by Tom Holt
“I suppose so.” She looked at her watch again, as if it was all its fault. “Actually,” she said, “it’s been absolutely terrible, ever since that horrible evening when we got locked in. I’ve been thinking, if I can’t talk to someone about it soon, I’m going to go mad. I even thought about telling my parents.”
“Did you?”
She gave him a don’t-be-so-stupid look. “Another bad thing is, I suppose I ought to be able to tell Shaz, I mean, isn’t that what relationships are all about—?”
“Shaz? Oh, yes, sorry.”
“My boyfriend,” Sophie said icily. “I thought I told you—”
“Yes, of course. Sorry.”
“Well.” She furrowed her thick eyebrows. “I should be able to tell him, but somehow I can’t. I keep trying to, but for some reason I can’t. I keep thinking he’ll laugh, or he’ll think I’m mad or stoned. It’s making things really difficult between us.”
Paul didn’t shout: “Yippee!” at the top of his voice, or dance a hornpipe, or even grin like a dog. He was very proud of himself for that. Instead, he mumbled something about seeing how awkward that must be.
“Awkward,” Sophie repeated. “You bet it’s bloody awkward. No, all he wants to talk about is all these shows and gigs he’s got lined up, you’d think it was really important; and the bad thing is, when it comes down to it, all he’s really interested in is money.”
“Ah. It pays well, then, performance ceramics?”
She shook her head. “The money’s absolute rubbish,” she said. “But every time he thinks he’s going to get a show or something, he keeps on about how this time maybe it’s going to be the start of something big, maybe he can get a regular spot at this pub or if he goes over well at this fair maybe it’ll lead on to other bookings with the same people. He’s obsessed with it, really.”
“(Earning a living, you mean?”) Paul didn’t say. “Sounds like he’s taking it pretty seriously,” he suggested.
“Well, that’s stupid,” she replied. “Either you’re going to be unconventional and a free spirit and not give a damn about the stupid boring stuff, or you might as well get a job in an office.”
It occurred to Paul that, just possibly, Shaz the performance potter was suddenly taking an interest in boring, shameful money because he was thinking of settling down somewhat, as people do when they’re embarking on a serious, long-term relationship. A hallucinatory vision of his mental image of Pot Boy (who in his mind’s eye bore a strong family resemblance to the Tanner clan) snooping round Laura Ashley in search of curtain material for the bus windscreen knocked him off his axis for a moment or so, and it cost him a certain degree of effort to get back to reality. “I guess so,” he said, and hesitated. Here was a heaven-sent opportunity to start tapping in a wedge or two, but somehow he didn’t feel like it. In fact, if he had to be brutally honest, he was on Pot Boy’s side. “It must be difficult, though,” he said cautiously. “Getting the balance right, I mean. Artistic integrity on the one hand, tomorrow’s shredded wheat and toilet rolls on the other. That’s just Life.”
She let go another sigh. “Well,” she said, “I didn’t really expect you’d understand.”
For a fraction of a second, just long enough for a photon to travel a yard, Paul found himself wondering whether maybe the recipient of the rawest deal in this whole emotional nexus might actually be the performance potter. But he swatted the stray thought with the rolled-up newspaper of self-pity. “Not my line of country, really,” he muttered. “Hey up, I think something’s happening.”
Ironmongery rattled on the other side of the door, and Mr Wells appeared, shutting the door quickly behind him. He was carrying a large suitcase, and there was an even larger duffel bag slung over his shoulder.
“Right,” he said, in a slightly breathless voice, “time we were getting on.” At precisely that moment, a large yellow minibus pulled up at the kerb. Paul caught an alarming glimpse of red eyes and tusks before Mr Wells hustled them both across to the back doors.
The bus turned out to be comfortable, verging on luxurious; a deep leather gentleman’s-club armchair for Mr Wells, two airliner seats for Sophie and Paul. On a table in the middle, which somehow managed to stay perfectly still as the bus pulled several Gs tearing away from the kerb, was a distinctly fancy Continental break fast—croissants, Danish pastries, thin slices of German sausage and Dutch cheese, those little French buns with chocolate bits in, a jug of orange juice and a flask of coffee. “Help yourselves,” Mr Wells muttered, opening the suitcase and pulling out a sheaf of papers, “I’ve already had mine.”
