The Memory Artists Part 26

Noel reclosed his eyes, waited for the right map to sharpen, like a print under emulsion. "Tools and dies, superconductive magnets. Claddings for nuclear reactor cores-either alone or alloyed with zirconium-since it's compatible with uranium and resistant to corrosion by molten alkali-metal coolants ..."

Norval erupted into laughter.

"... and has a low thermal-neutron cross section."

"Of course, mustn't forget the thermal-neutron cross section. Atomic number and weight?"

"Forty-one and 92.906."

"Proceed."

"Melting point 2,468 degrees C, boiling point 4,927."

"In Fahrenheit?"

"4,474 and 8,901."

"In Kelvin?"

"I don't know, you idiot."

"Go on."

"Specific gravity 8.57, electronic configuration (Kr)4d45s1."

"Derivation of name?"

"After Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus."

"The mythical king? Who was condemned to stand in water that receded when he tried to drink? Or was it with fruit that receded when he tried to grab it?"

"Both."

"But what's that got to do with Niobium?"

"Because the two elements, Tantalum and Niobium, are always found together."51 "Noel, do you see now why I hang with you? Because you're a f.u.c.king marvel-with possibly the largest cranial junkyard in the world. But maybe I should write this all down, make sure you're not making it up."

"I wish I was, believe me."

"So what were we talking about? I've completely forgotten."

"So have I."

"Liar."

"We were talking about ..." Noel let out a sigh, not his first of the day. "... the psychology of love. We then moved on to all the women you've loved and lost."

"Right, the null set." Norval looked at his chained watch. "I vote we change the subject."

"I'll be right back."

Noel rose and walked quickly to the men's room, where a tottering man was using both urinals, and the wall between them. So he stepped inside the only stall. I'll try one last approach, he thought, I'll ask him about Cynara. After another drink. He zipped up his fly but did not flush, as the bowl was blocked by a light bulb and a waterlogged roll of paper towels.

At the bar he had to shout to be heard, something he never liked doing. "The toilet! It should not be flushed under any circ.u.mstances! And there's a man lying face down in his own urine!"

"What can I get you?"

Noel paused. What does Norval say? "Irish single, two-storey. And a Blanche de Chambly." Much Much cooler when he says it. With an attempt at Norvalian nonchalance, he glanced at a blonde woman with tweezed eyebrows on a barstool beside him, then at the table, now empty, where the man with the laptop had been sitting, then at a "Culture Board" with posters advertising cooler when he says it. With an attempt at Norvalian nonchalance, he glanced at a blonde woman with tweezed eyebrows on a barstool beside him, then at the table, now empty, where the man with the laptop had been sitting, then at a "Culture Board" with posters advertising Helium Induced o.r.g.a.s.ms: The Musical Helium Induced o.r.g.a.s.ms: The Musical and and Who Put the "KY" in FUNKY a.s.s? Who Put the "KY" in FUNKY a.s.s?

Norval, meanwhile, was conversing with two gentlemen: one was the guy in motorcycle leathers who had blocked his path earlier; the other was tall and stringy and metallic with a tiny hairless head, like a Giacometti man.

"My girlfriend says you're a hotshot writer," said the leather man, with the inflection and warmth of a dial tone. "Before I kill you, I want you to read my bro's script." He nodded towards his slender companion, whose blinky grey eyes were cautious, constantly on the watch.

Norval looked calmly from one man to the other, and then at an attractive redhead at the next table. "What's it about? The Pope's visit to Canada?"

"You're a dead man," said the Giacometti man, displaying teeth like black pumpkin seeds. "You cease to exist."

"It's called The Phyllis Killers The Phyllis Killers," said the leather man, a toothpick shifting from one corner of his mouth to the other. "It's about two guys who rape and kill women-but only b.i.t.c.hes named Phyllis."

Norval nodded. "A sentimental comedy? Have you tried Disney?"

"Ain't no f.u.c.kin' comedy, dead man," said the Giacometti man.

"No? Is it based on your doctoral work in Greek tragedy?"

"You know where f.u.c.k-heads like you end up, don't you."

"Riding motorcycles?"

"At the bottom of the Saint Lawrence, you little f.u.c.ker. We know where you live, dead man. Next time we'll get the right house. You get my drift, you frog f.a.ggot?"

"Let me put it another way," said the leather man. "You go near my girlfriend again and I'll send her your fried p.e.c.k.e.r in a Fed-Ex box ..."

