by A M Russell
‘Jules?’
‘No it’s Davey.’
‘Oh. Well I’ll be round in half an hour. Just tell him I called ok?’ Violette was business like in a way that I hadn’t woken up to. She had rung off before I had chance to respond.
I looked round. How to transform this into Jules awake and coherent in half an hour? Easy.
‘Violette is on her way! Jules! Do you hear me?’
‘Ok.’ He burbled and turned over.
‘Tea. Strong. Must make right now....’ I dashed downstairs. And quickly threw everything into order.
Jules was nursing his second cup still in his shorts and tee shirt, when a key turned in the front door.
Dr Rhodes swept in looking flustered. She went straight to Jules and embraced him in a way that suggested things had moved forward since four days ago.
‘I just found out.’ She said.
I turned to leave the room.
‘I’d like coffee please Davey,’ she said, ‘black. And will you check in the bread bin over there for the wholemeal?’
‘How would you like it?’ I said obediently.
‘Honey. And look in the fridge. There should be some fresh garlic.’
‘Garlic?’
‘To put on the toast.’
‘Garlic?’ I went and looked never the less.
She fussed him in a way that I tried to avoid looking at. Jules put his arms round her neck, and squinted at her from the stage of hangover that was probably not as bad as it was going to get.
‘Sorry Violette. I had too much. To be fair Davey did suggest I stopped. But I ignored him.’
She kissed him softly. He was kissing her back. I tried to look away. Terribly embarrassed I suppose. I carried on with Violette’s instructions. Then I left the mutually consoling couple in private, and went back upstairs to find where I’d left my jacket.
We zoomed along in Dr Rhodes’ Jeep. It was bright yellow outside like sunshine; and completely tidy on the inside. She had Jules in the front passenger seat and I sat behind him in the back. She glanced at me in the rear view mirror.
‘Just when I think I reached a dead end, something always turns up.’ She said with a purposeful tone.
I told her about my need to see Janey.
‘That’s fine. We will do a little house call first.’
‘Who?’
‘You’ll see.’ She smiled coolly, ‘You will be surprized I think.’
We arrived. It was in a street I knew quite well. A wide avenue, with verges and lots of trees, and huge Victorian terraces.
We walked some way along, having left the car neatly parked in a side street. I saw the feathers jammed in a vase just inside the window and the chaotically arranged curtains. Dr Rhodes knocked in a sharp rappity-rap that made Jules flinch.
‘Sorry,’ she said to him and touched his hand.
‘It’s fine.’ said Jules. He bowed his head to stumble into the gloom of a badly lit hall way.
‘What took you so long?’ I heard a familiar voice and saw none other than my dear pal Alex. We followed him through to his old-fashioned plaster walled kitchen with herbs hung from the ceiling. Alex sat back down near a bowl of cornflakes and chopped up bananas.
‘Oh.’ I sat down on the nearest chair.
‘I’ll always watch your back.’ he said.
‘Is this a conspiracy?’ I asked
‘You ok there mate?’ said Alex to Jules.
‘Maybe.’ Jules sat down too.
Dr Rhodes continued standing.
‘Have you been spying on me?’ I asked Alex.
‘What?’ He dropped the spoon with a clatter in the empty bowl, which I was sure didn’t do much for Jules’ head.
‘Err....’ I really wasn’t used to Alex out of hours. Literally anything was possible.
Dr Rhodes stood looking prim. ‘I now know that you two do know each other. I must say it is quite a useful situation. But perhaps Alex would like a full background from you.’
‘I think that is not necessary right now.’ I said stiffly. I felt caught out.
‘Your friend here is in need of something only I can provide.’ Alex indicated Jules, ‘So when you’ve finished being astounded by the company I keep, you can thank me for getting you off the hook with respect to the boss and his visitors that did issue forth out of Ye Olde Golf Clubee!’
‘What?’
