Touchstone Season One- Complete Box Set

by Andy Conway

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I know this isn’t real.”

  “Oh, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “I realize it now. Even though I feel the cold. Even though I can taste this tea. Even though it almost burns my lips.”

  “Be careful with that, girl,” he said.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “None of this matters. I’m going to walk out of here in a minute and never come back. But there was one thing you said that made me come here.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “You said something about They all end up stuck here. Trying to find a way out. Not realizing how easy it is. What did you mean by that?”

  “Did I say that?” He seemed amused that he might have said such a thing.

  “Well, I realize it was me that made you say that, but yes, you said it.”

  He shrugged and smiled kindly. “I don’t remember saying that.”

  She put her enamel cup to one side and stood up, suddenly irritated. She had to walk out of this station before Deirdre appeared. She was sick of it now. And if I meet her walking down the slope? Just walk on. Leave her. Maybe then you’ll never have to come back here.

  She opened the door and was ready to slam it behind her when the stationmaster looked up from the flames dancing inside the stove.

  “You think you’ve found the touchstone,” he said.

  She cringed. A last desperate attempt to interest her, beguile her, draw her back into this fantasy.

  “You say that because you’re in my dream,” she said. “But there is no touchstone.”

  “You’re right about that,” he said. “More right than you know.”

  She paused.

  No. Do not be drawn in. It’s all just nonsense to drag you back here every time you sleep. Walk on. Walk away from it.

  She slammed the door shut and stamped back over the footbridge, anger burning in her. She marched past the rest room on the other side and took the slope up to the high street. As she walked up and the fog thinned, her mood brightened. She was almost free of it.

  A figure emerged through the mist. Bright orange check jacket. Deirdre Foster passed her, eyes bright with quiet euphoria. She didn’t see Rachel, didn’t know her. Let her go. Let her do it. It’s only a dream.

  Rachel walked on up the slope, emerging from the fog and before she’d reached the station exit, she woke up laughing to herself.

  — 19 —

  IT WAS ALL OVER. Was this why Deirdre Foster always looked so euphoric?

  She was certain she would never dream about her again. No more Kings Heath train station in the freezing cold. No more Moseley and Kings Heath in the past. No more touchstone nonsense. No more Charlie.

  She felt a pang of longing at that.

  But he wasn’t real, she reminded herself. A matinee idol she’d created in a dream. Some actor she’d seen in a black-and-white movie one rainy afternoon. Ronald Colman, Errol Flynn, Dirk Bogarde or someone like that. And now she thought about it, wasn’t Kings Heath station just her own dream adaptation of Brief Encounter? A film she always watched whenever it appeared on TV. The rest room was the same rest room as in the film. Wasn’t Renee almost the same woman behind the counter?

  She had her breakfast at the table on the patio. The back garden was in bloom under brilliant sunshine. She was so sublimely happy.

  It was a beautiful summer’s day, the morning air still cool and fresh. The bus came as soon as she walked out of the house, waving goodbye to Olive, and she skipped onto the rear platform and found a seat on the top deck. She glanced over to try to see Mrs Hudson’s costume hire shop as the bus trundled through Moseley village, but couldn’t catch the sign as the bus flashed through the crossroads. She smirked at the idea of an old lady travelling through time trying to prevent teenagers from meddling with the past. It was so absurd it made her want to cry with laughter.

  She could sense the clamour of celebration emanating from the student union building before she turned the corner and saw the banners covering the front of the building. It was a victory rally. Speakers were lined up on the white stone steps and a giant throng of students assembled, waving placards, chanting, laughing.

  Her heart soared at the sight of it. She felt so good to be alive, here in this moment, and knowing that this was finally where she belonged.

  She saw Danny and pushed her way through to him, the warmth of his smile greeting her before she’d reached him. She jumped into his arms and he kissed her on the lips. The bittersweet taste of him.

  No, do not think about Charlie. He’s not real. This is real. Only this.

  She didn’t see the old woman who pushed her way through the crowd towards her.

