The Thief of Time

by John Boyne

  ‘Busy,’ I said. ‘Extremely busy.’

  ‘Did you get someone to replace James?’ she asked and I shook my head.

  ‘No. I’ve been doing the job ever since he died. And P.W. disappeared off to the Caribbean or some place and delivered his dervish of a daughter to me instead to take care of his shares and she’s about the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, which is really saying something.’

  ‘How come?’ asked Tara, and I found that I didn’t mind discussing these things with her. Six months, even twelve months, before I would have been worried that anything I said would either be in a newspaper column or all around the office by dinner time but now, even though we had only been together for about half an hour, I trusted her again. I felt that I could get these problems off my chest and reveal how they made me feel. And I recognised that I didn’t have anybody in my life that I could do that with. I told her about Caroline and how she was gradually trying to involve herself deeper and deeper in the business, even though I didn’t believe she was particularly good at her job, and how she was still bucking for James Hocknell’s old job.

  ‘Well, she’s not going to get it, is she?’ asked Tara, washing down the last of her meal with a long drink from her mineral water. I shook my head.

  ‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘But then neither am I. I’ve spent about six months doing it now and I’ve had enough. I need a break. I’m not a young man.’

  ‘You want to return to your idle man of leisure days,’ she said with a smile and I nodded quickly.

  ‘I do,’ I said, unashamed to admit it. ‘I really do. I mean I want to maintain my involvement but not at this level. Not where I’m responsible for everything that goes on. I want the old days back.’

  ‘Who doesn’t?’ she said quietly, and I stored that phrase away as I suspected it was a hint on her part as much as anything. ‘So what are you going to do then?’ she asked. ‘Recruit from another station? I suppose I could give you the names of a few people who -’

  ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘That’s all right. I have a vague idea in my mind of what I might do but I have no idea whether it makes any sense or not. I have to think it through. Anyway, tell me about you. Honestly now. Are you happy with your job?’

  ‘About as happy as you are with yours,’ she said honestly. She sighed. ‘I’m not exactly stretched, Matthieu. I’m bored with the shows I’m doing and the rest of the time it’s all research and administrative things, which I have about as much interest in as you do. I want to be back in front of the camera. I want to present a solid news show, that’s all I want to do. I want to put one together, design a fresh format, put together a professional team and work to make it successful. A good news show. That’s all I want.’

  I nodded and looked down at the table. I felt my whole body skipping with delight; this had gone so much better than I could ever have anticipated. ‘Tara,’ I said, ‘I think it’s time we both put our cards on the table, don’t you?’

  I waited until Tommy had settled in at home again before calling over to visit him. Andrea opened the door and looked relieved to see me, even though we had hardly hit it off on our one previous meeting in the hospital. She was heavily pregnant by now and her cheeks looked a little puffy, but she seemed in good health, if a little tired.

  ‘How’s the patient?’ I asked, stepping into the hallway and taking off my coat. ‘I thought I’d give him a couple of days before visiting him.’

  ‘I wish I could,’ she said, leading the way through to the living room where Tommy was staring at the television. ‘But now that you’re here it gives me a chance to go out for a while. I’ll see you later, Tommy, all right?’ Her manner was rude and irritable, as if she had had just about enough of baby-sitting my nephew.

  He grunted and she disappeared out of the room, leaving the two of us alone. He was lying down on the couch in front of the television wearing a T-shirt, a pair of sweat pants and thick, woollen socks. His hair was unwashed and looked a little greasy; his face was still pale and he barely glanced in my direction, turning the volume on the television up instead. Children’s programming. Cartoons.

  ‘You know how you can always tell a cartoon person from a real one?’ he asked me from his prostrate position.

  ‘Go on,’ I said. ‘How?’

  ‘Their fingers,’ he said quietly. ‘Cartoon people always have four fingers. That’s how you can tell. Why do you suppose that is?’

  I thought about it. ‘Well, yes,’ I said. ‘That and the fact that the cartoon people are generally animated. What’s up with you, Tommy? Sit up and act like a grown-up, will you? I’m going to make some coffee. Do you want one?’

