Exactly thirty minutes before Mr Drewer had been handed the report by a very startled Tim Watkins Helen had been beginning to get the hang of this whole assignment thing. She was finding that it wasn’t that the tasks sounded complicated, because by and large they didn’t. It did surprise her though how difficult it could be to do something that sounded as if it should be inconsequential or easy at first glance. The fact that these actions could have some kind of major bearing on the collective fate of the world just served to compound the frustration and it still didn’t quite sit quite right with her. She did get the whole theory behind it all, but the chain of events that could be set off or avoided by even the simplest intervention boggled her mind more than a little. It was almost as if everything you had ever said or done in the past might actually have affected the fate of nations. Of course it was more likely that it had just contributed to the general chaos of the universe, but you couldn’t help but wonder what your impact might have been once the concept is explained to you. Tobias had assured her that this was perfectly normal, but that the ratio of meaningful chaos to actual chaos was very, very small.
Most of our lives were just another stream of chaotic chance encounters, random events and interactions that meant nothing to anyone other than us and those around us. All set amidst an almost limitless number of other encounters, events and interactions that all combine to be what we generally refer to as ’life’. It struck Helen that to say that ’life is complicated’ was actually probably the most extreme underestimation of a situation as she could imagine being possible.
Right now she had been tasked with holding up a queue at the chemists by counting out small change to pay for something. The important part was that she was to delay the person behind her, who according to the file was called Benjamin N’Tula, by at least two minutes. It didn’t matter apparently if she went over that time, as long as she delayed him for at least two minutes.
If she had followed the report earlier the sequence of events would have gone something like this if they didn’t interfere. Mr N’Tula, who was a clerk at the Department of Trade and Industry, would have taken a phone call almost immediately after arriving back at the office after his lunch break. The phone call would last for exactly thirty-five minutes and sixteen seconds. The phone call would be with an under-secretary at the Home Office regarding some minor corrections to an overseas trade contract. That under-secretary, whose name was Horace Warton, would then have had to cancel his two PM appointment with another under-secretary on account of the call lasting longer than he expected. That meeting would then not be attended by a Mr Thomas Graves, also of the Department of Trade and Industry. This freed up Mr Grave’s time so that he was able to resolve some long overdue paperwork, including an invoice for some plumbing work that had been done in his London townhouse the month before. This means that he will pay this invoice four days earlier than he would have done otherwise. In turn the bank will then pay the contractor, one Mr Bryan Reynolds of Croydon, a day earlier than would otherwise have happened. Mr Reynold’s is then able to pay off a gambling debt to some rather scary sounding East London ’businessmen’ before they have a chance to come around to his house and collect some interest payments from Mr Reynold’s right knee with a baseball bat. That means that Mr Reynold’s will not be the Metropolitan Hospital the next Thursday evening. This will be relevant because he then won’t bump into a certain nurse by the name of Melanie Bryson, and they won’t fall in love or enjoy a brief but passionate relationship. It was apparently important that this didn’t happen as it was far more important that Miss Bryson was single and still looking the following week when she would meet an artist from Camden called Kristopher with whom it was most important she had a child with. That child would apparently be instrumental in finding a reliable cure for some forms of cancer some twenty plus years later. So Mr Reynolds would keep his right knee, but loose a love affair, and humanity would gain a cure for cancer all because Helen was standing in this chemist queue and counting out small change to pay for a box of plasters. A part of Helen was wondering that if these people that she was potentially going to work for could see the future well enough to see that there would be a cure for cancer why they didn’t just give that cure to mankind now. Hell, if you wanted to be cynical they could even profit from it. She imagined the cure for cancer could be potentially very lucrative. In fact it made her wonder why they didn’t just gamble all day, or maybe they did and that was how all this was funded.
However she didn’t have too much time to dwell on such things as she kept glancing at her watch to see how much longer she had to stall for.
Now if you have ever sat in the queue behind someone counting out small change to the cashier it might seem like you are stuck there for a great deal longer than two minutes. However when you are that person doing the counting, and doing so quite consciously, then you actually realise that two minutes is a long time. Cashiers get slightly irate with you after one minute, and by the ninety second mark Helen was starting to feel like physical violence wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility if she continued to fumble with her purse much longer.
