Schrodinger's Cottage

by David Luddington

  That evening Saphie came round again and I reintroduced her to Eric Three Four Nine, explaining the problem of his wife. She was as horrified as I, and offered to help in any way she could. Eric had already made a good start on the doorway. A neat hole now exposed a set of wooden steps descending into the darkness. He told me there was another bricked-up doorway at the bottom of the steps and there would be one more across the other side of the cellar. Somebody had really wanted this lot closed.

  We all adjourned to The Camelot for supper. As soon as we stepped inside the pub, I had a moment of panic, fearing I’d slipped universes accidently. Gold, green, and black bunting draped around the ceiling and reggae music filled the air. Arthur stood behind the bar; he wore a garish Hawaiian shirt and a plastic lei around his neck.

  “Aloha,” he said as we approached the bar.

  “Aloha,” I returned. “What’s all this about?”

  “We’re having a Caribbean evening, would you like to see the menu?”

  The prospect of Arthur’s Caribbean menu filled me with both curiosity and a slight sense of dread. “Yes please,” I managed.

  He placed three menus on the bar and took our orders for drinks. I noticed with a slight degree of disappointment that Saphie ordered a glass of tonic water.

  “That’s certainly a varied menu tonight, Arthur,” I commented as my eyes took in the selection on the A4 sheet; Cajun Chicken, Chilli Con Carne, Rice and Peas, Barbecued Prawns and Doner Kebabs.

  “Well, these days you have to do something a bit different if you’re going to keep your clientele.” Arthur placed the drinks in front of us.

  “This is certainly different. How did you come up with this selection?” I sipped at my Grumbler.

  “I just asked Jamaica Billy, the Rasta, he works in the scrap yard on the Wells road. You know, Metal Mickey’s? I simply asked him what his favourite foods were. Genius huh?”

  “Yes, genius.” We placed our orders and found a table. The place was surprisingly busy. I noticed in one corner a sort of a stage had been set up. More of a pallet with an amplifier on one end in reality.

  At Saphie’s prompting, Eric opened up a bit more about his world.

  “It’s not all that bad,” he said when Saphie had expressed shock at the concept of people being kept to be donors. “We have a good life. We’re well looked after and we don’t have to worry about bills or food or any of that stuff. And many people are never used anyway.”

  Our meals arrived and as usual Arthur’s enthusiastic menu turned out to be really quite good. I’d opted for the barbecued prawns with rice and peas while both Saphie and Eric had gone for the Cajun Chicken.

  “I went out of the kitchen door today,” I announced as I mopped grease from my fingers. “It’s very different.”

  “When are you going to go find Tania?” asked Saphie.

  “Oh, that.”

  “Yes, that. You need to find her. You can’t just leave her wandering around a strange world with no clue how it happened or any idea how to get back.”

  “I’ll need to arrange some money first, I haven’t got enough holiday euros for that. And I’ll need a car, I won’t be able to get mine through the patio doors.” That should give me a couple of days breathing space.

  “I’ll be able to get you some currency,” Eric offered. “Once I can get through to the other side it will be an easy job to change your notes into anything you like.”

  “That’s the plan then,” said Saphie. “You help Eric with the doors and he’ll change the money, then you can go find Tania.”

  A tall black man with long dreadlocks wobbled onto the pallet and picked up the microphone. “Hiya y’all. You guys chillin’?” He pressed a button on the amplifier and the metronomic thump of a huge bas beat vibrated our table. “I got some bad tracks for you dudes with some wicked grooves, man. Yo muthus gonna rip it up.”

  “What’s happening?” asked Eric, his eyes wide.

  “I think it’s time to go,” I suggested.

  We finished our drinks and headed through the door with the sounds of a hybrid reggae rap following us as we went.

  Saphie left for home almost soon as we arrived back at the cottage. I poured myself a nightcap and introduced Eric to the delights of Newsnight.

