One for Sorrow

by Philip Caveney

‘Tom,’ she gasped. ‘What . . .? Where . . . where are we?’

  He was about to answer the question when the door of the room creaked open and there stood Old Cat, dressed in a white nightgown and staring in at him, a baffled expression on her face. ‘Tom,’ she said. ‘I just remembered something. I can’t imagine how I forgot but it came back to me, all of a sudden. I did see you again. Just after you disappeared from Arthur’s Seat, you came back, only for a few moments and there was this strange man in a cloak . . .’ She broke off and her eyes widened. Tom realised that she was staring at his bare feet. He looked down at them and saw that they were filthy. Matted with a mixture of dirt and blood, they had stained the white bedcovers.

  ‘What on earth happened to you?’ gasped Cat.

  Just then, Young Cat sat up and peeped wide-eyed over the edge of the bed. The woman and the girl stared at each other in mute disbelief, across a distance of more than fifty years. Tom lay there between them, wondering what would be the best way to handle this. Finally, he twisted around and sat up, then looked from Old Cat to Young Cat and back again.

  ‘Hey guys,’ he said quietly. ‘I’d like to introduce you to er . . . yourselves.’

  Nobody said anything for quite a while after that.

  Sixteen

  It was the early hours of Christmas morning but sleep seemed a long way off. They sat at the kitchen table, the three of them, sipping at cups of tea, which Old Cat had been obliged to make herself since all the staff had gone home for the holidays. They sat there in silence while they tried to make sense of what had just happened. The two Cats were seated at either end of the table, staring intently at each other while Tom sat rather sheepishly between them, wondering how in the world he was going to sort this little mess out.

  It was Old Cat who spoke first.

  ‘I’d quite forgotten how pretty you were,’ she said. ‘Such lovely skin. And that beautiful blonde hair. What I wouldn’t give to have that now.’

  Young Cat smiled feebly. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘And you look . . .’

  ‘Ancient,’ finished Old Cat. ‘An absolute fright, I should imagine.’ She chuckled grimly. ‘I realise it must be a shock for you, seeing yourself like this. It’s not something I would have wished for at your age. At any age, come to think of it.’ She looked at Tom helplessly. ‘I don’t really understand how this is even possible,’ she said.

  Tom shrugged his shoulders. ‘Join the club,’ he muttered.

  Old Cat gave him an exasperated look, so he tried to explain further. ‘I suppose it’s because I hung onto you, I mean, her. When I was coming back. And I must have just dragged her – you – along with me.’

  ‘But, aren’t there rules about this kind of thing?’ asked Young Cat.

  ‘Rules?’ Tom looked at her blankly. ‘I don’t know about any rules. I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing. These things just happen to me and I have to go along with them, the best way I can. If there are rules, I haven’t made head nor tail of them.’

  ‘Well, I take your point, Tom,’ said Old Cat, sternly, ‘but the question is, how are we going to get her – me – back again?’

  ‘Get her back?’

  ‘Yes. Well she can’t stay here, can she? How would I ever explain her presence? People are sure to notice that I now have a younger version of myself living in the same house.’

  ‘True,’ agreed Tom.

  ‘And the other thing is, she’s going to be missed back in her own time. Her – our parents. And Fraser, of course. They’re probably already wondering where she’s got to.’

  Tom nodded. ‘I understand what you’re saying,’ he said. ‘But, I haven’t got the first idea about how to get her back.’ He looked from one to the other of them. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told them both.

  ‘And . . . forgive me, dear . . .’ Old Cat glanced at her younger self apologetically. ‘If she doesn’t get back to her own time, what’s going to happen to me? I mean, everything will change, won’t it? I might not be the person I am now if this is allowed to continue much longer.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that,’ said Tom. He thought of the way he’d explained time to Lloyd. A line of dominoes, falling over and knocking each other down. But he’d unwittingly removed a really important domino from the line and if he didn’t get it back into position soon, who knew where it would end?’

  ‘Maybe . . .’ he said.

  They both looked at him intently.

