I leave the console on. I wonder if these images relate to what Tabs's ancestors are seeing. Again I notice that there's not much actual ancestry here. There's nothing showing on the screen that I don't recognize. No cavemen; no Roman graffiti. But I thought Mr. Y used Pedesis to travel through time. Or maybe I just misread that part of the book. I wish I understood this. I picked up some information just from being in Martin's mind, but it isn't enough.
Another girl walks past, and Tabs recognizes her as a lower-sixth girl called Maxine and tries to think of something cool and witty to say in case the girl says anything to her. This time, when the door opens over the image of the girl, a new display appears on the console screen as well. I recognize this by now: It's an image of me/Tabs and it means—or it must mean—that I can jump from here to there, just like I did with the mouse and the cat. OK. I'm going to try this. Cross my fingers: Go, go. Come on. And—yes—I'm blurring, but hopefully not back into the Troposphere....
You now have one choice.
You ... I smell. I smell so bad. Those year eleven girls must have smelled me as I walked past just now. I can feel the dampness under my arms and between my thighs—my large, oversized, supermassive, chunky thunder-thighs. Wearing tights means that my legs don't rub together so bad, and my skin doesn't go red, but they make me hot and when I'm hot I sweat like an animal. But at least animals are meant to smell. No one minds if animals smell. No one else will ever understand this. I don't know how I can go on through life with this problem. If I died, would anyone notice? No one is going to want to go to bed with me, ever. I even revolt myself when I get undressed, and I know that Claire, Molly, and Esther notice but don't say anything. Well, they don't say anything to me, but I think they talk about it when I'm not there. I so hope they're not planning one of those stupid "interventions." They did it last term with Nicky Martin. They all swooped on her just after she'd got into bed and told her that her breath stank. Obviously they were supernice about it. Everyone's supernice about everything here. "We just thought you'd want to know..." Smile, smile, privileged teeth. "We'd want you to tell us if, like, we had any problems." If they tried an intervention on me I'd kill myself. I don't know how yet. I don't like blood and I can't tie a noose. Oh damn. There's Esther. I have to go and change but I can't if Esther's on her way to the dorm. Great.
You now have one choice.
You ... I'm so much thinner than Maxine now. That diet is fantastic.
"Hey, Maxine."
I like saying "Hey" rather than "Hi." It's kind of American.
"Oh, hi, Esther."
But she doesn't stop and talk; she practically runs in the other direction. What did I ever do to her? Stuck-up bitch. Anyway, so what am I going to do if Miss Goodbody ("Call me Isobel") does make a move on me? I've had this crush for so long that it never occurred to me that she might feel the same way about me. But she was the one who suggested extra drama lessons, and she was the one who walked in while I was getting changed for the dress rehearsal the other day, and she was the one who commented on my tits. Seriously. I am certain I didn't imagine it. There was the "Whoops" after she pulled back the wrong curtain. Then the too-long pause. Then the little smile. Then—and I am ninety-nine percent sure this really happened—then she said, "Nice tits" before walking away. So that must mean something. She's not just trying to be cool and young, etc. She must be trying to tell me something. But it was so much under her breath that I can't be sure she said it at all.
Just because I want her, that doesn't make me a lesbian. Does it?
I am not a lesbian.
I am not a lesbian.
But I do want her to kiss me.
I turn a corner and start walking up the lower-sixth staircase. Usually I take these stairs two at a time, but my breathing feels tight today. What did I do with my inhaler? Shit. I think it's in my gym bag down in the changing rooms. I can't be bothered to go down there now. I'll be all right. I haven't had a real attack for over a year now. If only I knew what to do with this feeling I get when I think about Isobel Goodbody. It's as though ... It's as though my stomach is a fish tank with thousands and thousands of fish in it, but the water's been drained out and now they're all flopping around like on that horrible documentary we watched in Biology. How do I switch this feeling off? I think kissing her might do it, but when am I going to get to do that? And is it worth getting expelled for? What if everyone finds out and thinks I'm a lesbian? I hope no one's in the dorm. Oh shit. Someone is in here. It's Molly, and she looks weird. What is going on with all that eyeliner? Has she even got a free period now? I thought she was supposed to be in philosophy.
