by Peter Barry
At that moment Santo returned, and the lawyer turned and walked off. I cursed the fact it had been Nikola who’d been my neighbour, the sniper in the adjoining block. He obviously knew I’d failed. I decided to tell Santo, but made it sound like I’d been playing with the victim, and the only reason I hadn’t shot him – although I had intended to – was because I’d been enjoying myself too much. I didn’t mention Nikola. I simply wanted to cover myself.
Santo asks me at the end of each day if I’ve had ‘any luck.’ I can feel the pressure building. I’m going to have to do something soon.
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He – the Soho harlot, the self-proclaimed guardian of the common man’s reading, the artistic sifter, the endomorphic, intoxicated literary agent – sentenced my words on a Monday in January, like a late Christmas present. It was my death sentence, the day my words were interred, so I remember it well. It was a great way to start the week, let alone the year.
Returned manuscripts always catch me by surprise, turning up when they’re least expected. ‘Allow up to three months’, it states clearly beneath the publisher’s or literary agent’s name in the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. Yet in the first few weeks after sending off part of my manuscript, I will open the mailbox every morning with an air of expectation. There will be a letter today, I tell myself, because they were immediately impressed by my novel. They are so in love with the first three chapters, they want me to express post the whole of my ‘promising first novel’ to them right away. Even better, they want me to come in and discuss my book, as well as any other ideas I might be working on, over a spot of lunch. They want me to sign a three-book deal, to know if I could do some promotional work at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, to invite me to a cocktail party so that I can meet some of their other authors. They want to know if I could make dinner with their chairman, Lord Wordsmith. That kind of thing.
But as the weeks pass silently by, my expectations diminish and I begin to approach the mailbox with less hope. I’ve been disappointed before, so why should it be any different on this occasion? I’m dealing with idiots after all. I’ve written three novels before this one, and around eight short stories over the past ten years, and they’ve all been turned down, so let’s not, as they say, give up the day job quite yet.
Eventually, I open the mailbox expecting nothing, or nothing except a rejection slip. And I know what to expect from a rejection slip; I know everything there is to know about rejection slips. Rejection slips are my metier.
They’re usually in the form of a letter attached by a paperclip to the front page of the manuscript. A standard printed letter. I don’t even have to read it. Only three words are usually handwritten: my Christian name, after the printed word ‘Dear’, and, after a printed ‘Yours sincerely,’ the sender’s Christian name and surname. In between those three handwritten words is a pot-pourri of clichés from the publishers’ food cupboard. ‘Thank you for sending us your manuscript, thank you for having approached us, thank you for having given us the opportunity to view your material, thank you for letting us consider your work … We read your submission with interest … After careful consideration, we have decided it does not fit in with our list, we do not feel we would be the right publisher for your work, we see no possibility of the completed work being suitable for our list, we have to be confident of substantial sales before taking on a project … I fear we do not feel able to offer the representation you seek … I’m afraid that due to the sheer volume of material, owing to the large number of submissions we receive, as we receive around three thousand manuscripts a year … Regrettably, unfortunately, sadly …’ And so on and so forth, ad nauseam, ad nauseous. ‘We are unable to provide you with a more detailed response, we are unable to offer individual comments, we cannot give you a more personal response, we cannot offer critical comments … May I take this opportunity, may I wish you luck elsewhere with another house, agent or publisher, may I wish you every success in placing your work with another house, agent or publisher, may I, may I, may I … ’
All of us would-be writers, all we want is something, anything that clearly shows our books have been read by someone. Something, anything that says this letter is addressed to me alone, a letter that identifies my novel by its title and contains a few lines that will make no sense to anyone else: ‘We particularly like the start of chapter 2’, or ‘Your main character develops nicely,’ or ‘The scene on the beach is powerful.’ Something, anything that offers just the smallest ray of hope, the tiniest bit of encouragement. Something, anything that shows the manuscript has not been flicked through cursorily, fingered tentatively like some contaminated, soiled piece of refuse picked up at the municipal dump. Something, anything that demonstrates the publisher appreciates the effort that’s gone into the book, the blood, sweat and tears, the early-morning tossings and turnings, the late-night agonies. Something, anything … just something more than nothing.
