Tuesday, July 7th
Cook has not spoken to me for several days, starting from not long after the publication of my recent note about her. I find it very hard to believe that she is a regular reader of the International Times, although as soon as I write that it occurs to me that she may be a leftover from the 1960s generation, in which case she has most certainly undergone something of a transformation over the years. But I am pretty sure she dates from a much earlier era, probably from around the time of William Caxton. I do not really mind the silent treatment – she was never a great conversationalist – but I have also noted a drop-off in the quality of her catering. I am pretty sure yesterday evening’s new potatoes had been boiled without salt, and not for long enough.
Wednesday, July 8th
It is very hot. It is so hot it reminds me of my time in North Africa when I was a Desert Rat and we had to suck pebbles for their moisture, if we could find a pebble, and do clever things with sand to eke water out of it. Fortunately I like it hot, and I also have several fans whirring around all around the house, because I am rich enough not to care about the price of electricity. But before you ask, No, I do not have a pool, because I cannot swim. Water is the domain of the fish and the whale etc., and they are welcome to it.
Algernon Tenderloin telephoned to say he would not be dropping by while this heatwave is going on because it was too hot to go out walking. Chalk up a laudable side-benefit of the heat! Tenderloin says he is allergic to the sun, and it brings him out in a rash. I suspect it is really because he does not want to risk adding a hint of pink to his pasty skin tone. I noticed a new poem of his in a journal a few days ago. It was pretty dreadful, what with being more or less identical to all his other poems.
Thursday, July 9th
I think today is hotter than yesterday. My under-briefs feel a little damp. I should probably change them; I must be about due. Frankly I would be happy to wander around the house – it is my house, after all – au naturel when the weather is like this, but it would frighten Cook, and things are already at enough of a low point in that vicinity.
I do not know why, but I am feeling a little guilty: I have not written anything of my Autobiography, the book I am writing about myself, for almost a week. I seem to have lost the impetus, which is another way of saying I have lost interest in it ever since the lawyers got involved and started telling me I could not say what I wanted to say because it would upset people. If I cannot upset people I am finding it difficult to see any reason to carry on. My agent insists it will be a money-spinner, but it will not be if all the juiciest bits are not allowed to be in it.
I am reminded of the Hon. Galahad in P.G. Wodehouse’s “Blandings” novels, when everyone is trying to stop him publishing his memoirs because of how it will reveal the scandalous youthful behaviour of now older and well-respected members of upper-class society. That is the kind of thing I want to do, but with a ‘poetry twist’. For example, hang out a Poet Laureate’s dirty undergarments for the hoi polloi to enjoy.
Sunday, July 12th
I slept late this morning, because my night’s sleep was, not to put too fine a point on it, destroyed by what I can only assume were the loud and unsociable shenanigans of football hooligans who were rampaging in the vicinity, as well as letting off fireworks. I understand that the England football team were kicking a ball about last night, but why that means it is alright for my sleep to be disrupted by soccer louts I do not know. I like to think I live far enough away from the urban sprawl and ordinary people so that I do not have to put up with the sounds of the city, or even, in my case, the voices of the village, but apparently distance is no object for these people, because they like to drive their cars around and honk their horns and I am thinking of getting a gun.
When my sleep is disrupted like that I admit I have a tendency to be bad tempered and a little curmudgeonly, in contrast to my usual jocund gaiety and mischievous good humour.
Still very warm, the cooling fans working overtime. Cook has asked if she can have a week off to visit her sister in the North, who apparently has a very bad headache. She does this sometimes, usually when she wants to annoy me. I have told her Yes, she may go, but to make sure all my meals are prepared and stored in the freezer beforehand so that I do not starve. (I cannot begin to engage with those new-fangled food delivery services, which seem to involve dubious-looking youths on electricity bicycles, exactly the kind of people I do not want coming sniffing around here. If any of them were to catch even a whiff of my complete set of J.H. Prynne the word would be out around the burglary community in no time.) Cook said that everything is already prepared and labelled, and she has a taxi booked for 7 tomorrow morning. I think I ought to feel flattered that she asked my permission to go.
.
James Henderson
.