There but for The (13 page)

Duh, the child says.

She gives the word her most intelligent inflection.

Brooke, her mother says.

Obviously, the child says.

She says it as though it means duh.

The conversation about rhyme and memory has arisen because a moment ago Mark asked the child what books she likes reading. Mark is usually more uneasy around children, who always make him feel like his best behaviour isn’t quite good enough, because they are so true, like little truth detectives. But this child is a charming and quite unthreatening one. Have you ever read Struwwelpeter? he’d asked her. The story of Augustus who would not eat any soup? Or A Book of Nonsense? Have you ever read Edward Lear’s limericks? There was a young lady of Norway. Who casually sat in a doorway.

Then while the child and the others have this conversation, Mark sits in amazement as his own mind unfurls and one after the other like little falling-open scrolls he finds line after rhyming line inside his head. Augustus was a chubby lad. Fat ruddy cheeks Augustus had. When the door squeezed her flat she replied, what of that? That courageous young lady of Norway.

My head is full of poems from fifty years ago, things I haven’t thought for years and didn’t even know I still knew, he says to Miles.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, Miles says sitting down across from him.

I know that one, Hugo’s wife Caroline says. Hello Mark. I’m glad they’ve put me next to you.

Did google twitter in the blog, Miles says.

Yes, Caroline says. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how very visionary he was. Imagine inventing all those words, words we use every day now. Brilliant.

She holds her full glass of white up for clinking.

To you, she says. And to—Miles, was it?

It was and is, Miles says.

I’m glad. How long have you two been together? she says.

About three and a half hours last Saturday and (glancing down at his watch) twenty minutes tonight, Miles says. Oh no, we stayed and had a drink last Saturday too. Four and a half.

We’re not actually what you’d call together, Mark says.

Oh, she says.

She puts down her glass. She looks a little affronted.

Everybody is sitting down now except the woman whose house it is, Jan. Mark goes round the table naming everybody to himself. Start with Caroline on his right, then Hugo, uh, Hannah the blonde, then Miles. Then, is it Eric, the grey man? then Bernice, then the child, then the space where Jan will sit, then Terence, then directly on Mark’s left what’s his name, reedy man, microdrone, Richard.

Richard is the person Mark most hoped he wouldn’t be put beside, apart from Caroline obviously (duh). Through in the sitting room, all through drinks, Richard had talked about his job.

Well, it’s police we’re doing the main selling to at the moment, he said. Though we’re pretty much open to bona fide offers from anywhere.

Loves his work, Rich, Hugo said.

What’s not to love? This thing markets itself, Richard said. Hardly like work at all.

What’s a microdrone? Bernice had said.

Richard then described the versatile smallness, the engine size, the battery voltage, the weight that means they’re not illegal and don’t need clearance from Civil Aviation, the adaptability, the camera type, the HD quality, the facial recognition range (fifty-five yard), the mph (fifteen, in this particular model, though others are even more phenomenally nippy), the flying range (five hundred yard), the flying time (thirty-minute, we’re working on that), the relative silence, the way they can be operated from inside a van or even in some cases from home, the training time (fifteen-minute) involved for the first-time user, and the way that even if some yob wings them with an air rifle they’ll still function pretty well all said and done.

What he hasn’t said is how cute they are, Richard’s partner Hannah said. I want one for our boys. Like little toys.

Actually classed as toys, Richard said. Which is why they don’t need clearance. Fantastic for football matches, protest meetings, you name it.

And then there’s Project Anubis, eh, Rich? Hugo said.

Yes, Richard said, well, no point in being naïve about it, it’s a nasty old world out there and it strikes me all sensible people will feel the same way as I do about it and if they don’t they ought to. And what I always say is, what a relief it’ll be when it comes to conflict, combat, and it’s robots who’ll do the work and so on. Efficiency is one fantastic thing, but the psychological liberation is a whole other massively important knock-on effect. To kill without actually having to. Hand to hand combat, gone in the wink of an eye.

I don’t understand, Terence said.

I always think when we have this conversation, and we have it every time we all have supper together, Hugo said, that it’d be a lot more useful if our great minds were put to the task of sorting our genetics out. I’m only forty-five but I’m telling you, it’s making me think, being forty-five.

