by Brett Lee
‘Come on,’ Rahul shouted to me, ‘this is our chance. Let’s go.’
He dragged me away, down the way we had come. We walked around behind a big stand, where we waited for a few moments.
‘How do you know we’re in the right spot?’ I asked him. ‘And what do we do when he comes out? Hop in the ambulance with him and tell them we’re doctors?’
‘It’s okay, Toby. Like I told you, I’ve been doing research. It’s all worked out.’
We waited and waited.
‘So maybe he doesn’t go to hospital,’ I said.
‘Don’t worry. He’ll be having his iced bath—’
‘Listen!’ I called.
Above the noise of the crowd, away to our right, was the sound of a siren. It was getting closer.
‘Dean Jones has just collapsed onto the floor,’ said Rahul. ‘He is cramping severely. The ambulance will be here in a moment.’
We stepped back as the siren got closer. People were coming from everywhere. It seemed as if we weren’t the only ones who knew what was about to happen.
A stretcher was taken from the ambulance and wheeled through a door. A few minutes later the door opened again and a few men appeared. Dean lay on the stretcher. His eyes were open but he looked as if he wasn’t really noticing anything. I took another step back. Rahul didn’t.
We followed the group, about 10 metres behind them, through a gate and out into a car park, where the ambulance waited. The crowd was getting bigger. Everyone was talking excitedly.
‘What now?’ I asked, feeling frustrated. ‘We steal a car and chase them?’
‘No, silly. Come on.’
Rahul seemed to know exactly where he was going. We came to a line of taxis. Rahul leaned down to the open window of the first cab and spoke to the driver. A moment later he motioned me to get inside the taxi. If anything, it was hotter inside the car than out.
‘What did you say?’ I asked.
‘Can you take us to the hospital, please?’ He smiled. There was something more happening here, I sensed. But I couldn’t for the life of me work out what.
‘Are you really so interested in seeing Dean Jones lying in a hospital bed?’ I asked him.
‘Oh, yes, terribly,’ he replied. Even Rahul was sweating in the heat. ‘You see my whole assignment is based around Dean Jones’ innings. Did you know that some of the Australian staff wanted him to come off at tea, when he was about 200? Did you know that he walked his last 20 runs? And it was a tie, Toby. The game was a tie!’
‘Rahul!’ I hissed.
‘Oh yeah. Okay.’ He was obviously very excited by the whole Dean Jones story. And it looked as if we weren’t the only ones who had followed the ambulance in. Cars were parked everywhere, and people were running in all directions, shouting and giving advice. Inside the hospital was no different.
And I had thought the cricket ground was packed! The hospital was swarming. Doctors, nurses, patients, old people, children, visitors—they were everywhere, choking the rooms and corridors.
‘Rahul, we’d better stick close.’ People were jostling and pushing us from behind.
‘Rahul?’ I turned right, then left. He had vanished.
‘Rahul!’ I screamed. But my cry was lost in the noise and bustle.
‘Rahul!’ Now I was running—pushing and bumping into people. Then I stopped. There was no way I was going to find him like this. I needed to go back to the front and put out a call for him.
‘Rahul Prahibar. Please report to the front desk on ground level, immediately,’ came the message over the loudspeaker system a few minutes later.
I sat down to wait. It was then that I started to panic. Suddenly the whole idea of sitting here, alone, in a busy hospital in a city in India nearly 20 years ago was too much. I put my head down in my hands, my shoulders starting to shake.
‘Not a happy chappy?’
I froze.
Slowly I peeled my hands from my face and looked up. A man wearing a white coat, his arms crossed, looked down at me. He was obviously a doctor come to see what was wrong.
At that moment, a screaming, wailing noise erupted from the sliding doors to our left. A woman rushed in, carrying a small child. The piercing noise from the mother drowned out everything else.
Without thinking, I jumped to my feet, charged past the doctor, raced around a corner and was soon swallowed up in the mass of people. I half-walked, was half-pushed into a lift. I didn’t care what floor I went to. I got out on the eighth. It was quieter. The noises here were only of crying babies.
