The End of Mr. Y

by Scarlett Thomas

  In case no one else has told you, the men said they were from the Central Intelligence Agency. I think that's crap—but who knows. They wanted your address, but I didn't give it to them. Now they're in my dreams. Not that it means anything: I had a nervous breakdown a couple of years ago, which has left me odd, vulnerable, and liable to have nightmares.

  I'm not feeling so good right now, so I'm going to the shrine to try to get myself back together. If you can, I think you should come, too. I can't tell you everything now, but I can tell you everything when I see you.

  If you think this is paranoid rambling, please ignore it. I can get paranoid sometimes.

  Your friend,

  Adam

  It's half past three and almost completely dark by the time I get to the Shrine of St. Jude. I didn't have time to stop for directions or anything like that, so I simply drove around Faversham and waited for something to happen. Eventually I saw a chipped little sign saying ST. JUDE'S SHRINE and now here I am, outside the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. I think the shrine's inside. I'm estimating that I need to get away from here in the next half hour or so and go somewhere completely random to collect my thoughts. So I haven't got long.

  There's no one in the church when I walk in, probably looking insane, with my tatty old bag slung over my shoulder. The whole place smells dusty, like incense. I notice the holy water in a font on my left, and although it reminds me of everything I've done, and everything that's going wrong, I dip my finger in it and touch my forehead. As I do this I remember playing Dungeons & Dragons on a couple of rainy lunchtimes at school. In some versions of the game you could go to a town and get holy water to cure all but the most serious ailments, and increase your health. In other versions you could use it as a weapon against evil spirits or the undead. But no one ever said you could drink it and go to another world, or that this might, in fact, be a bad idea. I walk farther into the church. It's a small, cold, calming space, with oak-panelled walls and hard wooden benches for pews. A sign directs me down some stairs to the shrine.

  And—oh—it's so warm going down the stairs. Hundreds of candles are burning down below: There are several stands containing small tea light candles and a whole table covered with big candles in church-blue plastic holders, each with a picture—although I can't see what the pictures are. Once I'm down in the shrine it's actually hot, and I unwind my scarf. There's still no one here. On my right, and surrounded by many more candles, is a statue of what I assume must be St. Jude. The wall behind him is part mosaic, and part blackened brick. The statue is rendered in gold: a bearded man standing with his staff. There are bars separating me from him, and so for a moment he appears to be imprisoned. Of course, looking at it from his perspective, I'm the one in prison. I wander around the room. On one side are the prayer requests on yellow Post-it Notes. Please help my aunt who is in so much pain. St. Jude, please intercede for my son Stefan, who is only nineteen. Don't let my brother die. Please bring my son back from war. The requests are signed by people from Mauritius, Poland, Spain, Brazil.... All over the world. A sign explains to me that St. Jude is the patron saint of lost and hopeless causes. St. Jude seems to be the saint you come to when all others have failed. Then, on the other side of the room, a printed leaflet explains to me that St. Jude is a controversial saint, and may not even exist.

  I've never prayed before in my life. But now, after lighting a candle and adding it to one of the blazing racks, I move back to the shrine and kneel in front of it. Once I'm there, I still don't know what to do. Thinking something like Oh please, St. Jude, help me and don't let those men ever find me seems silly. Something tells me I should not pray for myself; I should pray for another person. But whom do I have to pray for? Even the last person I slept with doesn't matter to me. I care more about the anonymous son from the yellow Post-it Note coming back from war. Instead of praying for anyone, I just gaze at the statue until its edges start to blur. Who are you? I think. What do you do with all the energy that comes together in this place? Because there is an energy here: It's crackling around me with an intensity that a million of these candles couldn't match. What is it? Is it my hope? Other people's hope? Simply the power of prayer? I feel St. Jude looking at me, and I think that if he were really there he'd be telling me to stop speculating and asking unanswerable questions.

  But I'm not sure I can do anything else.

