by Amanda James
‘I’ll take it!’ she squealed, jumping up and down, her heart full of excitement. ‘My God, I never thought I’d set eyes on the old trout ever again, and now I’ll see her tomorrow. It’s like a bloody miracle!’
‘It’ll be a bloody miracle if we get there and back without any problems,’ John grouched. ‘But it is pretty marvellous, I have to admit.’
‘Oh, John, did I ever tell you that you are the—’
‘Bestest husband in the whole wide world? Yes, yes you did.’ He grinned and kissed her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It wouldn’t hurt to check the oil again. Just like the tyres, the water and the lights, the oil was about to get the once over … for the third time. Some might call him anal. He would call himself sensible. Better safe than sorry on long journeys, especially at this time of year. Holding the dipstick up to the light, John was satisfied that everything was as it should be. He still didn’t like the idea of haring off to Southampton, but Sarah’s mind was made and there was no point trying to talk her round.
The bonnet slammed down for the last time and he walked out of the garage before he could open it again to do more checks. Now that really would be anal. Hugging himself against the cold he looked out over the landscape. Just past eight in the morning the hills and vales were just revealing their curves to him like some timid lover on a hot date. The moon was still up and the cobalt sky seemed reluctant to shuffle off to Bedfordshire, even though it was being valiantly shoved over by the silver-grey of a winter dawn.
Tipping back his head he looked up at the scatter of fading stars and sniffed the air. Though John said so himself, he was a genius at assessing the weather … nope. He sniffed again, his built in snow detector was showing negative. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t snow today, just not in the next few hours. A memory crept over the dry stone wall and took him unawares – his mum shoving him out the door one summer morning with an umbrella in one hand and a bathing costume in the other. ‘Right, which one do I take on holiday, my little weather man?’ she’d asked, then laughed as he held up the brolly. ‘Typical!’
Christmas, summer holidays, weddings, all had a Mum shaped hole in them. John missed her all year round, but at special times, family times, memories of her weighed bittersweet in his heart. When Harry had announced that Gwen had accepted his hand the other night, he of course was happy for him, but just like Sarah, he wished it could have been different. He hadn’t let on to her how much it had hurt because he wanted her to be happy, but it had and it did. Gwen was a fine woman, none finer, but she wasn’t Mum and never would be. One day he was sure it would become easier, but today, as his mum stood laughing at him holding that brolly out on the lawn in that long ago summer, her head of auburn curls tipped back, her freckled face turned up to the sun, the pain was as real and as raw as the day she’d died.
The smell of toast replaced the pungent winter crispness in his nostrils and he blew a kiss to the heavens, shook off the past and went into the cottage. Inside, Sarah still in her dressing gown was running around the kitchen like an insect with a colourful behind, buttering toast, pouring tea, fishing out boiled eggs from the pan and generally flapping in the usual Sarah kind of way.
‘Car’s ready, no more than twenty minutes and we must get off.’ John calculated that his brisk manner would send her into more of a flap, and he needed a chuckle.
‘Twenty minutes?’ Sarah spun round and glared at him. ‘We haven’t had breakfast yet and I’m running late having not slept a wink all night wondering what Veronica might say at us just turning up unannounced. It might be too much for her.’ Sarah licked butter from her fingers. ‘I mean she is one hundred and thirteen years old.’
‘Calm down, woman, we don’t want the twins born just yet … and I could stretch the time of departure to half an hour.’ John laughed and tucked into his egg.
‘So, do you think it might be too much for her?’ Sarah sat opposite and took a bite of toast.
‘You kidding? Old Ratchet sounds brighter than a brass button if that quote in the paper is anything to go by. She’ll be over the moon to see us … well, you.’
Sarah had said last night that it might be a good idea if John was just to pop his head round to pay his respects but then leave Sarah and Veronica alone.
‘Are you all right about not staying, love?’ Sarah said, putting her hand on his. ‘It’s just that she was always a bit scared of you, I think. You know you were the one in touch with the scary powers and in charge of sending her back to a war zone.’
