The Infinite Moment (18 page)

I lay back in the chair. Curiously enough I was feeling far more myself than I had since I came to on the pavement in Regent Street. It was as if the biggest jolt yet had shaken me out of the daze, and got the gears of my wits into mesh again... I was glad to be rid of Martin, and able to think I looked round the lounge. As I said, I am not a member, and did not know the place well enough to be sure of details, but I rather thought the arrangement was a little different, and the carpet, and some of the light fittings, from when I saw it last.

There were few people around. Two talking in a corner, three napping, two more reading papers; none taking any notice of me. I went over to the periodicals table, and brought back The New Statesman, dated 22 January 1954. The front page leader was advocating the nationalisation of transport as a first step towards putting the means of production into the hands of the people and so ending unemployment. There was a wave of nostalgia about that. I turned on, glancing at articles which baffled me for lack of context. I was glad to find Critic present, and I noticed that among the things that were currently causing him concern was some experimental work going on in Germany. His misgivings were, it seemed, shared by several eminent scientists, for, while there was little doubt now that nuclear fission was a theoretical possibility, the proposed methods of control were inadequate. There could well be a chain reaction resulting in a disaster of cosmic proportions. A consortium which included names famous in the Arts as well as many illustrious in the sciences was being formed to call upon the League of Nations to protest to the German government in the name of humanity against reckless research Well, well.

With returning confidence in myself I sat and pondered.

Gradually, and faintly at first, something began to glimmer... Not anything about the how, or the whyI still have no useful theories about thosebut about what could conceivably have happened.

It was vagueset off, perhaps, by the thought of that random neutron which I knew in one set of circumstances to have been captured by a uranium atom, but which, in another set of circumstances, apparently had not...

And there, of course, one was brought up against Einstein and relativity which, as you know, denies the possibility of determining motion absolutely and consequently leads into the idea of the fourdimensional spacetime continuum. Well, then, since you cannot determine the motions of the factors in the continuum, any pattern of motion must be illusory, and there cannot be an determinable consequences. Nevertheless, where the factors are closely similarare composed of similar atoms in roughly the same relation to the continuum, so as to speakyou may quite well get similar consequences. They can never be identical, of course, or determination of motion would be possible. But they could be very similar, and capable of consideration in terms of Einstein's Special Theory, and they could be determined further by a set of closely similar factors. In other words although the infinite point which we may call a moment in 1954 must occur throughout the continuum, it exists only in relation to each observer, and appears to have similar existence in relation to certain close groups of observers. However, since no two observers can be identicalthat is, the same observereach must perceive a different past, present, and future from that perceived by any other; consequently, what he perceives arises only from the factors of his relationship to the continuum, and exists only for him.

Therefore I began to understand that what had happened must be this: in some waywhich I cannot begin to graspI had somehow been translated to the position of a different observerone whose angle of view was in some respects very close to my own, and yet different enough to have relationships, and therefore realities, unperceived by me. In other words, he must have lived in a world real only to him, just as I had lived in a world real only to meuntil this very peculiar transposition had occurred to put me in the position of observing his world, with, of course, its relevant past and future, instead of the one I was accustomed to.

Mind you, simple as it is when you consider it, I certainly did not grasp the form of it all at once, but I did argue my way close enough to the observerexistence relationship to decide that whatever might have gone amiss, my own mind was more or less all right. The trouble really seemed to be that it was in the wrong place, and getting messages not intended for me; a receiver somehow hooked into the wrong circuit.

Well, that's not good, in fact, it's bad; but it's still a lot better than a faulty receiver. And it braced me a bit to realise that.

I sat there quite a time trying to get it clear, and wondering what I should do, until I came to the end of my packet of "Mariner" cigarettes. Then I went to the telephone.

First I dialled ElectroPhysical Industries. Nothing happened. I looked them up in the book. It was quite a different number, on a different exchange. So I dialled that.

"Extension one three three," I told the girl on the desk, and then, on second thoughts, named my own department.

"Oh. You want Extension five nine," she told me.

Somebody answered. I said: "I'd like to speak to Mr. Cohn Trafford."

