Dogma (15 page)

Yes, he sees it in me, in one who has no feel for nature at other times. He sees it: a desperate yearning for those expanses that are as empty as my head and across which gust the winds of pure idiocy.

The Mersey Estuary at sunset. The water is red; the other shore, blue. It’s like being at the end of the world, we agree. Or the beginning.

‘Rivers are sacred to Hindus, aren’t they?’, W. says. All rivers are the Ganges to the Hindu, he knows that. All rivers flow from Shiva’s matted locks as he meditates, eyes closed, in the Himalayas, and all rivers flow into the same sea.

The same sea
: W. thinks of Plymouth Sound, where the rivers Plym and Tamar come together.
The same source
: W. thinks of Dartmoor, looming behind his city. Dartmoor is Plymouth’s equivalent of the Himalayas, just as the Cheviots, which I pointed out to him blue and ghostly in the distance from the top of the hill on the Town Moor, are Newcastle’s equivalent of the Himalayas.

The Himalayas: that’s where Shiva caught the goddess-river when she fell from heaven … And that’s where he retreated to meditate when his goddess-wife gave herself up in sacrifice. Will I head to the hill on the Town Moor when I’ve sacrificed him?, W. wonders. Will I ascend to commune with my strange gods?

Every year, local Hindus lower an icon of Ganesha into the Mersey, we read in our tourist books. It’s carried by the
tide into the open waters, and borne out along the estuary to the sea. That’s where I’m sending him, W. says, he knows that: out to sea. There’s where we’re both heading: into the blue distance …

Liverpool, port of the slave trade, W. muses.—‘
This has been one of the darkest places on the earth …
’ Liverpool, the seat of empire, the seat of conquest …

W. feels like Conrad’s Marlowe, he says, beginning his great story about the heart of darkness, in a boat marooned in an estuary somewhere.

My trip overseas. My period as a
world traveller
. It’s W.’s favourite story, he says, as we look across the Mersey. I’d flown off to the Mediterranean, hadn’t I?, W. says. I’d flown there as a
world traveller
, never to return to the suburbs! Did I speak the language? Had I made preparations for my visit? Did I know anything about the culture and mores of the country I was going to? The answer is
no
in each case, W. says. I just went, didn’t I? Off I went as a
world traveller
.

What did I expect? What did I think awaited me there? That I’d be recognised for what I was, at last? That the Mediterranean world would carry me off on its shoulders? Was that what I was dreaming of, W. asks, with my plans for
world travel
? Is that what I thought awaited me on the other side?

And instead, what happened? I lurched from disaster to disaster, didn’t I? No sooner was I off the plane than I was beaten down by the sun—beaten by it. I’d never experienced Mediterranean heat before, had I? I’d never seen a cloudless sky. And that blue—the fierce blue of a sky without clouds. It was too much for me, wasn’t it?

I became curiously mute. I’d been stunned into silence. I didn’t say a thing. What could I say? What could I have said? Nothing was going to happen to me. I’d be picked up and carried along on the shoulders of no crowd. There was no one to whom I could prove myself.

Who was interested in me? Who knew my name? If I was a little younger, a paedophile might have followed me around. A little younger, a little cuter, and some pervert with a camera might have taken pictures. But then, there, in the Mediterranean heat, no one wanted to know me. No one spoke to me, not even from pity.

Because I had the wrong personality, didn’t I? The entirely wrong personality. I was not a
world traveller
. I was not a go-getter. I was not a hail-fellow-well-met kind of person. I was surly, as I am now. I was churlish. I kept to myself—who would have wanted to know me? I spoke to no one—who would have wanted to listen?

What had the Mediterranean to do with me?—that was my thought, wasn’t it? What had it to do with me, with its remorseless sky, its heat, its beaches, its sunbathers? And what was I to it—an idiot with a rucksack and a head full of daft ideas? Where did the circles intersect: the set of the Mediterranean and the set of Lars?

I slept rough, didn’t I? I slept in a building site and then out in the open, on the rocks, the strap of my rucksack around my arm for security. I slept on a beach, didn’t I, and the sea came up? I thought:
I’ll sleep on this beach, how romantic!
, and then the sea came up and soaked my rucksack. The waves came in and I had to flee, didn’t I,
world traveller
? Up they came, the waves, and off I went into town, towards God-knows-where in the darkness, because I was lost, hopelessly lost on a Mediterranean island.

