”Yield,
then, ye rules of rigid reason!
Dissolve, thou too, too solid
sense!
Melt into nonsense for a season,
Then in some
nobler form condense.
Soon, all too soon, the chilly morning,
This flow of soul will crystallize,
Then those who
Nonsense now are scorning,
May learn, too late, where wisdom
lies.”
Molecular Evolution – extract from a poem by James Clerk Maxwell 1831 - 1879
Now that we are enlightened, we no longer speak of history – only of possible paths through the known dimensions of time, space and probability. This story is about one path, which, though unlikely, is entirely factual for those like Cathy Taylor, who escaped with their memories intact. But it is not her story. She believes she was only a passenger and is not yet certain if the ride has ended.
The driver of her rhetorical tramway, a man who still borrows her dreams, was named Maxwell Clerk. On the day they would embark on their great adventure, he’d slept too long after sunrise, and though he blamed his phone, it had been warning him for weeks to ease up on his nocturnal studies. The phone had no sympathy for either his growing sense of frustration, or his more immediate sense of dread. Being late would help neither issue.
Wandering into the living area, he found Tom, one of three flat mates, staring into the depths of a muted vid – an old OLED screen with many missing pixels.
‘No Raquel?’ Max asked.
Tom looked up blankly at him for moment, then shrugged, and turned back to the benefits of ultrasonic nail polish removal.
Max continued into the kitchen looking for relief, however, a single aspirin failed to dull the pain behind his eyes. Nor did it provide the answers he desperately needed. Two years earlier, he had been given just a glimpse of the door to academic fame, yet unmeasured hours of study had failed to find the key. Expectations were high, but it was his mild crush on Tom’s girlfriend that often proved the greater burden.
With sleep still in his eyes , he forced himself to leave this place of occasional slumber and cycle across town to the Research School of Physics and Engineering. He had forgotten both his sunglasses and helmet.
It was winter in Canberra, the so-called bush capital of Australia – a city of moderate altitude, medium latitude and a love for acronyms. As MC rode through the ACT’s CBD and into the ANU campus towards the new RSPE, solar glare and an icy wind antagonised his aching head and significantly impaired his appreciation of the scenery.
On his left, the white tower in the near distance marked the location of the old RSPE buildings, which had once held records for the strongest magnetic fields and highest voltages in the Southern Hemisphere, achieved while Australia still had some pride in anything other than sport and bad acting.
He rounded a bend onto the walking track that runs along Sullivan’s Creek.
This small tributary was no more than an erosion gully in a sheep paddock prior to the damming of the Molongo river to create Canberra’s large, ornamental lake. Now landscaped and partly flooded, it divided the grounds of the Australian National University, and provided a picturesque trail for procrastinating students and tardy cyclists. On this particular day, however, with the untrimmed willow branches attacking him from above and their roots erupting through the wet path below, Max, with his focus wandering, should not have attempted any speed.
The front tyre of his bike clipped the rear of hers before he’d become aware of the other traveller in a camouflage jacket who had wobbled into his path. Only their thick clothing saved them from the rub of the soggy gravel. Fortunately for Cathy, the back of her head protection landed softly into the pit of Max’s stomach, driving the air from his lungs.
They lay there, stunned, looking up through the bare branches at a pattern of high altitude ice clouds – a pleasant feature in those parts, at that time of year. A pair of ducks, perched in the tree, voiced their opinion of the humans decorating their frost covered territory.
‘Yes. Spring might have been better for this kind of activity,’ she murmured dreamily. ‘And you had better be a tall dark stranger, or I’m going to be severely disappointed.’
Max tried to speak but first needed to breathe. The effort created a sound not dissimilar to a distressed fowl.
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ Cathy rolled over onto her elbow. She examined him critically, looking for injury rather than features. He simply stared at her face, though this was largely obscured by iridescent red hair. She had those kind of dark eyes that hypnotise small children.
‘You look younger than I remember,’ she concluded.
