The End of Mr. Y

by Scarlett Thomas

  "Fine with me," he says. "Can I help you locate a book?"

  I think this is the most helpful librarian I've ever come across. All the university librarians just act as though you're getting in their way. That's not to say I'm not missing the university, though, and I don't know where else I'll ever find a secular green space with no take-away cartons on the ground. For about the thousandth time today I have a pang: I'm not going back; I'm not going back.

  "Um, I'm interested in local castles," I say.

  "Ah. Any in particular?"

  I smile. "No. Just generally. I want to look at the shapes of castles." That sounds mad. I think quickly. "It's research for a book."

  He looks impressed. "And it's Devon castles you want?"

  "Yeah, I think so."

  "Well, you'll need the local history library then."

  Oh shit. "Where's that?" I say.

  "Oh, it's that little room over there," he says, pointing to a door in the corner. "You shouldn't really go in if you're not a member, but I should think it'll be all right. Obviously you can't take any of the books out. And I'm afraid you can't take your bag in with you."

  He signs me in and takes my bag. Then he gives me a laminated pass.

  "Just go straight in," he says.

  ***

  The local history library is a dusty, low-ceilinged room split into three distinct sections by the layout of the shelves and the position of several desks and one microfiche reader. I instantly feel comfortable in here, around the musty smell of old books. There's no one else here but me, and I wonder if I'd get arrested for just crashing out here at the end of the day. Probably.

  I drift around looking at faded old spines of parish records and biographies before I realize I'll need the computerized records to find what I'm looking for. There's a terminal in the corner, just under a CCTV playback of what's going on in here. I sit down, but it feels odd seeing myself on TV, and I'm a vague shadow in the corner of my eye as I type in the keywords "castles" and "Devon."

  There are several books on Devon castles, and I choose a couple with pictures and take them to one of the desks. I flick through the largest book, which contains line drawings of all the major castles in the area. Exeter Castle and Powderham Castle are too grand and rectangular, as are Berry Pomeroy Castle and Bickleigh Castle. Gidley Castle and Lydford Castle are both too square. There are several castles by the sea. But the castle Burlem was thinking of was on a little mound. Finally I find pictures of two castles that are on mounds. They're both circular. My heart is like a machine that's been turned up a notch. I've now got two choices. I almost know where I need to go. I have to look at another book—this one with more recent photographs—before I see that one of the castles is now really just a ruin, like a tooth left in a giant's mouth.

  But the other one looks exactly like Burlem described: like a giant's ring thrown on a hilltop. And I can see what he meant about the absence, as well. The picture I've got here in this book, this aerial view, certainly does make it seem like the space—the thing that isn't there—is more important than the walls, which are. If you look at the castle for long enough the walls blur, and it's as if they don't have any point at all, except to keep all the nothingness in.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  By four o'clock I'm standing outside the house from Burlem's memory: the one he lives in with Lura (or, at least, the one where he lived in December); the one you get to by walking past the cheese shop and turning right and walking up the narrow cobbled street. It's a tallish, thin gray stone cottage with green wooden shutters over the front windows. It looks cozy, but it also has an air of the fortress about it. Maybe that's the effect of the shutters, or just my paranoia. I'm not actually sure I should be here at all, but I'm fairly certain no one's been following me. Well, at least, no one in the physical world. I realize suddenly that I should have gone into a church just in case one of those Project Starlight guys (or the dead KIDS) is in my mind. It's too late now, though. It was probably too late almost from the moment I set off this morning. If they've been with me at any stage, they'll know where I'm going. But if they've been with me at any stage they won't need to know where I'm going: They'll have their recipe.

  But I don't think they are here, anyway. I think I'm on my own.

  In fact, I know I'm on my own. I don't think I've ever been so alone in my life. I hesitate before lifting the heavy brass door knocker. My eyes are filling with tears, but I don't want to seem unbalanced when, and if, someone opens the door. When did I last cry? I didn't cry after Patrick fucked me at the university, or in the service station toilet; I didn't cry when my parents finally abandoned me for good; I didn't even cry when I left Adam at the priory, probably hating me, probably gone forever. But now, standing here in the early twilight, in the cold air, with seagulls squawking above me, and stars already beginning to prick the sky, I want to cry more than I ever have before. I gulp it back. But if this doesn't work then I'm totally fucked. I have no home. I have no money. I have no family.

