Turbulence (7 page)

‘Oh, yes please,' I replied. ‘Which of you did it?'

‘We do them together,' Gwen said proudly.

‘That's unusual.'

‘Maybe. It's our thing. We hope to apply to the Slade, if this horrid war ever ends.'

‘What do you think we should call it?' Joan asked me.

I looked again at the painting. ‘Dogs in Foam?' I ventured, and they both laughed, hooting loudly.

On a low table next to the mirror was everything needed for brewing tea. Joan put a small kettle on. The three of us stood slightly awkwardly, waiting for it to boil.

‘What does Whybrow think?' I asked.

‘What about?' said Gwen.

‘You two having this little den.'

‘Oh, he doesn't mind,' said Joan, pouring hot water into a teapot.

‘He daren't,' Gwen said. ‘We think he's scared of us.'

‘Really?'

‘He says we make him anxious,' said Joan, pouring, then handing me a mug.

‘Why?'

Neither replied. As we drank our tea, I studied the metal-grid pylon-like tower which rose out of the floor towards the roof, where – bolted on either side of the pitch – there were two more trapdoors. The glass of the searchlight and some meteorological gauges were suspended on a trackway in the middle of the grid, which was raised by a geared winding system.

‘Can I see it work?' I asked.

‘It's not worth turning on in the day,' said Gwen. ‘And at night it attracts bombers, but basically we undo these …' She climbed onto the grid of the tower and unbolted one of the trapdoors, which fell down with a bang. Cold air rushed down. I could see the sky – and Gwen's calves.

All in a pickle, I quickly looked down again, trying not to catch the eye of Joan, who was standing next to me. I didn't
quite succeed. I was sure she was smirking. The suspicion began to grow in me that the whole thing had been done for my benefit. Or theirs. Had I been had? I was beginning to see how Whybrow might find them perturbing. They seemed to be the kind of women who could turn men round their little fingers, and enjoy the sport of doing it.

There was another bang as Gwen let down the second trapdoor. Joan grasped a metal handle and began winding the worm gear which raised the tower. It ascended like a theatrical device. I watched as Gwen rose further with the tower until her head poked out of the roof. Her silk-stockinged ankles were now level with my face. I felt overcome by simple lust.

‘Jeepers it's nippy up here,' she called.

I stared. There was something hypnotic about the way – like a graph curve, like a continuous function – the material followed the flow of skin and bone.

Things were made worse by Joan's hand brushing my back as she reached for the handle of the worm gear. ‘You could help,' she said, starting to wind. ‘This thing hurts my wrist.'

So I wound the tower – and Gwen – down again. Joan was right. It was quite hard, in spite of the gear.

‘In summer,' said Joan, ‘we can smell jasmine up there on the wind.'

‘Very romantic,' I said.

‘Whereas in winter we get chilblains,' said Gwen crisply, climbing down beside us. ‘Joany, we'd better get that balloon.'

I looked over the balcony to the balloon on the ceiling. The suspended lights shone a peculiar red through the rubber, like torchlight through fingers. Gwen appeared, holding a pole with a hook on the end – like a boat gaffe – and Joan leaned out over the balcony to deftly hook the balloon.

‘Yes,' said Gwen, as she and I descended to the ground floor. ‘No, hand it down. I'll do it.'

She took the other end of the pole from Joan, who then climbed down herself.

Gwen opened the door of the shed to let the gas out of the balloon, sounding a long, slow exhalation. I imagined the molecules of hydrogen spreading out into the atmosphere and combining with other elements.

‘Whybrow mentioned seeing Pyke from Combined Ops at Loch … Loch …' I said, frowning and moving my weight from one foot to another as I tried to remember the name.

‘Eck. I'll show you where to drive,' said Joan. ‘It's not far. Pyke is usually on the loch at this time. If he's not there he'll be at the Argyll Hotel in town.'

I was pleased it was her. For I have to admit, it was Joan who (in the midst of my ignorance) was stirring my pot then, more than Gwen, despite the business with the stockings. How they will laugh if they ever read this!

We walked through the mud and the old farmyard towards the gate.

‘How will I recognise Pyke?' I asked.

I swung my leg over the motorcycle.

‘There's no mistaking him,' she said. ‘He has a messy little beard, wears specs. Looks a bit peculiar. Holes in his suit jacket.' She giggled. ‘You better watch out or that's what you will become.'

‘Why?' I asked, affronted.

‘All you scientists end up that way.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘You have no style. All you think about are your equations.'

‘Ah,' I said, rising to the challenge. ‘But that is just it, don't you see? The style is in the equations. Some people write ugly proofs, others do it with panache. I like to think mine are as beautiful as, as – well, anything!'

