— Quite. You can’t detach energy from matter, can you, professor?
— But you can’t call people matter! Mrs Dekko pipes bravely out of her plump attractive simplicity and Stance looks at her with sudden sexual interest. Even Tim as a scientist would admit, I mean agree, that people have minds, emotions, mystery, something unique, well, an essence.
— You see, Sally my dear, you have to use the word something. People’s essence, as such, bores me. We all communicate through things, superficial things mostly.
— I thought you had no interest in things. You like people, you said.
Now that it has come, I feel for Stance as my wife, quick on the verbal uptake for lack of deeper satisfaction, wins her point. He flounders out of her contempt with an echo that has bounced from her before, merely to watch how they operate through people, he says.
The scientist works wonders with the precision of his language. He arabesques his way through the equations of energy contained until the chemistry of anger and hurt pride lies quietly balanced in the test-tube, on a dial, on a page that turns a new leaf full of squares and lines intersecting, circles, tangents and cubes, curves too, and the light turns the days into a fifth dimension. It hurts. How do you feel? she says.
— Ghastly. I think I died.
— You seem to make a habit of it.
— I can’t help it. It happens all the time. It hurts.
— You had an omen, Someone. Think about it, absorb it. Didn’t you take down the inscriptions?
— Good heavens, here I lie half-dead and you expect me to sit up and interpret omens. In my condition.
— Get up, Someone, you haven’t even got a scar.
— I feel choked –
— Dippermouth swallowed his bubble-gum. All his machinery’s got clogged and time has nearly stopped. You must act fast.
— Why me?
— You’ll have to operate, quickly, Someone. You know the five geometries.
— Do I? … All right. I’ll need Gut Bucket then.
— Okay, pop.
— Stand still, Gut, and wipe that grin off your outer face. Now, let’s lift him up, gently does it. Pliers. Scalpel. Screw-driver. Forceps. There, you can see the gum between the teeth of the wheels. Spittal. Smooth it in. Gently does it. Pliers. Scissors. Out it comes, whoops into the bucket. Spittal. Oil-can. Screw-driver. Needle and thread.
— His heart has stopped, Someone.
— Oh dear.
— He said he’d die before his time, you great big clumsy oaf.
— No. No. I’ll manage it. Fingers. Where did you put my fingers. Ah. Gently does it. Slowly, slowly. Touch and press and touch and press. Lightly dip not too deep, lift the tip. From a long long way away the heart-beat moves back into consciousness like a clock tick heard again after a clockless time of heavy concentration. Needle and thread. Wipe sweat. Screw-driver. There all done.
— Oh thank you, Someone. Thank you.
— Don’t mention it.
— Oh but I must. You’ve done him proud, hasn’t he, Gut Bucket?
— You’ve done okay, pop. You’ve sure done him fine. He looks pale, though, and Ms mouth dips right down.
— Twenty-five to five. Not bad going for a beginner. My first operation.
— Oh, Someone, thank you. I thought I’d lost the square root of my time.
— You love Dippermouth best, don’t you, Something!
— I love him … as the first born.
— What about Gut Bucket?
— I love him too.
— And me?
— Of course I love you, Someone, you know I do. But love has different aspects.
I love Potato Head. The only child of mine so far I have actually felt reborn, she fills me with a tenderness that brims right out of me whenever I see her. At twelve years old she seems remarkably small, but Something tells me this comes from her weaker sex and she will grow in effort, rather than time and space. Gut Bucket stares anxiously, as if ready to receive her death inside his shining depth at any moment.
The café looks remarkably large for the edge of the town. Perhaps the centre lies at the circumference, or in the left focus of an ellipse. The people come and go, good people, or pretend to, meeting professional friends who can count and therefore know them better than those who merely profess friendship but can’t read inscriptions or secret laws like momentum equals mass time velocity. Hands shake, smoke wisps, voices swim for dear life. Some sit in corners writing the story of their death and amazing recovery but they don’t include me because the patterns in the table’s dark grey marble makes no sense and time has chipped the edges so that I pour the molecules of my tenderness into Potato Head. May I wish you a long life and many good years after. I thought I recognised you. Thank you for coming back.
— Thank you for recognising me. A little recognition can do a lot for a man with a wife and three children.
— Three? Only three? Tut-tut, the rich live young. I deal in local stuff. I never go anywhere, I just fill up the buckets and do the irrigation around here. The cistern doesn’t work, you see.
— Couldn’t I help? You helped me. I have acquired a little surgical talent since I saw you last. So I climb on the lavatory seat and lift the cistern lid. The water trickles loudly in to fill the tank and never stops, and never fills the tank. Let a stand for the tank’s cubic capacity, c for the speed of light, and in no time at all you have eternity or thereabouts. The ball has got unhooked and dropped right down into the empty bladder which explains the gurgling sound. Pliers. Scalpel. Fingers. Wire. Needle and thread. A simple operation. Out it comes. But what, no ticking? His heart has stopped, Someone. Oh dear. No, no, I’ll massage it. Fingers. Ah. Thank you. Gently, now gently does it. Touch and press, lightly dip, not too deep, lift the tip and touch, press, dip, lift. The gurgle leaps back like a clock-tick heard after a heavy concentration, wire, needle and thread. The water trickles into the empty bladder and the ball rises slowly on its surface. I pull the chain, the lavatory flushes full, I flush with pride, the attendant with overwhelming gratitude. I step down from the podium and he shakes my hand. You’ve done me proud, he says. Gut Bucket dances with delight and thumps his thorax, you’ve done it pop, oh pop, look, listen.
The whole town flushes with delight. The streets move quickly full of signs and wonders in mass morse. Somewhere up in the centre Base Headquarters disgorge the twisting teleprinter tape that flows its messages, commands, instructions to the citizens. Lazarus check known as quote Larry unquote has restored repeat restored the flow of energy stop read communication unread despite some degree of clogging in the system still three cheers hip hip for Lazarus and his daily friends good people all stop new para without end.
The ticker tape whirls its welcome and the streets move fast with people in mass morse. The jerking rhythm smoothes itself into canals and I help Something with Potato Head in her arms onto the punt. Dippermouth still pale from his operation ticks away quietly on the front cushion and Gut Bucket jumps in after. They trust my navigation for I can’t go wrong on the punt-wide canal with houses hurraying on each side.
When we come to the T-bend in the meadow we can’t turn without breaking the punt in two. We’ll have to call the canal-pilot. Something says what a bore, I don’t want white monks breathing down my neck. But the white monk patters down the white monastery steps and doesn’t breathe at all, he belongs to a silent order, good, I collect silences, and takes a flying leap into the back of the punt so that the front, with Something, Dippermouth and Potato Head rises up dangerously. He steps left a little to steer the front over the T-bend then steps right a little to steady it. Then he runs down the punt and dips it over the T-bend and into the canal again, a bit too steep, for the punt fills with water. Something grabs Dippermouth but in the shock loses Potato Head who falls into the canal. Quick, Gut Bucket, bale as fast as you can.