The Two Timers (8 page)
Authors: Bob Shaw
John Breton's fingers suddenly spun the volume control on the radio and
the voice of a newscaster washed through the kitchen, causing Kate to frown
at him.
"Do we need that radio so loud?"
"Keep quiet a minute."
"I don't see why -- "
"Just keep
quiet!"
John twisted the control to its limit and the
announcer's voice boomed out, rippled with electronic distortions.
" . . . now continuing in the eastern hemisphere. A spokesman for
the Mount Palomar observatory said the meteor display was already
the most brilliant in history, and was showing no signs of slackening
off. Televised reports from Tokyo -- where the meteor display is now
at its height -- will be available on major networks as soon as the
malfunctioning of the communications satellites, which developed a few
hours ago, has been corrected.
"Mr. C.J. Oxtoby, president of Ustel -- the major satellite operating
agency -- has denied an early report that the Courier satellites were
drifting out of the synchronous orbit. Another possible explanation for
the communications failure of last night -- which have already led to
the filing of massive compensation claims by a number of civil users --
is that the satellites have suffered meteor damage.
"And now, on the local scene, fierce objections to the one-way street
system proposed . . ."
John Breton turned the radio off.
"The world still goes on," he said with a hint of challenge in his voice,
somehow excusing himself for not having had anything important to say
on the subject of the John-Kate-Jack triangle. Jack briefly wondered to
whom the apology was addressed.
"Of course it does. The world does still go on. Have some breakfast and
don't think about it too much." Jack felt a macrocosmic amusement at
his other self's preoccupation with trivia.
"I don't like those meteors," John said as he sat down. "Yesterday was
one hell of a day. A gravimetric survey goes haywire, the Palfreys arrive,
I drink a ruinous quantity of Scotch I don't even want, I take the longest
trip for years, even the sky starts to play tricks, and then . . ."
"To cap it all, I show up," Jack completed. "I know it's tough on you,
but don't forget I have every right to be here. We settled all that
last night."
"
You
settled it," John muttered ungraciously. "I don't see how
I can even talk this thing over with Kate while you're hanging around us.
"What is there to talk over?" Jack Breton ate steadily as he spoke,
enjoying himself.
John's fork clattered to his plate. He sat with hunched shoulders for
a moment, looking down at it, then raised his eyes to Kate in a level
stare of disgust.
"Well, how about it? Have you weighed up our various merits and demerits
yet?"
"Don't look at me like that." Kate's voice was taut with anger. "You're
the man around this house -- if you don't like Jack being here why don't
you do something positive about it?"
"Positive? You're the one that's in a position to do something positive
-- he said so himself. All you've to do is tell him to leave because
you would prefer to go on living with me. What could be easier?"
"You seem to be trying to make it difficult," Kate said slowly. "Are you
doing it deliberately?"
"Very good, Kate," John commented, abruptly recovering his composure.
"I like the way you turned that one around. Very neat."
Kate's lips moved soundlessly as she raised a bottle-green coffee cup
to her mouth, shooting him one of her exaggerated, schoolgirl looks of
scorn over the rim. What an unlikely emotion, Jack thought, to cause
rejuvenation.
John Breton pushed his food away and got to his feet. "Sorry to break
this up, but somebody around here has to work."
"You aren't going to the office!" Kate sounded shocked.
"I've got to -- besides, you two will have lots to talk about."
Jack concealed his amazement at the other man's seeming indifference to
how near he was to losing Kate. "Do you have to go? Why not let Hetty
handle things for a few days?"
John frowned. "Hetty? Hetty who?"
"Hetty Calder, of course." Cool vapors of unease swirled momentarily
in Jack's chest as he saw the perplexed look on John's face. This was
supposed to be a duplicate world, perfect in every detail. How could
John Breton have any difficulty in placing Hetty Calder?
"Oh, Hetty! It's been so long, I'd almost forgotten. She's been dead
for seven or eight years."
"How . . .?"
"Lung cancer, I think it was."
"But I saw her just a week or so ago. She was all right -- and still
smoking two packs a day."
