‘Hold still,’ Igor says. He leans in to affix a bulky plastic earpiece. Paul says something unintelligible about radio signals; Igor responds with something opaque about transmitters, and goes to tap on an antediluvian laptop.
‘Now remember,’ Paul says, clasping my shoulders, ‘you’re the hero. The whole story flows from you. Plot is just the illustration of character, your character. You’re the guy making it happen.’
‘What am I going to say?’
‘It doesn’t matter what you say. What matters is that she knows you’re in charge. Women don’t want some wishy-washy type who doesn’t know his own mind. They want someone authoritative, manly, who’s not afraid to take control.’
‘Are you sure an authoritative, manly man is what Ariadne is looking for? Given that she works in a feminist cooperative.’
‘Pff, this feminism is all an illusion,’ Igor rumbles. ‘Only for depressed womans who cannot find man, and so must dress like lesbian, and not the good kind of lesbian.’
‘What Igor’s saying is that a strong narrative appeals to everyone, no matter what their politics or persuasion. I’m not suggesting you go in there and hit her over the head with a club. Just be direct, confident. Own the scene.’
I try to break into my new masterful persona by squinting manfully into the middle distance. Spots dance before my eyes.
‘Testing.’ As he speaks, Igor’s voice is fuzzily replicated in my earpiece. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘Yes, I can hear you, you are standing right beside me.’
‘And I can hear you,’ Paul confirms, cupping his hand around his own earpiece. ‘Okay, looks like we’re ready to go.’
‘Are you sure that thing is safe?’ I look dubiously at the ancient transmitter humming ominously on the balcony. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to use my Bluetooth?’
‘Stop delaying,’ Paul says. ‘Let’s do this.’
It must be said that as I make my way towards the café, I feel even less authoritative than usual. Out here, away from my models and spreadsheets, everything feels flimsy and contingent, at the mercy of riptides and crosswinds, the random vicissitudes of nature.
‘How are you getting on there?’ Paul’s voice sounds in my ear.
‘Fine,’ I say tightly.
‘That’s great. Now you just keep cool. Remember, she’s a character in your story. She’s there for you. And we’ll be with you too, every step of the way.’
I turn and look back up at my balcony. Two figures wave down at me, like mocking, malefic insects. What am I doing? Am I really going to go up to her and just start talking? It feels so crude and anachronistic! To my left, Transaction House croons to me seductively. I could go back to my desk, think this through properly; maybe I could friend her online, find out her likes and dislikes, then in six months or so take the next step, it wouldn’t be so dramatic in terms of the story, of course, but realistically –
‘Keep going, Claude.’
The door of the Ark. I push it open, a ton weight. Happy diners gabbing to each other, the compressed bedlam of the coffee machine, the clank of cutlery on porcelain. ‘Claude strode into the café,’ a voice — Paul’s? My own? — urges inside my head. My body feels alien, unwieldy, like an enormous robot that I am controlling with levers from a tiny chamber behind the eyes. As I lurch over the floor all sound disappears, save for the industrial suck and hoosh of my breathing; I stumble through a forest of disconnected sense-impressions until, like a beacon, Ariadne comes into view.
‘Hello,’ I say, but it comes out as a cough.
‘Hi you!’ she says, sliding a tress as rich and dark as coffee back behind her ear. ‘You want a table?’
‘Yes,’ I say, though this is not what I want at all — already the narration is slipping out of my grip! Ariadne turns away to find me a seat, my cheeks flame with failure, it’s all gone wrong — and then something distracts me. ‘New painting?’
Ariadne glances behind her to where the canvas hangs, I imagine illegally, on the fire door. ‘Yes,’ she says, lowering her green eyes bashfully. ‘I just finish this weekend. I don’t know if it works, or what.’
The painting features a series of warped helices knotted into each other, like the DNA of some painfully malformed beast: it seems to protrude bulkily out of space itself. ‘I like it,’ I say.
She laughs. ‘This morning, I heard a customer say it’s like a zebra ate a whole load of fractals and got sick.’
‘Bof, they said the same thing about Van Gogh’s Sunflowers,’ I tell her.
‘Maybe,’ she says, and she smiles — not her usual waitress smile, it seems to me, but a deeper one, incorporating her whole being. A sudden wave of joy wells up in me. Here I am! This is happening! How did I ever believe there was anything to fear? Ariadne is everything that is good, therefore only good things can come of this. ‘What’s it called?’ I ask her.
‘Simulacrum 122.’
I nod, tapping my nose thoughtfully. Out of nowhere, Paul’s old idea has popped into my head: that we bond over French philosophy. ‘I wonder, by any chance are you familiar with —’ I begin. But at that moment there is a loud and painful buzzing in my ear, and then Paul’s voice says, ‘Sorry, Claude, we lost the connection for a minute there. Are you in the café?’
‘Yes,’ I say, trying to incorporate it into my question for Ariadne, ‘yes, I wondered if —’
‘Okay, Claude, you’re doing great. Now, are you ready to approach the subject?’
‘I have always wondered,’ I repeat, trying to dig the earpiece out of my ear without calling attention to it, ‘whether, ah —’
‘Wait, were you talking to her already?’
I cough deliberately.
‘What was that? The connection’s not that good here.’ In the background there is a popping sound, rather like a cork from a bottle.
‘What do you wonder?’ Ariadne cocks her head and regards me bemusedly.
‘Just stay calm, Claude, and remember you’re in charge. I’m going to go out on the balcony and see if I can fix this transmitter. Igor, you take over here for a second.’
‘I wondered if you have ever read —’
‘You have great big dick,’ a gravelly voice booms in my ear.
‘What?’ I can’t stop myself blurting.
‘I didn’t say anything,’ Ariadne says, surprised.
‘You have biggest dick in world, you are striking her with your firmness.’
Frantically I pull at the earpiece, but it is wedged in tightly by its many points. Ariadne’s beautiful forest-green eyes cloud with concern.
‘Is everything all right?’ she says.
‘Your wood is so hard, you are the master.’
‘Yes, yes,’ I tell her, desperately poking myself in the ear.
‘You are lion between the sheets with your mighty length.’
‘Please stop,’ I whisper.
Ariadne flinches, ever so slightly. ‘I have to take an order,’ she decides. ‘I come back to you.’
I watch in agony as she hurries away, and at that moment it seems to me as if the whole café were merely a stage set after all, now collapsing and disintegrating before my very eyes. I reach after her — but before I can speak, a tremendous peal of static explodes in my ear. Just barely managing to suppress a scream, I turn and flee, offstage, out of the theatre, into the null space of the outside.
Paul is on the sofa in my living room, leafing through a magazine. He gets up when I come in. ‘There he is! There’s the hero!’