Diary of a Somebody Read online

  I stared darkly out of the window for long spells this morning before being gruff to Pat in the servery, when ordering my quinoa salad with mint and mango. I’m sure she deliberately short-changed me with my side helping of lentil crisps as a result. I thought about this at some length this afternoon, while staring darkly out of the window.

  Friday April 20th

  Blitzkrieg Top

  When I put on my Ramones T-shirt,

  with its presidential seal of rebellion,

  I can almost smell the revolution

  in the air.

  I like to wear it everywhere:

  down the match or shopping mall,

  on the golf course, in the gym, or

  in Costa

  where I sometimes sit and watch the

  protest marches go past the window,

  whilst sipping on my frappuccino.

  All roads lead

  to Ramones; you will see our breed

  on every street, pushing strollers,

  iPhoned jogging rock ’n’ rollers,

  defiant

  in cottoned nonconformity, a giant

  army of T-shirted mayhem makers

  (once we’ve read the Sunday papers).

  Hey ho, let’s go.

  I was summoned into the office of Richard Potts, Director of HR, when I arrived this morning. As I entered, Janice loomed up out of the darkness. Dress-down Friday was in full swing: Richard sported his customary Ramones T-shirt; Janice was wearing her suit without the shoulder pads. I rubbed my chin with its two-day stubble and wondered whether I’d been pushing the Heathcliff thing too far.

  Janice spoke first.

  ‘Brian, as you know, the solutions industry is in flux right now. We need to future-proof ourselves against anticipated market softness by right-sizing ourselves for sustainable growth. This involves making some very tough decisions concerning the viability and suitability of our human assets.’

  She paused and looked at me enquiringly as if she were waiting for me to respond. I stared back blankly.

  ‘Look, let me level-set with you. I’m afraid that, as part of this process, you are to be disintermediated.’

  I continued to stare at her, nonplussed.

  ‘Sorry, I’ll disambiguate that for you. We are making an involuntary reduction in our office power and you will be amongst the decruited.’

  I turned to Richard for help.

  He sighed and look at me sadly. ‘You see, Brian, we have drawn up the new organograms and I’m afraid your name is not on them. We can offer you a very attractive redundancy package, including six months’ salary, and the help of an outplacement agency to get you fighting fit for that job market as soon as possible.’

  I understood it all now. I was the problem, not the solution or the opportunity. I was dead wood. I was Friends Reunited. I was Betamax.

  ‘I have a question,’ I said.

  ‘Of course,’ Richard replied, half-smiling with relief that his ordeal was over. ‘Fire away.’

  ‘What’s your favourite Ramones album?’

  I watched him squirm for thirty seconds before I got up and left.

  Saturday April 21st

  Rhyme and Treason

  Bored one day in nineteen eighty-two,

  I pulled out a five-pound note and drew

  a bushy moustache and a pair of specs

  and sundry other physiognomic effects,

  joined-up eyebrows, a furrowed brow,

  zits, and the proud horns of a cow

  upon Her Majesty’s regal noodle.

  It was a most disrespectful doodle.

  All these years on, I’ve not said sorry yet.

  That’s why I’ll never be poet laureate.

  I didn’t let on to Dylan or Sophie that I’d soon be joining the ranks of the unemployed. Some things are best kept hidden, like an embarrassing tattoo or a love of Billy Joel. My veneer of basic human competence is flimsy enough already – especially in comparison to Stuart – without providing additional supporting evidence.

  My bluster can’t have been too convincing. After Dylan had gone, Dave’s head popped up over the fence as I was stooping to pick up some of Marvin’s disposable catheters, which were strewn across the garden. I must have been wearing the news like a bad perfume (Misery by L’Oréal – Because You’re Worthless) because he could sense something was not quite right. Gathering me up, with Martin and Marvin, we headed out to drink away the evening, raising our beers to freedom and defacing ten-pound notes in honour of whichever it was of the Queen’s birthdays.

  Sunday April 22nd

  I nursed my hangover through the day. I lay in bed watching marathon runners on the television stagger over a finish line dressed as sausages and cartoon ducks, as my hangover slept on beside me. I helped it rise in the early afternoon, bathed and swaddled it, until I gently removed its bandages and its dull ache was there no more.

  The convalescence of the hours gave me space in which to think. What actually had I lost? I’d never been particularly happy at work; it was merely something I had fallen into, like an artificial lake, or a vat of sulphuric acid, and then neglected to hoist myself out. But now the reservoir was being dragged and my poor body – scarred and broken but still breathing – was being pulled out.

  And I realised, as I reached into the fridge for some milk to accompany my twelfth cup of tea of the day, that this is my moment to do something I want to do, not what I need to do. As Dylan might say, ‘If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.’

  I tore up my list of uninspirational quotes and threw them into the bin.

  Monday April 23rd

  It is Shakespeare’s birthday today, not that he’s in any condition to celebrate. Liz and I exchanged tweets about our favourite lines.

  I can only remember three Shakespeare quotes – the ‘to be or not to be’ one, the one about the dagger and the one about all the world being a stage. But I found a helpful website with an extended list and I think I must have come across as rather erudite. All difficulties are easy when they are known.

