by S G Read
‘A baby.’ Sarah echoed.
‘Yes, a baby.’ Mary replied.
Sarah hurried away to tell William and her trips to the twenty first century grew less frequent as she grew in size. To be fair to Sarah, when she could no longer travel into the future, William only went back to the twenty first century when it was necessary. When his son was born he came to a decision. Trips to the twenty first century were reduced to emergencies only. He considered what to do about the business and decided to search the genealogy of the Just line from the date of William Junior’s birth. He found out how many children he was going to have and just who his grandchildren were. In the end he sold his business in the twenty first century and put the money in trust for his great grandchildren, who, by then, were already at school. When they each reached eighteen they would inherit some of William’s fortune.
Now William returned to the nineteenth century for what was to be the last time. If he needed medicines for anyone he could go and get them but by going back with a selection of life saving drugs and a lot of carbolic soap, he had no need to go back. Instead he lived his life in the nineteenth century with the occasional visit from James who went back to the twenty first century every now and then. To check on the wear and tear on the television in the new house and to catch up on the news. He did make another television work as that on did and it was on standby. The old television was still plodding on in a locked cupboard in the attic. If and when the television died, the other one could be used to go back and replace it with the back up television.
William and Sarah went to James Wedding and sat and watched the dancing afterwards, as Sarah was carrying their second child and did not want to dance. They watched James dance with his new bride, they were the first two on the dance floor.
‘I wonder if that will change the future.’ Sarah asked quietly.
‘I think I will never know and I don’t really want to know,’ William replied, ‘I am happy here with you and my family and that is good enough for me.’
‘And for me husband, besides once you have seen one century, the rest are just the same but with a different level of progress. I do wonder how Madge got on though.’
‘Maybe we will go back just to look at what happened,’ William answered, ‘when we are of the mind to let nature take its course.’
‘Nature is a hard task mistress,’ Sarah replied, ‘who could not step in and help when you can see something barbarous unfolding?’
‘The crews on all the nature programmes for one,’ William answered, ‘but then we will not see any more of them from where we are, will we?’
‘No husband, we will not.’
The end
