Margaret appraised Barbara. ‘I think we should all get some rest.’
Barbara obliged by getting into her camp bed but as soon as the others slept, she intended to use the time machine again on her own. Once the others were breathing deeply she extricated herself from Lucille’s embrace. Clean boiler suits, ready for the next day, hung on the wardrobe door. Barbara stepped into one of them, taking care to be quiet. As she left the bedroom, Barbara thought Margaret’s eyes opened and fixed on her, but she turned over without comment.
The time machines ran on pellets of atroposium, encased in a lead briquette to minimise the handler’s exposure to radiation. Barbara went to the fuel stores, which were in a separate building, to collect a couple of briquettes. She slipped them into her pocket. But then she was distracted. Instead of proceeding to the time machine she was transfixed by the storeroom’s overhead light. How beautiful the glow was! The bulb’s reflection on the concrete floor was astonishing – as if Barbara had broken through to a deeper level of sensory awareness. The transcendental nature of time travel had opened up this new world for her. She knelt on the ground, as if she could lap up the reflection like a dog at the waterside.
The following day she was woken by Margaret. Barbara lifted her head from the floor, disorientated. Her thoughts were racing, and they had taken on an unusual quality: she could hear them. They were as loud and indistinct as a rioting crowd. Margaret’s voice competed for her attention.
‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere,’ Margaret was saying. ‘What are you doing in here?’
‘I don’t remember.’ Barbara’s jaw ached. She must have been grinding her teeth in the night. The inside of her cheek was raw, as if she had been chewing it.
‘Never mind, we haven’t the time. I contacted the BBC this morning, to tell them the good news. They’re sending a crew now.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Are you sure you’re quite well?’ Margaret said. ‘You seemed feverish yesterday. If you’re coming down with something I can manage the interview with Lucille and Grace. It’s absolutely vital we make a good impression.’
‘I’m fine,’ Barbara said, although there were black arabesques writhing at the edge of her vision. ‘Will we know the questions in advance?’
‘We can rely on them to ask about paradoxes. They’ll almost certainly raise that hoary canard about killing your grandfather before he grows up.’
‘I think I can handle that.’
‘Good. Wash your face and comb your hair, dear, we need to be presentable. Everyone in Britain is going to see your face! Everyone in the world.’
Barbara did as she was told then kept quiet while the others talked and laughed. The BBC crew arrived shortly, which was the cue for everyone to congregate outside the time machine. Barbara didn’t like the influx of the camera and sound men. Over the past months she’d grown used to seeing only faces that she knew. For reassurance she looked again at her friends, and realised for the first time that Margaret was holding Patrick. He didn’t much like to be held. Rabbits generally prefer to have all four feet on the ground. It was only Barbara’s lap he could ever relax on.
‘Why isn’t he in his hutch?’ Barbara asked.
‘Patrick’s our mascot! He should be here, of course.’
‘Can’t I hold him?’ Barbara would benefit as much as Patrick. His warmth might calm her. She could still hear the rioting crowd of voices in her head.
‘You can’t be jealous of me holding your rabbit!’ Margaret said in surprise. ‘Come on, that newsman’s beckoning us.’
They spent a few minutes rehearsing the interview, so that the questions and answers would flow convincingly. The lights were tremendously hot and bright. Barbara kept staring at them, and the newscaster reminded her to look at him. He was a grey-besuited man with a salmon pink pate. Then the real interview was under way.
The questions began benignly.
‘So which period of history are you going to visit first?’ the reporter asked. ‘Tudors and Stuarts? The Roman Empire?’
‘Sadly, we won’t be shaking hands with Henry VIII,’ Grace said. ‘Time travel requires a particular infrastructure. You can’t go back to any period before the machine’s invention.’
‘Which is no bad thing!’ Lucille exclaimed. ‘For some of us in particular, history would be a dangerous place.’
‘Are there limits on travelling into the future, too?’ the reporter asked. ‘Can you tell me if I have a pools win on the horizon?’
‘At the moment we’re making trips of a short duration,’ Grace explained. ‘But the distance is getting longer all the time. We’ve already met some of our future selves.’
