Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night (32 page)

‘A resonator circuit?’ Sidney suggested.

‘The technical term is a dielectric resonator oscillator or DRO.’

‘But how can anything be in two places at once?’ Jennifer asked.

‘I’m glad you asked that,’ Cartwright smiled lightly. ‘Consider, for a moment, the idea of a half-silvered mirror. As you know, this is a piece of glass that has just enough reflective material so that exactly half the light striking it at forty-five degrees goes straight through it and the other half bounces from the reflective surface at a right-angle. So, if a single photon of light encounters this half-silvered mirror, there is a 50 per cent chance that it will be transmitted (and pass through the surface) and a 50 per cent chance that it will be reflected back. Are you with me?’

‘Of course,’ Jennifer replied. ‘The light has two choices. It either goes through the mirror or it is reflected.’

‘That is what anyone might think.’

‘But surely that is the case?’

‘Not exactly. One would assume that the photon must do one thing or the other, but in actual fact, quantum mechanics tells us that it can do both. We are discovering that it may even be possible to be in two locations at the same time – at least for an atom or a subatomic particle, such as an electron. At that size range, every bit of matter and energy exists in a state of blurry flux, allowing it to occupy not just two locations but an infinite number of them simultaneously.’

‘Blimey, Tony,’ Johnny Johnson answered. ‘That’s amazing. But does it only apply to tiny objects like electrons? I can’t imagine human beings will ever be able to be in a series of different places at once.’

‘That would certainly help our criminal friends,’ Sidney observed. ‘You could have an alibi and commit a crime at the same time.’

‘But this has to be nonsense,’ Nigel cut in. Such a conversation was becoming an affront to the ordered expectations of a politician in government.

‘It’s not nonsense,’ Cartwright continued. ‘In fact, it is one of the most exciting developments in the history of science. Unfortunately we don’t yet understand its implications.’

‘What does it mean for human beings?’ Jennifer asked.

‘Clearly we are not the same as electrons,’ the professor went on. ‘The world we see, and which we are a part of, follows a totally different set of rules. As far as I am aware, there’s just one dinner party at this particular table in North London, there is only one decanter of wine on the table, and I’m glad to say that there is also only one, inimitable, Amanda Kendall.’

‘I’m glad to hear that,’ his fiancée added quickly.

‘However, what nobody can explain is why the universe seems split into these two separate and irreconcilable realities. If everything in the universe is made of quantum things, why don’t we see quantum effects in everyday life? Why can’t Canon Chambers, for example, who is made of quantum particles, materialise here, there, and everywhere he chooses?’

‘Sidney does that all the time!’ Jennifer laughed.

Anthony Cartwright kept going. ‘I think it’s to do with gravity. Gravity roots us in the one place at the one time.’

‘So we need to keep our feet on the ground?’

‘Exactly. But if you experimented by removing gravity . . .’

‘As in space . . .’

‘Then perhaps we could exist in different times simultaneously.’

‘You mean we could travel through time?’ Amanda asked.

‘It’s not necessarily impossible. How far back would you like to go?’

‘To the Garden of Eden, my darling: the very beginning. Just you and me.’

Anthony Cartwright took out his pipe and lit it. ‘I don’t think there was a Garden of Eden. But I’m sure Canon Chambers will take a different view.’

‘Indeed I do.’

Sidney was determined not to be as impressed as everyone else by these scientific discursions and kept a low profile in a following conversation in which the guests decided which period of history they would most like to have lived in. Amanda saw herself as Queen Elizabeth I, Juliette as the Greek poet Sappho and Jennifer as a character in Jane Austen. When pressed, Sidney imagined that he could perhaps have been a Victorian clergyman in a country parish, like Gilbert White, whereas Tony Cartwright said he would most like to live so far into the future that he could control his time travel and know how to get back to wherever he wanted to be.

‘But what if you lived in an age that didn’t have time travel?’ his host asked.

