We only had about thirty minutes before the heavens opened, so it was time to get to the heart of the matter.
“You said you were my judge and jury. What exactly is it that I have done that you need to judge and what could my punishment be?” I asked.
“Actually, you saved the world.” he said slowly.
I think I laughed.
He smiled at me, but this time it seemed genuine enough.
“Honestly Grace, you did and believe me, no one is more surprised than I am.”
“Hah! Right, and how exactly did I manage that?” I asked, more than a little incredulous.
“You were kind. You helped someone achieve a better life, someone who had no expectation of ever amounting to much.” he said simply.
I snorted, probably in quite an unladylike way.
“Well that’s alright then.” I said. “So what is my punishment to be?”
I surreptitiously began to gather up my dress and petticoats a little under the table, hoping he couldn’t see what I was doing. The fashion was for long straight skirts, so I wouldn’t be able to run anywhere unless they were hauled up above my knees. My boots, although soft, were flat and sturdy and he was a lot older and heavier than me. I was confident I could outrun him if need be; I just had to be ready and I was watching him very carefully, just in case he was planning to make a move. If he was, I was going to be ahead of him. Sometimes I have a lot to thank my Mum for. I always knew when to get out of her way and was quite the expert at dodging a slap or a flying object.
“Well there you have me...” he said. “In a way, you can help me decide what it should be.”
He spoke almost as though I wasn’t there, more like he was thinking aloud rather than talking to someone.
“Strange sort of system you have in the future...” I muttered.
He didn’t smile or laugh or even make any acknowledgement that I’d spoken; he carried on speaking quietly almost as though to a child. And that rankled.
“You see Grace, I am not that interested in individuals as such. My work, my passion, such as it is, has always lain in the collective so to speak; the many, not the few. I strive for a better future for everyone. Individuals will benefit or not, depending on their role in society and their own choices to a certain extent, but the human race will ultimately be better for the work that I and others like me do. Can you understand that?”
He turned to me, his face cold and expressionless.
“Yes, I can understand that.” I said slowly and then felt the need to show him that I really did. “I tried to do the same in my job. It was different of course, but the sentiment was the same. I tried to make things better for as many people as I could, except of course, the people I worked with in the home had already done their bit for the past and the present, rather than the future.”
He looked at me strangely, almost as though I were crazy, then he seemed to rearrange his face, or maybe what I’d said made some sense when he thought about it.
“Quite. Anyway... sometimes, only rarely I grant you, an individual is important. I am not being arrogant when I say I am one of those individuals. It should come as no surprise to you to learn that Jack is another.”
He looked straight at me and his eyes were burning again. I got the distinct impression that he despised me and everything that I stood for. It hurt, that someone who Jack respected so much could judge me in this way.
“Oh.” I said, sucking the air in as I spoke.
Then the penny dropped and I suddenly ‘got’ what it was all about. It wasn’t about me at all, it was all about Jack. We both wanted him but we couldn’t both have him. One of us was going to lose and he meant to be the winner. Given the size of his intellect in comparison to mine, he probably thought he was making a safe bet.
As the chill in my bones spread to my innards, a tiny little voice somewhere inside me said, “It’s not always just about brains...”
Chapter twenty-three
Well, at least his cards were on the table and although what he’d said didn’t explain everything, I was beginning to understand why he was there. Perhaps my saving the world, which I still doubted, meant he couldn’t just unexist me. He had to do something with me, which wasn’t necessarily good news, but on the other hand I was still alive, so not all bad news either.
As I watched him I just knew there was more that he wasn’t telling me. Whether he was going to or not, remained to be seen, but at that point I couldn’t tell. Of course all it meant was that he remained the cat and I remained the mouse. But, I was a loved mouse and that made me stronger than him, or at least that was what that tiny voice was busy telling me as we sat there in frosty silence.
When the first big drops of rain splashed down onto the table, there was as always, a distant roll of thunder. The heat was oppressive, making you sweat even when you were sitting still. I knew it would be several hours before the rain stopped and that wonderful after storm freshness replaced it. I wondered what those hours might bring. I didn’t dare hope that it might be something good; not a lot that could be called good had happened since Jack had been snatched from me.
I carefully examined this man that Jack had so clearly admired and respected. Apart from the fact that he was really very clever indeed, I hadn’t seen anything that made me want to even try and like him. He was cold and distant, and fast losing the small amount of interest he’d had in me as well. He couldn’t understand why Jack would choose me over an illustrious career and it was also becoming clear that given his own way, he wouldn’t even let him have the option. I was also sure that if he could, he would prevent him from ever returning to me, but at that moment, my mind was a bit on the blank side about what I might be able to do to stop him.
As I watched him, he seemed to come to another decision. “Shall we walk, or would you prefer to be inside? We do of course, have more to discuss, but it matters not to me where we conclude our time together. We can even stay here if that is what you wish, but you look uncomfortable and there really is no need for that.”
