'Why didn't you get on the plane?'
I shook my head. Partly because I could barely hold it still. I just needed to lean forward, rest my head on the table. Sleep. Just some sleep. I was so tired, I'd almost stopped worrying about Brin and how worried she might be.
'Tell us about the Jigsaw Man,' she said quickly, barely giving me time to answer the previous question, even if I'd had something to say.
I leaned back and tried to get my head into a place that would allow me to contribute to the conversation.
Contribute to the conversation?
Not thinking straight. This wasn't a conversation.
'It's a film script,' I said. 'I wrote a film script. That's why I was flying to LA. To see a guy, a film guy, who was interested in the script.'
'What guy?'
I had to concentrate. For a second the name was completely gone, and then it juddered back in.
'Marion Hightower,' I said. 'He worked for an independent... can't remember the name.'
'Marion Hightower?' she repeated.
'Yes.'
She turned to Agent Crosskill who had sat silently beside her throughout the interview. From somewhere, I have no idea where, he produced a tablet. He typed quickly and briefly, waited a few moments with his fellow agent's eyes on him the whole time, and then looked up and shook his head.
'There's no Marion Hightower in the film business,' he said.
She turned back to me and said, 'There's no Marion Hightower in the film business.'
'I... yes, yes there is. I checked. He was on...' and then I struggled to remember the name, before saying, 'Internet Movie Database. He was there. There were a bunch of films under his name.'
Agent Crosskill pushed the tablet over to me so that I could see the search results for Marion Hightower on IMDb.com. There was a long list of approximate matches. There was no actual Marion Hightower.
I shook my head.
'Tell us about the Jigsaw Man,' she said.
I wanted to think about Marion Hightower. I wanted to try to work out how it was that he could have had a page on IMDb every time I'd looked during the week before I'd flown to America, but that it was no longer there. I couldn't think, though. It would have been a tough enough one to work out in any case, but it was impossible being this tired. Being this tired.
I just wanted to sleep.
'Tell us about the Jigsaw Man.'
9
After he was gone, I sat at the Jigsaw Man's table in the Stand Alone only twice. The first time, the day after he left, I was trying it out for size. I placed a few pieces of the jigsaw. I drank coffee. I exchanged some words with Janine, although I don't think I managed to say anything particularly erudite or sage. I occasionally looked around the café to see if anyone was staring at me. They didn't seem to be, but there was no escaping the fact that I felt self-conscious.
I avoided the café for a couple of days because I felt that when I went back, I ought to once more sit at the jigsaw table to see if I would get used to it. I felt this insane pressure about it. Stress. The day after, and the day after that, it was the first thing I thought of when I awoke in the morning. What was I going to do about the jigsaw table? What were the other regular customers going to think? Perhaps they thought badly of me for sitting at it in the first place, but then perhaps they would think me weak for only sitting at it once and not being able to handle the pressure.
Then some part of me would want to point out that I wasn't sitting in the Prime Minister's chair or filling in for the IBF World Heavyweight Champion. There was no pressure. There was no inherent weakness in not sitting at the table.
Except I felt the pressure.
I was nervous when I returned a few days later. Forced myself to go on an afternoon when I didn't really have the time, and didn't really feel like drinking coffee. Facing up to my trepidation.
It felt like a big event. I don't think anyone else in there shared my anticipation. I sat in the seat. I drank coffee. I placed two pieces of the jigsaw and was disconcerted (and relieved) to find that someone else had been at it in my three-day absence.
I wasn't alone. I had a rival for the position of Jigsaw Man. Was there someone in particular, or had a variety of people sat in this chair? Was there some sort of open competition, or was no one else fretting about it in the way that I was?
Looking back, it was one of those moments in my life when I spent far too much time fretting over something of absolutely no consequence. I was never going to be the Jigsaw Man. For a start, I didn't have the time to sit there all day, every day. Funny how things consume you at various points, and then they pass and some time later you wonder why you ever got worked up about them in the first place. (If only I'd been able to apply the same kind of perspective to my feelings for Jones.)
I cleared my following afternoon and determined to go to the Stand Alone and be the Jigsaw Man. If there was going to be a competition, I was going to win it. I'd sit there until I'd finished the on-going jigsaw, and when it was done I'd speak to Janine about organising a replacement puzzle, and if necessary – and I presumed it would be – I'd buy it and that would help cement my place as incumbent Pursuivant of Jigsaw.
Then, the following afternoon on the way to the Stand Alone, I decided to further this cause, and stopped off at WH Smith's and bought a jigsaw, just to get ahead of the game. The biggest I could find was only 1,500 pieces, and it was of a steam train rather than the required four-hundred-year-old artwork, which wasn't really in keeping with what had gone before, but I was convinced of the need to stamp my authority on the position.
When I arrived, there were three people sitting at the table. They were drinking coffee and chatting. Occasionally one of them would do a piece of the puzzle. I left my jigsaw in its bag and put it down at the side so that Janine wouldn't see it, having first briefly contemplated starting the jigsaw at my own table, a rebel, insurgency jigsaw table, in direct opposition to the establishment. I would sit in my own breakaway corner, traducing the competition, and their out-dated 17th century artworks.
