Turbulence (18 page)

I knew I had to stand up for myself. ‘Sir, this is important. I think it is what you wanted. These barriers can be paths along which pass significant fluxes of their own – sometimes with mass and momentum as large or larger than the adjacent flows which they separate.'

‘So you say, but what useful truth am I meant to take away from it for forecasting for the invasion?' His voice, challenging when he had previously spoken, then continued in a different tone, half plaintive, half bitter. ‘Current discussions between the forecasters on Stagg's team are extremely dynamical, if you'll excuse the pun. The end result is the meteorological equivalent of the Tower of Babel.'

One of the clocks made a whirring noise, as if resetting a spring inside itself. As the sound ended, I suddenly became aware of an altering of positions. I realised Sir Peter was tacitly pleading with me to take away from him the avalanche of anxiety about the landings which was being piled up on him by overbearing military superiors and by weather forecasters mired in deep disagreement.

Certain of the abiding rightness of Ryman's conception, I felt able to speak with authority, as if I were not Sir Peter's junior but his equal. ‘It's more of an approach than discrete knowledge. In music, it would be something like a fugue.'

The director gave a very deep sigh. ‘Meadows, have you any idea what Admiral Vian, or General Montgomery, or Air Marshal Tedder, still less Eisenhower himself, would say to me if I presented a fugue as our modus operandi? All they want is reasonable practical assurance of fine weather for a period of three to five days. What I have discovered, and the reason I sent you up to Ryman, is that we don't actually have any methodology for prediction beyond a day or two – apart from the American system of historical statistics, which our people don't think a safe basis. But at least it's a system. You've made
some clever theoretical points in the mid-ground between science and philosophy, but I can't see how any of it can be stiffened into practicality.'

‘There is one way, sir.'

‘What?'

‘This. We massively increase our instrumentation within a thousand-mile radius of the invasion site, taking special care to look out for the dialogic characteristics of these barrier-corridors. An increase in the volume and flow of positional information is the only way of taking account of the increase in complexity implied by what Ryman says.'

Giving a cry of disillusion, Sir Peter flung himself backward into the depths of the armchair. ‘Hah! I have got weather ships dotted between Reykjavik and New York in predetermined positions in the Atlantic. I have got daily meteorological reconnaissance flights going out under that vulgar appellation met rec from airstrips all over Britain and the Empire. You can see them for yourself on that map up there.'

He pointed at a weather map on the wall, hardly visible behind the array of clocks. ‘Not to mention every RAF station across Britain, from Langham in Norfolk to St David's in Wales, from Wick in Scotland to Chivenor in Devon, doing their THUMs. I've got data coming in from submarines in the Mozambique Channel and the Red Sea. I've got daily indications of weather from the resistance fighters in France, steamship captains in the Persian Gulf and Chindits in Assam. I've access to the full weather forecasts of the Red Army and bits and pieces from both Chiang Kai-shek and the communists in China. I have all this and yet you say I am data sparse?'

If my security clearance had been higher he might have added what has since become public knowledge – that he also had Enigma's decrypts of German meteorological reports from U-boats and British weather spies in the depths of
Poland and Belgium, sending up from clandestine aerials quick-burst radio transmissions which were picked up by our bombers as they passed overhead.

Nonetheless, I was still surprised by the freedom with which he bandied about what must have been classified information. All over the country posters were asking ‘Do You Know One of These?' and showing below cartoon characters such as Mr Know-All, Miss Leaky Mouth, Mr Glumpot, Mr Secrecy Hush Hush and Mr Pride in Prophecy – ‘He knows what the Germans are going to do and when they are going to do it. He knows where our ships are and what Bomber Command is going to do' – yet here was a senior official talking without a care, albeit to one who had signed the Official Secrets Act.

Vaward followed up his long, baying speech by saying loudly, almost shouting, ‘And do you know what? Scientifically speaking, you are right! Because, scientifically speaking, one can
never
have enough data. But these military men have a different culture – bend everything to the task, that's their view. Every piece of data gathered must work actively towards victory. That is the end of their hypothesising, not scientific truth in the abstract.'

I spoke softly, feeling like a doctor at the bedside of a patient. ‘I don't want to be a pessimist, sir. I simply report to you what Ryman told me. I'm sorry. I wish it were more momentous, but there it is. His main interest was the causes of war. Meteorology, once a passion, seemed to have become a distraction.'

A clock sounded, and Sir Peter seemed to take it as a sign to calm down. ‘I still think there is much more to be found out about that number,' he said, lighting another cigarette. ‘I was rather hoping you'd be the one to spill the beans.' He gave a sigh, blowing out smoke. ‘Perhaps it will have to wait till after the war.'

