Pursuit Read online

‘Cormac, isn’t it?’ Mr Waverley said to me. This took me aback. No one usually bothers to ask Security’s name.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said and tapped my ID badge.

  ‘Some people think that name means son of the charioteer,’ Mr Waverley said.

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ I said.

  Mr Waverley went on, ‘Others think it means son of defilement.’ Amir suppressed a laugh.

  ‘Less good,’ I said.

  ‘Mr Waverley told me that my name means either prince or sunlit portion of a tree,’ said the nurse. He had a huge grin on his face.

  ‘Topmost boughs,’ said Mr Waverley.

  ‘Is that right?’ I said. ‘A little inexact, all this,’ I observed.

  ‘And,’ said Mr Waverley, warming to his subject and overlooking my interjection, ‘my surname comes from an old English word meaning meadow of quivering aspens.’

  These pleasantries were all very well but I wanted to nip this situation in the bud. ‘I’m here because I came across Amir’s little early morning hobby,’ I said.

  Mr Waverley and Amir shared a look.

  ‘Amir is doing it all under my instruction,’ Mr Waverley said after a while, clearing his throat. ‘He hasn’t taken a penny for it either.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it!’ said Amir. ‘It’s a pleasure. Pure pleasure.’

  ‘And I would be out there myself if it wasn’t for the state of my back and the arthritis,’ said Mr Waverley. He glared at his hands.

  ‘Mr Waverley and I have been talking for years about gardens and plants,’ said Amir. He drew a chair up to the older man so that they could sit closer together. They unconsciously angled their shoulders towards one another. ‘He can tell you about every plant-derived drug in the book.’

  ‘Not just plants. Of the most-prescribed 150 prescription drugs,’ Mr Waverley said, ‘at least 118 are based on natural sources, did you know? At least 3 per cent come from vertebrate species such as snakes or frogs.’ This was the most animated I’d ever seen him. Usually he was a taciturn man. Polite, as I say, but not exactly a chatterbox.

  Amir was enthralled. ‘Are you getting this, Cormac? The recall that this man has!’

  ‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘But I’m here to talk about the gardening.’

  The two men moved their heads closer together and set their lips in a firm line. I crossed my arms.

  ‘You look like a pair of conspirators. What’s going on?’

  ‘I can explain,’ said Mr Waverley. Nobody spoke.

  ‘Are you growing drugs?’ I said finally. Some of the other residents in the conservatory glanced our way then returned to their chess games and coffee.

  Both men, nurse and resident, looked appalled.

  ‘Good Lord, no!’ said Mr Waverley. ‘Amir here,’ and the older man placed a hand upon the younger man’s shoulder, ‘is helping me build a clock.’

  I thought I must have misheard.

  ‘A clock,’ I repeated.

  ‘Yes! Carl Linnaeus first thought of it. He called it Horologium Florae. Of course,’ Mr Waverley said, clearly warming to his subject, ‘Linnaeus’s flowering times are based on the climate and sunshine hours of eighteenth-century Uppsala, where he taught, so we’re having to adapt a fair bit for a south-facing garden in Maidenhead.’

  ‘Mr Waverley had me order all these books about Linnaeus to the library,’ Amir said. ‘I’ve got a whole bookshelf dedicated to him in the break room.’

  ‘It’s great to have a student again,’ Mr Waverley said. ‘I used to work and lecture at Kew Gardens, you know.’

  I spread my hands, trying to stem the flow of their conversation.

  ‘This is all fascinating,’ I said, ‘and I care, I really do, but I need to know you’re not doing anything untoward late at night on the care home’s grounds. And I need you both to reassure me that it won’t happen again. It’s a question of health and safety.’

  ‘You’ve heard of Linnaeus, I presume?’ Mr Waverley asked. He looked over his glasses at me.

  ‘That’s neither here nor there,’ I attempted to say.

  ‘He dedicated his life to creating a classification system of plants, animals,’ said Amir.

  Mr Waverley nodded. ‘All living organisms.’

  ‘You know when an animal or plant has a Latin name in italics?’ said Amir. ‘Felis catus for domestic cats, that kind of thing. That’s thanks to Linnaeus.’

