Мэтт Хейг - How to Stop Time

He rubs his eyes. He looks tired, suddenly. I am tiring him.

‘Okay. So what do you do for this “protection”? What’s the catch?’

‘The catch is, there are certain obligations.’

He laughs, rubbing his eyes, as if my words are sleep to be shaken off. ‘Obligations?’

‘Once in a while you have to do something for the Albatross Society.’

He laughs louder. ‘That name .’

‘Yeah, it is a bit antiquated.’

‘What kind of things do you have to do?’

‘Different things. Things like this. Talk to people. Try to get them to sign up.’

‘Sign up? Are there pieces of paper?’

‘No, no, there’s no paper. Just good faith. Trust. The oldest kind of contract.’ I realise how like Hendrich I sound. The last time I had that feeling was Arizona, and that didn’t end well.

‘And what happens when people say no?’

‘They don’t, generally. It’s a good deal.’ I close my eyes. I remember firing the gun in the desert. ‘Listen, Omai, I am telling you. You are not safe.’

‘So what do I have to do?’

‘Well, the whole idea is for people not to gather moss. Hendrich, he’s always on about not getting too attached to people. And it makes sense for people to move on every eight years. Start somewhere new. Become someone else. And you’ve been here more than—’

‘I can’t do that. The moving thing.’

He looks pretty adamant. I know I have to be straight.

‘There is no choice. All members of the society have—’

‘But I haven’t chosen to become a member of the society.’

‘You become a member automatically. As soon as an alba is located they become a member.’

‘Alba, alba, alba . . . yada, yada, yada . . .’

‘To know of the existence of the society is to be part of it.’

‘A bit like life.’

‘I suppose.’

‘And what precisely does happen if I say no? If I refuse?’

I wait too long with the answer.

He leans back in his chair and shakes his head at me. ‘Wow, dude. It’s like the mafia. You’ve joined the mafia.’

‘I never opted in,’ I tell him. ‘That’s the whole point. But trust me, it makes sense . . . You see, if one alba is exposed, it endangers all albas. But you know you have to hide. You’ve been hiding. You told me . . .’

He shakes his head. ‘For thirty years I’ve been in Australia.’

I contemplate that.

For thirty years I’ve been in Australia .

‘I was told it was twenty.’

His face hardens a little. This isn’t good. None of this is good. I think of us on the ship, laughing. I think of afterwards, at the Royal Society in London, when Omai insisted I stay there with him. The fun we had. Drinking gin and telling lies to Samuel Johnson and the celebrities of the day. ‘Told? Who by? Have I been watched?’

‘I just don’t understand how you managed thirty years. Have you been moving around?’

‘Was in Sydney for thirteen years but been in Byron seventeen. Travelled the coast a little. Went up the Blue Mountains. Mainly, though, I’ve been in the same house.’

‘And no one’s been suspicious?’

He stares at me. I can see his nostrils expand and contract with the intensity of his breath.

‘People generally see what they want to see.’

‘But you’re on the internet, the waitress has even seen it. Someone filmed you. You’re attracting too much interest.’

‘You. You still think you have the fire in your hand. I am still the “Other” you want to steer to your will. Well, you can take that fire and put it in the ocean.’

Steady thyself .

‘Jesus, Omai. I’m trying to help you. This isn’t me. I’m just the middle man here. It’s Hendrich. He knows things. He can stop terrible things happening, but he can also’ – the terrible truth of it occurs to me – ‘he can also make very terrible things happen.’

‘Do you know what?’ He pulls out his wallet and delves inside and places some notes on the table and stands up. ‘If it’s not really you I’m talking to, this won’t be rude, will it?’

And I just sit there after he has walked away. The food comes and I tell the waitress I think he is coming back. But, of course, he doesn’t.

In honesty, I thought it was going to go differently. I thought we were going to catch up on old times and talk about all the good and horrifying things that had happened that we could once never have imagined. I thought we were going to talk about bicycles or cars or aeroplanes. Trains, telephones, photographs, electric lightbulbs, TV shows, computers, rockets to the moon. Skyscrapers. Einstein. Gandhi. Napoleon. Hitler. Civil rights. Tchaikovsky. Rock. Jazz. Kind of Blue . Revolver. Does he like ‘The Boys of Summer’? Hip-hop. Sushi bars. Picasso. Frida Kahlo. Climate change. Climate denial. Star Wars . The Cuban Missile Crisis. Beyoncé. Twitter. Emojis. Reality TV. Fake news. Donald Trump. The continual rise and fall of empathy. What we did in the wars. Our reasons to carry on.

But, no, we talked about none of that.

I had blown it.

I was, in short, a fucking idiot. And a friendless one.

People you love never die .

That is what Omai had said, all those years ago.

And he was right. They don’t die. Not completely. They live in your mind, the way they always lived inside you. You keep their light alive. If you remember them well enough, they can still guide you, like the shine of long-extinguished stars could guide ships in unfamiliar waters. If you stop mourning them, and start listening to them, they still have the power to change your life. They can, in short, be salvation.

Omai lives on the edge of town, at 352 Broken Head Road. A one-storey clapboard house.

You can see the sea from here. Of course you can. Omai would have lived in the sea if he could have done.

I wait a couple of minutes after knocking. My head is a dull ache. I hear soft noises from inside the house. The door opens a little. An old woman with short white hair peers out from behind the latch chain. Late eighties, I would have said. Face as lined as a map. Standing asymmetrically from arthritis and osteoporosis. Worried, cataract-infested eyes. Luminous yellow cardigan. She is holding an electric tin opener.

‘Yes?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I think I might have the wrong address. Sorry for bothering you so late.’

‘Don’t worry. I never sleep these days.’

She is closing the door. Hastily I say it: ‘I’m looking for Sol. Sol Davis. Is this the right address? I’m an old friend. I was having a meal with him tonight and I’m worried I’ve upset him.’

She hesitates a moment.

‘Tom. My name is Tom.’

She nods. She has heard of me. ‘He’s gone surfing.’

‘In the dark?’

‘It’s his favourite time to do it. The ocean never goes home. That’s what he always says.’

‘Where does he surf?’

She thinks. Looks down at the cement path in front of her door, as if there is some kind of clue there. ‘Damn my old brain . . . Tallow Beach.’

‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’

I sit on the sand and watch him, lit by the full moon. A small shadow rising up a wave. And then I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket.

Hendrich.

To not answer it would only make him suspicious.

‘Is he with you?’

‘No.’

‘I can hear the sea.’

‘He’s surfing.’

‘So you can talk?’

‘I won’t have long. I’m meeting him later.’

‘Is he sold?’

‘He will be.’

‘Have you explained everything?’

‘In the process. Not everything.’

‘The film of him on YouTube now has four hundred thousand views. He needs to disappear.’