  I lift the knocker and bang it twice against the door.

  Please be there, please be there, please be there.

  I see smoke coming from the chimney: Someone is in.

  After two minutes or so I'm just about to knock again, but then a woman opens the door. It's Lura. I recognize everything about her, from the flowing clothes to the gray shoulder-length hair streaked with pink. I suddenly realize that I haven't worked out how I should play this. I know what it's like to make love to this woman; to lie to her; to live with her. But I should probably pretend I don't know her at all. As long as I remember I am me, that's perfectly true.

  She doesn't say anything.

  "Hello," I say. "I wonder if..."

  "Sorry?" says Lura. "Who are you?" Her voice, which I recognize anyway, is educated and low-pitched, with just a hint of a German accent.

  "I'm sorry to bother you, but..."

  "Yes?" She's trying to hurry me up. Maybe she doesn't like people pissing her around, wasting her time. But I'm not sure she's going to like what I've got to say, either. Although she has to. She has to, because I've got nowhere else to go.

  "I'm looking for Saul Burlem," I say.

  Lura's face looks as though it's been freeze-framed in one of those movie special effects that lets the rest of the world just carry on as usual around the frozen object. Then she's normal again, except for the fear I can now see in her eyes, like the beginning of a storm.

  "You're looking for whom?" she says.

  "Saul Burlem," I say. "I need to see him. Would you mind telling him that Ariel Manto is here? Tell him that I found the page and I have to speak to him."

  As I speak, the fear in Lura's eyes hurricanes outwards and now she reaches a hand up to her face, as if to steady it: to stop this; to confirm, perhaps, that she's imagining it. This must be the last thing you need when you're in hiding. This, if you're in hiding, must be your worst nightmare.

  "Who are you?" she says.

  "I'm Saul's Ph.D. student."

  "You're... No. I know where you've come from."

  "I'm not with them. I'm not part of Project Starlight."

  "How do I know that? If you aren't with them then why the bloody hell did you come?" She takes a deep breath and touches her hair. "Saul isn't here, anyway. He moved on, about two months ago. He went..."

  "Ariel?"

  It's Burlem. He's standing behind Lura.

  "Saul," I say, "can I...?"

  "Let her in, Lura," he says, in his gravel voice. And then, leaning against the wall in the hallway while I walk in: "Oh fuck."

  The downstairs of the house is an open-plan space with wooden floorboards and oak beams that you access by walking through a wide hallway and through an arch. A fire is burning at the far end of the large room, and there are red, brown, and dark yellow rugs everywhere. There's a large dining table on the left-hand side of the room. At the moment it has a newspaper spread out on it with a half-finished cup of coffee on a wicker mat.
Just beyond the table there's a black-and-white dog asleep in a cane basket, and then, at the edge of the room, what must be a set of patio doors covered with heavy curtains. As if the dog knows I'm looking at it, it glances up at me sleepily and then falls asleep again. There's a mantelpiece over the fireplace with an assortment of items on it: a couple of rosettes, a framed black-and-white photograph of a man and a woman, a hairbrush, a set of knitting needles, and a vase of blue flowers. The closest thing to the fire is an armchair with some knitting balanced on the arm. There are two sofas—big, deep, and yellow—and they face each other across the fire but set slightly back from the armchair. One of them looks more used than the other, and there are books and papers scattered on it. There's a coffee table—a polished section of tree trunk—between the sofas, with books and old crosswords and Biros all over it. There are tall piles of books on every surface, and the whole right-hand wall is covered with thick pine shelves, a bit like the ones from Apollo Smintheus's apartment, but stocked with what must be hundreds and hundreds of books. There's no TV.

