My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time

by Liz Jensen

  ‘Come in, you naughty boy!’

  And how do I know this, in my bones? Not least because Dogger, the architect of this creation, has been acting oddly of late: he has been going through a curiously babyish phase, featuring much dog-like whimpering, & a regular demand to be slapped & spanked – the one chore which (as you may imagine) is among the few I relish, & indeed perform with alacrity, to the point of not having to be asked. But soon even the welcome infliction of much-deserved physical pain on my tormentor begins to wear thin on me, for I have dressed as a Sexy Strict Nurse for five days in a row now, & administered more ‘nasty medicine’, & applied more unappealing suppository treatments than I care to mention: even sadism has its limits, I find, when the torture is welcome. Yes: something is rotten in the state of Denmark-upon-Thames, & it niggles at me mightily that I cannot identify it, for the great unveiling is nigh.

  And indeed, upon us. O, we Danes do love a party! We have all dressed in our finest clothes (I in my Tin City garb) for the occasion, which begins with a bubble of greetings & the consumption of fancy pålæg and schnapps as the Poulsen family, the Rosenvinges, Max Kong, Rigmor Schwarb, Ida Sick, the Jakobsens, & many more queue up to investigate the new Time Machine. Murmuringly, we all take turns to enter its skimpy door, & on doing so note the modernizations in its interior, where a white plastic garden bench has replaced the velvet chaise-longue, the original quartz tubes & orb are reborn in transparent Plexiglas, the clocks tick digitally, & the starting lever resembles the hand-brake of a car. Disappointed though some members of the Halfway Club may be with the functional appearance of the new machine, this is a minor matter, given the achievement of its existence, so skål, alle sammen! With a patriotic cheer, our red & white flag is hoisted at full mast atop the building’s flagpole, & we all cry hurra, hurra, hurra! for king & country, even though there is now technically speaking a queen, & the size of the Danish territory has both shrunk & swollen like a dieting girl since we last lived there, since (as I learned in one of Dogger’s excruciating history lessons) Denmark sold its Caribbean islands to the United States for cash, gulped back a piece of Sonderjylland as if to compensate, but then relinquished the whole of Iceland.

  The schnapps having done its work & warmed the hearts of all, Herr Jakobsen, who has appointed himself Master of Ceremonies, takes to the makeshift orange-crate podium & announces that ‘a new era of hope’ has dawned since the distressing disappearance of our leader, Professor Krak, into the greedy stomach of time. ‘Although we shall never abandon our faith that Professor Krak will one day be amongst us again, in this place & era, in the meantime we have resolved to keep the spirit of his enterprise alive, & to this end have asked the distinguished time expert & seasoned time-traveller Herr Dogger to reconstruct the original, by which means any of us who care to return to our beloved homeland can do so, just as Herr Krak hoped that we should, were that to be our wish.’

  Fru Jakobsen, sitting next to me, shed a small tear which she dabbed at discreetly with her pocket handkerchief; I squeezed her arm, and whispered, ‘Coming soon – Gilleleje in the springtime!’ & she smiled & blinked. Meanwhile her husband continued by telling us that while Herr Dogger had been at work, he himself had not been idle. ‘Since time-travel requires careful geographical planning, with regard (in this country) to the harmonization & conjunctification of both meridian and (at the receiving end, as it were) the Time Sucker in Østerbro, I ascertained that there is indeed a suitable temporary parking-place for the machine in the grounds of the Greenwich Observatory. Herr Dogger has himself inspected the site, & has constructed an outer casing for the Time Machine, which will disguise it as an exterior prefabrication known as a Portakabin – several of which are already standing in the park in anticipation of an outdoor concert there next month. Closed to the public by a strong lock, we believe our disguised machine can sit unremarked for as long as three weeks, before anybody notices the extra facility amidst a cluster of twenty such temporary structures, which includes movable toilets known as Portaloos.’

