The Thief of Time (6 page)

The following Sunday, she wrote an article in a prominent Sunday newspaper – ‘Tara Says: Just Say No!' – claiming to have recently been involved in a relationship with a famous soap star (unnamed, but the description made it obvious to whom she was referring). She alleged that their sexual activities had bordered on the illegal and that she had enjoyed acting out all of this young man's fantasies and forcing him to act out hers. She chose to end their affair, she said, only when he tried to drag her into his world of alcohol, heroin and cocaine abuse. ‘I saw the look in his eyes as he offered me the silver spoon and Bunsen burner of disgrace', she wrote hysterically, ‘and knew that I could never be the woman he wanted me to be. A woman who was as much of a mess as he was. A woman who would do anything for that next fix, sell myself on the streets perhaps, rob old ladies, push drugs on to babies, a worthless nothing. I took one look at him and shook my head. “Tara says: Youre dumped,” I told him.'

Tommy – the innocent party in all of this, although everything she imagines about his private life is no doubt true – was summoned into the offices of his executive producer on the Monday morning after publication where he was informed that had Ms Morrison actually named him he would have been fired immediately. As she hadn't, and as they couldn't prove that it was him she was referring to, he was to consider himself on an official warning. He had a responsibility to his fans he was told, the young girls who dreamed of marrying him, the teenage boys who were following his battle with testicular cancer with dread. They acknowledged that he was far and away the most popular character on the show, but said they would have no qualms about involving him in a car crash, or having him shot, or giving him AIDS if he stepped out of line again.

‘You mean my character, of course,' said Tommy. ‘You'd do those things to my character.'

‘Yes, whatever,' they muttered.

The incident had preceded a particularly bad couple of months in Tommy's life, where the tabloids were hounding him at night to see what he was digesting, inhaling, swallowing, smoking or injecting, whom he was kissing, touching, fondling, molesting or screwing, and exacerbating the problems which he had already developed through the lifestyle they had forced upon him in order to help their circulation. Although I expected nothing more from one of the Thomases, I was less than happy with Ms Morrison for her part in his troubles and made my feelings clear to her at a stormy meeting a few days later. I'm not one to lose my temper, but by God it got the better of me that day. Since then, we had kept a distance from each other and, far from being concerned about her departure for pastures new, I was pleased by the idea. With us, she was a big fish in a small pond. We had made her a star. A small-time, small-screen star, granted, but a star none the less. She would find life a lot more difficult with Auntie.

And so, at home that night, eating my pate, listening to my Wagner, drinking my wine, I wanted nothing more than to relax and put the events of that day out of my mind. It would be a full seven days before I had to return to the station and until that time they were under the strictest of instructions not to contact me, except in the most dire of emergencies. It was with some surprise then that I heard my buzzer ring and, as I went to the front door, I said a silent prayer that it was just an electrical fault on the wire and that no one would be out there.

My nephew stood outside, a hand running through his dark hair as he waited for me to answer.

‘Tommy,' I said in surprise. ‘It's very late. I was -'

‘I have to talk to you, Uncle Matt,' he said, pushing me out of the way and coming inside. I closed the door with a sigh as he led the way back to the living room, instinctively heading for the room where I kept the alcohol. ‘You said you were going to give me the money,' he shouted, his voice breaking with nervousness and for a moment I believed he was going to cry. ‘You promised me the -'

‘Tommy, will you please sit down and relax. I forgot. I'm sorry. I was supposed to post it to you, wasn't I? It went right out of my mind.'

‘You are going to give it to me, aren't you?' he begged, grabbing my shoulders and it was all I could do to prevent myself from pushing him back on to the sofa in frustration. ‘Because if you don't give it to me, Uncle Matt, they're going to -'

‘I'll write you a cheque right now,' I said quickly, pulling away from him and going behind my desk in the corner. ‘Honestly, it was a simple mistake, Tommy. There's hardly any need to come around here in the middle of the night disturbing my peace, is there? How much did we say anyway? A thousand, was it?'

