My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time (19 page)

‘Marry?'

‘Yes. Does that idea appeal to you, sweetheart? Do they do marriage on Venus?' (O, reader! Hold my hand! Do you feel it tremble?) ‘But if you won't tell me about yourself—Well, how can I give myself to a woman who won't do the same for me? We have to at least start from a basis of equality, hen.'

O, beloved! Do you think he would still want to marry me, if he knew the truth? All at once I felt the squeeze of two insistent incompatibilities: together, they were crushing my heart.

‘I'm going to fetch Josie,' he said. ‘So you have till I get back.'

Tick, tock.

I have learned that in English, time is a commodity that can be made, stolen, bought, wasted, trodden, marked, put off, &
raced against. That things can happen from time to time, all in good time, time & time again. That from time immemorial, ‘Old
Father' Time has been considered precious, &
of the
essence,
that there is a time to live & a time to die, a time to love & a time to hate, & a time to read ‘Useful Temporal Expressions'
in Herr Dogger's recommended tome,
Infinite
English Grammar
by Professor H.W. Biggs-Gusset, all the while scarcely able to hold back your tears, for you are about to take another dangerous
leap into an unknown fate.

‘I was born in Jutland in 1872,' I blurted as soon as the door opened, ‘& raised in an orphanage. In 1888 I ran away to Copenhagen
but Fru Schleswig followed me.'

Fergus, still removing his jacket, looked bemused, & Josie intrigued.

‘You wanted to hear my story?' I continued. ‘So now you listen.'

‘A story?' asked Josie. ‘Can I hear it too, Lottie?'

‘This one is not for children,
min lille skat,
I said. ‘It is full of boring grown-up
pølsesnak!

‘Chock-a-block with tedious twaddle, pet,' affirmed Fergus, & ushered his daughter to the living room, where he fed a video
of her beloved Spiderman into the machine & I brought her a plate of lemon biscuits I had cooked that morning, for Love had
turned me into a creature quite unexpectedly fired up with domesticity. When Fergus came back he sat opposite me at the kitchen
table and said, ‘OK. Let's take this slowly. Did you say
eighteen
something?'

‘Eighteen hundred and seventy-two,' I said. ‘July 4th. In Copenhagen I did a dancing show with Else, we were the Østerbro Coquettes. But then she had an accident, & fell on the skin of a pig & her father died & she started a flower shop & I was
selling my body & then one day I was in the bakery on Classensgade …'

And as I recounted it all to him, in a somewhat gabbling & haphazard manner with much looping to & fro, I saw many emotions
cross his visage, from sympathy (my orphanage years) to concern (the whoring) to amusement (Fru Krak) to deep puzzlement (the
Time Machine), to alarm (Fru Krak's gun), to disbelief (the Greenwich Observatory), followed by – yes! For was he not an adventurer
at heart? Had I not spotted it in him? And was he not in love with history? – excitement! Joy! Nay, hilarity! For now that
I had reached the part about arriving in London & getting acquainted with English life, & needing condoms for my brothel in
Copenhagen, & seducing him as a whore but falling in love with him as a woman, he began laughing: laughing & laughing, with
tears in his eyes!

‘My God, I enjoyed that, sweetheart,' he said when I was quite done with my tale. He shook his head, still amused. ‘You're
quite a storyteller. The bit about the Professor writing his wife's horoscope: I love it' But then he took my hand & his face
became serious. ‘But look, Lottie. When exactly do I get the real version of why you borrowed my credit card to order five
thousand avocado-flavoured condoms and a load of fluffy handcuffs? Because, joking apart, I do think you owe me an explanation.
A proper one.'

O, how my heart plummeted! Reader, he had believed not a word! O woe was me! Now although I had perhaps expected my love to
question parts of my story, I was nonetheless quite flabbergasted that
none
of it had convinced him – not even those elements it most pained me to confess: viz, my designs upon his wallet. O, beloved,
can you imagine how I felt at that moment, when it seemed there was naught that I could do save provide more detail, which
would bury me further in what my lover perceived to be an elaborate & fantastical web of lies? I was at a loss. Looking out
of the window I saw an old lady by a pedestrian crossing, waiting for ‘the green man'. As the figure lit up, he became a wobbling
blur & a lump came to my throat.

