by Tina Clough
“Well, why not? It used to be the prerogative of males, but no reason why you shouldn’t look around as much as you like!”
“True! And by the way, I saw you from the bus the other day. You were with a curly blond girl.” Mia told the amusing tale of Alice’s burning desire to settle down and the Great Man Hunt. “I do hope though, that I’ll catch on very early, when she meets the bad man, before she gets ….” Mia stopped, confused and embarrassed. This was the first slip she had made! Must be the wine and feeling so relaxed with Lorraine.
Lorraine was looking searchingly at her, head tilted to one side. “Before she meets the bad man? How do you know she’ll meet at bad man? And who is he?”
Mia made an instant decision; this was it - if Lorraine thought she was a lunatic and left, then so be it. She stood up and picked up their plates. “Let’s make some coffee and take the other bottle of wine out of the fridge. I want to tell you something very strange, if you have the time to listen.”
Lorraine glanced at Mia now and then as she helped clear the table, but kept the conversation to questions about where to put things. When they were sitting on the cushions with mugs of coffee, Mia cleared her throat and started her story with a feeling of apprehension like a lump in her chest. “This is going to sound quite mad and I’ll understand if you can’t believe what I’m going to tell you. I’ll start at the very beginning, with Greg’s accident and go from there. Ask as many questions as you like.”
She recounted the whole 14 months in broad strokes, including the demoralising effect of the Barb affair, Josh’s deceit and the debacle at work, and the night of the time shift. She explained the use she had already made of her knowledge of what could, or would happen over again and how she had found Carl. When she got to the present she stopped. She felt light-headed and empty and oddly relieved. Lorraine had drunk her coffee and poured herself another glass of wine. She had listened without asking one single question.
Mia smiled weakly. “You’ll make a fantastic lawyer one day! I’ve never met anyone who can listen like you!”
Lorraine said steadily. “Mia, that’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard in my life! It’s like something out of a science fiction novel. And though I can’t understand why I do, I believe you completely!”
Mia felt tears gather in her eyes and smiled hesitantly. “Oh my god, I think I’m going to cry! I thought you might just leave politely and hope never to bump into me again. Thank you!”
“Ah, but we can’t leave it there! I must know more; tell me again about what happened that night, and the things you did the next day. Was that really the same day when you came into the shop and bought all those clothes? Was that the very night of Sarah’s party?”
“Yes, it was. It seems quite bizarre to me too, now. I can’t understand how calm I was after those first few hours of panic; it’s like it happened to someone else.”
“Perhaps that’s exactly what made you able to do it.” Lorraine was intrigued and interested. “Perhaps because it was so unreal and it felt like a ‘borrowed life’ you felt free to be really radical. Whatever the reason, I’m very impressed!”
Lorraine had many questions and Mia answered and explained as well as she could, until in the end there was nothing more to tell. It was half past eleven now and Lorraine yawned.
“I’d really like to sit here all night, talking about it, but tomorrow’s a working day. One thought though; I do think you need to do something quite clever and formal to prove beyond a doubt that this is what we say it is. Not that the whole world needs to know, but it would be really great insurance to have some proof. And I think I know how we can do it.”
Mia was touched and pleased by the way Lorraine said “we”. Apart from Carl, who already knew that the phenomenon was real, she had not told anyone and she had not expected to be believed without concrete proof.
“I’ve thought of how I might do it,” said Mia, twirling her glass between her fingers and looking absently into the middle distance. “I’ve started a list of things I can use as proof when I tell Sarah and James. Some are personal or relate to them. But perhaps I should tell someone else about an event, which might happen again, something so big and remote that nobody could have foreseen it, and then if it did happen again, that person would be my proof.”
“Not enough!” said Lorraine decisively. “I have an idea of what we could do, which would be a bit more formal and properly documented, if you like. You’ll have to put up with the future lawyer in me coming out. Say that you think of a couple of world events of the type that people can’t just say, ‘Oh that happens at regular intervals, anyone could have thought of one of those.’ No, it would have to be really specific, time, place, outcome – definitive facts of the kind you couldn’t predict or guess, unexpected things that took the world by surprise. When you’ve written down as much detail about each event as you can possibly remember, we take what you’ve written to a Justice of the Peace or a Notary Public, and ask them to seal the paper in some tamper-proof way, perhaps we bring sealing wax or do something to make it absolutely impossible for fraud to take place. We leave the envelope there and after the events we ask that certain people are present, and open it.”
Mia looked at Lorraine, who was thinking as she was speaking, and looking very animated and intelligent and obviously enjoying every moment. “OK, let’s do that, but let’s make it so that a couple of complete outsiders see the envelope sealed and deposited. Perhaps we could ask a lawyer or someone to come with us to a police station, and we could seal the envelope there in front of them and leave it with them to be kept as evidence!”
“Perhaps we could take it to Paul’s station and ask him to get his boss to be a witness and perhaps bring a solicitor, and then leave the envelope with one of them.”
