The Light Between Us

by Katie Khan

  ‘I hope so,’ she says quietly. ‘I really want to find Rosy.’

  ‘Thea, if you jumped … You wanted hard proof, so we’re getting hard proof.’ They reach the bottom of the escalator and Isaac puts his bag on the floor to get his coat on, gazing through the main doors at the drizzle coming down outside. ‘What did you think of all those portraits of Lady Margaret Beaufort? Your rings keep turning up.’

  ‘It’s strange, huh? There’s no way she’s connected to this.’

  Isaac straightens. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because – the Wars of the Roses? That’s too far back. There’s no way any time travel experiment could involve the Plantagenets. I’m not the mother of a king,’ she says sternly, as Isaac opens his lips to speak.

  He wisely closes his mouth again. ‘You’re probably right … but aren’t you curious, at least?’

  Thea lifts her hands in bewilderment. ‘The rings – yes, that’s odd. But all those portraits? We have no idea what she really looks like. There’s no consensus; her appearance changes in every single painting! She’s from too old an era.’

  ‘I know what you mean. Like paintings of Shakespeare,’ Isaac says, ‘the subject changes in every interpretation, by every painter.’

  ‘I wish there was some way to view a photograph of Lady Margaret Beaufort.’ She sighs. ‘So we could see what she looked like in real life. An undeniable cold, hard likeness.’

  Isaac looks thoughtful. He pulls out his phone and stares at the screen, waiting for it to load. ‘There might be.’

  She’s cynical. ‘How? She was born in 1443.’

  ‘Remember the curator said Lady Margaret was buried in Westminster Abbey?’ He finds what he needs to know and snaps his phone shut, satisfied. ‘It’s only a fifteen-minute walk from here. And in the interests of being thorough …’

  ‘What?’ Thea says, uncomprehending. ‘Why would we go there?’

  ‘We have another set of three rings worn by a famous woman in history. A woman your painting doppelganger was previously identified as. If you want to do this scientifically—’

  ‘I do—’

  ‘Then we should leave no stone unturned. Let’s go to Westminster Abbey and see Lady Margaret Beaufort’s tomb.’

  ‘Why?’ Thea isn’t even exasperated by this point, so much as curious.

  ‘Honestly, it will only take us half an hour, there and back. You want to see what she really looked like? Like a photograph?’

  ‘Yes …?’ she says, her voice uncertain. ‘I think so?’

  ‘Well, our friend Wikipedia tells me the effigy on Lady Margaret’s tomb was cast from her death mask.’ Isaac hustles them both out of the door. ‘So if we visit her tomb, we’ll see her actual face. Let’s see if she looks like you.’

  Twelve

  They step out into the bright grey light of the October afternoon, a brief hiatus in rainfall making the air fresh. Thea winces as a bus slows right next to them, brakes screeching, the sharp sound piercing after the hushed rooms of the Portrait Gallery.

  ‘This way,’ Isaac says, starting to walk in the direction of Whitehall. ‘Shall we?’ He follows Thea’s gaze, traffic noise washing over them. ‘Oh,’ he says, bemused. ‘You want to …’

  ‘Yep,’ she says, striding over to a row of red rental bicycles. ‘Let’s re-live our uni days. Blow the cobwebs away.’

  ‘Boris bikes,’ Isaac says, apprehensive. ‘I don’t have a helmet.’

  Thea shakes a bicycle free from its stand and chucks her bag into the basket on the front. ‘Me neither,’ she says. ‘We’ll be really careful. Oh, come on – I’ve heard it’s the best way to see London.’

  ‘It probably is the fastest way to the Abbey,’ Isaac concedes, paying at the docking station before pulling a bike free, testing the brakes and looking at the wheels.

  ‘Hurry up,’ Thea sighs, pulling her yellow hood up against the wind, ‘or don’t they have these in New Yoik?’ She twangs the city name as she’d heard Isaac do when he’d just moved there.

  ‘I’m a walker,’ Isaac says, as she lugs the heavy bike off the pavement and onto the road. ‘Everyone walks in New Yoik.’ They pull off, gasping at the weight of the bikes but relieved when they find that the heaviness makes them sturdy – more tank than bicycle. ‘Hey, Thea,’ Isaac calls as Thea pulls ahead, but his voice is taken away on the wind, the sound not penetrating the hood of her raincoat. ‘Thea!’

