Sand Glass (7 page)

The matter of
Hanson had arisen again. But we didn’t really know what was going
on there, and George seemed a little vague on the issue. I wanted
to ask Oliver about it, as I knew that he had been in the position
of soaking up a lot of the ramblings that Hanson liked to indulge
in; and had done us a service by not letting him bend everyone
else’s ear too much. Jules didn’t have his talent for tolerance,
which made me all the more respecting of his experiences.

And of course,
we still weren’t sure where that Mr Alexander fitted in. Jules
understood in ways that the rest of us did not, about how these
parallel realities were created, but he still felt it keenly on a
deeply emotional level. Violette had, with extraordinary
politeness, told Jules that he wasn’t going anywhere near Main
Base. He said to her, with as much equanimity, that it was safer
for Hanson if he didn’t, because next time he’d hit him properly. I
looked away when they started that kissing stuff again. It was kind
of embarrassing when other couples did it. I was still that
teenager spying on my sister from the attic stairs as she snogged
her first boyfriend. She had been sixteen, and I, a grubby eleven
years old.

I left my
current trip down memory lane to pour Alex a beer and get a bottle
of wine open for Violette and myself. Jules preferred whiskey and
water. We had lots of nibbles. We played a few hands of poker.
Which both Alex and Violette were far better at than either Jules
or myself. And then we all meandered into speculation about the
physics of the parallel worlds, and how small things could make
such a big difference later on.

‘For example,’
said Jules, ‘This sausage roll could change the history of the
universe.’

We all laughed.
‘That’s bonkers.’ said Alex, and immediately demanded fresh chilled
beer. I had a huge supply after Alex insisted we get a job lot “for
friends and other non-notable things of like nature.”

‘Why have I got
so much beer in the house?’ I stood looking in the fridge.

‘It’s so that
whenever you need to you can invite me round, and I’ll come
running, safe in the knowledge that there is poetry for the parched
soul even in this hovel!’

‘Are you saying
my house is a mess?’

‘No. actually
it’s very tidy. For a bachelor pad that is. If you took a look at
Violette’s home, you would smell the difference immediately.’

‘Oh?’

‘No odour of
unwashed socks permeating the hallways.’

‘You make it
sound just like high school.’

‘That’s because
it is exactly like high school. Down to the annoying “clumsy with
girls” hunk, who blushes whenever anyone even implies there’s more
to a woman than her riveting conversation.’

‘You’re friends
with Violette.’

‘That’s because
I don’t date my fellow artistes. That would be unethical. Besides
she bores everyone rigid during the discussion coffee break, about
“Jules this…” and “Jules that…”; we’re all relieved that he’s
claimed her, she is a woman who is trouble squared!’

‘I thought you
are her friend, and talk about poetry and stuff?’

‘Davey; you are
so blind. Of course we are friends; but the side of her that is
dangerous I leave to one who can handle it. You will never realise
what a fruit you are until you allow yourself to be a little less
like someone’s disapproving aunt. You look like you’ve been sucking
lemons any time anyone even might say the word “sex”.’

‘Am I really
that stuffy?’

‘I wouldn’t say
stuffy… but take Janey for instance;’ Alex rolled his eyes as I
winced, ‘she is pretty and smart. But with a bit of patience and a
lot of massage you could have her eating out of your hand.’

‘I don’t think
of her in that way.’ I said stiffly.

‘Of course you
do. Admit that you’re not above the rest of us. Admit that you’re
the one’s who’s a scared little boy, who just wants to hide until
it’s all over.’

‘Ok. I admit
it.’

‘Now go and
ring her up. Apologise for being so bullying the other night, and
invite her round. I’ll go and collect her.’

‘You’ve had
three beers so no.’

‘Just ask.
She’ll come over if she wants to.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘I can’t spend
my last night before I go back with an imaginary woman.’

‘Imaginary? Are
you sure you’re alright? Don’t you think you’re taking this
difference between realities just a little too far?’

‘I don’t
know.’

