‘Did I ever tell you about the time I used to be able to make televisions go wonky, from far away?’
It was a bright and warm day, back in that same summer Rory had come out to the Hebrides with us. Rory and I were walking near Gallanach, going from the marked rocks in one field to the stone circle in another. I remember I had a pain in my side that day and I was worrying that it was appendicitis (one of the boys in my class that year had almost died when his appendix had ruptured). It was just a stitch, though. Uncle Rory was a fast walker and I’d been intent on keeping up with him; my appendix waited another year before it needed taking out.
We had been visiting some of the ancient monuments in the area, and had started talking about what the people who’d built the cairns and stone circles had believed in, and that had led us on to astrology. Then suddenly he mentioned this thing about televisions.
‘Making them go
wonky?’
I said. ‘No.’
‘Well,’ Rory said, then turned and looked behind us. We stood up on the verge as a couple of cars passed us. It was hot; I took off my jacket. ‘Well,’ Rory repeated, ‘I was ... a few years older than you are now, I guess. I was over at a friend’s house, and there was a bunch of us watching
Top of the Pops
or something, and I was humming along with a record. I hit a certain deep note, and the TV screen went wavy. Nobody else said anything, and I wondered if it was just coincidence, so I tried to do it again, and after a bit of adjusting I hit the right note and sure enough, the screen went wavy again. Still nobody said anything.’ Rory laughed at the memory. He was wearing jeans and T-shirt and carried a light jacket over his shoulder.
‘Well, I didn’t want to make a fool of myself, so I didn’t say anything. I thought maybe it just worked on that one particular television set, so I tried it at home; and it still happened. The effect seemed to work from quite a distance, too. When I stood out in the hall and looked into the lounge, it was still there, stronger than ever.
‘Then we were going up to Glasgow, mum and I, and we were passing a shop window full of TVs, and so I tried this new gift for messing up TV screens on them, and hummed away to myself, and all the screens went wild! And I was thinking Great, I really can do magic! The effect is getting stronger! I could appear on TV and do this! Maybe it would make everybody’s screens go weird!’
‘Wow,’ I said, wanting to get home and try this myself.
‘So,’ Rory said. ‘I stopped in my tracks and I asked mum. I said, “Mum; watch this. Watch those screens.” And I hummed for all I was worth, and the pictures on the screens went wavy. And mum just looked at me and said, “What?” And I did it again, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get her to see the effect. Eventually she got fed up with me and told me to stop being silly. I had screens going mental in every TV shop we passed in Glasgow that day, but nobody else seemed to be able to see it.’
Rory grimaced, looking across the edge of the plain beyond Gallanach to the little rocky hill that stuck up from the flat fields.
‘Now, I wish I could remember just what it was that made the penny drop, but I can’t. I mean, usually a beautiful assistant says something stupid and the clever scientist says, “Say that again!” and then comes up with the brilliant plan that’s going to save the world as we know it ... but as far as I remember it just came to me.’
‘What?’ I said.
Rory grinned down at me. ‘Vibrations,’ he said.
‘Vibrations?’
‘Yeah. The vibrations I was setting up in my own skull - actually in the eyeball, I suppose - were making my eyes vibrate at about the same frequency as the TV screen flickers. So the screen looked funny,
but only to me,
that was the point. And it made sense that the further away you were from the screen - as long as you could still make it out, of course - the more pronounced the effect would appear.’ He looked down at me. ‘You see?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I think so.’ I studied the road for a bit, then looked up, disappointed. ‘So it doesn’t really work after all?’
Rory shook his head. ‘Not the way I thought it did, no,’ he said.
I frowned, trying to remember how we’d got onto this. ‘What’s that got to do with what we were talking about?’ I asked.
Rory looked at me. ‘Ah-ha,’ he said, and winked. He nodded at a gate set in the low wall facing the road; beyond were the standing stones. ‘Here we are.’
‘Here we are.’ The stair-door creaked open; I went to help Helen. She handed me a tray with four pewter mugs. The mulled wine steamed; it smelled wonderful. ‘Mmm, great,’ I said. Helen took my hand and stepped out through the little half-size door onto the battlements. Her broad face was tanned and her body looked lean and fit after some early-season skiing in Switzerland. She wore Meindl boots, an old pair of leather trousers that had belonged to her mother, a cashmere sweater and a flying jacket that looked distressed enough to have seen action over Korea, if not Greater Germany. Her hair was shining black and shoulder length.
