The Psychology of Time Travel

by Kate Mascarenhas

  She turned the handle, but the boiler room door didn’t budge. Puzzling. It couldn’t be locked, because there was no keyhole. She tried again, then leant her full weight against it. When it gave way she nearly lost her balance.

  Her eyes watered, and she gagged on the putrid air. Something crunched underfoot – little white polygons of bone in blood. By the light of the corridor, Odette could see the door had been bolted. The brass fitting swung underneath the handle. Her shove had been enough to loosen the screws. But – if the door had been locked from the inside…

  ‘Hello?’ Odette gasped. ‘Is anyone there?’

  The boiler groaned and Odette heard the buzzing of flies. One of them flew from the shadows. It stopped to feed in a puddle on the floor, inches away from an abandoned pistol. Odette swivelled, searching for the gun’s owner, and cried out. A tumble of limbs and cloth was slumped against the wall. Part of the woman’s head was missing. The skin that remained was marbled – like a piece of jade, Odette thought.

  Her hands shook. She needed to call the police, but she couldn’t look away from the corpse. During her archaeology degree she’d handled human skeletons. That hadn’t prepared her for the violence of this death. The rotting flesh reminded her, as dry bones could not, that she too was made from fat and lymph and sinew. Humanity was reduced to nothing more than briefly animated meat. Odette stared and stared at the broken body. How could anyone wreak such damage? Until she understood their reasons, the world would feel broken too.

  *

  Her confusion deepened once the police arrived. The small museum was overrun with strangers in uniforms and hazmat suits, creating boundaries with tape. An officer told her to sit in the foyer. Someone gave her a cup of tea but she only drank a sip because it was bitter.

  She had expected to see Sally, or some other representative of the museum. No one came. Odette soon realised that the police weren’t admitting anyone past the crime scene barrier at the front steps of the museum. The only reason Odette was on the police side was because she’d been first on the scene. She was part of the evidence that they needed to collect and analyse. Presumably Sally was being questioned outside – or at the station, or even on the phone. Odette preferred to think she was somewhere nearby. It made her feel less isolated.

  A short round woman with a shining face carried a table into the foyer. The wood was splintering. The woman sat on a folding chair and said she’d take Odette’s statement. Her voice was too loud. She used words of one syllable, as if she were speaking to a child. Except you’d smile at a child, and this woman wasn’t smiling.

  ‘Where are you from?’ she said.

  ‘I’m staying with my parents in Hounslow. Just for the Christmas holidays – normally I’m in halls in Cambridge. I’m a student.’

  The woman didn’t write the response down. She repeated: ‘Hounslow?’

  Odette sensed the underlying sentiment: if you were brown you didn’t belong. She allowed a brief silence to elapse, before giving the answer the woman wanted. ‘I’ve lived in England since I was a child. I was born in Seychelles.’

  She watched the woman write THE SEYCHELLES in her notebook.

  ‘And you’ve just started cleaning here?’ the police officer said.

  ‘Not cleaning – volunteering, to get some work experience before I graduate.’

  They went on to the morning’s events. Odette gave the details with detachment. She listened to herself and wondered how she was speaking so calmly, when there was a woman who, below their feet, had once been alive but wasn’t any longer. Her words dried mid-sentence. The woman repeated the preceding question.

  After the statement Odette had to stay in the foyer, in case there were any further questions for her that day. No one took the table away. Another bitter tea was handed to her, and this time she drank it, not knowing how long it would be before she could have a drink at home. The question about her origins had disquieted her. It said the police saw her as out-of-place, and it was a short step from ‘out-of-place’ to ‘suspicious’. The afternoon edged closer to evening. She was moved from one side of the foyer to the other because she was by the doorframe, and the police needed to verify it hadn’t been forced. Finally, the round shining officer returned, this time to take her fingerprints.

  ‘I didn’t touch anything apart from the door,’ Odette said.

  The officer ignored that comment. When the prints were complete, she said, ‘You can go. We have everything we need from you for today.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Odette’s shoulders slumped.

