Jammy Dodger (27 page)

‘You know what he's like Artie, always fiddling with something just as you're trying to leave.'

Her husband shot me a look of immense weariness.

I instructed them to stay in the same spot while I went in search of drinks and canapes. When I turned around Fenton was standing there, jangling his car keys.

‘So this is what you're up to,' he smirked. ‘Very grand.'

‘Fenton, what the hell are you doing here?'

‘Thought I'd come and have a laugh at the culture vultures,' he said, inspecting the crowd. ‘Fuck me, talk about the great unwashed. Look at these people!'

‘There's an explanation, Fenton, but I haven't time now. Please, do me a favour and keep mum and dad stocked up with snacks and booze?'

‘Yeah, okay, seeing as it's you. By the way, you know you've got an absolute cracker on the end of your nose? I mean, a real humdinger! It's …'

I found Dunseverick behind a pillar at the back of the hall, three-quarters of the way through his tray of wine.

‘William, what are you doing?'

‘Artie?' He peered over the top of his Larkins. ‘Oh hi. Nothing … just settling the nerves. Spot of Dutch courage. It's a big crowd.'

‘It is. And it's an important crowd. We can't afford to fuck this up. Are you sure you're okay?'

‘I'll be fine. Really. No worries. I just wish – '

‘What?'

‘I just wish this beard wasn't so bloody itchy.'

‘You're just getting used to the Bondo-Stik, that's all. Try not to scratch, and in an hour or so it'll all be over.'

I negotiated my way back through the throng (which, to my dismay, was swelling by the minute), managing to body-swerve both Devine and McCumhaill but almost colliding with Mr Big Arts himself.

‘Artie isn't it?' He extended a massive hand. His sea spume hair was speckled with black. ‘Monty Monteith.'

‘I remember.' (
I remember
 …)

‘How are you?'

‘Fine thanks Monty. In a bit of a hurry though, I've – '

‘Artie, just so you know, we're recording tonight's proceedings for next week's programme – that's my technician over there – and we'll need an interview with the poet … What's his name?'

‘Tyrone.'

‘Tyrone …?'

‘Dunseverick.' I felt a quickening throb in my hooter.

‘… With Tyrone Dunseverick afterwards.'

‘That's fine Monty. Shouldn't be a problem – ' I began edging away.

‘Perhaps you and I could discuss his work briefly?'

‘I'd love to, Monty but I've got to … Sorry I'd better – ' I pointed at Oliver who I'd spied on the other side of the room and scuttled away.

Oliver was sitting between the bookstall and a mini-exhibition of the artists' latest work, demolishing a platter of devils-on-horseback. He'd removed his coat and, much to my horror, was wearing the golfing jersey I'd passed on to him – the one my father had handed over with such solemnity. It was even more hideous than I remembered. On Oliver it was tight, and its volatile mix of synthetic fibres crackled at the slightest movement, sending static electricity rippling like St Elmo's fire around his armpits.

‘I thought you were supposed to be keeping an eye on our man,' I scolded.

‘I am. I was. Where is he?'

‘Over there, swimming in his own personal wine lake. We need to get him onstage before he goes under.'

‘Righto. I'll get things moving.' He set his plate down. ‘Where on earth did all these people come from?'

‘Beats me,' I said, tearfully probing the end of my nose. ‘By the way, you're going to have to take that jumper off – my dad's here.'

‘No can do.'

‘What? Why not?'

‘Nothing underneath.'

After much goading and shepherding we managed to persuade the crowd to face the stage. Oliver and Dunseverick and I took up our positions and when a proper hush had been achieved I stepped up to the microphone. My nose was really hurting and I was feeling increasingly feverish. I had the impression that the Great Hall itself was breathing in and out, and that the audience now numbered in the thousands.

‘Every once in a while a poet comes out of nowhere, fully formed,' I read from my script, pausing while someone executed a complicated cough. ‘With a topicality of perception that delights the critics … whose voice fills a specific gap in the collective imagination – '

There was a squeal of metal on marble to my left, a door slammed and a familiar, pony-tailed figure in frosty-wash denim tottered up the aisle. Discerning no immediate spare seat, he slumped in a cross-legged position against a pillar and peered blearily about him. I resumed.

