The Cairo Pulse

by B. B. Kindred

  “How can we seem so big and yet so small, Vik?” I said, still lost in the anarchic geometry of the distant city. There was no reply. I found myself alone.

  *

  Another humiliating scene at Cairo’s front door where I urged her to tell me she knew a man called Vik.

  She did.

  It was a long story, apparently, but the upshot was he’d been in the psych ward at the hospital when she found him. He was a barrister, English born and bred who’d had a terrible experience resulting in a head injury. He was suffering from a condition called ‘Borrowed Identity Syndrome’ and believed he was an Indian Hindu of humble temperament, but they didn’t know if it was physical or psychological. Anyway, she was very fond of him and wasn’t happy about how he was being treated, so wangled him into her care. She said he was far cheaper than a housekeeper and much more entertaining. I had the feeling he was going to be in trouble for wandering around talking to all and sundry. She also warned me that Gizmo had a rather caustic nature; it wasn’t personal so to just ignore it. As we made ready to go through to the lab I heard the strains of a south Wales lilt.

  “What are you on about? It doesn’t matter where they come from, what colour they are, our women will sleep with anyone, that’s what made Britain great. Bloody moron.”

  She wandered out of the study pulling faces at her mobile, a slight, Celtic looking girl with cropped black hair, wearing tight jeans, ripped t-shirt and a don’t even think about it attitude. She seemed young, early twenties, maybe. According to Cairo, she was a whizz-kid who ran rings around most of her kind, but she was always getting marching orders for inappropriate behaviour, whatever that was.

  “All right, soft lad, let’s get cracking, behave yourself and don’t piss me off, will you? And don’t touch the equipment or I’ll have your balls for breakfast.”

  Ah.

  “Sorry. I don’t usually let her loose on the public.” Cairo said, winking at me. “Behave yourself, Gizmo, or I’ll tell him your real name.”

  Gizmo responded with the finger. Perhaps Cairo was one of those people who collected waifs and strays. Did I fall into that category?

  As Dr Shore leaned over me to put the headset on, I tried not to steal a glimpse at the breasts that Bentley had pointed out to me, but failed miserably. Her perfume was sweet and earthy, which seemed appropriate; Cairo Shore would not entertain the slightest hint of citrus. I must have looked stupid wearing a hairnet peppered with little dots and half a mile of spaghetti hanging from it – apparently, each of those little dots contained a sensor that would monitor my brain activity. I glanced up to see Gizmo staring balefully through the glass window. She put her finger to her eye and then pointed at me, mouthing, “I’m watching you.”

  “Okay, I’m going to put a wristband on that will monitor your pulse, then I’m going to cover your eyes, like I explained. Is that okay?”

  It was like half-scientific experiment, half-weird porno film. “Go ahead. I’m okay.”

  She placed the sleep mask around my head. “Right, just pop these in your ears –you’ll hear white noise through them – like when your TV isn’t tuned in, but it won’t be too loud. I’m going to leave the room now. Any time you experience a significant change in your thoughts or the songs you’re hearing, just say it quietly to yourself –we’ll pick it up.”

  “Roger that.”

  Initially, the sensory deprivation was alarming, but after a minute or two I began to enjoy my own skin and the clothes that covered it, the contact between my body and the comforting softness of the recliner. I was inside myself, inside the humming aliveness of my own body, the clicking and whirring of my mind, dipping ever deeper and calmer into the centre of myself. Then I heard them talking, like I was in the test room and the lab at the same time. I wasn’t sure whether to mention it.

  “Right, let’s just get a baseline. Oh, have you seen that, Giz? – that faint pulse coming from the left temporal? Whoa, what the hell’s going on here? Gizmo, I think the headset’s malfunctioning, either that or his brain’s doing the Fandango. What is the Fandango, anyway?”

  “Mm. Now, that is strange. It could be a software problem, but it’s more likely to be the headset. I’ll go in and see what I can do.”