  She turns, knocking the hood down so he can see the blue and white striped lining inside. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Let’s take the route by the Thames,’ he says, pointing in a different direction. ‘It will be less busy.’

  ‘And more scenic.’ She grins. ‘Good idea. I love the river.’ They cycle down past Trafalgar Square, the sky atop the fountains and statuesque lions ominously grey. ‘Do you think we’ll really be able to see her actual face?’

  ‘Lady Margaret? Yes, I think so,’ Isaac says, his tone light, as they turn down an enormously wide road filled with grand hotels and embassies. ‘Most of those sculptures we passed in the Portrait Gallery would have been cast in death. We had an artist at the Guggenheim a few years ago,’ Isaac explains, ‘who cast eight sculptures – statues of political figures – but one of his models died before he could take the cast. He managed to convince the relatives to let him do it anyway, and you could barely tell the difference between the sculptures cast from the living and the one from the dead – even the relatives said it looked like him. Only the facial expression was … unusual.’

  ‘It will be interesting to see if Lady Margaret looks like the painting. Or even like me.’ She takes a breath of cold air, looking at the regal entrances to the Corinthia Hotel as they cycle past, paparazzi camped on the steps to capture candid photographs of any visiting celebrities. ‘But we shouldn’t take too long.’

  ‘It’s worth it. While Helen Claassen pulls the records of the painting sale, we’ll rule out Lady Margaret and her three rings. It’s a win-win.’

  Thea throws a glance at him, trying to keep her eyes on the road. ‘You know, if you’d told me we’d be whizzing round London looking at lords and ladies in galleries and churches, I’d have sworn this would be about finding Rosy. Her relatives are so grand – they even have a family crest! Not about poor little me from a farm up north.’

  He cocks his head. ‘The thing about the nobility is they often trade on the achievements of their ancestors. Everything you’re doing, whether I think it’s a good idea or not, is about making your own way. Even Rosy would know that’s admirable.’

  They weave past the angry cab drivers by Embankment as the grey clouds finally crack, a deluge of rain almost knocking Isaac off his bike. He puts a foot down on the road for balance, the fractional delay causing the bus driver behind to toot his horn. ‘People don’t have much patience, do they?’ he says, pushing off again, but Thea is quiet as they ride along the riverbank, bridges flanking their left-hand side. She feels the confusion of time, the sense that not everything is in its rightful place – including, possibly, her – and it makes her uncomfortable.

  The thought gives her the start of a headache, and she’s relieved for a moment that it’s raining. So long as you’re not cold, a downpour can be refreshing. No, more than that – cleansing. Isolating. Invigorating. She understands the joy in the easy symbolism of baptism, the washing away of sins. But there’s something neurophysical in it, Thea’s sure: the sensory overload of raindrops touching the skin at random. They wait at traffic lights to turn away from the river, next to Westminster Pier, and Thea takes the minute to tug back her hood, turning her face up to the rain, eyes closed.

  In Thursday afternoon traffic in London, in the middle of an autumn downpour, Isaac catches his breath as she blinks away the rain, wetness turning her lashes into spiders.

  She meets his gaze and smiles. ‘It’s neurophysical,’ she says, not even trying to explain her full train of thought, not knowing how to lead someone else along the same track.

  ‘Rebi
rth,’ Isaac says simply, and she thinks how he never fails to surprise her. Of course he’d see what she’s left unsaid; he too would observe the clean symbolism of falling water.

  ‘It would be nice to see all this when it’s not raining,’ Thea says, indicating the pier.

  ‘One day.’

  As they near their destination they drop their bikes at the closest docking station, pushing the front wheels into the locks. Thea takes in their surroundings, looking up through the rain towards the Houses of Parliament and the craggy Yorkshire stone of the Elizabeth Tower housing Big Ben.

  It’s so grand. They weave across Parliament Square, a flash of yellow and navy against the flat wet sky and creamy classical buildings, around the black cabs and red buses towards the pedestrian area in front of the Abbey. She wonders what tourists make of it when they come here – the history, the proud architecture of the place. She finds it a shame modern architecture doesn’t revel so much in the details. Nobody nowadays would spend so much time on stonework.

