Alan Goodwin - Gravity's Chain

There was quite a spread in the dressing room. From the assortment of cold meats, sandwiches, prawns, dips, spring rolls and breads I chose a miserly mandarin and slowly sucked on the segments one by one. The selection of drinks was even more impressive: soft, hard, medium and indifferent (in other words sherry). There was tequila, of course, but then there’s always tequila wherever I travel. Usually it’s buried in the middle of the inventory sent by the company so as never to raise suspicion of its importance. I drank and sat in an easy chair, but I was far from relaxed and I balanced my glass unsteadily on the arm. There was less than half an hour until the show. Bebe sat opposite, sipping his water bottle like a suckling calf.

‘Have you ever drunk alcohol, Bebe?’

‘I tried it once when I was younger, but I never took to it. After that, I just stuck to water.’

There was a return to our slow silence of the last hour as we sipped our respective drinks. I rubbed a frayed thread on my shirt cuff. ‘Any news from our friends at the Nobel committee?’ I tried sounding nonchalant, but Bebe knew this particular anxiety and smiled at my attempts at lack of interest.

‘Actually it’s gone quiet on that front, but then you’re rather out of the way down here.’

‘Out of sight and out of bloody mind.’

‘I wouldn’t put it quite that way, Jack, but a quiet week from you doesn’t do any harm.’

We ambled our way through a stilted conversation about the company and how it was disposed to me after my little wayward press conference in London. Evidently all was forgiven. I tugged at the thread again. ‘And Driesler, what of our friend Frank Driesler?’

Bebe checked his watch. ‘Nearly time to go. I hope this is going to be a cracker.’

‘What’s happened, Bebe? What has Driesler said?’

‘Nothing, Jack, Driesler hasn’t said anything.’

‘Shit, you’re such a natural politician, Bebe, really. Tell me what’s happened. Just tell me everything you’ve heard about Driesler since we left the UK.’

‘He’s about to publish.’

‘His book?’

Bebe nodded.

‘At last, the long-awaited book that’s going to change the way we all do science, show how we have been wrong these last four hundred years and prove Superforce incorrect. When do we get a copy?’

‘Not sure.’

‘Keep on top of it, Bebe, I want that fucker just as soon as I can get my little hands on it. Shit, I wish I wasn’t stuck down here out of the eye of the storm, I need to be at the centre. I’ll have a lot to say to that bastard. I can’t wait, I can’t bloody wait.’

Finally the thread broke so I rolled it into a tiny ball and flicked it onto the food table before finishing my drink with a single gulp. Bebe’s face relaxed when he sensed the Driesler conversation was going no further.

‘Are you all right, Jack? You seem unusually distracted this evening. Are you nervous?’

‘How do you think the security is down here?’ At last I’d got to the source of angst after my long vulture-like circling over a dying animal.

‘The security?’

‘Yes Bebe, the security. What’s wrong with you today? Have you stopped understanding basic English or have I started speaking in some alien tongue? I’m talking about the big bastards with number one haircuts and bits of plastic in their ears that make them look like outcasts from a deaf association Christmas gathering. Perhaps you could ask one for his earpiece—it might help you hear better. Now do you know whom I’m talking about? Good, now tell me if you think they’re up to their job. Am I safe, Bebe? I want to know if I’m safe.’

‘Of course you’re safe.’

‘Well Bebe, my fine English-educated Indian friend, I don’t feel fucking safe.’ I stood up and poured a drink, which I drained immediately. ‘In fact I feel decidedly unsafe. Take today as an example. When I entered the theatre, someone was watching me. I’m sure someone was watching me.’ I shivered at the memory. I hadn’t actually seen anyone, but I just knew. And there was a reason why they were there.

‘I’m sure there were a lot of people there, waiting for you. You’re very popular, Jack. My God, this happens everywhere we go.’

‘Someone is stalking me, Bebe. Last night when I went out for dinner with my schoolmates there was someone just on my shoulder, watching. They were there when Jo and I got in the car last night and here tonight. All it takes is for him or her to have a gun and I’m history. They get their Oswald moment, take me out and get famous. You know, I don’t begrudge them the fame—I mean fame is good, fame is cool, I like the fame—but what I don’t like, what I struggle with, is dying. Can you understand that? I’m just not sold on the idea of having my brains plastered over a brick wall. So, I’d like you to talk to the security guys. I want you to make sure they’re on top of their job. Make sure they know what protection is, because Bebe, I’m being stalked and I don’t like it. In fact, it’s freaking me out and I’m sure the company doesn’t want me freaking out, does it?’

‘Keep calm, Jack. I’ll talk to the security. Everything’s fine, everything’s cool…’

A knock interrupted his answer, but he still kept nodding his agreement to my request as he opened the door. I think I’d convinced him of my concern. Well, I like to think of it as concern, though perhaps it was closer to panic. I’d always been comfortable on planet fame. Suddenly, for the first time, I wanted to pull down the shutters and say the shop was closed. I was wary of everyone and even sitting in the dressing room I felt like shrinking when the door opened.

A young man with a shaved head and thick-rimmed black glasses poked his head in. He wore headphones, one cup on one ear, the other on a cheek. This was my call so I drained my glass and followed. Bebe patted my back as though his comfort was enough to protect me from whatever hostile acts awaited. The corridor was dark for a short distance, then lit. This heightened my sense of vulnerability and I walked close to the wall hoping it might offer some protection. A strong smell of cleaner from the floor stung my nose and turned my stomach. I thought of cancelling, I even ran through the various illnesses I might fake to convince Bebe of the sincerity of my complaint. But I knew there was no turning back so continued through to the other side of a door where all was dark and a pencil torch from the young man lit the way to my mark. We were backstage, just metres from exposure on stage. A single shot was all it would take. Just a single shot and I’d be gone.

Two taps on my shoulder told me my face microphone was now connected. The first chords of Pink Floyd’s ‘In the Flesh?’ crashed out, the floor trembled and a green haze from the stage lights filtered to where I stood, casting me in a ghoulish glow. When the guitar changed pace and moved from chords to a melody line I felt a tap on the top of my head and followed my cue to walk on stage. Applause greeted my appearance and as I reached centre-stage the green lights turned white and swung onto me in perfect synchronisation. The music died, the applause died and I was alone.

‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Jack Mitchell. Welcome to my world.’ As I walked across the stage a huge three-piece screen at the rear slowly lit to show Michelangelo’s ‘God drinking the waters of the earth’ from the Sistine Chapel ceiling. ‘I’d like to take you on a journey this evening, a journey through time and space, through history, through art and literature, a journey through the present and the future. This is a journey through our science and our culture. It will explain where we’ve come from and where we’re going. It will explain who we are and who we are to become. It will explain how we do science and what science does for us. Our world is a scientific world and our future is a scientific one.’ The screen dissolved into a million dots and reformed into the Hubble telescope picture of interstellar hydrogen clouds, looking like brown muddy streaks in a green pool of water. That picture dissolved and reformed into a picture of a bearded face. ‘Galileo, the father of science, let us begin with him,’ I announced.