What about us? (32 page)

“No more than I do and I don’t
even have an attic!” Vicki interjected, trying to look cross with him but
failing.  “I’ll sell it and everything in it as soon as it’s mine, just you
wait and see.  I’ll be queuing up on Antiques Road Show!” she threatened.

“It’ll be yours to do with what
you will, so there’s no point in getting on your high horse with me now.” he
said fondly, before turning to me again.

“Anyway, take the papers that
are in it; there might be some interesting things there for you.  I read them
all years ago and it’s all a bit humdrum.  What they did during the day, who
they met, what they saw, that sort of stuff.  I think they were planning a
history book.  Funny thing to do, writing history as it happened...”

He chuckled and I smiled with him,
grateful for the bundle that he thrust into my waiting hands.

“There’s a list in there too,
never could make sense of it.  It’s addresses all over London and then next to
each one of them are two dates, always eight days apart.  I never went to any
of them mind and as far as I know, neither did Gran.”

“That is strange.” I said,
agreeing with him, although to me it was obvious that it was a list of safe
houses.  Of course I couldn’t share this with him, but later I found my
assumption to be correct.  There in neat handwriting were several safe houses
in London between 1890 and 1970.  He, my other self that is, had provided for
her as best he could, which gave me a strange sense of satisfaction that I
couldn’t explain.

Thanks to Henry I now knew and
understood how Vicki was linked to this enigmatic young woman, but it didn’t explain
in any way why two other people were due to cease to exist at the same time as
her and her entire family, although not her father of course.  Something was
eluding me.  Not only did I not know what it was, I didn’t know how to go about
locating it.  I missed my old friend and mentor Javier; his razor sharp mind
would have been excellent for solving a conundrum such as this.  His death was so
pointless and the world had been made poorer as a result, but even in these
unusual circumstances, he would have been the first to say: “Never meddle.”

These thoughts
brought me full circle.  The
other me and
Javier had grown old together, because in that timeline he’d not been murdered. 
When my other elderly self went back to the London of 1889 to find her again,
his only regret was the disappointment our friend and mentor would feel at his
desertion.  In that moment I understood why he’d selected a younger incarnation
of himself.  By choosing me to unburden himself to, he’d hoped to spare Javier. 
We didn’t know each other at that point, although we knew of each other.  At
the age of twenty-three I’d only met the great man in passing and was not yet a
part of his team, so had not been selected for preferential training.

I’d finally found something in
that other me that I could relate to, that I could understand.  I suspected
that he had somehow prevented the twenty-seven year old version of himself from
arriving at the cafe and when I searched his memories, I found that he’d sent
himself a note containing instructions that seemed to come from Javier, asking
him as a personal favour to observe the street in which the accident takes
place, but three days later.  Understanding this didn’t help me solve anything
else of course, but it did put my mind at ease.  There had not been, nor would
there be, the danger of three versions of myself converging on the cafe in a
few weeks time.

I spent most of the night
reading the papers Henry had given me.  They were actually very interesting from
a historical point of view.  The small details gave a clear insight into
everyday life for the ordinary person in that part of London and although there
were names, there was nothing there that gave me reason to think that there was
a link I should trace.

Generally speaking, my other
self had continued just as he had been trained to do, even if he had forgotten
a fundamental part of that training.  He observed and he recorded and it was
the untrained young woman that added colour to the facts.  It was she who
brought them all to life, she who gave them faces.  It was she who laughed with
them, she who mourned them and it was she who suffered with them, not my other
self.  At around four in the morning I gave up.  There was nothing there to
connect anyone to anything in this time or the future and I went to bed feeling
heavy hearted.

As I woke, I realised that the
year 2000 would give up no more of its secrets to me.  I had found everything
that I was going to find; there was no one else that I knew of or knew how to
find that I needed to speak to.  The only possible way of identifying the other
two people was to be in the street moments before the accident, but as there
would be two other versions of myself in close proximity, I could not and more
to the point would not take that risk.  It would cause many more problems than
it could conceivably solve, of that I was in no doubt.  I sighed; the enjoyment
of having such a complex puzzle to solve was beginning to turn to frustration,
a state of mind that could usually be improved with food.

Over another large and very
enjoyable breakfast at the hotel I considered my options.  I could not return
to my own time just yet; I had learnt nothing that would change anything.  The
puzzle remained a puzzle and anyway, the situation that I would be returning
to, would be one of chaos.  When and where should I go next? I wondered and
why?

As far as I could ascertain,
the link between the young woman and the events that were to unfold centred
around Sal Grundy, but what could she tell me that her grandson could not?

It was a nice day, so I decided
to go to the local park.  As I walked, I pondered on what Sal could possibly have
known that would cause such a shift in the continuum so far in the future. 
There was also another question.  If she had something to share, when would she
give it up? I was going to have to choose a period in her life very carefully indeed,
but given what was happening in my own time, I was not sure that the system would
allow me to do it.

Using the timepiece to travel
to anywhere other than home was going to be risky; because all travellers would
have had their coordinates reset for the base as a default.  I might get caught
up in the recall and then once back would not be able to leave again, but I
reasoned that it was a risk worth taking.  I had some of the pieces to the
jigsaw and it was becoming clear to me that if the picture could be completed,
I might have very valuable information indeed; information that just might
change the balance of things for everyone.

