by Adam Roberts
He doesn’t want to be thinkiŋ this way - he’d prefer not - so, so, turniŋ to the atrium again, and Hope begins systematically to scan all the facilities. He is thinkiŋ of where would be a good place to visit, to take his mind off things. The bar at the top (or bottom), the other bar at the bottom (or top), and at various interludes in the space in-between two shops, the MakB outlet, which of course is yet to open, a coffee parlour, a high-price communication shop.
Coffee. So Hope pushes, flies, grabs and pulls himself down to the coffee shop. And there, inside behind weave-glass sittiŋ with his long legs hooked under the table, talkiŋ to somebody — no, not to just somebody, but to David Slater himself, the celebrity himself - is Hope’s father. He’s right there. Hope thinks: if Sol were here, would he hurl himself inside, stab him through the heart himself, make a speech about betrayal and freedom . . . Wat would he do?
Perhaps it is not so surprisiŋ that 2 men, both stayiŋ in the same hotel, a facility from which it is not possible to step outside, will bump into one another after a few days; but to Hope it feels like destiny.
He enters. He hasn’t seen his father in 2 decades. There are still those butterflies in his stomach; or perhaps those crawliŋ, tikliŋ sensations are pupae, maggots, worms. The shop has an oval walkway, forever circliŋ around its tables, on which moving surface are little rubber hooks designed for ease of feet insertion. Hope toes one of these, and rolls around to the bak of the store, where his father is sittiŋ right there, talkiŋ to David Slater (of all people!) as if it were the most normal thing in the world to be speakiŋ with this celebrity. His wife left him, Hope recalls, because she decided he was Lucifer, or rather the Devil. Wat a strange thing - never to have met this man before, yet to know such intimate details about his life.
He’s here, and his father is here.
Hope steps off the walkway not far from their table, floats in space. Who’s it? Slater has cloked him in the corner of his eye, and is lookiŋ round. The man’s a celebrity, he’s used to being approached by strangers, and his face has adopted a blandly distant expression, sign your flimsy? Have my picture taken with my arm round your girl? Talk to your mother on the phone for a second? Sure, sure. That slightly over-earnest facial settiŋ, like a visual correlative of the bored sigh. His right hand is old, the skin stretched and a little thin-lookiŋ, despite the best that pharmakos can do; but the left hand, in its waxy pinkness, is forever young. It will not age.
‘Dad,’ says Hope, and looks past the suddenly puzzled face of Slater.
‘My God,’ says Paul. ‘My God, is that you, Hope?’
‘Dad,’ says Hope again.
Paul looks aghast, just for a moment, but then he looks astonished; then he looks delighted. It is this last expression that upsets Hope the most. He half rises from his table, but his knees are sniked under there and he sits again. ‘My God,’ he says, again, ‘wat are you doiŋ here?’
‘Hi Dad,’ he mumbles. He is nearly 40 years of age, and yet to stand in front of his father reduces him chronologically to his teens again.
‘Hope, wat are you doiŋ here?’
‘Dad, yeah.’
‘Wat are you doiŋ here?’
There’s a danger that the conversation between them will resolve into nothing more than this, Hope sayiŋ Hi Dad and Paul Caunes sayiŋ My God, wat are you doiŋ here? over and over, round and round, orbitiŋ forever; but David Slater intervenes.
‘Paul, this is your son? Fantastic - fantastic to meet you, sir. It’s an honour. Won’t you join us? We’re just haviŋ a coffee, jawiŋ, just hangiŋ out, and you’re very welcome to join us.’ Each wrinkle in his handsome face marks the place where the parchment of the skin has been repeatedly folded and folded in one or other beaming, smiling, asserting, positive expression.
