by Paul Murray
Barry can’t think of an answer, so he just smiles. The new girls are looking really unhappy now, like Carl and Barry are two total scumbags. ‘Well, are we going to do business or not?’ Barry says. He takes out the orange see-through tube and holds it out, the way you’d hold out food to a stray cat. With a shrug, Crinkly-Hair comes over to him, and one by one the other girls follow. But Lollipop stays at the edge, looking over to where Carl is standing guard by the gap leading back to the road.
‘They’re medically developed by scientists,’ Barry is explaining to the new girls.
‘I read about them in Marie Claire,’ one of the girls says. ‘They stop you getting hungry.’
‘That’s right,’ Barry says. ‘In Hollywood everyone takes them.’
‘How much do they cost?’ another girl asks.
‘Three euro each,’ Barry says. ‘Or ten for twenty.’
‘Yesterday you were going to give us five for five,’ Crinkly-Hair says.
Barry shrugs. ‘Supply and demand,’ he says. ‘I don’t control the market. If you don’t want them there are some girls from Alex’s who said they’d take the lot.’
‘I’d say,’ Crinkly-Hair says sarcastically, but the other girls are reaching into bags for purses decorated with slinky cartoon cats and glittery flowers. Carl turns to watch the entrance while the deal goes through. Behind him he hears their voices counting, first coins, then pills. Every second it gets darker, like the air is filling up with particles. He realizes someone is standing beside him. It is Lollipop. She is looking at Carl. ‘I have a problem,’ she says.
It is only the second thing he has ever heard her say. He makes a sound somewhere between ‘Huh?’ and ‘What?’
‘I want to buy some diet pills,’ she says. ‘But I don’t have any money.’
‘You don’t have any money?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t have any?’
‘No.’
She looks at him with expressionless green eyes. This close he can almost taste how red her lips are. The others are talking among themselves. ‘Last night your friend said that you might be able to work something out?’ she says. She raises an eyebrow. Her school blouse is two buttons open and if he leans forward Carl can make out the top half of a white tit.
‘What do you mean?’ he says.
‘I don’t know.’ She noses the toe of her shoe against the ashy black ground. Carl lunges for her with his mouth. She pulls back, but takes his hand and leads him across the clearing and into the trees.
In here the air tastes of wet leaves and through the weeds he can see old initials graffitied on the wall. She is standing right up against him, an inch away, he smells the smell of her, it is sweet like strawberries. She pushes her hair back with her hand. The other voices seem far away. She leans in and upwards and her mouth is on his, her tongue strokes through it, deeper and deeper, like an oar through the water… She stops. ‘Are you Carl or Barry,’ she says.
‘Carl.’
‘My name is Lori,’ she says. ‘Short for Lorelei.’
‘Lollipop,’ he mumbles.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
Then she’s kissing him again. The smell of her hair and skin swirl all around him. He sticks a hand on her left tit. She lifts it off but doesn’t take her mouth away. For another twenty seconds, thirty, her thin body crushes up tighter and tighter against him, as if she’s screwing herself into place with her tongue. Then, like the claw in the fairground when the money runs out, she separates herself from him and steps backwards. She gazes at him with her expression of expressionlessness.
‘Um, Lori, what are you doing in there?’ goes Crinkly-Hair from outside.
Lori moves him aside with her hand and walks back into the clearing. A second later Carl limps out after her, pulling his jacket down over his boner. Going up to Barry, he says, ‘Ten.’
At first Barry doesn’t get it, but then he clicks and without a word counts out the ten pills. Lori stands beside Carl not looking at him and holds her hands cupped for Barry to pour the pills into, like she’s waiting for communion. And the pills do look like little communions. Then she puts them in the pocket of her coat and goes back to her friends.
It is completely dark now. Before they go Barry tries to make each of the girls take his number, but they are chattering to each other like he isn’t there, like this is all over and they are already far away. They leave without saying goodbye.
