I saw a therapist once. A gym teacher saw the scars on the tops of my legs and made me go to the doctor. The doctor referred me to some teenage unit at the local hospital. I remember watching a soap opera in the waiting room, which, as well as the smeary TV screen, had green plastic chairs and posters about AIDS. The guy who saw me was a young, moon-faced man with glasses. I told him how amazing it was to be able to give yourself pleasure through pain, and how I knew cutting was addictive but I wasn't addicted yet. I laughed through an account of my childhood. Through all this the therapist simply looked at me in a puzzled way, and a week later I got a letter saying they didn't have the facilities to help me "at this time." I still remember the boxy, thin-walled little room, though. It smelled of smoke, and I noticed a silver foil ashtray on the table by the box of tissues and the vase of plastic blue flowers. That was the moment it occurred to me to try smoking. That eventually replaced the cutting, but I still have the scars. Patrick likes them.
I sip my coffee as Patrick keeps talking about the homoeopathic interview.
"I don't know why they need that level of detail about your life," he says, and laughs briefly. "I only went there with headaches and insomnia."
I finish my coffee. "So you ended up with phosphorus?"
"Yes. Now I think about it, I haven't had any headaches since, although I still don't sleep well."
"Do you actually believe in it?"
"Mmm. I don't know. I saw a documentary that said the remedies are just placebos, and there's nothing in them that can have any effect on anything. They actually dilute the remedies so much that, in chemical terms, all that is left is water. Apparently, homoeopaths argue that water has a memory, which sounds pretty wacky."
"So what did the medicine look like?" I ask him. "Where did you get it?"
"Oh, the homoeopath gave it to me. She had this huge wooden cabinet..." Patrick opens his arms about three feet wide and, with one finger pointing up on each hand, tries to show the scope of this thing. I notice that he doesn't look at his hands as he does this, but at the wall behind me. It suddenly occurs to me that when people describe size this way, they're relying on perspective to help them. He's not saying, It's this big. He's saying, It would look this big from here if it was over there.
He goes on, "It had all these little drawers labelled alphabetically. She opened one of them up and there were lots of little glass bottles inside, each containing tiny white sugar pills. She explained to me that the medicine is originally a liquid, but that the little pills absorb it and make it more convenient to take. Sorry. This must be boring."
"No, I'm really interested. I just had no picture in my mind of what any of this stuff actually looks like." I try to run my fingers through my hair, but there's some huge tangle at the front, so I try to tease it out as I speak. "So, do you have to get these pills from a homoeopath?"
"Oh no." Patrick laughs. "Don't you ever go into Boots? They sell homoeopathic remedies everywhere now. You can get them at any health food shop as well. I get Nux Vomica for indigestion. You just buy it over the counter."
"Hmm," I say. "That's interesting. I never realized it was so mainstream."
"It's big business now," he says. "I've got some Nux in my office if you want to see what the tablets actually look like."
"OK."
Most people's offices tend to be a mess. I've seen people who seem to be trapped in their rooms, still working at eight P.M. because perhaps there really is no way out across towering piles of old journals, books, and printed e-mails. Patrick's room, on the other hand, is large, square, and spotless. It doesn't exactly have the shine of the Monster Munch bistro, but you can see why he likes having coffee there. He has an L-shaped desk arrangement similar to mine, but his tables are larger and one has a glass top. The glass-topped one faces the door and has nothing on it apart from a heavy translucent paperweight and a white lamp. The other one faces the window and has nothing on it apart from his computer, and looks as if it's been polished recently. The room is so large that there is also space for a coffee table and four comfortable chairs.
He shuts the door behind us and walks over to his desk drawer.
"Here," he says, taking out a small brown glass bottle and offering it to me.
I put my library books down on the coffee table and take the bottle from him. The label says Nux Vom 30.125 tablets. An instruction on the side tells you to take a tablet every two hours in "acute" cases and three times a day otherwise. I unscrew the cap and peer inside at a pile of tiny flat tablets, pure white like miniature aspirins.
Now Patrick is locking the door and closing his blinds.
