A BLACK HOLE
IN NEASDEN
by David Sutherland
Smashwords Edition
Copyright David Sutherland 2011
Cover image copyright David Sutherland 2011
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All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4660-2573-8
for Jasper
Chapter 1
THREE PEARL-WHITE beach balls drifted silently across the lawn. Looking down from above, Jack left off coiling his bungee cord and followed them with his eyes. Gracefully they rose up and over the first line of trees, almost as high as the top of the tower. For a moment they hung there, glowing golden in the early light, then one by one they pushed their way down through the canopy and vanished into the vastness of the jungle.
‘Why three? Must have been a lot of post.’
He continued to gather the cord into big snaky loops. He peered over the edge. He knew the height of the tower and he knew his own height. He knew the length of the cord and how much it would stretch. Never having been a Boy Scout though, he was less sure about the knots involved. But apart from that there shouldn’t have been a problem.
‘Why don’t I ever get any post?’
Jutting out from the edge of the roof was a boom that had been used to hoist heavy furniture to the upper floors. On the end of it was a hook where the pulley had hung. The bungee cord was blue and Jack tied a loop in one end. He yanked it tight; it seemed to hold well enough. Lying flat on his stomach, he extended himself out along the boom and hung the loop over the hook. Seven floors below was a grassy garden. The white table and chairs looked like something belonging to a doll’s house.
Smiling to himself, he slid backwards off the boom and sat cross-legged while he tied the other end of the cord around his ankle. It took him a while to get the knot right; his first two attempts slipped, but the third held reasonably well.
He stepped up to the edge, shook loose the coiled cord and let it drop. It hung in a long ‘U’ about a third of the way to the ground. Scowling, the boy rubbed his nose. He knew he would have to jump absolutely straight down, so as not to swing in and hit the wall on the way back up. That was very important. He decided to hang from the end of the boom and drop from there. He did a little jogging on the spot to warm up. He stretched his arms and rotated his shoulders. Slowly he edged out onto the boom again with nothing beneath him but air. He checked that the loop was secure on the hook.
“Okay … this is it.”
Locking his ankles, he leaned to one side, swung slowly around and hung upside-down like a tree sloth. The beam was I-shaped and he gripped the bottom of the ‘I’ with his fingers. Hanging there, he looked up at the cloudless mauve sky. He tilted his head backwards and scanned the horizon upside down. He felt giddy and dizzy and couldn’t help but laugh for the sheer madness of what he was doing. He released his legs and let them dangle below. The loop of blue cord trailed down and then up again, swaying a little in the breeze. He closed his eyes. He was as ready as he would ever be...
Just then, a dog barked very nearby. The boy opened his eyes. A brown and white head appeared at the edge of the tower.
“Yarf! Yarf!”
The boy groaned.
“Duncan, for heaven’s sake, not now! Can’t you see I’m busy? What are you doing up here?”
Apparently the dog wanted to ask the same question. “Yarf! Yarf!” he repeated, jumping up and down in a uniquely canine expression of urgency and importance.
Jack stared at the dog and adjusted his grip. “Don’t distract me! Do you want me to fall and break my neck?”
“Rrrarfrarfrarf! Yarrf!”
“Go away!”
Disobediently, the dog sat down to watch. The boy’s legs dangled freely beneath him and he altered his grip again to relieve his aching fingers. He looked down at the tiny garden table. It suddenly seemed an awfully long way to fall. He thought about the dodgy knot around his ankle. He knew it was completely crazy. If he’d been honest, he would have had to admit that the interruption was not entirely unwelcome. Of course, he couldn’t let on that to Duncan.
“You’ve completely ruined my concentration!” he cried indignantly and, swinging his feet forward, he walked a few steps up the wall and got one leg over the top. He clambered back onto the beam, turned to straddle it and sat facing the dog.
“So. What’s up then? What is it?”
“Rrarfrarfrarrf yarf!”
He reached out to ruffle the dog’s fur. “Speak! Speak to me!”
“Rarf rarf!”
The dog cocked its head from side to side. His sharp black eyes focused hard. Clearly it had a lot to say. It yapped more plaintively. The boy shrugged and shook his head.
“Yarrf?”
“C’mon boy, you can do it!”
“Rrr ... yes, of course I can do it, you pillock,” the dog said finally. “I just thought you might have got the hang of Terrier by now. Obviously too much to expect. What are you doing up here?”
“What am I doing? Bungee jumping. You tie a rope around your leg and throw yourself off a building. It’s great. But you wouldn’t like it.”
The dog peered over the edge, then looked at the rope.
“How do you get back up? After you jump and you’re hanging upside down by one leg?”
“What do you mean, how do you get…?”
Jack stared dumbly at the dog. He hadn’t actually thought of that. He clambered onto the flat roof and began coiling the cord again.
“Okay clever-clogs,” he demanded. “What on earth did you come to tell me?”
Duncan curled his lip and shook his head. He had never had a very high opinion of humans.
“We’re not on Earth, rrr-emember?”
Momentarily sidetracked by this delightful thought, Jack paused to scan the sea of rainforest that surrounded the tower on all sides. It was wild and immense and beautifully untouched, slightly surreal under the violet sky. In the west, the sun had just appeared above the horizon, bringing the scene alive with colour: acres of green and gold, splashes of yellow, vermilion, turquoise. A dawn chorus of birds and who-knows-what-else racketed from the treetops.
Duncan scratched behind his ear, had a quick gnaw at his hind leg, stood, shook himself down and pronounced curtly: “You have a letter.”
“A letter? What do you mean? An Earth letter?”
“Not an Earth letter. It’s from the Prrr-incess of Tau Ceti. Something about a party. A once-in-a-lifetime, mega-rave sort of party.”
Jack was suddenly very interested. He turned to face the dog.
“Princess of who? What party? Since when do you read my mail?”
“I do not rrread your mail,” Duncan cried. He put his nose in the air and pronounced in a highly affected manner: “I simply happen to have an acute sense of smell. And this envelope smells like a party invitation. If you’re not interested, then clearly I needn’t have bothered you.”