I watched her face become aghast. ‘Anything? Anything is
not beautiful. Only special things are beautiful.'

I felt embarrassed at my inability to express myself. ‘All right, Miss, if you say so. But one day I'll show you some of those equations and you will see what I mean.'

‘I look forward to it.'

After giving directions to the quay at Loch Eck, she said goodbye to me, then turned and headed back to the station.

I managed to stall the motorbike after just a few yards. As I was sitting in the middle of the road, kicking the starter, I became aware of a detachment of troops marching towards me. American infantry. It was too late for me to move. They separated on either side of me before rejoining; exercise-hardened faces giving no acknowledgement of my presence.

I sat frozen to the seat. I have never seen a statue of a man on a motorbike but that's what I was, a monument around which they flowed with the molecules of the air. After the rupture, when the men reformed, it was as if there had been no disturbance. Turning on the saddle to watch the soldiers grow smaller down the road, I thought again about the invasion of which they might become a part, for which I was supposed to help predict the weather by unwrapping the mysteries of the Ryman number.

I kicked the pedal. Under gunfire on a beach … I did not envy them that. I kicked the pedal again.

Starting the engine, finally, I was shaken by a grave doubt as to whether anything I could do as a meteorologist could match what would be asked of those soldiers.

Loch Eck was a sombre place. Shadows cast by cloud sat on dark green hills rising steeply from black water edged with reeds and rushes. One cloud in particular caught my eye, perched above its hill. It was a member of a class of clouds termed lenticular, so called because they often look like a thick lens with a hole in the middle. They're unusual in that, although the locality and shape of the cloud remain the same (they frequently cap mountains), the air comprising it is always changing.

I continued on my journey up the loch, at one point having to show my paperwork to a sentry. After riding by the shore for a mile or two, during which time I also passed some navy cadets in a heavy wooden rowing boat, I came to an old stone quay, just as Joan had described. Gathering my thoughts, I propped up the motorcycle on its stand and began walking down the ancient blocks of stone.

My eye followed the grey edge of the quay to where it was interrupted by a broad stairway down to the water. At the top of the stairs stood two men, one of whom was holding a pair of leather reins. Something was waving in the wind above them, echoing the shaking rushes by the edge of the loch.

‘Hullo, lend a hand, will you?' he shouted, seeing me watching.

The speaker was a long-haired, bearded, sallow-faced man in his fifties, possibly older. His greying beard was like a scrappy piece of bush; it was as if it was fighting with his skin rather than
growing out of it. The leather reins he was holding stretched out into the loch. Out there, a creature was moving through the water, pulling the leather taut. I walked down towards them.

It was an aerial that I had seen waving. The other man – younger, in his early thirties, and almost shaven-headed – held a handset attached to a radio set in his backpack. The handset had red and yellow buttons. Both men wore tweed suits, which in the younger man's case looked rather odd; it's not something you expect, to see the skull beneath the skin of someone in a tweed suit. Next to the two men was a crate containing two dozen or so herring – and next to that stood a tea flask resting on some greaseproof paper, which was half wrapped round an unfinished sandwich.

Without explaining further, the older man handed me one of the reins. The moment I took it there was a sharp jerk that almost sprained my wrist.

‘He tends to get a bit excited in tight places,' said the man.

‘What is it?' I asked, bemused, resisting the tug of the rein.

‘It … is Lev,' said the man. ‘Short for Leviathan. We're testing the effectiveness of sea lions in guarding harbours against attack. Give him a zap, Julius, will you?'

The other man pressed a button on his radio transmitter. The rein in my hand slackened. Very soon after, nearer to us than I expected, a whiskered face broke the water.

‘If there's a mine down there, he'll find it,' explained the fellow with the reins. ‘I'm Geoffrey Pyke, by the way. Combined Ops Experimental Section. This is my chum Julius. He's the youngest don in Cambridge. Studies blood. And this is Lev. Come on!'

I thought it strange, considering the secrecy of his department, that Pyke should openly identify himself to me like this, but that was the sort of unconventional, wilfully unorthodox man he was.

He called again at the sea lion and made a signal with his hand. Lev began to frolic in the water beneath us. Pyke made the signal again.

‘And you are …?' he said, without looking at me.

‘Henry Meadows. Met Office.'

‘Met, eh? Yes, someone said you might be dropping by.'

The sea lion flopped onto the wide steps that rose along the side of the pier and started to climb them, levering itself up with its tail, step by step.

‘Gradus ad Parnassum,' said Pyke, holding up a herring.