"How forgiven am I?" he says.
"Hmm?" I say, looking up, but he has already grabbed me and is kissing me hard. "Patrick," I say, once he stops. But what am I going to say next? Despite—or, weirdly, because of—yesterday, a familiar sensation trickles through me and instead of talking about how this isn't a good idea, I allow him to remove my jumper and pull down my jeans and knickers and then bend me over the glass table, holding me by my hair. My breasts press against the cold glass, and, while Patrick fucks me, I wonder what they look like from underneath.
"God, Ariel," he says afterwards, wiping his cock with a Kleenex as I pull my jeans back up. "I don't know if you bring out the best or the worst in me."
"I think it's the worst," I say, smiling.
He smiles back. "Thanks for forgiving me."
I laugh. "I'm not sure if I have yet." I pick up my books and head for the door. "Oh well. Guess I'd better go and see what my new roommates are like."
Patrick throws the Kleenex away. "Roommates?"
"'Refugees' is what Mary's calling them. People from the Newton Building. I'm sharing my office with two of them."
"Oh. Bad luck." Patrick leans against the glass-topped desk and looks at me. "Well, you're always welcome here."
"We'll get caught."
"Yes. Probably." He sighs. "Back to hotels then."
"We'll see." I soften this with a naughty smile, since something's just occurred to me. "Oh, Patrick?" I say with my hand on the door handle, as though it's an afterthought.
He's fiddling with the buttons on his trousers, making sure they're done up.
"What?"
"I've left my purse at home. You haven't got like a tenner lying around, have you? It's no big deal but I've got to put some petrol in the car on the way back. I'll give it back to you tomorrow or something."
He immediately reaches for his wallet and pulls out a twenty.
"Don't worry about it," he says. And then, just as I'm leaving, and in a lower voice: "There's always more where that came from."
As I leave, I wonder if that was better than stealing from the tea and coffee fund in the kitchen, or worse.
Chapter Ten
There's a young woman in my office. She's about my age, or a bit younger, and has thick black glasses and short, blond, curly hair. She's putting books on one of the shelves I cleared. Around her feet are about five other boxes with all kinds of things spilling out of them: mainly books, but also CDs, a small stereo, a plush green frog, and a scrunched-up lab coat.
"Hi," I say, walking around the boxes. "I'm Ariel."
"Oh my God. I'm so sorry about this. I'm Heather." Her accent is Scottish, possibly Edinburgh.
She grins at me, puts down the book she's holding, and holds out a hand for me to shake. I put my own pile of books on my now single desk and take it.
"Seriously," she says. "I'll be out of your hair as soon as possible. It's so nice of you to offer to share, though. I do really appreciate it."
"Er ... That makes me sound like a better person than I am," I say. "Not that I wouldn't have offered. But I was originally sharing this office with my supervisor and he's not around at the moment, so, well, it's logical for me to share, really. My head of department suggested it, though."
"Well, just, thanks so much. I mean, you could have said no."
I couldn't have said no, but stil
l.
"I'm just going to check my e-mail," I say, sitting down at my desk. "But I can give you a hand in a minute if you like."
"No. You're all right. I'll try not to make too much of a mess, though. I don't want to completely ruin your office."
"Honestly," I say. "It's fine."
Heather has already set up her computer on the desk that is now facing the window. The theology guy is therefore going to have the one behind mine, facing the other wall. Heather's computer has got a large, flat-screen monitor, which appears to have gone on standby. I press the buttons to turn on my computer and then I get up and start picking my way through the maze of boxes to go upstairs to check my pigeonhole and get a coffee from the kitchen.
"Do you want a coffee or anything?" I ask Heather as I go.
"Really? Oh, no. I couldn't ask you to make me coffee as well as everything else."
"It's no trouble. I'm already making myself one."
"Oh, OK. But only if it's no trouble. I probably need some to keep me going."
"I know the feeling," I say.
