Gravity's Chain (12 page)

‘This is the heart of spiral field maths and of the deceptive beauty at the heart of Superforce. Look one way and you see quantum theory, look the other and you see relativity—two sides of the same coin, held just long enough by the maths to allow us to see which one we're looking at. But what does this mean for us?' I walked across stage, unsteady from my memory of Caroline. ‘Well, ladies and gentlemen, I don't know. We just can't tell what may come. So, when you're asked, “Does this stuff really matter?” you shout, “Of course.” This formula, this force, explains the universe and the world around us. It's the force that binds our materials together, and if we understand that, imagine what might be possible. Maybe we can manipulate matter itself and change a table into a cow, or dirt into gold. Perhaps we
could make new energy and create our own tame black hole. Who knows? What I do know though is that the future is ours. Remember that one message when you leave. Science has made the future ours to mould. We just have to be brave enough to lay our hands on the clay. Thank you and goodnight.'

Applause thundered through the auditorium. I took my bows and left, waving to all parts of the audience. Bebe waited for me with a towel and water and I took the congratulations of those around me as I gulped down the liquid. The happy tempo of ELO blasted from the stage. As ‘Mr Blue Sky' played, I knew the magical animated tour around a black hole and through the other side where everyday images changed shape, was showing on the stage screen.

Bebe and I relaxed in the changing room after I'd changed from my sweat-soaked clothes and sunk my first post-show drink. That one always tasted good, almost on a par with the first of the day. The adrenalin of the show had shrugged off my earlier gloom. All the lights were on now and I was ready for the party, though there was still some lingering uneasiness at the thought of Caroline's hanging feet.

‘The world should see you, Jack. You were marvellous out there. I'd like to see Driesler try and do something like that. He's just a bag of gas.'

‘You know, Bebe, I've been pondering our earlier conversation about Mr Driesler. I can't help but think what a grand coincidence it is that when he publishes his book, I'm stuck down here at the other end of the world, away from all the action.'

‘Conspiracy theorist.'

‘Maybe, but how convenient it is for the company to have me here.'

‘This trip has been planned for months.'

‘And Driesler's book?'

‘We don't have any control over that.'

‘Don't you?'

‘Of course we don't. Christ, Jack, the company supports you fully, we've spent millions…'

‘Bebe, spare me the company bullshit, I know how it works: the king is dead, long live the king. If Taikon think he's a better bet in the future then I'd be put out to pasture, contract tied and silenced while Frank steps into my fame-sodden shoes. And think how much easier he'd be to manage. Shit, he'd be low maintenance compared to me. I bet he doesn't have any vices, I bet he's squeaky clean. The company would love that, wouldn't they, Bebe? No risk of scandal to dirty the image. What a partnership, and how easy it would be to get me off the scene. I mean, a few kiss-and-tell stories and I'd be in disgrace, I'd be blasted off planet fame with a one-way ticket.'

‘You're talking rubbish, Jack.'

‘Am I?'

‘Yes you are, rubbish.' He checked his watch. ‘Let's go to the party.'

‘Why won't you let me comment on his book?'

‘The company wants a planned response. The boys in Europe are anxious to go through everything with you first. In fact that shows how committed they are to you, how much they respect you.'

‘You're so well practised in the art of spin, Bebe.'

‘Let's go.'

‘You had better be straight with me, Bebe. If I find you lot are in bed with Driesler I would be one very sad and unhappy boy.'

The Hilton party was in full swing when we arrived. The guests babbled their excitement at being seen at one of the parties of the year. Bebe had performed his usual impeccable job in preparing the guests and the working girls mixed with the wannabes. In fact, he had excelled and the party was well stocked like a fine wine cellar. Protocol demanded I first meet the head of Taikon in Australasia. He was a short man with a wispy moustache that hinted at weak stubble on a Sunday morning and he spoke with an unusually staccato voice. I played the game, graciously accepting congratulations, talking up the company and talking down the competitors. Nodding in agreement and laughing at poor jokes, I shook outstretched hands with a firm, warm greeting. Bebe hovered at my shoulder, ensuring my drink was full and my comments bland. He had every reason to be pleased with my performance and told me so at every opportunity as we moved from one group to another. Finally after an hour Bebe relaxed his grip and let me go play.

