The Humans (10 page)

‘Oh hello, Daniel.’

‘How are you? I hear you might be unwell.’

‘Oh, I am fine, really. It was just a little bit of mental exhaustion. My mind had run its own marathon and it struggled. My brain is made for sprints. It doesn’t have the stamina
for long-distance running. But don’t worry, honestly, I am back where I was. It wasn’t anything too serious. Nothing that the right medication couldn’t suppress,
anyway.’

‘Well, that is good to hear. I was worried about you. Anyway, I was hoping to talk to you about that remarkable email you sent me.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But let’s not do this over the phone. Let’s chat face-to-face. It would be good to see you.’

Isobel frowned.

‘What a good idea. Should I come to you?’

‘No,’ I said, with a degree of firmness. ‘No. I’ll come to you.’

Isobel had offered to drive me, and had tried to insist on it, saying I wasn’t ready to leave the house. Of course, I had already left the house, to go to Fitzwilliam
College, but she hadn’t known about that. I said I felt like some exercise and Daniel needed to speak to me quite urgently about something, possibly some kind of job offer. I told her
I’d have my phone on me and that she knew where I was. And so eventually I was able to take the address from Isobel’s notebook, leave the house and head to Babraham.

To a large house, the largest I’d seen.

Daniel Russell’s wife answered the door. She was a very tall, broad-shouldered woman, with quite long grey hair and aged skin.

‘Oh, Andrew.’

She held out her arms wide. I replicated the gesture. And she kissed me on the cheek. She smelt of soap and spices. It was clear she knew me. She couldn’t stop saying my name.

‘Andrew, Andrew, how
are
you?’ she asked me. ‘I heard about your little misadventure.’

‘Well, I am all right. It was a, well, an episode. But I’m over it. The story continues.’

She studied me a little more and then opened the door wide. She beckoned me inside, smiling broadly. I stepped into the hallway.

‘Do you know why I am here?’

‘To see Him Upstairs,’ she said, pointing to the ceiling.

‘Yes, but do you know
why
I am here to see him?’

She was puzzled by my manner but she tried her best to hide it beneath a kind of energetic and chaotic politeness. ‘No, Andrew,’ she said, quickly. ‘As a matter of fact, he
didn’t say.’

I nodded. I noticed a large ceramic vase on the floor. It had a yellow pattern of flowers on it, and I wondered why people bothered with such empty vessels. What was their significance? Maybe I
would never know. We passed a room, with a sofa and a television and bookcases and dark red walls. Blood-coloured.

‘Do you want a coffee? Fruit juice? We’ve acquired a taste for pomegranate juice. Though Daniel believes antioxidants are a marketing ploy.’

‘I would like a water if that’s okay.’

We were in the kitchen now. It was about twice the size of Andrew Martin’s kitchen, but it was so cluttered it felt no bigger. There were saucepans hanging above my head. There was an
envelope on the unit addressed to ‘Daniel and Tabitha Russell’.

Tabitha poured me water from a jug.

‘I’d offer you a slice of lemon but I think we’re out. There’s one in the bowl but it must be blue by now. The cleaners never sort the fruit out. They won’t touch
it.

‘And Daniel won’t
eat
fruit. Even though the doctor has told him he’s got to. But then the doctor has told him to relax and slow down, too, and he doesn’t do that
either.’

‘Oh. Why?’

She looked baffled.

‘His heart attack. You remember that? You aren’t the only frazzled mathematician in the world.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘How is he?’

‘Well, he’s on beta-blockers. I’m trying to get him on muesli and skimmed milk and to take it easier.’

‘His heart,’ I said, thinking aloud.

‘Yes. His heart.’

‘That is one of the reasons I came, in fact.’ She handed me a glass and I took a sip. As I did so, I thought of the startling capacity for belief inherent in this species. Even
before I had fully discovered the concepts of astrology, homeopathy, organised religion and probiotic yoghurts I was able to work out that what humans may have lacked in physical attractiveness,
they made up for in gullibility. You could tell them anything in a convincing enough voice and they would believe it. Anything, of course, except the truth. ‘Where is he?’

‘In his study. Upstairs.’

‘His study?’

‘You know where that is, don’t you?’

