‘But he says in his experiments he did talk to dead people,’ the boy says.
‘Yes, but that might be best understood as a manifestation of –’
‘Like just because no one believed him doesn’t mean it wasn’t true.’
‘Well…’ Howard doesn’t know quite how to respond.
‘Lots of things that are true people think they aren’t,’ Ruprecht’s voice, while remaining at the same pitch and volume, intensifies in some impalpable way, causing the foreign couple to look up from their map. ‘And lots of things that aren’t true they tell us they are.’
‘Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean –’
‘How do you know he was wrong? How do you know the soldiers and people just hallucinated everything they saw? How do you know?’
He delivers all this with such vehemence, doughy head turning an angry pink, like some vengeful jellyfish, that Howard prefers not to contradict him; instead he just nods ambivalently, gazing at the half-melted ice cubes at the base of his polystyrene cup. The tourists leave their table and go outside.
‘Let me tell you about another famous man of that time,’ Howard says at last. ‘Rudyard Kipling, the writer. He wrote The Jungle Book, among other things – you’ve seen the film, I’m sure, you know, Baloo? Do-be-do, I want to be like you…’
Ruprecht looks at him in bafflement.
‘Well, anyway. When the war broke out, Kipling’s only son, John, wanted to join up. Because he was only sixteen, Kipling had to pull some strings to get him into the service. The commander of the Irish Guards was a friend of his, and through him Kipling got his son a commission. John went off to train and a year later he was sent to the Western Front. About forty minutes into his first battle he disappeared and was never seen again.
‘Kipling was heartbroken. He sunk into a black, black depression. Things got so bad that although he’d always denounced seances as hocus-pocus he was on the point of trying them, in the hope of contacting his son. But then he was approached by the colonel of the Irish Guards. Every regiment had a record of their experiences in the war, and the colonel asked Kipling if he would write theirs.
‘Now Kipling was as British as they come. Cut him and he bled orange, as they say. He thought the Catholic Irish were no better than animals. But because it was his son’s regiment, he, probably the most famous writer in the world at the time, agreed to write the regimental history. Not only that, but he made the decision to write about the men – not the officers, not the great battles, not any broader themes of the war. He used the regimental diaries and the personal accounts of the Irish soldiers. And as he did he was overwhelmed by their courage, their loyalty and their decency.
‘The book took him five and a half years to complete. He found it extremely difficult. But afterwards he said it was his greatest work. He’d had a chance to commemorate the bravery of these men, and to keep the memory of his son alive. A man called Brodsky once said, “If there is a substitute for love, it is memory.” Kipling couldn’t bring John back. But he could remember him. And in that way his son lived on.’
This parable doesn’t produce quite the effect he intended; in fact, he is not sure that Ruprecht, tracing Sprite-spirals on the table with a straw, is even listening. The youth behind the counter looks at his watch and begins to dismantle the coffee machine; an electric fan whirrs, like the smooth sound of time passing inexorably from underneath them. And then, not looking up, Ruprecht mumbles, ‘What if you can’t remember?’
‘What?’ Howard rouses from his interior exertions.
‘I’m forgetting what he looks like,’ the boy says huskily.
‘Who? You mean Daniel?’
‘Every day more little pieces are gone. I’ll try and remember something and I won’t be able. It just gets worse and worse. And I can’t stop it.’ His voice cracks; he looks up imploringly, his face a mess of tears. ‘I can’t stop it!’ he repeats; then, right in front of Howard, he punches himself in the head with his fists, hard as he is able, then again, and again, shouting over and over, ‘I can’t stop it! I can’t stop it!’
From behind the counter the Asian boy looks on aghast; Howard finds himself staring back at him helplessly, as if he might know what to do, before realizing it is up to him. ‘Ruprecht! Ruprecht!’ he calls, and thrusts his hands into the whirl of fists, like two sticks into the spokes of a bicycle wheel, until he manages to get a grip on the boy’s arms and immobilize them. Ruprecht’s shuddering gradually subsides into peace, punctuated by sharp, wheezing intakes of breath. He reaches into his pocket for his asthma inhaler and tugs on it sharply.
‘Are you okay?’ Howard says.
Ruprecht nods, his head damasked with embarrassment even more deeply than before. Fat tears drip onto the table. Howard feels sick to the stomach. Still, to fill the unbearable silence, he forces himself to say, ‘You know, Ruprecht… what you’re feeling is perfectly normal. When a loss occurs –’
‘I have to go,’ Ruprecht says, sliding himself out of the plastic chair.
‘Wait!’ Howard stands as well. ‘What about your project, do you want me to send you some books, or…’
But Ruprecht’s already at the threshold, his thin Thank you, bye truncated by the swinging shut of the swing-door, and Howard is left shrivelled under the electric lights, and the cool, evaluating gaze of the impassive Asian youth as he tamps out coffee grounds into the garbage.
It is night. Janine is lying on the street. Carl is standing over her.
I had to tell her, Carly, I had to.
It’s hard to understand what Janine is saying. In the windows of the houses the curtains are closed. In Lori’s window the light is not on any more, and she’s not in the car when it jumps through the gate.
I did it for us, Janine says. She gets to her knees, she hugs his legs, she shrivels her body against Carl’s side like a leech. She’s gone, Carl, it’s over! Why can’t you just forget her?
She will not tell him where the hospital is and the car drives too fast for Carl to follow it on his bike.
Here – Janine’s voice goes black and she reaches into her pocket – if you won’t believe me, see for yourself. I took a picture of her. Go on, look, that’s who you’re in love with.
The face twisted up like a piece of chewing gum.
No!
So he throws her phone as hard as he can and leaves her crawling around someone’s garden crying, Wait ring me ring me so I can find it.
Now he’s at home trying to watch TV. I wouldn’t wipe my arse with a Daewoo, Clarkson is saying. On the bed the new All-Blacks jersey. Downstairs Mom goes, Because you can’t! And Dad going, Last time I looked this was my fucking house! I’M TRYING TO WATCH TV, shouts Carl. Clarkson says, Dead Boy. Carl’s head snaps back to the screen. Give me something with a bit of oomph, Clarkson says. A shiver goes up Carl’s arm, tingling in every scar.
That’s when the phone rings. Barry. It’s happening, he says.
What? Carl says.
Night after tomorrow. The connection, dude. They’re taking us with them to meet the Druid.
Carl’s brain reaches back into the endless black dark of his memory.
Do you know what this means? Barry is saying. It means we’re in. We’re made men.
And then in the phone but not Barry’s voice: He will be waiting for you, Carl.
He jerks up on his bed. What did you say?
Then Barry again like nothing has happened: This is so big-time, dude. Like seriously, do you know what this means?
But Carl does not know what it means.
At night is when it happens the worst: he’ll wake up and feel it, like actually be able to feel it, another constellation of moments disappeared out of his memory. Where exactly did Skippy sit that day in the Ref? What was it he always took out of his burger, the pickle or the onion? What was the name of the dog he had before Dogley? So many things to remember! And though Ruprecht tried his best to hold them in place – lying in bed, reciting them to himself, avoiding talking or listening to people, to keep new images, new memories, from pushing out the old ones – still he forgot and at last he realized that the forgetting was never going to stop, that no matter what he did the moments would keep trickling away, like blood from a wound that could never heal, until all of them were gone. That realization was almost worse than anything that had come before. It made him so angry! He churned, he seethed, he boiled with anger – at himself, at Skippy, at the whole world! – and in his fury, he vowed to forget everything once and for all, get it over with. But it turned out he couldn’t do that either, all he could do was become angrier and angrier on the inside, while on the outside he grew evermore fat and pale and dead.