"Perhaps she changed her brand in your world." John shrugged casually,
and in that instant Jack hated him.
"Isn't that strange?" Kate spoke in a child's wondering voice. "To think
that funny little woman's alive, somewhere, going about her business
and not knowing we've already attended her funeral, not knowing she's
really dead."
Jack Breton experienced an urge to correct Kate, but was unable to find
any suitable grounds. If Kate was really alive, then Hetty was really
dead -- it was all part of the deal. He sipped hot coffee, surprised at
the strength of the regrets conjured up by the memory of Hetty's homely,
capable face breathing through its centrally-mounted cigarette.
"I'm going to get dressed." John Breton hesitated at the door as if about
to say something further, then went out of the kitchen, leaving Jack alone
with Kate for the first time. The air was warm, and prisms of pale sunlight
slanted from the curtained windows. A pulsing silence filled the room
as Kate toyed desperately with her food, looking slightly distraught
and out-of-place against the background of cozy domesticity. She took a
cigarette and lit it. Breton's awareness of her was so intense that he
could hear the tobacco and rice paper burning as she drew on the smoke.
"I think I arrived at just the right time," he said finally.
"Why's that?" She avoided looking at him.
"You and . . . John are about ready to split up, aren't you?"
"That's putting it a little strongly."
"Come on, Kate," be urged. "I've seen the two of you. It was never like
this with us."
Kate looked fully at him and he saw the uncertainty in her eyes.
"No? I don't understand this Time A and Time B thing very well, Jack, but
up until that night in the park you and John were the same person. Right?"
"Right."
"Well, we had fights and arguments then, too. I mean, it was
you
--
as well as John -- who refused to give me taxi fare and -- "
"Don't, Kate!" Breton struggled to make his mind encompass what she was
saying. She was right, of course, but during the last nine years he had
avoided some avenues of memory, and he was strangely reluctant to be
forced to explore them now. The dream could not sustain the dichotomy.
"I'm sorry -- perhaps that wasn't fair." Kate tried to smile. "None of
us seem to be able to shake off that particular episode. And there's
Lieutenant Convery . . ."
"Convery! Where does he come in?" Breton's senses were alerted.
"The man who attacked me was called Spiedel. Lieutenant Convery was in
charge of the investigations into his death." Kate looked somberly at
Breton. "Did you know you were seen that night?"
"I hadn't thought about it."
"You were. Half a dozen teenagers who must have been having a communal
roll in the grass told the police about seeing a man with a rifle who
materialized almost on top of them and vanished just as quickly. Naturally
enough, the description they were able to give fitted John. To be honest,
until last night I always had an illogical feeling it had been John --
although the investigation cleared him completely. Several of our neighbors
had seen him standing at the window, and his rifle was broken anyway."
Breton nodded thoughtfully, suddenly aware of how near he had come to
saving Kate and getting rid of the Time B Breton at one stroke. So the
police had tried to pin the shooting on John! What a pity the dictates
of chronomotive physics had caused the bullet which killed Spiedel to
snap back into Time A along with the rifle and the man who had fired
it. The rifling marks on it would have matched those produced by John
Breton's unfired and broken rifle -- which would have given the omnipotent
ballistics experts something to think about.
"I still don't see what you mean about Convery," he said aloud. "You
said John was cleared."
"He was, but Lieutenant Convery kept on coming around here. He still
calls when he's in the district, and drinks coffee and talks to John
about geology and fossils."
"Sounds harmless."
"Oh, it is. John likes him, but he reminds me of something I don't want
to remember."
Breton reached across the table and took Kate's hand. "What do I remind
you of?"
Kate moved uneasily, but kept her hand in his. "Something I do want to
remember, perhaps."
"You're my wife, Kate -- and I want you back." He felt her fingers
interlock with his then grow tighter and tighter as though in some
trial of strength. Her face was that of a woman in childbirth. They
sat that way, without speaking, until John Breton's footsteps sounded
outside the kitchen door. He came in, now wearing a gray business suit,
and went straight to the radio.
"I'll get the latest news, before I go."
"I'll tidy up here," Kate said. She began clearing the table.