‘I would make sure that I could be in the past and the future at the same time. That is the idea.’

‘Ingenious,’ said Juliette.

‘Doesn’t leave much room for God, does it?’ Johnny Johnson observed.

Sidney wanted to go home. It was ten o’clock and he had an early start the next morning. He finished his glass of wine. ‘I don’t think God is interested in the games humanity plays with its ideas.’

There was silence. Sidney had spoken more critically than anyone was used to. ‘I’m sorry,’ he continued abruptly. ‘I must be getting back.’

‘Is something the matter?’ Juliette asked.

‘No, it’s nothing. I’m quite all right.’

‘I hope it wasn’t the food.’

‘Or the company,’ Anthony Cartwright laughed.

Sidney realised that he was making a scene. ‘No. It’s all right. I’m sorry. I don’t want to make a fuss. Slight headache.’ It was the kind that no amount of Aspro could clear.

‘I’ll give you a lift to the station,’ said Jennifer.

Sidney was apologetic. ‘I don’t want to break up the party.’

‘It’s all right,’ his sister replied before turning to her hostess. ‘I can come back. It’s not far.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Johnny.

‘No, it’s all right.’

‘I insist.’

Amanda stood up and kissed Sidney goodbye. She wanted to make sure that he was still going to take her through the wedding preparations with Tony in a few days’ time. Sidney tried to smile. ‘I look forward to it.’ He shook Anthony Cartwright’s hand and said that it had been good to meet him at last.

Outside, and once they had settled in the car, Jennifer drove without turning to her brother at all. ‘Don’t tell me you’re jealous, Sidney.’

‘I really don’t think I am.’

‘You were in such a mood. What’s wrong with him?’

‘You don’t think he’s too good to be true?’

‘There are men like that, Sidney. You should be happy for Amanda. She’s found someone who loves her at last.’

‘I know, I know. But there’s something about him that doesn’t feel right.’

‘Oh, Sidney, don’t be ridiculous.’

Jennifer’s boyfriend was curiously silent. ‘What do you think, Johnny?’ she asked.

‘Well, I hate to disagree with you, and I know this will get me into a lot of trouble once we have dropped Sidney off, but I think your brother might have a point.’

Amanda drove Anthony Cartwright to Grantchester the following week. She had suggested that they could get through the whole ‘marriage-preparation malarkey’ over lunch in a single session at Le Bleu Blanc Rouge but Sidney was having none of it. They would need to come for two full sessions over morning coffee in the vicarage and they would be treated in the same way as any other couple.

Sidney wondered if part of their hurry was because his friend was pregnant. Although he felt sure that his sister would have told him if that was the case, Amanda was in full organisational mode. Indeed, she had already booked a honeymoon in the south of France (revealing that she was going to pay for the whole thing since, as an academic, her fiancé had so little money, and she wanted to stay at the Palais de la Méditerranée in Nice).

Sidney was surprised by Anthony Cartwright’s keenness to get the ceremony out of the way before he went on his next research trip to America. It was certainly unusual for a man to leave his wife straight after the honeymoon for six weeks but his research was, apparently, at a critical stage. Science was the new frontier and he told Sidney that all of the interesting work was being done across the Atlantic.

‘Richard Feynman at Caltech is working on a pictorial representation scheme for the mathematical expressions governing the behaviour of subatomic particles. I have to be there or I’ll be out of the game. I don’t want to end up like poor old Meldrum.’

Neville Meldrum, the Professor of Theoretical Physics at Corpus, was one of Sidney’s closest friends and there was nothing ‘poor’ or ‘old’ about him.

‘I’ve always said that Cambridge is a bit of a backwater,’ Amanda joined in. ‘I don’t know why Sidney has put up with the provinces for so long. That’s why I’m so glad that we’re getting married in London. We can put on a proper “do”.’

Sidney poured out the coffee and offered round a small plate of Mrs Maguire’s shortbread. ‘And what about your family, Dr Cartwright?’