  ‘I’m thinking that if we go back to where it happened − to Arthur’s Seat? And, well, maybe we could try and set up the same situation again . . . you know, the two of us running downhill together. Only this time, I’d let go of her hand.’ He glanced at Young Cat. ‘Your hand,’ he elaborated. ‘You see, that’s how I think I went back to 1829 in the first place. I was like thinking about you and wishing I could go back to explain what had happened. So we could be the same age again.’ He glanced at Old Cat. ‘No offence,’ he said.

  ‘None taken.’

  ‘So maybe if we were in the same location, and I wished that you would go back to your own time. Maybe, maybe I could send you there. Would that work?’

  ‘It’s got to be worth a try,’ said Young Cat. ‘Except . . .’

  ‘Except what?’ asked Tom.

  ‘What if I’d rather stay here . . . with you?’

  Tom stared at her. He didn’t know what to say to that.

  ‘That’s really not an option,’ said Old Cat, sternly. ‘Think about it, my dear. Think of the possible repercussions. I am who I am now because of the life you’ve lived. You have to live that same life, just as it was intended to be in order to end up here, now, as me. You have to grow up, meet your future husband . . .’

  Young Cat pulled a face. ‘I always thought I’d never marry,’ she said.

  ‘Well, so did I.’ Old Cat waved a hand in exasperation. ‘Of course I did. We’re the same, you and me.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I thought that way until I met Tom. Then everything changed.’

  Young Cat looked at him. ‘And then I told myself that there was only one person I’d ever marry,’ she murmured.

  ‘Er, do you have to talk about me as though I’m not here?’ muttered Tom.

  ‘Wheesht,’ said Old Cat. She turned back to her younger self. ‘Some things are just not meant to be, my dear. You will meet a good man in time and you will marry him.’

  ‘And I’ll be happy with that?’ asked Young Cat.

  ‘Yes. Tolerably so.’ Old Cat smiled. ‘When you are older, you’ll have realised that life doesn’t always give you exactly what you want. That you settle for something else, even if it isn’t your heart’s desire. After Tom left, I was devastated, of course I was, but, well, that didn’t last forever. Time heals all wounds, isn’t that what they say? And I came to realise that it could never have worked, no matter how I felt about him.’

  Tom felt distinctly uncomfortable. He wished they’d start talking about something else.

  Young Cat gestured at her surroundings. ‘And all this will be waiting for me down the line? The fine house, the servants?’

  ‘Yes. But you’ll also come to realise that they don’t really matter. They’re just the means to an end. Having all this allowed me to do the things I really wanted to do. To write my books, to devote myself to the causes I believed in. In the end, isn’t that what we really want, my dear? The freedom to be the person we’ve always believed we can be?’

  Young Cat nodded. ‘I suppose so,’ she said.

  ‘Good. Well, drink up your tea, the two of you. Tom, I would suggest that you make your way to Arthur’s Seat just as soon as it’s light enough. The less time we keep Catriona away from her family, the better.’ She set down her cup and got to her feet. ‘And now, I’ll leave the two of you alone. I’m sure you have a lot to talk about before she goes back.’

  ‘But we don’t even know if it will work,’ Tom reminded her.

  ‘I have a feeling it will.’ Old Cat smiled mysteriously. ‘I think it does work, Tom.
Don’t ask me what makes me think that, but I have a good feeling about it. Perhaps even the faintest memory of it happening.’

  ‘And you think she’ll get back safely?’ persisted Tom.

  She nodded.

  ‘What about McSweeny? He could still be there, waiting for her.’

  ‘The man in the cloak?’ Old Cat shook her head. ‘I don’t think he’ll be there. I imagine I’ll find myself standing on the hillside alone again.’ She looked at her younger self. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. You will shed tears over this parting. And I don’t know if you will remember everything that has happened here. If you do, then you will look forward to Christmas Eve, 1881, because you’ll know that is when you will meet Tom again. I’m afraid, if that is the case, it will have taken the surprise out of it but I suppose there’s a lot to be said for anticipation.’

  Young Cat smiled at her older self. ‘It’s been nice meeting you,’ she said.

