Free This is the Life by Joseph O'Neill Page A

detached houses, only without the little windows and front door you normally see. Now, in most circumstances diagrams like these would fall into the category of mere doodles; but here the drawings were so systematically and carefully arranged that I received the clear impression that they represented something else – an exercise of some kind.
    Why would Donovan want to practise drawing these kindergarten houses – if that was what they were?
    I turned the page. More diagrams, this time slightly more complex: a series of polygons rolled down the page, each with more sides than the last. At the top was a pentagon, below that a hexagon, and so forth.
    I did not even try to understand that. When it comes to spatial or mathematical IQ tests, to detecting the common feature in a series of numbers or shapes, I always emerge with a dunce’s score. I am lost when faced with this sort of problem, my brain runs on to the rocks. So instead of foundering on these mysteries, I poured myself another drink and turned the page.
    Page three of Donovan’s notebook was dated 24 September 1988. A row of words descended the page:
    A

aardvark

aardwolf

Aaronic

aasvogel

abaca

abba
    I could see straight away that this was an alphabetical list. What was unclear to me was the language – was it English, or maybe Dutch, or was it a mixture of several languages? And again, I was baffled – what on earth was Donovan up to? Why was his handwriting so fastidious, like a schoolchild’s aiming for a gold star? The next page, the fourth, made things even less clear. It was dated 25 September and all it said was
See Tape 1.
    Tape? What tape? I searched around me, lifting the scattering of papers and pamphlets. Then, in a drawer of the desk, I found a dictaphone, and next to the dictaphone, in a purpose-made rack, three small cassettes. Quickly I extracted Tape 1 (its number was marked on it in red felt-tip), slotted it into the dictaphone and pushed the play button. Then I pressed the dictaphone against my ear.
    The tape went through some preliminary crackles and I heard the recording mechanism coming on. I was tense with expectation – what was I about to hear? What revelation was at hand? – when a cough sounded in my ear, and then another cough. I did not immediately recognize these noises for what they were (the recording was unclear, there was a certain amount of acoustic distortion) and just as I said to myself, someone’s coughing, a voice started speaking.
    What it said threw me completely. I had to rewind and replay to make sure that what I thought I had heard was right.
    Second time around there was no doubt about it. The voice said, flatly and distinctly,
ducatoon, exert, fletch, ocean, tectiform, virtuose.
    I stopped the tape and closed my eyes. I tried to think. Although it was difficult to be certain, that sounded like Donovan. I had used dictaphones before, and knew they had a neutralizing effect on voices. But what made me hesitate was the tonelessness, the dullness of delivery. The words weredevoid of any inflexion whatsoever, which was not like Donovan, who spoke with emphasis and vigour. The slow, deliberate voice on tape could have belonged to a teacher of English as a foreign language.
    I opened my eyes and took a deep breath. It was gone half-past nine, time to be making for home. The rain had stopped, too, although I could still hear water guttering somewhere. The sensible thing would be to drive back now. I felt tired, around my eyes especially. There was no way that I could read all of these notebooks, or listen to all of these tapes, now, in a single evening. And yet there was also no way that even I, with my aversion for puzzles, dramas and the private lives of others, could leave matters as they were, up in the air.
    I turned the tape back on. I’ll give it five minutes, I determined, no more. Five minutes, and then I’ll be off.
    The tape scratched, indicating a pause in recording, and then restarted.
    A box of