He was horrified to hear me speak that way.
“Grace, Grace,” he said, trying to soothe me. “You’re reading far too much into this. I’m sorry, really I am. It was stupid of me and while I don’t know what I was thinking of then, I do know what I am thinking now. There’s no contest; it’s you every time. I will not go back and I will not use opium again. I promise. I swear.”
I knew he meant it, but in the days that followed, he was always at a bit of a loose end and nothing really caught his attention. His mind always seemed to be somewhere else and what was worse, he didn’t realise it. I was sure that a part of him was gone, floating in that unreal world the opium had shown him and I didn’t know how to get him back. None of the usual things in our life mattered to him anymore, but then maybe I was being oversensitive and suspicious. It was one of the saddest times in my life. I hated how it made me feel and I hated being made to feel like the lumpy unloved child I thought I’d left behind when I met him. Although I knew he didn’t mean to hurt me, it didn’t stop me feeling that way.
By Saturday I’d had enough, so I took matters into my own hands. I got up early, made some sandwiches, then woke him up and suggested that we go to the coast for the weekend. If anything was going to bring him back, a trip to the seaside would do the trick; or at least that was what I hoped. If it failed I didn’t know what else I could do, but at least it would get us out of the house, something I desperately needed as much as he did.
London Bridge station was just a twenty minute walk from Napier Street and from there we were able to take a train to Brighton. We travelled second class of course, but even so it was amazingly clean and comfortable. As we charged across the countryside, the train whistling and belching smoke, my Jack began to come back to me and we were like two kids, planning all the things we were going to do, just like old times.
As we were making our way out of Brighton station, he suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me behind one of the big iron pillars. I could tell by his expression that he’d spotted someone and didn’t want us to be seen. I was facing him and he was looking over my shoulder, so I never saw who he was watching. We stood absolutely still for a few minutes and he relaxed, but just a fraction. Then he carefully pulled me further into the shadows and told me to have a good look around. A quick glance told me that the part of the station we were in was now almost deserted.
“We can’t stay.” he whispered. “It may just be coincidence, but we can’t rule out that they’re looking for us. We have to leave.”
I knew he didn’t mean just the station. Even getting away from Brighton wouldn’t be enough. It was always bound to happen; I’d known it from the beginning, when we started our life on the run. But until that moment, I hadn’t fully grasped what it would mean. I knew then that we could never settle, not properly anyway; we’d always have to be looking over our shoulders, just in case. I looked up at him and saw the tightness around his mouth and the sadness in his eyes. He felt bad about this, bad because of me and I didn’t want that.
“Ok...” I said, “When and where next?”
I tried to make my voice sound bright and excited and I was trying not to feel sad about leaving our life in Napier Street. I hoped that Winnie would understand and that Sal and baby Charlie would be ok.
“How about Paris, 1912?” he asked, grinning at me.
“Paris would be lovely in any year, I’m sure.” I giggled in reply and wrapped my arms tightly around his waist.
Chapter nine
When the shimmering stopped, we were in a room again and it was obviously night. I looked around, taking in my surroundings. The ceilings were high and the tall narrow windows were dressed, but not with thick curtains that covered everything. Instead they were elegantly draped with what might have been silk and they opened outwards onto a small balcony. The floors were so highly polished you could have eaten your dinner off them and there were lots of rugs. They looked Chinese to me, because of the style of the dragons and flowers on them. I’d seen similar designs in the pictures on the wall at my local takeaway at home. The lights were electric, not gas and it was warm, but not the sort of fuggy warmth that you get from heating. That was the first time at the apartment, but over the months, or was it years? I’m never sure... it was to become very familiar.
“It’s summer!” I exclaimed happily.
He nodded, clearly pleased, before telling me exactly when we were.
“It is eleven pm, Saturday, 10th August 1912.”
He took my hand playfully and started pulling me out of the room.
“Special treat, come and see this!”
We went down a long corridor with double doors on either side, until we were at the end. He threw open the last doors with mock pomp and stood aside. There in front of me was a huge bath, with proper taps connected to it and on a wooden table by the window, thick luxurious towels.
“Oooh...” I sighed.
“And that’s not all, look what’s in here.” he said, pushing open another door.
“Oooh...” I sighed again, “A real toilet, with a chain to flush it!”
We fought to be the first one to use it, laughing and elbowing each other out of the way.
Although it was night time in Paris, for us it was still only mid-morning. Thankfully Jack felt certain that we’d be safe there.
“Not a lot happens here at this time. Because it’s August, all the great and good have left the city, along with anyone else who’s got somewhere to go to. I’ve only been here once before so they probably won’t think of it as a favourite haunt of mine. We should be ok until the morning.”
I didn’t even wait until he got to the safe bit before I started filling the tub with lashings of hot water, adding something that to me, smelt like flowery heaven from a beautiful glass bottle.
After my luxurious soak and as the last of the water disappeared down the plug hole all by itself, Jack began to fill it up again. I left him there, singing loudly in the steam while I went to find the wardrobe that I knew would be there somewhere.