  It had long turned dark outside. Odette walked past the police officers still scattered round the barrier.

  A woman, dressed in leathers and a helmet, leant on a motorcycle at the side of the road. She beckoned Odette to her.

  Odette took a few steps closer. ‘Hello?’

  The woman raised her visor to reveal brown eyes, almost russet, beneath the street lamps.

  ‘I have something for you,’ she said. In her hand was a small card. ‘Victim support. In case you need someone to talk to.’

  The card had the name and contact details of a psychologist. Dr Ruby Rebello.

  ‘Are you with the police?’ Odette asked, confused. During the interview no one had mentioned victim support.

  ‘No, I run a private clinic, but I work with a lot of victims of crime. I treat trauma.’

  Odette tucked the card in her coat pocket.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, to be polite. She wasn’t the victim of this crime. Once she was at home, in her own bed, the world would surely start to make sense again. She wouldn’t be plagued with questions of how this death had occurred. She wouldn’t constantly be wondering why. It was the year of her final examinations. Soon she’d forget that poor dead woman. In the stress of revision and looking for a job, Odette would hardly ever think about her at all.

  But no matter how sternly Odette repeated this, she knew it wasn’t true.

  4

  APRIL 1968

  Margaret

  Following Barbara’s breakdown, Margaret was determined to prevent a similar incident ever arising again. She contacted a woman at the British space programme, who specialised in the biological hazards faced by astronauts. Margaret hoped there were sufficient parallels between the two fields to shed light on the health risks of time travel. The specialist’s name was Angharad Mills, and Margaret sent her a confidential account of the pioneers’ working conditions.

  The following week they met in Angharad’s office. Before training in bioastronautics, Angharad had been a well-known ballerina. Two worn satin slippers hung on her wall in a teak frame. She poured Margaret a coffee.

  ‘Time travel’s still in its infancy,’ Margaret said. ‘It’s hard to predict what the effects on body and mind might be. Before we embarked on human trials we did explore risks to physical health, but I’ll admit we didn’t really consider how our behaviour could be affected. I wish we had.’

  ‘Barbara’s breakdown probably did have a physical component,’ Angharad said. ‘But I don’t believe it was caused by the conditions of time travel per se.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Margaret asked.

  ‘We have bodily cycles that respond to daylight. According to the description you sent, your team’s exposure to daylight was very disrupted during your first fifteen trips. That’s enough to trigger a manic episode in a predisposed person – psychiatrists see similar symptoms in manic depressive patients who work shifts or travel internationally. If Barbara were an air hostess, the same health issues may have arisen.’

  ‘She had a bad case of jet lag.’

  ‘Your phrasing is a little reductive but – yes.’

  ‘I’m very sympathetic to Barbara’s situation.’ Margaret gazed through the window. On the lawn, Angharad’s colleagues were building a snowman. ‘There’s no one more sympathetic than me. But she did cause our team considerable public embarrassment. I’d be greatly reassured if I knew how to avoid more travellers falling il
l. That must be my focus now.’

  ‘The “jet lag” problem has a simple solution. Just dispatch travellers to a time of day that matches when they left their own timeline.’

  ‘I’m afraid we need schedules to be flexible.’ If, as Margaret planned, time travel became a tool for espionage, restricting arrival times would be impractical.

  ‘In that case…’ Angharad took an unusually large watch from her desk drawer and passed it to Margaret. ‘Astronauts use these to monitor waking hours and exposure to daylight. Issue them to any time travellers you recruit, and make it a disciplinary offence to travel without one. Then they can make the trips they need, and only stop if the watch shows their bodily cycles are under too much strain. Our suppliers could design you a suitable timepiece from scratch. One that matches your requirements.’

  The watch was a handsome object made from brushed steel. Ghostly numbers hovered above its surface.

  ‘An excellent idea,’ Margaret said.

  ‘One last thought. The strongest predictor of mental breakdown is a previous breakdown. Twenty per cent of people have experience of psychological distress. They’d be the ones most at risk of an episode like Barbara’s. To be safe, you might want to bar them from the profession.’

