The Extinction of Menai

by Chuma Nwokolo

  ‘I understand, but . . .’

  ‘Just consider it a marketing gimmick. Writers in psychoanalysis are selling very well just now.’

  I said nothing. I just sat there, seventy-one kilogrammes of intransigent Chow.

  He relented. ‘Okay, Humphrey Chow, forget the psychoanalysis. Just play golf with Maida every Wednesday, deal?’

  ‘Just golf? No talk?’

  ‘Just golf,’ he agreed, putting out his great hand, which I shook reluctantly. ‘Deal.’ He grinned. Then he cautioned, pushing his chair back, ‘You’re not going to be anti-social, are you? It’s quite psychotic to play golf without talking.’

  ‘’Course not.’

  ‘You can have conversational talk, just not psychoanalytic talk, yeah?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Then, because we’re using his professional time, we’ll slip him a little something for the hour, OK?’ He rose. The nice waiter circled uncertainly, wondering whether twice a day was unseemly greed. Malcolm pulled at his wallet, drowning the man’s doubts in lucre. I tried to rise, but he was standing beside me, holding me down with a heavy, confidential hand as he leaned over to a whisper, ‘Between us, we’ll know it’s strictly golf, but Phil has insisted on a psychoanalysis clause in the contract. Just sign it Monday, comprehend? But between me and you and Maida, we’ll know it’s just golf-talk. Yeah?’

  Then he was gone, and I realised I still didn’t know just what my ‘pretty decent deal’ was. Still, after months in the wilderness, I had an important new contract. Balding Wolf meant new visibility. I could still go on calling myself a writer.

  LYNN CHRISTIE

  London | 18th March, 2005

  My lunch meeting was with Phil Begg. When he got the nod to edit the new bimonthly Balding Wolf, he had commissioned his favourite writer, Jenny Ely, to write him a six-thousand-word story. But Jenny, who also happened to be on my slate, had just been short-listed for the Booker for the first time and was still in the stratosphere. I had fixed the face-to-face meeting with Phil, hoping to talk him into republishing an old story of hers.

  Then I heard about Humphrey Chow’s lunchtime meet with the boss.

  It was 2:30 p.m. The interior of The Flagon was cavernous, its upper reaches furnished by wine racks that reached up to the rafters. Phil finally made it in at 2:40 p.m. I could still feel the buzz, along with the apprehension that followed him everywhere these days. He grinned his apologies. When he loomed over me I presented my cheek to be kissed. He twisted around and kissed my lips anyway, before sitting down opposite me.

  ‘So what are you eating?’

  ‘Me? I’ve eaten already.’

  He assessed me over the rims of his spectacles. ‘Fine. I’m sorry I’m late; are you happy now?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll have the most expensive meal on the menu, and champagne to celebrate your launch.’

  Phil chuckled. ‘Now I’m really sorry I’m late . . . hey, where are you going?’

  ‘To the ladies.’ I pushed my file halfway across the table. ‘There’s Jenny’s tale. Make yourself useful.’

  In the loo, I drew on a fresh set of eyebrows and called the vet to schedule my cats. I peeked to find Phil still looking bored, but he was just opening the file. I went back in, painted my nails, and made a few more calls, burning all of twenty minutes. When I returned, he was halfway through “Reluctant Bomber.” ‘Sorry, Phil,’ I began, but he raised a big palm to silence me. I complied happily and ordered.

  Eight years ago when I was fresh out of university, we had gone out for all of one month in the heady days of the Oxford bus riots. Then he had taken a job in IVC Media Group’s New York office. It was one of those ‘fault-free’ breakups that allowed us to meet up again and again without the undercurrents in other relationship failures. Except that he had returned from New York a brasher Phil, ever-grating, always ever taking me for granted.

  It was good to return the favour for once.

  By the time he finished, a steamed chicken was sitting in front of him in a bath of vegetables. I was already deep into my grilled trout. He placed Humphrey’s manuscript proprietorially at his elbow and dug into his food.

  ‘How’s the launch coming?’ I asked.

  ‘Dunno,’ he said through a full mouth. He sipped from his wineglass. ‘I contracted out that bit. I’ll turn up on the day, same as you.’

  ‘I haven’t got an invite, and neither has Jenny.’

