Five Dials

Number 11

roberto bolaño 4 ‘clearly I’d prefer not to die’ jon savage 5 on the year 1974 raymond chandler 7 and his unused book titles paul murray 8 new fiction melissa broder 16 new poetry

. . . and indeed a little more. CONTRIBUTORS KATE BLAND was born in 1978. She completed a Fine Art degree in 2001 and has exhibited drawings and paintings in London and the Isle of Wight. Her work can be seen at www.katebland.com. ROBERTO BOLAñO is the author of 2666, for which he posthumously won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2008. An English translation of his novel Monsieur Pain was released in January. MELISSA BRODER is the curator of the Polestar Poetry Series and the author of When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother. In 2009 she won the Stark Prize for Poetry. RAYMOND CHANDLER is the creator of Philip Marlowe. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen. ALAIN DE BOTTON’s most recent book is A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary. PAUL MURRAY used to work as a bookseller. His new novel, Skippy Dies, is published this month. JON SAVAGE has written several books on music, including England’s Dreaming. He also makes compilation .

Thanks: the usual gang of helpers, and to Elliott, Patrick and Angela at Book Slam and Anna Ridley at Penguin for helping to arrange our first evening at Wilton’s Music Hall.

Excerpt from Roberto Bolaño: The Last Interview courtesy of Melville House Publishing, published in February 2010.

Subscribe: hamishhamilton.co.uk

All illustrations by Kate Bland Designed by Dean Allen A Letter From The Editor • Evergreen Polo mints • Pilot V5 Hi-Tecpoint 0.5 pen • Bliss To Be Alive: The Collected Writings of On Wilton’s and Lists Gavin Hills • ‘Buildings & Bodies’ – a zine by Ryan Dodgson • London bus route 168 have a friend who sometimes sends ready for our evening at Wilton’s Music • Green lentils I me lists. In lieu of a full email, or even Hall on February 26th, when Jonathan • Sea Within A Sea – a postcard, she writes a list about her life Safran Foer is scheduled to talk about • Lionkiller Got Married – Cass McCombs naming the detritus that adds texture eating animals and Paul Murray will • USA 5 – Canada 3, men’s Olympic ice to her life and they become surprisingly read something just about as funny and hockey result effective slices of biography, hinting at sharp as the short story we’re publishing • Clairefontaine notebooks who she is at the moment and what is flit- in the issue. Just the other day I had the • Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton ting through her life. The key is to write entry ‘Murray – DEVIL’ written on one • Jerusalem – Jez Butterworth without thinking and let the list tell the of my many lists. (I write them on white • Kronenbourg Cold story. Here at Five Dials we’re always writ- scraps of paper in black pen so they look • Grey macintosh coat ing lists, revising lists and throwing lists as severe and serious as possible.) The • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg – Jacques away. Occasionally we even uncover a entry was not meant to remind me that Demy list to print in the magazine, such as Ray- Paul is the devil (he’s not) but to prompt • Nobody Knows – Hirokazu Koreeda mond Chandler’s discarded titles, which me into re-read his short story, ‘Beat The • Yogurt covered peanuts you’ll find inside. (My personal favorite: Devil,’ which I thought we’d be publish- • Dennis Severs’ house The Lady With The Truck) Instead of a ing in this issue. I say ‘I thought’ because • Virgin trains full editor’s letter, here is a list of what yesterday Paul sent me an edited version • Overpriced juice on Virgin trains surrounded us as we put together our of the story he thought we’d be publish- • Canada 7 – Russia 3, men’s Olympic ice Wilton’s issue. ing. As much as I’m a fan of ‘Beat The hockey result First, an explanation: our issues usually Devil,’ I love the new one, ‘Saint Silence.’ • Artichoke hearts have themes but we’ve just been calling Sometimes you never know which way • ‘Range Life’ – Pavement this one ‘Wilton’s’ like it was an old Gold- Wilton’s is going to turn. The story • The Journalist and the Murderer – Janet en Retriever. ‘Where is Wilton’s right anchors the issue, and is a good way to Malcolm now?’ ‘Has anyone seen Wilton’s?’ It’s not start the Five Dials 11 list. Without : • Jasmine rice a huge issue but it’s been typeset quickly • Paul Murray manuscript • Broken umbrella by our designer out in rural France to be • February rain —Craig Taylor

3 Five Wild Minutes With… was at the point of fainting. She had copper skin, long red hair and the rest of her was perfect. A timeless beauty. Roberto Bolaño When I had to charge her, I felt embar- rassed. As if saying she understood and An extract from Roberto Balaño’s last interview, with Mexican Playboy not to worry, she smiled at me. Then she disappeared and I have never again MONICA MARISTAIN: If you hadn’t been RB: In reality the five books are more seen anyone like her. Sometimes I get a writer, what would you have been? like 5,000. I’ll mention these only as the the impression that she was the goddess tip of the spear: Don Quixote by Cervan- Kali, the patron saint of thieves and ROBERTO BOLAñO: I would like to have tes, Moby Dick by Melville, the complete goldsmiths, except Kali was also the been a homicide detective, much more works of Borges, Hopscotch by Cortázar, goddess of murderers, and this Hindu than being a writer. I am absolutely sure A Confederacy of Dunces by Toole. I should woman was not only the most beautiful of that. A string of homicides. I’d have also cite Nadja by Breton, and the let- woman on earth, but she seemed also been someone who could come back to ters of Jacques Vaché. Anything Ubu by to be a good person – very sweet and the scene of the crime alone, by night, Jarry. Life: A User’s Manual by Perec. The considerate. and not be afraid of ghosts. Perhaps then Castle and The Trial by Kafka.Aphorisms I might really have become crazy. But by Lichtenberg. The Tractatus by Witt- MM: What do you wish to do before being a detective that could easily be genstein. The Invention of Morel by Bioy dying? resolved with a bullet to the mouth. Casares. The Satyricon by Petronius. The History of Rome by Tito Livio. Pensées by RB: Nothing special. Well, clearly I’d MM: Have you shed one tear about the Pascal. prefer not to die. But sooner or later widespread criticism you’ve drawn from the distinguished lady arrives. The your enemies? MM: John Lennon, Lady Di or Elvis Presley? problem is that sometimes she’s neither

RB: Lots and lots. Every time I read RB: The Pogues, or Suicide, or Bob a lady nor very distinguished, but, as that someone has spoken badly of me Dylan. Well, but let’s not be pretentious: Nicanor Parra says in a poem, she’s a I begin to cry, I drag myself across the Elvis for ever. Elvis and his golden voice, hot wench who will make your teeth floor, I scratch myself, I stop writ- with a sheriff ’s badge, driving a Mustang chatter no matter how fancy you think ing indefinitely, I lose my appetite, I and stuffing himself full of pills. you are. smoke less, I engage in sport, I go for walks on the edge of the sea, which MM: Have you seen the most beautiful MM: What kinds of feelings do posthu- by the way is less than thirty metres woman in the world? mous works awaken in you? from my house, and I ask the seagulls, whose ancestors ate the fish who ate RB: Yes, sometime around 1984 when RB: Posthumous: it sounds like the name Ulysses: Why me? Why? I’ve done you I worked at a store. The store was of a Roman gladiator, an unconquered no harm. empty and in came a Hindu woman. gladiator. At least that’s what poor Post- She looked like a princess and could humous would like to believe. It gives MM: Which five books have marked your well have been one. She bought some him courage. ◊ life? hanging costume jewellery from me. I

