The Fahrenheit Twins

by Michel Faber

  Michel Faber

  THE FAHRENHEIT

  TWINS

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  THE SAFEHOUSE

  ANDY COMES BACK

  THE EYES OF THE SOUL

  SERIOUS SWIMMERS

  EXPLAINING COCONUTS

  FINESSE

  FLESH REMAINS FLESH

  LESS THAN PERFECT

  A HOLE WITH TWO ENDS

  THE SMALLNESS OF THE ACTION

  ALL BLACK

  MOUSE

  SOMEONE TO KISS IT BETTER

  BEYOND PAIN

  TABITHA WARREN

  VANILLA-BRIGHT LIKE EMINEM

  THE FAHRENHEIT TWINS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY MICHEL FABER

  COPYRIGHT

  About the Publisher

  THE SAFEHOUSE

  I

  I wake up, blinking hard against the sky, and the first thing I remember is that my wife cannot forgive me. Never, ever.

  Then I remind myself I don’t have a wife anymore.

  Instead, I’m lying at the bottom of a stairwell, thirty concrete steps below street level in a city far from my home. My home is in the past, and I must live in the present.

  I’m lying on a soft pile of rubbish bags, and I seem to have got myself covered in muck. It’s all over my shabby green raincoat and the frayed sleeves of my jumper, and there’s a bit on my trousers as well. I sniff it, trying to decide what it is, but I can’t be sure.

  How strange I didn’t notice it when I was checking this place out last night. OK, it was already dark by then and I was desperate to find somewhere to doss down after being moved on twice already. But I remember crawling into the rubbish really carefully, prodding the bin bags with my hands and thinking this was the softest and driest bed I was likely to find. Maybe the muck seeped out later on, under pressure from my sleeping body.

  I look around for something to wipe my clothes with. There’s nothing, really. If I were a cat, I’d lick the crap off with my tongue, and still be a proud, even fussy creature. But I’m not a cat. I’m a human being.

  So, I pull a crumpled-up advertising brochure out of the trash, wet it with dregs from a beer bottle, and start to scrub my jacket vigorously with the damp wad of paper.

  Maybe it’s the exercise, or maybe the rising sun, but pretty soon I feel I can probably get by without these dirty clothes – at least until tonight. And tonight is too far away to think about.

  I stand up, leaving my raincoat and jumper lying in the garbage, where they look as if they belong anyway. I’m left with a big white T-shirt on, my wrinkled neck and skinny arms bare, which feels just right for the temperature. The T-shirt’s got writing on the front, but I’ve forgotten what the writing says. In fact, I can’t remember where I got this T-shirt, whether someone gave it to me or I stole it or even bought it, long long ago.

  I climb the stone steps back up to the street, and start walking along the footpath in no particular direction, just trying to become part of the picture generally. The big picture. Sometimes in magazines you see a photograph of a street full of people, an aerial view. Everyone looks as though they belong, even the blurry ones.

  I figure it must be quite early, because although there’s lots of traffic on the road, there’s hardly any pedestrians. Some of the shops haven’t opened yet, unless it’s a Sunday and they aren’t supposed to. So there’s my first task: working out what day it is. It’s good to have something to get on with.

  Pretty soon, though, I lose my concentration on this little mission. There’s something wrong with the world today, something that puts me on edge.

  It’s to do with the pedestrians. As they pass by me on the footpath, they look at me with extreme suspicion – as if they’re thinking of reporting me to the police, even though I’ve taken my dirty clothes off to avoid offending them. Maybe my being in short sleeves is the problem. Everyone except me seems to be wrapped up in lots of clothes, as though it’s much colder than I think it is. I guess I’ve become a hard man.

  I smile, trying to reassure everybody, everybody in the world.

  Outside the railway station, I score half a sandwich from a litter bin. I can’t taste much, but from the texture I can tell it’s OK – not slimy or off. Rubbish removal is more regular outside the station than in some other places.

