by Tim Neilson
“Well, you insisted on coming, and I bet you won’t sit still in a library or archive, will you? You’ll just have to entertain yourself.” She fished a guidebook out of her handbag and pushed it into Tina’s hands. “Just be at The Eagle at one,” she commanded.
After breakfast, they returned to their rooms to prepare for the morning. When Anna and James headed off, Tina felt very much alone. However, once she took the plunge and walked outside, she found to her surprise that the morning passed quickly. When she had first visited Daniel at Ormond College back in Melbourne, she’d been impressed by the imposing late-Victorian-era, gothic-revival sandstone edifices on College Crescent. She knew very little about architecture or history, but she knew that much of old Cambridge predated any Australian buildings by centuries. She gazed solemnly at each venerable-looking site as she passed by, awestruck by the multitude and magnificence of the ancient constructions lining the winding streets.
Eventually she plucked up courage to walk through some of the entrances to the older colleges and was impressed all over again by the lush splendour of the quadrangles and their surrounds. She sensed, somehow, that the grandeur was the product of centuries of wealthy patronage, way beyond what the Melbourne University’s colleges had managed to accumulate in their brief existence. Maybe in a few centuries’ time, she thought, Australia will have places like this.
When her attention wandered from the inanimate surroundings, she would people-watch, trying to guess who were the students, wh0 were the ‘professors’ (as she thought of all academics – despite Anna and Daniel’s explanations of the realities of a university hierarchy), who were tourists, and who were just normal residents of the town – those lucky enough to live in such a beautiful place.
And so she passed her time happily enough, despite the absence of Anna and James, and almost entirely unaware of that sense of disquiet lurking beneath her consciousness.
The clanging of a bell triggered a thought in James’s mind, but at that moment he was negotiating his way through a throng of pedestrians and watching for cyclists as he assessed the right moment to cross the street, so he didn’t focus on it completely. He dimly perceived the mental intrusion as being something to do with the task on which he was engaged. Asimov. Science fiction. Yes, he thought, that must be what’s nagging at me. He, Anna and Cam had assumed that Burnet was being dismissive when he equated Asimov with Crick’s endeavours. But presumably some of Asimov’s novels or science-fiction short stories could have dealt with time travel. Maybe Asimov’s fiction contained some invented idea that implied time travel was beneficial? If so, their whole premise about Crick having abandoned the project might be wrong. From what he knew of Burnet it seemed unlikely that the great immunologist would have developed a deep knowledge of something as frivolous as science fiction. However, he decided he should further investigate the possibility that Burnet was referring to a novel or short story to encourage Crick to persist with his project.
A friend back in Australia came to mind. The Champ was a devotee of science fiction. Admittedly, he tended to focus on the more obscure and extravagant realms of the genre, but he’d certainly know whether Asimov had ever written about time travel. The obvious step to take was to get to The Eagle and compose a text to the Champ over a pre-lunch pint of ale: Did any novel or short story published by Asimov in or prior to 1959 portray time travel as a means of achieving some desirable objective?
That same clanging of a bell focused Tina’s mind on the time. Oops, better hurry. She consulted her map and scurried off, finding her way into the market square with its stalls and food vans, up a side street and past the small, picturesque shops lining it, into the conglomeration of noisy wood-panelled alcoves that comprised the front part of The Eagle.
“Don’t worry,” James soothed, correctly interpreting the cause of Tina’s flustered demeanour. “Anna texted me a while ago to say she’d be a few minutes late … oh, hi.”
“Sorry,” Anna responded, “but I got wrapped up in one file of papers … have you been waiting long?”
“Not at all,” answered James, with a conspiratorial glance at Tina.
“Well, this is it,” he announced, waving an arm around. “On a Wednesday afternoon in 1953 Francis Crick and James Watson raced in here from down the road and told everyone in the pub that the drinks were on them because they’d just discovered the secret of life. And they had.”
“What secret of life?” asked Tina.
“The secret of how human beings and all other complex living things reproduce,” James explained.
“I thought everyone knew that,” Tina snorted dismissively.
Anna’s peal of laughter startled the occupants of the surrounding tables. James was laughing, too, as he protested that he hadn’t meant that aspect of it. “Not what they do, but how it works at the microscopic level,” he explained.
He went on to give a brief description of how Crick and Watson had won the race to guess the structure of DNA, starting with a brief exposition of the molecular building blocks of DNA. At the time, the chemical composition and general structure of each building block had been known, so it was a race to find out how those building blocks fitted together. James explained how, while their rivals were deploying vast resources of laboratory equipment, Crick and Watson had used cardboard cut-out shapes, each in the form of one of the building blocks, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He told of the moment when Watson assembled them in a way that matched all the known facts about the structure of DNA, thereby revealing a great deal about how DNA replicated itself to reproduce new life.
Common knowledge and some dimly remembered science lessons from school helped Tina follow his explanation. She hadn’t taken any offence at the laughter, which she knew was directed more at James than at her, and she was unconsciously flattered that James had assumed a fair degree of background knowledge and capacity for understanding on her part.
