As he watched himself and his sister running to the end of the street, Michael suddenly realised that this was his chance. Maybe this was why he was here. Maybe this time it could be different. He started running towards the house he had grown up in, heedless of the sound of bombs and the drone of the planes. He ran towards it knowing what was going to happen, and he cried out: 'Mum!'
The bomb didn't hit their house directly; it landed somewhere in the gardens behind their street. Michael and his sister had been on Clare Road at the time, crying and scared, not knowing what had happened.
Facing it for the first time, Michael saw the explosion almost a split second before he could hear it; a blinding flash of white light and then a fireball that erupted upwards and outwards, destroying a whole row of houses as if they were made of nothing more than sand and matchsticks.
The sound and the Shockwave knocked him off his feet, and suddenly everything was dark, and all he could hear was the roar of the fire and the sound of bricks, and wood, and glass raining down upon the cold, damp street.
He struggled to his feet, and saw the gaping crater filled with fire where their house had been, the neighbouring houses now hollowed out like dead teeth, the street itself shoulder-deep in debris.
He wiped the tears now streaming from his eyes away from his face and saw that they had been turned to ink by soot and ash. He put one hand to his chest and felt a sliver of wood sticking out of his shirt. Just touching it sent a hot bolt of pain through his chest.
The Traveller...'
Somebody was calling him, only they weren't calling him. They weren't even raising their voice. It was like a whisper that he could somehow hear over the din of the fire and the bombers and the sound of people screaming.
'The Traveller...'
He turned and saw a man walking through the flames. A man dressed smartly in a black suit and bowler hat, and carrying an umbrella.
That was when he blacked out.
THREE
'I couldn't stop it from happening,' Michael said, his head in his hands. 'I thought maybe I could, but it still happened. Everything happens.'
Gwen felt herself shudder, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention, though she still couldn't quite fathom why. Owen had left the Boardroom, saying he had to 'go check something', so it was just three of them, now, with Michael.
Gwen didn't want to believe a word he had said; she wanted to think it was some elaborate fantasy, and a younger, less experienced Gwen might have believed that, but she knew better. She liked to think she was a good judge of honesty, that she knew when people were lying; it came with the job. She knew Michael was telling the truth.
'OK,' she said. 'Then you came here? After the explosion? That's when you woke up here?'
'No... I don't know,' said Michael. 'I don't think so.'
'And what about before...' Gwen paused. She had to word this carefully. 'Before 1941. Where were you before you found yourself in 1941? What happened in 1953?'
He hadn't yet dared to open his eyes. At first, the voices were little more than a vague mumbling that seemed to echo, as if they were speaking inside a cavern or a cathedral, but eventually he could hear and recognise words.
He heard a man's voice.
'Well, Margaret, quite frankly if he's the one playing hard to get I'd drop him like a hot brick. Men like that aren't worth it.'
'I know.' A woman's voice, now. 'But I was really looking forward to the dance. He's a pig.'
'He's worse than a pig, Margaret, he's a swine. The silly bugger. There's half the men in this hospital would give their right arm to go on a date with a girl like you.'
'Half the men?'
'Well, half the men who aren't acquainted with musical theatre, if you know what I mean... But you know what I mean.'
Both voices laughed, but stopped abruptly when Michael groaned. He was aware of pain. Pain across his chest, in his head, his neck – in fact, he couldn't find a part of his body that didn't hurt. On top of that, he was dehydrated. His tongue felt like sandpaper on the roof of his mouth, and his lips tasted of blood.
'Oh, somebody's awake,' said the male voice. 'Margaret, you go and get Dr Hutchins and I'll demonstrate my bedside manner.'
'I bet you will.'
The curtain opened and, when Michael first opened his eyes, it was as if he were stood before a floodlight. There was a white flash of light, something which caused his heart to pick up pace, and then shapes and forms slowly became visible until finally he was looking up at a male nurse.
'Good morning, sunshine... Now, can you just tell me your name?'
