The Gap of Time (14 page)

She said: Do you talk to yourself?

He said: Would you rather die well than live badly?

She said: Do you like stars?

He said: Do you like the ocean?

She said: Is this our own set of thirty-six questions?

He said: To fall in love?

No
, she thought,
that's already happened, hasn't it?

She said: To get to know each other?

He said: My dad spent a lot of time talking to psychologists about human behaviour—he needed the pre-sets.

Are there pre-sets?

Oh, yeah—most people will behave exactly as they are predicted to behave in any given situation.

What does he do, your dad?

He designs computer games. Not shoot-outs and trolls—sophisticated stuff.

Do you live with your mom and dad?

No. My mom and he never lived together—it's a long story, he's basically gay—him and my mom made an arrangement. He wanted a son. I was a vanity project.

Zel said this with such fierceness that Perdita wished she hadn't asked. She rubbed his shoulder. He didn't seem to notice her concern or her touch. He had left the present tense.

Dad was around a lot until I was about eight years old. Then he had some kind of a breakdown and after that we never saw him much. He paid all the bills. He paid for me to go to college.

As a mechanic?

No. I'm a Philosophy major. Does that surprise you?

Maybe…I don't know you.

But you do
, he thought, coming back into the present.
You know me
.

“Are you in touch with your dad?”

Zel shook his head. “He travels a lot. Also, he's a recluse—if you can be a recluse who travels a lot. Also, he's an alcoholic. So when I do see him I don't know if he will be drunk or sober. Usually he's so drunk he seems sober. That's the worst.”

“Is that why you don't drink? You always ask for water.”

Zel stood blank like metal. “Can we talk about something else?”

Perdita moved her body against Zel, guiding his body with her body. He felt the warm softness of her right through him.

“I think I'm getting oil on your dress.”

They both looked down. GOD! HER BREASTS! Zel's body doing the thinking for him. He tried to focus his mind on disasters and drowning. Sick kittens. Laboratory chimps. Why had he worn tight jeans?

“Will you excuse me? I need the rest-room.”

HollyPollyMolly saw Zel dodge off as they came to the end of their set. Holly sat on the edge of the stage and grabbed Perdita.

“So? So SO SO SO SO???”

“So what?”

“You like him, don't you?”

“He's so serious and sweet.”

“And LOOK what he did to that car! Good with his hands.”

“Can you leave me alone? I love you but can you leave me alone? I'm getting some food.”

Perdita went over to the laden trestle. The chef was turning spring onions and prawns in a wok.

She took two servings and found a table. A little way off she could see her father playing cards with Autolycus and a man she didn't recognise.

Zel came back to the table. He had no bulges. Perdita pushed a plate of food over to him and grinned. He liked that: a girl who eats and a girl who grins. Nothing about her was self-conscious.

“Do you think you have any control over your life?” she said.

Zel thought this was a difficult question judging from his trip to the rest-room. He had been about to tell her that he liked her dress. Perdita was eating gracefully and messily—he wasn't sure how this combined but even the noodles she dropped she dropped elegantly.

Just do it forever
, he thought,
do what you do forever. And let me be there.

He said, “Depends on whether you believe in free will or destiny. Let me see your hands—both of them; I'll come sit beside you.”

It was a good excuse to feel the strong length of her thigh against the strong length of his thigh.

“Can you read palms?”

“My mom can—her ancestors were slaves on the plantations; the knowledge was passed down the female line generation to generation. She's a little bit voodoo.”

Perdita gave him her left hand. Zel ran his finger around her palm. “This is a map made of skin. You see this track, running down to your wrist—that's your life-line. And that's strange.”

“What? What's strange?”

“At the start of the line—here—there's a break, do you see? A complete break—like you were dead, but obviously you're not dead. And here, there's another line, like another life, shadowing the real one—and it joins your main-line here, like a disused railtrack.”

“That is my other life,” said Perdita. “I'm adopted.”

“Oh…I'm sorry—forgive me, I didn't…”

“There's nothing to be sorry about. I'm adopted. So what?”

“Would you ever want to find your real parents?”

“In what sense would they be my parents? I mean, is a parent the person who provides you with the raw materials of life or the person who raises you? I love Shep. He's the one who's my father.”

Zel nodded. “My dad's my dad, but I don't know him. He could be anybody's dad. I could be anybody's son.”

“What about your mom?”

“She's fine. She did her best.”

“My birth mother is dead. That's why I had to be adopted.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“Can you stop saying sorry?”

She put her finger on his lips. Then she leaned forward and kissed Zel. He wasn't the first boy she had kissed but he felt like it. He tasted of prawns and lime. He touched her hair gently as if she slept and he didn't want to wake her. He didn't want this dream to end.

Sometimes it doesn't matter that there was any time before this time. Sometimes it doesn't matter that it's night or day or now or then. Sometimes where you are is enough. It's not that time stops or that it hasn't started. This is time. You are here. This caught moment opening into a lifetime.

“I'm glad to see you young folks having such a good time,” said Autolycus, arriving at their table and sitting himself down.

Perdita looked across to Shep, who was still playing cards. Autolycus shook his head ruefully. “That pop of yours is a sharp player. I'm out.”

“What did you lose this time?” said Zel.

“You sound like my mother. Don't worry about it. Life's a game of chance. Are you going to introduce me?”

“I'm Perdita.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Perdita. I'm Autolycus. Zel's told me all about you.”

“No, I haven't! I told you nothing about her.”

“That's how I knew you were serious.”

“We were talking about free will,” said Perdita. “Do you believe in free will?”

“In theory I do, but they invented that idea before they invented the idea that makes free will an impossibility—like sex.”

“What's impossible about sex?”

