Cicero’s darkest hours. Her drunkest hours, which were also her most lucid hours. When she reached the hour of desperation. The deepest hour. When she spoke in a whisper. Of Great Things. Of Terrifying Things.
Cicero’s half mad stuff. Her no-one-could-really-believe-in-this stuff. Her half madness stuff. Her half deranged stuff. The stuff in which no one believes except for a few fringe lunatics.
The stuff no self-respecting philosophy academic would touch. That we’d be drawn into for a few urgent minutes. That ensorcelled us, too, listening to Cicero.
How seriously she took it! How seriously we took her!
Cicero seemed to Know things. Cicero seemed to be privy to certain Information. Cicero seemed to be Sure. Cicero seemed to know someone on the Inside.
Cicero’s esotericism. Things she would only tell the inner inner circle. Cicero’s secrets. The stuff she’d tell you only if you were in the circle of trust. And there were only a handful of us in Cicero’s circle of trust.
The stuff Cicero would only share in the loneliest hours. In the deepest hours. Later than the hours of the Dog and Wolf.
Whiskey bottle emptied. Ashtrays full. Then, as the dawn came … As the light shone through the windows … Then: as we were all but burned out.
Cicero’s voice lowered. Cicero, speaking quietly, but with great intensity. As though she’d waited the whole night to tell us this. As though only now it was possible, at the end of the night, in the final hours. That this Knowledge was only available to the deepest Initiates and that the night, so far, was nothing but initiation.
The whole evening, the night … The pub, and after, when we went back to hers … Up in her flat, overlooking the Tyne. Overlooking the North Sea. There, in the living room of her flat. In the pre-dawn, the sun just about to rise. There, and at that moment, Cicero would begin to Talk, really Talk, and lay out great and intricate webs … interconnections … between all kinds of things …
What richness! What complexity! Was this real? Was this true? Was this some vast and elaborate fiction. But spoke with such sincerity. Absolute sincerity. This was absolute truth-telling. You could tell by her voice. Not just what she said. But in the Saying itself. In what bore what she said. As though what she said shone. Shone with its own light …
What Cicero said. Its intricacies. It’s lace-like complexity. The way she built it up, layer upon layer. The filigree. The delicacy. The weaving. Like in real time. Before us.
Speculative. In her hushed voice. Quietly. Almost tentatively, to begin with. Sharing … hypotheses. Personal opinions. It could be this … My conclusion is … I’m led to speculate that … This is how it seems to me … If we consider the matter carefully, then …
And yet, a kind of Certainty in her voice. That there was something True here. That she was approaching the Truth …
If only we’d written it down! But we could never remember it, after. Even after sleep. Even when we’d returned home, we could never quite bring it to mind, never recall the essential details, never reassemble the logic that led Cicero from one thought to the other.
Cicero, at her soberest. At her most measured. Cicero, at her most considered. Cicero, the calm. Cicero, the Lucid. And yet she was saying the wildest of things! And yet she bore the craziest of messages! And yet she was all but lunacy, all but paranoia in her calm, calm manner.
And we, sitting round. Eager to hear, eager to know. And she spoke until our eyelids drooped. Until we, her audience, fell asleep one by one, and who knew that she didn’t go on talking. That she just talked to the air after the last of us fell asleep in her living room. That she talked to no one in particular as she lay soft blankets over us. That she murmured as much to herself as to anyone as she rolled down her Roman blinds to shield us from the rising sun.
The generosity of Cicero. The largesse of Cicero. Her great and elaborate meals! That would take a whole day to prepare. That drew upon the finest fruits of the Fish Quay.
Such Hospitality!. She threw open her doors. She threw her doors wide and up we went. All those flights of stairs! As Cicero had climbed them before us! As Cicero had walked them before us! As Cicero had caried up bags and bags of goodies up from the Quay! And we bought our wine – our pathetic wine. And brought our bottles of wine, a little nervously.
Cicero introduced us to Expanse. To Generosity. To Largesse. To Excess. The fact that there was always food leftover. That she could serve up again with toast in the early hours. She’d put everything out on great trays. Lightly warmed. On toasted bread. Just what we needed. Fuel for the night ahead. Because the night was but young. Because there were hours to go. Because we needed energy.
