Transmission: Ragnarok: Book Two (33 page)

Payne delivered other tough-minded observations on the political situation, but when he and Gavriela finally ended up in Grand Central where his wife was waiting on the concourse, he showed another side of himself: embracing his wife with no regard to anyone around, as though the rest of the world had disappeared. Gavriela thought of her night with Brian and shook her head.

‘This is my wife, Sadie. Sadie, this is the Gabby I told you about.’

‘Oh, nice to meet you, Gabby.’

‘Er, yes …’

The station announcer recited a sing-song of poetic names – Poughkeepsie, New Haven – and Sadie said: ‘They’re going our way, except we’re going by automobile.’

When they reached the car, Payne seemed content to sit in the passenger seat while Sadie drove. From the back seat, Gavriela watched the sureness of Sadie’s movements, aware that this was another world in many ways. Outside the car window, much of the landscape was as alien as the Paynes’ manners. From the desert around Los Alamos she had come back to Manhattan’s skyscrapers, and soon enough the green of rural Connecticut as Sadie drove them through the countryside. Finally they pulled up before the perfect wooden-fronted house that was home to the couple. Payne got out first, rounded the car, and held open the door for his wife to exit, even though she had driven. Something about the gesture made Gavriela want to weep.

Two police officers came along the street, hats in hand, unbuttoning their tunics.

‘Hey, good buddy.’

‘You made it back on time.’

Gavriela got out, and suffered the introductions – the cops were Olly and Chet, and they were coming off duty – before Sadie led her through the house and into the kitchen. It was movie-perfect, down to the pleated curtains and the lawn beyond, with whitewashed fence.

‘I’ll get the boys their beers,’ said Sadie, ‘and then we’ll talk.’

Once the men were settled in the front parlour, bottles in hand, Sadie came back, set coffee to making, and sat down at the table with Gavriela. She wiped a microscopic mark from the oiled tablecloth.

‘Charles tells me you’ve been ill quite a lot.’

‘I … yes.’ Gavriela had noticed Sadie’s gaze on her ringless left hand.

If I were Polish, the ring would be on the other hand. If I had a ring
.

In England, it was better to be thought Polish than German, and she often was. The same probably applied here.

‘Sick in the mornings particularly?’ said Sadie.

‘Maybe.’

Gavriela could hear the joylessness of her own voice.

‘There are ways’ – Sadie glanced towards the hallway – ‘of making sure things don’t go to term. You’re not showing yet, so it’s early days.’

‘I don’t—’

Gavriela turned her head, but none of the men had left the front parlour.

‘This isn’t legal, is it?’ she added. ‘What you’re suggesting?’

‘Oh, my dear.’ Sadie took hold of Gavriela’s hands. ‘I’m not suggesting anything. I’m trying to find out what you want.’

‘Oh.’

Charles Payne was clearly a good husband, adoring Sadie and adored by her. Could Brian occupy a place like that in Gavriela’s life?

I should try, for the—

Even the thought was hard to complete.

For the baby’s sake
.

At least she had three choices: marriage, send the baby to an orphanage, or the whispered option that Sadie offered.

‘I need to sleep on it,’ she said.

‘Of course.’ Sadie patted the back of her hand. ‘First thing in the morning, then. You’re off to Washington in a couple of days, is that right?’

‘That’s the schedule.’

Sadie blinked, perhaps because Gavriela had pronounced
schedule
in the English rather than American fashion.

‘Come on, and I’ll show you your room. Dinner’s in an hour.’

‘You’re so kind, and your house is so lovely, and your marriage and … everything.’

Gavriela was crying.

I thought I’d forgotten how
.

But now she had a link to the future growing inside her.

After breakfast, Payne – Gavriela had begun calling him Charles here in his house, but still thought of him as Payne – excused himself, saying he needed to read the paper alone in the front parlour, where he could concentrate on the funnies. Gavriela wanted to tell him he did not need to do that, not for her sake; but she did not have the words. She watched as he adjusted his braces – suspenders: American English was as bad as Schweizerdeutsch – and checked his tie and cuff-links, as though the
New York Times
demanded formal dress for reading. Then he went out with paper in hand.

Sadie said: ‘He’s being diplomatic.’

‘I know. You love him very much.’

‘Of course I do. Not everyone can be so lucky.’

It was an indirect way of asking, and Gavriela appreciated it.

‘I don’t know whether …’ She put her hand across her abdomen. ‘I think he’s a good man, the … You know.’

The father. Sadie nodded.

‘A child needs a stable family,’ Gavriela added, ‘and I don’t know, but … I want to try.’

Sadie’s smile was beaming.

‘Good choice,’ she said.

Afterwards, Sadie went out to the front parlour while Gavriela freshened up upstairs. When Gavriela descended, Payne was waiting in the hallway, looking more relaxed than before.

‘I’ve got a trip lined up for you,’ he said. ‘For your last day here.’

‘Oh,’ said Gavriela. ‘All right. Thank you.’

Payne winked at Sadie, and she grinned.

They’re so wonderful
.

Later, as Payne drove, he taught Gavriela local pronunciation from
fahchrissake
to
wazitoyuh, huh?
, and expressions from ‘doing a Brodie’ to ‘twenty-three skiddoo’, the latter explained as they drove past the narrow-angled Flatiron Building. Gavriela smiled and occasionally laughed out loud as they left the city and headed for New Jersey –
Noo Joizey
– eventually to arrive in Princeton’s clean, leafy avenues. Payne parked as close to Fine Hall as he could, went inside and came back with a blunt-faced older man and a student dressed in suit and bow tie.

