Diary of a Somebody Read online

  We were looking at Picasso’s Weeping Woman, and I was halfway through telling her Picasso’s full name, when Liz interrupted:

  ‘Thanks for all the trivia, Brian. But how does this painting make you feel?’

  I must admit this threw me. There was nothing in the books that prepared me for this. There was nothing in them about how I felt. I stared at the Weeping Woman, thinking hard.

  ‘Wittgenstein once said that “What can be shown cannot be said”,’ I responded, channelling my inner Tomas.

  Liz nodded at this, although I couldn’t help thinking she seemed a little disappointed, too, as if this was a test and I’d come up short.

  I kept the rest of my facts to myself as we continued our tour of the gallery. An hour or so later, we parted at the bus shelter in an awkward embrace, half-hug, half-sideways feint, as the bus approached. Just before she climbed aboard, she said: ‘I enjoyed today. We should do it again,’ before handing me her phone number on the back of a beer mat she’d stolen from the cafeteria.

  Saturday May 26th

  Love is Where the Lines Join Up

  I’ve been doing maths revision with Dylan today. For once, I did not throw his books down in a fit of pique, attempt to worm my way out of it or suggest watching television. Instead, we got down to it for four hours – algebra, ratios, geometry and probability, taking in two-way tables, tree diagrams and Venn diagrams along the way.

  I find there’s something very beautiful about a Venn diagram; it’s all in the way the curves intersect.

  Sunday May 27th

  ‘ARE YOU READY?!!!’

  We were watching British grime artist Diamond Gee-Zah (real name: Dennis Pike). The audience shouted back as if to say yes, we are ready, for all moments have led to this moment, and we find ourselves poised and primed in this near-perfect state of readiness. I could see Darren joining in but I didn’t add my voice to the response as I waited at the bar for another two pints.

  ‘I SAID, “ARE YOU READY???!!!” ’

  The crowd was roaring now as they approached peak readiness.

  That’s how it continued for most of the night against a backdrop of bass vibration and beats, pogoing and stomping. It was a rather intense, noisy affair for a Sunday evening, and I found myself wishing it was last Friday again, contemplating the slaughtered corpses of cows preserved in formaldehyde, with Liz.

  ‘I SAID . . . “ARE . . . YOU . . . READY???!!!” ’

  Was I ready? Now there was a question.

  When the lights came on at the end, Darren turned to me with a stupid smile and said: ‘I guess it’s a rap.’ I could tell he’d been waiting to say that all evening. I ignored his remark – as it only encourages him – and I was annoyed because I’d been waiting to say it, too.

  Monday May 28th

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  A Bank Holiday Monday empty of commitments and a reliable, if moderately speeded, Wi-Fi connection is a dangerous nexus for someone with a bank account oozing with redundancy money.

  The focus of my online attentions was to find a few furnishings for my soon-to-arrive writer’s shed. I stuck to the essentials: a writing desk and chair, two floor-to-ceiling bookcases, an antique Remington home typewriter, a whiteboard for brainstorming writerly thoughts, a desk lamp, a standing lamp, some curtains, a rug, a small wood-burning stove, a yoga mat, a new kettle, two tins of Lapsang Souchong, coffee machine, two packets of fair-trade Sumatran kopi luwak coffee, a neo-Dada abstract painting by up-and-coming artist Monica Banerjee, three cushions, three Penguin Classics cushion covers, a footbath, a mini-fridge and an antique globe mini-bar.

  I didn’t bother with stationery as I already have enough of that.

  Tuesday May 29th

  I’ve been carrying Liz’s beer mat around in my pocket since last Friday and although I’ve taken it out to stare at the digits from time to time – hourly, to be more precise – I have yet to take affirmative action of any description.

  As is customary, I’ve been working hard at convincing myself that this inaction is borne of a deliberate long-term strategy of playing hard-to-get rather than the accumulation of years of shyness and social awkwardness.

  And so, instead of picking up my phone and keying in those eleven simple digits, I choose rather to sit here, beneath the cat, and write a poem: not one for me to perform at next month’s Poetry Club; not one written for my own amusement; but one written because it feels like a kind of action even if no one will ever see it except me.

  Please Excuse Me

  My dear ambassador, I am afraid

  I am unable to join your pompous parade

  of dignitaries on Thursday evening,

  because I am working my way through

  seven seasons of The West Wing.

  Such an enthralling drama, I have found;

  it passed me by first time around.

  How thoughtful of you to invite me

  to this exhibition by contemporary artists

  on ‘Post-Urban Space: Dislocation and Catharsis’;

  it’s an important theme that resonates

  deep within me. But I cannot make this date,

  nor indeed the next six weeks;

  I have to read ten thousand tweets.

  Dear Lord and Lady Asquith, I was charmed

  to receive in the post today, your card

  inviting me to supper at Hedge End –

  ever the magnificent setting.

  Gustav’s profiteroles are legend.

