“James, wait…”
It’s Jane.
I turn, sheepishly searching for the voice and find it coming from a first floor window.
At first I don’t recognise the face. It’s very different.
Older. New hair. A slightly different nose… has she had a nose job done?
“Come back. I’ll let you in, but please go round the house to the back. I don’t want the children to see you. It would upset them too much…” she says, lowering her voice and waving me back.
For a moment I feel like a rabbit caught in some car headlights. I simply stare back at her. But when she waves at me again, and smiles, I melt a little and start walking back towards whatever fate lies waiting for me.
Jane disappears from the window, and as I approach the electronic gates, they start to open inwards. I walk into the garden. The gates close behind me with a loud clang.
I’m trapped.
When I was younger, much younger, there was a period of time at school when I was quite good at pole-vaulting. As I look at the gates behind me, now closed, I contemplate revisiting that period of my life. However, I hear another electronic buzz and I recognise it as the catch on the side gate being opened.
I turn and walk slowly past the side of the house, through the gate, and to the patio at the back.
Jane is waiting for me, obviously very nervous.
She steps towards me, her arms outstretched, obviously going for a hug.
I step back, even more nervous, and raise my hands gently, shaking my head.
She hesitates, her mouth opens to say something, but nothing comes out. I can see the hurt in her eyes. The disappointment.
I’m always letting Jane down. And now, once again. Already.
“The summerhouse?” she suggests, glancing at the mini-mansion at the rear end of the garden. “I don’t want Elspeth and Allison to see you. They’re both upstairs doing homework, or playing computer games.”
I nod, then follow her as she leads the way.
In spite of myself, I can’t help but look at her figure. Her legs. Her curvaceous body accentuated by the skirt and jumper she is wearing. She looks great, and I instantly hate myself for reacting like I do. Pure instinct? Or lust?
Which is how I have always felt about Jane.
I have always been attracted to her. Always fancied her. Always wanted her.
She opens the door to the summerhouse for me, as if she was going to hold it open for me as I went in, but I stop and wait and she goes in first.
“Sorry, I say,… I don’t think it’s such a good idea to get so close.” I lie, pathetically using The ’18 as an excuse to prevent myself brushing past her too close and getting aroused.
“Do you want me to wear my mask?” I ask, holding mine in front of me, and noting that she is not wearing hers either.
Her face is beautiful. Even more attractive than when I last saw her. And yes, she has had something done to her nose. It looks different. Somehow better. But I don’t know what. The effect is pronounced though. She looks more elegant than before. More commanding. More…
“You look well, James.” She says.
“And you.” I nod back, my facial expression still rather blank. No smiles. “Is everyone well? Has The ’18 affected you at all?”
“Aha… Thank you for asking. And because you have asked, I know who you are now. For a moment, I did wonder, but now I know…”
“What do you mean,” I reply, confused.
“The other James wouldn’t ask that question. He wouldn’t care. He probably wouldn’t even have noticed if we got it and died.”
Her answer catches me completely by surprise, and the expression on my face reveals my reaction to her.
“Yes, James, I know!” she announces. Smiling. Her eyes twinkling in the downlights that came on automatically as we walked inside.
“How?” I stutter back.
“The day you left, he came home. He practically raped me. Traumatised the kids. Slapped me a few times, and then began to destroy my life again, systematically, day by day. I knew immediately I saw him that you’d changed… that he wasn’t the same person as you. And then one day, he told me all about it. And then I understood. I understood everything!”
There are tears brimming in her eyes now, and in spite of everything I feel an urge to take her in my arms.
“Woah,” I exclaim, rather loudly, “Slow down. This is way too fast… Start from the beginning again…”
“I’m getting a drink.” She announces, turning to the drinks cabinet in the shelves at the back of the summerhouse. “Do you want one…?”
I’m about to say no, that I’m driving, when I realise that I don’t have to. Sarah can drive me back to the hotel!
She pours two large gins and tonic and brings them to the table, plonking herself down on the sofa opposite me, and pushing my drink over towards me.
She takes a long sip, closes her eyes, lets her head fall back over her shoulders and exhales deeply.
I lift my drink from the glass table and sit down opposite her. I sip the drink and wait for her to speak.
“Where have you been, James? I mean, I haven’t heard from the other James for eight years since I kicked him out. And I don’t care where the hell he is? But where have you been?”
Should I tell her?
Perhaps not yet.
If ever.
“You kicked him out?” I counter, trying to steer the conversation away from uncomfortable truths.
“Yep. After about four months of putting up with his crap, he just said something one day and I snapped. I just suddenly realised that life didn’t have to be like that… and I told him to leave. He laughed. So I packed a bag for him and put it on the doorstep outside the house. He got angry. He hit me.
I picked up the phone, dialled 999 and asked for the police. I told him he had a minute to get out or I’d tell them about the rape, and make sure he went to prison. He just stood there in the hall, staring at me. I think he could see in my eyes that it was over…that I wouldn’t take his crap any more. Then the police came on the line and I looked at him again… he knew what I meant… “You’ve three seconds…” I threatened.
