Ah… oh… I hadn’t thought about that. A second later, Sue, the police officer, follows her through the door and steps up beside her.
They both turn and look down the corridor in my direction.
Sarah starts walking towards me.
I see Sue hesitate, then wait where she is.
But Sarah comes closer… and closer…
I swallow hard, and feel weak, and excited, and nervous… all at the same time. She is beautiful. So beautiful. Even with her face mask on.
She comes up to the door, and stops, then does something which I find very interesting.
She brushes herself down and checks her clothing, adjusts her face mask, then raises a hand to knock on the door.
But before her hand makes contact with the door, I open it.
Chapter Forty Three
A testing time
.
For what must be the most intense ten seconds of my life, our eyes meet and lock on each other.
In those few seconds, I don’t just see Sarah, I feel her.
I am inside her. In her mind. Experiencing her thoughts. Her confusion.
Her anger.
And then, a depth of sadness and despair I had not anticipated.
She smiles. Weakly.
But it is a smile.
“James…” she says. “Is it really you?”
I nod.
A tear makes it way up and over her eyelid, and starts to run down her cheek.
Automatically, and without thinking, I reach out and catch it with the tip of my finger.
My hand rests lightly on her cheek, and she reaches up and takes it in her own, gently cupping my fingers against the mask covering her nose and mouth.
Slowly I withdraw my fingers.
Over her shoulder I see Sue wave at me and step back into the lift. The lift door pings, closes, and she is gone.
I step back from Sarah, back into the hallway. I point at the floor, at a small box beside Sarah’s feet, and I bend down and pick up an identical box from the floor just inside the apartment door.
“Sarah, I love you. And this is perhaps not the most romantic of icebreakers you’ve ever had, but I want you to feel entirely comfortable about coming into my apartment and not have any distracting concerns about The ’18. I don’t want us both to have these stupid masks, … and anyway… I’m told its standard practice for all Blue Pass holders to conduct this crazy new ceremony before any meetings… and it should be done in front of each other so everyone can trust each other.” I’m waffling, I know.
Sarah bends down, picks up the box and opens it. She removes her mask, and for the first time I can see her whole face.
So beautiful.
Simultaneously we open our boxes, pull out the virus test inside, remove the outer packing and spit into a little hole in the top layer of plastic.
I can see that Sarah has done this before.
Her eyes return to mine, and we look at each other whilst we wait.
She is studying me. And I her.
This is not how I imagined our first meeting would be.
There are two soft digital beeps, one from her box, and one from mine, and we both look at our tests.
My test shows a simple tick. It’s negative. I hold it up and show Sarah.
She is already holding hers up her for me to see.
Also a tick.
She removes her mask.
She steps forward, and kisses me on the lips.
Softly. Gently.
Incredibly.
Then she steps back, raises her hand, and slaps me across the face.
Then she steps past me in the doorway and walks through into my apartment.
I follow her in, admiring her, and rubbing my face.
She is standing in the middle of the apartment, gobsmacked by its opulence.
She turns towards me. I walk up to her and then stop, hesitating, knowing exactly what I want to do, but not knowing what I should.
For another few seconds, we both just stand there, staring. Then Sarah cracks.
She rushes towards me, engulfing me in her arms and pulling me towards her, kissing me passionately.
Her emotion surprises me, but I immediately start to return the kisses I receive, and quickly take the initiative to kiss her back.
For a good few minutes we are lost in a prolonged passionate embrace, but then Sarah pulls back slightly, and rests her head against my chest, wrapping her arms around my waist. I stop kissing her, and envelop her with my arms around her back.
She starts to cry.
I soothe her, holding her with one hand, and stroking her head with the other. Exactly like I know she has always enjoyed, whenever she gets upset.
The passion, the crying, the reconnecting, lasts for a few minutes more.
Then the crying stops, and I sense a change in the atmosphere. Even so, she still surprises me when she pushes me away with her hands on my chest, looks up at me and then slaps my face one more time, before stepping backwards and away from me.
Before I know it, she is shouting.
“What have you done? Where have you been all these years? What the hell do you think you’re doing just suddenly turning up in my life again?”
As she lets rip with her confusion and anger, she wraps her arms around herself and holds on tight.
“I’m married now James. Married! I love my husband. I can’t love you still. No, not now! This can’t happen!”
“Sarah, I didn’t choose any of this. All of this is beyond my control. I didn’t intend any of this to happen.” I speak for the first time. I can see the internal turmoil she’s going through written all over her face. The anguish. The pain. Which, is actually a good thing and it gives me hope.
She still cares about me.
“Why did you leave me? Why did you go? I was pregnant. I told you I was pregnant and you still left!”
Her eyes are imploring me for answers.
