by Barry Klemm
“Oh, Harley, really,” Joanie laughed—you could never insult people like her—and then she glanced back toward her own house as if she just remembered she had left something on the stove. “Well, you get back to work, Harley. And remember, we are still here for you if you want anything.”
There was little chance he would forget.
“You tell them I’ve finally decided to get a life,” Thyssen said quietly.
Once he got the door closed on her, he knew that her concern was probably genuine. He always worked late and then went to campus bar for dinner and had a few drinks with anyone interesting who might be there. If no one engaged his interest, he made his way into town to visit the strip joints and live out the death throes of his youth and obliterate the reality of his life. This house terrified him and he was never in it except to sleep from whatever hour he staggered in until dawn. He did his ablutions at the gym after exercise sessions of diminishing length and breakfasted in the cafe. This regime existed seven days a week. Though it had not always been so. It was just a phase he was going through. And going through.
There was a time when this house rang with joy and laughter and it would have been the last place where he would have sought solitude. That was before the cancer devoured Karla, and the kids were home. Now Elmore who was doing transport systems at the University of London, and Anna doing anthropology in the wilds of the Andes. All gone now—not even their ghosts remained to haunt him.
Thyssen sat at his desk in what had become unfamiliar surroundings. The house was bare—he had sold off everything he didn’t need. He didn’t even have a computer and had brought this notepad home to work on. He turned off the lights—Joanie wasn’t the only busybody in the street—and the small screen became the only illumination by which he worked.
He did not pause to read what he had been writing—that train of thought was broken and he was sure he had not got where he was going anyway. Although it was hard to tell, because he didn’t really know where he was going, and wasn’t sure he would recognise it when he arrived anyway.
What he was supposed to be doing was writing his funding submission to the board, to get some money to pay for Jami Shastri’s research. But every time he started he knew he was lying—telling them things they might want to hear instead of the truth. That was common enough—what occurred to him then was that he didn’t know what the truth was.
And so he began to play this little game with himself—just sitting and writing whatever came into his head and then seeing if there was anything of interest there. It was a useful tool at such times, provided he remembered to delete it later, before anyone saw it. It opened up his thoughts, allowing them to bound freely, unrestrained by the usual faculty politics and the need to maintain some credibility amongst his colleagues.
Where his free-range thoughts took him was alarming.
He found he was thinking about impossibilities. About things that could not happen, and could not be proven if they did. He was thinking about things that men could not know.
To comprehend the incomprehensible. That was the challenge before him.
How to research into matters that lie beyond our ability to understand them, even if we could detect them?
It wasn’t the simultaneous eruptions that bothered him. That was feasible. The three volcanoes might have been three vents from a single magma chamber—in fact probably were. Moreover, he discovered that two of those three mountains had been in eruption at the same time in the past. All quite likely.
The lack of forewarning was harder to explain. Volcanoes erupted as the consequence of geological events. This time there was no evidence of any such occurrence. No build up—and just the single blast, albeit huge. There were aftershocks but they were minor surface tremors—the earth resettling as a result of the disturbance, and not actually part of the disturbance itself. The volcanoes had erupted for no apparent reason. Or at least, none that anyone could find.
Still, if unprecedented, it was imaginable. You could conceive how, in certain extra-ordinary circumstances, something of the sort might occur, however unlikely. He was okay with that.
What really bothered him was the shock-wave, or whatever it was, that had preceded the eruption and produced a definite physiological episode in those people near the zone. It had preceded everything—it had made them ill—then the eruption had occurred.
Now that was inconceivable. But Jami had reported it and then the others, independently. So it had to be real. But what could it be?
It was rendered ridiculous by the matter of scale. This force gave people a slight attack of nausea, and could disturb a giant magma chamber under their feet, and yet affect nothing else and be completely undetectable by state-of-the-art instruments. The answer was simple—nothing could. Or perhaps, nothing known could.
Hearsay evidence, the board would declare. No possible connection between the two matters, they would be sure. He would look stupid, trying to present something like that.
Not that he couldn’t bullshit them—in fact he often did.
But you could only bullshit effectively when you had some idea of what the truth was. And he had no idea.
On and on into the night he wrote, searching his mind for a concept, an idea, anything at all, in which to sow the germ of his research. He wrote—
The imaginable universe is mysterious enough, but although we lack many answers, there has never been a mystery for which our minds have been unable to account, however inadequately. Moreover, all scientific mysteries possess calculable answers, even though some may be wrong. But what of the unimaginable—even a divine entity and his works can be fantasised. But are there forces that lie truly beyond our imagination, perhaps which touch us all the time, but which our senses ignore because they are completely incomprehensible to us? Or if the senses are engaged, the brain ignores because it can make no sense of the data—nor even conjure a foolish fantasy on the subject.
Such fantasies are the basis of all religions—answers provided by our minds at a stage in our development when we lacked the data and wit to even approach the truth. Our scope to imagine impossible answers has always seemed infinitely broad, but from our lowly remote position on Earth we cannot possibly perceive it all. There must indeed be other, greater forces out there, that lie beyond that scope.
