August (11 page)

‘I was angry.'

‘We have to be still now. We have to be careful.'

To be still, to choose slow death over the quick end they perched above.
Let me get out of this, God
, Tristan thought,
and
I promise…
but he could think of nothing. A god who would strike such a deal was too hard to believe in. He could feel the pounding of Grace's heart at his shoulder. He loved her. He whispered the words secretly to himself, thrilling in her proximity. She, whose broken body he supported with his own. He loved her. She was right to question his long absence, but he had always loved her.

‘Tell me the rest of your story,' Grace said.

‘You might not like hearing it.'

‘Why not?'

‘I didn't like living it.'

‘I already know the ending.'

‘It isn't finished yet,' he pointed out.

‘We'll be all right,' she said.

‘You don't know that.'

‘Time is passing,' Grace replied. ‘And we are not. It's the best we can hope for.'

Tristan's Story

Tristan took Brother Kevin's advice and returned before the first light fingered its way across the sky. He emerged slowly from the tunnel, blinking at the brightness. There was a moment before he fully registered where he was, conscious only that he swayed in a bubble outside time, that his past had ended but his future was yet to begin.

The rector stood waiting, a torch in his hand, satisfaction dancing on his face. Minutes earlier Tristan had stepped lightly through the streets; now nausea compressed his stomach and his stance turned fuzzy.

‘Welcome back,' the rector smiled. ‘I hope the experience was worth it.'

Tristan looked at his feet, embarrassment turning to fear.

‘Did you think,' the rector purred, ‘that you would be left to defy the church? Do you really imagine we take such little interest in your progress? Some would be insulted by the assumption, but I remember well the deficiencies of youth. Don't worry, Tristan, you will survive your punishment. Your defiance has presented me with an opportunity and now I mean to use it. Follow me.'

Tristan was a child again, a boy without bearings, the ground beneath his feet no longer solid. The rector turned, but Tristan remained frozen.

‘Come, boy, I am giving you a second chance. Don't let me down. There is work to be done. I do you this favour and you have nothing to say?'

‘Thank you,' Tristan muttered.

‘Well then, let us move.'

Tristan did as he was told; without fuss or conflict the angry rebel was brought meekly back into the fold. Such was the rector's genius.

St Augustine's was divided into two sections. The first formed the public face of the institution, encompassing the church, halls, kitchens, dormitories, studies, courtyards and gardens—those places where the boys and visitors were free to roam. The other was the exclusive preserve of those who had taken their holy vows. At the end of the corridor leading to the grotto, the rector turned, not left but right, into the heart of the forbidden zone. Tristan stopped, sure he was not meant to follow. After only a moment the rector reappeared and beckoned to him. Tristan swallowed deeply and with an uncertain step left the world of the college behind forever.

Tristan had never seen a room like it. There were no windows. The ceiling, floor and walls were painted perfect white, causing the intersecting planes to merge. Tristan felt as if he was floating. The rector stood in the centre of the room, his dark form a stain on the pristine space, demanding attention. Tristan tried to look away but he could not.

Next to the rector was a ramp the height of his chest and on it sat a polished black sphere the size of a man's head.

‘Welcome, Tristan,' the rector smiled. ‘You possess a mind of rare quality. It is raw; there is a long way yet for it to travel. In an ideal world perhaps you would be two years older. But then, if the world was ideal, none of this would be necessary.'

Tristan nodded as if he understood. He felt the desire to please rising up in him. He reminded himself that he hated this man and all he stood for. Tristan imagined the young woman from the church was standing next to him, witnessing his bravery, and the thought of her straightened his tired spine.

The rector took a step to his left, to reveal the only other object in the room. Regarding the wall with its stern eyes was a bust of the Saint. Automatically Tristan dipped his knee in genuflection.

‘Ah yes, Saint Augustine.' The rector turned to the bust and bowed in acknowledgment, although Tristan couldn't tell if the gesture was genuine.

‘Tell me, Tristan, what do you imagine will happen if I release the ball?'

It was only then that Tristan made the connection. The ramp was aimed squarely at Saint Augustine.

‘Come now,' the rector insisted, ‘the question is hardly difficult. Can you not imagine?'

Tristan hesitated, his tired brain furiously looking for the trick. For surely the rector did not mean to…

The rector nudged the ball. It rolled to the beginning of the slope and then, with Galilean predictability, accelerated down the incline towards the helpless icon.

The bust disintegrated in a white cloud of plaster. The ball, its momentum now shared with the shattered pieces, rumbled slowly to the wall.

‘It is a sin, is it not,' the rector asked, delight spread across his face, ‘to deface an image of the Saint in this way?'

‘In any way,' Tristan corrected, barely believing what he had seen.

‘Indeed. And so my question is this. How should we punish the ball that perpetrated this crime? What would be the appropriate sentence?'

Tristan did not reply. He had sat through enough interrogations to sense a trap but he couldn't make out its detail. The rector continued, untroubled by his pupil's silence.

‘Perhaps you do not hold the ball to blame. Perhaps you do not think the ball should be punished at all.'

‘I do not,' Tristan conceded.

‘And why not?'

It was like being back in the hall, only here there was no chance the rector would turn his attention to another boy. It was just the two of them, a battle pure. The rector leaned forward, as if scanning Tristan's face for some subtle clue.

‘Balls do not make choices,' Tristan said, embarrassed at being reduced to the obvious statement. ‘They are not capable of it. To be held responsible for our actions, first we must be granted the capacity for choice.'