  In the end I pray for meaning. I pray for the limits of reality to become clear. For a world—and a type of being—that makes sense. I pray for a life after death that is not like this life. I pray for the end of mystery. What would a life be like with all the mysteries solved? If there were no questions, there'd be no stories. If there were no stories, there'd be no language. If there was no language there'd be no ... What? I'm just thinking about Adam, and what he said about truth existing beyond language when I hear voices coming down the stairs: one female and one male. For some reason I feel embarrassed praying on my knees, so I get up and pretend to look at the candles. I know I have to go soon: I look at my watch. It's quarter to four. I feel so tired, though, as if I haven't slept for days. And it's icy and dark outside.

  "Yes, we've managed to get the shrine functioning again—at last."

  "It's amazing. I was afraid the last fire would be the end."

  I recognize that voice, although it sounds tired, and almost broken.

  "It's never the end for St. Jude. He has so many loyal supporters."

  Poor Apollo Smintheus, I think, with his cult of only six people.

  "It's ... Oh. Ariel! You're OK."

  "Hello, Adam."

  "Maria, this is Ariel Manto. The one I told you about."

  Adam looks terrible. What's happened to his face? His right eye is swollen and bruised like a piece of rotting fruit. And he's wearing the same clothes I saw him in on Tuesday. Where are we now? Thursday. I think it must be Thursday. He's with a woman of about sixty or so. She's wearing a long brown skirt and a purple blouse. Her gray hair is mostly covered with a brown head-scarf, but a few silvery wisps fall down the side of her face. Her brown eyes somehow look younger than his.

  She holds out her hand. "Hello, Ariel," she says softly. "I'm glad you got here safely. Adam has told us about your troubles. We made up a bed for you in the guest wing of the priory just in case you did drop by. You can rest here for as long as you need to."

  A bed? In a priory? But I can't stay here. I have to go.

  "That's very kind of you," I say, for some reason using the "polite" voice I use only to speak to schoolteachers, traffic wardens, and similar authority figures. "But I think I really am in terrible trouble and I don't want to involve you." I look at Adam, and point vaguely at his bruised face. "It's already gone too far. They did that to you, didn't they?" Adam nods. I continue: "Those people ... I don't really understand what's going on. I just came to say thank you to Adam. And sorry."

  "How about some tea?" says Maria, as if I haven't just suggested that they are all in danger as long as I stay here. "We can go to the priory kitchens."

  Adam looks at me. "They can't get you here," he says.

  I sigh. "You can't be sure about that." And I'm not sure about anything. I'm not sure about him. What has he done to make me trust him? Is there anyone in the whole world I would actually trust? I think of my mother, and the time that I tried to tell her that I was cutting myself. I had it all planned out. I was going to tell her about how I started plucking my eyebrows because the other girls at school did, but that I found it was so cathartic that I couldn't stop. Then there was that evening in the bath where I realized that if I kept on plucking I'd end up with no eyebrows, but I hadn't given myself enough pain, not enough catharsis. So I took Dad's razor and stuck it in my leg. "Not now, Ariel," she said, settling down with her CB radio. "The world doesn't revolve around you, you know." Perhaps Burlem. For some reason I think I trust him.

  Maria starts walking up the stairs.

  "Why don't you show her the secret passage?" she says to Ad
am. "There's no point going outside if there are dangerous men around. I'll see you over there." Then she looks at me. "We've been through worse than this, dear."

  Once the sound of her footsteps has gone, I look at Adam again. Shadows cast by hundreds of candles bounce off his sharp features and seem to rest on the softer, broken part of his face.

  "I'm so sorry," I say. "I do have to go."

  "Ariel..."

  "If I told you half of what's been going on, you wouldn't believe me. But the short version is that they can get me anywhere. This sounds mad." I sigh, frustrated that there's no way to explain this. "Basically if they can get near to me, they can get to me. Getting near to me is enough. I know I'm not making sense, and even I don't know how it works ... But I think that my only hope is to go far, far away, as fast as possible."

  "I'm sure you're safe here. At least come for tea. I'll explain."