  A policeman starts walking towards me, and I run away. In my haste I almost bump into a woman with a pram, and she hunches over her baby as if she’s scared I’m going to fall on it and crush it to death. I get my balance back and apologise; she says ‘No harm done,’ but then she looks me over and doesn’t seem so sure.

  By ten o’clock, I’ve been stopped in the street three times already, by people who say they want to help me.

  One is a middle-aged lady with a black woollen coat and a red scarf, another is an Asian man who comes running out of a newsagent’s, and one is just a kid. But they aren’t offering me food or a place to sleep. They want to hand me over to the police. Each of them seems to know me, even though I’ve never met them before. They call me by name, and say my wife must be worried about me.

  I could try to tell them I don’t have a wife anymore, but it’s easier just to run away. The middle-aged lady is on high heels, and the Asian man can’t leave his shop. The kid sprints after me for a few seconds, but he gives up when I leap across the road.

  I can’t figure out why all these people are taking such an interest in me. Until today, everyone would just look right through me as if I didn’t exist. All this time I’ve been the Invisible Man, now suddenly I’m everybody’s long-lost uncle.

  I decide it has to be the T-shirt.

  I stop in front of a shop window and try to read what the T-shirt says by squinting at my reflection in the glass. I’m not so good at reading backwards, plus there’s a surprising amount of text, about fifteen sentences. But I can read enough to tell that my name is spelled out clearly, as well as the place I used to live, and even a telephone number to call. I look up at my face, my mouth is hanging open. I can’t believe that when I left home I was stupid enough to wear a T-shirt with my ID printed on it in big black letters.

  But then I must admit I wasn’t in such a good state of mind when I left home – suicidal, in fact.

  I’m much better now.

  Now, I don’t care if I live or die.

  Things seem to have taken a dangerous turn today, though. All morning, I have to avoid people who act like they’re about to grab me and take me to the police. They read my T-shirt, and then they get that look in their eye.

  Pretty soon, the old feelings of being hunted from all sides start to come back. I’m walking with my arms wrapped around my chest, hunched over like a drug addict. The sun has gone away but I’m sweating. People are zipping up their parkas, glancing up at the sky mistrustfully, hurrying to shelter. But even under the threat of rain, some of them still slow down when they see me, and squint at the letters on my chest, trying to read them through the barrier of my arms.

  By midday, I’m right back to the state I was in when I first went missing. I have pains in my guts, I feel dizzy, I can’t catch my breath, there are shapes coming at me from everywhere. The sky loses its hold on the rain, starts tossing it down in panic. I’m soaked in seconds, and even though getting soaked means nothing to me, I know I’ll get sick and helpless if I don’t get out of the weather soon.

  Another total stranger calls my name through the deluge, and I have to run again. It’s obvious that my life on the streets is over.

  So, giving up, I head for the Safehouse.

  II

  I’ve never been to the Safehouse before – well, never inside it an
yway. I’ve walked past many times, and I know exactly where to find it. It’s on the side of town where all the broken businesses and closed railway stations are, the rusty barbedwire side of town, where everything waits forever to be turned into something new. The Safehouse is the only building there whose windows have light behind them.

  Of course I’ve wondered what goes on inside, I won’t deny that. But I’ve always passed it on the other side of the street, hurried myself on before I could dawdle, pulling myself away as if my own body were a dog on a lead.

  Today, I don’t resist. Wet and emaciated and with my name writ large on my chest, I cross the road to the big grey building.

  The Safe house looks like a cross between a warehouse and school, built in the old-fashioned style with acres of stone façade and scores of identical windows, all glowing orange and black. In the geometric centre of the building is a fancy entrance with a motto on its portal. GIB MIR DEINE ARME, it says, in a dull rainbow of wrought iron.

  Before I make the final decision, I hang around in front of the building for a while, in case the rain eases off. I walk the entire breadth of the façade, hoping to catch a glimpse of what lies behind, but the gaps between the Safehouse and the adjacent buildings are too narrow. I stretch my neck, trying to see inside one of the windows – well, it feels as if I’m stretching my neck, anyway. I know necks don’t really stretch and we’re the same height no matter what we do. But that doesn’t stop me contorting my chin like an idiot.

