by Steven Hall
“No, of course not,” I said. “Thanks for taking care of him.”
My suspicions were confirmed when Ruth told us Ian was currently in the washroom behind the kitchen happily toughing his way through a full English of his own. And I thought he’d been worried about me. I thanked her and apologised for him.
“Don’t be daft, he’s no trouble at all,” she said, passing over a teapot and a small jug of milk. “Anyway, you two eat up. It looks like you’ve had quite a day.”
“She’s nice,” Scout said, watching Ruth head back to the kitchen. “You’ve got a cat called Ian?”
I nodded.
She laughed. “Excellent.”
I knew at some point I’d have to make it up to the cat after our incident earlier in the day. I also knew that when Ian saw we had a new travelling companion he was unlikely to be in a happy or forgiving mood. I could already picture the thundery disgust and disappointment all over his big flat ginger face.
“He’s a bit of an arsehole,” I said, still thinking about it.
Scout nodded, smiling at this as she poured herself a cup of tea.
“Well, that’s what you want in a cat.”
I considered and nodded. “Yeah, actually, it is.”
Scout ploughed into her food as though she hadn’t eaten for days. I dug in with big greedy mouthfuls of my own but even when I began to slow down and feel the aches of being really full, she carried on eating with single-minded determination.
In a careful, edge-of-my-thoughts sort of way, I wondered about the Ludovician.
“You’re safe for now,” Scout said, as if she could read my mind, looking up for a second from the piece of bacon she was steering around her plate, chasing beans. “There’s no way that shark is making it back here any time soon. I’d say you’ve got two days at the very least.”
“On the bike,” I said, “what was that thing? An explosive?”
“Sort of–a letter bomb. Basically, a firework taped up with old typewriter key arms and printing block letters. You can use anything solid with printed language. I made one from cheap necklace pendants once.”
“You think we injured it?”
Scout shook her head. “No chance. Did you see the size of it? Anyway, it’s not really meant to be a weapon. The explosion sends metal letters–all their associations, histories, everything–blasting out in all directions to scramble the flow the shark is swimming in,” she pointed between her teacup and my teacup with her knife, “the one connecting us and it.”
“I remember.”
“Meanwhile, the bang gets the attention of everyone in earshot and the shark gets lost in all the new incoming streams. Even going full-tilt and following all the right streams, it’ll take forty-eight hours at least to find its way back to us.”
I couldn’t help being impressed. “Do you have any more of them?”
“Letter bombs? A couple. But the first one always works best. After that, it’s going to be hit and miss.”
“Scout, how do you know all this stuff?”
“Probably because I’m a genius. Come on, I’m not going to travel with someone like you without doing my research, am I? And anyway–” she stopped. The words she didn’t say left a little air-pressure gap where they should have been.
“The letter bomb wasn’t really meant for the Ludovician. You brought it to use against Nobody, didn’t you?”
“Either or,” Scout shrugged the question off, but I caught the slight scratchiness in her, a ghost whisper of tension.
I felt myself tightening up. “Who was he?”
“Nobody?”
I nodded.
Scout poked at the remains on her plate. “I think I liked you better when you weren’t talking.”
“I think I liked you better when I didn’t know you were hiding things.”
“I’m not hiding things,” she looked up at me and the weight of her personality hit me like a hammer. “And you don’t know anything about me.”
My mouth opened all on its own for a surprised apology but I forced it shut again.
After a few seconds Scout softened with a for-God’s-sake sigh.
“Look, I just want one night’s rest. Can’t we both pretend to be normal people who stay in restaurants and have dinner and do all those normal things just for one night? I really need to be like other people for a little while. If that’s okay with you.”
“I didn’t mean to accuse you. The thing is though, you’re right, I don’t know anything about you and you’ve got to see how that’s going to be a problem for me after today.”
She thought for a minute.
“Okay, how about this? Tomorrow you can ask anything you want and I promise I’ll tell you everything, explain anything I can about whatever you want to know, but tonight, no questions. Tonight, we’re just two normal people, okay?”
