Whatever you do, don’t write them down. Don’t publish!
Or maybe no, write them down the better to destroy them. Good idea. Paper can be torn up. Computer files can be erased.
Instead of a publishing company, an UNpublishing company.
Gap in the market!
‘My dear young man, this is a very interesting novel you have written, extremely poignant; the account you give of your hero’s decline into poverty, old age and perversion is at once moving, disquieting and deeply, deeply disturbing. Anyway, I’m pleased to say we can offer you a contract to destroy this story in all extant editions typescripts electronic files and whatsoever other relevant media. Our offer will be for world rights of course. We undertake to keep the story out of print worldwide for at least ten years from the date of signature. Our boast is that our titles are all surrounded by the utmost silence and secrecy; under no circumstances will your name as author appear in any publication. No, my young man, neither you nor anyone else need ever be troubled by this moving story again.’
The author has exercised his moral right.
What do stories do but glamorize pain? That’s true of all the novels I’ve published, all the pretentious sagas I hoped would change the face of English literature. They glamorize suffering. Only a life with suffering is glamorous. That’s obvious. Starting with Christ. Physical suffering love suffering spiritual suffering. No suffering, no glamour. We’re in love with dukkha. That’s the truth. Head over heels in love with pain. Pretending we want happiness, we go prospecting for misery, like paupers panning for gold. Our lives have to be moving stories. No triumph without adversity. Long adversity. The longer the better. Angela’s acid ashes. And the seduction is in the adversity, not the last-page triumph. The seduction is in the sentiment that clings to adversity. Oh, poor thing. Oh, poor David Copperfield. Oh, poor Little Nell. Oh, my generous heart having these generous feelings for these poor people.
Let’s catch some tsunami with our supper.
Tsunami salami.
Dasgupta teaches emotional calm. The girl cries in the quiet of the meditation room. She has a story to tell, a novel to write. All too soon she’ll be running to the publishers with her typescript. How many misery memoirs will be waiting on my desk when I get back to the office? Then her pain can be made public and everyone can hold it in their hands, savour it, caress it, fold back the page and sigh, Oh, what intense feelings, oh, what infernal dilemmas, oh, how noble the human soul! Oh, what a fascinating life!
Dasgupta says, My friends, the last thing we need is your unhappy story, the last thing we need is an account of your pain.
We need silence.
If you can’t stop crying, please leave the room.
Harper was right not to enquire into my difficulties, to dismiss me with a simple injunction. Don’t shoot that second arrow, mate.
Leave the room. Put down your pen.
The second arrow is the pen.
Of course!
Second Arrow Publishing. Brilliant!
A profitable unhappiness.
The cute little girl was absolutely right. Oh, I could kiss her. You love your pain too much. How can she be so young and so wise? You love your pen too much. Your pein. Oh, I could kiss her wise little rabbity lips.
Publishing should be banned. Forbidden. Publishing is not a right livelihood. Not part of the eightfold path. Harper should have said something. Should have said, Students, you’ll never get to nirvana by publishing.
After this retreat I go home, I wind up Wordsmith, I tell Susie her life is hers to do what she wants — absolutely whatever you want — I tell L it is over between us. Linda, it’s over. It is truly over. And T. I tell T it’s over too. Terry, it’s over. I only needed Terry to stay with Linda. I’m a disgrace. Charlie is a fine man. Take care of your husband.
Everything’s over.
I wish.
And what then? Where am I?
Broccoli
JONATHAN HAD NO mood swings, no indecisions. I could get up now, go back to Dormitory A, take off my jeans, stretch out in bed beside my diarist. ‘Just looking in your eyes now,’ he wrote on a beer mat ‘is the most beautiful moment of my life.’ That was our best evening together, the one before the last. Not for a second did he think of changing his plans. I could storm into his bedroom and shout, ‘What a shit you are, Mr Diarist! What a twisted mixed-up worm!’ I could dump his diary in the bin and forget about it. I could sneak it back to his bedside with a word of wisdom. ‘Just let go, GH. Let go of your big ego.’ I do feel compassion for him and his wife. They’re lost. I feel compassion for my parents. They will never be happy together and they will never be happy apart. Talk about people embalming each other. Marriot’s was a funeral parlour. It would have been death to marry Carl.
But I thought you wanted to die.
Two moths are fluttering against the lightshade in the female servers’ room. Why have I stopped killing insects? It’s creepy how they bang and scrabble against the paper globe. It’s mindless. All Dasgupta lightshades are Ikea. One moth drops to the floor, twitches its filthy wings, whirrs up again. Jonathan killed flies by clapping his hands. He never got angry or irritable, except when you tried to talk about his wife. ‘My ex-wife,’ he said. ‘Ex marks the spot.’
It’s very still in here. Except for the moths. They’re creepy the way they seem to look for death, but I do feel compassion for them. I feel lost. Maybe I should kill a fly or two, just to get back in the saddle. Maybe that’s what I need, to shag and kill and be brutaclass="underline" fuck Ralph, fuck up Ralph, tear up the diary, swat these stupid moths, write some obscene graffiti with menstrual blood. DASUCKTA!
It’s two a.m. and Beth’s at a turning point.
With nowhere to turn.
Do I leave this place or do I stay?
Nothing. Stuck.
Say I went to bed and listened to the mouse gnawing, to Stephanie snoring. I could. I could do that. What does the mouse want in that bedroom? To gnaw our toes? To nibble our ears? To pee on our bedding? Or just to be there, to share our company?
What do animals do all day? What are these moths doing, really? How do they know what to do?
Their bodies tell them.
A sort of nibbliness! Rabbity. The teeth, I suppose.
Say I went back into the kitchen and pigged out on yesterday’s leftovers. I could do that. It amazed Carl how much I ate after concerts. We were so sweaty and smoky and drunk and alive. Sausages. Pizza. Kebabs. Then sex. Sometimes I hardly knew who with. Carl was always up and down, happy or depressed. He wanted so much to marry me. He could already smell our babies. They were puppies or baby rabbits. Carl wanted to change the straw. He was a sweet little boy in need of a pet. It should have been obvious I wasn’t the one. I do feel compassion for him. He was a fantastic guitarist. So slick. So clean. So talented. But he would have accepted a job at Marriot’s any day. Marketing. Perhaps he already has. Perhaps Carl is working there now, for Dad, selling Marriot’s synthetics. I feel compassion for him. I feel compassion for myself. I envy my diarist’s pregnant girlfriend. Teresa. Nice name. God, I envy her. Think. All she has to do is let her creature grow. Let her body do its thing. Like the mice, the moths. Woman in the row behind me. Who cares who the father is? I didn’t care, really. I just didn’t want to bring up a child with Carl. It was obvious Jonathan would never accept one. I could go to Mi Nu and ask, Why do I never know what to do? Time ticks by and everyone is sleeping or busy. The moths are busy, the rabbits are busy. The mice are busy. My diarist is dreaming demons. I never know what to do. I can’t sleep. I didn’t let my creature grow, Mi Nu. I failed to love failed to love.