‘Well, thank goodness for that! Lloyd’s undoubtedly a brat but I don’t think he deserves that.’
‘No. Tempting though, isn’t it?’
She looked at him for a moment. ‘You are joking, I suppose?’
‘Yeah, of course.’ But they both chuckled at the idea.
They heard the coachman say ‘whoah’ and the cab slowed to a halt. Tom threw open the door and leaned out. He looked both ways to ensure that the coast was clear before jumping down. Then he helped Cat to descend. She gave a soft grunt of exertion as she stepped down onto the pavement.
‘Look at me,’ she muttered. ‘A few hours on my feet and I’m almost crippled. Oh, to be your age again.’ She opened her purse, took out a coin and gave it to Tom to hand up to the cabbie. The man tipped his hat and wished them both a Merry Christmas. He snapped the whip and the coach moved briskly away. Tom and Cat stood for a moment, looking at the silent snow descending from above. The road was already covered beneath a mantle of pure white, which glistened in the light of the street lamps.
‘How lovely,’ murmured Cat. ‘I can’t remember when it last snowed on Christmas Day.’ She led the way towards the front door of the house and as they approached it swung open and there was Angus, waiting for them, standing smartly to attention. It occurred to Tom that he must have been hanging around in the hall all evening, waiting for his mistress’s return. Cat and Tom climbed the steps to the door.
‘I trust you had a good evening, madam?’ said Angus.
‘Very enjoyable, thank you.’
‘Can I get you anything? Tea, perhaps, or hot milk?’
‘No, thank you.’
Angus leaned closer. ‘The little errand you sent me out on earlier?’ he murmured. ‘It’s on the table in the drawing room.’
Cat looked confused for a moment and then seemed to remember something. ‘Ah yes, I’d quite forgotten! You managed it all right?’
‘Yes, madam. It took a little persuasion, what with it being the last day before the holidays, but I think you’ll be pleased with the results.’
‘Excellent. Well, now, Angus, why don’t you take yourself off home? Tom and I will happily see to ourselves. And mind you don’t come back until after Boxing Day.’
‘Very good, madam. Thank you.’ Angus bowed politely and moved off along the hall. Tom and Cat hung up their coats and walked to the drawing room. As Tom dropped onto the sofa, he couldn’t help but notice a small package wrapped in bright paper lying on the low table in front of him. Cat gestured to it. ‘That’s for you,’ she said. ‘It’s your Christmas present.’
Tom looked at her. ‘Oh, there was no need to get me anything,’ he protested.
She smiled and settled herself beside him. ‘I realise that,’ she said. ‘But I wanted to. After all, it’s not every day that an old friend comes visiting. And I had to act quickly. I sent Angus off this afternoon with strict instructions. I hope he managed to get exactly what I asked for.’
Tom smiled and picked up the package. ‘Can I open it now?’ he asked.
‘Of course. It’s Christmas Day. What better time?’
Tom frowned. ‘I haven’t anything to give you,’ he told her.
‘But you’ve already given me the best Christmas present I could have hoped for,’ she insisted. ‘Just by being here.’
They gazed at each other for a moment and Tom thought how incredibly sad it was. They could be no more than good friends now, but when they had last met, it had seemed to him that it was going to be something more than that.
‘Thanks,’ he said, at last, and he tore the paper from the package, to find a leather-bound box within. He opened it and saw, resting on a cushion of black velvet, a round silver object on a length of chain. He removed it from the box and noticed that the front of it was hinged. He pressed a catch and the front flipped open, revealing a beautiful pocket watch. He couldn’t withhold a gasp of delight. Then he noticed that the inside of the cover had been inscribed in an elegant, ornate hand. He studied the message in silence.
To Tom
For the good times
Merry Christmas
Cat
‘It’s beautiful,’ he whispered and despite himself, his eyes filled with tears.
