Our Tragic Universe

by Scarlett Thomas

  'This is an interesting conundrum,' Conrad said eventually. 'Aquinas focuses this problem on the cannibal, but in reality everything is made of everything else. Every boat I build used to be a tree, several trees in fact, and perhaps meteorites, iron ore, plants and so on. You can't eat your cake and have it too. I think this is where the paradox comes from.'

  Libby laughed. 'Meg's always talking about cannibalism,' she said. 'Ignore her. Who wants some lemon tart before we all sit around like hippies playing guitar, singing and clapping our hands?'

  She was right. I used to talk about cannibalism all the time when I was a vegan. When I was a vegan people would ask me if I thought animals felt pain and plants didn't, and what I'd do if I swallowed a fly, or was in a plane crash and had to survive in the jungle by eating corpses and insects. I'd respond by asking people why it was OK to eat pigs, say, which have the intelligence of three-year-old children, but not OK to eat three-year-old children. I'd been a vegetarian ever since B had been a puppy and I'd been idly stroking one of her legs. Suddenly, horribly, I realised that it felt like uncooked meat. It was just like a chicken thigh you'd buy in a supermarket. B already knew her own name, as well as about twenty other words, and had a favourite ball. She rolled on the floor when I played Tom Waits, but left the room if Bob Dylan was on. She was not food; she was my companion. I realised then that I wouldn't be able to eat a mammal's flesh again, although I carried on eating fish for a while and then gave that up too. Not long after that I reviewed a book that argued that vegetarianism, in the way I was practising it, made no sense. Why eat the by-products from the meat industry, like milk and cheese, but not the products themselves, the actual flesh of the animals? How can anyone drink milk knowing that it's really made for those cute calves you see lying in the sun in fields in the spring, who are taken away to be turned into veal, or gassed, or incinerated, so that you can have their milk? I was convinced enough to start existing on a diet of plants: mainly hummus, plain chocolate and salt-and-vinegar crisps. I kept it up for two years before the cracks started to show. It turned out that the fiction of consensus reality, where farm animals are happy drawings on packets and nothing else, was easier to believe than the truth. I never ate mammals, and I still avoided dairy products most of the time, but I no longer thought much about the reasons why.

  Libby put the lemon tart on the table and cut it into slices.

  'I remember where I read about Aquinas,' I said. 'It was in this crazy book about how you survive the end of time.'

  Conrad laughed. 'How do you survive the end of time?'

  'You wait for the universe to collapse, and then you get a computer simulation going just at the moment when all the matter in the universe is infinitely dense. You use the infinite power to simulate a new infinite universe: a never-ending afterlife. It's quite neat, but very creepy.'

  'I had a horrible dream after you told me about that the other week,' Libby said.

  'It is a horrible dream,' I said.

  'Isn't it a good thing?' Sacha said. 'I'd like to live for ever.'

  'I wouldn't,' said Rowan.

  'It's weird when you start thinking about the possibilities of "for ever",' I said. 'The book I read, or books—there are two of them so far—try to imagine this post-universe, and how it might be controlled by the Omega Point, which is the "moment" of infinite energy that becomes a sort-of God. How would "heaven" be arranged? The writer ends up arguing that we all get to live as heroes for a thousand years before we can even go to heaven. It's kind of complicated and disturbing all at once.'

  'I think you can't imagine heaven,' Libby said. 'Or what would be the point of it?'

  'Hear, hear,' said Conrad.

  'But if you know that you're going to exist, with one consciousness, through all infinity,' I said, 'then there is stuff to imagine, and it quickly gets unpleasant. I think that's why this writer suggests a limit of one thousand years before you sort of merge with the God figure, the Omega Point. If you were conscious in an infinity, you'd become a god yourself in the end, because you'd experience everything, and everyone...'

  'You'd become omniscient,' Rowan said. 'You'd be able to know everything. Nothing would be impossible.'

  'You could go back and live through anyone you wanted,' I said, holding Rowan's gaze for a second. 'You could find out what people around you had really been thinking while you were alive, even if they'd never said anything. You'd know the truth about everything. You'd...'

