by Lance Parkin
He looked like she’d sworn at him.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded.
‘Emily Blandish.’
He was looking her up and down. ‘Take off your shoe.’
She did as she was told. The mud was drying out, but it was ruined.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘I told you... I don’t remember.’
‘What do you remember?’
‘Waking up in the field.’
‘No.’
He seemed so certain, and that threw Emily. ‘What?’
‘Your dress is clean. If you’d woken up there, you’d have been lying in the mud, it would have covered your dress, like the shoes.’
‘I was just standing there. Then I saw the tank.’
‘Ours or theirs?’
She frowned. ‘Theirs?’
‘Was it an enemy tank?’
‘I... don’t remember.’
‘You didn’t see its markings?’
‘It was a British tank,’ she remembered. ‘A Churchill.’
‘You know the make of tank, but you don’t recognise which side it’s on?’
‘Well, unless Britain’s being invaded, it’s British. Is Britain being invaded?’
‘What do you know about that?’
‘I told you. I saw a tank. That’s all I know about any of this.’
The man took a step back. ‘Who are you? You’re no foreigner. And you’re hardly a spy.’
He didn’t wait for an answer, he marched quickly out of the room and bolted the door behind him.
It was about two hours before the door opened again. She was taken out and led into a smaller room, with a concrete floor, bare walls and a television, showing the same newsreel as the one in the shop.
She was soon joined by two men.
The man who’d asked her the questions was followed in by another, broad and shaven-headed. The man who’d been fighting the policemen in London. Instead of a suit, he wore the same grey overalls that seemed to be the style here.
‘You!’ she cried out, before biting her lip.
‘You’ve met Mr Radford?’ the other man asked.
Radford was shaking his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
The two men circled her like predators, keeping their distance. They looked her up and down.
‘What do you see?’ the man asked Radford. The way he said see made Emily prick up her ears.
Radford reached out, grabbed her by the shoulder. He held it there for a moment, then cupped her chin in his hand.
‘I don’t...’ Radford said, confused.
‘Can’t see me?’ Emily asked, determined to take the initiative.
It worked.
‘What do you mean?’ the other man asked nervously. ‘You know who Radford is? What he can do?’
‘I told you,’ Emily said. ‘We’ve met.’
Did he really not remember? Radford looked as confused as when she’d said it the first time.
‘Simon Brown,’ he said. ‘She remembers him.’
‘I don’t recognise the name,’ the other man admitted.
‘Good,’ Radford said.
It had been rather frantic when he’d been firing the gun in the street. Perhaps he’d not seen her, he’d seen only Honoré...
‘A black man,’ Radford said. ‘She was in a field with a black man in a leather coat. He was drunk or drugged or... I don’t know. He is... what?’
Emily was struggling to think of something else. Something that wasn’t Honoré.
‘Lechasseur,’ Radford said. ‘His name is Honoré Lechasseur. He’s...’
Radford took a step back, breaking contact with Emily.
‘He’s like me.’
The other man looked up.
Radford looked thoughtful. ‘I want to take her.’
‘We want to send her clothes for analysis.’
‘She’s coming with me. I don’t care about her clothes.’
The man nodded. ‘There is paperwork.’ Then he turned to Emily. ‘A change of clothing will be brought. Strip.’
Then he and Radford left her alone to do that.
Emily stripped down to her underwear. By the time she’d done that, a young woman had arrived, carrying a set of grey overalls exactly like her own, a pair of cheap shoes and a paper sack.
She dropped Emily’s dress into the sack. ‘Underwear and shoes, too,’ she said briskly.
She continued to stare at Emily, but there was no curiosity in her eyes.
‘Could you turn around?’ Emily asked.
The woman frowned. ‘Why?’
Instead of arguing, Emily turned so at least she wouldn’t have to look at the woman looking at her. When she was done, she saw a ghostly image of herself naked reflected in the glass of the television screen.
Here the televisions watch you.
She put the overalls on very quickly.
Radford’s office was on the top floor of the manor house. One wall was sloped, with a couple of grimy skylights. The television here took up the whole of the back wall. Radford sat in front of it, behind a small chipboard desk.
There was nowhere for Emily to sit, so she stood. Her overalls were scratchy against her skin.
Her old clothes were now in neat plastic bags laid out on the desk. One for the dress, one for each shoe, one for her knickers, one for her nylons, one for her watch. There was a seventh bag, which Radford was holding up.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘What is it?’
He handed it over. It was the scrap of newspaper from the barn. Emily couldn’t even remember keeping it, but she must have put it in her dress pocket.
‘I found it,’ she said.
‘It’s four years old.’
‘So I gather.’
‘The Anti-Litter Patrol should have picked it up.’
‘The what? Do you mean those men in that van?’
‘Newspapers are returned, pulped and recycled. Hoarding newspapers is unpatriotic.’
