by Oliver EADE
“AND IF YOU’RE NOT BACK IN AN HOUR’S TIME WITH A LIFE-FORCE SUBSTITUTE SHE DIES!” he shouted to God. “THAT GIVES YOU TWO HUNDRED YEARS AND AN HOUR TO COME UP WITH A SOLUTION.”
Meanwhile, Beetie submissively followed Arthry up the steps and through the open door of the vast craft. She didn’t look back once... didn’t see God disappear as he slipped on the specs without another word.
***
“Seamus, they’ve taken her. Beetie! The one you call the Holy Virgin. A bastard called God…”
“Hold on dere!” objected the Irishman. “I may be lapsed, but I’m still a good Cat’holic! We can’t hear you blaspheming de Holy Father like dat, now.”
“I’m a good Catholic too, Seamus… well, was the day before yesterday. I’m a wee bit behind with my confessions since then. Some pretty big ones are due. No, Seamus, I mean God the Man. In a future London, God’s just a Man. And the Holy Virgin’s just a girl. An ordinary girl, with…”
Gary went quiet as his mind slipped back to the bliss of the previous night when Beetie’s breasts snuggled soft against his bare chest.
“Seamus, I’m sorry I got you involved. Seeing you like this, I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself.”
“Sorry to hell!” chuckled Seamus O’Malley. “I’ve seen de Holy Virgin once in my life, whether she’s a real girl or whether she’s not, so I’ve somet’hing to be t’hankful for! To you, Gary boy!”
“I meant what I said about taking you back to Ireland… to your wife and your life.”
“Ah now, my wife and my life!” Seamus stared up at the ceiling. “Yes, my wife and my life,” he repeated. “Oh, Gary boy, I’d give up anyt’hing to see my wife and my daughter again. Anyt’hing! Even dat vision of de Holy Virgin!”
“I’m so sorry, Seamus. Yesterday it all seemed easy. Now she’s gone, she’s taken the time-specs… and we’re both stuck here. For good.”
A smile lit up the Irishman’s face.
“You have helped me, Gary boy. De demon drink, I’ll not touch a drop from now on. Not one drop. Buy m’self a new suit instead. One of dose light and flashy ones. Maybe she’ll take me back den. Or if she’s a new fella, maybe she’ll let me see my daughter again. She’ll be all of seventeen now, Gary. To be sure, she will. All of seventeen!”
“The green tracksuit, Seamus… the one I swapped for this (Gary lifted the bag containing the man’s filthy clothes)… do you know where they put the thing? It’s my only link with the future… and with Beetie!”
“What you see of Seamus O’Malley is all you get now. Funny t’hing is, I heard dem talking when I pretended I was still unconscious. About de police… a robbery or somet’hing. You wouldn’t be knowing anyt’hing about dat yourself, now, would you, Gary?”
“Oh shit!”
“You’d not go talking like dat to de Holy Virgin, I hope?”
“I’ll give myself up, Seamus. For your sake. Sort stuff out back home first and pray Mike does return. Safe and well. That’s why she went back to that bastard Teeth. For Mike’s sake! I think God put her up to it and I’ll never forgive the bugger…”
“Shhhh!”
“…not till I’m dead and gone myself!”
A nurse reappeared and Seamus O’Malley’s eyelids closed. He remained as still as a corpse.
“Doctors say it’ll be a while before he recovers consciousness,” she told Gary. “I think you should go now. Leave his things on the floor. I’ll get a bin bag for them.”
“Do you have his green suit? A kind of tracksuit.”
“Police have taken everything. Sorry. Why?”
“Oh… nothing at all,” replied Gary.
Gary left the Royal Free and walked back across Hampstead Heath to Whitestone Pond. Everywhere, he saw Beetie’s face, her smile and her eyes. He gazed at London beyond the trees and he imagined she was still there, beside him. The pain of turning and seeing no one was harsh. He hardly knew what to do with himself. He thought of going back to Golders Green, to the B & B and the little room where he and Beetie had found heaven together, but this was all in the past. Without the time-specs the past was simply that. The past! Gone forever, like Beetie. Somehow he’d try to carry on, find his old life and salvage what he could. If he were ever to meet God, he’d pin him up against a wall and ask ‘why?’ Why choose him, Gary O’Driscoll, for such a cruel game? Why put him and Beetie together only to tear them apart? If he got no joy from God the Man, he’d ask the other God. The one who knows everything. He’d pray.