The toilets at the Hilton are an interesting mix of Raffles and the space station: all the trappings of colonial class in a sanitised environment. I lingered in them for a while, taking care over a wash and dry of hands, combing my hair and adjusting my clothes. It was nice to be away from the sweaty mass, my work for the evening done and the fun about to begin. I toyed with the idea of taking a pew and contemplating my worries, but I really couldn't be fucked to get morose again so I just winked at myself and left the toilet to its orbit.

Once back in the party the calves of a particularly fine pair of legs caught my attention. Thankfully the face and figure matched.

Her voice was husky, heavily accented, reminiscent of a Berlin
jazz club. She wore a red velvet dress, a little cheap, with some frayed edges, but not so cheap as to immediately give away her status. This was a working dress, not a night-time special to get on the pages of
Woman's Day.
Her name was Claudia and she had come from Russia to New Zealand two years ago, but her English was almost perfect. Her black hair, shiny and soft as an advertisement, formed a waterfall on her shoulders. It reminded me of a thoroughbred's tail. She wore heavy black shoes that tightened those black-clad calves and her body swayed to an imaginary tune.

Looking into my eyes without quite focusing she answered my question: ‘Paul for my wedding ballad, John to run away with.' It was good enough for me. I touched her arm and guided her toward Bebe. As I moved I shook more hands, took more congratulations and flashed a smile or two. Already my mind was imagining hands running the smooth path of those legs.

It was just before I reached Bebe that Jo appeared at his side. He acknowledged her hesitantly, quickly assessed the dangers and tried to distract her with an overelaborate welcome. To the outsider it must have seemed as though Bebe was greeting a long-lost lover. The diversion almost succeeded and I had just about escaped the throng when her interest in Bebe suddenly waned and she turned straight into my path. She greeted me with a sloppy kiss; her breath smelt of drink and her eyes were dazed.

‘Jo?'

‘You said to come along to the party, Jack, so here I am.' She held out her arms as though offering me her body in sacrifice. Her eyes failed to focus on anything and slowly her gaze fell to the floor. ‘Can we go to your room? I just want last night to come again.'

‘Who's the friend?' Claudia sniffed the air as though Jo was a foreign body and there was a risk of contamination.

I introduced them and there was an uneasy silence as Bebe hovered on the outside of the group, ready to bring the meeting to an end. Claudia touched my arm. ‘I'm sure there's enough of everything to go around.' Jo was too drunk to care, Claudia looked more than comfortable with her idea and I was almost halfway up the stairs with my trousers down.

Even before I'd fumbled the cork free of the first champagne bottle, Claudia was into the coke. She divided three lines on the glass coffee tabletop and we took one each in turn. Between us, Claudia and I had enough to keep the hotel going for the night, but it was Jo who greedily consumed the most. As for the rest of the evening, though, the memory is hazy, or perhaps better to say corrupted. I know the broad brushstrokes of drink, drugs and sex, but the more precise details are lost. Everything just kind of rolled into one experience of head spinning, saliva spreading, grunting, sweating, and sniffing as though it was all one. Finally the cocaine-induced energy waned and we slept.

Never before had Bebe entered my bedroom when I still had a woman with me, but we had slept through his various attempts to rouse us—the phone had been knocked to the floor by some contorted limb. He pulled the curtains and shook my shoulder to wake me.

‘Come on, Jack, we have to do the
Holmes
show,' he whined. He was dressed in an immaculate blue suit and I could smell his expensive aftershave as he leant over the bed. I opened an aching eye and saw the look of disgust on his face. ‘My God, Jack, what has been going on in here? It's like a scene from
Caligula.
Come on, get up—we have to go. I never thought it would come to this.' He shook his head.

