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By Root 436 0

pages he had written! There had been weeks of thousands of lines, his hand scurrying across the page hurrying to set them down, his lip fluttering, his head a butter churn of beating poetry. His family would be snoring before he fell asleep and he would awaken when the stars were just beginning to sink into dawn’s flood of light and the first people were trudging out to the fields, his lips already moving with lines he had to set down. Poems had formed in his dreams, had become louder and clearer until they had formed a solid bridge into wakefulness. They would force him awake to serve them. Sometimes he would creep out of bed into his corner chair, find an unused scrap of paper and start scratching them down before he realised that he’d written them already. Weeks of this frenzy. No wonder John Barleycorn was called upon to loosen the grip of words, to set him back on his arse and out of the violent machine of poetry.

But it had been better with his friends, a companionable riot through London’s streets. They would hate to see him now, alone in his room, hungry, abandoned, in a soiled shirt and excremental undergarments. And in flashes, with sudden clenches of shame, images of the past night’s debauch recurred to him. Had there really been again such ungentlemanly fighting? And fornication? He remembered shrieks and heard more of them from other parts of his house.

His servant opened the door. ‘Time for your exercise, ’ he said.

Byron looked at him, remembering. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly and stood, still staring at the man. His servant’s face changed as he stared, or rather, stayed the same, became the same. Around that face the air seemed to be splitting, dragging back. It was excruciating to watch. The face pushed into a new element, as though through water, until it was absolutely there, in the room with him. Finally, Byron recognised the man.

‘I know who you are.’

‘I know who you are.’

‘I know what you do.’

‘Do you, now?’

Behind the man, his double, himself, face glossy with sweat, buttoning his trousers, merging into the back of himself.

‘You’re Stockdale.’

‘And who are you?’

‘Lord Byron. I know what you do.’

‘You don’t know anything, your lordship.’

‘You did it again last night.’

‘Your lordship is mistaken. You’ve been locked up these past three days.’

‘Three nights ago, then. You violated . . .’

‘Come, come. Don’t be foolish.’

‘Give me my liberty and I won’t tell.’

‘Your freedom is for the doctor to decide. And anyway, who would believe you?’

‘The doctor.’

‘Which doctor?’

‘Dr Allen. He is a friend of mine.’

‘Put you in here, though, didn’t he? Your friend.You see, you are mad.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Don’t think . . .’ Byron held his head.

‘Who are you?’

‘Ow.’

He had to, he had to pull himself back inside himself. Stockdale had hold of his shirt, was shaking him. He clenched his teeth. Inside his skull, a crushing, a drowning. He forced himself further. He had to. It was an exchange of pains and he had to accept the greater. Stockdale shook him. John felt his flesh come off in the attendant’s hands leaving his bones bare, like a dead beast’s bones tacky with remnant flesh where the wind and sun had burned. Only his head remained the same. He heard the knocking of dogs’ jaws busy around his entrails that hung and fell into a pit. Stockdale dropped him. When he landed he saw himself briefly on a road, fleshless, exposed, a dead rabbit. He heard the clatter of carts and voices. Alone. The road stretched for miles in each direction. The wind softly blew on him. He’d woken up so far from home. He knew who he was.

‘I’m John,’ he said.

‘Who are you?’

‘I’m John Clare. I’m John. I’m a celebrated poet. When the doctor makes his rounds I will tell him what you did, unless you tell him to release me, that I am better.’

‘You don’t know who you are. Shakespeare, is it? Nelson? Who are you?’

‘You know who I am. You will tell him to release me. And her. You let her go, too.’

‘Who?’

‘Mary?’

‘Mary? There is no Mary here.’

‘Not Mary. You know who. You know.’

Winter was ending in a long ceremony