The Light Between Us

by Katie Khan

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Thea says, ‘the bank would have questioned that long ago.’

  Isaac shrugs. ‘For a savings trust? I’d think not. How many grandparents do you know who put 50p a week in an account for their grandchildren, going on for years … It’s common.’

  ‘Oh.’ Thea looks at the paper again. ‘1908?’

  ‘The same year the painting was sold to the National Portrait Gallery.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘And I have no doubt if we converted the sum on the gallery’s sale docket, the shillings and tuppence paid to Admiral Joseph Coleman would match the amount your statement shows, in pounds and pence, credited in 1908. Thea, this is it. This is our proof.’

  Thea and Isaac have the beginnings of an answer, but with it a multitude of impossible questions.

  Semi-speechless, they get on the train back from west London, ostensibly towards the centre of the city, with no fixed plan of where to head.

  ‘If it’s me,’ Thea says, as the carriage rocks, ‘in the painting, then why don’t I remember?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says.

  ‘Why wasn’t there a blackout when I jumped?’

  ‘I don’t know – maybe you refined the experiment enough.’

  ‘I was working on it before everyone arrived – and after you left. It could have happened at any point,’ she concedes. ‘But if we’ve just traced my journey back through time, I would have thought I’d remember it. That seems like part of the fun of time travel.’

  ‘The fun?’ He smiles, as they sit shoulder to shoulder on the train, letting the District Line carry them from west to east.

  She looks wistful. ‘At first, it was the physics,’ she says. ‘I was excited to try to prove something people had dismissed as impossible. But the reason I’ve sacrificed my life for it, or so it seems, is because I want to remember. I hoped I’d be able to go back,’ she says, ‘and create new memories.’

  Isaac lightly covers her hand where it lies on the armrest between their seats.

  ‘I’ve forgotten my mother,’ Thea says quietly. ‘How she sounded, how she spoke.’

  He keeps his hand over hers. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘And why –’ her voice changes – ‘if that’s me, the Unknown Woman, would I let myself end up in a bloody painting? That doesn’t seem very smart – I’d probably get kicked out of the Time Travelling Society, if there was one.’

  Isaac pats her hand. ‘It makes sense you would seek out your relatives. Where else would you be safe? It’s true what they say: blood really is thicker than water.’

  ‘Not with you,’ she says, but the sudden rattle of the Tube as the train goes into a tunnel masks the words.

  ‘What did you say?’ Isaac shouts, gesturing at his ear.

  She gazes at his hand, still covering hers, enjoying the warmth. ‘You said blood is thicker than water. And I said not when it comes to you. And me. You and me,’ she says, and his eyelashes blink twice in surprise.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he says, understating it wildly.

  Thea’s phone rings and they both jump, realizing they’re above ground at Baron’s Court despite being on the Underground. She moves to answer and Isaac looks away, the moment broken, as the train pulls off again and into another tunnel. ‘Damn,’ she says, ‘I missed it.’

  ‘Who was—?’

  ‘Ayo.’

  Isaac wipes the tiredness from his eyes. ‘We didn’t ring Urvisha back, earlier. She rang during lunch.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Thea says, but she has no reception now the train is firmly back underground. ‘I won’t have signal until we get off.’

  As the Tube travels further into central London the carriage becomes crowded, the after-work rush hour in full effect. Thea and Isaac are squashed in as commuters stand around them, hanging onto the rails, pushing bags in their faces. The tinny sound from a traveller’s headphones bleeds into the carriage, and Isaac nods his head along in time with the irritating buzzing.

  ‘What’s your favourite song?’ Isaac begins one of his favourite games: baiting Thea’s knowledge and taste in popular culture. ‘It can be a guilty pleasure,’ he says.

  ‘What a stupid expression – if something as benign as the music of a song gives you pleasure, it doesn’t require any guilt.’

  Isaac rolls his eyes. ‘So, your favourite guilt-free song?’

  She thinks for a moment. ‘I don’t know. What’s yours? No, wait – don’t tell me. Something hip that I’ve probably never heard. You liked it way before it was cool. Maybe some blues? Or some jazz? I bet you like Charlie Mingus. Or some obscure up-and-coming singer-songwriter from Brooklyn …’ She trails off as she catches sight of his eyes. ‘What? You tease me all the time. I’m simply giving as good as I get.’ She nudges him.

