by Tina Clough
They cleared the table, Mia made coffee and they sat down again in the sitting room end of the living area. John looked round as if searching for something. Without apparently having noticed his roving gaze Lorraine said: “You left it on the hall table, when we came in.” He stood up and returned with a large box of chocolates. Mia noted with amusement that Lorraine seemed to have developed a way of communicating with John as if they knew each other really well. She wondered what it signified, so soon after their first meeting. Were they just accidentally and naturally attuned to each other or was something else developing under her very eyes?
Mia re-ignited the discussion. “The problem seems to be the logic of it or whether there is any logic – that’s nearly driven me crazy. I can theorise to a certain point, but then it all becomes blurred by the fact that I don’t know if B comes after A, or if it comes after Z or if A possibly equals 4, if you know what I mean? There’s no way I can check if what we think of as logic applies to this. I get confused and frustrated and sometimes I think that maybe we’re just tiny cogs in something so huge and complex that we’ll never understand it.” She looked round at the four faces and turned serious. “What really terrifies me is that I might suddenly find myself back in 2007. And if that happens, will I remember all this or would my memory remain here in This Time? Would you still know me? Would I remember you?”
John had thought of it too and had a different slant. “What I’d really like to know is how it was, when you woke up that Friday morning. You said before that everything in the flat had reverted to what it had been like in the August 2006 – that any changes you had made after that date no longer existed?”
Mia nodded “Yes, I once again had my old car, for example, new clothes weren’t there. I was worried that things that I thought I knew for a fact – like Greg’s affair with Barb – might not have happened in This Time, because I had to know that before I did something about it. But so far I’ve not come across anything significantly different from what I expected.”
“OK, in that case tell me this – and I know it’s only a couple of weeks – but have you come across anything new, anything at all in This Time, not related to your own life, which has been added?”
Mia thought for a couple of minutes. Had she noticed any references to news or events that seemed completely unexpected or new? She shook her head. “No, I don’t think I’ve noticed anything like that. But I haven’t really thought of it like that, more along the lines of whether things I expect to happen as This Time moves forward will happen as they did before. You see, I did begin to think of what would happen if someone else had also come back from a different time strand into this one, and once back here they changed something and how would that affect things further down the track? Like me planning to unmask Josh at work.”
Paul nodded. “Like if you changed how something played out here and now, and then went back and checked in 2007 – would the effects be noticeable there? Or will the changes only affect how the future shapes up in this time strand as it moves forward? In other words, have you actually been moved back in time within one time-line so to speak, or are we all in a time-line, which got split off from your first time strand at some point. Is this time strand a separate line and will everything here only affect the future in this strand? God, it sounds muddled, but I sort of know what I mean.”
“Oh yes, clear as mud. It’s a hard one to discuss, isn’t it?” Mia was warming to the task now. “But what you said just now fits my ideas. I was thinking that perhaps there are untold timelines, and the one that I was sort of flicked out of will continue as if nothing had happened. I am still there in 2007 and I will continue to live out my life in that time strand, but from here I’ll never know how that life develops. And here in This Time I’ll have another life along different lines perhaps. And nothing I do here, now that I am here, changes anything apart from the future in this particular strand?”
John spoke slowly, thinking intently as he talked. “Yes, that’s fine, but I have a problem with that. If that’s the case then how come you didn’t just flick back into your body and mind as they were in 2006 in this time strand? How did you take your mind and memories and experiences from a whole extra year in That Time with you to This Time? Obviously you came back into your body as it was a year earlier- or I presume you did?”
Mia smiled at him. “Yes, definitely the same physical body. I went to bed in 2007 with nail varnish on and woke up in 2006 without it!”
Everyone laughed; Miles was contorted with glee. Paul reached over and took the tilting coffee mug out of his hand. “Steady on, mate, you’ll wet yourself – with coffee, if nothing else.” Miles wiped his eyes and managed to stop laughing. “It’s hilarious. Here we are discussing the laws of the universe and theorising about time shifts in a way that could confuse Einstein, and Mia proves a crucial point by noticing if she has nail varnish on!”
Lorraine snorted. “You see, that’s what I’ve been saying for years, but nobody listens. Women will end up running the world, because they can mix practical trivia with life-changing philosophy, such as changing the baby and at the same time sorting out a better way to distribute the country’s health budget.”
Mia laughed but continued the idea that John had raised. “You are right, John, in a way. If I didn’t have my memories from 2007, then I wouldn’t even be aware that I’m in a different year, would I? Somehow some kind of rule was broken and my 2007 mind flicked over to this time strand, where it is 2006. And the same goes for Carl too.”
Lorraine narrowed her eyes in thought. “So if several, maybe dozens of strands exist, then they might be like little blood vessels coming off a main artery, and maybe they even sub-divide further? And in all of them various changes occur after the point of break-off, and that leads to different futures. Or perhaps they move at different speeds? What happened to you could be that you were moved from one strand to another in a straight sideways move, but the strand you surfaced in had moved a bit slower, so it was a year behind?”
Paul stared in delighted amazement at his sister. “My god, that’s brilliant, Sis! Bet you are right, it sounds completely convincing.”