  'It would be hell,' Mark said, pushing his plate away. 'Well, for some people. Because you'd realise that you had spent your entire life lying and cheating and betraying people you loved, and that at some point in eternity—which may as well be at the beginning, whenever it happens, since eternity is for ever—everyone you've lied to, and everyone you've cheated, and everyone you've hurt and double-crossed will find out about it. You'll have no secrets. Everything you've ever thought and everything you've ever done will be there for everyone to see. You'll spend the rest of eternity alone, shunned by everyone you've ever messed around.'

  Libby got up and left the room.

  'That doesn't make any sense, though,' I said, wondering if I should follow her.

  'No,' said Rowan. 'Surely in order to know someone else's thoughts, you'd have to become them. You'd have to live through their life from the beginning: you couldn't just "drop into" someone's consciousness. Even if you did drop into someone's consciousness, you'd have all their memories and desires and hang-ups right there in front of you. And as you say, in an eternity you'd get the chance to know everything once enough time had passed. You'd become unable to judge anyone.'

  'You'd end up being completely compassionate,' I said. 'You wouldn't be able to judge someone once you understood them and their motivations. You'd become them, like Rowan said, and so it would be like judging yourself.'

  'And then you would have merged with God,' Conrad said.

  The only song that Bob, Rowan and I all knew was 'Hey Joe, so Rowan and I played the chords on Bob's 'spare' acoustic guitars while Bob did the bassline. Libby was going to sing but didn't know the words, so I somehow managed to do it, even with Rowan watching me the whole time. Mark had left shortly after dinner with a 'bad stomach'. After Conrad and Sacha went we all drank a bottle of Lebanese wine Bob had brought from the shop and insisted on decanting, slowly, through a muslin cloth. Libby's eyes grew redder, and her face paler, until she eventually fell asleep on the sofa. Bob didn't seem to notice; he wanted to show us this riff and then that riff, and I sat there with my heart beating fast as I looked at Rowan. Our eyes met again. And again. His eyes seemed to be asking me a question, but I wasn't sure what it was. It wasn't quite 'Can I kiss you again?'; it was more complicated than that, but I didn't know how.

  At about half past midnight I called B down from where she'd been sleeping in the spare room. I couldn't drive in my drunken state, so I put her lead on and arranged to pick up my car in the morning. Rowan, who was still fiddling around on one of Bob's acoustic guitars, glanced at me and then said, 'I should make a move as well.' We said our goodbyes and left together.

  'Which way are you going?' I said, although I knew.

  'Towards the castle,' he said. 'But I'll walk you home. It's late.'

  'You don't need to.'

  'I want to.'

  We set off down the Embankment with B wagging her tail. She stopped and sniffed the first bench. I stopped too, but Rowan carried on. He realised we'd stopped and came back.

  'I'm afraid my dog goes a bit slowly,' I said. 'She has to sniff everything.'

  'It must be very interesting for her along here. Lots of smells.' He leaned down and rubbed her head. He did it for slightly too long, and I suddenly wondered if he was thinking about touching me as much as I was thinking about touching him.

  'Yeah. I think it is,' I said.

  The night was foggy and starless and gulls wailed somewhere out at sea.

  'Meg...' Rowan stopped rubbing B's head, stood up and touched my ar
m. Then he quickly took his hand away.

  We both turned towards the river. Then I looked at him. If we kissed again, what would happen next? We couldn't sleep together. Despite my fantasy, he was too old: too old for there to be any future in it. And I was attached, and he was attached, and the world didn't work like that. Still, I was drunk and I knew if he kissed me I would kiss him back.

  He dropped his eyes and cleared his throat. 'Lise left me,' he said.

  'Oh, God,' I said. 'When?'

  'Well, she's back now.' He shivered. 'It was a couple of days ago.'

  'She's back? She left you and then came back?'

  'She had a change of heart. She wants us to go to couples counselling.'

  And you?'

  He did up the zip on his jacket. 'I want a quiet life.'

  'Do you? Most people don't.'

