The Psychology of Time Travel

by Kate Mascarenhas

‘You investigated Bee for that. The police reclaimed your fuel.’

  ‘Yes. However, a more recent development awakened my suspicions that she still had some. In the week of her death she badgered us at the Conclave to consider a new strategy for maximising energy extraction. She provided many notes detailing her experiments with atroposium. I find it hard to believe she was buying it at the cornershop. Presumably she was drawing on old stockpiles, originally purloined from our research team.’

  This was close enough to the truth to make Ruby uneasy. Bee’s Candybox still appeared to be running several weeks after her death. Every day Ruby had woken to the smell of ozone. She didn’t understand how the Candybox could still be running on just the one stolen briquette. Bee must have had more fuel hidden away.

  ‘I don’t know where Bee would get atroposium,’ Ruby said. ‘If we find any, we’ll let you know.’

  She turned to go.

  ‘How are you holding up?’ Margaret asked.

  The question surprised Ruby, given the mercenary slant of their preceding conversation.

  ‘It’s a difficult day to get through,’ Ruby said. ‘As you’d expect.’

  ‘I suppose it’s easier, when someone’s so old.’

  Ruby gasped at the lack of tact. She saw Margaret’s eyes gleam and thought, No, not lack of tact; she’s deliberately getting a rise out of me. Margaret smiled her slow smile and blinked her slow blink again.

  ‘Is that why you’re really here?’ Ruby asked coolly.

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘To witness my grief. To poke it with a stick.’ Ruby recalled what Grace had said of time travellers. They were all so weird about death. ‘You want to feed on my feelings. You’re a vampire.’

  ‘Really, Ruby,’ Margaret said. ‘You do have an imagination. Just remember, return anything to the Conclave that’s rightfully ours, won’t you?’

  Margaret walked away then, following the coast southward. Ruby watched until Margaret’s path curved round the rocks, and Ruby could see her no longer.

  *

  Ruby failed to catch up with the mourners on the street. They were already in Bee’s house when she entered the kitchen by the back door. The table was covered with trays of egg and cress sandwiches. Dinah and Mrs Cusack were mid row.

  ‘Your eulogy,’ Dinah hissed. ‘I told you not to mention them.’

  ‘Who?’ Mrs Cusack said, baffled.

  ‘Time travellers.’

  ‘But, Dinah, you can’t pretend that part of her never existed.’

  ‘It’s true, Mum,’ Ruby added quietly. She pushed the door shut behind her.

  ‘How dare you refuse my request?’ Dinah said.

  ‘All right,’ Mrs Cusack said hastily. ‘I apologise. We’re all upset.’

  ‘The Conclave were bad people,’ Dinah said. Ruby noticed her reversion to a child’s lexicon. ‘They weren’t her friends. Do you see any of them here?’

  ‘One of them sent flowers – with a handwritten card!’ Mrs Cusack said.

  ‘What?’ Ruby worried that this was another example of Margaret’s intimidation. ‘Who sent a card?’

  ‘I don’t want anything of theirs in the house,’ Dinah said. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘The flowers are still at the crematorium,’ Mrs Cusack said. ‘The card’s with the others – on the hall table.’

  ‘Who was the card from?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘Oh – her name’s on the tip of my tongue. The one who sold the broken pencil for a lot of money.’

  ‘Grace,’ Ruby said, and she enjoyed saying her name, out loud, when it had been in her head all month long. If Grace had sent flowers, she wasn’t cutting Ruby off.

  ‘I don’t want anything of hers in the house,’ Dinah repeated. She left the kitchen. Ruby followed her.

  The unmarked envelope was on the shelf beneath the mirror. Dinah seized it and tore it in two. She cast the pieces on the floor and covered her eyes, her words a jumble of English and the Konkani she’d learnt from her father, spitting invective about a woman called Fay who was an Angel of Death. Ruby wrapped her arms round her.

  ‘Shhh,’ Ruby said, over and over. ‘I’m here. Shhh.’

  The guests were taking their leave at the noise. Mrs Cusack emerged from the kitchen, and ushered Dinah back with her, to give her sweet tea.

