Echoes

by Iain McLaughlin

  Year: 1965

  A tinny radio was playing the latest Beatles single, and that suited Ringo Doyle right down to the ground. The success of his market stall was based almost completely on the fab four. He sold suits like they wore, shirts like they wore, and even copies of their records – cheaper than the shops, too, though admittedly these copies may have accidentally fallen off the back of a lorry before finding their way into his possession. To complete the Beatles feel, Doyle had abandoned his own name of William in favour of Ringo, certain that his nose and cheeky manner gave him a resemblance to Ringo Starr. He even affected a Scouse accent, though he was actually from Manchester. Business was decent for Doyle, but he knew it would be positively booming if he had a slightly better pitch, and he even knew which pitch he wanted – the one that pushy weasel John Raymond had. He threw Raymond a filthy look, but Raymond paid him no heed. He never paid Doyle any heed – he was too busy giving his patter to the punters. One day, Doyle assured himself. He’d get the pitch one day.

  As a customer stopped to inspect a grey suit on his stall, Doyle slipped into chirpy Scouser mode and started his banter. With his attention distracted, he didn’t see John Raymond and his stall slowly fade out of view. In fact, nobody saw it happen. When Doyle turned back, peeved at not having sold the suit, he spotted the empty space in the market.

  ‘Now why the hell isn’t somebody in that space?’ he wondered, and began shifting has stall.

  Year: 1950

  At first glance, the man looked no different from any one of a hundred men who sat on the pavement, sketching and trying to sell their drawings for a few pennies. The War had ended, but people were still struggling to get by any way they could. John Raymond had seen plenty of other artists like this one, trying to sell hastily-sketched portraits. He usually passed one on his way to school every morning. This one was different, though. He didn’t seem interested in selling his work, and when John moved closer, he saw that the man was sketching the same thing over and over again. A circle with little marks at the top. It looked sinister, and John held back nervously, which was unusual for such a confident boy, but he couldn’t just walk away either. Unsettling as the image was, he felt drawn to it as well. The horns at the top made him think of a dragon, and John sidled a few feet closer to get a better look.

  Hearing the scuffing of feet, the artist turned to look for the source of the sound, but he turned a fraction of a second too late to see John Raymond wink out of existence.

  In the hall of portraits, there was an uncomfortable, expectant silence. Emily, Honoré and Tess all knew that something would happen soon, but none of them knew precisely what it would be or when it would happen. Tess had tried asking a few questions, but had given up after being first ignored and then given a terse glare by Emily. Confused and more than a little lost, she wandered around the room, examining the portraits. She stopped at the image of Joan and felt an ache that she had hurt her friend. Guilt wasn’t something Tess was used to feeling – she had learned early in life that it was an emotion she could ill afford – but she desperately hoped she could find a way to make things right with Joan. She would sort things out with Joan. She didn’t know how, but she would do it somehow.

  For a moment, she thought that the smearing and blurring of the image’s edges were an illusion caused by the tears in her eyes, but then she looked at the next portrait. Patience’s sad yet beautiful face was beginning to melt and slide as well. She turned to Lechasseur and Emily.

  ‘Over here,’ Emily instructed, and Tess scampered to her obediently as slowly the room around them melted and dissolved.

  • Naw, hon, you got it wrong. Tess isn’t knocked up. That’s Mary.

  • No, she’s not. She’s not pregnant at all.

  • The slut has lied to us all this time?

  • It’s not like that, Sandi.

  • All the time she’s been here she’s been carrying a dead infant in her, believing him to be alive. And it was my my husband who caused this.

  • Jeez, Patience. I guess someone ought to tell the poor girl.

  • Joan here has kindly offered to do so.

  • That’s real nice of her, hon. But I’m not sure it’s gonna work out.

  • Mary deserves to hear the truth of her situation.

  • Maybe, hon. But maybe not now. In case you guys haven’t noticed, things are changing hereabouts. I’m starting to see colours.