No matter how many times I’d stood in front of racks of clothes, in various safe houses that we’d used over the years, I always giggled with delight when I opened that particular door. Me and Paris fashion, whoever would have thought it!
My Nan would have loved it. She would have given those clothes style and the picture of her that always popped into in my mind at that moment made me feel that maybe I did come from ‘her side’ after all, despite everything.
I know we are not meant to stand out, but I figured that this was Paris with a capital P. So many women and probably men too, would look gorgeous and there was no way I could compete with them. That first time I wore a lovely high necked creation in china blue silk, with sprigs of flowers dotted all over it and navy blue bands at the neck, cuffs, waist, hips and knees. The corset still made me grimace, but once on, it was more comfortable than the old ones had ever been and it made me stand up straight, shoulders back, you know, that sort of thing. There weren’t so many underclothes and the hat I chose was quite amazing. It was more like a frothy cake than a piece of clothing, but when morning came it would keep the sun out of my eyes. I also found some soft leather button-down boots in my size.
I was twirling in front of the big mirror, listening to the lovely noise that the dress made and enjoying how it felt on the bare bits of my skin, when Jack came into the room. He was flushed from the heat of the bath and his wet hair was all over the place, but he looked lovely to me and I could see from his eyes that he thought I did too.
I followed him into the adjoining bedroom, where he pulled a creamy beige suit out of the wardrobe. I sat on the bed watching him dress. He had that old chirpy air about him again and I knew the opium incident was behind us and that there would be no need to mention it again. I suppose one good thing had come out of it though; we’d seen each other at our worst. We were neither of us perfect and we both made mistakes, but that was ok, it meant we could relax and together we hel
ped each other be the best we could. You can’t regret something like that now, can you?
It was while we were eating the sandwiches that I’d prepared in Napier Street that something he’d said earlier suddenly popped into my mind, causing me to hold my bit of bread in mid air.
“You said you’ve been here before...”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, once. Why?” he asked, frowning, not understanding my evident alarm.
“Well, surely now you’ve changed things, by bringing me here I mean; same time and everything. What if we bump into that other you? Haven’t we broken enough rules already?”
For a moment, I think I was sure that somehow the known world would come crashing down on us as we sat there and it would all be our fault.
He looked sideways at me for a moment, but he didn’t laugh.
“That’s good Grace. Well thought out, but don’t worry; it doesn’t work like that.”
“Doesn’t it?” I asked, not sure if he was just trying to make me feel better.
“No. As long as we do something different, we can revisit a time. It’s not encouraged, but sometimes it’s important that we do. Say for instance we learn something new, after an event, something that changes what we thought about a certain moment; well we have to go back and reassess things.”
He could see that I wasn’t really following, so he tried putting it another way.
“Like I said, the past exists, so we can exist in it. Our being somewhere where we weren’t originally, changes things. Nothing big, but a few little things are different. Being here now, sort of erases me physically being here before. If I came back and did exactly the same as I did last time, there wouldn’t be anything new, so everything would happen as it did previously and then there would be the possibility of an overlap. So to be here now, again, I have to change small things. Arrive at a different hour or into a different room, wear different clothes, do things in a different order, leave the apartment and walk in a different direction. Little things that fix me in this time, until another me fixes itself into the same moment. That way there should only ever be one of me in any particular time. The golden rule, which we have not broken by the way, is that you must never meet yourself, so you must do everything possible to avoid it.”
“But how do you know why you’re there, the second time I mean, if by being there you’ve wiped out the first time?”
I was a bit confused to say the least.
“Ok, good question. Of course I remember it; I was there. So although the second visit wipes out anything physical from the first visit, I do retain the memories; they are mine. However, there is something interesting about time travel that we can’t always explain. Sometimes we get what are called ‘time confusions’. It’s like you remember something that hasn’t happened to you. It’s a strong feeling, although some of the details might be vague and there is a sense of knowing something or someone, but things don’t always have a context, so you wonder if it was a dream. But that is not the case now; I remember everything I did last time I was here”.
I nodded. It sort of made sense, in as far as anything really made sense anymore.
Once satisfied that I had enough of a grasp of the idea, he continued. “Your being here changes everything anyway, which brings us to your second question. Yes, we have broken pretty much all the rules already and I believe there is a nice expression that sums it up: ‘Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb’. What do you think?”
“I don’t want you to be hanged for anything.” I said sadly.
“Dear silly Grace. There will be no hanging, I promise.”
He said it quietly, but with just enough conviction, so that I could almost believe him.
We spent what was left of the night walking through the streets of Paris, which were almost but not quite deserted. The smells and sounds wafting on the still night air would have told me I was somewhere foreign. It was just wonderful and so different from either of the Londons I’d lived in.
We stopped on one corner where we could hear a piano and clarinet being played together. It was something I didn’t recognise, but it hung in the air like magic and I just kept saying, “Paris...”
