by Andy Conway
He had to get out of here. Either smash through the boarded up entrance or find a side door.
The first door he found opened to a store cupboard. A broom, an old telephone, a paint pot and brush. The paint was orange. He stared at it and his heart sank. He smiled bitterly, the victim of a practical joke.
He knew now who’d burnt the cinema down. The moment Rachel had tasered him into the present. She’d ignited the fire.
And he knew now who’d written that cryptic message on the hoardings outside. It was him.
He took the paint pot and brush and kicked the front doors open, then pushed his way through the boards nailed across the entrance, emerging onto the Parade, gulping in fresh air.
A few cars parked, but no one around. Early morning. Just after dawn.
He prised the paint pot open, giggling to himself, sploshing the brush into the gloopy orange paint and daubing his message across the white hoarding in giant letters.
WHO BURNT ME DOWN?
He dipped the brush in again, to write Rachel Hines in the space below, staggered for a second, dizzy, swooning, orange dripping onto the tarmac.
He was flitting again. Would he find himself back with Amy? He somehow knew he wouldn’t.
With a sudden cry of hate, he stabbed at the hoarding with the brush.
No. Let me stay another few seconds. Let me tell the world it was Rachel.
He lurched forward but the brush fell from his hand, and he had disappeared before it hit the tarmac.
— 57 —
RACHEL OPENED ONE EYE and swam to the surface of the room, air and light flooding into her. A hum of traffic from somewhere below. She was staring at a field of red and gold twine.
The rug. The rug in her flat.
She was home.
She knew she was back in the flat above the village crossroads in 2013, before she’d even staggered to the window.
Rain flecked the latticed panes. Moseley village out there, just as it had been in 2013.
A double-decker bus sailed past, pausing right there, and a man in a tracksuit and baseball cap, jabbering on a cellphone, looked right at her, surprised to see a face so close.
She shrank back and flopped on the sofa. The apartment, just as she’d left it, the morning she’d taken her case and met Kath Bright at the door. Charlie’s apartment.
Charlie, shocked, reaching out for her, too late, as she disappeared before his bewildered eyes. Eighty years ago, in the flat across the road.
The moment surged inside her like milk coming to the boil, spilling over in a cascade of sobs.
Danny had conceived a child with Amy Parker and disappeared from her life again. She would call that child Maddy.
And in 1966, Maddy Parker, all grown up, would tell Rachel her big secret: that Danny was the father of her child, Esther.
Oh God.
Danny had fathered a child with his own daughter.
She sprang up from the sofa in sudden panic, rushing out and down the corridor to the toilet, only just making it as she threw up.
He can’t have known.
She wiped her mouth and saw her pale face in the mirror.
He can’t have known.
She ran through the dates in her head. Maddy had a child who was six in 1966. Little Esther. So she was conceived in 1960?
No. She knew it now. 1959. While Rachel was trapped in a nightmare on the station at the end of time. Danny had probably been lost in his own UnTime. He probably didn’t even remember it. That’s when he’d slept with Maddy. Before he’d even known she was his daughter.
She retched some more, until nothing more would come, then drifted back to the lounge, hugging herself, passing the framed photograph on the wall: Charlie and Rachel sharing a picnic in 1966. The day England won the World Cup. The day they’d buried Amy Parker. The day Charlie had sort of proposed to her.
It was gone, she realized. It was over. She’d never see Charlie again.
She kneeled down before the giant stack of vinyl records stored in the sideboard, ran her fingers along the spines, pulled out a 78 and placed it on the Dansette. It spun and crackled.
Kath’s words came to her again. Go to 1980. That’s where you’ll find answers. That’s where you’ll get your life back.
She had to do that.
She would go to 1980. Soon. But first she would listen to a crooner singing Remember Me and think about love.
— Epilogue —
MITCH SAT IN HIS CAR, twenty yards from the house on Newport Road. This was the end, he could sense it.
He recognized Jez walking up the street towards the house.
He’d followed him for a few days. Last night he’d watched Jez strolling through the park with his girlfriend. They had argued. Not so much argued. The talk had been intense. But she had taken his face in her hands and kissed him, then walked on ahead, laughing, sunlight dancing in her hair.
Mitch had sensed the love between them. It was a new thing. A recovered love. They hadn’t been in love for a long time. Of course they hadn’t. Jez had been in love with a woman who had died years ago. He had seen her in that house, visited its past, even taken a trip to the concert and danced with her.
But it was about to end.
He could feel the vibration receding.
Jez came to the house and waited, sitting on the low brick wall.
An ambulance pulled up and two paramedics jumped out. Jez shook their hands. They took an old man out of the back in a wheelchair and wheeled him to the front door.
This was the husband, thought Mitch. The old man whose memories Jez was feeding off.
Jez unlocked the padlock on the front door. The old man stood up and supported himself with his walking stick, tongue sticking out with the effort. The paramedics looked up at the crumbling house with shock. They retreated and Jez took the old man inside.
