Our Tragic Universe

by Scarlett Thomas

  I raided my coin jar, thinking there might be a couple of pounds in there, which would mean fish and chips for dinner, not beans on stale toast. But there was nothing more than ip and 2p pieces, and I couldn't face taking a pile of them to the chip shop. If Christopher came home and asked, as he was likely to, what was for dinner, I thought that I might explode. Could he not decide what was for dinner just once? In the end I had beans on toast, washed down by very strong coffee, with Second World held open in front of me on the kitchen table. I couldn't help but be intrigued by Newman's new book, especially with that quote from Vi on it. Had she sent me his previous book? I would have to get in touch with her if I wanted to find out, but I still didn't know how.

  While I ate my dinner, B did the same. Every night I would fill her bowl with mixer and one small tin of dog food. She would wolf down the tinned food, but then she would pick up a single piece of mixer—a biscuit the size of a small pebble—in her front teeth, carry it to the hallway, throw it up in the air, roll on it, and then eat it, crunch, crunch, like a radio sound effect for someone walking across gravel. Then she would come back and take another one. It took for ever. Sometimes she would 'bury' a piece of mixer or a rawhide chew. She never actually buried anything, of course, because the house wasn't full of earth, but merely went through a primal-looking set of movements that implied 'burying'. The final one of these movements made B look as if she was pushing imaginary earth over the biscuit with her nose. She did this very carefully, with a faraway look in her eyes, as if imagining herself the heroine in some dog-story.

  While B and I ate, seagulls ack, acked outside, and the lonely wind waltzed slowly down the Brown's Hill steps and all around the town until it finally reached the river, where it found boats to dance with and swoon over, and everything tinkled.

  Second World was in two parts. The first part, called 'The Science of the Second World', recapped the idea that we are being reincarnated again and again at the end of time into a world created by, and contained within, the Omega Point, which is made of Energia. The second part was called 'The Hero's Journey, and seemed to owe a lot to Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung. Newman referenced them both. At one point he said, 'What Jung termed the "Collective Unconscious" I am calling the Omega Point, although of course I have been able to use Frank Tipler's science to further hypothesise a conscious, infinite entity from which the archetypes emerge. Inside the Omega Point, we are all plagiarists: we all recognise the fundamental archetypes and use them in our dramas and dreams, fictional or otherwise. Could it be possible that the Omega Point invented the first stories to show us the ways we should and should not live? When we meet a Wise Old Man on one of our many Roads of Adventure, are we really meeting a manifestation of the Omega Point?'

  Newman's argument was familiar. Life is a great quest, he said, and you are its hero. The purpose of life is the completion of the quest. To complete the quest you must work out what you most want to find in some faraway cave, then take some weapons, go out and find the cave and get this thing. Anything that stands in your way is a monster. How simple it all was, and how unlikely that the cave would turn out to be a vagina lined with teeth and that you would fail because of some laughing birds. But in any case, Newman didn't solve, or even acknowledge, his own central paradox. He didn't explain how you find out whether you are a hero or a monster. Some beings have to be monsters, because otherwise how do you define other beings as heroes? Instead of solving this problem, Newman spent a lot of time rejecting Greek tragedy as 'depraved, and Modernism as 'pathetic. His reading of Oedipus Rex was particularly perplexing. Oedipus was no longer a profound symbol of the curse of knowledge and desire, and became instead, in Newman's world, a failed project, a Game Over, an aborted quest. In order to have a properly happy ending, Oedipus would need to die, be born again and start from scratch. It just wasn't any good to find out that you are a monster and overcome yourself: the monster has to be outside you, and you have to kill it and move on until you get your treasure and your princess and become enlightened and then ascend to the Road to Perfection. This was such a profound misunderstanding of tragedy that I wanted to email someone and rant about it. But who was there? Only Rowan. I sighed.

