135
I sit on the train to Liverpool, sifting through a crumpled copy of the Metro. The news, a weave of reality and unreality, feels more disorientating than depressing: Blair is still PM, Jordan’s boobs are indecisive, the only manufacturing industry alive and thriving is X Factor. I glance up at the June sky. In winter, cities look man-made: the trees are anorexic, the skyline dominated by bleak buildings, the flowerbeds bare and tragic. In the summer, Nature wins: the train rattles past houses obscured by trees of foamy blossom, brick made elegant by ivy. The date on the paper says 5 May 2014.
I used to find summer a little bit cheesy, like an American smile that tells you to have a nice day. But this blue sky is persuasive. Gwent is a benign deity. This morning I found a filing cabinet in my flat that contained my bank statements. I brought in twenty-eight thousand pounds from my last exhibition. People who say money doesn’t buy happiness have never been poor. Yet this new-found sweetness feels fragile. Can I really start afresh here? Or will I just fall into the same fucked-up patterns?
I get off the train at Liverpool Lime Street and stroll through pools of sunlight up to the high street. I check the address on my smartphone once again. The Post-it on my fridge was backed up by a diary entry: 3 p.m., Stanley House, Lord Street. It had been underlined three times. When I get there, the 136building gives me no clues as to why: there is no plaque above the dirty white buzzer.
I arrive with twenty minutes to spare, and so I cross the road and enter a cafe. To my surprise, it has a smoking section at the back. As I order a lemonade, I notice a guy with dark hair sitting at a nearby table.
‘Rachel!’
It’s Jaime.
‘I’m really sorry,’ I say as I sit down, but he cuts me off.
‘Look, I know I must have sounded crazy last night, but—’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘We’re in a book. I remember now. I behaved like a dick—’
‘But were you trying to get rid of me? Or did you forget?’
‘I forgot, of course!’ I say, accepting a cigarette from him.
We exhale smoke in trembling lines; they meld into one anxious fog. I hold up my glass and remind myself that it belongs to the imagination of Mr Gwent. I picture us as though from a long tracking shot, like figures in a snow globe. I look at him through the tumbler, and Jaime fractures and blurs; becomes an impressionist portrait of dark hair and pale skin. After knowing him as Thomas, all puppy eyes and a dimpled smile, he seems to me so grown-up, with his firm jaw and smattering of stubble and the faint lines etched around his eyes.
‘So, how come you forgot? Gwent said we’d have free will.’
‘I don’t know – I was just on my way home, and it suddenly clicked – I felt so stupid. I used to live in Manchester, so I guess it felt like being back in normal life again …’
‘I’m just glad I found you again.’
We smile at each other.
‘Well, I got a note saying I should be at that place across the road at three p.m.’ 137
‘I had the same note!’ He rolls his eyes. ‘So much for free will.’
‘You think Gwent is trying to matchmake us?’ I feel relieved. Last night, before I got into bed, I automatically fell down on my knees and recited the Lord’s Prayer. Halfway through, I realised that it was unnecessary but I carried on by rote.
‘Perhaps he did,’ Jaime replies.
There’s an awkward pause during which I wonder if I’m imagining the flirtatious tone in his voice, and then he eyes the clock, brisk again: ‘I’m hoping we’re about to meet the Storyteller.’
‘Uh huh.’ I finish my cigarette and immediately reach for another, but he takes my hand in his. There is something authoritative, possessive about the gesture.
‘We’re going to be OK,’ he says emphatically. ‘We just need to follow Gwent’s advice, and find a way out. Simple.’
I pull my hand away, for his confidence seems misplaced, his decision-making too presumptuous. He folds his arms, frowning.
‘Can you remember what happened with you and Fate?’ he asks, after a pause. ‘How did you end up here?’
The memory makes me feel like crying.
‘I just wrote him a fan letter,’ I lie, ‘and he asked me to visit.’
‘That fucking cunt,’ Jaime says, making me jump. A few of the other diners glance over at us. ‘Sorry. But – God – he nearly had you put away in an asylum.’
‘At least an asylum has some drama about it,’ I reflect. ‘I mean, in the present day you just get sentenced to tranquilisers and a life of quiet desperation.’
Our laughter is forced. I realise that I am back to turning everything into a joke, using wit to make tragedies bearable. 138
‘I just can’t believe the police haven’t got him,’ Jaime says. ‘He’s a fucking psycho. He’s like Fred West or something.’
‘That’s a bit strong.’
‘Is it? We’re being held captive. He’s stolen time from us, and we’ll never get it back.’
‘Or perhaps it’s like Narnia in here, and time stops for us?’