”Sorry, I have it right here,” she stammered, trying to sound as apologetic as she could. The young girl at the cashier’s desk just smiled a fake smile and picked at her brightly painted fingernails. Helen wasn’t sure whether it mattered if you sounded genuine or not while delaying someone. She thought it was only polite to try, figuring that people would only be even more irate if they suspected you were actually trying to prevent them from being where they needed or wanted to be. The look on the cashiers face only reinforced her suspicions. As Helen’s watch indicated her two minutes were up she let out a sigh of relief and smiled at the cashier. ”Silly me,” she laughed,” looks like I don’t have enough change in here after all. Here, have a five pound note. So sorry to have kept you waiting.” The cashier scowled and almost snapped the note out of Helen’s hand. Under normal circumstances Helen would most likely have been offended and muttered something about the youth of today and their lack of respect. However she was suddenly conscious of just how annoying someone sitting there trying to pay in small change actually was. Helen made a mental note to not be so judgemental and harsh on cashiers anymore.
As she left the chemists Helen glanced around at Mr N’Tula only to find that he wasn’t behind her anymore. In fact he wasn’t anywhere to be seen inside the store. She had been so focused on counting out her change that she had failed to notice that he either decided to leave the queue or move to another cashier. Helen looked around slightly frantically to see if she could spot him. Sure enough there he was, already a god hundred meters or so down the footpath and walking at a good pace towards the bus stop that would take him back to this office. If he had gotten that far already Helen guessed that she hadn’t delayed him by long enough. She swore quietly to herself and wondered if these people would still have a high opinion of her tomorrow or if all that talk of potential would quickly evaporate when they realised she had screwed up what was presumably a simple assignment already.
She looked around for Tobias hoping he would be there to help or tell her what to do. Should she go after Mr N’Tula or was it already too late. Damn it, she didn’t have long until Mr N’Tula reached the bus stop. She still couldn’t see Tobias anywhere so started to walk quickly in the direction of the bus stop. She figured she probably only had to make up thirty seconds or so, maybe less, just enough to make him miss the bus that she could see coming around the corner. She strode purposefully forward trying to figure out how to delay him. If someone was going to catch a bus and could see that buss pulling up, as Mr N’Tula clearly would be able to do right now, she wasn’t sure what she could do short of actually tackling the man to make him pay to a stranger for long enough in order to make him miss that bus. Helen guessed that tackling the man probably wasn’t the desired conduct of a field agent. These people at FATE Inc may be resourceful, and maybe even powerful, but she doubted they liked explaining things to police officers. As she came within a couple of strides of her target she wracked her brain for a way to distract him from the arriving bus. ’Think girl, THINK!’ she muttered to herself as she came almost up to Mr N’Tula’s shoulder. With no better ideas coming across her mind she reached out quickly and firmly grabbed the man’s left ass check with her full open palm and squeezed.
It stopped Mr N’Tula dead in his tracks. He spun round with an angry look on his face that only slightly dissipated when he saw a pretty young lady smiling back at him sheepishly. ”What the hell was that?” he shouted at her,”did you just grab my ass?”
”Yes I did, I just couldn’t help myself,” Helen said meekly,”I saw you back there in the chemist...”
”...and you thought you would chase me and grab my ass?” He interrupted her.
Helen breathed a little sigh of relief as she watched the bus pull away from the stop. Mission accomplished.
”You were that girl in front of my at the counter weren’t you?” the man demanded,”the one with all the damn change. You make me late, you grab my ass, and now you have made me miss my bus!”
”I’m really, really sorry,” Helen smiled,”it was just such a cute ass though I couldn’t help myself.”
The man seemed to blush slightly and a small crack of a smile appeared at the edge of his mouth. ”Well thank you for that, I still don’t think people should go around grabbing asses. I should report you to the police. I mean if I did that to you they would be doing me for all kinds of things, they would probably call it sexual battery or something!”
”Come on now,” Helen said trying to keep up the smiling act,”you wouldn’t get little old me in trouble over this would you? I’m real sorry. I get these crazy impulses from time to time when I see really attractive and strapping men like you. I get help for it you know, can’t help myself. Therapist says I still have a long ways to go.” Helen wasn’t sure where these lines were coming from, but something inside her seemed to be kicking in and taking over, it was if deceiving this poor guy was coming naturally to her.
