She found this about as digestible as the overcooked but lukewarm chicken à la Kiev that followed the fish. A glance over at Potter suggested that he was listening closely to whatever a bureaucrat or critic might have been telling him. Was he really listening, closely or not? Sue felt with uneasy certainty that there was something wrong or odd or out of place here. Where was here? In Off, to start with. For a final sample, she opened the book at its last page, and read,
I slash the formless web of hate,
I plumb the worked-out mine of love;
My wrist receives the birds that sate
Their lust engendered from above.
While rosy sunsets lurch and fade
Across the endless strife of seed,
The debt of living must be paid
To creditors who starve in need.
Whatever else that was or was not, it was not the voice of Potter as it had always been. Well, what of it? He was experimenting, looking for a new style; unusual and admirable at his time of life. Sue held on to that while the meal came to an end and the speeches got under way. The first of these began with a not very closely compressed account of the recent doings of the cultural body, retailed on a note of open and personal self-congratulation. Towards the end it bore round to the subject of poetry, and finally mentioned the name of Edward Arthur Potter. After a couple of entr’actes featuring minor characters, which brought the audience even nearer to the purpose of tonight’s occasion, the leading critic started his discourse.
Sue had to admit he did his job well. Long stretches of what he said rose appreciably above the general level – that of an academic lecture in ancient Sumerian – reached by his predecessors. He showed familiarity with Potter’s work and what must have seemed to everybody there, except perhaps Potter himself, a genuine love of it. He started his peroration by saying,
‘I should like everybody to notice three things about this volume. First, its title, Off. Does this mean that Edward Arthur Potter is off, about to quit the scene and be heard from no more? All of us here, and millions more in the English-speaking world and outside it, hope that this is untrue, and that his unique lyric genius, which has spoken so eloquently for nearly forty years, will continue to delight us for a long time to come. Secondly . . .’
There was a great deal of applause. Sue was good at distinguishing between the polite variety of this, however conscientious it might be, and the enthusiastic. What she heard was unmistakably of the second sort. Potter or his work, however curiously mutated in the process, had reached out beyond the small circle of poetry-readers and the rather larger one of poetry-lovers. She hoped he was pleased.
‘Secondly,’ went on the leading critic, ‘I ask you to look at the dedication. “To all those who have encouraged me to continue in my work as poet.” That, I think, is a reminder many of us need, a reminder of the essential loneliness of the creative artist and of his dependence on the understanding and support of his public. We, representatives of our honoured guest’s public, have in the past been shamefully negligent in showing that understanding and proclaiming that support. I hope very much that tonight’s words and deeds will go some little way to atone for our neglect.
‘Lastly, the content of Off, the poems that have been given us. They speak for themselves and need none of my poor help and all I will dare to do, on behalf of us all, is to salute in them, as in the whole of this great English poet’s work, the uniqueness of vision, the distinctive and utterly individual tone of voice that characterize the heart and mind of Edward Arthur Potter. Mr Potter, it is my—’
The ovation, which was what it turned out to be, went on for two and a quarter minutes by Sue’s watch. Its earlier moments accompanied the offer and acceptance of certificate and cheque, prolonged for the benefit of the photographers, and similarly prolonged handshakes involving Potter and several of those near him. After that, he stood with his knuckles on the table and his face lowered. Finally, he said in his thick, rather slow rustic cockney,
‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen. I’m going to make a short speech, even shorter than the one I’d prepared, because what Sir – Sir Robert has just said fits in so well with what I want to say. As regards those three things he wanted you to notice.
‘The title. It isn’t really complete. There ought to be another word in front of it. Something – off. A verb in I believe it’s called the imperative. It’s not my style to come out with the one I’m thinking of in public, but the whole phrase means, Go away. Clear off would be nearly good enough.
‘Then the dedication. With respect, Sir Robert wasn’t quite right in saying I’ve been neglected. If only I had been. Right from the start some people have been kind, or what they must have thought was kind, writing nice articles and sending me nice letters. If I had been neglected, I probably wouldn’t have wasted my time for thirty-eight years writing what’s supposed to be poetry; I’d have looked round for some other way of coping with the state of mind that made me write those things. That’s why I’m telling everybody who’s ever encouraged me to clear off.’
Potter was speaking now into a silence so total that the sound of individual vehicles in the street outside could be clearly heard. He went tranquilly on:
‘Then the third thing, the poems in the book. I wrote them all in a day, just putting down whatever came into my head in any style I thought of, and pretty well everybody thinks they’re good, the committee and all sorts of critics and other poets I had proof copies sent to. Or they said they thought they were good. But they aren’t good. How can they be? I ought to know, didn’t I? Well, that’s rather awkward, because if people think they are good, and what’s more good in the same way as my previous poems, which fairly beats me, I must say – in that case they don’t know what they’re talking about and never have known. And in that case, this diploma thing here is worthless, or even a bit of a cheat. You’d think it was a bit of a cheat if, well, if a lot of Eskimos said somebody was a very good cricketer, and we were all supposed to take them seriously. I know I would, anyhow.’
