The Key to the Indian (4 page)

“That’s to say, if a week has passed here, a week has passed for the people in the past?”

“That’s right. I know because when Little Bull came this last time, his baby was about a year old, and it was a year
here
since he was born. Anyway, I knew it before.”

“Okay, so let’s work it out. How many days is it since Jessica Charlotte came?”

Omri thought about it. A week had passed between seeing her, and the day his dad had found the figures and discovered the secret, and three days more had passed since then.

“Ten days.”

“Ten days…” His dad was looking at the notebook. “So. Right after she came here – no, it wasn’t. Let me see. She made the key. That was the day of the victory parade, the day she said goodbye to Lottie, Armistice Day – November the eleventh, nineteen-eighteen. The next day she went back to Maria’s to ‘say goodbye’, pretending she was going abroad. And that was the day she stole the earrings. So that’s one day.

“Then, she writes, a week went by. And at the end of that week, she got the news that little Lottie had been accused of stealing the earrings, and had run out of the house, and her father, Matthew, ran after her and got run over and killed. And that’s where her part of the Account ends.”

“Well, there is a bit more…”

“Not that you can read. When she got to writing that part, all those years later when she was on her deathbed…” he looked up, and looked around. “Maybe in this very room, Omri!”

“No, it was Gillon’s room.”

“How do you know?”

“I just—” He stopped suddenly. He was beginning to feel creepy about this. He did ‘just know’, he was certain. But how?

His father took a deep breath, and went on. “Okay. Anyway, when she was trying to write the last of the Account, she became too ill and weak, and had to call in her son Frederick to finish it. This last page of her writing…” He pointed to faded, scrawly words that you could hardly make out. “… indicate to me that she was not only very ill by the
time she came to write it, but that she was writing about a time when she was almost crazy. She felt Matthew had died because of her, that Lottie had been falsely accused, that more terrible things were going to happen because of what she’d done.

“Now, Omri, if you’ve got a bit of her ‘gift’, use it. Imagine her as she was – is – at this moment. Ten days after the theft of the earrings. Three days after she found out about Matthew’s death.”

Omri didn’t have to imagine very hard. He’d been through this already, when he had read this part of the Account. He had almost seemed to be suffering with Jessica Charlotte in this awful crisis in her life. He had felt her guilt, her horror, her remorse. He didn’t want to experience that again, or even a shadow of it. It was a terrible thought that, down through the layers of time, she might still be going through that; that if they brought her, they would have to
see
her going through it.

“She’s right in the middle of it, Dad. Her – her – awful time.” A new, appalling throught struck him. He took the notebook away from his father and peered closely at the semi-legible words. “
Alone… wandering… despair… river… coward… never…
” He suddenly and shockingly understood the meaning behind the word ‘river’ and the word that followed it.

“Dad! She – she tried to drown herself!”

“What!”

“I’m sure of it! Why didn’t I notice before? I was so
disappointed that the Account had stopped, thinking I’d never learn the secret of the magic now, I didn’t read
into
it like I did the rest. ‘Alone – wandering – river – coward’. Don’t you see? She was in such a state she wanted to throw herself into the Thames, and maybe she couldn’t because she was too afraid. Or maybe she was too much of a coward to go on living… And that’s what’s going on
right now
, back in her time! Oh, Dad!” he exclaimed, forgetting to be quiet, staring at his father across the notebook. “We’re not going to bring her
now
are we?”

“If we want her to make us a key, to go back and help Little Bull,” said his father slowly, “we’ll have to.”

I
t was a school day. Omri whispered to his father as the house woke up that he might pretend to be ill so he could stay home and they could talk more. But his dad said no way.

So there was a normal breakfast and Gillon and Omri set off for school on their bikes. Adiel was having a long weekend
exeat
from his boarding school. Omri envied him. But no, that was absurd. If he, Omri, were incarcerated in a boarding school, there’d be no question of any adventure.

Actually it turned out that having to be in school was a good thing. It gave his mind a sort of rest. When school was finished, and he went back to thinking about
it
on the bike
ride home, he came to it fresh, and at once an interesting thought occurred to him.

Bringing Jessica Charlotte might be a kind of relief to her. She’d enjoyed being with him and Patrick, it had lifted her out of her sorrow about Lottie. Perhaps it would be like that again. However terrible she was feeling, she might feel a little less terrible if she were taken out of her own life and into theirs.

No one was at home when he and Gillon arrived. The door of the cottage was never locked (what a difference from London!), so they let themselves in and made peanut butter sandwiches and milk (their mother had banned fizzy drinks from the house since she went on her health kick). Gillon drifted TV-wards and Omri, seeing him putting down roots at the other end of the house, felt safe in shooting upstairs and fastening the brand-new bolt on the inside of his bedroom door.

He looked at the cupboard.

The mirror in its door reflected his own face back to him. You’d never think it was anything special. Just a little white-painted metal bathroom cabinet, the sort you put medicines and tooth things in. It looked a little smarter since he’d repaired and repainted it, but it was old and essentially commonplace. No one would guess! No one who didn’t know, would ever guess!

