Natural History (19 page)

14

FROM A LETTER TO JO

Today I was speaking to a teacher at the American school and of course I mentioned you, the way I mention you to everybody. And he was very excited because of your comet; he told me it would be brightest on April Fool's Day and I told him how much you would appreciate that—and that you'd be out there, watching it.

Clive summoned Charlie downstairs to the laundry. This time of night, it was the most silent room in the silent hotel—windowless­, underground. Clive leaned against the wall and leered, a great wet split across his circular head.

‘This hotel is not your personal messaging service. Tell your bird to call you on your own time.'

‘What bird?'

‘I don't know what bird. The bird who keeps calling.'

‘When did she call?'

‘Half a dozen times.'

‘What did she say?'

‘Not much. Left a message for you to call her.'

‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘I told you. We're not your personal messaging service.'

‘For fuck's sake, Clive.'

‘Hotel policy.'

‘Since when?'

‘Since I said so.'

The leer widened. Charlie thought about stuffing Clive's head into the great, rolling dryer they used for the bedding. See how wide and flat the leer could get.

Charlie said, ‘Fair enough,' and Clive regally inclined his head to indicate the basement audience was over.

Upstairs, still shaking, Charlie went through the guest's register. He took Chris's number from it.

Once, her details had contained magic, a certain voodoo potency. He had visited them often, just to look, and think about calling her. But now they were dismally pragmatic, grave words and figures on a green-screen monitor.

He went to his room and called her mobile. He paced the room; up and down the narrow strip of carpet between the end of his single bed, the entertainment unit and the trouser press.

She answered on the sixth ring. She'd been digging around her bag, looking for the phone.

She said, ‘Chris McNeil,' in case it was a client calling.

‘It's me.'

‘Is that you, Melanie?'

‘It's
me.
'

She paused. There was noise behind her—a song, people's loud voices. She was in a bar. Or at a party. Three buttons undone, a fine silver necklace that glinted in the tender scoop between her clavicles. She was drinking a gin and tonic.

‘Charlie?'

He listened to the background noise, and wondered who she was with.

He said, ‘Well. You sound all right.'

In the background, someone laughed. The line rustled like a paper bag as she pressed the phone closer to her ear and headed away from the noise, turning her back, but it was too late—he'd heard it.

‘Say that again. Sorry.'

‘I said,
You sound all right.'

She'd left the loud room. And now it was quiet on the line.

‘What do you want me to say?'

‘Nothing. I don't want you to say anything. I want you to stop phoning.'

‘I just wanted to know you were okay.'

‘I'm fine. Stop calling. Just leave me alone.'

He heard her lighting a cigarette. Exhaling.

She said, ‘Fine.'

He waited for words to puke up into his throat; something vicious. But there was nothing. So he hung up, and then he went to the bathroom. And after cleaning his teeth, he got himself a glass of Coke from the minibar, and went back on duty at the main desk.

He sat there all night, now and again taking a sandwich or a bottle of wine to one of the old and ugly couples fucking in one of the cheap rooms it was his duty to protect and serve—like someone condemned for a sin he had certainly committed, and never repented, but had now forgotten.

Patrick was reading in front of the open fire when the phone rang. He slouched into the kitchen to find the handset.

‘Hello?'

‘Patrick?'

‘Yeah?'

‘It's Richard, mate. How's it going?'

‘I'm good, I'm good.'

Patrick moved his lips and tongue in a silent, vile curse. He looked urgently around the kitchen, as if for an escape route. There was none, so he sat heavily in a kitchen chair and put his elbows on the table. The kitchen was cold and draughty and the windows were black.

Richard said, ‘Just wondering if you'd heard from her?'

‘Jane? A couple of letters. You?'

‘Not a sausage. But we didn't part on the best of terms.'

‘She hasn't mentioned.'

Patrick felt sorry for him; that was the worst of it.

He said, ‘You were okay though, you two? It's not like this is going to cause, like, longterm problems?'

‘No, no. Not much chance of that. The problem is …'

‘What?'

