I’m nodding again.
“James, this must all be a nightmare for you. I can’t imagine what it must be like, losing your memory and having to suddenly come to terms with today’s reality again all at once. You’re a better man than me.”
“I doubt it.” I reply.
David puts his hand to his ear. Someone is obviously talking to him on another channel.
“I’m sorry, I have to go upfront.” He announces. “I’ll have to leave you back here for a while. If you want to get some rest, please feel free to sleep, but keep your seatbelt on. The journey will probably be another eighty minutes. But we’ll get you there before four.”
I smile back, and as Dave disappears up front, I press my face against the window and stare out on the world outside. We’re leaving London now, heading north. Beneath me I can see empty train tracks, empty motorways, empty car parks and shopping malls.
Slowly the whirr of the blades above my head begins to lull me into sleep. My mind fills with thoughts of Sarah. Of my mother. And my children. I begin to dream. However, I find it difficult to tell the difference between my new reality and what I see in my head with my eyes closed.
Both are nightmares, and are equally terrifying.
Chapter Thirteen
Invercharnan
Loch Etive
.
“Where are we?”, I ask Sergeant Porter as I shake myself awake and wipe away the drool that’s dripping from the corner of my mouth.
My forehead hurts, probably down to the unnatural angle at which it’s been pressed against the window for the past few hours.
“Welcome back. You were out for the count, and I didn’t want to wake you.” He laughs, climbing towards me through the space between the front and the middle section of the helicopter. “We should be there in a couple of minutes.”
I look out the window, confused.
“Where’s Edinburgh?” I ask. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Correct. We’re going to land in Loch Etive, north of Glasgow. It’s where the Professor is currently in lock-in. He’s self-isolating.”
“What?” is all I can reply. The man’s speaking a language full of words I don’t completely comprehend.
“Sorry. The Professor tries to keep himself to himself these days. He’s old and at risk, and the country can’t afford to lose someone like him just now.”
“I thought he was on TV recently? The police officers in London were talking about it.”
“That was by video conferencing. He wasn’t really there…”
The Sergeant raises his hand, and indicates to me that he’s listening to the pilot.
“Steady yourself, we’re coming into land. You can see the Professor through that window… he’s outside his cottage waiting for us.”
I follow the Sergeant’s finger and look out through the window on my right. I can’t help but feel excited like a little child. Being in a helicopter is amazing. Being in a helicopter which is purely for my own use is incredible.
From where I’m sitting I can’t see much, so I quickly unbuckle my seat strap, shuffle quickly across the seats and land in one by the window on the other side of the cabin. We’re about two hundred metres up now, the ground rushing towards us.
There’s an L-shaped white cottage, almost hidden amongst the trees. The Professor is standing outside the front door. Waving.
I wave back. Stupidly. I immediately feel childish.
We touch down a few moments later, and I unbuckle myself and stand up in the cabin, eager to get out.
“Remember, no hugging, kissing, or hand-shaking!” the Sergeant reminds me, seeing my obvious excitement. “And keep your mask on and three metres distant at all times.”
“We’ll probably be back at some point to pick you up, although I haven’t got any further instructions than to drop you off here. And to give you this…” the Sergeant says, pivoting round, picking up a duffle bag from behind him, putting it on the cabin floor in front of me and pushing it across with his foot.
“The doors will open in a second. I’ll drop down first and then help you down, but meanwhile please disinfect your hands.” He instructs, pointing to a bottle of liquid attached to the wall of the cabin by the exit.
I study the upside down bottle for moment, then push the bottom nozzle up and a large lump of goo drops down into my palm. I smother both hands in it, then rub them against each other. The cabin immediately fills with a rather nice, but distinctly medical smell.
The door is open now, and the fresh Highland air is blowing into the cabin.
“You want a hand?” Dave asks, but I shake my head, steady myself on the edge of the cabin with my hand and then jump down. Grabbing the bag behind me, I drag it out and then turn to the Sergeant.
There’s a moment of awkwardness. I feel like I want to shake his hand, but I sense that’s not the right thing to do either. The Sergeant laughs again,
“You’re really new to all this, aren’t you?”
“I am. Sorry.”
“Okay, elbow bump. Watch.”
The Sergeant lifts a clenched fist up towards his own chin, pushes out his elbow, and then motions for me to do the same. I do. Then he bangs his elbow against mine.
It’s all very strange. A bit too deviant and bizarre for my liking. It’s probably the first real thing I’ve ever seen in the parallel world that I’m glad we’ll never have to do in my own world, if I ever make it back. What happens here, stays here!
“Thanks I say.”
I nod at him. Then turn and hurry across the field to the waiting Professor.
------------------------------------
“You look well!” I shout at the Professor as I come close, not quite believing what I am seeing. Not only does he look good, he looks much younger. At least ten years younger. It’s a minute or two before I realise that unlike every other person in this world that I have met, he doesn’t have a mask on.
“But you look terrible!” The Professor replies. “What happened James, my boy? What happened to you?”
