Seeing Stars Read online

  came: the pulsing starfish of a child’s hand, swimming

  and swimming and coming to settle on my upturned

  palm.

  The English Astronaut

  He splashed down in rough seas off Spurn Point.

  I watched through a coin-op telescope jammed

  with a lollipop stick as a trawler fished him out

  of the waves and ferried him back to Mission

  Control on a trading estate near the Humber Bridge.

  He spoke with a mild voice: yes, it was good to be

  home; he’d missed his wife, the kids, couldn’t wait

  for a shave and a hot bath. “Are there any more

  questions?” No, there were not.

  I followed him in his Honda Accord to a Little

  Chef on the A1, took the table opposite, watched

  him order the all-day breakfast and a pot of tea.

  “You need to go outside to do that,” said the

  waitress when he lit a cigarette. He read the paper,

  started the crossword, poked at the black pudding

  with his fork. Then he stared through the window

  for long unbroken minutes at a time, but only at the

  busy road, never the sky. And his face was not the

  moon. And his hands were not the hands of a man

  who had held between finger and thumb the blue

  planet, and lifted it up to his watchmaker’s eye.

  Hop In, Dennis

  A man was hitching a lift on the slip road of the A16 just

  outside Calais. Despite his sharp, chiselled features and a

  certain desperation to his body language, I felt compelled

  to pick him up, so I pulled across and rolled down the

  window. He stuck his face in the car and said, “I am

  Dennis Bergkamp, player of football for Arsenal. Tonight

  we have game in Luxembourg but because I am fear of

  flying I am travel overland. Then I have big argument with

  chauffeur and here he drops me. Can you help?” “Hop in,

  Dennis,” I said. He threw his kit in the back and buckled

  up next to me. “So what was the barney about?” I asked

  him. Dennis sighed and shook his classical-looking head.

  “He was ignoramus. He was dismissive of great Dutch

  master Vermeer and says Rembrandt was homosexual.”

  “Well you’ll hear no such complaints from me,” I assured

  him. We motored along and the landscape just zipped by.

  And despite some of the niggles and tetchiness which crept

  into Dennis’s game during the latter part of his career, he

  was a perfect gentleman and the complete travelling

  companion. For example, he limited himself to no more

  than four wine gums from the bag which gaped open

  between us, and was witty and illuminating without ever

  resorting to name-dropping or dressing-room gossip.

  Near the Belgian border a note of tiredness entered

  Dennis’s voice, so to soothe him to sleep I skipped from

  Classic Rock to Easy Listening. It wasn’t until we were

  approaching the outskirts of the city that he stirred and

  looked at his Rolex. “It will sure be a tight one,” he said.

  “Why don’t you get changed in the car and I’ll drop you

  off at the ground?” I suggested. “Good plan,” he said, and

  wriggled into the back. In the corner of my eye he was a

  contortion of red and white, like Santa Claus in a badger

  trap, though of course I afforded him complete privacy,

  because like most professionally trained drivers I use only

  the wing mirrors, never the rear view. Pretty swiftly he

  dropped into the seat beside me, being careful not to

  scratch the console with his studs. “Here’s the stadium,” I

  said, turning into a crowded boulevard awash with flags

  and scarves. Dennis jogged away towards a turnstile,

  through which the brilliance of the floodlights shone

  like the light from a distant galaxy.

  And it’s now that I have to confess that Mr. Bergkamp was

  only one of dozens of Dennises to have found their way

  into the passenger seat of my mid-range saloon. Dennis

  Healey, Dennis Hopper, Dennis Potter, Dennis Lillee, the

  underrated record producer Dennis Bovell, and many,

  many more. I once drove Dennis Thatcher from Leicester

  Forest East service station to Ludlow races and he wasn’t a

  moment’s bother, though I did have to ask him to refrain

  from smoking, and of course not to breathe one word about

  the woman who introduced rabies to South Yorkshire.

  Upon Opening the Chest Freezer

  From the last snowfall of winter to settle on

  the hills Damien likes to roll up a ginormous

  snowball then store it in the chest freezer in

  the pantry for one of his little stunts. Come

  high summer, in that thin membrane of night

  which divides one long day from the next,

  he’ll drive out in the van and deposit his

  snowball at a bus stop or crossroads or at the

  door of a parish church. Then from a discreet

  distance, using the telescopic lens, he’ll snap

  away with the Nikon, documenting the

  awestruck citizenry who swarm around his

  miracle of meteorology, who look upon such

  mighty works bewildered and amazed.

