The Chronicles of the Tempus

by K. A. S. Quinn

  Dolores came through the door, and without thinking, began to tidy Miss Nightingale’s sitting room with exactly the same vigour she applied to Apartment 11C. ‘This pretty little house was neat as a pin before you arrived,’ she said. ‘My, but you are messy. And grumpy. And bored and cranky. You sure are missing your friends. Why don’t you try and make yourself useful. Me and Mary Seacole, we’re so busy we can’t catch our breath.’

  Katie flopped over, groaning. She was swinging her legs in the air and trying to scratch an unreachable part of her back, when a hand grasped her shoulder and jerked her into an upright position.

  ‘This is unacceptable,’ Florence Nightingale said in her clipped fashion. ‘You are a visitor, in my home, and you lounge about and scratch yourself as if you were a chimpanzee at the zoo!’

  Katie sat up straight and looked rather sheepish. Florence Nightingale had entered with Bernardo DuQuelle and Mary Seacole. She continued to glare at Katie, though her two companions seemed secretly amused.

  ‘Dolores is right,’ Mary Seacole said. ‘You are grumpy. Now I know your Princess and young James O’Reilly have gone, but we’re here. You’d better make the best of it until you figure out how to move on.’

  Dolores bustled back in with a tray of tea things. Much to Miss Nightingale’s annoyance, she insisted on shouldering such domestic chores. ‘Now Mary,’ Dolores said. ‘You’re been on the streets pamphleteering. That’s cold work. You help yourself to a nice hot cup of tea. You too, Miss Nightingale – I know you’ve been shut up at Windsor with that bossy little Queen.’

  ‘That is a very disrespectful way to speak of our Queen; and don’t you find it rather rich, describing others as bossy,’ Florence Nightingale reproached Dolores. But she did take the cup of tea.

  Dolores grinned at her and poured some tea for DuQuelle. ‘Here you go, Bernie. Nice and hot. Good enough to warm up a cadaver like you.’

  Katie had to admit, it always cheered her when Dolores called the mysterious, gothic DuQuelle ‘Bernie’. She helped herself to a biscuit. ‘That’s some bounce in your step, Dolores,’ Katie said, nibbling the biscuit and sprinkling crumbs across her dress. ‘What gives?’

  Dolores sat down on the sofa and brushed the crumbs from Katie’s lap. ‘I’m glad everyone is here,’ she said, ‘because I have an announcement to make.’

  Katie looked from face to face. Florence Nightingale was shooting DuQuelle the look – one of their secret, silent conversations. Mary Seacole was beaming benignly at her friend. Dolores herself seemed both excited and frightened. She took Katie’s hand. ‘You know baby, how worried you been, about getting us home?’

  Katie nodded. ‘I’m still trying,’ she apologized. ‘I’ll figure it out somehow.’

  Dolores squeezed Katie’s hand so hard, she could feel the knuckles pop. ‘Well, you don’t have to worry anymore. I know what to do,’ she announced triumphantly. ‘We’re just not going home. We’re gonna STAY.’

  Katie blinked hard; the breath wasn’t quite getting to her lungs. Mary Seacole clapped her hands.

  DuQuelle gave a low groan. ‘I had feared this,’ he murmured to Florence Nightingale. Miss Nightingale had the look of a hostess whose guests have outstayed their welcome. Her lips tightened into a thin line.

  Katie was no longer bored and not even grumpy. Now she was frightened out of her mind. It was one thing to try and hurtle two willing people through time, but to try and budge the stubborn bulk of Dolores . . . ‘Oy vey,’ she groaned.

  Miss Nightingale actually rapped her on the top of the head. ‘In my home you must behave yourself,’ she admonished Katie. ‘Such language! You are not an East End barrow boy.’

  Bernardo DuQuelle looked thoroughly entertained. He whispered to Miss Nightingale. ‘Actually, my dear, the phrase is Yiddish. Whatever you inherited from your parents, it was certainly not an ear for languages.’

  Katie tried to collect her thoughts. ‘But Dolores, we have no choice. You and I, we have to leave.’