When they are out of sight, Barry lets out a whoop. ‘Our first score! Check it out, dude!’ He opens his fist on a nest of notes and coins. Then he hugs Carl. ‘This is just the beginning, hombre. We are going to fucking rule this neighbourhood!’ Holding his hands up to the sky, he turns to the traffic going by and shouts into the headlights, ‘We are the men! We are the fucking men!’
They start walking towards Burger King. Barry looks at Carl slyly. ‘She sucked your dick, didn’t she?’
Carl says nothing, then slowly nods with a half-smile.
‘Damn!’ Barry laughs, and strikes his thigh. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’
Carl laughs too, then he looks back – but the girls are gone, of course. They are long gone.
The door opens, the priest’s blackness disappears into the deeper black of the shadows like he’s never been there. Except for the smell of incense that still twists itself through the air. You go to the window to chase it away, cold blasts in to clash against the sick-sweat on your arms and chest and back. The wrinkled sheets thrown back on the bed like shed skin, the taste of pills still in your mouth like you are made of pills.
The five imprints of his fingertips still burning on your cheek.
‘Hello?’ the voice that answers the phone is clipped, hiding, like a spy’s voice.
‘Dad?’
‘Hey there, sport.’ The voice relaxes a little bit, or pretends to. ‘Wasn’t expecting to hear from you tonight. How’s things?’
‘Well, not so good, actually.’
‘Oh no? What’s bugging you, sport?’
Lately Dad’s started doing this thing of calling you ‘sport’. You know he does it to make you feel like everything’s okay. But it doesn’t work. Instead it’s like he’s forgotten who he is, and he’s trying to cover it up with pieces of dads from TV, sunny American dads in sitcoms who go out with you to the yard to throw a baseball back and forth.
‘I got sick today,’ you say.
‘Sick sick?’
‘Yeah, in class.’
‘Did you eat something?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Must be a tummy bug. How’re you feeling now?’
‘Okay.’
‘You don’t sound great.’
‘I had to go to the nurse.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She just sent me to bed. She said I shouldn’t go to training tomorrow.’
‘You’re going to miss training?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Hmm.’ Behind the patchwork of TV dads you can hear him not knowing what to say. Dad doesn’t like talking on the phone: it’s like the longer he talks the thinner the patchwork is stretched, the more the things they aren’t saying come gusting through. ‘That sounds like a bad dose, all right. Well, keep an eye on it, sport, and let’s see how it goes.’
‘Okay.’ You wait a second and then, like you’ve just thought of it, ‘Is Mum around?’
‘Mum?’ Dad repeats, like she’s a neighbour who moved away long ago.
‘Yeah.’
There is another delay, and then, ‘You know I think she might be taking a nap, slugger. But let me just check.’ He lays down the phone and you listen to him going to check: opening the door of the kitchen, shooing Dogley off the step, calling Mum’s name, then clomping back to the phone to give you the answer you expected. ‘Yeah, she’s just this minute lain down for a rest, Danny. Better not wake her. Maybe she’ll give you a ring tomorrow.’ With this promise he falls silent, waiting for you to w
rap up the conversation.
You and Dad are playing a game. There are many rules to the game, maybe an infinite number of rules, all around you like tiny fish-bones or infra-red beams. The most important rule though is that you never ever talk about the game: you act like there is no game, even though both of you know the other person is playing it; you keep yourself very still, you act like everything is normal, and if you can’t remember what normal is you turn yourself into TV Dad and TV Son.
Or that’s what you’re supposed to do. Tonight something has gone wrong and you can’t play it right. ‘I was wondering…’
‘What?’
You know you shouldn’t say it. So you change it. ‘I was wondering what you decided about mid-term.’
‘Oh – you know we haven’t had much of a chance yet to talk about it, buddy. Things have been a bit topsy-turvy lately. But I’m fairly sure it’ll be okay. Fingers crossed.’
‘Oh,’ you say. You go to the window, touch the curtain, like it might have magical powers. ‘Erm,’ you say. You take a deep breath. Are you actually going to say it? Are you? ‘Do you think I could come home this weekend?’
‘This weekend?’ Dad doesn’t understand. ‘What do you mean, sport?’
