Our Tragic Universe

by Scarlett Thomas

  'I put "winter let" on the sign, but I really don't know what I'm going to do with the place,' he said. 'It's definitely yours until June or so, but probably longer if you want it. In a couple of years I might sell, or convert it into a holiday let. But for now we could just take it month by month.'

  'That's great. That's really great. Thanks.'

  I put the keys in the pocket of my anorak. My drink was still on the bar where I'd left it. I took a sip. It was musky and earthy.

  'Oh, Andrew,' I said. 'While I'm here I wanted to ask you something, if you've got a minute.'

  'What is it?'

  'It's about the placebo effect. I remember you talking about it once...'

  He nodded. 'Yeah. Go on.'

  'Well, I've just read this book that basically says pretty much all medicine works better if you believe in it. I'm just wondering how valid the whole thing is.'

  'You've heard about Prozac, presumably?' he said. 'Big news story.'

  'Yeah. I thought that was pretty weird. My brother's on it. Says it completely changed his life. How can that be just in his mind?'

  Andrew shrugged. 'I suppose a lot of disease is in the mind in the first place. Especially depression. There's an article in the latest New Scientist about how Valium only works if people know they're taking it,' he said. 'Evidence for the placebo effect builds up all the time. I saw it quite often in the Navy. One time, one of the sergeants got a chest infection and my commanding officer told me that we had these new antibiotics that we were trying out. Supposed to be stronger and better—we often did have weird new things like that. I gave the sergeant these pills and they cleared up the infection no problem. It was only much later that my commanding officer told me that in fact someone had forgotten to put the box of antibiotics on board, and I'd given this guy out-of-date vitamin tablets. God knows why we had those. Boxes and boxes of them, it turned out. That was the first time I encountered the placebo effect, and it really stuck with me. Of course, you can't tell most people you've done that kind of thing, because they think you're a nut-job. Then there's the nocebo effect. You heard of that?'

  'No. What is it? Like the reverse of the placebo effect?'

  'Yeah, sort of. It's when people think they're ill when they're not. It's how people say voodoo curses work. If someone believes they're really cursed and they're going to die, they just do. Again, there's been loads of studies.'

  'How does anyone make sense of this stuff?' I said, sipping my beer.

  'Ha,' Andrew said. 'Maybe that's the point.'

  'What, to leave it not making sense?'

  'Well, maybe. But then you've got the problem of how you even do medicine. If there's no point giving people chemicals when it's their minds doing all the work ... Or maybe it's just some of the work. I heard of an experiment once where they gave people with headaches one of what looked like a choice of two tablets, but were actually four: branded aspirin, normal aspirin, branded placebo—branded the same as the branded aspirin, of course—and unbranded placebo. The normal aspirin worked better than the placebo, of course, but there was only a tiny difference between the normal aspirin and the branded placebo. The brand therefore actually had a tangible effect on the healing process. Just goes to show how much of the process is all in the mind. But you can't send people off to pray or dance to bongo music when they think they need an anti-depressant, not in this day and age. So you're going to write about this book?'

  'I don't know,' I said. 'I'm supposed to. Along with a book on cosmic ordering, one on dog psychology, and something about Tarot. But I want to do a sort of experiment of my own; I just don't know how.'

  'What kind of experiment?'

  'I want to try to cure someone with the placebo effect.'

  He laughed. 'Well, good luck. You'll need it.'

  'I thought you said it had worked for you?'

  'Not most of the time. You tell stories about the extraordinary events, not the ordinary ones, don't you? Half the time, even real medicine doesn't do anything at all. No placebo effect, no nothing. It can go both ways. And I don't think it helps if you know you're giving something that's not likely to work. That's why my commanding officer got me to give the vitamin tablets to that sergeant all those years ago. I think he knew it would work better if I believed in it too.'

  'There was another essay in this book about that,' I said, 'although it's one of the ones I skimmed. You convey it to the patient or something—your knowledge that they're not really being treated at all, or your belief in the medicine you are giving them. It's all in subtle body language, apparently.'

  'Yeah. Unless it's your mind that's doing it.'

  'Huh?'

