Mobius Dick

by Andrew Crumey

  ‘Your room’s ready,’ Mrs Moffat told him; but before allowing him upstairs to settle in, she ran through the breakfast options. ‘Full Scottish?’ she said. He told her that’d be just fine. ‘You do like black pudding, then?’

  Yes, said Ringer, he liked anything.

  ‘Because you see, a lot of people don’t, if they’re not from here and don’t know what it is. And if they do know what it is, they like it even less. And sausages?’

  Great, said Ringer.

  ‘I have some that are a wee bit spicy; would you mind that?’

  The spicier the better, he told her, his foot by now on the third step of the thickly carpeted staircase.

  ‘Or do you prefer sliced?’ Now she’d got him. ‘To links, I mean.’ It was like being in a replay of Mr McCrone’s guide to northern religions. She said, ‘Which would you like? I’ve got Lorne sausages – the square sliced ones – and I’ve got links.’

  ‘Can I have both?’ Ringer thought it safest to remain agnostic.

  ‘Of course!’ she said. ‘Or you can always have kippers if you prefer.’

  ‘No,’ he said, treading hopefully onto the fourth creaking step. ‘Just the full Scottish breakfast.’

  ‘Beans?’

  ‘The works.’ Fortunately there was only one variety of bean in these parts. The same went for the mushrooms and bacon she offered; and by now Ringer was starving, though he wouldn’t get to see any of it until tomorrow. Then before he could escape they embarked on the egg possibilities, of which there were many. After that, the tea versus coffee dilemma seemed positively pedestrian. He’d hit the sixth step by the time he was finally released from Mrs Moffat’s kindly attentions.

  ‘My, you do have a big appetite,’ she said. ‘I hope I remember it all in the morning.’

  At last he was free. He reached his room feeling as though he hadn’t eaten for a week. He wondered if the Pepperpot would live up to Mr McCrone’s praise.

  Ringer closed the door, switched on the table lamp, kicked off his shoes and lay down on the bed. It was like the boudoir of a septuagenarian with a fondness for pink; which of course was exactly what it was. He was in Mrs Moffat’s bedroom, and apart from her having cleared the wardrobe and chest of drawers, it looked as though she might roll in at any moment, perhaps to double-check the breakfast schedule before hauling herself into bed beside him.

  Ringer stared at the ceiling and heard the rumble of his own stomach. He thought of Don at Craigcarron, with his tale of free energy. It was crazy; but imagining seeing Helen was crazy too. Ringer needed to recalculate the energy limit in his paper. Make it higher, and Don would be happy. Then Ringer could join the research project and find out exactly what was going on.

  He reached into his pocket and brought out his Q-phone. He still hadn’t even figured out how to store numbers on it; instead he began keying the digits, then heard the ringing tone. He pictured the phone at the other end, in his own home. But nobody was there; perhaps she’d taken the kids out. He heard the answer-phone; his own voice inviting him to leave a message. Ten thousand years of technology and this is what you get: a fancy way of talking to yourself.

  ‘Hello, it’s me,’ he said to the waiting silence. ‘Everything’s fine. I got here without a hitch. Bye.’

  He hung up, and the two parts of his life disconnected once more. On the answerphone he could now lie dormant. The machine would be flashing its greeting when the three of them got back from the bowling alley or pizzeria they’d gone to. As for Ringer’s Q-phone, its screen was flashing a load of useless data about length of call, baud rate, estimated cost, and other stuff that might mean something to an engineer but was really only there so that the device could lay claim to more features than its competitors.

  Then on the screen there was a cartoon of an envelope flying through the air. A new text message had arrived. Call me: Ha.

  So it wasn’t about Helen after all. Was it a marketing campaign, perhaps? Some lousy teaser that would eventually tell him to phone a building society? Or was the caller unable to complete the message; constantly interrupted by a suspicious onlooker? A mole at Craigcarron, trying to tell him something.

  The philosopher Leibniz believed everything happens for a reason. There must be a reason for the text messages; also a reason why Ringer thought he saw Helen again, here in Ardnahanish of all places. A reason why they met in the first place, talked about Thomas Mann and Schrödinger, began an affair. If everything has a reason, then life makes sense.

