Today’s performance is a personal favourite, the opening movement of Bach’s Concerto for French Horn. As he plays, Ruprecht imagines two elegant beings on the other side of the universe putting down the books they are reading and beaming in delight as the lovely music unspools through their futuristic radio; one makes a shall we? face to the other, then they hop into their spaceship – cut to New York, a podium, on which the polite aliens and the enterprising youngster who brought them here are celebrated by the worl–
The scream of static is so unbelievably loud it knocks Ruprecht clear off his chair. For a moment he remains there, pinned to the ground by the sheer noise of it – then, with some difficulty, as his fingers are in his ears, he begins to crawl towards the Oscillator, from which a German voice now issues, declaring, at the same insane volume, something about Bockwurst? Until, mercifully, the power cuts out.
Silence: Ruprecht pants on the floor, curled up like a foetus in the darkness. A moment later, the lights come back on, and with them the TV, the computers and every other appliance in the room – though not the Oscillator, which is now smoking guiltily. Ruprecht bends down to examine it, then drops it with a cry, nursing his burned fingers. A wave of frustration surges through him. What is wrong with it? Why won’t it work? Useless, it’s all useless: or rather he is useless – stupid, useless and dull, so what’s the point of even trying? He kicks the Van Doren Wave Oscillator across the room, where it comes to rest, still smouldering, against the foot-unit of Protectron 3000, then throws himself despairingly into his chair.
‘Sometimes the reason we do not see the answer is that we are looking too closely at the question,’ a voice says.
Ruprecht looks up with a start. On the TV, which has come on by itself, is a familiar face – wrinkled and brown like a nut, possessed of eyes of an extraordinary opalescence, whose irises seem to glitter as though performing some labyrinthine calculation.
‘All this time, I realized, the complexities of the problem had distracted me from what lay behind it,’ the face says. ‘The addition of a further dimension makes everything clear once again. It presents us with a reality that is at once simple, and of an almost impossible beauty.’
‘Holy shit,’ says Ruprecht.
An almost impossible beauty. Dancing back and forth, glittering like a runaway star through the dowdy greys of autumn – Skippy can’t tear himself away, even as a series of loudening clumps, thumps and pants, as of someone overweight making his way up a staircase two steps at a time, issue from outside, until finally Ruprecht, burnished with sweat, bursts in and blurts, somewhat opaquely, ‘Multiverse’ – before realizing what Skippy is doing: ‘My telescope!’ he cries.
‘Sorry –’
‘It’s not supposed to be moved.’ Ruprecht fusses him away, jealously seizing the barrel.
‘I thought I saw a UFO,’ Skippy says.
‘It’s not even pointed at the sky,’ Ruprecht rebukes. He addresses himself to the eyepiece to make sure; there is nothing to be seen at the far end except a St Brigid’s girl with a frisbee in the yard over the wall. ‘Anyway –’ he retracts himself, remembering why he ran up here all the way from the basement ‘– that’s not important. What’s important is this. It appears that our universe may not be the only universe there is. We may be just one of an infinite number of universes, drifting through the eleventh dimension!’
‘Wow,’ says Skippy.
‘I know!’ Ruprecht says excitably. ‘Eleven dimensions! When everyone thought there were only ten!’
He goes on in this vein, circling and recircling between the beds, smacking his forehead and exclaiming things like watershed and stupendous. But Skippy doesn’t hear him. Looking through the telescope, he is watching the frisbee girl again as she runs back and forth over the gravel, jumping and twisting mid-air, upstretching her arm to catch the disc and spinning it off again before her feet even touch the ground, laughing as she scoops strands of dark hair out of her mouth… She seems so much brighter than everything around her, a fragment of summer that’s somehow found its way into October; at the same time, she makes everything around her brighter too – she makes it all fit together somehow, like in a musical where someone bursts into song and everyone else starts singing as well – not just the other girls but the trees, the walls, the gravel of the yard, Ruprecht, even Skippy himself at the telescope –
A howl from behind shatters his reverie. Dennis and Mario have sneaked in and wedgied Ruprecht; discussion of the eleventh dimension is suspended as its main proponent in the room rolls around the floor scrabbling at his underpants.
‘Whatcha lookin’ at, there, Skipford?’ Before Skippy can redirect the telescope, he finds he’s been shouldered out of the way; Dennis, with his eye to the glass, launches into a series of bell-ringing, steam-whistling-from-ears-type noises. ‘Whoo-ee, sexy lady!’
‘What, let me look,’ and now Mario is in on the action. ‘Hubba hubba, that is a nice piece of ass.’
‘Wait till you see her bazoongas – hey look, Skippy’s blushing! What’s the matter, Skippy? Is she your girlfriend?’
‘What are you talking about,’ Skippy says disgustedly, although this is not very convincing as he’s turned bright red.
‘Look, Mario, look, Ruprecht, Skippy doesn’t like it when you talk about his girlfriend – is that because you love her, Skippy? Because you love her, and want to marry her, and kiss her and hug her and hold her hand, and say, “I wuv woo, woo are my girlfriend –” ’
‘I have no idea what you’re on about.’
‘I wonder if this smoking-hot girl will be going to the Hop,’ Mario ponders.
‘You think she’ll be at the Hop?’ Skippy lighting up like a Christmas tree.
‘There will be no shortage of hot bitches at this Hop,’ Mario says. ‘Furthermore, the girls of St Brigid’s are famed for their slutty ways. They will be like skittles, waiting to be bowled over by Mario’s big balls.’
‘I wonder if she’ll be there,’ Skippy says.
‘Skippy, you’re dreaming if you think a girl like that’ll go anywhere near a loser like you.’ Dennis has got Mario in a headlock and is bouncing up and down.
‘Let go of me, you bummer,’ gurgles Mario.
‘What’s that, Mario? I can’t hear you, speak a little louder?’
‘Who’s TR Roche?’ Ruprecht has risen from the floor and is peering at the label on an amber tube in his hand.
‘Yeah, and why are there clothes thrown all over the bed?’ Mario says, belatedly noticing the chaotic state of the room. ‘And this big bag?’
‘Yeah, Skip, what’s with the bag? Mid-term is next week.’
‘Are you planning a trip somewhere?’
Skippy regards tube and bag in apparent mystification. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
Friday at last. Within an hour of the final bell, the halls of the school are bare: the boys gone home, the teachers relocated to the Ferry, a small pub in the lee of the school that has long been the local for Seabrook faculty – to the perpetual dismay of the proprietor, who has seen the lucrative underage market decamp elsewhere.