Symmetry Violations: The Atharrais Sequence, #2

By Don Harrison

Harry had been admitted to the small group who know Atharrais' heavily-rationed secrets. A shocking meeting resulted in a life-changing induction to the innermost workings of the world around us. In the process he had discovered a true soulmate for the first time in his life, but despaired of them ever being together.

However his life appeared to be falling apart since the great revelations of the last year.

When everything seemed predestined and comfortable Harry had realised it was all unreal. The true reality was actually far stranger than he could have imagined.

But nothing in the world remains constant, even when the truth is unmasked.

Fresh challenges now confront Atharrais from multiple sources. A non-survivable threat materialises from nowhere and an opposing group are contesting the necessary measures to quench it.  It may even be Atharrais' own fault if the unpredicted consequences of their actions result in an even worse catastrophe.

This second novel in the Atharrais sequence addresses the perspectives and ironies of normal people coping with outlandish and seemingly impossible calamities.  

Not only is nothing real, but even unreality itself may simply be a reflection of something else.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Don Harrison
• Release date: Aug 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223930600

Don Harrison

I always wanted to write a book but did not get around to finishing one until I retired from full-time work in the UK Chemical industry. Having completed my first novel, Harry’s Lattice, I found I had become addicted to the process, so dived straight into this one. I expect to now experience immediate withdrawal symptoms, requiring the writing of a third instalment of this series. I’m an amateur musician; playing drums, keyboards and saxophone in various bands. I’m also a father, a stepfather, a grandfather, a prolific cutter of grass (although not otherwise a gardener) and of course a husband.

Book preview

Prologue

Cause and effect.  Almost all the events which we know have associated causes in the past.  Science has identified a number of strange quantum differences where causation is the other way around, but that doesn’t impinge significantly on the experience of people outside academia. Those who know the world is not real and is actually the result of an underlying information system may disagree, but all stories seem to require a beginning, a middle and an end.  Preferably in that order.

Some causes are far more significant than others.  Bigger-ticket causes. Causes that receive all the publicity.

Two big-ticket causes in the past received all the publicity for the effects that shaped events in this story. One of them was known to only a few and happened relatively recently. The other became known to almost everyone on Earth but happened a long, long time ago.

In Philadelphia in 1981 a rather shy student at Drexel University almost got a girlfriend for the first time in his brief life.  Joseph Cheston, 19, had come to the big city from his home in rural Kennett Square, Pennsylvania to study astronomy and astrophysics. His hometown was known as the ‘Mushroom capitol of the world’ which helped Joseph not one bit, ever since he claimed this in a Drexel introductory class. He was henceforth referred to as ‘Joe from the shit’ in reference to the popular but mythical belief that mushrooms are grown in the dark and fed on manure.  Joseph tried to ignore the jibes but his diffident and retiring manner did not resonate with those he wished to impress. Mainly girls.

Joseph sailed through his first year doing well academically but failing magnificently to have any real social life amongst the other students. Finally, a similarly shy and diffident female student struck up a hesitant friendship with Joseph. Avery Merrick was an average student, similarly afflicted with the same difficulty in making and maintaining friendships as he. The basis of their relationship was a familiarity between those who recognised aspects of their own personalities in others.  Each saw the other as a version of themselves.

Unfortunately, Avery had an elder brother in the year above who objected to her seeing ‘Shitty Joe’ and made this known by intercepting him as he left for his dorm one November evening and subjecting him to a beating, egged on by a braying bunch of his buddies.  Mason’s buddies were in fact a well-known group of right-wing Christian students who acted as a kind of unofficial campus police. The morals of the students were their stated concern, of course. They assisted Joseph’s moral development by repeatedly kicking him as he lay unconscious on the concrete, then disappearing into the night.

