Jammy Dodger (11 page)

‘Quigley? Whose raison d'etre is the transformation of metaphor into stage reality?'

‘The same.'

‘And what does he make of it?'

Winks sniffed.

‘He absolutely adores it.'

 

Once at Broadcasting House I progressed through a series of high-security air locks, decompression chambers and lifts to the canteen on the seventh floor where I was handed a styrofoam cupful of coffee (it might have been oxtail soup) and informed that Monty Monteith, veteran presenter of
The Big Arts Show
, would be along presently. I took a seat and pulled out the notes I had jotted on the back of a takeaway menu. Around me, BBC staff, some of them familiar from television, tucked into late lunches or lingered over hot drinks. I tried to filter out their chatter so I could concentrate. Two men, both in leather jackets, stood at a nearby window looking down into the street. ‘See that Beemer?' the older man was saying. ‘The Troubles paid for that. Overtime. I wouldn't be driving that if there was peace.'

‘I hear you,' his companion said. ‘I'm thinking of – '

‘Artie?'

A well-dressed woman in her mid-thirties with bobbed hair and expensive glasses was standing beside me.

‘Yes?'

‘I'm Sinead, Monty's producer.'

‘Pleased to meet you.'

‘Monty'll be with you in a minute, he's just finishing in make-up.'

‘Right … Make-up? For radio?'

‘He likes to look his best. Old school.' She shot me a smile that melted instantly into a look of engrained suffering. ‘Are you set? Do you have everything you need?'

I assured her I had.

‘Good, see you in Studio Three. Remember, just be yourself.' Sound advice.

I tried to decipher my notes. We were creeping towards show time and I was experiencing a flicker of nerves. Did I actually have anything to say? I'd rehearsed a few phrases but …

‘Arthur, is it? Monty Monteith. Big Arts.'

Tall, with hair the colour of Guinness foam and attired (I kid you not) in a dinner suit, the great man extended a languorous hand.

‘Call me Artie,' I said.

‘Good man Artie.' He squeezed my knuckles until they cracked audibly.

He sat down, eased back and spread his knees wide. His face was huge, untroubled by self-doubt, ice-blue eyes accentuated by the burnt orange of his pancake make-up.

‘Let me have it Artie.'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘What are we looking at here?'

‘I'm not sure …'

‘What's the bottom line?

‘I'm sorry Monty, in what sense?'

‘The book, it's poetry right?'

‘Oh. Yes. Yes, it's a book of poems.'

‘So what's your opinion? What do you think?'

I took a deep breath.

‘Well, I thought I'd start by saying something about the overall theme being – '

‘Wait, what's the title?'

‘What?'

‘The title of the book.'

‘It's called
Postcards From Here.
'

‘Right. And it's by?'

‘Dylan Delaney?' Was he serious? Surely he knew that much?

He nodded and paddled his hands in a circular motion, inviting me to go on.

‘The overall theme being, I suppose – to reverse a famous line of Philip Larkin's – that something, like nothing, happens anywhere. That
place
– by which I mean wherever you happen to be at any one time – is in a sense less important than what happens in the head.'

Monteith suddenly looked very sleepy. I continued.

‘And then I thought I'd say something about this being an ingenious, if at times ingenuous, debut. Some might even say
jejune
– ' I didn't really know what this word meant, but I was betting Monteith didn't either. ‘… and that I believe this to be a very convincing statement of intent, the emergence of a significant new voice and …'

Monteith's lids were closed. Was he asleep?

‘I'm just resting my eyes. Please go on.'

‘… And something like, you know, if Delaney can sustain this quality into the future then we'll have, um, a real contender on our hands.'

‘What about the verses themselves?'

‘Individual poems, you mean? I've a few in mind I thought I'd single out for comment, depending on how much time we have.' (I had to be careful here. Delaney's book contained a couple of eye-poppingly explicit pieces – specifically,
Down in Cherryvalley
and
Fundamental Love
– that I'd really rather we
didn't
discuss.)

‘Plenty of time.'

