Ian McMillan: The armpits. He’d seen the armpits!

I DON’T know where to start. Should I start with the blokes carrying the mattress through the door and then going back for the tumble drier? Should I start with a description of what I laughingly call my “workstation”? Should I start with a little riff about the book of poems I’m editing ready for a deadline at the end of the month? Should I start with the armpits? Better not. I’ll come back to the armpits.

I’ll tell you what: I’ll just recount the story. So I’m editing this book of poems for a big publisher (they must be big because they’ve taken me out for tea and cakes twice) and the idea of the book is that it’s a different poem from the past and the present for every day of the year with a little commentary by me. When I’m working on the book I sit in the back room at my little white table surrounded by poetry books and I choose poems and I type them out.

I originally thought I’d just have to choose the poems and somebody else would have the joy of typing them but the publishers told me that was my job. They must have spent all their money on cakes. Some writers have a study but I prefer the little white table in the back room; it makes me feel less isolated, more part of the bustling world.

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I was alone in the house and in charge; some chaps were due with a mattress and a tumble dryer and I had to keep my ears open for their arrival. I was getting well into the book-editing when their knock came at the door and I opened it and there was a young lad holding a mattress. I gestured him in.

He dropped the mattress off and then his mate arrived sweating under the weight of the tumble drier. We wanted it in the conservatory and I showed him through. I felt the usual feeling of uselessness I get when confronted by practical men who can drive and fix things, but I tried not to show it. To get to the conservatory the tumble-drier-carrier had to struggle past my table. I saw him glance down at the screen of my laptop. He glanced and he smirked. He glanced and he smirked and he almost, though not quite, guffawed.

The armpits! He’d seen the armpits! Let me explain: I’d been typing a poem by the French poet André Breton. It’s a surreal description of his wife’s charms. The first line is “My wife whose eyelashes are strokes in the handwriting of a child”’ and the line I was just on with when the mattress-boy knocked was “My wife with the armpits of martens and beech fruit and Midsummer Night” and his mate had read it! “Just sign here, pal,” he said, passing me a form, and I could feel his voice trembling on the edge of a laugh. I wanted to explain: it’s not by me, it’s by a French surrealist and he’s talking about his wife and it’s meant to be funny and gentle, but I didn’t.

“See you then, pal!” he said, and he looked pointedly at the screen. And then he scratched his armpit, deliberately. I imagined the two of them driving off in the van, howling hysterically, preparing the anecdote for that night in the pub. Armpits of beech fruit! I shut my computer down, put the kettle on, and wished I could crawl inside the tumble dryer or hide under the mattress…