Dying to Write

by Judith Cutler

  I’d had enough of the press after the debacle of the spring. The only consolation was that news is a very evanescent phenomenon, so that after three days of what felt like persecution I had suddenly and completely disappeared from the headlines.

  ‘I’ve briefed Shazia,’ he continued. ‘She’s agreed to lock all the doors to the outside world. My people will stop any harassment. Let me know if … if –’

  For once I looked straight at Chris and held his gaze. Ade dropped the spoon he was polishing. Chris and I jumped. I think we’d both forgotten he was there.

  ‘– if you have any problems,’ Chris concluded in his official voice.

  Then his radio barked and he and Ade left. Ade ducked back for a moment to shake out and hang up their tea towels.

  At this point the other kitchen door was opened by Toad, his hands full of glasses. We’d drunk water with the curry and apparently they’d now been drinking the surplus wine. I could easily have become either lachrymose or vicious. I hummed a little more Schubert while I decided.

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Toad. ‘Mozart, is it?’

  ‘Schubert,’ I corrected him gently.

  ‘I like Schubert,’ he said. ‘Nice tunes.’

  ‘Wonderful. Do you play his Sonata? The one for the arpeggione? You know, that defunct string instrument. It’s been adapted for the viola, hasn’t it?’

  Toad stared at me. ‘You do know a lot about music, don’t you?’

  I wondered if I detected a note of resentment. ‘I just like Schubert,’ I lied. ‘Who’s your favourite?’ I know this is the sort of unanswerable question people usually put to six-year-olds, but Toad was having that effect on me. And it was better than feet.

  ‘Oh, Mozart,’ he said. ‘He’s so soothing, isn’t he?’

  That was not the adjective I would have chosen.

  ‘Wonderful melodies,’ I said mildly. ‘Think of the Sinfonia Concertante – that slow movement.’ I wished I hadn’t said that. It was one of George’s favourites. He said the work was the apotheosis of friendship. I bit my lip till I could taste blood. I wouldn’t let Toad see me cry.

  ‘You do know a lot. Hey, you teach English, don’t you? You could tell me what I ought to read. And maybe you’d like to look at my screenplay. Give me your expert opinion.’

  ‘I’d love to read it. But I’m not an expert.’

  ‘I’ll just go and get it. I’ll read it to you while you wash up.’

  ‘What about the reading?’

  ‘Oh, I came to get you. And bring you these glasses.’ He clearly thought I should be grateful.

  ‘Could you swill them while I go to the loo?’

  ‘Oh, it won’t take you long. And you’ve missed some cups.’

  ‘Couldn’t you –’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please? Won’t take you a second.’

  ‘Washing-up’s women’s work,’ he said, with unbearable smugness.

  The words came out before I could stop them: ‘If I wasn’t on my best behaviour, my very, very best behaviour,’ I said, ‘I’d knee you in the groin for that. And as your head came down I’d tip the washing-up water over you.’

  I swept out of the room.

  While I was in the loo, I wondered what on earth had made me overreact so badly.

  I slunk back to the kitchen. No Toad. Then the door opened.

  ‘There you are!’ said Hugh Brierley. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

  Chapter Eleven

  The Reading.

  It had certainly acquired a capital letter from somewhere. The students were sitting in a reverent circle; an old master could have used them as models for a particularly melodramatic depiction of the disciples. There was a flutter of applause as Hugh re-entered. I held back until I could scuttle into the group as unobtrusively as a cerise camisole will allow.

  Toad was nowhere to be seen; my rudeness must have upset him. Gimson would still be avoiding my cooking. Naukez was no doubt counting badgers. Shazia was looking anxiously at Agnes, whose chest was still heaving. She was dragging at an asthma spray.

  ‘Empty,’ she gasped.

  ‘And I can’t find the one she says is in her bedroom,’ added Shazia. ‘Don’t you think we ought to call a doctor?’

  ‘Hasn’t anyone else got a spray?’ Hugh asked.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, forgetting, in my anxiety, all about unobtrusiveness. ‘Will you try mine, Agnes?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’ll get it. Hang on.’

  I ran to my room. Sidney’s smell greeted me – I’d forgotten to foist him on to the police. He padded over and stood hopefully on his hind legs. I rewarded him with a tickle to the tum and a bit of biscuit.