Gary took a number 210 bus to Golders Green then a number 82 to Swiss Cottage. All the time, Beetie was inside him. Beetie, Mike, Seamus O’Malley... and Beetie.
Chapter 14: An Old Score Settled
“Here we are, Cathy! Where the Terminus is gonna be in two hundred years. What d’you think of my world?”
Cathy’s fixed smile had left her. She stared with frightened eyes at her new surroundings like a young rabbit transferred from the safety of a warren onto a main road.
“Don’t look so worried! You’ll be okay!” reassured the boy. “Enjoy all the space. They haven’t started building yet! Those funny little houses over there… people live in them. As families, like. Homes. Mums and dads and kids. Little kids who run around and scream and stuff. None of those in the Hatcheries, right? Now that building beyond the railings…” Mike pointed to a grey building… one of several belonging to Stanmore Scientific Laboratories. “It’s where the Hatcheries will be one day.” Cathy gripped his arm and hid her face against his shoulder.
“Yeah!” he exclaimed. “The same bloody building. You recognise the place. No wonder you’re shit scared! Nothing’s happening there yet, I promise you. Not here in the past.”
Noticing her moistening eyes and the fear in them, he felt ashamed to see this girl was so much more than a dumb, pretty face and a lovely pair of legs. He held her tenderly against his body.
“Okay! A few things to do first before we look for Gary. Man, he’s gonna be so bloody cut up about Beetie. Tell you one thing, Cathy. I will kill God if I ever set eyes on him again. Gary’s my best mate, and people who do that kind of shit to Mike Bellini’s mate… well, they bloody pay for it.”
“Mike?”
“Sure! Mike! That’s me! I’m your friend now, Cathy. And don’t you forget it! Seems Beetie forgot about Gary when she let a geriatric bearded bastard put a bun in her oven!”
“Home?”
“Oh, you funny little thing! Yes, I’ve got a home, Cathy. A home and a cat. Bet you’ve never seen a cat, eh? Now, let me see… today is still Saturday here… though should be Sunday, I reckon. Anyway… we’ve stuff to do… business to sort out. Need your help of course. Afterwards we move on to tomorrow where Gary will be. Not that he isn’t around at other times, like, but no point in telling him before he meets Beetie again! Telling him that the girl he’s gonna be so crazy about will deceive him and get pregnant by some white-haired old codger.”
Cathy’s face remained blank.
“Pregnant? Having babies the proper way? How God intended? I mean our God, the real one, not that fake from the future. Oh what the hell, Cathy! Regent’s Park, first stop!”
All the time, as they walked together to Stanmore underground station, as they sat on the train or strolled along Baker Street and the walkways of Regent’s Park, Cathy clung to Mike like a child to a parent. Mike chatted non-stop about anything and everything. Interspersed with long anecdotes concerning his family, school life and his friend Gary – the brain box scientist – he spoke of trains, cars, soccer, cats and world affairs.
“I’m telling you, Cathy, they should let me and Gary take over and solve the world’s problems. Global warming and stuff. If we did, your lot in the future wouldn’t need to put up with all the shit you get from the likes of God and Teeth. Now tell me, what d’you think of the flowers?” he asked as they wandered through Queen Mary’s Gardens on the way to the playing fields. Cathy’s eyes widened, struggling to take in the beauty of the plac
e and the diversity and exuberance of plants and blooms.
“Wait a minute!”
Mike stopped and quickly glanced in all directions. No one was looking. He reached across a bush laden with white roses and pinched off a flower, placing this in the girl’s hair above her left ear after removing the thorns.
“Cool!” he exclaimed. “Wow! I think Veronica will be very understanding. Not in the same league as you, I’m afraid. Okay… so there’s one little phrase you need to learn.” Cathy lightly touched the flower petals with her finger tips. “I… love… you… Mike. Can you say this?”
She blinked. Her forehead furrowed but she said nothing.
“Sorry! Worth a try! Maybe later! After the drug Beefor stuck into you has properly worn off. You look wonderful, though. Poor Veronica’s no match.”
