They doggedly inquired at every inn they passed between St. Albans and Bakewell before they finally admitted defeat. Both Peter and Dr. Dyer nursed a forlorn hope that when they returned to Hawthorn Cottage, Kate and Mr. Schock would be waiting for them. But when Gideon pushed open the front door to find an empty house, everyone knew in their hearts that only one course of action was left open to them. Peter looked sadly over at Gideon—he was not only going to have to prepare himself for another difficult parting, but a difficult homecoming, too.
TWENTY-FIVE
DINNER OF THE CENTURIES
In which the party has much cause to celebrate, Dr. Pirretti makes an impression, and Sergeant Chadwick takes Molly for a walk
When Kate’s mother asked her to fetch some extra desserts for the little ones, she was glad of a brief respite from the celebrations. As she searched at the back of the freezer for more chocolate chip ice cream, she took a moment to pinch herself. Had she ever felt happier in her whole life? Gone was the anxiety that had been weighing her down ever since she had first woken up to find herself in a field full of thistles in 1763. She was home! Peter was home! Everyone was home! She felt as light as air, as if she had been given a temporary reprieve from the laws of gravity!
It was late morning on a Saturday when Kate, Mr. Schock, and the Marquis de Montfaron arrived at the farm. Kate had persuaded the others to leave the van they had rented in the lane so that she could go on ahead. She had run, as softly as she could, to the front door and then had paused, almost reluctant to knock, as she savored the intense glow of anticipation. How she had hoped for it to be her mother who answered! Then she had rapped smartly on the familiar cracked red paint, and had heard footsteps in the hall, and the loose floorboard that creaked. Slowly, or perhaps it had just seemed slowly, the door had glided open. And there, in front of her, blinking in the sunshine, was her mother.
Mrs. Dyer had stepped backward and put both hands to her mouth, quite unable to move or speak.
“Mum! It’s me!”
Her mother had let out a little scream and had drawn Kate to her and held her so tightly she could scarcely breathe. Suddenly Kate had disentangled herself and had looked up.
“What is it?” cried Mrs. Dyer in alarm, seeing Kate’s distraught face.
“We didn’t find Peter…. I didn’t check the settings—it was my fault….”
But her mother had merely broken into a huge smile and had turned to shout down the hall: “Peter! Everyone! Come and see who’s here!”
Hearing his name, Peter had popped his head out of the kitchen and walked up the dark hall toward the dazzling daylight. Suddenly there was someone running at him at full pelt, red hair flying, and Kate had collided with him with such force that they had both ended up on the floor.
“You’re back!” she had shouted. “And you’re short again!”
“What!” Peter had exclaimed.
“Never mind,” Kate had said, laughing. “I’ll explain later. And look—your dad’s here, too!”
There were scenes of jubilation that day which no one present could ever forget. As Kate and Mr. Schock and the bemused Marquis de Montfaron entered the crowded farmhouse kitchen, there were gasps and shouts and cheers; people embraced and clung to each other, talked without stopping, shouted questions, lifted each other into the air, danced and cried and laughed.
A trestle table from the dairy had been butted up to the long kitchen table in order to accommodate everyone. Now both were groaning with food and packed around with folk who elbowed each other cheerfully as they laid out plates and cutlery. Almost everyone helped prepare the impromptu lunch. Milly was too young, of course, while the Marquis de Montfaron and Inspector Wheeler—who, along with Sergeant Chadwick, had accompanied the antigravity machine and its passengers from Hawthorn Cottage—proved to be abject failures in the kitchen. Instead, the policeman and the eighteenth-century aristocrat perched on the staircase, quite oblivious of being in the way, and took great delight in probing another enquiring mind from a different time. Sam clung to Kate while Megan, who had rushed over as soon as she received the call, now stood next to her friend holding her precious mobile phone once more.
“You know,” shouted Dr. Dyer above the hubbub into his Kate’s ear, “if happiness could be measured like temperature with a thermometer, the reading in this room would go clean off the scale.”