If publishers and literary agents are only ever going to send out standard rejection slips, why wait three months to do so? Why don’t they return books within the week? Why go through the pretence? Why don’t they simply take the manuscripts out of their envelopes, transfer them straight to the stamped, self-addressed envelopes that have also been enclosed, chuck in the rejection slips, and toss the lot into the Out basket? (Ms Diane at Mulqueeny & Holland could teach them how to do this, I’m sure. An Introduction to Rejections, Part One.) These publishers and literary agents are going to reject the books anyway, no matter how good they are, so why bother to pretend they’ve read them? Why even invite people to submit their manuscripts in the first place? They aren’t interested, so why pretend they are? I know why, of course. It’s because publishers are small-minded, contemptible people, slaves to fashion, and only interested in how much money’s in it for them.
Only once, for my last book but one, did I receive a personal comment. It pleased me because it showed that someone cared enough to take the trouble to say what they thought, but made me angry for weeks after because it had been so negative. I can still remember the exact words: ‘The content is literary but the writing is not.’ That was all they wrote.
After a few more weeks of nothing, of no news and no rejection slip, there comes a time when, perversely, my hopes are rekindled and I begin to think that my latest book won’t be rejected after all. The longer they keep my manuscript, the more my hopes rise. I see positive signs everywhere. I start to believe I’m about to be discovered. I’m like some country or continent in the Middle Ages, as yet unexplored, but someone is about to set foot on me, put me on the map, acknowledge my existence, claim me as their own.
This particular morning, this terminal Monday, I remember well. It must have been a premonition because I phoned the school and said I was sick. I couldn’t stand the idea of their inanities that day, the mud in the corridors, the blocked toilets, the rundown equipment, the musty smell of chalk and the rancid smell of sweating kids, the running feet and raised voices, the sheer childishness of the place. And Gilhooley knocking on the door of my small cupboard beneath the stairs and demanding in his cold, high-pitched voice why there is not a clean towel in the masters’ washroom, why I haven’t yet fixed the light bulb in 6C, or why have I not yet painted over the graffiti in the playground. Gilhooley, with his education theories changing faster than the departure board at Heathrow, his timetables, rosters and budgets, his team of middle-aged, brain-drained incompetents who couldn’t have rustled up a vocation between them if their lives had depended on it.
I stayed in my flat all morning. I enjoyed the secrecy of being by myself and no one (apart from the foul-breathed, spinsterish school secretary) knowing where I was. Even Bridgette, now that we’d split, didn’t know where I was. I lay in bed until late, reading. I had the window closed, but the gas fire wasn’t working, so the small room was still cold. Outside, I could hear the rest of the world either at work or on the way to work, and it made me feel good. The pest-control man who liv
es upstairs with his ratlike wife and unratlike litter of two, was shouting as he slammed his front door and stomped down the stairs. I heard him start his van and drive off, his engine soon drowned in the steady roar of traffic on Shoot Up Hill. Eventually I got up, cooked myself a fried breakfast, then lay on the sofa and listened to Mozart’s Requiem. I pondered the subject of my next novel. I was determined to keep writing, to get my follow-up novel, my next published novel – the all-important, notoriously difficult second novel – onto the production line. I had to be ready to go as soon as my first novel was accepted. I was determined not to be one of those one-novel wonders. This, after all, was to be my life from now on. I was to be a successful novelist, my dream was about to become reality, I was that confident.
