It’s a
curious fact that the invention of the time machine was a feat not just of
science but of good British manners.
For many
years, physicists and philosophers alike had scorned the idea of time travel,
citing the paradoxes that it would create: if you went back in time and killed
your grandfather when he was a boy, you would never be born, so you wouldn’t be
able to go back in time to kill him, so you would
have been born and then would have gone back in time… and so on.
However,
one Saturday afternoon, in a discreet and highly exclusive club in Mayfair,
frequented by ageing grandees who preferred to avoid the company of the wrong
sort, everything changed.
Sir
Reginald Burr, who had inherited his father’s air-conditioning fortune and then
trebled it by selling the family firm to an internet company in 1999, felt the
call of nature and rose from a chair that cost more than your house. He made
his stately way across the reading room.
As he
reached the doorway that led to the bathroom, he suddenly found himself
side-by-side with Sir Mortimer Frowse, whose estates encompassed half the land
in one of the less fashionable English counties, and whose imperious bladder
was also calling for relief.
They could
not both fit through the doorway at once. One of them had to go first.
These two
fine gentlemen did, of course, loathe each other for being if not quite the
wrong sort then certainly not the right
sort. And, of course, they were utterly determined to treat each other with unimpeachable
propriety.
Thus began
one of the greatest British stand-offs in history.
“After
you,” said Sir Reginald.
“No, no,
after you,” said Sir Mortimer.
“Not at
all. Do go ahead, dear fellow.”
“Why
really, I insist, old boy.”
This bout
of competitive politeness raged calmly for over two hours, with increasingly vicious
exchanges of deference and implacable self-deprecation. But neither could gain
the upper hand, and their need was becoming ever more desperate.
It is not
known which of them hit upon the idea first, but what is certain is that both
of them muttered instructions to passing stewards (they had, naturally, bought
each other drinks during the impasse, both to assert their own goodwill and to
exacerbate the other chap’s problem). These instructions were identical.
The
stewards conveyed to Sir Reginald’s people, and to Sir Mortimer’s, that they
were to commit all necessary resources to the construction of a time-travel
machine, so that their master could send his rival a few seconds back in time
and thereby trick him into going through the doorway first.
Sir
Reginald’s people called the physics department at Cambridge, offering generous
funding for the work. Sir Mortimer’s people made the same offer to Oxford. The
scientists protested that this was a preposterous idea, and that even if it
were possible it might take centuries. They were told that this would be fine;
once built, the time machine could simply be sent back in time for use in the
present.
The
universities took the money and set up research teams.
Work was
indeed slow, but progress was aided by the Oxbridge merger of 2087, allowing
the teams to combine their efforts on the understanding that they would send
two copies of their eventual invention back to Sir Reginald and Sir Mortimer.
Breakthrough
after breakthrough followed, along with a string of Nobel Prizes, and finally,
in 2231, the notorious grandfather paradox was solved, when a work experience
student suggested that it would probably be best not to give the time machine
to any deranged smartarses.
The two
copies were dispatched back to the club on that distant Saturday afternoon, not
long before Sir Reginald’s and Sir Mortimer’s critically overfull bladders were
due to rupture. Each man set his device to send the other ten seconds into the
past. They pressed their buttons simultaneously.
There was
a flash of light and, ten seconds earlier, they appeared in the same place,
facing each other as they had shortly been.
Assuming
that the damned thing hadn’t worked, they tried again.
And again.
And again.
Their fate
is unknown, I’m sorry to say. But some historians have noted in passing that
that area of Mayfair had been agricultural land until the 1680s, on account of
the rich nitrogen content of the soil.
(With thanks to Left Outside for nudging me toward the idea.)