With that, the dog trotted across to the other side of the roof where a semi-circular opening exposed a deep lift shaft. There were no lifts as such but, above the hole, a metal frame supported a pulley system that controlled four thick, vertical ropes about a metre apart. Leaping across the void, the dog latched neatly on to one of them, wrapping tail and legs around it. This trick had taken some practice, but Duncan had never been daunted by the lack of an opposing thumb.
He barked into the abyss, “Rrarrf! Henry? You can take me down now.”
A hollow voice echoed up out of the depths, “Right away Mr Duncan.”
There was a distant whirring and creaking, a clunk and a whistle and all four ropes began moving simultaneously: two up and two down. As the dog disappeared below roof level, Jack shouted, “I’m coming too, Henry!” and, slinging the coil of rope over one shoulder, he made a heroic leap and grabbed the other going-down rope.
This extra weight may have caused Henry some difficulty in regulating their speed of descent, had it not been for Jack’s elderly Aunt Agnes who happened to join one of the going-up ropes at more or less the same time, thus providing a little counter-balance.
“Hello,” she called, looking up. “Is that you Jack? You’re up early.”
“That’s Duncan. I’m Jack over here.”
“Oh. So you are. It’s only just gone April, you know. Straight back to bed for me.”
“Yeah, right. April is pretty early. Want me to wake you up in a few months?”
Auntie Agnes passed up between Jack and Duncan, ignoring them both. At the top of the lift shaft the un-oiled pulleys squealed and she could have sworn it was a choir of angels.
“Oh! They’re singing again! Can you hear them Jack? I’m going to heaven this time. Up up up! I never liked this planet, you know. But, oh...”
She looked down again, perplexed, as if only just realising something. Her voice fell.
“I haven’t died yet, have I. Have I? Oh dear ... but don’t go looking up my nightie when I’m on the ropes! I saw you! You’ll grow hair on the palms of your hands.”
Jack groaned and looked away and the rope carried Agnes aloft, her voice trailing away through the upper floors of the tower. A moment later, boy and dog arrived at the ground floor and the ropes creaked to a halt. They stepped into a vast, round room, over thirty foot across, with half the curved wall made of glass. It served as the kitchen, dining, sitting and general-hanging-around-in room. To the left of the lifts, an open-plan cooking area was demarcated by a row of cupboards that arched gently into the centre. To the right, the wall was windowless but contained two heavy doors: one black and one white. Directly across from the white one were double doors that led down some steps to the garden.
Duncan headed straight for a leather armchair on the far side. He jumped up, turned three circles then parked himself with his head on crossed paws. In a sunny spot opposite, a man sat reading at a large round table.
Jack chucked the bungee rope on the floor and called, “Hello father-person.” Rummaging in a cupboard, he came up with a bowl, spoon, cereal and some milk substitute apparently made from celery.
“Did I get a letter or something?”
Professor Cornelius Plant surfaced from his book slowly, like a diver returning from the bottom of the sea. Peering up through Buddy Holly glasses, he mumbled weakly, “Hmm. Morning. Sleep well?”
“Yeah sure. I’ve been up for ages. Did I get a letter?”
Jack put his breakfast things on the table and sat down. His father pursed his lips and thought at the ceiling. At forty-eight he was really too young to be a Professor. In fact, until recently, when he discovered a black hole under his rhododendron and developed a mild obsession about garden tools, he had been a part-time philosophy lecturer at Neasden Polytechnic. He had achieved a certain notoriety there for his controversial work on grommets.
[Editor’s note: a grommet is a unique type of rubber washer typically used as an electrical insulator and analysed in depth by Cornelius Plant as profound metaphor of the human condition. His books include his (failed) PhD thesis ‘Grommets Throughout History; a Retrospective’ (1992); his epistemological treatise, ‘Why is a Grommet?’ (1994) and perhaps most importantly, ‘The Way of the Grommet’ (1998); all available from Neasden Polytechnic Press for surprisingly little money.]
“Hmm ... a letter,” he pondered. “Now, surely if you had got a letter, then you would indeed have a letter, would you not? But as you do not seem to have a letter, one must conclude that you did not yet get a letter. Obvious, when you think about it. Shall we go over that again?”
It is a well-known fact that philosophy lecturers (and grommet experts even more so), often find it impossible to give a straight answer to anything. He smiled rather smugly and turned back to his book, adding, “You must learn to speak precisely. Say what you mean.”
Jack leaned his head on one hand with an intensely bored expression and groaned to himself, ‘Why me? Why this family? Why so difficult?’
“Yeah, so did I get a letter or not?”
Professor Plant went on with his reading. His black hair parted in the centre and hung in long, lank waves beyond his collar. He had somehow never stopped looking like a student; a somewhat lost student. His skin was pale, as though the only colour he ever got was from the light in the refrigerator. In recent months, he had had no such refrigerator. His lips moved silently as he read. Jack tapped his thumb and waited one full minute.
“DAD!?”
Jack’s father looked up again, as if seeing his son for the first time that day.
“Hello. What? What is it?”
Enunciating very carefully, Jack spoke as if to a complete idiot, which he sometimes felt was the case: “A letter … in an envelope? Rectangular? About so big with paper inside? My name on it, maybe?”
His father stared at him for five seconds with no expression whatsoever. His small grey eyes had the disturbing faculty of never blinking.
“Oh ... yes,” he said. “I think there was something. Now that you mention it.”
He turned back to his book and read a bit more. He reached the bottom of the page. He turned the page. Finally, without looking up, he put his hand in his shirt pocket and produced a small blue envelope. He handed it to his son.
Jack sighed and took it from him. On the front, his name alone was written in elaborate, calligraphic handwriting. Something like a coat of arms was displayed in the top left corner. Jack opened it carefully. Sitting up on the sofa, Duncan sniffed and craned his neck for a better view. Inside was a card. The card read:
In Celebration of Nothing in Particular,
Her Very Royal Highness, Princess of Tau Ceti
Invites You to the Palace for a Once-in-a-Lifetime,
Utterly-Mega-Monster-Rave.
From Any Time until Whenever...