‘Have we met?’ he asked with what air he could spare. She sat up fully and continued her examination by touching various parts of his anatomy. Too surprised to react, he added, ‘I’m sure I’d recall if we had.’
When he didn’t protest at her manipulations, she declared, ‘There’s nothing broken. You’re Max, aren’t you? You work with my Graeme.’
On cue, the devil appeared riding a blue Giant ™ that featured a graphene fibre frame, a 13 speed cluster and electric shifters. This bike skidded to a halt beside its fallen comrades, currently mated in a tangle of spokes and vulcanised rubber. The chest of the Lycra-clad rider heaved theatrically before speaking. ‘You’re late.’
‘So are you,’ Max replied, unrepentant.
Overwhelmed by this logic, Associate Professor Graeme Taylor settled for criticising their fallen machines instead. ‘Her rear wheel’s buckled, damn you.’
‘Gray!’ Cathy scolded. He glanced towards her for the first time. ‘Aren’t you assuming it wasn’t my fault?’
‘Was it, Cath? Was it your fault?’, Graeme asked, though glaring all the while at Max.
‘No,’ she declared, climbing to her feet. ‘But you weren’t to know that.’
Graeme did some more heavy breathing, but remained mounted while they pulled their mechanical beasts apart. With one eye on his wife, he muttered weakly, ‘It <italic>would<end italic> have to be the rear wheel you’ve broken.’ He pointed to the obvious flaw. ‘You certainly know how to stuff things up properly, Mister Clerk. That wheel had an eleven speed electric hub!’
‘Expensive, I suppose.’ Max tried, but failed, to sound apologetic. ‘I’ll pay to have it fixed.’
‘You will. But later,’ Graeme snorted, and hopped his bike around in gymnastic fashion. 'For your sake, everything in my lab better be ready. You’ve had weeks to prepare. Now get a move on and I’ll tell the Professor you’ve been delayed.’ He mounted the pedals then remembered something and turned to Cathy. ‘Ah. Sorry darling. There won’t be time to show you around the lab today. I’ll see you this evening, okay?”
‘No problem,’ she replied, but sighed once he’d gone. Addressing the birds, or maybe the tree, she said, ‘He was already angry with me for making him late. I suppose I should be grateful he came back to check on me at all.’
Max attempted to brush gravel and avian by-product from his hair. ‘You’re Mrs Taylor then?’
‘I’ve seen that title written in my connection.’ Her accent was something English, or a posher kind of Australian. ‘I don’t like being called Mrs Taylor though. It reminds me of his mother. Call me Cath instead.’ She continued to watch Graeme’s retreating form until he had disappeared, then turned and smiled. ‘He does mean well, you know. He’s a big picture person, so he sometimes forgets the little things – like his manners.’
‘Sorry about your bicycle.’
‘Piffle. First time I’ve ridden it in years, and then it turns out I really didn’t have the energy.’ She tried to push the hair from her eyes, but her helmet thwarted these efforts. 'Blasted thing.’ She took off the helmet, and her hair – a wig – to rearrange them both. ‘Ah, that’s better.’ Her pink scalp was visible through a fresh and darker growth.
She finished adjusting the wig and slung the helmet over her handlebars. When she looked up, they both smiled at each other until it became awkward.
‘I’d best be on my way,’ he said, ‘before your husband thinks I’ve abandoned our project.’
‘Could you?’
‘Could I what?’
‘Abandon the project?’
He laughed. ‘I wouldn’t need much convincing. Anyway, it was nice meeting you … again.’ He attempted to mount his bike before he discovered his front wheel had buckled too. The front brake needed to be disconnected before it would even turn.
‘Would you mind if I walk with you?’ she asked, urging her reluctant steed into motion.
Max nodded and they moved on in an uncomfortable silence – apart from a grinding sound from her rear wheel – until he thought of something to say. ‘I’d never have picked your husband as a weekend warrior. I don’t remember him ever leaving his car at home.’