  ‘And for me also. I’d like very much to give you a hug, just now, but I’m afraid to even try such a thing. So I’ll let Tom do that for me. Goodnight, the two of you. Tom, wrap up warm to go up that hill. And for goodness sake, put some shoes on!’

  She went out of the kitchen, leaving them alone at the table. Tom looked at Young Cat. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked her.

  She nodded. She took his hand and squeezed it tightly. ‘How long do we have?’ she asked him. ‘Before it gets light?’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out the watch, flipped open the silver case. ‘An hour or so,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s not waste any of it,’ she said. She reached out, put her arms around him and pulled him close.

  They set out at dawn. The snow was still falling and a pristine, white covering crunched beneath their feet. They didn’t say much as they walked, both of them preferring to think about what had happened between them in the kitchen, both of them dreading the separation to come. There was nobody else around. When they finally left the outskirts of the city and reached the lower slopes of Arthur’s Seat, the going became increasingly tough, but they toiled upwards, knowing exactly where they were headed. The hillside looked somewhat different under its mantle of snow and it took them quite a while to find the exact place where they’d buried the coffins. The little sealed-off area was open to the elements now, its precious contents long gone.

  ‘Nobody ever remembered exactly where the coffins were found,’ Tom told Cat. ‘When I read about it in my time, there were just theories, but nobody was really sure exactly which part of the hill they were hidden on.’ He smiled, remembering. ‘Fraser worked so hard on those things,’ he said.

  ‘We all did,’ murmured Cat.

  The mention of Cat’s brother reminded Tom about something. ‘Promise me one thing,’ he said. ‘When you get back – if you get back – if you ever hear that Fraser is planning to join the army, do your best to talk him out of it.’

  She looked at him. ‘Ach, you know Fraser,’ she told him. ‘He’s as stubborn as a mule. Of course he wants to join the army. He’s never wanted anything more than that.’ She looked at him intently. ‘Is there something I need to know?’

  ‘Just that . . . oh, he’d be better off if he does something else. And if you can’t stop him from joining up, at least tell him to stay away from Africa.’

  ‘You’re being very mysterious,’ she complained.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I should say any more. Just remember. Not Africa.’

  She nodded. It was very quiet up on the snowbound hillside.

  They turned and looked downhill. ‘I think we were just down there,’ said Tom, pointing. ‘Past those rocks.’

  She nodded. She was shivering, despite the thick shawl draped around her shoulders. ‘Hold me for a moment,’ she whispered. He did as she asked, aware of her heart beating next to his. He realised then how much he wanted her to stay, even though he knew he couldn’t let her.

  ‘I didn’t get a chance last time,’ he murmured. ‘To tell you how I really felt about you.’

  She looked up at him. ‘Don’t say anything now,’ she urged him. ‘It will only make it harder to go back.’

  He nodded. He gave her a last fierce hug, then released her and took her left hand in his. They gazed down the hill. Now it had come to it, this seemed like the most ridiculous idea he had ever come up with. But Old Cat had seemed pretty sure it would work and he certainly didn’t have any better ideas. As he stared down the hill, he saw a sudden swirl of black and white feathers, as a magpie swooped down and perched on a rock up ahead of them, something that made him feel that perhaps this was the right thing to do. The magpie had something to do with all this shifting around in time, of that he was sure. ‘Ready?’ he asked Young Cat.

  She nodded. He saw that she was crying now, her shoulders moving up and down, but she somehow managed to stay silent.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said. And they began to run down the hill, slipping and sliding on the treacherous ground. For a moment he didn’t think anything was going to happen. But he willed her to go back and then, as they sped up, he felt the greyness returning and had to remind himself that he needed to let go of her hand this time, though there was a part of him that wanted to hang on to her forever, to hang on tight and never let her go.

  He was dimly aware of the magpie launching itself into the sky, up ahead of them.

  ‘Tom!’ he heard Cat gasp. ‘Tom, do it now!’ He steeled himself. He was moving at speed and was no longer aware of his feet crunching into the snow-covered ground beneath him. ‘Goodbye,’ he croaked and opened his hand.

