by Mark Morris
I’d been thinking a lot about that since finding Kate. About what it really meant. It was something of a headfuck living on a different timescale to everybody else. I hadn’t got used to it, nor probably ever would. A few weeks ago the prospect of going months, even years, without seeing my daughters would have seemed inconceivable. I wondered whether Candice would be shocked at my appearance when she saw me again. Or would she, in that oblivious way all teenagers seemed to have, not even notice how much I’d aged? Or maybe the nanites inside me would slow the effects of ageing right down, and I actually wouldn’t look all that different to how I’d looked before I’d gone off to war?
This, of course, was assuming that everything went as intended, and I returned from the Front unscathed.
Once the usual time-travel nausea had subsided, the first thing I did when my bedroom, after shimmering slightly, reappeared around me, albeit subtly altered (the bed stripped, a few things replaced or moved around), was head for the office, which as I think I’ve said before was white, spotless and full of snazzy gadgets. I logged on to the main computer, a flash, flat-screen model, and checked the date, smiling as it showed me I’d arrived when I’d intended: November 2nd 2017.
Turning from the computer screen, I shouted, ‘Hello?’ but received no reply. I prowled the house in the hope of finding either my future self or someone who could tell me where he (I) was.
But the house was empty. Moreover, it didn’t look as if it had been lived in for a while. The beds were stripped, the place inordinately clean and tidy, and there were no perishable foods in the fridge or cupboards.
In fact, the place seemed to me to be sending out a clear message: Don’t bother hanging about. You’ll be wasting your time. Despite the fact that the message was most likely from my future self, I found it teeth-grindingly infuriating. My future self had known I’d be here at this time, so why was he being evasive? Then again, it was presumably because he remembered being me, and therefore remembered arriving to find the house like this, and so didn’t want to risk disrupting the timeline by doing anything different. Would I be the same five years down the line? I liked to think not. In fact, I was so annoyed that I told myself I’d definitely make sure I was around to greet the younger me. But when it came down to it… well, who knew?
I jumped another year into the future – November 2nd 2018 – and once again found the house both clean and tidy, and empty and closed up.
‘I can do this over and over again, you know,’ I shouted, my voice echoing in the empty house, ‘and I bloody will. You can’t avoid me for ever.’
I made myself a cup of black tea (there was no milk) and sat in the armchair by the unlit fire, wondering if there was any way to out-manoeuvre my future self. I wondered whether perhaps I could just leap around through time, so randomly and rapidly, without recording my journeys, that the future me would simply forget where and when I might appear.
But even if I managed to catch myself that way, what would stop the future me from escaping by immediately activating the heart and using it to send himself, say, a few hours or a day or two into the future? And as soon as I considered that possibility I cursed myself for thinking of it, because now that it was in my head my future self could, and probably would, make it a reality.
I tried to put myself in my future self’s shoes by wondering how I’d feel if my past self popped forward to ask my advice. First of all, I guess I’d be alarmed, because I didn’t do that and it would therefore mean that my past had changed. But looking at the situation purely hypothetically, I guess, depending on what the past me wanted to know, I’d be… wary.
Let’s say, for instance, that my past self popped forward after receiving the text sent apparently by Kate’s kidnapper, telling me to meet him at McCallum’s house. And let’s say he wanted to know whether he should go, or whether it was a trap. What would I tell him? Because, yes, it had been a trap, and it had led to my arrest – but it was as a indirect result of being incarcerated in the police station that I had ended up as a prisoner of Tallarian’s in Victorian London, and it was because of that that I’d first encountered Hope, and had ultimately been able to give her a life she would otherwise never have lived.
So… there were always consequences. Each separate event was a link in a chain, and if one of those links were to break… well, who knew what might happen.
