The Realities of Aldous U

by Michael Lawrence

  ‘Dad said you were a bit off,’ she said, sifting through the last of the prints on the table. ‘Wonders what he’s done.’

  ‘Does he.’

  Naia paused her channel flip briefly, in quick succession, at a music quiz, a documentary about the pyramids, and Johnny Depp as an opium-fuelled Victorian detective hunting Jack the Ripper.

  ‘Can’t you settle on one?’ Alex said.

  ‘Nothing I fancy.’

  ‘So turn it off.’

  She didn’t turn it off, mainly because she’d been told to, but dithered at a stagy-looking play full of people in tunics. Alex looked up. Oedipus Rex. As a student she’d appeared in a production of that. The screen went blank. Naia tossed the remote aside and took an orange from the fruit bowl. She mooched over to the fire and remained there, casting peel to the flames.

  ‘Naia…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have you see the Folly?’

  Her throat contracted. She coughed to clear it.

  ‘The Folly? Why?’

  ‘Because it’s not in its usual place, that’s why.’

  ‘I took it up to my room.’ It was all she wanted to say, but more seemed to be expected. ‘I’ll put it back if it’s such a big deal.’

  ‘It’s not a big deal,’ Alex answered calmly. ‘I just like to know where things are. Which of these do you think I should put in?’

  The Westminster clock started to chime as Naia pushed herself away from the mantelpiece. She leaned over the coffee table. The two pictures under consideration were among the most recent, taken just before Christmas of her mother and father dolled up for a fancy dress party. Alex was a female Santa, beard and all, Ivan Frankenstein’s Monster, in big boots, bolt through his neck, and green fishnet tights (a personal innovation). The main difference between the two photographs was that in one her father stood hand on hip, pouting outrageously. Naia indicated the other.

  ‘That one. Looks less of a prat.’

  Alex looked at her. ‘Why don’t you sit down here with me and tell me why you’re being so offish.’

  ‘I’m not being offish,’ Naia snapped.

  ‘Maybe you need something to keep your mind occupied then.’

  ‘My mind is occupied.’

  ‘With…?’

  A shrug. ‘Stuff.’

  ‘Oh. Stuff.’

  Naia spat a couple of pips into her palm and threw them at the fire. The flames flared gratefully.

  ‘Think I’ll go to bed.’

  ‘At ten o’clock? You?’

  ‘Nothing to stay up for.’ She started away.

  ‘And the Folly?’ Alex said.

  ‘I’ll bring it down.’

  ‘No need. Keep it up there if you want. For now.’

  Alex listened to her daughter plodding upstairs on feet of lead. It was impossible to reach her when she was like this, but she was sixteen. It went with the territory. She resumed her task. Minutes passed, marked by the regular ticking of the clock. But then, a shriek from upstairs, followed by a heavy thud. Alex jumped up, flew the length of the room and out to the hall.

  ‘Naia?’ She was already on the stairs when Naia appeared on the landing, in her underwear. ‘Nai, what is it?’

  ‘Tripped taking my jeans off. Fell over.’

  ‘Sounded like you were being attacked.’

  ‘Only by my jeans.’

  ‘Well don’t frighten me like that!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Alex returned to the Long Room and the photo album.

  Naia went back into her bedroom. ‘Idiot!’ she hissed, closing the door behind her.

  Day Six / 14

  She hadn’t lied about falling over while getting undressed. She’d unzipped her jeans, extracted her left leg, and was stooping to untangle her right foot when the room went cold. Sensing some sort of presence she half turned, and found a hooded figure in snow-covered boots behind her. That was when she shrieked and fell, caught in her jeans. Returning from soothing her mother’s fears, she followed ‘Idiot!’ with ‘Don’t look!’, and snatched her dressing gown from the hook on the door. ‘What are you doing here at this time of night?’

  Alaric nudged his hood back, turned away, opened his parka. It was boiling in here after his room and the garden. ‘Thought I’d stand more chance of finding you here now.’

  ‘Well congratulations, you were right.’

  ‘Can I turn round yet?’

  She tied a fierce bow in the belt of her dressing gown. ‘If you must.’

  He did so, determined to maintain the anger he’d been nursing for hours. ‘You came to my place today. Why?’

  ‘I wanted to see if my Folly worked too.’

  ‘Clear up after us, you mean. Bloody nerve!’

  ‘Keep your voice down, Mum’s only downstairs.’

  ‘Bloody nerve,’ he repeated, more quietly. ‘How would you like it if someone went through your stuff while you were out?’

  ‘I didn’t go through your stuff.’

  ‘Bet you had a good look.’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself, I’m not interested in anything of yours. I’ll go and muck it all up again if you want.’

  ‘Too late for that. My aunt’s seen it. Thinks I did it.’

  ‘Your aunt?’

  ‘I bet your aunt’s still in Sheringham,’ he said scornfully. ‘Oh yes, left in peace, you.’

  ‘I don’t have an aunt,’ Naia said. ‘In Sheringham or anywhere else.’

  The scorn dissolved. ‘You haven’t got an aunt?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you must have. Liney?’ he prompted, as if to jog her memory. ‘Your mother’s older sister?’

