Gravity's Chain (5 page)

‘That's enough.'

‘Did you ever stop to think that perhaps, just perhaps, her death did have something to do with you? Stop blaming her, look in the mirror.' She shut the bathroom door.

‘Too bloody right I blame her,' I shouted at the closed door. ‘It's her bloody fault for leaving me alone.'

What a relief once she'd gone. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated her time, but I could have done without the free self-help session. And worse, she had forced the impending return to New Zealand to the front of my mind. So many demons awaited me at home, I'd need feet as well as hands to count them. Perhaps there was a way out. I'd avoided going back twice before, so maybe there was a chance again.

Bebe was with me just a minute after Angel left. I'm sure he waited just down the corridor so he could get to me immediately. He always had a key for my room, but had yet to enter when I still had a girl with me. Perhaps he bugged the room: I'd put nothing past Taikon. He was clutching newspapers, laptop and a notebook. We discussed the day's schedule as I washed and dressed and read the papers together as we always did. The tabloids had had some fun with my comments of the night before. Bebe muttered as he read, making the occasional note, but when finished he told me he was still sure the committee was on side. He had also spoken to those who mattered at Taikon, including George, who I hoped enjoyed his night with Amanda. The message was that they were far from pleased and as expected there would be tightened security, but that was the likely extent of the repercussions.

I tentatively suggested to Bebe that I postpone the trip to New Zealand and concentrate on a more measured response to Driesler, but the company had already discussed and discounted
such an idea. It was agreed that a return to my home country with all the positive press it would attract far outweighed any other consideration.

‘I know it's going to be hard for you going back, Jack, but it's time you faced up to what happened.'

‘I suppose so.'

There was no stopping it now. I was going home. Shit.

THE TIMES

Editorial

This newspaper has always supported and admired Jack Mitchell. At a time when science and what we might term normal society are growing further apart, Mitchell has succeeded better than anyone in bridging the gap. The scientific enterprise at times appears incomprehensible to the average person, a dangerous divide as we engage in debates about GE, stem cell research and cloning. Mitchell's own Superforce theory is built on maths that no one with anything less than a university degree can hope to understand. This carries many dangers, given the importance of the theory and the new technologies it may produce. How important, then, that, with his current show, Mitchell should try to explain not only his theory, but also science generally, in a way we can understand. As science continues to shape our world it is essential we grasp its fundamental concepts. What a shame that Mitchell has let himself and his great enterprise of popularising science down. The kind of gutter-sniping he has engaged in with Frank Driesler is really beneath him. We hope that this is an isolated incident and that as he returns to New Zealand with his tour he concentrates on what he does best.

F
rom the moment the automatic doors of the airport open to suck me inside, I'm directed by computer chips. They ensure I sit in the correct seat on the correct plane, send my bags to the correct baggage train and guide me to the correct gate. Throughout my stay in the airport, machines and electronics control my every move. The airport is technology in critical mass. And wherever there's technology there's rampant consumerism.

Once upon a time you could only buy a paperback and a bottle of whisky, but now airports mimic malls with their dominating brand names and Hollywood faces selling beauty to the ugly by image and sex appeal alone. When baggage allowances restrict my luggage space, I'm presented with an unlimited choice of items for which I have no room.

I also dislike airport architecture. Actually, I loathe airport architecture. It's just plastic and steel merged into award-winning designs, temples to modern technologies the way railway stations were to a bygone age. Give me the solid protection of those bricks any day; there's something about modern buildings that give the impression of imminent collapse.

You'd think I'd be happy to leave the airport, but it only means
entering an even worse place, the plane. Flying freaks me out. I often ask myself why I'm afraid of something so wondrous. Often I've watched birds and imagined the exhilaration of swooping and banking, of the wind against my face and my stomach in my throat with the bare-arsed excitement of it all. But we aren't designed to fly. My only thrill in a plane is relief at avoiding a seat next to the fat sod I've suspiciously eyed in the lounge or the screaming kid who's wheeled a toy between my feet.