His eyes looked sort of dead as he spoke and I didn’t like their flatness at all, not one little bit; I’d seen for myself how brightly they could burn. This change clearly reflected his wish to hide his thoughts, which was not a good sign. And because I’m no mind reader, it made me feel even more vulnerable.
The rain started to come down harder. I knew that anyone who was awake by now would stay inside until the storm was over and walking through empty streets would give me no protection at all. If Jack was going to make an appearance anytime soon he would find the storm in progress. But where would he look for me? That was the single question on my mind. I knew there was really only one other place I could take my judge and jury to. It was also the only other place that Jack would hope to find me.
It had to be the hotel. Not to our room of course, but there was a lounge downstairs and I felt sure it would be both public and private enough to suit both of us. There was a problem though. If I took Javier there, he would know about it and he would remember it. So if we were to repeat today in any way, I would have lost my one hiding place that only Jack knew about. I was dithering and getting soaked in the process. Silk clings to your skin in a horribly cold way when it’s wet.
I had no other options. “There is a hotel near here,” I said slowly. “It is quite comfortable and they have a large, reasonably quiet lounge. We could go there.”
“Lead the way.” he said, signalling for the waiter.
As we left he held his arm out for me, as was customary for the time, but I ignored it. He couldn’t shimmer me anywhere if we weren’t touching and although I could outrun him, he looked a lot stronger than me. I kept my distance and my eye on him as we walked. It just made him chuckle, which I scowled at.
Once we were at the hotel, I really was soaked to the skin, as was he, but I didn’t much care about him. In the lobby, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and saw that my hat was ruined and that I looked awful. I didn’
t really mind about that but it gave me a reason to ask to be allowed a few moments to change. He couldn’t really refuse me; for the period it would have been ungentlemanly and would therefore have stood out and I was sure that he wouldn’t want to attract attention or be remembered if he could avoid it. I was right; as some staff appeared with towels for him, he nodded and headed off to the lounge, while I escaped upstairs.
He clearly knew that I wasn’t going to run away, not just yet anyway; he still had information that I needed. I’d heard nothing about what had happened to Jack and I couldn’t make any decisions about my future until I knew what was in his. Javier was gambling correctly. Another point to him, I acknowledged crossly.
I opened the heavy wardrobe door and took out the first thing I had ever worn in 1912, the china blue silk dress. As I laid it on the bed, it brought back such happy memories. I peeled off the wet silk and left it in a soggy pile on the floor, then stood shivering for a moment, looking around the room that held so many memories. As far as the hotel staff were concerned, we had taken this room only a day ago, but to me it was almost home. The big bed, the soft curtains, the sound of the rain outside; it was all so comforting and familiar.
It was then that I began to cry. I knew that whatever else the man downstairs had to say to me, or planned to do with or to me, it didn’t include allowing Jack and I to be together. But in that moment of despair, I found that there was something I did know and it was something that I was one hundred per cent certain of.
I knew that Jack would come back to look for me and that he would come to this room to find the same comfort I was finding in it. He would also come today, regardless of how long he had to spend in the future first. That’s what mega brains downstairs had said: today.
Or had he? Part of me was absolutely certain that I knew Jack would return. Perhaps he would be older, but he would come back for me. Except that once I focused on the word ‘today’, I was no longer sure that it had been Javier who had told me this. So if it wasn’t him, who had it been?
For a moment it seemed that I no longer knew what had happened or what was real anymore, but I did know that it was not a good time to start losing my mind.
“Think!” I shouted into the empty room.
What else had he said? I needed to recall the exact words. I stared at my soggy reflection in the mirror of the open wardrobe door, emptying my mind enough for his words to float nicely into the space.
“The Jack that was taken from you yesterday gave up very little information willingly, although when I left him I think he was starting to see the wisdom in my actions. However, the Jack that came to me, the one you don’t know, he gave me everything. In fact he gave me much more than he realised.”
Those were the words, I was certain.
One of those Jacks that he had spoken of didn’t really know me; he couldn’t have spent much time with me at the very least, because he let me die. Mine would have found a way to shield some of his thoughts, I was sure of it. From the way Javier had spoken, I instinctively knew that it was the Jack that achieved so much that fascinated him more. He wasn’t really interested in me after all, so I doubted that he would have spent much time in either of their memories trying to get to know me. It gave me one chance and one chance only.
I leapt off the bed and knelt in front of the wardrobe, then pulled out the bag and plonked it on the floor in front of me. I started rummaging around in it and took out the spare watch that we always kept hidden in the lining. We’d taken it from one of the safe houses minutes before it was consumed by fire, in the hope that it would not be missed. It had never been used and I kissed it, hoping it was still fully functional. We’d taken it to replace the one in my bag, if we ever needed to, because even Jack didn’t know how long that one would carry on working for. Of course he could never take it home to be charged and he had never been away for so long, or used it as much as we had in the years we’d been on the run. I stopped as that one word settled into my mind; ‘years’. I realised that we had built our strange life over not days, not hours or months, but years and the thought gave me some comfort.
