Swathes of rain, love in Tokyo, and no deals with the devil
With Patrick McCabe, José Daniel Alvior, and poetry from Benjamin Zephaniah
Despite it being on at least two of my reading lists at university I’d never actually read Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood until this weekend past. I’ve started it on a few occasions, I’ve lost more than one copy, and I’ve pored again and again over Capote’s introduction to Holcomb, Kansas, the scene of that famous crime. There aren’t many people who are better at creating a sense of place than the Bulldog. ‘The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call “out there”.’
But I’d never actually read it through. This weekend I made amends. I read it in the garden, at the pub, and on the bus. I read it for most of Saturday and finished it on Sunday.
I thought of In Cold Blood this morning when I was reading Patrick McCabe’s new novel Goldengrove. In almost every sense they have almost nothing in common at all — except that they do. They do that thing that brilliant literature does, which is that in the same way I spent Saturday in the bath but actually in Kansas transported in mind to the high wheat plains, I spent this morning (while reading the excerpt below) under the rain in a faded seaside town.
It’s hardly the most complex thought, but I read to go out there, and great writers take you along.
Patrick Galbraith
Editor
Rain over Woosley Bay
An excerpt from Patrick McCabe's new novel, Goldengrove
The rain has begun again over Woolsley Bay and what few remaining cars there may have been have already departed for the city. And now, in their absence, hovers that unmistakable melancholy which always seems to descend whenever a bank holiday comes to an end–in a specific type of British coastal ‘home from home’, at any rate. A description more than appropriate to the surroundings in which now, after all this time, I have found myself. Ah yes, that old home from home. Which is how Miss Rosie Dixon–the famed proprietress of what was, once upon a time, an ‘entertainment hotel’–elects to promote her once-upon-a-time magnificent edifice. In all honesty, a testament to Victorian overreaching. Now, in fact, little more than a birthday cake slowly but surely sinking into the ocean.
Not that Madame Dixon appears to care very much–snoring her head off, as is her wont, lying there helplessly slumped across a deckchair and not caring a damn about being caught out in another shower.
Reminding me, actually, as I stand here looking out at her, of no one more so than the grand dame Beryl Reid, another oldstager, if you happen to remember any of her performances. Such as, for example, The Killing of Sister George.
The Killing of Brother Henry, ha ha. Forgive me, will you–just my silly little idea of a joke. In poor taste, I acknowledge. Pray please, if you would–let me continue. With my little sea-side story–concerning Mme Dixon and our adventures chez Woolsley Bay.
Rosie’s father was Alderman Whitney Dixon. Along with a considerable complement of tics and neuroses and a tendency to give utterance without any significant degree of consideration, the Woolsley Bay Hotel had been his parting gift to his beloved daughter. Who had nursed him through to the end of his life, for the best part of twenty-five years–after his wife had flung herself across a balcony. Regrettably, the coroner had never established the precise sequence of events. Not with any degree of certainty, or so Dixon told me.
Standing here watching her, it occurs to me that it would probably be for the best if I went out and summoned her inside–for I fear that the rain is not going to abate. As a matter of fact, I would venture to suggest that there well may be an electrical storm in the offing. Certainly by the looks of those clouds just beyond the cliffs. Such a brooding cumulus as presents itself before me.
There isn’t–at least, not yet–any great need, however, to be overly concerned about the fortunes of poor old departed Henry, aspirant OBE. For a start, I’ve taken the precaution of pocketing the bathroom key. And, in any case, poor old Dixon–as I say, by now she’s so intoxicated she could barely establish a barn door directly in front of her. Still snoring. You can hear her from here, gagging through the swathes of rain.
Such quiet, though, apart from that. Ho hum.
Pat McCabe’s Goldengrove, a dark satire about a theatrical agency acting as a front for British counter-terrorism in 1960s Dublin, has just been published by Unbound
Symbols of permanence
An excerpt from Seven Days in Tokyo, by José Daniel Alvior
Louie and Landon meet by chance in New York. Five months later, they cross paths in Tokyo to see if their one night could mean something more. Navigating loneliness and desire, displacement and settledness, Seven Days in Tokyo is ‘an open-hearted, honest search for love and human connection’ (Leo Vardiashvili).
I sit on the bed and hand him back his camera. He places it on the floor without the slightest interest in looking at his images. He gets on all fours and together we view the tree and the garden in total quietude.
