by Lauren James
Clove grinned over her mum’s shoulder. Work experience. That was definitely what it was.
Tom walked in from the garden. “Ah, my girls have made up,” he said, beaming, and patted Clove’s shoulder. “How was Meg’s?”
“Dad!” Clove let go of Jen to hug him too, unable to resist. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been dead. And now here he was, alive and well, and holding a handful of fresh basil leaves for the pasta.
“Everything OK, darlin’?” he said, stubble rubbing against her cheek when he kissed the side of her head.
“Perfect,” she said, trying to calm her smile. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too.” He blinked at her, and then smiled back, the lines around his eyes crinkling. “Hey, I’ve decided to grow a beard. What do you think?” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “It just occurred to me last night.”
Clove laughed, remembering how in the alternate universe Jen had commented on Tom’s beard. Some part of him must have retained the memory, even if it was subconscious. “You should get a motorbike too,” she suggested. “You could teach me to ride it.”
His mouth twitched. “Now that’s an idea.”
They grinned at each other, both ignoring Jen, who was muttering about midlife crises. Then Clove ducked her head. She had to get on with this. “Actually, I have something to tell you both. Can you sit down?” Her voice wavered, coming out thin and nervous.
Jen’s expression changed from relaxed to slightly terrified. “Are you OK, Clove? What’s going on?”
“Stay calm,” she began − which was a mistake. She could see them both start to panic. She decided to just bite the bullet and go for it. “I found Kate and Matt.”
Tom turned so pale that Clove thought he was going to faint. “What?”
“They’re upstairs.”
“Here?” Jen said.
“Shall I … er … go and get them?”
Neither Tom nor Jen spoke, so Clove made her own decision. “I’ll go and get them.”
In her room, Kate and Matt were sitting on her bed. Matt was looking through Clove’s pot of pens, while Kate was holding the fox ornament and rubbing her thumb back and forth across its head – a movement Clove had done herself dozens of times over the last week. Ella sat at the desk chair, with Clove’s knitting in her hand. When Clove came into the room, they all jumped up.
“They’re freaking out,” Clove said. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Er…” Matt said. He blinked rapidly, and dropped a fountain pen back in the pot.
“Let’s go and talk to them,” Kate suggested.
“No, they’re properly panicking! You can’t just… I actually think my dad – Tom, I mean – might faint.”
“Tom,” Matt repeated, voice cracking like he hadn’t really believed his brother was here until she’d confirmed it. He paced two steps across Clove’s room before turning and pacing in the other direction. “OK. OK. OK. Let’s just … let’s go. Let’s go.”
“Oh my God,” Clove said, and realized she was trembling. Matt stared at her, his eyes as wide as hers. They both ran a hand through their hair in unison. “Oh my God. What are we doing?”
“OK,” Matt said again. “This is all absolutely fine.”
“Everyone, just calm down!” Kate said loudly. “Matt, shut up.” Matt stopped pacing and grabbed her hand. She patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. “Let’s go downstairs and talk to them, instead of having panic attacks in Clove’s bedroom. OK?”
Clove nodded. They were going to do this. It was going to be fine. Nothing terrible would happen, and nobody would faint. Probably.
After a moment when nobody moved, Kate prompted, “Shall we go then?”
“OK,” Clove said, and took a deep breath.
They went downstairs.
“I should be recording this,” Ella said to herself, trailing after them.
Tom and Jen were sitting at the kitchen table, staring at each other and communicating silently, in the way Clove always used to hate. Now it just made her think of Ella. They both stood up when Clove and the others entered, chairs scraping loudly across the floor.
When Tom caught sight of his brother, his eyes filled with tears.
By the time Tom and Jen had been told the whole story, and recovered from the resultant shock, it was dinnertime. Clove served up the spaghetti Bolognese, not even trying to stop herself smiling at the sight of everyone sitting around the dining table, arguing over garlic bread.
“Thank you for raising my daughter,” Kate said to Jen, once they’d all begun eating. “She’s turned into a wonderful person. I think you deserve the credit for that.”
Jen smiled brightly, tears shining in her eyes. “I’m very proud of her.”
“So, what happens now?” Tom said, looking exhausted. It had taken Clove quite a long time to explain everything, and she knew there would be more questions to come, and definitely repercussions. Jen’s lips had thinned when she’d heard how Clove had broken into the lab and used the time machine. “We’ll talk about this later,” Tom had said sternly, before going back to asking Matt about the prison breakout. The two of them had spent a long time hugging.
“I don’t know about you,” Kate said to Matt, “but I’m going to be spending so much time getting to know our daughter that she’ll be sick of us.”
Matt wrapped an arm around Clove’s shoulders. “That’s definitely first on the list. Then we declare ourselves no longer missing, I suppose. Find a job, now we’re not supposed criminals. Find a house. Do whatever else people do when they become an adult. Get one of those cool time-travelling watches.”