‘How does that work?’ the reporter asked.
Margaret took the lead. ‘Well, for our first excursion, we activated the time machine at ten a.m. on Christmas Day. It transported us, instantaneously, to eleven o’clock of the same morning. At half past eleven we activated the time machine again, and travelled back to one minute past ten. What that means is between ten and ten-oh-one we didn’t exist in the world at all. But between eleven and eleven thirty, there were twice as many of us – and we were able to meet!’
‘I see. Isn’t that rather risky?’ asked the reporter. ‘Everyone’s seen Doctor Who. What if your future self accidentally killed you? What would happen then?’
The question was Barbara’s cue to speak. She replied: ‘That’s called a paradox. A paradise, a paradigm, a patrick…’
‘Say again, Dr Hereford?’
Barbara rubbed her fingers and thumbs in agitation. Her jaw was working up and down again. The crowd roaring in her head had reached a crescendo. ‘Hereford is my name. People have names when they matter. We picked a name for our rabbit because he is pious, I mean a pioneer. I am a pioneer; and I won’t be dissected, not for anyone! Not for you, Mr Salmon Pink Pate, Mr Cat Would Eat You All Up. I won’t be dissected, or neglected, or resurrected!’
Lucille put a hand over the camera. ‘The interview’s over.’
‘But, Dr Waters!’ The newsreader grasped Lucille’s wrist to loosen her grip on the lens. ‘Our viewers will be very disturbed by this outburst. Don’t you have an explanation?’
‘She must be delirious,’ Lucille said. ‘Have you never seen a person with flu?’
‘She’s clearly unwell,’ Grace said. ‘Margaret, go ring the GP, fast as you can.’
Even in her disarray, Barbara saw Margaret’s lips tighten. Margaret rarely took orders, and Grace rarely gave them. But Margaret left to make the call, the rabbit still in her arms.
‘No!’ Barbara cried out. ‘Leave Patrick with me!’
Grace brought her face close to Barbara’s. ‘My poor darling…’
The GP did not diagnose flu. Instead he suspected manic depression and sent Barbara immediately to the psychiatric hospital. It was in the ward that Barbara saw the footage of their interview, played over and over again on the news. Was she on drugs, the reporter speculated? Or had the process of time travelling, of which we understood so little, somehow destabilised her? The nurses switched the TV off when she shouted at the screen. She remained distressed, wondering what the other pioneers thought of her breakdown. Manic depression was a more frightening illness than influenza. She wished they would come to see her, or telephone her, so she could ask them if they were still her friends. Every visiting hour, she looked out, hopefully, for the arrival of Grace or Lucille or Margaret. She was sure they would come any day now. Any day.
2
JULY 2017
Ruby
Ruby Rebello’s grandmother was the time traveller who went mad.
Ruby had known this all her life. Granny Bee’s meltdown had been broadcast to the nation and lingered in the popular memory for decades. Ruby’s mother explained what had happened to Granny Bee when Ruby was quite small, but insisted that they mustn’t mention it again. Well into adulthood, Ruby obeyed. A fascination with these family secrets led her to become a psychologist, yet
she still refrained from asking Granny Bee about her past. She assumed this was what Granny Bee wanted.
And then, one afternoon, the past caught up with them.
They were in Bee’s back garden, near St Ives bay. Bee was completing a crossword, while Ruby was changing the oil of her motorcycle; she had ridden from London the previous day. Breno, Bee’s collie, was seeking refuge from the heat indoors. His staccato barking suddenly drowned out the drama playing on the radio.
‘Must be someone at the front door,’ Bee said, without looking up from her puzzle.
‘Are you expecting visitors?’ Ruby smeared oil across her flannel dress.
‘Not a soul.’
Whoever caught Breno’s attention had gone by the time Ruby reached the porch. The path was quite empty. There was only an origami rabbit, sitting at the centre of the doorstep. Ruby picked the rabbit up. Two words were inked in copperplate on his ear: For Barbara.
Ruby looked around once more – as if the messenger might be hiding behind a shrub or hedge, to watch her reaction. Breno sat panting happily. He could normally be relied upon to pester lurking guests; they must have passed out of his range.