‘Time didn’t stop. You were missing, Rachel. You’ve been missing for some time—’ He swallows, his eyes filming again. ‘My poor mum … Sorry, you must be worried about your parents too.’
‘Um, yeah,’ I agree, vaguely, for I am quite certain that neither of them will be concerned about my absence. Jaime must read my discomfort as grief, for he quickly changes tack.
‘In the real world, I’m meant to be doing an MA at UCL with Professor Millhauser. In this book, I run a record shop, in the Northern Quarter. I live in the flat above it.’
‘That’s so cool.’
‘I’ve got to admit, it is a dream job. But it’s not real.’
Jaime seems to have lived in the Victorian era without samskaras taking root in him.
‘But then, how much of our lives was ever real?’ I ask. ‘How many of the thoughts we had were truly our own, and how many were white noise, suggestions planted by films and adverts and the articles we read and the society we lived in? OK, so Blair’s still in power here, but so what? It’s still the same old bullshit.’
Jaime looks at me with worried eyes and then nods at the clock. ‘Well, I think that you’ll feel differently when we get to go home. I think you’ll feel much happier.’
He stubs out his cigarette and is about to rise, when I say:
‘Do you remember that moment when the helicopter crashed into the church?’ 139
He laughs and says, ‘God, yeah. Mad.’
It’s as though we’ve just been to the movies and are reliving the best moments.
‘I was in the carriage, passing by, and Dr Adams kept trying to slip his hand up my dress and I was fighting him off. I was willing something to happen and then there it was.’
‘God, what a bastard. Those fucking pious professionals with crosses around their necks. That was the worst thing about that time – all that religion, and the way even non-believers were still trapped in Christian imagery and ideas and all that. At least here I can be a proper atheist again.’
‘So you’re an atheist?’
‘Sure? Aren’t you?’
I shrug. I feel a little disheartened by his revelation; just another typical guy reflecting all the clichés of Western enlightenment. I’ll bet he reads Steven Pinker in his spare time, maybe Hitchens, and all those big, clever white men who think they’ve got the world sussed out.
Then, as we depart, he opens the cafe door for me, and says, ‘After you, Ms Levy,’ in a mock-gentlemanly voice, shy and sweet, and I find myself smiling back at him.
Out on the street struts a magpie. I look for its twin.
Across the road, outside the building, we stand close to one another as I press the doorbell. A crackling noise. Then a pale voice:
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Jaime Lancia and Rachel Levy,’ Jaime says. ‘Can we come up?’ 140
‘Why?’ A male voice; young, Liverpudlian.
‘We were told to come today. We have an appointment.’
The white noise of bureaucracy. Then: ‘According to our diary, your appointment is in ten days’ time. 3 p.m. on Thursday the fifteenth of May.’
‘Ask him what it’s for?’ I whisper, and Jaime nods impatiently.
‘So we’re due to see the Storyteller then?’ he asks.
‘Well, we can discuss that when you come for your appointment,’ comes the reply, but it’s careless, automated, and I wonder if he knows what Jaime is referring to. ‘See ya later,’ he adds in faux-American and cuts us off.
‘Fuck!’ Jaime keeps crying, chain-smoking in shock. ‘I thought we’d be home in, like, two hours. Ten days! It’s ridiculous – why the hell is Gwent keeping us waiting?’
I tell him there’s nothing we can do but be patient, but he frowns, shaking his head. I remember the devotion in Thomas’s eyes when he looked at me. It’s hard not to look into Jaime’s and see a coldness in equal measure.
We exchange numbers, and agree to meet up the next day to plan our next move. We both lean in as though to hug each other but we lose our nerve at the last minute. We’ve kissed and exchanged secrets, he’s even told me that he loves me, yet that intimacy has the shame of a drunken one-night stand. Now, in the sober daylight, I’m not sure how to behave, nor what Jaime is feeling. We say our goodbyes with a wave.
Back in the cafe, I order an espresso, smoke some more and worry about Jaime’s eagerness to find the Storyteller. Perhaps he’s keen to return to a girlfriend back in London. He never 141mentioned it when we first chatted in the suicide forum, but the internet is all about technological smoke and mirrors, the editing of personas. As the initial kick of the caffeine wears off, my mood starts to slide. I remind myself that Gwent must have brought us together; that we are being looked after, even if only a little. This is a relief; a world of complete free will, where our choices dictate our actions, is terrifying to me. I’ll always pick path B when I should have chosen A. I console myself with the thought of my bank balance. I picture myself returning to my flat with a medley of glossy bags – but that would be vulgar. Instead, I decide to have another consequence-free cigarette.