When I went downstairs in the early afternoon I ran into Mrs Dawes. She and her husband live in one of the ground-floor flats. I rarely saw him, and I only saw her on those occasions when, muttering to herself, she limped around the front and sides of the building, picking up the empty beer and whisky bottles that materialised there most nights, or if she managed to intercept me in the company of ‘darling Bridgette’ (her words, not mine), whom she doted on, like the daughter she’d never had and all that garbage. The senile creature was telling me something about her husband – who never ventured further than their front door – and how he hadn’t been the same, not since that terrible thing happened to Sharon Stone. That was their cat, named after the American actress. I always wondered if the cat used to sit on the sofa, crossing and uncrossing her legs – fleetingly revealing her pussy – being interrogated by Mr and Mrs Dawes. I never got round to asking her, however, and now it was too late to ask her anything.
To tell the truth, I’d been glad to see the beast’s back, rigor mortis straight, because I’d had a gutful of both Bridgette and that animal by then. ‘Oh you’re so beautiful,’ she used to say when she came round to stay with me, bending down, stroking the cat’s head and tickling her ears. ‘You’re the most beautiful cat in the world. Are you coming upstairs with Mummy for your little treat then?’ Never having heard of a woman giving birth to a cat before, not even in the Sunday Sport, I took it upon myself to congratulate her as we climbed the stairs. She must obviously be something of a medical phenomenon.
‘Don’t be like that, Milan. You know what I mean. It’s my way of being affectionate.’ Then, addressing the puckered buttonhole disappearing up the stairs ahead of us: ‘You’re so cute, so beautiful.’ Sometimes I think she even used the word ‘diddums’ – and I’m sure that word is not to be found in any reputable dictionary.
The fact is, I should have told Mrs Dawes that Bridgette and I had split up, then she might not have bothered me any more. As likely as not she’d have left me alone. But for some reason I could never bring myself to make the effort to do this. I think she’d have taken it as an admission of failure – on my part of course – and then she’d have had a field day blaming me, either with ‘I could tell he wasn’t good enough for the likes of her,’ or with silence and reproachful stares.
But right then she was still talking, something about the pest-control man giving her the creeps and how could a man do such a thing all day, living with rats (‘It’s not natural, if you ask me’), when I turned away and opened my mailbox. And there it was. I knew immediately. It’s not every day I receive a bulky A4 manila envelope addressed to myself, in my own handwriting. It lay at the bottom of my mailbox, like a dog turd on the sitting room carpet. I stared at it, and it stared back at me, trying to look innocent, but with a definite air of belligerence about it. ‘So! So, it’s me. Yes, I’m back again. Tough. Get a move on. Lift me out of here, will you?’
I brushed past Mrs Dawes and strode away, ignoring the loud tut of disapproval aimed at my back. I turned off the main road and walked along several narrow suburban streets, past semi-detached houses with bay windows and white lintels and neat front gardens, an abandoned tricycle or football lying on the occasional front path. I was heading for the local park. I wanted to be alone. Even though I was only wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a denim jacket, I was unaware of the cold.
The park was empty except for a lone jogger running repeatedly up and down the steep path which led to the café and the children’s playground. It struck me as a particularly Sisyphean exercise. For a few minutes I couldn’t bring myself to open the package. It lay on the bench next to me. We were like an old couple enjoying the peace of the park. The difference was that I felt powerless: my fate had been decided by someone out there, a literary agent whose reality, to me, consisted of no more than a few lines in the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. This literary agent was about to tell me how to live my life, direct my future, and there was nothing I could do about it. Abruptly, unable to stand the tension any longer and wanting the suspense to be over and done with, I picked it up. I opened the envelope and pulled out my manuscript. Attached with a paperclip to the front page was the usual rejection letter, but at the bottom was a scrawled, almost indecipherable comment: ‘Scarcely original. Feel I’ve read this before.’ For a few minutes I was stunned, my brain anaesthetised by shock. After three years of work, after all that sweat and effort, after the agonies of struggling with thousands of sentences, painfully pondering paragraphs, honing and polishing countless phrases, after agonising over every word and syllable, I had received a seven word dismissal – along, of course, with the standard five or six lines of utter and total impersonality.
Yet I’d have been satisfied with so little, with the most modest of morsels. ‘Your novel shows promise’ would have made me happy. ‘We would be interested to see anything else you might write’ would have made me ecstatic. Just more than this insulting, anonymous dismissal.
