Fifty-Minute Hour (10 page)

His Mother had been querulous when at last he'd dared to mention it, blackmailed him with tears, tales of rapist-burglars who were bound to strike on Friday – which was also late night at the supermarket where other (decent loving) sons helped their mothers push the trolley. She'd mentioned her bad leg, of course – that guilt-inducing swollen leg which had shadowed his whole childhood; always slowed her down and made her limp, embarrassed him acutely if other children sniggered, and which seemed to grow mysteriously worse if ever one dared oppose her, or was what she called obstreperous. Now he'd found an evening-class, her leg was twice its size, not to mention throbbing and inflamed. He had fetched her footstools, compresses; sworn he'd do the shopping the minute Tesco's opened on the Saturday –
and
go to the shoe-mender's, the cleaner's and the … She'd suddenly capitulated in the middle of his errand-list; said she'd solved the problem – she'd enrol as well and join him at the class.

‘But it's science,' he'd explained, knowing he was safe. His Mother hated science, which meant atom bombs and bigger germs and the weather all messed up. He'd finally chosen ‘Science and Society', since it was the only science on offer at the Winston Churchill Centre – a small and dingy institute which was nothing like its founder in either ambition or prestige. He'd always been attracted to the sciences, even as a boy – not bunsen burners or half-dissected frogs, which was all they'd had at school – but the thought of all those cosmic laws and measurements. He had hoped to go to college, do a course in Natural Order or First Causes, but his Mother had insisted that he find a job as soon as he left school; said three years with his nose in a book wouldn't help her pay the bills, and anyway, he didn't have the brains. He suspected she was right, tried to hack the longings out of him, like growths; though often in his fantasies he strode his vast laboratory, which was always dazzling white – white coats, white rats, white dwarfs, white heat, white hope.

Science meant ruled lines in the universe – lists tallying both sides – nice neat explanations, rules for things and proofs. Proofs seemed best of all. Sometimes, on his bad days, when he doubted who he was, he longed to have some proof of his identity, or even his existence – not just a footling credit card (or nametapes on his socks or cap, which had helped a bit at school) – but to become an ‘x' or ‘y' and form part of an equation, one which made some sense and added up.

But in just the last eight days, his whole view of science had come crashing to the ground.
Nothing
had identity or sense. You couldn't even talk about ‘the universe' – not since reading all those books. One author was quite certain that there was a whole vast array of what he called ‘alternative universes' existing simultaneously with ours, not tidy law-abiding worlds which knew what they were doing – and, more important,
why
– but nightmare sorts of places which plunged around and collided with each other, and which the author said were probably quite pointless. He hated that word ‘pointless'; detested those black holes, which weren't holes like in a pocket or even in the ozone layer, but moody violent things again, which went roaring around the place like mods and rockers, crashing into anything they met. He just didn't understand it. How could holes collide?

There was an awful lot of crashing altogether, an awful lot of noise, far more black than white, and even space itself wasn't quiet or simply empty, but kept seething, heaving, bubbling, like a stew on a high gas. No – he'd got to learn he mustn't say just ‘space' – it had to be ‘spacetime' now, without so much as a hyphen in between, let alone an explanation which made any sort of sense. There'd been a separate book on Time, which sounded every bit as perilous, since there
wasn't
any time – or so the author said, though another book had insisted it ran backwards. He was totally confused now, about space as well as time, let alone the two of them together.

He peered in at the classroom once again. Why weren't
they
all scared, when they'd been thrown into this maelstrom, knew much more than he did, made to face such terrifying concepts as ‘failed worlds', ‘ghost worlds', infinite dimensions? They all looked rather bored or supercilious, as if everything were solid still, and safe. He dreaded that word ‘infinite', couldn't tie it down. The more he read, the worse he felt – dizzy, since he'd learnt that the earth was careering round the sun at sixty-six thousand miles an hour; bruised, when he discovered that millions of neutrinos bombarded man each day; baffled and unsettled to hear scientists in Houston had come up with solutions, which had, as yet, no corresponding problems.

‘E … Excuse me,' someone said. He jumped, dodged back, came face to face with a petite and blond-haired woman, who would have been attractive, except she'd obviously been crying and had red and swollen eyes. Her fine fair skin was puffy from the tears, and though her clothes looked stylish, they seemed rather creased and crumpled, as if she'd been to bed in them. She was obviously upset still, spine and shoulders drooping, voice tremulous, unsure. He felt instant sympathy, had sometimes nursed a secret shaming wish to be a woman, just so he could cry. There was so much more to cry about in this new world of random chaos, where the only certainty was absolute uncertainty, and nothing stood still long enough for you to measure it or label it.

