Time Stranger

by Elyse Douglas

  Anne stared into the mirror, absorbed and uncertain. “I’m not sure, Leon. Do you truly think it’s necessary?”

  “Well… Maybe. Yeah. I mean, it can’t hurt. Right?”

  “It makes me look… oh, I don’t know, a bit cheeky, I think,” Anne said.

  “Cheeky? What does that mean?” Leon asked.

  “Bold and brazen… a little on the saucy side.”

  Leon stepped back in admiration. “Well, I think you look awesome, Ms. Billings.”

  Anne looked at him through the mirror and smiled. “You use that word a lot, Leon. Awesome is such a funny word, but I like it.”

  Leon stood self-consciously, with a loopy grin. “All right, I’ll just say that I think the wig looks nice on you. Okay, you’re already pretty and everything, but the wig changes your look and that’s what we want, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not like you’re going outside the apartment before we get your passport and you leave for England. But I think it’s a good idea in case somebody drops in, or if you have to go out in an emergency. It will be a good disguise.”

  Anne stared at herself, soberly. “You mean, it’s a good disguise if your uncle or one of his mates comes by, or if he happens to spot me in the window. Isn’t that right?”

  Leon removed, and then replaced, his glasses, adjusting them higher on his nose. It was a habit he’d developed in college whenever he’d spoken to an attractive girl.

  He was conscious of doing it, but he wasn’t sure why, nor was it calculated. He’d often speculated that it might be some subconscious thing about him wanting to undress the girl. Hence the glasses off. But if he didn’t slip the glasses back on, he couldn’t see the girl so well. And he loathed contact lenses and the ritual one had to go through to keep them clean. It was the germaphobe in him.

  “Yeah… I guess that’s right. My uncle is clever and persistent, so it won’t hurt to have a disguise.”

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of that, Leon. All right, then, I’ll wear the wig when I’m not in my room.”

  “I talked to the woman at the store about how to clean it,” Leon added. “She said you should wash it when it’s dull, over-sprayed, or tangled from too much teasing. It’s good to keep it nice and clean, I guess.”

  Anne studied him, amused. “You like things clean, don’t you, Leon? Your place is immaculate.”

  “Yeah… I’m a little scared of germs. When you know about them and that they’re everywhere, well, you know, you get sort of… cleaner.”

  When Anne had first seen Leon’s two-bedroom apartment, she thought it something out of a futuristic magazine she’d seen in the late 1930s. And since she had nothing to compare it with except for Constance’s lavish home, Anne assumed that Leon’s décor was common for 2008.

  The apartment had a spotless, clutter-free, open-plan interior, without any unnecessary decoration or detailing. It was spartan, with track lighting, glossy, polished wood floors, white plastic and glass furniture, and open brick and white-washed walls.

  An unexpected tabletop sat between the kitchen and living room, and it functioned as a dining table, kitchen worktop and desk, all in one.

  Anne’s bed was built into a raised platform, hidden from view by a grid of shelving made of maple wood. A series of drawers for storage were underneath the platform, giving the room a modern, chic look.

  It was the glass-top desk holding an Apple laptop that Anne had first been drawn to. It sat facing the bank of windows that looked out onto Third Avenue. Leon had booted it up for her and given her a quick tutorial, and she’d spent hours surfing, initially entranced by the images, the online shopping and the infinite reach of information. But, as had happened when she’d used Constance’s laptop, she was unable to take it all in. After a time, she gazed sightlessly, as if hypnotized. Her brain was not wired to such impossible devices, and it made her nauseated, frightened, and edgy.

  Leon’s bathroom had completely astonished her. It was large, made of white tiles and gray stone, with a glass-enclosed shower, a massive shower head, a wide shower seat, and enough room to accommodate four people.

  In her wildest dreams she could have never imagined it, nor was there much in 2008 that she could have imagined: the technology, the skyscrapers, the automobiles, the grinding, awful music, and the casual, almost slovenly fashion.

  Leon was no doubt an egghead type, with eccentric ways, odd attire, and hair that refused to be tamed by a comb. He would have fit right in with many of the scientists at Bletchley Park.