I ran over to a nurses’ station.
‘Please, I’m looking for Dean Jones.’ I panted.
The nurse on duty looked at me blankly.
‘Emergency?’ I asked.
‘Ah,’ she nodded. ‘Ground floor.’
Great. I walked back towards the elevator. The sound of clapping and laughing made me stop. I looked around a corner and down a long corridor.
Rahul was standing halfway down, staring into a large window.
‘Rahul!’ I screamed in delight, rushing towards him. He didn’t move.
‘Rahul, come on. We’ve gotta go. Now!’ I stopped. There were tears streaming down his face. He made no noise.
‘What is it?’ I looked in through the window. A young Indian man was standing by a bed. A lady lay in the bed, a tiny baby in her arms. Other people stood around the bed. The man picked up the baby and kissed it. Everyone clapped and cheered again.
‘That’s my brother,’ Rahul whispered, through sobs.
‘Rahul, we shouldn’t be here,’ I told him. It only needs someone to turn around, and—’
‘Toby, I can’t remember my brother,’ he continued. Behind us the lift clanked and shuddered to a stop. ‘I just have to see his face. He’s my brother, Toby!’
‘Rahul, you’ve got the rest of your life to see his face. Come on, let’s get out of here.’
Finally, Rahul tore his eyes from the scene in front of him.
‘My elder brother,’ he said. ‘The brother who scooped me out of a river of rushing water and threw me into my father’s arms. He saved my life. I was just a baby. He was swept away. That’s him there. Being kissed and loved.’
A rush of footsteps made me turn. Two men appeared to be bearing down on us. Rahul made a dash for the half-open door, a few metres to his right. I started reciting a line from the poem, reaching out for him as I did so. He shrugged my arm away and reached for the door handle.
‘Rahul!’ I cried, frightened beyond belief. ‘You can’t go in there!’ We were lying entangled, at the foot of the door. It started to open wider and we tumbled forwards. Grabbing Rahul’s ankle, I managed to fire off two lines of the poem.
I never turned to see who had been running along the corridor towards us.
We arrived in a heap on Rahul’s bedroom floor. A moment later, the door was flung open. Light streamed into the bedroom.
‘Rahul! What is it?’ Mr Prahibar stood at the entrance. Rahul wiped his face with the back of his hand, struggled up, and fell into his father’s arms.
‘I think he’s had a bad dream,’ I said.
‘I heard a thump on the floor,’ said Mr Prahibar.
‘And fell out of bed too,’ I added, lamely.
His dad looked at him kindly.
‘What was your dream, son?’
‘Dad,’ Rahul started sobbing again. ‘I dreamed that I w-was at the hospital where my older brother was b-b-born, and you and Mum and all our family were there. And…you were h-h-holding, w-w-were holding—’
Rahul’s dad hushed him, and Rahul fell silent, except for the sobs that were racking his body.
‘Rahul and I will go downstairs, Toby. I’m sorry that you’ve been involved in all this. Come on, Rahul,’ Mr Prahibar was saying as they left. ‘Let’s talk about this dream you had.’
I crawled back into bed. What had I done? Jim was right. The gift of time travel was not meant for others. All sorts of worries and problems swi
rled round in my head. The light coming through from the partly open door lit up the Wisden on the floor. I got out of bed, kicked the door shut then shoved the Wisden under the bed. It thudded into the wall.
Nowadays, cricket pitches are covered, prepared, and looked after with great care. But 100 years ago, things were quite different. In a 1910 game between Victoria and South Australia, with a particularly wet wicket, the match was delayed when a frog appeared from a crack in the pitch.
19 The Letter
Monday—morning
AT breakfast the following morning it was as though nothing had happened. Rahul greeted me with a formal handshake. His eyes met mine.
‘Thank you, Toby. It was a gift from heaven. I shall not ask you again. Ever. I promise.’ He smiled.
