The Blasphemer: A Novel (37 page)

The provost shook his head gravely. ‘Yes, suspension is the only option. But it must be done with tact. And there is the issue of Daniel’s pastoral care to consider – the university has a responsibility to him.’

‘Of course, of course.’ Wetherby assured the provost that he would see to it personally; that he would handle matters discreetly. He was, after all, sure it was all a misunderstanding; that it was merely a symptom of Daniel’s having been under a lot of strain lately.

‘Strain? What strain?’

This was the point at which Wetherby mentioned the trial separation. It slipped out. ‘Oh, you know, the trial separation.’

The news about Daniel’s delusional behaviour slipped out, too.

‘He’s seeing things? What things?’ The provost stood up and began pacing the room as he said this. ‘Has Daniel told you he’s seeing things?’

Even better, Wetherby thought but did not say. ‘No, no, Daniel’s doctor told me.’

‘But surely doctors aren’t allowed to discuss their patients?’

‘True, but he told me in confidence, as a friend. As a mutual friend.’

Wetherby had explained that the doctor feared Daniel was having a nervous breakdown. The doctor, moreover, had wanted to know how he had been behaving at work. It was only sensible to tell the doctor, the friend, the mutual friend, about the nine lectures and seminars in two weeks that Daniel had missed or cancelled. Also about the one he had managed to give which ended abruptly with him collapsing in a fit of uncontrolled giggling, the one broadcast on the web – apparently it was getting thousands of hits on YouTube. Wetherby thought it sensible, as well, to mention the concern of his colleagues: even Sang-mi, the new professor of theoretical physics, had commented on Daniel’s odd and, frankly, anti-social behaviour.

The provost protested that he had no idea things had become this bad. ‘I had no idea. No idea …’ He wondered whether he should call Daniel in for a talk. This was the cue for Wetherby’s
piéce de rÉsistance
. The provost could not see Daniel because Daniel … he paused to savour the moment … Daniel was on one of his trips abroad, filming his television series in Boston. Had the provost not been informed?

Wetherby left the provost massaging his temples with little circles of pressure from his fingertips. Yes, the meeting had gone well. His performance, his timing, the way he had been so in touch with his inner bastard, all of it had gone well. He checked his watch. Almost lunchtime. Holding a decanter by the neck, he poured himself a glass of port. Earnest, narcissistic, blasphemous Daniel Kennedy, he thought as the rim of the glass touched his thin lips, was getting what he deserved.

This called for a celebration. A private tutorial with Hai-iki. Where would she be? He checked the music department timetable then rang her mobile. What a relief he had decided against the deportation option with her. He drummed his fingers. Come on, Hai-iki, answer. Wetherby is in the mood for love.

Daniel awoke from a shallow sleep in which he had been following Nancy and Martha down a busy street, unable to catch up with them, unable to make them hear his calls. Where was he? Boston. His hotel in Boston. With sweat on his brow he skittered around the channels on a sizeable television screen. Nothing would arrest his attention. Every other channel appeared to feature a teleevangelist in a shiny suit on a stage with a microphone, the congregation answering him with ‘That’s right!’s and ‘Amen’s. There were also workout channels with muscular women in leotards, weather channels warning about hurricanes on the eastern seaboard, and numerous identical news channels, with ticking information panels detailing falls on the Dow Jones. He stopped channel-hopping when he found BBC World. There had been another security alert in London. A Church of England school evacuated. Another false alarm. In other news, the Department of Homeland Security had uncovered an Al-Qaeda plot to kidnap American children, film them being beheaded and post the footage on Islamic websites. ‘We will butcher them like pigs,’ one message had read. It was thought that they would use children to do the beheading, following a case in which the Taliban had filmed an eleven-year-old boy beheading a ‘traitor’ with a kitchen knife in Afghanistan. A commentator came on to interpret the Al-Qaeda ‘message’ – that this would prove they were more committed than their decadent Western enemies; that jihad would go on being fought into the next generation; that the jihadists would never draw a line. ‘We’re not going to go away. That’s their message.’