  There was a knock on the door; a voice calling to him from outside. ‘Hello? I just wanted to check – did you say poached or fried?’

  ‘Fried eggs, please.’

  She creaked away across the landing as Ringer keyed through his Q-phone’s endlessly ramifying menus, trying to work out where the messages had come from, or when they had been sent. It might even be a single message that he still hadn’t discovered how to display in its entirety.

  Must there be a reason for everything? When Schrödinger and Heisenberg found their two varieties of quantum mechanics it looked like the answer could be no. An atom emits a photon. Why? No reason, it just does. Things happen, it’s all random. If mobile phones were one day to be powered by quantum computers, such chance events might be the sort of thing everyone would have to get used to.

  A knock again. ‘Did I show you how to use the shower?’

  ‘I’ll figure it out.’

  ‘You need to pull the string quite hard.’

  Perhaps he should simply invite her in. She was probably missing her bed. As she padded away, Ringer sat up and decided to look again at the energy calculation. His workbook was in the suitcase, lying beside Hoffmann’s Tomcat Murr on folded clothes. He went and fetched the small notebook, expecting at any moment to hear the heavy tread of Mrs Moffat’s slippered feet coming once more to disturb him, then settled himself in the bedroom’s only armchair.

  If Don’s vacuum array could truly reach the energies he anticipated, it might prevent wave functions from collapsing. An electron could be everywhere and nowhere, even after it was observed. Don’s proposed quantum computer could then be in two different states at once; it might give the answers ‘yes’ and ‘no’, and both would be true. This was the kind of snag even Don’s financial backers could understand. The vacuum array, if Ringer’s fears were justified, might entangle parallel realities, making each inconsistent.

  What would such a world be like? It would be hell – an irrational place where everything becomes true and hence meaningless; a place where no possibility, however monstrous, is denied. Perhaps the kind of place where Ringer could bump into Helen in the street.

  But no, it wasn’t her. The coincidence of finding her here would be simply too astounding. There was no reason for Ringer to think he had somehow been jolted into another universe by Don’s conjuring trick with tantalum mirrors. The machine would never work; Ringer need only modify his research paper in a form that would be palatable to Don, and then he could learn exactly what was happening at Craigcarron.

  And so he recalculated. Twenty minutes were all it took to convince him that certain plausible guesses could be substituted for various others, yielding an answer Don Chambers would be happy with. In fact Ringer was able to raise the safety threshold a long way. The vacuum array would have to produce a thousand times more energy than expected before any problem could arise. He’d tell Don tomorrow.

  Ringer closed his eyes, feeling weary after all the strange experiences of the day. Then his eyes blinked open – he thought there’d been a flash of lightning. He got up and went to the window, but there was no rain or wind outside. Beyond some houses, he could see part of the Pepperpot, lit up now and evidently ready for business. It was time for dinner.

  He got ready to go out, putting on his shoes and coat and slipping the notebook into his pocket so that he could review the calculation over a pint of beer. In the other coat pocket he put Tomcat Murr. Then he went downstairs, where Mrs Moffat naturally decide
d to make an appearance.

  ‘Will you be needing dinner?’ she asked. The combinatorial possibilities of its menu would probably have kept Ringer detained for a week and a half, so he quickly told her he was going out.

  ‘You could try the Pepperpot,’ she suggested as he made for the door. ‘Don’t worry if you’re late back; I never lock up. And for the morning, was it tea or coffee you said … ?’

  ‘Coffee,’ he called over his shoulder, almost breaking into a trot. His hunger couldn’t stand another round of hypothetical choices. He went swiftly to the Pepperpot, which looked a pleasant enough place once he was inside. There was a stone-floored bar where a couple of men stood with the silent, mournful look of regulars; and a doorway marked Dining Area, which Ringer passed through at once. The room beyond had pine furniture and a smell of disinfectant, and a single customer who sat alone with her back to him. He immediately knew who she was.