  Eventually I work up the courage to knock at the door. There’s no doorbell or doorknocker, and in competition with the rain my knuckles sound feeble against the dense wood. From the inside, the pok pok pok of my flesh and bone will probably be mistaken for water down the drain. However, I can’t bring myself to knock again until I’m sure no one has heard me.

  I shift my weight from foot to foot while I’m waiting, feeling warm sweat and rainwater suck at the toes inside my shoes. My T-shirt is so drenched that it’s hanging down almost to my knees, and I can read a telephone number that people are supposed to ring if they’ve seen me. I close my eyes and count to ten. Above my head, I hear the squeak of metal against wood.

  I look up at the darkening façade, and there, eerily framed in the window nearest to the top of the portal, is a very old woman in a nurse’s uniform. She flinches at the rain and, mindful of her perfectly groomed hair and pastel cottons, stops short of leaning her head out. Instead she looks down at me from where she stands, half-hidden in shadow.

  ‘What can we do for you?’ she says, guardedly, raising her voice only slightly above the weather.

  I realise I have no answer for her, no words. Instead, I unwrap my arms from my torso, awkwardly revealing the text on my T-shirt. The sodden smock of white fabric clings to my skin as I lean back, blinking against the rain. The old woman reads carefully, her eyes rolling to and fro in their sockets. When she’s finished she reaches out a pale, bone-wristed hand and takes hold of the window latch; without speaking she shuts the dark glass firmly between us and disappears.

  Moments later, the massive door creaks open, and I’m in.

  Even before the door has shut behind me, the sound of the rain is swallowed up in the gloomy interior hush of old architecture. I step uncertainly across the threshold into silence.

  The nurse leads me through a red velvety vestibule lit by a long row of ceiling lamps which seem to be giving out about fifteen watts apiece. There is threadbare carpet underfoot, and complicated wallpaper, cracked and curling at the skirtingboards and cornices. As I follow the faintly luminous nurse’s uniform through the amber passageway, I glance sideways at the gilt-framed paintings on the walls: stern old men in grey attire, mummified behind a patina of discoloured varnish like university dons or Victorian industrialists.

  On our way to wherever, we pass what appears to be an office; through its window I glimpse filing cabinets and an obese figure hunched over a paper-strewn desk. But the old woman does not pause; if my admission to the Safehouse involves any paperwork it seems I’m not required to fill in the forms myself.

  Another door opens and I am ushered into a very different space: a large, high-ceilinged dining room so brightly lit by fluorescent tubes that I blink and almost miss my footing. Spacious as a gymnasium and cosy as an underground car park, the Safehouse mess hall welcomes me, whoever I may be. Its faded pink walls, synthetic furniture and scuffed wooden floor glow with reflected light. And, despite its dimensions, it is as warm as anyone could want, with gas heaters galore.

  At one end, close to where I have entered, two fat old women in nurse’s uniforms stand behind a canteen counter wreathed in a fog of brothy vapour. They ladle soup into ceramic bowls, scoop flaccid white bread out of damp plastic bags, fetch perfect toast out of antique black machines. One of them looks up at me and smiles for half a second before getting back to her work.

  The rest of the hall is littered with a hundred mismatching chairs (junk-shop boxwood and stainless steel) and an assortment of tables, mostly Formica. It is also littered with human beings, a placid, murmuring population of men, women and teenage children – a hundred of them, maybe more. Even at the first glimpse, before I take in anything else, they radiate a powerful aura – an aura of consensual hopelessness. Other than this, they are as mismatched as the furniture, all sizes and shapes, from roly-poly to anorexic thin, from English rose to Jamaica black. Most are already seated, a few are wandering through the room clutching a steaming bowl, searching for somewhere good to sit. Each and every one of them is dressed in a white T-shirt just like mine.

  Behind me, a door shuts; the old nurse has left me to fend for myself, as if it should be transparently obvious how things work here. And, in a way, it is. The fists I have clenched in anticipation of danger grow slack as I accept that my arrival has made no impression on the assembled multitude. I am one of them already.