“I didn’t hear you until it was too late, Sarah. For me, time had already started to slow down. Your words just hung in the air. I was already committed to the jump. I moved, you shouted, I was through the portal, and only then did I understand what you had said, but it was too late. I was through the portal and you were gone. But I didn’t go anywhere. I came straight here. To you. To me that all happened just a few weeks ago. My first thoughts upon waking up in this new world were of finding you, and that’s why I’m here now. With you. Here. Now… I love you Sarah. I LOVE YOU. And I want you! You’re all that matters!”
“But you can’t have me now James. You can’t have me. It’s impossible! I love Brian. I’m with Brian now, James. I’m married to another man!”
I step closer towards her, opening my arms to her.
“No… No… we can’t do that. No…”
“I still love you, Sarah. I’ve always loved you. And I know you love me too. I can feel it and see it!”
Sarah screams at me. “Of course I love you, you bastard. I’ve loved you since the moment we met at my mother’s grave. And you’re the father of my son!” she starts to cry again, this time uncontrollably. “This is all such a mess. It’s so wrong. SO WRONG! What the HELL am I doing here… No…I have to go… I can’t stay.”
Still cuddling herself and wrapped in her own arms, she moves quickly to pass me and head out of the room towards the front door, but I reach out and grab her firmly but gently as she passes. I pull her towards me. She puts up some slight, but ineffective resistance, then once again she in resting against me and I am cradling her in my arms.
I rock her back and forward gently against me.
“Sarah, how much do you know? What did the Professor tell you?”
“Everything, I think.” She replies in a quiet voice. “He called me last night. Told me you were here. Explained how and when you got here. And he answered all the questions I asked him. And over the years, we have talked several times. And he’s the godfather to Kenneth…”
“The Professor is Ke
nneth’s godfather?” I repeat parrot fashion, amazed that the Professor never informed me of this minor detail.
“He’s an excellent godfather. One of the few good choices I seem to have made in my life.”
I take her hand and I walk her slowly over to the sofa, where I sit down with her bedside me. I lean back and let her rest her head against my chest again, once more stroking her hair.
“Sarah, I know how hard this is. It’s been driving me mad for weeks, ever since I woke up on the platform on an empty, closed, underground station in the pitch dark. There’s only one reason for me to be here in this world, and it’s for you. And Kenneth. And when I discovered that you were married… I went slightly mad. I didn’t know what to do. But the Professor and the Home Secretary persuaded me to fight for what I believe in. And I believe in you… which is why you’re here now… I want you Sarah. I can’t live in this world without you!”
She pulls away from me and looks up into my eyes, then returns to the protection and comfort of my chest.
“The Home Secretary?” she asks.
“Yes,” I reply. “She’s a friend of the Professor’s. She knows all about me. And you. It’s thanks to her that I have the Blue Card. And this apartment. And basically anything I want. Being a time-traveller seems to afford you certain privileges. The only thing she can’t give me is… you.”
“You want me?” she asks. Her voice is so vulnerable. She seems so lost. Like me.
“Yes. I love you. And I want you, and me, and our son Kenneth, to be a family.”
“Do you want to see a photograph of him?” she asks, her voice sounding brighter. She pulls back, and sits up. She reaches her hand into her coat pocket and pulls out a few photographs. “Here…” she says, “I brought them for you.”
“Thank you.” I take them from her and start to move slowly through them. More photographs of a handsome young man. Playing rugby. In a school play. Winning a prize in a piano competition. And lying on the floor at home in front of the TV, laughing his head off.
“I just took that last one because he was so happy.” She says, after proudly pointing to and explaining each of the others.
“I’ve missed all of his early years. They’ve been stolen from me.”
“As you were stolen from me, James. From us.”
She shuffles back towards me, and back into my chest, and I continue to look at the photographs.
“Can I keep them?” I ask.
“Yes. Of course…”
“Have you told him about me?”
“Not yet. I haven’t told him you’re here.”
“What did you tell him about me… About not being here for him, so far?”
“I told him the truth. That you had a wife. I’d met you. We’d fallen madly in love. But in the end you had to go back to your wife. And children. But that you didn’t know that I was pregnant. And that he hadn’t been abandoned, because you didn’t know about him. When he asked if he could visit you, I told him the truth. That I didn’t know where you were, and that even though I wanted to go after you, I couldn’t.”
“Does he hate me?”
“James, no… no he doesn’t. He missed you for a long time… as I did. But then I met Brian, and… slowly Brian became Kenneth’s father. But that was also because I encouraged it. The Professor spent a long time with me and was very patient, explaining that you must have gone back to your world, and that the James who got up on the tube train and ran away from me was not the same James as you. The Professor convinced me you had gone home. And the last thing I ever expected was for me to see you again. Not now. Not like this!”
I ease my hand under her chin and lift her face towards me.
I kiss her on the lips, and she kisses me back.
Less passionate than before, but still… beautifully.
“What have you told Brian?” I ask, the elephant in the room now too big to ignore.
