Diary of a Somebody

by Brian Bilston

  She patted my hand and did her best to give me an encouraging smile, promising to stay in touch should I ever find myself on the other side.

  Friday May 11th

  I have received confirmation about my redundancy money. £15,000 is a tidy sum for someone whose finances have always been historically messy. But I must learn to be prudent; it may be a while until I begin to earn substantial money from my poetry.

  If only affluence bred confidence. The vow I’d made to Tomas to take the bull of romance by its love-sharpened horns has not sufficiently taken into account my aversion to blood sports. Liz remains ungored and unasked out.

  Panicking, I sought refuge in the crossword. Two hours dripped by and all I had to show for my efforts was 17 across:

  PEDETENTOUS (adj.): proceeding slowly.

  Saturday May 12th

  Dylan went inside while Sophie lectured me on the doorstep. GCSEs begin in a couple of weeks and I need to be more supportive of Dylan in his revision, she says. Unless I pull my socks up, he won’t get the grades of which he is capable, apparently. I listened sulkily.

  ‘He says it’s hard to concentrate at your house,’ she said.

  ‘That’ll be the students next door. They always play their music too loud. I’ll have another word. And then there’s Mrs McNulty and her sawing. I really don’t know what on earth it is that she’s making. I sometimes wonder wheth—’

  ‘It’s not the neighbours.’

  ‘Well, I can’t deny that the cat does make it diffic—’

  ‘Not the cat. You, Brian.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Dylan says that you’re always trying to distract him.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Reading him poems. Showing him tweets and videos. Suggesting films to watch. Dressing the cat up as a pirate.’

  I smiled at the memory of the cat beneath her skull and crossbones tricorn.

  ‘I’m wondering whether he shouldn’t visit until his exams are over,’ she said.

  I unsmiled. I promised to try harder. I’d remain focused. Do whatever was necessary. Help him as best I can. I went back inside. Dylan was reaching in his bag for his chemistry textbook.

  ‘Today,’ he announced solemnly, ‘it’s atomic structures and oxides.’

  Sunday May 13th

  Leak-end

  With the day stretching ahead of me like a cat on a lap, it felt like the ideal opportunity to get in touch with Liz. I started to read Money.

  It is 400 pages long! Ordinarily, I’d have no chance of completing it in time but given that I shall have more free time on my hands soon, I think this is very do-able.

  The thought occurred to me that this may well be my last ‘weekend’, in a traditional sense; such distinctions between the working week and Saturday and Sunday will probably blur as my new life as a professional writer begins. With such idle daydreams the hours did pass, and by the time I stretched to turn my bedside light off, I’d already broken the back of page five.

  Monday May 14th

  The final archaeological assault on my officle has begun: the sorting and emptying, re-filing and binning and the gradual emptying of my stationery stockpiles, which I smuggle home in the crevices of my clothing, whistling as I walk past the security guard in the evening, like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape with his pockets weighed down with sand.

  Tuesday May 15th

  During today’s excavation, I uncovered an old LP of Rogers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music which had fallen behind my filing cabinet, along with an old photograph of Dylan as a toddler walking hand in hand with Sophie and me, and a certificate to verify that I had passed my Intermediate Excel course. The record, I think, had been an old Secret Santa present from about ten years ago before the unbroken run of pine-scented candles kicked in.

  I took it home with me. It was heavily scratched but somehow didn’t jump. I played it through three times, and studied the photo, until a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall told me it was time for bed.

  Wednesday May 16th

  My Favourite Words

  Pipette and plectrum, obumbrate and flimsy,

  Balderdash, spatchcock, flapdoodle and whimsy,

  Obnubilation and nontrepreneur:

  These are a few of my favourite words.

  Sachet, humdudgeon, haboob, hurly-burly,

  Scroddled and dottle, goluptious and surly,

  Mumpsimus, tawdry, decumbent and blurb:

  These are a few of my favourite words.

  Susurrus, zephyr, rubescent, boondoggle,

  Reboant, gaggle, hubris and hornswoggle,

  Refulgent, plethora, plinth and perturb:

  These are a few of my favourite words.

  When the rose droops

  When the branch snags

  When I’m lachrymose

  I simply remember my favourite words

  And then I don’t feel morose.

  I came close to popping the question to Liz today. But I got stuck on the thorny issue of venue. I gave it some more thought as I cracked on with the laundry. A quick mental run-through of my favourite things and potential topics of discussion – detective series, crosswords, custard creams, the cat – confirmed to me that any attempts at prolonged and free-flowing dialogue would be risky indeed. I needed a venue or destination which might serve as a foil or shield so I wouldn’t be subjected to the relentless pressure of having to make conversation.

  I concluded that more thinking was needed before hanging my heart out on the line like a pair of tatty, well-worn underpants.

  Thursday May 17th

  Monopoly

  They met at a beauty contest. She came first, he second.

  They monopolised each other. Prosperity beckoned.

  Chancers of the exchequer, they advanced straight to go.

