Time Leap (6 page)

“
What now?”
asked Niki.

“
We go to your
old school, I guess, and jump from there.”

As we emerged from
Golders Green tube station, a thought suddenly struck me. I stopped
in the street, and turned to Niki. “Just a minute...”

“
What is
it?”

“
There’s
something that’s been bothering me, and I’d just like to get it
clear in my mind.” We were standing in the rain, under my black
umbrella. It was September, I think. This time–travel thing was
beginning to mess with my sense of dates. “You remember when I
phoned you at school from Heathrow in 2011?”

“
Yes…”

“
That phone
call became part of your new reality – along with the death of your
mum, and the two presidents, right?”

“
Okay, if you
say so Joe – but you know I’m still finding that difficult – even
though I’ve got Mama back now. What’s your point?”

“
If you meet
young Niki, does it mean that when we come back to the present – to
our present – your memories will change, even though it’s you
that’s changing the future?”

Niki screwed up her face
for a moment, considering this. “Well, I suppose so… why does it
matter? Is there a problem?”

From the previous two
time jumps, I thought I’d been instrumental in changing the future,
but that I had been unaffected. Now that Niki was about to come
face–to–face with herself, I was beginning to doubt that
hypothesis. If, for the sake of argument, I met myself in 2011 and
cut off and destroyed a part of ‘my’ finger (the finger of my
younger self), would that mean that when I jumped back to the
present, I would find myself without part of that digit? Or would
it happen instantaneously – my own finger being simultaneously
mutilated with my doubles? The whole idea of interacting with a
duplicate of oneself – albeit in a different time frame – suddenly
became very interesting, and a tad disconcerting. I relayed these
thoughts to Niki, and suggested that perhaps we could do a little
experiment to see how things worked.

“
What, you’d
like me to cut off part of my finger!” she exclaimed as we began
walking again.

“
No – of
course not! But what if there was some
small
change we could make to Niki
junior to test the hypothesis. Nothing really damaging – but
something pretty permanent.”

“
What if young
Niki had a tattoo?” she offered.

“
Brilliant! It
could be a small one – not generally visible – but it would be
pretty permanent – not easy to remove without leaving a scar.” I
smiled back at Niki. “Love you baby. Now all you’ve got to do is
talk her into having one.”

***

Eight

We walked across
Hampstead Heath on the way to the Henrietta Barnett School for
Young Ladies. The idea was to meet young Niki (let’s just call her
‘Junior’) out of school and talk about Steve. We found a secluded
spot on the Heath and I set the date on my phone to 19 May 1996
again. It was just after 3pm by this time. Niki held tightly onto
my hand, and we both felt the usual ‘wobble’. We looked around. The
park looked slightly different, owing to the different time period
and season, of course, but otherwise we wouldn’t know we’d
travelled sixteen years back in time. We walked in the direction of
the school.

At the school gates, we
waited for Junior to emerge. We weren’t the only ones waiting.
“Joe, look…” Niki discretely pointed to a teenager standing about
ten yards away from us, looking towards the school entrance. “It’s
Steve,” she explained. This was not what we had planned.

“
Okay, you
take Junior, and I’ll have a word with Steve,” I
whispered.

“
What will you
say?” That was a very good question. We hadn’t banked on this
scenario, and I really didn’t want to go for the ‘We’re from the
future’ plan just yet. So Niki suggested that I talk to Junior,
whilst she talked to Steve. I would be one of Steve’s uncles –
(Niki never met both of them). So I became – believe it or not –
‘Uncle Sam’… Steve’s uncle who lives in Leicester.

“
Uncle Sam?” I
said incredulously. “You can’t be serious!” Niki nodded wide–eyed.
So Uncle Sam it was. Just then, Junior emerged from the school and
Steve smiled in recognition. But before the two could meet, Niki
headed Steve off. I just heard her say something about being Aunt
Wendy from Shanghai. Wendy? And then I met Junior. Boy, was that a
shock! Instantly recognisable – she really did look like a much
younger version of my beloved.

