The Bone Clocks (31 page)

Mum used to call me a gannet; and as a journalist I’ve been called a vulture, a dung beetle, a shit snake; a girl I once knew called me her dog, but not in a social context. “A mole.”

“Why?”

“They’re good at burrowing into dark places.”

“Why d’you want to burrow into dark places?”

“To discover things. But moles are good at something else, too.” My hand rises like a possessed claw.
“Tickling.”

But Aoife tilts her head to one side like a scale model of Holly. “If you tickle me I’ll wet myself and then you’ll have to wash my pants.”

“Okay.” I act contrite. “Moles don’t tickle.”

“I should think so too.” How she says that makes me afraid Aoife’s childhood’s a book I’m flicking through instead of reading properly.

Behind the arcade, seagulls are squabbling over chips spilling from a ripped-open bag. Big bastards, these birds. A row of stalls, booths, and shops runs down the middle of the pier. I can’t help but notice the woman walking towards us, because everything around her shifts out of focus. She’s around my age, give or take, and tall for a woman though not stand-outishly so. Her hair is white-gold in the sun, her velvet suit is the dark green of moss on graves, and her bottle-blue sunglasses will be fashionable some decades from now. I put on my own sunglasses. She compels attention. She compels. She’s way out of my class, she’s way out of anybody’s class, and I feel grubby and disloyal to Holly, but look at her, Jesus Christ,
look
at her—graceful, lithe, knowing, and light bends around her. “Edmund Brubeck,” say her wine-red lips. “As I live and breathe, it’s you, isn’t it?”

I’ve stopped in my tracks. You don’t forget beauty like this. How on earth does she know me, and why don’t I remember? I take off my sunglasses now and say, “Hi!,” hoping that I sound confident, hoping to buy time for clues to emerge. Not a native English accent. European. French? Bendier than German, but not Italian. No journalist looks this semidivine. An actress or model I interviewed, years ago? Someone’s trophy wife from a more recent party? A friend of Sharon’s in Brighton for the wedding? God, this is embarrassing.

She’s still smiling. “I have you at a disadvantage, don’t I?”

Am I blushing? “You have to forgive me, I—I’m …”

“I’m Immaculée Constantin, a friend of Holly’s.”

“Oh,” I bluster, “Immaculée—yes, of course!” Do I half-know that name from somewhere? I shake her hand and perform an awkward cheek-to-cheek kiss. Her skin’s as smooth as marble but cooler than sun-warmed skin. “Forgive me, I … I just got back from Iraq yesterday and my brain’s frazzled.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” says Immaculée Constantin, whoever
the hell she is. “So many faces, so many faces. One must lose a few old ones to make space for the new. I knew Holly as a girl in Gravesend, although I left town when she was eight years old. It’s curious how the two of us keep bumping into each other, every now and then. As if the universe long ago decided we’re connected. And
this
young lady,” she gets down on one knee to look eye-to-eye at my daughter, “must be Aoife. Am I correct?”

Wide-eyed Aoife nods. Dora the Explorer sways and turns.

“And how old are you now, Aoife Brubeck? Seven? Eight?”

“I’m six,” says Aoife. “My birthday’s on December the first.”

“How grown up you look! December the first? My, my.” Immaculée Constantin recites in a secretive, musical voice: “ ‘A cold coming we had of it, just the worst time of the year for a journey, and such a journey: the ways deep and the weather sharp, the very dead of winter.’ ”

Holidaymakers pass us by like they’re ghosts, or we are.

Aoife says, “There’s not a cloud in the sky today.”

Immaculée Constantin stares at her. “How right you are, Aoife Brubeck. Tell me. Do you take after your mummy most, do you think, or your daddy?”

Aoife sucks in her lip and looks up at me.

Waves slap and echo below us and a Dire Straits song snakes over from the arcade. “Tunnel of Love” it’s called; I loved it when I was a kid. “Well, I like purple best,” says Aoife, “and Mummy likes purple. But Daddy reads magazines all the time, whenever he’s home, and I read a lot too. Specially
I Love Animals
. If you could be any animal, what would you be?”

“A phoenix,” murmurs Immaculée Constantin. “Or
the
phoenix, in truth. How about an invisible eye, Aoife Brubeck? Do you have one of those? Would you let me check?”

“Mummy has blue eyes,” says Aoife, “but Daddy’s are chestnut brown and mine are chestnut brown, too.”