‘Well generally, they range from short romantic lyrics such as
The Bad Ferret
to political pieces like
Barricade Your Mind
and longer meditations such as
Ballymena Dancing
that explore social and sexual taboos. Technically-speaking they often employ traditional forms – Popish heroic couplets, for example – to wrong-foot the reader's postmodern expectations.'

‘Yes?'

‘I also thought, again depending on time, that I'd briefly pick up on his exhilarating use of arcane language, which at times makes the verse read like something out of, I don't know …
Jabberwocky
.'

At this point Monteith's eyes flashed open and he stood up.

‘Okay Artie, let's do it.'

 

Studio Three was as hot and airless as a killing jar, and the imitation leather of my chair honked beneath me at the slightest provocation. I was starting to get a bad feeling.

‘Slip your headphones on there Artie,' Monteith advised. ‘And not too close to the microphone, there's a good man.'

I could see Sinead sitting at a console on the other side of the glass beside an unshaven technician in a lumberjack shirt. She gave me the thumbs up. ‘One minute,' her voice said through a speaker on the wall behind me. Monteith, who was studying the back page of the
Belfast Newsletter
, waved at her without looking up. A copy of Delaney's book lay untouched on his desk in front of him where Sinead had left it.

‘Thirty seconds.'

Accelerated heartbeat.

‘Ten seconds.'

Sub-atomic rush.

The red light was on.

‘Good afternoon everyone and you're very welcome to The Big Arts Show,' purred Monteith. ‘We have a real
smorgasbord
of cultural canapes for you today, from
fantastic
opera and
fabulous
writing to the first performance of an
exciting
new concerto for uilleann pipes and Lambeg drum so, without further ado, let's get started.'

From having been sonorous but perfectly normal outside the studio, Monteith's voice had dropped half an octave and become quadrophonic. His perfectly-modulated Ulster accent, combined with this creamy, cello-like timbre, was lulling and beguiling, the aural equivalent of being immersed in a bath of warm fudge.

‘I have in the studio Artie Conville, co-editor of the distinguished literary magazine
Lyre
, who is with me to talk about
Postcards From Here,
a recent collection of poems – ' He pronounced it poy-ems. ‘… by one of our most promising young poets, Dylan Delaney. Artie, welcome to the programme.'

‘Thank you Monty.'

‘Artie, this is an ingenious, if at times ingenuous debut, a statement of intent and one some believe could mark the emergence of a significant new voice – ' Hold on, what was this? ‘If Delaney were able to sustain this quality, would he, in your opinion, be a serious literary contender?'

I had a sense of falling through many fathoms of dead air. The red light was lasering my nearside retina. My shirt was damp. My leg twitched. The chair farted.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Yes he would. Um … yeah. I think … definitely … um …' What the hell? What was Monty …? (I registered Sinead raising her head, regarding me through puckered lids.)

‘Let's talk now about the overall theme of the book,' Monteith suggested. ‘It strikes me that what Delaney's saying is – to flip that line of Larkin's around – that
something
, like nothing, happens anywhere. That
place
– by which I mean wherever you are at any one time – is in a way less important than where you are in your head. Does that sound about right?'

This was unbelievable. My mouth was suddenly incredibly dry. I swallowed hard and leaned towards the microphone. The leather parped.

‘Yes, Monty,' I admitted. ‘Um, yes, it does. I think you've hit it on the … er … yep, I think that sums it up very well.' There was a ringing in my ears as though someone had just pinged an empty wineglass with a fork. It wasn't feedback. (Sinead was giving me a lynx-eyed stare.)

‘Let's move on now to the poet's use of arcane language,' Monteith oozed. ‘In places the verse reads almost like
nonsense
poetry, like something out of … I don't know …' You bloody
do
know, you bastard. Go on, say it. ‘… 
Jabberwocky
. It's really quite exhilarating, isn't it?'

I was badly in need of water. Why was there no water? My tongue felt like a Weetabix cake. I raised my arm to dab some sweat and my magic chair did itself proud. (I sensed urgent technical adjustments going on behind the glass.)

‘Um, yes Monty,' I croaked. ‘It is indeed. Er … exactly. As you say. Almost at times like, um, nonsense poetry, like, er, indeed,
Jabberwocky
… and um …' I felt like I was having a stroke but at least I was managing to say more words.

