'So it was her!'

'Yes, Jim.  Jane never let on how long she'd been following me.'

We were sitting in the snug of the Talbot Inn, just last Thursday lunchtime.

'All right.  Now let's move on to the rest of the story.'

'Can't.'

'What do you mean, "Can't"?'

'I mean I can't.  There is no rest of the story.  That's it.'

'That's it?  You're joking!  You can't just stop there.  What happened next?'

'Nothing happened next.'

'No such thing as nothing, my master says.'

'Oh, well, if you put it that way.  I still work for Master James, I still take lessons with Professor Belacqua on Saturday afternoons, and I'm taking Jane to the Palais tonight.  That's it.  That's the end of my story.'

'It's pretty feeble.'

'I'm sorry, but there it is.  It's my story, not something out of a penny-blood.  It's not something I made up.'

'Can't you add a few things to, er, spice it up?  Didn't you and the Professor make love, or anything like that?  Don't tell me you didn't want to!'

'Yes, of course I did.  But after I saw her and Will together that all sort of faded away.'

'Bit like your story, then.  I mean, it all fizzles out, doesn't it?  It doesn't hold together at all.  What about all those magic people who kept turning up and saving your bacon?  How do you explain them?'

'I can't.'

'Typical!  I suppose the couple you saw in the cottage garden were Arthur and Lyra.'

'I thought so, too.  I thought they must have gone around the front of the house and into the kitchen, while I blundered around the back.   I'm not so sure, though.  There wasn't enough time.'

'So who were they?  And what about the other ones in the Professor's study?  The blokes in the armour and all.  Where did they come from?  Another one of your mystical worlds, like the one where Will and John and Julie lived?'

'It was Judy.  No, I don't think they came from there.  I've been doing some thinking…'

'You; thinking? Not very likely!'

'Cheerio then, Jim. I'm off.'

'No.  All right.  Sorry.  Sit down.  Go on.'

'You remember the experimental theologian in John's world?  Aunt Mary?'

'Sort of.'

'It was during that long afternoon on the Clifton Downs in Bristol.  She and Arthur and me were talking and I asked her about the worlds, and how it came about that there were all these different ones.

'"It's all to do with probability and event forks," she said.  "Every time you do something, the world splits into at least two new worlds, maybe more than two, depending upon the outcomes of what you did.  Like if you toss a coin.  Have you got one on you?  We don't have coins here any more."'

'No coins?' Jim asked.

'No coins.  Phones.  I told you.  So I found a tanner in my pocket and tossed it.  It came down ports.'

'"There you are," Mary said.  "We're living in the world where the coin came down tails, not heads," (I didn't correct her).  "That's one tine of the event fork.  There's another one where it came down heads.  And another one where it landed on its edge."

'That's not very likely!

'"No, it's not.  Such very improbable worlds are inherently unstable – they don't persist; they decay like a radioactive element does.  Or, to put it another way, the coin doesn't stay balanced on its edge for long; it tips over so it's showing heads or tails and is stable once more.  That's a good thing, otherwise there would be an infinite number of worlds, instead of the relatively few stable ones which actually exist."

'What was she on about?'

'I don't know, Jim.  I told you I never understood a fraction of what she said.  It got me thinking, though, about what happened.  You see, suppose that I crossed from one world to another and never knew it?  Like, there was one world where Arthur died saving Davey and another where he didn't and I started off in one and ended up in the other, so I'd been in both at the same time.  That bothers me, though.'

'I can see that.'

'No, look.  If something happened and there was this event fork that Mary talked about, then there should have been two of me after the event.  One where Arthur died, and one where he didn't.  But if I was the Peter who lived in the world where Arthur lived, how could I remember him dying?  And if I was the Peter who should have lived in the world where Arthur died, what happened to me?  What I mean is that I'm in both worlds at the same time, which ought to be impossible.  I'm worried, too, about the other me.  Where is he?  Is he alive?  If I've got his memories, does that mean I've killed him?

'The same sort of thing happened in Lyra's study, only it's worse.  There must be a me who was killed by Miss Morley.  I don't remember anything about him, so he must be safely dead.  But what about the Miss Morleys?  They died in at least two different ways, but I can only remember the wrong one!

'And the mysterious people?'

'Jim; I don't know.  I don't know how it was that I saw them, or why they saved me from Miss Morley.  I don't think they were anything to do with Mary's worlds and her event forks and all that.  I think they came from somewhere else altogether.'

'Where?'

'I can only guess.  You'll say that this is just because I work with clocks, and that I'm too dim to think of anything else, but I don't think they came out of a where-place at all, but a when-place.  I think they came out of time.'

Which reminds me…

The Zanzibar Fallacy

There was once an explorer who came to the tropical island of Zanzibar.  Now, it happens that the island of Zanzibar is much longer than it is wide, so that the opposite ends of the island are separated by many miles of hilly jungle country.

This traveller was a naval man by profession, and he had not been long on the island before he was told of a retired naval officer, a countryman of his, who lived at the extreme western end of the island, in a wooden house built high up on the cliffs overlooking the ocean.

The explorer thought that he would like to visit his fellow expatriate, so he journeyed to the man's house, taking but one porter with him, for he preferred to travel light and, anyway, was not an excessively wealthy man.  The journey took two days, or maybe it was three, but apart from the expected privations of crossing jungle terrain there was nothing remarkable about his trip.  Nothing, that is, except that at noon each day he heard the sound of a naval gun, booming out from beyond the hills to the west and scattering the brightly-coloured tropical birds about his head.

When he reached the ex-officer's house he was made very welcome.  All morning they sat together on the veranda overlooking the sea, drank chukka pegs, and talked of home and their lives in the navy.  As the time approached midday, the owner asked to be excused.  He walked to the far end of the veranda, where there was a quarter-pound cannon, and, consulting his watch, fired a single shot at precisely twelve o'clock.

'I do that every day,' he said to the traveller, who understood perfectly his host's desire to observe naval tradition.  'Tell me,' he asked him.  'How do you ensure that you always fire your gun at exactly midday?  Do you take sightings?'

'No need,' he other replied.  I kept the ship's chronometer from the old Arethusa and I set my own watch to it every morning.'

'Ah,' said the first. 'But how do you know that the chronometer is correct?'

'That is simple.  At the other end of the island there is a clockmaker of great renown who keeps all his timepieces in perfect order.  Twice a year I send my chronometer to him and he regulates it for me.'

The traveller spent several enjoyable days at the naval officer's house and they became great friends.  'Give my regards to Mister Jones the clockmaker, won't you?' the old seaman said as they parted.  'I will,' the explorer replied, and they shook hands warmly.

Two weeks later, the traveller reached the far eastern end of Zanzibar and there, in a small town nestling under a ridge of green trees and grey rocks, he found Mr Jones' shop.  It was a shop such as you may find anywhere there are clocks and watches to be made or mended  – dim and cool, filled with the soft sounds of ticking and chiming.  Our explorer introduced himself to the clockmaker and, noticing how well all the watches and clocks in his shop were synchronised, asked him how he made sure that they were all keeping the right time.

'That is simple,' the clockmaker responded.  'At the other end of the island there is a retired naval officer who, every day at twelve o'clock precisely, fires a gun.  I set all my clocks by him.'

Thank you, Viola.  You'd thought I'd forgotten about it, hadn't you?