I could glean some of the rest of Irfan’s story from the scraps of comics that were left. But there were few complete pages to reckon by. In these later issues, the panels were laid out in more inventive ways: oblique shapes that intercut at curious angles, text and word balloons that branched out from the frames of drawings and encroached on those adjacent. The covers hinted at Irfan’s ascent up the decks of the dead vessel, and some of the torn images revealed more serene environments than previously encountered: a gymnasium with stewards lifting dumb-bells, a cocktail bar serving dry ice in champagne flutes, and a cinema playing what looked like Gone With the Wind or a pastiche of it. It was the most dissatisfying feeling: to have only a quarter of a story, and no way to ever find out the ending.
I reassembled as much of #5 as I could. Its cover showed Irfan Tol armed with fizzling dynamite and a harpoon. There was desperation in his eyes and obvious pain. The title was drawn to look burned onto the tarnished innards of the ship where Irfan was leaning. Again, the author’s name was cut away, as it was from every other issue I had found. I studied the inside page, reading through the credits. Story: name redacted. Art: redacted. Lettering: redacted. Colours: redacted. The publisher’s information was scratched right off. Except, there was something in the small print there, at the foot of the page, that was not quite scrubbed clean. It was faded, and difficult to make out with the naked eye. I had no magnifying glass, so I took my glass muller and held it up against the print like a lens. The words bleared and then sharpened, amplified:
Text and illustrations © Jo Nathaniel
In the mess hall, Nazar was sitting patiently beside Quickman’s feet. He had saved her a few strips of sucuk and a small mound of scrambled eggs and was decanting everything into a napkin. We were not supposed to feed the dog—it was one of the unspoken tenets that we knew the provost took seriously—and so, when I came to the table, Quickman flinched at the sound of my footsteps, hiding the bundle of food on his lap. ‘Oh,’ he said, seeing it was me. ‘You frightened me half to death.’ He brought the napkin out and added a few walnuts from Mac’s bowl. ‘I know the rules, but sod them—it makes me feel better.’
‘I’d be more worried about how that spicy meat’s going to come out of her,’ said Pettifer, invigilating from across the table. ‘Someone’s going to smell your crime eventually.’
‘I’d like to see how they’d prove it was me.’
‘She’d buckle under questioning. All they’d have to do is rub her belly.’
I sat down, as always, beside MacKinney. ‘Did you not sleep?’ she asked. ‘You’re much too pale. I’m getting you some fruit.’
‘Mac, we all look pale to you,’ Tif replied on my behalf. ‘Give it a rest. Let the woman eat what she wants.’
I poured myself a glass of milk.
‘That won’t be enough,’ Mac said.
‘I’ll have another then,’ I said.
‘Steady,’ Tif said, wobbling his gut. ‘That’s how it starts, you know.’
Quickman was now leaning down with the napkin held out for Nazar under the tabletop. She guzzled the food right from his hand. ‘I do realise,’ he said, ‘this means she’s never going to leave me alone ever again. But I’ve rather got used to her following me around.’ When the dog was done, he straightened up, looking for a spot to dump the slobber-stained napkin, deciding on Pettifer’s plate. ‘Oi!’ Tif said. ‘That’s revolting.’ And this set Quickman off laughing, then Mac. But the impulse for laughter made me feel so guilty that I had to gulp down some milk just to smother it.
Then Q got up and started gathering his empty dishes. ‘Knell, would you mind helping me take these over?’
I stared back at him.
‘The woman just sat down,’ Tif said. ‘You can manage all that on your own.’
‘I’ll help you,’ Mac said.
But I could tell from Q’s pointed expression that clearing the table was just an excuse to speak to me. ‘It’s fine,’ I told them, standing up to take their dishes. ‘I’m in the mood for some tea, anyway.’
Pettifer bunched up his eyes. ‘You two aren’t—?’ He leaned back, crossing his arms. ‘My God, I knew it—you are.’
Q said, ‘Are what exactly?’