Hope hooks his toe into the underside of the table, pulls himself down, grabs with his hands and settles himself on the stool, all without takiŋ his eyes off his dad. He looks so old. He knew, of course, that he was old, but somehow Hope didn’t expect to see him lookiŋ so old. His hair, a little too long for xero g, floats frizzily; his skin, though pharmakos-preserved, looks thin, tiny wrinkles unmissable like craks in the glaze of his face. His long body is thin, starved, pauce, which emphasises the gangly, slightly dyspraxic flow of its motion. His elbows and knees, underneath the cloth, must be like knots in rope. It’s been 15 years. ‘So,’ says Slater. ‘Since you guys are too stunned to - you’ve not seen one another in a while, I guess?’
‘No,’ says Paul.
‘Well, sir, allow me to introduce myself. My name is David Slater.’
‘But I know who you are,’ says Hope, and Slater inclines his head in slight aknowledgment of his celebrity. ‘I didn’t know you knew my father.’
‘We’ve been friends for a long time.’
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ presses Paul, lookiŋ at his son intently. ‘Why are you here? In this hotel?’
‘I’m meetiŋ,’ says Hope. ‘By which I mean to say, I have met - I have a company, and I’ve had a meetiŋ up here with a potential investor. My company is involved in puttiŋ together a very large project, bringiŋ a massive new resource of iron to - I needed, we needed investment money, and . . .’
‘When’s your meetiŋ?’
‘It was yesterday.’
‘Really? And how did it go?’
Is this the sort of conversation one should have with one’s father, not haviŋ seen him for 20 years, haviŋ parted then on poor terms? Is this the way to talk to a man you are conspiriŋ to kill? ‘It went very well. It’s Malet - you know of him?’
‘Of course! But he’s rich! He’s super-rich. And he’s investiŋ in your project?’
‘He’s bakiŋ it entire. It’s goiŋ to save the project, the company.’
‘But this is fantastic news,’ says David Slater, loudly, beamiŋ. ‘Fantastic. Maybe we should float on down to a bar and get some champagne?’
‘Sure,’ says Hope, without takiŋ his eyes off his father, and immediately upon utteriŋ that single monosyllable, its sibilant collapsiŋ into a hum, he thinks to himself: wat am I doiŋ? He does not know why he came here into this coffee parlour to confront his father. How has he slipped into this sociable-friendly mode? There’s an answer of course, and it even occurs to him, but he doesn’t like it. It probably has to do with a sort of masochism of the spirit, something Hope has had cause to register within his psyche on several previous occasions. The killer that maintains a healthy self-esteem and psychological balance is the killer who objectifies and denigrates his prey, as alien, vermin, a stain, a problem, nothing more. That way the process of eliminatiŋ another consciousness does not stik its cactus-skin in your throat as you try to swallow it. But get to know your victim, humanise him, and you will do yourself psychic damage when you murder him. This is not because no-man-is-an-island-all-are-parts-of-the-same-continent, although some have thought so. Rather it is because the process of empathy in the homo sapiens mind depends upon a sort of cloniŋ, or xeroxiŋ, or overlayiŋ of one’s own self-identity on the symbolic version of the other; and that once one has done that with another human, killiŋ them means, unavoidably, killiŋ a part of yourself. And yet, knowiŋ the implacability of his brother, and knowiŋ how implicated he is himself in this same murderous intent, Hope has still elected to introduce himself to his father again.
Or he could warn him - get out! Get away! Your other son is murderous towards you . . . But those words don’t come.
‘Sure,’ says Paul, smiliŋ at his son. ‘It’s so good to see you again! I mean, I know a lot of water has flowed under a lot of bridges . . .’
‘And a lot of clichés have been clichéd,’ laughs David Slater, scratchiŋ an itch on his brow with his artificial finger.
‘That was a long time ago,’ says Hope, and it sounds in his head as if somebody else is speakiŋ. Wat is he doiŋ? How can he say that? It’s not a long time ago. It lives in a continuous present in his mind. How could it not?
&
nbsp; ‘It is,’ says Paul, noddiŋ, lookiŋ sombre. ‘I guess time is a great healer.’ But Hope thinks how wrong this is: time is what adds gangrene to a fresh wound. How could anybody think elsewise?