  ‘Ready?’ he says kindly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good, because you’re paying for our entry.’

  ‘Am I, now?’

  ‘It’s your project, this time travel lark – plus I bought the drinks at the Portrait Gallery.’ He beams.

  ‘All right, all right,’ she mutters, before stuttering in disbelief as the woman at the entrance tells her it’s £22 each. ‘Time travel is expensive,’ she whispers to Isaac as they step into the West Gate. ‘But wow.’

  Westminster Abbey feels cavernous: pillars shoot up into Gothic points every few steps, lines running across and down the ribbed vaulting on the other side. Candles flicker along the outer aisles and in the cloisters, and everywhere bears that indefinable smell.

  ‘Churchy,’ Thea says, sniffing the air, looking up at the vaulted ceiling.

  ‘Is that your scientific opinion? “Churchy”?’

  But the light of a vast stained glass rose window has captivated Thea, tinting everything multicolour. ‘It’s like the light from a prism,’ she murmurs, more to herself than to anyone else.

  Isaac lifts his head from the visitor’s map he’s found and watches her turn in circles as she pieces together the refracted colours of the spectrum.

  ‘The symmetry of this stained glass window pleases me,’ Thea says.

  ‘It’s interesting – the window looks like a sun, with the yellow at the centre,’ he says.

  ‘So it does. And the figures running around the centre make it look like a sunrise,’ Thea says, pointing. ‘Actually, if it didn’t have that book in the middle, I’d swear the window was depicting time travel, refracting light in all the colours of the rainbow.’

  Isaac leans his chin on his hand. ‘If I remember correctly, stained glass windows were pictorial representations for any of the congregation who couldn’t read. “That book” is most likely the Bible – it’s in the middle because it’s the most important. Makes sense you’d want to replace it with a prism.’

  ‘Sacrilege!’ she mocks, then glances at him. ‘Hey, you’re good at this.’ Thea idly counts the petals (eight inner and sixteen outer) forming her spectrum as Isaac deciphers the map. ‘It makes me wonder …’

  ‘Go on …’

  ‘Well.’ She clears her throat. ‘I wonder if anyone else has established time travel before.’

  He looks cynical. ‘I’m pretty sure you’ll be the first. Because otherwise we’d know, wouldn’t we?’

  ‘Not if the markers were really well disguised.’ She gazes again at the rose window, making her voice light. ‘Come on.’

  They walk together through the Abbey, pausing for Thea to look up, then down at an intricate mosaic floor – the Cosmati pavement – made up of thousands of pieces of coloured glass. ‘I wish Rosy was here to see this,’ Thea says.

  ‘I do, too.’

  ‘She’d probably know so many additional details.’

  ‘We’ll find her,’ he says. ‘It’s all connected, I’m certain.’

  She looks down at the inlaid stone decoration beneath her feet. ‘I wonder if the pattern features diamonds? Or prisms?’

  Isaac steers her towards the staircase as Thea searches the floor for the symbol of her never-ending doodle motif.

  ‘Which way do we go?’ she says, lifting her head. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘The Lady Chapel,’ Isaac says. ‘Upstairs.’

  Thea and Isaac stand in a state of bewildered awe. ‘Bloody hell,’ is all Thea says.

  ‘If you liked the colours downstairs …’

  The Henry VII Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey is overwhelming. On each side of the nave, equally spaced as though they’re standing to attention in a regimented line, hang large colourful flags – ‘Heraldry,’ Isaac reads from the guidebook – and the effect is vibrant and overpowering. For the first time today Thea feels a lull in her energy, the aftermath of running on adrenalin and excitement in her post-viral state.

  They cross to the tomb of Lady Margaret Beaufort. Surrounded by an iron grille and roughly four feet off the ground, a bronze cast effigy of Lady Margaret lies at peace in the chapel paid for by her son, the king of England.

  Thea leans towards her, taking in the countess’s head resting on two pillows featuring a Tudor rose, then her wrinkled hands raised in prayer. She wears a widow’s dress with a hood and long mantle, and she looks—

  ‘Pious, wasn’t she?’ Isaac says quietly, peering at the death mask of the old woman, then at the inscription on the black marble tomb chest. ‘She looks like a nun.’

