The Bone Clocks

  “The wanker was asking for it,” states She-Goth Two.

  “He started it,” insists her friend. “He provoked us!”

  “Multiple witnesses,” I indicate the scandal-hungry onlookers, “know exactly who was attacked by whom. If you think ‘verbal provocation’ is an admissible defense for grievous bodily harm, then you’re even stupider than you look. See that hatpin there?” She-Goth Two sees the blood on the tip and drops it; two seconds later it’s in my pocket. “Lethal weapon used with intent. Got your DNA all over it. Custodial term, four years. Yes, girls: four years. If you’ve punctured the ear canal, make it seven, and by the time I’ve finished in court, seven years will mean seven. So. Reckon I’m bluffing?”

  “Who,” the bassist’s aggression is shaky, “the fuck are you?”

  I perform my craziest L. Ron Hubbard laugh. “Postgrad in law, genius. What’s more interesting is who you are—an accomplice. Do you know what that means, in nice plain English? It means you get sentenced too.”

  She-Goth Two’s braggadocio is wilting. “But I …”

  The bassist’s pulling her by the arm. “C’mon, Andrea.”

  “Run, Andrea!” I jeer. “Melt into the crowd—oh, but wait! You’ve glued posters of your mugshots all over Cambridge, haven’t you? Well, you are fucked. Well and truly.” Come Up to the Lab decide it’s time to vacate the building. I yell after them, “See you at the hearing! Bring phone cards for the detention wing—you’ll need them!”

  Penhaligon rights the table and Olly gathers the glasses. Fitzsimmons hauls Cheeseman onto the bench, and I ask him how many fingers I’m holding up. He winces a bit, and wipes his mouth. “It was my ear she went for, not my sodding eye.”

  A very pissed-off landlord appears. “What’s going on?”

  I turn on him. “Our friend was just assaulted by three drunken sixth-formers and needs medical attention. As regulars, we’d hate to see your license revoked, so at A and E Richard and Olly here will imply the assault happened off your premises. Unless I’ve read the situation wrongly, and you’d prefer to involve the authorities?”

  The landlord susses the state of play. “Nah. ’Preciated.”

  “You’re welcome. Olly: Is the Magic Astra parked nearby?”

  “In the car park at the college, yes, but Ness here—”

  “Um, my car’s available too,” says helpful Penhaligon.

  “Jonny, you’re over the limit and your father’s a magistrate.”

  “The breathalyzers’ll be out tonight,” warns the landlord.

  “You’re the only sober party, Olly. And if we phone for an ambulance from Addenbrookes, the cops will come along too, and—”

  “Questions, statements, and all sorts of how’s-yer-father,” says the landlord, “and then your college’d get involved, too.”

  Olly looks at Ness, like a boy who’s lost his finger of fudge.

  “Go on,” Ness tells him. “I’d join you, but the sight of blood …” She makes a yuck face. “Help your friend.”

  “I’m supposed to be driving you to Greenwich tonight.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get home by train—I’m a big girl, remember? Call me on Sunday and we’ll talk Christmas plans, okay? Go.”

  MY RADIO ALARM is glowing 01:08 when I hear footsteps on the stairs, the pause, the timid tap-tap-tap on my outer door. I put on my dressing gown, close my bedroom door, cross my parlor, and open up, leaving the chain on. I squint out: “Olly? Wassa time?”

  Olly looks Caravaggian in the dim light. “Half twelve-ish.”

  “Shit. Poor you. How’s the bearded one?”

  “If he survives the self-pity, he’ll be fine. Antitetanus booster and a glorified Elastoplast. A and E was the Night of the Living Dead. I only just dropped Cheeseman off at his flat. Did Ness get to the station?”

  “For sure. Penhaligon and I escorted her to the taxi rank at Drummer Street, Friday night being Friday night. Fitz met Chetwynd-Pitt and Yasmina after you left and went off clubbing. Then, once Ness was safely off, Penhaligon followed on. I wussed out, spent a sexy hour here with I.F.R. Coates’s Bushonomics and the New Monetarism, then called it a night. Look, I’d”—I do a whale-sized yawn—“invite you in, but I’m bushed.”

  “She didn’t …” Olly thinks, and Connect 4 counters drop, “… stick around for a drink or—or anything? At the Buried Bishop?”

