The Last Performance
at Greyhaven

The last train west was nearly empty
Two nurses and a marine
A woman feeding crossword clues
Into a vending machine
The guard clipped holes through destinations
With ceremonial care
Then looked at mine and raised an eyebrow
As though nobody went there

I said, "Greyhaven"
He said, "End of the line"
Then marked the ticket twice
As if the first mark might decline

Greyhaven, don't wait up
I'm only passing through
I've told that lie in every town
But never once to you

The window gave my face back
In pieces after dark
One eye above a signal box
One mouth across a park
I tried to read the evening news
The headlines would not stay
A minister denied the facts
A factory closed today
The football scores were final
The weather promised rain
Nothing in the printed world
Explained why I was on that train

Greyhaven, don't wait up
Put nothing on the stove
I'm not the boy who left your streets
With nowhere else to go

I used to think the future
Was a country with my name
Where every door said PRIVATE
Till I arrived and made a claim
I learned to bow at curtain calls
To pause before a tear
To make a room of strangers think
I'd whispered in each ear
I learned which wounds looked noble
Which failures sounded brave
And how regret improves with age
Once properly engraved

But there are nights when hotel glass
Catches you before the act
Before the grin has found its lighting
Before the lie becomes a fact
There are mornings when your own name
Looks borrowed on the page
And every town behind you
Feels like scenery from a stage

The suburbs thinned to warehouses
The warehouses to fields
The moon flashed on the window
Like a coin nobody yields
Then salt appeared upon the glass
Or perhaps it was the rain
And somewhere past the blackened dunes
The sea began again

The pier rose up in sections
A broken ruler in the foam
The town was smaller than the memory
That had brought me home

Greyhaven, don't wait up
I see the platform light
I've spent twenty years rehearsing
What I cannot say tonight

The train doors opened
I stepped down
The train knew where to go

They painted the railings municipal blue
To prove that the council remembers the view
The pier is condemned but the gift shop survives
Selling shells made in China and simplified lives
The Grand Hotel offers a sea-facing room
With breakfast, a Bible and traces of bloom
The lift has been broken since eighty-one
But the brochure says climbing is part of the fun

Wish you were here
Preferably spending
Summer is over
The offers keep ending
Wish you were here
Bring cash and good cheer
Greyhaven loves you
Three weeks of the year

The fortune machine gives professional advice
For twenty new pence, sometimes twenty pence twice
It told me, "A journey will change who you are"
Then swallowed my money and flashed AU REVOIR
The Golden Crown Arcade is half LED
Half carpet, half mildew, half clinically dead
A child wins a whistle, his father wins debt
The horses keep racing without moving yet

Wish you were here
Preferably thirsty
Monday is charming
And Tuesday is worse, see
Wish you were here
The coast is quite clear
Greyhaven loves you
Three weeks of the year

A man dressed as Nelson sells lager and chips
With gravy on trousers and salt on his lips
He says, "Used to be queues from the station to shore"
Then points at six pensioners asleep by the door
The Winter Gardens is Luxury Mews
The fishermen's club is a place selling shoes
The cinema's bingo, the bingo's now flats
The rats have a landlord, the landlord has rats

Rename the collapse
Reframe the decline
Call every crack
An original line
Turn damp into character
Dust into charm
Put heritage plaques
On the fire alarm

I found my old face on a sun-bleached display
THE GREYHAVEN PLAYERS, ONE WEEK ONLY IN MAY
My hair reached my collar, my grin reached the street
Someone had written COMPLETE LITTLE SHIT
I laughed for a moment
Then looked round in case
Somebody remembered the rest of my face
Nobody did
And the wind off the sea
Tore nineteen seventy-four off of me

Wish you were here
Preferably younger
Memory is cheap
But memory gets hungrier
Wish you were here
The message is clear
Greyhaven needs you
Three weeks of the year
But not permanently

She was smoking beneath the old marquee
Keeping one shoulder out of the rain
I knew her before she turned towards me
She knew me and looked away again

I said, "Helen"
She said, "Still dramatic?"
Then dropped the cigarette under her shoe
I had carried speeches across half the country
She defeated them all with
"How are you?"

I said I was working
She said, "Still acting?"
I said there had been television as well
She said she had seen me once in a hospital drama
Playing a doctor who couldn't tell
I said, "That was years ago"
She said, "Everything is"
Then asked if I still drank after a show
I said, "Only socially"
She looked at the empty street
And said
"Not much society here, though"

She married Tom from the bakery
He gets up at four and complains about flour
They have two children, a terrier, a mortgage
And arguments lasting about half an hour
Her mother died
Her father moved inland
Her eldest is studying law
She said all this without lowering her voice
As if ordinary life
Required no applause

I said, "I wrote to you"
She said, "Three times"
I said, "Some letters may have gone astray"
She said, "You wrote when you were frightened or drunk
And both times wanted saving that day"
I said, "I was young"
She said, "So was I"
I said, "I had something to prove"
She said, "You always mistook being watched
For having somewhere to move"

