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Nicola Barker was born in Ely in 1966 and spent part of her childhood in South Africa. She is the author of eleven previous novels, including Wide Open, Darkmans, The Yips and The Cauliflower^®, and two short story collections. She has twice been longlisted and once shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, has won the IMPAC, the John Llewellyn Rhys and the Hawthornden Prizes, and was named one of Granta’s 20 Best Young British Novelists in 2003. She lives and works in East London.

About the Book

Imagine a perfect world where everything is known, where everything is open, where there can be no doubt, no hatred, no poverty, no greed. Imagine a System which both nurtures and protects. A Community which nourishes and sustains. An infinite world. A world without sickness, without death. A world without God. A world without fear.

H(A)PPY is a post-post-apocalyptic Alice in Wonderland, a story which tells itself and then consumes itself. It’s a place where language glows, where words buzz and sparkle and finally implode. It’s a novel which twists and writhes with all the terrifying precision of a tiny fish in an Escher lithograph – a book where the mere telling of a story is the end of certainty.

It is another imaginative tour de force from one of our most audacious and ambitious novelists; a writer the Guardian declares ‘a genius’.

Also by Nicola Barker

Author’s note

Although by no means essential, this novel is best enjoyed in conjunction with Agustín Barrios: The Complete Historical Guitar Recordings 1913–1942.

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After they banded together and saved us from the Floods and the Fires and the Plagues and the Death Cults, the Altruistic Powers actively discouraged The Young from thinking about God. We walked a new path. They called it The New Path. They called it A Path of Light. And The Young were taught various, simple techniques that allowed them to feel at peace. We moved Beyond God. We were taught to celebrate This Moment. And our chemicals were balanced.

We were perfected. We were given just enough choices to make us feel as though we were free, but not so many that our minds (our still-fragile intellects) became overloaded. Doubt ended. The Information Stream was purified. Before, there was filth and it corrupted us. After, there was freshness. There was the smell of newly cut grass. Everything shone. They made us feel innocent again. No – no. They made us Innocent again.

We are Innocent. We are Clean and Unencumbered. Every new day, every new dawn, every new hour, every new minute, we are released once more from the tight bonds of History (the Manacles of The Past). We are constantly starting over and over from scratch. Right here! Right now! A new beginning. A New World. Everything is possible. We are reborn.

I am told that at one time (when there was recorded time – which is apparently a flawed religious concept) everything worked until a certain number was reached and then everything stopped working because nothing could cope with the magnitude of The Number. It was a finite number. All numbers were finite then. Vital resources kept running out and people suffered. Because of numbers. Just numbers. But now numbers are infinite and everything has been mapped and nothing is unknown. Nothing can run out – even life. We are eternal. And we always have enough. Just enough. We do not crave more than enough. We are content. We are In Balance. And we work hard – but never too hard – to stay In Balance. This goal is what fires us, what drives us. We are not encouraged to question how or why – although we are not discouraged from questioning, either. We just accept that the past was The Past. We live Now. We live In Light. And when darkness threatens (darkness? Can there ever truly be darkness again?) they simply adjust the chemicals. They just . . . know.

The chemicals enter us in a multitude of ways. Our environments are sensitive. Our environments are cooperative. Everything is Whole. We are total, universal, all-integrated. We are In Balance. We work (but never struggle) to stay In Balance. And everything functions perfectly. So we no longer have to worry.

Sometimes – while we sleep, as we gently dream – they remind us of how it used to be so that we appreciate how good things are now. Now that we are Free From Desire. And we are H(A)PPY to be reminded of this because it reinforces our sense of peacefulness, of calm, of conformity, of equilibrium. They tell us about the lies of The Past. Of how The Young were told that they needed to rebel against the norm in order to feel Whole. That creativity is dependent on struggle and suffering. Of how true happiness could only be felt if we completely abandoned the self to God, or, at the other extreme (The Past was full of such contradictions), of how true happiness was always contingent upon another person or creature’s suffering and pain. That it was somehow ‘comparative’ or ‘competitive’.

When I say ‘they tell us’ I actually mean ‘we tell us’. Because nothing is above us. Nothing is below us. We are In Balance. That is how The System was tooled. We work to stay In Balance. Each of us contributes in our own special way to this goal. I am principally a musician. This is my talent. But I do not focus exclusively on music. Nothing is ever exclusive here. To be exclusive is to exclude. And nothing is excluded. I give my time and my attention and my energy to many causes, to many occupations. I am open. I am humble. I am appreciative. I am grounded.

We have a graph – we call it The Graph – and it shows us how In Balance we are: as a person (our physical and mental health), as a small community (a community of skills, a community of friends, a community of consumers, a community of thought) and as a broader society – as a race, as a planet, as a galaxy. Many graphs, one Graph.

