‘Oh, Brian! Don’t ever lose your wicked sense of humour!’ he said with a broad grin. ‘Anyway, gotta run – or should I say jump!’
Mercifully, he bounded off, and Dylan and I sought refuge inside, where we made a pact that should one of us notice any Stuart-like behaviour in the other, we should tell them immediately.
Sunday November 25th
Three Thought Experiments
1.If a poem is printed in a book
but few people buy that book
and those that do, fail to understand the poem,
does it really exist?
2.Imagine a cat lying upon your lap.
It has been lying there for five hours.
During this time, it has not stirred once.
Its breathing is imperceptible.
Is the cat alive or dead?
3. Consider a group of people, each with a box.
They are told it contains a ‘custard cream’.
Each person can only look in their own box.
Might it be possible that each person
has something entirely different in their box?
A ‘digestive’ or ‘malted milk’, for example?
What then do we mean by the term ‘custard cream’?
I told Tomas about the poem. He was familiar with the story of Prometheus but even he was unable to decipher the poem further or determine whether it might provide some insight into the whereabouts or fate of Toby Salt. But he had a suggestion.
‘What Wittgenstein would do, in such circumstances, is conduct a thought experiment,’ he said. ‘He would concoct an imaginary situation and use that scenario as the basis for thinking through the consequences of a particular hypothesis.’
I gave it a whirl when I got home. I conjured up a scenario in which Toby Salt had been enclosed in a steel chamber, along with a phial of hydrocyanic acid and a radioactive substance. I’d intended to think through the consequences of what might then have transpired, but so pleasing was the scenario to me, I lingered on it for the rest of the day and found myself no further forward.
Monday November 26th
DI Lansbury again.
‘We’ve had a sighting of you, Mr Bilston – on 7th September, the night of Mr Salt’s book launch.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Yes – from a neighbour of yours, as it happens.’
I sighed.
‘She claims she saw you out in the garden. She’d seen you emerging from your shed. Late it was. About 2 a.m., she reckons. And then you decided to have a bonfire.’
‘Oh, really.’
‘Funny time to have a bonfire, sir, if you don’t mind me saying.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d like to take another look at your shed. Shall I get a new warran—’
‘Yes, why don’t you,’ I snapped and slammed the phone down.
Tuesday November 27th
All That Jazz
Here’s the scene:
we’re booted, real hep,
feeling the step,
laying it loose,
Big Leon’s noodling in the corner.
Man, that cat! On tubs is Jack,
giving it some
and then some again,
Pretty Boy Lester’s gone,
sharp, feeling the heat,
digging deep,
totally wigged,
Leon’s sucking his popsicle stick
all slick licks,
until Den, in search of kicks,
suggests we all go out
and find a jazz band to listen to.
I have always nursed a deep suspicion of jazz. I think this may be due to the concept of improvisation; the prospect of having to think on your feet without every move carefully researched and rehearsed disturbs me at a profound level. Or maybe it’s just the haircuts.
Regardless, Darren and I had to confront it. It had been billed as an evening of free jazz but, annoyingly, we still had to pay at the door. The main draw was a nine-piece ensemble aptly named Vertigo (ft. Dizzy Malone) as they led to complications in my inner ear. The giddiness and nausea felt like an unwelcome reminder of having to read Toby Salt’s poetry.
Wednesday November 28th
DI Lansbury and Sergeant Tuck have taken my wood-burner off to forensics ‘for further analysis’.
They carried it up the front garden. Mrs McNulty was looking on interestedly out of her window. Dave, Martin and Marvin were at theirs, too, which was unusual as they always seemed to make themselves scarce whenever DI Lansbury and Sergeant Tuck came to visit.
‘Let me know if you find a body in there!’ I joked.
DI Lansbury and his beard wheeled around simultaneously.
‘You find all this amusing, do you, Mr Bilston?’ he said.
‘No,’ I responded sheepishly.
‘I’d like to remind you that a man has disappeared – and may very well be dead. Which, as far as I’m aware, is not the usual stuff of comedy.’
‘No, it’s not,’ I said in a small voice.
From the whoop that emitted from behind her net curtain, Mrs McNulty appeared to be most delighted by this whole exchange. There was some support on offer from Dave, who stuck his middle finger up at the policemen’s retreating figures as they continued down the path, only to pretend he was scratching his nose when DI Lansbury turned around suddenly and glared at him.
Thursday November 29th
I’d gone back to pondering Toby Salt’s poem. I was trying to read between its lines, and wishing it was comprised of only the bits between the lines and none of the actual lines at all, when the doorbell rang and there was Sergeant Tuck. He’d popped round on the off chance I was in so he could return the back issues of Well Versed I’d lent him, he said. As he brought them in, I could sense him nervously eyeing up my bookshelves.
‘Is there anything else you’d like to borrow while you’re here?’ I asked, keen to put him out of his misery.
