Flash 3
The tank was too low to risk. She’d meant to top it up after leaving that wretched restaurant, but the frantic head-down splash to the car had washed the intention from her mind. She pulled in to a filling station, hauled her bulk once again out of the car – this was no joke! – and inserted the nozzle in the tank, huddling over it like a witch at a cauldron because the roof was too high to shelter her from the slanting rain.
‘You all right, love?’ A man at the sliding window of the shop.
All right? Are you kidding? I’m unattached and world-beatingly pregnant, I’m wet, I’m cold, and I have no idea what sort of life I’ll have from this point on, or if I’m doing the right thing for my child.
‘Fine, thanks.’
She replaced the pump, secured the cap, hurried into the shop. ‘Not much of a night,’ the man said, and she said, ‘No, not much,’ paid, and returned to her vehicle, where she yanked the belt across her inflated stomach and rejoined the motorway.
Gradually, over the next twenty minutes, the rain eased off. She was within ten miles of her destination when two things happened almost simultaneously. The first, by a small margin, was the appearance in her headlights of the first sign for Stone; the second, a sharp kick down below. She placed a hand on her belly: ‘Two possibilities,’ she said to the bump. ‘Either you know you’re going home and are getting excited, or you’re taking it out on me for making you be born there rather than someplace else, which might set your little tootsies on a brighter road.’
She went with the first of these without much difficulty, and suddenly everything was all right. By the time she reached Stone, and saw the sign for Eynesford, she was all warm and fuzzy inside.
Part Three
A POLICY OF INDIFFERENCE
28: 39
She found Kate round by the back porch, chatting with Aldous, and asked her if she was ready. Kate said that she was, but almost squashed Naia’s plan flat by asking Aldous if he would care to join them.
‘Cambridge?’ he said. ‘I’ve never been to Cambridge.’
‘Me neither,’ said Kate, ‘so it’ll be an experience for both of us.’
‘No, not me. I’m all right.’
‘Oh, come on, lad, spread your wings.’
Aldous shook his head – ‘My wings’ll get by unspread’ – and ambled away, kicking leaves.
The walk to the bus stop in Stone market square took about ten minutes. Knowing that buses to Cambridge were fairly frequent, they hadn’t bothered to look up the times, but ran like mad things when they saw one about to pull away. Puffed, they climbed the stairs to the top deck, where Kate cried: ‘Front seat’s empty!’ They flew to the front, jostled for hip space, then leant forward to gaze at the world beyond the wide smeared window above the driver’s cab like a pair of excited seven-year-olds to whom even the high street seemed interesting from such a vantage point. Once on the Cambridge road, the town behind them, they settled back, and communication dwindled to sporadic bursts of chatter and occasional giggles over nothing much, but as the journey progressed, Naia’s thoughts turned to her ambition to take Kate into her confidence. Where could she start? She’d acquired her knowledge of other realities bit by bit, and even now, living in one herself, was struggling with the latest information; but Kate, unaware of any of it, would have to gulp the whole lot in one hard-to-swallow lump. How would she take the news that she had a duplicate a mere step away? That her life, her history, her every thought perhaps, was replicated elsewhere?
As it was Kate’s first visit to Cambridge, she wanted to see all the highlights without having much idea what most of them were, and insisted on seeing as many as possible. Thus, everything was sought and observed in a hurry rather than at the sedate pace Naia had envisaged: the reaching turrets and spires; the teetering clock towers; the archways, quadrangles and landscaped gardens; the warm red brick of some buildings, the cool medieval stone of others; the leaning Tudor houses casting shadows over tributaries; the tiny courtyards defended by hydrangeas; the little pastry shops and delicatessens; the bikes chained to railings – and all of it, the whole city, canopied by a beefy blue sky spattered with timid splurges of white. Kate was very taken with the rows of varnished punts on the quay opposite Magdalene College – ‘Waiting for punters?’ she said shamelessly – and two other punts, occupied this time, propelled by standing young men with the arms of sweaters around their necks, passing beneath the gray weather-beaten timbers of the Mathematical Bridge at Queens’.