  ‘She also,’ Thea says, ‘looks absolutely nothing like me.’

  ‘Agreed.’ Isaac nods, examining the bronze hands for signs of the three distinctive rings she was wearing in the portraits they’d seen at the gallery. They’re not there. ‘No rings,’ he says unnecessarily, because Thea’s also craning to see the praying hands. He shakes his head ruefully. ‘Oh well. It was worth a shot, if only to rule it out. I’m sorry if I wasted our time.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ Thea says. ‘We had to see if she was a part of all this – we wouldn’t be doing this right if we overlooked such a clear aesthetic link. The three rings are important, somehow, I know it.’ She reaches for his hand and for a moment Isaac looks confused, before Thea takes his phone from where he’s clutching it beneath the visitor’s map.

  ‘Oh,’ he says, as she unlocks his phone with his passcode without asking for the number.

  ‘What?’ she says at his expression. ‘We kept no secrets at Christ Church.’

  ‘I don’t know your passcode,’ he says gently. ‘I’d never even begin to guess at it.’

  She Googles Lady Margaret Beaufort and swipes through the image results, Isaac watching at her shoulder. She stops when she lands on another painting bearing the three strange rings in the triangle formation, clicking through to read the caption. ‘Look – this one is from Brasenose.’

  ‘In Oxford? I’ve never seen it.’ He takes the phone from her, eyeing the shield in the portrait background, which bears a vague similarity to the crest detail behind the Unknown Woman. ‘But I’ve only been to the college once, for Commemoration Week.’

  He drops his gaze, clicking the phone shut. They usually try not to talk about Commemoration Week.

  They were wrong; they do keep secrets. Even if it’s a secret they share.

  ‘I haven’t figured out exactly how,’ Thea says slowly, ‘but the rings are connected to all this. Even if she –’ she nods her head at the tomb of Lady Margaret – ‘is not.’

  Isaac sighs as Thea indicates for them to start walking back towards the staircase to the ground floor.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well …’ He looks uncomfortable. ‘What you said about Rosy being here … She’d probably be able to find some insight into the Portrait of an Unknown Woman – she’s a specialist in art history.’

  ‘I know,’ Thea says softly.

  Isaac seems surprised, but says nothing more.

  ‘
I didn’t know we’d need her background in art history,’ she adds. ‘But experimenting with time travel? Having a historian around felt like a no-brainer.’ Thea lifts her chin as they make their way out from the North Transept, stopping first to pay their respects where Stephen Hawking’s ashes lie buried beneath a sunlit arch, then looking up to admire the elaborate screen separating the nave. ‘A monument to Isaac Newton,’ Thea says with some delight, leaning in to look at the ornate white and grey marble in detail, noticing a figure of Newton lounging against several of his books. ‘Look –’ she points – ‘Divinity, Chronology, Opticks and Philo. Prin. Math. That last one is his greatest work.’

  Isaac’s gaze moves between Thea and the words she has read aloud from Isaac Newton’s tomb. ‘Theology, time, light and mathematical philosophy …’

  ‘Wonderful, isn’t it?’

  He exhales. ‘It sounds like the fascinations of someone I know.’

  ‘Are you being sarcastic?’ Thea crosses her arms.

  ‘Not at all!’ Isaac says. ‘You share interests with one of the best scientists in history.’ He looks from Thea to the Latin inscription at the base of the choir screen. ‘Do you want to know what that says?’

  ‘Yes. My boarding school Latin can only get me so far.’

  Isaac squints, and checks a few words against the guidebook. ‘“Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced.”’

  Thea sucks in a breath.

  ‘What a way with words they had,’ Isaac says, his hushed voice reverent.

  ‘Do you see it now?’ she says, turning to him.

  ‘Don’t tell me – Sir Isaac Newton was the world’s first time traveller?’

  Thea tilts her head. ‘No. Well, maybe, actually? He was certainly on the right track.’ She wipes her dark fringe out of her eyes. ‘More importantly, this tells us Isaac Newton was incredibly – what did you call it, that time you insulted me and we didn’t speak again for a year? Oh, yes. Single-minded.’