  I would love to come, I really would rather,

  but I’ve reached a new level on Candy Crush Saga.

  Thank you, world, for thinking of me.

  I’ve never been much good at society.

  Please do not think me rude

  but I would rather hide my shyness

  in solitude, behind a screen,

  and use my own knife

  to whittle down the hours of life,

  to something barely seen.

  Wednesday May 30th

  Tonight was a new book group low for me. What with one thing (Liz) and another (Liz again), I hadn’t progressed further than page 12 of Money. I could sense the group’s disapprobation as I attempted to bring the conversation around from its very specific and limited focus on one particular novel written by one particular author at a very particular time, to a far broader and wide-ranging discussion of the whole nature and philosophy of money, along with the intrinsic flaws of the world financial system.

  To illustrate my point, I showed how, through some strategic doodling and folding, it was possible to transform the Queen’s face on a ten-pound note into that of Amy Winehouse, but no one seemed to show any interest in this. What’s more, when I went up to the bar to get some more honey-roasted peanuts, the barman wouldn’t accept my money and threatened to report me for treason.

  Thursday May 31st

  I checked into Twitter to find a message waiting for me from Liz:

  Want to meet up tomorrow?

  It seemed that my spurious hard-to-get strategy had worked after all. There seemed little choice but to accept:

  Sure. Where shall we go?

  Please say somewhere with a ready supply of alcohol. Or, failing that, some place where talking is frowned upon, like the British Library. Or a Trappist monastery.
>
  Betjeman Arms at 8?

  Yes! A pub! Perhaps it was a Trappist pub. I could get there early and have a quick drink to steady my nerves. At 6.30, say.

  OK. See you there!

  I’d used the exclamation mark as a signifier of excitement. I hoped this wasn’t lost on Liz.

  I shared the news with the cat. She gave me a look that was rather difficult to read but is perhaps most accurately translated as: ‘Try not to blow it this time, you idiot.’

  June

  Friday June 1st

  Out of the Rain

  We ran down the high street and into the pub,

  as we cheated the rain that fell from above,

  dodging the puddles that had formed on the floor.

  Such a beautiful day for a nuclear war.

  You draped your wet coat on the back of your chair,

  We emptied our drinks. The rain dripped from your hair.

  A Guinness. Another. Then I went back for more.

  What a beautiful day for a nuclear war.

  We talked. Our first pets. Favourite songs and film stars.

  We flicked pistachio shells back into the jar.

  You tried not to yawn. You must have thought me a bore.

  It was a beautiful day for a nuclear war.

  The days have changed now but I keep that one apart.

  I carry it with me, tattooed on my heart.

  The Guinness. Your wet hair. The dress that you wore.

  Such a beautiful day for a nuclear war.

  The news was awful. It rained all day. I drank too much. But these were incidentals, mere footnotes in the book of love. For once, no crib cards were needed – although I did have a few secreted about my person just in case – for the conversation flowed like a simile in its pure liquid state. Gone was my usual shambling self, tripping up over my words, trampling on the flower beds of social interaction. Liz stripped me of my awkwardness, one layer at a time.

  I wasn’t the only one who had plans to arrive early. I was speeding around the corner onto the high street when we ran into each other. Our coats drip-dried on our chairs while we supped on pints of Guinness.

  ‘These things are awful, aren’t they?’ said Liz.

  ‘Yes,’ I confessed. ‘I mean, no. It’s not awful being with you. I really enjoyed the other day.’

  ‘Me, too! But I meant the whole business of getting to know someone, whoever they are. Will they like me? Will I like them? What should I wear? What if I say the wrong thing? All that nonsense!’

  ‘Yes, exactly!’ I almost shouted. ‘But I can’t imagine you worrying about such things. You’re the woman who just turned up at Poetry Club one night and effortlessly performed a poem about a second-hand copy of The Joy of Sex in front of a room of complete strangers.’

  I tried not to distract myself too much with that memory.

  ‘Oh, that’s different,’ said Liz. ‘Extroverts can be shy, too, you know.’

  ‘Shyness is nice,’ I said.

  ‘And shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life you’d like to.’

  ‘You recognised the reference!’

  ‘How could I not?’ she said. ‘It’s my favourite Smiths song.’

  I felt weak from her loveliness. We talked and drank, drank and talked. We spoke of adored songs and abhorred films, failed relationships and foiled plans, impossible pasts and improbable futures.

  ‘What would you like to be when you grow up?’ Liz asked, as we got to work on our final pints.

  I stared into my pint in search of an answer.

  ‘I don’t know. Just . . . somebody, I suppose,’ I answered after a while. ‘I don’t mean anything grand by that. I don’t want to be famous. Or rich. I just don’t want to end up being a nobody, that’s all. I’d like to be somebody. Somebody who’s really good at being me.’

  ‘Aren’t you good at being that already?’

  ‘No, not really. It doesn’t come easily to me.’

  I took a big gulp of Guinness.