  ‘Bar them? How would I identify them – medical records?’

  ‘Yes. You can also make psychometric tests a standard part of your selection process.’

  Margaret found that idea very appealing. ‘Would tests eliminate everyone with Barbara’s disposition?’

  ‘No,’ Angharad replied. ‘That’s impossible. But the chance of problems arising would be greatly diminished.’

  Which was a worthwhile goal, in Margaret’s eyes. The time travel programme couldn’t have any more damaging attention from the press. ‘Thank you, Dr Mills. You’ve been more than helpful. If there is anything I can do in exchange…’

  ‘I’m glad that you asked.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘If you need a medical engineer, please keep me in mind. I’m quite fascinated with your project.’

  ‘Another excellent idea.’ Margaret drained her coffee cup. ‘We’re yet to establish our headquarters, but as soon as this brouhaha with Barbara settles down, I’m sure we’d benefit from your expertise.’

  *

  At the lab, Margaret relayed Angharad’s advice to Lucille and Grace. They sat around the rabbit hutch, feeding strips of carrots to Patrick through the mesh.

  ‘The watches sound very sensible,’ Lucille said.

  ‘If we buy one for Barbara, can she come back to work?’ Grace asked. ‘As soon as she’s out of hospital, I mean.’

  Margaret couldn’t tell if Grace was being obtuse, or provocative. ‘Barbara won’t be coming back.’

  ‘But that’s ludicrous! She’s one of us.’

  Barbara wasn’t one of them. Not any longer. She had forfeited her place by humiliating them all, in front of the entire country. The remaining pioneers needed to distance themselves from her if they weren’t to become a laughing stock – but Margaret guessed neither Grace nor Lucille would be amenable to such an argument. She tried a different tack.

  ‘You’re not being fair to Barbara,’ she said. ‘Think how it must be for her. If her mania isn’t a life sentence – and that’s a big if – she may wish to forget the interview ever happened. She can’t do that if she comes back to time travel, because she’ll be in the public eye again. The world will always be watching and waiting for her to lose her grip. Why would you want that for her?’

  ‘I don’t!’ Grace said.

  ‘Have you been to see her? At the hospital?’ Margaret asked.

  Grace frowned. She shook her head.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because,’ Lucille said quietly, ‘it would feel cruel. We’d just be reminding her of work, and work made her sick.’

  Margaret snapped her fingers. ‘Exactly. She doesn’t need reminders of work.’

  ‘Are you saying we shouldn’t even see her socially?’ Grace said.

  Margaret believed Barbara should be cut off cleanly. Maintaining a friendship offered no advantages and could make it more difficult to forge new connections. The pioneers’ remote workplace had deceived them into thinking they were self-sufficient. They must now look to the wider world – and sever historical loyalties, if they were no longer of use.

  ‘Whether you pursue a friendship with Barbara is at your discretion,’ Margaret said. ‘I know I’ll be leaving her in peace. It’s the kindest thing to do.’

  Grudgingly, Lucille and Grace agreed to let Barbara be. Margaret resented having to manipulate them. She wished they’d simply appreciate her attempt to protect their careers. If Barbara jeopardised the pioneers’ reputation, how did Lucille and Grace think they’d find work? Wasn’t it difficult enough for Lucille already – a black woman, sending her wages home to help her parents? And God only knew what Grace’s situation was. Her speech was wincingly non-U and Margaret assumed her position must be just as precarious.

  Yes, Margaret was acting in all their interests. She was sure of it.

  5

  JULY 2017

  Ruby

  Ruby’s holiday with Bee drew to a close, and against her better instincts, she returned to Dalston. The origami rabbit still worried her. She wanted to know why Grace had sent Bee the inquest details, and the only way to find out was to ask Grace herself. Bee’s earlier attempts at contact had been unsuccessful, which suggested any meeting would be on Grace’s terms. Deciding how to approach her would take care.

