“I’m not sleeping around. She’s my wife!”
“Touché. One point to you.” She laughs. “Which makes me the evil mistress, now, does it? The one trying to trap you?”
“Caroline, this is crazy. I never said that, and you know I don’t think that.” I take a deep breath. “Listen, it’s a bit of a shock… I mean, the ‘news’ about your baby… sorry, our baby… I’m going to need some time to think about it.”
She nods, and smiles.
“Okay. Fine. No problem…”
I hesitate, but can’t stop myself from asking another question.
“Caroline, what’s going on between us just now? How would you describe the relationship we have … if at all?”
She laughs.
“Good question.” She says, then does that classic politician thing and turns the question back to me. “How would you describe it?”
“No,” I argue. “You don’t get to do that. I asked you. You answer my question.”
“Sorry… force of habit.” She acknowledges. “Honestly?”
I nod.
“Then I don’t know. It’s obviously more complicated now. But, until I discovered I was pregnant, I was happy just to enjoy your company, with no complications. And obviously, to enjoy sleeping with you, if it happened. When, and if it happened.”
“Were you expecting anything more?”
“No. I like you James, but I don’t love you. And I know you don’t love me either. But I do know that you like me too.”
“Friends with benefits?”
“Yes. Until now.”
“And what now, then?”
“Friends with benefits and babies.”
I laugh.
“I think we both know it’s not that simple. Obviously I’m going to be totally unreliable as a father. I could disappear at any moment, and the man who would replace me is a monster that you couldn’t stand and isn’t fit to be a father. You’ve got to think about that.”
She nods.
“So,” I ask, “Whose name are you thinking of putting on the birth certificate? Mine? I hope not, as we both know that would be a disaster waiting to happen the moment the other James came back on the scene.”
“I don’t know, I haven’t thought that far ahead.” She admits, which strikes me as being unusual for her.
“Well, you’ll need to.” I insist before moving on with another question. “Okay, so I get that we’re just casual, but what happens if I meet someone else and end up sleeping with them too? How would you feel about that?”
“You mean, like Jane? And when you slept with her last night?”
“There’s nothing like being totally blunt about things, is there. Yes, I mean, like Jane. But also about others. Once the lock-ins finish, maybe I’ll meet someone else. How are you going to feel about that, if you’re pregnant with our baby?”
“Maybe a little jealous. When the hormones kick-in I’ll probably be all over the place. But for now, I don’t know. It’s probably okay with me. So long as we stay friends…”
“Caroline, sorry, I’m not trying to be horrible. I’m just asking…speaking aloud. I don’t have any plans and I haven’t met anyone else, but I don’t want to be alone. You’ve the country, and maybe the baby to look after, but now Sarah is married to some other bloke who’s apparently more lovely than me, I’ve got no one. And I’m not brilliant with my own company for too long. Anyway, the point is, I like you too, but I don’t love you. And I don’t think that just because you have a baby, sorry, our baby, I don’t think that will change things… I just want to be honest and upfront with you, so you know where I stand.”
“… and I appreciate that.”
“So, just to be clear, you’re fully expecting to have the baby?”
“Yes.” She replies. “I’m lonely too, and if God or Mother Nature gifts me with a baby that might possibly love me and need me,… there’s no way I’m not going to be happy about it. I want this baby, our baby, and I’m going to have it. We won’t need you. But, if you’re around, and you want to be there too… you’ll always be welcome. Always.”
She reaches out her hand towards me, and I take it in mine.
We stay like that for a few moments, each looking thoughtfully into each other’s eyes.
“Ah… yes… I almost forgot. Changing the subject completely, I know… but are you still able to come to the dinner with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of Germany tonight? Remember… I mentioned it a few days ago?”
“The Prime Minister? Tonight? I don’t know… not after your big news… I need some time to think about all of this…”
“James. Think sensibly. You’re now a Partner in one of the top advertising firms in the UK. I’m just offering you a chance to meet the bloody Prime Minister and the head of Germany. This is how you make contacts. Form business relationships. Win massive deals… You don’t turn opportunities like this down…”
She’s right.
I’d be mad not to seize the opportunity with both hands.
“I’ve got nothing to wear…” I counter.
“It’s not a nudist meal. You have to wear something, James!” she replies laughing, the mood lightning a little. “I’ll organise a Tux for you. And I’ll pick you up at seven, or have someone else collect you. It depends how long the talks drag on for. Yes, or no?”
I say yes. Caroline beckons for me to bend down towards her, and I obey, whereupon she kisses me once on the lips, and then leaves just before the lunch arrives.
--------------------
I call the Professor after I’ve managed to eat some lunch and calm down.
My mind is all over the place. I need to speak to the best friend I currently have in this world.
I start off the conversation by telling him about lock-ins being lifted. He already knows.
“Any update on your calculations and when you think I may be going home?”
“Soon… but let’s talk about this in a few more days… I may have some answers then… I don’t want to say anything more just now.”
