Our Tragic Universe

by Scarlett Thomas

  'I didn't leave him for you.'

  'No, I wasn't implying...'

  'I mean, well, we're not having an affair, are we? And I left him because I'd had enough of him. I should have done it years ago. I'm really enjoying being on my own.'

  'I know.'

  'And didn't you say I was too young for you?'

  'That doesn't matter. Our ages don't matter. You said that.'

  'It's not an issue anyway, if you're determined to stay with Lise.'

  'I just don't see what else I can do. We'd have to leave Dartmouth. OK—I know—you've already left Dartmouth. But you've only gone a few miles down the coast. Everyone would disapprove of us. I'd lose contact with everyone I know in Devon, which I guess wouldn't be a great loss, but I don't know what else I have. I'd have to leave the Centre, I suppose.'

  'Rowan?'

  'What?'

  'We're not going to run away together. There's no point thinking about it. You're going to stay with Lise and I'm going to ... I don't know what I'm going to do. But there's no reason for you to think you owe me anything just because your wife accused you of having an affair with me.'

  He took a deep breath, held it, and then slowly exhaled.

  'She's not my wife.'

  'She may as well be.'

  We'd finished our sandwiches. At least, I'd picked at the middle of mine, and he'd eaten half of his and pushed the plate away. Now Rowan looked at his watch.

  'I'm going to have to go in a bit,' he said. 'Lise has started calling the Centre every afternoon to check up on me.'

  'Shouldn't you be the one doing that to her, since she's the one who had an affair?'

  'You'd think so. Look. I'd like to finish this conversation properly. And also—didn't you have something to show me? A ship in a bottle?'

  'You're welcome to drop in for a cup of tea at Torcross if you're passing.'

  He breathed another deep, spring-tide breath, as if he was a river being filled and emptied more forcefully than usual.

  'Yes. I'd love to. But...'

  'We're not having an affair. There's nothing to feel guilty about. I'm not going to jump on you as soon as you walk in the door. I'll keep all my clothes on the whole time; I promise.'

  'But if Lise found out...'

  'God.' I sighed. 'This really is ridiculous. Well, it's up to you. I'll email you my address and my phone number.'

  'Instead, can you...?'

  'What?'

  'Can you put your number into my phone now? Don't email. I think Lise has my password. I'll text you if I'm in the area. Is that OK?'

  He passed his phone to me. It was a bit bashed up around the edges and some of the markings on the keys had faded away completely. I opened his address book and saw about twenty numbers there, including Frank's mobile, and Vi's.

  'What shall I put myself in as?' I said. 'The dry-cleaner?'

  'No. I've never had anything dry-cleaned in my life. Just give yourself an alias of some sort.'

  'I can't believe you're being serious. OK; I'll be Anna,' I said.

  'Not a woman.'

  'I'll be Anton, then.'

  'I'm so sorry about this. You can stop speaking to me if you like, and have nothing more to do with me. I'd understand.'

  'Do you want me to stop speaking to you?'

  'Of course not. I need a friend, like I said.'

  'A secret friend.'

  'Yes.'

  I sighed again. 'This is very weird.'

  'I'm sorry. It's the best I can do.' He looked at his watch again. 'I've got to go. See you soon?'

  'Yeah, whatever.' I felt like crying, suddenly.

  He reached across the table and touched my hand. 'Meg?'

  'It's OK,' I said. 'Go.'

  'I'll see you soon. I mean, I want to see you soon, if you want to see me.'

  'OK.'

  'Don't get in touch with me. I'll contact you.'

  When Rowan left I just sat there with all the sandwich crusts. After a few minutes I took out my phone and replied to Josh. Sorry for one day delay. Yes, I'll come to Newman with you, and for pizza. Tell me what time to meet you at Rumour.

  ***

  A week later I still hadn't heard from Rowan. I hadn't heard from Christopher either, although Josh had confirmed that he'd booked Rumour for the evening of 20th March. My feature had been published in the paper, and various people had written me congratulatory emails, but not Vi. I'd been back to the house in Dartmouth and removed the last of my stuff except the rest of my books, which I'd arranged to have picked up by a Man with a Van that Andrew knew. I'd finished constructing my bed and had made it up with the plain white organic cotton bedding I'd bought from Greenfibres. I'd been working my way through Iris's book in the evenings, and, using her instructions, had appliquéd an image of a wagtail onto the bottom right-hand corner of the duvet cover, using scraps from an old pillow-case. I cut up the rest of the pillow-case into fairly neat squares and added them to my newly constructed bag of patchwork materials. I was going to make a patchwork quilt for the winter, I'd decided, and write a column about it.