  ‘It’s nice to see,’ he says. ‘Genuinely.’ They sit for a bit longer, aware that Leicester Square is coming up, and without even discussing it they get up, pushing through the passengers, steam climbing the windows from the wet bags and coats.

  ‘Got it.’ She nods, satisfied with her choice. ‘But it’s by U2 – does that mean you’re going to tease me all day?’

  They swipe out of the station and head into the evening, unconsciously walking back towards the National Portrait Gallery. It’s dark now, the light of the day drained away, and the streetlamps are ringed with the refraction of their own light from the water droplets in the air. ‘Not necessarily,’ he says. ‘You’ve got about a two-album scope to pick a corker. And they are,’ he concedes, ‘a fantastic live band. So which is it?’

  ‘“With or Without You”.’

  Isaac nods. ‘That’s a nice song. A bit sappy. But nice.’

  Thea wrinkles her nose. ‘Have you actually listened to the lyrics?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘“With or Without You”. Think about it. It’s Shakespearean – like the witches in Macbeth: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” He can’t live with the person he’s singing to, and he can’t live without them. That’s beautiful.’

  ‘Really?’ He looks cynical. ‘You think Bono wrote something Shakespearean?’

  ‘Of course. The song is about love being a tragedy.’

  Isaac is impressed – literary critique is far from Thea’s usual wheelhouse. They meander past theatregoers bustling around the box offices opening their doors for the evening shows, past touts offering last-minute tickets, and the glimmer of theatre foyers. ‘Chilly, isn’t it?’ he says.

  ‘Freezing. But it’s nice to be outside.’

  Without another word, Isaac and Thea walk past the Portrait Gallery and down into Trafalgar Square, the statues and plinths illuminated by spotlights, and the streak of headlights from red buses and black taxis in the perpetual traffic encircling the square.

  ‘The final thing I can’t work out,’ Thea muses, as they reach the centre of the square, where the four lions keep watch, ‘is that, yes, okay, I don’t remember anything that happened to me back in time. But why don’t I remember anything from right before I jumped, either? Why don’t I remember entering the glass house? Or activating it?’

  Isaac is looking up at the early evening sky, straining to see the stars over the fug of central London. The drifting rainclouds block his view, and softly it begins to sleet, the light patter tapping their faces.

  ‘You may have moved through time like water, but you can’t expect your memory to do the same. If I could go back—’ He cuts himself short.

  Thea is also looking up at the sleeting sky, but when he stops talking she looks at him. ‘What were you going to say, Isaac? If you could go back …?’

  He smiles; it’s bittersweet. He has so much to lose and so much to gain by voicing this, by challenging the status quo they’ve established and maintained for so many years.

  But the risk is worth it. Something about Thea is telling him she might react differently, now, from how she would have six years before.

  He takes a breath. ‘If I could go back,’ Isaac says s
lowly, ‘I’d go back to that night. And I’d change everything that happened after.’

  Sixteen

  They stand under the light of ten thousand hidden stars above Trafalgar Square, the falling sleet dancing around them, lit up by the streetlamps. ‘People kiss at university all the time,’ Thea says. ‘It didn’t mean anything.’

  ‘But it did.’ Isaac’s bittersweet smile changes, becoming more rueful. ‘It’s only now I can tell you that it did mean something, to me.’

  ‘We simply got carried away.’ Thea bites her lip. ‘Didn’t we?’

  ∞

  The Trinity College Commemoration Ball’s theme that year had been Ad Astra: ‘to the stars’. The tickets were expensive but they’d saved up, knowing the white tie ball was something they should experience at least once in their time at Oxford. It was nearing the end of their second year, and Urvisha, Rosy and Thea got ready together in Rosy’s room (the grandest of the three) – Ayo had not yet become a firm friend. Rosy was wearing a white floor-length dress with sparkling, star-shaped earrings dangling down to her shoulders and her blonde hair pulled back.

  ‘You look breathtaking,’ Thea had said. ‘Isaac is going to lose his mind.’

  Rosy had smiled like royalty. ‘You look lovely, too.’