‘Well then
consider how your Janey… that other one would feel, if she found
out what you’d been behaving like towards this Janey?’

I went quiet,
partly because I had nothing to say, and also because there was no
rebuttal, that I could make. I felt guilty then, the old familiar
feeling that had been strangely absent from the background noise of
my consciousness for several days now.

I went back
into my back sitting room, where Violette and Jules were having a
popcorn eating contest. It involved throwing it across the room,
and the other person catching it in their mouth. It was a good job
I wasn’t house proud.

‘Do you think I
was being cruel to Janey the other night?’ I asked them loudly.
Alex followed me into the room and circled round me. They all
looked at me in silence.

Violette moved
first. ‘Come!’ she said, in her smooth as cream voice. We went back
into the kitchen.

‘She’s not
going to let up on anything.’ Violette stated.

‘What?’ I shook
my head.

‘She is
convinced she’s right. She won’t however, be able to do anything.
Jules will not be used in that way.’ Violette seemed thoughtful
then, ‘I am certainly involved in all of this. But I am not sure if
my role is to keep her away from Jules or not….It is a problem, no
doubt about it.’

‘You talked to
her… I mean when we were at Alex’s house.’

Violette poured
out some apple juice in a glass and took her time; ‘I think,’ she
said eventually, ‘the conflict that really needs to be resolved is
inside you. You see her as a threat. Yet she has done nothing but
talk. It is, as they say “all hot air”. She cannot do anything. So
then we are left with the characters in this drama.’

‘Well… what do
they do?’

‘You admire her
greatly. But you do not want her. You feel she is… not complete,
because she lacks the side that her parallel self has had time to
develop.’

I could feel
myself going red, but tried to be calm and mature, ‘I see. Do go
on.’

‘You dislike
her unrounded character, her depressive and aggressive streak; and
yet you are drawn to her.’ Violette looked at me, but I didn’t
speak, so she carried on, ‘I see that you want her to understand
your perspective; perhaps you are angry because she doesn’t. Your
mind is unwilling to separate these two people from each other.
Which is why you think as one as being imaginary, and the other
real. But she only sees a man who fascinates her, for reasons that
hitherto she would have rejected; you knew her other self.
Therefore you hold some knowledge about her that she might not yet
know. Personally, she is not close to anyone except her brother.
And she feels lost without him around to guide her. Do you wish me
to discuss this further?’

‘Yes. Do it.
Please. I must know.’ I said down on a chair rather abruptly.
Violette gracefully sat, and smoothing her skirt over her knees
continued: ‘I believe that she feels disloyal to Jared for taking
any kind of interest in you. She is angry at herself for apparently
being the cause of all of this dreadful experiment. What she
doesn’t know…. That is to say; Jules has only just found out; is
that she wasn’t the one who got the final equations to a useable
state.’

‘What? Then
who?’

Violette
lowered her voice, ‘This is beyond me. But if I understand Jules
right; the parallel world is self-perpetuating.’

‘We can’t get
rid of the connection….?’ I said, and added, ‘But technically it’s
not the world that’s parallel, but only some of the people in
it.’

She waved it
away with one hand; ‘No matter. The facts seem to be clear. It was
the other Janey. The woman who is lost out there somewhere; she was
the one who put the finishing touches on the necessary programming
of the modulator that made the corridor open. Jules says that this
means that in the timeline, the parallel people appeared before the
corridor to that other world. He says… I think that it means that
all the people must have a real counterpart in this world. He
believes that the Mr Alexander wasn’t him at all. He has told me
how people are only certain of their identity from the tags. If
they forget…. They read the tags.’

‘That must mean
that the tag of Mr Alexander had been taken from another version of
Jules. A stolen tag? Is that why he looked like him?’

‘Who can say?’
Violette tapped her nails on the glass, ‘sometimes in life, a
person takes on the appearance of a character. They assume an
identity. If the person was similar in basic physical appearance to
Jules, he might have convinced himself he was the same person, but
had simply made different choices.’

‘So am I
supposed to see Janey as being two people or one?’

