I Hate Martin Amis et al.

by Peter Barry

  I’ve exchanged – or am about to exchange – my pen for a rifle. This is an adventure proper, a real-life adventure, not something lived in the head. I’m in a country where words have no place, and I’ll soon depart for another country where words have no place. Where the only language is written in blood, where one human being communicates with another by means of bullets, where the information is only received at death’s door. It’s where the mental becomes physical, where there’s no place for wishy-washy scribes, where the scratchings of the nib give way to the crack of bullets and the splintering of bones. ‘Death,’ wrote Auden, ‘is like the rumble of distant thunder at a picnic.’ That is poetic. But, for me, it’s too distant, too removed, too separate. Death for me is the splashing of someone’s guts or brains in my face. It’s as close as that.

  I am trigger-happy. I am so trigger-happy I have to laugh.

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  There’s now a lot of talk about us leaving the city. For the first time people are openly saying we won’t be able to capture Sarajevo because the UN, after three years of doing little more than look on from the sidelines, is now becoming actively involved in the fighting. The Serbs are disappointed. After the longest siege in history, they don’t have a lot to show for their efforts. The original idea was to win half of the city and then split it, like Jerusalem. We’d have one half and they’d have the other. Then someone decided we should try to win the whole city, if only because its occupants had proved so intractable and tenacious. That would be their reward for refusing to surrender – nothing at all. It now looks as though we’ll be the ones who end up with nothing – apart from me. I’ll have a story – my story.

  I think back to a time in the playground, during a midday break, when I was having a cigarette and watching some kids, three boys of about nine or ten, surround this fat kid. He was hugging an article of clothing to his chest, a T-shirt or jacket, I couldn’t really see, while he tried to turn his back on his tormentors. There were snot and tears all over his face, and even from where I was standing I could hear his squeaky, snivelling voice protesting. They were punching him, shoving him, attempting to yank the article of clothing from his grasp. It went on a long time, and I stood and watched them and wondered who’d win. I had a little bet with myself, but I got it wrong: the fat kid with the clothing won. He hung in there, gripping the jacket as if his very life depended on it, all the time being pummelled and kicked by the other three kids, until, finally, they gave up in disgust and walked away. Those people down there in the city, they’re the same as that fat kid: they refuse to give up and now, disgusted and exhausted, we’re about to walk off and let them keep their stupid city. We’ve had enough, we’re bored. Maybe we’ll find someone else we can pick on.

  I’m trying to work out where I could go next. I have to go soon, somewhere, otherwise I’ll end up staying here forever, or until this war ends – whichever comes first. I’ve had enough of the Balkans and this siege, this pantomime. Some of the men have been talking about moving on to Africa, to Zaire to fight for Mobutu, and others Kosovo, to fight against the Albanians. They’re mercenaries, from all over, and they travel around to wherever there’s a war. They’re free, absolutely free, and I like that. They’re paid well for what they do, too. Maybe I should go with them to Africa. They’ve told me they can help me arrange the paperwork. They say it’s easy enough to do. I’m seriously thinking about it. Follow in the steps of Rimbaud, and give up art completely. But continue as a sniper, continue killing. Unlike Rimbaud, who only had it in him to do a spot of gun running – the limp-wristed pansy.

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  After spending only one night in the Vraca camp, I head for the forest north-east of the old military fortress that’s situated on a hill above the old town. To the west I can see the Kosovo Stadium and the Olympic Hall, to the east is the road to Belgrade and, less than twenty miles away, Mladic’s bunker at Han Pijesak.

  I’ve been spending more time away from camp, preferring the solitude of the hills to the moaning patriotism of the camp. I need this time by myself. I need the time to think and hatch my plot. My tent is pitched deep in the forest and well camouflaged. My only companion is a corpse in a copse a couple of hundred yards away. He looks – and stinks – as if he’s been there for several weeks. As is common in this war, his face has been cut away to prevent recognition or, possibly, the imparting of information. He isn’t going to be telling anyone anything, that’s for sure. I don’t suppose we knew each other anyway, even though I say hello and ask him how his day has been. He doesn’t bother to reply, which I think is very rude. What’s left of him is alive with maggots and flies and everything else in the forest that fancies a free feed.

  At night the bombardments are spectacular. Mr Gilhooley and I will sometimes watch them together. They remind us of fireworks in Hyde Park. The missiles fizz as they fly overhead the darkened city, some glowing white, like the milky secretions of a celestial snail, arcing through the blackness. Sometimes the night is lit up by pink tracer or anti-aircraft fire. It’s as if the city’s besieged and their besiegers communicate by means of weaponry. The hissing of bullets, whistling of shells, fizzing of missiles, the crackling, booms, reports, thuds and hammerings are the various ways in which they talk to each other. And at times they can be quite eloquent.

  Beside me, Mr Gilhooley oohs and aahs as he stares out at the man-made shooting stars in the night. It’s quite an education for the headmaster. I tell him what a reversal of roles this must be for him, a headmaster being asked to keep lookout, like some small boy at the door of a classroom, to shout ‘Cave!’ if anyone should appear. I receive the usual disdainful, superior grunt in reply, as if he’s unable to demean himself by talking to me, the school janitor.