There is a satisfaction – a deep satisfaction – in remaining neatly within the parameters of our various graphs. In keeping things even. And we all strive (but not too hard) for that. Because it makes us H(A)PPY: just to contribute, to be utterly aware, utterly informed, utterly sensitive. Utterly open to everything.

How curious . . .
How perplexing.
A malfunction?
A blip?
A kink?
But where . . . ?

If it started – although I cannot describe ‘it’, I cannot comprehend ‘it’, just sense ‘it’, just suspect ‘it’ (imagine a mist of condensation on your skin which you are unaware of until a light breeze lightly gusts against your cheek), yes, if it started – this odd disambiguation, this slight discombobulation, this blip – then it started with the child – a little girl – there was, yes – when I think back – if I recall correctly – and I can’t seem to get her . . . she keeps stealing into my mind. And she is accompanied by a strange melody. A sweet, jangling waltz. Performed on the guitar. But it’s being played on metal strings. It reverberates most curiously. She is small and dark, with burning eyes and a wary smile; and my Sensor tells me that she is nine years of age and that she lived – many years ago, when there was still age – in what was once the Southern Americas. I discovered her on The Information Stream in the margins of an article about a Paraguayan luthier who specialised in acoustic cutaways (I have been pondering the virtues of the cutaway of late). This luthier also happened to own a precious guitar – although not a cutaway. I idly followed the link.

It was strange (yes, strange) that I should be looking at an article about a precious guitar (although I am a guitarist and I play and tool guitars), because – to all intents and purposes – guitars are all precious now (and all valueless, and all the same, and all perfected, and all readily available to anyone who might feel in need of one). So it was strange that I should find myself searching The Past for information about any other kind of guitar than the kind I have which is a perfectly wonderful kind of guitar, a guitar that I am truly and completely and utterly con . . . con . . . H(A)PPY with.

And this precious guitar was anything but perfect. It was imperfect! It was a traditional, wooden guitar; pear-shaped. I focused in on the picture so intensely that the image became grainy (this was still a time when images became grainy, a time of discord, of mischief, of fracture and of pixellation. A time without True Clarity. A time of blurred edges).

This guitar – ah, this guitar – was precious not because of any inherently good qualities, but because it once belonged to a famous guitarist. It had metal strings – not gut strings. And it had tiny beads made from a kind of vulcanised rubber through which each of the treble strings had been painstakingly threaded and then positioned so as to remain flush with the bridge. These were dampers. Yes, dampers. To reduce the metallic rumble. The vibration. A compromise of sorts. A creative compromise, a curious compromise. The guitar – this patently compromised instrument – made no real sense to me. As a luthier. As a player. An acoustic guitar but with ugly metal strings at a point in History – yes, my Sensor promptly confirmed this for me – when gut strings were the only truly acceptable devices for play. This was before the electric guitar. This was before the Age of Blare, of Wah-Wah, of Rock. The ‘precious’ guitar was a curious anomaly. A puzzle. It sat unsteadily (1920? 1925?) – it teetered – at the end of the Past and the start of the Future (which was also a kind of past). It existed at a tipping point. At the birth of Dissonance. At the death of Harmony. It was an imperfect instrument. An anachronism. A curiosity. A puzzle. Yes, I’ll say it again: a puzzle. And because I am a luthier I habitually engage with these puzzles, I struggle with them (although I do not war with them or battle with them, and I do not embrace them, either, I do not search them out, because where is the need when the solutions are ever-present, when every riddle has been finally and definitively solved?). But I found myself staring at this guitar’s imperfections and wondering. I am not sure what I was wondering. There was simply a space, a wordlessness, an itch.

I suppose I may’ve wondered who could have owned this imperfect object which – even in the history of guitars, of guitar-making – made no real sense. Who might’ve owned this chaotic instrument? This clumsy, silly, senseless instrument?

And then I suddenly saw the girl, the brown-eyed child, standing there, in the margins. On the edge of a badly torn clipping. She was holding a doll, swaddled in a blanket. There she was. Just a girl.

But why should I care? We – The Young – utterly reject (my language is too harsh here, imagine a calmer version of this phrase, a more dispassionate version, if you will), we disavow the idea of fame and all that this titular ‘garland’ of The Past implies. Even the word. We even reject the word fame – a hot word. A steaming word. A word that condenses and then rots. A dangerous word. We abhor ‘personality’. We eschew difference. And The Sensor – because we ask it to, because it needs to – actively refuses to acknowledge (and thereby credit) prominent individuals – ‘famous’ individuals – from the Cruel Rack of History. From the chaotic Then. From that dark and damp and foggy time before the serene purity of Now.

