3. A Second Chance (4 page)

‘If it’s any consolation, I don’t regret any of it. I regret very little in my life. Do you?’

I considered. ‘I’d like to skip the early years, but on the whole, no.’

‘That is always the sign of a life well spent.’

I fell in love with him all over again.

‘We’ll do it together, Eddie.’

‘Very well.’

I took his hand and guided it to the controls.’

‘Got it?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll give the word and then …’

‘It’ll be very quick, Max. We’ll never know anything about it.’

‘Eddie, if I wasn’t already spoken for …’

‘Max, if I was forty years younger, it wouldn’t matter if you were spoken for or not …’

‘You’re a bad boy, Eddie. Just my type.’

I felt, rather than heard his little chuckle.

We held hands, tightly.

‘Computer – on my mark, disengage safety protocols. Mark.’

Light seared through my eyes and boiled my brain.

The blast stripped the flesh from my bones.

Heat coalesced.

We were burning …

We were falling …

We were dying …

Chapter Four

If only I could shift this nagging feeling that something was important …

I could hear faint electronic beeping. That was good. Something was working. Obviously, the console had fired up. Everything was operating. All I needed to do was … If I could just open my eyes … Or move my hands … 

I struggled. Something important.

A fuzzy voice came and went.

I strained to move something – a finger – anything. Important. The beeping increased. Another fuzzy voice said something else. The beeping faded away … for a long time …

I opened my eyes and everything was black. I slid away …

I opened my eyes and people spoke. Now they slid away …

I opened my eyes and Nurse Hunter said, ‘That’s better, Max. Try and stay with me this time.’

I smiled because I liked her and … something important … she slid away …

To be replaced by someone for whom sliding away was never an option.

Her voice had harmonics that could raise the dead.

‘Maxwell? Stop lazing around and open your eyes. Now, please. This is Dr Foster.’

I said thickly, ‘Are you really from Gloucester?’ And slid away. Which probably saved my life.

Finally, I opened my eyes and took in the bed, the beeping equipment, the dim lights, and Hunter. I remembered the thing that had been so important and croaked, ‘Professor Penrose?’

She bent over me. ‘Safe.’

Now I could sleep.

They told me I should be grateful to be alive. I didn’t feel the slightest bit grateful. Actually, I didn’t feel the slightest bit anything. I was enjoying that pink fluffy cloud feeling associated with strong medication and the euphoria of not being dead. A pleasant sensation I was determined to prolong as long as I could.

Because now, of course, I knew I was in real trouble. There’s nothing like taking your boss’s old friend, embroiling him in a back-alley brawl, getting him stabbed, and hurling his aged bones across time and space before precipitating him across Hawking  in a flaming pod, to further one’s career.

Dr Bairstow was going to have a great deal to say to me.

I knew he was there. I thought about lying still and feigning death, possum-like. Perhaps I could pretend I’d lost my memory. I could definitely get away with claiming I’d lost my mind. I was warm. I was comfortable. I could lie here for ever if I had to.

No, I couldn’t. Just the knowledge that he was there, waiting …

I opened my eyes.

He stood at the foot of my bed, dark against the window, his expression difficult to read. We regarded each other for quite a long time, which was unnerving. Telling myself I was too ill to get a proper bollocking, I waited.

The silence went on and on.

Finally, he shook his head and said simply, ‘Words fail me,’ and limped away.

I closed my eyes again.

Next up was Leon, who had to be getting pretty tired of sitting by my sickbed and listening to my bones knit. I know I was. No wonder he wanted us out of St Mary’s. And after being trapped, alone, in the dark, wherever and whenever we’d been, I was inclined to agree. No need to tell him that, though.

I knew the signs. The best thing to do is let him get it off his chest.

‘The jump was to Cambridge. In the middle of the Fens. It’s one of the wettest cities in the country. How did you manage to set fire to your pod? We build them so that even historians can’t set fire to them. For God’s sake, tell me Isaac Newton is still alive. That you haven’t incinerated one of the greatest scientific figures of all time? And what about Professor Penrose? He’s seventy-six and you bring him back with a stab wound, second-degree burns, and concussion. You were visiting an educational establishment, for crying out loud, not the sack of Constantinople.’

‘1204,’ I murmured, helpfully.

‘You melted your pod!’

‘I’m fine, thank you.’

‘We had to close Hawking for a day. Residual radiation.’

‘And the professor. He’s fine, too, thank you for asking. He had a great time.’

‘There was a fireball!’

‘And I think we may have kick-started the invention of the reflecting telescope.’

