Brian Bilston: what a guy.

Dave, Martin and Marvin invited me to join them at the local bonfire night celebrations but I turned them down, on the pretence I had a poem to write. What I didn’t tell them was that I’ve been terrified of organised firework events ever since I was a child. Even the smell of candyfloss sends me into a flap.

Instead, I settled in to watch Prime Suspect but dropped off to sleep on the sofa, beneath the cat. I had a dreadful dream in which all my poems were set on fire and everyone cheered. I looked this up in my Dream Dictionary but the book is clearly faulty and I have put it in my bag for Oxfam.

Tuesday November 6th

‘Oh, look. The black sheep has returned,’ said Mary as I walked in through the door.

I wore a cowed, hangdog expression as I silently returned the money to each of them.

‘You’re a dark horse,’ said Kaylee. ‘Where did that come from?’

I kept my mouth shut.

‘I thought we’d have to wait donkey’s years for it,’ said Chandrima.

‘Can’t have been easy,’ said Liz to the rest of the group, ‘being ostrichised like that.’

They laughed but stopped when I tried to join in.

I asked whether I might sit and hear a few poems but Mary said that perhaps under the circumstances, it might be better if I left; it should not be forgotten that I was responsible for the cancellation of the club’s Poets on the Western Front trip. They would discuss whether any re-enrolment might be possible in my absence. Besides, she said, there was only one free chair and they had a new member joining them later.

I glanced back as I reached the door. Liz was smiling at me. I walked home, with a spring in my step, and unread poems in my duffel-coat pocket. Somewhere, amidst the hurt and anger, I detected the faint traces of forgiveness and the beginning of my rehabilitation.

Wednesday November 7th

I had just settled down to watch Countdown when the phone rang. It was DI Lansbury.

‘You are the salt of the earth,’ he said. ‘But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Matthew. Chapter 5, Verse 13,’ he said.

‘Sorry, I don’t quite follow.’ The consonants and vowels were being doled out.

He sighed. ‘You mention it in your poem “Bloodshed”.’

‘Do I?’ I said, looking at my letters and writing down ‘splat’ on my piece of paper.

‘You do, indeed.’

One of the contestants had got a seven-letter word, the other a six.

‘Any reason for that particular choice of Bible quotation, sir?’

The contestant with six letters said the word ‘pistol’.

‘Can’t remember.’