‘Two thousand,' he said quickly and I could see by the firelight how much he was perspiring. ‘We said two thousand, Uncle Matt. You promised me two -'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake, I'll write you three. Is that better? Three thousand pounds, all right?'

He nodded and buried his face in his hands quickly, leaving it there for a moment before looking back up with a smile on his face. ‘I'm ... I'm sorry about this,' he said.

‘It's quite all right.'

‘I hate to ask but ... There's just so many
bills
right now.'

‘I'm sure there are. Electricity, gas, council tax.'

‘Council tax, yeah,' said Tommy, nodding, as if that was as good an excuse as any.

I ripped out the cheque and handed it to him. He examined it closely before putting it in his wallet. ‘Relax,' I said, sitting down opposite him and pouring him a glass of wine which he took eagerly. ‘I've signed it.'

‘Thanks,' he muttered. ‘I should go though. I'm expected.'

‘Stay a few minutes,' I said, not wishing to know who expected him, or for what. ‘Tell me, how much of that money is already spent?'

‘Spent?'

‘How much do you owe to people, and I don't mean British Telecom or the gas board. How much has to be divided out when the banks open tomorrow?'

He hesitated. ‘All of it,' he said. ‘But that's it then. I'm through with the stuff.'

I leaned forward. ‘What is it exactly that you
do,
Tommy?' I asked, truly intrigued.

‘You know what I do, Uncle Matt. I'm an actor.'

‘No, no. I mean what is it that you do when you're not on set? What kind of trouble have you got yourself involved in?'

He laughed and shook his head violently and I could tell that he wanted to leave, now that he had his money. ‘No trouble,' he said. ‘I've just made a few bad investments, that's all. This will clear them and then I'll be home free. I'll pay you back, I promise.'

‘No, you won't,' I said in a matter of fact voice. ‘But it doesn't matter, I'm not concerned about a few thousand pounds. I'm just afraid for you, that's all.'

‘You are not.'

‘I am,' I protested. ‘Remember, I was there when your father met his end. And his father too.' I stopped at that generation.

‘Look, Uncle Matt, you couldn't save their lives and you're not going to save mine, all right? Just let me alone to get on with my life. I'll sort myself out.'

‘I'm not in the saving business, Tommy. I'm not a priest, I'm an investor in a satellite broadcasting station. I just hate seeing somebody die young, that's all. I find the whole concept ridiculous.'

He stood up and pounded around the room, looking at me from time to time and opening his mouth to speak every so often without actually saying a word. ‘I'm not – going – to die,' he enunciated carefully, his two index fingers held close together as he pointed them towards the ceiling. ‘You hear me? I'm not – going -to die.'

‘Oh, of course you are,' I said, dismissing what he had said with a wave of my hand. ‘You've obviously got bad men after you. It's only a matter of time. I've seen it all before.'

‘Fuck you!'

‘That's enough!' I shouted. ‘I abhor bad language and won't have it in my apartment. Remember that the next time you come looking for money.'

Tommy shook his head and made for the door. ‘Look,' he said quietly, his voice speeding up in his anxiety for us to part on good terms. He didn't know when he might need me again. ‘I appreciate this. I really do. Maybe I'll be able to help you out some day. We'll get together next week, OK? We'll do lunch. Somewhere quiet where every fucker in the place isn't staring at me and wondering whether I really have testicular cancer or not, all right? Sorry. Everyone. I promise. Thanks, OK?'

I shrugged and watched him leave before returning to my armchair with a sigh, this time with a large brandy nestling between my hands for comfort. And that was when my moment of epiphany hit. I'm 256 years old and I've sat back and watched nine of the Thomases die and done nothing at all to prevent any of these tragedies. I've helped them out when they've needed assistance but accepted their fate as predestined. Something which I cannot help alter in any way. So I have lived all this time. And one by one they've died. And most of them have been nice enough people, troubled yes, but worthy of help. Worthy of
my
help. Worthy of a life. And here was another one in trouble. Another Thomas ready to meet his end and I'd still be here afterwards, waiting for the next one to be born. Watching out for his time. When he gets into trouble, meets the girl, gets her pregnant and gets himself killed. I thought:
this cant go on.

