Fifty-Minute Hour (11 page)

‘The striking similarity between gases and black holes comes from the latter's compliance with an interesting new law which …'

Bryan let his biro drop. He should be taking notes, scribbling like the rest of them, but his fingers wouldn't work. He had lost all co-ordination, could only sit and gaze, trap a few rare words – macrocosm, analogue, anthropic, synchrotron. He remembered now – his Father had used words like that when he'd told him bedtime stories, those wondrous silent stories which ranged from Istanbul to Saturn, from Yentai to the Pole Star.

Skerwin. He sucked the name, rolled it round its mouth to try to get its flavour. Yes, he really liked it. It was bracing and unusual, ended on an upbeat with that triumphant clinching ‘win'. He chewed at the B.K. ‘B' could stand for Bryan. Perhaps his Father's last request had been that his son should bear his name – another bond between them. And that mysterious middle ‘K'? Not Keith, he prayed, or Kevin, but something bold and regal like Kentigern or Kingsley. His Father deserved a more stirring second name than his own boring low-key Vernon.

‘Even if the disorder-probability arguments have only very approximate validity, the conclusion must be that we live in a world of …'

He glimpsed a young man yawning. How
dare
he yawn, insult his Father who was now in fullish flood. The woman beside him was quite a different story – obviously quite fascinated, and scrawling notes so fast her hand seemed battery-powered. He glanced sideways at her jotter. ‘Tracheotomy,' she'd written. ‘Uncongulated hyper– bilirubinaemia', ‘Ventricular Peritoneal shunt'. He stared down at the words – long impressive words again, yet he couldn't remember hearing any one of them, and why had she jotted ‘Neonatal' at the top? Had Skerwin been alluding to the birth-pangs of the universe, that violent cosmic havoc he'd read about with terror, when the new-born earth exploded out of madly crashing planets? He must have missed a good half of the lecture; been so deep inside his Father he'd been listening to the fanfare of his heart-beat, the sigh of his intestines, not his voice from the outside. He tried to burrow out, catch the shoals of words like flying fish, admire their gleaming scales, their writhing shining bodies.

‘The exact mathematical relationship between disorder and probability is, in fact, a so-called exponential relationship, but we'll deal with that more fully after the break. So if you'd like to get your coffees now and be back at seven-thirty …'

Bryan checked his watch. Seven-twelve exactly. Almost a whole hour had passed – the swiftest of his life. It had seemed like just five minutes, five leaping singing minutes. He rose, half-dazed, locked chairs with his neighbour who was also getting up.

‘I'm sorry.' ‘I'm so sorry.'

Their voices locked as well now. Both blushed, both tried to speak again at exactly the same moment.

‘Are you going for a …?' ‘Where d'you go for …?'

Both stopped again, confused. ‘Yes,
coffee
,' Bryan said clinchingly, drawing on new powers. ‘Er … may I ask your name?'

She smiled shyly, picked her bag up. ‘Mary Hampton.'

‘Pleased to meet you, Mary.' Oh, how he wished John-Paul was here as witness! He'd never been so forward, so absolutely shameless.

‘What's yours?'

‘I beg your pardon?' Was she offering him, a drink? He was so elated by his triumph he'd completely lost the thread.

‘Your name?'

‘Oh, I see. Er … Bryan. Yes, Bryan – Bryan Skerwin.'

‘Skerwin?'

‘Yes.' He felt a huge weight leave his shoulders – all his childhood sufferings: the asthma and the eczema, the hours locked in the coalhole with the Devil peering in, the greenfly on the lettuce, the brown skin on the rice, the white socks he'd had to wear still when he was fourteen and a half – all gone, all someone else's.

‘The same name as the tutor?' Mary clicked her bag open, dropped her jotter in.

‘Yes.' He shrugged, made his voice more casual. ‘He's my Father, actually.'

‘Your
father
?'

‘Yes.' Three yeses. He'd never felt so positive, even gestured with his hand to indicate that Mary should go first, that they were now definitely a twosome. She glanced up at the dais, where Skerwin was still sorting through his notes. One of his fawn raincoats had fallen on the floor and was lying like a skin he'd shed, a limp and dingy skin.