”Well, when you put it like that young lady.” the man replied, clearly calming down a little,”it does seem you still have some ways to go with your treatment though. You really shouldn’t grab people’s asses in public like that. It might get you arrested if the person wasn’t as understanding as me.”
”Then I am glad I had my moment of weakness with a guy that wasn’t just strapping and attractive but also considerate and sympathetic. I guess today must be my lucky day.”
The man smiled, and laughed briefly,”You look after yourself. I have to get back to work.”
”Thank you Mr N’Tula.” Helen said as he walked away and realised immediately she probably shouldn’t have used his name.
”No more grabbing people’s asses you hear.” He said back as he moved towards the next bus before suddenly realising that she had used his name and spun around to look for her, ”how the hell did you know...”
His sentence trailed off as he couldn’t see Helen anywhere on the street on account of the fact she was hiding behind the first dumpster in the alleyway next to the bus stop. ”Well I’ll be damned,” he muttered to himself,”that was weird.” He shrugged and made sure he got on the bus this time. As the bus pulled away Mr N’Tula was left wondering if this was a story suitable for his wife’s consumption.
Helen wasn’t going to move until she was sure he was gone. The smell behind the dumpster was everything she expected a central London dumpster to smell like and that wasn’t somewhere she would rather be by choice, but she really didn’t fancy having to explain to the man why she knew his name. So she sat crouched behind the dumpster with the smell and whatever it was that she could hear moving about in the bottom of the dumpster.
She was trying to listen for any sounds that might indicate the man was still there and looking for her. All she heard was someone clapping. That someone seemed to be moving towards her hiding spot behind the dumpster. As the clapping got louder and closer Helen tried to shimmy up against the wall, maybe they wouldn’t see her. She did wonder why they were clapping though.
”Bravo,” the familiar sound of Tobias’ voice echoed down the alleyway,”great improvisation, ass grabbing eh? Can’t say I would have predicted that move, you seemed a little too highly string for that kind of a reaction. Nice touch with the therapist too, you might be good at this yet.” Tobias slid up to the side of the dumpster and one arm leaning across it smiled down at her. ”That was very well played Helen, very well played. I’m impressed, for a first day that was something else.”
Helen got up and shook herself down,”I would rather next time it doesn’t involve me hiding with the garbage in an alleyway.”
”I am sure you’ll get better at blending back into a crowd. There is a knack to it, that guy will have already forgotten you by the time he turns around once you get the hang of it.”
”Is there a trick to it? The whole ’making them forget’ thing?”
”Not sure you would call it a trick, more it’s something you just grow into. It’s almost like a willpower thing. Once you learn when you want them to forget, they generally do.”
”Just like that?”
”Just like that!”
”Colour me sceptical,” Helen smiled,”sounds like a Jedi mind trick to me.”
”What is a Jedi mind trick?”
Helen looked at him for a second, unsure if he was joking. ”Jedi mind trick? You know, ’these aren’t the droids you are looking for’ and all that?”
Tobias stared at her blankly, ”droids? Don’t think I get that reference.”
”You don’t know Star Wars?”
”Oh, that.” Tobias nodded,” I know what it is of course, just never been one for the whole science fiction thing. Never watched those movies.”
”Never watched Star Wars? I’m a girl and I’ve even watched them all.”
”You saying girls don’t like Star Wars? Isn’t that being a little sexist against your own kind?”
”Everyone watched Star Wars Tobias, that’s the whole point, everyone.”
”Not I,” Tobias chuckled,” not me.”
”How can you not have watched them?” Helen asked almost incredulously.
”I don’t go in for the moving pictures thing. I generally don’t watch any movies or TV.”
”but you have talked about movies and TV shows while you’ve been with me.”
”I’m not completely oblivious to the twentieth century dear,” Tobias argued, ”I just choose, through my own free will, not to really watch much of it. If I could get away without any of it I would.”
”We are in the twenty first century now dear,” Helen quipped,” and how do you manage to avoid it.”
Tobias looked at her quizzically,” What do you mean by that? Do I suddenly not have free will? I just choose not to spend any of my free time watching TV or movies; it is as simple as that.”
”What do you do then?”
”We have this wonderful invention, these pages and we write words on them in a sequence that tells a story. You might have heard of it, was trendy a couple of thousand years ago, still knocks around today. They call them books.”
