Diary of a Somebody
Page 28
I Folded Up My Grief
I folded up my Grief,
Laid it gently in a box.
Tied it up with ribbon.
Fixed a sturdy-strong padlock.
In the garden, it was buried
In a hole dug ten feet deep.
But when I went inside,
Grief was still with me.
I confronted it and said –
Grief, I put you in the ground!
Why then are you here with me?
Why follow me around?
Grief said – But I cannot be buried!
For of you I am a part.
You must carry me inside you,
I am chained around your heart.
Coming up for air, I decided to cycle into town to pick up next month’s book group selection: The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien. But when I went outside I found my bicycle had been stolen.
I took the bus instead, bought the book, then came straight back.
Saturday December 29th
Tomas rang and he dragged me out for a walk. He could tell something was up and I told him about the cat. I suspected something Wittgensteinian was coming my way and I wasn’t disappointed.
‘You know, Brian,’ he said, ‘Wittgenstein once said that “death is not an event in life. We do not live to experience death.” ’
‘But I have experienced death. Just not my own yet. And I’m not sure I care for it very much.’
‘I don’t think many of us do,’ he reflected, ‘but death is not so easily avoided. Of course, Ludwig had a theory about that, too.’
‘I bet he did.’
‘He said that if we equate eternity with timelessness, then “eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.” ’
I thought about this as we walked on. And it occurred to me that, if Wittgenstein was right, the keeping of a diary was itself a form of eternity. For what was a diary if not a record of somebody’s life as seen in the present; a journal of daily fragments of the here and now; a collection of tiny pieces of not being dead?
I began to share these ideas with Tomas but he started to shake his head. ‘Well, that’s not quite what Wittgenstein means—’
But I stopped him there. A poet should be allowed a little bit of poetic licence.
When I got back home, I called Liz.
Sunday December 30th
In the Betjeman Arms, we were on our third Guinness and second bowl of pistachios.
‘This is my favourite time of the year,’ said Liz, happily. ‘I love the lull of these in-between days.’
‘Same here,’ I said, taking another gulp. ‘Although yesterday I got so old, I felt like I could die.’
‘Did it make you want to cry?’ she asked, in mock earnestness.
I smiled. As ever, Liz had caught the reference.
‘I’ll tell you something that does make me want to cry. . .’ I continued, for here was a topic to which I could warm, ‘. . . all these retrospectives on the year just gone. Whenever I switch on the TV or open the newspaper: Sports Personality of the Year, Wedding of the Year, Pipe Smoker of the Year . . .’
‘Poetry Book of the Year,’ said Liz. We shared an enjoyable grimace together.
‘Can I ask you something?’ I said, apprehensively. ‘Why did you go and see Toby Salt in Saffron Walden?’
‘Oh, I didn’t go there to see him,’ she’d said. ‘That was just a coincidence. I went to see Chandrima. Her publisher had invited her to read some poems to promote her new book.’
‘Chandrima has a book coming out?’ I said, genuinely delighted for her. ‘I had no idea. Nor that she was there that weekend.’
‘Well, you know Chandrima. She’s a quiet one. Her book’s coming out in the spring, I think. Anyway,’ she said, ‘you’ve not told me what it is about these retrospectives that upsets you so much.’
‘I think it’s all that looking backwards,’ I answered, after a few moments’ reflection. ‘I’m not sure it actually achieves anything.’
Liz looked at me curiously.
‘That doesn’t sound like a very Brian thing to say,’ she said.
‘You’re probably right. But maybe I’ve changed,’ I mused. ‘Maybe I’ve got a bit better at being me. Or perhaps nostalgia just isn’t as much fun as it used to be.’
Afterwards, I walked Liz to her bus stop. Her bus was already approaching as we got there and I could see her nervousness as she turned around to face me.
‘Fancy . . . coming back for a nightcap?’ she asked, hesitantly.
It was an interesting question, not least because it caused me to ponder on the etymology of the word ‘nightcap’ and whether it was coined after the garment of the same name, given that, like alcohol, it had the ability to provide warmth and comfort through the night-time hours, although recent research suggests that alcohol may actually have a detrimental effect upon one’s quality of sleep, this being dependent, of course, like so many other health-related things, on the quantity of alcohol consumed. In other words, there is much truth to be wrung out of the phrase ‘all things in moderation’ . . .
I don’t think Liz could have heard the last bit properly, though, as by that time she had already boarded the bus and was sitting upstairs, staring out bleakly into the cold, winter night, as it pulled away.
So distracted was her gaze that, at first, she didn’t notice the man who was busy breaking the human land-speed record by outrunning the bus between its stops, nor hear the wheezes from his chest as he climbed up the staircase to sit down beside her.
Monday December 31st
What Goes Around, Comes Around
The world is spinning on its axis;
it never lessens or relaxes.