And it amazes me how much a plane can shake on take-off without actually falling apart. Far from feeling as though I'm sitting in a state-of-the-art machine, I might as well be on the number 58 bus on its way to town. Perhaps this is why I really hate flying: it's the overwhelming fear of, well, of dying. When I'm about to spend the next twenty-four hours in a machine half the size of a rugby field, suspended ten thousand metres above the ground, I don't want to feel the thing creaking and groaning before it's gone anywhere. And then when the shaking gives way to something approaching smooth flight, there's that moment when the plane feels as though it's about to drop out of the sky. I spend the entire flight thinking I'm never more than two seconds from extinction.

I made the mistake of sharing these thoughts with Bebe. He was unsympathetic, probably because he'd heard it all before. All he could offer me was the suggestion that I do some work. Now that was a novel thought, an original concept. What work is there left for me to do? I mean, come on, what do I do as an encore to the Theory of Everything? Really, I've done myself out of a job, done away with any further interest in physics. All that's left is bits and pieces, some mopping up here and there. When you've eaten the most succulent of meats, who eats the
scrag-end? I haven't done a thing for six months and can see no point in starting now. So what else is there to do on a plane to distract from the slightest change in engine tone that signals decompression and an imminent fatal dive? Drink. It amazes me how much I can drink in twenty-four hours when there's nothing else to interrupt the rhythm. By the time we crossed the blue waters of the Manukau Harbour and dropped out of an Auckland dawn, I was fucked. Customs and passport control came and went without registering. During the drive from the airport to the city Hilton, I slept.

It was mid-afternoon when I woke with a category one hangover that burnt every contour of my head and hurt most parts of my body simultaneously. Category ones were rare, but like migraines they were at times irresistible, and fighting them was useless. Total surrender was the only option. To be honest, that suited me. As soon as I woke I felt an uncomfortable feeling of doom, that as soon as I stepped from the hotel I'd be mugged by the unpleasant ghosts of my past. In the room, protected by my mega headache, I felt the demons excluded. Only Bebe could gain access, which he did, politely, in the late afternoon.

‘Will you look at this?' He waved an email in the air as though swatting flies. He was obnoxiously happy, and my grunt of half acknowledgment was not enough. ‘It's really rather wonderful for you.'

‘Really?'

‘Quite amazing.'

I rolled over to face him. For a moment I felt as though I'd left my head in its old position and it took several seconds for it to catch up with the rest of my body. ‘All right, Bebe, I give in. What is it you've got there?' I tried lifting my head, but
failed and let it settle again on the soft pillow.

‘You have an invitation, Jack.' He danced a little jig. ‘You shall go to the ball, Cinders.'

‘Bebe, please, I know you love the pantomime, but just tell me and then let me go back to sleep.'

‘Your old school is having a class reunion tonight and you've been invited. They arranged it for tonight especially so you could go. They've been in liaison with Taikon's New Zealand office. Isn't that wonderful?'

‘It would be if I was going. And by the way, Bebe, great security from the office here—these people could be anyone, and they get hold of my itinerary.'

Bebe pulled out a chair from under the desk and sat down next to my bed. He lowered his head and rubbed its bald top. I recognised this type of silence. Again I attempted to rise from the cushioned safety of my pillow, succeeding this time in propping up my throbbing head with a hand. I didn't need to ask the question, I knew the answer from the silence and rub of the head, but confirmation is always better than ignorance. ‘You've already accepted, haven't you?'

‘Yes,' he said without raising his head.

‘Bebe, I don't want to go. In fact it's the last thing I want to do.'

‘Why?'

‘Because there will be people, well a person, there I don't want to meet. Actually if I waited a hundred years it would still be too soon for us to see each other again.'

‘Who?'

‘Mary—Caroline's sister.'

‘You went to school with Caroline's sister?'

‘Yes.'

‘Does she feel the same about you?'

‘Most definitely.'

‘Then maybe she'll stay away if she knows you are going to be there.'