‘… Whose sensibility is tailor-made for the needs of our time. We celebrate tonight, ladies and gentlemen, one such poet …' Some women at the front were nodding and smiling at me encouragingly: Dunseverick's fans from the cross-community group. One of them was actually knitting. ‘… A writer who, I feel it's fair to say, has been imbued with more than one person's share of talent … who inhabits a space inaccessible to the rest of us – ' The Marceaus, I noticed, were picking out words at random and interpreting them in mime. Were they mocking me?. ‘… between the physical and the ethereal. We should cherish such visionaries while we can, for who knows when this – ' I gestured feebly, aware now of someone sniggering, ‘… 
insubstantial pageant
will fade, leaving
not a rack behind
. As The Bard once said:
We are such stuff as dreams are made on
… ladies and gentlemen, I give you the dream-poet himself … Tyrone Dunseverick.'

Vigorous applause broke out. I descended and stood with Oliver at the side of the stage while our man approached the lectern. Away from the spotlight I could see the audience properly, including my parents, who had been joined by Pixie Dixon. My father was staring hard at Oliver's chest. Damn! He'd clocked the jersey. His face, I registered with a pang of guilt, was a repository of disappointment, hurt and betrayal. Fresh pain pulsed through my schnozzle. The clapping subsided. There was a brief delay while Monteith's technician untangled a cable, and the reading began.

There was no doubt about it, the poet was drunker than I'd ever seen him. His journey to the pulpit was a stop-motion epic complete with diversionary side-steps and haltings at imaginary crossroads; his white-knuckle grip on the sides of the lectern suggested his vertical hold was all but gone. None of this was overly worrying in itself: generally speaking, poets were expected to be drunk in public; it was deemed necessary in order for them to tolerate ordinary people. What
was
of concern was the increasing frequency with which he was scraping at his beard. This wasn't good. Nor, once he had mustered sufficient focus to read, was his diction.

He kicked off with
Ship of Fools
, a piece we at the factory liked to think of as a failsafe box-ticker, and proceeded to annihilate its carefully-paced cumulative impact with slurred intonation and a novel new style of emphasis that seemed to favour prepositions. He followed up with an unintelligible version of my linen weaving poem,
Seamless
, before moving on to Oliver's heart-felt
Elegy For The Drink Shop Man
, which he belted out at a jaunty pace as though doing
The Ballad of William Bloat
at a wedding reception. All the while, his fingernails were creeping back to his face, scratching at chin, jaw, throat with a harsh sandpapery sound that evoked wincing all along the front row.

‘This next piece is called
The Stubble Burners
,' he announced belligerently.

Oliver and I looked at each other in alarm. Surely not? Not the long one? While the poet paused for an extended scrabble at his beard I cast around for an excuse to shut him down. Nothing suggested itself. From where I was standing I could see the fiery inflammation of his skin beneath the hot tufts of fake hair, possibly even some pinpricks of blood. His face was contorted. He let out a moan of anguish followed by a sighing rush of expletives.

‘
Crows drift in the smoke above Carson's field
,' he began.

‘
Black flags at season's end. Another kind
– '

More scratching. Signs of restlessness in the audience. Only seventy-three lines to go.

‘… 
Of scorched earth policy as dusk descends
 …'

Another itch break. More weight-shifting in the crowd.

‘
Cool dawn-light, and cattle raise their heavy heads
 …'

There was no way we were going to get through this. I would have to act. But what to do? I considered a few possibilities. Start a fight? Feign a heart attack? And then, half way through the second stanza, Dunseverick saved me the trouble.

‘Holy crap!' he exclaimed, swiping through the pages. ‘Folks, this poem is way too long. I'm going to leave it for you to read at your leisure – ' He flicked ahead. ‘Ah, here we go, here's a shorter one …'

He'd chanced upon Oliver's first attempt at a love lyric. I had forgotten I'd been forced to throw it in as a filler. Unrevised.

‘
We spent that Saturday with no clothes on
… Ohhhh Jesus! Oh my God …

‘Mostly in bed, but also …
For fucksake …
on the sofa, and then

‘For the love of …
In my bathtub listening to …
Ouch!
… Van Morrison …
'

As he succumbed to the full ecstasy of relieving his torment, his audience stared in horrified bafflement; even the Marceaus temporarily ceased their mugging. A group murmur started up, growing in volume like an approaching swarm of bees.

