by Riser Troy
‘You mean he might die? Right here?’
‘Die? No, I don’t think so,’ Honoré said. ‘It’s short in both directions.’ He peered more intently. ‘His time-snake seems to begin when he dropped in on us. Before that, nothing.’ Honoré leaned forward, carefully studying the old man. ‘His life is an eye blink, a flicker. From what I can see, he exists only in the here and now.’ Honoré straightened in his chair, shook his head. ‘Maybe similar to Barnaby?[2]’
‘Perhaps he’s from a different time?’ Emily said. ‘You saw the way he just appeared.’
‘Perhaps,’ Honoré said. ‘But I’ve had no problem reading the time-snakes of other travellers. Look, Emily, humanity is like some huge tapestry, all the lives crossing and intersecting and creating a whole. This man is like … a stray thread, something that doesn’t fit.’
‘Made it un-happen,’ the man mumbled, swimming back to consciousness.
Honoré leaned more closely. ‘Made what un-happen, old-timer?’ He pushed the coffee toward the traveller.
‘The war,’ he said. As he became more awake, his voice took on a manic tremor. ‘The war didn’t happen! An’ then … then there were lots of wars … and then not wars … all at the same time! None of it made any sense, makes any sense: happening, then not happening. I just wanted it to stop. No more trenches or wire. No more bugs in a jar.’
As the man rambled, a glowing, crackling blue envelope of energy started to surround him.
‘Honoré, what’s happening?’ Emily leaned toward her companion and grasped his wrist. Honoré sensed alarm in her voice, but not fear. Like him, Emily was more curious than afraid.
‘I don’t …’
The world around them blinked. The traveller no longer emanated blue-white sparks and the stink of ozone. He coughed, long and loud and wet, then sank back into the chair, content just to breathe.
‘Did we just jump?’ asked Emily.
Honoré looked about. ‘I don’t think so. If we did, certainly not more than a few minutes.’ He took the coffee and put it to the traveller’s lips. The man took it with both hands, greedily, unsteadily. When he’d finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes were more focused. He seemed to recognise that Honoré and Emily were real, part of the world, outside his head.
Honoré ventured a few questions.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Rankin. Jonah Rankin.’
‘When were you born?’
‘1890.’
‘Do you know what year it is?’
Jonah Rankin coughed, cleared his throat. ‘1950. I think 1950. I’m no good with time.’
Honoré looked at Emily and shrugged.
‘It’s 1951,’ said Emily. ‘Where do you live, Jonah?’
The old man laughed, then coughed again. ‘Right here,’ he said, moving his arm in an exaggerated, grandiose circle, encompassing the café, the world.
‘Do you know where you are?’ Honoré asked.
‘London,’ Jonah replied, ‘Although which London, it’s hard to say.’
‘What do you mean, “which London”?’
‘I see you’re African,’ Jonah said. ‘I served with some Senegalese – attached to the French, you know. Some of the bravest men I ever met.’ Jonah settled back in his chair. ‘Do you know, they actually enjoyed being surrounded? That way, they could meet the enemy no matter what direction they charged. Won’t see their like again.’
Honoré smiled. ‘Maybe … But my question?’
Jonah’s smile, brought on by the reverie, faded. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Understand what?’ Honoré asked.
‘Like living inside a bloody kaleidoscope. I can’t make sense of any of it. Who could? You?’ Jonah shook his head dismissively, drunkenly. He slammed his palms on the table. ‘Who’s a man got to shoot to get a drink around here?’
‘What should we do with him?’ Honoré asked Emily.
‘Think what he can do, Honoré. We don’t want to lose track of someone who might be capable of solo travel. He’s like Simon perhaps, but doesn’t realise it.’
Honoré nodded thoughtfully. Jonah’s answers might well be lies, right down to his name. He could be from anywhere, from anytime. He dismissed the coincidence involved in meeting the man. For travellers, Honoré had found, all lines ultimately converge.
‘I have a contact who can help, a few blocks from here.’
‘A friend?’
