Connected
By
Simon Denman
First
Published June 10th 2012
Text
copyright © 2012 Simon D Denman
Cover Image
copyright © 2012 Mary F Denman
All Rights
Reserved.
To my
mother, Fay,
1926 – 1988
Despite a voracious and well indulged appetite for
reading, my mother’s talent for writing was discovered too late in her sadly
foreshortened life. Yet whilst fulfilling her maternal duties with evident and
inexhaustible love and dedication, she conveyed an infectious passion for the
English language, which only now, twenty-four years after her death, am I
beginning to fully appreciate. For this reason I have dedicated this, my first
novel, to her.
To my father, I owe, among other things, my
curiosity for the workings of this Universe, as well as a certain fascination,
if not any startling aptitude, for mathematics and science.
Without the love, support and encouragement of my
wife, Fatma, this book would certainly never have progressed beyond the first
three draft chapters, written seven years earlier in a fit of Alpine
inspiration one summer in Haute Savoie, but subsequently abandoned to the
necessity of earning a living.
For the first critical proofreading and editing
phase, I am especially indebted to the eagle eyes of Joe Robertson and Dal
Gemmell, with their uncanny abilities to spot the tiniest (and not so tiny)
slips of grammar and punctuation which littered the first drafts of my
completed manuscript.
Special thanks also goes to Iain Moal, whose first-hand
insights into the tortuous process of obtaining publication in scientific
journals, informed the content of chapter twenty-three.
Reference books and other sources of factual
information include: Brian Greene – The Elegant Universe; James Gleick – Chaos;
Oliver Sacks – Musicophilia, The man who mistook his wife for a hat; Daniel
Levitin – This is your Brain on Music; Daniel Dennett – Understanding
Consciousness, Kinds of Minds; Steven Pinker – How the mind works; VS.
Ramachandran - Phantoms in the Brain (and some fascinating Youtube videos from
the Beyond Belief series); Susan Greenfield – The secret life of the brain; Dr.
Ginger Campbell’s Brain science podcast; and other sources too numerous to
recall.
From my posting of various intermediate drafts on
the website of Harper Collins’ online writers’ community, Authonomy, I received
useful and encouraging comments from too many to list in full, but for which I
am also greatly indebted.
Finally, having cut, tweaked and polished these
drafts into something I hope, gentle reader, you will consider worthy of
publication, one final task awaited – that of cover design. For this, while
having no clear idea what I wanted, yet feeling I would recognise it when I saw
it, the challenge was passed to my brilliantly creative and artistic daughter,
Mary. A few days later, I received the first draft of the stunning design you
now see on the cover of this book. Not to be out-done, her wonderful and
diligent sister Lizzie, promptly found the two remaining typos, which had
somehow hitherto eluded numerous and painstaking final reviews. For more
CONNECTED information, please visit our website at www.simondenman.com.
As the coffin was lowered,
the sky darkened and a gust of wind ripped through the churchyard, stirring the
ancient trees and momentarily lifting the masks of reverent solemnity gathered
around the open grave. Peter studied the faces with a detached sense of
curiosity. How well, he wondered, had these people really known his brother?
His gaze came to rest on Isabelle. Even now - even through the tears - she
looked beautiful. He tried to imagine the feelings welling behind those big
brown eyes: anguish tinged with guilt, denial, loneliness - perhaps even anger.
He shivered. His own feelings were somehow suppressed. His brother was in a
box, about to be sealed away for an eternity in the damp, peaty earth beneath
his feet, and yet he felt strangely calm, the whole service having washed over
him like a dream from which he might awaken at any moment.
The call had come last Saturday as he and Abigail
had been leaving for dinner. Isabelle had just returned home from visiting her
parents in Paris to discover Martin’s lifeless body slumped before the PC with
his headphones on. The initial appearance of sleep, supported by the half
bottle of scotch on the desk, had faltered at the sight of an empty container
of tranquilisers, and finally shattered at the touch of her husband’s cold,
dead skin. Since then, Peter had been busy helping Isabelle prepare for the
funeral, and somehow this had kept him from analysing his own feelings.
