I laughed and Clio laughed too, both of us swinging our legs higher over the edge of the rock.
“You haven’t read Hound of the Baskervilles, have you?”
I shook my head.
“Don’t bother. A lot of pissing around just so Holmes can shoot a dog that’s been painted green. Actually, that’s how to get yourself a name as a genius; find yourself a stupid sidekick who’ll be impressed every time you fart and who can get your exploits into a national newspaper.”
I smiled, took the beer back and started picking at the label.
“Are you okay?”
“It’s just a big thing, you know? Waking up every day for months and months and knowing you’ve got cancer.”
I nodded.
“The idea, it’s like a big rock you can’t ever put down. The weight’s there from the second you open your eyes, heavy on you all the time.”
“But you don’t have cancer anymore, hon.”
“We don’t know that for sure.”
“Well, we don’t know I don’t have cancer for sure either. We don’t know anything for sure.”
“Is that supposed to be reassuring?”
I lifted my legs until they were pointing straight out in front of me and tried to hold them there against the pull of gravity.
“Hmmm. I thought so when I was saying it.”
We drank the rest of the beer in silence, the sky dusting towards night, the gulls flapping and bombing the sea, the waves counting our holiday away against the big brown rocks. All days, I thought, every day that starts always comes to an end. It was nearly half an hour later when Clio spoke again: “Hey.”
“What?”
“While we’ve been sitting here, have you been thinking my girlfriend has no knickers on?”
“No, course not,” I said, then, after a second: “Well, it depends. What’s the right answer?”
Clio tucked her hands deeper under her knees and looked away so I couldn’t read her expression.
“No clues,” she said.
13
All the Angels Come
<< Call >>
Answer?
“Hello?”
The line was terrible, breaking and crackling with interference. I thought maybe I could hear a girl’s voice, distant and bleached away behind the noise.
“Hello?” I said again.
“Wh[ ]ou?
The connection was miles of rusty water pipes, leaking, dripping and losing pressure. Little rivers, flows twisting and winding in the dark. Or–it was a sinking submarine with the ocean forcing itself in, the sprays of deep black water from popped rivets and faultlines in the nose-diving, being-crushed hull. I tried to hold my nerve. I tried not to think about the Ludovician at all.
“I can’t–” I tried again, louder. “I can’t hear you.”
“–ou[ ]M[ ]est[ ]r?”
“Manchester? No. I–”
“D[ ]n’t [ ].”
“I can’t hear you properly,” I said, but I wasn’t really sure if I was hearing anyone at all.
“Th[ ] lo[ ]ing fo[ ]. D[ ] do [ ].”
“Hello?” I said, “Is somebody there? Who is this?” And as I listened hard into the hiss, a word came up from my lungs and spoke itself out of my mouth, taking me completely by surprise:
“Clio?” I said.
The line went dead.
The cat lifted an eye from his chest of drawers, blinked once and went back to sleep.
Cross-legged on my bed in the Willows Hotel, I dug around in the rucksack and pulled out my half-bottle of vodka, unscrewed the cap and took a swig. The still unopened package sat waiting next to me.
Caller Unknown said the green screen. I put the mobile phone carefully onto the bedside table. Caller Unknown could have been a member of the Un-Space Exploration Committee, or a stranger who’d found one of the business cards and dialled the number out of curiosity. Considering the state of the line maybe there hadn’t been a caller at all, just a systems malfunction, a fault in the network. Whoever it was it certainly wasn’t Clio Aames. A sleepless night staring at The Light Bulb Fragment had cross-wired my brain.
I picked up the package. Maybe this and the call might be two parts of the same thing. That would be likely, wouldn’t it? After sixteen weeks of nothing, everything was suddenly happening at once and it was difficult to find any sort of perspective.
After carefully setting up the Dictaphones around the edges of the room, I ripped open the envelope. Inside was a hardback book. The white dust jacket had a detailed Victorian etching of a prehistoric stiff-finned fish. The title read: The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, and underneath, smaller; with Evolution Engine by Trey Fidorous.