4 A SINGLE YEAR first dub albums are beginning to appear by Skin, Flesh & Bones and (Ital Dub). The greatest of these is Keith Jon Savage reclaims 1974 Hudson’s . From its cover (tam- wearing Rasta smoking huge spliff under The year the sixties ended and the eighties began a coconut tree) in, Pick a Dub is a holistic masterpiece that does much to promote t was thirty-six years ago today. 1976 epic, ‘Teenage Revolution’) and the Dub as the present/future form. Hudson IDoesn’t have much of a ring, does Sex Pistols. For those requiring hard rock, uses Augustus Pablo’s melodica as a fanfare it? And indeed 1974 is an elision in most Dr Feelgood are a heart-stopping sensa- on the opening title track: it weaves in and pop/cultural histories: a gap, a lacuna tion on the live circuit and, by the end of out of a churchy organ, but everything only partially filled by recent accounts of that year, are busy recording their first is brought back to the fundamental bass, – amusing and a neces- classic LP, Down By the Jetty. snare and cymbal at regular intervals before sary corrective though they might be. On the West Coast, it’s the year of the a brief scat vocal whoops into the fade. The political story in Britain is well told, two late-hippie-era masterworks: Neil Every track is great but ‘Dreaded Than’ most recently by Andy Beckett in When Young’s On the Beach and Gene Clark’s is pure, organ-drenched skank of filth, the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seven- No Other, which swings from cosmic while ‘Don’t Move’ is a perfect paradox: ties, his journey through 1970s politics. exultation to despair (for more in this a dropped in and out vocal that says ‘be It was the year of two Labour election vein, hear if you can Syd Barrett’s last ever still’ while the backing track moves like a wins, the three-day-week and the miners’ studio session from 1974 and Nick Drake’s BMW pushed to the engine limit. Pick a Dub strike, the Birmingham IRA bomb, the ‘Hanging on A Star’ – two late sixties is one of the first dub albums to get a UK slow upward rise of the New Right and golden boys floundering in the brutal release, if not the first, and you can hear it free-market economics and the effects of seventies). The Doobie Brothers clean up blaring out all over west London. the OPEC oil strike. It’s as though all these with the New Orleans chapter in their In Germany, Faust release events have crowded out all other memo- early/ambient travelogues ‘Black Water’. – the all-consuming drone that compre- ries of this pivotal year. American resident John Lennon makes his hensively trashes the genre that it helped In fact, as Paul Tickell has recently sug- last good , Walls and Bridges. In New to name – while have an inter- gested, 1974 is ‘the year the sixties ended York; the Dolls are running out of steam national hit with Autobahn: the Beach and the eighties began’. In pop, it’s the while the CBGB’s scene is getting under Boys transplanted to the autobahns of year of terminal glam: Diamond Dogs and way with Richard Hell, Television, The West Germany. (I’ve road-tested it in situ ‘Rebel Rebel’. Bowie changes tack during and Patti Smith – who releases – on the A7 and the A24 – and it works the Diamond Dogs tour and opts for Phil- her first 45, ‘Hey Joe/Piss Factory’. perfectly: don’t forget that there are no ly Soul, while find affirma- It’s a fantastic time for black music, speed limits on the A-bahn.) Other 1974 tion with the surprisingly straightforward especially funk, -fusion and soul: albums of note include Can’s Future Days ‘All I Want Is You’. There is a late, sophis- Funkadelic’s Standing on the Verge of Get- (including the funky ‘Moonshake’), Klaus ticated glam-flash from Sparks, with two ting It On, ’s Dreamer, Gil Schulze’s Blackdance, the Cosmic Jokers’ huge hits and two albums: Kimono My Scott-Heron’s ‘The Bottle’, Al Green’s Planeten Sit In and Sand’s extraordinary House and Propaganda. releases ‘Livin’ For You’, Miles Davis’ Big Fun, Golem (thanks to Julian Cope for this tip), Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), with Weather Report’s Mysterious Traveller. where outré electronica meets tribal chant the proto-punk ‘The True Wheel’ (‘we There are soul songs of surprising, if not in a primeval cave. Much more approach- saw the lovers, the modern lovers, and shocking, frankness: Swamp Dogg’s ‘Did able is Cluster’s Zuckerzeit (‘sweet time’) they looked very good’), while producing I Come Back Too Soon (Or Stay Away – a collection of ten instrumentals that Nico’s one and only Island album, The Too Long)?’, Laura Lee’s ‘I Need It Just range from the almost sickly (‘Marzipan’) End – most notable for the synthesizer As Bad As You’, Betty Davis’s ‘He Was to the darkly ambient (‘James’) and the ice-storm on ‘Innocent And Vain’. Nico A Big Freak’ (‘I used to whip him with disconcerting: ‘Rote Riki’, where bleep- also crops up on Kevin Ayers’s ‘Irrevers- my turquoise chain’). It’s the year of the ing androids fade into a sticky soundpatch ible Neural Damage’ and the whole thing early disco breakthrough: from Patti of underwater creatures. Best of all is the is wrapped up by June 1, 1974 – an album Jo’s ‘Make Me Believe In You’ (men- uplifting opener, ‘Hollywood’, which recorded live on that date and featuring tioned in Andrew Holleran’s ur-disco builds and builds over nearly four minutes Ayers, Eno, Nico, John Cale and the rest text, Dancer from the Dance) and Gloria before resolving within a perpetual ascent. of the Island community. Gaynor’s ‘Honey Bee’ through to huge You want it to last for ever. Zuckerzeit is The big new teen sensations are the Bay US hits like George McCrae’s hypnotic often credited with inspiring Brian Eno City Rollers, a classic boy band plucked drum-machine mood piece ‘Rock Your at a crucial moment – sure you can hear from the street and heavily manipulated. Baby’ and the Hues Corporation’s ‘Rock it on Another Green World and, even more, Apart from ‘Saturday Night’, most of The Boat’. on the limited edition, all-instrumental, their early records are pretty wimpy but Similarly with : the Wailers’ Natty 27-track EG Music for Films – but it needs in the years to come they will foster hard- Dread, Rupie Edwards’s Ire Feelings (Skanga), no retrospective justification: it exists in er imitators: Slik, Hello (notable for their Toots and the Maytals’ In The Dark. The its own world, poised between playful-

