‘Clearly, what you need to do,’ she said, ‘is invent a time machine.’ ‘Which is theoretically impossible.’ ‘There you go again, being negative. If you can make a battery out of a lemon, how hard can it be? I’m sure you could do it.’ ‘You hardly know me.’ ‘But I can tell. I have a sense. Douglas, some day you are going to do something quite amazing.’ She was very far from sober, of course, but, if only for a moment, I thought she really did believe this of me. Even that it might be true.