“Alright,” I said, “it’s a deal.”
“Good. Now,” Scout pushed her plate out in front of her, took a deep breath and let herself crumple with a tired smile. “I really need to get some rest.”
I smiled back. Truce. “So, I’m guessing it’s part of the deal I get you a room?”
“God, no,” she said, surprised. “I’ll be staying in your room.”
“Where?”
“In the bed.”
“And where will I be?”
“On the floor, of course.”
“On the floor in my own room?”
“Yes, all night. And anyway, it’ll be good practice.”
“Two rooms still sounds comfier to me.”
“Yeah, well, comfort isn’t everything.”
Twilight had almost given way to night when I stepped through the front door of the Willows Hotel, the last pale yellows and oranges all quashed by the deep and deepening blue.
I was on my way to find the sleeping bag in the yellow Jeep while Scout attempted to collect Ian from Aunty Ruth. I’d told her it wasn’t a smart move unless she wanted to look like she’d been self-harming but she said she wanted to give it a shot anyway. We’ll have to get to know each other sooner or later, she’d said. I wanted to say, No, really, and explain how Ian really wasn’t a getting-to-know-you type of cat or even a casual-hello kind of cat, more a sort of whirlwind made of blades. But then I remembered how I would be sleeping on the floor while she had the bed and said, Fine, thanks.
I strolled around the side of the hotel to the car park, enjoying the simplicity of the evening air and, yes, enjoying the fact that all questions would have to wait until tomorrow. I was allowing myself to pretend I was normal. Just for one night.
Being so wrapped-up in these thoughts meant I got very close to the yellow Jeep before seeing the shadowy figure hanging around it, smoking.
I jumped and started to duck down, but even as I did, it was too late.
“Alright?”
I straightened up.
“Alright,” I said back.
“I’ve just finished. Got her running.”
My back muscles relaxed a little, but not very much. I walked forward, but not very much either.
“You’re from the garage?”
“No, I’m from here.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Oh.”
“John,” the man said, taking a step towards me and holding out his hand. “This is my hotel.”
“Oh, you’re Ruth’s husband.” I walked forward fast and shook his hand in both of mine, my relief far too obvious.
“That’s probably what it’s come to, yeah. Were you thinking I was somebody else?”
“No,” I said, and then, “I don’t know.”
“Hmmm,” he said. “I thought it might be something like that.” He leaned back against the Jeep’s bonnet. “Cigarette?”
“No, thanks, I don’t.” Something flashed into my head–Scout saying ‘Are you still smoking those menthols?’ More questions waiting for their answers.
“Suit yourself,” John said. “You’ll be leaving us tomorrow then?”
> I slouched back against the car next to mine. “Yeah, how did you know?”
“I saw you come back with that girl today.”
I felt myself wince. “Sorry, I should probably have–”
John waved a don’t worry about it hand. “I hope you don’t mind me saying. You’re in a battle, aren’t you, son?”
There was a second’s silence. “Yes,” I said, simply.
He nodded. “I saw it in you, when you arrived. Ruth did too. I suppose someone will have told you about the car crash.”
“Yes, I heard.”
“Well, Ruth knows a fighter when she sees one. She’s a brave woman.”
“Yes,” I said again, not doubting this at all.
John wrinkled up his eyes and nodded, then smoked away on his cigarette for a while.
“Lots of different types of battle out there,” he said finally, standing up. “And it’s not our business which type you’re fighting. Just know that if you ever want to visit us back here, you’ll be welcome. You and your cat.” He ground his cigarette out underfoot and started walking back to the hotel.
“Thank you,” I said after him and he held up the back of his hand to me as he walked away, as if to say any time.
When I got back to the room Scout was already in the bed asleep. She’d curled tight into and around the duvet, her head tucked down away from the electric light so only an ear, the white skinny back of her neck and a single shoulder blade poked out. She shifted a little as I closed the door and I noticed her black bra strap, frayed and worn-looking against her pale back. I rubbed my face in my palms. Just like most things in this new, fast-moving world, I didn’t know very much about the reality of women.