  Ruby picked up the triangles of card and flattened them on the hall table. She pushed each piece into place until she could read the clear, sloping script. Grace had written: I will be grateful all my life for knowing Barbara, and for everything she made. G.

  The clock in the hall read half past one. If Ruby left now she could make it to London by evening. Whether or not Dinah expected her to stay, Ruby could think only of escaping. The house was too full of sadness. She needed to feel something – anything – but grief. So Ruby donned her cycling jacket and boots. She rode her motorbike to London, then walked through the Conclave parks where they were burning leaves, and arrived at Grace’s flat with the smell of bonfires in her hair. ‘Make me forget,’ she implored Grace.

  ‘Forget what?’ Grace asked.

  Ruby undid the pearls of her blouse and let it fall. ‘Death,’ she said.

  47

  OCTOBER 2018

  Odette

  Odette’s first day at the Conclave was dedicated to training. Until she’d been appropriately briefed by her superiors, she wouldn’t have full privileges. Her movement round the building was restricted. She told herself to be patient. If she couldn’t confirm the identity of the corpse just yet, she could still observe and listen to her new colleagues. She might pick up important details on Margaret’s whereabouts.

  Although Odette was polite to other employees, she was also wary. During the introductory tour she was startled to see that the Conclave bar was open and busy, despite the early hour. The atmosphere there was coarse. Too much swearing, and too many sick jokes about death and sex. The drinkers didn’t make any concessions for a wench’s nervousness. She felt badly situated, for a spy. Not only did she know nothing about her colleagues, they might know things about her future she didn’t. The imbalance troubled her.

  And yet there were glimpses of a life that she could love. She took another trip in a time machine, to report for a training session with Lucille Waters. It was attended by all investigators at least once, before commencing duty. The topic was handling sensitive information, which Lucille addressed from her position as Head of Knowledge. Odette tingled at the prospect of the secrets she might access.

  They assembled in the marble hall where Odette had taken her recruitment exams. Lucille stood on the platform above them. She wore an olive linen suit and smoked a cheroot which she periodically tapped in the ashtray on her lectern. The cigar’s sweet, dirty scent filled the room.

  ‘Your job as investigators,’ Lucille said, ‘is to gather evidence. Time travel gives us many valuable opportunities to collect, and revisit, evidence in the past. But knowing the future can impede proper investigative processes. You must not, therefore, check the outcome of an investigation in advance. Who knows how the Conclave enforces this?’

  Hands waved, reed-like, across the hall. Lucille gestured with her cigar at a wench on the front row.

  The wench stood up. ‘All investigations are conducted in secret. They may only be discussed with Conclave employees who are directly involved in the case. It’s forbidden to discuss a case with your green selves. Breaking these rules constitutes treason.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Lucille said. ‘Note that this secrecy extends to the trial. The verdict, and sentence, are embargoed in perpetuity. And an embargo breach is punishable by death.’

  There was a pause in the scratch scratch of the recruits’ notetaking. Odette recollected the anonymous source who sent privileged information to Zach Callaghan. Was that person in this hall? Had they endangered their life by contacting the press? Who were they? Odette needed to know – the leak could be a valuable witness.

  Lucille extinguished her cigar.r />
  ‘Enough threats. You are welcome to the Conclave, where you will find not only death, but the million quotidian experiences that make us love humanity. I hope you will cherish our work – in all its rich mystery – just as much as I do.’

  She beamed. Hesitantly, the recruits commenced their applause.

  Lucille left the stage. The recruits rose, their chairs squealing on the marble, and they exited with a subdued air; no doubt wondering what kind of information needed protecting with the threat of execution. Odette was bolder. She wanted to question Lucille directly about the intricacies of embargoes.

  Lucille had her own suite of rooms. The door to her study was open when Odette got there. Lucille was already at her desk, turning the pages of an atlas. A large bay window let in light behind her, filtered through the water of a substantial fish tank.