Through space and time, the planet hurtles
and every day it turns full circle.
It takes one whole year to round the sun.
Yet the revolution’s just begun.
And there a simple truth is found:
what goes around, comes around.
Don’t ask me why. Don’t ask me how.
You’d be dizzy if you got off now.
It was only when I got back that I remembered I’d yet to play my Christmas present from Dylan. I took the record out of the bag and inspected it closely. Gil Scott-Heron looked understandably fed up at having to wait so long.
I unpeeled the cellophane and tilted the album to one side. The record slid into my hand. I took it over to the record player and placed it on the turntable. I lifted up the arm and, as the disc began to move, carefully brought the needle down upon its surface, and the revolution began.
Footnotes
May
* Had to look that up.
*Had to look that up, too.
*A unit of currency that I looked up.
*A place in one of the Star Wars films.
*I looked this up but still not sure what it means.
*Metaphor for breasts.
*Forest of Endor.
October
*Even in the pages
*of my own biography,
*my life would be nothing
*but a footnote
*at the end of chapter 3.
A Note about the Poems
A number of poems which appear in the diary have been inspired – loosely, or heavily – by other poems, pop songs, Christmas carols and French grammar books.
1st January: Gil Scott-Heron, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (1971)
5th January: Morrissey, Everyday is Like Sunday (1988)
6th January: Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth (1917)
7th January: Emily Dickinson, Because I Could Not Stop For Death (1890)
11th January: Joyce Kilmer, Trees (1913)
23rd January: a tweet by Ian McMillan with the same title and format
2nd February: Philip Larkin, This Be The Verse (1971)
19th February: William Carlos Williams, This Is Just To Say (1934)
22nd February: The Bee Gees, Stayin�
�� Alive (1977)
24th February: Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (1947)
27th February: The Lord’s Prayer
7th March: Stevie Smith, Not Waving But Drowning (1957)
8th April: New Testament, Mark Ch. 16
26th April: Kate Bush, Wuthering Heights (1978)
27th April: James Brown, Get Up (I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine) (1970)
10th May: Carol Ann Duffy, The World’s Wife (1999)
16th May: Richard Rodgers, My Favourite Things (1959)
19th May: Collins Easy Learning French Grammar and Practice (2016)
8th June: Adrian Henri, The New, Fast Automatic Daffodils (1967)
25th June: John Cage, 4´33˝ (1952)
1st July: Edward Thomas, Adlestrop (1917)
29th July: R.E.M., Everybody Hurts (1992)
2nd August: W.H. Auden, Funeral Blues (Stop All the Clocks) (1936)
18th September: William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud (1807)
25th September: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, How Do I Love Thee? (1850)
29th September: Blur, Parklife (1994)
6th October: A. A. Milne, Buckingham Palace (1924)
11th November: Clive James, The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered (1983)
23rd December: John Henry Hopkins, Jnr, We Three Kings (1857)
Acknowledgements
As Stuart Mould might say ‘Teamwork makes the dream work’, and I’d like to thank all those who have helped and supported me throughout the writing of this diary: my agent Jo Unwin, expertly abetted by Milly Reilly, whose wisdom and encouragement helped to save me from myself and this project from relentlessness; Kate Jaeger and Laura Montgomery, who braved earlier versions of the diary and gave me hope that all was not hopeless; the team at Picador, particularly Paul Baggaley, Kish Widyaratna, Camilla Elworthy, Nicholas Blake and Paul Martinovic, who bring such creativity and expertise to the art of publishing; Jon McNaught, whose cover illustrations are nothing short of perfect; Paul and Rachel, whose hospitality turned an unfamiliar place into a home for eighteen months; the twin institutions of my real-life Book Group and 27th Club, the existence of which ensured I’d have to leave the house at least twice a month; my long-suffering family, of course, for putting up with my moody silences and uncomprehending stares into the mid-distance; and the extended family of my Twitter, Facebook and Instagram friends, who have always shown me so much kindness.
Finally, I’m indebted to the enduring genius of Sue Townsend, who showed how a teenage boy from an unremarkable Midlands town might yet dare to dream.
BRIAN BILSTON has been described as the Banksy of poetry and Twitter’s unofficial Poet Laureate. With over 100,000 followers on social media, including J. K. Rowling, Ian Rankin and Grayson Perry, Brian has become truly beloved by the Twitter community. His poetry collection, You Took the Last Bus Home, was published by Unbound.
Diary of a Somebody is his first novel.
Also by Brian Bilston
You Took the Last Bus Home
First published 2019 by Picador
This electronic edition first published 2019 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-5290-0557-8
Copyright © Brian Bilston 2019
Jacket illustration: Jon McNaught
Jacket design: Keenan
The right of Brian Bilston to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Visit www.picador.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.