  ‘Rousseau called him “the greatest man on earth”,’ Mr Waverley chipped in. ‘And Goethe called him a genius on the same scale as Shakespeare.’ The older man closed his eyes, and a smile made his face glow. Years seemed to fall off him just by thinking about this topic. ‘Imagine being remembered like that.’

  ‘You two are big fans, I get it,’ I said. ‘But, please. The matter in hand.’

  ‘It’s all relevant,’ urged Amir.

  ‘Haven’t you got work to be at?’ I said, somewhat sharply.

  ‘This is all about healing,’ Amir said. We regarded one another for a moment. The sound of the care home air-conditioner buzzed and the chink of china teacups across the room sounded like tiny cathedral bells.

  ‘You mentioned a clock?’ I said.

  Mr Waverley coughed. ‘That I can explain. Something else that Linnaeus hypothesised was that flowers could accurately predict time based on when their blooms opened and when they closed. I mean, lots of people before Linnaeus had observed that some plants raise their leaves during the day then they droop down during the night. Androsthenes did in the time of Alexander the Great, and Pliny the Elder, of course, in the first century.’

  ‘Right, right,’ I said, letting the words wash over me.

  ‘But,’ said Mr Waverley, sitting up, ‘Linnaeus was the first to posit that a garden could be grown so that as the hours change different flowers would be shown to open their blooms. Stick all those flowers in the ground, look after them right and according to when their petals open you can tell the hour of day just by looking out of the window.’

  Amir and Mr Waverley shone upon me. Their eyes were wide and gleaming.

  ‘That’s nuts,’ I said.

  Amir pulled a list from somewhere in his uniform. ‘You know the scarlet pimpernel, the thing you saw me laying down this morning?’

  ‘Anagallis arvensis,’ said Mr Waverley. Amir nodded.

  ‘That opens its flowers at eight a.m. pretty much on the dot. While spotted cat’s ear opens at six a.m. and closes between four and five p.m.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ I interrupted. ‘Spotted cat’s ear?’

  ‘Perennial herb with pale yellow flowers,’ Mr Waverley said impatiently. ‘Hypochaeris maculata.’

  ‘It looks a bit like a dandelion,’ nodded Amir, trying to be helpful.

  ‘Dandelions open at five a.m. and close at about eight to nine a.m.,’ responded Mr Waverley.

  ‘There is no way it can be that exact,’ I said. I had decided I should humour them for a bit. Their interest was infectious and it was impressive to hear Mr Waverley call up so much information. This was definitely the longest I’ve ever heard him speak the whole time he had been in the care home. ‘It must be far too haphazard to be of use.’

  Mr Waverley snorted dismissively. ‘Precision is overrated,’ he said. ‘It’s the scope of vision that’s the key. There’s never been a successful Linnaean clock. Can you imagine if we pull it off?’ And I saw it again: his eyes had a new lustre to them. ‘Time rooted right there in the garden, slow and steady in the sunshine?’

  ‘What opens at seven a.m.?’ I asked. Mr Waverley rolled his eyes.

  ‘Loads,’ volunteered Amir, counting off his fingers. ‘I’ve planted hawkweed, garden lettuce, St Bernard’s lily . . .’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I introduced bindweed to the car park – it opens reliably at five a.m.,’ Amir went on, ‘but the council quickly pulled it out because it grows so quickly and was covering the Pay and Display signs.’ Mr Waverley reached out and patted Amir’s hand.

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p; ‘But what about, like, three p.m.? Teatime?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s when marigolds close their flowers,’ said Mr Waverley. ‘And in late spring the Icelandic poppy closes at seven p.m.’

  ‘You have an answer for everything,’ I said.

  ‘A lot of trial and error,’ Mr Waverley said. ‘A lifetime of it.’

  ‘How much is this all costing you?’ I pressed.

  Mr Waverley blushed and looked out of the window.

  ‘One can’t put a price on achieving your dreams.’ Amir took the reins of the conversation. ‘Less so,’ he went on, ‘the dreams of others.’

  ‘I see,’ I said.

  ‘It’s my pleasure to fund it,’ Amir said. He was shrugging. ‘Gets me out and about. Soil under your fingernails, watching things grow. It’s such a small thing but I haven’t felt this well in years.’