‘Yes,' she said herself. ‘I can see the resemblance now. It's actually quite striking.' She looked back at Bryan, her blue eyes narrowed slightly, as she appraised his form and features with what he felt was new respect. ‘Gosh! He's frightfully brainy, isn't he?'

‘Oh, yes.'

I'm afraid I couldn't grasp quite all of it. I mean, it's very sort of technical and I'm not that …'

‘Don't worry, you'll get the hang quite soon.' He nodded to the tutor, a collusive knowing nod, the sort that sons gave fathers, and which he knew Mary was observing. Skerwin blinked, seemed nervous dared a smile, grabbed it back immediately, dropped his second raincoat and a pen.

‘But I've been coming four whole weeks now. Do
you
come every week?'

‘I shall be doing, yes. I had to miss the first month. I've been busy, very busy – business meetings, trips abroad, you know the sort of thing?'

‘Oh, yes, I certainly do.'

She seemed worried suddenly, as if she'd slipped back to another world, one he couldn't enter. He mustn't let her go. ‘Well, how about that coffee?' he said what he hoped was nonchalantly, aware the room was empty now and that they'd never get a drink at all if they didn't make a move. He held the door for her, even dared to pick her coat-belt up where it was trailing on the floor. This was Friday, the worst day of his week, and he was walking down a passage with a woman – a real woman – not just a fantasy, a dream or wish-fulfilment. Mary Hampton. He liked her name. Not quite the ring of Skerwin, but simple, honest, English, easy to pronounce. He also liked her clothes: a matching skirt and jacket in a flattering blue fabric which so exactly matched her eyes they looked as if they'd been run up from an offcut. And a pretty frilly blouse with tiny summer flowers on – summer in October. His Mother still wore mourning; had worn it thirty years.

He could smell the canteen long before they reached it. It smelt of disinfectant, not of food; must be almost closing, since despite the crowd queuing at the counter, two girls in nylon overalls were trying to scrub the floor, banging chairs on tables, knocking shins with mops. The walls were shiny eau-de-Nil, the floor curry-coloured, with darker khaki wet patches. ‘Don't slip,' he warned, wishing they could escape from the long and jostling queue, those astronomers and physicists who now looked rather boring and were all in Mary's way. He might not find a seat for her, let alone a table to themselves. He frowned at the remaining food, a few dusty squares of fruitcake, where ‘fruit' meant half a cherry or one lonely orphaned currant; a custard tart with a crater in its custard, and two stale and curling sandwiches labelled ‘prawn' and ‘ham' respectively, though he could see nothing much inside them save the same pink-tinged liquid putty. Nice to have offered Mary something chic: Black Forest gateau, eaten with a fork, or an open sandwich garnished with a lemon slice and made from that expensive bread with the little nutty bits in.

She reached out for an Aero, put it on her tray.

‘This is on me,' he said, gesturing grandly to the counter, as if to suggest his bank-account was limitless, and if she wished to eat the tea-urn or the hotplate, he'd gladly meet their cost.

‘Oh, no – no, really.' Mary looked embarrassed, started fumbling for her purse.

‘I insist.' He paid for the two cups of tea (polystyrene cups, no saucers, plastic spoons), her Aero and a Lion Bar. He liked the picture on its wrapper of powerful mane and strong white sharp incisors. His Father had lost neither mane nor teeth.

All the tables were now crowded with their classmates, though again the word was wrong. Few seemed really matey, most still sullen silent, communing with their currants or sorting through their notes. And not a soul had said hallo to Mary, despite her month's attendance. He was much relieved by that, steered her to the far end of the room, where he put the plastic tray down on a sort of jutting ledge thing which should have been a windowsill, except the canteen had no windows. (Perhaps they'd been a casualty in the recent swingeing cuts. Glass and china cut, as well as courses.)

‘D'you live nearby?' asked Mary, as he passed her the sugar which was damp in patches like the floor, and streaked brown with coffee drips.

‘No. Er … Woodford.' It sounded slightly more acceptable than Upminster, and definitely more rural. Upminster's only claim to fame was its position as last station on the District Line at its unfashionable east end. The last station on most tube lines seemed invariably down-market, except for Wimbledon and Richmond, and maybe Amersham.

‘Ah, quite a long way out.'

‘Yes.'

‘Like me.'

