He was right. Staying at the Imperial Hotel afforded me special privileges, like easy access to the Irish poets to whom I was immediately drawn. I adored their fun-loving generous spirit, their informality, their refusal to take anyone, including themselves, seriously (even the great bard, the paymaster, was hardly spared) their inherent modesty, even shyness, and their sense of melancholy laced with humour. They were wonderful. In many ways they were like my musicians. They had that same ability to flood the soul, to excite the senses, to arouse with delicacy, with nuance, with startling images; they exuded that same quality of precarious balance, of living life on the edge, high and wild. They personified a line from a song written by my friend, Jesse Winchester, “if you’re treading on thin ice you might as well dance.”
They were themselves a kind of poetry, as though the poetry of the written word had somehow shaped itself to their own beings. However, the Irish poets were more articulate, taking a wild pleasure in words, their conversations often shot through with poetry — words leaping out of sentences, evocative, musical, delighting my ear accustomed to Canadian flatness — and they were more gregarious, more lusty, relishing the contact of a good scrum.
The hotel had a comfortable lounge, with a fireplace, which was host to nightly adventures of unlimited potential. After the official activities were over, usually close to midnight, the poets, critics, the literary giants of the Yeats universe would gather here to sweep aside the world of letters, of footnotes and references, and indulge in social riot. And I gathered with them. “This room is the only reason I come to the Summer School,” Jimmy once confided. The drinking was phenomenal and inspired a fierce hilarity spiked by monologue, dialogue, anecdote, and raucous choruses, sung and spoken, reeking with nostalgia and rocking with laughter until tears rolled and collapse was imminent — in an unbridled desire to break the good times barrier. After hours the Yeats Summer School was one grand Celtic celebration, and I suspected that this was its main attraction for many of its devotees.
As for me, it was hard enough to get used to the fact that prominent Yeats scholars, critics whose books I had studied and quoted, and before whom I trembled, like Richard Ellman, Frank Kermode, John Unterecter, Norman Jeffares, were actually there, lecturing in the flesh, but to see eminent American and English authorities pissed and unpredictable, incited by their irrepressible Irish counterparts, inhibitions soaked up by Guinness, liberated from academia in an extravagant blast of spontaneity, was a jolt to my notion of the order of things. At the same time I realised I was being allowed a coveted behind-the-scenes glimpse. Had I witnessed Yeats himself dancing a Guinness-sodden jig, or belting out Danny Boy, I wouldn’t have felt more privileged. I was party to a marvellous confession and I savoured every minute of it. I rarely got to bed before the sun came up, lest I miss a single witticism, a single stagger, a single belch. I marvelled continuously at the punctuality of the lecturers during the early morning sessions, and their lack of tell tale morning-after signs. They were true professionals.
Early in the first week, during a break between lectures, I was standing in the crowded corridor, talking to a group of fellow students, when Jimmy Simmons, who had a connoisseur’s eye for the ladies, led me away with unexpected urgency. “Come with me for a minute. I want to show you someone.” He pointed out a girl standing in a small alcove, half-hidden by a plant. “I’ve been watching her from the first day,” he confided. “She’s painfully beautiful, so beautiful she makes my heart ache.” He looked intense, struggling with some concept, as though finding the words for a poem, “I can feel her fragility, her tremble. It’s as though her body doesn’t conceal her soul.” I understood what he meant. She had a haunting solitary beauty, her face mobile, vulnerable, her eyes surprised, slightly frightened, her mouth controlling a quiver, barely perceptible, her body alert, slender, waif-like. She gave the impression of a doe poised to flee.
“She certainly is beautiful,” I confirmed. As though aware of some threat, she inched further into the plant.
“I’d love to know her, to see what sort of creature she is, what land she comes from. But I’m too timid. I’m afraid if I talk to her she’ll vanish.”
“So you want me to do it for you?”
He looked at me shyly and nodded. “You won’t startle her, she’ll be easy with you.”
“I’ll be glad to talk to her.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” I said with an Irish accent — it was the only Irish phrase I could say.
“She looks like someone I’d want to know.” I started toward her.
“Not now,” Jimmy stopped me. “Wait until I’m gone.”
I watched for her after the lecture and made my approach as she was leaving the building.
“Hi. My name is Niema,” I said in my brightest Canadian manner. “Did you enjoy the lecture?” She looked at me with the hint of a smile, her lower lip trembling slightly.
“Yes, very much, did you? But it would be far better if the lectures were held outdoors. Don’t you think?”
Although I shivered inwardly at the thought of sitting in the Irish damp, I agreed. I walked along with her. She didn’t seem to mind. She told me her name was Victoria and that she knew very little about Yeats.
“What brings you to the Yeats Summer School?” I asked.
“I wanted to get away from London … somewhere in the country … and this seemed like an interesting thing to do … learning about Yeats … I admire his poetry … for some reason I’ve been reading a great deal of Yeats lately. When I heard about the Summer School in Ireland, it seemed the perfect thing to do.” She spoke in hesitant short phrases, unsure of where they were leading, as though voicing ideas for the first time.
“Where are you staying?” I asked, anxious to move away from Yeats and on to easier territory.
“In a little bed and breakfast.”
“Do you like it?”
“Not really, the room is fine … but the landlady is a bit of a snoop … she comes into my room without knocking … I think she wants to catch me out … she probably thinks I’m hiding someone.” A small nervous smile hovered as she spoke.
“That’s terrible,” I said. “You don’t want to be hassled by a snoopy landlady. Besides you’re away from all the fun and the poetry.” Then impulsively, “why don’t you move to the Imperial Hotel? That’s where all the action is, parties, sing-songs, poetry readings … all the Irish poets stay there and they’re great.”
“Is that where you stay?”
“Yes. It’s wonderful.”
“I didn’t know about it.”
“It’s not too late,” I said with such eagerness I surprised myself.
“I suppose there’s nothing to stop me from moving,” she said, picking up on my enthusiasm. “It would be a good idea to leave that landlady, don’t you think?”
“Definitely. How long will it take you to pack?” I said, springing into action.
“Not long, half an hour.”
Her ability to take the plunge, sight unseen, impressed me. “I’ll pick you up in an hour. How do I get to the house?”
She was really pleased now, smiling and almost at ease. “Thank you very much.”
I liked her a lot.
I helped carry her few belongings to the hotel, sat her in the lobby and went directly to the desk to check her in. Then something happened I hadn’t counted on. “Sorry the hotel is full. Booked solid. There’s nothing available,” the receptionist said apologetically. My heart plunged like a stone. How awful. Victoria had