Angels in the Architecture

by Sue Fitzmaurice

  Among the plethora of wan, consumptive scientists occupying the floor that was the physics department, Alicia lived a relative aloneness she relished.

  The irony of her criticism of science was that her inner rebel dictated others would never meet her standard anyway. Far from wan herself, Alicia boasted a style reminiscent of the philosophy or religious studies departments with a head of wildly curling red hair and a fashion sense of gypsy proportions. Despite the staid environment of the university, it was as any other in the Western world a place of diversity, as indeed universities had always been; the oddest mixture of conservative and liberal. Anything goes.

  ‘You know, that’s not at all sound theory. Just guess work at this point, I really feel.’

  Dryden Cooper leant in the door of Alicia’s office. He was Head of Programmes in the physics department and had come to respect Alicia’s teaching ability. He was one of the few scientists on the floor who was friendly with her, one other even refusing to enter the lift at the same time as her and preferring to wait for another. Bollocks to you, she would say to herself, even as she would voice a determined and polite greeting, and always making them be the one that had to wait for the next lift. Not my bloody issue.

  ‘Oh and you would know. Don’t be so arrogant! You should be looking to every new development from such auspicious sources as Alain Aspect and his team. They’re not beneath any of us. See what happens, I say. And see what the international commentary is. You might be surprised. He’s not without respect and esteem among the World’s best.’

  ‘I’m not being arrogant. You’re making huge leaps of faith. No one in their right mind will think Bell’s theorem has gone west yet. The Paris trials are only one set of experiments. And anyway they’re French – can’t trust ’em. And someone’s got to live in the real world, Alicia – we can’t all be travelling through time like a Tardis now, can we?’

  They both grinned and Alicia pulled a face. She was used to Dryden’s teasing.

  ‘It’s not about travelling through time. It’s about communication; influence, synchronicity, and even those words don’t describe it. Look, it’s an equation okay, like any other hitherto unfathomable piece of physics we now take for granted, just some simple – well, no it’s not simple – but anyway it’s just maths, numbers on a page. And those numbers deserve our consideration, our response, whether respectful or not.’

  ‘You don’t believe that for a second. You don’t care about the figures. You’re a traitor to your profession, Alicia. You’re looking for God in those numbers, and I’m telling you, you won’t find Him. So there, write your response. I’ll be happy to review it for you, but it’s not a focus of this department to consider the quantum, as you know. This is popular science, undeserving of serious attention. Let some other scientists risk their reputations on it. We can’t afford to be blasé.’

  ‘Now that’s just too extreme and you know it. The quantum underlies all else.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Oh, c’mon, Dryden, it’s at least interesting, which is more than can be said for a lot else that goes on around here.’

  ‘And what makes it interesting, my dear? I’ll tell you what. You want your profession to give meaning to your life. And you’ll find that in a Church or some such, not here. This is a job and you have a good head for it, but it’s not about your heart and soul. You need to leave them at the door.’

  ‘So you’re saying you have no passion for what you do here then?’

  ‘That’s not what I said.’

  ‘That’s exactly what you said actually. You’ve got no desire at all to find something new. You don’t revel in the dream that some discovery one day is going to sweep everything you’ve always believed in aside. You don’t harbour any possibility of finding the answer to everything.’

  Laughing. ‘Of course! I want international renown for being the best at being the same as everyone else!’

  They both laughed.

  ‘Oh, Dryden, now you’re the one that’s joking. We’re not so different, you and I.’

  ‘I’ve always been afraid of that!’

  Alicia’s sparring with Dryden allowed her at least some sense that she belonged in the field. Despite his show of cynicism, she knew Dryden meant in fact to demonstrate his support and that by this exchange he meant only to test her own conviction. It was worthy of him, and of her.

  ‘But seriously, it is time travel, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, yes, sort of, but not in some popularist Doctor Who sense. It’s particle influence across space, but the particles have to have been in the same locale at some point.’

  ‘And a million miles away implies the possibility of bending time.’

  ‘Well, light theory is undermined by their results, yes.’