5 ness, European melodicism and Romantic To finish, some playlists: 1974, part 3 presentiments of darkness. The final selection from this year 1974, part 1 • Autobahn – Kraftwerk comes from the outer fringes. In Febru- • Make Me Believe in You – Patti Jo ary 1974, The Residents release 1,000 • Mr Michael Bond’s Address – The Ports­ • Pick a Dub - copies of Meet the Residents on their Ralph mouth Sinfonia • Train to Rhodesia – Records label. The front cover detourned, • White Light / White Heat (Live 1974) – Lou • In Zaire – Johnny Wakelin in classic pro-Situationist defacement Reed • Records – JJ Cale style, ’ first US album: John • At Home, At Work, At Play – Sparks • Do It (’Til You’re Satisfied) – B. T. Lennon has a drooling tongue, George • Funky Kingston – Toots and the Maytals Express Harrison sports fangs, Ringo has Dr • – Dr Feelgood • Moonshake – Can Spock ears while Paul McCartney has a • Standing on the Verge of Getting It On – • Sweet Thing (Reprise) – particularly disturbing insect face. The Funkadelic • Time Machine – Sadistic Mika Band flip showed the Beatles in another clas- • Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City – • I Don’t Mind – Dr Feelgood sic shot, all in their Pierre Cardin col- Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland • I Need It Just As Bad As You – Laura Lee larless suits, with crawfish heads. Apart • Going Down On Love – John Lennon • Be Thankful for What You Got – William from being entertaining, it was part of • The Fan – Little Feat DeVaughn a polemic against the hegemony of six- • Rikki Don’t Lose That Number – Steely ties culture (which by the mid-seventies Dan 1974, part 4 had become oppressive to many): The • Ife – Miles Davis Residents would return to the Beatles on • The Bottle – Gil Scott-Heron and Brian • Dreamer – Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland 1976’s epic sonic cut-up, Beyond the Valley Jackson • Black Water – Doobie Brothers of a Day in the Life, but in the meantime • Let’s Get Married – Al Green • Observatory Crest – Captain Beefheart & began their habit of warping sixties radio The Magic Band hits like ‘These Boots Are Made For 1974, part 2 • Ambulance Blues – Neil Young Walking’ (‘Boots’) and the Human Beinz’s • Age of Treason – Donovan ‘Nobody But Me’ which cuts into their oil • Sweet Home Alabama – Lynyrd Skynyrd • The Calvary Cross – Richard & Linda crisis number ‘N-Er-Gee’ (excised from • The Thrill of It All – Roxy Music Thompson the later CD version, presumably for • My Teenage Queen – Harpo • No Other – Gene Clark copyright reasons). • Amateur Hour – Sparks • Kometenmelodie 1 – Kraftwerk The Residents would return to this • Devil Gate Drive – Suzi Quatro • Helicopter – Sand theme on 1976’s The Third Reich ’n’ Roll: • Honey Bee – Gloria Gaynor • Electronic News – The Cosmic Jokers ‘People are speculating,’ they wrote in the • Rock Me Again & Again & Again & Again • Mirrors – Moolah sleeve-note, ‘whether The Residents are & Again & Again – Lyn Collins • Hey Joe – Patti Smith hinting that rock ’n’ roll has brainwashed • Did I Come Back Too Soon (Or Stay Away the youth of the world. When confronted Too Long) – Swamp Dogg 1974, part 5 with this possible philosophy, they replied, • Love Epidemic – The Trammps “Well, it may be true or it may not, but we • Doctor’s Orders – Carol Douglas • Satan Side – Keith Hudson wanted to kick out the jams and get it on.”’ • Don’t Move – Keith Hudson • Fingerprint File – The Rolling Stones Manifestos mean very little if the A-music • Babylon Dubbing – Skin, Flesh & Bones • Out of the Blue – Roxy Music isn’t there, and Meet the Residents is a dizzy- • The Big Rip-Off – Augustus Pablo • Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family – ing collage of found sound and musique • Androids – Robert Rockwell III David Bowie concrete with the deliberately dissonant • Crystal Waters – Moolah • The Needle and the Spoon – Lynyrd and the near pop (‘Smelly Tongues’), • Scarlet Woman – Weather Report Skynyrd resolving into moments of strange beauty • Fear is a Man’s Best Friend – John Cale (‘Rest Aria’). It took a while for the album • Piss Factory – Patti Smith and the group to find an audience, but • DMT – George Brigman towards the end of 1977 they sounded • Irreversible Neural Damage – Kevin Ayers perfectly in sync with the times: begin- • Innocent and Vain – Nico ning with similar aims to punk – how to • Erotic Neurotic – The Saints blow away pop culture’s false conscious- • Krautrock – Faust ness? – The Residents had the musical and • Heiße Lippen – Cluster conceptual ability to take that polemic • If You Go 2 – Syd Barrett much further, as they did throughout the • Hanging on a Star – Nick Drake eighties. But their first album still rings • I’ll Be There If You Ever Want Me – JJ loud and unique. Cale

6 The List • The Porter Rose at Dawn • We All Liked Al • Fair With Some Rain Unused Book Titles • They Only Murdered Him Once • Too Late for Smiling By Raymond Chandler • The Diary of a Loud Check Suit • Deceased When Last Seen n his notebooks, the ever-inventive favourite at Five Dials has to be ‘The • Quick, Hide the Body IRaymond Chandler kept a list of pos- Lady with the Truck’, but they all have • A Night in the Ice Box sible titles for books, all of which we distinctive merits – and most pull off that • Goodnight and Goodbye think deserve to be written. According hardest of tricks: suggesting a story while • The Cool-Off to Chandler scholar Frank MacShane also grabbing the potential reader’s atten- • Uncle Watson Wants to Think Chandler’s interest in titles even led him tion. • The Parson in the Parlor to invent a writer, Aaron Klopstein, • Stop Screaming – It’s Me who committed suicide by Amazonian • The Man with the Shredded Ear • No Third Act blowgun, but not before publishing two • All Guns Are Loaded • Twenty Minutes’ Sleep volumes of poetry (The Hydraulic Facelift • Choice of Dessert • They Still Come Honest and Cat Hairs in the Custard), a short story • Return from Ruin • Between Two Liars collection (Twenty Inches of Monkey) and • Here It Is Saturday • The Lady with the Truck two novels (Once More the Cicatrice and • My Best to the Bride • The Black-Eyed Blonde The Seagull Has No Friends). • The Man Who Loved the Rain • Rigadoo We reprint Chandler’s unused titles • The Corpse Came in Person • Thunder Bug here as a service to writers. Our personal • Law Is Where You Buy It • Everyone Says Good-bye Too Soon

7 fiction love for the city’s gourmands, who all seemed to work in PR, and crammed the restaurants with their darting eyes Saint Silence and strained smiles, desperate to prove how cosmopolitan they were. He wasn’t A new story by Paul Murray writing on their behalf, or anyone else’s: in fact, he thought restaurant review- f all the restaurant critics in Ire- food as much as anybody. It was the res- ing a ridiculous profession, worse even Oland, there was none so feared as taurants themselves that galled him. than running a restaurant. It was a joke. James Duffy. His reviews were infamous Until recently, Ireland scarcely had Underneath everything else his job was a for their brutality. ‘For mains, I ordered any restaurants; in the last decade, how- joke he was playing on himself. the steak tartare,’ he wrote of Rumpole’s. ever, all that had changed. These were When he wasn’t eating out he lived fru- ‘However, the waiter must have misheard the boom years, when a great if mysteri- gally in an apartment in Chapelizod. His me, and thought I asked for a giant pus- ous windfall of wealth saw the country work allowed him ample time to himself, filled herpes on a plate.’ Of the Chancery: trade in its hairshirt for the here-and- most of which he spent reading, though ‘Dessert was a novel twist on Pandora’s now. Once the Irish had piously wished occasionally he would go online, and Box, in which all of the world’s evils life away; now they were banging on its look up a certain page, and watch another had been baked into a soufflé.’ Of Chez doors, bulging wallets in hand, demand- life lived out in glossy snapshots of par- Patrice: ‘Have you ever wondered what ing it offer up the best that it had. Spa ties and nights out – a life that seemed the a dinosaur’s heart might have tasted like? weekends with Hammam hot rock treat- inverse of his own, a parade of smiling If so, the beef bourgignon is for you.’ No ments; personally tailored golfing trips shiny faces and twittering good-hearted one was spared his vitriol: he excoriated to Barbados; and restaurants, countless meaningless comment. Then snapping both the humble (‘Punjab Palace’s chicken restaurants, springing up everywhere, his laptop shut he would go for a run in curry is like a twenty-minute bout of the each with some clever new twist and a Phoenix Park; if it was late, he shared the Ebola virus’) and the very grand (‘The new audacity in its pricing. Pleasure was avenues only with the mist, and the cars great Dostoyevsky once wrote: “What is the new religion, and the restaurants were that cruised by with their lights off, seek- hell? I maintain it is the suffering of being its temples. The top chefs became famous, ing temporal pleasures of their own, the unable to love.” However, he hadn’t tried appearing on talk shows, glowering, faces white limbs that waited amid the dark the chicken at La Coupoule.’) heavy with Photoshopped gravitas, from ones of the trees. His venomous style brought a large the covers of magazines. Then one day word came to him of a following, and his columns were read by James didn’t care about the chefs, new restaurant. It had opened its doors people many thousands of miles away or about the extortionate prices they a month ago, but the management evi- from the Dublin restaurant scene. As his charged; if a bunch of gormless peasants dently preferred not to advertise; instead influence grew, more than one Michelin wanted to waste their money being scowl- they had let a ‘buzz’ build up by word star fell to his pen, and a handful of eater- ingly served food from a menu they didn’t of mouth. The gimmick with this place ies, after their Sunday mauling, were understand, that was their business. It was was that it was run by an obscure order of forced to close their doors for good. On the promise these restaurants made that monks. The restaurant was their refectory; one occasion he found a bullet in his got to him – the promise that all this meant the food they served was made from ingre- soup; on another, he was accosted on something. In the new dispensation, a dients grown on the monastery grounds the street by a chef who’d been given meal was no longer just a meal. A mi-cuit by the monks themselves, who – this was a bad review (‘Is there such a thing as a of foie gras rolled in new season truffle, a the part that really got people going – had Duck Auschwitz? If so, could I ask Le surprising little palate-cleanser of rhubarb taken a vow of silence, and spoke to the Printemps to please stop sourcing their sorbet, a très sympatique glass of Brumaire diners not a word. Silence! In Dublin, ducks there?’). He came after James wav- – this succession of sensory delights was this was undeniably something new. ing a meat-cleaver and had to be dragged as good as it got; it was the very point The newspaper’s interiors correspond- to the ground inside by two waiters and a and pinnacle of existence. For James this ent, who’d eaten there the previous night, sous-chef. was a lie too great to be brooked. What spoke of it with the glaze-eyed rapture of His detractors said that James didn’t lasting consolation could you really find a cult inductee. ‘It’s not like anywhere else understand food; they questioned wheth- in a lump of dead flesh, no matter how I’ve ever been,’ she told James. ‘There’s no er he even liked food. It was true that he primped and prinked and finessed? When point me even describing it. You simply didn’t look like a restaurant critic, being faced with the unspeakable agony of life, have to experience it for yourself.’ lean and wiry instead of portly and rubi- how could you represent the pleasures of James fully intended to experience it cund. Nor did he have any background in a well-cooked meal as anything more than for himself. What could be more annoy- haute cuisine; instead he had stepped in the faintest of whistles in the dark? ing than a new restaurant run by an order when the paper’s regular critic fell ill, and Most people agreed that there had been of silent monks that had created a serious discovered an aptitude for withering dep- a marked improvement in the city’s cui- word-of-mouth buzz? The discovery that recation. It was not quite true, however, sine since his scathing reviews had begun. St Silas’s, as it was (annoyingly) called, to say that he didn’t like food. He liked That meant nothing to James: he had no didn’t take bookings only heightened his

