Arcadia

64

As the train lumbered along, I sat in the dimly lit and blessedly empty carriage and reassembled my calculations. The massive run of chance events which both brought the Devil’s Handwriting into existence and stopped it being destroyed made me realise that a simple solution was no longer available. It was not that I would be unable to try again, perhaps, but I calculated that random events would again prevent me from being successful. The chances of everything turning out as it had, I reckoned, were tiny, almost as small as the chances the computer simulation had calculated of avoiding nuclear war. In fact, I realised as we passed through Swindon, it was highly likely that they were identical, that the one was an inverse image of the other, on the microscopic scale.

A surge of excitement ran through me. What an idea that was! Now, if I could only pin it down and produce the maths that would firmly link the two, then I would have a really interesting paper to present to...

Well, to whom, exactly? No one could understand it where I was, and in the not too distant future everyone who might do so was likely to be wiped out. Was I responsible for that? I had to bear my share of blame. But (I reassured myself) I had not brought the Devil’s Handwriting into existence, nor did I ensure its survival, nor did I use it. That strand of things was independent of me. I had established to my satisfaction, after all, that if my creation of Anterwold was generating a nuclear war, the nuclear war was simultaneously generating Anterwold.

I had neither the time nor the energy to do the calculations. Even thinking as much as I did had to be squeezed in between stops at railway halts, where I looked out of the window anxiously to see if any policemen were standing there, waiting for me.

They weren’t. Even at Oxford there was no one and I walked out of the station a free woman, then took a taxi up to Henry’s house.

I let myself in, drew the curtains, then collapsed in exhaustion on the settee in Henry’s study. I was so tired. I should have done something, but all my spirit had left me.

There was nothing I could do. I heard the sound of footsteps. It had to be one of Wind’s people. I prepared to meet my fate. Accessory to treason or some such?

The door opened and Rosie put her head through. I could have kissed her, I was so relieved.

‘So what is going on?’ Rosie asked.

‘Well, Henry has probably been arrested as a spy and I am a fugitive. I don’t have the Devil’s Handwriting, I can’t destroy it and the world is about to descend into nuclear war. Apart from that... How are you?’

‘The Professor has been arrested as a spy? Why would anyone think that?’

‘Maybe he is. How should I know?’

‘Don’t you care?’

‘Not in the slightest. I am a bit worried about what Wind might do to him. I really don’t want him locked up for the next decade. I need his help.’

‘What are you going to do?’

For the first time, Angela frightened her. She had always seemed so competent. Now she looked defeated.

‘I can’t do much about Henry; even looking after myself will be hard. If I stay here then Sam Wind will lock me up as well. I’d be stymied in a prison cell.’

‘How much time do you need?’

‘A decade at least, but even if I don’t spend it in prison, we are likely to have a holocaust before I can figure out a new approach.’

‘Why?’

‘Probability. The probability that the Devil’s Handwriting survives, that it falls into the wrong hands and that it is used to clear the world for colonisation. They think they are going to let off a bomb in an alternative past. In fact it will be this one, and perhaps soon.’

‘Surely—’

‘It’s simple, I think. What will happen if a nuclear bomb goes off in Berlin? The Russians will know they didn’t do it, the Americans will know they didn’t either. Each will assume the other is starting hostilities and let rip with everything they have. They want an empty world to colonise and this is the easiest way to get one. Cheap, simple and efficient.’

‘That’s what’s going to happen?’

Angela nodded. ‘I think so. I’ve been going about it the wrong way, you see. Anterwold isn’t just the cause of a war, it’s the consequence of it as well. I can’t shut down Anterwold unless I shut down the ultimate causes of its existence.’

‘You created it.’

‘We are all creatures of history.’

‘How long do we have?’

‘I would guess any time in the next seventy-five years. More or less. I can’t say more precisely than that.’

‘Could you stop it? If you had time?’

‘Where there’s life, there’s hope.’

‘Then you must go into Anterwold. You’d have all the time you need.’

‘I can’t. I can’t influence my future from a different one. I have to be on the same line. As this is the last moment which is connected to both, I will have to stay here. I’ll go back to France and lie low. I’ll have Chang to help, of course, and that will be useful. Assuming he survives, poor fellow.’

‘He’ll be fine. I rang the hospital. What about me?’

Angela smiled thoughtfully. ‘You want to help?’

Rosie hesitated, then nodded.

‘For some reason that makes me very happy.’ She paused, then became practical once more. ‘If I understand your peculiar educational system here, you can leave school next year?’

‘Yes.’

‘If John Kennedy wins the election next month, we have at least until October 1962, I think. That’s the Cuban missile crisis. If we get through that then we might well be safe until 1976. If Nixon wins, then everything becomes unpredictable, but at least I will be sure that history is changing seriously. Assuming all goes well, though, then in nine months’ time you can leave school, pack your bags and come and live with me in the South of France. How about that? I’ve got plenty of money and Chang’s perfectly pleasant once you get to know him.’

‘That sounds lovely.’

‘It will be. Unless we fail, in which case it won’t be lovely at all. But then we can gather as many people as possible and head off into Anterwold. I should add that I can’t think of any reason why you shouldn’t go now, if you really wanted to.’

Rosie shook her head. ‘No. I’ve thought about that. A lot. But as you keep on telling me, I’m there already. One’s company.’

‘Two’s a crowd?’

Rosie smiled. ‘A complication. The other me will be happy because I am here with my parents. Someone will have to look after Jenkins if Professor Lytten is in jail. I have a life here. It’s not brilliant, I sometimes think, but, you know...’

‘In that case, we had better succeed,’ Angela said. ‘Come on. I’ll walk you home. There’s nothing more to do here tonight, and I must get out of the country as quickly as possible. I need to pack and find my passport.’

A few minutes later the two left the house, and Angela locked the door carefully. ‘Quite a day,’ she said. ‘Let’s see how tomorrow entertains us.’