The Twins Paradox by Alan Gasparutti (best contemporary novels txt) 📖

ask more questions than it answered.


In The Air (Tonight?)

Arthur and Dermot didn’t have nearly as far to travel. They could afford to relax a bit more, but set off for Los Angeles after the rush hour had finished. Dermot was determined to see Hollywood, now he was so close, though Arthur wasn’t so keen. First, he suggested they had a lot of work to catch up with back in Europe, but Dermot wasn’t convinced.
In actual fact, Arthur intended to fly back to Leeds/Bradford airport, to meet his former Major, Henry Retono. He had intended to keep in touch with him during the convention, but this soon became overtaken by other events. He thought about telling Dermot he had an emergency call from Tenerife, in an effort to excuse himself, but thought that Dermot would be prepared to sanction additional leave, especially if he knew Arthur was going to discuss arranging a digital car to be sent to Dermot.
It only took half hour before they were on the outskirts of LA. The first thing they did was to try to re-book their flight back to Paris, which they managed to do without much of a problem. The fact that the convention had been delayed gave them a perfect excuse for this. They then went to book a hotel for the night, before they went to visit Beverley Hills and Hollywood. As it happened, Arthur rather enjoyed the day. They had lunch in one bar and tea in another, managed to see a few stars (though these didn’t include Cindy Crawford or Jody Foster) and even talked to one or two. All in all, they were both knackered by the evening.