But all of this was old ground. And on the other hand, there would surely be a way of giving my past self advice that would at least ease his passage without breaking the chain. Besides which, I was pig-headed and impatient. And I could just as easily believe that I was meant to be persistent, was meant, at this point, to receive some advice from my future self. Because whereas I could understand not wanting to upset the apple cart as regards my past, surely (if you’ll forgive my mixing of food-related metaphors) this was an entirely different kettle of fish? Because wasn’t I now, by my actions, creating my future? Whatever I chose to do at this moment would surely be my future self’s memory of what I did?
With this in mind, I decided to try one more thing. I told myself that if it worked, it was because it was destined to work; it was because my future self remembered it working. Using the phone in the hall, I rang my daughter Candice’s mobile number, hoping she hadn’t changed it in the six years that had passed since 2012. After a couple of rings a voice said, ‘Hello?’
‘Candice,’ I said, trying not to sound too unsure.
‘Dad. How come you’re home? What’s happened?’
I paused, then said, ‘What do you mean?’
‘I thought you were in South Africa for the next month. How come you’re not?’
My mind raced. South Africa? Why would I be in South Africa? Then it struck me that my 2018 self may possibly be in another time zone, and had simply told Candice that he had a job which took him abroad for long periods.
‘Yeah, I… er… there was a change of plan. Bit too complicated to explain.’ Before she could respond I said quickly, ‘Anyway, the thing is, my mobile’s on the blink, and I can’t get access to my address book and diary, and I… I was trying to remember the date of a business meeting, because I need to get in touch with this guy. And… anyway, it’s a long story, but I’m pretty sure this meeting was the day after I saw you last, but I can’t remember exactly when that was. So I thought—’
‘Calm down, Dad,’ Candice said. ‘You sound really stressed.’
‘Yeah, I am,’ I admitted. Don’t overdo it. Play it cool. ‘I’m just having one of those days.’
‘Sounds like it.’
I laughed. ‘Sorry for being so manic. But if you can remember…’
‘Hang on a sec, I’m on it. Just crossing to the calendar on the wall. You came for Sunday lunch, didn’t you? About three weeks ago? Yeah… here we are. It was the fourteenth. So I guess your meeting must have been Monday the fifteenth.’
‘Sounds about right,’ I said. ‘Thanks, Candice.’
‘No probs.’
‘Oh, hang on. There is one other thing. You’re going to think I’m a complete idiot, but like I say, my address book’s gone up the swanny, so I’m jotting down everyone’s addresses as I speak to them. So… sorry, but could you remind me what your address is again?’
‘Dad!’ She sounded shocked, and I thought: Oh God, what if I’ve made a massive faux pas? What if she lives next door or something? Then she tutted and said, ‘I can’t believe you can’t remember your own daughter’s address!’
‘I know,’ I said, putting on my what-a-prat-I-am voice, ‘but you know what I’m like. I’ve got a terrible memory for these things. Sign of age.’
She tutted, but reeled off an address, which I jotted onto the pad beside the phone. I’m glad I asked. I’d thought it likely she’d have left the house she’d been living in with her mum and Glenn by now, and moved into a place of her own, and sure enough she had. The address she gave me, in the genteel environs of Tufnell Park, was not one I recognised.
I was dying to
ask her how she was, what she was doing now, whether she was with anyone – but from her point of view my questions would have been too weird. So instead I said, ‘Right, well, thanks, honey. Speak to you soon.’
‘Yeah, bye, Dad.’
Five minutes later, having paused just long enough to put on some of my future self’s clothes so that I didn’t a) look odd, and b) freeze to death whilst hanging around on my daughter’s street, I used the heart to take me back to Sunday October 14th 2018, timing it to arrive at 11:30 a.m. Trying to appear as unobtrusive as possible, I half-hid behind a tree a few houses down on the opposite side of the road and staked out Candice’s place.
It was a nice house. Semi-detached, but tall and set back from the road behind a thick hedge and a front lawn maybe four metres square. A wrought-iron gate led up a garden path to a set of stone steps, a tiled porch and a blue front door flanked by stained-glass panels. If the place had a cellar, then the house was at least four stories high – maybe five if a couple of cramped attic rooms had been squeezed under the neatly tiled roof.