The epiphany was this: I would do something I should have done a long time ago – I would save one of the Thomases. Specifically, I would save Tommy.

We left Dover – Dominique, Tomas and I – on a mid-afternoon in September, when the city's colours remained in a state of gloom from morning ‘til night and it seemed, some days, that the sky forgot to brighten up at all. I was much recovered from my recent beating and, in the weeks since it had robbed me of a portion of my dignity, I had grown even more daring in my escapades, as if I already knew that survival itself would turn out to be my forte. I escaped my sickbed on a Monday morning and after that it was a full week before we were ready to move on; considering we had little or no belongings to call our own, I cannot quite recall or understand the reason for our delay. Still, it did not make me unhappy for I took that time to bid farewell to the friends that I had made on the streets, the empty boys like myself who stole for food or to pass the time, the homeless children whose larceny provided them with the only regular job in the city, and the urchins who looked through me when I spoke to them and didn't understand the concept of leaving the only world they had ever known. I visited three of my favourite prostitutes on three consecutive nights and felt sad as I paid my goodbyes to them, for they had been my only source of comfort throughout my despairing longing for Dominique. As they nurtured my adolescent longings for an hour at a time, and a few shillings a turn, I would picture her face on the pillow beneath my own, and call out her name, closing my eyes and dreaming that she was there. At times, I wasn't sure that our single night of lovemaking had even taken place or whether it was simply a hallucination that my illness had conjured up for me, but looking at her made me disavow this idea, for it was clear that there was a spark between us, however dull on her part, but one that had once been lit none the less.

Tomas seemed unconcerned about the move, as long as we were with him. By now, he was almost seven and he was a bright, energetic child, always wanting to be set loose on his own to explore the streets, but eager none the less to report back to us – his surrogate parents – on his actions whenever he would return. I was not so keen on allowing him to be left to his own devices in Dover but Dominique seemed less concerned. My brush with violence had made me more aware of the dangers on the streets and I was afraid for my brother, who I knew could too easily become involved with the same types as I myself had. I would have defended them to anyone, had the question concerned my own safety, but when it came to Tomas I didn't trust them an inch.

‘He's six years old,' Dominique told me. ‘There's boys out there younger than him earning money to feed their own families. What harm can he come to, Matthieu?'

‘There's plenty of harm out there,' I protested. ‘Look at the trouble I got into and I'm ten years older than him and able to look after myself. Do you want that happening to -'

‘You went looking for it. You try so many dangerous moves that it was only a matter of time before your thieving caught up with you. Tomas isn't like that. He doesn't steal. He just wants to explore, that's all.'

‘Explore
what?'
I asked, confused by her explanations. ‘What exactly is there out there to explore? The streets are just full of dirt, that's all. The gutters are filled with rats. There's nothing for him to find out there except people who will hurt him.'

She shrugged but continued to permit him to disappear for hours on end on his own. My concerns were genuine but I had a tendency to bow to her decisions, despite the fact that he was my brother and not hers. For she was older than me, and seemed more worldly, and held me completely in her thrall. Her dominance was complete but also maternal and sweet, her control over my life absolute and something not just desired by her, but by me also. At times, when we were alone together, she would allow me to sit close to her, laying my head upon her shoulder before the small fire, my face gradually sinking deeper and deeper towards her breasts until she would sit suddenly erect and claim that it was time for bed – for our separate beds. Although the chances of our union seemed more than remote, the night never came when I did not imagine that it could finally happen again.