  ‘Theoretically.’

  ‘Theoretically.’

  ‘So you’re going to shout this from the belfry tomorrow?’ Dryden smiled.

  ‘Well I shall try and find a way to do so within the narrow confines of my profession as you’ve so clearly defined it, if that’s what you mean. Anyway while I’m up there – in the Belfry that is – I’ll try and get a book deal going with a few Angels shall I?’ They laughed again. ‘After all, our science still depends on the whim of the wider community and those that fund us. Ordinary people are interested in this stuff. We have to be able to communicate it in ordinary terms to them.’

  ‘This stuff! Stuff! We don’t do stuff, Alicia. We’re scientists. Stuff is for the management department and other woolly-headed so-called academics, trying to prove their righteousness to the economists. We’re above that sort of thing. Science is not dependent on ordinary people and their small-mindedness. We don’t subscribe to Scientific American around here. We’re publishers of serious, internationally reviewed and reputable work.’

  ‘Now you’re definitely being arrogant!’ She smiled as she said it.

  ‘Well, my sweet, you have a good day and I hope you’re still in this quadrant tomorrow,’ Dryden said, backing out of the doorway with a grin.

  ‘Oh ha ha!’ Alicia turned back to her computer and her thoughts.

  She wanted to be part of this exciting new world of science, and while Lincoln had been good to her, aside from Dryden’s easy banter, she lacked the day-to-day conversation with others for whom the new science was stimulating. She was at risk of becoming bored, and she knew from experience that was not a good thing. She had to be engaged. It made her feel alive, and god knew everyone around her was a lot happier if she was.

  In a sprawling cottage on the edge of Nocton Fen, Pete Watson had emerged from his garage workshop, the BBC blaring from an old radio-tape player on a shelf in the corner. He was seeing off one of his son’s team of therapists after their morning play session.

  ‘Thanks, Kaye. How was our wee sunshine today?’

  ‘He said swan.’

  ‘Swan? What’d ’e say swan for? Why can’t he say Daddy or Shakespeare or steak ‘n’ chips? How’d he get swan?’

  ‘Don’t know. Some picture he liked I guess. Boy, he’s into those chocolate chip biscuits, isn’t he? I had to hide them. He was just about livid with me. It took all my effort to distract him.’

  Pete was wiping grease from his hands on to what was possibly an even greasier old cloth. He wore once-white overalls with the sleeves cut off at the elbows, and bare feet. Two-day-old stubble covered his rugged friendly face. At some point in the morning, he’d wiped sweat from his forehead or rubbed an eye since a sizeable oil mark ran solidly across one brow.

  ‘How was your morning?’ Kaye asked. ‘Have you got that old crate running yet?’

  Kaye was the chattiest of Tim’s therapists, and Pete enjoyed her company. He was sure her garrulous humour was an enormous boon to Tim’s day as well as his.

  ‘How dare you call my baby a crate? The least you could come up with is jalopy or fender bender or something. After all, this is a work of art you know, a veritable Mona Lisa of mustangs, a�
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  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get the picture,’ Kaye interrupted. ‘I’d just like to see the bloody thing get its rubber to the road sometime.’

  ‘Ah, but this is not necessarily the goal of course. Should it ever become roadworthy I may have to come forth from my sanctuary and speak to people, and my wife and I may not know what to say to each other after such a long period of manshed hibernation.’

  ‘You sure she’s not hanging out for you to finish it so she can talk to you?’ Kaye asked.

  ‘Hmm, there’s a thought. But on the other hand, perhaps she prefers it this way. Hard to know.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ said Kaye.

  ‘Anyway, how’s Tim coming along do you think? Are we winning?’

  ‘You know. It’s one step at a time. One day at a time. I haven’t felt much change lately.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Pete.

  ‘Sometimes I think he’s actually just so smart that he’s really bored witless with this training we do with him and he’s waiting for the good stuff to start, whatever that is. I don’t know. What about more socialising, more outings, and more experience with people and the wider world?’

