chapter thirty-eight

“Norway”

A virus is a system that exists somewhere between an inorganic chemical and a living cell. It’s approximation to the processes common to all living things can only be approached by the penetration of an organism and by a parasitic and debilitating relationship with the host. It was for this reason that Frank had named his sequence of proteins, enzymes and some modified sections of RNA “Spong”. The thrilling thing about working outside of the nationally controlled academies of chemistry or biology was that you could be genuinely creative and take risks; massive risks.

Frank despised the conventions of academic scientific behaviour. He knew that in the first place this was because his father had brought his family up inside the Arctic Circle, rejecting all comforts of civilisation save for those he chose to create himself, and that maverick spirit was something he had from both nature and nurture. In the second place he despised conventional science because he had seen the finest minds prostitute themselves time after time to political agenda or commercial interests. He had always taken the view that both commerce and politics should pay for his services, and to date he had managed a long and lucrative series of lives by holding to that philosophy.

He moved to the balcony of his Manhattan penthouse and lit up a Lucky. He felt the rough smoke rip into his lungs and gently coughed. Here was another example of scientific prostitution: it was evident that tobacco smoke had a deleterious effect on the lungs and hence on the respiratory system. Of course it meant nothing to him; he could defeat a thousand cancers or cardiac arrests; but every day doctors were seen to be advocating the health benefits of tobacco and denying the harmful effects. Scientific whores, secreting their money and frustration as they watched the tumescent structure of the Stock Exchange spill its load of profit across the distended bellies of the tobacco companies.

The smoke glittered, rose and fell towards the seething dark core of Central Park. The fact was that now he was into his fourth phase of existence, he was able to make some comparative judgements; and he surely judged this life, in New York towards the end of the fifties as being in every respect superior to those phases he had experienced before. He had despised the hypocrisy of all societies in comparison to the frozen Eden of Edgeøya. Here, now, the driving muscle of industry, particularly chemical industry was balanced by a thriving aesthetic culture. Frank regarded himself as a renaissance man; Shakespeare, Leonardo and Copernicus were of his kind, though obviously not his equal, since they had succumbed to mortality. Here he could taste it all: wealth, science, art, immortality.

And sex. He ground the white butt into the granite floor, orange particles expiring on the jet plane. Jack and he were perfect; had been perfect. For lives he had remained aloof from the pathetic attempts at gratification that drove those around him, and at last he had found an artistic soul that mirrored his. They were almost axial images of each other, even down to the hairline. Frank had considered giving Jack the gift of the nutriment and eternal, episodic life. Spong had destroyed that dream. Spong the hanger-on; Spong the one who had offered to prostitute himself for a cigarette in the dark park below only a few days ago. The virus was named for, and a gift for Spong.

America told itself that it retired early and set off for work before dawn. That may be true in Maine, but it certainly didn’t hold in Manhattan. Those that prowled the Jazz Clubs at two a.m. either slept in or rose to work fuelled by chemical stimulants. Seeking the stimulation of jazz rather than chemistry, Frank left the apartment and headed for the Village.

“There’s new, and there’s too new. That was just too new for me,”

“Well, it’s kind of interesting the way he uses the piano like eighty-eight tuned drums.”

“Eighty-eight un-tuned drums in my book. Give me Davis any day.”

“God, Seth, you Northerners just have to be so cool all the time.”

Frank stood back for the exodus of villagers and then descended the fifteen uneven steps into the miasma of coffee, bourbon and weed that was the living atmosphere of the club. Taylor was one of his favourites; tight, percussive and unexpected, rather like himself. He settled into a table away from the band, behind a wood and glass partition. The notes; piano drum and trumpet came over the physical wall in waves, each of which calmed his arctic soul. It was only once calmed by this and vodka that he began to recognise words and accent. Spong was here with a woman.

“...fantastic. Andy just filmed us doing anything!”

“What do you mean, Bennett? What’s anything?”

“Like, just anything! He filmed me giving head.”

“What did Jack think of that?”

“He loved it. He say’s I’m to head what Warhol is to tomato soup. I make it art!”

