Our Tragic Universe

by Scarlett Thomas

  'Oh, good,' Rosa said. 'I've been trying to phone you.'

  This was a really bizarre dream, which I believed and didn't believe all at the same time. In the dream I knew I'd fallen asleep on the sofa and had begun to imagine that I'd just finished reading the book about the astral plane. One of the things it told me to do was communicate with a dead person. In a dream-sense kind of way, I'd therefore decided to set up a séance with the only person I'd known who had died—thanks, Rosa!—and now we were in conversation.

  'Me?' I said to her. We were standing in a vast, featureless landscape of the kind I used to imagine when describing the spaces between the cells in the cell-phone network in my Newtopia books. She was wearing a nurse's uniform, and I was wearing my usual jeans. The astral plane kept fading in and out and crackling at first, and then it settled into a dreamy hyacinth-blue.

  'Yes. You're almost the only person I know who isn't famous. No offence.'

  I thought, not for the first time in a dream, that this dream would be something really good to write in a dream diary. I imagined someone like Josh's analyst or one of the authors of the New Age books in my sack telling me that this was very significant. I noted, also in the dream, that I was glad I was not in analysis.

  'I'm not dead, you know,' she said. 'You should ring Drew and ask him.'

  'I haven't spoken to Drew for seven years,' I said.

  'I can see why you ditched him,' she said. 'My God, he's self-obsessed.'

  'I left him for someone else,' I said. 'I thought he was very nice. I just wasn't desperately in love with him, and I thought I was desperately in love with his friend. What do you mean you're not dead?'

  'I'm not dead. I'm in Hertfordshire.'

  'If you're not dead, then how am I speaking to you?'

  'That's the stupidest question I have ever heard. And that's saying something.'

  'If you're not dead, well, then ... I mean, all the tabloids think you're dead.'

  'We had a big argument,' Rosa said. 'Me and Drew. About superobjectives. Then I pretended to kill myself.'

  Rosa talked for ages about this argument and then her voice somehow faded out and I saw her getting out of a train and sitting on a bench at a deserted station, where she watched another woman pacing up and down until a train came and the other woman stepped in front of it.

  'I made Drew say it was me,' she said. 'And now I'm with Caleb at last.'

  I bumped into Andrew Glass when I was on my way to buy the papers the next morning. I'd had scrambled eggs on toast and a large cup of coffee for breakfast, but I didn't feel very awake. My strange dream the afternoon before had unsettled me, and I'd spent most of the night being afraid to go back to sleep, and playing Iris Glass's folk songs on my guitar instead. It was a little misty, but the bearded man was already setting up his tripod by the cliff-face. There was no sign of the woman and her daughter, or the couple I'd mistaken for Vi and Frank.

  'How are you getting on in there?' Andrew said, nodding at the cottage.

  'Oh, it's lovely. So peaceful.'

  'No weird dreams, then?'

  'Huh?'

  'Funny dreams.' He laughed. 'No?'

  'Why would you say that?'

  'God—I could never sleep in there because of the dreams. It's because of all the witchcraft. It hangs around, you know, like cooking smells. Freaks you out.' He laughed again. 'Hey, I'm just kidding. That's not why I can't sleep in there. I mean, I can sleep in there. Obviously not now, but you know what I mean. Oh, dear. Sorry: I shouldn't mess around with you. Don't want to lose my tenant. I thought you were only using the place to work in. But Gill in the shop says you've been buying dog food and plants and all sorts.'

  'Yeah. I broke up with my boyfriend.'

  'Oh, shit, mate. I'm sorry to hear that. I'll definitely stop teasing you now.'

  'No. It was the right thing to do. Totally my own choice, so tease me as much as you want. I'm much happier on my own, I've realised. But I have sort of moved in permanently. At least for the time being. I hope that's OK.'

  'It's your place. You do what you want with it—I won't bother you. Gill's an old gossip. Wants to know who everyone is—even the holidaymakers.'

  'Thanks. Well, I'm staying for a bit anyway. Unless the bad dreams drive me out, of course. We'll have to wait and see on that one.'