“You're too young to know—let's stick with the topic.”

“You're the one who started talking about sex.”

“That's what happens when an old man sits next to a pretty young girl—but don't worry about it.”

“She won't,” said Zel.

“Thanks, I can speak for myself,” said Perdita.

Autolycus was nodding his head like a Chinese cat. “That's right! I like a woman who speaks for herself! To get back to the topic—I can tell you that in my opinion the free market makes free will impossible.

“If I have to trade with you—Perdita—at a discount disadvantageous to me, where's my free will? And if I have to buy from you—Zel—because you're a monopoly pretending to be private enterprise, then where's my free will?”

Perdita said, “Dad gave me
Walden
to read, that book by Thoreau? You can opt out of the system. You can live in your own way.”

Autolycus shrugged. “What was that thing Jesus didn't say? The rich are always with you. Drop out of the world and find an island where you can live on lettuce, and some venture capitalist will back a sea-plane shuttle service and they'll build a spa that offers a detox using only the world's most exclusive lettuce.”

“Aren't you a businessman?” said Perdita.

Autolycus shook his head. “I'm too honest to be a businessman. I'm a straightforward crook.”

Shep came over to the table with a tall man Perdita didn't know.

“You want to jump back in for a last round?” Shep asked Autolycus.

“How much more can a poor old man risk?”

The stranger standing behind Zel spoke. “What you risk reveals what you value.”

Zel turned round and stood up in the same moment. The softness in his face froze over like he was staring at Medusa.

“Dad!”

“Hello, Zel. Autolycus told me you would be here. I dropped in to pick up a car and I decided to come with him. I don't want to interrupt. I haven't seen you for a while.”

“Fourteen months,” said Zel. He was shaking with anger and confusion and he hoped no one could tell. It was always like this when he saw his father. His body went tense, his mind went blank and, while his father would be urbane and easy, Zel would have nothing to say.
Go away. Go away. Go away
.

Xeno looked Zel up and down like he was booking a model.

“You look good—apart from the oil-spill down your shirt.”

Zel blushed. He wanted to hit his father out of existence.

Xeno smiled at Perdita. He was taller than his son. Fine features and grey eyes. Thick grey hair combed back like a movie star's. Attractive and aware that he was attractive. He wore a dark blue tailored suit, lace-up blue suede Oxford brogues and a pink V-neck T-shirt. He held out his hand to Perdita.

“I'm Xeno. Zel's father.”

“You sound British,” said Perdita.

“I am British. Zel's American because his mother is American. And he was brought up here.”

“Perdita,” said Perdita. She took his hand to shake it. Xeno held on. Zel wished he had a knife.

The band started up a Jackson Browne number.

“
People stay just a little bit longer…
”

Xeno said, “ ‘STAY.' This is one of my favourite songs from a long time ago. A lifetime ago. Before you were born. Would you like to dance?”

Perdita hesitated, then smiled and nodded and went with Xeno onto the dance floor.

Zel looked like he had been sprayed with ice-water and put in the fridge. He couldn't move and he didn't speak.

“Well, well,” said Autolycus. “Family life is always a surprise.”

“He's not my family,” said Zel.

Xeno was a good dancer.

He moves like he's made of water, thought Perdita.

He didn't try to talk to her. They just danced in the way that people who can dance do dance.

He had the same slow, shy smile as Zel, but his face had an interiority to it that Zel's didn't. He seemed to be somewhere else, though not through inattentiveness; there was a quality of detachment to him.

Other dancers cleared a space around them because they were good to watch. Perdita was enjoying herself. Xeno got behind, letting her shimmy as he held her arms. He leaned forward and said into her ear, “You're perfectly safe with me. I'm gay.”

Outside, on the edge of the dance floor, where he always felt himself to be, Zel was watching them. He stood, a motionless column of misery that couldn't be managed, and a rod of anger he couldn't express. He didn't want Xeno dancing with Perdita. At the same time he wanted his father to be dancing with him, on some other dance floor, where he had a father, and where his father had a son.

Perdita was aware of a doubleness in Xeno. His upper body was accommodating and polite. He twirled her, held out his hand to her, danced back, not forward—but his hips were forward water.

He was yes and no all at once.

The music ended. Xeno put his hand on the small of Perdita's back and indicated the direction of the bar. He asked for a double Woodford Reserve. The barman didn't ask Perdita what she wanted—just passed her fresh lime juice and water.

Xeno dropped the bourbon down his throat like he was swallowing an oyster.

“How long have you known my son?”

“Not long. He comes to the bar sometimes.”

“I used to come here myself—years ago—before your family took it on. In those days this place had a reputation.”

“What kind of a reputation?”

“It doesn't matter. Times change. Or we believe that they do. But if times change, do people change?”

“I don't know what you mean…”

“That doesn't matter either. It's a long story. I think about time all the time—and in part because I am getting older. Don't mistake me—I am not wistful for lost youth. There's nothing there I want back. Not the van, the dog, the books, the girls, the boys, or Leo.”

“Who's Leo?”

“A lion I used to know.”

Perdita had a sense that Xeno's grey eyes, the colour of magnets, were magnets. He held her without touching her.

“I think about time because I don't understand it—we're the same there, you and I—except that you don't need to understand because you don't believe it will end. Don't you find that strange? That we think we're immortal until we're not?”

The barman came by and filled Xeno's glass. He lifted a toast to Perdita and drank back the whisky like he was Tristan and she was Isolde.

He said, “Getting older happens suddenly. It's like swimming out to sea and realising that the shore you're making for isn't the shore where you started out.”

“Where did you start out?”

“At a chilly boys' boarding school in England. I liked swimming because the water was so cold that it stopped me feeling anything else.”