Darwin, of course, was Charles Darwin. He was sitting at the central summit of the grand staircase in the form of a two-ton marble statue, from where he appeared to be watching over the entrance hall with his grave, clever eyes. He looked the way he usually looks, like a doctor about to deliver some bad news, awkwardly posed in his rumpled Victorian suit, and with no great fondness for the limelight. To tell you the truth, he looked like he’d rather be digging up earthworms in his back garden – though I supposed it would be harder to sculpt a statue like that.
The Vault, at the far end of the minerals gallery, was a mesmerizing space – all stone columns and arches and low oak cabinets filled with glaring jewels: gold and sapphires and emeralds, and a diamond as large as a golf ball. Set among this company, the meteorites were, at first, easily overlooked. They were all kinds of irregular shapes and sizes, and varied in colour from coal-black to mottled caramel. Perhaps the most innocuous of all was the Nakhla Meteorite, which looked like a misshapen lump of scorched clay. Dr Lean told me that this was actually a piece of Mars. The original meteoroid had probably been blown into space by a large impact on the Red Planet’s surface. It had fallen to Earth in 1911, burning high in the skies above Egypt, from where the surviving fragments had later been recovered. Most of the other meteorites, those that hadn’t been observed as Falls, had been found in places like Antarctica and the Australian outback – uniform landscapes, untouched by human development, where they stood out as geological aberrations, even to the untrained eye. Of course, since the Earth had been the victim of about four and a half billion years of steady bombardment, there were actually meteorites scattered across every corner of the globe – it was just that in most environments they lay unnoticed.
‘It’s not every day they come crashing through one’s ceiling,’ Dr Lean concluded.
My meteorite was to be displayed in a cubic half-metre of space that had been cleared at the far right of one of the wall-mounted cabinets. The museum research team, Dr Lean explained, had also selected a newspaper article to include as part of the exhibit, which was necessary to inform or remind the general public of the meteorite’s ‘historical significance’. The article, which I also had in my scrapbook, was from the front page of The Times and showed a rather dramatic helicopter shot of the hole that had been punched in our bathroom roof. The headline read: ‘SOMERSET SCHOOL BOY HIT BY METEOR.’
‘It was the least sensationalized article we could find,’ Dr Lean told me.
By this point, I didn’t think I could delay any longer. I took my iron–nickel meteorite from my backpack, where it was safely swaddled in two layers of bubble-wrap, and handed the package across for Dr Lean to unwrap.
‘My word,’ he said. He immediately looked about twenty years younger, I thought, as he stood running his eyes over that scorched and pitted surface. I followed his gaze across all those familiar rises and fissures and valleys, across the microfractures running through the partially exposed cross-section. And I should tell you that I didn’t feel a sense of loss as those seconds unfolded. Having seen the Vault, with its priceless collection of gems and minerals, I knew that this would be a better home for my meteorite than the top of my bookcase, which was where it had resided for the last five years. What I felt in place of loss was the strangest sense of time folding back on itself, a feeling of significance, almost akin to déjà vu. It’s hard to explain, but I think what really struck me in that stretched-out moment was the impression of what might have been, had the meteorite never come to me. A kind of shadowy parallel universe.
Without the meteorite, I would have been an entirely different person. I’d have a different brain – different connections, different function. And I wouldn’t be telling you this story now. I wouldn’t have a story to tell.
My mother would say that everything happens for a reason, but I don’t agree with that – not in the sense she’d mean it, anyway. Most of what happens is pure chance. Nevertheless, I have to admit that there are certain moments that, in retrospect, seem to shape the course of our lives to a remarkable degree. There are pinpoint events that change everything; and it is a strange curiosity, if nothing else, that the day I’m describing now, the five-year anniversary of the meteor strike, was destined to spawn another.
At lunchtime, Dr Lean led us to the museum’s delicatessen near the Exhibition Road entrance and advised the woman working the till that she should allow Dr Weir and me to order whatever we wanted from the menu free of charge. Then he shook my hand again and told me that it had been a pleasure and that he’d be sure to save me a spot on the guest list for all the museum’s forthcoming exhibitions and special events. I only had to email him to let him know I was coming and he’d make all the necessary arrangements.
