by Kim Newman
‘Keith,’ Vanda says, interrupting you at your desk at home.
You’ve been together so long that when you use each other’s names, it’s usually bad news.
‘Vanda,’ you say, turning in your swivel chair.
It’s late. The kids are in bed. Vanda is wearing her dressing-gown, chewing a strand of her hair.
Despite the vasectomy, you think she’s going to tell you she’s pregnant. Or that she’s leaving you.
‘Is Sean playing around?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Having an affair? Is Sean having an affair?’
Of course, you’re sure Ro has asked Vanda to ask you.
‘Well?’ your wife asks.
Things are spinning.
If you tell Vanda you think Sean is having an affair, go to 49. If you tell Vanda you doubt that Sean is having an affair, go to 58.
42
By the time Desmond has discovered the Sutton Mallet turn-off is a dead end, you don’t care any more. Not about Michael’s party, not about Desmond and Mickey and the other girl in the car, not about being invisible.
You just want everyone but Victoria to go away.
You have done about as much as you can with mouth on mouth and roving hands under clothes. Now you need space. And privacy.
‘I’m going to turn on the lights and look at the map,’ Desmond says.
‘Fuck off,’ Victoria breathes, between kisses.
Light floods the car, hammering your eyes through the goggles. Again, the mask covers your blushes.
Mickey and Desmond are aghast at you and Victoria. You are entwined like Siamese twins. They laugh at you, waking up a girl called Helena.
But you don’t care.
‘Throw a bucket of water on them,’ suggests Mickey, through laughter. ‘They’ll frighten the horses.’
‘Fuck right off,’ breathes Victoria.
‘Well played, that man,’ Desmond says.
‘Fuckin’ ace,’ agrees Mickey.
‘Magic,’ coos Helena.
Victoria leans across you and unlocks the car door.
‘Out,’ she says.
‘Come on, Vickie, it’s miles from anywhere,’ Desmond pleads, still laughing.
‘Sutton fucking Mallet, man,’ says Mickey. ‘Arse-end of nowhere.’
‘Out,’ she repeats, a caressing word.
You back out of the car and stand, mummified in your mask and coat. You feel the cold through your thin trousers. Tiny hooks of ice work into your undone shirt.
Victoria comes out after you and wraps her thin arms round your shoulders. You embrace her, hands on her bottom. You try to pass warmth to each other.
‘Drive,’ Victoria orders, sideways.
You take off your goggles and pull your mask loose.
It’s too late. The door is slammed shut.
You hear Desmond and Mickey laughing as the car pulls away. Its red rear lights move away like insect-eyes and disappear.
‘No,’ Victoria says, hand on your still-masked face.
You put the goggles back on.
‘Sutton Mallet is a ghost town,’ she comments, dragging you along down the dark road, towards the shapes of buildings. ‘The houses are mostly empty. Graham wanted to squat here in the summer, but I wouldn’t let him. It’s a strange place.’
You stop and try to look at her in the dark.
‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘This is a strange night. The rules have changed.’
You ought to wonder what kind of girl takes a man in a mask to a ghost town, obviously intending to sleep with him. But knowing she wants you, you don’t think of anything else. For so long, you have thought about sex, imagined it, feared it, hoped for it.
That’s all there is. No further questions.
‘I know a house,’ Victoria says, taking your arm. ‘It has furniture. Including a bed.’
You remember the plan you have worked out. You still intend to get married at twenty-five, in seven years’ time, and have two children, Jonathan and Jennifer. Until now, you’ve always had a nebulous image of your wife, a cut-out woman with a ghostly smudge of a face.
You try imagining Victoria’s face in the smudge. It doesn’t fit. Not with that Pepe le Pew hairstyle and the safety pins.
The Sutton Mallet lane narrows. The hedgerows are taller. Shade closes in, blanketing you. Overhead, the sky is pitch black.
She pulls you by your arm towards a house. She might as well be leading you by your penis.
You stop and kiss, hungry.
In the dark, you are both invisible. You are cold, but you try to find warmth, pressing yourself against Victoria. She feels your cock, hot and hard.
‘This way,’ she says, leading you towards a house.
Afterwards, you lie in bed with Vic, thinking that everything is different. Springs rake your back through a rotted mattress. You feel more sensitive, more aware, more alive.
Vic strokes your chest and tugs gently at the ragged ends of your hood. All you are wearing now is your mask. Even the goggles are gone.
There is no light. She can’t see your eyes.
You aren’t the person you were before you put on the mask. That Keith seems an alien, with his running and his stupid plan. As you and Vic fucked, you came to a shuddering stop. You don’t run any more, and you have no plan.
Except to make love again.
Your heart beats faster now than when you were having sex. Vic knew what to do with the condom and brought out of you a person you didn’t know existed. A confident, persuasive, powerful man.
Not Keith.
The Runner is gone.
Eventually, after more sex, you drift into exhausted semi-sleep, hugging Vic under a makeshift quilt of clothes. You realise your breath frosts invisibly in the dark room. The house is bitterly cold.
Fingers of dawn creep into the room.
Where are you?
In Sutton Mallet. In a bed in Sutton Mallet. Not alone.