  Back at the mirror, staring at herself in the blonde wig, Anne said, “Leon, do you clean your own flat?”

  Leon looked down. “Yeah…”

  She gave a little shake of her head. “Where I come from, no man would ever stoop to clean his own room, let alone his entire flat. It’s quite refreshing, actually. Anyway, thank you for purchasing the wig. I feel so useless not having any money. All I can do is keep saying, thank you.”

  “Hey, no problem,” Leon said.

  “I’ll pay you back once I get settled in London and find a flat and a job.”

  Leon’s eyes came to hers. “Ms. Billings…”

  Anne interrupted him. “… Leon, please, stop calling me Ms. Billings. We’re nearly the same age and we’re friends. Call me Anne.”

  Leon’s hands were restless in his pockets. “Anne… You won’t be able to stay in London. You won’t be able to prove you’re a citizen.”

  The air seemed to go out of her, and she sagged down into the nearest chair. “My God, of course, Leon,” she said, sighing heavily. “I didn’t consider that, did I? What a bloody fool I am not to have realized it. Of course, I can’t stay in England. But where will I go?”

  Leon kept his hopeful eyes on her as she sat in a stupor of discontent. “You can come back to New York. Maybe I can have my guy get you a fake birth certificate, a social security card and a driver’s license.”

  She looked at him with cool, distant eyes. “No… I’ll find a way. I have to. You’ll help me find a way to stay in England, won’t you, Leon? Don’t you know people who can help me?”

  That pleased Leon, who felt both excited and constrained by Anne’s prettiness and mystery. He was captivated by her natural grace and elegance, by her lovely speech and startling blue eyes. Alone with her in his apartment, his attraction had increased, producing goofy grins, clumsy steps, and a distracted mood.

  Anne had noticed that in the two days they’d been together in the apartment, Leon had often projected a dreamy infatuation and a sweet bewilderment. It touched her.

  Leon didn’t have a clue how he could help her, but he didn’t want her to know that.

  “Yeah, well, I’ll do what I can. There’s got to be a way, right?”

  They stared at each other and Anne thought, If England has changed the way New York has, what will I do? I’ll be lost.

  CHAPTER 21

  That evening, Leon left Anne alone while he went shopping. He returned an hour later with two armfuls of groceries that he proudly removed from plastic bags and displayed on the kitchen table. There were exotic cheeses, a freshly baked baguette, delicious French pâtés, Dijon mustard, pickled herring, lox, liverwurst, pastrami, baked ham, grilled vegetables, and bagels, along with a container of cream cheese with chives, fresh fruit and a scrumptiously baked chicken. For dessert, he produced a huge slice of chocolate cake, a slice of apple pie and something she’d never heard of, tiramisu.

  The sight of it all overwhelmed her and misted up her eyes. “It is so lovely. Such abundance.”

  Leon took a few steps back and spread out his hands, dramatically. “Well… there it is. All my favorite food from Max Diamond’s Deli.”

  Anne’s eyes expanded as she took it all in. “How is this possible? The food I shared with Constance was wonderful and extravagant, but I haven’t seen anything like this.”

  “I wanted you to have a real New York deli experience,” Leon said. “There’s nothing in the world like a good New York deli, especial
ly Max Diamond’s Deli. Okay, I’ll grab a bottle of chilled Chablis, some plates, some spoons and forks, and then let’s dig in.”

  As Anne ate, she savored every flavor, often closing her eyes and humming her delight. “This is jolly good, Leon. It’s giving me a weak head.”

  “Do you like the herring?”

  She grinned and lifted her shoulders. “Oh, yes, but I’ve never had it like this. I love it. It’s like a dream. So wonderfully delectable.”

  Leon topped off her wine as she reached for a slice of a baguette and then spread Dijon mustard and liver pâté on it.

  “This is pure heaven, Leon. Absolutely heaven. Thank you for this grand and lovely feast.”

  “I bet you didn’t get anything like this in England back in the 1940s.”

