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So … this is all I retrieved, what a fucking mess, saved from the flames. What did I burn it for, a good two hundred pages of this shit? This is all I have left …
[He waves a manuscript at the camera.]
I don’t need it. I’m going to tear it all up now for you and start all over again … Every word will be different from this, this attempt is useless, nothing will be the same …
[He tears up as many of the pages as he can in front of the camera, throwing it over his head like confetti.]
See! See! … See! … The nuclear fallout … a nuclear fallout of my own creation … destroyer of worlds … I am become death, destroyer of words hahah! Ha! … My wishes fluctuate, and my desires conflict, they tear me apart … The outer man struggles with the inner … There he is again, old Petrarch talking for me, I can’t help myself … maybe he’s my inner man? It’s definitely not Virgil, as much as I love him, I just cannot get to grips with him … he wrote for an audience … I don’t know who mine is … Who are you? Who the fuck are you? Ah, the watchful eye of the moralist watching his own, his every move … move … move … fucking flies, fucking things … get to fuck …
[He tries to swat a fly.]
One side of Petrarch, it seems to me, which found classical culture more engaging than that of … the age, yes the age … in which he was born, was as we have seen, articulated in his first eclogue where … what’s his fucking name? … Fuck, yes, Silvis, he declares the poetry of Homer and Virgil superior to that of the psalms … that’d be a serious thing to say back in his day … a new morality drawn up in these men. Who wrote these words? … I didn’t … I sure as fuck didn’t. I’m just a riff man, like Wilko Johnson … I’m the conduit … I move shapes in time, I create the vibrations, I alter them, to make sounds … I repeat, repeat, repeat … Ha! …
[He cracks up into laughter.]
I stop the tape right there. It’s too much to take, he’d obviously been drinking and it’s difficult to watch. All I know is that, before I do anything with his belongings, I will have to watch more of these recordings.
vulgar things
I walk across to the Lobster Smack to see Mr Buchanan about the key he mentioned over breakfast at the Labworth. I feel quite apprehensive, like he’d made some kind of mistake and the keys were meant for someone else and not me. Maybe Cal? I put this down to having just viewed the tape. I’m rattled by it, that’s for sure, Uncle Rey’s words, and his face, younger but still ravaged. His piercing eyes, grey, like the sky, and that strong, forceful voice of his. It rattles through me in bursts and fragments: ‘I can’t write it without their words’. It strikes me as odd that he was trying to write a book, he’d never mentioned it, and I don’t think of him as a literary man. It must have been his secret, one of his many secrets, something he battled with all his life, something personal to him and no one else. ‘My desires conflict, they tear me apart …’. What on earth does he mean? Desires? The night sky? The island? Sitting alone in the Lobster Smack? Living in that wretched caravan for the majority of his life? It doesn’t make sense to me, he didn’t seem like the type of man who might have battled with his own desires. He just seemed like a man who endured life alone, and all that it threw his way. Then I remember how he ended it, his life. Some form of desire must have caused him to do that. I can’t explain it to myself any other way. There’s no other way around it.
Mr Buchanan is standing behind the bar when I enter the pub. He greets me, like it’s the first time he’s set eyes on me today, with a broad smile. I walk over to him.
‘The key, young Jon …’
‘Yes, Mr Buchanan, the key … Is that all right?’
‘Only if you call me by my name like everyone else does …’
‘Oh, yes … Robbie … Sorry Robbie …’
‘Come with me …’
I follow him into his office again. He opens the drawer in his desk and hands me an envelope.
‘I remember the day he gave me this, he said: “It goes to Jon. No one else. Not Cal, or any of the others. I don’t care how long you have to wait until Jon turns up, just make sure he receives this.” You know, I’d never heard him speak in such a tone before, all sombre, stern, even authoritative, like his life depended on it … Of course, I had no idea that … you know … That he was ill, or … you know, what he did …’
‘Thanks.’
‘That’s okay. Just take the envelope.’
‘Thanks, Robbie.’
‘Seems good that I played some part in his final wishes …’
‘Yes … wishes, yes.’
I walk out of his office after shaking Mr Buchanan’s hand and booking a table for dinner that evening in the restaurant section of the pub.
‘It’s on me, young Jon … The meal’s on me.’
I put the envelope in my pocket and walk back to Uncle Rey’s caravan. I sit myself down in his armchair, the same one I’d just watched him in, and open the envelope. There’s a key inside, just like Mr Buchanan said there was, and a small note:
Jon, maybe you’ve found out already and all this makes sense to you? I don’t know. Well, my finger points down from the sky at you nevertheless: Big Yellow Storage, Airborne Close, SS9 4EN. Rey.
