A Postcard From London: Karl Marx's Grave

Dear Magician,

Some other Communist’s photo of Marx’s grave which I have borrowed off the Internet. I’m sure they won’t mind

James Joyce, The Dead: “It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

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It's not yet dawn, and it's raining in London. I’m tucked up in my room: an eyrie overlooking the garden, the neighbour's gardens, the back end of another terrace, and a piece of sky.¹ My room is one half-story down from the roof— the sixth half-story of seven— so the rain is a gentle white noise that seems to envelop the room on all sides, as if it’s a cabin in the air. Maybe, indeed, there is a roof above me; the house exists in my mind as a semi-unknown form, as it's too tall and too conjoined to be apprehended in full. I'm lying here under a blanket made of many many possum skins, probably sewn together by Maddy's Aunty or cousin. The fur blanket feels both ancient and deluxe.

Here I try to add a photo to show you the texture of the fur, but the second-hand smartphone I'm using while I'm here won't allow it. (I have been posting some phone photos to Notes, though. I've long held the belief that a true artist can make good art with whatever tools are to hand. This is directly opposite to the gear-head school of thought: many people believe that the more fancy, expensive, and cutting-edge one's tools, the better one's art. It's obvious that their way of thinking is deluded— money can't buy The Eye, only spent time can earn it— but there's probably a happy medium somewhere between a ten-thousand-dollar camera and scratching on a leaf with a burnt twig. Anyway, you can see my Note-photos here: https://rosiewhinray.substack.com/notes)

Also, my head is full of snot. Inevitable, probably. I stepped off the sky-chariot and into a new ecosystem of viruses, which claimed my body’s virgin territory as their newfoundland. (Operation Reverse Colonisation, indeed! Though there is also the fact that the little one goes to nursery, a well-known petri dish of ever-morphing plagues.)

I've been gathering postcards along the way. Let's say I'm writing you this on the back of the postcard of Karl Marx's grave that the gate lady at Highgate gave me. Workers of all lands, unite! I met a handsome Welshman on the grave. I asked him if he was a Communist, but he said he was more of a Socialist. There was a security camera bolted to a tree by the grave, which I felt was a bit 1984— but then those things are ubiquitous here, like parasitic mecha-fungi growing out of the city walls. Karl Marx's giant bronze head was very gnomish, and he had autumn leaves caught in his beard and moustache. He looked like an ancient forest God.

The funny thing was that Kev had suggested to me only the night before that I might go see Marx’s grave, but I had found my way there purely by chance; I was wandering by instinct, and I had no idea where I was. I had gone along for the ride while the others went to a birthday party, just to see a different part of the city. This was only a few days after I arrived and everything was psychedelic with jetlag and novelty, unreal as fairyland. Down through a park: strange plants, tall trees in the mist, crows, drizzle, a black mirror of water, waterfowl I couldn’t identify, a huge croaking heron in a dead tree. Then there was Highgate. The gate-woman relented and said she'd let me in for cash, but only exact— so I had to approach strangers and ask them for change. Change a twenty, Guvnor? All of this took time, which I was short of. It was like a computer game: ask stranger for coin, give coin to gatekeeper, get through to the next level.² When I succeeded in changing the money, went back to her window, and handed her the tenner, she let me choose a postcard for free.

I only had a few minutes to spend. People had left roses on Marx's grave, and also small coins. (In York Museum, people had left small coins on top of a much-worn block of stone, a representation of three Roman Mother Goddesses. I find it interesting that the offering-urge is so innate in humans that they do it by instinct, throw coins into fountains etc.: though it is a pleasure all its own to watch coins flashing down through water.)

Marx doesn't want money, in my view. My usual graveside offering is a song, but I don't really know any Communist bangers in full, only bits and pieces. The people's flag is deepest red… Two, two, the worker's hands, working for a living-o, one is worker's unity and ever more shall be so… As soon as this pub closes, the revolution starts… Afterwards Kev told me that two of his old comrades are buried just opposite.³ The song I did end up singing was a few verses of the Cymraeg / Welsh goat song, Oes Gafr Eto, because of the aforementioned Welshman, which was better than nothing.

(While walking with Maddy and the little one in Abney Park Cemetery, little one was jumping on the graves. (Climbing, lying on the mossy stone...) Maddy reminded her to greet the people she was jumping on, which she did for a while, but soon forgot again. I told Maddy my theory that the Dead are like Grandparents: they appreciate a visit, they appreciate Life coming to them, and they don’t so much mind what you’re wearing or whether your kids mind their manners.)⁴

A few days later I was on my way to the city for the first time. Suddenly out of the bus window I saw Defoe’s name, gold in stone— Bunhill— must be— that’s where Defoe is, and Blake too— all this flashed to my mind in less than a second, and my hand leapt to the button, stop the bus! But I restrained myself. I was on my way to meet Elise at the Tate Modern. (Re. grave offerings, I thought I might go back later and take Defoe a coffee.)⁵

All this is to say that London’s talking to me. This city is haunted, deeply haunted: it gives me time-vertigo. The Dead visit my dreams. But I’m writing to reassure you that I’m still alive.

Silence: the rain has stopped. I step into the bathroom, and out of the window I see something is falling still, in big slow feathers: snow.

Love,
Rose

1. Apparently bats live out there, but I’ve yet to see them.

2. Getting this written and posted has felt much the same.

3. Chris Harman / Paul Foot graves

4. This is one of the most beautiful graves in Abney Park— the lion:

It’s the grave of ‘Animal King’ Frank Bostock and his wife Susannah. More here: https://livinglondonhistory.com/the-sleeping-lion-and-more-secrets-of-abney-park/

5. My theory is that Defoe’s onrushing comma-laden floods of prose are the result of caffeination. Caffeine arrived in England in a single decade (the 1650s) in three different forms: coffee, tea, and chocolate. I’ve written a lot about Defoe, mostly prior to joining Substack. During lockdown, on the Platform of the Damned, I did (what I now recognise to be) a slow read of A Journal of the Plague Year. The parallels were uncanny. Posts about Defoe:

The City is a Body, You are a Group of Apes

Penny Universities, Pepys' Perriwigg, and Daniel Defoe