He grabbed his coat from the coat hook, took the car keys, and left. That was the last I saw of him for a couple of months. I only saw him once after that.”
Her eyes open and she turns towards me.
“Until now. And you’re back.”
“I’m not him.”
“I know,” she smiles. “And I also know that it’s because of you that I had the strength to stand up for myself and get rid of him. I know now that from the moment you came back from the hospital after your coma, that it was you and not him. And that you spent the next year helping me to get back my self-esteem and self-respect. You were preparing me for the future… to be able to face him. Weren’t you?”
I nod.
“Thank you.” She smiles at me.
A shiver runs down my spine.
This is not a conversation that I had thought we would ever be having.
“Okay, before we go any further, perhaps I should do the sensible thing, and ask what the hell is going on with you now, James? Are you well? Are we under any threat from you being here just now? Should I put on a mask after all? You know that if I get caught talking to you in my house now, I could be punished. This… this… you and me here like this just now, it’s against the law. Or do you not know that?”
She sits up straight and leans forward, studying my face.
“How long have you been here? Have you just made the jump? And come straight back to me, or have you been here… in this world… for a long time?”
“The jump?” I ask, shaking my head. “Good grief! How much do you know?” I laugh, more in exasperation than anything else.
“I know it all. I think.” She replies. “You told me everything one night when you got drunk. Before you hit me and forced me to have sex with you… he used to do this thing… pull my hair and then pul
l me close and whisper into my ear and threaten the kids if I didn’t treat him properly…”
“I did what?”
“Not you. Him. There’s a world of difference between you…” she replies, and then as soon as the significance of the words she just uttered dawns on her, she laughs. “Wow… that’s it, isn’t it. You’re from two different worlds. And you’re two different people. Like Jekyll and Hyde. And you’re Jekyll, the good guy? Right?”
I shake my head.
“I don’t know. Maybe… But I don’t understand it either. We’re just different people… although technically, we’re the same. I think.”
Silence.
“Another drink?” she asks, standing up.
“No, I’m alright.”
She looks towards the house, and I can sense she’s thinking of the children.
“Maybe I shouldn’t. Not yet anyway… I don’t want to get drunk!” she laughs. Then she looks at me again, and raises her eyebrows.. “Actually, so… you haven’t answered the question… ‘The ’18 question’. Are we safe? Are you going to infect us and kill us?”
“No. I don’t think so. I’ve been tested repeatedly over the past week, and I’m fine. And there’s been very little opportunity for me to meet any one and get infected.”
“How? How are you being tested so often? What’s going on? And why just for a week? Have you only been here for a week then? What’s going on James? How come you’ve got a car outside and you’re walking around without getting arrested? What the hell is going on here? Tell me!”
I nod. Perhaps there’s no hiding it anymore. I’m going to have to tell her.
I reach inside my jacket and pull out the Blue Pass, and hold it up just in front of her.
“What the hell…?” She swears, catching me by surprise. “You’ve got a Bluey? How the hell did you pull that one?”
“A friend organized it for me.”
“The Professor? Professor Kasparek?”
I nod. It seems she does know everything already. Maybe even more than me.
Perhaps it’s time to trade knowledge.
“Wow… that makes sense. He’s one of the most famous scientists in the world now…we watch him on the I-Vision all the time!”
“He’s been very good to me, I have to admit. Without him, I’d be in all sorts of trouble.”
“So, that’s why you’re here then? You got my message?”
“Which one?”
“Aha… so you got both. Which means you’ve been back to your mum’s house?”
“Yes, this afternoon. I saw the lipstick on the mirror…”
“But you also got the message from the Professor to call me too?”
“Yep. He was most adamant that I must call you. Apparently you have something for me…But how on earth do you know the Professor?”
“He called the house a couple of times. He said he knew you, and he was looking for you. He asked me to call him if you ever came back. He gave me his number. We spoke a few times after that… after James told me what was going on. And when I got left the package for you, I spoke with him and made him promise that one day, if he ever saw you, and I mean you, that he’d make sure you called me. Whether you wanted to or not!”
“What package, Jane?”
“Yes, well… you remember I said I threw James out and I’ve only seen him once since then? Well, one night, about seven weeks later, he turned up at the house, drunk, and ranting and raving. I wouldn’t let him in the front gate…I’d changed the code…I wasn’t scared of him anymore, but I didn’t want him in the house again. Especially with the girls here. Anyway, I went out into the garden and stood on the other side of the gates, and got him to calm down a bit. Then he held up a small package and threw it over the gate at me and told me to make sure ‘that other bastard’ got it when he came back. He was ranting and raving, but he seemed to be sure that you’d be turning up here again one day, and he wanted me to give you the package. “Make sure that other bastard gets it,” were his words. Then I made a deal with him that I’d make sure you got it - if I ever saw you again - if he cleared off and never came back.” She paused, “It was strange, he just laughed, then warned me he’d sealed the package so that you’d know if I ever read it.”