  His odour gave me another idea. In my case was some Gucci 3: I sprayed a little cloud into the air, then walked into it. That should improve both the room and me. Thirty selfish seconds doing that. Then to business. Asthma spray. Where the hell had I put it? It wasn’t in my case. Then I remembered. It was in the pocket of my thicker tracksuit – I sometimes get an attack while I’m running.

  I closed the door carefully. It seemed to be general knowledge that Sidney was back and it might not be mere self-interest to give him police protection. I’d try and find Ade as soon as the Reading was over. I dodged into a bathroom and washed the inhaler’s plastic outer case carefully; then it occurred to me that she might find an antihistamine tablet useful, so I took extra seconds to go back to my room and dig a bubble strip from my toilet bag.

  Then I legged it – via the kitchen so I could get her a glass of water – back to the lounge. Toad was now in the group. He glared at me resentfully and hunched a shoulder when I tried to catch his eye. A couple of gasps at the spray gave Agnes enough breath to agree that a tablet would be useful. Shazia pressed one out of the strip and held the glass to Agnes’s lips.

  Matt coughed quietly. Not to attract general attention – just mine. Without a word he burrowed under the big cushion at the back of his chair and out came at least half a bottle of rioja, followed by a glass. Then he put the cushion on the floor beside him.

  ‘I’ll give you a hand with the washing-up and tidying afterwards,’ he said. ‘There were a couple of plods in there when I looked in, and I’m afraid I wasn’t in the mood for light conversation after this afternoon.’

  I nodded. I understood, and was grateful for his offer.

  ‘Before we start,’ he continued, in his public voice, ‘I thought you should all know that incoming calls are being intercepted to save us being harassed by the media. The Bill are stopping traffic at the main gate. Shazia has agreed to keep the house doors locked to keep out any more energetic paparazzi who might’ve walked from the access point down by the motorway. If you want to talk to the press, that’s up to you. But remember to respect everyone else’s privacy.’

  Whenever Matt spoke, people seemed to murmur agreement. They murmured now. I almost wished for a Gimsonian interruption.

  At last, Matt introduced Hugh Brierley. ‘He’s a poet who appears in many of the small literary magazines – Iron and Stand, for instance. Many people think he deserves a wider audience. Perhaps he’ll get it in the autumn, when Bloodaxe publish his first collection. Ladies and gentlemen, Hugh Brierley.’

  Hugh smiled, much less tense than I’d have expected him to be, and started. He projected his voice well and without apparent effort. While he read, I tried to make sense of the man. He certainly didn’t have the air of someone starving in a garret; payments from small presses for occasional poems wouldn’t buy shoes or a shirt like tonight’s. His lean, elegant build suggested regular weight training or running. He had slender hands with rather heavy veins and tendons, and used them economically to emphasise the occasional point. His head was interesting, too. He might be losing that fair hair, but his skull was the sort designed to be shown off. His facial bones were good, but then, I’ve always liked heavy brows and wide cheekbones, and jaws untrammelled by jowls. In this light his eyes were so blue as to be
navy. How could I fancy such a visual cliché? And yet there was a saving grace – one of his teeth, the second incisor, protruded slightly. I wondered why he’d never had an orthodontist treat it, but I was glad he hadn’t. All in all, he’d certainly be decorative company. Perhaps I should invite him to join me if I went for my constitutional tomorrow.

  His poetry was so easy to listen to I suspect he must have spent hours polishing it. Politics; erotica; desolation in the Black Country; a curiously moving, unsentimental poem or two about his handicapped brother. A funny one about growing old. As encores, two about food.

  Then questions. I’ve always found that many people at this sort of gathering ask not to discover anything but to show how clever they are. This group was no exception. Most questions were longer than the answers. Once or twice I suspected him of trying to catch my eye. More likely it was Matt’s: I could feel suppressed chuckles shaking the seat I was leaning against.

  Inevitably, when the Reading was over, he was mobbed. Matt stood up slowly, rubbing his back.

  ‘OK, let’s attack that washing-up. Much left?’

  I looked around: there were still some glasses and coffee cups.

  ‘Hardly worth bothering you. I’ll soon –’

  ‘You gather these up,’ he said. ‘I’ll see if there’s anything left in the dining room.’

