Jammy Dodger (22 page)

They were classic Larkins, made, apparently, of some form of onyx, with scratched, biscuit-thick lenses. I tried them on. It was like viewing the world through pond ice. It hurt. I held my hands in front of my eyes. Smears of pink. Oliver's face loomed at me like a reflection in a fairground mirror.

‘Well?' he enquired.

‘I can't see a thing. Show me the others.'

‘Actually, that's all I could find.'

‘You gotta be – '

A large algae-coloured shape was pulsating in the doorway. I removed the glasses. It was the actor. Wearing his poet suit. We stood for a few moments in silence, taking it in. I had to admit, it wasn't an easy look to carry off, but Fisher was as close to getting away with it as could reasonably be expected. The jacket, apart from a certain brutality to the cut of the shoulders and a slight flare at the midriff, was a success. It looked authentic. It had
gravitas
. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of the trousers. To begin with, they were too short. The suit may once have been the property of a big man, a broad man, but it had not belonged to a tall man. These trews stopped three-quarters of the way down Fisher's legs, leaving exposed an alarming span of bony white shank. Length, though, was not the whole story. Their real drawback lay in the construction of the crotch area, where a substantial weight of material had been invested in a foot-long welted fly. Over the years the strain of this feature had fatigued the surrounding fabric, dragging the gusset down to about knee level. From the front this made it appear as though the wearer had been cursed with an absurdly short lower body; from the rear it invited the suspicion that the breeches were cradling a grotesquely overburdened nappy. The overall impression at this stage was of D.H. Lawrence in the role of Toad of Toad Hall. Those flaws aside, though, it wasn't bad.

‘The jacket's good,' I said.

‘Yep, yep, the jacket's working,' Oliver agreed.

‘Really? It's okay?' There was anxiety in the actor's voice. ‘What about the trousers?'

Oliver and I exchanged glances.

‘They're fine. A little short, but we can fix that. Oliver, do you still have those Doc Martens?' I asked.

‘Yes, but – '

‘Great, we'll pick them up on the way. Now let's do the hair. We're against the clock.'

Fisher squeezed his own lank mane under a mesh skull-cap and pulled on the first wig, the Alsatian. The colour mis-match with the beard was interesting, but there was a whiff of the shock-treatment lab about the style.

‘Mmm, a little bit serial killer. Could frighten the kids,' I concluded.

He donned the Swinburne which, although just about on the sane side of unruly, chimed with the frilly Shelley shirt for a much gentler effect.

‘Oliver, the spectacles, if you please.'

Fisher eased the glasses on and staggered slightly sideways.

‘Holy shit! I can't – '

‘Don't worry,' I soothed. ‘You'll get used to them in no time.'

There was no doubt about it: the Larkins pulled the whole ensemble together, completed the picture. The question was: what was it we were looking at?

 

Our venue was a boys' secondary school twenty miles from town where, we'd been told, our impending visit would have shiny-eyed sixth-formers hopping from foot to foot gagging for culture. In the taxi, Dunseverick practised declaiming some of his poetry. If you closed your eyes and focused on his grave, actorly voice it actually sounded like … poetry. It was only when he'd read out one of the weaker efforts (a Crapsey cinquain by Oliver about an injured blackbird) that I realised he could probably make a tax demand sound good. Tendons were twitching in the driver's neck and after a while he yielded his verdict. ‘Too fucken modern for me,' he announced. ‘I'm more a fan of your old-fashioned …'

It began to drizzle and he flicked on the wipers. The trees on either side of the road had lost most of their green now and started on the slow burn from ochre to copper, the colours blurring in the rain. The year had passed its tipping point. (
Lord: it is time. The summer was immense. / Lay your shadow on the sundials / and let loose the wind in the fields.
) We pushed on into the countryside, glimpsing now and then drumlins beyond the hedgerows, tractors at work against a mercurial sky. I was experiencing intense pangs of seasonal change: a feeling not unlike the late stages of convalescence; a sense – nagging, elusive – that something invisible was somewhere preparing to swarm.

