Our Tragic Universe (51 page)

‘He was an OK guy,’ Vi had said, as we drove down the Lanes. ‘He kept apologising about the quote. I think he seemed embarrassed.’

‘Do you think he’s OK?’ I said. ‘Should we ring around the hospitals?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Vi said. ‘We don’t even know him. But I’m pretty convinced that he wasn’t at Longmarsh when we got there. I don’t know why Tim had such a vivid hallucination. Poor bloke. Hey,’ she said to me, ‘why were you so angry with him?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have been, really. I was just a bit freaked out in the dark, I guess, and his story of the Beast eating Kelsey Newman was just so unnecessary.’

‘Did you believe it?’ Frank asked.

‘No, of course not,’ I said.

‘Then why were you scared?’

‘I found it unsettling too,’ Vi said. ‘But you have to feel a bit sorry for him. He obviously hadn’t been eating properly for a good while. I probably wouldn’t have spoken to him at all if I hadn’t seen his scissors.’

‘What scissors?’

‘The Orb Books scissors. Claudia has them too. Don’t you have a pair? He was cutting up pieces of paper and throwing them in the Dart. He said it was some sort of proposal. At first I thought he meant it was a marriage proposal, and I wondered why he’d written it down. Then he explained that it was a book proposal, and all the connections fell into place.’

‘Oh, I see. He must have heard it had been turned down.’

‘He was saying that the proposal had led to everything going wrong in his life. He seemed to think that getting rid of what he’d written about the Beast would get rid of the actual Beast. Anyway, by the time he told us what he thought had happened it was getting dark and it was obvious we needed to check Kelsey wasn’t injured in the bushes somewhere and get Tim back to Totnes. I hope you didn’t mind that we suggested he call you … We didn’t have our phones.’

‘No. It’s really good to see you both again. Anyway, I’m sorry. I’m the one who encouraged Tim to get into all this stuff. And maybe he was right. Maybe his version of the Beast didn’t exist until he started writing about it. Maybe he needed to get it out of his system in some way.’ I put the car into second gear to go round a sharp uphill bend. The moon had shrunk as it had risen and now looked completely normal. ‘Do you think the Beast is real?’ I asked.

‘I think there’s something,’ Frank said. ‘But I don’t think it ate Kelsey Newman.’

‘I saw it,’ Vi said. ‘Or what must have been it. It was a dog – very big and black, like a huge version of Bess. But it was just a dog.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Where did you see it?’

‘On the path.’

‘Frank?’

‘Oh, I was answering a call of nature. I didn’t see him.’

‘Actually,’ Vi said, ‘I think the Beast was a “her” not a “him”.’

‘What did you do?’ I said.

‘I did what I always do when I see a dog with no owner
around. I told her to go home,’ Vi said. ‘And she did. She trotted off down the path and disappeared.’

Back at the cottage I lit a fire and B curled up in front of it. Vi, Frank and I got through a bottle of red wine in about fifteen minutes and all I had left was a crate of Beast, so then we started drinking that. I was driving myself – and probably them – mad by trying to work out what had gone on, and where Kelsey Newman was. Frank had picked up my guitar and was gently playing a folk song I half-remembered.

‘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 being 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 hobbies 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.