by Andy Conway
Rachel smiled, hoping this was a good sign. Deirdre’s face had bloomed into rosy happiness, transported through decades to a night she’d never witnessed except in stories told by her parents.
Someone was staring at her.
She’d got that prickly feeling of being observed and then caught him out of the corner of her eye.
A man. Standing outside. While people streamed past the window where the two young women talked over tea, this man had stopped dead. He stared at her.
She knew who it would be before she looked.
She turned her head and gazed out at the man in the black overcoat. Moustache. Slicked back hair. The look of disbelief on his face.
It was Charlie.
— 16 —
SHE GOT UP FROM THE table, forgetting all about Deirdre, and walked out of the café. Charlie stood there staring at her, a stream of people filing past behind him. She realized they were all coming out of the cinema, hordes of them, like a crowd piling out of a football match.
“Rachel,” he said. “It really is you, isn’t it?”
She had got used to the 50-year-old Charlie of 1966, with his glasses and sharp suits, who was so much different to the 1940 Charlie in a uniform with Brylcreemed hair and Errol Flynn moustache. This Charlie was a mixture of the two. There were still traces of the 1940 Charlie — the moustache, the baggy suit — but he was rapidly becoming the 1966 Charlie: lean instead of skinny, more refined, mature.
“Charlie,” she said, walking towards him.
“You didn’t tell me you’d be here,” he said. “Here now.”
“Didn’t I?”
She shrugged helplessly. Giving him the list of times when she would visit him still hadn’t happened for her. How could she apologize for her omission? And why would she choose not to tell him about this in the future? Because it’s all a dream and none of this is real, she reminded herself. She stood dumbfounded. It felt so real and yet she knew this was an illusion.
“I don’t know what to say, Charlie. I don’t think I can cope with this anymore.”
He stepped towards her, took her arms. “Hey, what’s wrong, girl? You look so sad.”
She let him pull her towards him. The lovely, homely smell of his aftershave.
“I am sad, Charlie. And possibly insane.”
“Don’t say that. You’re the sanest, cleverest girl I’ve ever met.”
He kissed her forehead.
Just take me home with you, she thought. Take me home and let me stay with you. I don’t care if this is an illusion. Let me stay here.
“I’ve just been to see Vertigo. Damned strange. Like a dream. And I was thinking about you so much while I watched. And now you’re here. As if I conjured you up, like a fantasy.”
“That’s what I am, Charlie. A fantasy. A dream. I might as well be a ghost.”
He kissed her cheek. “Hey now. Don’t you talk like that. You’re as real as taxation.”
She laughed. It came out like a sob.
“But what are you doing here?”
She turned to look for Deirdre. The table at the window was empty. She was nowhere inside. The clock on the café wall said eleven minutes past.
“Oh God.” She looked towards the station. A throng of people blocking the way.
There. A flash of orange in the street light.
“No!”
“What is it?”
“She’s going to jump again! Stop her!”
Some people turned in alarm. A man laughed. Deirdre was on the other side of the road, rushing into the station entrance. There was no hope of catching her.
She shoved and barged her way through the crowd, Charlie holding onto her hand.
“What is it, Rachel?”
“She’s my grandmother, on my mother’s side. In this timeline she commits suicide. This is why I’m not born.”
They reached the road, traffic jammed each side. The cinema throng were crossing and she ran across behind them.
“She’s going to jump in front of the nuclear train!”
Charlie ran ahead, still holding her hand, and shoved people out of the way as they pushed through.
“Here! Bleeding watch it!”
“Hold your horses!”
“Excuse me, please! This is an emergency!”
They reached the station entrance, already crowded with cinemagoers and pushed through.
“There’s no time!” shouted Rachel.
She could hear the train in the distance. The bowl of fog was below them. Charlie stopped and turned to her.
“It’s too late,” she said.
She felt her legs buckle. She had come so close this time but it seemed no matter what she did, fate would intervene. Deirdre Foster wanted to die.
Charlie held her up against the railing. People streamed past, talking about the fog down there, some still talking about the film, all blithely ignorant of the tragedy that was about to unfold.
“Charlie,” she whispered. “You don’t think I’m mad, do you?”
“Of course not, Rachel, darling.”
She could feel herself sinking even though he held her so tightly. “Don’t let go of me, Charlie.”
It felt like her feet were already swirling in a plughole and she was being sucked down.
“I think I’m losing it, Charlie. I think I’m losing it really badly.”
He squeezed her so tightly but it was no use; she was fading from him.
She suddenly felt such pity for him. Poor Charlie. Of course, for him he’d only met her twice before. In 1934 when she first appeared to him, and again in 1940. He hadn’t reached 1966 yet, when he would propose to her and she would accept and then fall asleep on his sofa and find herself back in 2012.
She would break his heart and leave him all alone and he had no idea that it had already happened. Just as she had no idea yet what would happen in 1934, when he’d first met her.
She raised her face to him and felt his kiss on her lips.
“Promise me you’ll never give up on me,” she said.