“And did you? Surely you must have been tempted? What did it say?”
“I didn’t read it… it’s got a wax seal on the back with a strange symbol on it. You’d know if I broke the seal. Sure… I was tempted, but I didn’t.”
“Have you got it?”
“It’s in the house.”
“Okay, then maybe you should give it to me, and then maybe I’ll leave.”
A momentary wave of disappointment crosses her face and then the words I’ve been dreading.
“Maybe it would be okay if you saw the girls after all. Do you want to?”
Elspeth and Allison.
I never ever bonded with them. They were always another man’s children, not mine.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Jane. It would just be very confusing for them. And for me.”
I add the last bit to lessen the blow. It seems to work.
“You’re probably right.” She nods, then pulls the door open, stopping momentarily in the doorway. “Okay, I’ll get it then.”
I watch her walk to the house. She disappears inside for a couple of minutes, then reappears carrying a plastic bag, which she hands to me when she comes back into the summerhouse.
“It’s been in the bag for years. It won’t be carrying the virus. If you take it out with your hand, you won’t have to isolate it at all. You can open it whenever you want.”
As she holds the bag open for me, I extract its contents, realising that I’ve just learned another lesson in virus etiquette.
It’s a brown cardboard envelope. My name’s written on the front, in handwriting which is spookily very similar to my own.
I turn the envelope over. There’s a red wax seal on the join at the back. It’s intact. The symbol emblazoned in the wax is one I immediately recognise. It was made by a wax stamp that I was given by my parents when I was a little boy as part of a ‘Secret Agent’ kit. We obviously both got the same present.
As I take the package in my hand, a shudder runs down my spine. It feels incredibly weird to know that the other me has written this and sent it to me. That it contains a message from him to me.
“Are you okay?” Jane asks.
“Yes, sorry… this is just…”
“Very strange? Tell me about it!” she laughs. Then says, “When you’ve read it, will you tell me what it says?”
I look back at her. There’s a sparkle in her eye. A very beautiful sparkle. Jane is a very beautiful woman…
Time to leave.
We walk together, too close for proper comfort, back to the front of the house, where Jane holds up an electronic key and points it at the gates, which then start to swing open.
I turn to her.
“Thank you, Jane.” I almost leave it at that, but before I know it, another sentence slips out. “I did the right thing leaving you when I did, eight years ago. Without me, you’ve become the same wonderful Jane that you were all those years ago when I first met you. You’re amazing now.”
I see a tear form in her eye, and for the first time since we made love when I first landed in this world, I feel a spark of genuine attraction towards her.
The last thing I need just now.
“Will I see you again, James? Are you staying… in this world… or leaving?”
“I don’t know.” I reply.
“What do you mean? Is that, ‘I don’t know to ‘whether I’ll see you again?’’ Or to ‘if you’re staying in this world’?”
I shrug my shoulders.
Smile.
Turn.
And leave.
Chapter Thirty
A message from Mr Hyde
.
As I drive back to central London… no, as I let Sarah drive me back, the packag
e from me to me lies ominously on the passenger seat beside me.
My hands are on the wheel, my eyes, by instinct, are still trained on the road ahead, but every few seconds I glance back at the brown package.
I know that when I read it, everything will change.
Whatever it contains, whatever is in it, must be really important for the other me, to want me to read it.
I wonder if we are bringing a fundamental taboo of time-travel science, by having a person from one dimension finding a way to communicate from oneself to another.
Perhaps, as the Professor tried to describe in his explanation of the ‘consistency principle’ of time travel, there will be a fundamental law that no matter how hard we try to get round it, will always exert itself over our actions… i.e. when I try to open the envelope, no matter how hard I try, I simply won’t be able to do it.
Or, when I open the envelope, whatever is inside will spontaneously combust or vanish into thin air…
Or… I will have a heart attack and die just before I manage to read any forbidden words that have traversed time and space in violation of Time Travel Rule Number ‘whatever-it-is’.
Of the three options, the last one is my least favourite.
I’m kind of hoping that if the other me is breaking any law of nature, then we’ll discover it’s a no-no without any life-changing consequences. Call me selfish, but hey. That’s how I feel.
When Sarah eventually announces that we are in the underground car park back in London, I have one of those weird moments when, even though my eyes are open, I suddenly see where we are, and wonder how on earth I got there.
My mind has obviously been day-dreaming somewhere else, but I can’t remember anything of the last fifteen minutes, and what happened between entering the A3 and making it to here.
The expression ‘Driving on auto-pilot’, has, quite literally, taken on a whole new dimension.
I blink a few times.
I’m wide awake. I haven’t been asleep.
Hurriedly I glance back at the passenger seat, and am surprisingly reassured to see the package still there.
Just waiting for me.
To pick.
It.
Up.
Am I Dead? Page 20