are reading about the past. Making mental notes of dates and names, fitting together all the little things you know about a place and a time. Trying to remember what happened long ago. But here’s a question. Can you remember what will happen? In the future?’
She seemed to expect an answer.
‘Clearly not,’ Thomas ventured. ‘Remembering is by definition about the past.’
‘Why so? Is to remember not simply to make present in the mind that which happens at another time? Past or future?’
‘But no one can make present that which hasn’t happened yet.’
‘How do you know the future hasn’t happened yet?’
‘That’s the definition of the future!’ Thomas’s voice betrayed frustration. ‘The past has happened. It is recorded. We all remember what happened yesterday. The future has not happened. It is not recorded anywhere and we cannot know it.’
‘Isn’t that tautology? Remembering is the recollection of the past. The past is that which can be recollected. Well let me tell you that I am unusual among people in being able to remember what has not happened yet. And the distinction between past and future seems less important than you might imagine.’
Thomas stared at her. He assumed madness.
‘For you, the present is easy to discern because it is simply where memory stops. Memories hurtle out of the past and come to a halt in the now. The present is the rockface at the end of the tunnel where you gouge away at the future.’
There was still no one else in the library. They talked naturally, loudly.
‘I, on the other hand, was born with all my memories, rather as a woman is born with all her eggs. I often forget where the present is because it is not, as it is for you, the gateway to the future. My future is already here.’
‘So tell me, if I am to believe you, what I am going to do tonight, when I leave this library.’
‘You make a common mistake. I didn’t say that I know everything that will ever happen. I said only that I already possess all my memories. (And they run out in so short a time! I have lived through nearly all of them, and now there remain just a few crumbs in the bottom of the bag.) Still, I do have more memories of you.
You will spend your life in the realm of the past You will fail entirely to keep up with the times But your wealth will make your father seem poor A mountain of jewels dug from mysterious mines.’
Thomas thought over the words.
‘What does all that mean? Can you explain?’
The old woman gave a flabby chuckle.
‘Surely you can’t expect me to tell you more than that? Isn’t it already encouraging enough?’
She put the lid on her lunch box.
‘Anyway. It is time for me to take my leave.’ Her possessions found their way back into her bag and she stood up, slowly and uncertainly. ‘But I have just remembered what will happen to you tonight. My mind is more blurred than it once was. You are going to have an encounter with Death. Don’t worry–you will survive.’ She smiled at him–almost affectionately–and departed.
Thomas could not return to his books. He sat for a long time reciting the woman’s words to himself and wondering about his future. He left the library in a daydream and wandered home. Full of his thoughts he rang at the wrong bell. A hooded figure answered the door, black robes billowing around its knees and only shadows where its face should have been. The figure carried a scythe. Made of plastic. Thomas remembered it was Halloween.
Not long afterwards, Thomas’s father received a big promotion. He worked for a small but thriving investment firm in the City that had made a name for itself in private financial services. He had joined the firm twelve years ago from Goldman Sachs and had from the outset consistently delivered better returns to his clients than any of his peers. Tall and attractive, with an entirely unselfconscious sense of humour, he also had a talent for entertaining the high net-worth individuals that were the firm’s clients. Now the board had asked him to take the place of the retiring managing director. He had agreed unhesitatingly.
In celebration of this advancement, Thomas’s father took the entire family to the Oxo Tower for dinner. They drove down from Islington in the car, crossing over Blackfriars Bridge from where the floodlights on St Paul’s Cathedral made it look like a magnificent dead effigy of itself. The restaurant was a floating cocoon of leather and stainless steel with lighting like caresses, and their table looked down over the row of corporate palaces that lined the other side of the Thames. Thomas thought his father looked somehow more imposing even than before. His mother had put on a new sequined dress and talked about the differences in the dream lives of modern and ancient Man as described in the book she was reading about Australian Aborigines. Champagne was poured. They all clinked glasses.
‘So here’s to the new boss,’ proclaimed Thomas’s father.
‘I’m so proud of you, darling,’ said his wife, kissing him on the cheek.
‘I can tell you boys: investing is a great business. A great discipline. It forces you to become exceptional. Most people are just interested with what’s going on now. Getting a little more, perhaps. But basically turning the wheels. When you’re in investment you have to be completely sceptical about the present, aware that there is nothing that cannot change, no future scenario that can be discounted. You exist on a different plane, predicting the future, making your living by working out how other people will be making their living tomorrow. And not only that, but making that future materialize by investing in it. There’s no sphere of knowledge that’s not relevant to this job. It might be water, it might be toys; it could be guns or new kinds of gene. The whole universe is there.’
His wife looked lovingly at him through mascara-thick lashes. Sculpted starters were brought that sat in the middle of expansive plates and seemed inadequate to the three brothers.
‘So tell me, boys–you’re all becoming men now–what is it you’d like to do with your lives? What is your ambition?’
The eldest spoke first.
‘Father, I have been thinking about this a lot recently. I think after I’ve finished at the LSE I’d like to get a couple of years’ experience in one of the big management consulting firms. I think that would give me a broad exposure to a lot of different industries. Then I can do an MBA–maybe in the US. At that point I’d be in a really good position to know what direction to move in. But what I’d really like to do–I say this now without much experience–is to run my own business.’
‘Sounds good, son. Make sure you don’t get too programmatic about things. Sometimes the biggest opportunities come at really inconvenient times. If you’ve planned your life out for the next twenty years you may not be able to make yourself available for them. Next!’
The second son spoke.
‘Father, I want to work for one of the big banks. The money industry is never going to be out of fashion. I can’t see the point of working in some shoe-string business for just enough to live on. The only respectable option to me seems to be to work damn hard and earn serious money–and retire when you’re forty.’
‘Well I’m
