What about us? (17 page)

“So it didn’t work out, not
with either of them.” I finished for him.

“No, it couldn’t, not under the
circumstances.” he said with a shrug.

I nodded and closed the short
distance between us in a single step, winding my arms about him and resting my
head on his back.

“What about us?” I asked.

He patted my hands.  “There is
no us, not anymore.  I’m old and you’re not.”

“Humph.” Was all I had to say
to that.

We stood like that for quite a
while, half in and half out of the room, saying nothing.  Despite the thunder
and the force of the rain, it was peaceful.  It was more than that, it was
right.

Suddenly I realised that we
were both soaked to the skin.  He was frail now, something that even in his
time couldn’t be inoculated against and I was instantly cross with myself.

“I’m going to run you a hot
bath and while you take it, I’m going to go and get us some lunch.  When I get
back we’re going to talk some more.”

I think he knew there was no
point in arguing with me.

I didn’t bother to take a bath
when I got back from the shop; I just took off my wet clothes, or peeled them
off more like, dried myself and wrapped myself in one of the dressing gowns.  While
he got changed, I pottered about in the kitchen, something I’d never done there
before.  It was nice and I found myself humming the tune from my music box,
which was still in Lyme Regis.  We’d seen Ada Jones sing it live in a vaudeville
theatre in New York and the memory made me smile.

I set the small table in the
kitchen and he came in to join me.  It was only bread and cheese with a bit of
salad, but it would do.

“How did they find us?” I
asked.

He tapped the side of his head. 
“The implants transmit a low energy signal.  Time can be scanned and they
picked it up, but they only located the general timeline.  It only told them when
I was, not where I was. 
It’s not that accurate and
they could have been three or four months out either side, so they had to
search the old fashioned way.  In Moscow in 1812, or yesterday as it was for
you at any rate, they got lucky.”

“So how come you were able to
come back now, after all this time?” I asked.

“I paid my dues; I did what was
required of me and I did it well.  I wasn’t lying earlier when I said there are
no prisons in my time.  If you break the law, your debt is to society.  Our
responsibility is to learn from mistakes and to teach others.  The past informs
the future in every aspect of our lives.”

I probably looked surprised at
this bit of news.  “I suppose that’s one improvement in the future.” I said.

But to be honest, I wasn’t
entirely sure.  At least he hadn’t been languishing in some horrible cell for
all those years, so that was something to be happy about.

He smiled sadly at me, as
though he thought that prison might have been a better option.

“But you Grace, you were always
innocent.  You didn’t realise the ramifications when you agreed to take my hand
that night in Lyme Regis; you hadn’t had the training.  You didn’t even know
what was going to happen.  You came because you trusted me.”

He looked so sad that I had to
interrupt.  “I did then and I do now Jack.  Some things don’t change.”

“Yes, but I see now that your
trust was, shall we say, misplaced.  I was selfish; I didn’t want to lose you
and I dragged you into this hopeless mess.”

His voice was firmer now, as
though he’d rehearsed this pretty speech often.

“I think you should let me be
the judge of what is and what isn’t hopeless.  I think I may have a bit more
experience than you on that score, despite your advanced age.”

I spoke quietly and he gave me
a slight nod in agreement.

We sat in silence for a while,
just eating, until finally I couldn’t wait any longer.

“And...? So what happened, why
did they let you come back?” I asked, with growing impatience.

“They agreed that we could not
leave you here in the wrong time; too much damage could be done.  You would be
on your own and as we’ve said before, you haven’t had the training, so there
was always the danger that you might break the golden rule and that cannot be
allowed to happen.  Your being here is part of my mistake and I convinced the
Board that only I can make it right and we believed that you wouldn’t recognise
me.  I had a problem with my throat some years back and the required surgery
changed my voice, which we thought would also throw you.  And of course we all
agreed that I would not be so foolish as to let all my good work for the best
part of a century and a half come to nothing.  They did not think I would throw
it all away for something that is at best, a rather nice but dim and distant
memory.  Obviously I had forgotten just how observant and smart you really
are.”

He smiled at me a little
ruefully and I had to smile back.

“Lucky for us then that you’ve
become so forgetful in your old age, that’s all I can say.” I retorted.  “Go
on...”

“Well here I am.  I’ve come to
take you home, back to your life as it should have been without me in it.”

I stared at him, my fork held
in mid-air as his words worked their way through my brain.  I put the fork down
and spoke slowly.

“You forget Jack, that if you
had never been in my life, it would probably have ended under that car, that
Friday night.”

He looked at me as if I’d just
slapped him hard.

I stood up and paced about; my
appetite had completely gone and he just picked miserably at his own plate.  His
meaning was becoming crystal clear to me.  It wasn’t that he wished he’d left
me to die, he’d just forgotten about that bit.  No, it was his plans for me
that rankled.

“You mean to tell me... You
actually thought... What I mean is, you think it would be a good idea to wipe
yourself out of my life.  Tell me Jack, if that’s really the case, exactly why did
you save me from that car? What were you even doing there?”

It occurred to me that I’d
never asked him and after all, it was such a strange place for him to be.  I
mean, nothing ever happened there.

“Grace, how can you ask that?”
he said sadly.

I ignored the question and just
stared at him.

He sighed, knowing that I meant
business.  “Javier sent me.  He saw that I was becoming jaded.  He said I’d
witnessed too much horror and my judgement was starting to suffer as a result. 
He summoned me and asked me to record the goings on of that street for that one
evening only.  It wasn’t something the HG unit normally did, but the student
whose job it was, couldn’t go for some reason.  I remember it well; he promised
me a mission where nobody died.  I think that’s why I raced to push you out of
the way.  That one evening no one was supposed to die and I was determined to
make sure no one did.”