  This was the woman who had gone down the lane to her B&B; the one who looked like Helen. From behind, it was an easy mistake. Now he could set his mind at ease.

  She was reading the menu as he approached. ‘Good evening,’ he said politely. She turned, and as soon as he saw her face, her expression changed, registering the shock she must have witnessed in his own.

  It was Helen. Older now, her hair different, her features subtly matured, and with something indefinably altered in her appearance that time alone could not account for. Yet it was her.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ he could hear himself saying. Still she made no comment, as if she somehow hadn’t recognized him. ‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘John.’

  Her eyes scrutinized him with a mixture of suspicion and embarrassment. ‘Forgive me for being rude,’ she said at last, ‘but you’ll have to remind me where we’ve met.’

  ‘Please, Helen,’ he said, ‘don’t do this.’

  ‘My name’s not Helen,’ she said curtly. ‘I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake.’ She turned to look at her menu again, and he stood there feeling rising indignation at her charade, though he was determined not to show it.

  ‘I know it’s been a long time,’ Ringer said to the back of her lowered head. ‘But your memory can’t really be so bad.’

  She looked round again. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not the person you think I am. We’ve never met, and I’d like to have a quiet meal.’

  A young girl came in, wearing the unflattering white blouse of a waitress. ‘Sit anywhere you like,’ she told Ringer, ‘I’ll be with you in a moment.’ Then she asked her other customer if she was ready to order.

  ‘I need another minute or two.’

  The waitress looked at both of them, sensed the tension hanging in the air, and went back out.

  Even more incredible than seeing Helen again was the possibility that Ringer might have made a ghastly mistake. The resemblance was so perfect. She was stroking the menu pensively with her thumb, then pushed a lock of hair behind her ear in a gesture he recognized.

  ‘Do you even have a birthmark on your back, just like Helen? Are you allergic to cats?’

  She turned round again. ‘Who are you?’ she said. ‘What do you want?’ Her anger was tinged with fear.

  ‘I’m sorry … I didn’t mean …’ The confusion was becoming overwhelming. ‘Seeing you is such a surprise …’

  She was staring at him as though he were a madman. ‘My name is Laura,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t know anything about your friend.’ She paused, then suddenly her face brightened as a smile broke through at the corner of her mouth. ‘Wait a minute. This is some kind of stunt, isn’t it?’ She looked up towards some small coloured spotlights in the corner of the room, as if suspecting a hidden camera. ‘Did the guys on the newsdesk put you up to this?’ But when she saw his unwillingness to share the joke, her smile faded. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘however the trick works, I’m very impressed by your mind-reading skills. But now I’d really like to have a peaceful dinner on my own. I’ve had a long day, and it’s very nice of you to talk to me, but I’m honestly not in the mood for conversation.’

  ‘This isn’t a trick or a chat-up,’ he told her. ‘I don’t understand it any more than you.’ While she pondered her menu again, studying it only as a way of avoiding Ringer, he said, ‘Do the guys on the newsdesk know how much you hate garlic?’

  ‘What the hell is this?’ she snapped. ‘I don’t know you, I don’t know why you’re pestering me like this, and I want you to leave me alone.’

  The waitress came in again. There was a burly man with her, and they stood silently watching as Laura turned away. It was time for Ringer to leave. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said, addressing himself to the three of them. He walked out and found himself in the cold street, feeling foolish and humiliated.

  Was it really Helen? She must have got herself a new career as a journalist, judging by her comment about the newsdesk. She’d changed her hair, and her name, and now she was pretending she didn’t know him.

  Or else the resemblance to a woman he hadn’t seen for years existed only in his head. He had imposed himself on a stranger and scared the daylights out of her, acting like a deranged stalker.

  He needed to think, and he needed a meal. Mrs Moffat would have to cook dinner for him after all. When he got back and opened the door she came straight away to see who it was. ‘No food at the Pepperpot tonight,’ he told her, trying to sound pleasant while inside he was seething.

  ‘That’s unusual,’ said Mrs Moffat. ‘Well, have something here instead.’