Mia tried to think of events in the last year that she could use, preferably something not too close to the time just before she slipped back to 2006, or they’d have to wait nearly a year for the proof. A war or a disaster, what? And suddenly like a flash it struck her. Eyes sparkling with excitement she exclaimed, “I know! Perfect! That cathedral in St Petersburg that burnt!”
She sat up straighter on her large cushion and smiled triumphantly.
“It’s brilliant, because it’s one thing where I know the exact date. When Sarah and James were away, I knew that they’d be in St Petersburg on the twenty-fifth of August, because it’s Sarah’s birthday and she particularly wanted to celebrate the day there. She’s had a thing about Russian history and art all her life. The Cathedral fire made the main dome collapse, it made the news because of the artworks. I think the dome was wooden, though that might not be right. I saw it on the BBC website and panicked of course. Greg rang someone he knew in Wellington, who knew how to find things out, and they reported back that no tourists were injured - I don’t think anybody was killed.”
Lorraine was elated. “That’s perfect and the timing is great. We can use that and some other things you think of, and get it documented. But heavens! Let’s see, the 25th is Friday this week! We must get on to this in the next couple of days. Awesome luck!”
“Trinity, that’s the name, Trinity Cathedral! And I’ve just this second thought how good it would be for me to use that to convince Sara and James too. I’ll find out the phone number of their St Petersburg hotel and leave a message for them not to visit Trinity Cathedral on Friday. And then I’ll need at least one other event, just in case the fire doesn’t happen this time round.”
“I’ll ask Miles to come along; he’s at that law firm I told you about, so he would be a good respectable witness. And I could bring along Paul’s video camera and film the paper being sealed in the envelope! Wouldn’t that add a bit of wonderful credibility?”
“Very clever - you can be my lawyer when you have qualified. I’ll make sure I write down every single detail I can remember and have the paper ready.”
It was long after midnight when Lorraine finally left and Mia went to sleep the
second her head hit the pillow. She woke up with her mind already in gear and racing. A streak of light fell across the spare room bed from a gap between the curtains. She felt energetic and excited and got up even though it was only half past six. The cathedral fire was one thing, but what else could she come up with? No good thinking of something that happened months later. This was really important. She had to have at least two things, and she wanted them to be close together. If the first one didn’t happen there was still a chance with the second, and she didn’t want to wait too long to find out.
She sat in her solitary armchair with a cup of tea, and enjoyed the early morning sun and the pale blue sky arcing over the city and tried to remember. What happened just after Sarah and James got back? What did we discuss? Was there something I told them, which they had not heard of, some event in New Zealand? I know! They already knew, but we talked a lot about how Steve Irwin had been killed by that stingray. It must have happened while they were away – I can distinctly remember James saying, that until they arrived in London on their way home, he’d never realised how truly world famous Steve Irwin had been - it had been all over the UK the papers and on TV. And I think I can recall a lot of detail, there was so much about it in the media for days on end.
It was quarter past seven now. “I have time to write this up before I go to work. I’ll revise it tonight and fine-tune it. Then I’ll organise what we need to seal it up and we can take it to a secure place on Thursday.” She went into the study and turned the computer on; all the while her brain was trying to tease out more detail about the death of the Crocodile Hunter. The cathedral fire was fine, she knew the date and the place, even if the minor details were lost, but she wanted lots of detail in her description of Irwin’s death.
Half an hour later she had finished a statement, tidily divided into two parts with bullet points of the detail she could recall. It was just one A4 page, but she was pleased with the result. She had managed to dredge up quite a bit about both events from her memory and more might surface during the day. She sat down to eat banana and yoghurt for breakfast and read her document, wondering what her witnesses would think about it all.
Statement made by Maria Margaret Dawson on 23 August 2006.
I believe that the following events will take place as described.
1
St Petersburg – Fire destroys the main dome of The Trinity Cathedral on 25 August 2006
Wooden main dome
Repairs going on, fire started by accident
Photos on internet of main dome ablaze and people carrying icons and paintings to safety
All art works rescued as fire progressed
Nobody killed
One turret/tower also damaged
Steve Irwin killed by stingray while filming TV series
Film crew captured it live
Film will not be shown
His wife was not there
Sting pierced his chest and punctured his heart
In Australian waters, Great Barrier Reef?
Daughter (6 or 7) interviewed, says she will appear as planned at conservation event
Between 25 August and 18 September 2006
Signed:
In the presence of:
Date:
She was pleased with it. There was more than enough detail to avoid being accused of generalistic predictions. Provided that things happened as they had in That Time there would be no doubt that she had made genuine predictions, which in turn validated her story of what had happened to her. Once signed the paper could be sealed and left in the safekeeping of someone trustworthy.
On the bus she had another flashback: There had been speculation that Steve Irwin would be given a state funeral. She remembered thinking that the Australians were getting a bit hysterical. But it was a great detail to include, not the sort of thing you would have expected.