  Damien, I’m through playing housewife to your

  “art” and this brief story-poem is to tell you

  I’m leaving. I’m gaffer-taping it to the inside

  of the freezer lid; if you’re reading it, you’re

  staring into the steaming abyss where nothing

  remains but a packet of boneless chicken thighs

  and a scattering of petis pois, as hard as bullets

  and bruised purple by frost. At first it was just

  a scoop here and a scraping there, slush puppies

  for next door’s kids, a lemon sorbet after the

  Sunday roast, an ice pack once in a while for my

  tired flesh, then margaritas for that gaggle of

  sycophants you rolled home with one night,

  until the day dawned when there wasn’t so

  much as a snowflake left. And I need for you

  now to lean into the void and feel for yourself

  the true scald of Antarctica’s breath.

  Seeing Stars

  A young, sweet-looking couple came into my pharmacy.

  The woman said, “I’d like this hairbrush, please. Oh, and

  a packet of sugar-free chewing gum. Oh, and I’ll take one

  of these as well,” she added, pointing to a pregnancy-

  testing kit on the counter. I slipped it into a paper bag, and

  as I was handing back her change I winked at her and said,

  “Fingers crossed!” “What did you say?” asked the man.

  “I was just wishing you luck,” I said. “Why don’t you

  mind your own business, pal,” he hissed. “Or is it giving

  you a big hard-on, thinking about my girl dropping her

  knickers and pissing on one of those plastic sticks?” A boom-

  ing, cavernous emptiness expanded inside me—I felt like

  Gaping Ghyll on the one day of the year they open it

  up to the public. “You’re right, sir,” I said. “I’ve

  overstepped the mark. I’m normally a model of discretion

  and tact, but not only have I embarrassed you and your

  good lady, I’ve brought shame on the ancient art of the

  apothecary.
Please, by way of recompense, choose

  something and take it, free of charge.” The man said,

  “Give me some speed.” “Er, I was thinking more like a

  packet of corn plasters or a pair of nail scissors. What

  about one of these barley sugar sticks—they’re very good for

  nausea?” “Just get me the amphetamine sulphate,” he

  fumed. Then the woman said, “Yeah, and I’ll take a few

  grams of heroin. The pure stuff you give to people in

  exquisite pain. And you can throw in a syringe while

  you’re at it.” “But think of the baby,” I blurted out.

  When people have received a blow to the head they often

  talk about “seeing stars,” and as a man of science I have

  always been careful to avoid the casual use of metaphor

  and hyperbole. But I saw stars that day. Whole galaxies of

  stars, and planets orbiting around them, each one capable of

  sustaining life as we know it. I waved from the porthole of

  my interstellar rocket as I hurtled past, and from inside

  their watery cocoons millions of helpless half-formed

  creatures with doughy faces and pink translucent fingers

  waved back.

  Last Words

  C was bitten on her ring finger by a teensy orange spider

  hiding inside a washed-and-ready-to-eat packet of sliced

  courgettes imported from Kenya. The finger swelled and

  tightened; how could the epidermis stretch so far without

  tearing apart? But the real problem was in her toes: pretty

  soon she lost all feeling in her feet and dropped to the

  floor, and moment by moment the numbness increased

  as if molten lead were flowing through her veins to her

  lower limbs. However, her mind remained clear, and with

  great foresight she thumped the leg of the kitchen table

  with the outside of her fist, causing the telephone handset

  to jump from the docking station and fall safely into the

  hairy tartan blanket in the wicker dog basket. She called

  her brother, Sandy. Sandy’s voice said, “Hi, I’m at the golf

  course, leave a message.” She called her mother. Her

  mother said, “Forget the spider, where’s that pastry brush I

  lent you, and the silver candlesticks you borrowed to

  impress that boss of yours at one of your fancy-pants dinner

  parties? Where will it all end, C? It’ll be the melon baller

  next, then the ice cream scoop, and soon I’ll have nothing.

  Do you hear me? Nothing. God knows I didn’t bring you

  up to be a thief but you have a problem with honesty, C,

  you really do. Did you find a man yet? Now leave me

  alone, I can hear the nurse coming.” C’s dog padded over

  and licked her chin, then went back into the living room to

  watch daytime TV.

  C lay on the tiles on the kitchen floor for a few cold, quiet

  minutes, considering the ever after. Then with her good

  hand she punched a long, random number into the keypad,

  eleven or twelve digits. After a lot of clicking and

  crackling, it rang. “Who is this?” said a man. “My name’s

  C and I’m dying from a spider bite,” she said, and described

  the incident with the insect and the pre-packed salad

  vegetables. The man said, “I’m dying too. I’ve been adrift

  in an inflated inner tube in the Indian Ocean for six days

  now, and the end is near. I think a shark took my leg but I

  daren’t look.” “Why don’t you call for help?” she asked.