  ‘Tea,’ he muttered. I forgot; despite Tommy’s addiction to various narcotic or addictive substances, the one drug to which he seemed indifferent was caffeine.

  After bringing the drinks in, I walked across the living room and switched the television set off.

  ‘Hey,’ complained Tommy. ‘I was watching that.’

  ‘And now you’re not,’ I said, reaching across and putting the mug of tea in front of him. He frowned and covered his eyes with his hands as he lay there, waiting for me to say something. I sighed. ‘So,’ I said eventually, ‘how are you? Feeling any better?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ he said sarcastically. ‘I feel like a million dollars. Let me see, I overdosed, I nearly died, I’m on all these weird medications to wean me off drugs that make my stomach sick all the time and give me near constant diarrhoea, I’ve got no money, my girlfriend’s about to leave me and I’m going to be a father in about a month’s time. Oh, and I’ve been fired from my job. With all these things going for me, how could I feel anything less than deliriously happy? But you’re a peach to ask.’

  ‘You’ve been fired?’ I asked in surprise. ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Yesterday,’ he replied quietly, slightly ashamed I thought. ‘Stephanie phoned to see how I was, or so she said at the start anyway, and then she said that she thought I should take a break from the show for a while. Said that my extra-curricular activities, as she put it, reflected badly on them and they couldn’t afford to have me there any more. So, like, thanks for nine years’ worth of your life but sayonara baby.’ He ticked off his hand against his forehead, like a military salute.

  I shook my head. I wasn’t surprised but it annoyed me that they couldn’t wait until a more appropriate moment to tell him this. After all, he would be on sick leave for the next month or so anyway, during which time he would hopefully be getting his life back in order. There was no need for such immediacy.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry that’s happened but -’

  ‘But you knew it would,’ he interrupted. ‘Yeah, you don’t have to tell me you told me so. You’ve been saying it for years.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I was going to say,’ I said. ‘I was going to say that maybe the time has come when you should leave the show. I mean you’ve been in it since you were, what, twelve?’

  ‘Fourteen.’

  ‘You don’t want to spend the rest of your life playing one character, do you?’

  ‘It’s a job, Uncle Matt,’ he said, sitting up now and staring across at me with a look of enormous self-pity on his face. ‘The fact that I’ve been in it so long is what’s going to hurt me. You think that any casting director from any TV show or movie is going to look at me and see Tommy DuMarque? They don’t! They see Sam Cutler. Stupid Sam. A heart-of-gold boy with about two brain cells to rub together. I’m typecast now. I mean whatever happened to Mike Lincoln, eh? Or Cathy Eliot? Or Pete Martin Sinclair? Where do you see any of them now?’

  ‘Who?’ I asked, not initially seeing his point, only grasping it a moment too late.

  ‘Exactly!’ he roared. ‘They were just as big as I was once. And where are they now? Nothings! No ones! Probably working in a restaurant somewhere, asking whether you want fries with that, sir. That’s my future. No one will employ me in TV. I’m unemployable!’ He bowed his head in his
hands and for a moment I was afraid that he was crying, but he wasn’t. He just wanted darkness. He wanted to see nothing or no one. He wanted to remove himself from the lot. ‘I wish I’d died,’ he said simply when he came back up for air. ‘I wish that OD had killed me.’

  ‘Now that’s enough,’ I said furiously, coming over and sitting beside him on the couch. I took his face in my hands but his eyes looked away; he looked so tired, so utterly exhausted by life, that my heart went out to him. And in his face now, this dying boy’s face, I saw the faces of his ancestors, each of them in turn dead or on their way to dying by his age. Defeated, depressed, Tommy was ready to join their number. ‘You’re not going to die,’ I said firmly.

  ‘What have I got left?’ he asked.

