[2003] LOSS & PORPHYRY the novels  

0081 – Part 21 -US Clairvoyance 2

After my experiment, dabbling in clairvoyance, the rest of the flight to the US was uneventful. I watched the film, because I was a fan of Shirley Maclaine, who starred in it. It was a 'weepie', in which she fought to overcome her alcoholism and to regain her daughter. The irony was that the heavy anti-drink message was being presented to an audience many of whom were very well oiled by the free-flowing supply of alcohol. As if to underline the point, as one critical point in the film was reached and Shirley Maclaine started out on a drunken binge, the curtains alongside the screen parted and a lonely figure from the first class section emerged to weave an unsteady path up the aisle. He was hotly pursued by two stewardesses who, firmly grabbing an arm each, escorted him back to the cossetted comfort of first class. No doubt there he would be plied with more alcohol until he fell into a safely paralytic coma.

I finished reading the SRI book; now recognising the phenomena described, in the context of my own experience. The disjointed images that the subjects in the book perceived were seen in exactly the same way as my own had been. The lack of clarity in these images, and their crudity, was now a reassuring proof of their veracity.

My rapid passage through Kennedy airport went exactly according to plan. There were just five people ahead of me in the queue at the immigration desk. Even so, it took me the best part of twenty minutes before I was clear. The official laboured, with the studied sloth that all such bureaucrats seem to cultivate, looking up each 'immigrant' in the massive tomes he guarded in his glass cubicle. When my turn came I found it hard not to giggle. It was so like something out of Kafka; especially where I was supposed to be entering the 'home of the free'. The official leafed, at his leisurely pace, through the seemingly never-ending lists of names. Was I supposed to be on them? Were they, like St Peter's, a record of those deemed good enough to enter heaven? Or were they the lists of subversives, of the crypto-communists, who were known to lurk beneath beds in uncivilised countries around the world? Whichever the category, there appeared to be no efficient indexing system, for the keeper of the books was forced to visit a dozen or more pages of identical looking lists, each accompanied by a sideways glance at me - did I look like a subversive - before the task was completed; and I received the accolade of a stamp in my passport with a piece of paper carefully stapled to the page with the precious visa itself.

The driver of the limousine waiting for me, who seemed surprised to see his client emerge so quickly, had got my name almost right, on the torn bit of cardboard he was holding up; and 'Mr Miller of IBM' entered the vast space that was the interior of the car. The subsequent drive to New Jersey was a non-event. The driver took the longer route through the Coney Island end of Brooklyn, and over the Verrazano Narrows bridge, possibly this was a quicker route than braving the traffic of Manhattan. But this meant that I could only barely see the skyscrapers of the city as dim towers of light on the horizon. In truth, they did not look particularly significant, and the whole adventure seemed unnecessarily low-key, even mundane and unsatisfying. Once again, there was none of the excitement I had experienced in my dream of years before. I might just as well have been in a taxi running through the endless suburbs of London. Only the vast size of the limousine itself hinted that I was now in the richest country on earth.

My disappointment was compounded when I arrived at my destination. The real Meadowlands Hilton could not have been further removed from the very strong, but now demonstrably fallacious, images I had experienced on the plane. The area in which it was located was, as far as the harsh yellow light from the sodium street lamps revealed, a business district - possibly even a factory estate. So much for those distant views. The handful of three foot high firs planted around it hardly made for a rural location; and their tired brown foliage indicated that they felt much the same. The building itself was one of those instantly forgettable, totally anonymous, hotel buildings that litter the cities of the earth. It could have been anywhere. A tower block for the bedrooms, all neatly ordered, poked incongruously from the spreading ground floor, where the profit was made in the bars and restaurants.

With practiced ease I checked in, and had unpacked in my room, within no more than a quarter of an hour. A life on the road taught you such skills. My room, again, looked very much like the hundreds of others I had stayed in. It was comfortable, perhaps even pleasant, with all the standard furniture and facilities that were supposed to make the tired executive feel at home; and actually did, where such executives often spent as much time in such anonymous rooms as they did with their families. It was not, though, the hotel of my visions. I found myself even trying to believe that what I might have seen on the plane was the logo of the Hilton chain; which, as a large, stylistically curved, 'H' might have been what I had imagined as a circular building. But I knew it was a pathetic compromise. The truth was that the experiment had failed.

Despite the fact that it was after midnight by my internal clock, though only late evening by the time shown on the clock built into the bed's headboard, I didn't feel tired. I decided, therefore, that he had better take the opportunity of tracking down the contacts he had made at the Paris meeting.

The lobby proved to be packed with what he took to be IBM's local staff; animatedly talking in groups, searching for friends and colleagues, or moving purposefully in groups towards the bars and restaurants. All of them were, however, strangers to me Finally, I detected one familiar face at the end of the room. It was Ray Wiltshire, the US contact man for my operation. Thankfully, I wove my way through the other groups to join that one. It comprised four men and two women who, once Ray's introduction of me had been been completed, seized on me like a long lost relative. They were appreciative of the staff who manned their far-flung colonial outposts. They themselves could not bear the thought of life without all the labour saving devices that buttressed their lives, and respected those who could survive in the squalor that was Europe. Fortunately, I had already met a number of Americans in my work with IBM, and had grown accustomed to their somewhat parochial, perhaps even unintentionally patronising, view of life beyond the shores of their country. It was a surprising view, possibly, when their country had appointed itself the guardian of the free world of which they had so little comprehension.

The conversation quickly turned to business and I found, to my delight, that several members of the group were the key contacts who could resolve many of the inevitable problems that were dogging the launch in the UK. In a few minutes, talking in this group, I resolved problems which would have taken me days to sort out from the UK. Perhaps this trip would not be wasted after all. But, then, all my experience had led me to believe that one face to face meeting was worth a dozen phone calls and innumerable letters. The sharing of the experience, the interlocking of the body language, made agreement, resolution of the problem, so much easier.

As a result, though I had eaten well on the plane, I happily accompanied the group into dinner. I found that I was actually quite hungry again. Even so, I chose the lightest items on the menu; for I knew just how large American portions then could be. Around me, having consumed some of the best looking salads I had ever seen, my US colleagues were tucking into steaks the size of dinner plates, served without any accompanying vegetables; all the while maintaining a continuous stream of conversation about their business.

It was only as I was relaxing, whilst the others tackled the sweet course, that I had time to look around me. With something of a shock, I realised that the decor that the restaurant designers had grafted onto the hotel was that of a striped, tented, marquee. The ceilings were hidden behind this billowing fabric. To the side, I could see that the dining room extended out into a form of conservatory; the glass roof and windows showing the dark outside.

I immediately thought back to my experiment. The dining room matched the additions I had seen to the side of the building. So, at least part of the experiment had worked. But why had the main part failed?

Before going to bed, I had another look at the picture I had drawn. The tenting and the glass-house were, in truth, not the same in detail as I had found in the restaurant. But the concepts were the same; and who would have thought of a restaurant would have been inspired by a circus!

[back]    [home]

hits