‘Lottie,' Fergus said. He looked worried, & handed me a tissue. ‘I'd love to believe you. But– Well, it's so incredible. And
really
thoroughly imagined.
I bet you could even tell me the colour of Fru Krak's kitchen floor!'

‘It's wood, whitewashed,' I said without hesitation. ‘Fru Schleswig, she uses bleach.'

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Impressive. You should put this talent to use,' he said, & he seemed to mean it.

‘But it is all the truth!' I cried, standing up so suddenly that my chair crashed to the ground. The noise of
Spiderman
came through from the next room: an insistent musical beat beneath the quick to-&-fro of voices. Fergus, still seated at the
table, began playing with a metal corkscrew shaped like a fish.

‘Darling,' he said, sighing. ‘It's no good. This isn't working.' So this is how it is done, I thought. This is the pain that
Love brings. ‘How can we live together if you're hiding from me behind a story that sounds like something straight out of
Doctor Who?'
And then I saw that he had tears in his eyes, too, but a new kind I had not seen before.

‘Doctor what?'

‘It's a television series.'

‘
Television?'
I cried, all at once most offended & distraught. We were a pair of sweethearts having their first row. But I knew not the
rules of how sweethearts disagree. All I knew was that the emotions involved were unbearable. ‘But I am real. I am not television!
What happened is the truth! How can I prove it to you?' I exclaimed, boiling with annoyance – at myself as much as him, for
had I not spent much of my life thus far practising deceit on men? Most agonizingly ironic, then, that on the one occasion
I should choose to tell the truth, I would be disbelieved! How frustrating was my lover's obstinacy! I stamped my foot so
hard upon the tiled floor that it hurt: he merely carried on playing with the fish corkscrew.

‘OK,' he began wearily. ‘If I've understood you right, this recent argument you had with the other Danish people was about –'

But I interrupted. ‘They're expecting me to go back & save the Mother Machine with Fru Schleswig & Professor Krak. But I told
them I will not do it. Because I am in love with you!' I snapped.

‘So go back and tell them yes,' he said, pulling the extendable fish to its maximum length & then letting it contract back.
And his soft brown eyes looked at me steadily.

‘What?
I shouted. ‘Are you mad?'

‘No, I'm quite sane, Lottie. Tell them you've changed your mind. Tell them that you'll go.' O, insupportable! No sooner had
my own heart been awakened, than it was made to bleed!

‘You want me to leave you? Go back, be gone for ever, set up Hotel Charlotte in Østerbro & never see you again? And get stuck there just to show to you I am not
television?'
I was ready to tear out my hair by the roots.

‘I never said that, hen.' Lord, his calmness drove me to distraction.

‘Yes! More or less you did!'

‘Lottie,' he said, getting to his feet & grabbing me by the shoulders, which forced me to stand still. He looked into my eyes
as if searching for something: the way a doctor might look to see if there was any hope in the brain of a madman. ‘Listen,
hen. Wherever it is you have to go, and whatever you have to do there, I want you to take me with you.'

‘What?'

‘You want me to believe you. But unless I see it for myself, how can I?'

‘But it's dangerous!'

He shrugged, for this reply clearly bolstered his scepticism. ‘That definitely sounds like another reason to say no.'

‘No! It's not that! Anyway, what about Josie?'

‘Josie always comes with me on my archaeological trips abroad. Why should a journey to the past be any different?'

He was still challenging me.

‘You have to trust me!' I cried. ‘I tell you, it is dangerous!' How pig-headed he was!

‘Lottie: seeing is believing. So show me it's true and I'm yours for ever.'

Much hoo-ha ensued.

