Changing Yesterday

by Sean McMullen

  Daniel took Barry firmly by the arm and dragged him in the direction of the door.

  ‘Hurry now, Barold, the train to Calais is leaving soon and we don’t want to miss it,’ said Daniel.

  ‘But I gotta –’

  ‘Au revoir, Monsieur Constable, and thank you for being so understanding,’ Daniel called over his shoulder as they reached the door.

  They set off along the busy street at a brisk pace, with Daniel still grasping Barry’s arm.

  ‘Now why’s ya in such a hurry?’ asked Barry as they crossed the street, dodging wagons, carriages and bicycles. ‘There’s stuff missin’ from me bag.’

  ‘Barry, we are wanted in Marseilles for armed robbery and about a dozen other charges.’

  ‘So wot? This is Paris.’

  ‘Have you heard of a thing called the telegraph? It’s only a matter of time before –’

  Police whistles suddenly shrilled out in the distance behind them. Barry tried to run, but Daniel held his arm even more firmly.

  ‘We gotta run!’ cried Barry.

  ‘The gendarmes will be looking for two boys who are running, so we must not run. Over here, stop at this magazine stand and start browsing.’

  ‘Oh jeez!’ exclaimed Barry as he caught sight of a rack of postcards featuring women wearing nothing at all. ‘Look at all them artistic French postcards.’

  Several gendarmes came running past as Daniel and Barry stood with their backs to the street.

  ‘Time to move on, Barry, but walk slowly and don’t look nervous.’

  ‘Wait up,’ said Barry, turning to the vendor and holding up a selection of postcards. ‘Oi, froggo, how muchie for these postie cardies?’

  The man stared blankly at Barry.

  ‘C’est combien, monsieur?’ asked Daniel, adding two newspapers to Barry’s cards.

  The vendor held up seven fingers. Daniel paid. They set off again.

  ‘Why’d ya buy two papers?’ asked Barry. ‘I can’t read frog an’ I don’t like newspapers anyway.’

  ‘They are for hiding behind.’

  ‘Oh. Well, it’s not gonna do us much good. The cops are gonna be watchin’ the trains to that Callay place after ya blabbed about it in the copper shop.’

  ‘That was deliberate. While the police watch the trains to Calais, we shall go to Cherbourg instead. The Channel Islands are close to Cherbourg. They are British territory, and we can bribe some fisherman to take us there.’

  ‘So wot? The British coppers want us, too.’

  ‘I doubt that the officials on the Channel Islands will be on the lookout for us yet. From there we can take another boat to Portsmouth.’

  ‘So wot’s to do in England, then?’ asked Barry.

  ‘Avoid the police, and anyone by the name of Lang or Ashdayle-Potter,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Ashdayle-Potter?’

  ‘Mother’s family. The Potters made a fortune from ceramics in Coalbrookdale about a hundred years ago, then married into an aristocratic family, the Ashdayles.’

  ‘So why aren’t your folks rich?’

  ‘They are rich, Barry. How else could I be sent to Britain first class? My father married one of the daughters in 1880 while working in Coalbrookdale as an accountant.’

  ‘So we give this Coalbrook place the swerve?’

  ‘We give it a very wide swerve. My grandmother lives there.’

  ‘So wot we gonna do?’

  ‘Some of Mother’s more distant relatives have a very isolated estate in the Lake District. They’re the original Ashdayles, and Mother only writes to them every Christmas.’

  ‘If we go there we’ll be in trouble at Christmas.’

  ‘Christmas is months away.’

  ‘Oh. So they won’t know the coppers are after us?’

  ‘No. We can hide there until things quieten down.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I might go on to Glasgow and learn to be a ship’s engineer.’

  ‘Thought you’d had enough of ships. I never wanna see another bleedin’ ship as long as I live.’

  ‘I quite like ships,’ said Daniel. ‘Besides, I think I’d better get used to a life at sea, never settling down in case someone checks my past.’

  ‘So ya been cured of wantin’ that daft Muriel Baker?’ asked Barry.

  ‘I certainly have.’

  ‘But wot if –’

  ‘I never want to see her again, Barry, leave it at that.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘She’s a monster. All I did was explain to her what happened to Fox when we saved the world, yet she screamed at me, called me a murderer, threw all those plates and bottles at me, hit me with a chair, then ran out into the street and dragged a gendarme in to arrest me.’

  ‘And me.’

  ‘Would you still be in love with a girl like that?’

  ‘I’d never be in love with the baggage in the first place. So ya don’t wanna die heroical neither?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  Daniel had learned his lesson, although it had been at a rather high cost. He had not even wanted to get Muriel back by the time he had visited her earlier that day, but he had wanted to show her that he was no longer the awkward boy who she had abandoned for Fox three months earlier. That was a matter of pride, and the plan had seemed harmless enough. He had forgotten that she might be a little distraught, and even irrational, after watching Fox gradually fading for a week, then vanishing completely. Still, he had seen her again, and amid all the hysterics Daniel had been convinced that he no longer had any feelings for her.

  Daniel and Barry paused here and there to buy different-looking clothes as they made their way across Paris. Soon Barry was again dressed as a little boy, and Daniel was wearing a herringbone coat and hat, and pretending to be his father.

  Although Daniel did not know it, something else was now different within him. Neither Barry nor Liore were still the pivots upon which the direction of history had changed. Because he had chosen to confront Baroness Featherington instead of smashing the disruptor, Daniel was now that pivot, and his life would never be the same again. Wherever he went, weirdness and change would follow him. Although he would one day be a ship’s engineer, it would be on a ship with engines such as this world had never seen.