I half sat up, trying to ignore the heavy hangover, which I had already assessed as a grade one with bells on—loud bells that echoed throughout my head the way a house alarm does when you're inside. Claudia appeared from under a tangle of bedclothes, looked around, yawned and got out of bed. She still wore her stockings, one of which had slipped to below the knee. Bebe held up a towel, which she ignored as she collected her clothes and took them to the bathroom. Determined to use his scorned towel he held it to me, shaking it like a matador in the hope it would entice me from the bed. I obliged and wrapped the towel around my waist. Jo remained asleep, her back to us. Bebe circled the bed to her side. ‘Come on, young lady,' he called but she refused to respond.

‘Jo,' I croaked, my voice rebounding in my head like a bullet in a lead room, ‘her name is Jo.'

‘Come on, Jo, time to get going.' She remained silent. Bebe touched her arm. ‘Jo. Jo? Jack, I think there's something wrong here.'

Hearing the panic in his voice, I scrambled around the bed. My poorly secured towel fell from my body at the sudden movement. I rolled Jo onto her back. Her arm swung and fell lifelessly. She was pale but warm and although her body was limp, I could see the shallow rise of her chest as she breathed what must have been no more than an eggcup full of air. I closed my eyes and there was Caroline again and not just her feet this time, but her entire body, her head to one side, mocking that once vital, questioning pose of hers.

‘Oh fuck, Jack.' Bebe was leaning over Jo, peering into her
eyes, his finger delicately holding up an eyelid smeared with old shadow. It was the first time I'd heard him swear. ‘I think she's in a coma.'

‘What are we going to do, Bebe?'

Claudia slid silently from the bathroom. She moved like a stalking cat, but when she saw the panic in our eyes and Jo's apparently lifeless body, she stopped her slow walk.

‘Shit,' continued Bebe as he experimented with his new vocabulary. ‘You two need to go to my room.'

‘I'm not going anywhere.' Claudia was already near the door.

Bebe composed himself, dropped his hands to the side of his body and in a low whisper that carried a menace I'd never heard before said, ‘You two go to my room, wait there for me and do not leave until I say you can leave.' I took his key and like two chastised schoolchildren we went to Bebe's room. Claudia's defiance was clearly all show and Bebe's resoluteness had for the moment silenced her objections. Bebe's room, as always, was in the same corridor, but not next to mine as might be expected—perhaps he thought I might keep him awake at night. The room was fastidiously tidy and even though no maid had yet visited, the bed was made. I sat down and watched Claudia continue her stalking cat routine. She lit a cigarette and flicked ash into a glass.

‘Do you always do what he tells you?'

‘Pretty much,' I replied.

‘I'm not staying here.'

‘I think you should, we need to sort some things out.'

‘That's why I'm not staying here.'

I clenched my teeth. This was my first moment of reflection on what had happened and the reflection was shit ugly. I felt
sick. ‘You have to stay, Claudia.' Fighting the nausea was going to be pointless. Deprivations of the body from the night before, mixed with the shock of Jo's condition, were irresistible forces. I ran to the bathroom to vomit. There were no warm-up coughs to acclimatise the body to what was to come. Oh no, I sprayed the sink immediately with a high-octane mixture of old alcohol, remnants of food, bile and the not so humble smell of fear. At the end there were also some tears, but I could not be sure if they came from the experience of vomiting or from the shit piling up around me. After the last shocks finally abated I washed away the remnants of my stomach before splashing water on my face. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Was this really me?

Claudia was gone. It was no surprise, and who could blame her. Christ, given half the chance I'd join her. There was something undeniably attractive about just walking from this room and leaving everything behind. Bebe would do all he could, but I knew the company would lose their collective minds over this escapade. If any of this reached the papers I'd be sunk and my drowning would leave a very dirty mark on my very clean masters. Oh yes, this was bad; this was fucking bad.

‘Just one thing, Jack, just one thing, that's all I asked of you.' Bebe had returned. ‘And you couldn't even do that. Why did you let her go?' He strode around the room flapping the air with a towel to clear the smoke. He'd yet to find the glass full of ash. He was sweating and his shirt had dark marks under the arms and down the back.

‘How is Jo?' I was almost too afraid to ask.

‘In a coma, Jack, she's in a bloody coma.'

‘Where is she now?'