  There were murmurs of impressed approval, & Herr Jakobsen flushed with pride at his ingenuity. Herr Dogger, meanwhile, was looking most odd – on the one hand prodigously puffed-up, & on the other distinctly nervous. ‘When any members of the community express the wish to undertake the (admittedly perilous) journey back to Copenhagen, as I know Charlotte here plans to do shortly, as do my wife and I, then Herr Arnbach’s haulage firm will transport the machine to Greenwich Park, & return it here once it has served its purpose on the meridian. There will be room for three more passengers on the maiden voyage, but we can make a second and a third on the same day, if the first is successful. I have a book here, in which all who are keen to travel can sign their names. But I must warn you, you must see it as an irreversible decision, for we cannot guarantee any return journeys in the immediate future, the original machine having most probably been destroyed.’

  There was a murmur of nervous excitement, mixed with alarm. ‘But first, let me hand you over to Herr Dogger, who has agreed to say a few words to all of you about his remarkable achievement, for which we as a community are all immensely grateful, are we not?’

  At which an enthusiastic cheer of approval goes up. Blessed are the pompous: he is dressed like a dog’s dinner in a brown three-piece suit, & on the podium he stands rocking on his heels, as though counting the size of his captive audience. His moment has come. (‘A few words’? Shall we take bets?)

  ‘Mine damer og herrer,’ he begins, lugubriously as a bull munching on its cud. ‘It is my profound pleasure & indeed honour to be here today, at the culmination of the lengthy project I have undertaken …’ Blah blah blah. I reach for my dictionary. Learning new English words is a habit I began when I was trying to impress Fergus, but which I have not dropped, firstly because I wish to continue impressing him, if we can but be together again, & second because how better to spend a few idle minutes (or in the present case, a good half-hour) than in the enlargement of one’s vocabulary?

  ‘Meridianic principles …’ he is saying. ‘Now known as “worm-hole” theory … special kind of leather to supplement the … delicate calibrations, whereby the merest millimetre can make a difference of twenty years or more … complex mathematical equations …’ I acquaint myself with the words ‘labial’, ‘laborious’ ‘Labrador’, & ‘laburnum’, & it is just as I am investigating lachrymose that I sense a rustle around me – a change of mood in the audience, a restlessness – confirmed immediately by a nudge from Fru Jakobsen. I look up from my dictionary: her face is anxious, her hand raised in the air.

  ‘I must interrupt you there, Herr Dogger,’ she says sharply, ‘& ask you to repeat that last part, please. I am not sure we have understood.’ She looks alarmed: glancing about me, it seems that she is not alone. People are shifting in their seats, & a murmur has set up. What have I missed?

  ‘Yes,’ comes another voice. ‘We’d like to hear that bit again. About the catalysing liquid.’

  At which my heart suddenly sets a-banging. Catalysing liquid. That phrase seems uncannily familiar: now where have I heard it before? Or over heard it? Yes! Once, in one of many dull technical discussions in Copenhagen, did Professor Krak not mention a –

  ‘Yes. Of course,’ says Herr Dogger, clearing his throat. His posture seems to change, & he wipes the side of his face with a handkerchief then clears his throat again. Do you recall that rat I smelled earlier, dear one? Well, now I smell it again, & its stench is more potent than ever! ‘As I said just now, the, er, four ingredients of the catalysing liquid remain a, er …’ says Herr Dogger. ‘Shall we say that, er, in conclusion, Professor Krak entrusted me with the plans to make the machine, but he vowed he would never reveal the four components of the catalyser. It was a means of, er, ensuring that um … no one but he …’

  All hell breaks loose. Fru Jakobsen leaps to her feet. ‘And you knew this all along? That the machine you have made could never be activated? Herr Dogger, you led us to believe you coul
d provide a fully operational replica of the Time Machine, not some … toy!’ she cries, with unmistakable desperation in her voice. ‘Explain yourself, please!’

  A rumble in the audience turns swiftly to a roar. I feel myself go pale, & then hot, & then weak at the knees, & then a tidal wave of fury rises up in my heart. Betrayal! I charge forward towards the stage.

  ‘Yes, Dogger, explain yourself!’, I yell, grabbing him by the arm.

  ‘Hit him!’ calls a teenage voice from the audience (it is young Mattias Rosenvinge). ‘You know you want to!’

  Thus prompted, I slap Dogger hard on the face. This is met by a rousing cheer from the audience – to whom I now explain in explicit & shocking detail the price I have paid for us all to be so monstrously & unfairly fooled. It does not take long to acquaint the members of the Halfway Club with Dogger’s sexual incapacities & creepy predilections. Parents cover the ears of their children as I expose the role that the Eastern Princess, the Nympho Nun & the lustful dildo-wielding monarch Margrethe have played in the construction of the Time Machine. But for all the jeering & indignation, there is rampaging anger too. ‘So Henrik Dogger here has not only used & betrayed me,’ I finish. ‘He has abused the trust of every one of us here.’