  ‘Leave!’ Dolores really was going to kick up a fuss. ‘Why should I leave? I’m doing good work here. I have spoken and this nation has listened. I don’t see no reason to silence my voice. I’m changing the world for the better. Back in New York, I don’t think I’m much more than a slave. Do you really want me to go back there and spend my days ironing Mimi’s silk undies?’ Katie found herself nodding in agreement. Dolores had a point.

  DuQuelle tried to reason with her. ‘Dolores, you were never supposed to be here. It almost killed you. It turns out you were not responsible for Katie’s diminished powers. That was the work of Lord Belzen. I have admired your work, both in the streets and the halls. You roused the people to stand up against slavery at the exact time we needed it. But the crisis point has passed. Britain will not enter the American Civil War. I do not believe the South can win, and I assure you, the slaves will be freed. But we must leave it at that. I sometimes fear we’ve done too much. You are still Tempus Stativus – not chosen, but thrust upon us. It is dangerous to tamper with history.’

  Dolores eyed him up. ‘Bernie, you’ve got a lot of nerve to talk danger with me. Now, if I was butting into someone else’s world and pretending to be just like them, or if I was harvesting up words and exporting them to another world; maybe even if I had the idea to parachute children through time as an experiment – I think I’d be pretty dangerous then. But Bernie, you know a heck of a lot more about being a dangerous person – or half person – than I do.’

  Bernardo DuQuelle’s white skin went rather green. He turned to Katie for help.

  ‘Come on, Dolores,’ Katie said. ‘You know we can’t stay. I feel the same way, every time. Why do I want to go back to school and psychiatrists and reading endless stuff about Mimi? What’s the point of living in a time and place where I feel unpopular and weird? Here I have friends, and I count.’ She took Dolores’s hand. ‘It’s not me and Mimi you have to go back to. It’s Sonia and Tyrell. It’s your children. Your life isn’t, like, the most exciting thing in the world. Neither is mine. But the people back there need us.’

  Mary Seacole had been listening carefully. ‘I love you like a sister, Dolores,’ she said, ‘but your family is back in that other time. What would they do without you? If there’s one thing you understand, Dolores, it’s responsibility.’

  For a long moment Dolores struggled. She’d always seen herself as one of the workers of this world. The one who did the grunt work, the one stuck in the background. For this single shining moment she’d been able to do good, and do it centre-stage. It was hard to give up.

  Katie put her arm around Dolores. ‘Think of how much you’ve seen and learned,’ she encouraged her. ‘This could change your life. Dolores, you don’t have to work for Mimi and clean up after me. We all know Mimi will never really grow up. But I will, I mean, everyone keeps banging on about it. I’ll look after Mimi. You can go ahead and look after yourself. Why not become a nurse? Or a teacher?’

  ‘A missionary,’ Dolores said rather shyly, ‘as a girl I always wanted to be a missionary.’ Her misty eyes sharpened when she glanced at Bernardo DuQuelle. ‘Lord knows, I’ve have done some pretty tough missionary field work here; seems to me I’ve met with the devil and I’ve stood up to him.’

  DuQuelle looked rather affronted. He’d been called many things, throughout many periods of history, but never the devil.

  Days passed, then weeks. April came and with it the spring. Still Katie could not figure out how to leave. She spent much of her time with Mary Seacole and Grace O’Reilly, working on The Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole. Under the eye of Florence Nightingale, Grace’s health had recovered. She was brilliant at organizing Mary Seacole’s notes and writing it all down in her beautiful handwriting. But it was Katie who could take Mary Seacole’s stories and turn them into a riveting adventure. The words were alive to her, as clear as reality. At the end of each day, Bernardo DuQuelle read what she wrote. ‘I was right,’ he said, ‘as I so often am. You use the
words as if they were magic.’

  At Miss Nightingale’s home she learned a new lesson from each inhabitant. Katie had always liked Mary Seacole, and now she grew to admire her. In their daily talks, she told her personal story: how, as a Jamaican creole, she rose above prejudice and came to the aid of a far off nation. Katie listened to Mary Seacole chatting with Dolores, and came to understand so much more about their lives.

  She mulled all this over with Grace O’Reilly late into the night. Grace’s life had changed forever. Her father, now in deep disgrace, had disappeared. His plans for her, as a beauty he could barter on the marriage market, would fortunately come to nothing. Katie found in Grace another person adrift in a strange world.

