The Cat in the Treble Clef Read online

  These are those my mother loved,

  Holding furled umbrellas,

  Leaning on obsolescent cars,

  These their simulacra,

  Shadows trapped for a time,

  With tentative grins,

  Self-deprecating smiles,

  Quizzical eyebrows raised

  On pale faces framed by hats and scarves and ties.

  Their woolly dogs lean on their legs,

  And some of them squint in the sun.

  And now my mother joins the well-loved ghosts,

  Nameless in cardboard boxes, fading with them

  On brittle, curling film, as one day I will fade.

  FRATER MEUS OCCISUS EST

  In memoriam Murray Campbell

  He left in the morning when no one was there,

  In his undramatic, understated way,

  As if it were all quite usual, no cause for concern,

  As if unforced, as if by choice, as if in league with the tide.

  A door closed, opened, it’s hard to know which,

  But beyond was a path, a road to the sea,

  The red sun of dawn on the harbour waves,

  Clouds on the peaks of well-remembered hills.

  It was that time of year, the daffodils cleaving the earth,

  The blossom biding its time,

  Venus and Jupiter side by side,

  Mars in a sulk in the south,

  The birds deciding if this be the time to sing,

  To gather moss, to fear the ice no more.

  Away he sailed, and what was left we gave to the ground,

  Planted him deep like a tree. On our shoulders we bore him,

  We the men, his brothers and sons, taking all that was left,

  Though nothing was left but the hollow husk,

  The broken curves of a shell. We settled his roots in the chalk

  Of the down, those breasted hills that were stretching their limbs,

  Opened and heaped by the sexton’s spade,

  And pierced anew by the sword of spring.

  We see him now, a golden flame in a boat ablaze,

  Hand on the tiller,

  Flaring up like a sun,

  Flaming up with his own light on the further sea

  With its own stars and its own moons,

  Its unmapped shores and nameless winds.

  I lower my eyes; my time will come;

  Other tears will fall;

  All will lie by another’s side.

  My brother, farewell,

  My brother away with the breeze,

  My brother in league with the tide.

  WHAT MY MOTHER MEANS

  1

  Sausages cooked by Primus

  On a chalky beach in Kent,

  A sketch of St Michael’s Mount.

  Blue anorak, white wellies,

  Furry mittens, pressed into my face.

  Toboggans on the common.

  Horse dung collected in a sack.

  Golf and squash and tennis.

  Sitting while I fished for hours

  And never caught a fish.

  Sermons and warnings

  (Above all, and mostly, on sex).

  Demands: Cut your hair, Be smart,

  Get qualified, Get yourself a cosy little wife.

  Advice: Don’t worry, there’s other fish in the sea,

  Love is the most important thing;

  The only way to be happy

  Is making others happy.

  There are many shades of grey.

  Blackberries, rosehips in season,

  Apples, daffodils and roses,

  2

  The dogged pursuit of slugs and snails,

  Pruning, digging and turning,

  Throwing the worms to a robin.

  Evenings out at a play,

  Long dresses for dinners.

  Broken hearts for cats and dogs

  Returned destroyed from the vet.

  Sixty-five thousand, seven hundred meals.

  Champagne, pink puddings, mince pies,

  Pork with a peach on top, chicken Marengo,

  Chocolate squidge, fruitcake, fudge.

  Cocktail Sobranies, steak on Saturdays,

  Boiled egg on Sundays,

  Perfect pastry, fruity curry.

  Praising her father,

  Condemning the French,

  Startling opinions,

  Remembering school,

  Remembering friends who died in the war.

  Off to the WI, off to canvas for votes.

  Sailing on the Solent,

  Flowers and fruit, seeding, growing, arranging,

  Creating a Garden of Peace,

  3

  Matt Munro, Jim Reeves, Ravel’s Boléro.

  Inherited wisdom;

  There’s so much good in the worst of us,

  And so much bad in the best of us,

  That it ill behoves any of us

  To criticise the rest of us.

  Great Moments: playing cricket for England,

  Passing out first, the end of the war,

  Pa’s proposal,

  Getting a freezer, getting a puppy,

  Surfing by moonlight in Wales.

  MY MOTHER, WHEN WE COULD NOT SLEEP

  My mother, when we could not sleep

  In Mutti’s house, would play piano,

  Singing till we faded out, and fled,

  And fused into the drifting fogs

  Of dreams that hovered round our bed.

  But when the house was given up,

  The piano, too, was sold away,

  And so my mother’s music lived

  Imprisoned in her hands, then starved,

  And died of night, for lack of day.

  MY MOTHER DYING

  1

  As the leaf on the bare branch, so my mother’s ruined flesh

  Is trembling for the earth;

  To break off, to drift, to float down,

  To settle and to crumble on the mould.

  As the small bird who flies abroad

  Flits from the bare branch and rises on the wind,

  So does my mother’s spirit, longing for the sun, flick its tail,

  Bob its head, brace, leap, take off by instinct

  To the far land unknown, unnamed, unknowable,

  But urgently desired.