You get up, needing a piss, and wrap yourself in your trenchcoat.
The bedroom, at first look, might be in a living house. The wallpaper peels only a little and the dusty windows aren’t broken. An empty light-socket dangles overhead, centrepiece of a canopy of cobweb.
What made the people who lived here leave?
You go downstairs to find a place to pee.
They left behind more than just furniture. Plates and cutlery are strewn on the kitchen floor. On each of the stairs is placed a small household object — a plastic comb, a picture frame, a toothbrush. What makes a person leave behind their toothbrush when they move out? The arrangement on the stairs is almost ritualistic.
You think you know what Vic means about strange.
Now you’ve made love, you each know what the other is thinking. Despite the masks — hers as much as yours — you are one person really.
You go back upstairs.
Vic stretches on the bed, yawning and smiling. A lot of her make-up has gone. Her hair is squashed out of its hooks.
The room is full of light. You’re amazingly cold, numbed. Mist has drifted in. You see gooseflesh on Vic’s legs and arms. She shivers, a witch rescued from a ducking.
You take off the mask and let her look at you.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she says.
You kneel on the bed and reach for her.
Now she knows who you are, have things changed?
She hugs you, her body shockingly cold. You rub her up and down, trying to get warmth into her.
‘We missed Michael’s party,’ Vic says.
‘Yes.’
‘Too bad.’
You both laugh.
Something inside you has gone. Some need, some tension, some impulse.
From now on, you don’t need to run.
‘You used to frighten me,’ Vic says. ‘When I was jumping through hoops for Mummy and Daddy, you were always better at it. But I could see what it was doing to you, doing to me. There’s a point when you’re about fi
fteen or sixteen when things aren’t set, when you really can change. For me, it was early. For you, it was when you put on that mask. You probably think some of the things I’ve done have been really stupid …’
‘No,’ you say, wondering if you are lying.
‘Shhh. Really stupid. Don’t forget I’m still clever, under all the bin-liners. I know what a waster Graham is and how shit my songs are. And Roger! Mistake. I don’t regret mistakes. I’ve got time to make them. So have you.’
She props herself on one elbow and looks at you. You look at her breasts.
‘Things change in Sutton Mallet,’ she says, running her fingers through your five or six chest-hairs. ‘I know you can feel it. The cold, the calm. It’s like a time-warp or something. An Outside Zone.’
You touch her breast. She smiles.
Yesterday, it would have been unimaginable that you could touch a girl’s breast and not have her hit you.
‘Griffin,’ she says. ‘That was the Invisible Man’s name. In the book.’
‘I’ve never read it.’
‘I have. I’ve read most things.’
You don’t laugh.
‘You don’t need any other name. I’ll call you Griffin.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘After all, you’re starting again. We’re starting again.’
You haven’t needed to discuss this. You both knew it, well before you found this bed. Well before, you realise, Vic actually knew who you were.
Only now do you realise who you are: Griffin. But who is Griffin. Who will he be?
Griffin and Vic. They are born out of Keith and Victoria, out of the Runner and the Punk Princess. But they are different, completely, inwardly.
In the short term, however, they will have to behave more or less like their old selves. That’s your next choice. You and Vic never talk about it, but you know you’ll both make the same decision.
Vic could take on the outward elements of the Runner, buckle down to college work, plan for the future, work with you. Or Griffin could reject the plan, join Vic in her skewed revolt, dye his hair, slack off his courses.
If you become more like Victoria, go to 64. If she becomes more like you, go to 77.
43
You mop your face with a wet handkerchief. You aren’t bleeding much. Bronagh Carey picks splinters out of your hair. You sit down, trying to control the shakes you are sure everyone notices. Deliberately, you unmake fists.
‘Happy now?’ you ask Victoria.
Her eyes are narrow.
Rowena is still dry-heaving outside.
Roger is standing by Victoria, holding up his sword. ‘That should have been my job,’ he protests.
Victoria wheels and looks at him with disgust. ‘You’re worse than him, you useless prick.’
Roger looks as if he has been slapped.
Time is called. You drift back to college, chatting with Gully. He is playing drums in Flaming Torture tonight, with Victoria.
‘Don’t mind her,’ he says. ‘She won’t bear a grudge. She tried to ram a drumstick down my throat once.’
It’s all been forgotten. Rowena, who has been taken home, and Victoria, who is fending off Neil Martin, have nothing to do with you. No one blames you for anything.
You’ve been through something. Attitudes have changed.
You realise you no longer have a date for the Rag Show tonight. Rowena is in no state to hold you to your promise. You doubt she’ll show herself until well into the new year.
It’s not too late to ask Mary.
‘We’re going round Graham’s,’ Gully says, ‘until the show. Do you want to come along?’
You assume there’ll be a dope session.
Mary, self-contained and by herself, is walking nearby.
‘You probably need to mellow out after the harpie attack,’ Gully says. ‘Come on.’
Mary smiles at you. It’s as if you’ve passed some test.
If you ask Mary to the show, go to 26. If you go with Gully and Bronagh to Graham’s, go to 48.
44
‘It’s a dead end,’ you say.
