I somehow manage to extricate myself from the car without falling over. The neighbour’s net curtain twitches as I walk up the garden path. In retirement, all they do all day is concern themselves with other people’s business. I feel their eyes bore into me when I reach the front door. Maybe they’re lonely. Perhaps I should just give them a break.
Rob takes control of the situation by glaring at them before he unlocks my door and steps inside, the junk mail and letters on the mat crunching beneath his feet. My parents are at work. Thank God for that! I couldn’t imagine my mother’s reaction to me dressed like this. I pick up the post and shut the front door behind me. As I place the mail and set of keys on the hall table, Rob reaches for my hand.
“Are you going to talk to me?” He pulls me closer and looks me straight in the eye. My face is hot, and my eyes sting. “You owe me an explanation, Beth. What’s going on?”
I stare at the carpet, cornered. The best thing to do is say nothing, then I won’t feel forced to reveal a thing. I need to keep reiterating what I’ve already said.
“I told you, I’m part of the university re-enactment group. It’s new.”
He stares at me again. “I know you sometimes go out with your re-enactor friends to Hatfield, Berkeley, or Sudeley Castle in the summer holidays, but there’s no way you’d do an event on a weekday, let alone a study day.”
I don’t answer. Instead, I walk through to the kitchen to find my cat on the worktop meowing his head off. I stroke him between his ears, and he bobs up at my face in an attempt to persuade me to feed him. His bowl is empty. Rob follows me and leans against the doorframe. He watches me grab the cat treats from the cupboard and tip a good handful into the bowl.
“Come on, Rutterkin, here’s some dinner.” He jumps off the worktop, purring around my feet as I place his filled bowl on the mat next to his water.
“Why on earth have you called your cat Rutterkin?” Rob asks, his frown showing his state of confusion.
“You mean to say, as a history undergraduate, you don’t know?” I giggle to myself. “He’s named after the cat who was said to have helped the Belvoir witches.” A sudden realisation crosses Rob’s face as I continue. “You know, Joan Flower and her daughters, who carried out their spells in James I’s reign?”
“Yes, I remember now.” He smiles, but I’m not sure whether he really does remember or is just humouring me.
“The cat was called Rutterkin. As my study partner, I thought you would have remembered me talking about him?”
“Your cat, or the witches’ cat?”
“Both!” I reply, as flippantly as I can.
“Anyway, who said I was your study partner? I thought we were friends?”
“We are!” I shove the cat biscuits back in the cupboard, turn around, and clench the worktop to control my frustration.
“What’s going on?” He stands in front of me. “What the hell has happened to you that you are dressed like that?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” His voice cracks in annoyance. God, I’ve pissed him off. “This,” he says, pointing at my outfit, “doesn’t look like nothing!”
“Why are you so cross with me?” I want to cry but clench the worktop harder. How in the hell am I going to get out of this?
“I haven’t seen you since yesterday. You don’t call or text me, and you weren’t in lectures this morning.”
“Is that any of your business?”
“Well, I’d like to think so, considering we went out together!”
“What? Rob, we went for dinner.”
“Yes, but…”
“And you agreed we’d be better as casual friends.”
His shoulders slump. “Yes, I know, but…”
“But what?” I’m growing in confidence now.
He takes a deep breath, his shoulders rising. “Well, we did kiss.”
“Yes, we did, didn’t we? So, you like me? Like…that?”
“I might.” He smirks. “But I do not like you very much right now.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t answer me, and you won’t explain yourself.”
“I don’t have to.”
“If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I swear to God, I will finish our friendship and never see or speak to you again!”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No.”
“So, you are going to force me to confess to something that I don’t want to?”
“Can you blame me?” His voice reaches a pitch I haven’t heard from him before. “I don’t hear from you, then you turn up at university in this get-up!” He moves closer, looking me up and down. “I was worried about you!”
“So?” I say. He moves away and walks towards the kitchen door, stops, then turns to me.
“If you don’t tell me right this minute what’s going on, I swear to God, I will walk out that door and never see or speak to you again, ever.”
I stare at him for what seems like ages. “You mean that?”
“If you can’t confide in me when I am worried about you, what kind of relationship would we have?” He looks up at the ceiling and sighs. “It would be one without trust.”
“You never asked me out, not properly.”
“I was planning to…on our next date.”
“Next…date?”
“I tried to ask you before, but I obviously wasn’t direct enough.”
“I’m such an idiot. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, this obviously isn’t going to work, especially if you can’t be honest with me – even as a friend.” He walks towards the front door and reaches for the latch.
“Don’t go!”
He turns to face me. “So, are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
I take a deep breath and release it in one gush. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
“It’s the Boleyns.”
He stares at me. “The Boleyns? What do you mean?”
“The Boleyn family,” I say, then I hear myself utter the words, “George Boleyn.”
Rob walks towards me until he is so close I smell the mint flavour of his chewing gum on his breath. He cups my chin with his hand. “What did you say?”