On the back of the card was a map, supposedly showing how to get to the palace. Under the map was written:
John Wayne Memorial Door Prize: 937
“Well? Was I rrr-ight?”
Jack turned to Duncan in astonishment. “Almost word for word! How do you do that?”
The dog shrugged and shook his head. “Humans are so limited.”
“But you missed the bit about the door prize.”
“Rrrf. Only because I didn’t sniff that side.”
“The answer is no,” Jack’s father pronounced calmly, turning another page of his book. He had the irritating habit of paying attention at all the wrong times.
“What? Why not? I haven’t even asked yet.”
“So, ask.”
“Can I go to this party later?”
“No.”
“But why not?!”
“Show me.”
Professor Plant held out his hand. Jack gave him the card. His father studied it for a few moments. “Absolutely out of the question.”
He slipped the card into the back of his book, reached for the cereal (also made from celery) and poured some into his bowl. Jack slumped in his chair and frowned intensely. It was so infuriating, so typical! The only really exciting thing to have happened for ages and he wasn’t allowed to go.
(What he meant, of course, was – if you didn’t count travelling through a black hole to another galaxy, living in a tower in the middle of a jungle where the concept of school did not exist and where his dog, for some little-understood reason had suddenly become capable of speech – if you didn’t count any of that, then yes, this party was only really exciting thing to have happened).
He toyed with his untouched cereal and tapped the heel of his foot in a way that he knew got on his father’s nerves. He scowled vigorously. The father-person had given the wrong answer; that’s all there was to it. He drummed his fingers, trying to work out how he might expose this error. His father was not immune to reason. He was a philosopher after all. It was just a matter of finding the right reason.
“There must have been quite a lot of post. Did Fiz get an invite?” Jack asked, trying to re-open the subject. He knew that if a conversation with his father lapsed for more than thirty seconds, the chance of getting it going again was like jump-starting a fifty-ton lorry.
“Hmm? No. The rest was for me.”
The dialogue was about to die again. Jack had to make his bid before his father got his nose stuck back in his book.
Huffing a little, he cleared his throat and launched: “Dad, listen, about this invitation, I mean, I know you think that teenage parties are just a lot of mindless, self-indulgent pleasure-seeking with flashing lights and over-sexed girls in skimpy clothes, wildly gyrating to loud and tuneless music―and from a certain point of view, that is partly true. But it’s not always like that and what I had in mind was to go as a sort of Ambassador for Planet Earth. You know, a chance to do my part to further the cause of peace and goodwill throughout the universe.”
Duncan snorted, rolled onto his back and almost exploded with repressed doggy laughter. Jack’s father looked up with one eyebrow trying to escape off the top of his face.
“Ambassador for Planet Earth? You? Heaven help Planet Earth. Anyway, the universe is at peace. Everywhere except the Earth.”
Jack grimaced and continued: “Yeah, okay, but we haven’t been here very long and I think there are a lot of misconceptions about our planet that need to be clarified. We’re obviously deeply misunderstood. I feel it’s my duty to help build some cross-cultural bridges. By attending this routine social function – which will probably be really dull and tedious – I would at least be helping to create a sense of community; you know, people coming together, sharing, caring, overcoming their differences and all that. I feel it’s my responsibility as a citizen of the universe to go to this party.”
Duncan spluttered again and the blank look on his Dad’s face told Jack he’d better change course.
“Right. Well, the other thing I was thinking,” he went on, barely pausing for breath, “was, you know how royal families are all so hopelessly neurotic and socially de-skilled and everything? Well, I don’t think we should hold that against them. It would be really rude and prejudicial of me not to go to this party just because the girl is, you know, a princess and a bit disadvantaged. I think that coming from a healthy and well-balanced family like our own, I may be able to help her towards a fuller, more normal and rewarding life.”
Jack’s father finished his cereal and pushed the bowl away. He stared at it, wondering why everything should taste of celery. He looked at his son: ‘Fifteen years old … dreadful age to be. All those hormones coursing about. Surely Kant must have written something about adolescence? No, probably not. Philosophers always bottle-out on the really hard stuff. Ethics, epistemology, the existence of God―such things pale into insignificance compared to a teenager with a party crisis.’
The Professor sighed again and brought the tips of his fingers together very lightly, just under his chin. He removed the invitation from the back of his book. He studied it for another five seconds and made a concerted effort to apply himself to the subject.
“We don’t know anything about these people. She might not even be a people,” he said. “Have you thought about that?”
“Of course. That’s the whole point. We’ve been living here for three months and I haven’t met a single alien. Not even a little one. You’re always saying how there’s no crime or violence or anything like that; it’s one of the main reasons you wanted to move.”
“Yes that’s true, but–”
“So what is the problem then? This is the first real contact we’ve had since we got here!”
The Professor paused. He scratched his head and pushed his glasses up on his nose.
‘Probably harmless enough,’ he told himself. ‘Could even be fun, I suppose. Fun with aliens. Good aliens. Nice aliens. Father must be a colleague; some philosopher-king of the old school. What could be the harm in it? Kids need a social life. I went to a party once myself ... that what’s-her-name was there … Margaret Something: red hair, stutter, glasses taped up in the middle ... locked herself in the loo for six hours. I think she may have fancied me ... wonder what ever became of–?’
“DAD!” cried Jack.
“Eh? What?”
“The party,” Jack nudged gently. “Can I go or not?”
“Hmm ... party ... well, hmm. You really want to go.”
Jack nodded with careful eagerness. It was a delicate moment. He could faintly smell victory. It was absolutely crucial to say as little as possible. The Professor sighed. He looked again at each side of the invitation. He scratched his head.
“Oh, alright, you can go then.”
He handed the card back to his son.
‘YES!’ Jack shouted to himself.
“But only if your sister says she’ll go with you.”
‘NO!’ The sweet smell of success was instantly tainted by the sour stink of certain failure.
“Dad! You know Fiz never wants to go anywhere or do anything. Especially not since we moved.”
Professor Plant picked up the empty bowls and started towards the sink.
“Well, it might be good for her to get out a bit more. Make some new friends.”
“She never had any old friends.”
