The End Of Mr. Y (20 page)

‘The universal mother,’ says Adam. ‘Interesting.’

‘Don’t tell me – you’re thinking like the Garden of Eden, with …’ she begins.

‘No, no. The great mother. The beginning of everything. The Tao is called the Great Mother: empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds. That’s from the
Tao Te Ching
.’

‘Oh,’ says Heather. ‘Well, that’s just as bad. Who wants pudding?’

TWELVE

A
FTER PUDDING – BAKED APRICOTS WITH
honey, cashew nuts and brandy – and a long conversation about LUCA, and some other entity called FLO (the first living organism), Adam and I thank Heather and leave together, trying not to slip on the frosty pavement.

After we are out of earshot of the house, Adam laughs.

‘What?’ I say.

‘Well, I didn’t like to say, but I’m not sure I care about which type of bacteria we evolved from.’ ‘Biologists do always tend towards the most depressing explanations for things,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t convinced by Heather’s reaction to my idea about machine consciousness, either.’

‘No. She likes the status quo, I think.’

‘I think so, too. But I don’t see what’s wrong with the argument. At some point animals evolved from plants and conscious life was formed. What is consciousness? Obviously it’s made from the same quarks and electrons as everything else, perhaps just arranged in a different way. But consciousness is obviously something that can evolve. Samuel Butler said as much in the nineteenth century. If human consciousness could evolve from nothing, then why can’t machine consciousness do the same thing?’

There are obvious objections to this idea, some of which Heather did point out. For example: what if consciousness can only exist in organic life-forms? But what is an organic life-form? Machines can self-replicate. They’re made from carbon. They need fuel, just like we do.

‘Unless consciousness isn’t made from matter,’ says Adam.

‘Yeah, well, that’s possible, too,’ I say. ‘But I do sometimes wonder: if a computer read every book in the whole world, would it eventually start to understand language?’

‘Hmm,’ says Adam. Then, after a long pause: ‘It’s cold.’ ‘Yeah. I’m freezing.’

It’s almost silent as we walk towards the city centre. It’s past midnight and as we approach the cathedral the only sounds I can hear are the distant humming noises of trucks outside shops; the creaking sound of men unloading blouses and sandwiches and packaged salads and coffee beans and newspapers, so they can appear in the shops tomorrow, as if they came to be there by magic. ‘Do we know each other?’ Adam suddenly asks.

I pause, and then say: ‘In what sense?’

‘I mean, I thought I knew you when I saw you earlier today.’

I take a deep breath: cold air in my lungs. ‘I thought the same thing.’ ‘But I don’t know you. I’m sure of it.’

‘Well …’ I shrug. ‘Perhaps we did meet before and forgot.’ ‘I wouldn’t forget. I wouldn’t forget meeting you.’

‘Adam …’ I start.

‘Don’t say anything,’ he says. ‘Just look.’

We’re just walking past the cathedral gates. If you stop and look up where Adam’s pointing now, you can see Jesus looking down on you, carved in stone.

‘It is amazing,’ I say, without thinking. ‘Even if you don’t believe in all the rest of it, Jesus is a remarkable figure.’ Then I laugh. ‘That sounded so stupid and banal. Sorry. I’m sure no one even disagrees with that.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ Adam says.

‘Oh,’ I say, suddenly remembering standing in the same spot earlier on, but looking at the gates, rather than up at Jesus. ‘Do you know anything about holy water?’

‘That’s a strange question.’

‘I know.’ We start walking again, turning off down a small cobbled street towards my flat. It occurs to me that maybe we are going to go back to my place and sleep together; maybe I could do that. But instead of my usual excitement, I feel something else: the same feeling I got when I looked at my computer screen and saw how dirty it was earlier on. I’m dirty, and I’m busy doing something to help me escape. But we’re walking on towards my flat, anyway.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Um, well, all sorts of things, but mainly where I would get some.’

‘Get some?’ I can’t see his expression in the darkness, but I can hear the frown in his voice. ‘Are you a Catholic?’

‘No. I’m not religious at all. My mother believed in aliens.’ ‘Ah.’

‘Yes. But why do you ask?’

‘Only Catholics have holy water. You’d find it in any Catholic church.’ ‘Not in the cathedral?’

‘No. Not usually.’

‘I was sure I remembered fonts in the cathedral. I was going to go there before, but it was all locked up.’

‘There are fonts. But they’re empty. The Anglican Church gave up on holy water centuries ago.’ ‘Oh. So, presumably, if you want to get holy water from a Catholic church, you have to go in the daytime?’

