Alien Tongues (3 page)

The fridge-freezers and cupboards were stocked with food from their local countries.  It was known that each of the girls was proficient at cooking, and so they were expected to prepare their own meals alone.  Séamus wondered how they would bear up under this form of isolation.  If they already had some emotional problems, what would this turn them into?  If they cracked under the strain, would he get the blame?  He looked out of the barred window.  To an Asian girl, did the English countryside look like wilderness from which there was no escape?

Alice took him down to the lab.  A square, windowless room was divided into four cubicles, glass walls separating them from floor to ceiling.  A girl would sit in each cubicle at her desk and, while the glass was transparent, would be able to see the other three girls.  But each cubicle was completely soundproof, giving the girls two ways to communicate with one another.  First, they could use physical gestures.  Second, they could type on a pad in front of them and see typed responses from the other girls on a screen.  A major limitation was, however, that the keypad only had numbers on it, 0 through 9.  Moreover, at certain times the glass partitions could turn opaque, preventing communication through physical gesture.  On each desk sat a helmet, designed to read brain function.  Séamus tried it on.  It felt comfortable enough.

Finally, Alice showed him the cafeteria area and also the gym.  He was relieved at how well-equipped the gym was.  Clearly someone had kept in mind long-stay agents when fitting out the place.

He returned to his room alone and exchanged a few messages with Sheryl.  She sounded distant, but that was hardly surprising.  He would just have to keep his own tone thoughtful and caring and see how she got used to the situation.  She was lucky enough to have her career set and nicely on track; finally she might appreciate how important such a goal was to him.  There was one good way to look at the impact of this assignment – if she really did love him, then they would survive it.

And if they couldn't survive this challenge, what would a lifetime with her have in store?  He accepted that either of them could go astray over the lonely months ahead.  The big question was whether or not their natural compatibility drew then back together.  Séamus took some pride in not being the possessive type.  If Sheryl could experience all the charms of another man and yet find them wanting, he would view that as reassuring.  He believed that people who married inexperienced partners were liable to have to deal with that partner's romantic curiosity in later life.

Alice came by again at six and they left the facility, taking her car.  "I hope you don't mind if I stop briefly at home and change," she told him as she sped with familiarity down the now-dark, winding lanes.  "My mum will be there, but just ignore her if you like.  I really won't be a minute."

They entered a small village and Alice pulled up in front of a cottage sitting close to the road.  Séamus followed her inside to a low-ceilinged and cozily furnished living room.  "Mum, I'm off to the White Hart with a new colleague," she told the woman sitting in an armchair, and made a brief introduction.  "Give Séamus a cup of tea while I change, will you?"  She then left the room.  The woman smiled at him and went through to the kitchen, returning soon with a cup and saucer.  Séamus perched himself on the sofa opposite her, stirring in one of the sugar cubes provided.  The lady politely asked where he had come from, and he told her he had arrived from London that day.

"Irish, are you, Séamus?" She asked.  Well, Séamus FitzGerald was that kind of a name.

"Yes, Mrs Turner," he replied, receiving the expected correction to call her Ellen.  "But my family moved here when I was ten."  No need to explain it was just his mother and him.

"Alice's dad and I loved our holidays in Ireland," she said.  "Kerry and Waterford.  So beautiful."

"Yes." Actually he preferred the Yorkshire Dales and Moors, but then he was the type who saw more beauty in what he was least familiar with, and that didn't carry emotional baggage.  Maybe Ellen was the same.

"You know, after he left me, it was a godsend that Alice got the job at the Labs here.  I think I would have gone to pieces if she hadn't returned from Cambridge."

At this sudden wave of intimacy, Séamus could only nod as if she had recalled last week's weather.  Was this woman so desperately lonely, or slightly unhinged, or cannily relaying Alice's sense of duty and obvious sacrifice?  How had her husband "left"?   A sip of tea in a stranger's home and a world of pain became scarily visible.