8 pre-emptive loathing. On the late sum- The maître d’ turned James over to look at the statue. He was a Castilian mer evening he drove out to the suburbs another monk, a younger man with a nobleman, captured by the infidel while – the suburbs! – the review he had already beard, who steered James to a bench at a travelling to the Holy Land. They tried half-written in his head was toxic even by trestle table. James’ heart sank. Weren’t to make him renounce God. So he bit out his standards. there any private tables? Looking around his tongue.’ He followed the directions the interiors he saw that there were not. He sat down ‘Saint Silence,’ James quipped. ‘I take correspondent had given him until he with lowered eyes to avoid making con- it these guys still have their tongues arrived at a pair of tall iron gates. There tact with his neighbours. The waiter though? Pretty hard to taste the food was no sign or any other indication he handed him a handwritten menu, and otherwise.’ was in the right place, but he passed inside withdrew to a discreet distance. ‘I recom- ‘They take the vow of silence when and wound his way through a dark grove mend the pie,’ said a jovial man in a florid they enter the monastery,’ the man in the of trees until at last a tower came into dickie-bow sitting opposite James. This dickie bow said. ‘They believe that speech view. Or rather part of a tower: the upper was a joke, evidently, as there was only is a vanity that distracts us from God.’ half had evidently collapsed, and the one dish, carrot and sweet potato pie, on ‘What about opening a restaurant?’ remnant was shrouded in weather-beaten the menu. Issuing a tight, discouraging James said. ‘Aren’t they worried that will netting. Just beyond was a bigger build- smile to the jolly man, James motioned distract them from God?’ ing. Its light-grey facade was stern but not the monk back over. ‘They’re trying to raise money to unfriendly; yellow light poured out from ‘Am I missing a page or something?’ he restore their bell-tower. Perhaps you saw a doorway where a man in cassock and said. it on the way in? Once they have enough, sandals greeted James with a bow and an The monk shook his head. I imagine they will close their doors inquiring expression. So they really were ‘You don’t have any starters?’ again. In the meantime, we have a unique silent! Feeling inexplicably foolish, James The head shook again. opportunity to see into their world. And asked for a table. The monk tapped at his ‘No specials?’ of course to sample their famous cook- watch and flashed his hands at James twice. The monk gently pointed with his pen ing!’ ‘Twenty minutes?’ James said. The monk to the sweet potato pie. ‘Fine,’ said James James had never heard of their famous shrugged apologetically, and gestured mock-acquiescently, ‘I’ll have the pie.’ cooking until a couple of days ago; first at what appeared to be a small stone The monk bore away his order, and James but when his food finally came, he was oratory, then at the grounds surrounding shook his head in disbelief. This was shocked. It was as if you could taste – he them. ‘All right,’ James said, rolling his ridiculous – a child’s idea of a restaurant, struggled interiorly for the words – you eyes. He gave his name to the monk, then barely worth his time reviewing. He was could taste the life in each ingredient: you set off to explore. thinking seriously about leaving when could tell that these were things that had It was one of those tricksy summer the monk brought over a small basket grown, from seeds, in the earth. ‘Good, twilights, when instead of darkness fall- of bread. It was surprisingly good in a isn’t it?’ twinkled the man in the dickie ing everything seems infused with an basic sort of a way, warm and moist and bow from across the table. Yes, it was eerie blue that blurs the lines and subverts yeasty; eating made him feel marginally good; sitting back, meal done, against the the ordered forms of day. Perhaps this less irate, sufficiently so to stay on, and wall, James felt, though he knew it was strange light made the grounds of the even to risk the jovial man’s conversa- absurd, a kind of glow, as he imagined monastery appear larger than they were; tion by raising his eyes and looking about people must feel after they do something wandering through the bosky groves, him. The atmosphere was different to the kind, like visit someone in hospital or James quite lost track of time. He came ostentatious clamour of the places James give to the poor. first upon a sleeping beehive, and then an usually frequented. The other diners, The night wore on; the man in the orchard; elsewhere a topiary filled with among them several of the city’s more dickie bow went home, and James too leafy animals, and a flourishing vegetable dedicated gastronomes, appeared unusu- began to think about leaving. The bill, garden. Before he knew it half an hour ally at ease, as if they’d been released from when it arrived, did not come to very had evaporated, and he had to hurry back. some undefinable burden. Was the seren- much; it would take them a long time to The same monk met him at the door, ity of the monks rubbing off on them? get their belltower repaired at this rate. and this time led him through and More likely, he decided, that they saw Meditating on this, he didn’t realise at downstairs to a long, low room. Like the the restaurant as a sort of glorious joke, a first that the monk, who’d come to collect exterior, it was simple without being aus- joke the monks themselves weren’t in on. the money, had not actually left the table, tere: the lack of adornment allowed one Who could fret about fitting in here, after but was hovering there with a concerned to appreciate the deftness and care with all, among men who took their fashion expression. which each irregular stone had been fitted cues from some lunatic out of the four- ‘Is there a problem?’ into the walls, and the rough texture of teenth century? The monk very gently brought his the stones themselves, casting all kinds ‘He was a Castilian nobleman,’ the man fingertip to the edge of James’s credit card. of shadows in the wavering light of the in the dickie bow said from across the Then with his other hand he pointed to torches. In an alcove a plaster statue stood, table. a sign pinned beside the stairs: WE ARE a haloed figure that James guessed repre- ‘I’m sorry?’ SORRY, WE CAN ONLY TAKE PAYMENTS sented the order’s patron. ‘Saint Silas of Tres Cantos. I saw you IN CASH.

