The Ecliptic (45 page)

‘I’d be more worried about how that spicy meat’s going to come out of her,’ said Pettifer, invigilating from across the table. ‘Someone’s going to smell your
crime eventually.’

‘I’d like to see how they’d prove it was me.’

‘She’d buckle under questioning. All they’d have to do is rub her belly.’

I sat down, as always, beside MacKinney. ‘Did you not sleep?’ she asked. ‘You’re much too pale. I’m getting you some fruit.’

‘Mac, we all look pale to you,’ Tif replied on my behalf. ‘Give it a rest. Let the woman eat what she wants.’

I poured myself a glass of milk.

‘That won’t be enough,’ Mac said.

‘I’ll have another then,’ I said.

‘Steady,’ Tif said, wobbling his gut. ‘That’s how it starts, you know.’

Quickman was now leaning down with the napkin held out for Nazar under the tabletop. She guzzled the food right from his hand. ‘I do realise,’ he said, ‘this means she’s
never going to leave me alone ever again. But I’ve rather got used to her following me around.’ When the dog was done, he straightened up, looking for a spot to dump the slobber-stained
napkin, deciding on Pettifer’s plate. ‘Oi!’ Tif said. ‘That’s revolting.’ And this set Quickman off laughing, then Mac. But the impulse for laughter made me feel
so guilty that I had to gulp down some milk just to smother it.

Then Q got up and started gathering his empty dishes. ‘Knell, would you mind helping me take these over?’

I stared back at him.

‘The woman just sat down,’ Tif said. ‘You can manage all that on your own.’

‘I’ll help you,’ Mac said.

But I could tell from Q’s pointed expression that clearing the table was just an excuse to speak to me. ‘It’s fine,’ I told them, standing up to take their dishes.
‘I’m in the mood for some tea, anyway.’

Pettifer bunched up his eyes. ‘You two aren’t—?’ He leaned back, crossing his arms. ‘My God, I knew it—you
are
.’

Q said, ‘Are
what
exactly?’

‘You know what I’m getting at.’

‘No, Tif. Enlighten us.’

‘Together, he means,’ Mac said apathetically. ‘He thinks you’re an item
.
I’ve already told him he’s being ridiculous.’

At this, Quickman sniggered. Then he turned to them and said, ‘I should think Knell could do a fair sight better than me, don’t you?’

‘I’ll say,’ Tif replied. ‘But you don’t have to sneak around, you know. I’m fine with it.’

‘Thrilled that we have your permission,’ Q said. ‘To walk from one side of the room to the other.’

‘I’m just letting you know: I’d be hurt, but it wouldn’t kill me. The two of you getting together would make sense in an odd sort of way.’

‘Well, that’s really touching, Tif, thank you. Completely misguided, as ever, but touching.’

‘It’s straight from the heart.’ He grinned. ‘Knell’s staying quiet on the subject, I notice.’

‘Best not to engage with you in this mood, in my experience,’ I said.

‘Hmm.’ He made a face I could not read: nostrils tightening, tongue rolling across his teeth. ‘Go on then, lovebirds. Off with you.’

I went with Quickman to the ledge by the kitchen, where we left the plates for Gülcan, and then trailed him to the serving pass where Ender handed us both hot glasses of
çay
on saucers. Nazar was never far behind. At the condiments table, Quickman took three sugar cubes and dropped them in my tea without asking. ‘Keep your strength up,’ he said, then put
four into his own. Stirring it, he leaned in and said, ‘Did you find much in his lodging?’

‘All kinds. Your lighter for one thing.’

‘Oh good.’

‘And—’ I whispered it: ‘Comic books. That’s what he was here for. He wrote them.’

Quickman puffed out his cheeks.

‘You’ve got to see them, Q. They’re so well done.’

‘How d’you know for sure that he wr—?’ He pretended to smile at a short-termer passing by us on the way to the serving pass. ‘How’d you know he wrote
them?’

‘If you come over, I can show you.’

‘There’s a difference between drawing them and writing them. The stories aren’t always done by the same person.’

‘Well, I’m sure you’re right, but I’m certain he did both.’

He was waving now, affectedly, at Pettifer, who was turned on his chair gawping at us. ‘I need to shake off hawk-eyes over there before we do anything. How long has he been this way? Did I
miss something?’ Peering down at Nazar, he said, ‘At least the dog knows when to be quiet.’

‘He’s always been Pettifer, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Well, perhaps I’m just losing my patience for his uglier side, I don’t know.’ Q lifted his
çay
glass, blew across it. ‘Listen, I finished the
translation. Took me all bloody night, and I’m still none the wiser.’

‘What does it say?’

‘More adverts,’ he said. ‘But the last few are the strangest.’

‘In what way?’

‘I can’t explain it all now—Tif’s already making me feel guilty just for standing here. We should get back to the table.’ He paced alongside me, Nazar trundling
behind. ‘Let me leave first, OK?’ he muttered. ‘Finish your breakfast, then come to my room when you can. I’ll be waiting.’

I had often wondered what possessed women to have romantic affairs, and now I could understand exactly what it was: operating in the margins brought out the most attractive qualities in men
(decisiveness, attentiveness, mystery) and, somehow, all the sly manoeuvrings gave each brief connection more significance. But I had already chosen the man I loved, and Quickman—good friend
though he was—would never be a suitable replacement.

‘It took me a while to work out the tone of the language, but my best judgement is, they’re photograph captions. From a travel brochure, perhaps. I’m not one
hundred per cent on that yet. Have a listen—’

Quickman was perched on the edge of his desk, one hand in his pocket, the other clutching a legal pad. His pipe was laid on the windowsill. The curtains were open, but the gloom of the afternoon
offered scant reading light, so his lamp was turned on, angled upwards. It gave him the backlit quality of the rocks in a fish tank.