‘Thank you, Dr Lean,’ I said. And this time, when I shook his hand, I made sure that my grip was solid. Perhaps a little too solid – but I thought it better to err on the side of caution. I wanted to make sure he knew that the morning’s handshake had been an anomaly.
For lunch, I had a spinach and ricotta tartlet with a mixed leaf salad and three Diet Cokes. Dr Weir had a steak sandwich and a glass of red wine, and then a coffee to follow, which she sipped slowly while I told her my thoughts on the museum so far.
‘I think, in a way I prefer the smaller exhibits,’ I said. ‘The meteorites, of course, but also the other minerals and the small insects. I mean, the dinosaurs are extremely impressive, but they’re very busy too. There’s too much to take in, and too many distractions. The less spectacular exhibits are a bit more . . .’ Dr Weir waited patiently while I struggled for the word. I wanted to say ‘intimate’ but I wasn’t sure this was the correct context. I thought it would be a minor disaster if I misused the word, so in the end I plumped for a lengthier explanation. ‘I suppose what I mean is that the smaller exhibits give you more space to think. You can kind of lose yourself in them. You can hear the sounds that your footsteps make in the corridors and imagine exactly how the museum must have been a hundred years ago.’
Dr Weir nodded. ‘I like the butterflies for similar reasons.’
A small silence passed.
‘How are you getting on at school now?’ Dr Weir asked.
‘Better,’ I said. ‘Although I don’t think I’m ever going to fit in very well. But I’ve kind of accepted that now. I like the school part, anyway – you know: the lessons themselves.’
Dr Weir nodded and sipped her coffee again.
‘I think if I could just spend the whole six hours of the school day solving algebra problems, then I’d be extremely happy. But, of course, that’s not exactly normal. That’s the part everybody else hates. Most of the other boys can’t wait for the break so they can go outside and play football. And to me, that really is baffling. It seems like such a waste of time and energy. It doesn’t tell you anything about the world. It doesn’t add or change anything. I don’t get the appeal.’
Dr Weir traced a couple of orbits of her coffee cup with her right index finger, then said: ‘Well, from an evolutionary standpoint, it probably owes a lot to ancient hunting rituals. Like most sport, it’s about hitting targets, perfecting one’s hand–eye or foot–eye co-ordination, outwitting an opponent and so forth. And, of course, there’s a high degree of tribalism too. That’s true of all team sports. An enjoyment of these sorts of activities is probably very deeply ingrained in the human psyche – and the male psyche especially, though to varying extents, of course.’
‘I’m not a big fan of hunting rituals full stop,’ I said.
Dr Weir smiled. ‘No. But these things manifest themselves in many different forms. For example, many scientists believe that some of our mathematical abilities have their roots in the kind of spatial skills our ancestors needed to hunt prey and elude predators – understanding trajectories and forces, acceleration and deceleration, general mechanics. Our brains have evolved excellent software for comprehending natural laws. So maybe when you sit down and solve mathematical problems for six hours, t
he satisfaction you experience isn’t entirely different to the pleasure others find in sports. They may have a common source. It’s an interesting thought.’
‘I don’t think the football team would buy it,’ I said.
‘No, maybe not. But really, Alex, there’s nothing wrong with being cerebral. I think you’ll find that in a few years things will get much easier for you.’
‘Yes, I expect so.’
‘Are you still hoping to become a neurologist?’
I liked the way Dr Weir asked this question. I’d been telling people that I probably wanted to be a neurologist since I was about eleven years old, and for some reason, this was seldom taken seriously. People seemed to find it either funny or peculiar or baffling. But Dr Weir took the idea very seriously – although these days I had started to have second thoughts, as I explained.
‘I think I’m leaning back towards being a physicist again,’ I said.
Dr Weir smiled.
