Jake Arnott - The House of Rumour

Mary-Lou recognised a nervous crease of a smile. Larry had always looked like this when he thought he had come up with a good idea.

‘But I don’t understand,’ she went on, annoyed at him now. ‘You said you wrote it for me.’

‘Don’t you remember? That series you did for Superlative Stories . You never finished it.’

‘Christ. “Zodiac Empire”. I’d forgotten all about that.’

‘And remember Nemo was obsessed with Campanella? I suppose they both had this idea of cosmic heretical socialism.’

‘Maybe you should have dedicated it to him.’

‘I wanted you to have it.’

‘Thanks, but—’

‘It’s about all those ideals we used to have.’

‘So you finish a series I wrote for a pulp magazine that paid a cent a word.’

‘Yeah, it’s dumb, I know.’

‘What is it, some sort of closure?’

‘Oh, please, Mary-Lou. Don’t you hate that word? No, I just wanted to revisit the sort of stories we used to believe in. As I get older I think about those times a lot.’

‘When we were young and had all those dreams.’

‘Yeah, and, like I said, ideals. And, you know, you were my ideal, Mary-Lou.’

‘Oh Christ, Larry. I really wish I wasn’t.’

‘Well, it’s the truth.’

‘Right.’

‘And we still need ideals, don’t we?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, do we?’

Larry felt frustrated by the way the conversation was going. Couldn’t they just talk about the story he had given her? He had thought there was some point to it. What he had learnt from their strange century: that utopia can come from suffering; that suffering can come from utopia.

‘You used to believe in so much, Mary-Lou,’ he said.

‘Yes, and then I became a cynic. A hard-nosed television producer.’

‘I don’t believe that.’

‘Good, because, like I said, I don’t regret my life.’

‘Not even Jack?’

‘Oh, please, Larry.’

She glared at him with a sudden feeling of resentment. Why had he brought this up again? That far-off world of the past. It was a distant planet yet it still held an influence, a faint gravity of sadness.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just—’

‘Do we really have to go through all of this?’

‘You still find it hard to even talk about him.’

‘Maybe I just don’t want to. All this stuff about ideals.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘Yeah, okay.’ Mary-Lou got angry. ‘Okay, let’s talk about all the dreams that never came true.’

‘Yeah,’ he retorted. ‘Why not?’

‘All the idealistic communes that never worked, the revolutions that failed. Let’s talk about how you still feel guilty because Sharleen went and drank the fucking Kool-Aid.’

‘Hey!’ Larry called out and held up a hand.

He glared back at her. Mary-Lou closed her eyes and shook her head slowly.

‘Jesus, Larry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Really, it’s—’

‘I don’t know where that came from.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘No.’ She opened her eyes. ‘That was a horrible thing to say.’

‘Maybe it needed to be said.’

‘No, it didn’t.’

‘Well.’ He shrugged.

‘Look, maybe you are right about Jack. Maybe I never did get over it.’

‘I shouldn’t have brought it up.’

‘But I got through it. That’s what I did. That’s what we all did. Those of us left.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And maybe you want to live in the past. I don’t blame you. We had better dreams back then. Some grand cosmic vision of the City of the Sun, or whatever. You want to go back to those times when we used to sit in Clifton’s and talk about that future. Well, here we are in the year 2000 and we’re old and worn out. And all we talk about is the past. Even all that space stuff, it’s in the past, Larry. I want to talk about the real future, not some hypothetical idea of it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean me and you.’

‘What?’

‘Yeah. We’ve got precious little time left, Larry. And I’m tired of that boy from the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society, still desperate for my approval.’

‘Christ.’ Larry winced. ‘I’m sorry, Mary-Lou.’

‘Look, don’t act all hurt. I mean it about me and you.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘We know each other so well. Too well, maybe. But we still get on in our own particular way. And I’ve really liked spending time with you.’

‘That’s good.’

‘But I want to keep going, not look back at things too much. And I really don’t want to be the person you want to impress with your writing. I was never meant to be your muse, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Yeah, but you were.’

‘Not any more, okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘And I don’t want any closure either. Maybe we could try something new.’

‘What?’

‘Well.’ She smiled at him. ‘You know what really impresses me?’

‘What?’

‘That you still might find me attractive after all these years.’

‘Huh?’

‘Yeah. Well, you do, don’t you?’

‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

‘Good. So, what are you going to do about it?’

Larry stared at her.

‘Don’t look so scared, Zagorski.’

‘I’m not, well, I guess I am, but—’

‘Come here.’

She got up slowly and beckoned to him. He went and stood before her. They reached out and held each other in a tentative embrace.

‘Well, I’m nobody’s ideal any more, Larry. Maybe you don’t fancy the reality.’

‘Hey,’ he whispered, moving in closer, sliding his arms around her. ‘You’re in pretty good shape.’

‘Yoga.’ She shrugged. ‘A bit of power-walking.’

‘The blood-type diet.’

‘The blood-type diet. Hell, Larry, I’ll try anything.’

‘Well, you’re looking better than I am. I don’t see how you could find me attractive.’

‘Don’t worry. I don’t have any illusions. I just want a bit of companionship. Some comfort, maybe.’

‘That’s probably all I’m good for.’

‘Listen.’ She stroked his face. ‘You’ve still got a bit of passion left in you, that’s the main thing. That night at the party, when you kissed me—’

‘Like this?’

He pressed his mouth against hers and they held on to each other. For dear life. Against decrepitude and mortality. Closing their eyes and travelling in the time machine of the imagination. Pressing their old bodies together, seeking sanctuary from the shadow, feeling for remnants of desire. Mary-Lou drew her hands up to his chest and pushed him away from her.

‘Wait,’ she said. ‘If this is going to work we’re going to have to take it slowly.’

A low sun strafed the city as they drove east on Santa Monica Boulevard.

‘A date,’ he said, repeating what she had requested. ‘What kind of date were you thinking of?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. A movie and then dinner?’

‘Okay. You know Battlefield Earth has just opened.’

‘Christ, that Hubbard thing?’

‘Yeah. We could go see Travolta as a giant humanoid alien.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘No, me neither. What then? A romantic comedy?’

‘Yeah. Something like that,’ she said and shielded her eyes from a sudden blast of pale light.

Larry glanced across at Mary-Lou, her profile mottled, reptilian. Ancient beauty mutated with age. Yes, he thought, time makes strange aliens of us all. Rare creatures facing extinction. She was right: not much future left. Precious little, she had said. And the thought of that made him happy. So close to the end, there still seemed some absurd sense of hope. All the years lost in a flicker of expectation.

Beyond, Los Angeles was drowning in fire, a gilded sprawl burning with memories. A lifetime flashed on steel and glass, on the hot asphalt of the freeways. The sun itself seemed exhausted, a weary god descending. But this was all his. Matter, energy, information, it all belonged to him in that moment. The past was getting closer with time. Home, a humming chant, an incantation. LA, that dystopian utopia: heaven in the hills, hell in the valley. A simple illusion, fleeting and terminal, but he had found it after all. This, yes this. This was his City of the Sun.