Jack Breton stood up, aware of an overwhelming resentment at his other
self's presence in the house, and walked slowly through the house until
he was standing in the cool brown silence of the living room. Kate
had responded to him -- and that was important. It was why it had been
necessary for him to do it this way, to walk straight in on Kate and
John and explain everything to them.
A more logical and efficient method would have been to keep his presence
in the Time B world a secret; to murder John, dispose of the body
and quietly take over his life. But then he would have been burdened
with a sense of having cheated Kate, whereas now he had the ultimate
justification of knowing she preferred him to the man the Time B Breton
had come to be. That mattered very much, and now it was time to think
in detail about his next step -- the elimination of John Breton.
Frowning in concentration, Jack Breton moved about the living room,
absentmindedly lifting books and small ornaments, examining them and
carefully putting everything back in its original place. His attention
was caught by a sheaf of closely-written squares of white paper, the
top one of which had an intricate circular pattern on it. He lifted
the uppermost sheet and saw that what he had taken to be a pattern was
actually handwriting in a finely-executed spiral. Breton rotated the
paper and slowly read a fragment of poetry.
I have wished for you a thousand nights,
While the green-glow hour-hand slowly veers.
I could weep for the very need of you,
But you wouldn't taste my tears.
He had set the sheet down and was turning away from the table when the
significance of the lines speared into him. It took several seconds
for the floodgates of memory to open, and when they did his forehead
prickled icily with fear. He had written those words himself during the
period of near-madness following Kate's death -- but he had never shown
them to anyone.
And that had been in another world, and another time.
VI
John Breton made several abortive attempts to leave for his office,
but each time returned to pick up small objects -- papers, cigarettes,
a notebook. The mounting tension in the pit of Jack's stomach drove him
away from the kitchen table, with a muttered apology, and up into the
still-air privacy of his bedroom. He sat tensely on the edge of the bed,
listening for the sound of the Lincoln crackling down the driveway.
When it finally came he went out onto the landing and part-way down the
stairs. He stood there in the big house's dark brown silence, hovering,
feeling like a pike meditatively selecting its level in dim waters.
Nine
years,
he thought.
I'll die. I'll touch her, and I'll die.
He went the rest of the way down, unable to prevent himself moving
stealthily, and into the kitchen. Kate was standing near the window,
washing apples. She did not look around, but went on dousing the pale
green fruit with cold water. The simple domestic action struck Breton
as being somehow incongruous.
"Kate," he said. "Why are you doing that?"
"Insecticides." She still refused to turn her head. "I always wash
the apples."
"I see. You've got to do it this morning? It's urgent, is it?"
"I want to put them away in the fridge."
"But there's no hurry, is there?"
"No." She sounded contrite, as though he had forced her to admit
something shamefuL
Breton felt guilty -- he was really putting her through it. "Did you
ever notice the way fruit looks so much brighter and more colorful when
it's submerged in water?"
"No."
"It does. Nobody knows why.
Kate!"
She turned to face him and he caught her hands. They were wet and cold,
stirring ghastly memories far back in his mind. He kissed the chilled
fingers, making his own private penance.
"Don't do that." She tried to pull her hands away, but he tightened
his grip.
"Kate," he said urgently. "I lost you nine years ago -- but you lost
something, too. John doesn't love you, and I do. It's as simple as that."
"It isn't safe to make snap judgments about John."
"For me it's safe. But just look at the facts -- he went off to work this
morning as if nothing had happened. Leaving us alone. Do you think I'd
leave you alone with a declared rival? I'd . . ." Breton left the sentence
unfinished. He had been going to say he would kill his rival first.
"That was John acting hurt. He tries mental judo, you know. If you push,
be pulls. If you pull, he pushes."
Kate was speaking quickly, in desperation, as Breton drew her to him.
He slid his fingers gently up the fluted back of her neck, through the
hair and gripped her head, turning her face to him. She resisted for a few
seconds, then -- all at once -- came to him with mouth wide open. Breton
kept his eyes open during that first kiss, trying to imprint the moment
on his mind, to raise it beyond time itself.
