Beneath the Earth by John Boyne

things on good terms.’
    â€˜But it was over something so stupid.’
    â€˜Really? What was it, a soap opera? A recipe? A knitting pattern?’
    â€˜Yes, Pierce, it was a combination of all those things because while you’ve been over there in Germany getting yourself in trouble with the law for shagging cows, that’s
all
Mother and I ever discussed. Recipes, knitting patterns and
Coronation Street
.’
    I ignored the first part of her speech; far too much of my life had already been spent offering a perfectly sensible explanation for something that others insist on seeing in the most perverted manner. ‘Well aren’t you going to tell me?’ I asked finally.
    â€˜Tell you what?’
    â€˜What it was that you were arguing about.’
    â€˜I told you. It was something stupid. Something unimportant.’
    â€˜Can you be a little clearer?’
    â€˜Fine,’ she said with a deep put-upon sigh. ‘We were arguing over you.’
    â€˜Over me?’
    â€˜Well, not so much over you as over your book.’
    â€˜What book?’
    â€˜
The Dying Game
.’
    â€˜Oh, that book.’ I felt a little surprised. No one had uttered those three words to me for many years. ‘What about it?’
    â€˜She said that Arthur had been to see her once and they’d got into a conversation about it and she’d said that she thought it was quite good actually and he’d said no, it wasn’t quite good at all, it was
very
good, but that you hadn’t stuck with it because you had expected the world to be handed to you on the day it was published. He said that if you’d been a little less arrogant, then things might have gone differently for you. You mightn’t have ended up screwing cattle in Tittmoning.’
    â€˜I haven’t ended up anywhere yet,’ I said quietly.
    â€˜Anyway, I said that it was for the best, that there was only pain and torture associated with that world, a constant feeling of under-appreciation, and she said that she’d said something similar to Arthur and he told her that the only way to survive it was to put on a front, to present yourself as a genius. That if you did that, then others might take you seriously too. Just wear them down. Then you could lead the life you wanted to lead.’
    â€˜Deep,’ I said, draining my champagne and deciding to make like a Scotsman and get a drink for each hand. ‘He should put that in his next book.’
    â€˜Perhaps he will,’ she said sharply. ‘It’s more than you’ll do though, isn’t it?’
    I returned to Tittmoning the following week and over the course of a busy two days reacquainted myself with Bess, Carla, Daphne, Jezebel, Rachel, Shirley, Kate, Arabella, Madonna and – yes, I admit it – Kurt. They seemed pleased enough to see me although, to be fair, cattle, like members of the Royal Family, don’t tend to go in for outward displays of affection. On the flight across, I glanced at the books my fellow travellers were holding, convinced that one of them would be reading Arthur’s novel and that this would provide some sort of poetic ending to my trip, but I was disappointed. Although in fairness, very few of them were reading books at all. At least not as I understand the term. And certainly nothing by Arthur. Or by me. Not that that was a surprise as I’d been out of print for many years. But still it made me happy that no one was reading his work. So far, after all, he’d only published a single book, which was something that we had in common. And even if people were paying attention to it there was nothing to say that he would ever write another one. Or, if he did, that it would be accepted for publication. Or, if it was, that it would get good reviews. Or, if it should, that it would catch on with the public. Or, if it happened to, that it would stand the test of time. He would be exactly where I was, flying into