They walked on and Mike continued his monologue, explaining the differences between soccer and hockey in the simplest terms possible. On reaching the playing fields he saw he’d got the timing right: Veronica’s team-mates were standing around chattering and giggling about the boy who’d appeared from nowhere, vanished, reappeared and opened out his heart to Veronica.
“I was correct, Cathy. Yours are better. And I thought her face pretty in comparison with Emma Pearson… but with you? No way! She’ll understand... bet your bottom dollar she will! Looks up to me like I’m a kinda Hollywood hero!”
They’d been spotted. Veronica stood back, uncertain, whilst two other girls ran towards them waving hockey sticks.
“So you’re back, lover boy? Come along. She’s still swooning. This must be your little sister, ay?”
“Oh dear!” muttered Mike as he walked over to Veronica with Cathy holding onto his arm. “Veronica! Hi! Yeah! Well… um… this is Cathy! Wanted you to meet her.”
“His sister,” one of the other girls informed a stupefied Veronica.
“Our date… erm… the flicks… remember?”
“I love you, Mike!” chirped Cathy. “Always will. You saved me from Blinker. He’s a monster!”
Dumbfounded, Mike turned to take in the girl at his side; for the first time he realised he had fallen head-over-heels with her!
“Like she… er… says, Veronica! Date’s off! No flicks. Um... say hello to Cathy! Cathy’s my girlfriend, you see. Okay by you?”
Veronica’s eyes spelt danger, but Mike, so teenagerly naïve, missed the warning signs: the sharpening at the corners, the fixed stare… the mouth. Most of all the mouth. He grinned when she stepped forwards, offering his cheek for a farewell kiss, and was sent staggering sideways from the force of the slap.
“Bloody-well serves you right, whoever you are,” shouted Veronica’s friend. “Clear off before we beat you to a pulp, you little prick.”
Mike grabbed Cathy’s hand and ran with her from the pitch to a frenzy of jeers. Crimson with embarrassment, he was relieved to hear Cathy giggle.
“You just saved my life!” he told her. “God, to think I’d even offered to take her on a date! Nearly signed my own death warrant!”
“No! You mustn’t die!”
Mike chuckled.
“Keep this up, girl. You’re getting better by the minute. Good fighter… but not in the jolly hockey sticks sense, eh? Now… how about a little trip to this afternoon?”
Mike pointed to a football pitch about a hundred metres away. He took hold of Cathy’s hand, adjusted the time-specs and propped them on the bridge of his nose. Cathy gasped at the sudden change from bright to dull. The sun had vanished and the clouds were heavy, as if they might leak rain any minute. Mike knew he was visiting a block of time in the recent past over which he and Gary had leap-frogged in their backwards and forwards time-travels. What had been an empty football pitch a split second earlier was now alive with running, shouting, yelling, kicking teenage lads and a bobbing line of micro-skirted girlfriends screaming with excitement, clapping, laughing and cajoling the boys.
“An old score to settle,” Mike informed Cathy. “Stay close.”
He led her towards the pitch.
“Is this soccer?” she asked. “Don’t they get bored?”
Mike laughed.
“Terrific game, Cathy! We’ll get you to play some day. Maybe when Gary’s got over the Beetie business. All right? Now... watch this! Take a look at the guy with an ain’t-I-great smirk on his ugly face… brown hair and sleeves half-rolled up! Danny Bryan, the number one school bully!”
“Not as ugly as Blinker,” observed Cathy.
“Correct! No one else could be that. Danny, he used to terrorise me and Gary before I met you. Thumps the crap out of kids who upset him in any sort of a way, and there ain’t much that doesn’t upset Danny. Now… tell me I really am brave, Cathy.”
“You really are brave!”
“Hang on to my arm. To remind me.”
He pulled the mag-stunner from his pocket, concealing the object in his hand, his finger caressing the activation button. One of the girls spotted him.
“Hey, Emma, here’s little Mikey all dressed up like a poof. With a girl! What a laugh!”
Emma, a dyed blonde, emitted a shrill giggle.
“Ooooh!” she mocked. “Where’s Professor Brainbox, ay? Fed up with ’im, are ya? Trying some’at diff’rent for a change! Ha ha!” she cackled.
“How did I ever persuade myself you were remotely pretty, you bloody little tart!”
ZING!
Emma Pearson stopped cackling.