“I don’t know.”
I’m standing in front of him now, a few metres from the entrance to his cottage.
“Elbow bump?” I volunteer.
The Professor nods, and in a move probably designed to mock the move, he bends and wriggles his arm, then pushes his elbow at me. I respond. We bump.
Job done.
“Now whisky?” he asks, then motions for me to follow him, and he leads the way.
Swinging the duffle bag onto my back, I turn away from the Professor for a moment and glance quickly at what’s about me.
Which is basically nothing.
We’re in an empty glen.
A beautiful empty glen.
Very long.
Tall mountains guarding us all around from the outside world.
The word ‘isolation’ certainly springs to mind.
“Come, James. Come.” The professor urges me. He’s standing in the doorway watching me. “We’ve a lot to talk about before supper.” The Professor shepherds me inside.
I follow him in down a short corridor, where we emerge into a large and very plush dining and living area. What was originally probably two buildings and several rooms, have been tastefully knocked through to one. Thanks to the magic of a few steel beams, a kitchen and two or three old cottage rooms now form one large space. Large windows in each of the walls frame the incredible scenery outside.
“Wow!” I say. “This is incredible. Who does it belong to?” I ask.
“Me. I bought it last year with some of my new found wealth. It used to belong to my old friend Sam.”
“What about your other house on Skye?”
“I’ve still got it, but I can’t make it there so often now. This is more accessible. I get to it easily from Edinburgh.”
The Professor points to a large couch.
“Sit!” he commands, and lifts a glass. “Whisky? Would you like a glass of my favourite? A Laphroaig?�
�
I sit down, as instructed, and push back into the leather cushions. I stretch and smile. From a prison cell to this. Not bad.
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re still testing me, Professor? You know I know that your favourite whisky is Glenmorangie.”
The Professor nods.
“Good boy. I knew it was you.”
He brings over two glasses, and the bottle, and plonks himself down into a sofa on the opposite side of a classy glass table that sits between us.
Leaning forward, he puts a glass down on the table top for me and nods at it, before settling back away from me.
“I hope you don’t think I’m being too anti-social, James my boy. I’m just following the guidelines. Three metres, you understand.”
I nod, reaching forward and swooping up my glass.
“Who shall we drink to then?” The Professor asks.
I laugh.
“Let’s drink to Rosa. Your one and only true love.”
“Exactly. To Rosa.”
He raises his glass, smiles, then knocks it all back in one. I quickly follow, edging the lip of the glass under my mask.
“Now, I know you are really my James. There is a lot to discuss, and much I need to know. But before we start, please take off that ridiculous mask. I can’t see your face.”
“But, I was told…”
“James, I think that you probably present a lower risk to me than any other human being on the planet. Since arriving here you’ve had contact with only five people, all of whom are regularly checked. You’ve also taken the most accurate test we have, and you were negative. Plus…well….but maybe we’ll discuss that later.” He says, shaking his head a little, and pouring himself another drink.
I take off my mask, and put it beside me on the couch. When I turn my attention back to the Professor, he is studying me.
“You know, James my boy, you’re nothing like your other you. I could tell it was you, the moment I saw you climb out of the helicopter.”
My heart skips a beat.
“What? You’ve met the other me? The one who was married to Jane?”
“Yes, my boy. And the one that met and lived with your wife Sarah in your world.”
His words spear me straight through the heart, and I jump to my feet.
“What? What are you talking about? How…? When… ?”
“Relax. All in good time. There is a lot to speak about. A lot to learn. But first, ….”
“No, you have to explain what you just said. Now!” I insist.
“Ah…now I see it! There is some of him in you after all! Your anger…”
I stop in mid-flow, my mouth open, the words stuck in my throat.
I cough. Shake my head and sit back down.
“I’m sorry.”
“All will come out in due course, but first, one more dram, and then we’ll begin catching up from where we left off. On the underground. Eight years ago.”
He passes me a drink.
I take it.
The Professor raises his glass, and smiles at me.
“But before we do, I have one more, very important toast to make.”
I raise my glass and my eyebrows, awaiting the toast-master’s choice.
“Which is?” I ask, sensing that the Professor is drawing this one out a bit for special effect.
“James,” he starts again. “I’d like to propose a toast to the good health of your son. Kenneth Quinn. He looks just like you!”
Chapter Fourteen
Candlelight
.
The whisky glass slips from my hand, crashes on to the glass table, but does not break. Instead, it rolls across the table, spilling its contents as it goes.
Minus its cargo, my clenched hand is still hovering in mid-air as I shout back, “My son? Kenneth? What are you talking about, Professor?”
“First, we complete the toast, or it’s bad luck. Wait one second…”
The Professor crosses the room back to the kitchen and then returns, pours some whisky and then pushes another glass towards me across the table.
“Now, don’t drop this one. It’s a forty-year-old. I’ve kept it for special occasions, and this … well, you can’t beat this one. My first ever drink with a time-traveller!”