  'Oh, dear. I hit a nerve there, I can tell.'

  'Well, I did have a really weird dream last night. I wondered how you knew. But I always do when I'm stressed, and in a new place. I'm sure everyone does.'

  'Well, don't be a stranger. Call in for dinner later if you fancy it. I won't give you raw pork or anything.'

  'Thanks. I probably will. Especially if you don't give me raw pork.'

  'That's what Mary Shelley ate, you know—to bring on Frankenstein in a dream. Actually...' He blushed a little. 'You told me that, didn't you?'

  'I may have done. Sounds like something I'd say on a retreat.'

  'You did. Yeah, that was it. You gave lots of good advice.'

  'I'm not sure telling you to eat raw pork counts as good advice, but thanks.'

  'Got a real problem now, though. Don't know if you dispense follow-up advice on the side...?'

  'What's the problem?'

  'The ghosts. I don't know if I believe in them or not, you know? If they're in me or outside. I don't want to have to make a decision on that in real life, let alone in the book.'

  'I think it's fine if you don't. You can leave it open. Let the reader decide.'

  The sea splashed gently behind us.

  'Thanks. You know, you shocked me on that retreat,' Andrew said.

  'Shocked you? How?'

  'When you showed us that tape of all the TV programmes and adverts and explained how the seven basic plots are there in pretty much everything. It did my head in.'

  I'd made the tape the previous year and used it for the first time on the retreat that Andrew, Lise and Tim had attended. There were the personal makeover shows that took a human being who didn't look like a character from a romantic comedy and changed her hair, make-up and clothes until she did, using a rags-to-riches structure complete with a crisis halfway through. There were home makeover shows that used the same rags-to-riches formula to turn the insides of people's houses into spaces resembling film sets, with any embarrassing old lino, faded photographs and comfortable old dog-beds removed. One of the clips I showed had an interior designer telling a young man to remove the soft monkey from his bed because it wasn't 'romantic' and no one would want to sleep with him if it was there. There were the talent shows where contestants had to cry before they could receive any good news, the dramas where selfish people learned to consider others, and the advertisements where women desired bright, clean kitchens in which their children could eat cereal and their husbands could read the newspaper and nothing would ever break or go rotten. Not one of these kitchens contained anyone rolling a joint, washing a muddy dog, having a huge row, making a messy stir-fry, picking their nose or anything that real people did in their kitchens. The kitchens on TV were made up, and so were the people inside them. It was as if the superobjective of everyone in the Western world was simply 'I wish to become a fictional character.' Of course, everybody knows all this. But at the same time most people don't really know that they know it.

  'Yeah. God,' I said. 'I think it did my head in too, when I really thought about it.'

  'It freaked me out because I don't have a TV and so it was all new to me. But then I started noticing it happening in my world as well. Blokes talking at the bar about a football match where the underdog has triumphed against the odds, or complaining because a woman is playing hard to get. I realised that when someone plays hard to get, they are making themselves into a character in a story, and they choose the story that leads to the outcome they want. If a woman puts a dragon between herself and the hero, it becomes an obstacle to be overcome. If she goes and knocks on his door and says "Fancy a bunk-up?" she becomes a slut: basically a conquest with n
o obstacles and therefore no value. It was like people wanted to put everything in a story because otherwise it wouldn't make any sense. The guys talking about the football wanted the "fairy tale" ending to the match they'd watched because they wanted it to be more satisfying, and they wanted to believe underdogs could win because they identified with them.'

  I laughed. 'You can teach the next retreat if you like.'

  'No, mate.' He laughed too. 'Thanks for the compliment, but I find it all a bit depressing.'

  'Yeah. Well, I'm sure there's some other way. You can use conventional structure without letting it take over. You can still find ways of being original—not just in how you use formula, but actually original. You can put two new things together, or ask an important question. It's hard, but not impossible. In fact, Chekhov said that writing is all about formulating questions.'

  Andrew raised his eyebrows. 'You didn't mention that on the retreat.'

