by Alan Goodwin
‘Have you ever drunk alcohol, Bebe?’
‘I tried it once when I was younger, but I never took to it. After that, I just stuck to water.’
There was a return to our slow silence of the last hour as we sipped our respective drinks. I rubbed a frayed thread on my shirt cuff. ‘Any news from our friends at the Nobel committee?’ I tried sounding nonchalant, but Bebe knew this particular anxiety and smiled at my attempts at lack of interest.
‘Actually it’s gone quiet on that front, but then you’re rather out of the way down here.’
‘Out of sight and out of bloody mind.’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite that way, Jack, but a quiet week from you doesn’t do any harm.’
We ambled our way through a stilted conversation about the company and how it was disposed to me after my little wayward press conference in London. Evidently all was forgiven. I tugged at the thread again. ‘And Driesler, what of our friend Frank Driesler?’
Bebe checked his watch. ‘Nearly time to go. I hope this is going to be a cracker.’
‘What’s happened, Bebe? What has Driesler said?’
‘Nothing, Jack, Driesler hasn’t said anything.’
‘Shit, you’re such a natural politician, Bebe, really. Tell me what’s happened. Just tell me everything you’ve heard about Driesler since we left the UK.’
‘He’s about to publish.’
‘His book?’
Bebe nodded.
‘At last, the long-awaited book that’s going to change the way we all do science, show how we have been wrong these last four hundred years and prove Superforce incorrect. When do we get a copy?’
‘Not sure.’
‘Keep on top of it, Bebe, I want that fucker just as soon as I can get my little hands on it. Shit, I wish I wasn’t stuck down here out of the eye of the storm, I need to be at the centre. I’ll have a lot to say to that bastard. I can’t wait, I can’t bloody wait.’
Finally the thread broke so I rolled it into a tiny ball and flicked it onto the food table before finishing my drink with a single gulp. Bebe’s face relaxed when he sensed the Driesler conversation was going no further.
‘Are you all right, Jack? You seem unusually distracted this evening. Are you nervous?’
‘How do you think the security is down here?’ At last I’d got to the source of angst after my long vulture-like circling over a dying animal.
‘The security?’
‘Yes Bebe, the security. What’s wrong with you today? Have you stopped understanding basic English or have I started speaking in some alien tongue? I’m talking about the big bastards with number one haircuts and bits of plastic in their ears that make them look like outcasts from a deaf association Christmas gathering. Perhaps you could ask one for his earpiece—it might help you hear better. Now do you know whom I’m talking about? Good, now tell me if you think they’re up to their job. Am I safe, Bebe? I want to know if I’m safe.’
‘Of course you’re safe.’
‘Well Bebe, my fine English-educated Indian friend, I don’t feel fucking safe.’ I stood up and poured a drink, which I drained immediately. ‘In fact I feel decidedly unsafe. Take today as an example. When I entered the theatre, someone was watching me. I’m sure someone was watching me.’ I shivered at the memory. I hadn’t actually seen anyone, but I just knew. And there was a reason why they were there.
‘I’m sure there were a lot of people there, waiting for you. You’re very popular, Jack. My God, this happens everywhere we go.’
‘Someone is stalking me, Bebe. Last night when I went out for dinner with my schoolmates there was someone just on my shoulder, watching. They were there when Jo and I got in the car last night and here tonight. All it takes is for him or her to have a gun and I’m history. They get their Oswald moment, take me out and get famous. You know, I don’t begrudge them the fame—I mean fame is good, fame is cool, I like the fame—but what I don’t like, what I struggle with, is dying. Can you understand that? I’m just not sold on the idea of having my brains plastered over a brick wall. So, I’d like you to talk to the security guys. I want you to make sure they’re on top of their job. Make sure they know what protection is, because Bebe, I’m being stalked and I don’t like it. In fact, it’s freaking me out and I’m sure the company doesn’t want me freaking out, does it?’