She found the number to Hotel Astoria in St Petersburg on the internet and took a robust brown envelope from the stationery room. Now all she needed was something to seal it with. Do lawyers still use sealing wax? Lorraine would know, she decided to ask her right away.
“Have you spoken to your lawyer friend yet? OK, when you do, I wonder if you’d ask him if they still have sealing wax in lawyers’ offices, and could he bring some? Are we making it tonight or tomorrow? No, tonight’s fine with me, I’m all ready and I can get some string somewhere. I have the document in my bag and I’ve nicked a good envelope to put it in.”
“Did you manage to come up with a second event? It’s so frustrating that I can’t help you remember.”
“Oh yes, I forgot to say; I have the perfect thing. I won’t tell you now – I’ll keep it as a surprise for when you witness the document. I can’t wait; if these things happen, or even one, it will prove my story’s true.”
Time whizzed past – never had so many boring little jobs got done so fast. Callum rang and asked her to join him and Tex for dinner the next night. “We’re going to that little Chinese place down the road straight after work. We’re usually finished and on our way home by nine thirty.” Having said yes, she put the phone down and thought how busy her life was getting, a far cry from the lonely and isolated existence she had withdrawn into in That Time. Alice came and picked her up on her way for a cup of coffee mid-afternoon.
“Mia,” said Alice and looked seriously at her over the rim of her cup. “I’ve been thinking about the merger. Do you think we can do something?”
Mia shook her head. “Nobody can stop it now. It’s like a natural disaster – we can only watch and hope.”
“I know! I’m not talking about the actual merger, but all the damage it could cause. I know they say they can’t predict if there will be redundancies, but I’m sure they know more or less exactly how many salaries they want to slash to make it all work financially.”
“But what could we do? It might be that we get laid off ourselves.”
“Yes but I think both of us could cope. We probably wouldn’t find it so hard to get new jobs as some of those really specialised people in Creative. And you and I don’t have families to support. I was thinking of some sort of support group, like finding out where to go for help and advice when the time comes and being all prepared to help each other.”
Back at her desk Mia considered how little she had known about Alice in That Time and how she had under-estimated her. If I ever thought about her I dismissed her without having bothered to find out what she was like. The dangers of going by the exterior in combination with the job description – very facile and totally wrong!
CHAPTER 8
Lorraine called late in the afternoon to say that everything was set to happen straight after work. “My solicitor friend Miles and my brother Paul will meet us at the Gillies Avenue police station at half past five. Paul said he thought it would be better not to go to his station and Miles knows one of the higher-ups at that station from court work, so he’s organised for us to go there. Miles didn’t want to involve anyone at his firm for some reason – being a bit cagey, I think. And Paul was concerned that there could be talk of collusion, if staff at his station were involved.”
“That’s fine,” said Mia. “So long as we get it witnessed by respectable people and then kept somewhere safe. It’ll be nice to meet Paul, too.”
“Wild horses couldn’t keep him away. He’s as cute as he is clever, but he is also the world’s worst nosey-parker. He says he’s coming to be cameraman because he doesn’t trust me to do it right, but he’s really just coming to try to find out what it’s all about. I haven’t told him anything about your story, just that we want witnesses and safekeeping for some notes you have made.”
At half past five the police station looked very quiet. Paul and Lorraine were waiting outside. Mia could quite see why Lorraine had said he was cute; he was just adorable, hugely tall and broad with a small boy’s round face and innocent smile. Paul looked at Mia with a speculative and interested glance – he was clearly very curious, but he asked
no questions.
Miles arrived and proved the absolute opposite of Paul – short and tidy in a dark suit, with an already receding hairline at thirty-something. His bright eyes took everything in and he studied Mia carefully. He and Paul obviously knew each other already. Bet he never misses anything, thought Mia. He looks as sharp as a tack.
“Well, how about we do whatever it is we came to do?” Paul was suddenly businesslike. “Not that I have the tiniest clue what this is really about. Lorraine’s refused to tell me anything, but I’m willing to be her slave as usual.”
“Oh, do belt up, Paul. It’s not my secret to tell and you invited yourself, as you well know!”
Mia realised that she had never been in a police station in her entire life and wondered if it would turn out to be like the movies. They were escorted behind the scenes to an interview room, sparsely furnished with a table and some chairs. The room was cold and smelt slightly stale. Mia suddenly felt nervous; the palms of her hands were damp.
Miles and a tall dark man in his early forties came into the room together. “This is Superintendent John McFarlane. John, this is Mia, her friend Lorraine and Paul, who is Lorraine’s brother and a police constable. I am going to let Mia explain what she wants to do – as I told you, I still don’t know anything about this myself.”
John McFarlane looked calmly at her and waited for her to speak and suddenly she felt flustered. She didn’t want to reveal anything about herself or how her predictions had come about and had rehearsed how she would put it. She put her bag on the table, and took out her bits and pieces and then addressed John and Miles, who were standing side by side across the table from her.