Gratefully, he seized an anthology of twentieth-century poetry, and collections by Emily Dickinson and W. H. Auden.
‘I’ll get these back to you next week,’ he said and skipped off up the path.
I went back inside and took one final look at Toby Salt’s postcard poem in search of meaning. It stared back at me in defiance once more. No, that was it. I’d tried. I’d failed.
l ripped it up and threw it in the recycling. The lorry will come for it tomorrow.
Friday November 30th
Bring Your Cat to Work Day
It will look good on your CV, he said.
Pfff. What needs have I but to be fed,
stroked – when I wish it – upon my head,
and a lap that’s warm to call a bed.
This is how the photocopier works.
He thinks I’m his goddam office clerk.
I size up the A4 tray as it whirrs.
It’s not so comfy. But I’ve had worse.
Perhaps you could get on with some filing.
I wait until he’s walked out the door
and then file myself inside a drawer.
It’s peaceful here and I sleep some more.
It’s quite cosy here on this keyboard.
There’s a spot of sun I stretch towards.
I don’t know what he’s shouting for.
Hang on a minute . . . is that a mouse?
The deadline was approaching so it was time I got back down to it. Without my wood-burner, I was reduced to working back in the house with all its cat-induced limitations. Did T. S. Eliot have a shed? If not, it’s a wonder that he was able to write anything.
December
Saturday December 1st
Verb Your Enthusiasm
I remember when it first circumstanced,
this problem that routines with my words:
I was in the kitchen, plating my food,
when my nouns conversioned to verbs.
I friended others with similar troubles;
we workshopped together for day
s.
Dialoguing in search of solutions,
the long hours flipcharted away.
I now diarise each time they event.
Are they nerbs or vouns? I’m not sure.
The doctors cannot medication me.
Even to poem provisions no cure.
In a World Cup for languaging weirdly
or a verbing-renowned Olympics,
I’d have podiumed – I’m in no doubt –
if it weren’t for those medalling kids.
Dylan was disconcertingly cheerful today. Perhaps, unlike me, he has come to terms with his departure.
He came in brandishing a leaflet. It was for a ‘Motivatathon’: a rolling twenty-four-hour session of workshops for leading business executives to ‘inspirationalise’ and ‘change-manage’ their teams. It is hosted by Stuart Mould, ‘Dream Architect’, and is all for a good cause. On the leaflet is a list of charities, who will receive 80 per cent of the corporate sign-up fee: Save the Elderly, Aid for the Vulnerable, Lame UK, the Guatemalan Orphan Trust and so on.
There was a picture of Stuart on it, gazing enigmatically at a lake. I suggested to Dylan that we ‘graffitise’ his face but he didn’t want to join in the fun. He snatched the leaflet up and put it carefully back into his bag.
Sunday December 2nd
For some unfathomable reason, the disappearance of Toby Salt continues to be of interest to the media, as well as the police. You would think they’d have more interesting things on which to report, like the victim of a splashed puddle or a hat being found in a tree.
In today’s newspaper was an article about the phenomenon of This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave, which has reprinted six times now since it was published. It’s been recommended in all the Books for Christmas pages of the broadsheets and is set to be the best-selling poetry book of the year. It’s a relief that Toby Salt is not around to see all this, to be honest; he’d be insufferable.
Monday December 3rd
In an almost-certainly doomed attempt to get ahead of myself, I revisited my list of Christmas card beneficiaries. Each year, it shrinks a little. This year I am down to twelve and that includes all the members of Poetry Club.
I’m not sure whether I can stand any more recipients asking to be removed from my mailing list. Last year, there were three of them, one of whom seriously considered prosecuting me under breach of the 1998 Data Protection Act.
I may need to add DI Lansbury and Sergeant Tuck just to get my numbers back up.
Tuesday December 4th
Having Fun with a Clerihew
Archimedes of Syracuse
was keen to tell the town his news.
Naked through the streets he raced,
with clothes displaced.
Eureka! I have it! I know where Toby Salt is! At least I think I do.
I’d been flicking through old issues of Well Versed in search of some advice on how to write a clerihew when I realised that I knew what was wrong. But I needed Toby Salt’s postcard to figure it all out and that had gone into last week’s recycling collection.
Only it hadn’t, I remembered. On Friday morning, there’d been another knock on the window from the Man at Number 29, who’d pointed out it was a landfill day. I went rummaging in the recycling bag to find the bits and then pieced it all together. It was harder than a 500-piece Photo Jigsaw Puzzle of Gérard Depardieu in a Submersible and far less satisfying. But I finished it.
Whether Toby Salt was still alive was another matter.
One thing was clear: time was of the absolute essence.
I ran myself a bath and consulted tomorrow’s train timetable.
Wednesday December 5th
Why Poets Don’t Drive
Whether motorways, B roads, or backstreets,
there is a road for us all to explore.
Yet each leads – in the end – to the same place.
Yes, Karen, I know we need the A4.