  “Oh good heavens, no. Never. In England, nearly everything is… that is, it was, rationed. Rationing began in January 1940, when bacon, butter and sugar were rationed. By 1942, so were meat, milk, cheese, eggs and cooking fat. In 1944, the greengrocer down the street had very little of what he’d once had. It was so sad. It makes me feel guilty that I’m having this great feast while my people had so little.”

  Anne turned reflective. “I remember in the mid-1930s, my Mum and I used to go to Walton’s. That was the local greengrocer. The potatoes were weighed out for each customer using the ‘balance’ type of scales, with heavy weights on one side and a large, dusty scoop on the other. I doubt whether you have anything like that now. The door of Walton’s was always open, and it was drafty inside, with so many earthy scents. It was scruffy, too, because the potatoes, carrots and other vegetables came straight from the ground, unwashed and unbagged, stored in rough wooden crates. I remember seeing layers of dust covering everything. I don’t think you would like that, Leon… all that dust.”

  Leon swallowed, reached for his wine and took a sip. “It all sounds so… well, so simple and natural compared to everything today.”

  “Yes, I suppose it was simple.”

  Leon wiped his mouth with a white paper napkin. “Anne… I hope you don’t think I’m being too rude or anything, but… you talk about your boy, Tommy, and an American pilot you were in love with, but you’ve never said who Tommy’s father was.”

  Anne’s eyes clouded over, and she stopped eating.

  “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, Anne,” Leon said, quickly. “Just forget I said anything about it.”

  Anne looked at Leon and gave him a sad, bleak smile. “It’s okay… Are you familiar with what happened to Britain in the summer of 1940?”

  “Yeah… I looked it up the other day. It was called the Battle of Britain.”

  “That’s right. In July 1940, the Germans began their first in a long series of bombing raids against us. It lasted three and a half months. Germany's Luftwaffe conducted thousands of bombing runs, attacking British military and civilian targets all across England. To fight off the bombers, Fighter Command employed squadrons of heavily armed fighter planes, the Hurricane and the Spitfire.”

  Anne sat back. “Well, you said you read about it, so I don’t need to tell you what happened.”

  Leon said, “What really fascinated me was the Dowding System—named for the Fighter Command’s Commander-in-Chief, Sir Hugh Dowding. They used radar, which was really cool and a new technology at the time, plus ground defenses and aircraft defense. For its time, it was awesome.”

  Anne nodded. “Yes… we were very proud of that. We were very proud of our fighter pilots. They saved us from a German invasion that surely would have come.”

  Anne fell into silence, staring. “I was married when I was twenty years old. I married a pilot, Basil Wilkinson.”

  Leon felt a twinge of jealousy, but he hid it. He’d never been able to talk to a girl like Anne for more than a few minutes. Being with her, eating with her, talking with her, all elevated and excited him. He felt bathed in a kind of male glory.

  “That was young to get married, wasn’t it?”

  “Maybe… The war was about to begin, so we married earlier than we’d originally planned. And then the war started for real, and Basil flew his Spitfire against the German air machine.”

  Anne’s voice drifted away.

  “So, what happened to him?”

  Her gaze was unfocused and bereft. “In August 1940, he and three of his friends were all killed in the space of twenty-four hours.”

  Leon lowered his head. “Oh… Wow. I’m sorry, Anne.”

  She nodded, staring vacantly. “After we heard the news about our men, we girls, Nancy, Rose, Trish and I, went to church and linked arms. We prayed and we cried, and we knew we’d never be the same. We’d lost our men… our good and brave men, who had been with us only two days before. But that’s the way it was. I couldn’t comprehend it. I knew all those pilots. Basil was from a fine family in Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire. His mother was shattered, and she took to her bed. Her mind was never the same. I wonder what finally happened to her. I wonder what happened to them all, the girls and the families. No doubt they passed away long ago.”

  “So you changed your name back to Billings from Wilkinson?”

  “Not at first… But then my Dad said I should. He said I had to move on and start again, and I loved my Dad. He’s a good sort… or was...”

  Leon sought to lighten the heavy mood. “And you said you were seeing an American bomber pilot, didn’t you?”

  Anne looked up, ready to clarify the situation. “Yes, but that was in 1944, almost four years after Basil’s death.”

