Margaret Atwood - MaddAddam

“Jimmy,” she says. “Snowman.” She puts her hand on his arm. “It’s me. Toby. I was there at the campfire, down near the beach. Remember? With Amanda, and the two men.”

Jimmy looks up at her. His eyes are surprisingly clear, the whites white, the pupils a little dilated. He blinks. There’s no recognition. “Crap,” he says.

“What is this word, Oh Toby?” says Abraham Lincoln. “Is it a word of Crake?”

“He’s tired,” says Toby. “No. Not this word.”

“Shit,” says Jimmy. “Where’s Oryx? She was here. She was in the fire.”

“You’ve been sick,” says Toby.

“Did I kill anyone? One of those … I think I had a nightmare.”

“No,” she says. “You didn’t kill anyone.”

“I think I killed Crake,” he says. “He had hold of Oryx, he had a knife, he cut … Oh God. There was blood all over the pink butterflies. And then I, then … I shot him.”

Toby’s alarmed. What does he mean? More importantly, what will the Crakers make of such a tale? Nothing, she hopes. It will make no sense to them, it will sound like gibberish, because Crake lives in the sky and cannot possibly be dead. “You’ve had a nightmare,” she says gently.

“No. I didn’t. Not about that. Oh fuck.” Jimmy lies back, closes his eyes. “Oh fuck.”

“Who is this Fuck ?” says Abraham Lincoln. “Why is he talking to this Fuck? That is not the name of anyone here.”

It takes Toby a moment to figure it out. Because Jimmy said “Oh fuck” rather than plain “fuck,” they think it’s a term of address, like “Oh Toby.” How to explain to them what “Oh fuck” means? They would never believe that the word for copulation could mean something bad: an expression of disgust, an insult, a failure. To them, as far as she can tell, the act is pure joy.

“You can’t see him,” says Toby a little desperately. “Only Jimmy, only Snowman-the-Jimmy can see him. He’s —”

“Fuck is a friend of Crake’s?” asks Abraham Lincoln.

“Yes,” says Toby. “And a friend of Snowman-the-Jimmy.”

“This Fuck is helping him?” says one of the women.

“Yes,” says Toby. “When something goes wrong, Snowman-the-Jimmy calls on him for help.” Which is true, in a way.

“Fuck is in the sky!” says Blackbeard triumphantly. “With Crake!”

“We would like to hear the story of Fuck,” says Abraham Lincoln politely. “And of how he has helped Snowman-the-Jimmy.”

Jimmy opens his eyes again, squints. Now he’s looking at the quilt covering him, with its Hey-Diddle-Diddle motifs. He strokes the cat and the fiddle, the smiling moon. “What’s this? Fucking cow. Brain spaghetti.” He raises his hand to blot out the light.

“He would like you to move back a little,” says Toby. She leans in close, hoping she’ll block out whatever Jimmy says next.

“I fucked it up, didn’t I,” he says. Luckily he’s almost whispering. “Where’s Oryx? She was right here.”

“You need to sleep,” says Toby.

“Fucking pigoons almost ate me.”

“You’re safe now,” says Toby. It’s not uncommon for someone waking from a coma to hallucinate. But how to describe “hallucinate” to the Crakers? It’s when you see something that isn’t there. But if it isn’t there, Oh Toby, how can you see it?

“What almost ate you?” she says patiently.

“Pigoons,” says Jimmy. “The giant pigs. I think they did; sorry. It’s all spaghetti. Inside of my head. Who were those guys? The ones I didn’t shoot.”

“You don’t need to worry about anything right now,” says Toby. “Are you hungry?” They’ll have to start with small quantities, it’s best after a fast. If only there were some bananas.

“Fucking Crake. I let him fuck me over. I fucking fucked up. Shit.”

“It’s okay,” says Toby. “You did fine.”

“Fucking not,” says Jimmy. “Can I have a drink?”

The Crakers have been standing respectfully at a distance, but now they move forward. “We must purr, Oh Toby,” says Abraham Lincoln. “To make him strong. In his head there is something tangled.”

“You are right,” says Toby. “There is something tangled.”

“It is because of the dreaming. And the walking here,” says Abraham Lincoln. “We will purr now.”

“After that he will tell us the words of Crake,” says the ebony woman.

“And the words of Fuck,” says the ivory woman.

“We will sing to this Fuck.”

“And to Oryx.”

“And to Crake. Good, kind …”

“I’ll get him some fresh water,” says Toby. “And some honey.”

“Got any booze?” says Jimmy. “Crap. I feel like shit.”

Ren and Lotis Blue and Amanda are sitting on the low stone wall near the outdoor pump.

“How’s Jimmy?” says Ren.

“He’s awake,” says Toby. “But he’s not very lucid. That’s normal when you’ve been out so long.”

“What did he say?” says Ren. “Is he asking for me?”

“Do you think we could see him?” says Lotis Blue.

“He said the inside of his head feels like spaghetti,” says Toby.

“It was always like spaghetti anyway,” says Lotis Blue. She laughs.

“You knew him?” says Toby. She’s aware that there was a connection between Jimmy and Ren in the early days, and then between Jimmy and Amanda. But Lotis Blue?

“Yeah,” says Ren, “we figured it out. She did.”

“I was his lab partner at HelthWyzer High,” says Lotis Blue. “In Bio. Intro to Gene Splicing. Before I took the bullet train out west with my family, that time.”

“Wakulla Price. He told me,” says Ren, “that he had such a crush on you! He says you broke his heart. But you never came across for him, did you?”

“He was so full of bullshit,” says Lotis Blue. Her tone is fond, as if Jimmy is a naughty but adorable child.

“And then he broke my heart,” says Ren. “And God knows what he told Amanda, after he dumped me. Most likely he said that I broke his heart.”

“I’d say he had a commitment problem,” says Lotis Blue. “I knew guys like that.”

“He used to like spaghetti,” says Amanda: more words than Toby’s heard her speak since the night of the Painballers.

“At high school it was fish fingers,” says Ren.

“Twenty per cent real fish, remember?” says Lotis Blue. “Who knows what was really in them.” They both laugh.

“They weren’t all that bad, though,” says Ren.

“Labmeat goo,” says Lotis Blue. “But what did we know? Hey. We ate them.”

“I wouldn’t mind one of those right now,” says Ren. “And a Twinkie.” She sighs. “They were so retro-nouveau revival!”

“You felt like you were eating upholstery,” says Lotis Blue.

“I’m going over there,” says Amanda. She stands up, straightens her bedsheet, pushes back her hair. “We should say hello, see if he needs anything. He’s been through a lot.”

Finally, thinks Toby, a sign of the former Amanda, the girl she’d known at the Gardeners. Some of that energy, that resourcefulness: backbone, it used to be called. It was Amanda who’d been the initiator, the transgressor of boundaries. Even the larger boys had given her space, back then.

“We’ll come too,” says Lotis Blue.

“We’ll say, Surprise! ” says Ren. The two of them giggle.

So much for broken hearts, thinks Toby: Ren’s doesn’t appear to have anything fractured about it any more, or not in connection with Jimmy. “Maybe you should wait a little,” she says. What will it do to Jimmy’s state of mind if he opens his eyes and sees three of his former beloveds bending over him like the three Fates? Demanding his everlasting love, his apologies, his blood in a cat food saucer? Or worse: the chance to baby him, play nursie, smother him with kindness? Though maybe he’d like that.