9 James’s first reaction was embarrass- biguously good review. Not a rave: the quickly, and when he was done sat back ment, because he didn’t have any money, lack of choice seemed, on reflection, to contentedly against the wall and let a but very quickly it turned to anger at rule out that. But he attempted to praise pleasant feeling of tiredness wash through being put in this position. ‘Why didn’t its strengths with the same honesty and him. He ordered fruit salad and a coffee, you tell me earlier?’ he said. directness that he felt the restaurant and then, as there seemed to be no hurry The monk looked contrite. embodied. to get him out, he took a book from his ‘I don’t have any cash,’ James said, ‘That’s not like you,’ his editor said. pocket. becoming angrier as he felt his face go red. ‘I’m allowed to like somewhere once in It was Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, ‘I very rarely carry cash, very few people a while, aren’t I?’ James said. which he had first read many years ago. pay cash these days. You have a lot to ‘Just don’t make a habit of it,’ his editor Before long he was quite absorbed, and learn about running a restaurant, if you said. only when a fresh cup of coffee materi- don’t mind me telling you.’ He needn’t have worried. The next alised at his elbow did he look up. ‘I’m The monk nodded humbly. James, restaurant James visited was, according to sorry, I didn’t actually order – ’ ’d been bracing himself for some its press release, ‘themed to the legendary monk bowed, and made a courtly gesture sort of confrontation, found himself granduer [sic] of the SS Titanic,’ and it of giving, cupping his hands to his breast, wrong-footed. ‘Well I don’t know what succeeded quite spectacularly in justifying then moving them out towards James. you expect me to do now,’ he said, feel- the many puns that this unwise concept ‘Thank you,’ James said, impressed: for all ing, with a certain amount of resentment, suggested. The chef seemed to believe their swank, Dublin restaurants almost his anger ebb away. ‘Because I can’t pay that French words existed simply as a never gave coffee refills. The monk you.’ There did not seem to be a con- kind of decoration, and bore no further inclined his head at James’s book. James tingency plan in place; the monk sighed relation to the actual dish: James’s petit- tilted up the cover. The monk looked at and shrugged fatalistically, like a farmer pois risotto came without a single pea, and it, then composed his features into a furi- watching a flood take the harvest. ‘I mean his tarte aux pommes was made of peaches. ous scowl, and stroked at an imaginary I suppose I could send you the money,’ His waitress bore a resemblance to Myra walrus moustache. ‘Yeah!’ James laughed. James said grudgingly. Hindley that was positively uncanny. ‘Old Friedrich.’ The monk’s face lit up. He clasped Quite early in the evening, in a kind of The monk went off about his business. James’s shoulder, grinning and nodding inversion of its doomed namesake’s maid- An educated man, James thought, and he to beat the band, and as if everything had en voyage, the restaurant ran out of ice. wondered again what someone like that been resolved he lifted James’s coat from And yet for all its ineptitude James was doing here, waiting tables, withhold- the chair and motioned him into it. Now couldn’t motivate himself to give it the ing his gifts from the world. James felt a James was positively confused. ‘Don’t you drubbing it deserved. The floundering desire to know more, and a little later, as want my address? Or my phone number?’ attempts at sophistication just struck him the monk cleared the far end of the long Apparently this had not occurred to as sad, and making fun of them suddenly trestle table, he addressed him: ‘I’m a res- the monk. He thought about it a moment, seemed sterile and pointless. It was as if taurant critic, actually,’ he said. then waved it away, turning his beam something were blocking that wellspring The monk noted this with a polite nod onto James again. of venom he was used to draw on. After of the head, without being diverted from As a food critic, James was used to a day of battering fruitlessly at the piece, his task. aberrant behaviour from serving staff – in he gave up and went out to his car. He ‘I reviewed this place a couple of weeks his view most waiters were halfwits and didn’t know where he wanted to go; then ago,’ James said. ‘Gave it quite a good layabouts who shouldn’t be let anywhere he remembered he had never posted the write-up – you’ve probably noticed it near a restaurant – but trust on this scale cheque to the monks. A half-hour later being busier.’ he had never encountered before. For he pulled up outside the monastery. Again the monk smiled graciously and the first time he took a long look at his It was early in the week and there was indifferently, like a girl you were failing silent interlocutor. He didn’t seem like a no line at the door, but downstairs the to chat up at a bar. James was piqued – halfwit. He was around the same age as warm hall was filled with people, chatting then he checked himself. These men had James himself, with a few grey flecks in to each other happily as they ate. The turned their backs on the vanities of the his beard that complemented intelligent same monks were waiting the tables (of world. What did they care about restau- grey eyes; he smiled readily, and gave an course they were, he realised, they were rant reviews? This seemed fair enough; at impression of equilibrium and ease. James monks, they lived here) and when he saw the same time, James was concerned that wondered how he had ended up here. ‘I’ll him James’s waiter from last time greeted the monk should know that he was not a post you a cheque later in the week,’ he James with a friendly smile. Rich aromas vanity – that on the contrary, he had built said. decked the air, and James realised he was a career on inveighing against the fripper- The monk smiled again and put a hand hungry. ies of the modern world, so in a way he on his shoulder. Tonight they were serving leek and and the monk were kindred spirits. He ‘Thank you,’ James said impulsively, as parsnip gratin, garnished with a salad of wasn’t sure how he should introduce this. the monk withdrew; then he climbed the beetroots, spinach, hazelnuts and goat’s The problem with talking to someone stairs towards the star-laden night sky. cheese. James, off-duty, did not linger who’d taken a vow of silence was that He gave St Silas’s his first-ever unam- over the subtleties of flavour; he ate anything you said, no matter how insight-