She didn’t hear his answer as the nuclear train screamed through the station in the fog below with only a tiny bang, as if it had run over a twig, and intense white light blinded her.
— 17 —
IT WAS HER NAN WHO was holding her tightly, not Charlie. Rachel struggled against her, drowning in a dream, but felt the life fade from her when she realized she was back in her bedroom and there was nowhere to hide.
Olive must have rushed into Rachel’s room before she could throw off her winter coat and scarf.
“Hey now, it’s all right,” she crooned, rocking her to and fro. “Just a bad dream again. You’re safe now. It’s all right.”
Rachel melted into her grandmother’s arms and held back the sobs rising inside her. This was the end of it. The sad, hopeless, bitter end of it all.
Someone coughed politely. A giant bear of a man with mahogany skin, in a tight grey suit with a starched white shirt and blue tie. He was sitting patiently on her wooden chair, a Gladstone bag on his lap, as if waiting for a train.
“I sent for Doctor Devaz,” said Olive. “We just need to make sure you’re all right.”
Rachel gazed wide-eyed at the doctor, a spider crawling up her spine, as the doctor took out his stethoscope and sat on the bed. Olive retreated to the door.
“Hello Rachel,” he said. “You look very hot.”
She shook her head. “I feel cold.”
He nodded, as if he understood. “I want to take your pulse. Could you open a button on your blouse, please?”
She stared into his brown eyes. Doctor Devaz had always been their Indian doctor but looking at him now she thought no, surely he was Sri Lankan, and she didn’t know why that had only now appeared obvious to her.
“Take your scarf and coat off, Rachel,” said Olive.
She realized she was still wearing her dream get up. She rolled her black gloves off her fingers, yanked the scarf from her neck, threw off the peaco
at, revealing her blouse. Did they know she was wearing shoes under the blankets?
Doctor Devaz didn’t seem surprised by any of it. He simply tucked the head of the stethoscope inside her blouse.
“What are you doing dressed like this, Rachel?” asked Olive. “You’re dripping. No wonder you’re having nightmares.”
Rachel shuddered at the cold, impersonal touch of the stethoscope against her skin. “If I don’t wear the coat I’ll be cold when I get there,” she mumbled, and realized how crazy she sounded.
A blackbird was still singing in the garden. Late evening sun. Still hot.
Doctor Devaz packed his stethoscope away, pulled her eyelids down, checked her throat, put his fingertips to her glands. Then he took out a prescription pad and scribbled hieroglyphics over it with a fountain pen.
“She’s running a slight temperature, that’s all. Have her take this and call me again if there’s no change.”
He packed his bag. Olive showed him out and then trudged back up the stairs to her.
“I’m sorry,” Rachel said.
“Don’t you be sorry. You can’t help a thing like this.”
“That’s just it, Nan. I think I can. I just haven’t worked out how to yet.”
“Well you could start by not sleeping in this ridiculous get up.”
She laughed, despite herself and so did Olive, relieved to see a smile on her face. “Tell me something about Grandma Foster.”
She felt Olive stiffen and retreat a little. “Oh, you know I don’t know much about her. She died before your mum met Martyn.”
“What school did she go to?”
Olive sighed, wishing she would let it go. “She was from Kings Heath originally, not Moseley. That I do know.”
Rachel could hear that she’d tried to say it as a bare fact, without the snobbery that it implied, but it was still there in her, as it had been in her family. In her dreams about her family.
“But then they moved to that canal cottage in Winson Green. No money. It was more difficult to be a single parent back then.”
She was silent for a while, drifting back through the decades, just like Rachel did every time she slept.
“She went to Kings Heath School I think it was. That lovely old building up opposite Silver Street. You know it.”
“Thank you.”
Rachel wondered if she would use the information the next time she met Deirdre. She could pretend she was an old school friend. Might it be the thing that tipped the balance in her favour and persuade Deirdre Foster not to jump?
“Now. Come downstairs. I’ve made a nice salad with boiled eggs and Salad Cream.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat.”
Olive stroked her wet brow, kissed her and went downstairs.
Rachel kicked the coat and scarf across the room, mad at herself, and stared out of the window at the back garden for what might have been hours or just a few moments, until the doorbell chimed in the hallway. Dad must be home. But why had he not used his key? She heard muttering and then steps ascending.
“Rachel! You have a caller!”
She ran her fingers quickly through her sweaty hair. She must look a total mess. The door opened and Olive peered in, blushing and grinning.
“You have a gentleman caller. Danny?”
“Oh. Okay. Show him up.”
She rushed to the mirror and despaired at the catastrophe that glared back at her. Too late. No time to do anything. He knocked before he entered.
He looked bright and alive and fresh and clean and she thought she must look like an ugly, sweaty invalid.
“Hello. Are you all right?”
“I’ve been sleeping since I got back.”
“You looked very tired this afternoon.”
He had flowers. A bunch of wild flowers. He saw her see them and held them out, his cheeks reddening.
“I was passing St Mary’s churchyard and they looked really nice in the evening sun, so I thought...”
