The Bone Clocks

Holly rubs an eye. “That was a strong one. Occasionally I hear a certainty about the past. I’m seized by it, I sort of … Oh, Christ, I can’t avoid the terminology, however crappy it sounds: I was channeling some sentience that was lingering in the fabric of that place.”

The barman’s shaking a cocktail-maker. My friend watches with a discerning eye. “That guy knows what he’s doing.”

Again, I hesitate. “Do you know anything about Multiple Personality Disorder?”

“Yes. As a mature student, I wrote a thesis on it. It had a namechange in the 1990s to Disassociative Identity Disorder but, even by the standards of clinical psychiatry, its presentation is obscure.” Holly fingers an earring. “It may explain things like Rottnest, but what about the precognition? Old Mr. Sharkey? Or how about when Aoife was little and we were at Sharon’s wedding in Brighton and she took it into her head to run off, and a certainty spoke through methe very number of the room she’d got locked herself into? How could I have known that, Crispin? How? How could I’ve made that up?”

A group of East Asian businessmen explodes into laughter.

“What if your memory is inverting cause and effect?”

Holly looks blank, drinks her wine, and still looks blank.

“Take Rebecca Wotsit’s coffee. Normally, your brain sees the cup knocked over first, and stores the memory of that event second. What if some neural glitch causes your brain to reverse the order—so the memory of the cup smashing on the floor was stored first, beforeyour memory of the cup sitting on the edge of the table. That way, you believe in all sincerity that action B comes before A.”

Holly looks at me like I just don’t get it. “Lend us a coin.”

I fish out a two-pound coin from the international collection that lives in my wallet. She holds it in her left palm, then, with the middle finger of her right hand, touches a spot on her forehead. I ask, “What’s that in aid of?”

“Dunno, it just helps. Buddhism talks about a third eye in the forehead, but … Shush a mo.” She shuts her eyes, and tilts her head. Like a dog listening to silence. The background bar noises—low-key chat, ice cubes in glasses, Keith Jarrett’s “My Wild Irish Rose”—swell and recede. Holly hands me back the coin. “Flip it. Should be heads.”

I flip the coin. “It’s heads.” Fifty-fifty.

“Heads again,” says Holly, concentrating.

I flip the coin. “So it is.” One in four against.

“Tails this time,” says Holly. Her finger stays on her forehead.

I flip the coin: It’s tails. “Three out of three. Not bad.”

“Back to heads.”

I flip the coin: It’s heads.

“Tails,” says Holly.

I flip the coin: It’s tails. “How are you doing this?”

“Let’s try a sequence,” says Holly. “Heads, heads, heads, tails, and … tails again, but …  kneeling? Crispin, why are you kneeling?”

“As you can see, I’m sitting here, notkneeling.”

“Forget it. Three heads, two tails, in that order.”

So I flip the coin: heads. And again: heads. How’s she doing this? I rub the coin on my shirt, like a scratched disk, then flip it: heads, as predicted. “This is clever,” I say, but I feel uneasy.

She’s irritated by the adjective. “Two tails, now.”

I flip the coin: tails. Nine out of nine. On the tenth flip, I fumble the catch and the coin goes freewheeling away. I give chase, and only when I draw it out from under a chair and see it’s tails do I realize that I’m kneeling. Holly looks like someone being given the answer to a simple riddle. “Obviously. The coin runs away.”

As I retake my seat, I don’t quite trust myself to speak.

“Odds of 1,024 to 1 against a ten-digit sequence, if you’re wondering. We can increase it to 4,096 to 1 with two more throws?”

“No need.” My voice is tight. I look at Holly Sykes: Who isshe? “That kneeling thing. How …”

“Maybe your brain is mistaking memories for predictions, too.” Holly Sykes looks not at all like a magician whose ambitious trick just went perfectly, but like a tired woman who needs to gain a few pounds. “Oh, Christ, that was a mistake. You’re looking at me in that way.”

“In what way?”

“Look, Crispin, can we just forget all of this? I need my bed.”

·   ·   ·

WE WALK TO the lift lobby without much to say. A pair of terracotta warriors don’t think very much of me, judging from their expressions. “You’ve got a gazillion true believers who’d pay a year of their lives to see what you just showed me,” I tell Holly. “I’m a cynical bastard, as you well know. Why honor me with that private demonstration?”

Now Holly looks pained. “I hoped you might believe me.”

“About what? About your Radio People? Rottnest? About—”

“That evening in Hay-on-Wye, in the signing tent. We were sat a few yards away. I had a strange strong certainty. About you.”

The lift doors close, and I remember from Zoл’s flirtation with feng shui that lifts are jaws that eat good luck. “Me?”

“You. And it’s an odd one. And it’s never changed.”

“Well, what’s it saying about me, for heaven’s sake?”

She swallows. “ ‘A spider, a spiral, a one-eyed man.’ ”

I wait for an explanation. None comes. “Meaning?”