  I thought of Libby, and how she never wanted her quiet life with Bob. And me. Perhaps I had always wanted a quiet life, which was why, after making a lot of noise and running away with Christopher, I hadn't immediately run away again to London, where Vi had offered me a room for as long as I wanted. The first few days we'd spent in Devon Christopher had been entirely silent. But I'd thought he'd get over it, get over the trauma of falling out with Becca and betraying Drew. But he never did, not really. How could I become happy with Christopher? This had been the defining question of the last seven years. There had to be a way. We were both young, and he was still attractive, objectively, even though he'd started having the same effect on me as the sofa, or the frying pan, or the remote control. Why had I been thinking about this man, the man in front of me, who suddenly looked as thin and vulnerable as a small tree in a hurricane? Why was I still thinking about kissing him again, when there was no point to it, no sense in it?

  'Don't they?' Rowan said. 'I thought they did. When you get to my age...'

  'Does that matter? Does age matter?'

  'I turned sixty last week. I think it matters. I'll never be young again. And I don't want to be on my own knocking around in some bachelor flat, probably drinking too much and never seeing anyone.'

  B was pulling, not wanting to stay still. There was no traffic around, so I unclipped her lead. After looking at me once to check it was OK, she trotted over and sniffed each leg of a bench one by one. Then she looked over again to see what I would do next. I walked on slowly, and Rowan followed. She walked behind us, sniffing and glancing, and sniffing and glancing.

  'Rowan,' I said, as he fell into step beside me, 'why are you telling me this?'

  'I thought you'd understand. I thought—maybe hoped—you'd understand that I need a friend. I don't know many people around here who aren't Lise's friends, or Lise's family. She doesn't want anyone to know. I thought maybe I could trust you. I know you're half my age, and...'

  'I'm almost forty,' I said. 'Well, in a couple of years. I'm not half your age.'

  'I'm old enough to be your father.'

  'Yes, but you're not my father.'

  He sighed. 'Well, that's why I invited you for lunch. I wished I hadn't sent that email, but you can't get emails back. I didn't want you to think I was some sleazy old man making another clumsy pass at you. I just desperately wanted to talk to someone who might understand. But it was probably selfish of me. I wasn't surprised that you didn't reply, especially after what happened between us, and all I can say is that I'm so sorry.'

  The wind whipped down the river, and B wagged her tail and moved on to the next bench.

  'I did reply,' I said.

  'You did?'

  'Yes, earlier today.'

  'Oh. I only check my email at work. What did you say?'

  'I said I'd love to have lunch with you. So now maybe you think I'm sleazy.' I laughed, although I wasn't finding any of this very funny. 'God—so when I asked you for lunch on the ferry you must have thought I was some sleazy young woman making an even more clumsy pass at you?' I said. 'No. Don't answer that. Why would I think you were a sleazy old man? I can't imagine anyone less like a sleazy old man. That's so stupid.'

  He shrugged sadly. 'Sorry you think I'm stupid.'

  'Hey—I think it in a nice way,' I said. 'And just for the record, I wasn't asking you on a date on the ferry. I've got this thing I want to show you. A ship in a bottle that I found. I've been meaning to ask you for ages if you'd have a look at it for me and tell me where it might have come from. Maybe if I bring it you could have a look? I sort of want to use it in my novel, but I don't know anything about it.'

  'Of course. You know we've got the William H. Dawe collection of ships in bottles on loan at the Maritime Centre at the moment? You can come and look at those if you'd like to, unless you've already seen them in the Dartmouth Museum.'

  'I'd love to see them. Promise me you won't tell me how they get in there, though?'

  'What—how the ships get into the bottles?'

  I nodded. 'I've never known, and I've never wanted to know either.'

  'OK.' He looked over at the Higher Ferry crossing the river. 'Where's your partner? I meant to ask.'

  'Christopher? Oh, we had a big row this morning.'

  'Serious?'

  'Oh, probably not in the end.' I sighed. 'I don't know.'

  'Well, you can talk to me about that as well if you want to. I'd like to do something in return.'

  'As well as showing me ships in bottles.'

  He smiled. 'That won't take long. There's one in a light bulb that you might like.'

  I bit my lip. 'I'm not sure I'll be able to help you that much. I'm not exactly very wise.'

  'Yes you are.'

  'Not about relationships.'

