A conversation following fifteen instalments of The World That Had No Outside
The Senior Common Room was unusually quiet.
Professor Quillibrace had placed a copy of the story on the table before him. Miss Stray was reading the final page again. Mr Blottisham had been standing by the fireplace for several minutes, looking distinctly dissatisfied.
“I should like to begin,” he announced, “by establishing one simple fact.”
Quillibrace looked up.
“An ambitious undertaking, Blottisham.”
“The world has an outside.”
Miss Stray lowered her paper.
“Does it?”
“Of course it does. Otherwise there would be no inside.”
Quillibrace folded his hands.
“And where, precisely, would you locate this outside?”
“Beyond the wall, naturally.”
“But the wall disappears.”
“Then beyond the garden.”
“The garden has a door.”
“Then beyond the door!”
“And beyond that?”
Blottisham paused.
“I don't see why we should have to go on indefinitely.”
“Neither,” said Quillibrace, “does the story.”
Miss Stray smiled.
“I wonder whether we have been asking the wrong question.”
Blottisham turned towards her.
“What other question could there possibly be?”
“Not where the world ends, perhaps. But how one place becomes connected to another.”
Quillibrace nodded.
“That is more promising.”
Blottisham looked from one to the other.
“I fail to see how it helps. A door must lead somewhere.”
“Indeed,” said Quillibrace. “But the interesting thing is that its destination seems to depend upon who approaches it, and what they bring with them.”
“The grey stone?” asked Miss Stray.
“Among other things.”
Blottisham returned to his chair.
“I found the stone particularly unsatisfactory. It was a door, then a river, then a stone, then a house. One cannot keep changing the nature of an object in this fashion.”
“Why not?” asked Miss Stray.
“Because then it is no longer the same object!”
Quillibrace regarded him.
“Perhaps you have mistaken sameness for constancy.”
Blottisham opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Miss Stray turned to the final page.
“There is something else. Elian never really discovers who the others are. The woman with the basket, the little girl, the builder, the man in the brown coat. They seem to belong to one another, but none of them explains how.”
“Nor does the story explain how Elian knows them,” said Quillibrace. “Recognition precedes recollection.”
Miss Stray looked up.
“Yes. She recognises people and places before she can remember having encountered them.”
Blottisham frowned.
“That is surely a defect in the narrative.”
“Or a feature of the world it describes,” said Quillibrace.
“I cannot imagine a world in which one recognises something one has never encountered.”
Miss Stray looked at him.
“Perhaps you have encountered it without knowing that you have.”
Blottisham considered this, then shook his head.
“I don't care for it.”
Quillibrace reached for his cup.
“An observation of some significance, Blottisham. The world does not appear to have been designed to accommodate your preferences.”
Miss Stray laughed.
Blottisham ignored her.
“I should like to return to the matter of the house. Nobody built it. Yet the builder insists that he built it. The child says she needed the room. The woman says it belongs to whoever comes in. And at the end, the table grows longer.”
“Yes,” said Miss Stray. “I thought the table was important.”
“Why?”
“Because it is the one place where nobody has to explain how they arrived. They simply sit down together.”
Quillibrace looked at the story.
“An interesting contrast with the walls and doors.”
“Precisely,” said Miss Stray. “The doors allow people to meet. The table allows them to remain.”
Blottisham looked doubtful.
“But surely the table must be somewhere?”
Quillibrace sighed.
“Blottisham, I am beginning to suspect that you would like to put the entire world on a map.”
“An excellent idea.”
“And what would you do when the map acquired a door?”
“I should draw it.”
“And when someone opened it?”
“I should draw what was beyond.”
“And when what was beyond turned out to be the room in which you were drawing?”
Blottisham looked at him.
“I should stop drawing.”
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Miss Stray said quietly:
“I think that is what the story has been asking us to do.”
Quillibrace regarded her.
“Stop drawing?”
“Stop assuming that every boundary must separate things. Sometimes a boundary is where things meet.”
Blottisham looked towards the window.
“I still maintain that a wall ought to be a wall.”
“Certainly,” said Quillibrace. “Until it becomes a door.”
The conversation paused.
Outside, someone was walking along the gravel path. They carried a small basket.
Miss Stray watched them pass.
“Do you suppose,” she asked, “that the woman has another loaf of bread?”
Blottisham stood abruptly.
“I shall go and find out.”
Quillibrace returned to his reading.
“Do take care, Blottisham. There may be a door.”
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