Diary of a Somebody Read online

  Tuesday October 16th

  DI Lansbury was on the telephone again.

  ‘Good afternoon. You do realise that “yurt” is a noun not a verb, don’t you, sir?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Why on earth are you asking me that?’

  ‘Everybody Yurts. 29th July. Sergeant Tuck pointed it out. Doesn’t really make sense, does it? People don’t yurt. They stay in yurts.’

  I sighed. ‘Is this why you’re calling me?’

  ‘Ah, no, not really. That was just something that’s been on my mind, that’s all. I was calling because I was wondering whether Sergeant Tuck and myself might pop round again. We have a few more questions to ask you in connection with the investigation.’

  ‘What kind of questions?’

  ‘Oh, nothing to worry about, I’m sure. Just a few gaps and other things in your diary that we’re a little confused about. I’m sure it can all be easily explained.’

  ‘I see’.

  ‘How about tomorrow morning? About eleven?’

  ‘Yes, OK.’ He hung up. I took a deep breath then gathered up my cleaning equipment and headed out for the shed.

  Wednesday October 17th

  DI Lansbury pointed at my diary. ‘And how do you explain these missing eleven days?’

  I gave him the line I’d rehearsed on the cat the day before.

  ‘I ran out of things to say. Writing in a diary every day takes its toll. Especially with all the poems.’

  He raised an eyebrow. His right one. Sergeant Tuck was writing away.

  ‘Not that many poems. You’d intended to write one every day.’

  I sighed. ‘It was harder than I thought it would be. Things kept getting in the way.’

  He looked disappointed in me.

  ‘But why then rip the pages out in September? You didn’t do that earlier in the year when you’d had that spot of bother with your new shed and you couldn’t write.’

  ‘I didn’t like the idea of all that white space in my diary.’

  DI Lansbury’s beard looked sceptical.

  ‘You do know that this is exactly around the time that Toby Salt disappeared, don’t you?’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Anyone who might have seen you coming and going during this week? Someone who could confirm you were just going about your normal business.’

  I thought about Mrs McNulty. She must surely have seen me going back and forth from my shed.

  ‘No. There’s no one I can think of.’

  DI Lansbury looked over at me. ‘Anyway, what’s that you’re writing?’

  ‘Today’s poem.’ They both came over and pondered it. It read:

  my calendar is a colander

  the numbers collect

  in the bowl

  while

  time

  itself

  drains

  through the

  holes

  ‘It’s like your poem “Leak-end” on 13th May,’ said Sergeant Tuck, ‘but not nearly as successful. That original poem, although perhaps a little crass in its construction and naive in its worldview, at least had a semblance of novelty in its mimicry of the slow drip-drip of time. This one here is covering exactly the same ground but in a far less interesting way.’

  ‘It’s not finished yet,’ I replied testily, ‘Anyway, like I said, it’s not very easy to write a poem every day.’

  I saw them out the door and then ripped up my poem. Perhaps if the police spent more time catching criminals and less time analysing poetry, the world would be a safer place.

  Thursday October 18th

  First, I checked Toby Salt’s Twitter feed. There wasn’t much to get excited about. Promotional tweets mainly, plugging his new book and various festival appearances. A new poem published in Poetry Today. A link to a piece in Speculum concerning the role of political metaphor in contemporary Iranian poetry. Pseudo-intellectual banter with other priests of high culture, deploring the democratisation of the art form. Retweets of praise from Django at Shooting from the Hip. And then, from 5th September, silence.

  Next, I called Liz. I had slim hopes that she’d reply. But to my surprise she did:

  ‘You’ve got a nerve. Have you got our money yet?’

  ‘I’m working on it,’ I told her. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I messed up.’

  ‘Not for the first time.’

  I let that pass. I asked if she had any thoughts on what happened to Toby Salt.

  ‘No idea. I haven’t really spoken to him since that evening he was so obnoxious and you tried to punch him but fell over.’

  ‘Do you think he’s dead?’

  ‘Maybe. He’s not the kind to hide his light under a bushel for long.’

  ‘Do you think I killed him?’

  ‘You?’ She laughed. ‘No, I don’t! Remember, I’ve seen you in action, Brian.’

  I let that pass, too, but I sensed a thawing.

  Friday October 19th

  My Life: A Footnote

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  The autumn issue of Well Versed: The Quarterly Magazine for the Discriminating Poet flopped apologetically through the letter box. As I turned to the competition pages, it was a relief not to have to endure the usual metamorphosis of blind hope falling away into eye-opening despair. I was delighted to see that, for once, Toby Salt had not won. Nor had he even been listed among the shortlisted. He had so dominated those Well Versed pages that it seemed at last as if there had been some rebalancing in the poetic cosmos.