‘Keep calm, Jack. I’ll talk to the security. Everything’s fine, everything’s cool…’
A knock interrupted his answer, but he still kept nodding his agreement to my request as he opened the door. I think I’d convinced him of my concern. Well, I like to think of it as concern, though perhaps it was closer to panic. I’d always been comfortable on planet fame. Suddenly, for the first time, I wanted to pull down the shutters and say the shop was closed. I was wary of everyone and even sitting in the dressing room I felt like shrinking when the door opened.
A young man with a shaved head and thick-rimmed black glasses poked his head in. He wore headphones, one cup on one ear, the other on a cheek. This was my call so I drained my glass and followed. Bebe patted my back as though his comfort was enough to protect me from whatever hostile acts awaited. The corridor was dark for a short distance, then lit. This heightened my sense of vulnerability and I walked close to the wall hoping it might offer some protection. A strong smell of cleaner from the floor stung my nose and turned my stomach. I thought of cancelling, I even ran through the various illnesses I might fake to convince Bebe of the sincerity of my complaint. But I knew there was no turning back so continued through to the other side of a door where all was dark and a pencil torch from the young man lit the way to my mark. We were backstage, just metres from exposure on stage. A single shot was all it would take. Just a single shot and I’d be gone.
Two taps on my shoulder told me my face microphone was now connected. The first chords of Pink Floyd’s ‘In the Flesh?’ crashed out, the floor trembled and a green haze from the stage lights filtered to where I stood, casting me in a ghoulish glow. When the guitar changed pace and moved from chords to a melody line I felt a tap on the top of my head and followed my cue to walk on stage. Applause greeted my appearance and as I reached centre-stage the green lights turned white and swung onto me in perfect synchronisation. The music died, the applause died and I was alone.
‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Jack Mitchell. Welcome to my world.’ As I walked across the stage a huge three-piece screen at the rear slowly lit to show Michelangelo’s ‘God drinking the waters of the earth’ from the Sistine Chapel ceiling. ‘I’d like to take you on a journey this evening, a journey through time and space, through history, through art and literature, a journey through the present and the future. This is a journey through our science and our culture. It will explain where we’ve come from and where we’re going. It will explain who we are and who we are to become. It will explain how we do science and what science does for us. Our world is a scientific world and our future is a scientific one.’ The screen dissolved into a million dots and reformed into the Hubble telescope picture of interstellar hydrogen clouds, looking like brown muddy streaks in a green pool of water. That picture dissolved and reformed into a picture of a bearded face. ‘Galileo, the father of science, let us begin with him,’ I announced.
The show moved seamlessly through Galileo, Newton, Faraday and Clerk-Maxwell with music, readings, a laser show and graphics to help explain the development of physics through their works and lives. The climax began in a sea of blue lights.
‘By the end of the nineteenth century it was assumed we had discovered all there was to discover about the natural world.’ Slowly the stage lights and screen dimmed. ‘Many scientists spoke of the end of physics.’ The last light went out and the theatre was in darkness. ‘However, such a prediction could not have been more wrong.’ On screen the familiar face of Albert Einstein appeared.
‘Far from nearing the end, physics was about to embark on its most revolutionary period. Physics would overthrow our ac
cepted concepts of the world and change us in a myriad of ways. The new or modern physics, as it was called, to distinguish it from the classical science of Newton, had at its heart two theories: relativity and the quantum. They both owe their origins to Einstein. He was the mother of relativity in that he gave birth to it, having borrowed some concepts from elsewhere to help him conceive the theory. And he was the father of the quantum in that, although others formulated the theory, he provided essential material for its development. His idea of the photon, or light quanta, was the sperm, if you like, of the quantum theory and his later statistical work the sperm of the later quantum mechanics. And it is with quantum theory and quantum mechanics that we see most clearly how dependent our society is on the practical consequences of modern physics. They’ve directly led to specific new industries, which rely on the science of the theory and on scientists to develop them. The microchip, transistors, lasers—all rely on quantum theory to make them work and they’ve given birth to computers, telecommunications, the global economy and genetics.’ Images of the technology I named flashed on screen at ever-increasing speeds.