  I imagined her investigating the headset like a gorilla about to embark on a grooming session. Hearing a song, I spoke as advised. “’I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass’ – Nick Lowe.”

  She must have left the room because I heard her speak to Cairo. It was like the radio had been left on. “Shit. Do you think…?”

  “Oh, it can’t be. Shall we send Vik in? Or is that stupid? Not very sophisticated, is it? Anyway, we need to fix the headset.”

  “Oh, it’s just a bit of messing about – go on, let’s do it. Why don’t you send him in wearing a shiny space suit, floating on a hover pack? Would that make you feel more scientific?”

  “Vik, will you just creep in there? Stand next to Gabriel for a few seconds then come back here.”

  “Louis Armstrong – ‘What a Wonderful World’.”

  “Okay, guys, now it’s my turn.”

  I imagined her slipping off the high heels and tiptoeing through. I badly wanted to giggle.

  “‘Every Little Thing She Does is Magic’. The Police.”

  “Interesting, don’t you think, Giz?”

  “One swallow doesn’t make a summer, my love. Nevertheless, you may well be right in your analysis. Oh, this is magic stuff, isn’t it?”

  “Right, we need to iron these problems out or we won’t be able to track what’s happening.”

  “Do you have the faintest idea how big this is? We might actually be witnessing the first documented case of a person whose brain interprets external EM fields as sound.”

  “Of course, Gizmo. I’ll be taking all the credit, of course.”

  “We’re going to have to do this a lot of times, but I’m guessing he won’t mind being your pet guinea pig.”

  “Don’t say guinea pig, it makes me think of men in white coats cattle- prodding the mentally ill and putting LSD in squaddies’ tea. You are recording this, aren’t you?”

  “I tell you what, why don’t you insult me?”

  I was gliding peacefully in my own world, an inch from falling asleep when it happened, a sensation that a benign and wonderful presence was immersing me in divine serenity. Then it came.

  “Hear My Song...”

  I should have said it out loud – the first line of a song my granddad loved, but the impulse to speak was in a place so distant it was beyond my reach. I was consumed a second time.

  “Hear My Song…”

  The voices seemed further away.

  “Bloody hell. Gizmo, have you pulsed him?”

  “No, don’t be stupid, what’s the matter?”

  “This screen’s like Blackpool Illuminations. Jesus, have you seen the left temporal? –it’s on fire. Why have you pulsed him?”

  “I have absolutely not pulsed him.”

  “Then why is it firing this pattern? Shut it down, we need to get that thing off him.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Cairo. We should wind down gradually and let him come out of it in his own time.”

  Even though I heard them, it was in a disconnected way. For me, nothing existed but the moment and the moment was resonant and unblemished and quenching. A memory of Stephanie Cartwright, the supreme object of my fifteen-year old lust, swam across my mind. A gang of us had taken the train to the seaside one hot summer morning, enthused with mock confidence and rebellion. It was the day I’d planned to pick her off from the gaggle and disappear into the heart of the dunes. I warmed her up with tales of my long-dead mother; a subject that always guaranteed a girl would become velvet with sympathy and move closer. Stephanie Cartwright proved to be a pushover in this regard. Her lips had been full and yie
lding, her soft skin salt-baked shiny, I’d even dared to put my hands behind her back and undo the clip of her pink bikini top; that first touch of forbidden territory sending eternally etched shivers of ecstasy through my body. I’d so wanted to put my hand between her thighs, but hadn’t dared.

  “Gizmo, the screen’s gone blank.”

  “Mine too, all the systems are down. Bloody hell, I bet we’ve lost the lot. Right, I’d better go and sort him out.”

  A moment later, Gizmo took the blindfold off. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the light and removed the earplugs.

  “Still with us, then?”

  I rubbed my eyes. “That was something else.”