“Fuck,” I said, flipping through the pages:
oftenest visited by insects, and would be oftenest crossed; and so in the long-run would gain the upper hand. Those flowers, also, which had their stamens and pistils placed, in relation to the size and habits of the particular insects which visited them, so as to favour in any degree the transportal of their pollen from flower to flower, would likewise be favoured or selected. We might have taken the plant plant visiting flowers for the sake of collecting pollen instead of plant; and as plant plant is for plant sole of fertilisation, its destruction appears a simple loss to the plant; yet if a plant plant were carried, at first occasionally and then habitually, plant plant pollen-devouring plant from plant plant flower, and a cross thus effected, although nine-tenths of the plant were plant plant still plant plant gain to the plant; and those plant which plant plant plant plant plant plant had larger plant plant anthers, would plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant When our plant, by this plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant attractive flowers, had plant rendered plant attractive plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant regularly carry pollen plant plant to plant; and that plant plant most plant plant plant, I plant easily plant by many plant plant. plant give plant one not plant very plant case, but as likewise illustrating plant step in the plant of the plant of plant, presently plant plant to. Some holly-trees bear plant male flowers, which plant four plant plant rather a plant plant, and a rudimentary pistil; plant holly-trees plant only plant flowers; these plant a full-sized pistil, and plant stamens plant shrivelled plant, in which not a plant of pollen plant be detected. plant found a female tree exactly sixty plant plant a male tree, I put the stigmas of twenty flowers, taken from different branches, under the microscope, and plant, without exception, there were pollen-grains, and on plant a profusion of pollen. As the wind had set for several days from the female to the male plant, the pollen could not thus have been carried. The weather had been cold and boisterous, and therefore not favourable to bees, nevertheless every female flower which I examined had been effectually fertilised by the bees, accidentally dusted plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant imaginary case: we may suppose the plant plant plant plant plant plant plant the nectar by continued selection, to be a common plant plant plant plant insects plant in main part on its nectar for food. I could give many facts, plant plant plant bees plant to save time; plant instance, their habit of plant holes and sucking plant nectar plant plant of certain flowers, which plant can, with a very little more trouble, enter by the plant. Bearing such plant in mind, I can see no reason to doubt that an accidental deviation plant plant and plant of the body, or in the curvature and length of the proboscis, &c., far too slight to be a plant by us, might profit a bee or other insect, so that an individual so characterised would be able to plant its food more quickly, and so have a better chance of living and leaving plant plant. Its descendants would probably inherit a tendency to a similar slight deviation of plant. The tubes plant the plant plant plant common red and incarnate clovers (Trifolium plant plant incarnatum) plant not on a plant glance appear to differ in length; yet the hive-bee can easily plant the nectar plant of the incarnate clover, but not out of the common plant clover, plant visited by plant plant alone; plant plant whole plan
t of the plant plant plant in vain an plant plant supply of plant plant plant. plant plant a great plant to plant plant plant a slightly longer or plant constructed plant. On plant plant plant, plant plant plant by plant that plant plant of clover plant plant plant bees plant and plant plant plant the plant, so as to plant the plant plant plant plant stigmatic surface. plant, again, if plant plant plant to plant rare in plant plant plant plant advantage to plant red clover to plant or plant plant plant plant to its corolla, so plant the plant plant plant plant plant plant plant I plant plant plant plant plant plant become, plant plant plant or plant plant other, plant plant plant in plant plant plant plant to each plant, by the plant plant plant of plant plant plant presenting plant plant plant favourable plant plant plant I am plant plant plant doctrine of plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant plant
A note fell out of the book and onto my lap. A single folded sheet of A4. This is what the note said:
Dear Mr Sanderson,
I hope this book is of some interest and helps persuade you I am making contact as a friend.
I understand your situation and the dangers you face every day. You are not alone. Please meet me at the old Manor Infirmary at 12.30 p.m. this afternoon. The building is disused and the front doors will be open.
Yours faithfully,
Mr Nobody
As soon as I read it, I knew I would go. After all this time, someone. The idea of walking into an abandoned hospital to meet a person calling themselves ‘Nobody’ would ring alarm bells in anyone’s head, but what choice did I have? I’d been trying to make a contact in un-space for so long; when it finally happened could I really run away on the grounds of it being strange and unsettling? But this didn’t mean acting foolishly. I’d go a few hours early and take a good look at the place, see what I could see. Preparation Preparation Preparation.
But right now, preparation meant getting some rest.
With the new day’s sun pinking at the curtains I set the alarm on the mobile phone, put the book and the note to one side and stretched out on the bed. In spite of everything I was asleep in minutes.
But.
But in my exhaustion I’d made a terrible mistake.
When I’d set up the Dictaphone loop at the edges of the room, the strange package was already inside the parameter. And so, when the thick sinewy idea of a thing unlaced its long, slimy thought-body from the words and letters on that folded note and swam, slithered, up the bed towards me, there were no barriers to stop it.
I dreamt I sat on a long wooden bench in the Museum of Naxos. I was surrounded by glass cabinets filled with objects, ancient bowls and urns, golden coins, jewellery and tools. In the taller cases were half-made, half-collapsed marble statues, each with its own list of injuries; missing faces, missing arms or legs replaced by polished steel struts. Some of the figures were so broken they’d become unidentifiable. Several had only one smooth surface, maybe the round of a shoulder or the curve of a stomach, carved and polished and ambiguous alongside rough jagged rock.
From my seat, I stared into a large and well-lit case more or less in the centre of the gallery. Inside were two backpacks, a heap of novels and history books, a collapsed tent with its black foldaway poles carefully stacked on top of the canvas, two sleeping bags, two snorkels, two scuba masks, a hammock and a yellow underwater camera.
I got up off the bench and walked over so I could read the little white information card fixed to the inside of the glass. The card said:
Something bad’s happening. I’ve gone outside.
I might be a while.
C xx
14
Mr Nobody
I opened my eyes. Something wasn’t right. I groaned under the weight of heavy mushy-pea clouds and the glass-sharp exotic emotions that roll in at the storm front of a fever.
Sick. God, I couldn’t be sick today.
I stretched for my mobile. 11.33. The meeting at the Manor Infirmary was in less than an hour. Shit. So much for finding the place early and checking the lie of the land.
