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 rejection, 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-addressed 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.
‘I want to ask Mr Mulqueeny why he rejected my manuscript,’ I said to the young man’s half-turned back as he set off to look for some names. There, it was out. I was quite calm and collected. I was proud of myself.
It was the young man who was increasingly losing it. ‘But you understand, Mr …?’ he said, turning back to me.
I gave him my name. Why not help the lad out?
‘But I’m sure you understand, Milan,’ (this is a little familiar, I thought) ‘we’re unable to offer individual criticism on every manuscript we receive. It simply isn’t feasible, as much as we’d like to.’ He waved his arms feebly towards the door through which he’d made his entrance with the receptionist. ‘You should see my office. Manuscripts piled …’ Another sentence petered out between us. How high are the manuscripts piled, I wondered: as high as his desk, the ceiling, this building, an elephant’s eye, I had no idea. He didn’t elaborate on the height of the manuscripts, but continued to explain his predicament to me in breathless bursts. ‘Even if we wanted to … You have no idea the number … If you had read our rejection letter … It’s all there … We do the best we can, but of course …’ Unfinished sentence followed unfinished sentence in a staccato of explanations. I tried mentally to catch some of them as they flew past my ears. His hands, as though exhausted by their owner’s verbal excesses, flopped to his sides, and he stopped talking, like a wind-up toy whose battery had run out. He looked at me, possibly hoping I might come to his assistance. The receptionist had pushed him into the front line, and he wasn’t having much success. Having fired all his guns, he now wished to retreat back into the trenches.
‘I’d like an individual criticism from Mr Mulqueeny.’ I remained pleasant; after all, he was only a kid. But it wasn’t easy to stay calm. I was beginning to imagine my hands around his neck, squeezing the carotid artery, staring into bulging, upturned eyes. ‘I’m happy to wait until he’s free, as I said to the young lady over there.’ I returned to my newspaper, adding over the top of it, ‘I think I deserve that.’ The young man and the receptionist exchanged a look, as if to say, ‘What do we do now?’
They were rescued from their dilemma by the arrival of a middle-aged man, probably about ten years older than me, thickset, not tall, throwing open the front door and bursting into the office. He was all bustle and self-importance, I could see that straight away. He looked like someone who had inhaled deeply, but forgotten to exhale. He had glasses resting on the end of his nose, over which he peered at the three of us, a bald head – apart from a sparse arrangement of fine salt-and-pepper hair around the edges – and was wearing a rather shabby, loose-fitting, dark suit. He was clutching at least six manuscripts to his chest with one hand, and carrying a briefcase in the other. I had no doubt that this was the man himself. He’d been out of the office after all. Without saying good morning to his young employees, he dropped the manuscripts onto the table with a peremptory ‘Send these back, Diane,’ and turned to go through to his office. The young man leapt after his boss, determined not to let this life raft drift too far off. ‘Mr Mulqueeny …’
They conferred together in whispers at the end of the room, the older man turning every so often to scowl at me across the top of his glasses. He said something to the young man, sighed loudly as if it were all too much and disappeared through a door. The young man came towards me. ‘Mr Mulqueeny has kindly agreed to see you for a few minutes. You’re very lucky, this is most unusual.’
I couldn’t bring myself to thank him; I simply nodded. Was he expecting me to make obeisance with deep gratitude there and then? I wasn’t sure. Five minutes later the receptionist took me through to Mr Mulqueeny’s office, introduced me and left. He was sitting behind a desk, his baby face barely visible above the numerous piles of manuscripts that covered it. He neither got up from his chair nor held out a hand, obviously thinking that by agreeing to see me he’d already extended sufficient civility. I was waved towards a chair, the only one in the small room apart from his own. Even with the desk between us, I was assailed by fumes of alcohol and garlic. It had obviously been a good lunch – probably with some best-selling author, I thought.
The man with his name on the door didn’t waste time on polite chit-chat. He took a deep breath and started straight in. ‘What some of you people don’t understand is that the book industry is exactly that: an industry. It’s a business. It has profit and loss columns, a bottom line, earnings and dividends and so on and so forth. It’s about money, it’s not about art. People come through these doors with airy-fairy dreams about art, immortality and literature – you can put all of those with capital letters: Art, Immortality and Literature. I’m not interested in those. I don’t give a damn about any of that. Art, Immortality and Literature will never be welcomed through these doors. You know what interests me?’
