Changing Yesterday

by Sean McMullen

  Barry turned into Liore’s street, and located her house. It had a picket fence and two gates. An elderly, bad-tempered black Labrador patrolled the front yard. It took an instant dislike to Barry and directed a barrage of asthmatic woofs at him.

  ‘Just my luck,’ he muttered. ‘Almost got me hands on the most powerful weapon in the world, yet I’m stopped by a bleedin’ dog.’

  The situation was not encouraging. In order to even knock at the front door, he had to get past the dog.

  ‘Barry Porter?’ said a voice behind him.

  Barry literally jumped with fright, then turned. Liore had come up behind him in absolute silence, like a cat stalking a mouse. She was dressed as a rather more respectable boy today, like Daniel when he was not in school uniform. She was now attending lectures at the University of Melbourne after passing some special test. Apparently they did not wear uniforms there.

  ‘I, er, come to see ya,’ he babbled.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was gonna go in an’ tell ya something, but the dog don’t like me so I couldn’t go knock on the door.’

  ‘Wellington, stand down,’ she said, reaching over the gate and scratching the dog behind the ears. ‘Wellington’s bark, alerts landlady.’

  While Liore was able to speak normally, she had recently been using the combat language, battlespeak, nearly all the time. It was as if she were on a battlefield, continually on alert.

  ‘Well the bleedin’ dog’s been barkin’, but she never come out.’

  ‘Saturday morning, is shopping. Well?’

  ‘Well wot?’

  ‘Yourself, here. Why?’

  Yeah, why am I ’ere? screamed in Barry’s mind. This is Liore, an’ she’s from the future, an’ girls are tougher than friggin’ prizefighters in the future, an’ they kill spies, but first they do horrible things to their tenderest anatomicals, an’ – an’ why am I ’ere?

  ‘Oh! Er, yeah, it’s Danny boy,’ Barry suddenly remembered. ‘Ya gotta go see Danny, he’s real bad.’

  ‘Accident?’ asked Liore, her eyes widening. ‘Details, trans?’

  ‘Nah, it’s that daft baggage, Muriel Baker. She’s given Danny boy the big heave an’ run off to Paris with Fox.’

  ‘Fox? Paris?’ said Liore sharply. ‘When?’

  ‘Well I only found out this mornin’ when Emily come lookin’ for me. She said –’

  ‘Room, must check. Barry Porter, fall in!’

  Liore led Barry to the side gate. The dog growled at Barry.

  ‘Bike! Guard!’ said Liore, pointing to Barry’s bike.

  The dog had apparently learned to obey orders when they came from Liore, so it seated itself beside the delivery bike that Barry had borrowed from North Brighton Station.

  Liore took Barry down a path beside the house. She lived in a former servant’s room built at the back of the house. The door opened onto the backyard, so that she could come and go as she pleased along the side path without disturbing the landlady. The girl from the future unlocked the door and they went inside.

  It was the neatest room that Barry had ever seen. There was a bed, a cupboard, a chest of drawers, a cast-iron stove, a table and a chair. The only personal item visible in the room was a trunk beside the table. Its lid was secured with a padlock. Liore dropped to one knee beside it and took out a key.

  ‘Penalty, death, for desertion,’ said Liore coldly. ‘Equipment, must check.’

  Just then someone knocked at the door. It was the landlady, back from her shopping.

  ‘Oi, Master Liore, a lad called Fox left a parcel for ya yesterday.’

  ‘Mrs O’Brien, my thanks,’ said Liore, standing up.

  ‘I got it in the kitchen, come along.’

  Liore looked down at Barry for a moment, as if making up her mind about something.

  ‘Barry Porter, stay here, returning soon,’ she said. She closed her eyes and added softly, ‘By your leave, speaking courtly,’ before walking out.

  Liore was barely out of the door when Barry opened his bag, took out his pickwires and got to work on the padlock on her trunk. It was a new lock, and a challenge to open. Just as it yielded to his pickwires, Barry heard Liore thanking the landlady. He lifted the lid, caught a glimpse of the deadly plasma weapon, and then frantically set about locking the trunk again. The padlock was just as stubborn about being locked as it was about being picked open. By the time he had it locked again Barry only had a moment to turn around and sit on the trunk before Liore stepped through the door. The pickwires were concealed in his hand. She now looked a lot less alarmed. She also noticed that Barry’s bag was open.