  “Why don’t you?” he replied. His name was Dean. They

  chatted for a while, not caring a hoot about the cost of

  premium-rate international calls during peak periods. “Is it

  dark there?” C wanted to know. “Yes. Are you married?”

  asked Dean. C replied, “I’ve had no luck with men, even

  though I’m a lovely person and I’ve taken good care of my

  body.” “What’s your best feature?” “My laugh,” said C,

  laughing. “And my lips, which have never received the

  attention they deserve.” The poison had reached as far as

  her windpipe and was tightening around her throat. Dean

  said, “Do you think we could have made it together?” “I

  think so,” she whispered. “I don’t like courgettes,” Dean

  joked, and those were his last words. “I would have done

  broccoli instead,” she breathed, “or even cauliflower.

  Whatever you asked for I would have made.”

  There was a horrible pause as we sat there wondering

  whether or not to applaud, then the curtains closed.

  My Difference

  I’ve been writing a lot of poems recently about my

  difference but my tutor isn’t impressed. He hasn’t said as

  much, yet it’s clear that as far as he’s concerned my

  difference doesn’t cut much ice. He wants me to dress my

  difference with tinsel and bells and flashing lights, or sit it

  on a float and drive it through town at the head of the May

  Day Parade. “Tell me one interesting fact about your

  difference,” he says, so I tell him about the time I lost my

  difference down the plughole in a Bournemouth guesthouse

  and had to fish it back with a paperclip on a length of

  dental floss. He says, “Er, that’s not really what I had in

  mind, Henry.” Basically he needs my difference to die in a

  crash, or be ritually amputated in a civil war. Then he

  shows me a prize-winning poem (one of his own in fact)

  about a set of twins whose differences were swapped at

  birth by a childless midwife, and who grew up with the

  wrong differences, one in the bosom of the Saudi Royal

  Family and the other beneath the “jackboot of poverty,” and

  who met in later life only to discover that their differences

  were exactly the same. He wants me to lock my difference

  in a coal cellar until it comes of age then take it outside and

  reverse over with the ride-on mower, thus making my

  difference very different indeed, or auction my difference in

  the global marketplace, or film it getting a “happy slapping”

  in a busy street, or scream the details of my difference into

  the rabbit hole of the cosmos hoping to bend the ear of

  creation itself. I tell him I once swallowed my difference

  without water on an empty stomach, but he isn’t listening

  any more. He’s quoting some chap who went at his

  difference with a pair of pinking shears. He’s talking about

  such and such a poet who threw his difference in front of

  the royal train, or had it beaten from him by plain-clothed

  officers and rendered down into potting compost or

  wallpaper paste, or set fire to his difference on primetime

  national TV. And when I plead with him that no matter

  how small and pitiful my difference might seem to him, to

  me it makes all the difference in the world, he looks at me

  with an expression of complete and undisguised and

  irreversible indifference.

  The Accident

  Leo burnt his hand very badly on a jet of steam

  which hissed from his toasted pitta bread as he

  opened it up with a knife. The visiting nurse said,

  “Are you sure you haven’t been beating up your

  wife?�
� “Excuse me?” said Leo. “Are you sure you

  didn’t sustain this injury during the course of

  physically assaulting your wife?” questioned the

  nurse. Leo was shocked. “It’s a burn,” he said.

  “Of course it’s a burn, but who’s to say she

  wasn’t defending herself with a steam iron or a

  frying pan? Do you cook your own meals, sir, or

  do you insist on your wife doing the housework?”

  Leo was flabbergasted. “I’m not even married,”

  he said. “Yeah, right, and I’m the Angel of the

  North,” she said, throwing him a roll of lint as she

  barged out of the house and slammed the door

  behind her.

  Leo really wasn’t married. His friends were

  married. Both of them. One was even divorced.

  But Leo was a bachelor and not at all happy with

  the situation. Bachelor—the word tasted like

  diesel in his mouth. However, that night in the

  pub he met Jacqueline, a young blind woman

  from York, and they talked for a while on the

  subject of Easter Island, about which neither of

  them knew anything, and after an hour they were

  still talking, and a few moments later their knees

  touched under the wooden table. For him it was

  like a parachute opening. For her it was like

  something involving an artichoke. He lifted his

  hopelessly bandaged hand to within a millimetre

  of her cheek and said, “Jacqueline, I’ll never hurt

  you. I wouldn’t do that. Everything’s going to be

  all right from now on and you’re safe. Jackie, I

  love you. Do you understand?”

  Aviators

  They’d overbooked the plane. “At this moment in time,”

  announced the agent at the counter, “Rainbow Airlines

  is offering one hundred pounds or a free return flight to

  any passenger willing to stand down.” A small man in a

  cheap suit and Bart Simpson socks scratched his ankle.

  “One hundred and fifty pounds,” she announced, fifteen

  minutes later. Nobody moved. “Two hundred?” From

  nowhere, this neat-looking chap in a blue flannel jacket

  and shiny shoes loomed over the desk and said, “I’ll take