Ian the cat slept on the pillow next to her, purring. His face was a big round happy smile, probably enjoying a dream about how stupid he’d made me look.
The TV was on; some third-rate soap I didn’t recognise. I switched it off and unrolled the sleeping bag at the foot of the bed. It was still early but I was exhausted. I clicked off the light, pulled off my hooded top and shorts and lay down. It felt good, not to be alone; to be part of a team, this unit of three all resting together ready for tomorrow, for something new to happen–an adventure. Maybe.
Scout shifted around again, her foot found its way out from under the duvet and hung over the edge of the bed at the ankle. I lay there looking up at her foot, vaguely thinking how small it was compared to one of my feet and how funny feet are generally. As my eyes adjusted to the dark I noticed something. I sat up to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. It wasn’t shadows or sticky floor dirt or anything else; it was really there. I could taste my heartbeat in the roof of my mouth.
Scout had a tattoo of a smiley face on her big toe.
THREE
What we see before us is just one tiny part of the world. We get into the habit of thinking, this is the world, but that’s not true at all. The real world is a much darker and deeper place than this, and much of it is occupied by jellyfish and things.
Haruki Murakami
18
Yippy Yippy Ya Ya Yey Yey Yey
“Rise and shine. Come on, get up.”
I’d been dreaming of beaches. Yellow sand, ranks of white parasols, aqua blue clear-as-glass sea and huge cloudless skies. A Light Bulb Fragment dream, maybe the first I’d had in weeks. I’d been running through the surf in the cooling evening. I’d seen the lanterns of the beachfront tavernas drawing coloured stripes out onto dusty waves. I’d been, I’d been–already the dream was coming apart, its bright silk strands unwinding into nebulous emotions, little coloured clouds of feeling being dispersed by the movement of my waking-up mind. This is how it’s always been with Light Bulb Fragment dreams; by the time I’m fully awake, they’re gone.
I squinted up at the electric bulb.
“What time is it?”
From somewhere, Scout’s voice said, “You don’t want to know.”
I moaned and turned over but I couldn’t get comfortable–there was an urgency in my head. To my sleepy self it wasn’t an obvious urgency, more like the vague weight of a stone tucked away and forgotten at the bottom of a rucksack. My half-awake mind searched around for it. Could it be a stowaway? Something escaped, more intact than usual, from the collapsing dream? Maybe, partly; its colours matched the ones I could still vaguely sense drifting away at the back of my consciousness, but it also had the enduring mass of a real world thing. An amphibious urgency then, a something I’d taken into my dreams with me and then out again. I felt around in my head and then in a burst of shock I remembered.
I sat up.
“You’ve got a tattoo on your toe.”
“Good morning,” said Scout. “Yes I have.”
She was wearing my over-sized clothes again, rolling her own muddy ones into small packable sausages.
I put my hand up to shield my eyes from the light. My sleepy internal spirit level was trying to adjust to the sudden challenge of being upright.
“How long have you had it?”
“The tattoo?”
“Yeah.”
She looked over at me, deciding whether to answer or maybe just wondering why I would want to know.
“The first thing people usually ask is, why have a tattoo where no one will see it?”
“No, I get it.” I said, squinting. “It’s for the toe tag in the morgue, right?”
She smiled to herself, stacking her rolled-up clothes. “Do you have a carrier bag or something?”
I told her there were a couple in the rucksack and as she rummaged through she asked me why I was so interested. I really wasn’t sure how to answer that. “It just reminded me of someone,” I said in the end.
She did a vague nod as if she wasn’t really listening or didn’t want to hear a long, rambling story about my past. I smiled to myself; she didn’t need to worry about that.
“So why did you get it done?”
“I used to think I was so dark and funny.”
“You?” I said. “Never.”
She turned around and gave me a look. I guessed the conversation was over. For the next couple of minutes I sat quietly, letting myself come all the way around, and watching Scout in a starey early morning sort of a way as she dug out a carrier for her clothes, then packed them all inside it. After this was done, she picked up Mr Nobody’s leather bag from by the side of the bed and passed it over to me.