The animal wore a harness, behind which it dragged a wretched tangle of reins. Gulls began to circle above the herring and the sandwich.

‘We must do something about those reins,' said the man called Julius.

‘Soon there won't be any,' said Pyke. He turned to me. ‘Sea creatures, Mr Meadows, are far more intelligent than we realise. Especially the whiskered mammals. And the dolphins, of course.'

Lev reached the top of the stone stairway. Pyke gave him a fish. He lay at our feet, raising his black, sleepy-looking eyes to us as he chewed, slapping his tail on the slabs in what seemed like satisfaction. His thick hairy coat was covered with glistening droplets. He had extraordinarily long ear-lobes, which made him look as though he were wearing a Tibetan hat.

‘How can we help?' continued Pyke. ‘I say “we” – in fact I'm the only person from Combined Ops up here at present. Julius is just helping out for a few days. But if you have a specific problem …' He began unclipping the reins from the harness. ‘Discoveries, isn't it, Lev, my lad? That's what we're after. At least, that's the plan.'

‘Discoveries cannot be planned,' said the shaven-headed don, in a tone of only half-jovial reprimand. ‘They tend to
show in the most unexpected places.' He had an accent. I later learned his surname was Brecher. He was one of those German scientists, many of them Jews, who had fled Nazi persecution.

‘That may be, Julius. But perhaps we should turn our attention to more pertinent matters, like how can we be of assistance to our man from the Met. What are you working on?'

I told them a little about my work in fluid dynamics and at the Met Office, mentioning in passing Ryman's method of applying differential calculus to the physical quantities of weather. Pyke had already heard of it. Then Brecher said much could be learned about biological systems from studying them mathematically in a similar way. ‘In all these disciplines there is a flux of identification and differentiation, as the system seeks rules by which to govern itself. The system's own context is part of that. Think of the relationship between blood flowing in a capillary and the other tissue around it.'

When I knew Brecher in later years – we would often play billiards in the Baron of Beef in Cambridge – I would come to recognise such statements as typical. Of all the brilliant men I met during that peculiar wartime winter, he was the most able to express his ideas with philosophical cogency. But in the end it was always blood with Brecher. I don't know how many times I saw his serious, energetic demeanour bent down over the cue, or listened over the click of the balls to him giving voice to some theory of the blood.

I tried to ignore him because it was all so seductive. I mean biology: you have to keep some areas of intellectual enquiry off-limits, pretending they are an uninteresting lumber room off to the left.

Otherwise you end up wandering down a maze of interconnecting caves until you enter the cavern of the central mystery. A place filled with sublime terror, where there is regularity but no fixed criteria for judging it; a place where you know the
terms in which the mystery might be stated but not what it actually is. I suppose knowing the horror of this is the price of the relativity Ryman and other more famous thinkers have bought for humankind.

At the time I had no such fears. ‘I'm actually hoping to work with Ryman,' I said. ‘He lives up here. I wondered if you had come into contact with him. Sir Peter Vaward, our director, said you may be able to help me in this regard.'

Pyke's eyes widened. ‘Ryman … yes, I knew he was in these parts. The king of turbulence! I once went to a fascinating seminar he gave – we were at Cambridge together – but I've never met him socially. Not sure I can be of any use to you.' He knelt down and rubbed the sea lion behind the ears. ‘I thought Ryman was a conscientious objector, anyway. Wouldn't have anything to do with the war. How come he's letting you work with him?'

‘It's a bit complicated,' I said, thinking on my feet.

‘Mind you, I might need your help myself,' said Pyke. ‘With a fluid dynamics problem …'

‘Involving sea lions?' I asked, bemused.

Pyke laughed. ‘No. Another project. Lev works in all weathers.'

The animal opened its mouth to display a ferocious looking set of teeth. ‘He can see in low light, which allows him to dive very deeply.' I looked doubtfully into the sea-lion's cloudy eyes.

‘There's another team training dolphins, down in Devon,' his trainer continued. ‘At Ilfracombe. Teaching them to carry tools to divers. They're also using them for hydrodynamic studies, to improve the performance of torpedoes. Lev here, his job will be to find mines on ships and be a prophylactic against attacks by frogmen.' Pyke talked very freely, I thought again.

The sea lion roared, as if in appreciation of his master's voice. It was a spine-tingling noise at such close quarters and
the beast's breath did not exactly make you want to kiss it. But when he flapped his Tibetan ears, all the fearsomeness went out of him.

‘Toss him another herring, Julius,' said Pyke.

The other man did so. ‘Human and animal in perfect harmony,' he said as he threw it.