  The dining-room door was open; she switched on the light and invited him to sit down at the table. Knick-knacks and memorabilia cluttered every shelf and surface; glass animals and porcelain figures competing for space with family photographs.

  Though Ringer’s mind was elsewhere, Mrs Moffat proved to be a good cook, feeding him so heartily that his anger began to dissipate. ‘Stay here and watch television if you like,’ she said to him when the meal was finished.

  ‘No, I need a walk before bed,’ he told her, lifting his coat from the dining chair where he had draped it.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Goodnight, then. And for your breakfast, was it slice or links you wanted?’

  ‘Either please, Mrs Moffat.’ If he was going to get back to the Pepperpot before closing time he had better avoid the sausage issue altogether.

  ‘Have both,’ she said with matronly generosity, offering what in any case he had requested earlier, then she waddled to the kitchen while Ringer buttoned his thick coat and headed for the front door.

  It was a frosty night, the moon was nearly full, and silvery breath billowed around Ringer’s face as he walked back to the pub, cautiously looking through the window from the other side of the road. Laura was still there, at the same table, talking to an elderly couple who must have decided to join her. So much for the quiet meal she wanted, Ringer thought. He crossed the street, remaining careful not to be seen, and observed as he came closer that Laura was taking notes while the couple spoke. She really was a journalist. The waitress appeared from the far end of the room, and Ringer moved clear of the window’s warm glow. He couldn’t go inside: he would have to wait.

  Along the street from the pub was an old fountain with benches beside it. Ringer went and sat on one, but it was so cold he thought he might freeze before Laura ever came out. So instead he stood at the Victorian fountain, completely dry, whose smooth bowl of polished granite bore an inscription round its edge that he read from sheer idleness. What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God.

  He waited, and he shivered. Thirty or forty minutes must have passed until at last he saw Laura coming out of the Pepperpot, alone. He’d had time to work out his approach, and now she was walking in his direction.

  ‘Excuse me, Laura.’ She gave a start when she saw him. He would have to win her confidence before she turned and fled. ‘If you’re looking for a news story,’ he said, ‘I might have one for you.’

  In the gloom, he could see her eyes narrowing. ‘W
hat kind of story?’

  ‘About Craigcarron,’ he told her.

  ‘The nuclear plant? What about it? This hasn’t got anything to do with your friend Helen, I hope.’

  Ringer shook his head. ‘To be honest, I only made that up as a way of talking to you.’

  She burst into laughter. ‘I guessed as much.’ The laugh faded again. ‘But how did you know about my birthmark? Or the cat allergy?’

  ‘I suppose they were lucky guesses,’ Ringer said with a shrug. ‘Lots of people have birthmarks and allergies. Was I right about your star sign?’

  ‘I don’t recall your mentioning it,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sure I did. Scorpio, I reckon.’

  ‘As a matter of fact you’re wrong,’ she said lightly. ‘So it seems you’re not such a mind-reader after all.’

  No, Helen was Capricorn.

  ‘Well, let’s forget about chat-ups,’ she said. ‘I forgive you for the little faux pas in the pub. But right now we’re freezing, and unless you give me some idea what your story is, I’m afraid I’ll have to give you the brush-off for the second time tonight.’

  She meant it. She was on the point of walking away and leaving.

  ‘They’re developing new technology at Craigcarron,’ said Ringer. ‘There could be enormous risks.’

  Now she was interested. ‘Tell me more.’

  ‘I can’t. If you like, I can explain how I’ve calculated the dangers. But not here.’

  Her face once more registered a succession of doubts. ‘Give me your number and I’ll call you tomorrow,’ she said.

  ‘No, this can’t wait. I’m going to Craigcarron first thing in the morning, and if there’s to be any discussion between us it has to be now.’ She looked as if she was about to go. ‘I’m taking a big gamble talking to you like this. There are powerful players involved.’

  Still she was hesitant. ‘Give me your number,’ she repeated.

  ‘No, I’ll only talk about this face-to-face, tonight. There’s too much at stake – far more than my career. If you don’t want this story, I’ll find someone who does.’