Why had he chosen me? Found out what? In my perplexity I drop the key. It falls to the left of the armchair. I reach down blindly to see if I can feel it, but I can’t. I lean over, spotting it immediately. It has landed on what looks like a manuscript. I pick up the key and then the manuscript. I thumb through its typed-up pages, maybe about 300–350 of them, double spaced, about 90,000 words or so. I put the key back in the envelope and into my pocket. I hold the manuscript up. There’s a title on the front page:
VULGAR THINGS
By
Rey Michaels
I read through bits at random. I’m shaking a little. I’m not sure what it is I’m reading. I’m not sure if it’s a novel, a memoir, or some form of literary criticism about Virgil’s Aeneid. I settle on a rewriting of it, just like he says in his tapes, or some form of appropriation; great swathes of Aeneid have been retyped, it seems, retyped verbatim, interspersed with commentary and fictionalised fragments, photographs, charts and drawings. It’s littered with solecisms and cliché, and seems slapdash. I fall back into his armchair. I decide that I will attempt to edit it, to see if it can be deciphered. I set it down on the coffee table, clearing the bottles of cider I’d drunk last night. I sit back in the armchair and stare at it: it makes no sense to me. I’m even doubtful it made sense to Uncle Rey.
feel like walking
I drag myself up and walk back into the bedroom. There’s only one way to try to make sense of it. I select another of his tapes and slot it into the machine after taking the other out and putting it back in its proper place.
Rewriting Aeneid #64 1994
Through savage woods I walk without demur … why would I have that in my head all day stopping me, halting me in my tracks, unable to write a word without thinking of these other words, words already spoken. Petrarch owned them before me, as much as I own them now … Like him, I’m charged with oblivion and my ship careers through stormy … what’s the rest? … yes … through stormy combers in the depth of night … Who steers me? My enemies … Who? … Why do I even bother? What is there for me to gain here, out here? Nothing … Nothing … Nothing but oblivion …
[He gets up out of his armchair and can be heard off-camera.]
Where’s my fucking baccy? Bastards … I fucking own it … There, come here, you bastard … Baccy …
[He reappears suddenly.]
Fucking things …
Again I stop the tape. His gnarled face frozen on the screen, fuller, fatter around the cheeks, his piercing eyes staring at me. I’m not in the mood for this. Too much is happening, too quickly. All I can think about is the key in my pocket. I decide to get off the island for the day, to venture into Southend and see what’s in the safety deposit box. I check my pocket for the envelope; it’s still there. I switch off the TV, leaving the tape where it is. I get up off the bed and grab my coat and some money. I make sure to bring enough. I’ll spend some time there and arrive back here for dinner later tonight. I feel like walking, and decide to walk the whole way into Southend. I’ll start at Benfleet and follow the seafront in, past Leigh-on-Sea and down into Southend. It should be a leisurely walk, if I pace myself correctly. It should only take a couple of hours to get there; if it gets late, I’ll take a cab back here for dinner. Maybe I’ll be able to watch more of the recordings then, after dinner, when things are more settled.
the stick
I get waylaid right from the outset. I walk along the High Street, past the old Canvey Club and am immediately drawn into a ramshackle old shop called2nd Hand Rose,a strange little place that seems to sell pretty much all the tat in the world. Rubbish, mostly. Inside the shop is an old man. He introduces himself to me as ‘Tony’.
‘Do you want to see some models?’
‘Pardon?’
‘My collection of model boats and cars made out of everyday rubbish?’
‘All right.’
I follow Tony into the back of the shop. Out on display is his collection: cars, boats, Ferris wheels, all with moving parts, all made from scraps of metal he’d found: tin cans, bits of machinery, household products.
‘I make them every day.’
‘They’re … great.’
‘They take me a long time to make.’
‘They’re really great, honest.’
‘I scour the island, especially the old dump, Canvey Heights, for rubbish, every day.’
‘You’re really talented …’
‘What’s everyone else going to do with the unwanted scrap of their lives, eh?’
‘Yes … Yes … Well, I’d better be going.’
‘I bring life back to the dead …’
As I’m about to leave I notice a big walking stick, carved out of a branch from some tree. It’s gnarled and twisted, perfect for my walk along the sea wall at Benfleet.
‘How much for the stick?’
‘It’s 50p.’
‘Here’s two quid …’
‘Thanks, son.’