‘Let me illustrate my point with one example.’ The stage lights went out and purple laser rays from either side of the stage pierced the sudden dark, hitting angled mirrors. Jean Michel Jarre’s techno music filled the hall as an intricate purple pattern instantly formed across the stage. ‘In 1916 Einstein theorised about the process where excited atoms are triggered into releasing extra energy. What possible use could this have? Well, in the 1960s the laser was invented directly from his work. Today its uses are endless: lasers scan our groceries in the supermarket, run our CDs, create holograms, are used in laser surgery and, most importantly, lie at the heart of fibre optics and hence all modern communications. There would be no Internet without fibre optics, without the laser. So you can see that from a seemingly insignificant idea of Einstein’s, an important part of the framework of modern life is constructed.’ On screen a woman swung on her office chair, then dispersed into a thousand pieces before being sucked into a computer screen down a fibre optic cable and reappearing on a hundred screens in a hundred places.
‘Before Superforce there were four known forces: electromagnetism, the nuclear strong force, the nuclear weak force and gravity. This is where relativity and quantum enter the story again. All these forces except for gravity are explained by quantum theory, but gravity is explained by relativity. Now quantum is lumpy, it’s about energy coming in lumps, but relativity is smooth, continuous. Here is the problem of uniting the four forces, it means uniting quantum and relativity, or in other words the lumpy and the smooth. It’s like mixing sand and water.’
A computer-animated picture of a twisting, changing, and weaving pattern appeared on the screens. ‘We’ve now moulded these ideas. Superforce is what explains everything.’ The pattern formed into the formula of Superforce. As always I turned to admire my masterpiece. Even now, after two years, this assortment of numbers, letters and symbols took my breath away, the formula that had its genesis the day before Caroline killed herself. On cue I turned back to the audience, but suddenly my mind was a blank. There were no words in my memory, just the image of Caroline’s feet, the toes pointed to the ground, the red nail polish the only colour in view, and as I struggled to banish the thought all I could do was follow the slow swing of her jeans-covered legs. How strange that at this moment, on stage, in front of all these people, I should ask myself for the first time why she had done such a thing.
‘This is the heart of spiral field maths and of the deceptive beauty at the heart of Superforce. Look one way and you see quantum theory, look the other and you see relativity—two sides of the same coin, held just long enough by the maths to allow us to see which one we’re looking at. But what does this mean for us?’ I walked across stage, unsteady from my memory of Caroline. ‘Well, ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know. We just can’t tell what may come. So, when you’re asked, “Does this stuff really matter?” you shout, “Of course.” This formula, this force, explains the universe and the world around us. It’s the force that binds our materials together, and if we understand that, imagine what might be possible. Maybe we can manipulate matter itself and change a table into a cow, or dirt into gold. Perhaps we could make new energy and create our own tame black hole. Who knows? What I do know though is that the future is ours. Remember that one message when you leave. Science has made the future ours to mould. We just have to be brave enough to lay our hands on the clay. Thank you and goodnight.’
Applause thundered through the auditorium. I took my bows and left, waving to all parts of the audience. Bebe waited for me with a towel and water and I took the congratulations of those around me as I gulped down the liquid. The happy tempo of ELO blasted from the stage. As ‘Mr Blue Sky’ played, I knew the magical animated tour around a black hole and through the other side where everyday images changed shape, was showing on the stage screen.
Bebe and I relaxed in the changing room after I’d changed from my sweat-soaked clothes and sunk my first post-show drink. That one always tasted good, almost on a par with the first of the day. The adrenalin of the show had shrugged off my earlier gloom. All the lights were on now and I was ready for the party, though there was still some lingering uneasiness at the thought of Caroline’s hanging feet.
‘The world should see you, Jack. You were marvellous out there. I’d like to see Driesler try and do something like that. He’s just a bag of gas.’
‘You know, Bebe, I’ve been pondering our earlier conversation about Mr Driesler. I can’t help but think what a grand coincidence it is that when he publishes his book, I’m stuck down here at the other end of the world, away from all the action.’
‘Conspiracy theorist.’
‘Maybe, but how convenient it is for the company to have me here.’
