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| Sue Dymoke lives and works in Nottingham as a Head of English. She has been widely published in magazines and has written five pamphlet collections, the latest being Lifting the Language (Shoestring Press). She is currently researching poetry teaching and, this Autumn, will be a schoolteacher fellow at Sidney Sussex College. |
She lets
someone know she'll be late
tapping out the number
with electronic bleeps
guaranteed to jerk anyone back from Egdon Heath
or other bookish reverie.
Someone
else borrows it:
a business woman
now late for an interview
she would have made
with half an hour to spare.
Would have,
had the circumstances been different for her
different for the one who threw their life away on the line
different for us,
stranded
incommunicado
as we lose our reservations,
remain long lost friends,
have our Supersaver Day outs
reduced to afternoon excursions
as the train crawls
and the mobiles trill
like roadrunners
or some tamagotchi nightmare.
At the restaurant
(now first port of call instead of third)
the mobiles hide
like quiet pests waiting to spring to life.
Smartly tailored in short leather jackets,
they lurk in wallet pockets, purses or on tabletops
nestling among condiments.
His office
rings
and we soon all know about the Yank's big shipping deal
(the thousands of dollars tied up in it)
and are united by our own insignificance.
We also discover he feels cold shouldered by his boss
but likes the restaurant,
enjoys its trilling ambience.
To our right,
mid coca-cola and chicken salad,
the young Frenchman gets a call
not to be taken in front of pére.
Does he
blame the reception?
All that cutlery interfering with his link up?
He disappears outside
maintaining all our privacies.
Other young
men, dining with parents, watch their phones
waiting, listening out for an escape.
Middle aged women, Burberry coated MPs,
sporty types and business suits all wait.
On the train
home she's at it again.
After ignoring her buzzing handbag,
she finally puts us all out of one misery
and into another
as she describes the burning brake smell
stinking out our carriage;
the whine of children;
the ache of tiredness
and allows us all to fantasise
(while we dawdle on through Wellingborough and Kettering,
Loughborough and Leicester)
about the fish and chips collected by a smiling chauffeur,
about the hot bath, the warm man she has waiting
to whisk her away from all this,
keep her mobile.