“Oh, not
those
eyes”—now the woman removes her strange blue sunglasses. “I mean your special, invisible eye, just … here.” She rests her fingers on Aoife’s right temple and strokes her forehead
with her thumb, and deep in my liver or somewhere I know something’s weird, something’s wrong, but it’s drowned out when Immaculée Constantin smiles up at me with her heart-walloping beauty. She studies a space above my eyes, then turns back to Aoife’s, and frowns. “No,” she says, and purses her painterly lips. “A pity. Your uncle’s invisible eye was magnificent, and your mother’s was enchanting, too, before it was sealed shut by a wicked magician.”

“What’s an invisible eye?” asks Aoife.

“Oh, that hardly matters.” She stands up.

I ask, “Are you here for Sharon’s wedding?”

She replaces her sunglasses. “I’m finished here.”

“But … You’re a friend of Holly’s, right? Aren’t you even going to …” But as I look at her, I forget whatever it was I meant to ask.

“Have a heavenly day.” She walks towards the arcade.

Aoife and I watch her shrink as she moves further away.

My daughter asks, “Who was that lady, Daddy?”

S
O
I
ASK
my daughter, “Who was what lady, darling?”

Aoife blinks up at me. “What lady, Daddy?”

We look at each other, and I’ve forgotten something.

Wallet, phone; Aoife; Sharon’s wedding; Brighton Pier.

Nope. I haven’t forgotten anything. We walk on.

A boy and girl are snogging, like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. “That’s
gross!
” declares Aoife, and they hear, and glance down, before resuming their tonsil-tickling.
Yeah
, I tell the boy telepathically,
enjoy the cherries and cream because twenty years on from now nothing tastes as good
. He ignores me. Up ahead, a picture spray-painted on a rolled-down metal shutter captures Aoife’s attention: a Merlinesque face with a white beard and spiral eyes in a halo of Tarot cards, crystals, and stardust. Aoife reads the name: “D-wiggert?”

“Dwight.”

“ ‘Dwight … Silverwind. For-tune … Teller.’ What’s that?”

“Someone who claims to be able to read the future.”

“
Class!
Let’s go inside and see him, Daddy.”

“Why would you want to see a fortune-teller?”

“To know if I’ll open my animal-rescue center.”

“What happened to being a dancer like Angelina Ballerina?”

“That was
ages
ago, Daddy, when I was little.”

“Oh. Well, no. We won’t be visiting Mr. Silverwind.”

One, two, three—and here’s the Sykes scowl: “Why not?”

“First, he’s closed. Second, I’m sorry to say that fortune-tellers can’t really tell the future. They just fib about it. They—”

The shutter is rattled up by a less flattering version of the Merlin on the shutter. This Merlin looks shat out by a hippo, and is dressed up in prog-rock chic: a lilac shirt, red jeans, and a waistcoat encrusted with gems as fake as its wearer.

Aoife, however, is awestruck. “Mr. Silverwind?”

He frowns and looks around before looking down. “I am he. And you are who, young lady?”

A Yank. Of bloody course. “Aoife Brubeck,” says Aoife.

“Aoife Brubeck. You’re up and about very early.”

“It’s my aunty Sharon’s wedding today. I’m a bridesmaid.”

“May you have an altogether sublime day. And this gentleman would be your father, I presume?”

“Yes,” says Aoife. “He’s a reporter in Bad Dad.”

“I’m sure Daddy tries to be good, Aoife Brubeck.”

“She means Baghdad,” I tell the joker.

“Then Daddy must be very … brave.” He looks at me. I stare back. I don’t like his way of talking and I don’t like him.

Aoife asks, “Can you
really
see the future, Mr. Silverwind?”

“I wouldn’t be much of a fortune-teller if I couldn’t.”

“Can you tell
my
future? Please?”

Enough of this. “Mr. Silverwind is busy, Aoife.”

“No, he isn’t, Daddy. He hasn’t got one customer even!”

“I usually ask for a donation of ten pounds for a reading,” says the old fraud, “but, off-peak, to
special
young ladies, five would suffice.
Or
”—Dwight Silverwind reaches to a shelf behind him and produces a pair of books—“Daddy could purchase one of my books,
either
The Infinite Tether
or
Today Will Happen Only Once
for the special rate of fifteen pounds each, or twenty pounds for both, and receive a complimentary reading.”

Daddy would like to kick Mr. Silverwind in his crystal balls. “We’ll pass on your generosity,” I tell him. “Thanks.”

“I’m open until sunset, if you change your mind.”

I tug at my daughter’s hand to tell her we’re moving on, but she flares up: “It’s not
fair
, Daddy! I want to know my
future
!”