  I stay away from camp for several nights. I want to be alone, and am alone – apart from Mr Stinky just a short distance away. Finally I decide what I’ll do.

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  I didn’t go there immediately. It was not until a few weeks later, around mid-February, that I decided to pay them a visit. Their office was in Soho – no surprise there, I thought; how unoriginal. I went down an alley, past a Chinese restaurant. Inside there were people still having lunch, even though it was after three o’clock. The stink of rotting food filled the street. The pavements were dirty, almost greasy, making me wonder if the restaurant’s kitchens had overflowed the premises. Cars were parked with two wheels on the kerb, like dogs cocked against a fence. A line of open, uninviting doorways listed their residents on columns of small printed rectangular cards next to bell buttons. Some of the name cards were lit up. They were in number thirty-six.

  I climbed the narrow stairs, telling myself to remain calm. I wasn’t calm. My hands were forming fists, closing then opening spasmodically, and my jaw was clenched. All the way in on the underground I’d been talking to myself, muttering like some itinerant imbecile, unable to stop myself. It wouldn’t do me any good to lose my temper, to rage – even though it might make me feel good. I stopped halfway up the stairs and concentrated on my heart rate, trying to slow it down. I had to be reasonable, but also firm and incisive. I had to explain why I’d come to visit them and point out how rude they’d been. Whatever happened, I must keep control of the heavy feeling of anger and resentment I was aware of within me, and had been aware of for days. I had every right to be angry, every right, but that didn’t mean it would be wise to express it. I continued up the stairs. It was absurd: why did I have to beg such people to see me? Why did I have to go round on bended knee, cap in hand? By rights they should be begging to see me. It struck me that I was being unreasonably reasonable.

  They were on the second floor, behind a frosted-glass door, sharing a corridor with three or four other small companies. A young woman, in fact a girl, looked up from behind what appeared to be an old pine kitchen table. She was in the process of shoving a manuscript into an A4 envelope: that was the first thing I noticed. A rejection, I thought, another rejectio
n, and felt a momentary pang for the author – or would-be author. He or she was in the same boat as me. We were united against a common enemy. The girl smiled in a fake kind of way and asked if she could help me.

  The reception was small and cramped. It was surrounded by walls and partitions, giving the impression that the offices behind were crowding in on the area, trying to squeeze it and push it out into the corridor. Apart from the receptionist’s old kitchen table, there was a sofa, a coffee table with one of the day’s newspapers on it, and a large empty vase on the floor in a corner. On one wall there were framed photographs of people I presumed were represented by the company. I didn’t recognise any of them, although one could possibly have been Somerset Maugham. I wondered if all their authors were dead. The place felt more like a home than an office, and I supposed that was intentional: a desperate ploy to hide the fact that Mammon was involved.

  Money, darling? Far too vulgar.

  ‘I’ve come to see Mr Mulqueeny,’ I said to the girl. I stood directly in front of the table and she looked me up and down quickly, as if she didn’t want to be caught doing so. Her eyes flickered to a halt for a split second on the manila envelope I was holding to my chest. I knew she’d realise it was a manuscript, even though she didn’t look particularly bright. She had doubtless seen more desperate would-be authors than I’d had cooked breakfasts, and had probably been trained to smell manuscripts from half a mile away. Like one of those dogs at airports – I half expected her to come and sit at my feet and stare at me until her handler arrived. It was possible she was the company’s reader; she certainly looked stupid enough. When she’d finished looking me up and down in this disdainful way – it took all of two seconds – she asked, ‘Have you an appointment?’ She knew I didn’t.

  ‘No.’ I couldn’t be bothered to give her an explanation.

  ‘I’m afraid Mr Mulqueeny can’t see anyone without an appointment. If you want to phone in sometime and make one …’ Her voice trailed off. She obviously thought I was dumb, incapable of working out for myself what she was reluctant to say to my face: ‘No, Mr Mulqueeny won’t see you, and you can’t make an appointment to see him.’ I knew she wouldn’t have any trouble saying that over the phone. Many people find it easier to be rude over the phone.

  ‘It’s important I see him now.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but …’

  I was ready for this, in fact I expected it. I wasn’t in the least surprised. If the girl had said, ‘Certainly, sir, Mr Mulqueeny will be happy to see you now,’ I wouldn’t have known what to do, I’d have been completely taken aback. But rejections, those I was used to, those I could deal with. I’d been the recipient of rejections all my life. I had a filing cabinet full of them. It was a hobby of mine, collecting rejections. I could have been a stand-in for Richard Tull in The Information.

  ‘I’ll wait.’ I turned away and went to sit on the sofa. ‘Will you tell him I’m here, so that I can see him when he’s free. It won’t take long.’ I smiled pleasantly, making an effort to hide my true feelings.

  She stared at me. I think she was dumbfounded. (It’s an interesting word, that. Like saying she had found a dumb way to look. ‘Flummoxed’ might have been a more apt word. What’s the difference between flummoxed and dumbfounded? I wish I’d brought a dictionary to Sarajevo to help me with those kinds of question.)

