With the chatter from the other rooms dying away,
he went back to check on Isabelle, whom he found in the kitchen wiping what
appeared to be tears from her eyes. As he put his hand on her shoulder, she
swung round to embrace him.
“Why did he do it, Peter?”
The warmth of her embrace and the soft vulnerability of her slight French
accent were momentarily intoxicating. “I … don’t know, I suppose he was…”
“He wasn’t ill,” she interrupted quickly, exasperation in her voice, “he was
just - somewhere else.”
She sat down, gazing absently through the window at the grey hills beyond. “For
the last months, he was going through the motions, but his mind was elsewhere.
He’d spend days on end sitting in his den with those bloody headphones on, only
appearing for meals. Sometimes he’d spend all night in there.”
“What was he doing?”
“I don’t know - composing mostly I think, among other things. You know, he was
always obsessed with something, but when he spoke about it, it never made much
sense to me. I suppose he was ill,” she conceded. “It was a severe form of
depression according to the doctor.”
He put the kettle on and sat with her at the kitchen table. “Do you remember
him saying anything in particular - something that struck you as strange or out
of character?”
“Bof! He seemed out of character for most of the last few months really. There
were certain themes – he got quite spiritual at one point – kept talking about
heaven and life after death, but mostly it didn’t make any sense. At
first he seemed euphoric, but soon became frustrated when nobody else could
understand why. I’m afraid I wasn’t much help to him.”
“You mustn’t blame yourself.”
“No, well, you see, I was frustrated with his spending so much time working,
and so when he tried to share it with me, I said I wasn’t interested. I asked
him to see the doctor, but he wouldn’t accept that he was ill. That’s when I
decided to go and spend some time with my parents. After that, I think he just
withdrew into his own little world and well, we all know what happened then.”
“Did you ever hear him say that he knew everything?” Peter thought he noticed
Isabelle’s cheeks redden slightly.
“Perhaps, I’m not sure. Did he say that to you?”
“The last time we spoke - on the phone. Hey, I was wondering - would you let me
sort out his den for you? It’s a total mess in there, but there may be
something important.”
“That’s very kind of you, Peter, but don’t you need to get back to work? And
what about Abigail and the children?”
“No, I’m between contracts at the moment and in any case, Abigail’s got her
mother coming over tonight. Staying for three days no less.” Peter put on a
mock grimace. “If I could be of some help, I’d like to stay a while.”
For a few moments, she fixed him with a thoughtful stare and then slowly closed
her eyes, letting the tears come once more. “Oh Peter,” she sobbed.
That night, as he lay in the bath reflecting on
the day, Peter thought of the way the young curate had addressed him as the
physicist. In spite of Martin’s lack of faith in Science, Peter knew that his
younger brother had nevertheless been proud of his first choice of career as a
theoretical physicist. Academia, as a career path, makes perfect sense to other
academics in the same way that selling out to industry is beyond their
comprehension. As a postgraduate physicist at Cambridge, Peter had dreamed of
unearthing the “Theory of Everything” - the Holy Grail of theoretical physics
from which everything in the Universe could potentially be explained. The
recognition for such a discovery would go far beyond the Nobel Prize, but the
dream had faded and the financial lure of industry had eventually become too
great. With many of the University’s research projects at least partially
sponsored by the private sector, offers of employment had arrived on Peter’s
desk with some regularity, but besides serving to stroke his young ego, most
were not given a second thought. He was a scientist, God damn it! The truth had
to be more important than material wealth, he had argued to himself at the
time. Then he had met Abigail.
The young human resources manager from London
subsequently turned his noble, academic, and somewhat bohemian life upside
down. Suddenly, fancy restaurants, holidays abroad, and the desire to get onto
the property ladder rose up Peter’s priority list. The final clincher came one
morning in the form of a little pink test-strip soaked in urine; Abigail was
pregnant. Later that year when offered a job with a large international
electronics firm (effectively doubling his salary), he accepted.
Now however, eleven years on, as he dipped his head
below the surface of the now lukewarm bath water, he remembered the exhilaration
he had once experienced as a true scientist. Back then, he had felt like an
early explorer sailing the seven seas in search of new worlds. His voyages had
been charted to the edge of knowledge itself, and what lay beyond was the stuff
of dreams. Every so often there would be tantalising hints of mainland, but
except for a few small and seemingly disconnected islands, the new world had so
far remained elusive. Of course, there was always the possibility that nothing
was left to discover but more small islands. Perhaps no unified theory existed.
