Chapters 1 to 4

[::: CHAPTER 1 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::]
This time there would be no witnesses. This time there was just the dead earth, a rumble of thunder, andthe onset of that interminable light drizzle from the north-east bywhich so many of the world’s most momentous events seem to beaccompanied. The storms of the day before, and of the day before that, and thefloods of the previous week, had now abated. The skies still bulgedwith rain, but all that actually fell in the gathering evening gloomwas a dreary kind of prickle. Some wind whipped across the darkening plain, blundered through thelow hills and gusted across a shallow valley where stood a structure, akind of tower, alone in a nightmare of mud, and leaning. It was a blackened stump of a tower. It stood like an extrusion ofmagma from one of the more pestilential pits of hell, and it leaned at a peculiar angle, as if oppressed by something altogether more terriblethan its own considerable weight. It seemed a dead thing, long agesdead. The only movement was that of a river of mud that moved sluggishlyalong the bottom of the valley past the tower. A mile or so further on,the river ran down a ravine and disappeared underground. But as the evening darkened it became apparent that the tower wasnot entirely without life. There was a single dim red light gutteringdeep within it. The light was only just visible -- except of course that there wasno one to see, no witnesses, not this time, but it was nevertheless alight. Every few minutes it grew a little stronger and a littlebrighter and then faded slowly away almost to nothing. At the same timea low keening noise drifted out on the wind, built up to a kind ofwailing climax, and then it too faded, abjectly, away. Time passed, and then another light appeared, a smaller, mobilelight. It emerged at ground level and moved in a single bobbing circuitof the tower, pausing occasionally on its way around. Then it, and theshadowy figure that could just be discerned carrying it, disappearedinside once more. An hour passed, and by the end of it the darkness was total. Theworld seemed dead, the night a blankness. And then the glow appeared again near the tower’s peak, this timegrowing in power more purposefully. It quickly reached the peak ofbrightness it had previously attained, and then kept going, increasing,increasing. The keening sound that accompanied it rose in pitch andstridency until it became a wailing scream. The scream screamed on andon till it became a blinding noise and the light a deafening redness. And then, abruptly, both ceased. There was a millisecond of silent darkness. An astonishing pale new light billowed and bulged from deep withinthe mud beneath the tower. The sky clenched, a mountain of mudconvulsed, earth and sky bellowed at each other, there was a horriblepinkness, a sudden greenness, a lingering orangeness that stained theclouds, and then the light sank and the night at last was deeply,hideously dark. There was no further sound other than the soft tinkleof water. But in the morning the sun rose with an unaccustomed sparkle on aday that was, or seemed to be, or at least would have seemed to be ifthere had been anybody there to whom it could seem to be anything atall, warmer, clearer and brighter -- an altogether livelier day thanany yet known. A clear river ran through the shattered remains of thevalley. And time began seriously to pass.

[::: CHAPTER 2 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::]
High on a rocky promontory sat an Electric Monk on a bored horse.From under its rough woven cowl the Monk gazed unblinkingly down intoanother valley, with which it was having a problem. The day was hot, the sun stood in an empty hazy sky and beat downupon the grey rocks and the scrubby, parched grass. Nothing moved, noteven the Monk. The horse’s tail moved a little, swishing slightly totry and move a little air, but that was all. Otherwise, nothing moved. The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or avideo recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus savingyou the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watchedtedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at ityourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you whatwas becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all thethings the world expected you to believe. Unfortunately this Electric Monk had developed a fault, and hadstarted to believe all kinds of things, more or less at random. It waseven beginning to believe things they’d have difficulty believing inSalt Lake City. It had never heard of Salt Lake City, of course. Norhad it ever heard of a quingigillion, which was roughly the number ofmiles between this valley and the Great Salt Lake of Utah. The problem with the valley was this. The Monk currently believedthat the valley and everything in the valley and around it, includingthe Monk itself and the Monk’s horse, was a uniform shade of pale pink.This made for a certain difficulty in distinguishing any one thing fromany other thing, and therefore made doing anything or going anywhereimpossible, or at least difficult and dangerous. Hence the immobilityof the Monk and the boredom of the horse, which had had to put up witha lot of silly things in its time but was secretly of the opinion thatthis was one of the silliest. How long did the Monk believe these things? Well, as far as the Monk was concerned, forever. The faith whichmoves mountains, or at least believes them against all the availableevidence to be pink, was a solid and abiding faith, a great rockagainst which the world could hurl whatever it would, yet it would notbe shaken. In practice, the horse knew, twenty-four hours was usuallyabout its lot. So what of this horse, then, that actually held opinions, and wassceptical about things? Unusual behaviour for a horse, wasn’t it? Anunusual horse perhaps? No. Although it was certainly a handsome and well-built example ofits species, it was none the less a perfectly ordinary horse, such asconvergent evolution has produced in many of the places that life is tobe found. They have always understood a great deal more than they leton. It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some othercreature, without forming an opinion about them. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, everyday, on top of another creature and not have the slightest thoughtabout them whatsoever. When the early models of these Monks were built, it was felt to beimportant that they be instantly recognisable as artificial objects.There must be no danger of their looking at all like real people. Youwouldn’t want your video recorder lounging around on the sofa all daywhile it was watching TV. You wouldn’t want it picking its nose,drinking beer and sending out for pizzas. So the Monks were built with an eye for originality of design andalso for practical horse-riding ability. This was important. People,and indeed things, looked more sincere on a horse. So two legs wereheld to be both more suitable and cheaper than the more normal primesof seventeen, nineteen or twenty-three; the skin the Monks were givenwas pinkish-looking instead of purple, soft and smooth instead ofcrenellated. They were also restricted to just one mouth and nose, butwere given instead an additional eye, making for a grand total of two.A strange-looking creature indeed. But truly excellent at believing themost preposterous things. This Monk had first gone wrong when it was simply given too much tobelieve in one day. It was, by mistake, cross-connected to a videorecorder that was watching eleven TV channels simultaneously, and thiscaused it to blow a bank of illogic circuits. The video recorder onlyhad to watch them, of course. It didn’t have to believe them all aswell. This is why instruction manuals are so important. So after a hectic week of believing that war was peace, that goodwas bad, that the moon was made of blue cheese, and that God needed alot of money sent to a certain box number, the Monk started to believethat thirty-five percent of all tables were hermaphrodites, and thenbroke down. The man from the Monk shop said that it needed a whole newmotherboard, but then pointed out that the new improved Monk Plusmodels were twice as powerful, had an entirely new multi-taskingNegative Capability feature that allowed them to hold up to sixteenentirely different and contradictory ideas in memory simultaneouslywithout generating any irritating system errors, were twice as fast andat least three times as glib, and you could have a whole new one forless than the cost of replacing the motherboard of the old model. That was it. Done. The faulty Monk was turned out into the desert where it couldbelieve what it liked, including the idea that it had been hard doneby. It was allowed to keep its horse, since horses were so cheap tomake. For a number of days and nights, which it variously believed to bethree, forty-three, and five hundred and ninety-eight thousand sevenhundred and three, it roamed the desert, putting its simple Electrictrust in rocks, birds, clouds and a form of non-existent elephant-asparagus, until at last it fetched up here, on this high rock,overlooking a valley that was not, despite the deep fervour of theMonk’s belief, pink. Not even a little bit. Time passed.