Joseph was discovered an hour later by a patrolling security guard. In the Jefferson University Hospital, just over the Market Street bridge, the emergency room physician initially feared for Joseph’s life. After a while, he recovered consciousness but a detailed examination revealed he could not feel anything below his waist.  His family arrived from ‘Mushroom City’ and were devastated to see the state he was in. Visually his bruises, deep gashes and missing teeth were horrifying, but they would heal or be replaced.  His spinal cord trauma would improve a little and he would walk again, short distances with assistance. But Joseph was now predominantly confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Avery never came to see him. Joseph assumed her family prohibited that, especially after Mason was arrested and charged with felony aggravated assault, which his lawyer pleaded down to get him twelve years imprisonment. Two of his brutish associates also received lesser jail time for the attack.

Joseph was able to resume his studies a year later and graduated summa cum laude, going on to gain a doctoral degree in astrophysics and begin a distinguished career as a research professor at Princeton University.  Some years later he was approached by his mother, who invited him to believe the world was not real. As his mother had passed away shortly after the assault at Drexel, he was somewhat more accepting than he would otherwise have been. He was accepted into the US chapter of Atharrais and used his theoretical brilliance to help understand the application of their knowledge.

The reason for the assault? He had spoken at a discussion group about the Big Bang theory, espousing the hypothesis that the universe sprang into existence fourteen point seven billion years earlier from a singularity. Mason had found this statement of a simple scientific fact abhorrent, as it offended his deep and abiding Creationist beliefs.  That such an atheistic barbarian should be seen to consort with his little sister was, in his opinion, the very height of repugnance. Arranging to break Joseph’s back was the least he could do to help correct his faulty understanding.  Mason showed no remorse and never apologised.

In prison, he came into contact with fundamentalism many times and found it useful to become a disciple of a murderer who had slaughtered a Muslim Imam with the temerity to park his station wagon in a preferred spot in the parking lot next to a mosque.  Mason’s feelings and beliefs hardened and darkened as the years passed, as did his loathing of those who both denied God’s will and professed evangelically about that denial to decent yet simple-minded people.

Mason’s eventual release allowed him to resume his business diploma studies, although Drexel refused to have him return. He completed his course elsewhere and graduated but was unable to find work.  Through his newly forged links with like-minded others, he found himself an enforcer for a crime boss running drugs and prostitution rackets in North Philadelphia. His financial and business expertise was invaluable, as was his notable enthusiasm for exercising physical penalties on the gang’s rivals.  But he never forgot his hatred of the ‘Mushroom Geek’, who he still felt was the source of his downfall.  As his righteous Christian rage grew inside him, so did his antipathy towards scientific atheists. He envied their technical prowess and their deep knowledge of God’s Cosmos.  Almost osmotically his fervour was sensed and transferred to a few of those around him in the gangs. Mason found himself with disciples of his own; broken individuals who were attracted to his faith-driven anger at science and its practitioners.

Finally, a schism within the crime gang arose in a red mist of violence and bloodshed. Mason found himself and his followers outside the revised syndicate but with his own hard-won assets feeding his ego and his wallet.  Now was the time to strike back in God’s name against those who had misappropriated the Lord’s universe, using the cursed mathematics and scientific principles. The secrets of God’s cosmos were not to be utilised like a knitting pattern or a cookery recipe to leverage the career of atheists; they were to be adored and venerated in secret. Mainly by Mason, his followers and those with whom he chose to share his idyll.

A plot was hatched. The demagogue Joseph would be seized and interrogated. His knowledge would be taken in the Lord’s name and his broken body disposed of.  A strike team visited Joseph’s house on the outskirts of Trenton, New Jersey. Joseph was taken without a struggle and brought to a warehouse owned by Mason’s cabal. No torturous recourse was left unexplored as he was viciously and malevolently interrogated by the group over an agonising week. Joseph had no choice but to tell Mason all he knew. About the nature of the universe and how it was fundamentally an information construct in eight dimensions. How some event triggered a vacuum collapse that would destroy the Milky Way galaxy in ten thousand years. How a great reset would occur, returning those with in-depth knowledge to existence. How the spread of this knowledge could initiate another catastrophe.

