My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time

by Liz Jensen

  What a story! I thought, unable to fathom it entirely, but somehow it caused something animal to stir in me & I kissed him again, & was just beginning to feel another urge to explore his anatomy when the alarm-clock sounded & Josie Prudence Rosenberg McCrombie came in and tumbled on to the eiderdown, so we played an English game called Crazy Frog Pillow Wars instead.

  But after that conversation something had shifted within me & I felt unaccountably perturbed, almost as though I had a brain fever coming on, for there welled in my breast a confusion whose origins I could not place, but which seemed to underline the notion that the thing I most desired – Herr Fergus McCrombie’s money – was somehow incompatible with the means of getting it.

  ‘You must tell him the truth forthwith,’ said Rigmor Schwarb firmly when I explained the situation. ‘For I fear he has misunderstood the nature of your relationship. They do things differently here, Charlotte. Women of the future commonly lie with men out of neither duty nor financial gain, but merely for the pleasure of the act of love, & society does not frown on them for it as it does in our era.’ We were using the computer at the Halfway Club: she had logged on to the ‘Crotchware Inc’ website &, having taught me to manipulate the ‘mouse’, got me busy ticking boxes placing orders for Hotel Charlotte. ‘If Fergus is unaware of the need to reward you for services rendered, how are you going to pay for all these wares?’

  I smiled, & waved Fergus’s credit card at her, which I had lifted from his wallet earlier. ‘I’ll tell him later, when my English is improved,’ I said.

  ‘But what about all this merchandise you’re ordering in his name?’ she cried angrily, gesturing at the screen. ‘How are you going to explain that? Whatever story you dream up, he’s going to have trouble believing you – gullible though he sounds.’

  ‘He is not gullible!’ I snapped. ‘He is simply a – ‘

  ‘A what?’ she asked, her tone changing to curiosity.

  ‘A good man,’ I said, suddenly in a rush to talk about him. ‘He is a good man. He thinks I’m good too. He has a daughter called Josie. He cooks meals that taste like a chef has made them. He’s an archaeologist & has been all around the world. And he calls me “darling” & “hen”. Hen is Scottish for skat! At which she gave me a long look, & slowly nodded, but said nothing.

  Hen, I thought as I wandered back through the park where I had first met Fergus. The lilies were in full bloom now, and I wanted him to see them with me, but he was at a ‘conference’ where they were discussing the contents of an Egyptian mummy’s stomach. Hen is a beautiful word. I had been called many affectionate names by clients before, such as Lotte-pige & drømmerkvinde& tuttenutte, but hen awoke something new in me & unidentifiable, a nameless feeling that was neither longing nor solace nor pleasure nor lust nor hope nor joy, but more a mixture of all, mingled with something that one perhaps might call comfort or contentment, & the word kept ringing in my head like a soft & lovely bell: hen, hen, hen.

  And when he returned home with Josie I had fabricated a meal for all of us, & it did not taste too inferior at all, despite my lack of skills, & that night after we had rolled around together on the bed & had much fun, we slept locked in one another’s arms, & in the morning he turned to me drowsily & said, ‘Lottie, what would you say if – I told you I love you?’

  At these words I snapped awake, instantly in a state of extreme anxiety, for this was not in the scheme of things at all! I grabbed the bedclothes & covered my body, all at once shy as a virgin.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What would you say if ‘

  ‘I say no! You can’t!’

  But he was smiling.

  ‘I can and I will, because you’re the most lovable Croatian-Dane I’ve ever met. A wee bit eccentric maybe, but it suits you. And what you lack in basic knowledge – because my theory is you are a woman who actually does come from Venus – you make up for in basic sexiness. Plus you have the most gorgeous breasts I’ve ever set eyes on, and I’ve seen a few in my time.’

  Upon which he reached for me and gave me a long kiss.

  ‘But you can’t love me!’ I cried, tearing myself away with some reluctance, for his kisses were like honey. ‘And I can’t fall in love with you!’

  He smiled & shook his head in amusement. ‘But you already have, hen.’

  ‘Not true!’

  ‘Why else do you reach for me in your sleep and say Fergus, in that funny accent of yours? We’re made for each other. Why fight it?’

