No True Echo (9 page)

I didn't understand why Ruby had lied to me, but Maguire was not especially interested in the subject. He busied himself in the lab, apparently unaware of the impact of his words on me. There was something strangely detached about the man. Hearing a noise in the other room, he dashed out, only to return with a mouse trapped inside one of the clear plastic boxes. He placed it on a wooden chair and pointed a huge telescope-like thing at it. He then adjusted a few dials, checked all of the monitors and made several notes on his clipboard, all the time muttering to himself.

‘What are you going to do to the mouse?' I asked.

‘You're not one of those animal rights people, are you?' he said.

‘No, but —'

‘Good.'

‘Are you going to hurt it?'

‘I have no reason to believe that the process will have any effect on its nerve endings. I'll be altering its time perception, so no, it shouldn't experience any pain. I will be isolating its governing time particles in order to alter its time perception.'

‘Why?'

‘Rodent testing is necessary for me to ensure that all aspects are taken into account before I move on to the first human experiment.'

‘But why mess about with time, anyway? What's the point?'

He paused to consider this as though it was a strange question. ‘The furtherance of science, primarily,' he said, ‘but one can perceive of practical applications. Imagine if you could, I don't know, dodge a bullet, or have more time to stop the spread of a disease before it became an epidemic. Millions of lives could be saved. Oh, the camera. I almost forgot the camera.' He darted back out and returned with a small video camera, which he attached to a wobbly tripod. He aimed the camera at the mouse and fiddled to get it into focus.

It was the same camera and chair that I had seen on my previous visit. The mouse desperately and hopelessly searched for a way out of the trap, while Maguire made a few final adjustments.

‘The accelerator will first isolate our subject's governing time particles,' he said.

He flicked various switches. I was half expecting a flash of lightning or a huge laser beam to shoot from the end but, instead, the machine made a slightly louder buzzing noise and the mouse quivered in fear.

‘Look here.' Maguire pointed at a computer screen full of white dots. Every few seconds the screen refreshed, showing the dots had moved. ‘Each one of those dots represents a time particle,' he said. ‘I will now establish which of these control the rodent's temporal movement.'

The machine beeped and Maguire spent several minutes scribbling down things on his piece of paper. ‘Yes. Got them.'

He went back to the main machine and typed a few numbers. ‘Having isolated them, we now accelerate the time particles.'

‘You mean, you make them go faster?'

He looked annoyed by the question. ‘No. We are essentially copying particles, then firing them back at themselves. Without a PhD in particle physics you stand very little chance of understanding this. Even with one, you'd struggle. Now, please be quiet.'

The telescope-like thing moved closer to the petrified mouse.

‘Isn't the plastic in the way?' I asked.

Maguire shook his head. ‘I am dealing with things a million times smaller than an atom. Now, watch what happens to the rodent when its time particles are accelerated.'

One of the machines made a kind of ticking noise, and the mouse went rigid and keeled over.

‘You've killed it!' I exclaimed.

‘No,' said Maguire. ‘He's not dead. This monitor is measuring the mouse's heartbeat. Normally that would be around six hundred and seventy beats per minute, but this little rodent's rate has slowed down to the speed of a blue whale's.'

Peering closely, I could see that the mouse's eyes were wide open.

‘What's happening to him?'

‘His perception of time is being altered. He's in what I've been calling a temporal coma. The problem, of course, is that I can't ask him what he is experiencing, which is why I need to move on and test it on myself.'

The rigid mouse was a horrific sight. ‘You're going to do that to yourself?'

‘Once all the teething problems have been eradicated, yes.'

‘What problems?'

A machine beeped. ‘Watch. He's about to come out of the coma. This bit is fascinating.'

The mouse twitched, and very suddenly began to move. It ran around the inside of the trap, making a terrible high-pitched squealing noise, then suddenly scrunched up into a ball.

‘Has it gone back into the coma?' I asked.

‘No. It's dead now,' said Maguire.

‘I thought you said you weren't going to hurt it.'

‘I didn't hurt it, but the process is not properly refined yet. The mice are still experiencing some kind of brain overload which kills them the moment they return to their originating point in time.'

‘So you've killed lots of mice'

He sighed. ‘These rodents are dying in the name of science. We all should hope for such a noble death.'

‘May I see the photograph again?' asked Maguire.

I reached into my bag and pulled out the book.

‘
Frankenstein
,' he said. ‘Interesting choice.'

‘We're doing it at school.'

‘It was one of Melody's favourites, if my memory serves me right. Her copy is here somewhere, along with all her other books.'

I handed him the photograph.

‘They're her books? Why are they here?' I asked.

‘She left them here. I've been meaning to throw them out. Perhaps you want them? You could take them with you. Personally, I've never seen the point in fiction. There are enough true things to learn without filling one's head with made-up stories.'

‘But why did she leave them here in the first place?'

Maguire handed the picture back to me. ‘I remember that day,' he said. ‘We had just begun work on the first of this machine's many predecessors.'

‘Why are my mother's books here?'