‘He does that a lot.’ Alex said to Dr Rhodes, ‘I think his brain is shorting out.’
‘But… but you are friends?’
‘That is the general meaning of this get together. To establish that we are all, in fact, friends.’ He mixed something for Jules, ‘That is the intention of the meet is it not. Oh! And Davey… I do have to be at work this morning. So while you are swanning around saving the world, I’ll be fending off any unfavourable comments from the cube of gammon. So think of me at four o’clock. Only an hour to go without murder being committed.’
‘So let me get this straight? Dr Violette Rhodes is poetry girl?’
‘Finally. The circuit is rerouted. I’ll just run and get some daily slave robes on. Then I will have to scoot. Feel free to stay and help yourself… just don’t smoke anything in here that you find… it’s not all quite ripe yet.'
Dr Rhodes pursed her lips but didn’t say anything.
‘The Golf club thing. I thought that wasn’t yet?’
‘It’s not. They were just looking around. Guided tour. The art department got their crayons out in full sets for a change.’ He left the room and was heard bounding up the stairs. We all went back into the hall.
Alex wearing a tie was truly a weird and wonderful sight. It would be removed almost as soon as he got to the work station, and then it sat in a drawer until it was time to go home. As long as you looked right on entering and leaving.
‘And we’re supposed to be creative.’ Alex sighed and then grinned making a pretend strangling motion with his left hand.
We all parted company on the side street. Alex drove away in a Land Rover that mysteriously wasn’t blocked in. I marvelled at the complexity of connections in all our lives as we set off for Janey’s new place.
I was just beginning to think that today would be straight forward, when Dr Rhodes slammed the brakes on. There was a car in front of us. For some reason it had suddenly stopped, and was trying to do a parallel park straddling the entire width of the available space on the street.
‘Hold tight.’ Dr Rhodes smoothly slammed it into reverse gear. We were sliding backwards like a roller skate. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with the black car in front, but they quickly stopped the manoeuvre and were catapulting towards us down the road.
‘I am displeased.’ muttered Dr Rhodes. She braked again, swiftly reversed round and sharply turned the car into the traffic on the main road. The other cars were forced let her in. She floored it and overtook five vehicles, driving down the wrong side of the road. The black car was somewhere behind dipping in and out of the traffic.
‘Left here.’ said Jules.
Violette cut across in front of the nearside car and missed by a few inches. There was a screech of brakes as we shot down the short road and then out into another main street. She took a left and then pulled into a garage.
‘Get down.’ She ordered us. She quickly hopped out of the car and went into the small shop that was attached. I saw her get her mobile out. The black car cruised past slowly. I saw it reflected in the glass on the petrol pumps. We kept our heads down. Five minutes later she came back.
‘Mints.’ She handed them to Jules. Then with a snort of icy annoyance, ‘This is becoming most annoying!’
‘The car is too recognisable.’ I said, ‘perhaps we better take public transport?’
‘Yes. Perhaps. But I have a better Idea.’
‘Which is?’
‘Perhaps we should abandon this course of action for today.’ She tapped on the steering wheel with the tips of her nails.
‘I will go and see her on my own
then.’ I said. ‘perhaps you and Jules need a little time together.’
‘It is very true.’ Dr Rhodes seemed to be making a calm assessment of the facts; ‘yes, alright. I’ll drop you at the station. If you take the nine thirty-two, you can make it to Wood Green. It’s a good twenty minute walk from there, but that is the safest option. If you are followed go into the shopping centre. I think there is one there.’
‘Well there will be shops!’ I joked.
‘Indeed.’ she said.
She let me out in the street next to the station car park; ‘Good luck. Or something you find appealing,’ she said.
I pushed the yellow door to. She slid down the electric window and leaned across Jules. He had fallen asleep in the passenger seat.
She smiled at him with a different look in her eyes. Then looking back at me said: ‘We will go to the park. I’ve got a rug and some flasks in the back.’
