‘There’s your roof,’ Fred said. Jane smiled and felt her eyes water.
All her life she had been a burden, a nuisance: someone who earned nothing and stood only to drain the household. Jane held reticules while others danced, and watched over naughty children while their parents attended assemblies. She served where she could to pay her way, to justify her room and board. No one had ever brought her to such a place; she never deserved it. Jane stretched her arms out. She floated out to the middle of the pool. The sky swirled above her, and a thousand sparkles blurred and danced. No one had provided her an activity of idle pleasure such as this; she drank it in greedily.
She inhaled – too deeply, it turned out – and breathed in water instead of air. She coughed and lost the ability she had earlier possessed in floating. She lowered her legs to stand up but found no ground beneath her. She wiggled one leg around and grasped for the bottom of the pool. But the water reached too deep; she could not stand. She’d floated to the deeper end. She coughed again. ‘Help me. I cannot swim!’ She breathed in a goblet’s worth of green water and spluttered. Her head went under.
She sank down into the depths of the pool. Murky water clouded her eyes. She flailed her arms but could not return to the surface. She sank down further and swallowed more water. She hoped Fred had heard her call out. Finally, her toes touched the pool’s bottom. The water surface now appeared to her as a ceiling, a person-length above her. She inhaled, stupidly, and swallowed another mouthful of water. She closed her eyes and struggled to think. She felt herself falling to sleep, peacefully.
Then a hand surrounded her waist and moved her upwards.
Fred pulled Jane to the surface. She gasped and coughed and inhaled a wondrous, painful breath of air, the water leaving a limey and bitter taste in her mouth. He helped her to the side of the pool; he had dived into the water with his clothes on.
She grasped the edge and held on. ‘I swallowed water,’ she said. ‘It looks prettier than it tastes.’ She wiped her eyes. Her nose stung to breathe. Her fingers prickled.
He held his hand on her, somewhere under the water. ‘Why didn’t you say you couldn’t swim?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. Thank you,’ Jane said.
He waited until her breathing slowed and returned to normal. ‘Are you all right?’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you couldn’t swim.’
Jane nodded. ‘I am quite well,’ she said. ‘Perfectly healthy. I swallowed some water, that is all.’ She smiled at him to assure him she felt well. He smiled back. It took several minutes of reassuring words and nods before his face relaxed from a look of horrified guilt to a happier one.
‘I feel terrible. I almost killed you.’
‘You did nothing of the sort. If anything, you’ve brought me to life.’ The words slipped out before she could stop them. ‘Thank you, for showing me this,’ she explained.
He stared at her. Jane grew aware he still held his hand on her under the water. The other held the edge of the pool. He seemed to grow aware of it too. He sighed but did not move. He swallowed. ‘You’re sure you’re all right?’
‘Please stop asking that,’ she said, silencing him.
The air seemed to shift around them; the mood changed. She felt his breath on her collarbone. He moved his eyes downwards and looked at her mouth.
In terms of experience in such matters, Jane could lay claim to the title of ‘limited’. In her twenty-eight years on the earth, pitifully, no man had ever put his hand there, or moved his eyes so, or shown any intentions towards her of doing what Fred now seemed to want to do. She stole a glance at his face and beheld a look in his eyes both noble and brazen. Her heart beat wildly; her mind moved. She wondered if he was aware of her inexperience, if he detected a childishness in the way she held herself or breathed, if it disappointed him, if she should move differently. He continued to look and smile at her; nothing he did seemed to indicate he was anything other than pleased, and perhaps a little scared, of the current situation, and of what might come next. She inhaled and waited and ordered herself to keep breathing.
Unfortunately, possessed with a brain like a chess player’s, always contemplating several steps ahead, she found her mind moving forward over the pleasant parts and on to the things to worry about.