He was totally fine about it, but for some reason he was in a very devilish mood today. ‘To tell you the truth, hon, I do feel a bit left out of it all. I mean there I’ll be stuck in a dingy cafe or something after driving all that way and there you’ll be having a whale of a time reminiscing about the exciting adventures of 1979 and 1941.’ He pouted and knitted his eyebrows together. His face refused to stay in that position however as she looked at him aghast.
‘Bloody hell, John, I thought you were serious for the moment,’ Sarah growled and threw a crust at him. This turned his smirk into a burst of laughter.
‘Yes, I gathered that when your face looked as if somebody had stuck something up your ar—’
‘Okay, enough of your tomfoolery, we have to be off. Don’t you think you need to check the oil again while I’m getting dressed? You can’t be too careful, you know.’ Sarah licked her finger, drew it down the air and flounced off.
Thirty miles to go. John looked at the clock on the dashboard. 12:40, not bad going if he did say so himself. He glanced at Sarah dozing next to him and felt a sudden rush of panic. Whenever they had been in contact with old Ratchet, things had gone wrong. What if something awful happened today? What if Ratchet was about to croak and grabbed Sarah’s arm as she did so? That would be one trip that he wouldn’t be able to rescue his wife from. A shiver ran down his back. There was no way Sarah was holding the old bat’s hand today and he’d make sure she promised him.
Then he sighed and told himself not to be so daft. It was just his protective side coming out, it was normal to feel like that about Sarah; particularly now she was having their babies. She’d be fine. The Spindly Ones had okayed the meeting last night, apparently they weren’t worried that Veronica would alarm anyone if she let slip that she’d been visited by a time-traveller, because who would believe the ramblings of someone of her age anyway?
And they surely wouldn’t let anything untoward happen to Sarah, not now, not after everything else.
Sarah opened her eyes and gave him a little smile. Yep. They were going to have a brilliant Christmas. He had a great present for her. Lucy had helped him book a pampering spa weekend for them both in the New Year – just the thing for pregnant women and their partners apparently. They had all their family around them, the twins would be here in a few months or so, and Sarah had hung up her stitching shoes. At first he had been a little sad when she’d told him of that decision, but he totally understood why. And now he was pleased that she had. They would feel more like a normal family – well, normalish, as he would still be needling – and they would all live happily ever after with roses around the door and so forth as his dad would say.
‘Nearly there?’ Sarah yawned and stretched her arms above her head.
‘GPS says half an hour, and I agree.’
‘Thanks for doing this, John.’ She ran her fingers over the dark hairs on his forearm. ‘I know you didn’t want to.’
‘Nope, but I guess it will be okay. But you must promise it will be two hours, tops, and then we must get back. My nose tells me we will have snow before the night is out.’
‘Yes, sir, Cap’n. We can’t afford to ignore a snout with such clout.’ Sarah giggled.
‘You saying I have a big nose?’
‘Nope, just a sensitive one … like its owner.’
‘Hmm. And, Sarah.’ He swallowed. He wasn’t going to say anything but he couldn’t help it. ‘You won’t hold on to her hand or
hug her for long, will you? Because last time—’
‘Oh, please. I hardly think she’ll be taken on a mission at her age, John.’ Sarah rolled her eyes.
‘Neither do I, but just be careful, eh?’ John just received a withering look in response. But he couldn’t shake the sense of foreboding he had about the meeting.
In the end John decided he’d stay in the car outside the imposing red brick Victorian building, once a merchant’s house, now The Harbour View Residential Home. He couldn’t see the point in going in really and both of them popping up out of the blue might just confuse Veronica. It would also lengthen their stay and that was not a good idea.
As Sarah walked towards the reception she guessed that the truth was he just didn’t want to see Veronica as she had been part of all the ‘Cross Stitch malarkey’ that had caused so much trouble for them. But Sarah had seen another side to her, grew to like her and in the end Veronica had been caught up in the whole thing just as much as she herself. The powers were to blame, nobody else.