  These were the good times. How the money flowed!

  Stock sales and dividends. A building loan matured.

  Bank errors in their favour. An inheritance secured.

  And every birthday – to celebrate the pleasure –

  each of their friends would pay them a tenner.

  They owned the streets. But it began to unwind.

  Found drunk in a sports car. A small speeding fine.

  Doctor and hospital fees. The cost of street repairs.

  The perilous state of their financial affairs.

  The Super Tax hit them. They took out a loan.

  They were dispossessed of their grand Mayfair home.

  They’re in jail now. But no sign of contrition.

  Last week, they won a crossword competition.

  I’ve had another one of my dreams. I walked into the sitting room to find Liz reclining on a Monopoly board, naked except for a thin layer of banknotes which covered her like a cheap paper duvet. Laughing, she asked me to ‘strip her of her assets’. I began to peel the notes off her one by one, and slowly her smooth, pale skin revealed itself.

  Each banknote stripped away, I would then set alight and we laughed once more as the paper crackled in the fireplace. But as I took another glance at the flickering of the flames, I noticed that, to my horror, it wasn’t Monopoly money at all – it was my redundancy money. The door suddenly crashed open and we became surrounded by policemen and fire fighters, and before I knew it, I was being carted off to the cells and I hadn’t even picked up a get-out-of-jail-free card.

  I looked this up in my Dream Dictionary – once I’d located it on my bookshelf – but there was no mention of Monopoly nor any other property-based board games so I am none the wiser as to what it all means.

  Friday May 18th

  At three o’clock, I heard the dread squeak of the drinks trolley wheels as they trundled their way over to my officle, a desultory crowd of well-wishers and other ghouls trailing in its wake.

  Janice said a few words about the enormous contribution I’d made and how the place wouldn’t be the same without me. I recognised most of it, including the amusing anecdo
tes, from her speech when Chris Jenkins left a couple of months before. In turn, I got up to say that although there were many things I’d miss about working here, the thing I’d miss the most was the wonderful people I had been so privileged to work alongside. I’d borrowed this speech from Chris Jenkins when he’d left a couple of months before. I was presented with a leaving card and the token gesture of a £25 book voucher.

  Tomas was amongst those who gathered, having rearranged a seminar he was hosting on Wittgenstein and the Rules of Language in order to make an appearance. We have swapped phone numbers and vowed to stay in touch.

  It wasn’t long before my imminently erstwhile colleagues began to drift back to their desks. I collected up my few remaining belongings, put them in my bag and slipped out the back door without further fuss, keen to avoid anyone who might hear the rattle of paper clips and staples in my pockets.

  Saturday May 19th

  Aujourd’hui j’ai révisé le français avec Dylan. Nous avons travaillé très dur. C’était bien ennuyant. Le chat dormait. Dave, Martin et Marvin ont mis leur musique très forte pendant tout l’après-midi et Mme McNulty a scié. Nous avons mangé tous les custard creams.

  After I’d returned from chez Dylan, I noticed that he’d left his French Grammar and Practice book lying on the table. For reasons which remain unclear to me, I spent the evening leafing through its pages to find some of my favourite sentences and create a ‘found poem’ of sorts. I have called it ‘In Winter They Adjust the Thermostat’. À ces égards, nous passer le temps.

  She’s leaving on the seventh of May.

  ‘Which dress do you like the best?’

  She won’t answer me.

  There are a few potatoes left.

  She’s staying at home today.

  The birds wake up early in summer.

  She doesn’t want to see anybody.

  Nothing’s changed.

  The train arrives at two o’clock.

  I don’t think about it any more.

  She stops in front of a shop window.

  There’s not a lot to see.

  We don’t have enough time

  To be born. To die. To come. To go.

  In winter, they adjust the thermostat.

  It’s raining. She can’t swim.

  Sunday May 20th

  Man of Action

  I am writing to report my dissatisfaction.

  How dare you say I am not a man of action.

  You say I like:

  to sleep, to loaf, to lie around,

  to drift, to dawdle, to loll and lounge.

  All verbs, I note.

  Have you not heard

  that verbs are known

  as doing words?

  There are times in life when you just have to seize the day. The ancient Romans used to have a phrase for this, so impatient were they to get on with things – tempus fugit – which literally means ‘to fight time’. For, they believed, in order for the day to be seized, time needs to be battled – and that’s exactly what I did today.

  I had been giving some more thought to the business of how I might make some inroads into the whole Liz thing when my phone buzzed. There, among my Twitter notifications, was a message from Liz:

  Fancy meeting up next Friday?

  This was the opportunity I’d been seeking and I was determined to grab it with both of my grubby day-seizing hands. Not one to dither, after just forty-five minutes I had managed to fashion a reply that I thought struck exactly the right tone of acceptance and forthrightness:

  Yes.

  This was all very well but as any day-seizer worth the name knows, the devil is in the detail: we needed a where and a when. I waited for Liz to tell me. Five minutes later:

  How about the Tate Modern?

