GUT – Chapter 10

Theodor Saint unravelled his legs and got down from his desk. He knocked briskly against the window-pane as if to make sure he wasn’t imagining the young woman on the other side. 

She must be right down on her knees, he thought, bottom up, protected by a herd of sheep. He began to laugh. But she’d still have to pass another test, he thought.

“What’s that?” Pippa said.

“You’re very good,” Theodor Saint said back to the window. “You seem to have the natural sensory equipment, to a certain extent.”

“Equipment for what?”

“Never mind. First find Maria Sklodowska, and she’ll tell you the easiest way to get here.”

“Maria who? Where does she work?”

Theodor Saint turned from the window and smiled quietly. That’s your test, my dear, he thought to himself, and then started when he heard, “Righto.”

When he turned back to the window, white fleece blocked his view. “That young woman may be here quicker than I think,” he said aloud and began winding the reams of thin white material about his head. He would have to look presentable.

Pippa brushed grass from her knees and pushed through the thick flock of sheep that covered the lawn ten-deep. She had found The Saint. Now she had to find the way to his office.

Maria Thingumijig, what was her name? Skoda? Skowska? Something like that. She’d seen it before somewhere, but where? On the empty heliport Pippa stood still and closed her eyes tight. Think now. Concentrate. Where is Maria?

“Down here with us.” The words entered her mind. Down? She looked up at the top of the Tusk and then down its ivory length. The catacombs. Of course. She’s a bust. Pippa jumped in the air and ran for the side entrance of the Tusk, singing at the top of her voice “Mar-i-a, Mar-i-a.”

The head and shoulders of Maria Sklodowska-Curie were mounted on marble at the very end of the corridor, no doubt because she was larger than life. It wouldn’t do to eclipse the likes of Marconi and Tesla, Sam Morse and Alex Bell, Pippa thought.

“Men!” said Marie Curie. “Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”

Pippa stepped closer to the bust. “They made life tough for you?” she said, imagining a young woman in a white-long sleeved blouse, a long grey serge skirt, and her tousled hair breaking out from the decorum of a fin-de-siècle bun. The woman was running in circles behind men in lab coats and top hats. The circular movement made it look as if young Marie was trying to catch one while being pursued by the others, round and around.