To my mother, Fay,
1926 – 1988
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
What next?
Acknowledgements
Despite a voracious and well indulged appetite for reading, my mother’s talent for writing was discovered too late in her sadly foreshortened life. Yet whilst fulfilling her maternal duties with evident and inexhaustible love and dedication, she conveyed an infectious passion for the English language, which only now, twenty-four years after her death, am I beginning to fully appreciate. For this reason I have dedicated this, my first novel, to her.
To my father, I owe, among other things, my curiosity for the workings of this Universe, as well as a certain fascination, if not any startling aptitude, for mathematics and science.
Without the love, support and encouragement of my wife, Fatma, this book would certainly never have progressed beyond the first three draft chapters, written seven years earlier in a fit of Alpine inspiration one summer in Haute Savoie, but subsequently abandoned to the necessity of earning a living.
For the first critical proofreading and editing phase, I am especially indebted to the eagle eyes of Joe Robertson and Dal Gemmell, with their uncanny abilities to spot the tiniest (and not so tiny) slips of grammar and punctuation which littered the first drafts of my completed manuscript.
Special thanks also goes to Iain Moal, whose first-hand insights into the tortuous process of obtaining publication in scientific journals, informed the content of chapter twenty-three.
Reference books and other sources of factual information include: Brian Greene – The Elegant Universe; James Gleick – Chaos; Oliver Sacks – Musicophilia, The man who mistook his wife for a hat; Daniel Levitin – This is your Brain on Music; Daniel Dennett – Understanding Consciousness, Kinds of Minds; Steven Pinker – How the mind works; VS. Ramachandran - Phantoms in the Brain (and some fascinating Youtube videos from the Beyond Belief series); Susan Greenfield – The secret life of the brain; Dr. Ginger Campbell’s Brain science podcast; and other sources too numerous to recall.
From my posting of various intermediate drafts on the website of Harper Collins’ online writers’ community, Authonomy, I received useful and encouraging comments from too many to list in full, but for which I am also greatly indebted.
Finally, having cut, tweaked and polished these drafts into something I hope, gentle reader, you will consider worthy of publication, one final task awaited – that of cover design. For this, while having no clear idea what I wanted, yet feeling I would recognise it when I saw it, the challenge was passed to my brilliantly creative and artistic daughter, Mary. A few days later, I received the first draft of the stunning design you now see on the cover of this book. Not to be out-done, her wonderful and diligent sister Lizzie, promptly found the two remaining typos, which had somehow hitherto eluded numerous and painstaking final reviews. For more CONNECTED information, please visit our website at www.simondenman.com.
CHAPTER 1
As the coffin was lowered, the sky darkened and a gust of wind ripped through the churchyard, stirring the ancient trees and momentarily lifting the masks of reverent solemnity gathered around the open grave. Peter studied the faces with a detached sense of curiosity. How well, he wondered, had these people really known his brother? His gaze came to rest on Isabelle. Even now - even through the tears - she looked beautiful. He tried to imagine the feelings welling behind those big brown eyes: anguish tinged with guilt, denial, loneliness - perhaps even anger. He shivered. His own feelings were somehow suppressed. His brother was in a box, about to be sealed away for an eternity in the damp, peaty earth beneath his feet, and yet he felt strangely calm, the whole service having washed over him like a dream from which he might awaken at any moment.
The call had come last Saturday as he and Abigail had been leaving for dinner. Isabelle had just returned home from visiting her parents in Paris to discover Martin's lifeless body slumped before the PC with his headphones on. The initial appearance of sleep, supported by the half bottle of scotch on the desk, had faltered at the sight of an empty container of tranquilisers, and finally shattered at the touch of her husband’s cold, dead skin. Since then, Peter had been busy helping Isabelle prepare for the funeral, and somehow this had kept him from analysing his own feelings.
Isabelle’s hand was on his shoulder. “Peter, you will be coming back for a drink, won't you?”
For a moment he felt disorientated, “Yes. Thank you. I’ll see you back at The Fields.” In his head, he could still hear the music from the service - Albinoni’s Adagio for strings and organ performed by a dozen of Martin’s fellow musicians from the academy. The sound had totally filled the small church, sending him off into a world of memories. Why do we like music? It was a question Martin had sprung on him one evening by phone, sparking a friendly three-month debate. “Why are we so moved by certain pieces of music?” he had continued. It was an intriguing question. Certain passages in certain works evoke such a strong emotional response, one can’t help but wonder whether something special is happening deep within the brain. Peter, always the scientist, had argued for social cause; from an early age, we learn to associate musical patterns with emotions. On joyous occasions we become used to hearing particular styles of music. When we next hear something similar, we are pleasantly reminded of those occasions and describe the music as uplifting. Martin on the other hand, the artist, would always assume a more poetic, philosophical and profound explanation, quoting Shakespeare, Milton or Wordsworth, and mixing in a little new-age mysticism for good measure. He had believed the answer went deeper than social conditioning, attesting that the essence of music was universal, acting on the brain in an innate, organic way and that ultimately it was a spiritual phenomenon, capable of freeing one’s very soul. Peter thought this innateness unlikely, not least because of the cultural variation of musical schemas around the world. They had enjoyed many such debates over the years although regrettably, had had fewer opportunities recently. It would usually start with some off-the-wall comment from Martin - no small talk, no trivialities, just straight into whatever was on his mind. Sometimes it was just plain weird and Peter would tell him so, but generally he found it refreshingly different to the world of electronic systems design in which he passed his working hours. He would sorely miss Martin.