‘I’m still very interested in neurology,’ I clarified, ‘but . . . well, I think I’m more drawn to the simplicity of physics. I like the idea that you can explain all these incredibly complicated phenomena using incredibly simple laws. Like e = mc². To tell you the truth, I don’t think there’s anything quite as wonderful as that. You can write it on a postage stamp but it tells you how the stars work. You don’t really get that kind of perfection anywhere else in life. I seriously doubt that neurology could ever be that perfect. I think you could probably spend a thousand years studying the brain and it still wouldn’t make people that much easier to understand.’
‘Perhaps not,’ Dr Weir said with a little laugh. ‘But whatever you end up doing, I hope you’ll consider coming to Imperial. You know, in this country there’s really nowhere better to study science.’
‘Yes, I think I might like that,’ I said. ‘Although I’m not sure about London itself yet. I mean, it’s extremely crowded. I’m not sure how I’d feel about living in a city this big.’
‘Yes, I can understand that too,’ Dr Weir said. ‘You know, I wasn’t born in London, Alex. I grew up in the countryside, like you. In Cornwall, actually. But I don’t think I could live anywhere so remote any more. I like having everything around me – all the museums and libraries. The only downside is the light pollution. Most nights in London you can barely make out Polaris, and anything above magnitude two is near impossible.’
I thought about this for a while. I tried to picture myself studying science in London, but for some reason, the image wouldn’t quite crystallize.
‘Dr Weir?’ I asked. ‘What grades would I need to get into Imperial?’
‘You’ll need three As, Alex, and at least two of them in science or maths.’
I thought some more. ‘I think I’ll try to get four,’ I said. ‘The three sciences and maths. You know, just to be certain.’
Mr Peterson collected me from Bristol Temple Meads just after eight thirty and then I spent the next half-hour telling him about London. There was no chronology. I told him about how insanely busy the tube had been on the way home, how incredibly large and full of people London was in general (I estimated you could fit at least fifteen Bristols inside it), how Dr Weir had said that I could probably get into Imperial if I continued to get top grades at school, how I’d come to the conclusion that I probably wanted to be a physicist rather than a neurologist because I wanted to help figure out a ToE – a Theory of Everything – which was the highest aim of modern cosmology and would finally crack the problem of how the universe works. Mr Peterson said this was a good goal to shoot for. But that was about all he said. Being out of practice, he found city driving – even off-peak city driving – extremely stressful, and he wasn’t much of a multitasker at the best of times. In hindsight, I probably should have kept quiet and let him concentrate. (I was over-stimulated: I’d drunk too much Diet Coke that day.) But as it happened, getting out of the city was not the problem. We made it to the undulating A-road leading back to Glastonbury and Wells without mishap. Mr Peterson relaxed, and eventually I talked myself to a standstill and fell back to daydreaming about my future scientific endeavours.
The car was warm, and the road was quiet. The sun was sinking like a distress flare in the rear-view mirror, and I found myself crashing into a comfortable, flickering doze.
The next thing I was conscious of was the white van bearing down on us. Even half asleep, I saw it plain as day. Mr Peterson did not. He pulled out onto the roundabout quite calmly, as if he were manoeuvring into an empty parking bay. The van was maybe five metres away, heading straight for us.
‘Van! Brakes!’ I shouted. It was all I had time to shout. I felt the glancing impact as a small detonation that sent a shockwave coursing through my upper body. The world shifted forty-five degrees to the right, then juddered to a halt. We were left facing off the roundabout at an oblique angle. The van had stopped a few metres away, in the roundabout’s inner lane.
‘Goddamnit!’ said Mr Peterson. ‘You all right, kid?’
I nodded. My heart was racing at about a hundred and eighty beats per minute, but I was surprised to find that my head was perfectly clear. I felt like I’d been plunged into ice water.
