Looking for Jake: Stories

by China Miéville

  I told him I’d be in the staff room. I turned away and heard him open his case. As I left I peered through the glass wall and tried to see what he was laying out on the desk. A candle, a flask, a dark book. A little bell.

  Visitor numbers are back up. We’re weathering the recession remarkably well. We’ve dropped some of the deluxe product and introduced a back-to-basic raw pine range. The store has actually taken on more staff recently than it’s let go.

  The kids are happy again. Their obsession with the ball room refuses to die. There’s a little arrow outside it, a bit more than three feet off the ground, which is the maximum height you can be to come in. I’ve seen children come tearing up the stairs to get in and find out that they’ve grown in the months since their last visit, that they’re too big to come in and play. I’ve seen them raging that they’ll never be allowed in again, that they’ve had their lot, forever. You know they’d give anything at all, right then, to go back. And the other children watching them, those who are just a little bit smaller, would do anything to stop and stay as they are.

  Something in the way they play makes me think that Mr. Gainsburg’s intervention may not have had the exact effect everyone was hoping for. Seeing how eager they are to rejoin their friends in the ball room, I wonder sometimes if it was intended to.

  To the children, the ball room is the best place in the world. You can see that they think about it when they’re not there, that they dream about it. It’s where they want to stay. If they ever got lost, it’s the place they’d want to find their way back to. To play in the Wendy house and on the climbing frame, and to fall all soft and safe on the plastic balls, to scoop them up over each other, without hurting, to play in the ball room forever, like in a fairy tale, alone, or with a friend.

  REPORTS OF CERTAIN EVENTS IN LONDON

  On the 27th of November 2000, a package was delivered to my house. This happens all the time — since becoming a professional writer the amount of mail I get has increased enormously. The flap of the envelope had been torn open a strip, allowing someone to look inside. This also isn’t unusual: because, I think, of my political life (I am a varyingly active member of a left-wing group, and once stood in an election for the Socialist Alliance), I regularly find, to my continuing outrage, that my mail has been peered into.

  I mention this to explain why it was that I opened something not addressed to me. I, China Miéville, live on —ley Road. This package was addressed to a Charles Melville, of the same house-number —ford Road. No postcode was given, and it had found its way, slowly, to me. Seeing a large packet torn half-open by some cavalier spy, I simply assumed it was mine and opened it.

  It took me a good few minutes to realise my mistake: the covering note contained no greeting by name to alert me. I read it along with the first few of the enclosed papers with growing bewilderment, convinced (absurd as this must sound) that this was to do with some project or other I had got involved with and then forgotten. When finally I looked again at the name on the envelope, I was wholly surprised.

  That was the point at which I was morally culpable, rather than simply foolish. By then I was too fascinated by what I had read to stop.

  I’ve reproduced the content of the papers below, with explanatory notes. Unless otherwise stated they’re photocopies, some stapled together, some attached with paper clips, many with pages missing. I’ve tried to keep them in the order they came in; they are not always chronological. Before I had a sense of what was in front of me, I was casual about how I put the papers down. I can’t vouch that this was how they were originally organised.

  [Cover note. This is written on a postcard, in a dark blue ink, a cursive hand. The photograph is of a wet kitten emerging from a sink full of water and suds. The kitten wears a comedic expression of anxiety.]

  Where are you? Here as requested. What do you want this for anyway? I scribbled thoughts on some. Can’t find half the stuff. I don’t think anyone’s noticed me rummaging through the archives, and I managed to get into your old place for the rest (thank god you file) but come to next meeting. You can get people on your side but box clever. In haste. Are you taking sides? Talk soon. Will you get this? Come to next meeting. More as I find it.

  [This page was originally produced on an old manual typewriter.]

  BWVF Meeting, 6 September 1976

  Agenda.

  1. Minutes of the last meeting.

  2. Nomenclature.

  3. Funds.

  4. Research notes.

  5. Field reports.

  6. AOB.

  1. Last minutes:

  Motion to approve JH, Second FR. Vote: unanimous.