We decided to travel to London where we believed our fortunes would lie. It was a long walk – almost eighty miles – from Dover to the capital but it was not unknown at that time for people to travel large distances by foot. The passage of time has made what was once not only possible but also commonplace now seem beyond all human endurance. Although it was late in the year, the weather was not inclement and there were always places to set up small camps for an evening. We had saved a little money – or rather Dominique had, through a careful hoarding of small change and a little laundry work she had been doing by day – and knew that in an emergency we could rent a small room for the night in an inn or farmhouse along the way. However, we knew that we had to be sparing for we would also need money for food, although I still planned to do a lot of stealing as we travelled, and hoped even to have a little left over to see us make a good start in London upon our arrival.

Leaving our small room that Monday morning delivered a curiously melancholy sensation to me. Although I had lived in the same house in Paris for fifteen years, I had never felt any great attachment to it and had never once looked back upon it or thought about it with any degree of homesickness from the day I had left. And yet, after only one year, there was a tear in my eye as I pulled the door shut for the last time in our Dover hovel, glancing at the two small beds, the shabby table, the chairs by the fire with the broken legs, our home. I turned to look at Dominique, to give her one last smile in this place, but she was already walking away, reaching down to slap some dust off the back of Tomas's pants, never turning around, never looking back. I shrugged and pulled the door behind me, leaving the room within in darkness, awaiting its next unfortunate occupants.

I was concerned about my boots. They were a dark black pair with fine lacings, a size too big, which I had stolen a few nights earlier from a young gentleman who had foolishly left them outside his room in The Traveller's Retreat, a small hostel near the harbour. I was in the habit of entering that place by its back door late at night and foraging around the hallways when the occupants had all gone to bed. It was not unusual to find a shirt or a pair of trousers outside the doors in the low, cramped corridors, left there by some gentlemen who thought they were still back in London or Paris and who expected to find their clothing neatly ironed and waiting for them in the morning. The things they left there were almost always impossible to sell but they made good clothes for my small family and cost me nothing, not even the smallest pang of conscience.

The boots were worn down a little at the soles, however, and I didn't much like the idea of walking to London in my bare feet. Already I could feel the gravel below my left foot pressing in as I moved along, and knew from experience that they had no more than a mile of comfort left in them before I would begin to develop blisters or cuts. Dominique had a similar pair but wore a fine pair of stockings between the leather and her skin that I had taken from a washing line three miles south the day before my beating, and I had found a brand new pair for Tomas only the previous day. He appeared almost as uncomfortable as I was as he broke them in and whined so often that they were cutting his feet that eventually Dominique took a hanky from her pocket and stuffed it around his toes to prevent any more friction. I would have preferred it if she'd wrapped it around his mouth, but nevertheless it kept him quiet, briefly.

I estimated that we would make it to London in about five days if we were left alone to walk; less if we managed to find some form of transport along the way, which I doubted as the chances were limited for a young man and woman, together with a small child, growing dirtier and more malodorous as the days progressed. But even a week was reasonable to us all and, as Dominique pointed out, seemed a small price to pay to escape Dover and the relentless life of drudgery that inevitably lay in store for us there. A week, she insisted, would see us to rights.

We were fortunate that first day, however, to catch the attention of a young farmer who was travelling in a cart from Dover to Canterbury, and who spotted us along the side of the road, attending to my feet. We had only travelled about six miles but it was at this point that I had begun to give up all hope for the boots and considered walking in bare feet and taking my chances. I was sitting on a milestone, examining my toes which had grown red with pain, as Dominique squatted in the grass behind me and Tomas lay on the ground to my right, one hand over his eyes, sighing with dramatic exhaustion when I heard the cart approaching.

‘You may as well stop that, you know,' I told Tomas. ‘We have to continue until we get there and no amount of whingeing or complaining is going to change that, all right?'

‘But it's so
far!'
he cried, almost in tears. ‘How soon will we be there?'

‘It might be a week yet,' I muttered stupidly, exaggerating the time even though I knew it would set him off even worse, but I was hot and in pain and nervous about how I was going to make it much further myself. The last thing I needed was this child complaining when Dominique was sure to drive us on relentlessly towards London. I sympathised with him only too well for I was only seventeen and no better than a child myself. There were times – like then – when I too wanted to lie down on the ground and stamp my feet and throw a tantrum and let someone else take control of things for a change but I couldn't, for only one of us could play that role successfully. ‘So just you get your mind accustomed to it, Tomas, and you'll be the better for it,' I added gloomily.

