by Alyson Rudd
Lauren felt the blood drain from her face.
‘Are you telling me I might be in a real world now and was in a real world before? That these things can really happen. Scientifically?’
‘I’m not telling you anything,’ Harry said. ‘George thinks you needed to meet me, that you knowing the possibility of many worlds might explain your predicament.’
George placed the drinks on the small rickety table.
‘I might not have explained your experience to Harry very well,’ he said. ‘Tell him in more detail.’
Lauren had begun to flag but was energised by the prospect of a non-psychological reason for her new life.
She told Harry what she told Miriam and as she reached the point at which she died in labour and had not been able to set eyes on her baby, her eyes welled up with the kind of tears that she hoped she would never need to shed over Rosie and Toby.
George nodded sympathetically.
Harry, dry-eyed, took a sip of beer.
‘Are there any measurable differences?’ he asked.
‘Everything’s different,’ she said.
‘But that is your perception. Is there anything physically different?’
‘Oh,’ she said and mulled this over. ‘You mean I should think like a scientist?’
‘If that helps,’ he said.
She closed her eyes and rubbed them hard. She was desperate to maintain Harry’s interest. For the first time since the sunbathing episode she did not feel like an outsider.
She thought so hard that George and Harry began their own conversation about their mother, the flat that George had bought Harry so he could continue his research without worrying about money, the driving test that Harry kept forgetting to take.
‘The kettles,’ she said, loudly, interrupting them.
The brothers looked at her, half amused.
‘It takes much longer to make a cup of tea here.’
Harry sat up straight.
‘Kettles are not all the same, maybe you’ve been using a slow one,’ he said.
‘No, Simon bought me a new one and it’s just as slow and everyone who makes one in whatever home takes for ever. It’s maddening.’
‘Have you timed the comparison?’ Harry said.
‘Timed it?’ she said. ‘Timed it? I didn’t know I was going to die and land here in the land that kettles forgot, so, no, I never timed it. But I know it’s significantly slower. Significantly.’
George guffawed. ‘This is, well, it’s crazy,’ he said.
‘It’s intriguing,’ Harry said. ‘Anything else?’
‘Fish live in trees,’ she pouted, and even Harry smiled.
‘Actually, I hadn’t really thought about it until now, but I haven’t seen any cats here at all.’
‘What’s a cat?’ George said, and Lauren delved into her bag, produced a notebook and pencil and drew an everyday domestic moggy sat on the outline of an armchair to offer perspective. She knew she was not being humoured. She had spent one of her lifetimes in a world without cats so of course neither Harry nor George would know what one looked like.
‘That’s a cat,’ she said.
‘Looks like a giant hamster,’ George said and she giggled. Her life was quite maddening but here, in the beer garden, she was able to clutch at both her worlds and feel rational about it.
As they stood to leave, Lauren not caring that her fictitious doctor’s appointment had overrun, George spoke to her softly, out of Harry’s earshot.
‘If Dad hadn’t left us, Harry might not be so consumed by his studies and so clever about these multi-worlds so maybe that’s why, somehow, you needed to see me?’
‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘that has a certain crazy logic to it, but there’s something else. I feel it. It’s something for you.’
Tim
‘My son-in-law says you’ve seen the artwork our Lauren made about your father,’ Bob said.
‘Yes,’ George said. ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it but wasn’t sure when would be an appropriate time.’
‘I like talking about Lauren,’ Bob said. ‘She was very talented, you know.’
‘Very,’ George said. ‘Actually, she told me something, or rather she urged me to do something to find out what happened to Dad.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes and she was right. I’ve made all this money and you don’t need a degree in psychology to know I’m motivated to protect my mother and brother in light of what happened to us, to keep expanding the company, and for what? What really? I’m not sure Mum needs any more money, not really. I’m glad I’ve been able to make sure Harry can study but, as Lauren pointed out, why hadn’t I used my success, all the resources available to me, to find out what happened?’
Bob listened intently. Any new story or fresh insight about his only child was welcome.
‘And so I have employed someone to do what he calls forensic investigation, and he concluded that were some loose ends.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ Bob said.
‘Yes. Yes and no,’ George said. ‘A lot of it is personal stuff. I don’t want to go into detail but I do want you to know that I am grateful to Lauren for prodding me into action and I wish I could tell her so.’
‘There’s so much to regret,’ Bob sighed, and the two men awkwardly embraced.
* * *
Dylan Stenson was a wiry man with round glasses, a police background and a knack of re-reading files until they produced a nugget of new information. He was expensive but produced a daily report for his clients so they could see they were getting their money’s worth. Dylan Stenson had even gleaned that Mr Yee had not been interviewed by the investigating officer. There was nothing Mr Yee could offer that was very helpful but it told Dylan Stenson that those searching for the missing Peter Stanning had not been sufficiently thorough. It was not entirely insignificant, he thought, that Peter had dined regularly at Mr Yee’s with his wife but, in the months before he went missing, he had dined alone. There would be other holes, some much more gaping, and Dylan Stenson had borrowed Mr Yee’s treasured grey scrapbook, leaving Mr Yee to feel that, at last, someone was taking the case seriously.
