He helped himself, and not until his hand was round a glass of whisky did he say, “Now, without wishing to lecture to you ladies, J think it is high time you both realised that you are not living in the old safe world of classical mechanics ruled over by a god invented by eighteenth-century enlightenment.
All that has happened here is perfectly rational, but if you are going to pretend it is beyond your female understandings”
“Mr. Stackpole,” Janet said sharply. “Can you please keep to the point without being insulting? Will you tell me why what happened was not an accident? I understand now that when I looked through the study window I saw my husband suffering from a collision that to him had happened three and something minutes before and to me would not happen for another three and something minutes, but at that moment I was so startled that I forgot”
“No, no, your figures are wrong. The total time lapse is only 3.3077 minutes. When you saw your husband, he had been hit half that time1.65385 minutesago, and there was another 1.65385 minutes to go before you completed the.
action by bursting into the room and striking him.”
“But she didn’t strike him!” the older woman cried.
Firmly, Stackpole diverted his attention long enough to reply. “She struck him at 10.24 Earthtime, which equals 10.20 plus about 36 seconds Mars or his time, which equals 9.59 or whatever Neptune time, which equals 156 and. a half Sinus time. It’s a big universe, Mrs. Westermark! You will remain confused as long as you continue to confuse event with time. May I suggest you sit down and have a drink?”
“Leaving aside the figures,” Janet said, returning to the attackloathsome opportunist the man was”how can you say that what happened was no accident? You are not claiming I injured my husband deliberately, I hope? What you say suggests that I was powerless from the moment I saw him through the window.”
” ‘Leaving aside the figures …’ ” he quoted. “That’s where your responsibility lies. What you saw through the window was the result of your act; it was by then inevitable that you should complete it, for it had already been completed.”
Through the window, draughts of time blow “I can’t understand!” she clutched her forehead, gratefully accepting a cigarette from her mother-in-law, while shrugging off her consolatory ‘Don’t try to understand, dear!’ “Supposing when I had seen Jack’s nose bleeding, I had looked at my watch and thought. It’s 10.20 or whenever it was, and he may be suffering from my interference, so I’d better not go in,’ and I hadn’t gone in? Would his nose then miraculously have healed?”
“Of course not. You take such a mechanistic view of the universe. Cultivate a mental approach, try and live in your own century! You could not think what you suggest because that is not in your nature: just as it is not in your nature to consult your watch intelligently, just as you always leave aside the figures,’ as you say. No, I’m not being personal; it’s all very feminine and appealing in a way. What I’m saying is that if before you looked into the window you had been a person to think, ‘However I see my husband now, I must recall he has the additional experience of the next 3.3077
minutes,’ then you could have looked in and seen him unharmed, and you would not have come bursting in as you did.”
She drew on her cigarette, baffled and hurt. “You’re saying I’m a danger to my own husband.”
“You’re saying that.”
“God, howl hate men!” she exclaimed. “You’re so bloody logical, so bloody smug!”
He finished his whisky and set the glass down on a table beside her so that he leant close. “You’re upset just now,” he said.
“Of course I’m upset! What do you think?” She fought a desire to cry or slap his face. She turned to Jack’s mother, who gently took her wrist.
“Why don’t you go off straight away and stay with the children for the weekend, darling? Come back when you feel like it. Jack will be all right and I can look after himas much as he wants looking after.”