Desmond pulls the handbrake. There’s a wrench. The whole car lurches forward and then settles.
Victoria’s hand also clutches and relaxes. Instantly, you lose your erection.
Desmond and Mickey slowly turn round to look at you. A girl you don’t know, Helena, wakes up beside you and Victoria and stares.
Your sentence seems to hang in the car.
‘It’s a dead end.’
‘I know that voice,’ Mickey says, grinning, wondering.
‘So do I,’ says Helena, which is news to you.
Victoria shrinks away.
‘Marion,’ she says, emphasising your girlie name with a disgust you haven’t heard since primary school. ‘The runner. Keith Marion.’
Everyone can see through your clothes.
‘Never thought you had it in you,’ says Mickey.
Victoria has withdrawn, so not an inch of her touches you. The gap between you is cold air. Frost hangs in it.
Inside your disguise, you shrivel. Now would be a good time to be really invisible.
Victoria is in a cold fury. You bridle, resenting her reaction. It isn’t as if you have said or done anything to mislead her. She’s angry because she didn’t guess.
Mickey laughs, in stoned burps. Desmond joins in. They aren’t laughing at you. They’re laughing at Victoria.
‘Well played, that man,’ Desmond says.
‘Fuckin’ ace,’ agrees Mickey.
‘Magic,’ coos Helena.
Victoria leans across you and unlocks the car door.
‘Out,’ she says.
‘Come on, Vickie, it’s miles from anywhere,’ Desmond pleads, still laughing.
‘Sutton Fucking Mallet, man,’ says Mickey. ‘Arse-end of nowhere.’
‘Out,’ she repeats, a stabbing word.
You back out of the car and stand, mummified in your mask and coat. You feel the cold through your thin trousers. Tiny hooks of ice work into your undone shirt.
‘Drive,’ Victoria orders.
You take off your goggles and pull your mask loose. It’s too late. The door is slammed shut.
You hear Desmond and Mickey laughing as the car pulls away. Its red rear lights move away like insect-eyes and disappear.
By the Sutton Mallet turn-off, you stand in the dark, unmasked. The next car that passes will probably be stuffed with kids going out to Michael’s party.
That’s not where you want to be.
The cold really starts to bite.
You sit down by the signpost. And wait.
And so on.
Begin again?
45
‘Still no response, Dr Cross?’
‘No. Nothing.’
‘What about the EEG?’
‘Oh, there are brainwaves, Susan. Marion is thinking.’
‘Dreaming?’
‘Not much REM. No, I should say our friend here is thinking.’
‘What?’
‘That’s the question. It’d be nice to have a mind-reader, wouldn’t it? To peer into that skull.’
‘He looks like he’s asleep.’
‘We shave him, wash him and give him exercise to keep him supple.’
‘Might wake up at any moment.’
‘Maybe he is awake all the time.’
‘You think it’s shamming?’
‘Not shamming, exactly. But deliberate.’
‘What’s the background?’
‘Just life. Nothing special. Have you ever wanted to curl up and have it all go away?’
‘Every day, Doctor.’
‘Well, this patient got his wish.’
‘If you were Marion, what would you think?’
‘I’m not.’
‘If you were.’
‘I’d plan. Try and work it all out.’
‘Maybe that’s what Marion’s doing in there.’
‘I don’t think he’s a t
erribly forward-looking chap, Susan. Couldn’t be, really.’
‘How long as he been like this?’
‘A good while.’
‘If I had a good rest, I’d think it all through. Every juncture, every possibility, every road taken.’
‘Do you think you’d come to a conclusion?’
‘I don’t think that’s the point.’
‘No.’
Begin again?
46
Rowena is curled up in a fetal ball, a spreading pool of sick radiating from around her head. You gingerly step round it and kneel down, lifting her up. She writhes in your grip and more vomit falls out of her mouth. She must be almost empty.
This is not what you signed on for when you asked her out.
She tries to say something but is sick again. Then she manages a single word.
‘Sorry.’
You tell her it’s all right, wondering if you’re lying.
It’s cold in the alley but Rowena is running a fever. You hold her for warmth. She feebly pokes a hand out and takes yours. Something breaks inside you as she holds your hand.
‘Very pretty picture.’
Roger stands in the doorway, looking at you. Zorro’s sword dangles from his wrist. His mask is round his neck. He smiles nastily. For a moment, you think you might have to hit him.
Rowena raises her free hand and flashes a V sign at Roger. Disgusted, he goes back into the pub.
Rowena’s body racks, but there’s nothing to come up. With a handkerchief, you wipe her face. She smiles, tinily.
‘I’m not drunk any more,’ she says.
You pick tiny scraps of sick out of her hair and flick them away. Greater love hath no man.
Greater love.
It occurs to you that in this moment you have fallen in love with Rowena. Until now, you’ve just thought of her as a pair of breasts and a threatening mind.
You have to question so many things.
‘She can’t go home like that,’ a clear voice says.
Victoria has come out of the pub, a frayed fairy godmother. She stands over you.
Rowena tries to say she’s all right. The words don’t come out at all well. Despite her claim, she’s still completely sozzled.