‘Would be nice to have a yard. A garden like this. I’ve been thinking of getting a house just outside of Tokyo. Have more space. Maybe two bedrooms. I’ll get more things. You know, plates, knives, furniture. . . create a sense of settledness.’
‘You’re looking to stay here permanently then.’
‘Permanent? Such a strong word. I was close to doing that once with someone,’ he reveals.
It was with the young Japanese girl. I’ve seen the photos. They were outside a shrine in the middle of winter looking serious, she in a traditional ceremonial kimono and he in a suit with a fur-trimmed coat. They looked like a couple after the Second World War. Then there were the summer photos, a picnic by a lake, wearing silly hats, of her sitting on his shoulders as he walked on a trail. They looked so happy and so young. In fact, way too young to be buying a house.
It stings me, not because I’m jealous but because Landon has laid bare, albeit unintentionally, something I never knew until this moment. A sense of settledness. It has struck a chord that resonates so deeply in me. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have that in New York, free from fears of banishment? That, should something ever happen with a job, I wouldn’t have to pack up and leave? It’s such an integral part of my New York life that it defines my relationships.
Despite nine years together, Gabriel and I have very little to show for symbols of permanence, as if we’re in two different cars driving alongside each other. It was never a we. I’ve never been part of a we. We’re moving to Tokyo. We’re looking for a two-bedroom house. We’ll try it out here for a few years. . . I don’t belong to someone I make long, future plans with, and it breaks my heart. We have lain on a temporariness that makes it easy for us to disentangle from one another.
I did not expect such a realisation to dawn on me here, or, perhaps, something I’ve known deep inside to breach. I barely know Landon, and it’s not that I want to be part of his plan per se, yet I’m inexplicably sure that had he asked me to I probably would have said yes. I’d buy more plates, pack my bags and move to the suburbs of Tokyo just to be part of the ‘we’. I feel my eyes well up, and, at least for that moment, I’m grateful he’s not one to dig into emotions too deep.
‘Unfortunately,’ he says, ‘she had such an awful taste in bags I almost broke up with her.’
‘But did you love her?’ We burst into laughter.
‘One cannot purchase a house and fill it with bad bags,’ he declares.
Seven Days in Tokyo by José Daniel Alvior was published by Unbound in April 2025
The Spirit Level
By Benjamin Zephaniah, written in 1996 — from Dis Poetry: Selected Poems & Lyrics
We’re beyond your flag
We’re beyond your nation
We’re beyond the trappings of your race
There’s no need to brag
About your rank and station.
All of us are locked into one place
We’re beyond your flesh
We’re beyond your blood cells
We’re beyond what earthbound eyes can see.
There’s no need to test
There’s no need to guess
We are more than what we seem to be.
When it comes to the spirit we are colourles.
When it comes to the sprit we are one
At the spirit level we no deal with the devil, so racist move along. We’re beyond tradition
We’re beyond your nam.
We’re beyond your tribe, your gang, or styl.
We’re past this condition.
Beyond your pride and shame
We’re beyond that cunning plastic smile.
Where there is no border
Where there is no law.
Where only the one called truth shall reign
We obey no orders.
There we know the score
There where everybody is the same.
When it comes to the spirit we are colourless
When it comes to the sprit we are one.
At the spirit level we no deal with the devil, so racist move along. We’re beyond your gender
We’re beyond your skin
We’re beyond what you may see as you.
There is no agenda
That’s where we begin
Where the racist has no work to do.
We’re beyond religion
We’re beyond your prayers.
You can meditate and have a look
That’s beyond your heaven.
You can you can take it there.
We’re beyond the knowledge in your book
When it comes to the spirit we are colourless
When it comes to the sprit we are one.
At the spirit level we no deal with the devil, so racist move along.
When it comes to the spirit we are colourless
When it comes to the sprit we are one.
At the spirit level we no deal with the devil, so racist move along, move along.
Dis Poetry: Selected Poems & Lyrics was published by Bloodaxe Books on April 15 2025. It brings together all the poems from Benjamin’s three Bloodaxe collections, City Psalms (1992), Propa Propaganda (1996) and Too Black, Too Strong (2001), as well as some from The Dread Affair (1985), along with previously unpublished work and lyrics from various recordings
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Patrick Galbraith talks to Richard Negus, author of Words From the Hedge, about hedgelaying and nature writing