“Oh God, I wish I could wrote that in the New Yorker, but my editor would fire me straight out.”

Frank took a long pull on his vodka and tapped out a Lucky. He knew exactly who this woman was: one of the most influential art critics in town; only Greenberg’s opinions carried more weight than hers, and that balance was swinging in her favour.

“You know that Norwegian that Jack was knocking around with; Frank something?”

“Yes, he does perfumes. I have some. They’re great.” The notes cascading from the piano fought equilibrium battles with the drums in the thickened air. It was beautiful, but Frank could only hear the damning conversation.

“Well Jack says there are two kind s of head: I do it the best way and Frank did it the Gnaw way! He said he had sores on his dick for weeks. Norway, Gnaw way: get it?” The critic coughed laughter into her martini. Frank carefully rose from his table and left the bar. Spong was already dead.

chapter thirty-seven

Taylors Hill

Kay’s mother’s form was framed by the reception hatch, her black raincoat and matching wide brimmed hat, already slightly dated, but purchased from Harrods so therefore to be worn at any hint of precipitation. Kay let her gaze flutter over the comics and infantile crayonings on the coffee table. She noticed a paperback amongst the copies of Beano and Bunty and extracted it: “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”. Comforting, but read at least twice already. She felt like Eustace, imprisoned in a monstrous body for doing something of which she was unaware, and she supposed she felt a certain hope that this clinic might help her in some way. Pages flew from the table as her mother settled onto the undersized seat beside her.

“The doctor is sending his nurse down to collect us. How are you feeling now?”

Kay’s eyes met her mother’s, which tried to flicker away, but then, through an effort of will, returned, almost nervous, as if she were the child and Kay the adult. “I’m hopeful,” said Kay, with little conviction. To the relief of both the nurse arrived, the uniform like the dragon’s skin, concealing the person within, producing a function alone.

They ascended the wide staircase, which may once have been almost stately, the windows on the Western walls giving increasingly panoramic views of Salt Hill; the church tower, the amusement arcades and the sea beyond; even the faint humps of the Aran Islands. “The doctor would prefer to talk to you first,” said the nurse, addressing Kay’s mother. “Kay can wait here,” and she indicated a long bench with another coffee table, this time loaded not with comics and drawings by children, but with medical journals and copies of National Geographic Magazine. This was much better. Kay settled to an account of a sailing trip around the Arctic Sea while her mother entered the office. She was examining a grey photograph showing a hill on the Island of Edgeøya when the sub-zero temperature seemed to ooze out of the page and squeeze her heart. It was an anxiety threatening to spill over into blind terror.

The voices came from within, one calm, male yet light, accented strangely, doing most of the talking; her mother almost whispering, far from her normal strident, gin-tinged overconfidence. The voices were from within both the room and Kay’s own head; so deeply within that they had almost no objective claim on reality, but she listened, freezing.

“..that these dreams, well, they are always nightmares, are taking over her life completely.”

“Such dreams do have the power to do this; to send your daughter mad. Freud has written much on this as you may be aware. In fact it is probable that your daughter is already mad, in a clinical sense; but do not despair, Mrs Macnamara; it is for this reason that the Taylor’s Hill Centre exists. I am sure my colleagues and I will be able to halt this distressing slide into the abyss and restore to you the lively, happy girl you once knew.”

“I’m not sure I ever did know Kay as that, but it would be wonderful. My husband and I are so worried.”

“I must warn you that sometimes the idea of admission to such a hospital facility as this can upset a person, especially a child of only nine years. She may even lash out or make ridiculous claims, so my nurse will sedate her if this should happen. You don’t have to be here if that would upset you.”

“I think I’ll be alright... Do you want to see her now?”

The door opened and the nurse presented an empty functional smile and led her into the office. Three tall windows filled the wall behind the desk and Kay was dazzled by the assault of light. The thin figure of the doctor coalesced from the brightness, assuming breadth and detail. It was at that moment that she burst like a cloud, flinging herself at the desk in an effort to attack before it was too late, but it was already far too late. Frank smiled as he watched her mother hold her down while the nurse administered the sedative. The treatment had begun.