Isabelle’s hand was on his shoulder. “Peter, you
will be coming back for a drink, won’t you?”
For a moment he felt disorientated, “Yes. Thank you. I’ll see you back at The
Fields.” In his head, he could still hear the music from the service -
Albinoni’s Adagio for strings and organ performed by a dozen of Martin’s fellow
musicians from the academy. The sound had totally filled the small church,
sending him off into a world of memories. Why do we like music? It was a
question Martin had sprung on him one evening by phone, sparking a friendly
three-month debate. “Why are we so moved by certain pieces of music?” he
had continued. It was an intriguing question. Certain passages in certain works
evoke such a strong emotional response, one can’t help but wonder whether
something special is happening deep within the brain. Peter, always the
scientist, had argued for social cause; from an early age, we learn to
associate musical patterns with emotions. On joyous occasions we become used to
hearing particular styles of music. When we next hear something similar, we are
pleasantly reminded of those occasions and describe the music as uplifting.
Martin on the other hand, the artist, would always assume a more poetic,
philosophical and profound explanation, quoting Shakespeare, Milton or
Wordsworth, and mixing in a little new-age mysticism for good measure. He had
believed the answer went deeper than social conditioning, attesting that the
essence of music was universal, acting on the brain in an innate, organic way
and that ultimately it was a spiritual phenomenon, capable of freeing one’s
very soul. Peter thought this innateness unlikely, not least because of the
cultural variation of musical schemas around the world. They had enjoyed many
such debates over the years although regrettably, had had fewer opportunities
recently. It would usually start with some off-the-wall comment from Martin -
no small talk, no trivialities, just straight into whatever was on his mind.
Sometimes it was just plain weird and Peter would tell him so, but generally he
found it refreshingly different to the world of electronic systems design in
which he passed his working hours. He would sorely miss Martin.
It was spitting with rain and Peter realised he
was now alone at the graveside, except for his brother six feet below. He
wasn’t even sure how long he’d been standing there. Memories of their childhood
and then the last few conversations together had been replaying in his mind. There
was something bothering him - an ephemeral sense of unease he couldn’t quite
identify. He put it down to circumstances and walked back to the car.
At The Fields, Isabelle had dutifully transformed
from grieving widow to perfect hostess, smiling, flattering and refilling
glasses. She had changed into a flowing, black evening dress giving the
appearance of gliding as she moved gracefully around the room, her long, dark
hair swinging as she turned. Some of the guests were now telling jokes and
laughing, as though forgetting the occasion that had brought them together.
“You must be the physicist,” came a slightly
familiar voice from behind. It was the young curate who had conducted the
service. He was a tall man, at least six two, with straight dark hair and a
rather boyish face somehow currently displaying a mixture of humour, compassion
and nervousness.
“Not any more. Contract engineer,” replied Peter, surprised, “Is that how
Martin used to refer to me?”
“I’m sorry. How rude. My name’s Roger, I’m the curate here at Littlewick.
You’re Peter, his brother, right?”
Peter nodded. “It was a very moving service. Did you know Martin well?”
The man paused, looking across the room and out through the large bay windows,
his face seeming much older as it filled with sadness and regret. “We spoke
together a lot, but I’m not sure how well I really knew him. He and Isabelle
were regulars in the congregation and they frequently hosted my discussion
groups here at The Fields. Martin used to be such a wonderful person to have in
the group. He would lead us in all sorts of interesting and unexpected
directions.”
Peter smiled; he could imagine Martin leading them all up the garden path. “Did
you see him much over the last few months?”
“No, not much really. For a while we missed him at the church, then a couple of
weeks ago, he turned up again. He seemed distracted, but…” An elderly lady
with blue hair grabbed the curate by the arm and led him off rather
unceremoniously to another group of guests. He threw an apologetic glance back
at Peter, mouthing, “We’ll talk later”.