I shook my head.Not only did I not know what interested him, I had no idea why he was telling me all of this.
‘How much money is in it for me, that’s all that interests me. I don’t give a twopenny-halfpenny damn if your novel is the greatest novel since War and Peace or if you’re a better writer than Conrad, I want to know how much money your book is going to make for me. I want to know if it’s going to help me pay off my mortgage, let my wife buy herself beautiful dresses – which she’s extremely partial to – and allow me to fork out the ridiculous amounts of money I’m expected to pay for my children’s education.’
As he spoke, he was waving his arms around in the air as if addressing a far larger audience than one. ‘Now, my dear sir, if you can persuade me that you’re the next Michael Crichton, Jean Auel, Stephen King, Danielle Steel – even the next Nick Hornby – then I shall welcome you with open arms. But I suspect you’re more likely to be, at the very best, a one-shot wonder, the author of an autobiography masquerading as a novel, of little literary merit and no page-turning qualities, which will cost a publisher a lot of money to promote and cost me my reputation for having pushed it onto him.’ He burped quietly – ‘Excuse me.’ – before carrying on.
‘It’s true publishers pay first novelists a pittance, and I’ll tell you why this is so. It’s because it is more expensive for publishers to persuade the public to buy your novel than it is for them to pay an advance of thousands of pounds to a well-known and already well-established author. That’s what people like you don’t realise. Publishers don’t pay novice novelists £5000 in the hope of getting £5000 back. They want more back. They are speculators, and as speculators they want profits. The fact of the matter is, around eighty per cent of all published novels are failures. Eighty per cent, and I’m talking all novels, not just first novels.’
It was a tirade. He just went on and on. Beneath the bustling, vaguely literary intellectual there lurked the hard, cold businessman, and the latter was all that was visible to me. Exhausted, if not drowned by the oceans of words that had washed over him throughout his life, Mulqueeny had become indifferent to the struggles of would-be writers. He was impassive towards both me and my book, and my plight was of no interest to him. Eventually he stopped talking, and there was a long silence while he stared at me over his glasses.
‘Mr Mulqueeny, I believe I have talent. In fact I know I have talent.’
‘My dear sir, they all say that. Try to be more original.’ He yawned. ‘Anyway, you’re too old. How old are you?’
‘I’m thirty-six.’
‘They like authors to be in their twenties nowadays. Gives them more of a career.’
I ignored him. ‘All I’m asking is for someone to tell me where I’m going wrong. I’ve written novels – the one I submitted to you was my fourth – and I’ve written short stories, many short stories. And they all come back with the standard rejection slip. No one tells me anything, no one offers me any kind of help or advice.’
‘That’s because there are too many of you. There are millions of wannabe writers out there, millions. If I saw every person who asked for help, I wouldn’t have time to do anything else. I’d have to shut up shop.’ He put his feet up on his desk, amongst the manuscripts, and stared briefly out of the window. Solely for my benefit, he was doing his impersonation of a bored man. But he didn’t fool me. I could see that he was a pompous fool, and he was also beginning to irritate me.
‘It’s a vicious circle, that’s what you’re telling me. I won’t have a novel accepted by a literary agent unless I’ve been published, and I won’t be published until I’ve had a book accepted by a literary agent.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘That is very perspicacious of you.’
‘But how do you know I’m not the next Martin Amis? To pick a name at random.’
‘As I said, you’re too old.’ He shrugged and gave me a quick, almost sympathetic smile, but lacking in sincerity. ‘He published his first novel when he was twenty-four.’
‘Only because of Daddy.’
‘You think so?’
‘Of course. Doesn’t everyone?’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure. His talent was recognisable, I think, even then.’
‘The Rachel Papers is juvenilia. If it had arrived on your desk with my name on the front cover, you’d have thrown it in the bin.’
‘That’s your opinion.’