“Ok, smart ass, enough with the piss taking.”
“Well, ask a stupid question and get a stupid answer, or at least get a clever answer aimed at showing you it was a stupid question in the first place.”
“It wasn’t a clever answer, it was a sarcastic answer. There is a difference. You do like yourself don’t you? Really fancy yourself as a comedian.”
“Perhaps,” Tobias grinned, “still, just because your generation can’t imagine a world with your moving pictures and internet and so on, it doesn’t mean that we didn’t have perfectly meaningful ways of entertaining ourselves before that. Besides I like the fact that a good book lets me use my imagination.”
“So you don’t dislike science fiction, you dislike movies in general.”
“Oh, I pretty much dislike science fiction too,” Tobias laughed, “not all of it granted, but most of it. I hate the whole space empire and galactic melodrama nonsense. It’s a flawed premise in the first place. As if there is any chance that this race is ever going to get it’s act together enough to get off this planet. No, that stuff just makes me laugh when I am pretty sure the writers aren’t trying for humour. Now some of the more intellectual stuff I can get into, and occasionally a writer will use it as a good metaphor or parable. So there is a few worthwhile examples. Flowers for Algernon for example, that’s kind of science fiction and one of my favourite books.”
“Never heard of it.” Helen shrugged.
“See, I find that way more shocking than me not knowing about Star Wars. Just shows there are differences between people. It’s a great book, you should read it sometime.”
“Maybe I will. I just didn’t have you down as the literary type. I guess I was maybe more thinking a beer and the sofa in front of X-Factor would be more your cup of tea rather than some Doeteskvy or something.”
“God no, not Russian literature either. I’m not a masochist. It would be better than the tripe you guys soak up from the damn TV though. Especially that awful talent show crap.”
“A lot of people like those shows.” Helen protested.
“Only in the same way people slow down to watch a car crash. Modern society loves to watch the spectacle of failure. You build them up to pull them down. Especially you English, you lot excel at that. You love nothing more than seeing someone fall from grace.”
“I guess I misjudged you on that one.” Helen said smiling, maybe you have some depth to you after all and aren’t only a charming wannabe womaniser.”
”I wouldn’t go that far,” Tobias laughed, ”you got the charming bit right.” he winked at her as they continued down along New Oxford Street back towards the office. As they reached the street corner his cellphone rang. ”let me get this.”
Tobias stopped and answered the phone. ”Hello?” he waited a few seconds since he didn’t seem to be hearing anyone on the other end, ”hello? I can’t hear you.” he pulled the phone back to examine the screen. ”Crap, I can’t get a signal. Wait here a second Helen. I’ll try and cross the street back there, pretty sure I get a decent signal by that coffee shop, been there a few times.”
Tobias darted across the street avoiding the attentions of a rushed bicycle courier. Helen sat herself down on a bench outside one of the stores. It was good to take the weight off her feet for a minute. Like the rest of the wardrobe they had acquired for her the shoes were new and not worn in. They were the same make as her old ones, but they still gave her feet that wonderful ‘new show’ feeling. As she watched the people file by oblivious to her presence she wondered if she really could get used to this. She had to admit that having had to improvise on that last tasks there was a definite kick of adrenaline, a rush, an excitement that she never recalled feeling in any job role she had filled before. She watched Tobias on the phone across the street. It seemed like an animated conversation and she was sure she saw him glance back in her direction more than once. Maybe he was just checking that she was still ok.
As she sat there idly she was suddenly aware of sirens, lots of sirens, and they were coming in their direction. Before she knew it the street in front of her was suddenly filled emergency vehicles, two fire engines, a police car and three ambulances. Lots of people rushing around and hastily tying fluorescent yellow tape around things, they seemed to be closing off the road between her and Tobias. The fire brigade were pushing people back down the street and closing things off. The policemen were talking in their radios and discussing blast radiuses and perimeters. From what she could pick up they were worried about a gas leak or something. They didn’t seem to notice her sat there on the bench as they hurriedly asked all the other pedestrians to move back past the barriers.
