Our Tragic Universe

by Scarlett Thomas

  'He didn't make it to his talk,' I said again. 'That's the bit that bothers me.'

  'You want to go back and look for him again?' Frank said, while still playing the guitar.

  'No. But I want to know he's all right.'

  I went and sat at the table in the window, opened my laptop and Googled Kelsey Newman. There were a few interviews, and an out-of-date website. There was a phone number for a New York agent, but it was too late to ring New York even if I had known what to say.

  'There aren't any pictures of him,' I said. 'What was he like?'

  Vi and Frank looked at one another.

  'Dark hair...' Frank said. Then he laughed. 'I can't actually remember. Maybe the Alzheimer's is kicking in at last. Can you remember, my love?'

  Vi shook her head. 'I have no picture of him in my mind at all.'

  'You only met him this afternoon,' I said.

  'It wasn't for long,' Frank said. 'He was on the phone most of the time.'

  'I'm not that good on appearances,' Vi said. 'I always had to make notes when I did my fieldwork, and nowadays if I don't make notes I don't retain anything. If I closed my eyes at this moment, I couldn't tell you what I was wearing.'

  'And I think I've just had too many students,' said Frank. 'He did look a bit like a student. Maybe jeans, maybe trainers. It's odd that I can't remember anything.'

  'God. It's almost as if he never existed at all,' I said.

  'There's a picture on his book, isn't there?' Vi said. 'Get that. You'll see what he looks like. It'll probably jog our memories.'

  But I searched the house and I couldn't find the book.

  'Maybe we all imagined him,' Frank said. 'Maybe he was a mass hallucination.'

  I kept fiddling around on the Internet until I found a number for the University of California Press that published his books. It wasn't too late to ring Berkeley. I got the phone, but I didn't dial the number.

  'Why do you want to know that he's all right?' Frank said. 'Do you really care?'

  'Don't you?'

  'Well, sort of, but I suppose I just think that whatever has happened now just "is" and there's not a lot we can do about it. I don't think he was swallowed into the belly of the Beast. I don't think he's still at Longmarsh, because we looked. He must have just left. We did our best.'

  I sighed. 'Maybe I want to know for sure that the Beast doesn't exist. I want to know that Kelsey Newman is fine and out there somewhere thinking up some new terrible book. I want to believe that Tim has gone a bit mad but will get over it. I don't know why. Isn't it normal to want to know that everything's OK?'

  'Most of the time everything actually isn't OK,' Vi said. 'In so many complicated ways. We just tell ourselves that it is. We have to find a way to tell ourselves that it is. Out of the six billion people in the world, how many of them are happy and have lives that make perfect sense? I bet not even one.'

  'I suppose so.' As I said this I remembered my conversation with Rowan and all my struggles against plots and outcomes and formulae, and my argument with Vi in Scotland. 'I wish I didn't have to try to rationalise this,' I said. 'I mean, on a deep level I don't want to make sense of anything. Everything you said in Scotland was right. I just can't help doing it.'

  'Just stop,' Vi said. 'Let it go. Why not?'

  'We didn't just let things go with Tim. We helped him.'

  'We could help him. He was there.'

  'What about Kelsey Newman? Even though he wasn't there...'

  'Maybe we all imagined him,' Frank said again, with a strange smile.

  I considered this, even though it was ridiculous. If you took Kelsey Newman out of the world, what would happen? My recent life would unravel, for a start.

  'All right, let's say he did exist,' I said. 'But maybe he was immortal and just visiting us in the Second World—or whatever this world is. Maybe the Beast ate him because he didn't belong here.' I closed the lid of my laptop and went and put another log on the fire. 'Here's another non-rational explanation. According to my friend I am something close to an "elemental spirit", like something in a picture on a Tarot card, and because of this I have magical powers. A long time ago I met someone else with magical powers—another of these, well, let's call them "superbeings". Let's say that you are both superbeings too: I mean, if I am, you must be. Anyway, this first superbeing I met told me that if I used magic in the wrong way then I would unleash a monster. The other week I ended up accidentally cosmically ordering all kinds of things. So I obviously created the Beast by doing this, and you, Vi, made it go away again because you're an even higher spirit than I am. There. That explains everything, almost. And who cares about Kelsey Newman if we're superbeings? He's probably one too. Anyway, we're all immortal—kind of like Kelsey Newman said—and so being eaten by Beasts doesn't really matter.'