I told her I sometimes imagined returning
And finding the life we might have lived
She said, "You imagine the flattering version
You never imagine what marriage gives
You never imagine the bills on the table
Or you after another bad review
You imagine me frozen beneath this marquee
Still waiting to happen to you"

I said, "Perhaps we were meant for each other"
She laughed, but not cruelly at me
She said, "You were meant for an audience
I was meant to be free"

Then Tom arrived in a bakery van
He waved through the glass and waited
No jealous scene
No meaningful silence
No old wound ceremonially stated

She kissed my cheek and said, "Take care"
The sort of thing decent people say
Then climbed beside him
And fastened her seat belt
And ordinary life drove away

I stood beneath the marquee
With nothing prepared to perform
The rain came through the missing letters
And made no attempt
To keep me warm

Mrs Vale ran seventeen rooms
Above the Golden Crown
She wore a belt of brass front-door keys
And never once sat down
She said, "Breakfast, seven thirty
Bathrooms, second floor
No visitors after ten o'clock
Unless they pay for more"

She looked at my suitcase
She looked at my shoes
She looked at the name in her register
And said
"You've been here before
Haven't you?"
I said, "Perhaps"
She said, "Room nine"
Then charged me for the view

The view was brick
A drainpipe
And a pigeon missing two

Mr Pike in number three
Collected broken clocks
He said time worked for management
And ought to join the docks
Miss Dora Finch in number six
Had once performed with dogs
She kept their photographs in frames
And fed imaginary frogs
The twins in number seven
Sold perfume door to door
One spoke every sentence twice
The other spoke once more
A young man lived in number eight
Who never left his bed
He wrote complaints to famous men
And signed them
"Recently dead"

Rooms above the arcade
Thin walls, thicker lies
Everybody hears the truth
Then politely shuts their eyes
Rooms above the arcade
Buckets in the hall
Every private kingdom
Has somebody next door through the wall

Below us all night long
The Golden Crown performed
Bells announced victories
No human being earned
Plastic rifles shot at wolves
That rose without complaint
A mechanical boxer punched the air
And never seemed to faint
The fortune woman lit her eyes
I fed her twenty pence
She said, "You have a talent
For confusing noise with consequence"
I fed her twenty more
She said, "A woman knows your name"
I kicked the cabinet hard enough
To tilt the game

The manager came running
In slippers and a vest
He said, "You theatrical gentlemen
Are worse than all the rest"

The wallpaper still carried
A brown mark near the bed
Where I had thrown a bottle
At something Helen said
The wardrobe held one wire hanger
Two dead moths and dust
No red stage coat
No secret script
No evidence of us

I remembered velvet curtains
I remembered candlelight
The room contained a kettle
And a bulb too weak for night

Mrs Vale appeared behind me
Holding towels to her chest
She said, "You always were exhausting
When you wanted to be blessed"
I said, "Did I leave anything?"
She said, "Several unpaid weeks
A girl crying on the landing
And a talent for speeches"

Rooms above the arcade
Every lock remembers hands
Every stain becomes a country
When a lonely man expands

Then the building gave a shudder
And the Golden Crown went black
One machine continued ringing
Then reluctantly gave back
The residents opened doorways
Small faces in the gloom
For half a minute everybody
Stood outside their room

Mrs Vale lit three candles
And called each person
By their name

You built a man from good reviews
Bad sleep and borrowed jokes
You taught him how to enter rooms
And leave through clouds of smoke
You gave him one convincing wound
A childhood painted grey
A careful little tremor
When the questions turned that way

You dressed his fear as arrogance
His selfishness as drive
Then sent him underneath the lights
And called the trick alive

A costume full of strangers
Buttoned to the throat
Every one of them had lines
Every one of them could quote
A costume full of strangers
Stitched beneath the skin
You spent so long becoming them
You forgot who let them in

There was the wounded working boy
Who hated wealth on cue
There was the educated clown
Who knew one book or two
There was the dangerous romantic
There was the faithful friend
There was the man who meant each promise
Till the promise reached its end
There was the drunk who spoke the truth
The sober man who lied
The fragile prince who needed love
Then punished those who tried

A costume full of strangers
Buttoned to the throat
Every one of them had lines
Every one of them could quote
A costume full of strangers
Sewn with praise and gin
You spent so long becoming them
You forgot who let them in

Take off the clever one
He says he keeps you safe
Take off the tragic one
He uses grief for shape
Take off the lover
He loves being seen
Take off the rebel
He knows what rebellion means
Take off the actor
No
Take off the actor
No
Take off the actor
There is nothing underneath

I found the red coat in my case
Though I had left it years ago
Perhaps I packed it in my sleep
Perhaps it learned to follow
I held it by the shoulders
Like a body from the sea
The lining held the smell of rooms
Where people paid for me

I put one arm inside it
Then pulled the arm away
Some doors are only exits
When you choose not to stay

A costume full of strangers
Lying on the bed
Every one of them was hungry
Every one of them was dead
A costume full of strangers
No applause, no violin
I did not need to murder them
I only stopped climbing in