Potter’s glance moved in Sue’s direction, as if searching for her. She felt frightened and hoped nothing worse was to come. He picked up the certificate and the cheque and held them out in front of him, causing a fresh flurry among the photographers while everybody else sat quiet and still.
‘By rights I ought to tear up the diploma, but someone’s obviously been to a lot of trouble over it and I shouldn’t like to hurt his feelings, so I’ll just leave it here. I can’t do that with the cheque, because it’s a bad thing to leave cheques lying about, so that I will tear up.’ He tore it up. ‘I don’t need the money anyway. That’s all. Except I don’t want anyone to feel I’m telling him to clear off personally or in any bitter way. It’s just a sort of general attitude. Goodbye.’
He was out through the doorway in five or six seconds, yards ahead of the first reporter. Sue was quick off the mark too, but by the time she reached the vestibule she was among thirty or forty vocally bewildered people looking for a vanished Potter. But then, round the corner, she asked the lift attendant for the Essex Room. The man looked at her carefully.
‘What name, please, madam?’
‘Sue Macnamara.’
‘Mrs Macnamara?’
‘Yes.’
It was rather like that on the fourth floor, where a door was unlocked from the inside at the news that Mrs Macnamara was outside. Potter surprised Sue afresh by the smartness of his appearance. He said,
‘Splendid. What would you like to drink?’
‘Could I have a whisky and water?’
‘A large tumbler of whisky and water and a bottle of light ale, please.’ He relocked the door. ‘I thought if you didn’t want all the whisky you could always leave some.’
‘Aren’t you going to have any Cornflakes?’
He laughed heartily, showing most of the teeth he had. His manner in general had already struck her as much more confident now than at their previous meeting, almost jaunty. They
sat down in a corner on padded straight chairs, face to face across a low table.
‘Fancy you remembering that,’ he said. ‘But then you’ve got a good memory for all sorts of things. Well, this disappearing act is a bit of fun, isn’t it? It’s amazing what a few five-pound notes will do. Now we’d better get on. There are some things I want to ask you, and tell you, and we mustn’t be too long, because poor Charles, that’s my agent, he’ll be in rather a state, I’ve no doubt. It’s the first time I’ve ever done a thing like this, disappear, I mean. Well, and tell people to clear off in public into the bargain. Was that all right, by the way? That was one of the things I wanted to ask you.’
‘The clear-off treatment? It was very effective, I thought, judging by the general reaction.’
‘Good, but I really meant I hope it wasn’t too offensive. You know, wounding. Malicious and all that.’
‘I don’t think so. You made it clear you hadn’t got it in for anyone in particular.’
‘Oh, that came over all right, did it? That’s a relief. Tell me, my dear, did you find time to look inside that silly old book they were making such a fuss about?’
‘Yes, I read some of it.’
‘Nothing in it, is there?’
‘The last poem made sense of a sort, or the last bit of it.’
‘Ah, it’s easy enough to make sense of a sort if you don’t care what sort. But the book . . . It is rubbish, isn’t it?’
‘I thought so, yes.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’ He sighed and smiled. ‘That’s the most important thing of the lot. Imagine what it would have been like to find you could only write stuff that was any good when you were trying to write rubbish. What a lot of silly donkeys they are, though. Fancy that Sir Robert fellow going on about my individual tone of voice. When I’d purposely made every poem different from the rest of me and different from each other, too. And he’s quite clever, you know, that’s what frightens me. I’ve talked to him several times and he’s really a very interesting man. But they’re all the same. It does seem a pity. Ah, here we are.’
A minute later, locked in once more, they were drinking their drinks.
‘What was I saying?’ asked Potter.
‘About them all being the same.’
‘I should have said nearly all of them. There are just a few people, none of them very well known I’m told, who’ve always said I’m no good. When the publishers and everybody were sending proofs and advance copies round, asking all these critics and so forth for their comments, I made jolly sure those ones, the anti-me ones, all got a copy. Two of them answered, saying politely they were afraid the thing didn’t seem to them to merit any special recognition or something. The others didn’t answer at all. Another form of politeness. That was a sort of check. If any of them had said it was any good when I knew it wasn’t, then they might have been wrong when they said my other stuff was no good. But they didn’t. It all fits together. Yes, I think I’ve proved as conclusively as it can be proved that I’ve never been any good.’
This was said in the same cheerful tone as before. Sue tried to think instead of merely feel. It took a few seconds.
‘But, Mr Potter, that’s not the sort of thing that ever can be proved.’
‘Not like in geometry, no. Just a very strong presumption. Quite strong enough for me.’
‘But . . . you may still be good even though . . .’
‘You mean God or somebody may think I’m good. I’d certainly respect his opinion. But he’s not letting on, is he?’
‘You’ll be remembered. Your work will live on. You’ve been too famous and highly thought of for it not to.’
‘When I was a boy there was a very famous man who wrote tragedies in verse. They were very successful – produced by Beerbohm Tree and so on. And he was very highly thought of, too. The critics compared him with Sophocles and Shakespeare. He died during the war, the first war that is, just after I left school. He was called Stephen Phillips. Ever heard of him?’
