Joy

On Christmas Day last year the Guardian published Carol Rumens’ selection from the sequence of very short poems that Paul Bailey had been writing, and that he continued to write until he died in October this year. The last one arrived in late September and begins: ‘He hears his mother telling him / he’ll be late for his funeral.’

Last week I read Bailey’s early novel Trespasses (1970), which is devastatingly good (and out of print). After at least a dozen novels, and biographies and memoirs besides, Paul’s final two books were collections of poems, both published by CBe. He lived down the road and was generous with wine and books and gossip and links to hilariously rude cartoons and film clips about Trump and Johnson and the other idiots and this isn’t the same road it used to be.

Medically, Paul didn’t have a good time over the past few years but Joie de vivre, the title of his last book, is not ironic. Even the Trumps should have joy in their lives because the reason they spend so much effort denying joy to others is that they haven’t got any themselves.