‘It’s just too picture-postcard for words,’ Kate said of this last.
‘They work at it,’ Naia said.
Kate arched an eyebrow. ‘When did you get so cynical?’
‘It’s a teenage-angst thing.’
With all this rushing from site to sight there was no time for chat about anything of substance beyond the place, the experience, the day. Lunch – warm baguettes bulging with chicken and salad – was bought at Peppercorns in Rose Crescent and devoured on a bench in Petty Cury, where a handsome young violinist in torn jeans made Naia blush as he serenaded them with Vivaldi. All morning, and through lunch, Naia hoped they’d be able to find some quiet place and an hour to themselves for what she wanted to say, but the odds in favor of this did not improve until Kate spotted a noticeboard propped up against the petite Knights Templar church at the junction of Reinald Street and Confraternity Walk, opposite Charleston College: an invitation to step inside and, for a small fee, make a brass rubbing.
‘Can we?’
‘Why not?’
There were over a hundred brasses to choose from. Varying in size from as small as a table-mat to around two yards in height or length, they were facsimiles taken, for the most part, from the tombs of Tudor dignitaries, medieval knights and ladies, and colorful, if less noble, characters of note or interest. Kate chose a medium-sized John of Gaunt, Naia a plump friar with a lascivious grin. Apart from the two elderly ladies who had issued them with the requisite materials, they were alone within those gray stone arches and high stained-glass windows. Perching themselves on wooden stools across from one another at a baize-covered table, they bent over their work, and silence descended at last. In a minute or two, Naia broached, quietly, nervously, the subject of the day. The year.
‘Kate…’
‘Ye-es?’
‘Ever think about reality?’
‘Reality?’
‘The world we know. Live in.’
‘Oh, this is going to be rubbish. Why did I choose a man? They’re always difficult.’
‘I mean do you ever wonder if there’s anything more than what we see about us?’
‘About us?’
‘Or beyond us.’
‘If you mean as in heaven, this is just the place to muse on it.’
‘Not heaven. Just, you know, if there are other versions of things. This building. The world. People.’
‘Mm.’
‘Mm what?’
‘Do you think I should have done this in gold rather than silver?’
‘The silver’s fine. I mean, do you wonder sometimes what reality is?’
‘Is it all a dream, you mean?’ Kate said, without looking up.
‘No. I mean if our reality’s the only one.’
‘Oh, now he’s got a broken nose!’
Naia tried again.
‘What would you say if I told you I’m not from this reality?’
‘Umm…?’
‘If I said I didn’t belong here.’
‘I’d probably say… oh, that’s better… I’d probably say what are you doing here making brass-rubbings with me then?’
‘I’m serious,’ Naia said.
Kate glanced at her. ‘Is this a philosophical discussion?’
‘Sort of. For now.’
‘Good. Had me worried there for a sec.’ She went back to her work.
Naia waited. Nothing else came. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me to explain?’
‘Explain?’
‘About me not belonging to this reality.’
‘Yeah, course, explain away.’
Naia set aside her stick of copper-colored wax. There was only one way. Rush at it, as they’d been rushing all day. Deal with the astonishment and questions when it was all out.
‘I was born in a reality just like this,’ she began. ‘Except there I didn’t have an Aunt Liney and Mum’s still alive and you’re still in Newcastle, with a boyfriend, and – ’
Kate looked up. ‘Boyfriend?’
‘ – and that’s where I should be right now. Not Newcastle, at that other Withern Rise with Mum and Dad.’
‘Boyfriend?’
She forced herself to slow down. ‘In this reality,’ she said, more evenly, ‘there was no Naia until February. Alex and Ivan had a son, not a daughter. The son was called Alaric. But something happened the day you came to live at Withern. Just before you arrived. We switched realities, Alaric and me, and I’ve been here ever since. I’m stuck here and he’s stuck in mine, with my mum, and…’ She sighed. ‘God, I miss her.’
Kate continued with her work, more slowly than before, more thoughtfully.