I will spare you the stormy details of my meeting with Professor Krak, who muttered ‘blackmail' when I gave him the ultimatum,
but brightened when he learned that Fergus was an archaeologist; of my address to the Halfway Club, which met with a mixed
reaction of frantic pleas & outrage; of the wrath of Herr Dogger, who shouted that a certain worthless, brazen hussy had caused
the club rule of confidentiality to be broken ‘for the first time in history'; of the emphatically expressed support of Fru
Jakobsen & Franz, who argued that the necessity of a connection with home should over-ride the aforementioned rule; & finally
of my own intervention. I spoke to the assembled throng at the Halfway Club with much passion & eloquence, declaring that
whilst understanding the vital nature of our mission, supporting it wholeheartedly, & respecting the need for secrecy concerning
the machine, the love of my life could under no circumstances permit the woman he loved to travel unprotected &, if she wished
to go, insisted upon accompanying her. At which declaration I, being the she in question, was moved to tears, as were all
of the shes in the hall (with the exception of Fru S, who merely snorted that I was ‘nuthing but a spoyled bratte'), & in
the end by a show of hands it was democratically agreed by all but Herr Dogger, who opposed it, & Fru S, who was by now snoring
vibrantly, that desperate times required desperate measures.

‘OK, they agree. But if we do this, we must do what Professor Krak & I have already planned,' I told Fergus when I returned,
triumphant, from the meeting. ‘You & Josie must help. You must know we may be stuck there.' I was beginning to become anxious.
How could I acquaint him with the dangers of our journey, if he so thoroughly questioned its likelihood?

‘Whatever you say,' he grinned. To him the undertaking was still a source of benign amusement & curiosity – but as the days
passed, my seriousness about equipping him & Josie for the ‘surprise trip to Denmark' began to dent his confidence. ‘Er, how
long do you expect us to be gone?' he asked, as I measured him up for clothing.

‘I am no philosopher,' I said, kissing his left cheekbone, of which I was particularly fond. ‘But it all depends on how you measure time.'

Just over six weeks had passed since Fru Schleswig & I began our adventures: Professor Krak had calculated that we should
therefore land in Copenhagen sometime in late December 1897, nigh on Christmas. ‘A good time,' he assured us, ‘for it is a
preoccupied season, involving much drunkenness & high spirits, & we can take cover behind the revelry.' So thus it is that
after further intensive discussions concerning the logistics of the mission, Fergus, Josie & myself, with Franz, Fru Schleswig
& Professor Krak, all clad in appropriate 1890s dress (ah, how at home do I feel in my familiar bodice & dress, freshly dry-cleaned!
And how splendid does my love look in Herr Jakobsen's waistcoat, jacket, breeches & frock coat, & how adorable Josie, in the
woollen sailor's outfit Fru Jakobsen has knitted for her!), now pile into a hired minibus along with several large suitcases
of equipment, medical drugs & other modern paraphernalia including the vacuum cleaner from which Fru Schleswig has most obstinately
refused to be parted, & travel to the Greenwich Observatory where, tiptoeing in, we crowd together next to the telescope,
beneath the green laser Meridian Line in the upstairs hall. In which anxious tableau try to picture us, O precious one, as
we stand quaking on the brink of our adventure – a small throng sizzling with nerves & uttering jumbled, hapless prayers to
whatever idea of God our imaginations can summon, while Professor Krak prepares to trigger, with a long, curved magnetic wand,
the tiny earth-shudder that will
(hopefully)
awaken the Time-Sucker & catapult us back to whence we came.

Whoosh! Ping!

We gasp as –

Yes!

No!

Yes!

A loud crack, a puff of noxious smoke –

HELP!

The time is exactly 11pm on Wednesday July 30th. But not for long.