Once I'm back at my desk I immediately start searching the Internet for homoeopathic remedies. From what I can make out they cost about three or four pounds a bottle. I could order them online, but I don't have a credit card so I'll have to go into town. I'm feeling so hungry that I think I might pass out, but I don't think I'll waste any of my money in the canteen. I think I'll finish my coffee and then liberate my car, go home, and have some soup and a bath. Then I can go out and find the Carbo Vegetabilis. There's a huge Boots and two or three health food shops in town, and if these medicines are as ubiquitous as Patrick says I shouldn't have any trouble finding what I need.
While I'm doing this, Heather finishes putting her books on the shelves.
"Oh dear," she says.
I glance up and see her looking at the shelves. "Is everything OK?"
"Oh, sorry, I don't want to disturb you if you're working."
"I'm not," I say. "What is it?"
"I haven't left any room for the other guy."
We both look at the shelves. She really has managed to fill a whole bookcase to the extent that there are even books lying on top of other books and volumes poking out awkwardly as if the other books are trying to eject them. Even the green frog is there, looking squashed. She bites her lip, clearly genuinely worried about this. Then she catches my eye and we both laugh.
"Oh well," I say, shrugging.
"Maybe he won't have many things. I only have mine because everything was in storage. My office was going to be redecorated over the holidays. I suppose if he has, I can always put some of mine back in boxes." She walks over to my desk and looks at my pile of homoeopathy books. She touches one of them as if she thinks it might be contaminated, and then she takes her hand away. "You're an English lit person, aren't you?"
"Um, yeah. Sort of."
"Why the homoeopathy books?"
"Oh, I always have weird books. I'm doing a Ph.D. on thought experiments. I think the department wants to kick me out, actually. It's all a bit too scientific, even if I do look at poetry and stuff as well."
"Thought experiments! How cool."
"Yeah. It is fun. You're an evolutionary biologist, aren't you?"
"Yeah, I've got a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular genetics, so it's kind of evolution from the beginning of time, or at least the beginnings of life, which gets pretty crazy. I get to teach a few of the kids—that's what my old supervisor calls the students—in term time, but mostly I'm making these computer models. Actually, do you want to see something cool?"
"Yeah," I say. "What is it?"
"Look." She touches the mouse on her desk and her flat screen jumps back into life. Suddenly I can see white numbers and letters covering the whole black screen, all changing, like numbers on a stock exchange or information on a computer matrix, as if there should be a tick-tick-tick noise at the same time. "It's working out the origins of life," she says. Then she laughs; it's the kind of high-pitched laugh that ideally needs more people in a room to absorb it. "That sounds a bit mental actually. Sorry."
"Wow," I say, staring at the screen.
"Yeah. Well. My research proposal made it sound a lot more boring than that, but that's essentially what I'm trying to do. It's all about looking for LUCA. Or actually looking beyond LUCA, since no one really believes in LUCA anymore."
I'm still staring at the screen, but Heather now turns away. There's a pencil on her desk and she picks this up and starts playing with it, leaning against her desk with her back to the monitor. The numbers and letters keep changing and repeating in front of me. It's the kind of thing you could watch for ages. You'd watch it all night and then close your eyes and see thousands of letters and numbers still crazily scrolling in the darkness. "What's LUCA?" I ask.
"The Last Universal Common Ancestor."
"Like..."
"The thing we all descended from."
"Aha," I say. "So this program on here. What's it doing?"
Heather runs her hand through her hair. "God—there's a question," she says. Then: "Oh, hello."
A male voice says, "Hi."
I turn around. There's a guy standing in the doorway holding a small box. He's got shoulder-length black hair and he's wearing haphazard layers of black, gray, and off-white clothes. Under his black thigh-length cotton jacket is an open gray shirt. Under that there's a thin black sweatshirt. Under that there seems to be a white T-shirt. Despite all these clothes he is thin and angular-looking with a slightly pointed nose and high, corpselike cheekbones. He also has about three days' stubble. He's young, probably in his early thirties, but his brown-black eyes look millions of years old.
"Hi," I say back. "You must be...?"
"I'm Adam. Apparently there's a space for me to work in here?"
Heather immediately takes charge, pinging around the office like a squash ball.