  She whipped the headset off like it was a viper ready to strike. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  Perhaps Cairo had seemed familiar because she reminded me of Stephanie Cartwright. She said there’d been unusual activity in the same area that created the glitch on the MRI, but it might be a problem with the equipment. Still, it would be quite a coincidence if it was and her best guess would be unprecedented electro-magnetic activity in that part of my brain. She kept staring at me like an art expert who’d discovered a previously unknown Caravaggio. They asked me what I’d experienced. I didn’t mention Stephanie Cartwright. I didn’t mention I heard them either. I was going to, but became intrigued by subtle differences between the actual and edited versions and the moment passed. I guessed they’d want to keep me sweet, so explained my dilemma regarding the forthcoming Architect’s Ball. Cairo said she’d be more than happy to accompany me, not only that, she’d take care of Bentley, too and would I mind coming back in a few days for a re-run?

  The truth was, at that moment we were all hooked.

  Nine

  I snapped awake. Stumbling upon the dawn chorus wasn’t an unusual occurrence; I often woke in the early hours to find my subconscious had solved a knotty design problem. I’d cultivated my own rituals for such occasions, usually making a brew before heading on to the balcony for a fag – I generally plumped for electronic, but allowed myself two doses of complete toxicity a day. I’d often make a sandwich first, bacon or fried Spam smothered in brown sauce, a late-night custom I once shared with my dad. Every now and again I’d imagine him there with me, bantering about what had transpired in our respective days, which usually ended with us rolling about like a couple of schoolboys.

  My penthouse was a Meredith masterpiece, the pinnacle of a railway goods warehouse in Ancoats I’d converted a few years before. Such was my love for the grand old boy, I’d sweated rivers of blood to create the perfect interweaving of modern space with Victorian splendour, after which I’d waived a hefty chunk of my fee to secure the crowning glory. I’d heretically filled it with reclaimed industrial relics and arts and crafts pieces, fully expecting the architecture police to mount a dawn raid and take them away to be replaced with glinting steel and glossy white surfaces. Not a day had passed when it didn’t please me.

  This time I hadn’t woken with a design solution, but stuck to the ritual all the same, entranced by the sound of the kettle and its nebula of steam, the anticipatory sound of water burbling into the teapot and the aromatic aria of frying bacon. I took my pleasures outside and flopped on to a cane chair in naked penthouse luxury as I ate, drank and smoked my fill. It was only then it occurred to me I’d been baptised in a river of ecstasy. Euphoric, downy clouds that skimmed the warming dawn sky were nothing short of poetry, whilst each morsel of sound that fluttered from the rousing street below was a wind chime of discovery. I skimmed my hands along the bubbly grain of my cane chair, the silken porcelain of my coffee mug, the sensory miracle of my own skin. I saw the true nature of everything and it was glorious. The rising sun that dabbed the horizon in metallic red and gold found me crying for the wonder of it all as my ears melted into the beatific symphony of birdsong. It was like my experience with the headset had left a kernel of itself within, a kernel that had stealthily multiplied through every cell as I’d slept.

  It’s difficult to know how long I stayed there because time seemed irrelevant, but I eventually noticed a resurgence of thirst and padded back the kitchen to pour a glass of water. Its refracting light transfixed as I put it to my lips and inhabited the cool wetness that wandered down my throat in a blissful now. I must have stared at the bottom of the glass for ten minutes or more. After putting it down, I drank further, this time into the beauty of the space I’d created with such dedication. “Why, Gabriel,” I said, “You are a bloody fantastic architect.” Why on earth hadn’t I seen it before, this gift from the Gods, this way of taking form and shaping it into rapturous and infinite internal consistency? I investigated every surface and each object that adorned it, dissolving into them, one by one. As the hours passed, my phone buzzed with texts and calls and I eventually conceded it would be polite to look at them. They were all demands and questions and all they did was make me grin. In this state of grace, I would have happily spent my entire life meandering, looking and listening and feeling and touching and designing buildings without any care about whether they got built or not, but I had people and projects to care for, which seemed neither a burden or a chore.

