Changing Yesterday

by Sean McMullen

  ‘Your sister, means well,’ said Liore.

  ‘But she can’t stop nagging.’

  ‘Her downfall, it is.’

  ‘She tries to hold people too tightly, then wonders why they slip through her fingers.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Liore, you’re using battlespeak again.’

  ‘By your leave, speaking courtly.’

  ‘And you don’t have to apologise for speaking normally.’

  ‘Daniel, try to understand me. My world is over a hundred years in the future. I am finding it harder and harder to . . . to maintain discipline over myself. I have to play games with myself, like pretending that people like you and Emily are the nobility, and that I must apologise formally before I speak what I know as courtly to you. Little rituals like that are all that I have to remind me of who I am.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. Now Daniel, the Century War may start while you are studying in Britain. If Britain is invaded, you can never return to Australia.’

  ‘With luck I may die in the invasion,’ said Daniel.

  ‘I have given you my warning. Lockdown?’

  ‘Lockdown,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Goodbye, Daniel Lang. Try to stay out of the House of Death.’

  Because Liore was dressed as a boy, they had to part as boys. They shook hands, and Daniel heard something pop among his metacarpals as he tried to squeeze back against her grip. Suddenly he felt that he should leave Liore on a more positive note.

  ‘Liore, will I ever see you again?’ he asked as they drew apart. ‘I mean, I rather like having you around.’

  Even as he spoke the words Daniel felt as if he were betraying Muriel, yet he wanted to at least try to be nice to Liore. Apart from Muriel, she was the only girl he had ever liked.

  Liore smiled, but shook her head.

  ‘Unlikely,’ she said, then turned away and hurried down the gangway as the ship’s horn gave its final warning.

  She is like a wild fox that has learned to trust me, thought Daniel as he gazed after her. She is so dangerous, and even though I enjoy her company, it is a relief to have her gone.

  Daniel remembered to go to the place on the promenade deck that his father had pointed out. The Langs were gathered at a particular bollard on the opposite side of the pier, all waving red handkerchiefs. Daniel even noticed that his mother and sister were dabbing at their eyes from time to time. He could not see Liore.

  Suddenly Daniel realised that the ship was already moving. He waved. Barry had, of course, not put in an appearance. Probably trying to talk his way out of some police station, thought Daniel. The wind blew a plume of sooty smoke from one of the tugs between the ship and the pier. By the time it had cleared, Daniel was no longer able to distinguish anyone. He stayed on the promenade deck to get a photograph of Brighton Beach as the ship steamed past some minutes later, but to his surprise he found that the bayside suburbs looked rather like bushland when seen from a ship, and that nothing was familiar. Daniel decided that if he could not identify Brighton Beach with his own eyes, his family would not be able to do any better with a photograph posted home. He snapped off a picture, then returned to his cabin.

  Daniel felt decidedly cheered, not because he was at the beginning of a great adventure, but because he had six weeks of peace and solitude ahead of him. Six weeks to dream about his lost love, and six weeks of not being shouted at and told to pull himself together. Six weeks of not being a schoolboy, and not going to classes at all. After that, he still had the two hundred pounds from his father. That would be more than enough to get him from London to Paris.

  Once in Paris, I shall challenge Fox to a duel, Daniel decided. He shall kill me, and Muriel shall know that I died of my love for her.

  Just over two hours later the ship passed through the Heads at the south of Port Phillip Bay. Daniel had been hoping to see the fortifications at Point Nepean, but the cannons installed there were in low, squat blockhouses, and did not look at all impressive. On the other side of the Heads, his favourite holiday town, Queenscliff, was only visible as a few buildings on the horizon. Daniel concluded that views from the ship were always going to be pretty uninteresting, and that he was in for a very boring voyage.

  Once the Andromeda was clear of the Heads and steaming into Bass Strait, things became anything but boring. Although the sky was clear, a rolling swell had been generated by a distant storm. The swell was strong enough to make even the ten thousand ton Andromeda wallow and pitch as it made its way west to Adelaide, its last port of call in Australia.

