The Bone Clocks (16 page)

Cheeseman is a fine misdirector—he still has ten thousand pounds from the money his grandfather left him—but I want no ruffled feathers tonight. “I’ll get the next round in,” I volunteer. “Olly, you’ll need to stay sober if you’re driving, so how about a tomato juice with Tabasco to warm the heart of your cockles? Cheeseman’s on the Guinness; Fitz, fizzy Australian wee; and Ness, your poison is … what?”

“The house red isn’t bad.” Olly wants a drunk girlfriend.

“Then a glass of red would hit the spot, Hugo,” she tells me.

I recall that quirky lilt. “Wouldn’t risk it, unless you carry a spare trachea in your handbag. It’s hardly a Château Latour.”

“An Archers with ice, then,” says Ness. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Wise choice. Mr. Penhaligon, would you help me bring these six drinks back alive? The bar will not be pretty, I fear.”

T
HE
B
URIED
B
ISHOP
’
S
a gridlocked scrum, an all-you-can-eat of youth: “Stephen Hawking and the Dalai Lama, right; they posit a unified truth”; short denim skirts, Gap and Next shirts, Kurt Cobain cardigans, black Levi’s; “Did you see that oversexed pig by the loos, undressing me with his eyes?”; that song by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl booms in my diaphragm and knees; “Like,
my
only charity shop bargains were headlice, scabies, and fleas”; a fug of hairspray, sweat and Lynx, Chanel No. 5, and smoke; well-tended teeth with zero fillings, revealed by the so-so joke—“Have you heard
the news about Schrödinger’s Cat? It died today; wait—it didn’t, did, didn’t, did …”; high-volume discourse on who’s the best Bond; on Gilmour and Waters and Syd; on hyperreality; dollar-pound parity; Sartre, Bart Simpson, Barthes’s myths; “Make mine a double”; George Michael’s stubble; “Like, music expired with the Smiths”; urbane and entitled, for the most part, my peers; their eyes, hopes, and futures all starry; fetal think-tankers, judges, and bankers
in statu pupillari;
they’re sprung from the loins of the global elite (or they damn well soon will be); power and money, like Pooh Bear and honey, stick fast—I don’t knock it, it’s me; and speaking of loins, “Has anyone told you you look like Demi Moore from
Ghost
?”; roses are red and violets are blue, I’ve a surplus of butter and Ness is warm toast.

“Hugo? You okay?” Penhaligon’s smile is uncertain.

We’re still logjammed two bodies back from the bar.

“Yeah,” I have to half shout. “Sorry, I was light-years away. While I have you to myself, Jonny, Toad asked me to invite you to his last all-nighter tomorrow, before we all jet off home. You, me, Eusebio, Bryce Clegg, Rinty, and one or two others. All cool.”

Penhaligon makes a not-sure face. “My mother’s half-expecting me back at Tredavoe tomorrow night …”

“No pressure. I’m just passing the invitation on. Toad says the ambience is classier when you’re there.”

Penhaligon sniffs the cheese. “Toad said that?”

“Yes, he said you’ve got gravitas. Rinty’s even christened you ‘the Pirate of Penzance’ because you always leave with the loot.”

Jonny Penhaligon grins. “You’ll be there too?”

“Me? God, yeah. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“You took quite a clobbering last week.”

“I never lose more than I can afford. ‘Scared money is lost money.’ You said that. Wise words for card players
and
economists.”

My partner in recreational gambling does not deny authorship of my freshly minted epigram. “I
could
drive home on Sunday …”

“Look, I won’t try to sway you one way or the other.”

He hums. “I could tell my parents I’ve a supervision …”

“Which would not be untrue—a supervision on probability theory, psychology, applied mathematics. All valid business skills, as your family will appreciate when you get the green light for the golf course at Tredavoe House. Toad’s proposing we raise the pot limit to a hundred pounds per game: a nice round figure, and quite a dollop of holiday nectar for
you
, sir, if your luck holds. Not that the Pirate of Penzance seems to need luck.”

Jonny Penhaligon admits: “I
do
seem to have a certain knack.”

I mirror his chuckle.
Who’s a pretty turkey, then?

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER
we’re bringing our drinks back to our nook to find that trouble has beaten us to it. Richard Cheeseman,
The Piccadilly Review
’s rising star, has been cornered by Come Up to the Lab, Cambridge’s premier Goth-metal trio, whose concert at the Cornmarket was acidly ridiculed in
Varsity
last month—by Richard Cheeseman. The bassist guy’s a Frankenstein, lipless and lumbering; but She-Goth One has mad-dog eyes, a sharky chin, and knuckles of spiky rings; She-Goth Two has a
Clockwork Orange
bowler hat, exploding fuchsia-pink hair, a fake diamond hatpin, and the same eyes as She-Goth One. Amphetamines, I do believe. “Never done anything yourself, have yer?” Number Two is prodding Cheeseman’s chest with jet-black fingernails to italicize key words. “Never performed live to a real audience, have yer?”