  I'd got into a good rhythm of living by myself. Some evenings or lunchtimes I'd pop into the Foghorn for something to eat and a pint of Beast. Other times I cooked pasta or omelettes for myself. I learned how to pick the leaves from my basil plant in such a way that new ones grew in their place. And my hyacinth bloomed: it was blue, like the sea. I spoke to my mother a couple of times, and Libby. Claudia rang to let me know the arrangements for next week's editorial board meeting. I wanted to ask her about Vi, but the words didn't come out. In the evenings, when the phone stopped ringing, and after a couple of pints of Beast, I'd get out my guitar and play one of Iris's folk songs, or a version of some blues song I already knew. I couldn't help myself playing all the songs I'd ever talked about with Rowan. I'd decided to write my first weekly column about playing guitar, which I already knew how to do. Between songs I checked my phone for messages that I wouldn't have heard over the music, but each time I saw that no one had texted me, not even Libby. At some point I went on the Internet and worked out how to text myself, to see if it was still working. It was. My message, when it came through, said You're an idiot.

  As well as all this, I finished knitting my slippers and found it was quite easy to rinse the pieces and lay them out on the kitchen table to dry and take shape. But Libby had been right about sewing them up. It was both boring and stressful in a way very few things are: as if someone has given you a priceless antique and told you to stand there holding it for five hours. The last time I'd been in Totnes I'd bought organic unbleached wool and a set of four double-pointed bamboo needles, along with a sweet little zip-up bag in which to carry my sock-knitting. The needles were odd-looking things, like giants' cocktail sticks. I was going to have a go at Iris Glass's pattern and write about it in my second column, and had decided that I should start trying now, as Libby had said it was so hard.

  To knit a sock you have to cast on some stitches to one of your double-pointed needles and then distribute the stitches around two of the other needles, so you have something wigwamish and triangular, with none of your stitches 'twisted'. I didn't know what that meant exactly, but Iris's other instructions had all made sense in the end, although usually only as the activity was being performed. So one evening, after the sun had gone down and while the fire was crackling in the grate, I got a couple of bottles of Beast from Andrew and sat down to work it all out. I'd already done a swatch, which I'd cast off and was now using as a beer mat. My wool gave me six stitches per inch, so I used Iris's table to work out that for an 'adult medium' sock in this yarn I should cast on fifty-two stitches and then divide them on the needles so the first and last needle held seventeen stitches, and the middle one eighteen. This took a few attempts. I had no idea which the 'first' and 'last' needles would be until I tried it out, got it wrong, read that the tail of the wool dangles between them like a rat's tail and tried again.

  To knit a tube, which is basically what
a sock is until you get to the heel and 'turn' it to get to the foot, you simply knit the stitches off whichever needle carries the live yarn onto a 'free' needle. It's similar to juggling, which I'd also learned from a book, years before. With juggling, you only have to remember to throw the ball from the hand that is about to receive a ball. Knitting socks turned out to be oddly similar. By midnight I'd got a rhythm going, and I'd knitted seven rows in a K2 P2 rib. After that, I moved on to a simple knit-stitch to carry on making a stocking-stitch tube. My sock looked like the beginning of a sock! I couldn't believe it. That night I went to bed without putting my phone on the pillow beside me. In fact, in the morning I couldn't remember where I'd left it. Rowan could have been texting me all night and I'd never have known.

  When I found it, it was textless. I rang Libby.

  'You'll never, ever guess what I'm doing,' I said to her.

  'Shagging Bob's uncle?'

  'Libby!'

  'Sorry.'

  'You can't keep saying that.'

  'Yeah, yeah.'

  'Anyway, guess again.'

  'You're making rhubarb jam for the shop? I bet you're not. But everyone's asking, now that the forced rhubarb's in.' She sighed. 'That bloody shop. All people care about is food. There must be more to life than eating nice food and getting fat in front of the telly.'