‘I’m here to see Mrs Veronica Thomas,’ Sarah told the receptionist, putting on her most dazzling smile reserved for such occasions. She expected that there might be a problem getting in to see Veronica, waltzing in just like that, but they hadn’t phoned to make an appointment yesterday as that might well have set the cat amongst the pigeons. Veronica could have been thrown into shock and told the staff that Sarah was a Stitch and all about her, and then they would have thought she had been tipped over the edge by a visit and consequently decide that it might be for the best not to let Sarah come.
The receptionist smiled back. ‘Are you a relative? We don’t have a record of anyone coming today.’
‘Not really. But I am her oldest friend’s great-granddaughter. Her dying wish was that I visit Veronica every Christmas until she herself … you know.’ Sarah pointed to the ceiling and sighed.
‘Ah, right, okay. I’ll just pop along and ask if she’ll see you. She has been feeling a bit tired lately, not surprising at her age. Who shall I say is calling?’
Sarah watched the receptionist bustle down the corridor and open a door. A few seconds later a shriek accompanied the woman’s hurried exit and she beckoned Sarah forward. ‘I’ve never seen her so excited! She can’t wait to see you,’ she said as Sarah dashed over.
Once inside the receptionist closed the door behind her and Sarah looked over to the bed in the middle of the bright and airy room. Veronica, dressed in a yellow flannelette nightdress scattered with blue butterflies, held her trembling hand out to Sarah, a huge smile banishing the weight of ages from her face. Sarah stepped forward and took her hand which felt paper dry and as light as down. Then she sat on the bed and hugged her gently, feeling Veronica’s frail form shaking with excitement. If John could see her he’d have a coronary.
‘Well, if it isn’t Sarah Needler. You took your time, madam.’ Veronica grinned holding Sarah at arm’s length. ‘I expected you last week for my birthday!’ Her voice was more or less the same, but quavery and it had lost the imperious tone.
Sarah shook her head. ‘You haven’t changed much, still demanding, eh? And I wouldn’t have been here at all if I hadn’t managed to see an article about you in the paper.’
‘I know. I’m a bit cross with my grandson for not just telling you outright, but he thought you might just be too freaked out by it all – you being in the family way. So he left it to chance.’
Perhaps she had become confused after all, Sarah decided. She wasn’t making much sense, but then what did she expect? At least she seemed to recognise her. ‘You have a grandson? That’s nice.’ Sarah hoped she didn’t sound too patronising.
‘Yes, and he’s lovely, don’t you agree? All the staff here were practically falling over themselves when he came for my birthday – just indecent.’
‘I’m sure he must be lovely, has to be with a gran like you, eh?’
‘What do you mean, “must be”?’ Veronica’s sharp dark eyes twinkled mischievously. ‘You met him the other day. Lucy’s a perfect match for him, don’t you think? She came with him for my birthday.’
Everything Veronica said suddenly made sense. But that was crazy, surely. ‘Corbin, Corbin is your—’
‘At last you get it!’ Veronica laughed. ‘He is indeed my grandson. He’s the age that a great-grandson would be for those folk who have babies at a more orthodox age, but I started a bit late. Edward and I had our first child, Malcolm, when I was forty-four and a daughter, Evelyn, when I was almost forty-six! We took a while, but we did it! Thanks to your little pep talk, I soon got over my worries about sex and so trying was such fun!’
‘My goodness, that’s fantastic!’ Sarah said, hardly able to get her head around the whole thing.
‘It was. We had been trying for ages and at one point thought it would never happen, but great things come to those who wait. Evelyn married a French man and moved to Calais. Of course her dad and I were sad to see her go, but she was so happy and we saw her quite often. And you’ll never guess what?’ Veronica leaned forward and fixed her eyes on Sarah’s. ‘The guy she married, Corbin’s dad, was called Marcel Aiguille … Aigulle is French for needle.’
The hairs on Sarah’s forearms prickled and her heart thumped up the scale. Surely Veronica wasn’t saying … that was impossible … wasn’t it? Veronica watched the penny hesitantly drop in Sarah’s brain. ‘You mean …?’