She took a mug. ‘Help yourself,’ she said. ‘Any sign of him?’
‘Nope,’ I said. I held the tray out to Lewis and Verity, who made the appropriate noises and took a mug each.
Helen nodded at the corner of the airmail package inside my jacket. ‘Still incubating that, Prentice?’
I grinned. ‘Yeah.’
We stood there sipping the hot, spicy wine, looking north.
‘Prentice? Ash. He’s done it.’
‘Who? Doctor Gonzo?’
‘Yeah; printing it out now; mail you the hard copy tomorrow morning; he’ll E-mail it to me too, I’ll download the files and stick them on a disk your Compaq’ll accept and bring it with me next week when I come up for Hogmanay ... unless you got a modem yet, did you?’
‘No, no I didn’t.’
‘Okay; that’ll be the arrangement, then. Sound all right to you?’
‘Yeah; great. I’ll write back to say thanks. He, ah ... say what the files actually were in the end?’
‘Text.’
‘That all he said?’
‘Yep. Prentice, he hasn’t read whatever he found; well, probably not more than the first few lines to check they were in English, not gibberish. Once he’d cracked it I don’t think he was really interested in what was actually written there. But it is text.’
‘Right. Text.’
‘Should get to you in a few days, airmail.’
The big envelope from the States had arrived in the mail this morning, five days after Ash had called; the return address was Dr G, Computing Science Faculty, University of Denver, Co. I’d stared at the thing as it lay there on the front door mat, my mouth gone oddly dry. I had a slight hangover, and had decided - as I gingerly picked the disappointingly slim package up - that I’d open it after breakfast. Then after breakfast I’d thought maybe I should leave it until later, especially when Verity rang and invited me over to the castle.
It was the last day of 1990; a full twelve months after that fateful party when Mrs McSpadden had sent me down to the cellar for some more whisky. We were all back here for the usual round of parties and visits and hangovers. I was mostly looking forward to it all, even though I was still trying to find reasons not to ask Fergus the things I knew I ought to ask him about Mr Rupert Paxton-Marr. But then, maybe I oughtn’t to ask them at all. Maybe what was in this airmail package would relieve me of the need to ask any questions (I told myself). I kept coming back to the distinct possibility that maybe I was making something out of nothing, treating our recent, local history like some past age, and looking too assiduously, too imaginatively for links and patterns and connections, and so turning myself into some sort of small-scale conspiracy theorist.
I had been immersed in my studies all term, and everything seemed to be going well. My professor, reading my tutorial papers and essays, had gone beyond noises of encouragement and vicarious complacency to a sort of uncomprehending peevishness that I’d contrived to fail so spectacularly the year before.
Meanwhile, in the history that we were currently living through, it looked like a war was going to start in just over two weeks, but - apart from a kind of low background radiation of species-ashamed despair because of that — personally I felt not too bad. Mum appeared to be holding out, despite Christmas and New Year traditionally being a bad time for the bereaved. She had actually started building the much talked-about harpsichord, turning a spare bedroom at Lochgair into a workshop which at the moment looked suitably chaotic; James had mostly rejoined humanity, to the extent that several times over the last few weekends before Christmas he’d taken his Walkman phones off long enough to have what could, with only a little generosity, be described as a conversation. Lewis was doing well, Verity was almost disgustingly healthy (apart from the occasional sore back and a bladder that appeared to have become inordinately susceptible to the sound of running water), and I actually looked forward to seeing Lewis and Verity now, much to my own amazement; there was still a distant pang when Verity smiled at me ... but it was more remembered than real.
I looked at my watch. In four hours I’d be setting off for Glasgow Airport, for Ashley. She was booked on a late flight and I’d volunteered to go pick her up. She’d be working until half-five in London this evening, and it would have been pushing the old 2CV a bit to get to Scotland - let alone here - in time for the bells.
I scanned the skies to the north, watching for movement. I was looking forward to the drive, even if it was at night and I wouldn’t be able to see the scenery.