So, we talk about the Jubilee Line.
About the idea of me going home.
And then I hit him with the news about Caroline being pregnant.
“Oh dear, James…” I hear him say.
He asks me about how I feel about it. I tell him I’m not very happy about it, but that the news is very fresh and I need to think a lot more about it.
Then I try to steer him away from that conversation and on to what I really want to speak to him about.
“Have you heard from Sarah, at all?” I ask.
The answer is no.
“Professor, I may be going home any day… I really want to see Kenneth. I want to get to know him. And if I don’t get to make the jump back to my world, I definitely want to get to know him here and spend as much time with him as possible. Can you call her again and broach the subject? Try to get her to agree to it sooner rather later?”
The Professor agrees.
I ask him how he is. Make some more idle conversation, but by now, I just want to get off the phone.
My mind is about to explode.
I need to get out of the building.
To walk.
To think.
So I leave my apartment and walk for hours through the streets of London.
Soon, if the lock-ins end, the streets will no doubt fill up again, and all this peace and solitude will seem like a distant dream. London will no longer be a ghost town. Life will return.
And hopefully I will return home to my family. And to Sarah.
But if I don’t?
Am I going to be a father again? Should I shift my focus from Sarah to Jane…, or to Caroline and our baby,… and try to make a life with her?
Whatever happens, I can’t keep drifting.
I need to make a life for myself, and I need to take back control.
When I return to my apartment five hours later, I’ve made a couple of pretty big decisions.
/> Chapter Fifty
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Decision One: As soon as the lock-ins end – and maybe sooner - I need to move out of my palace and find somewhere else to live. I don’t want to be dependent on Caroline any more. She’s lovely. I still fancy her. But at the moment she’s got a hold on me, by virtue of the fact that I’m partially dependent on her. And now she’s pregnant…and given that I’m uncomfortable with having another child just now…I need to reclaim my independence so that we can have a proper discussion about it without her holding a trump card. The obvious place is my mother’s house. My old home. Where I was brought up. It’s not ideal. I’ve never pictured myself living there again, but at some point I need to repair it, fix it up, and then perhaps sell it. Now is perhaps as good a time as any…or at least, as soon as I can get access to the paints and decorating supplies I’ll need.
Decision Two: No more feeling sad about Sarah, or guilty about feeling lonely and wanting to have sexual relations with another woman. If I can’t have Sarah, and if she doesn’t want me, I refuse to be a Robinson Crusoe victim of time travel and allow myself to be cast up on a deserted shore not of my choosing and remain lonely and frustrated for however long I am going to be stuck here for.
Decision Three: I want to see Jane again. The other night was amazing. Much better than I would have expected. Thinking about her beside me in bed, or remembering how I washed her body in the shower, the soap and bubbles, her soft breasts… it gets me turned on just by remembering it. Another night like that would not be a bad thing! Please… Plus, there was something else about her. Whereas before, nine years ago, after fantasising about her for years, then having finally met her, I discovered that we weren’t matched… that we were on different wavelengths… and that the chemistry was wrong… if you put it down to ‘chemistry’…but this time around things are different. She is more self-confident. More self-assured. She doesn’t need me. She puts the children first. Has respect for herself. And she has her own plans for her own life. I no longer fit into her life or her plans… she is independent. And strangely, all of that now attracts me to her. Plus, not to be overlooked… we are still married!
Decision Four: As soon as the Jubilee Line opens up again, I am going to travel on it as much as possible, and present myself with as many opportunities as possible to make the Jump back home.
Decision Five: I don’t want to be a father again. At least, not one in this world, when I know that sometime in the future, hopefully the near future, I’m going back home to my other world. I’m the first time traveller. Perhaps. And I don’t want to go down in history as one who recklessly spread his seed throughout the universe in all space and time.
I shower, shave, spruce myself up and am just about to order a meal from downstairs, when the phone rings.
When I pick it up, my hand begins to shake as soon as I hear the phone on the other end.
It’s Sarah.
“James?” Her voice is soft. Timid. Quiet. “Is that you?”
“Yes.” I reply, choking a little on the word. I cough, and say it again. “Yes. I’m here. Is everything okay?”
“James… Professor Kasparek called me. He asked me about Kenneth. If you can see him?”
My heart races.
“Yes,… I haven’t called you, Sarah, because… I have no right… and… you made it pretty clear that you had made your choice… and you didn’t choose me… but… Kenneth is my son, and I was hoping that, if I gave you time, you might find it in your heart to let me see him… to get to know him?”
I can hear Sarah begin to cry.
“James… thanks for giving me the space. I appreciate it. I know it must be hard for you… but…”
“But you’re married. And you made exactly the same choice I did eight years ago when I stepped through the portal. I get it.”
Silence.
“I told my husband about you… not about you being a time traveller… just that you were Kenneth’s father. He knows I’m calling you now.”
“Good. You mustn’t lie to him on my behalf.” I reply, saying something and nothing, just to keep the conversation flowing.