It was not so much the act itself that concerned her, though she was curious and petrified of that, too; it was the afterward that put her mind in a spin. What happened next, beyond him doing the thing he intended? Could she happily return to her own time, once she had known what a kiss from him felt like? She glanced at his face. Once he had kissed her, she knew with her heart, as feeble and inexperienced as it was, she would find it difficult ever to leave him. How glorious it might feel to become swept up in a thing like this. But the hard times afterward could never atone for a few moments of magic. Surely not. Indeed, the act comprised nothing but folly.
‘How can you have reached adulthood without learning to swim?’ he asked in a kind voice. He leant his head towards hers, so close now that she inhaled sharply. She prayed for strength.
She searched for a tactic to halt the operation. She arrived at a compelling one. She closed her eyes at how compelling it would be.
‘Because I am Jane Austen,’ she declared.
The words had the desired effect. Fred drew his head back and blinked. He gave the reaction of any sane person offered such a declaration. He studied her face. ‘I’m sorry?’ he said. His eyes were filled with hope, as though perhaps he had misheard her.
‘I am Jane Austen,’ she repeated.
‘The writer,’ he said with a disbelieving nod. His eyes went blank.
Jane nodded.
‘I see,’ he said. He dropped his hand from where it had been and frowned.
What did he think now? That she was insane, appropriating the writer in some hysterical hallucination? Or did he think she mocked him? Either way, her words had done their job.
‘You don’t need to make up stories,’ he said.
‘It is no story, sir,’ she said.
The damage was complete. He moved more parts of him away from her. He assisted her from the water, gently, deliberately, as one did a child. He shrouded her in a towel.
‘I speak the truth,’ Jane tried again. She did not know why she felt the need to insist, now the moment had passed, but she kept doing so.
Fred nodded. ‘Have you been telling this to Sofia?’ he asked in a soft voice.
‘I am from the year eighteen hundred and three,’ Jane continued, though it was futile. ‘I journeyed to this time. You do not believe me.’ She preached the ludicrous gospel for effect, to drive him away. But she nevertheless felt a sting he had not accepted it.
‘You’ve taken advantage of her. I’ll take you home.’ He looked at her with sad eyes.
‘I shall be gone from the house as soon as it can be arranged,’ she said.
Fred nodded.
Jane put her clothes back on over her sea-bathing suit. Water dripped from Fred’s clothes. His shirt fabric clung to his body. She offered him the towel. He shook his head.
‘Please, I insist. You shall catch cold.’
He relented and accepted the towel. He dried himself perfunctorily and handed the towel back.
They returned to the house in silence. Fred walked ahead of her, close enough for her not to lose her way in the dark streets, but far enough that all communication was impossible.
They arrived at the house. Fred bade her goodnight and closed his door. Jane lay in the guestroom in her wet clothes. She stared at the clock on the wall. How lovely it would be to turn back its hands.
Instead she closed her eyes and offered a grim nod of recognition to herself. Her behaviour towards Fred was not purely an act of self-preservation, it was something else, too. She had treated other men the same way. While no man had tried to kiss her before, others had wanted her. Mr Withers had likely spurned her because she was poor and old, but what she kept to herself was that she too h
ad let men go: nicer, poorer suitors who made better matches for her station. She had rejected these men in earlier times, before her age became a problem.
Jane sat on the bed, her hair still dripping, and reflected upon a list of three to four decent men who, given enough time and quiet, she may have grown to love in a resigned, wise way. They came to her hopeful, and she found them dull, and rebuffed them with jokes and scorn and made them feel as though they had short chance of making her happy. A little voice inside had always instructed her to flee. These men were happy with other women now, as Jane discovered in letters and passing conversations; each of them had married someone else in time, most likely a woman who made them laugh less, but cared for them more.
She always enjoyed some reassurance of the safety that lay in loneliness, some desire to run when others drew near. She let a feeling of oblivion sink in, sensing she must possess some death wish inside her to think this way. Or perhaps she just liked to be left alone, really, to walk and to think and to be, to live without concerning herself with another. She wondered if this made her a horrible beast of a person; it probably did.