[::: CHAPTER 3 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::]
Time passed. Susan waited. The more Susan waited, the more the doorbell didn’t ring. Or thephone. She looked at her watch. She felt that now was about the timethat she could legitimately begin to feel cross. She was cross already,of course, but that had been in her own time, so to speak. They werewell and truly into his time now, and even allowing for traffic,mishaps, and general vagueness and dilatoriness, it was now well overhalf an hour past the time that he had insisted was the latest timethey could possibly afford to leave, so she’d better be ready. She tried to worry that something terrible had happened to him, butdidn’t believe it for a moment. Nothing terrible ever happened to him,though she was beginning to think that it was time it damn well did. Ifnothing terrible happened to him soon maybe she’d do it herself. Nowthere was an idea. She threw herself crossly into the armchair and watched the news ontelevision. The news made her cross. She flipped the remote control andwatched something on another channel for a bit. She didn’t know what itwas, but it also made her cross. Perhaps she should phone. She wasdamned if she was going to phone. Perhaps if she phoned he would phoneher at the same moment and not be able to get through. She refused to admit that she had even thought that. Damn him, where was he? Who cared where he was anyway? She didn’t,that was for sure. Three times in a row he’d done this. Three times in a row wasenough. She angrily flipped channels one more time. There was aprogramme about computers and some interesting new developments in thefield of things you could do with computers and music. That was it. That was really it. She knew that she had told herselfthat that was it only seconds earlier, but this was now the final realultimate it. She jumped to her feet and went to the phone, gripping an angryFilofax. She flipped briskly through it and dialed a number. ‘Hello, Michael? Yes, it’s Susan. Susan Way. You said I should callyou if I was free this evening and I said I’d rather be dead in aditch, remember? Well, I suddenly discover that I am free, absolutely,completely and utterly free, and there isn’t a decent ditch for milesaround. Make your move while you’ve got your chance is my advice toyou. I’ll be at the Tangiers Club in half an hour.’ She pulled on her shoes and coat, paused when she remembered that itwas Thursday and that she should put a fresh, extra-long tape on theanswering machine, and two minutes later was out of the front door.When at last the phone did ring the answering machine said sweetly thatSusan Way could not come to the phone just at the moment, but that ifthe caller would like to leave a message, she would get back to them assoon as possible. Maybe.

[::: CHAPTER 4 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::]
It was a chill November evening of the old-fashioned type. The moon looked pale and wan, as if it shouldn’t be up on a nightlike this. It rose unwillingly and hung like an ill spectre.Silhouetted against it, dim and hazy through the dampness which rosefrom the unwholesome fens, stood the assorted towers and turrets of StCedd’s, Cambridge, a ghostly profusion of buildings thrown up overcenturies, medieval next to Victorian, Odeon next to Tudor. Only risingthrough the mist did they seem remotely to belong to one another. Between them scurried figures, hurrying from one dim pool of lightto another, shivering, leaving wraiths of breath which foldedthemselves into the cold night behind them. It was seven o’clock. Many of the figures were heading for thecollege dining hall which divided First Court from Second Court, andfrom which warm light, reluctantly, streamed. Two figures in particularseemed ill-matched. One, a young man, was tall, thin and angular; evenmuffled inside a heavy dark coat he walked a little like an affrontedheron. The other was small, roundish, and moved with an ungainlyrestlessness, like a number of elderly squirrels trying to escape froma sack. His own age was on the older side of completely indeterminate.If you picked a number at random, he was probably a little older thanthat, but -- well, it was impossible to tell. Certainly his face washeavily lined, and the small amount of hair that escaped from under hisred woollen skiing hat was thin, white, and had very much its own ideasabout how it wished to arrange itself. He too was muffled inside aheavy coat, but over it he wore a billowing gown with very faded purpletrim, the badge of his unique and peculiar academic office. As they walked the older man was doing all the talking. He waspointing at items of interest along the way, despite the fact that itwas too dark to see any of them. The younger man was saying ‘Ah yes,’and ‘Really? How interesting...’ and ‘Well, well, well,’ and ‘Goodheavens.’ His head bobbed seriously. They entered, not through the main entrance to the hall, but througha small doorway on the east side of the court. This led to the SeniorCombination Room and a dark-panelled anteroom where the Fellows of thecollege assembled to slap their hands and make ‘brrrrrr’ noises beforemaking their way through their own entrance to the High Table. They were late and shook off their coats hurriedly. This wascomplicated for the older man by the necessity first of taking off hisprofessorial gown, and then of putting it back on again once his coatwas off, then of stuffing his hat in his coat pocket, then of wonderingwhere he’d put his scarf, and then of realising that he hadn’t broughtit, then of fishing in his coat pocket for his handkerchief, then offishing in his other coat pocket for his spectacles, and finally offinding them quite unexpectedly wrapped in his scarf, which it turnedout he had brought after all but hadn’t been wearing despite the dampand bitter wind blowing in like a witch’s breath from across the fens. He bustled the younger man into the hall ahead of him and they tookthe last two vacant seats at the High Table, braving a flurry of frownsand raised eyebrows for interrupting the Latin grace to do so. Hall was full tonight. It was always