10 ful, must come across first and foremost about God?’ would have been just as well becom- simply as more noise, another unsolicited The monk did not respond at once; ing a monk himself. And yet he didn’t contribution to the clamour of the world. then he brought his fist to his eye, as believe Bill had joined the monastery It was a bind; still the thought that the though wiping away a tear. James was simply because he thought it was the best monk and he should continue as they not sure what this meant: did he agree, thing to do. James was an atheist; still were – separate, ignorant of each other’s and was he lamenting the death of God? he knew that it would take more than true selves – seemed repugnant to him, Or was he saying that Nietzsche was an God to do something like that. Bill had so under cover of requesting the bill he unhappy man, whose words came out suffered some terrible pain – someone spoke again. of his loneliness? He wanted to press or something had hurt him terribly, so ‘Do you guys really never speak?’ he him, but at that moment there came a terribly he could no longer bear to be in said. honk from the other side of the room, the world. Which was a shame, James The monk shook his head. as another of the monks hauled a bench thought, because the world, the stupid ‘So what do you do all day?’ James said. aside in order to sweep beneath it. In the dumb world with its endless joyless gorg- The monk thought for a moment, then last few minutes the refectory had almost ing, could learn a lot from someone like mimed his response: Cook, dig, read, emptied out. Bill, if he might only be coaxed back into sleep, pray. Feeling bad for trapping the monk in it again. ‘And you like it?’ James said. a theological discussion so late at night, For a long while he lay there passively The monk merely smiled. James rose to his feet. ‘Well, whether it’s as thoughts of their mutual impotence – ‘What was it that made you decide to the prayers or not, you people certainly his useless denunciations of society, Bill’s come here?’ know how to cook,’ he said, putting on silent retreat from it – circled above The monk reflected, then pointed his coat. ‘I’m in restaurants every week, him like gloating vultures. And then he towards the ceiling. and you could teach some of these fancy recalled the last words he’d spoken to Bill ‘God, of course,’ James said. ‘But there chefs a thing or two.’ that night, and the beginnings of an idea must have been a specific event? It’s a The monk nodded, and ruefully patted floated up through his mind. big step, after all, totally renouncing the his paunch. James laughed again; but as ‘I might bring a guest to dinner next world.’ the other man walked away he felt a sting, week,’ he told his editor the following The monk considered this. After a and he called out impetuously, ‘Wait!’ day. moment he drew a circle in the air with The waiter turned back, the same ‘Do what you want,’ his editor said. his hand; then he brought the same hand benign smile waiting on his lips. ‘You’ll cover the cost?’ James said. around in a slow circle to take in the ‘I don’t know your name,’ James said ‘Go crazy,’ the editor said. whole room. ‘This place is the world?’ falteringly, as if this were a vital element Driving out to the monastery again, James translated tentatively. of the meal that had somehow been James felt a mixture of nervousness and The monk nodded. neglected. The monk, though, expressed childish glee. How long was it since he He appreciated the monk was being no surprise or circumspection; he pointed had acted on impulse – since he’d even mystical, but this answer still seemed to with a smile to the white curl of scrip that had an impulse? When he got there the James annoyingly evasive. Because when still lay on a platter on the table. ‘What? restaurant was closed (the first sitting all was said and done, the monastery was Oh, Bill? Bill, is that you?’ was not until half twelve) so James raised demonstrably not the world. How could The monk chortled silently. the knocker on the great wooden door. you say it was the world, when it didn’t ‘Bill,’ James repeated with satisfaction, As he waited for a response, he looked even have any women in it? And further- and with a glad heart he mounted the about him at the small cassocked figures more, sitting around all day praying was stairs. stooped over the vegetable garden and not real life. That night as he lay in bed he found the birds fluttering through the trees. In ‘Don’t you get tired of it? Praying, I himself continuing his debate with the the prevailing harmony the tumbledown mean?’ he said. monk. On the one hand he disapproved belltower struck the only dissonant note; The monk laughed soundlessly, and of Bill’s rejection of the world. Why he began to see why they were so anxious made an expansive gesture with his hands, should he or anyone else have a free pass to have it restored. stretching them wide apart, as if describ- out of the tumult of life? When good The door was opened by another man, ing an enormous fish: which James took people were so few, didn’t each of them smaller than Bill and older, and without to mean, There’s a lot to pray for. have an obligation to contribute in some Bill’s pleasing sense of equanimity and ‘But what good does it do?’ way, to try and improve things? At the calm. ‘Is Bill here?’ James said, irritated by If the monk was offended by the ques- same time (the answer came back, silently the man’s unsatisfactory appearance. The tion, he showed no sign of it; he simply out of the dark) what good had James scrawny man looked surprised; but James shrugged again, and smiled at James, as if ever done? Did railing against pretentious shifted impatiently from foot to foot, and to turn the question back onto him. restaurants actually make the world a bet- the man relented and ducked back inside. Again the empiricist in him felt a frus- ter place? What had his three-year rolling When Bill appeared, he looked sur- trating tricksiness to this response. With war against overpriced eateries and misap- prised too, but not displeased: the smile a hint of malice, he gestured to his book plied French actually achieved? with which he greeted James was as warm again and said, ‘You know what he says Well, maybe nothing; maybe James and open as ever. James wasn’t sure if this

11 was because he was glad to see James, or self feel it, did not smother it or distort it to find a chef who reallyunderstands the because he was just generally glad; but he with irony. microwave’; ‘How many children’s tears also didn’t know if it mattered. ‘James,’ On Thursday night he returned to find do you think they needed to make this he introduced himself. ‘I was here last Bill on the monastery doorstep, shivering sauce?’ While Bill laughed, the silence night?’ in his cassock like a holy debutante. ‘Hi!’ that followed seemed ever so gently The monk waved away these prelimi- James exclaimed, climbing out of the car, rebuking; furthermore the monk gave naries, as if it were the most natural thing and the pure unalloyed happiness in his no sign of anything but enjoyment of in the world for a diner to reappear the voice was matched by the expression of his own meal, and James began to feel following day. Then his hands fell to delight that crossed his friend’s face. After churlish for his negativity. Maybe the his sides and he waited. With a mouth a comical muddle of handshakes they food was mediocre, maybe the décor that had suddenly gone dry, James began bundled each other, laughing, into the car. was mismatched – still, was this not a to present his idea. As he’d mentioned The restaurant, Grey’s of the Green, place where two friends could sit and be last night, he was a restaurant critic, he was long-established, but had recently together, could share each other’s com- said. Usually he dined alone, but lately been revamped, with a mind, James sus- pany, in warmth, in plenitude? Was that he felt he’d become a little too fixed in pected, to getting in on the haute-cuisine not worth something? Was that not, in his perspective, and what he’d wondered gold rush. The refurbished room jangled fact, most of the point of a meal? was whether Bill, who obviously knew with the trademark gold-rush confusion And so he followed Bill into silence, about food, might like to accompany him – oak wainscotting, sequinned throw- and they remained like that for a long some night, to share the experience, so to pillows, flock wallpaper, mirrored ceiling, time. It wasn’t awkward; James found it speak… as James went on, the manifold like a cross between an Edwardian draw- restorative and restful. He supposed this absurdities of his plan, which had seemed ing-room and a Moscow brothel – and was what was meant by a companionable so straightforward, so right in his bed last the new menu, beneath the usual Frenchi- silence. Perhaps it was the real destina- night, danced in a high-kicking chorus fied jargon, bore no trace of any philoso- tion of any conversation, if we’d only line before his eyes. Bill was a monk. Even phy other than the profit motive. Before allow it to get there, he reflected. So if he wanted to, was he allowed to leave he’d even got to the table the review often our words just get in the way of the monastery? And if he was forbidden had begun to coalesce in his mind: but our real thoughts and feelings. Beneath from speaking, how exactly was he going then he looked back at Bill. The monk our wordy self-distortions we are all so to inform James’s ‘perspective’? He began was gazing about him at the overcooked similar! If only we could trust each other to blush. What was he doing here? What furnishings and the handsome scowling to see that, to recognise that all we want did he really want from Bill? A slice of waiters with the wonderment of a child. from anyone is to recognise the fact of his peace, was that it? Was he hoping to How long had it been since James felt that us. He felt that Bill recognised the fact of absorb some of Bill’s tranquility, as if the way about being in a restaurant? How him; with a sudden surge of emotion, he monk were some scented candle from the long since he’d even come through the thought that Bill might understand him shop in the mall? Was James, in the end, doors ready to enjoy himself, as opposed better than anyone. The mere presence of no different from – to amassing faults for an as-yet unwritten Bill rendered his thoughts more intense, But wait: Bill was smiling. He was review? He closed his mental notebook more impassioned, more truthful, took smiling, he was nodding, he was, it and stowed it away. Tonight, he decided, him past the rote mockeries of his column seemed, all for it: in fact he motioned he should experience the night for what towards something bigger…. James to wait while he went to fetch his it was. From the other side of the table the coat, and laughingly James had to call him And it was a good night. He’d won- monk raised a finger. He tapped at his back and explain that the meal wouldn’t dered how Bill would fare, removed from wrist, where a watch might be, and then be until next week. Now it was Bill’s turn his natural habitat; but although heads made a gesture of writing. ‘How long to blush – quite a charming effect, James had turned as they came in to view this have I been reviewing?’ James translated. thought, in a face remarkable for its pla- anomalous figure in his sandals and his ‘About three years. Long enough.’ He cidity. ‘Well I’ll come for you Thursday long brown robe, Bill himself seemed as smiled apologetically. Bill gestured to the night,’ he told him. Bill took his hand much at home here as he did in the mon- left and behind him. And before? and pumped it vigorously – he had a astery. Not only that, but after careful Before. How long had it been since robust, firm grip, confirming what James consideration he ordered the one dish on he’d talked about before? As far as the had thought, that beneath this pacific the menu that showed any sort of flair or world was concerned he’d sprung into demeanour was a staunchly independent promise, and from the extensive wine-list existence with his first review, and that soul, a man’s man who took the world on he picked a bottle that complemented had suited him fine. What was the point his own terms. Then he stopped, and sim- both his and James’s choices perfectly. of dredging up things that no longer ply held it, and held James’s gaze with his ‘I’m impressed!’ James said; Bill blushed were? Yet tonight (perhaps the wine had own, his eyes the colour of battered steel: – it seemed James alone could make him something to do with it; he’d had more and James thought again how much more blush. than his usual glass, and it was heady stuff, eloquent these silences were than words. James’s meal was not significantly bet- seeming to swim with half-buried truths He drove away from the monastery ter than he had expected, and at first he and associations of its own) he found with a sense of triumph: and he let him- responded with his usual quips: ‘It’s great himself – opening up, that’s what people