He was slightly breathless and
I didn’t want to push him further.  I now knew and understood his motives and I
couldn’t be angry any more, well not about him saving me anyway.

“Alright, let’s just leave the
car incident aside for a moment.  I want to be sure that I’ve understood you
properly.   You are going to take away the only thing that has ever given my
life meaning.  I can’t believe that you’d do that to me Jack; take away
everything and leave me with nothing.  How could you?”

I glared at him, waiting for
him to disagree, but he didn’t and the full impact of what he intended to do
sunk in.

"You were going to take me
back to my old life, so that I could get on with it without a single memory of
you or any of the things we’ve done in the last five years.  I’m right, aren’t
I?”

He didn’t need to answer, I
could see from the misery written all over his face, so I carried on working
myself up with each word I threw at him.

“I don’t know how you were
planning to accomplish that, but I can only assume that by going back and
changing something, you would wipe
this
me out of existence.”

I looked at him and then before
he could answer, the horrible truth dawned on me and I spoke slowly and softly,
knowing that I was right.

“You don’t come and find me in
the days just before my birthday!”

I stared at him and he nodded
slowly.

I carried on staring at him.  “Jack,
you’ve lived a hundred and forty odd years without me, but you said that half
of yourself has been missing all that time.  So far, you’ve said not said
anything that makes me think that you would trade that life for one without me
in it at all.  You’re here now.  You could just have gone back and changed
things.  I would never have known, would I? But you didn’t.  Bloody hell Jack,
one tenth of those years is more than enough time to move on, to put me behind
you like most people do with their first love.  But again, you didn’t.  So what
on earth makes you think that I would want to?”

Anger was whirling inside me
with nowhere to go and I sank into a chair, too stunned to cry.  The enormity
of what I’d just said knocked us both sideways.

 “If that is what you honestly
think I am going to consider as an option, well think again.” I said
determinedly.

“What else is there Grace?”

“I shall stay here, with my
memories intact thank you very much.” I told him, folding my arms across my chest,
glaring at him.

“You can’t.” he said, clearly
upset by the idea.  “In two years time Europe will be torn apart.”

“Then I shall volunteer and do
my bit.  I’ve seen programmes on the telly about the women ambulance drivers
and nurses.  Who knows, I may even marry some poor soldier boy and try to make
him happy before he gets blown to bits for no good reason.”

I was shouting by then and
shaking with emotion.

He stood up and came to my
side, trying to wrap his arms around me.  But I didn’t trust him at that
moment.

“Oh no you don’t!” I said,
catching him out.  “I’m not having you shimmering us to god only knows when or
where, when we haven’t even half way finished this discussion.”

“Grace, I can’t just take you
back to Lyme Regis, to your twenty-first birthday and leave you there, because
we’re already there and we can’t meet ourselves.  The golden rule hasn’t
changed.  Neither can I take you to a point a minute after we left.  For you it
would be the future and you can’t exist in it, even if it is only a minute.  If
we return to the point we left and I leave you there, your future will be like
my past; one of unendurable loneliness.  I can’t condemn you to that.”

“So you’ve just come to say
goodbye then?” I wailed, in a voice that was almost unrecognisable, even to me.

The tears were falling freely now. 
I moved across the kitchen and stood by the small window.  Beads of rain were
trickling down the glass and water was gurgling in the downpipes outside.  I
heard the chair move as he sat down with a sigh of resignation.  He was clearly
at as much of a loss as I was.

“Why can’t we be together for
whatever time you have left?” I asked after a while.  “You’ve paid your dues;
don’t you deserve something in return? We don’t have to stay here; we could go
to a time closer to 2001 and live in a different place if it’s the only way.”

I was still very emotional, but
this time I didn’t resist as he came to stand with me and pulled me close to
him, letting me cry, stroking my hair.

“Because, Grace my love, you
are young.  You have a whole life ahead of you still and you...you should share
it with someone who...”

His voice was breaking.  He trailed
off and I knew he was crying too.

I took a deep breath.  This was
getting us nowhere.  Well that wasn’t strictly true, a lot of very important
things had been made clear.  He still loved me and I had loved no one but him.

“Love conquers all.” I
muttered, “Or at least it bloody well ought to! We have to find a way.  We’re
not giving up; not now.”

We went back into the main room
hand in hand and sat on the sofa.

I drew my knees up and faced
him.  “You’ve spent over a hundred years being on the inside, being the good guy. 
You don’t have to go into the details, I know you can’t anyway, but think, Jack. 
Think carefully.  You’ve had the training; is there anything that could help us
now?”

“A cup of tea might,” he
replied, with a faint smile.

“Your wish is my command.” I
said, jumping up.

“You think.” I ordered, tapping
his head as I went past, back towards the kitchen.

We were in luck.  The cupboard
had what was needed and I’d brought milk back with me from the shop.

We drank our tea in comfortable
and familiar silence.  Jack was back; my Jack.  Older, much older in fact, but
in essence it was him.  I watched his eyebrows pucker and wriggle.  I knew he
wasn’t humouring me; he was applying himself one hundred percent to our
predicament.

I just sat there, quiet as a
mouse, watching him think.  I could see him turning ideas, ideas that he
couldn’t share with me, over in his mind.  I saw when he discarded them and I
watched as he seized upon something new.