Because Now all creatures are equal. That is our Philosophy. No one may be raised above. So The Sensor – because we want it to, because we need it to, because we ask it to – helpfully breaks these once-lauded individuals down into their component parts. It deconstructs them. They are accorded mere numbers. They are not credited with names, because names generate a kind of tiny, psychological implosion, a connection, a dangerous synergy that bounces between the letters and the information and the image and the meaning.

But . . . yes . . . then there she suddenly was, the child, this haunting girl, and because she was on the margins of the page – the page about the precious guitar – I could not access the full story (I could not ably guide my Sensor – where might I direct it? How? When there were no other clues?), even though I tried. I tried hard. I tried several times. I almost became . . . I don’t know . . . I almost became frustrated.

Push it away, Mira A. This moment. This feeling. This frustration. Frustration is nothing more than an unhealthy burgeoning of the rampant Ego. Frustration is entitlement. Frustration is arrogance. Check The Graph. Is it pinkening? Is it?

But still, still, there was something so . . . so old, so . . . so intriguing about that small child’s dark eyes. They haunted me. Of course I tried to receive the information – as little as I had – and then let it go. The way we have been taught to. But I found it hard to let go. I don’t understand why. Perhaps there was a blip, a kink. Yes. I think my chemicals must have become unbalanced. It’s very strange. I will ask for help. Oh. Somebody has already noticed. On The Graph. How lovely. There is help. Help is already here.

He was a Full Neuter and his name was Kite. His Identifier has a little logo of a cheerful green kite with a long, dancing tail weighted down by a series of pretty, red bows. But for some reason I thought of the hunting bird. I secretly wished that his logo was of a hunting bird.

‘Too masculine.’ He smiled, noting that my Sensor had called up information about the hunting bird.

Kite checked my chemicals. He made a couple of tiny adjustments. He asked about my given name, Mira A, which I am told is the name of a star – a giant, red star – and also means ‘boundless’ in one of the many old languages from The Past. Then he asked about my guitar (my logo is a simplified version of 41.51.91.21.51.8.3.9.41–41.5.2’s Musical Instruments; an abstract image in greys and blues and browns of two, stringed instruments, somehow conjoined, facing each other, one – the most dominant – a guitar, the other possibly a cello or a violin, each separate but somehow a part of the other).

Because I sensed that he liked music and that it would make him H(A)PPY – and therefore more productive – I improvised Kite a short piece on my guitar which I spontaneously called ‘Watching the Dawn Break on the New Delta’.

Kite was astonished at how nimbly my fingers plucked away at the guitar strings. It made him H(A)PPY to watch this and to listen. Yes, it did make him H(A)PPY. H(A)PPY and refreshed. Although he was already perfectly H(A)PPY. Kite is In Balance.

‘That rapid movement with your right hand,’ he murmured, once I’d finished. ‘A tremolo?’

And then, just to be on the safe side, I quickly told Kite about the little girl who I had seen on the margins (although of course I didn’t need to tell Kite anything. Kite already has open access on The Stream to all my thoughts and my movements and my transactions). Kite was, nevertheless, quite surprised that anything marginal should be in focus. He aimed a tiny laser into my right eye and peered around inside for a few moments, wondering aloud whether there might be something slightly off-kilter in my Oracular Devices. He scratched his head. He made a mental note of it. I told him that I had been idly looking at an article about a precious guitar and that I didn’t entirely understand why my Sensor had called it up in the first place.

‘You must’ve asked it to,’ he said, matter-of-factly, then added, without any prompting, ‘I like most stringed instruments, but not the violin. For some reason I find the sound of violins rather sad and unsettling. Too emotional. Even jigs. Even jigs make me feel uneasy – as if the riotous surface of celebration masks something underneath, some kind of . . . of emptiness or . . . or inadequacy.’

He shuddered when he used these words: unsettling – emptiness – inadequacy. Kite is so sensitive that the words scratch up against the smooth surface of his calm psyche and pucker it; disarrange it.

‘But don’t you think there might be a special kind of sadness that is almost a form of happiness?’ I mused. For some inexplicable reason (and as Kite so astutely observed slightly earlier in our exchange) I have been thinking a great deal about the tremolo of late – those wavering high notes: so sweet, so sad. I have a powerful urge to play those notes, although without the familiar fixed-chord positions so typical of the classical and the flamenco traditions (using an independent melodic line instead). This is difficult. It means great stretches of the left hand. It’s challenging and uncomfortable. Hence my interest in the cutaway guitar. The cutaway provides much greater flexibility to individuals with smaller hands and shorter fingers.

‘Are you referring to the state of melancholy, perhaps?’ Kite hazarded a quick guess.

‘Ah. Yes. Melancholy.’ I nodded. ‘Isn’t there often a bright azure tinge of happiness to be found glinting away quietly inside the deep shadows of its murky-grey waters?’

‘By my reckoning, that “special” kind of happiness sounds suspiciously like an EOE.’ He chuckled. ‘An unproductive form of self-indulgence.’

