194
Three weeks on and we still haven’t found the Storyteller. We have suffered long queues for supermarkets. We have sat at home, linked hands tight and sweaty, watching bulletins on the TV: images of rioting, the army called into the capital. Feeling claustrophobic in our flat, we ventured into Manchester one night, only to discover grassy verges growing wild with long stalks, the air bitter with smoke as a gang set fire to a row of cars. Jaime’s record shop remains shut, following a looting; the steel grilles permanently yanked down. The chaos was thrilling at first, as people tweeted about the end times and shared maps marked with safe houses, in case we needed to hide out when society became feral. Then, as it became clear that civilisation was stagnating between repair and total collapse, our days slid into tedium. The Storyteller remains elusive. Despite endless nights of burning eyes from surfing the net, drowning in trivia and dead ends, we have not made any progress. Jaime’s perspective is not as morbid as mine. He does not feel we are to blame for the loss of our utopia. One of his theories is that Gwent left the real world just as the fault lines of 2008 were starting to show, that he is depicting the collapse he sensed was coming. Another is that Gwent wants to push us on into another book, in order that we might find the Storyteller elsewhere.
195Jaime takes my hand again as the train pulls in at Liverpool Lime Street, guiding us through the crowds. Out on the street, we cut through beggars, having learnt to perfect expressions of indifference: our shield against crying babies, children’s dirty faces. Litter tumbleweeds over the pavements; shop windows are collages of flyers for marches and protests. Fuck you, Gwent, I think, get your disasters in order: in 2014 we were in a recession, not a depression.
We pass a large house with iron grilles over its windows. I know that one of my paintings is hanging in that living room. Having to produce the crowd-pleasing paintings Daniel wants has cut me deeper than anything over these last few weeks. The brush has felt slack in my hand, as though I am a puppet with tired strings. The only way I could bring myself to go through with such artistic prostitution was to layer a secret painting – a scream, a V-sign – beneath the twee landscapes. And even then, they’ve not sold as well as I’d hoped. Capitalism corrodes art; its collapse only speeds the process up. The church bells are singing, for God is back in vogue.
Outside Stanley House, we pause by the buzzer. We’re both very tired. Jaime goes to pull a piece of bread from his pocket, but I stop him – we must save it for the surfing.
I press the buzzer. No reply. I press it again, and again, and again, until finally they let us in and we climb the stairs to the third floor.
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you,’ says the Booksurfer girl. She used to have bleached hair but is now predominately dark roots. She looks frayed, exhausted. We queue for an hour at 196the tail end of a crocodile of folk in tatty clothes, waving banknotes, jewellery, then a second hour. There are men guarding the doors to the Surfer Rooms, rifles slack in their hands. We hear that they’ve added another hundred beds but are now at full capacity again, with a waiting list.
We have withdrawn every last penny left in my savings account. But will it be enough? People ahead of us are being turned away, trailing past us and back down the stairs with pinched faces.
Finally, we reach the front desk.
‘We’ve got ten thousand pounds,’ I press the Booksurfer girl, though the money is worth a fifth of its value since last week, and by the end of the month it will be about as useful as Monopoly cash.
She shrugs.
‘Plus, I can pay you in paintings,’ I offer. ‘There are still ten left at the Corner House – you can have them all. They’ll be worth a fortune when the recession ends …’ A flicker on her face; my art might finally be of value. ‘Look, we’ll try anything.’
‘Apart from Fate,’ Jaime mutters. ‘Nothing by Augustus Fate.’
The girl blinks and does a double take. I blush, lowering my eyes, fearing that she has remembered my illicit trip here a few weeks back. But her expression is one of kinship; compassion softens her eyes. She leans in and whispers: ‘We have a dystopian novel set in a former Russian province in 1928. A place called Carpathia. Survival rates are the worst, though. You know what the Russians are like – tragedy on every page.’
I stutter uncertainly, but Jaime is suddenly enthused. ‘That sounds fine.’ 197
She looks dubious. ‘This one requires a double dose of Grand Kuding tea. The author, T. S. Maslennikov, requests it. He wants you to be fully immersed in his characters.’
‘It sounds a bit like Fate,’ I mutter uneasily. ‘Why does he need us at all?’ Jaime asks.
She checks the notes. ‘You’ll bring a subconscious to his characters.’
‘Fine,’ Jaime interjects. He turns to me. ‘But what do you think? We’ll only go if you agree.’
His expression is one of pleading. I know he likes Russia, and revels in its history; but I still feel it would be the lesser evil to stay here; that if we go, we will only be passing into a deeper circle of hell.
‘Can you tell us more about the setting?’ I ask, dreading the Gulag and show trials. ‘What’s Carpathia like?’
She frowns, checking a more detailed synopsis, and reads aloud: ‘Carpathia borders the Motherland. It has not yet suffered a Communist revolution – though that remains a threat. It is a land of dark magic and folklore, of howling wolves and dancing bears …’
Jaime watches my reaction and squeezes my hand tightly.
‘Maybe you’re right,’ he whispers. ‘Perhaps it’s too dangerous … And perhaps the Storyteller is here after all. I’m sure there are clues we’ve overlooked.’
We’re about to turn away when she looks up from her notes, adding:
‘Well, there’s someone called the Storyteller in this book. If you can get to the czar’s palace, you’ll be able to pay them a visit.’ 198