She gave me a slip of paper. ‘Ring my mobile later, after you’ve talked to Janey. I’ll bring Jules if she wants to have a word with him.’
‘Do you think he’ll still be hung-over then?’
She smiled very sweetly, ‘He’ll be much better later. Trust me. I’m going to get him a little fresh air. We’ll ring you at four o’clock whatever happens. I think we need to move as fast as possible on this. In the mean time I’ll get in touch with George. And see if there is anything that can be used.’
‘What about everyone getting together?’
‘Alex has offered his place. He isn’t connected except by an accident of poetry and other things… so that is where we will meet. Bring milk. He never seems to have it in the house.’
‘Ok. Err, Dr Rhodes.’
‘I think it’s about time you called me by my first name. I’m not the adult to a class of crazy kids anymore. No job in that area. If I say anything, it’s strictly as a friend. Oh and Davey… to stop embarrassing you. I will warn you next time. So you can look away.’ She looked at the sleeping Jules with a softened expression.
‘I’m happy for you.’ I stuttered.
‘I think that you ought to know that Jules has been my aim for a very long time. I hadn’t to cross the line. Ironic isn’t it? That losing my job with the Project might actually be the best think that has happened this week.’
‘But you are still Psyche girl.’
She smiled. ‘Yes Davey. I still am. You can depend on my services for the foreseeable future. I very much want the bad stuff to stop. Just as you do.’
‘Thanks Violette. I’ll see you later.’
She roared off down the street and I got a one way ticket to the stop one further on than she had suggested. I decided to get off a stop later as it was about equidistant to Janey’s house.
As the train rattled its way along the tracks I ached inside for her touch. The fact that she wasn’t my Janey, made that ache all the more acute. I would have to be content with the simple fact of her being there. Something caught my eye. I watched as someone got on at Wood Green. I thought they were familiar. The next stop I got off. So much for coincidence. It was Mrs Cardell! Horrible woman. But she hadn’t seen me, as she had her nose stuck in a woman’s magazine.
I threaded through the early morning crowds. Twenty minutes later on a brick path, I was without any coherent thought. She had me. All reason. All judgement. In one kiss she had stolen my soul. I wanted it back. If this Janey could show me that the mad dream I had lived was over… then I would fall on my sword without complaint. Broken hearts are easy things to ignore if the world is falling apart around you.
I was still trying to find the impulse to ring the doorbell, when it sprung open and Marcia grabbed me by my arm and yanked me inside. I yelped in pain. It was the right one. She slid bolts and dragged me into a back room full of paper models. My confused mind was reeling with searing nerve signals that would take a full ten minutes to fade. Janey stood by a window. I blinked. Marcia pushed me forward.
‘There’s no need to be so rough!’ I said sharply. Pain came back. And doubt. No reason to explain the fear though, gnawing into a wooden bit of the mind: a bottom drawer; out of which reason fell like sand when the whole thing is shaken about.
‘She said that you know my brother?’ This wasn’t what I had expected.
‘Yes.’ I rubbed my arm leaning forward slightly as I did so. I squeezed my eyes shut partly from the double hurt of the physical, and humiliation of the ego. Also because suddenly I didn’t want to see her. Then I saw that shielded as she was in a halo of backlight her face was kept from my mind.
‘Why won’t you look at me?’ her voice was very calm, a quietude that barely inflected with the admonition.
‘I don’t know you,’ I opened my eyes towards the floor.
Her voice travelled round to the left. There was now a table between us.
‘Davey…’ a whisper. I peeked sideways slowly, not heeding the arm for now. Eyes moved near to her eyes then back. Slowly I stared and blinked, and blinked and stared. She didn’t move at all. Something burned inside me. A flame licking its way over paper and destroying the words printed on it. Yet like a magician, I unfolded them from my palm again unharmed. This was the ultimate strangeness. To feel my own mind fracture and break in to two alternate versions of myself. I thought it was the symbol that had given me control and power over this from within.