‘She counted the bicycles,’ he told the detective.
‘Who did?’ Dylan Stenson asked sharply, but his tone softened when he realised it was the woman who had, in a roundabout way, made sure of his big fat fee for the current case. He would have counted the bikes too if they were still in the shed but they had all been taken to the tip. If only she was still alive. No one, he thought, counts bikes for no reason.
Dylan Stenson had reached the end of the first phase of his investigation and sat down with George to give him his summary.
‘I have been through all the witness statements and collected my own where necessary and the only conclusion I can draw is that your mother needs to agree to a full and frank interview.’
George swallowed hard. ‘You’re not suggesting—’
‘Absolutely not,’ he said, ‘but there are inconsistencies and gaps and I believe, having weighed up all the evidence, that Mrs Stanning must have spoken to your father before he left that evening.’
‘But, why? Why would she not tell us that?’ George said.
‘I did warn you, Mr Stanning, that I often unearth truths that people find hard to accept. I do not want to offer empty conjecture but let me give you an example of a possible reason. Let us suppose your parents had a row. And then your father goes missing. Many wives would want that to remain private. They might think their children would blame them for the disappearance and so decide to say that nothing happened.’
‘But if that’s what happened, it won’t tell us where my father is,’ George said.
‘You’d be surprised,’ Dylan Stenson said, ‘what the truth can yield.’
On his way home he called in at Mr Yee’s once more. He wanted to know if Lauren had said anything about the number of bikes.
Mr Yee sat down gingerly and rubbed at his t
emples. He so wanted to help.
‘Maybe she say eleven?’
Lauren
George was busy in the intimidating manner of all successful businessmen and Harry returned to his research. They promised, though, to make time to see her again when Harry was next up to see his mother. Lauren was relieved. There had been something so soothing about the way Harry nonchalantly explained the possible existence of other worlds. He could not offer a reason as to how she had slipped into this one but he at least accepted that her other life could have existed.
She told Miriam, who issued a deep sigh.
‘You sound happier,’ she said.
‘I feel less bonkers,’ Lauren said. ‘But in a way, it’s wounding, you know, to think that somewhere else I really am dead, that I died on the cusp of becoming a mother.’
Both women were silent as they dwelled upon the notion of being dead somewhere else.
‘Perhaps this Harry would know better than me but if you are dead in this other world then you can’t go back and you need to embrace the fact you have a shot at another life. You have to try to focus on this life, Lauren. It’s not inconceivable that the more you try the faster the memories will kick in and soon you’ll feel you belong.’
Miriam could not quite believe she was having this conversation and yet it seemed the only way forward.
‘But it’s like I’m lying to Simon every day. He’s so lovely, so patient and I can’t tell him what happened. I love him, really I do, but there’s this itch to escape.’
‘Right, right, OK. You need to accept that there is nowhere you can escape to. If you went to London and sought out Tim he would not know you. In fact, he is in the middle of a divorce to another woman. We know that to be a fact. This is your life now and, slowly, slowly but surely, you will lose that itch.’
Miriam felt triumphant. They had worked through a puzzle and there was a path ahead.
‘You can see me any time. We’ll get you through this,’ she said. ‘Now, would you like a cup of tea?’
‘No,’ Lauren groaned. ‘Can we go for a walk instead?’
They strolled like mother and daughter down to the stream. It was quiet enough to hear it gurgling and Lauren experienced a glimpse of peace. She took Luke’s still unopened letter out of her bag, ripped it to shreds and threw it into the water.
‘Symbolic,’ she said.
‘Well done,’ Miriam said.
That evening Lauren commandeered the tiny dining room that had no dining table and was used for toy storage.
‘I’m going to paint here,’ she told Simon and the children and, as all three of them were to varying degrees a little wary of Lauren since the sunbathing incident, they all nodded enthusiastically.
It became a form of connection to her lost life. She thought of every piece of artwork as Her Other Past, and as she flung russet reds onto a canvas she at last remembered the small exhibition that George had seen and how she had told him to spend his money on finding the truth.
She wondered if he had found the truth there and if he would find it here. She was certain the truth would be the same in both worlds, that perhaps Peter Stanning’s truth was the only complete constant, for it was the only element of her life that felt exactly the same to her.
Only while painting could she be calm in comparing her lives. The sudden realisation that she had not seen any cats was a worry to her. There might be many things missing from this world, so many that it was a poor version, a weaker version, one that no one would choose if given the option. It was hard, though, to recall things that had gone missing. It would be easier to recognise things that were here right now that had not been with her before but it seemed to Lauren that in this world there was less, not more, of everything. It was a world with less energy, less sparkle. It was a world with flat light and repetitive sunsets; one that needed her art.