  ‘It gives me something to look forward to,’ Mr Waverley said in a small voice. ‘So much of life is to do with watching and waiting. But cultivating – ah, that’s what it’s all about.’

  ‘He doesn’t get many visitors,’ Amir said quietly to me. ‘Before he came here, he’d spent his retirement experimenting, seeding, plotting out designs. He’s explained it all to me – the need for shade and what needs watering at what stage. It’s extraordinary, Cormac. He’d almost finished planting a full clock in his back garden before he came here but – well, the landlord dug it all up when he had to leave the building . . .’

  Mr Waverley slumped a little in his seat. A cloud moved across the sun and heads of flowers stirred beyond the conservatory window.

  ‘Look,’ I said again. ‘I can see it means a lot to you. But I can’t—’

  ‘He’s been tending to the study of living things all his life,’ Amir said.

  I looked at Amir in his dark blue nurse’s scrubs. ‘Like you,’ I said.

  ‘One man’s weed is another person’s wildflower,’ Mr Waverley said. He was looking out at the garden. ‘And a wildflower is another person’s way of passing the time they have left.’

  ‘It’s not hurting anyone,’ Amir said.

  ‘We’ve almost planted the full design,’ Mr Waverley said.

  We all turned our heads again to look out of the conservatory window. I did not know the names of any of the flowers or bushes there and did not think that I had paid them a second’s attention the whole time that I’d worked at the home. I really hadn’t registered that a garden was even there. Amir and Mr Waverley were also watching the world beyond the window. No; they were peering at the garden, then the cheap white clock above the Formica coffee table and then looking back to a specific spot in the garden. There were tears of satisfaction in both their eyes.

  Mr Waverley suffered a fall later that year and was immobile for the rest of the summer. I brought in a picture frame for his orchid photograph and put it on his dressing-table, and I helped Amir reposition his bed so that Mr Waverley could see out of the window when propped up on pillows.

  ‘Uppsadaisy,’ said Amir as he fluffed Mr Waverley’s coverlet a little.

  ‘Thank you, treetop,’ Mr Waverley said softly. ‘And thank you, Cormac,’ he said to me. His eye drifted to the window. ‘Half-past hawkweed?’ he said.

  ‘Round about that,’ Amir said, checking his watch.

  ‘We put in some Mirabilis jalapa last night,’ I added. ‘Should come up a treat.’

  There were new birds in the garden, and there were bees and sweet new scents on the breeze. Residents would come and coo as they took turns around the grounds, not knowing they were passing a book of hours, but swapping anecdotes and tips for improving the soil and when to put down netting. And I took my time to stroll there, too, making a point of it every day. I took moments every day to smell the flowers and touch the outermost petals of time embedded and in full bloom.

  WEST LAKE

  David Szalay

  I’M woken by the phone. What time is it? The light around the curtains seems so weak it could be streetlight at night. Or could it? No. It has a bluish solidity that manages to reveal the basic shapes of the room. It must be morning. Then I pick up on the sound of the rain. It was raining last night and by the sound it still is, and just as heavily. The sound comes into the room as a continuous background whisper, like the whisper from the air-conditioner but wetter. The air-conditioner is set to heat though it doesn’t make the room very warm except directly underneath it. The phone is still going. Leaning on my elbow now, noticing (the next thing) the slight, imprecisely located pain in my head, I answer it. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello?’ I say again.

  And then again, ‘Hello?’

  I put the phone down.

  The sound of the rain has somehow acquired more definition in the last minute, as if it has come into focus.

  After a period of lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, studying the way that the light spreads across it in an infinitely fine progression from bluish bright just above the drawn curtains, where the texture of the surface is visible, to more or less dark at the far wall, where it isn’t, I lean over and look at the time on my own phone.

  It is twenty past ten in the morning, apparently.

