The Ecliptic (13 page)

Sliding the door open again, I parted the clothes on the rail, exposing his pale young body. He did not move. His face was as reposed as I had ever seen it: the eyelids softly clinched, the
mouth agape. His stout-ribbed chest was smeared with bluish finger-tracks, a kind of luminescent war paint that also streaked his thighs and shins and forearms. I tried to respect his modesty as
best as I could, but his awkward position in the closet made it impossible, and I caught a full glimpse of what he had. He was not as puny as the withered models I had drawn at art school, and
differently built from the men I had gone to bed with, all of whom were circumcised.

I wrapped him in the blanket, bringing it around one shoulder like a toga, clamping it with a bulldog clip. This buffeted him a fair amount against the wall, but he did not even stir. I switched
on all the studio lights and called his name; it made no difference. The only thing to do, it seemed, was douse him a little.

He did not wake up in a jolt, as I thought he might. Instead, he winced and blinked and spat, regaining his awareness gradually. He saw me standing there with the empty jug. ‘Oh
shit—again?’ he said, and huffed the water from his face, pulling the blanket tight around his frame. There was a weariness to his eyes then, a sinking realisation. I had soaked him too
well to be certain of it, but I thought he was about to cry. ‘How long?’ he asked.

‘Excuse me?’

‘How long’ve I been here?’

I got the impression he was used to waking up like this, in strange places, in other people’s homes. ‘At least since dinnertime,’ I said. ‘You’ve had a busy night,
by all accounts.’

He nodded dolefully.

‘Why don’t you come out of there? I’ll make you some tea.’

‘I’m really sorry about this.’ He checked the coverage of the blanket. The hem of it just about reached his knees. ‘I don’t know how I got in, but if I broke
anything, I’ll fix it, I swear.’

‘My fault. The door was unlocked.’

‘No, I mean it, Knell. I’m sorry you’ve got to deal with me like this.’ His voice was meek and hoarse. ‘Could you get me a towel?’

‘There’s a stack of clean ones above your head. On the shelf, there.’

He edged forwards, stretching.

I went to light my stove and put on the electric kettle. ‘I’m not sure how much you remember,’ I called to him from the sink, ‘but you left the mansion in a bit of a
state. Ender’s having to replace the curtains. Hard to get
ayran
out of velvet.’

The boy stepped out of the closet, hair all spiked and tousled. ‘Damage tends to follow me around these days.’ He stood under the harsh fluorescent lights, sniffing his arms.
‘You have mushrooms growing in your cupboard, by the way. Looks like I got most of them.’

‘Is that so?’ The kindling in the stove began to smoulder. ‘It might be getting damp in there. I’ll get Ardak to check.’

‘Doesn’t smell too bad, actually. I’ve covered myself in worse.’ He looked back at the sludge he had left in the closet. ‘Still, I feel bad about the mess. And
for—you know.’ He cleared his throat drily. ‘Thanks for the blanket.’

‘Should I expect to find your clothes somewhere?’

‘Probably.’

‘I’ll keep an eye out.’

The boy did not respond. He came closer to the stove. His arms were crossed now, his shoulders goose-fleshed.

‘We saw you on the landing, Mac and I. You seemed to hear us to begin with, but then you ran off. You kept asking us how to get out.’

‘I’m sorry about that.’

‘I know you are. It’s fine, but—out of where?’

Very slowly, the boy lowered himself to kneel beside the stove. ‘I sort of get trapped in my own head.’ These words came out in such a freighted tone that his jaw hung slack for a
moment after. He warmed his hands by the vents, staring up at me. ‘I’m no good at explaining it,’ he went on, ‘but have you ever been to one of those really giant hotels
they have in America? The New York Hilton or somewhere like that. Thousands of locked rooms that all look the same, all those corridors and stairways and lifts going up and down and up
and—ugh! Just the scale of it, right? My dad used to take me to places like that. How the hell do they even build them?’ His eyes went fat with the thought. ‘Now picture that same
hotel, but empty. With the lifts all broken and nobody around to fix them and no way of knowing which staircase takes you where. That’s what my head is like most of the time.’