‘Of course. Of course. I know where that is.’

Of course, I had been lying.

I had no idea where Daniel Russell’s study was, and this was a very big house, but as I was walking along the first-floor landing I heard a voice. The same dry voice I had heard on the
phone.

‘Is that the saviour of mankind?’

I followed the voice all the way to the third doorway on the left, which was half-open. I could see framed pieces of paper lining a wall. I pushed open the door and saw a bald man with a sharp
angular face and a small – in human terms – mouth. He was smartly dressed. He was wearing a red bow tie and a checked shirt.

‘Pleased to see you’re wearing clothes,’ he said, suppressing a sly smile. ‘Our neighbours are people of delicate sensibilities.’

‘Yes. I am wearing the right amount of clothes. Don’t worry about that.’

He nodded, and kept nodding, as he leant back in his chair and scratched his chin. A computer screen glowed behind him, full of Andrew Martin’s curves and formulas. I could smell coffee. I
noticed an empty cup. Two of them, in fact.

‘I have looked at it. And I have looked at it again. This must have taken you to the edge, I can see that. This is something. You must have been burning yourself with this, Andrew.
I’ve been burning just reading through it.’

‘I worked very hard,’ I said. ‘I was lost in it. But that happens, doesn’t it, with numbers?’

He listened with concern. ‘Did they prescribe anything?’ he asked.

‘Diazepam.’

‘Do you feel it’s working?’

‘I do. I do. I feel it is working. Everything feels a little bit
alien
I would say, a tad
other-worldly
, as if the atmosphere is slightly different, and the gravity has
slightly less pull, and even something as familiar as an empty coffee cup has a terrible difference to it. You know, from my perspective. Even you. You seem quite hideous to me. Almost
terrifying.’

Daniel Russell laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh.

‘Well, there’s always been a frisson between us, but I always put that down to academic rivalry. Par for the course. We’re not geographers or biologists. We’re numbers
men. We mathematicians have always been like that. Look at that miserable bastard Isaac Newton.’

‘I named my dog after him.’

‘So you did. But listen, Andrew, this isn’t a moment to nudge you to the kerb. This is a moment to slap you on the back.’

We were wasting time. ‘Have you told anyone about this?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Of course not. Andrew, this is yours. You can publicise this how you want. Though I would probably advise you, as a friend, to wait a little while. At least a week
or so, until all this unwelcome stuff about your little Corpus incident has died down.’

‘Is mathematics less interesting for humans than nudity?’

‘It tends to be, Andrew. Yes. Listen. Go home, take it easy this week. I’ll put a word in with Diane at Fitz and explain that you’ll be fine but you may need some time off.
I’m sure she’ll be pretty flexible. The students are going to be tricky on your first day back. You need to build your strength up. Rest a while. Come on Andrew, go home.’

I could smell the foul scent of coffee getting stronger. I looked around at all the certificates on the wall and felt thankful to come from a place where personal success was meaningless.

‘Home?’ I said. ‘Do you know where that is?’

‘Course I do. Andrew, what are you talking about?’

‘Actually, I am not called Andrew.’

Another nervous chuckle. ‘Is Andrew Martin your stage name? If it is, I could have thought of better.’

‘I don’t have a name. Names are a symptom of a species which values the individual self above the collective good.’

This was the first time he stood up out of his chair. He was a tall man, taller than me. ‘This would be amusing, Andrew, if you weren’t a friend. I really think you might need to get
proper medical help for this. Listen, I know a very good psychiatrist who you—’

‘Andrew Martin is someone else. He was taken.’

‘Taken?’

‘After he proved what he proved, we were left with no choice.’

‘We? What are you talking about? Just have an objective ear, Andrew. You are sounding
out of your mind
. I think you ought to go home. I’ll drive you back. I think it would be
safer. Come on, let’s go. I’ll take you home. Back to your family.’

He held out his right arm, gesturing towards the door. But I wasn’t going anywhere.

‘You said you wanted to slap my back.’

He frowned. Above the frown, the skin covering the top of his skull shone. I stared at it. At the shine.

‘What?’

‘You wanted to slap my back. That is what you said. So, why not?’

‘What?’

‘Slap my back. Then I will go.’