I’m enjoying the trip, she thought, as James beckoned them towards the back of the pub.
He took them into a low-roofed room where he pointed at the dingy, peeling, linoleum ceiling, which seemed to be disfigured with dark-brown graffiti. Tina was considerably unimpressed until James explained the provenance of the writing. In World War II, there had been an air base near Cambridge, close to the east coast, ideally situated for bombing raids on the Nazi-occupied parts of western Europe. Air crews would visit The Eagle, where there would be boisterous attempts to take their minds off a forthcoming mission. One man would hoist a crew mate onto his shoulders so that the elevated airman could use a lighted candle to burn his name into the ceiling. As a memorial to the crews, the dull, shabby ceiling was a poignant reminder of the war – more so than any marble monolith – and was rightly preserved as such.
In some cases, Tina thought as she gazed upwards, those words may have been the graffiti artist’s last act on earth apart from a flight from which he never returned. As they were inscribing, each of them must have been aware that they could, very soon, die a violent death. None of them could have known, though, whether that was to be their fate. Fly over, drop the bombs, bank left to begin the return journey and arrive safely, or bank right and be raked with flak, plunging to earth in a ball of fire. Yet now, in hindsight, one could identify every name and, in theory, could trace whether he had survived the war to lead a long and happy life, or had lived for only a few more hours.
She looked at the current occupants of the pub, some laughing and joking, some debating earnestly. It occurred to her that even in peacetime none of them could really be certain of what lay in store for them before the sun set that night.
“Come on, time to eat. Anna and I have got to get back to work you know.”
She followed James out into the courtyard, sheltered from the sky by a large pergola and hidden from the street by the front wing of the building. They were able to commandeer a table, after which they spent a few minutes perusing the menu, before Anna and James began to exchange information about t
heir research. Regrettably neither could reveal a dramatic breakthrough. Furthermore, they agreed that the going was slower than they had hoped it might be.
“It might take longer than we thought,” James informed her. He told her about his notion that Isaac Asimov may have used time travel as a plot device in a novel or short story, in which case Burnet’s reference to Asimov might have been encouragement rather than an expression of incredulity.
“I’ve texted the Champ to ask him about it,” he added. “It must be very long odds against Burnet having meant any such thing, but if the Champ says that there’s anything in it, we may have to search after the date of that letter as well as before.”
Anna thought for a few seconds. “Well, let’s not waste time on that until you hear back,” she suggested. “Just keep a note of exactly what you’ve looked at, so that if we do have to go back to places where we’ve already looked, we won’t go back over old ground.”
James agreed, and the conversation drifted to other matters. Tina described what she had seen that morning, while James made some suggestions of other places she should visit. Lunch passed pleasantly until Anna queried whether it was time for them to get back to work. Tina was sorry that the party was breaking up. Still, she thought, she would enjoy herself in the pleasant afternoon sunshine until they all regrouped that evening.
“Are you seeing Claudia today?” Anna asked James.
“Yes, we’re meeting down at the river later this afternoon and hiring a punt,” James replied. “It seems a bit hot for something so physical, but she thought it would be a good idea. We’ll probably have dinner at the Mill. I’ll see you back at the hotel later,” he added. He waved a cheerful farewell to Anna and Tina. He paused momentarily in apparent puzzlement at something about Tina’s appearance, but, seeming to think it inadvisable to make an intrusive enquiry, he turned and disappeared onto the street.
“What’s the matter?” asked Anna.
“Nothing,” Tina responded defensively. Anna decided against interrogating Tina further, contenting herself with reminding her sister to be back at the hotel somewhere around dinner time.
The following morning at breakfast James was doing his best to rouse Tina out of the listlessness that seemed to have gripped her, when Anna approached the table. James didn’t notice anything unusual about Anna’s demeanour, but Tina instantly sensed her sister’s icy self-control, an emotional state that Tina knew only too well. Tina’s mind raced trying to recall anything that she might have done to provoke her sister’s quiet anger.
“Something wrong?” James asked when he noticed a slight abruptness in Anna’s response to his greeting.
“Not as bad as it might be,” Anna replied with studied neutrality. “I’ve just been on the phone to Stefano,” she continued, surveying Tina. “One of our cousins. He’s the one who’s been minding your house,” she explained to James. “Apparently last night, Melbourne time, someone tried to break in again.”
“Is he OK?” asked James.
“Oh, he’s alright,” said Anna dismissively. “But it’s lucky that he is. He woke up, found that someone had got inside, and he shot at him.”
“What?” exclaimed James. “Sorry, who shot at who?”
“Stefano shot the intruder,” Anna explained with an air of irritation. “He didn’t kill him, or even wound him very badly as far as he knows. Whoever it was got away.”
“Well that’s probably just as well,” reflected James. “Has there been any trouble? Like from the police?”
“No,” said Anna, sounding regretful. “No one seems to have complained. Stefano had enough sense to wait a while till anyone who had heard the shot would have settled back down, then he mopped up the blood that the other guy had spilled as he was running away, at least for a fair distance from your house. So now there’s no evidence at all except for the bullet lodged in your wall.”