Well, as long as something’s making you think, Bernice said.

Touché, Hugo said.

Project what did you call it? Bernice said. Anubis?

Yeah, Anubis, it’s just one of several levels of drone development, Richard said. Obviously the targeting specificity has been in development all along, alongside the surveillance aspect, and drones are already used widely in conflict situations. But right now we’re emphasizing the surveillance aspect for the domestic market.

Project Anubis, Terence said.

Anubis is the ancient Egyptian god of the dead, Bernice said.

Is it? Richard said. Ah. Right.

Jackal-headed, Bernice said.

And they look so like toys, Hannah said and looked delighted. Unbelievable!

Unbelievable, Bernice said.

Nasty old world out there, Richard said. No point in pretending otherwise.

The Bayoudes exchanged glances.

Now at the table, while they wait for the first course and Mark sits and worries about what he’s going to do with the wine in front of him, microdrone man asks him what he does for a living.

I’m a picture researcher, currently, Mark says.

Right, Richard says.

For BBC magazines. You know, thematically stranded in association with programmes and so on, Mark says. I source pictures for them.

Is that a very taxing job, then, Richard asks, or can you more or less do it with your eyes shut?

No, you do actually need your eyes to be open for it, Mark says.

Oh, yeah. I remember now, Richard says. You’re the, uh, Hugo and Caroline’s friend.

He clears his throat.

That’ll be how you know Hugo, he says. I’d thought, before, you know, it might be the am-dram game.

The what? Mark says.

Likes a bit of a drama, Hugo, Richard says.

Hugo looks wounded. Mark can feel Caroline pretending not to listen on the other side of him.

Wildlife photography, only one of Hugo’s many exotic hobbies, Richard says.

Hugo’s pictures of barn owls are legendary in the business, Mark says.

I occasionally take a picture that’s of occasional use to publications, Hugo says. And Mark and his employers occasionally see fit to use one or two. I’m a lucky boy. What does your, uh, Miles do, Mark?

You’ll need to ask him, Mark says.

How about you, Miles? Hugo says.

He says it civilly but it sounds like a threat.

I’m so sorry, Miles is saying as Eric puts a plate down in front of him. I can’t believe I didn’t think to tell you. I’m vegetarian.

Ah, Jan says coming through with three more plates. That might actually be a bit of a problem, Miles.

What a shame, Caroline says. And the main course is lamb. From Drings, and everything. What a shame, Jan.

What about just taking the sausage off and putting it to one side and then you can eat the fish? Hannah, who’s sitting next to Miles, says.

He’s vegetarian, Hannah, Caroline says.

Yes, I know, Caroline, that’s why I suggested it, Hannah says.

I do wish you’d let me know, Mark, or let Hugo know so he could have let me know in advance, Jan says.

I wasn’t actually party to the information that Mark would be bringing somebody, Hugo says.

My apologies, Mark says. I’m so sorry.

No, my fault, Miles says. Mine entirely. I’m an interloper. Happy just to eat salad to atone. Happy not to eat at all if it’s a problem. Happy just to have an enjoyable evening sitting here.

And then he was killed by a Viking who brained him with a bone that came from an ox, the child at the other end of the table is saying. He was the Archbishop of Canterbury and they made him a saint. It is why the church of St. Alfege is called his name. It happened here, in Greenwich, in the year ten twelve.

In the year twenty-five twenty-five. If man is still alive, Terence sings.

Adorable, Caroline says.

She smiles at Bernice. Adorable, she mouths the word the length of the table.

I’m not responsible for any adorability here, Bernice says. I’m the bad cop.

If woman can survive, Terence sings.

And the church has survived and is still there, the child says, though it has been rebuilt on the place, the exact place the original church where they brained him stood.

Ours are so grown up now, Caroline says. Theirs are still small, she says nodding at Hannah then at Richard. Lucky them, that’s all I can say. I have fond memories of life BCG. Before computer games. D’you like children, Mark? Oh, excuse me. I don’t mean that to sound like it sounds.

Um, Mark says.

I mean, I don’t know that you don’t have any. I was just assuming. I didn’t mean to sound patronizing.

