Our Tragic Universe

by Scarlett Thomas

  'You have to leave Bob,' I said, surprising myself.

  'Seriously?'

  'Yeah. Well, I don't know. It has to be your decision. I shouldn't have said that.'

  'You're right, though. I have to leave him. But I'm still not sure I can. Everything's set up with Bob: the house, the business. You and Christopher didn't really have anything like that together. It must have been easier for you ... Oh, shit. What am I saying? It's never easy, is it?'

  'Honestly, Lib, for about six years I thought about leaving and I told myself I couldn't do it. I told myself I didn't have enough money; I couldn't leave Christopher to pay for the house on his own; things would work out. We gave up a lot to be together, as you know. I couldn't leave him with nothing after all that. I couldn't admit to myself that at the beginning with him it actually wasn't about us having things in common or wanting to share our lives. I just wanted to fuck him, and I was prepared to seriously disrupt people's lives in order to do it. If I admitted that was the real story, then what sort of character would that make me? There are always a million good reasons not to split up with someone. And so many of them are complicated reasons about how you define yourself, and under what circumstances you can even live with yourself.'

  'Maybe I'm just a coward.'

  'I don't think it's as simple as that. No one just "is" a coward.'

  'But if everyone split up with their partner every time they felt like it there'd be no relationships in the world.'

  'Yeah, but when you've been feeling like it for years...?'

  'I thought you weren't ever going to tell me what to do.'

  'Yeah. I know. But from everything you've just said, it's kind of obvious. I'm just telling you back what you're telling me. Apart from everything else, it's not fair on Mark. It's definitely not fair on Bob.'

  'I'm a terrible person.'

  'No, silly. You're a lovely person. That's why you've got all these men wanting you. You're a bit confused, though, and you're trying to do the right thing. I thought it made sense to stay with Christopher, even though I knew we were wrong for each other, because I thought passion could be worked at, or learned. But you can't just decide to be happy, or learn passion, I don't think. And like we said before, who knows what the "right thing" is?'

  'Yeah, but how important is my happiness in the scheme of things? Loads of people in the world are miserable, and they just get on with their lives. My problems are just trivial and pathetic. If Bob was my disabled parent, for example, I wouldn't be able to leave him; I'd just have to get on with it. I kept telling myself to pretend he was my disabled parent. But it didn't work.'

  I laughed. 'No wonder the sex didn't go well.'

  'Yes; ha, ha.'

  'Anyway, disabled parents don't prevent you from falling in love.'

  'The ones on TV do.'

  'Yeah, but no one would hold it against you on TV—falling in love, I mean. Isn't that the point of the disabled parents on TV shows? They just function as an obstacle in the way of the hero or heroine. Just another version of the parents who want to tie you down or arrange your marriage or make you take over the family business. With an obstacle like that it's your moral duty to fall in love, so that your disabled parents can lead a fulfilled life of their own without having to rely on you.'

  'Yeah, that's true.'

  'And your relationship with Bob is completely different. You do have to have sex with him, and you can't love anyone else.'

  Libby covered her mouth with her hands, and then uncovered it again.

  'Oh, my God. You're right.'

  'Sorry to be so blunt.'

  'God. No, it's all become clear now. I'm really going to do it. I'm going to split up with him.'

  'It does make sense. Just like you said.'

  'Oh, fuck.'

  'Yeah.'

  'So my downfall continues.'

  'It doesn't have to be a downfall. You can't predict what's going to happen. I thought I was doing a really bad thing when I left Drew for Christopher, but after we split up Drew's career took off and he ended up with Rosa Cooper. He'd always had a thing for her, so it all ended up OK for him, at least for a while ... And I ended up like something caught in a gum trap, stuck in Dartmouth with Christopher.'