“Oh, great,” groaned James. “Hello, is this Inner City Plasterers? Do you have anyone who’s good at covering up bullet holes?”
“No need to worry about that,” Anna reassured him. “Dad knows lots of tradies who can keep their mouths shut. And hopefully Stefano’s performance, stupid though it was, will be enough to stop anyone trying to break in again.”
“So all’s well that ends well then?” James said with relief.
“Yes,” replied Anna, turning an icy gaze on Tina. “No serious harm done by whoever it was who was idiotic enough to give a gun to that muppet, Stefano.” Anna carefully kept her voice low so as not to create a scene amid the scattered assembly of hotel guests and staff.
“Well I had to leave it somewhere,” protested Tina. “I gave it to the boys so they could have it when they were looking after James’s place. I mean he’d been broken into before, hadn’t he? It was only sensible.”
“Sensible?” yelled Anna, causing heads to turn her way from tables far and wide, prompting her to moderate her tone. “You wouldn’t know …”
“I’m sorry I caused this,” James intervened, trying for Tina’s sake to dissipate some of Anna’s ferocity.
“Oh, don’t be sorry,” Anna exclaimed. “Stefano’s over the moon with exhilaration, and Alessio and Matteo are insane with envy that they weren’t there. Among the imbecile faction of our family you’re becoming a cult hero with your ability to attract trouble. Not that I’m blaming you,” she hastened to add before shooting a withering glance at Tina.
“Well, as you said, nothing more should come of it,” James proffered as soothingly as he dared.
“I hope so,” Anna retorted. “My worry is that now that those three idiots have got themselves worked up, they’ll gun down someone who’s just turned up to deliver the mail or read a gas meter. There’s no point trying to explain to them how to behave rationally, but I’ve done my best. I’ve told them that whoever is trying to burgle your place will probably try to get them out of the road by creating an incident and have them arrested. Hopefully they’ll delay pulling the trigger long enough to recognise whether they’re aiming at a criminal or just at a postman.”
“Well there’s nothing more we can do from over here,” James reflected. He glanced across at Tina. “Looks like all the fun’s happening back in Melbourne,” he teased. She smiled back, but only briefly and weakly. James inferred that she hadn’t yet recovered from Anna’s tirade, and decided to change the subject.
“Claudia told me that Cam feels like he’s being a bad host,” he reported. “Of course, he knows we know why he’s steering clear of us, but he still feels bad about it. He says it can’t do any harm for us to have lunch in Pembroke if Claudia’s officially our host, and he’ll just coincidentally be there.”
James and Anna agreed on where each of them would continue their research that morning, and then confirmed with Tina that the three of them would meet on the lawns inside Pembroke at half-past midday. Tina seemed rather subdued as she responded to their farewells. It occurred to Anna that the novelty of their surroundings was probably wearing off for Tina, and that it couldn’t be much fun for her just drifting around on her own while they were otherwise engaged. Perhaps, she thought, Tina should take the train into London, where there would be more bustle and action going on. But not today, given that she’d hardly have time to get there before needing to come back for lunch. Maybe I’ll suggest it to her tomorrow. Anyway, Anna reflected, it’s Tina’s own fault for insisting on coming.
Meanwhile, back in Australia, a young man sat in the changing rooms of a gym, gazing at photographs on his phone of him and a young woman grinning happily in various exotic locations. He felt sullen and resentful, but, still, he had a strange feeling that there was something that he ought to be thinking of which he couldn’t quite bring up from the depths of his subconscious.
Chapter 10
Problems on Tour
In a high-ceilinged room, with windows facing onto an invitingly green and sunny quadrangle, the piles of paper in front of him propelled James’s memory back to early in his leg
al career. Even then, documents were becoming largely digitalised but there was still an enormous backlog from the past and from different enterprises that hadn’t fully computerised their operations. Starry-eyed young law graduates like James would commence work with thrilling dreams only to be confronted by a far more mundane reality – huge numbers of physical records.
Litigation? Thinking of dazzling a jury with your rhetoric, or finessing a logical path to victory in front of a sceptical judge? Here, take these three boxes, examine every one of the documents inside, and sort them into which ones have to be disclosed as evidence and which ones don’t.
Commercial law? See yourself as the brilliant negotiator who brings the deal together, or the great strategist who plans how the transaction can be steered through the maze of regulation? Go through every piece of paper in those folders over there and check if there’s anything in them that needs to be reported to the client’s Due Diligence Committee.
Of course, that was only how careers started, and those who buckled down quickly progressed to being given more interesting and satisfying work. Those who did stick at it were almost always those who had the commonsense and the humility to see why the mundane tasks fell to the most junior members of the team, and who also had the perseverance and drive to work their way to a higher level. As James had done. Until now. Here he was, doing a task he hadn’t had to do in years, and not even getting paid for it. Sighing, he turned over a page, scrutinised the next one carefully, then turned that one over, then the next, and so on.
There was nothing useful in any of them. Which was disappointing, but not unexpected. At least, though, he could mark off another location on his list. And move to the next one for more of the same.
