Free I Hate Martin Amis et al. by Peter Barry Page B

around and nibbling away we could have closed our eyes and fired and we’d have likely hit one. I loved the way rabbits jump in the air when they’re shot, as if they’ve been startled and can’t hide their surprise, then crash to the ground, on their sides, absolutely still. It was like a little dance of death routine, and the contrast always surprised me: between the leap into the air and the finality with which they landed on the grass. As if miming an exclamation mark.
    I remember Mr Sinclair once asking me what I wanted to do when I grew up. He never asked Andy. His future was to be the farm, everyone knew that.
    â€˜I want to be a writer.’ I don’t know why I told him, I’d never told anyone, not even my parents. I wanted to impress him, for him to see me as different, I think that’s what it was.
    â€˜Books?’ he asked.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Novels?’ I nodded. He looked sceptical, but said nothing more, just looked doubtful. I decided that he was neither interested nor impressed, and I was disappointed. But one evening, the very first time Andy and I went off alone to shoot rats in the two barns about half a mile from the house, he said to his son as he handed him the rifle: ‘And watch that friend of yours; he’ll be more use with a biro than with one of these.’ They both laughed, and I knew they’d been talking about my dream – together, behind my back. I blushed, and wished I hadn’t told Mr Sinclair.
    The moon was looming over the horizon, huge, like one of those cheap paper lamps with which students like to furnish their digs, and the air was perfectly still. The long grass was soaking, and our footsteps left a trail of dark green through a field of phosphorescence. Andy was whispering excitedly as we left the grown-ups behind us, his breath forming cartoonish thought bubbles above his head, his voice crystal clear in the crisp air. Soon he fell silent because of my lack of response. I followed his chubby legs, white and innocent in baggy shorts, across the field, detesting the complacency of his walk and the fact that he’d never, no matter how long he lived, ever wander off the path.
    We were creeping through the sodden grass, quiet as mice, on the hunt for rats. Neither of us said anything as we approached the ghostly structures, perse and menacing against the trees at the end of the field. Then we were pushing open the great wooden doors, trying not to make any noise. The rats were running along the roof supports, and we caught them in the beam of our torch. One of us held the torch, the other did the shooting. The rats kept on running when they were caught in the spotlight, so they weren’t easy to hit. I was good, maybe even a better shot than Andy.
    That particular night, I can see it still as clear as anything. One rat was wounded, its rear legs shattered by a bullet. It fell to the ground and tried to drag itself away into a dark corner to escape. I reloaded the rifle in double-quick time and fired a second shot, at almost point-blank range, splattering the rat all over the walls of the barn as I did my best James Cagney impression: ‘You dirty rat, you!’ Then we high fived in the gloom.

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    I spend a lot of time watching for people down in the city. The few to be seen scurry everywhere. They’re like rats. They’re caught in a trap, so I guess that’s an accurate simile. They run across intersections, dart from one parked car to the next, and burrow into doorways.
    Some of them even skulk behind the armoured vehicles of the UN when crossing intersections. These are driven slowly from one side of an intersection to the other while small crowds of pedestrians huddle behind them, like pilot fish around a shark. How’s a sniper supposed to deal with that? Not only is it unreasonable, I think it’s unsporting.
    I realise the people act like this because of me, even though I’ve