A Boring Dress Party in Islington
Leigh Kile
The difference between reading about a physicists' party and attending one is that here you can skip to the end of a boring conversation. The people you're reading about, however, are not so lucky.
"...And so you see, dear, some have suggested that the physics of time and the physics of space are so interrelated they might as well be the same thing, but my work...."
Professor Matthew Landon was beginning to worry he was losing his audience. He knew most people had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, but almost every girl he had met at these sort of parties remained interested in spite, or perhaps because, of that. It had the air of a rite; he would prove he really was an astrophysicist, and she would feign attention while imagining introducing him to her mother.
The girl he was currently talking at, however, was not impressed or even pretending to be such. She kept checking her dainty digital watch, tapping her manicured fingernails on the buffet table in a spastic motion, glancing desperately around for people she knew, and generally acting very much like someone who wished to be anywhere but her present location, and preferably very far from it.
"...So my studies prove that travelling long distances through space will never be possible, even if there were some reason to do so," he concluded with a chuckle, deciding to change the subject to her dress, or some other thing that would spark her enthusiasm.
"Well, I am impressed," the girl said after he was silent for a couple seconds.
Matthew stopped debating commenting on her hair instead of her shoes to answer, "Really?" as though her compliment meant everything to him. "I-,"
"In fact," she continued, "I don't think I've ever heard anyone quote that textbook so well, even though it is rather out of date."
Matthew felt something heavy settle on his chest and a slow heat begin to creep over his ears. "Wh-what?" he managed.
"The author of that particular section didn't know what he was talking about, I thought, but then, most people don't." She smiled benignly at him. "Besides, the theory's obsolete. You need to incorporate quantum mechanics into most things these days, and half the relevant equations were faulty in any case. You really should read the magazines more often. A new, much more viable hypothesis was worked out a couple years ago. Perhaps you should try repeating it.
There was an uncomfortable silence until it dawned on Matthew it was probably his turn to talk. He looked back at the girl and mostly failed at an attempt to smile tolerantly at her. "Um, has it?" he said.
"Yes," she confirmed in a decidedly jaded tone. "By me."
Matthew glanced around him. No one seemed to be eavesdropping. He tried for an embarrassed laugh, but it sounded more like a suggestion he was about to vomit. The girl took a step away from him.
"Tracy...."
"Tricia," she corrected. "And if you'll excuse me?"
She made off in the general direction of somewhere else, where she was approached by a mildly dressed man who had been waiting nearby for just such an opportunity.
"Hello," he said. "My name is Arthur. I, er, couldn't help overhearing. You do, eh, physics?"
* * *
Matthew Landon grabbed a glass of champagne from a waiter holding a tray, and then another. A third hand also reached out and took one, but it didn't belong to him. "I couldn't help overhearing," said a voice that came from the body the hand was attached to.
Matthew turned towards it. He reminded himself he hadn't really done anything wrong, only embarrassing.
"So you're an astrophysicist then, are you?" said the man who owned the voice. He didn't look like the type of person who belonged at the sort of party happening about him, or even like the type occasionally invited. His clothes were shabby, he had a strange sort of satchel around his neck, and he wore a large and unsteady grin that suggested he had already relieved quite a few passing waiters of their burdens. His eyes gave the impression of a mostly drunk cat-like predator deciding which of the three or so mice in front of it it was going to eat first.
Matthew wasn't sure whether to be unnerved or relieved that it was no one he knew.
"Quite a display," the man continued. He offered a hand to Matthew, realized he was holding a drink in it, withdrew the appendage, downed the drink, put the glass on the table, and only then repeated the offering. Matthew put one of his drinks on the table and presented his own hand, which the man ignored in favour of grabbing his champagne and downing it too.
Matthew decided to be annoyed. "And you are?"
"Ford Prefect," he said, and appeared not to notice when Matthew laughed .
"Seriously? Like the car?"