  One of Vi's favourite folk tales was about a rabbit that becomes stuck in a farmer's gum trap. A coyote comes along and asks the rabbit what he's doing and why he's stuck there. The rabbit tells him that the farmer was annoyed with him because he refused to eat melons with him, and now he's trapped him and is going to force him to eat chicken with him instead. The coyote frees the rabbit and sticks himself to the gum trap, because he wants to be the one to eat chicken with the farmer. But of course when the farmer comes he shoots the coyote. This wasn't exactly a storyless story. In fact, it was a conventional story with all kinds of reversals (the coyote goes from free to trapped; the rabbit moves from tricked to Trickster and so on) that seem satisfying only because the rabbit, being weak and cunning, is positioned as morally superior to the coyote, who is strong but stupid. But in real life strength and stupidity normally win, and rabbits can't speak.

  Libby had blushed, and was looking down at the table.

  'Oh, shit,' she said. 'I never thought to say anything about Rosa. God, Meg, I'm really sorry. I know you sort of hated her, but she was your oldest friend, wasn't she? I'm a selfish, self-obsessed cow. I completely forgot.'

  'It's OK,' I said. 'You're right. I did sort of hate her.'

  'But you're not glad she's dead?'

  'No. Of course not.'

  We finished our drinks in silence, and when Andrew came over I insisted on paying. Libby picked up the box of rhubarb.

  'You don't have to make jam, really,' she said. 'It was a joke.'

  'No; I'll make it. I want to.'

  'I'm so embarrassed about everything. Can I look at your house now?'

  After Libby had gone the day darkened and it started to rain. I curled up on the sofa in front of the fire and knitted some more of my sock, while listening to the spit and hiss of the logs and the lazy rolling of the sea. Now that I was into a rhythm with the sock I could just about think of other things while knitting it, and so my thoughts drizzled along with the rain. At one point I imagined myself with Rowan, and colours formed in my mind like an unexpected rainbow. I imagined walking down the beach with him and getting him to promise me—to swear on his life—that the moment he stopped loving me he would leave me. Not a year later, or seven years later, or thirty years later: the very moment it happened. But I couldn't even imagine walking down the beach with Rowan, not really. I could barely imagine sharing a cup of tea together in this cottage. I couldn't imagine us ever going on a train together, or taking it in turns with the review section of the newspaper, or him walking B because I had a headache. I couldn't imagine ever looking in my purse for 5op for something and then him automatically looking in his pocket or wallet when I couldn't find it. He'd have to start loving me before he could stop. There'd have to be a beginning and an end to the rainbow, both of which were impossible to contemplate.

  The gloom never lifted, and at about four I took B for a walk down the beach. Startlingly red seaweed lay across the tide-line like picked scabs. B found a beat-up piece of driftwood and brought it to me. Then she crouched down with her back half in the air, her tail wagging wildly. This was code for 'throw the stick'. I thought about all the ways we subtly understood each other. I knew all her codes for 'I'm hungry'; 'I'm thirsty'; 'I want to play'; 'I don't want to play' and so on. She knew to connect shopping bags with treats, and so put her head in every shopping bag she ever came across. She knew to connect having a bath with her annual trip to the French vet, who always gave her lots of biscuits, and then examined her fur, saying, 'Now let's see if there's anybody living on you,' before doing her vaccinations. She knew that big cardboard boxes meant moving house. She knew that the sound of a little bell anywhere meant that there could be a pussycat attached to it, and that the sound of quick footsteps
and rustling envelopes meant that the postman was coming. She was almost eight. So in a few years' time, in my early forties, I would finally be alone: a miserable old spinster with a thousand hobbies. I'd have hundreds of pairs of socks by then, all made for myself. What was wrong with me? There had to be more to life than that. I tried to imagine lots of good novels, interesting CDs and lovely dinners, with B living on and on. But it was too late. My breath started to come out in short, thin bursts and then before I knew it I was crying. What was wrong with me? I had my column, and some friends, and even an emerging plan for my new novel. I had money, and my cottage.

  When I got in I just wanted to get into bed and sleep off this feeling, but my phone started ringing as soon as I got to the top of the stairs. It was Tim.

  'Hello?' he said. 'Meg?'