  "I haven't got much time before they follow me here."

  "Do they know you're here?"

  "They'll find out. Heather'll tell them."

  "I told her not to read my note."

  "But she probably did, anyway. I just can't take the risk."

  My voice is rising in pitch as I speak, and it gets to a point where I realize that the next thing for me to do is cry. But I can't cry. If I cry then it's over. All the adrenaline will wash away and I think adrenaline is all I've got left. I don't have any money, and I don't even have much petrol in the car. But I can steal petrol: I've done it before. And I've got enough money to live on chips for a few days. As long as I get away, everything might still be OK.

  I start walking up the stairs.

  "Ariel? Ariel! Please. You're safer here, trust me."

  "You can't know that."

  "I know more than you think."

  I hesitate.

  "They didn't follow me into the university chapel," he says. "I don't think they could. And I haven't dreamed about them since I've been here. Come on. I'll explain downstairs."

  He takes my hand and leads me away from St. Jude and into a room full of St. Jude-related merchandise. I'm not sure why I'm doing what he says, but I actually feel too weak to do anything else now. In this little room there are many unlit versions of the big blue candles, as well as postcards, pendants, lockets, prayer booklets, and little brown pots with white lids. Adam's hand feels cold in mine. He stops by one of the stands and, with his free hand, picks up one of the little brown pots.

  "Here," he says. "You might need this."

  I look at the label. OIL BLESSED AT THE SHRINE OF ST. JUDE, it says.

  "And one of these." Adam now gives me a small blue pendant. It has a picture of St. Jude on it.

  "Thanks," I say. And of course usually I'd say that I don't believe in lucky charms and snake oil, but I think homoeopathic remedies and holy water fit into the same kind of category, and look where they've got me. At the moment I need all the help I can get, however implausible it may seem. I take my hand from Adam's and put on the necklace. "Do I need to pay for these?" I ask.

  "I'll do it for you later. Don't worry. I've been outside God's economy for quite a while now, but even I still understand it doesn't run on our money. OK. Now hang on a second ... In fact, can you grab and light one of those candles?"

  He bends down and releases a catch that I can't even see on the floor. It's a trapdoor. I take a big candle in a blue holder and light it with my cigarette lighter. I notice that my hands are shaking, and then I realize that my legs feel light and wobbly, as though there's an electric current going through them. I don't feel at all well. My head...

  Instinct makes me try to grab Adam's shoulder. I just want to put my head down on it for a second: I think this might make everything better. Then my head fizzes with what feels like bubbles of air.

  "Adam," I say. But before he can reply, everything goes silent, and it's as if I'm being dipped, headfirst, into a giant tin of black paint.

  When I wake up I'm lying on a small, firm bed that's been severely made up with crisp white linen and brown blankets. My bag is lying on the floor by a cupboard. There's a small bedside table with a copy of the Bible on it, and one wooden chair. There's a window to my right, but the curtains are drawn and so I have no idea what time it is. Then again, you can't tell the time that easily from winter skies. In winter, there's no difference between five in the afternoon and five in the morning.

  There's no one here in the room apart from me. What happened? Did I faint? I suppose I haven't eaten for a couple of days. The Troposphere just seems to suck all your life away. Everyone else who has ever read The End of Mr. Y has died. And Mr. Y himself starved to death. I can now see why. But none of this affects the part of my mind that is almost aggressively demanding to be taken back there now.

  I'm still in the clothes I was wearing when I came here: old gray jeans and a black jumper. I'd like to change but I don't have anything more presentable, so maybe I won't bother. Instead of changing I sit there brushing my hair, trying to get every knot out of it. It takes about fifteen minutes. Then I look at the burns on my wrists: They are little silvery-red scabs now and I resist the urge to pick them off. No one comes into the room. What do you get in a priory? Friars, I think. I don't imagine that any friars are going to come in here. But Maria and Adam. Where are they? Somewhere a bell chimes. One, two, three, four, five, six, SEVEN o'clock. Oh shit. The men will definitely have been released from their cage in the Troposphere by now. And they're not in my brain. Yet. At least it doesn't feel like they're in my brain. How would I know? I tie my hair into the kind of plait I think religious people might approve of and wash my face in the hand basin. There is no mirror here. Am I going to make it through another day? Who knows. I should find Adam and Maria. I open the door softly and walk out into a dim corridor. There's a yellowy light at the end of it, and I can hear the sound of women's laughter and the vibration of pan lids. I can smell food, as well: something hot and savory. It must be the kitchen. That was where I was going to have tea before I fainted; if that's what did happen to me.