“I had to get away from Anne. I had to—”
“Anne, who?” He’s now holding my shoulders. “You had to what?”
“Leave Hever and George. I had to get away from George Boleyn.” He steps back and stares at my dress again.
“What are you on about?” He shakes his head. “You aren’t a drama student. I know that lot are rehearsing Hilary Mantel’s ‘Wolf Hall’, but you aren’t involved with them. Besides, the theatre is on another campus.”
“I’m not talking about the drama production!”
“Then why are you dressed like that?”
“Like I said, if I told you, you would never believe me.”
“Just be honest, Beth.” He stares at me, then steps closer and squeezes my shoulders. “Try me.”
I shrug free and walk into the front room, where I plop myself down in the armchair. I feel so out of place, still in my gown, surrounded by my parents’ modern furniture. Rob sits opposite me, on the edge of the sofa, leaning forward with his hands clenched in his lap.
There’s only one way to go about this. I take a deep breath and relay the whole story to him. He shakes his head in disbelief many times, especially when I mention how Professor Marshall is involved, and he has me repeat many details over and over. I hate him for forcing me to reveal all.
“Beth, you can’t tell me all this and not show me. Do you know how important a find this portal is?”
“The professor swore me to secrecy. No one else must know about it.” I tug on the neckline of my gown, wishing to be out of it and in something comfo
rtable. Normal. I want to feel ordinary without the weight of history upon me.
“Let me come back through the portal with you. If what you are saying is true, show me. Let me see it for myself.”
“You believe me?”
“Well, look at you!” he says, both hands out. “I’ve never seen such an authentic costume before.”
“Why do you believe me so readily?”
“I know you aren’t mad, and I wouldn’t have thought you a natural-born liar.” He half-smiles. “And if what you are telling me is true, you can take me to the portal so I can see for myself.”
“No, Rob, it’s not possible.” There is no way in the world he can go through the portal with me. I must put him off it.
“You can’t tell me such a fantasy and not show me the truth behind it.”
“After how George has behaved towards me, there is no way I am going back to the Boleyns.” I’m telling the truth now – he must see that in my eyes. I have to put him off in whatever way I can.
“Look, the only way you’re going to convince me you’re telling the truth is if you show me the portal, and we go through it together.”
“I can’t!”
“Think about it, Beth – would you believe someone if they told you such a story?”
“Probably not.”
“Well, then, you have no choice but to prove yourself right. Otherwise, I will think you’ve gone stark raving mad.”
“I said, no!” I can be just as stubborn as him, but then, if I don’t agree, what do I lose? My chance with him. I’ve lost my chance with George, and if I say no to Rob, too, over this, then I risk the possibility of losing any opportunity I might have with him.
“Okay then,” he says with a shrug, “if that’s the way you want it.”
“Stop trying to wear me down, Rob.”
“Give in, if only to prove that you aren’t a liar.”
I want to shout and scream at him, but I’m sure it will do no good.
“Come on, Beth. For our friendship!”
I cover my face with my hands and groan, then drop them in my lap and look at him, letting out a long sigh. “The other thing is, I’ve…I’ve lost the cypher ring. The professor is going to kill me.”
“Well, in that case, you really do need to go back to Hever to find it!” He looks delighted with my plight. Oh, why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut? I don’t want to give him an excuse to go to Hever with me.
“What if I just show you the portal?” Maybe that won’t be so bad. Oh, this is terrible. I feel as if I’m betraying the professor, Anne, and everyone else.
He claps, his eyes wide with excitement. “We can tell the professor we’ve gone. We can leave him a note.”
“No, we can’t!” I shout. “Didn’t you hear me?” The enormity of it hits me. I could never betray the professor like that. It would be so wrong, and besides, I couldn’t possibly go back, not now.
“We won’t be missed for a day. I bet the professor would cover for us.”
“It’s absolutely out of the question!” I blubber, refusing to consider the matter, even for a moment. “I can’t even manoeuvre my way through their world without causing chaos, let alone introduce a total stranger to it.”
“No, no, Beth, you said you’d show me the portal. You can’t go back on your word now.”
“But…” I lean back and sigh. Would it really hurt, just for a day in their time? Anne knows about Rob so it wouldn’t surprise her if I brought him through with me. Would it? It may deter George from pursuing anything further with me. And it might work to leave a note with the professor, so he knows what’s happening.
“I’m no stranger to history,” Rob says.
“You don’t understand, Rob. Living it is so completely different to studying it.”
He gets to his feet and looks down at me. “Don’t you trust me?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s if you mess up the history – cause it to go in a different direction.”
“I swear, I won’t interfere. Hey, what do you take me for?”
I study him as he stands over me, his eyes pleading. “Okay, but only if you promise that it won’t be for long, and you won’t breathe a word of it to anyone. It can only be for a couple of hours, and just the once.”
