Skippy Dies: A Novel

by Paul Murray

  PROF TAMASHI: Well, Stanford, Einstein’s equations do permit the possibility of jumping into hyperspace through a wormhole to reach another universe. However, our present technology does not supply enough energy to open up such a wormhole.

  STANFORD BOUND: What about pre-existing gateways, e.g. black holes?

  PROF TAMASHI: According to the solutions we have for black holes at present, this is certainly a theory. The short answer is that we just don’t know whether or not this would be possible. Perhaps it would lead into another universe. Alternatively, it might lead to a far-off region of this universe, or back into the past. Most likely you would not survive the journey, or if you did you would encounter serious problems getting back.

  SKIPPY AND LORI: What happens when you take asthma inhaler and travel pills?

  What happens is nothing for a little bit and then everything starts moving in slow motion e.g. when you step forward it takes for ever for your foot to touch the ground again and it feels like you might keep on continuing upwards and not come down at all like being on the moon! One great leap for man! you shout. Lori is behind you, she is laughing and laughing, everything has become very funny, the names of the chocolate bars stacked beside the checkout in Texaco, a man with a big nose walking his dog that also has a big nose, even the knackers in the village that stare at you in your costumes, it’s like you’ve stepped out of a spacecraft from thousands of years in the future and you are walking around looking at arrow-heads and woolly mammoths. The feeling is like having a fuzzy forcefield round you that keeps you warm and also makes you laugh and you wonder is it the pills or the inhaler or is it her because she’s there? Or is this really happening?

  The park gates are closed so you jump over the wall and go down to the lake and sit on the swings there, you hoosh some more of Ruprecht’s Ventalin, it feels so weird like doing a reverse sneeze! Then you push Lori on the swing then she pushes you because otherwise it wouldn’t be fair she says then it starts to rain again and you both jam into one swing under one umbrella a black one that you found thrown into the bushes right outside the Sports Hall am I squashing you? she says it’s okay you say. Lori’s phone starts ringing, she takes it out and presses Ignore. It stops then immediately it starts again. Who is it? No one she says, she switches it off and then she digs around in her pockets and says we should try these too. All around the rain going ksssshhhhhhhhccchhhhhhhhhhhhboooom.

  What are they?

  They’re called Ritalin?

  What do they do?

  I don’t know.

  Though she’s got a whole pocket full of them. So you take one then two then three then you don’t know but your head is going frrrrssshhhh every time you turn it like skis turning on snow like every time you blink it becomes this long voyage eighty days around the world and every time you open your eyes it’s like in a different place only with Lori beside you every time you keep floating off into space and she keeps bringing you back let’s have a rolling race she says but the grass is wet but anyway you roll down the hill you win no I win she says okay we both win you stand up but your head does not stop spinning you pull bits of grass off each other her hand stops in your hair your hand stops in her hair

  and then you both run, you run and run, and then you are outside Ed’s, you go inside and buy doughnuts and Cokes and sit down across the table from each other. What happens is that Lori is the most beautiful girl in the world, she is the most beautiful anything anywhere, more beautiful than the most beautiful painting, more beautiful than oceans sunsets dolphins glaciers. You want to tell her this but she is already trying not to giggle. Do you believe in flying saucers? she says. You go, Yes.

  Because there is one… hovering… right… above… your… head… then she drops the doughnut on your head and you throw it at her and she throws it back at you and now you are throwing all your doughnuts at each other

  Oh no they are invading Earth!

  Resistance is useless!

  and then the Chinese guy comes over and starts shouting and you realize everyone is looking at you and there are doughnuts everywhere but then outside the storm has stopped and patches of clear sky appear, great big holes of dark blue in the clouds like someone is tearing wrapping paper off a Christmas present and Lori says let’s go for a walk so you walk up the road to the dual carriageway. Cars zip by you and electricity too invisibly to light up each of the lights and houses. Lori keeps trying to tell you this story about a friend of hers but then forgetting where she is and going back to the start. This is the best night of your life. Outside LA Nites bouncers in black jackets stare hard at IDs or bend down to kiss girls with stringy tops and thin legs. Up above the clouds are mostly gone, you notice one star twinkling right at you, when you see a star suddenly get bright like that it means it’s a satellite and it’s located you with its tracker beam. Lori goes, So what’s with that costume anyway and you start telling her about Hopeland and Princess Hope and the three Demons Fire Ice and the one no one’s ever seen and you’re this guy Djed who’s trying to find the magic weapons and save the Realm.