"So what work brings you here, Séamus?"  Had she been trying to lower his guard?

"Auditing," he told her.  "Just routine stuff.  You know government budgets these day."

"Ah.  When Alice was so good with numbers at school, I thought, she can have a nice, safe job as an accountant.  Then she goes and gets herself a Ph.D. in Maths from Cambridge.  I ask you!"

Séamus automatically glanced towards the doorway through which Alice had disappeared.  This young woman he had assumed to be a lab assistant was brilliant beyond his comprehension.  And she was taking more than a minute to get ready.

"What did you study at college, Séamus?"

"Oh, literature…"

"Mum, stop quizzing him!" came a loud but not unfriendly admonition from the next room.  "Sorry about this, Séamus.  She's really terrible that way.  But I won't be a minute now, I promise."

"It's fine, I'm flattered," he called back.  "But my answers are not too impressive, Dr Turner."

"Ha, ha!  I don't recall that title ever getting me a date.  In this part of the world they now suspect I pee standing up."

"Alice!" her mother rebuked her. "Excuse my daughter's foul tongue, Séamus.  And she was raised so carefully…"

"Which included sending me to the local high school here, Mum?  That's like carefully placing your child in a shark tank."

Alice emerged in a tight-fitting black dress where the neck and hem lines were just a little short of provocative.  Her face was now made up with lipstick and eye-shadow.  She did look like she was on a date, but then Séamus knew nothing about the local pub culture.  "How do I look, Ma?"  She turned round.  "My bum isn't showing like last time, is it?"

Her mother rolled her eyes in Séamus's direction.  "Yes, it is showing in every curve and cranny but no, I can't see its actual bare flesh provided you do not incline your body at the waist."

"Perfect.  OK, Séamus, let's go.  Mum, don't wait up, do you hear?"

It took about ten minutes of what to Séamus was hair-raising driving, accompanied by loud rock music, before they arrived at the White Hart.  It appeared a genuine 17
th
Century establishment, with thick, twisted, black beams which clearly served a structural function.  A group of older locals sat or hovered close to the bar.  Two of them gave Alice a muted greeting and stared curiously at Séamus.  Alice replied breezily and took him next to the fire on the other side of the room.  It was an enormous hearth, large logs giving off powerful heat.  Despite the chill outside, they both stripped off their jackets.  Alice recommended the local bitter ale and Séamus insisted on getting the first round.  Alice ordered a pint along with his.  On receiving it, she took a significant quaff and looked at the liquid with critical appreciation. 

"Yes, I know, more Tomboy behavior.  Lucky I have the female curves to combat the rumors."

"A doctorate in maths is hardly Tomboy," Séamus countered, "though it may scare some insecure males.  If I understood right, you took a job at the facility just to be able to live with your Mum?"

Alice nodded and sighed.  "There could be no other possible reason for returning to my home village.  Having said that, the job's wonderful."  She glanced over her shoulder at the locals, as if to make sure they were out of earshot, then leaned towards him and lowered her voice.  "And this project is the coolest thing ever, believe me.  Wait till you learn more about it.  You're going to be part of history, Mr FitzGerald."

"In a very small and trivial way," he replied. "It's people like you who are the brains, and I'm the babysitter."

Alice took another long drink.  Her glass was already a third empty, while he had only sipped his. She grinned and moved her shoulders in time to the pop music that had just started on the bar jukebox.  "Noooo, you're our James Bond!"

"Alice, I am a rather junior civil servant. I don't even have a license to be a killjoy."

She looked at him over the top of her glass.  "Hmm.  I was thinking more of looks, actually."

"Thanks for the compliment, but I don't think I look anything like this new actor."

"Oh, no. I was thinking the original.  He was a Séamus too, wasn't he?  Was he Irish?"

"You mean Sean Connery?  He was a Scotsman.  Pierce Brosnan's Irish, though."