Ford shrugged and muttered something unintelligible about the importance of proper research. He then liberated Matthew's last drink from his hand and sent it off to join its brethren. "As I was saying," he said, and then paused, realizing he hadn't really been saying anything at all. "So you're an astrophysicist, are you then?" he repeated.
Matthew was becoming progressively more uncertain how to react to the new situation. His tongue and vocal chords fought each other for a second before producing a disjointed, "Yes."
"And all that...." Ford waved his hand around, indicating Matthew's earlier conversation and splattering him with the leftover droplets from the champagne glass. "You believe that?"
"Listen, I was just trying to-"
Ford laughed. "It's a good thing you didn't design the universe. The planets would fall into their suns and out again in the hokey pokey. Space would be an interesting shade of lavender on Tuesdays. Time would pass in hexagons." He tapped Matthew's expensive digital watch. "Nobody'd ever figure those out."
"What are you ta-"
"Here - just a second." Ford scanned the buffet table and frowned, not finding what he wanted. He grabbed a pinecone off the centre piece instead. "Just - here." He held it out. "Have a banana."
Matthew stared. "That's not a banana."
Ford studied it in apparent confusion, then shrugged. "I thought you'd be too excited at the prospect to notice." He brought the glass in his hand to his mouth, but it was empty. "Hey, you! Waiter!" he called across the room. Matthew winced. Most of the servers, as well as the elegantly dressed people they were serving, stared in their direction. "We need you over here!"
"Er, look, Ford was it? I think-"
"Do you? Really?"
"Yes. And it's been, well-"
"Thank you," said Ford to the server who approached with a new tray of champagne glasses. "You might just as well as not leave it all here." He took the tray from the server, who nodded and left very quickly. Ford put the tray down on the table and picked up a glass. But when he tried to pick up another he found he was still holding a pinecone, which he threw over his head to where it hit a middle-aged lady in an evening gown on the head, and thereby freed his hand to hold the drink.
"You just..." started Matthew. "I mean, when you threw that, it fell-"
"Very good," said Ford. He clapped a couple times for good measure, getting glass shards and champagne all over anyone in a five metre radius. "Should you be taking notes?" he asked with such an earnest, wide-eyed expression that Matthew found himself blinking rapidly to compensate for it.
"Have a drink," Ford offered generously. Matthew complied. It was the first thing Ford had said that made any sense.
"...And you're so proud of figuring out that your planet is round - that it goes around a sun," Ford continued from nowhere.
"Really, I'm not."
"Hmmm. Well, don't you think you ought to be? It's a signal achievement. Some cultures can't wrap their minds around concepts like that even after they've been in space."
Matthew considered this while taking a new glass. "You're an anthropologist, then?"
Ford nodded. "I suppose you could say that. Someone who studies a primitive culture rather more thoroughly than they'd like to. Fifteen years for one word. Seems a little disproportionate, doesn't it?"
Matthew didn't know what to say to that, so he just followed Ford's lead and grabbed another drink.
* * *
"...But then, you have to understand, the whole basis of twentieth century science was written by a Martian," Tricia finished.
Arthur gaped at her. "You're not serious."
"No, I'm not."
There was a crash, and they both turned towards the buffet table. A man in a dripping wet tuxedo was loudly threatening the life of a much shorter, drier, and more casually attired man. The shorter man suddenly started laughing, and the other man shouted louder and began advancing.
Arthur sighed. "He's really at it tonight."
"You know him?"
"Yes, unfortunately at times. Like now."
"Which one?"
A third man approached the first two. He was dressed just like most of the people at the party, but something in the way he moved screamed "Security." He whispered at the shorter man, who replied, "Yes, actually, you're absolutely right," nodded a farewell at the man in the tuxedo, and staggered towards the back door, pausing only to bump into everyone on the way.
"The one leaving, actually."
Tricia nodded. "Good. I don't care much for the Professor."
"I suppose he's an astrophysicist."
"Why, yes. How did you know?"
But Arthur never got to answer her, for at that moment another disturbance occurred. The party as a whole reacted with a surprising amount of indifference to it; one event was an amusing anecdote, but two was a little much.