‘Yes, the Audi. He loves that car. He says his reserved bay would be wasted if he didn’t use it, but I think he just likes to keep his precious nearby. Today, though, I did persuade him to ride for my sake.’
With her face now more exposed, Max took the chance to glance at her again. He had little doubt Graeme was a lucky man.
‘You must be very persuasive,’ he said.
‘Oh, I am. But today I have extra powers.’ She gave an uncertain smile. ‘Last night I got the results of my tests. Against all odds, there’s a chance my cancer is in remission.’
‘Ah, that’s great … Cath. Well, no one told me you’d... Your husband, Graeme, I mean Doctor Taylor, never mentioned your ...’
She laughed. ‘He’s probably never mentioned me at all. Am I right?’
‘That’s not necessarily true. I may just be a poor listener.’
‘More piffle,’ she countered mildly, then looked ahead along the creek towards the lake. Some brave rowers made their way back to the University boat shed through wisps of fog that stubbornly clung to the water.
She stopped to blow her nose. ‘I start crying for the stupidest of reasons lately,’ she said, though he’d not noticed any tears. ‘Max, you’re not to worry about my man. He’ll have calmed down by the time we get there. I have the impression you weren’t looking forward to today anyhow.’
That surprised him. ‘How could you tell?’ he asked.
‘Intuition.’ She grinned.
‘Another of your super powers? Well, you are right. I just can’t see my luck improving. You’d have to agree, the day hasn’t started off too well.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ she said, ‘But what are you worried about? What could happen?’
He groaned. ‘You’ve no idea. Or maybe you do.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m sure Graeme’s explained what we’re doing today?’
She shook her head.
‘Didn’t I hear him say he was going to show you our lab?’
‘Graeme has been promising that for years,’ she explained. ‘Would seeing your equipment have told me what it is you do?’
‘Not unless you’re heavily interested in the internal combustion process, or flame front propagation.’ He paused. ‘You aren’t, are you?’
‘I expect I’d understand if he explained it slowly. I did do college physics after all.’
‘Ah, but not recently?’
Her smile vanished and she glowered at him. ‘I dare say that you were a leech on your mother’s breast at the time.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean … I’d not have guessed you were…’ He stopped digging himself deeper and focused instead on the little memorial on the hill above them. It commemorated the disappearance of the western wing of the physics building ten years earlier, and the loss of three lives. He studied it purposefully, but when he turned back, he caught her stifling a smile. Eventually he blurted, ‘I’d assumed you were much younger than Graeme.’
‘Yes. That would have been more in keeping with the sports car,’ she agreed, while pretending to be sullen.
He tried again. ‘By “recently”, I only meant that physics has moved on since you were in college. I graduated just a few years ago and already I’ve fallen behind in many areas.’
Their path along the creek took them under the major highway that skirted the lake. Above them the electric cars crawled along the three lanes heading into the city.
‘There must have been an accident,’ he commented on the congestion. ‘At least the traffic jams only waste time and not oil, these days.’
She nodded, ‘Yes. My husband was working on fixing the fuel crisis when I met him.’
‘He’s more worried about oil-fuelled ships now,’ Max explained, then tried to imitate Graeme’s gruff tones. ‘“The internal combustion engine might be over a century old, and the technology nearly obsolete, but the fire that drives those pistons is still an exothermic chemical reaction – one which we don’t fully understand. Until now, we’ve only tinkered around the edges.”’ He turned to see how she would appreciate his performance and was surprised to find her struggling with emotions. Whether this was nostalgia, regret or annoyance, he couldn’t tell.
They’d reached the lake and Cathy blinked across at the far shore, or into the past, with glistening eyes. ‘Yes, I remember him giving that presentation – oh gosh – it must be twenty years ago. Graeme is a brilliant quantum physicist, but he could use a better speech writer. I’ve offered to help many times but he’s never been good at accepting it. Do your colleagues find him difficult to work with too?’ She turned to him. ‘Oh, sorry. That sounds mean. Anyway, I’ve forgotten who they are.’