  'No, but that's because on the retreats I'm trying to show people how to write genre novels. But even then, the story-structure is just the container. The container might be strong and reliable and familiar, but you can put whatever you like inside it. It's the space that's important. There's no reason why you can't put something unfamiliar in a familiar container. Or lots of unfamiliar things. Or an interesting question. But you can't seal the container at the end...'

  'Like a boat rather than a plane?'

  I laughed again. 'I was thinking of a tea cup, but yes. Exactly.'

  Andrew looked at his watch. 'Whoops. Late again. Better go and open the pub,' he said. 'But do drop in later. No raw pork, I promise.'

  'Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. I probably will.'

  When I got in I sat down with a cup of tea and the papers. Drew, much loved by the nation as the parochial sidekick of Inspector Bufo, aka 'The Toad, had been taken in for questioning, 'just as a routine part of the investigation. The papers didn't seem to be making much of it. Someone had come forward as a witness, and explained how Rosa had paced up and down the train station, on her own, before walking in front of the train 'like she was crossing the road. Columnists were already writing sharp pieces about the trappings of fame, and Rosa's obvious problems with her own success. Had all the dieting made her suicidal? Had she never recovered from the incident with the turquoise dress? While flicking through The Guardian looking for more about Rosa, I stopped on the national news page where stories appeared without headlines, but under headings like 'Science', 'Tourism' or 'Technology'. Under the weird heading 'Beast, which had caught my eye, I found a small story about the Beast of Dartmoor. There had been several more sightings of a large black wolf in gardens and on roadsides, but whenever anyone tried to take a picture it didn't work. New recruits of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force were now trying to track the Beast as a 'fun' weekend exercise, and a way of learning how to use their observation equipment.

  I couldn't quite remember what furniture I had chosen, so I looked again at the confirmation email. Yes, I had remembered to click on the table I wanted. And yes, I had ordered two sets of shelves rather than just one. I'd gone for a local place that said they'd deliver quickly. If I was lucky my furniture would arrive today or tomorrow. I wished I could have gone out and bought antiques and second-hand stuff, but I remembered what Conrad had said about Thomas Aquinas's paradox. Everything was an antique once; even the newest objects have really been around since the beginning of time. Did that make me feel better? I wasn't sure. A wagtail chirped outside.

  I'd bought a little bag of coal from the shop, and added this to the fire. B got up, stretched, turned around and then lay back down again.

  'We're going for a walk,' I said to her. 'When we get back the fire will be nice and warm. Come on.'

  She looked at me with her big brown eyes and then rolled over on her other side.

  'Come on,' I said again. 'We're going for a walk and then you can sleep while I get on with researching my stupid feature.'

  She yawned, but didn't get up.

  'Hurry up, or I'll feed you to the Beast,' I said. At this B looked startled and stood up immediately. I forgot that half the time she seemed to know what I was saying. 'I'm joking,' I added. 'But at least you're up now. Good girl. Off we go.'

  I'd just slipped her lead on when my phone vibrated. It was a text message from Josh. Christopher is here. His hand is totally healed by your Bach flower potion. Will you do me a remedy for my madness? And will you take Christopher back? He's driving us crazy. Actually, don't answer that. But are you coming to Newman still? With me? Shall I book a restaurant? It's 12 days from now. Laters, J x

  'How am I going to write this feature?'

  This seemed to be the safest question I could ask the Tarot cards that were shuffled and lying face down in front of me. I'd spent the rest of the morning and lunchtime examining the deck of cards and reading the book that came with them. It said you should ask the cards a question and then lay them out in a pattern. It gave several examples, but the simplest seemed to be a hexagram. I had a Post-it note stuck on the page that had a diagram of this pattern. I wasn't sure I'd read the instructions properly. As usual, I'd hurried through the book, noting some interesting moments, but failing to absorb the whole thing. I'd ended up quite fascinated with the cards themselves, though, each one of which seemed to tell a story that, according to the book, fitted into a bigger, more mysterious story in which the Fool was a clothed manifestation of the World, and the Hanged Man was someone in deep meditation, with his genitals pointing to his brain.