‘Yes, Marcel was a Needler, and Corbin took after his dad! He has been doing it for about twelve years, since he was eighteen. Very good he is too. Lucy’s in the dark about it. The powers told Corbin early on in their relationship about her mum, dad and brother, plus the fact that she wanted nothing to do with stitching and all. So he decided not to tell her. She was always saying to him that she wanted a down to earth man and so on.’
Sarah was listening to Veronica’s words but they weren’t sinking in, just lining up along the quicksand that had become logical reason in her consciousness.
‘But in the end, surrounded by so many bloomin’ time folk, I think she might find out and come round to the idea after all.’ Veronica cocked her head to one side. ‘Shame you’ve packed it up, my dear.’
A few words sank beneath the surface, and then a few more. ‘So that’s what Corbin is up to when he goes missing,’ Sarah said breathlessly.
‘Yes. The reason they missed your wedding was because Corbin went back to the time of the Russian Revolution to rescue a Stitch and got stuck with the mad monk Rasputin! He put some kind of mesmerising spell on him and he couldn’t function as a Needle. Luckily the spell wore off and he was back the day after. A right pickle and no mistake.’
‘But … but it seems too fantastic to believe. Another Needle in the family and he’s your grandson …’ Sarah’s words ran out and she began to feel quite faint.
‘You okay, Sarah?’
Sarah grasped the edge of the quilt and shook her head, no.
‘Here, sniff these.’ Veronica thrust a small round brown bottle at her face.
Sarah was aware of a peppery coal-tarey smell almost singeing her nasal hairs, and a moment later she was back to normal. ‘Bloody hell, Veronica. What the hell was that?’
‘No finer thing than Smelling Salts to clear the senses. Here, do you want them? I have lots more that I once whipped from an apothecary in the 1850s. Don’t make stuff like that any more.’
Sarah held up her hand. ‘Er, no thanks, they are probably lethal and unsafe for public consumption … especially pregnant public.’ She gave Veronica a withering look.
‘You always did fuss too much.’ Veronica chuckled and gave Sarah a warm smile. ‘It is so great to see you after all this time, my dear.’
Sarah smiled back. ‘You, too. And I mean if that were not enough, you go and spring the Corbin thing. It just seems too much of a coincidence, doesn’t it? Lucy, daughter and sister of a Needle and a Mum who was a Stitch, marrying a Needle who just happens to be your grandson? Do you think the Spindly Ones had a hand in
it … and if they did, why?’
‘I wondered that. But in the end I have to say I really don’t know. Stranger things have happened in life, as we both know with our mad existences. And might I say I thought you were brilliant in 1955.’ Veronica’s eyes were full of respect. ‘But you could say that there is no such thing as coincidence … that “reality is an elaborate fabric of interlinking and overlapping experiences, the pattern of which we can only glimpse in small sections”.’
‘Blimey, Veronica, did you make that up?’
‘No, my favourite author, Dean Koontz, did. He wrote to me a few times, you know.’
Sarah’s mind boggled further and then an idea hit her like a lightning bolt. ‘So apart from saving little Barbara when I came to help you find Edward in 1941, it wasn’t a personal favour after all, was it? If I hadn’t helped you get him out of that house with the gas leak, that would have been the end. So if you hadn’t married him, you wouldn’t have had Evelyn and she wouldn’t have married a Needle and wouldn’t have had Corbin. Therefore loads of lives wouldn’t have been saved in the future!’
Veronica nodded and smiled. ‘I can only imagine that’s the top and bottom of it, Sarah. Whatever the truth, I’m glad that our two families are linked. It gives me great comfort to know that you will be part of my grandchild and great-grandchildren’s lives, even if I can’t be.’
Sarah decided she was glad about that too, but one or two trillion questions buzzed round her head like wasps at a picnic. ‘How come you know so much about my life – the 1955 trip, the wedding and all?’
‘Well, the latter is down to Corbin. He has visited me a few times and until recently, before I started feeling my age, I used to go over to stay with my daughter. Corbin and I email lots too.’
‘You know how to email, at a hundred and thirteen?’ Sarah blurted. Her own mother had taken ages to get the hang of it.