  I flicked through the rest of the magazine. There was an article on Toby Salt’s disappearance on pages 2 and 3. Pages 6 and 7 were given over to a review of This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave. It got five stars. On pages 13–15 was a transcript of a lecture given by Toby Salt earlier in the year entitled ‘Beauty and Didacticism in 1950s Hungarian Poetry’ and on page 24 there was a feature on his new role as Poet-in-Residence for the BBC. This article, in turn, referenced page 31, where a new Toby Salt poem was displayed, commemorating his appointment.

  It didn’t seem fair somehow. Not when I would have given my right arm – and that’s my poetry arm – for a mere mention in a footnote.

  Saturday October 20th

  Poem for World Sloth Day

  He’s snoring as he dangles

  from his special branch

  by his toes, hanging loose:

  he’s tree-hugging and nap-taking,

  a long-limbed recluse.

  It is World Sloth Day, according to Twitter. Dylan and I celebrated the occasion by watching nature documentaries whilst working on our sloth mindset. Not once did he pester me to go out for a walk or to help with his revision. It would seem that my son is finally doing some growing up.

  And so we sprawled on the sofa all afternoon, dunking custard creams into mugs of hot tea, as scenes unfolded involving very different kinds of life on Earth: an iguana pursued across rocks by sinister racer snakes; an Emperor penguin, protecting his egg through the long, bitter winter; and a sloth itself, clinging to his branch as if his very life depended on it.

  Sunday October 21st

  Poem for World Sleuth Day

  Exploring all the angles,

  he’s from Special Branch

  and his tie’s hanging loose:

  he keeps slogging, it’s back-breaking,

  this long skim for clues.

  It is World Sleuth Day, according to me.

  For the modern detective, sleuthing is no longer about dusting for dabs, finding toothpicks in hedges and acting on hunches. That’s old-school. Nowadays, it’s surfing the net for potential clues while trying not to get too distracted by adverts on how to remove stubborn stains from your shed floor.

  Toby Salt’s disappearance is getting to be big news: there are features in all the major newspapers. It is widely conjectured that Toby Salt has snuffed it, most likely in suspicious circumstances. Fuelling this view was DI Lansbury:

  ‘There is
one particular line of questioning we are pursuing vigorously,’ he was quoted as saying. ‘A certain gentleman is helping us with our enquiries.’

  And a certain diary is helping them, too, no doubt.

  Annoyingly, most of the articles go on to mention how well This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave is selling. This strikes me as ghoulish, the way people are rubbernecking at his words like that, while his head lies smashed on the steering wheel at the crash scene that is his poetry collection.

  I mean that metaphorically, of course.

  Monday October 22nd

  Conspiracy Theories

  But let us consider this poem more closely.

  Given the steadiness of the author’s hand,

  it seems clear that it cannot have been written

  from the location of the grassy knoll,

  as often supposed, but more likely

  from the vantage point of an upstairs window,

  perhaps even multiple windows. The theory

  that there may have been several authors

  involved in its composition should not be ruled out

  at this stage. For more on the poem’s capacity

  to summon evil spirits when recited backwards,

  please refer to my YouTube documentary.

  Some have questioned whether this is a poem at all

  and argue the existence of another poem – a better poem –

  that didn’t make it onto the page we see before us.

  It is hard to refute these claims.

  DI Lansbury and Sergeant Tuck arrived unannounced this time and asked if they could take a look in my writing shed. They believe it may be ‘pertinent to the enquiry’.

  ‘Well, I’m afraid you can’t,’ I told them. ‘A writer’s shed is his castle. You’ll need a warrant.’

  DI Lansbury sighed. His beard rippled gently like a field of wheat in a late summer’s breeze.

  ‘OK, then, sir. If you’re going to be like that, we’ll get one.’

  ‘How’s the case going, by the way?’

  ‘Very well, thank you,’ he replied tetchily. ‘We have a couple of theories that we’re in the process of validating.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘One is that Mr Salt has been murdered in a crime passionnel. A sudden fit of rage from a rival, jealous of his literary acclaim.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ I said, with as much indifference as I could muster. ‘Although it seems unlikely that anyone could get themselves worked up over Toby Salt. What’s your other theory?’

  ‘It’s Sergeant Tuck’s, actually.’

  Sergeant Tuck stepped forward. ‘Have you ever read Fight Club, sir?’

  I sighed. ‘No. You know very well I haven’t.’

  ‘Well, in Fight Club there’s this character called Tyler Durden. He’s brash and popular and the book’s narrator finds himself in thrall to him. Anyhow, it turns out that Durden himself isn’t real but merely a projection of the narrator’s mind! Durden is simply an imaginary construction who incorporates all the qualities that the narrator would like to possess had he himself been blessed with that kind of talent and self-confidence.’

  ‘So your second theory is that Toby Salt doesn’t actually exist?’

  ‘. . . Yes.’

  ‘Then why are you looking for him?’

  There was a long silence, during which DI Lansbury looked at Sergeant Tuck with mounting irritation.

  ‘We’ll be back on Wednesday with the search warrant,’ he said.

