The House with Only an Attic and a Basement Read online

  BIRD 2: She abandoned her children –

  BIRD 3: Her family is Turkish, maybe they’re Greek –

  BIRD 4: She never fit in here –

  BIRD 1: The husband is Danish, the husband left –

  BIRD 2: Her husband won’t leave her –

  BIRD 3: Some country that practises honour killings –

  BIRD 4: She was sectioned –

  BIRD 1: He has a lover, the husband left –

  BIRD 2: Her husband won’t leave her –

  BIRD 3: Her parents don’t know –

  BIRD 4: Sectioned for strapping a bomb on her back –

  BIRD 1: The husband left –

  BIRD 2: Her husband won’t leave her –

  BIRD 1: He has a lover –

  BIRD 2: She lives with her partner –

  BIRD 4: She was a threat –

  BIRD 1: He has a flat – ‘separate lives’

  BIRD 3: Where is his flat?

  BIRD 1: In Notting Hill –

  BIRD 3: In Notting Hill?

  BIRD 2: No Maida Vale –

  BIRD 3: The family home?

  BIRD 4: She’s a threat to herself and the children

  pause

  BIRD 1:

  Do not cry, woman

  You’re not the first or last bird

  To be forsaken.

  BIRD 2:

  Be ashamed, woman

  What foolish and selfish bird

  Could leave her own young?

  BIRD 3:

  We, your ancestors,

  Abhor your newfangled ways;

  Destruction awaits.

  BIRD 4:

  Does anyone know

  Which narrative is correct?

  They are all different.

  The Adulteress

  was her joke name for herself though

  unfashionable & (except in the literal

  sense) incorrect. She had to stop

  attending dinner parties as someone

  would inevitably say something

  like, ‘I didn’t know which husband to

  expect tonight!’ or ‘Your husband’ this/

  ‘Your husband’ that with her partner

  sitting right there. She did not view herself

  as a joke & yet this joke word ‘adulteress’

  was in her head so she said to her daughter

  who was learning to sew, ‘Can you make

  a big red A & sew it on my black dress?’

  Her daughter said, ‘Which black dress?’

  & the woman said, ‘Every black dress.’

  Poem in which I Reside in a Female Prison with Two Male Guards and No Allies

  My sentence was to end in May, but the law changed, and although no one can satisfactorily explain how this amendment applies to me, I am admittedly deaf to cultural nuance, insisting (as though anyone cares) that I’d have been released if I were jailed in my home country where my crime is de rigueur and where, too, my guards would almost certainly not be men, one of whom fucks me which is fine because I am that needy, whereas the other wants no sex but gives presents I can’t use like ponchos saying Beati Possidentes. When new prisoners join they cursorily look my way then ignore me as though my ageing reminds them of what they’ll be after 10 years of dichotomous treatment. They don’t ask my advice which is just as well because I know nothing and suffer from a brain fog that is either anxiety or else I am being poisoned: maybe by the gifts from the second prison guard or maybe by the semen from the first, or maybe – as is the predominant explanation – I am administering it myself.

  Scarlet Letter Couplets

  Hester Prynne passed through her ordeal,

  watched with moral zeal.

  What imagination is irreverent enough to surmise

  the weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes?

  Hester Prynne had this dreadful agony in feeling.

  With a faint ruddiness upon the walls and ceiling,

  she took the baby on her arm with a burning blush.

  ‘Hush now, gossips. Hush, Hester. Hush, child – hush.’

  Ghastly scenery around her, a home and comfort nowhere,

  even thus early had the child saved her from Satan’s snare.

  He had won a distinguished name

  such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame:

  ‘Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me –

  live, therefore, and bear about thy doom with thee!’

  ‘Thou wilt go!’ said Hester calmly, as he met her

  with only that one ornament – the scarlet letter.

  Ashley Madison Couplets

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  It’s Not Her Story to Tell

  The famous novelist and not-so-famous poet, long time colleagues in the same English department, never had a real conversation until they both landed a residential course in Rome, during which the famous novelist, who had just finalised a bitter divorce, felt fragile enough to talk about her life, and the poet, who was feeling chatty himself, told his autobiography over grappa and ice. The next year the famous novelist published a book in which the main character was a not-so-famous poet who had the same life experiences as the not-so-famous poet in Rome. Outraged, the not-so-famous poet texted an even-less-famous poet who had never been to Rome but who had once complimented the famous novelist on her leather jacket at the departmental Christmas party. ‘Can you believe she wrote my story?’ he typed. ‘It’s not her story to tell.’ The even-less-famous poet replied, ‘Isn’t that awful!’