‘Well, Mac’s convinced you’re on drugs,’ I said. ‘Can’t say I blame her.’

He seemed amused by this, but did not answer.

‘Please tell me you aren’t involved in all that.’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, raking a centre parting in his hair. ‘Did it look like I was having any fun to you?’

‘No.’

‘There’s your answer, then. Who wants to take a drug that makes them miserable?’ His legs were folded now and he was rubbing at his feet. ‘Honestly, I’ve been
wandering in my sleep since I was a little kid. Our next-door neighbours would find me in their basement when I was eight or nine. Sometimes, I’d make it all the way to Hampstead on my bike.
Even crawled into a skip once—nearly got crushed by a load of skirting-boards. I see the insides of a lot of cupboards, that’s for sure.’

‘And are you always in the nude?’ I said.

The boy gave his customary snicker. ‘That’s kind of a recent development. At least I don’t wet myself any more, eh?’ As he surveyed the room, he must have noticed my
workbench, the muller and slab, the canvas swatches that lay in wait for me. ‘I interrupted your work, didn’t I? I’m sorry. I should go.’

‘Stop apologising.’

He moved to get up.

‘Sit down. We’re having tea. I’ll paint later.’ There was no use in telling him that the mushrooms he had trampled in the closet
were
my work, or that his roving
feet had set my progress back several days.

‘Thanks for this, Knell. For not being—’ He trailed off. ‘You know what I mean. People get angry. They start looking at you funny. They think you can control it, so they
end up resenting you. Don’t mean to, I suppose, but that’s what always happens . . . I had a doctor who said I should tie myself to the bedpost at night. I asked him if he’d chain
his own kids up while they were sleeping. He looked at me like I was mad. Anyway, I gave it a try, just to see what happened. Made everything ten times worse. It’s not like I
went
anywhere, obviously, but the dreams got more and more intense and I nearly broke my ankles. So that just shows you what doctors know about anything.’

The kettle clicked off. ‘What sort of thing do you get up to, then, inside that head of yours?’

‘I’m always trying to find my way out, to wake myself up. But it’s impossible. Sometimes I’ll imagine a new room I’ve never been in before. Sometimes I’ll
hear a voice or music in the distance and try to follow that. I’ll find some old film playing on mute, or dream up a whole library and sit there, flicking through the books, hoping there
might be an instruction to help me escape, a map or something. It’s like, every time I go to sleep, I get moved back to the first square on the board—does that make sense? And a few
moves in, I realise I’ve played this game before, you know? I recognise those ladders, and all those snakes look familiar. But the game never finishes.’

It sounded like absolute hell, and I told him so.

‘Yeah, but it has its good points, too.’ He mused on this for a moment. ‘You’re going to think it’s weird how much I talk about my granddad, but, for some reason,
he’s been on my mind a lot since I’ve been here. I used to stay with him on weekends when my parents were away. He had a gammy foot, so he couldn’t walk far, and he hardly left
the flat. So we used to just stay in and listen to records. Always the same ones. Old ragtime bands, comedy programmes, silly songs, “The Laughing Policeman”, stuff like that. His taste
was quite narrow. We’d sit there listening to the same records over and over again. I got so bored of them, but there was nothing else to do. He hated modern radio, and he didn’t have a
garden, and I wasn’t allowed to go out on my own. He loved the comfort of it, hearing the same old stuff every day. So I had to sit there with him, listening to it all, pretending to enjoy
it. I couldn’t wait for my mum to get back and take me home. But then, once it got to the middle of the week, and I was stuck on my own at school again, I’d start wishing I was with my
granddad. All those hours I must have spent with him—sitting there, hearing those same records all day—I wouldn’t swap them for anything. They made me who I am today. And I
suppose I feel the same way now, about my dreams.’

‘It must be hard to go to sleep, though,’ I said. ‘Knowing what might happen.’

He shrugged. ‘Feels harder to wake up, believe me.’

The old tea leaves still had some life in them. I swirled the hot water around in the pot. He watched me with slatted eyes. ‘It’ll be weak, but that’s how I like it. I can let
it steep, if you prefer.’

‘No, weak is fine.’