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On his way back from the bar, Noel watched as the two bikers clomped towards the door. They had been replaced at the table, he noticed, by a crimson-headed woman. Noel ducked behind a wooden column with shelves for potted plants, and set the drinks down on a table. I'll wait till she leaves, he decided. I'll just make a fool of myself. He peered round the column. Maybe I'll pick up some pointers. Focus focus, hocus-pocus, don't let the colour-wheel spin ...

"Let me get this straight," said the woman in French. "I tell you my name, and because it's the right right name, I have the honour of going back to your place." name, I have the honour of going back to your place."

"Correct. You qualify."

"I qualify." The woman nodded, chomped on her gum. "Tell you what. You You qualify if you've got a million bucks, are built like a gymnast and hung like a horse." qualify if you've got a million bucks, are built like a gymnast and hung like a horse."

Norval slowly exhaled smoke from his cigarette, squinted at her through the cloud. "The first two conditions I can satisfy," he replied, "but I'll be d.a.m.ned if I get a p.e.n.i.s reduction for any woman."

Through fleshy green leaves Noel saw the woman's electric-red hair fly back, heard her high-pitched detonation of laughter. Yes Yes, thought Noel, you have to make women laugh, something I never seem able to ...

The woman, shimmying her spandexed hips, was being escorted away by someone with a boyfriend's authority. But she'd had time, Noel remarked as he approached the table, to leave a white slip of paper. A business card? Was she an S S or a or a T T? Noel craned his neck to see. Candy colours: wild cherry, menthol, blueberry, white chocolate, green apple, peppermint. Simone? Simone?

"You get everything? Or do you want me to read out the bits you may've missed?"

"What? No, sorry, I just ..." Noel set down the drinks, pulled out a chair. "So who were those two guys? They looked pretty rough."

"Nullities. Expendables. Toilet flushings."

"Right."

"Unless you've more questions, I'll think I'll f.u.c.k off." With a flick of the wrist, Norval tossed back his drink.

"Well, actually, I did have one more ... but, you know, you don't have to answer it."

Norval looked down at his suede thigh, at a streak of fallen ash. "Glad to hear it."

Noel took two great gulps of beer. "Who's Terry?"

Norval looked up quickly, then just as quickly inhaled the last of his cigarette. So, Samira did some snooping around, he deduced. "You tell me."

Noel took a blind stab at it. "The person you once loved. Who you call Bess in your novel."

Norval crushed out his cigarette. "Je vais aller p.i.s.ser. I may or may not be back."

Noel sat and waited, repeating the name Terry over and over, watching the letters change chromatophorically into Cynara Cynara. Yes! The truth about Norval is in that poem. That was his confession! He closed his eyes, conjured up the last stanza. When he reopened them, Norval was sitting across from him, slumped in his chair. Seconds pa.s.sed before he looked up. Noel searched his friend closely, trying to read the truth in his eyes. Should he continue to bluff his way through this?

"You did did love Terry. Because the relationship was doomed, because he or she was sick, because like Cynara-and Bess-Terry was dying, am I right?" love Terry. Because the relationship was doomed, because he or she was sick, because like Cynara-and Bess-Terry was dying, am I right?"

"p.i.s.s off."

"Tell me what happened. Was it like in your novel?"

Norval paused. "No." The word was spoken in a humbler key and with a look that Noel hadn't seen before. It wasn't anger. It was more like bone-weary, world-weary sadness. His mask had slipped. For the first time since the two friends had met, Norval's expression was the same as Noel's.

Chapter 18.

Norval's "Diary" 52 52 On an unremittingly monochrome day in the fall of 1989, at the end of a tree-lined cul-de-sac near Nottingham, Norval rapped on Mrs. Pettybone's front door. He unhooked his leather knapsack, turned round to examine the front yard: walkways swept and reswept, hedges clipped with Euclidean precision, garden ruthlessly weeded, leaves dusted, gnomes groomed.

He clapped the polished knocker again, harder, and was answered by the rattle of a chain, the sound of bolts being drawn back and a key turning in the deadlock. Like a mastiff b.i.t.c.h peeping out of a doghouse, a woman's face emerged-tense, hurried, hostile. She examined Norval top to bottom and didn't seem to like what she saw. "What do you want?" she growled.

"A room."

"And what makes you think I'd have a room?"

"Because it says B & B on the sign."

"Oh, is that still up?"

"And it says 'Welcome' on the mat."

Mrs. Pettybone eyed Norval's unshaven face and riotous hair, his mud-spattered greatcoat and high boots, like relics from an ancient war. "Well you're not welcome. I'm full up." She closed the door with force.

"Gally gave me your address!" Norval shouted, with irritation, at the oaken wood. He had come a long way, on foot, in mud.

