The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps (16 page)

‘I don’t even know what the letters in “USIC” stand for,’ said Peter.

‘Search me,’ said the driver. ‘A lot of companies these days got meaningless names. All the meaningful names have been taken. It’s a trademark thing.’

‘I assume the US part means United States.’

‘I guess. They’re multinational, though. Somebody even told me they started up in Africa. All I know is, they’re good to work for. Never screwed me around. You’ll be in good hands.’

Into thy hands I commend my spirit
, Peter naturally thought.
Luke 23:46
, fulfilling the prophesy of
Psalms 31:5
. Except that it wasn’t clear into whose hands he was about to be delivered.

‘This will sting some,’ said the black woman in the white lab coat. ‘In fact, it will be real unpleasant. You’ll feel like a pint of cold yoghurt is travelling up your veins.’

‘Gee, thanks. I can hardly wait.’ He settled his head uneasily in the padded polystyrene hollow of his coffin-like crib and tried not to look at the spike that was approaching his tourniquetted arm.

‘We wouldn’t want you to think there was anything wrong, that’s all.’

‘If I die, please tell my – ’

‘You won’t die. Not with this stuff inside you. Just relax and think nice thoughts.’

The cannula was in his vein; the IV drip was activated; the translucent substance moved into him. He thought he might vomit from the sheer ghastliness of it. They ought to have given him a sedative or something. He wondered if his three fellow travellers were braver than him. They were nestled in identical cribs, elsewhere in the building, but he couldn’t see them. He would meet them in a month from now, when he woke up.

The woman who had administered the infusion stood calmly watching over him. Without warning – but how could there be any warning? – her lipsticked mouth started to drift to the left of her face, the lips travelling across the flesh of her cheek like a tiny red canoe. The mouth did not stop until it reached her forehead, where it came to rest above her eyebrows. Then her eyes, complete with eyelids and lashes, moved down towards her jawline, blinking normally as they relocated.

‘Don’t fight it, just go with it,’ the mouth on the forehead advised. ‘It’s temporary.’

He was too frightened to speak. This was no hallucination. This was what happened to the universe when you were no longer able to hold it together. Atoms in clusters, rays of light, forming ephemeral shapes before moving on. His greatest fear, as he dissolved into the dark, was that he would never see other humans the same way again.

Acknowledgements

THIS BOOK EXISTS BECAUSE
Keith Wilson, Artist in Residence at Whitby Abbey during summer 2000, asked me to come and write a short story inspired by the English Heritage dig. My thanks to him for this, and for his guided tours of Whitby when Eva and I were there.

A number of folk were generous with their time and expertise in advising me on details of fact. Any errors that remain are therefore due to my fault, my fault, my grievous fault, and should not be blamed on English Heritage, Cath Buxton (archaeologist), Stephen and Pam Allen (paper conservators), Carla Graham, Colin Manlove or the Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society. I also acknowledge the valuable work of Father Roland Connelly and historian Andrew White. As always, Eva Youren offered wise advice and felicitous ideas.

No animals were harmed or coerced in the making of this story.

Michel Faber
February 2001

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

 

First published in Great Britain in 2001

by Canongate Books Ltd,

14 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1TE

This digital edition first published in 2008

by Canongate Books Ltd

Copyright © Michel Faber, 2001

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data


A catalogue record for this book is available on

request from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 84767 402 9

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