Diary of a Somebody Read online

yet this is what I leave behind.

  I thought it was a poem to eradicate war;

  one of such power, it would heal all the sores

  of a world torn apart by conflict and schism.

  But it isn’t.

  Lovers, I’d imagined, would quote from it daily,

  Mothers would sing it to soothe crying babies.

  And whole generations would be given new hope.

  Nope.

  I had grand aspirations. Believe me, I tried.

  Humanity examined with lessons applied.

  But the right words escaped me; so often they do.

  Have these in lieu.

  The bin men have pinned a note to the Man at Number 29’s rubbish bags, informing him that as he’d put out more than the regulatory number of sacks to be collected (five), they will not be removing any of them today. I wanted to write a poem about ‘refuse collection’ – refuse being both a synonym for ‘rubbish’ and also a verb which means ‘to turn down’ and thus working brilliantly on two separate levels – but some days the words I would like to write are not the ones I end up writing.

  I came home an hour early from work, having invented a doctor’s appointment, for no good reason other than it being Friday. As I arrived back, the cat emerged through the cat-flap. She was surprised to see me. Her whiskers twitched with guilt. I inspected the house for dead rodents or birds but none were forthcoming.

  Saturday January 27th

  After I’d dropped Dylan back at Sophie’s, I beetled off to meet Darren for 27th Club. Our monthly get-together is something we both continue to keep secret from Sophie because if there’s one person in the world who, in her eyes, comes close to being as big a disappointment as me, then it’s her younger brother, Darren.

  We founded 27th Club three years ago as a way to take ourselves out of our musical comfort zones, while drinking over-priced, underwhelming beer. It’s a simple concept: on the 27th of every month, we venture out to see some live music. There are only two or three venues nearby so options are limited. But this does mean that we get exposed to music we might not otherwise have contemplated.

  We’d imagined that 27th Club would expand our musical horizons into new and unexpected places and, in the process, we’d find ourselves imbued with a kind of hipster cosmopolitanism. In reality, all it seems to have done is to confirm our own well-worn, needle-scratched prejudices.

  I was late arriving at tonight’s gig but I couldn’t miss him. This was, in part, due to the room being sparsely populated but also because Darren was holding a giant placard, on which was written the words “GOLF SALE”. The sign’s arrow was currently pointing in the direction of the ladies’ toilets.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘had to come straight from work. Didn’t get a chance to change.’

  We watched a procession of singer-songwriters file onto the stage in order to sing songs that they’d written.

  ‘I met Sophie’s new man last week,’ Darren whispered while a woman was warbling about the comfort of trees.

  ‘Oh, really?’ I replied nonchalantly, my attention suddenly grabbed by some accomplished on-stage finger-work.

  ‘Really nice guy,’ he said.

  ‘Mmm . . .’ I responded, admiring the interesting chord progression.

  ‘I reckon he’s loaded. He drives a Maserati.’

  Some kind of car, presumably. What might have been a Dsus4 rang out. I tried to focus on that.

  ‘Sophie’s really quite taken with him.’

  Turning to Darren, I told him in no uncertain terms how disrespectful it is to talk when a singer-songwriter is in full flow. As he headed off to the loo in a huff, I held his sign and listened to how branches can bend in the wind.

  Sunday January 28th

  It was one of those beautiful, cold, crisp January days that are perfect for a long, bracing walk through a pine forest, while admiring the wintry elegance of trees snugly wrapped in their soft coats of frost and listening to the silvery half-silence of frozen streams.

  And that’s why I stayed inside all day, staring at a screen. By the time I went to bed, I was filled with self-loathing. It makes me wonder how poets of yore would have coped in these distracting times; it’s hard to imagine Yeats sitting down to write ‘Lake Isle of Innisfree’ if he’d had Angry Birds downloaded on his phone.

  Still, at least after the PR disaster that was PenguinGate, my social media presence seems to be on the rise again: I now have nineteen followers. It was less cheering news on Facebook, where Sophie continues to inflict more photos of Stuart and her together upon an unsuspecting populace. I have made a note to ask Sophie whether she has had him DBS-checked.

  Monday January 29th

  Monetization

  The ad said

  MONETIZE YOUR FOLLOWERS

  so he thought

  he would respond;

  he painted them

  in the changing light,

  like waterlilies

  in a pond.

  I’ve been invited to an idea shower with the big enchiladas next month as they look to move the needle. According to Janice, my role is to serve as a grassroots-level pulse-check. Her PA told me later that this meant I’ll be attending a two-day meeting next month in a hotel near Leamington Spa. He showed me the website. It boasts of the hotel’s proximity to the tree-lined fairways and fast greens of a 190-acre golf course.

  The awayday is provisionally entitled ‘Feeding the Funnel: How to Bring Home the Bacon for our Stakeholders’. I’ve been charged with putting together a PowerPoint presentation on how we might monetise our social media presence. Yes, me! If I were to monetise my own social media presence, I’d make about ten pence.

  In other news, the cat is still acting suspiciously and has avoided all eye contact with me since Friday.