  I'm not quite sure how I feel to be here. I'd expected something like relief, the emotional equivalent of having come home after a long wet journey, or having a drink when you are thirsty. But I still ache for that kind of safe, fulfilled feeling, the feeling that I've achieved something by coming here. At the moment I feel rather as if I've dropped in on one of my university professors at home, on the weekend, when his wife is there. And worse: I know, and Burlem must suspect, that I read his mind to get here. What felt like a necessity at the time feels somehow wrong now. I didn't really come here for him: I came here for me. Then again, he must understand that I didn't have any other choice. But I know too much about him now, and we're both aware of that.

  The kitchen area is around to the left and runs adjacent to the hallway.

  "I'll make tea," Lura says, walking off towards the kitchen. I hear water running and then the click of the kettle being switched on.

  Burlem motions for me to follow him to the large dining table. He folds the paper and puts it to one side. Then Lura comes and picks up his mug and takes it away. For a whole two or three minutes now no one has said anything.

  "I'm sorry...," I begin.

  "How did you find me?" Burlem says.

  "Through Molly," I say.

  "Molly doesn't know where I am," he says. "No one in my bloody family knows where I am. That's what you give up when you go into hiding like this. One of many things."

  "Pedesis," I say. "I used Pedesis. I'm sorry. I've got the book."

  He closes his eyes for a couple of seconds and then opens them again; then he runs a shaky hand through his dark hair.

  "Fuck," he says again.

  "I'm sorry...," I say again. There's a long pause. "They came after me and I didn't know what to do. I realized that the same thing must have happened to you, and so I logically thought that if I came to where you were I might be safe."

  "The curse," says Burlem.

  "Yeah," I say.

  And I think we're both remembering his paper in Greenwich, where we both agreed that we'd read the book if we could, regardless of the curse. I know I'd do it again, but I don't know about him. His face looks rougher and more lined than when I last saw him, and he now has several streaks of white-gray in his hair. Or maybe he used to dye it and now he can't be bothered. What must it be like to have to leave your job like that? To leave behind a daughter?

  "How is Molly?" he asks.

  "She's doing normal teenage things," I say.

  "But she's OK?"

  I weigh this question in my mind. All right, so Molly's fucking an unsuitable guy, but then we all do that. When I was in her mind I didn't detect any obvious anorexia, self-harm, or drug abuse. But then, of course, she has the potential for all of that: I knew that from the connection I felt with her.

  "She's fine," I say.

  Burlem sighs. "Are you still smoking?" he asks.

  "Yeah, why?"

  "Can I have one?"

  "Sure." I take my tobacco out of my bag. "Roll-ups," I say. "I'm a bit skint."

  "Can you do it for me?" he asks. "I've lost the knack."

  And his hands are shaking too, I notice. I roll two cigarettes and give one to him. We both light up.

  "Oh, that feels better," he says. "Fucking weird, but better. Why don't we go over by the fire. You'd better tell me what's been going on. Let me know how terrified I should be."

  We get up and walk over to the sofas. He takes the messy one and I take the other. It does feel amazing, sitting in a warm, comfortable room after everything that's happened. But somehow I don't feel quite comfortable. I don't sit back in the sofa, although it's soft and vast. I perch on the edge as though I'm having an interview. There aren't any ashtrays, but I notice that Burlem flicks his ash into the fire, so I do the same.

  "You shouldn't have come here," he says.

  I think I'm going to cry again. "I know ... But I ... I had..."

  "But, well, it's good to see you again." He smiles now for the first time.

  "Oh. Thanks, I..."

  "And I'm sorry about the book." He sighs. "I feel responsible."

  "Don't be," I say. "I'm sorry I freaked you out by coming here. But I honestly couldn't think of anything else to do. I mean ... Just to be in the same room as someone who has had the same experiences as me is..."

  Burlem cuts me off. "How sure are you that you weren't followed?" he asks.

