Random Quest - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The frame story deals with the elderly Dr Harshom in Herefordshire – who has a very rare family name, all of whose bearers are in one way or another related and are in some contact with each other.

In the early 1950s the Harshoms, scattered throughout England, are greatly mystified by the appearance of a young man named Colin Trafford, who systematically and persistently meets each and every one of them, asking of a young woman named Ottilie Harshom that none of the Harshoms ever heard of and who is evidently very important to him. Dr Harshom decides to talk to Trafford and understand what it is all about – and the story consists mainly of what Trafford eventually tells.

It turns out that Trafford is a physicist, and that he was involved in a laboratory experiment which went wrong, lost consciousness and woke up to find himself in a parallel universe.

The parallel universe is similar to ours but there was a divergence in the late 1920s. The point of divergence is not precisely identified, but seems to have had the effect of preventing or greatly diminishing the effect of the economic Crash of 1929. Trafford discovers that in the parallel world Adolf Hitler never came to power and the Second World War never happened. Some of the implications are that

• India is still a British colony in 1954 and there are mass demonstrations in Delhi calling for the release of Nehru from prison
• Rab Butler is Britain's Prime Minister
• Winston Churchill's career had been much less distinguished than in our timeline
• Clement Attlee had never been PM and the opposition British Labour Party still calls for nationalisations which it did not get a chance to carry out
• Nuclear power and nuclear bombs are still no more than theoretical possibilities, but scientists are getting worried about the long-term implications of experiments and petition the League of Nations to assume control
• Noël Coward was killed in an accident which did not happen in our timeline

On a more personal level, Trafford finds himself in the body of his counterpart in the parallel universe. As the story unfolds, he meets some old friends who have different partners, and at one point is taken aback to meet someone whom he remembers as having been killed in the war. He also catches a glimpse of his former wife, who in the original timeline died after a year of what he calls "satisfactory marriage", and who in the alternate world is alive, accompanied by another man, and does not recognise him.

As Trafford discovers, his counterpart is a successful author, while he himself is a physicist. Looking through the counterpart's best-selling novels, the protagonist discovers a streak of brutality which becomes increasingly pronounced from book to book, making him resent seeing his name on the cover. This, he discovers, was also manifested in the counterpart's rather troubled relationship with his wife Ottilie. She had married his counterpart for love some three years before, but was increasingly neglected and had resigned herself to her husband having a series of openly-flaunted affairs. Trafford, however, quickly falls in love with Ottilie and spends several weeks rekindling their relationship, overcoming Ottilie's initial distrust and residual hurt. He is then distressed to find himself, suddenly and without warning, transported back to his own world, leaving Ottilie behind.

Trafford then begins his search for Ottilie's counterpart in our own world, determined to rediscover the depth of love he had experienced with Ottilie. All he has is her maiden name Ottilie Harshom, and after finding there is no record of her at Somerset House (which was the General Register Office for Births, Deaths and Marriages) he started his search, writing to and visiting every Harshom relative to try to locate her. All told him that Ottilie Harshom does not exist, and so does Dr Harshom when hearing his story.

Feeling sympathetic to the young man and half-believing his incredible story, the doctor feels worried about Trafford's obsessive "chasing after a ghost" and hopes that he will find another woman to love – since the woman which he met in the other universe doesn't seem to have a counterpart in this one.

However, something the doctor says gives Trafford the inspiration to try a different path. The story concludes as Trafford eventually finds that Ottilie's analogue does exist, though in this world her name is Belinda Gale, and she lives unmarried in Canada with her mother. Trafford marries her in Canada and brings her to England.

It turns out that Dr Harshom's son, killed in a car accident in 1928, had left a pregnant girlfriend never introduced to his parents. After his death, she married a man named Gale who raised her daughter Belinda as his own – in Canada. In the other universe, Harshom's son survived, married his girlfriend and was the one to raise her daughter Ottilie in England. Thus, Dr Harshom is rewarded for his kindness to Trafford by being (re)united with a granddaughter of whose existence he'd previously never known.