"I'm sorry," said the girl. "I can't find that name in this department," the voice told me.

Back to the desk. Then a longish pause.

"I'm sorry," said the girl. "I can't find that name in our staff list."

I hung up. So, evidently, I was not employed by E. P. L I thought a moment, and then dialled my Hampstead number. It answered promptly. "Transcendental Belts and Corsets," it announced brightly. I put down the receiver.

It occurred to me to look myself up in the book. I was there, all right: "Trafford, Cohn W., 54 Hogarth Court, Duchess Gardens, S.W.7. SLOane 67021." So I tried that. The phone at the other end rang.. and went on ringing...

I came out of the box wondering what to do next. It was an extremely odd feeling to be bereft of orientation, rather as if one had been dropped abruptly into a foreign city without even a hotel room for a baseand somehow made worse by the city being foreign only in minor and personal details.

After further reflection I decided that the best protective coloration would come from doing what this Cohn Trafford might reasonably be expected to do. If he had no work to do at E. P. I., he did at least have a home to go to A nice block of fiats, Hogarth Court, springy carpet and illuminated floral arrangement in the hall, that sort of thing, but, at the moment no porter in view, so I went straight to the lift. The place did not look big enough to contain fiftyfour flats, so I took a chance on the five meaning the fifth floor, and sure enough I stepped out to find 54 on the door facing me. I took out my bunch of keys, tried the most likely one, and it fitted.

Inside was a small hail. Nothing distinctivewhite paint, lightly patterned paper, close maroon carpet, occasional table with telephone and a few flowers in a vase, with a nice giltframed mirror above, the hard occasional chair, a passage off, lots of doors. I paused.

"Hullo," I said, experimentally. Then a little louder: "Hullo! Anyone at home?"

Neither voice nor sound responded. I closed the door behind me. What now? Wellwell, hang it, I wasamCohn Trafford! I took off my overcoat. Nowhere to put it. Second try revealed the coat closet... Several other coats already in there. Male and female, a woman's overshoes, too... I added mine.

I decided to get the geography of the place, and see what home was really like...

Well, you won't want an inventory, but it was a nice flat. Larger than I had thought at first. Well furnished and arranged; not with extravagance, but not with stint, either. It showed taste too; though not my tastebut what is taste? Either feeling for period, or refined selection from a fashion. I could feel that this was the latter, but the fashion was strange to me, and therefore lacked attraction...

The kitchen was interesting. A fridge, no washer, singlesink, no plate racks, no laminated tops, oldfashioned looking electric cooker, packet of soap powder, no synthetic detergents, curious light panel about three feet square in the ceiling, no mixer The sittingroom was airy, chairs comfortable. Nothing splindly. A large radiogram, rather ornate, no F. M. on its scale. Lighting again by ceiling panels, and square things like glass cakeboxes on stands. No television.

I prowled round the whole place. Bedroom feminine, but not fussy. Twin beds. Bathroom tiled, white. Spare bedroom, small double bed. And so on. But it was a room at the end of the passage that interested me most. A sort of study. One wall all bookshelves, some of the books familiarthe older onesothers not. An easy chair, a lighter chair. In front of the window a broad, leathertopped desk, with a view across the barebranched trees in the Gardens, roofs beyond, plenty of sky. On the desk a covered typewriter, adjustable lamp, several folders with sheets of paper untidily projecting, cigarette box, metal ashtray, clean and empty, and a photograph in a leather frame.

I looked at the photograph carefully. A charming study. She'd be perhaps twentyfourtwentyfive? Intelligent, happylooking, somebody one would like to knowbut not anyone I did know...

There was a cupboard on the left of the desk, and, on it, a glassfronted case with eight books on it; the rest was empty. The books were all in bright paper jackets, looking as new. The one on the righthand end was the same that I had seen in Hatchard "s that morningLife's Young Day; all the rest, too, bore the name Cohn Trafford. I sat down in the swivel chair at the desk and pondered them for some moments. Then, with a curious, schizoid feeling I pulled out Life's Young Day, and opened it.