They had noticed Tobias though. She could see him remonstrating with one of the officers, asking to be allowed to cross the street again. He didn’t seem to be having any luck though. The tall and well built policeman he was speaking too was clearly not falling for his Irish charm. Another fire truck appeared and blocked Tobias off from her view. Helen figured that she best move back with the crowd. She had told she was immortal sure, but they hadn’t mentioned any of the details, and she was fairly sure that getting caught in a gas explosion wouldn’t be pleasant, immortal or otherwise.
As she slipped past the security cordon her phone buzzed. It was a message:
Most of our lives were just another stream of chaotic chance encounters, random events and interactions that meant nothing to anyone other than us and those around us. All set amidst an almost limitless number of other encounters, events and interactions that all combine to be what we generally refer to as ’life’. It struck Helen that to say that ’life is complicated’ was actually probably the most extreme underestimation of a situation as she could imagine being possible.
Right now she had been tasked with holding up a queue at the chemists by counting out small change to pay for something. The important part was that she was to delay the person behind her, who according to the file was called Benjamin N’Tula, by at least two minutes. It didn’t matter apparently if she went over that time, as long as she delayed him for at least two minutes.
If she had followed the report earlier the sequence of events would have gone something like this if they didn’t interfere. Mr N’Tula, who was a clerk at the Department of Trade and Industry, would have taken a phone call almost immediately after arriving back at the office after his lunch break. The phone call would last for exactly thirty-five minutes and sixteen seconds. The phone call would be with an under-secretary at the Home Office regarding some minor corrections to an overseas trade contract. That under-secretary, whose name was Horace Warton, would then have had to cancel his two PM appointment with another under-secretary on account of the call lasting longer than he expected. That meeting would then not be attended by a Mr Thomas Graves, also of the Department of Trade and Industry. This freed up Mr Grave’s time so that he was able to resolve some long overdue paperwork, including an invoice for some plumbing work that had been done in his London townhouse the month before. This means that he will pay this invoice four days earlier than he would have done otherwise. In turn the bank will then pay the contractor, one Mr Bryan Reynolds of Croydon, a day earlier than would otherwise have happened. Mr Reynold’s is then able to pay off a gambling debt to some rather scary sounding East London ’businessmen’ before they have a chance to come around to his house and collect some interest payments from Mr Reynold’s right knee with a baseball bat. That means that Mr Reynold’s will not be the Metropolitan Hospital the next Thursday evening. This will be relevant because he then won’t bump into a certain nurse by the name of Melanie Bryson, and they won’t fall in love or enjoy a brief but passionate relationship. It was apparently important that this didn’t happen as it was far more important that Miss Bryson was single and still looking the following week when she would meet an artist from Camden called Kristopher with whom it was most important she had a child with. That child would apparently be instrumental in finding a reliable cure for some forms of cancer some twenty plus years later. So Mr Reynolds would keep his right knee, but loose a love affair, and humanity would gain a cure for cancer all because Helen was standing in this chemist queue and counting out small change to pay for a box of plasters. A part of Helen was wondering that if these people that she was potentially going to work for could see the future well enough to see that there would be a cure for cancer why they didn’t just give that cure to mankind now. Hell, if you wanted to be cynical they could even profit from it. She imagined the cure for cancer could be potentially very lucrative. In fact it made her wonder why they didn’t just gamble all day, or maybe they did and that was how all this was funded.
However she didn’t have too much time to dwell on such things as she kept glancing at her watch to see how much longer she had to stall for.
Now if you have ever sat in the queue behind someone counting out small change to the cashier it might seem like you are stuck there for a great deal longer than two minutes. However when you are that person doing the counting, and doing so quite consciously, then you actually realise that two minutes is a long time. Cashiers get slightly irate with you after one minute, and by the ninety second mark Helen was starting to feel like physical violence wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility if she continued to fumble with her purse much longer.
”Sorry, I have it right here,” she stammered, trying to sound as apologetic as she could. The young girl at the cashier’s desk just smiled a fake smile and picked at her brightly painted fingernails. Helen wasn’t sure whether it mattered if you sounded genuine or not while delaying someone. She thought it was only polite to try, figuring that people would only be even more irate if they suspected you were actually trying to prevent them from being where they needed or wanted to be. The look on the cashiers face only reinforced her suspicions. As Helen’s watch indicated her two minutes were up she let out a sigh of relief and smiled at the cashier. ”Silly me,” she laughed,” looks like I don’t have enough change in here after all. Here, have a five pound note. So sorry to have kept you waiting.” The cashier scowled and almost snapped the note out of Helen’s hand. Under normal circumstances Helen would most likely have been offended and muttered something about the youth of today and their lack of respect. However she was suddenly conscious of just how annoying someone sitting there trying to pay in small change actually was. Helen made a mental note to not be so judgemental and harsh on cashiers anymore.