  ‘What do you think you will do, Grace?’ Katie asked one evening as they sorted through Mary Seacole’s rather chaotic notes.

  Grace smiled to herself, a bittersweet smile. ‘At first I was frightened,’ she admitted. ‘But now I feel strangely liberated. I will try to have a life that does not depend on my face and figure.’ Katie did wonder, with such a face, would this be possible? ‘I’ve always lived on the fringe of the medical world, first with Father, and then James. As you know, Father disapproved of women in medicine. But I do think I’ve finally caught the bug.’

  ‘Will you become a doctor?’ Katie asked.

  Grace O’Reilly turned as red as her hair. ‘Goodness no! That would be scandalous.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Katie muttered. ‘Even now, I keep forgetting what you can and can’t do. So what’s the plan, Grace?’

  Grace twirled a long red curl around her finger. ‘Miss Nightingale has suggested I train with her. There is a new corps of nurses at St Thomas’s Hospital. All very respectable, even though Father would have died of humiliation.

  ‘But that sounds terrific,’ Katie said. ‘Have you told James?’

  While Katie remained at South Street, her correspondence with James and Alice had flourished. Grace nodded happily. ‘James is the man of the house now, and he approves the plan. I will board with Miss Nightingale. Katie, I realize she seems very stern, but her heart is in the right place. Did you know that she has requested I bring Riordan to stay as well?’

  ‘Riordan!’ Katie exclaimed. ‘Won’t little Riordan kick up a great commotion in this house of women?’

  Grace laughed. ‘When was the last time you saw Riordan? He’s not a baby any more. He’s cramming for his entrance exams to Eton. And it will be good to have Miss Nightingale’s sharp eye upon him. In my opinion, he’s much more interested in the theatre than his Latin or Greek; or perhaps it’s the actresses that hold his attention. There’s a sweet young Vaudeville singer, the Little Angel. He writes to her while she’s on tour.’

  Here was one more lesson Katie had learned. That life circles round and round. ‘I wouldn’t worry about the Little Angel,’ she told Grace. ‘If Riordan has truly chosen her, he’s chosen well.’

  And so they worked and talked and wrote. But most of all Katie thought. She didn’t sprawl on the sofa now, or complain of boredom. There was so much to do, and when she did have idle time, there was even more to think about. She laid out her adventures and ideas, and came to some conclusions. It was as if everything around her, and inside her, was in preparation for something new.

  It happened so gradually – even Katie couldn’t tell when it had started. She only knew when she was ready. One day she realized: the Little Angel had been right. Katie didn’t need letters, or snow globes, or walking sticks to make things happen. She was getting older, and she could make her own choices. She needn’t be yanked, or pulled or pushed through time. And she could stop herself from falling. She needn’t say goodbye to her friends: Princess Alice and James O’Reilly, the Queen and her ladies, Mary Seacole, Florence Nightingale and Bernardo DuQuelle – they would always be with her. Instinctively she knew this, and this time she would not forget.

  Instead, Katie put her arms around Dolores and simply decided. She would go home to Mimi and quit whining about her crazy pop star behaviour. Mimi was . . . Mimi, and the fates were not handing Katie any other mother. And at school she would try and make the best of Neuman Hubris; at the very least they had great computers. If she put some work in, she might find school more interesting. As for friends, she finally understood: if she stopped trying to be so clever in that mean kind of way, maybe people wouldn’t think she was so weird and snooty. She would be her own person. And she would try and be a little bit kind. How hard was that?

  But most of all, life wasn’t just about her. It all became very clear as she spun through time with her arms wrapped around Dolores. Katie laughed to herself. For years James had questioned her, ‘How do you travel through time? What does it feel like? What do you see?’ She’d never been able to answer. It had always been so fast and confusing and painful. But this time, it was like swimming in a pleasant, clear sea, or floating in a vortex of warm air. This time she understood.

  Katie could see hundreds of children swirling around her. Some were very young and some, like her, were almost grown. She could pinpoint the Tempus Fugit. They flew with their arms out, laughing and free. Others fell through time, the Tempus Occidit, angry and frightened. And then others were blindfolded, trancelike, unaware of what was happening. They didn’t understand the power they had and the choices they could make. ‘That was me,’ Katie thought. ‘I was blind, but now I can see.’