To Mason, this was an apotheosis. A vindication of his ethos and his credo. Most of the information Joseph revealed was in scientific and mathematical language, unreadable by Mason, but others could be subsequently recruited to turn the knowledge into physical power. He was now in possession of the greatest secret ever, the key to power and fame and eternal life.  Once all of Joseph’s knowledge had been extracted he was unceremoniously shot twice through the mouth and his damaged body dumped in the Delaware. As were the two associates who were privy to the interrogation. Mason took the confidentiality of the secret seriously.

Atharrais, of course, can discern how many living, conscious individuals are privy to the forbidden knowledge about the nature of the world. Disposing of Joseph and others was a smart move by Mason, as Atharrais were then content to simply monitor the situation without investigating too deeply.

Mason went on to expand his organisation, calling it the Komotsi brotherhood after an indigenous American word for ‘truth’.  He soon realised that his criminal connections were not unnoticed by US law enforcement agencies, however, which hampered his desperate need for more detail about the secret knowledge. In particular, the weapons to which Joseph had alluded but been unable to provide detail about. Mason decided that overseas branches of the Atharrais organisation were more likely targets.

This all composed one of the two sequences of causes which resulted in critical subsequent effects.  The other one happened over twelve thousand years earlier.

On Earth, it was nine forty-seven a.m. on the eleventh of December in the year eleven thousand nine hundred and seventy-two BC, if such dates have any meaning. Humans were just on the verge of making the shift from being hunter-gatherers to beginning agriculture. The Upper Paleolithic era was ending, giving way to the Holocene.  A break in the general trend of global warming was resulting in a dip in worldwide temperatures and the slow-creeping return of glaciers to northern Europe.

In the Oort cloud, sixty thousand times the Earth’s orbital distance from the Sun, an encounter between a frozen planetesimal the size of Pluto and a strange rock just under fifteen kilometres across sent the smaller body careening down the gravity gradient towards the planets. Moving at almost twenty-one kilometres per second it passed through the cold lonely bodies that languidly orbit the outer regions of the solar system, heading for the bright light around which all circle.

Thus, two events and their immediate outcomes separated in time and space conspired to set in motion a sequence of events that were considered accidental by those involved at the time, but which could also be judged as planned and inevitable. An accident can be considered to result from the immutable consequence of a series of definitive actions. Snooker players would understand.

Chapter 1: Harry

Harry drifted awake as if he was swimming towards the surface of a dark and dreary pool amid an even darker and drearier forest. He had managed to nod off at about three a.m. Which was an improvement on the previous night’s five a.m. but still didn’t constitute a decent night’s sleep. Above the imaginary pool, he could dimly hear an alarm going off, so he was swimming mightily to breast the sleepy surface and switch it off to avoid upsetting Lorraine, who despised being awoken early during the school holidays.  His eyes eventually opened, revealing an out-of-focus bedroom with wan artificial light creeping under the bedroom door from the landing.

He reached out and grabbed his phone to silence its perky seven o’clock Monday morning alarm tune.  As he did so he recalled that the noise was unlikely to trouble Lorraine as she was currently elsewhere, with someone else. And she was not coming back as far as he knew.  Lorraine had in fact left him last Friday, giving a brief sorry but this is how it is, as she swept past him and left his world.

Over the weekend Harry had alternated between being desperately sad it had come to this, elated to be free, angry at being cheated on and ultimately chagrined that he had entertained feelings for Judith they had both suppressed whilst Lorraine had secretly been doing something similar.  The resulting mixture of emotions conflated to make Harry feel a bit sad but also a bit happy and a lot embarrassed. His natural inclination was to shelve the issue into an imaginary inbox where it would mature and fester long enough for him to endure thinking about it again one day. It was probably the best strategy. Except that Harry was not an island, entire unto himself as some poet once put it.  Rather soon after Lorraine drove off his phone rang.

