What about us? (37 page)

It had to be the hotel.  Not to
our room of course, but there was a lounge downstairs and I felt sure it would
be both public and private enough to suit both of us.  There was a problem
though.  If I took Javier there, he would know about it and he would remember it. 
So if we were to repeat today in any way, I would have lost my one hiding place
that only Jack knew about.  I was dithering and getting soaked in the process. 
Silk clings to your skin in a horribly cold way when it’s wet.

I had no other options.  “There
is a hotel near here,” I said slowly.  “It is quite comfortable and they have a
large, reasonably quiet lounge.  We could go there.”

“Lead the way.” he said,
signalling for the waiter.

As we left he held his arm out
for me, as was customary for the time, but I ignored it.  He couldn’t shimmer
me anywhere if we weren’t touching and although I could outrun him, he looked a
lot stronger than me.  I kept my distance and my eye on him as we walked.  It just
made him chuckle, which I scowled at.

Once we were at the hotel, I
really was soaked to the skin, as was he, but I didn’t much care about him.  In
the lobby, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and saw that my hat was
ruined and that I looked awful.  I didn’t really mind about that but it gave me
a reason to ask to be allowed a few moments to change.  He couldn’t really
refuse me; for the period it would have been ungentlemanly and would therefore have
stood out and I was sure that he wouldn’t want to attract attention or be
remembered if he could avoid it.  I was right; as some staff appeared with towels
for him, he nodded and headed off to the lounge, while I escaped upstairs.

He clearly knew that I wasn’t
going to run away, not just yet anyway; he still had information that I needed. 
I’d heard nothing about what had happened to Jack and I couldn’t make any
decisions about my future until I knew what was in his.  Javier was gambling
correctly.  Another point to him, I acknowledged crossly.

I opened the heavy wardrobe
door and took out the first thing I had ever worn in 1912, the china blue silk
dress.  As I laid it on the bed, it brought back such happy memories.  I peeled
off the wet silk and left it in a soggy pile on the floor, then stood shivering
for a moment, looking around the room that held so many memories.  As far as
the hotel staff were concerned, we had taken this room only a day ago, but to
me it was almost home.  The big bed, the soft curtains, the sound of the rain
outside; it was all so comforting and familiar.

It was then that I began to cry. 
I knew that whatever else the man downstairs had to say to me, or planned to do
with or to me, it didn’t include allowing Jack and I to be together.  But in
that moment of despair, I found that there was something I did know and it was
something that I was one hundred per cent certain of.

I knew that Jack would come
back to look for me and that he would come to this room to find the same
comfort I was finding in it.  He would also come today, regardless of how long
he had to spend in the future first.  That’s what mega brains downstairs had said:
today.

Or had he? Part of me was
absolutely certain that I knew Jack would return.  Perhaps he would be older,
but he would come back for me.  Except that once I focused on the word ‘today’,
I was no longer sure that it had been Javier who had told me this.  So if it
wasn’t him, who had it been?

For a moment it seemed that I
no longer knew what had happened or what was real anymore, but I did know that
it was not a good time to start losing my mind.

“Think!” I shouted into the
empty room.

What else had he said? I needed
to recall the exact words.  I stared at my soggy reflection in the mirror of
the open wardrobe door, emptying my mind enough for his words to float nicely
into the space.

“The Jack that was taken from
you yesterday gave up very little information willingly, although when I left
him I think he was starting to see the wisdom in my actions.  However, the Jack
that came to me, the one you don’t know, he gave me everything.  In fact he
gave me much more than he realised.”

Those were the words, I was
certain.

One of those Jacks that he had
spoken of didn’t really know me; he couldn’t have spent much time with me at
the very least, because he let me die.  Mine would have found a way to shield
some of his thoughts, I was sure of it.  From the way Javier had spoken, I
instinctively knew that it was the Jack that achieved so much that fascinated
him more.  He wasn’t really interested in me after all, so I doubted that he
would have spent much time in either of their memories trying to get to know me. 
It gave me one chance and one chance only.

I leapt off the bed and knelt
in front of the wardrobe, then pulled out the bag and plonked it on the floor
in front of me.  I started rummaging around in it and took out the spare watch
that we always kept hidden in the lining.  We’d taken it from one of the safe
houses minutes before it was consumed by fire, in the hope that it would not be
missed.  It had never been used and I kissed it, hoping it was still fully
functional.  We’d taken it to replace the one in my bag, if we ever needed to,
because even Jack didn’t know how long that one would carry on working for.  Of
course he could never take it home to be charged and he had never been away for
so long, or used it as much as we had in the years we’d been on the run.  I
stopped as that one word settled into my mind; ‘years’.  I realised that we had
built our strange life over not days, not hours or months, but years and the
thought gave me some comfort.

I pulled out the large leather
folder where I kept all the loose papers.  Every time we went back there, I
wrote about our travels.  He had his implants to record events, but I had to
rely on my memory and I worried that it wouldn’t be enough, so I wrote.  I’d
had to rewrite everything about our life in Napier Street, because we’d been
forced to leave everything including my notes behind when we shimmered away
from Brighton.  I wrote a lot; it helped me believe that my life was real.

I carefully circled certain important
words, symbols, letters and numbers on several different sheets and made sure they
were put back in almost but not quite the right order.  Then I bundled them all
back inside the folder, tied the ribbon neatly around it and put it on top of
the bag.  I left the wardrobe door open and that particular dress on the bed,
hoping that what with Jack being a man and all that, he would remember it.  I
grabbed another one off its hanger and changed quickly, priming the watch as
soon as I was ready.  It was a mid twentieth century design and I pushed it
high up my arm, so he wouldn’t see it.  I picked up my handbag, took one last
long look around the room and closed the door.  Then I took a deep breath and
went downstairs.