  Thea had interpreted the theme another way, taking her style inspiration from a different type of star. She wore a form-fitting black column dress with no sleeves, high-necked at the front, with a rounded racer back leaving her shoulder blades bare.

  ‘I get it,’ Urvisha had said. ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s?’

  ‘A poor homage,’ Thea acknowledged. With her long chestnut hair tied up in a simple ponytail, Thea had, for once, taken her omnipresent three rings from her hand and instead looped them through a long gold chain she wore trailing down her back, the diamond sparkling in the light.

  Urvisha finished her perfect cat-eye flicks, putting the eyeliner down with a flourish. ‘There,’ she’d said. ‘We all know I’m going to look smoking.’ She stood wrapped in a towel next to the others, wearing only a traditional bejewelled tikka in the shape of a crescent moon hanging from her hairline onto her brow. Thea obliged with a wolf whistle. The three women collapsed laughing, then were startled when a knock came at the door.

  ‘Hang on!’ Rosy called.

  ‘Oh, crap,’ Urvisha said, ‘I’d better get dressed.’ She eyed the sari hanging on Rosy’s bathroom door. ‘These things take ages to get into.’

  ‘It will be worth the wait,’ Rosy said. ‘You’re going to look beautiful.’

  As soon as the theme had been announced, Urvisha had hunted down a deep blue fabric with embroidered celestial stars, and two long decorative borders of golden stars and moons for the drape. She quickly pulled on her navy blue short-sleeved blouse and petticoat, putting on her shoes first. ‘So the pleats are the right length,’ Urvisha explained, picking up the long sari silk and starting to wrap it around her waist. Rosy and Thea stood captivated while Urvisha tucked the drape into her waistband, then folded the long length of fabric into pleats the width of her hand. ‘I forgot safety pins. Can you hold it while I do the rest?’ She made a face. ‘Don’t tell my nani.’ Thea watched as Urvisha choreographed a mix of drapes, tucks and pleats to get the fabric hanging correctly across her chest and waist. She tweaked and fine-tuned the wide borders, before arranging the drape perfectly over her shoulder. ‘There,’ she said, admiring her work.

  Another knock on the door made them jump and they could hear shouts from the hall. Rosy smoothed down a non-existent stray hair, walking gingerly across the room in her nude heels to open it. ‘Sorry about the wait,’ she said, as Isaac, dressed in a tailcoat, held out a bunch of white star-shaped roses, smiling broadly. White tie was perhaps the only dress code more brutal to men than to women. While the women wore compulsory floor-length gowns, the men had to wear a cotton pique shirt with a detachable wing collar and double cuffs with cufflinks, a white waistcoat and thin white bowtie, under a black wool tailcoat, finished off with neat black shoes. It was a lot to take in.

  Isaac tugged at his bowtie uncomfortably, more used to trainers than shiny shoes, and leaned forward to kiss Rosy on the cheek. ‘Hello. You look smashing.’

  She pulled back slightly. ‘Careful of my makeup,’ she said, ‘and thank you,’ as an afterthought.

  Urvisha waved from the bathroom door. ‘Hello, Isaac Mendelsohn. You look very smart.’

  ‘As do you, Urvisha Malik,’ he said, impressed. ‘That is a dress and a half. You look wonderful.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Urvisha said genuinely. ‘I was a bit worried the student population of Oxford wouldn’t be able to handle it. But if you can …’

  A joke paused on his tongue as Thea stepped out from behind Urvisha, her Audrey Hepburn-style dress flattering and simple, the diamond ring hanging against her back swinging as she moved. ‘Fucking wow,’ he said. ‘Hello, Theodora.’

  ‘Don’t swear,’ she said, giving him a once-over. ‘You look … very nice.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, blushing slightly. ‘You look like an icon. Or a dream.’

  Rosy tapped a heel silently on the cream carpet. ‘I think we need to go, unless we want to be late,’ she said, and they picked up pashmina wraps and evening bags on their way out of the door.

  ‘Hey,’ Thea whispered as she came up next to Isaac, walking next to each other along the hallway to the entrance.

  ‘If I may say,’ Isaac whispered back, ‘you look astonishing. I—’ But the rest of his sentence was lost as Rosy caught up with them, holding the train of her dress, steadying herself on her heels by holding onto Isaac’s arm.