As she left the chemists Helen glanced around at Mr N’Tula only to find that he wasn’t behind her anymore. In fact he wasn’t anywhere to be seen inside the store. She had been so focused on counting out her change that she had failed to notice that he either decided to leave the queue or move to another cashier. Helen looked around slightly frantically to see if she could spot him. Sure enough there he was, already a god hundred meters or so down the footpath and walking at a good pace towards the bus stop that would take him back to this office. If he had gotten that far already Helen guessed that she hadn’t delayed him by long enough. She swore quietly to herself and wondered if these people would still have a high opinion of her tomorrow or if all that talk of potential would quickly evaporate when they realised she had screwed up what was presumably a simple assignment already.
She looked around for Tobias hoping he would be there to help or tell her what to do. Should she go after Mr N’Tula or was it already too late. Damn it, she didn’t have long until Mr N’Tula reached the bus stop. She still couldn’t see Tobias anywhere so started to walk quickly in the direction of the bus stop. She figured she probably only had to make up thirty seconds or so, maybe less, just enough to make him miss the bus that she could see coming around the corner. She strode purposefully forward trying to figure out how to delay him. If someone was going to catch a bus and could see that buss pulling up, as Mr N’Tula clearly would be able to do right now, she wasn’t sure what she could do short of actually tackling the man to make him pay to a stranger for long enough in order to make him miss that bus. Helen guessed that tackling the man probably wasn’t the desired conduct of a field agent. These people at FATE Inc may be resourceful, and maybe even powerful, but she doubted they liked explaining things to police officers. As she came within a couple of strides of her target she wracked her brain for a way to distract him from the arriving bus. ’Think girl, THINK!’ she muttered to herself as she came almost up to Mr N’Tula’s shoulder. With no better ideas coming across her mind she reached out quickly and firmly grabbed the man’s left ass check with her full open palm and squeezed.
It stopped Mr N’Tula dead in his tracks. He spun round with an angry look on his face that only slightly dissipated when he saw a pretty young lady smiling back at him sheepishly. ”What the hell was that?” he shouted at her,”did you just grab my ass?”
”Yes I did, I just couldn’t help myself,” Helen said meekly,”I saw you back there in the chemist...”
”...and you thought you would chase me and grab my ass?” He interrupted her.
Helen breathed a little sigh of relief as she watched the bus pull away from the stop. Mission accomplished.
”You were that girl in front of my at the counter weren’t you?” the man demanded,”the one with all the damn change. You make me late, you grab my ass, and now you have made me miss my bus!”
”I’m really, really sorry,” Helen smiled,”it was just such a cute ass though I couldn’t help myself.”
The man seemed to blush slightly and a small crack of a smile appeared at the edge of his mouth. ”Well thank you for that, I still don’t think people should go around grabbing asses. I should report you to the police. I mean if I did that to you they would be doing me for all kinds of things, they would probably call it sexual battery or something!”
”Come on now,” Helen said trying to keep up the smiling act,”you wouldn’t get little old me in trouble over this would you? I’m real sorry. I get these crazy impulses from time to time when I see really attractive and strapping men like you. I get help for it you know, can’t help myself. Therapist says I still have a long ways to go.” Helen wasn’t sure where these lines were coming from, but something inside her seemed to be kicking in and taking over, it was if deceiving this poor guy was coming naturally to her.
”Well, when you put it like that young lady.” the man replied, clearly calming down a little,”it does seem you still have some ways to go with your treatment though. You really shouldn’t grab people’s asses in public like that. It might get you arrested if the person wasn’t as understanding as me.”
”Then I am glad I had my moment of weakness with a guy that wasn’t just strapping and attractive but also considerate and sympathetic. I guess today must be my lucky day.”
The man smiled, and laughed briefly,”You look after yourself. I have to get back to work.”
