Читать книгу Zones - Damien Broderick - Страница 8
ОглавлениеSATURDAY, 8 APRIL, NIGHT
Anyway, we go upstairs and hang out in my bedroom. Davy sits on the bed. That could be trouble, so I sit in the chair by my desk. Chair’s probably not the word. It’s more like an ejector seat. The thing is gas-powered and it’s got all these controls: height, tilt, swivel, tension, everything. Poppa bought it for me when he started having trouble with his back. He said if only he’d had a proper chair when he was a boy, he wouldn’t be in such pain now. All those long hours of study, bent over like a paper clip. Yeah, well....
Davy says, “Come over here, Jenny,” and pats the bed beside him.
“I want to talk, Davy,” I tell him carefully.
“Can’t you talk over here?” he says and pats the bed again.
Well, why not? We can talk and kiss at the same time—well almost at the same time. So we lie there for a bit being friendly. And it is nice having Davy for a friend. Poor Maddy, she’s got no one to kiss at the moment. She did have this hulk called Jem once, only he ditched her for a girl called Bo. We all say that Bo is short for Bimbo. Maybe it is. I push Davy away a little bit, not too much, not so he feels rejected, but enough to let me talk. I want to lie in his arms and talk. I feel like talking about true love and what it means. Not soppy true love, the real thing. I don’t even know if the real thing exists. I don’t even know if it’s possible for two people to live happily together forever and ever. Mum and Poppa thought it was forever, and look what happened to them. So I try to ease into a conversation with Davy about relationships and love and commitment and all that.
“What do you think about monogamy?” I ask.
“Eh?” His mouth drops open. He’s got a lovely mouth, but I don’t really like it when he does that, it makes him look a bit...stupid?
“You know, only loving one person.”
“Jeez, Jen, if you reckon I’m two-timing you, you want to think again.”
“No, I don’t think that,” I say quickly.
“So why ask the question?”
“It’s just a question.”
“But why ask it? You’ve got to have a reason.”
“No I don’t. It’s just something we can talk about.”
“Eh?” says Davy, but this time closes his mouth.
“Stop saying Eh?” I snap, annoyed. “Tell me something about monogamy.”
“About what?”
“What we’re talking about: only loving one person.”
“You’re the only girl for me, Jen. Honest. I reckon you’re heaps cool.”
“Look, Davy,” I say, “I’m trying to have a talk about an idea. It’s just the idea of monogamy I want to discuss.”
“Jenny, if you want to go out with some other guy, I think you ought to tell me straight. I don’t want any bullshitting around the bush.”
“Any what?”
“You heard, Jen. Now who’s this new dude? It’s not that creep Wilco, is it? ’Cause I’m telling you Jen, you can just forget it.”
“Hey, Davy,” I say, “I’m trying to talk about a, an abstract idea.”
“Bloody Wilco’s not what I’d call an abstract idea, Jenny. Do you know what he did with Inessa d’Acierno after the last school disco?”
“Oh, do shut up, Davy,” I say. “It’s just that not all societies use the monogamous model as the ideal for the man-woman relationship. You know, we are allowed to talk about polygamy and androgyny and that.”
“I don’t like the sound of those words, Jen. They don’t sound like the sort of words I’d like to talk about.”
“You don’t know what they mean.”
“Yes I do, Jenny. You’ve just told me what they mean. They mean two-timing. Cheating.”
I give up. It is easier to kiss Davy than to talk to him. I have to admit it. I like kissing Davy, but I have this vision of sort of lying around and kissing and talking about stuff that really matters. Oh well, you can’t have everything.
The phone rings.
“Oh shit.”
I run downstairs and gingerly pick up the receiver. “Jenny Kane speaking.”
“There’s a reward,” the man’s voice says.
“What reward? You mean money? What for?”
“I mean big money. For you.”
“Is this some kind of kidnap scam?” To my surprise, I find that I am suddenly quite scared, and I’m glad Davy is upstairs. “Listen,” I say, and my hands actually start trembling, like they do in dumb horror stories, “listen, I’ve got a friend here, my Poppa’ll be back soon, I mean he’s here too, just don’t—”
“Jenny, I thought we’d got past all this rubbish.” the voice says briskly. “Have you got a pen or a pencil?”
What? “Of course I have. My mother always has a message pad next to the phone.” No mother in the house, but her message pad’s still here, very reliable.
“Write this down, Jenny, and everything will be explained. In a few minutes, God and Heisenberg willing, everything will become crystal clear.”
