“Do you want to see my fish?” he asked, suddenly.
“I didn’t know you had any pets,” I said. “Are they new?”
“No, not really. And they’re not really mine – they’re my Dad’s. I’m just looking after them until he comes back.”
I never knew what to say when he made declarations like this. He always sounded so certain that Pete would return. I followed him upstairs to his bedroom.
The fish were in two illuminated tanks on low tables lining one side of Jonah’s bedroom. The filtering equipment emitted a quiet gurgling noise. The first tank contained two or three larger fish and a small shoal of what looked to me like tiny sardines, but with an iridescent blue and red stripe running the length of their bodies. They darted about between strands of pond-weed. Jonah explained that they were cardinal tetras and that the larger fish, which had broad dorsal fins, brilliantly patterned like butterfly wings, were guppies.
The second tank was weird. At first, all I could see were large, jagged sections of polystyrene, fixed to the lid and base of the tank. Then I noticed fish moving in and out of the polystyrene shapes. They were roughly the same size and shape as goldfish, but their skin looked as if it had been drained of colour, leaving a translucent covering through which you could make out what looked like internal organs. I wondered if they had some kind of disease.
“They’re my favourites,” said Jonah. “They’re blind cave fish. They haven’t got any eyes.” Now that I looked more closely at the heads of the fish, I could see that he was right; there was nothing that resembled an eye there. “They’re clever,” he added. “They hardly ever bump into stuff. They only do it when I give them some food.”
He slid open a hole in the lid and sprinkled some powder into the tank. Immediately, all of the fish converged on the food, resulting in several collisions as they jostled for the best position.
“Why all the polystyrene?” I asked.
“It’s meant to look like the inside of an underwater cave, with stalactites and stalagmites. The fish like it better that way. I helped my Dad do it. We melted the polystyrene with Mum’s kitchen blow torch.” He grinned. “She wasn’t very pleased. The whole house really stank afterwards. But you can make some really cool shapes.”
The formations of melted polystyrene were certainly striking, all the more so because neither Jonah nor his Dad had bothered to paint them in rock-like colours; instead, they remained a brilliant white, like submerged icebergs. When I suggested to Jonah that it might have been better to paint them before putting them in the tank, he just gave me one of his pitying looks and said:
“But the fish wouldn’t be able to see it, would they?”
I decided to not to press the point any further.
“I had a goldfish when I was little,” I told him. “Well, actually, I had two to begin with - but one of them got a fungal infection and died. After that, I think the other one must’ve got lonely because he spent most of his time chasing his own reflection up and down the side of the tank. Someone told me that goldfish only have ten second memories, so I’ve always wondered if he managed to work out – after maybe nine seconds – that it was really just his reflection rather than another fish. The trouble is, once the ten seconds was up, he’d forget the whole thing and have to start all over again.”
Jonah seemed to take this as a slur on his choice of pet. “Blind cave fish definitely have a longer memory than that. When they’re put in a new tank, they can work out where all the obstacles are and then remember them. That makes them more intelligent than dogs, you know.”
Clearly, my goldfish had been a pea-brained numbskull compared with the colossal intellect of the blind cave fish. I consoled myself with the thought that at least I hadn’t had a dog for a pet.
Looking around for an excuse to change the topic of conversation, I saw a copy of Childhood’s End by Arthur C Clarke on the table next to Jonah’s bed. It must have been quite an old copy, because I recognised the cover from when I had read it myself, many years ago; it featured a giant flying saucer hovering above a city, looking rather sinister. This had always struck me as odd, because in fact, the aliens in the book turn out to be fairly benign; they act more like an intergalactic UN peacekeeping force, keeping mankind from destroying itself so that it can evolve to its true potential. Picking it up, I said:
“I read this when I was maybe a couple of years older than you are now. What do you think of it?”
“Oh, I’ve read it before,” he said. “It’s one of my Dad’s favourite books.”
“Yes, but what do you think of it?” I asked. It was understandable that Jonah kept referring to his Dad, but his habit of saying what Pete thought about things all the time was beginning to get on my nerves.
He hesitated. “It’s a good story, I suppose. I like reading the first half of it, up to the bit where you find out what the aliens look like. I just think the ending is…well, a bit sad.”
“Why?”
“Because the children turn into something totally different from their parents. They don’t even get the chance to say goodbye. It would be better if they could somehow take their parents with them when they join the Overmind.”
Although it was a long time since I had read it, I remembered feeling a little dismayed at the ending as well. It made the lives of all the other characters in the book appear insignificant in the greater scheme of things. I later discovered that Pete was also disturbed by this aspect of the book, despite the fact that he chose the term “Overmind” for the higher intelligence that he believed was somehow in communication with him. He too disliked the idea that biological evolution could suddenly produce a generation of children that would be not merely incomprehensible to their parents, but utterly indifferent to their parents’ fate. He much preferred the more technological Singularity suggested by the end of 2001. This was mainly because he thought it would allow the Singularity to occur under much more controlled conditions, so that everyone could participate if they wanted – and no one would be “left behind” unless that was the fate that they chose for themselves.
There was an awkward silence. Then Jonah went over to his desk, where he had a laptop. He handed me a sheet of paper which was lying face down on the desk. On it was written an email address: PJNk67481@freemail.co.uk.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“It’s my Dad’s email address.”
It took me a moment or two to register the full import of this. “So…. he’s been in touch with you?”
Jonah nodded.
“Since when?” I had got so used to thinking of Pete as being completely out of the picture, that it was a shock to discover that he was still (apparently) very much around.
