The Memory Artists (37 page)

“Among other reasons.”

“So what did they say? What’d they accuse him of?”

“The first controlled induction of Alzheimer’s disease in laboratory animals.”

Noel bit his lip, scratched the side of his thumb. “It was done for a reason.”

“And then in a test group of humans he deliberately induced the disease.”

Noel jumped. “Look, Norval, I’ve heard that … those stupid rumours before. Do you know who started them? A colleague—a jealous, possibly disturbed archrival—who was fired last month by the university, and not by Vorta. It’s a preposterous accusation, which has never been substantiated in any way.”

“Do you want to know something about the so-called ‘archrival’? This archrival—Charles Ravenscroft—had some astonishing results in clinical trials of an early-onset AD drug he developed. PYY-16. Which became SB-666.”

“SB-666? Vorta discovered that on his own.”

“Ravenscroft kept his results secret just before publishing them. But Volta got an early peek, because he was on a panel reviewing his grant application.”

“Norval, for as long as I’ve known you you’ve had this … this violent prejudice against him. And his name’s not ‘Volta.’ Where do you dig up all this … dirt?”

“I tripped over it. He’s swept everything under the carpet for years and now there’s a huge bulge.”

“He’s a world-famous neurologist, for God’s sake! An
authority
on memory. And dreams. History will lump him in with two other famous doctors from Montreal—Wilder Penfield and William Osler!”

“William Osler? Isn’t he the one who thought the best method of diagnosis was one finger in the throat and one in the rectum? From what I’ve heard, that’s Volta’s preferred method for his memory tests.”

Noel closed his eyes. “If that’s supposed to be—”

“And if he’s such a hot-shot neurologist, why isn’t he working for the Montreal Neurological Institute, as Penfield did, instead of some fourthrate lab for rejects run by the Health Minister’s cross-eyed wife? Who he’s been swording for years.”
⁵⁰

“I’m not going to discuss these … these inventions from divorce lawyers and jealous colleagues. It has nothing to do with what we were talking about.”

“Which was …”

Noel paused, took a deep breath, tried to block out Norval’s wild accusations. His mind began turning, bleeding colours like a washing machine. There was no truth to any of this, surely. “Childhood trauma,” he said finally, in a near-whisper. “And true love.”

Norval stared at his friend, whose eyes were averted. “Any last words on either subject, so we can bury them forever?”

“Yes. I predict that one day, in some fabulous future, you’ll find closure for what’s happened in the past—you’ll find the right chemistry with someone and fall madly in love.”

“I want you to promise never to use that word again in my hearing.”

“Which word?
Chemistry? Love?
”

“Closure.”

“Closure, closure, closure …”

“And this would be a reversion to … age five?”

“I’m simply making a prediction, that’s all.”

“What is this, a career move? You’re now a soothsayer?”

Noel remained silent. Norval, he knew, was concealing something. He’d known it from the beginning of their relationship. He had an intuition, a gut feeling, even though he’d never had an accurate one in his life. He paused before trying another tack. “What happened to your father?”

“My father?”

“He went mad, right?”

“He drank himself to death.”

“Because your mother betrayed him?”

“He drank to forget.”

“And so now, in revenge, you’re fucking over as many women as you can, treating them as numbers. Or rather letters. Demeaning and debasing them for the sake of childhood wounds.”

“Don’t be a stooge. Things will be less foggy when you catch up on your sleep. Or go to a brothel.”

“You have two half-sisters, right? And you made love to them both?”

“Correct.”

“Is that the dark secret you’re hiding?”

“How many times do I have to tell you there’s no darkness, no secrecy? I don’t give the episodes a backward thought, haven’t a scintilla of remorse. Nor do they.”

“Does your love for one of them, or for your first true love, prevent you from committing yourself to another?”

Norval broke into laughter. “Are you auditioning? Is this stand-up?”

“Then why don’t you commit to anyone?”

“It’s not something I want on my résumé.”

“What about that Spanish woman we ran into the other day? From Barcelona. She said she was an old flame of yours.”

“A spark, a mere cinder.”

“How about … Kayleigh? The one you lost to that performance artist, Scott Free.”

“I didn’t lose her so much as wipe her off my shoe.”

“OK, what about that beautiful French-Canadian? Who left for Belgium. Didn’t that break your heart?”

“Which beautiful French-Canadian? They grow like weeds in this town.”

“The one you picked up at Ex–Centris. Chantal.”

“Chantal? The journalist? You’d need a fork-lift to pick her up.”

“Not that Chantal. The other one, the dancer.”

“She was a
C
. Nothing more. Taken on the sperm of the moment.”

“But she was …
beautiful
.”

“Show me a beautiful woman, says the Hindu proverb, and I’ll show you a man who’s tired of fucking her.”

“What about Lise, the acrobat with Cirque du Soleil?”

“She’s not an acrobat, as it turns out. At least not for the circus. She’s a professional fluffer.”

“A
fluffer
? What the hell’s that?”

“Her job is to keep porn stars aroused between scenes.”

“Right … But didn’t you say she was an ex?”

“More like a why. She was a fling, an amourette. She was three months gone at our first passade.”

Noel shook his head. He couldn’t
imagine
what it would be like to have women like this in his gravitational field. To be in Norval’s position, just for one day. Sometimes he thought he’d do almost anything to trade places: light a fire in an orphanage, push the Pope off a cliff … But the feeling would pass. Because he was looking for something more romantic, longer-lived, something found in fairy and technicolor tales. Does this sort of thing exist in the real world? It would certainly never exist for him. With the curse of his memory, and now his mother’s memory, it was pointless to pursue love or marriage. These things were about as possible as making a wedding ring out of mercury, or honeymooning in Atlantis. He stared at Norval, in simmering silence. “How exactly did we become friends, Nor? It seems that in every single way we—”

“As soon as you told me your name. You had Byron’s adopted first name, and Bonaparte’s initials. And mine.”