  'The placebo effect might not be the results of the patient's mind, but your mind.'

  'What, me believing something has worked when it hasn't?'

  'No—you using your mind to heal.'

  'Like some sort of witch doctor?'

  'Or just a witch. Yeah.'

  I frowned. I wanted to ask Andrew how it was possible to go from being a medical officer in the Navy, surrounded by hard men and war, to being somebody who seriously suggests that there might be something in witchcraft. But I knew the answer to that really; it was all in his book. When you've heard dead men screaming in the sea, you're going to end up believing things other people don't believe.

  Someone came to the bar and ordered a pint of Old Moggie.

  'Well, I'd better get going,' I said. 'Thanks so much for the cottage.'

  'I hope you enjoy the views and everything and get some good writing done,' Andrew said, putting his glasses back on. 'And good luck with your experiment.'

  'Well, like you said, I'll need it.' I sighed. 'I suppose I won't be able to use the placebo effect just like that to heal someone, will I?'

  'Not if you call it the placebo effect,' Andrew said. 'Not if you don't believe in it.'

  'No.'

  Andrew gave the customer his beer and took the money. 'Cheers, mate,' he said. Then he said to me, 'What's the problem? What is it you want to cure?'

  'Oh, my boyfriend broke his hand. He isn't getting on well with the painkillers and says he wants something more natural. I don't know where to start and all this placebo-effect stuff sounded quite easy, really. Give someone anything at all and they get better. But I can see it isn't that easy. I suppose if it was, then everyone would be doing it.'

  'If you want a natural painkiller,' Andrew said, 'get white willow bark. It's what aspirin is based on. Works a treat. You can get it in tablets from health food shops. I take it because aspirin gives me indigestion.'

  'White willow bark?'

  'Yeah.'

  Before I drove to Totnes I texted Josh: Have book. Are you at home? Totnes was sleepy and quiet and I parked easily on Fore Street, right outside Greenlife. B was asleep on the back seat of the car, but woke up when we stopped, and sat up, yawned and looked out of the window. I'd been looking at the clock on the dashboard of the car all the way there and trying to work out, minute by minute, how I could explain what I'd been doing when I got home. I'd left the house at about two. Now it was gone four and the sky was darkening and breaking into pieces of pre-blackout grey. I could still taste Beast in my mouth. Christopher would know from my breath that I'd been to the pub. I'd have to get some mints. But much worse than that: how would I explain the set of house keys in my pocket? I wouldn't be able to, ever. Compared with having a set of house keys in my pocket, explaining why I'd been out so long should be easy.

  While B yawned and stretched I calculated that I could spend about five minutes buying white willow bark for Christopher and mints for me, drive up the hill, illegally park, quickly give the book to Josh, and then be home about half an hour after that. That meant it would be gone five by the time I got in. It would be OK, though. I could say I'd been in the bank dealing with the money for most of the afternoon. I could suggest courses and new clothes and maybe even some kind of eco-holiday, and then perhaps life would sparkle again. But really I didn'
t want to go home at all. I wanted to go back to Seashell Cottage, eat dinner in the Foghorn and sleep alone.

  It was easy to find white willow bark in Greenlife, but one bottle of pills really wasn't much for three hours out of the house, so I browsed a little and also picked up some arnica bath, which was, it said on the box, good for bruising, sprains and broken bones. Also, on a whim, I bought a whole set of Bach flower remedies, and a book to go with them. I saw myself standing in the kitchen like Vi, mixing up some combination for Christopher. I flicked through the book and saw a couple of names that I recognised from the remedy Vi had made for me. Each had an entry of two or three pages. Crab apple, which I hadn't had, was apparently for stressed, anally retentive people who had to tidy everything up and were terrified of dirt. I wondered what 'my' remedies would say about me. Just as I was paying at the counter my phone vibrated. It was a text message from Josh. Crisis. Am in card shop. Bad numbers. Help? I had a fair idea what this meant, and I got back in the car to drive up the hill. B gave me a look that I anthro-pomorphised into 'What on earth are we doing now?, so I explained to her that we were going to go and rescue Josh and then drive home to Dartmouth, and we might see some squirrels on the Lanes and when we got back it would definitely be time for her dinner. She cocked her head sharply each time she recognised a word: Josh, home, squirrels, dinner. I wondered if I could communicate with B more efficiently by using only nouns and then stringing them in the rough order that they were going to happen. Was that what the world was to B? Was it all just nouns on a timeline? There had to be a bit more to it than that: she was visibly thrilled at the idea of squirrels, even though, as I'd said to Libby, she didn't chase them any more. She did look a bit baffled, however, that the squirrels could come between home and dinner, so I changed the order to Josh, squirrels, home, dinner. This time she whimpered slightly as I said each word. I reckoned I could probably write a book on dog psychology myself after all these years of study.