It was, perhaps, half an hour, or more, later that I caught the sound of a key in the outer door. I decided that, on the whole, it would be better to disclose myself than wait to be discovered. So I opened the door. Along at the end of the passage a figure in threequarter length grey suede coat which showed a tweed skirt beneath was dumping parcels on to the hail table. At the sound of my door she turned her head. It was the original of the 122 photograph, all right; but not in the mood of the photograph. As I approached, she looked at me with an expression of surprise, mixed with other feelings that I could not identify; but certainly it was not an adoringwifegreetshusband look.

"Oh," she said "You're in, what happened?"

"Happened?" I repeated, feeling for a lead.

"Well, I understood you had one of those soimportant meetings with Dickie at the BBC fixed for this afternoon," she said, a little curtly I thought.

"Oh. Oh, that, yes. Yes, he had to put it off," I replied, clumsily.

She stopped still, and inspected me carefully. A little oddly, too, I thought. I stood looking at her, wondering what to do, and wishing I had had the sense to think up some kind of plan for this inevitable meeting instead of wasting my time over Life's Young Day. I hadn't even had the sense to find out her name. It was clear that I'd got away wrong somehow the moment I opened my mouth. Besides, there was a quality about her that upset my balance altogether... It hit me in a way I'd not known for years, and more shrewdly than it had then... Somehow, when you are thirtythree you don't expect these things to happenwell, not to happen quite like that, any more... Not with a great surge in your heart, and everything coming suddenly bright and alive as if she had just switched it all into existence.

So we stood looking at one another; she with a halffrown, I trying to cope with a turmoil of elation and confusion, unable to say a word.

She glanced down, and began to unbutton her coat. She, too, seemed uncertain.

"If" she began. But at that moment the telephone rang.

With an air of welcoming the interruption, she picked up the receiver. In the quiet of the hail I could hear a woman's voice ask for Cohn.

"Yes," she said, "he's here." And she held the receiver out to me, with a very curious look.

"Hullo," I said. "Cohn here."

"Oh, indeed," replied the voice, "and why, may I ask?"

"ErI don't quite " I began, but she cut me short.

"Now, look here, Cohn, I've already wasted an hour waiting for you, thinking that if you couldn't come you might at least have had the decency to ring me up and tell me. Now I find you're just sitting at home. Not quite good enough, Cohn."

"Iurnwho is it? Who's speaking?" was the only temporising move I could think of. I was acutely conscious that the young woman beside me was frozen stockstill in the act of taking off her coat.

"Oh, for God's sake," said the voice, exasperated. "What silly game is this? Who do you think it is?"

"That's what I'm asking," I said.

"Oh, don't be such a clown, Cohn. If it's because Ottilie's still thereand I bet she isyou're just being stupid. She answered the phone herself, so she knows it's me."

"Then perhaps I'd better ask her who you are," I suggested.

"Ohyou must be tight as an owl. Go and sleep it off," she snapped, and the phone went dead.

I put the receiver back in the rest. The young woman was looking at me with an expression of genuine bewilderment. In the quietness of the hail she must have been able to hear the other voice almost as clearly as I had. She turned away, and busied herself with taking her coat off and putting it on a hanger in the closet. When she'd carefully done that she turned back.

"I don't understand," she said. "You aren't tight, are you? What's it all about? What has dear Dickie done?"

"Dickie?" I enquired. The slight furrow between her brows deepened.

"Oh, really, Cohn. If you think I don't know Dickie's voice on the telephone by this time... "

"Oh," I said. A bloomer of a peculiarly cardinal kind, that. In fact, it is hard to think of a more unlikely mistake than that a man should confuse the gender of his friends. Unless I wanted to be thought quite potty, I must take steps to clarify the situation.

"Look, can't we go into the sittingroom. There's something I want to tell you," I suggested.

I took the chair opposite, and wondered how to begin. Even if I had been clear in my own mind about what had happened, it would have been difficult enough. But how to convey that though the physical form was Cohn Trafford's, and I myself was Cohn Trafford, yet I was not that Cohn Trafford; not the one who wrote books and was married to her, but a kind of alternative Cohn Trafford astray from an alternative world? What seemed to be wanted was some kind of approach which would not immediately suggest a call for an alienist and it wasn't easy to perceive.