  • She’s right, Patience.

  • Yes, I see. Red and blue.

  • And gold.

  • Orange. It’s like a rainbow breaking through.

  • And I can see you. Dear Joan, I can see – surely that is you?

  • Yes, it’s me. Can you take my hand?

  • I don’t know. You don’t appear to be real.

  • Try.

  • We’re all becoming solid, hon.

  • There. I’m not … wait. I can feel your hand, dear Joan.

  • Sandi, you take my hand, too.

  • I had never thought I should feel the warmth of another human being again.

  • Hon, it must be true – we must be getting out of here.

  • At what cost for Tess, I wonder?

  • Worry about Tess later, hon. Look around.

  • Dear Lord.

  • Christ almighty, there are dozens of us, Joan.

  • There are yet more becoming visible.

  • I had no idea there were this many of us.

  ‘We’ve got company.’ Lechasseur was looking past Emily.

  She turned and saw the entity wearing the appearance of Tess’s son. He faded into view as the room around them continued to dissolve and melt, and he had an enormous smile on his face, as though he had just been given the best Christmas present ever.

  ‘It’s working.’ The boy was almost bouncing. ‘Can’t you feel it?’

  ‘You’re breaking free?’ Lechasseur asked.

  ‘I can feel this place letting me go.’ The boy spun about the room, oblivious to the walls melting and fading around him.

  Emily cut across the creature’s revelry, her voice brisk and business-like. ‘In that case, it’s time for you to keep your end of the bargain,’ she said. ‘Release all the women you’re holding.’

  The boy looked disappointed, as though Emily had said something extraordinarily stupid. ‘Obviously,’ he answered. ‘I’m doing it already.’

  Emily heard the women a few seconds before she saw them.

  ‘Ghosts,’ Tess muttered. Emily put a comforting arm around the girl, and wondered at how such a bony, under-fed child could possibly be pregnant.

  ‘Not ghosts,’ Emily said reassuringly. ‘Friends. Most of them,’ she added.

  A small, filthy girl in her late teens, dressed in coarse animal skins, was first to appear. Her eyes darted around the room in terror. She snarled, baring yellowing teeth, and backed her way around the room, but then stopped, looking past Lechasseur in amazement. He turned to see a middle-aged woman fading into view behind him. Then another woman appeared by her side. Then another and another … Through their materialising bodies, he could see the walls of the room still becoming increasingly insubstantial.

  ‘We might need a bigger hall,’ he muttered to Emily. ‘It’s getting crowded in here.’

  ‘I know. It’s time to send them all back to their own times,’ she told the boy. There was no answer. His eyes were out of focus and his mind was somewhere – or somewhen – else. ‘Listen to me.’ Emily grasped the boy’s shoulders and shook him. ‘Listen,’ she repeated. ‘You have to send them home before you can go. You agreed to that. Are you listening?’ She shook the boy again. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Hey,’ Tess pulled at Emily’s shoulder. ‘Leave him alone.’

  ‘Be quiet,’ Emily snapped, never taking her eyes from the child. ‘You must send these women back. Y
ou must.’

  The boy’s eyes slowly turned to her, and he began to focus. ‘All right,’ he said softly. ‘I did promise, didn’t I?’

  Emily nodded. ‘Yes.’ She indicated the petrified women filling the room. Some stood alone, while others huddled together in the hope of finding safety in numbers. ‘They’re all afraid here. They don’t know what’s happening to them.’

  ‘But if I send them back, they’ll be afraid there, too.’

  ‘Probably,’ Emily agreed. ‘But it’s better for them to live whatever lives they have in their own times than for them to be trapped forever. You understand what it’s like to be trapped, don’t you?’ The boy nodded. ‘You wouldn’t want anyone else to feel that, would you?’

  A huge sigh escaped from the boy, and his shoulder slumped. ‘No,’ he said sadly. ‘I’ll send them back now.’ He closed his eyes and began to concentrate, his mind seeking the familiar paths that flowed through time.