  Josh was the only customer in the card shop. It was a small, slightly poky place that also sold paper, fountain pens, mechanical pencils, artists' equipment and notebooks. He had his back to the door and appeared to be examining 2008 diaries, which were on special offer. I could see he was shaking, and I wanted to put my hand on his back but thought that might make him jump. He looked fragile standing there in his carefully ironed jeans and his red Mensa hoody.

  'Hey,' I said gently.

  'I can't turn around,' he said. 'But I think otherwise I'm acting quite normally. No one has tried to throw me out yet. How are you?'

  'I'm all right. What's happened?'

  'Look by the door.'

  I looked. There was a revolving metal stand with children's birthday cards on it. I immediately saw what the problem was. It was as if whoever had arranged the cards had done so in a way designed to cause Josh maximum discomfort. The vertical row of cards you'd have to walk past to get out of the shop had age-badges with big, colourful numbers on them. From the top down, the numbers were 6, 6, 6, 1, 3 and 7—666 was just about the worst-possible number for Josh, closely followed by 13.

  'At least there's a seven,' I said to him.

  'It won't do any good. Oh, God. Why is this happening? I only wanted a birthday card for Dad. They don't usually do children's cards in here. That's why I came, but now I can't get out. I might have to stay here for ever. I thought of just turning the rack around, but I'd still know they were there. Plus I can't go near them. Why did I not see them when I came in? I'm such a knob.'

  'It's OK,' I said. 'I'll move them somehow.'

  'You'd touch them?'

  'Yeah, it's OK.'

  'They'll curse you.'

  'They won't.' I thought about the nocebo effect. 'I think if you don't believe in them, they can't hurt you.'

  'I can't stop believing in them.'

  'I know. But you will one day.'

  Josh sighed. 'Thank you for coming to help me. I'm very grateful.'

  'It's all right.'

  'I left a message for Milly, but maybe she won't come. She always used to help.'

  I sighed. 'Yeah. It's all a bit complicated, I guess, now she's moved out.'

  'Yeah.'

  'So does this happen a lot?' I said.

  He shrugged. 'It's been better recently, but usually about once a week.'

  'And you always call Milly?'

  'Yeah. She's very sympathetic. She understands. I don't know what I'm going to do when she goes.'

  'Goes? But I thought she'd already...'

  'I mean when she goes to London.'

  'I didn't know she was going to London.'

  'She is. She's going back to her parents. Christopher will be thrilled.'

  'God.'

  We stood there for a few moments looking at the diaries. One of them showed all the Pagan festivals, and the phases of the moon; another had pictures of mushrooms and details of when you could pick the different types; another included tide tables for the Devon coastline. I picked up the mushroom diary and opened it randomly. An entry for October told me about the death cap, which looks similar to the field mushroom except for its white gills. The field mushroom is good on toast; the death cap will kill you if you eat it. I knew this already because I sometimes went foraging with Libby and Bob. Bob had a rule never to pick anything with white gills, because of the death cap, but Libby claimed to know which white-gilled mushrooms were poisonous and which weren't, and so picked whatever she liked. One of their friends had ended up on kidney dialysis after eating what looked like chanterelles but were actually deadly webcaps. Hearing about this hadn't bothered Libby at all. I couldn't imagine being killed by a mushroom. I put the diary back.

  'OK,' I said. 'So I think I'm going to go and...'