Jane gritted her teeth. She had told Fred the truth of her identity, but he did not believe her. She felt glad, for it made her decision to depart easier. She had achieved a suitable outcome. Nothing good could come of the other thing, an idle fancy she felt glad to have shushed. She directed her mind to a more useful topic instead: helping Sofia secure the means to return her home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Fred enjoyed his job as a schoolteacher. Some days were diamonds, full of academic joy and scholarly insights, where delight danced across a child’s face when they finally mastered a concept. Other days, the greatest achievement possible was arriving at the end of the day with everyone still alive. He suspected today belonged to the latter category. He and Paul had twenty-five twelve-year-olds under their care, taking them on an excursion to the baths to study the new restorations.
As they corralled the children into the honeystone building, he felt in awe of those mother ducks you saw crossing the road, with a line of ducklings following with cute but military precision. How did the mother duck do it? He and Paul had no such endearing, fluffy followers in these children; instead a brutish gaggle of perspiring, gossiping adolescent bodies dragged their feet after them down the street, with no one looking left or right when crossing the road, and random children shooting off in multiple directions at once. It was only 9.30 a.m. and Fred already had a hoarse voice from shouting things like, ‘Walk quickly but sensibly!’, ‘Don’t eat that!’ and ‘Has everyone been to the toilet?’
They arrived at the Pump Room, miraculously with the same number of children as when they’d set off. Fred cautioned the students again on politeness and motioned them inside. A small pocket of disobedience erupted at the front of the line, some shouting and laughing and pushing. Fred rushed ahead to quieten them. Tess Jones stood at the front.
‘Tess swore at that old lady, sir,’ another student complained to him. The student pointed to the old lady in question, just in case Fred could not see for himself. An unimpressed-looking woman with grey hair and a volunteer’s badge bearing the Pump Room’s insignia glared at them all.
‘I did not,’ Tess said. ‘All I said was bollocks.’
The old lady in question, still within earshot, huffed and glared some more. Fred pulled Tess aside.
‘What’s going on, Tess?’ he asked her.
She sniffed and stared at the floor. He never used to have to worry about Tess, but her parents had recently separated, and her behaviour was slipping. She’d been caught drinking, skiving. She was super-bright, one of his best students. Just last week she had given a ripper speech in elective history about Nero where she’d quoted texts and hadn’t even plagiarised. Some teachers wanted to expel her, but Fred felt that was too hasty. ‘Separated’. He knew from his own heart the things which tied themselves to that word.
‘Tess, explain yourself,’ he said.
She shrugged. ‘Sorry, Mr Dub’ was all she said.
The kids at school all called him Mr Dub. He was well-liked, especially by the difficult children. Paul joked it was because he read Russian literature, had good hair and liked a drink, but Fred knew it was something else. Some things he’d experienced when he was young still bothered him and those kids were drawn to that. He sat in the shadows sometimes, and misery loves company.
‘Just stay away from that lady, Tess,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘Sorry, Mr Dub,’ she said again.
He sent her to the back of the line. He needed to keep an eye on her today.
Fred felt exhausted, but also glad of the distraction. He stood 20 feet from the Roman Bath but could not have felt further from the night before.
Jane Austen. How ridiculous.
‘What happened with Jane?’ Paul asked Fred for the second time. ‘Did she run away again?’
‘What? No,’ Fred replied. ‘Well, sort of.’
‘Why?’ Paul asked.
Fred stiffened. He couldn’t explain; there were not words for such a strange situation. Actually, there were. A woman he liked – who did not like him back – had made a joke to reject him. Pretty simple really.
‘She hurt you, mate,’ Paul said to him. He spoke softly.
‘Just my pride,’ Fred replied in a joking tone, not wanting to get into it. He smiled.
Paul shook his head. ‘I don’t like her any more,’ he said. ‘That’s not cool, her stringing you along like that. Even a handsome devil like you has feelings.’