‘I just thought…’ You are ashamed to hear your voice cracking – this is totally against the rules! ‘Like, because I was sick, it might be good to come home for the weekend…’
‘Hmm…’ Behind his patchwork voice Dad is screaming, What are you doing? ‘Well, sport, we’d both love to see you, but like I say things have been a bit, ah, a bit crazy here lately…’
‘I know, but…’ Your throat is filling up with ashes, sawdust.
‘Obviously if you’re sick, but… you know, I’m just wondering if it would be such a good idea.’
‘Please?’ You are sobbing, great big jags of mucous and tears.
‘I think it’d probably be best to stick to the original plan, sport,’ Dad pretends not to hear, ‘we’re both really looking forward to seeing you at mid-term and I’m certain, I’m nearly ninety per cent certain, that if we stick to that original plan it’ll all be fine. And mid-term, it’s only two weeks away, right? Isn’t that right?’
You aren’t able to reply. So Dad talks instead. ‘Your Mum’ll be kicking herself she missed you tonight. She’s so excited about your next race, we were both so sorry we couldn’t be there on Saturday, but this next one, she’s determined, and Dr Gulbenkian thinks we’re really about to turn a corner here, so you keep your fingers crossed, and keep up the training, and come November we’ll, ah, we’ll…’ He runs out of words and can only wait there for your sobs to burn themselves out. ‘Okay there, Danny?’
‘Yeah,’ you manage to stammer.
‘Okay,’ Dad says. ‘Well, I suppose I should let you get back to it, right?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Okay. Talk to you soon, sport, all right? We miss you.’
You hang up, wipe your eyes and nose on your sleeve, hover a long time by the window taking long shuddery breaths. Autumn leaves are curled in the casement, tangled up in a fuzz of cobwebs. Ruprecht’s moon map flickers in the draught, the mountains and craters and marshes, the seas that are not seas, Sea of Rains, Sea of Snakes, Sea of Crises, stiff and grey and unmoving like icing on a birthday cake left behind a thousand years ago.
How can they know what it looks like way off in space, when they can’t tell what’s happening inside a body of a person that’s right there in front of them?!!
Oh boo hoo, are you going to cry some more, Skippy? Are you going to take a pill and fall asleep again? Or switch on your Nintendo and play your little game?
Do you feel like you’re caught in the mouth of something huge?
The fingers burning into your cheek. Answer me, Mr Juster!
Back at the foot of the crumbling steps. In the leafless trees the things that have replaced the birds. The door swings open with a creak and you step inside the Great Hall. Make your way through the whispering stone, through shafts of grey light trapped in the spiderwebs. Weave past the zombies that burst from the library clock, clamber into the dumb waiter. You’ve done this part so many times it’s stopped being scary, become just a pattern that you follow without thinking.
Once upon a time the Realm was ruled by a beautiful princess. You’ll see her on the title screen, Hopeland written above her in medieval-type writing: blue eyes, hair the colour of honey, frost making her sparkle like a far-off star. In her frozen hands she holds a little harp – that’s the one she would play each morning from the Palace ramparts to bring up the sun. But then Mindelore stole it, and used it to summon three ancient Demons, who have laid waste to the Realm and imprisoned the princess in ice! The elders have chosen you, Djed, an ordinary elf from the forest, to find the magical weapons, save the princess and free the Realm from the Demons’ grip. You’ve got the Sword of Songs and the Arrows of Light – all you need now is the Cloak of Invisibility, then you’ll be ready to fight the Demons. But you keep getting stuck here, in the House of the Dead –
‘Are you still playing that thing?’ The door flies open and Ruprecht comes bustling into the room. Without waiting for a reply he sits down at his computer, drumming his fingers anticipatorily on his thigh as it wakes itself up. ‘Father Green was looking for you,’ he says over his shoulder.
‘I know.’
‘What did he want?’
‘Just to see if I was feeling better.’
‘Oh.’ Ruprecht’s stopped listening – frowns into the screen as his inbox loads.
