Fire in the Firefly (14 page)

The steer will always hate the bull.

The Collected Sayings of Julius Roebuck

B
y Saturday morning Roebuck has showered and shaved and assured himself he's healing. Even his lacerated testicles look and feel more wholesome. He has—as per instructions—blocked the hole at the base of his penis with the medicated goop prescribed to keep the moisture out. By appearance, at least, it's improving. He has changed his dressing and flushed the wad of crusty gauze down the toilet. It still hurts, though: a dull, pulsing, background throb. Several years ago while penalty-killing late in the third of a beer-league playoff game, Roebuck took a deflection to the groin that dropped him to the ice like a dying millipede. It feels like that now, say thirty minutes after. That's improvement. 

He has switched from the jockstrap (now wrapped neatly in a plastic bag, tucked into his briefcase for disposal at a later date) to a much more comfortable set of
snug-fitting
boxer shorts. He has made himself a plate of scrambled eggs with minced shallots and dabs of runny cheddar and drunk a pot of coffee. All in all, definitely improvement. He has caught up on his email—still in PJs, working at the kitchen table—and booked a conference call with a group of clients based in Framingham, Massachusetts, who see a budget squeeze ahead and want more campaign, thanks, for less money. He has left a voice mail with Finance, requesting the job sum, and got a head start on the plasticine brain.

Lately it seems that every piece of homework is an art project in disguise. Last week it was Morgan's collage of restaurant items, all labelled in French. Today it's an anatomical model of the human brain required for Zach's Science class. Google Translator provided the spellings and appropriate accents for every word on Morgan's list; the hard part was sourcing and printing the accompanying pictures and neatly laying out the project on a sheet of foamboard. That took up most of the evening. Both Morgan and Katie are pulling off As in French, though Roebuck doubts that either one of them would get much past
bonjour
if ever required to actually speak it. Zach, on the other hand, who has not yet come to terms with the imperative of
cut-and
-paste, hovers in the middle Cs. Roebuck is kneading a mass of grey material they will use to represent the cerebellum and has set aside a lump of pink stuff for the hypothalamus, when he hears the doorbells chime.

Daniel Greenwood is standing in the portico, a leather courier bag slung across his chest.

Roebuck opens the door and coughs.

He doesn't really need to cough; there's nothing wrong with his lungs. But he's been keeping up appearances so effectively these last two days that now his chest behaves as if it really is congested. “Ugly time of year for flu,” says Greenwood, staring up into the thin March sun. “That so sucks.”

“Come in, Daniel.”

“Wow!” Greenwood has stepped into the foyer, whistling.

“Beautiful.”

“My wife is an interior designer.”

“Is she really? I didn't know!”

Roebuck coughs again and taps his chest. Greenwood angles his neck to peer into his face. He's a little taller than Roebuck; Roebuck has never noticed this.  “You look bagged,” he says. “But I brought something to cheer you up.” Greenwood snaps the strap of his courier bag. All creative types below a certain age have taken to these floppy,
purse-like
items. “Maybe I should have waited?”

“Come in, Daniel. I have a pot of coffee going.”

They walk together through the house and into the kitchen at the back. When the main floor was expanded, Anne and Yasmin sourced a slab of Indonesian teak that now runs, carved and polished, like a backbone down the centre of the room. “Sit there,” says Roebuck.

“That's one hunk of timber.”

“Three and a half feet wide by twenty long, if memory serves. My wife, or I should say her partner, arranged to have it freighted out through Burma.”

“Beautiful. The whole house is beautiful.”

“She has an eye.”

“You can say that again.”

“But now she thinks the kitchen's getting tired.” Roebuck himself is feeling tired. He pours the coffee. There's an espresso machine from Italy, but he seldom bothers. “So …?”

Greenwood has unslung his pouch and removed a laptop. “It's just a
seventeen-inch
screen,” he says apologetically, “but it'll give you a rough idea.”

“Of what, roughly speaking?” Roebuck watches Greenwood's fingers dance across the keyboard. When did it happen, that people emerged from the womb, typing eighty words a minute?

“I've been working on some concepts for Drag and Clop,” Greenwood says a little shyly. “It's just a ripomatic, but I thought you'd better have a look before I take it any further.”

“But, Daniel …”

“There!” Greenwood spins the monitor so that Roebuck can observe it, free of glare.

For a second, he thinks he's watching a clip from a David Attenborough wildlife special. He looks up at Greenwood—who nods—then back at the laptop. A bull elk occupies the screen, standing in a clearing,
snow-capped
mountains marching off into the background. The animal's magnificence alone is arresting. Roebuck reaches for his coffee as the elk lowers its enormous head, tears a hunk of grass, then raises it again, jaws grinding. A forest of antlers sweeps the autumn air; muscle undulates beneath the surface of its skin; velvet ears twitch placidly. Vaguely, almost inaudibly, Roebuck discerns the sound of chewing and the muffled stamp of hoof. Then, piercingly, the calm is shattered by a bugling shriek. Instantly, the elk is transformed. The tendons of its neck inflate, its chest expands, everything about it seems suddenly intensified. Stamping, it swings its massive rack and stares hungrily toward the camera. Twin plumes of steam jet from flaring nostrils. Greenwood freezes the screen.

“Isn't that a crazy sound!” he says. “It blew me away.”

“Where did you get this?”

“Wait!” Greenwood touches a key. “Listen.”

The elk snorts. And there it is … faintly in the background: a different sound. A new sound, so low you wouldn't hear if you weren't already straining your ears.

“But that's
…”

“Look!”

The elk has arched its swollen neck. It's scanning the horizon, then it vanishes.