  'Are you OK?' I asked her.

  'I'm totally, totally in the shit again. I was going to ring you today anyway. Are you busy at lunchtime?'

  'No, why?'

  'I'll come to you. Meet you in the Foghorn? You can show me your new place.'

  'Sure.'

  Libby hadn't been more specific than 'lunchtime', so I went into the Foghorn at quarter past twelve with my knitting and settled by the fire to wait for her. Andrew brought me over a half of Beast and a pink straw.

  He laughed as he waved the straw in front of me. 'We all know you're multi-talented. But even you can't drink and knit at the same time. Thus the straw. Aunt Iris used to drink through a straw when she was knitting. Used to get totally pissed, drop stitches all over the place and sing sea-shanties, sometimes until the sun came up. Even had a couple of knitting songs too, I think, although I'm sure she invented those.'

  'I've been reading her book,' I said. 'It's how I learned how to do this.'

  I held up the sock, which, to an objective observer, probably wasn't much of a sock yet. Still, I'd done thirty-six rows, and I thought it was really beginning to look like something. I'd expected Andrew to glance at it vaguely and pretend to be impressed, but he leaned down, took off his glasses and touched the fabric gently with his big fingers.

  'That's pretty good,' he said. 'Don't worry about the knobbly bits and the dust. That'll all come out the first time you wash them. Nice wool. You taking orders?'

  'Orders?' I laughed. 'I haven't even got to the heel yet. My first-ever sock might be my last-ever sock if that doesn't go right. It could still turn into a legwarmer.'

  'Nothing like hand-knitted socks,' he said. 'She used to make them for me.'

  'Iris?'

  'Yeah. Made them for half the village. You can't buy socks after you've had home-made ones. It's not the same.'

  'I'll tell you what,' I said. 'If I can get one pair done—which I warn you might be in about a million years—I'll make you a pair next. Say thanks for the cottage and stuff. I'm really enjoying living there, I can't tell you how much.'

  'Oh, there's no need,' he said, putting his glasses back on. 'I'm only kidding with you.'

  I shrugged. 'Oh, well. I'm going to write about Iris's book in the newspaper, though. You might want to tell the publisher.'

  Andrew smiled. 'Thanks, mate. And actually, what am I saying? I must be mad. Give me a pair of hand-knitted socks and you can have all the logs you want for free. And a few pints—lots of pints—of Beast on the house.'

  'You're on.'

  Andrew drifted away to wash up glasses. I carried on knitting until Libby came in about half an hour later, carrying a box of rhubarb.

  'Ha, ha!' she said.

  'Ha, ha,' I said back. 'Yes, I'll make the jam.'

  She put the rhubarb down on the end of the table, sat next to me and took off her sunglasses.

  'Holy shit, you're knitting a sock.'

  'I am.'

  'Where in God's name did you learn to do that? Have you got a new best friend?'

  'Well, sort of, but she's dead.' I told Libby all about Iris Glass. 'The coolest thing is that I've been given a column at the paper and each week I have to "try out" a different hobby. I'm going to do sock-knitting for the next one.'

  Andrew came over and addressed Libby. 'She's in that cottage all the time knitting and sewing and making things. You want to take her clubbing or something before she becomes a complete hermit.' He laughed. 'What can I get you to drink?'

  'Same as Meg,' Libby said. 'I think we're too old for clubbing.'

  'I'm only teasing,' Andrew said. 'I'm a hermit myself. Nothing wrong with it. Do you know what you want to eat? We've got oysters in, and some nice pollock.'

  We ordered both and Libby looked properly at my sock, squealing with astonishment as she saw that it really was progressing as a sock should.

  'No one learns to knit socks from a book,' she said. 'It's too hard.'

  'Lots of people learn things from books. Usually the wrong things. But my column's all about how to learn good things—like knitting socks—from books.'

  'God. It'll be like being back at school and having projects where you have to go to the library and learn how to build a campfire or put up a shelf or sew your own apron.'

  'It doesn't have to be like that.'

  'I think you know how to knit socks because you cosmically ordered it.'

  'God, I did, didn't I?' I laughed.

  'It's the most rational explanation.'

  I looked more closely at Libby. She seemed to have aged a couple of years since I last saw her. 'You OK? You look very tired and a bit ethereal, if you don't mind me saying so.'