Dad, it’s Anthony. Are you OK? I mean, I’ve just had Mum on the phone in floods of tears telling me she’s left you. What’s going on?

Harry tried and failed to find the first words of his new single life in order to respond.

Dad, are you there? Hello? Dad? You’re worrying me!

Ah, yeah. Anthony.  Er... I’m a bit ... Just a sec I think I need to sit down. Look give me a minute and I’ll call you back, OK?  Anthony hesitantly agreed and said he would call back himself if Harry didn’t come back to him straight away.  In the background, Harry could hear a female voice asking if they should simply drive through to Middlesbrough. Harry promised to call back directly and pressed the red button.

He was still standing looking at the oval mirror in a fixed position, as when Lorraine left ten minutes previously. His mind was principally a blank on the surface but underneath it was frantically whirring away trying to process what just happened. Where did that come from? Who? What? Where? When? Lots of questions that had little chance of a direct answer floated about in Harry’s subconscious, demanding resolution.

He shook his head slightly and walked into the kitchen.  Making tea is what people did in similar circumstances, was it not? Bereavement and the like? Hot sweet tea? Yuk thought Harry, coffee white no sugar, please. He switched on the kettle which promptly fizzed with that sound that kettles make when they are activated with insufficient water inside.  He exasperatedly yanked it from the base and held it under the cold tap then set it back down and pressed the button again.  Released from his magic petrification spell, he sat on a stool at the breakfast bench and hunted on his phone for the last call redial function.

Hi, Anthony. Er ... yes, she must have called you then?  I just came home from work and when I walked through the door she was standing there with her coat on. Said she’d met someone and was leaving to be with them. No, she didn’t say who. Sorry? Er, no I’m sort of assuming it’s a bloke but I don’t know really. Could be a monkey for all I know.  OK yes, sorry that was crass, wasn’t it?  Then she just said goodbye and left.  Oh, she said she’d be sending divorce papers and hoped I’d sign them.  What?  No of course I didn’t go after her. I’m only now waking up after the shock, it’s as much as I could do to remember to breathe, never mind begin a formal investigation. What did she say to you?

The kettle boiled and clicked off as Anthony recounted his experience from a few minutes earlier.  Harry transferred the phone to his left hand so he could grab the coffee jar and pour hot water as he listened.

Well, I wondered what the hell was going on, Anthony said. "Before I could say hi Mum, she was telling me to shut up and listen and she’d left you and I should call you and she would be in touch when things had calmed down a bit and I shouldn’t worry about her as she was doing what was right.  Loads of stuff like that. I was just catching up with the ‘leaving your dad’ bit and she’d gone.  The last thing she said was not to return her call but she’d be in touch shortly.  Dad, what the hell has been happening?"

What indeed? Harry took a breath. I have no idea, son. I really don’t. We haven’t argued about anything or fallen out. I had ... I had no idea at all she was ... er ... she was doing something like this. Harry baulked at saying the word ‘cheated’ as it was just as relevant to what he had been contemplating with Judith. Except he had not cheated, he realised after a moment. Did that give him a sort of ethical high ground over Lorraine?  Would he be justified to drop into moral outrage mode? Not Harry’s thing though.

Anthony soon realised that he was unlikely to get much further with his traumatised father on this call so he said, Just a sec Dad, and covered the phone with his other hand whilst he talked with his girlfriend about what they should do. Harry of course could hear every word since iPhones are not simply silenced in that way. The girlfriend seemed all up for a trip to Middlesbrough but Anthony wasn’t sure it was for the best, just before Christmas. How would her family respond?

Right Dad, we’re going to come up for a couple of days, OK?  No, don’t object and we won’t be able to stay all over Christmas either. But I want to make sure you’re OK. We’ll come up in the morning. You’ve met Charlotte, haven’t you? No?  Oh, I thought ... doesn’t matter, she’s looking forward to meeting you anyway. Look you go and drink your coffee and call if you need anything.  See you in the morning.  Anthony rang off and Harry looked at his mug till it grew cool.