  The H Man

  His superpower was being the subject of ever-taller tales

  about his prowess at hurling, a sport with prehistoric Gaelic

  origins where players use hurleys (sticks) on a sliotar (ball),

  aiming it over the crossbar of the goalpost for 1 point,

  or under the crossbar of the goalpost & into the net for 3.

  Considered to be ‘the fastest player ever’ in a sport known

  to be ‘the world’s fastest field sport’, the H Man once broke

  the nose of an opponent with his force plus his velocity

  (though some say he broke his ribs or legs). He did not

  ‘go professional’ because hurling remains an amateur sport,

  but he did become a poet because that profession does exist.

  Catherine and Her Wheel (II)

  After a few years of marriage, it became clear to her husband that Catherine was less a saint than a victim. As in, everyone had wronged her. Meanwhile the spikey wheel became a hazardous object of rivalry among their young children. Catherine’s husband basically became Jesus in order to cope.

  He joked, ‘I’m changing my name to Jesus!’

  The children asked, ‘What’s “Jesus”?’

  ‘I’m Jesus,’ he said. ‘That’s what Jesus is.’

  Dear Fellow Parents

  Whilst our sons prepare assiduously for the contest,

  I thought I might send a note concerning how we,

  their parents, can usefully support & aid them.

  In short, expect the unexpected in terms of weather.

  Nottingham is rightly notorious for howling gales

  & extreme temperatures: hypothermia & sunburn

  are possible, frequently in the same weekend.

  Send your son with layers & more layers.

  You, too, will need layers because clothes

  which are wet tend to stay wet. The tent

  contains tables, chairs
, a barbecue, kettle,

  hungry & thirsty boys, coaches, parents

  & the occasional sibling or two. SPACE

  IS LIMITED. If your son has a life-threatening

  allergy, please flag this, though we have not had

  a ‘no nuts’ policy hitherto. If you are not sure

  what to bring, think what your son might like to eat

  & multiply the quantity by, say, eight.

  Could we have specific offers of the following?

  Tea bags, Horlicks, hummus, two gas canisters

  (Stoker family, may I prevail upon you?);

  a super-sized cooler (Bernz-Joneses?);

  duck wraps (please could you commit to several

  dozen in recognition of the unique place

  these wraps hold in our hearts); flapjacks

  (popular with certain coaches); lemon drizzle cake

  (popular with me!); bottled water & industrial

  quantities of rubbish bags. A couple of pointers,

  if I may, to families who may not have attended before:

  for three hours before the event, your son

  won’t be able to eat protein, but must stay fuelled

  with light carbs. After the competition,

  the feeding frenzy commences:

  parents will be pressed into grilling & serving

  more food than one would consider possible.

  Feeding & cleaning take place continuously.

  But the rewards are peerless, a spectacle –

  without fear of exaggeration, the most important

  contest for us as a whole. Let’s see

  if we can have another memorable weekend.

  I am likely to be wearing something pink.

  Report Card: Classics

  AUTUMN

  When she is in the spotlight, she produces

  the goods satisfactorily enough.

  She is not a committed Hellenist

  it has to be said

  which is a shame but not shameful.

  *

  SPRING

  The focus and drift of my comments have not changed

  in the brief interval since they were written.

  If I stand over her with a weapon

  of mass destruction she does what she has to –

  but I would rather not.

  THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

  * * *

  I am Signing None of the Emails with an ‘X’

  Electra

  I am signing none of the emails with an ‘x’ because

  whatever affection he feels for me is not being

  transferred. Affection is not a currency. I can’t

  make him feel affection just as he is failing to make

  me feel affection. I am anxious about my appointment

  with the GP though I feel better than I did last year

  and the year before. I arrived Saturday. The flight

  was fine except for snafus at JFK: immigration queues,

  misplaced bags, then Orestes didn’t turn up

  so I hailed a taxi. We got lost because I don’t know the way

  from the Northern State Parkway. Dad scolded the driver

  for lacking a GPS then gave him $100, which sums up

  my dad: first the meanness and then the reward.