‘You know what I’m getting at.’
‘No, Tif. Enlighten us.’
‘Together, he means,’ Mac said apathetically. ‘He thinks you’re an item. I’ve already told him he’s being ridiculous.’
At this, Quickman sniggered. Then he turned to them and said, ‘I should think Knell could do a fair sight better than me, don’t you?’
‘I’ll say,’ Tif replied. ‘But you don’t have to sneak around, you know. I’m fine with it.’
‘Thrilled that we have your permission,’ Q said. ‘To walk from one side of the room to the other.’
‘I’m just letting you know: I’d be hurt, but it wouldn’t kill me. The two of you getting together would make sense in an odd sort of way.’
‘Well, that’s really touching, Tif, thank you. Completely misguided, as ever, but touching.’
‘It’s straight from the heart.’ He grinned. ‘Knell’s staying quiet on the subject, I notice.’
‘Best not to engage with you in this mood, in my experience,’ I said.
‘Hmm.’ He made a face I could not read: nostrils tightening, tongue rolling across his teeth. ‘Go on then, lovebirds. Off with you.’
I went with Quickman to the ledge by the kitchen, where we left the plates for Gülcan, and then trailed him to the serving pass where Ender handed us both hot glasses of çay on saucers. Nazar was never far behind. At the condiments table, Quickman took three sugar cubes and dropped them in my tea without asking. ‘Keep your strength up,’ he said, then put four into his own. Stirring it, he leaned in and said, ‘Did you find much in his lodging?’
‘All kinds. Your lighter for one thing.’
‘Oh good.’
‘And—’ I whispered it: ‘Comic books. That’s what he was here for. He wrote them.’
Quickman puffed out his cheeks.
‘You’ve got to see them, Q. They’re so well done.’
‘How d’you know for sure that he wr—?’ He pretended to smile at a short-termer passing by us on the way to the serving pass. ‘How’d you know he wrote them?’
‘If you come over, I can show you.’
‘There’s a difference between drawing them and writing them. The stories aren’t always done by the same person.’
‘Well, I’m sure you’re right, but I’m certain he did both.’
He was waving now, affectedly, at Pettifer, who was turned on his chair gawping at us. ‘I need to shake off hawk-eyes over there before we do anything. How long has he been this way? Did I miss something?’ Peering down at Nazar, he said, ‘At least the dog knows when to be quiet.’
‘He’s always been Pettifer, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Well, perhaps I’m just losing my patience for his uglier side, I don’t know.’ Q lifted his çay glass, blew across it. ‘Listen, I finished the translation. Took me all bloody night, and I’m still none the wiser.’
‘What does it say?’
‘More adverts,’ he said. ‘But the last few are the strangest.’
‘In what way?’
‘I can’t explain it all now—Tif’s already making me feel guilty just for standing here. We should get back to the table.’ He paced alongside me, Nazar trundling behind. ‘Let me leave first, OK?’ he muttered. ‘Finish your breakfast, then come to my room when you can. I’ll be waiting.’
I had often wondered what possessed women to have romantic affairs, and now I could understand exactly what it was: operating in the margins brought out the most attractive qualities in men (decisiveness, attentiveness, mystery) and, somehow, all the sly manoeuvrings gave each brief connection more significance. But I had already chosen the man I loved, and Quickman—good friend though he was—would never be a suitable replacement.
‘It took
me a while to work out the tone of the language, but my best judgement is, they’re photograph captions. From a travel brochure, perhaps. I’m not one hundred per cent on that yet. Have a listen—’
Quickman was perched on the edge of his desk, one hand in his pocket, the other clutching a legal pad. His pipe was laid on the windowsill. The curtains were open, but the gloom of the afternoon offered scant reading light, so his lamp was turned on, angled upwards. It gave him the backlit quality of the rocks in a fish tank.
‘Goats wait to be milked by the village cheese-maker. And then, in brackets: Norwegian Office of Travel.’ He smirked at me. ‘Any idea what that is?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Me neither.’
