by Mark Watson
‘I’m sorry to hear that, mate.’ I heard the crack of a ring pull as Howard opened a can of beer; he took a first noisy gulp. ‘But very impressed on the capitals front.’
The idea of impressing him intoxicated me. Here was a chance to show that I could do something beyond merely being there, consuming other people’s energy. I enquired about further capitals and Graham raided the smoking room for a book, which he slammed down on the reception desk with his usual pleasure in the solidity of things. Agatha made a performance of spluttering as dust was blown off.
There was a list at the back of all the world’s capital cities, as well as national flags and maps. Those were no use to me, of course, but the cities were: they required no extra understanding, they were just words. I had them read out to me and began to memorize as many as I could. Albania – Tirana. Afghanistan – Kabul. At first it was beyond me to lock down more than ten or so before they began to wriggle away, but Howard taught me a memory trick.
‘Draw everything a little picture in your head. You don’t need a real picture,’ he added hurriedly. ‘Just something to remember it by. So, Kabul. Cab-bull. You could think of a bull riding in a cab.’
‘Tirana,’ JD pitched in. ‘You could think of, like, a piranha fish just getting hold of Albania and ripping it to pieces and all the blood and bones coming out everywhere.’
‘Bridgetown,’ Agatha contributed, ‘think of a bridge goin’ through a town.’
‘Hard to argue with that one. Ha, ha!’
This knack of association gave my brain a little more elasticity each day. I had no idea what a cab looked like, or a bull, or a piranha fish, but I concocted my own versions; and I couldn’t begin to imagine what the cities in question looked like, what any city looked like, or anything in a city, any of the people who would be there. But as theoretical cities they existed all the same. Piece by piece, my brain erected a world of sounds and half-ideas. It was not quite the world everyone else lived in, but it was one I had made for myself.
‘Sofia is the capital of Bulgaria,’ I recited at a defenceless JD, who was waiting with impatient sighs as his computer clicked and hummed, trying to load a game. Sometimes it got there; at other times the effort overwhelmed it. ‘Quito is the capital of Ecuador. San Salvador—’
‘All right, all right,’ he groaned. ‘I believe you.’
‘Don’t you do this sort of thing at school?’
‘Nope.’ JD slung his shoes against the wall with a clatter.
‘Well, what sort of thing do you do?’
‘You’re as bad as Mum.’ The computer was having a good day, it seemed: the game announced itself with a tinny three-note signature tune. The action began, bleeping aliens being seen off by the primitive booms of missiles. It was hard for me to get excited about these games – the threat of alien invasion was nothing to someone who hadn’t yet come to terms with humans – but I liked to hear what was going on. ‘I mean, we just do – you know – times tables and stupid stuff.’ JD put the controller into my hand. ‘Your go.’
‘What are times tables?’
‘Press the button! Press the button!’ There was a low boom from the speakers; I had slain an alien. ‘Well done. Times tables is, you know, three twos are six. Four twos are eight.’
‘Five twos are ten,’ I carried on. ‘Six twos are twelve. Seven …’
‘Oh God,’ he said, ‘now you’ll be doing this as well.’
There was little Howard liked more than a new thing to show off, and what better than this: a star attraction he had created himself. He called me into the smoky clamour of the Alpha Bar to impress his friends. They called out sums, they demanded to know the capitals of West African republics, they whistled and clapped. JD and I were given Coke and our bedtimes were miraculously deferred. ‘Is he amazing or is he amazing, eh?’ Howard asked.
"That question makes no sense,’ I pointed out, and everyone laughed, Howard loudest of all.
‘Just go easy will you,’ I heard Sarah-Jane warn Howard one night. ‘He’s not a performing animal. It’s not a circus.’
‘The Alpha? Of course it’s a circus. It’s always been a circus, Captain.’
I would never go to Tirana, or watch a circus, or count ten red cars going by on the road, but here in the hotel, none of that mattered. Eight eights were sixty-four, the capital of Belgium was Brussels, and that was all you could say on the subject, whether you were blind or could see. Here, it didn’t matter about all the mysterious things – green, beautiful, check-in desk, suitcase: all the cards held by every player but me. Pure words, facts, were reality. The more of them I picked up, the more of a life I could have. And it could all happen without ever having to venture the other side of those mahogany doors.