”Thank you Mr N’Tula.” Helen said as he walked away and realised immediately she probably shouldn’t have used his name.
”No more grabbing people’s asses you hear.” He said back as he moved towards the next bus before suddenly realising that she had used his name and spun around to look for her, ”how the hell did you know...”
His sentence trailed off as he couldn’t see Helen anywhere on the street on account of the fact she was hiding behind the first dumpster in the alleyway next to the bus stop. ”Well I’ll be damned,” he muttered to himself,”that was weird.” He shrugged and made sure he got on the bus this time. As the bus pulled away Mr N’Tula was left wondering if this was a story suitable for his wife’s consumption.
Helen wasn’t going to move until she was sure he was gone. The smell behind the dumpster was everything she expected a central London dumpster to smell like and that wasn’t somewhere she would rather be by choice, but she really didn’t fancy having to explain to the man why she knew his name. So she sat crouched behind the dumpster with the smell and whatever it was that she could hear moving about in the bottom of the dumpster.
She was trying to listen for any sounds that might indicate the man was still there and looking for her. All she heard was someone clapping. That someone seemed to be moving towards her hiding spot behind the dumpster. As the clapping got louder and closer Helen tried to shimmy up against the wall, maybe they wouldn’t see her. She did wonder why they were clapping though.
”Bravo,” the familiar sound of Tobias’ voice echoed down the alleyway,”great improvisation, ass grabbing eh? Can’t say I would have predicted that move, you seemed a little too highly string for that kind of a reaction. Nice touch with the therapist too, you might be good at this yet.” Tobias slid up to the side of the dumpster and one arm leaning across it smiled down at her. ”That was very well played Helen, very well played. I’m impressed, for a first day that was something else.”
Helen got up and shook herself down,”I would rather next time it doesn’t involve me hiding with the garbage in an alleyway.”
”I am sure you’ll get better at blending back into a crowd. There is a knack to it, that guy will have already forgotten you by the time he turns around once you get the hang of it.”
”Is there a trick to it? The whole ’making them forget’ thing?”
”Not sure you would call it a trick, more it’s something you just grow into. It’s almost like a willpower thing. Once you learn when you want them to forget, they generally do.”
”Just like that?”
”Just like that!”
”Colour me sceptical,” Helen smiled,”sounds like a Jedi mind trick to me.”
”What is a Jedi mind trick?”
Helen looked at him for a second, unsure if he was joking. ”Jedi mind trick? You know, ’these aren’t the droids you are looking for’ and all that?”
Tobias stared at her blankly, ”droids? Don’t think I get that reference.”
”You don’t know Star Wars?”
”Oh, that.” Tobias nodded,” I know what it is of course, just never been one for the whole science fiction thing. Never watched those movies.”
”Never watched Star Wars? I’m a girl and I’ve even watched them all.”
”You saying girls don’t like Star Wars? Isn’t that being a little sexist against your own kind?”
”Everyone watched Star Wars Tobias, that’s the whole point, everyone.”
”Not I,” Tobias chuckled,” not me.”
”How can you not have watched them?” Helen asked almost incredulously.
”I don’t go in for the moving pictures thing. I generally don’t watch any movies or TV.”
”but you have talked about movies and TV shows while you’ve been with me.”
”I’m not completely oblivious to the twentieth century dear,” Tobias argued, ”I just choose, through my own free will, not to really watch much of it. If I could get away without any of it I would.”
”We are in the twenty first century now dear,” Helen quipped,” and how do you manage to avoid it.”
Tobias looked at her quizzically,” What do you mean by that? Do I suddenly not have free will? I just choose not to spend any of my free time watching TV or movies; it is as simple as that.”
”What do you do then?”
”We have this wonderful invention, these pages and we write words on them in a sequence that tells a story. You might have heard of it, was trendy a couple of thousand years ago, still knocks around today. They call them books.”
“Ok, smart ass, enough with the piss taking.”
“Well, ask a stupid question and get a stupid answer, or at least get a clever answer aimed at showing you it was a stupid question in the first place.”
“It wasn’t a clever answer, it was a sarcastic answer. There is a difference. You do like yourself don’t you? Really fancy yourself as a comedian.”