‘Keep going.’
Quickman read on: ‘Norway’s horses are experts in farming on sheer slopes. As the markings on this fine animal’s legs show, it is a Norwegian—no idea what the next word is, so I’ve left it blank— an ancient breed, highly prized amongst the locals. It goes on and on like this. Meaningless, really.’ He flipped the page. ‘At fifteen hundred feet, the waterfall of the Seven Sisters cascades into the—I believe it says fjord, not creek or stream; it’s more specific than that—into the fjord at the village of Geiranger—that bit’s just written out in English, well, Norwegian, I suppose—almost four times the height of the Statue of Liberty. There is a permanent worry about landslides in this region. During the ice age, tumbling glaciers from the mountains widened the gorges into giant canyons. The Norwegian coast is a long sawblade of fjords, spanning thousands of miles. Pictured centre, local villagers eat a picnic of bread and curd with—’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Wait.’
Quickman lowered the notepad. ‘I’m fairly certain it says “curd” there, and not “jam”. But I can triple check it if you think it’s necessary.’
I needed a moment to think.
‘Knell, are you all right?’
I needed a moment.
‘What is it?’
The Norwegian fjords, I thought.
Skiers in Alta, Utah.
Oxen in Schneeburg, Austria.
Diamond Rock, Martinique.
‘They’re not from a brochure,’ I said. ‘They’re from a magazine.’
The realisation left me woozy. I had to rest my hand on the bed-frame.
‘How the hell did you get that—from bread and curd?’ Quickman said.
I could hardly explain it. My head was awash. ‘It’s National Geographic.’
‘If you say so.’ He stepped back. ‘You seem very certain about things all of a sudden. What am I missing here?’
‘I knew the boy, Q.’
‘Of course you did, but still I—’
‘No, you’re not hearing me. I knew him.’ I lowered myself to the bed. The linen was fresh and creaseless. ‘Before I got here. I knew him from London.’
‘But he’d have been a kid back then, surely.’
I nodded. ‘He was seven or eight when I saw him last.’
‘I still don’t understand how you can get all that from this.’ Quickman struck the notepad with his knuckles. ‘Unless it’s some sort of code.’
‘It’s not a code. It’s more than that, it’s—something else.’ I had to write it down, to spell it out. ‘Lend me that pad and a pencil, would you?’
Quickman did as I asked. He stood across the bed, head slanted, while I wrote it out in capitals: J O N A T H A N I E L
‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s the name I found on his comics.’
‘Oh.’ He sniffed. ‘Well, I suppose that’s fairly concrete.’
‘It matches the signature on all of the covers,’ I said. ‘So I know that he drew them.’
J O N A T H A N I E L
J O N A T H A N I E L
I turned the paper round. ‘What does that say to you?’
He read it aloud: ‘Jonathan Ee-ell. Jonathan Ay-ell?’
‘Could be,’ I said. ‘Or—’
J O N A T H A N Y A I L
‘Now you’ve lost me,’ Quickman said.
‘I’m telling you I knew the boy.’
‘Yes, but you haven’t said how.’
‘You really want my life story, Q? I’m telling you, that was his name.’
‘I don’t doubt it was,’ he said. And he went pacing to the windowsill to retrieve his pipe—the comforter, the thing that made him think clearly. ‘But you’re going to have to give me something more, Knell. I don’t see what difference it makes if you knew him or not.’
‘Because now I can’t ignore it,’ I said. ‘For his father’s sake, I have to do something.’
‘Don’t do anything rash—give it some time.’
‘No, this changes things, Q. It’s bigger than this place. Bigger than you or Mac or anyone else.’
‘You’re going to have to give me more than that. I’m trying my best to understand you here, but—’ He gestured to his desk. ‘Write it down if it’s easier. Just help me understand what’s going on, before you go and do something you’ll regret.’