What happened did so moments after Ford Prefect left by the back door and Matthew Landon disappeared into the bathroom. Now, it is not in any way integral to the story to know that Ford Prefect did not belong at the party for more reasons than his manner of dress and behaviour. In fact, Ford Prefect did not belong on the planet the party was held at, an unremarkable clump of mud known as the Earth by those unfortunate enough to reside on it, and hardly known to anyone else at all. He had been stranded there fifteen years before, and had spent most of that time searching for someone, anyone, with a spaceship so he could leave.
None of that is integral to the story, and neither is much of anything else. The story is certainly not integral to anything. It's only mentioned for the sake of those who love finding examples of ironic futility in life.
What happened, after Ford Prefect had very much only just left, was this: The front doors blew open, and there was a din of loud squawking, enthusiastic greetings, and persistent demands to see an invitation. Tricia and Arthur again turned to look.
The man who had made such an entrance was altogether odd. It may have been because his clothes were made up of colours and textures that usually run screaming at the sight of each other; it may have been that he had a covered parrot cage on one shoulder; it may have been that he chose to wear such things to a fancy dress party. It could also have been that his head seemed slightly off kilter with the symmetry of his body. There was a good chance it was all of these things, plus a lot more that won't be listed in favour of getting on with whatever needs to be getting on.
The party, it may have been mentioned, more or less ignored him after the initial moments. Even the high pitched squawking faded into the background noise of tedious conversation.
Arthur stared at Tricia, who stared at a random spot on the ceiling.
"You look wonderful," he ventured finally.
"Yes."
"Really quite lovely."
"I know."
"Oh." He glanced around to see what Tricia found so fascinating, and was forced to realize it just wasn't him. "Well then, I guess-"
"Hey, doll, is this guy boring you? Why don't you talk to me instead? I'm from another planet." The new speaker was the man with the parrot. He had made a circuit of the room, picking up various drinks along the way, and had ended up directly behind Arthur.
"Mmm?" Tricia gradually changed her focus from the ceiling to the new arrival. "You don't mind, do you, Arthur?"
"Er, no." Arthur sighed. "I was just thinking I should probably check on my friend. You know-"
"Okay, you can leave now," said the other man.
"Right. It was nice meeting you Tricia and, er, whoever you are."
The man hesitated for a moment. "Phil," he decided. He looked at his parrot cage. "Isn't that right?" There was a squawk in agreement.
"Goodbye, then," said Arthur. He waited an extra second in case they were to invite him to stay, and then headed towards the back door.
The man who called himself Phil grabbed a drink off a passing tray. "Hey, you want to see something?" At Tricia's nod he focused on the parrot cage again. He tapped on it, and a crackling voice said, "Pretty Polly," and squawked.
"Is Polly thirsty?" he asked. With a wink at Tricia he carried the glass of champagne behind the cover of the cage, and when he brought it back out it was empty.
* * *
Arthur found Ford leaning against a fence and staring up at the sky. Occasionally he smacked something in his hand. When Arthur got closer he could make out tiny lights blinking on it in an almost apologetic manner, and when he got close enough to see what it was Ford shoved it into his satchel.
"Looking for flying saucers again?" Arthur asked.
Ford grinned at him. "What else?"
"Any luck?"
Ford shrugged. "What about you? I thought you were having a great time in there."
"Well, I met this girl...."
"Ah."
"But then there was this guy. He said-"
"Isn't there always?" Ford interrupted. He gave a final glance at the sky and saw nothing but stars. "Come on. I need a drink."
Arthur recalled the scene inside. "Another one?" he asked, but followed Ford when he started towards the pub.
* * *
"So, how exactly is the party a party, in the more common use of the word?"
Tricia smiled. "It's a gathering of physicists. I don't think it's supposed to be fun."
There was a squawk from the parrot cage. "I'm here, you're here, yeah?"
"I hope so. Otherwise I'm very confused at the moment."
