What about us?

by Jacqui Henderson

  “You’re right.” I agreed, slowly coming to a decision. “Daft to make it easy for your people to find us and there will always be summer.”

  “Lots of springs and autumns too.” he said, smiling at me.

  It was then that we embarked on our ‘trips’ as we called them. It’s so easy to lose track of time living life that way. Normal events didn’t happen in the right order. We had two Christmases on the trot once, different years but same dates. Because we never did a whole year straight at any one time, we didn’t seem to have birthdays very often, or maybe we had them too often. I don’t know, it’s difficult to say... For a while it was endless summer, different places and times mind, but always summer.

  We went on several cruises. In fact, once we went on the same cruise four times. Each time we did a different leg of the journey and after a week or so, we took a break somewhere else, before rejoining the boat.

  That was a little more difficult to do, because as you know, most journeys are to safe houses. Part of being on the run meant we needed to do the unexpected and Jack always enjoyed a new puzzle to solve. He’d figured out how to travel direct to a place before we left for our life on the run and the first time he’d tried it was when he’d left me in Margate and had decided to return there to find me. That time, weeks had passed for him, but less than an hour had gone by for me. Doing it at sea was a bit tricky though. I mean, what if we missed the blessed boat?

  We came here a lot too. Usually in-between trips, to take a breather so to speak. Slowly I worked my way through that magnificent wardrobe in the apartment. Each time we arrived, it was such a pleasure changing into something different. Although I’ve never done any of the things here that I used to do in Napier Street, in lots of ways the apartment and the hotel room became home; the places we left and always came back to. Until now of course.

  The things we did and the places we saw... I would never have believed it possible. I tangoed in Buenos Aires in the heavy summer night air. I drank a Manhattan in New York, well sipped a bit of it really, because it wasn’t very nice. I did the Charleston in Rotterdam, with girls who practiced when their fathers weren’t about, because it wasn’t considered a ‘nice’ dance. We partied in London during the war, while bombs fell and everyone was sure tomorrow wouldn’t come and ‘the moment’ was all that mattered.

  We walked for miles and miles along the coastlines of Britain, France and New Zealand in all kinds of eras. We played in the Aegean, in both ancient and modern times. Twice I watched London burn. Once during the Great Fire and then during the Blitz, centuries later, but neither event stopped the city from living and thriving. I watched the rebuilding of my home town, but only after the second occasion; there were too many health risks attached to hanging about for too long in 1666.

  I shopped in Carnaby Street in the sixties and saw the Beatles and the Rolling Stones before they became mega famous. I was in the crowd in the Mall as Queen Victoria, King Edward the seventh, Kings George the fifth and sixth and of course, Queen Elizabeth the second were crowned. Oh, the pomp and circumstance. Mind you, we did it in five consecutive days, so we could compare them properly. My favourite was King Edward’s, somehow it was more fun than the others.

  Oh, we had so many adventures. It would take me weeks to tell you all of them and all the time Jack told me things about the times and places we were in. With him I got the education that Winnie wrongly assumed I’d had and what a way to get it!

  Sometimes we watched the ‘big’ events unfold. Always from the sidelines though; we never got in the way. Like the shooting of the Archduke that started the First World War and the first man landing on the moon. Not from the moon of course, but on a telly in a diner in Florida. I got the impression from Jack that travelling away from the Earth was something that the future held and there I was, there at the beginning of it, seeing it happen for myself at the actual moment. Even though it was on the telly, black and white at that, it was still more exciting than all the sci-fi films I’ve ever watched.

  We were in Trafalgar square when the announcements were made in 1918 and 1945 that the wars were really over. The difference between the two occasions was interesting. Oh the excitement and relief that the people felt, you would never have believed it unless you’d been there. In 1918 there was a mood of patriotic joy, while in 1945 it was much, much deeper than that: it was more about how something that was good or right had conquered something that was bad and that the world was somehow a better place as a result of the struggle.

  There was also more realisation of the cost and the sacrifice, so the joy was tinged with deep sadness. You didn’t have to look far to see the damage that had been done; it was all around you. London was deeply wounded, but it just kept on going, like other cities round the world in the same sort of mess.

  Given all that pride in defeating evil and they were right to be proud after all, it was a bit of a shock, to say the least, that in the years that followed, the world got somehow smaller, meaner and darker again. I saw signs in windows all over my home town; No Blacks, No Irish, No Gypsies and it seemed that all that hate hadn’t really been defeated at all, it still needed to show itself. That made me sad.

  We sailed on the Titanic, but only from Belfast to Southampton. I comforted myself with the thought that all those people scrambling up the gangplanks to go on the proper maiden voyage, would have been long dead anyway by the time I first learnt about the mistakes that led to it sinking with that terrible loss of life.