I pulled out the large leather folder where I kept all the loose papers. Every time we went back there, I wrote about our travels. He had his implants to record events, but I had to rely on my memory and I worried that it wouldn’t be enough, so I wrote. I’d had to rewrite everything about our life in Napier Street, because we’d been forced to leave everything including my notes behind when we shimmered away from Brighton. I wrote a lot; it helped me believe that my life was real.
I carefully circled certain important words, symbols, letters and numbers on several different sheets and made sure they were put back in almost but not quite the right order. Then I bundled them all back inside the folder, tied the ribbon neatly around it and put it on top of the bag. I left the wardrobe door open and that particular dress on the bed, hoping that what with Jack being a man and all that, he would remember it. I grabbed another one off its hanger and changed quickly, priming the watch as soon as I was ready. It was a mid twentieth century design and I pushed it high up my arm, so he wouldn’t see it. I picked up my handbag, took one last long look around the room and closed the door. Then I took a deep breath and went downstairs.
He was nursing a glass with what looked and smelt like whiskey in it. I sat down as far away from him as possible, refusing his offer of a drink.
“Well Grace, let’s cut to the chase shall we?”
“Suits me,” I replied, trying to sound more cheerful than I felt. I put my hands in my lap to stop me from inadvertently fiddling with the watch. I needed to stay; right up until it was time to go. I just prayed that I’d spot the signal.
“We really do have a problem and I want to be very sure that you understand just how complex it actually is. So if you are sitting comfortably...?”
He paused and looked at me expectantly.
I nodded and took another deep breath.
I was going to have to listen very carefully to what he had to say and at the same time not take my eyes off him. I could not get distracted and leave myself open to anything unexpected. I wanted to be the one to determine when I should leave, not him. Comfortable was not what I wanted to be. Alert, focused and ready to run seemed like a better choice.
He swirled the contents of the glass around for a few moments, probably deciding where the beginning was going to be. Then he sniffed it, clearly savouring it, but he didn’t drink it. He put it down, leaned forward and told me some things. All of which left me scared witless.
“You see Grace, the simple option would be to return you to your own time and let you get on with your life in whichever manner you wish to lead it, but I cannot do that. I cannot take you back to the moments before you embarked on your first time trip, because you are already there, as is Jack. For reasons of my own, I am not prepared to put you in a position where you could inadvertently break the Golden Rule. If I take you back to a time before that, I will change things, which may stop you from leaving 2001 with him, which I am also not prepared to allow.
“So what I am trying to say is this; unless you leave your own time and do all the things you have already done, you will not save the world. I will be murdered and the human race will suffer as a direct result of you not meddling in 1888 and 89. I am not prepared to let that happen for obvious reasons and I find I like the idea of old age. I know I can accomplish much to benefit others in the time that your actions have given me.
“If I return you to the exact moment you left, but without Jack, something will be different as a result. You are no longer twenty-one and what’s more, normally if two people leave a moment in time, those same two people must return to the same moment. Clearly that is impossible...”
He stopped, to make sure I was following him, then after a brief pause he continued. “The same will happen if you die in the accident. If Jack is not there to save you, you in turn cannot save the world. I could prevent Jack from finding you again and
taking you on your journey, but the same will happen, so that’s not an option for me either. Much as I dislike it, you and Jack have to meet, fall in love and run away together. I have already gone to great lengths to ensure that it’s the correct Jack that saves you and to a degree I then had to leave things to follow their natural course; which brings us to the here and now.”
His obvious distaste made me want to punch him, even though I am not a violent person. It was the way he spoke that got to me; he tried to make something wonderful sound sordid and wrong. I really had to stop myself from getting up and walking away.
“Go on...” I said, through gritted teeth.
“I cannot take you to Jack, because his life and his time is in the future. It has not happened for you so you cannot exist in it. Jack cannot return here because it is the past; he cannot live here with knowledge that should not be in the public domain yet. So you see... there is not, nor can there ever be, a happy ever after for the both of you together.”
I looked at him and I knew that he wasn’t lying, but I felt a sharp pain at hearing his words. This was the truth and it wasn’t the first time I’d heard it. Jack had told me almost the same thing long ago. I wiped my eyes and forced myself to swallow. I was not going to cry in front of this man, nor was I going to give up my hopes and dreams just yet.
“Go on,” I demanded, “I know there’s more.”
He nodded and carried on with his list of options. I knew he had already discarded them, but he wanted me to know what they had been and why we couldn’t use them. He owed me that I suppose.
“However, if I leave you here to get by as best as you can, Jack will always be looking for a way to return to you. He will not find a way for many years to come. I will do everything in my power to prevent it, but despite my best efforts he will find a way. During your time apart he will accomplish many things, but he will always be searching for a way to return to you. By the time he finds a way he will be old, but you will not. It will be sometime today I imagine.”
What about us? Page 26