  ‘My mother hasn’t got an older sister.’

  ‘She hasn’t?’

  ‘No. And yours has?’

  ‘Had,’ he said.

  ‘But how can your mother have had a sister and mine not?’

  They stared blankly at one another for the little while it took Alaric to realize what this signified, whereupon he said: ‘Mystery.’

  ‘And this aunt’s staying with you?’ Naia said.

  ‘Just while Dad’s away.’

  ‘That her stuff I saw in the guest room?’

  ‘Yeh.’

  ‘I thought it was a mad person’s.’

  ‘You weren’t wrong.’

  ‘Is she married? Any kids?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Forty-three, forty-four, hundred and five, what’s it matter?’

  ‘Tell me about her. I want to know everything.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about her.’

  ‘Oh, please.’

  ‘No.’

  At last he had something she hadn’t. Someone. Liney might not be the dream relative, but she was his – his alone, as it turned out – and he wasn’t going to share her with someone who had everything else. Realizing that he wasn’t going to budge on this, Naia decided to leave it for now. There were small lumps of snow on the carpet. She felt under the bed for the wrapping paper from last time. She also produced a rolled-up carrier bag containing his slippers.

  ‘Didn’t you miss these?’

  ‘I was in a hurry.’

  ‘Well don’t forget them this time. A man’s slippers under my bed could take some explaining.’ She spread the paper out on the floor. ‘Stand on this.’

  He didn’t stand on it. He sat down on the bed and lifted his feet for her to slip the paper under them.

  ‘Was that all you wanted?’ he asked.

  ‘All I wanted?’

  ‘To see if your Folly worked too.’

  She dropped into the chair with the rip in the arm. ‘And to see you.’

  ‘Why? What for?’

  ‘We have things to talk about. Like, for starters, I must have touched our Folly dozens of times and nothing happened, so why now?’

  ‘Search me.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been thinking about it. Suppose they were activated by a combinatio
n of factors all coming together at the same time?’

  ‘Factors? What the hell are you talking about?’

  She reached for a notebook on her bedside table.

  ‘Mum said the original shade belonged to the wife of the Underwood who built Withern Rise. That’s Factor One.’ She flipped open the book and consulted the list she’d compiled. ‘Factor Two, the Underwood who built Withern is buried in the garden.’

  ‘He’s what?’

  ‘You didn’t know that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Me neither. I was looking through an old suitcase in the box room and I came across an obituary and a magazine piece about this randy churchman, Bishop Aldous something Underwood.’

  ‘Bishop?’

  ‘Yes, our very own bish, and a naughty one at that. History of hanky-panky with the local wenches.’

  ‘And he’s buried in your garden?’

  ‘My garden and yours, I reckon. A version of him in each.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Going by a drawing his wife made, under the Family Tree.’

  ‘How could she put him under that? It’s huge.’

  ‘It wasn’t huge when she planted it. She called it Aldous’s Oak. Maybe someone who came after her wanted to forget who was down there and changed the name.’

  ‘I used to climb that tree all the time,’ Alaric said.

  ‘Me too. Might not have if I’d known it was a grave marker. But if you think about it, it’s right that he’s there. I mean if not for him Withern wouldn’t exist, and neither would we. That’s Factor Three, by the way.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘That the tree was planted over Bishop Aldous. Factor Four is the year it was planted, which was also the year he died, not surprisingly.’

  ‘And that was?’

  ‘Nineteen-o-five. A century ago this very year. See how they come together?’ She looked at her notebook. ‘Factor Five, Alex Underwood – our mother times two since a certain thing happened – made a model of the house to put inside Widow Underwood’s shade. And the model was made from…?’

  He shrugged. ‘Wood?’

  ‘Wood. From the very tree the Bishop’s buried under. Factor Six, the – ’

  ‘How many of these are there?’ Alaric said impatiently.

  ‘Factor Six, the first time your Folly sent you here was the second anniversary of the railway accident. The accident which…’

  She left this hanging. Alaric’s expression did not change, but after a pause, he said: ‘The night of the accident it started to snow.’

  ‘Yes?’ Naia said. ‘So?’

  ‘It started snowing yesterday.’

  ‘You think the snow’s important?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t it be? Because I thought of it?’

  ‘No, I mean does it have to be snowing? It might be a vital part of things. It’s been snowing each time you’ve come here, and it was snowing when I went to yours earlier. Maybe the Follies only work if it’s snowing. Which means that if it stops you could be stuck here.’

  He leaned back, twitched the curtain aside. ‘Have you heard the forecast?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, first sign of it easing off, I’m gone.’

  ‘You’d better be. You in my bedroom would be even harder to explain than your slippers.’

  ‘Question,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If the Follies started working because all these factors came together on just the right day, yesterday, why are they still working today?’

  ‘I don’t know everything,’ Naia admitted.

  ‘That’s a relief. Had me worried for a minute.’