  "A hundred percent," I say. "Or, well, maybe ninety-nine. But they only want the recipe, don't they? They can get that from me now. They wouldn't need to use me to get to you. They'd only need to get into my head. I've got all the information they need. I can promise you that after the last time I met them in the Troposphere—or MindSpace, as they seem to call it—I've got no intention of letting them anywhere near me, my mind, or my body. That's why I ran. That's why I came to find you. I can't go anywhere anymore. I can't go home; I can't go to work..."

  "That's neat logic," he says. "That stuff about only needing to get into your mind for a few minutes to get the recipe. But they want all of us dead. You do know that?"

  "No. I didn't know that. Well, I mean I know they're violent and they'll use force to get the recipe ... And maybe even for fun. But I thought that once they had the recipe they'd go away."

  Burlem coughs and takes a drag on the roll-up. "When they sell the patent for the mixture—or cook it up illegally; I don't know what they've got planned—they won't want people like us coming along and undercutting their price. They'll want to get rid of any competitors. Well, I don't know for sure, but I expect they do want to sell it; that seems logical."

  "They do," I say.

  "How do you know?"

  "I..."

  Lura comes through the large room carrying a yellow tray with a teapot and mugs on it. Burlem quickly shifts some magazines and newspapers out of the way and she puts it down on the coffee table between two stacks of books. Then she sits down in the armchair and looks at me.

  "Are you all right?" she asks me, peering over her silver glasses. "I'm sorry if I was rude at the door. We've been hiding for so long, and..."

  "It's OK," I say. "I'm fine."

  "Ariel knows about Project Starlight," Burlem says to Lura. "She knows what they want."

  "Yes, I overheard that," Lura says. "How do you know? I couldn't find out anything about them on the occasions when I tried—well, beyond the very basics."

  "I got into one of their minds," I say. "Martin Rose."

  Burlem half laughs and half snorts. "How the fuck did you do that?"

  "They were waiting for me in their car. I was in a priory and they couldn't come in, obviously, so they were kind of staking me out. I got into the Troposphere from inside the priory and ended up in one of their heads by accident. I didn't even know they were there before that."

  "What were you doing in a priory?" Burlem asks.

  "Hiding from them. It's a long story," I say.

  B
urlem pours the tea, spilling at least half a cup onto the tray.

  "I think maybe now's the time to tell us all of it, if you don't mind. How you got the book, what happened next, and so on," he says.

  "No, that's fine," I say. "But can I stay here, tonight at least? I don't want to impose, but..."

  "It's all right, Ariel," says Lura, but she doesn't look happy about it.

  "Yeah," says Burlem. "You're fucked in the outside world, just like me."

  Lura shakes her head. "How long is this going to go on?" she says softly. Then she looks at me. "You're more than welcome to stay as long as you like," she says. "We've got a room for you." Then she looks at Burlem. "But we're going to have to stop this before we wake up and find that there are ten of us, and then twenty, and then that the whole bloody world knows about the Troposphere."

  "It's OK," Burlem says. "Ariel won't have told anyone else."

  "No. I haven't," I say. But I don't mention that I've left the book—intact again—in the priory. I think that will make more sense as part of my whole story.

  I sit back in the sofa and start telling them about the day the university started falling down, and the secondhand bookshop and everything that happened after that. And as I speak I finally realize that I didn't imagine any of this: As much as anything can be said to be real, this is real.

  Telling the story takes hours. At first Burlem keeps interrupting to ask me things, but after about half an hour of intense conversation about the university, and then even more speculation about how Burlem's books ended up in the secondhand shop (his ex-wife, he thinks, claiming the house), Lura steps in and forbids any more questions until after I've finished. At some point she gets an A4 notebook and starts writing things down in it. I get the impression that although Burlem has obviously spent more time in the Troposphere, she's the one who possibly understands how it all works. Which means I'm going to have plenty of questions for her, too. She scribbles most furiously (and has to shut Burlem up again, too) when I talk about Apollo Smintheus, and also when I get to the detail about the underground network, and how I travelled on a train of fear to get back to myself before I made the mistake that was surely going to kill me. At the point when I explain that I was able to change things in people's minds, they both seem to freeze and exchange a look, but neither of them says anything to me about it, and Lura doesn't write anything down.