After a minute or so, Sophie leaned forward and poured herself half a glass of orange juice. Paul, who was suddenly very hungry, wanted to pile in and start stuffing his face, with particular regard to the choccy buns, but somehow didn’t like to. In the end he picked up the nearest croissant and nibbled it, unbuttered. The bus seemed to be doing at least ninety, with frequent sudden decelerations for traffic lights and zebra crossings, but the food and the table it rested on didn’t shift so much as a millimetre.
“It’ll take us about five hours to get there,” Mr Wells said. “I should have said, bring something to read. A bit later I’ll fill you in on what we’re going to be doing, but I’d better just catch up with this bumf first. Feel free to catch up on your sleep, if you like.”
Five hours, Paul thought; oh, shit. Sitting still for hours on end in moving vehicles was one of the things he was least good at, though he wouldn’t have been able to read a book even if he’d brought one. For her part, Sophie swilled down her orange juice, opened her bag (first time he’d seen her with one) and produced a fat A-format paperback; Slipware Against Franco, he read sideways, Ceramic Trends During The Spanish Civil War. The fact that she put it away again five minutes later without even marking her place was the best thing that’d happened to him all day. He didn’t feel particularly sleepy, but at some stage he must have closed his eyes, because he slid into a dream. He dreamed that he was sitting in an airliner seat in a yellow minivan driving at some unthinkable speed through the outskirts of London in the early morning; and sitting next to him was the thin girl (whose name for the moment escaped him) and she was fast asleep, dead to the world; so she couldn’t hear the conversation that was going on between Professor Van Spee and the tall, gaunt-looking woman with the New England accent, who he was pretty sure was the Countess Judy, the entertainment-industry partner and rightful Queen of the Fey.
“I still reckon we should do something,” Countess Judy said. “It’s not right, is all. We can’t let him get away with it, not again.”
The Professor pulled a wry face. “It was necessary,” he said. “One of us had to go. It happened to be John. That’s the business for you.”
“Was it really necessary?” The Countess pursed her thin lips. “I’m not so sure about that. We’ve really only got his word for it, at that.”
“He wouldn’t lie. Not to us.”
The Countess thought about that. “And those poor boys,” she said. “Even if you’re right about John, that was going too far.”
“It’s the business,” the Professor said uncomfortably.
“For pity’s sake, Theo.” The Countess didn’t seem at all pleased with him. “Well, I’m not going to argue with you, not now. But it’s definitely not going to happen again, not with these two. For one thing, they’re more valuable.”
The Professor smiled. “Interesting,” he said. “If they weren’t quite so valuable—” he paused on the word,“—would you be quite so vehement in their defence?”
“That’s a nasty thing to say, Theo. You know me better than that.”
Professor Van Spee acknowledged his fault with a slight dip of his head. “Also irrelevant,” he added. “The point you make is entirely valid, they are valuable, and I wouldn’t like to see anything happen to them. That said, I’m not convinced that anything will. Of course, I don’t have your special insight in these matters—”
&nbs
p; “Theo,” the Countess warned him.
“All I’m saying is,” the Professor went on, “there’s no real cause for concern at this particular moment. For sure, they’re vulnerable—especially the boy, of course—but that’s not the point. For one thing, there’s no proof, not even any evidence, that the boy’s actually got the wretched thing. Even if he has got it, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s used it, or even that he knows what it is, or what it does. I would imagine that if he did contrive to figure it out, he’d only use it as a sort of toy, and get tired of it fairly soon. Of course,” he added, “that wouldn’t even be an issue if we hadn’t lost the blasted object in the first place.”
That was obviously a sore point with the Countess; she scowled before replying: “Theo, don’t be deliberately obtuse. Dennis had them both tidying out the strongroom. That’s as good as drawing them a map with a big red X marked on it.”
The professor raised an eyebrow. “You think it’s in the strongroom?”
“Well, for heaven’s sake. Where else would it be?”