  ‘You can’t just sit here, you know …’ I noticed that her statements were all unfinished; she was a lover of ellipses.

  I smiled at her, still pretending to be pleasant. She had long black hair. It was shiny, and looked very strokable. I’d like to have run my fingers through it. ‘Are you very busy at the moment?’ I frowned, putting my head a little to one side as if I were genuinely interested and couldn’t wait to hear her reply. I’m good at that, pretending to be interested in what someone is saying even though I’m not. I can fool the best of them.

  She put down the envelope she’d been holding. I could see she was flustered, but then she can only have been about twenty, so that wasn’t so surprising. Twenty-year-olds are easily flustered.

  ‘Mr Mulqueeny isn’t here, you know, so he can’t see you. And anyway,’ she added, in an attempt to strengthen her argument, ‘he’s too busy to see anyone who just walks in off the street.’ She made me sound like a tramp. It was probably intentional.

  ‘As I said, I’m happy to wait until he gets back. I haven’t a lot on at the moment.’ I didn’t believe her. Mr Mulqueeny was probably right behind one of these walls, listening, his ear to the plaster, encouraging his employee telepathically. I picked up the newspaper on the table. The headlines were about the huge fees paid to the management of the new power companies, Power-Gen and National Power. I can’t remember how much, just that I was disgusted by the string of noughts that seemed to fill all of one column – noughts that added up, not to nothing, but to a very substantial amount. I was assailed by that sense of déjà vu I always get when I open a newspaper. I didn’t want to read about greedy, grasping businessmen, or Chechnya, or the Tories squabbling about Europe – or anything else, for that matter. I’d read it all before, far too many times. All that information, forests of it every day, and conveying precisely nothing. It was an assault on my brain, a perpetual bombardment of useless information that enlightened me not at all, and was simply intended to make me feel I was living in a democracy and much better off than the rest of the world. The only use for the tabloid rubbish I held in my hands was that it was a prop. It gave me something to do. I wanted to appear relaxed in front of the receptionist, if only because she was so young.

  She disappeared through a door at the end of the room. That’s promising, I thought. With any luck she’d gone to consult with Mr Mulqueeny. See, it pays to stick your neck out in this game. People like this young girl need to be treated firmly, otherwise they think they can get away with their appalling behaviour. I could hear the faint sound of voices in another room: it was the receptionist and someone else, someone who spoke very little, who was probably intent on listening to her rapid explanation of what had been happening in reception. It was a man though, I could tell that, and that was another good sign.

  A minute later the girl came back into the room with a young man in tow. I cursed under my breath: another junior, certainly not Mr Mulqueeny. He had the air of a novice and – although he was doubtless born on the right side of the tracks, probably dabbling in the arts until something better came along – he had a severe case of acne across his forehead. The receptionist veered away, like an escorting battleship from a destroyer about to engage the enemy, and went to watch from the safety of her table. I imagined commands being shouted, barrels being raised and lowered, loud whirrings and creakings as turrets swivelled, a frantic measuring of distance and speed as the young man closed in on me.

  Then came the first broadside. It was a little cautious, an immature opening, more like a tentative feeler from a fencer than a naval broadside. ‘I’m afraid Mr Mulqueeny hasn’t been in the office today, can I possibly help?’ He must have been in his mid-twenties, but already had a stooped and bookish air about him. He wore glasses and a grey, conservatively cut suit. I could feel his nervousness. His hands, which were probably damp, were clasping and unclasping themselves in front of his stomach, and his eyes were so watery he looked as if he were about to cry. I guessed he had an arts degree from Oxford or Cambridge, and it hadn’t prepared him for this kind of thing.

  ‘Are you expecting him? I’m happy to wait.’

  ‘Maybe I can help. I am Mr Mulqueeny’s assistant. Would it be about a manuscript?’

  What else would it fucking be about? That’s what I thought, but I said, ‘Yes, it is. You’re very perceptive.’

  He gave a polite, dismissive chuckle, as if he were too well brought up to be able to admit to the truth of what I’d said. ‘If you’d like to leave it with me, we’ll be happy to look at it and get back to you.’

  I was impressed. He didn’t even ask for a stamped, self-addres
sed envelope so that it could be returned to me post-haste. Because it would be returned, there was no question about that. It would be rejected immediately, we both knew that.

  ‘You’ve already looked at it,’ and I gave him a big smile as if to reassure him that I didn’t blame him personally for this unfortunate state of affairs. But it only succeeded in making him more flustered. He blushed, and the sweat stood out on his forehead. It must be embarrassing to be confronted by one of the firm’s rejects.

  ‘Oh, I see …’ Another one who didn’t like to complete his sentences, I thought. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, but don’t despair. You may well have better luck with another literary agent. Have you tried another literary agent? I could suggest some names, if you’d like. Would you like some names? Let me get them for you.’ Instead of engaging with the enemy as he originally intended, he was now frantically trying to disengage.

  I’m sure you could suggest some names. Anything to get rid of me, pass the buck on to someone else and let them do the dirty work. The receptionist was pretending to busy herself behind her table, but I could see she was watching us from beneath lowered brows.