  “I.F.R. Coates is a bloke, Olly. He teaches at Blithewood College in upstate New York.”

  “I meant,” how Olly aches to believe me, “Ness, actually.”

  “Ness? Ness just wanted to get to Greenwich.” I’m mildly hurt; Olly ought to trust me not to hit on his girlfriend. “She’d have made the nine fifty-seven to King’s Cross, thence to Greenwich, where she’s no doubt tucked up and dreaming of Olly Quinn, Esquire. Lovely girl, by the way, from the little I saw of her. Obviously besotted with you, too.”

  “You reckon? This week she’s been a bit, I don’t know, ratty. I’ve been half afraid she might be …”

  I continue to act dumb. Olly lets his sentence fizzle out.

  “What?” I say. “Thinking of dumping you? Hardly the impression I got. When these huntin’, shootin’, fishin’ types really fall for a guy they go all headmistressy to hide it. But don’t discount the more obvious cause of female crankiness, either; Lucille used to turn into a scorn-flobbing psychopath every twenty-eight days.”

  Olly looks cheerful. “Well. Yeah. Maybe.”

  “You’ll be meeting up over Christmas, right?”

  “The idea was to sort out our plans tonight.”

  “Too bad our Richard needed a Good Samaritan. Mind you, the way you took charge of things back at the pub impressed her to pieces. She said it showed how self-possessed you are when a crisis strikes.”

  “She said that? Actually said it?”

  “Pretty much verbatim, yes. At the taxi rank.”

  Olly’s glowing; if he was six inches tall and fluffy, Toys R Us would ship him by the thousands.

  “Olly, mate, I’ll bid thee a fair repose.”

  “Sorry, Hugo, sure. Thanks. G’night.”

  BACK IN MY bed of woman-smelling warmth, Ness hooks a leg across my thighs: “ ‘Headmistressy’? I should kick you out of bed now.”

  “Try it.” I run my hands over her pleasing contours. “You’d better leave at the crack of dawn. I sent you to Greenwich just now.”

  “That’s hours away, yet. Anything could happen.”

  I draw twirls around her navel with my finger, but I find myself thinking about Immaculée Constantin. I didn’t mention her to the boys earlier; turning her into an anecdote felt unwise. Not unwise: prohibited. When I zoned out on her, she must have thought … What? That I’d entered a sort of seated coma, and left me to it. Pity.

  Ness folds back the coverlet for air. “The problem with the Ollies of the world is—”

  “Glad you’re so focused on me,” I tell her.

  “—is their niceness. Niceness drives me mental.”

  “Isn’t a nice boy what every girl is looking for?”

  “To marry, sure. But Olly makes me feel trapped inside a Radio 4 play about … frightfully earnest young men in the nineteen fifties.”

  “He did mention you’d been out of sorts lately. Ratty.”

  “If I’m ratty, he’s an overgrown wobbly puppy.”

  “Well, the course of true love never did—”

  “Shut up. He’s so embarrassing socially. I’d already decided to dump him on Sunday. Tonight just seals the deal.”

  “If poor doomed Olly’s a Radio 4 play, what am I?”

  “You, Hugo,” she kisses my earlobe, “are a sordid, low-budget French film. The sort you’d stumble across on TV at night. You know you’ll regret it in the morning, but you keep watching anyway.”

  A lost tune is whistled in the quad below.

  December 20

  “A ROBIN.” Mum points through the patio windows at the garden, clogged with frozen slush. “There, on
the handle of the spade.”

  “He looks freshly arrived off a Christmas card,” says Nigel.

  Dad munches broccoli. “What’s my spade doing out of the shed?”

  “My fault,” I say. “I was filling the coal scuttle. I’ll put it back after. Though, first, I’ll put Alex’s plate to keep warm: Hot gossip and true love shouldn’t mean cold lunches.” I take my older brother’s plate to the new wood-burning oven and put it inside with a pan lid over it. “Hell’s bells, Mum. You could fit a witch in here.”

  “If it had wheels,” says Nigel, “it’d be an Austin Metro.”

  “Now that,” crap cars are one of Dad’s loves, “was a pile of.”

  “What a pity you’ll miss Aunt Helena at New Year,” Mum tells me.