It seemed the most appropriate thing,’ said Cat. ‘It needed to be small enough to carry with you. And what better gift for a boy who has conquered time? As for the message, well, I didn’t want to put a date on it or anything else you’d have trouble explaining away. When you go back, I mean. So . . .’
He could see that she too was close to tears. He reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I wish I could change things, but I can’t.’
‘It is a cruel trick that time has played on us,’ she said. She forced a brave smile. ‘But, rather this, Tom, than I went to my grave without ever seeing you again. That would have been crueler still, don’t you agree?’
He nodded. He couldn’t think of anything else to say, so they sat there, the two of them in companionable silence, while beyond the big bay window behind them, the snow continued to fall.
He went to bed that night in Cat’s guest room, luxuriously furnished with a big four poster bed and velvet drapes, a far cry from some of the places he’d been obliged to spend the night on his previous visits. He remembered one bed in particular, under the eaves of the orphanage in Mary King’s Close. He’d been forced to share the grimy, narrow bed with Cameron, in a grubby gloomy little attic room where rats scampered wherever they felt like going.
Cat hadn’t had any men’s pyjamas in the house, so Tom had simply removed his shoes and socks and climbed into the huge bed wearing his t-shirt and jeans.
He was tired but for the moment at least, he couldn’t seem to get to sleep. A hundred conflicting thoughts were twisting and turning in his head and he didn’t have the first idea about how to settle any of the problems that assailed him. After a while, he turned onto his side and reached for the pocket watch, which lay on the bedside cabinet beside him. He flipped open the case and examined it fondly in the dim light from the window. As he did so, he noticed something odd. The hands of the clock had started to move, slowly at first, but with increasing speed. And then it occurred to him that they were actually moving backwards. What now? he thought, with a calmness that surprised him.
His surroundings began to turn grey and transparent and a dizziness filled his head. Then he heard a familiar noise, the sound of wings, beating all around him. He didn’t know where he was headed, but one thing was for sure. Judging by the hands of the clock he was going even further back in time.
And then he was gone, falling down a long twisting tunnel and he seemed to fall for a very long time before he finally hit the ground.
Fifteen
His feet thudded onto soft earth and he rocked on his heels for an instant, disorientated, flinging his arms into the air to try and regain his balance. Everything around him rushed suddenly into focus and a series of vivid impressions assailed him. It was bright daylight and a cold wind was clawing at him, chilling him to the bone because he wasn’t wearing a coat. The smell of the outdoors was in his nostrils, the odours of grass, mud and rain. Overhead, a grey, stormy sky tumbled and roiled in silent fury.
He managed to steady himself and lowered his arms, noting with a dull sense of surprise that he was still holding the silver pocket watch. When he looked at it closely, he saw that the hands were no longer moving in the wrong direction. They were positioned at a little after half past two.
Now he registered that his feet felt cold and wet and when he looked down, he saw to his surprise that they were bare, just as they had been in the bed in Cat’s spare room. That was it then. He’d gone straight from there to this outdoor location. He turned his head to look around him and knew instantly where he was – standing on the steep slope of Arthur’s Seat, close to the place where he and a younger Cat had buried the tiny coffins. As the thought occurred to him, he looked down the slope and his heart lurch
ed in his chest as he saw a familiar figure, making her way down the hillside away from him. Even from this distance her long blonde hair was unmistakable.
‘Cat!’ he yelled. She paused and looked back over her shoulder, gazing up at him in surprise. Then she lifted a hand to wave frantically at him and turning, she began to make her way upwards again. He pushed the watch safely into his pocket and started towards her, having to place his bare feet with care on the precarious, rock-pitted terrain, but he was in such a hurry to get to her that it made him clumsy. At the last moment, a combination of a stubbed toe and his own impetus caused him to lose his balance. He crashed into her, throwing his arms around her as he did so and the two of them went tumbling back down the hillside, rolling over several times before coming to a rude halt, propped against a large, grey boulder.
‘Ow,’ said Cat, quietly. They lay for a moment, both of them panting with exertion, as they stared imploringly into each other’s eyes. Then, ‘Where did you go to?’ she asked him, breaking the spell. ‘I was so worried about you.’