  I could hear wind and rain in the background.

  'How are you?' I said.

  'Heidi said you rang me. Was it about the book?'

  'Oh—no. Sorry. The board meeting's not until Friday. I'll ring as soon as I know anything. It was just, well, nothing really. I wondered if you'd already left to go looking for the Beast. Wondered how you were getting on.'

  'It's exhilarating out here,' he said. 'Magical.'

  'Any sightings?'

  There was a huge gust of wind at his end as I said this.

  'Sorry?' Tim said.

  I repeated the question, and from his broken-up reply managed to work out that he'd been moving camp every couple of days according to where sightings were, and on the basis of the tracks he'd picked up. But he was always one day behind the Beast. He'd get to a new location and set up his camp. Then he'd find a local pub or B&B and they'd tell him that the night before they'd heard awful howling and then found a bag of potatoes missing—or something like that. But the next night there'd be nothing but some tracks and a huge pile of shit. He thought the Beast was following the line of the River Dart, but he wasn't yet sure.

  'There's stuff that no one's really saying as well,' he said.

  'Like what?'

  'I met this woman in Dartmeet called Margaret, who made me swear never to tell anyone what she'd seen.'

  'What had she seen?'

  Tim paused. 'The Beast. In her bedroom on the stroke of midnight.'

  'Seriously?'

  'It was panting softly. Just standing there panting and watching her sleep. All her doors were locked, and there were no windows open. I wrote it all down.'

  There was another big gust of wind at Tim's end and the signal dropped out for a second.

  'What will you do if you see it?' I asked when the line came back.

  'I've got a gun,' he said. 'My mate's a farmer. He lent it to me, but don't tell anyone. I don't want to shoot it, really. I just want to see what it is. But better safe than sorry.'

  'I can't remember exactly how this is going to help with the book,' I said.

  'What do you mean?'

  'Well, surely in the book the Beast turns out not to be real.'

  'Why?'

  'Well, that's the Zeb Ross formula. We talked about this. It's in your proposal.'

  'Yeah, but if it does turn out to be real that would only make the book better, surely? If I can prove it.'

  'Not in fiction. Especially not if it's by Zeb Ross. Remember, the books have to be realistic, in the sense that anything mysterious is explained as something rational that just seemed to be something irrational.'

  'But what if that isn't actually realistic?'

  'Then you write a philosophy book about it or something. Zeb Ross novels are not the place to start questioning the true nature of reality. They're supposed to make sense of the world for teenagers. They have to tell a good story.'

  'I'm not sure I know what a good story is.'

  'Well, ditto. I do understand, believe me. But there's a real difference between what you can do in fiction and non-fiction. For example, if you had a character in a novel who finds aliens, the character would have to turn out to be mistaken or deluded—otherwise you'd have to make the novel take place in a different kind of world from this one: maybe in the future, or in a parallel universe. It wouldn't chime with what we understand to be reality now. But if you were a scientist you could write a book speculating about aliens and no one would think that was odd. Well, I guess some people would, but ... Look, do you still want me to put this proposal through on Friday?'

  Tim went silent.

  'Tim?' I said. 'Are you still there?'

  'You're going to reject my proposal because I'm looking for the Beast?'

  'No! I'm just saying that if you wanted to turn this into a different kind of book altogether, you could withdraw the proposal from Orb Books. They're not the only publisher in the world.'

  'But they're quite close to accepting it. I've never had a chance like this before.'

  'Yes, exactly, so...'

  'So I should give up and go home? I can't do that now. The Totnes Times is phoning to interview me tomorrow. And this American writer's coming next week. He wants to record my heroic journey for an anthology. He was really interested in the way I'm doing it: camping, living on velvet shanks and morels when I can find them...'

  'What's his name?'

  'I can't remember, but he's quite famous.'

  'Is it Kelsey Newman?'

  'That sounds familiar. He's coming to Totnes next week to give a talk.'