Earlier this month, Ruprecht wrote the following e-mail, which was transmitted by satellite into space:
Greetings, fellow intelligent life-forms! I am Ruprecht Van Doren, a fourteen-year-old human boy from planet Earth. My favourite food is pizza. My favourite large animal is the hippo. Hippos are excellent swimmers despite their bulk. However, they can be more aggressive than their sleepy demeanour might suggest. Approach with caution!!! When I finish school, I intend to do my PhD at Stanford University. A keen sportsman, my hobbies include programming my computer and Yahtzee, a game of skill and chance played with dice.
By logging on to the METI website, you can chart the message’s progress. It hasn’t even got as far as Mars yet; still, every night Ruprecht checks his computer to see if any extraterrestrials have mailed him back.
‘Who the hell’s going to want to reply to that? It’s the gayest e-mail I ever heard,’ Dennis says. ‘And furthermore, that’s a total lie about you being a keen sportsman, unless you count eating doughnuts as a sport.’
‘It’s quite possible that doughnut-eating is considered a sport in distant galaxies,’ Ruprecht says.
‘Yeah, well, even if it is, and even if there are a bunch of fat lame Yahtzee-playing aliens out there, they’re still not going to get your gay message for like a hundred years. So you’ll totally be dead by the time they get back to you.’
‘Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t,’ is Ruprecht’s somewhat mysterious response to this.
METI stands for Message to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, and is an offshoot of SETI, the Search for same. This Search, a collaborative effort involving nerds from all over the world, concentrates primarily on the random transmissions that bombard the Earth from space every day. These transmissions are picked up by the SETI radio observatory in Puerto Rico, divided up into little parcels of data and sent out to the PCs of Ruprecht and others like him, which will trawl through them with the aim of finding, amid the mass of unintelligible static thrown out by the stars, a sequence or pattern or repetition that might intimate the presence of intelligent communicating life.
Behind the emergence of METI is none other than Professor Hideo Tamashi, the celebrated string theorist and cosmologist. It was he who organized the space-mail; on another occasion, he and a group of schoolchildren broadcast a performance of Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major. According to Professor Tamashi, the existence of extraterrestrial life is, statistically, more lik
ely than not; moreover, the future of humanity could depend on making contact. ‘In the next thirty or forty years, ecological collapse may well make Earth unliveable,’ Ruprecht explains. ‘If that happens, the only way we’ll survive is by colonizing a new planet, which realistically we could only do by travelling through hyperspace.’ Travelling through hyperspace requires unlocking the secrets of the Big Bang; however, the ten-dimensional theory the Prof maintains holds the key is itself so fiendishly difficult that he believes the only way to solve it in time is if some kindly superior alien civilization takes us under its wing.
Tonight, though, the ETs are keeping their counsel. Ruprecht, with a little sigh, shuts down the computer and rises from his chair.
‘Nothing?’
‘No.’
‘But you think they will come someday? Like to Earth?’
‘They have to,’ Ruprecht responds grimly. ‘It’s as simple as that.’
He makes a couple of adjustments to his Global UFO Sightings Map, then fishes his toothbrush from his washbag and pads out to the bathroom.
Outside, the laurels swoosh in the cold air, and the darkness is tinged with the pink glow of the neon Doughnut House sign, like sugar on the night. Alone in the room, Skippy runs for cover as zombies crash through the floorboards and stretch after him with sinewy arms and splintered nails. Once upon a time they were people, maybe a family even, and when you look into their decaying faces it’s like you can still see a sad spark of who they were…
Later, with the lights out: ‘Hey, Ruprecht.’
‘Yes?’
‘Say if you could travel in time –’
The sound of Ruprecht propping himself on his elbows in the opposite bed. ‘It’s quite consistent with Professor Tamashi’s theories,’ he says. ‘Merely a case of sufficient energy, really.’
‘Okay, well – does that mean you could stop the future?’
‘Stop the future?’
‘Well, like, say if we started going back in time tonight, could we just keep going back for as long as we wanted? So we’d never actually get to tomorrow?’