‘It’s about three inches square, it’s hardly a hoard.’
Radford pulled a rubber speaking-tube from a slot on his desk and gave a quick set of instructions.
A minute later, a small man ran in with a copy of the newspaper, then scurried out.
‘The same newspaper, the same date,’ Radford told her.
It wasn’t the same picture. There was a picture of a tank on the old scrap of newspaper. This one showed a squadron of aircraft on a fly past.
‘It must be a different edition,’ she said. Newspapers had different regional offices, and different editions throughout the night.
‘One edition,’ Radford said. ‘There is only one newspaper. A man with two watches never knows the correct time.’
Emily shook herself. She knew for a fact she’d only just heard that expression for the first time. She knew she’d said exactly the same thing to Honoré yesterday.
‘Sorry?’
‘You don’t know what to believe, do you? There you have a tank, part of the force that liberated Cairo. Here are our planes, heroically destroying Cairo rather than let it fall to the enemy. If you’d seen only one of these papers, you’d have known what happened. Now you can’t be sure.’
Emily looked from one to the other. ‘I suppose not.’
Radford was watching her carefully.
‘So...,’ she continued, ‘which is true?’
Radford smiled. ‘Whichever one I tell you.’
Emily shook her head. ‘Either we liberated Cairo or destroyed it. One of these is true, one of them isn’t. Regardless of what you say happened.’
‘Why does it matter?’
‘It matters to the people of Cairo,’ Emily countered.
‘Does it? Eith
er way, the city was a battleground. Either way, women and children died. They probably saw tanks and planes that day. There was a fierce battle. But ask them who won... Why would you take their word for it? Would everyone there say exactly the same thing? And why would it matter to you, anyway?’
‘That’s what newspapers are for.’
‘Yes. To tell you the truth.’
Radford had lit a match. He took Emily’s scrap of newspaper from its bag, then set light to one corner, dropping it into an ashtray. It curled and fell apart.
‘The planes bombed the city,’ he said simply.
He watched Emily for a moment.
‘Is that what really happened, or what you want people to believe?’
‘Who taught you to think like that?’
Emily frowned. ‘No-one. No-one teaches you to think. It’s just what people do.’
Radford looked surprised at the statement, and paused for a moment before changing tack.
‘Who is the Negro?’ he asked. ‘Don’t lie to me. I saw him clear as day. Honoré Lechasseur. You stick out here, my dear, but around here a giraffe would draw less attention to itself than that man. And he touched that newspaper. So I know he’s here. Lying low.’
‘How did you know he touched it?’
‘Because he’s like me.’
‘He... touched the newspaper.’ Emily remembered something. ‘He saw a woman prime minister. A photo of one.’
Radford looked like she’d struck him.
‘He saw Thatcher?’
‘I don’t know... Is that her name? He didn’t say. If you know her name, then... wait... You said Honoré was like you? You’re a time sensitive?’
Radford cocked his head. ‘Is that what you call it?’
‘It’s what someone called him.’
‘Describe what you understand by the term.’
Emily tried to collect her thoughts. ‘He can see time, like normal people see space. When he meets someone, he can see their past. Most of the time.’
‘Then, yes, I am a time sensitive.’
Emily looked him in the eye. ‘Then tell me what you see when you look at me.’
‘I don’t,’ he admitted. ‘And that’s why you’re dangerous to me.’
‘Dangerous?’
‘I have a reputation, Miss Blandish. My ability has allowed me to rise through the ranks of the Party. I am useful, precisely because I am unique, and I am never wrong.’
‘And now you are neither?’
Radford’s mouth twitched. ‘There are three of us in the world. There were five, but two of the enemy assets were targeted and killed. Lechasseur is not one of the other two survivors. So who is he?’
‘Don’t you have a theory?’
‘Not at the moment.’ He changed tack. ‘You know Simon Brown? You know who he is? His importance?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Without Simon Brown, this country and its allies would have fallen to the enemy. His role in history was crucial.’
‘That man who questioned me first hadn’t heard of him,’ Emily reminded herself.
‘No.’
‘If he’s so crucial to history...’
Radford smiled. ‘Why aren’t there statues of him in every town centre? Well... we don’t want people to ask too many questions.’
‘But... we’re... at war.’
‘What of it?’
‘Don’t you want to instil a feeling of patriotism? Of nationalism? Make people remember what they are fighting for? The culture, the history?’
Radford laughed. ‘No.’
‘But...’
‘That’s the last thing we want to happen. It’s enough that the people know that they are at war and that the Party is in charge.’
‘And Simon Brown comes from a time before that?’
Radford frowned. ‘And before that, there was nothing,’ he said, with utter conviction. ‘The Party has always ruled, there has always been a war.’
‘But you know that isn’t true.’ Emily said.
‘Do I?’
‘Well... you must be at least thirty-five yourself.’