It is possible now for you lot to adopt, isn’t it? Hugo said.

What lot, sorry? Mark says.

Miles is talking to the child about the restoration of the Cutty Sark.

The original, he says, was really fast. She was a tea-clipper, but built when tea-clippers were no longer relevant or really needed any more, but she was so adaptable and fast that she could even outrace the newfangled steamships.

But what I wonder is, the child said, why is it a she?

Would you rather we called it a he? Miles says.

No, the child says. I just wonder why it is, that’s all.

I don’t know, Miles says, but I’ll try and find out for you. I think ships are generally shes. And you know what Cutty Sark means?

Miles tells the child its origin. Everybody round the table pretends to be entertained while he does.

So the man in the poem is a bit merry, a bit drunk by the time he goes home, Miles says, and in the dark he passes a lot of people dancing round a fire, and one of them is a really good dancer and she’s wearing a very short shirt, so the man watches her, and shouts out well done short shirt! except it’s in Scots he shouts it, weel done Cutty Sark!—she’s so good at dancing and he’s so drunk he can’t help but blurt it out, out it comes. But the girl, well, she and her friends happen to be witches, and they’re angry they’ve been spied on, and they chase the drunk man as if they’re going to kill him, and even though his horse is good and fast he only escapes by the skin of his horse’s tail.

Ha, the child says. Skin of his tail.

Her tail, Miles says. The horse was female.

That
’s why the ship is a she, Hugo says. Same as the horse. Females, always a bit fast.

Everybody laughs.

Why is that funny? the child says.

I hope they never reopen that bloody ship, pardon my French, Jan says. The traffic round here, I don’t know what it’s like where you live, Mark and Miles, but it’s really been getting me down lately.

The child assures Jan that the ship will definitely be reopened to the public as soon as they remake it because nowadays you can do pretty much anything including remake something historic after it’s burned down.

Yep-iep, her father says. You can do pretty much anything nowadays. Take film of people who don’t know you’re doing it and even shoot them dead from a helicopter that’s classed as a toy. Anything.

Why has everybody stopped talking? the child says into the silence.

Ah, Miles says and winks at the child. A time to be silent, a time to burn things down, a time to restore them, a time to get drunk, a time to race away from things as fast as you can on your horse, a time to brain the archbishop, a time to make some headway with the starter.

Mark looks down at his plate. He looks at his full wine glass. He looks at his empty water glass. He looks at Miles’s plate. On it is what looks like salad and blue cheese, which is what they’ve also served to the child who is now poking at her plate with a knife and looking suspicious.

A discussion starts about something Caroline has seen on a screen at a train station.

And then I thought, Caroline says, that now that we can do that, morph a tiger first into the shape of a man’s foot and then into the shape of a trainer, I mean now that we have such tamed and, I have to say, beautiful images of something like a tiger and we can do exactly what we like with them, well why would we ever again be bothered about the extinction of real tigers? I stood and watched it happen and it struck me, we don’t and won’t need to see a real tiger ever again now, not now that we’ve got images like that, not really.

That’s moronic, Hugo says.

Caroline rolls her eyes.

Everybody laughs.

Personally I wouldn’t mind if they became extinct, Hannah says. I hate the way they’re always killing deer and zebras and things on the wildlife shows.

The thought made me quite sad, Caroline says. But I mean, I looked at the pictures and, I have to say, I thought it. I mean, we don’t, do we? We don’t need real tigers any more. We’ve finally tamed the wild.

That’s what they want you to think, my darling moron, Hugo says.

Don’t call me a moron, darling, Caroline says.

Way the advert worked on you is the real point, Richard says.

Ah but no it isn’t, though, Caroline says. I can remember that it was an advert for trainers, but I can’t remember which make. So it didn’t work at all, actually, not the way they wanted it to.

Hannah asks the Bayoudes if they’ve ever seen a real tiger at home. Not in Yorkshire, they say. She asks where they’re from originally. They tell her they were living in Harrogate and working at the University of York, which is where they met. They work at the local university, they tell her. Bernice got a teaching post here in the arts faculty and Terence has latterly been accepted as a research fellow.