I nodded.
‘And you wouldn’t expect the gas to cramp itself up in the left-hand side again, would you?’
‘No’
‘Ah!’ replied Mycroft with a smile ‘Not quite right. You see, since every interaction of gas atoms is reversible, some time, sooner or later, the gas must cramp itself back into the left-hand side!’
‘It must?’
‘Yes, the key here is how much later. Since even a small box of gas might contain 1020 atoms, the time taken for them to try all possible combinations would be far greater than the age of the universe, a decrease in entropy strong enough to allow gas to separate, a shattered glass to re-form or the statue of St Zvlkx outside to get down and walk to the pub is not, I think, against any physical laws but just fantastically unlikely.’
‘So what you are saying is that really, really weird coincidences are caused by a drop in entropy?’
‘Exactly so. But it’s only a theory. Why entropy might spontaneously decrease and how one might conduct experiments into localised entropic field decreasement. I have only a few untried notions that I won’t trouble you with here, but look, take this—it could save your life.’
He passed me a sealed jam jar, the contents of which were half rice and half lentils.
‘I’m not hungry, thanks,’ I told him.
‘No, no I call this device an entroposcope. Shake it for me.’
I shook the jamjar and the rice and lentils settled together in that sort of random clumping way that chance usually dictates.
‘So?’ I asked.
‘Entirely usual,’ replied Mycroft. ‘Standard clumping, entropy levels normal. Shake it every now and then. You’ll know when a decrease in entropy occurs as the rice and lentils will separate into more ordered patterns—and that’s the time to watch out for ludicrously unlikely coincidences.’
Polly entered the workshop and gave her husband a hug.
‘Hello, you two,’ she said. ‘Having fun?’
‘I’m showing Thursday what I’ve been up to, my dear,’ replied Mycroft graciously.
‘Did you show her your memory erasure device, Crofty?’
‘No, he didn’t,’ I said.
‘Yes I did,’ replied Mycroft with a smile, adding: ‘You’re going to have to leave me, pet—I’ve work to do. I retire in fifty-six minutes precisely.’
My father didn’t turn up that evening, much to my mother’s disappointment. At five minutes to ten Mycroft, true to his word, and with Polly behind him, emerged from his laboratory to join us for dinner. Next family dinners are always noisy affairs and tonight was no different. Landen sat next to Orville and did a very good impression of someone who was trying not to be bored. Joffy, who was next to Wilbur, thought his new job was utter crap and Wilbur, who had been needled by Joffy for at least three decades, replied that he thought the Global Standard Deity faith was the biggest load of phoney codswallop he had ever come across.
‘Ah,’ replied Joffy loftily, ‘wait until you meet the Brotherhood of Unconstrained Verbosity.’
Gloria and Charlotte always sat next to one another, Gloria to talk about something trivial and Charlotte to agree with her. Mum and Polly talked about the Women’s Federation and I sat next to Mycroft.
‘What will you do in your retirement, Uncle?’
‘I don’t know, pet. I have some books I’ve been wanting to write for some time.’
‘About your work?’
‘Much too dull. Can I try an idea out on you?’
‘Sure.’
He smiled, looked around, lowered his voice and leaned closer.
‘Okay, here it is: brilliant young surgeon Dexter Colt starts work at the highly efficient yet underfunded children’s hospital doing pioneering work on relieving the suffering of orphaned amputees. The chief nurse is the headstrong yet beautiful Tiffany Lampe. Tiffany has only recently recovered from her shattered love affair with anaesthetist Dr Burns and—’
‘—they fall in love?’ I ventured.
Mycroft’s face fell.
‘You’ve heard it, then?’
‘The bit about the orphaned amputees is good,’ I added, trying not to dishearten him. ‘What are you going to call it?’
‘I thought of Love among the Orphans. What do you think?’
By the end of the meal Mycroft had outlined several of his books to me, each one with a plot more lurid than the last. At the same time Joffy and Wilbur had come to blows in the garden, discussing the sanctity of peace and forgiveness amid the thud of fists and the crunch of broken noses.
At midnight Mycroft took Polly in his arms and thanked us all for coming.
‘I have spent my entire life in pursuit of scientific truth and enlightenment,’ he announced grandly, ‘answers to conundrums and unifying theories of everything. Perhaps I should have spent the time going out more. In fifty-four years neither Polly nor myself has ever taken a holiday, so that is where we’re off to now.’
We walked into the garden, the family wishing Mycroft and Polly well on their travels. Outside the door of the workshop they stopped and looked at one another, then at all of us.
‘Well, thanks for the party,’ said Mycroft. ‘Pear soup followed by pear stew with pear sauce and finishing with bombs surprise—which was pear—was quite a treat. Unusual, but quite a treat. Look after MycroTech while I’m away, Wilbur, and thanks for all the meals, Wednesday. Right, that’s it,’ concluded Mycroft. ‘We’re off Toodle-oo.’
‘Enjoy yourselves,’ I said.
‘Oh, we will!’ he said, bidding us all goodbye again and disappearing into the workshop. Polly kissed us all, waved farewell and followed him, closing the door behind her.
‘It won’t be the same without him and his daft projects, will it?’ said Landen
‘No,’ I replied. ‘It’s—’
I felt a strong tingling sensation as a noiseless white light erupted from within the workshop and shone in pencil-thin beams from every crack and rivet hole, each speck of grime showing up on the dirty windows, every crack in the glass suddenly alive with a rainbow of colours. We winced and shielded our eyes, but no sooner had the light started than it had gone again, faded to nothing in a crackle of electricity. Landen and I exchanged looks and stepped forward. The door opened easily and we stood there, staring into the large and now very empty workshop. Every single piece of equipment had gone. Not a screw, not a bolt, not a washer.
‘He isn’t just going to write romantic novels in his retirement,’ observed Joffy.
‘Most probably he just took it all so no one else would carry on with his work. Mycroft’s scruples were the equal of his intellect.’
My mother was sitting on an upturned wheelbarrow, her dodos clustered around her on the off-chance of a marshmallow.
‘They’re not coming back,’ said my mother sadly. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I know.’
7. White Horse, Uffington, Picnics for the Use of
‘We decided that “Parke-Laine-Next” was a bit of a mouthful, so I kept my surname and he kept his. I called myself “Ms” instead of “Miss”, but nothing else changed. I liked being called his wife in the same way I liked calling Landen my husband. It felt sort of tingly. I had the same feeling when I stared at my wedding ring. They say you get used to it but I hoped that they were wrong. Marriage, like spinach and opera, was something I had never thought I would like. I changed my mind about opera when I was nine years old. My father took me to the first night of Madame Butterfly at Brescia in 1904. After the performance Dad cooked while Puccini regaled me with hilarious stories and signed my autograph book—from that day on I was a devoted fan. In the same way, it took being in love with Landen to make me change my mind about marriage. I found it exciting and exhilarating, two people, together, as one. It was where I was meant to be. I was happy, I was contented, I was fulfilled.