‘This trip has been planned for months.’
‘And Driesler’s book?’
‘We don’t have any control over that.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘Of course we don’t. Christ, Jack, the company supports you fully, we’ve spent millions…’
‘Bebe, spare me the company bullshit, I know how it works: the king is dead, long live the king. If Taikon think he’s a better bet in the future then I’d be put out to pasture, contract tied and silenced while Frank steps into my fame-sodden shoes. And think how much easier he’d be to manage. Shit, he’d be low maintenance compared to me. I bet he doesn’t have any vices, I bet he’s squeaky clean. The company would love that, wouldn’t they, Bebe? No risk of scandal to dirty the image. What a partnership, and how easy it would be to get me off the scene. I mean, a few kiss-and-tell stories and I’d be in disgrace, I’d be blasted off planet fame with a one-way ticket.’
‘You’re talking rubbish, Jack.’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes you are, rubbish.’ He checked his watch. ‘Let’s go to the party.’
‘Why won’t you let me comment on his book?’
‘The company wants a planned response. The boys in Europe are anxious to go through everything with you first. In fact that shows how committed they are to you, how much they respect you.’
‘You’re so well practised in the art of spin, Bebe.’
‘Let’s go.’
‘You had better be straight with me, Bebe. If I find you lot are in bed with Driesler I would be one very sad and unhappy boy.’
The Hilton party was in full swing when we arrived. The guests babbled their excitement at being seen at one of the parties of the year. Bebe had performed his usual impeccable job in preparing the guests and the working girls mixed with the wannabes. In fact, he had excelled and the party was well stocked like a fine wine cellar. Protocol demanded I first meet the head of Taikon in Australasia. He was a short man with a wispy moustache that hinted at weak stubble on a Sunday morning and he spoke with an unusually staccato voice. I played the game, graciously accepting congratulations, talking up the company and talking d
own the competitors. Nodding in agreement and laughing at poor jokes, I shook outstretched hands with a firm, warm greeting. Bebe hovered at my shoulder, ensuring my drink was full and my comments bland. He had every reason to be pleased with my performance and told me so at every opportunity as we moved from one group to another. Finally after an hour Bebe relaxed his grip and let me go play.
The toilets at the Hilton are an interesting mix of Raffles and the space station: all the trappings of colonial class in a sanitised environment. I lingered in them for a while, taking care over a wash and dry of hands, combing my hair and adjusting my clothes. It was nice to be away from the sweaty mass, my work for the evening done and the fun about to begin. I toyed with the idea of taking a pew and contemplating my worries, but I really couldn’t be fucked to get morose again so I just winked at myself and left the toilet to its orbit.
Once back in the party the calves of a particularly fine pair of legs caught my attention. Thankfully the face and figure matched.
Her voice was husky, heavily accented, reminiscent of a Berlin jazz club. She wore a red velvet dress, a little cheap, with some frayed edges, but not so cheap as to immediately give away her status. This was a working dress, not a night-time special to get on the pages of Woman’s Day. Her name was Claudia and she had come from Russia to New Zealand two years ago, but her English was almost perfect. Her black hair, shiny and soft as an advertisement, formed a waterfall on her shoulders. It reminded me of a thoroughbred’s tail. She wore heavy black shoes that tightened those black-clad calves and her body swayed to an imaginary tune.
Looking into my eyes without quite focusing she answered my question: ‘Paul for my wedding ballad, John to run away with.’ It was good enough for me. I touched her arm and guided her toward Bebe. As I moved I shook more hands, took more congratulations and flashed a smile or two. Already my mind was imagining hands running the smooth path of those legs.
It was just before I reached Bebe that Jo appeared at his side. He acknowledged her hesitantly, quickly assessed the dangers and tried to distract her with an overelaborate welcome. To the outsider it must have seemed as though Bebe was greeting a long-lost lover. The diversion almost succeeded and I had just about escaped the throng when her interest in Bebe suddenly waned and she turned straight into my path. She greeted me with a sloppy kiss; her breath smelt of drink and her eyes were dazed.