And perhaps such forces within ourselves as well…
In the dark lonely house, Thyssen leaned back and lit a cigarette. Yes, that was what he was looking for. Something truly supernatural—not the foolish stuff of ghosts or demons or aliens in flying saucers, but something that could be proven to exist with all scientific rigour and yet defy all possibility of an answer. And was this the Shastri Effect? Had that cheeky Indian girl accidentally stumbled upon the gateway to the new universe? Thyssen was unsure, but what he did know was that his former life was ended, that phase passed through, and his new existence was underway. The ghosts of Karla and the children had vanished from the house—finally he was able to come home.
*
She awoke being lightly shaken and joggled and gazing at the grey sky through the window. She was upside down and her neck was hurting—it was that pain that dragged her back to consciousness. In a car, the sky rushing overhead, she assessed. Dull day. It was Lorna’s car, she realised and she was lying in the back seat. In her pyjamas and dressing gown with a travel-rug thrown over her. She groaned.
“Ho, back in the land of the living, are we?” came a cheery voice from the front seat.
They hit a bump and Chrissie’s neck almost snapped. Moving her head to a more comfortable position was seemingly dangerous. It felt as if the skull bone was paper thin and would crack like an egg shell.
“Lorna, what’s going on?” she attempted to say—her thick tongue would not form the words properly.
“We’re nearly there,” Lorna replied.
Nearly where? It was plain that she would not get any sense out of Lorna and was going to have to look for herself. She gripped the seatbac
k and hauled and her arms found enough strength to drag her body into a sitting position. She was so bloody stiff. Had they had an accident? Had she fallen? Her eyes slowly focused and she looked all around. They were out in the country, for God’s sake, and she was still dressed for bed.
“Lorna? Where are we?”
“The coast is just ahead. When we get there, we’ll have coffee. I did a thermos. Then you’ll be fine.”
She would never be fine.
“I’m sick, Lorna. What have you done to me?”
“It’s just the sleeping pills wearing off, Chrissie. Coffee, a sandwich, a bit of a walk around and you’ll be feeling terrific.”
Almost everything Lorna said was unbelievable.
“Walk around. In daylight. In my jim-jams?”
“I packed your clothes, and everything.”
“Did you? Where?”
“They’re in the boot.”
“Lorna. You told me to sleep. I remember this distinctly. You gave me sleeping pills. Now you kidnap me and drag me way out here in the provinces.”
“You said you wanted to go.”
“That was... whenever it was.”
“Come on, you were bumping into the walls in your desperation to go places.”
“Yes, okay. But you could have waited until I woke up first.”
“Oh yeah? Wait til you hear what I did.”
“You mean before you took to kidnapping invalids?”
“I went out to lunch and started walking blindly. West. Remember what you said about wrong directions?”
“Yes, but...”
“So now we’re going west. Right direction. Okay?”
“West where?”
“We’re through Waimauku. Coast coming up. You can get glimpses of the sea out there now.”
“Yes, I can see it. I can’t imagine why I’m so surprised.”
“So you were right. We had to go places. Right away. And west is the way to go.”
“Oh, I get it. So it’s all my fault.”
“Of course not. Here we are. Look at this. Perfect.”
Chrissie looked. She supposed, in the right circumstances, it might have been perfect. The sea. The surf rolling in onto a wide beach. A parking area with toilet facilities. Anyway, before she had time to protest, Lorna was out of the car and fussing.
Chrissie crept forth. Fortunately, there was no one else around. She rummaged in her suitcase in the boot and ducked into the toilet to get dressed and by the time she returned, Lorna had coffee and sandwiches spread out on the bonnet of the car.
“Isn’t this great?” Lorna enthused.
“No,” Chrissie sighed. “But it is nice, I suppose.”
The sandwiches were good—Lorna sure had gone to a lot of trouble over this.
“Feeling better now?”
“Slightly. But I also feel very upset.”
“Yes, I know. So do I. It’s just this overwhelming feeling that you’ve got to go and this is the way to go.”
Now that the effects of heavy sleep were wearing off, Chrissie had to admit her state of agitation was returning. “Yes, okay then. But consider—it’s nearly sunset. What plans have you concerning where we will stay?”
“There’ll be somewhere.”
They sipped and munched. The breakers roared and the sea gulls swooped and called to them, beckoning them out to sea. The gentle breeze tantalised their hair. Chrissie chuckled and shook her head but then got serious and eyed her friend, so called. “So you feel it too?”
“Oh, yes. I guess I’m not as sensitive as you, but, yes, it got to me as well. I just had to go. That’s all. I was telling you what happened to me.”
“You mean there’s more?”
“Is there ever. I caught the bus down to Herne Bay and went out on the pier and walked right off the end of it.”
“Really?”
“Honestly. I was so oblivious to the surroundings that I went off the end and into the water before I knew what was happening.”
“Oh my God. Tell me you didn’t really. Did anyone see?”
“Did they ever. A bunch of blokes, fishing. When they pulled me out, my clothes had gone completely see-through. They got a big eyeful of everything I have.”