I rinsed two cups and poured the tea. It was almost colourless. The boy examined it, took a sip and cringed. ‘Woah, you weren’t joking.’

‘My mother’s fault. We had to reuse all the tea leaves in our house. Wartime mentality—or maybe just a Scottish one. Now I can’t drink it any other way.’

‘You don’t have much of an accent.’

‘Everything gets softer as you get older. Trust me.’

He almost laughed.

‘I’m not sure they’d take me back in Clydebank now. It’s still in my blood, but I just don’t feel part of it any more. And I’ve never really been drawn to
painting it—not like London. It doesn’t fascinate me in that way.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen your work. I know.’

It was uttered so bluntly that it caught me unawares, and all I could do was waft my hand, as though to cleave the very suggestion from the air. ‘Come on now, I thought we were having a
nice conversation.’

The boy dipped his head. ‘I only said that because—’ He thought better of it, gulping. Then he got another burst of courage. ‘I can’t help it if I know who you are.
Your stuff was up in the Tate—’

‘Please. Let’s not do this.’

‘I had to copy it once, on a school trip. The teacher made us buy the postcard.’

‘Shush, shush, enough now. You’re making things worse. Please, let’s change the subject.’ I frowned into my cup, disregarding him. I was not sure what I was most afraid
of: being recognised for who I was, or pitied for who I was not. ‘I think I made this too strong. Does it taste a little bitter? I must have swilled it about too much.’ I went and
dumped the tea in the sink. I stayed there, facing away from him. ‘In fact, it’s probably time I got some work done. Would you mind going back to your own place now, if you’re
feeling better?’

I heard him put his cup down and climb to his feet. ‘Look, I didn’t mean to upset you, OK?’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’ When I turned, he was already going for the
exit. ‘I feel really bad—you’ve been so nice to me and everything.’ He had shifted the blanket and tucked it tight around his waist.

‘It’s all right.’

‘Don’t be upset with me. I’m not good with people—I tried to tell you.’

‘I just need to work, that’s all.’

‘OK. I get it. OK.’ The door was still sealed up and would not open when he pulled it. He questioned it with his eyes, following the line of it around the frame. ‘Where’d
you get this stuff—supplies? It’s pretty strong. I could use something like that.’ There was a full roll left on my workbench. I had plenty stashed away, so I told him he could
take it, as much to ease my conscience as to please him. ‘You’re a lifesaver,’ he said, spinning it round on his fingers. ‘This’ll be perfect.’ He moved for the
door. ‘Now, how do I—?’

‘Just pull.’

He turned the handle and yanked hard at the door until the tape ripped back and the studio lights spilled onto the path. As he stood halfway into the night, the streaks upon his torso became
gently luminescent. ‘I don’t see my clothes out there. Bad sign.’ He shuffled into the darkness, each stride hindered by the blanket. I wanted him to stop, and turn, and tell me
he was mistaken, that he did not recognise me at all. But my will could no more influence a boy and his behaviour than it could stop him dreaming.

On an island as exposed as Heybeliada, the rain did not fall, it rioted. The wind carried it across the lawns of Portmantle in shivers, churning up the dirt-soil in the
flowerbeds, bullying the pines until their topmost branches cowered. It had strength like no rain I had ever encountered, a swell, a rage, a constancy. And the provost’s dog knew better than
to go out in it. She lay on the front steps, one paw below her snout, observing the havoc being wreaked upon the grounds—in better weather, she could have been out there, digging and rolling,
but instead she was obliged to keep me company on the portico. ‘I don’t know what you’re whimpering about,’ I told her. ‘We’re both waiting.’

The provost had left us, momentarily, to make a phone call in his study. His little cup of
Türk kahvesi
was still steaming on the wicker table and the last bar on the heater was
just firing up. He must only have been gone a few minutes, but I could not shake the feeling that the entire morning was draining off into the sluice, and that he would not be coming back to resume
our discussion at all. We had hardly begun talking before Ender had arrived in the doorway, mumbling something in Turkish; the provost had checked his pocket watch, holding it close to his good
eye, and excused himself. ‘Don’t go anywhere,’ he had said. ‘This won’t take a moment.’