Later, as they lay in the parchment-colored light of the shuttered
bedroom, Breton stared at the ceiling in wonderment.
the voice of a newscaster washed through the kitchen, causing Kate to frown
at him.
"Do we need that radio so loud?"
"Keep quiet a minute."
"I don't see why -- "
"Just keep
quiet!"
John twisted the control to its limit and the
announcer's voice boomed out, rippled with electronic distortions.
" . . . now continuing in the eastern hemisphere. A spokesman for
the Mount Palomar observatory said the meteor display was already
the most brilliant in history, and was showing no signs of slackening
off. Televised reports from Tokyo -- where the meteor display is now
at its height -- will be available on major networks as soon as the
malfunctioning of the communications satellites, which developed a few
hours ago, has been corrected.
"Mr. C.J. Oxtoby, president of Ustel -- the major satellite operating
agency -- has denied an early report that the Courier satellites were
drifting out of the synchronous orbit. Another possible explanation for
the communications failure of last night -- which have already led to
the filing of massive compensation claims by a number of civil users --
is that the satellites have suffered meteor damage.
"And now, on the local scene, fierce objections to the one-way street
system proposed . . ."
John Breton turned the radio off.
"The world still goes on," he said with a hint of challenge in his voice,
somehow excusing himself for not having had anything important to say
on the subject of the John-Kate-Jack triangle. Jack briefly wondered to
whom the apology was addressed.
"Of course it does. The world does still go on. Have some breakfast and
don't think about it too much." Jack felt a macrocosmic amusement at
his other self's preoccupation with trivia.
"I don't like those meteors," John said as he sat down. "Yesterday was
one hell of a day. A gravimetric survey goes haywire, the Palfreys arrive,
I drink a ruinous quantity of Scotch I don't even want, I take the longest
trip for years, even the sky starts to play tricks, and then . . ."
"To cap it all, I show up," Jack completed. "I know it's tough on you,
but don't forget I have every right to be here. We settled all that
last night."
"
You
settled it," John muttered ungraciously. "I don't see how
I can even talk this thing over with Kate while you're hanging around us.
"What is there to talk over?" Jack Breton ate steadily as he spoke,
enjoying himself.
John's fork clattered to his plate. He sat with hunched shoulders for
a moment, looking down at it, then raised his eyes to Kate in a level
stare of disgust.
"Well, how about it? Have you weighed up our various merits and demerits
yet?"
"Don't look at me like that." Kate's voice was taut with anger. "You're
the man around this house -- if you don't like Jack being here why don't
you do something positive about it?"
"Positive? You're the one that's in a position to do something positive
-- he said so himself. All you've to do is tell him to leave because
you would prefer to go on living with me. What could be easier?"
"You seem to be trying to make it difficult," Kate said slowly. "Are you
doing it deliberately?"
"Very good, Kate," John commented, abruptly recovering his composure.
"I like the way you turned that one around. Very neat."
Kate's lips moved soundlessly as she raised a bottle-green coffee cup
to her mouth, shooting him one of her exaggerated, schoolgirl looks of
scorn over the rim. What an unlikely emotion, Jack thought, to cause
rejuvenation.
John Breton pushed his food away and got to his feet. "Sorry to break
this up, but somebody around here has to work."
"You aren't going to the office!" Kate sounded shocked.
"I've got to -- besides, you two will have lots to talk about."
Jack concealed his amazement at the other man's seeming indifference to
how near he was to losing Kate. "Do you have to go? Why not let Hetty
handle things for a few days?"
John frowned. "Hetty? Hetty who?"
"Hetty Calder, of course." Cool vapors of unease swirled momentarily
in Jack's chest as he saw the perplexed look on John's face. This was
supposed to be a duplicate world, perfect in every detail. How could
John Breton have any difficulty in placing Hetty Calder?
"Oh, Hetty! It's been so long, I'd almost forgotten. She's been dead
for seven or eight years."
"How . . .?"
"Lung cancer, I think it was."
"But I saw her just a week or so ago. She was all right -- and still
smoking two packs a day."
"Perhaps she changed her brand in your world." John shrugged casually,
and in that instant Jack hated him.