“That’s from the future, actually,” Clove said. “Even I don’t have one of those.”
“No more time travel,” Jen said firmly. “I’m absolutely not having this turn into some sort of family competition to see who can become a fugitive the youngest.”
Clove nodded frantically around a mouthful of garlic bread, trying to look like she meant it.
Ella blinked mutely. She didn’t seem able to do anything else but stare wide-eyed at Tom and Jen. “I can’t believe I’m eating dinner with the actual creators of time travel,” she had whispered to Clove at one point. “Oh my God!”
“We’ll get you both declared legally undead in the morning,” Tom said, smiling widely. “Although I don’t know how we’re going to make anyone believe you’re thirty-five, Matt. Can you even grow a beard yet?”
“All right, grey hair. Are those wrinkles or laughter lines?”
Matt punched Tom’s arm, and then they were wrestling, and Jen was yelling about watching out for the wine glasses, and Kate was grinning like she’d never been so happy, and Ella was holding Clove’s hand under the table, rubbing circles into her skin.
Clove just sat back and watched them all through half-closed eyes, trying very hard not to give the impression of a sunning cat.
* * *
> CLOVE, are you awake?
>> Shhhh, Spart, Ella’s sleeping. Let’s talk by text. What’s up?
> I would like to discuss the situation regarding subjects “KATHERINE” and “MATTHEW” with you.
>> I guessed as much. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
> I am not fitted with a telepathic unit, so it is subsequently impossible for my system to undertake the reading of minds.
>> It’s a turn of phrase. You must not be fitted with a colloquial semantics unit either, huh?
> If we may return to the matter raised. I now understand the repeated appearance of subjects “KATHERINE” and “MATTHEW”.
>> Same. I think it’s us. It is, isn’t it? The ones bringing K and M back to life?
>> I didn’t believe Ella when she told me, but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes.
> I concur with your hypothesis. All evidence indicates such a prediction is likely to be accurate.
>> In every time-landscape, K and M do something to save the world. They must have saved so man
y lives.
> According to the evidence, for every version of subjects “MATTHEW” and “KATHERINE” that meet and fall in love, at least 4 x 106 human lives are saved.
>> 4 million? That’s. Wow. That’s more than I was expecting.
> It would not be an exaggeration to say that the quality of existence of all humanity is improved vastly each time subjects “KATHERINE” and “MATTHEW” fall in love.
>> But why them? Ella told me that they have some kind of “instinct” for knowing what needs doing and when. How is that possible?
> The human mind is not something within my capacity to understand. Perhaps subjects “KATHERINE” and “MATTHEW” simply have a particularly humanitarian perception of the world.
>> I guess it doesn’t matter why they help, as long as they do.
> Indeed.
>> If they really do help the world, then it makes sense to make sure they have as many lives as possible. Right?
> It would do much good. As long as we choose the time-landscapes carefully, so they are best positioned to aid mankind. For example, the Moon Colony Riots of 2043 would be a good choice of landscape in which to place the subjects next.
>> Do you think it’s moral? To use them like that?
> I do not see why not, as long as we have the subjects’ permission to proceed.
>> I don’t know if Kate and Matt will agree to it. It’s a lot to ask, to have them live again and again.
> I do not anticipate that being a problem. Both subjects are inclined towards helping others, and as previously stated, this is the most efficient way of achieving such a goal.
>> And you’re OK with it? And everything it means?
> My programming values human life above all else. To ensure that, I have no other choice but to bring together the subjects as frequently as possible.
>> We can find parents who can’t conceive and ask if they would like help having children. Use IVF to implant them with cloned embryos of K and M.
>> We obviously wouldn’t call it IVF, though – at least not before it was invented. People in the eighteenth century will probably just think it’s some kind of witchcraft.
> That does seem the most suitable course of action.
>> Do you know anything about cloning?
> I will begin to research.
>> We shouldn’t rush into this. We need to think about it to make sure we know what we’re doing.
> I will take no further action at this time.
> I have four recently aired episodes of Sherbot Holmes: Robot Detective to watch, anyway.
>> We’re going to have to keep an eye on them, to make sure nothing goes wrong. We can’t just leave them to themselves, like in 1745.
> I would be willing to monitor their progress in each time-landscape, to ensure that the subjects do ultimately interact with each other in a positive manner. I could file reports for you.
> We would have to be prepared to intervene in the event that the subjects don’t operate correctly.
>> Absolutely.
>> Ella’s waking up, got to go. Let’s talk about this tomorrow.
> I await your command, CLOVE.
File note: Chat log, dated 16 January 2057
EPILOGUE
INT. TV STUDIO – NIGHT
Camera focuses on female presenter sitting on an orange sofa. Bright stage lighting shines down at her. The camera pans over a smiling audience to the presenter.