  ∞

  They stand at the edge of one of the fountains in Trafalgar Square, their hoods up against the sleet, watching the centre jettison water more than twenty feet into the air, illuminated against the low light of the evening. ‘Why would you want to change that night?’ she asks. ‘In what way?’

  Isaac dips his hand into the pale turquoise water of the fountain, swirling it round. ‘We were sober by the time we went home. I don’t know why we pretended afterwards that we weren’t. We’d had the best time – the best night together. It was all down to you—’

  ‘It was fun,’ Thea says simply, watching the patterns Isaac is making in the water, the ripples and the waves. ‘But we’d always been friends; it was wrong to think there was something more between us.’

  ‘Friends?’ he says, pulling his hand up out of the water. ‘You think those were platonic feelings between us?’

  ‘Do you think they were romantic?’ Thea counters.

  ‘I think,’ he replies quietly, over the splashing of the fountain, ‘you were so bound up in your guilt about Rosy that you didn’t even let yourself entertain what you might really feel.’

  Thea is silent. ‘She was my friend, too—’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I would never want to hurt her,’ she pleads.

  ‘Thea …’ Isaac stops; he cannot bring himself to say the rest – you’ve made her disappear.

  ∞

  Rosy had been in a vile mood throughout the ball’s formal dinner at Trinity College, a thundercloud marring an otherwise clear blue sky. The group made their way through the champagne reception outside, surrounded by festoon lighting, nodding along to the brass band, before taking their seats at the long tables in the hall dressed like something out of Hogwarts. Starry constellations of lights and candles decorated tables covered with an array of glasses, and surreptitiously the group switched their place settings so they could sit with their friends.

  ‘Hello again,’ Isaac said, dropping into the seat between Thea and Urvisha, his white bowtie wilting like an underwatered lily.

  ‘Here,’ Thea said. She loosened the fabric, calling on her boarding school days to engineer the perfect hand-tied knot, sticking her tongue out in concentration. While she worked on it, Isaac studiously examined the ceiling of Trinity College’s formal hall, not focusing on Thea only in
ches from his face. ‘Thank you,’ he said, as she sat back with satisfaction and inspected her handiwork.

  ‘Done,’ she said. ‘Now you’re perfect.’

  After dinner they headed outside. The college grounds were filled with marquee tents and fairground rides, all lit up with fairy lights and Edison bulbs as the evening light dimmed towards darkness.

  ‘Here, Rosy,’ Isaac had called, waving at Rosalind in her regal white dress. ‘Come on the dodgems with me.’

  ‘I’ve got a headache,’ Rosy said, and Urvisha’s and Thea’s eyes met. ‘And besides—’ She pointed down at her white dress skimming along the floor, the hem dirtying in the grass.

  Isaac reached for her hands. ‘Come on,’ he said, his tone playful, ‘it will be fun.’

  ‘I’m not in the mood.’ She snatched her hands back, self-consciously smoothing down her skirt. ‘I think I’ll go home.’

  ‘Oh Rosy, no,’ Thea said. ‘We’ve been looking forward to this all term.’

  ‘I’ve got some painkillers, if you’d like?’ Urvisha opened her bag, but Rosy waved her away.

  ‘Honestly. It feels like I’ve got a migraine coming on, it’s for the best.’

  ‘I’ll walk you home,’ Isaac said quietly, and she nodded as they moved away from the group.

  It was nearly an hour later when, during a big-name band’s performance on stage, Isaac rested his hand on Thea’s back and she startled at the touch. ‘You’re back,’ she said. ‘How’s Rosy?’

  ‘We broke up,’ was all he said, as he lifted the necklace hanging against the small of her spine. ‘These rings are really beautiful – I’ve never seen you not wear them on your hand, in that odd formation you do.’

  ‘You broke up?’

  He shrugged. ‘We did. For the second time – or is it the third? But I think that’s it, this time. She’s not really interested any more,’ he said, joining in with the clapping as the headline act finished their set, ‘and I fear neither am I.’

  Thea touched his hand. ‘Isaac, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Please, will you do me a favour? I want to forget about that and have a great time.’