He lifted it on to the floor and opened it. The key was inside. So were the figures of Little Bull, Twin Stars and her baby, the pony, Matron and Sergeant Fickits. He took them all
out and wondered where he could hide them now that the bricks of his makeshift bookshelves had gone. Eventually he found a pretty good place. There was a small, unused, old-fashioned fireplace in one wall. He reached up the chimney and found a sort of little ledge up there. He wrapped the figures individually in Kleenex, put them into a plastic bag, and put this out of sight on the ledge.

Then he wiped the soot off his hands, took Jessica Charlotte’s figure out of the cashbox and stood her on the shelf of the cupboard. Just to see how she looked there.

She looked fine, just as he had last seen her, dressed up in her beautiful red dress with the bustle and the big, plumed hat. Her figure was posed in a stagey position, hand on hip, the other hand over her head, waving to them.

Omri stuck the key in the keyhole. Just for somewhere to put it. He wasn’t going to do anything, of course – not without his dad.

He closed the cupboard door carefully. There. Now everything was ready. Now he would go and do his homework.

Instead, he turned the key. His hand did it. He couldn’t stop it.

It gave him a shock when it happened. He really did try to restrain his hand, but his fingers acted, there was the familiar click, and it was too late.

Galvanised, he turned the key back again and threw the door open.

There she was. But no longer strutting, actress-like, brazen
and bold. Now she was lying very still on her face. Her hat was gone. She was in a different dress. It looked strange, somehow. So did her hair. Omri reached in and lightly touched her with the tip of one finger.

She was soaking wet.

All the muscles in Omri’s face went slack. He picked her limp wet body up and laid her face up on the palm of his hand. Her face was grey. Her hair and dress streamed with water.

He realised then why his fingers had turned the key when he hadn’t meant them to. His fingers knew what they had to do. They had to bring Jessica Charlotte, now. Right now. They had to recall her from the river.

For a split second, looking at her putty-coloured face, her closed eyes, her streaming hair, he thought she was drowned. But he knew she couldn’t be – she had the rest of her life to live. Still, he had to help her, and there was only one way.

He laid her carefully on his bed, rushed to the fireplace, fished the bag he’d just put away out of the chimney, and frantically unwrapped the figures till he came to Matron. He thrust her into the cupboard and locked her in.

When he re-opened the door, she was standing with her arms akimbo, looking extremely severe.

“My dear young man,” she said. “This cannot, I repeat
cannot
, keep occurring. You are going to get me the sack. I had a
great
deal of explaining to do, the last time. Don’t you realise there’s a war on? These little excursions are all very fine, but we are rushed off our feet. Do you understand? I am
on duty
!”

“Matron! Please! I’m sorry. I need you.”

“And the unhappy victims of the Luftwaffe do
not
?”

“Just for five minutes! You must!”

He didn’t give her a chance to argue, but picked her up by the waist and airlifted her to the bed where Jessica Charlotte was lying, a watermark spreading over the quilt. Matron bent over her for only a moment.

“Put her on something firm,” she ordered.

Omri transferred them both to his desk.

“Turn her on her stomach.”

Omri obeyed. Matron knelt beside the prone figure and began artificial respiration, her hands on either side of Jessica Charlotte’s ribcage, rocking to and fro with a strong, purposeful rhythm. After a short time that seemed long to Omri, he heard a sound like a tiny cough, then a choking, then some gasps and groans. Matron sat back on her heels.

“There we are. She’ll be all right now. Keep her well covered. You need to get those wet clothes off… Oh. No, I quite see that would be, er… difficult. All right. Go away and get me something to wrap her in.”

Omri stumbled to his chest-of-drawers, got out a pair of woollen socks and some scissors and hacked out a little blanket. He returned to the desk with his eyes averted and handed it to Matron.

“All right. She’s decent.”

He looked. Jessica Charlotte’s wet clothes had all been pulled off and were lying in a soggy heap. There seemed to be quite a lot of them. Matron was just finishing rolling her
patient in the sock-blanket like a cocoon. Only her head stuck out.

“Pillow!”

Pillow! Omri’s brain raced. A much-folded Kleenex was all he could think of. At least it would soak up the water from her hair.

“There now. She’ll do. She’s half-awake. Something hot to drink, with a drop of Scotch in it. How did this happen? No, don’t tell me. I’ve seen it all before. Very little of that in wartime, y’know. Funny thing.”

“Very little of what?”

“Suicides. Too much else to think of. And then, when someone else is trying to kill you, you don’t do it for them. Well! I’m off. Have to pass this little lapse off somehow at St Thomas’s. How long have I been, ten minutes?” She looked at an all but invisible watch, pinned to the front of her uniform. “Less. Well, even matrons have to spend a penny occasionally… Hurry up, young man!”

“I can’t thank you enough, Matron—”

“Oh, pish, tush, and likewise pooh!”

He dispatched her through the cupboard, and hurried back to Jessica Charlotte. As always when involved in this business, he was beginning to feel frantic, to wish he’d never started. He always forgot this feeling in between.