But there was something else as well, a commingling of excitement and melancholy that may simply, of course, have been underlying fear. We had set in train, after all, events that required careful management and that were fast gaining their own momentum. It had become clear in recent days just how vulnerable our plans were to circumstance, to outside interference, to chaos, and how easy it would be for it all to spin out of control. The unreality of the current situation was not lost on me: one glance over my shoulder, at the Poet From Another Dimension mumbling to himself in the back seat, was enough to elicit something close to panic. How to make it stop though?

 

It was still raining when we reached the school. While I waited for the driver to compose a receipt, I watched Oliver help Dunseverick up the front steps. Technically blind, and severely hindered by his pendulous bags, the poet was forced to adopt an Orangutan-like gait in order to haul his, it had transpired, outlandishly large boots up and over each obstacle. That he was making such heavy weather of relatively unchallenging terrain was not reassuring. (Nor was my observation of him on several occasions that morning taking needy gulps from a blistered hip-flask.)

We were greeted in the foyer by a young, prematurely-balding teacher in a chalky gown. He seemed surprised that there were three of us.

‘Oh, I, we weren't expecting … Mr Winks said …'

‘It's alright,' I told him, gesturing to my left. ‘There's only one poet.'

He stared uncertainly at Dunseverick, who sniffed in his direction like a new-born rat, and then at us again.

‘We're just his minders,' explained Oliver.

The man nodded, clearly confused.

‘Publishers,' I corrected. ‘We're his publishers. But we also take care of his engagements, you know how it is with these artists, they're not great at the organisational side of things.'

‘Ah, good. That's … Shall we get started?'

He bade us follow him along a corridor, then stopped.

‘Listen, I should tell you. There's been a bit of a mix-up – ' He treated us to a toothy rictus. ‘I'm afraid the seniors are actually away on a field trip, up at the Giant's Causeway, looking at rocks or something. But luckily the first-years have a free period … I hope that's okay?'

We proceeded towards the assembly hall past classrooms and laboratories from which drifted nostalgic vapours of camphor and sulphur, disinfectant and dead vegetables. The jungle sounds that we'd noticed on arrival – the yelping, screeching, grunting and hooting – grew louder. I looked back at Dunseverick labouring behind us in his lead boots. His beard was twitching with independent life. He halted outside the toilets.

‘I'm just going to … I'll just be a minute,' he informed us.

While we waited our guide gave us a brief and tedious history of the school. I didn't hear a word. My mind was flexing through possible scenarios in the event of discovery. Would I be able to make a run for it? Pass it off as a joke? Blame it all on Oliver?

Dunseverick reappeared a few minutes later, his chin temporarily sedated.

‘You okay, champ?' I enquired.

‘Never better. Now, let's do some poetry,' he replied. He shuffled onward, leaving in his feeble slipstream the fumes of some potent but unidentifiable spirit.

The first-years spotted his trousers immediately but luckily Dunseverick was too focused on clambering onto the stage to worry about the merriment. Our chaperone, on the other hand, whose survival
depended
on the early detection of anarchy, moved in to shut it down. Eventually, the boys were cowed into a receptive silence and the talent stepped up to the lectern.

‘
Poetry is a mirror
,' he boomed. ‘
Which makes beautiful that which is distorted
.'

What was this? Ad-libbing?

The first-years stared up at him.

The poet adjusted his glasses.

‘When I was your age our English teacher used to start the class with that line. Does anyone know who said it?'

A hand went up.

‘Yes?'

‘Your teacher?'

Exaggerated laughter.

‘Boys! Boys!' Their keeper was on his feet. ‘That'll do, thank you …'

‘No,' said Dunseverick, with a quiver of the chin. ‘No. It was a poet called Percy Bysshe Shelley. Does anyone know anything about Shelley?'

Another hand.

‘Yes?'

‘Sir, was he very very smelly?'

Uproarious cackling.

‘Boys! Boys! That'll do! Childish …'

Dunseverick's chin jerked twice, three times.

‘Perhaps we'd better just get on with the poems,' he muttered.

Thank God.

