Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

It was always hard having a piss in front of strangers.

     But being taller than the guys at the stall on either side of him helped. In fact, as Jack felt the relief of. the flow begin, there was no need this time to stand embarrassedly there doing nothing till the strangers left, or rush out half finished, or strain until he ended up farting - no, this once, a success; he was also surprised to realise how tall he really was when he stood straight, easily able to see out the window with its felt pen-scrawled messages . . .

     Any good ones?

     He was so distracted he didn’t even notice the two little erks go; abstractedly shaking himself dry he peered: ‘Jack the Ripper Rules OK’, ‘Bilbo wants your ring’, ‘Glasgow Rangers Eat Spanish Cops Raw’ - not bad. Ah, a good one - ‘Life’s a one-way street; you won’t be coming back this way, better hurry up and let Doreen wank you today’. Wonder if she was that tall, dark-haired woman behind the bar, about 35, knowing as hell, like that Chester’s ‘What the Men Want’ ad., and tough as nails with it; lovely, though ... Unconsciously his hands fumbled for the ballpoint in his pocket ... now, what to write?

     The pen bit into the plaster as he roughed in an old favourite, ‘The Pope’s a Lesbian ...‘ but he had to go over it twice before the ink’s mark took properly and, as he heard the door swing, he hurriedly shoved the pen away, hoping he hadn’t been seen, resolving to finish his message on a later visit with ‘he wants your wife’s soul’ - it wasn’t complete without that. Ah, well (wishing as usual he really were a Catholic, or at least anex-Catholic, so it’d mean something ‘brave and defiant’ to him).

     Back to the stale-tasting beer, as if the cobwebs were falling off the false ceiling; and that cheese sandwich whose onions were probably really maggots. Still, better that than the false cheer and horrible bonhomie of the canteen and all those fellow-workers so easily, so stupidly able to find boring things to say to each other, until he could have screamed.

     They never realised how their voices, even when they weren’t talking directly at him, just at each other, echoing round the un-soundproofed open-p1an, were worse than the tooth-chattering type-writers or the horrifying jangling howl of the fire alarms they kept testing at irregular intervals nearly every day. “Cry wolf, the shitarses,” he muttered to himself, wolfing the cheese and the beer faster than his taste buds could react with horror to them.

     Studying the first edition for accidental obscene misprints, reduced finally to the RHO’s ‘died suddenly but at peace of a heart attack and the Co-operative Funeral Home’ ... ‘No flowers by request, donations Heart Fund c/o Ellis & Bros. Funeral Directors’ - that’s right, cut out the middle-man ... Jack could’ve jumped a mile when a hand, huge and wrapped round a pint of Guinness like a convict’s hand hiding a fag, descended into the middle of his corner Britannia table, and a voice said, “Do you mind?”

     “No, no, of course not.”

     Jack looked furtively up. Liable to start a fight? Didn’t look it - red-faced, late twenties probably, fuzzy ginger hair and sideboards, weather-beaten looking, that voice, probably West Country - what the hell was he doing up here? - thornproof-type tweed suit, leather elbow patches; probably dropped in from the long-distance coach station round the corner.

     “Aargh, mister, the coach to Cheltenham.”

     Must’ve spoken out loud - bad, the mind slipping. Jack forced a smile, “Fair old run, that.”

     “Not a bad ‘un with them motorways.”

     “Oh, yes, probably.”

     “Just left I time for a pint or two.”

     “Good.” And then, realising the man wouldn’t shut up and go away, the slow persistent voice burring, in both senses, stuck like hooks, and half an hour left of dinnertime, and refusing to be driven even by his own unsociability from this pub he’d specially saved as a treat for payday because of its incredible name, ‘The Vanity of Albion’ (beat that if you can, little man, he thought irrelevantly), Jack made the effort ... beer and football and weather, always safe subjects, followed by jokes and women O.K. beer: “What do you think of northern beer, then?”

     “Better’n what they’m serve me up at our local.”

     “Where’s that?”

     “Wansdyke, down Somerset, where I come from. ‘Wansdyke Arms’ they call it.”

     “How’s that, then, I thought they’d cider down there and it’s good stuff, dynamite, isn’t it?” Fake hearty chuckle Mark IV, Jack thought; top that.

     “Landlord tried to poison I last week. That’s why I’m here.”

     “What, complain to the brewery? Bad beer?”

     “Don’ be daft, no, ‘twas crop spray, I knew taste right away.”

     “Oh.”

     “No, I came to have a chat with him, see, on his own, nice and quiet like. Knew he was up here on holiday, weekend off, at his sister’s, Salford way they calls it. So came and had a quiet chat, see - about him being a good lad in future, like, and not paying nor more attention to them tales about me and his wife, like. All that.”

     The man’s total seriousness was impressive. If it was a lie; it was a good one, well up on the usual stranger-in-pub attention-gathering gimmick - like the corny one of asking for the paper, looking at the pools’ payouts and then announcing that he’d won £10,000, been driving long-distance and only just checked his coupon, and waiting for the flash birds to sidle up. This one was different. It had class.

     Waiting for me to ask him more, decided Jack, but I won’t bother, that’ll fool him. He was dying of curiosity, though, but willpower had to succeed. One-upmanship. Prove self-containment. Anyway, he realised suddenly, he was scared to ask, like someone with a strange dog, fearful of the wrong gesture lest it alternatively bite or overwhelm with rough-tongued affection (more destructive still).

     The man looked disappointed. “Bus to catch soon, have to be off. Nice t’ve met you, mister.” He drained his beer, stood up with a quiet smoothness surprising in so big a man: poacher’s caution, thought Jack, and then, remorseful at his apparent lack of human interest, said, “Your chat with this landlord, was it satisfactory, then? He won’t try to poison you again?

     The man smiled quietly, already half-way to the door of the tiny room, empty now except for them and the dead glasses on the stained tables. He turned back a step, and brought his huge hand out of a side pocket. “He’s ever so good now, like, I had a friend

     After he had gone, Jack sat, his thoughts a tangle, staring at the dull yellow pattern of the wallpaper, torn between terror and envy, as he was when reading accounts of shootouts on hijacked planes. And before he left ‘The Vanity’ with his usual polite “Ta, cheerioh” done for form’s sake and ignored now as most times in each new pub, he finished his message in the bog with new words ‘his teeth are after your soul.’

     Because what he’d seen briefly in the huge countryman’s unfolded fist as the man left was white and furry and, if his eyes did not mislead him, was that ancient tool of the huntsman whose prey thinks itself safe in some deep burrow - the ferret. And in that glimpse he had seen what no amount of sensible argument would rub away ... that those teeth were dripping red.