“Perhaps,” Tobias grinned, “still, just because your generation can’t imagine a world with your moving pictures and internet and so on, it doesn’t mean that we didn’t have perfectly meaningful ways of entertaining ourselves before that. Besides I like the fact that a good book lets me use my imagination.”
“So you don’t dislike science fiction, you dislike movies in general.”
“Oh, I pretty much dislike science fiction too,” Tobias laughed, “not all of it granted, but most of it. I hate the whole space empire and galactic melodrama nonsense. It’s a flawed premise in the first place. As if there is any chance that this race is ever going to get it’s act together enough to get off this planet. No, that stuff just makes me laugh when I am pretty sure the writers aren’t trying for humour. Now some of the more intellectual stuff I can get into, and occasionally a writer will use it as a good metaphor or parable. So there is a few worthwhile examples. Flowers for Algernon for example, that’s kind of science fiction and one of my favourite books.”
“Never heard of it.” Helen shrugged.
“See, I find that way more shocking than me not knowing about Star Wars. Just shows there are differences between people. It’s a great book, you should read it sometime.”
“Maybe I will. I just didn’t have you down as the literary type. I guess I was maybe more thinking a beer and the sofa in front of X-Factor would be more your cup of tea rather than some Doeteskvy or something.”
“God no, not Russian literature either. I’m not a masochist. It would be better than the tripe you guys soak up from the damn TV though. Especially that awful talent show crap.”
“A lot of people like those shows.” Helen protested.
“Only in the same way people slow down to watch a car crash. Modern society loves to watch the spectacle of failure. You build them up to pull them down. Especially you English, you lot excel at that. You love nothing more than seeing someone fall from grace.”
“I guess I misjudged you on that one.” Helen said smiling, maybe you have some depth to you after all and aren’t only a charming wannabe womaniser.”
”I wouldn’t go that far,” Tobias laughed, ”you got the charming bit right.” he winked at her as they continued down along New Oxford Street back towards the office. As they reached the street corner his cellphone rang. ”let me get this.”
Tobias stopped and answered the phone. ”Hello?” he waited a few seconds since he didn’t seem to be hearing anyone on the other end, ”hello? I can’t hear you.” he pulled the phone back to examine the screen. ”Crap, I can’t get a signal. Wait here a second Helen. I’ll try and cross the street back there, pretty sure I get a decent signal by that coffee shop, been there a few times.”
Tobias darted across the street avoiding the attentions of a rushed bicycle courier. Helen sat herself down on a bench outside one of the stores. It was good to take the weight off her feet for a minute. Like the rest of the wardrobe they had acquired for her the shoes were new and not worn in. They were the same make as her old ones, but they still gave her feet that wonderful ‘new show’ feeling. As she watched the people file by oblivious to her presence she wondered if she really could get used to this. She had to admit that having had to improvise on that last tasks there was a definite kick of adrenaline, a rush, an excitement that she never recalled feeling in any job role she had filled before. She watched Tobias on the phone across the street. It seemed like an animated conversation and she was sure she saw him glance back in her direction more than once. Maybe he was just checking that she was still ok.
As she sat there idly she was suddenly aware of sirens, lots of sirens, and they were coming in their direction. Before she knew it the street in front of her was suddenly filled emergency vehicles, two fire engines, a police car and three ambulances. Lots of people rushing around and hastily tying fluorescent yellow tape around things, they seemed to be closing off the road between her and Tobias. The fire brigade were pushing people back down the street and closing things off. The policemen were talking in their radios and discussing blast radiuses and perimeters. From what she could pick up they were worried about a gas leak or something. They didn’t seem to notice her sat there on the bench as they hurriedly asked all the other pedestrians to move back past the barriers.
They had noticed Tobias though. She could see him remonstrating with one of the officers, asking to be allowed to cross the street again. He didn’t seem to be having any luck though. The tall and well built policeman he was speaking too was clearly not falling for his Irish charm. Another fire truck appeared and blocked Tobias off from her view. Helen figured that she best move back with the crowd. She had told she was immortal sure, but they hadn’t mentioned any of the details, and she was fairly sure that getting caught in a gas explosion wouldn’t be pleasant, immortal or otherwise.
As she slipped past the security cordon her phone buzzed. It was a message:
Meet me in Soho ParkThere wasn’t a sender listed so she guessed it was Tobias organising where to meet back up. She set off in that direction.
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