I am still dumbfounded, just gawping at the Professor. His calmness is beginning to irritate me.
“To Kenneth!” he announces, raising his glass again, and motioning for me to reply.
“To Kenneth, my son!” I answer, my voice cracking, and a tear fighting its way out of the corner of my eye.
I swallow, then beckon for another drink. The Professor obliges.
“That’s enough for now. We have much to discuss. But in order. We’ll get to your son in good time. And not before, James. Please, not before… It’s just that, I thought you should know!”
I open my mouth to speak, but hesitate, then nod instead. The Professor has turned away, and is bending down towards a black box.
“If you don’t mind, I’m going to record this conversation. I fear I will probably dissect every word and detail you tell me a thousand times over the coming weeks. My memory is now much better than it was before, but, it’s still not as good as it should be!”
He smiles at me, and sits down in the chair opposite.
“So, well, …now we’re sitting comfortably, I think it’s time to begin.” He coughs.
“James Quinn, welcome to 2021. The last time I saw you, and I mean you,…not the other one… you were just about to take a single, simple step through the portal back to your old world. Please, tell me…what happened?”
“Professor, I’m sorry. I don’t really know.” I begin to explain. “I remember you started to film me, and then Sarah was there. She shouted at me, begging me not to go, to stay. And the last words I heard her scream were, ‘I’m pregnant.’ But as she spoke the words, they were drawn out into a long, drawl that just hung in the air. By that time, the world had stopped, time had come to a standstill, and I was already committed to the jump. I must have stepped through the door of the tube train.” I nod, then look up at the ceiling, recalling the sound of Sarah’s voice as she begged me to stay.”
“And? What happened then? Exactly. Please tell me everything.”
“The next thing I knew I was lying on a cold platform in the pitch black. It took a while for me to be able to think clearly…”
I spend the next twenty minutes recounting to him in great detail how I got to the surface. How I met Giles. How Giles seemed to know me. And how I was then released into London, only to find that I had woken to an apocalyptic nightmare that wouldn’t end.
“I was arrested. I called you. And now I’m here!”
The Professor is smiling like a Cheshire cat. He jumps to his feet and walks around to the back of his sofa and starts pacing up and down the room. I watch him. Occasionally he fires a question at me and I answer it.
“Were you sick? You know, after the jump?”
I shake my head.
“I felt sick, but no I wasn’t. Not like I sometimes felt sick before when I felt something happening on the tube on the train … eight years ago?”
“That is curious. Very curious.” He says, perhaps to himself, or to me, I can’t tell.
“And how do you feel, James? Do you feel… older?”
“Mentally no - I feel exactly as I did before. But, …now you ask… my body feels rubbish. I’m really out of shape.”
“Except, James, it wasn’t yesterday. It was eight years ago. Really. For you it has been less than twenty-four hours, but for the rest of the world, well, eight years and one day.”
“I just can’t believe that, Professor…it’s too difficult to understand.”
“What? Why?” the Professor stops still and turns to face me. “Why should you question this? Before you were born you did not exist. And when you die, you will cease to be. You will come and go like dust on the wind, and that you accept, even though that makes the least sense o
f all, but now you question why someone can travel through time and space? James, there are more things in Heaven and Earth than we will ever understand. All we can do is marvel at them. Accept them. And perhaps guess at the wisdom and genius of the Creator behind it all.”
I stare at the Professor. “Since when have you been religious? What’s all this talk about Heaven and Earth?”
“I have grown wiser, I think, since we last met, James my boy. Before, perhaps I was stupid. Ignorant. Arrogant. But…” he winks at me. “Now I know how much I didn’t know before, and I realise my life has but touched upon the darkness. There is so much still to learn. And learn we must, James my boy. Learn we must!”
“Professor, what did you get your Nobel Prize for?” I remember, curiosity getting the better of me.
“Aha.. for being a fool. Perhaps, maybe a clever fool.” He smiles. “But let’s leave that for another time, not now.”
“Was it for your theory about me? About time travel and parallel worlds?” I ask.
“That, it was not. Although perhaps it helped. But, please, not now. Another time. Now we focus on you, James. On you and what happened to you.”
“Can we talk about Kenneth? My son?” I ask.
“No, not yet…soon though. Very soon… I promise you.”
“Okay,” I nod. “…So what did happen to me? What did you film? What did you record when I stepped through the portal?”
“Ah… I knew you would ask that.” The Professor walks across to the bottle of whisky, picks it up, and pours us both another drink before I can protest. Although, I had no intention of doing so.
He plonks himself down on his sofa, crosses his legs and fixes an intense stare on me.
He’s just about to speak, when he puts his glass on the table, pushes himself up and starts walking again.
“James, you see…well, for me… actually, nothing happened.” He says, putting both his hands together, then turning to face me. “At first. Well, that’s what I thought, you see. At first, yes, at first I thought, well, that nothing had happened!”
He’s really beginning to irritate me now.
“WHAT happened?” I push him.
Am I Dead? Page 8