“What’s this for?”
“You were asking who he was,” she said. “Unzip that side part and tip it all out.”
I looked at the bag properly for the first time. It was expensive, well made and covered in pockets and compartments. The main space was divided into two, one half more or less empty apart from a few black plastic Dictaphone fragments, the other half sealed-off behind a big brass zip.
“Go on,” she said, sitting down on the bed to watch.
I pulled the zipper and shook the contents out over the sleeping bag in front of me. Dozens of little clear plastic tubs tumbled out over my legs. They made baby rattle noises as they heaped themselves up. Some rolled off under the bed and out across the floor. I picked one up at random and read the label.
“CONCENTRATION. Four milligrams.”
Scout picked up a couple which had rolled past her feet.
“REASONING,” she said. “And this one’s SENSE OF HUMOUR.”
“STYLE. EXTRAPOLATION. CONVICTION, FRIENDLY SMILE. POWERS OF PERSUASION.” The little white pills inside each tub rattled away to themselves as my fingers disturbed the pile. “What is all this stuff?”
“Mr Nobody,” Scout said.
I looked at her.
“This is him. The closest thing to a him there was anyway. This is what was driving that body around instead of a real self.”
The pill tubs sat on my lap like a medical molehill. I searched my fingers around inside the heap again as gently as I could. It felt like a kind of autopsy. CONCERN. SURPRISE. SUSPICION. DIGNITY.
“This is
it?”
“This is it.”
I felt small, weak. “He told me a Ludovician did this to him.”
Scout didn’t reply at first, she sat padding her first and second fingertips against her thumb, two beats on each before swapping. It was a pensive fidgety sort of movement but it also seemed to be building up to something. Like a dynamo working up a charge. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “I could have been a bit more–”
“No, it’s alright. Tell me.”
“He wasn’t really a human being anymore, just the idea of one. A concept wrapped in skin and chemicals. Your shark probably saw him as a potential rival.”
I thought about Nobody’s strange voice telling me we were both the same person then denying it later.
“A concept wrapped in skin and chemicals,” I repeated. “That sounds like a human being to me.”
Scout shook her head. “No. There’s more to it than that.”
I didn’t argue–what did I know about what human beings were or weren’t?
“So,” I said, like a big outward breath, changing the subject “where are we going and why are we up so early?”
No answer. When I looked up Scout was looking at me. I could see something warm in her face, something tucked away safely behind her default expression but still, something there, just behind her lips and her eyes.
“You’re not going to end up like him, you know,” she said.
I nodded a silent, I know, but I couldn’t make my eyes commit to it.
Just for a moment, like a cloud shadow racing over the ground, the warm thing inside Scout’s face went cold, not a heartless cold, more like the vague sadness of winter coastline.
“Right.” She jumped to her feet, breaking the mood. “We’re going to Manchester and we’re going underground. We need to get all this packed up and we need to be on the road in the next half hour.” She scanned around the room working times, distances, logistics out in her head. Her thinking stare moved through me once, twice and then, irritated, finally came back to settle. “Eric,” she said. “You’re just sitting there. Mush.”
5.14 a.m. and the yellow Jeep’s wheels rumbled on dark roads, its back filled with boxes of books, packed-up bags and a sleepy pissed-off Ian in his cat carrier. I’d been waiting for Scout to suggest doing something with Ian–checking him into some cattery or asking Aunty Ruth to take care of him for a few days, but our guide seemed to take the fact that Ian would be coming with us as a given. I was glad about that, I wasn’t about to leave him anywhere and my mind was still too drifty and loaded up with early morning stares to have any sort of argument about it. Instead, we’d just packed up the yellow Jeep, quietly and mechanically, and gone. Scout threw Nobody’s bag of pills and the book he’d sent me into the dumpster at the back of the hotel car park. I put a note and a cheque for more than the cost of my stay on the front desk as we left. It was a small relief to know Ruth and John would understand; Ian and I were shipping out to the front line.