‘How’d it go with your dad last night?’
‘Very good. I sort of knew bits and pieces about what happened, but Dad had never fully explained everything. He said the time would come. I think it was good for him too. He found it difficult. He was crying too. But it is the best thing to have happened.’
‘Does he know about—you know, the time—’
‘No. The dream was an excellent idea.’
‘It just came into my head,’ I said. ‘You tell me about it—one day. Okay?’
Rahul looked down at his shoes, then back to me. ‘Yes. I will. But not yet. And we’ll take Dean Jones’ word for it that he went to hospital, eh, Toby?’
Monday—afternoon
After school I headed up to my room. I flicked on my desk light, hit ‘play’ on the CD player and started thinking.
I’d had an idea ticking over in my head. If I could somehow convince Jimbo’s dad to change his mind about not letting Jimbo play cricket, then maybe I could get Jimbo onto the team. Surely Jimbo’d want that. But how would I do it? How can you change someone’s mind?
I lay on the bed staring at my cricket posters, thinking about Jimbo and his dad. My mind wandered to his house. The hall…
Then suddenly it came to me. I shot up off the bed, my heart racing. The hall! The cricket kit! The kit that Mr Temple was putting in the garage sale. If I could get back to the game when Mr Temple was hit, and sneak a letter into his kit—a letter that would convince him to change his mind about his attitude to cricket—then maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t notice the letter for all those years that he didn’t play cricket. Until, one day…
I shoved things off my desk and grabbed a piece of paper. I would have to type it. But I’d write a draft first.
Fifteen minutes later I had written a rough copy. I put it aside and headed downstairs for a snack. On the way a thought struck. What if the cricket kit had already been sold? Weren’t garage sales usually on a Saturday morning? I hoped it was next weekend. I already had a plan to get Jimbo’s dad looking in the kit.
Monday—evening
This time I would be travelling alone. I was going to head back to the same park that Jimbo and I had visited. With any luck the creepy guy in the long cloak with the scary voice and the nasty smell wouldn’t be there. Jim had said that solo travel was safer.
I told Dad I was going to do a bit more cleaning up in the garage.
‘And don’t come in until I tell you, Dad. I want it to be a surprise.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ he called from the kitchen. ‘You’ve got as long as you like!’
I managed to arrive a lot earlier this time, and walked to the park. I kept out of the way too, shielded by a clump of trees on the far side of the oval.
I waited patiently. Life here felt gentle. There were birds and dogs and empty spaces. The picnic rugs were out, and people were pouring drinks and opening up containers of sandwiches. As I sat there, enjoying the peace, it occurred to me that there was cricket happening all around the world, and every game, every situation, was different.
As the moment drew near, I started to focus more on the game. I looked at the envelope. I took out the sheet of paper and read it one more time.
You made a decision. And given what happened to you, it was perfectly understandable. But now it is time to give someone you love the opportunity to play the game he loves. And display the skills that, being your son, he surely must possess.
I folded the sheet back into the envelope and sealed it. I made my way down to where the players were mingling. Some had left. I hunted around for the cricket bag with the initials R.T. on it. It was right in among the players, who were moving around.
Don’t meddle, talk, nor interfere
With the lives of those you venture near.
I stopped in my tracks. The words had suddenly come into my head. I looked about, half-expecting someone close by to be telling me the poem. But no one was paying any attention to me. As quickly as the words had come, they were gone.
Without another thought I moved over to the bag. I bent down. A Gray Nicholls bat lay across the top of it.
‘You looking for something?’ A voice called behind me. I turned. One of the players had noticed me down near the kit.
‘Um, no. I saw this fall out when the bat was thrown onto the kit,’ I said, showing him the envelope. ‘I was just going to put it back.’ He stared at me then shrugged.
‘Hang on. I’ll grab Richard’s stuff and you can pack it all in properly.’
He came back a moment later with pads, gloves, a thigh pad, protector and a cap. There was blood on it.