  ‘Hit him again!’ calls the teenager. So I oblige, making Dogger reel back, clutching his cheek.

  ‘I completed my part of the bargain!’ Dogger protests above the fury of the throng. ‘It was a fair deal!’ But his shameful response is met with howls and boos, & as one, with a scrape & clatter of chairs, the members of the Halfway Club rise up & hound Herr Dogger from the hall: the Jespersens unleash their mangy mastiff Bullet on him, who bites him hard on the leg just as he reaches the door, & Mattias Rosenvinge & the Joergensen twins pelt him with eggs from the fridge.

  The last we see of him is as a limping silhouette headed for the Crown & Thistle pub on the corner of Carnegie Street.

  But where to now? Where to indeed, when one’s heart is dripping blood? What words to describe the bleakness of what faced me, now that all hope was dashed!

  Love does not lie & nor does it die, when it is strong. But the world can smash to smithereens around it, & that is what happened then. And that night in the lonesomeness of Fergus’s half-occupied double bed you yearn for your Copenhagen days – oh those days of innocence & cold but instead, on the sweaty pillow, you find yourself nightmarishly alone in the Milkmaid’s Uniform (complete with cowbell) thrust on you by your repugnant tormentor, your face streaked with tears, the love of your life lost to you for ever, & suddenly it is unbearable, quite unbearable, & in your garbled hallucinatory thoughts you follow the satanic fumes & speed wildly in the direction of Fru Schleswig (also gone for ever! Who would have thought that you could miss the ancient one so greatly? Indeed at all?) & you hurtle heedless & headlong to the warmth of her fat imaginary embrace & bury your head in her colossal bosom & weep, & you hear her murmur, ‘Ther ther chylde. Ther ther, my littel Charlot. Ther ther my babby gurl. Ther ther,’ & for the first time in your entire life you find yourself suddenly wide awake, screaming to the skies: ‘O Mother, Mother! Help! MOTHER!’

  ‘Did Professor Krak have travel documents forged for me?’ I enquire the next morning.

  ‘Yes, I believe my husband Georg got you a passport along with all your other British paperwork.’

  ‘Then we are leaving the country.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, Fru Jakobsen. You and I are going to visit modern Denmark. I have a plan.’

  My one concern was Josie. I could not take her, for after turning the house upside-down in search of documentation, I discovered that she could travel abroad in the company of no one but Fergus. O woe: it seemed there was nothing for it but to leave the child in the care of the Halfway Club for the weekend, supervised by the snake-tattooed Rigmor Schwarb, who claimed to be ‘good with children’ despite having abandoned her own baby on the doorstep of a charity shop when she first arrived in London, & never seen it since!

  When the time came to bid Josie goodbye the child looked anxious, nay alarmed, & I could immediately picture her thoughts: her father had disappeared; might I, her new stepmother, be about to do the same? Poor little mite! So I promised her I would come back for her, no matter what, for I was going to ‘the wee theme park to look for Dad’, but I would go there by proper flying-machine, & I would be gone no more than a single night, & what’s more, Rigmor had offered to take her bowling, & she would have tremendous fun, & I gave her a big bag of liquorice sweets & at this she perked up, & Fru Jakobsen & I left for the airport feeling lighter, but still full of trepidation, for there was nothing to indicate this venture – conceived in desperation in the wake of Dogger’s revelation – was anything other than the most doomed of wild-goose chases.

  I have only a blurred memory of the airport: suffice it to say that after we had checked in (a fraught process, to my mind, but Fru Jakobsen handled it with serenity, having been through the hullabaloo before), we loaded our hand-luggage on to a moving belt of indiarubber, & watched it disappear into a small cupboard. It was only when my handbag emerged the other side that we became aware of a tinny blast of music emanating from it.