  ‘A baby, for one,’ I said and he shrugged. ‘Tell me this,’ I added after a moment. ‘You’ve told me over and over again how much you hate the attention of being famous, how much you wouldn’t miss it. You’ve said that you can’t stand people looking at you all the time -’

  ‘Well, not all the time,’ he muttered, a gentle spark of humour still present in his misery.

  ‘How much would you really miss it?’ I asked him. ‘How important is fame to you? Tell me, Tommy. How important is fame? How much does it mean? How much does it matter having dozens of celebrity friends hovering around you all the time?’

  He focused for a moment and thought about it, as if he realised that his response could be important here. ‘Not much,’ he said, and it was almost like a revelation to himself. ‘I’ve been famous. I am famous. It doesn’t mean that much. I just want to be successful. I don’t want to be a loser all my life. I’ve got ... I don’t know ... ambition. I need to feel that I’ve succeeded in life. That I’m somebody. I can’t remain static. I have to ... achieved he roared. ‘My life has to end up having some meaning.’

  ‘All right,’ I shouted triumphantly. ‘Now do you mean that? Do you really mean that? You’re looking for success?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Then this, all of this, means nothing. Forget about the show. There’s so much more that you can do now. Look at you, you’re in your early twenties, for Christ’s sake. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You’ve achieved so much in the last decade, ten times more than most people your age have. Just imagine what you can do in the future! You pull yourself together or you’re going to die. You’re going to end up killing yourself just like you almost did.’

  ‘Big fucking deal,’ he said, sinking again.

  ‘All right Tommy,’ I said quietly. ‘I want you to sit up and listen to me. I’m going to tell you about your family. Your father, and his, and his. Something I’ve never done before, believe me. I’m going to show you where they went wrong and, by God, if you can’t change your life because of it then there’s no point in either of us continuing on here. There’re nine generations of DuMarques whose destiny you know nothing about but who you’re following into the grave so predictably. It ends now, Tommy. It ends here and now. Today.’

  He stared at me as if I was mad. ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m talking about history,’ I said.

  ‘History.’

  ‘Yes! I’m talking about you repeating the same old pattern of all your ancestors because you’re too stupid to open your eyes and allow yourself to live! Every one of you didn’t give a damn about life and so sacrificed it. I’ve been given all your years. And I’ve had enough, all right?’ I was shouting and saying things I hadn’t imagined I would before.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked. ‘How can you tell me any of that? I mean I know you must have known my father and, I guess, his, but how could you -’

  ‘Tommy, just sit back and stay quiet and let me speak. Don’t say anything until I finish, can you do that for me?’

  He shrugged. ‘OK,’ he said in a defeated tone, leaning forward and picking up his cup of tea.

  ‘All right then,’ I said, moving back to the armchair and taking a deep breath. I would save Tommy’s life, I decided. I demanded of myself that I save him. ‘All right,’ I repeated, taking a deep breath and gearing myself up to begin my story. ‘Here’s the thing, Tommy,’ I began. ‘This is the story. So just listen to it. There’s one thing about me that you don’t realise and it’s probably not going to be easy to grasp but I’m going to try anyway. And it’s this.

  ‘I don’t die. I just get older and older and older.’

  Over the next few days I was surprised by the public reaction to Tommy’s dismissal. Although the initial response to his overdose had been one of tabloid horror at the excesses of a spoilt youth who had thrown away so much – a predictable and entirely hypocritical reaction on their part, considering that they were the very ones to build him up in the first place – public opinion slowly began to alter that viewpoint into one of sympathy and understanding.

  The fact was that Tommy DuMarque had become part of the nation’s life over the previous nine years. They had watched him grow up from a violent, tortured adolescent, to a responsible, albeit sexually promiscuous, man – or rather they had watched Sam Cutler grow up, but the two names were interchangeable to most, as were their lives. They had followed his adventures in the newspapers, bought his records, pinned his posters to their bedroom walls, bought the celebrity magazines where they invented a house for him to pretend was his own. They had bought a magazine one week because the cover showed Sam Cutler and Tina embracing; they had bought it the following week because it showed Tommy DuMarque and his latest girlfriend. The lines between the two were thin; the distinctions blurred. They had bought into this life, whoever’s it was, Tommy’s or Sam’s, and they weren’t going to give it up without a fight.