  2. Nomenclature:

  FR proposes namechange. ‘BWVF’ dated. CT reminds FR of tradition. FR insists ‘BWVF’ exclusive, proposes ‘S (Society) WVF’ or ‘G (Gathering) WVF’. CT remonstrates. EN suggests ‘C (Coven) WVF’, to laughter. Meeting growing impatient. FR moves to vote on change, DY seconds. Vote: 4 for, 13 against. Motion denied.

  [Someone has added by hand: ‘Again! Silly Cow.’]

  3. Funds/Treasury report.

  EN reports this quarter several payments made, totalling £—. [The sum is effaced with black ink.] Agreed to keep this up-to-date to avoid repeat of Gouldy-Statten debacle. Subscriptions are mostly current and with

  [This is the end of a page and the last I have of these minutes.]

  [The next piece is a single sheet that looks word-processed.]

  1 September 1992

  M E M O

  Members are kindly asked to show more care when handling items in the collection. Standards have become unacceptably lax. Despite their vigilant presence, curators have reported various soilings, including: fingerprints on recovered wood and glass; ink spots on cornices; caliper marks on guttering and ironwork; waxy residue on keys.

  Of course research necessitates handling but if members cannot respect these unique items conditions of access may have to become even more stringent.

  Before entering, remember:

  • Be careful with your instruments.

  • Always wash your hands.

  [The next page is numbered ‘2’ and begins halfway through a paragraph. Luckily it contains a header.]

  BWVF PAPERS, NO. 223. JULY 1981.

  uncertain, but there is little reason to doubt his veracity. Both specimens tested exactly as one would expect for VD, suggesting no difference between VD and VF at even a molecular level. Any distinction must presumably be at the level of gross morphology, which defies our attempts at comparison, or of a noncorporeal essence thus-far beyond our capacity to measure.

  Whatever the reality, the fact that the two specimens of VF mortar can be added to the BWVF collection is cause for celebration.

  This research should be ready to present by the end of this year.

  REPORT ON WORK IN PROGRESS:

  VF and Hermeneutics

  by B. Bath.

  Problems of knowledge and the problematic of Knowing. Considerations of VF as urban scripture. Kabbala considered as interpretive model. Investigation of VF as patterns of interference. Research currently ongoing, ETA of finished article uncertain.

  REPORT ON WORK IN PROGRESS:

  Recent changes in VF Behaviour

  by E. Nugen.

  Tracking the movements of VF is notoriously difficult. [Inserted here is a scrawl — ‘No bloody kidding. What do you think we’re all bloody doing here?] Reconstructing these patterns over the longue durée [the accent is added by hand] is perforce a matter of plumbing a historical record that is, by its nature and definitionally, partial, anecdotal and uncertain. As most of my readers know it has long been my aim to extract from the annals of our society evidence for long-term cycles (See Working Paper 19, Once More on the Statten Curve), an aim on which I have not been entirely unsuccessful.

  I have collated the evidence from the major verified London sightings of the last three decades (two of those sightings my own) and can conclusively state that the time betw
een VF arrival at and departure from a locus has decreased by a factor of 0.7. VF are moving more quickly.

  In addition, tracking their movements after each appearance has become more complicated and (even) less certain. In 1940, application of the Deschaine Matrix with regard to a given VF’s arrival time and duration on-site would result in a 23% chance of predicting reappearance parameters (within two months and two miles): today that same process nets only a 16% chance. VF are less predictable than they have ever been (barring, perhaps, the Lost Decade of 1876–86).

  The shift in this behaviour is not linear but punctuated, sudden bursts of change over the years: once between 1952 and ’53, again in late 1961, again in ’72 and ’76. The causes and consequences are not yet known. Each of these pivotal moments has resulted in an increased pace of change. The anecdotal evidence we have all heard, that VF have recently become more skittish and agitated, appears to be correct.