Fred wasn’t hurt at the rejection. It was far worse and more embarrassing than that. He felt sad. Sad that the things he felt were deluded. Now he had to make peace with the fact that none of it was real. She didn’t feel the same. He’d only known her for a few days, but that made it worse.
They gathered the kids and walked into the courtyard, where the pastel green pool loomed before them. The kids stopped their chatter to point and gasp. The deep lake of green water looked different in the day. Fred stared at the water and shook his head. Jane was odd, sure. But in an endearing way – not in a time-travelling, science-fiction way. There was the absent-minded addressing him as ‘sir’. There was the insistence on referring to her person as ‘oneself’. The harshest swearword she seemed to know was ‘blockhead’. Fred had put these down to an actor’s affectations, getting into the part for the period film.
If she was an actor, she was a good one. She appeared genuinely fascinated with any and every machine. She spent an inordinate amount of time staring at the fridge and had broken several light switches. He remembered when she’d told the dance instructor at the first rehearsal her name was Jane Austen. She had appeared flummoxed when the instructor accused her of joking.
An odd sound made its way into the courtyard then. A pitter-patter. It came from the roof above. ‘What is that sound?’ Fred said.
Paul shook his head. ‘No idea.’
‘It sounds like—’
‘It’s raining, sir!’ one of the kids exclaimed. The other students gasped.
They looked at each other, then at the roof.
‘How long has it been?’ Paul asked him. He pointed to the water falling from the sky.
‘Eight months,’ Fred replied.
The rain spluttered and dripped in through the cracks of the buildings. It dripped down on old windows and into the foundations. It splattered drops into the pool, waves radiating outwards. The kids jumped and laughed, and screams of excitement rippled through the group.
‘All right, people, we’ve all seen rain before,’ Paul cried to the kids. His words had no effect. Children reacted the same way to rain the world over, with madness. Water fights erupted between pockets of kids. Students leapt and skidded over the wet floor. The elderly volunteer from before, the one whom Tess Jones had said bollocks to, howled at the scene in horror. Fred and Paul herded the kids under the cloisters.
‘I think that’s recess,’ Fred sa
id. Paul nodded.
They gathered up the kids, found a cafeteria across the road and corralled everyone to tables and chairs. Fred performed a head count. Twenty-four kids. He counted again and got the same number. Someone was missing.
‘Where’s Tess?’ Fred called to Paul. Paul looked around and shrugged. Fred moved to her friends and asked them, ‘Where’s Tess?’ No one knew. Paul stayed with the students while Fred headed outside into the rain.
A level of mayhem even greater than what usually accompanied a school excursion greeted him. The rain had apparently put everyone in a jam. The townsfolk rushed back and forth across the roads and pathways, ducking under roofs and under crofts for shelter from the deluge. No one had an umbrella. He turned his head and spotted Tess standing in the middle of the road, staring up at the rain. She had picked the wrong point at which to stop walking.
‘Get off the road, Tess,’ he called. She turned around. She had been crying. Fred slumped, but smiled at her. ‘It will be okay,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’
The rain poured down on his head, reminding him of the previous night. Could the woman staying in his house truly be Jane Austen? As ludicrous as it seemed, at least it offered a better alternative than the present one – that she’d pushed him away.
Tess nodded and walked towards him. She picked a somewhat foolish path, straight across the road, into oncoming traffic. Real danger. A car swerved to avoid her.
Fred remembered laughing at a public service announcement which cautioned people to be careful driving if the drought broke. In the strangely calm tones that characterised English bureaucracy, signs and radio broadcasts had announced that driving in newly wet weather could pose a danger, as the car oil which had pooled on the roads could make them slippery, causing serious accidents. Fred had smirked at the time but now had the unique opportunity to watch the prophesied conditions in action.
As the car swerved to avoid Tess, it lost traction and collided with a telegraph pole. It was quite a tame accident by world standards; the car could only have been travelling 5 mph and gave the pole no more than a bump. The driver was, thankfully, unhurt; he had left his vehicle and was already walking over to reassure Tess.
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