“It’s my last word on the subject. If Fenella says she’ll go with you, then you can go. If not, then not. But that’s final.”
“Never happen,” Jack groaned.
His father began washing up the breakfast things and Duncan stirred on the sofa.
“Shouldn’t rrr-eally be a prrr-oblem,” he said quietly.
“Oh, glad you think so,” Jack snorted. “It’d be easier to get Aunt Aggie to join the SAS than to get Fiz to go to a party.”
Duncan yawned and licked his lips.
“I think you’re missing something. I don’t envisage a prrr-oblem,” he repeated.
Just then, the rope lifts creaked into life.
“That’s probably her now,” Jack muttered.
But no sooner had he said this, than a blood-stopping, air-splitting scream shrilled down the lift shaft. Professor Plant froze, listening, his hands dripping wet.
The hysterical shrieking slowly gave way to words that sounded something like: “LET GO OF MY HAND YOU GHASTLY MACHINE! HENRY? LET GO I SAY!! YOU’RE CRUSHING MY FINGERS!”
Jack’s father ran to the lift shaft and looked up. Agnes was on the far-left rope with her hand stuck in the pulley at the top.
“HENRY!” he shouted. “STOP! Reverse!”
The ropes immediately changed direction and, as they did, the scream of pain and anger became one of terror as poor Agnes lost her grip and plummeted the full length of the lift shaft. A tonsil-wobbling, throat-throbbing, horror-panic burst from her lungs. It grew in an impressive crescendo and as she streaked past the opening to the kitchen. Jack was just able to register a ghostly-white flapping and a blur of red lipstick–
then a subdued flump-SPROINNG! as she hit the safety trampoline. This resulted in her flying back up the lift shaft just as far as the kitchen. The Professor caught her in both arms without really trying. He turned around and set her down gently, propping her up against the cupboards. Jack and Duncan rushed over.
Agnes looked up at them. Penciled eyebrows arched unevenly over thick blue eye shadow. Her hair fell in tired, grey waves and a long, Bambi night-dress left only her bare feet and ankles exposed. She had stopped screaming, but her mouth was still moving of its own accord. Her lipstick was badly smudged. Her face was whiter than her nightie. Bambi too looked very shaken. Agnes looked all around, clearly wondering where the kitchen had suddenly come from.
“Is that you, Corny?” she whimpered.
It was hard to tell which of them was more distressed. Grommet experts tend to be less than reliable in a crisis. “Yes Agnes, it’s me.”
“You’re not dead, are you?”
“No, I’m not dead.”
Agnes looked away, slightly disappointed. “So I’m not in heaven then?”
“No, you’re not in heaven. Nor the other place either. I think you got on the up rope when you meant to go down. Is that what happened?”
Agnes thought about this carefully and disagreed. “No, Corny. Heaven is up. I want to go up to heaven. With the angels.”
“Yes, well, unfortunately he rope lift doesn’t go that far. Let’s take a look at your hand.”
It was badly bruised and already swollen. The Professor examined it as if it were a beanbag. “I hope you haven’t broken anything,” he said. He was actually referring to the pulley system but Duncan pushed his nose forward and sniffed.
“Thrrr-ee minor frrr-actures with internal bleeding,” he reported. “Damage to the first and second knuckle, severe swelling and tearrr-ing of the ligaments. Multiple external contusions with―”
The Professor turned his eyeball-drying gaze on the dog. “Thank you for that expert diagnosis, Duncan, but I really think Agnes ought to see a doctor.”
Duncan huffed and trotted back to his armchair with his nose in the air. “Just trrr-ying to be helpful.”
“I’ll have to take her to Emergency, I guess,” Jack’s Dad muttered, virtually talking to himself. “Can you stand, Agnes?”
His sister’s head suddenly retreated and she screwed her face into an expression of utter repugnance. “Oh, I never could stand Agnes!” she blurted in alarm. “Horrible woman! Always making faces at me. She wears too much make-up and I told her so. Who does she think she is? At her age! Mutton dressed as lamb.”
Jack and his father helped her to get up. “Are you taking her to hospital in London?” Jack asked.
“Have to do. No one told me what to do in an emergency. Agnes, come sit over here for a minute while I get your things ready.”
Jack sat at the dining table with his aunt as his father disappeared up the lift shaft.
“Am I going to London?” she asked.
“Looks that way. The doctors are going to fix your hand as good as new.”
“Rrr ... doctorr-rrs,” Duncan growled. “What do they know? You want to lick that hand, Agnes. Lick it to keep it clean. Best thing for it.”
Agnes licked her hand. “It’ll be nice to see London again,” she said dreamily. “I never liked this planet, you know. Don’t you miss London? Don’t you miss the telly and the footie and Mr Carlisle’s sticky buns?” A faraway look descended over Agnes. “He puts ever so many raisins in them,” she added dreamily.
Sticky buns were not exactly at the top of Jack’s list, but he wouldn’t have minded knowing how Arsenal were doing. They must be well into the new season. He missed his mates as well, but for the time being, having no school and a talking dog seemed a pretty good trade off.
“It’ll be cold and wet in London I expect,” he replied, just to change the subject.
Agnes eyed him curiously then transferred her gaze to the sun-drenched garden. She could never get her mind around the idea that the new planet had totally different seasons and climate. The days were even more confusing. It was light for about forty hours and then dark for only three. Everyone found it hard to know when to sleep. Initially they had stubbornly tried to keep to London time, but that often meant getting up as the sun was going down or vice versa. At the end of three months each of them had worked out their own waking and sleeping rhythms, which were surprisingly varied. Almost no one slept at the same time and there was always someone up wandering about.
Jack’s father reappeared, carrying a small sports bag. “Come on then,” he called. “We’d better get going. Any idea what time it is on Earth?”
“Feels like a Wednesday to me,” Agnes offered.
Jack shrugged and helped her over to the door where his father was waiting.
“Are you ready? Better put your coat on just in case. All set? Why are you licking your hand? Never mind. Let’s go.”