Mitch closed his eyes and tried to sense what was happening in there. He had wanted to approach Jez. Recruit him to their group. But Mrs Hudson had vetoed it. Too soon. Watch him, observe; see if it develops.
He thought now she might have been right. This was the end of it, he could feel it.
Jez emerged five minutes later, without his bag. He was going to the shop round the corner.
Mitch started the car and pulled out. He slid down to the T-junction and parked again. He could see right down the side road. Jez walked down and entered the off-licence.
Mitch waited, feeling sleepy. When this was over he would sleep for a week.
He felt a jolt, a static charge, a shock.
She was there.
In the street. Seeing him. Seeing Jez through decades. As she always had, time and again, her whole life in that house, seeing this man from the future she thought was a ghost.
He sensed her terror, how unhinged she was. But also a calm acceptance. Resolution. And he knew, this was the moment she was going to end her life.
He saw it clearly. Her bully of a husband was retiring from his job at the factory around the corner. He was coming home to be with her day upon day. She was buying a bottle of brandy, walking back home, walking upstairs, sitting on their marriage bed, swallowing the bottle of tablets one by one.
And Jez had seen it too.
Mitch gasped, clutching his heart. He felt her sad and lonely death. He struggled for breath, feeling it recede. Relief.
Jez came out of the shop. He ran back to the house. Yes, there was something wrong. It had gone now. The vibration from the house had quite disappeared.
Jez shouldered the rickety front door open and rushed inside.
Mitch felt it now, taking air deep into his lungs, like a man who’d almost drowned.
The old man had died.
His memories were fading. And with it his dead wife and Jez’s link to her.
It was over.
No. There she was again. In the house. Staring at Jez. Seeing him as a young woman, not long after she’d moved in there. She was a new bride. What was her name? He tried to feel
the shape of it in his mind. Lilian. No, Little Anne? Little Amy!
She was seeing Jez in her house. It was 1939. He was a ghost to her. He was seeing her now at the moment her husband had finally died.
And then she was gone.
Mitch tasted tears running into his mouth. He felt their pain: Little Amy’s, Jez’s, even the old man’s: Harold. His name was Harold. Even his.
Mitch wiped his eyes as the emotional torrent receded.
It was over.
Jez would never travel back into her past again. His one emotional link with the past had gone now. Mrs Hudson had been right all along. He would be no use to them.
He started the car. It stalled. The third time he turned the ignition, the engine hummed.
The vibration was quite gone now. They had solved the mystery of Newport Road.
But there was something else there.
A distant undercurrent; like a faint scent of perfume when a woman has left the room.
What was it?
Something else.
He pulled the car around and drove away down the street.
He had a terrible feeling they had missed something.
6. FADE TO GREY
Dedication
To Christopher,
who was born this year
and Amelia
who was born this year
The Soundtrack
AS AN EXPERIMENTAL extra, this ebook comes with a soundtrack. At regular points in the story, you will see songs from 1980 referenced. I have collected them all on a Spotify playlist.
You can find it by looking for Andy Conway on Spotify. Go to his playlists and you’ll see Touchstone 6: Fade to Grey.
Here’s the direct link to the playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/user/21m7hv6zjhobxn5fsro5lumka/playlist/1nIjPLFJAYMela7ZAO3XMr?si=KLBfO-LrQdy-XV1SV-WnBA
— 1 —
THE CHURCHYARD WAS creeping him out. They drank their White Lightning under cover of the lychgate most evenings, and sometimes ventured into the graveyard behind the church, but only ever for a quick visit.
This was different.
Moose shivered and looked over his shoulder. He kept seeing shapes in the darkness. Ghosts looming up from behind the crooked gravestones.
“Hurry up, will ya?”
Wegs was fiddling with the lock on the great oak door, grunting and making a racket. Someone would hear. Didn’t the vicar live in the building next door?
Moose whirled the cap off the fat plastic bottle and took a swig, feeling it burn warm in his throat. Comforting. He wiped his mouth and glanced up at the church tower. So weird it was more like a castle battlements than the spire that most churches had.
A white face peered over the edge.
“Someone’s up there!”
“Shut it,” Wegs hissed.
“I tell you, someone’s up there.”
“Where?”
“Up on the roof.”
“Don’t be daft.”
The door creaked open and Wegs was swallowed by its black mouth. Moose stood staring, afraid to follow him. He glanced back up at the battlements.
No one.
He’d seen a face. He was sure of it. A pale face, like a ghost’s, peering over the battlement and shrinking away again.
“Come on, you needy melt!” Wegs’ voice hissed from inside.
Moose stepped into the still womb of the church, clutching the White Lightning bottle to his chest. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust, till the glow through the stained glass windows illuminated rows of pews.
Wegs was half way up the aisle, scooting to the right.
“Where you going?”
“Shhhhhh!”
Moose crept over to him, trying to probe forward with one foot, every step echoing. It was creepy as hell. But it was warm.
“The door’s over here,” said Wegs.
“What door?”
“The door to the roof.”
Moose found him and pulled him back. “I’m not going up there. I told you. I saw someone up there.”