Defeated, Ruby returned to the back garden.
‘Look what I found by the door.’ She placed the rabbit on the picnic table.
Barbara put down her pen, and ran her finger over the rabbit’s ear.
‘Do you know who it’s from?’ Ruby asked.
‘Grace Taylor. She wrote her capital letters that way – all curls. A mystery present is just her style. She liked to keep everyone guessing.’
Like the other pioneers, Grace Taylor had become a household name. But Ruby had never heard Bee speak of her old colleagues. This breach of familial silence left Ruby unsure how to react. Instead of looking her grandmother in the eye, Ruby stared at the toes of her boots.
‘D’you hear from Grace often?’
‘No.’
‘You didn’t want to stay in touch?’
‘She kept her distance, after I first went into hospital. All three of them did. I did try to contact Margaret several times, early on – there were issues over who owned what in the lab. But she wouldn’t talk to me directly. It wasn’t just my career that was over. It was our friendship.’
Ruby dared to look up. Bee was smiling sadly.
‘Granny, that’s awful,’ Ruby said.
‘In some ways it’s just as well. Your mother doesn’t like me to discuss that time of my life.’ Bee’s mouth pursed in a moue of anxiety. For years Ruby had thought Granny Bee’s past was too painful for her to mention. Ruby hadn’t known Bee’s silence was imposed by Dinah.
‘Why doesn’t she like you to talk about it?’ Ruby asked.
‘The idea of time travel frightens her.’
‘That’s true for lots of people. It seems such an… alien thing to do.’ Time travelling was an elite profession, out of reach for the average Joe or Josephine.
‘Yes, but your mother’s fear was very personal. She was scared of what it had done to me. And the one time she encountered some other time travellers… let’s just say that didn’t go well either.’
‘You don’t need to talk about time travelling with her.’ Ruby took Granny Bee’s hand. ‘You can tell me what happened, instead.’
‘Yes.’ Bee smiled, squeezing Ruby’s hand in return.
*
Back in the cottage, Bee pulled down shoeboxes from the top of her wardrobe, which were swollen with creased photos from the past. The box contained scenic pictures of the Fells where Barbara had worked; horizontal triptychs of mist and rippling earth and water. Others were technical shots, of machine components and test subjects, which Ruby assumed were a record of experiments. But she was most interested in the four women. She picked up a sun-bleached photo. There was Bee, her rosy face still recognisable; Lucille, who looked so full of wisdom and mischief; Grace, exuding all the cool of a French New Wave actress; and Margaret, her face already showing the determination that would make her one of the most powerful women in Britain. Such different women, and yet their laughter and uniforms suggested camaraderie. Bee didn’t look mad. She looked like she belonged.
Bee pointed at the photograph.
‘That rabbit in my arms was the first time traveller. He was my pet.’
‘Is that why Grace sent you a paper rabbit?’
‘Maybe.’ Granny Bee took the origami from the pocket of her pinafore. She unfolded it into a small square of paper. ‘Hm. That’s interesting.’
‘What is?’
‘There’s information printed on the back. It’s notice of an inquest. From Southwark Coroner’s Court.’
Ruby craned forward to look. The inquest was to be held in February 2018, and concerned the death of a woman in her eighties. The space where the victim’s name should be read Undisclosed. But the most intriguing information was the date of death: 6 January 2018. This woman wouldn’t die for another five months.
‘This is from the future?’ Ruby asked.
‘Looks like it.’
‘Why would Grace send this?’ The most obvious explanation was that the body belonged to Grace herself. Or – Ruby’s throat tightened – it belonged to Bee. ‘It isn’t a warning, is it?’
‘What melodrama! I think it’s a memento mori.’
‘A what?’
‘Dear me, Ruby. Fancy a woman of your education not knowing that. A memento mori is a symbol, to remind you life is transient. We all need a spur to action now and then.’ Bee’s eyes were bright, and she fingered the grey paper eagerly. ‘I think often about how I should spend the life I have left. And I’ve decided. I’m determined to time travel again. Just once would do – just once before I die. Grace is back in touch – that’s a good sign she’s willing to listen to me now. And I’ve got a plan to make Margaret listen too. Margaret was always very pragmatic. She may have seen me as a liability. But that’s not true any more. If I can make a new scientific discovery – something Margaret wants – she’ll let me back in. I know she will.’