"Ah, well, maybe that's the one I was thinking of.  Anyway, you have that sort of air about you.  Here you are up from London, to mind these four amazing girls we have coming tomorrow.  They wouldn't tell me who you are or what your normal job is.  All very mysterious but sort of cool, too.  Don't worry, I'm not going to pry."

Séamus looked over to the locals at the bar, now engaged in their own animated discussion.  "Tell me what you know about these girls."

"Incredible language abilities, to begin with.  Then they're unbelievably good at mental arithmetic.  None has had much of an education, and they're all pretty tough ladies, so I understand."

"I was told they've all been convicted of theft."

Alice pulled a face.  "Yes, but please don't judge them by that.  They're not like you would imagine.  In each case it was to raise money for their families' medical needs.  Who's to say we wouldn't have done the same in their shoes?"

Séamus held up his glass.  "I'll drink to that wise and thoughtful sentiment."  They clinked glasses and Alice downed several more mouthfuls.

"So you're a literature guy, eh?" she said.  "What sort?"

"Don't laugh.  Irish."

"Wow.  Is there much of it?"  She added a wink to draw any sting from the comment.  Séamus gave a simulation of strained patience.

"How about Goldsmith, Swift, Yeats, Shaw, Wilde, Joyce, Beckett?  And those are just the ones who entertained the English."

"Ah…'Waiting for Godot'?"

Séamus pointed a finger at her.  "Don't get me started on Godot.  I almost came to blows with my tutor over my Anglo-Irish interpretation of that play."

"What do you mean,
Anglo-Irish
?"

Séamus sighed. "If you'll permit me grouping genius with mediocrity, then I mean most of the writers I mentioned together with people like myself.  We're born on Irish soil but we're separated somehow.  Some because of English ancestry and some because of Anglicization.  So we don't know who we are.  So we get drunk on literature."

Alice tapped her near-empty glass against Séamus's two-thirds-full one.  "Well, I am going to drink to that sentiment and get the next round.  Then I suggest we order dinner before I start feeling tipsy."

As Alice had advised, the food was good.  They did not touch again on the project at hand, partly because the pub was starting to become busier, and partly because they were trying to respect Professor Wilkie's management of information.  Neither had been told what not to disclose to colleagues, but like good professionals they erred on the side of caution.  Séamus assumed a Ph.D. in math was needed for whatever code-breaking or similar exercise was involved.  He was somewhat in awe of the young woman's qualifications and also didn't want to make a fool of himself saying something ignorant.  If she saw him as a James-Bond type, the image was going to come crashing down soon enough. Might as well leverage it at the start of the assignment.

Most of the conversation during the meal was about that part of Yorkshire, Séamus asking about interesting places to visit and Alice providing an excellent guide, with history.  After the plates were gone, he wondered if he should mention returning home or whether it was better protocol to wait for her to raise the topic.  She seemed to be enjoying her night out, which he suspected was not a regular occurrence.  She was finishing off her second pint while he had barely started on his.  It was his turn to offer another round, but now he was concerned about her driving.

While he was wondering what he might say, a young man broke away from a group at another table and came over to them.  "Alice," the man said brightly, "I've been waiting all evening for you to catch my eye."

When she heard the voice, one corner of Alice's mouth drew back while she still faced Séamus.  It was clear the attention was not welcome.  "Hello, Dave," she said before turning. "I didn't know this was your local these days."

"Oh it's not, but one of the lads likes the pool table here, so tonight we made an exception.  Mind if I take a seat for a moment?"  He appeared to address the remark to Séamus, who held out a hand in the direction of Alice, suggesting it was her decision.

"If I did mind, would it make a difference?" Alice replied.

"Oh come on, Darling, that is not the New Year's spirit."  He grinned at Séamus.  "I've known Alice since she was a child.  Could always be a bit cutting, our Alice."  He held out a hand. "Dave Orwood."

Séamus took the hand.  "Séamus FitzGerald."

"Oh, a Paddy?  Welcome to Yorkshire, Chum."