  At first Daniel thought that he was handling the motion of the ship very well, and that a vessel in rough water was no worse than a fairground ride. He soon realised that a fairground ride seldom lasted more than a few minutes, and that one could get off. It was not at all like a rowboat’s rocking, because one had a feeling of falling for several seconds, then one was suddenly heaved upwards very sharply. This sensation was entirely new to Daniel, and it was very unpleasant. He tried staring at the coastline. He tried to tell himself that he enjoyed the motion. He tried thinking of Muriel kissing him. He imagined himself duelling with Fox. Nothing worked. At last he made the worst mistake of all.

  ‘It’s going to be like this all the way to England,’ he whispered to himself.

  That thought was too much for Daniel. Gripped by nausea, he leaned over a rail and threw up his going-away breakfast before he realised that a lower deck, and not the ocean, was directly below. A cry of outrage floated up to him, and he collided with a steward as he hurriedly turned away. The steward guided him to a bathroom.

  Chapter 3

  PHOTOGRAPH

  Barry knew that Liore would be gone for a long time because she was seeing Daniel off. According to Daniel, Emily had invited Liore to lunch after the ship had left, so she was likely to be away until at least mid-afternoon. It was a perfect time to steal the weapon, sell it to the king’s envoy, then hide the money and act innocent. He arrived in Liore’s street just after 2 pm, because he now knew that the landlady had a sleep after lunch. He tossed Wellington a cream bun before the dog had a chance to bark, opened the gate and wheeled his bicycle up the side path to Liore’s room. The lock on the door seemed to take forever to pick, but Mrs O’Brien apparently remained asleep and Wellington had forgotten about Barry by the time he had finished the cream bun. When the lock finally yielded to Barry, he took the bicycle inside and pulled the door shut.

  The padlock on the trunk still took a depressingly long time to pick, but finally Barry had the trunk open. He lifted the weapon out, placed it in his bag, then looked at the trunk’s other contents. He decided that if he stole everything, it would look like a random burglary. If only the weapon were missing,the finger of suspicion would be pointed at someone who knew the weapon’s value. Of the six people who knew that, two were in Paris, one was on a ship to London, and two more were seeing that person off. That left Barry.

  Nah, gotta make this look like a randomly, he thought as he emptied the trunk’s contents into his bag.

  He examined the radiocomm with suspicion. There was only one in the trunk, which meant Liore had the other. Thus she could locate this one if it were switched on. Recalling that her devices always had a little light to show that they were working, he checked it for glowing lights. Finding none, he put the radiocomm into his bag. Barry checked the drawers and cupboard again. In one of the drawers was a toy steam engine connected to something that looked electrical, some things with wires wound in coils, a few tools, a clasp knife, and a Bergmann automatic pistol.

  Reckon a burglar boy would take you two, he decided, then put the knife and gun into his bag.

  As a final touch, Barry put an identical padlock on Liore’s trunk and locked it with a key. His reasoning was that she would try to open it with her own key, assume the lock was broken when it failed to open, then call a locksmith. All that would take time, and would allow the trail leading to him to go cold.

&nb
sp; The dog was waiting outside when Barry emerged from the room.

  ‘Nice, er, Nelson,’ said Barry, reaching out to pat the dog.

  Wellington growled and snapped at his hand.

  ‘Nice Lancelot?’ ventured Barry.

  Wellington barked. Barry tossed his second cream bun to the dog. Wellington gulped it down as Barry tried to use his picklock to relock the door, but the dog started barking again before the door was secure.

  ‘Oh friggin’ hell, shut up, Galahad!’ shouted Barry desperately.

  Mrs O’Brien’s face appeared at the kitchen window, her mouth open with surprise. Barry instantly concluded that all was lost and decided to flee. Keeping the station bicycle between Wellington and himself, he hurried down the side path. He had just opened the gate when he heard, ‘Stop, thief !’ behind him. Barry dashed through the gate and pulled it shut. Mrs O’Brien appeared, holding a shotgun. She fired it into the air, and again shouted at him to stop. Fortunately the gun had only a single barrel. He leapt onto the bicycle and began pedalling frantically as she reloaded.

