“Anna,” he said, jumping straight onto the bed next to me. “Shit has gotten real back in Sydney.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, worried, abandoning my food.
He stood up and went to double check that the door was securely shut. He raised his eyes. “You don’t even realise the shit you left behind at the university. You and the great professor.”
“He’s not a professor,” I interrupted. “He’s a senior lecturer. Anyway, of course I don’t know! I’ve been stuck in this hospital. I didn’t exactly mean to...” I lowered my voice “...travel through time, did I?”
“Yeah, well, welcome to the club.”
“How come it didn’t affect you this time?” I whispered to him as he came back to sit beside me on the bed.
He shrugged, his long black locks bouncing on his shoulders. “Maybe I’m immune to it now? It’s like the chicken pox. You survive travelling through time once, you aren’t affected the next time the plague comes around.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Maybe,” I said, not very convinced. “And why was I so sick? After all, I only travelled through time three months. Surely the atmosphere can’t have changed that dramatically in such a small amount of time. After all, you weren’t even this ill, and you’ve travelled FORTY years through time.”
“Forty years and three months.”
I nodded. “Robert?” I asked quietly.
“Yeah?”
“What happened to my father?” I looked carefully out the window. “I mean, is he just going to show up here and try to kill me.”
Robert shook his head. “He’s gone, Anna…”
I sat up straighter. “What do you mean, gone?”
“We went back to try and look for him. But his home was empty. We think he left-“
“To go where?”
“To go when?” Robert said. “He could be anywhere.”
“Ah, this is a disaster,” I said, resting my head back against the pillow. “Anyway, how do you know about what’s been happening back in Sydney?”
“Dr Grumpy’s been filling me in.”
“Oh that’s just great!” I said, my voice rising again. “He abandons me here in Newcastle — on my death bed! — But he’s great friends with you now apparently.”
“I don’t think he ‘abandoned’ you,” Robert began. He sighed. “He did make me promise to stay here, after all. He had to go back to the city to try to sort out the mess both of you are in.”
“What mess?”
His eyes widened. “Well, you’ve been missing for three months...”
“What date is it, exactly?” I said, panicking.
“October 22, I think.” Rob looked around the room. “Is there a newspaper around here? That’s usually how time travellers find out what the date is, you know, in the movies...”
I groaned. “It’s the last week of semester.”
“Is it?”
I nodded, dropping my hands in my head. “Oh my God Robert, we’ve missed the entire semester...” I couldn’t even comprehend the impact this would have on our positions at the university, or on our careers.
I swallowed and dared to ask the next question. “Where do people think we’ve been all this time?”
Robert bit his lip and seemed to be composing his words carefully before he spoke them. “They think you and Martin ran off together...”
My hands flew up to cover my face, in horror.
“The story is that you and he were carrying on an illicit affair for years, and Connie Hung discovered it and flipped out. So the two of you decided to say ‘screw the university’ before you just took off together.”
I was so mortified I felt as though I could have died right there on the spot. The very thought of the whispers, and the rumours of our peers and colleagues, my God...the way it must have looked. Disappearing at the same time, and then reappearing again, together, three months later. This was beyond a disaster. We would never be able to recover from this. It couldn’t get any worse.
Robert was still staring at me. It seemed like he wanted to say more.
“What?” I asked.
“Ann,” he began. “That was the kind of the good version. There’s another rumour.”
My face contorted in horror. “What is it?”
“Well, the darker version of the story is that the two of you had something to do with Connie’s death.”
Chapter Twenty.
Robert and I were on the train back to Sydney, following my joyous one week spell at Newcastle hospital where I had discovered that I had travelled three months into the future and my entire life was now destroyed.
I stared out the window, watching the scenery fly past. “When you think about it,” I started, after a long period of silence. “We kind of did have something to do with her death.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t kill her!”
I sighed. “Didn’t we?” I lay my head back against the head rest, my head bumping as we rambled along the bumpy tracks. “We may as well have.” Then I added something, correcting myself. “Or should I say, I might as well have. I was the one that told her all of that freaking information about Martin. He warned me not to.”
“He got you into this mess in the first place,” Robert reminded me. He was fidgeting with the loose fabric of the seat opposite. I supposed he was getting antsy for a cigarette, if I had to guess.
I glanced across at him. “And would you really rather Martin hadn’t gotten me involved?” I asked. “If you’d been stuck with just him that day you arrived, you would never have made it out of that hospital be alive.”
“I’ve been thinking about that.” Robert gazed out of the window as the coastal scenery flashed by. “Maybe they wouldn’t have even tried to kill us that day, if we hadn’t been trying to escape.”
“Gee thanks,” I said, arching an eyebrow. “I guess I risked my life for nothing.”
He smiled. “I’m not saying that. You were very brave. But think about back at Newcastle hospital. No one tried to kill you there.”
“But they still had me in that weird creepy dungeon ward,” I replied. “God knows what they were doing to me there. That nurse, Rosie, didn’t even seem to know it existed. But I saw you there, remember, so it was definitely real. Right?”