I said it over and over again, not able to believe that I was actually in a different country. Daft really, it seemed to mean more to me than the whole being in 1912 thing.
We stopped at this café for breakfast as it opened and I discovered that the French don’t make tea the way I like it, which is why when I’m here I have coffee. We talked about where and when we would go next, deciding that for a while at least, we wouldn’t settle again, not like we had in Napier Street.
It was also during that first breakfast here that Jack convinced me that I should be keeper of the watch. That way if anything happened to him, if he were caught for instance, I wouldn’t be stuck. We’d decided not to exchange it for the one in the apartment. He knew this one worked and it wasn’t impossible that ‘his people’ as I always called them, would find a way to trace him through one of the ones left in a safe house. He also told me that I shouldn’t go back to Lyme Regis to the moment we left, or more importantly, to the moment after. If I wanted to return to my old life, I would have to go to a safe house in August 2001 and stay out of the way until my birthday weekend was over. Although the more time we spent living on the run, the more difficult that would be.
That first time, we sat here until ten, when the clouds began to threaten rain and the heat had built up in that muggy, unpleasant way, just as it is now in fact. I was tired and we hadn’t really decided when or where to go next.
“Can’t we stay here for a few days?” I asked.
It was so nice to be in proper summer and spending only a few hours in Paris seemed... well, wrong somehow.
He thought about it for a few moments as I did my ‘pleading’ face.
“Please don’t look at me like that. How can I not give in when you do that?”
He tried to sound cross, but I knew he wasn’t.
“Ok,” he said, “But we’ll stay in a hotel though, just to be on the safe side. In fact, we’ll go back to yesterday morning; that should confuse things a bit. We’ll need to pack a couple of bags at the apartment. Hotels remember you if you seem out of place and we don’t want to be remembered.”
The small, friendly hotel we chose was tucked away on a back street, not far from the river and being August meant that there were not many other guests. We paid for two weeks in advance, so they were pleased to have us and didn’t ask too many questions.
“As we’ve checked in before we’ve arrived, so to speak, we can come back whenever we like,” he said, laughing. “...As you like Paris so much.”
“What a lovely idea.” I replied, pleased that he’d thought of it.
Our room was on the second floor, with those high windows and small balconies overlooking the street below. There was a huge brass bed with a wonderfully soft mattress and a real bathroom down the hall. There was still the potty under the bed for night time use, but by then it was familiar. It seemed a shame not to make use of that lovely huge apartment, but I understood the danger attached to staying there too long and didn’t want to take the risk.
Once we were settled, we popped back to Sunday morning, but left the apartment straightaway, making our way to the cafe by a different route for coffee, before going on to our room at the hotel. It was the first time that I got to experience just how much time you can pack into a few hours.
We stayed in our room all day, hiding from the thunderstorm, venturing out only once it had passed and the stifling heat had changed into something kinder, leaving everything smelling fresh. We were both starving by then and Jack told me of a restaurant we could go to where he was sure the food would not have an adverse affect on my system. It was then he told me that if we were to travel to cities previous to the twentieth century, we would have to go in winter.
“There are always fewer health risks. That’s the reason why P
aris is empty now. Right across Europe, those that have a choice in the matter escape the cities and head for the countryside until the start of winter. The tradition of being in town only for the winter started long ago and up to a point, continued well into the twenty-first century, by when it was merely a custom, nothing more. While winter brings its own problems of damp, chills and pneumonia, the summer has always been far more dangerous in places with high population densities. Don’t worry, there are no major outbreaks of anything due now, so you’ll be ok; otherwise I wouldn’t have brought you here.”
“I realise that, but I see what you mean. We’ll have to live in winter if we aren’t going to be rich.” I said, shivering at the thought, “But maybe we can take holidays in the twentieth century?”
“Maybe we can...” he said and his eyebrows began to move, the way they always did when he was deep in thought.
It was over a simple, but delicious dinner of braised lamb, potatoes and carrots that he told me what he’d been thinking.
“Exactly; holidays.” he said, causing me to look around, wondering what on earth he was talking about.
He laughed at me, which made me cross.
“It was your idea Grace...”
“What was? Mr you’re not making any sense.”
“If we’re not to settle anywhere for a while, then that’s exactly what we should do.”
“What...? What exactly is it that we should do?” I demanded, saying every word slowly, as though he were an idiot.
“Take a series of short holidays. We’ll be harder to trace, because we won’t impact on people’s lives or be mentioned in conversations and we won’t have routines. We’ll just pass through places and as long as we choose times and destinations that are full of people passing through, we won’t stand out in any way.”
I thought about his idea. In some ways it made me sad; we weren’t going to have a proper home, or friends like Winnie again. I liked routines, nice normal ones anyway; they made me feel like a real person, living a real life. On the other hand, it made sense what he was suggesting. There’d be no point to my life if he wasn’t in it. The home and the routines would be empty if they were just mine. So, no contest really.
What about us? Page 10