‘A contact,’ Honoré said; which meant someone from his other life, his very private business life, the life he rarely discussed with Emily. ‘A contact who owes me, although he may need some convincing.’ Honoré stood and stretched. ‘Come on,’ he said to Jonah. ‘Let’s get you a decent bed, a change of clothes, maybe even something to eat, if you’re lucky. And a bath.’
‘Most definitely a bath,’ Emily said.
‘A drink?’ Jonah said, hopefully.
Honoré pulled the man to his feet, not unkindly. ‘Don’t press your luck,’ he said.
Getting Jonah up the steps to the home of Honoré’s associate was a chore. Even though he was visibly sobered, the old man’s gait was still unsteady, his balance awry. Honoré reached for the bell, then hesitated. He checked the number, then looked back and checked the street.
‘Is something wrong?’ Emily asked.
Honoré shook his head. ‘Looks different,’ he said, then rang the bell. ‘Nicer, somehow. My old mate Scarper must have found himself a girl.’
‘Scarper?’ Emily said, tilting her head quizzically to the side.
‘Scarper: Scapa, Scapa Flow, meaning “Go”,’ Honoré said.
‘Go?’ Emily said. ‘As in, to run away? Such a name doesn’t exactly instil confidence.’
‘Nothing like that. His name’s Vic Styvessant. Vic’s East End to the bone, but he hides it well enough. We call him “Scarper” because of his knack for getting out of incredibly tight spots, never a scratch. He’s a bit rough around the edges, but a good guy to have around when the balloon goes up. You’ll like him.’
The door opened, and Emily saw a short, broad-shouldered, fireplug-chested fellow with a high brow and thinning hair. Built like a wrestler, dressed like a dandy, Emily thought. From Honoré’s description, Emily had been expecting someone faintly disreputable, with a low-slung fedora and a trench coat. This man, on the other hand, was well turned out and impeccably groomed. He wore a bright white carnation in the lapel of his dinner jacket (dinner jacket?). His shoes were immaculately shined. Starched creases. Peach-coloured ascot tied expertly around his thickset neck. She had never envisioned any of Honoré’s business associates wearing an ascot. The only thing missing, she thought, is a bulldog and a gramophone.
Scarper’s eyes widened with guileless pleasure and surprise. He greeted them with undisguised warmth. ‘Lechasseur! And Miss Blandish! What an unexpected honour!’ His voice was a low, bass rumble.
Emily and Honoré exchanged glances, but said nothing. Scarper ushered the three of them inside. Standing in the foyer, Honoré felt even more uneasy than he had before. He had been in Scarper’s flat on more than a few occasions, and although the furniture seemed familiar, the atmosphere of the place was decidedly different. At first Honoré had thought it was a woman’s touch at work, but that wasn’t it at all – the touches he saw were those of a thoroughly domesticated bachelor. The Scarper he knew was all business: no strings, no sentiment, no fooling. The interior of Vic Styvessant’s home had been as anonymous as a hotel room: no pictures on the walls, no sentimental keepsakes or knickknacks, no precious-looking Dresden figurines, all leather and brass and the stink of cigar smoke permeating the walls.
This is all wrong, Honoré thought, contemplating the dewy-eyed porcelain shepherd boy gracing the mantel above the fireplace. But he determined to see it through. He turned to Scarper.
The man fairly rocked on his heels and laughed. ‘A favour? My man, I am always at your disposal.’
This is different, thought Honoré. He introduced Jonah. ‘I’m looking for a place to put my friend up for a few days.’
Here it comes, thought Honoré.
Scarper took Jonah’s hand without qualm. ‘A few days, a few months, a few years,’ he said, making a strangely effete – for Scarper – comme-ci, comme ça gesture with his hands, leading them to the sitting room, gesturing them to the ornately Victorian, overly cushioned seats. ‘But first, a nice hot bath? I’ll be right back.’
‘“A bit rough around the edges”?’ Emily whispered. ‘And just how much convincing did you think he was going to need?’
‘There’s something wrong here; badly wrong,’ Honoré said. ‘Stay alert.’
‘He seems trustworthy enough,’ Emily said. ‘Just not what I expected.’