‘I’ve no idea where to start on Number Eight. The outer casing looks like grilled cheese!’

‘So, quite a successful jump, I think.’

He drew a deep breath and made a huge effort at staying calm. ‘How are you?’

‘I melted my pod? Cool!’

Communication – the cornerstone of St Mary’s success.

I went off to see Eddie as soon as I was fit. To reassure myself. He laughed when he saw me. Both of us were as red and shiny and bright as new fire trucks.

He sat in his borrowed pyjamas, his bed strewn with papers, printouts, and God knows what, happily accepting Nurse Hunter’s attentions. She winked at me as she left.

‘What ho, Professor!’

‘Max, my dear. How are you?’

‘Up and about and absolutely fine. How about you?’

‘Well, I still feel as if I had been through one of those old-fashioned mangles, but that lovely young lady tells me I’ll be up in no time. Tell me, did you notice the temporal read-out?’

‘No,’ I said, very carefully. ‘We were on fire at the time.’

‘Ah well,’ he said, jovially. ‘As Joan of Arc probably said: “Build a girl a fire and she’s warm for a few minutes. Set a girl on fire and she’s warm for the rest of her life.”’

I stared at him, suspiciously. ‘Joan of Arc should have known better than to misquote Terry Pratchett. The great man might not like it. But are you sure you’re not an historian?’

He chuckled his dirty chuckle. ‘If I’d known that I would meet you …’

‘Seriously, Professor, the heat, the blast, the radiation – we should be scattered all over the universe.’

‘Yes,’ he said, a little regretfully, I thought. ‘Just think, Max, our atoms would have been part of the most spectacular galaxies, the biggest black holes, the strangest and most beautiful worlds …’

He sighed. ‘But we’re not and I have no clear idea why. Our pod protected us to some extent, of course, but I am really at a loss to account for it. I gather our arrival was spectacular.’

‘The word fireball is figuring prominently in Chief Farrell’s vocabulary these days.’

‘Another miraculous Maxwell escape. Maybe the universe has something else in mind for you.’

I laughed. If I was being kept alive, it was only in the way they keep turkeys alive for Christmas.

‘Professor, where do you think we were?’

He looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Tell me Max, what do you know about the River of Time?’

I rummaged in my head for one of Chief Farrell’s faint and far-off lectures.

‘Um, well, that was Einstein’s definition of Time. That Time moves like a river, meandering around galaxies, speeding up or slowing down as it’s caught in backwaters or eddies. That there are places where Time flows differently. As in a river.’

‘Exactly. Well, one explanation is that we were trapped in some quiet backwater in the River of Time. Somewhere Time had slowed to a standstill. Stagnant water. Or, we were marooned, so to speak. Left high and dry by the River of Time. Or, still continuing the River analogy, if Time flows smoothly from one second to the next, there is the possibility we were trapped between two seconds. I don’t know.’

He threw me a cheerful look. ‘Or, I may have a really outrageous and impossible theory.’

‘More outrageous and impossible than being trapped between two seconds?’

‘Oh yes. Are you familiar with the other definition of Time?’

‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘Newton’s Arrow of Time. Time can only move in one direction. Forwards. Never deviating from its path. Never speeding up or slowing down. Just like an arrow.’

He watched me intently as he spoke. ‘Well, if I really wanted to be controversial, then I would ask you to imagine what will happen when the Arrow of Time finishes its flight. As it must. When Time no longer moves forwards. When everything stops. When everything, everywhere, is cold and dark and dead. All the stars have burned away to Nothing. The never-ending story has long since ended. Time has stopped because there is no longer anything for it to measure. There is no change from one moment to the next. Entropy has won. The universe is dead.’

I shivered. I couldn’t help it.

‘Is that where we were? At the end of everything? At the end of the universe? How did we get out?’

‘Again, I think I know what may have happened, but not why it happened. I think opening the door allowed something to escape. A tiny, fleeting moment of time. Time was free. Time escaped. Something met Nothing. Nothing was no longer Nothing. There was a bit of a bang. And here we are.’

He twinkled at me again, waiting for me to catch up.

I said this very carefully, so he wouldn’t think I was completely stupid. Or insane. ‘Eddie, if there was no time and no space … Are you saying – was that – did we witness The Big Bang?’

He laughed. ‘Oh, no. No, no, no.’

I felt the most complete idiot. Good job my face was already red.

‘No, no. That wasn’t
our
Big Bang …’

He looked up, suddenly serious, waiting for me to get it. Why had I never noticed how very penetrating his bright blue eyes were?