  Matt’s formula for effective washing-up included glasses of triple-distilled Irish whiskey for the workers, so progress was not especially fast. Matt was silent and his face grim. But I was content just to have company.

  The door from the hall opened and Hugh came in. Without speaking he took a glass and poured himself several fingers’ worth. Then he took a tea towel and started polishing. Very domesticated.

  ‘They’re still in the lounge,’ he said at last. ‘Is there anywhere else we could sit?’

  ‘The terrace? But it might be a bit chilly,’ I said. ‘Maybe I should get my overshirt.’

  ‘No need. A perfect summer evening,’ said Matt emphatically. ‘What are we waiting for?’

  Perfect, but chilly. I needed my overshirt. Matt too was dithering, and plainly uninterested in Hugh’s disquisition on the different colours of streetlights in the industrial West Midlands. As he talked, his Black Country accent grew more perceptible; so, I’m sure, did mine. Quarry Bank and Oldbury, respectively.

  ‘Let’s go in,’ Matt said abruptly, interrupting Hugh in mid-sentence. ‘My room. Come on.’

  ‘I’d like to find a policeman first,’ I said. ‘To protect Sidney. I’d hate him to end up in a fridge.’

  Rather to my surprise, Matt and Hugh fell in beside me, one on either side. Ade was nowhere to be seen. Matt and Hugh were absolute in their rejection of my idea that Sidney could join us in our drinking party. We compromised eventually. I would see if there was any other police officer with a tender disposition and no sense of smell. When we saw a young PC on duty at the far end of the student corridor, our problem was solved.

  ‘The Gaffer’s asked me to check off each of you as you retire for the night,’ he said.

  ‘Singly or in pairs?’ asked Matt.

  ‘In threes, if that’s what takes your fancy,’ said the constable, winking lewdly.

  ‘Thank you, constable,’ I said, deciding it was time to take control of the conversation. ‘But I’m not retiring yet. I came to check on the rat.’

  ‘No one’s been in your room since I came here at ten, miss.’

  ‘Thanks. But I’ll just make sure.’ Perhaps Matt’s tension had infected me. My hands were sweating so much I could hardly turn the key, and I fumbled clumsily for the light. But the smell reassured me – and there was Sidney stretching and asking for food. Matt cautiously jiggled a bit of biscuit for him, but Hugh shoved his hands ostentatiously in his pockets and stayed close to the door.

  Matt’s room might have been much more luxurious than the students’, but it was short of chairs. Matt made for his sofa. I found my natural level on the floor. Hugh hesitated, at last plumping for the other end of the sofa, whence he must have had an unparalleled view of my camisole and thus my braless chest. We had another slurp of whiskey, Hugh leaning well over me to fill my glass.

  ‘God, what a course!’ said Matt. ‘Missing tutor, sudden death, illness and stinking rodents. I’ll be glad to get back to my allotment.’

  ‘Funny group, too. Not much sense of unity,’ said Hugh. ‘And those questions. Jesus! “How do you write a poem?” Bloody hell!’

  ‘Surprised you didn’t ask that, Sophie. All these people dripping with useless ideas, Hugh, and the only person who’s blocked is Sophie. She’s the only one with anything to say, of course.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Can’t have less than the others, love. And Kate said you were writing some sort of requiem.’

  ‘Requiem? Are you sure? I thought I wanted to write a goodbye poem, but requiem sounds better, doesn’t it? I shall be able to go back to college and pass a hand wearily across my forehead and sigh, “No, I didn’t get away this holiday – I’ve been too busy working on my requiem.”’

  ‘So long as it isn’t for you,’ said Hugh, with an intonation I found promising.

  I smiled, dismissively.

  ‘Not till she’s put something on paper, anyway. Come on, Sophie – let’s get you started. Hugh, how do we get her started?’

  ‘A drop more whiskey, for a start. And I’d better have some too. And you.’ He poured, generously. ‘There. Now what shall we write a poem about?’ He settled back on the sofa.

  ‘Something profound and significant of course,’ said Matt. ‘Really serious. But it’s difficult to find anything to rhyme with sex.’

  ‘We’re going to write about sex, then,’ I said, reaching up to Matt’s desk for his notepad. This was clearly a meeting to be minuted. ‘Does Matt have a seconder?’