The wind gusted a little and I supped my mulled wine. The woods — evergreen and deciduous-bare - swept down to the fields and then the town; forests rose on the hills to the east.
‘Anybody heard the news today?’ Lewis asked.
‘Nothing special happening,’ Helen said.
I guessed she’d got an up-date from Mrs McSpadden, who tended to keep the TV on in the kitchen these days.
‘All quiet on the desert front,’ breathed Lewis, taking up the glasses again and looking north towards Kilmartin.
‘You sure he’ll come that way?’ Verity asked.
Lewis shrugged. ‘Think so.’
‘Said he would,’ Helen confirmed.
Verity stamped her feet.
‘Hey,’ Helen said. ‘I never asked you, Lewis; you got any Gulf jokes?’
Lewis made an exasperated noise, still looking through the binoculars. ‘Na. I heard a couple of crap Irish ones, and the usual suspects in different disguises, but there hasn’t been anything good. I was trying to work on a routine about if the Stealth bomber worked as well as it did in Panama, the B-52 as it did in Viet Nam and the marines as effectively as they did in Lebanon, then Saddam had nothing too much to worry about, but it wasn’t funny enough.’ He brought the glasses down from his eyes for a moment. ‘In fact, it wasn’t funny at all.’
‘I know a girl from school who’s out there,’ Helen said. ‘Nurse.’
‘Yeah?’ Verity said, stamping her feet again.
‘Ha!’ Lewis said suddenly.
‘You seen him?’ Verity said, clutching Lewis’s arm.
He laughed, glancing down at her. ‘No,’ he said, and grinned at me. ‘But guess who got called up as a reservist?’
I shrugged. ‘I give in.’ I didn’t think I knew anybody in the forces.
Lewis smiled sourly. ‘Jimmy Turrock. Used to be a bandsman. They’re the stretcher-bearers in war time.’
I frowned, not recognising the name. ‘Jimmy -?’ I began. Then I remembered.
‘The grave-digger!’ I laughed.
‘Yeah,’ Lewis said, turning away again, raising the glasses. ‘The grave-digger.’
I felt cold inside and my smile faded. ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Some sense of humour the army has.’
‘Work experience,’ Lewis muttered.
‘Who’s this you’re talking about?’ Verity asked.
‘Guy helped us bury dad,’ Lewis said.
‘Oh,’ she said. She hugged Lewis.
‘You going to go if they call you up, Prentice?’ Helen Urvill said, not looking at me.
‘Hell no,’ I said. ‘Which way’s Canada?’
‘Yeah,’ muttered Lewis. ‘Shame dad’s dead; maybe he could have got us into the equivalent of the National Guard, if we have one.’
‘Traffic wardens?’ I suggested. Lewis’s shoulders shook once.
‘You really wouldn’t go?’ Helen said to me, one eyebrow raised.
‘I might send them some blood if they ask me nicely,’ I told her. ‘In an oil can.’
‘I suppose we can’t use the telescope, can we?’ Verity said suddenly, nodding at the white dome to our right. ‘As well as the binoculars I mean.’ She looked at each of us.
‘Nup,’ Helen said.
‘Too narrow a field of view,’ Lewis said.
‘And upside down,’ I added.
Verity looked over at the dome. There was a smile on her face. ‘Do you remember that night we met in the dome?’ she said, looking up at Lewis. ‘We hadn’t seen each other since we were kids ...’
Lewis handed the glasses to Helen, who held them one-handed, straps dangling. Lewis hugged his wife. ‘Of course I do,’ he said, and kissed her nose. She buried her face in his coat. I looked away, thinking about the drive up to the airport this evening.
Maybe I should allow another half-hour or so for the journey, just in case of hold-ups. And of course they were building new bits onto the airport at the moment; could be a problem parking, and tonight was bound to be busy. I’d leave early, no sense in leaving late and having to hurry. I had taken to driving a bit slower and more carefully these days. Mum still worried, but at least I could reassure her with a clear conscience.
I sighed, and the package against my chest flexed again. I looked down at it. Hell, this was silly; I ought to read the stuff. Waiting until I got back to the house and was sitting at the desk in the study was just putting it off.
‘How’s the wonderful world of Swiss banking these days anyway, Hel?’ Lewis asked.