It was spitting with rain and Peter realised he was now alone at the graveside, except for his brother six feet below. He wasn’t even sure how long he’d been standing there. Memories of their childhood and then the last few conversations together had been replaying in his mind. There was something bothering him - an ephemeral sense of unease he couldn't quite identify. He put it down to circumstances and walked back to the car.
At The Fields, Isabelle had dutifully transformed from grieving widow to perfect hostess, smiling, flattering and refilling glasses. She had changed into a flowing, black evening dress giving the appearance of gliding as she moved gracefully around the room, her long, dark hair swinging as she turned. Some of the guests were now telling jokes and laughing, as though forgetting th
e occasion that had brought them together.
“You must be the physicist,” came a slightly familiar voice from behind. It was the young curate who had conducted the service. He was a tall man, at least six two, with straight dark hair and a rather boyish face somehow currently displaying a mixture of humour, compassion and nervousness.
“Not any more. Contract engineer,” replied Peter, surprised, “Is that how Martin used to refer to me?”
“I’m sorry. How rude. My name’s Roger, I’m the curate here at Littlewick. You’re Peter, his brother, right?”
Peter nodded. “It was a very moving service. Did you know Martin well?”
The man paused, looking across the room and out through the large bay windows, his face seeming much older as it filled with sadness and regret. “We spoke together a lot, but I’m not sure how well I really knew him. He and Isabelle were regulars in the congregation and they frequently hosted my discussion groups here at The Fields. Martin used to be such a wonderful person to have in the group. He would lead us in all sorts of interesting and unexpected directions.”
Peter smiled; he could imagine Martin leading them all up the garden path. “Did you see him much over the last few months?”
“No, not much really. For a while we missed him at the church, then a couple of weeks ago, he turned up again. He seemed distracted, but...” An elderly lady with blue hair grabbed the curate by the arm and led him off rather unceremoniously to another group of guests. He threw an apologetic glance back at Peter, mouthing, “We’ll talk later”.
Peter didn’t wait. Instead he wandered off through the huge old house. To name his home “The Fields” after the “Academy of St. Martin in the Fields” for which Martin had so often played, had been typical of his brother's shamelessly corny wit. Peter could picture him now, violin tucked tightly under the chin and that frantic look of intense concentration written across his face as the bow whipped back and forth.
It was a spacious, but wonderfully cosy house, its low ceilings crossed with dark wooden beams. The main building dated back to sometime in the sixteenth century, but it had been extended and converted over the years creating a rambling maze of corridors and unexpected nooks and crannies. Martin used to say that every square inch told a story. He had believed that houses absorbed the emotions of the people who lived in them and for those who were receptive, these emotions would periodically re-emerge. This was his explanation for tales of ghosts and the good or bad “vibes” he professed to feel in various surroundings. Despite a certain romantic appeal to the idea, Peter didn’t believe any of it. He accepted that rooms and buildings could have their own character, but that this was due to physical properties which could be measured. The proportions of the room, the placement of the doors and windows, all had significance. The colours, lighting and general décor influenced one's mood, as did the subtle odours and the way sounds echoed or were absorbed. And after all, it was subjective; not everyone felt the same way about the same rooms.
Wandering into Martin’s den, he felt a shiver run down his spine. The place was still a mess. Imagining Isabelle had found it too upsetting to tidy, he made a mental note to sort through it for her. As he looked around, he was searching for an explanation. Why does an apparently happy and successful man kill himself?
To one side of the desk stood an electric keyboard and synthesiser, the floor around which was littered with music scores and haphazard piles of books - books on music, art, poetry, philosophy, theology - and also a few which surprised him: chaos, consciousness, neural networks, complexity and so on. Peter leafed through a few, their margins full of his brother’s illegible scribbling. Since when had Martin been into trendy science - or science at all for that matter? Martin had always maintained that science killed the beauty and mystery of the natural world. It was one of the recurring arguments they had enjoyed together. For Peter, nature’s beauty could only be enhanced through better understanding.