  The book claimed that every story in the world, and therefore every human situation, could be represented with a pattern made from as few as six of the seventy-eight cards. I learned that the Major Arcana comprises twenty-two Trump cards, numbered from 0 to 21. The Minor Arcana has four suits of fourteen cards each: four Court cards, usually a King, Queen, Knight and Page—although sometimes a King, Queen, Prince and Princess—and then ten numbered cards. Although the Major Arcana cards have always contained what seem to be archetypal images based on one idea, the Minor Arcana cards were illustrated for the first time only in 1910, when the Rider-Waite deck, which I had in front of me, was produced.

  I liked the Fool card best. Here was an androgynous, haphazard, dreamy figure wandering along looking a bit like Dick Wittington, except with a dog instead of a cat. The Fool card, numbered o, didn't represent what I'd first thought: a silly person about to step off a cliff because he's dreaming too much to even notice his dog jumping up and warning him of the dangers ahead. According to the book, the Fool card has always been fundamental: the Fool's number, 0, is a whole, a world, a circle; it is the non-existence that allows and precedes all other existence. The Fool card may therefore represent the basic nature of all of us: someone in an original state of being or enlightenment who is wandering around with few cares or possessions, uncorrupted by culture. This person seems foolish only to those who are unenlightened. The card also shows the innocent, natural wonder of stepping out into the unknown. We may assume that stepping over a cliff is dangerous, but perhaps the Fool knows he is simply stepping onto the next ledge down. We can't see what's beyond the card: it might be safety; it might be death. But he can see what we can't. The next card in the sequence of Trumps, and occupying position number 1, is the Magician: also a Trickster, but one who is firmly inside society. He is aware of his own power and importance and his ability to control nature. On the table in front of him he has a wand, a sword, a cup and a pentacle, representing the four suits of the Tarot. This is the socialised Fool, who has a long journey to go before reconnecting with the World, the twenty-second Trump card that some describe as the Fool as he or she really is: naked, and connected to everything.

  The book suggested looking at each of the cards and writing down all the thoughts, images and associations that came with each one, in order that you could learn how to read them quickly. I didn't have time for that, but I had flicked through the deck and noted some interesting things. There was the Star card, where a nak
ed woman had one foot in a pool of water, and one foot on land. She was pouring from two cups of water: from one the water fell on the land; from the other it replenished the pool. There were lots of other women in the deck: Strength, Justice, Temperance, Judgement and even the World cards were female, as well as the High Priestess and the Empress. There were some interesting male cards, like the Hierophant and the Hermit. There were cards of great destruction or fear, like the Tower, the Devil and Death. There was even a dog card which I'd pointed out to B: the Moon. I looked at the cards in front of me again and imagined Vi saying that the only true 'female' card was the Fool: the card of the void, of nothingness, of primal darkness and the beginnings of everything else.

  Something popped in the fire, and B and I both jumped. Then there was a howling sound outside. It was the wind, blowing around the house and down the chimney. I went to the kitchen to get a tangerine. I ate it, then threw the peel in the fire. There was a little hiss and then all was quiet again.

  The pattern I'd chosen for my Tarot reading was an imaginary hexagram with the cards at each of the six points. At first I thought I should read the cards clockwise, but in fact from the top going clockwise, the cards are numbered 1, 5, 2, 4, 3, 6. In this sequence, the first card represents the central issue, or the 'ordinary world' of the problem; the second represents the problem itself; the third represents the way to set out and resolve the issue; the fourth represents a previously unseen element in the central conflict that could make the problem seem insurmountable; the fifth represents a climax or turning point; and the sixth the resolution. I said all this to myself as I laid out the cards, and only when the pattern was formed did I realise that this exercise, whatever it revealed, would be ideal for an Orb Books retreat. This was a story-formula all over again. There is a problem, so you try to solve it. Although it goes well at first, there is something surprising about the problem that makes it more difficult to solve than you first thought. There is a moment when all seems to be lost, in the climax; but then the solution is found and the problem is overcome. If I could get ghostwriters to plot stories like this, with some Tarot cards, it would be good practice for them. But I felt a little sick as I thought of this.