  ‘Quick! The mobile phone!’ Fru Jakobsen cried, grabbing it from my bag & pressing a button, then clamping the thing to my ear whereupon I was greeted with much crackling & interference. Good Lord, who might it be? Not the sloppy-trousered ones, at least, for I recognized their number by now & did not see it (nor indeed anybody else’s) featuring on the telephone’s little screen. ‘Anonymous caller’, it proclaimed instead.

  ‘Hello?’ I ventured. Again, the line crackled madly with interference, & I was just about to give up when –

  ‘Iz that u, gurl?’ came a loud voice. ‘Cum on, speek up!’

  ‘Fru Schleswig!’ I cried. She had heard the cry of my heart after all! Telepathy! O, never had I been so delighted to hear that voice! I could have wept with relief. ‘Fru Schleswig, where are you?’

  Fru Schleswig thought for a moment: the line crackled more. ‘Anutha place & tyme.’

  ‘Where? When? Are you all right?’

  ‘I am verrie well, in fact I hav got marreyed to the Sultan & I am kween of Marokwinter.’

  ‘WHAT?’ (Marroquinta?! That Afric isle now sunk beneath the waves?)

  ‘An I got the vakume cleener here & I hav made a waye of uzin it for fermentin cokernuts for wyne, & it lives in a tempel & we all wurships it in a speshal shryne!’

  Good grief! I relayed this to Fru Jakobsen & we both burst into almost hysterical laughter – a mixture of relief & incredulity, first that Fru S was still alive, & second that she had seemingly landed on her feet, & got herself hitched to a sultan, to boot! ‘What extraordinary & unexpected news!’ I cried. ‘Congratulations, Fru Schleswig, or should I say Queen Schleswig, on your happiness, & that of your vacuum cleaner – I salute you both!’ The line crackled more, which brought me to my senses, for all of a sudden I realized we might at any moment be disconnected. ‘But what of Professor Krak?’ I asked urgently. ‘Is he with you? I must speak with him!’

  ‘Wel he iz here in a manna of speekin,’ replied Fru Schleswig lethargically. ‘But fakt iz, he iz at deth’s dor, with feever. He said I shud trie & ring u, we iz uzin electrixitie charged up from a sweet potatoe, wot he rigged uppe with wyre & wotnotte. But power duz notte werk too wel so we hav not got much tyme. He sez to say we ar bothe alyve. But there woz a smorl erthkwayke so itz dun summink to the Tyme-Sukker, he sez, itz frakchered the connekshun, & he can notte fixxe it coz he haz this dizeez, probly malareah!

  ‘Let me speak to him!’

  ‘Orlroit,’ she mumbled, ‘but u wont get much sence out of him. He iz ramblin & geezerin all sortsa nonsens. Havin nitemares & wotnotte, & blatherin bout the Tyme Masheen, wot I carnt make hedde or tayle of Upon which there came much crash-banging, & footsteps, & then the faint sound of muffled & rasping breathing.

  ‘Professor Krak?’ I cried. The line crackled alarmingl
y.

  ‘Charlotte?’ came the faint but unmistakable voice of Frederik Krak. Fru Jakobsen & I had by now found ourselves seating & she rammed her head next to mine, that we might both catch what he said.

  ‘Professor Krak! O, Professor Krak, how we all miss you!’

  ‘And how we now pray that you may recover, dear sir!’ chimed in Fru Jakobsen.

  In reply there came a faint groan. Sensing that we might be cut off at any moment, I begged Professor Krak to listen to me most urgently, & quickly apprised him of our predicament: that Fergus was stranded in Østerbro, that Josie & I were in London, that Dogger had reconstructed the machine, but we lacked the four catalysing ingredients to operate it.

  In reply came another groan, most ghostly-weak, & then Professor Krak spoke. It was almost a whisper: I had to strain to hear. ‘I swore I would tell no one.’ He spoke liltingly, as though in a dream. ‘It shall go with me to the grave.’

  ‘But you must tell!’ I insisted, now quite alarmed. ‘You must, sir, or my life is undone! Not just my life, but many others! Your flock, Professor Krak! Think of your flock!’

  ‘Undone,’ he repeated, still seemingly in another world. ‘Said I would not. To the grave. The only one. Me. Fred-Olaf Krak. Not Hawking, not Gott’ It seemed that in his fever, he was indeed hallucinating, as Fru Schleswig had said. There was nothing to do but listen. ‘What they don’t know is how close to the heart it all is.’