The King of Cornwall
Euphemia's Brother
This The Beginning
i know a novelist
no really, a real one, had him in the cab, he was going up town, dontcherknow, to see his literary agent, dontcherknow? i'm a novelist, dontcherknow, that's how he talked (dontcherknow?) - i'm a novelist, dontcherknow? and he was wearing a dress, a floral ladies dress, and stiletto shoes, and had a handbag and a blonde wig (i didn't know what to say, so, i said nothing at all, and paused) - a novelist? (Yes, 'A Wri-Tor Of Fiction' she/he exclaimed, paused, and then again, but up a notch 'A Writor... Of Fiction' Dontcherknow?) - i keep my eyes on the road, check the mirrors, look busy, bloke's a nutter... she says, I've read Proust, Dontcherknow, in French (i'll just keep quiet i think, say nothing, that'd be best) O Madeleine, O Madeleine (ok, i'm getting just a tiny bit worried now) Mama, Mama, my Mama is Dead! (right...) these are her clothes i wear, these her shoes, see, this is her handbag (right) - I'm A Novelist, Dontcherknow? A Writor, Of Fiction (and said with such a flourish, but nevertheless... i think that i ought to take him straight to the hospital, that'd be best, be kindest) Mon Mama ist Kaputt... Mon Mama ist Kaputten... (ok, enough already... the idea that i could be sharing a cab with a kraut in a dress... this isn't real is it? this isn't happening... am i on candid camera? someone's pushing my buttons... am i in an outake from the matrix? or something? i'll stop the car, that's what i'll do, but instead, i said, and i've no idea why) i said, i met john copper clarke today, i said to him, i said, how do you do? he was coming up out of the underground, so i kicked him back down.... when suddenly it was, here, here! i slowed down, put on the brakes, that'll be four pounds please, keep the change, and he and she were gone
i'm walking down the road, i'm maybe ten years old, i'm kicking a tin can in the street, what a racket, what a noise, on a silent summer day...
taking a backswing, whoosh, and clatterty clat clat, goal! what a goal!
the radio crackles, about an hour later, five-seven (that's me, five-seven) five-seven, can you go and pick up lemon fruitcake (lemon fruitcake?) the novelist, dontcherknow? oh, right... (what, he's really a woman? no, that'd be just silly) - i'm thinking, when i get off today i'm going to have a bottle of absinthe, and a bottle of grappa, see which is the best (maybe i'll write some shit on the internet)
the door opens and in he gets... and you're not going to believe this, but he's all dressed-up in tweeds and brogues and with a trilby hat, like some oirish tinker writor from the 1900s, but sober, and talking, normally... what you said earlier, he began, about john cooper clarke... (what?) what you said earlier, about john cooper clarke... (i said nothing, i'm not saying anything... but, eventually, i said...) he aint rilke is he? he aint baudelaire? and he said, nooooo... and i said, i said it out loud, i asked a question, i remember, i said, is your name mr jones? is there something going on here? that i should know about?
i suspect one of us is on stronger drugs than the other (but i'm not sure which) - my name is lemon fruitcake, he began, i work for the CIA (yeah, right) - i'm wearing oirish tweed as i'm working undercover (yeah yeah) - lemon is a man's name you know, from where i'm whence, like blind lemon leadbelly, like little lemon wonder... (when i get home tonight, i'm going to smoke a crack pipe, smoke an opium pipe, i'm going to sit in a rocker and read some coleridge by firelight) and fruitcake... (i'm not listening anymore, really i'm not, i'm sick of you novelists, sitting there, making stuff up)
i stop the car... go on, get out (i've got my head in my hands, i've got my head on the steering wheel, i'm counting to ten, calming down... god, my head hurts, and the heat, the sun, so, hot... last night being unable to choose between a bottle of jim beam, or jack daniels, i drank them both, and smoked about an ounce of hash, didn't sleep a wink... i haven't slept for three days and three nights now... i probably shouldn't be driving...)