She was stirring, trying to sit up. He lifted her tenderly back onto the softness of the bed, keeping his hand behind her to support her. “Miss Driscoll?” he said softly. “Are you okay?”

“Why am I – tied up?” she gasped in a panicky voice.

“You’re not tied up, you’re wrapped up to keep you warm. You – you’ve been in the river.”

She stared up at him. With her hair straggling round her white face and her bare shoulders rising from the blanket that she was clutching, she looked like pictures he’d seen of mad people in old asylums, where they used to take their clothes away and just give them blankets.

“The river!” she cried out suddenly. Then the glassy look left her eyes and she buried her face in the blanket and began to sob.

Omri found this hard to bear. He crouched beside her till his face was level. “Miss Driscoll,” he said softly. “Please don’t be upset. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault!”

Her head snapped up. She faced front, clutching the blanket, shivering all over. She spoke sharply between chattering teeth. “I’m dead. That’s what it is. I died in the river and this is my hell. It’s only what I deserve.”

“No! No! You’re okay, you’re alive, you’re just – just visiting the future like you did before. And you don’t deserve to go to hell or to feel so bad. Please don’t feel so bad. Honestly, you couldn’t help it!”

“I’m a thief and a murderer. I killed my own sister’s husband.”

“
No you did not!
” Omri almost shouted. “It was an accident!”

“I caused it.”

“You couldn’t know!”

Abruptly she turned her ravaged face to him. “But you! You knew! You could have warned me! You could have stopped me!”

“No, I couldn’t—”

“Yes! You said you could see my future. You must have known, you must have done!”

“I couldn’t change what happened,” mumbled Omri. “It’s – not allowed.”

She gave him that mad look again, out of the corners of her eyes. “Are you God?” she asked in a small, suddenly childish voice.

“Of course I’m not. I’m Lottie’s grandson.”

“Lottie’s—” She sat perfectly still. He could almost see her mind working. “Move back.”

He knew why she said that. She couldn’t see him properly this close. He moved halfway across the room.

“You’re nothing like Lottie. You look a little like me.”

“Well, you are my great-great-aunt.”

“Lottie’s – grandson…” She couldn’t seem to take it in. But then she began to cry again, only not as before. She almost seemed to be crying with joy.

“She lives! My Lottie lives to grow up, and marry, and have children, and be happy! At least I haven’t destroyed
her
!”

“Of course not,” said Omri, creeping close again. His heart felt monstrously heavy with the truth he couldn’t tell her. Lottie lived and grew up and married, sure enough. But when she was barely thirty-one – still in Jessica
Charlotte’s lifetime – her life was cruelly cut short by a bomb.
The Luftwaffe
, Omri thought suddenly.
The German Air Force
. In Matron’s time, right now, it might be happening. Layers. Layers of time… He shivered all over, just as Jessica Charlotte had.

She stopped crying abruptly. She picked up the ‘pillow’ and pressed it to her tiny face to stem her tears and wipe them. Then she put it down, and stood up clumsily because of the blanket.

“Where are my clothes? I hope
you
didn’t take them off!” she said, with something of her old spirit.

“No, don’t worry, a nurse did it. They’re here. I’ll put them on the radiator to dry them.”

“Radiator? Is that some heating device?”

“Yes. They’re so small, they’ll dry in no time.”

He lifted the little pile of wet clothes and squeezed some drops of water out between finger and thumb. Then he began to separate them. Some of the underclothes were so small he could hardly handle them and he was afraid of their getting lost. He placed his big comb across the ridged top of the radiator and very carefully laid the clothes on top of it – the dress, a black one; an underskirt; a strange, corset-like thing; some long pantaloons; two black threads that were her stockings. Her shoes were so tiny he had to pick them up by pressing his finger to their wetness. There was also a tiny triangular thing – a shawl perhaps. He unfolded it with infinite care. It was about two centimetres square.

When he’d finished he went back to her. “Miss Driscoll…”

“You had better call me Aunt Jessie.”

He felt a strange glow of happiness when she said that. “Aunt Jessie, then. The nurse said you should have a hot drink with whisky.”

“Pray don’t trouble yourself. I don’t drink spirits these days.”

“I – I want to ask you a big favour.”

“Ask.”

“You know the – the key you made.”

“Oh…!” she said on a groan. “Don’t remind me!”

“I want you to make me another.”

“What for?”

“The key you made… Look. Here it is.” He showed it to her.

She looked at it. “Why is it so big?”

“That’s hard to explain. The fact is, you’re small.”

She was watching him carefully.

“It’s all to do with your gift,” he went on. “The magic you put in the key.”

“Ah. I knew there was something.”

“And I need – I really need – another key with the same magic in it.”

“You want me to pour the lead for a second key?”

“Yes.”

She shrank into the blanket, as if she were deep in thought. Then she straightened and looked Omri in the face.
“To do a favour for Lottie’s kin,” she said, “that would give me something to live for. Give me the key you wish me to copy.” And she sat down and began to twist up her straggling hair.