I felt the challenge, but I was … I was afraid to put it into words.

‘Professor, did we just witness the … re-birth of the universe?’

He looked over his shoulder although we were the only people in the ward, and lowered his voice.

‘Well done, but not quite right, Max. I don’t think we witnessed it – I think we caused it.’

I’m not often stuck for words. Sex renders me speechless sometimes, but not usually for very long.

When I could speak again, I said, ‘What does Dr Bairstow say?’

‘Oh, he holds you completely responsible.’

Before I could panic, however, he was flapping round under his bedclothes.

‘Eddie, what are you doing?’

Now he was rummaging under his pillows. ‘Where is it? Ah!’

He handed me a piece of paper. ‘Do you ever read P G Wodehouse?’

I took the paper. ‘Yes …’

He nodded. ‘There you are, then.’

Helen came in and looked at us both severely. We were obviously contravening some rule about patients not enjoying themselves. I got up to go. ‘I’ll see you later, Eddie. For dinner.’

‘Looking forward to it, Max. It’s a long time since I’ve dined with a lady in my pyjamas.’

I rocked with laughter.

‘Sorry, that was badly expressed. You know what I mean. Make sure you make full use of that.’

Out in the corridor, I unfolded the paper.

I read the one word written there and grinned to myself.

Revenge is sweet!

*      *      *

I clattered off to see Dr Bairstow and get myself back on the active list. Rather surprisingly, he didn’t try to deduct the cost of recreating the universe from my wages. Encouraged by this unexpected benevolence, I showed him Eddie’s slip of paper and explained what I had in mind. He snorted but didn’t actually say no, which was good enough for me.

Mrs Mack was directing operations in the kitchen.

‘Max! Good to see you up and about again.’

‘And so shiny!’

‘Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but now you come to mention it … What can I do for you? Mint choc.-chip sundae? My killer chocolate mousse? An artery-clogging McMack burger?’

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I’d like to hire some butter.’

She frowned. ‘I think you may still be a little confused. You don’t hire butter.’

‘I do. I want to be the sole owner of every inch, pound, pat, whatever, of butter in this unit. But not for ever. That’s why I cunningly used the word “hire”.’

‘And I’m going with the cunningly used word “why?” ’

I explained.

When she’d stopped laughing, I said, ‘We’ll split the proceeds between us. I shall donate to the animal shelter round the back of St Stephen’s Street. How about you?’

She thought for a moment. ‘That children’s holiday organisation.’

‘Excellent.’

She chuckled evilly. ‘I’ll go and have a word with my team and lock up the cold store.’

‘And I,’ I said, heading for the door, ‘will call a meeting.’

I gazed down at them all. Shinily.

They gazed back. Bluely.

There are probably all sorts of jokes in there somewhere, but I wanted to move on quickly to the money-making part of the scheme.

‘Good morning, everyone. Just a friendly heads-up. I’ve just come from Dr Bairstow who, not surprisingly, is pretty pissed off with presiding over a bunch of Smurf look-alikes and has asked me to announce the following:

‘From this moment onwards, anyone remaining blue will be charged for the privilege. In other words, people, the longer you remain blue, the larger will be the fine incurred, with a corresponding decrease in your pay packets at the end of the month. That’s it. Dismissed.’

No one moved. I tried hard not to gloat. Then gloated anyway.

‘But Max,’ said Schiller. ‘We’ve tried.’ She licked a finger and rubbed uselessly. ‘It won’t come off.’

I held up the professor’s scrap of paper. ‘Yes, it will. I have in my hand a piece of paper which should ensure peace in our time.’

They squinted.

I clarified.

‘Butter.’

They blinked.

‘The application of the substance known as butter will speedily dissolve and remove your unwanted blueness. I’ve checked with Mrs Mack and she has a more than adequate supply. Enough for all of you. However …’

I was so enjoying this.

‘However, owing to a previous transaction, ownership of this more-than-adequate supply has been transferred. From this moment on, every single scrap, scrape, and dribble of this liquid gold belongs to – me.’

I made a move to leave, apparently deaf to the gabble behind me.

Markham planted himself in front of me. ‘How much?’

I did a rough calculation. There were twenty blue people in this unit.

‘£50 for four ounces.’

‘
What
? But that’s …’

‘Daylight robbery,’ I said, helpfully.

‘We can get butter from the village shop, you know.’

‘Be my guest. Don’t forget to sign out. Oh, no, that’s right. Blue people not allowed out of St Mary’s. How could I have forgotten? Ah well …’