  Reading Newman's book made me want to hand in my resignation as a writer. Most of what he said about conventional narrative structure in the quest, the comedy and the romance was right: even the Zen novel I read for Orb Books was fuelled by desire for change and for characters to lead better lives. At first the protagonists want to get off the island, and then they realise that if they stay they may achieve enlightenment and cast off all desire—so, paradoxically, they start to want that. All narrative is about people wanting their lives to be better, and then this being fucked up, either permanently by the protagonist him- or herself, or temporarily by his or her parents—or some equivalent. All you have to do, I would tell the writers who came on my retreats, is get one of these strands, knot it, put it in the centre of your narrative, and then add as many other strands as you like and weave them together so the resulting fabric looks like a whole. When I said this I had in mind the Fair Isle garments that Libby used to knit, and I even showed the ghostwriters pictures of Fair Isle knitting so they would get the point. They always laughed at the jumpers and cardigans with giant snowflakes and reindeer, and this made everyone bond.

  After closing the book I made more coffee and then ate another tangerine. It had a little mini-tangerine inside it, at the top, as if it had given birth to a miniature version of itself while it was hanging on its tree. Where was Christopher? I probably should have rung his dad's place by now. There was that stupid royalty statement lying by the kettle. I hated those things: they were unintelligible, and came with no money. Sometimes they told me that I'd sold three copies of my book in South Africa, and another eleven in Canada. Whoopee. As if life wasn't disappointing enough already. But I opened it anyway, as I usually did in the end, thinking that maybe it would at least tell me I hadn't long to break even on a particular title, even though it was probably out of print. When I took out the single sheet of paper, I saw immediately that it wasn't an unearned-royalty statement at all. It was remittance advice from my literary agency. Harlequin Entertainment, it said. £28,000, less Agency Commission of £2,800. Transfer to bank: £25,200.

  'What the fuck?' I whispered to myself. If it was true—and it couldn't be—then this meant I could go down the hill for fish and chips, and I could buy as many tangerines as I wanted, and I could take Libby a bunch of flowers and a bottle of wine on Saturday night, and I could buy some clothes and fix the car and God knows what else. I wouldn't have to worry about my train fare to London for the March editorial board. I could buy a new pen. I could get some credit for my mobile phone. I could get my email account back up and running. I could pay a few months' rent in advance and perhaps then get a good night's sleep once in a while. Maybe I could take my mother and Taz on holiday. They kept having to remortgage their house to help Toby, and although Taz sometimes made a lot of money from his art, some months he made nothing at all. I could go to Greece after all, on my own, and I'd even be able to buy a bikini first. I would finally be able to write my novel without any distractions. Maybe I could rent some office space to work in during the day, and go there instead of the library. But it probably wasn't true. There was probably no money. Then again, I had met Fred, and she had made all these promises; I just hadn't believed them.

  The year the National Lottery first started I was in Brighton doing my degree, and I went home to London most weekends because I'd get free food at my mother's place and it was warmer there in the winter. Taz said he thought the Lottery was a waste of time and a tax on optimism, but my mother and I both bought tickets for the first draw. For almost the whole afternoon before it happened we planned what we'd do with the millions one of us was bound to win. We imagined big houses with swimming pools, and travel, and all the usual stuff. But it was more interesting thinking how we'd give some of it away. My mother said she'd st
art a women's refuge, with designer furniture and luxury toiletries. I said I'd find a student, someone in exactly the same situation I was in—heading for a First, but with no real career prospects, no financial stability and no house—and give them £100,000. By the time I lived in Dartmouth, I hadn't bought a Lottery ticket for years, but I still wondered why more people bought them on rollover weeks. Unless you were already a millionaire, surely five million wouldn't change your life much more than a million would. Surely a million was still worth winning. But if that was true, why didn't I ever buy a ticket?

  I went upstairs to my study and logged onto my Internet banking service, not daring to believe this might be real. But there it was: a new balance in my business account of £22,340. So that was the business overdraft cleared, then. I transferred some money to my personal account to clear the overdraft there, and gave myself some spending money. When I'd finished, I was roughly £5,000 in credit on my personal account, and £15,000 in credit on my business account. I'd never had that much money in my life. I sent a PayPal payment to my email service provider, and once I'd put some credit on my phone I was able to retrieve my agent's replacement's messages that told me that the money was in, and they were doing a transfer. He said he was concerned because I'd never responded to the emails he'd sent about the offer, and he hoped it was OK that he'd signed the contract on my behalf. He also wondered whether we should meet to talk about current and future projects.