He got up and poured the cold coffee down the kitchen sink, pressed the kettle button again and remembered he still was wearing his overcoat. Hanging it under the stairs he noticed all Lorraine’s coats, scarves and gloves had gone.  He assumed her wardrobes would be similarly empty upstairs and any other possessions she felt were hers would have been loaded into her car. This was starting to feel a bit more real, as the initial shock wore off.

Half an hour later Harry was sitting in an armchair with a third attempt at a cup of coffee, which was also growing cool in his hand. His emotions were resolving into an overall sense of relief that he was able to be alone again and not have Lorraine’s constant coaching to contend with.  Once or twice, he asked himself if loved her. No immediate answer was forthcoming. He loved bacon sandwiches and custard slices but would not slip into a slough of despond if they were no longer available to him.  Yes, he felt a bit foolish that Lorraine had been able to cheat on him for an indeterminate period with an unspecified person without him suspecting or even noticing anything was amiss.  But that was about the extent of it.

So where to go next?  Life would certainly change but for the better or the worse? Harry realised he did not know how to work the washing machine, which was a bit shocking in the twenty-first century but there it was. He would learn it pretty quickly when he needed to.  On the other hand, he was now officially free to engage in relationships with others; it would no longer be cheating, for him at least.  Now there was a thought.

Should he call Judith and weep disconsolately on her shoulder? He did not feel like weeping.  Shocked yes, weepy no.  Should he call her and demand an immediate sexual encounter? That made him smile; no, not at all his thing. How would she respond, though?  Harry eventually had enough of the speculation game and decided to watch some pointless TV with a stiff whisky and put everything else off until Monday, when he would take the day off work and read up on coping with marriage dissolution.  The weekend would be a sort of interregnum, neither one thing nor the other. Give himself a chance to get his head around his situation.  He fell asleep in the chair with an empty whisky glass still in his hand at two a.m. then woke and crawled off to bed.

It did not quite work that way of course.  Lorraine must also have called some friends with her news.  As he waited for Anthony to arrive on Saturday morning his phone rang with the first OMIGOD I can’t believe it! response from mutual friends Dave and Karen. Harry was open with what little he knew and found himself becoming amused that, despite her initial response, Karen insisted she had seen it coming for months. Dave said he would come and take him to the pub later, to which Harry agreed as long as Anthony and Charlotte could come along.

A sprinkling of snow began to fall as Harry waited for Anthony to arrive. White Christmas then? As usual, his thoughts turned to Judith and he wondered what she was up to.  Probably out buying last-minute Christmas cards and presents. She was due to get in touch with him Monday morning when Harry had planned to go for his walk and sit on his dad’s bench, as he now considered it. He had decided to allow that to happen, as it was likely she would have cleared some time for the contact and they could talk properly. He had no idea what he was going to say, though.  Hmm, a snowy bench? Maybe a couple of supermarket shopping bags to sit on.

Harry caught himself and smiled. No Lorraine so no need to sneak about making covert assignations. He could call her from the living room if he wanted!

Anthony and Charlotte duly turned up mid-afternoon. Anthony looked ashen, worse than Harry had thought.  Charlotte seemed a nice, rather serious girl in a baggy jumper and leggings, not at all Anthony’s regular girlfriend material. No hair extensions or tattoos were visible at first glance. She hugged Harry and said how sorry she was to meet him for the first time in these circumstances.

Just let Anth and me know what you need, Mister Donaldson and we’ll sort things out. We’re going back to my mum and dad’s place on Wednesday but you’re free to come with us for Christmas if you like.

Harry was moved almost to tears by the offer but instinctively recoiled from the idea of spending Christmas with strangers.