There are some who live life in the fast lane
and some who stick in the middle, unsure.
Others live theirs in a roundabout way.
I know I did, Karen. We’ll have to go round it once more.
The road is – in essence – a metaphor.
We journey along it, trusting to luck,
being mindful of others upon it.
Don’t be silly, Karen, there isn’t a tr—
One of the drawbacks of being unable to drive is that it takes me a while to get anywhere. Unlike those heroes you encounter in the movies, I can’t just drop everything and hit the open road. Journeys need to be planned – and sometimes delayed – in order to secure a more competitive ticket price, as well as to write a poem and get the laundry up-to-date.
The 4.50 from Paddington arrived in Swansea just before eight o’clock. I checked into a B&B and left a message for DI Lansbury and Sergeant Tuck.
Thursday December 6th
Roles
He never got to play
the part of Joseph;
he was one of those kids
that no one noticed.
The type barely seen
and more rarely heard,
no Innkeeper, Herod,
or Second Shepherd.
Not once did he wear
the crown of a king
nor wings of an angel
(although he could sing).
Instead he would be
Brown Cow Number Four,
A Rock or A Bauble,
The Stable Door.
And now – forty years on –
it still made him wince,
for it seemed that his life
hadn’t changed that much since.
With the exception of once being a rather pivotal turnip in a vegan nativity play at primary school, I don’t think I’ve ever played the role of ‘hero’ before. But I suppose that’s what I must have been to Toby Salt, not that he could quite bring himself to say it – not even after I’d pressed him several times on the matter after he’d been unchained from the letterpress.
The print shop was situated at the rear of a quiet Victorian terraced house in a secluded Mumbles backstreet. There was no sign of DI Lansbury or Sergeant Tuck yet so I thought I’d take a quick look around myself. The house itself was locked but on the left-hand side was an entrance leading into the back yard. This side-door had also been secured but, by climbing up precariously onto the neighbouring fence, I was able to reach over and slide the bolt over to open it.
The outhouse door had been left slightly ajar. There was somebody talking inside. I slipped in quietly. A man stood with his back to me, leisurely loading up various items of crockery onto a tray.
‘And how was your breakfast this morning, my bestselling poet?’ he said.
Django. I’d recognise his adenoidal tones anywhere. And there, in front of him, sitting on a bench and chained to a nineteenth-century letterpress, was Toby Salt. The top of his head was bandaged but the rest of him appeared to be disappointingly bruise-free. His head was bowed and he appeared utterly unresponsive to all of Django’s attempts at conversation.
‘I must apologise for the continued absence of Lapsang Souchong,’ Django went on. ‘But I can assure you that I’m on the case. The shopkeeper has high hopes of a delivery this Friday!’
Toby Salt continued to stare at the floor.
‘But do not despair,’ said Django. ‘I bring you better news.’ He flourished a newspaper in front of Toby Salt. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘the non-fiction top 10 – you’re now at number 4!’
Django, undeterred by the silence which greeted every utterance, pressed on:
‘And you are fast closing in on the Lean and Healthy Cookbook. Who knows, by Christmas, you could be number o—’
‘WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO LET ME GO, YOU MONSTER!?’ shouted Toby Salt, livid with rage.
‘Now, now, Toby,’ replied Django calmly. ‘I have told you before that you really should not make such a noise.’ He bent down to pick up a cloth from the floor
and, as he did so, Toby Salt glanced upwards and our eyes met. I put a finger to my lips in warning.
In my anxiety to hear the conversation, I’d advanced further into the workshop than I had intended; I was now standing only a couple of metres behind Django. But, as he set about re-tying his prisoner’s gag, he must have noticed some subtle change in Toby Salt’s demeanour that caused him to whirl around suddenly. We found ourselves face to face.
‘What!’ he snarled nasally. ‘Who are you?’
He picked up a printer’s block and began to advance on me menacingly.
‘Please put that down. It’s all over now, Django,’ I said, backing away nervously.
‘It is for you!’ he cried as he raised the printer’s block into the air, poised to bring it down on my head. In desperation, I blindly grabbed an object from the table next to me and slammed it into his face. If that didn’t unblock his nasal passages, nothing would. Django reeled backwards from the blow, lost his footing and crashed down, cracking his head on the edge of an impressively solid-looking piece of Victorian machinery.
There were shouts behind me as DI Lansbury and Sergeant Tuck burst into the workshop. They surveyed the scene in front of them. Sergeant Tuck went over to inspect Django’s crumpled figure.
‘He’s out cold but he’ll be OK,’ he said.
I looked down at my hands to see what I’d struck him with: it was a copy of the commemorative linocut edition of This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave.
‘Who would have thought Toby Salt’s poetry could be so hard-hitting,’ I joked. Disappointingly, nobody laughed. Darren would have enjoyed that line.
‘Can somebody PLEASE unchain me from this damn machine?’ came a voice from across the workshop.
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