The map of the country I thought I lived in is changing from one day to the next, before my eyes.
I watch our progress on Google Maps. Our blue dot moves from Manchester, through the Lake District, towards Carlisle. I have always loved this, watching the roads, the forks in the route, checking which mountains we have passed and which rivers we have crossed. But now the blue dot of where we are seems lost in a state without a leader or a compass.
When we make a stop, half-heard conversations snap like twigs, triggering alarm. Not at personal threat as much as danger to the country, its nerve-endings too close to the surface, too many points of pain. In Carlisle a busker mentions that the quality of the music on the street has dropped because of eastern European musicians. Casual racism is back on the map.
Meanwhile, tour organiser Camilla Elworthy and MC John Sampson in the front of the minibus discuss the route, consulting the satnav. Gillian Clarke, a compulsive mapreader, makes helpful suggestions from the back seat. The rest of us are diplomatically silent. “John,” we hear Camilla say eventually, “if there’s one thing I know it is that you are slip-road averse.”
Carlisle feels like a city that has one foot in Scotland, with its great stone buildings turning a stoic face against flood, wind and weather. We are reading tonight in the magnificent Carlisle cathedral, a site of worship for almost 900 years, which still has the Norman nave from the 12th century, and soaring stained-glass windows. John says the acoustic is so bright that playing the trumpet in this vast space is like driving a Ferrari: just touch the accelerator and the sound revs down the nave. It also suits the music of guest poet Jacob Polley’s voice, and the perfect pitch of his poems. He reads The News:
The moon’s not sad; the sun won’t worry.
Despite your suffering, England’s still
And only some of us are sorry.
The readings have become more and more like conversations between one poem and another, seeming to respond to the bizarre turns of events and the messages on Facebook, even though some of them were written years ago. They feel like a continuation of the discussion on the minibus, and with members of the audience at the signings. One woman tells us that tonight is the first time she has laughed since Thursday night’s vote.
The bookseller we are working with here is Bookends, started by Gwenda Matthews 40 years ago. With the support of loyal readers, it has grown to fill a Georgian townhouse with books in every cranny, up and down stairs. It is a family business, with Gwenda’s husband Steven taking care of the secondhand books and her daughter Lucy now looking after new titles. It is four floors of book heaven. Carol Ann Duffy disappears into the far reaches and emerges with a precious copy of Maeterlinck’s The Life of the Bee to gift to Helen Taylor, and John Lennon’s In His Own Write for John.
As we head out of Carlisle, Camilla and John have a route in mind. Gillian has an opinion, too, and tries to offer it from the back seat but is hushed by Carol Ann. She retreats to her tablet but Carol Ann is suspicious.
CAD: Are you checking the map again, Gillian?
GC (guiltily): No, no.
CAD (accusingly): I can see the A2 reflected in both glasses, a church on your chin and a mountain on each of your cheeks.
Gillian closes the tablet like a child who has been caught out.
No more maps for a while.