  ‘Your bag is open,’ she said suspiciously.

  ‘Er, I were just takin’ stock.’

  ‘If you have taken any of my stock, I shall kill you.’

  ‘Barry’s bag got lots of things that people want,’ said Barry defensively. ‘That’s why I gotta check it. Stuff gets nicked if I leave it for even a minute.’

  ‘Get a padlock, like mine. Five shillings at Wentworth’s, unless you want to take your chances and steal one.’

  Barry put his hand into the bag and placed the pickwires inside as he pretended to check the contents.

  ‘Artistic postcards, rubber medicals, baccy tins, handbooks of an improvin’ nature, yeah, it’s all ’ere.’

  ‘And pickwires?’

  ‘Yeah, they’re okay –’ For a moment Barry nearly lost his bladder control, but he forced himself to stay calm. ‘Oi, how’d ya know about them?’ he asked offhandedly.

  ‘I am a battle commander. I know everything.’

  ‘Yeah, well ya didn’t know about Fox and Muriel.’

  ‘Fox left a parcel,’ said Liore, ignoring the comment.

  The brown paper parcel contained a uniform, a pair of boots, a small, sleek black box, a pen with no nib, several coins and some other oddments that Barry did not recognise. It was everything that Fox had brought from the future, and he had done the honourable thing by leaving them with Liore before fleeing to Paris with Muriel.

  ‘I must secure all this,’ said Liore. ‘Barry, out.’

  Barry stepped outside and looked down the side path. The dog was still guarding his bike, but after one glance at Barry it decided that the bike needed to be defended from whoever he was. With another barrage of woofs it began an arthritic charge along the path beside the house.

  ‘There’s a savage dog –’ began Barry, banging on Liore’s door.

  Liore flung the door open just as the dog arrived.

  ‘Wellington, friend!’ she said firmly to the dog,holding Barry off the ground by his coat collar with one hand and pointing at him with the other.

  ‘Er, g’day, Wellington,’ said Barry.

  The dog was clearly still suspicious, but accepted that if Liore trusted Barry, then Barry was not to be bitten. She put Barry down and went back inside. Barry waited for some agonisingly long seconds, but Liore found nothing amiss with her trunk as she added what Fox had given her to the contents. She was smiling enigmatically as she stepped outside.

  ‘Fall in,’ she said as she walked for the bike.

  ‘So we’re goin’ to see Danny boy now?’

  ‘Espionage first, Daniel second.’

  Barry sat in the bike’s delivery basket as they left the house and set off down Union Street. He was unusually quiet as they made the trip to Carlisle Street, where Muriel’s mother had an artists’ supply shop. Like a true professional, Barry was recalling every detail that he could remember of Liore’s room. Now that he knew where the PR-17 weapon was hidden, it was only a matter of stealing it without getting killed, then handing it over to a buyer.

  By Saturday afternoon Daniel had still not eaten anything. He remained in his school uniform, sitting on the edge of his bed. Downstairs Emily and her parents held a family conference over lunch, and then went upstairs to confront Daniel.

  Mrs Lang had decided that self-discipline was what Daniel needed, so she shouted at him to pull himself together.
Daniel ignored her. It was Emily’s turn next, and her theory was that Muriel Baker was not worth crying over, and that he should come out to tea parties with her and meet some more socially suitable girls. Daniel did not so much as blink. Mr Lang asked just who this Muriel Baker was, and if she was from a good family. Emily explained that she was Daniel’s secret sweetheart, Emily’s worst enemy at school, and the daughter of an artist.

  ‘An artist!’ exclaimed Mrs Lang, scandalised. ‘That will never do.’

  Mr Lang decided that the nonsense had gone far enough, and that some even louder old-fashioned shouting would clear the air.

  ‘Daniel Lang, if you will not stop this nonsense at once you can get out of this house!’ he thundered, like a vicar preaching about hellfire and damnation.

  Daniel stood slowly, straightened, and walked out of the room.

  ‘Daniel, come back here at once!’ shouted Mrs Lang.