"Well." He took a step towards her. "I'm sure we can think of something...."
"Actually," she whispered, "you know what I've always wished I could do at these sort of parties? It's stupid, I know...."
"Probably," he agreed.
"But I've always wanted to figure out how to shut off the rules of physics. Just for a while. Just to see how many of them go insane."
The man laughed. "Listen to you, babe. You should be designing spaceships!"
"I thought you were from another planet. Shouldn't you already have one?"
"Only the best in the galaxy! Ultra-hyperspace drive, enough kill-o-zap cannons to take out a Vogon space fleet. And the thing doesn't even register on Sub-Ethra unless I tell it to!"
"You're that special?"
He looked affronted. "Hey, man, I'm the President of the Galaxy!"
Tricia raised an eyebrow. "Yes? And I suppose you say that to every girl you meet at an alien party?"
"No. Well, yeah," he admitted. "But it's true." He paused. "And it doesn't mean you're not special, baby." There was then a longer pause during which his expression faded to a vaguely mischievous grin, and he studied Tricia in a way that made her feel distinctly uncomfortable. Just as she was figuring out exactly why, the flirty grin was back in place.
"Hey," he said. "Want to see something?"
Tricia took a deep breath and forced her face into an smile matching his. "Alright."
His lips spread even further across his face, and he brought a finger up to them, either in a signal for silence or to hold in the laughter shaking his shoulders. At a more solemn moment, it may have been a gesture of serious thought, but if his mind was thinking any serious thoughts, it wasn't letting him in on them.
He slowly moved his hand towards the bird cage and rapped on it once. There was a shaky squawk in response, at which the man snorted once, but managed to contain himself. He met Tricia's eyes, and pulled back the cover, showing her exactly what was in the parrot cage.
After that moment, he didn't bother to restrain his laughter. He exploded with a loud raucous chorus that the rest of the party ignored with everything else.
Tricia blinked, nodded, and said, "Excuse me for a moment." She wandered into a tray of drinks attached to a server, swallowed two without breathing, and took a third back with her. By this time the man was no longer howling, but he would still have gotten attention if he had been at a funeral, say, or a disco ball.
Tricia looked at him, and swallowed the third drink.
"So you're from another planet," she said, and set him off again.
Eventually he said, "Yeah. Want to see my space ship?"
Tricia appeared to think about this for a few seconds. In reality, she had known the answer before she came back with the champagne, and perhaps before she had left to get it. Her face melted into a slow smile. "The best in the galaxy, hmm?"
He laughed. Once. He put his arm around her shoulder and leant forward. "Baby, you've just met him," said a voice from his second head under the parrot cage. He began leading her towards the door.
"Wait," Tricia said. "I should get my bag."
"You won't need your bag."
She thought about this. "You're probably right."
"I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox," he said. "I'm always right."
Tricia found that statement unlikely, and smiled anyway.
The rest, as they say, is history. Or, at least it would be if it had all been recorded (which it hasn't), or if it had happened in the relative past (which it only partially does). Suffice it to say that it may one day be history, although some philosophers argue that history is an illusion of the passing of time, and that time is an illusion of the passing of history, and are therefore shunned by physicists involved with time travel. It may be easier to say whatever you want to say, as long as it doesn't offend someone who can hurt you too terribly badly. That way you can finish this quickly degrading story faster.
And the end is near, despite what you may hear from qualified astrophysicists, geologists, or religious figures.
* * *
Professor Matthew Landon seldom remembered that particular party after it was over, at least not if he could help it. There were a couple of close calls, of course. One when a second woman became disgusted at him, and another when a promising young physicist by the name of Stephen Hawking did a semipublic search for Tricia McMillian in the hope she could help him with a theory he was working on.
Only once, however, for quite a while afterwards, did the entire thing get past the mental blocks he had put up around it. It escaped about what he considered a year or so later, while he was sitting comfortably at home. He, and pretty much all of his colleagues, had recently taken a personal week, during which he had taken to drinking too much and staring miserably at the television.