  I laughed, but Frank carried on playing the guitar and Vi patted my arm.

  'These superpowers sound pretty cool,' Vi said. 'But you'd need to be careful with them. I've probably told you before that most of the shamans and healers I've come across had lots of knowledge but no magical powers. But every so often you'd meet one who did have something more. They were the ones with the most practical skills and the biggest pharmacopoeias, because they knew how easily magic could go wrong.'

  I laughed again. 'It's OK. I was just messing around. I don't believe any of that stuff. I'm just trying not to be rational.'

  'It sounds as if your friend's idea was actually highly rational,' Vi said. 'Too rational. But it would be because it was worked out in the language of this world, with the concepts of this world.'

  Vi took another bottle of Beast from the crate, and I did too. Then I realised we were all pretty drunk. B was probably the only being left in the room with any sensible thoughts at all. She snored and turned over.

  'Did I ever tell you about the goldfish that went missing from my mother's pond years ago?' Frank said. 'Precisely half the fish went. Then a week later they came back. I won't go into the details now, but we knew for certain they'd gone, and how many. We couldn't fathom it, however hard we tried. The whole family made up theories about aliens and pond-poltergeists. It was quite entertaining. My sister had the wildest theories of all.'

  'So what happened?'

  'It turned out my sister had done it. We'd been looking for a natural or a supernatural answer, because we couldn't work out the objective of someone who would do that. But it was quite simple in the end. She wanted to freak us out because we'd been mean to her about one of her boyfriends.'

  My phone vibrated. It was a text message from Josh. KN is OK after dog bite. I guess you didn't find him. Come for dinner with me again tomorrow? I have something to add to my theory.

  I breathed out. 'OK. Listen to this.' I read the text message. 'For some stupid reason I can relax now. Who wants a cup of tea?'

  'Who's Josh?' Vi said.

  'My friend with the wild theory of everything. I think he emailed you as well.'

  'Oh, yes. Are you going to go and hear more of his theory?'

  'No. I don't think so. I think I'm going to stay in tomorrow night and knit my sock. Cup of tea?'

  The sea splashed outside and Vi picked up my knitting.

  'Yes, please,' she said. 'And then you can tell me all about this and we can talk about more interesting things than Kelsey Newman.'

  After I'd made the tea I explained how I'd come to start knitting socks, and at some point we all hugged and apologised properly for what had happened in Scotland. Then Frank and Vi filled me in on Sebastian, and the dogs, and Frank's retirement plans, and Vi's ideas for her next two books. The first one would be a collection of storyless stories from around the world, and the second would be a collection of historyless histories: re-enactments that she and others had performed over the years, in which history had been relocated in the present. I told them how I'd come to read the Kelsey Newman books, and how I'd left Christopher and moved into this cottage.

  'To be a hermit and write about your hobbi
es in a column,' Vi said. 'I like that.'

  'Yeah. Well, I'm a heartbroken hermit at the moment. I've never been good at relationships, have I?'

  'This one is worth sticking with,' Vi said. 'He loves you.'

  I looked at Vi as if she'd just correctly told me what I'd eaten for breakfast for the last seven days, and what I had in each of my pockets. Maybe she was in fact a superbeing.

  'You don't even know who it is.'

  'Yes, we do. He phoned us to talk it over.'

  'When?'

  'Last week. It's not going to be easy for him. Just be patient.'

  'Really? He told you about it? I thought if I told anyone about this they'd say he was messing me around and not to have anything to do with him, especially as he's too old for me. I feel sorry for him, because if he left Lise for me he'd be labelled a philanderer, or someone who's traded a perfectly good partner in for a younger model—you know all the things people say about men who leave long-term relationships for a younger partner. But I didn't make their relationship rocky: it already was. If he has anything to do with me in the meantime then it would seem as if he's messing both of us around because he's not being honest with her, and he's not properly committing to me. But if he does nothing then he's, well, he's sort of giving up on life, surely. And even doing that, the least wrong of all the options, wouldn't be fair on Lise, who presumably wants her partner to love her and not be staying with her out of a sense of duty.'

