What about us? (14 page)

“Ok...” I said, “When and where
next?”

I tried to make my voice sound
bright and excited and I was trying not to feel sad about leaving our life in
Napier Street.  I hoped that Winnie would understand and that Sal and baby
Charlie would be ok.

“How about Paris, 1912?” he
asked, grinning at me.

“Paris would be lovely in any
year, I’m sure.” I giggled in reply and wrapped my arms tightly around his
waist.

Chapter
nine

When the shimmering stopped, we
were in a room again and it was obviously night.  I looked around, taking in my
surroundings.  The ceilings were high and the tall narrow windows were dressed,
but not with thick curtains that covered everything.  Instead they were
elegantly draped with what might have been silk and they opened outwards onto a
small balcony.  The floors were so highly polished you could have eaten your
dinner off them and there were lots of rugs.  They looked Chinese to me,
because of the style of the dragons and flowers on them.  I’d seen similar
designs in the pictures on the wall at my local takeaway at home.  The lights
were electric, not gas and it was warm, but not the sort of fuggy warmth that
you get from heating.  That was the first time at the apartment, but over the
months, or was it years? I’m never sure... it was to become very familiar.

“It’s summer!” I exclaimed
happily.

He nodded, clearly pleased,
before telling me exactly when we were.

“It is eleven pm, Saturday, 10
^th
August 1912.”

He took my hand playfully and
started pulling me out of the room.

“Special treat, come and see
this!”

We went down a long corridor
with double doors on either side, until we were at the end.  He threw open the
last doors with mock pomp and stood aside.  There in front of me was a huge
bath, with proper taps connected to it and on a wooden table by the window,
thick luxurious towels.

“Oooh...” I sighed.

“And that’s not all, look
what’s in here.” he said, pushing open another door.

“Oooh...” I sighed again, “A
real toilet, with a chain to flush it!”

We fought to be the first one
to use it, laughing and elbowing each other out of the way.

Although it was night time in
Paris, for us it was still only mid-morning.  Thankfully Jack felt certain that
we’d be safe there.

“Not a lot happens here at this
time.  Because it’s August, all the great and good have left the city, along
with anyone else who’s got somewhere to go to.  I’ve only been here once before
so they probably won’t think of it as a favourite haunt of mine.  We should be
ok until the morning.”

I didn’t even wait until he got
to the safe bit before I started filling the tub with lashings of hot water, adding
something that to me, smelt like flowery heaven from a beautiful glass bottle.

After my luxurious soak and as
the last of the water disappeared down the plug hole all by itself, Jack began
to fill it up again.  I left him there, singing loudly in the steam while I
went to find the wardrobe that I knew would be there somewhere.

No matter how many times I’d
stood in front of racks of clothes, in various safe houses that we’d used over
the years, I always giggled with delight when I opened that particular door.  Me
and Paris fashion, whoever would have thought it!

My Nan would have loved it.  She
would have given those clothes style and the picture of her that always popped
into in my mind at that moment made me feel that maybe I did come from ‘her
side’ after all, despite everything.

I know we are not meant to
stand out, but I figured that this was Paris with a capital P.  So many women
and probably men too, would look gorgeous and there was no way I could compete
with them.  That first time I wore a lovely high necked creation in china blue
silk, with sprigs of flowers dotted all over it and navy blue bands at the
neck, cuffs, waist, hips and knees.  The corset still made me grimace, but once
on, it was more comfortable than the old ones had ever been and it made me
stand up straight, shoulders back, you know, that sort of thing.  There weren’t
so many underclothes and the hat I chose was quite amazing.  It was more like a
frothy cake than a piece of clothing, but when morning came it would keep the
sun out of my eyes.  I also found some soft leather button-down boots in my
size.

I was twirling in front of the
big mirror, listening to the lovely noise that the dress made and enjoying how
it felt on the bare bits of my skin, when Jack came into the room.  He was
flushed from the heat of the bath and his wet hair was all over the place, but
he looked lovely to me and I could see from his eyes that he thought I did too.

I followed him into the
adjoining bedroom, where he pulled a creamy beige suit out of the wardrobe.  I
sat on the bed watching him dress.  He had that old chirpy air about him again
and I knew the opium incident was behind us and that there would be no need to
mention it again.  I suppose one good thing had come out of it though; we’d
seen each other at our worst.  We were neither of us perfect and we both made
mistakes, but that was ok, it meant we could relax and together we helped each
other be the best we could.  You can’t regret something like that now, can you?

It was while we were eating the
sandwiches that I’d prepared in Napier Street that something he’d said earlier
suddenly popped into my mind, causing me to hold my bit of bread in mid air.

“You said you’ve been here
before...”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, once.  Why?” he asked,
frowning, not understanding my evident alarm.

“Well, surely now you’ve
changed things, by bringing me here I mean; same time and everything.  What if
we bump into that other you? Haven’t we broken enough rules already?”

For a moment, I think I was
sure that somehow the known world would come crashing down on us as we sat
there and it would all be our fault.

He looked sideways at me for a
moment, but he didn’t laugh.

“That’s good Grace.  Well
thought out, but don’t worry; it doesn’t work like that.”

“Doesn’t it?” I asked, not sure
if he was just trying to make me feel better.

“No.  As long as we do
something different, we can revisit a time.  It’s not encouraged, but sometimes
it’s important that we do.  Say for instance we learn something new, after an
event, something that changes what we thought about a certain moment; well we
have to go back and reassess things.”

He could see that I wasn’t
really following, so he tried putting it another way.