The woman rubbed her eyes, left a streak of mauve stuff down one cheek, which made it look as if she'd bruised herself. She already had burns on both her hands; was perhaps a careless cook who forgot the oven-gloves, or nervous in a kitchen (as
he
was with his Mother). His heart went out to her. She seemed so crushed, despondent, yet her face was soft and gentle, the sort of Ideal Mother he remembered from his children's books, who kissed your grazes better and stayed with you a whole ten minutes if you'd had a nasty dream, even sat down on the bed and held your hand. She was also small, as well as fair, which made him feel less threatened. His Mother was just five foot one, yet could dwarf a City tower-block.

He wished John-Paul were shorter. Tall men always shrank him; dark ones bleached him out. And John-Paul was so dramatic-dark, looked foreign, even Jewish, which seemed a double betrayal of his Mother, who blamed foreigners for everything from AIDS and germs and bus-queues to the weather, and refused to shop at M & S because it had been founded by a Jew-boy. The fact he never used his surname did seem a shade suspicious. It was probably long and unpronounceable, with a ‘witz' or ‘stein' or ‘lasky' on the end, and the one he asked his patients to write out on their cheques was just a shortened version or a pseudonym. Even ‘John-Paul' might be fake, an Anglicised alternative to some strange outlandish Christian name which his mysterious doctor had decided to disown. He found it near-impossible to use his Christian name at all. It sounded disrespectful, like calling his Mother ‘Lena', or, worse, ‘Mum'.

It was equally impossible ever to meet his eye – well, lying on the couch, he couldn't anyway – but even when he first arrived, he couldn't seem to look at him directly; just a brief glance at a hand or foot to make sure he
had
shown up, then back turned on the couch. Maybe John-Paul felt the same, since he often wore dark glasses, as if to put an extra barrier between them. (Or he could perhaps be shy and trying to camouflage himself? There'd been a survey in the
Daily Mail
, just a month or so ago, which revealed that seventy-five per cent of all adults of both sexes admitted being shy, and that included doctors, actors, publicans and prostitutes. It had made him feel much better – almost human.) But although he'd never seen his eyes, he knew they would be black – cold-black like his black-hole voice, crow-black like his hair. He always felt more mousy with his doctor – his own hair wispy, fading, compared with John-Paul's glossy crest; his skin pasty and anaemic beside that vibrant all-year tan.

He glanced back to the woman who was still faltering at the door, immediately gained a little colour as John-Paul's features faded; gained a little courage as he saw how shy she was herself. She took one nervous step into the room, looking bewildered and self-conscious as she scanned the crowded benches for a seat. He plunged in after her, her own bashfulness inspiring him; heard a voice which wasn't his murmur almost casually: ‘There's two here at the back.' Her relief was huge and matched his own astoundment. He'd spoken to a woman, spoken to a stranger, and she'd actually replied, not slapped his face or – worse still – failed to see him, but stuttered ‘Thanks' and smiled. He wrapped the smile carefully in several layers of Kleenex, stored it in his pocket. Smiles were very rare, especially women's smiles.

He got out his green notebook, hoped it would impress her. He still hadn't dared the red, but green had seemed real progress. Green for life and youth and hope, and what he'd thought was science – before he'd read the books. He wished now he'd gone to nature study: Patterns of Migrating Birds or Badger Habitats. Nice to sit beside a mate and take notes on nests or burrows. A mate! He must be joking. He didn't even know her name, and she'd probably move seats anyway once they came back from the coffee-break. He racked his brain for something else to say. ‘Do you come here often?' was obviously redundant, since she must come every week. (There was quite a strict paragraph at the front of the prospectus about regular attendance and no refunds if you just stopped turning up.) He could ask her where she lived, but it might sound rather nosy, and even a casual ‘What's your name?' could well seem too familiar.