‘It’s a fact. Anyway, I’m not yet thirty-seven and Annie Proulx was over fifty when her first novel was published. So was Saramago. I may not be an Oxford or Cambridge undergraduate, but I’m definitely not too old.’
‘Those two writers you mention, Proulx and Saramago, are geniuses. You, I am afraid, are not – whatever you might think. You know my advice to you? Give it up. Give up your dream of literary immortality or of writing a best-selling airport novel – whichever dream it is you have – and stick to your day job. Be content with being a waiter, plumber, schoolteacher, journalist, businessman, electrician, undertaker, dishwasher or whatever it is you do, and forget about being a writer. You’ve missed the boat. If you’d wanted to be an author in the eighteenth century, in the days of Jane Austen say, you’d possibly have succeeded. Hardly anyone wanted to be a novelist then. Publishers were crying out for writers. Today every man and his dog wants to be a novelist.’
‘Fuck Jane Austen,’ I said, leaning forward in my chair.
‘Certainly, but have you seen what she looked like?’ He smiled, obviously amused by my outburst.
‘I have talent.’
‘If you have talent, sir, if you really have talent, then you’ll be published.’
‘But you rejected my manuscript.’
‘Then we obviously don’t agree that you have talent, or not sufficient talent.’
‘Maybe you wouldn’t recognise talent if it was shoved up your arse.’
He raised his eyebrows and lowered his feet to the ground. He swivelled his chair round to face me. I now had his full attention.
‘There is the possibility that I wouldn’t recognise talent if it was, as you so charmingly put it, shoved up my arse, but I happen to believe that I would. However, in the unlikely event I didn’t recognise it, then you can rest assured someone else would. It might take time, but if you truly have talent, someone out there will eventually realise it. Not necessarily immediately, but eventually.’
‘My book was good – is good. The plot is strong, the characters are rounded, the dialogue is excellent, the narrative is well written – it’s good.’
I was hoping he’d ask for a rundown of the plot, but he didn’t, so I prompted him. ‘Let me remind you what it was about.’ I doubted he would remember it – or even have read it.
‘I’m too busy for that.’
‘It won’t take long.’ And I started to give him the plot of my rejected novel. After only speaking for a minute or two, I could see he was becoming more and more fidgety. Suddenly he stood up. ‘I haven’t the time for this. I have too much work to do. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave. Possibly another day.’
I too stood up. I went around his desk. He stepped back, stumbling against his chair. I pushed him into it, and it rolled a little over the floor until it came to a stop against a pile of manuscripts. I bent over him, placing my hands on the arms of his executive chair. It squeaked. If I’d been a vampire I would have been repelled by the waves of garlic that hit me full in the face. Mr Mulqueeny looked alarmed. At the risk of sounding like an airport novel … My eyes bored into his. Steely eyes, ice-cold resolve. A vein on the side of my forehead throbbed menacingly. I was determined to get my own way, come hell or high water. That kind of thing.
‘Are you sitting comfortably?’ I asked, speaking slowly, emphatically. ‘Then I shall continue with my story. Thank you.’ I straightened up, walked back around the desk, sat down and continued to recount the plot of my novel.
But I’d lost the thread of what I’d been saying. I found it hard to concentrate. I was too aware of Mulqueeny fidgeting, forever looking at the phone on his desk as if he might find the courage to spring up and grab it. I stopped my sales spiel. He was making me angry.
‘You’re not listening, Mr Mulqueeny.’
‘I am, truly I am.’ He was nervous.
‘Who read my novel at Mulqueeny & Holland? Who read the first three chapters and the synopsis? That receptionist out there? You?’
‘No, not me. I don’t read novels.’ He said it too quickly.
‘You brought a pile of manuscripts into the office this morning. I imagine they were novels?’
‘Yes, that’s true, but it’s most unusual. I normally leave the novels to my readers. We have three or four readers and we go by what they say, by their recommendations.’
‘But you could have read my manuscript. You, yourself. It’s possible. Do you recognise the plot?’
‘I can’t say that I do.’
‘You can’t say that you do?’ I almost whispered it.