I was dying to know more about Candice’s present circumstances, would have loved to have knocked on that blue door and asked my daughter to fill me in on the last six years of her life. But of course I couldn’t. All I could do was speculate – so speculate I did.
The way I saw it there were four options. One, she had graduated, landed herself a plum job with a megabucks wage and bought herself a prime piece of London real estate. Two, the place belonged to her current (and obviously rich) boyfriend/fiancé/husband. Three, the house, despite appearances, had been divided into flats or bedsits, one of which she was renting. Or four, she was a live-in nanny/housekeeper with a well-to-do family.
I was still wondering when a metallic red Vauxhall Vectra appeared at the end of the road and headed towards me. Because I didn’t want it to look as though I was loitering, and because I had no mobile on me with which I could have pretended I was having a conversation, I dropped to one knee, dipped my head and picked at the laces of the black Timberland boots I’d borrowed from my future self’s house.
Instead of driving past, though, the car slowed and stopped beside me. Hoping the driver might simply be after directions, I raised my head as the passenger window slid down – to see my own face staring back at me.
‘I think you’re wearing my clothes,’ my future self said.
I looked down at myself and sighed. ‘These are my clothes. I just haven’t bought them yet.’
My future self smiled. ‘Get in,’ he said, ‘quick before she sees us.’
I took one more look at Candice’s house, half-expecting to see my eldest daughter staring at me from an upstairs window, eyes boggling and mouth open wide in astonishment, and then I opened the passenger door and slid into the seat. The car pulled away from the kerb as soon as I shut the door.
‘Nice flowers,’ I said, eyeing the large bouquet in fancy pink paper on the back shelf.
‘They’re exactly like the ones you’ll buy in six years’ time,’ my future self said drily. ‘The wine too. That’s in a cooler in the boot.’
‘Should I make a note of it?’ I said, and then realised I’d left my little black book in my jacket pocket, which was draped over the back of the chair in my bedroom in 2012.
‘No need. These kinds of things take care of themselves.’
At the end of the road we turned left.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘Why? Are you nervous?’
‘Oh yeah. Because taking me to a remote location and putting a bullet through my head would be a great idea from your point of view.’
What we did, in fact, was park at the south end of Hampstead Heath and go for a walk up and down the hills and through the woods. Because it was a chilly Sunday morning, and because we kept off the beaten track, we didn’t see many people about. The occasional jogger or dog walker who did walk or run past us paid us little or no attention. I guess that anyone who happened to glance our way would just assume we were twin brothers out for a morning stroll. Apart from having slightly longer hair than me, I was pleased to see my future self looked pretty much identical to how I looked now.
Tramping through a mushy carpet of autumn leaves, I said, ‘Unless I’m stricken with amnesia in the next few years, I don’t suppose you need me to tell you why I’m here?’
‘No, I don’t,’ said my future self. He shot me a sidelong look and said, ‘As you’ll appreciate in a few years’ time, this is fucking weird for me.’
‘Because you’re having to remember to say exactly what you said when you were me?’
He screwed up his face. ‘Not exactly. Because you don’t remember conversations you had years ago word for word, do you? But at the same time… yeah, whatever I say there’s a kind of… weird echo. It’s sort of like déjà vu, except not.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s hard to explain.’
‘I’ll try to remember that,’ I said.
He grimaced. ‘You won’t. Not properly anyway.’
We grew quiet when a woman in a headscarf approached and then scuttled past, swinging a lead. As I idly watched her dog, a white Fox Terrier with a saddle-like patch of black fur and brown ears, snuffle its way through every pile of damp leaves as it trailed in her wake, my future self said, ‘There’s not much I can tell you, you know.’
‘I guessed you’d say that.’
‘I know you did. Sorry.’