  “It is.” I sit back down and resume my lunch. “Give her my love.”

  “Right,” says Nigel. “Like you’d rather be stuck in Richmond over New Year than skiing in Switzerland. You’re mega-jammy, Hugo.”

  “How many times have I told you?” says Dad. “It’s not—”

  “What you know but who you know,” says Nigel. “Nine thousand, six hundred, and eight, including just now.”

  “That’s why getting to a brand-name university matters,” says Dad. “To network with future big fish and not future small-fry.”

  “I forgot to mention,” remembers Mum. “Julia’s covered herself in glory—again. She’s won a scholarship to study human-rights law, in Montreal.”

  I’ve always had a thing for my cousin Julia, and the thought of covering her in anything is Byronically diverting.

  “Lucky she takes after your side of the family, Alice,” says Dad, a dour reference to my ex-uncle Michael’s divorce ten years ago, complete with secretary and love child. “What’s Jason studying again?”

  “Something psycho-linguisticky,” says Mum, “at Lancaster.”

  Dad frowns. “Why do I associate him with forestry?”

  “He wanted to be a forester when he was a kid,” I say.

  “But now he’s settled on being a speech therapist,” says Mum.

  “A st-st-stuttering sp-sp-speech therapist,” says Nigel.

  I grind peppercorns over my mashed pumpkin. “Not grown-up and not clever, Nige. A stammer has to be the best possible qualification for a speech therapist. Don’t you think?”

  Nigel does a guess-so face in lieu of admitting I’m right.

  Mum sips her wine. “This wine is divine, Hugo.”

  “Divine’s the word for Montrachet seventy-eight,” says Dad. “You shouldn’t be spending your money on us, Hugo. Really.”

  “I budget carefully, Dad. The office-drone work I do at the solicitor’s adds up. And after everything you’ve done for me down the years, I ought to be able to stand you a bottle of decent plonk.”

  “But we’d hate to think of you going short,” says Mum.

  “Or your studies suffering,” adds Dad, “because of your job.”

  “So just let us know,” says Mum, “if money’s tight. Promise?”

  “I’ll come cap in hand, if that ever looks likely. Promise.”

  “My money’s tight,” says Nigel, hopefully.

  “You’re not living out in the big bad world.” Dad frowns at the clock. “Speaking of which, I only hope Alex’s fräulein’s parents know she’s calling England. It’s the middle of the day.”

  “They’re Germans, Dad,” says Nigel. “Big fat Deutschmarks.”

  “You say that, but reunification is going to cost the earth. My clients in Frankfurt are very jumpy about the fallout.”

  Mum slices a roasted potato. “What’s Alex told you about Suzanne, Hugo?”

  “Not a word.” With my knife and fork I slide trout flesh off its bones. “Sibling rivalry, remember.”

  “But you and Alex are the firmest of friends, these days.”

  “As long as,” says Nigel, “no one utters those six deadly words, ‘Anyone fancy a game of Monopoly?’ ”

  I look hurt. “Is it my fault if I can’t seem to lose?”

  Nigel snorts. “Just ’cause no one knows how you cheat—”

  “Mum, Dad, you heard that hurtful, baseless aspersion.”

  “—isn’t proof you don’t cheat.” Nigel wags his knife. My baby brother lost his virginity this autumn: chess magazines and Atari console out, the KLF and grooming products in. “Anyway, I know three things about Suzanne, using my powers of deduction. If she finds Alex attractive, then (a) she’s blind as a bat, (b) she’s used to dealing with toddlers, and (c) she has no sense of smell.”

  Enter the Alex: “Who’s got no sense of smell?”

  “Fetch Firstborn’s dinner from the oven,” I order Nigel, “or I’ll rat you out and you’ll deserve it.” Nigel obeys, sheepishly enough.

  “So how’s Suzanne?” asks Mum. “All well in Hamburg?”

  “Yeah, fine.” Alex sits down. He’s a brother of few words.

  “She’s a pharmacology student, you said?” states Mum.

  Alex spears a brain of cauliflower from the dish. “Uh-huh.”

  “And will we be meeting her at some point, do you think?”

  “Hard to say,” says Alex, and I think of my own poor dear Mariângela’s vain hopes.

  Nigel puts Alex’s lunch in front of our elder brother.