Feeling a wave of self-disgust pass through me, I watched
the smoke curls unwind themselves as they rose to the ceiling.

‘Here,' said Sir Peter gruffly, seeing me look and proffering his cigarette case, which I availed myself of. ‘A more immediate question,' he continued, ‘is what are we going to do with you now? I have two choices for you. The first is that you join Mr Stagg again. He has taken charge of the meteorological planning for the invasion of Europe and is in dire need of a personal assistant. He has asked for you, as I say, and it's not a bad idea, given that you know him already and are familiar with complex forecasting techniques. But I have also had a query from Combined Operations. Apparently Geoffrey Pyke, whom I understand you met in Dunoon, has asked that you be the meteorologist on something they are up to in Canada. They won't tell me what, exactly, but it concerns ice.'

My mind went back to the pub. So Habbakuk was something to do with ice, then.

Sir Peter continued. ‘So those are the two options. Despite your idiocy with that plane, I would be sad to lose you. My personal preference is that you help with the weather planning for the invasion. The greater urgency is there, no doubt about it. But I've always made it my policy to allow every man to choose his own destiny. That way he can find out what line of work he is really cut out for.'

I watched him write an address on a scrap of paper. ‘Pyke says you are to go to this address in Smithfield.'

His tired white face regarded me in the gloom. ‘Once you have done so, and talked to him, make your choice, Meadows. Let my secretary know, and she will make the necessary arrangements.'

‘Thank you, sir. I will try to make the right decision.'

‘Miss Clements will see you down,' he said, ushering me to the door. I felt he wanted to be rid of me now, but he had one last thing to say. ‘For God's sake, try not to kill anyone else.
I've had the devil of a time extracting you from this mess.'

But there was no sign of Miss Clements when I emerged. I stood under the portrait of FitzRoy, reconsidering my options for a moment. Right then, having had more than enough of weather, it was to ice that I was tending, somewhere clean and simple without the problematical involutions of the atmosphere and the dangerous gloss of an invasion. But I owed Sir Peter a great deal for his having taken my side in all that had happened.

I pressed the button for the lift to the ground floor. The door opened and there, like a genie from a bottle, Miss Clements appeared, carrying the score for Gilbert and Sullivan's
Pirates of
Penzance.
Suddenly fluent, romantically speaking, I forgot for a second the horror of Ryman's death, and the urgency of D-Day, and the ingenious plans of Pyke.

Miss Clements, it emerged in conversation, belonged to an amateur dramatics group. She had a rehearsal that evening. I knew the piece well, we used to do it at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge. Mentioning the weather duet in Act I as my cue –

– I stood for a while chatting with her, the lift door bouncing against my open palm.

Oh to be there again, to see her
face
. Clear, fine-textured, with a hint of sensuality, such as invited one's gaze to linger longer than was strictly polite. I would give up all my lamplit answers, any number of proofs and academic honours, to heave anchor for the past and see that face again. It makes me
wish I had brought a cassette of G&S, not Haydn, with me on this voyage. But it is no matter. The words come back unassisted across the fields of the ocean and the music does too: the mind's strong poetry, hoving across the deep-stretched years into this cocktail of wood and ice, this drinker of dolour and dollars, this knocker-back of riyals and heavy fuel oil, this vessel which we have christened
Habbakuk
:

Choir-voices of the sea …

I take out my pipe now and remember the time we said goodbye – for the last time. Through a tobacco fog I see her again, her face as massive in my mind's eye as the back of the mysterious cetacean monster which has returned to our side, that gigantic bull of a sperm whale which appeared at the start of the journey and seemed like a moving land.

Now it seems like a continent.

A light, fresh breeze was funnelling down Kingsway as, jolly from flirting and still humming to myself, I emerged from Adastral House. Looking back, I am shocked I could have forgotten Ryman's death so blithely, even if for a moment. But there were distractions … The breeze was carrying a scent of green apples from a grocer's trolley stall and cinnamon from a baker selling hot cross buns. The buns were laid out on greaseproof paper on lattice trays. I bought one and it was delicious. I could mention the sticky glaze on top, the way the light crust broke in, but the real thing I remember was the burst of sweetness when I hit a currant.

But maybe I am being too hard on myself – eating, drinking, most of all sex, those activities ease the turbulence of the flesh, allowing us, briefly, apparent escape from the burden of soul.

As I ate and walked, I recalled something Ryman had said about consciousness being like the berries in jam – that sometimes we are in the berry, sometimes in the jam, with the difference being that the ‘berries' are the exterior surfaces of consciously directed thoughts (such as one might explore while pursuing a line of research) whereas the jam is what we're mostly paddling around in. But now and then we hit upon a berry we were not expecting and that sends us down a train of associative thought, enabling us to leap from berry to berry like someone crossing a stream by stepping stones.