  O-kay… she says. Do you like video games you say. No, she says. Hmm maybe shut up about that stuff for a little while. What about your costume? you ask her. Oh this is just something my mum picked up for me in New York? It’s the dress BETHani wore to the Grammies. Wow, you mean the actual one she wore? She gives you a look like Hello? Um, no? It’s just like a Marc Jacobs dress that costs eight hundred dollars. Oh right. Shit, Skippy, stop being such a spa! Do you like BETHani? she says. Yes, you say. I love her, Lori says. You look quite like her, you say. Do you think so? Lori seems pleased. Definitely, you say, although BETHani is blonde and sort of a ho and Lori is five million times hotter. Some of my friends say that, she is saying. But my mom won’t let me bleach my hair. What are your parents like? Are they on your case the whole time? Um. Out of nowhere the Game shrieks up at you! Well, sometimes. I don’t see them that often, because I’m boarding? Oh, right. That must be pretty shit, being stuck in school the whole time. Like what do you do for fun? Well, there’s this guy Ruprecht. You start telling her about Ruprecht and his inventions. She likes this, she thinks it’s funny. Okay so, crazy room-mate, she counts on her fingers, weird video games… do you ever do anything normal? Hmm. Do you? Swimming? you say. Oh yeah? Yeah and you tell her about the swim team and the races and the trophy you won. You won a trophy? she says. Yeah at this meet down in the country and after mid-term there’s another meet somewhere else. That’s amazing, she says. That’s so cool. Yeah but I’m thinking of quitting. Really, why would you want to quit? You shrug. Because I hate it. Suddenly you notice the sky is dark blue and waving and rushing and streaming like water, what’s wrong with it? Wait a second it’s you, you dope – quick turn your face in the other direction so she can’t see. But she doesn’t see, instead she says, I would love to be good at something like that. You brush your cheeks clear so you can turn to look at her. Why? Just to be really good at something, she says, I just think it would feel great. You’re thinking, Why would she want to be good at something when she is her? When she is the most perfect thing that exists? But instead you say, You’re good at frisbee.

  How do you know that?

  Everything freezes – the sky, the cars – You just… look like you would be?

  I like frisbee, she agrees. But I’d love to be a singer, like a really brilliant singer. Maybe you should go on one of those shows? you say. I always get stage-fright, she says. She holds her arms, she looks up into the sky. It would just be nice to do something that made me feel special. You stop, you stare at her. You don’t feel special?

  Now she looks back at you. She smiles. Most of the time I don’t feel special.

  Your brain goes, Holy shit You have to kiss her!!!

  I should probably go home, she says.

  PROF TAMASHI: Our initial concept of the eleventh dimension was as a tranquil place, through which these membranes, these universes, floated gently, like clouds on a summer’
s day. It was a mystery to us how something like the Big Bang might have occurred from that scenario. And then one day I was speaking to my brother on the phone. We were recalling how as boys our father would take us to the harbour in Yokohama. My brother was very interested in ships at that time and it was common for US destroyers to dock there. These ships were huge, perhaps two hundred feet tall and in length equivalent to two or three city-blocks. But on one occasion we visited the docks and we saw a destroyer that had itself been half-destroyed. The whole front of the ship had been completely crushed, like a car that has hit a telegraph pole at high speed. What could have done that on the open seas? When we asked, we were told that it had been hit by a wave – one wave, which came out of nowhere, crushed in the bow and smashed everything right back to the bridge, causing more damage than all the weapons on the ship fired at once. At sea, rogue waves like that are known as ‘white waves’. I asked myself, what if these ‘white waves’ exist in the higher dimensions too? What if the eleventh dimension was not a serene place, but a place of storms, with entire universes ripping through it like huge turbulent waves? Imagine the kind of cataclysm you’d have if one of these white-wave universes collided into another universe. I believe that the Big Bang is the aftermath of just such an encounter. Two membranes, two universes, smash into each other; the energy released is the Big Bang, which produces our universe. In this model, the problem of the singularity disappears. Universes may be colliding all the time, producing an infinite number of Big Bangs.

