Matt Haig - The Humans

‘His study?’

‘You know where that is, don’t you?’

‘Of course. Of course. I know where that is.’

Of course, I had been lying.

I had no idea where Daniel Russell’s study was, and this was a very big house, but as I was walking along the first-floor landing I heard a voice. The same dry voice I had heard on the phone.

‘Is that the saviour of mankind?’

I followed the voice all the way to the third doorway on the left, which was half-open. I could see framed pieces of paper lining a wall. I pushed open the door and saw a bald man with a sharp angular face and a small – in human terms – mouth. He was smartly dressed. He was wearing a red bow tie and a checked shirt.

‘Pleased to see you’re wearing clothes,’ he said, suppressing a sly smile. ‘Our neighbours are people of delicate sensibilities.’

‘Yes. I am wearing the right amount of clothes. Don’t worry about that.’

He nodded, and kept nodding, as he leant back in his chair and scratched his chin. A computer screen glowed behind him, full of Andrew Martin’s curves and formulas. I could smell coffee. I noticed an empty cup. Two of them, in fact.

‘I have looked at it. And I have looked at it again. This must have taken you to the edge, I can see that. This is something. You must have been burning yourself with this, Andrew. I’ve been burning just reading through it.’

‘I worked very hard,’ I said. ‘I was lost in it. But that happens, doesn’t it, with numbers?’

He listened with concern. ‘Did they prescribe anything?’ he asked.

‘Diazepam.’

‘Do you feel it’s working?’

‘I do. I do. I feel it is working. Everything feels a little bit alien I would say, a tad other-worldly , as if the atmosphere is slightly different, and the gravity has slightly less pull, and even something as familiar as an empty coffee cup has a terrible difference to it. You know, from my perspective. Even you. You seem quite hideous to me. Almost terrifying.’

Daniel Russell laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh.

‘Well, there’s always been a frisson between us, but I always put that down to academic rivalry. Par for the course. We’re not geographers or biologists. We’re numbers men. We mathematicians have always been like that. Look at that miserable bastard Isaac Newton.’

‘I named my dog after him.’

‘So you did. But listen, Andrew, this isn’t a moment to nudge you to the kerb. This is a moment to slap you on the back.’

We were wasting time. ‘Have you told anyone about this?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Of course not. Andrew, this is yours. You can publicise this how you want. Though I would probably advise you, as a friend, to wait a little while. At least a week or so, until all this unwelcome stuff about your little Corpus incident has died down.’

‘Is mathematics less interesting for humans than nudity?’

‘It tends to be, Andrew. Yes. Listen. Go home, take it easy this week. I’ll put a word in with Diane at Fitz and explain that you’ll be fine but you may need some time off. I’m sure she’ll be pretty flexible. The students are going to be tricky on your first day back. You need to build your strength up. Rest a while. Come on Andrew, go home.’

I could smell the foul scent of coffee getting stronger. I looked around at all the certificates on the wall and felt thankful to come from a place where personal success was meaningless.

‘Home?’ I said. ‘Do you know where that is?’

‘Course I do. Andrew, what are you talking about?’

‘Actually, I am not called Andrew.’

Another nervous chuckle. ‘Is Andrew Martin your stage name? If it is, I could have thought of better.’

‘I don’t have a name. Names are a symptom of a species which values the individual self above the collective good.’

This was the first time he stood up out of his chair. He was a tall man, taller than me. ‘This would be amusing, Andrew, if you weren’t a friend. I really think you might need to get proper medical help for this. Listen, I know a very good psychiatrist who you—’

‘Andrew Martin is someone else. He was taken.’

‘Taken?’

‘After he proved what he proved, we were left with no choice.’

‘We? What are you talking about? Just have an objective ear, Andrew. You are sounding out of your mind . I think you ought to go home. I’ll drive you back. I think it would be safer. Come on, let’s go. I’ll take you home. Back to your family.’

He held out his right arm, gesturing towards the door. But I wasn’t going anywhere.

‘You said you wanted to slap my back.’

He frowned. Above the frown, the skin covering the top of his skull shone. I stared at it. At the shine.

‘What?’

‘You wanted to slap my back. That is what you said. So, why not?’

‘What?’

‘Slap my back. Then I will go.’

‘Andrew—’

‘Slap my back.’

He exhaled slowly. His eyes were the mid-point between concern and fear. I turned, gave him my back. Waited for the hand, then waited some more. Then it came. He slapped my back. On that first contact, even with clothes between us, I made the reading. Then when I turned, for less than a second, my face wasn’t Andrew Martin’s. It was mine.

‘What the—’

He lurched backwards, bumping into his desk. I was, to his eyes, Andrew Martin again. But he had seen what he had seen. I only had a second, before he would begin screaming, so I paralysed his jaw. Somewhere way below the panic of his bulging eyes, there was a question: how did he do that? To finish the job properly I would need another contact: my left hand on his shoulder was sufficient.

Then the pain began. The pain I had summoned.

He held his arm. His face became violet. The colour of home.

I had pain too. Head pain. And fatigue.

But I walked past him, as he dropped to his knees, and deleted the email and the attachment. I checked his sent folder but there was nothing suspicious.

I stepped out on to the landing.

‘Tabitha! Tabitha, call an ambulance! Quick! I think, I think Daniel is having a heart attack!’

Less than a minute later she was upstairs, on the phone, her face full of panic as she knelt down, trying to push a pill – an aspirin – into her husband’s mouth. ‘His mouth won’t open! His mouth won’t open! Daniel, open your mouth! Darling, oh my God darling, open your mouth!’ And then to the phone. ‘Yes! I told you! I told you! The Hollies! Yes! Chaucer Road! He’s dying! He’s dying!’

She managed to cram inside her husband’s mouth a piece of the pill, which bubbled into foam and dribbled onto the carpet. ‘ Mnnnnnn ,’ her husband was saying desperately. ‘ Mnnnnnn .’

I stood there watching him. His eyes stayed wide, wide open, ipsoid-wide, as if staying in the world was a simple matter of forcing yourself to see.

‘Daniel, it’s all right,’ Tabitha was saying, right into his face. ‘An ambulance is on its way. You’ll be okay, darling.’

His eyes were now on me. He jerked in my direction. ‘ Mnnnnnn! ’

He was trying to warn his wife. ‘ Mnnnnnn .’

She didn’t understand.

Tabitha was stroking her husband’s hair with a manic tenderness. ‘Daniel, we’re going to Egypt. Come on, think of Egypt. We’re going to see the Pyramids. It’s only two weeks till we go. Come on, it’s going to be beautiful. You’ve always wanted to go…’

As I watched her I felt a strange sensation. A kind of longing for something, a craving, but for what I had no idea. I was mesmerised by the sight of this human female crouched over the man whose blood I had prevented from reaching his heart.