Professor Plant carefully unlocked the black door. It was about six inches thick and made of extremely rare and strange Exotic Matter, the only material capable of withstanding the colossal gravitational force created by a black hole. He slid it to one side. Instantly the room darkened as all the light was sucked out of the immediate vicinity. There was also a great clattering and crashing as half the breakfast dishes went with it. Jack pressed himself against the door as it slid closed again automatically.
His father and Auntie Agnes were gone.
Chapter 2
“Grommets are my life, my inspiration, my consolation, the well-spring of all mysteries. Without them life would be unimaginable – a desert of bleakest hue.” P. Willoughby-Hume: poet, inventor, visionary and father of the modern grommet. As quoted in Grommets Throughout History, page 133
HERE IS A picture of Jack Plant at the age of five; see him playing by himself in the front room of a big Georgian house in Islington? The house belongs to his mother. There she is, coming through the door after a hard day’s work, briefcase in hand and visibly knackered, but immaculately turned out in her dark grey, corporate-lawyer’s suit. See Jack’s Dad at the table in the background, poring over a mountain of papers? He is working on his (failed) doctoral thesis. See Jack’s big sister Fenella slouching at the other end of the table, arms folded, bored out of her mind and scowling at the saltcellar?
Jack frequently overhears his parents rowing. Jack’s Mum thinks his Dad is a dreamer. She thinks he’s totally unpractical. She cannot believe she has married a man obsessed with little rubber washers. He never used to be like that, she says. Jack’s Dad thinks his Mum is a workaholic who spends all her time helping rich people to get richer and never has time for the more subtle joys of life. Like her own children, for example. She never used to be like that, he says.
In this next picture we see Jack at the age of eight, lying in bed. It is nine o’clock and he’s trying to stay awake until his mother gets home. She leaves the house so early in the morning and gets home so late that he hasn’t seen her all week. At last, the front door bangs ... he hears footsteps on the stairs ... his door-handle is turning ... the door opens ... but when his mother comes in to say goodnight, Jack pretends to be asleep, just to punish her.
His parents hardly seem to talk to each other these days.
This last snap was taken when Jack was ten. He and Fenella are in the garden of a much smaller house in Neasden, northwest London. See Auntie Agnes sitting in the tree behind them? She’s singing ‘I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts’ at the top of her lungs. Jack is smiling. He has always loved his mad Auntie. Fenella is mortified and trying to pretend it’s not happening. Gran is there too, over on the right, doing her aerobics workout.
The house in Neasden belongs to their father, but Gran and Auntie Agnes have lived in it for many years. Now they all live there together. Mum has stayed in Islington on her own.
And that’s how it was for nearly five years. No one even so much as dreamed of leaving the planet. Moving across London had been traumatic enough. And it wasn’t as if life on Earth had been all that bad. There was no more than the usual amount of crime and poverty, pollution, disease, rape, murder, famine, drug abuse, child abuse, disasters (natural and unnatural), wars (civil and uncivil), refugees, homelessness, unemployment, racism, terrorism, global warming, the slaughter of endangered species, destruction of the environment, genetically modified cornflakes and people-being-generally-really-horrible-to-each-other.
But as such things tend to affect only a few insignificant billions of people, they mostly faded into the background. Everyone knew there were problems but, generally speaking, they didn’t think about it too much. That was only natural. They had their own problems to worry about, which were, quite naturally, far more urgent and important.
Jack’s father took a part-time job as a philosophy lecturer and was busy researching a new book. Gran commuted back and forth to Hollywood where she had a supporting role in a big Spielberg film. Agnes launched a passionate correspondence with the Swiss Ministry of Food and Agriculture, concerning the declining number of holes in their cheeses.
Life went on. After all, it takes a pretty big crisis to start you thinking about leaving the planet. Not something you do for no reason. If it hadn’t been for the disappearing garden tools, they would probably all have just stayed in Neasden.
Cornelius Plant had never especially liked gardening. The idea of things growing in the dirty earth was much too practical and concrete for him. It meant going outside. But as his mother travelled a great deal and Agnes wouldn’t have known a Sweet William if it stood up in her soup, the upkeep of the garden fell to him.
But not even this total lack of interest could account for the astounding number of trowels and forks and secateurs he lost. One minute they were there beside him in the grass, the next minute they were gone. He started buying them in bulk. At first it was more puzzling than alarming. He also began to notice that the lawn never needed raking; all the loose grass and leaves simply disappeared down a little hole under the rhododendron. This was so convenient that he never really questioned it. He even considered that perhaps all gardens were designed like that now, some new central disposal system installed by the council. What was stranger however was that, no matter how sunny the day was, his garden always seemed slightly dim compared to the neighbours’ gardens. There simply wasn’t as much light.
For years, Cornelius kept these observations to himself. He had other far deeper mysteries to pursue. It was only through a chance conversation with a colleague at the Poly (Fat Bernard in astrophysics), that he began to suspect that the hole beneath his rhododendron might actually be rather black.
He had heard of black holes before of course. He knew that anyone falling into one would initially be elongated beyond the wildest dreams of professional basketball, then reduced to something like a squashed bug on the windscreen of eternity. This was due to the phenomenal gravitational force they exert.
What he did not know (and was soon to learn), was that a rotating black hole, consisting of extremely rare and strange Exotic Matter could become what is known as a wormhole: a negotiable open passage which, instead of pulverising you, could actually fling you back out of a white hole on the other side. And because of the way intense gravity bends space, such a wormhole would be a sort of short cut through to another part of the universe. Instead of travelling all those tedious light-years the long way around, you make a nip and a tuck in space-time and pull the other side nearer to you. Simple.
All of this was neatly explained by Fat Bernard in astrophysics. He also explained that all prevailing theories tended towards the opinion that black holes were more likely to be found in the extreme depths of space than in the London suburbs.
“So, have they ever found one then?” Cornelius asked innocently.
“One what?”
“A black hole. In the extreme depths of space.”
“Er, no. Not really. We’re not 100% sure they exist.”
Now, to a man of more flexible intellect, unburdened by the narrow confines of mathematics, this opened up the possibility that the boffins had simply been looking in the wrong place. But when Cornelius suggested as much, his colleague gave a pained look.