  First Ruby needed to do her research. She already knew a little about each of the pioneers because they were high-profile figures. Margaret Norton was the most conventionally ambitious. In 1968 she had founded the Time Travel Conclave, an elite quango with responsibility for all time travel missions, and almost immediately had assumed the role of director. Five decades on she showed no signs of retiring. Lucille Waters and Grace Taylor worked at the Conclave too; Lucille managed exchanges of information between different time periods, while Grace continued to be an active researcher. She specialised in the study of acausal matter, whatever that was.

  Grace had also taken a surprising detour into conceptual art. Some of her work was on show at Tate Modern. The day after Ruby came back from Cornwall, she decided to visit the gallery and see the installations at close range. When she arrived she hopped on the escalator to the third floor, and wove her way through the tourists and students. The downpour outside had made them a sorry crowd: they all smelt slightly dank. Ruby’s hair was plastered to her forehead and the tip of her nose was pink. By the time she found the right room she felt clammy and wretched. It was crowded in there, too – a guide was leading a special tour for blind visitors, who had permission to touch selected exhibits.

  Ruby stood by a man who was running his fingers over an embroidered piece of linen. It looked like a sampler, of the kind that normally commemorates a birth. The name stitched in the cloth was Grace Evangeline Taylor. Chains of flowers, rattles and other baby paraphernalia were sewn round the borders. They looked especially quaint because the date in the centre was decidedly futuristic: 29 April 2027.

  ‘I can’t tell what I’m feeling,’ the man said, which struck Ruby as an unexpectedly intimate comment. He was, however, speaking literally. ‘I can feel the cloth, and I can see a blue shape, but I’m buggered if I know what it’s a picture of.’

  ‘That bit’s a flower,’ said his guide.

  ‘A forget-me-not,’ Ruby added.

  ‘Ah,’ the blind man said. ‘Thanks.’

  The guide explained that the sampler dated back to the thirties. Grace had modified it. Originally it displayed her birth date – 10 October 1937 – but she’d unpicked those stitches and reused the strands of silk to sew the date of her death. Ruby suppressed a nervous laugh. It seemed so incongruous to foretell one’s passing at ninety with the twee symbols of babyhood. Perhaps Grace liked to indulge in a little gallows humour.

  Ruby
moved on to the second artwork, which looked more traditional. It comprised a self-portrait in oils. Grace was shown in profile, reading a book. Her hair was white. Half-moon glasses sat on her nose. According to the blurb on the wall, the novelty of the piece lay in its construction rather than its style. The painting had been created in reverse order. Grace had travelled twenty-four hours into the future, where a near-complete painting awaited her final touches. She then travelled an hour closer to the present, twenty-three hours in the future, to undertake the preceding brush strokes. She kept travelling back towards the present, until finally the canvas was blank, and she had to paint the first line. She made this first line with a fresh, directly experienced memory of how the final painting would look. At no point in the process did she feel the image was of her choosing; she was always responding to what was already on the canvas, or what she had seen in the future.

  The final installation was Ruby’s favourite of the three. Grace had placed a chartreuse pencil upon a velvet cushion. She had travelled fifty years into the future and collected the pencil, which she brought back to the present day to lie beside its younger twin. They were the same pencil, and yet occupied different spaces. Ruby forgot, for a moment, the dampness of her jeans against her calves, and the tickling cough that was forming in her throat. Here was an astonishing object: proof, that you could reach out and touch, of the ability to move through time.

  Tentatively, Ruby ran her fingers over the exhibit. The original pencil was smooth and the future version had gained a patina. She glanced, guiltily, around the room to see if anyone had noticed her touch the exhibit. Maybe it didn’t matter; she could be one of the blind visitors, after all.

  Ruby bypassed the other collections, intending to go home. When she reached the ground floor she saw the rain had started again. Another soaking didn’t appeal. Her umbrella was hanging on the hat stand in her tiny Dalston flat because she’d been foolish enough to expect sunshine. But the gift shop probably stocked umbrellas – and if not, the storm might subside while Ruby browsed.