous price for them, Mr Jackson. The experiment is at an end. At an end. I can no longer stand by. This isn’t the way the system is supposed to work. You’re supposed to notice, go elsewhere, refuse to purchase. As a guinea pig, you are a failure. At five pounds and sixty-nine, you are being … you are being … you are being fleeced, Mr Jackson. It’s daylight robbery.’

  ‘I had no idea, I mean –’

  ‘Listen to me.’ He leant forward over the counter and lowered his voice threateningly. ‘For the next few weeks I want you to buy your cashew nuts elsewhere … I want you to take your cashew custom away … I want you to …’ He waved his arm, mortified, close to breaking down, lost for words.

  ‘Eschew your cashews?’ I said, helpfully.

  ‘Exactly. Exactly. That way I can build up an unacceptable surplus and that will force me to have a half-price sale to clear stock and that will bring the price back down to more or less what it should be and that will get us out of this … this mess.’

  A single lick of thick black hair had come loose and now looped across his shiny forehead. He thrust the blue plastic bags across the counter. I left in chastened silence, the shop bell jingling behind me as I went out.

  A Renault was parked at the end of the street. The female driver was talking into a mobile phone. For a heart-splintering moment, I thought it was Lucy.

  I slogged all the way back up to the Himalayan summit of number 33 and managed to crawl, breathless, teeth-gritted, sinew-strained, up the last few steps into my own hall. Instantly, the telephone began to ring – as though it had been sitting there like a pining dog, waiting for my return. I put my bags and my laundry down quite slowly by the hat-stand and then stood, eyes shut, breathing deeply, and counted to five.

  I snatched up the receiver.

  ‘LUCY, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE STOP RINGING ME UNLESS YOU WANT TO TALK. PLEASE. I WILL TALK TO YOU IF THAT IS WHAT YOU WANT. OR WE CAN MEET UP OR I’LL COME OVER BUT FOR GOD’S SAKE STOP CALLING ME EVERY TWO SECONDS. I DON’T –’

  ‘Jasper?’

  ‘– KNOW WHAT I AM SUPPOSED TO –’

  ‘JASPER. JASPER!’

  It was a man’s voice.

  ‘What? What? Sorry, who is it?’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘William?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Of course it’s me. Will you stop being an arse and tell me what is going on? What are you doing with your phone? You’ve been out of order for a week and a half and when you do pick the fucking thing up you start calling me Lucy.’

  ‘Sorry, Will, sorry. Things have been a bit awkward lately. She’s gone insane. I am being harassed and silent-called. Almost stalked.’

  ‘Well, you’d better do something about it and quick or else the few friends you do have will give up on you for the worthless fucker you are.’ He took a sip of something. ‘So, has the sham come to an end and everything fallen apart?’

  ‘Yes. Totally.’

  ‘Do you care?’

  ‘Of course I care. I mean, I know it wasn’t going to last forever … But I wasn’t intending … Oh Christ, Lucy more or less found me in bed with that girl from the fucking Tate. Now she’s ringing me up all the time … I think she’s in quite a bad way. I care about that.’

  ‘Very nice of you.’ He sighed. ‘Jesus, Jasper.’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Kill yourself on television. Wrap big apology signs around your head, explaining how you are sorry for being such a low-rent human being and behaving so disgracefully all your miserable life. That should do it. Give us the nod as to when you plan to go ahead and we can all tune in and watch. I think a burning tyre around your chest, that sort of thing, or maybe –’

  ‘And how can I help you today, William? Is there something you would like to share with the rest of the class?’

  ‘Yes, actually. I want you to get yourself to Le Fromage by eight sharp tonight, young man. I have a little treat for you.’ He hesitated. ‘But – well, we can do something else if you …’

  ‘I’m fine. Go ahead.’

  ‘Really, it’s OK if we need to leave it awhile. I’m only planning on a –’

  ‘There’s nothing I can do, Will. I’ve written a letter. It’s a motherfucker; that’s all.’

  He clicked his tongue. ‘OK. So, do you remember those two girls that we ran into last time we were there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, they have finally had the decency to call me back and –’

  ‘You mean you called them.’

  ‘Precisely. They are prepared to meet up with us tonight. And for some reason unfathomable to humankind they want you to be there.’

  ‘Well, I’d better come along then. Refresh me as to their names?’

  ‘Tara and Babette.’

  ‘The Czech girls?’

  ‘Actually, I’ve found out their real names. When they aren’t on the catwalk in Paris or Milan or Rangoon – they’re called Sara and Annette. They have confided in me.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  Le Fromage is William’s name for his club. (I have no idea what the real name is – ‘Settee’ perhaps?) Situated in a fashionably dismal Soho back-alley, it is silted up most days of the week with the detritus of humanity – fabulously talentless men and women, who ooze and slime through the half-light in a ceaseless search for the dwindling plankton of each other’s personalities. On Saturday, even the regulars avoid the place. Only William would ever sink so low as to orga
nize a date there.

  In the event, however, there were no celebrities around to degrade the dinner and things went surprisingly well. Well enough to occasion a group expedition back to William’s house for further drinks and what he insisted on billing as ‘an exciting midnight party’.

  But thereafter we found ourselves becalmed. And had you happened to look into the wine cellar of an old house in Highgate at around one o’clock in the morning, you would have seen two figures crouching in the claustrophobic semi-darkness: one, sandy-haired, blue-eyed, the product of thirty generations of inbreeding, cradling a bottle of fino sherry; the other holding a bottle of Sancerre. Had you also stooped to listen, you would have heard the following hushed exchange.

  ‘You can’t make them take all their clothes off and pour sherry on their heads, Will. I don’t care if you’ve got to get rid of it –’

  ‘I am not going back into that room and … and just sitting there. It’s grotesque. I want something to happen. They must be lesbians.’

  ‘They’re not lesbians, they are Czech.’

  ‘Well, it rather turns out to be practically the same thing. What is wrong with women these days? Why can’t they just admit they want to and get on with it? Why the need for all this senseless prevarication? Those two up there are worse than bloody English girls.’

  ‘Get rid of them then. Tell them you’re sorry but it’s way past your bedtime and that you are a priest and that because it is Sunday tomorrow you have to go to work. Or you could thank them very much for their company, but say that now you are drunk you fancy going upstairs with me and so if they wouldn’t mind leaving –’

  ‘Will you stop being such a fuckpig and think of a plan? And I am not tight. I just refuse to let them leave after they have had so much of my wine. They are drinking their way through the fucking Loire Valley and what are you doing about it? Fuck all. Except cowering in this wine cellar like a penis.’