On the eve of my ninth Christmas I was taken into the smoking room for the first time. The room’s atmosphere evoked a quality of mysterious antiquity which made me feel as if it might only exist at Christmas. I ran my finger along the spines of ancient books; there was the warm, wily smell of whisky as Graham decanted it into glasses. JD boasted that he was going to take his whisky in one go and spluttered violently. Agatha had lit a candle. The smoke-trail wrapped itself around my nostrils, dusting all the other smells as if in icing-sugar. Howard was thumping out an impatient rhythm on a tabletop.
‘Come on! Let’s make this happen!’
A large package was set down. My hands roved over a number of flat boxes.
‘CDs?’
‘Twenty-six CDs,’ Howard said, ‘the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica, read by Mr Howard York and Mr Graham Adam.’
‘Considerably abridged,’ Graham put in. ‘Ha, ha!’
‘One CD for each letter,’ said Sarah-Jane. ‘Quite a big effort by Santa Claus, this was.’
‘Lovely!’ said Agatha.
‘Oh, bloody hell,’ JD grumbled, ‘I hope “Santa Claus” brings you some headphones too.’
As for me, I could hardly speak at all. Here in front of me was everything I could ever want to know, and now I would not even be dependent on anyone to deliver it to me. My small world shrank even further in that moment: all I needed now was the corner of our bedroom where JD’s stereo was plugged in. But thanks to Howard, it felt bigger than ever.
JD had started at secondary school that autumn. He acquired a new vocabulary, consisting largely of scathing adjectives (sad, spasticated, dumb) and points of anatomy (boobs, dick) which he slipped casually into conversation. He got into ice skating. He went to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and later Home Alone, the premise of which terrified me. When he thudded down onto the bunk above me at night, I had less idea than ever before of what he might be thinking. And so I concentrated on what I knew. The CDs were stored in a rack, and Sarah-Jane made sure they were always in the right order, from A to Z, so by counting down I could pick whichever one I wanted. I learned to spring the stereo’s CD tray open, to slide a disc in, and press the button in the bottom right-hand corner which made it play. Sometimes I spent a day listening to a CD four or five times from start to finish. The acquisition of facts became my main hobby in life.
One day an American couple trudged into the atrium, defeated by an ambitious sightseeing agenda. As they approached, the hotel’s welcome team was grappling with the problem of a persistent fly. Insects had worried me ever since the distant day I was stung by one, and to be safe I had drifted to the other side of the atrium, though not too far away to hear the debate which continued.
‘Give me that paper – I smash him to Hell,’ Agatha proposed. ‘I fed up of him, man. Give me a headache.’
‘You’ve already tried to swat it, or “him” as you generously refer to it,’ Graham said. ‘You swiped at it six times. You were about as accurate as a donkey with a briefcase. Ha, ha!’
‘So, Mr Clever, how we’re gonna catch the fly then, if we don’t swat him?’
‘We will swat it,’ Graham said, ‘but with patience. We must set a thief to catch a thief.’
Agatha whooped. ‘
What’s that mean? That’s in the rugby?’
‘No, no,’ said Graham, ‘all I mean is, to catch a fly, you have to think like a fly. It thinks that it can linger here as long as it likes and nobody will notice.’
The Americans were in earshot now. I could hear the man’s laboured breaths as his wife said that it had been a little too hot.
‘Yes, better off out of it, by all accounts!’ Graham sympathized.
‘It was too bad we didn’t even get to see Big Ben.’
‘You will have seen it,’ Graham assured her. ‘It was that very big clock.’
I edged back towards them and cleared my throat. ‘Big Ben is actually the name of the bell, not the clock.’
Graham chuckled. ‘We’ve made a rod for our own backs, I think! Chas has the Britannica on compact disc,’ he explained to the guests.
‘What a very grown-up young fellow!’ marvelled the American woman.
‘It was finished in 1858,’ I went on, ‘and has become an international symbol of London.’