She took them and melted. “Thank you. They’re really pretty.” She thought of Charlie and felt a pang of guilt. He was a fantasy, she told herself. A dream man she’d probably seen in a movie once. Danny was real and perfect. “Sit down.”
There was an empty vase on her bookshelf. She put the flowers in and took it out to the bathroom, filling it quickly with a jet of water from the bath tap.
Danny was sitting on her bed when she returned, knotting his fingers. “I had to come and tell you the news,” he said, “about the campaign. It’s amazing. We’re having a rally tomorrow afternoon to celebrate. You have to be there.”
She turned her wooden chair from her desk and perched on it, wondering if it looked too formal. Should she sit on the bed with him?
“What campaign?”
His blue eyes burned with excitement. “The protest against the spent nuclear fuel trains rolling through Kings Heath. We’ve won.”
“That’s brilliant,” she said.
“The city council have been won over. The trains will stop. They’re far too embarrassed over the risk to the public since we started telling everyone about it.”
She felt her face smiling at his excitement and realized how good it felt to be part of the real world. She needed to forget about Deirdre Foster. It was only dreams.
“Are you all right?” he asked suddenly.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“You don’t look it. Did I come at a bad time?”
She shook her head. “You came at just the right time, Danny.”
He read her expression. “Have you had another dream?”
She nodded. “A really bad one. I wish I could make them stop. But I can’t. I know that when I go to sleep tonight, I’ll be back there again.”
He leaned forward and seemed to want to reach out and touch her but calculated that he couldn’t reach without getting up off the bed. “Well, why don’t you just make a decision, while you’re dreaming, to walk away from it all?”
“How do you mean?” she asked. She wished he would just get up and hold her, but she was sitting in the chair and it made it impossible for anyone to hold her.
“Do you sometimes realize in your dream that you’re dreaming?” he said.
She nodded. “Yes. Sometimes I do. I know when I’m actually in the dream that I’m going to wake up back here.”
“Well, that’s when you should do it,” he said, grinning, like he’d solved everything. “That’s when you’ve got most control over the illusion. When you realize you’re thinking that in your dream, that’s when you decide to walk away from it and dream about something else. Something safe.”
She wondered if it might work, if it might be the simple solution to save herself from these nightmares. She smiled. “I’ll try it. Thank you.”
A key scraped into the lock downstairs and she heard her father lunk into the hallway. “The hunter-gatherer’s back!”
She grinned at Danny’s puzzled face. “My dad.”
He stood up. “I’d better go.”
“You could stay for tea,” she said, wondering if he was going to kiss her. “Nan will probably insist on it.”
“I’ve got things to do,” he said. “But thank you.”
She followed him out, down the stairs and to the front door. Martyn was already in the kitchen and she could hear Olive telling him about her gentleman caller. The suspicion in Martyn’s voice. She heard him coming through the living room to see who it was. She smiled at Danny and shrugged. We have to go through this.
Martyn emerged. Danny put on a smile just the right side of deferential and offered his hand. “Hello Mr Hines.”
“Dad, this is Danny. From University.”
Danny’s hand disappeared in Martyn’s giant paw and she wondered if he’d crushed it. Danny’s face was red.
“Pleased to meet you, Danny,” said Martyn.
Rachel giggled. Martyn was the Father Bear suddenly, protecting his daughter.
“Danny c
ame to give me some news about Uni tomorrow.”
“Good man,” said Martyn. “Come again, any time.”
The flowers, thought Rachel. Nan told him about the flowers.
Martyn left them and she rolled her eyes. Danny shrugged and smiled confidently.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. “And remember to give it a try. It might help.”
He stepped out and gave her one last look and winked before he was striding off in the evening sun, looking very pleased with himself.
— 18 —
THIS TIME SHE DIDN’T mind the cold. This time she didn’t feel the same instant urgency she’d felt every other time: the realisation of where she was and that she had to stop Deirdre Foster.
She looked up and down the platform, peering through the mist. I am dreaming. This is a dream. I can choose to reject all of this. I can stand here and watch Deirdre jump in front of the nuclear train and not lift a finger. I can walk out of this station and go see Vertigo at the Kingsway if I like. I can wake myself up right now if I want to.
She walked down the platform and took the footbridge over the tracks, gripping the wooden handrail tightly, trying not to slip on the icy steps. On the other side, she walked to the stationmaster’s hut and rapped on the door.
She didn’t need to wait, she decided. She could just walk in. It was a dream anyway, not polite society.
The hut was dark and warm. The stationmaster did not seem surprised to see her. He was pouring a cup of tea for himself. He smiled and reached for another cup and poured one for her. They were enamel cups, like you got in prison.
“Hello,” he said. “How can I help you?”
“We’ve met before.”
“Have we?” He didn’t seem at all disturbed. He just chuckled to himself. “I forget lots of things.”
Of course, he hadn’t seen her before. This was her first time here. Always returning to the same day in 1959, every time just a few more minutes with which to totally get it wrong. The previous time she’d met the stationmaster had never happened.
She sat on the free armchair, warming her legs on the wood burner, cradling her cup in her hands.