Why had I travelled to that island in the first place? Why did I book a ticket there, to that island, among all the others? It was something about the Book of Revelations, wasn’t it? It had been written there, hadn’t it? Did I think some great vision was going to befall me? Did I think I’d see the end of the world? What did I see on the beach, as the waves came up? What, as I was driven into town, looking for somewhere sensible to stay?

How long did I last out there in the Mediterranean? How long, in my new life as a
world traveller
? A few days, that was it, wasn’t it? A few days—a handful—instead of a lifetime. And there it was, green England, I could see it from my plane window. Green England—lush, verdant—and not the rocky Mediterranean.

Had I had any visions?, W. says, rocking back and forth with laughter. Had I finished a new Book of Revelations? Had something of the apocalypse been revealed to me? Ah, it’s his favourite story, W. says.

A Book of Revelations: was that what I was going to write?, says W. in a bar on the Liverpool quayside. A new Book of Revelations, a new Apocalypse of John: is that why I journeyed out to the Greek islands? It’s the funniest thing of all, W. says, the thought of me heading out on the ferry from Piraeus to Patmos with my
divine mission
in mind. Hilarious! What did I intend to do? What did I think would happen?

Of course Piraeus is disgusting now, everyone knows that. Was it really where I was going to begin my mystical journey? I must have been disappointed, W. says. I was, wasn’t I? Athens was bad enough, that’s what I told him, but Piraeus! Piraeus was an abomination! But I was borne along in a dream. I had my dream. I drifted along, a young idiot, a young fool.

‘And what did you have in your rucksack?’, W. asks. ‘What was in there?’ He pauses dramatically. ‘Your
typewriter!
’, exclaims W. ‘Your typewriter …’ It was some time ago, W. says. Before laptops, at any rate. Well, before they became cheap. And a pen and paper wouldn’t do, would it? Not for receiving the new Revelation of John. Not for taking dictation apropos the apocalypse. A typewriter! A typewriter was essential! It’s hilarious, W. says. How much did it weigh?

‘There you were’, says W., ‘on the ferry with your rucksack and your typewriter’. What books did I bring? Did I take anything to read? Oh he forgot, W. says. I was going to give up reading, wasn’t I? I was going to let it go. Books were going to drop out of my hand … What was I going to do instead? Act? Step into the world?—‘Hilarious!’, W. says. ‘The temerity!’, he says. Write? Yes, that was it, wasn’t
it?, he says. I was going to write. To write a new Book of Revelations.

‘Of course, you never got to your island, did you?’ It had gone wrong at Piraeus. I’d asked for the
wrong island
, or they misheard me, or they wanted to misdirect me. But I was heading for
Paros
, not
Patmos. Paros
, and by mistake—the party island! That was my
mystical journey
, W. says. A trip to a party island!

‘What did you think as the ferry docked?
Patmos has become ever so commercial
—is that what you thought?
It’s very noisy on Patmos
—was that it?
People don’t wear much on Patmos
—was that it?’

Still, I made good, didn’t I? I slept on a rock and woke in the sun. It was Sunday. Old ladies poured pomegranate seeds into my cupped hands. And then, rucksack on my back, up I went to the deserted monastery. I sat in the shade by the spring, didn’t I? I washed my face in the spring, lit a candle in the chapel, and rested, waiting for inspiration.

Imagine it: a Hindu in a Greek Orthodox monastery, completely deserted. A Hindu ready to write a new Book of Revelations. Imagine it:
Paros
, not
Patmos
! W. is on the floor, laughing. An idiot with a typewriter, on the wrong island. An idiot on his
mystical journey
 …

‘Let’s look at your notebook!’, says W. He’s sure something important must be written there. He’s sure that’s where he’ll find the answer.

And now it comes, the point of all points, which the Lord has truly revealed to me in my sleep: the point of all points for which there

Those were Rosenzweig’s last words, says W. That’s what he spelled out on his letterboard, blink by blink, when he was totally paralysed. He didn’t finish, says W. He wasn’t able to.