  As the shipwrecked sailor, drifting for days,

  Lets go at last of the floating spar,

  So does my mother kick her pain away.

  As the drowning creature begging for breath

  At last inhales the bitter brine,

  So does my mother, thirsting for help,

  Breathe in death.

  2

  New moon and Jupiter, side by side,

  Shoulder to shoulder, balanced above the waves,

  Poised at the window, waiting in witness

  To these, the last delays of her voyaging soul.

  Then dawn at last; she opens her eyes.

  ‘Look at the sea, sweet Mother, look at the sea,’

  But my mother looks at the sky.

  She closes her eyes, she breathes

  Like one on a peak who climbs too fast too far.

  On her behalf I gaze at the sea,

  The boats on the skyline, the

  Seabirds crying and wheeling.

  I kiss her hands, I choke, I say last things,

  And then it comes,

  The final bate of breath, the gasp, the leaving.

  MY MOTHER’S RINGS

  We buried it with her, her wedding ring,

  Worn down so thin by work, by time,

  By stubborn, principled fidelity.

  We kept it back, her wrecked engagement ring,

  With missing diamond, scuffed ruby,

  Its absent clasp, its band rubbed down to

  The tenuous breadth of a thread.

  I took it in to get it fixed. They said it

  Was pointless, it’s past repair.

  We could t
ake the stones and use them again –

  But then, you know, it wouldn’t be this ring.

  This ring, they said, if washed, might fall apart.

  This ring, they said, is kept intact by dirt.

  This ring was lovely once; I loved its light,

  When I was little, sparkling on her finger

  With all the promise of marriage, the promise

  Of one more ring, the one so worn we left it

  On the wax digit of the waxen thing,

  Got up in bridal white, that bore no resemblance,

  That might have been someone else, but wore

  My faithful mother’s ring.

  Christmas 2013

  HER FATHER

  He called her up at the time agreed, the usual hour on Sunday night.

  He talked of the weather, he talked of the geese,

  About to arrive on the same traditional day,

  Honking over the house, rejoicing in sight of the marsh.

  He said, ‘Autumn is late this year.’

  He paused so long she thought the line was down.

  ‘I’m ninety-four,’ he said at last, ‘I’m tired, I’ve had enough, I’m off.’

  Alarm and pain rose up in her throat

  As, when the earth subsides, the water floods from wells.

  ‘Would you like me to come?’

  ‘No, don’t worry. This dying is private stuff.’

  ‘But Dad …’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s thousands of miles.

  There’s no need. I love you. See you in heaven, perhaps.

  Enjoy the rest of your time.’

  Three days passed, he took to his bed

  And he flew out, as she and the geese flew in.

  IN OCTOBER, TO MY FATHER

  This cold October night is tracing patterns on the wall;

  Shadows of the clouds are shifting strangely with the moon,

  And there is no key to sleep.

  Here I wait in autumn in the summer of my days,

  A stranger in this city,

  My thoughts my occupation and my prison.

  I am thinking of my father;

  The obscure debt,

  The invisible hand that rests upon the shoulder.

  The direct debt;

  The flame of spirit dancing,

  Within my body burning.

  How small my harvest is;

  There’s little yet to offer, kneeling at his altar

  With words the single fruit of all my learning.

  Manchester 1974

  FROM MY GREAT GRANDMOTHER’S DIARY

  Tight boots, went to Chislehurst, saw Empress Eugénie,

  Tried to milk a cow, played bezique, Papa out to dinner,

  Caught in hailstorm, drenched, saw Prince of Wales,

  Papa home for dinner, attempted to make an omelette,

  Street decorated for Czar, wrote to Papa, ducks’ eggs stolen,

  Played La Grace, won at draughts, strawberries, letter from Papa

  To Mamma, Lucy and me, saw comet, Papa in town,

  Made oatcakes and scones, croquet all by myself,

  Lost my umbrella, went mushrooming, Papa home late,

  Papa dining and sleeping in town, Papa gone off to Glasgow,

  St Enoch’s Hotel, danced, Papa home all day, skating with Papa,

  Got no Valentine, not overwhelmed with grief,

  Saw Duchess of Edinburgh, fell in love with Edith Price,

  Lovely charming manners, lovely dark eyes, only nine years old,

  Went to Chislehurst, saw Empress Eugénie and Prince Imperial,

  Papa home to dinner, met him at the station, danced, read aloud,

  Went to rink with Papa, did not go to church, sat on beach with Papa,

  Made chocolate caramels, made chocolate creams, made chocolate buns,

  Went to dentist, beautiful moonlight, badminton till dark, met Papa at Cannon Street,

  Played billiards, walked out after dinner, Sophie fell in the fire,

  Had delicious ride on the thoroughbred, cut my hair short,

  Played cribbage and danced, played piquet with Papa as usual,

  Lost as usual, waltzed with Papa on the lawn.