  Tuesday October 23rd

  I have now reached page 17 of This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave. If information scientists were to conduct a study of my reading habits, they would formulate a law which states that:

  The strength of enjoyment derived is inversely proportional to the quantity of words on the page.

  Page 14 contained no text at all; my joy was unbridled.

  But I continue to persevere: my long-term future at book group depends on it. Also, I can’t help thinking that somewhere in this book is the key to help me unlock the mystery of Toby Salt’s disappearance.

  Wednesday October 24th

  While they rummaged around in my shed, I continued my online scavenging for clues. I became distracted and was in the middle of creating a poem out of suggested Google searches when they returned.

  Sergeant Tuck, in particular, seemed most interested in what I’d written so far:

  How can a poet make money?

  How far can the human eye see?

  How can I fill my dog up?

  How soon is now? Search me.

  Why does Gatsby stop giving parties?

  Why am I always hungry?

  Why is the carpet all wet, Todd?

  Why do goats faint? Search me.

  ‘These are all Google searches, you say?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. If you type in the first couple of words, Google offers you a list of previous searches other users have made that begin with those same words. I’m selecting the lines for my poem out of those.’

  ‘That’s quite experimental.’

  ‘It’s called a “found” poem,’ I told him. ‘That’s when you apply words from a non-poetic context and—’

  ‘Right, that’s enough!’ shouted DI Lansbury. He looked fed up. His beard was looking slightly bedraggled today. The search of my shed had obviously not gone quite as he’d hoped.

  ‘Well, your shed all seems to be in order, sir.’

  Inwardly I breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘Although there were a couple of things . . .’

  Inwardly I unbreathed my sigh of relief.

  ‘It appears you’ve recently had a window repaired. I notice that the glass does not match the frames of the others. Glass broken in some kind of struggle, perhaps? A violent altercation?’

  ‘Gibbon.’

  DI Lansbury laughed contemptuously. ‘With all respect, sir, do you really expect me to belie—’

  ‘Edward Gibbon, sir,’ interrupted Sergeant Tuck. ‘Author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Mr Bilston threw it at the window on 20th June. It’s in his diary. It was Volume III, if I remember correctly.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ said DI Lansbury, even more peeved. ‘Just one more thing. On the subject of books, we found this on your shelves. We thought it a somewhat unusual addition to your garden library.’

  From out of his pocket, he produced A Surgeon in her Stocking by Tina Solomon.

  My stomach lurched.

  ‘An unusual book,’ he continued, ‘for someone so apparently erudite as yourself, sir.’

  ‘Well, we all need a day off occasionally,’ I replied, with a nervous laugh. The inspector eyed me closely.

  ‘Indeed. Or eleven days,’ he said, putting the book back in his pocket. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll take this back to the station with me. I have a feeling this could be important.’

  They left. I reached for the custard creams, distractedly.

  Thursday October 25th

  I was only halfway through This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave but I strode to book group with the unshakeable confidence of a man who knows when a book is unfinishable.

  I arrived to find everyone had finished it except me. More than that, they were able to talk about it for three hours. I sat on the fringe of the group, playing with my pistachios, retreating into my shell. Occasional phrases penetrated my outer layer: ‘lyrically fecund’, ‘difficult but enriching’, ‘timeless and yet so now’.

  My silence hadn’t gone unnoticed and, when the evening had finished, we all knew it was over for me. ‘Bye, Brian,’ one of them said, ‘hope to see you around some time. Oh, you’ve dropped something.’

  I stooped to pick up the postcard that had fallen out of my book, inserted it back between its pages, then walked out of the door and away from book group for the very last time.

  Friday October 26th

  Pumpkin

  he carried a candle for her

  and so she would
call him

  ‘pumpkin’

  that his head was huge,

  fleshy and orange

  were further contributory

  factors

  On my way back from getting some new materials for the shed, I stood back to admire the sight next door. Mrs McNulty’s front garden explodes with pumpkins at this time of year (not a euphemism). The jagged, jarring noise of her wood-sawing temporarily makes way for the restrained and civilised muffle of her pumpkin-carving. She loves Halloween and makes a big effort with jack o’ lanterns, fake cobwebs, skeletons and (what is presumably) fake blood on her driveway.

  I always feel a little sorry for her, though. She never gets any trick-or-treaters; parents have long memories and tell their children to give her house a wide berth at Halloween, particularly after what happened to poor Susan Watkins in 2007.

  Saturday October 27th

  Sangue Sulle Tracce

  [translated from the Italian]

  Pepe lies dying in the arms of Carlotta by the side of the running track. Enzo’s javelin is embedded deep within his chest. Pepe’s vaulting pole lies forgotten on the ground. The 3000m steeplechase continues around them.

  Also, I am bleeding profusely

  so please stay for a while

  and hold me, my pretty heptathlete!

  Be mindful of the javelin

  that protrudes from the very heart of me.