“Well, we’ll never know, but I quite like the idea myself,” said Lorraine modestly amid nods of agreement from everyone.
Mia pulled them back to the original discussion once again. “I must say, though, that speaking to Carl was the most wonderful thing for me, because he’d gone forwards, and in a way it gave a new angle on the whole problem. He was fast forwarded about 40 years, poor man, and discovered that his memory of being a young man was in an old body; a body which had lived an entire adult life. But, the interesting thing is that his mind is still only middle aged in experience and memories. His mind thinks he has only lived about 45 years in total or something like it, but the brain his mind lives inside is actually 40 years older, and that brain acts its age. I am sure he has exactly the same problems with short term memory and learning new things as any other octogenarian.”
It was late when they finished the discussion. They had agreed that the only reasonable way to expect a response from Steve Irwin was to send him a DVD of the video. Lorraine searched the Internet and found the mail address to the Irwin zoo. They discussed the letter Mia would write to accompany the DVD. Paul said he would bring her the video and a copy on a DVD the next day and Mia would courier the DVD from work on Monday. They exchanged email addresses and agreed to meet the following Saturday at John’s house in Parnell. Paul felt sorry for John being faced with a horde for dinner and said he and Lorraine would bring dinner, but John surprised them. “No, don’t do that, I really like cooking and I don’t often cook for visitors. I’ll make a nice dinner for us.”
After they left Mia pottered about tidying up before going to the bathroom to clean her teeth. The relief of having people who believed her story made her feel secure and relaxed. She had Carl, who was a fellow victim of the same cosmic joke, and his neighbour Thomas who already believed Carl�
��s story. She had even got over that first hurdle of telling Sarah and James by having some concrete evidence for them to see for themselves. She yawned at herself in the bathroom mirror, dried her hands and turned the light off knowing she would sleep like a log.
Putting the warning to Steve Irwin into words was unexpectedly hard. Mia only had the address to the zoo and she tried to imagine how the letter would look to the person who opened the mail. How to capture their attention and get them to take the message seriously? In the end she kept it simple and said that the DVD contained video evidence of two predictions she had made, and that one of them had happened exactly as she had described it. She continued: “My second prediction is of a diving accident involving you. I saw you being filmed while diving with stingrays. You were close to the rays and suddenly, as you swam directly over one of them, it raised its tail and the barb went into your chest. I saw you being taken to the surface, to a boat. I think you died on the boat.” She made no mention of her own bizarre story in the hope that he would be more likely to pay attention to a straight-forward premonition than believe what had happened to her.
She typed her real name and phone number, printed it and sat looking at it for a long time. There was really nothing else she could say and short of going to Australia to convince Irwin face to face she had done all she could.
Mia was in the bathroom transferring a load of washing to the dryer, when the entry phone buzzed. Paul arrived at the door in uniform looking particularly dark-skinned and handsome in his pale blue shirt.
“Lorraine’s found out that if you go out to the airport, even though it’s Sunday, there’s a way of getting the parcel on a plane to Sydney today.” He followed Mia into the living area. “And then it gets picked up and delivered by regular courier anywhere in Australia. It’s expensive but it’s far quicker than giving it to a courier here. I’ve made two copies of the video, so you can keep one and send one. Here’s the original videotape so you can decide where you want it kept - John’s locked cabinet would probably be a good place unless you have a safe.”
“Good idea! I’ll get the disk off by air this afternoon. How about a cup of coffee?” But Paul had to leave. “I must go, I’m on duty and my partner’s waiting downstairs in the car. I’ll see you on Saturday, if not before!”
The airport was messy – there was yet another building project going on and she got lost the first time she drove round scanning the area for signs with the name of the air freight company. In the end she made a full circuit before finding a place to stop to ring up and ask how to find them. While she drove back towards town she speculated on the reaction of whoever would open the parcel. If Irwin himself got it, he would obviously connect the letter inside the parcel with the email and he might sit down and watch it straight away. But say someone else opened it and put it to one side? Could she have done something more to make it more credible?
There was no real answer to her worried thoughts, but they continued to revolve in her head as she headed for the Mt Eden shops. This was one of her favourite parts of the city – it was like a self-sufficient little town not the slightest bit concerned about what went on outside its boundaries. She would have liked to live there, but the area was expensive and out of her reach. She found a parking space just across from Da Poste and walked along to the bakery, where they had gorgeous little chocolate gateaux. She bought one to take to Carl’s place and continued to the wine shop for a Collard’s merlot, hoping it would go with Italian food of any description. She dawdled outside a gift shop, admiring desirable but unnecessary objects, and thought contentedly that with her new minimalist lifestyle temptation played a correspondingly minimal part.
Carl met her at the door with a genuine smile of pleasure. “Let me take that bag. You shouldn’t have brought so much, what’s all this? Wine, oh good, I love a merlot. And a box – aha, gorgeous cake. Well, I have the ice cream to go with that. And a little flat thing? Did you mean this to be in the bag?”
Mia smiled. “Yes, it’s a DVD that I thought we could watch on your computer, but then I realised on the way here that you probably don’t have one!”