Then, a sidewinder.

‘Some might consider this
jejune
– do you?'

This was it. I was definitely having a stroke. I tried to lick my velcro lips. Monteith was reading the newspaper again. I shifted on my whoopee cushion.

‘Well, er, to be honest, um, I'm not sure it's helpful to, um, apply words like jejune to work that is so, er, obviously … I mean, um, that has yet to … um, in the scheme of things … to, er, establish exactly what it … er, wants to say and of course, um, by extension … how to say it?' My surprise at having reached the end of the sentence caused me to finish on a high-pitched, querulous note.

Monteith breezed on.

‘We've been talking very generally so far but I'd like to move, if I may, to the poy-ems themselves …' He had
Postcards
in his hand. ‘Which range, of course, from romantic lyrics to political pieces, to longer meditations on sexual taboos … but there's one I'm looking at right now, entitled – '

An icy tongue tickled the back of my neck. Please no. Don't let it be
Down in Cherryvalley
… or worse …

‘… 
Fundamental Love
, in which the poet talks about
forbidden fruit being the sweetest
, and having beseeched his lady friend to make their love
a tighter fit
, he ends:
Bear with me, we'll get to the bottom of it
… Artie, could you take us through this?'

So it
could
be worse. As far as I could see, my choice was this: either I could explain to the God-fearing people of Northern Ireland exactly what the poem was about and secure my future as a leper-hermit on a rock in the Atlantic, or I could waffle. As I mumbled my way around (and under and above) Delaney's most aberrant work I kept catching glimpses of Sinead's red-hot eyes and realised, too late, that I should have asked for cash upfront.

‘Now, technically, of course,' Monteith began again. (Please make it stop.) ‘The poet often wrong-foots the reader's postmodern expectations by his use of traditional forms. For example he's fond of Popish heroic couplets – isn't this a bit risky? Isn't there a danger he could alienate one half of the community?'

After what seemed like another three hours, during which Monteith cornered me in several more linguistic cul-de-sacs and left me to die in an abandoned ideological mine shaft, we reached the end.

‘So there we have it,' he crooned. ‘A fascinating collection from a highly promising young poet. Now before we move on to our next item, it just remains for me to thank my guest,
Lyre
editor Artie Conville. Artie, I think it's only fair to give you the final say. Off you go Artie, the last word, then, on Dylan Delaney.'

The last word? THE LAST WORD? You stole all the words, you bastard! YOU ABSOLUTE –

‘Yeah, thanks Monty, I um … I er …' Hold it back, hold it back. ‘I … er … I …' All the supercharged, greasy-sweat fury was bubbling up. ‘I er … I … um …' Don't let go. It's nearly over. Where were the words?

‘Erm, yes, it's … er, well … His real name's Keith.'

 

*

 

The city's social circles were small and overlapping and I next ran into Delaney on Saturday night. He was in the midst of a train of young ladies dancing out of Johnny Devine's place as I was going in. He spotted me immediately. ‘Jejune?' he cried as we drew parallel, and again, hoarsely over his shoulder: ‘
Jejune?
' I was grinning and shrugging and then I was swallowed by the house. He didn't come after me. He had looked a bit peevish but, to be honest, I didn't feel too bad about it. While I had to concede that my performance earlier in the week probably wouldn't make it into any end-of-year best-of radio compilations, I thought that, overall,
Postcards
had received a pretty good review, albeit through unwitting ventriloquy. In fact, it was possible we'd made it sound slightly better than it was.

Devine lived in a large, three-storey Victorian redbrick that stood alone, detached from the rest of its terrace several years previously by a fire that had destroyed the three houses adjacent. Its isolation was a happy circumstance for all concerned as he lived with five other artists, all male, all of them committed to feverish self-expression. In theory, this was supposed to result in a powerhouse of artistic endeavour earthed by a salon of intellectuals constantly discussing the future of human creativity; in practice it meant a lot of drinking and talking bollocks. Drugs were a staple of the house regimen, as signalled by William Blake's famous quotation about
the doors of perception
, inscribed in fluorescent letters on the lintel above the foot of the stairs. (
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern
.)