The Matter of Europe E-Book

Stephanie Percival

• Herausgeber: HetMoet-Menard Press
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 159

Beschreibung

Eleven year old Simeon Isherwood is locked inside himself - can neither walk nor talk. When he undergoes a radical new gene therapy, it seems as though he can finally make contact with the world. But Simeon, used to the tranquility of his inner world, finds himself in agony, the anxiety of new sensations and experiences catching the attention of a mysterious entity - a being god-like and aloof from humanity, which to heal the pain of a young mind it sees as its offspring.When it does, the results are catastrophic.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title

Copyright

Acknowledgements

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

XVIII

XIX

XX

XXI

XXII

THE MATTER

STEPHANIE PERCIVAL

Published by Cinnamon Press

Meirion House

Tanygrisiau

Blaenau Ffestiniog

Gwynedd

LL41 3SU

www.cinnamonpress.com

The right of Stephanie Percival to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988. © 2019 Stephanie Percival.

ISBN 978-1-78864-087-9

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A CIP record for this book can be obtained from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publishers. This book may not be lent, hired out, resold or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the publishers.

Designed and typeset in Garamond by Cinnamon Press. Cover design by Adam Craig © Adam Craig from original artwork stone figure detail: 'Scarface' © Kaplan69, Dreamstime.

Cinnamon Press is represented by Inpress and by the Welsh Books Council in Wales.

The publisher acknowledges the support of the Welsh Books Council.

Acknowledgements

In early 2015, I attended one of the inspiring Writers’ retreats in North Wales, led by Jan Fortune of Cinnamon Press. I took the first pages of ‘the matter’ for a feedback session. The reaction from the other writers was positive…Thanks for that! Also Jan liked it and, at that early stage, said she would publish it once finished. Thanks Jan, for your belief, support and for keeping your promise.

A Big Thank you to all of the Cinnamon Press team, and if you love the cover design as much as I do…that’s down to Adam Craig. Thanks Adam.  

My family and friends have supported me with my writing from the start. So Thanks go to all of you, and to everybody who has read my work and given encouragement and feedback… It makes all the difference.

You can connect with Stephanie on Facebook: StephaniePercival—Author, or on her website: www.stephaniepercival.com

I

Imagine, if you will, a clenched fist. And as the fingers unfurl an object is revealed. It looks like a hand grenade and indeed it is about to explode. This is a metaphor for the creation of the universe. The beginning... The Big Bang.

Now we must ask, to whom does the metaphorical fist belong? I suggest an entity of energy, no face, no speech. Perhaps if you have a mathematical brain you might consider it another dimension but if you are a story-teller you might give it a form similar to a human or you might want to call it God. That is entirely up to you. For the purposes of this narrative it will be termed ‘entity’.

Now imagine another fist. This is also clenched but it is made of skin and bone and blood vessels, and is recognisable as a man’s hand. In it is a pebble picked from a jungle floor. The fist belongs to Professor Ambrose Isherwood. Ambrose is wishing he were explaining the beginning of the universe to his child rather than the group of strangers surrounding him. Or perhaps he should just give in and head back to his real work, trying to discover subatomic particles under the Yorkshire hills.

Slowly he unfurls his fist and says, ‘The universe started as a small object of huge density, then at the Big Bang it expanded into the universe we know today.’

‘Wow, that’s amazin’ Rambo,’ a blonde actress says, touching his hand. He cringes at the touch and winces at the moniker he has been given since he wore a bandana for one of the challenges. He is more used to being addressed as Professor or Sir, but realises he is now part of a world, a microcosm, where they speak another language and have different rules of engagement. For the first time since landing in the ‘Celeb Jungle’ he is feeling his age.

Ambrose avoids tabloids, which describe him as ‘the silver fox of science’. But the strapline is difficult to escape. He is the most popular scientist of the day, renowned for his energetic and daring style of presentation while rock climbing or scuba diving; carrying out experiments on his blood or lung capacity, sticking needles into himself while skydiving or motor racing.

‘How can summat like that become the whole universe?’ Mallory continues. Her fingers remain on his arm. She is barefoot and, even though he is six foot tall, she looms above him.

When Ambrose does these promotional stunts he sometimes questions how he ended up here, pandering to celeb culture. He ponders how in thousands of years Homo sapiens has developed technology such as TV and computers and satellites, the ability to travel quickly across the globe and into space and yet most humans have not got much further than survival and pleasure-seeking.

The other thing about this particular scenario is that it is completely contrived, a little snippet dreamed up by the production team. He feels more like a rat in someone else’s experiment each day, and longs for home and his own research project.

Ambrose sighs, he is having difficulty concentrating. He is aware of Mallory’s enhanced breasts bulging from the skimpy bikini. He suspects Mallory and several of the others have had botox because, though they are all younger than his sixty-four years, their expressions don’t change. It is like being circled by a gang of zombies.

