Part 32 (2/2)

In the days and weeks following my routine grew saggier but regular. I got up around one in the afternoon and ate at a dim sung dim sung restaurant across the alleyway. The place was owned by an old albino man. I sat in the corner with restaurant across the alleyway. The place was owned by an old albino man. I sat in the corner with The Economist, Legal Advisor The Economist, Legal Advisor, a Delia Smith cookery book, or whatever else was lying around Huw's apartment. On lucky days the shoes.h.i.+ner who was the de facto de facto postman for our tenement had a jiffy bag addressed to Huw with a tape from John. I listened to them in my postman for our tenement had a jiffy bag addressed to Huw with a tape from John. I listened to them in my dim sung dim sung corner on Huw's Walkman, over and over. Sometimes John had recorded new compositions, or lines from his new poems. Sometimes he'd just record a busy night in The Green Man. Sometimes sheep, seals, skylarks, the wind turbine. If Liam were home there would be some Liam. The summer fayre. The Fastnet Race. I would unfold my map of Clear Island. Those tapes prised the lid off homesickness and rattled out the contents, but always at the bottom was solace. corner on Huw's Walkman, over and over. Sometimes John had recorded new compositions, or lines from his new poems. Sometimes he'd just record a busy night in The Green Man. Sometimes sheep, seals, skylarks, the wind turbine. If Liam were home there would be some Liam. The summer fayre. The Fastnet Race. I would unfold my map of Clear Island. Those tapes prised the lid off homesickness and rattled out the contents, but always at the bottom was solace.

At the end of the afternoon I sat down at the rickety desk and picked up from where I had left off in the early hours. I worked in isolation: e-mailing any of the handful of people alive who could have contributed was too dangerous. It was liberating: not having to be accountable to Heinz Formaggio and other cretins. I had my father's fountain pen, my black book, a box of CDs containing data from every particle lab experiment ever conducted, and thousands of dollars of computer equipment bought from a Sikh gentleman more resourceful than Light Box Procurement. Compared to Kepler, who plotted the ellipsoids of Mars with little more than a goose quill, I had it easy.

There were wrong turnings. I had to jettison matrix mechanics in favour of virtual numbers, and my doomed attempt to amalgamate the EinsteinPodolskyRosen paradox with Cadwalladr's behavioural model set me back weeks. It was the loneliest time in my life. As chess players or writers or mystics know, the pursuit of insight takes you deep into the forest. Days were I'd just gaze at the steam rising from my coffee, or stains on the wall, or a locked door. Days were I'd find the next key in the steam or the stains or the lock.

By July all the footprints of Einstein, Bohr and Sonada were behind me.

The black book was filling up.

I was still talking. Liam's toast had gone cold. A helicopter flew over.

What is Liam thinking?

Is it, 'Why can't I have normal parents?'

Is it, 'Will she never stop?'

'Is my ma a madwoman?'

It makes me sad that I can't read my son's thoughts. There again, it's right this way. He's eighteen, now. I missed his birthday again. Where will I be for the next one?

'Well don't stop there, Ma. You're just getting to the good bit.'

The strong force that stops the protons of a nucleus hurtling away from one another; the weak force that keeps the electrons from cras.h.i.+ng into the protons; electromagnetism, which lights the planet and cooks dinner; and gravity, which is the most down to Earth. From before the time the universe was the size of a walnut to its present diameter, these four forces have been the statute book of matter, be it the core of Sirius or the electrochemical ducts of the brains of students in the lecture theatre at Belfast. Bored, intent, asleep, dreaming, in receding tiers. Chewing pencils or following me.

Matter is thought, and thought is matter. Nothing exists that cannot be synthesised.

Summer. Huw came back late most nights, to s.n.a.t.c.h a few hours of sleep before returning to his office. A securities firm had crashed, and the effects were rippling out. Sometimes a week went by and apart from noticing the toothpaste tube depleting we were barely aware of one another. On Sundays, however, we always dressed up and went out to dinner somewhere expensive, but low-key. I didn't want to risk meeting his colleagues. Lying is a skill I have never mastered.

I often worked all night. Hong Kong never really quietens down, the sunlight just switches off for a few hours. Huw's snores, the G.o.dalmighty clatter of Kowloon's sweat shops, that gigantic bicycle pump, the eye of the electric fan and moth wings on the computer screen ushered in the quantum mathematics of sentience.

Three sharp knocks on John's door and a mantrap snapped shut, I'd jumped up, spilt my tea and was crouched in the stair doorway, poised to run where? Only one door I would have to jump from the second floor and run for it across the meadows. Great idea, Mo. Dislocate a hip. Liam didn't know what was going on. John was working it out, my panic bas.h.i.+ng its head on his defences.

'It's okay, Ma-' Liam began.

I sliced the air. 'Sssss.h.!.+'

Liam showed me the palms of his hands like he was calming a scared animal. 'It's either Father Wally, Maisie or Red come to milk Feynman...'

I shook my head. They'd have knocked once, if at all, and walked in.

'Who was on the St Fachtna St Fachtna with you this morning? Any Americans?' with you this morning? Any Americans?'

There was another rattle of knocking. 'h.e.l.lo?' A woman. Not Irish, not English.

I put my finger over my lips, and tiptoed up the stairs. They creaked.

A mouth to the letterbox. 'G'day? Anyone home?'

'Morning to you,' said John. 'Just a moment...'

I slid into the bedroom and looked for somewhere to hide the black book. Where, Mo? Under the mattress? Eat it?

I heard John opening the door. 'Sorry to keep you.'

'No worries. Sorry for the bother. I'm walking to this row of stones on the map here. Map-reading was never my strong point.'

'The stone row? Piece of cake. Go back down the drive, turn left, and just follow the sign to Roe's bridge. All the way until the road peters out. Then you'll see it. Unless the mist has other plans.'

'Thanks a million. Too bad about this rain, eh? It's like winter back home.'

How can John be so calm? 'Where is home? New Zealand?'

'That's right! Halfmoon Bay, Stewart Island, south of the South Island. Know it?'

'Can't say I do. 'Fraid the weather's a law unto itself, here. Tropical rainstorms, raining frogs... Gales later though, the fis.h.i.+ng forecast said earlier. Winter's around the corner.'

'Just my luck. Say now, you're a lovely dog! A him or a her?'

'A her. Planck.'

'As in thick as a?'

'As in the physicist who discovered why you can sit in front of a fire and not be incinerated by the ultraviolet catastrophe.'

Nervous laugh. 'Oh, right, that that Planck. Mild-mannered beastie for an island dog.' Planck. Mild-mannered beastie for an island dog.'

'It's her job. She's my guide dog.'

The usual awkwardness. I relaxed. A pursuer would know about John. Unless she was just a good actress. I tensed up.

'You mean, er, you're...'

'...as a bat. A lot blinder than a bat, actually. I'm unequipped with sonar.'

'Strewth... there was I... I'm sorry.'

'No need.'

'Well, I'd better get to the row of stones before the gales blow 'em over.'

'Take your time. They've been there three thousand years. Mind how you go.'

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