Michael mouthed his name but no sound came out. His throat was still dry and he was suddenly aware of something tickling at the back of his throat. The nurse held up three fingers on his left hand.
'How many fingers am I holding up?'
'Th... three...' Michael whispered.
'Do you know where you are?'
He nodded.
'Can you remember what happened?'
He shook his head. What had happened? Why was he in a hospital?
'OK. Don't move. Just stay there... That's it... Don't want to go doing yourself an injury. Now, what's the name of the Prime Minister?'
'Winston Churchill.' Michael croaked.
The nurse beamed down at him.
'That's right,' he said. 'OK, Michael, I'm Nurse Collins. Nurse Gait has just gone to fetch Dr Hutchins. She won't be a moment.'
Dr Hutchins was a balding man with pince-nez glasses and a bow tie, and a shock of white hair at the back of his head. At the top of his forehead there was an indented yellow scar that Michael thought might have been an injury from the war; the first one, that is. When he spoke, it was in the curt fashion of somebody who had served in the military, so it wasn't beyond speculation. Even so there was something kindly and reassuring about him, something that put Michael at ease.
'You're in the Royal Infirmary, Michael. You've been here for four days now, in body, if not in spirit. Do you remember the accident?'
Michael shook his head.
'What accident?' he asked.
'You were working a late shift, at the docks. There was an explosion. Something to do with paraffin so your employer told us.'
An explosion. He could remember an explosion, or at least he thought he could. His mind flooded with images of another time in his life when there had been fire and pain, but it wasn't that. This was different.
'Fortunately your injuries do not appear to be as severe as we first feared. A few bumps and scratches, and you cracked a rib, but nothing broken. Nothing we can't mend.'
There was a crate. He could remember the crate, and the ship. He had been there with Frank, and Wilf, and Hassan.
'Hassan...' he said, 'and the others. What about the others?'
Dr Hutchins took off his glasses and bit his lower lip.
'I'm sorry, Michael,' he said. 'I don't know how to tell you this, but they weren't as lucky as you.'
Standing, Dr Hutchins turned to Nurse Collins.
'Are there any family we need to notify?'
'Yes,' said Nurse Collins. 'His sister. She lives in Butetown. She was here yesterday.'
Dr Hutchins nodded, and then looked back down at Michael. He smiled. It was a smile Michael supposed he gave all his patients, especially, perhaps, the ones he felt sorry for. As he left the ward, Nurses Collins and Gait followed, and Michael was alone.
His sister came to see him later that afternoon. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she wasn't wearing any make-up. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her without make-up. Perhaps when their father had died.
'I was so worried,' she said, squeezing his hand so hard it almost hurt. 'When they told me, about Frank, and Wilf, and the other boy—' 'Hassan,' said Michael, tearfully.
'Oh God,' said his sister. 'I didn't want to lose you. I mean, I've got Rhodri, and the baby, but you... You're my brother.'
She kissed him on the forehead before leaving, and
told him there would be a roast dinner waiting for him when he got home. It made him happy to see her smiling when she left.
He slept badly that night. The old man in the bed opposite spent much of the night wailing, crying out for the nurses and his 'Mam', even though he couldn't have been any younger than eighty. Michael could do little more than look out through his window at the night sky and the waning moon, and think about nothing else but the crate and the explosion.
He could remember everything now; the Swedish ship appearing through the fog, the noise inside the crate, and then the blast. Something had happened during the explosion, something he couldn't describe. To him it hadn't sounded like an explosion. He had heard bombs as a child, and it hadn't sounded like that. It had sounded like a bass drum, or perhaps the single ringing of an enormous bell, somewhere inside of him. His whole body had tingled as if he were being pricked by hundreds of thousands of microscopic pins and, though his eyes were closed, he could still see that brilliant white light, like a billion suns; a light that seemed to pass through him.