SARAH
(smiling)
I’m Sarah Phillips and welcome back to The Shipping Forecast. Today on the show I’ve spoken to celebrity vlogger Caistat about his new line of hover-boards, and Blue North has been in the studio talking about her upcoming film Sense, Sensibility & Cyborgs. We’ve also had a special broadcast all the way from ‘the loneliest girl in the universe’, Romy Silvers.
But I’ve saved the best for last. Now we have someone who I’ve been trying to get on the show for a very long time. The famous Clove Sutcliffe, the first ever time traveller and founder of the era-defining History Control. You don’t need me to say any more. You all know who she is − most of us had a poster of her on our wall as a kid, didn’t we, folks?
The crowd roars with excitement.
SARAH
So without further ado, all the way from the year 2058, please welcome … Clove Sutcliffe!
CLOVE enters, waving to the crowd.
SARAH
Miss Sutcliffe, it’s an honour to have you with us this evening.
CLOVE
It’s a pleasure to be here.
SARAH
Is this your first time visiting our year?
CLOVE
Actually, I’ve been to visit my girlfriend here a few times. She’s from this time period.
SARAH
So you’re in a long-distance relationship?
CLOVE
(grinning)
Centuries long distance, yep.
SARAH
How’s that working out?
CLOVE
(ducking her head, smiling)
Great, thank you for asking.
A voice in the crowd is heard yelling, “TELL US WHO ELLA IS!”
SARAH
(chuckling)
Well, I’m sure you want to keep the identity of your mystery lady private, so let’s move on. I want to talk to you about your famous work in History Control. Firstly, how do your parents feel about being used throughout history as tools?
CLOVE
They are happy to help and gave their DNA willingly. It took a bit of getting used to, I think, knowing that there are lots of clones of them out there, but they would do anything to help save one life, let alone millions of them. Of course the Katherines and Matthews …
(pausing as the crowd cheers)
… the Katherines and Matthews throughout history don’t know that they have been created by the DNA of people hundreds of years in the future. But my parents are so kind – they naturally want to help no matter when they are born. The choice to save the world is always theirs. I just give them the means to do it, by placing them at the right moment in history.
SARAH
Your work has saved countless people and their descendants. But how did you first decide that putting your parents in the past was the best way to ensure History Revisions? What inspired you?
CLOVE
I never came up with the idea. I just started doing it, because I saw that’s what was happening and realized it was a good idea.
SARAH
So it’s a paradox? You do something, because you’ve already done it…
CLOVE
Right. Somewhere out there, someone must have started the whole thing, but I don’t know who. I just carried on their great idea. Time travel is like knitting. You have to build on what’s come before, and weave the strands together until it becomes something beautiful.
SARAH
Well, that’s something for us all to think about. Now, I have one last question for you. What are you going to do next?
CLOVE
I’m about to start a computer science degree, so right now I’m frantically trying to learn how to cook something that isn’t beans on toast. It’s an adventure.
SARAH
Thank you, Clove.
(Turning to face the camera)
That’s all from us for tonight. Stay tuned next for the much-anticipated season finale of Sherbot Holmes: Robot Detective!
File note: Transcript from the first public appearance of CLOVE SUTCLIFFE, on popular talk show The Shipping Forecast
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The most important thanks go to my agent, Claire Wilson, and my editor, Annalie Grainger. As always, I couldn’t have written anything without you both. You two encourage me to write all the wild and weird things my heart desires, while simultaneously making sure that at least some parts of it remain slightly plausible. Annalie, I’m truly sorry for making you edit all those alternate universes and time-travel paradoxes. Your patien
ce is never-ending.
Thank you to Arts Council England, without whose support I couldn’t have been a full-time author. That would have sucked.
Thank you to Alice Oseman for all of the enthusiasm of the “#SOON!!” variety, and for drawing the stunning cover for Clove’s textbook. (IT’S IN THE BOOK! IT’S CANON!!!!)
Cat Doyle, you’re always the fastest, most eager reader of my writing. Thank you for being so endlessly cool.
Sarah Louise Barnard, thank you for sending me messages from the very beginning telling me how desperately you wanted to read more about Clove and her ladies. I’m glad to have written something that meets your approval. The next one will have more murders in, I promise.
Thanks to The Turtles, whose song “Elenore” was my continuous soundtrack whilst writing this book. One day someone will record the female cover that the world (and Clove) needs. Taylor Swift, I’m lookin’ at you.
Thank you to Christopher Banks James for the suggestions of futuristic slang. You’re powerful too.
And, obviously, thanks to Rachel and Keith James, my mum and dad. I’m so, so glad you’ve never made me chase you guys through time.
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