Feeling sick, Daniel switched to CNN. A Creationist was talking
about the ring-tailed lemur with the feathers. He watched as a preacher worked himself up into a frenzy. Perhaps the unreconstructed Marxists on campus were right. Even with a liberal president, America was still a fundamentalist state, one that was overheating the planet. He turned the television off, put on his sleeping mask from the plane and took it off again as he looked for the ear plugs that had come with it. He couldn’t find them and had to listen to the clanking of a bell in the harbour; that and the melancholy two-tone horn of a freight train. When a pneumatic drill started up and a distorted, metallic voice announced departures – he was near the station – he checked his watch with a double tap: 7.30. He had been awake for four hours. At the window he took in the semicircle of old warehouses on the wharf. With their slate roofs and copper flashing they looked like they were forming the spokes of a giant fan. Beyond them was Antony’s restaurant on Pier 4 where he had listened to some rough-edged jazz and eaten clam chowder the night before. There were moored yachts bobbing in the marina. Sleeping. Being lulled asleep by the water lapping against their bows. Ropes were clapping and clanking contentedly against their vertical spars. A metallic lullaby. It would be the middle of the night in London; he checked his iPhone anyway. A message from Nancy. ‘We miss you … The bins need emptying x.’ He smiled. ‘Miss you, too,’ he messaged back. ‘Can’t sleep. Took two hours to get through security at Logan. There’s a lot of water between us x.’

There was another message from Nancy below it, about Susie. After reading this, he looked in the phone’s photo library and tapped the one he had taken of Nancy at the moment he had told her about the surprise holiday. He scrolled back and came to one Nancy had taken of him swinging Martha around by her arms. It enlarged to fill the screen. The next photograph showed Martha laughing as she tried to remain standing after the spin. He sent her a text now. ‘Didn’t get chance say goodbye before Boston. So. Goodbye. Daddy. x.’

Half a minute later a text came back: ‘
Auf Wiedersehen
.’

Daniel grinned and tapped in: ‘
Au revoir
.’

Twenty seconds later came: ‘
Arrivederci
.’

‘
Sayonara
.’

‘
Do svidaniya
.’

‘
Chao
darling. See you at weekend. Look after Mummy. Love you xxx.’

‘Luv u 2 xxx. Bring me back a present.’

‘OK.’

‘And not some cheap tat from the airport.’

‘OKaaaay.’

‘Something book.’

Daniel smiled. Martha had taught him that ‘book’ was a textonym for ‘cool’ – the predictive text facility on mobiles, she explained, always gave ‘book’ when the word ‘cool’ was typed. ‘OK, something book.’

‘But not a book.’

‘xxx.’

‘Mum liked the roses.’

‘Roses?’

‘The ones you sent.’

An item on the news distracted him. A microscope. Images of sperm wriggling. The reporter was saying: ‘Scientists have identified the hundreds of proteins that constitute the head and tail of the smallest cell in a man’s body – so small that five hundred million of them can fit into a teaspoon. They believe the proteins could lead to new insights into how the sperm manages the equivalent of a transatlantic swim as well as sabotaging the efforts of rival sperm in the race to be first to reach the egg.’ Daniel looked at the swimming trunks hanging over the back of a chair. He had brought them in case he felt strong enough to try a swim. Fifteen minutes later, as he stood in these trunks at the deep end of the hotel’s pool, he felt his limbs grow numb. His arms were poised in front of him, but he could not dive. A middle-aged man with hairy shoulders stood alongside him and dived in without hesitation. His body appeared to shrink as the water distorted and bent the path of ordinary light. Daniel recalled his long swim. It had helped him then to imagine he was merely swimming a length of the pool. One more length.
Half a length. Quarter of a length. This memory made him feel sick again. He rose up on his toes and took a deep breath, but still he could not dive. After ten minutes he gave up and went to sit in the steam room.

As he emerged from the hotel forty minutes later, he half read the front page of a complimentary copy of the
New York Times
–
RATE CUT BY FED PROMPTS RALLYE CUT BY FED PROMPTS RALLY ON WALL STREET
– but could not take in its meaning. A liveried doorman gave him a lazy salute of acknowledgement. At the same moment, two cab drivers shouted at him. He couldn’t make out what they were saying. Realizing they were asking if he wanted a lift, he shook his head, turned up his collar and walked in the direction of the Boston Tea Party Ship. There was a salty mist and the streets were empty and wet from a recent shower.

Daniel was enjoying the solitude, the feeling of having the early morning to himself. When he came to a junction, he headed inland away from the harbour, towards Chinatown along a block of brownstones before reaching a more genteel road of clapboard houses. He left this at the next turning and wandered for a quarter of a mile, savouring the energy of the city as it throbbed into life. There was a plane overhead. It was arcing skyward, leaving a thin trail of smoke in its wake. He was lost. How far had he walked? Why didn’t he recognize these streets? He knew Boston as well as he knew London. Better. Ahead he could make out the Gothic cruciform of the Catholic cathedral and wondered if Susie would be in there. Wasn’t that what Nancy’s email had said?