  Standing beside Lechasseur, Tess had spotted Joan Barton as soon as she had appeared back in the room. Even though her instinct was to run to her friend, she stayed in Lechasseur’s shadow.

  Honoré leaned close to Tess’s ear. ‘If you want to say something to her, say it.’

  ‘Nah.’ Tess scuffed her feet uncomfortably. ‘She said some rotten things about me.’

  ‘Rotten enough for you not to speak to her now? You won’t have another chance.’

  Tess gnawed on her lip. ‘I won’t see her again?’ she asked. ‘Never?’

  Lechasseur shook his head.

  Again Tess shifted uncomfortably. ‘Probably should then, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘That’s up to you.’

  ‘She probably won’t want nothing to do with me,’ Tess said sullenly. ‘But I could say something to her.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  Tess nodded.

  Lechasseur put his hand in the small of Tess’s back and gave her a slight push. ‘Then you’d better go see her.’

  The walk between Lechasseur and Joan should have taken just a few seconds, but Tess stopped after each step, uncomfortable and unsure of what she could say to this woman, the only real friend she had ever known. After an eternity, she found herself on the edge of Joan’s group of women. She didn’t recognise the faces of all the women, but she was certain she could name them.

  ‘Sandi?’ she asked a tall girl with straw-coloured hair, who was wearing a pair of flared jeans and a T-shirt that looked like a rainbow had been splashed across it.

  ‘And I’d know you anywhere.’ Sandi touched Tess’ hair. ‘I’d no idea you were so young.’

  ‘We’re all older than we look,’ Joan Barton said. ‘None of us is exactly who we seem to be,’ she added, pointedly looking at Tess. Then she held up a hand to stop the girl speaking. ‘Me included.’ Her face softened. ‘I shouldn’t judge anyone. I don’t have that right. No-one does.’ There was still disapproval in the older woman’s face, but now Tess couldn’t tell if Joan’s disappointment was in her or whether she felt a sense of failure in herself. Whatever the woman felt, it was clear that she was making an effort to reach out to Tess.

  ‘I’m still pregnant,’ Tess blurted. She had wondered what to say, and when the time came, that was all she had been able to manage, but it was enough. A look of relief cracked Joan’s face, and she pulled the girl close into a great hug, exactly as she had done when they had first met in person. Tess felt that same feeling of security and warmth she’d felt before, but there was something else this time, too. A sadness in knowing that she would never again see this woman she loved more than she had ever loved her own mother. It was a loss she didn’t want to think about.

  Joan understood exactly the emotions that ran through Tess. Having lost her children, she was giving up the friends she had come to think of as a second family. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, holding Tess at arms’ length. ‘You have that baby of yours to look after now, remember.’

  Tess nodded. ‘And he’ll grow up to be a good boy, not spoiled like the way he is in here.’ She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.

  Lechasseur tapped Emily on the arm. ‘I must be going soft,’ he grumbled. ‘I kinda liked the girl.’

  Emily wasn’t paying attention. She was concentrating on the small boy, whose eyes were still glazed as he sought the paths to take the women back to their own times. ‘Hurry up,’ she whispered under her breath. ‘Hurry up.’

  Honoré sucked his teeth nervously. ‘You wouldn’t care to tell me exactly what’s going on?’

  Emily shook her head tightly.

  ‘Didn’t think so.’

  ‘But if we don’t get these women moved quickly, I don’t think any of us will be getting home safely.’

  ‘I really don’t like the sound of that.’

  Emily’s face was taut with anxiety. ‘Neither do I.’

  Abruptly the boy’s eyes snapped back into focus. For a moment, Emily was sure her plan had been found out, but the boy still seemed in high spirits. ‘They’re going now,’ he beamed. ‘I’ll miss them, but I can go and visit them all, can’t I?’ He watched as a matronly, ancient Roman woman began to fade from sight. ‘I can go anywhere and see anyone. I’ll be free again.’