I thought about Charlie
Grundy’s father; the ‘bad blood’ in the family.  It was more than likely that
this man would have fathered other children, probably both with his wife and
outside his marriage.  But it was not reasonable to assume that there was a
link between them and Sal and her child, who had lived when they should have
died.  His other children would have had a right to existence, completely
removed from the meddling of my other self and the young woman.  As far as I
could tell from the inherited memories and the documents Henry had given me,
the father’s name was never mentioned.  He never came to visit, nor had
anything to do to with his bastard son.  I was certain there was no point in
tracking him down; it would be a blind alley, nothing more.

As it started to rain, I
decided on my next move.  The period that Sal grew up in was one of change, but
it was very probable that some older traditions had been deeply ingrained in
her.  On her deathbed, or as close as I could get to it, would be when she
would be most agreeable to revealing any secrets that she might have, in order
to move on to whatever it was she believed in with a lighter soul.  There was a
secret, I was sure of it and she had taken it to her grave for one reason or
another.  I needed to find out what it was.

Later, when I was sure that
Vicki would be there giving Henry his tea, I called round to return the papers
and to ask my final question.

“Henry, your grandmother on
your father’s side; where and when did she die?”

I set the coordinates on the
timepiece for London, 14
^th
January 1941 and tried scrambling its
identification code, hoping that I wouldn’t be pulled off my chosen course by the
power flux returning all travellers home.  During the evening of that day, Sal
Grundy would slip away peacefully; alone, but loved.  Luckily my modification
worked and I arrived at the safe house in Deptford in the early hours of the
morning, which gave me time to wash and change at leisure.

The safe house was tucked away
near the creek and as soon as I heard the ‘all clear’ siren and stepped out
onto the street, I saw that the area had already suffered badly from the
bombing.  I knew of course that the house would be totally obliterated at the
end of its eight days and I was anxious to be gone as soon as possible.  After
all, there are no inoculations against being blown to pieces.  London in that
period was a dangerous place for everyone who had a reason to be there, myself
included.

In the normal course of events,
anyone travelling to a potentially dangerous place or time would be able to
download any relevant information into the implants.  In this case; when and
where the bombs were due to fall and so be in a better position to avoid them,
but returning to base for this information was a luxury I didn’t have the time
for.

I walked to Guy’s Hospital,
following the directions given by an assortment of helpful people, taking
detours as advised by wardens and firemen.  Despite the mess that London was
in, people were going about their business as best they could and most were
still able to smile and pass the time of day with each other.

 I arrived at the hospital
early afternoon and made my way past the sandbagged entrance to the reception
area where I enquired after a Mrs Sally Grundy.  I knew her daughter in-law
would be minding the shop and that Henry would already be away serving his
country, so there would be no danger of him remembering me later.

The nurse took me to a quiet
ward where I found a frail and pale woman, propped up on some pillows, looking
older than her sixty-seven years.

“Sal, it’s me, Jack.” I said,
as I sat down beside her bed.

She looked at me for a long
time, then nodded.  “I always knew you’d come back.  Winnie and me, we just
knew.  Where’s Grace?” she asked, trying to peer behind me in case she was
there.

“She died.” I said truthfully.

“Happens to us all it seems.  She
was a nice lady, a real lady.”

She looked away slightly and spoke
more to herself than to me and I found I could only agree with her sentiments. 
Then she shook off her sadness and turned back to me.  “Seems time’s been
kinder to you than to me.”

She was staring hard at my
face, which as far as her logic was concerned, should have been a little more than
a decade older than hers and while I had undoubtedly aged, medical science
being what it is in my time had certainly lessened the effect.

I shrugged my shoulders; there
was nothing I could say.

She nodded, although I wasn’t
sure what she was thinking as her shrewd eyes continued to watch me.

“Saved your stuff we did, all
of it and the money.” she said, with an air of pride.

“Thank you Sal.” I said softly. 
“Grace and I knew that it would be safe with you.  She always trusted you,
Grace did.”

It felt strange to me, using the
young woman’s name so familiarly.

“I used some of the money mind,
but I paid it all back with interest.  It’s all there, every penny and a bit
more on top.”

She spoke proudly and I didn’t
want her to waste any of her precious energy.  She probably knew as well as I
did that she had only hours left.

“I know, your daughter in-law
told me.  She’s given me the trunk back; it’s all there, everything.  Thank
you.”

She nodded at my words.  The
lie made sense to her and it gave her a reason for me being there, one she
could accept.

We sat in silence while she
gathered what little strength remained in her diseased body.

“What else you come for then?”
she asked.

“One good turn deserves
another.” I said slowly.

She looked at me quizzically.

“Sal you’ve got a secret and
it’s weighing heavily on you.  Tell me it before you go; leave it behind.  Perhaps
I can help make something that’s wrong, right again.”

She didn’t laugh at my
suggestion, or tell me that I was being foolish.  She was old and worn out, but
still as sharp as a pin.  I waited, knowing that she was thinking over the
offer I’d made.

She looked directly at me.  “You
do owe me a good turn, that’s right enough, but I can’t see how you can help.  What’s
done is done, there’s no going back in time to do sommat different and I’m not
sure I would, even if I could.”

I could see that she wasn’t
entirely convinced.  I had one chance and one chance only.

“You’re right Sal.  We can’t go
back, but we can go forward.  Maybe you’re not supposed to do anything
differently, maybe someone else is, but they can’t make that choice if they
don’t know that it’s there for them to make.”