‘Julius is an idealist,' said Pyke. ‘But now and then he stoops to earth. He's using crystallography to uncover the structure of haemoglobin. The secret of life is hidden there, isn't it so, Julius?'

Brecher pulled a face, then shrugged.

‘In blood?' I prompted.

‘In blood,' said Brecher. ‘And other proteins. Cells in general. After the war it will be the job of scientists to unlock that secret more fully. We will be like explorers looking for a new continent.'

‘Inspiring, isn't he?' said Pyke, slapping Brecher on the back. ‘I keep asking him to join Combined Ops, but he won't. Why don't you come to Canada with me, Julius, to work on Habbakuk?'

‘Habbakuk?' I asked.

‘Ah, sorry, old chap, that's the other project. Can't say too much about it right now. But as I say, we might need a fluid dynamics man. I'll bear you in mind as there don't seem to be that many people about with a grasp of these issues.'

Suddenly Lev roared again. He leaped into the water, springing off with all four flippers, causing an enormous splash. With a valedictory turn of the head and a last look at us from his deep black eyes, he disappeared. I wondered why he should not do so for ever, but I suppose sea lions, just like humans, become inured to patterns of behaviour.

‘Yes,' Pyke replied, when I asked if he came back because they fed him. ‘But I like to think there is affection there, too.'

‘Cupboard love,' said Brecher.

‘Your English is improving,' said Pyke.

Brecher laughed. ‘Let us go for a drink, my friend.' He turned to me, the aerial wafting above his head like a giant wizard's wand. ‘You will come? There is a good pub just up the hill.'

Pyke picked up the half-finished sandwich and tossed it into the air, where a gull swooped on it. At once I was back on Lake Nyasa, where, out in our boat, my father used to wave
chambo
that were too small to eat up at the fish eagle, who would lift from his hieroglyphic lakeside tree and break magnificently out of the sublimely blue sky to receive the gift full toss.
Chambo
is like a perch or bream, but there are plenty of others to choose from: there are more species of fish in Nyasa than any other lake on earth.

But it was by Loch Eck that Brecher knelt down to gather the sea lion's reins, and the rare fish in that place was powan or freshwater herring, the descendant of saltwater cousins trapped in the loch when glacial moraines blocked the route to the sea. Looking back, I don't know which type were the fish we fed the sea lion. I hope it was not that survivor from the age of neanderthal caverns.

‘You can bring that,' Pyke said, pointing at the crate containing what Lev had not consumed. ‘I'll have some for supper. Actually, they serve pickled ones in the pub, if you're hungry. Roll-mops.'

So I picked up the crate and we walked away from the quay up a steepish hill. On the way, Brecher told me more about his work with crystals, but what I found myself thinking about again was Gwen and Joan's painting. I think it was that the notion of herring roll-mops reminded me of the picture's curling dog-tails and breaker tops …

How foolish I was about those two, how foolish I was altogether. In days since I have often read about Liss and Lamb
in the papers. I saw them in London a couple of times, at their house in Limerstone Street in Chelsea, and once in the 1960s they dropped in on me in Cambridge and we had tea in my rooms. They were exuberantly dressed in kaftans and beads and taffeta skirts. I remember one of the porters staring at me in surprise from under the rim of his bowler hat as we walked across Trinity Great Court.

We must have made another strange trio, coming up from Loch Eck to the pub: Pyke carrying the tangle of leather; Brecher with the radio on his back; me with a herring crate. Perhaps Joan was right about scientists. We can seem odd to others – but the truth is that like any part of society we are a mixed bunch.

The pub was called the Whistlefield Inn. A sign outside showed an old-time drover with his sheep. Pushing open the door, we were immediately surrounded by company: ancient locals in shabby brown jackets, white shirts and wellington boots, and a number of young men with short hair, dressed in US Navy uniforms.

As well as the ornamental bronzes to be found in most pubs there were buoys, lobster pots, fishing nets, coils of rope and other, stranger objects hung from the ceiling and walls, such as a blunderbuss, a trombone, a sailor's cutlass and a brass deep-sea diver's helmet. There was even a small pram. There were framed brocades and unframed oil paintings, all sorts of ivories and other colonial monstrosities, carved from stone and wood, and shelf after shelf of old books covered with dust.

‘I love the chaos of this place,' said Pyke. ‘There is always something else for the eye to settle upon. You two get us a pew.'

We shouldered our way through. The locals of the Cowal were talking loudly in soft Scottish accents, emitting vast clouds of smoke from distended cheeks as they spoke. The
sailors, murmuring in low tones, were bent over their pints of heavy, staring at the contents – which resembled molasses or motor oil – with consternation.