Perhaps the laws of the universe were governed by no more than collections of
random oddities - islands of logic in a sea of chaos. If so, further attempts
at unification would be futile. But did he really believe that? More likely it
was just another convenient excuse to abandon the search. The universe and its
governing laws, as so far discovered, were, he believed, far too elegant not to
fit together in some beautifully satisfying way.
He recalled his forays into string theory, the
most promising avenue to date for such unification of the basic laws. In truth,
it was more a group of theories in which space-time was argued to compose of
tiny filament loops vibrating through as many as ten spatial dimensions. Peter
found the concept fascinating, but while providing a framework potentially
capable of explaining many aspects of the observable universe, it had so far
been impossible to verify experimentally. Furthermore, the mathematics involved
in any exploration of the field was fiendish. Most of the equations in their
full form were either unsolvable, or required so many assumptions and trial and
error, one was left wondering whether the endeavour was one of discovery or
invention. Peter was a keen and competent mathematician, but string theory had
eventually proved too much even for him.
His thoughts once more returned to his brother. As
a violinist, Martin had been fascinated by the idea of everything boiling down
to vibrating strings, but had quickly become lost as Peter elaborated. Martin’s
last statement, “I know everything” once again echoed in his mind. Had
Martin finally discovered the meaning of life, the universe and everything? He
chuckled to himself. When it came to science, Martin couldn’t discover his own
arse with both hands.
The next morning, Peter was awoken by an aroma of
fresh coffee and the sound of the dishwasher being emptied in the kitchen
below. It was several moments before he could work out where he was. Sunlight
filtered through the curtains bathing the room in a warm and optimistic golden
glow. He drew the curtains and opened the window, closing his eyes to the sun,
now rising over the eastern ridge of the valley, and sucked in the cool, earthy
morning air. A thin layer of mist hovered a few feet above fields, still damp
from the night’s rain, and a crescent moon hung in a cobalt sky alive with
birdsong from the copse at the end of the garden. Spring was on its way. If
there could be a heaven half as good as this, Peter mused, his brother would be
happy.
It was certainly a far cry from Bracknell.
Eight-thirty - Abigail would just be dropping off the children at school - he
would call after breakfast. He found Isabelle in the kitchen reading the paper.
A loaf of home-made bread sat on the hot-plate of the Aga next to a pot of steaming
coffee.
“I’d forgotten how beautiful it is here.”
She smiled. “Help yourself, Peter. You know where everything is.”
He sat down and buttered some bread. For a continental, Isabelle had adopted
the English country life as though born to it.
“Will you stay here? - Keep the house, I mean.”
“I don’t know. It’s a big house. Seems a bit silly now it’s only me.”
It was the sort of house that needed a family. Peter knew they had wanted
children, but for some reason it hadn’t happened. He now regretted the question.
“I’ll start on the den after I’ve called Abigail. Is there anything else you’d
like me to do while I’m here?”
“No, just the den would be lovely. Thanks again, Peter. I really appreciate
this.”
Abigail’s mother answered the phone and Peter instinctively
moved the receiver six inches from his ear. Her voice, while not particularly
loud, had a certain combination of pitch and tone which could carry great
distances and this morning it seemed to penetrate to the very centre of his
skull. After some five minutes discussing the church service, and what a shame
it had been that the weather hadn’t been nicer, he finally managed to get her
to put Abigail on. He knew at once he’d called at a bad time. Sam and Kate, it
transpired, had been particularly stubborn that morning in their preparations
for school. It had all started when Sam had told Kate that uncle Martin would
go to hell. Apparently, he had heard somewhere that committing suicide was a
sin and that sinful people were duly barred from the pearly gates. Sam was ten
years old and just tended to accept things, good or bad. Kate, on the other
hand, at seven and half, was distraught. Martin had always had a particularly
soft spot for his niece and she had utterly adored her uncle. News of the death
had been bad enough, but Abigail had consoled her with the thought of seeing
him again in heaven one day. Now however, the little girl had confronted the
reality of never seeing her uncle Martin again. Abigail was cross with Peter.
She hadn’t wanted to tell them it was suicide, but after some intense debate,
Peter had convinced her they were old enough to know the truth. Perhaps it had
been a bad call, but now there was nothing could be done to change it.