‘A
week,'
he cried, adding almost immediately, ‘how long is that?' ‘A week is -' I began to tell him just how long it could be when I heard the sound of the cart coming towards us on the road. A few had passed us by already and I had attempted to flag them down with no success. Generally the occupant would either lash out at me with his whip or simply curse at me to get off the roads, as if we were creating some sort of terrible obstacle. If those trap-drivers could only see Piccadilly at five O'clock on an evening today they would know how well they had it and wouldn't have been so quick to give way to their tempers. I glanced at the cart as it approached and was pleased to see that it had only one occupant but still didn't hold out too much hope as I thrust my hand in the air and called out to the young man who came towards me.

‘Halloa! Sir!' I cried. ‘Do you have room for us in your cart?' I stood back as he approached, expecting the whip to appear or for him simply to try to run me over at any moment and was surprised to see him pull up on the reins and shout to his horse to stand easy.

‘Looking for a lift, are ye?' he asked, coming to a halt beside me as Tomas looked up in desperate hope and Dominique emerged from the grass adjusting her skirts, staring at our benefactor suspiciously.

‘There's three of us, if that's not too many,' I said, putting on my most polite voice as I watched him glance briefly from one of us to the other, hoping that deference on my part would give way to compassion on his. ‘But we don't have much to carry. Just one bag, that's all,' I added, lifting my small hold-all from the grass. ‘We can't pay you, unfortunately, but we would be much obliged.'

‘Well, you may as well step on then,' he said with a smile. ‘Can't leave ye out here on a hot afternoon like this now, can I?' His voice was rich with a country strain that I didn't recognise, his words inflected with merriment and humour. ‘Just three of ye, ye say? Why, that ‘un's only a mite.' He nodded towards Tomas, who was scrambling vigorously into the cart, as if he feared the young man might change his mind at any moment and leave us behind. ‘More like two and a half

‘My brother,' I explained, stepping up beside him as Dominique got into the back quietly with Tomas. ‘Six years old.' I sat back and for a moment, before we even set off, wished we could simply stay in this horse and trap for ever, there on that road, the future a drama yet to begin, the simple past not played out as yet. It was the final reassurance that we were leaving Dover for ever for in a moment our chauffeur would crack his whip, let out a cry to the horse and we would jerk into movement. It was a quiet moment of gratitude and apprehension for me and I have never quite forgotten it. To my surprise I felt a lump in my throat as we started to move with generous speed along the road.

‘That's a queer accent you've got there,' said the farmer after a few moments. ‘Where is it you said you're from?'

‘We're coming from Dover but we hail originally from France. Paris, in fact. Do you know it?'

‘I know
of
it,' he said with a smile and I couldn't help but smile back at him. He was young – no more than about twenty-five – but had the face of a teenage boy. His cheeks were bright and clean as if they had never known the cut of a razor and his blond hair flopped merrily over his forehead. He was dressed with little expense, although it was clear from the cart and the condition of his horse that he was not poor. T never been much out of the country,' he added. ‘Come up to Dover to see some supplies on to merchant vessels regular like. Maybe I seen you there and didn't know it.'

‘Perhaps,' I said.

‘That your missus?' he whispered quietly, his head flicking back towards Dominique as he winked at me. ‘You're a lucky thing to have a woman like her, ain't you? She'd keep ye busy through the night.'

‘I'm his sister,' said Dominique coldly, her head coming between us as she leaned forward to hear our conversation. ‘That's all. How far are you going anyway?' I looked back at her in surprise. To claim to be my sister was one thing. To appear unfriendly and sullen was another and could easily get us thrown off this wagon and back on to the road in a heartbeat, something my feet did not desire for a moment.