  You are walking up the woodland avenue hand-in-hand. Above you the galaxies explode like slow fireworks. Beside you Lori is singing, a BETHani song, If I had three wishes I would give away two, Cos I only need one, cos I only want you, her voice sweet and fragile like a bird’s. You turn up one road and down another, each one quieter and darker than the one before, the houses hidden behind walls and ivy. You are silent, listening to her sing, trying to think of something to make her not go home.

  Tell me something, Daniel, she says after a while. Why are guys such assholes?

  You think for a little bit. I don’t know, you say.

  I don’t mean you, she says. You’re not an asshole.

  Thanks, you say. No, really.

  I mean it, she says.

  You stop outside a tall arched gate. Through the railings you can see a light set back among the trees. This is my house, she says.

  Right, you say.

  Do I look all right? she says. Like I don’t look…?

  You look perfect, you say.

  Will you be okay getting back?

  Sure.

  Okay. She taps a code into the intercom and the gates glide open to receive her. The moon is out, everything is silver, the cars in the distance go down the dual carriageway like breaths. You have no idea how to get from here to where you are kissing her, it is a chasm with no bridge across. Goodnight, then, she says.

  Goodnight, you say with a dry mouth. With every second the chasm grows wider and your heart sinks lower as slowly you wake from her spell to the reality that this is over and soon everything that happened, her hand in your hand, the swings the park the doughnuts, all of it will be gone into the past and

  and then she is kissing you, her arms are wrapped around you, her mouth minty and soft. You are so stunned that it takes you a moment to remember to kiss her back. You put your arms around her waist and push your lips against hers.

  Have you ever kissed anyone before? she says.

  Yes, you say, though only your mother and various aunts and not like this at all, but it doesn’t seem to matter, because she is kissing you again, the tip of her tongue tracing sideways-8s on the tip of yours, sending you spinning and the whole sky and universe with you, and when she pulls away everything is still swimming, everywhere you look there are stars.

  Okay, she says again.

  Okay, you say through the dizziness and smiles and stars. So many stars, everywhere you look! They are coming from her, that’s what’s happening, swarming up out of her like friendly silver hornets, like they must have come spilling out of nothing when the Big Bang banged. Goodnight, Daniel, Lori says, as the gates close like arms around her, scooping her into them.

  Goodnight, you say, not moving, smiling at the stars everywhere

  II

  Heartland

  People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

  Albert Einstein

  The phone rings shortly after dawn, the bland electronic tinkle exploding the quiet of the bedroom like a bomb blast. Howard, though he’s been waiting for it all night, doesn’t move; instead, deferring the moment until there is absolutely no way out, he lies with his eyes closed, listening to Halley’s murmurous protest, the rustling crash of the sheets as she reaches over to the dresser. ‘Hello… yes, Greg…’ Her voice burrs with sleep, like her mouth is full of leaves. ‘No, that’s fine… no, sure, I’ll just get him for you…’ The bed creaks as she rolls back to him. ‘It’s for you,’ she says. He opens his eyes to meet hers, just awoken, incandescently blue and bright, quizzing him.

  ‘Thanks,’ he says, taking the phone from her and turning away with it. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Howard?’ the voice crackles tersely in his ear.

  ‘Greg!’ He tries to sound like this is a pleasant surprise.

  ‘Howard, I want you in my office in exactly one hour.’

  ‘Of course,’ Howard says smilingly, and continues to smile as the line goes dead in his ear. ‘See you then.’ He swings his legs out of the bed and begins to put on his clothes, attempting to comport himself as though nothing is out of the ordinary. Halley props herself on her elbows, squinting against the day.