She
lived in Woodford? God, no! He'd never been there in his life, and now she'd ask him if he knew the Smiths or Joneses, or that marvellous little restaurant in the High Street which …

‘We live in Walton – well, it's almost Weybridge, actually – a sort of no-man's-land between the two.'

‘Oh, really?' He put his Lion Bar down, choking on that ‘we'. He hadn't even thought to check her ring. He checked it now: a wide one – thick, expensive – yoking her to someone solid, wealthy. She could be widowed, though. ‘We' needn't mean a husband. There were endless permutations, enough for several lists – a son, a dog, a daughter, a mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, a workmate or companion, or all of them together. Perhaps she was divorced, which might explain the tears. She'd come straight from her solicitor, or from a cruel and stormy meeting with her ‘ex'. He must keep talking, mustn't lose her between the nisi and the absolute. She was already glancing round, would be straying any second, joining that big tall man by the radiator, or the dark one with that daunting college scarf.

‘Did you … um … find it hard to choose the class?' he asked.

‘Hard?'

‘Well, I mean, there's such an enormous choice. Not just all the sciences, but languages and arts and crafts and all the different histories and philosophy and music and keep-fit and archaeology …' He forced himself to stop. John-Paul had told him many times that his lists were counterproductive, since not only did they squander great reserves of time and energy, they also put his emotional life in a straitjacket.

‘Well, my husband chose it, actually. I was rather keen on “Gateaux and Patisseries”, but he said I ought to stretch myself, and also try a London class, instead of always local ones, which he said aren't half as good.'

Husband! Bryan jabbed his plastic spoon against the ledge, watched it split in three, then snapped each third into splinters. Perhaps the husband had lost interest, and was insisting on the class so he could keep that evening free for someone else; had probably only suggested London so he could woo a local woman without Mary running into them. Silence loomed and jarred again, though it wasn't very silent in his head. He could hear the clash of sword blades as he and Mary's husband duelled in the Vienna Woods; could hear his rival's breathing, agonised and laboured, the harsh cry of a vulture, as steel clanged angry steel. Mary cleared her throat, kept glancing at him nervously, as if hoping he would speak. He couldn't speak and fight. At last, she spoke herself.

‘I didn't realise there'd be so much of the science. I mean, I thought we'd have more of the “Society”, but he hasn't even mentioned that, not in four whole weeks. I'm not criticising – please don't get me wrong. He's obviously quite brilliant and …' Her voice tailed off. Bryan didn't help her out. He had fallen to one knee to inspect his rival's wound, blood sticky on his fingers, the dawn mist closing in. She took a bite of Aero, brushed chocolate crumbs from lips and lap before spilling out a few more nervous words.

‘I'm not that keen on London. It's so noisy, isn't it? But this centre was convenient, especially on a Friday. I … er … have to see a doctor every week. I'm having … treatment, actually, and the place I go to is only round the corner, so …'

Bryan streaked from the Vienna Woods back to the canteen. Mary's voice was breaking, one hand clenched, knuckles almost white as she fought to hold the tears back. So that's why she was crying earlier on. She must have something really serious – maybe even cancer. His aunt had died of cancer,
and
his boss's chauffeur's wife. No wonder she was stumbling on her words. Cancer was a word you couldn't say, nobody could say, just skirted round in terror or embarrassment. ‘Treatment' would mean that ghastly radiation, or drugs which made your hair fall out, or even a major operation. They'd probably just informed her that the tumour wasn't shrinking, or they'd discovered secondaries. How brave she was to come on to the class, not to let his Father down when her life was in the balance.

She'd taken off her jacket now and he could see several small but livid marks blistered on her forearm. Was that part of her treatment, some tiny but malignant growths they'd cauterised this very afternoon? He knew nothing about cancer – save it killed. Those bum marks on her hands – they weren't to do with oven-gloves or cookers, but had been inflicted by some doctor in a bid to stave off death. He glanced down at her remaining stub of Aero, its texture of brown holes, peered at it in horror as he recognised the fabric of the universe. Spacetime was like that – he'd just read it in the books – a complex labyrinth of holes and tunnels, exploding bubbles, frothy foam-like structures collapsing on themselves. Chaos in a chocolate bar – and not just Aero. Wasn't Cadbury's Chocolate Flake every bit as threatening, paralleling the crumbling microworld where nothing was substantial, but all solidities and certainties flaked away to nothing?