The End Of Mr. Y (49 page)

with the book. But they didn’t know the book was there. So what would their motivation have been? Just spite? Or maybe they thought he knew where I’d gone. Maybe they wanted to find that information. And then, for whatever reason, they turned his brain into spaghetti. Just as they’d promised to do to me. Just as they are now going to do to me, because there’s nothing I can do to stop them.

And then I see another shape moving down the street towards us. It’s a man, walking alone. At first I think it’s Apollo Smintheus, but this figure isn’t quite as tall. And then the shape comes closer, and I realise that it’s a man running.

It’s Adam.

‘Are you sure you succeeded with that?’ I ask the boys.

And I’m grinning now. Adam’s carrying two rocket launchers, one slung over each arm. Where on earth …? And then I see that he’s carrying something else, too. A white paper bag with twisted edges, like a bag of old-fashioned sweets. What is happening? Am I dreaming this? No. This is real. As real as anything can be.

The KIDS turn to see what I’m looking at.

‘Oh. It’s the priest,’ says Benjy.

‘Bor-ing,’ says Michael.

‘Hello,’ I say, as Adam hands me one of the rocket launchers. ‘Ariel,’ he says, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. ‘At last.’ ‘Where the … ? I mean, how did you get these?’ I ask him.

‘Oh, I met God,’ he says. ‘It’s great in here, isn’t it?’ ‘Um …’

‘Well, apart from these little fuckers.’

‘Oh, no,’ squeals Benjy, stamping his foot. ‘We got the wrong guy.’ ‘Whoops,’ says Michael.

‘Wolf,’ I think for a moment. They saw me with Wolf.

‘I told them you were involved with Patrick,’ Adam says.

‘How do you know about Patrick?’ I ask.

‘I’m afraid I know everything,’ Adam says. ‘I’ll tell you how in a moment.’ He raises the rocket launcher and aims it at Michael.

‘Adam,’ I say, aiming mine at Benjy, but more shakily.

‘What?’

‘We can’t. They’re just kids.’ ‘Yeah,’ says Benjy. ‘It’s not fair.’

He begins to cry. Then Michael starts crying, too.

‘You said you were going to get us some sweets,’ says Benjy. ‘But instead, you’re going to hurt us. You’re just like all grown-ups. I hate you.’

I notice they don’t say
kill
. And I remember what Apollo Smintheus said. Nothing can be killed in the Troposphere. So how are we ever going to get rid of these kids? And why is Adam here? I don’t understand anything about what’s going on.

‘Do you want some sweets instead?’ Adam asks, lowering the gun. Michael’s lip is trembling. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, please.’

‘Me, too,’ says Benjy. ‘Me, too.’

Michael is now wringing his hands together. Benjy seems unable to stand still. He’s jiggling about like a toddler who wants to go to the toilet.

‘OK. Well, don’t eat them all at once,’ says Adam. He walks over and hands Michael the white bag.

‘Share them,’ he says, as Michael immediately dips his hand into the bag.

‘Ow, get off,’ says Michael, as Benjy tries to force his hand in at the same time.

‘Boys,’ says Adam.

They both manage to take a fistful of pink, yellow and green sweets from the bag. They stuff them into their mouths until their faces look so inflated they might burst.

‘Why are you giving them sweets?’ I ask Adam.

‘Watch,’ he says.

As the boys eat the sweets, they seem to fade, slightly. At first I think I might have something in my eyes, and so I rub them. But of course your eyes can’t go wrong in here. The boys really are dissolving into the landscape.

‘They’re disappearing,’ I say.

‘They’re on the way to God,’ Adam says. ‘The guns would have done the same thing. They’re just, um …’

‘Metaphors,’ I say. ‘Like everything in here.’ ‘Yeah.’

The boys have now almost completely disappeared. Another minute passes and they’ve gone, and all that’s left is the empty white paper bag.

‘What exactly is God going to do to them?’ I ask. ‘Free them,’ Adam says. ‘Make them properly dead.’ ‘Can God do that?’ I ask.

Adam nods. ‘He may not have created everything, but He’s good as a manager.’

I laugh. ‘That sounds like the kind of thing you’d read on one of those fluorescent posters they have outside churches.’

‘Yeah, well,’ says Adam, laughing too.

And then I realise: we’re together, alone, in the Troposphere. Adam is actually here. Or, at least, it certainly seems that way.

‘Adam,’ I say softly.

He walks closer to me. So much for not feeling anything in the Troposphere. The syrupy feeling intensifies to a point where it’s almost uncomfortable, but only in the sense that an orgasm is uncomfortable. And everything in me seems to slow down. This doesn’t feel like it would in the physical world: there’s no racing pulse; no sweaty hands. My body feels like a misty landscape, melting into its sky.

