“Ah, yes, I think I see where you’re going with this,” it begins to dawn on the Home Secretary.
I continue, “The reality is that you would think I was a mad man. A stalker. Unless, at the same time as warning you, I was able to tell you a secret about yourself that only you knew, and which you’ve never ever told anyone else. Then I’d have your attention, and I could admit it was you yourself who’d revealed the secret to me, so that your ‘former-you’ would then consider believing what I had to say, and would at least listen to the warning I’d subsequently give her about travelling to Turkey!”
“Yes. Now I understand. And you’re right. There’s no way I’d listen to you, unless you found some very clever way of establishing some form of credibility with me.” She agrees. “Can I call you back? Give me five minutes to think about this.”
Even before I agree, she hangs up. True to her word, though, she calls me back just over four minutes later.
“What I’m going to tell you now, no one else knows. If I ever hear about it in this world, in the coming years in the press or anywhere else, I’ll know it will have come from you. Do you understand?”
Not quite a threat, but a very serious warning.
“Yes, Home Secretary, I understand.”
“Caroline…” she says again, resuming informality. “Okay, I’m going to tell you three things. So that if you ever meet me, there’ll be no doubt that only I could have told you what I’m about to say. But first, I want you to swear to me, against whatever religion or belief system you follow, that you’ll never tell another human being, apart from me!”
I swallow hard, then agree. Maybe this was not such a good idea after all.
“Okay, I’ll trust you. I’m bisexual. I married my husband Robert, but when I was nineteen years old, I had a short affair with my dentist. Her name was Debbie. She dumped me, broke my heart. I never trusted women again.”
“And there’s no way she could have told anyone else that?”
“She’s dead. Died in a car crash a year later. And that was a long time ago. I don’t believe anyone else would know.”
“Anything else I should know about that?”
“The first time I had an orgasm was in her dentist’s chair. I don’t think we need to say anything more about that. That should be enough to get my attention. And that when I was five, I squashed a little fly while it was crawling across the window of a bus whilst I was travelling to the zoo on a day out with my parents. I thought it was on the outside of the window and I just wanted to touch it. Unfortunately, I was wrong, and my finger crushed it to death. I was distraught. I cried for an hour. I never told my parents why. They thought I was scared by the animals in the zoo. And they bought me a big ice-cream covered in raspberry sauce. The ice-cream made me smile, but even to this day, I feel guilty about the fly. Ever since then I’ve been pro-life. Life is sacred. We have to do everything we can to preserve it. I was a murderer once, and I’ll never do it again. Which is why, in 2008, when I got pregnant, I refused to have an abortion. Unfortunately, I lost the baby after a month, but... ”
Her voice tailed off, and for a moment I thought it prudent not to say anything.
“Do you think that will work?” she asks. “There were actually more than three things there… much more that you’ll need to scare me into paying attention to you.”
“Yes. Definitely. As long as you have never told any of that to anyone else?”
“Never. And I never want to hear it mentioned again. I’m not quite sure why I just opened up to you so much just now, I can’t believe I just mentioned it all, although after all these years I have to admit finally confessing to the murder of the fly feels rather cathartic!”
I hear her laugh, probably more out of nerves or embarrassment, then she quickly regains her composure.
“Can we change subject for a moment, Caroline?” I move on to what is probably the real motivation for me calling her again. “I’ve realised that I need to be back in London. As soon as I can… I’ve spoken to the people in charge of the Blue Pass I was given, and they are looking for authorization for another helicopter trip…”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of that after this call. Consider it done.”
“Thank you.”
“Where will you be staying when you’re back down here? The hotels are all closed.”
“I don’t know yet. Perhaps at my mother’s old house, if it hasn’t been sold.”
“You can stay at one of the government apartments. If you need to. When you get on the helicopter tomorrow, I will arrange for an SP to be given to you, with unlimited credits. It’ll be pre-programed with all the numbers you need on it, including my personal number if you need to speak to me again. And it will have all the LT’s... I mean applications… on it that anyone might need in this world you now find yourself in. There’ll also be a pack with lots of details on it about where you can find somewhere to eat if you’re out and about in London. If you don’t know where to go, you’ll never find them.”
“Brilliant. Thank you Caroline.”
“James, don’t mention it. Don’t hesitate to call me, if you wish. And if you’re free sometime in London, call me and maybe I can treat you to dinner somewhere. It would be good to meet you face to face.”
I agree. Say my goodbyes, and hang up.
For a few moments I worry that I may be setting expectations with the Home Secretary that I can’t deliver on, and might not want to deliver on. But then I realise that it doesn’t matter. Whatever I decide to do, if I ever do manage to travel back in time, she will never know anyway. If I ever do meet her in this world, and change the course of her life, her future self will simply cease to exist anyway. And if I meet her in another parallel world…the future will not yet have been written.
Chapter Twenty Three
.