Around the computer were hundreds of papers, mostly printouts from the Internet with a few drawings and handwritten notes. Pinned to the wall was an arresting sequence of colour images he immediately recognised as fractals from his studies into non-linear dynamics at Cambridge. These complex and strangely beautiful patterns, arising from quite deceptively simple mathematical equations called Mandelbrot sets, had the fascinating property of self-similarity at every scale. This meant that no matter how far you zoomed in on any one part of the image, the same overall pattern was repeated indefinitely. An intriguing consequence of this was infinitely long boundaries contained within a finite area - a fascinating concept, but not terribly useful, he thought to himself. What had Martin been up to? He remembered one of the last phone calls again. “I know everything!” Martin had exclaimed enigmatically with almost equal emphasis on each syllable. The line had gone dead before further elaboration and Peter had shrugged it off as a passing moment of his brother’s weirdness, but the more he thought about it, this was what had been niggling at the back of his mind. Was it an accusation, as in, I know about you and Isabelle? Peter was very fond of Isabelle and over the years he had begun to imagine that under different circumstances it might have become more. Perhaps these feelings were mutual, but even if that were true, neither of them had dared express it with anything more than the occasional hug or handshake lasting just a moment too long, or the knowing glances as eye contact was made across crowded rooms. Had Martin noticed such an exchange and jumped to false conclusions? The more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed. Peter was devoted to his family and his brother had known this. But then what had Martin meant with “I know everything!” Did he seriously think that after reading a few pop-scientific paperbacks, the sum of all knowledge had become his? No, Martin was too much of an intellectual for that.
With the chatter from the other rooms dying away, he went back to check on Isabelle, whom he found in the kitchen wiping what appeared to be tears from her eyes. As he put his hand on her shoulder, she swung round to embrace him.
“Why did he do it, Peter?”
The warmth of her embrace and the soft vulnerability of her slight French accent were momentarily intoxicating. “I ... don’t know, I suppose he was...”
“He wasn’t ill,” she interrupted quickly, exasperation in her voice, “he was just - somewhere else.”
She sat down, gazing absently through the window at the grey hills beyond. “For the last months, he was going through the motions, but his mind was elsewhere. He’d spend days on end sitting in his den with those bloody headphones on, only appearing for meals. Sometimes he’d spend all night in there.”
“What was he doing?”
“I don’t know - composing mostly I think, among other things. You know, he was always obsessed with something, but when he spoke about it, it never made much sense to me. I suppose he was ill,” she conceded. “It was a severe form of depression according to the doctor.”
He put the kettle on and sat with her at the kitchen table. “Do you remember him saying anything in particular - something that struck you as strange or out of character?”
“Bof! He seemed out of character for most of the last few months really. There were certain themes – he got quite spiritual at one point – kept talking about heaven and life after death, but mostly it didn’t make any sense. At first he seemed euphoric, but soon became frustrated when nobody else could understand why. I’m afraid I wasn’t much help to him.”
“You mustn’t blame yourself.”
“No, well, you see, I was frustrated with his spending so much time working, and so when he tried to share it with me, I said I wasn’t interested. I asked him to see the doctor, but he wouldn’t accept that he was ill. That’s when I decided to go and spend some time with my parents. After that, I think he just withdrew into his own little world and well, we all know what happened then.”
“Did you ever hear him say that he knew everything?” Peter thought he noticed Isabelle’s cheeks redden slightly.
&nb
sp; “Perhaps, I’m not sure. Did he say that to you?”
“The last time we spoke - on the phone. Hey, I was wondering - would you let me sort out his den for you? It’s a total mess in there, but there may be something important.”
“That’s very kind of you, Peter, but don’t you need to get back to work? And what about Abigail and the children?”
“No, I’m between contracts at the moment and in any case, Abigail’s got her mother coming over tonight. Staying for three days no less.” Peter put on a mock grimace. “If I could be of some help, I’d like to stay a while.”
For a few moments, she fixed him with a thoughtful stare and then slowly closed her eyes, letting the tears come once more. “Oh Peter,” she sobbed.
That night, as he lay in the bath reflecting on the day, Peter thought of the way the young curate had addressed him as the physicist. In spite of Martin’s lack of faith in Science, Peter knew that his younger brother had nevertheless been proud of his first choice of career as a theoretical physicist. Academia, as a career path, makes perfect sense to other academics in the same way that selling out to industry is beyond their comprehension. As a postgraduate physicist at Cambridge, Peter had dreamed of unearthing the “Theory of Everything” - the Holy Grail of theoretical physics from which everything in the Universe could potentially be explained. The recognition for such a discovery would go far beyond the Nobel Prize, but the dream had faded and the financial lure of industry had eventually become too great. With many of the University’s research projects at least partially sponsored by the private sector, offers of employment had arrived on Peter’s desk with some regularity, but besides serving to stroke his young ego, most were not given a second thought. He was a scientist, God damn it! The truth had to be more important than material wealth, he had argued to himself at the time. Then he had met Abigail.
The young human resources manager from London subsequently turned his noble, academic, and somewhat bohemian life upside down. Suddenly, fancy restaurants, holidays abroad, and the desire to get onto the property ladder rose up Peter’s priority list. The final clincher came one morning in the form of a little pink test-strip soaked in urine; Abigail was pregnant. Later that year when offered a job with a large international electronics firm (effectively doubling his salary), he accepted.
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