  Tuesday January 30th

  In the interests of research for Leamington Spa, I spent most of today on Twitter, assessing online opportunities for monetisation and short videos of pets falling off items of high furniture. To my disbelief, Toby Salt now has more than two hundred and fifty followers on Twitter, including a Radio 4 presenter and a well-known stand-up comedian. I can only conclude that there must be another, more successful Toby Salt out there and they have inadvertently followed the wrong person.

  Wednesday January 31st

  New Year Haiku Horoscopes

  Aries

  In this diary

  you read your new horoscope.

  It tells you little.

  Virgo

  You stare at your phone,

  look up briefly in July,

  then stare at your phone.

  Taurus

  You hate your star sign.

  Disgruntled, you convert to

  Capricornism.

  Libra

  You take a year out

  but forget to return it.

  The fine will be huge.

  Gemini

  Mars enters the sphere

  of concupiscent Venus,

  whatever that means.

  Scorpio

  An out-of-body

  experience makes you angry.

  You’re beside yourself.

  Cancer

  You spend the whole year

  just wondering to yourself,

  ‘where do the years go?’

  Sagittarius

  Year of good fortune.

  Not once do you encounter

  Jeremy Clarkson.

  Leo

  Your resolution

  to avoid all haikus is

  already broken.

  Capricorn

  Trousers start to sag

  as your pockets bulge with coins.

  A year of much change.

  Aquarius

  You join the circus.

  Retrain as tightrope walker.

  Good work–life balance.

  Pisces

  You leave the city

  to become a sheep shearer.

  New year, a new ewe.

&n
bsp; Mrs McNulty popped around again this evening. For some reason, she has begun to make the sign of the cross whenever she sees me.

  She thrust into my hand a set of horoscopes for the coming year, while apologising for their lateness (she usually has these prepared by the end of December). This was due to unforeseen circumstances, she explained.

  ‘Remind me again, what star sign are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Not sure. Cancer, I think.’

  She gave a sharp intake of breath, crossed herself once more then mumbled about how she needed to get back to her sawing. After she left, I read her entry for Cancer:

  This year sees your transiting Saturn conjunct with your natal Saturn in the 8th house, and Uranus conjunct the Moon. The Vertex is conjunct Pluto and your 4th House has become shadowed with Neptune’s dark umbra. These factors, combined with irregular disturbances in your quincunx, point tragically yet irrevocably to one thing: Death will cast its shadow before the year is out.

  Her usual mumbo-jumbo. I added it to the recycling.

  February

  Thursday February 1st

  Anger directed towards a Gym Membership Card

  There you go again: jogging my memory,

  exercising my conscience,

  climbing up the wall bars of my guilt.

  Bench-oppressing me.

  But what do you do all day

  except wallow in my wallet?

  Your companions are always active.

  Observe the healthy sheen

  of my store reward cards,

  the litheness of my public library card,

  and just look at that debit card,

  flexing its muscles once more.

  I ran into an old adversary of mine at the bakery this morning as I was reaching into my wallet to pay for a couple of chocolate croissants and a pain au raisin: my gym membership card. Apart from the occasional bike ride, and walking to and from football each Saturday, I have yet to engage in a single reckless act of health and fitness this year. I made a private vow to myself that a new training regime must begin in earnest from this weekend before ordering one more chocolate croissant to make the most of the ‘4 for the price of 3’ offer.

  Friday February 2nd

  This Be the Curse

  They muck you up, these stuck-up cats.

  You may not think so but it’s true.

  They come and sit upon your lap

  When there are other things to do.

  You wait upon them, hand and foot,

  And in return get fleas and lice,

  Their hairs collect upon your suit,

  They bring you chewed-up heads of mice.

  Cats hand on misery to man.

  It gathers in the litter tray.

  So get up quickly while you can

  Before the cat climbs back to stay.

  I had just sat down to write today’s poem when the doorbell rang. It was Dave from next door with some news: my cat has been sleeping around.

  ‘She keeps coming over when you’re at work and sitting on us,’ he said. Dave seemed genuinely upset. ‘She’s having a detrimental effect on our studying.’

  He pointed to the cat hairs on his jumper.

  ‘And she’s been lying all over our books and lecture notes. Marvin missed a seminar and a tutorial last week because of her – and Martin was ten minutes late for an exam.’

  I promised to have a word with her. When I went back in, the cat was sitting in the seat I’d just vacated. I looked her in the eye and told her that it simply wasn’t acceptable; we were busy people; we had our own lives to live, too; we had hopes and dreams just like her.

  She blinked back lazily but I knew my comments had hit home: she wore the sheepish look of a cat who knows it’s in the doghouse.

  Saturday February 3rd

  Another drubbing for Dylan’s team today. But he should take heart from his own performance; some of the parents on the touchline even compared him to Maradona (although Maradona punched the ball into his opponent’s net). As part of my new fitness drive, I volunteered to run the line. I kept up with play well at first but, ten minutes in, began to flag. There were a lot of people shouting at me.