‘The first one I'd like to read is called
Ship of Fools
and it's about – '

Something small and hard ricocheted off the base of the lectern. The teacher jumped up and scanned the front row. Falcon eyes. Snake eyes. No one cracked. He wagged a warning finger and sat down again between Oliver and me.

‘… About a famous ship called the
Titanic
, which, as you all know, was built in Belfast …'

There was a murmur of apathy.

The poet took a breath, consulted his typescript and realised he couldn't see. Hoisting his glasses up and outwards so they were poised just above the bridge of his nose, he peered downwards and began.

 

‘
Could it be, the whole disaster pivots
Not on fire or ice, or ignored advice,
But on the quality of the rivets?'

 

Apart from an occasional slur, he was reading it well. Slow and generally clear, with a slightly Shakespearean style. And was it my imagination or was he trying out a soft Tyrone accent? Definitely something going on with the intonation. His audience tired of coughing and fidgeting and settled into a trance-like condition.

 

‘… 
That a ship, unchristened, would be all at sea,
Regardless of religion or technology.
‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.'

 

He rattled on through his perilously limited repertoire (we'd told him not to attempt
The Stubble Burners
). After a while I tiptoed outside for a refreshing cigarette. It had stopped raining and there was a faint layer of steam on the surface of the playing fields. From where I was standing I could see into the assembly hall and the top third of the poet above his pulpit. Even blurred by the condensation on the windows the look wasn't quite right. I began to think about adjustments …

As I re-entered the venue Dunseverick was concluding his reading with my favourite of his poems – or rather, his favourite of my poems.

 

‘
The streetlamps fade. The dreamers are stirring
 …'

 

He paused for effect, squinting into space through his mysterious lenses. His beard twitched.

 

‘
Let's pretend it's the morning of the world
.'

 

He waited a beat. Two beats. God he was good.

‘Thank you. Thank you very much.'

The appreciation was slow to come and fast to fizzle out.

The teacher hovered over his seat.

‘Well boys I'm sure you all agree that was terrific stuff. Very enjoyable. And now I think Mr Dunseverick might be willing to take a few questions …?'

He sought confirmation from the stage but none was forthcoming. I looked at Oliver. We hadn't thought this far ahead. It struck me it could be treacherous terrain.

‘Okey-dokey then.' A fresh rictus. ‘Who has a question for … our guest?'

Several hands.

‘Sir, where do you get the ideas for your poems?'

Nothing too challenging there.

The poet burbled for a few minutes about feelings and dreams, and about how poetry was everywhere and how (without giving examples) he never knew quite when it would strike. His questioner was blatantly unimpressed.

‘Anyone else?'

‘Sir, can poetry be any good if it doesn't rhyme?'

For some reason Dunseverick had to think about this one.

‘Interesting question. And the answer is yes, certainly, it can. Some of Shakespeare's greatest soliloquies …'

At this point our balding mediator was distracted by something in the corridor and excused himself to attend to it. The atmosphere changed.

‘Sir, are you a Catlick or a Proddydog?'

‘Pardon?'

Another small-calibre, high-velocity missile cracked against the podium and shattered. And again. Someone farted.

‘Sir, your trousers look very heavy. Are they full of cack?'

‘
What
?'

A fight broke out in the second row. The noise rose to incipient riot level. A Kola Kube whistled past Oliver's ear.

‘Little bastards,' he growled.

‘Sir, sir …'

Dunseverick was confused by what was happening and raised his spectacles the better to see.

‘Yes?'

‘Sir, what's wrong with your chin?'

‘You cheeky fu – '

A sucked pear drop hit him in the eye.

‘Ow, Christ – '

‘Boys! Boys! That's enough now! That'll do!'

They shrank back in their chairs. The tumult died. Their tamer had reappeared, accompanied by a familiar figure in a Burnt Umber corduroy suit.

‘Boys, this is Mr Winks – ' Cue sniggering. ‘… From the Arts Council, and he's here to take some pictures of you and Mr Dunseverick for the Council magazine. Isn't that exciting? Now, I need you all to form into lines by height …'