Shortly afterwards, the phone rings and its Sergeant Dave Porter calling to confirm that his taxi will pick me up tomorrow at ten a.m. sharp. Literally.
He asks me where I’m going, and I tell him London. “I’m going to a government flat. Apparently you will have the details. It would be great if you could get me as close as possible to wherever I’m staying tomorrow night!”
After the call, I look out of the large windows and decide that if I only have one day left in the Highlands, then I’m going to do some hill-walking. I love to get up high on the mountains, whenever I can. It’s been… nine years?... since the last time I was in the Lake District with Sarah, and I can’t wait to get up on top of the nearest ridge and walk along the top of the world.
It’s already a beautiful day, and although the Professor volunteers to come with me, I tell him I want to be alone. I have a lot of thinking to do and I need to clear my head.
I can feel thoughts and emotions building in my brain, hiding in my subconscious, not wanting to reveal themselves to me. Some of the thoughts are tantalisingly just on the edge of my mind, but not yet allowing me to think them clearly.
Something’s bugging me, but I don’t know what it is.
The Professor shows me where he keeps his food, and soon, with his permission, I have put together a packed lunch and a flask of tea, and I’m ready to go.
The Professor hands me a map, shows me a route he recommends, and walks me to the bottom of his driveway.
He hands me his mobile phone, his SP, and says, “Take this. If you get lost, or have any problems, call me.”
I nod, smile, thank him, and then head off along the road.
A quarter mile down the road, I sit down on a rock, and memorise the route I’m going to take.
It’s a wonderful day. Beautiful clear skies, but not too hot. The route up to the top of the mountain I want to walk up will probably take me about five hours from the bottom to the cairn at the top, then back down again. I’ll be exhausted by the time I get back to the cottage, but when I get to London, there’s a strong possibility I will be stuck indoors for days or weeks in a row. This may be my last
day of freedom for a long time to come.
For the next three miles I make my way along the Etive valley, following a path close to a single track road that snakes its way along the valley and the meandering Etive river.
Half an hour later I come to a beautiful spring bursting out of a cliff, and I stop for a short break and a drink of the pure Scottish water.
The valley is empty. There are no cars. No people. I don’t see anyone else the whole day. I have the world to myself.
I don’t know if it’s because of the pandemic, with everyone instructed to stay at home, or because the road along the valley that turns off the main road past Glencoe doesn’t really go anywhere, coming to a dead-end further on. Like myself, who has driven along the Glencoe road many times, I’ve never ventured down here. It’s taken a pandemic and time travel to get me here, but now I am, I’m kicking myself I’ve never been here before!
Today I’m lucky. There don’t seem to be any midges around. Without the curse of the midge, the Scottish countryside is paradise on earth. Later on in the year, when the swarms of midges are constantly there, the opposite can feel true: to anyone caught in a swarm, the country becomes hell on earth.
But today is not one of those days.
As I stride along the path towards my chosen mountain, I absorb the sounds and smells of the countryside all around me. The river Etive stays close by as I move along the valley, and in places I can hear the water trickling down over rocks as the little burns cascade down the surrounding hillside.
I need this walk and the fresh air to clear my head. To cleanse my soul. To get rid of all the crap and poison that has built up inside me over the past year…nine years… The last time I actually went for a ramble in the Scottish Highlands was in 2009. We rented a caravan at Kenmore on the edge of Loch Tay. The girls were wee. We built dams in the river, skipped stones across the surface of the Loch, and lay awake at night one evening listening to the sound of rain tinkling on the metal roof of the caravan.
As I think of that special magical time, I have an incredible longing for my two girls. It’s strange, one moment I feel fine and hours can go past without me thinking of them, but then, “WHAM!” and my longing to be with them is so intense it hurts.
It doesn’t go away. My longing for them and for Sarah, in fact - for both Sarahs - just fades in and out.
I soon come to where I must leave the path, scramble down some rough ground, climb a fence, and then wade across the river with my shoes around my neck.
The water is not deep, and as I pull myself up the bank on the far side of the river, I see the glint of silver from some small fish as they swim just underneath the surface of the water and the scales on their sides catch the light.
Sitting down on the bank of the river in the shade of a few trees, I put my shoes back on and am just about to stand up and move on when a thought occurs to me. Why rush?
It’s beautiful here. It would be hard to find a place more perfect!
So I let the small rucksack the Professor lent me slip from my back onto the grass, and I lie back and rest my head against it. Closing my eyes, I let the sun dance on my face through the leaves of the tree above, and listen to the gurgling sound of the water rushing by, as it washes over me in hypnotic waves.
It feels…wonderful.
I close my eyes.
For a moment, the first moment in such a very long time, years perhaps, I allow myself to relax.
--------------------
I wake slowly, wondering how long I was out for, but in no rush to find out. I could look at my watch, if I wanted to, but I don’t.
So I lie there a bit longer, the white noise of the river drowning out my normal thoughts, worries and fears, and I truly think for the first time in ages.