Peter didn’t wait. Instead he wandered off through the huge old house. To name
his home “The Fields” after the “Academy of St. Martin in the Fields” for which
Martin had so often played, had been typical of his brother’s shamelessly corny
wit. Peter could picture him now, violin tucked tightly under the chin
and that frantic look of intense concentration written across his face as the
bow whipped back and forth.
It was a spacious, but wonderfully cosy house, its
low ceilings crossed with dark wooden beams. The main building dated back to
sometime in the sixteenth century, but it had been extended and converted over
the years creating a rambling maze of corridors and unexpected nooks and
crannies. Martin used to say that every square inch told a story. He had
believed that houses absorbed the emotions of the people who lived in them and
for those who were receptive, these emotions would periodically re-emerge. This
was his explanation for tales of ghosts and the good or bad “vibes” he
professed to feel in various surroundings. Despite a certain romantic appeal to
the idea, Peter didn’t believe any of it. He accepted that rooms and buildings
could have their own character, but that this was due to physical properties
which could be measured. The proportions of the room, the placement of the
doors and windows, all had significance. The colours, lighting and general
décor influenced one’s mood, as did the subtle odours and the way sounds echoed
or were absorbed. And after all, it was subjective; not everyone felt the same
way about the same rooms.
Wandering into Martin’s den, he felt a shiver run
down his spine. The place was still a mess. Imagining Isabelle had found it too
upsetting to tidy, he made a mental note to sort through it for her. As he
looked around, he was searching for an explanation. Why does an apparently
happy and successful man kill himself?
To one side of the desk stood an electric keyboard
and synthesiser, the floor around which was littered with music scores and haphazard
piles of books - books on music, art, poetry, philosophy, theology - and also
a few which surprised him: chaos, consciousness, neural networks, complexity
and so on. Peter leafed through a few, their margins full of his brother’s
illegible scribbling. Since when had Martin been into trendy science - or
science at all for that matter? Martin had always maintained that science
killed the beauty and mystery of the natural world. It was one of the recurring
arguments they had enjoyed together. For Peter, nature’s beauty could only be
enhanced through better understanding.
Around the computer were hundreds of papers,
mostly printouts from the Internet with a few drawings and handwritten notes.
Pinned to the wall was an arresting sequence of colour images he immediately
recognised as fractals from his studies into non-linear dynamics at Cambridge.
These complex and strangely beautiful patterns, arising from quite deceptively
simple mathematical equations called Mandelbrot sets, had the fascinating
property of self-similarity at every scale. This meant that no matter how far you
zoomed in on any one part of the image, the same overall pattern was repeated
indefinitely. An intriguing consequence of this was infinitely long boundaries contained
within a finite area - a fascinating concept, but not terribly useful, he
thought to himself. What had Martin been up to? He remembered one of the last
phone calls again. “I know everything!” Martin had exclaimed enigmatically with
almost equal emphasis on each syllable. The line had gone dead before further
elaboration and Peter had shrugged it off as a passing moment of his brother’s
weirdness, but the more he thought about it, this was what had been niggling at
the back of his mind. Was it an accusation, as in, I know about you and
Isabelle? Peter was very fond of Isabelle and over the years he had begun to
imagine that under different circumstances it might have become more. Perhaps
these feelings were mutual, but even if that were true, neither of them had
dared express it with anything more than the occasional hug or handshake
lasting just a moment too long, or the knowing glances as eye contact was made
across crowded rooms. Had Martin noticed such an exchange and jumped to false
conclusions? The more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed. Peter was
devoted to his family and his brother had known this. But then what had Martin
meant with “I know everything!” Did he seriously think that after reading a few
pop-scientific paperbacks, the sum of all knowledge had become his? No, Martin
was too much of an intellectual for that.