  “So, what have you been doing for the last four years?”

  “In what your sticky note calls Universe Five. Outside the kitchen door.”

  “I went there today,” I said, feeling quite pleased with myself.

  “I know, you told me.”

  “What’s it like, living there?”

  “Hell,” he said. “Absolute hell. It’s all so chaotic. No order. Everybody seems to do whatever they like.”

  “Why did you stay there?”

  He looked at me with a slightly quizzical expression. “Because somebody sealed up the door and trapped me there!”

  “Oh, sorry. But that wasn’t me. I’ve only just come here. I’m the person that opened it again.” I emptied my gin glass and contemplated going for a refill.

  “I tried to work to gather some money and just hoped that one day the door would open again. But it’s impossible to save money there, everything’s so expensive.”

  He was beginning to look forlorn again. “Anyway, we’ll get to work on the cellar doors tomorrow and you can go find Katrina.” He seemed to brighten a bit so I left him with the television and headed for bed.

  Chapter Twelve

  Work on the cellar doors went well. Eric kept up a furious pace and by the time I returned from B&Q with a set of three doors he already had the openings at the top and bottom of the newly exposed steps squared off and ready. I insisted on the doors being in place and lockable before I would let him venture to the other end of the cellar to create the exit. I’d made that mistake before with the kitchen door and I had no desire for a random stream of characters from his world coming up the steps to my library. They all sounded way too odd for my liking.

  Once the doors were fixed, we rigged up a light on an extension lead. The cellar was huge. It seemed to run the full length of the cottage although only about a quarter the depth. The far end wall, which would be about under the dining room, contained a lumpy brickwork section the same shape and size as a doorway.

  “There it is,” Eric said.

  “Why can’t somebody on the other side just punch a new hole through?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t work. It was tried many times with your kitchen door. It winds up just going through the kitchen wall in that universe. For some reason the doorways can only be created from this side.”

  I ran my hand over the brickwork. “I need another sticky note.” I counted on my fingers. “This one is eight.”

  Eric gave me a strange look. “I’ll start on this one then?” He picked up the pickaxe and swung it at the wall.

  I went upstairs and made us both a sandwich. He reappeared shortly after and announced he was through, now it just needed tidying up. As we sat and ate I realised it was gone one o’clock and I hadn’t had my midday beer yet. I pulled a couple of cans of Budweiser from the cupboard and put them on the table.

  “Have a try,” I said and slid one towards him then opened the other for myself. “The rules don’t apply here.”

  He picked up the can and studied it. “Not today,” he said and slid it back towards me.

  We ate in silence then both set to work on the doorframe with one of us keeping watch on the stairs leading to his world. He tried to convince me that nobody from the other side would notice yet but it pays to be paranoid I’ve learned.

  Eventually we had a series of three lockable doors, one at each end of the cellar and the other at the top of the steps in the library. I didn’t exactly feel safe, given what he’d told me about his world, but I could live with it until he’d retrieved his wife and I could brick them up again.

  “When do you want to go through?” I asked him.

  “Now,” he said.

  By the time I’d foun
d him the money he had changed back into the green fatigues with the orange circle he’d been wearing when I’d first caught him trying to find the cellar door. I gave him the money and wished him luck then saw him through the doors, locking each one securely. He had keys to each one so he could come back when he was ready.

  Suddenly the cottage felt empty, even the cats seemed to have disappeared. I contemplated going up to The Camelot then decided I couldn’t be bothered and settled for a packet of biscuits in front of the afternoon movie on Channel Four. There was nothing I could do about finding Tania until Eric returned with some currency I could use to get around in Universe Two. If he returned. I just had to wait.

  I glanced out through the patio doors into that other world and wondered how she was getting on. It was then I recalled looking through these doors from the other side. The Spanish cleaning woman I’d frightened half to death. I smiled at the thought then froze.