  Hugh and I raised our hands.

  ‘Any abstentions?’ I peered around the room.

  ‘Only if we haven’t any condoms,’ said Matt. Then he looked embarrassed.

  ‘Don’t worry, you won’t need condoms,’ I said. ‘Drink provoketh the desire but taketh away the performance.’

  ‘Food doesn’t,’ said Hugh. He felt round for a nonexistent cushion, rubbed his back, and then shifted from the sofa to the floor.

  ‘Food provoketh the desire and increaseth the performance? OK, so we write a poem about food. And sex,’ Matt added, but not as an afterthought.

  ‘We’ll start with tonight’s meal, then,’ said Hugh.

  ‘But what’d rhyme with curry?’ I demanded.

  ‘We don’t try to rhyme with curry. We find other words associated with curry.’

  ‘Like fart,’ said Matt. ‘Art, heart, cart, tart: they all rhyme with fart.’

  ‘I can think of words to rhyme with sick,’ I said, ‘but I don’t think any of them are poetic. Is poetic.’

  ‘Rice,’ said Hugh firmly. ‘We had rice. Saffron-flavoured rice. Voluptuous mounds of saffron-flavoured rice. And with rice we rhyme spice.’

  ‘It was a good biryani,’ said Matt. ‘The cardamom, the cumin – and that sauce was perfection.’ He kissed the tips of his fingers in my direction.

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ I said. ‘Thank Bashurat Ali. When he passed his GCSEs, his dad took me and all the others who’d taught him to his restaurant. Taught us how to cook. And then treated us to a wonderful meal he’d cooked himself.’

  ‘Bashurat Ali won’t rhyme. Sorry. More whiskey?’

  ‘Hell, Hugh, you’re knocking back that stuff as if it’s wine,’ Matt protested, inspecting the bottle.

  ‘Well done! We can rhyme wine and dine. And we’ve got to mention Sophie’s wonderful pair of puddings.’

  ‘Agnes’s puddings. I merely –’

  ‘Sophie, nothing you do is merely anything –’

  Matt banged his glass on the table. ‘Order, please. I think we have a first line. You were talking about voluptuous rice, Hugh. Mounds of the stuff.’

  ‘
Voluptuous mounds of saffron-coloured rice: yes!’ yelled Hugh. ‘Come on. How about: Richly something sauces, every single spice –’

  ‘Richly oiled?’ said Matt.

  ‘Richly oiled sauces, every single spice – new line – A separate something on the tongue.’

  ‘A separate explosion, I said. ‘Hey, I didn’t know you could write poetry by committee.’

  ‘Make sure you minute it all,’ said Hugh.

  I did.

  I gave up counting the glasses of hooch. I gave up wondering how we’d come to write a poem, most of which was now recorded on Matt’s pad, if illegibly. I knew there was some reason why Hugh had to try Kate’s relaxation technique, the one involving paperbacks and the floor. I knew there was some reason why I was wearing one of Matt’s sweatshirts. I might as well do the obvious thing and go to sleep. After all, Hugh was fast asleep on his pile of books, and Matt had lapsed into total silence, broken only by occasional rumbling snores, rapidly cut off as he struggled back to consciousness. With a certain amount of effort I could possibly have tiptoed to the door and back through long, dark corridors to bed. But it seemed easier to reach for the light switch and simply doze for a bit.

  I woke up sharply at three. But there was no point in staying awake. Awake would be cold and stiff and sensible. Asleep was warm and friendly.

  Five thirty was much chillier and more uncomfortable. I had a crick in my neck and an urgent need for the loo. At first I tried not to move, less I disturb the others. I could concentrate on thinking about a poem of my own. A requiem. I looked round the room. I peered at the sky.

  Matt moved slightly. His head fell with its full weight on my bladder. I had to move now.

  Moving Matt’s head as gently as I could, I eased myself up and tiptoed round Hugh to the bathroom. But if I used the en suite one I might wake the others. Since I didn’t expect to sleep again, and I might well chase that elusive poem more successfully now, I would go back to my own room. I reached the door and shut it quietly enough, but the corridor screamed out under my feet as embarrassingly as if I were leaving a lover’s arms.