  ‘I can sort that right away.’ He wiped his lips with a napkin and pulled his wallet from his pocket. He pulled out two tickets. He then wrote on them and pushed them across to me. ‘Story’s great, too. Literary tour de force. Most unlike Jenny, though. She’s really reinvented herself, psychotic male voice and all that.’

  ‘Psychotic male voice?’

  He tapped the manuscript.

  I pulled up my spectacles. ‘Oh, that’s Mr. Chow’s piece.’ I opened my folder again. ‘Wrong story. Jenny’s must be in here somewhere. I’m afraid it’s a published story. She’s been rather busy recently . . .’

  He put down his fork and took my hand. ‘Have I just read a translation from Chinese? It was set in Scotland!’

  I grinned. ‘Humphrey Chow is a British writer. There, it says HC at the bottom, sorry, my mix-up. No, Jenny has an old—’

  ‘To hell with Jenny, it’s a bloke’s magazine anyway. I want this Humphrey chap.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know . . . I’m about to ink a collection deal for him.’

  ‘So you’re not quite committed? Are you?’

  ‘Well, you know me, Phil . . . I don’t discriminate against mags; but they are ephemera—read for a fortnight and trashed . . . I’ve got to look at my client’s long-term interests.’ I gulped my juice, wondering whether I was over-egging it.

  ‘Of course not,’ he said sarcastically. ‘We don’t want this story to be forgotten like James Joyce’s Ulysses, which was first published in a magazine, do we?’ He peered at me. ‘Who are you talking to?’

  ‘Confidentially?’

  He crossed his heart.

  ‘Maximus.’

  He snorted. ‘Max’s artsy house can push five thousand copies. Over five years. I’ll sell three hundred thousand of my launch. Wake up, Babes, Max isn’t even playing in my league. And you can flog him anthology rights after I’m done!’

  ‘Well . . .’

  He speared a chilli and chewed slyly. ‘Has he sent a contract yet?’

  ‘Well, confidentially, no. I was just—’

  ‘I’ll sign you a twelve-story deal, Monday, sight unseen. Six solid months of visibility. How’s that for ephemeral? Next year he’ll have a ready-made collection for the literary press. He may not make the hardback vanity shelf, but he’ll do okay with the trade.’

  I chewed through my mouthful and then pushed Jenny’s old contract to him. ‘Let me see some figures, Phil.’

  He crossed out Jenny’s name, wrote in Humphrey’s, pencilled in his offer, and pushed it across. ‘Don’t get excited; that’s for twelve stories.’

  I looked at it before making a face. ‘You could have fooled me. I thought you were signing the tab for our lunch.’

  He crossed out his first offer and wrote another figure angrily, ‘You’re screwing me, aren’t you? Because you know my deadline.’

  I took the pen coyly. ‘And Jenny?’

  He took the invitation with Jenny Ely’s name, tore it, and wrote another one for Humphrey Chow. He slid it across. ‘Stuff Jenny. I’ve got no time for writers who have no time for me.’

  We shook hands on it, and suddenly I had to use the loo again. This time, I called Malcolm’s memory bank. It wasn’t that big a deal, by IMX’s standards, but the boss was having ‘lunch’ with the client, after all.

  HUMPHREY CHOW

  London | 18th March, 2005

  I sat in my car, mulling over my twelve-tale deal. I threw my head back and laughed, until I caught sight of my pupils in the rearview mirror. The two psychiatric patients stared back balefull
y. They were not amused.

  A cloud of gloom seemed to trail me, and if the great news did not shift it, something fundamental was going on. I let the morose memories that were so inclined flood my mind. It was all Rani and no joy. Until recently, it had been several years since I had last thought of him—and now I had thought about him twice in one week.

  Kiriashi ginami ko.

  One of these days I was going to have to seek out his prison and visit him. No sense in having a language that no one else but you can speak. Gaps were opening up in my knowledge of it; thoughts I could no longer express in Menai were becoming commonplace.

  My mobile pinged. It was Grace. There was a tense silence. Eventually she asked, ‘Have you done lunch?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Humf.’

  ‘You knew.’

  ‘I did drop you a hint, didn’t I? All those job ads? But listen, some good news: Balding Wolf is buying . . .’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Oh.’ She sounded deflated. ‘Lynn phoned you already?’