i'm sorry i said, it was a lapse... i had a lapse, that's all... i'm sorry i stopped the car, i'm sorry i said to get out... there's no crime in being a novelist is there? there's no law against just making stuff up? you make up what you want to, i'll just drive, be along for the ride, etcetera... so (pause) you're a novelist then? (I am a Writor Of Fiction Sir, and the Writor of Two, but Two i tell you, Books, in Bounded Leather, of English Literature. One, is a dead celebrity wrap, and Two, is a comedy of child abuse
i didn't say anything (nor he) i just drove, and we kept going, like that, with neither of us saying anything, oh, for about a minute or so, and then i started to laugh, i don't know why (maybe it was a hashish throwback remembrance type thing from the previous night, chuckling like a cocaine crackhead, quietly) that's funny i said, no really, that's really funny (i'm laughing now) a comedy of child abuse... is that what it's called? is it in the shops? can i buy it on the internet? better than that, said he, i can let you have a copy, for free... wow, said i, and will it be signed? of course, said he, from lemon fruitcake to, To Whom should i make the Dedication, Sir? (i thought for a while, i thought for a good long while, i think i was maybe having one of those drug-induced reverie things) - after a good while i said, please make the dedication to... to euphemia's brother, yes... to euphemia's brother... please (he looked at me a little stangely i thought, and then he said) wow, synchronicity, man (i've no idea what he meant)
anyway, i dropped him off, collected the book, cheers, bye, and the radio goes, five-seven? crackle crackle.(pause) five-seven? i switch it off. five-seven's not here. five-seven's going home, five-seven's going to sit in the garden today, in the summer sunshine, and read this book, about child abuse, and have a laugh, he hopes
it's a sickness, that's what it is, it's a sickness, this making stuff up (i will have no more of it i say) - none of the above is true, none of it - the truth is, i am a professor of poetry, at a top university, at the top university, if you please, in the whole wide world... and i have fucked amongst the english aristocracy, if you please, shagged a countess, fingered a princess, so what should i know of the antics of a common cabman and a novelist, to write it down?
five-seven? (who turned the radio on?) five-seven? (i'm saying nothing) five-seven?
please, i'm a professor of poetry, at a top university, spare me thy crackling and calling so (i'm a professor of poetry, if you please, and we like, quietude) - i live in an ivory tower, in some booklined rooms, as you would expect, overlooking an ancient quad, where, even now, as i write, i can see summery girls in summery clothing, billowing gently, waltzing almost (soon they will come to my study, in singles and pairs) - wrong, wrong, i will exclaim, wrong, wrong, and now, now you must be punished, now you must take off your dresses, and your underthings too... o joy, whay joy... caning the bare bottoms of jolly pretty girls from the english aristocracy, and doing it as work? afterwards, to teach them a further lesson, i have to fuck them all, one by one (so why should i care to expunge my time and write, of a common cabman and his passengers?)
it's absurd, and the emails i get, quite absurd... dear titan-verse (for that is how i am known amongst the literati, Titan-Verse, ManlyMan Professor of World Poetry) - dear titan-verse, is it true about you and ruth? and with walcott watching? and another, dear titan-verse, what about you and carol ann duffy? hey? before she was a lezzie? (as if the professor of poetry at a top university would tittle-tattle such things) - but this caught my eye, an email from a lemon fruitcake... dear professor it began, my name is lemon fruitcake, and i'm a novelist, dontcherknow, and i'm currently working undercover for the CIA, dressed in tweed and brogues, dontcherknow, and i need to meet with you really rather urgently, and our lives are in severe mortal danger, etcetera, regards, lemon fruitcake
it's ridiculous, it's quite absurd, that i should even contemplate the thought... of answering such a mail - am i about to be murdered? badly mutilated and left for dead? is my life, really in danger? dear lemon fruitcake, please, i am a professor of poetry at a top university, and as such, dontcherknow, i really don't have the time to spare to be doing with the nonsenses of a common novelist, regards, titan-verse (and that should have been the end of the matter)
dear titan-verse came back the reply, my name is lemon fruitcake, if you please, etcetera, and i'm currently working undercover for the CIA, it is true, and i have been privy to the secret files... and the secret files they do fortell of your brutal murder at the hands of a crazy cabman, and that only i can save you (this is ridiculous, a professor of poetry at a top university allowing himself to be saved by a common novelist? it's absurd) dear lemon fruitcake, i shall call the police, i will call the porters, and sooner than be saved by a common novelist, i will take my brutal murder like a man
dear professor, the novelist began, learn'ed sir, are you aware, that byron used a biro to write? keats a bic? that swinburne used a rollerball (yes, perhaps he did)) that eliot used a fountain pen, with a golden nib? and that ezra pound, a sharpened quill? that chaucer used a mac (that shakespeare did not) that yeatsy used his dick to write, dipped in monkey ink? but that larkin, used a pencil?