That’s very kind of you Charlotte and please tell your Mum and Dad I’m touched, but I’d really better start getting used to being here by myself, I think. I’m pretty good with my own company and I’m sure a Zoom call or two will set me up OK.  Anthony’s relief was invisible to Charlotte but Harry noticed some tension drain from Anthony’s shoulders. Job over, done his duty.

And please, it’s Harry. Everyone calls me that, except Anthony of course.  It was all very civilised and friendly; they seemed to be a well-matched couple. Harry remained amazed for the duration of their stay that his wayward son appeared to have met and fallen in love with someone normal.  They went up to Anthony’s old bedroom and sorted out their belongings.  Charlotte had even asked if it was OK with Harry that they stayed together.

Well, I’m not bloody sleeping with him so he’s all yours, Harry quipped, much to her delight and Anthony’s horror.

Harry and Anthony were sitting munching ham and coleslaw sandwiches whilst Charlotte took a shower.  Anthony had realised he would get no more information once had professed his surprise at events. He had tried calling his mother on the way up to Middlesbrough but she had not picked up.

It’ll be odd being in that room with Charlotte tonight Dad.  My old bedroom and all that. God, I’ll never forget the first time I came home from Uni at the end of the first year. He looked furtively at Harry for a moment.  I expect Mum told you all about that didn’t she?

Well, she certainly mentioned it, but I’m sure your side of the story is far more entertaining, replied Harry.  He had no idea what Anthony was talking about but sensed he would get a fuller recollection if he feigned semi-ignorance.

Harry recalled that Anthony’s return from university had been notable because he had shut himself in his room almost permanently, dealing death and mayhem on his X-Box to a bunch of on-screen zombies who were attempting to devour his avatar's brain.

Anthony hesitated a moment then began. Over and done with now of course and she never ever referred to it again. Thank God.  But she told you all about it?  What a bummer, she could have at least let on she was going to sprag on me.

Harry knew he should have confessed he was completely in the dark, but this sounded far too fascinating to pass up. I was a bit surprised but hey we're all young once, aren't we?  But I can't believe she got it straight. Maybe tell me your side of the story please?

Harry crossed his legs, put his head on one side and coolly observed his offspring's slight distress.  Anthony had always got on well with Dad, in an unemotional sort of way.  Essentially Dad left him alone to do what the heck he liked but was there to bail him out financially if anything went wrong. Which was great.  And Dad had never really ever shouted at him or done anything else to spoil his youthful exuberance either, unlike Mum who never let anyone forget that she was a teacher through and through.

Anthony regarded his father and sighed.  OK, I dunno what she said, but really it was nothing to get upset about.  I mean she should have been more careful, shouldn't she?  Harry raised an eyebrow but said nothing, leaving the silence to go unfilled.

See ... Anthony continued, I was just home from Uni for the first time and it was cool that my room hadn't been changed at all.  Felt great coming back in and leaving all the Uni stuff behind and dropping back into that little boy thing.  You were away somewhere and there was only Mum and me at home.  I dropped all my stuff and Mum said she'd sort it and I should go and have a bit of a relax, as I'd been falling asleep all the way up from Coventry while she was driving.  Harry nodded and made the right noises in appropriate places as the story began to emerge.

So, I plonked down my bed and pulled my Beats on then drifted off into some Muse.  He frowned in thought.  "I think it was 'Plug-In Baby' actually.  Hot video for that song."  He paused and Harry replayed a hazy memory of the song's music video, which seemed to feature attractive young ladies wearing not very much but augmented with peculiar cyborg-like features.  Silence broke out so Harry prompted.

Yes? So..?

That’s when it all really went tits-up, Dad.  It all felt nice and safe and familiar so I couldn't resist a bit of a ... a bit of ... you know, a bit of ... well self-abuse.  Teenage relief.  Anthony glanced towards the door to make sure Charlotte was not about.

Harry got the message and chose to skate over the details so he just nodded, like a man whose student son had just confessed to being a cyborg voyeur and comfort-wanker.