  The remaining six hours of my working day were spent in writing a poem. I have called it, ‘Thoughts Written on Turning Over an English Literature A Level Paper’.

  It is the longest poem I have ever written. If I am actually expected to graft my way through these final few weeks of office life, then they have seriously misjudged me.

  Question 1: ‘If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read Shakespeare.’ Do you share Hazlitt’s view of Shakespeare? Illustrate your answer with examples from his writing.

  Brian: For goodness’ sake, what a way to break the ice.

  This is all Greek to me. It may sound like treason

  but I cannot make rhyme nor reason of his words.

  I knew I should have paid more attention,

  but at the merest mention of the bard,

  I fear the game is up. Shakespeare sets my teeth

  on edge. It is all too hard.

  I have been hoisted by my own petard.

  Question 2: Answer either a. or b.

  a. Using quotations from his work, show how Shakespeare’s language still resonates with us today.

  b. In what ways is Shakespeare still relevant in the twenty-first century?

  Brian: I am still in shock. For this is the long and short of it;

  I shall be the laughing stock of the class.

  A sorry sight. A foregone conclusion.

  I am under no delusion.

  I should have worn some quotes on my sleeve,

  not my heart. Perhaps I should try the second part –

  or will that, too, give me indigestion?

  2b or not 2b, that is the question.

  Question 3: ‘A fool thinks himself to be wise but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.’ Consider Touchstone’s observation in As You Like It in relation to the current predicament in which you find yourself.

  Brian: I wonder whether others can hear
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  in the midsummer madness of this examination room,

  this brave new world’s crack of doom

  as my thoughts thunder and race

  on their wild-goose chase for Shakespeare’s words.

  No sooner do they stop to linger there,

  then they vanish into thin air.

  I could more easily catch a cold

  than manage to keep hold of one of his phrases.

  I have reached stasis and I realise now

  this naked truth; my head is as dead

  as a doornail. I know that I am going to fail —

  and thereby, I suppose, hangs this tale.

  [Exit Brian, pursued by despair]

  Tuesday April 24th

  The Palace of Broken Flowerpots

  In the palace of broken flowerpots,

  we shall sit upon wine-box thrones,

  talking of the weather

  amidst abandoned garden gnomes.

  We shall contemplate the implements –

  the rake, the spade, the hoe –

  that we never seem to use.

  How expectantly they dangle so!

  And this mower might be our chariot,

  these mice, our humble courtiers,

  see them quartered in the hollows

  of four fold-up garden chairs.

  These compost bags shall be our bed,

  and this life a kind of truth,

  star-gazing through the holes

  in our punctured palace roof.

  In the spirit of Heathcliff, I went out to my shed this evening to write a poem by candlelight. I lasted five minutes. There was a rustling noise coming from the corner and I hastened back to the house. And so here I am, sitting on a flea-bitten sofa, where with one hand trapped beneath a flea-bitten cat, and an old episode of Brother Cadfael playing in the background, I scribble words into a notebook, while exchanging tweets with Liz on my phone.

  Toby Salt will probably be in his cedar-timbered writing studio right now, contemplating his novel, or penning some Spenserian sonnet concerning the reflection of moonlight off a garden spade.

  Wednesday April 25th

  I’ve decided to buy myself a proper writer’s shed with my redundancy money. This is my gift to myself, and quite possibly, literature.

  Thursday April 26th

  Wuthering Heights

  Up on your bookshelf, insecure,

  I hoped that you’d see me.

  Grab your attention, with my jealous scenes,

  In cloth, too needy.

  How could you leave me

  When I needed to possess you?

  I hated you. I loved you, too.

  Bad books in the night

  Told me I was going to lose the fight,

  You’d leave behind your withering, withering

  Wuthering Heights.

  Be quick! Read me – I’m classy – in your home,

  I’m so cold, don’t leave me in limbo.

  Be quick! Read me – I’m classy – in your home,

  I’m so cold, don’t leave me in limbo.

  Ooh, it gets dark! It gets lonely

  On the other side of your room.

  I pine a lot. My spine has got

  Stiffened up without you.

  Don’t put me back, love,

  You’re my readership!

  My one dream ends in disaster.

  Tweeting alone in the night,

  Just have me back at your side to put it right.

  Don’t leave behind your withering, withering

  Wuthering Heights.

  Be quick! Read me – I’m classy – in your home,

  I’m so cold, don’t leave me in limbo.

  Be quick! Read me – I’m classy – in your home,

  I’m so cold, don’t leave me in limbo.

  Ooh! Let me have it.

  Let me grab your phone away.

  Ooh! Let me have it.

  Let me grab your phone away.

  With all the disruption of the last few days, I’d neglected Wuthering Heights and only reached as far as page 65 by the time tonight’s book group rolled around. On route, I listened to Kate Bush in the hope she might give me a quick potted summary of the plot. She didn’t but I ignored my fears; imagine Heathcliff caring about such matters! Instead, I spent the evening staring at my beer glass darkly, and shouting, ‘Cruel and false!’ in between glowers and cashew nuts. In turn, the rest of the group gave me a wide berth, which I felt helped to reinforce my social isolation and air of brooding heroism.

