don't betoken a rush of ideas too overwhelming for the pen to keep up. Occasionally a sentence coheres out of the babble, but with so little in the way of context that these interludes fail to convey much. One I copied with the pencil I was allowed to use seems either to foresee or to propose opening some portal to infinity. What this infinity might contain or consist of seems important but remains unclear. Then Lane sets about mutating and otherwise improvising on the word: port all, paw tall, gait weigh, pile on, en trance, can treen, can't reen, can't reen... Here as elsewhere there's a sense, if that's the word, that once he creates an utterly meaningless fragment of language he becomes carried away by its echoes in his head. I imagine Tubby prancing to the rhythm, grinning wider and more big-eyed at every step. I don't want to see that, nor to hear the words resounding in my skull. I'm grateful to be distracted by the librarian who has brought me a spool of microfilm. 'I'll try not to shut you down this time,' I tell her.
'I beg your pardon?'
'I'll do my best not to blow any of your fuses.' When she continues to give me a delicate frown I add 'Like I did last time I was here.'
'I'm afraid I'm still not with you.'
She's unquestionably the same girl, even if her black curls are now blonde, as if she's turning into a negative image. There's no point in offering my name. 'My mistake,' I say. 'Don't let it worry you.'
It appears to as she loads the spool into the reader. I turn to a blank page of my notebook, glimpsing Lane's notions on the way: 'The masque becomes the world' and 'Who shall say the guise is not the face?' and 'All shall be spoken behind a mask'. It seems impossible that they'll find any place in my book. At least today's research is more straightforward. Surely the newspaper I mistook for the
That's the publication on the microfilm. As I wind the issues for January 1913 through the viewer, every photograph of people in Edwardian dress reminds me of extras in a Tubby Thackeray film. Am I too immersed in my research? There were surely more significant events back then, not least the imminence of a world war. Then a pair of headlines makes me grip the rudimentary controls as if I've won a video game.
MUSIC-HALL PERFORMER BOUND OVER TO KEEP PEACE.
PERFORMANCE MUST BE KEPT WITHIN PROPER BOUNDS.
So this was the newspaper I bought from the Comical Companions stall. The idea that I could have misread it, especially since even the typeface differs from my memory of it, blurs my vision. Or is the display losing definition? I twist the focusing screw, which only aggravates my inability to read the headlines. I, FORMER, ACE... I'm barely able to decipher these letters before they succumb to the indistinctness that's blackening the page. I turn the screw the other way, and the image sharpens. It doesn't contain a single recognisable word. I feel as if nonsense is spreading through the text – as if the silent clamour of Lane's misshapen language in my skull is infecting a historical record – and then I identify the blackness that's overwhelming the page. The microfilm is charring like a cinema film that has become stuck in a projector.
'Excuse me,' I call, but the staff are nowhere to be seen. 'Excuse me,' I shout as a trickle of blackness rises from the monitor.
'Sssh.'
'Don't shush me. Where are you? Anyone,' I yell and give up. 'I'll do it myself. You don't want the place on fire.'
What could anybody do except twist the spooling knobs? The microfilm coils like a mutilated snake out of both sides of the viewer, scattering the table with flakes of blackened celluloid. The librarian hurries out from behind the shelves and emits a small cry at the last of the smoke but is otherwise as silent as any library could require until she's standing over me. 'I do know you,' she says.
'I didn't really pinch your power last time. That was just a joke.'
'We never did find out what went wrong.'
'Well, not me. Sorry about this. It must have jammed.'
She retrieves the sections of microfilm and carries them to the desk. 'Will you be wanting anything else?'
I can't judge whether she's being professional or sarcastic. I shouldn't risk another mishap – I can paraphrase what I recall. A charred fragment of microfilm is isolated on the screen. Rather than strain to be certain whether the letters it contains spell hack, I say 'Could I buy some time online?'
She moves to the table ahead of me and activates a computer. As I log onto my Frugonet account I hear brushing and sharp polite coughs at my back to remind me that she's cleaning the viewer. Willie Hart has emailed at last. I swallow a taste of my mother's defiantly unhealthy breakfast as I open the message.
si –
sore 4 silnce. no good nus im afrad. hop u got all u neded out of vuing. no 2nd chanc. u got guillermo 2 nthusd. he wachd 1 film 2 ofn & it wnt on fir. so did rest whn he trid 2 put it out. all films dstroyd & he ran off. ull realize iv not had tim 2 chec w girls. theyr filming in la whil i try 2 sort out insuranc clam & carer. but im sur if tha filmd u it wud hav ben a jok.
wile
I spend far too long in decoding sore as sorry and carer as career and tha as they, and then I wonder why she failed to contract realize. She must be preoccupied with her loss. Confusion is spreading through my skull as the blackness did onscreen, and I have to stop myself fancying that the film in the library viewer might have ignited out of sympathy with hers. I can't think of a reply to send her; I need to check that Smilemime hasn't been active. But he has, and I swallow a harsh stale taste as I bring up the message that's strewn through the newsgroups.
So Mr Questionabble wants his link, does he? Sorry, I forgot his name's suppossed to be Simon Lester. Do we think he'll shut up and go away if I post one? That's what he said I had to do. Let's think of an address for him. How about www.missionleer.com? That's him leering at us. Or there's www.emitsmorsel.com, which is all he ever does. Then there's www.silentmorse.com that shows how he keeps using a secret code. Where else shall we look for him? He ought to have a site at www.imtrollsee.com.
'Don't you call me a troll, you skulking little shit. I'm not the one that's too afraid to say my name. It doesn't spell that either. It's not even the right number of letters. You can't count and you can't spell.'
'Sssh.'
'You try keeping quiet when somebody's calling you names.' I don't say this aloud, but perhaps I mouth it while staring at the librarian behind the counter. 'Carry on, get all the links out of your head. I won't be following any of them,' I vow under my breath as I scroll down Smilemime's message.
He should be at www.istoremslen.com. Len's his partner in crime, which is to say himself. What's his name suppossed to be again, Collin Vernon? If you take Len out of that you get www.iconvrow.com. Vrow is Dutch for woman, and I'll bet he's conned one like he's trying with the rest of us.
I fight off a memory of Amsterdam – of a whitish slab that quakes with mirth as it peeps wide-eyed from under the bed. 'Going Dutch now, are we?' I mutter and try to ignore a sense of being watched.
Let's hope she reads this if he doesn't do something bad to stop her. Maybe she ought to look at www.snormalsite.com to see what he thinks is normall,
'The opposite of you, you obsessive deranged Christ I can't even think of a name for it. Can't you even spell the same way twice?'
and www.msmoresin.com, because a mannuscript's his sin. But the one he's hoping nobody would find beccause it hasn't got his name on is www.tubbiesfilms.com. Hasn't it gone sillent all of a sudden? I don't think we'll be hearing anny more about Mister Vernon Lester's book that he wanted us to think was the first studdy of the subbject. Goodbye if you've got any sense. Let's have more silents.
I can't help hoping Colin has responded, but there's no riposte. I swallow a taste or an equally harsh laugh and copy the final link into the address box. The computer hesitates, and then a blue line that might be underscoring an invisible or non-existent word starts to crawl along the bottom of the screen. Before it's half completed, the screen flickers or my vision does, and a page appears. I grin so fiercely that my face feels swollen. The site hasn't been found.
It's as much of an invention as all the other sites Smilemime listed. 'Funny thing, I won't be keeping quiet,' I say and reach for the keyboard, only to be irritated by a possibility. Would even Smilemime have misspelled the name? Purely for confirmation, I type www.tubbysfilms.com in the box. As the blue line inches towards completion
