The Black Book Restored: Fragments 1A to 33 (first half)

The Black Book Restored: Fragments 1A to 33

 

On the way out of school, Jimmy snatched my satchel from my shoulder and ran off with it. I pursued him across the playground, into the street. I knew I had no hope of catching up to him, even though I was running full pelt. He easily stayed ahead of me, while only appearing to trot along quite casually. He even managed to run backwards, while dangling my satchel just out of reach.

 

On the day of the bus strike, I caught
a train instead and got to work much
faster, though it was more expensive
and I could not read my book or hear
my music and I had to stand up
all the way in a crowd of strangers
still pungent from their toilette: after-
shave and perfume spray and shower gel
wafting from the pits of up-stretched arms.

 

The water is so clear, I can see tiddlers swimming over my toes.

 

• Stare at my hand until the friction from my eyes causes the skin to spontaneously combust. 

 

Mum opens a tin of peaches while Dad punches a couple of holes in a tin of condensed milk. The taste of fruit on my tongue is the shimmer of sunlight on syrup-slow waves.

 

The girl in kitten heels dogs me down
the years while my ankles grow thicker.
Her eyes are blue as bruises before
the sleepless nights; lips tempting as fruit
pastilles to chew...

 

It was pointless. I slowed to a halt, already out of breath. Called to him to stop, half-heartedly. My voice sounded like a weedy whine, even to my own ears.

 

It’s my first funeral. Against all advice, I make the mistake of attending. The sun is shining and I’m hot and uncomfortable in my new suit. My face is still tight from surgery and shiny with sweat.

 

... from an early formula of ‘sing high, play fast’...

 

My back ached from the jostle and strap-
hanging, the anxious meerkat bobbing
to check the signs, the times: arrivals
and destinations and Mind The Gap...

 

• Store each moment in a wank bank so my muse can jill off later 

 

Our caravan is on a grassy slope overlooking the Bay. To the West is the white cliff that gives this place its name; to the East, the coastline curves away towards Bembridge.

 

... and I wake up, half way through a song:
it is nineteen sixty-nine again;
a day long gone and yet a new day
with a soundtrack played on hired guitars
by session men who get no credit
for the people they make stars. I wake
and six hours dreaming comes to nothing
with the morning edit that my mind
imposes on the lake of troubled thought
whose fading ripples reflect the moon’s
eye: blind as if with cataracts, dark...

 

[I witness Cocteau’s cock explode without
a touch. He points it at the jet-scarred sky
and beams his energy at passing lights
of BEMs...]

 

... from intrigue in Zurich to harmony in Brighton...

 

• In the middle of a party, stop dancing and sober up because I’m not part of this tribe 

 

We take a stroll along a footpath that keeps disappearing over the cliff edge. There are signs warning of coastal erosion, which I ignore. I jump up and down and defy the path to crumble further.

 

Grandma taught me how to use her scales
to balance eggs against butter, flour
and sugar, to bake the perfect cake.
I remember her wooden spoon, rough
on my tongue, as I licked leftover
mixture from her bowl; sweet aromas
from her scullery...

 

Jimmy did stop, but only because he had reached the zebra crossing and was waiting for the lollipop man to halt the traffic. He swung my satchel round his head and mimed throwing it into the road.

 

There’s mum. She’s not looking too bad, considering. She’s lost weight.

 

Sometimes, the waves are brown, or at best, a muddy shade of green.

 

... feed me with your kiss...

 

whatever there was, it is gone now:
the empty corridors re-echo
with grade two scales played in plodding time

 

• Study the world as I would a painting, in order to forge the techniques in my own work 

 

Mum scolds me. Dad gives me a look.

 

I married a poet – as my shadow
cleaves to my heels – in a ceremony
of clanging iambs; a cacophony
of phonics, my groom as cold and narrow
as the cemetery path we followed...

 

[... Bill builds a cabinet
to house his own desires. Nothing written
is ever erased but filed in folders
with outlandish names:]

 

... the fleeting manner of love.

 

• Borrow from politics and tell a lie with the utter conviction of truth until it becomes self-validating 

 

We go for lunch in a nondescript restaurant. Me and Dad order a curry. Dad says it’s the best thing to eat in a hot climate. Like Singapore, where he did his National Service.