"Isn't that strange?" Kate spoke in a child's wondering voice. "To think
that funny little woman's alive, somewhere, going about her business
and not knowing we've already attended her funeral, not knowing she's
really dead."
Jack Breton experienced an urge to correct Kate, but was unable to find
any suitable grounds. If Kate was really alive, then Hetty was really
dead -- it was all part of the deal. He sipped hot coffee, surprised at
the strength of the regrets conjured up by the memory of Hetty's homely,
capable face breathing through its centrally-mounted cigarette.
"I'm going to get dressed." John Breton hesitated at the door as if about
to say something further, then went out of the kitchen, leaving Jack alone
with Kate for the first time. The air was warm, and prisms of pale sunlight
slanted from the curtained windows. A pulsing silence filled the room
as Kate toyed desperately with her food, looking slightly distraught
and out-of-place against the background of cozy domesticity. She took a
cigarette and lit it. Breton's awareness of her was so intense that he
could hear the tobacco and rice paper burning as she drew on the smoke.
"I think I arrived at just the right time," he said finally.
"Why's that?" She avoided looking at him.
"You and . . . John are about ready to split up, aren't you?"
"That's putting it a little strongly."
"Come on, Kate," be urged. "I've seen the two of you. It was never like
this with us."
Kate looked fully at him and he saw the uncertainty in her eyes.
"No? I don't understand this Time A and Time B thing very well, Jack, but
up until that night in the park you and John were the same person. Right?"
"Right."
"Well, we had fights and arguments then, too. I mean, it was
you
--
as well as John -- who refused to give me taxi fare and -- "
"Don't, Kate!" Breton struggled to make his mind encompass what she was
saying. She was right, of course, but during the last nine years he had
avoided some avenues of memory, and he was strangely reluctant to be
forced to explore them now. The dream could not sustain the dichotomy.
"I'm sorry -- perhaps that wasn't fair." Kate tried to smile. "None of
us seem to be able to shake off that particular episode. And there's
Lieutenant Convery . . ."
"Convery! Where does he come in?" Breton's senses were alerted.
"The man who attacked me was called Spiedel. Lieutenant Convery was in
charge of the investigations into his death." Kate looked somberly at
Breton. "Did you know you were seen that night?"
"I hadn't thought about it."
"You were. Half a dozen teenagers who must have been having a communal
roll in the grass told the police about seeing a man with a rifle who
materialized almost on top of them and vanished just as quickly. Naturally
enough, the description they were able to give fitted John. To be honest,
until last night I always had an illogical feeling it had been John --
although the investigation cleared him completely. Several of our neighbors
had seen him standing at the window, and his rifle was broken anyway."
Breton nodded thoughtfully, suddenly aware of how near he had come to
saving Kate and getting rid of the Time B Breton at one stroke. So the
police had tried to pin the shooting on John! What a pity the dictates
of chronomotive physics had caused the bullet which killed Spiedel to
snap back into Time A along with the rifle and the man who had fired
it. The rifling marks on it would have matched those produced by John
Breton's unfired and broken rifle -- which would have given the omnipotent
ballistics experts something to think about.
"I still don't see what you mean about Convery," he said aloud. "You
said John was cleared."
"He was, but Lieutenant Convery kept on coming around here. He still
calls when he's in the district, and drinks coffee and talks to John
about geology and fossils."
"Sounds harmless."
"Oh, it is. John likes him, but he reminds me of something I don't want
to remember."
Breton reached across the table and took Kate's hand. "What do I remind
you of?"
Kate moved uneasily, but kept her hand in his. "Something I do want to
remember, perhaps."
"You're my wife, Kate -- and I want you back." He felt her fingers
interlock with his then grow tighter and tighter as though in some
trial of strength. Her face was that of a woman in childbirth. They
sat that way, without speaking, until John Breton's footsteps sounded
outside the kitchen door. He came in, now wearing a gray business suit,
and went straight to the radio.
"I'll get the latest news, before I go."
"I'll tidy up here," Kate said. She began clearing the table.