Maguire shifted awkwardly. ‘You should probably speak to Ruby about that.'

‘About what?'

‘It's not really for me to say these things.'

‘What things?'

‘Besides, I did suggest we find out,' he said. ‘I thought that if we had a definitive answer on your parentage then it might be better for everyone.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘The possibility of me being your father,' he said, ‘although Melody never furnished me with the exact percentage of that possibility.'

‘My father?'

‘Your mother was always extremely evasive on the subject.'

‘No one told me.'

‘Yes, I can see that.'

‘Ruby always said she didn't know anything about my dad.'

‘Dad is a word generally associated with close familial contact. We are talking about biological parentage and the likelihood that I am genetically responsible for your existence. Whatever the truth, I'm not dad material.'

I could hear him talking and the detached tone of his voice but, as I listened, my thoughts became tangled up with my memories. I knew I had no memory of my mother, so why could I now picture her face? Why did this feel like a conversation we had had before? I remembered Cornish talking about déjà vu. Is that what this was?

The world suddenly felt very unstable and I lost my balance. I staggered into the chair and sent the dead mouse flying off. I knocked something over. It was an old farmer's gun that had been leaning against the wall behind the door. It was the same one Cornish had been holding. I felt a shooting pain in my head. I could tell that Maguire was kneeling down in front of me saying something, but it wasn't his voice I could hear.

‘Come on, lad, snap out of this.' It was Ruby. ‘You've frightened us all enough now. Please, wake up, Eddie.'

I could hear her but I couldn't see her. When I closed my eyes, I saw Maguire lying dead in the pool of blood. He turned to look at me and his cold, dead lips moved, as though he was trying to tell me something. I wanted to scream but I didn't know how. The pool of red liquid was spreading toward me, but it dripped away before it reached me, taking the memory with it.

I was back in the room with Maguire leaning over me, looking concerned.

‘You appear to have fainted,' he said.

‘Get off me.'

I pushed him back and ran out of the room, but forgot about the books and sent a pile flying. When I reached the front door, I glanced over my shoulder. Maguire was watching me with a look of mild curiosity, but my eyes were drawn to the cover of one of the books I had knocked over. It was a black hardback with the word FRANKENSTEIN printed in gold capital letters on the front.

What else had Ruby lied about? She was honest enough about how terrible it was to be lumbered with me, so why had she avoided telling me about Maguire or the truth about Melody's accident?

Lost in thought as I pedalled down the road, I didn't see the truck until it was almost upon me. It sounded its horn and I swerved to the side. I must have hit a stone because I went flying off my bike and landed on the verge. The driver didn't stop to check whether I was all right. I sat on the grass. My heart pounded. I looked over the edge and imagined a stormy night and my mother driving fast with me in the back seat.

I liked the feeling of the rain on my face and the damp ground beneath my hands because it reminded me that this was real. I checked my bike. It was undamaged so I got back on.

It was lunchtime when I reached the school gates. I stood behind the thin wire fence, watching the first shift go into the hall.

Amongst the many thoughts that twisted through my mind was the vision of that mouse's wide eyes. Awake but unaware. What horror had that rodent lived through before its death? I ran my fingers over my face, trying to understand what was happening to me. Why, when I looked up at the sky, did it seem as white as a hospital ceiling? Where did that thought even come from? I had no memory of ever being in a hospital, but if Maguire had been telling the truth, surely I would have been taken to one after the crash? Was it that memory that I was now accessing?

I saw Angus in the canteen window, looking at me. He raised a hand to wave. I quickly jumped back on my bike.

The rest of the day was lost in the rain and the endless turning of the bicycle wheels. When I finally got home, I opened the door and heard Ruby's crackly jazz record playing. Chaotic, tuneless sounds. I looked at Ruby's painting.

‘What do you think?' she asked.

‘I don't know,' I replied.

She pushed her paintbrush into her hair and turned to look at me. ‘Is everything all right, Eddie?'

‘Is he my father?' I said.

Ruby sat down. ‘You've been to see him.' She sighed. ‘That's why you weren't at school.'

‘How do you know I wasn't?'

‘I plugged the phone in. Don't worry. I covered for you and said you were sick.'

I was too angry to feel grateful. ‘He told me I was in the car when Melody crashed.

‘Of course he did.'

‘Is it true?'

‘Truth.' I hated Ruby's smile at that moment. ‘Is that what you're after?'

‘I want to know what happened.'

‘Knowing what happened isn't the same as knowing the truth.'

‘Just tell me.'

Ruby walked to the record player and turned it down. ‘Yes, you were in the car. Yes, Maguire is probably your father.'

‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘I didn't tell you about Maguire because your mother made it extremely clear that he had no claim over you. I thought he deserved to know whether he was your father or not but she didn't want him to have anything to do with your upbringing.'

‘So you lied to me.'

‘The world is held together by lies. When I paint, I'm searching for the truth between them but I'm no better at this than anyone else. Worse, probably.'

‘I'm not talking about your stupid painting,' I shouted.