“Nor have I fucked a donkey, destabilized a Central American state, or played Dungeons & Dragons,” retorts Cheeseman, “but I reserve the right to hold opinions on those who do. Your show was a bobbing turd and I don’t take a word back.”

She-Goth One takes over: “
Scribble scribble scribble
with your faggoty pen in your faggoty notebook and
snipe
and
bitch
and
slag off
real artists, you hairy lump of dick cheese.”

“ ‘Dick Cheese,’ ” says Cheeseman, “from ‘Richard Cheeseman,’ yeah, that’s
really
clever. Original, too. Never once heard it.”

“What d’you expect,” She-Goth One snatches up
Desiccated Embryos
, “from a Crispin Hershey fan? He’s a prick, too.”

“Don’t pretend you read books.” Cheeseman gropes for his review copy in vain and I catch a distant glimpse of a tortured gay child having his satchel emptied off a sooty bridge over the Leeds–Bradford railway line. She-Goth Two rips the book down its spine and tosses the halves away. The male Goth goes
gur-hur-hur
.

Olly retrieves one half, Cheeseman the other. He’s riled now. “Crispin Hershey’s last crap has more artistic merit than your lifetime’s output. Your music’s derivative wank. It’s parasitic. It’s a hatpin through the eardrum, darling, and not in a good way.”

He was doing quite well until the last sentence, but if you bare your arse to a vengeful unicorn, the number of possible outcomes dwindles to one. By the time I’ve put the drinks on a handy shelf, She-Goth Two has indeed extracted her hatpin and flown at Monsieur Le Critic, who topples operatically; the table upends and glasses slide off; female spectators gasp and shriek and go, “Oh, my God!”; She-Goth Two pounces on the fallen one and stabs downwards; I grab the hatpin (glistening?) and Penhaligon pulls her off Cheeseman by her hair; the bassist’s fist misses Penhaligon’s nose by a whisker; Penhaligon staggers onto Olly and Ness; and She-Goth One’s screeching becomes audible to the human ear—“Get your hands
off her
!” Fitzsimmons is kneeling down, with Cheeseman’s head on his lap. Cheeseman looks like a guy in a comedy seeing stars and birdies, but the ear dribbling blood is more worrying; I examine it closely. Good: Only the lobe’s torn, but the attackers don’t need to know that. I arise and shout at Come Up to the Lab in a fisticuff-quelling roar: “A
monsoon
of piss and shit is headed straight at you for this.”

“The wanker was asking for it,” states She-Goth Two.

“He started it,” insists her friend. “He provoked us!”

“Multiple witnesses,” I indicate the scandal-hungry onlookers, “know
exactly
who was attacked by
whom
. If you think ‘verbal provocation’ is an admissible defense for grievous bodily harm, then
you’re even stupider than you look. See that hatpin there?” She-Goth Two sees the blood on the tip and drops it; two seconds later it’s in my pocket. “Lethal weapon used with intent. Got your DNA all over it. Custodial term,
four years
. Yes, girls: four years. If you’ve punctured the ear canal, make it seven, and by the time
I’ve
finished in court, seven years
will mean seven
. So. Reckon I’m bluffing?”

“Who,” the bassist’s aggression is shaky, “the fuck are you?”

I perform my craziest L. Ron Hubbard laugh. “Postgrad in law, genius. What’s more interesting is who
you
are—an
accomplice
. Do you know what that means, in nice plain English? It means you get sentenced too.”

She-Goth Two’s braggadocio is wilting. “But I …”

The bassist’s pulling her by the arm. “C’mon, Andrea.”

“Run, Andrea!” I jeer. “Melt into the crowd—oh, but wait! You’ve glued posters of your mugshots all over Cambridge, haven’t you? Well, you
are
fucked. Well and truly.” Come Up to the Lab decide it’s time to vacate the building. I yell after them, “See you at the hearing! Bring phone cards for the detention wing—you’ll need them!”

Penhaligon rights the table and Olly gathers the glasses. Fitzsimmons hauls Cheeseman onto the bench, and I ask him how many fingers I’m holding up. He winces a bit, and wipes his mouth. “It was my ear she went for, not my sodding eye.”

A very pissed-off landlord appears. “What’s going on?”

I turn on him. “Our friend was just assaulted by three drunken sixth-formers and needs medical attention. As regulars, we’d hate to see your license revoked, so at A and E Richard and Olly here will imply the assault happened
off
your premises. Unless I’ve read the situation wrongly, and you’d prefer to involve the authorities?”