  Hesitantly, I step up to the canteen counter. A bearded man with wayward eyebrows and bright blue eyes is already standing there waiting, his elbow leaning on the edge. Though his body is more or less facing me, his gaze is fixed on the old women and the toast they’re buttering for him. So, I take the opportunity to read what the text on his T-shirt says.

  It says:

  JEFFREY ANNESLEY

  AGE 47

  Jeffrey disappeared on April 7, 1994 from his work in Leeds. He was driving his blue Mondeo, registration L562 WFU.

  Jeffrey had been unwell for some time and it was decided he would go to hospital to receive treatment.

  He may be seeking work as a gas-fitter.

  Jeffrey’s family are extremely worried about him.

  His wife says he is a gentle man who loves his two daughters very much.

  ‘We just want to know how you are,’ she says.

  ‘Everything is sorted out now.’

  Have you have seen Jeffrey?

  If you have any information, please contact the Missing Persons Helpline.

  Jeffrey Annesley reaches out his big gnarly hands and takes hold of a plate of food. No soup, just a small mound of toast. He mumbles a thanks I cannot decipher, and walks away, back to a table he has already claimed.

  ‘What would you like, pet?’ says one of the old women behind the canteen counter. She sounds Glaswegian and has a face like an elderly transvestite.

  ‘What is there?’ I ask.

  ‘Soup and toast,’ she says.

  ‘What sort of soup?’

  ‘Pea and ham.’ She glances at my chest, as if to check whether I’m vegetarian. ‘But I can try to scoop it so as there’s no ham in yours.’

  ‘No, it’s all right, thank you,’ I assure her. ‘Can I have it in a cup?’

  She turns to the giant metal pot on the stove, her fat shoulders gyrating as she decants my soup. I notice that the seams of her uniform have been mended several times, with thread that is not quite matching.

  ‘Here you are, pet.’

  She hands me an orange-brown stoneware mug, filled with ear
thy-looking soup I cannot smell.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  I weave my way through the litter of chairs and tables. Here and there someone glances at me as I pass, but mostly I’m ignored. I take my seat near a young woman who is slumped with her feet up on a table, apparently asleep. On the lap of her mud-stained purple trousers, a plate of toast rises and falls almost imperceptibly. The forward tilt of her head gives her a double chin, even though she is scrawny and small.

  I read her T-shirt. It says:

  CATHY STOCKTON

  AGE 17

  Cathy left her home in Bristol in July 2002 to stay in London. She has run away before but never for this long. At Christmas 2003, a girl claiming to be a friend of Cathy’s rang Cathy’s auntie in Dessborough, Northants, asking if Cathy could come to visit. This visit never happened.

  Cathy’s mother wants her to know that Cathy’s stepfather is gone now and that her room is back the way it was. ‘I have never stopped loving you,’ she says. ‘Snoopy and Paddington are next to your pillow, waiting for you to come home.’

  Cathy suffers from epilepsy and may need medicine. If you have seen her, please call the Missing Persons Helpline.

  Cathy snoozes on, a stray lock of her blond hair fluttering in the updraft from her breath.

  I lean back in my chair and sip at my mug of soup. I taste nothing much, but the porridgy liquid is satisfying in my stomach, filling a vacuum there. I wonder what I will have to do in order to be allowed to stay in the Safehouse, and who I can ask about this. As a conversationalist I have to admit I’m pretty rusty. Apart from asking passers-by for spare change, I haven’t struck up a conversation with anyone for a very long time. How does it work? Do you make some comment about the weather? I glance up at the windows, which are opaque and high above the ground. There is a faint pearlescent glow coming through them, but I can’t tell if it’s still raining out there or shining fit to burst.

  The old woman who escorted me here hasn’t returned to tell me what I’m supposed to do next. Maybe she’ll escort somebody else into the hall at some stage, and I can ask her then. But the canteen ladies are cleaning up, putting the food away. They seem to have reason to believe I’m the last new arrival for the afternoon.