I must have finished after about ten minutes or so. Another quick covert glance at Dad to see if the modest reference had been understood, And then I wanted the loo so I took off the Beats and opened my eyes.  Anthony seemed to have been suddenly afflicted with a similar malady to the zombies in the XBox game.  His brain had been eaten by the memory of the full horror that Harry had forced him to dredge.  Harry waited him out.

And it was there, on the dresser. A fresh cup of tea. Still hot.  Anthony was by now almost catatonic as he replayed the out-of-body version of events as they must have unfolded whilst Muse and their cyborg sirens had prevented him from hearing the knocks on his bedroom door.

No words were enough, so Harry stood and headed for the door, shaking his head and sighing a little, for show.  In truth, he simply felt the need to escape before he fell over laughing.  Anthony remained transfixed in a Groundhog Day of repeated horrors as Harry left the kitchen with a faint grin.  Lorraine had never mentioned the matter.

They all went off to the pub on Saturday evening and met Dave and Karen, as promised.  Harry was adamant he would not be drawn into recriminations or criticisms of Lorraine in public but it was difficult when Karen kept recalling observations of Lorraine’s recent behaviour that she now realised indicated something clandestine was going on.  At least twice Lorraine had asked Karen to cover for her if anyone asked where she was on a  particular day.  Days where she had told Harry she was going out with friends, shopping, or whatever. Harry elected to say nothing, especially as he sensed Anthony was stiffening more with each story. He finally mentioned this to Dave when Anthony was at the bar and Charlotte and Karen had gone to the toilet.

Dave had nodded, saying he would advise his wife to be a bit more circumspect around Anthony.

That night Harry had slept well for a few hours but awoke early and been unable to sleep anymore. Sunday had come and gone with no developments, other than Anthony reporting that he had spoken to his mother, who was at an undisclosed location, doing unspecified things with an unknown person. Harry wondered why Anthony had bothered mentioning it.

And now it was Monday morning and Harry had finally scuba-dived his way to the bottom of that dreary pool of somnolence only to be awoken by his alarm, which he had forgotten to shut off the night before.  He managed to silence the thing, dropping it back onto the bedside table. He reached for his water glass to moisten his lips and had the extremely good fortune to keep his eyes open as the glass came into his immediate field of vision.

Floating in the glass and maybe thrashing around just a bit was a large black spider that had taken an impromptu dip and been unable to extricate itself sometime in the night.

Ugh! Yuk! Harry moved the glass swiftly from under his nose and set it down, splashing some of the contents around and almost freeing the drowning arachnid. He leapt from the bed in a frenzy of disgust, heading for the en-suite and his dressing gown.

Harry hated spiders.  He had lost the girlfriend before Lorraine by almost leaving a hand-shaped imprint on her back as he rudely shoved her out of the way in a rush to escape from a nasty eight-legged monster.  Now he shuddered as he dwelt on the possibility he may have reached for that water glass in the darkness and ... but he could not complete the thought, so repugnant was the idea of getting the struggling spider in his mouth.  He found his dressing gown and slippers then returned to the water glass and its loathsome occupant. He opened the drawer and took out a pair of underpants to cover the glass so he did not have to witness the thing’s struggles and took it to the toilet.  It was tricky to get the spider into the toilet bowl from under the covering without risk that it might escape, but he managed it, with several more shudders. Flushing the toilet was a big relief.

Harry always told people who stumbled across his phobia that he was not irrationally scared of harmless spiders, he merely found them disgusting and preferred not to have them around. As an explanation, this was defective only in that it completely obscured the truth, which was that he was a closet arachnophobe and always had been.  In the future, his bedtime water glass would have a coaster on the top.

Hiya SuperHarry! How are you today? Are you missing me yet? I’m missing you; how are we going to survive Christmas without a few world-saving adventures? Hope you’ve got all your Christmas stuff sorted; I’ve still got loads to do.  So how’s life in Harry’s World? Are you on your favourite park bench yet talking to your Dad? Hey, maybe I could have a word with him, tell him what a lot of trouble he’s getting us into. Anyway, listen to me wobbling on! How’s things?

