The Museum Of Doubt. James Meek

      

      CONTENTS

      The Museum of Doubt

      Bonny Boat Speed

      The Very Love There Was

      The Queen of Ukraine

      Smoked

      Management Secrets of the Nazi Generals

      Class Action

      The Return of the Godlike Narrator

      THE CLUB OF MEN

      i. These Lovers

      ii. Pure

      iii. And the Days Grow Shorter

      iv. The Club of Men

      v. Waterland

      vi. Northern Soul

       The Museum of Doubt

      I want to give you a demon. I want to give you a demonstration of something unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.

      I beg your pardon? she said, Bettina Dron, bed and breakfast proprietor.

      I want to give you a demonstration.

      He was white tinged with yellow, like splatters of curdled milk, and hair black as a rook in a birdbath. It sizzled up thick and sleek from his scalp, went frying down his chops in whirling vortextual sideburns that ended suddenly, not cut, not shaved, it went from thick to nothing, from jungle to wax. There were moles on his cheeks with the hair pouring in a spout from them like from guttering after a downpour. It was dark and fine. Without touching him she knew his flesh was hot. A thick car crouched behind him on the drive.

      Jack Your Firm’s Name Here, he said, sitting next to her on the sofa, their knees almost touching. He smiled. Bettina put one hand to her mouth and another to her heart, it’d doubled its speed. His teeth were so beautiful.

      Call me Jack. That’s my Christian name.

      Bettina. Her fingers turned her wedding ring.

      Why not rent my name? said Jack. I travel the length of the land. I’d be Jack Pinetops-Guesthouse. I was Jack Microsoft for a while but after six months they wanted to upgrade me to a new version and I couldn’t afford the facial surgery.

      Bettina was tempted even though her B&B wasn’t called Pinetops. It was called Dron’s B&B. In the furthest synapses of her brain Pinetops had crackled unrecognised, unspoken, till now. There was a regiment of pine trees on Hill of Eye, and from the upstairs window you could see the tops of them. She asked Jack for a price.

      A price? said Jack. He smiled, his eyes widened half an inch and his eyebrows seesawed queasily up and down. Surely you can’t mean money? Do they still use money in these parts?

      I’ve got a Mastercard.

      Mastercard! My dear Bettina, Jack Transaction Pending hasn’t been Jack Mastercard for many a midsummer moon. Do you have any water? I’m thirsty. Can it really be true that you haven’t heard of the Friedrich Nietszche Marketingschule? Every morning we chanted in unison: Does a mother expect to be paid for loving her child? Prices! Bettina, I’m touched.

      Tears shone in Jack’s eyes. He took a glass thimble and a packet of peanuts out of his pocket. He scooped the tears into the thimble, ripped the packet open with his teeth, downed the liquid and emptied the nuts in after them. With his mouth full, shaking his head, he went on: To think I would have come here to sell you something. To think I would have come all this way in order to exchange some – some good, some item, some simple service for a unit of currency. Oh, Bettina! For you – do you know, I almost would. But there’s no need. I may appear to you to be a salesman. I have things to give, things to show and much to explain. I have nothing to sell. You may ask: But is there a product? A product, dear Bettina. There are many products. You might as well enter a forest glade on a sunny spring day and ask, but is there a leaf? You might as well look down on the city and ask, but is there a window? Excuse me for one moment.

      Jack got up and ran to the kitchen. He stood with his back to the sink and bent backwards till his spine was u-shaped. He slid his mouth underneath the tap and reached out to switch it on. The water gushed in a smooth stream down his throat, which had no Adam’s apple.

      Would you like a glass? said Bettina, standing in the doorway, stroking her fingers.

      Jack shook his head. Steam wisped from his mouth around the silver tube of water.

      Would you not rather use the cold tap? said Bettina.

      Jack switched the tap off and sprang up straight. He shook his head and gestured her back to the lounge. She sat down and he squatted on the rug between her and the fire, where pinelogs were burning. The hot water had put colour in his cheeks. His face had turned a chilly pink, like frozen cooked prawns.

      Bettina, we’ve moved beyond money, he said. The forces that summon objects to you must be more powerful, more real than money. The force of time, the force of life, the force – dearest Bettina – of love. Tell me this. Have you worked your whole life to earn enough money to get the things you want for yourself and the people you love? Have you?

      Yes I have, said Bettina.

      Of course you have! cried Jack. Now, let’s sweat the fat off that proposition. First you want to take away the earning and the money. That’s just a mechanism. Do you have to see your heart beating to know that you’re alive? We need to see the big picture. So what do we do, we climb onto the roof and go up the ladder and get into the basket of the balloon and fly up ever so high, ever so high, till we look down on the world below, and everything looks so very different, so much simpler than it did from down on the ground, doesn’t it. Doesn’t it, Bettina? What do we see from way up there when we look down? Mm? D’you know? Mm? Of course you do. We can see the truth! We can see the big, plain truth. And you know what that truth is, don’t you. Yes. The plain truth is that you’ve worked your whole life to get the things you want.

      But just tell me one thing, Bettina. Just one little thing, mm? Not a big thing, a tiny little thing, but ever so important. Here’s the thing: what’s work? Mm? What’s work? Hard labour? Climbing the stairs, gardening, is that work? Is it? Breathing, is that work? It can be difficult sometimes, we all know that. Or cooking, frying eggs, making a sandwich, is that work? Can be, may be, might be. Maybe it’s leisure. Maybe you like it. Maybe you don’t. Or breaking rocks. Ever tried breaking rocks? No? More enjoyable than you could possibly imagine. Or strangling chickens. Could be work – could be leisure. For me, leisure, but who knows? Each to their own. Sex. For me, work, but again, some people like to relax like that. You see which way we’re moving here, little Bettina? Work is another one of these primitive ideas. People used to think everything was made up of earth, air, fire and water, and now we know everything is made up of little atoms too tiny to worry about. Everything is smooth. People used to think life was made up of work and leisure but now we know there’s only life. So what do we have now? You’ve lived your whole life to get the things you want. This is like x equals x equals y, right, so let’s strip it down to this: your whole life for the things you want. Are you following me?

      I think so, said Bettina.

      X equals y, so y equals x, so what do we end up with?

      The things I want for my whole life, said Bettina.

      Excellent! said Jack. And now, with your permission, sweet Bettster, the Demon-O-Stration.

      The salesman reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small box. He opened it and took out a porcelain ornament, a grey and white gull with a yellow beak. He held it up and stared at it. A screen of tiredness dimmed his face, as if he had lent his own sleep and peace to generations against his will and had been reminded he would never get them back.

      That comes