‘Me neither,’ Honoré said.
‘You’ll be needing new clothes as well,’ Scarper said as he came back down the stairs. ‘I’ll send for a tailor.’
‘I’m not paying for any tailor, Vic,’ Honoré said. ‘Let’s keep it on the cheap.’
Scarper stopped, froze, then burst out laughing, louder than ever. ‘Oh, Lechasseur, always the joker! You don’t think I would ever bill you for services?’
Honoré was searching for a response (the Scarper he knew calculated every favour with slide-rule precision) when Emily interrupted.
‘If we could ask one more thing?’
‘My very life,’ Scarper replied, suddenly sombre.
‘Nothing so much,’ Emily said. ‘But we’d appreciate it if you’d let us know right away if our friend’s condition changes in any way.’
‘Of course, my dear,’ he said. ‘Anything.’
Honoré and Emily turned to go.
‘Won’t you stay for tea? It isn’t the finest, I admit, but I can have it ready in an instant.’
‘No, thank you,’ Honoré said. ‘We really need to be going.’
‘Of course, sir,’ he said. ‘I quite understand.’
‘Oh, and Scarper – we would appreciate discretion.’
‘Right,’ Scarper said. ‘Mum’s the word.’ The man made an exaggerated zipper motion across his mouth.
Disquieted, Honoré opened his mouth to press the issue, but thinking better of it, followed Emily out the front door.
‘He seems nice,’ Emily said, once the door had closed behind them. ‘A bit excitable, perhaps. You must have done him quite a nice turn in the past. Why haven’t you introduced me to him before?’
‘Because Vic is a con man, thief, and anything but a gentleman when in the company of attractive women,’ said Honoré. ‘At least usually; the Scarper I know.’
‘So you think I’m attractive, then?’ Emily teased, catching him off guard. ‘At any rate, perhaps your associate was preparing for another job, practicing. Con men are actors, after all.’
Honoré nodded, considering the possibility. ‘But I’ve never introduced you to him,’ he said.
‘No,’ said Emily. ‘Of course not. I’ve never met him before today. What is it? What’s wrong?’
Honoré stopped.
‘He knew your name. I’ve never given him your name. I’ve never spoken of you at all.’
The shadows grew longer as Honoré and Emily made their way toward Honoré’s flat.
‘You must have mentioned me at some point.’
Honoré shook his head. ‘It doesn’t work that way, Emily. A fixer who talks too much about his personal life soon needs a fixer himself.’
‘Perhaps he saw us together once?’
‘He knew your name, Emily,’ Honoré said. ‘Your full name. It’s possible, I suppose, but unlikely.’
Emily thought. ‘Well, I was a celebrity for a bit,’ she said, recalling the articles about her mysterious appearance in London a few years earlier, surrounded by rubble and wearing only her nightclothes. It had been the first day of her new life, the only life she could now remember. Her earlier memories had disappeared behind some door in her mind, and while Emily sometimes caught flickers and snippets in her dreams, or some occasional waking sense of déjà vu, that particular door remained hidden and locked.
‘It’s happened,’ she said. ‘I run into someone now and then who recognises me from the story.’
‘Perhaps,’ Honoré said, but his voice betrayed disbelief.
‘Honoré, when did they finish reconstruction on the building society?’
He looked across the road to where she was pointing. Just the day before, the building housing Pritchard’s Building Society had been roped off, surrounded by wheelbarrows and piles of brick and sweaty workmen.
But now the structure was whole. Repaired. No, Honoré thought, better than repaired. It had been restored immaculately, as though it had never been hit by a wartime bomb in the first place.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Emily, something odd is going on. I think we travelled through time after all.’
‘Well, there’s always a sure way to find out,’ she said. ‘Come on, let’s find a newspaper.’
But the masthead on The Times confirmed the date was the same as it had been that morning: 13 February 1951. ‘That settles that,’ Emily said, folding the paper, tucking it under her arm for later reference. ‘Curious thing, though: no mention of the bomb tests in Nevada.’