  ‘But maybe a link was forged between your Folly and mine and now that they’re activated all we have to do is sort of… log on. There’s one more factor.’ She scribbled in her notebook. ‘Call it Factor Eight now that we’ve added snow. You’ve used the Folly three times to get here?’ He nodded. ‘On those three occasions were you upset in any way?’

  ‘Upset?’

  ‘Angry, distressed, particularly emotional?’ His expression darkened. Intrusion. She knew it, but went on regardless. ‘When I tried to reach you, my Folly wouldn’t work at first. But then I got desperate, and suddenly I was in your garden. You might have told me about that, by the way, I’d have put some warm things on. And the pain! Do you get that?’

  ‘It wears off,’ he said dismissively.

  ‘Well? Were you?’

  ‘Was I what?’

  ‘In a bit of a state those three times.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes!’

  She left it. Like the aunt, it would keep until he was in a more mellow mood – if he ever was. But there were other things that wouldn’t keep.

  ‘Want to know what else I’ve been thinking?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘The night of the derailment. There she is – Mum – on the train from King’s Cross, and it hits that cracked rail, and suddenly her life’s in the balance. It’s so touch and go that reality can’t handle it, so a second reality has to come into being to accommodate both her survival and her... you know.’

  ‘Do you have to work at this stuff,’ Alaric said, ‘or does it come naturally?’

  Naia ignored this. ‘You know the way a living cell splits in two?’

  ‘Living cell?’

  ‘It splits and replicates itself precisely. Well imagine reality as one great big cell that in certain circumstances becomes two, fully-formed and identical except that the event that caused the division turns out differently in each.’

  He smirked. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Just like that.’

  ‘Always a life-death situation?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Might be a decision, a “do I, don’t I?” moment. Take one course of action and this happens, take the other, and…’ She put an invisible pistol to her temple. ‘Mum showed me a story in the paper a while back, about this man, dentist I think, not that it matters, who was driving home from work when he reached in his coat pocket for chewing gum. As he did so a cat ran into the road. The man swerved, one hand still in his pocket, and he lost control of the car, drove onto the pavement, where a young couple with a toddler in a pushchair were coming out of an estate agent’s. He ploughed into them, killed all three outright. Imagine. If he hadn’t gone for the gum when he did, or the cat hadn’t run out, that family would have got safely home and the dentist wouldn’t now be doing time for manslaughter.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ he said. ‘Can we get back to us now?’

  ‘I was going to. I was born at Finchinglea Hospital, October 5th, 1988. You?’

  ‘Fifth of October, 1988, Finchinglea Hospital.’

  ‘Time of birth?’

  ‘Dunno. Early morning sometime, I think.’

  ‘Five-twenty by any chance?’

  ‘That’s sounds right.’

  ‘It is. My mother kept a baby progress type log.’

  ‘So did mine, but I haven’t looked at in a while.’

  ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ Naia said.

  ‘Not yet, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’

  ‘That we’re the same person.’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘Well, what else could we be?’

  ‘The same? How can we be the same? We’re…’

  ‘Different sexes, yes, but we’re both the only child of Alex Underwood – Alex Bell as she was then – born the same minute, same place. We’re variants of a single individual.’

  He frowned. ‘No. No, that’s just...’ He didn’t have a word for it.

  About to defend her theory, Naia stopped; slapped her forehead.

  ‘God, I’m so thick! I’ve been thinking that all this started with the train crash. But it has to have started before that. Fourteen years before.’

  ‘Why, what happened then?’

  ‘We did. You and me. There’s one Alex Bell, right? She’s pregna
nt, and like any mother-to-be she might have either a girl or a boy. Because it’s such a fifty-fifty thing, a second reality has to kick in so she can have both, simultaneously, and – oh!’

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘A second reality would have started before birth!’

  ‘Before?’

  ‘Of course! The baby’s been growing inside her for months. It would have become male or female quite early on.’ She laughed. ‘It’s so obvious when you – ’

  ‘Quiet!’ Alaric said.

  ‘What? Why? I was just – ’

  ‘Shut up. Listen.’

  She shut up, she listened, heard the creak of the stairs, and jumped up like a marionette whose strings have been yanked.

  ‘Under the bed!’

  ‘No,’ he whispered gruffly, crossing the room in three strides and putting his hands around the Folly. ‘Stall her.’

  ‘Slippers!’

  She ran to him, thrust the bag under his arm, then raced to the door and outside to intercept her mother. She succeeded easily, because Alex was only on her way to the bathroom.

  When Naia returned, the only sign that she’d had a visitor was the trail of melting snow between bed and bookcase.

  Day Six / 15

  In bed a little later, Alaric went over the things they’d talked about. It rankled that Naia had had all the ideas, but he had to admit that some of her thoughts were interesting. The alternative reality proposition was hardly new, of course, but for him it took flight at this very personal level, and there was some satisfaction in that she was wrong about when one reality might have split into two. There would have been two long before they were even conceived – around twenty-seven years before, when a young woman stood up to, or failed to stand up to, her future husband about an abortion. Because of her act of rebellion the one reality, struggling to cope with an unanticipated turn of events, had become two: one to take account of Liney Bell’s birth, the other to absorb her non-existence.

  Part Two