Sue shook her head.
‘Neither had Sir Robert when I asked him. And he was born in the year Phillips died. Now isn’t that a funny coincidence?’
Both were silent for a time. Then she said,
‘Why did you put on this show tonight?’
‘That’s a good question – I quite see I could have conducted my test and then just privately refused the award. I suppose it was conceited of me. But it was fun. And I felt like getting a bit of my own back on some of the people who’d conned and flattered me into wasting all those years. And then – this is probably silly, but I might be remembered for a little while just because of this show. Potter? Oh yes, wasn’t he that lousy old poet who got together a lot of people who’d said he was good and told them to clear off? A sort of footnote in literary history. Perhaps poor old Phillips might not be completely forgotten if he’d climbed up on the stage at the end of the first night of his Paolo and Francesca and told the audience to go and fuck themselves.’
‘Yes. Do you want me to report this? Some of it? It could go in our daily.’
‘I really don’t mind either way. Would you like to report it?’
‘I don’t think so, Mr Potter.’
‘Don’t then. I wasn’t telling you with that in mind. I just wanted to tell someone who’d see what I meant. No, more than that. I wanted to tell you.’
‘Thank you. How have you been feeling since we met before? You said you were going to—’
‘Oh yes. You know, it worked like a charm. The very first lot of pills he tried on me. You can probably see. No more feeling bad. No more wanting to write poems, either. But that’s all right, isn’t it, in the circumstances? But what the pills didn’t take away was this curiosity about whether . . .’
Somebody knocked on the door and rattled its handle. A worried voice called,
‘Ted? Ted, are you in there?’
‘Hang on, Charles, will you? I’ll be out in just a minute.’ Potter lowered his voice again. ‘He must have used ten-pound notes. Or his intelligence and energy. He’s got plenty of all three.’
‘They might not have read the book, just going by all your previous—’
‘None of them? It’s unlikely.’
‘Or they might have thought this book was no good and not wanted to hurt your feelings, not wanted to stop you getting the award which they might have thought you’d earned with your previous work.’
‘All of them? All saying how it continued the great Potter tradition? Holding a secret mass meeting to agree on a Potter policy? Sir Robert for one would never dream of stooping to anything like that. He’s got far too much integrity. What he hasn’t got is the ability to tell the difference between a good poem and a bad one. Or even between one kind of bad poem and another. I don’t know, perhaps that’s harder. Yes. I think in my heart of hearts I must have known I was no good. Otherwise why wouldn’t I read my poems when I’d finished them? I’d have read them over and over again very carefully, to try and decide. And of course, I’d decided on the title and dedication of this lot before anybody else had ever seen it.’
‘You’ll feel differently about this tomorrow. You’ve given yourself a shock by this test thing of yours.’
They got to their feet as she spoke. Without drawing close to her he rested his hand on her shoulder, having to reach up slightly to do so.
‘Do I look shocked? Tonight was just setting the seal on it. I’ve known the result of the test for weeks now. Don’t worry about me, Mrs Macnamara. As I told you, I never feel bad about anything. Not any more.’
III
‘Why did he do it, do you reckon?’ asked Pat Bowes.
‘I don’t know. Are we going to make this plane?’
‘On our heads. Quit fussing, Macnamara.’
‘There’s all this stuff of yours . . .’
‘So there’s all this stuff of mine. Somebody’ll have to help me with it. There are men at the airport who earn their livings helping people with stuff.�
��
Bowes’s car, which had a certain amount of Sue’s stuff in it as well as a lot of his, hurried westwards down Cromwell Road.
‘You’re not going to get me off Potter, love. You were one of the last two or three people to talk to him. He must have said something. Or would you rather not talk about it? In which case tell me to shut my jumbo trap.’
‘No, I don’t mind. I’d have thought it was obvious enough anyway. He felt he’d found out he was no good.’
‘That wouldn’t make me knock myself off. I know, I’m an insensitive bastard, but there must have been more to it than that.’
‘I don’t think so. He’d made one gesture, telling his public to go and screw themselves, but that wasn’t enough. He wanted to apologize.’
‘Apologize? For being just a wee bit offensive to a lot of stuffed shirts who aren’t even—’
‘No, for being a bad poet, for having spent most of his life doing nothing but write bad poetry, or poetry he thought he’d proved was bad, and wasting everybody’s time. He wanted to show he minded. More than about anything else, more than about his wife, which was why he did it in a way that couldn’t possibly be mistaken for an accident.’
‘Bit rough on the old girl, that part of it.’
‘Very. It’s the only part of it I don’t sympathize with him about, but I can understand. Bad poets mind about poetry just as much as good poets. At least as much.’
‘I don’t see why it should be at least as much, but you’d know, I suppose. Well, it was a nasty shock. I thought he was a nice old buffer. It’s a shame being nice doesn’t mean you’re good. When I think of some of the talented sons of bitches I’ve run into . . .’
Dear Illusion Page 19