Inch by inch, creakingly, the door reopened. Mrs. Pettybone, her face now drained of colour, seemed to be struggling against tears. "Come on in, then, and sharp about it. And take those boots off."

Inside, it was clean-mercilessly, tyrannically clean-with the stench of disinfectants warring with the scent of air fresheners. A pink carnation motif on the curtains and wallpaper, fake daffodils on the mantelpiece, funereal furniture waxed and polished to a frenzy.

They stood, without words or motion, sizing each other up. A halfcentury-old volcano, Norval decided, dyed red hair, smouldering eyes, churning and foaming inside, and yet attractive in a way ... A bone-lazy young hooligan, Mrs. Pettybone decided, handsome enough if you sc.r.a.ped through the layers of dirt, but a hooligan all the same. "What you need is a good scrub," she said.

"Does that come with the room?"

"Don't be impudent. How many days, Mister ...?

"Blaquiere."

"How many days do you intend to stay, Mr. ... Black whatever. Mr. Frenchman with the Oxbridge accent."

Norval glanced at the burnished floors and unblemished walls. Starry Night Starry Night, with Van Gogh's name in large letters along the top, hung on one of them, and on the floor beneath it stood a padded mallet, oriental looking. "Just the one."

"Are you married?"

Norval gave a quarter-smile, shook his head. Ou est le rapport? Ou est le rapport? "Hardly. Why do you ask?" "Hardly. Why do you ask?"

"Because I have a daughter-whom I shall thank you to steer clear of. There shall be no carnal commerce in my house, do we understand each other? You're all alike, you men. And I don't want you wagging your thingy at me as one of our guests did, the late Reverend Hickenby."

Norval nodded. "You know, Mrs. Pettybone, now that I think of it, it may be more convenient for me to get a room in town-"

"Come this way," she said. And for some reason he obeyed, penetrating deeper into the maze of the house, ascending a back staircase, steep and narrow, perhaps for servants, at the top of which Mrs. Pettybone pushed open an unlocked door. She stood before a renovated en suite bathroom. "Do you know what a bidet is for, Mr. Black? Are you aware of its function? Last year, I had an American boy who defecated in it. I'll have none of that in my house, do we understand each other? No Yankee gangsterism in my house."

"I'm French, Mrs. Pettybone. We invented the bidet."

"There's the shower, there's the soap." She pointed to translucent antibacterial bars on dishes and racks. "Use them." On this congenial note she left, closing the door behind her, giving it a click on the other side, as if locking him in.

Like walking into a spider's parlour, Norval thought as he looked around the room. Tapestried four-poster bed with a picture of the Holy Child over top, plastic pink roses in a vase on the bed table, curtains with the red flounce put in coffins, milky iridescent wallpaper with bunches of pinkish lilies cascading in each corner. The same pink lilies, Norval noted, on the white ceramic of the toilet, sink and shower. The bathroom, like the rest of the house, was as cold as a crypt.

Norval shed his clothes and opened the sink cupboard, searching for shampoo. It contained nothing but cans, aerosol cans, lined up in groups of three: Alpine Rose, Cinnamon Apple, Citrus Fresh; Country Air, Country Breeze, Country Cornucopia; Hawaiian Breeze, Island Breeze, Jasmine Utopia; Lavender Meadow, Lavender Mist, Minty Jamboree; Mountain Berry, Mulberry, Oceanside Breeze; Ocean Spray, Pa.s.sion Fruit, Spicy Potpourri; Spring Rain, Summer Rain, Wintergreen Bouquet ...

"This can not not be happening," Norval muttered in the shower, while lathering his hair with anti-bacterial soap. "Alphabetical order, for Christ's sake. The woman's a burning lunatic. This is a must-flee situation." be happening," Norval muttered in the shower, while lathering his hair with anti-bacterial soap. "Alphabetical order, for Christ's sake. The woman's a burning lunatic. This is a must-flee situation."

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When Norval opened his eyes the next morning, a fierce ray of sun blinded him. Mrs. Pettybone had hoisted the hospital-white blinds and was now securing the draw string. Wearing a red jogging suit, white ap.r.o.n and red garden gloves, she began plucking articles off the floor. A look of disgust warped her features as she dropped each article of clothing into a large white sack. "Breakfast at seven," she barked while striding out of the room. "Sharp," she added from the hallway, hauling away the sack like an anti-Santa. "And no smoking!"

Norval squinted at the alarm clock. Six thirty. He shook his head, rubbed his eyes, threw the bedclothes back, swore, swore again, turned over and instantly fell back to sleep.