  On my way to the office, echoes of the recordings I’d heard in Cairo’s house played out.

  ‘It’s like somebody loves you with all their heart and it pierces you, enters you.’

  ‘The only way I could describe it would be to say transcendental.’

  ‘It’s as if I was in chains and suddenly I’ve been set free.’

  I wanted to rush into the office, run into the street and shout, ‘It’s all here, it’s all around you – you just have to see it,’ but I knew how it would look and as I parked up, I strove to quash my perpetual mirth. Even so, on first sight, our receptionist, Eva said, “Why, Gabriel, are you in lurve?”

  I winked at her. “Maybe.” Eva mounted a surprise assault on Arlo and me when we were in the closing stages of renovation, complaining that she couldn’t get a job. Noticing that she barked words like a potty-mouthed football manager, we understood why, but when she begged us to find her a position, we took a punt. We hot-housed her for several weeks before we were willing to risk her presence in front of clients. When we finally did, every single one adored her, even Cheetham.

  For the first time in my career I took a lunch break, rambling through a sun-washed Northern Quarter, gorging on the microcosm of all human life. Although the area had flourished, it remained a curious and often edgy cross-section of city life. Purveyors of up-market chocolates and retro chic, hand-made jewellery and personalised cupcakes rubbed shoulders with second-hand comics, grubby takeaways and print-stained newsagents. Backstreets encountered off-duty working girls with in your face cleavage and thigh offset by spiked heels, rogues and druggies touting for fags and handouts, while main thoroughfares were largely reserved for local business staff, shoppers and tourists. Despite the food being highly recommended, I’d always avoided the Buddhist Centre, which had settled in the yet to be fully defined area between Streets Oldham and Market, fearing it full of the smug and shaven-headed, but now I found the prospect of incense and carved wood irresistible. It wasn’t full of the smug and shaven-headed, well, maybe a smidgeon of smug, but it was pleasant and peaceful. I understood why monks sat in caves searching for enlightenment, because now I knew what enlightenment was and that once you had it, everything else paled into insignificance. The Buddhists had known this for thousands of years, except they didn’t get to jump to the top of the queue like me. All the effort they put in to find Nirvana and I’d stumbled on it almost by accident. On passing a photograph of the Dalai Lama that hung in the book section, I winked conspiratorially at him.

  On waking the next day, I was back to my old self. I should never have tempted fate by winking at His Holiness. No matter how much effort was employed, I couldn’t remember anything after my tour of the Northern Quarter, but did remember a strange and lengthy dre
am. Jarvis Bentley came into the Buddhist Centre, like he ever would, and both of us drank jasmine tea. I was so full of love and joy that its physical reality began to exude from me in dancing rainbow colours.

  “Can you see it?” I said to Bentley.

  “Oh, yes.” He replied.

  He said he’d take me to see Cairo. We went to a place where there was a woman that Bentley said was Cairo, but it wasn’t and yet I didn’t seem to care. And we talked a lot about all the things that had happened and then we made love surrounded by the colours of ecstasy.

  *

  Late in the afternoon, Arlo asked me into his office because he was unhappy with a design, but didn’t know why. You just can’t see it when you’re in it and you need an outside eye and then it seems so bloody obvious you feel like an idiot. On this occasion, it was the orientation, which I clocked within a few seconds. I put my hand on his shoulder in commiseration.

  And then I was standing in an apartment with Arlo and Sol Junior, a dead ringer for his dad, Solomon Hardcastle, our original client. We’d first approached Sol a couple of months after starting the practice, half-expecting to be laughed out of the office. He was a gruff, corpulent, self-made man who didn’t take prisoners and we’d decided on a high-risk strategy of playing on our own humble, no nonsense roots, giving as good as we got. At the end of the meeting, he shook our hands and said, “I like your bottle, lads, you remind me of me. The job’s yours, do what you want.”