“
Hi Niki,” I
greeted her, as she was watching Steve being led away by her future
self. “Can I have a word?” Then she turned to look at
me.

“
Who’s that
with Steve… and who are you? How do you know my name?” I gave her
the Uncle Sam story, and explained that the woman leading Steve
away was her long–lost aunt from Shanghai.

“
You can meet
her later,” I said. “I know she wants to meet you.”

“
I have to go
home… ma will worry,” she replied.

“
No problem…
can I walk with you?”

“
Okay.”

As we walked back to the
tube station, I told her that we were worried about Steve… that his
parents were putting him under a lot of pressure over his school
work, and didn’t want him to see Niki. They thought she was a
distraction to his studies, and his father (being very
traditional), didn’t see any future for Steve with a Chinese
girl.

“
I don’t
believe you,” she said, clearly irritated by my interference. “And
anyway, Steve is strong… he’ll stand up to his parents. I think you
should leave us alone.”

She marched off towards
the tube station entrance, and I called after her, “He’s going to
kill himself.” Plan B was looming. She turned on her
heels.

“
What?”

I casually walked towards
her, my hands in my pockets. “I’m sorry Niki, but it’s true. He’s
threatened to kill himself – I heard it myself. And I think he’ll
do it.”

“
Steve would
never do that – you know nothing…” She started to walk away again,
and I grabbed her by the wrist.

“
He will – I
know he will. I can give you the date, the time and the
place.”

“
How can you
possibly know that?”

“
I just know…
we’re family.”

“
You’re crazy!
Leave me alone!” she shouted and stormed off down the underground
station stairs.

***

I tried to call my Niki
on her mobile, but of course her number was not in existence in
1996. I guessed she’d gone with Steve to his home, and I walked in
that direction. I didn’t have to look far – I found the two of them
sitting on a bench in a small park.

“
Hi,” I said
to Steve.

“
Who’s he?” he
asked Niki. I couldn’t very well tell Steve I was his Uncle Sam… I
think he would have seen through that one.

“
I’m a friend
of Wendy’s,” I said. He nodded and looked down at the
floor.

“
It’s true,”
he said to Niki, “everyone’s against us being together… my mum and
dad, the teachers at her school… Niki’s parents.” I gave Nik a
quizzical look and she nodded. Steve continued. “Even at my school,
I get laughed at for having a Chinese girlfriend. They’re always
calling me names and making faces.” Then he looked up at Niki. “You
look so much like her… like you’re an older version. I knew you
must be a relative when I saw you. The kids at school say you all
look the same, but that’s stupid crap. Y’know, sometimes I think we
should do what they did in China when they were in love and no–one
would let them be together…”

“
No no!”
interrupted Niki, knowing exactly what Steve meant. “Don’t even
think about it Steve. No–one does that anymore.”

“
Niki’s so
beautiful, and so different… I can’t bear to be without
her.”

Niki and I looked at each
other. Then I said, “Steve, you mustn’t think like this. It’s only
going to end badly if you do…”

“
Oh, and what
do you know?” he snarled at me. “Who are you anyway? I’ve got to go
now – mum will be worried.” He got up to go, and then turned to
Nik. “It was really nice to meet you. Can we talk again? I feel I
know you already.” She nodded and Steve made his way home, without
looking at me.

“
Wow, he likes
you, Mr Prince Charming.” Nik said to me.

“
Hey, you’re
Chinese – you don’t do sarcasm.”

“
Got it from
you,” she replied.

“
But he
clearly does likes you big time,” I said. “We’ve got a chance
there.”

“
How did you
get on with Junior?” she asked.

“
Close to Plan
B,” I said.

*

Plan B didn’t turn out to
be as straightforward as I thought. For one thing, how do you prove
you’re from the future? I did think of taking Steve and Junior to
our present (their future) to show them what it will be like; but I
couldn’t take Steve, of course… he doesn’t exist in our present.
But maybe I could take Junior?