“Shuddup. There’s no one up there.”
“It’s warm in here. It’ll be cold up there.”
“Don’t be such a div. It’s great up there. The walls protect you from the wind. You can see the stars. I’ve done it loads of times, mate.”
Moose felt Wegs take a handful of his coat and yank him into the black corner. It wasn’t until he tripped on the first step that he realized they were in the stairwell to the roof.
He inched up, palm sliding along the stone wall to help him, round and round in circles. His legs started to ache, and he and Wegs were both gasping by the time they reached the top and came out into fresh air and moonlight.
Wegs reached out and gripped his arm, as if to say Quiet. Look.
There was a woman.
Moose stopped breathing and stared at the woman’s back, wondering if he should say something, but scared she might turn around and face him.
She was standing at the battlement edge, looking down at the graveyard below.
It was a ghost. It had to be a ghost. But he could see, in the moonlight, that she had long red hair. Did ghosts have red hair? They were supposed to be grey.
“I told ya,” he hissed at Wegs.
She turned.
She had a pretty face that didn’t seem at all surprised to see them.
“Hello,” she said.
There was something about her gaze that wasn’t right: a glint of something in her eyes, flashing like a blade. Was it amusement? Malice?
Wegs unzipped his fleece, tore at his collar, fat fingers scrambling till he pulled out a tiny crucifix, holding it out to her, the chain taut against his cheek.
The woman smiled. “What are you doing?”
“Just checking,” said Wegs, letting the crucifix drop. He shuffled with embarrassment.
“We’re in a church,” she said. “Did you not think there were enough of those around?”
She was laughing at him. Not laughing out loud. Just laughing in the way she said it to him. Moose knew this meant trouble. Wegs got violent when he thought people weren’t taking him seriously.
“You calling me stupid?”
“Wegs. Let’s go.”
There was something wrong about this. The main thing that was wrong was she wasn’t scared of them. She should have been. They were two men and she was just some piece of skirt. Usually, when someone wasn’t scared of them, it meant they were tooled up.
Moose plunged his fist into his pocket, his fingers caressing his blade. They could kill her right now, slice her up, and no one would know. It would take no time at all. She must have known this. But she wasn’t scared.
“You don’t belong here,” she said.
“You talking to me?” spat Wegs.
“You see anyone else?” she said.
Wegs bristled again. He was getting ready to banjo her, but something was holding him back. Maybe he was thinking the same as Moose. Something wasn’t right.
“This is our patch.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” she said.
Her eyes shifted from Wegs and found Moose. He curled up inside himself. There was something scary about the way she looked right into you.
“You the new vicar, or what?” Wegs joked. He laughed and rocked from foot to foot, gearing up to rush her.
She still wasn’t scared. She looked right through him and this time laughed aloud.
“Are you laughing at me, bitch?”
“Now that’s not a nice word to call a lady,” she said. “How would you like it if someone called your mother that?”
Wegs’ voice turned gruff with confidence and went down an octave. “Maybe you’d like to hear some more nice words, eh?”
“You think you’ve got something to teach me?” she asked.
Wegs moved towards her. “I think you’re not gonna be smiling in a minute, bitch.”
Moose pulled out his blade. Wegs was going for it.
Nothing would stop him. And if it was going to happen it was best she saw the knife, so she didn’t make any noise.
But she smiled at Wegs. Smiled at him as if she knew him. “You’ve always wanted to fly, haven’t you, Wegs?”
Moose looked from her, to Wegs, and back again. It was like some kind of tennis match with no ball. Something, though, was passing between them.
Wegs stopped dead, a grin stuck on his face. He giggled. “Yeah,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “So do it.”
Wegs changed direction, no longer heading for the girl but walking over to the battlement. He planted his hands, swollen red with cold and booze, on the stone and heaved himself up.
“Wegs! No! What are you doing?”
Wegs eased himself up to stand, tottering, balanced on the parapet, the wind whipping at his hair.
“Wegs! Stop it!”
Wegs laughed out loud, like a man walking out of prison.
“What are you doing to him?” Moose shouted.
The woman just smiled and nodded to herself, her head cocked to one side, like she was listening to music only she could hear.
Wegs raised his arms out, a cruciform, and leapt into the black sky. He was in the air for an instant. Then he dropped out of sight.
Moose caught his breath. There was a loud crash below. It sounded like a melon being smashed with a hammer. Or someone’s skull hitting a gravestone at high speed.
“I told you. You don’t belong here.” She was looking at him now.
Moose stood frozen, the knife vibrating in his hand. He wanted to run but there was a pain all around his torso. A dull ache ballooning around him. It was like when the doctor took your blood pressure. It grew and grew and crushed at his bones.
Then the woman’s face turned dark and she lunged for him. There was a flash of bright light and flames sprinkling all around in a shower of light. It was like the forge where his dad worked in the seventies, and for an instant, Moose remembered standing up against the furnace in his school uniform, keeping warm and waiting to be taken home when his dad had finished his shift. A whiff of sulphur choked him for a moment, or was it his hair on fire?