 

I stood at the street corner while the sun,
yellow as a throat pastille, sought to heal
the pink membrane of sky. Across the road,
rain dappled the pavement, though I stayed dry,
watching the droplets: a grey curtain drawn
around the sick bed of this town. The blade
that chopped clouds into white lines of powder
was a sharp westerly...

 

I knew he wouldn’t but feared he would, both at the same time. I plodded towards him, the blood pounding in my ears in time with the flashing of belisha beacons.

 

I understand she’s getting a modest pension from my employers. I don’t quite know how that works. No change there, I suppose.

 

Sometimes, the waves are black with oil and hazy sunlight gleams on the refinery’s massive pipes and towers.

 

The day after the storm, I strolled to the beach. What was left of it. As if a giant bulldozer had driven along the shore and shovelled away the sand. Scoured it down to the mud flats beneath.

 

... a guitar with a Coke bottle on the strings...

 

This is a memory, but not mine:
of bleeding fingers and sweating brow,
less play-in-a-day, more years to go

 

• Love is squeezing each other’s spots and mingling farts beneath the duvet 

 

The waitress says curry is off the menu, so we settle for the opposite extreme and order salad.

 

Despite the war, I scour the shops for a perfect
pair of shoes. Blame my Cinder-fucking-rella gene
for my show of bravado beneath the flight path
of bombers bound for runway three. I tap my card
on the terminal...

 

[... How to recognise
Weathermen without fingers / Black panthers
in chains and ball gags / Speaking polari
with Brit bum boys in boaters...]

 

... might be good for putting your tights on to, because that’s a slow process...

 

• Learn the names of gods and invoke their presence 

 

One afternoon, I decide to go exploring and climb the steep path up to the summit of the cliff.

 

In time, my words will cease to burn
and I will tend my silent days
as I would the dying embers
of a bonfire...

 

The urge to hit him was strong and I curled my fingers into fists. But equally strong were the lessons I had been taught by church and school: turn the other cheek / violence never solved anything / if you hit back, you are as bad as them.

 

They’ve honoured my choice of music. The sombre tones of Bowie’s ‘Subterraneans’ resound in the small chapel. My coffin glides through the curtains as the mock vocals begin: share bright failing star. That’s what I’ve always heard them as.

 

Sometimes, the brutalist concrete dome of a power station dominates the bay.

 

The hard surface was ridged by the receding tide. As grey as the distant waves that shared the same dull sheen as corrugated iron.

 

... purveyors of ‘music made by the cosmos’...

 

I dare not drive, while
there’s such pressure behind my eyes.
And where is there to go
that does not take me nearer to the end?

 

• Don’t be afraid to steal pennies from wishing wells 

 

I find grazing sheep. One of them says baah! in a sarcastic tone, as if mocking a child’s impression.

 

still waiting for the rain to fall
the other shoe to drop
the leaves to choke the guttering
the needle and the glock
the tram to stop outside the church
the buck to stop somewhere
the wreaths to smell of cellophane
the cellphones and dead air
the guilty to mock innocence
the children to bear arms
the moon to shrink beyond our grasp
the husband and his scars

 

[... Leary’s head
is like the facade of a bombed out house
with its staircase exposed. I catalogue
its contents for Crawdaddy...]

 

... the body hadn’t worn well but the voice was there...

 

• Seek revenge for every word I was forced to vivisect in the classroom 

 

From here, there is a long, gentle incline down to Sandown. I wander aimlessly along the seafront and continue doggedly towards Shanklin.

 

we wear garlands and dance around the village green
for we are british folk who know what british means
we demolish drystone walls to rebuild castles
for our monarch is the rightful king of brussels

 

Jimmy continued to taunt me, dodging a clip round the ear from the lollipop man, as he opened my satchel and tipped its contents on the pavement. My homework papers and a copy of this week’s ‘Misty’ cascaded to land at his feet.

 

I wonder who or what is in the box.

 

 

* * * * *

 

Second half here:

 

https://www.abctales.com/story/lille-dante/black-book-restored-fragments-1a-33-second-half

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