The flip answer, despite Noel’s resistance, pulled him headlong into the past, into his childhood lab with its laminated Periodic Table. Memory particles fell on him like snow.

Norval recognised his friend’s dead-eyed stare. “What are you seeing, Noel? Noel?”

“Just … memory flakes, nothing important.”

“Tell me.”

“Not this time, Norval, I don’t want to play, I’m not in the mood.”

“Come on, lighten up for Christ’s sake.”

“No. I don’t feel like it.”

“One more time. Play the bloody game.”

Noel sighed. All right, for the last time. “I was thinking of Nb. Niobium. Group Vb of the Periodic Table.”

“Physical appearance?”

Noel closed his eyes. “Like steel, except it’s soft and ductile. When polished, it looks like platinum.”

“Rare?”

The servant entered, carrying a large mahogany chest of chemicals, with a coil of platinum and two lead clamps …
Noel opened his eyes, bleaching lurid images from
Dorian Gray
. “No, it’s more plentiful than lead.”

“Principal uses?”

Noel reclosed his eyes, waited for the right map to sharpen, like a print under emulsion. “Tools and dies, superconductive magnets. Claddings for nuclear reactor cores—either alone or alloyed with zirconium—since it’s compatible with uranium and resistant to corrosion by molten alkali-metal coolants …”

Norval erupted into laughter.

“… and has a low thermal-neutron cross section.”

“Of course, mustn’t forget the thermal-neutron cross section. Atomic number and weight?”

“Forty-one and 92.906.”

“Proceed.”

“Melting point 2,468 degrees C, boiling point 4,927.”

“In Fahrenheit?”

“4,474 and 8,901.”

“In Kelvin?”

“I don’t know, you idiot.”

“Go on.”

“Specific gravity 8.57, electronic configuration (Kr)4
d
⁴
5
s
¹
.”

“Derivation of name?”

“After Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus.”

“The mythical king? Who was condemned to stand in water that receded when he tried to drink? Or was it with fruit that receded when he tried to grab it?”

“Both.”

“But what’s that got to do with Niobium?”

“Because the two elements, Tantalum and Niobium, are always found together.”
⁵¹

“Noel, do you see now why I hang with you? Because you’re a fucking marvel—with possibly the largest cranial junkyard in the world. But maybe I should write this all down, make sure you’re not making it up.”

“I wish I was, believe me.”

“So what were we talking about? I’ve completely forgotten.”

“So have I.”

“Liar.”

“We were talking about …” Noel let out a sigh, not his first of the day. “… the psychology of love. We then moved on to all the women you’ve loved and lost.”

“Right, the null set.” Norval looked at his chained watch. “I vote we change the subject.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Noel rose and walked quickly to the men’s room, where a tottering man was using both urinals, and the wall between them. So he stepped inside the only stall. I’ll try one last approach, he thought, I’ll ask him about Cynara. After another drink. He zipped up his fly but did not flush, as the bowl was blocked by a light bulb and a waterlogged roll of paper towels.

At the bar he had to shout to be heard, something he never liked doing. “The toilet! It should not be flushed under any circumstances! And there’s a man lying face down in his own urine!”

“What can I get you?”

Noel paused. What does Norval say? “Irish single, two-storey. And a Blanche de Chambly.”
Much
cooler when he says it. With an attempt at Norvalian nonchalance, he glanced at a blonde woman with tweezed eyebrows on a barstool beside him, then at the table, now empty, where the man with the laptop had been sitting, then at a “Culture Board” with posters advertising
Helium Induced Orgasms: The Musical
and
Who Put the “KY” in FUNKY ASS?

Norval, meanwhile, was conversing with two gentlemen: one was the guy in motorcycle leathers who had blocked his path earlier; the other was tall and stringy and metallic with a tiny hairless head, like a Giacometti man.

“My girlfriend says you’re a hotshot writer,” said the leather man, with the inflection and warmth of a dial tone. “Before I kill you, I want you to read my bro’s script.” He nodded towards his slender companion, whose blinky grey eyes were cautious, constantly on the watch.

Norval looked calmly from one man to the other, and then at an attractive redhead at the next table. “What’s it about? The Pope’s visit to Canada?”

“You’re a dead man,” said the Giacometti man, displaying teeth like black pumpkin seeds. “You cease to exist.”

“It’s called
The Phyllis Killers
,” said the leather man, a toothpick shifting from one corner of his mouth to the other. “It’s about two guys who rape and kill women—but only bitches named Phyllis.”

Norval nodded. “A sentimental comedy? Have you tried Disney?”

“Ain’t no fuckin’ comedy, dead man,” said the Giacometti man.

“No? Is it based on your doctoral work in Greek tragedy?”

“You know where fuck-heads like you end up, don’t you.”

“Riding motorcycles?”

“At the bottom of the Saint Lawrence, you little fucker. We know where you live, dead man. Next time we’ll get the right house. You get my drift, you frog faggot?”

“Let me put it another way,” said the leather man. “You go near my girlfriend again and I’ll send her your fried pecker in a Fed-Ex box …”

On his way back from the bar, Noel watched as the two bikers clomped towards the door. They had been replaced at the table, he noticed, by a crimson-headed woman. Noel ducked behind a wooden column with shelves for potted plants, and set the drinks down on a table. I’ll wait till she leaves, he decided. I’ll just make a fool of myself. He peered round the column. Maybe I’ll pick up some pointers. Focus focus, hocus-pocus, don’t let the colour-wheel spin …

“Let me get this straight,” said the woman in French. “I tell you my name, and because it’s the
right
name, I have the honour of going back to your place.”

“Correct. You qualify.”