  ‘Take a seat, Odette,’ Lucille said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  Odette noted, once more, that there was no need to introduce herself here. Yet she didn’t feel uncomfortable, as she had with the drinkers in the bar. Lucille had a warmth that the drinkers lacked. Her welcome reassured Odette. It told her: you have a place among us.

  ‘Can I ask some questions about embargoed information?’ she said.

  ‘Feel free.’ Lucille closed the atlas. She smiled over steepled hands. A solitaire glinted on her ring finger.

  ‘How many people have been on trial for breaking an embargo?’

  ‘Impossible to say, because of the secrecy of the trials. But time travellers have sometimes gone missing without public explanation, and one of the possible reasons for that is execution. I know of twenty-seven such disappearances.’

  Twenty-seven missing time travellers, at minimum. That was a frightening thought.

  ‘When there’s a leak, how can we identify the source?’ she asked.

  ‘We can’t, unless someone comes forward with information.’

  ‘OK… Let’s say a piece of embargoed information is reported in the press—’

  ‘I take it this question’s hypothetical?’

  Was that a twinkle in Lucille’s eye? Odette had no idea what Lucille might be party to. Better, for now, not to reveal too much; Odette didn’t know, yet, whether Lucille was to be trusted.

  ‘The question’s entirely hypothetical,’ Odette lied. ‘If information is leaked in the press, but we don’t know how it got there, could we narrow down the potential sources? Could I check the time machine logs – to see who’d travelled to the right year?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lucille said. ‘But a canny employee could leak information remotely, to someone in a completely different period, without time travelling at all. They could use Beeline.’

  ‘But surely they could only reach another time traveller? I thought Beeline was just for use within the Conclave.’

  ‘It is. However, the system could – theoretically – be hacked to send messages to people other than colleagues.’

  ‘What kind of messages?’

  ‘Radio transmissions, obviously. With a little tweaking you could also use the bandwidth to send internet data.’

  ‘Could you send an email?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Wouldn’t there be a record of that? We must be able to trace any transmissions to a particular year.’

  ‘I’d be the only person able to check.’

  ‘So, I could ask you what data was sent when? And that would give me a list of possible leaks?’

  ‘Odette,’ Lucille said softly. ‘How would you rule me out as a leak?’

  ‘I couldn’t.’ Monitoring the Conclave effectively relied upon the cooperation of all its members. ‘We’d be back to the problem of needing voluntary reports.’

  Lucille chuckled. She rose from her chair and stood by the fish tank. As she upended a shaker of fish-food over the water, she commented:

  ‘There’s another question you didn’t ask.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Odette said.

  ‘Is a leak ever defensible in the Conclave’s court of law?’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘It should be. Sometimes, we have a moral duty to break the rules. Particularly where the rulemakers are corrupt. Do you see how that argument would apply to Zach Callaghan’s informant?’

  Aha. Lucille did know that the case wasn’t hypothetical.

  ‘I agree Zach’s leak had a strong moral defence,’ Odette said. ‘I’m not looking for the leak to prosecute them. I think they may have information I can use.’

  ‘I doubt they can share anything openly.’

  Odette tried to conceal her disappointment. ‘In that case I’ll have to be creative. Thank you for answering my questions.’

  ‘A pleasure.’

  Odette walked to the door, and stopped. ‘Actually, Lucille… there is a last thing I’d like to know. Have you ever been tried for an embargo breach?’

  ‘No.’ Lucille winked. ‘To prosecute me, they’d have to catch me.’

  *

  On her return to her own time, Odette had a meeting with Elspeth to attend, to discuss her initial caseload.

  ‘Have you considered which criminal department you’d like to be placed in first?’ Elspeth asked. ‘Please don’t say homicide; everyone always does, and we can’t accommodate you all.’

  ‘Actually, I was thinking of Environmental Health,’ Odette said.

  ‘Good grief. You’re virtuous.’

  ‘I’d like to look into breaches of hygiene protocols after using the time machines. Surely it counts as public endangerment?’

  ‘Yes, it would. What strategy would you take?’

  ‘Tracking health records to see where there are any outbreaks of macromonas. Mapping them to see if we can isolate the source.’ And in the process, pin down the identity of the toy museum corpse, and that of her killer.