* * *
They met in The Hare and sat round a small table in a small alcove as the rain swirled against the small leaded window. Harry had brought Lauren a sheaf of papers about Many Worlds. There was an essay about Hugh Everett III, who, Harry said, was the physicist who had seized upon the concept of multiple universes to explain the contradiction in the way particles behave at the micro and macro level of reality.
‘It was the fifties and he was ahead of his time and so he was ridiculed,’ Harry said. ‘But there are many physicists who now think that his is the right approach.’
He pointed to a drawing of a rabbit in a box.
‘Have you heard of Shrödinger’s Rabbit?’ he asked.
‘I think so,’ Lauren said, as she peered at the picture of the animal sitting alongside a bottle of poison.
‘Well, Mr Everett gave us the option of the rabbit being alive in one world and dead in another instead of being both alive and dead inside the box.’
Lauren could barely breath. She was proof.
‘What happened to Everett?’ George asked.
‘He died relatively young having turned to drink,’ Harry said. ‘We scientists like a good pint,’ he added, sipping from his tankard.
‘This really helps,’ Lauren said, astonished but grateful. ‘I mean, it’s complicated, of course, but the fact that it’s science, that it’s worthy of research, well, it helps. Thank you.’
Harry smiled and George beamed, proud, as usual, of his younger brother.
‘In return, I have something to tell you,’ she said, shyly, wanting to forget about her dead self, wanting to give something back. ‘You know I told you that you came to see me in London?’
‘If you insist,’ George said, laughing.
‘Well, I remember now what happened. You were moved by pictures I had produced about your father’s disappearance and I told you to spend your money on finding out what happened and you started to investigate, I’m sure of it, and I think you should do that here. You should spend all it takes to find out.’
‘I call the police every six months or so,’ he said a little sullenly.
‘No, you need to be proactive. Hire someone. Hire the best. Hire someone who will look at the smallest detail.’
Later, in her mini-studio, Lauren sought to express the notion of being both alive and dead and she acknowledged that to be happy she had to accept she was not trapped in a box, feeling both alive and dead, but that she was Everett’s rabbit and alive in this place even if dead in another.
* * *
At Lauren’s invitation, Miriam drove over to look at her art.
‘It’s called Another Life,’ Lauren said, half expecting Miriam to scold her for clinging to her other world. Miriam, though, understood perfectly that the paintings were a necessary outlet.
The older woman was almost overwhelmed.
‘This is remarkable, Lauren,’ she said. ‘This has to be exhibited.’
‘Really?’ Lauren said, although deep down she knew she had produced something powerful and beautiful, but not necessarily because she was talented. She did not think herself overly gifted but there was something lacking in the light in this life that she brought to her paintings. Through her art she could express some of what she was missing, let people see light they had not seen before.
Miriam stood before the self-portrait and saw a woman in mourning but not in despair. It was the sort of painting anyone could stare at for hours and remain undecided at just how much of it contained hope and how much of it expressed sorrow. Beyond that it was, simply, a very fine piece of art that played with light and shade and hinted at complicated unseen windows. It was art that spoke of a land where the light was more beautiful.
Miriam knew a gallery owner in Chester and convinced him to make a big deal of Lauren’s work.
‘She’s a complete unknown,’ he said.
‘So imagine the kudos of being the one to first exhibit her,’ Miriam said.
Miriam enjoyed herself enormously, ringing up old friends, drumming up people to attend so that come six one warm June Thursday evening Lauren, Miriam, Simon, Bob and V
era were nervously stood among the art, the rows of wine glasses, hoping that someone, anyone, would turn up to view it. By six-thirty, the gallery was humming, glasses were clinking and sales were made. The self-portrait was not for sale for the simple reason that Rosie had stood in front of it, holding her mother’s hand, and told her she was the prettiest mum she had ever seen.
Simon thought it was pretentious tosh, the way people stood in front of a canvas uttering words such as ‘warmth’ and ‘depth’ and ‘passion’, but he could see the art was a cut above competent, that he was married to someone with a special talent and it gave him a shiver of pride to see his name attached to it all.
Another Life – Lauren Millington. It was a huge success. Soon there was chat of a second exhibition and the possibility of taking it to London.
‘What do you think?’ she asked Simon. ‘I was considering asking to have my hours cut down at college so I can do this properly but I’ll understand if you think that’s too risky.’
‘It’s made you happy and it’s made you some money. Go for it, sweetheart,’ he said.
Two summers later she was in Swallow Street off Piccadilly amid yet more wine glasses and even more admirers. Tim walked past and glanced at the single piece in the window which he liked but he was running late and was not, in any case, on the guest list. He told himself he would take another look later in the week but he never did. He remembered the name though when she was mentioned in a magazine article about the highlights of the art scene in London that summer of 1999.
The years flew by but Simon never forgot about the day his wife woke up with a gap in her memory. He was never entirely sure they were as happy as everyone said they must be and he quietly blamed that summer’s afternoon, but because Lauren never mentioned it these days, neither did he.