David Mitchell - The Bone Clocks

I’ve got that nasty floaty feeling you get in a lift when you can’t trust the floor. “But I haven’t seen Jacko since Saturday morning …”

“ I know, but the cops don’t. They probably think that you and Jacko cooked something up between you.”

“But that’s rubbish, Brubeck — you know it is.”

“Yes, I do know it is, but you have to tell them that, otherwise they won’t start searching for Jacko as hard as they should.”

My mind zigzags from trains to London, to police frogmen dredging the Thames, to a murderer in the hedgerows. “But Jacko doesn’t even know where I am!” I’m shaking and the sky’s slipped and my head’s splitting. “He’s not a normal kid and — and — and—”

“Listen, listen.” Brubeck’s caught me and is holding my head like a boy about to kiss me, but he’s not. “ Listen . Grab your bag. We’re going back to Gravesend. On my bike, then on the train. I’ll get you through this, Holly. I promise. Let’s go. Now.”

“B OOM IER FROM THE TENORS,” commands the choirmaster. “Get our firm diaphragms wobbling, boys! Wibble-wobble, wibble-wobble. Trebles, le sss sss ybilanccce on the e sss —we aren’t a troupe of Gollums, now, are we? — and t ap ou t those t s. Adrian B — if you can nail the top C in ‘Weep You No More Sad Fountains,’ you can nail it here. Once more with more welly! A-o ne , a-t wo , and a—” King’s College Choir’s sixteen bat-eared choristers, bereft of hairstyles, and fourteen choral scholars exhale in unison …

Of one that is so fair and bright ,

Velut maris stella …

Benjamin Britten’s “Hymn to the Virgin” launches, chasing its echoey tail around the sumptuous ceiling before dive-bombing the scattering of winter tourists and students sitting there in the chancel in our damp coats. For me, Britten’s a hit-and-miss composer; prolix on occasion but, when pumped and primed, the old queen binds your quivering soul to the mast and lashes it with fiery sublimity …

Brighter than the day is light ,

Parens et puella …

In my idler moments, I do wonder what music I’ll hear as I lie dying, surrounded by a bevy of hot nurses. Nothing more exultant than “Hymn to the Virgin” occurs to me, but I worry that when the big moment arrives DJ Unconscious will launch me off on the back of that “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)” and for once in my life I’ll have no redress. World, shut yer mouth, for one of the canon’s most glorious musical orgasms, on the “Cry”:

I cry to thee, thou see to me ,

Lady pray thy Son for me …

The hairs on my neck prickle, as if blown on. By her, for example, sitting across the aisle. She wasn’t there when I last looked. Her eyes are closed to drink in the music so I drink her in. Late thirties … vanilla hair, creamy-skinned, beaujolais lips, cheekbones you’d slice your thumb on. Slim beneath a midnight-blue winter coat. A defected Russian opera singer, waiting to meet her handler. You never know, this is Cambridge. A true, rare ten …

Tam pia ,

That I might come to thee …

Maria .

Let her stay put after the choir troop out. Let her turn to the young man across the aisle and murmur, “Wasn’t that the very breath of heaven?” Let us discuss the Peter Grimes Interludes, and Bruckner’s Ninth. Let us avoid talk of her domestic arrangements as we drink coffee at the County Hotel. Let coffee turn into trout and red wine, and to hell with my last pint of the Michaelmas term with the boys at the Buried Bishop. Let us climb the carpeted stairs to that snug suite where Fitzsimmons’s mother and I frolicked during fresher’s week. Ouch. The Kraken in my boxer shorts wakes. I’m male, twenty-one, it’s been ten days since I last got laid, what do you expect? But I can hardly adjust myself with a lady watching. Oh? Well well well, if she isn’t discreetly studying me. I watch Rubens’s Adoration of the Magi above the altar, and wait for her to make a move.

• • •

THE CHOIR TROOPS out but the woman stays put. A tourist aims his fat camera at the Rubens before Security Goblin snarls, “No flash!” The chancel empties, the goblin returns to his booth by the organ, and minutes trickle by. My Rolex says three-thirty. I’ve an essay to polish on Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy, but an eerie goddess is sitting six feet away, waiting for me to make a move. “I always think,” I tell her, “that seeing the choir’s blood, sweat, and tears as they work on a piece deepens the mystery of music, not lessens it. Does that make sense?”

She tells me, “In an undergraduate way, yes.”

Oh, you sultry minx. “Post-grad? Staff?”

Ghost of a smile. “Do I dress like an academic?”

“Definitely not.” There are Francophone curves in her soft voice. “Though I’m guessing you can sting like one.”

No acknowledgment. “I just feel at home here.”

“Almost true for me — my rooms are at Humber College, only a few minutes away. Most third-years live off campus, but I can drop in to hear the choir most days, supervisions allowing.”

A droll look, saying, Someone’s a quick worker, isn’t he?

I shrug cutely. I might get hit by a bus tomorrow .

She says, “Cambridge has met your expectations?”

“If you don’t use Cambridge well, you don’t deserve to be here. Erasmus, Peter the Great, and Lord Byron all lodged in my rooms. It’s a fact.” Bullshit, but I love to act. “I think of them, lying on my bed, staring up at the very same ceiling, in our respective centuries. That, for me, is Cambridge.” And that’s one tried-and-tested pick-up line. “My name’s Hugo, by the way. Hugo Lamb.”

Instinct warns me off attempting a handshake.

Her lips say, “Immaculée Constantin.”

My, oh, my. A seven-syllable hand grenade. “French?”

“I was born in Zürich, as a matter of fact.”

“I’m fond of Switzerland. I go skiing in La Fontaine Sainte-Agnès most years; one of my friends has a chalet there. Do you know it?”

“Once upon a time.” She places a suede-gloved hand on her knee. “You major in politics, Hugo Lamb.”

That’s impressive. “How could you tell?”

“Speak to me about power. What is it?”

I do believe I’m being out-Cambridged. “You want me to discuss power? Right here and now?”

Her shapely head tilts. “No time except the present.”

“Okay.” Only for a ten . “Power is the ability to make someone do what they otherwise wouldn’t, or deter them from doing what they otherwise would.”

Immaculée Constantin is unreadable. “How?”

“By coercion and reward. Carrots and sticks, though in bad light one looks much like the other. Coercion is predicated upon the fear of violence or suffering. ‘Obey, or you’ll regret it.’ Tenth-century Danes exacted tribute by it; the cohesion of the Warsaw Pact rested upon it; and playground bullies rule by it. Law and order relies upon it. That’s why we bang up criminals and why even democracies seek to monopolize force.” Immaculée Constantin watches my face as I talk; it’s thrilling and distracting. “Reward works by promising ‘Obey and feel the benefit.’ This dynamic is at work in, let’s say, the positioning of NATO bases in nonmember states, dog training, and putting up with a shitty job for your working life. How am I doing?”