I told him as much as I was willing to admit—about sailing to New York but not the caldarium; about therapy but not my anxieties; about the mural and the ecliptic but not about Jim Culvers. And Quickman did not judge me. He just chewed on his pipe while I talked and, at the end of it all, he said, ‘I see. All right. I get it.’
‘Then you’ll help me?’
‘I didn’t say that. This isn’t my fight.’
‘But you aren’t going to stop me.’
‘I don’t think I could. You’ve got that look about you.’ He slumped into his desk chair, swivelling. I could see that something was rolling over in his mind that he wanted to release. ‘Did I ever tell you about my old passphrase?’
‘I thought you couldn’t remember it.’
‘Well, I lied.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I’m superstitious.’ Q pinched at his beard. ‘It’s from a Dickinson poem. One need not be a chamber to be haunted, one need not be a house; the brain has corridors surpassing material place.’
‘That’s beautiful.’
‘It is. But I can never decide what she meant by it.’
‘I suppose she’s saying everyone’s got problems.’
‘But there’s another side to it, don’t you think? She’s saying, no matter where you are, you’re doomed. You can’t close off all those corridors in your brain; there are just too many of them. You’ll be haunted wherever you go.’
‘Maybe.’
He turned to face the window. ‘I’m not going to try to talk you out of anything you need to do, Knell. And I won’t stand in your way. But you have to seriously think about whether it’s all worth it. I mean: consider every angle. If that raging feeling doesn’t go away tomorrow—fine. Do what you think’s best, and don’t worry about the rest of us. We’ll land where we land. All I’m asking is for you to wait awhile.’
The mansion roof was studded with moss and a trench of slimy rainwater ran all along the parapet. I did not venture far. Gripping the tiles, I sidled out until I had a view into the bay, where Fullerton’s body—Jonathan’s body—rested somewhere underneath the roiling waves. The afternoon was no less dismal from this height. A flat discolouration to the sky, like dirty turps, and the air so cut with damp that everything seemed glimpsed through a smeared windowpane. I wanted to follow Quickman’s advice and deliberate on things before I acted. But being on the roof amidst the countless swaying pines, with the nearest family house a mere grey shape in the distance, I could only think how far the boy had come to die. And I could not let the world continue so indifferently.
Because when I thought of Fullerton now, I saw the prom deck of the Queen Elizabeth and a child with a Superman comic, and the sweet ‘Get Well’ card he had drawn for me: Your super friend, Jonathan. Every word that he had spoken in the past few days was loaded with a new significance: those awkward lies about Green Lanes (he could not tell the truth about his upbringing in
case it alerted me to his real identity), the talk of his father not taking him camping (Victor was not an outdoorsman), the constant mention of those weekends at his granddad’s flat (Victor being so frequently abroad for conferences, Amanda so routinely at her squash club, that it made sense for the boy to form a bond with the only grandparent he had left). And something about cycling ‘all the way to Hampstead’ one night in his sleep? (The Yails had a home in Primrose Hill, not far from there.)
There were so many inferences that now seemed blatant. Of course, the DV-Ecliptic was an extrapolation of the Queen Elizabeth and other ocean liners the boy had sailed on. Irfan To l likely represented some inherent fear of being alone (given how much time the boy claimed to spend with his granddad, this seemed reasonable to assume). And what were those comics if not just a way to express the terror of his nightmares? The provost had said as much himself: The dreams are part of his creative process. That’s all I can tell you. It was not unfeasible to picture Jonathan reading through his father’s session notes and seeing the ecliptic scribbled down and underlined. Easy to imagine how it might be overheard through the door of the consultation room, or dropped into a no-name-basis conversation at the family dinner table. Perhaps Victor had discussed his patients’ cases brazenly on the telephone with other doctors as the boy listened on the upstairs line—who could say? I had never believed much in coincidence, and it seemed unlikely that the two of us would converge on the same point of fascination without some guiding hand. Now he was gone. And Victor—poor Victor—was out there somewhere, wondering, oblivious. I had to get word to him.
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