‘… Christ Almighty! …
Singing about Jimmie Rodgers …
Arrghh!'

I had to act. It was now or never … but I was just as transfixed as everyone else.

‘
Your breasts were like two Jammie Dodgers!'
Dunseverick shrieked, and in the next moment we saw him lose all control. He dropped to his knees with a terrible cry, clawing at the wiry fuzz that gripped his face, ripping at it, tearing it off in blood-stained hanks. He paused, twisted off the Larkins and flung them across the stage. With a high-velocity yelp, off came the moustache, leaving behind a wet stripe of crimson. Clumps of sideburn fur began dropping to the floor. Next his frenzied hands clutched at his head, found the mop of Swinburnian curls and sent it spinning into the midst of the assembly. As the wig descended someone screamed, and immediately after, another voice could be heard, shouting something indistinct. I craned for a better view.

It was Mumbles. She was pointing at the stage, at the genuflecting figure of Dunseverick. She was very excited.

‘What's she saying?' demanded the Sea Devil. ‘We can't make her out.'

‘Something about a tissue, I think,' O'Toole ventured. ‘Or maybe a fissure?'

But what
was
she saying? Johnny Devine was beside her, leaning close, his ear to her mouth. He looked up, grave with hermeneutic responsibility.

‘She says this guy is Chinwag Fisher!' he reported. ‘She says she was at school with him. And he's definitely not a poet!'

A profound silence fell in the Great Hall. In his pool of light the actor knelt with his head bowed. He was still picking at residual scabs of glue, but his itchy fever had abated; the madness had lifted; he was finally at peace. I imagined the tumult of opprobrium that began then with howls of ‘Imposter!' and ‘Fraud!' and built rapidly to a thunderous onslaught of booing and hissing sounded to him distant, like the soft roar of the ocean, the indifferent crash of waves on shingle.

My suspected chill, meanwhile, had established itself as the onset of something much sweatier, and the rhythmic pain in my nose had added an extra beat. The noise of the mob was inducing in me a sensation of acute anxiety. I was just wondering how to remove myself quickly and permanently from the scene when several things began to happen.

First, a dark shape detached itself from the shadows at the side of the hall and swooped towards the spotlit glare of the stage. Startled, the multitude ceased its baying. With a flap of expensive coat fabric and a shrill bark of rage, The Hawk landed heavily in front of the unsuspecting Fisher. For several seconds the two men locked eyes, Fisher goggling in shock and fear, The Hawk fixing on his prey with cold fury from beneath the brim of his Homburg. The ragged actor was then seized by the lapels and wrenched to his feet. As he started to drag his victim towards the exit, The Hawk swivelled his head in my direction: ‘I'll be back for you later, Conville,' he hissed.

Then there was more. The swing doors had barely settled when they shot open again and six policemen entered at a jog and fanned out along the edge of the crowd. They were promptly joined by their sharp-featured superintendent, who stood stroking his moustache and scanning the room with small, darting eyes. Beside me, Oliver whimpered in terror. With a gesture to his men Sammy Niblock strode forward and the line of uniforms made their way into the body of our nonplussed gathering. Oliver clutched at my sleeve. ‘Don't worry,' I said. ‘My dad plays golf with loads of lawyers.' But Niblock didn't appear. I had lost sight of him but now I could hear snatches of his words: ‘… you under arrest … did violate the terms of your parole … leaving this jurisdiction … United States of America …' There were sounds of a scuffle and the mob fell away to reveal four cops struggling with a burly figure in a glittering white cape. Mad Dog, predictably, wasn't going to rock down to the jailhouse quietly. Niblock, meanwhile, had identified Tristan Quigley, and from what I could make out, was apprehending
him
for aiding and abetting Mad Dog's field trip to New York. After some token flailing and screeched demands for a lawyer Quigley
did
go quietly, a policeman on either side of him and two Marceaus behind, acting out their own pantomime arrest while a third (less imaginative than his colleagues) pretended to be imprisoned in a glass box. With much grunting and swearing, Mad Dog was finally subdued and hauled out to the waiting meat-wagon. Niblock followed up the rear. As he passed us, he slowed his step (nearly causing a Marceau collision) and jabbed a finger at Oliver. ‘I'll be back for you later, Sweeney,' he growled.