My nerve failed me. I tried not to stare at the people at the table. Determined to wait them out – which I thought oughtn't to be too hard as they had obviously arrived before me – I wondered how obvious and perhaps sad it would look if I moved table once they'd left.
Perhaps sad? I can only shake my head in embarrassment when I think of my few obsessive days.
I drank three cups of coffee, when I had felt like none. They left. I thought I'd wait a couple of minutes, so as not to be too blatant. A woman came in on her own and immediately sat at the table. She glanced at the jigsaw once, then took out a magazine and paid the picture no more attention.
When I went back to the café the next day, another couple were sitting there. Some time, at some point, my obsession faded. I arrived at the café a couple of weeks later, the table was free, the jigsaw had been replaced by another. I sat by the window, my back to the puzzle, and watched the rain sweep across the river, the steam from the coffee rising into the cool café air.
The day came when I no longer went to the Stand Alone.
*
The door to the room opened. I lifted my head from the table where it had been resting on the backs of my hands. I was tired, hadn't slept, but was feeling slightly better than I had done, however much earlier it was when they'd been interviewing me.
The sound of the door was enough to spark a little more life into me. The door opening could be bad, but then so was sitting in that room in complete silence. I still dreamed of being released, of them realising that I had nothing to do with their plane going down, and that I would be allowed to go home. None of that was going to happen without the door first opening.
The man looked curiously and nervously at me. He was in his early sixties. His hair was thin, his face was thin, his eyes were shallow and weak. Anxiety sat upon him like a fresh fall of snow.
We looked at each other for a few moments, neither of us entirely sure wh
at the other was doing there. Suddenly I realised that he must have been from one of the other cells. It was obvious, but had taken me a while to get there. He was from one of the other cells and was doing what I had wondered about doing as I'd stood out in the corridor.
He was inspecting the other rooms to see what was going on. To see if there were others like him. To see if there might be a way out.
Even if he was from the room next to mine, why had they let him get this far?
He shook his head, although it seemed to be in reply to some internal conversation rather than aimed at me, and then he started to pull the door closed.
'Wait!' I managed to say. He was already out of sight as he hesitated, and then the door closed.
I sat staring at it, wondering if I ought to go out after him. I knew right there, however, that the reason I wasn't moving, the reason I didn't want to have anything to do with him, was that he was weaker than I was. However lost and alone and desperate I might have been, he was worse, and I didn't want to be responsible for him.
There was a gunshot, and then the man with the thin face cried out. A horrible wail. I stayed where I was, listening, not wanting to move. The initial howl was replaced by the most pathetic moaning, the most desperate sound you could imagine. Crying out, pleading for help.
To whom was he pleading? The guard who had shot him?
Finally I lifted myself out of the seat. I glanced over at the mirror, wondering if there was anyone in there, and then tentatively opened the door. Out here the cry was much, much louder.
He was curled up on the floor, clutching his right kneecap, pressing hard against it. It couldn't have been doing him any good in trying to relieve the pain. The guard had shot him from close range in the knee. The bone and flesh had exploded.
There was a tremendous splatter of blood and body matter across the floor and the walls for a single gunshot.
I looked at my guard and then along the corridor in either direction at the other guards. They were all standing in the same position, gun in hand, hands held together at the groin. I wondered who'd shot him. I wondered which direction that haunted man had come from.
He looked at me, his face contorted, his eyes imploring. He couldn't speak. I think he tried to, but the voice was just a horrendous wail, a desperate, tortured grimace in scream form. I wanted nothing to do with him, but I couldn't stop myself. Some innate compassion took hold of me and I stepped forward.
'Leave him or join him,' said the voice behind me.
I turned quickly. My guard was staring straight ahead at the door to my cell, as he had been doing every time I'd looked at his face.
Leave him or join him. That's what he'd said. If it was him. The sound certainly hadn't come from further along the corridor.
My back was now turned to the abject bloody misery on the floor. The thing, that barely seemed to be a man anymore, wailed more loudly. I did not look back. Brin would not thank me if I chose the wailing man over coming home safely. I returned to my cell and closed the door.
I moved over to the far corner of the room and sat down, huddled up, arms wrapped around my knees.
*
Several hours later I found myself desperate for the toilet. Unsure of the procedure when I wasn't actually offered the choice, I approached the mirror and said that I needed to use the bathroom. Shortly afterwards the door opened and the female agent beckoned for me to come. I walked out and followed her along the corridor.
The scene where the haunted man had fallen was completely clean. There was no sign of him, or of his bloody and splattered kneecap.
10
Happy place. Happy place. Happy place. Huddled up into as much of a foetal position as I could get, my legs squeezed tightly together, I tried desperately to think of our happy place, the place that Baggins had suggested, the place where we took our summer holidays. Sitting on Nairn beach, a calm sea, a nice drink, a warm summer's day.
The plane juddered continuously, battered by the storm. I kept thinking, how big is this storm? Hadn't they seen it coming? Why couldn't they fly around or over it? Isn't that what planes are supposed to do with storms?