The side door opened with a shove
And half the frame came free
A notice on the wall said
STAFF ONLY
Including me

The lobby smelled of plaster
Wet carpet and old beer
The chandelier had lost enough
To make the floor severe
Backstage, my dressing-room door
Still carried one gold star
My name beneath was smaller
Than I remembered from afar

Inside, the mirror waited
With twelve dead bulbs around
I sat before it carefully
And listened to the building sound

Powder for the bruises
Black around the eyes
White across the ordinary
Red across the lies
Fasten every button
Check the good side twice
Pain appears spontaneous
When properly precise

Ladies and gentlemen
Residents and rain
Greyhaven's missing favourite son
Has missed you all again
Tonight, without an understudy
Tonight, without restraint
I give you every man I was
And several that I ain't

I entered through the centre
With my arms thrown open wide
The orchestra attacked the theme
The curtains multiplied
The balconies were crowded
The boxes overflowed
Every person I had failed
Had purchased the front row

Look at me now
I made it after all
I learned how to fly
By rehearsing the fall
Look at me now
No debt, no delay
I turned everyone I abandoned
Into someone I could play

I played the boy at seventeen
Who called his father small
I played the man at thirty
Who no longer called at all
I played the lover writing home
From someone else's bed
I played the brave survivor
Of the wounds he always fed

The audience laughed on cue
They wept exactly where
I placed the little silence
That proved how much I cared

Look at me now
I made it after all
I learned how to fly
By rehearsing the fall
Look at me now
No debt, no delay
I turned everyone I abandoned
Into someone I could play

Then one light failed above me
Then another
Then the sound
The orchestra stopped playing
But no instrument was found
The balconies were canvas
The cheers became the rain
Running through the broken roof
And down the windowpane

There was nobody watching
Except a man in row thirteen
In a factory coat
With oil on both hands
And a face kept painfully clean

I said, "Dad"
He said, "That's convenient"
I said, "I came to put things right"
He said, "You came to make a speech
You always come at night"

I said, "You never understood me"
He said, "You never stayed"
I said, "I wanted something larger"
He said, "And did you get it made?"

I said, "They knew my name in London"
He said, "Did they know when you lied?"
I said, "I couldn't live your life"
He said, "You never even tried"

I said, "You should have called me back"
He said
"You wanted me to grieve"

Then row thirteen was empty
And I had nothing left to leave

No crowd
No father
No perfect final word
No evidence the dead return
Because the living need to be heard
No Helen in the doorway
No younger self backstage
No critic writing mercy
In the margin of the page

So this is what remains of me
Without the careful art
I wanted to be noticed
More than I wanted to take part
I called neglect devotion
I called cowardice escape
I called the truth too ordinary
Unless I gave it shape

Don't look at me now
There's nothing to applaud
No beautiful disaster
No misunderstood god
Don't look at me now
Let the silence remain
Some things are not redeemed
By explaining the pain

I removed the coat
And folded it
No burning, curse or plea
I laid it in the centre
Where the leading man should be

Then from the back of the theatre
One small house light came
I said my given name aloud
It sounded plain
It sounded strange
It sounded mine

Outside, the rain was thinning
On the roofs of Greyhaven
I left the final line unspoken
And walked out
Before the end

At six, the bakery opened
At six fifteen, a bus
At six eighteen, two council men
Discussed the state of us
A woman hosed the pavement
Outside the Golden Crown
The dirt ran towards the gutter
Without once looking back around

The sky was losing colour
The sea was losing rage
Greyhaven looked less tragic
In the ordinary day

When the house lights rise
The magic does not die
It becomes wood
Wire
Paint
And somebody sweeping nearby

Mrs Vale stood in the doorway
With her cardigan pulled tight
She said, "You left your key upstairs"
I said, "Keep it for the night"
She said, "You mean forever"
I said, "Something close to that"
She nodded like a woman
Who had heard much better acts

I asked if she remembered me
Before I went away
She said, "I remember everybody
I don't remember every day"

When the house lights rise
The scenery looks small
That does not make it worthless
It only makes it a wall

The promenade was waking
With deliveries and steam
No child had yet demanded
That the machines produce a dream
The fortune woman's painted eyes
Were dark behind the glass
For once she had no future
And I had no need to ask

I passed beneath the marquee
The letters swung above
There was no message hidden there
No judgement and no love

Not every silence is wisdom
Not every wound is art
Not every road is destiny
Because you chose to start
Not every life is waiting
For the courage to begin
Sometimes the door is only shut
Because nobody is in

The station clock said seven
The ticket office glowed
The clerk asked, "Single?"
I said, "Yes"
He said, "Where?"
I said, "I don't know"

He waited with his pencil
I named a town at random
The name looked harmless on the card
No past attached
No anthem

The train arrived without ceremony
Four carriages and steam
I took a seat beside the window
And did not call it a dream

When the house lights rise
The audience is gone
You gather what belongs to you
And leave the rest switched on

Greyhaven slipped behind me
The pier became a line
I watched until I lost it
Then stopped trying
To make the moment
Mean more
Than mine