Sands of Time (24 page)

‘You make it sound quite normal!’

‘Who is to say it isn’t?’

‘It’s never happened to me before.’ She was still very shaken.

‘Perhaps only in your dreams.’

She took a sip from her glass, feeling the bite of warmth through her veins and looked at him properly for the first time. Before, she had noticed him of course. Had seen he was about her own age – good-looking – had assumed he was trying to pick her up. Now she saw he was older than she had thought and she sensed genuine interest, kindness, in his glance.

‘Was I really not here. Out of my seat?’ She glanced down at her still-damp shoes.

He nodded.

‘I don’t want it to happen again.’

‘I’m not sure you can stop it.’ He frowned. ‘There are things you can do to help. I could write down the titles of some books for you to read.’

‘How come you know so much about it?’

‘I lecture on these things.’ He smiled. ‘I’m giving a talk in Toronto on parapsychology.’

‘What a coincidence.’ She took another sip of the drink then a thought struck her. She turned in her seat and stared at him. ‘It is a coincidence, isn’t it? You didn’t beam me down there or something.’

He laughed. ‘If only such things were possible, my dear.’

‘And those people in the snow. Did that really happen?’

He shrugged. ‘What people? What snow?’

She slumped back against her seat, defeated.

There was a moment’s silence then he leant across towards her again, raising his voice slightly against the roar of the engines. ‘The snow was real. I saw it on your boots.’

‘So I’m not going mad?’

He shook his head. ‘Never worry about that. You have a talent – perhaps ability is a better word. Cultivate it if you dare. It could be exciting.’

‘No one will ever believe me.’

‘No. But you’re a writer. Write about it. Tell the story. Let those who want to, believe. The others can read and enjoy and maybe even wonder.’

He had been looking at her notebook. She picked it up thoughtfully. He had assumed she was a writer and it was true. After all, she spent every spare second of her life writing. She would talk it over with Derek. Tell him what had happened. No, he would never believe her. Her unknown friend was right. If she was to write her snippet at all for general consumption it would have to be as fiction. As a dream in a magazine article perhaps. Or maybe as a novel? Already, without realising she had done it, she had picked up her pen.

But deep inside her something has changed. Without knowing it she has become afraid of travelling alone. She has encountered passion and fear and she has realised how detached her own life has been. Her relationship with Derek when she gets home will be closer, more dependent. When he asks her to marry him in six months’ time she will say yes.

Across the aisle Jack Kennedy smiled. He too had reached for his notebook. His was electronic.

Case 128: Subject’s name: Amanda Jones
. He had seen her name on the label of her cabin bag.
Estimated sensitivity:
7/10. Actual: 10/10. Verifiable facts: Maybe corroboration
from two people on road? Check date and location
. He smiled quietly.

He had learned from experience to provide aftercare for his guinea pigs. Whisky and ginger for those visiting the snowy wastes. Iced gin and lime for those who landed in the Sahara. Chilblain cures or sunburn. And of course a signed copy of his own book on trans-and bi-location, with an e-mail address where they could reach him with news of life/career changes resulting from their experience and for advice when it happened again – as it always did …

Of course there was always a risk. Always the possibility one day one of them would fail to return to their seat near his on the aircraft. That would be interesting. Probably unfortunate. Definitely worth an appendix on its own in his next book. A snippet. He smiled as he thought of the word scrawled across the cover of her notebook. It was funny how he often picked writers in his otherwise random selection of victims. Two novelists, a travel writer and four journalists to date. All travelling alone.

As he filled in the last detail and closed down his computer he lay back in his seat. Across the way Amanda was writing hard. He smiled thoughtfully. Perhaps he should ensure his next subject – no. 129 – did stay down there. His return flight to London in three days’ time might be an ideal opportunity. Imagine the furore when they found a passenger had disappeared. Imagine the puzzlement. Imagine the sense of power as he selected someone who this time would be the victim of the perfect crime. Because, even if it was in the name of science, it would be murder. There was no doubt at all about that.

On the Way to London

They think I’m sitting on the train

But I’m not.

I’m walking in the woods

With the wind caressing my face.

The sound in my ears is

The sough of the breeze in the branches.

The click of the wheels

The constipated tinkle of phones

Blur and fade

As do the voices round me.

The woman opposite me stares.

She can’t understand

The dream in my eyes.

Perhaps she thinks I’m mad.

Or asleep.

Or just vacant. Not at home.

She’s right. I’m not sitting on the train.

I’m walking on the shore.

The crash of the waves

The rattle of shingle

The cry of the gulls

Drown out the sound

Of the rails.

I think I’m sitting on the train.

I don’t realise that I have gone.

The woman opposite me screams.

The seat is empty.

I am not there.