  The picture! The second time I’d looked through those doors from outside I’d seen a picture that seemed familiar. A boy playing with a dog, a black and white Labrador. Of course I remembered that picture, it was me aged five! This didn’t make sense. I replayed the encounter with the mad Spanish woman and things started to come together. What was it she’d said about Aunt Flora? “Senora Flora lives here. Not you.”

  I tried to dismiss the explanation that was staring me in the face and thrashed about for a more rational conclusion. The obvious explanation stopped staring me in the face and took to beating me round the head. What was it Holmes used to say? ‘When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the answer. But what if the impossible solution really is the only answer? What then?

  Time to look into another box, Ian.

  I left the house through the front door and headed round the side between the wall and the garage. I came to the garden that I hadn’t yet cleared and the patio doors through which I’d seen the Spanish woman and the picture. This universe I’d mentally labelled as Universe Seven. Only mentally, as the physical act of sticking a Post It note on the outside of a door had proved problematical as it kept falling off. I peered through the doors. There was the picture of me and... what was the dog’s name? Sam, that was it. The lounge looked so different to my version I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it first time. Trinkets and ornaments adorned most surfaces and glass cabinet filled with chinaware stood against the far wall.

  The room was however, devoid of people. What had I expected? It had been a stupid idea. I pushed at the door to see if it would open. It was locked. Should I knock? As it happened, I didn’t need to. Obviously having heard someone at the door, the woman had come to investigate. She was small and slightly stooped, her hair white and tied into a bun. Just the way I remembered her. She froze when she saw me at the doors and we stared at each other for what seemed like minutes. Eventually she seemed to regain her powers of movement and opened the door.

  “Aunt Flora?” I said. “It is you isn’t it? But how?”

  “Hello, Ian. My, you’ve grown! Come along inside, dear. You’ll catch your death of cold standing out there.”

  I followed her into the lounge. “I thought you were... well, actually we all thought you were...”

  “Rumours of my demise, as Oscar Wilde once said. I’ve just put the kettle on and I’ve got some nice treacle tart put by. I know how much you like that.”

  I stood in the centre of the lounge, Aunt Flora’s lounge, not mine, and looked around. Many of the ornaments I’d remembered from my childhood were here. The china peasant girl, the small brass lattice bell with a ruby coloured clapper. “What happened?” I asked.

  “It’s a bit of a tale and that’s for sure,” she said. “Why don’t you just sit yourself down and I’ll fetch the tea. Oh, by the way, your birdseed’s on the sideboard.”

  I settled into an overstuffed armchair and glanced at the sideboard. A packet of birdseed sat on top of it. Of course, I’d left it in here when I’d first seen the Spanish cleaner. I’d thought she’d stolen it. Next to the birdseed stood a silver framed photograph of my aunt with someone who appeared to be Roger Moore.

  She returned with a silver tray and fine Wedgewood service and placed them on the small table. “There we are,” she said. “Shall I be mother?”

  “Is that...?” I said, pointing at the picture.

  “Yes, dear. That’s Roger. My husband. Now, tell me how you’ve been getting on.” She started pouring the tea. “I heard you had a nasty turn?”

  I related the story of how Tania and I had come to split up and my breakdown. She made suitably sympathetic noises.

  “But what about you?” I asked. “How come you’re still... still... well, you know, here.” I suddenly felt slightly angry that we’d all been deceived.

  “I just wanted to retire, dear. I’d been here for a very long time and when young Roger came along, well, who could resist?”

  “Retire? Retire from what? I thought you had already retired.”

  “Oh no, dear. Gatekeepers don’t usually retire. It’s supposed to be a lifetime commitment. A bit like vicars, I suppose.”

  “What do you mean, Gatekeeper?” I juggled teacup on delicate saucer whilst trying for a slice of treacle tart. Aunt Flora’s homemade treacle tart.

  “The doors! All those doors. The coming and going, it all gets a bit much after a while. Especially when that blessed Wikidoors business started up. That was the final straw.”