  ‘I’ve wondered that. Maybe I’ll take him up to Lincoln on the weekend. Perhaps we could see the swans at the Pool, since he’s got a new thing for them.’

  ‘Good idea. Let me know what he makes of it,’ said Kaye. ‘There’s no doubt he’s not in any way severely autistic. He’s never been a headbanger, he’s got great eye contact, all kinds of things that take him away from that extreme end of the spectrum. We’ve got to remind ourselves of that.’

  ‘Yeah, he just runs in circles, shakes his arms around, blabbers on about nothing, and laughs at empty space.’

  ‘I know, I know. But honestly it could be worse. You should see some of the kids I work with. Really, I do have high hopes for him. You’ll see. He’s only four. There’s plenty of time. Really.’

  ‘Thanks, Kaye. I really do appreciate all you do for him. Sometimes it just doesn’t seem to be having any effect. And then other times he’s off in leaps and bounds. Not much different from most kids I s’pose.’

  ‘Well like I say, step by step.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Okay, well, I’m off. See you Monday.’

  ‘Thanks, see you then.’

  ‘Bye, Timmy,’ Kaye called to the small boy at the front door.

  Timmy did not respond. He was concentrating on the vertical line of the door frame, which he did by standing right up against it, with his nose touching and his head angled to one side. His eyes did a slow dance between the point at his eye level and the top of the door frame, and back again.

  ‘Tired him out for you sorry, but he’s kinda relaxed too I think.’

  ‘Oh, he’ll be fine, won’t you, Tim-Tim?’

  Tim’s eyes stayed locked in his up and down investigation of the door frame.

  ‘Sweetie-pie. Okay, seeya.’ Kaye turned down the path with a wave.

  ‘Bye.’

  Pete waited another moment as Tim studied the door frame. It was apparent that there was something to do with vertical and horizontal lines that drew his attention, regardless of where they were. When it seemed he was likely to be in this position for some time, Pete wandered past him, not resisting the suggestion of a hair tousle, and headed towards lunch-making duties, his couple of hours of freedom over for the day. Not that he minded.

  Pete told himself he was blissfully happy. He’d gone from student to almost professional protestor, to political reporter and then to his version of house husbandry, as childminder, occasional writer and long-time car and engine tinkerer. Parenting Tim proved the most challenging and most rewarding of his roles. He considered himself lucky to have such a child, a gift of sorts.

  ‘Still talking to the Angels,’ the lead therapist had said one day, not quite mirroring Pete’s thoughts as Tim would smile up at something not there, or laugh out loud. At what?

  ‘Hey, mate, ready for some fuel?’ Pete peered round the kitchen door a few minutes later to see Tim still glued by his nose to the door. He took a slight tumble backwards and recovered. He turned towards his father, although did not apparently notice him. Instead, his attention to the door broken, he set off past Pete on some new mission – probably an attempt on the pantry.

  ‘Biscuit?’ would be the inevitable next thing.

  Right then, Pete said to himself, reviewing his list of possible diversions from biscuits.

  The phone rang.

  This might work.

  ‘Hello,’ he said into the phone, and then covering it, ‘look, Tim, the phone. Who is it?’ Back into the phone, ‘oh, hi hun; how’s your day? Tim, Tim; it’s mummy, come and listen.’

  Pete reached the phone out to Tim who stood with his ear to it. Pete could hear his wife’s chit-chat through the earpiece. Alicia took the view, much as Pete did, that it didn’t matter what they said to Tim as long as they said a lot. Alicia would lecture him on quantum physics, since she could talk on the topic endlessly and it fitted with the idea of simply saying a lot. She would practise actual lectures and speeches to him in the bath, on the sofa, wherever and whenever. Pete noticed that in this way she sometimes even clarified her own thinking on things.

  ‘Biscuit.’ Tim had had enough of the phone.

  ‘Well, that didn’t work for long. Hi, love. What’s up?’ Pete spoke back into the phone and reached for the biscuit tin..

  ‘Oh, we’re good. Just the usual sort of morning. You sound restless.’ Alicia’s phone calls to home were often a way of grounding herself or as a distraction from boredom.