‘You can see it
anyway that helps you. But perhaps you need to stop being afraid of
what might happen if you allow yourself to see both sides of her as
real.’

‘Why does it
matter what I think of her? Why should that make any difference at
all?’

‘It does,’
Violette looked away, ‘I will say something completely as a
friend…. Take this as you wish…. But Janey is alone in this city.
She is afraid that she has made a terrible mistake. And you have
wounded her…. It was necessary, for all our sakes; and no one
blames you for that… but you took away her dignity… and perhaps you
are the only one who can give it back. She is already half way to
helping you. I have done that much for you. But her pride cannot be
answered by anyone else. Only you can tell her she really matters.
Only you can bring those two sides back together. Jules tried to
explain about; hmm… people meeting themselves. But that is maybe
how she can believe you are telling her the truth. Taking it on
faith is not her greatest attribute is it?’

‘No. I guess it
hasn’t been.’ I felt dreadful. Violette took another bottle of wine
out of the back of fridge and went to join the others.

I sat with my
elbows on the table and my hands over my face. Ten minutes later I
left by the front door to jump in a taxi and go to Janey’s
house.

I stood in the
gloom of her porch. Wishing I’d rung her first. I felt around in my
jacket. No phone in there either. It was chilly and beginning to be
a bit damp. I sat down on her step just inside the porch. A few
stars were visible now. This was fitting. That I should feel this
bad. I was tired and to tell the truth not perfectly sober.

I stood up
then, with the intention of walking away back onto the main road. I
saw myself getting the twenty-past Bus back to the end of my
street.

‘Davey!’

I spun round
and tripped over the edging on the path.

She came out of
the now open doorway and pulled me out of the low hedge.

‘I must get
that fixed.’ She eyed me very strangely.

‘Janey…..’

‘Just come in;’
she looked around, ‘the snails come out soon. I hate accidentally
standing on things like that.’

‘Thanks. I
don’t like them either.’

Inside she put
the kettle on to boil. Then she seemed to forget about it and
wandered back into the room with all the paper models. I realised
that they were origami folded shapes, dozens of them. A chair in
the corner near the window, stood next to a like side table, a
phone was off the hook.

‘Yes… he’s
here,’ she listened then, and said yes a couple of times, then
said: ‘it will be alright. I’ve had none of that in the house since
Wednesday. So eleven… yes, alright. Bye.’

I hung around
not daring to sit on the invitingly confortable settee.

She wandered
back into the kitchen, and still forgot about the kettle. We both
stood. Neither seemed to know what to say.

‘They rang
you.’ I said lamely.

‘Yes.’ She
gripped both hands together, as if trying to hold onto a thought
she might have had when the phone call was still connected.

‘What did they
say?’

‘Oh… just that
I must return you by eleven o’clock. So….’

‘I’m sorry….
I’m sorry for being so hard on you last week.’

She turned away
and sobbed once and stayed there with her shoulders hunched; I
waited.

‘Can you really
get Jared back for us?’ she said in a broken tone.

‘I will try.
And yes, I believe I can. I have to find where he went.’

She turned
around, ‘That’s all I want; to have Jared back. My parents are
hopeful, but I… I just want it to stop. The nightmare. He’s so
frail… you know. Like a child in a war zone. Sleeping there,
dreaming… is that what happened? He dreamed and it made a
connection into that world, while he was asleep in this one?’

‘I think it’s
probably something like that.’ I said.

‘Will you bring
him back?’

‘I won’t be
coming back without him, I promise you that.’

‘And what about
me?’ there was that strange look again.

‘I’m not sure I
understand.’

‘Will you bring
her back… I mean Janey back?’

‘Yes.’ I looked
into her eyes, ‘I’ll do that for you. And then I’ll go home. I’ll
not bother you again. I….. I…. can’t say I won’t want to bother
you. But I’ll keep my word if that is what you want when we are all
get back.’

‘What about a
get together. The team and all that?’

‘Well err… yes,
except for that.’

‘What about if
it’s someone’s birthday and they have a party, and we are both
there?’