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Not only did Tara start talking to me again, but after she’d seen how troubled I was by the hurtful Valentine’s Day card and the way it had forced its way into all the possible universes around us, she offered to take me to someone who she thought might be able to help me understand my ability and my fears.

Over the course of the previous year, Tara had been going to the Buddhist centre in Inchicore, where she’d become friends with one of the disciples, an elderly man called Geoffrey Halpin. Tara had got on so well with Geoffrey that they’d reached a point where she would sometimes ring him and call over to visit.

Master Halpin lived in old Kilmainham, in a red-brick cottage. I thought that Tara called him ‘master’, because he was
a martial arts expert or something, but I found out later that it was just that Geoffrey believed that if women had to change from ‘Miss’ to ‘Mrs’ when they got married, men ought to have a similar distinction. So he was ‘master’, as opposed to ‘mister’, to indicate that he was unmarried.

Tara met me in town and we got the number 19 together.
Sitting
upstairs, side-by-side on the narrow seat, I was conscious of the softness of her skin when her bare arm brushed mine and I welcomed the fact that our bus was swaying, bringing us
inadvertently
together.

‘Do it again.’

‘All right. Pick a number.’ I glanced at her and she nodded.

‘Forty-seven.’

‘Amazing. Do it again.’

This time I couldn’t find a universe in which I had the right answer.

‘You haven’t picked a number.’

‘Yes I have.’

I concentrated, pushing hard.

‘Jaysus, Tara. You’ve just created thousands of other
universes
where I make a fool of myself. Twelve thousand, seven hundred and twenty-two.’

‘Of all people, Liam O’Dwyer, I can’t believe it’s you who can do this.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it is a gift. And you are such a messer.’

‘Am I?’

‘Look at the way you treat Michael. Or Mr Kenny.’

‘Yeah. Well, Dog Face. He deserves all he gets.’

‘Oh stop. Or I’ll start to think you really did send that card.’

We bounced along for a while in silence. She had withdrawn slightly and I no longer felt the warmth of her arm against mine when the bus leaned.

‘Who is your favourite author?’ I asked her.

‘Doris Lessing.’

‘I’ve read one of her books.’

‘Really? I wouldn’t have thought you’d like her.’

‘She wrote a science-fiction book, right? Where this person is on a planet trying to help people get to heaven? And it turns out to be Earth. I liked the start, before it got to modern times. That was a bit boring then.’

‘She wrote a few science-fiction books, if you can call them that. The whole point of them is that it makes you see our world through new eyes.’

‘Yeah, well. That kind of thing doesn’t work for me any more, not now I can see all the other universes.’ I paused. ‘Do you think Master Halpin really can help me find out what’s going on?’

She shrugged, perhaps a little offended by my scepticism.

‘He might. At least he will help you think about it in the right way.’

The bus emptied when it reached Rialto. As the woman in front of us got up to leave she turned around and gave a book to Tara.

‘I’ve finished with this. Here, you have it.’

‘Oh, thank you. That’s only just out.’ Tara looked at the cover
admiringly, holding the book with both her hands.
Spies I Have Known and Other Stories
by Doris Lessing.

Then she shook back her hair so that that she could look at me clearly, eyes wide with astonishment. Although inside I was totally wrecked from the effort of finding this universe, I tried to smile back and display a casual nonchalance.

‘You know, there has to be something wrong with this. There has to be a cost.’ Tara had noticed, perhaps, that I was sweating all over.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right that you get
something
for nothing.’

I worried about this too. It was true that there was a cost. Not just the physical effort of moving to remote universes, but there was more. Somewhere in the darkness out beyond the universes I could sense there was a feral animal, sniffing around eagerly. Each time I moved, I was tearing through fabric between universes that shouldn’t be damaged. Was the beast getting stronger? Was I making a trail for it? Why was it I had not been able to escape from the bitter experience brought about by that card?

A white-haired man answered the door of the red-brick cottage and the many lines of his face immediately formed into a sincere smile when he saw Tara. There was nothing unusual about him at all. He was dressed in jeans and a jumper, like a million other Dubliners.