“Listen, if you had a black hole in your garden, even a little one, all of north London and then some would have been turned inside out and swallowed up long ago. Still, I wouldn’t go near it if I were you. You might ring the council pest control, but no one knows much about these things. Highly theoretical.”
Cornelius nodded sensibly. He had no particular desire to become spaghetti Bolognese and he resolved to put some good stout planks across the hole that very weekend.
But when the time came to do it, he hesitated...
Something bothered him. Chewing his thumbnail, he stood gazing at the mysterious hole. He got down on his hands and knees and peered under the rhododendron. There was certainly a strong sucking sensation, as if someone had buried a very big vacuum cleaner and left it running. He looked at the planks he had prepared and a terrible sense of loss came over him. A potentially rewarding avenue of investigation was being left totally unexplored. He stood up and hooked his hair behind his ears. He pushed his glasses up on his nose. He moved his mouth around, test-driving various expressions of dissatisfaction.
Cornelius Plant was not adventurous by nature. His was a world of the intellect; a world of abstractions and concepts. And yet, standing in his garden in Neasden, he felt the pulse-quickening call for dynamic action. This was no naïve curiosity, it was truly epiphanal; a moment when one’s path becomes clear and one knows precisely what they must do. For some it may be the burning star of creative ambition; the chastening bugle-call of heroic duty; the inner glory of spiritual enlightenment...
For Cornelius Plant, it was all about garden tools.
He knew the risks involved. The odds of survival were appalling, the outcome unknowable. He may never see his children again ... but he’d spent an awful lot of money on spades and trowels over the years and he wanted them back. If only he could retrieve one decent pair of shears – those nice stainless steel ones from Homebase – then it would be worth the risk.
His mother and Agnes were away on holiday at the time. It was mid-afternoon and Jack and Fenella were still at school. He went into the house and left a note that read:
Going down a black hole for some garden shears. Shouldn’t be long. If I’m not back for dinner, order a pizza. Save me some. Dad.
He marched back to the rhododendron and began scrabbling in the dirt to enlarge the hole. He worked frantically, clearing great mounds of loose rubble with his hands. About half a metre below the surface, he hit upon something very solid. It was large and flat and unlike any material he had ever seen. It was smooth like glass, but it wasn’t glass and inside it swirled in a milky dance of liquid colour, intermittently flashing blue and pink and gold. It was like molten opal, but harder and more resistant than diamond. It was rare and strange, a material held under awesome tension, forged in the nuclear furnace of the Big Bang itself – before this world, before the stars and the planets, before even time began. It was...
‘Exotic Matter,’ Cornelius whispered to himself. He could scarcely believe it and yet it was exactly as Fat Bernard had described it.
In the middle of the slab was a hole a few centimetres across: liquorice-black, crow-black, black like a stack of Bibles in that cupboard under the stairs with all the lights off. Howling from the very soul of ultimate darkness came the haunted cry of the universe: an outrageous, maddening roar … terrifying, incomprehensible, enticing.
Cornelius reached towards the minute hole. His ring and watch flew off and disappeared ... then his glasses ... then his shirt buttons. The last thing he saw were his fingers turning red and stretching out to twice their normal length, as if made of rubber putty. His arm quickly followed and, before he knew what was happening, his entire body had passed right through the tiny aperture.
Hurtling down the inky plughole, he thought his feet would never catch up with his legs. It was like flying through the eye of a cosmic hurricane, twisting and rolling and whizzing across inter-dimensional space too fast for his own consciousness to keep up. The only bit he distinctly remembered was the awful piped-in music: a tacky version of Greensleeves played on a beep-tone pocket calculator.
The entire trip (which through conventional space would have taken a hundred and ninety thousand years at the speed of light) lasted precisely seven seconds.
Before anyone could say, ‘ensure that your table and seat-back are in the upright position and your seatbelt securely fastened,’ he came flying out of the hyper-flume and landed abruptly in some tall grass. A garden fork was sticking in one elbow and the keys to a car he’d owned years ago lay on the ground in front of him. Cornelius picked up the keys, marvelling at them.
“So that’s where they got to,” he cried. “I looked all over for these!”
He got slowly to his feet. He seemed to be a little taller than he had been seven seconds ago but, apart from the lack of shirt buttons, all his bits were in the right places. He looked around. It wasn’t at all how he had imagined the other side of the universe to be. If it weren’t for having discussed it with Fat Bernard, he might easily have believed he had fetched up in Peru, or Madagascar. The sky was an odd colour, but the air was clean and fresh and, drawing a deep breath, he couldn’t resist an inward smile of self-congratulations.
He had taken a risk and ruined a good shirt in the process but when all was said and done, it had come off rather well. He had personally confirmed the existence of life on other planets and confounded some of astrophysics’ most cherished notions about dark matter. In seven seconds, he had single-handedly pushed back the frontiers of knowledge and exploration further than any other human before him. But more than that, he was going to get his garden tools back.
He put on his watch, his ring and his glasses. Then he gathered up as many forks and trowels, shears and rakes as he could carry. With a satisfied little nod, he turned to head for home and was temporarily blinded by the glaring white hole he had just been flung out of.
‘So that’s why the garden always seemed so dim,’ Cornelius pondered. ‘All the light gets sucked out and beamed down over here.’
Holding tight to his hard-won treasure, he walked back a few paces, closed his eyes and ran, flinging himself headlong into the white hole. He disappeared up to his waist before it promptly spat him out again. Perplexed, he sat up in the grass. A dead rhododendron branch flew out and smacked him in the forehead.
That was when he remembered Fat Bernard saying that you could fall into a black hole and out of a white hole, but not the other way around. It hadn’t seemed important at the time. He paused to consider this new problem: how to travel to a distant galaxy when the sum of your available technology consisted of a dozen trowels and a few hose attachments? This was going to be a challenge.
Cornelius Plant got up and began wandering aimlessly. Beyond the grassy clearing, a wall of lush vegetation grew up in chaotic profusion. Giant trees soared above his head trailing rope-like lianas. Deep-throated flowers a half-metre across yawned and belched. Purple vines threw out tendrils along the ground at near walking speed and multi-coloured leaves and petals drifted lazily down through shafts of sunlight. The air was very humid and a silvery-blue mist emanated from the ground in places.