The console stays the same as the frame of the doll's house hovers around Molly. Come on, come on. I'm potentially two steps away from Burlem now. Well, if this works I am. Why isn't this happening? Why am I not getting the image in the console that tells me I can switch over to Molly?
I think of Apollo Smintheus's document, the bit I didn't remember at first:
You can jump from person to person in the physical world (but only if the person is at that moment vulnerable to the world of all minds).
Vulnerable in what way? I don't understand. I stay with Esther, but with the console in my vision, too. If there's even a flicker I'm jumping over to Molly.
"Hey," I say to Molly.
"Hey," she says back.
"No philosophy?"
"Couldn't be bothered."
I go over to my bed and sit on it. So much for thinking about Isobel in privacy. Now I've got bloody Molly sitting here simmering. She's putting on makeup. I watch as she applies pink blusher and black mascara. Now she's back onto the eyeliner, smearing more of it on as though she's about to join a troupe of mime artists who worship the devil in their spare time.
"Are you going somewhere?" I ask her.
"Yeah."
"Where?"
"Out."
"Molly."
"What? It's Friday night and I'm not staying in this shit hole."
"But..."
"Just cover for me, Esther, yeah?"
"Yeah." I shrug. "Of course."
In fact, the sooner she goes, the sooner I'll be alone. Unless Maxine comes up as well. I don't know where she was going. She went off in the direction of the changing rooms—but she never does sport. I should have asked her to get my inhaler. I sigh. You can get a good education here but no bloody privacy. At least next year I'll have my own room. I was supposed to have my own room this year, or at least be sharing with only one other person. But there's a "space crisis" and mice in the old sixth-form wing. So here we are and it's like year eleven all over again.
"Hey, Moll?" I say to her now.
"Yeah?"
"Who are you going with?"
Maybe she's going out with Maxine. Although Maxine's being weird with everyone lately. But I can still hope that the whole dorm's going out without me tonight. Imagine being here on my own and having Miss Goodbody walk in and ... I couldn't call her Miss Goodbody if I was about to kiss her. Oh, Isobel... That sounds downright stupid.
"No one. I'm gonna hook up with Hugh when I get into town."
And that's when it happens: the flicker in the console. I jump. I'm in....
You now have one choice.
You ... I ache for Hugh. Someone said he was the most dangerous guy in Hitchin the other day. Fine. Maybe I'm the most dangerous girl. He doesn't see that, of course. He sees, what? A private schoolgirl with all the privileges he never had? A teenager; just an immature kid? But he must see something in me, otherwise why did he spend the whole night with me last Saturday?
But he hasn't answered his phone since then. He hasn't texted me. So I'm faced with another night of wandering from pub to bar to club on my own, pretending to be doing something other than looking for him. But what? I look over at Esther. She's like a skeleton lately. That's one good reason not to ask her to come with me. Maybe she'd be more his type with her natural blond hair, and the way she's got those ginormous tits on
that tiny body. Bitch. No, I won't take her. I just need to be with Hugh again. I don't care about his stupid housemates, or his mattress on the floor, or that he likes to drink vodka from the bottle while he's screwing me. I don't care that while I was whispering "Hugh, Hugh" in his ear he only grunted back some name that didn't sound like mine, and that when I said to him, "Fuck me hard" (like on that Internet porn story Claire printed out last term), he grinned and called me a little slut. I don't even want to change him. Maybe I just need to change me.
Or have I already changed too much? What's it called when butterflies come out of their cocoons? Whatever it is that's not what's happened to me. I'd be a horrible butterfly. Whatever I was before I've hatched, that's what it is: I've hatched into something else now. And it's not as though I'm a typical stuck-up rich girl, anyway. Everyone knows about the "blow job on the sofa" incident—even the teachers; not that they can prove anything. OK, so nothing happened really. I saw the guy's dick but I didn't suck it. I mean—yuck! But I like the reputation it's given me, even though most of the form still aren't speaking to me because of it. I could tell Hugh I'm going to be expelled because I have so much sex. That should impress him. After all, last time I saw him he did try to make out that we shouldn't see each other anymore because he's so much more experienced than me. "I've seen and done things that would really shock you, babe." That's what he said. So what, Hugh. I've had a lot of sex, too. We're both damaged. We're both sad, lonely people, which is why we should be together. Like in that Tom Waits song you played me.
