‘I won’t wait a year,’ says Elizabeth.
‘I’m sorry?’ says Jonjo.
‘I won’t wait,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I must level with you, Jonjo. I have a proposition, and I won’t take no for an answer.’
‘Goodness,’ says Jonjo.
‘I want the box to go to Baghdad,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And I want Stephen’s ashes in it.’
‘His ashes?’
‘He as much as asked me,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I realize that now. So, once we are done here, I will be taking the box back with me, and I will be keeping it until those arrangements are made and are acceptable to both parties.’
‘I don’t think you should take the b–’
‘I don’t much mind what you think,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And I hope you know that doesn’t come from disrespect. But that is how things are going to be done. Do you think you might be able to swing it?’
‘I suppose I can try,’ says Jonjo, not sounding convinced.
‘Excellent,’ says Elizabeth. ‘That’s all I ask. That you try. The only reason we have this box is because Kuldesh and Stephen chose to protect it. Kuldesh, don’t forget, lost his life trying to protect it.’
‘Still no nearer to finding out how?’ says Jonjo.
‘I’m hoping that the box has one final story to tell,’ says Elizabeth. ‘One final evil spirit in its sights.’
‘Very cryptic,’ says Jonjo.
‘Might there be a back channel we could explore?’ Elizabeth asks. ‘To get the box to Baghdad sooner?’
‘Well … it wouldn’t be correct procedure,’ says Jonjo.
‘The right thing to do so rarely is,’ says Elizabeth.
‘But I’m sure there are ways,’ says Jonjo. ‘Would you be happy to leave that with me for a few days? And the box?’
‘Of course,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I know it’s in safe han–’
The insistent, shrill pulse of a fire alarm fills the air.
‘Blast it,’ says Jonjo. ‘Sometimes it stops after a few seconds.’
They wait a few seconds, but the alarm does not stop. Jonjo looks at the box and looks outside.
‘Come on,’ he says. ‘The box will be safe here. If it’s a real fire, we’ll rush back in and save it.’
Jonjo pats the box; Elizabeth takes a final look out of the window. She sees Joyce making a quiet exit off the campus. Elizabeth pats the box too and follows Jonjo from the room.
‘You make your way down to the quad,’ says Jonjo. ‘I’ll go and check what’s what.’
‘As you wish,’ says Elizabeth, and descends a spiral stone staircase. It opens out onto the large, lawned quad, currently dominated by students delighted with the excitement and the brief moment of freedom the fire alarm has gifted them.
How young they all are, though many of them will feel old. How beautiful they are, though how ugly some of them will feel. Elizabeth remembers lying on the grass in quads like these, almost sixty years ago now. Though, of course, not sixty years ago, because she is still there, can still smell the grass and the cigarettes, and the rough tweed arms brushing against hers. She can taste the wine and the kisses, neither of which she had yet developed a liking for. She can hear the cries of boys looking for attention. She can breathe in the air. How young and beautiful she was, how old and ugly she felt. She feels young and beautiful now – Stephen made sure of that. Made sure she understood who she was. Whether today, or sixty years ago, Stephen was right, as he so often was: our memories are no less real than whatever moment in which we happen to be living. The big clock to the left of the quad has a job to do, of course. But it doesn’t tell the whole story.
Two girls kiss to her left. To one of them, kissing is new, and this moment will live forever. Things that happen do not unhappen. Stephen’s death will not unhappen. Elizabeth’s childhood will not unhappen, but the wine and the kisses and the love and the helpless laughter will not unhappen either. The glances at dinner parties, that final crossword clue, the music, the sunsets, the walks, none of it will unhappen.
None of it will unhappen until everything unhappens.
And Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim? They will not be unhappening any time soon. Elizabeth knows she is utterly alone, but knows, also, that she is not. She will be existing in this state for some while, she thinks. The experienced girl props herself up on one elbow, while the inexperienced girl looks up at the sky and wonders if this is her life now.
Elizabeth lies back and looks up at the sky too. At the clouds. Stephen isn’t up there, but he is somewhere, and it’s as good a place as any to find him. To find his smile, and his arms, and his friendship and his bravery. Elizabeth starts to cry, and, through the tears, gives her first small smile since that awful day.
The fire alarm stops, and students reluctantly start returning to lecture halls and libraries. Elizabeth pushes herself up, and brushes grass and earth from her skirt.
As she heads back to Jonjo’s staircase, she meets the man himself coming out of a nearby door.
‘False alarm,’ says Jonjo. ‘Hope you weren’t too bored.’
‘Not at all,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Time of my life.’
They reach Jonjo’s landing, he opens the door, and she follows him in.
Two walls, lined with books. One wall, overlooking the quad. Tables of vases, and skulls and pipes, and a mug saying ‘World’s Greatest Uncle’.
But the box is gone.
As Elizabeth had known it would be.
Because the box still has a story to tell.
It has one final devil to catch.
82
The British motorway service station in the grey January rain. Not where anyone would choose to be. Which makes it perfect really.
And, on this occasion, there are compensations.
The box is, what, six thousand years old? Just sitting there in the car boot. Worth millions of course, to the right person. And there were plenty of right people if you knew what you were doing. One of them will be popping along in just a moment. A quick coffee, a handover and then what? Out of the country, certainly. Lebanon perhaps?
Six thousand years old. And people still thought they were important.
Looking about. A man with a briefcase and a sad face plays an arcade machine. A young mum with red eyes pushes a stroller back and forth, trying to kill the day. A teenaged girl can’t believe what she is being told on her phone, and an old man in an overcoat hunches over a plastic table, an undrunk cup of coffee in front of him.
It makes you think.
We are all tiny insignificant blinks in history, in a world that couldn’t care a hoot if we live or die. You think whoever made this box six thousand years ago cares if we do Pilates and eat our five-a-day? We complain about life so endlessly and so bitterly, and yet we cling to it so dearly? Surely that makes no sense?
There is a covered walkway which traverses the road. It must have looked so glamorous, so sleek and futuristic in the 1960s. It must have looked like the future. Well, guess what? The future’s right here, and it’s as grey and tired as the past. Whatever they were hoping to achieve with their walkway, whatever their grand vision was, they failed. Everything fails, everyone fails.
At that moment, the unmistakable bulk of Garth appears through the windows of the bridge. Here he comes. Someone else who gets it.
The butterflies begin in earnest.
Mankind finds futility very hard to stomach. People find all sorts of things to give their brief lives meaning. Religion, football, astrology, social media. Valiant efforts all, but everyone knows, deep, deep down, that life is both a random occurrence and a losing battle. None of us will be remembered. These days will all be covered, in time, by the sands. Even the five million pounds Garth is going to pay for the box will be dust. Enjoy it while you can.