There were other Acts to follow. There was to be more stuff happening. It was a journey to the end of night, as all meals at Ciceros were journeys to the end of the night. We’d blast through the evening and the night. Screaming with laughter. And then, refuelled, we’d settle down, calmer, for the last part of the evening. Around Cicero’s Italian ‘50s pisteroli lamp. In the midst of Cicero’s Scandi-style candles. Of tealights in lanterns.
And Cicero’s music. She was a great one for music. There were always musical surprises at Cicero’s. There was always an evening rag. And a night rag. And an early hours rag. And a dawn rag. And a morning rag, at the very end, as we ate leftovers for breakfast.
Cicero, presiding. It all revolving around her. As it should. She was in charge of hospitality. She was its origin. We put ourselves in her hands. We were ready to be looked after.
And the whole evening, leading somewhere. Like a river, first a rushing mountain stream, all excitement, all froth, then a wide meandering across its flood plain, before opening out and out, like the Tyne itself, but wider than the Tyne, braiding into distributaries, fanning into a delta, spreading and wide, before becoming some great brackish fan, with its own ecosystem. With its own brackish life. With its own thriving-in-salt-and-freshwater life.
The pre-dawn. Very still, very calm.
That’s when Cicero would really begin. When she’d gather her thoughts together. When she’d sit on her throne, as we called it. Deliver her truths. Her utterances, ex cathedra. Only they were never grand. Only she never proclaimed or declaimed. Only they were hushed, and you had to lean into listen. You had to sit close, in our circle around her. We were initiates. Intimates. It was all directed to us. We were to listen, and she was to speak. As though it was pre-ordained. As though this was the way it had to be.
Nights at Cicero’s.
Hours, passing. Hours, unfolding – opening. Blooming. Cicero, able to open a channel. To be spoken. To let speech happen. Through her. With her.
What was it about? Who knows? Where was she getting this from? It was as though she’d tuned into something. As though it came in from the aether. As though she were some kind of antenna who’d just piped it in from somewhere.
And we were her audience. Her sleepy audience. Leaning forward to listen at first. And then gradually falling back, leaning on our elbows. Then, heads to the floor. Gradually settling. Gradually falling asleep.
Her soothing words. The great waves of her words. The great calm of her words. The great stillness they brought with them, that accompanied them. The calm background of her speech. As though what was said bore within it another speech, a speech without words, a murmuring speech, a susurrating speech, a speech without words and without syllables.
As we fell slowly into sleep. As we dropped off one by one.
And I was invariably the last one awake, the last listener. I was the one keenest to follow the thread. To see where it took me. I always wanted to follow it to the end, even as it seemed that there was no end. Even as it seemed that things would continue forever.
An endlessness. A movement of dispersion. A threshold, spreading out to include all things… To weave everything into its vast web. Encompassing the entire horizon. All things comprehended, all things thought. All things included. All things woven in, all history.
Shimmerings. Apparitions. Pulsings. Reverberations. A shimmering mass. With cross-crossings. With cross strands. With braidings. With bifurcations. With tributaries and distributaries. With loopings back. With great cycles and returns. With wheelings. With wanderings. With forays. Gaining and losing urgency. Seeming to reach climax before dispersing again. Gathering energy, losing it, re-energising it.
And no Conclusion to be reached. No Point. That’s what revealed itself. No telos. Nothing leading anywhere in particular. A venturing. A wandering forth. Leading, seemingly, everywhere at once. In all directions. Catching up everything. Implicating everything. Including everything.
And great shapes emerged. As great patterns became visible … Echoing. Crossovers. One thing, resonating with another. Segueways … The beginningless. The endless.
Was Cicero presenting a theory – a theory of everything? An anti-theory, too. An assembling that was also a disassembling. A gathering that was also a falling apart.
Cicero’s story, deepening. Then lightening. Slowing. Then quickening. And these things both at once. Cicero’s theory (her anti theory?) containing all of life. All of everything. All of the all. Every historical event and non-event. Cicero’s mythology, presenting the story of all. The history of everything. The secret history of the world and what was greater than the world.
Cicero’s thousand-and-one-nights. Cicero’s epic. Impersonal speech. This speech of no one and of nothing. This dispersal, that was also finding. This loss that was a recovery. But a recovery within loss. A finding in dispersal.
Work in Progress 