  Friday April 27th

  Get Up

  Get up.

  Get on up. Beep.

  Get up.

  Get on up. Beep. Threep.

  Get up.

  Get on up. Beeeeep. Threeeeep.

  Stay on the scene

  like a fax machine.

  Darren had just finished showing me a new app he’d downloaded called ‘Auto-Courgette’ that converts ordinary words on your phone into the names of vegetables, when I told him about my plans to become a full-time writer. On stage was Daft Funk, a two-piece act from Bermondsey, who specialised in the reimagining of popular songs from the 70s and 80s via the medium of aged or obsolete technology. Sounds and rhythms were created through the use of typewriters, Rolodexes, fax machines, toasters and early computer games. Already tonight we’d been treated to ‘Tracks of My Teasmade’, ‘Islands in the SodaStream’ and ‘All Night Pong’.

  ‘A writer?’ he repeated. He grinned and shook his head as if he found the whole idea amusing but in a mildly baffling kind of way. ‘Writing what, exactly?’

  ‘You know, words and all that. In the form of poems, most probably.’

  ‘You’re going to be a poet?’ he said, properly laughing now. ‘Good luck with that!’

  ‘Not a poet. Just somebody who writes poems.’

  There was more onstage beeping and the band launched into a James Brown cover.

  ‘Don’t tell Sophie,’ I said but Darren’s attention had shifted back to Daft Funk. While everyone else was being taken to the bridge, I took myself to the bar. By the time I returned to the throng, I was horrified to discover that the whole crowd was dancing, Darren included. I’d had enough retro-kitsch for one evening. As they went into the opening bars of ‘Breville, Breville’, I took one look at my Pac-Man watch and headed for the exit.

  Saturday April 28th

  ‘Let us no longer wallow in the goalmouth of despair, I say to you today, my friends!’ he cried. ‘And so even though there are difficulties ahead, I have a team!’ There were cheers.

  ‘It is a team deeply rooted in the idea of team. I have a team that lives out the true meaning of its creed: “All players are created equal!” ’

  More whoops and high-fives followed from the team and their proud parents as Rob Trafford stuffed his speech into the pocket of his tracksuit bottoms and the season of near misses and belated mellow fruitfulness was over. Dylan had taught him well.

  Dylan himself stepped up to receive the Players’ Player’s Player of the Year Award, as chosen by Magnus, the Players’ Player of the Year. It was an emotional scene: wanting to end his career on a high, Dylan has decided this season is to be his last.

  He was still clutching his trophy as I dropped him back at Sophie’s.

  ‘What’s all this I hear about you becoming a writer?’ she said.

  Thanks very much for that, Darren. I tried to respond in a confident manner.

  ‘Well . . . I’ve always been quite good with words. So I thought I’d – you know – try to grasp the thorn by the nettle.’

  That didn’t sound right. A frown appeared on Sophie’s face.

  ‘What do you mean? What about your proper job?’

  ‘I’ve handed in my notice.’ Being made redundant seemed more impressive when phrased like that. ‘Final day is Friday 18th May. That’s also a recycling day.’

  ‘But what about money? How are you going to afford to live? And what about Dylan?’ H
er eyes narrowed. ‘You’re not trying to get out of the monthly payments, are you?’

  ‘Of course not. I shall make money from my writing.’

  The frown had reappeared. ‘What kind of writing, exactly?’

  ‘Poetry.’

  I ignored her right eyebrow, which she seemed to have lifted up involuntarily. But it was harder to ignore her sigh nor the front door which closed on my face. I headed off, glancing back up at the house as I closed the garden gate, the sound of ‘Hip to be Square’ by Huey Lewis and the News escaping from an upstairs window and floating off down the street.

  Sunday April 29th

  Who is this stranger who now greets me in the mirror each morning upon waking? This man whose fine, chiselled jawline has disappeared beneath a startling hairy outcrop of brown and grey? This woolly-chinned wonder? This shaggy magnet for passionate pogonophiles?

  Richard Stilgoe, that’s who. According to Mrs McNulty, that is.

  ‘You look like that fella with the beard who used to be in dictionary corner,’ she cackled from over the fence.

  Mrs McNulty is a regular viewer of Countdown; she claims that amidst the vowels and consonants there are hidden messages from ‘the other side’. I don’t know whether she means BBC2 or Channel 5.

  Richard Stilgoe is not the look to which I had been aspiring. It’s hard to imagine the ghost of Heathcliff walking the wild moors late at night and serenading Catherine by belting out the hits from Starlight Express.

  Monday April 30th

  Put Me In Your Box, Honey

  Stroking the smooth contours of my newly shaved chin, I messaged Liz with the news that I was being made redundant. She told me I’d be better off without all that nonsense: having worked for a large multi-national organisation herself, she still bears the corporate scars. The thought of company portals, senior management briefings, restructurings and org charts still makes her shudder, she told me, hence the move into freelance copy-editing.