Paul Murray - The Mark and the Void

To say it appears out of place would be an understatement. It looks like a five-star hotel that has been stolen from some exclusive neighbourhood of Shanghai or Los Angeles and then dumped here. Gilt filigree gleams from the railings of the balconies; mosaics twinkle on the dark stone of the façade; a majestic eagle peers down from the distant rooftop. From one side of the building hangs an enormous hoarding. Beneath the marks of rain and dust, it shows in black and white two willowy girls with kohl-ringed eyes, gazing hungrily over basketball-sized wine glasses at a smirking young man in very tight jeans who has hoisted himself up to sit on the kitchen counter, car keys flung in some obscure invitation on to the table in front of him. All three figures balance sunglasses in their hair, as if life could, at any moment, become too radiant to behold. The strapline below them reads, SUPERBIA: ENTER BEAUTY .

The entrance door to the lobby is flanked by two stone effigies, one of which holds an intercom. There is no response from 323, or indeed anything to indicate the intercom is working. Impulsively, I try the door — and it gives way.

The lobby is full of silence and dust. Nymphs bathe in dust in an ornate fountain; dust cloaks the tall mirrors along the walls. Gaps have appeared in the Moorish tiling, and the nameplates of the metal letterboxes are empty.

The lift is not working so I mount the stairs in intermittent light. No sounds can be heard anywhere. Reaching the third floor, I make a left, but after a short distance run into a thick plastic sheet that hangs like a filthy veil from ceiling to floor. Pushing it aside, I can just make out a lightless corridor studded by pockets of deeper darkness, doorways to rooms, or the shells of rooms. From somewhere a sharp, scurrying noise issues. I hurry back the way I came, turn a corner, then another, then stop and try to orient myself — and realize I am standing outside apartment no. 323. Mostly as a formality, I lift my hand to knock, and then I hear a voice.

‘You pawned it?’ it says. And then again, ‘You pawned it?’

‘That’s right,’ says another voice, a woman’s.

‘Jesus, Clizia!’ The man sounds very like Paul, though his tone is different from any I have heard him use. ‘What am I supposed to work on?’

‘Work!’ the woman’s voice, fierce and heavily accented, crows. ‘You tell me the day you want to work, I go out and buy you brand-new one. Work, this is the big joke! Ha ha, I am laughing!’

His tone hardens. ‘Well, where’s the money, so?’

‘What money?’

‘The money from my damn writing desk, that’s what money.’

‘Is gone.’

‘Gone? You spent it? All of it?’ Heavy footsteps pound the floor. ‘On what? Lottery tickets?’

‘I bought food , idiot! I bought food , so we don’t starve !’

‘That’s great! And what are we going to do tomorrow? What are we going to do tomorrow, when the food’s gone and my desk is gone?’

‘Oh yes, tomorrow is when you were going to make the big moneys, I forgot.’

‘Well, what’s your plan, exactly? Pawn the floorboards? Pawn the, the damn oxygen in the air?’

‘I leave you, that’s what! I leave you!’

‘I wish you would leave me,’ the man roars back. ‘I wish you would leave me, then I could get some peace and quiet! I wish one of us had the courage to bring this nightmare to an end, so I could at least look forward to dying al— oh, hello, Claude.’

Somewhere around ‘nightmare’, the storming footsteps rapidly increased in volume, and now the door has been flung open and Paul and I find ourselves looking at each other. I don’t know which of us is more surprised, although he works quickly to compose his features, transforming swiftly from conjugal fury to boggling horror to mild bemusement. ‘I didn’t expect to see you,’ he says, in a tone of strained jollity.

‘I was just in the neighbourhood,’ I say, in a similar tone. For a moment we stare at each other through the masks of our untruths: then, realizing he has no choice, Paul makes an ushering gesture. ‘Won’t you come in?’

‘I don’t want to intrude.’

‘Don’t be silly — please!’

He ushers me into a lavishly appointed room, something like Tutankhamen’s tomb might have looked like if they had decided to bury him in a modern kitchen. Every inch abounds with design features — spotlights, LED displays, gold-plated knobs and rails and switches — that so bedazzle me it takes me a moment to register the young woman who stands behind the island. She has platinum-blonde hair and a simmering expression; her left hand is curled around a mug, in the manner of one about to lob a grenade. From the wall, the silenced television throws violently jumping light over her face.

‘Claude, this is my wife, Clizia,’ Paul says. ‘Darling, this is Claude, the man who’s been very kindly helping me out with my project these last few weeks.’

‘Charmed,’ the woman says sullenly.

‘You never told me you had a wife,’ I say to Paul in the joshing, avuncular tone we established a moment ago, though in the claustrophobic atmosphere it is fighting for its life.

‘And you,’ Paul says, wagging his finger at me humorously, ‘are not supposed to be here! I thought we’d agreed you didn’t need to know anything about my life.’

‘Yes, that’s true, but for the last couple of weeks you have not come to work —’

‘Ha,’ the woman says.

Paul turns to her. ‘Darling, do you mind?’

She shrugs, tosses her platinum locks, and then, with deliberate slowness, slouches over to the sink, where she pours herself a glass of water and, raising her chin over her long white neck, slowly drinks it, continuing to gaze at me as she does so. She is almost extremely beautiful. Her features, from a formal point of view, are perfect — large, oceanic eyes, exquisite cheekbones, a mouth that, though I have never seen a pomegranate, irresistibly recalls pomegranates, or some epic, perfect work of pornography. Yet there is a hardness to them, as though they had been carved from some material whose first allegiance was not to beauty — adamantine, titanium, industrial diamond. The same might be said for the aggressive curves of her body, today squeezed into an old-fashioned floral dress whose pastoral innocence they mock so relentlessly it seems almost cruel.

‘You did not come to work,’ I repeat, ‘and so I started to worry that … that — I’m sorry, something is watching me from under the table.’

‘Under the — oh, for God’s sake.’ Paul crouches down and addresses the owner of the eyes: ‘Damn it, Remington, what are you doing down there? Why aren’t you in bed?’

‘I am in bed,’ a high-pitched voice replies.

‘You’re not in bed, you’re under the table. I can see you quite clearly.’

‘This is my bed,’ the voice explains. ‘Because I’m a dog.’

‘You’re not a — just get out of there.’ Paul stretches his hand between the chairs and extricates a small boy with grubby knees. ‘How long have you been down there? Were you listening to Mummy and Daddy’s private conversation?’

‘Dogs hear things people don’t hear,’ the child says mysteriously.

‘Go to bed,’ Paul says. ‘Your human bed.’

‘Who is this?’ I ask.

‘This is my son, Remington,’ Paul says. The boy is slight and resembles his mother, though in a softer, more benign way, the sharp edges rounded out and the porcelain skin spangled with amber freckles.

‘I’m four,’ Remington says to me. And then, ‘Dogs can’t talk.’

‘Very nice to meet you,’ I say, shaking his diminutive hand.

‘Do you have any bones?’