Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas

in the novel – would enable my protagonist to do things she wouldn’t normally do, which would be good. Lately I couldn’t motivate her to even go out of the house. Perhaps she could be an anthropologist who objects to exoticism and therefore decides to do an ethnography of her home town: that would give her an excuse to be out taking part in life and I wouldn’t need to mess around with rainforest locations and tribespeople. But that must already have been done. I had long ago realised that I needed a love-interest too, but my protagonist wouldn’t fall in love with anyone normal. Maybe an older man?
    I thought about writing a few notes, but when I took the lid off my pen I just sat there with it poised in midair while the fluid of my conversation with Oscar drained out of my mind. Once this had happened I thought I’d be able to work, but instead I found I was left with a great amount of sediment which amounted to this: where the fuck had the Kelsey Newmanbook come from? How in God’s name had I managed to review a book Oscar hadn’t even sent? I’d messed up reviews in all sorts of ways in the past, but I’d never reviewed the wrong book. I sighed. Perhaps Vi had sent it. It didn’t seem likely; I doubted Vi would send me anything ever again. But if she’d blurbed it, she’d definitely read it. But how could she have blurbed it? It sounded like the kind of project she would hate. Then again, what was it doing with a note from Oscar in it? For the rest of the afternoon my phone kept vibrating and whoever it was left messages, but I didn’t have the funds left to pick them up, or call anyone back.
     
    On Boxing Day evening in Scotland we’d all gone to bed early. The discussion about Zen stories had looked as if it might turn nasty, and everyone was still upset about Lot’s Wife, especially when Vi talked about some of the people she remembered from the monastery. The next day I went to the beach early with Frank and Vi. While Vi sat on a rock, looking out to sea, Frank did t’ai chi. I sat on my own rock, watching them both. After a while Vi stripped down to an old red-and-white striped bathing costume, screamed, dived into the freezing water and screamed again. For the next few minutes she thrashed around like a fairground goldfish, although a rare one with a voice: ‘Ow, ow, it’s cold, oh fucking shit, it’s cold.’ Then she started doing a kind of backwards butterfly stroke that looked both silly and graceful at the same time. I knew that by doing this Vi was, in her own way, becoming one with the universe, and the universe had therefore also become silly and graceful at the same time. Forme this kind of connection seemed impossible. I knew that if I tried to become one with the universe it would reject me in the same way the sea rejected the boats whose skeletons framed the shore.
    ‘You OK?’ Frank called to me.
    ‘Yeah. Just cold,’ I said. ‘Especially watching Vi. She’s giving me goosebumps.’
    ‘Do you want to do some of this?’ he asked.
    ‘What? t’ai chi?’
    ‘Yeah. Come on. It’ll warm you up.’
    I shrugged and walked over to him. He showed me a few movements, all of which were too subtle for me to really comprehend. I copied him for a while, but I didn’t get very warm. I started jumping up and down instead, while watching him.
    ‘I’ve been struggling with this,’ he said, showing me some fluid-looking movements. ‘It’s called “Carry Tiger to the Mountain”.’
    I stopped jumping and smiled. ‘That’s a nice name. It looks good to me.’
    ‘You’re also struggling a bit at the moment? Vi said something.’
    Vi’s splashing was quieter now. She’d stopped complaining and was swimming out towards the lighthouse. But there was an energy in what she was doing that I just didn’t seem to have. I wasn’t struggling at all. There didn’t seem to be any point. What would I struggle against? Christopher? My mother? Orb Books? My novel? Myself? Would I struggle