  12 o’clock?

  The Slazenger tennis ball of day-seizing had been struck firmly back into my court. But this time the response was harder. It wasn’t simply a case of repeating my ‘Yes’ from earlier: I’d already ventured down that linguistic cul-de-sac and to remain in it would reveal a distinct lack of imagination. I needed a response that was not only affirmative but one that might subtly reveal my enthusiasm at such a prospect. In the end, I settled on:

  Sounds good.

  There are those who hang around waiting for life to come to them. But it won’t!

  Some days, you just have to go out and find it.

  Monday May 21st

  I’ve come down with a severe case of affluenza. The redundancy money has only been in my bank account for a few hours but already I feel like a man transformed. I walk with the straightened gait and breezy self-confidence of a man who knows his own worth (£15,000).

  All I need now is my writer’s shed. Until then, I’ve decided to take a well-earned staycation. I may knock off the odd poem in the interim but the serious business of writing will begin upon my shed’s arrival in a couple of weeks.

  Besides, I have the whole business of meeting up with Liz to contend with and I always find it hard to write when my head is full of thoughts.

  Tuesday May 22nd

  A first date – if that’s what this is – in an art gallery is all very well but what if I’m asked to contribute an opinion or an original thought? What if I make some schoolboy error and get my Monets and Manets mixed up? Or mistake the cleaner’s bucket and mop for an exhibit?

  When in doubt, read your way out. I headed to the bookshop in search of the reassurance of tomes. Two hours later, I staggered out with my booty: An Illustrated History of Modern Art; An Introduction to Impressionism; Art in the Twentieth Century; Degas for Dummies; The Bluffer’s Guide to Art; Short Introductions to Art Nouveau, Cubism, Conceptual Art, Pop Art; and a 700-page biography of Picasso.

  When I got home, I took out an online annual subscription to the Grove Dictionary of Art just to be sure, and because the thirty-four-volume print edition is now out of print.

  Wednesday May 23rd

  It’s incredible what can be achieved when there’s not the inconvenience of a job to get in the way. If I had to sit an exam today on modern art, I’d be unnerving the other candidates by putting my hand up for more paper twenty minutes in.

  I spent the afternoon creating prompt cards containing pertinent facts, which I intend to throw out there casually on Friday. For example:

  Picasso’s full name is Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso.

  Frida Kahlo’s right leg was thinner than her left one. This was as a result of the polio she contracted as a child.

  Andy Warhol was a secret hoarder of pizza dough.

  Tracey Emin has a twin brother called Paul.

  As I study them again several hours later, although they may be correct, I’m not entirely convinced that they’re very interesting. I’ve rehearsed a few in front of the cat but she’s barely stirred in response.

  Thursday May 24th

  What to wear to an art gallery? I consulted the internet. That was a mistake: it seems there is no clear consensus. Fashionista.com eloquently summed up the dilemma:

  Dressing for an art exhibition presents a unique challenge. Turn up in your mufti and all will assume you’re a nobody or that everything in the gallery belongs to you. But arrive ‘too dressed’ and you will look as if you’re wearing the art.

  Most evidence pointed to this being either smart-casual territory or casual-smart territory.

  I set out for M&S with my points card.

  Friday May 25th

  A Brief History of Modern Art in Poetry

  1. Impressionism

  Roses sway in softened reds

  Violets swim in murky blues.

  Sugar sparkles in the light,

  Blurring into golden you. 2. Surrealism

  Roses are melting

  Violets are too.

  Ceci n’est pas le sucre.

  Keith is a giant crab.

  3. Abstract Expressionism


  4. Social Realism

  Roses are dead.

  Violence is rife.

  Don’t sugarcoat

  This bitter life.

  5. Pop Art

  Roses go BLAM!

  Violets go POW!

  Sugar is COOL!

  You are so WOW! 6. Conceptual Art

  Roses are red,

  Coated in blood:

  A deer’s severed head

  Drips from above.

  It may not have gone swimmingly well but neither was it drowningly awful; it was something in the middle, a doggy-paddlingly mediocre affair, in which we felt pleased to have kept our heads above water even if we didn’t really get anywhere.

  I met Liz on the steps. She looked like a Botticelli study of beauty, which made me feel like one of those blobby efforts by Francis Bacon, slapped onto canvas on one of his off days. All the same, I had the inner confidence that comes of someone sporting a new Blue Harbour shirt and who could feel the reassuring bulge of his deck of modern art fact cards in his left-hand chino pocket.

  I tossed the first one out there as we gazed thoughtfully at a Giacometti:

  ‘It’s interesting to think of what else he might have done if he hadn’t died of pericarditis and chronic bronchitis at Kantonsspital in Churin, Switzerland in January 1966.’

  Liz looked impressed.

  We stared at Duchamp’s Fountain:

  ‘Whenever I see a Duchamp, I always think about what a good chess player he was – although he could never quite translate his success in France to the international stage, as we can see from his Olympiad record of four wins, twenty-two draws and twenty-six losses.’