Ruby pulled the paintbrush from her hair and dropped it into a jar of discoloured water. ‘Do you really want to know why I kept the truth from you all these years about you being in the back of that car?'

‘Yes.'

‘Because once I tell you, you can't be untold.'

‘I want to know the truth.'

‘The truth is, I couldn't bear to tell you that when your mother decided to kill herself she also tried to take you with her.'

‘Kill herself?' It was all I could say.

‘Things were not good between her and David. After you were born, she was lower than I had ever seen her. She had given up her studies. She was stuck here with me and with you.'

‘So?'

‘Eddie, Melody knew that road as well as anyone.'

‘You're saying she drove off it on purpose with me in the back?' I said.

‘I don't know. I used to think that. It doesn't matter. It doesn't change anything.'

Ruby placed a hand on my arm but I shook her off me.

‘I'm sorry, lad. I really am.'

She turned the volume back up on the record player, filling the room with chaos. I looked at her painting. The splashes and strokes of random colours began to move in front of my eyes, forming shapes and scenes. I saw a face. I saw the curve of a road and the swirling patterns of a storm cloud. None of these images lasted more than a second but each left a deep imprint on my eyes.

‘It's regret,' said Ruby.

‘It's horrible,' I said.

With Ruby's jazz and the confusion in my head, I didn't know how long the phone had been ringing by the time I heard it. I pushed the living room door shut and picked up the receiver. From the screaming and shouting on the other end, I knew it was Angus before he spoke.

‘Shut up! I'm on the phone,' I heard him yell.

‘Mum, Angus told me to shut up,' responded one of the twins.

‘Angus, please don't tell your brother to shut up,' shouted his mother.

‘Sorry, Eddie. It's all gone mad here,' said Angus. ‘Where were you today?'

‘Off sick,' I said.

‘Off sick, sick?' he responded. ‘Or, you know,
sick
sick?'

‘What sort of sick is it if you're actually visiting someone who tells you he might be your father?'

‘I'm not sure there's a word for that.'

‘Angus,' I said, ‘you know how we make everything into a joke?'

‘Yes, I like that about us.'

‘What if it's not?'

‘Are you all right, Eddie?'

I wanted to tell him everything I had learned about Maguire and Melody and the accident but I didn't know how. Most of the time, Angus and I said things to make each other laugh. We didn't talk about real stuff. If this even was real stuff.

‘I'm fine,' I said.

‘Was it you I saw outside at lunchtime?' he asked.

‘I don't know.' It was true. I didn't know. Had I stood outside the school at lunchtime or had I been at school all day? My voice wavered as I said, ‘I think I might have gone mad.'

‘Didn't that happen years ago?' asked Angus. ‘Now, are you still up for the project tomorrow?'

‘What project?'

‘The Ten Top Challenge. The trees.'

‘Oh that. What's the point?'

Angus didn't reply immediately but when he did, he said, ‘You want to know the point? Tomorrow morning I'll most probably be woken up by one of the twins throwing the other onto my face. After that, my day will involve screaming, punching, puking, lots of shouting and unfair blaming, then door slamming and, finally, more screaming.'

I laughed.

‘But once we get up that first tree, Eddie, there's none of that. It's just you and me. You know when you're right up high and you realise it's windier up there than it is down below and the branch is swinging back and forward? Great big swings and you just have to cling on until it stops? And you feel dizzy and terrified and just brilliant? I love that.'

‘I hate that,' I said.

‘I love it because you've got no control over what happens but, at the same time, it's up to you not to let go. Isn't that the point of doing anything, to feel like that?'

‘I don't know the point of anything. Remember, I've gone mad.'

‘Well, I'm completing this project whether you're with me or not. These trees need climbing and I'm going to climb them. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?'

‘It's going to rain tomorrow,' I said.

‘It's not supposed to. Hold on, someone's shouting for me. I'M ON THE PHONE! Listen, Eddie, I've got to go. World War Three is breaking out.'

Angus hung up and I started up the stairs, but Ruby appeared at the living room door.

‘Are we still arguing?' she asked.

‘Not if it means you'll leave me alone,' I replied.

‘Come on, lad. I can't change what's already done and I wouldn't change my part in it if I could. How could anyone tell a child those things?'

‘How could anyone keep it a secret?'

‘Better a secret than have you blame yourself.'

‘Why did she have me in the first place if it made her so sad?'

‘Your mother  …  She was a complicated person.'

‘So I keep hearing.'

‘She could be very stubborn. I think she had you because everyone was telling her not to go through with it. She wanted to prove us all wrong.'

‘Us?' I said. ‘Did you tell her not to have me?'

Ruby leaned against the doorframe and sighed. ‘I didn't know you then.'

‘Who has a child to prove a point?' I asked.

‘What Melody never realised is that if you always do the opposite of everyone else, you end up being just as restricted as if you always do what you're told. You end up feeling every bit as trapped.'

‘Is that how she felt? Trapped by me?'

‘She was trapped by her decisions. Not by you, lad.'