  'He knows all that,' Frank said. 'He's working through it.'

  'Sometimes I wish life could be more storyless,' I said.

  'I know,' Vi said. 'Well, in some ways it is. You just have to let go of the plot when it gets too much. Do something else.'

  'I wish he'd just phone me or something.'

  'He will when he's got something to say.'

  'Why can't he write me a love letter?'

  'Because it would be dishonest. Not because he doesn't love you, but because he knows he's not doing anything concrete about it. Rowan has never told a lie in all the years we've known him.'

  'He must lie to Lise all the time.'

  Frank shrugged. 'Maybe. Or maybe he doesn't say anything.'

  'Be patient,' Vi said. 'Things will work out.'

  'I've got a friend who's in a similar situation,' I said. 'She can't work out whether to leave her husband for this other guy. I suppose it's not the same situation, really.' I thought about it some more. 'No. They're complicated in different ways. But she can't act either.'

  I hadn't heard from Libby since I'd seen her the week before, which I thought meant she probably hadn't left Bob.

  'Just wait,' Frank said.

  'I guess I'll have to. I guess I'll just knit another sock and wait for the spring.'

  The Labyrinth was beautiful. It was a simple pattern laid out in pale stone, with benches made from the same stone and set out so that you could sit on any of them and look at the Labyrinth and the river at the same time. The sycamore tree was there between two of the benches. It didn't have its helicopters any more; instead, it had the beginnings of buds. Vi, Frank and I had got up at six and come to walk the Labyrinth to see what it was like so that Vi could compose her speech for later. B had come too, and sat there looking puzzled while we took it in turns to follow the single path from the edge to the centre as the sun came up over Kingswear. Vi went first, then Frank, then me. Afterwards we sat huddled together on one of the benches and said nothing. At about seven Vi looked at her watch, and then a few minutes later Rowan came, walking down the dawn-lit embankment in his duffel coat. He walked the Labyrinth too, more slowly than the rest of us had, and then we all went for breakfast.

  Josh and Peter came to the opening, along with everyone else you would expect: Old Mary, Reg, Libby and Bob, everyone I'd ever seen in the Three Ships and around town. Even Andrew came over from Torcross. Josh had his briefcase with him, and I promised to introduce him to Vi properly over a drink later on. At twelve o'clock the ceremony opened, and Vi walked the Labyrinth again, silently, slowly, while everyone watched. The town council had originally wanted her to cut a ribbon, but couldn't work out where you'd put a ribbon on a labyrinth. In the end they'd improvised and done what Vi suggested: they'd left just a small piece of red ribbon in the pale circle at the centre. Having walked the Labyrinth myself, I had some idea of what Vi might be thinking, although of course I would never know. I had been surprised myself—we all had, we found, when we talked about it over breakfast—that just walking one short path could make you feel hopeful, frustrated, bored, excited or even nothing at all, and that this could change from one step to the next. You are aware that you want to reach the centre, and also aware that the Labyrinth keeps taking you away from it. Just as you seem to be getting close, you turn and end up walking almost around its outer limits. As you do this, you realise that there is a ring that forms the outer limit that you will never reach if you keep walking the path. This is a path all of its own, connected to nothing and going nowhere. When you get to the centre, you feel an odd sense of achievement, even though you've simply walked on a path that's been laid down for you. You love the Labyrinth and you hate it at different moments, but you never feel like you've conquered it, because that would be ridiculous.

  'What's perhaps most exciting about this process, Vi said in her speech, 'is that at any time you can choose to leave the path and just walk straight to the centre. Why does no one do that?' I remembered that this was precisely what B had done earlier, as if to demonstrate to us where we were going wrong. Perhaps Vi remembered this too, because she looked at B and smiled. B was looking resplendent, I thought, in some of the discarded red ribbon. Vi continued, 'Or almost no one. This is a path that is determined for you in advance, but no one can tell you what to think while you're walking it. It's not like a maze: you can't get lost. No one's playing any tricks on you. There aren't any monsters lurking around any corners. You can see the end and yet you walk calmly towards it, following perhaps the least logical route—in mathematical terms, at least. Perhaps the Labyrinth tells us why we don't simply read the last pages of books, why we don't hurry through life looking for outcomes all the time, however many times we're told that we should, and that we should be overtaking people, and overcoming things as we go. The Labyrinth doesn't tell us how to live; it shows us how we do live. There is no drama in the centre of the Labyrinth, just a place where you have come to rest for a while before you walk the path out again. Perhaps walking the Labyrinth is the path of the storyless story, or perhaps that's just my labyrinth. You will all find your own way, I'm sure, even though to an external observer who hasn't walked the path it will seem to be the same objective experience for everyone.'