‘Ariel,’ he says.

We put down the weapons and embrace. It feels as though a million years pass, with us standing like this.

‘I found the book,’ he whispers. ‘And the vial of liquid. I came to find you.’

‘How did you find me?’ I ask. ‘The Project Starlight men couldn’t do it. I thought I covered my tracks quite well. I …’

‘Shhhh,’ he says, into my hair.

‘Really,’ I say. ‘I have to know. Did God help you?’ ‘No. God doesn’t approve of what we’re doing.’ ‘Then …?’

‘The mouse-god. Apollo Smintheus. He said he’d show me where to find you. But those boys seemed to want to tag along as well, and everywhere we went, they went, too. I thought I’d be able to do something about them before you came back in and opened up the gateway. I was almost too late.’ ‘What do you mean?’ I say. ‘What gateway?’

‘They can only get into your mind by themselves when you’re actually in here. Otherwise they have

to go with Ed and Martin. You know that already, but you’ve probably forgotten.’ ‘So you’ve been inside my mind,’ I say. It’s not a question. I know the answer.

‘Yes. But you bounced me out when you first went into the church. But I just jumped back in when you left the church. I just waited in the Troposphere in between.’

‘How did you find the book?’ I ask.

‘I dreamed it,’ he says. ‘I dreamed everything.’ ‘What?’ I say. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Just that,’ he says. ‘I dreamed you putting it in the bookcase, and I dreamed you accidentally letting the vial fall off the chair and roll under the bed. Later, when I was in your mind, I saw it all again, like déjà vu.’

‘Oh …’ I say. I’m not exactly sure what I want to say next. ‘So …’

I don’t want to let go of Adam, but I do.

‘Have you seen Apollo Smintheus?’ he asks me.

‘No,’ I say.

‘I don’t know what happened to him. He was supposed to be watching out for those KIDS.’ ‘His mouse-hole is just there,’ I say, and we walk towards it.

And inside me, two things are happening. One is that my whole body feels like a smile. I’m not alone in here any more. I can actually talk to someone. Not just that: the someone I can talk to is Adam, the person I thought I’d never see again, and the person I think I love. But the smile keeps warping into a question mark. And I can’t bear to ask, or even think about it. How long has he been in here?

TWENTY – SIX

A
POLLO
S
MINTHEUS IS TIED TO
a chair, and he looks very pissed off.

‘Oh, thank you,’ he says, when we untie him.

He stands up, sways a little, and then sits back down again.

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Those little brutes.’

‘They’ve gone now,’ I say. ‘Well, I think they have.’ ‘And you two are reunited,’ he says.

I’m wondering whether Apollo Smintheus has told Adam about the dangers of staying in here too long: whether he’s shown him a screen of himself in the physical world, like he did with me. Where is Adam’s body? Is it still in the priory? I wonder if anyone has found him and saved him. I remember those images of Apollo Smintheus in my dreams:
You owe me
.
You owe me
. And I wonder if it was Apollo Smintheus who got into Adam’s dreams, and why he wanted him to come in here as well.

It’s a horrible thought, but for a second I imagine that it’s a punishment: because I took my time coming back; because I haven’t yet completed his mission.

‘Where’s the address?’ I ask him. ‘I need to know how to get to Abbie Lathrop.’ ‘Don’t you want coffee first?’ he asks.

‘No. I just want to go. I’m going to see Adam back to the physical world, and then I’m going to go straight off and do this. I don’t have much time.’

Apollo Smintheus seems to narrow his eyes slightly.

But Adam’s quicker to speak. ‘I’m coming with you,’ he says to me.

‘You can’t,’ I say. ‘Don’t you know …?’ ‘Know what?’

I look at Apollo Smintheus, who doesn’t seem to want to catch my eye. Then I look at Adam again. His big eyes are as warm and clear as a midsummer morning. They’re so deep, I think again. But here, they don’t look like fossils from the past, they just look like a promise of the future.

But what do his eyes look like in the physical world? ‘You’re not supposed to stay in here too long,’ I say. ‘Did I not mention that …?’ Apollo Smintheus says.

Adam looks at me. ‘I’ve been in your mind, Ariel,’ he says.

‘And, on the way back to your mind, Saul Burlem’s and Lura’s. I know everything.’ ‘But …’

His eyes leave mine. ‘I wasn’t going to talk about this now.’ ‘Talk about what?’