They think she’s mad

Or perhaps she dreamed.

They pat her hand and offer counsel

And no one – ever – looks for me.

I am there, on my imagined shore.

Trapped between times.

Between existences.

And I am late for my appointments.

Second Sight

There was a time tunnel at the stately home. Corinne knew it well because she had been there before. A dark leafy passage, it ran between the car park and the open area of gravel in front of the house. She paid her fee and walked through it, moving from the present into the past as she stepped from a cloak of green shade and into the sunlight. At once she saw the crowds milling around: tourists like herself wearing ordinary clothes and the people around them, who purported to come from Tudor times, wearing ornate velvets and silks or home-spun rags – some barefoot, some with intricate ruffs and elaborate jewellery.

She loved it. It was so easy to imagine yourself in the past. If it wasn’t for the ordinary people who had just climbed out of cars and coaches, she would find it totally convincing. And she wanted to be convinced; to lose herself in the past; to forget her loneliness and anger for an afternoon at least. It had worked last time she came. For several hours she hadn’t given a single thought to him – the man she had thought of as her lover, until she had caught him cheating.

She wandered towards the moat where a narrow bridge led towards the house itself and turning right, instead of going on into the dark, panelled rooms, she walked alongside the water where a peacock strutted and flirted its tail proudly, enamoured by its own reflections. A group of Tudor people stood there. They were playing some kind of Elizabethan game on the grass and seemed unaware of her curiosity. They were there, after all, to be stared at. One of them, a man, looked up suddenly and caught her eye. He doffed his velvet cap and gave her an elaborate bow, smiling impishly. She laughed.

That was nice. It was friendly. She felt attractive – something her lover’s insults had made her doubt – but not threatened. There was no way he was going to talk to her, not unless she approached him more closely and even then he would talk that wonderful mock-Shakespearean language which these people managed to improvise.

She was very impressed with the way they did it. It showed how talented they were, how completely they had entered into the parts they had chosen to play. Something she needed to learn to do. To play the cool, independent, confident woman of the world. Then, with or without a man, she could hold her head high.

Still managing to smile cheerfully, she walked on, leaving them to their game. Round the back of the house it was all very busy. She was heading towards her favourite places: the dairy, the kitchens, the dimly lit, dusty barns where they wove and spun and dyed their wool and did all the everyday things of life when lives were real and proper and self-sufficient, in a time when people made everything themselves. The dark shadowy areas, lit by candles and stray beams of sunlight from the high windows, filled her with excitement, inspired her. She loved to see the people chatting, gossiping, laughing round the smoky fires. She spent a long time staring at them as they worked. Then at last, overwhelmed with sudden, unexpected sadness that she was not part of a community such as this, she turned away, threading a path out of the crowd, and headed up towards the orchard to the part of the garden which was deserted. No tourists came here, because nothing ever happened. There was nothing to watch. It was empty, a place to think.

Slowly, trying to imagine herself wearing a long velvet gown instead of her usual trousers and loose sweater, she walked into the trees – and stopped in surprise. There were things going on here after all. She could see a group of Tudor-dressed people in the distance. They were talking together quietly, urgently, and she found herself wondering if she was going to catch them out talking modern English or did they, even here away from the crowds with no one to watch and listen, still keep to the parts which they had so carefully constructed for themselves?

The grass was soft and damp under the trees. They didn’t hear her coming. She walked slowly, not hiding her approach, but drawing near to the group she began to feel inexplicably nervous. There was no one else around and they were clearly talking about something personal and secret. She wondered suddenly if they would welcome someone watching them. She paused, pretending to examine the leaves on a damson tree nearby, trying to look casual, wondering whether to bring out the sketch book which she always brought everywhere with her. She groped in the haversack on her shoulder and produced the small pad and pen and, perversely perhaps, given her suspicions about their preoccupation with themselves, began to move towards them.

The group shifted. There were five men. They were talking, then shouting. Two of them walked apart, throwing insults at one another. She couldn’t hear them properly. In fact she couldn’t hear quite what language they were using, but if it was acting it was a very persuasive show of a quarrel.

She stopped, leaning against the trunk of a tree, regretting that she had come so close, wanting suddenly to turn back towards the house to the noise of ordinary people talking and laughing, to the children screaming as they chased the peacocks. It was growing very hot. The sun beat down between the trunks of the trees, but her eyes kept being drawn back to the scene ahead. She was as trapped by it as were the participants, and in a way as involved. The voices grew louder. She could almost feel the heat pouring off the men. One of the two was waving his arms about. She watched his face growing red as he gesticulated, fascinated by the way the feather on his jaunty cap shuddered around his face, curling beneath his chin. Even as she thought about it, he tore off the cap and threw it to the ground, seemingly beside himself with rage.