  News stations began to carry reports on the number of letters which the producers were receiving, condemning them for cutting him loose at a time when he most needed help. Having nurtured him for so long and made him a star, these letters pointed out, it was despicable that they should fire him for embracing the very lifestyle which their programming demanded of him.

  An appeal was made through one newspaper that all of those who were opposed to Tommy DuMarque’s dismissal should tune off from the Tuesday evening episode of his television show, and indeed the viewing figures on that night sank from their regular position of around fifteen million, to only eight. I had no idea what was going on at the show’s production meetings, but I suspected it wasn’t pretty.

  I phoned Tommy to see whether he was encouraged by the news, but he wasn’t at home. ‘He had to go to a ground floor flat and out the side window,’ explained Andrea. ‘We’ve got what looks like half the world’s media camped outside here. They’re all waiting for some response from him.’

  ‘Tell him not to make any,’ I told her firmly. ‘The last thing he needs right now is to get into a war of words with his producers. Tell him to stay quiet on the matter. If he really wants back in, that’s his best shot.’

  ‘Don’t worry, that’s what he’s doing.’

  ‘And how is he anyway?’

  ‘He’s not too bad actually,’ she said optimistically. ‘Much better than last week. He’s gone back to the hospital for a check-up. Says he’s going to join a group for reformed drug users, so that can’t be bad.’

  ‘Really?’ I said, delighted to hear it. ‘Well, that’s good news.’

  ‘If he actually sees it through. You know what he’s like.’ She paused. ‘Do you think he’s going to get his job back?’

  I hesitated before answering. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t hold out much hope. The public are fickle. This is big news right now but it won’t be in a couple of weeks’ time. All they’ve got to do is invent some enormous storyline to get everyone hooked again. Why, is he holding out for a phone call from them?’

  ‘I think he’s thinking about it, I’m not sure. He hasn’t said much. He’s been in a funny mood, to tell you the truth, ever since the other day, the day you were here. His whole attitud
e has changed since then.’

  ‘Really,’ I said, aware that she was in fact asking a question but unwilling to supply her with an answer. Tommy’s reaction to what I had told him had been one of disbelief at first, naturally enough. He was the first person I had ever told about my life and he had laughed, thinking that I was playing some joke on him.

  We talked back and forth for hours and I told him many stories of his own forefathers as well as tales of incidents in which I myself had been involved. I told him of my youth and of an early, doomed love affair which had ended in tragedy. I even acknowledged how it is possible to fall in love with someone who is undeserving of that affection. I told him everything. I spoke of the eighteenth century, the nineteenth and the twentieth. The settings shifted from England to Europe to America and back again. I told him of people he had heard of from history and those whose names had vanished after their deaths, only to live on in the memories of their counterparts, who in turn had died, leaving only one, leaving only me, the eldest of them all.

  In the end, while still not fully convinced, I left him in a state of bewilderment. ‘Uncle Matt,’ he asked as I made my way through the door. ‘All of these people, my father, my grandfather, my greatgrandfather and so on. Is it supposed to be some sort of metaphor for me? Are you making this stuff up to make a point?’

  I laughed. ‘No,’ I said simply. ‘Not at all. These things happened. They took place, that’s all I’m saying. Make of them what you will. And now it’s your turn, that’s all. I’m telling you this and I promise you I never told any of your ancestors. Maybe I should have. Maybe the knowledge could have saved them. But, either way, you know now. What you do with the information is your own business. Just one thing, that’s all -’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You keep it between you and me. The last thing I want is your level of fame.’

  He laughed. ‘You and me both,’ he said.

  ‘He’s probably still feeling the effects of the last few weeks,’ I told Andrea. ‘Give him time. He’ll come round. How are you feeling anyway? You can’t have that long left.’