‘Master Halpin, this is Liam O’Dwyer.’

‘Call me Geoffrey.’ His grip was firm. ‘Come inside.’

What would you expect if you visited the house of a Buddhist? I didn’t have a clue, but I had been anticipating
something
unusual, big tapestries on the walls, or no seats, only bare floors. Maybe that it would be filled with the scent of burning incense. But the cottage was exactly like any other place, with chairs and tables, even a TV. The only difference from our house, say, was that on the mantelpiece was a little brass Buddha, sitting in the famous lotus position. On the wall was a framed picture of a bald man in a maroon robe. He was smiling and looking out at the room through very unfashionable large round glasses.

‘That’s the Dalai Lama.’ Geoffrey noticed my gaze.

‘Friendly lookin’ fella.’

Beside me, Tara stiffened, sensing a note of disrespect in my voice, but I was just thinking of something to say.

‘Yes, he’s a very warm person.’

‘Did you ever meet him?’ Tara asked Geoffrey.

‘Several times. He made a very strong impression on me, a very calm, dignified man.’

Geoffrey gestured at me to sit at the table.

‘Tea?’

‘Sure.’

‘It’s just green tea, I’m afraid.’

‘That’s fine,’ I replied, but I’d never heard of green tea. Tea was brown in my experience.

Tara and I said nothing while we waited. She was anxious
perhaps, although whether it was on my behalf or his I had no idea. Looking along the bookshelves, I saw there were lots of books about religion and Buddhism as you might expect, but there were also some other surprising titles, like a whole set of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons.

Soon Geoffrey was back. On the tray he carried was a pot of tea, three mugs and a plate with some chocolate digestives. A bit decadent for a Buddhist, I thought, but I didn’t really know why I felt that Buddhists shouldn’t eat chocolate biscuits.

‘Tara says you have some interesting spiritual questions.’

‘I have.’ I paused. ‘Did she tell you I can change universes?’

‘She did, but I would like to hear your account.’

‘Well, it’s like this. Right now the universe is dividing up in all directions. I can see one where you are spilling the tea, another where Tara is smiling at something you said – lots and lots of
alternatives
. If I want, and the universe is not too far away, I can swap into it.’

‘I see.’ Geoffrey looked carefully at me.

‘I can prove it.’

‘Can you now?’

‘Yes. Think of a number between one and a hundred.’

‘Go on.’

‘Forty-two.’

‘Interesting, you just moved into the universe in which your guess was correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about the universes where you got it wrong?’

I had a quick look around, before they faded.

‘They are branching away, disappearing for me. Hey though,’ I paused to glance at him, ‘even where I guessed wrong, in some of them you are willing to believe me.’

‘But this is the universe in which I am most convinced?’

‘I think so.’

‘Well, it’s true. I think that I would be sympathetic to your statement in most universes.’ He got up and ran his finger across the back of a number of books before stopping and
pulling
out a slender volume. ‘According to many accounts of the life of Buddha, he existed, and to some extent still exists, in
millions
of worlds. This book says, for example, that after he achieved enlightenment, and I quote: He emanated into all the human realms of the thousand million cosmic systems with which he was associated.’

I was excited by the description. It was very like the way the universe felt to me. It was not, in fact, one universe but a
thousand
million cosmic systems – a metaverse. This was good, already. The quote Geoffrey had just read to me had one word, however, that didn’t feel right.

‘What did he mean by emanated?’

‘Spread, diverged. This is only a translation of Maitreya’s work, so I would have to see the Tibetan characters to give you an exact meaning.’

‘When I move, I don’t feel like I’m spreading out through all the other worlds. I can sense them, but I’m definitely in this one.’

‘Perhaps that feeling would be different if you had overcome your attachment to particulars. Perhaps, if, like the Buddha, you
were as liberated, as unattached, as it was possible for a human being to be, you would simultaneously exist in all universes.’

‘Possibly.’ I liked this conversation. There was no way I could talk about such things with Zed and Deano. With a quick glance, I gave Tara a smile, to show her my gratitude that she’d brought me here, but she was solemn.