  Vi picked up the piece of red ribbon from the centre of the Labyrinth and walked with it back to the beginning, holding it in her left hand the whole way. Every so often I glanced beyond her, to the river. There were so many things in the Dart, unseen: pieces of old shipwrecked ferries and designs for follies; love tokens and manuscripts; Libby's car; Tim's gun; even the Beast, perhaps, swimming for its life. I waited for something to wash up, but nothing did. As Vi returned to the beginning of the Labyrinth, I looked at the river again, and I was almost sure that something black swam past. I imagined it dog-shaped and wolfish: prick-eared, black-nosed, pink-tongued; and in my mind it was swimming away from this world and into another one.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Lots of people (and one dog) helped directly or indirectly with this novel: Rod Edmond, Francesca Ashurst, Couze Venn, Sam Ashurst, Hari Ashurst-Venn, Dreamer Thomas, Simon Trewin, Francis Bickmore, Sarah Moss, Dan Mandel, Jenna Johnson, Jamie Byng, Jenny Todd, Jennie Batchelor, Karen Donaghay, Alice Furse, Vybarr Cregan-Reid, Ariane Mildenberg, David Stirrup, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Jan Montefiore, Rosanna Cox, Suzi Feay, Jon Gray, Caroline Rooney, David Herd, Donna Landry, Will Norman, Graham English, Steven Hall, Tom Boncza-Tomaszewski, Mudassar Iqbal, Laurence Goldstein, Jason Kennedy, Kirsty Crawford, Leo Hollis, Zahid Warley, Sheila Brow
ne, Murray Edmond, Andrew Crumey, Emilie Clarke, Allen Clarke, Philip Pullman, Ian Stewart, Doug Coupland, Norah Perkins, Janine Cook and Anne Makepeace. Thanks also to Tony Mann, Don Knuth and everyone else at the 2009 Mathematics and Fiction conference. I am grateful to all my colleagues in the School of English at the University of Kent, particularly those in the Centre for Creative Writing. I have learned something from (almost) all the students I have ever taught, so if you've ever sat through my Plato lecture or a class on compassion in writing then thanks to you too. I am hugely grateful to everyone at Canongate.

  Parts of this novel were written in the following locations in Devon, UK: the Maltsters Arms, Tuckenhay; the Barrel House café, Totnes; Number 12 B&B, Totnes; and the Sea Breeze Hotel, Torcross.

  I have tried to acknowledge some of the many books I have used for research within the text of the novel. Most of the books I mention are real, except for those by Kelsey Newman and Zeb Ross, Household Tips by Iris Glass, Teach Yourself Tantric Sex and all the books in the sack sent by Oscar. The following real books are not mentioned in the text, but were very useful: Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, compiled by Paul Reps; Meaning, Medicine and the Placebo Effect by Daniel Moerman; A Life in Letters by Anton Chekhov, translated by Rosamund Bartlett and Anthony Phillips; the Tao Te Ching translated by Stephen Mitchell; Russian Fairy Tales, translated by Norbert Guterman (for the story called 'The Goat Comes Back' on [>]); Chinese Fairy Tales & Fantasies, translated and edited by Moss Roberts; Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde; A River to Cross by David Stranack; The Book by Alan Watts (for the cat image); Knitting Socks by Ann Budd; The Case of the Cottingley Fairies by Joe Cooper; The Forgotten Dead by Ken Small; A Witch Alone by Marian Green; Hedge Witch by Rae Beth; Bach Flower Therapy by Mechthild Scheffer; and Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack. I could not, of course, have written my novel without Frank Tipler's book The Physics of Immortality.