‘You see, we read so many, so very many manuscripts, it can be difficult to remember them all. Keeping track of everything … You don’t understand …’
‘But you only read the first page. It can’t be that difficult to remember one page.’ I started to take my manuscript out of the envelope. ‘I’ll read you the first page. It may jog your memory.’
He half laughed, holding up a hand. ‘We do usually read a bit more than that. It can be hard to judge a book from the first page, you know.’
‘It must be hard to judge a book from the first three chapters and a synopsis, I’d have thought, but you manage that all right.’
‘You obviously don’t appreciate the size of our task. Another lifetime would not be long enough. Publishers and literary agents are being crushed by the sheer weight of submitted manuscripts. We receive over three thousand a year. We cannot give careful consideration to every single novel that comes into our offices – as much as we’d like to. It’s an impossibility.’
‘My problem is I don’t give a fuck about anyone else’s novel, I’m only interested in mine.’
‘I understand. But try to see it from our point of view. The system’s not ideal for us either. It’s a gamble. We have to rely on gut instincts – a quick glance through a few pages, a snap judgement and, if we get it wrong, we miss out on a best seller. It’s easy for people like you to read a published novel at your leisure, to say, this is a book of great literary merit, but I challenge you to pick that same book out of the pile of manuscripts on your desk at the end of every day. When you’re tired, when you’re pushed for time, when all you want to do is go home, put your feet up and have a glass of wine. When you’ve spent the whole day, every day of the week – let’s face it – wading through a pile of dross. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, dross.”
‘My heart goes out to you.’ I’d started to pace up and down his office while he spoke. We were going round in circles: I was letting him speak too much, and all he was coming up with was excuses. As for me, I was listening too much.
It happened quickly. I wasn’t thinking, I just did it. There was a vase of flowers on a cabinet at the end of his desk. It was a tall vase; I thought the flowers were gladioli or something, but I wasn’t sure. I pushed the top of the vase and it fell across the desk, pouring a considerable amount of water onto the publisher’s lap. The effect was good. Water and flowers cascaded everywhere, including over a pile of manuscripts waiting to be rejected – or already rejected – on a corner of the desk. Mr Mulqueeny stumbled to his feet, looking down at his wet crotch, his face a picture of horror. I think maybe it was then that he understood I was serious. His mouth opened. He was gasping for air, as if he might have been a fish emptied out of the flower vase. He tried to dry the front of his trousers with tissues from a box on his window sill.
‘I’m interested in my novel, Mr Mulqueeny. As I said to you before, other people’s books are of no interest to me. I want you, or whoever read my book, to tell me why it was rejected. That’s all. Why? That’s all I wish to know. A simple enough question, I’d have thought. I want to know where, in your opinion, I went wrong. I want to know what, in your opinion, I’m doing wrong. I want to know why, in your opinion, my story lacks appeal. I want some guidance and advice. That’s all I’m asking for. Not too much, surely? I don’t wish to argue with you – you’re entitled to your opinion – I simply want some help.’ And I pushed, with deliberate slowness, a pile of manuscripts resting near the edge of his desk onto the floor. Just to add insult to injury.
He stared at me, wide-eyed, his mouth still open, still gasping. He had one hand resting on his desk as if to prevent himself from falling over. ‘I’ll tell you what …’ He cleared his throat. ‘Excuse me. Let me just have a look at our files. We should be able to find out who read your manuscript, and we can ask them for a more detailed evaluation.’ He smiled in a sickly fashion. ‘How’s that?’
‘That sounds like an excellent idea.’
‘Please have a seat. I’ll be right back.’
He edged around me, giving me as wide a berth as possible in the small room – yet I still caught a noseful of alcohol fumes – and scuttled crabwise through the door.
Over his shoulder: ‘I’m sorry. Your name?’
‘Zorec. Milan Zorec.’
‘Ah yes.’
I sat down in my chair and gazed around me. I was pleased with myself, I was making progress. I was one up on all the other writers whose works lay scattered in various piles around the office.
