SATURDAY 2006 IN LIVERPOOL ~ Second Edition (August 2024)
SATURDAY 2006 IN LIVERPOOL
New Second Edition
I will go down with this ship… but I don’t want to
CK ~ equilibrium restored
“I will go down with this ship.
No white flag.
No surrender.”
Dido.(i)
Dido. Does she speak true words?
Yeah, sure she does.
Sorry? How do you know?
Well, because I’ve lived my life.
I’ve loved,
I’ve been in love,
but never been loved,
And sure.
Just as she says,
Always will be.
The beat of Ha-Ha.
The strum of a myriad voices.
An uncontrollable hen party.
Lots of laughter.
Lots of happiness.
A lotta fun!
A solitary girl.
Forlorn.
Lots of thoughts.
Wondering whether she will ever have a hen party?
She’s pretty.
But she doesn’t see it.
She’s nonplussed.
She’s trying her best…
Just let go, love.
Live your life.
Sod all of ‘em.
Be yourself?
Do what you want to do.
Your life is what you want.
Not what your parents want.
Be thankful, you live here.
And not in Syria.
Be thankful you don’t have
arranged marriages.
Or telling things to people you trust,
Who, then, tell on you!
Or you have to leave the country.
If you stay, experience the stomach pump,
If you’re lucky!
Oh, yeah - Barry White (ii)
My first
My last
My everything
Yes – that’s you, mate.
You’ll always be that to me.
There’s only one like you.
There’s no way there’s two of you.
What would I give?
To give you Monty?
To see you both together.
What would I give to know what it’s like to be in love like Dido!
Do I really have to go down with this bloody ship?
I don’t want to.
But I don’t know what to do.
There’s a basement, you know.
It’s a great place.
Where I chill out.
Where I don’t have people hounding me.
I can be myself.
I can be with my people.
Where I’m safe.
It’s a great place.
Coffee, biscuits, good conversation, too.
Or just milling about.
Feeling wanted.
Being wanted.
It’s where I saw the film Mrs Brown!
I’ve seen other good films there too.
Bel Ami
La Strada,
And Euro crème too,
Prowler boys, and Millivres too.
The train glides through the countryside.
Charlotte appears from the carriage.
Will she ever see her Flight Lieutenant again?
Strange. I, too, was once a Flight Lieutenant.
God, what I’d have given to have Charlotte on my arm.
There were others though.
Yeah? What, you Ian?
Yeah, sure. God! I felt twenty feet tall.
Hey Barry, they call it hiding in plan sight yer daftee!
We giggle.
The fields race by.
Rape seed and Lavender.
In earlier times, it was the poppies of Flanders Fields.
Now it is the Lavender of Avignon.
Will he be there after all this time?
Am I really walking up this track again to the Château?
Is this really that same gate?
My name is Charlotte Gray
Her features are as beautiful
as the day he first saw her.
She saw death.
She saw executions.
Survived…
Saved the boys… at first.
But lost them in the end.
She wrote their parent’s final letter.
And stuffed it through the cattle truck
on their final journey.
She lived.
They died. Mere infants.
Now she sees her first love.
He is beautiful.
His eyes are alight.
Inflamed with desire.
Outwardly calm,
The muscle in his cheek belies his inner turmoil.
The war is now over.
She came back for him after all.
The gun emplacement on Folkestone promenade,
An explosion of desire.
The taste of a gun.
But not sulphur.
The shimmering light of France.
The warm air?
His beauty
His warmth
His caress
His care
His gentleness
His humour
His tenderness
His lips
His tongue
The smoothness of his skin.
His long blonde hair flowing over hands
His halcyon eyes
That is the only way I can describe them,
and him.
Yeah. Typical Kentish Boy.
Well, okay, heavenly too.
Do we like meat?
Sure, we do.
Will we meet?
Sure, we will.
When?
Tomorrow.
Come down again next Friday, Ian.
Let’s have dinner again at La Scala too.
I liked it there.
You made me feel like I was special.
And I think I’ve not met anyone like you before!
But why are you alone?
Why haven’t you been snapped up?
Why have you missed the boat?
I don’t like it when you talk of Dido
I hate it. I hate it,
Even more because you seem to joke about it
as if it’s no great thing.
Christ Almighty, Ian!
Look what happened the last time you did.
What?
Newcastle, that’s what, mate!
Oh…
Don’t ‘oh’ it out of existence!
You’re a life.
You’re a person.
You have a purpose to fulfil.
And you can’t gainsay him.
And you can’t gainsay me, either.
You know that as well as I do.
Maybe I do.
But maybe I’m fed up with his games.
No mate.
You’re wrong. He doesn’t play games.
He never has and never will.
Only his adversary does that.
And you’re a fool to allow him to do so,
When your chief ally is that old serpent’s creator.
Yes, okay.
He’s right.
Remember this.
I don’t play games.
I never have, and never will.
I will not contend with you.
And you are a fool to think
that I would do so.
Have faith, for God’s sake, whoever that God is,
I know that causes you much hassle these days.
Get over it! Get on with life.
What do you call him, her, they, it even?
Oh yeah. The Higher.
That’s Class, Ian.
Your friend in Koblenz,
blimey, did that great lady hit
the nail well n truly on the head!
The moments pass…
Hey, sorry, I did not mean to be so harsh.
Come on, Ian
Give us a hug.
Let’s kiss it better.
Ha-Ha Restaurant
Albert Dock, Liverpool,
23 September 2006
10:31 pm
(i) Lyrics written and performed by Dido (the international Singer Songwriter Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong)
(ii) Barry White (1944-2003) American singer-songwriter
(iii) The film Charlotte Gray (2001). Here, the poem refers to the film adaptation of Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks (1999) directed by Gillian Armstrong
Ian Bradley Marshall
18 January 2024
All Rights Reserved
LIVERPOOL
© 2024 Ian Bradley Marshall
Digital Artwork by IBM KTW unless otherwise credited
Last published 18 January 2024
New Edition 12 August 2024
Hiding in Plain Sight
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