“I don’t know. If I knew, it wouldn’t be lost. All I know is, we’ve both searched that room from top to bottom a hundred times, and we couldn’t find it.”
“Of course we couldn’t find it, as well you know. Stop talking to me like I’m a little kid. I think the boy’s got it, and he knows the boy’s got it, and that’s what all this is about. And we ought to do something.”
The professor looked at her down his nose. “What, exactly?”
“Warn them, obviously.”
“With respect.” The professor rubbed his forehead, as if the conversation was giving him a headache. “Suppose we do warn him, what on earth could we say? Beware? Anything more specific than that would be an unpardonable breach of professional ethics. And if we’re wrong, it’d be disastrous.”
For her part, the Countess was losing patience. “Have it your own way, then,” she said. “After all, it’s not on my conscience, whatever happens. I can always simply walk away and let the whole lot of you get on with it. In fact, I’m sorely tempted.”
The Professor smiled. “I don’t think so,” he said. “What would you do, for one thing? I can’t honestly see you sitting on a toadstool playing on the pan pipes all day long. You’d be bored. It was boredom that led you to join the firm in the first place.”
“There’re worse things than boredom,” the Countess replied. “But I can see there’s no point arguing with you, your mind’s made up. I still say we should warn them, or at least the boy.”
“No.” The professor raised his voice, which seemed somewhat out of character. “We should leave well alone. You too,” he added meaningfully. “If you’re toying with the idea of telling him yourself—”
“Theo, I promised I wouldn’t.”
“Ah, but you’ve been to law school, you know all sorts of clever ways of telling people things without actually moving your lips. I want you to say you won’t tell him. Sincerely, and with all your fingers where I can see them.”
As he said this, Paul noticed what the professor couldn’t from where he was standing: the Countess had her fingers crossed behind her back. Silly, he thought; but then, these people are different. Quite possibly, crossed fingers might be a singularly powerful and significant magic spell, as far as they were concerned.
“All right.” She held up both hands. “I promise. I won’t tell him anything.”
Then Paul woke up; and he was sitting in an airliner seat in a yellow minivan driving at some unthinkable speed through the outskirts of London in the early morning; and next to him was the thin girl (whose name for the moment escaped him) and she was fast asleep, dead to the world; but the only other person in the bus was Mr Wells, apparently engrossed in a thick typescript. So Paul sat still and quiet for what seemed like a very long time; and then Mr Wells’s eyes closed, and the bundle of papers slid through his fingers onto his lap, and he snored.
Which just leaves me, Paul thought, and for some unaccountable reason, he was aware of the portable door, which was sitting in its cardboard tube in his jacket pocket. It was only there because he’d forgotten to take it out the night before, he certainly hadn’t intended using it today of all days. Nevertheless. A quick trip to Florence or Acapulco would break the monotony of the journey, give him a chance to stretch his legs. Furthermore, the overpowering fatigue that still followed a really long trip through the door would help him get to sleep, which would be a good thing on a five hour journey. Having made quite sure that both Sophie and Mr Wells were fast asleep, he unrolled the door, plastered it against the side of the van, and went through.
With hindsight, the mistake he made was not firmly deciding on his destination before crossing the threshold. Instead, he’d just gone through; a stupid mistake, entirely due to carelessness. It was, therefore, his fault alone when he looked round and discovered to his disgust that he was back at 70 St Mary Axe, in his own office.
It took Paul a moment to figure out what had happened; then he turned round to walk back through the door. But it wasn’t there. The reason for that wasn’t hard to guess, either. He’d forgotten to wedge the door open before stepping through, and the movement of the bus had jarred it shut.
ELEVEN
Annoying, to say the least. Since Paul had no idea where Mr Wells had been taking them, he couldn’t get a bus or charter a plane and follow them, so there’d be raised eyebrows and pointed questions at the very least when they got back. Also, that was presumably the last he’d ever see of the portable door—unless, of course, it featured as an exhibit at his trial for stealing clients’ property from the strongroom.