The landlord susses the state of play. “Nah. ’Preciated.”

“You’re welcome. Olly: Is the Magic Astra parked nearby?”

“In the car park at the college, yes, but Ness here—”

“Um, my car’s available too,” says helpful Penhaligon.

“Jonny, you’re over the limit and your father’s a magistrate.”

“The breathalyzers’ll be out tonight,” warns the landlord.

“You’re the only sober party, Olly. And if we phone for an ambulance from Addenbrookes, the cops will come along too, and—”

“Questions, statements, and all
sorts
of how’s-yer-father,” says the landlord, “and then your college’d get involved, too.”

Olly looks at Ness, like a boy who’s lost his finger of fudge.

“Go on,” Ness tells him. “I’d join you, but the sight of blood …” She makes a
yuck
face. “Help your friend.”

“I’m supposed to be driving you to Greenwich tonight.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll get home by train—I’m a big girl, remember? Call me on Sunday and we’ll talk Christmas plans, okay? Go.”

M
Y RADIO ALARM
is glowing 01:08 when I hear footsteps on the stairs, the pause, the timid
tap-tap-tap
on my outer door. I put on my dressing gown, close my bedroom door, cross my parlor, and open up, leaving the chain on. I squint out: “Olly? Wassa time?”

Olly looks Caravaggian in the dim light. “Half twelve-ish.”

“Shit. Poor you. How’s the bearded one?”

“If he survives the self-pity, he’ll be fine. Antitetanus booster and a glorified Elastoplast. A and E was the Night of the Living Dead. I only just dropped Cheeseman off at his flat. Did Ness get to the station?”

“For sure. Penhaligon and I escorted her to the taxi rank at Drummer Street, Friday night being Friday night. Fitz met Chetwynd-Pitt and Yasmina after you left and went off clubbing. Then, once Ness was safely off, Penhaligon followed on. I wussed out, spent a sexy hour here with I.F.R. Coates’s
Bushonomics and the New Monetarism
, then called it a night. Look, I’d”—I do a whale-sized yawn—“invite you in, but I’m bushed.”

“She didn’t …” Olly thinks, and Connect 4 counters drop, “… stick around for a drink or—or anything? At the Buried Bishop?”

“I.F.R. Coates is a
bloke
, Olly. He teaches at Blithewood College in upstate New York.”

“I meant,” how Olly aches to believe me, “Ness, actually.”

“
Ness?
Ness just wanted to get to Greenwich.” I’m mildly hurt; Olly ought to trust me not to hit on his girlfriend. “She’d have made the nine fifty-seven to King’s Cross, thence to Greenwich, where she’s no doubt tucked up and dreaming of Olly Quinn, Esquire. Lovely girl, by the way, from the little I saw of her. Obviously besotted with you, too.”

“You reckon? This week she’s been a bit, I don’t know, ratty. I’ve been half afraid she might be …”

I continue to act dumb. Olly lets his sentence fizzle out.

“What?” I say. “Thinking of dumping you? Hardly the impression I got. When these huntin’, shootin’, fishin’ types
really
fall for a guy they go all headmistressy to hide it. But don’t discount the more obvious cause of female crankiness, either; Lucille used to turn into a scorn-flobbing psychopath every twenty-eight days.”

Olly looks cheerful. “Well. Yeah. Maybe.”

“You’ll be meeting up over Christmas, right?”

“The idea was to sort out our plans tonight.”

“Too bad our Richard needed a Good Samaritan. Mind you, the way you took charge of things back at the pub impressed her to pieces. She said it showed how self-possessed you are when a crisis strikes.”

“She said that? Actually said it?”

“Pretty much verbatim, yes. At the taxi rank.”

Olly’s glowing; if he was six inches tall and fluffy, Toys R Us would ship him by the thousands.

“Olly, mate, I’ll bid thee a fair repose.”

“Sorry, Hugo, sure. Thanks. G’night.”

B
ACK IN MY
bed of woman-smelling warmth, Ness hooks a leg across my thighs: “ ‘Headmistressy’? I should kick you out of bed now.”

“Try it.” I run my hands over her pleasing contours. “You’d better leave at the crack of dawn. I sent you to Greenwich just now.”

“That’s hours away, yet. Anything could happen.”

I draw twirls around her navel with my finger, but I find myself thinking about Immaculée Constantin. I didn’t mention her to the boys earlier; turning her into an anecdote felt unwise. Not unwise: prohibited. When I zoned out on her, she must have thought … What? That I’d entered a sort of seated coma, and left me to it. Pity.