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M’Gurgan the father was vexed by the promiscuity of Burns’ young descendants, and how M’Gurgan the remnant boy, as a known Dumfries poet, was not certain to be loyal to Sophie, and how time forgave poets any degree of infidelity, not only to their wives but to their ideals, so long as they were passionately, lyrically sung at the moment they were sung. Burns the Scottish patriot and the British patriot, Burns the monarchist-revolutionary. Burns who sang in joy at the French Revolution, and sang in joy at the American Revolution. What song would he have written if the French had tried to make the American Revolution for the Americans before the Americans were ready? A gust of air blew through Kellas’s brain, clearing the fat spirals of wine and whisky twirling there. Kellas began to explain his new book to M’Gurgan as if he’d always intended it to be this way, but it came to him then and there, as he spoke it. He explained to the poet how he intended to write a best-selling novel pitched at the militaristic market. It would subvert the genre by making America the enemy – not a group within America, but the American government, the American majority and the American way. American characters would be portrayed as clichéd, humourless, two-dimensional, degenerate, ignorant caricatures, while their European counterparts, the heroes and heroines, would be wisecracking, genuine, loving, courageous, salt-of-the-earth types. The book would play on the reservoir of anti-Americanism and European patriotism that went so deep and was so seldom tapped. Readers would be made to believe in a limited war to save civilization, with a motley group of British, French, German and perhaps even Spanish, Italian and Russian warriors defeating a perfidious American plot to thwartinternational justice. Europeans would love it. It would be denounced in pulpits and on talk radio in the States, and Americans would hate it and would buy it in enormous quantities to find out what was so worth denouncing. Kellas hadn’t plotted the whole thing out, he said, but it would surely include a scene in which the Europeans would storm a US airfield in East Anglia using a collection of iconic old vehicles.
    ‘I think there’ll be an Austin Allegro,’ said Kellas. ‘A British woman pilot at the wheel and a veteran of the Foreign Legion shooting down an American bomber with a missile poked out of the sun roof.’
    M’Gurgan didn’t say anything while Kellas was talking, and didn’t look at him, just stood there with his back against the plinth, frowning and blinking, head slightly bowed. After Kellas had finished there was silence for a time. A police car slowed down opposite them, then speeded up and disappeared.
    ‘What’s it called?’ said M’Gurgan.
    ‘I haven’t got a title.’
    ‘How about The Antichrist Strikes Back ?’
    Kellas smiled. M’Gurgan asked if it was satire. Kellas was about to say yes and hesitated because it would not be the truth. He shook his head. The book would only work if it appeared sincerely shallow. If he was going to do it, lying to the readers wouldn’t be necessary; all that mattered would be lying to himself and believing himself when he made the world a simpler, sillier place than he thought it was. Although he hadn’t spent much time with prostitutes, and had until now avoided becoming one himself, he understood what made some more popular than others. It was the opposite of satire. They entranced themselves into an appearance of sincerity so perfect that it was indistinguishable from sincerity.
    ‘You know I meant it when I said I liked your last one,’ said M’Gurgan. ‘I loved The Maintenance of Fury . I think you were onto something there.’
    ‘I never saw it in a bookshop.’
    ‘You look miserable. Do you think I’m going to give you a hard time over this?’
    ‘Maybe I’ll change my mind, like you.’
    ‘I don’t think so. But you’ll never sell a book like that now. Everybody