  “What I can’t get over,” says Dad, “is how distances have shrunk. Girlfriends in Germany, ski trips to the Alps, courses in Montreal: This is all normal nowadays. The first time I left England was to go to Rome, when I was about your age, Hugo. None of my mates had ever gone so far. A pal and I got the Dover-Calais ferry, hitched a ride down to Marseille, then across to Turin, then Rome. Took us six days. It felt like the edge of the known world.”

  Nigel asks, “Did the wheels come off the mail coach, Dad?”

  “Funny. I didn’t go back to Rome until two years ago, when New York decided to hold the European AGM there. Off we all jetted in time for a late lunch, a few supervisions, schmoozing until midnight, then the next day we were back in London in time for—”

  We hear the phone ring, back in the living room. “It’s for one of you boys,” Mum declares. “Bound to be.”

  Nigel skids down the hall and into the living room; my trout gazes up with a disappointed eye. A few moments later, Nigel’s back. “Hugo, that was a Diana on the phone for you—Diana Spinster, Spankser, Spencer, didn’t quite catch it. She said you could pop over to the palace while her husband’s touring the Commonwealth … Something about Tantric plumbing? She said you’d understand.”

  “There’s this operation, little brother. It would help that one-track mind of yours. Vets do it cheaply.”

  “Who was on the phone, Nigel?” asks Mum. “Before you forget.”

  “Mrs. Purvis at the Riverside Villas. She said to tell Hugo that the brigadier’s feeling better today, and if he’d still like to visit this afternoon, he’d be welcome to call between three and five o’clock.”

  “Great. If you’re sure you can spare me, Dad …”

  “Go go go. Your mother and I are very proud of how you still go to read to the brigadier, aren’t we, Alice?”

  Mum says, “Very.”

  “Thanks,” I shrug awkwardly, “but Brigadier Philby was so brilliant when I went to see him for my civics class at Dulwich, and so full of stories. It’s the least I can do.”

  “Oh, God.” Nigel groans. “Someone’s locked me up inside an episode of Little House on the Prairie.”

  “Then let me offer you a way out,” says Dad. “If Hugo’s visiting the brigadier, you can help me collect the tree.”

  Nigel looks aghast. “But Jasper Farley and I are going to Tottenham Court Road this afternoon!”

  “What for?” Alex loads his fork. “All you do is slobber over hi-fi gear and synthesizers you can’t afford.”

  We hear a small crash out on the patio. From the corner of my eye I see a flash of black. A toppled flower pot skitters across the patio, the spade tips over, and the black flas
h turns into a cat with a robin in its mouth. The bird’s wings are flapping. “Oh.” Mum recoils. “That’s horrible. Can’t we do something? The cat looks so pleased with itself.”

  “It’s called survival of the fittest,” says Alex.

  “Why don’t I lower the blinds?” asks Nigel.

  “Better let nature take its course, darling,” says Dad.

  I get up and go out through the back door. The cold air shocks my skin as I go, “Shoo, shoo!” to the cat. The feline hunter leaps onto the garden shed. It watches me. Its tail sashays. The mangled bird is twitching in the black cat’s mouth.

  I hear the boomy scrape of an airplane.

  A twig snaps. I am intensely alive.

  “ACCORDING TO MY husband,” Nurse Purvis steams along moppable carpet to the library of Riverside Villas, “the youth of today are either scroungers-on-benefits, queers, or I’m-all-right-Jacks.” The smell of pine-scented disinfectant stings my nostrils. “But as long as Great Britain breeds fine young men of your cut, Hugo, I for one say we shan’t be collapsing into barbarism any time soon, mmm?”

  “Please, Nurse Purvis, my head won’t fit through the library door.” We turn the corner and find a resident clinging to the handrail. She’s frowning at the wintry garden, as if she’s left something out there. A string of drool connects her lower lip to her spearmint-green cardigan.

  “Standards, Mrs. Bolitho,” says the nurse, hipping out a tissue from her sleeve. “What do we watch? Our standards, mmm?” She scoops up the saliva stalactite and deposits the tissue in the bin. “You’ll remember Hugo, Mrs. Bolitho—the brigadier’s young friend.”

  Mrs. Bolitho turns her head; I think of my trout at lunch.