  As Daniel walked down the stairs, Emily suddenly realised that he might be doing the very thing that she did when all else had failed: causing extreme and excruciating embarrassment. There was something about the way he was walking, something grim and purposeful.

  ‘Daniel, come back this instant!’ shouted Mr Lang, setting off after him. ‘I’m the head of this house; you will do what I say! I paid for everything you think is yours, I own every stitch of clothing on your body.’

  Daniel had reached the front door. He stopped, and then proceeded to strip off his school uniform. Mrs Lang, who was on the stairs, screamed and collapsed onto her husband. Both of them tumbled down the remaining length of the staircase. Emily had been following. Stepping over her parents, she ran to the back of the house to fetch the maid and groom.

  Leaving Martha to attend her parents, Emily dashed out of the front door with John. Daniel was sitting in the gutter in front of their house, as naked as the day he was born. It was Saturday morning so people were out and about. At least a dozen neighbours had gathered to stare. Emily and the groom stopped to stare as well. Mr and Mrs Lang now limped through the front door, both leaning on Martha. At the sight of Daniel, Martha screamed and fainted, bringing the Langs down with her.

  Emily forced herself into action.

  ‘John, attend me!’ she called to the groom.

  Emily and John walked down the garden path and out into the street. Emily stared down the neighbours, her hands on her hips.

  ‘My brother is suffering from a fever, and has been sleepwalking,’ she improvised. ‘Do nothing to wake him. It is very harmful to wake sleepwalkers.’

  John took Daniel under the arms and Emily took his legs. Together they carried Daniel back into the house and into the bathroom. There he was placed in a tub, and Emily carried in hot water while John hurried off to fetch a doctor.

  Not only had Daniel broken Mr Lang’s resolve, he had shattered it and jumped up and down on the pieces. Mrs Lang was made of sterner stuff, and she managed to rally. As long as there was someone to blame, she could cope. Her husband was definitely worthy of blame.

  ‘You own every stitch of Danny’s clothing, do you?’ she shouted as the family gathered in the bathroom around Daniel. ‘You will go straight to your study and write out a deed that grants Daniel legal ownership of all his clothing, everything in his room, and fifty pounds.’

  ‘But my dear –’

  ‘One hundred pounds!’

  ‘I was only –’

  ‘Two hundred pounds!’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes, I’m going now,’ whimpered Mr Lang as he hurried out.

  ‘And as for you, Emily, for a girl of sixteen that was a most admirable display of quick thinking, out on the street, with the neighbours and with Daniel. You certainly did not get that sort of backbone from your father’s side of the family.’

  Daniel had been bathed, dried, put into his nightshirt and taken back up to his bedroom by the time Liore and Barry arrived. Because the Langs believed Liore to be a boy from an aristocratic family, and because they also believed that aristocrats were a superior type of species, Mr and Mrs Lang were sure that Liore could help. Their feelings for Barry were quite the opposite, but he was a friend of Daniel’s and he was with Liore, so he was allowed in as well. Emily showed them upstairs to Daniel’s bedroom.

  ‘By your leave, speaking courtly,’ said Liore as she entered.

  ‘Sorry, what do you mean?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Yeah, ya don’t have to ask me to do nothin’,’ added Barry.

  ‘The apology is a formal declaration that common classes must use when speaking to the nobility in courtly language.’

  ‘But those nobles are a hundred years in the future,’ said Emily. ‘Why use it when speaking to us?’

  ‘It is a little convention that reminds me of who I am. Your time, your world, your society, none of them are mine. My world was horrible, but it was familiar. I feel that I am losing my identity, so I try to follow old rules and standards. They remind me of who I am.’

  ‘You shouldn’t feel that way,’ began Emily.

  ‘Enough, I am not the one in need of help,’ said Liore impatiently. ‘Daniel, I am told that Muriel jilted you.’

  ‘I’se warned ya ’bout that Muriel baggage,’ added Barry, who had never liked Muriel and had trouble coping with girls in general. ‘Don’t trust ’er, says I, she’ll make ya betray the Empire for a smile.’

  Daniel said nothing. Emily sat beside him and put an arm around his shoulders. She was not used to being sympathetic to anyone, however, and so was unsure of what to say. She looked imploringly to Liore. She was a Battle Commander from 2011, and would know what to do.