Displayed in the television were hundreds of excited people. They screamed, they jumped, they knocked each other over. Some waved homemade, cardboard signs that said things like, "Elvis left without me," or, "I'm a lizard at heart!" Occasionally, the mob would be beaten back by the dozens of frustrated policemen and soldiers keeping them away from the giant spaceship.
Matthew felt absolutely nothing about this abuse. He was too busy suspecting that as soon as he went back to work, he would be responsible for rewriting the various theories of physics, things he had spent most of his life pretending to understand.
There was a noise behind him, so he grunted half-heartedly at it. Moments later a new bottle of beer was pressed into his hand by his current girlfriend. She was a former student of his, who had done remarkably well in his class and just as terribly in the following course. She believed this was because he was a great teacher, and he had found no reason to inform her otherwise.
She smiled at him, and he might have returned it if he hadn't been distracted by a voice from the television.
"Hold it! There has been a major scientific break-in!" a tinny voice announced above the roar of the crowd. It quickly corrected itself. "Through. Breakthrough.''
Matthew had heard several similar declarations over the past few days and was inclined not to pay attention, but there was something familiar about the voice. Something which made the pounding of his head echo in front of his eyes and the muscles of his chest seize. He had been in the midst of draining his beer, which didn't work out too well.
The news-camera panned the gathered people to find the speaker, while Matthew gasped and coughed and was pounded on by his girlfriend. The television was filled with the image of a rather strange looking man in a white jacket. He grinned into the camera, and the television projected the scene into Matthew's sitting room. It was an expression that suggested he had won some simple game his opponents hadn't realized they were playing. Matthew could do nothing but choke harder.
"Make way, please," Ford was shouting, "this is a major scientific breakthrough. You and you, get the equipment from the taxi."
The camera followed the progress of two random people moving boxes from the taxi to a supermarket trolley. Ford was off-screen yelling at people to get out of his way. His helpers finished the loading and were began pushing the trolley through an opening in the crowd. Matthew thought that was funny, in a horrid sort of way. Earlier that day the mayor had wanted to make a speech in front of the silver ship, but the people hadn't parted for him.
The trolley passed in front of the camera, which caught the sides of a few exposed boxes. As far as Matthew could tell, the scientific equipment was a collection of booze and video cassettes. The news-camera focused on Ford again. Prominent Scientist was written underneath the close-up in neat white text.
This really was too much. Over his gagging and the babble of the television, Matthew imagined he heard the grinding of something giving way, and the whole disastrous night came back to him. Memory flooded into his mind, which did its best to organize it into coherent events.
Images of a pretty girl were replaced with those of a most astoundly irritating man, identical to the one currently climbing into the spacecraft on the television. His brain skipped over his attempts to dry his tuxedo and settled on the impossible view of his flattened car. The sedan he had spent a year trying to afford had obtained a most particular degree of flatness. It was as though a building had sat on it, and then wandered off again. Matthew remembered glaring up at the heavens and finding, instead of a mischievous God, three lights, green, yellow, and also fuchsia, which flashed at him as they vanished into the black sky.
At some point, Matthew's coughing had become a hysterical form of giggles. His girlfriend frowned in concern, and Matthew gasped out, "Ford... Prefect," as an explanation. She didn't seem convinced, but Matthew was past caring. On the television, the silver form of the spacecraft spiralled up into the atmosphere, and Matthew laughed harder for the few seconds before his brain shut down.
* * *
And this is where the story grinds to a halt. Any epilogue that might have touched on Ford's choice in movies or the fact that a certain astrophysicist had a surprisingly bad hangover when he finally woke up has been omitted for the sake of expediency.
Thank you. That is all.
Have a nice day.
Author's Notes:
In the tradition of the first Interlude, this is a commercial for my website. If you liked this tale, go to The Hitchhiker's Library [www.geocities.com/hitchhikerslibrary], where there are more. Many more.
Does that sound like a good waste of your time, or what?