  Just as I was about to reply I heard a scratching sound coming from downstairs: wild and insistent. B often shut herself in the bathroom and scratched on the door to tell me to let her out, but when I looked the door was open and she wasn't there. I went downstairs and found B asleep on the sofa, and the scratching noise was gone.

  PART TWO

  When a piece of brown biscuit is offered to a terrier of mine and she is not hungry (and I have heard of similar instances) she first tosses it about and worries it, as if it were a rat or other prey; she then repeatedly rolls on it precisely as if it were a piece of carrion, and at last eats it. It would appear that an imaginary relish has to be given to the distasteful morsel; and to effect this the dog acts in his habitual manner, as if the biscuit was a live animal or smelt like carrion, although he knows better than we do that this is not the case.

  —CHARLES DARWIN, The Expression of

  the Emotions in Man and Animals

  AT ABOUT TEN the phone rang. It was Josh.

  'Can you come to Dad's?' he said. 'Christopher's here and he's kicking off.'

  So that's where he was.

  'What's happened?' I said. 'Why's he kicking off?'

  'It's about Milly moving in. But can you come?'

  'Yeah, sure. I'll see you in a bit.'

  I filled my car with petrol, bought two new bottles of Radweld and, after putting one of them into the car radiator, drove to Totnes down the Lanes. My hands, which did not look like the big, masculine hands on the diagram on the Radweld bottle, smelled of engine. At night you could go down the Lanes pretty fast, because it was so dark that any car lights ahead were visible for miles. You had to watch out for nocturnal animals, of course, and walkers without torches. But I didn't drive fast. I drove as slowly as I would in the day. It was a beautiful night, with thousands of stars scattered across the clear black sky. All the stars I could see were long dead, of course, unless we were living in the Second World, in which case they were what? Alive again? Fictional? The backdrop to long-dead people's heroic journeys? But I didn't think too much about the stars that night. Sometimes badgers scuttled out of hedgerows at night on the Lanes. I wondered what it would be like in a badgers' set. If I broke down and crawled into one, would the badgers accept me? Perhaps Christopher and his family would eventually forget that they'd been waiting for me. Of course, I'd get there and make it OK somehow. Christopher would be happy that I'd come to rescue him, would see it as a dramatic act of love, and then I'd tell him about the money, and how we'd be able to move to a farm, and he'd be so happy. Suddenly I felt so breathless that I had to pull over. I switched off the headlamps and sat for a few seconds in almost total blackness. Then I realised: I wasn't going to tell him about the money. I'd tell him there was some, a little bit. But I would keep the rest of the contents of my bank account a secret. There'd be no farm.

  Christopher's father Peter lived in a big, sprawling flat above his vegetarian café in Totnes. Josh still lived in the attic, a perfectly square room with shelves and shelves of books arranged by height, a drum kit and a completely clean desk with only a white laptop on it. The rest of the flat was over two floors, both of which had polished floorboards covered with large rugs, as well as lots of wall-hangings, plants, sculptures and, I discovered when I got there, now a harp, Milly's harp, right in the middle of the cavernous, deep-red sitting room.

  Only Peter was around. He'd let me in through the café, and was now standing by the harp running his fingers through his curly white hair. He'd already thanked me for coming. Now he asked if Josh had told me what had happened.

  'Not in a lot of detail,' I said. 'Where's Christopher?'

  'The boys have already gone to the hospital. Josh took Christopher in my car.'

  'The hospital?'

  'Christopher has hurt his hand. Quite badly, I think.'

  'He did this...?'

  'Punching the wall.' Peter looked away from me and touched the harp. 'Milly's gone too.'

  This didn't make sense. 'Not to the hospital?'

  'No. I mean she's gone. I don't know where.'

  'She'll be back, though?'

