PETER REDGROVE: Among my own poems
this evening are going to be a number about water
because I know in Arizona you appreciate water.
Water is the engine of the universe.
The sun draws it up out of the sea
the clouds rain in the course of its passage.
I've produced all the living beings
that inhabit the universe.
I think of water as the most admirable of elements.
Now, my first poem is called "Mr. Waterman."
It's a dialogue between a psychiatrist and his patient.
The patient is afflicted with water.
He has too much water in his life.
Don Thomas is going to do the psychiatrist
and I shall be the patient.
"Mr. Waterman."
D.M. THOMAS: "Well, now, we're quite private in here.
You can tell me your troubles.
The pond, I think you said.
REDGROVE: Yes, doctor, we never really
liked that pond in the garden.
At times, it was choked with a sort
of weed, which if you pulled one thread gleefully unraveled
until you had an empty basin before you
and the whole of the pond in a soaking heap at your side.
Then at other times it was as clear as gin,
and lay in the grass staring upwards.
If you came anywhere near, the gaze shifted sideways,
and it was you that was being stared at, not the empty sky.
If you were so bold as to come right up to the edge swaggering
and talking loudly to show that you were not afraid.
It presented you with so perfect a reflection
that you stayed there spellbound and nearly missed dinner
getting to know yourself.
Doctor, it had hypnotic powers.
THOMAS: Very well.
Then what happened?
REDGROVE: Well, near the pond was a small bell hung
on a bracket, which the milkman used to ring as he went out
to tell us upstairs in the bedroom
that we could go down and make the early morning tea.
This bell was near a little avenue of rose trees.
One morning very early indeed, it tinged loudly.
And when I looked out, I saw that the empty bottles
we had put out the night before were
full of bright green pond water.
I had to go down and empty them before the milkman arrived.
This was only the beginning.
One evening, I was astounded to find
a brace of starfish coupling on the ornamental stone
step of the pool, and, looking up,
my cry to my wife to come and see
was stifled by the sight of a light peppering
of barnacles on the stems of the rose trees.
The vermin had evidently crept there taking advantage
of the thin film of moisture on the ground
after the recent very wet weather.
I dipped a finger into the pond and tasted it.
It was brackish.
THOMAS: But it got worse.
REDGROVE: It got worse.
One night of howling wind and tempestuous rain.
I heard muffled voices outside shouting in rural tones.
Belay there, you lovers.
[LAUGHTER]
'Box the forsail capstan!'
'A line!
A line!
Give me a line there for Davy Jones' sake!'
And a great creaking of timbers.
In the morning, there was the garden seat,
which was too big to float dragged tilting into the pond
half in and half out.
THOMAS: But you could put up with all this.
How did the change come about?
REDGROVE: It was getting playful obviously and inventive,
if ill-informed, and might have got dangerous,
I decided to treat it with the consideration
and dignity, which it would probably later have insisted
upon.
And I invited it in as a lodger.
Bedding it up in the old bathroom.
At first, I thought I would have to run canvas troughs
up the stairs, so it could get to its room
without soaking the carpets.
And I removed the flap from the letterbox
so it would be quite free to come and go.
But it soon learnt to keep its form quite well and get about
in Mackintosh and galoshes.
Opening doors with gloved fingers.
THOMAS: Until a week ago.
REDGROVE: A week ago it started sitting with us in the lounge.
[LAUGHTER]
And the electric fire had to be turned off as the windows kept
on steaming up.
It had accidentally included a goldfish in its body.
And when the gargling goat swam up
the crystal up the neck into the crystal clear head,
it dipped its hand in and fumbled about
with many ripples and grimaces.
Plucked the fish out and offered it to my wife--
[LAUGHTER]
with a polite nod.
She was just about to go into the kitchen
and cook the supper.
But I explained quickly that goldfish
were very bitter to eat so he put it back.
However, I was going to give him a big plate of ice cubes, which
he would have popped into his head
and enjoyed sucking like sweets.
Although, his real tipple is distilled water.
While we watch television, but he
didn't seem to want anything, I suppose
he thinks he's big enough already.
THOMAS: Free board and lodging, eh?
REDGROVE: I don't know what rent to charge him.
I thought I might ask him to join the river for a spell
and bring us back some of the money that abounds there,
purses lost overboard from pleasure steamers rotting
away in the mud and so forth.
But he has grown very intolerant of dirt
and might find it difficult to get clean again.
Even worse, he might not be able to free himself
from his rough dirty cousins, and he might come roaring back
as an impossible green seething giant tall as the river
upended buckling into the sky and swamp us,
and the whole village as well.
I shudder to think, doctor, what would happen
if he got as far as the sea?
His spiritual home, the country would be in danger.
I am at my wits' end for he is idle, and lounges
about all day.
THOMAS: Well, that's harmless enough.
REDGROVE: No, if he's not lounging,
he toys with his shape restlessly.
Stripping off his waterproof.
He's a charming doll's house of glass with doors and windows
opening and shutting.
He is a tree that thrusts up and fills the room.
He is a terrifying shark-shape.
The dots about between the legs of the furniture
or lurks in the shadows of the room
gleaming in the light of the television tube.
He is a fountain that blooms without spilling a drop,
or in this image constantly recurs.
He is a very small man with a very large head and streaming
eyes, who gazes mournfully up at my wife.
She takes no notice and collapses suddenly
into his tears with a sob and a gulp.
Domestic, pastoral-phallic, maritime-ghastly,
stately-gracious or grotesque-pathetic.
He rings the changes on a gamut of moods, showing off,
while I have to sit aside slumped
in my armchair unable to compete.
Reflecting what feats he may be able to accomplish
in due course with his body.
What titillating shapes impose, what exaggerated parts
deploy under his Mackintosh.
I dread the time, doctor, for it will
come when I shall arrive home unexpectedly early
and hear a sudden scuffle away in the waste pipes
and find my wife just out of the shower, dear.
[LAUGHTER]
With that moist look in her eyes drying her hair
and then to hear him swaggering in from the garden
drains, talking loudly about his day's excursion
as if nothing at all had been going on for he
learns greater charm each day this Mr. Waterman.
And can be as stubborn as winter and gentle
as the warm rains of spring.
THOMAS: I should say that you have a real problem there,
but it's too early for a solution
yet, until I know you better.
Go away, take a week off in the office.
Spend your time with your wife, relax,
eat plenty of nourishing meals, plenty of sex
and sleep, then come and see me again.
Good afternoon.
The next patient, nurse.
Oh, Mr. Waterman.
Sit down, please.
Does the gas fire trouble you?
No?
I can turn it off if you wish.
Well, now we're quite private in here.
You can tell me your troubles.
A married, air-breathing woman, I think you said.
[APPLAUSE]