  I’m Obsessed with my Health which I Guess

  Clytemnestra

  I’m obsessed with my health, which I guess is a capitalist

  construct. I put a codicil in my will in case my son

  is orphaned. I bought a bed with my husband’s Am Ex after

  my Visa was declined from overuse. The salesman misheard

  the ‘X’ in my postcode as ‘S,’ so I said ‘X like exit’

  & Aegisthus shook his head because ‘exit’ doesn’t really

  begin with ‘X’. I transferred money to my husband’s account.

  I Bought Flowers on the Clifton Road Because

  Iphigenia

  I bought flowers on the Clifton Road

  because I think I might be dead?

  The severe light and wind are exactly

  as they were when I was a little

  girl and I wrote DANGER on an oak,

  believing our branches to be

  perilous & public. Once my

  grandfather tried to explain the blood-

  lines between me & Helen of Troy

  but I don’t speak good Greek so he may

  have said something else. He was the only

  man who ever loved me & offered

  to be buried with me but I said no

  I said I would be married with the wind.

  Because I Want to be Around Negativity

  Orestes

  Because I want to be

  around negativity

  as little as possible,

  I avoid my sister,

  though I wish she were more

  hospitable. I’ve made a

  scrupulous dossier of

  her insanity &

  I bcc my parents

  on all our correspondence.

  Quoting Melanie Klein,

  she claims she’s the family

  scapegoat, when we all know she

  inherited bad genes.

  I’m not married to our

  father, as she unattract-

  ively taunts, but I do

  respect his business

  acumen, especially

  the hotels. No one

  sacrificed anyone:

  my unfamilial sister

  gave herself willingly to

  whatever she worshipped.

  At Family Dinner We Talked Politics

  Agamemnon

  At family dinner we talked politics.

  Electra, now 9, supports the Liberal

  Democrats because her friend said they’re best.

  Orestes, aged 12, was visited by

  constituency MPs at school and

  was most impressed with the Conservatives.

  When I said what I felt were the downsides

  of the Conservatives, Electra cried:

  she seems to have some guilt about money,

  a trait she shares with my Clytemnestra.

  Then We Had the Best Meal of Our Stay

  Clytemnestra

  Then we had the best meal of our stay,

  a place you could pass without noticing,

  a small establishment with a single woman

  serving a whole room of diners & I wept

  as we ate, I have felt so fretful for so

  many years, not believing I’m loved.

  He countered with his own frustration:

  our constitutional differences.

  I tried again: I want us to be

  a family or I’ll go back to my

  original one. When we left, the

  proprietress kissed us on both cheeks.

  [I’m constricted on this Eurostar,

  two bags at my feet & suffering from wine.]

  She’s a Pain in the Arse but She’s Nice to Look at [Variations]

  Aegisthus

  she’s a pain

  in the arse

  but she’s nice

  to look at

  she’s a pain

  in the arse

  but she’s (still)

  nice looking

  at 40

  she’s a pain

  but she’s loyal

  and nice

  she gets pains

  I’m patient

  I’m nice

  she says

  I’m an arse

  I want sex

  with the daughter

  of my ex

  We Had a Big Row Yesterday

  Iphigenia

  We had a big row yesterday:

  I was agitated because

  he keeps mentioning the self-harm

  in such a selfish way, as though

  to slice up my veins was violent

  to him. When I asked him to drop


  it, he claimed I want to ‘control’

  him. As I left, I shouted, Why

  can’t we just be together? He

  said, So I can live in this hell

  all the time? and I said On the

  contrary [yes I used those words]

  don’t you see I’m only like this

  when you leave me, which is always.

  The P Man

  His superpower was launching the careers of mainly

  female potters, first by detecting talent in pensioners

  he instructed in adult education programmes; later

  by inviting younger potters to classes at his home,

  a known arena of drinking and swiving. Apropos

  of swiving, he appreciated what he termed ‘big women’:

  one was a recovering alcoholic palace librarian

  whose youth, he said, ‘flattered him’; another ran off

  and married a different man only days after her last

  physical encounter with the P Man, leaving the latter

  to view himself, simultaneously, as exploited and alone.

  Information from the Headmaster

  As you know, there was an incident on the river last week.

  One of our Fifth Form crews, the J14 Octuple, got caught

  on some moorings below Chiswick Pier. When the boat sank,

  one boy went into the water but Mr S was able to pull

  him into the launch. A second boy found refuge on the cruiser.

  Mr S did a headcount, then dropped the rescued boy at the pier.

  Rowing on the river is of course a potentially hazardous activity.

  However, Mr S and the Boat House Staff are experienced

  oarsmen with deep knowledge of the Thames and its ways.