As he approached it, he saw two women blocking the pavement outside the entrance as they talked. They stood apart to let him through and, once inside, he found the interior cool and, apart from arrangements of small guttering candles, gloomy. He wandered along an aisle, his footsteps echoing, and sat down in an empty pew. The entire interior was a clear space, broken only by two rows of columns extending along the nave and supporting the central roof. On the mildewed walls were the Stations of the Cross depicted in a tapestry and, above them, tattered militia battle flags from the War of Independence. He looked up at the barrelled ceiling, nodded to
himself and drowsily inhaled the moist smell of mildew and incense. The noise of the traffic and the chatter in his head subsided. The silence was pure. Is this, he wondered, what people mean by silent waiting on the truth, sitting in the presence of the question mark? His mind emptied. He closed his eyes.

Who the hell has been sending Nancy roses?

He opened his eyes and noticed a schoolgirl kneeling in front of him, head bowed, a plait of blonde hair following the bend in her spine. He cocked his head and studied her, almost envying her simple faith and certainty, but also pitying her. His iPhone pinged in his pocket, disturbing the silence and causing the girl to look round. The message was from the genetics department at Trinity.

‘Hi, Dan. Afraid we couldn’t get any trace from that Q-tip you gave us. Tried both ends! Was it important?’

Daniel was still staring at the screen when, two minutes later, the girl stood up, dipped her knee as she crossed herself and turned to walk out. She must have noticed Daniel looking at her because, with echoing footsteps, she walked towards him. He looked away, staring down at his footstool.

‘Professor Kennedy?’

The young woman was looking at him over the top of her glasses.

‘It’s me, Susie.’ A big smile. Expensive American teeth. ‘Galápagos Islands?’

‘Oh my god. Susie.’ Daniel stood up and held both her hands, a gesture which turned into a kiss on both her scarred cheeks. ‘Nancy said you came here. How have you been?’

‘Not great. Getting better … I’ve gone back to college.’

‘So Nancy said. What are you reading?’

‘Art history.’

‘Good subject.’

‘How are you? How’s the biology thing going?’ Her voice was chewier than Daniel remembered it.

‘Good. Though I’m not Professor Kennedy yet, technically speaking. Anyway, call me Daniel.’

‘How is Nancy?’

‘Fine.’

‘She emailed me to say you were in town.’

‘Yeah, she said you came here.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve already said that.’

‘I know you don’t approve. Don’t worry, I’m not Born Again or anything. I just …’ She looked up at the ceiling and spread her arms. ‘I found it helped after the crash.’

‘I don’t really disapprove, it’s more …’

‘You hate the argument that science answers the how questions, but only theology can answer the why questions?’ She grinned. ‘You wrote that on your blog … Now you think I’m a stalker.’

Daniel laughed. ‘I do find that a bit embarrassing, as an argument.’

‘ “A pointless cliché”.’

Daniel laughed again. ‘Exactly. A pointless cliché. Not worthy of an educated mind.’

‘Anyway, knowing that Greg is with the Lord now …I come here every morning on my way in. I find I can talk to him here.’

‘Greg?’

‘The Lord. Both of them, I suppose.’

‘It’s certainly very peaceful. I’d never been in before.’

‘Have you … ?’ She didn’t finish the sentence but waved her arms.

‘No. No, I’m still with the other lot …’

Susie quoted him. ‘“I’m an atheist fundamentalist. I don’t believe in anything, very, very strongly.” ’

‘You really
have
been reading my blog …I guess I came in here because I couldn’t sleep. Jetlag. I’m staying nearby, at the George Washington overlooking the harbour. Do you know it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you fancy a coffee? There’s a Starbucks across the road.’

‘Sure.’

Seeing the polystyrene cups being thrown away prompted Daniel to start his speech on global warming and recycling but when Susie was able to recite it with him, almost word for word from his blog, he grinned and gave up. He noticed a tautness to Susie that hadn’t been there before the crash. A fragility too. It was
to do with the scars on her pallid face, the ones caused by the flying glass. Those and her mobile, questioning eyebrows. Her voice was unexpectedly light too, floating like thistledown. ‘What are you doing in Boston? You were at school here, weren’t you?’