‘That’s nothing against you,’ Naia went on. ‘In an ideal world I’d have you too, but… well, I feel cheated. My mum and dad don’t remember me, any more than this reality’s Ivan remembers having a son. And now there’s another Alaric. His reality’s just like this. There’s even another you there.’
Again Kate glanced at her. ‘Another me?’
‘Living with that reality’s Ivan,’ Naia said, ‘as you’re living with this one’s. Sounds mad, I know, but that’s the way it is, in a nutshell.’ She beamed. It was out at last. Shared. ‘I’ve told you. Whew! What a relief.’
Kate dropped her stick of wax and reached across the table; touched the back of Naia’s hand. Her eyes were moist.
‘Oh, my darling. It must be so hard for you.’
‘Well, yes…’ she admitted, mildly puzzled.
‘I wish there was something I could do.’
‘Yeah, but that’s it,’ Naia said. ‘That’s the trouble. There’s nothing anyone can do. I just needed to talk about it. It gets pretty lonely, keeping it all in.’
‘It will get better,’ Kate assured her. ‘I promise it will, in time. The loss might never quite go away, but you must try to move on. Oh, that’s so trite. Forgive me. I’m hopeless. I don’t know what else to say.’
Her chair scraped noisily on the stone floor as she stood up, near to tears that she needed to stem in private. She almost scampered to the old oak door. As it groaned to behind her, the women at the desk looked at Naia. She avoided their eyes. Stared at the two unfinished brass rubbings, then at the hand Kate had touched. The smudge of silver on the back of it.
29: 47
Alaric’s day was very different to Naia’s. About half-way through the morning he saw, through the kitchen window, Lenny Paine and Paul Kearley ambling along the path from the side gate. He went to the front door, but on opening it saw not one view of the garden but many, one upon the other, appearing and supplanted as briskly as dealt playing-cards. In some views strangers chatted or worked; in one he saw a greenhouse; in another a pagoda; in a third a small blue tent under the Family Tree. One garden boasted a paved concourse with a swimming pool in which children and a dog swam.
‘What’s with you?’ Len said as he and Paul approached.
‘Dazzled,’ Alaric managed as the many views shivered back to one. ‘By the company,’ he added when Paul glanced at the sky.
It being the autumn break from school, they were under no obligation to use their time well, so they headed for the open spaces of Withy Meadows to pass some of it in aimless pursuits. Even before they reached the long bridge Len and Paul were saying how bored they were, with life, being under their parents’ thumbs, living in a place where nothing happened. Pretending equal disenchantment, Alaric, mooching silently for the most part, was free to wonder what the glimpses from the doorstep might signify, and returned time and again to a worry born of information that Aldous U had imparted in his home in the malodorous forest.
When they reached the Climbing Wall in the south-west quadrant of the Meadows, they clambered up, around and over it, but Alaric, still distracted, missed his footing too often for the others to ignore – until one jibe too many sent him scrambling after them threatening violence. He stayed with Len and Paul for most of the day, jumping on and off benches, lobbing stones and cans, being loud and coarse, eyeing up girls he didn’t fancy, all of which served the useful purpose of suppressing the fears that would return when he was alone again, and keep him awake half the long night.
30: 39
Within moments of waking to the leisurely beat of powerful wings, Naia was at her window watching a pair of swans career along the river, just above the surface. She remained there for some time after they had resumed a more stately course, on the water, her view embellished by the glint of a spider’s threads at the top left corner of the frame. No sun yet this side of the house, but a creamy haze over all, and such a tender stillness now the swans were quiet, until a mallard burst from a clump of reeds and skidded half the water’s breadth. She glanced back at her bed, tempted, then again out of the window, and decided that she could sleep any time, that days like this were precious, in any reality.
