Summer Reads 2011: Seeing Stars Extract

 

 

Seeing Stars
Simon Armitage

First published in 2010
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London wc1b 3da

© Simon Armitage, 2010
The right of Simon Armitage to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with
Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
A CIP record for this book
is available from the British Library
ISBN 978–0–571–24990–9


The Christening

I am a sperm whale. I carry up to 2.5 tonnes of an oil-like
balm in my huge, coffin-shaped head. I have a brain the
size of a basketball, and on that basis alone am entitled to
my opinions. I am a sperm whale. When I breathe in, the
fluid in my head cools to a dense wax and I nosedive into
the depths. My song, available on audiocassette and
compact disc is a comfort to divorcees, astrologists and
those who have ‘pitched the quavering canvas tent of their
thoughts on the rim of the dark crater’. The oil in my head
is of huge commercial value and has been used by NASA,
for even in the galactic emptiness of deep space it does not
freeze. I am attracted to the policies of the Green Party on
paper but once inside the voting booth my hand is guided
by an unseen force. Sometimes I vomit large chunks of
ambergris. My brother, Jeff, owns a camping and outdoor
clothing shop in the Lake District and is a recreational user
of cannabis. Customers who bought books about me also
bought Do Whales Have Belly Buttons? by Melvin Berger
and street maps of Cardiff. In many ways I have seen it all.
I keep no pets. Lying motionless on the surface I am said
to be ‘logging’, and ‘lobtailing’ when I turn and offer my
great slow fluke to the horizon. Don’t be taken in by the
dolphins and their winning smiles, they are the pickpockets
of the ocean, the gypsy children of the open waters and
they are laughing all the way to Atlantis. On the basis of
‘finders keepers’ I believe the Elgin Marbles should
remain the property of the British Crown. I am my own
God – why shouldn’t I be? The first people to open me up
thought my head was full of sperm, but they were men, and
had lived without women for many weeks, and were far
from home. Stuff comes blurting out.





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.

 

 

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
the money.’ ‘But you’re the pilot,’ she said, then added,
‘Sir,’ as if she’d walked into a Japanese house and
forgotten to take off her shoes. The pilot whispered,
‘Listen, I need that money. I’m behind on my mortgage
payments because my wife’s a gambler. I’ve got two
sons at naval college – the hats alone cost a small fortune
– and I’m being blackmailed by a pimp in Stockport. Let
me take the two hundred, you’d be saving my life.’

I’d been sitting within earshot, next to the stand-up
ashtray. ‘Give him the money,’ I said. ‘Who are you?’
asked Dorothy (she was wearing a plastic name-badge
with gold letters). ‘Dorothy, I’m George,’ I said, ‘and
clearly this man’s in pain. I don’t want him going all
gooey midway over the English Channel. I once heard
sobbing coming from the cabin of a Jumbo Jet at thirty-
three thousand feet, and it sounded like the laughter of
Beelzebub.’ ‘But who’ll fly the plane?’ she wanted to
know. ‘Why me, of course.’ I opened my mouth so she
could see how good my teeth were – like pilot’s teeth.
‘Do you have a licence?’ she asked. I said, ‘Details,
always details. Dorothy, it’s time to let go a little, to trust
in the unexplained. Time to open your mind to the
infinite.’ By now my hand was resting on hers, and
a small crowd of passengers had gathered around,
nodding and patting me on the back. ‘Good for you,
George,’ said a backpacker with a leather shoelace
knotted around his wrist. It was biblical, or like the end
of a family film during the time of innocence. I said,
‘Dorothy, give me the keys to the cockpit, and let’s get
this baby in the air.’