Gerard Woodward - Ill Go to Bed at Noon

Gerard Woodward

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Epub ISBN 9781407087184

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Published by Vintage 2005

6 8 10 9 7

Copyright Gerard Woodward 2004

Extract on p.vii from Petersburg: A Novel in Eight Chapters with a Prologue and an Epilogue by Andrei Bely, translated with an introduction by David McDuff (Penguin 1995) Copyright David McDuff, 1995

The publishers would like to thank Whitbread, Diageo (including the GUINNESS beer brand), Diners Club and Interbrew (Mackeson) for permission to use their brand names and logos. Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders.

Gerard Woodward has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

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First published in Great Britain in 2004 by Chatto & Windus

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To the memory of my brother
Francis Woodward

I LL G O TO B ED AT
N OON

Gerard Woodward was born in London in 1961. He has published four acclaimed collections of poetry: Householder, After the Deafening, Island to Island and When We Were Pedestrians. His first novel, August, was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award. Gerard Woodward lives near Bath where he teaches Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

ALSO BY GERARD WOODWARD

Fiction

August

Poetry

Householder

After the Deafening

Island to Island

When We Were Pedestrians

The author would like to thank the Royal Literary Fund for their support during the writing of this novel.

The rooms were small rooms, each was occupied by only one enormous object: in the tiny bedroom the bed was the enormous object; in the tiny bathroom it was the bath; in the drawing-room it was the bluish alcove; in the dining room it was the table-cum-sideboard; in the maids room the object was her maid; in her husbands room the object was, of course, her husband.

Andrei Bely, Petersburg

28 Polperro Gardens

Wood Green

London

N.22

March 30th 1974

Wednesday

Dear Janus

I am very sorry that I have not been able to see you, or even write to you before this. I have been rather ill since Sunday afternoon, in fact. Ive had a very bad cold combined with asthma and have hardly been able to breathe. After a visit to the doctors on Tuesday morning I was given a great variety of pills etc and am now a little better. (Lobo is crawling over me.) (Ill have to stop for a moment as she now wants to go out.) Of course, not being at work, I am imprisoned here in this box impersonating a room (I hope Im going to get paid from work as Im skint). Still, I am hoping that I shall be able to come and see you on Friday. If I dont, I hope that you will write to me as soon after you receive this letter as possible. I shall look forward to it!

Of course, what with so many demons flying around forcing gentlemen such as us to take too many drinks and whoop too loud and too often and even more strange and ludicrous actions! And even the changing of names as the mad women of Tierrapaulita do (to change themselves) does not one bit of good and the changing of Billbaorosta or Januscjeckarama to: violas one day or violets the next or even after a while cirfrusias, cifrernas, tirrenas, mabrofordotas, frabicias, fabiolas, quitanias, pasquinas, shoposas, zozimas, zangoras and thats the end of the alphabet! (apart from the missing tenaquilas and pogaliras). So think not of changing, my friend, (name or anything) and be damned to devils! For happy are those who whoopeth too loud and delirious are those who ludicrous are!

Now I have heard it said that the natives in the Northern part of Windhover Hill (so far unexplored) speak of a most monstrous Red Lion, that lives in those parts, and its roars can be heard echoing about the eucalyptus and Banyan trees in the valley of the source of the Limpopo. To my mind it is in the national interest that an expedition to discover the Red Lion must be mounted but that it should be properly funded. Many pleas to the Royal Geographical society have been fruitless so far and others snatch away the mountains of the Shangri-las but to the valley of the Red Lion a path must soon be made, and it is we that shall make it.

I hope very much so that dear Scipplecat is well and happy and I hope that you will convey my best regards to the aforesaid furry creature. Lobo also sends her best wishes.

Now look after yourself JJ and take care till I see you again. Im afraid coughing and spluttering I must bring this letter to its terrible and inevitable end.

Try not to drink too much till I see you.

You must save some money so that we can go a-boozing. (Lobo is sitting on my head, my nose is full of whiskers)

I think the drink is getting the better of this letter

PAX Vobiscum

Lobo says goodbye for now

also adios from myself

Bill

Janus didnt usually leave his letters from Bill lying around, but this one had been left on the kitchen table, out of its envelope, half-unfolded, beside the glass cider tankard that held a posy of wilting daffodils, in a way that suggested, to Colette at least, that she was being invited, along with anyone else in the house, to read it.

And so she had read it, alone in the kitchen, waiting for Aldous to return after a morning at school to get ready for the funeral that afternoon. It was written in a painstakingly rendered Gothic script using a broad, italic nib and illustrated with exquisite marginal drawings. It was like a drunkards version of the Book of Kells. The D of Dear Janus had been drawn as a D-shaped pub, with a little chimney, creeping ivy and an inn-sign hanging (she even recognised the decapitated Elizabethan on the sign as