  She didn’t see the students notice her and step aside to let her through; her age and bearing, something about her manner demanding respect.

  She didn’t see the woman’s eager glare fixed only on her, Rachel, as she reached her and held out her bony hand.

  But she sensed her presence and broke free from Danny’s kiss and turned and met her kind eyes.

  The crowd surged forward and Danny was swept away with it. He called her name but she could only hear the old woman’s voice, only gaze into her eyes, frozen.

  “I’m too old for this,” said Mrs Hudson. “It’s difficult enough going to a real time.”

  She pressed something into her hands. A flyer or a handbill. Rachel couldn’t see what it was, couldn’t move her eyes from hers.

  “You’re stuck here,” she said. “I can’t drag you back. You have to look more closely at what’s here. And what’s not here.”

  Mrs Hudson backed away. From an age away, Danny was still calling her name.

  “Look closer and see,” said Mrs Hudson.

  Another surge in the crowd and she was gone.

  Rachel looked down at the card in her hand. A plain white rectangle. She knew what it would be before she flipped it over.

  A photograph.

  The man wore glasses, a sharp suit, a slim tie and he was sitting on a red picnic blanket, drinking wine with a woman in a black dress, an iris blue MGB Roadster parked behind them. Green field. Hot summer’s day.

  It was Rachel. With Charlie. In 1966.

  And she knew — before Danny had reached her side and she’d slipped the photo into her satchel so he wouldn’t see it — she knew without a doubt now that everything that happened on Kings Heath station was real, and it was all of this that was the dream.

  — 20 —

  “WHO WAS SHE?” DANNY asked. His tone was hard, insistent.

  “I don’t know,” Rachel lied. “Must be one of the CND ladies.”

  “What did she ask you?”

  “Nothing. She thought she knew me. It was a mistake. Never seen her before.”

  Danny nodded and took her arm. He didn’t believe her, she could tell. She had to get rid of him, get away from him, this man she’d only just kissed. The bitter taste of his lips on hers. Pretender. Deceiver. Ghost.

  She clutched her throat, as if to quell the inevitable gush of vomit. “I’ve got to go.”

  She backed out of the crowd and saw the look of concern on Danny’s face. Embarrassed that he’d kissed her and she was running away from him now. He’s not real. None of this is real.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have to go see Fenwick again. I’ll be back later.”

  She threw him a smile. Placate him. Anything to escape him.

  He gave a pathetic half wave. “See you later!”

  She turned and pushed her way through the crowd and she saw it all now for what it was. Look closer, she’d said. At what’s here, and what’s not here. She realized it now. She could see it all. As if a blindfold had been taken from her eyes.

  No one had a cellphone. Not one person. Every girl in a summer dress buttoned up just so. Bobby socks and Alice bands. Every boy in a cardigan, shirt and tie, pressed slacks, quiffed hair. It was a 1950s campus scene straight out of a Hollywood movie.

  Sh
e broke free of the crowd and didn’t look back; afraid they might all turn to glare at her, the pretence over. She ran to the History block across neat lawns.

  Jessica and Stacy were walking towards her on the path ahead, holding their books to their breasts. She realized now why they were so different to the sullen, empty-headed hipsters they’d been in the present — the real present. They were the Stepford Students. Dutiful, robotic 1950s student girls with plastic smiles.

  “Rachel!” called Jessica. “Have you heard the news? Isn’t it just so swell!”

  “Stay away from me, you bitch!” Rachel snarled and ran on, not waiting to see their phoney shocked faces.

  The History block was almost empty, her feet echoing in the marble-floored corridors. Fenwick’s door opened ahead. She ducked behind a pillar. He wandered off up the corridor. She crept to his door and pushed, hoping it would be unlocked and that he hadn’t left someone in there. No, it was empty. She slipped inside and closed the door after her.

  His desk. A legal pad in a leather bound case. Silver letter opener. Photograph of his fake 1950s family unit. No computer. Of course there was no computer. She rifled through the drawers on either side of the solid oak desk. The folder marked Touchstone was in the bottom drawer.