  'Yeah; I'm supposed to be going to that. It must be him. He could be a useful contact for you. Ask him what you should do about the Beast.'

  'Yeah. I might do. Anyway, I can't give up now.'

  'I'm not saying you should give up. But if you don't find the Beast it might be helpful for the book. Just don't pin all your hopes on seeing it, that's all. And if you do, just be really careful with that gun.' I realised I was straying outside my role as the possible commissioning editor of this book. 'Just be careful,' I said again.

  'You sound like my wife,' he said.

  'Yeah. Sorry. Look, I'll let you know what happens on Friday.'

  The next day was bright and still. It wasn't cold enough for the fire, although B thought it was. It was hard to sit on the sofa and knit my sock, because at regular intervals she would fix me with a stare and then go and stand by the fire and look at it meaningfully. At one point she swiped the matchbox with her paw so it turned over and clattered. It was like the electric fan heater all over again.

  In the end I gave up trying to knit and replied to a few emails at the new kitchen table before taking B for a long walk in the weakening sunlight. I could see dark clouds coming from beyond Start Point, and just as we'd got in it started to rain. B settled down with her rawhide chew, and I made rhubarb jam while the rain turned to hail and then back again. I'd just finished putting the jam into jars when my phone vibrated. It was a text message from Rowan. Can I come and look at your ship at 5 P.M.? I hope you're OK. 5 P.M.? I looked at the kitchen clock. It was already coming up for three. How would I ever get ready in time? Then again, what did I need to get ready for, exactly? We were just two people, two of what Tolstoy called randomly united and fermenting 'lumps of something', and we were going to be in a room together. That was all.

  B got out of her basket, stretched, came over and wagged her tail, before circling me twice and going to get a leftover biscuit from her bowl. She headed for the sitting room. 'B,' I said, following her, 'please don't cover the rug in bits of biscuit today. We've got a visitor coming.' The more I told her not to make a mess, the more excited she became, until there were biscuits all over the rug, and in B's fur, and I was on the rug too, rolling around and tickling her. 'I've got to brush you,' I said. 'And I've got to change the bedding, just in case. I've got to clean the bathroom, and the kitchen. I've got to have a bath and wash my hair. I'll never have time, and it's all your fault. I don't know how, but it is, you silly dog.' B seemed to love this, and by the time I went upstairs to have a bath she was brushed and happily asleep on the sofa and I was the one covered in biscuits.

 
'Tarot cards?' said Rowan, as he walked into the sitting room.

  There they still were, on the desk by the window.

  'Long story,' I said, my voice surprising me. It sounded as if I was reading lines on the radio, and my laugh sounded canned. 'Can I get you a glass of wine, or a cup of tea or something?'

  'I'd love a glass of wine.'

  When I came back he was sitting on the sofa, looking at the Tarot cards.

  'I didn't have you down as a Tarot reader,' he said.

  I gave him a glass of the Syrah I'd bought from Andrew earlier and sat cross-legged at the other end of the sofa.

  'Oh, don't worry, I'm not. They were research. For my newspaper feature.'

  'The one from Sunday? I meant to say—I liked that.'

  'Thanks.'

  'But there weren't any Tarot cards in it, were there?'

  'No. Not really.'

  'There was something about the Fool, though?'

  'Yeah.'

  'So...'

  I sighed. 'I was commissioned to write a feature exposing New Age books, which to be honest isn't that hard when you see what's out there. My editor sent me a big sack of books on everything from cosmic ordering to meeting your own spirit guide. In amongst them were some books that, well... I don't quite know how to describe them. They weren't things I'd choose to read on my own, but they weren't awful either. At first I thought I'd do my feature on them, just because they seemed the least painful to read. But they didn't make such good copy. I was supposed to be putting myself in the story, which I didn't really do in the end. The idea was that I'd do a Tarot reading on myself and go out and do something ridiculous on the basis of it and write about how hilariously stupid the advice was. But in fact I found the advice quite useful. Why am I telling you this? You'll think I'm a freak.'