‘I think it’s already too late. There was a very big storm yesterday. Apollo Smintheus said that when you get weather in the Troposphere …’ But I’m not listening properly. Why didn’t Apollo Smintheus save Adam? Why didn’t he tell him to go back?

Sadness in here feels like a warm flannel. But it’s still sadness; the warm flannel is over my face, and I can’t breathe properly.

‘It can’t be too late! Apollo Smintheus must have told you about the trains?’ ‘I did,’ says Apollo Smintheus. ‘Well, sort of.’

‘He told me there was a way I could get back to where I’d started. But I didn’t want to go back there. I wanted to find you.’

‘But Adam …’ ‘What?’

‘Adam, you can’t … You didn’t …’

‘I think I’ll leave you two to it now,’ says Apollo Smintheus. ‘Here’s that address for Abbie Lathrop.’ He produces a slim white business card, very similar to the one he first left for me: the one I found on the street after I’d done Pedesis for the first time. I take the card and look at it. When I look up, he’s gone. I’m here on my own with Adam.

‘I don’t like it in here that much,’ says Adam. ‘Let’s go outside.’ There is no outside, I think. Not any more.

But I follow him down the jumbled-up street, anyway. We pass a car showroom and a small haberdashery. I want to cry, but it doesn’t work. I don’t think you can cry in here. But raindrops start falling softly from somewhere above me, and when I look up, the night sky seems wet and glossy.

We end up in a meadow by a river. The bright moon seems to touch every part of the black water, and moves through the tall yellow grass like gentle fingers. There are benches that face the water, and Adam sits on one of them. I sit on one, too. The wood isn’t cold. Like everything else in here, it doesn’t seem to have a temperature. Tiny drops of rain still fall from the sky, but they don’t feel wet. ‘Ariel,’ says Adam, taking my hand.

‘Why did you do this?’ I ask him. ‘I wanted to know …’ he says. ‘Know what?’

He shrugs. ‘Just to know. I couldn’t go back.’ ‘But … why did you want to find me?’

‘I just had to. And I missed you.’

I breathe in for a long time. Then I sigh. ‘I missed you, too. But …’ ‘What?’

‘Shit. Adam. Why?’

He shrugs again. ‘Apollo Smintheus told me you needed me.’ ‘I would have found you when I got out. I’d …’

Adam looks away from me and out onto the river. An owl hoots.

‘Fuck,’ I say. ‘So it’s all too late. Nothing means anything any more. Everything’s …’ ‘Don’t say it,’ Adam says. ‘Just come with me.’

He takes my hand and we stand up. We walk down the path, past thousands of trees that seem to reach up into heaven. Moonlight strobes on their leaves, and bats flicker in and out of the trees like shadow puppets against the black of the sky. Soon we come to a clearing: a circle of thick, soft grass, surrounded by trees. We walk into the clearing, and Adam immediately pulls me towards him. ‘Ariel,’ he says. And he kisses me.

But what’s happening? This kiss is a million kisses. This kiss is every kiss. Our lips seem to press together with the force of ten thousand hurricanes, and when his tongue meets mine it feels like the softest electricity: a million-volt shock happening in slow motion, one electron at a time, where each electron is the size of the sun.

And in the sky, there’s lightning.

The rain starts to hammer the ground, but I can’t feel it.

Adam is pulling me down onto the grass.

As I close my eyes, I can see that there are tornadoes everywhere, but I can’t even feel a breeze. All my clothes have gone. I’m so naked it’s as if I don’t even have skin. Adam’s taut body moves down onto mine. And when he enters me, it’s as if I’m being turned inside out, and the whole world is penetrating me; and that means I contain everything.

Afterwards we both lie there on the ground, shaking. I know everything about Adam now, and he knows everything about me.

‘Oh …’ says Adam.

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh … Is that …?’ ‘No.’

‘You don’t know what I was going to ask.’

‘Yes, I do. You were going to ask if that’s what sex is like usually.’ He takes my hand. ‘Well, something like that.’

‘And the answer is no.’

‘But we’d never done it before,’ he says, and I can see him smiling in the moonlight. I imagine tornadoes around the Shrine of St Jude. But maybe he’s right.

I put my head on his shoulder and he puts his arm around me. I feel so small and warm, like I’m an acorn he’s holding in the palm of his hand. But at the same time I feel as if I’m the one holding on to him. He only exists here now. And if I do this, and then go back … Don’t think, Ariel. Just have this moment. But if there’s no Troposphere, I won’t be able to see Adam ever again. Perhaps I’ll go back and find that I don’t even know who Adam is. Perhaps I won’t miss him, because I’ll never know I knew him.