Paul Murray - The Mark and the Void

‘He is not my friend.’

‘Not the man, today. The other one. Doesn’t wear a suit, always in black.’

‘Oh, him. No, he is Irish.’

‘Why doesn’t he come here any more?’

‘He, ah … well, he lost his job.’

‘Ah, that’s a shame.’ She appears genuinely dismayed. ‘I always liked to see you two talking. It look like you are coming up with a secret plan. I thought someday maybe you’d call me over, make me a part of it. “Okay, Ariadne, here’s what we’re gonna do.” ’

‘We almost did,’ I say.

‘Well, if you ever make another, let me tell you I am a very good person to be included.’

‘Is that right,’ I say levelly, though I feel like I’m in a car that is spinning out of control.

‘Yes, because, for a beginning, I can make special cake with magical powers of returning the past. I can paint the abstract paintings with magical powers of not selling. And, hmm, I can use my Greekness to give the etymologies of many words, very useful quality.’

‘Give me an example.’

She draws herself up straight, knits her brows, takes a moment. ‘So,’ she says. ‘This word psyche , that means your mind or your soul or your spirit. In Greece, in ancient times, psyche was the word for a butterfly. And in those times they think, when you are nervous about something, or you feel something intensely, you have inside you a psyche . And then slowly the meaning changed, and this psyche becomes something immortal that is essential to you.’

‘But that’s how the idea of the soul began? From butterflies in the stomach?’

‘Or you can look at it the other way round,’ she says, fixing me in her green gaze. ‘You can say these moments when inside you is jumping — like when you’re talking to somebody you like — that’s how you know you have a soul.’

And she smiles, and I smile, and her eyes glow at me, and with a flurry of heartbeats I have the indescribable but irrefutable sense that I am back in the story again, or that life and story have somehow come together in one impossibly fragile moment, like a psyche , a butterfly lighting on my palm …

Raised voices can be heard as I approach the door, but this time I resist the urge to eavesdrop. I knock stoutly; after a series of rattles and chunks it opens a fraction. Paul’s beleaguered face falls further when he sees me.

‘Oh God, you again? I told you I was sorry, can’t you just leave me alone?’

‘Wait!’ I jam my foot in the door. ‘I need to talk to you.’

‘There’s nothing to talk about!’

‘Just for a minute. Please. You owe me that much.’

He begins to speak, then relents. ‘Okay, come on.’

Clizia is by the refrigerator, brandishing, for reasons I do not inquire into, a frying pan. The air is decidedly fraught, and a repetitive croaking issues from the next room.

‘I hope I am not interrupting …’

‘Haven’t interrupted anything, Claude. Just enjoying a peaceful, non-violent breakfast here with my totally functional family. Can I get you something? A coffee, maybe? Clizia, would you mind fixing our guest a coffee?’

‘We don’t have coffee,’ she says.

‘Well, how about tea then? Tea all right with you, Claude?’

‘Whatever is convenient,’ I say.

‘No tea either,’ Clizia says. Her accent makes everything she says sound contemptuous, as if every statement were preceded by a long pull on a cigarette and a defiant billow of smoke. Paul half-turns in his chair. ‘We don’t have tea or coffee?’

‘You vant me to steal some?’ she says.

‘A glass of water would be perfect,’ I say.

Remington wanders through the bedroom door, burping. Paul pours a glass of brownish water and plonks it down in front of me. ‘It tastes a bit strange, but we think it’s basically okay,’ he says. ‘Okay, so what do you want to talk to me about? Remington, for God’s sake, stop burping.’

‘It’s my burp- day.’

‘It’s incredibly annoying,’ Paul says. ‘Sorry, Claude, go on.’

‘I want to ask you about Ariadne.’

‘The waitress? What about her?’

I tell him about our conversation in the café yesterday, its strangely pregnant undertone.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘But what’s that got to do with me?’

‘That time in the Ark you said she would be the perfect love interest for the Everyman.’

‘Yes.’

‘So I want to know — what happens next?’

‘Next?’

‘In the story.’

Paul looks mystified. ‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at,’ he says.

‘What I’m getting at is, I have somehow found myself in the plot of your novel. And I want to know what I should do.’

‘You’re asking me for love advice, is that it?’

‘I’m asking what you think will happen next in the novel of the Everyman.’

‘There is no novel,’ he says, with a touch of desperation. ‘We’ve been through this.’

‘What if I asked you to write it,’ I say.

There is a long silence; even Remington stops his burping. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’ Paul says.

‘No joke. When we spoke in the café you told me my life lacked a story. Obviously you had your own agenda. Nevertheless you were right. What I am asking you now is to write that story.’

He glances back at his wife, as if to assure himself he isn’t dreaming. Leaned against the fridge, Clizia stares down at me impassively. In the morning light, the apartment’s veneer of opulence is thinner, and I can see signs of decay all around: drawers off their runners, nails poking jaggedly from floorboards, a long silver split in the obsidian countertop.

Paul gets up, backs away to the sink, looks at the floor. ‘I’m very flattered that you should ask me,’ he says slowly. ‘But I don’t write books any more. I told you that.’

‘I’m not talking about a book.’ I take a sip of brackish water, lean forward on my chair. ‘You said that what the Everyman needed was a love story. Now I want you to help me plot that story.’

‘In real life?’

‘In real life. Move the narrative forward, create scenes, maybe some dialogue. Essentially, nothing different from what you have done before, only that, instead of putting my life into your book, you would, so to speak, put your book into my life.’

Remington burps thoughtfully. Paul pulls his hands through his hair and down his face, as if I have set him some fiendish mathematical problem. ‘Claude — look — I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but that is a really fucking weird idea.’

‘It’s unusual,’ I agree. ‘But it is quite rational. When we want medical advice, we go to our doctor. When we want financial advice, we speak to our broker. We are happy to delegate many areas of our lives to people better qualified. Why should relationships be any different? When we fall in love, why not have a specialist to advise us? Someone who understands human nature, who can help us to express the right feelings?’

‘Pff, is crazy talk,’ Clizia says.

‘Of course, I would be willing to pay whatever you feel such a service merited,’ I add.

‘Not interested,’ Clizia says.

‘Hold on,’ Paul intervenes. ‘Didn’t you hear him? He says he’s going to pay!’

‘It will never work,’ she says. ‘No one falls in love with a disguise.’

‘On the contrary,’ I say, ‘people fall in love with disguises all the time.’

‘And what happens when this woman finds out truth? You want this man make you scripts for the rest of your life? He is not even any longer writer!’

‘Well, hold on a second,’ Paul objects. ‘I can write if I want. If someone’s going to pay me, then I’ll write.’