‘Oh, Granny. I don’t think this is a good idea. The last time you time travelled you were so ill.’ Ruby had looked up the old news reports of Bee’s breakdown. It had sounded dreadful. To see Bee return to that state would be unbearable.
‘Life’s better with a few risks than a lot of regrets,’ Bee said.
Fear made Ruby curt.
‘If Margaret has any sense, she’ll turn you away.’
‘Dear heart,’ Bee said. ‘We can forget we had this conversation. I need never mention it to you again, if that means you’ll be less anxious. But I’m still determined to make one last time travel trip, with or without your support. I won’t stop trying, Ruby – please don’t ask me to.’
It was tempting to pretend Bee had never raised the topic. Wilful ignorance was one way to manage the stress of her wilful recklessness. Then Ruby considered how, all her adult life, she’d maintained the silence around Bee’s past. Was it right to return Bee to that isolation by refusing to support her? In spite of all Ruby’s misgivings, she didn’t want Bee to enter danger alone.
‘All right,’ Ruby said to her grandmother. ‘I’ll help you.’
She watched Bee refold the coroner’s announcement. Their implicit deadline – the date of death, 6 January – was concealed once more.
3
JANUARY 2018
Odette
The toy museum relied on voluntary labour to keep afloat, and the newest volunteer was a young archaeology student called Odette Sophola. A shortage of hands meant that on Odette’s first day, she would be responsible for opening the building.
It was Epiphany: the sixth of January. Odette walked up the museum steps at two o’clock, key ready. Her toes were numb despite the sheepskin lining her boots. The sky over the museum was as pale as porcelain and the chill hurt her teeth. But her eagerness to get into the warm was short-lived; for when she unlocked the doors, the reek of sulphur was waiting.
Odette clapped a hand to
her nose. She stepped back from the doorway, as though, if she moved aside, the smell would leave politely like a patron. Was it a gas leak? She thought not; the stench was too stomach-turning, too organic. Until she found the source, opening to the public was out of the question. Rearranging her scarf into a makeshift mask, and wincing as a tassel caught her braids, she entered the foyer.
Her soles squeaked on the Minton floor. The peeling radiator ticked. Nothing was obviously out of place. It was the first time the museum had opened since Christmas. Maybe, in the meantime, a rat had died in the walls. Or a soil pipe had burst. Odette walked to the exhibition hall and considered her options. Strictly speaking, she should telephone the museum’s manager, Sally. But Odette was new. She wished to make a good impression by solving the problem herself.
A steel crook, for opening the high windows, rested against a cabinet of Roman dolls. Odette picked it up and hooked it through each window latch. Blessed ventilation. If the air cleared, she might be able to tell where the reek originated. Crook still in hand, she zigzagged across the hall. At the back of the room the pungency made her cough. It was worst by the door to the basement stairs. She was drawing closer.
Sally hadn’t included the basement when she’d shown Odette round. ‘Nothing’s in there but the boiler room,’ she’d said, ‘and some toy storage.’ Odette walked downstairs now, holding the scarf tighter to her face. The passageway below was narrow and dark. She flipped a Bakelite switch. The pale yellow bulb flickered and made her blink. Cracked subway tiles lined the walls. The entrance to the boiler room read Staff Only. Paint, or some other dark liquid, had leaked under the doorway and left a maroon stain on the lino. Not quite maroon. Noir rouge. Like a slice of agate; like her mother’s nail polish.
Was now the time to ring Sally? Or possibly – the police?
Odette warned herself not to overreact. The stain may look like blood, but was that likely? Might there not be a more sensible, everyday explanation? Her imagination sometimes leapt to the wildest scenarios, and she had learnt to counteract them with level-headed questions. Better to be sure what was in that room, before she rang anyone.
The Psychology of Time Travel Page 2