How to Stop Time(79)

‘Do you know what?’ He pulls out his wallet and delves inside and places some notes on the table and stands up. ‘If it’s not really you I’m talking to, this won’t be rude, will it?’

And I just sit there after he has walked away. The food comes and I tell the waitress I think he is coming back. But, of course, he doesn’t.

In honesty, I thought it was going to go differently. I thought we were going to catch up on old times and talk about all the good and horrifying things that had happened that we could once never have imagined. I thought we were going to talk about bicycles or cars or aeroplanes. Trains, telephones, photographs, electric lightbulbs, TV shows, computers, rockets to the moon. Skyscrapers. Einstein. Gandhi. Napoleon. Hitler. Civil rights. Tchaikovsky. Rock. Jazz. Kind of Blue. Revolver. Does he like ‘The Boys of Summer’? Hip-hop. Sushi bars. Picasso. Frida Kahlo. Climate change. Climate denial. Star Wars. The Cuban Missile Crisis. Beyoncé. Twitter. Emojis. Reality TV. Fake news. Donald Trump. The continual rise and fall of empathy. What we did in the wars. Our reasons to carry on.

But, no, we talked about none of that.

I had blown it.

I was, in short, a fucking idiot. And a friendless one.

People you love never die.

That is what Omai had said, all those years ago.

And he was right. They don’t die. Not completely. They live in your mind, the way they always lived inside you. You keep their light alive. If you remember them well enough, they can still guide you, like the shine of long-extinguished stars could guide ships in unfamiliar waters. If you stop mourning them, and start listening to them, they still have the power to change your life. They can, in short, be salvation.

Omai lives on the edge of town, at 352 Broken Head Road. A one-storey clapboard house.

You can see the sea from here. Of course you can. Omai would have lived in the sea if he could have done.

I wait a couple of minutes after knocking. My head is a dull ache. I hear soft noises from inside the house. The door opens a little. An old woman with short white hair peers out from behind the latch chain. Late eighties, I would have said. Face as lined as a map. Standing asymmetrically from arthritis and osteoporosis. Worried, cataract-infested eyes. Luminous yellow cardigan. She is holding an electric tin opener.

‘Yes?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I think I might have the wrong address. Sorry for bothering you so late.’

‘Don’t worry. I never sleep these days.’

She is closing the door. Hastily I say it: ‘I’m looking for Sol. Sol Davis. Is this the right address? I’m an old friend. I was having a meal with him tonight and I’m worried I’ve upset him.’

She hesitates a moment.

‘Tom. My name is Tom.’

She nods. She has heard of me. ‘He’s gone surfing.’

‘In the dark?’

‘It’s his favourite time to do it. The ocean never goes home. That’s what he always says.’

‘Where does he surf?’

She thinks. Looks down at the cement path in front of her door, as if there is some kind of clue there. ‘Damn my old brain . . . Tallow Beach.’

‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’

I sit on the sand and watch him, lit by the full moon. A small shadow rising up a wave. And then I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket.

Hendrich.

To not answer it would only make him suspicious.

‘Is he with you?’

‘No.’

‘I can hear the sea.’

‘He’s surfing.’

‘So you can talk?’

‘I won’t have long. I’m meeting him later.’

‘Is he sold?’

‘He will be.’

‘Have you explained everything?’

‘In the process. Not everything.’

‘The film of him on YouTube now has four hundred thousand views. He needs to disappear.’

Omai vanishes under a wave. The head rises up again. It seems the perfect way to live. Riding a wave, falling off, getting back on. So much of life seems to be based around the idea of rising, of building something up – income or status or power – of living a kind of upward life, as vertical as a skyscraper. But Omai’s existence seems as natural as the ocean itself, as wide and open as the horizon. He is on his board again, on his front, paddling with his arms over the swell of the water.

‘He will, I’m sure.’

‘Oh, I know he will. For all our sakes. It’s not just Berlin. There’s a biotech research firm in Beijing and they’re—’

I have heard this stuff for over a century. I know I should be concerned, especially with Marion out there somewhere, but it is just another noise in the world. Like water against sand.

‘Yes. Listen, Hendrich, I’d better go. I think he’s coming out of the water.’

‘Plan A. That’s all you are, Tom. Remember, there’s always a Plan B.’

‘I hear you.’

‘You’d better.’

After the call I just sit there, on the sand. From here the waves sound like breath. Inhale. Exhale.

Twenty minutes later Omai is out of the water.

He sees me and keeps walking, carrying his board.

‘Hey!’ I follow him up the beach. ‘Listen, I’m your friend. I’m trying to protect you.’