All in all, a thoroughgoing cock-up. He forced himself to look on the bright side. (Maybe they’d sack him; but he doubted that, somehow. It’d be like getting thrown out of Hell for being antisocial.) Then, intending to go and report to Julie and ask for something to do, he reached for the door handle, and in doing so uncovered his watch, which told him the time was three minutes to two.
Hold on, he thought; it might have seemed like he’d been in that horrible bus for eight hours, but he hadn’t.
A quick check assured him that the watch was working—second hand busily hoppiting round the dial—but obviously it wasn’t. He was considering the position when the door swung open, nearly bashing him on the nose, and Sophie bustled in.
“Sorry,” she muttered, and squeezed past him on her way to her desk—which, he noticed with alarm and bewilderment, was covered with stacks of Mortensen printouts, sorted and unsorted. Even by J.W. Wells & Co. standards, that was taking weirdness to excessive extremes. Sophie’s presence he could probably account for if he had to—for instance, she could have seen the portable door plastered up against the side of the van and gone through it. But they’d finished up the last of the spreadsheets during the course of yesterday afternoon—“Sorry to bother you,” he said, “but haven’t we done all these?”
She looked up. “All what?”
“The Mortensen sheets.”
“The what?”
And then it occurred to him that if this really was yesterday afternoon, she wouldn’t have been to the meeting in the conference room yet, or heard Mr Wurmtoter explaining about the Mortensen Counters. “What day is it today?” he asked feebly.
“Wednesday. Have you been drinking, or something?”
“What? I mean, no.”
“You’re acting pretty odd. And what was it you called these bits of paper?”
“Oh, nothing.” Paul’s education might have been perfunctory at best, but he’d seen enough Star Trek to know that if you’re unlucky enough to find yourself in a temporal anomaly, suddenly marooned in your own past, it’s absolutely essential not to do anything that might bugger up the timelines and change the course of events; for fear, among other things, that you’ll do something that might prevent whatever it was that shot you back through time from happening, in which case you’d be stuck halfway between the past and the future for ever, probably
in one of those cheesy studio sets with all the polystyrene rocks. “Doesn’t matter, really,” he said. “Well, I guess I’d better get on with some work, then.”
The rest of the day was an absolute nightmare, as he struggled to remember every single thing he’d said and done yesterday, so as to be able to do and say it again in exactly the same way. In the end it proved impossible, although as far as he could see it really wasn’t his fault; there were several occasions when he distinctly remembered his lines, but either the reply they elicited was totally different, or the expected cue never came. Mr Wurmtoter’s deadly-perils lecture was shorter, and instead of warning them against Xavier Distortions he told them about Ehrlichmann Paradoxes—meeting yourself at your own funeral, and so forth—which struck Paul as pushing coincidence a trifle too far. There was only one bright spot; as he walked to the bus stop on his way home, he found that the portable door was still in his pocket—though that was an infringement of the temporal by-laws as well, since he could distinctly remember that at that stage yesterday, he’d entirely forgotten that it was there.
At this point he very nearly sat down on the pavement and burst into tears. But it was too late to do anything about it now—or was it? Suddenly it occurred to him to wonder precisely how he’d managed to arrive back at yesterday afternoon, and the answer was quite plain. The door had sent him not just through space but through time as well.
Oh for crying out loud, he thought.
Pretty soon, however, disgust at finding himself caught up in a scenario he wouldn’t even bother to watch on TV unless there was nothing but motor racing on all the other channels gave way to a certain degree of cautious exhilaration. During his time at J.W.Wells Paul had come to realise that all that glitters was probably wired up to the mains, waiting to sizzle the eyebrows off unwary passers-by; nevertheless, being able to go back in time…If only he could figure out how to use the thing with any degree of precision, how wonderful that would be. He’d be able to go back through his life editing out the bloopers. He’d be able to avoid those embarrassing mistakes that made him wake up sweating in the middle of the night. For example—For example: he could nip back a couple of months, and make a point of not applying for the post of junior clerk at J.W. Wells & Co. Just think of it. No more Mr Tanner, or spreadsheets, or swords in stones, or goblins, no weirdness of any kind. Not to mention, no more broken heart.