Мэтт Хейг - How to Stop Time

It is an hour’s walk, but the weather is mild and neither of us fancy the underground. We walk past St Paul’s Cathedral, and I tell her how it used to be busier than it is today, and how the churchyard used to be the centre of the London book trade. Then we walk down a street called Ironmonger Lane and she asks me about it and I say that I used to walk down this same Ironmonger Lane on my way to Southwark, and that it used to live up to its name, with the whole road noisy and hot from the moulding of metal.

She lives further east than me. When I suggest that I should probably take Abraham for a walk and that she is welcome to come too, she accepts the invite.

We sit together on the bench where I first saw her. An empty carrier bag floats far over our heads like a cartoon ghost.

‘What are the main differences, over time?’

‘Everything you see. Everything you see is different. Nothing stays the same.’ I point to the creature darting up a tree. ‘That would have been a red squirrel once, not a grey one. And there wouldn’t have been carrier bags floating about. The sound of traffic was more clip-clopping . People looked at pocket watches, not phones. And smells, that’s the other thing. It doesn’t smell as much. Everywhere stank. Raw sewage and all the waste from the factories was pumped into the Thames.’

‘Lovely.’

‘It used to be severe. There was the Great Stink. It was eighteen fifty-something, around then. A hot summer. The whole city reeked.’

‘It’s still pretty stinky, though.’

‘Not even comparable. You used to live in stink. People never used to wash. People used to think baths were bad for them.’

She sniffs her armpit. ‘So I’d have been just about okay, then?’

I lean in and smell her. ‘Far too clean. People would have been very suspicious. You are almost twentieth-century clean.’

She laughs. It is the simplest, purest joy on earth, I realise, to make someone you care about laugh.

The sky begins to darken slightly.

‘So, you really had a crush on me?’

She laughs again. ‘You really sound immature, for a four-hundred-year-old.’

‘Ahem, four-hundred-and-thirty-nine-year-old.’

‘Sorry, a four-hundred-and-thirty-nine-year-old.’

‘Asking that question made you sound five.’

‘I feel five. Normally I feel my age but right now I feel five.’

‘Yes, if that is what you want to hear . . .’

‘I want to hear the truth.’

She sighs. Fake dramatic. Does that thing where she looks to the sky. I watch her in profile, mesmerised. ‘Yes, I had a crush on you.’

I sigh too. Mine is also a bit fake dramatic. ‘The past tense has never sounded so sad.’

‘Okay. Okay. Have. Have. I have a crush on you.’

‘Me too. On you, I mean. I find you fascinating.’

I am being totally sincere, but she laughs. ‘Fascinating? I’m sorry.’

Her laugher fades. I want to kiss her. I don’t know how to make that happen. I have been single for four centuries and have absolutely no idea of the etiquette. But I feel light, happy. Actually, I would be fine with this. This ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ moment. With a kiss forever a possibility. With her looking at me and me looking at her.

I realise I would like to solve the mystery of her just as much as she wants to solve the mystery of me and she nestles a little into me and I put my arm around her. Right there. On the park bench. Maybe that is what it takes to love someone. Finding a happy mystery you would like to unravel for ever.

We sit in silence for a while, like a couple, watching Abraham gallop around with a Springer spaniel. And I am enjoying the happy weight of her head on my shoulder, for two minutes or so. Then two things happen in quick succession. I feel a sudden pang of guilt, thinking of Rose. Of her head resting on my chest as we lay on her narrow bed in Hackney. Of course, Camille wouldn’t know this is what I am thinking, except that my body might have tensed a little.

And then my phone rings.

‘I’ll ignore it.’

Which I do. But then it rings again and this time she says, ‘You’d better see who it is,’ and I look at my phone and I see a single letter on the screen. H. I realise I have to get it. I have to do exactly what I would do if I wasn’t with Camille. So I answer it. And the moment, that brief moment of happiness, floats away like a bag on the wind.

I stand up from the bench, with the phone to my ear.

‘Is this a bad time?’, Hendrich asks.

‘No. No, Hendrich. It’s fine.’

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m walking the dog.’

‘Are you on your own?’

‘Yes. I’m on my own. Except for Abraham.’ I say this, I hope, quietly enough for Camille not to hear, and loud enough for Hendrich not to become suspicious. I think I fail on both counts.

A pause.

‘Good, well, listen . . . we have found someone.’

‘Marion?’

‘Alas, no. We have found your friend.’

I am confused by the word ‘friend’. I look at Camille, now frowning at me, still on the bench.

‘Who?’

‘Your man.’

I sincerely have no idea what he is talking about. ‘What man?’

‘Your Polynesian. Omai. He’s alive. And he’s being a fool.’

‘Omai?’

Even without Camille nearby, this news wouldn’t make me happy. Not because I am not interested in my old friend, but because I sense there can be nothing good from Hendrich finding him. It is very unlikely he wants to be found. The happiness of just one minute ago seems totally out of reach.

‘Where is he?’ I ask. ‘What’s the story?’

‘There is a surfer in Australia who looks just like a three-hundred-year-old portrait by Joshua Reynolds. He calls himself Sol Davis. He’s becoming a little bit too known in the surfing community. This good-looking thirtysomething going on three hundred and fifty. And people are talking about how he doesn’t age. People are talking about that. It’s in the online comments, for fuck’s sake. Someone saying, “Oh, that’s the immortal guy who lives near me who’s looked the same since the nineties.” He’s dangerous. People are getting suspicious. And apparently that’s not all. Agnes’ source in Berlin says they know about him. The institute. He could be in real trouble.’

The wind picks up. Camille rubs her shoulders, to mime to me she is cold. I nod and mouth the words, ‘I’m coming.’ But at the same time I know I must look like I am not hurrying Hendrich.

‘This is—’

‘You have a holiday coming up? A half-term?’

This is sounding ominous. ‘Yes.’

‘I can get you on a flight to Sydney. Straight through. Just a two-hour stop in Dubai. Some airport shopping. Then, Australia. Week in the sun.’

Week in the sun. He’d said the same before Sri Lanka.

‘I thought you said that was it,’ I say. ‘I thought you said I could have this life for the full eight years. No interruptions.’

‘You are sounding like a man with an anchor. You’ve no anchor.’

‘No. Not an anchor. A dog, though. I have a dog. Abraham. He’s an old dog. He won’t last the eight years. But I can’t just leave him.’

‘You can just leave him. They have dog sitters nowadays.’

‘He’s a very sensitive dog. He gets nightmares and separation anxiety.’

‘You sound like you’ve been drinking.’

I knew I couldn’t endanger Camille.

‘I had some wine earlier. Enjoying life’s pleasures. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you told me?’

‘On your own?’

‘On my own.’

Camille is standing up now. She is holding the lead. What is she doing? But it is too late. She is already doing it.