  ‘Interesting. Well, I’ll look forward to hearing about it later. Yes, the washing’s in. Enjoy the rest of your day, hun.’

  ‘Biscuit.’

  ‘No, Timmy. Like this.’

  A pair of small and gentle hands guided even smaller loose fingers across brightly coloured wooden puzzle pieces, placing them correctly in the different shaped holes.

  ‘See?’

  But the little boy did not see and picked up the wooden box containing the pieces and shook it, enjoying the sound of it more. He laughed. At the sound? Who knew what.

  The two children were fair-haired with happy round faces. Toys were strewn about them, and there was a long row of different size cars and trucks lined up end to end across the room. The children’s play was relaxed. If there were rules of any kind, none impacted the enchantment of this scene. They weren’t hurried or trapped by a time that said they had to be here or there. Nothing bound them in any way except they were with each other and doing as they wished, the one helping the other to learn, the little student happy with this sweet friend who had always been with him.

  ‘It’s funny, isn’t it, Tim? Do you want to try again?’ Jillie Watson, with a devotion and patience beyond her seven years, gently took the box from her younger brother and emptied the shapes on to the floor where they sat. If anyone else had taken the box from him, he would have screamed. But Jillie usually had Tim’s complete cooperation. She never became bored or frustrated with him although the children’s parents were willing to concede she one day might. For now they took pleasure in her custodial attitude.

  ‘See. This one goes in here. This one here. Where does this one go, Tim?’

  Jillie passed a red wooden circle to Tim, and he took hold with his thumb and forefinger, letting it drop into his lap and turning it over with his hand.

  ‘You put it in here. C’mon, put it in here.’ Jillie held the circle side of the box out to Tim.

  Putting it down again, she picked up the red piece in Tim’s lap, put it into his hand and guided his hand to the circular opening in the box, manoeuvring the piece through the hole.

  ‘Yay, you did it! Let’s do that again, shall we?’ Jillie began the process over. She’d watched Tim’s therapists many times and knew that repetition would eventually pay off.

  Timmy smiled at something. A huge smile that went on and on, and he laughed.

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nbsp; ‘You don’t want to do that? Okay, what do you want to do, Tim?’

  Jillie waited, looking as Tim continued his smile and giggle and stare. He rolled backwards on to the floor, giggling still, as though he were being tickled. Jillie rolled back with him, not sure of the game, until it seemed just as suddenly to be over and Tim sat up.

  ‘Shall we go outside and kick the ball?’

  ‘Ball.’

  ‘C’mon then.’ Jillie held out her hand and took her brother’s small chubby one.

  Tim got up from the floor, still smiling. Whatever amused him had gone by the time they got to the back door. Jillie took the steps carefully, watching her brother’s footing and then running together into the yard. Jillie retrieved a rubber ball from under some bushes and launched it carefully towards her brother. Tim jumped up and down, feet together in one spot on the lawn.

  A while later their mother’s voice called them inside to get ready for a Sunday drive.

  3

  It is not known precisely where angels dwell. It has not been God’s pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.

  Voltaire (1694–1778)

  Giles Johnson was a barman at the Magna Carta. He was a big northerner with a generous ear and a solid word of advice for most. He was also large enough and fearsome enough that a look from him across the pub would still almost any kind of fracas about to happen.

  Giles stood behind the bar, sleeves rolled up and tea towel scrunched and twisted round the inside of a pint glass. It was quiet yet, apart from the two fellows in the corner, one old and one younger, with a chessboard and a very slow pint each. They were often in, always just the two of them, always the chessboard. The pair of them always looked like they’d seen better days – a bit scruffy, worn collars and cuffs, and shoes that might do with a polish. They were an odd couple. He’d been surprised the first time he’d gone by them and heard their conversation – well spoken and gracious in an unexpected way. He could imagine the old boy was retired from something, a university perhaps, but never quite fathomed the younger one. Giles figured he was an oddball, just too unusual for anyone to employ. Or just maybe the old guy was an eccentric millionaire and this was his nephew – no need to work, could just do as they liked.