‘Very good,' the rector said. ‘And how, if we may continue down this predictable trajectory, can we be sure the ball, when released at the top of the ramp, does not choose to roll down it? How do we know it does not hesitate for just a moment and consider the other possibilities? To not roll at all perhaps, or to veer left at the last moment, or right, or to veer early, or simply screech to a halt before the point of impact? It would seem, at first glance, that any number of choices are open to it. You look doubtful, Tristan. Tell me why.'

‘You know why,' Tristan replied, feebly attempting to return fire.

‘Ah, but there you are wrong.'

The rector turned from him and paced the room in what appeared to be mad delight, steepled fingers touching the tip of his nose. He halted amid the saintly debris and swivelled, grinding plaster underfoot. ‘All my adult life I have struggled with the problem of the ball, Tristan. You assume I have done this for show, a clumsy metaphor upon which to hang my homily, but the truth is I am as perplexed now as I ever was. The ball has so many paths open to it. It takes one and only one. It chooses. And yet we do not call it a choice. We do not hold it responsible. Am I missing something?'

Tristan hesitated. What he was missing would be plain to even the youngest child, but surely that couldn't be right.

‘Yes, I think you are.' Tristan's voice was small with caution.

‘And what would that be?'

‘You are missing that the ball is subject to the laws of physics,' Tristan said. ‘When you release it, the forces are unbalanced and so it rolls forward. It is gravity, nothing more. It rolls because it must roll. It has no choice.'

‘And we are not subject to these same laws?' the rector asked.

‘Of course.'

‘And yet we make choices.'

‘We do.'

‘How do you know?'

A worthy question perhaps, for one who'd never encountered it. But Tristan was a St Augustine's student and his education had consisted of little but this question. The familiarity relaxed him and he felt a sharpening of his thoughts.

‘When I decide something I am aware of the options. Options that no physics precludes. Sometimes, when faced with a choice, I move left. Other times, I move right. Physics allows either. Physics therefore does not determine the outcome. The ball however…'

Tristan stepped forward and took it in his hands in a wildly theatrical gesture that the strange room seemed to encourage. He lifted it back onto the ramp and held it there, on the verge of another fall. ‘The ball has no choice. It is never left or right. It is always the direct path.'

Tristan released the ball and it did what it must, returning to the scene of its crime. Its collision with the debris sent up a small cloud of dust. The rector, feigning surprise, left it until the last moment before stepping out of the way.

‘And you knew it would do that?' he said.

‘Everybody knows it.'

The rector straightened, as he always did at the point of ambush. ‘There is the difference between you and me, Tristan. I take nothing for granted. Perhaps, up until this point, the ball has always rolled true, but why dismiss the possibility that all this reflects is a hitherto remarkably consistent personality? How are we to disregard the possibility that at the next trial, having bided its time, the impish thing chooses to surprise us? How can I be so confident that the behaviour of the ball reflects its true nature? What is there in the world that can convince me I am not the subject of an elaborate, spherical conspiracy?'

‘What you propose has never been seen,' Tristan said. ‘You are right to say that this in itself is not enough to make it impossible. But we live in a world hewn from the past; you taught me as much. That which is true is that which has matched with fidelity our expectations. There is no better definition of truth available to us. I expect the ball to roll, and every time it has. So I say it must roll, and this is all I mean by “must”: that it always has, that I can predict with confidence that it will again, and that my prediction has until now never been disappointed.

‘This doesn't make it a universal truth,' Tristan continued. ‘The exception is always possible. There is no path from observation to universal truth. But neither is there a path to knowledge that does not pass through observation. So we are better to say universal truth is unknowable and content ourselves with this lesser form of knowing. When we speak of truth, this is all we ever mean: established reliability. That is why I do not hold the ball responsible for the crime we witnessed. That is all I mean when I say the ball is essentially different from you and me. I mean that until now, in every time and place it has been observed, the difference has held.'

During interrogations at St Augustine's the boys tried to keep their answers as short as possible. It was a discipline demanded of them and any digression was quickly cauterised. Today, though, the rector waited, as if wishing to hear more. And Tristan took hold of the rope and, with great confidence, fashioned his noose.

‘We strive to succeed and mostly we fail, yet we cannot know in advance the manner of our failure; if we did there would be nothing to strive for. The tension between knowledge and intention defines us—it makes us free. It is how I know we make choices, and know we are to be held accountable for these choices. It is why I blame you for lifting the ball, not the ball for destroying the statue.'

Tristan finished, pleased to find the fog clearing from his tired brain. Again the rector smiled.

‘Thank you. You have brought us quickly to the point that troubles me most. For, yes, you and I do appear to be morally responsible creatures. You and I do appear to make choices. In our behaviour we are neither random, like a speck of dust buffeted in its cloud, nor predictable, like the ball atop its ramp. Our actions then need further explanation. We are driven by something more: an apparent capacity to pilot our own vessel. Some call it the soul. Only…' he brought his fingers to his chin and leaned forward, as if drawing the words up from some deep dark well, ‘only, we are beginning to discover things that, well, they challenge me.

‘Tristan, what will follow will not always be pleasant. But knowledge is never easy; it is the fruit of battle and if our lives are to mean anything we must be prepared for the fight.

‘I could say more, but now is not the time. I will let you rest and consider the things we have discussed. You will live here now. The less you know, the more I can be sure our results will not be tainted. This morning has been a promising start. Thank you.'