  ‘Are you going out?’ she says. In the morning light her bare breasts are like silver apples, the fruit of a fairy-tale land already disappearing out of his reach…

  ‘Oh, yeah, did I not say? I promised I’d go and talk to Greg about the programme notes for this concert of his.’

  ‘But it’s Saturday.’ She rubs her nose. ‘And it’s the holidays.’

  Howard shrugs woodenly. ‘You know what he’s like. Everything has to be just right.’

  ‘Okay,’ she yawns, drawing the covers back up over her, claiming his abandoned share too. Her voice is muffled by eiderdown: ‘I think it’s good the way you’re taking part in school activities more.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you get out what you put in, don’t you.’ Howard buttons up his coat. ‘I shouldn’t be too long. Keep a spot for me.’ He winks at her as he passes through the door, realizing as he does so that this is the first time he has winked in the whole span of their relationship.

  The roads are eerily deserted, as though they have been cleared by decree to hasten his journey. A single car – Greg’s – waits in the school car park; inside, the empty classrooms and corridors seem nothing more than an elaborate façade, a huge, byzantine foyer to the single occupied room. Mounting the stairs, every footstep clangorously echoing, Howard feels like some unfortunate in a Greek myth sent to do battle with the Minotaur.

  Outside the Principal’s Office, on the bench known to generations as Death Row, Howard finds the lone figure of Brian ‘Jeekers’ Prendergast. He is chewing his nails and has a stranded look about him, as though he’s been here for centuries, some minor fixture in a legend.

  ‘Mr Costigan in there?’ Howard points to the door; but before the boy can even reply, a voice comes booming from within, ‘Get in here, Howard.’

  Howard finds the Automator poised pugilistically in the dead centre of the room, as though ready to defend it against all comers. He is in his weekend wear – pale blue cotton shirt with a yellow sweater slung over the shoulders, beige slacks and brown Hush Puppies; it looks totally incongruous, like Godzilla in sweatpants.

  ‘I’m afraid he’s in a meeting at the moment, may I take a message?’ Trudy, phone trapped between cheek and shoulder, leans and writes a name at the end of a
list of names on the desk. ‘Yes… we think a tummy bug is going round… Thank you, he’ll call you later this morning…’

  ‘Damn it,’ the Automator mutters, pacing back and forth, scratching his jaw, and then, raising his voice, ‘Well, damn it, Howard, sit down, man.’

  Obediently, Howard seats himself on the other side of the desk from Trudy. The transformation in train on his last visit is now nearly complete: the high-backed African chairs have been replaced by ergonomic office models, and the aquarium by the door, where the multicoloured fish continue serenely to drift, oblivious to the changes, is now the only reminder of the room’s previous incumbent.

  ‘Would you like anything, Howard?’ Trudy whispers solicitously. ‘Tea? Coffee? Juice?’

  ‘Damn it, Trudy, don’t offer him juice! We have a very serious situation here!’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ she apologizes, setting down the phone, which immediately begins to ring again. ‘Hello, Acting Principal’s office?’

  ‘Damn it,’ the Automator repeats preparatorily, like a chain-saw warming up, and then, in a louder voice, ‘Howard, what the hell? I mean – what in the name of God?’

  ‘I –’ Howard begins.

  ‘In all my days as an educator, never once, not once have I witnessed anything that comes close to what I saw last night. Not once. Damn it – damn it, I put you in charge! Didn’t I give you strict instructions as to – I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, one of those instructions wasn’t to let the thing descend into a Roman orgy, was it?’

  ‘N–’

  ‘You’re damn right it wasn’t! And yet here we are with this on our hands – ’ he points to the phone ‘– parents ringing me all morning, wanting to know why little Johnny came home from an official supervised school Hop covered in puke and even more slack-jawed than usual! What do you think I should tell them, Howard? “You should have seen the shape he was in a half-hour before?” God damn it, do you have any clue what kind of a mess you’ve dropped us into here? I mean, what the hell happened in there?’