The Humans (30 page)

If I can stop one heart from breaking
, that poet said,
I shall not live in vain.

‘How are you?’ I asked, as if he were a casual acquaintance I often bumped into.

‘I haven’t tried to kill myself, if that’s what you mean.’

‘And how is she?’ I asked. ‘Your mother?’

Newton came over with a stick, dropped it for me to throw. Which I did.

‘She misses you.’

‘Me? Or your dad?’

‘You. You’re the one who looked after us.’

‘I don’t have any powers to look after you now. If you chose to jump off a roof then you’d probably die.’

‘I don’t jump off roofs any more.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘That’s progress.’

There was a long silence. ‘I think she wants you to come back.’

‘Does she say that?’

‘No. But I think she does.’

The words were rain in a desert. After a while I said, in a quiet and neutral tone, ‘I don’t know if that would be wise. It’s easy to misunderstand your mother. And even if you
haven’t got it wrong there could be all kinds of difficulties. I mean, what would she even call me? I don’t have a name. It would be wrong for her to call me Andrew.’ I paused.
‘Do you think she really misses me?’

He shrugged. ‘Yeah. I think so.’

‘What about you?’

‘I miss you, too.’

Sentimentality is another human flaw. A distortion. Another twisted by-product of love, serving no rational purpose. And yet, there was a force behind it as authentic as any other.

‘I miss you, too,’ I said. ‘I miss both of you.’

It was evening. The clouds were orange, pink and purple. Was this what I had wanted? Was this why I had come back to Cambridge?

We talked.

The light faded.

Gulliver attached the lead to Newton’s collar. The dog’s eyes spoke sad warmth.

‘You know where we live,’ said Gulliver.

I nodded. ‘Yes. I do.’

I watched him leave. The joke of the universe. A noble human, with thousands of days to live. It made no logical sense that I had developed into someone who wanted those days to be as happy and
secure for him as they could possibly be, but if you came to Earth looking for logical sense you were missing the point. You were missing lots of things.

I sat back and absorbed the sky and tried not to understand anything at all. I sat there until it was night. Until distant suns and planets shone above me, like a giant advert for better living.
On other, more enlightened planets, there was the peace and calm and logic that so often came with advanced intelligence. I wanted none of it, I realised.

What I wanted was that most exotic of all things. I had no idea if that was possible. It probably wasn’t, but I needed to find out.

I wanted to live with people I could care for and who would care for me. I wanted family. I wanted happiness, not tomorrow or yesterday, but now.

What I wanted, in fact, was to go home. So, I stood up.

It was only a short walk away.

I first had the idea of writing this story in 2000, when I was in the grips of panic disorder. Back then, human life felt as strange for me as it does for the unnamed narrator.
I was living in a state of intense but irrational fear that meant I couldn’t even go to a shop on my own – or anywhere – without suffering a panic attack. The only thing I could
do to gain a degree of calm was read. It was a breakdown, of sorts, though as R.D. Laing (and later Jerry Maguire) famously said, breakdown is very often breakthrough and, weirdly, I don’t
regret that personal hell now.

I got better. Reading helped. Writing helped also. This is why I became a writer. I discovered that words and stories provided maps of sorts, ways of finding your way back to yourself. I truly
believe in the power of fiction to save lives and minds, for this reason. But it has taken me a lot of books to get to this one, the story I first wanted to tell. The one that attempted a look at
the weird and often frightening beauty of being human.

So, why the delay? I suppose I needed a bit of distance from the person I had been, because even though the subject matter is far from autobiographical, it felt too personal, maybe because I
knew the dark well from where the idea – jokes and all – first came from.

The writing proved a joy. I imagined writing it for myself in 2000, or someone in a similar state. I was trying to offer a map, but also to cheer that someone up. Maybe because the idea had been
fermenting so long the words were all there, and the story came in a torrent.

Not that it didn’t need editing. Indeed, never has a story I have written needed an editor more, so I am very grateful to have one as wise as Francis Bickmore at Canongate. Among other
things he told me that a board meeting in outer space might not be the best way to start, and crucially got me to think of
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
and bleed the weirdness in
gradually. It was wonderful, though, to have an editor telling me to put stuff back in just as often as he was saying leave things out.

Thanks also to the other important early eyes on this. They include my agent Caradoc King, along with Louise Lamont and Elinor Cooper at AP Watt/United Agents, my US editor Millicent Bennet at
Simon and Schuster, Kate Cassaday at Harper Collins Canada and film producer Tanya Seghatchian, for whom I’m now writing the screenplay. Tanya is just about the best person anyone could have
on their side, and I feel particular loyalty to her as she has supported and assisted my work since my very first novel, and a meeting in a coffee shop nearly a decade ago.

I must thank all my lucky stars for having the support of Jamie Byng and Canongate, who are the most passionate publishers a writer could ask for. And of course Andrea – first reader,
first critic, continual editor and best friend – and Lucas and Pearl, for adding wonder to my daily existence.

Thank you, humans.