Just to annoy him, I say, “You want me to write all that down?”
“No.” He sighs the way Poppa sighs when David says something especially dorkish. But he’s trying very hard. He keeps it under control. In fact now that I’m relaxing again I’m starting to develop quite a sense of power over him, whoever he is. “I want you to write some numbers down,” he is saying, “then some words. A quotation. Okay?”
“Why?”
“Just do it, damn it!”
“You’re shouting.”
“I’m sorry. Please? Pick up your pen and—”
I snort loudly. “This had better be incredibly good.”
“Hey Jenny,” David shouts down the stairway, “come on.” Loud hip-hop rap starts up behind him, Ice-T. I cover the mouthpiece and call back up the stairs, “It’s another one of those calls. He wants me to write down a message.”
“Wow.” David peers over the banister at me. His hair is falling in one eye. He pounds down the stairs and whispers hoarsely, “Listen, you’ve got to keep him on the line.”
I whisper back, “Why?”
“So they can trace his number and catch him at it.”
“David, you nerd! Who can trace him? No one knows he’s calling.”
“Oh. Hey, I could go next door and ring the cops and get them to—”
“Shh.” I put the receiver back against my ear just as the nameless mugger finishes saying something. He adds, “Did you get all that?”
“Sorry, I was talking to someone.”
There’s a pause. He’s trying so hard not to be nasty again. “How much did you miss?”
“All of it. Say it again.”
“We’re going to lose the envelope.” It sounds like real anxiety, almost panic, and I don’t have the foggiest what he’s on about. “All right, Jenny. Write this down: One two two, six two three. Got that?”
“122,623.”
“Precisely. Now copy down this quote: ‘But now she’s in the creek again, that woman made of flame’.” After a pause, he asks carefully, “Have you got that?”
“Yes. What’s it mean?”
“With any luck you’ll understand everything in about two minutes. Put the sheet of paper face down so you can’t see what you’ve written. Okay?”
Davy is peering at my scribbles; I shoo him away. “This makes no sense, you know.”
“I’m going to hang up, then you’ll get another call. If it works. If Heisenberg is looking down upon us.”
“Like atoms? Heisenberg’s Principle?” This Rod guy is coming on like an encyclopedia salesman—bits of strange poetry, then bits of physics. It’s all an offer on a set of Britannica, I suddenly decide, and the thought makes me feel horribly deflated. Then I discount that idea, because here’s another one of his really gross sexist remarks:
“My gosh, you’re a clever girl. How old did you say you are?”
But maybe it’s not sexist. Maybe it’s a compliment. I don’t suppose David knows about Heisenberg, and he’s two years older than me, almost. I decide to give Rod the benefit of the doubt. In fact, I’m beginning to think he’s rather cute, in a weird way.
“Fourteen. We did it in Mrs. Levine’s accelerated physics class. If you measure an atom’s position, you can’t tell its speed. Something like that.”
“Close enough. Jenny, I think we’re going to make history, you and I. My God, this is exciting. Right, I’m going to hang up. Don’t go away.”
And he does. He hangs up in my ear. The disconnect noise starts up, but I stupidly keep saying, “Hello? Hello?”
“What’s he saying now?”
“He’s hung up.”
“Well, put the phone down and come back upstairs. We’re wasting valuable time here.”
I cradle the receiver, shaking my head and rolling my eyes.
The phone instantly begins ringing. I reach out, and Davy puts his hand over the top of mine, holding the hand piece down.
“Don’t answer it. This guy’s a whacko.”
“He said he’d call back.”
“He must be a whacko. Listen, let’s just—”
I push his hand away. I hate it when people try to boss me about. “Hello, is that you again?”
“Hello, Jenny. Is this my third call to you or my fourth?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!”
“Sorry, it was a stupid question. Let me put it another way. Um, that stuff you just wrote down for me.... You did write—?”
“Yes, the number and the—”
He yelps. “Don’t look at it!”
“I haven’t touched it. But I can remember the quote, it said—”
“Don’t tell me! This is a test, Jenny. This is a way for me to prove my credentials to you.”
“Uh huh.” I roll my eyes some more. Davy is going off his face, trying to jam his ear up against the other side of the receiver.
“You’re a smart girl, there’s obviously some books about the place.”
“Half the house is lined with them.”
“Right. Great. Now look, this’ll sound even crazier than anything I’ve said yet—”
“That’ll be pretty hard to manage.”