He takes a breath and continues, ‘It comes down to the way the universe behaves today; it follows the laws of quantum mechanics and relativity. E equals m, c squared. You’ve heard of that haven’t you?’

There are some shakes of the head. He looks at the blank, beautiful faces watching him. Either they don’t know or nobody is going to own up to being a swot. Ambrose sighs and looks at the stone in his palm. There is a rime of dirt under his fingernails. This does not bother him, he has been in much worse situations physically; grimier, in pain, in peril even. It is his mental state that has never been so troubled. He smoothes the pebble in his hand, imagining its atomic construction and wishes he was at home.

On the other side of the globe; his wife, Kate, is also having a difficult day. She is trying to get her son ready before she goes to work.

‘Come on, Simeon,’ she says, trying not to shout. Her fist is clenched around the handle of a toddler spoon, trying to get porridge in to Simeon’s mouth. But every time it gets near he flails an arm and jerks his head. Simeon is eleven and confined in a specialised chair, with straps to hold his body still. Mostly, he keeps his eyes closed, when he opens them there are shapes and figures that swim at him in a blur. He is not conscious of the food, just that something is being pushed at him. ‘Simeon. Please come on. I’m going to be late.’ Simeon hears the words but does not connect with them... In his head is just white noise, which moves around. Sometimes it becomes unbearable in its intensity making him react physically, and at other times it is a gentle lapping. For a short while everything had been going too fast, the noise accompanied by flashing images rushing through his brain. So he screams.

Kate feels the urge to scream too but she draws in a deep breath and mutters ‘patience, patience.’ She knows that the more anxious she is, the more unsettled Simeon becomes but, even after eleven years, she finds it difficult.

‘Simeon, please,’ says Kate, putting the spoon down and wiping Simeon’s face with a moist cloth.

He does not understand time, the need for hurry. And if he screams, the rushing around him usually slows. Then things return to their natural rhythm, one his body can accommodate...

‘Where the hell is Marietta?’ asks Kate to herself. ‘Marietta!’ she calls, in the vain hope that the child minder has arrived.

Marietta is kneeling in a church about a mile from the Isherwood residence. Her hands are not clenched but pressed together in prayer. Entwined between her fingers is a chain of beads. Marietta has her eyes tightly shut as she prays. Her prayer, before she goes to work, is always the same, that Jesus should help the boy she cares for. ‘I know it is your will, Father,’ she murmurs, ‘But please, in your everlasting power, help little Simeon.’ The beads between her fingers have become warm. They feel heavier as she prays as if the words bind with them, concentrating her plea. She loves the church at this time in the morning; the scent of incense still lingers and makes the air heavy with a holy presence. When she opens her eyes she sees the light shine through the stained glass in coloured bands. Dust motes swirl in the air and between those bands in the shadow she thinks she can see the finger of God pointing at her. She would usually light a candle but she does not have time this morning. Mrs Isherwood doesn’t want to be late to work; she has been held up several times already this month. Marietta has said she will get to the Isherwood House early. She thinks it unlikely it will make a difference to Kate leaving on time, some untoward occurrence always intervenes. Marietta genuflects, crosses herself and then hurries outside. Her sensible shoes pat-pat across the tiles on her way out. She pulls her headscarf more tightly around her head and makes her way up the hill.

Marietta enters the house by the back door into what was called the gunroom, not that it has seen a gun for many years. She hangs up her coat and changes into her indoor shoes.

She comes into the kitchen smiling and efficient, ready to do her day’s work. Thanking God for keeping her busy, after all, ‘Idle hands do the Devil’s work.’

‘Good morning, Mrs Isherwood,’ she greets Kate, hardly acknowledging her presence, her attention already focused entirely on the screaming child. ‘Now what’s the matter, my little man?’ she coos at Simeon and her gentle tone does seem to have an effect as he stops screaming and whimpers instead.

Marietta always thinks Mrs Isherwood looks tired. She is attractive for her age but her eyes are a little odd, one wide and open and the other with a squint. Marietta thinks this a result of looking down microscopes for too many years. To her it seems a very odd choice of career. She knows Kate works for a research lab, which has something to do with genetic investigation, while Ambrose is searching for some sort of ‘God particle’. But who needs to know how people are put together or how the world was created, when in truth everybody knows in their heart that God is responsible for the wonders of creation. She has a children’s Bible that she used to read to her own daughter and now she reads to Simeon. But she always waits until Kate has gone to work.

‘Shall I take over?’ Marietta asks holding her hand out for the bowl and spoon. Kate relinquishes them, not with the relief she might have expected but with a resignation that she really isn’t up to the job of motherhood.

‘You’re too old to be a mother!’ her own mother had told her when Kate announced her pregnancy. ‘You should have considered your biological clock before now. It’s completely selfish. Just think how old you’ll be when he’s twenty. You and Ambrose will be dead before he’s even lived half his life.’ And when Simeon was born with a genetic disorder she could sense her mother’s desperate urge to say, ‘I told you so.’