Eating my bun as I was, I suddenly remembered something else: a story that Ryman – who had spent some time teaching
at Paisley Technical College when he was younger – had told me about boys throwing teacakes at him while he was at the blackboard. We were moving along the beech tree walk, measuring out future memory pace by pace … I remember his tall bush of wiry grey hair moving in the breeze as he spoke …

‘I took the affair as a joke, but at the next lecture the bad effects of this were seen. They all brought in buns and pelted me with them. Throughout the term I got used to stale buns hitting me on the back of the head intermittently. It kept recurring. I asked each student in turn whether he was responsible and of course they all said no, so I told them that one of their number could add to his ungentlemanly qualities that of being a liar. They just laughed. Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw one in the act of throwing. His name was Patrick Latchford. In a moment of madness I seized him and made to drag him towards the door. He grabbed onto his desk and it came off its pedestal, hitting the floor with a loud bang. The lid flew open, scattering buns over the floor. There must have been at least twenty of them. It turned out his father was a baker. Anyway, that was the end of the lecture bun saga.'

Ryman had laughed then. It was good to recall him happy for once, and I found myself laughing, too, as I remembered it, though it was the kind of laughter that threatened to turn to tears in an instant. But Kingsway was busy with men and women, many in uniform, and the sun was shining through gaps of loose cloud. Maybe it was a signal one thing at least was going to go right, though in retrospect it's clear I had already received that, back at Adastral House.

I walked on a little, past an umbrella shop, a chop house, then hit Pen Corner – the Waterman's Pen shop on the corner of Kemble Street and Kingsway. In the window were fountain pens, silver and gold. They lay like bullet shells in their velvet
beds and they made me think of the shell cases in Ryman's study. I really should write to Gill; but what could I say? Sorry didn't seem anything like enough. On the contrary, it seemed like an insult.

The streets were filthy, and here and there were holes where there should have been buildings. A man in a brown coat, grey flannel trousers and a shirt with an open collar passed me. His right hand was dangling down with the thumb in the fold of a book with green boards, which I recognised as
Enquire Within
Upon Everything
, then a popular title. He had the look of a derelict or someone gone AWOL. Watching him pass, I suddenly became aware again of my own appearance, in particular the cuts on my face. I had not thought about them in the crucial meeting, though she would often joke about them in later years. Strange how different times can come back like this, as if the separate incidents are being reissued fresh.

Waiting for a bus, I took the piece of paper from my pocket and read what Sir Peter had written:
Morgan's, Smithfield, no
uniform
. I began plotting the journey in my head, stepping closer to the kerb and being jostled by the crowd of waiting passengers. I didn't see the bus, which came close enough to me to whip the paper from my hand – and didn't stop anyway. A murmuring grumble, like the beginnings of thunder far off in the sky, went through the knot of people. They were collected round a lamp post in a way that reminded me of the cattle in Kilmun, gathering round a salty post, or the cot-house when the oscillator was pipping.

Catching my breath, I fell to my knees to retrieve the paper from where it lay in the road, flapping like the wing of an injured bird. As I picked it up I became certain that I must throw in my hand with Pyke. Despite the assertions of special knowledge I had made to Sir Peter, the truth was that I felt that grasping the uncertainty of weather in a way coherent enough
for the generals was too much of a challenge. No amount of forecasting skill would ever give reasonable enough assurance to send so many men before gunfire. At least with ice there was some certainty: you knew it was going to melt.

For a second I stood paralysed by the hazy glamour of the ice field which was waiting for me in the future: the wraiths of snowdrift racing from under the paws of torchlit huskies, the sledges moving across the great white desert, the boiling green sea biting at its edges, the heroism of an Amundsen, a Shackleton, a Scott …

Still clutching the note, I made my way towards Holborn, passing on the way a pub called The Dagger. The sign above the door showed a knife held by a disembodied, gauntleted hand – some kind of heraldic emblem – with a sort of cloud painted round the pricking-point of the blade.

A point in space – but for once I successfully resisted the temptation to go in. Outside, a Guinness delivery lorry was waiting with its engine running, tainting the freshness of the breeze with its exhaust. I watched the greasy black cloud of its emissions drift down a side street into a stand of trees, where it was enmeshed by the moving leaves and branches. The dray-man, wearing old green overalls that recalled to me those worn by the foresters in Kilmun, was evidently waiting for someone to emerge, for he began sounding his horn repeatedly, blast upon blast. It was extremely loud.

As I walked away the sound carried after me on the wind, fading until I could no longer be sure if it was a present perception or a memory. It was as if I was in a labyrinth, lost halfway between the mental and physical worlds.