  'You can't be as bad as me. According to Lise I haven't got the first clue.'

  'Well,' I said, 'I'll try.' My eyes were filling with tears. We walked along in silence for a while. We walked past the Boat Float, which looked like a dirty sink with its plug pulled out and its edges all scummy. Then we walked past the Royal Avenue Gardens and the public toilets.

  'Would Wednesday be all right?' Rowan said.

  'Sorry?'

  'For lunch. Wednesday at one o'clock at Lucky's?'

  'That's fine,' I said. 'Great. Look, I'll be all right from here. You go home.'

  'Are you sure?' He looked at his watch.

  'Yes,' I said, shrugging.

  And he went.

  The house felt empty as soon as I walked in. Where was Christopher? It was too late to call anywhere he might be, not that I would. I ran over our row this morning. He'd told me to fuck off, which was new. I'd refused to have sex with him, which had never happened before. But I had money now, and a future, and I was going to write my novel while Christopher worked on restoring that castle and maybe did a part-time course. Perhaps we could eventually move away from Dartmouth. I'd probably need to finish my novel first, though. There the plan faltered. Even if I could ever finish my novel, Christopher would refuse to read it. He wouldn't even want to come to the launch party. If he did he'd just moan about pretentious people all the way there and all the way back and complain about trees being cut down for books. He'd deliberately wear something unflattering and combine this with his turquoise espadrilles. His Brighton drug-dealer voice would come back and he'd spend the whole night saying 'Yes, mate' and 'No, mate, with a wide-eyed look, taking the piss out of everyone I liked and sniggering into the beard he would inevitably grow for the occasion. He'd tell people he'd been to the University of Life, and if the publisher put us up in a hotel Christopher would make loud jokes about the other guests and insist on scoring a gram of cocaine because for him that was 'living the high life.

  It was almost two in the morning, but I wasn't at all tired. B didn't seem to be either. Whenever we got home after more than a few hours away, she liked to do all her favourite activities as if on fast-forward: she'd already rolled on her old chew and dropped her tennis ball down the stairs. I'd given her a handful of biscuits and she'd eaten a few of those. She'd been in her bed upstairs, in her bed downstairs, on the a
rmchair and around the room chasing her tail. I needed something to read, so I went upstairs and got the book on dog psychology from my pile, then I checked the front door was properly locked and sat down on the sofa. I listened for scratching, but there wasn't any.

  The book's introduction summarised various experiments that showed dogs were as intelligent as children. Most recently, a group of scientists had replicated the classic 'forehead' experiment, normally used to assess the analytical capabilities of children. In the original experiment, a child is shown how to switch a light on. The demonstrator does it two different ways. The first way is to use her forehead, but with her hands clearly visible. The second way is also to use her forehead, but this time with her hands under a shawl, and obviously not free. When the demonstrator uses her forehead even though her hands are available, the child does the same. But when the demonstrator's hands are constrained, the child, clearly working out that the demonstrator would have used her hands if she could, uses its hands. In the dog version, a demonstrator dog pulled a lever sometimes with his paw, and sometimes with his paw but with a ball in his mouth. The study found that dogs reason in the same way as the children in the previous test. A dog would rather use its mouth than a paw to pull a lever, and when the demonstrator dog used his paw 'because' he had a ball in his mouth, the dog subject would use its mouth. But when there was no ball, no obvious reason to use a paw rather than a mouth, the dog subject assumed the demonstrator knew better and copied his actions exactly. There were some sweet pictures of dogs pulling levers.

  B was now on the sofa next to me.

  'Look,' I said to her. 'A dog experiment.'

  She whimpered slightly in response.

  The main part of the book, which I half-skimmed, suggested that dogs are all born with various instincts that need to be taken into account by their human companions. According to the book, dogs are pack animals who need to know who is pack leader. If you have a domestic dog, the book said, you have to be pack leader, and do the kinds of things pack leaders do, otherwise your dog will become confused and perhaps even depressed. This means never letting your dog sleep in your bed, sit beside you on the sofa, walk out of a door before you or eat before you do. As long as the dog knows you are in control, you can train it to do whatever you want and it will feel secure.