‘Not many left in our group. We have a couple of applied mathematicians, Lilly and Tania – Lilly is Chinese and Tania her mentor. Then there’s Joshua’s, a chemical engineer and Dutch. He’s scarily competent. That’s it apart from me and you-know-who. A small team trying to solve a problem that everyone else has abandoned.’ He frowned. ‘I joined Doctor Taylor’s group earlier this year. You say we’ve met?’
‘Sure, but I can’t remember when.’ Straight faced, she asked, ‘A former life perhaps?’
He laughed nervously.
She began to softly recite, “I have leapt the bars of distance, left the life that late I led, I remember years and labours as a tale that I have read.”’ (ref. 1)
When he didn’t comment on her performance, she tried to reassure him with a warm smile and a touch of his arm. ‘That’s my attempt at being interesting, so I’m not surprised you can’t remember me. It was probably at one of those dreary gatherings the Professor holds. I promise to be more memorable in future.’
‘I don’t think I could forget you now,’ he laughed. ‘Did you mean Professor Lehach?’
‘Of course. Your husband doesn’t rise in the academic world without a little schmoozing. He and Graeme were practically married before I turned up.’
The new school of physics now dominated their view, resting heavily on a small island in the lake. They walked towards the connecting bridge and Cathy waved her free hand. ‘Graeme shares so little. Please tell me more about your work.’
‘The prof got me onto this project.’ Max hesitated. ‘You probably know we’re not supposed to discuss our research.’
‘Even with the chief investigator’s wife?’
‘You won’t tell on me then?’
She shook her head vigorously – her lips sealed tight.
It made him smile to see a mature woman acting like a child. ‘Well, it wouldn't matter anyhow.’
‘Why not?’ she asked.
He smiled. ‘Apart from your being married to my boss, we’re just not getting anywhere. It seems really stupid that we’re running this demonstration for our sponsors today.’
‘That’s today!’ she exclaimed, and slowed to a stop. ‘I didn’t know that. More has changed than I thought.’ Max took a moment to notice her reaction and had kept walking.
‘Yeah. The Prof convinced Doctor Taylor to bring it forward. But I’ll be surprised if the money keeps flowing once they’ve seen our results.’ He waited for her, but though she appeared lost in thought, he continued with his accessment. ‘The Professor must have his reasons, and I fixed some bugs in my software last night, so you never know – we might get lucky.’
A car emblazoned with the letters FFN cruised past them. Cathy stared at it for a moment then dropped her bike against the bridge railing and hurried after him. She grabbed him by the shoulders and through instinct, he nearly embraced her, before he caught himself.
‘What you’ve just told me explains a lot,’ she replied to his puzzled expression.
‘It does?’
‘Yes, but that’s none of your business just yet – no offence.’ Taking hold of his bike, she commanded, ‘Leave it.’
‘Why? What’s the hurry? We’re almost there.’
When he didn’t move, she took the bike from him and placed it against the railing with only a little more care than she had treated her own. ‘Quickly. I need you to escort me inside before he leaves his office.’
Despite her previous claims of lethargy, Cathy ran into the foyer and Max felt obliged to do the same. At the security desk he requested an Escorted Visitor’s Pass, but Cathy didn’t wait for the formalities and headed off into the building’s labyrinth as soon as she had it. Her flats could be heard slapping the polished floors. He looked uncertainly to the guard. ‘I’m not sure how to spell her name.’
‘That’s okay, mate,’ said the guard nodding in Cathy’s direction. ‘Mrs Catherine – with a C – Taylor ’as been here many many times before. You know how these academic wives are, walking around like they own the place. If we say anything about it, then some high’n mighty professor will come storming down and blow us up for just doing our job.’
Max nodded sympathetically, scribbled some hasty details into the log and chased after her.
‘Hold up, sir.’ The security guard called after him. ‘You know you got some bird on your collar?’
The phone in Max’s pocket commented,‘At least it’s not lipstick.’
References:
1. “Recollection of a Dreamland”, a poem by James Clerk Maxwell 1831 – 1879