“Emma… Emma… what’s the matter? Why’ve ya gone all funny? You okay, Emma?”
“WHAT’S UP?” Danny Bryan shouted.
He swaggered across the pitch towards them. A group of girls encircled Emma, repeatedly prodding her.
“She’s gone funny, Danny. Won’t say a word.”
“Smitten by me, Danny boy?” suggested Mike, keeping a firm hold of Cathy with his free hand. “Senses the imminent presence of a real man rather than a souped-up turd like Danny Bryan.”
“Oh, what a brave boy you are today, Mikey? Oy! You lot! Over ’ere! Come an’ see the colour of little Mikey’s shit! Then we can share ’is girl around. Cute little thing, she is. Where d’ya find ’er, Mikey? In a supermarket? Whatcha pay for ’er, ay?”
Danny stepped forward.
“Give us a kiss, darling,” he said, flickering his eyelids at Cathy. Lips pursed, he craned his neck to within inches from the girl’s face, closing his eyes in anticipation.
ZING!
Mike stepped forwards, kissed a stationary Danny Bryan, screwed up his face in disgust and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
“Yuk! Didn’t know he fancied me so much. Trouble is… I’m not gay so you boys are welcome to him. I prefer girls!”
He turned and kissed Cathy full on the lips, long and lingering. One of the girls sniggered. Others followed suit, until all except Emma Pearson and her best friend were falling about with uncontrollable laughter.
“Come on boys! Give Danny a big one! Make Emma jealous,” someone screeched.
Joining in the fun, several lads went up to Danny-the-statue and gave him smackers on the lips whilst the girls snapped away with their camera phones.
“Hope you got good shots for Facebook, girls!” Mike said before removing the time-specs and returning with Cathy to another time… same football pitch, but deserted.
“Thank you!” said Cathy.
“Thank me? Why?”
“Thank you for not hitting. Not hurting. In the Hatcheries… those big men are always hitting... hurting. It’s horrible. I never want to go back.”
“Hey! No hitting! Good one! Next stop tomorrow… and Gary! When Gary’s got over Beetie we’ll all stay here in the present. Seems like this is what you want, certainly what I want, and Gary... well, he’ll find another girl. One who doesn’t do the dirty on him. First thing, though, we’re gonna have to persuade him to chuck away these frigging time-specs. Don’t you agree? Now… Gary? Um... Swiss Cottage... tomorrow… say eleven o’clock! He’ll be back fr
om church… if he can still put up with the other God’s mumbo-jumbo after what God the Man’s gone and done. Gonna be tough putting this to him, Cathy. Glad you’ll be with me, ’cos Gary, poor bloke, he’s a bit of a firework. Blows up big time under pressure!” Cathy gawped blankly at him. “Firework? Temper? BOOM?”
“Hatcheries… always fireworks and tempers… before injections. I hate the Hatcheries!”
“Don’t fret! I promise you’ll never go back!” Mike glanced at her whilst he readjusted the specs. “Must admit I’ll miss these things… but can’t imagine Gary ever forgetting Beetie if he can still lay his hands on ’em. Ready?”
He slipped on the time-specs holding Cathy about the waist; same place, but a bright day. A few younger kids were larking about on the pitch.
“HEY!” yelled a little girl. “That man and lady came from nowhere!”
“Quite right, little girl!” agreed Mike. “From nowhere and now we’re off to Swiss Cottage. Cheerio!”
The girl stared open-mouthed, unable to fathom what she’d witnessed as Mike and Cathy set off back towards Baker Street station. They overheard the child’s excited shrill voice:
“Wow! I think they’re magic. Like Harry Potter!”
Cathy’s education of twenty-first century London continued on the train. Mike lectured her about kids at school, how to go shopping, parks – other parks – and famous places like the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace and Wormwood Scrubs. He frowned.
“People only get locked up in prison here in this London. Nothing as brutal as floggings. So bloody primitive, the place you come from.”
Cathy listened carefully to every word, storing everything in her pretty head which she rested so happily against Mike’s shoulder and the boy glowed with pride.
At Swiss Cottage they emerged from the Underground and began to walk down the hill. Not ten metres ahead, with his back to them, was Gary O’Driscoll.
“GARY!” yelled Mike.
His friend turned and glanced briefly without stopping. His face, hard and older… so much older… showed no emotion.