‘Andrew—’

‘Slap my back.’

He exhaled slowly. His eyes were the mid-point between concern and fear. I turned, gave him my back. Waited for the hand, then waited some more. Then it came. He slapped my back. On that first
contact, even with clothes between us, I made the reading. Then when I turned, for less than a second, my face wasn’t Andrew Martin’s. It was mine.

‘What the—’

He lurched backwards, bumping into his desk. I was, to his eyes, Andrew Martin again. But he had seen what he had seen. I only had a second, before he would begin screaming, so I paralysed his
jaw. Somewhere way below the panic of his bulging eyes, there was a question: how did he do that? To finish the job properly I would need another contact: my left hand on his shoulder was
sufficient.

Then the pain began. The pain I had summoned.

He held his arm. His face became violet. The colour of home.

I had pain too. Head pain. And fatigue.

But I walked past him, as he dropped to his knees, and deleted the email and the attachment. I checked his sent folder but there was nothing suspicious.

I stepped out on to the landing.

‘Tabitha! Tabitha, call an ambulance! Quick! I think, I think Daniel is having a heart attack!’

Less than a minute later she was upstairs, on the phone, her face full of panic as she knelt down, trying to push a pill – an aspirin – into her husband’s
mouth. ‘His mouth won’t open! His mouth won’t open! Daniel, open your mouth! Darling, oh my God darling, open your mouth!’ And then to the phone. ‘Yes! I told you! I
told you! The Hollies! Yes! Chaucer Road! He’s dying! He’s dying!’

She managed to cram inside her husband’s mouth a piece of the pill, which bubbled into foam and dribbled onto the carpet. ‘
Mnnnnnn
,’ her husband was saying desperately.
‘
Mnnnnnn
.’

I stood there watching him. His eyes stayed wide, wide open, ipsoid-wide, as if staying in the world was a simple matter of forcing yourself to see.

‘Daniel, it’s all right,’ Tabitha was saying, right into his face. ‘An ambulance is on its way. You’ll be okay, darling.’

His eyes were now on me. He jerked in my direction. ‘
Mnnnnnn!
’

He was trying to warn his wife. ‘
Mnnnnnn
.’

She didn’t understand.

Tabitha was stroking her husband’s hair with a manic tenderness. ‘Daniel, we’re going to Egypt. Come on, think of Egypt. We’re going to see the Pyramids. It’s only
two weeks till we go. Come on, it’s going to be beautiful. You’ve always wanted to go . . .’

As I watched her I felt a strange sensation. A kind of longing for something, a craving, but for what I had no idea. I was mesmerised by the sight of this human female crouched over the man
whose blood I had prevented from reaching his heart.

‘You got through it last time and you’ll get through it this time.’

‘No,’ I whispered, unheard. ‘No, no, no.’

‘
Mnnn
,’ he said, gripping his shoulder in infinite pain.

‘I love you, Daniel.’

His eyes clenched shut now, the pain too much.

‘Stay with me, stay with me, I can’t live all alone . . .’

His head was on her knee. She kept caressing his face. So this was love. Two life forms in mutual reliance. I was meant to be thinking I was watching weakness, something to scorn, but I
wasn’t thinking that at all.

He stopped making noise, he seemed instantly heavier for her, and the deep clenched creases around his eyes softened and relaxed. It was done.

Tabitha howled, as if something had been physically wrenched out of her. I have never heard anything like that sound. It troubled me greatly, I have to say.

A cat emerged from the doorway, startled by the noise maybe, but indifferent to the scene in general. It returned back from where it came.

‘No,’ said Tabitha, over and over, ‘no, no, no!’

Outside, the ambulance skidded to a halt on the gravel. Blue flashing lights appeared through the window.

‘They’re here,’ I told Tabitha and went downstairs. It was a strange and overwhelming relief to tread my way down those soft, carpeted stairs, and for those desperate sobs and
futile commands to fade away into nothing.

I thought about where we – you and I – are from.

Where we are from there are no comforting delusions, no religions, no impossible fiction.

Where we are from there is no love and no hate. There is the purity of reason.

Where we are from there are no crimes of passion because there is no passion.

Where we are from there is no remorse because action has a logical motive and always results in the best outcome for the given situation.