Also, I know that he's had a tragic past and everything, but so have I. What about the fact that my dad died when I was nine, and then I found out that my real dad was someone else—some colleague of Mum's? Or does that sound hopelessly middle-class? It's not exactly a case for social services, is it? I haven't seen my dad—my "real" dad—for over a year now. No one's seen him for over a year. More eyeliner. But my school fees are still mysteriously being paid. So I can't even say he's dead. Maybe I will, though. I could say I've had two dads who have died, and that I think I must be cursed. It's still not as exciting as alcoholism or drug dealing. I could say my mother beats me up, but that would be a lie. She hit me only once, when I said I was glad Dad had died.
The console's been there all along and I've been watching the images float around. There are five, but I don't know which one I want. I keep looking at them while Molly keeps thinking about Hugh. This is probably the first time I've been in someone's mind and felt a connection greater than simply /'m here and / understand you because of that. I understand Molly on a much more fundamental level. But I can't stick with Molly; I have to work out where to jump next.
Here are my choices:
–A view of a desk in an office;
–A first-person view of driving a car along a narrow lane;
–A view of an old woman chewing something;
–An old man reading the paper;
–Another old woman, but this one has pink streaks in her hair.
I know that if I jump into one of these I could end up anywhere. I have to end up with Saul Burlem, because I just don't know how I'll get back to this point if I get lost first. I look through the images again. The desk has a fluffy toy on it. The hands on the steering wheel of the car are female, with fluorescent pink nail polish. These people aren't male. Now I'm left with three elderly people. Are these all the POVs of grandparents: images of other grandparents or grandparents' acquaintances? Where's Saul Burlem? Where's his POV? I glance over the images again. I can't choose. None of them seems right. Maybe he is dead. But my mind seems to want to rest on the woman with pink hair. In fact, I'm just looking at it and thinking that it's unusual when my mind, clearly translating this into "interesting," starts to jump me into this consciousness, anyway. Oh hell. I'm blurring.... I'm leaving Molly. Just as I go I try to leave a thought in her mind: Forget Hugh. Forget him...
Chapter Twenty
You now have one choice.
You ... I'm coming down the hill in the dark, the lights from the town below sparkling like reflections on water. The dog, Planck, won't go any farther up: It's as if he senses a presence there that I'm not aware of. He doesn't seem to like this space for exactly the reason I do like it. He can't stand the ... The what? The history? The ghosts? Nothing surprises me anymore. So we're walking down. Away from the old, shadowy gateposts; away from the crumbling gray stone wall. When I'm up here I imagine people walking or travelling on horseback in a time when there were no cars; and I sense that there wouldn't have been that buzz you get now: the buzz of electricity being generated and used, and car engines, and pop music. But I'll go where the dog wants to go; it's easier that way. And I'm pleased with myself, pleased that I can give up control like this. But being pleased with myself won't do. I should be nothing with myself. I want the void. Idiot: I can't want the void. I have to let it come to me. I have to let it slowly envelop me when I'm not thinking anything.
Now I know what thoughts look like, thinking is more difficult, anyway.
The dog really does want to get out of here. We're almost running now on the icy, hard mud. Frost. No good for plants; that's what my mother used to say. And Christmas is coming, of course. As we reach the bottom of the hill I see the lights in close-up: hundreds of white, tasteful stars hanging over the road, all within reach. The tree by the roundabout is strung with lights as well. What does Christmas mean now? Not really more or less than it did before. Lura's a vegetarian, but she will force us both to celebrate. She likes rituals. Our tree is up but we haven't decorated it yet. Lura doesn't want stars and tinsel: She wants to decorate the tree with black holes, wormholes, and quarks. She wants to drape it in the fabric of space-time. I laughed when she told me this. I said I'd see what I could find in the shops. At least I go to the shops now. I go to the shops and I walk the dog. And nothing awful has happened yet. It's better than being locked in the house all the time.