  ‘Because it is not part of the plan!’

  ‘What plan?’

  ‘My plan!’

  ‘Oh, my wee Venutian has a plan! That’s news to me!’

  ‘Yes! I have a plan.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, pulling me down to the bed. ‘If this plan of yours doesn’t involve me and Josie, and making lots of babies, you’d better change it’

  Later that morning I emerged from my shower to see a delivery van parked in the road outside the house. Gripped by a sudden unease, I hastened down to the parlour to find Fergus seated on the sofa with a large cardboard box, freshly opened to reveal fifty multi-packs of ribbed & flavoured condoms.

  He looked up in puzzlement. ‘Darling,’ he said gently. ‘I had no idea you were so nervous about falling pregnant. Or,’ he said, scrutinizing a wrapper, ‘that you were quite so fond of avocado. Is there something you’d perhaps like to explain?’

  Yes: the moment of truth was upon us, it seemed. But, dear reader (and think less of me if you will!), I could not do it, even when he investigated the box further & encountered basques of every size & shape, fluffy handcuffs, plastic male members & the like (at which I feigned ignorance & perplexity): no, I could not, would not! Can you blame me, precious one (I do not deserve your sympathy, but I beg it nonetheless!), if found myself incapable of telling the man to whom I was swiftly & despite myself becoming increasingly attached, that I was not after all the creature of his dreams, but a time-travelling harlot who had cheated him into the unwitting purchase of a panoply of erotic gadgetry for the titillation of Hotel Charlotte’s nineteenth-century clientele?

  So I informed him merely that I had used his credit card thinking it was my own, for it was almost exactly the same shade of blue, & then my friend Rigmor must have clicked the wrong box on the ‘World Wide Web’, for in fact it was not sex toys from Crotchware Inc that I required, as she mistakenly understood, but a Compendium of Common English Idioms from Amazon Dot Com, & furthermore I told him – now much aware that something was required of me by way of elaboration – that I was not from Venus, as he constantly teased, but from Copenhagen, & had worked in the entertainment industry & sometimes helped out in a flower shop owned by my friend Else, that I had an elderly, mentally disabled companion named Fru Schleswig who came to England with me for her health (at this he looked most puzzled, & said, ‘Christ, Lottie, who on earth comes to England for their health?’), & I explained that I was unschooled & self-educated, & had never travelled from home before, & was staying in the abode of a fellow Dane, Professor Krak, the husband of a former employer, whose colleague Herr Dogger was teaching me English in the afternoons. And I knew he saw the whole concoction to be shaky, & as full of gaps & holes as a giant cobweb, for at moments he looked at me most sad & sceptical, & when I had finished my sorry, limping implausible tale, he said, ‘Lottie, I’m determined to get the whole story out of you one day. I mean, how come you’re the only girl in the universe who’s not seen any films? Christ, hen, even Mongolians have heard of Johnny Depp! And you’re the brightest wee thing, but you seem to know bugger all about the world. It just doesn’t make sense. Have you been held captive somewhere?’

  ‘I had no idea you were so nervous about falling pregnant!’

  And so I told him that in a manner of speaking I had, & promised that one day – when I could find the words – I would reveal all. But my silence on the matter of my origins remained a chilly splinter dividing us.

  Despite that, & the presence of the Crotchware b
ox (now stored in a broom cupboard out of Josie’s sight but a silent reproach to me nonetheless), we were constantly together in the days that followed. And just as I’ll wager you too would have done in the same circumstances, precious, I neglected more & more to visit Professor Krak’s apartment & even missed a few of my lessons with Herr Dogger, to the glee of Fru Schleswig, who had boycotted them from the second day, & had called me a ‘silly swotte’ for taking an interest, & who now felt vindicated. I saw little of Professor Krak on these occasions, & so immersed did he seem in his plans for our return that he was too distracted to enter into conversation. Often, though, I would glimpse him at the Halfway Club in deep conference with Franz who, since learning that he would accompany us on the journey, had become most animated & light-hearted, & exceedingly friendly towards me. And if from time to time I caught Herr Dogger glancing at me oddly, I did not pay heed to it, for he was a ruttish man & I am used to such looks. And if Fru Schleswig sometimes muttered to me, ‘Woch out, gurl,’ I paid no heed to that neither, for the crone has always tried to kill my fun, & if Fru Jakobsen on one occasion murmured to me, ‘We are counting on you,’ with some urgency, & thrust a copy of the Club Rules into my hand, I saw not the significance of it.

