The Bone Clocks

AT MY TENTH birthday party, pass-the-parcel descended into a battle royale of half nelsons and Chinese burns. My father buggered off, leaving Mum and Nina the housekeeper to conduct riot control until Mr. Chimes the Magician showed up. Mr. Chimes was an alcoholic thesp-on-the-skids, whose real name was Arthur Hoare, upon whom Dad had taken pity. His halitosis could have melted plastic. From his magic hat, at the count of three, he produced Hermes the Magic Hamster, but Hermes had been flattened seriously enough to produce death, blood, feces, and innards. My classmates shrieked with disgust and joy. Mr. Chimes laid the rodent’s mangled corpse in an ashtray and said: “ ‘For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.’ Boys.” Mr. Chimes packed up his props. “John Donne lied, the bastard.” Kells Tufton then announced he’d swallowed one of my miniature lead figurines, so Mum had to drive him to hospital. Nina was left in charge, a less-than-ideal arrangement, as she spoke little English and had suffered from bouts of depression ever since the Argentine junta’s men had thrown her siblings from a helicopter over the South Atlantic. My classmates knew nothing and cared less about juntas and played the we’ll-repeat-what-you-say game until Nina locked herself in the third-floor flat where Dad normally wrote his screenplays. Now the blood-dimmed tide was truly loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence was drowned—until a boy called Mervyn climbed a twelve-shelved bookcase and brought it down on himself. Nina dialed 999. The paramedic said Mervyn needed immediate attention, so Nina went off with the ambulance, leaving me to explain to our classmates’ parents that our Pembridge Place house was as bereft of adults as all but the last two pages of Lord of the Flies. Mum and Nina got home after eight P.M. Dad got home much later. Voices were raised. Doors were slammed. The following morning I was awoken by the snarl of Dad’s Jaguar XJS in the garage beneath my room. Off he went to Shepperton Studios—he was editing Ganymede 5at the time. I was eating Shredded Wheat over my comic 2000 ADwhen I heard Mum lugging a suitcase down the stairs. She told me she still loved me and Phoebe, but that our father had broken too many promises, so she was taking a break. She said, “This one might be permanent.” As my Shredded Wheat turned to mush, she spoke of how her swinging sixties had been a blur of morning sickness, washing nappies, wringing snot from Dad’s handkerchiefs, and doing unpaid donkey work for Hershey Pictures; how she had turned a blind eye to Dad’s “entanglements” with actresses, makeup girls, and secretaries; and how, when she was pregnant with Phoebe, Dad had promised to write and shoot a film just for her. Her role would be complex, subtle, and showcase her talent as an actress. Dad and his co-writer had completed the script, Domenico and the Queen of Spain, a few weeks before. Mum was to play Princess Maria Barbara, who became the titular queen. Now, this much we all knew. What I didn’t know was that the day before, while anarchy reigned at Pembridge Place, the head of Transcontinental Pictures had phoned Dad and put Raquel Welch on the line. Miss Welch had read the script, she said, considered it a work of genius, and would play Maria Barbara. Had Dad explained that his wife, who had sacrificed her own acting career for the family, was to play the role? No. He had said, “Raquel, it’s all yours.” The doorbell rang and it was Mum’s brother, my uncle Bob, come to pick her up. Mum said I’d learn betrayals came in various shapes and sizes, but to betray someone’s dream is the unforgivable one. A bird hopped onto the foaming lilac outside. Its throat quivered; notes rose and fell out. As long as it kept singing and I kept staring, I told myself, I wouldn’t start crying.

“It’s a wren,” said Mum, turning to go.