Don’t worry.

I’ll send the bill to Miss Beeston.

She quite likes you, which is unusual,

as she only likes me and I suppose a few women.

It may be because I told her you helped me

not get thrown out of my studio.

Did you know Muriel?

 

I never went much. I am not unstuffy.

I don’t mind Miss but draw the line at Cunty.

She let me off it when we met at Wheeler’s

with my wife. She knew we were waiting for Israel

and told me, ‘He wouldn’t be late for that one.’

I knew he had died. Rang the police. They couldn’t go in,

they said, but try the firemen. So I did. We went up a ladder

and there he was, on the bed, his jaw dropped,

mouth rigid and open. Clothed. The bedroom was tidy.

The rest of the flat, a large one, a waste-paper basket

version of your studio: scraps of writing on chairs,

pages torn out of books. He wanted to prove

Shakespeare was written by your namesake.

 

My ancestor. Or so my father said.

 

I liked the way he looked. I’ve not been frightened

since but I think I have never been frightened

of the outcome, only of the process.

 

I am the other way round. The process is interesting.

I used to spend a fair amount of time

on crucifixions. Pain and thirst confirm

we are alive and of course the disposition

of the limbs and the torso absorbs one.

I sleep little. Dreams are dull and childish.

It is pointless to miss the light of reality

so why sleep more than you have to?

We are indefinitely dead. I get all the exercise

I need in that small room when I am painting.

I never sit down. I dance about like a boxer,

feinting with the image, trying to spot

when it will come, what it is going to look like.

It’s usually tosh. Just occasionally

solid appearance builds from the shadow

and all the shadow-boxing. I feel a stab

of happiness. Then I go down stairs

and visit my friends and eat and get drunk.

 

Look, you have tried to paint

what Eliot called ‘ contaminating presences’

about the human. These work better as shadows,

for me, than dragon shapes, or bats; my family

being, absurdly, associated with vampirism.

If, in the late 18th century, you wanted to write

a vampire story you called the vampire Lord Ruthven,

like Byron’s pal, William Mason. It’s Hollywood

compared to the great curse in Eumenides.

That art collector

I introduced you to, George, whispered it in Greek.

My hairs stood up. Not only the promised end

but an image of horror gone political.

Tell me about Ireland

as we have Dublin and Co. Kildare in common.

 

Just the idea of going there gives me asthma.

Ireland was only England when I was young

plus the Holyhead packet and an interminable train.

I told David I liked my mother and grandmother

and hated my father but found him attractive sexually.

Of course he whipped me. Or had stable boys do it.

That settled things, in a way. I don’t enjoy betting on horses

because they stop me breathing. Lucian loves them.

At his boarding school he’d sneak out

at night to sleep beside one. I’d be dead by morning.

 

He cuts me dead these days. I wrote an essay

which struck me as appropriately asslicking

only I said you were an imagination, Lucian an eye.

Boringly self-evident, I’d have thought.

There it is.

You never painted Caroline?

 

Not enough definition. Wonderful eyes

but aquamarine is a sort of Memling colour

and anyway Lucian did her.

He cuts me too. I miss him.

I am thirteen years older.

He finds me repetitive, boring. I suppose I am.

Of course I drink more than he does.

 

More to it than that. He’s a good painter

but embarrassing whenever he tries to shock:

rats nuzzling your balls and all that. You do not need

immense perception to see why he is trying.

He should stick to his line of beauty.

 

That girl from behind,

in a blue dressing gown, lying on her side,

I’d give an eye for, and the wild flowers in a Belfast sink.

 

Oh well I think I am a bit boring.

It’s the worst thing about age. The best thing

is you can still paint. Matisse,

whom I’ve never much gone for, says painting’s an old man’s game.

Picasso did all those dreadful Delacroix

but Jacqueline pissing is a masterpiece.

I have asked John

to meet us at Wiltons. He likes you too.

Do not flatter yourself. He is a snob.

Extraordinary that you’re paying. I suppose

you are on a expense account. I warn you,

I’m an expensive guest.

 

I draw the line at Lafite or Mouton

also. They’ve got a light and lovely

Cheval Blanc. I suppose it won’t give you asthma…