  No: none of these small signs penetrated my consciousness, for what preoccupied me now was my discovery of Love. You may have spotted that I was heading in that direction, dear observant reader, but I had not, & the realization left me most perplexed, for in some respects I am quite blind to the will of my own heart! I investigated my symptoms like a scientist might dissect & scrutinize a squirming specimen, & then drew back, appalled & simultaneous in awe, at the conclusion I reached: Love makes your heart & soul so naked! What if it should hurt me? All my life I had avoided it most effectively, but now –

  Could I trust my Englishman who, it now transpired, was apparently not an Englishman at all, but a native of the Firth of Forth?

  What knew I of the Firth of Forth? My head warned me off, but my heart shouted yes. And which organ did I heed? You can guess the answer, for you know me so well, sweetest. And you would have done the same, if I know you at all.

  In the meantime I discovered more about Herr Fergus McCrombie. I saw photographs of his archaeological voyages around the world both before & after the arrival of Josie, heard stories about his wise professor, listened to the gory details of his two disastrous love affairs with ‘entirely unhinged’ women, & his happier ‘wham-bam’ ones, with ‘un-suitables’ (how quickly I was learning his language!) – while he in turn discovered the minimum about me. I knew, dear one, that I must tell him the truth. But how to do it? If you are thinking that my reason for stalling was a keenness to abide by the absurd Club Rules, then think again, for it was not so much the Halfway Club’s petty bureaucracy that hindered me, as my own inability to imagine how I might begin to convince him of a story – ie, that I was not only from another place but another time – that sounded so patently preposterous.

  Tick, tock.

  The days passed: three perfect weeks. O, to have found such happiness, & lost it, out of my own foolishness! But in that time, this much I learned about Love: that it involves much laughter. Lord, how we laughed, & were filled with such joy as I have never known, & what better thing is there than that, for my modern Scottishman was also brimful of fun & play & teasing, & there were moments when we were children together & roared at foolish jokes, & kissed & kissed again & rolled on the bed tickling one another like innocent babes. What sweeter thing is there than to be in the arms of the one you adore all night long, & reach out & stroke his chest or his arm or his shoulder or his dear dreaming head. That sweet sleeping face, that quiet soft breathing. And when he wakes you tell him, in your now halting English, your dreams & he tells you his, & you laugh & kiss & kiss again, & the world is a good place despite all the bad in it, & you know that human beings are not monsters, for as long as Love dwells in men’s hearts all shall be well & all manner of things shall be well.

  But within all this joy there were little cold moments, too, for I had been forgetting my past life, & doing so at my peril, & he had desisted from questioning me further, at his: & we both knew that soon I must speak, for it was in his eyes: he could never be fully mine until I did.

  ‘You must tell me the truth, Lottie,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, hen. But if you don’t, it’s just not going to work.’

  ‘Just give me more time.’

  He looked at his watch.

  Love turns a girl foolish: I had not been on my guard, not seen the signs. For the first I knew of my forthcoming disgrace was the day I arrived for my lesson at the Halfway Club to find the hall chock-a-block with people, all seemingly in a heated debate. I could see at once that something was very much amiss, & that it concerned me, for a group of fifty or so folk – among them the Jakobsens, Franz, Rigmor Schwarb, the Poulsen family, Professor Krak, an elderly couple called Brogaard, Herr Dogger & Fru Schleswig – immediately stopped talking and looked at me with stony faces. They had clearly been holding some kind of conference – to which I had not been invited.

  ‘Talk of the Devil,’ murmured Herr Dogger.

  ‘Come and sit,’ said Professor Krak, rising and indicating that I should take the chair from which he had been addressing them, face to the throng. I felt most uneasy. What had I done to be so excluded? Did they no longer believe me to be their heroine? As I sat, Herr Dogger, seated in the front row, leered at me waggling a small pair of binoculars. I gulped: a horrible suspicion was beginning to hatch in my breast

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked as lightly as I could. Fifty pairs of eyes stared in my direction.

