The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance (65 page)

“First of all, you don’t have an identity established with the government. If you don’t have an identity, you’ll find integrating yourself into the future to be very difficult. And if you claim to be from a hundred or so years in the past,” David explained patiently, remembering to pick words she would understand, “they’ll lock you up in a sanitarium, and throw away the key. I’m sure that’s hardly the sort of future life you’d want to lead. Going back into the past – for select periods of time – will allow
both
of us to help establish an identity for you which you can use here and now in the future. But it must be timed and targeted just right.

“I could easily step into the past and establish myself as . . . David Cuttleridge. Or Marvin Melmack. Or James Earl Jones. And no one would gainsay my identity,” David pointed out. “The government did not have the ability to gather and process information at the turn of the twentieth century that it has in the twenty-first century, so I could get away with establishing an identity in the past. For you . . . it will be a lot more difficult. Not insurmountable, but hard all the same.

“And there is another reason to go back into the past, and maintain ties to the past. A couple of reasons,” David amended.

Setting her carpet bag down, Elaine folded her arms across her breasts. “What reasons?”

Trying hard not to think of her baring her breasts, David outlined his reasons. “First of all, this house needs to be kept intact and in good shape. If you abandon it completely to the future . . . who will inherit it, what will they do with it and wouldn’t some
stranger
dismantle all of your equipment, utterly ruining your temporal experiment?
Because
I found out all of the information I needed to know to make sure the machine was in working order, I
know
that you – and I myself – went back into the past, and probably did so several times, to ensure the sanctity of this house and its equipment.

“
Another
vitally important reason is funding,” David added. This one, he had thought about quite a lot over the last few months, though not quite in these terms. “Maintaining a house for that long is an expensive proposition. Not to mention the funds we’ll need to create the illusion that you do actually exist in the government records of this day and age. Money is a serious concern these days, because of inflation rates. A hundred dollars is a lot of money in your day, but in mine, it would barely feed a family of four for a week, if they were frugal.”

“I see . . . so you’re proposing using
your
knowledge of the future to make sound financial investments in the past?” Elaine asked.

“Why not? These investments would benefit both of us,” he pointed out. “You ’d need my help just to
find
the right information. Yours may be the Industrial Age, but mine is the Information Age, and our methods of storing and retrieving data are quite complex. I could be quite valuable as a partner.”

“Why should I trust
you
? Why not someone else?” she asked.

Lightning flashed in the distance . . . and the lights in the attic blinked out. David heard her gasp, and moved back a few steps to the desk. Fumbling, he found the flashlight and switched it on, hearing her gasp a second time. “The power has gone out. It’ll be back on in just a few minutes. In the meantime, I have a note from you, which is addressed
to
you, to be given to you when the power goes out. Which it has. I suggest you read it.”

Playing the light over the pigeonholes, he found the little flat drawer underneath one side and slid it open. He heard her move closer and extracted the wax-sealed letter. Turning, he found her right at his side, her head level with his own. She must have been quite tall for her era, a corner of his mind observed. She was also still quite lovely, even with her face lit from below by the flashlight’s reflected glow. For a moment, all he could see were the curves of her lips, which he wanted to kiss.

The lights came back on. Shaking himself mentally, David handed her the envelope. He watched her break open the yellowed packet and read the writing folded within. This close, he could see the blush staining her cheeks and the widening of her eyes. It made him wonder if he should have tried to read the letter himself in spite of its wax seal.

She flipped through the pages, gasped and covered her mouth, then flicked back and reread whatever it was she had written to herself. Twice, she darted a sharp look his way. David kept his expression polite, interested and mildly curious, despite his livid itch to know what her future self had written in the past.

Finally, she folded the slightly yellowed sheets and faced him. “According to this, you and I shall become quite the pair. Leading double lives, and doubled lives. Apparently our life spans will lengthen and our aging will slow, simply by travelling through the vortex . . . and we will need to carefully note the exact times whenever lightning strikes the house, record it for our future selves and have our future selves send it back into the past. Plus, apparently, I figure out a way to target specific time-storms, if their exact dates and times are known. All except for these first two strikes, when I got my machine started, and when it connected to yours, precisely one hundred stellar revolutions into the future.

“My letter to myself A-also says that . . . well, that you are a sensuall over, a bit of a libertine and an R-rabid E-equalist. Even more so than your contemporaries,” Elaine added, lifting her chin a little.

Mindful of his note to himself, David shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I be? Actually, if you don’t mind a bit of vulgarity, there’s a poem I once heard which describes my feelings exactly.”

Lifting her brows, Elaine folded her arms across her chest. “Go on . . .”

“‘There is no difference ’twixt you and ’twixt me, save that one stands and one sits when we pee’,” he recited.

Her mouth twitched. A snort escaped her, evolving a moment later into a giggle. Covering her mouth, she muffled her laughter, then gave up and dropped it, tipping back her head. Pleased he had amused her, David swept her a bow.

“Well, at least you are A-amusing, Mr Maddock,” she admitted, dipping him a curtsy. “I think we might be able to get along in the days to come.”

“David, please. If I may call you Elaine?” he asked, mindful of the old customs he had read about. “It’s the modern way of things.”

“Of course,” she murmured. Stooping, she picked up her carpet bag. “So. Five days, you said?”

“According to what I’ve read, yes.” A glance at her machinery showed it was now quiescent. Moving to the pillar, David lifted the switches so that any further lightning strikes would be diverted around the old building. “Now, let me show you the rest of the house,” David offered, gesturing towards the stairs, “and all the improvements that have been made to modern life since your century.”

