Then The Cop and I drove back to The Unicorn in Trumpington, where she bought us pints of Strongbow and split open a bag of salt and vinegar crisps to share. We felt out of place in the bar with our muddy boots and jeans, so we sat in the beer garden, snuggled close together, and watched the sun give up on the day. Somewhere, a church bell chimed the hour. It was only five o’clock, although it felt like nine. This bell rang out its five tones just once; all it had to do was tell the time. Still, it preluded the announcement with those familiar decorative notes. The so-called Westminster Chimes. They are really the Cambridge Quarters, you know. Big Ben borrowed them from the Church of St. Mary the Great, whose role in the world is to be the University’s anchor. Undergraduates must reside within three miles of Great St. Mary’s to count as keeping term.
“Ding dong bell,” I said, and shivered.
The Cop pulled me in closer, and affectionately rapped her knuckles on the top of my head.
“Who are you calling a ding-dong?” she said. Actioni contrariam semper et aequalem esse reactionem.
I clutched the silver skull in my pocket, and buried my face into the warmth of her donkey jacket.
I see it in his eyes because it’s in mine. I don’t look in mirrors.
And I don’t look at the little shit when she visits because her eyes, when she came out of me, her eyes didn’t have it for that one moment and I can’t let her catch that from me. From my eyes.
I would do anything to stop the little shit ending up back in here. But what chance did she ever have. Did any of us have.
Chapter Ten
I was still attending the meetings of The Eleven during this time, but not finding them very interesting. I was more intrigued by the book Gin had lent me sketching the Society’s history, and even more so by the Books themselves. By now, Michael—one of the Society’s affable grad students—had been appointed as secretary, relieving me of their care. Still, I couldn’t shake the memory of what I had read in them, nor my inexorable feeling that it mattered somehow.
On the inner cover of one of my notebooks, I had transcribed a particularly arresting passage from the records of that meeting at which Society members had discussed Newton’s alchemical research. I didn’t make a note of the exact date or who was present, but I remember that I had one of the oldest of the Books in my hands when I copied out these strange words:
The Philosophers stone therefore is one but it hath many names & before thou knowst it it will be very difficult: For it is watry, aery, fiery, earthy, flegmatick cholerick, & melancholy.
Quite the multitasker, it sounded like. All things to all men. Capable of spinning everything into nothing and vice versa. Tricksy. In a feminine way, as light can be so full of every colour that it is invisible, and the perfect woman adapts so precisely to the requirements of her situation that she and all her labours disappear. No wonder we evade scientific understanding.
I bought a cheap leather choker from the market so I could wear the silver skull I’d retrieved from the mud at Wimpole’s Folly around my neck. I washed the skull carefully at the handbasin in my room, and threaded the leather through the little loop welded to the skull’s crown. With my black tank top and old Docs, it could pass muster as a grungy icon. It showed I didn’t care about death: I was okay with being made of dirt and bones, bits and pieces. With being weak and temporary. I would have liked to get a tattoo that told the same story, but I couldn’t afford one so I drew on my skin with biros. Mostly abstract swirls, or combinations of words that I thought sounded cool. Green and dying. Towards Zero. Plus c’est la même chose.
During the day, lectures on second-order logic and set theory kept my mind quiet, kept me ticking over in a neutral gear. Although it all went nowhere, the battery didn’t die. And then in the evenings and at weekends came the work that really mattered, the search for Deb. With The Cop to help me, I felt for the first time as if progress on that front was really possible. I was no longer being shut down and swatted away at every turn. The Cop and I made a powerful team. I had the drive and determination, she had the resources and reach. She could see when I was at risk of spinning out about it, too, and knew just what to say to bring me back down to earth.
On top of all that, I was really starting to like her.
—
Our next lead took us to the Jesus Green Lido.
Jesus College used to be a nunnery, but, as legend has it, not an entirely virtuous one. The college now bears a “real” name chosen in hopes of making this history smell a little sweeter: The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to them that an institution which needs to mention virginity twice in its name is protesting too much.
Anyhow, Jesus College