“I can’t deal with it any more, you’re going to have to come home and sort it
out yourself. You can explain it to them because I’ve had it up to here!” she
screamed and then hung up. He looked across at Isabelle, calmly reading the
paper and wondered whether she ever erupted like Abigail. Somehow he couldn’t
imagine it. He would call back in the evening when tempers had subsided.
Perhaps he would try to explain things to Kate, although for the moment he
hadn’t the faintest idea what to say. He didn’t actually believe in heaven and
hell - nor God for that matter - but had grudgingly agreed to make believe he
did for the children’s sake. He wasn’t at all comfortable with this decision,
but could see no lasting harm in playing along until such time Kate and Sam
could make up their own minds based on a more complete appraisal of the facts.
He recalled the story of a friend whose father, having dressed up as Santa
Claus for his fourth Christmas, removed the beard and hat explaining that the
jolly, red-suited fellow did not really exist. His friend claimed he had never
recovered from the shock and Peter had often thought it might explain a few
things about the chap’s generally misanthropic character. He poured himself
another coffee and headed for the den.
Doug’s mobile bleeped
twice. Forcing his eyelids apart, he slowly brought his watch into focus. It
was 11:30 am and his head felt as though it had been clenched all night in a
vice. He scooped the mobile off the floor.
“Yeah?” he managed to croak, his large hands almost crushing the flimsy
plastic. His throat was dry and sore from whiskey and self-rolled filter-less
cigarettes. There was no answer. He squinted at the phone’s display and
realised it was just a text message from Kal:
Check it out! DZ13 in drop
He flung the phone on the bed and slumped wearily
in front of the PC. Sure enough, a file named DZ13 was sitting in Kal’s drop
box on one of the department’s communal servers. He started the download and
went in search of the coffee whose aroma was drifting down the corridor. In the
kitchen was a medium height, slim girl with jet black hair wearing nothing but
his flatmate’s rugby shirt. Unfortunately the shirt nearly reached her knees.
“Good party wasn’t it?” chirped the girl.
“Obviously better for some than others,” Doug replied, “I assume Brian’s the
lucky man?”
There was a slight pause and a look of confused indignation and then she said
“No, I’m with you, you plonker. Don’t you remember anything?”
For a moment, Doug was in a panic, until the girl broke into high-pitched
laughter.
“Got you there didn’t I?” she shrieked. “Don’t worry; I didn’t touch you –
yet.”
Her accent was a paradox, somewhere between Cockney and Surrey, but with a hint
of the exotic. Her eyes were something different again, shining with
intelligence and yet playful and promiscuous. There was definitely more to this
girl than met the eye, although what met the eye was pleasantly sufficient for
Doug in his current state of mind.
“Yeah, I think I would’ve remembered,” he said.
“You better believe it, big-boy!”
She eyed him up and down, her gaze lingering a little longer on the down.
“You must be Doug then.”
There were two cups of instant coffee on the draining board. “That’s me,” he
said, grabbing one of them and heading back to his room.
“Oy, that’s Brian’s!” cried the girl.
“I thought you said you’re with me,” he said, without turning. “Bacon and eggs
will do fine,” he added. That lucky bastard, he thought.
The download was 60% through. He lit a cigarette,
leant back with his feet on the desk and sipped the coffee. “You forgot the
sugar!” he shouted. The hangover was a killer. He searched in vain for some
aspirin, wondering what had got Kal so fired up after a good party. Why the
hell wasn’t he in bed suffering like the rest of us? DZ, standing for
Dream-Zone, was Kal’s pet name for the evolving fractal patterns they had
discovered. By performing some carefully chosen mathematical transformations on
a number of Mandelbrot sets, they had created a moving sequence of constantly
evolving patterns. The cool thing about them, was that when viewed on the
computer screen, the shifting images would evoke a sort of trance, lasting only
thirty seconds, but seeming much longer. Sometimes, this would be followed by
bizarre and vivid dreams. Kal had coined the term “Dream-Zone,” and had even
persuaded him to co-author a paper on it, though Doug hadn’t really considered
it a very serious avenue of research and had since tried to distance himself
from the whole thing. Kal on the other hand, was convinced that it represented
a major breakthrough, not perhaps for their chosen degree course of mathematics
and computing, but in the area of cognitive science. Lately Kal had seemed quite
obsessed with it all, claiming he was on the verge of something big, but then
Kal was often like that. Even at the party, he had wanted to show him
something. “It’ll blow your mind,” he had told him, but having spent the entire
day slumped over a screen at the computing centre, Doug had been in no mood.