Console?
It comes up. There's only one milky image in the middle of the screen: a blurred view of lots of green leaves. I ask it to close the image down and it does.
Who am I?
I am Saul Burlem.
Thank God. Where am I?
Walking along Fore Street. I'm walking along Fore Street but Planck wants to turn left, past the cheese shop, and then right, towards home. He can't want to go home already. No, he doesn't. He trots right past our front door and onwards, his muzzle like an arrow pointing down towards the space where the walls meet the pavement. Ah, now here's my second-favorite place in town.
Where am I?
I'm standing here while the dog sniffs some weeds growing out of the pavement. Yes, here's the space I like. It really is a space, an absence, enclosed with four walls. Various signs have gone up lately explaining that this is a building site belonging to blah blah, and telling you the various bad things that will happen if you trespass in it. It spoils the effect somewhat. It was better before the signs went up. An empty space, enclosed by walls: a house with no rooms and no roof and a carpet of pinkish Devon earth. I like that. It reminds me of my favorite place in town: the castle. The castle is the same kind of thing—walls enclosing nothingness. I have a postcard of the castle above my desk. It's an aerial view, probably taken from one of the helicopters that are always throbbing in the air on clear days. You look down on it and it's like a gray stone ring left discarded on a hillside, ripped, perhaps, from a giant's finger. And you can go to visit it as well: You can pay money to go into a circle of empty space with some walls around it. I love it. You look at this empty space, fenced off, made special, and you think: What am /supposed to be looking at here? Are the walls there to keep the nothingness in, or the town out?
And now, bizarrely, I know exactly how stone is constructed. But I still don't know who made the spaces. Who invented absence? Who chooses to celebrate it here? Of course, people don't know they're celebrating absence (although they should; they really should). They think they're visiting somethin
g, something tangible—but it just isn't there anymore. They think that by visiting an empty space enclosed by walls they can travel through time. And I know about that, too.
Why won't Burlem think of the name of the town he's in?
Where am I?
Now I've crossed the road and I'm standing outside the church, the church we go to every evening, just in case. We don't pray, but what we do is perhaps a sort of prayer. We walk in and then out again, just in case. I've never known exactly what sort of church it is, even though I'm inside it every night. I assumed it must be C of E or Catholic, but it doesn't actually have a name: It's not Saint Anything's. But every Thursday evening happy people come here in homemade clothes and do something cheerful inside. Well, they always seem cheerful when they come out. I think they go door to door in the evenings they're not here, selling something invisible like hope or salvation. Lura obtained the keys and no one minds that we go in there every night. Do I believe in what they do in there? Yes. I have to, now. But I wonder if they'd still believe if they knew what I know.
Where do I live?
St. Augustine's Road.
But I know where that is: It's his boarded-up house. Why doesn't he think of his address here?
Where am I now?
Walking up the hill where the road sweeps around like a question mark and you can get run over if you're not careful. There's a sign at the top: Torquay, and an arrow pointing right.
So he's near Torquay; but I don't even know where that is. It's not enough.
What happened to make me leave my house?
Oh. Where to begin this story. Why am I thinking about this now? The dog snuffles onwards, up through the market square, but I'm not seeing that anymore. I'm seeing ... What? How far back does my mind want to go? I see scenes on fast-forward: The first one is, predictably, that paper I gave in Greenwich on the curse of Mr. Y. Lura was there. The Project Starlight men were there, too. Of course I had no idea who any of them were then. The only truly innocent member of the audience was Ariel Manto, and she was the one I kept looking at: the girl with the tight gray jumper and the red hair. I remember Lura walking away afterwards, going back to join the Lahiri group without saying anything. Then I see myself drinking too much with Ariel, fantasizing about making love to her, and then—the horror, the horror—realizing she probably would go to bed with me. I left, of course, before I had the chance to actually go through with it.
The End of Mr. Y Page 28