“Well, the first email was about four weeks ago.” He looked a bit sheepish, then added; “I wanted to tell someone about it – actually, I wanted to tell you about it. But he said I had to keep it a secret. You’re not cross with me, are you?”
“No, of course not,” I said. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. Is he OK?”
“Yes, I think so.” He hesitated. “Except that he keeps going on about people being out to get him. That’s why he had to disappear.”
“What sort of people?”
“I’m not sure. He doesn’t really talk about it in his emails.”
“Where’s he living?”
“I don’t know. I asked if I could see him but he said it was too dangerous, so we’ve just been writing emails to each other.”
“Have you told your Mum?”
“No. He told me not to tell her. He says he needs to speak to you first.”
“Me? Why me?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say why.” Jonah paused, then said, gloomily: “I thought you’d be pleased.”
“Oh, I am,” I replied, attempting to sound like I meant it. My guess was that Pete wanted me to act as a go-between and speak to Kay on his behalf. That would put me in an impossible position. “I’m pleased he’s OK,” I said. “The whole thing’s just a bit complicated, that’s all. It’s good that he’s got in touch with you though.”
Jonah rolled his eyes. “You sound like Mum. ‘It’s complicated.’ That’s what she always says whenever I ask about why Dad left. Like I could never understand.”
I sighed. “Look, all I meant was, now that you’ve told me, it puts me in a difficult position with your Mum. I mean, did he say anything at all about why he wanted to talk to me first?”
“No, I just told you, he didn’t say why,” he said, with mounting irritation. “He just says he can’t come back until he’s talked to you. So you have to see him. You have to.” I could see that behind the anger, he was close to tears.
“OK, OK. I’ll email him. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” I went to put my hand on his shoulder, but he turned away and drew his arm across his face, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
“But I’m not sure it’s a good idea to keep it a secret from your Mum,” I added. “She’s worried about your Dad too, you know. She’s got a right to know that he’s safe and well.”
“No, you can’t tell her. You just can’t,” he said, fiercely. “If you do that, he might not come back. You have to do as he says.”
At that moment, the front door opened and I heard Kay’s voice saying hello.
“You’d better get ready for bed,” I said, thinking that Kay would be annoyed with me for not having made Jonah go to bed earlier. As I pulled his door to, I could see him standing there, looking aghast.
I went downstairs. Kay had gone into the kitchen.
“You’re earlier than I expected,” I said. “Jonah’s just getting ready for bed. He was showing me his fish. Or rather, Pete’s fish.”
She nodded and went to get herself a glass of wine.
“Want one?” she asked.
“If you’re offering,” I said. She didn’t seem her usual talkative self this evening. “Is everything alright?” I asked.
She sat down at the table, resting her head in her hands and let out a deep sigh. “It’s fine, I’m just a bit tired, that’s all. So I thought I’d come home early.”
I hesitated. Should I tell her about Pete? I had been intending to, but I wasn’t sure how she would take it in her current mood. It was odd that he was insisting on talking to me first. I didn’t think she would be particularly impressed by that either.
The silence between us was becoming an embarrassment. “Those blind cave fish are pretty weird, aren’t they?” I offered, hoping it would break the ice. “Jonah was trying to convince me that they’re as intelligent as dogs.”
“Oh Miles, just shut up about the fucking fish will you?”
I was taken aback. I knew that she could sometimes be brusque to the point of rudeness, but she had never spoken to me like this before.
“OK, I’m sorry. I was just trying to make conversation. Maybe I’d better go.” I decided that now probably wasn’t the time to tell her about Pete. It could wait.
She sighed again. “No, look – it’s me that should be saying sorry. None of this is your fault, so I don’t know why I’m taking it out on you. And it’s really kind of you to look after Jonah while I was out.”
She took another sip from her glass. “I came back early tonight because I was supposed to be meeting Alan – you know, my boss from work.”
“Oh, right.” I felt sick. I had assumed that her affair with Alan was over. And now, to make matters worse, Pete was threatening to come back as well.
“Anyway, we’d arranged to meet in this hotel. It’s all slightly sordid. We signed in as Mr and Mrs Underwood or something equally nondescript – and we got this knowing look from the receptionist, as if he knew exactly what we were up to.” The thought of them going to a hotel together made me feel both disgusted and turned on at the same time. “But we’d hardly been in the room five minutes before he got a call on his mobile,” Kay continued. “One of his kids has been taken to hospital with suspected hepatitis. So he had to leave. I can hardly complain. I’d have done the same if it was Jonah. So I ended up sitting in the hotel room, watching telly for an hour and half. And then I came home. It just makes me feel so…” She broke off and covered her face with her hands.
I cursed myself for having failed to see this coming and for letting all those earlier opportunities to tell Kay how I felt just slip through my fingers. Part of me wanted to go over to her, comfort her and then just come out and say it. But I felt betrayed by her decision to get back together with Alan, who seemed to see Kay as nothing more than his “bit on the side.” So I stood there in silence.
After a while, I said: “Look, this Alan didn’t make you happy before. He’s never going to leave his wife and family for you. And what you’re doing is not fair to Jonah. Or Pete.” I knew it was pure emotional blackmail to bring both Jonah and Pete into it, but I was so angry with her for getting back together with Alan that I couldn’t help myself. I was on the verge of telling her that Pete had been in touch with Jonah as well – but then I decided that she didn’t deserve to know. She could just go on being ignorant about his whereabouts for a while longer. Kay didn’t look up.
As I let myself out, I caught a glimpse of Jonah peering down anxiously from the top of the stairs. I shook my head, hoping he would realise that it meant I had not told Kay about the emails from Pete. I could hear Kay sobbing in the kitchen. I closed the front door. Outside it was cold and quiet.
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