‘Just look now.’ said Marcia from somewhere behind me.
I looked. And the whole world began to splinter and fracture into as many different versions as there were grains of sand on a beach. I could see them… I was them; every possible me. Did I just see this? Or could the two women see it too?
I tried to close my eyes but this just made it worse. The earth colours would help me find balance in this place, but now it didn’t seem to be working.
‘Davey!’ I was not one voice but many. Janey. Many copies of her, or perhaps my many experiences of her.
I ended up on my knees. The riot of colours around me swirled faster and faster. I could see it now. It was pouring backwards, away from the moment I was in to before I had arrived, yet here I was. Janey and Marcia talking for a long time; darkness, Marcia arriving the previous night. The girls’ night in sat on the carpet with Martinis drowning too many olives and the TV on in the background.
I found myself still kneeling on the carpet. I was sweating and trembling violently. Marcia knelt beside me. ‘I’m sorry for doing that,’ she said, ‘but trust me, it was better than going through it twice.’
‘What just happened?’ I felt sick and lightheaded. Someone handed Marcia a glass of water, she gave it to me. Sitting on the carpet I knew a peculiar thing, it really was possible to be alone with yourself. I wasn’t sure if I liked the company or not.
‘It is where the truth of experiments I have just authorised become a reality that is only resisted by you two.' said Janey's voice, 'Everyone else…. All of them. They went crazy.’ She came and sat on the floor with us, ‘All of the experiments, and we never thought we could be the carriers of this wave.’
‘Are you really Janey?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know your brother.’ I said still trembling and chilled.
'Yes. Tell me what happened. That strand of one possible world.'
I drank again before replying. Marcia put her arms round my shoulders in a reassuring way.
‘I watched him die....' I squeezed my eyes shut and then opened then again, 'and in all my life I never want to see that happen to any of us. And especially not you.’ I looked at her fully then. She was all there; the brightest gleam of intelligence, the humour, the sadness, the thoughtfulness, every bit of it. And her hair rolled like a glossy tide over her right shoulder and touched my knees as she leaned in, lips parted and breathed in this knowledge.
‘Thank you.’ she said. She stood then and came round beside me just by my left elbow.
‘Come now.’ She helped my confused body to untangle to a standing position. We all went into a little conservatory.
In the cool morning light in a cane padded chair I knew what I had so lately denied. I would go back.
Marcia went out for a moment, while Janey spoke to me, ‘Here. In this place, I have taken the temporary name of “Harriet Edison”. Marcia has told me everything after what happened last night. So I will spare you the show and tell. She had “got in there first” as it is said, and I hope you don’t mind if I don’t actually kiss you just yet. Because I’m still in a really strange place with Jared being alive in some fashion in one of the alternative places….’ She stopped talking and seemed to zone out for a moment; then shaking herself she continued: ‘I found the equation to prove that the alternate space and time are really viable… but this… it is too well attached…’ she trailed off. I looked at her fully again. The tattoo was burning; as I was assimilating the version I had chosen. But the other versions were still there ready to move in again. Without the overcoming power of my strange immunity to the paradox of it all, I would not have been able to make her even vaguely aware of my connection. Marcia had done it too. She came back in then, sat down next to Janey, and explained to me about the hours before and what it had been like. An experiment had worked. But this was beyond all.
‘I just got my letter.’ said Janey as Marcia handed her an envelope, ‘they want me to go and join them for some test runs of the Sand Glass trials.’
I looked at the A4 paper as she unfolded it in front of me. It was exactly like mine.
‘Do you see the mistake?’ Marcia asked me.
‘No.’
‘Come on you do! Think!’
‘There’s nothing wrong with the letter.’ I said and looked up.
‘Yes there is.’ Janey interjected, ‘the only people who know my location are my parents, and the detective investigating the crash. This should have been sent to the lab at the University. Or a "care of" address I occasionally use.’
‘So how did we get here?’