I needed this walk today. I needed to escape. To find somewhere, just like this, so I could empty my mind of all the clutter that has built up since I stepped from my old world to this one.
For the past few days there has been something bugging me, niggling at the back of my mind. I know it’s there. But I can’t touch it. Unwrap it. Explore it.
Perhaps until now I have not wanted to see what it was. Maybe I have consciously suppressed it. Forced it back. But now, in the shade of the tree above me, I let the thought emerge.
“What if I never make it back to my own world or manage to travel back in time to where I came from? If that’s the case, then my mum is dead.
I’ve lost her.
She’s gone!”
It dawns on me then, that until this moment, I have been suppressing my emotions and all considerations that my mum could have really died. Until this second I have not given any credence to the possibility that I may never see her again. Until now she has only been a single footstep away from me, one footstep through the doorway of an underground train back to where I came from.
My mum may be dead, now, in this world, in this time, but not only is this not my world, but it is also not my time.
None of this is truly real. Or mine. I am just a casual visitor.
Yes, admittedly, I have stayed too long. Overstayed my welcome.
But I AM going.
Going home.
And soon!
But what if I can’t?
Without knowing where it comes from, I am suddenly immersed in a wave of emotion that wells up from deep within me.
Not a good emotion.
Sadness.
Deep sadness.
Despair.
If I can’t go home, my mum is dead.
Her death will be real.
Real.
I cry then. For my mum. Who I love.
And who, unless I can find a way home, will be as dead to me as she is to everyone else who lives in this world.
Then, almost instantly my thoughts change and I realise that there is a tremendous irony in this all.
I’ve heard tell, that when a new life comes into the world, another one leaves it. Grandparents or relatives always seem to die just when a baby is born. Where a life is claimed by that big grim reaper in the sky, somewhere in an extended family a new nappy is filled with a newly arrived baby.
And so it is with me, now, here in this world.
I arrive. I’m told my mum has died. And a moment later I’m given the news that I am a father.
I have a son.
So, it’s a simple choice.
If I stay in this world, I lose my mum and gain a son.
Or…, I go home, lose my son and find my mum.
It’s a simple choice, but actually no real choice at all.
Chapter Twenty Four
Rising above it all
.
My mood has changed.
Suddenly, with the realization of the choices I have, everything seems darker. Not as vivid as before. The bright greens are now dark green. The light gurgling water is now crashing down, and the refreshing spray thrown up into the air is now just wet and annoying.
I feel the need to rise above it all. To escape.
I quickly gather up my rucksack, and check for any litter, then stand up and look over and up to the mountain now directly in front of me: Ben Starav.
I’ve never really seen or heard of this mountain before. I’m only climbing this one because the Professor recommended it. Left to me, I would have borrowed a bicycle from the cottage and cycled the ten or more miles up the valley in the opposite direction, to the two most famous mountains in the area, Etive Mor and Buchaille Etive Beg - or ‘The Great Shepherd and Little Shepherd of Etive - as the Professor informed me they are commonly known as.
Instead, I’m going for Ben Starav. In my future, whatever future that turns out to be, it’s highly likely that I will one day make it to one or both of the Shepherds, but it’s less likely I’ll ever be back in this part of the valley again, unless I’m stuck in this world and I spend more time with the Professor.
As with a lot of mountains I’ve climbed before, the approach is very deceiving. The mountain appears m
uch closer than it is, and once I start to ascend its apparently gradual slopes, I discover that this too was an illusion.
Vertical would be an overstatement, but the words ‘pretty bloody steep’ do come to mind.
Curiously, for the first time since arriving in this world, I begin to believe that eight years may have passed after all since I have last properly used my legs.
When I set out this morning, based on past experiences, I fully expected the climb to be tough, but easily doable. However, within the first hour of climbing, I get to the point where I begin to think very negatively of the other James Quinn whose body I may now be inhabiting.
Was he a lazy bastard? Did he ever do any exercise? Just how much has he destroyed the body I looked after for the year before I jumped forward eight years in time. Too much drink? Drugs? Sex?
I used to be fit. Now I’m a wreck!
Sadly, the prospect of making it to the top becomes more and more unlikely as the morning - and early afternoon - turns from a pleasurable day’s outing, to a potential battle for life over death!
It’s only out of pure, dogged determination on my part that I continue. However, it takes a full two hours longer to reach the top than I thought it would, and when I get there, I’m not a hundred per cent convinced that I am not having a heart attack. Or that I will be able to make it back down again.
I do make it though. I get to the Cairn. I find a large stone on the last part of the path leading to it, and when I arrive, I ceremoniously place it on the top, slipping a small piece of paper underneath it with a message I wrote this morning at the breakfast table before I left.
“A message from James Quinn to Sarah. I love you. Always have, always will. In this world, and all the others.”
Am I Dead? Page 15