That evening, Nik and I
decided to stay in 1996 for a couple of hours longer and went out
for dinner at a restaurant she used to frequent when she was at
school. (A place that has since become a Bookmakers). After we’d
ordered, and were sipping some wine, I told Nik my idea of taking
Junior to our present time to prove that we had time
travelled.

“
I don’t think
we have to go that far, she said.”

“
It’s just an
idea,” I said.

“
No, I mean
they only need to go to the day after Steve kills himself. Maybe
seeing the newspaper headline of his death will be a big enough
shock for them. ”

“
Right… but
you said ‘they’ and ‘them.’ Only Niki can go into the future, not
Steve.”

“
Why
not?”

“
Well, for one
thing, because he’ll be dead!”

“
So you’re
saying that we can only travel back or forward to times when we’re
actually living? That would mean you couldn’t go back to the last
war, or forward to the year 3000.”

I thought about that for
a moment, and realised that Nik was right. When we jump we seem to
be different entities from our duplicates. We can interact with
them, and it appears we exist independently from them.

“
I’ve just had
a strange thought,” I said.

“
Yeah?”

“
What if I
travel back in time, and then take a younger version of myself to a
different time period again, where we find another, even younger
version of me. Three Joes existing at one time, in the same space…
is that possible?”

“
It may be
possible, Joe, but I’m not sure I could handle more than one of
you.”

***

Nine

Back at home, something
had been bothering me. I was mentally going over what Steve had
said the day before, and it didn’t add up. Usually, those who talk
about suicide don’t actually do it. It’s more of a cry for help
than anything else. People who really want to end their own lives
don’t broadcast their intentions – that would only make people try
to talk them out of it, and that’s the last thing that real suicide
cases want.

“
There must be
something else – something that pushes Steve over the edge,” I said
to Niki as we lay in bed the next morning. We’d jumped back home
the previous night after dinner, and I couldn’t help thinking of
our next step.

“
Why d’you say
that?” she asked. I explained my thoughts, and then she said
something very interesting. “Well, perhaps we’ve stopped him doing
it already.”

“
Come
again?”

“
Well, when
you talk about a problem and get it out of your system, that’s
often the solution. That’s why psychologists get people to talk
about what’s worrying them, isn’t it?”

Niki was right. Simply by
us being there, and listening and being sympathetic to Steve, we
may have already changed history, in which case there was nothing
else we needed to do. Possibly.

“
If you’re
right, there’s an easy way to find out,” I said getting out of bed
and going to my laptop. “Let’s see if the guy is still
alive…”

We were in for a big
shock.

It took a little while to
find information on Steve Watts, but when we finally found what we
were looking for, we stared at the web pages, and then each other,
without speaking. Eventually, I said, “Now what?”

“
Nothing,”
Niki said going to the bathroom, “it’s over.”

According to what we
read, Steve Watts had not killed himself in 1996 – we had
accomplished what we set out to achieve. But he had died in a car
accident in 2002, at the age of nineteen. He’d just passed his
driving test.

Negative feelings about
time–travel haunted us for the next couple of days. Niki said we
should just give up the whole idea – throw away the phone and never
look back. But I couldn’t help thinking that our ability to make an
impression on history was much more powerful that I had previously
thought. Just by showing a security guard and his colleague my
phone, I’d advanced technology by several years. And by listening
to the troubles of a thirteen year old boy, we had stopped him
taking his own life. This made me realise that perhaps it doesn’t
require huge interventions in the past to make big changes. For
instance, if people in the mid–1930’s had simply been aware of the
consequences of the rise of Nazism, that could have been enough to
have prevented the atrocities occurring – and even perhaps
prevented World War Two. No need to take the dangerous path of
attempting to assassinate the leaders – just give the people in
power the information, the intelligence. Could this be the way
forward?