(Kite is obviously very wise. I can see him receiving information and then only holding on to it just as long as he absolutely needs to, but no longer. He doesn’t grasp on to it. He just receives it and then pushes it away. He gives it away. He is enviably Non-Attached.)

‘It permeates music.’ I shrugged, almost resigned. ‘It lives in the minor keys.’

Kite called something up on his Sensor. ‘Your star oscillates,’ he muttered, leaving a quick, mental note about this in his brand-new Mira A file.

‘Mira A, your star, the star you are named after, it oscillates. Sometimes it is visible from our planet, from Mother Earth, but at other times it vanishes from view. And there is a Mira B. Another star. A sister star. A less well-formed star.’

‘I wonder if I’ll feel still more H(A)PPY – still more complete – when I finally transition into a Full Neuter . . . ’ I pondered. ‘Like you.’

‘False aspiration.’ He smiled. ‘Happy is Happy is Happy.’ Then he flipped on the laser and peered into my right eye again and made another mental note of something. I suppose I could easily call it up on my Information Stream if I really wanted to know what it was. But I trust Kite completely. So I don’t care.

I asked Kite how long he had been in My Orbit. I haven’t encountered Kite before. Kite began to answer me and then I interrupted him to ask if he would consider joining my Community of Friends. Kite was H(A)PPY to oblige me, although he said that he never refused friendship and that he considered the whole world to be his Community.

Now I come to think of it, I somewhat regret not waiting to hear Kite’s answer to my question about how long he had been in My Orbit. I would’ve liked to find out the answer. I suppose it was rather rude of me to interrupt him like that. Of course I could call up this information on my Stream if I wanted to, but if I do that then Kite will automatically be informed and I don’t want to distract him (or anyone else) with my excessive – even inappropriate – levels of interest. I need to turn these impulses inwards: first, to the self, then, to the Community, and finally, to The Graph.

I regret my rudeness. I regret it, then I push it away. We cannot live in regret, that would be self-defeating. We can only live in This Moment.

Kite is so friendly. He is so Well Balanced. He’s great. I really need to spend more time around positive people like Kite. But I also need to counter this desire with a sense of calm resignation, of deep renunciation and of effortless self-control.

An EOE is an Excess of Emotion. To stay In Balance we must avoid Excesses of Emotion. All excesses. Any excess. Extremes are deeply unproductive. They are dangerous. Even the word ‘dangerous’ is potentially dangerous – and only to be employed with immense self-awareness and caution – because it is an extreme word and words carry suggestions the way the wind carries pollen and leaves and dust particles. And music. And Kites.

There is a way of sidestepping the gaze of The Information Stream. I have only recently found this out. By staring into bright light. I came upon this information purely by accident. And I asked that question (the one you just read) – Who is Mira B? – staring into bright light. Blinding light. I am staring into bright light as I think this. Of course if I stare into blinding light too often it will become apparent on The Graph as A-Typical Behaviour. And I do not want to negatively affect The Graph. Already I can see that my numbers are higher than they should be. There is a purpling effect at the edge of the Colourmap. I must be open. I must be transparent. I must walk a Path of Light instead of being . . . of slipping . . . of becoming . . . I must not . . . I must avoid this strange urge to be Blinded By The Light.

Of course I shouldn’t want anything too much. That’s the secret. That’s the key. I should not strain. I need to let these thoughts go and Move On. I am Free From Desire.

All our fabrics are intelligent now. We grow them in laboratories. Our fabrics are self-cleaning and self-maintaining and they interact with our bodies to gauge things like size, density and temperature according to the specifics of the conditions in which we find ourselves. Our fabrics – our shoes – are alive. They are sensitive and so we – The Young – are sensitive to them. Appreciative of them. In situations of stress or duress or jeopardy our clothes will modify to protect us. They are fully breathable. They will change colour on request. We can wear any style or pattern that we choose, but mostly we choose to wear plain, loose, non-gendered styles and the colour white because we are The Young and we are Clean and we try not to complicate things too much by engaging The Ego in mundane or insignificant day-to-day decisions. Choice, fashion etc. are the pointless and outmoded preoccupations of The Past. And colour often represents The Ego. The Ego and difference. So we can choose to wear whatever we like, but we always choose to wear white, because it best expresses how calm we are, and how free we are, and how whole we are and how H(A)PPY we are.

And yet even though our fabrics are sentient, and our food is carefully prepared in laboratories where levels of power and water and waste etc. are all minutely controlled – we eschew the old Capitalist Modes of Production and quietly consider them the greatest human evil (please note that I employ this provocative word with a combination of calm and regret and disquietloveintensesensationmysterious

Contents

About the Author

About the Book

Also by Nicola Barker

Author’s note

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