‘I guess,’ puts in Slater, seemiŋly a bit giddy with the buzz of this reunion, ‘I guess cliché is a great conversational aide.’
Paul waves his right hand at Slater’s face, flikiŋ his fingers as if dismissiŋ him as a tiresome buzziŋ insect, but he is grinniŋ, it is all a joke.
‘How’s Sol?’ he asks his son. ‘You seen him?’
‘Yeah,’ says Hope, and then stops himself before he can add He’s here in the hotel, which would be a stupid thing to say for many reasons.
‘He alright?’
‘I’d love,’ says Hope, and he tries to pull himself together. ‘I mean, I would love to catch up. I’d really love to catch up. Why don’t we have supper together? I mean I don’t want to interrupt your coffee together right now.’
‘It’s no interruption,’ says Slater beamiŋ. ‘It’s wonderful to see you. You must feel free to join us. In fact, I insist upon it. Paul has told me so much about his wonderful sons, and I absolutely relish the opportunity actually to meet one of them.’
But Paul reads the sentence differently, as containiŋ within it the sentiment: I’d like to talk to you, Dad, alone, without this third party overheariŋ. And he says, ‘Sure, sure. They do excellent food here, right here . . . why don’t we meet here this eveniŋ, say 7?’
Hope, rather too abruptly, nods, agrees. ‘Later’ he says, extricatiŋ himself from the table and floatiŋ upwards. ‘Later.’ But later, he thinks, Sol may have shot you through the heart with a wireframe bullet, Father, and you will be gushiŋ your life into a million dissipatiŋ globes and beads of red.
eight
Hope floats around the atrium in a daze. Here’s the main viewiŋ window again; the handsome young couple have long moved on. Why is the world composed of handsome young couples, all happy and bonded, except for him? Véra’s contempt for him is so complete that she will no longer even indulge her anger and his craviŋ by beatiŋ him, instead inflictiŋ the punishment which, despite its intense painfulness, no masochist can bear, that of ignoriŋ him. The maggot is inside his brain: maybe he will change that by finally committiŋ a crime that removes him utterly from the congregation of axeptable humanity, by murdering his own father. Better to be despised by the whole world than be nothing at all, surely. He’s already committed the crime in his heart, he’s a worm. He’s revoltiŋ. He revolts himself.
Through the window: the gleam of impendiŋ sunrise around the curve of the Earth looks like a golden scythe, ready to harvest the latest crop of stars. There’s the Plough, the Big Dipper, the peaked-cap, the trapezoid house with a trailiŋ air-line, the net, watever you want to call it. There’s wasp-waisted Orion. There are the Pleiades glimmeriŋ, poured out upon the blak velvet bakdrop. And there is - but, no, because here is another swift sunrise, one more of the hundreds of swift sunrises that bathe the Uplands every single month, and the light dazzles his eyes, pouriŋ over the lip of the world like an upward shower of rain.
He asks himself this: can he cut his own father off from this world of beauty? He can’t. It’s not as if Gradisil was shot by Paul whilst attemptiŋ to escape custody. It was all woven out of the red threads of war and the aftermath of war. Justice does not apply. That’s not the right way to think about it.
He goes bak to the room. He must tell Sol that he cannot do it, spill the blood of his own father, it’s impossible. He rehearses this phrase in his mind; spill the blood, spill the blood, and his agitated mind becomes distracted by the illogicality of this phrase, this cliché, as if his father is a cup brim-full of blood, and the slightest nudge would cause the treacly red to come gloopiŋ down over the side - here is the door to the room. He is about to open it, when he remembers that Sol isn’t in there, that he had gone down to the lobby to arrange for a taxi-plane to get them away. Gettiŋ away seems the thing that will happen at the very end of time, shortly before the cosmos is crumpled up like a sheet and stuffed in the blak hole of endiŋ. Paul will be dead, Hope’s company, his dreams, the plan of supplyiŋ the Uplands with an inexhaustible supply of raw iron - all will die. After that? The possibility barely exists.