Reluctantly, he released her and sat up. ‘How long was I gone?’
‘About a quarter of an hour,’ she said and he could see now that she’d been crying, her lovely green eyes rimmed with red. ‘I didn’t know what had happened to you. You just . . . it was as though you were suddenly made of smoke. I tried to grab you but then you were gone. I’d given up hope. I thought I’d never see you again.’
He smiled, though he didn’t feel that there was all that much to smile about. He had no idea what was happening. He was puzzled. This was a new experience. Usually he stayed fixed in the same time-frame, slipping backwards and forwards between it and his own world. Why had he been sent back here, to a time he’d already visited earlier? And how long would he be allowed to stay?
‘Where did you go?’ Cat asked again.
‘Well, that’s a long story,’ he warned her.
‘Tell me anyway,’ she suggested.
‘Ok. Well, first I went back to my own time,’ he said. ‘I hooked up with my dad. He took me back to Manchester and I went on with my life. You know, school, friends, stuff like that.’
‘Tom, how is that possible? You were only gone for fifteen minutes.’
He shook his head. ‘It might have seemed like it to you, but it was actually more than a year.’
‘A year?’ She shook her head. ‘Surely not?’
‘Oh, yes, believe it. A lot happened to me. But then, I came back to Edinburgh to visit my mum and I was in this car . . .’ He thought for a moment. ‘You remember the coaches I told you about? The ones that don’t need horses?’
She nodded.
‘Well, I was travelling in one of those and I saw this magpie . . .’
‘Where? In the coach?’
‘No, it was sitting on a rail. It was night-time and I thought it seemed really weird, you know? And anyway, there was this accident and the car went off the road. The next thing I knew, I was back again, only this time it was 1881.’
She stared at him. ‘But, it’s only 1829 now!’
‘I know how it sounds. But that’s where I was taken . . . and . . . I met this writer. A guy called Robert Louis Stevenson; don’t worry, you won’t have heard of him, not yet, but he will be famous in my time. And you’ll meet him too, one day, he’ll be a friend. Also . . .’ He hesitated, not sure that he should tell her any more.
‘Go on,’ she urged him.
‘Well, I met somebody else in 1881. Somebody I already knew. I . . .’ His voice trailed off. ‘I met you,’ he said.
She actually laughed at that. ‘But, how could you? I’m here.’
‘Yes, but you were there too. As . . . as an old woman.’
There was a long silence then, while she thought it through.
‘How old?’ she asked at last.
He did the maths in his head. ‘Around seventy,’ he said.
‘I was seventy. And you were still the same?’
He nodded.
‘Well, that’s terrible! I shouldn’t like that one little bit.’
‘No, I don’t think either of us did.’ He reached out and took one of her hands in his. ‘But the thing is, Cat, you’ll be a rich woman by then, living in a fancy house with servants and everything. And you’ll have books.’
‘I have quite a few now.’
‘No, I mean books you’ve written.’
‘Never!’ she protested.
‘Oh, trust me, it’s going to happen.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’ve seen it, Cat. Even back in my own time. It was all in a big museum. There was a painting of you and all your notebooks and stuff. Seriously, you’re going to be remembered.’
She bowed her head and looked at her hands. ‘But that’s insane,’ she muttered.
‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ he asked her.
She looked up at him and smiled. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Though it’s a little hard to understand.’ She pointed at him. ‘But now I can see you must have been gone longer than I thought. Your clothes are completely different. Your hair’s shorter. And . . .’ She studied his bare feet, clearly baffled.
‘I was in bed,’ he explained. ‘I was in a bed in your house.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Whoah!’ he said.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I’m just thinking, it’s a good job I had some clothes on!’
They both laughed at that.
‘Imagine if you’d turned up in your night shirt!’ cried Cat.