In the morning he was woken by Nurse Collins, who removed the gastric tube from his nose, which caused him to gag, and brought him a cup of tea and a slice of half-burnt toast. The old man in the bed opposite was now sleeping like a baby, worn out, presumably, by a night of anguished crying.
It was mid-morning when the visitors arrived.
Two men, both dressed in suits. One was in his early thirties, Michael guessed; the other looked a little older. The younger, taller man had a dramatic scar on the left side of his face and a hang-dog expression. The older and shorter man had large, dark eyes and heavy eyebrows. Sitting in a chair beside the bed, it was the older man who spoke first.
'Good morning, Mr Bellini. I trust you're feeling well?'
Michael nodded and asked them who they were.
'My name is Mr Cromwell, and this is Mr Valentine. We work for the Union. We're just here to ask you a few questions.'
Michael nodded again, but said nothing.
'Do you remember anything about the explosion on Thursday night?'
Michael thought for a moment. How should he answer their question? Something about this didn't feel right. They didn't look like anyone from the Union. They looked like policemen.
'No,' he said at last. 'Not much. Nothing, really.'
Cromwell looked up at Valentine, and then turned back to Michael. 'I see. We're still investigating the cause of the explosion. It's possible there may have been an issue with certain materials that were in the vicinity.'
And that line. It didn't sound right. It was clumsy, as if Cromwell was stalling, or making it up as he went along.
'Other than your injuries have you noticed any other... problems... at all?' asked Cromwell.
Michael shook his head.
'Any feelings of nausea? Headaches? Strange dreams?'
Why would somebody from the Union need to know anything about headaches or strange dreams? Michael looked out into the corridor, hoping to catch the attention of one of the nurses. If he could only pretend to be in more pain, they might come in and tell Cromwell and Valentine to give him a little peace.
'Have you experienced anything... unusual?' Cromwell asked.
'No,' said Michael. 'No... I... nothing like that, no.'
'I see. Well, we may need to ask you a few more questions when you're feeling a little bit better. You aren't planning on leaving Cardiff any time soon, are you?'
Michael shook his head.
'Good. Good. Well, I think we're done for now. We'll speak to you again, Mr Bellini. Get well soon.'
Cromwell stood, and both he and Valentine gave Cheshire cat grins that didn't sit comfortably on their faces, particularly Valentine's, before they walked out of the ward.
Michael was released from the hospital the following day. There was nobody to meet him at the door. His sister was working at the cigarette factory and his brother-in-law, Rhodri, was at the docks. Though his legs still ached, he walked all the way back to Butetown in the plain, drab and ill-fitting clothes that the hospital had given him.
By the time he reached the narrow and canyon-like streets of Butetown that surrounded Tiger Bay, it was late afternoon, and already he could hear piano music spilling out of the pubs. He heard the raucous laughter of the Irishmen playing cards, and the incomprehensible chattering of the Chinese women in the laundries. Children played in the streets where sailors sauntered toward brothels, while the occasional policeman turned a blind eye to anything that wasn't threatening to turn into a brawl.
These sights were familiar to him by now, of course. He'd lived in the shadowy and smoke-filled confines of Butetown since his mother died. Their father had brought them down here to be closer to his work at the docks, when he was still working. Soon enough, of course, he'd lost his job; a short while after, he started drinking. They'd lived together, his father, his sister and Michael, in the downstairs of a terraced house, beneath a first-generation Italian family that argued and fought at all hours.
Michael knew Butetown like the back of his hand and yet, walking back into it that afternoon, it felt as if something had changed. The buildings looked different, somehow, as if they'd been remade from a different stone. Everything seemed more real.
The tiny house on Fitzhamon Terrace that he shared with his sister's family embraced him with the smell of a leg of lamb roasting slowly in the oven. He sat alone in the kitchen, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes until his sister came home, carrying his baby nephew over the threshold.
'Oh, you're home!' she said excitedly. 'Let me just put Robert in his cot. Food won't be long, and Rhodri's home soon.'