His eyes widen even more, and he jumps about with excitement. “Really?”
“On one condition.”
He grows still, licks his bottom lip. “What might that be?”
“That you promise not to punch George Boleyn in the mouth.”
Realisation dawns, and the silence is deafening as he stares at me. “I… I’m not sure I can promise that.”
“Then you can’t come.”
“Okay, Okay!” He sniffs and blinks several times. “I promise, I won’t lay a hand on him.”
I’m exhausted from arguing. While he makes something to eat for us both, I go upstairs and take a quick shower to refresh myself. I’ve only been away for one day, but in my reality, I haven’t had a real shower in months. By the time I’m ready, back in modern clothes, with Anne’s dress packed in a large bag, Rob has made soup, a sandwich, and cut up the cake Mum had hidden in a tin in the cupboard.
“You certainly know your way around a kitchen.”
He laughs. “The benefits of having a brother as a qualified chef.” He shrugs. “Anyway, it’s only soup.”
I run my fingers through my freshly washed hair, which cascades down my back. It feels so good, and the smell of conditioner fills the room. We sit at the dining table and nourish ourselves with the steaming broth.
“What shall I do about clothes?” he asks, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I can hardly go undetected in jeans, can I?”
I laugh at him. “No. Perhaps I can ask Anne to pinch some of George’s clothes from his travelling trunks. You’re about the same size.”
“Are we?” He chuckles. “I guess you would know!”
I thump him, the way I usually hit George when he makes a rude remark. Maybe this really isn’t a good idea – the professor will kill me.
“I must say, you did look the part, with the dress and your hair. So authentic.”
Warmth flushes my cheeks. I should be used to the compliments of men, after George, but coming from Rob, it feels a bit strange. Will I be able to cope having the two of them in the same room? Should they be in the same place with me? In the same time?
When I finish my snack, I clear the table and take our empty bowls and plates to the kitchen. The cat darts back through the cat flap and rubs up against my leg. He meows, his actions becoming more insistent. When I bend to stroke him, I notice his drinking bowl is empty, so I fill it to the brim with fresh water. Rob stands in the doorway and laughs while I load the dishwasher.
“What’s so funny?”
“You looked like the funniest anachronism I’ve seen all year, standing in here earlier with that dress on.”
“Oh, shut up!” As he passes me the last of the knives and forks, I flick a tea towel at him.
“I was paying you a compliment.” He grins. “You looked so ‘proper’ in that get-up –made you look out of place in your own home.”
I giggle. “The dress does belong to Anne Boleyn, so what do you expect?”
“Should you leave a note for your parents, before we go?” He raises a brow.
“I suppose I could. I still don’t know how this time-travel stuff works. The timelines never run parallel – years pass by in the Tudor slip, while little changes here. I still don’t get it.” I scribble a note on a piece of paper and leave it on the worktop, where I know Mum will see it.
Mum,
Gone out with Rob – not sure when I will be back.
Love, Beth.
PS. Don’t worry about dinner.
As Rob drives us back to the
university, twilight falls and I try to convince myself that everything will be all right.
“Why didn’t you tell me about your time-travelling adventures when they first happened?” he asks, trying to manage the gear stick, which sticks whenever you decide to change it. My gown is packed in its bag, along with more toiletries, and stored on the back seat.
“Why do you think?” I stare at him. He glances at me, then fixes his gaze back on the road, turning on the windscreen wipers as the rain starts to spit. In some ways, I’m glad I’ve shared my experiences with him – it’s like a weight off my shoulders – but in another way, the situation makes me feel as if I’m drowning in a deep pool of my own making. I could completely ruin history, if I haven’t already. Oh my God, what am I doing?
“Turn around, Rob!” My voice betrays my fear. He’s never seen me in such a state as he has today. What must he think of me? He’s probably going to forget about asking me out again after all this. Besides, all he wants is a way into the portal, then, after me fixing that, he’ll forget I ever existed.
“Why do you want me to turn around?”
“Just…just stop the bloody car!”
He pulls into the side of the road and parks, leaving the engine ticking over.
“We shouldn’t be doing this – it’s against the professor’s rules.”
“If we risk nothing, we gain nothing.”
I don’t know what to say to that, because I know he’s right. If I hadn’t taken the initial step, I would never have met Anne and experienced her world. He looks cross. “What?” I say. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Come on, Beth, you can’t blame me for wanting to experience where you’ve been and what you’ve seen.”
The guilt is burning into the back of my eyes. Why should I deny him the right to do precisely as I’ve done? If we stick to the rules, what harm can it do? However, now that I no longer have the ring, I hope the portal will get us back if an extra-quick exit is called for.
We stand side by side in the professor’s office. My finger feels naked without the cypher ring. Rob snatches a sheet of paper from the professor’s printer and a biro from the desk. I put the big bag on the floor and scribble out a note.
Timeless Falcon 1 Page 24