12 called it, and that’s what it felt like, some anniversary, the anniversary of the day by another, earlier one – of when James rusty hinge grinding within him, some they’d met – unopened in its bucket, and was a child and sick and the doctor had great slab of a door swinging out. He told she was telling him, slowly, so she could put the stethoscope to his small heart and Bill about his college years, slaving in sol- be sure he’d understand, that she didn’t held it there, listening with what must itude on a doctorate no one would read, want to do this to her husband any more. have been the same frown of pure care and the directionless years after, slogging He’d been sobbing like he was now, and that Bill wore now. His hand remained in low-paying, soul-crushing jobs to no he heard his voice Neanderthal with grief there, pressed to James’s cheek; and for a discernible end. He told him about his gibber, ‘But you don’t love him!’ moment James closed his eyes. Then rous- time on the paper as a second-stringer, ‘That’s not your call to make,’ she’d said, ing himself he called for the bill. hanging around the courts amid a relent- as if snapping closed a purse. And she left Outside the cool of the night wrapped less procession of hooded deadbeats till he him there, with the champagne and the itself around him and the tears dried on felt no different from them. In his ears his complementary truffles and the scented his cheek. He waited for embarrassment life sounded exactly as dull and desolate oils lined up around the bath. to envelop him after his orgy of self-rev- as it had actually been; yet from across This last scene he did not describe, elation, but it didn’t come. Instead he felt the table Bill silently encouraged him on, nor its aftermath. But Bill understood; at once exhausted and renewed, as if he’d his gaze fixed unwaveringly on James, as his grave eyes understood that the rest been on some epic pilgrimage. He knew if ready to jump in should he slip or falter. of James’s life had begun on that day, a it was the goodness and strength of Bill James knew what was coming, of course, life defined by absence that he walked that had done this; Bill, who he’d known and as the years converged and she came through like a dead man, each fresh for all of two days. Driving back to the nearer he felt a frost of panic stealing over morning in the bright rich newly golden monastery (he was over the limit, he his body. But he clung on to the kind city bringing nothing, nothing, nothing, knew, but felt clear and together as never gaze of the monk and – with the sense of nothing. A hand reached across the table before) he wished there were some way taking a leap into some vast black chasm – and pressed against James’s cheek, and he might sit the world down with him as he told him. the memory was displaced momentarily James had sat down, so that it might for He had never spoken about her before – he had whittled his circle of friends down to zero precisely so he would not have anyone to tell. Even now, after all these years, he could not bring himself to use her name, and he referred to her instead – absurdly – only as ‘that person’, ‘the person’, ‘they’. And though he gave Bill only the briefest of sketches, he felt, as he spoke, as if he were living it again – the opulent afternoons in the apartment, the neverending nights in hotels, the dead- lines blithely missed, the money he did not have no object, the passion, the laugh- ter, the sense of unity and the strange dis- covery that unity with another brought unity with oneself, and peace, and light, and happiness, he could feel that too, how happy, just how fucking happy he had been. The waitress was asking if they wanted anything else. Bill patted her wrist and sent her away. Tears were running down James’ cheeks. Gently Bill motioned: And? James shrugged hopelessly – all his hope lost, all over again. ‘What we were doing…they didn’t think it was right. Even though it was right, it was so obvi- ous that it was right. Still morally …they didn’t feel they could…’ He was back in that hotel room, on the edge of the luxurious bed, the bottle of champagne he’d ordered – it was their

13 once have a chance to partake of some- and realisation crept over James, turning launched a series of columns of unprec- thing noble and fine. Ideas fizzed through his horror at wounding his friend into edented savagery. Yes, his editor said, this his mind of how this might be done – a different kind of horror and then a is the good stuff! fanciful notions, he knew even then, but white-faced fury – ‘What the fuck?’ he He did not see Bill again, but in the he indulged them nevertheless for the turned to him, he pushed him, and then weeks that followed he thought often sheer joy of it. A regular column, for said louder, ‘What the fuck?’ of him and how grievously he had instance, a series of dialogues, ‘Conversa- ‘I’m sorry,’ Bill said – he said, he spoke, misjudged his character. Silence in the tions with a Mute’, in which James would his voice through the tissue adenoidal and end was just as deceptive as words, it treat of various problems of society with high, ‘I’m sorry, I thought – ’ turned out. Silence had enabled the a rectitude leavened and tempered and ‘You thought?’ James repeated. ‘What monk to present himself as someone enlarged by Bill’s compassion and encom- did you think?’ quite other than who he was – someone passing humanity…. ‘If only I could get Bill lowered the tissue and faced him. strong, someone good, someone who you out of that monastery,’ he said idly, Black clots of blood flecked his beard and had renounced the fevered graspings of dreamily even, as they rolled down the his eyes were at once penitent and plead- the world to search for something truer dual carriageway. From the passenger seat ing and gormless. – when in reality he was no better than Bill’s eyes caught his – a strange sharp ‘You thought I was a faggot?’ James the porcine wage-slaves at their gilded gaze, as if James had posed a question shouted. Anxiously Bill motioned him troughs. Worse, because most of them he already knew the answer to – but he to keep his voice down, but James just were too dumb even to know they were made no further response. shouted louder, ‘You thought I was a pretending. Bill knew; weak Bill had fled Now they approached the tall gates of fucking faggot?’ everything, had fled himself, intended to St Silas’s. Slowly they made their way up ‘You came back to the restaurant!’ the spend the rest of his life hiding out like its silent groves. Bill peered from the pas- monk cried. ‘You came back, you asked a common criminal. Until James came senger window, and James felt a momen- me to dinner, you told me about your, along! James came along, and it all came tary pang of sorrow, like he was leaving about the man who didn’t think what you slobbering out, the same dismal useless his child at boarding school. Yet at the were doing was right – ’ endless wantings as everyone else. God, same time, as they passed the orchard and That wasn’t a man! That wasn’t a that voice! That awful wheedling plead- the vegetable garden, the topiary and bee- man, James wanted to say, but anger ing voice like nails on a blackboard! hives the monks tended with such care, overwhelmed him, and now Bill was A couple of months later James became the oratory where they would gather babbling something else, in a nasal sick. The doctors put it down to over- next morning, it seemed that he could Midlands accent James would never had work and told him to take some time almost see the God that inhabited Bill’s imagined for him, a whiny shopkeeper’s off. His editor arranged a trip to Bali, world. He pulled up a little way from the voice redolent of mediocrity and penny- all expenses paid in return for a fifteen- main building so as not to disturb the pinching – saying that he’d been hurt hundred word piece. For two weeks he sleeping monks. A few lights burned in just like James had, that that was why sat by the pool, watching fat whites order the old stone building, but around them he’d come here, but for a long time now cocktails from the third-world staff. Fly- all was darkness. James turned off the he’d been having doubts, he’d been won- ing home, he read in the complimentary engine. The pain of earlier had subsided dering whether he was really cut out for newspaper the air hostess gave him the and been replaced by a warm, vital sense the monastic life, and then James came tragic story of an Irish monk who had of grace. He wanted to laugh, he wanted along and stirred up all these feelings, committed suicide by hanging himself to amble down byways with his hands and he’d said tonight some things that from the rope of a recently-restored bell- in his pockets. Then Bill leaned over and Bill had thought – they just seemed so tower. planted his lips on James’s. alike – and was James absolutely sure he There was more – struggle with alco- For a moment James could not com- might not – holism, statement from the abbot, monas- prehend what was happening; he sat James couldn’t listen to any more. In tery closing its doors – but now the lights frozen in his seat, as though paralysed a single motion he climbed out of the went out as the plane approached Dublin. by the rush of alien sensations – the car, crossed to the passenger side and This was normal procedure, the hostess labial pull, the scrape of Bill’s beard, the hauled the stained monk out. Struggling explained, a reading lamp could be found tropical heat and smell of his breath. to get free Bill tripped on his robes and overhead should you desire it. Then he raised his arms and thrust him fell backwards on the grass. He lay there James folded the newspaper closed away. In doing so he caught Bill with below James, holding his hands up in sur- and turned to the window. As the plane his elbow square on the nose; the monk render, and in a small trembling voice he banked the lights of the city came into gasped and rocked back into his own said, ‘You have to let someone in.’ view, a sixty-watt galaxy in an ocean seat. Blood pumped through his fingers James stood over him. He was trem- of darkness. He pressed his hand to the and onto his brown robes. ‘I’m sorry, bling too. Bill’s words he did not even cold glass. He imagined the body falling I’m sorry,’ gabbled James, fumbling in hear. ‘If I ever see you again I will break through the shaft and the single surprised the glove compartment for tissues. Bill you,’ he said. outburst of the bell, before it died away stanched the flow and sat there with his The review he submitted for Grey’s and silence, sweet silence, prevailed once head back, making little huffing noises: did not mention a dining companion. It more. ◊