  ‘Well, whoever it is you’re being,’ said Liz, ‘I think you’re doing a good job of it.’

  ‘And you?’ I asked. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I don’t think I ever want to be grown up.’

  The rain had stopped by the time we left the pub and I walked Liz to the bus stop. The bus was pulling up as we got there. She turned to ask me whether I’d like to go back to hers for coffee.

  I must have panicked. I’d meant to say yes but before I knew it I was explaining how I don’t really drink coffee these days because I need to be careful with my caffeine consumption as it makes me vulnerable to spells of insomnia AND my GP warned me off it because my cholesterol levels are borderline high, and besides, I feel uneasy about this coffee culture that has grown up in recent years, most likely due to the popularity of Friends, because it just feels like we’re being sold a lifestyle, based on a kind of faux New Yorker sophistication, whereas in reality, it’s all about corporations trying to empty our pockets . . .

  As the bus pulled away, I saw Liz looking down at me with disappointment from the top deck.

  I walked through the puddles to my own bus stop and lifted my head up to the sky. It looked like the heavens might open once more. Come, friendly bombs, and fall on me.

  Saturday June 2nd

  The Schleswig-Holstein Questions

  1. What was Schleswig’s profession?

  A. Sailor B. Composer C. Owl D. Great Dane

  2. Where was Holstein born?

  A. Sweden B. Brentwood C. Schleswig D. Ukraine

  3. What was the relationship between Schleswig and Holstein?

  A. Brothers B. Lovers C. Troubled D. Secure

  4. Which protocol was violated by King Christian IX?

  A. Don’t know B. Don’t care C. Beats me D. Unsure

  5. Why did Prussia become involved?

  A. Why not? B. No clue C. Because D. Search me

  6. The Baltic was of strategic importance. But was it an insect, a river or larger mass of water?

  A. Bee B. Dee C. Eh? D. Sea

  7. How do Guildenstern and Rosencrantz fit into it all?

  A. They don’t B. They won’t C. Who knows D. They’re dead

  8. Where would you rather be than taking this exam?

  A. Outside B. At home C. Elsewhere D. In bed

  Today was History. Having lived through an increasing amount of it, I felt a momentary wave of optimism that this time I might be of some genuine use to Dylan. I’d been hoping for a little bit of Tudors (I have read the first 120 pages of Wolf Hall and so consider myself something of an expert on the topic) or the origins of the First World War but then he started to get out his books on mid-nineteenth-century European diplomacy and my heart – like the ocean liner RMS Lusitania on 7th May 1915 – sank . . .

  The Schleswig-Holstein Question.

  I’d failed to understand this topic back in the 80s – and those were simpler times – so what chance did I have now? Stuart had already made him a full-colour timeline of key events so that just deepened my feelings of ignorance and inadequacy.

  Fair play to Dylan, though, who did his best to keep me motivated throughout. When we were done, he took me and my hangover to the park for an ice-cream.

  Sunday June 3rd

  Here begins a new approach to book group. My performance last week was poor, even by my own shabby standards, and I’d been reflecting on this for a while. What has been lacking is motivation; it’s simply been too easy not to read the book, particularly when there’ve been so many other things clamouring for my attention. What I needed was an incentive.

  I headed off into town to Bloomer’s Antiquarian Books to see if I could pick up a copy of this month’s choice, Robinson Crusoe. A collectable antique edition would surely provide the much-needed impetus for me to take it off the shelf and get the thing read.

  Mr Bloomer is more antiquarian than most of his stock, and most of his stock is very old indeed. There is a particularly attractive ninetee
nth-century edition, he informed me, illustrated with engravings by Cruikshank, which he was hopeful of getting his liver-spotted, antiquarian hands on over the next few days. While there, I picked up a few other titles, including a first edition of Brideshead Revisited, a signed copy of Larkin’s The Whitsun Weddings and a six-volume set of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, all of which I thought might lend a certain air of erudition to my writer’s shed when it arrives next weekend.

  I paid for these and put down a deposit for Robinson Crusoe, rather ashen-faced. Who’d have thought that old books covered in dust could be so expensive?

  Monday June 4th

  My beautiful satinwood writing desk has arrived. It has twin blind frieze drawers with almost perfect shut lines, baluster turned and knopped end supports on square-cut and C-scroll trestle bases and leaf-carved scroll feet. Its tooled green-leather writing surface comes in matching shades with gilded tooling and embossing. It was made by nineteenth-century furniture makers Miles and Edwards, whose patrons included several British Ambassadors to Paris and an Empress of Russia.

  I practised sitting at it for most of the afternoon, adopting ambassadorial stances, looking up in annoyance at untimely interruptions from my non-existent first secretary and signing fake treaties. It made me want to dip my pen into an inkwell and to write an actual, proper letter, not fire off a quick email or text; to sit there methodically composing each sentence in my head before committing my pen to paper, just as I used to in all those letters to Sophie back in the days when she could still be bothered to read the words I’d write for her.