Arthur, I mean this, this is very real to me, this is serious.
I was being perfectly serious, said Arthur. It’s just the Universe I’m never quite sure about.
What do you mean by that?
Tell me the rest of it, he said. Don’t worry if it sounds odd. Believe me, you are talking to someone who has seen a lot of stuff, he added, that is odd. And I don’t mean biscuits.
She nodded, and seemed to believe him. Suddenly, she gripped his arm. It was so simple, she said, so wonderfully and extraordinarily simple, when it came.
What was it? said Arthur quietly.
Arthur, you see, she said, that’s what I no longer know. And the loss is unbearable. If I try to think back to it, it all goes flickery and jumpy, and if I try too hard, I get as far as the teacup and I just black out.
What?
Well, like your story, she said, the best bit happened in a cafe. I was sitting there, having a cup of tea. This was after days of this build up, the feeling of becoming connected up. I think I was buzzing gently. And there was some work going on at a building site opposite the cafe, and I was watching it through the window, over the rim of my teacup, which I always find is the nicest way of watching other people working. And suddenly, there it was in my mind, this message from somewhere. And it was so simple. It made such sense of everything. I just sat up and thought, “Oh! Oh, well that’s all right then.” I was so startled I almost dropped my teacup, in fact I think I did drop it. Yes, she added thoughtfully, I’m sure I did. How much sense am I making?
It was fine up to the bit about the teacup.
She shook her head, and shook it again, as if trying to clear it, which is what she was trying to do.
Well that’s it, she said. Fine up to the bit about the teacup. That was the point at which it seemed to me quite literally as if the world exploded.
What?…
I know it sounds crazy, and everybody says it was hallucinations, but if that was hallucinations then I have hallucinations in big screen 3D with 16-track Dolby Stereo and should probably hire myself out to people who are bored with shark movies. It was as if the ground was literally ripped from under my feet, and… and…
She patted the grass lightly, as if for reassurance, and then seemed to change her mind about what she was going to say.
And I woke up in hospital. I suppose I’ve been in and out ever since. And that’s why I have an instinctive nervousness, she said, of sudden startling revelations that’s everything’s going to be all right. She looked up at him.
Arthur had simply ceased to worry himself about the strange anomalies surrounding his return to his home world, or rather had consigned them to that part of his mind marked “Things to think about Urgent.” Here is the world, he had told himself. Here, for whatever reason, is the world, and here it stays. With me on it. But now it seemed to go swimmy around him, as it had that night in the car when Fenchurch’s brother had told him the silly stories about the CIA agent in the reservoir. The trees went swimmy. The lake went swimmy, but this was perfectly natural and nothing to be alarmed by because a grey goose had just landed on it. The geese were having a great relaxed time and had no major answers they wished to know the questions to.
Anyway, said Fenchurch, suddenly and brightly and with a wide-eyed smile, there is something wrong with part of me, and you’ve got to find out what it is. We’ll go home.
Arthur shook his head.
What’s the matter? she said.
Arthur had shaken his head, not to disagree with her suggestion which he thought was a truly excellent one, one of the world’s great suggestions, but because he was just for a moment trying to free himself of the recurring impression he had that just when he was least expecting it the Universe would suddenly leap out from behind a door and go boo at him.
I’m just trying to get this entirely clear in my mind, said Arthur, you say you felt as if the Earth actually… exploded…
Yes. More than felt.