‘How about the change in meat rationing?’ Honoré said.
‘Not that I noticed.’
The dusk settled upon them as they approached the building where Honoré lived. They drew up short when it came into view.
The edge of the building was bordered with pink hyacinth, which had been somehow nudged into bloom in spite of the cold. A neat trick, Emily thought, since they were the more delicate of the winter flowers. On the heels of that, Emily thought: the old me must have loved flowers, too. She caught a flicker of movement from the corner of her eye, and saw Mrs Bag-of-Bones leaning out of a first floor window.
‘Did you attend to the business out the back?’ the landlady shouted.
Honoré and Emily shared a glance, wondering how they should answer.
‘Yes, Mum,’ a weary voice responded. From around the corner of the building, a young man in dirty dungarees and an anorak, the hood pulled back to his shoulders, appeared, wiping his hands on the front of his trousers. ‘We’ll be needing fresh paint soon on that trellis, but I managed to put back a good haul of chicken du –’
‘Tom!’ the landlady interjected, nodding her head toward Honoré and Emily. He turned and saw them, and gave a slight bow. Emily was charmed by the instinctive formality of the movement.
‘Miss Blandish,’ he said, ‘Mr Lechasseur. I didn’t realise you had gone out. I mean, welcome back, sir. And lady.’
Honoré acknowledged the man with a nod and strode purposefully forward. Emily hurriedly caught up with him as he entered the main hallway to the building.
‘Honoré,’ she said. ‘Who was that?’
Honoré mounted the stairs toward his flat, his face grim.
‘A dead man,’ he said.
Before Emily could respond, they were at the top of the steps. She caught her breath. Where there should have been a handful of doors, now there was only one – Honoré’s. In place of the others there was solid wall, nicely papered, with portraits of unfamiliar, expensively dressed, important-looking people hanging solemnly in the dim light of the hallway.
‘What’s going on?’ Emily asked.
‘We’re about to find out.’ Honoré approached the door and grasped the knob. He paused before turning it. ‘Get behind me, Emily. Just in case there’s trouble.’ Honoré braced himself to ram open the door, hoping i
t was still the flimsy affair it always had been.
‘Please don’t trouble yourself,’ a woman’s voice, muffled but familiar, called from inside the room. ‘The door is unlocked.’
The hair at the nape of Emily’s neck stood on end as Honoré turned the handle and opened the door.
Honoré saw immediately that the room beyond was in a completely different state than the one he had left that morning. He remembered Scarper’s place, and felt the same sense of disconnection and unreality. The drab sheets covering the windows had been replaced with long, elaborately embroidered curtains made to look like medieval tapestries. The paint on the walls was no longer cracked and peeled. The furniture was antique, heavy and expensive-looking. Tables and shelves displayed various tasteful displays of statuary and mementos. The high walls were lined with shelves, and the shelves were filled with books.
Standing at one of these shelves, several steps up a ladder, was a slim woman wearing a black wool sweater over a long green dress, her hair pulled back in a tightly efficient bun. Her back was to them, her attention apparently too focused on the page she was reading to be bothered with greeting her guests properly just yet.
‘Do close the door,’ she said, without turning around. ‘We don’t want to excite the landlady and her son, although I dare say they’ve both become quite expert at overlooking the unusual.’ The woman slid the leather-bound volume back in its place on the shelf, turned, and smiled.
Once before, Emily had come across her own dead body. Although awful enough, seeing her own corpse had been less disconcerting than the sight of the woman standing before her now: Emily Blandish but not Emily Blandish. In a mirror, all is reversed. The effect of seeing a doppelgänger-like twin was different: the symmetry was jarring. Alarmed, uncertain, Emily turned to Honoré.
But Honoré was no longer at her side. Frowning, he strode quickly and purposefully to the swivel chair by the window where, Emily saw, a tall, dark-skinned man was sat with his back to them, hands cradling his head in repose, long legs stretched out akimbo before him.
Honoré took hold of the chair back and spun it, revealing a man who was his identical twin, same eyes, same mouth, samde neat beard, and wearing a lazy, lopsided smile.