  Emily stuffed her hands into her coat pockets so that the boy couldn’t see the way she had them clenched into nervous fists. She forced her voice to stay calm. ‘That must be quite something. To have all of time and space waiting for you.’

  ‘It is.’ The girl in animal skins disappeared. ‘Being trapped here has been a torture for me. It’s like a human being told he can walk in only one direction for the rest of his life.’ Another woman disappeared. ‘That’s not a life at all. Not a real one.’

  ‘No,’ Emily agreed. ‘I don’t imagine it is.’

  ‘I could tell you who you really are,’ the boy offered suddenly. ‘I think I should give you something for helping me get free. All I’d have to do is reach out through time, and I could show you it all.’

  The breath caught in Emily’s throat. The offer had come from nowhere, and it had shaken her completely.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lechasseur asked. ‘You could let her see who she really is? Where she really comes from?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ The boy bobbed his head cheerfully. ‘I can show Emily her whole life.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Can I call you Emily? It isn’t your real name, you know.’

  ‘I – I know.’ Emily stumbled over the words. ‘At least, I guessed it wasn’t. It would be a coincidence.’

  The boy held out a hand. ‘I can take you home, back to before … and you can find out your real name.’

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Lechasseur blurted. ‘Go. Find out who you are.’ He swung Emily to face him. ‘You’ll never get another chance like this. Go and find out who you really are,’ he urged.

  The boy pushed his hand closer to Emily’s. ‘It won’t hurt.’

  Emily looked between Honoré and the boy, a terrible mask of anguish on her face. ‘I can’t,’ she breathed.

  ‘You have to,’ Honoré urged. ‘I’ll deal with whatever’s here. I …’ He stopped as Emily shook her head, wretchedly.

  ‘I can’t,’ she repeated in a hollow voice.

  And Honoré understood. Whatever Emily’s secret plan for getting the women home entailed, it meant that she couldn’t take this chance to discover the truth about herself, to answer the questions that had eaten at her every day since she had first arrived in London. She was being offered her own life back, and she had to refuse. ‘God, Emily. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘What?’ A suspicious frown had appeared on the boy’s face. ‘Why won’t she accept?’

  Honoré could see Emily floundering for an answer. ‘She will,’ he answered for her. ‘Once the women are all safe.’

  ‘If that’s what she wants.’ The boy was disappointed th
at he would be delayed in fully stretching out through time again, but returned himself to sending the women back to their rightful places. From the middle of the group, a small woman with a misshapen, crooked arm hanging limp by her side began to fade away.

  Honoré squeezed Emily’s arm, and they exchanged a brief but meaningful glance. Honoré’s expression conveyed quiet sympathy and support, while in reply, Emily’s face showed a grim acceptance that she wasn’t going to find out the truth about herself – and a deep concern that her plan, whatever it was, would still be uncovered. Whatever happened to the women, Lechasseur was sure that Emily was convinced that the two of them would not survive this experience. The group of women in the room was thinning out as more disappeared, sent back to their own times, taking who knew what kind of mental scars with them from their time trapped in this hellish never-world. No matter how it affected them, Lechasseur reflected, they would be better able to deal with their troubles in their own times, surrounded by a familiar world. How he and Emily would deal with the troubles coming their way, he had no idea. He offered his friend a tight smile. She replied with the slightest shake of her head.

  ‘This is boring.’ The boy’s petulant statement broke into their melancholy.

  ‘What is?’ Lechasseur asked, more harshly than he had intended.

  ‘This.’ The boy waved a hand at the room of women. ‘It’s taking ages for them all to go, and I want to be free now!’

  ‘But you will keep to your end of the bargain,’ Emily said firmly. ‘You promised.’ In taking the boy’s appearance, the creature had adopted some of a child’s mannerisms. With a little luck, Emily was sure she could continue to use that to keep it to its side of their agreement.