‘The show—the Monkeyland show. There's nothing we can do with it—not while she's out there, in a frigging
war
zone. We can edit; we've put together the first few, and it looks good. It's a good show. But it's lost its slot. We can't show it. Not when we don't know if—when she's coming back.'

‘She's coming back.'

‘I know. Of course she's coming back. Of course she is. But when? That's the problem.'

‘When she's ready.'

Richard made a noise on the line. Patrick didn't know what sort of noise it was.

‘And you don't, I suppose—you really don't have any idea? When that might be. I suppose.'

‘Your guess is as good as mine, mate.'

‘Well. Okay. Look, keep in touch. Keep me up to date. I'll send you some tapes.'

‘Will do. Thanks.'

‘No problem. Cheers.'

‘Cheers.'

Patrick hung up and said, ‘Fucking prick.'

Then he walked to the living room and lay on the sofa and opened
The Count of Monte Cristo.
But he couldn't concentrate on the words. His eyes moved over them, and saw nothing.

In the heat of the wood fire, he fell asleep, and dreamed of Jane.

Charlie pulled a woman on a hen-night.
Woman!
She was a girl, really—about his age. And she was shit-faced drunk, and he wasn't even sure if he pulled her, or she pulled him, or if the group of screeching women at the table had pimped them to each other. The girl sneaked back to his room and stumbled as she kicked off her shoes, and she left the door open when she went for a piss, and when she came back he grabbed the hem of her skirt and hiked it round her hips and they were kissing and they fell back on the bed and he helped her wriggle from her knickers and he went down on her, buried his face in her, and she squirmed and hissed and tugged at his hair, and she grabbed at his shoulders and pulled him up and he kissed her, her tongue slathered round his mouth and she fumbled at his buttons and he pushed her away but she moved back, and she pulled down his zip, and her fingertips snaked inside his underwear and she cupped him, and she groaned when she found the cold putty of his flaccid penis and he whispered give me a minute and she gave him a minute, but a minute wasn't enough and neither was two minutes or three minutes and he could feel the sex leaving the room like a presence, like a third person who had been watching, and he tried to go down on her again, murmuring an apology, faking hunger, making hungry noises, but she closed her thighs and pushed him away and she stood and hunted for her knickers and stuffed them in her handbag and slipped her feet into her shoes; she didn't know what to say and he sat on the edge of the bed with his flies undone and his shirt untucked and his feet bare and cold on the hotel carpet. And he said sorry and she said don't worry about it (but that was not what she meant) and he had nothing more to say, there were no words and she left.

28 March.

Jo arrived at Nately's cottage and knocked on the door.

At length, Nately shuffled to the door like a pensioner—like the old man who was supposed to live here. He was unshaven, in pyjamas and dressing-gown and carpet slippers. Jo had never seen him unshaven before; let alone in pyjamas. And he smelled sour and yellow, like vegetables left to spoil in a basement.

‘Sir? Are you okay?'

He squinted and whispered, ‘Migraine.'

She phoned Patrick. He wasn't answering his mobile—he never did—so she left a message with Mrs de Frietas. Five minutes later, Patrick called back and promised to come and get her, right away.

Mr Nately's head hurt too much; he shambled upstairs to lie down in darkness. Jo made him a cup of cocoa and carried it to his room.

He was lying down with the curtains closed and a pillow pressed over his eyes.

She said, ‘Get some sleep,' and she walked backwards and closed the door, and went downstairs and waited for Patrick to arrive.

And then the gate squeaked open and Patrick appeared, in his parka and boots, his greying shaggy hair, far too long, and his unravelling woolly gloves, and for some reason she wanted to cry.

She opened the door to him.

‘How is he?'

‘Sleeping.'

‘Okay. What do you want to do? Go home, watch some TV? Come to work with me?'

‘Come to work.'

‘Cool. Get your coat.'

Jo watched him go upstairs. And she waited at the foot of the stairs, by the rotary dial telephone, in her coat, with the hood up.

Patrick had climbed these steps once before. Now he hesitated at the bedroom door.

‘John?'

‘Come in.'