Today Kate feels old. She sighs as she changes her blouse, soiled with porridge from Simeon’s breakfast. She finds it increasingly difficult to make even the most basic decisions these days. She had taken time to choose her first outfit and is now unsettled by the change. She looks critically at herself in the mirror, noticing only lines and flabby flesh, the roll of fat along the top of her waist-band, the drooping boobs and wrinkled skin at her throat. This year will mark her fiftieth birthday; she can’t bring herself to say ‘celebrate’. It feels as if she’s climbing an Escher staircase, endlessly trudging around, getting nowhere except older. She doesn’t like it when Ambrose is away, and now he seems to be away more and more. That is the nature of marrying a celebrity scientist. She shrugs, and pushes a strand of grey hair behind her ear, regretting she has not had time to have it coloured.

Anyway, there is never enough time in her day. She is either getting Simeon up or preparing him for bed or waking up at night to check on him or getting herself ready for meetings or trying to read a journal to keep up-to-date with the latest research or filling in forms or talking to carers or people on phones, arranging appointments...

She goes back downstairs to find Simeon eating his breakfast quite calmly.

Simeon likes the smell in the air. It is heavy and woody. Incense clings to Marietta’s clothes and hair; it envelops her... He does not know the smell emanates from Marietta but is aware of the fragrance wafting about when she is present. It tickles his nose and makes him laugh. When he opens his eyes he sees an expanse of blue. It washes over his vision like a wave. Marietta likes the colour, which she associates with ‘Our Lady’. She has a full palette of blue garments in her wardrobe. Today she wears a sapphire blouse and navy trousers... A crucifix hangs over her bosom and turns in the light. Simeon sees it glimmer and tries to grab at it. As usual his co-ordination is off, so it is simply a wave in the air.

‘What is it you see, little one?’ Marietta asks.

Kate watches the pair from the door; they look like a painted scene in a frame, one she is excluded from. Marietta must sense her hovering because she speaks to her without turning.

‘Did you see Mr Isherwood on the television last night?’ Then she changes the tone of her voice and speaks to Simeon, ‘Did you see your Daddy on the TV, he looks so handsome. He is so clever.’

Simeon does not answer; he does not understand the question or recognise the words TV or Daddy. Other things occupy his thoughts. He is chasing specks across the spaces in his brain. He can appreciate the restriction of his harness and without it senses his body would lift and blend with the shadows around him.

Kate is glad for the interruption of the grandfather clock in the hall chiming eight. She is already late.

She doesn’t tell Marietta that she watched and recorded the programme and then re-watched it, fast-forwarding it to every frame with Ambrose in. It briefly made her feel closer to him. But when she finally switched off and went to bed, the expanse of uninhabited mattress was too large without the bulk of Ambrose beside her, and she couldn’t sleep.

She hardly sees Ambrose, and now he is in a jungle flirting with models and actresses half his age. Sometimes she even jokes with him that asking questions during a Q & A session after one of his lectures is the only time they speak. It is one of those jokes which is becoming too close to the truth to be amusing.

Kate gives Simeon a kiss before she leaves. ‘Bye, sweetheart,’ she says, ‘Sorry, I’ve got to rush.’ Simeon is sometimes aware of the hurry around him. Figures outlined in blurred brightness like films taken on long exposure. The other familiar figure is Marietta. He likes feeling her hand on his forehead and her calmer presence, as if she is in rhythm with his breathing... He sometimes says, ‘Mmm,’ which Marietta likes to think she taught him. Kate is sure he is trying to say ‘Mummy.’ In fact, it means nothing, but is all the sound, beside a scream, that Simeon can make. And it is a comforting sound as he vibrates the air on his lips.

II

The entity existed before everything. Before nothing. It moves as entities can through time and space; immortal, invisible. Although present within the Universe it has created, it remains at a distance like a shadow hovering. It has no concept of the sort of time humanity has invented. The sort of time that equations are made of.

As Kate drives to the research institute she is not aware of anything other than the road and buildings she drives past each day. They have become so familiar that they are an unseen backdrop. She does not switch the radio on as she sometimes does; today she wants a little space, a pause from the anxiety at home and the bustle of the lab.

Her pause is all too brief. The red and white barrier to the car park looms ahead of her. She winds the window down and slots her pass into the automated machine.

Then her usual routine of entering the modern lab block, a good morning to Barry at reception and up in the elevator to the third floor.

Her office is a small space she shares with three others. It is still cluttered with old office furniture and filing cabinets, which have yet to be replaced years after the transfer to the modern research building. On her desk, just visible behind a stack of papers, is a dusty frame. It holds a photo of Simeon, age four, with Ambrose. Simeon is smiling as usual.

Kate puts her briefcase on the desk, causing a cascade on the computer keyboard, the monitor and the papers, so the frame gets pushed into the wall and is completely obscured. Kate does not notice.