Squelching through the swampy undergrowth, he came across a vast array of wildlife: bright coloured birds swooped and shrieked, luminous insects flitted and five-legged lizards nodded and blinked. A silver-winged snake slithered through the mist in between the trees. Emerging from behind an enormous trunk with flat, wing-like roots protruding from it, he startled a pair of hairless, legless round-eyed blobs, hovering in mid-air. They were shaped like overweight skittles and had smooth, sky-blue skin. Their bottom halves stopped about a metre from the ground. As soon as they saw him they sped off, waving their arms and squealing hysterically.
A moment later Cornelius himself was startled by the sound of his own name.
“Plant Professor! Mr Cornelius Plant Professor?”
Instantly there was an eruption of activity as every living creature within hearing distance fled the area. The air was a flurry of wings and the ground rustled with the scuttling of innumerable feet. Cornelius whirled around. Vacated branches waved and bowed. The silvery mist swirled and rose up all around him. Then everything was still: no sound, no movement. Nothing. Poised like a nervous statue, he strained to listen.
“Plant Professor!”
The voice seemed to emanate from all directions at once ... an intimate voice, very near to him. Again he looked all around.
“Who is it?” he whispered, pulling his shirt closed. “Where are you?”
“Welcome Plant Professor! We are wherever. We are many names known by. In language of you, we would be called DS of UU: The Disembodied Staff of the Universal University. Welcome to our Kl3-rM5 Campus, Philosophy Department. It is a bit, way of the out, so you say. So hard to get visiting lecturers. I am sorry there was no one with a body available to meet you. You found the wholeworm?”
Cornelius Plant stood for a moment with his mouth flapping. He turned a full circle, urgently tucking in his shirt and straightening his hair. The voice sounded so near; a warm voice, more female than male although it was impossible to tell.
“Do you mean, the wormhole?” he asked.
“Yes. The wholeworm. You found him?”
“Er, yes ... under my rhododendron. You see I, I lost a few–”
“And your journey was how?”
“Oh, um ... short, haha. But good. I think. Shame about the music, haha.”
Cornelius laughed an edgy little laugh. He felt very uneasy. He wasn’t at all accustomed to conversing with disembodied voices.
“Ah. Sorry so. We wanted to make you at home feel with this popular English Tune-Folk. You have travelled before I don’t think?”
“Only to Majorca. You know, two weeks in the summer, that sort of thing.”
There was a brief silence while the DS of UU did some quick research into where or what a Majorca was.
“Inter-planetary travel, we mean.”
“Oh! Good heavens, no. I’ve never left the Earth.”
“How awful you for. Is it really as bad as they say?”
“What is?”
“Your Earth planet.”
“Oh … well, the summer’s been pretty poor this year, you know, cloudy and rainy. May was nice. May was–”
“Plant Professor?” the Staff interrupted. An intense seriousness crept into their voice and they seemed to have moved a little nearer. “Are you at all aware of your planet’s reputation?”
Cornelius blanked. No, he was not at all aware of his planet’s reputation. He’d never even thought about it.
“Our reports tell us you are having fifty-four different wars right now. Fifty-four! Why so many wars you have? Why are you so much killing each other? So much suffering ... so much poverty ... so much hunger. This Earth planet is the most dangerous place in the Universe. Did you know that? Very dangerous for being a pig, example for. Three months and you’re a pork chop. Not even so good for being a human: such inequality ... such bad pollution ... such bad television. Why are these ‘Game Show Hosts’ not on trial for crimes against humanity? Did you never wonder why no one much the Earth visits?”
Cornelius bristled. He wanted to leap to his planet’s defence but he couldn’t think of one.
“Well, Cheltenham’s a nice town,” he muttered. “And there’s Bournemouth … and er, Torquay?”
But he hadn’t known that there were fifty-four wars going on. He couldn’t even have named fifty-four countries to have wars in. As he thought about it, he realised that the DS of UU were right; the Earth was a pretty violent place.
His invisible companions continued; “Here on planet Kl3-rM5 in the Small Cloud of Magellan, we have no crime, no pollution, no taxes, no politicians, no used-car dealers. Everything co-exists in symbiotic harmony. Even our mosquitoes are vegetarian.
“Here on Kl3-rM5 we only philosophers have. We have philosophers from every planet in every galaxy. But never we had one from the Earth planet. A pity, we said, but so much dangerous. A risk too great. Then we across came your remarkable work; so far-sighted, so revolutionary in scope! We realised that without our support, your efforts may go unappreciated. The Earth people have sadly failed to grasp The Way of the Grommet. This will be their terrible falldown. But I need not tell this to you, Plant Professor.”
“Er, no,” he mumbled. “Why not?”
It was all a bit of a shock. For years he had struggled for recognition within the academic community. His articles were rejected, his ideas ridiculed. He felt barely tolerated at Neasden Poly where he worked. But now, out of the blue, universal acclamation! It was a lot to take in. He only wished he had buttons on his shirt.
“We are hoping will you accept our offer of staying to work with us, Plant Professor.”
“Come again?” This was even less expected. Cornelius coughed nervously and began to jabber. “Ahem, well, I only dropped by to pick up my secateurs, you know, haha. Not really thinking of changing planets just yet. Perhaps in the spring. It’s a big decision, you know, the kids and everything. I mean, thanks all the same. I’m honoured, really.”
He straightened his glasses and tried in vain to face the non-person he was babbling to.
“By the way,” he added, “is there any way of getting back to Earth from here?”
“You want back to Earth go? Soon so? We have you been waiting for. We have you this wholeworm built for you inviting. We have English been practising. Five years, only trowels and nozzles. You want back to go? You don’t like our campus, Plant Professor?”
Cornelius pushed back his hair, still holding his shirt closed with his other hand. He looked around at the soaring trees and the creeping vines and wondered where exactly the campus was.
“Oh, you mean all this jungle and stuff. Yes, it’s lovely. Really. It’s just, I mean, listen: I’m not a Professor you know. I even failed my doctorate.”