‘I’m an only child, I’m afraid. My father’s long gone and my mother’s on the Isle of Skye. It’s very much Amanda’s show, as you can imagine.’

Sidney tried to smile but he could already tell that this encounter was going to be tough. He reminded the couple of the introduction of the ceremony itself: that marriage was not to be enterprised lightly, but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly and in the fear of God.

‘We know all that,’ Amanda replied impatiently. ‘We’ve both been to plenty of weddings.’

‘But you haven’t, as far as I am aware, taken vows before God yourselves.’

‘Certainly not.’

Sidney looked at Anthony Cartwright and waited for his answer. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Of course I haven’t. Amanda is the love of my life.’

‘I suppose, then, we should start by thinking about that phrase: “the love of my life”. I have views on the matter but it might be helpful to hear yours first. What do you think it means when someone says, “You are the love of my life”?’

Amanda crossed her legs at her ankles. ‘I thought you were doing the marriage guidance.’

‘This is preparation,’ Sidney replied. ‘Guidance comes when things are falling apart.’ Again he tried to smile but his heart just wasn’t in it. ‘And I don’t think you’ve got to that stage yet.’

‘I don’t intend to get to it either.’

‘Good.’ Sidney turned to Cartwright. ‘You understand, both of you, that marriage is for life? It has to exist after the thrill of early love has gone.’

‘I don’t think ours will go, Amanda, do you?’

‘I should jolly well hope not. I’m expecting years of unadulterated passion.’

‘Some people are, of course, fortunate,’ Sidney replied. ‘But my task is to make you think of all eventualities: not only the joys of children . . .’

‘I don’t think we’ll be having any children . . .’ Cartwright interrupted.

Amanda backed him up. ‘I think we are agreed on that.’

‘But also sickness, ill fortune, even death.’

‘Oh, Sidney, this is very gloomy,’ Amanda cut in.

‘I don’t mean to be.’

‘Shouldn’t this be a cheerful occasion?’

‘Of course, the service itself is a great moment of celebration both of God’s love for mankind and of your love for each other. But we can only enjoy ourselves once the solemnities have been observed. The use of the word “solemn” is deliberate.’

‘And the church in Sloane Street is quite dark,’ Cartwright mused.

‘Mummy’s going to fill it with flowers. And it’s going to be a wonderful sunny day. I just know it.’

‘I am sure it will be,’ Sidney conceded. ‘And I know we are all looking forward to it. But before we get to that happy day I am also charged to ask you whether you are true Christian believers?’

‘Oh for goodness sake, of course we are. You know that. We go to church.’

‘That is not always the same thing.’ Sidney was not going to make it easy for them. He turned to Amanda’s fiancé once more. ‘Dr Cartwright, we have only met on one occasion and so I must ask you to answer. Have you been baptised and confirmed?’

‘I have.’

‘And do you believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth? And in Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son our Lord?’

‘I wouldn’t quite put it as strongly as that.’

‘Then how would you put it?’

Amanda was exasperated. ‘This is awfully serious, Sidney. If you carry on like this we’ll have to consider finding someone else to take the service. The vicar’s already put out that you’re doing it. He’s insisted on saying a few words even though he’s got one of those annoying clergy voices that goes up and down all the time.’

‘I think you will find all priests very much the same if you want to be married in a church. If the religious commitment is all too much for you then may I remind you that there is always the registry office.’ Sidney did not intend to sound pompous but he was not going to allow Amanda to use their friendship to get an easy ride.

‘Registry office?’ she almost spat. ‘Isn’t that for runaways and adulterers?’

‘I am only reminding you that you have that choice. In the meantime, I must repeat my question to you, Anthony.’ Sidney used Cartwright’s formal Christian name deliberately. ‘Dost thou believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy Catholic Church; the communion of saints; the remission of sins; the resurrection of the flesh; and everlasting life after death?’