And every time I thought that, I had to haul my head back to the happy place. I had to focus on the sea. Focus on the smells and the sounds and the tastes. The sound of the gentle waves washing up on the sand. The cold drinks. The smell of summer. The cry of the gulls. The mournful cry.
Why are they mourning? Because the plane is going to crash!
I thought of the Air France flight from Brazil, over the Atlantic, the pilot making the bold move to fly through the storm. Everyone dead in under ten minutes. How long had it been? How long had we been flying through the storm?
Stop! Happy place. Happy place. Happy place. The smell of the sea. Breathe it in, imagine it, feel it, sense it. Be there. Listen to the waves. LISTEN TO THEM!
We were descending, sharply, desperately. You could feel it. I dared not look out the window, although there would have been nothing to see anyway. Nothing but clouds and rain and lightning. We'd been descending for a while, I just hadn't wanted to think about it, to acknowledge it.
Were they going to try to land in this? Could they possibly touch down safely, buffeted as they were by this storm? Perhaps the descent was uncontrolled. A freefall to certain death.
I gripped my head. The plane rocked and shuddered and jerked and tugged as if the gods were pulling it in many different directions at once.
STOP IT! Happy place. Happy place. Happy place!
We were eating lunch on the beach. Sandwiches and a pork pie, fresh orange juice, and that Guatemalan coffee we always drink. A wonderful taste; subtle spice flavour, with a dry, nutty finish. Super-smooth. That's what we're drinking. Me and Brin, sitting in a comfortable silence, watching a boat emerge from the Cromarty firth, Baggins playing at the water's edge.
'Ladies and gentlemen, we're making an emergency landing... to sit out the storm... we'll try to make it as smooth as possible...'
And that was all he managed to say. Even the words sounded like they were being tossed around. If I'd been thinking clearly, I'd have preferred that he was concentrating on landing the plane than keeping the passengers up to date, so his brevity would have been appreciated.
I wasn't really thinking, however. At least, I was trying not to. I was trying to be somewhere else.
I wanted to look out the window, but couldn't bring myself to do it. I might have seen how far off the ground we still were. I didn't want to know. I needed to lose myself by the sea, I needed to lose myself in the sights and sounds and tastes of somewhere far away, with the two people I loved.
Two of the three people I loved...
'I'm a bit cold, Daddy,' said Baggins, walking up the beach. 'Can I have some coffee?'
'You don't like coffee.'
'It's not that cold,' said Brin.
'You just think that because you've got coffee,' said Baggins. 'It's freezing.'
Brin and I looked at each other. We knew what was coming.
'Can I have ice cream?' asked Baggins.
'I thought you were cold?'
'Ice cream's good for cold. Because you usually only eat ice cream when it's hot, it makes your brain think that it is hot, and so you feel warmer.'
'Nice try, kid,' said Brin.
'It's true, it was on Brainiac,' said Baggins earnestly. 'And crisps,' she added. 'Can I have crisps?'
Brin made a face, but nevertheless dug some money out of her pocket and handed it to her.
'If you go and get the ice cream yourself.'
Baggins took the money, her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth.
'Watch out for cars,' I said, even though she didn't need to cross the road.
'And no crisps,' said Brin, 'just ice cream.'
'Thanks, Mummy,' she said, and she was off.
We watched her for a moment, then we took a sip of coffee at the same time, as if we were competing in some synchronised beverage drinking event, and lo
oked back out over the sea.
The most wonderful afternoon. Pale blue sky, very light, hazy cloud taking the edge off the sun, a slight sea breeze. Perfect temperature.
'It's gorgeous,' said Brin.
'Brace! Brace! Brace!'
No! No! No! I didn't want to hear that! I didn't want the voice intruding. Go away! Happy place. Happy place. Happy place...
I could hear the seagulls. The mournful seagulls, crying against the warmth of the day, the sharp sound etched against the stillness of a perfect summer.
Happy place. Happy place. Happy place.
'Brace!'
*
'You need to tell us about the Jigsaw Man,' said the female agent. Agent Crosskill was sitting next to her. He looked rough. Either working late, or out drinking perhaps. I couldn't smell anything from him.
If he looked rough for not sleeping, how bad did I look? How many days had I been here? I had no idea. No sense of time. Trapped in this insane environment. Trapped after a fashion, if not exactly locked in.
My head was buzzing. Some hormone or other had kicked in. They had eventually brought me some food and a bottle of water. Perhaps there'd been something in the food. I'd had to eat it, even though it had occurred to me that it might have been infused with a truth serum. Wouldn't that be what they'd do in a movie? Movies were the only frame of reference I had for this situation.
Did it matter if they filled me with truth serum? The truth that I knew didn't implicate me in anything, didn't make me look particularly bad. It was just incredible. Unbelievable. I don't think they would consider me insane, however, they'd just assume I was lying.
The water was still on the desk, half full. The bottle was plastic, however, so there probably wasn't going to be a lot of use in picking it up and taking it to Crosskill's head.
Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! Page 5