“Oh Lorna, how awful. So what happened then?”
“I got a taxi home. You should have seen the look on the driver’s face when he saw me. And then I had to empty the water out of my handbag before I could pay him. Everything was soaked.”
“You’ll catch pneumonia, swimming at this time of year.”
“I took a handful of Vitamin C as soon as I got home. Then I knew what I had to do. I rang them at work and told them I was sick. Packed, drove over and grabbed you and here we are.”
By then, Chrissie was so full of giggles she could hardly speak. Finally, she got herself under control enough to look around and ask. “Okay. So we are here, after many adventures, but where are we?”
Lorna too, needed to survey the scene. She balled her sandwich wrapped and threw it in the nearby bin, and looked again. “We’re not there yet, are we?” she said solemnly.
“No,” Chrissie said. “I don’t know how I know that but I do. We’re not even close.”
“Well, this is as far as we can go in this direction without getting wet and one dunking a day is enough for me, thank you very much.”
“But we must to go on,” Chrissie said and even as she did she sensed the agitation growing, her whole body agreeing with her. “What can we do? Get a boat?”
“I think it’s further than that,” Lorna said thoughtfully. “I think we have to go over to Australia.”
*
Felicity Campbell stood by the glass, regarding Barbara Crane and Dr James Turley with quiet dismay. In the room, they could observe the figure of Kevin Wagner, with both arms and legs in traction.
“We’ve had to strap him down,” Turley was saying.
“Yes. He’s obviously very agitated,” Felicity said. She didn’t need to read any monitors or charts to see that. Kevin Wagner shook and squirmed those parts of his body still capable of it.
“Poor man,” Barbara Crane was saying. “He’s lost everything.”
Felicity frowned. “And no one has claimed him?”
“We even had the Minister for Foreign Affairs involved for a little while, stirring up action in the States,” Barbara Crane said methodically. “But so far, we haven’t been able to turn up anyone who wants to take responsibility for him. He was an only child, both parents dead, and his wife’s family had their own bereavements to contend with. Three lovely little children, apparently, all gone.”
“Surely his wife’s family has some responsibility...” Felicity murmured.
“I get the impression they didn’t like our Kevin much,” Barbara said. “I gather he was a bit of an adventurer and away from home a lot.”
“What sort of adventurer?”
“Well, I understand he was selling diving and salvage equipment...”
“What about his employer?”
“He’d left his job to come here.”
“So we’re stuck with him.”
“For the moment. Anyway, he seemed happy here, until this started yesterday.”
“Yes,” Felicity said. “But under the circumstances, an extensive traumatic reaction to his tragedy and his condition is to be expected.”
“Agreed,” Dr Turley said, and looked apologetically. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
“Oh no, Dr Turley,” Felicity smiled. “You did the right thing. But I can’t offer any suggestions that you haven’t already tried. Nevertheless, I am interested. Do let me know if his condition changes.”
*
The sign in the foyer of The Golden Dolphin declared that Andromeda Starlight’s performances were cancelled due to illness.
“I guess she just ain’t recovered from that volcano that got her,” Joel Tierney explained to the management. It was true in as many ways as it was a lie. He kept her in her room w
here she sometimes thrashed so violently that he feared she was suffering an OD. When he thought about hospitals, he thought about cops. Joel sat at the bedside mostly, sweating as much as she did.
*
First they took his battery away, but that only meant he tried to roll himself away by hand, which he was just simply not able to do at that stage of his convalescence. He didn’t make it much further than out into the corridor.
“Joe, where the hell do you think you can go?” the nurse asked in exasperation.
“I can’t stay,” he said. “I have to go.”
When they took away the wheelchair as well, still he tried to get out of bed, and presumably make his escape by rolling on the floor. In the end, even Joe agreed that it might be for the best if they sedated him.
*
The drive back was a nightmare. Lorna fought her way forward, against nausea and her every instinct insisting she turn the car around and go they other way. But they had been the other way and there was only the ocean. Now her wilfulness alone forced her onward.
“Please turn around,” Chrissie had wept beside her. “Please go back the other way.”
But Lorna continued east, against every palpable sensation, every imaginable omen, even a mortal dread, determined to make it to the airport. It was only an hour’s drive and she was sure she could do it, but the hour went on and on and Lorna leaned into the forces against her as if they were a stiff wind, maintaining a white-knuckled grip on the wheel.
“Not too much further now,” Lorna continually told Chrissie, or perhaps herself, again and again, through gritted teeth. Chrissie by then had given into it and curled on the seat beside her, sobbing silently. It was so cruel, to torture her best friend this way, but there was no other alternative. They had to reach the airport—then it would be fine.
They had been friends for only a year but it seemed like forever. She and Chrissie met at a ski lodge below the Remarkables in the South Island. Lorna was born in New Zealand shortly after her father arrived from Limerick—an engineer who came to work on a hydro-electric scheme. But he had been invalided in an industrial accident when she was fourteen and retired with mum to Norfolk Island.