‘No worries …’
I take the stick and walk on to Long Road. It’s a perfect fit: neither too long nor too short for my arms and legs. It feels normal, right; like it’s an extension of some part of me. I actually forget its presence within half a mile or so. Halfway along Long Road I spot a ‘Heritage Centre’ in an old church. It’s open. I don’t feel like I’ve much else to do so I walk inside, dropping a couple of pound coins into the visitors’ box. A man rises from a chair in the corner of the room to greet me – it’s obvious that he’s been sleeping and I’m the first visitor of the day. The church – including the old altar and confessional – is filled with all manner of strange and wonderful stuff; all of which, it seems, has had some historical connection to the island. I’m drawn to an old wooden axle and half a wheel, up on the altar. It’s part of an old horse-drawn carriage, I think.
‘Ah, you’ve found the wheel, then …’
‘Yes … it looks old, what’s it from?’
‘A sad story that one …’
‘Really.’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened?’
‘The horse was pulling a carriage with a boy travelling to the island from London. It got stuck out in one of the creeks … before we had bridges. The whole thing stuck in the mud, the bog, the horse, the boy, his mother, the driver, the whole thing got sucked down into the creek in the night. They died there. People from the island couldn’t find them for years, they’d been sucked down so far … until it was eventually found, they recovered the bodies, the boy, the driver, but not the mother … I don’t think they ever found her. She was taken by the sea … the boy had been preserved in the mud. Do you want to see something?’
‘Sure … What is it?’
‘Over here … follow me …’
‘What is it?’
‘We’ve got the head …’
‘The head?’
‘Yes, the horse … We’ve got its head …’
‘Really.’
‘Yes, come with me.’
He ushers me into the next room, to the left of the altar – in what must have been a confessional, an extra prayer room, or the chapel to Our Lady. Then he shows it to me: it’s behind a glass cabinet: a horse’s skull.
‘There she is … a real beauty …’
‘Yes, she’s certainly something …’
‘She’s a specimen all right, our pride and joy …’
It looks like an alien being; I’ve never seen a horse’s skull before.
‘We’ve had it for years … they gave it to us, some farmer had kept it in his hay shed for years, God knows what happened to the rest of her … At least we have something, something here of importance, historical importance, the actual horse’s head, here in the centre … to remember them by … They say the mother … the mother of the boy … they say she haunts the creeks … The “lady of the lake” they call her … There’s an old book, a novel, I forget its name, in which she makes an appearance …’
‘I think I’d better get going now … I’m walking into Southend today.’
‘I did wonder about your stick …’
‘This thing … I just bought it from 2nd Hand Rose …’
‘Good old Tony … I’m hoping to have him in here one day … Ha ha! I’m only joking.’
‘Okay. Bye.’
‘Bye.’
Long Road is so named for obvious reasons and it takes me quite a while to reach the end of it. Once I cross the creek, back onto the mainland, I find it easy along the sea wall from Benfleet and before I know it I’ve reached Leigh-on-Sea. I take a rest at the Crooked Billet pub, feeling quite at ease with my stick. I order a pint of beer and sit outside at one of the many tables overlooking the estuary and fishing boats. I order a seafood platter from Osborne’s Cockle Shed to accompany my beer. The sky’s beginning to open out into a vast blue, which seems to fade to milky white the closer it gets to the horizon. I drink and eat and think of nothing.
towards the sea
Here I am now, and Southend is busy. I’m not ready for it. The streets are teeming with all sorts of people: mostly gaggles of teenagers on skateboards in low-cut jeans with their arses hanging out. The place feels alive, buzzing. People are going this way and that, groups of scruffy men with bulldogs shouting at each other, smoking weed and drinking Tennent’s Super. Old ladies jostle for position through the general brouhaha of mothers and their assorted children hanging around the High Street on their way to M&S. I notice a crowd of people gathering around Waterstones; at first I think there’s a celebrity in town, but on closer inspection I realise what’s attracting the crowd: it’s the local ‘owl man’. The same one I remember seeing in my youth, when I came here on holiday. I hated him back then, too. He’s standing there with his pet owls, showing them off in broad daylight, allowing all manner of people to have their photo taken with these two magnificent creatures. The owls – both tethered at the leg by a rope – are passed from child to teenager, to mother to random man, eager parents snapping away with their phones. It’s a terrible sight. Those poor things. Those beautiful creatures. I walk over to the ‘owl man’.
‘Are you aware these are nocturnal creatures?’
‘I have authenticated approval from the council … I’m doing them no harm. They’re well looked after …’
‘It’s wrong.’
‘I don’t care what you think, mister … I have the papers to prove it.’
‘I don’t care about your fucking papers, you’re holding these beautiful creatures captive … it’s wrong. It will always be wrong. You cruel little man.’