  MY YOUNG SELF

  On the way home from the woods I met my younger self

  And great pity seized my heart.

  I was sorry for his muscled flesh, his unlined face,

  The hot spark bright in his eyes, the chestnut hair,

  The beautiful streak of blond,

  The springstrong jaunt of his stride.

  We exchanged greetings and I decided

  To stay unknown. I wondered if he suspected.

  His look was guarded, strange.

  I said, ‘Do you think you know me?’

  ‘And why should I know you?’ he said.

  I looked at the trees, avoided his eyes.

  The rooks above me hurled and flung in the wind.

  I had so much to say, so much advice,

  And so much sorrow for what would come.

  ‘One day,’ I said, ‘you’ll meet your younger self

  On this same road, whilst wending home.

  The rooks will wheel and call

  In the Scots pines, in the ghosts of the elms.

  There will be things, an infinite number of things

  You’d like to say, but you’ll walk on instead,

  Back to your home in the woods,

  Leaving your words, all your choice wise words,

  All your sage advice, unsaid.’

  FROG

  She built a fire,

  The frog was young,

  The frog had never seen fire,

  Had no fear of fire,

  No instinctive knowledge, no experience,

  No appreciation of any heat like fire.

  The young frog saw

  How pretty it was,

  How fascinating,

  How unlike anything else, and,

  Before she could stop it,

  It was too late, the frog had hopped.

  The enlightened frog sat

  Sizzling in wonder and awe, and

  She put her hands to her face,

  Undone, appalled, by unintended guilt.

  ANTEROOM

  Who are these people, walking in circles, sighing?

  These are teenage celebrities, cadaverous ballerinas,

  Stolid policemen, one-legged soldiers on crutches,

  Infants in nappies and woolly booties,

  Tourists with flux, and many more, infirm of purpose,

  Some of whom have faces.

  And on the doors of this room without walls

  Are handwritten signs that read: ANTEROOM:

  WAIT HERE TILL THE WAITING ENDS.

  And they all wait, these people, walking in circles, sighing.

  Yea, though they walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

  They shall pay their parking fines,

  Put cards in the meters,

  Wash the dishes,

  And even make love

  With those who never say I love you;

  But fritter their passionate hours in checking the time

  On public clocks,

  And thinking of how to clean the top-floor windows,

  And how to prise the jackdaw nests from out of the chimneys

  And finally saying ‘I love you’ when love’s over,

  When, at length, it all turned out to be biological,

  And otherwise trivial.

  On bleeding feet, the ballerina struggles home;

  She’ll sit and eat nothing, but smoke, to keep her figure neat.

  And what are these doves, flying in circles?

  They are not white doves

  Or olive-bearing doves;

  These are the doves that scrounge for bread

  In the city squares,

  Too timid to fly to the verdant fields where there’s no bread,

  But raw grain;

  And are trapped
by the squares and avenues and ledges,

  And the kind old ladies, whose kindness and loneliness

  Leave them dependent on doves

  They have trapped in the squares,

  These doves that are not white doves in holy, ineffable haloes of light,

  But lame inedible doves that don’t know why they live,

  Aware that they have no choice

  But to feed and mate and make more doves

  For the kind old ladies who replaced the kind old ladies

  There before,

  In this succession of dying and kindness, kindness and dying,

  This pathological hereditary generosity

  Of those whose company has gone, and left them with

  Shreds of memory; but otherwise

  No company but whirling, scrounging, shabby flocks of

  Unambitious birds.

  And the kind old ladies feed these dislocated swarms

  Amidst those who walk in circles, sighing;

  The teenage celebrities, cadaverous ballerinas,

  Unemployed actresses, builders in boots,

  Pretty adolescents,

  Would-be politicians, retired revolutionaries,

  Stolid policemen, one-legged soldiers on crutches,

  People who came from the office, and

  Livid infants who throw themselves down and scream.

  And on the doors of this room with invisible walls,

  As large as the world,

  Are handwritten signs that read: ANTEROOM:

  WAIT HERE TILL THE WAITING ENDS.

  IN DENTON CHURCHYARD (2)

  Nothing here is harsh; the sun burns off the mist

  That is the relic and reminder of the passing of the night.

  Through limbs and leaves of trees

  The new-made rays diffuse their tender golden light.

  The day’s reborn, the land draws in its breath; the robin sings,

  The chaffinch and the wren.

  The rooks hurl, the snowdrops lean against the breeze.

  I’ve sworn to do my duty to the dead,

  To taste the world on their behalf,

  Swill it about my tongue, drink the liquor down.

  You should have seen this dawn,

  This dew, this new sun pale and bright,

  Father, mother, lover, child, you beneath this soil,

  Beyond the reach of torment or delight.

  IN HAMBLEDON CHURCHYARD, THE GRAVE OF LUCY PARKER

  I saw your stone and stood appalled,

  Here in the Surrey Hills,