The only thing good about his entire day was coming home. Otherwise, today had been very much a Monday. All he could think about was relaxing in front of the television with a good old movie. A comedy, maybe even a Charlie Chaplin classic.

Elaine had arrived on a Friday night, which had given him the rest of the weekend to introduce her to things like the radio, television, computer and internet. She had learned quickly. Entering his house, David found her seated on the floor next to the mahogany coffee table . . . with his remote control and DVD player scattered in pieces across its surface, and her face pressed to the top of a binocular microscope she had dug out of the basement.

There went his plans to watch a movie. She didn’t even look up, just continued to look through the eyepieces. Covering his face with his hands, David groaned into his palms. He slid off his bowler hat and hung it up on the coat rack, removed his duster, and cleared his throat. She didn’t look up.

“Elaine?” he prodded.

One of her hands lifted and fluttered in a vague greeting. At least she wasn’t sitting in front of his computer, glassy-eyed from following too many Wiki-article links, or worse, stumbling across the shocking graphics of modern-day pornography. That had been an awkward experience, last night. All he had done was walk away for fifteen minutes, checked on their dinner, only to come back and find her as red as a tomato. No, this time she was calm, composed and the creator of this unexpected electronic clutter and chaos.

“Elaine, why did you dismantle my DVD player and the remote control?” he asked with as much patience as he could muster.

“Because I have an idea about these infra-red wave things, and the laser thing.”

“The ‘laser thing’,” David repeated.

“Yes, as a targeting mechanism. I told myself I would come up with a means of specifically targeting a particular lightning storm, and obviously I did, but I didn’t T-tell myself how. So I am investigating how.” She paused and lifted her head to look at him, her bun shifting a little on her head with the movement. “Um . . . were these expensive things?”

Biting back another groan, David nodded. “Yes, expensive. More to the point, I have had a difficult day at work, with meetings interrupting my attempts at coding, errors induced by my colleagues, a boss who insists I work overtime next week, and all I wanted to do was come home, drink a beer and watch a movie. Just so I could relax. Only now I can’t do that.”

“Oh, I can put it back together,” Elaine dismissed. Then paused and nibbled her lower lip, looking at the disarray of parts. “I think . . .”

Giving up, David closed his eyes. She wasn’t a
messy
house guest; she did make her bed, pick up after herself, and had even offered to wash the dishes – by hand, until he had shown her the dishwasher – but she did do things like this. He heard the floorboards creak and opened his eyes. She had risen and crossed to him, and now gently touched his arm.

“If we prepared for the future, in the past, and made sound investments in the past based on our future knowledge, why not just use that money to buy a new DVD thingy?”

“Because while I inherited the house straight off, ‘Uncle’ David’s bank accounts and stock shares were put into trust until my thirtieth birthday. Or until I married, whichever came first.” Hands on his hips, David met her startled gaze. “E-exactly,” he stated, using her trick of emphasizing the first letter. “For whatever reason our elder selves decided, the two of us are stuck on a budget until then. I have just had a stressful day from hell, and if I can’t watch a movie . . . well, at least I’m going to go have a cold one.”

“Erm . . .” Her hazel green gaze turned hesitant. “If you, erm, meant to have alcohol. . .”

Oh, no . . .
Giving her a sour look, David asked, “What did you do?”

“Well, I’m a T-totaller, and I didn’t like the thought of alcoholin my house – it is still my house, you know!” she added quickly, defensively. “If we’re going to associate with each other in the past and the future, it’s M-mine, too! So I gave it to your neighbour down the hill. All of it.”

He stared at her, then buried his face in his palms again, muffling another, much more frustrated moan. Elaine patted him on the shoulder.

“There, there. You do sound rather stressed. Perhaps if you had a lie-down, and, erm, palpitated yourself? Well, I’m not sure if men actually can palpitate themselves, since it’s a female thing, but perhaps there’s a variation which can be applied to them?”

Sliding his hands down his face, David stared at her. “Palpitate?”

She blushed, then lifted her chin. “Yes. My mother’s doctor told me about it. It’s a medical technique used to relieve hysteria and stress in women. Surely you’ve heard of it in this day and age?”

Hysteria and stress . . .
A snippet of learning from his wide-ranging study of the previous turn of the century resurfaced in his brain.
Doctors used to relieve “hysteria” in women by . . . masturbating them.
Flushing with a mixture of embarrassment and arousal, David reminded himself firmly that he was supposed to take a couple weeks at least in courting her first.

“David?” she asked, guileless and clueless, for all of her intellect.

“Uh, yes, men have something similar,” he agreed.
Such as what I did after I found the photographs my future self will have taken of you . . .
“Um . . . don’t worry about the DVD player. It was a little old, and I suppose I can afford something new. I’m just going to go up to my room and lie down, as you suggested.”

With the photographs I took of you to study as I “palpitate” my stress away . . .

“All-right, then – I am S-sorry for dismantling your thingy without asking first. I won’t do it to anything else without double-checking,” she added, her hand stillon his arm. Pressing in sympathy, she hesitated, then leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for putting up with me, David. It’s V-very sweet of you.”

Yes . . . yes, I do believe I feel the need for an attack of “palpitations” coming on, he thought dazedly. He headed for the stairs with a smile, enjoying the lingering impression of her lips on his skin.

Day ten of his first seventeen days in the past, David was longing for air-conditioning. It was a hot, humid summer evening, filled with the drone of insects and only the slightest stirring of the air as a sort of breeze. Although a man of the year Ought-Nine never took off his shirt in front of a lady, Elaine had taken pity on her house guest, permitting him to strip off his upper clothes. The straps of his suspenders chafed a little, but the occasional, rare puff of air felt too good on his naked chest to care.