‘No, she'll be there. She won't talk to me, but she'll be there, like a one-woman vigil of dislike. The urge to see me suffer that embarrassment will be far too strong. And I don't want that so wave your wand, Bebe, and undo what you've done. I can sleep, I can eat, I can drink and I can sleep some more. Tomorrow I do the show, then I go to Wellington, then I leave New Zealand in one piece.' My head thumped and for the first time I felt sick. ‘Is there something else, Bebe?'

‘Not that easy to get out of tonight.'

‘Why?'

‘It's been run past the top brass. The office here wouldn't have released the information without orders from above. London thinks it is a good idea for you to attend, a chance for some positive publicity after the debacle at the Dorchester. You know, the chance to show you at your best, remembering good times, being among friends.'

Again I knew the answer, but again I asked anyway. ‘And how will anyone know I'm at my best?'

‘Some local press will be there to cover the event. It's a feel-good story, Jack. A couple of questions, bland answers, you know, the sort of thing you were supposed to have done at the Dorchester.'

‘So this is payback time, is it?'

‘That's pretty much how it goes, Jack. You might not like it, but George wants this to happen and you can't afford any more
mess-ups with the company. There are enough nervous people around, what with the Driesler affair and then the Dorchester fiasco, without you causing another stir here.'

Driesler had reacted to my outburst, describing me as arrogant and prone to irrational statements. He'd accused me of being more worried about the Nobel Prize than about the truth.

‘Yeah, yeah.' I knew defeat when I saw it; I just wish I'd done the business with Lucy. That would really have given George something to chew on.

Now Bebe was reminding me he had power in our relationship and I accepted the lesson. Silently he took the evening's itinerary from his pocket and laid it on the end of the bed before leaving.

I needed more sleep, but that was impossible now. Perhaps Bebe was right: Mary might not go and without her the evening could just be bearable. Shit, who was I kidding? Of course Mary would be there. Mary, my dead wife's sister: the sharer of secrets. I hadn't seen her since Caroline's funeral, when she had just stared and stared: every time I looked up, there she was, meeting my eyes. When I had arrived she was standing with her parents and two sisters, as though joined by the hip rather than by genes and grief. Caroline's father, frail from arthritis, studied the ground, her mother the sky. It was a fitting symbol of the years of fractures in their marriage. Like many of their generation, they had stayed married long after the love died. Caroline had despised them for their weakness. Mary thought them noble for protecting the children from divorce. The three sisters stood like Kennedy wives, all dressed in stylish black, all with smooth black nylon calves that brought an unwelcome surge of desire. Mary was the only one to acknowledge me, even if it was with hostile eyes. Other family members had offered some welcome, though
it wasn't much more than a whispered hello. The day was bright and sunny and everyone wore sunglasses, to hide wet and red eyes. My dark lenses hid the absence of tears.

I was deep in fatigue at the funeral. After Caroline's death and the initial burst of police and medical activity I'd worked continuously for three days. Ideas came in a flood during that strange period and I struggled to keep pace with them. Through each day and night, standing at the whiteboard overlooking the sea, I furiously scribbled, printed and erased. This was the final frontier of Superforce; this was when I stormed the city walls of the theory. The details still took a year and refining the paper nearly as long again, but this was when the pieces of spiral field maths and deception were forged. In those three days it was as though I was listening to the most beautifully harmonious music as each note slipped into its rightful place. I knew where every equation belonged and how they all worked together. The feeling brought unbelievable happiness, but it was also the saddest of times—not because Caroline was dead, but because I knew I'd never encounter such heights again.

To be honest the funeral came as an interruption and it showed. Appearances were too mundane for me to consider and I wore old trousers, a blue shirt and faded tie. It was bound to pull some looks, but that wasn't the reason for Mary's ferocious stare. She had more to hold against me than bad taste in the clothing department. Guilt and grief are an awful mix, a high-octane emotional fuel. No wonder she behaved that way, no wonder she didn't speak to me. What could she say? It was all or nothing and she chose nothing. I kind of understood—kind of.