by Gill Mather
THE TRAIN BUMPED OVER SOME uneven rail or possibly a point and Orielle was jerked awake. Disoriented, she looked at her mobile to check the time and disappointingly found she’d only been asleep for about fifteen minutes. She decided to try and nod off again. With the motion of the train and the regular clack of the wheels on the rails, her thoughts became pleasantly muddled and soon she was half way between wakefulness and sleep. When her name was spoken, she imagined she was dreaming.
“Orielle,” the voice said, pleasantly deep. Quiet and soothing. Going back, going back. Back to a perfect time. Wafting on a pale pink, puffy fluffy cloud, soft and warm.
“Orie,” said the voice more urgently, cutting into her soporific state, prodding her bubble, bursting it, making the hairs stand up on the back of her neck and down her arms and legs. A shiver went through her. Slowly, she turned to look at the man to her left.
“Orielle,” he said again, looking at her, dark eyes intense. He had a thin face, slightly aquiline nose, dark hair a little long brushed back from his face, a few days’ growth of beard attractively framing his chin and mouth. The dark hair, eyes and skin went with the nose and low eyebrows giving a somewhat middle-eastern appearance.
Orielle was speechless. Surely it wasn’t possible. The voice was the same. Why hadn't she realised before? The features very similar if not the same though older. But the dark hair and skin made it difficult to tell. She had this picture in her head of her flaxen haired lover disappearing into an MRI scanner. Hairs were standing up on end all over her body now, goosebumps coming up, a reaction to alarm or cold designed to plump up the plumage or fur, to deter the attacker or hold in the heat. She was shaking and incapable of speech.
“I’ve come back over. I’ve come back to be with you. I’m better now but I’ve had to come back darker. The last time there was a flaw in the cross-over. That’s what caused the tumour.”
Still she said nothing. Just sat there gaping.
“I’m sorry I left like that. But I had to go back. They dragged me back. Otherwise I would have died and that would have been the end of everything. I’m sorry you’ve had to be so sad for so long.
“This time, I’ve made sure I’ve got documents. I’ve got a job Orie. In Newcastle where you live now. Lecturing in physics. Not quite so lucrative as asset management, but far more up my street. That’s all for now but if I work at it, I might end up with a professorship. I didn’t want to be a burden to you this time. I even rent a little flat and I'm learning to drive. Of course it's totally against my principles but it's necessary in this life. This world seems doomed to overstretch its resources." He smiled. "But still there are many other similar versions in which that won't happen. None of them hold you though. Not exactly you.”
He felt in his pocket and brought out a passport. A maroon British passport.
“Look.” He handed it to her and she scrutinised the details. It said:
“Tristram Banks” and gave as the date of birth the same date as her own. The place of birth given was Santa Cruz.
“There’s more than one Santa Cruz in the world, lots in fact. It may keep enquirers off the track for a decent time although the passport is perfectly legal. But a little manipulation was necessary. I know I spurned it before but this time, I had to.
“Orie. Say something.” But Orielle was still only able to stare. Paralysed.
The man took a deep breath, opened his mouth, used a finger to pull his lower lip down and showed her a chipped canine. Then he got up, took his coat off, sat down again and pulled up the left sleeve of his jumper to reveal a well healed three inch scar. Orielle gasped.
“Orielle. I love you. I’ve come back to be with you. You do still love me don’t you?”
“Yes,” she found herself saying, because of course she did still love Tristram, would always love him, whether real or in a dream.
“Could it really be?” she said quietly. “My love. Are you really back?” Her eyes were wet with tears. Her tough exterior fell away. The rather grubby railway carriage was suddenly infused with light, golden and celestial, the seat beneath her became soft like a feather pillow and she felt buoyant and light as air.
“I’ve come back for you. Only to be with you,” he repeated. His words and thoughts penetrated her brain, washed around her mind. He was inside her. “I’ve been watching you, hoping you wouldn’t fall in love with someone else. My body’s been on ice, in your te…sorry, on ice hovering somewhere in between, getting ready but being allowed to age at the same rate. It’s hardly seemed any time to me where I’ve been but I expect it’s seemed a long time to you. I’ve been back six months, desperate to contact you but sorting out some sort of background for myself first so that you wouldn’t have to present a homeless tramp to your friends and family this time. I hope you still want me,” he finished quietly.
Suddenly Orielle threw her arms around him. “Darling Triss, darling Triss.” They both laughed and cried and hugged and then kissed and kissed for the first time in nearly six years.
HISTORY DOESN'T RECORD what their fellow traveller opposite made of this odd conversation. But Orielle never made it to London that journey. They stopped off at York and spent the weekend there together. The change of plan had to be explained to Georgie and Jack the latter of whom remains sceptical to this day that the dark-haired swarthy individual Orielle married and had two children with actually really is the homeless person who had lived with them for a few months six years previously returned from “God knows where”, and not some illegal immigrant who only wanted to get married to Orielle so that he could stay in the country. Amanda and Hugh kept their thoughts to themselves on the subject but welcomed the couple and their dark and brainy children to visit periodically and went on return visits to their remote but cosy cottage in deepest Northumberland, and Tristram told them he would be eternally grateful to them for helping Orielle while he was away.
Orielle herself has no doubts however and that’s all that really matters.
THE END