‘It sure has,’ muttered the man appreciatively, ‘it sure has.’
‘They use the chimes on the news,’ I concluded, ‘but I’m not usually up that late, and the style is some kind of Gothic, but Howard coughs over that bit.’
‘Well, isn’t that something!’ said the woman, and the two gave me a little round of applause. I only wished Howard could see this, but he’d find out. He always knew what was happening.
‘And how many times have you been to Big Ben?’ the American lady asked.
‘Oh, I haven’t been,’ I explained. ‘I don’t go outside.’
There was a sticky little silence and the Americans began to mumble about what a pity it was, and how brave I was, and eventually the man put a damp ten-pound note into my hand. I thanked them, although they had misunderstood. I had no craving for the real Big Ben; the virtual one of facts and figures was mine already. There was the noise of something slamming down and Agatha’s big, rounded laugh as – I assumed – Graham began to scoop up the remnants of the fly.
I was new to the emotion of pride, and the first fall was waiting on another warm afternoon not far away.
JD, who had recently gone grumbling into his uniform for the start of a second big-school year, was off on a camping trip with some mates. Autumn always brought conferences and seminars and student groups to the Alpha. They collected noisily in the atrium, chattering in their different languages. It took both Graham and Agatha to deal with them, which meant my precis of the day’s papers had frustratingly been interrupted. I knew about the war in the Arabian Gulf, that the Soviet Union was breaking up, and yet all this international turmoil was on hold while Graham directed teachers-in-training to the toilets. I’d almost decided to go back to my room and cheer myself up with a CD, but suddenly Howard was there. I heard the imperious tread, his laugh that made you long to join in without even knowing what was being laughed about. There was a woman with him. Her heels rang against the marble floor as if someone were setting about it with a tool.
‘Graham,’ he said, ‘this is Lara Krohl, who is going to be handling PR for us from now on.’
‘PR … ?’ Graham hesitated.
‘Public relations,’ said the woman in a hard, clipped voice. ‘I liaise with media, plan press events, and so on.’
‘I see,’ said Graham. ‘Well, it’s a pleasure to—’
‘Just at the moment – ’ Lara Krohl rode over his sentence as if it were something left lying in her path – ‘I have a client in Room 34, and he’s being disturbed by some noise from next door. Can you sort that out?’
‘I’m sure we can help,’ said Graham.
‘If you could get someone up there ASAP,’ said Lara Krohl. There was a flattened, slightly robotic inflection to her voice which I decided to investigate.
‘Are you South African?’ I asked.
‘This is my son Chas,’ Howard put in.
‘Ah.’ If Lara knew of my reputation in these parts, as I liked to believe everyone did, she was very cool about it. ‘Yah, I was born in South Africa, but I’ve lived here some years. So, anyway … ’
‘What would you say your capital is?’ I asked. ‘Johannesburg? It’s a complicated political situation, isn’t it?’
‘Wow,’ said a woman behind her, somebody who must have been waiting for service. She had a low, husky voice. ‘That’s pretty impressive. How old are you, Chas?’
‘Nine and a half,’ I said, crediting myself with a bit of extra age so as not to be underestimated and moving briskly on. ‘South Africa is one of the few countries with more than one listed capital. Not surprisingly for a place where nothing is simple.’
‘Amazing,’ said husky-voice. ‘Which school do you go to, Chas? To a special school? I only ask because I’m training to be a teacher myself.’
‘I’m not at a school,’ I informed her. ‘I study at home, here. I’m an autodidact.’
‘Are you ever,’ said the lady softly. ‘God, that’s … that’s impressive.’
‘And why are you interested in South Africa?’ asked Lara Krohl without any such sentimental affection in her voice.
‘He knows all the capitals,’ Howard bragged. ‘Seriously, you’ve never seen anything like this kid. Give him a country, watch him go.’
‘Lesotho,’ said Lara Krohl.
The feeling was like one I sometimes had when I reached in vain for a toothbrush or toilet paper or any of the thousand things it was beyond my capacity to keep track of. I groped around mentally with heat rising at the back of my neck and oozing into my face. I thought of Howard’s disappointed expression; perhaps even his embarrassment.