He was nursing a glass with
what looked and smelt like whiskey in it.  I sat down as far away from him as
possible, refusing his offer of a drink.

“Well Grace, let’s cut to the
chase shall we?”

“Suits me,” I replied, trying
to sound more cheerful than I felt.  I put my hands in my lap to stop me from
inadvertently fiddling with the watch.  I needed to stay; right up until it was
time to go.  I just prayed that I’d spot the signal.

“We really do have a problem
and I want to be very sure that you understand just how complex it actually is. 
So if you are sitting comfortably...?”

He paused and looked at me
expectantly.

I nodded and took another deep
breath.

I was going to have to listen
very carefully to what he had to say and at the same time not take my eyes off
him.  I could not get distracted and leave myself open to anything unexpected. 
I wanted to be the one to determine when I should leave, not him.  Comfortable
was not what I wanted to be.  Alert, focused and ready to run seemed like a
better choice.

He swirled the contents of the
glass around for a few moments, probably deciding where the beginning was going
to be.  Then he sniffed it, clearly savouring it, but he didn’t drink it.  He
put it down, leaned forward and told me some things.  All of which left me
scared witless.

“You see Grace, the simple
option would be to return you to your own time and let you get on with your
life in whichever manner you wish to lead it, but I cannot do that.  I cannot
take you back to the moments before you embarked on your first time trip,
because you are already there, as is Jack.  For reasons of my own, I am not prepared
to put you in a position where you could inadvertently break the Golden Rule.  If
I take you back to a time before that, I will change things, which may stop you
from leaving 2001 with him, which I am also not prepared to allow.

“So what I am trying to say is
this; unless you leave your own time and do all the things you have already done,
you will not save the world.  I will be murdered and the human race will suffer
as a direct result of you not meddling in 1888 and 89.  I am not prepared to
let that happen for obvious reasons and I find I like the idea of old age.  I
know I can accomplish much to benefit others in the time that your actions have
given me. 

“If I return you to the exact
moment you left, but without Jack, something will be different as a result.  You
are no longer twenty-one and what’s more, normally if two people leave a moment
in time, those same two people must return to the same moment.  Clearly that is
impossible...”

He stopped, to make sure I was
following him, then after a brief pause he continued.  “The same will happen if
you die in the accident.  If Jack is not there to save you, you in turn cannot
save the world.  I could prevent Jack from finding you again and taking you on
your journey, but the same will happen, so that’s not an option for me either. 
Much as I dislike it, you and Jack have to meet, fall in love and run away
together.  I have already gone to great lengths to ensure that it’s the correct
Jack that saves you and to a degree I then had to leave things to follow their
natural course; which brings us to the here and now.”

His obvious distaste made me
want to punch him, even though I am not a violent person.  It was the way he
spoke that got to me; he tried to make something wonderful sound sordid and
wrong.  I really had to stop myself from getting up and walking away.

“Go on...” I said, through
gritted teeth.

“I cannot take you to Jack,
because his life and his time is in the future.  It has not happened for you so
you cannot exist in it.  Jack cannot return here because it is the past; he
cannot live here with knowledge that should not be in the public domain yet.  So
you see... there is not, nor can there ever be, a happy ever after for the both
of you together.”

I looked at him and I knew that
he wasn’t lying, but I felt a sharp pain at hearing his words.  This was the
truth and it wasn’t the first time I’d heard it.  Jack had told me almost the
same thing long ago.  I wiped my eyes and forced myself to swallow.  I was not
going to cry in front of this man, nor was I going to give up my hopes and
dreams just yet.

“Go on,” I demanded, “I know
there’s more.”

He nodded and carried on with
his list of options.  I knew he had already discarded them, but he wanted me to
know what they had been and why we couldn’t use them.  He owed me that I
suppose.

“However, if I leave you here
to get by as best as you can, Jack will always be looking for a way to return
to you.  He will not find a way for many years to come.  I will do everything
in my power to prevent it, but despite my best efforts he will find a way.  During
your time apart he will accomplish many things, but he will always be searching
for a way to return to you.  By the time he finds a way he will be old, but you
will not.  It will be sometime today I imagine.”

I had an intense feeling of
déjà-vu at these words.

I didn’t interrupt or share
this with him; I just shook my head to clear the thought and carried on
listening to his soft, very confident voice.

“He will then try to look for a
different solution.  He will always be searching for a way for you and he to be
together and round we will go, again and again and again.  This cannot be
allowed to continue.  I have had a glimpse of this eternal and hopeless circle. 
I cannot of course hold all the memories of so many different ways that it can
be played out, but I know enough to be sure that it is has to stop and it has
to stop right now.  Time is not a game; it should not be played with just to
suit the whims of you two.  Even you must see that.”

He stopped speaking and sat
back, allowing me a little while to go over everything he had said.

Once he was sure I had grasped
enough of it he moved in for the kill, literally.

“I looked up your history
before coming to meet you.  You don’t appear to have died.  Your birth is
registered, as is the fact that you go missing on your twenty-first birthday.  After
that date there are no further sightings of you, nor any knowledge of either
you or the young man you checked into the hotel in Lyme Regis with.  Death is
presumed to have occurred and the relevant note is added to your record in
2011, ten years after your disappearance.  You leave no one behind to carry on
after you.  The line stops with you Grace; you must see that it has to.  In
fact, it has already ended today.  If you are dead, Jack will mourn you, but we
all lose people we love or could have loved and so we all move on.  I am
confident he will too.