Robert just nodded and quickly changed the subject. “Where are we going to live when we get to Sydney?”
“Well,” I said, sitting back in my seat again. “Let’s see. Jennifer would have thrown all my stuff out onto the street approximately eleven weeks and five days ago, by this stage. So...a hotel?”
“You can afford that?”
I nodded. “I’ll have my grant money in my account by now. Even though I wouldn’t have earned it, it will be there. Plus, I like staying in hotels.”
“And what about the University?”
“Hmmm, well, I missed an entire semester of class, abandoned my teaching responsibilities, added exactly zero words to my thesis, have been accused of screwing my supervisor, and, hang on, what else...” I paused and pretended to be remembering the last part. “That’s right, accused of murder. So I am guessing I’m not very welcome there.”
“You’re just gonna quit? But your PhD means everything to you…”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not going to quit. But I have to come up with a pretty spectacular plan of action to sort all of that out.”
“It’s pretty hardcore,” Robert agreed. “I don’t know how you are going to manage that.”
I didn’t either. The only thing that was keeping me going, was the knowledge that none of the things I’d been accused of where actually true. Or, even if they seemed to be true, to the outside world that had kept progressing through time at the normal linear pace, they hadn’t been true for me. I would have sooner died than abandoned my academic post for an entire semester! Surely no one who knew me could even believe I would do such a thing.
As for the affair with Martin debacle. Well, I would also never — I blushed even thinking abo
ut it. I would certainly never do that either. It was preposterous. All we had to do was clear things up. After all, that’s what Martin had gone back to Sydney to do, right? If worse came to worse we could simply concoct a whole scenario to explain our three month disappearance: claim we’d been kidnapped or something. Shouldn’t people just be relieved to know we were okay, were still alive?
I sighed, knowing that was an extremely optimistic hope to pin on the teachers and students of the University of Sydney. That was a school that thrived on rumours and the downfall of others. And no other teacher had been as respected as Martin Anderson, and barely any other student admired as much as I had been. People would be revelling in this whole affair. I didn’t even know how I would dare show my face. I would have to work up to it. But that night, Robert and I would find a hotel in the city, and I would begin to deal with the fallout tomorrow.
Chapter Twenty-One.
We checked into the Novotel Hotel in Darling Harbour, simply because I’d always liked the touristy atmosphere of that part of Sydney. It was also kind of flashy and tacky, given its position next to the Casino, and that was what I was in the mood for. I figured that if my life had gone to dust, I may as well revel in it a little bit.
I held my breath for a second as the lady behind the reception desk swiped my credit card, one of the few belongings I still had. But it accepted my funds without issue, meaning that I had received at least one of my grant payments during the time I had been “away”. I should have actually received two by that stage, but I was fairly sure my funding would have been cut off after I had abandoned my PhD to frolic with my illicit lover in an exotic location.
I grinned at Robert. “Looks like we’re staying here for the time being.”
He looked around the reception foyer. “It seems pretty fancy...”
“Yeah, well that’s what I need, after being locked up in various dungeons the past week.”
“Don’t forget travelling through time,” he whispered, grabbing our bags as we headed towards the lift.
“How could I forget?”
***
“Erm, you might not want to switch that on,” Robert warned me as I went to pick up the remote control for the hotel room’s TV. We were in an amazingly spacious double room with a billion dollar view of the harbour beneath us. I could definitely get used to this.
“Why not?”
“Your story has been on the news the past few days.”
I groaned and threw the remote away in frustration. It bounced off the hotel bed and then fell on the floor.
“Maybe it’s all blown over by now,” he added, in an attempt to make me feel better.
I sat down on the bed and folded my arms. “I really don’t see what the big deal is: it’s not like they know the truth. I mean, then I could see it being a big deal. Time travel is a big deal. Affairs and disappearing people happen all the time.”
Robert was unpacking his clothes and hanging them up in the walk-in wardrobe. He was clearly preparing for a lengthy stay at the Novotel, but I wasn’t sure how long my funds were going to hold up. We’d probably be slumming it in a hostel by the end of the week. But I didn’t say anything.
He placed a fur trimmed coat over a hunger and placed it on a rod. “Yeah, think about it though. Would the truth ever — and I mean EVER — get out? Even if you said something no one would believe you. Look at me, for instance. Look at all those cases that Professor Grumpy researched over the years. No one believed their stories. I actually don’t think a time traveller would be a big story at all.”
“Well it would be to me,” I murmured.
“Take it from someone who’s been there, done that,” Rob added. “You’re not exactly going to be able to walk out into the street and make a big happy announcement about it.”
I stood up to look through my clothes, wondering if I had anything decent to wear. I pored through the belongings, looking for an evening dress. I pulled out something that might do the trick, a strappy dress in — what other colour — black, with sequins over the shoulder straps. “Hmmm,” I mused. “Maybe that’s why he sent us through time. So we’d all shut up about it.”