  When I dropped him home later, Sophie reminded me about parents’ evening.

  ‘It’s on Wednesday. You hadn’t forgotten, had you?’

  ‘No, not at all.’ I looked at my shoes.

  ‘You had. It starts at six. And please try to be more . . . normal this time.’

  I took this as a thinly veiled reference to last year’s meeting. I had been having a perfectly civilised discussion with Ms Thornton, Dylan’s English teacher, about how, on the poster outside the school hall, there was a missing apostrophe in ‘PARENTS EVENING’. Even now I don’t know why she got so angry with me.

  ‘I am normal,’ I said.

  Sophie gave me one of her looks. I put it in my coat pocket.

  ‘Well, just don’t be late. 6 p.m., remember?’

  When I got home, I tried to write a poem about missing apostrophes. But I just couldn’t settle down to it. I think this may be due to the absence of the cat. She’s still sulking from yesterday’s reprimand and has taken up residence in the airing cupboard.

  Sunday February 4th

  I rose early at 11 a.m. for my run: over the bridge, down onto the footpath that follows the bend of the river, across the bridge, and through the back streets home. My surroundings went by in a blur – I’d forgotten to put my contact lenses in – but rarely have I felt so alive. I treated myself to a super-sized fry-up brunch in celebration: two extra quorn sausages!

  I spent the afternoon considering the true nature of poetry and whether Diderot was right when he said that it ‘must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild’. After that I finished my ironing in front of Midsomer Murders and undertook a much-needed clear-out of my cheese compartment.

  Chores all done, I sat down and waited for the magic to come. But no. Not a sniff of a poem.

  The cat in the airing cupboard is fast becoming my pram in the hall.

  Monday February 5th

  Half dead and half alive, I dragged my limbs to work and continued on the Leamington PowerPoint. To break the impasse, I have decided, for now, to think less about the words and content, and focus on finding some powerful images to go into it. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words; perhaps even more in today’s currency.

  Applying that logic, by the time I left work this evening, I had written the equivalent of three thousand words.

  If only the same could be said of my poetry. I retrieved one of Dylan’s old cuddly toys from the wardrobe this evening: a moth-eaten, one-eyed, raggle-taggle indeterminate cloth thing called Henry. I placed it on my lap and waited, pen poised on paper. But unlike the sheets in the airing cupboard, this one remained untouched.

  Tuesday February 6th

  Toby Salt was full of himself as he swaggered into this evening’s Poetry Club in his crocs. Not only did he ‘just happen’ to have the latest issue of Well Versed in his bag to show the rest of the group, but he had some more news to share with us all.

  ‘I have a collection of my poetry coming out,’ he crowed, ‘with Shooting from the Hip.’

  ‘With who?’ I said.

  ‘It’s “with whom”,’ he retorted irritatingly. ‘Shooting from the Hip. They’re an artisan publishing house. I doubt you’ll have heard of them. They publish clever, cerebral books.’

  ‘How exciting for you!’ exclaimed Chandrima.

  ‘Well, Shooting from the Hip are very excited, at any rate. Django – he’s the owner – thinks it could be the book that will “bring poetry back into the mainstream”. They’re printing five hundred copies, as well as a special linocut and letterpress edition for collectors.’

  I snorted involuntarily into my pint.

  ‘I’ve given it the provisional title of This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave,’ pronounced Toby Salt solemnly.

  I snorted once more and this time beer r
ushed up my nose. Toby Salt looked at me as I spluttered and struggled for breath.

  ‘I’d recommend your work to Django,’ he said, ‘but he tends to look for more in a poem than the ability to rhyme a few words.’

  He had a big stupid grin on his face all night. Not even Kaylee’s spoken-word piece about rioting, police brutality and racial violence in downtown Detroit was able to remove it.

  In spite of all this, I was feeling rather cheerful; Kaylee’s new Poetry Club recruit had turned up after all. Liz was smart, funny and (dear diary, I cannot lie) not unattractive; at least sixty per cent of Shakespeare’s sonnets could have been written about her. What’s more, she fitted in instantly. It was as if Liz had been here with us all along but only now had we truly noticed her, like the discovery of a found poem which suddenly reveals the beauty that lies hidden beneath the humdrum of the everyday.

  As she sat down from reciting a witty yet moving poem concerning the discovery of a well-thumbed, annotated copy of The Joy of Sex in a second-hand bookshop, it dawned on me that it really has been quite some time since our membership has swollen.

  I carried my good mood home with me. The cat must have sensed that – like Germany in 1989 – the moment had come for reunification. I had just sat down on the sofa when she jumped up and re-homed herself in my lap. I was just thinking back to Liz’s performance earlier when the shadow of Toby Salt fell over me once more. How dare he criticise my poems! I’d write him a poem for next Poetry Club to show how difficult it is to make words rhyme.

  Hampered by the cat, I found the words began to flow once more . . .

  To make poems rhyme can sometimes be tough:

  words may appear to be from the same bough,