  In England it is twenty past two in the morning. The middle of the night. Most of the people I know are asleep, and will be for hours. It is an odd, lonely feeling. And the other thing is, Western social media doesn’t work here. I try Twitter, and then WhatsApp, and nothing happens. That is an odd, lonely feeling too. I spend some minutes thinking about this. Then I put down my phone and walk naked to the bathroom. The bathroom smells of cigarette smoke. The smell is so strong it’s as if someone was in there, smoking, during the night. I almost expect to find a butt floating in the toilet bowl. I don’t of course. The smell must be coming through the ventilation system, and standing there I peer at the vents while the water in the bowl turns frothily golden.

  An hour later, when I leave the hotel, it is still raining. It has been raining like this since I arrived here. With my meagre headache, which is also still going on, I walk along the canal, taking care to avoid puddles. The hotel backs onto a canal-side walk. There’s a screen of trees and other plants, quite nicely landscaped, and then the leaden water of the canal. Some of the buildings along this quiet walk are mock-ups of traditional wooden houses – prosperous merchants’ houses, they look like – and hidden among the trees there are speakers playing the music of traditional stringed instruments, music that proceeds one drawn-out note at a time.

  This all ends in a wooden gate, beyond which lies a major intersection. Sudden twenty-first-century city, with buildings eating into the sky. I wait at the lights, under my umbrella. Diagonally across the intersection is the shopping mall, and the restaurant is in there somewhere. I already know the shopping mall. I was there yesterday. It’s very new. Inside, they’re still putting up some of the signage and not all of the units are occupied yet. I’m slightly early – I overestimated how long it would take to walk from the hotel – so I step into Massimo Dutti and look around for a few minutes. I fondle sweater sleeves and look idly at a leather bag. I still feel a bit weird. Leaving Massimo Dutti I have a moment when I don’t know where I am. I mean where on planet Earth. I momentarily forget, or lose my hold on the information. Then I know again. Though even then the knowledge feels disconcertingly abstract.

  Escalators slant up through the tall open space at the centre of the mall. The restaurants are all on one of the upper floors, and I ride up past a vast red fibreglass giraffe.

  I know Wei. The others I haven’t met before. Wei makes the introductions as I take my seat, though I only retain one of the names – Yaya. It’s easy to remember and also, I suppose, because the young woman in question is sort of good-looking. She seems American when she talks. She does most of the talking. Sometimes Wei says something. The stress of being the host is visible in his eyes and his posture. It’s not a role that comes entirely naturally to him.

  When there’s a pause, the man sitting on my left, w
ho has shoulder-length grey hair and a long face that looks somehow un-Chinese, says to me, ‘You’re a writer?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I am.’

  I notice that I’m the only person at the table not wearing glasses. And in fact I have met one of the others before. I met her yesterday. She works with Wei. It’s embarrassing that I don’t remember her name.

  Wei and the man with long grey hair confer over the menu. They do so in Chinese, so I don’t understand what they’re saying, though sometimes they ask me whether I like certain things – pork, or shrimp.

  ‘You’re here to promote your book?’ the grey-haired man asks me, while Wei puts the order in with the waitress.

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘What sort of book is it?’ he asks.

  ‘It’s a . . . it’s kind of a history of Western civilisation.’

  ‘Sounds interesting,’ he says, making an effort.

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘It’s a big subject.’

  ‘Yes, I couldn’t fit everything in.’ I decide to be flippant about it. ‘There’ll be some sequels. Keep me busy.’

  He laughs politely. And then, with an amused smile, he says, ‘What was it Gandhi said about Western civilisation . . .’

  ‘That it would be a good idea?’

  The man laughs again. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Actually I think that’s apocryphal,’ I say, sounding more defensive than I would have liked.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘I see,’ he says.

  The other people at the table are having a conversation in Chinese now.

  ‘You’re a writer as well?’

  The man nods. He explains that his own books aren’t published in mainland China, only in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

  On the mainland it is possible, he tells me, to download his books for free from certain proscribed websites, and in fact this has been done hundreds of thousands of times.

  ‘Well, that isn’t much use to you,’ I say, ‘financially.’

  ‘No,’ he agrees. ‘No.’

  The first dishes arrive and we start to eat. There is a local specialty, roast pork with a thick, shiny reddish glaze under which is a generous layer of soft fat. The waitress watches us disapprovingly, I notice, as we start to tackle this. Finally, as if she can take it no longer, she steps forward and says something.