  She opened it on the desktop and rifled through it. His scribbled notes from her session with him. A typewritten report analysing her. Separate reports on 1912, 1940, 1966. She glanced through them and realized there was more, much more than she’d told him. He knew every little detail of the experiences he’d convinced her were nothing but dreams.

  There was another report all about Mrs Hudson and her cabal of time travellers, a lot of speculation about their attempts to police both him and Rachel and Danny. The redhead who worked in the Central Library, Kath Bright, was there. And the man who ran the Buygones junk store, Mitch. She’d gone into his shop for old coins. They were all involved in it.

  The last thing in the folder was a sheaf of typewritten sheets held together with India tags. The paper was thin and shiny, the clumsy, faint Courier letters punched into and almost through the surface of the paper. It was a rough draft of a report or a paper that proposed an equation for identifying potential time travel candidates.

  She heard footsteps slapping the marble outside. No time to read.

  She flipped through the pages, random phrases leaping out... any student that expresses themselves in terms of feelings in response to history... They all have an intuitive, “feeling’ based orientation... their belief that their talent is external... the acceptance of a ‘portal’ as psychologically more possible...

  It was his scientific analysis of her experiences, and Danny’s. How many other students had he analysed in this way?

  Quickly, she pulled out another two reports. They were identical to the previous ones that were labelled 1912, 1940, 1966. But these two had different years on them. They said 1934 and 1980. She turned the page of the first one and

  “What are you doing?”

  Fenwick closed the door behind him and kept his hand on the brass doorknob. His face was pale.

  “You led us there, didn’t you?” she said. “That first morning you took all the students to St Mary’s churchyard in Moseley. You paired me with Danny. You wanted us to find the touchstone.”

  “There is no touchstone, Rachel.”

  “It all happened. It wasn’t a dream. In fact, the repeat of it in Kings Heath was the real dream.”

  “Rachel. You’re very highly strung. I think you need to lie down for a while.”

  She rolled the folder up and pointed it at him. “You’ve been playing a bloody big game with me!”

  “Rachel, please calm down. You’re not thinking rationally.”

  “That’s what my life is to you. A game! I lost everything and it’s all your fault!”

  He dashed for her and snatched the folder from her hands. It fell open, scattering papers over the floor. She ran for the door as he scrambled to retrieve them. He grabbed at her ankle, held her tightly for a moment. She squealed, kicked, stumbled against a mahogany table. A lamp fell and shattered. He covered his eyes.

  She was out of the door and running down the corridor, footsteps booming off the walls.

  “You can’t escape it, Rachel!” his voice echoed after her, chasing her down the corridor.

  She plunged out into sunlight and didn’t stop running till she was off the campus. She jumped onto the first bus that came. It was an old Routemaster, with a conductor dispensing tickets from his clip machine, just like the one she’d boarded this morning and never noticed.

  Look closer and see.

  It sailed to Moseley in brilliant sunlight. There was a boy on the bus in grey shorts and blazer with a school cap and satchel. Everyone, she saw now, was a character in a primary colour Dick and Jane Take the Bus story; a dream of England long gone.

  Look closer and see.

  She jumped off at Moseley village. A phoney 1959 Moseley village. There, the alley beside Barclays Bank. She could walk up there right now and go to the touchstone and escape all of this. Couldn’t she?

  She knew somewhere deep inside that it wouldn’t work, just like it hadn’t worked the last time she’d tried it, trying to return to Charlie in 1966. Something told her that none of this was really about an old gravestone at all. It was something deeper. And it was Mrs Hudson who knew the answer.

  But the shop wasn’t hers. It was Barrow’s Stores ltd. Mrs Hudson’s costume hire shop wasn’t here. What was it she’d said? It’s difficult enough going to a real time. She walked in and wandered around. It was an upmarket grocer’s, not a costume hire shop. A radio played Andy Williams’ Lonely Street and she realized now that every single song she’d heard in this fake present had been an old tune from the fifties.