“We’ve talked about you and Kenneth. A lot.” She pauses. “James… he says he will support me in any decision I make, and that it’s my choice.”
I can tell she’s building up to her decision. Delaying telling me it. Avoiding it until the last possible moment. It’s not going to be good…
“And I’ve decided that it’s not a good idea for me to let you come into his life. James… it’s not because you’re not a good man. But you’re unreliable. I asked the Professor to be honest and tell me if he thinks you’re going to go back to your world, and the other me and our children there… and he said yes. That you would be going home. And maybe soon.”
“Which is why I need to see Kenneth as soon as possible…” I interrupt, the frustration and upset boiling over. “Before it’s too late!”
“And that’s exactly why I can’t let you? What does it benefit Kenneth? He meets you, forms a bond, starts to love you… and then ‘poof’ you disappear… Except you don’t actually disappear. The other James comes back, takes your place… James, you might be lovely, and a good father, but the other you… the one who really lives in this world… he’s a complete bastard! And you know it. He won’t want to see Kenneth. He’ll drop him like a stone. Or… maybe worse, he does try to see him, or Kenneth tries to see him… and discovers what he’s really like. The other you might even do him physical harm, or mess with his brain in some way. And Kenneth’s too young for me to try and explain to him what’s going on. He won’t understand…” Her tears are flowing now, and I can hear her voice breaking.
“But…” I say the word, objecting… but no words follow. There is no ‘but’. Sarah is right.
“James… this is hard… I hate saying this…blast…James, I still love you, you know I do… but… all this…. I can hardly cope with it. And if I can’t, how would James? He’s just a child!”
She sobs a few times on the other end of the line, then coughs and carries on.
“James, he’s a wonderful boy. At the moment, in spite of the lock-ins and the pandemic, he’s in a good place. He doesn’t ask about you anymore. He’s accepted Brian as his father. He loves him… There’s no reason to change all that…I can’t change it… He’s got stability, love,…everything he needs.”
“He needs me!” I answer back. Loudly. Perhaps louder than I should have.
“Does he James? Really? Honestly? Given the uncertainty and who the other you is? Honestly?”
She’s right.
And she knows I know she’s right.
“Sarah… You know I love you. You know that, right?”
“YES! Which is why this is all so hard. It’s an impossible Lose-Lose situation. Everyone loses in some way… but Kenneth doesn’t need to, and it’s him I have to think about here!”
“Sarah, I love you… and… I’m sorry for putting you in this situation. All of this… everything… we’re all victims of the same thing… I’d give anything…”
“I know, James. And I love you, too.”
“Will you send photographs and updates on Kenneth to the Professor every few months? I won’t contact you…but …would you…let me watch him grow up….from afar?”
“James…”
“Yes?”
“I love you…”
She hangs up.
--------------------
I’m still reeling from the conversation with Sarah when there is a knock on the door to my apartment. When I answer it I find the young lady from the front desk, smiling, and offering me a large flat box.
“The Home Secretary had this sent over earlier, but you were out. She wanted to remind you about the dinner with the Prime Minister tonight. She’ll pick you up at six. Which is in about forty-five minutes. There are two suits in the box. She hopes one of them will fit you.”
“Thanks… I understand there’s a German delegation over
at the moment… the Chancellor included… Are they staying here?”
“I’m not really allowed to say, Sir. However, I can confirm that you are no longer the only resident in the building. There are another eight people here.”
“Good to know. Thanks. Does that mean the bar will be open downstairs later?”
“Yes. Although socially distant, as always.”
“Aha… well, until now you couldn’t have got more socially distant. There was no one else there!” I joke.
She laughs. A little. But whether or not she is just professional and polite, or she actually thought it was funny, I don’t know.
A few minutes later I am standing in front of the mirror, wearing the second of the two suits that I had tried on from the box. The first was just a little too tight, but this one is perfect. Once again, I’m impressed by Caroline’s judgement. She’s a very capable woman.
However, standing there in front of the mirror, wearing her suit, in an apartment she organized, I begin to feel a little awkward. I am becoming a kept man.
I need to break free.
I consider moving to my mum’s house sooner, before the lock-ins end, but then I realise that it’s not a good idea. I need the wireless broadband capability that I have access to here in order to progressively increase my workload for the advertising agency.
As soon as the lock-ins end, I will be able to start meeting all my customers, and the other partner Rachel. Between now and then I have a lot of work to do learning about their accounts. Their businesses. And what we are doing for them.
I make a mental note to call one of the broadband companies, starting with Scotia Telecom, and to try and arrange broadband to be installed in my mum’s house as soon as possible.
About ten minutes later, I’m on the balcony, relaxing in one of the patio chairs when the phone rings. The Home Secretary is waiting for me downstairs.
Caroline is waiting in a large black state limousine outside the front entrance to the building. A tall, well-built security guard holds the door open for me, and I step inside.
Am I Dead? Page 34