What would he, W., spell out if he were paralysed? Slowly, with the greatest of efforts, the following letters would appear:
L-A-R-S–I-S–A–C-O-C-K
.

Kafka’s last words were a different thing entirely, W. says. He wrote on scraps of paper because he couldn’t speak.
A bird was in the room
, that was one of them.
Lemonade. Everything was so infinite
, that was another. Whatever did he mean?

Brod saved Kafka’s conversation slips, W. says, as perhaps
he, W., should save my notes. ‘Give me your notebook!’, cries W. ‘Give it to posterity’.

‘
Beard of fat
’, W. reads from its pages. There’s an illustration, too.—‘Did you draw this?’ A picture of a belly, or a stomach, and of some grey stuff hanging off the belly. Of course, it was W. who told me about the beard of fat. Fat does not
accumulate
in the stomach so much as
hang off
it like a beard, he told me.—‘That’s what makes your belly round’, he said.

‘
Bickering
’, W. reads out. He remembers how Sal and I bickered in America.—‘The British working class in action’, W. explained to our hosts.

‘
Stretches of water
’, W. reads. A crude picture of a boat on the waves.—‘You must have been very bored’, W. says. He knows I dream of great stretches of water when I’m bored. Hadn’t I demanded to be taken to the Mersey when we were in Liverpool? And what about the lake at Titisee when we were in Freiburg?

W. comes to my poems, the ones I read to him when I’m drunk.

The wrong venue / the wrong city / the wrong time / the wrong conference / We are the wrong people / We are wrong

It has a marvellous simplicity, he says. And it’s so true. Another:

Why do we fail at the level of the banal / It’s not about thought, or whether we can think / but about not being able to have a shit / or being locked out of our bedrooms

That’s more like an aphorism than a poem, W. says. And then,

General incompetence is what will defeat capitalism / that’s why our general incompetence should make us laugh / even though it makes us cry

Very deep, W. says. There are several drawings too.—‘They’re from your David Shrigley phase, aren’t they?’

And something W. himself wrote: ‘
Your sin is the punishment of my life
’. When did he write that?, W. wonders. Sounds about right, though.

On the train, leaving Liverpool. Luckily, the bar sells Plymouth Gin. We pour our little bottles into plastic cups and toast our stupidity, as the rain runs diagonally down the windows.

W.’s hair is piled up in a great quiff. Does he pomade his hair?, I ask. No, he says, it’s naturally like that. What is pomade, anyway? He’s got no idea, he says.

W. looks like Gary Glitter, post-disgrace, I tell him. I look like a thug, W. says. A monkey thug with great dangling arms.—‘Who could suspect you of any
delicacy of thought
?’, W. says. ‘You look like what you are. You can’t pretend otherwise’. What about him, then? Was Gary Glitter a philosopher? Did Solomon Maimon have a quiff?

I should grow my hair, W. says. He’s always said that. He’s never liked my suedehead. But at least I’ve stopped wearing vests. W.’s seen the bags of vests in my flat, he says. Primark vests in military green, which cost no more than two pounds each, made by some third world child. It’s a scandal, he says.

You should never try and buy your own clothes, W. learned that long ago, he says. Sal buys his clothes for him, which is why he looks so natty.

‘You need a woman in your life’, W. says. ‘No woman
would have permitted your
vest phase
’. And then, ‘Your
vest phase
’, W. says, and shudders.—‘What were you thinking?’ And then, ‘It’s not as if you have a body worth showing off. You’re fat, not muscly. And you’re pale, you have that dreadful northern European pallor, for all your Hindu genes’.

The Dane in me is always ascendant, W. says. I’m Scandotrash, I can’t help it.

W. wants to nap, he says, but he knows I won’t let him. He slouches down in his seat, moaning softly. He wants to nap now so he can be up early tomorrow. He has to work. He’s got reading to do!, he says, but he knows this won’t sway me.

If he’s quiet for a moment, W. says, I’ll start sharing my ideas with him, my mad ideas, which he would never usually give me a chance to share. He’s weak, he says, he’s at his lowest, but the last thing he wants to hear are my
caffeine theories
, or my musings on the way I will be sacked.