Jack Breton stood up, aware of an overwhelming resentment at his other
self's presence in the house, and walked slowly through the house until
he was standing in the cool brown silence of the living room. Kate
had responded to him -- and that was important. It was why it had been
necessary for him to do it this way, to walk straight in on Kate and
John and explain everything to them.
A more logical and efficient method would have been to keep his presence
in the Time B world a secret; to murder John, dispose of the body
and quietly take over his life. But then he would have been burdened
with a sense of having cheated Kate, whereas now he had the ultimate
justification of knowing she preferred him to the man the Time B Breton
had come to be. That mattered very much, and now it was time to think
in detail about his next step -- the elimination of John Breton.
Frowning in concentration, Jack Breton moved about the living room,
absentmindedly lifting books and small ornaments, examining them and
carefully putting everything back in its original place. His attention
was caught by a sheaf of closely-written squares of white paper, the
top one of which had an intricate circular pattern on it. He lifted
the uppermost sheet and saw that what he had taken to be a pattern was
actually handwriting in a finely-executed spiral. Breton rotated the
paper and slowly read a fragment of poetry.
I have wished for you a thousand nights,
While the green-glow hour-hand slowly veers.
I could weep for the very need of you,
But you wouldn't taste my tears.
He had set the sheet down and was turning away from the table when the
significance of the lines speared into him. It took several seconds
for the floodgates of memory to open, and when they did his forehead
prickled icily with fear. He had written those words himself during the
period of near-madness following Kate's death -- but he had never shown
them to anyone.
And that had been in another world, and another time.
VI
John Breton made several abortive attempts to leave for his office,
but each time returned to pick up small objects -- papers, cigarettes,
a notebook. The mounting tension in the pit of Jack's stomach drove him
away from the kitchen table, with a muttered apology, and up into the
still-air privacy of his bedroom. He sat tensely on the edge of the bed,
listening for the sound of the Lincoln crackling down the driveway.
When it finally came he went out onto the landing and part-way down the
stairs. He stood there in the big house's dark brown silence, hovering,
feeling like a pike meditatively selecting its level in dim waters.
Nine
years,
he thought.
I'll die. I'll touch her, and I'll die.
He went the rest of the way down, unable to prevent himself moving
stealthily, and into the kitchen. Kate was standing near the window,
washing apples. She did not look around, but went on dousing the pale
green fruit with cold water. The simple domestic action struck Breton
as being somehow incongruous.
"Kate," he said. "Why are you doing that?"
"Insecticides." She still refused to turn her head. "I always wash
the apples."
"I see. You've got to do it this morning? It's urgent, is it?"
"I want to put them away in the fridge."
"But there's no hurry, is there?"
"No." She sounded contrite, as though he had forced her to admit
something shamefuL
Breton felt guilty -- he was really putting her through it. "Did you
ever notice the way fruit looks so much brighter and more colorful when
it's submerged in water?"
"No."
"It does. Nobody knows why.
Kate!"
She turned to face him and he caught her hands. They were wet and cold,
stirring ghastly memories far back in his mind. He kissed the chilled
fingers, making his own private penance.
"Don't do that." She tried to pull her hands away, but he tightened
his grip.
"Kate," he said urgently. "I lost you nine years ago -- but you lost
something, too. John doesn't love you, and I do. It's as simple as that."
"It isn't safe to make snap judgments about John."
"For me it's safe. But just look at the facts -- he went off to work this
morning as if nothing had happened. Leaving us alone. Do you think I'd
leave you alone with a declared rival? I'd . . ." Breton left the sentence
unfinished. He had been going to say he would kill his rival first.
"That was John acting hurt. He tries mental judo, you know. If you push,
be pulls. If you pull, he pushes."
Kate was speaking quickly, in desperation, as Breton drew her to him.
He slid his fingers gently up the fluted back of her neck, through the
hair and gripped her head, turning her face to him. She resisted for a few
seconds, then -- all at once -- came to him with mouth wide open. Breton
kept his eyes open during that first kiss, trying to imprint the moment
on his mind, to raise it beyond time itself.
Later, as they lay in the parchment-colored light of the shuttered
bedroom, Breton stared at the ceiling in wonderment.
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