more popular with theundergraduates in the colder months. More unusually, the hall wascandlelit, as it was now only on very few special occasions. Two long,crowded tables stretched off into the glimmering darkness. Bycandlelight, people’s faces were more alive, the hushed sounds of theirvoices, the clink of cutlery and glasses, seemed more exciting, and inthe dark recesses of the great hall, all the centuries for which it hadexisted seemed present at once. High Table itself formed a crosspieceat the top, and was raised about a foot above the rest. Since it was aguest night, the table was set on both sides to accommodate the extranumbers, and many diners therefore sat with their backs to the rest ofthe hall. ‘So, young MacDuff,’ said the Professor once he was seated andflapping his napkin open, ‘pleasure to see you again, my dear fellow.Glad you could come. No idea what all this is about,’ he added, peeringround the hall in consternation. ‘All the candles and silver andbusiness. Generally means a special dinner in honour of someone orsomething no one can remember anything about except that it meansbetter food for a night.’ He paused and thought for a moment, and then said, ‘It seems odd,don’t you think, that the quality of the food should vary inverselywith the brightness of the lighting. Makes you wonder what culinaryheights the kitchen staff could rise to if you confined them toperpetual darkness. Could be worth a try, I think. Got some good vaultsin the college that could be turned over to the purpose. I think Ishowed you round them once, hmmm? Nice brickwork.’ All this came as something of a relief to his guest. It was thefirst indication his host had given that he had the faintestrecollection who he was. Professor Urban Chronotis, the RegiusProfessor of Chronology, or ‘Reg’ as he insisted on being called had amemory that he himself had once compared to the Queen AlexandraBirdwing Butterfly, in that it was colourful, flitted prettily hitherand thither, and was now, alas, almost completely extinct. When he had telephoned with the invitation a few days previously, hehad seemed extremely keen to see his former pupil, and yet when Richardhad arrived this evening, a little on the late side, admittedly, theProfessor had thrown open the door apparently in anger, had started insurprise on seeing Richard, demanded to know if he was having emotionalproblems, reacted in annoyance to being reminded gently that it was nowten years since he had been Richard’s college tutor, and finally agreedthat Richard had indeed come for dinner, whereupon he, the Professor,had started talking rapidly and at length about the history of thecollege architecture, a sure sign that his mind was elsewhere entirely. ‘Reg’ had never actually taught Richard, he had only been hiscollege tutor, which meant in short that he had had charge of hisgeneral welfare, told him when the exams were and not to take drugs,and so on. Indeed, it was not entirely clear if Reg had ever taughtanybody at all and what, if anything, he would have taught them. Hisprofessorship was an obscure one, to say the least, and since hedispensed with his lecturing duties by the simple and time-honouredtechnique of presenting all his potential students with an exhaustivelist of books that he knew for a fact had been out of print for thirtyyears, then flying into a tantrum if they failed to find them, no onehad ever discovered the precise nature of his academic discipline. Hehad, of course, long ago taken the precaution of removing the onlyextant copies of the books on his reading list from the university andcollege libraries, as a result of which he had plenty of time to, well,to do whatever it was he did. Since Richard had always managed to get on reasonably well with theold fruitcake, he had one day plucked up courage to ask him what,exactly, the Regius Professorship of Chronology was. It had been one ofthose light summery days when the world seems about to burst withpleasure at simply being itself, and Reg had been in anuncharacteristically forthcoming mood as they had walked over thebridge where the River Cam divided the older parts of the college fromthe newer. ‘Sinecure, my dear fellow, an absolute sinecure,’ he had beamed. ‘Asmall amount of money for a very small, or shall we say non-existent,amount of work. That puts me permanently just ahead of the game, whichis a comfortable if frugal place to spend your life. I recommend it.’He leaned over the edge of the bridge and started to point out aparticular brick that he found interesting. ‘But what sort of study isit supposed to be?’ Richard had pursued. ‘Is it history? Physics?Philosophy? What?’ ‘Well,’ said Reg, slowly, ‘since you’re interested, the chair wasoriginally instituted by King George III, who, as you know, entertaineda number of amusing notions, including the belief that one of the treesin Windsor Great Park was in fact Frederick the Great. ‘It was his own appointment, hence “Regius”. His own idea as well,which is somewhat more unusual.’ Sunlight played along the River Cam. People in punts happily shoutedat each other to fuck off. Thin natural scientists who had spent monthslocked away in their rooms growing white and fishlike, emerged blinkinginto the light. Couples walking along the bank got so excited about thegeneral wonderfulness of it all that they had to pop inside for anhour. ‘The poor beleaguered fellow,’ Reg continued, ‘George III, I mean,was, as you may know, obsessed with time. Filled the palace withclocks. Wound them incessantly. Sometimes would get up in the middle ofthe night and prowl round the palace in his nightshirt winding clocks.He was very concerned that time continued to go forward, you see. Somany terrible things had occurred in his life that he was terrifiedthat any of them might happen again if time were ever allowed to slipbackwards even for a moment. A very understandable fear, especially ifyou’re barking mad, as I’m afraid to say, with the very greatestsympathy for the poor fellow, he undoubtedly was. He appointed me, orrather I should say, my office, this professorship, you understand, thepost that I am now privileged to hold to -- where was I? Oh yes. Heinstituted this, er, Chair of Chronology to see if there was anyparticular reason why one thing happened after another and if there wasany way of stopping it. Since the answers to the three questions were,I knew immediately, yes, no, and maybe, I realised I could then takethe rest of my career off.’ ‘And your predecessors?’ ‘Er, were much of the same mind.’ ‘But who were they?’ ‘Who were they? Well, splendid fellows of course, splendid to a man.Remind me to tell you about them some day. See that brick? Wordsworthwas once sick on that brick. Great man.’ All that had been about ten years ago. Richard glanced around the great dining hall to see what had changedin the time, and the answer was, of course, absolutely nothing. In thedark heights, dimly seen by the flickering candlelight, were theghostly portraits of prime ministers, archbishops, political reformersand poets, any of whom might, in their day, have been sick on that samebrick. ‘Well,’ said Reg, in a loudly confidential whisper, as ifintroducing the subject of nipple-piercing in a nunnery, ‘I hear you’vesuddenly done very well for yourself, at last, hmmm?’ ‘Er, well, yes, in fact,’ said Richard, who was as surprised at thefact as anybody else, ‘yes, I have.’ Around the table several gazes stiffened on him. ‘Computers,’ he heard somebody whisper dismissively to a neighbourfurther down the table. The stiff gazes relaxed again, and turnedaway. ‘Excellent,’ said Reg. ‘I’m so pleased for you, so pleased.’ ‘Tell me,’ he went on, and it was a moment before Richard realisedthat the Professor wasn’t talking to him any more, but had turned tothe right to address his other neighbour, ‘what’s all this about,this,’ he flourished a vague hand over the candles and college silver,‘...stuff?’ His neighbour, an elderly wizened figure, turned very slowly andlooked at him as if he was rather annoyed at being raised from the deadlike this. ‘Coleridge,’ he said in a thin rasp, ‘it’s the Coleridge Dinner youold fool.’ He turned very slowly back until he was facing the frontagain. His name was Cawley, he was a Professor of Archaeology andAnthropology, and it was frequently said of him, behind his back, thathe regarded it not so much as a serious academic study, more as achance to relive his childhood. ‘Ah, is it,’ murmured Reg, ‘is it?’ and turned back to Richard.‘It’s the Coleridge Dinner,’ he said knowledgeably. ‘Coleridge was amember of the college, you know,’ he added after a moment. ‘Coleridge.Samuel Taylor. Poet. I expect you’ve heard of him. This is his Dinner.Well, not literally, of course. It would be cold by now.’ Silence.‘Here, have some salt.’ ‘Er, thank you, I think I’ll wait,’ said Richard, surprised. Therewas no food on the table yet. ‘Go on, take it,’ insisted the Professor, proffering him the heavysilver salt cellar. Richard blinked in bemusement but with an interior shrug he reachedto take it. In the moment that he blinked, however, the salt cellar hadcompletely vanished. He started back in surprise. ‘Good one, eh?’ said Reg as he retrieved the missing cruet frombehind the ear of his deathly right-hand neighbour, provoking asurprisingly girlish giggle from somewhere else at the table. Regsmiled impishly. ‘Very irritating habit, I know. It’s next on my listfor giving up after smoking and leeches.’ Well, that was another thing that hadn’t changed. Some people picktheir noses, others habitually beat up old ladies on the streets. Reg’svice was a harmless if peculiar one -- an addiction to childishconjuring tricks. Richard remembered the first time he had been to seeReg with a problem -- it was only the normal Angst that periodicallytakes undergraduates into its grip, particularly when they have essaysto write, but it had seemed a dark and savage weight at the time. Reghad sat and listened to his outpourings with a deep frown ofconcentration, and when at last Richard had finished, he ponderedseriously, stroked his chin a lot, and at last leaned forward andlooked him in the eye. ‘I suspect that your problem,’ he said, ‘is that you have too manypaper clips up your nose.’ Richard stared at him. ‘Allow me to demonstrate,’ said Reg, and leaning across the desk hepulled from Richard’s nose a chain of eleven paper clips and a smallrubber swan. ‘Ah, the real culprit,’ he said, holding up the swan. ‘They come incereal packets, you know, and cause no end of trouble. Well, I’m gladwe’ve had this little chat, my dear fellow. Please feel free to disturbme again if you have any more such problems.’ Needless to say, Richard didn’t. Richard glanced around the table to see if there was anybody else herecognised from his time at the college. Two places away to the left was the don who had been Richard’sDirector of Studies in English, who showed no signs of recognising himat all. This was hardly surprising since Richard had spent his threeyears here assiduously avoiding him, often to the extent of growing abeard and pretending to be someone else. Next to him was a man whom Richard had never managed to identify.Neither, in fact, had anyone else. He was thin and vole-like and hadthe most extraordinarily long bony nose -- it really was very, verylong and bony indeed. In fact it looked a lot like the controversialkeel which had helped the Australians win the America’s Cup in 1983,and this resemblance had been much remarked upon at the time, thoughnot of course to his face. No one had said anything to his face at all. No one. Ever. Anyone meeting him for the first time was too startled andembarrassed by his nose to speak, and the second time was worse becauseof the first time, and so on. Years had gone by now, seventeen in all.In all that time he had been cocooned in silence. In hall it had longbeen the habit of the college servants to position a separate set ofsalt, pepper and mustard on either side of him, since no one could askhim to pass them, and to ask someone sitting on the other side of himwas not only rude but completely impossible because of his nose beingin the way. The other odd thing about him was a series of gestures he made andrepeated regularly throughout every evening. They consisted of