‘Good man,’ he said. Carefully, I placed the gear into the bag. I slipped the letter down, resting it between the bat and the side of the bag.
I did up the straps.
It could be opened that night. Or maybe, not for years. I got up and walked away, not looking back. When I had reached a tree about 20 metres away, I turned. No one seemed to be paying any attention to the kitbag, or to me.
But for every word that boasts ahead
Means lives unhinged, broken, dead.
Seven batters have recorded over 10,000 Test runs in their careers. Sachin Tendulkar (11,821), Rahul Dravid (10,122) and Ricky Ponting (10,099) are still playing. Brian Lara (11,953), Allan Border (11,174), Steve Waugh (10,927) and Sunil Gavaskar (10,122) are the other players
20 The Wisden
Wednesday—afternoon
I knew Mr Pasquali collected old cricket stuff, so I gave him a call and told him I’d seen a complete cricket kit including a Gray Nicholls bat, maybe 25 years old. I gave him Jimbo’s address and told him to check it out.
After that I made the decision—no more time travelling. I would go and see Jim in hospital and tell him it was over. I had tried a few times to get through on the phone. Then finally, on the Wednesday, they told me that he had gone.
‘What do you mean—gone?’ I asked.
‘Who am I speaking to?’ the lady at the hospital asked.
I covered the mouthpiece, and tried to explain to Dad as quickly as I could what was going on. Dad took the phone.
‘I’m a friend of Jim’s, and we’re wondering how he is, that’s all.’
Dad listened for a moment, said a few ‘I sees’, then hung up.
‘Strange,’ he said. ‘They’re not exactly certain what’s happened. Seems he’s just taken himself off. Evidently he’s done this once or twice before. They’re working on it.’
I must have been looking worried.
‘Hey, Toby, I know how you feel, but it’s not really our problem.’
‘Dad, if it’s not our problem, and if it’s not anyone else’s problem, then there’s an old sick man alone somewhere, maybe in trouble.’
‘Hmm. So what would you have us do?’
‘I want to just check out one thing.’ I hit redial and passed Dad the phone. ‘Ask them if there’s a fat book lying open next to his bed. A Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack.’
‘What? You do it!’ Dad said, thrusting the phone back at me. ‘I’m not going to ring just to ask a question like that.’
I asked for Jim’s room number. A few moments later the same sharp voice came on the line. I sh
oved the phone back at Dad. At least she would listen to him.
‘Hello, Peter Jones here. We spoke before. Um, look, it might seem a silly question really, but I was just wondering whether, ah, there was a book, a fat book, next to Jim’s bed?’
‘Open!’ I said, loudly.
‘An open, fat book,’ Dad added, giving me a pained look. He made a face at me. I smiled, giving him a little punch on the shoulder.
‘There is? Really? Right, well, thank you—’
I grabbed the phone. ‘Excuse me. This is really important. Please,’ I begged. ‘Can you tell me the year of the book and the page number that it’s open to? Please! Maybe there was a bookmark—’
The phone clicked.
I love my dad so much—20 minutes later we were striding through the entrance to the Simpson Hospital. We raced up the stairs to Jim’s room.
‘We’ve just come to collect that book. It’s important to Mr Oldfield,’ Dad added.
‘Suit yourself. You can take his bag of belongings too. I put the book back on the bedside table,’ she added.
Both beds had been made, and the room was empty.
‘1931,’ I whispered.
‘What’s that?’ Dad asked.
‘Maybe we could check the library at the MCG. Jim could be there.’
‘Okay, but if he’s not there, we’d better let someone else do the searching.’
‘Like the police?’
He nodded. ‘Like the police.’
While we were in the hospital we paid a quick visit to Martian too. He’d been given the all-clear and was coming out of hospital the next day.
‘When will you be able to play cricket again?’ I asked.
He looked across at his dad, who was sitting on the bed next to him.
‘Not sure. But it won’t be too long, I hope,’ Ivo replied.