Should he go down to the lobby to confront Sol there? Or perhaps the thing is to stay in his room for a while, to get his thoughts together. His hand is on the doorhandle, when he hears a voice behind him.
‘Mr Hope Gyeroffy?’
It is Wilfrid Laurier, yet again, pesteriŋ him. Hope can’t believe it. It is a most provokiŋ thing. ‘Yes? Wat?’
‘I want to have a word, Mr Hope Gyeroffy.’
‘This is not a good time, Mr Laurier.’
‘A word, Mr Hope Gyeroffy.’
Hope tries to conjure a spark of rudeness from his mild soul. He shuts his eyes, and tries to generate a performance, to act the role of Sol - fuk off, leave me be, go away. Go away. Go! But it’s hard, it’s not in the grain of his character. ‘I’m afraid I can’t talk now. Perhaps we can get together for a drink another time, Mr Laurier.’
‘I know,’ says Laurier, ‘that you are planniŋ to murder your father.’
‘I haven’t got time,’ says Hope, panikiŋ now and fumbliŋ at the handle to his door. ‘To talk to you now.’ But he is only sayiŋ the words to try and drown out the crash inside his head, the he knows, the how could he possibly know?
‘We have to talk, Mr Gyeroffy.’
Hope takes a deep breath and turns bak. There he is, this ridiculous businessman, this MakB junior executive or watever he is. There’s a point at which comical becomes just fukiŋ tiresome. ‘Wat do you want?’ he asks, hoarsely. ‘How do you know that?’ He rethinks this. ‘Wat on earth leads you to think that I would - how dare you accuse me of so monstrous a — ’ But there’s no heat in this. ‘I’m,’ he adds, but he doesn’t know wat he is.
‘We can talk about it in this corridor if you like,’ says Laurier, louder than necessary; and there are people floatiŋ about further along, hand-over-handiŋ themselves round the curve, comiŋ and goiŋ. Talkiŋ about it in the corridor is obviously a very bad idea.
‘Blakmail?’ barks Hope.
Laurier smiles. ‘I don’t work for MakB, Mr Gyeroffy. Of course I don’t. Did you really think I did? Didn’t you wonder why I kept bumpiŋ into you, why I was always hangiŋ about you close enuff to overhear those careless conversations with your brother?’ There’s a gun in his hand. Despite the blip of fear this generates in Hope’s mind, he is almost excited to see it. He’s spent so long in the EU, he hardly ever sees guns; the device carries the associations of screen thrillers, not of reality. ‘I work for the US government, Mr Hope Gyeroffy,’ Laurier is sayiŋ. ‘I’m an agent. Paul Caunes returns to the Uplands, that’s a PR coup for us, particularly when he’s got his arm round the shoulders of an American hero like David Slater. Paul Caunes shot by Upland agents - worse, murdered by his own bloodthirsty sons — that’s a PR disaster. You didn’t think we’d deploy agents to prevent that eventuality?’
‘You want to hustle me into my room to shoot me?’ says Hope. The sentence seems removed from his sense of real life. Even though he speaks the words, and realises how likely they are, he still isn’t as scared as he should be.
‘You’d prefer I shoot you in this corridor? Open the door.’
Hope does as he is told. He’s startiŋ to feel alarmed, something finally shiftiŋ inside him like a tectonic plate and reformiŋ the usual coastline of anxiety that defines his soul. There’s something in the — ‘Look,’ he says. ‘Look. This is all wrong.’ The sensation of fear, like alcohol into a drunkard’s blood, is almost reassuriŋ, almost pleasurable. Hope is sweatiŋ.
Laurier shoves him with his free hand and Hope flies straight bakwards into the room. That 3nimation action-hero style of fightiŋ, where a blow from an impervious fist sends the villain zippiŋ bakwards through walls and pillars, only here made real.
/> Laurier is inside the room, the door shut behind him, a quik glance into every corner - almost furtive - to chek they’re alone together. Then he tugs out a thumnail camera, bips it to his lapel, and says to Hope, ‘A quik confession.’