the baroque novel: part one

Yes, children: the time has come! Here is the first chapter of my old unfinished novel, The October Revolution.

The action takes place between October 1972 and October 1973, in various suburban American locations.



The small bookshop was crowded. A motley heaving of sinister colour, batik, tie-dye, India-print, men in dashikis and women wearing old table cloths, swirled around below the layer of smoke up by the ceiling. It was noisy; clinking glasses, loud voices, sudden staccato laughter. Behind the din there was record playing, with guitars and earnest singing.

Madeleine stood by the wall near the door and looked around. She had been dragged here by her friend Val, “to broaden your mind,” as she’d said laughingly. “Let’s face it, girl, you missed the sixties!”

Dan hated Val.

Val knew lots of people on what Dan called the fringe, and in the last six months or so she had been waging a campaign of sorts on Madeleine. She’d made her go to wine grottoes and folk cellars and poetry readings and gallery openings. Anything, in fact, that brought her into the open air outside her marriage.

Madeleine was beginning to get the hang of it, breathing the less densely compacted - if smokier - air around Val and her friends. She was smothered by Dan, she could see that now. she felt, here, that she was beginning to break free, but it was impossible to imagine a life without that tight feeling. All those dinner parties, and on each one his whole professional life seemed to depend. She was always trying.

Now she stood next to Val, not speaking. People brushed past her, fat bearded poets, and skinny young women with black eyes, hugging even skinnier volumes. Val was saying something. She was shorter, blonde, more voluptuous than Madeleine. She was wearing a Mexican blouse. In fact, with her help Madeleine had bought some pieces of turquoise jewelry, to counteract her primly fashionable clothes in a way Dan wouldn’t object to too much, especially her favourite skirt, which was A-line, short, pink. It had worked, up to a point, but Madeleine found herself feeling just as out of step in these noisy rooms as with Dan’s partners’ wives.

“What?” she said, leaning slightly.

“Drinks!” Val said loudly into her ear. “And I’ll find Marcus, he’s got to be here somewhere. It’s his shop.” She swirled into the sea. Madeleine craned her neck and saw where Val was headed.

Along the side wall of the shop a long counter had been cleared; half of it was piled with books and half covered with bottles of wine and plastic cups. She could see Val pushing towards it. Behind it there was a girl pouring out glasses of wine, and next to her a strange little man in an old white sports coat and a black and grey striped tie. His hair sprang nervously away from his head. He was pouring the cups much too full, clutching the bottle with thin, pale fingers, talking to a man with a frizzy black ponytail as he poured; the man with the ponytail couldn’t pick the glass up, and the girl leaned over and said something to the strange man. He turned bright pink - Madeleine could see it from where she was - and they all laughed politely. Val was standing next to the man with the ponytail now, reaching for a glass of wine. She touched him on the arm, and then three people walked across and blocked Madeleine’s view.

She shouldn’t have worn her pink skirt. And it was too short.

Val came back and handed her some white wine. “Should get started soon,” she remarked happily, looking around her. “Did you see that guy pouring the wine? He’s the assistant editor of Canto magazine, he’s the one that organised this whole thing.”

Madeleine nodded, looking over towards the long table, but whoever Val was talking about had disappeared. “Do you mean the one in that horrible jacket?”

“What?”

Then there was a hole: the music had stopped. The girl behind the wine table sat down and the man with the black ponytail stood up. “That’s Marcus,” whispered Val. “I’ve known him for years. He used to go out with my sister in high school.” He was a huge, genial man, with eyebrows that met in the middle. He began to talk over the remaining chatter about the novelty of this enterprise, and the importance and vibrancy of contemporary poetry, and the support he’d had from the magazine, and he held up some little books, more like pamphlets, in his huge beefy hands. Everyone clapped, and the reading began.

There was a strident middle-aged woman, followed by a thin optimistic young man in a Red Sox T-shirt. He was followed by an ethereal girl who read one word at a time in a monotone, a guy in a denim shirt whose lines were so long he kept running out of breath, and a couple of others Madeleine didn’t pay any attention to.

At the end, after the applause, Marcus stood up again and made a little speech. “And now, folks, the man behind the project! He’s the assistant editor of Canto, and he has a very understanding boss! It’s largely due to his vision that we have these little books here!” He brandished a couple of the pamphlets. “He’s also got his second book out now, not part of the series” - everyone laughed - “from which he’s prepared to read us a piece. Okay, let’s welcome Stefan Marshinsky!”

Stefan Marshinsky stood up and walked diffidently to the long table. He was the man in the jacket. He was also wearing a pair of cowboy boots, completely scuffed; he must have been sweltering. Val was smiling. “He’s good - listen. He’s very good,” she told Madeleine.

Then the voices died down and Stefan Marshinsky opened a thin book with a white cover. He flicked the pages back and forth, cleared his throat a couple of times, and began to read with no preamble, in a voice that was highish but surprisingly strong and musical.

“Ash alabaster
marble snow…”

Madeleine had never really given much thought to words before. She usually noticed how things looked. Dan used words professionally, to gain a point; it was all about advantage. He used words the same way he used a tennis racket or a golf club. Madeleine knew that for ten years she’d been living on Dan’s cunning. And she didn’t like playing tennis with him.

“my mother’s old hat was silk
of azure
what
does she know”

The second poem was called “Watching the news with the poet’s wife, New Jersey, 1971.” Madeleine found herself thinking about distant, unrelated things while she listened, watching the face of the poet. He was agitated; he obviously hated reading out his work even though the whole room was full of people sighing at the revelations of his words. As he read, his eyes flitted nervously around the room, between glances at the page. His eyes caught Madeleine’s for a second and seemed to falter slightly. He looked away and then back, reading with more conviction now, his cheeks bright spots of colour and his eyes a crazy blue in his pale face.

Val noticed. Leaning over she said, “Ooh! Go for it! He’s single now.” But Madeleine, who found she couldn’t tear her eyes off him, suddenly felt a little nauseaus.

“…not to be understood of silos cows
corn fields swaying clouds sweep
the high clean credulous
sky crouching behind
burned-out village or it could be any village
(when did we get like this)
he doesn’t speak
knowing nobody
will ever understand him again."

It was over so quickly. Something lurched inside Madeleine and she shut her eyes. Then she looked over at the long table where he’d been standing; she could see him surrounded by people like giant moths in their flapping, almost-colourful garments, and Val pushed her, laughing. “Go on! Tell him you liked it!”

“I feel a bit funny,” she said lamely. What was happening? What was Val asking her to do? She had to get home. Those people from the firm - Jonathan Asser,* the other partner, and his loud wife Muriel - coming over for dinner tomorrow: Dan wanted veal, something nice - and why had she worn this stupid pink skirt, for God’s sake? She rubbed at her lipstick with her fingers; he was looking at her openly while talking to someone else, but his face was blank. Then he was writing something in a book.

Madeleine’s head spun. Had she drunk too much of that wine on an empty stomach, or did she need more?

“I have to go,” she told Val.

“I’ll get us another drink,” offered Val. “Come on, you come.”

At the wine table a slender book was thrust into her hands and then he was gone.
Val was congratulating Marcus.

Opening the book Madeleine saw the single word, “please” - and his name, in large scrawly writing. Stefan.



* Okay, this is really funny. I know someone called Jonathan Asser! He's a poet, not a corporate lawyer. And I didn't know him when I wrote this! Not only that, I must have forgotten this character because I have never made the connection again and have now burst out laughing as I edit this section. How weird is that.