The voice came in even closer, almost whispering in his ear.
“We are making you Professor right now! Why do you want to Earth go back? Tell us.”
Cornelius opened his mouth to speak and immediately got stuck. Why did he want to go back to Earth? He’d split with his wife. He had no social life to speak of. He only had one friend, if you counted Fat Bernard in astrophysics.
“I have two children, you see. And they’re … well, they’re going to save me some pizza.” This was the best he could do.
“But your family will here come to live! All them of. We have built another wholeworm to go collecting them by. We connect the two wholeworms to a house for you, so you may go and come. Everything will be provided you for. Except pizza delivery. That does not come so far.”
The Professor sat down on a craggy root to contemplate. Gazing up at the glorious, dappled canopy overhead, he felt dizzied by the sheer beauty of it all ... not a Coke can or a crisp packet in sight. A pristine planet dedicated to philosophy, with staff who really understood and appreciated his work! It could only be described as an extraordinary opportunity.
He had long dreamed of getting out of London. Perhaps not this far. What would the kids think? Jack would go for it, no question there. It would probably be the best thing for Fenella … but she could be so touchy. A Professorship was hardly a thing to be sneezed at. A tax-free Professorship... He stood and cleared his throat, shifting nervously from one foot to the other.
“You haven’t, er, mentioned anything about my, you know ... my salary.”
“Your what?”
This caught the DS of UU completely off guard and they took an invisible step back. Someone quickly consulted an invisible dictionary to make sure there was no misunderstanding. They did not want to offend an important candidate for the sake of some trifling request.
“Oh,” the voice recovered. “Of course. We should have clarified this most important detail. Celery is never a problem. We are giving you as much celery as you like. All year round. Here on Planet Kl3-rM5 we get some very big celeries.”
Cornelius found this answer most satisfactory and he made up his mind right there and then. His new employers were thrilled. They guided him back to the clearing where he had left his garden tools and showed him the entrance to the return wormhole that would take him straight back to Albemarle Gardens.
Cornelius was at the point of leaving when the DS of UU asked, “One thing more, Plant Professor. What kind of house you would like?”
He shrugged and replied casually, “Oh, an ordinary bungalow will be fine. We’ll need five bedrooms, plus kitchen and bath. The usual.”
“It will be in one month ready! Pleased to be seeing you soon!”
And so, Professor Cornelius Plant whizzed back to London, told Jack and Fenella about the move, ate some cold pizza, resigned from Neasden Poly, sold his car, told his mother and sister, packed and marched them down to the rhododendron where he pushed them all (including Duncan, Gran’s drum kit, Agnes’s teapot collection and ninety other boxes), into a teeny little hole in the ground. Agnes resisted to the last and virtually had to be wrestled into submission, but it was for her own good. She could never have coped on her own.
That had been three months previous. They hadn’t heard a word from the neighbours until the day Jack got his party invitation.
Chapter 3
THE AMPLIFIER, A Fender Super-Twin reverb, only barely missed his head.
Jack and Duncan had been sitting on the steps overlooking the garden when, behind them, the white door zipped open ejecting an enormous guitar amplifier. This was followed quickly by a guitar case and two smaller boxes. Duncan yelped and ran for the safety of his armchair. Jack ducked and shifted to one side to dodge any further bits of cosmic jetsam. A moment later his sister and his grandmother hurtled across the room, went out through the garden doors and landed in a heap on the grass. The door slid closed.
“I hate using that thing!” Fiz shrieked, stamping her foot as she got up. “It’s worse than the Northern line. Look, I’ve broken a nail.”
Fenella Isabel Plant glared furiously at her broken fingernail.
“What if the garden doors had been closed?” she ranted. “Someone’s going to get killed one of these days. I bet my hair’s gone all flat.”
Her bright green hair, on the contrary, was perfectly erect, done up in fetching three-inch spikes. White powder blanched her face, offset by heavy black eyeliner and black lipstick. The total of her earrings made up the mystic number seventeen. Dumbbell studs pierced each eyebrow, as well as her tongue. She was dressed completely in black with luminous orange platform trainers.
“Are you okay, Gran?”
“Fine. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. You’d better check the gear.”
Jack stood at the top of the steps. He had somehow assumed that his sister and his grandmother were still in bed. He hadn’t realised they’d gone to London. Why hadn’t his Dad mentioned it? Perhaps he didn’t know either. Looking down, he noticed the end of an extension lead next to his foot. He was about to pick it up when Fiz came up the steps with the guitar case and the two boxes.
“MOVE!” she grunted.
“Hello sister-person. Have you been to–?”
“Mars. Took a wrong turn.”
“What’s in that case?”
“A sewing machine.”
“No, seriously, what’s all this about? Hi Gran.”
Jack’s Gran came up the steps with the amp on one shoulder. It was nearly as big as she was. Petite and sprightly, at seventy-eight Delia Plant looked half the age of her own daughter and had done more with her years than most people could do with seventy-eight lifetimes. Sometimes Jack wondered if there was anything his Gran hadn’t done.
“Hello,” she called in a deep, gentle voice. “Didn’t Fiz tell you? We’re starting a band. You know, I’ve been doing session work as a rock drummer for years now, but I’ve always wanted to tour with a live band. Fiz is going to sing and play guitar. She’s written some great songs, haven’tcha Fizzy.”
“One or two,” Fiz replied modestly. She adored her Gran. In fact, Gran was the only person with whom she did not behave like a chainsaw with migraine.
Duncan grumbled from the sofa, “Rrr … even I could sing better than herrrr.”
“Shut your gob, you talking mop. Where’s the father-person?”
“Who? Oh, you missed the drama. Aggie was trying to get to heaven and got her hand stuck in the pulley. Dad had to take her to hospital. They just left, like, fifteen minutes ago.”
Gran set the huge amp down. “Oh, poor Agnes,” she said, wincing at the thought. “Was she hurt badly?”
“It looked pretty bad. Duncan thinks it’s fractured. She fell the full length of the lift shaft.”
“You’re not serious!”