  'Oh, that's because I forgot to put mascara on.' She sighed. 'I'm back with Mark. Or, at least, we're sleeping together again.'

  'Shit. Why? How?'

  'Maybe he's my destiny.'

  'You don't believe in destiny.'

  'Bob does. He said I'm his destiny.'

  'OK. Tell me from the beginning.'

  Libby sighed. As we ate our way through first oysters, and then pollock with roast beetroot and mashed potatoes, she explained what had happened.

  'It was like I had this dead feeling in my head all the time. Something between concrete and cotton wool. When I tried to think, nothing happened. I didn't know what to talk to Bob about, all of a sudden. When I was with Mark I was always so busy rushing here and there, and trying to catch up with stuff all the time. Life felt exciting, you know? And real. Being with Bob felt more dishonest than being with Bob-and-Mark. Before, I had to pretend to love Bob—well, you know, to love him "like that"—while really loving Mark. Once Mark was out of the equation I was just left with "pretending to love Bob" as my whole entire life. I've thought about this a lot. Maybe I'm just trying to justify myself. But I was getting seriously stressed and a bit depressed. I never understood when you told me about your depression: that feeling of nothing really meaning anything, or having any point. But that's what I started to feel. I literally have to plan conversations to have with Bob. I make notes beforehand. But it doesn't really help. You know when you're a kid and you've got double biology with the most boring teacher in the world, and anticipating it just makes you want to go to sleep? That's how I started to feel every time I thought about talking to Bob. I used to get through it by imagining being with Mark, you know, thinking about the last time I'd been with him, or the next time I was going to see him and what I might wear. I used to book hair appointments and do my nails because of Mark. I just didn't have any motivation to bother to do it for Bob. Does all this sound awful?'

  'No, of course not. I know the depressed feeling y
ou're talking about. When I had it really badly I could hardly speak to anyone. I had absolutely nothing to say. If my mum phoned up and asked what I'd been doing, I wouldn't be able to remember.'

  'Yeah, that's exactly it. And it's spilling over into the rest of my life as well. I stand in the shop all day with nothing to look forward to, and I can't even be bothered to make new displays when we're quiet. I just go out the back and cry, because at least that feels real, and dramatic: like something's actually happening—must be happening—in my life. I've found myself putting on mascara in the mornings and wondering why I bother. I wondered why I bother with anything at all. Didn't Darwin say that more or less everything is about sex? And sex is for reproduction. What use is my life if it's all about sex with no reproduction? Does it mean everything I do is pointless?'

  'I think you can help the species without making babies yourself,' I said.

  'But not by wearing mascara, presumably? I mean, does it matter whether I wear mascara or not?' Libby sighed. 'Does it matter if I'm attractive? Poor Bob. It's not as if he's objectively boring or anything like that; it's just that I don't desire him and I'm not interested in him. I have baths all the time just to get away from him. He came into the bathroom the other day when I was in the bath, just to have a piss, and then he wanted to stay and chat. I ended up crying and telling him to go away, for no reason—just because I couldn't bear to be in a room with him, even for ten minutes, and I couldn't believe he'd actually started to invade my last bit of private space. And I didn't want to have to pretend to be interested in the graphic novel he's just read, or the song he's learning. Did I tell you that his latest plan is that we form a band? He wants us to go on tour in a year or so—because we've been talking about going away, and he thinks that would be a really good excuse. I can't sing for nuts, but he thinks I can. He says I have an "interesting" voice. We've had a couple of practices, and both times I just longed for someone else to be there, because singing to him, or with him, felt worse even than singing by myself.'

  'Sounds pretty miserable,' I said.

  'Yeah. And on top of all that I've had to keep going out every Friday night, because I couldn't suddenly say, "Oh, yeah, by the way, I dumped my book group." I'd just drive out to Paignton and look at the sea. That was where Mark and I first kissed. The second time I went there, Mark turned up too. We didn't talk. We just went back to his place and made love. I cried. I said it was goodbye sex, it had to be. He said he didn't care any more; he'd take whatever I had to offer. He didn't want me to leave Bob, even. I thought, "Why me?" I mean, surely Mark could find someone better than me, who's single. So the whole thing has started again, and I'm not depressed any more, but I don't know what to do.'