An old lady a literary muse

“So I’m the plaything of your imagination now, am I?” she said. “Alan Bennett’s used me and discarded me like a a…”

“Lothario?” I suggested.

“Don’t be dirty, young man, that’s not what you call that nice Mr Bennett. I meant like a plastic cup?”

“Well I shall do my best with the dry brown spots and runnels, the sides torn into stripes like the spikes of a lost and rolling coronet”. I lapsed into fanciful metaphor.

“Yes but no-one will no-one pick me up and set me on Stanley Baker’s Welsh head, crowned King in a muddy Leicestershire field, as he ushers in the drama and glory of Tudor England” replied my cinematically versed muse.

“Well” I said, “We writers use people worse than philanderers. They only use people’s bodies before discarding them, we seek out souls, expose and destroy them. We are inquisitors and furies, and people would do well to deny us intimacy. Not only do we take others’ souls, we sell our own to Mephistopheles, take Marlowe for example”.

“Are yes” she said “Down these mean streets a man must sometimes go. But in my case I only get mean streets to walk down, and to stand and wait at ruined bus shelters. It is then I feel at odds with Milton, that they also serve who only stand and wait for a 42 to Camden Town. I have aspirations to heroism. Dad I think Ibsen called it”.

“No not Philip Marlow, Christopher Marlowe”, said I sounding exasperated, perhaps unfairly.

“And did he come to a sticky end?” she said

“Oh frequently.” I said, “But it’s said the devil’s dog died a dastardly death, dug deeply by a dirty dagger in Deptford”

“Oh its rough round there” she said “My late husband Sid, was a taxi driver and he would never go sarf of the river after 10 pm - all of the them yardies”

“Well Chris was more into back alleys than yardies, but he certainly liked a bit of rough”

“Was he in debt, behind with the rent?”

“No. More behind with the rent boy, I would say. Although some say Marlowe did not die, he re-invented himself. He acquired a provincial background, fake Brummie accent and baldy wig, calling himself William Shakespeare, although how Mr Fakespeare was supposed to have acquired his brilliant education and knowledge of the customs and mores of court life has never been adequately explained. Some say he got this knowledge from his patron, the Earl of Essex”

“And what happened to Essex?”.

“After going up an down in royal favour faster than his girlfriends’ knickers, the queen had him executed for his for his failed policy of compromise in Northern Ireland, his over familiar demeanour, and for flaunting his purple furry dice at her fainting ladies in waiting”

“So he lost his head for a disastrous accommodation with violent Catholic rebels in Northern Ireland. Does that mean that Mowlam, Mandelson and Reid will suffer the same fate?”

“Let’s not be too political or too hopeful” I said. “Anyway this piece is supposed to be literary and about you, can I give you a name?”

“Amanda she said – I loved Noel Coward’s plays, so witty, and urbane. He had heroines called Amanda, but all I really wish is that you keep me alive and stop me being mundane. Stop me ending up in a mawkish Ralph McTell song. You can abuse my Rubenesque body until its Baroquen! Make me run through your text, ‘Naked as Nietzsche Intended’, and have Friedrich, Julie Andrews and me climb every mountain of metaphysical expression, although I have no preference as to whether my mensch is ueber or unter, so long as he’s witty and gentle”

“Sturm and Drang!” I replied.

“I ain’t having any of them Sturmtruppen” – she said “Conformist Nancy boy skinheads”

“No I mean ‘struggle and desire’, the essence of Nietzsche”, I said “just like I go through to finish an essay”

“No SA. No Brownshirts”, she persisted, “and what happened to Nietzsche,-remind me?”, she enquired.

“He went sick, mad and eventually died from syphilis.”

“Does it always drive you mad”, she said.

“Nearly always, but Julie Andrews advising him to think of his favourite things made it certain. His brain rotted second. It was his second favourite organ”