I looked down at the rejected manuscript. It was in pristine condition. I didn’t get the feeling it had been handled by anyone other than a kid-gloved postman. I can’t believe I’d actually said to Bridgette, ‘I’m optimistic about the people who have it now. I have a feeling about them, a good feeling.’ I’d been talking about the Mulqueeny & Holland literary agency. I hadn’t yet heard from them, and I’d begun to feel positive. I knew my argument lacked depth, that it was scarcely persuasive, I was aware of that. I also realised Bridgette could turn out to be right – as she’d so blithely pointed out to me – that my novel was destined to go the same way as its predecessors. At times she could be so encouraging.
‘I think you need to face up to reality, Milan. You know how hard it is to get published nowadays, you’ve told me so yourself. I don’t mind if you keep trying, if that’s what you want, but I think you should get a proper job as well.’
It’s true my writing career path to date has followed a perfectly straight, perfectly horizontal line that has resisted every temptation to deviate towards the vertical. It’s flatter than a dead man’s electroencephalogram. The struggles I’ve had, the self-sacrifices I’ve made, the agonies I’ve endured, have been for what? Where’s my reward? I’ve written thousands of words, hundreds of thousands of words that only I have ever read. An audience of one is all I’ve ever managed to rustle up, an audience of one – and that’s me. There has been no crowd of admirers, no gathering, no group, not even a couple. We are talking here about the onanistic ravings of the self-deluded, the scream in the middle of the night ignored by all and sundry. We are talking about my story, my interpretation of Life, the information I wish to impart – my information – not raising the slightest flicker of interest from anyone. It makes me sick. I am hollow, empty inside, and yet I want to vomit. Killing Mulqueeny, I thought as I sat in the park, would definitely give me some relief.
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Instead of going back to the Grbavica apartment, I decided to try somewhere new. I want to get away from Nikola. Also, staying in one place for too long makes it too easy for the enemy to pinpoint your position.
Mladic has declared that we’re allowed to enter any house or apartment in the suburb at will. The owners are forbidden to lock their do
ors. And our soldiers can also help themselves to any food and drink, articles of clothing or family heirlooms they happen to find. If they want to set up a sniping post in the front room they can do that too, despite the fact it will place the family in considerable danger. Being a bit of a believer in ‘an Englishman’s castle’ and that kind of thing, I prefer to search out an empty apartment for myself. There are plenty of them around.
My new apartment (that has a certain ring to it) isn’t far from the camp, which is south of here, about a thousand feet higher up and on the other side of the Pale road. I weigh up spending the night alone or sitting beside a fire with the others. Already I’m tired of their inanities, their shallow posturing and thoughtless patriotism. Sometimes it’s preferable to be alone. So long as I bring sufficient food with me, I’m quite comfortable (I have a good sleeping bag). No one seems to be interested in, nor care where I spend the night, which makes me wonder, should I be killed, how long it will take before someone realises I’m missing. I eat tinned food, mainly – available from the canteen. It’s not unpleasant. There’s a stove in the kitchen, but of course the gas has long since been disconnected or, more likely, the supply station has been bombed out of existence. The same is true of the water, which I have to collect from outside every morning. When I first arrived here, I could fill my container with snow from the drifts still piled against the walls of the apartment blocks and melt it over a kerosene camp stove. Now the snow in Grbavica has all but disappeared.
The surrounding streets remind me of home. The apartments are dilapidated and rundown, like council flats, the only difference being that London buildings aren’t usually riddled with bullet holes. I imagine I can hear the conversations of the previous inhabitants on the stairs, the shouting of the kids, the slamming of doors, the raised voices and the laughter. Where are they now, these ghosts? Where did they flee to? If still alive, they could be imagining me moving between the walls they’d once called their own. I half expect them to walk through the front door and say, ‘Excuse me, this is our apartment, would you mind leaving, please?’ Then I’d be forced to shoot them. I wouldn’t be keen to move, that’s for sure.