A lion takes its place: a huge male lion, sleeping in the swaying grass of an African savanna. Its jaw rests on a forepaw, a slight breeze ruffles the strands of its enormous mane. There's the soft, low buzz of insects; a fly lands on its golden flank, pauses, flits away. Haunches shimmer in the heat, but the lion does not stir. And then the roar. Roebuck is expecting it, but still the volume startles him. One moment the animal is asleep, inert, at peace, the next it's standing on its tiptoes, quivering as its eyes rake the grasslands, searching, searching …

“Where did …?”

“Wait!”

The lion's tongue snakes across its muzzle. And there is again … that sound—so anomalous—rhythmic like a drumbeat, but not … something else … Roebuck feels a shiver, literally, running up his own spine.

“Amazing,” he says.

“I'm thinking we can start to jack the volume here.” Greenwood kills the picture.

“There's more?”

“Not yet.”

“Where did all this come from?”

“Well, you know, it's all out there on YouTube. Though so far no usable moose, which surprised me. You'd think moose videos would be a dime a dozen, but not compared to elk.”

“This is very effective, Daniel. The elk is perfect.”

“Thanks. I'm pretty sure we'll be able to buy that clip. Fairly cheap too, if you want it.”

“Want it? Those vapour trails out the nostrils … Fantastic!”

“What I couldn't believe was the sound those guys make! They call it bugling.”

“Reminds me more of a string section, fortissimo, all sawing at once.”

“You like it … so far?

“Like is not the word!” To his surprise, Roebuck is standing, pacing up and down Anne's span of bootlegged hardwood. He doesn't remember getting to his feet. “This is far beyond the concept stage …”

“It's not like in the old days, pencil and paper and all that crap. Everybody and his mother puts stuff up on the web. You can cherry pick what you want. This didn't take me long at all.”

“Can we use it?”

“Most of it. If not, I'll download something else. Of course for the last scene we talked about—the guys at the café—that'll need to be original footage. We'll have to shoot that segment ourselves.”

“And the soundtrack? That background, your drag and clop rendition? I can't believe how
exactly
it matches the sound I had in mind.”

“That was Zhanna.”

“Our Zhanna?” Roebuck
self-corrects
. “Zhanna Lamb, I mean?”

“Walking up and down the foyer of her condo. Nice marble floor, ridiculously good acoustics. She brought six different pairs of shoes to try. The track you're listening to are the ones that sounded best.”

“But …”

“I recorded it myself, then took it over to the sound engineer. We enhanced it here and there, cleaned it up a bit …”

But Roebuck's concentration has suddenly faded. Something like this always seems to happen when Greenwood and Zhanna Lamb are brought together in his mind. “Amazing …” he says, still adjusting.

The enthusiasm seems to have leaked out of Greenwood too.

“She's leaving, you know.”

“Leaving?”

“India, Nepal, those kind of places. Backpacking!” Greenwood is shaking his head. “A year. Maybe two she says. By herself! I just can't imagine Zhanna with a backpack.”

Roebuck can. He can imagine Zhanna in anything. “The world is that girl's oyster,” he says softly. For reasons that he can't quite come to terms with, this piece of news has revived his spirits.

Not Greenwood's. “That's such a stupid expression.”

“Sorry?”

“The world is your oyster. It's disgusting.”

“That's only because you don't like oysters.”

“What makes you think I don't like oysters?”

Roebuck pulls a stool out from under Anne's teak tabletop. “I don't know,” he says. It's just that Greenwood strikes him as the kind of person who would not like oysters.

“I love oysters. And you're wrong about women, too.”

“Wrong?”

“About what women really want.”

“Oh,” says Roebuck, sighing. “Please. What do women really want?”

“What they want is to be truly
seen.
To be understood for what they really
are
…”

“Right. Sure. Beautiful and good and smart …”

“No! That's the part you're wrong about. That's what
needs
to be said! That she's beautiful and smart and good. That she's totally unique. You can't repeat that too often. It's what every woman
needs
to hear.”

“And you don't think she'll pick up the irony?”

“Irony? What are you talking about?”

“That every woman is unique?
Every
woman.”

“Women don't like irony.”

“Well, you're on to something there. Also I'll agree it's standard practice. Tell her she's beautiful and smart and good. Then say it again. Then say it again and again and again and again and then, when you think she can't possibly fail to see where you're going, say it again a half a dozen more times because you're absolutely right, most women can never hear it enough. But it gets tedious, doesn't it? I mean from our perspective? The messenger's?”

“What
are you
saying?”

“It's like a form of sexual patriotism. Like America. You tell Americans they're exceptional. You tell them they're brave and true and good. You keep on saying it. You're the best. You're the best. You're the best. Because they never get tired of it. Never. Sure, you can attach that message to your brand, and they'll wear it as proudly as they do their flag. But doesn't it get boring? Doesn't it get just, so … easy?”

“But that's our job! That's … Jesus, Julius.”

“Please don't get me wrong. I love women. Truly. But at least we can add a little nuance. If not for their sake, then for ours.”

“You are making me worried.”

“Remember that lesson you learned, back when you started, that it really
does
work? Flattery. That she really
will
believe it? It's a hard lesson—that you honestly
can
shoot fish in a barrel. I remember it with sadness.” Roebuck stoops and leans against the table. “But maybe you haven't got there yet …” he's searching Greenwood's face. “No,” he says, deciding. “Not possible. But it was depressing, wasn't it? When you realized the truth of it. That if you tell a woman what she wants to hear, she really will buy into whatever you're selling.” He draws a breath. “It's demotivating.”