  Look closer and see.

  She walked up to Buygones next to the Prince of Wales but knew that it wouldn’t be there and was not remotely surprised to find it was a butchers. She stared forlornly at the hanging carcasses for a while, wondering what to do, where to go. No Mrs Hudson, no Mitch. She could catch a bus into town to the Central Library and try to find Kath Bright but it was pointless. She wouldn’t be working there. Kath and Mrs Hudson had both travelled here to contact her. She could see now why it was difficult for them. There was something about this place in which she was trapped, something that was outside time. It might even all be inside her own head. She pulled the photograph out of her satchel.

  Charlie.

  She walked back down to the village and stared up at the latticed windows that looked over the crossroads. Charlie’s apartment. Should she call on him? Get him to help her?

  She knew it was no use. Everything here was false. It was as if everyone was an exact robot replica. They’d all been replaced. It was the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. She couldn’t bear the thought of Charlie smiling at her like the rest of them, smiling with fake charm and telling her everything here was nice and cosy and safe if only she’d give in to it and believe in it all. No, the Charlie she’d met in her dream was the real one. The Charlie walking out of the Kingsway cinema in the cold. He was the only Charlie who could help her.

  She trudged up St Mary’s Row and on up Wake Green Road, dreading the return home. Her father wasn’t real. Olive wasn’t real. It was all a fantasy. And there was another thing she’d only just noticed: there was no TV in the house. Like there always had been. This would be the hardest to walk away from. Her perfect family home was a mirage. She had to escape it and return to the life where she’d lost it all, and it was Kings Heath station and Deirdre Foster that held the key to it.

  Her step quickened as she realized. She would have to go to her room and fall asleep as soon as she could. Get back to the station and work out how to escape this dream. This nightmare.

  Martyn and Olive were standing in the drive when she arrived. Did they know now? Would the pretence stop? But they were both smiling to her. As she approached, Martyn stepped aside and presente
d his new car to her.

  “Take a look at that,” he said. “Isn’t she a beauty!”

  The old banger had gone and in its place was a bright shining new iris blue MGB Roadster. She wanted to vomit all over it.

  “That’s Charlie’s car,” she said.

  “Whose car?”

  Their smiles fell from their faces. They could both see something was very wrong with her.

  “You know it’s Charlie’s car!” she shouted. “And it isn’t even made for another five years!”

  “What do you mean, Rachel, darling?” said Olive, reaching out for her.

  Rachel pulled away and edged past them both, as if their touch might infect her.

  “It’s 1959, isn’t it? Well? Isn’t it?”

  Martyn and Olive gave each other that look. That look that said oh dear, our little girl has gone crazy again, totally doolally.

  Rachel ran into the house, straight up the stairs. And that’s another thing — we never had a bloody carpet on our stairs. She flew into her room — her Spartan, far too neat and tidy 1959 bedroom — and locked the door, shoving her wooden chair under the door handle, jamming it tight.

  Olive rattled the handle as Rachel calmly put on her winter coat and scarf. Olive knocked the door as Rachel crawled into her bed. Olive pleaded with her to open it as Rachel pulled the blankets over her head and tried to force herself to sleep.

  She knew she had very little time before Martyn kicked the door open.

  — 21 —

  SLEEP DID NOT COME for hours. Olive came to the door repeatedly to plead with her. Martyn stormed up and shouted at her. They seemed to think she might be committing suicide so she shouted, “Go away!” to placate them. She would never get to sleep and return to Kings Heath station if they carried on hammering at her door.

  She listened to blackbirds singing beyond the curtains shutting out the perfect summer’s evening. Olive’s perfect little garden. It had never been like that. Olive had kept a tidy lawn with a few rose bushes and Martyn had never really bothered. This whole life here was just a dream she’d created of the perfect family home. Happy Families. She knew that now. She’d lost her life and created this dream as a substitute.