I scowled at the pile of pages mounting in front of me. They were shit. That was the only word to describe my efforts. Why would anyone want to read that rubbish? It was wasteful. That’s what I was doing: I was creating waste, waste to line wastebaskets. Wastebaskets that would be emptied into larger otto bins, emptied again into the back of the garbage truck, and emptied for a final time at the dump. There they would rot, just as they ought. I admit it sounds awful. You say, ‘why wouldn’t you just recycle it, Kevin?’ and I reply it is not even worthy of that. It deserves nothing more than to rot away, rather than to become something of any use, because it isn’t useful. It was just crap. I considered it a dishonour to language as a whole, to society.
Let’s say that pile of pages was a human being. I could sit him on a stool, facing an audience. The studio audience, the world, would cringe when it saw how he stood up to questioning. His abysmal effort at explaining his meaning, his worth, would be followed by something eloquent, something by Capote. A woman sits on the next stool, speaks slowly, with insight. Yes, the apparition of one of Capote’s great works was always going to be Holly Golightly. And even her naïve responses are endearing. She is cheered and the former is jeered. That is my novel in human form.
And how did I get here in the first place? It all comes down to one misguided belief: that if you purchase a typewriter you automatically become a writer. I was never going to become a fucking writer.
I pushed myself back away from the table, swivelled to my left. Peering out of the window, to the city below, with the whirring of taxis and the flashing of lights, I wondered how I got to be here, at this desk in New York City. What did I have? I had a pile of books by my bed and a fridge full of half-eaten foods. And what was I doing? Staring blankly out of a window.
I stood up to push the window open. I would sit on my bed and read something. I would become engrossed in someone else’s words and hope they would magically improve my own. I lay back. Holding Breakfast at Tiffany’s above my head I began to read. Although I was captivated by the way Capote’s words described Holly, night was beginning to fall and I fell asleep. It had always been unwise to read in bed. A thing I had loved ever since I was small. It felt safe and comforting to curl up beneath a blanket with something by Enid Blyton. It felt safer still to be regaled by Roald Dahl. I’d fall asleep there time after time: pick up where I left off in the morning. I would walk around the house barefoot. I would clutch C.S. Lewis to my chest as I walked. I would sit somewhere else, be entranced again. It seemed that despite the solace I found in words as a child, as an adolescent, and now as an adult, I could not manage to bring anyone else the comfort I had once gleaned from books.
But while I slept, the thought of failure did not creep upon me. Instead, I was confronted. And it was Holly Golightly who stood with her back turned to me. She stood in front of a mirror, mascara in hand, peering at her own reflection. I could see myself in the corner of her mirror, dressed as I was when I was awake, in grey slacks and a white shirt. She was not taken aback by my appearance, for it is I who was the intruder. I was sitting in her apartment. At the very least in the apartment I had long since imagined her inhabiting, with crates scattered around the room, and a vase full of violets set in the middle.
“Holly?”
She did not even turn to me to respond, but simply replied, “Yes, silly?” as though speaking her name was the oddest thing I could have done at that moment. Of course she was Holly: that went without saying. Her blonde hair was arranged in a loose bun, she looked immaculate, even as she applied make up. I felt utterly out of place. I wondered if Capote saw this image as he was writing, or perhaps I was imagining it wrong. I didn’t know if it even mattered. For the umpteenth time that day, I was at a loss for words. My mind raced, but all I could do was stare at her; I was entranced by her every movement, even as she placed her mascara on a small desk in front of her. She picked up her lipstick instead. I could hear her speaking to me, but I cannot now think of what it was she was saying, except that every now and again I heard her accent slip. She carried on regardless, something about her dinner plans, a question of mine, would I come by for a drink later? I wondered if I would even be around later in order to accept such an offer.
I stood awkwardly there for what seemed like an age. She asked me, and I remember this clearly, whether I had written anything recently, if it was any good, if it was readable, because you see so few things are worth reading. I replied that I hadn’t, and she proclaimed that was a shame, because of course I had seemed to have such promise. I was flattered that my subconscious’ version of Holly Golightly thought that I had promise.
“Would you like a cigarette?”
I pulled the packet out of my pocket; I always carried some with me.