Hearing Judith’s voice on his phone was like an infusion of joy in Harry’s world. All of a sudden, things didn’t seem that bad. In a way, it made it more stressful to tell her his news.

Good morning you terrible gobshite, it’s bloody amazing to hear you, despite not being able to get a word in edgeways. She immediately started to continue but Harry interjected.

Stop, stop, stop. It might be great to hear you but I have some news. Judith subsided and told him to go for it. Deep breath ...

Remember on Friday when I arrived home and the last thing I said to you was that Lorraine’s car was parked on the road instead of where it normally is, on the drive?  Well, when I got in, she was standing there in the hall with her coat on. She said she’d been seeing someone else and she was leaving me. Then she just walked past me and drove away. I haven’t seen her since.

Judith was silent but Harry had heard an intake of breath on the line as he delivered his news. He thought he would patiently wait out her surprise but her reaction was important to him and he needed to hear her response.

So, what do you make of that, then?  Bit of a shock really, isn’t it?  Harry could sense her shifting mental gears on the other end of the line as she processed the information.

So ... you mean she’s gone? For good?  Oh, Harry, that’s ... I don’t know. Has she learned something about me? I mean us? Oh no, I mean ... Is it my fault?

I don’t think so. I don’t know what’s been going on but I doubt she would have said the things she did if she’d learned anything she shouldn’t have.  At the moment I’m taking it at face value and accepting she’s met someone else and been carrying on with them secretly. Maybe she couldn’t face spending Christmas without them. I have a glimmer of an idea of how that feels.

How are you? You should have called me straight away. You’ve been alone all weekend you nitwit?

Oh no, she told Anthony as she was driving away so him and his girlfriend came up on Saturday.  Took me to the pub on Saturday night along with some old friends who are now telling me they suspected Lorraine was playing around for ages. You know how it goes when your friends break up – you pick one side or the other and start casting aspersions.

Judith had come down slightly from the initial shock.  Well, that’s something anyway. Are they staying over Christmas? Oh Harry I’m so sorry to hear this, you must be devastated. For once I’m speechless.

Flippin heck, is that what it takes to shut you up? If only I’d known I could have arranged multiple crises in order to get a word in.  Judith would normally have laughed and bitten right back, but Harry only heard a small sob in response to his banter.  He continued anyway.

I’m really OK. It’s weird but I’d have expected to feel angry or sorry for myself or one of those emotions that fuel soap operas on TV.  But once I got over the initial shock I was just numb with a side-order of embarrassed. I feel a bit silly on a number of counts.

Hardly surprising you were in shock. Why embarrassed though, you’ve nothing to be embarrassed about?

Harry tried choosing his words carefully, aware that he needed to manage her response if that were possible.

I’m embarrassed that this has been going on for some unspecified period and that even Dave and Karen had picked up on it.  They’re the friends in the pub on Saturday, by the way.  And also ... He paused before the next part but elected to skip it.  Oh, I don’t know what I think really.  To be honest I have a quite large sense of relief that it’s over, which I feel the tiniest bit guilty about.

Harry you dimwit. I know you were going to say you were nobly resisting my feminine wiles while she was shagging the butler. You can’t fool me.

He couldn’t help laughing.  He had agonised about how to phrase this to avoid loading her up with it and she’d demolished his anxieties in a sentence.

Wiles while? Can you say that? Is it even English?  I’ve missed you this weekend Mrs Taylor, you’re a breath of fresh air.  Seriously though, you hit the nail squarely on the head; although if I thought my butler was the culprit ... He stopped and took a breath, ready for the next rehearsed part. "OK look, I’m aware I’ve been a bit of a dick and probably pissed my wife off so she left for the butler and even glossed over your feminine wiles, which I have to say are considerable and took much glossing over.  But this doesn’t have to mean any change between you and me; honestly. Despite