I left for Sarajevo in early March. No one saw me off, but that didn’t bother me. It gave me time to visit the airport bookshop for a quick sneer, a quiet scoff, a quizzical snigger. I wasn’t disappointed. The shelves were full of dross, of clichéd, unimaginative, unadulterated garbage – and that was me being generous. I could tell from the covers what the books were like inside. They should have been pulped at birth. At the very least they should have carried stickers saying, ‘Warning: junk. Reading this book could seriously damage your health,’ and shown lurid, livid photographs of a tumorous brain or a purulent, cataracted eye. Yet these novels were published, that’s what had me staring open mouthed with wonder at their doorstop bulk, their embossed, gold- and-silver-lettered covers.
I had to leave the shop before I vomited. I rushed for the exit, doubtless green and perspiring like some hyperactive Martian when – and I swear I could almost hear the heavenly music and see a choir of angels descend – I saw on an island display all of its very own, like a diamond rising from a sea of dung, Martin Amis’s new novel, The Information. I stopped dead. A pure, blinding light flooded that sanctified spot, and I suddenly felt like a plane rising above the clouds into an arctic, tropospheric wonder of brilliant sunshine and cobalt blue. Everything slowed. Everyone parted before me as I drifted, almost weightless, towards the inspired exhibit. I reached out …
Crashing back through the sound barrier to earth,to humdrum, noisy reality, I thrust the book at the assistant behind the counter. There was only a hardback edition, which for me was a real extravagance, but I knew there wouldn’t be a paperback out for months. ‘Excuse me,’ I said politely, attempting to give the bookshop management the benefit of the doubt. ‘I believe there’s been a mistake.’
‘Eh?’ The mindless girl could barely look at me.
‘You shouldn’t be stocking this. It’s scarcely appropriate for your shelves.’
‘Excuse me?’ she snapped, taking the book out of my hands and studying the cover with a furrowed brow. Enlightenment was obviously not forthcoming. ‘What you want, sir? We’re very busy.’
‘It’s a literary work,’ I explained, trying to remain patient. ‘Lit-er-ary. It’s not an airport book, not junk. I suggest you remove it from your shelves before your customers become upset.’
Some tight-arsed businessman behind me, clutching his Samsonite-executive-international-traveller-suitcase-cum-wardrobe-on-wheels with one hand and a fat novel with a scantily clad, breast-thrusting demoiselle on a blasted moor in the other, tutted impatiently behind me. He was attempting to signal to me, like I was some paddleboat on the Serpentine, that my time was up and I should now move out of the way and give someone else a go with the assistant. I turned and gave him a withering look, daring him to tut one more time.
‘I dunno anything about that,’ the girl said. ‘You can talk to the manager if you want.’
Despairing of ever starting a meaningful dialogue with the single brain cell buried deep within the empty, echoing caverns of the creature’s cranium, I bought the novel and went to sit in the departure lounge. I tried to find a seat away from everyone else, but without success, so I was obliged to study my fellow passengers, whose unreality surprised me. It shouldn’t have. I decided long ago that people at airports are definitely not real. They’re in a state of limbo, either leaving or arriving, but never present. And they do everything – walk around, sit down, slap their children – as if conscious of being observed. Which, of course, they are – by me. Ready to put them down in my notebook.
Later, as we climbed steeply over the city, I peered down at the streets and houses as the rain-heavy clouds settled over them – the dull and leaden sky covering so many dull and leaden lives. I felt relief at escaping. It would be a change. I hadn’t had a holiday for years. It would be a laugh, with a spot of shooting thrown in on the side.
I found it difficult to concentrate on reading, although I did notice, rifling through a few pages of The Information, the signatory word play and brilliantly self-aware writing. Overcome by a discomforting mix of envy, awe and airline food, I put the book to one side and contented myself with staring out of the window at the snow-covered countryside below. Everything was white, except for the blackness of the forests and woods. There was a starkness and simplicity about the landscape that made me feel I was looking down on a series of giant Dürer woodcuts.