Rhodri was a little older than Michael and his sister, a surly and sardonic man who Michael had always found strangely intimidating. He'd never been sure what Maria saw in him, but she had always been quick to point out that without Rhodri they'd be homeless. Once he'd finished his shift at the docks, and spent the best part of half an hour soaking in the bath in the lean-to, the family sat around the table, with baby Robert in his high chair, playing with a plastic rattle and a teething ring.
Rhodri was helping himself to roast potatoes when he finally spoke. 'Funny thing, that explosion,' he said, in his usual, gruff tone.
'What do you mean, "funny"?' said Michael, barely able to mask his resentment.
'Well, they've closed off the whole dock, and that ship's still there. There were people all over it this morning. No crew. Just people, and jeeps. Like army jeeps. Funny thing. They reckon it was a bomb.'
Michael pretended not to listen, spooning carrots and then peas onto his plate before reaching across the table for the gravy boat.
'No police, mind,' said Rhodri, 'which is the really funny thing. You'd have thought, big explosion like that, they'd have had the police involved.'
When Michael looked up from his plate, he saw Rhodri, staring at him with an expression that bordered on amusement. It was too much to hope that his brother-in-law might realise quite how much this had all meant to him; seeing his friends killed like that. Frank and Wilf. Hassan.
When the meal was over, Michael went to his room, barely saying another word to either Maria or Rhodri, and only managing to muster a moment's baby talk with his nephew. Lying back on his bed, he turned on the radio.
They were playing that song again, that Frankie Lane song they were playing all the time. He'd thought it was the most romantic song he'd ever heard before; before all this. Now just listening to it was painful. Why did they have to keep playing it?
He put his shoes back on and left the house in a flurry. His sister ran to the front door, and called after him, 'Michael! Where are you going?'
'Out,' he called back, sullenly. 'I won't be late.'
The Ship and Pilot was a typical Butetown pub, filled with the usual Butetown patrons: a mixture of dockers, sailors and waifs and strays from every corner of the globe. Gruff old men with stories to tell sat quietly nursing their pints and playing dominos while Mich
ael's peers took part in all the rituals of youth, knocking back their pints of Brains bitter, telling jokes, or challenging anyone within earshot to an arm wrestle.
People were looking at him strangely, he could sense that much. They must have heard about what had happened, but nobody said anything. It was just the way they looked at him.
In the far corner of the pub, they were setting up the stage for Shirley, the resident singer, and her band, but the noisy chatter of the pub carried on unabated.
'What happened?'
Michael looked up. It was Frank's son, Pete. He was a little older than Michael, but built like his father, a natural born scrapper with forearms like Popeye's. The curious thing was, he didn't really look angry, and Pete almost always looked angry, like he was on the lookout for a fight. Now he just looked sad, like something inside of him had been crushed out of existence. Michael said nothing.
'What happened?' Pete asked again. 'You were there with him when it happened. What happened?'
'I don't know,' said Michael. 'I can't remember.'
'You can't remember? I...' Pete looked up into one corner of the room, breathed in deep, and closed his eyes.
'Honestly, Pete,' said Michael, 'I can't remember anything. There was an explosion, and then I woke up in hospital. That's all I can remember.'
'But what were you doing there at that time of night?'
'I don't know,' said Michael. 'I don't know.'
The rest of the pub had fallen quiet now, as Shirley took to the stage and opened her set with 'Stormy Weather'. Pete stared down at Michael with an intensity that scared him, signs of the Pete he knew, the angry, violent Pete, returning. Michael stood, leaving his pint glass half-full.
'I'm sorry, Pete,' he said, walking out of the pub. 'Really. I'm so sorry.'
He was halfway up the narrow, Victorian gully of West Bute Street, at the corner of the Coal Exchange, when he saw them.
Cromwell and Valentine.
They were standing in the shadows, but he could see them both. It was as if they weren't even trying to hide. He knew then for certain that they weren't from the Union.
Trace Memory Page 3