Everything was quiet. Outside the window was the distant, perpetual drone of London traffic. A patch of dull grey sky was sewn onto the gap between the top of the window and the roof of the building opposite. Someone in the street below shouted, and I could hear the distinctive sound of a lorry reversing. I picked up the nearest manuscript. It was written by someone in Sussex – Horsham, I think. It was called The Barking Cat. I hated the title. The synopsis started off something like: ‘My book is about a bunch of New York Mafiosi who go with their wives and children for a holiday in London.’ It didn’t sound too promising, but then anything that starts, ‘My book is about …’ isn’t going to sound promising. I didn’t understand the significance of the title, nor the connection with the Mafiosi. I flicked to the first page. ‘Luigi pumped the London cabbie for his life story, but hadn’t reckoned on the famous British reserve.’ I threw the manuscript back on its pile. I agreed with that particular decision of Mr Mulqueeny and his gang of readers: instant rejection. Too obvious. My book was much better than that.
The literary agent came back into the room. He still looked very nervous. He had nothing in his hands. ‘Diane is looking out your reader’s report. Of course, you have to appreciate the report is confidential. You understand we can’t give you the name of the person who read your book.’
‘Why not? I only want to talk to him.’
‘It’s out of the question, I’m afraid. We have to preserve our readers’ anonymity.’
‘It’s not that I want to argue with him or anything. I simply want to hear where he thought I went wrong.’
‘I can tell you that, but I absolutely cannot give you a name and address. Some of our would-be authors get quite upset when their manuscripts are rejected.’
‘Is that right?’
He smiled faintly and his eyes flickered to the broken vase on the floor.
A few minutes later there was a commotion in reception. A door banged, and there were voices. A few seconds later the receptionist came tentatively into the office, followed closely by two policemen. Mr Mulqueeny looked at me quizzically, waiting to see my reaction, then gave a quick smile and shrug as if to say, What else could I have done – you gave me no other option. I should have realised. I stared at the two policemen. I was angry with myself for not having foreseen him acting in such an idiotic manner.
He rose to his feet. ‘This man is quite crazy. He threw that vase at me – look at my trousers! And all over these manuscripts. And now he’s threatening me.’ He preened himself, pleased to have survived what he perceived as his ordeal, and yet I hadn’t done half of what I’d imagined doing. The policemen asked me to accompany them down to the station. I shrugged. One of them even produced some handcuffs. I said they weren’t necessary. He looked disappointed.
As we were leaving his office, Mr Mulqueeny called out to me. I turned. ‘The person who read your book by the way – I think you should know – she said you had a mediocre talent. She also said: “I feel I’ve read this before.” Those were her exact words, Mr Zorec – that your book was hardly original.’ Like a child who has reached the sanctuary of ‘home’ and is intent on baiting his playmates, he grinned at me from behind his desk. I almost expected him to stick out his tongue and say ‘Nyah nyah ni nyah-nyah!’ If the police hadn’t been there I might have killed him at that moment. He was lucky.
When we walked through the reception area, the girl behind the desk, Diane, standing next to the young man, started to giggle. She had her hand up to her mouth. She was fucking laughing at me. I’d have killed her on the spot, too, if the police hadn’t been there.
So I ended up in prison, in a police cell. I spent the night cooling my heels – now where does that expression come from? I had to share the cell with a drunk driver and a down-and-out (who stank). I was released in the morning because Mr Mulqueeny didn’t press charges: he’d simply wanted me removed from his office. I was cautioned not to go anywhere near the literary agent’s offices again. For a time I toyed with the idea of going back. I imagined what I’d do to them all. The Oxbridge graduate never featured greatly in these daydreams; I’d simply shoot him. Mr Mulqueeny I’d tie to his chair while I fucked his receptionist, Ms Diane, the one who’d laughed at me, on his desk in front of him, amongst all the rejected manuscripts. Then I’d kill the literary agent by stuffing manuscripts down his throat and up his backside and setting fire to them. They wouldn’t have seen any of that before, oh no. In fact the only reason I didn’t do any of this was because I suspected there was a strong likelihood of being caught, and I didn’t want to spend years in prison for such worthless people. Especially not then, after the idea of going to Sarajevo came to me.
But for awhile I dreamt of getting that receptionist back, of giving her a warm reception, of getting my revenge on Ms Diane. I’d make sure she wasn’t so quick to laugh at me in the future, that was for sure.