“Yes, but do it. Number One, get a book with some numbers in it. The telephone book will do, or a table of random numbers if you’ve got one, or—”
Is he an encyclopedia salesman? Instead of just challenging him, I say cunningly, “How about the Britannica Yearbook?”
“Fantastic! Ideal! Get the latest one that’s there, and bring it back to the phone. Hang on. While you’re there, get another book as well. Any book at all. I want this to be your choice. I want you to know that it’s your choice. Okay?”
This still doesn’t rule my theory out—he could be trying to find out how recent our set is, so he can pitch us a more up-to-date one—but I have to admit to myself that the idea is leaky. “Two books. Pure insanity, but okay.”
When I put the phone down and start off along the hall, David turns into a dog with two bones. He snatches up the receiver and holds it to his ear, but presumably the guy isn’t saying anything so he drops it and rushes after me into Poppa’s study.
“What’s he want you to do? This guy sounds dangerous, Jen, I really think I should go next door and ring the cops.”
I’m rooting around on the lower shelves, breathing hard with pure delight. “Davy, this is getting quite exciting. I don’t know what he wants, but it sounds like a sort of quiz. Maybe he works for some, I don’t know, some special place that tests you to see if you’re smart enough to join them, and then—”
“Oh yes. And then what?”
“I don’t know! Get off my case, David. He rang me, not you.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to help!” He’s halfway between hurt and angry. He says petulantly, “Did I know you were gunna chuck a menstrual? I can piss off right now if that’s how you feel.”
I can feel my face going red. How did he know? Has he been keeping count? My body is betraying me. I’m even more shocked by that thought. No, it’s not. There’s nothing wrong with my body. I’m a girl becoming a woman. It’s a proud thing to be. It’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of. I’m so confused I don’t know whether to shove him out the door or apologize for my crankiness. But why should I apologize? What have I done? Anyway, I realize abruptly, it’s just a silly sexist pun, he probably doesn’t have a clue. So I say, to placate him and me, “David, don’t be like that. Pass me the Britannica Yearbook. Second shelf.”
He’s still sulking. “Get this guy to show you a video. You can read encyclopedias together.”
“David, please.” All of a sudden I can’t be bothered arguing with him. Silly child pretending to be a man. I take two books down the hall, with David complaining along behind me.
“Hello? I’ve got them. Now what?”
“You found the Yearbook?”
“Right here.”
“Which year?”
“The latest one Poppa bought. 1985. But I think all the stuff in it’s about 1984, so it’s eleven years out of date.”
“Eleven years out of date! My aching bones! 1995. Thirty-five years. Oh my God they’ll give me the Nobel Prize for this. Jenny.”
Davy pulls the phone away from my ear, scowling. “What’s he saying?”
I shove him away. “He’s going to win the Nobel Prize in the twenty-first century or something. Yes, O Mugger, I can hear you.”
“Call me Rod. Open the Yearbook anywhere there’s statistics, tables of numbers, Gross National Product, that sort of thing.”
“Got it. Argentine Employment and Labor, how’s that?”
“Don’t tell me! This has to be a blind test, or you’ll never believe me. Close the book and open it again somewhere else, and find, let’s say, the number on the top left-hand side of the page. Write it down on the back of the piece of paper you used before.”
“You want me to find a number that you couldn’t possibly known what it is, is that the test?”
“That’s the proof.”
“Gotcha. I’ll make it the right-hand page in that case. Okay, page 901, um, communications, this runs across from the other page anyway, France is the top country, over to the right-hand side, international outgoing—122,623.” I lose my voice for a moment, and something creepy happens to my skull and the skin down the back of my arms. Maybe this is what they mean when they talk about your hair standing on end. I clear my throat and say very faintly, “Holy smoke. Isn’t that the—?”
“Don’t turn the page over!” the guy called Rod bleats. He’s having as much trouble breathing as I am, from the sound of it. I can barely see Davy jumping about like a blurry lunatic, wanting to know what’s going on. “Open the next book at any page you like,” Rod tells me. “No, wait! Is that other person still there? David, you called him?”
“Yes, David’s here. How did you do that?”
“What do you mean, I’m here?” Davy shouts. He hates to be left out, but he hates to be brought in. “Does this guy know me? Jeez, Jen, maybe it is Creepy, I’ll break his bloody—”
“Give him the book,” Rod is saying. “Get him to open it at random and write down the line on the top of the left hand page.”
“Davy, he says to open this at random.”