Part the Third: Back from Beyond

This journey was quite different from the last. Not least because I, for one, was wide awake for the whole excruciating process, which involved a hideous whirling that seemed to last both seconds & years (as indeed it did), & featuring many coloured flashing lights and screaming, hissy noises, much like a fairground jamboree randomly & catastrophically melting: but then, just as I was beginning to believe that this was Hell, & I should never be out of it, & that nor would I forgive myself for assigning
my poor Fergus & Josie to the same Fate, the monstrous experience came to an abrupt halt, & we landed with a shoddy & uncompromising
thud in a place of pitch darkness & searing cold where, dizzily recovering our bearings, we discovered ourselves crushed together
in a higgledy-piggledy amalgam of heads, torsos & limbs within the velvet interior of the Time Machine in the Krak basement.
Or there, at least, we surmised we were, for a moment passed before Herr Krak located his powerful modern torch. Disentangling
ourselves from one another & struggling out (this time, I was pleased to note, we had not travelled the maritime route, &
were quite dry), we looked around to find the basement room exactly as we had left it, but thankfully minus Fru Krak & her
blunderbuss. Pandora the orang-utan looked down upon us mournfully from her high glass-walled perch. Josie – who seemed not
to have been aware of the journey, unlike the adults in our party, all of whom were feeling nauseous – was already jumping
up & down with excited glee, & clambering all over the machine ('Touch nothing!' warned Professor Krak. ‘She is the most delicate
of beasts!'), while Fergus simply stood staring openmouthed in amazement, that all I had recounted was indeed true and not
the ravings of a fantasticator, lunatic or sect member.

I turned to him triumphantly. ‘You see?'

He blinked several times, acknowledging the fact that we were no longer in Greenwich. I saw him taking in the dresser, the
pictures on the walls, the ornamental table. Professor Krak smiled at his consternation and said in English: ‘It's all very
much vintage
klunkestil,
as we call it in Denmark – late Victorian, to you. Except the exercise bicycle, which is an import.'

Fergus fell before me on his knees, & when he finally spoke, it was with the slowness & deliberation of an oracle.

‘If you can ever forgive me, Lottie,' he said – still looking around him like a sleepwalker, or Lazarus returned from the dead – ‘then please marry me.'

‘All in good time,' interrupted Professor Krak, before I could reply. ‘But first things first, if you do not mind. We are
on a mission here, Mr McCrombie, & shall be requiring your assistance.'

‘I didn't believe her, Professor,' said Fergus, rising to his feet, but looking so dazed I feared he might swoon. ‘I was beginning
to think it was, well, something mental. Delusions, you know, from her imagination being too big for her wee head. I figured
we'd just have to tread water till the right pharmaceutical solution came along.'

‘Well, frankly she should never have told you,' the Professor replied, looking at me reproachfully and rubbing his hands against
the sudden cold. Chilly vapours puffed from his mouth as he spoke. ‘It is quite against regulations. But now you are with
us, I am sure you can be of help. Perhaps you could begin by asking young Josie to get off the exercise bicycle? All the equipment
here is most delicate & irreplaceable.'

‘Hoam, & not a minnit too soone,' harrumphed Fru Schleswig, detaching herself from the vacuum cleaner & directing a punishing
glance at Professor Krak, before reaching for the crate of food Fru Jakobsen had prepared for us. ‘I am not doin nuthing lyke
thatte aggen as long as I lyvve. So putte that in yor pype and smoke it. Now wer is the bred? I cud eet a hors.'

And so could we all, for our time-journeying had engendered a fearsome hunger, so it was with gusto that we attacked the home-made
rugbrød,
& the cheese & sausage Fru Jakobsen had packed for us, devouring it picnic-style along with hot, sweetened tea from a clever
hotty-botty flask known as a Thermos. Upon which, with all but Fru Schleswig's mighty appetite then assuaged (‘How cud anywun
think this is enuffe to keep boddie & sole together?' she grumbled), we set about our appointed tasks, according to the extensive
flow-chart which we had now pinned to the wall, which Professor Krak had begged us to consider as our Bible. He also had instilled
in us the need to co-operate ‘like a highly motivated populace, under the leadership of, say, Stalin in his heyday', & this
we did insofar as our understanding of this allowed, I at least never having heard of that good gentleman. First Fergus, Josie,
Fru Schleswig & I unrolled the inflatable mattresses we had brought with us, & set up a temporary home in the two spare rooms
of the basement not occupied by the machine, to which we now laid claim as safe territory. As we had anticipated, Fru Krak
had barred entry to the upper rooms by a heavy metal grille at the top of the staircase, but our access to the outdoors remained
unjeopardized, for it could be effected by all but the monstrously bloated Fru Schleswig via a narrow ventilation tunnel which
finalized in the garden, & it was through this that Professor Krak & Franz planned to venture when dusk fell, Franz for the
long-anticipated reunion with his parents, the wealthy & distinguished Herr & Fru Poppersen Muhl, & Professor Krak to sell
modern medicines on the black market, & thereby procure us enough money to last for the duration of our stay.