  Wikidoors? I remembered those young women in The Kings Head in Universe Five talking about that. “What’s Wikidoors?” I asked.

  “Wikidoors? An abomination, that’s what Wikidoors was. Everybody has a right to be famous with no consideration for rest of us and Dopples getting everywhere they shouldn’t.” Her hands started shaking and she grabbed the arms of the chair to control them.

  “Dopples?”

  “Dopples, Doppelgangers, people who look like other folks but aren’t. In this door, out that one. Another piece of treacle tart?”

  “Oh, yes, thank you.”

  “So when Roger Moore turned up one day, he just whisked me off my feet. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? I mean, what girl could resist those eyes? Anyway, he helped me seal up the doors and windows and we retired here where none of the buggers can find me.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m still not understanding this business about dopples?”

  She gave me the look I remembered only too well from childhood. The one that says, ‘Have I really got explain about not eating the purple berries again?’

  “Dopples, my dear. Dopples are what you get when you have infinite universes. Give an infinite number of idiots an infinite number of universes to play in and sooner or later one of them will turn up as president of America.”

  “Or of Europe,” I said.

  “What? Oh, yes. I see.”

  She went on to explain about the doors. Some of which I had already managed to deduce with help from Saphie and Eric, but much was new. The universe was made up of infinite parallel universes and Tinker's cottage sat on a point where the many of these actually broke through. The anomaly had always existed in our universe, but only ours. The cottage had been built on the site of an earlier stables and before that, who knew. But a building of some sort had always existed there to control the accesses. In many of these universes, alternate versions of individuals existed and people would drift around to find out what their dopples were doing in alternate universes. Aunt Flora, it seems, had been the Gatekeeper. Her job had been to keep some sort of order and prevent potential troublemakers.

  “But what is it with all the famous people, or at least their... what do you call them? Dopples?” I asked.

  “I blame Andy Warhol,” Aunt Flora said. “Everybody was going to be famous for fifteen minutes. All of a sudden we have this whole fame business going on and it’s not enough anymore to discover that your other self is a butcher in an alternate world, people want to find their rich and famous version.”
>
  “But surely Tinker's Cottage only links to a few universes at best. After all, there’s only a very small number of doors or windows?”

  “Go in one door, out another, in through a window, out through the first door and all of sudden you’re four steps away from where you started. Keep that up for ten minutes and the potential universes already numbers in the thousands. The permutations are truly infinite.”

  I struggled with the image of this grey haired, elderly woman opposite me as she poured tea and spoke of cosmic infinities. My Aunt Flora, cosmic gatekeeper.

  “But until Wikidoors came along it was all fairly random,” she continued. “It could take centuries to find a rich or famous version of yourself.”

  “What is this Wikidoors?” I asked.

  “There used to be a door from the kitchen that led to a version of Britain run by anarchists. Anything goes, quite disgraceful. Did you know they even held general elections via television game shows?”

  It struck me that wasn’t that far removed from what we had. It also struck me that perhaps I ought to own up to reopening the kitchen door. Instead, I just opted for, “Dreadful!” and hid my eyes in my teacup.

  “Some computer whizz geeky person sent some beetly creepy things through the universes. Like these search pages on your computer?”

  “Spiders? You mean search engine spiders?” I suggested.

  “Yes, that’s the ones. He sent these spiders out that crawled the universes and compiled a massive list of who was where. Called it Wikidoors. Now you could just look on the internet and see where all your dopples were and how to find them. Dreadful mess!”

  “So everybody wants to meet their successful selves? Why’s that so bad?”

  “Not just meet, dear. Replace.”

  I supped at my tea as I tried to think through the implications of her statement. People hunting down rich and famous versions of themselves to take their place. Instant fame and fortune. Beats trying to audition with Simon Cowell I supposed.

  “Did that happen a lot?” I asked, wondering if I should try to warn Stephen Fry.