Robert’s face turned dark. “It sure does the trick of shutting a person up...”
I turned to look at him, but he seemed like he was a million miles away. “Oi,” I said, getting his attention. I showed him the dress. “You want to go to the casino?”
***
It appeared that a time traveller was a good luck charm, because we managed to turn fifty bucks into over ten times that amount.
“Jesus christ!” I called out, immediately thinking of Connie as the words came out - I was flooded with guilt, thinking about how she would always tell me off for using the Lord’s name in vain. I pushed the thoughts away. “Five thousand dollars!” I jumped up and down and Robert ran over to hug me and joined in, the two of us jumping up and down on the spot.
“Maybe your luck’s turned around?” Robert suggested as we moved outside so he could take a smoke. It was a lot warmer than it had been three calendar months ago. I was surprised to find that I missed the cold we had left behind.
I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. “I really doubt it. No matter what, tomorrow I have to go and face up to everything that has happened at the university during my mythical ‘three month absence’ remember?”
“Really?” he asked, eyeing me. “Because with this five grand we could just skip the country, and like, buy an island.”
I pulled a face, remembering that someone still had to explain inflation to Rob. Five grand might have paid for an inland in 70s dollars — well, maybe not an island, but it still would have gone further — but in the current climate it really only bought us another fortnight at the Novotel.
“Come on,” he continued. “Okay, maybe not an island, but we could seriously get the hell out of here. Come on Anna, there’s nothing left for you here anyway, is there?”
“It’s tempting, honestly.” I thought about it. It would actually be a massive relief to just move away from this whole fiasco. But then, what about the last six years of my life? Could I really just chuck all of that hard work away? “But, no matter what happens I have to try to sort this mess out.” I shook my head and looked up at the stars. “I’ve worked so hard towards everything...” I trailed off, realising that he probably wouldn’t understand, why I couldn’t just give up now and run away.
Rob looked reluctant, disappointed even, but he agreed. “Alright,” he said. “First thing tomorrow morning, we go over to the university.”
I took a deep breath, and nodded.
Chapter Twenty-Two.
It was a glorious Spring Sydney day, but my mood did not fit the weather.
“Geez, you’re up early,” Robert said, rolling over in his bed on the other side of the room and yawning. It was 7am.
I took a sip of my tea and turned around to face him properly, the sun still beating through the window and straight into my eyes. “I’ve been up for hours. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Man, I slept like a baby.”
“That is because your entire life and career hasn’t been ruined,” I said finishing off my tea and standing up to put the cup in the sink.
“Yeah,” he said, pulling a face. “My life is going along just wonderfully. It’s almost like I haven’t been wrenched out of my home and away from everyone I ever love and deposited into a foreign world, at all.”
“Alright alright,” I said. “I’m sorry. Point taken. I guess I just keep forgetting.” I told myself off for not remembering that I wasn’t the only one going through a time travel ordeal. I scoured the room for my bag, which had fallen down between a lounge chair and the wall. “I really need a phone,” I said. “Living without one is hell.” My iPhone had not been a part of ‘most of my belongings’ that Newcastle hospital had stored for me.
“You get used to it.”
“Right.”
I pulled my black blazer on over my shirt, checking out my
reflection in the mirror. For the first time in recent memory I actually looked half decent. Admittedly I’d had the luxury of the early start so I’d been able to smooth my jet black hair down and manoeuvre it into an almost film-star-esque style. And my make-up was impeccable, for once. I looked myself up and down and nodded. I needed a coat of armour on for the day ahead.
“Come on,” I called out to Rob, who was eyeing him in the distance in the mirror behind me. “We need to get a move on.”
“What, already?” he asked clearly aghast. “It’s 7am! Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Alright alright, give me 15 minutes.” But he lay back down and closed his eyes.
“Robert!”
“Fine,” he said, shoving the covers off himself and stumbling out the side of his luxury king sized bed. “But I don’t know why we need to go this early. There won’t be anyone at the university yet.”
“Exactly,” I told him. “That’s the point.”
“So what?” he asked, grabbing a towel and heading for the bathroom. “You’re just going to hide in the physics building and then jump out and scare people when they arrive, demanding they give you your job back?”
“Something like that,” I said, still smoothing my hair down in the mirror, so that it sat just right. “I haven’t exactly decided yet.”
“Well, you’d better decide, since we’re going to be there in half an hour.”
I sighed. He was right.
We took a taxi straight to the campus. I wasn’t about to waste time mucking around with public transport, and after my casino windfall the previous night I was feeling pretty carefree about money. But I still pulled a face when the total came to $20 for the mere seven minute drive between Darling Harbour and the University of Sydney. I handed over the cash reluctantly and climbed out, inhaling sharply as the University’s main hall loomed over us. How was it possible that I had been away from this place for over three months? It seemed like only last week it had been the beginning of semester. Oh, right, it had been.
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