  Josh shuddered. 'Do you mind if we just stand here for another minute or so before you touch them? I have to prepare myself. I think we can just look at diaries for a bit longer.'

  'OK. Just tell me when you're ready.'

  'Did I ever tell you the joke about the flood?'

  'No. I don't think so. What is it?'

  'A very religious man hears that there's a flood coming. Everyone in his village is evacuated, but when people ask him why he's not going, he says, "God will save me." So the flood comes and the waters get higher and higher. The man ends up on his roof. A boat comes to rescue him, but the man refuses to get on it. "God will save me," he says, and the boat goes away. Then the water gets even higher until there's only a tiny patch of his roof left. A helicopter comes and they let down a rope-ladder, but the man waves them away. "It's all right," he says. "God will save me." Anyway, he drowns and goes to heaven. When he gets there he's pretty pissed off, so he goes straight to God and asks him why he let him die. "I believed you would save me!" he says. "Well," says God, "I did try. I sent you a warning, and then a boat and then a helicopter. What more did you want?"'

  I laughed. 'That's a good one. Oh—thinking of heaven, I've brought Second World for you.'

  'Thanks.'

  'It's in the car with Bess. I hope she hasn't eaten it.'

  'I hope so too.'

  The door tinkled and I turned around. It was Milly.

  'Hi,' she said to me.

  'Hi,' I said. 'He can't turn around.'

  'Milly,' Josh said, with his back to her. 'Sorry to call you again. Thanks so much ... How are you?'

  While he was talking, Milly frowned a question-mark at me, and I tilted my head at the cards. She nodded. She could see what the problem was too. She was younger than me, younger even than my brother Toby, but she seemed ageless. Her hair was red and shiny and her eyes were light grey. She had no wrinkles, but didn't look childlike. We'd met about a year before, at Peter's sixty-fifth birthday party. Christopher had been too ill to go, so I'd gone on my own and helped Josh and Peter with the food. Milly had been playing the harp. After the other guests left, the four of us sat and drank espressos from the machine and we laughed at Josh's jokes and talked about our plans for the following year. Peter was goin
g to do his Grade 5 music theory test and start opening the café in the evenings. Josh was going to write down his theory of everything and try to make peace with one more number. Milly said she was going to learn how to sew and make her own clothes. It felt more like New Year's Eve than someone's birthday. I said I was going to finish my novel, and I couldn't think of anything else. I'd wondered for ages after that about ringing Milly and suggesting coffee or lunch, but I never did because I didn't want to have to lie to Christopher about where I was going. Also, I never had any money for coffee or lunch.

  'I've been better,' she said. Then, to me: 'How's Christopher's hand?'

  'Broken. But it was all his fault.'

  'Yes,' she said. Her eyes filled with tears.

  'Are you OK?' I asked.

  'I don't know. Oh, ignore me. We need to move these stupid cards somehow.'

  'Josh doesn't want us to touch them,' I said.

  Milly rolled her eyes and went over to the counter, where the shop assistant was reading a book. After a whispered conversation that I couldn't quite hear, Milly sighed, marched over to the metal rack by the door and started taking out all the cards with numbers on them. Then she walked back over to the desk, dumped them all down and got her purse out of her bag. Josh had his eyes shut through all of this, and when he heard Milly sigh again he reached for my hand.

  'You know that's going to be thirty-eight pounds forty?' said the shop assistant.

  'Fine,' said Milly. 'You take Visa, presumably?'

  A minute or two later Milly walked past with a big paper bag. Josh still had his eyes shut. The door tinkled as she walked out.

  'What's happening?' Josh said.

  'It's OK. The numbers have gone,' I said.

  He opened his eyes. 'Thank God. Where's Milly?'

  'I imagine she's disposing of them somehow.'

  'It's cost her loads. I'll have to pay her back. And she must be so upset about her and Dad as well and ... Oh—I'm such a knob.'

  'It's OK,' I said again. 'Don't worry.'

  Josh was still shaking as we walked out of the shop. 'Will you thank Milly for me when she gets back?' he said. 'I'm too embarrassed to see anyone right now, especially her. I think I'm going to go home and have a lie down. I'm so fucking pathetic I can't believe it.'