64

Going East

That things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
– George Eliot, Middlemarch.


Boredom I can take. I mean, I should be used to it by now. And horror – well, at least it isn’t boring. Boredom and horror combined, though, that’s a bit much.”
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“No, not the film, that literary festival – the one I was telling you about before.”
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“Where do I begin? No, the film, that was quite fun, I thought.”
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“Which one? The space one or the desert one?”
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“Hard to say, really. It’s rather an eccentric place: one man’s idea of a film festival running all year round – only all the films are crap.”
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“You know, I’m really pleased you enjoyed it. About ten minutes in I was beginning to think that I was insane ever to have taken anyone to that place.”
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“Actually I think it’s a friend’s house, but he stores all the old cans of Eastman Kodak in there. It must be a bit of a fire-risk, really.”
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“No, that was just me trying to understand the dialogue.”
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“‘Oooff’?”
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“There were certainly plenty of things getting stuck into people.”
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“So what was your professional opinion of the standard of the performances?”
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66

“God, I didn’t mean that. Sorry.”
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“No! For fuck’s sake, I didn’t even know what films he would be showing. I mean, it’s generally old Communist propaganda newsreels with some drossy B-grade Sci-fi flick as the main feature, but I had no idea it would have a bunch of Italian-speaking Bedouin chicks wrestling each other in a sandpit.”
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“Come on. You believe me, don’t you?”
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“Would you like another drink, something like that?”
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“But you do accept my apology?”
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“Okay, whatever you want to talk about.”
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“Oh, the literary festival. That really was a downer. I was supposed to be covering the event for a magazine, but they all made a point of ignoring me and walking away every time I went up and tried to talk to anyone.”
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“Yeah, but I’ll get my revenge. Wait till they see the write-up I give them!”
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“Well, I thought of opening with something like: ‘I was determined to write a balanced, statesmanlike piece about the Going East Literary Festival; but then, halfway through, I suddenly thought “Fuck it: why not tell it like it is?”’”
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“Say what?”
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“I don’t see why not. I’ve done it before. Not, admittedly, in this particular publication, but it does rather add to the flavour, don’t you think?”
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“I’m sorry.”
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“No, it’s just that I’m letting the rancorous side of my personality dominate – nagging on about the poor organisers of this festival, who I’m sure didn’t cock it all up on purpose.”
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69

“Yeah, but I’ve got to tell you, there was one thing I really liked in that weekend. They’d invited a group of woman novelists to be on a kind of discussion panel about romance fiction (along with one gay male to keep up the gender balance), and at the end there was time for a few questions.

Someone asked one of the woman writers how she managed to keep on writing and whether she ever got discouraged. She replied, ‘Well, I get up and sit down at my desk, and then I start crying.’ Not racking sobs, she explained, but just sort of drizzling, hopeless tears. ‘Why?” said one of the other writers. “Oh, from fear.” You know, fear that she wouldn’t be able to think of anything else, or to continue.

That really appealed to me.”
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“I suppose it is weird, really. It just seemed very natural to me, very truthful. Weeping from fear: that’s so much closer to my experience of life than all the other business-like bullshit they were going on about. I mean, she had some good tips on how to get round your blocks and so on, but it was mainly that image that got me. There’s something so real about tears.”

And about the image of a slim, dark girl with wings around her hips: Pallas Athena, or Camilla, the virgin queen of the Volscians, who ran so swiftly that she could pass through a cornfield without bending a blade, and cross the water without wetting a toe.

GIVE

UP?