"Hi, Adam. I'm Heather. This is Ariel. Here's your desk and your notice board is right here and I'm so sorry but look at what I've done to the shelves already..." I'm vaguely aware of the high-pitched laugh again, and Heather saying something else. I'm not sure if Adam's listening to her at all: His eyes are locked on mine. I have no idea why, but I have an urge to walk across the room and merge with him: not to kiss, not to fuck, but to merge. It's ridiculous—he's way too young for me. I think he's going to break this deep, infinite stare any second, but he doesn't. Could this go on forever? No. Suddenly I think about Patrick and everything else to do with my sordid past and I rip the moment in two by turning around and looking at my computer screen instead. For the first time I notice all the dust around its edges. Everything seems dirty. I look back to Adam again, but now he's busy reassuring Heather about the shelves.
"I really don't have anything," he's saying. "Look."
He's showing her his box. Inside are three blue pencils, a university diary, a red notebook, and a Bible.
"You do travel light," Heather says.
Adam shrugs. "You keep the shelves. I'm just grateful for the desk."
He sits down at the desk and starts up the computer. Heather keeps talking to him and from listening to their conversation I learn that Adam is working on nothing more exciting than planning some MA seminars for the coming term. I'd usually find this kind of conversation boring, but Adam's voice is so mesmerizing that I can't help but listen. I can't place his accent. First I think it's South London; then I revise it to South London with a hint of New Zealand. Then I revise it further to New Zealand with a hint of Irish. Then I give up and start thinking again about going home. I can't develop feelings for a guy who carries a box around with a Bible in it, especially not when I can still feel Patrick's spunk dribbling down my legs. Oh, I'm so gross. I get up and start putting on my coat.
"So," Heather's saying. "I think we should all celebrate." She's looking at me. "Ariel? Oh, are you off? What do you think?"
"Huh?" I say, putting the homoeopathy books in a bag to take home with me.
"Dinner, my house tonight? I was thinking that I can tell you about LUCA and Adam can tell us about how God made Man and we can all get really drunk. Well, we can. I'm guessing Adam doesn't drink. What do you think, Adam?"
"I'll come only if I can drink," he says.
I smile at Heather. "Er, yeah. It does sound good."
"Fantastic," she says. "Seven? Here's my address." She scribbles something down on a piece of paper and gives it to me.
This time when I get to the Newton car park there aren't any men standing around and all the yellow tape has torn and is flapping loosely in the wind. Beyond that, the broken building stands unevenly with scaffolding half-erected around it. My car is the only vehicle now parked here and I'm glad I can take it away. I always expect my car to be warm when I get into it but as usual it's refrigerator-cold, slightly damp, and smells of cigarette smoke. Still, it starts first time.
The traffic's heavy going into town, and as I approach the level crossing I see the lights start to flash and the big gates slowly come down. Shit. That means I'm going to be stuck here for about ten minutes. There's a bus in front of me, sticking out at an awkward angle and half-blocking the other side of the road, and the few cars that got through before the level crossing went down start trying to maneuver around it. There's a bakery on this side of the road, just beyond a pub, so I get out of the car and go to buy some bread. There's a woman in the bakery who smiles at me as if everyone I've ever known has just died. On my way back I realize the reason for the awkward angle of the bus: It's a white van, parked on the curb outside the pub. The lettering on the side of it says SELECT AMUSEMENTS. After a couple of seconds a man comes out of the pub wheeling an ancient-looking fruit machine with wires hanging out of the back. He leaves it on the pavement while he opens the back doors of the van. As I walk past, I can see six or seven other upright machines inside, all with tarnished buttons, each presumably bearing the fingerprints of thousands and thousands of people. There's a second man in the back of the van polishing one of the machines with a white cloth. Once he sees that his colleague is back with the new machine, he stops doing this and jumps down to help lift the machine into the back of the van and then strap it in. For a moment I suddenly think the machines are alive, and these men are taking them prisoner. Then the gates come up, the traffic starts to move again, and I jump back in my car and drive off. I get to the filling station without any problems and buy five pounds' worth of petrol.