14 Help Pages the desire of companies for profit – may for long periods coexist without appar- ent friction. But what makes anxiety a The Agony Uncle lingering presence for all wage-dependent workers in a capitalist economy is the Alain de Botton will show you the way knowledge that in any serious choice between the two imperatives, it is the I work in banking and, with the world recession attempts to reduce its price or presence economic one that must always prevail. deepening (especially in my industry), many with emotion. It sobs in toilet cubicles, it Employers who have made their work- of my colleagues and I are beginning to panic. drinks to ease its worries about the future, ers redundant may complain of painful Any thoughts? —Max, London it screams if suddenly asked to clear its feelings of disloyalty. They should be desk by mid-afternoon and sometimes it fairer on themselves. They have been Firstly, I have huge sympathy. Secondly, chooses death rather than redundancy. chillingly loyal to something, only not to it may be consoling to remember, in This emotive response to what are, for the human imperative; they have reserved times of crisis, that one is not alone. Your businesses, rational decisions alerts us to their impressive loyalty for the unremit- position isn’t fundamentally different two very different imperatives co-existing ting imperatives of business. from anyone else’s in a capitalist economy. in the world of work: According to Karl Marx, the triumph Beneath many regional variations and An Economic Imperative – which dictates of the economic imperative is a recent differences in style and management, the that the primary task of every business historical phenomenon, a product of the rationale of almost any business can be is to make a profit. All activities must be modern age and of advanced capital- broken down into a simple and, charac- related to this end and are justified by ism. In the feudal period, he proposes, teristically for the language of economics, it. The imperative may at times demand the economic imperative was strongly arid equation: that workers be laid-off. And at other counter-balanced by a human impera- Input output times, when labour is in short supply, it tive: lords and masters did not treat their may mean that new workers are hired workers like tools that could be picked Raw Materials = Product and existing ones granted more generous up and put down again at will. Workers Labour Profit salaries. Yet at no point is the workers’ joy were considered to be members of their Machinery or pain ever the essential factor behind employers’ extended families and were Every business attempts to gather raw business decisions; profit alone is the guid- shown corresponding loyalty. Christian materials, labour and machinery at the ing star. teachings helped to foster an atmosphere lowest possible price and then combines A Human Imperative – which leads of concern for the vulnerable – and a tacit them to make a product that can be sold employees to long for both financial agreement that, in difficult conditions, for the highest possible price. security and respect through their work; workers would not heedlessly be thrown From the economic perspective, there to seek to provide for their families out of their jobs and made to fend for is no difference between any of the ele- over the long term and to have jobs in themselves. ments in the input side of the equation, organisations that value them so that One does not have to romanticize between, for example, a machine, a raw they can value themselves. Employees the feudal past, nor unduly castigate the material and a human being. All are com- may appreciate that they have been hired bourgeoisie, to appreciate aspects of this modities which the rational executive will by companies primarily because of their argument. The social history of almost seek to source cheaply and handle effi- contribution to a balance sheet, but this every nation holds up examples of acri- ciently in the search for profit. does not invalidate their hope that they monious conflict between the interests And yet troublingly, there is one dif- may, with time, come to be perceived in of employers and those of employees, of ference between ‘labour’ and other com- a rounded or human way, as creatures ‘capital’ and of ‘labour.’ In Britain in the modities, which economics does not have worthy of sympathy rather than mov- nineteenth century, the industrial class a means to represent or give weight to but ing parts in a machine – a hope fostered promoted a philosophy of ‘laissez-faire’, which is nevertheless unavoidably present by the fellowship that naturally builds an exceptionally unapologetic expres- in the world; the fact that labour – unlike up over time in offices and factories. It sion of business’s characteristic demand machinery and raw materials – feels pain. can seem practically and emotionally that it should be allowed to treat work- If production lines grow prohibitively catastrophic to imagine that an employer, ers in whatever ways it sees necessary to expensive, these may be switched off and towards whom one has shown loyalty maximize profits – even if this happens to will not cry nor, at three in the morning, and good humour for years, would one minimize workers happiness a little or (as punch the wall at the seeming injustice day, with minimal courtesy, for reasons in the British nineteenth century context) of their fate. A business can move from of profit and loss, show one the door, maims them before their ninth birthdays. using coal to natural gas without the acting with the calm brutality one might Struggles between labour and capital neglected energy source walking to the display towards a broken lathe or calcula- may no longer, in the developed world end of a cliff and committing suicide. tor. at least, be so extreme. The concept of But labour has an enduring and, for These two imperatives – the desire of rights for workers has gained widespread executives, regrettable habit of meeting individuals for security and respect and acceptance from business. Seven-year-

15 olds are rarely seen in Western factories countries cannot be laid off immediately being is incidental. Whatever camaraderie except on school trips. But there remain in great numbers, that they must on occa- may build up between employer and enough conflicts to suggest that the ten- sion be offered severance packages, that employed, whatever good-will workers sions between the economic and the mothers are legally allowed to take time may display and however many years human imperatives have not disappeared off after giving birth and that energetic, they may have devoted to an organization, – nor cannot indeed ever conclusively be nimble children have been barred from whatever apparent security they may overcome. employment in industry. enjoy (symbolized, for example, by taxi Left to its own devices, the logic of Despite improvements in working con- accounts and get-well cards after acci- business would demand that workers be ditions and legislation protecting workers, dents), they must live with the knowl- treated as a commodity like any other, employees remain tools, albeit tools who edge and attendant anxiety that their jobs without any claims or privileges. It is a have won rights through the efforts of are not guaranteed – and that they them- contravention of business’s natural desire trade unions, used in a process in which selves are a means to profit, and certainly to pursue profit that workers in certain their own happiness or economic well- never an end. ◊

Poem African Priestess, Columbus Circle By Melissa Broder

She said: Do you believe in anything? I said: I weigh my food. I said: I cried for an hors d’hoeuvre. I said: I gave away Gramma’s pizzelles

to a crackhead at Penn Station. She said: There’res no crackheads at Penn Station. I said: They were made with eggs. I said: I hoped the eggs would cure him.

She said: You’re killing the wrong person. I said: His eyes were like cherry clafoutis. She said: I don’t care how you slice a cake. She said: It’s still a cake.

I said: Flourless flour noted. She said: You violate the goddess. I said: Butterless butter noted. She said: Your ass is grass.

I said: Creamless creamer noted. I said: Sugarless sugar noted. I said: Maybe I’m lonely. She said: Bingo baby!

16