For a change he stops babbling and grabs the paperback I found on Poppa’s special shelf. “The Penguin Book of Australian Verse. Yuck, it smells foul. I hate old paperbacks. Is this your Dad’s? Hang on, there’s a dedication in it. Oh. It’s a present from Hattie, 1965. Who’s Hattie? One of your father’s old girlfriends?”
My stomach jumps. Just more cramps, I tell myself angrily. “It’s my mother. Give it back.”
“No, just a moment, you want me to find you a random bit. Okay, page 178. Now what?”
“First line. Write it down.”
He scribbles, and hands over the sheet. “There you go. Who’s Douglas Stewart?”
“I don’t know.” I turn over my own sheet of memo pad, and put them next to each other, and the cramps really are there, like a jolt of electricity into my abdomen. “Oh my God, David, this is impossible. He told me to write that down before I even got the books out.”
“Hey, that’s what I just wrote down.”
Into the phone, I say, “You knew.”
“I don’t yet.” Rod’s voice is so tense it could cut the wire to the handset. “Read it to me.”
I’m really quite scared, all of a sudden. There’s only one explanation for this, and that’s crazy. “You can control our minds, can’t you?”
He laughs, slightly shrill. “Of course I can’t. Just tell me what David wrote down.”
“What you read out to me before. 122,623. ‘But now she’s in the creek again, that woman made of flame.’”
“Sounds like poetry. Poetry to my ears.” He’s really laughing now, almost giggling. He catches his breath, and I can hear his pen scribbling, I think. “Oh Genevieve, Jenny, you little darling, do you know what we’ve just done? We’ve broken the time barrier, that’s what we’ve done. Oh Stockholm, here I come. I’m off to get drunk.”
“You sound drunk already. How did you do that? Are you a stage magician?”
“Actually I can’t afford to get drunk, Jenny.” I can almost see him brutally pulling himself together. In a tired, sober tone, he adds, “Hours of work still to be done tonight. I have to recalibrate the bloody machine so I can call you back fifteen minutes ago and read these lovely little items out to you so you’ll write them down and be convinced.”
“Convinced of what?”
“Be convinced, Jenny, that I’ve done what no one else in all the history of science has ever managed to do.”
“Are you sure you’re not drunk?”
“Drunk with success. Drunk with joy. Farewell, for the moment, young Jenny of 1995.”
I go so cold I think I’m going to faint. I clutch at the hall table. “Oh shit. You said ‘time barrier,’ You wanted to know what year it was. I don’t think you’re a crazy kook after all. Rod, I think you’re calling me from—”
“Thirty-five years distance, Jenny, that’s how far away I am from you. Over a third of a century. We’re in different time zones, and it’s going to make us both rich and famous, even if I do have to cut Dr. McReady in on it.”
I snatch at that to keep from falling over. “Who’s this Dr. McReady anyway?”
“My supervisor. He’s nominally in charge of the research, but he thinks it can’t be done.”
“I don’t think it can be done either.” My fright is turning into a fit of the giggles. “Time travel? By telephone?”
David grabs my arm and shakes it. His eyes are bugging again. “What? What are you saying to the crackpot, Jen?”
“I’m exhausted, kiddo,” Rod tells me. I stifle my laughter, and he says, “I’ll call back tomorrow, your time.”
“All right.” Then I remember, and I’m furious at myself for forgetting. “You can’t, actually. I spend tomorrow with my mother. Sunday lunch and probably tea.”
There’s a pause while he takes that in. Fortunately he doesn’t pry, or I’d hang up hard in his ear and he can twiddle his thumbs, wherever he is. When ever. Finally he says, “Oh. I’ll try to tune it in to, say, five o’clock the day after that, will you be home then?”
“Monday. Probably.” I don’t know whether to take this seriously or not, but an idea occurs to me. God, wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were true! “Listen, Rod, I think you’re doing this all wrong. All you need to do is give me next week’s Lotto numbers. Isn’t that what you meant by ‘big money’? We could make a million bucks if you really were from the future.”
“The future!” David’s voice cracks, and I realize he’s still here. Disgusted, he says, “You’ve both flipped!” In almost the same moment Rod says, “The future! Jenny, you’ve got it completely wrong. I’m not ringing you from the future.”
I shoosh Davy with my free hand. “You’re not? Then what on earth have we been talking ab—”
“October 7, 1960, Jenny. That’s when I am. You’re the one in the future, kiddo. I’m here, stuck in the present.” And he hangs up.