tappingeach of the fingers of his left hand in order, and then one of thefingers of his right hand. He would then occasionally tap some otherpart of his body, a knuckle, an elbow or a knee. Whenever he was forcedto stop this by the requirements of eating he would start blinking eachof his eyes instead, and occasionally nodding. No one, of course, hadever dared to ask him why he did this, though all were consumed withcuriosity. Richard couldn’t see who was sitting beyond him. In the other direction, beyond Reg’s deathly neighbour, was Watkin,the Classics Professor, a man of terrifying dryness and oddity. Hisheavy rimless glasses were almost solid cubes of glass within which hiseyes appeared to lead independent existences like goldfish. His nosewas straight enough and ordinary, but beneath it he wore the same beardas Clint Eastwood. His eyes gazed swimmingly around the table as heselected who was going to be spoken at tonight. He had thought that hisprey might be one of the guests, the newly appointed Head of RadioThree, who was sitting opposite -- but unfortunately he had alreadybeen ensnared by the Music Director of the college and a Professor ofPhilosophy. These two were busy explaining to the harassed man that thephrase ‘too much Mozart’ was, given any reasonable definition of thosethree words, an inherently self-contradictory expression, and that anysentence which contained such a phrase would be thereby renderedmeaningless and could not, consequently, be advanced as part of anargument in favour of any given programme-scheduling strategy. The poorman was already beginning to grip his cutlery too tightly. His eyesdarted about desperately looking for rescue, and made the mistake oflighting on those of Watkin. ‘Good evening,’ said Watkin with smiling charm, nodding in the mostfriendly way, and then letting his gaze settle glassily on to his bowlof newly arrived soup, from which position it would not allow itself tobe moved. Yet. Let the bugger suffer a little. He wanted the rescue tobe worth at least a good half dozen radio talk fees. Beyond Watkin, Richard suddenly discovered the source of the littlegirlish giggle that had greeted Reg’s conjuring trick. Astonishinglyenough it was a little girl. She was about eight years old with blondehair and a glum look. She was sitting occasionally kicking pettishly atthe table leg. ‘Who’s that?’ Richard asked Reg in surprise. ‘Who’s what?’ Reg asked Richard in surprise. Richard inclined a finger surreptitiously in her direction. ‘Thegirl,’ he whispered, ‘the very, very little girl. Is it some new mathsprofessor?’ Reg peered round at her. ‘Do you know,’ he said in astonishment, ‘Ihaven’t the faintest idea. Never known anything like it. Howextraordinary.’ At that moment the problem was solved by the man from the BBC, whosuddenly wrenched himself out of the logical half-nelson into which hisneighbours had got him, and told the girl off for kicking the table.She stopped kicking the table, and instead kicked the air withredoubled vigour. He told her to try and enjoy herself, so she kickedhim. This did something to bring a brief glimmer of pleasure into herglum evening, but it didn’t last. Her father briefly shared with thetable at large his feelings about baby-sitters who let people down, butnobody felt able to run with the topic. ‘A major season of Buxtehude,’ resumed the Director of Music, ‘is ofcourse clearly long overdue. I’m sure you’ll be looking forward toremedying this situation at the first opportunity.’ ‘Oh, er, yes,’ replied the girl’s father, spilling his soup, ‘er,that is... he’s not the same one as Gluck, is he?’ The little girl kicked the table leg again. When her father lookedsternly at her, she put her head on one side and mouthed a question athim. ‘Not now,’ he insisted at her as quietly as he could. ‘When, then?’ ‘Later. Maybe. Later, we’ll see.’ She hunched grumpily back in her seat. ‘You always say later,’ shemouthed at him. ‘Poor child,’ murmured Reg. ‘There isn’t a don at this table whodoesn’t behave exactly like that inside. Ah, thank you.’ Their souparrived, distracting his attention, and Richard’s. ‘So tell me,’ said Reg, after they had both had a couple ofspoonsful and arrived independently at the same conclusion, that it wasnot a taste explosion, ‘what you’ve been up to, my dear chap. Somethingto do with computers, I understand, and also to do with music. Ithought you read English when you were here -- though only, I realise,in your spare time.’ He looked at Richard significantly over the rim ofhis soup spoon. ‘Now wait,’ he interrupted before Richard even had achance to start, ‘don’t I vaguely remember that you had some sort ofcomputer when you were here? When was it? 1977?’ ‘Well, what we called a computer in 1977 was really a kind ofelectric abacus, but...’ ‘Oh, now, don’t underestimate the abacus,’ said Reg. ‘In skilledhands it’s a very sophisticated calculating device. Furthermore itrequires no power, can be made with any materials you have to hand, andnever goes bing in the middle of an important piece of work.’ ‘So an electric one would be particularly pointless,’ said Richard. ‘True enough,’ conceded Reg. ‘There really wasn’t a lot this machine could do that you couldn’tdo yourself in half the time with a lot less trouble,’ said Richard,‘but it was, on the other hand, very good at being a slow and dim-witted pupil.’ Reg looked at him quizzically. ‘I had no idea they were supposed to be in short supply,’ he said.‘I could hit a dozen with a bread roll from where I’m sitting.’ ‘I’m sure. But look at it this way. What really is the point oftrying to teach anything to anybody?’ This question seemed to provoke a murmur of sympathetic approvalfrom up and down the table. Richard continued, ‘What I mean is that if you really want tounderstand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someoneelse. That forces you to sort it out in your own mind. And the moreslow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things downinto more and more simple ideas. And that’s really the essence ofprogramming. By the time you’ve sorted out a complicated idea intolittle steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you’ve certainlylearned something about it yourself. The teacher usually learns morethan the pupil. Isn’t that true?’ ‘It would be hard to learn much less than my pupils,’ came a lowgrowl from somewhere on the table, ‘without undergoing a pre-frontallobotomy.’ ‘So I used to spend days struggling to write essays on this 16Kmachine that would have taken a couple of hours on a typewriter, butwhat was fascinating to me was the process of trying to explain to themachine what it was I wanted it to do. I virtually wrote my own wordprocessor in BASIC. A simple search and replace routine would takeabout three hours.’ ‘I forget, did you ever get any essays done at all?’ ‘Well, not as such. No actual essays, but the reasons why not wereabsolutely fascinating. For instance, I discovered that...’ He broke off, laughing at himself. ‘I was also playing keyboards in a rock group, of course,’ he added.‘That didn’t help.’ ‘Now, that I didn’t know,’ said Reg. ‘Your past has murkier thingsin it than I dreamed possible. A quality, I might add, that it shareswith this soup.’ He wiped his mouth with his napkin very carefully. ‘Imust go and have a word with the kitchen staff one day. I would like tobe sure that they are keeping the right bits and throwing the properbits away. So. A rock group, you say. Well, well, well. Good heavens.’ ‘Yes,’ said Richard. ‘We called ourselves The Reasonably Good Band,but in fact we weren’t. Our intention was to be the Beatles of theearly eighties, but we got much better financial and legal advice thanthe Beatles ever did, which was basically ‘Don’t bother’, so we didn’t.I left Cambridge and starved for three years.’ ‘But didn’t I bump into you during that period,’ said Reg, ‘and yousaid you were doing very well?’ ‘As a road sweeper, yes. There was an awful lot of mess on theroads. More than enough, I felt, to support an entire career. However,I got the sack for sweeping the mess on to another sweeper’s patch.’ Reg shook his head. ‘The wrong career for you, I’m sure. There areplenty of vocations where such behaviour would ensure rapidpreferment.’ ‘I tried a few -- none of them much grander, though. And I kept noneof them very long, because I was always too tired to do them properly.I’d be found asleep slumped over the chicken sheds or filing cabinets -- depending on what the job was. Been up all night with the computeryou see, teaching it to play “Three Blind Mice”. It was an importantgoal for me.’ ‘I’m sure,’ agreed Reg. ‘Thank you,’ he said to the college servantwho took his half-finished plate of soup from him, ‘thank you verymuch. “Three Blind Mice”, eh? Good. Good. So no doubt you succeededeventually, and this accounts for your present celebrated status. Yes?’ ‘Well, there’s a bit more to it than that.’ ‘I feared there might be. Pity you didn’t bring it with you though.It might have cheered up the poor young lady who is currently havingour dull and crusty company forced upon her. A swift burst of “ThreeBlind Mice” would probably do much to revive her spirits.’ He leanedforward to look past his two right-hand neighbours at the girl, who wasstill sitting sagging in her chair. ‘Hello,’ he said. She looked up in surprise, and then dropped her eyes shyly, swingingher legs again. ‘Which do you think is worse,’ enquired Reg, ‘the soup or thecompany?’ She gave a tiny, reluctant laugh and shrugged, still looking down. ‘I think you’re wise not to commit yourself at this stage,’continued Reg. ‘Myself, I’m waiting to see the carrots before I makeany judgements. They’ve been boiling them since the weekend, but I fearit may not be enough. The only thing that could possibly be worse thanthe carrots is Watkin. He’s the man with the silly glasses sittingbetween us. My name’s Reg, by the way. Come over and kick me when youhave a moment.’ The girl giggled and glanced up at Watkin, whostiffened and made an appallingly unsuccessful attempt to smile good-naturedly. ‘Well, little girl,’ he said to her awkwardly, and she haddesperately to suppress a hoot of laughter at his glasses. Littleconversation therefore ensued, but the girl had an ally, and began toenjoy herself a tiny little bit. Her father gave her a relieved smile. Reg turned back to Richard, who said, suddenly, ‘Do you have anyfamily?’ ‘Er... no,’ said Reg, quietly. ‘But tell me. After “Three BlindMice”, what then?’ ‘Well, to cut a long story short, Reg, I ended up working forWayForward Technologies...’ ‘Ah, yes, the famous Mr Way. Tell me, what’s he like?’ Richard was always faintly annoyed by this question, probablybecause he was asked it so often. ‘Both better and worse than he’s represented in the press. I likehim a lot, actually. Like any driven man he can be a bit trying attimes, but I’ve known him since the very early days of the company whenneither he nor I had a bean to our names. He’s fine. It’s just thatit’s a good idea not to let him have your phone number unless youpossess an industrial-grade answering machine.’ ‘What? Why’s that?’ ‘Well, he’s one of those people who can only think when he’stalking. When he has ideas, he has to talk them out to whoever willlisten. Or, if the people themselves are not available, which isincreasingly the case, their answering machines will do just as well.He just phones them up and talks at them. He has one secretary whosesole job is to collect tapes from people he might have phoned,transcribe them, sort them and give him the edited text the next day ina blue folder.’ ‘A blue one, eh?’ ‘Ask me why he doesn’t simply use a tape recorder,’ said Richardwith a shrug. Reg considered this. ‘I expect he doesn’t use a tape recorderbecause he doesn’t like talking to himself,’ he said. ‘There is a logicthere. Of a kind.’ He took a mouthful of his newly arrived porc au poivre andruminated on it for a while before gently laying his knife and forkaside again for the moment. ‘So what,’ he said at last, ‘is the role of young MacDuff in allthis?’ ‘Well, Gordon assigned me to write a major piece of software for theApple Macintosh. Financial spreadsheet, accounting, that sort of thing,powerful, easy to use, lots of graphics. I asked him exactly what hewanted in it, and he just said, “Everything. I want the top piece ofall-singing, all-dancing business software for that machine.” And beingof a slightly whimsical turn of mind I took him literally. ‘You see, a pattern of numbers can represent anything you like, canbe used to map any surface, or modulate any dynamic process -- and soon. And any set of company accounts are, in the end, just a pattern ofnumbers. So I sat down and wrote a program that’ll take those numbersand do what you like with them. If you just want a bar graph it’ll dothem as a bar graph, if you want them as a pie chart or scatter graphit’ll do them as a pie chart or scatter graph. If you want dancinggirls jumping out of the pie chart in order to distract attention fromthe figures the pie chart actually represents, then the program will dothat as well. Or you can turn your figures into, for instance, a flockof seagulls, and the formation they fly in and the way in which thewings of each gull beat will be determined by the performance of eachdivision of your company. Great for producing animated corporate logosthat actually mean something. ‘But the silliest feature of all was that if you wanted your companyaccounts represented as a piece of music, it could do that as well.Well, I thought it was silly. The corporate world went bananas overit.’ Reg regarded him solemnly from over a piece of carrot poiseddelicately on his fork in front of him, but did not interrupt. ‘You see, any aspect of a piece of music can be expressed as asequence or pattern of numbers,’ enthused Richard. ‘Numbers can expressthe pitch of notes, the length of notes, patterns of pitches andlengths.’ ‘You mean tunes,’ said Reg. The carrot had not moved yet. Richard grinned. ‘Tunes would be a very good word for it. I must remember that.’ ‘It would help you speak more easily.’ Reg returned the carrot tohis plate, untasted. ‘And this software did well, then?’ he asked. ‘Not so much here. The yearly accounts of most British companiesemerged sounding like the Dead March from Saul, but in Japan theywent for it like a pack of rats. It produced lots of cheery companyanthems that started well, but if you were going to criticise you’dprobably say that they tended to get a bit loud and squeaky at the end.Did spectacular business in the States, which was the main thing,commercially. Though the thing that’s interesting me most now is whathappens if you leave the accounts out of it. Turn the numbers thatrepresent the way a swallow’s wings beat directly into music. Whatwould you hear? Not the sound of cash registers, according to Gordon.’ ‘Fascinating,’ said Reg, ‘quite fascinating,’ and popped the carrotat last into his mouth. He turned and leaned forward to speak to hisnew girlfriend. ‘Watkin loses,’ he pronounced. ‘The carrots have achieved a new all-time low. Sorry, Watkin, but awful as you are, the carrots, I’m afraid,are world-beaters.’ The girl giggled more easily than last time and she smiled at him.Watkin was trying to take all this good-naturedly, but it was clear ashis eyes swam at Reg that he was more used to discomfiting than beingdiscomfited. ‘Please, Daddy, can I now?’ With her new-found, if slight,confidence, the girl had also found a voice. ‘Later,’ insisted her father. ‘This is already later. I’ve been timing it.’ ‘Well...’ He hesitated, and was lost. ‘We’ve been to Greece,’ announced the girl in a small but awedvoice. ‘Ah, have you indeed,’ said Watkin, with a little nod. ‘Well, well.Anywhere in particular, or just Greece generally?’ ‘Patmos,’ she said decisively. ‘It was beautiful. I think Patmos isthe most beautiful place in the whole world. Except the ferry nevercame when it said it would. Never, ever. I timed it. We missed ourflight but I didn’t mind.’ ‘Ah, Patmos, I see,’ said Watkin, who was clearly roused by thenews. ‘Well, what you have to understand, young lady, is that theGreeks, not content with dominating the culture of the Classical world,are also responsible for the greatest, some would say the only, work oftrue creative imagination produced this century as well. I refer ofcourse to the Greek ferry timetables. A work of the sublimest fiction.Anyone who has travelled in the Aegean will confirm this. Hmm, yes. Ithink so.’ She frowned at him. ‘I found a pot,’ she said. ‘Probably nothing,’ interrupted her father hastily. ‘You know theway it is. Everyone who goes to Greece for the first time thinksthey’ve found a pot, don’t they? Ha, ha.’ There were general nods. This was true. Irritating, but true. ‘I found it in the harbour,’ she said, ‘in the water. While we werewaiting for the damn ferry.’ ‘Sarah! I’ve told you...’ ‘It’s just what you called it. And worse. You called it words Ididn’t think you knew. Anyway, I thought that if everyone here wasmeant to be so clever, then someone would be able to tell me if it wasa proper ancient Greek thing or not. I think it’s very old. Will youplease let them see it, Daddy?’ Her father shrugged hopelessly and started to fish about under hischair. ‘Did you know, young lady,’ said Watkin to her, ‘that the Book ofRevelation was written on Patmos? It was indeed. By Saint John theDivine, as you know. To me it shows very clear signs of having beenwritten while waiting for a ferry. Oh, yes, I think so. It starts off,doesn’t it, with that kind of dreaminess you get when you’re killingtime, getting bored, you know, just making things up, and thengradually grows to a sort of climax of hallucinatory despair. I findthat very suggestive. Perhaps you should write a paper on it.’ Henodded at her. She looked at him as if he were mad. ‘Well, here it is,’ said her father, plonking the thing down on thetable. ‘Just a pot, as you see. She’s only six,’ he added with a grimsmile, ‘aren’t you, dear?’ ‘Seven,’ said Sarah. The pot was quite small, about five inches high and four inchesacross at its widest point. The body was almost spherical, with a verynarrow neck extending about an inch above the body. The neck and abouthalf of the surface area were encrusted with hard-caked earth, but theparts of the pot that could be seen were of a rough, ruddy texture. Sarah took it and thrust it into the hands of the don sitting on herright. ‘You look clever,’ she said. ‘Tell me what you think.’ The don took it, and turned it over with a slightly superciliousair. ‘I’m sure if you scraped away the mud from the bottom,’ heremarked wittily, ‘it would probably say “Made in Birmingham”.’ ‘That old, eh?’ said Sarah’s father with a forced laugh. ‘Long timesince anything was made there.’ ‘Anyway,’ said the don, ‘not my field, I’m a molecular biologist.Anyone else want to have a look?’ This question was not greeted with wild yelps of enthusiasm, butnevertheless the pot was passed from hand to hand around the far end ofthe table in a desultory fashion. It was goggled at through pebbleglasses, peered at through horn-rims, gazed at over half-moons, andsquinted at by someone who had left his glasses in his other suit,which he very much feared had now gone to the cleaner’s. No one seemedto know how old it was, or to care very much. The young girl’s facebegan to grow downhearted again. ‘Sour lot,’ said Reg to Richard. He picked up a silver salt cellaragain and held it up. ‘Young lady,’ he said, leaning forward to address her. ‘Oh, not again, you old fool,’ muttered the aged archaeologistCawley, sitting back and putting his hands over his ears. ‘Young lady,’ repeated Reg, ‘regard this simple silver salt cellar.Regard this simple hat.’ ‘You haven’t got a hat,’ said the girl sulkily. ‘Oh,’ said Reg, ‘a moment please,’ and he went and fetched hiswoolly red one. ‘Regard,’ he said again, ‘this simple silver salt cellar. Regardthis simple woolly hat. I put the salt cellar in the hat, thus, and Ipass the hat to you. The next part of the trick, dear lady... is up toyou.’ He handed the hat to her, past their two intervening neighbours,Cawley and Watkin. She took the hat and looked inside it. ‘Where’s it gone?’ she asked, staring into the hat. ‘It’s wherever you put it,’ said Reg. ‘Oh,’ said Sarah, ‘I see. Well... that wasn’t very good.’ Reg shrugged. ‘A humble trick, but it gives me pleasure,’ he said,and turned back to Richard. ‘Now, what were we talking about?’ Richard looked at him with a slight sense of shock. He knew that theProfessor had always been prone to sudden and erratic mood swings, butit was as if all the warmth had drained out of him in an instant. Henow wore the same distracted expression Richard had seen on his facewhen first he had arrived at his door that evening, apparentlycompletely unexpected. Reg seemed then to sense that Richard was takenaback and quickly reassembled a smile. ‘My dear chap!’ he said. ‘My dear chap! My dear, dear chap! What wasI saying?’ ‘Er, you were saying “My dear chap”.’ ‘Yes, but I feel sure it was a prelude to something. A sort of shorttoccata on the theme of what a splendid fellow you are prior tointroducing the main subject of my discourse, the nature of which Icurrently forget. You have no idea what I was about to say?’ ‘No.’ ‘Oh. Well, I suppose I should be pleased. If everyone knew exactlywhat I was going to say, then there would be no point in my saying it,would there? Now, how’s our young guest’s pot doing?’ In fact it had reached Watkin, who pronounced himself no expert onwhat the ancients had made for themselves to drink out of, only on whatthey had written as a result. He said that Cawley was the one to whoseknowledge and experience they should all bow, and attempted to give thepot to him. ‘I said,’ he repeated, ‘yours was the knowledge and experience towhich we should bow. Oh, for heaven’s sake, take your hands off yourears and have a look at the thing.’ Gently, but firmly, he drew Cawley’s right hand from his ear,explained the situation to him once again, and handed him the pot.Cawley gave it a cursory but clearly expert examination. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘about two hundred years old, I would think. Veryrough. Very crude example of its type. Utterly without value, ofcourse.’ He put it down peremptorily and gazed off into the old minstrelgallery, which appeared to anger him for some reason. The effect on Sarah was immediate. Already discouraged, she wasthoroughly downcast by this. She bit her lip and threw herself backagainst her chair, feeling once again thoroughly out of place andchildish. Her father gave her a warning look about misbehaving, andthen apologised for her again. ‘Well, Buxtehude,’ he hurried on to say, ‘yes, good old Buxtehude.We’ll have to see what we can do. Tell me...’ ‘Young lady,’ interrupted a voice, hoarse with astonishment, ‘youare clearly a magician and enchantress of prodigious powers!’ All eyes turned to Reg, the old show-off. He was gripping the potand staring at it with manic fascination. He turned his eyes slowly tothe little girl, as if for the first time assessing the power of afeared adversary. ‘I bow to you,’ he whispered. ‘I, unworthy though I am to speak inthe presence of such a power as yours, beg leave to congratulate you onone of the finest feats of the conjurer’s art it has been my privilegeto witness!’ Sarah stared at him with widening eyes. ‘May I show these people what you have wrought?’ he asked earnestly. Very faintly she nodded, and he fetched her formerly precious, butnow sadly discredited, pot a sharp rap on the table. It split into two irregular parts, the caked clay with which it wassurrounded falling in jagged shards on the table. One side of the potfell away, leaving the rest standing. Sarah’s eyes goggled at the stained and tarnished but clearlyrecognisable silver college salt cellar, standing jammed in the remainsof the pot. ‘Stupid old fool,’ muttered Cawley. After the general disparagement and condemnation of this cheapparlour trick had died down -- none of which could dim the awe inSarah’s eyes -- Reg turned to Richard and said, idly: ‘Who was that friend of yours when you were here, do you ever seehim? Chap with an odd East European name. Svlad something. SvladCjelli. Remember the fellow?’ Richard looked at him blankly for a moment. ‘Svlad?’ he said. ‘Oh, you mean Dirk. Dirk Cjelli. No. I neverstayed in touch. I’ve bumped into him a couple of times in the streetbut that’s all. I think he changes his name from time to time. Why doyou ask?’