‘I don’t see how Liam can be like Buddha. He’s such a messer and a troublemaker. At school he’s … he’s sometimes mean and a bully.’

I must have looked surprised.

‘Well, sorry Liam, but it’s true and this is important. Anyway,’ she turned back to Geoffrey, ‘how can he be enlightened? He’s never even looked at a Buddhist book before.’

It was slightly hurtful that she still had such a low opinion of me, especially now, when I was trying to see myself in a new light, as a super being. It was pretty cool. Maybe this was how you got to be Jesus or Mohammed or someone that everyone else thought a god. Munching happily on a biscuit, I contemplated my potential divinity.

‘Tell me, were you born with this condition?’

Since my mouth was full of chocolate and crumbs, I just shook my head. He waited for me.

‘I don’t think so. It actually first happened when … when Tara lost her foot. Originally I was there.’ I couldn’t look at her now. ‘Her scream. I just fled, into a universe where I’d stayed at home that day.’

‘A scream?’ Geoffrey nodded. ‘The Zen Buddhists will like this. They go in for sudden enlightenment, often in the most
dramatic of circumstances. What was it you were thinking about at the time?’

‘Do you mind?’ I lifted my eyes to meet Tara’s. She shrugged as if she didn’t care. ‘It was terrible. Even looking at her foot, well that had made me sick. But the sound of her distress, it’s like nothing I’ve heard since. I had to get out of there. I was desperate and that’s when it happened. I opened my eyes and I was at home.’

He frowned. ‘Ahh, that’s a little disappointing, since it means you are not, after all, an enlightened being.’

‘What do you mean?’ I glanced again at Tara, who was following our conversation with an intense expression of
concentration
. What I wanted, apart from to understand my powers, was for her to see that I really was trying; I was going to change, use my ability for the best.

‘With all due respect to your suffering, your concern over your own experiences shows great signs of attachment to the world. Let us be generous about your motives and say that it was out of empathy for the pain of Tara that you also were
suffering
. Even so, all life is suffering. Enlightenment, as I
understand
it, is not fleeing from pain but reaching a state of existence where you no long exist as a person. You escape the wheel of life, not the sound of a distressed person.’

‘Look, I know it sounds a bit feeble, but, really, that was a
terrible
moment. I honestly don’t know how Tara didn’t faint. Anyway, that was, like, an unconscious move. It just happened. The next time, I had more choice in the matter.’

‘Yes?’

‘It happened during a game of football.’

‘Football?’ Geoffrey chuckled, a friendly sound.

‘It was terrible. I’d just missed a sitter – totally embarrassing. I had to get out of there, I was desperate and that’s when I saw there were other universes I could go to, places where I had scored and everything was all right.’

Geoffrey, still with a slight smile, shook his head before spreading his fingers over the plastic tablecloth, unconsciously fitting them to the pattern as he spoke. I found myself anxiously awaiting his response.

‘Human beings are extraordinary creatures. We have many abilities, not least that we can use our minds to understand the cosmos and ourselves. But we are also extraordinarily good at binding ourselves to illusions through
attachments
, attachments to things: a house, a car, money.’ He waved his hand
dismissively
and continued, ‘or to less material goals, such as nations, or ideas about ourselves, our egos.’ Geoffrey paused to take a drink of tea. ‘The desire to be admired is a particularly strong illusion.

‘Buddha became enlightened through contemplation. Liam learned to see other universes, because his attachments were driving him onwards. These cannot be the same experiences. With all due respect to the feelings of that little boy, being attached to the results of a sporting event, or even to the result of something that seems much more important, such as a war, can never be liberating.’

‘I’m not concerned about the football match now. I’m just explaining how it got started.’

‘Yes. And I amexplaining to Tara here as much as to you why
I don’t think your abilities are those of a god.’ Tara smiled at the thought of me as a god, but Geoffrey continued in a serious vein. ‘Gods would not display such an attachment to earthly considerations. You are a human, albeit a very fortunate one who can see into some of the other worlds. That is a great gift and it should help you achieve an understanding of the cosmos in a way that is much deeper than for most.’