  Mrs O’Brien fired low, meaning to hit the back wheel of the bike where it was in contact with the road. Instead she hit the road about a yard behind the bike, showering Barry’s legs with dust and stones but doing no damage. This put the fear of death into the fleeing youth, who pedalled harder. By the time she had reloaded, Barry was around the corner. She opened the gate and told Wellington to go after him, but the elderly dog lumbered off in the wrong direction.

  Barry’s legs were burning with exertion as he reached North Brighton Station. He put the bike away, opened the door to the mail room, then froze. Luker the Lurker lay dead, a single bullet hole between his eyebrows.

  ‘Liore!’ exclaimed Barry, convinced that she was nearby. ‘Don’t shoot, they made me do it.’

  When Liore did not appear, Barry riffled through Luker’s pockets and found two pounds, then twisted the heel of one of his snakeskin boots. It popped off, and within the hollow was a gold coin. The other heel had a similar bonanza, and there was another five pounds hidden in his belt. Barry stole the belt, then paused to think.

  Liore was definitely nearby and trying to kill him. How to get away, and where to go? Barry had Luker’s money, and more money hidden in his bag. The fastest thing on earth was a train. Nothing could catch a train, especially over distance. The Adelaide Express would be leaving in an hour. Daniel’s ship would sail from Adelaide the very next day. Barry realised that if he could get onto the Adelaide Express, nobody could catch him before he could board the ship and go to England. There he could hand the weapon to the king in person.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ whimpered a voice from behind the counter.

  ‘Lurker the Worker!’ exclaimed Barry softly, as a pair of hands then a chubby face appeared. ‘What are you doing down there?’

  ‘Luker said to come here for a bit of easy profit. I just lay down back here for a little snooze, ’cause I came early, you know how it is, got all me weight to carry and so much work.’

  ‘What the frig happened to Luker?’

  ‘I heard his voice, and there was two coves with him. They asks where’s the other two traitors, an’ he says they orta be here by now. That weren’t good enough for them, ’cause I heard a bang and a thump. That was Luker gettin’ shot.’

  ‘That’s a bleedin’ obviously.’

  Somewhere in the distance there were raised voices. Barry put a finger to his lips.

  ‘That’s me old man!’ gasped Barry. ‘I gotta warn him.’

  Going out onto the platform with Lurker, Barry looked about. There were a dozen or so people waiting for the next train, and another three waiting at the ticket window. One of them held up his pocket watch.

  ‘I say, I’ve been waiting here for five minutes and forty seconds,’ was as far as the man got before there was a loud bang from the signal box.

  Barry turned in time to see a figure stagger backwards, burst through a window and plunge fifteen feet to the platform. A moment later two men and a woman dashed out of the door to the signal box and clattered down the stairs. Barry recognised Sir Bernard as the man with the gun. He fired two warning shots into the platform.

  ‘All of you, back!’ he shouted, then the woman clutched his arm and pointed.

  ‘There, the boy and the fat man!’ she exclaimed, her voice unmistakably that of Lady Conrad. ‘Lurker and Porter.’

  Bernard fired at Lurker, and the bullet removed his cap and a few strands of hair. There was a click as the pistol’s hammer came down on a spent shell.

  ‘Come on, hurry!’ said the other man.

  Lady Conrad and Bernard glared at Barry and Lurker for a moment more, then they jumped down onto the railway tracks, hurried to the street and made off in a carriage that yet another man was tending.

  Barry ran up to the body on the platform. There was a bullet hole at the centre of his forehead.

  ‘Dad, oh frig, Dad!’ exclaimed Barry, trying to comprehend that his father was dead.

  ‘Barry, mate, them’s rough coves,’ said Lurker behind him.

  ‘They killed Dad! Just like that.’

  ‘Reckon they’ll be back for us?’

  ‘That’s an obviously. Worker man, we gotta get west on Australia’s fastest wheels before that cove reloads and comes back.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m all for that.’

  ‘I say, shouldn’t someone call the police?’ asked the man from the ticket window, who was still holding his pocket watch.

  ‘Yeah, ya better do it now before they friggin’ escape!’ said Barry. ‘They murdered me dad.’

  The man hurried off. Barry considered going through his father’s pockets, but everyone on the platform was watching. Besides, the body was his father’s, after all, and even Barry had standards.