On Saturday evening, followingthe return flight, Arthur was stuck at Paris local airport. Everything had seemed fine that morning at LA Main. He and Dermot checked-in on time and their flight back to Charles de Gaulle was on time. Then, out of the blue, there came a bomb scare. Everything at the airport was put on hold, while security staff checked the airport thoroughly. Eventually, clearance was given for all previous arrangements to proceed.
This delayed Arthur & Dermot’s return flight, and they didn’t arrive back at Charles de Gaulle until 5.30 pm. Dermot suggested to Arthur that he could stay the night at his house. Arthur thought about this for a moment, but as there seemed enough time to get to Paris local airport to catch the last flight to Tenerife, he thanked Dermot for the offer but politely declined.
However, when he arrived at Paris local, he found that his flight to Tenerife hadn’t been booked in time.
“What do you mean?” asked Arthur.
“You were due to fly last evening, non?” a lady at check-in queried with Arthur, in her French accent.
“I was due to fly last night, but the International Astronomer’s Convention was delayed by a day due to a scare on Tuesday,” Arthur insisted. “You must have heard about it, there was an assassination attempt on the Governor of California,” though Arthur knew otherwise.
The lady at check-in went to call her supervisor. Arthur could see them in discussion. They eventually came over to him, just as the announcement for the final boarding of flight AFR117 to Tenerife was made.
“We have received a request to transfer from Friday’s 6 pm flight to this evening’s flight,” the lady said to Arthur, to which he grinned briefly. “However, we did not receive notification of this in time.”
“What!” Arthur said loudly. “You received over 24 hours notice.”
“I know, but I’m afraid we require 48 hours notice so as we can re-arrange to re-schedules,” she told him.
“What schedules?” Arthur queried. “It’s only one addition to a probably-under-booked flight.”
“I understand that you have a large cargo to go onboard, non?” the lady queried.
“If you mean my car, then yes, I do,” he replied.
“It is for this we need 48 hours notice of re-booking, I’m afraid,” she told him.
“Yes, but surely there isn’t a great deal of cargo on the plane,” insisted Arthur. “You were given over 36 hours notice, so this shouldn’t be a problem, surely?”
“If it was just small luggage there would be no problem, but I am afraid we need 48 hours notice for any additional large cargo,” the lady informed him.
Arthur smiled at her and offered to pay for the additional flight, to which the lady may have misunderstood his intentions. She went over to speak to her supervisor, who walked over to Arthur with an angry face.
“We do not take bribes,” the supervisor told him. “Flight AFR117 is now waiting to leave and we cannot hold this up any longer.”
“But, but, I’m from the European Space Agency,” Arthur said to her. “I need to get to Tenerife, to the observatory with clear skies. I can’t afford to study the sky from a dusty old city like Paris.”
“It doesn’t matter if you were from the French ministry – we do require 48 hours notice for additional large cargo,” said the supervisor. “Good day.”
“Now look here!” Arthur shouted. “What am I going to do then – I can’t wait until Monday morning to return to Tenerife.”
The supervisor suddenly stopped, turned around, and called the lady Arthur had been dealing with over to her. They were checking data on a PC, and spoke in French with one-another. They were unaware that Arthur understood what they were discussing, or what he could hear of them discussing, at least.
The supervisor then walked back to Arthur. He could see her holding something in her right hand.
“Do you expect me to wait until Monday morning for my flight?” he then asked.
“Monsieur, you have been booked to return to Tenerife tomorrow morning,” the supervisor told him.
“But, but, but I thought you said you required 48 hours notice before you can book large cargo in for flights?” he queried. “If you’d have booked my car in when I first arrived, I could have been on that flight right now.”
“Monsieur, this booking was made yesterday morning, when you first informed us that you would be unable to travel on your originally-booked flight,” she replied.
“No-one informed me that I was booked to travel tomorrow morning,” said Arthur.
“I can assure you that you were informed,” the supervisor replied.
Perhaps Dermot hadn’t told him or had misunderstood the instructions when he re-arranged the flights the previous morning, Arthur thought.
“I’m sorry, I just assumed that I would be travelling on AFR117,” said Arthur.
“You English, you always rely on assumptions – which are usually wrong!” the supervisor told him, before walking off, and left the lady to deal with him.
“Here are your tickets for flight AFR008, for Tenerife Nord at 9.30 tomorrow morning, monsieur,” she said. “Please ensure your car is ready at the airport multistory car park by 7.30. You can confirm the car’s registration, model and make now if you wish.”
Arthur was in two minds, angry he had missed the last flight of the day to Tenerife, but relieved that he had the tickets for the next flight, albeit 15 hours later. He confirmed the details of the car to the lady, before walking off to look for food.
Arthur now regretted not accepting Dermot’s offer to stay the night at his house, and decided to ring him while he was waiting for his order. Unfortunately, there was no reply. After he had finished his southern fried chicken and French fries, Arthur decided to ring Dermot on his mobile.
“Hello, Dermot O’Hagan, can I help at all?” was the reply on his mobile.
“Hello Dermot, it’s me, Arthur,” he replied.
“Oh hello Arthur, where are you - you can’t be back already?” queried Dermot.
“I’m afraid I’m stuck at Paris local airport,” Arthur told him. “Apparently, they couldn’t book me in for tonight’s flight. I was told they required 48 hours notice for rescheduling large cargo flights.”
“They didn’t tell me that when I asked to re-book our flights yesterday,” Dermot told him.
“Well never mind, they’ve booked me to fly back tomorrow morning,” Arthur replied. “Can I stay at your house for the night?”
“You know you’re welcome to stay,” said Dermot. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a little while though, as I’ve taken my family out for the evening. They hadn’t seen me for a while, so I thought I’d better treat them. You know what families can get like.”
“Yes, yes, quite,” replied Arthur, thinking whether it was worth leaving the airport just for the night, and then having to leave Dermot’s house early next morning to check-in back at the airport again. “Would you say it would be okay to stay the night here at the airport?”
“I don’t see why not,” said Dermot. “It’s not as plush as LA or JFK, or even Charles de Gaulle, but there are always a few bars with satellite TV. You’re welcome to come to my house, if you prefer.”
“Thanks for the offer, but on the face of it, perhaps it may be best if I stay here for the night,” replied Arthur. “At least I don’t have to worry about checking-in.”
“Okay then,” said Dermot. “I’ll have to go now, but I’ll speak to you soon. Cheerio.”
Arthur heard a beep on his mobile and noticed that there was only 2 euros credit left on it. He pondered for a few moments what to do next, before finishing his drink and wandering off to the chemist, where he could get more credit. When he got there however, he saw the chemist had closed for the night.
“Damned!” he said to himself. “I knew I should have topped it up before I left.”
As he continued to wander about the airport, he suddenly thought that he could have used his ‘force’ to convince the supervisor at the check-out that his car had been booked for the flight to Tenerife.
“Damned, damned, and damned again!” he said.
Unfortunately, it was too late to do anything about it now. There are some things you can use the force for, but reversing time wasn’t one of them. He then went to see what was on at the airport café, and noticed the TV was on. Unfortunately it was summer, and there were no football matches on show, just the odd soap or drama. Arthur went to buy a cup of coffee and went to sit in a quiet corner. He then thought about contacting Henry. Did he have enough credit to tell him everything that had happened to him in the past week, he thought to himself? In the end, he decided to give Henry a brief call.
“Hello, Henry Retono, here,” came the answer on Arthur’s mobile.
“Hello, Major, it’s me professor Wagstaff,” he replied.
“Well hello professor, or should I call you Arthur?” said Henry. “What happened to you this week? I thought you were going to contact me from California?”
“Oh a lot happened,” Arthur said to him “Too much to tell in one call, I’m afraid. Did you hear about the Governor of California?”
”What, about the attempted assassination?” asked Henry. “I was beginning to think you’d been taken in for custody for the shooting.”
“Well, it was a little more complicated than that,” said Arthur.
“You mean to say you were charged with his attempted murder?!” asked Henry.
“Oh no, no, no,” Arthur replied. “It was nothing like that, I’m pleased to say. The popular assumption is that it was the Governor who was to be assassinated. In truth, it was somebody completely different.”
“How do you know that?” asked Henry.
“Because it was me who disturbed the assassin,” Arthur told him.
“And how did you do that, may I ask?” queried Henry. “You didn’t climb onto the stanchion and freeze the chap, before pushing