  I intend to present this work in full within 18 months. I wish to thank CM for help with the research. [This CM is presumably Charles Melville, to whom the package was addressed. Clipped to the BWVF papers is this handwritten note:

  Yes, Edgar is a pompous arse but he is on to something big.

  What is it Edgar N. is onto? Of course I wondered, and still wonder, though now I think perhaps I know.]

  [Then there is a document unlike the others so far. It is a booklet, a few pages long. It was when I started to read this that I stopped, frowned, looked again at the envelope, realised my inadvertent intrusion, and decided almost instantly that I would not stop reading. ‘Decided’ doesn’t really get the sense of the urgency with which I continued, as if I had no choice. But then if I say that, I absolve myself of wrongdoing which I won’t do, so let’s say I ‘decided’, though I’m unsure that I did. In any case, I continued reading. This document is printed on both sides like a flyer. The first sentence below is in large red font, and constitutes the booklet’s front cover.]

  URGENT: Report of a Sighting.

  Principal witness: FR.

  Secondary: EN.

  On Thursday 11th February 1988, so far as it is possible to tell between 3:00 a.m. and 5:17 a.m., a little way south of Plumstead High Street SE18, Varmin Way occurred.

  Even somewhat foreshortened from its last known appearance (Battersea 1983 — see the VF Concordance), Varmin Way is in a buckled configuration due to the constraints of space. One end adjoins Purrett Road between numbers 44 and 46, approximately forty feet north of Saunders Road: Varmin Way then appears to describe a tight S-curve, emerging halfway up Rippolson Road between numbers 30 and 32 (see attached map). [There is no map.]

  Two previously terraced dwellings on each of the intersected streets have now been separated by Varmin Way. One on Rippolson is deserted: surreptitious enquiries have been made of inhabitants of each of the others, but none have remarked with anything other than indifference to the newcomer. Eg: in response to FR’s query of one man if he knew the name of ‘that alley’, he glanced at the street now abutting his house, shrugged and told her he was ‘buggered if he knew’. This response is of course typical of VF occurrence-environs (See B. Harman, ‘On the Non-Noticing’, BWVF Working Papers no. 5).

  A partial exception is one thirty-five-year-old Purrett Road man, resident in the brick dwelling newly on Varmin Way’s north bank. Observed on his way toward Saunders Road, crossing Varmin Way, he tripped on the new kerb. He looked down at the asphalt and up at brick corners of the junction, paced back and forward five times with a quizzical expression, peering down the street’s length, without entering it, before continuing on his journey, looking back twice.

  [This is the end of the middle page of the leaflet. Folded and inserted inside is a handwritten letter. I have therefore decided to reproduce it here in the middle of the leaflet text. It reads:

  Charles,

  In haste. So sorry I could not reach you sooner — obviously phone not an option. I told you I could work this out: Fiona was only on-site because of me, but I modestly listed her as principal for politics’ sake. Charles, we’re about to go in and I’m telling you even from where I’m standing I can see the evidence, this is the real thing. Next time, next time. Or get down here! I’m sending this first class (of course!) so when you get it rush down here. But you know Varmin Way’s reputation — it’s restless, will probably be gone. But come find me! I’ll be here at least.

  Edgar

  At the end of this note is appended, in the same handwriting as that of the package’s introductory note:

  What a bastard! I take it this was when you and he stopped seeing eye to eye? Why did he cut you out like that, and why so coyly?

  The leaflet then continues:]

  Initial investigation shows that the new Varmin Way–overlooking walls of the houses now separated on Purrett Road are flat concrete. Those of Rippolson Road, though, are of similar brick to their fronts, bearing the usual sigil of the VF’s identity, and are broken by small windows at the very top, through the net curtains of which nothing can be seen. (See ‘On Neomural Variety’, by H. Burke, WBVF Working Papers no. 8)

  Those innards of Varmin Way which can be seen from its adjoining streets bear all the usual signs of VF morphology (are, in other words, apparently unremarkable), and are in accordance with earlier documented descriptions of the subject. In this occurrence, it being short, FR and EN were able to conduct the Bowery Resonance Experiment, stationing themselves at either end of the VF and shouting to each other down its lengths (until forced to stop by externalities). [Here in Edgar’s hand has been inserted ‘Some local thuggee threatening to do me in if I didn’t shut up!’] Each could clearly hear the other, past the kinks in this configuration of Varmin Way.