He sat in silence, which swelled the general silence in the room. No one else was talking, just a cough or two, a scrape of chairs, the faint rustle of a paperback, and one impatient tapping pen. The tutor must be late. Bryan checked his watch – almost half past six. He could have stayed at work, finished his report, even grabbed a cup of tea. He glanced up at his neighbour once again. Her hair looked soft, and real. His Mother's hair was steel and very tightly sprung, and she kept it in a hairnet which seemed to say ‘Don't touch'. There'd been few things he could touch, especially in his childhood – not earth or sand or shop displays, not dogs or cats or feathers, not even sugar-lumps, without the tongs. He cleared his throat, edged his chair a tiny fraction closer. Perhaps a casual word about the tutor. He could ask his name, instead of hers, inquire if he were good, or often late?

There was a sudden ripple through the rows of chairs, people sitting straighter, thrillers whisked away. A smallish, fairish, slimmish man with greyish hair and lightish hazel eyes had just shuffled into the room and was stumping up to the dais, loaded down with a Waitrose plastic carrier, a battered vinyl briefcase, and what appeared to be two raincoats, and murmuring ‘Sorry sorry sorry!' in a boyish faintish voice. Boyish, no. He must be in his fifties. Bryan half-got up, reached forward, fighting shock. This was his dead Father – he knew it instantly. The same narrow shoulders, neatish nose, apologetic eyebrows, so faint they weren't quite there; the same smallish squarish face-shape and none-too-certain chin – even the same nervousness, as he flustered with his notes, dropped a dozen pages, banged his head as he stooped to pick them up.

But there was one overwhelming difference. This man was clever, brilliant, understood the infinite, felt quite at home with spacetime, never fell into Black Holes; wasn't bruised or even grazed when alien worlds kept crashing and he was in the driving seat. Bryan stared at him, kept staring. His Father – a scientist, a genuine intellectual with degrees from universities, a study full of books, a scholar's gown with ermine trim, like he'd seen on
Dreaming Spires
(A shame he hadn't
worn
the gown, and was dressed in just old corduroys and a hairy sort of jacket with bulges in the pocket. But those bulges could be Knowledge – calculators, test tubes, even a miniature microscope.)

The man had started talking. He spoke in little bursts, the words eager, frisky, tumbling out, then drying up suddenly, as if they'd been too bold and breathless and had to skulk and blush a bit before bubbling up again. Bryan could hardly concentrate. What were words when this was his own Father – the man he'd never seen, never thought to see, the half-god who'd half-created him, given him his genes? Of course his Father hadn't died, as his Mother always claimed. That was just her story, to Save her face, invest herself with Tragedy, escape the blame for driving him away. He must have simply left, upped and gone in the middle of the night, or the middle of a mouthful, started a new life. Bryan admired him doubly, not just for his intellect, but for escaping from his Mother. That took heroism, a very special sort of valour he didn't have himself.

He gazed still more intently, trying to see inside the man, see his lungs and heart and liver, his bowels and his intestines, compare them with his own. He felt sure they'd match and tally – same brand, same size, same pattern, same noises and same smells. He kept jabbing at his thumb with his BRB free biro, wished it were a syringe so he could trap a drop of blood, then prick his Father's thumb as well, rush the still-warm samples to some waiting judge or doctor, their verdict like a chorale in his ears: ‘Paternity proven'.

‘If the area of the hole is used as a measure of disorder, then the black hole obeys the same relation between disorder and temperature as does …'

He fumbled for the prospectus, turned to page sixteen, so he could check the tutor's name. Disappointment seared the page like lava. Not Payne, but B.K. Skerwin. He glanced back at the dais. Could he be mistaken,
imagining
that resemblance? No. Even their four hands were so identical that if they each cut one off and swapped, the resulting pair would still match quite remarkably, give or take a few odd hairs or lines – broad, blunt-fingered, compact hands with knobbles at the wrists. Anyway, it wasn't just a matter of resemblance; it was a feeling deep inside him, a sense he
knew
this man, knew him from his daily childhood fantasies when they'd shot the rapids, swum the Hellespont, won the Battle of Trafalgar, always hand in hand. Payne must be his Mother's name, her so-called maiden name, though the term ‘maiden' seemed quite wrong for her. She had never been a maiden, never been a girl; been Mother from the start, Mother in her cradle, Mother as a foetus, Mother as an ovum. No wonder Skerwin left. She would have stifled him completely, flattened all his bulges, made him keep his gown in cellophane, with mothballs in the ermine. And in revenge, he'd removed himself
in toto
, snatched away his surname, as well as just the books, packed it with the microscope, left his Mother only Payne.