What Poets Need. Finuala Dowling

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ school principals and moms in nighties

      are fast asleep, having surrendered the world

      to them, to youth, to the belly ring girls,

      to the cowlick boys with dark-ring eyes,

      to them and them only, no one besides.

      Beth suspected I might overdo it, so she had left a herbal sachet of something called Sober on my bed. But when I staggered in at 1.30 am, I was so trashed I fell asleep on top of the sachet. All the granules melted together inside the foil from my body heat. As we discovered this morning, when Beth prised the packet apart, looking at me like a matron. I’m all right now, drank lots of juice and told myself I’ll never touch a drop again. If there was any alcohol left in my body it poured out of my thumb with the blood just now.

      I don’t have to go; I’m not dashing off. Too often you end your letters with “dashing off” or “must go” or “left this too late so there’s only time for a quick note”. But when I complain, you say that you think of me all the time, that in any case it is I who am the writer, the one who records with ease.

      expression is the need of my soul

      Of course you’re right, what you say is true. I have more time than you do and I live to write. I just want to say that I get jealous that so many people have claims on you and your time, that they all take precedence. If I count Theo and the girls, the dogs, your workers, and your suppliers, I’d be lucky to find that I come twenty-sixth or twenty-seventh in your priorities. The queue is long; I find myself pressing against the others, trying to make it go faster, like the poorer shoppers do at Shoprite Checkers.

      Please don’t think I’m comparing you to a cashier.

      Wednesday 14th August

      8.30 am

      Let me catch you up on Tuesday’s thoughts before Wednesday surges in and blots them out.

      A woman approached me on the beach yesterday morning. Actually I saw her on my Monday walk on the rocks at the Clovelly end with her dalmatian, and hoped she wasn’t poaching mussels. I never linger down that end because it is so gloomy; almost permanently in the shade from the acclivity above – and because the abandoned railway station, once a fun place to jump on the train without paying, has taken on such an ominous quality. Anyway, just as I was preparing to swing around and face the sunlit Fish Hoek hillside again, this woman came towards me holding out a little wet white feather. Her first words were sucked out with the tide, but her speech ended: “… especially for you, because you are such a lovely man.” I didn’t like her, I mean her feyness – the slight tinkle of bells around her ankles – though “lovely” is better than “special”, and one needs all the affirmation one can get, even from people who burn incense. I told Sal and she said, “But how did the woman KNOW you were lovely?”

      Last week Beth asked if she could leave Sal in my care while she flies to Johannesburg about her big contract, the ersatz mansion for the super-rich businessman, which he now wants her to project-manage. She’s not keen but says she’ll stay the first ten days or two weeks then maybe fly up from time to time. My job as surrogate mother starts today.

      Sal and I will be fine. In pre-school Sal felt a lack of siblings to list to the inquisitive teacher, so she said that in fact, yes, she had a brother, John. She’s grown up with me in the house and certainly sees as much of me as she does of Beth, who’s always busy, always saying “Later” to Sal.

      It’s interesting because I think that’s what our mother did to Beth. Beth grew up with this very strong role model. Ma always had a seminar or lecture to prepare, usually on a topic related to the nascent discipline of gender studies. Ma loved Beth’s ambition and, in a funny sort of way, my lack of ambition. “You’ll be a writer.” She smiled indulgently, the way I imagine fathers once told their daughters they’d be wives and mothers. I was christened John Stuart Carson after the philosopher who supported women’s rights. Beth is really Elizabeth after any number of eponymous pioneers. It took me a long time to realise why my mother and Beth – both ardent feminists – served my father all his meals on a tray. It was to remind him that he was merely a passenger.

      Which reminds me that when Ma died and I inherited her Opel Kadett, I’d still sometimes go out with the keys and absent-mindedly get into the passenger seat. I’d sit there for a split second before I remembered that I was the driver. I don’t do that any more.

      I finished the book The Key which was rather weak at the end but otherwise very amusing, though I don’t think that was intentional. I bought it because someone in the Financial Times weekend supplement mentioned it as their all-time favourite novel. The idea of a demure Japanese wife who can only discover sexual pleasure when she is blind drunk on brandy and practically asleep, with her delighted husband taking Polaroid photographs of her never-before-witnessed naked body and indulging in his foot fetish, really just tweaked my funny bone.

      I’m glad I had the book with me yesterday morning in the Olympia café, where I’d stopped for coffee (and scrambled eggs and caramelised tomatoes) on the way back from the beach. There were a couple of guys there whom I vaguely know – I mean, they’ve grown up around here too, we’ve rubbed shoulders – and they were talking about their weekend plans. There were lots of women’s names being bandied about, some I thought I recognised, attached to pretty faces, and talk of yachts and champagne breakfasts. They were obviously going to have a good time. This strange feeling came over me, of being left out. I don’t know why, since they’re not my friends, only barest acquaintances; I’ve certainly never invited them anywhere and I wasn’t even sitting at their table. But their talk made me feel both bored and envious, tangled up together. I’d probably hate it on their yacht, and the sea and the champagne would combine to produce nausea. Still, it would be nice to be able to say, And this weekend I’ve been invited out for a champagne breakfast on a friend’s yacht. I could, for instance, say it to you, and you might feel a pang of jealousy, and briefly imagine me suntanned in my shirtsleeves, the wind blowing through my still thick curls while someone urges me to “Tack!”

      Laugh, Theresa. I like it when I make you laugh.

      What else to tell you of my Tuesday? Beth and I shared a bottle of Chateau Libertas, which is being sold at a bargain R19.99 at the Lakeside Spar. (I recovered so well from my hangover that I decided to start drinking again.) I made a coriander pesto which we ate with pasta. Tip: use sesame and sunflower seeds instead of macadamia nuts. We read Sal’s English composition, about “The Day I Flew a Hot Air Balloon”. It was a title the whole class had been given. Sal wrote (original spelling): “I fownd an old hot air balloon in the shed. I was so excited. I lit the fire and it inflated. When I was high up in the sky I looked down and saw Mommy scrubbing the front steps and my uncle John washing his car in the driveway. Then I went over the sea. A bird was flying next to me. It plummetted down to catch a fish.” Beth asked, “Why didn’t you say your mommy was drawing up house plans and your uncle was writing a poem? And where did we get this driveway from?” Sal said she just wanted her life to sound normal.

      “Plummeted” is good, I said.

      When I went to bed last night I stupidly ignored a slight itch at the back of my throat. But at night the pollen grains and mould flakes and whatever other allergens there are descend for the kill. After midnight, I found myself desperately sucking on the back of my own throat, trying to use my tongue to scratch this deep itch around my uvula. Eventually I got up, inhaled the nasal spray which I’m supposed to do three times a day but always forget, took two antihistamines and two extra-strength Disprins and fell into a heavy sleep. Today there is a kind of speed bump when I swallow, and I’m СКАЧАТЬ