“The truth. Or what I can tell him comfortably without lying to him. Basically I told him the same as I told Kenneth.”
“When did you meet him? And how?”
“He’s an architect. Quite a good one, actually. I met him at a dinner party. He’s an American who was spending a year working in London. One of my friends set me up with him. She knew we’d get on well, and we did. We fell in love, quickly. And after six months he asked me to marry him.”
“When was that?” I ask, trying not to pry, but wanting to know the truth.
“We met in 2015, and got married in 2016. We’ve been together for almost five years now.”
I am just about to ask her if she loves him, when I realise the stupidity of the question.
If she says yes, it will end this conversation.
Instead I change the focus to the most important topic of all.
“Tell me all about Kenneth… please… about his birth, his first steps, playschool… his first tooth... everything…”
“Everything?” she asks, sitting up.
“Yes.”
“It’ll take ages.”
“I have the rest of my life to hear about or spend time with my son.”
For a moment I can see some tension in her face and eyes. Then a momentary relaxation of the muscles as she makes a decision.
“I’ll need a drink. And maybe we should sit outside… perhaps a little bit away from each other. All this touching and closeness… it’s very confusing to me just now. When I came over here this evening… I didn’t know what was going to happen. How I was going to behave… James, I’m so angry with you. I’m so confused about everything.”
“How about I light the candles outside, I pour us both some lovely red wine, and I give you all the space you need.”
“Candles? Wine? Is that not too romantic? I don’t even know if I should be here…”
“Sarah, the police came and picked you up. You’re just helping them with some enquiries. You mustn’t feel guilty…”
She laughs.
I fetch the wine. Light the candles and then come back into the room and lead her out onto the patio by her hand.
I offer her a seat at the table with the best view looking out over the Thames. It’s still light so the candles are overkill, but the scent they give off is relaxing. Perhaps a little of what we both need just now.
We drink the wine.
She leans across to me once, and kisses me, but then retreats back to her chair, no longer in my arms, and now at a safe distance.
Then Sarah begins to tell me all about our son.
--------------------
Kenneth is a sensitive boy. Not a wimp, by any counts, but considerate and quite emotional. He thinks of others, and takes things to heart. He’s strong. Shows great potential at rugby. Is already Grade 5 at piano, and although he can play Beethoven and Mozart with ease, he is developing an ear for Jazz.
He likes girls, and although he hasn’t got a girlfriend, he has already kissed a girl called Grace. They’re no longer in love, and they’re not planning to get married any more.
Kenneth is very interested in science. He loves Chemistry and Physics, and is good at Maths.
“Did you tell him I’m a physicist?” I ask, interrupting her.
“No. He doesn’t know yet. But, yes, he seems to be a chip of the old block, as far as that’s concerned.”
In fact, the more I learn about him, the more I see myself in him.
I miss him terribly, even though I have never met him.
“Aha! Wait…” Sarah suddenly says at one point, then jumps up from her seat and hurries through to the lounge, where she left her coat and handbag. She returns with a set of keys and a key-ring. It’s a piece of clear see-through plastic, and set in the middle of it is a single human tooth.
“It’s Kenneth’s second tooth. I’ve still got his first one in a silver ‘First Tooth’ box at home… like all proud parents do… but Kenneth made this himself at school. He wrote a little letter to the tooth fairy asking if he could keep the tooth, and miraculously when
the tooth fairy left both a ten euro note and the tooth… he took the tooth to school and got help in his art class to set it in a plastic mould as a present for mother’s day. Look…”
She hands me the keys, and I examine the small tooth encased within its plastic tomb.
It’s really cute. I find it surprisingly emotional, just holding it in my hand. A little piece of Kenneth.
--------------------
Time passes quickly.
We talk a lot, about many things.
Sarah tells me about her life. Her new job in Marketing for a Data Analytics company. Her new hobby… she’s taken up sailing with Brian who is a qualified sailing instructor, and they now have their own small yacht berthed in Poole from where they used to go sailing as often as possible.
As the evening sets in Sarah excuses herself and makes a phone call to her husband, then returns.
“What did you tell him?” I ask.
“The truth. That I’m in Whitehall being asked a lot of questions. But that the police officer has promised to have me home by 11 p.m.”
“Eleven?”
“James, I can’t stay. We both know it.”
“Knowing and hoping are two different things…”
She doesn’t reply.
But we do sit back at the table, open another bottle of wine,…one of several which I managed to persuade the front desk to let me have, and which they did, after receiving an email from the Home Secretary authorising it.
We order dinner.
We chat.
We get on very, very well.
As the evening moves forward, I begin to wonder what will happen next. We kiss several times more, randomly, and I can feel the sexual tension in the air.
Our kisses are small, perhaps a little lingering, although not as passionate as before. But I can feel the passion lurking there in the background, growing, waiting to explode.
Am I Dead? Page 28