  ‘Can’t believe he’s friggin’ dead!’ squeaked Lurker. ‘I was havin’ a beer with him only lunchtime.’

  ‘An’ he’s me dad an’ all. I mean, he wasn’t much of a dad, but he was all I got.’

  ‘They shot him, just like that.’

  ‘We gotta leave,’ said Barry. ‘Go to London, tell the king important stuff.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Ya comin’?’

  ‘Me? See the king?’

  ‘Yeah! Ya gotta back up me story ’bout all the dynamite that was gonna be used to blow up parlyment.’

  ‘Yeah, but d’ya reckon we might ’ave to give back the money we sold it for?’

  ‘Worker my man, I reckon the king will give us both an extra hundred quid an’ a medal.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Besides, we gotta tell him ’bout those coves wot killed Dad so they can be strung up for murder.’

  ‘Yeah, and before they murder us.’

  ‘So we gotta go.’

  ‘Where?’

  Barry already had a plan in his mind as he led Lurker from the station platform. The Adelaide Express was leaving within the hour, and Daniel had said his ship was calling at Adelaide. Adelaide was a safe, distant place to wait for a ship. Daniel had told him his first-class ticket had cost his father seventy¬five pounds. He had asked if he could go second class and keep the extra fifty pounds, but his father had refused. Fifty from seventy-five was twenty-five pounds. That was probably enough to go to England second class, and Barry now had about that. If steerage tickets were correspondingly less, Lurker and he could sail together.

  Wreder the Writer was a clerk in the railways, and had a talent for forging documents and tickets in return for money or favours. Barry had enlisted Wreder to help with the theft of the dynamite intended for the bombing of parliament, and he had been given a share of the dynamite’s sale. He worked at Spencer Street Station, and this was where the train left for Adelaide. Barry was sure that he would jump at the chance to be involved in another such scheme.

  ‘We gotta get to Adelaide, but still have enough pay paper left to get tikkies on the ship,’ said Barry. ‘Ya reckon Wreder the Writer could do us a deal?’
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  ‘Reckon we could give him a couple o’ quid as a consideration, an’ say there was more in it for him if we swings a deal with the king,’ replied Lurker.

  ‘He’d never believe a couple of lads like us had anything the king would want.’

  ‘He would if we said it was about the explosion in Albury.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Reckon that’s proof. Come on, we gotta go to my place for some stuff – oh jeez no, them coves are probably waitin’ there! We gotta get to Spencer Street Station, and I got the mail bike ’ere.’

  ‘I can’t ride.’

  ‘Friggin’ hell, Worker man, then just sit on the bleedin’ seat an’ I’ll pedal.’

  Half a mile away the scene was very much less dramatic. Liore had been with the Lang family as they chased the departing Andromeda south in their carriage, waving and cheering, then they had turned inland to go home. Martha had laid the table for lunch, and in Daniel’s place a framed photograph of him stood between his neatly laid cutlery.

  Lunch was not free from drama. Mrs Lang burst into tears when the roast was served, because roast beef was a favourite of Daniel’s. After that the conversation took a turn for the worse. Emily began telling the company what she thought of artists in general and French artists in particular.

  ‘Muriel Baker, French?’ Mrs Lang asked.

  ‘She’s living in Paris and she’s an artist, so that makes her French,’ said Emily.

  ‘All that French frippery, that made her what she is!’ added Mrs Lang. ‘All that art and frilly French underwear, it isn’t decent.’

  ‘And it – it isn’t British,’ Mr Lang managed.

  ‘I don’t like that French impressionist painting style,’ said Emily. ‘It’s like looking through a telescope out of focus, it’s all blurry.’

  ‘British art is sharp and accurate, like a photo,’ said Mr Lang, turning in his seat to wave at a large painting. It featured a young woman asleep on a couch with a bible open in her hands while angels hovered above her.

  ‘It’s so much better than that French rubbish!’ snapped Emily.

  She pointed to a painting above the sideboard. It depicted some women dressed in white having a picnic on a rocky beach, with red cliffs in the background. It was definitely impressionist in style.