The dog gave us a wary glance and bustled past. I said, ‘When you were me, did you ever think you’d go against the grain? Do things differently when it came to your turn? Just for the hell of it? Or maybe not exactly that—’
‘Because I was frustrated and pissed off with what people weren’t telling me?’
I nodded.
‘Course I did.’
‘So?’
‘So now that I’m here I’m thinking it’s not worth the risk. I’m thinking there’s probably too much at stake.’
‘Probably?’
He shrugged. ‘Believe it or not, I’m not some sort of oracle. There’s still loads I don’t know.’
‘But there must be loads you do know that I don’t?’
‘I know there’s big changes coming.’ He halted for a moment, eyes widening. ‘Wow, what I just said was exactly how I remembered me saying it when I was you. That was weird.’
‘What kinds of changes?’ I asked. ‘Can’t you give me a hint?’
He looked momentarily thoughtful. ‘Hang in there. That’s all I can really say. You’ll find out soon enough.’
We lapsed into silence again, though only because my head was buzzing. In front of us the sinuous grey blur of a squirrel darted up a tree. Breath pluming as my frustration made me snappish, I said, ‘Can’t you give me anything concrete?’
‘I’m sorry.’ And to his (my) credit he truly did look sorry. ‘If I thought it would help, I’d tell you. I really would. You know that.’
‘Do I?’
‘Well… you will do. Look, why don’t you try asking me some specific questions and I’ll see what I can do.’
‘What should I do about the Dark Man?’ I said immediately.
‘Next.’
‘Oh, come on!’
This time he didn’t even say anything; just gave me a look.
Scowling I said, ‘All right then. Where are Kate and Lyn? How are they?’
His smile was both crooked and inscrutable. ‘Ask me something else.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake! Is that going to be your answer whatever I ask? Because let me tell you, when I get to be you, I’m going to do it all differently. I’m going to spill every fucking bean imaginable.’
Even as I was saying it, though, I knew I probably wouldn’t. And what was worse was that my future self knew how frustrated I was, and therefore knew exactly what I was thinking and feeling. All of which made me feel like a petulant child, stamping its foot to no effect.
Instead of making fun of me, though, my future self was sympathetic.
‘I wish I could tell you everything, I really do. But all this – who you are, who I am, where we both are right now – is so fragile that one slip could fuck up everything. I’m not saying it would, because I don’t know – I genuinely don’t. What I’m saying is, it could, and that’s enough for me to keep schtum.’
‘Which means you must be in a good place right now, yeah?’ I said. ‘I mean, if you’re scared I’ll change everything by knowing too much, then you must be in a good place, otherwise you’d want it changed, wouldn’t you?’
My older self just shrugged and pulled an imaginary zip across his lips.
‘I can see it in your eyes,’ I said – though I couldn’t, not really; I was simply trying to draw him out. ‘You’re contented. Which must mean everything’s okay. Which must mean Kate and Lyn are okay. And what about Clover and Hope? How are they?’
To his credit, his face didn’t flicker; he gave nothing away.
‘You’re good,’ I said. ‘Which means I’m good. Maybe we ought to take up poker.’
He gave a throaty laugh and produced a pack of Marlboro Lights. He offered me one and we strolled along, smoking in companionable silence for a moment. I’d always been a social smoker, though the War had made me into more of a habitual one; it was one of the few pleasures you could get in the trenches. This was the first cig I’d had since returning, though, and it tasted good.
As if reading my mind, my older self said, ‘If you really want my advice, it’s this: go back to the War. Sooner rather than later. It’ll be a grind – in fact, it’ll be a fucking nightmare – but just live through what you have to. Get it over with before taking things any further.’ He shot me a narrow-eyed look as though assessing my mettle. ‘But keep your head down. Be careful, and be alert. Don’t take things for granted. Just because you’re talking to me now doesn’t mean you’re invincible. I don’t want to wake up one morning to find I’m a paraplegic. Or maybe not wake up at all.’