‘No. Not always. You …’ He pauses. ‘Do you want to get some now?’ ‘Maybe. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.’

‘Can I ask why?’

‘Probably best if you don’t. It’s, well, something you probably wouldn’t approve of. Have you ever heard of the physicist George Gamow?’

‘No. While you tell me about him, shall we walk the other way? I’ll show you where to find holy water.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I’ve got a key to St Thomas’s. This way.’

I follow him across a car park and through a small passageway onto Burgate. Burlem’s house is just across the ring road, past St Augustine’s, on a leafy residential road. I wonder what the house looks like now. I imagine it all boarded up and then realise that’s silly: people don’t board up houses nowadays. Maybe Burlem sold it. Maybe he’s even there. I did go and knock on the door last year, but no one answered. Adam and I turn left and walk past the comic shop: a whole window display of superheroes and villains; good guys and bad guys. As we walk, I put Burlem out of my head and instead tell Adam about George Gamow and how, when he was a kid, he once kept a Communion wafer instead of swallowing it and put it under his microscope to see if there was any difference between it and a normal wafer. I tell Adam that what I want with the holy water is somewhat similar to this – basically an experiment not at all in keeping with the spirit of Catholicism. Then we’re at the church.

‘I’ll understand if you don’t actually want to let me in now,’ I say.

‘No. I like the sound of your experiment. And it doesn’t matter to me, anyway.’

Inside the church doors it’s dark and smells of incense and cold stone. We don’t go right inside: it turns out that the holy water is in a little font just inside the entrance. I notice that Adam crosses himself in front of an image of the Virgin Mary. I take out my vial.

‘I’m sure this isn’t something you should be letting me do,’ I say.

‘It’s only water,’ says Adam. ‘There are no rules to say you can’t take some away with you. And like I said, all of this doesn’t mean anything to me any more.’

But he doesn’t watch as I dip the vial into the font. Instead he walks beyond me and starts fiddling with leaflets and copies of the
Catholic Herald
. There’s a poster on the wall with the words ‘Shrine of St Jude’ on it. Adam lifts his fingers to it and touches it briefly. I don’t think he realises that I’m watching him. I look away.

‘Can I ask why you have keys to the church?’ I say to him as we leave.

‘Oh, I’m a priest,’ he says. ‘Or, at least, I was. Can we go back to your place?’

Through someone else’s eyes my kitchen must be a dark, fetid, oppressive space that smells of garlic and cigarettes. There’s also a cursed book on the mantelpiece: a slim, pale volume that you don’t even notice, if you are someone else.

‘Sorry,’ I say to Adam, as we walk in.

But I’m not exactly sure what I’m sorry about. The thick grey dust on the top of the door frame? The broken arm of the sofa? The burn marks on the old kitchen work surfaces? The peeling green lino? I don’t even see those things when I’m on my own. I want to open a window, but it’s too cold. I want to turn on all the gas rings like I usually do, but I don’t.

‘Sorry it’s so cold,’ I say.

‘My place is freezing,’ says Adam. ‘I live on campus.’ ‘Do you? Where?’

‘I’ve got a room in Shelley College. It’s tiny and smells of macaroni cheese all the time. This is luxurious – believe me.’

‘Would you like some coffee?’ I ask him.

‘Just some water, please, if that’s all right.’

I fill a glass with tap water for Adam and then put on coffee for myself. A train goes past outside and the thin sash window rattles gently. I see a tiny movement in the corner of the room – there and then gone, like a phantom particle. A mouse.

‘I like this place,’ Adam says, sitting down on the sofa.

When my coffee’s ready I sit down on the old sofa next to him. I don’t think I’ve ever actually sat on this sofa with another human being. It feels a bit like sitting on a train, our backs facing the direction of travel, both being careful not to let our knees touch.

‘What’s the Shrine of St Jude?’ I ask him.

‘Oh, that. You noticed.’

‘I just saw it on the wall in the church. I’ve heard the name before: St Jude. What’s he the saint of?’ ‘Lost and hopeless causes. The shrine’s in Faversham. I go there whenever …’

‘What?’

‘Just whenever things go wrong. You’re not asking me the obvious question.’ ‘What obvious question?’

‘About me being a priest.’

‘I’m not very good at asking those questions,’ I say.

There’s a pause. I should say something else; I know that it’s my line next. And I do want to know. Usually I would want to know everything about being a priest and how it’s possible to be a priest

and then not be one. I want to ask why he still crossed himself in the church, for example. But now I’ve got the holy water and the Carbo-veg and it’s just like those days when I kept a razor in a box and I just wanted everyone to go away so I could do what I wanted, on my own.

‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ I ask Adam. He shrugs. ‘It’s your flat.’

‘Yeah, I know, but …’ ‘Honestly. Don’t mind me.’

He sips his water while I light up. I see the slight shake of his left hand holding the water, and then I look away, my gaze moving over the scarred kitchen surfaces: the time I burned the rice; the time I scalded myself; the time I cut my finger.

‘What was it like?’ I ask, forcing my thoughts to stop. ‘Or even, what is it like?’ ‘What?’

‘Being that religious; I mean, being religious enough to be a priest.’

He puts his water down and sits forward, leaning his elbow on his knee and propping up his face with his right hand. He uses his forefinger to draw around the edge of his face, as if he was blind and wanted to know what his own face looked like.

‘I’ve been thinking about this,’ he says. ‘I’ve been trying to put it into words, but I didn’t have anyone to tell and … Now I’ve met you, I think maybe you’ll understand. In fact, I know you will.’ ‘Why do you think that?’

Now he puts both his hands over his face and lets his head drop into them.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Adam?’

‘I’m sorry. I’m not even sure I want to talk about what you want to talk about. I didn’t even stop being a priest because I wasn’t religious enough … I was just being stupid back at Heather’s. I didn’t lose my faith because I wanted to have sex with little boys or old men or young women or anything like that. I studied the
Tao Te Ching
– years ago, now – and decided to follow The Way alongside being a priest. It’s not unusual – lots of people do it. But it undermined my faith. I just wanted to desire nothing, but that was something that I desired, obviously, and it almost drove me mad. And then I couldn’t stop thinking about paradoxes. I thought about the virgin birth and the mystery of faith and everything else. I didn’t hate the paradoxes – they’re the basis for the church, after all – but I started wanting more of them. I wanted to see what a pure paradox would look like. Eventually I realised that I simply needed silence, so I joined a silent order for two years and thought about nothing. Then I stopped. I can’t explain this very well … And you’re right. Why am I telling you this? Where have I seen you before? Shit. I should go.’

‘Adam …’

He gets up. ‘I’m sorry for barging in here. This isn’t the right place for me.’

He’s right. I fuck old men and become obsessed with curses and rare books. He needs someone more sensible than me to talk to. I look at his old clothes and messed-up hair and imagine his dark, strong forearms. I wonder if he’s ever even been to bed with anyone?

I take a deep breath. Why am I always the wrong person?

And, without either of us seeming to do anything, we’re now pressing against each other, kissing as though it’s midnight at the party at the end of the world. I feel his cock get hard and I push myself against him. This feels different. There’s something real about this that I thought I’d forgotten.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says after about twenty seconds, pulling away. ‘I can’t do this.’

‘I don’t know what happened there,’ I say, acting as if I agree that this is a bad idea. I can’t catch his eye. I turn towards the stove, as if I’ve got something important to cook. Can you have a disappointment cake? A rejection cake? An unhappy birthday cake?

‘I’m sorry,’ says Adam, behind me. ‘I’m … I shouldn’t drink. I’m not used to it.’

By the time I say sorry, he’s gone. I’m a fucking idiot. Or am I? When attractive young guys offer me something, they always take it away again pretty soon afterwards, so it’s probably best that this never happened. What’s a man like Adam going to get from me, anyway? If you’re someone like Adam, you can sleep with anyone. If he had a shower and put on a suit or something, well, I can’t imagine any woman turning him down. With someone like Adam, it doesn’t matter about my iPod, or my smooth neck, or my tits that have not (yet) sagged. I don’t have cellulite, and men over the age of fifty therefore feel lucky to sleep with me. What have I got that Adam could possibly want? In the sexual economy, I’ve got millions in the offshore account called ‘Older Men’, but I think I’d get turned down for an account anywhere else.

I used to have a black marker pen, but I don’t know where it went. It was a big, phallic, chemical- smelling thing, and I used it to write the number of this flat on one of the bins in Luigi’s backyard. But that was, what, a year and a half ago? It’s not in the kitchen drawer, and it isn’t in the cup of pens on the shelf. Damn. The closest thing I can find is a black Biro. I do have a white piece of cardboard, however. It’s the backing from a cheap pair of fishnet tights I bought from the market last spring, and it’s been lying on my chest of drawers since then. So I draw the black circle on the card: it takes five minutes just to colour it in.