When we stepped out of the car to inspect the damage, everything seemed unusually bright and well defined. There were two metres of tyre tracks on the road, and a little glass and plastic from our driver’s-side headlight, and the bonnet had buckled slightly, and the panels adjoining the bumper and wheel arch were badly cracked and indented, but there was no serious damage to Mr Peterson’s car. As for the van, it would transpire that it had suffered nothing worse than a small depression between its bumper and its front left wheel, but this was not discernible from our angle. I could only see that it was a white transit van, evidently a business vehicle. The sign on its side read: THE LONE DRAINER. I surmised that the driver was some kind of plumber. I could see him through the passenger-side window. He was making angry thrusting gestures towards the small B-road leading off the roundabout immediately to our left. Mr Peterson and I both nodded. Then the Drainer started his engine, indicated, pulled sharply off the roundabout and parked up about ten metres down the road. Mr Peterson and I got back in the car and followed.
The Lone Drainer slammed his door, pointedly, and, after several failed attempts, lit a cigarette. I suspected he was too furious to work his lighter effectively, even though the accident had not been serious, and the damage to his vehicle even less so. He was a short, mostly bald man with the red face of a cooked lobster. He was wearing a red and black checked shirt, huge black safety boots and filthy jeans. I had a lot of time to weigh him up because he wasn’t making eye contact. He was squinting at his bumper and muttering to himself. He didn’t look quite the ticket. Mr Peterson was of the same opinion.
‘Jesus MF Christ!’ he said to me under his breath. ‘This is gonna be a royal pain in the ass.’
‘Should we call the police?’ I asked.
Mr Peterson snorted.
‘Don’t you have to call the police when there’s an accident?’ I persisted.
‘Not an accident like this, kid,’ Mr Peterson told me. ‘This hardly even qualifies as an accident. We just have to swap numbers. Then my insurance can deal with it.’
‘Your insurance?’
‘Yes, my insurance.’
‘Because it was your fault?’
Mr Peterson ground his teeth. ‘Yes, it was my fault. Obviously. I didn’t see him.’
‘You didn’t see him?’ The improbability of this was already looming large in my mind. ‘How didn’t you see him?’
‘I don’t know how. I just didn’t.’
‘But he was there plain as day.’
‘Kid, I didn’t see him! If I’d seen him, I wouldn’t have pulled out!’
‘You have to pay extra attention at junctions,’ I said.
‘I was paying attention,’ Mr Peterson said. ‘I just didn’t see him. I can’t explain any better than that. I’m not infallible.’
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‘You’re not high, are you?’
‘Jesus, kid! What kind of question is that? Of course I’m not high! Do I look high to you?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. I thought that if Mr Peterson were high, he wouldn’t have come to collect me. He’d probably have forgotten.
‘The Lone Drainer looks pissed off,’ I pointed out.
‘Kid, will you please shut the hell up for a second and pass me my stick? I’m sure the Drainer’ll calm down soon enough. Just let me do the talking.’
I took Mr Peterson’s crutch from the back seat and passed it to him. By the time we reached the van, the Lone Drainer had stopped squinting over his bumper and was staring straight at us. He was still muttering and shaking his head. Mr Peterson extended his hand.
‘Isaac Peterson,’ he said.
The Drainer blew out a steady stream of smoke.
Mr Peterson cleared his throat. ‘Listen, I’m sorry. I’m not sure what happened back there. Is your van okay?’
The Lone Drainer spat on the ground. ‘You know I could’ve killed you,’ he said. It came out more as a regret than an observation. ‘What the hell were you thinking? You pulled out right in front of me! Are you fucking blind?’
Mr Peterson exhaled through his teeth and waited for a count of three. Then he said: ‘Okay. It was my fault. I’m not disputing that. But I think we should all just be thankful it wasn’t serious. No one was hurt. There’s no major damage. It could’ve been a lot worse.’
‘It’s a fucking miracle it wasn’t worse.’ The Lone Drainer punctuated this sentiment by flicking his cigarette onto the verge.
‘You know, that’s a bit of a fire hazard,’ I pointed out.
‘Let me do the talking,’ Mr Peterson said.
‘Your granddad shouldn’t be on the fucking road,’ the Drainer told me.
‘My grandfather’s dead,’ I told the Drainer. ‘The one I know about,’ I added.
The Drainer decided I was no longer worth talking to. ‘You’re obviously not fit to drive,’ he told Mr Peterson. ‘It looks like you can barely fucking walk.’
The Universe versus Alex Woods Page 20