‘I’ll get it in a minute … ’ I mumbled.
‘It is a tricky one,’ she said.
But there were no ‘tricky ones’. I knew them all. I would have recited Lesotho’s capital twenty, thirty times before. This was just a freak malfunction. I could hear in her voice what she thought: that Howard was deluded in showing me off, that everyone humoured him. It felt as if the hotel itself were being shown up by my failure. All this in front of Graham and Agatha; and in front of the stranger with the low, beautiful voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘just give me a minute … ’
‘I wouldn’t have a clue, myself,’ chipped in husky-voice, hoping to cheer me up, but again it was cold comfort – it was what you would say to someone who’d failed. You wouldn’t have to know, I thought. You could look it up. But someone like me has to know.
‘Well, I’m off,’ said Lara Krohl, ‘but I’ll let you puzzle that one out, and I’ll let Howard explain the problem with the room.’
And without a goodbye to anyone she was clacking away towards the main doors, leaving the riddle in my hands like a heavy box I couldn’t put down. I stood there listening to the reproach in each of her steps. My ears felt fit to burst with blood. Howard began to talk to Graham. Husky-voice explained to Agatha that she was here for the conference, but a little late. My pulse was pounding in my neck. I saw, or imagined I saw, a sketchy patch of light, like a flare, and adrenalin propelled me away from reception towards the cold of the doors. Maseru, Maseru! The word draped itself like a snake round my neck. Lesotho: Maseru. I’d never had a memory-trick to fasten either down. Look where that laziness had got me! And yet, if I could catch Lara Krohl up, I could still salvage the situation.
Egged on by that thought, which overpowered everything that would normally hold me back, I went, head-down, through the doors and – for the first time in my life – outside alone.
Immediately after the main doors was a small forecourt, I knew, where Graham’s Mercedes glided to a halt as he chauffeured Howard home. The flush of angry energy carried me past trees; I felt gnarly bark with an outstretched hand. As I stepped out of their shadows, fear pierced me. This was London itself. Foreign noise crowded in: the chattering and laughter of groups, people for whom being here was the most ordinary thing. I turned left at random, walked a little way, turned right.
Cars came into the air with an unpredictable honking and a flaring of engines. Lara Krohl could be half a mile away by now, and in a matter of moments I realized not just that chasing her had been ridiculous, but that I was already powerless to retrace my steps. My skin swam with sweat.
London, stretching in every direction, was a room with no walls to feel by, a room that went on as limitlessly as the sky above. I slumped down against the base of a building, shaking. What would happen to me now? Would police come? Would they call the Alpha and get someone to collect me, or was there some other procedure for people who had been stupid enough to run away from their homes?
My stomach was ready to squirm out of me onto the pavement. I rested my head on my knees and cried.
‘Hey, mate. What are you playing at?’
At the grip of his hand, my shoulders went limp.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry. Don’t make me go and live somewhere else. I—’
Howard yanked me to my feet and I pressed myself into the cocoon of his homely smells, blocking out everything else, all the fumes and fury. ‘Chas! Bloody hell!’
‘I wanted to find her,’ I tried to explain. ‘It was Maseru.’
‘I’m sure it was, mate,’ Howard muttered, ‘but don’t scare the shit out of me like that again, all right?’
‘All right.’
He mussed my hair and slung an arm into mine and clattered me back the way I had come, through the big doors, into the cool of the atrium whose sound of small activities had never been so inviting.
‘Oh, he’s here!’
It was the husky-voiced woman. My face felt heavy with embarrassment.
‘It was Maseru,’ I told her. ‘I just didn’t get it in time. I feel really stupid.’
‘I can tell you, Chas,’ she said, ‘you are very far from stupid.’
‘I’m never going to get anywhere if I forget things like that.’
‘You know,’ said husky-voice, ‘there’s a lot more to life than memorizing stuff and repeating it. Intelligence is about the way you look at the world. That’s what I try to teach people. Not to learn stuff blindly – oh, I’m sorry.’