There is a fever for things mechanical which comes over certain men when in the presence of anything bolted, wired, wheeled
or pistonned – a fever to which my beloved Fergus unexpectedly turned out to be no more immune than a member of my own sex
is to the allure of a diamond necklace or an elegant high-heeled shoe. So animated had I been by the charm of Fergus's mind,
thus far, & how busily besotted with his physique, that the practical aspect of his character had never surfaced, hitherto,
in my presence. But now it had found its element. With Josie at his side (the child fair bubbling with energy like an overheated
cooking pot), my husband-to-be excitedly investigated the incomprehensible innards of the Time Machine, quizzing our host
about its capacities all the while. This curious attention flattered Professor Krak.

‘I will show you the plans if you wish,' he beamed. ‘I keep a copy in there, as well as in London,' he said, pointing to a
large bureau in the corner, sporting many drawers. ‘But be warned; the machine can never be reproduced by anyone other than
me: I have seen to that'

‘How so?' I queried, yawning, for the phenomenon of men being masculine together always renders me somewhat bored & I will
confess I felt a little disappointed that my dearest seemed more fascinated by the engineering of our vehicle than with the
aesthetics of my attire, which the dry-cleaning process had rendered most glorious, to match the woman wearing it, if I may
say so myself, for now that my nausea had subsided, a pretty flush had blossomed on my cheeks.

‘I have incorporated in it a uniqueness,' replied Professor Krak. ‘In the form of a liquid component whose four ingredients
are known only to myself, which cannot be stored, & which remains fresh for only twenty-four hours. Without its presence in
the spherical receptacle I call the Catalysing Orb, the contraption's acceleration device remains inactive & dormant. For
the purposes of security, the recipe for this delicate activating element remains a secret held only by me. We cannot have
everyone criss-crossing time, now can we? And I am pleased to see from all my forays into the future, that I appear to be
the only man in history who has ever engineered such a device. And that is how I wish to keep it. In the hands of the uninitiated,
a Time Machine could be all too easily abused.'

‘That sounds fair enough,' said Fergus, but a worried look came to his face & he presently voiced his concern. ‘But Professor
(can I call you Fred?), you must have some sort of back-up plan for us? I mean, in case we should find ourselves …'

But Professor Krak was now delving into a trunk, from which he pulled a long knotted rope. ‘Now help me attach this to the
vent,' he said breezily, ‘the better to facilitate our exit.'

No more was said, & the moment was gone faster than a wink.

After Professor Krak and Franz had left on their missions to the unsafe territory of the outer world, Fergus & I lay nestled
in one another's arms, listening to the distant footsteps of Fru Krak in the house above us, the sleeping Josie beside us
on the mattress, adorably sucking her thumb, & in the next room, Fru Schleswig snoring reverberatively in a way that, instead
of provoking the usual annoyance in me, bore for once the comfort of the familiar. I sighed in happiness. All seemed right
with the world. Would that it might stay that way. (Though guess what, dear reader: fat chance!)