‘We’re your escort,’ said the older man. ‘This way, Dr Woods.’

Could this be what she hoped? As they neared the building they were headed for, beautiful violin music drifted out to meet them.

‘Brahms,’ said Gavriela. ‘Played perfectly.’

The rumour was that his playing was awful. Perhaps she had the wrong idea about what was to happen here; or perhaps she should not listen to gossip. Then the music stopped, and angry words followed.

‘Uh-oh,’ said the older man.

‘Sometimes,’ said Payne, ‘you hurl abuse, you get a smack in the kisser in return.’

‘It won’t be like that.’

‘It better not be.’

They went inside, and knocked on the study door. When the great man came out, his white hair formed a mane in disarray, while his creased bloodhound features were avuncular, as Gavriela had imagined. His baggy clothes were rumpled.

‘This is Dr Gavriela Wolf,’ said Payne, surprising her.

Her hand trembled as she reached out to shake.

‘
Es freud mich sehr Sie kennenzulernen
,’ she said.

‘
Ah, Gott sei Dank
.’ He smiled at Payne. ‘Forgive me. English is a wonderful language, but not as alive for me.’

Their escort stayed outside, but Payne and Gavriela entered the study as bidden. Her attention was caught by the dusty blackboard, or rather the equations upon it. Written in
his
hand, that was the thing.

‘
Was denkst du?
’ From anyone else, the use of the familiar would have been unthinkable; here it seemed natural. ‘
Das Lambda hab’ ich nicht gern
.’

He pointed at the Λ symbol, so necessary for an expanding, steady-state universe.

‘
Ich weiss nicht–
’ Gavriela began.

But he picked up the violin and plucked with his fingers, causing her throat to constrict as if one of Payne’s soldiers had snapped on a chokehold.

Da, da-dum, da-da-da-dum, da-da
.

The sickness that rose inside had little to do with her condition.

‘
Es tut mir Leid, Gavriela
.’

Those twinkling eyes belonged to a man with human faults, but one who saw deeply into things, in more ways than she had suspected; while Payne was nodding, like a man checking off a point on a list.

Regent’s Park, on this ninth day of September, remained green and splendid, a forest oasis in the centre of smoggy London. From the high window in his rented apartment – part of a townhouse built for a Georgian gentleman, or some such – Lucas stared at the treetops, and the parade of office workers beneath them, making the most of an end-of-summer lunchtime. Softness pressed against his back, Maria’s breasts beneath his shoulder blades.

‘Come to Rio with me,’ she said. ‘In the spring.’

‘I don’t know. Will there be sex?’

‘There better had be, lover.’

Quantum resonance was one of Lucas’s specialities, and for sure his innermost cellular self resonated with Maria’s lusty energy. He laughed as she tweaked his nipple from behind. He twisted to face her, then followed as she pulled him back to the bed where she laughed as he entered her. At some point, during the rise to nova crescendo, a
ting
sounded from his holoterminal, but Maria Higashionna was everything, the universe he breathed in, the hot skin he melded with; and then it exploded for both of them, and they lay afterwards with only gentle adjustments and kisses, lost in each other, floating in the aftermath.

‘My recital’s at three,’ said Maria.

‘You’d better shower first.’

‘Mm.’

She rolled out of bed and walked to the bathroom. Lucas watched her, wishing he had the equations to describe her nude beauty. Then she was out of sight and the shower was starting up.

‘Oh, well.’

Bare-arse naked, he hauled himself to the holoterminal and tapped it into life. When he pointed, the floating-scroll icon unfurled to show a black-and-white photograph hanging in the air beside a vertical sheet of creamy writing-paper. The cursive script might have been written with a fountain-pen.

‘Hey, lover.’

‘Huh!’ He had not heard the bathroom door open. ‘You’ve left the shower running.’

‘Just wondering if someone would wash my … So what’s that, anyhow? An old family photograph?’

Lucas leaned closer to the holo rather than magnify it.

‘I think that
is
my grandmother, you know. Not that I ever knew her.’

‘You’re kidding. Turn the letter this way, would you?’

He gestured, and the image rotated a little. Slipping his arm around her soft, exciting waist, he made himself read.

Dearest Lucas
,

How wonderful to have a grandson! My words will seem very strange, since we do not know each other and I speak from your past. Still, I must ask you a favour, and be assured it must be this way. Even banks can fail over time, although it is to be hoped that some familiar names survive, so I am forced to contact you in this indirect way, with the hope that you will feel curious enough to investigate as I tell you
.

He gestured at the paragraph.

‘Her first language wasn’t English.’

‘Neither is mine,
meu amor
. Read on.’

‘Yes, but … Never mind.’

Please, my grandson, look under the parquet flooring, in the right-hand outer corner as you look out the window at the park
.

Love
,

Gavi (your grandmother!)

X X X

Lucas pulled out a chair and sat down. Maria leaned against him; his hand cupped her buttock.

‘Is this a little physics joke arranged with my friends?’

‘Nothing to do with me, lover,’ said Maria. ‘Is there any actual nerdy science in the note?’

‘A logical paradox, maybe.’

‘Didn’t you say maths is built on paradox-infested foundations? Russell and Gödel, right? When you got into that argument with Jim in the One Tun.’

‘No.’ He shut down the display. ‘I mean, that’s sort of what I said.’

Maria looked at the space where the letter had hung.

‘What is parquet flooring?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘The letter said parquet flooring, in the corner.’

He squeezed her.

‘That’s parquet.’ He pointed at the wooden floor. ‘Blocks arranged in patterns. And you’re going to be late for your recital.’