  Because of the health risks, not to mention all the other sorts of dangers Jack was constantly fretting over, we rarely went earlier than the middle of the eighteenth century and the furthest towards my own time was1969. I was born in 1980 and we wanted to avoid even the remotest chance of me inadvertently breaking the golden rule or doing anything that might influence my birth in any way. He was never very clear about what would or could happen if we did, but we thought it best not to. There was so much to see and do in all that time, I never minded. I’d seen the film Jurassic park and I never had even the slightest wish to go and see all that for myself.

  Only a few times did we go further back. There was the day trip to the Great Fire of London of course and we spent a day in ancient Rome; smelly and crowded it was too, as well as a few days now and then in ancient Greece, which to be honest, apart from the clothes, wasn’t that different from some of the later visits we made to Athens. I thought of that girl from the agency who’d told us about her long holiday visiting the islands and there I was doing the same thing, only just a bit different. It always makes me smile when I think about her.

  Most of the time we stayed in cities or larger towns; it was easier not to be noticed that way. Whenever we fancied a day by the sea or in the countryside, we either went to remote places until we got too hungry or tired to carry on walking, or we went to seaside resorts in more modern times, where we could just blend in anyway. Sometimes we visited the countryside when there was a big county fair on, when people would be coming from miles around to sell, to buy or just to be there; so again we weren’t often out of place.

  Naturally, apart from in modern Britain, I always sounded like a foreigner, while Jack could talk to anyone and be understood, as well as understand what they were saying to him. I was always better than him at knowing what wasn’t being said though, I could judge the body language and the mood, so together we made a great team.

  He never wanted to visit really sad events with me, because he said he’d done enough of them when he’d been working. It had been hard enough for him to just watch tragedy and destruction unfold and not try to do anything to help and he’d had the training, unlike me.

  “Is that what had happened the second time I saw you, early in the morning, when you were waiting outside the flats?” I asked, one time when we’d been having that discussion.

  “Yes. How did you know?” he asked, surprised.

  “I didn’t then of course, I thought you were ill. But your clothes smelt terrible;
nothing good could have produced a smell like that.” I told him.

  “You’re right, of course.” he said, as a dark cloud spread over his face.

  “I’d been in one of the Ghettos during the Second World War, witnessing one of the round ups. In order to make the people do as they were told, that is the ones that had been selected that day, the soldiers randomly shot people or beat them to a pulp; children, women, as well as men. The fear written on every face is something I try not to remember; it was the end of hope.

  I didn’t know what to say, I could only imagine how hard it must have been not to try to save someone; anyone. I wasn’t sure I could do that, just watch I mean. Then I realised that I wasn’t actually sure about anything in that moment. If people could really do that to each other, then what did that say about us?

  “Couldn’t we do some good then?” I asked, becoming excited.

  “Like what?”

  “Well we could go back and smother Hitler when he was a baby, cot death sort of thing, no one would know.”

  I think I was beginning to think we could be superheroes or something and I was probably getting carried away with the idea.

  “And after him we could see what else doesn’t make sense and needs changing, perhaps the man who started the whole slavery thing and then...”

  He held his hand up, cutting me off.

  “It’s not possible Grace.” he said, with an awful finality in his voice.

  “Why not? We’ve broken so many rules already and that’s been just for our benefit. Maybe we should try and do something better than that, not be so selfish I mean. Sheep and lamb, but with a difference...”

  With a sigh, he took my hands in his.

  “If only it were that simple. Don’t you think we would have done it? Changed things in the past so that the future doesn’t have the problems it has? It really can’t be done.”

  “Tell me Jack, I’m listening,” I said, hoping to find some sort of loophole in whatever it was he was about to say.

  “Just because things don’t make sense, real sense, doesn’t mean they can be undone. Hitler never personally dropped the gas canisters into the showers. As far as we know, because we’ve never been inside his bunker at the end, the only time he killed anything at point blank range was his dogs and himself. He was never present at a round up or even part of a firing squad.”

  “Are you saying that he wasn’t the monster we’ve all grown up believing him to be?” I asked, incredulous.

  “No, I’m not saying that, but I am saying that as far as we know, he never killed anyone. That was done by others, not by him personally. It was always done by people though, sometimes soldiers and sometimes there was collusion by other prisoners, hoping that by doing what they did they’d stay alive or perhaps someone they loved would stay alive. Don’t question their motives; you can never know what you would do in the same position.”

  He spoke so quietly and with such heavy sadness that I had to agree with him. I don’t know what depths I’d sink to, to save him or myself and I don’t want to find out. He stared into the distance, blinking, clearly remembering things he had seen.

  “Throughout history people have done terrible things to each other, but the key thing is, whenever you look at an atrocity within the context of the times, what you find are people making choices using the information they have. Not all of them were monsters.” he said, shaking his head.

  “Times were hard in the nineteen thirties and we can’t forget that it was a period of desperate economic depression. Just getting through the day was very hard for a lot of people and they didn’t want boatloads of refugees; more people that they would have to share what little they had with. For many it didn’t matter who they were or where they were from, the fact that they would need housing and feeding was enough to turn them away; there wasn’t enough to go round. It can be argued that few suspected the true terror that was to come, but there was an almost unstoppable momentum taking humanity to that awful point. That is what we have to understand.