  Epilogue

  Another Christmas

  Time went on, minute to hour to day. Katie did remember, but she did not regret. In many ways, it was a relief to be back in a methodically timed world. A year had passed since she’d unwrapped the snow globe. It was another Christmas. Katie looked around Apartment 11C. Silent night, she thought. All is calm. All is bright.

  George buzzed from downstairs. ‘Warning!’ he bellowed into the intercom, ‘Dolores is on her way up.’ Katie smiled. Dolores thought she was so smart, but she had forgotten everything. She could never understand what had happened the year before. She’d missed Christmas completely. One minute she’d been talking to Katie, the next . . . it made no sense. Sonia and Tyrell had been worried sick.

  Last year’s Christmas had been rotten for Mimi too. FOREVER YOUNG! had bombed in the shops, not even making the top twenty in fragrance sales. The media had sniped that it smelled of embalming fluid and started referring to Mimi as ‘Forever Pickled’. After a bit of rehab at an ashram in Malibu, Mimi had decided to embrace her age. There was only one possible career move: the theatre. So much more distinguished for an older woman.

  Mimi had quickly become the toast of the town, much celebrated for accepting the slings and arrows of time, albeit with many, many trips to cosmetic surgeons and holistic gurus. Katie saw a lot more of her. It turned out the theatre was harder than learning one catchy pop song – all those words in just one play. Mimi had a memory like a sieve, but Katie had a way with words. She rehearsed with Mimi relentlessly. This career was going to stick.

  The bell rang and Katie opened the door. ‘You think she’d leave me with a key.’ Dolores started to grumble the minute she got inside. ‘But no, out of sight, out of mind; or maybe that Mimi thinks I’ll break in and steal something. It’s not like I never had the opportunity . . . now if I’d really wanted to take something . . .’

  ‘Hey Dolores,’ said Katie.

  ‘Hay is for horses,’ Dolores snapped, and gave Katie a big hug.

  Dolores didn’t work there anymore. She might not remember, but inside her the adventure had left its mark. She was training to be a missionary and was planning to go to the Sudan. ‘I don’t know why or how,’ she’d told Katie. ‘It just came to me, like a vision I had to follow.’ None of this had made Dolores any more modest or demure. She spent a lot of time bragging about divinity school and how she was top of her class. They all might be pretty religious, but Dolores was certain: she had more God inside than the rest of them. Sometimes Katie smirked to herself when she thought of it. If those Baptists knew just what Dolores had b
een through, they might call in an exorcist.

  This year Christmas was going to be great. And tonight was special: the opening night of the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. ‘It’s not Strindberg, darling,’ Mimi had said to Katie. ‘It’s not Ibsen.’

  ‘So what kind of part is Mimi playing?’ Dolores asked, adjusting her new beret in the mirror.

  Katie looked a bit sheepish. ‘She’s the Queen of the Fairies. And no, Mimi’s not exactly doing Shakespeare, but she does get to make an entrance on a twenty-foot sparkly star.’

  ‘What kind of queen? What type of fairies?’ Dolores asked suspiciously.

  ‘It’s a pantomime kind of thing,’ Katie said defensively. ‘You know, like in England – the men dress up like women.’

  ‘I haven’t ever been to England, and from what you say, I won’t ever be going,’ Dolores retorted.

  Katie smiled to herself, thinking about Dolores, and England. ‘Look Dolores, Mimi’s got a back-up chorus of a hundred men in drag. You’re not a missionary yet. You’re coming. Mimi went to a lot of trouble to get us these tickets on opening night . . .’

  Dolores applied some rather wonderful orange lipstick. ‘Is she doing the high kicks?’ she asked, ‘like the Rockettes?’

  ‘No, Mimi will not do the high kicks. It’s in her contract that she will not do the high kicks. Now come on, we’re running late, we’re out of time.’

  The intercom went again. George was having a busy night. ‘Is that Katie? You’ve got a visitor down here.’ Dragging Dolores out the door, Katie ran to the elevator and pressed the button three times. She couldn’t wait.