What to do? My insides felt like offal splattering down a rabbit hole. I crawled up onto my knees and hugged my arms around my head. What to do what to do? Think think think. I stretched out a leg and step-staggered off the bed, weak and dizzy and looking around for the vodka bottle to make sure I hadn’t drunk half or all of it without remembering. I hadn’t; it was still there, just a few mouthfuls lighter.
I put the folded note from Mr Nobody back inside The Origin of Species and tucked both away in the chest of drawers. A shower might have helped push the sickness back and clear my mind but there was no time. I decided to take what little comfort I could get from a clean T-shirt and jeans. Closing the wardrobe door I saw Ian, crouched on top and glaring down at me with massive eyes.
“What?” My voice felt sticky and the wrong size for my head.
The cat rumbled a deep growl and backed away until I couldn’t see him over the wardrobe’s top edge.
“Nice,” I said. “Thanks.”
After struggling into the clean clothes, I took a plastic bag out of the rucksack and placed each of the Dictaphones carefully inside. I grabbed a couple of packs of batteries too.
Anything else? Anything else?
“Anything else?” I asked my reflection in the mirror. The words pulsed in my ears, going wrong and rotten as they sank deeper in. My reflection looked back, all queasy and staggery like it couldn’t understand what I’d said. I put my hand out to the wall to steady myself, turned, and headed for the door.
The Manor Infirmary was a collection of buildings–a dozen square and oblong red brick structures with interlinking corridors. From above it probably looked like a flow chart. The path through the grounds was silted and sanded, and everything that wasn’t concrete squelched.
Aunty Ruth had known how to find the Infirmary and I’d been relieved to hear it was only fifteen minutes’ walk away.
“But it’s all shut down now, love, why on earth would you want to go there?”
“Idle curiosity” had been the best I could manage. She said I looked terrible and I said I’d feel better after a walk. She didn’t seem at all sure about that, but must have decided she didn’t know me well enough to challenge the idea with anything more than silence and a bunched-up brow of concern.
The path led up to a mulchy, leaf-piled porch. The entrance was a set of double doors made from dark wood and the type of thick rippled glass with the wire cross-hatching inside. I pushed the left door and it opened heavily inwards.
“Hello?”
Aunty Ruth was right: the walk hadn’t helped. My insides were hanging slack and wet and loose under my ribs and down into my hips. My head felt even worse. Like a central heating system with air in the pipes, my mind clanked and struggled to pass thoughts coherently from one area to another–only the most simple and straightforward bursts of thinking seemed to have any chance of making it around the system without being trapped and lost in bubble pockets under the floorboards. I’m just tired. I’m coming down with something. These were the only explanations simple enough to survive a full circuit around my mind and although some part of me somewhere–an isolated radiator in the tiny attic bathroom of my brain–worried away about the timing of this and the risk of trusting ready-made solutions (and I was aware of the worry, vaguely, distantly), there simply wasn’t the pressure available for that little radiator to feed back properly into the heart of the system.
I stepped into the foyer.
A weak grey-blue light filled the space, a large window behind the reception area letting in low-grade sun from a damp and forgotten courtyard garden. The air inside tasted flat and lifeless and carried an idle kind of musk–rainwater on old plaster, decaying paper, little circles of black mould–and the faint after-tang of TCP. Black and white tiles covered the floor, the kind you find in disused Victorian swimming pools or due-for-refurbishment school canteens
, the chessboard pattern dulled under a slow layer of dust. I took a couple of steps forwards, turned and saw how my wet footsteps left bootgrip zigzags of blacker black and whiter white in the floor behind me. There were no other prints.
Although the foyer itself had its window and the glass doors to feed in some kind of weak illumination, the corridors leading off to the left and to the right soon greyscaled themselves away into total darkness.
I walked over to the mouth of the left corridor and flicked the light switch there. Nothing happened. I did the same at the mouth of the right corridor but got the same result. No power, no light. I thought about my torch, still in the glove box of the yellow Jeep. A queasy kind of anger bubbled up through the vagueness. I pinched myself hard on the inside of my arm, hoping the pain would bring me more into focus, clear my head.
“Hello?” I called again, louder this time. The walls and the dust and the chequerboard floor gave only a quick snap of echoes.
Left or right? I chose the right corridor. I set off into the dark, feeling my way along the walls, trying doorhandles as they presented themselves under my spidering fingers.
I found my way into and through a storeroom stacked with collapsed wheelchairs and dusty boxes, coming out into a windowed staff office with faint silhouettes of computer keyboards and table lamps still visible in the dust of all the left-behind desks. I edged along dark corridors with confusing alcoves and pitch black T-junctions and I crossed rooms with ranks of bare mattresses and big windows with broken blinds. The hospital presented itself to me like this, as a progression of strange unfitting jigsaw pieces. Places which couldn’t, wouldn’t, be reassembled into any kind of mental floor plan. Before long, I was lost.
Was there even anybody here? Had my low-pressure brain missed something obvious by the entrance and sent me stumbling off in the wrong direction? Normally, I’d be able to answer with a definite no. But not today, feeling like this. Today, all bets were off.