  “It has already happened, so we can’t undo it. We can kill Hitler while he sleeps in his cradle, but that won’t change things, the times would still be as they were; someone else would fill the void. That person would make it happen in all the important ways, even if some of the smaller details changed. So the question has to be: How many babies would we need to smother in their cradles before history would change and then, how would that make us different from those we were trying to save the world from?”

  We sat in silence for a while. What could I say? What did I know? After all, he was the historian, not me.

  After some deep thinking on my part, some of what he’d said about his own time began to make a bit more sense.

  “That’s why you collect events. To learn, to do things differently and make sure some things are never repeated.” I said slowly.

  “Yes Grace, that’s exactly why we do it. As a species we have made so many terrible mistakes, but we hope that now we can make better decisions, both for ourselves and for future generations.”

  He was absent mindedly playing with my fingers as he spoke, clearly remembering the life he had left behind, the life he couldn’t share with me.

  “But you don’t do that anymore. Now we just collect fragments, not enough to build a whole picture, not like when we were in Napier Street. Doesn’t that make you sad?”

  I was acutely aware of just how much he’d given up to be with me and I wasn’t sure that he was getting the best part of the deal.

  Even though I’m sure I didn’t say any of that, only thought it, he smiled and understood.

  “There are others who do the same as I did and probably much better. I’m not going back, so it doesn’t matter; they must make those decisions without me. Anyway, we collect more than enough for my own interest and to be honest Grace, after just four years in the elite HG unit, I had become weary of watching the awful things we do to each other. Now I get to witness much more positive aspects of the human race and let us not forget the most important thing.” he said, looking up at me and smiling.

  “Which is?” I prompted, a little puzzled.

  “I get to start and end every day with you.”

  So we were never superheroes. We tried to change as little as possible and made contact with other people only when necessary, in the hope that we wouldn’t be remembered or make much of an impact. We enjoyed the small things a good life has to offer; the fantastic night skies before light pollution, food that hadn’t been tampered with in any way, clear water in the rivers and streams and life that had a natural rhythm with the sun and the seasons.

  Of course we couldn’t trust the doctors, so I tried not to get sick. We often went to the twentieth century just to have a bath, deflea ourselves and for me to buy sanitary stuff. There was no point in getting too attached to things; once we left a place or time we left everything we owned behind. I have no photos or souvenirs for my old age, only my diary and my memories. Without implants they are probably flawed, but they are mine and they help me make sense of my life today.

  Some of the clothes we wore did nothing but make me itch and not everything I saw or experienced made me smile, but I really believe that we were happy. Until yesterday, or until a hundred years ago I should say, on a cold night in a dark Moscow street. We were found and Jack was wrenched away from me before the shimmer had started, before we could escape.

  I turned to face him, my judge and jury.

  “You can stop pretending now, I know it’s you.” I said quietly, without a shred of doubt either in my voice or in my mind.

  “How?” he whispered. “I’m a hundred and eighty years old and I’ve had throat surgery. My voice isn’t the same.”

  “There’s enough of your voice left for me to recognise it. I admit it took a while, but that plus your eyebrows convinced me. They’ve got a life of their own Jack; you can’t stop them once they get going.”

  The remark brought the smallest of smiles to hi
s lips.

  Feeling more confident about the present, but still very scared about the future, I went on.

  “And as I was speaking, you were remembering. A stranger would have been mildly interested at best in all my ramblings, but you were reliving it with me, revelling in it. You were like a man who has spent a long time in the desert and is then given a glass of ice cold water. Oh and the fact that I love you. That helped too.”

  I stared into the face that I hadn’t had the opportunity to watch grow old over time and reached for his hand.

  “I knew you’d come back.” I told him, but he flinched and pulled his hands away.

  “No Grace, that’s not why I’ve come back. It’s too late for us to pick up where we left off. I’ve come to take you home.”

  Chapter ten

  I glared at him. “You’ve become a bit bossy in your dotage.” I said, accusingly. “What happened to ‘let’s discuss this,’ or how about giving me a bit of time to get over the shock of you being, what was it you said? A hundred and eighty, all of a sudden?”

  He smiled, almost against his will. “It hasn’t been all of a sudden for me. Since we were parted, I’ve lived each of the hundred and forty-eight years, day by day, hour by hour.”

  I’d have had to have been the most selfish person in the world to not hear the deep sadness in his voice.

  “Oh Jack...” I said, reaching over again for his hands. This time he let them rest in mine and they were trembling ever so slightly.

  A few drops of rain started to fall and we both knew that the storm would hit in about half an hour.

  “Come on, let’s go home.” he said and waved to the waiter.

  I began to get angry again and opened my mouth to protest, but he saw this and shook his head, getting in quickly before I could work up a head of steam.