  ‘My phone was off. She got through to Ruby, who told Malcolm, who told me. IMX didn’t drop me after all.’

  ‘Well, congratulations. I’m so happy for you, Humf.’ There was another strained silence. ‘Are you still doing the drug trial?’

  I slapped my head. In all the excitement, I’d forgotten. I had signed up to spend the next four days at a phase one drug trial. It was worth fifteen hundred pounds. It was one of those things I did when my account went bone dry; I could still do my writing in the comfort of their lounges. With the Balding Wolf deal, I shouldn’t have to take the risk any more. Yet I had signed contracts before and knew it would be months before I saw any cash. ‘I suppose I should.’

  ‘I think you should,’ she agreed in the terse voice she reserved for financial conversations. ‘I’ve seen the Balding Wolf deal. There’s no up-front money.’

  ‘What will you do with yourself all weekend?’

  ‘I’m seeing the Hutchinsons tomorrow, and there’s a Malcolm meet-up at Annie’s on Sunday.’ Her voice smiled. ‘I’m sure we’re having Chow for dinner.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ I said mildly. When she said ‘Chow,’ she clearly excluded herself, because she did not use my last name. Malcolm had not opposed her marriage, but our marriage was an IMX secret and she still introduced me to colleagues as ‘an IMX writer.’ I never missed the subtext that for someone who fished a sea of big fish writers she had somehow settled for a minnow.

  * * *

  5:30 p.m.

  By the time I packed an overnight bag, I was late for the drug trial. Several other volunteers had failed to show, so the test was about to be scrapped when I turned up. As I signed in, two more volunteers arrived. A few minutes afterwards, the trials were on. First we endured the thirty minutes of form-filling and medical history taking, in the course of which we lost one more volunteer. He couldn’t quite find his photo ID, and under Sister Stuart’s withering cross-examination, he confessed he was fifty-five—not thirty-nine—and was ‘not exactly’ the Nathan K. Smith who had attended the screening. ‘This is ageism!’ he muttered before stalking out.

  ‘Wait till they retire you,’ said Sister Stuart to his back.

  I drew a two-man room with a nervous first-timer who joked about having written his will. The staff drew the preliminary blood samples, and I tossed two capsules down with a blasé air. After ten minutes, I knew the trial was not going to be like the others.

  I felt like lying down and did. When I came to, the hands of the clock had barely moved, but the room was a bedlam. It was roiling with white coats. I was screaming, ‘Sintafia, sintafia!’

  ‘Speak English,’ pleaded Sister Stuart. ‘Where does it hurt?’

  ‘I feel fine,’ I said, although my mouth was full of tongue and my voice sounded strange, even to my own ears. ‘I want my computer.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘My laptop, please.’

  The white-coats exchanged glances. ‘Get Doctor Greenstone,’ Sister Stuart ordered.

  I had another overwhelming desire to sleep, and before I could do anything about it, I did. This time, I retained a dreamy awareness . . . My memories were seeds. My mind was a desert in whose sand the drug had burst a geyser. The new waters pooled, soaking the earth and the parched seeds of memory, growing green shoots. An oasis of memories flowered . . . In the distance, another geyser burst . . . Another cluster of memories blossomed. A lucid past flashed through my mind. Suddenly I was remembering . . .

  I woke up in a deserted private room. My head was full of colour, brimming with images, faces, memories. I felt omniscient . . . and I had wires running from one finger, my temples, and my chest.

  Within seconds after I opened my eyes, Dr. Greenstone was in the room. His hands were deep in his white pockets. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘I’m fine. I need my laptop.’

  ‘All in good time, sonny.’

  ‘And where is everybody?’

  ‘We’ve suspended the trials, Humphrey. Every other volunteer on Proxtigen delivered responses within our anticipated ranges, but your graphs were all over the place. You’re okay now. You’ll have no permanent memento of this evening, touch wood, but this requires a lot more investigation.’

  ‘I’d like to pull out of the trials now.’

  He laughed shortly. ‘You’ve pulled the plug on the trials, Mr. Chow. Proxtigen was a promising drug, looking good for a 2007 general release—until your seizure.’

  ‘How much of it did I get?’

