Chapter Sixteen
Humberton bought me more Shiraz, and said he’d always thought I was as cute as a button.
“That’s really working for you,” he added, head on one side. “Still, I mean. At the moment. Not when you’re forty!” He guffawed into his drink. How old did he think I was?
“Eventually, I suppose, you’ll cut your hair? Bit less makeup? What do you have on your face right now? Actually don’t tell me. I bet I can guess.”
He leaned in and scrutinized my face. His chin was patchy with stubble, but he didn’t smell bad. The smell reminded me of croissants. I laughed involuntarily because it was totally the wrong time of day for breakfast.
But he kept looking at me, and I stopped laughing. I stared deep into my translucent, jam-coloured wine. A half-sphere in the bottom of a huge glass, like a giant garnet cabochon. Perfect, a polished dome. No facets. Some people think of crystals as receptacles: they can hold things for you, like energy or illness. This faceless juice-stone struck me as good for an orison. In which all my sins might be remembered. I suddenly felt myself a tiny lady in a skimpy bikini, sliding frictionless down this convex glass, flailing beautifully in the bright blood below.
I have heard that drowning people often swim downwards, because they don’t know which way is up.
—
Humberton and I flickered that evening. We skipped out of time. Or do I mean “Ron” and I? Even simple labels are beginning to outpace me. His real name wasn’t Ronald, you know, it was Oberon, only he was usually too embarrassed to tell anyone. He told me, that night, as I fell into the wine. A special secret for the two of us, whispered on whisky-breath. It was after the whisper that everything went smoky. Drifted.
We are four-dimensional worms, world lines, just like he taught me. Only he and I are worms with a small temporal piece missing. Right there, in that evening. A little gap. A few hours. It’s no different to how something can have a missing piece in space, a hole in the middle—we are just more familiar with how holes work in space than in time. We accept them more easily. But there’s no difference, from a metaphysical perspective.
There would be no point in having persisted through that time. It couldn’t make things any worse, or any better. What happened that night? You want to ask a question that doesn’t have an answer. And I do not give you permission. Language will burrow its way into a situation like this, if you let it, like a parasitic worm in your heart that’ll kill you. Although actually, heartworm is mostly harmless in humans. You pretty much just keep going with the worm right in there. The biggest risk is that it gets mistaken for a serious heart condition, and then well-meaning doctors start prodding and poking around and they kill you by accident.
So stop poking. There is no story. There’s just this: as Humberton pointed out a few times in the bar, his room was next to mine. I remember thinking I didn’t want him to be so close. And I know that when I sputtered back into existence I was actually in his room, my body rematerializing from a high-frequency transmission, and that he was there too, a lump of stuff, facing away, still on another plane. Soft, mumbling and snorting. Over his dull thrum, the metallic zing that had brought me back to the world kept ringing in my ears. A thin steel sound.
I tried to rush up but I was heavy and strange to myself. I stumbled down the hall into my own room, thrust the lock deep into the doorjamb behind me, and bent double towards the bathtub. Hands like lumps fumbled at the taps. Why? I don’t like baths. These alien hands were gross and clumsy but I tried not to make too much noise. The water came on in a tornado. I didn’t know if Humberton-Ron-Oberon was listening but I went on all fours to the TV and turned it up quite loud. I felt bad for being rude to whoever had the room on the other side, but it couldn’t be helped. What made me search for a British channel? Homing instinct? Whatever it is that pours snippets from other people’s stories into mine at poisonous moments? And this same progeny of evils comes / From our debate, from our dissension; / We are their parents and original. All those conversations I started under the covers with a flashlight when I wasn’t allowed to read, and now I can’t get away from the words. They told me not to do it.
“ROBIN! TELL US WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO GO WITH VIOLET FOR THOSE GORGEOUS ACCENT WINDOWSILLS!”
It was impossible to avoid the huge mirrored doors on the closet. Who was that? Was I skinny like that image? I looked like an advertisement for yogurt. Did you ever have a moment, in front of those fluorescent rows of refrigerated labels in the supermarket, when you suddenly realized that all those bright and beaming meanings were not for you?
“WELL TOM, I THOUGHT MORE BEIGE WOULD HAVE BEEN A LITTLE MUCH WHAT WITH ALL THE BEIGE WE ALREADY HAVE IN THIS ROOM!”
Why were my eyes dripping? Were my pupils always this big? All the better to see with? Far too big. Too hollow, too hungry. Eyes bigger than tummy, my aunt used to say, when I’d ask for something to eat but then I couldn’t finish it. I didn’t know how to explain that my esophagus was flooding with acid, she just thought I was full up. I didn’t even know there was a difference. Was the TV too loud?
“SO THE VIOLET JUST BRIGHTENS IT UP A LITTLE BIT, AND OF COURSE IT GIVES US A WHOLE NEW COLOUR DIMENSION