  She laughed a little. “I seem to fall in love with pilots, don’t I? Anyway, on the laptop in my bedroom, I tried to find him, First Lieutenant Kenneth Taylor, but I couldn’t. I’m not so good with that computer, I think.”

  They sat quietly for a time before Anne said, “Maybe I don’t want to know what happened to him. He still had ten missions to fly over Germany.”

  Anne took a sip of her wine. “You can imagine, Leon, how utterly stunned I was when I read on that laptop that the war ended in 1945 with the defeat of the Germans. In 1944, I believed the war would last many more years. We thought it would never end. It was such a relief and a comfort to know that the Allies won, that Hitler died with a bullet to his head and that many of the vile men who followed him fled or were executed.”

  Anne’s breathing slowed and deepened. “And then I read about those atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan. It nearly took the life from me. I couldn’t grasp it. One bomb killing so many people is just…” Her voice fell away.

  “I can’t imagine those times,” Leon said. “It’s so cool that you were there, living it.”

  She looked at him with a blank, entranced expression. “Was I there? Yes, I suppose I was.”

  Anne pushed her chair back and stood up, massaging her forehead. “My mind is such a muddle. I don’t know where my home is or where I should be. All my people, my family and friends, are gone… dead. And then there’s Tommy. He is such a prince of a little boy. I suppose I should say, he was… but I can’t. I called him my royalty boy because he had such a handsome face, with the proud nose and red cheeks of a royal.”

  Anne smiled longingly. “I had hold of his hand when the bombs fell. I held his hand so tightly…”

  Grief took her again, and she wept into her hand. “I’m so sorry, Leon. I’m just a daft woman right now who wants to know what happened. For God’s sake, what happened to my royalty boy, Tommy?”

  Leon wanted to say something wise; something comforting. “We’ll get you back to England, Anne. That’s a promise. Maybe once you’re back there, I don’t know, maybe something will happen. Maybe an idea will come, or maybe somehow you’ll be shown what you should do.”

  Anne’s eyes held shiny tears. “That is such a kind thing to say, Leon. Thank you.”

  She eased back down into the chair. “At night, when I can’t sleep, I think maybe I was sent to this time for a reason but, for the life of me, I don’t know what that reason is. And
right now, I don’t care. I just want to go back to my own time and to my little boy.”

  CHAPTER 22

  A day later, Anne was sitting in a Starbucks, two blocks from Leon’s apartment. She was sipping a latte; her back to the room, a copy of The New York Times spread out before her on the marble tabletop.

  That morning, Leon had knocked on her bedroom door and told her that the passport would be ready in just two more days. Then he’d left to meet clients.

  Just the thought of returning to England had set her on edge, but she was determined to go. She felt a strength flowing through her she’d never known was there, and because of that boiling strength, she couldn’t tolerate being alone, trapped in that apartment, waiting. She had to escape, if only for an hour or so. So she’d donned the blonde wig, applied light makeup and dressed in jeans and a white sweater. Constance had selected Anne’s designer shearling lamb coat. It was stylish and warm, and it had cost a fortune.

  Anne had entered the lobby of the apartment building cautiously, pausing at the front glass doors to glance up and down the streets. Seeing nothing suspicious, with no dodgy characters hanging about, she started off, finding Starbucks and ducking inside.

  Constance had given Anne a credit card, instructing her how to use it, saying, “Buy anything that appeals to you and don’t worry about the cost.”

  Well, of course, Anne would worry about the cost, and she hadn’t planned to use the credit card at all. Upon seeing the prices for everything from food to clothes, she’d been shocked, wondering how anyone could live paying such high prices. Paying over a dollar for a cup of coffee seemed absurd.

  At her table, away from the windows, it had taken Anne twenty minutes before she could relax enough to take in the room and the people who occupied the nearby tables. Her self-consciousness swiftly vanished. Except for a stout, middle-aged man who had given her a lusty once-over, no one else had even noticed her.

  A quick look around revealed that she was the only one not preoccupied with a laptop, a cell phone or a tablet. It continued to baffle her as to why nearly everyone preferred to stare hypnotically into a screen, instead of engaging with the people standing in the line or seated at tables.