  ‘Ah . . .’ he hedged, ‘this is a blind trial, you understand, there’s only a fifty-fifty chance you got the drug . . .’

  I had said nothing, but he probably realised how silly he was sounding.

  ‘Twenty milligrammes. But this is not a legal statement, you understand?’ He continued cheerfully, ‘You’re going to cost us big, Mr. Chow, but if you represent the tiniest percentage of the population, you’re saving us millions over the long term . . .’

  ‘Just drop me,’ I said, sitting up. ‘I feel fine. I’ve got to be elsewhere, right now.’

  ‘Are you on recreational drugs, Mr. Chow?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘That’s the only way I can pull your results,’ he said tensely. ‘Proxtigen has properties that could potentiate hallucinogenic side effects in counteraction with some recreational drugs. If you’re . . . indulging, we’d be obliged to discount your results.’

  I stared at him. He was sweating. I gestured at his equipment overhead. ‘If I was on drugs you’d know!’

  He stepped up closer. ‘If we tested, we’d know.’ He pushed a trolley across to me and unclipped the sensors from my finger. The trolley had a single sheet of paper and a pen on it. I scanned the paragraph of legalese. I had never felt better in my life and my freedom to write just then was important enough to discharge myself. ‘If you told us, we’d also know.’ Suddenly he was rattling on: ‘It’s amazing the number of people who get on tests that they shouldn’t be on, just because they’re brok . . . ah . . . just because they want to help break out that cure for cancer . . . You get girls who don’t know they’re pregnant, you get fifty-year-olds, fourteen-year-olds—why, just this evening, one of the ancients tried to pass himself off as a teenager! You get substance abusers . . .’ He watched me sign. He took the paper from me and folded it carefully. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘When can I go?’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I’ll get them to do the paperwork. By the way, it’s pretty standard to pay extra compensation in cases like this. It’s not underhand or anything. You will find it all in your envelope when the paperwork is done . . .’

  He was almost at the door when it opened. The signed sheet vanished into his jacket as another man stalked in, taciturn, barely acknowledging Dr. Greenstone’s greetings. The new man was lean and intense. His nameplate said ‘Mr. Melrose.’ He had eyes only for me. ‘How are you feeling now?’
Melrose asked.

  ‘Great, I was just going—’

  ‘Out of the question,’ Dr. Greenstone snapped. ‘You’ll be here for another week at least. We have a cascade of tests to run . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, maybe two days. At the least,’ conceded Melrose.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ I said. ‘I’m fine, just pull my—’

  ‘We never pull . . . anything, Mr. Chow,’ said Dr. Greenstone.

  ‘But you said . . .’

  ‘Regulations,’ he answered, looking at me with inscrutable eyes. ‘I said the regulations are quite clear.’

  * * *

  AT LEAST they gave me my laptop. I shut my eyes and dived into the riot of colour, of memories. Even the recent past seemed richer, truer. But the feast was further back . . . I opened the door of a thirteen-year-old memory and sneaked into her bedroom where she was still swinging from the light fitting. She was wearing her faded green negligee. She was heavy, so heavy, and as I watched, a sheet of plaster came down with her from the ceiling. She hit the floor and lay there awkward and twisted. And it seemed so unfair that the plaster should wait till she was dead before it gave way . . . I sneaked further back, and . . . Yan Chow was on the floor, the kitchen knife in his back . . . I snapped forward, not wanting to know . . . the white of a wedding dress beside me, my arm in hers, the swell of pride, of love . . . Grace had not worn white for our wedding. I tried to peer into the face of my bride, but my cinematograph darkened, pulling me back into the precincts of the present. I was consumed by an overwhelming loss. The geyser was stopped, the oasis dead. The omniscience was quite gone. I opened up my laptop urgently and began to write.

  ZANDA ATTURK

  Kreektown | 18th March, 2005

  I turned homewards, and for a while we walked side by side, up the incline from Agui Creek into Kreektown. I walked slowly, planting one foot carefully after the other. Night fell swiftly, with calming components of screeching crickets and chorusing frogs. The lone street light was a tentative moon. I realised that I had forgotten to clip my torch to my belt, and it was suddenly not so calm, the night. Only the responsibility for the old man I carried kept me from seeking light and the anchor of company.