  ‘I have conducted some espionage,’ Liore said to Daniel. ‘I visited Muriel’s mother. After that I broke into the journal cache of Fox’s radiocomm.’

  Liore held up a smooth, black thing about the size of a cigar case. Like her weapon, it would not be built for another century.

  ‘Thought that thing were a telegraph wi’out wires,’ said Barry.

  For a moment Liore searched for common words.

  ‘It is also a notebook, calendar, diary, encyclopaedia, motion picture camera, phonograph and … other things. Fox deleted his diary before he returned this unit, but I am an officer. I have access to the Lazarus buffer, so I can restore his deletions.’

  ‘Lazarus buffer?’ asked Emily.

  ‘It restores deleted records to life.’

  Liore touched a number of coloured studs with letters and numbers on them, then held the unit up.

  ‘Twelve May, attended art lesson, Muriel Baker, invitation,’ came Fox’s voice from the radiocomm. ‘Subject, nude sketching, one hour. Made progress.’

  Liore pressed a stud and the voice stopped. For a moment there was no sound at all in the bedroom, apart from the grinding of Emily’s teeth.

  ‘Continue playback?’ Liore asked.

  Emily and Barry nodded together. Daniel did not move. Liore pressed the stud again.

  ‘Thirteen May, attended art lesson, Muriel, conducting,’ continued Fox. ‘Subject, nude sketching. Duration, one hour. Then talked. Two hours. Muriel said, soul mates, we are. I asked, of Daniel. She said, his soul, is wasteland. Fourteen May, attended art lesson, Muriel, conducting. Subject, nude sketching, one hour. Then talked, five hours. Did also –’

  ‘Enough!’ exclaimed Daniel.

  Liore keyed the radiocomm silent.

  ‘Aw, Danny boy,’ protested Barry. ‘He was up to the good bit.’

  ‘The devious trollop,’ said Emily. ‘Only five days earlier she was saying she loved Daniel.’

  ‘I also visited Mrs Baker,’ said Liore. ‘I said I was a friend of Fox’s, and needed his address in Paris because I was going there. She gave me the address. She also gave me these.’

  Liore held up a sketch. It was a very faithful rendering of Muriel lying back on a lounge chair and wearing nothing but a rose behind her left ear. Daniel’s jaw dropped open. Emily gasped, blushed, put a hand to her forehead and considered fainting, then decided against
it.

  ‘The wanton baggage!’ she said through clenched teeth.

  ‘Give ya two bob for it!’ exclaimed Barry eagerly.

  ‘Dated, twelfth May,’ said Liore.

  ‘The faithless …’ Emily trawled her memory for some suitably abusive word, but being from a sheltered background could manage only, ‘Hussy!’

  ‘Fox has a good way with shading and texture,’ said Daniel in a hollow, helpless voice, staring at the sketch.

  ‘I do believe she looks a little plump,’ said Emily contemptuously.

  ‘Daniel, was there a problem of the heart between Muriel and yourself, before the, ah, art lesson?’ asked Liore.

  Daniel hung his head and clasped his hands together very tightly.

  ‘Two days after we – we saved parliament from being bombed, Muriel asked …’ Daniel’s voice cracked.

  ‘Try to speak in a detached manner,’ said Emily. ‘Speak without feeling, as if you were Barry.’

  ‘Now just a minute!’ began Barry.

  ‘Silence!’ commanded Emily.

  Daniel took several deep breaths.

  ‘Muriel asked if I would like to learn about being an artist. We had been boating that day, and I was walking her home. I said that I had done some sketching at school but would like to learn more. She has a room over her mother’s shop, so we went there and she gave me a sketch pad and a charcoal pencil. Then she went behind a screen to change. I thought she was getting into a costume, but she came out wearing nothing at all.’

  ‘Blimey!’ exclaimed Barry.

  ‘I – I snatched up a coverlet from her bed and held it between us. I told her that we should not tempt ourselves to do shameful things, even in the name of art.’

  ‘Bravo!’ cried Emily.

  ‘Then wot?’ asked Barry, sounding disappointed.

  ‘She snatched the coverlet from me, threw it on the floor and told me to get out. On the following Tuesday I called at the shop after school but it was closed.’