‘
Goats wait to be milked by the village cheese-maker.
And then, in brackets:
Norwegian Office of Travel.
’ He smirked at me. ‘Any idea what that is?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Me neither.’

‘Keep going.’

Quickman read on: ‘
Norway’s horses are experts in farming on sheer slopes. As the markings on this fine animal’s legs show, it is a Norwegian
—no idea what the
next word is, so I’ve left it blank—
an ancient breed, highly prized amongst the locals.
It goes on and on like this. Meaningless, really.’ He flipped the page.
‘
At fifteen hundred feet, the waterfall of the Seven Sisters cascades into the
—I believe it says
fjord
, not creek or stream; it’s more specific than
that—
into the fjord at the village of Geiranger
—that bit’s just written out in English, well, Norwegian, I suppose—
almost four times the height of the Statue of
Liberty. There is a permanent worry about landslides in this region. During the ice age, tumbling glaciers from the mountains widened the gorges into giant canyons. The Norwegian coast is a long
sawblade of fjords, spanning thousands of miles. Pictured centre, local villagers eat a picnic of bread and curd with
—’

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Wait.’

Quickman lowered the notepad. ‘I’m fairly certain it says “curd” there, and not “jam”. But I can triple check it if you think it’s necessary.’

I needed a moment to think.

‘Knell, are you all right?’

I needed a moment.

‘What is it?’

The Norwegian fjords, I thought.

Skiers in Alta, Utah.

Oxen in Schneeburg, Austria.

Diamond Rock, Martinique.

‘They’re not from a brochure,’ I said. ‘They’re from a magazine.’

The realisation left me woozy. I had to rest my hand on the bed-frame.

‘How the hell did you get that—from bread and curd?’ Quickman said.

I could hardly explain it. My head was awash. ‘It’s
National Geographic
.’

‘If you say so.’ He stepped back. ‘You seem very certain about things all of a sudden. What am I missing here?’

‘I knew the boy, Q.’

‘Of course you did, but still I—’

‘No, you’re not hearing me. I
knew
him.’ I lowered myself to the bed. The linen was fresh and creaseless. ‘Before I got here. I knew him from London.’

‘But he’d have been a kid back then, surely.’

I nodded. ‘He was seven or eight when I saw him last.’

‘I still don’t understand how you can get all that from
this
.’ Quickman struck the notepad with his knuckles. ‘Unless it’s some sort of code.’

‘It’s not a code. It’s more than that, it’s—something else.’ I had to write it down, to spell it out. ‘Lend me that pad and a pencil, would
you?’

Quickman did as I asked. He stood across the bed, head slanted, while I wrote it out in capitals:
J O   N A T H A N I E L

‘Who’s that?’

‘It’s the name I found on his comics.’

‘Oh.’ He sniffed. ‘Well, I suppose that’s fairly concrete.’

‘It matches the signature on all of the covers,’ I said. ‘So I know that he drew them.’

J O N A T H A N I E L

J O N A T H A N   I E L

I turned the paper round. ‘What does that say to you?’

He read it aloud: ‘
Jonathan Ee-ell. Jonathan Ay-ell
?’

‘Could be,’ I said. ‘Or—’

J O N A T H A N   Y A I L

‘Now you’ve lost me,’ Quickman said.

‘I’m telling you I knew the boy.’

‘Yes, but you haven’t said how.’

‘You really want my life story, Q? I’m telling you, that was his name.’

‘I don’t doubt it was,’ he said. And he went pacing to the windowsill to retrieve his pipe—the comforter, the thing that made him think clearly. ‘But you’re
going to have to give me something more, Knell. I don’t see what difference it makes if you knew him or not.’

‘Because now I can’t ignore it,’ I said. ‘For his father’s sake, I have to do something.’

‘Don’t do anything rash—give it some time.’

‘No, this changes things, Q. It’s bigger than this place. Bigger than you or Mac or anyone else.’

‘You’re going to have to give me more than that. I’m trying my best to understand you here, but—’ He gestured to his desk. ‘Write it down if it’s
easier. Just help me understand what’s going on, before you go and do something you’ll regret.’

I told him as much as I was willing to admit—about sailing to New York but not the caldarium; about therapy but not my anxieties; about the mural and the ecliptic but not about Jim
Culvers. And Quickman did not judge me. He just chewed on his pipe while I talked and, at the end of it all, he said, ‘I see. All right. I get it.’

‘Then you’ll help me?’

‘I didn’t say that. This isn’t my fight.’

‘But you aren’t going to stop me.’

‘I don’t think I could. You’ve got that look about you.’ He slumped into his desk chair, swivelling. I could see that something was rolling over in his mind that he
wanted to release. ‘Did I ever tell you about my old passphrase?’

‘I thought you couldn’t remember it.’

‘Well, I lied.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I’m superstitious.’ Q pinched at his beard. ‘It’s from a Dickinson poem.
One need not be a chamber to be haunted, one need not be a house;
the brain has corridors surpassing material place
.’

‘That’s beautiful.’

‘It is. But I can never decide what she meant by it.’

‘I suppose she’s saying everyone’s got problems.’

‘But there’s another side to it, don’t you think? She’s saying, no matter where you are, you’re doomed. You can’t close off all those corridors in your brain;
there are just too many of them. You’ll be haunted wherever you go.’

‘Maybe.’

He turned to face the window. ‘I’m not going to try to talk you out of anything you need to do, Knell. And I won’t stand in your way. But you have to seriously think about
whether it’s all worth it. I mean: consider every angle. If that raging feeling doesn’t go away tomorrow—fine. Do what you think’s best, and don’t worry about the rest
of us. We’ll land where we land. All I’m asking is for you to wait awhile.’