  ‘We thought that perhaps that was something you could tell us,’ said Professor Krak with a gentleness that much discomposed me.

  ‘What mean you by that, good sir?’

  ‘You are aware of the Club Rules?’ said Professor Krak. ‘Concerning mixing with people from the modern age?’

  ‘I have broken no rules,’ I retorted sharply. ‘I have divulged nothing about my status as a time-traveller, or anyone else’s.’

  Was it my imagination, or did I sense a slight decrease in the tension, as I said this? But the interrogation continued nonetheless.

  ‘We understand from Herr Dogger, our Head of Security, that you have entered into a relationship with a contemporaneous man,’ began Professor Krak. I gasped. So Herr Dogger had indeed been spying on me! I shot him a furious glance, & he winked at me affirmatively.

  ‘How dare you!’ I cried, quite winded by the audacity of it.

  ‘Club policy,’ he said smugly.

  ‘Anyway, dear Charlotte,’ Professor Krak went on in a tone that I did not much trust. ‘I am sure we are all very happy for you. You are not the first to have met Love in this new era. But there are serious implications for the community, as you must be aware. If you should change your mind about returning to Copenhagen & securing the Time Machine, & thus assuring our liberty of passage …’

  There was a silence as they all looked at me. During which long, uncomfortable moment I forced myself to consider my situation, which resulted in the following heart-piercing question: how could I possibly run the risk of going back, if it meant saying farewell to the man I loved, & young Spiderman? Clearly the club members had been more perspicacious than I on this matter, & had anticipated my rush of conflicting feelings.

  ‘I shall not go back,’ I said eventually. ‘I cannot. I regret having to disappoint you, but I must remind you that I did not come here by choice in the first place, & my role in the Professor’s scheme was not of my own devising. The truth is, I no longer wish to go back to Copenhagen, & I cannot take the risk of going there, if I might be unable to return. I cannot gainsay Love. My life is now here.’

  There was a huge collective wail.

  ‘But you are our last hope!’ cried Helle Jakobsen, standing up & then seeming to collapse into the lap of her husband. Franz blew his nose at length. The Joergensen twins took to their feet as a s
ingle being & shook their fists at me. Mattias Rosenvinge booed. Rigmor Schwarb looked grim, & scratched her tattoo.

  ‘But you owe it to us!’ piped up a small female voice from the back row: Ida Sick.

  ‘I owe you nothing!’ I expostulated. And stormed out.

  On my return, Fergus saw my distress & was most solicitous, but I would not tell him what had transpired, save that I had had an argument with some fellow Danes, & so the chilly splinter – already well embedded – dug itself deeper, & there was a terrible silence between us until finally he sighed deeply & said, ‘Lottie, I’ve been doing some thinking. I love you, & I want to be with you, hen. I want to marry you. But –’

  ‘Marry?’

  ‘Yes. Does that idea appeal to you, sweetheart? Do they do marriage on Venus?’ (O, reader! Hold my hand! Do you feel it tremble?) ‘But if you won’t tell me about yourself—Well, how can I give myself to a woman who won’t do the same for me? We have to at least start from a basis of equality, hen.’

  O, beloved! Do you think he would still want to marry me, if he knew the truth? All at once I felt the squeeze of two insistent incompatibilities: together, they were crushing my heart.

  ‘I’m going to fetch Josie,’ he said. ‘So you have till I get back.’

  Tick, tock.

  I have learned that in English, time is a commodity that can be made, stolen, bought, wasted, trodden, marked, put off, & raced against. That things can happen from time to time, all in good time, time & time again. That from time immemorial, ‘Old Father’ Time has been considered precious, & of the essence, that there is a time to live & a time to die, a time to love & a time to hate, & a time to read ‘Useful Temporal Expressions’ in Herr Dogger’s recommended tome, Infinite English Grammar by Professor H.W. Biggs-Gusset, all the while scarcely able to hold back your tears, for you are about to take another dangerous leap into an unknown fate.