As she stepped into her pants, she noticed in the vertical wall mirror the red strikes of fingernails still visible on her stomach. Shuddering at the thought of what nearly happened that day, she jumped into the rest of her clothes, tugged a brush through her hair, and crept downstairs. In the kitchen she took a gulp of orange juice from the fridge and, at the front door, slipped into a warm coat and her everyday shoes. Beside her shoes were two pairs of Ivan’s and the scuffed brogues Kate had worn to Cambridge. The sight of Kate’s shoes returned her to the misunderstanding at the brass rubbing center. During the journey home she had assured Kate that she hadn’t been referring to Alex and wasn’t still in mourning; Kate had accepted this, or pretended to, while neglecting to ask what she had meant. Without such an invitation Naia knew that she must continue to keep everything to herself.
She unbolted the door as quietly as she could, wincing at the rasp of metal withdrawing from metal, and on the step pulled the door closed with care, failing to anticipate the thud it always made at the last, whatever you did. But then she was out, tasting the white mist that rolled across the lawns, obscured the greater boundaries, veiled the cemetery wall. She loved the benevolent claustrophobia of these gardens in autumn. With no idea what to do now that she was outside, she decided on a general tour, starting at the south garden. Ideally such a circuit would begin at the landing stage, but that would take her near Aldous’s willow, and he might hear her and call out. She didn’t want company just now, even his.
But Aldous remained in her mind as she set off across the lawn. If ever anyone had been dealt a poor hand it was him, whisked from childhood in the middle of one century to old age in the early years of another. The boy inside, who’d so recently shinned up trees here, run and jumped and yelled, sung at the top of his voice, had no place in the body of a seventy-one-year-old. He saw the world through the eyes of a child – he must do – though he went out of his way not to let it show that he was so much younger than he looked. He’d developed an excellent line in sage nodding, and platitudes that must have sprung from the lips of his parents or grandparents, and when he thought himself observed he slowed as he walked, stooping a little. It was admirable in a way, but very sad.
Of the things he did to pass the time, Aldous most enjoyed jigsaws, fishing and reading. The jigsaws were mainly relics of previous generations (often with a piece or two missing, like the generations themselves) brought to him from the attic or the box room. Sometimes, at weekends or on fine evenings during the summer, Naia had worked on these with him, at a table on the lawn. He usually fished in solitude, however, from the landing stage. He’d caught a number of fish, which Kate had prepar
ed and cooked for him – for all of them when the catch was big enough. A month ago, he hooked a large tench, and was proud of himself because it had put up such a fight. It was on the barbecue three hours after he delivered it, when even Ivan, who generally avoided the lodger in the garden, toasted his efforts.
In spite of his love of stories, Aldous refused to join the library or cross the threshold of Stone’s only bookshop, a small well-stocked independent, so his reading matter, like the jigsaws, was brought to him. With an eye more on his pleasure than his education, Naia sought out books of a kind a boy of the nineteen-forties might have enjoyed. Kate helped in this, with rather more knowledge than she, though she herself was a child of the sixties and seventies. Many of the books they brought home were not to his taste, but others thrilled him. In particular he relished The Arthur Rackham Fairy Book (especially the gorier drawings from Jack the Giant-Killer), The Arabian Nights (though he described the 1990s retelling as ‘soft’), and Swallows and Amazons, recalled all too well because his mother had been reading it to him and Mimi just before the flood in which his childhood ended. Picking up the narrative of the Ransome six decades on, he heard his mother’s voice; read the characters’ names with her accent. He also enjoyed Perrault’s Tales of Mother Goose, which Maman had read in French to him and Ursula when he was nine and Ursula eight. Mimi and Ray had been considered too young for some of those. There’d been no pictures in Marie’s volume, a favorite from her own childhood in Limoges, and Aldous was so taken with the luminous Dulac illustrations in the library edition that Kate and Naia bought him a copy to keep.
Something that pleased Naia as much as anything about Aldous’s return after such an absence was that her cat took to him straight away and was often seen accompanying him round the garden. Once, she’d come upon Aldous lying on his front on the lawn reading aloud from one of his story books – to the cat, who sat at his elbow, listening intently. She was fondly recalling this scene when she paused at the Family Tree to dip a hand in the message hole. Not really expecting to find anything there this early in the day she was surprised to come up with an envelope – an ordinary brown envelope this time – with a scrap of paper inside, printed on which, in pen:
The Realities of Aldous U Page 39