The next morning, as planned, we ventured out, carefully timing our exit to coincide with Fru Krak's visit from young Franz,
who rang the doorbell at precisely 10am, as agreed, posing as a salesman of ladies' restorative products, peddling a powerful
sleeping potion sold in the English retail outlet Superdrug under the trade-name of Nytol. With the Krakster thus engaged
buying this miracle cure, along with the yellow ‘kick-starting' pills that came with it, three of which must be swallowed
most religiously with a swig of cod-liver oil on the twenty-third day of every month, we were able to slip out through the
ventilation shaft by means of the knotted rope, & turn swiftly off Rosenvængets Allé into Faksegade, whence to the broader
sweep of Odensegade, where Fergus and Josie became so instantly and amazedly agog with the sight of people all dressed like
ourselves, in hats & veils & muffs, & with other such archaic oddities, that I had to remind them to keep their mouths closed.
But what an unexpected joy it was, through them, to see my beloved city through new-opened eyes, and marvel at the way those
things I had previously ignored or taken for granted had transformed themselves into quaint & charming quirks! The frosted
cobblestones that glinted in the morning sun; the cries of the street-hawkers & newspaper-sellers on Østerbrogade; the clatter of the horse-drawn trams & the sight of a fat, red-nosed man wobbling high on a pennyfarthing, balancing umpteen
Christmas packages; while across the wide boulevard, the long-necked swans pecked at the icy surface of Sortedams Lake, and
all around, the merry Christmas lights strung between the gas-lamps, and the little
Jul
candles that flickered in every window, high and low!

And what joy too, to see my Fergus's countenance, so full of relief that I was not a madwoman after all, & so enthralled with
all he beheld about him, for was not this an adventure to end all adventures?

And I – O, home I was again! And how joyful was this reunion, for I swear there is no country better to be in at Christmas-time
than Denmark, & no people more in love with that festive season than we sentimental Danes, & thus we walked along, past the
little match-selling girl sitting propped against the wall with her red, red cheeks and a sweet smile on her lips (so happy
she looked, as though she had just seen her long-lost grandmother! I threw her a coin but she did not move, so entranced was
she with her heavenly vision), & peeked into people's homes & spied decorated fir trees from whose branches hung the dearest
little baskets cut from paper, stuffed with sweetmeats, & elsewhere gilded apples and walnuts, and red candles shimmering
with orange flames. It was magnificent, quite incomparably magnificent! At every window we passed, we stopped for Josie to
press her nose against the pane, entranced by what she saw, for how intoxicating it was for a child, suddenly to find herself
in the land of Juletide! How blessed we felt as we witnessed her happy smiles and heard her shrieks of joy, & we all three
linked hands as we walked, while I set to musing about all the little presents we might muster or forage for her, such as
liquorice pipes & cinnamon lollipops & maybe even a toy elephant with moving joints, so that she could enjoy the occasion
as children should, & I pictured us all returning next year, I pushing a baby in a perambulator up Holsteinsgade, & the year
after that with that same baby plus another child, up Rosenvængets Hovedvej. Then in future years more, I pregnant at all
times, & we would walk along Østergade, for I was now busy cooking up a grandiose & many-offsprung dream. I squeezed Fergus's
hand, & he squeezed mine back, & I knew he was cooking up the same thing, for if he was my steadfast tin soldier, then I was
his little ballerina, just like in the story: in any case as you can see, dear one, we were made for each other, & if this
brings a romantic tear to your eye then I will not apologize, for there are worse things that can befall a reader.

Then imagine the sheer delight of walking into Else's flower shop on Slagelsegade with Fergus on my arm (and have I forgotten
to tell you what a fine figure of a gentleman he looked in his aristocratic get-up?), & Josie, swaddled in her blue woollen
winterwear, at my side! The bell rang as we entered: Else was nowhere to be seen, but Josie gasped with delight, for the shop
was chock-a-block with marvellous glittering nonsense: Else has a magic talent for concocting much from little, & she had
swathed every surface with a flutter of artificial snowflakes, upon whose soft whiteness squatted glorious crimson flower-bouquets,
and nisse-dwarves, silver-dusted candles, and a splendid nativity scene with pine-cones that sparkled silver, bronze & gold, fat pink cherubs,
marzipan pigs as small as your thumb, & minuscule sheep with real pink & green-dyed fleece: Josie's eyes saucered at the sight
of all the shining trinkets, riches, baubles and wonders my clever friend had conjured in the confines of such a small space,
at the perfumed hyacinths, the dark fir-fronds, the blood-red berries & the snowdrops, & the chocolate angels and red hearts
dangling from the small Christmas tree in the window, whose candles flickered with every little gust of breath, & seemed to
whisper to us, ‘Hooray, &
Glædelig jul!'