‘That’s just the problem. You didn’t have anything like that. So I just took off my shoes and socks and climbed in to bed. Thank goodness I left my jeans and t-shirt on or I could have arrived here in just my socks and gruds.’
‘Your what?’
‘Never mind.’ Tom remembered something else. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the silver pocket watch. ‘Have a look at this,’ he said. ‘Do you like it?’
‘I do,’ she told him.
‘You ought to. You gave it to me.’ He flipped open the case and indicated the inscription. ‘See that? You’re going to give me this on Christmas Day, 1881. It’s going to snow and we’ll just have come back from a party at a famous writer’s house. What do you think of that?’
Cat laughed delightedly at the notion. ‘It sounds like a dream,’ she told him.
‘It does, doesn’t it? But it’s going to happen, Cat. You’ll see. Just give it about . . . fifty-five years.’
Her expression turned serious. ‘I don’t want to, Tom. Not if it means I won’t see you again until then.’
He shrugged, took the watch back from her and returned it to his pocket.
‘We don’t get any say over this,’ he told her. ‘That’s not the way it works. But we’re together now, and that’s what matters. We should make the most of it.’
She smiled demurely. ‘I can’t imagine what you mean,’ she said. ‘I hope you’re not thinking of being unchivalrous.’ She said it, but her eyes told him a different story. He reached out to her but paused when he noticed that she was looking over his shoulder at something behind him. Her face registered surprise. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked.
He turned to look and his heart nearly stopped beating in his chest. A cloaked figure was coming down the hillside towards them. The figure of a man, tall and angular, silhouetted against the skyline, his head hidden behind a crow-like mask.
‘Oh, no!’ whispered Tom. In an instant, he was on his feet and dragging Cat up after him. ‘We have to go,’ he said.
‘But . . .’
‘NOW!’ He started down the hillside, pulling her along with him, wincing every time his bare feet settled on a sharp piece of rock.
‘But who is it?’
‘You remember I told you about the man who’s following me?’ he grunted. ‘The bad man?’ But he was unsure, for the moment, which version of Cat he had told. ‘He wants to harm me. You too, probably, if he catches up with us.’
He increased his pace, pulling her after him. The incl
ine was still steep and they were going faster and faster. He worried abut falling again, but when he looked back over his shoulder he could see that McSweeny was following them at a loping run, his leather cloak flapping behind him like the wings of a huge bat. He was gaining on them so Tom increased his pace.
‘Tom, slow down!’ cried Cat. ‘I can’t, I can’t keep up with you.’
He didn’t dare do as she asked. He was terrified what McSweeny might do to her if he caught them. He remembered Morag and what had happened to her at the market in Mary King’s Close. In his mind’s eye he saw McSweeny’s arm encircling her, the knife blade glittering dangerously in his free hand. Tom couldn’t let something like that happen to Cat. He wouldn’t.
So he ran as fast as he could and even as he ran he was aware of a mounting dizziness in his head, the world greying out around him, his bare feet no longer making real contact with the stony ground beneath him. And then, a short distance ahead of him, further down the hill, he noticed a shape flapping up into the air, the black and white outline of a magpie. It occurred to him that he really should let go of Cat’s hand now, but to do that would be to leave her here at McSweeny’s mercy and he knew he couldn’t risk it. So he kept a tight hold of her. And then everything was beyond his control as the greyness overtook him completely, and once again he felt himself falling, but even as he fell, he was still aware of one solid thing: Cat’s hand gripped tightly in his.
He hurtled face down onto a yielding softness, a cool, embracing softness that he instantly recognised as a mattress. An instant later another body came crashing down on top of him, making him gasp for breath as the air was driven out of his lungs. Whoever had fallen onto him grunted loudly, rolled to one side and fell off the edge of the bed. There was a fierce exclamation as a body thudded down onto bare wooden floorboards. Tom grabbed a quick breath then scrambled to the edge of the four-poster and peered fearfully over it. Cat was lying on her back on the floor, staring up at him in open-mouthed astonishment.
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