  And she was gone. Quite suddenly, without so much as a puff of smoke or a flash of light, she had slipped through the fabric of time and he was running on alone. He willed himself not to follow her, to stay here in the time that had claimed him and somehow, he managed it. The greyness around him began to draw more colour into itself. He slowed, stumbled, fell to his knees and slid several yards until he thumped to a halt against a boulder. Then he twisted around and looked back the way he had come. He saw a trail of footprints leading back up the hill and a short distance further on, a place where two sets of prints, running side-by-side had suddenly become one. A powerful sadness welled up in his chest, making him gasp. He threw back his head, gazed up into the snow-filled clouds and yelled out her name, once. He heard the echoes of his call rolling down the hillside, unanswered, and knew that she could not reach him now, that the girl he had loved was gone and he would never meet her again, at least, not in that form.

  He bowed his head and got back to his feet, stood for a while on the deserted hillside, waiting for something that he knew would never come. Finally, he shrugged his coat tighter around him and sobbing, started back down the hill, alone.

  When he got back to Lauriston Street and rang the doorbell, it was Old Cat who answered. She stood in the doorway for a moment, looking at him, then stepped aside to let him in. He stood in the hallway with his back to her, while she closed the door.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ he said gently. ‘When you got back.’

  ‘Nothing,’ she assured him. ‘There was nobody else around. I stood on the hillside for a while, hoping you’d reappear but you didn’t. After an hour or so, I finally admitted defeat. I walked home. I never spoke of it to my parents or to Fraser.’

  ‘Fraser.’ Tom remembered something. ‘Did you manage to persuade him?’

  ‘I tried. But he wouldn’t listen to me. I even tried telling him the truth but he would have none of it. He said I was crazy, that meeting you had addled me. So he enlisted in the army and he ended up dying in that same African war. Only it was worse this time, much worse, because I knew it was going to happen one day and there was nothing I could do to change it.’

  Tom studied his boots for a while. ‘It’s a lie,’ he said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You see these movies about time-travel and it all looks like its going to be such good fun. But most of the time, it just sucks.’

&nbs
p; ‘Tom, I’m so sorry,’ she murmured. ‘If there was a way I thought we could have made it work, I would have done it. But you know that she . . . that I, had to go back, don’t you?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Can I get you anything? A drink? Something to eat?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m going back to bed,’ he said, his voice expressionless. And he went upstairs to the spare room. He pulled off his coat and dropped it onto the floor. He kicked off his shoes. On the mattress, he saw something that Young Cat had left behind: a length of red ribbon. It must have fallen from her hair, he decided, when she’d first crashed down onto the bed. He picked it up and inhaled it, thinking that it still held the faintest trace of her scent. He felt as empty as an old bottle. He lay down on the bed, held the ribbon to his face and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  Seventeen

  ‘Tom, are you ever going to get out of that bed?’

  Mum’s voice woke him, sounding more than a little bit testy. He opened his eyes, blinking around the room. It took him just a couple of moments to establish that he was back in the spare room in Fairmilehead. He shook his head and sat up, pushing back the covers. He wasn’t surprised to find that he was fully dressed, apart from his shoes, which he saw were lying a short distance away, caked in dried mud. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat there, feeling distinctly groggy.

  His bedroom door opened a chink and he saw Mum peeping cautiously in. She registered surprise. ‘You are up,’ she said. ‘Did you sleep in your clothes?’

  Tom shrugged. ‘Er, I suppose I must have,’ he muttered.

  ‘Well, get your backside into gear. We’ve got a few things to do before we start getting ready for tonight.’

  He looked at her, puzzled. ‘Tonight?’ he echoed.

  ‘The concert,’ she reminded him. ‘Hogmanay. You haven’t forgotten, surely? They’re supposed to be your favourite band!’

  ‘Er, no. No, course not. The Deceivers. Right . . .’

  ‘Tom, are you okay?’ She opened the door a little wider, concern etched on her face. ‘I told you not to stay up all night reading that thing . . .’ She was nodding towards the bedside cabinet. He looked and saw the Kindle lying open on top of it.