  More experiments are to follow.

  [When I reached this point I was trembling. I had to stop, leave the room, drink some water, force myself to breathe slowly. I’m tempted to add more about this, about the sudden and threatened speculations these documents raised in me, but I think I should stay out of it.

  Immediately after the report of the sighting was another, similarly produced pamphlet.]

  URGENT: Report of an Aborted Investigation.

  Present: FR, EN, BH.

  [Added here is another new comment in Charles’s nameless contact’s hand. It reads: ‘Dread to think how gutted you were to be replaced by Bryn as new favourite. What exactly did you do to get Edgar so pissed off?’]

  At 11:20 p.m. on Saturday 13 February 1988, from its end on Rippolson Road, an initial examination was made of Varmin Way. Photographs were taken establishing the VF’s identity (figure 1). [Figure 1 is a surprisingly good-quality reproduction of a shot, showing a street sign by a wall, standing at leg-height on two little metal or wooden posts. The image is at a peculiar angle, which I think is the result of the photograph not being taken straight on, but from Rippolson Road, beyond. In an unusual old serif font, the sign reads Varmin Way.]

  As the party prepared for the expedition, certain events took place or were insinuated which led to a postponement and quick regrouping at a late-night café on Plumstead High Street. [What were those ‘certain events’? The pointed imprecision suggested to me something deliberately not committed to paper, something that the readers of this report, or perhaps a subgroup of them, would understand. These writings are a strange mix of the scientifically exact and the imprecise — even the failure to specify the café is surprising. But it is the baleful vagueness of the certain events that will not stop worrying at me.] When the group returned to Rippolson Road at 11:53 p.m., to their great frustration, Varmin Way had unoccurred.

  [Two monochrome pictures end the piece. They have no explanatory notes or legend. They are both taken in daylight. On the left is a photograph of two houses, on either side of a small street of low century-old houses which curves sharply to the right, it looks like, quickly unclear with distance. The right-hand picture is the two facades again, but this time the houses — recognisably the same from a window’s crack,
from a smear of paint below a sash, from the scrawny front gardens and the distinct unkempt buddleia bush — are closed up together. They are no longer semidetached. There is no street between them.]

  [So.

  I stopped for a bit. I had to stop. And then I had to read on again.

  A single sheet of paper. Typewritten again apart from the name, now on an electronic machine.]

  Could you see it, Charles? The damage, halfway down Varmin Way? It’s there, it’s visible in the picture in that report. [This must mean the picture on the left. I stared at it hard, with the naked eye and through a magnifying glass. I couldn’t make out anything.] It’s like the slates from Scry Pass, the ones I showed you in the collection. You could see it in the striae and the marks, even if none of the bloody curators did. Varmin Way wasn’t just passing through, it was resting, it was recovering, it had been attacked. I am right.

  Edgar

  [I kept reading.

  Though it’s not signed, judging by the font, what follows are a couple of pages of another typed letter from Edgar.]

  earliest occurrence I can find of it is in the early 1700s (you’ll hear 1790 or ’91 or something — nonsense, that’s just the official position based on the archives — this one isn’t verified but believe me it’s correct). Only a handful of years after the Glorious Revolution we find Antonia Chesterfield referring in her diaries to ‘a right rat of a street, ascamper betwixt Waterloo and the Mall, a veritable Vermin, in name as well as kind. Beware — Touch a rat and he will bite, as others have found, of our own and of the Vermin’s vagrant tribe’. That’s a reference to Varmin Way — Mrs Chesterfield was in the Brotherhood’s precursor (and you’d not have heard her complaining about that name either — Fiona take note!).