Just bloody great. If I take back a tearful Aoife, Holly’ll be insufferable. “Come on—Aunty Sharon’s hairdresser will be waiting.”

“Oh dear.” Silverwind retreats into his booth. “I foresee trouble.” He shuts a door marked
THE SANCTUM
behind him.

“
No
body knows the future, Aoife. These”—I aim this at the Sanctum—“
liars
tell you whatever they think you want to hear.”

Aoife turns darker, redder, and shakier. “No!”

My own temper now wakes up. “No what?”

“No no no no no no no no no no.”

“Aoife! Nobody knows the future. That’s why it’s the future!”

My daughter turns red, shaky, and screeches:
“Kurde!”

I’m about to flame her for bad language—but did my daughter just call me a Kurd?
“What?”

“Aggie says it when she’s cross but Aggie’s a
million
times nicer than
you
and at least she’s there! You’re never even home!” She storms off back down the pier on her own. Okay, a mild Polish swearword, a mature dollop of emotional blackmail, picked up perhaps from Holly. I follow. “Aoife! Come back!”

Aoife turns, tugs the balloon string off and threatens to let it go.

“Go ahead.” I know how to handle Aoife. “But be warned, if you let go, I’ll
never
buy you a balloon again.”

Aoife twists her face up into a goblin’s and—to my surprise, and hurt—lets the balloon go. Off it flies, silver against blue, while Aoife dissolves into cascading sobs. “I
hate
you—I
hate
Dora the Explorer—I wish you were back—back in Bad Dad—forever and
ever
! I
hate
you I
hate
you I
hate
you I
hate your guts
!”

Then Aoife’s eyes shut tight and her six-year-old lungs fill up.

Half of Sussex hears her shaken, sobbing scream.

Get me out of here. Anywhere.

Anywhere’s fine.

N
ASSER DROPPED ME
near the Assassin’s Gate, but not too near; you never know who’s watching who’s giving lifts to foreigners, and the guards at the gate have the jumpiest trigger fingers, the poor bastards. “I’ll call you after the press conference,” I told Nasser, “or if the network’s down, just meet me here at eleven-thirty.”

“Perfect, Ed,” replied my fixer. “I get Aziz. Tell Klimt, all Iraqis love him. Seriously. We build big statue with big fat cock pointing to Washington.” I slapped the roof and Nasser drove off. Then I walked the fifty meters to the gate, past the lumps of concrete placed in a slalom arrangement, past the crater from January’s bomb, still visible; half a ton of plastic explosives, topped with a smattering of artillery shells, killing twenty and maiming sixty. Olive used five of Aziz’s photos, and the
Washington Post
paid him a reprint fee.

The queue for the Assassin’s Gate wasn’t too bad last Saturday; about fifty Iraqi staffers, ancillary workers, and preinvasion residents of the Green Zone were ahead of me, lining up to one side of the garish arch, topped by a large sandstone breast with an aroused nipple. An East Asian guy was ahead of me, so I struck up a conversation. Mr. Li, thirty-eight, was running one of the Chinese restaurants inside the zone—no Iraqi is allowed near the kitchens for fear of a mass poisoning. Li was returning from a meeting with a rice wholesaler, but when he found out my trade his English mysteriously worsened and my hopes for a “From Kowloon to Baghdad” story evaporated. So I turned my thoughts to the logistics of the day ahead until it was my turn to be ushered into the tunnel of dusty canvas and razor wire. “Blast Zone” security has been neo-liberalized, and the affable ex-Gurkhas who used to man Checkpoint One have been undercut by an agency recruiting Peruvian ex-cops, who are willing to risk their lives for four hundred dollars a month. I showed my press ID and British passport, got patted
down, and had my two Dictaphones inspected by a captain with an epidermal complaint who left flakes of his skin on them.

Repeat the above three times at Checkpoints Two through Four and you find yourself inside the Emerald City—as the Green Zone has inevitably come to be known, a ten-square-kilometer fortress maintained by the U.S. Army and its contractors to keep out the reality of postinvasion Iraq and preserve the illusion of a kind of Tampa, Florida, in the Middle East. Barring the odd mortar round, the illusion is maintained, albeit it at a galactic cost to the U.S. taxpayer. Black GM Suburbans cruise at the thirty-five miles per hour speed limit on the smooth roads; electricity and gasoline flow 24/7; ice-cold Bud is served by bartenders from Mumbai who rename themselves Sam, Scooter, and Moe for the benefit of their clientele; the Filipino-run supermarket sells Mountain Dew, Skittles, and Cheetos.