The Seeds of Time

‘Yes,’ I admitted, at length. ‘I see it in plan, all right. But what I’m finding it really hard to feel is that we-you and Iare both equally-er-valid. I have to accept the theory, at least in the rough, since you are here, but I still feel that I am the real Peter Ruddle, and that you must be the Peter Ruddle I might have been. I suppose that’s a natural subjective view.’

Jean looked up and joined in for the first time.

‘That’s not how I see it, at all. We are the real Peter and Jean. You are what might have happened to Peter….’ She sat looking at me for a long moment, then: ‘Oh, my dear! Why, oh why, did you do it? And you aren’t happy with her, either. I can see that.’

‘This ‘ began the other Peter. Then he broke off as the door opened. Somebody looked in. A woman’s voice said: ‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ and the door shut again. It was hidden from me where I sat. I looked enquiringly at Jean.

‘Mrs Terry,’ she told me.

The other Peter started again: ‘Obviously we’re all equally reaclass="underline" it’s just that you and I normally exist on well, different ribs of the fan.’ He went on expanding that a bit, then he said: ‘Although I’ve done it, I’ve only a very crude notion of how I’ve done it. So I had this idea: you know how one’s mind tends to work in a groove-well, it occurred to me that if I could start one of my “doubles” working on this thing, too, it might lead to a better understanding of it. Obviously our minds must be like enough to be interested in the same kinds of things, but since part of our experience has been different they aren’t like to run in exactly the same grooves of thought-that’s obvious, really, because if our lines of thought were exactly similar you would have made the same discoveries as I have, and you’d have made them at the same time.’

Certainly his tracks of thought were very similar. I have never had a swifter, clearer understanding of what another person was attempting to convey. It was due to more than the mere words. I asked:

‘When do you reckon, in our case, that this fission took place?’

‘I’ve been wondering about that,’ he told me. He held out his left hand. ‘It must have been less than five years ago. We’ve both got the same watch, you see.’

I thought. ‘Well, it must be more than three years ago, because that’s when Freddie Tallboy first showed up here; and, judging by Jean’s question, he doesn’t seem to have shown up at all on your level.’

‘Never heard of him,’ he agreed, shaking his head.

‘You’re lucky,’ I told him, with a glance at Jean.

We thought again.

‘It must have been before your father died, too, because Tallboy was here by then,’ I said to Jean.

But my double shook his head. ‘The old man’s death isn’t a constant. It could have occurred earlier or later in different streams.’

That point had not occurred to me. I tried again: There was a row,’ I said, looking at Jean.

‘A row?’ enquired Jean.

‘You can’t have forgotten that,’ I said, incredulously. “That was the night that finished things between us. After I said I wasn’t going to help your father any more.’

Her eyes opened widely.

‘Finished things!’ she repeated. ‘That was the night we got engaged.’

‘Of course it was, darling,’ my double supported her. I shook my head. ‘It was the night I went and got dead drunk because the world didn’t have any bottom any more,’ I said.

‘Now we’re getting warm,’ observed the other Peter, leaning forward, with the light of the chase in his eye. I did not share his enthusiasm. I was remembering one of the more painful occasions in my life.

‘I told you I’d had enough of helping your father because he would cling pig-headedly to a demonstrably absurd theory,’ I reminded her.

‘And I said you must at least pretend to believe in it because he was getting to be an old man, and another disappointment might do him harm, and the doctor was worried about him anyway.’

I shook my head, decisively.

‘I remember exactly what you said, Jean. You said: “So you’re just as callous as the rest of them; you’re just going to walk out on a poor old man and leave him in the lurch.” Those were your exact words.’ They were both staring at me. ‘We went right on from there,’ I recalled, ‘until I said obstinacy seemed to run in your family, and you said that you were glad to have discovered in time the sort of selfishness and callousness there was in mine.’

‘Oh, no, Peter, never ‘ Jean began.

My double broke in excitedly:

‘That must have been it-that was the moment! I never said anything about obstinacy in Jean’s family. I said I’d give it another trial and do my best to be patient with him.’

We sat silent for a bit. Then Jean said, in a shaky voice: ‘Just that! And so you went and married her instead of me!’ There were almost tears in her eyes. ‘Oh, how dreadful! Oh, Peter, my dear!’