  ‘Very well,’ Elspeth said. ‘I’ll draft you into Environmental Health, effective from tomorrow morning.’

  48

  SEPTEMBER 2017

  Grace

  Ruby was in Grace’s bed; her lipstick, like peach halves, adorned the pillowslip, and her scent lingered on Grace’s skin. Grace watched Ruby sleep until she heard the click of the apartment door. The sound of reedy singing followed. Grace wrapped herself in a silk housecoat and tiptoed to the kitchen.

  A very silver Grace, stooped but glamorous in a teal turban, was unpacking groceries on the counter top.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Green Grace whispered.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Silver Grace replied. ‘Was I disturbing you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I suppose I’m only the help.’ She moved from cupboard to cupboard, packing away the dry goods. Pausing, she ripped open a large bar of cooking chocolate and bit into it. ‘Without me fetching things for you, you’d be in a pickle.’

  ‘Please, keep your voice down.’

  ‘Whatever for? She needs to get used to there being more than one of us. She needs to get used to a lot of things.’

  ‘Not yet. Not today – she’s only just come from the funeral!’

  ‘Pffft. The sooner the better.’ She raised her voice still more: ‘Ruby! Ruby!’

  When, thought Grace desperately, was she going to get so brash? Or was this how she came across even now, and she failed to see it in herself?

  ‘Ruby!’ Silver Grace called again.

  They heard Ruby’s approaching footfall, and then she was there, yawning, with her hair tangled like the wool shepherds save from hedgerows.

  ‘Would you like some coffee and chocolate?’ Silver Grace asked.

  ‘Darling,’ Green Grace cut in. ‘Go back to bed if you wish. My older self is just about to leave.’

  Ruby’s eyes were wide. She looked from one Grace, to the other, and back again.

  ‘I’d like a coffee,’ she said. ‘But no chocolate, thank you.’

  ‘Now,’ said Silver Grace. ‘I’ve come to do what she won’t.’

  ‘What’s that?’

 
‘Tell you straight. If you want to keep doing this, there have to be a few rules. It’s very simple.’ Silver Grace poured hot water into the cafetière. ‘Whenever I, or she, learns something about your future, she has to be able to tell you.’

  ‘I don’t want to know my future,’ Ruby said.

  ‘And that’s fine, darling – that’s absolutely fine!’ said Green Grace.

  ‘No,’ said Silver Grace. ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘Why can’t things carry on as they are?’ asked Ruby.

  Green Grace felt uncomfortable, because Ruby’s discomfort with the future had already caused problems. She hadn’t wished to know when Barbara died. So when Grace had encouraged her to go home, to spend her last night with her grandmother, Ruby had assumed Grace was giving her the brush-off.

  ‘A relationship between equals isn’t possible if one person has all the knowledge,’ Silver Grace announced.

  ‘I just can’t cope with more bad news right now,’ Ruby said.

  ‘What if it were good news?’ Green Grace asked suddenly.

  Ruby smiled sadly, and pulled up one of the breakfast stools.

  ‘Good news would be very welcome.’

  Green Grace crouched before her. ‘You live a long time. Like Bee did. For another fifty years.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘We have two children. A girl and a boy, named Emily and Icarus.’

  ‘Am I happy?’

  ‘I think so. You make other people happy. You make me happy.’

  ‘There’s something else you should know,’ Silver Grace interrupted.

  ‘Please don’t,’ Green Grace said.

  ‘About Bee,’ Silver Grace said to Ruby. ‘About why she died. And what you do next.’

  ‘Get out,’ Green Grace roared, fearful of what her older self was going to reveal.

  Silver Grace held up her hands in defeat. She slung her bag back over her arm, and left.

  ‘What are you going to tell me?’ Ruby whispered. ‘Is it really terrible?’

  Grace didn’t need to give her the whole story. Not the worst part; not what Ruby was going to do. She could leave Ruby out all together.

  ‘Bee’s death,’ Grace said. ‘It was Margaret’s fault.’