  'I don't know.' He shrugged, and his whole body seemed to slump like a sack replaced on the floor after its contents have been shaken. After a couple of moments he said, 'You'll follow the boys on to the hospital, won't you?'

  'Yes, I guess so. Are you OK?'

  'I expect it'll take a long time in casualty. Last time I went with Josh for his foot it was something like three hours. I forgot to make sure they had change for the machine. Josh gets very thirsty when he's worried.'

  Peter talked a little more about how long it might take to wait for an X-ray, and how long he and Josh last waited for an X-ray, and whether or not it would take longer at night, and how Christopher wouldn't be able to work with a broken hand. The whole time he spoke he had his hand on the harp, and at one point stroked one of the strings so gently that it didn't make a sound.

  'What actually happened?' I asked, when he finished talking.

  'I expect the boys will tell you. Christopher will tell you. It's not really a mystery to me, but I'm too tired of it all to try to understand.'

  'He's been quite down lately,' I said.

  'He's always been down. Even before his mother died. She used to call him Eeyore. I bet he never told you that. Maybe every family has an Eeyore. Once, when...' But Peter didn't finish that sentence; he sighed instead, and then touched the harp again. 'I'll get you some change from the till,' he said. 'You can take it with you.'

  We went back down the stairs into the café, which smelled of good coffee and wholemeal pastry. There was a notice-board near the till, advertising the usual Totnes things and a few house-shares and flats for rent. Next to that was a poster for a talk in a few weeks' time. The title was 'Succeeding in the Second World. The speaker was Kelsey Newman. What? Kelsey Newman coming to Totnes? This was like being haunted. I blinked, but when I opened my eyes the poster was still there. I stopped looking at it and instead watched while Peter opened the till and took out five £1 coins and a few 50p pieces, which he pressed into my hand. This would have been a small fortune to me just a few hours before. Now it was just change for a machine.

  'Please, Meg,' he said, 'could you pass on a message to Christopher for me?'

  'Of course,' I said.

  'It's...' There was a long pause while Peter looked out of the window. A woman walked past, dressed in a long black skirt and a grey wool shawl. Once she was gone he looked at me again. 'On second thoughts, there isn't a message.'


  'I can tell him whatever it is,' I said.

  'No. I was going to say I was sorry and I hoped his hand felt better, but actually I'm not sorry and I hope it drops off. Oh, look, I didn't say any of that. Please forget it.'

  Peter was so mild, so concerned about his sons all the time. He'd never said anything like this to me before.

  'I understand,' I said. 'I wouldn't be sorry either, if I was you.'

  He frowned. 'Really?'

  'Yes. Sorry is the last thing I'd be. I hope Milly comes back soon.'

  We exchanged a look, and I think he understood that I meant it.

  'Why is age such a crime?' Peter said. 'People think that when a younger woman and an older man get together, then it's always about sex for him and money for her. Age buys beauty. But I'm not rich and Milly's not beautiful.' He half-blushed. 'She is to me, of course, but you wouldn't find a woman like her in a glossy magazine.' He sighed. 'Perhaps you could get Christopher to stop calling her a "twenty-five-year-old waitress", especially as she's twenty-eight and has a PhD in music. She only works in the café to help me out, for goodness' sake. And while you're at it, tell him not to come back here. I've had enough of him this time.' He paused and sighed again heavily. 'Of course, you can't tell him that. I'll speak to him at some point. I'm so sorry, Meg. I've ranted at you. It's unforgivable.'

  'I really don't mind,' I said. 'I don't find Christopher the easiest person in the world either. I thought it was all my fault.'

  'It's not your fault. He's always been like this.'

  I found Josh sitting on a bench out the front of Torbay Hospital casualty. He was wearing pale blue flares, a black T-shirt and a zip-up grey cardigan, and looked as if he'd been cast to play a student in a hospital drama about the perils of drugs, skateboarding or cults. His hair was the same length as mine, but was tied back in a ponytail. I sat down next to him and peeled a tangerine from my bag. I offered Josh half, but he shook his head.