Nately was lying with a pillow pressed to his eyes. Patrick approached him like a burglar.

‘You okay, mate?'

‘Fine. A bit below par. Sorry.'

Patrick nodded, slowly. The room seemed very cold to him. He glanced at the curtains, drawn against the morning. Touched the cold, dusty radiator.

‘Can I get you anything? Lemsip? Some fruit?'

‘No. Thank you. Really.'

‘So you're okay?'

‘Yes.'

‘You're not having—trouble? Sleeping?'

Nately shook his head—once, very slowly.

‘Okay. Well. Look after yourself. If you need anything—you know what to do.'

‘Thank you. I will. I'll call.'

Jo sat at Patrick's desk and opened his newspaper.

Patrick leaned over her, closing his pirate novel to reveal the wages spreadsheet he was supposed to be working on. He went to make tea. Jo made a weird noise. He turned, a dry teabag pincered in each hand. ‘What?'

She nodded at the newspaper.

Patrick had already read the paper. He'd seen this story and rolled his eyes and tutted, and he'd turned the page, seeking out news of Zaire. Five days ago, American troops had arrived in the country. Patrick hadn't heard from Jane for a long time.

So he'd given no attention to this silly, sad, pre-millennial farce. Now he said, ‘I know,' and rolled his eyes again, to show how silly it all was, and how sad, and he clicked his tongue.

Jo said, ‘Dad.'

And Patrick put down the tea bags and came and took the paper from her.

In a rented mansion in San Diego, thirty-nine corpses had been discovered. They belonged to members of the Heaven's Gate cult: they had committed suicide by drinking phenobarbital mixed with vodka, then had plastic bags secured to their heads. The bodies had been lain out on bunk beds, neat as you like—then covered with blankets, from the lower end of which protruded box-fresh Nikes. Women and men had shaved their heads. Some time before, most of the men had castrated themselves.

Patrick thought of Nately, lying down in that chilly, darkened room, with a pillow pressed to his eyes.

Each of the Heaven's Gate pilgrims had packed a suitcase for their trip aboard the Hale Bopp comet. Among the dead was Thomas Nichols. He was the brother of Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura in
Star Trek.
The one with the communicator in her ear.

The night before, Patrick had an urge to call Jane, care of the Internationale. But he couldn't get through. There was noise on the line, and mysterious clicking, and what sounded like the echo of a distant phone, ringing in some unglimpsed room. So he put down the receiver.

Now he looked at Jo, swivelling in his ratty old office chair.

He said, ‘Let's go and look at the capuchins.'

She gave him a strange look.

‘Come on. They're great. They're
evil.
'

So they left the office together, and followed the double loop of Monkeyland's main path—past the A Compound, past the Bachelor Group; peaceful now, but sullen with the recall of past violence, and the contrivance of violence to come.

Jo slipped her hand into Patrick's, as she'd not done for a very long time. And, cuddled up together against the cold, they sat on a bench, next to a rubbish bin, and watched the capuchins.

Richard addressed the box of video cassettes to Patrick at Monkeyland, but Patrick waited until he was home and Jo had gone to bed, before opening it.

He dumped the box on the kitchen table and opened the tool drawer—cluttered with rusty secateurs, blunt scissors, old hammers and chisels, assorted, mismatched screwdrivers, ends of wire and string, a dented yellow can of lighter fuel of unknown provenance—and took out a carpet knife. He unzipped the box with it (he thought of Rue, on the slab, unzipped from throat to pubis) and removed the uppermost cassette. He went into the living room and opened a bottle of whisky and put the tape into the old player.

And there they were. All of them. The apes, the capuchins, his family. Jo and Charlie and Jane.

There was Charlie with Rue, trying to talk as she groomed him: Charlie gently slapping away her insistent hand—then allowing the old matriarch to embrace him.

And there was Jo, talking about smelly chimps. And there was Patrick, talking to Meredith, as the new jungle gyms were erected.

And there was Patrick again, in his muddy jeans and frayed sweaters, drinking tea and brushing the greying fringe from his eyes.