“Like I said, the past exists,
so we can exist in it.  Our being somewhere where we weren’t originally, changes
things.  Nothing big, but a few little things are different.  Being here now,
sort of erases me physically being here before.  If I came back and did exactly
the same as I did last time, there wouldn’t be anything new, so everything
would happen as it did previously and then there would be the possibility of an
overlap.  So to be here now, again, I have to change small things.  Arrive at a
different hour or into a different room, wear different clothes, do things in a
different order, leave the apartment and walk in a different direction.  Little
things that fix me in this time, until another me fixes itself into the same
moment.  That way there should only ever be one of me in any particular time.  The
golden rule, which we have not broken by the way, is that you must never meet
yourself, so you must do everything possible to avoid it.”

“But how do you know why you’re
there, the second time I mean, if by being there you’ve wiped out the first
time?”

I was a bit confused to say the
least.

“Ok, good question.  Of course
I remember it; I was there.  So although the second visit wipes out anything
physical from the first visit, I do retain the memories; they are mine.  However,
there is something interesting about time travel that we can’t always explain. 
Sometimes we get what are called ‘time confusions’.  It’s like you remember
something that hasn’t happened to you.  It’s a strong feeling, although some of
the details might be vague and there is a sense of knowing something or someone,
but things don’t always have a context, so you wonder if it was a dream.  But
that is not the case now; I remember everything I did last time I was here”.

I nodded.  It sort of made
sense, in as far as anything really made sense anymore.

Once satisfied that I had
enough of a grasp of the idea, he continued.  “Your being here changes
everything anyway, which brings us to your second question.  Yes, we have
broken pretty much all the rules already and I believe there is a nice
expression that sums it up: ‘Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb’. 
What do you think?”

“I don’t want you to be hanged
for anything.” I said sadly.

“Dear silly Grace.  There will
be no hanging, I promise.”

He said it quietly, but with
just enough conviction, so that I could almost believe him.

We spent what was left of the
night walking through the streets of Paris, which were almost but not quite deserted. 
The smells and sounds wafting on the still night air would have told me I was
somewhere foreign.  It was just wonderful and so different from either of the
Londons I’d lived in.

We stopped on one corner where
we could hear a piano and clarinet being played together.  It was something I
didn’t recognise, but it hung in the air like magic and I just kept saying,
“Paris...”

I said it over and over again,
not able to believe that I was actually in a different country.  Daft really,
it seemed to mean more to me than the whole being in 1912 thing.

We stopped at this café for
breakfast as it opened and I discovered that the French don’t make tea the way
I like it, which is why when I’m here I have coffee.  We talked about where and
when we would go next, deciding that for a while at least, we wouldn’t settle
again, not like we had in Napier Street.

It was also during that first
breakfast here that Jack convinced me that I should be keeper of the watch.  That
way if anything happened to him, if he were caught for instance, I wouldn’t be
stuck.  We’d decided not to exchange it for the one in the apartment.  He knew
this one worked and it wasn’t impossible that ‘his people’ as I always called
them, would find a way to trace him through one of the ones left in a safe
house.  He also told me that I shouldn’t go back to Lyme Regis to the moment we
left, or more importantly, to the moment after.  If I wanted to return to my
old life, I would have to go to a safe house in August 2001 and stay out of the
way until my birthday weekend was over.  Although the more time we spent living
on the run, the more difficult that would be.

That first time, we sat here until
ten, when the clouds began to threaten rain and the heat had built up in that
muggy, unpleasant way, just as it is now in fact.  I was tired and we hadn’t
really decided when or where to go next.

“Can’t we stay here for a few
days?” I asked.

It was so nice to be in proper
summer and spending only a few hours in Paris seemed... well, wrong somehow.

He thought about it for a few
moments as I did my ‘pleading’ face.

“Please don’t look at me like
that.  How can I not give in when you do that?”

He tried to sound cross, but I
knew he wasn’t.

“Ok,” he said, “But we’ll stay
in a hotel though, just to be on the safe side.  In fact, we’ll go back to
yesterday morning; that should confuse things a bit.  We’ll need to pack a couple
of bags at the apartment.  Hotels remember you if you seem out of place and we
don’t want to be remembered.”

The small, friendly hotel we
chose was tucked away on a back street, not far from the river and being August
meant that there were not many other guests.  We paid for two weeks in advance,
so they were pleased to have us and didn’t ask too many questions.

“As we’ve checked in before
we’ve arrived, so to speak, we can come back whenever we like,” he said,
laughing.  “...As you like Paris so much.”

“What a lovely idea.” I replied,
pleased that he’d thought of it.

Our room was on the second
floor, with those high windows and small balconies overlooking the street below. 
There was a huge brass bed with a wonderfully soft mattress and a real bathroom
down the hall.  There was still the potty under the bed for night time use, but
by then it was familiar.  It seemed a shame not to make use of that lovely huge
apartment, but I understood the danger attached to staying there too long and
didn’t want to take the risk. 

Once we were settled, we popped
back to Sunday morning, but left the apartment straightaway, making our way to
the cafe by a different route for coffee, before going on to our room at the
hotel.  It was the first time that I got to experience just how much time you
can pack into a few hours.

We stayed in our room all day,
hiding from the thunderstorm, venturing out only once it had passed and the
stifling heat had changed into something kinder, leaving everything smelling
fresh.  We were both starving by then and Jack told me of a restaurant we could
go to where he was sure the food would not have an adverse affect on my
system.  It was then he told me that if we were to travel to cities previous to
the twentieth century, we would have to go in winter.