‘I’m thirty-seven.’
‘Then... I know for a fact you were born before the Party took over.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes.’
‘For a fact?’
‘Yes.’
‘How old are you, Miss Blandish?’
‘I’m... not sure.’
‘You look about twenty-two, twenty-three.’
‘I’m a little older, I think.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘I was found on a bombsite.’
‘I see. Shell shock?’
‘The doctors aren’t sure.’
‘Would that everyone was like you. Would that we could erase everyone’s memories.’
‘Instead of collecting up the newspapers every morning, so that no-one can see what you’re saying about Cairo now, and compare it with what you said then?’
‘Precisely.’
‘You thought you’d take Cairo, all the newspapers heralded the great victory, but then Cairo fell to the enemy. So you had to change your story?’
‘That isn’t important,’ Radford insisted. ‘The details of the story aren’t important. What’s important is that it’s a story in the first place. Cairo? What happened to Cairo? Who knows? Who cares? Perhaps it fell, perhaps it was destroyed. Perhaps nothing happened in Cairo that day. Perhaps Madrid or Lisbon or Marseilles fell to the enemy, but those cities are all a bit too close to home. Do you remember the headline of that scrap of paper?’
‘“Victory!”,’ Emily told him.
He held up the version he’d been brought.
VICTORY!
‘The nature of the victory hardly matters. Every battle ends in victory. That’s what the proles notice. They notice the pictures of the tanks or the planes or the smiling Tommy. “Victory!” they think, as they make their way to work. And if that happens, the people who write this have done their job.’
Radford put the paper back down. ‘And no-one ever notices that each glorious victory is getting closer and closer to London.’
‘That tank I saw... was that an enemy tank or one of yours?’
Radford looked at her. ‘No memory and you can’t tell an enemy tank from a friendly one?’
‘No.’
‘You may be the perfect citizen. What year were you born?’
‘I told you I don’t know.’
‘You’ve met Simon Brown.’
‘Yes.’
‘He died in the first attacks. One of the ironies of history. And that means, if you are telling the truth, one of two things: that you are either far, far older than you look. Or that you’re a time traveller.’
‘I’m not a –’ Emily began, then stopped.
She was a time traveller.
5
Lechasseur was getting used to it.
In front of him, a woman in late middle age was handing him a cup of tea.
In front of him, the same woman in late middle age was also handing him a cup of tea.
In one, the woman looked a little less weary. The mug wasn’t chipped. He could smell the tea. She was the fainter of the two, almost a ghost.
When you tuned in the wireless, sometimes, especially at night, you’d get the hint of another programme playing. Sometimes it was even in French, or Dutch. There was a simple explanation: they were being broadcast on the same wavelength. Lechasseur would lie in bed listening to it some nights; he often found it quite calming. As if the radio waves were like the ocean waves, navigated by different nations, a great sea that rose and fell around the world.
This was what was happening to him now. But instead of two radio programmes, there were two realiti
es.
Lechasseur couldn’t pretend that this was a comforting thought. The idea of two worlds scared him. For a fleeting moment, he’d wondered if there were more than two, but his mind had run from the thought, in case he started to see them all at once.
Instead of multiplying realities, he’d tried to pick one. He’d wondered about the implications of his choice. Would the other one cease to exist, the moment he’d made his decision? Would he be able to change his mind?
He didn’t want his mind to change any more, he wanted certainty. And he wasn’t God, he wasn’t so arrogant to believe that he could create and destroy a planet on a whim. No, he was just a crystal set that needed tuning.
This was the best job he could do for the moment. He’d arrived in the field with neither of the realities taking precedence. Both carried equal weight. A tank had and hadn’t trundled past the moment.
Emily had seen the tank, and that was good enough for him.
He picked his universe, and sipped at the tea.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
The woman looked at him, a glimmer of curiosity in her eye. They obviously didn’t get many tourists down this way. She found his accent impenetrable. It was mutual.
He needed to find Emily.
If he caught up with her, he would be able to retune himself to the other reality. He was pretty sure of that.
This woman seemed suspicious of him, but he’d been with her the whole time – she’d not tipped off any family, or the authorities. But he was reluctant to tell her about Emily, in case this exposed her to danger.
‘I had two sons,’ she told him. ‘Both killed. You’ve been hurt, too.’
‘Caught in an explosion in Normandy,’ he told her.
She nodded, although he doubted she had any idea where Normandy was.
‘You need to settle down,’ she told him.
‘I do that.’ Lechasseur finished his tea and stood. ‘Thanks for the tea, but I have to be going now.’
He smiled at the woman and stalked out of her house. Finding Emily was going to be hard. He scanned the countryside and spotted a track leading up to a small wood. If he could get higher up, then maybe he could assess the lie of the land. With a sigh, he headed off up the track, hoping that Emily had not got herself into any more trouble.