A voice from the doorway said, “Evening, Carl.” He was a tall and muscular man with a tremendous scar across one cheek, which pulled his face and twisted the corner of his mouth on one side. “And you must be Mia – I’m Thomas.” He shook her hand and looked intently at her.
Mia smiled. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Carl, if you had told me someone else was coming I’d have brought a bigger cake.”
“There is plenty of cake for three, and with ice cream it’ll do us very well. Well, you’ve met now. How about a glass of wine before I start cooking?”
Carl poured three glasses of wine and raised his in a salute. “Here’s to us! Mia, I have a confession to make and I hope you won’t get up and leave when you hear it! I’ve told Thomas a little about you, just enough so he knows that you’re like me, but you’ve moved from the future backwards, opposite to me.”
Thomas interrupted. “You don’t need to worry! I know how to keep a secret, I haven’t mentioned Carl’s story to a living soul. He told me about you, because it backed up his own story – seems he thought I didn’t really believe him, though I did actually. I never realised that he thought I doubted him.”
Two slightly anxious faces looked at Mia. “It’s OK Carl, I don’t mind – if you trust Thomas, then so do I. And perhaps Thomas can show you the DVD in his computer seeing you don’t have one. It’s the proof of the pudding so to speak, about both of our stories.”
Thomas looked intrigued. “You have proof? Why don’t we take our glasses and go across and watch it now? I must say I’m very curious. How about it Carl?”
They pulled up chairs round the computer in Thomas’s big living room and Thomas inserted the DVD. Mia stopped him with a gesture. “Before you start I’d like to explain a little of the background. Just so it makes sense when we watch it.”
By the time the CD was playing Carl and Thomas had only partly digested the resume of the story Mia had told them. There was so much detail now in her mind, and it was hard to try and keep track of what she had already told Carl, what Carl might have told Thomas and what neither of them knew. “Oh well, let’s just play it now and it’ll probably explain itself.”
“We could have played this on the DVD player and watched it on the TV,” said Thomas, but stayed where he was. It was the first time Mia had seen the video and as it played she was impressed with how comprehensive and conclusive the whole thing seemed. It was crisp and clear and the document was clearly visible and easy to read. The way everyone introduced themselves, the setting, the signing and sealing of the envelope. Then a small break and the recording resumed with Lorraine in a different setting, a bedroom, where she sat at a small desk in front of a computer.
Paul’s voice set the scene: “Today is Saturday 26 August 2006. It is 8.45 in the morning and my sister Lorraine and I, Paul, have checked the BBC website and found the story of the Trinity Cathedral fire in St Petersburg, just as described by Mia in the previous section filmed on Wednesday 23 August. The envelope remains in John McFarlane’s locked cupboard at the police station. Lorraine and I will meet the group there this afternoon and we’ll ask John to record that meeting too. We’re both completely convinced that there’s no way anyone could have faked that prediction of the fire two days in advance, in such extraordinary detail. I’ll try to film the computer screen, hoping to show the date on the website.”
The camera was brought closer to the computer monitor and zoomed in on the screen. Lorraine’s voice could be heard in the background. “Paul, let me pull the curtains so there’s less reflection.” Then came the swishing sound of curtains being pulled and the computer image became more clearly defined. There was a slight flicker across the screen, but the story headline and the BBC banner were clear to see. Thomas edged closer to the computer to see if the date could be read.
Carl and Thomas continued to stare at the co
mputer monitor even after the video had stopped playing. Then Carl found his voice. “By golly, that’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Nobody could doubt it!”
Mia needed a change of scene; she felt overwhelmed by what she had seen, it was so intense and there was a sense of unreality watching it as a spectator. When it had taken place at the police station it had seemed quite natural, though a bit tense, but watching it made her realise the dramatic impact and the additional part with Lorraine and Paul reading the BBC website was stunningly convincing.
“Let’s go back to Carl’s and we can talk while he cooks! I think I’m as gob-smacked as you are – seeing it like this is unnerving even for me. You can keep the DVD for a little while, if you want to watch it again, but you’d have to keep it somewhere safe.”
Thomas took the DVD from the computer and put it back in its case. “I’ll pop it in the snuffbox safe. It’ll be completely safe there, and we can get it out and watch it on the TV before we give it back.”
Mia was intrigued. “Snuffbox safe? Do you collect snuff boxes? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one!”
“You’ll have to show her, Thomas. They are the most wonderful little things you ever saw, Mia, and everyone has a story. He has a safe to put them in when he goes away.”
Thomas stood up. “Come and have a look and we’ll follow Carl across in a minute. They’re in the dining room.” He led the way across the entrance hall and into a rather bare formal dining room with a huge fireplace. Against one wall stood a waist high table with a shallow display box under a glass lid and inside, arranged on dark green felt, were eighteen or twenty tiny boxes.
Thomas lifted the lid and took one out and put it in Mia’s hand. She had never held anything so exquisite; a tiny oval gold box, no more than four centimetres across, with a hinged lid and on the lid an enamelled scene of a landscape with a chateau and a lake in perfect miniature detail.