  My legs still feel weak. Am I going to faint again? No; come on. For God's sake, Ariel, it's just walking. But I think I need a rest. I lean on the wall for a second, breathing as if I've just run a marathon rather than walked about fifteen steps. What is wrong with me? Maybe I'll just close my eyes for a moment.

  "Ariel?"

  Somehow I'm now slumped on the carpet and Maria is standing over me, holding a blue-and-white checked tea towel. Her small face crunches into a frown.

  "I think you should be back in bed."

  "I'm sorry," I say. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

  Those men could come now and they could do whatever they wanted. I wouldn't be able to stop them. Maybe it would be better that way: Get it over with. Would I prefer for them to finish me off in the Troposphere or out here? Apollo Smintheus said you can't die in the Troposphere, but perhaps there are things worse than dying. So I could just stay here and wait for a clean death. But they never said they were going to kill me. They just want to send me mad and take the book.

  Maria helps me up and in a few minutes I am back in the bedroom.

  "Maybe you should change out of those clothes," Maria suggests. "Get your night things on."

  "I'm OK. I think I just need to lie down for a minute." I don't actually have any "night things" with me. When I packed I wasn't thinking about anything relaxing like going to sleep; I was just thinking about running away.

  "You don't want to get into bed like that," Maria says. "I'll get you something to wear."

  Half an hour or so later I'm lying in bed in a long white cotton nightdress thinking about going back into the Troposphere. I'm trying to work out whether it will kill me if I just go in for a little while and try to find Apollo Smintheus. Before I got back into bed I opened the curtains and looked at the sky for a while before closing them again. The sky was screen black, and snowflakes were falling with the same rhythm of the cascading numbers on Heather's LUCA program.
When will she work out where I've gone? Will she tell the men?

  Just after the church bells ring for eight o'clock, there's a knock at the door.

  "Come in," I call.

  It's Maria again. She's holding a large, thick, brown dressing gown.

  "Can you face some supper?" she asks me.

  "Yes," I say. "Thanks. You're being very kind."

  If I eat, then I can definitely go back into the Troposphere.

  "You don't have to get dressed. You can wear this."

  I should get dressed, but I can't. I'm sure I'll get my strength back after eating, though. I'll get my strength back and go to the Troposphere. Or should I leave first? I imagine parking in some anonymous rural lay-by, reclining on the backseat of the car, and knocking myself out with the mixture. What would happen then? Would I freeze to death? Maybe I'll just stay here tonight. This bed is so warm and clean that I don't even want to get out of it now. But I should go and eat.

  The kitchen is a long, narrow room with a large porcelain sink at the far end, work surfaces along the right-hand wall, and a long pine table running down the middle. To my left, there's probably the largest fireplace I've ever seen. There's no fire in it, though. Instead there's a fairsized cooking range, with two large silver pans on it, steam coming from both of them and disappearing up the gray stone chimney.

  I walk to the table and the wooden floorboards creak under my footsteps.

  "Sit down, dear," says Maria. "Adam will be along in a minute."

  I pull out a chair and slump into it. I feel like shit.

  "No one's come looking for me, presumably?" I say.

  "No, dear." Maria smiles a young smile. "And we've got a lookout just in case."

  I imagine a friar with a telescope. But it's probably one of the kitchen women on an extravagant kind of neighborhood watch. Both images seem comical to me, and the atmosphere here is just safe enough that I manage to smile back.

  "Thanks," I say.