Sixteen people plus one golden Labrador gathered around the kitchen table for the celebratory lunch: the Dyers, the Schocks, Dr. Pirretti, Megan, an eighteenth-century French aristocrat, and the two English policemen. Everyone was pink with the heat and the excitement and the champagne. It was, Sam commented, the most amazing celebration ever. It was the dinner of the century! To which his big sister had replied that, given the Marquis de Montfaron’s presence and where they’d come from, it was the dinner of the centuries. Numerous toasts were made. Peter raised his glass to Gideon Seymour, who had been so good to him during his stay in 1763, and Kate raised her glass to the Marquis de Montfaron, who had mended the antigravity machine. When Mr. Schock stood up, the whole table emulated him and rose to their feet.
“To Gideon Seymour! To the Marquis de Montfaron!”
Montfaron bowed his head in acknowledgement. He sat at the head of the table, flanked by Dr. Pirretti on one side and Inspector Wheeler on the other. He still wore eighteenth-century costume and his dress, like his height, attracted much attention. Halfway through the meal little Milly was to be found under the table examining the buckles on his elegant, heeled shoes. She soon contrived to find a way onto his lap from which vantage point she could stroke the gold brocade on his cuffs and trace, with her plump little finger, the roses embroidered onto his waistcoat. He ate little, and while too polite to rise from the table and pick things up, his wide eyes surveyed the modest farmhouse kitchen, observing, analyzing, noting…. He allowed himself just one question. When Mrs. Dyer switched the light on, he looked up at her and asked: “Electricity?” She nodded and the biggest smile lit up his face. It was Montfaron who suggested the last toast: “To progress,” he said.
Peter sat between his parents. His mother rested her head on his and his father stretched out his arm around both of them. The overwhelming sense of loss Mr. Schock had felt only a few hours before had been replaced by joy at the prospect of a second chance, of proving to his son the father that he could be. His heart was full; he was still close to tears. When his father looked into his twelve-year-old face, Peter wondered which face he was seeing. He had already told Peter how proud he was of the man that he became (or might become?). And while really pleased and desperate to find out more about this mysterious older self, nonetheless uncomfortable questions—about his identity and how his father could have left him behind in 1792, no matter how old he was—were already beginning to surface in Peter’s mind. But it was not appropriate to voice them in the middle of a celebration.
“Who knows what life has mapped out for you,” said Mr. Schock suddenly to his son, “but of one thing I’m certain: You’ve got it in you to be a better man than I. There’s so much to say and so much to tell you…. But there’ll be time enough for that when we’ve all calmed down and made some sense out of all of this. Now we’ve got all the time in the world together….”
Peter looked at his father, in no doubt, for once, about his father’s feelings for him. Kate, too, was squeezed between her parents. She caught Peter’s eye and fanned herself with a paper napkin. He panted like a dog with his tongue hanging out. They both laughed. It was so good to see each other again. But was it his imagination, Peter asked himself, or did Kate look a bit strange? Like his favorite T-shirt when it had been put through the wash too many times….
Megan was looking at the photograph which Kate had taken on the Dover packet with her mobile phone. She reached over Mrs. Dyer to touch Kate’s arm and get her attention.
“Are you telling me you only took one picture, Kate! One!”
“I was too busy to take pictures!?
??
“And all you can see on this one is great white sails and sea!”
“No,” said Kate. “If you look carefully, you’ll see a man in eighteenth-century costume too.”
“I can’t see anyone….”
“You must be blind,” said Kate. “Give it here—let me show you.”
Kate peered at the tiny picture. The grown-up Peter Schock had been in the picture too, staring out to sea—she was sure of it. She looked closer and tipped the mobile at a slight angle. Yes, he was there! Just a trace of him, but he was there…. But then Kate looked again—and she couldn’t make him out. What on earth was going on? Suddenly she doubted her own judgement. She no longer knew what she could see…. An unwelcome sinking feeling prompted her to pass the mobile phone quickly back to her friend. “My mistake,” she said.
Megan looked back at her, unable to read her expression.
“Is anything wrong, Inspector?” asked Mrs. Dyer.
The policeman was leaning back in his chair and looking out of the kitchen door into the yard. He got up and looked at the sky. “I keep thinking I can hear a helicopter,” he said.
“There’s nothing unusual in that,” said Mrs. Dyer. “We often get them flying over the valley.”
Inspector Wheeler rubbed his bruised neck.
“I’ll go and have a look around,” offered Sergeant Chadwick. “I could do with a quick breath of air after that wonderful dinner.” He smiled at Mrs. Dyer.
“You’re very welcome, Sergeant.”
“Why don’t I take the dog for a walk while I’m at it. Do you want to keep me company, Molly?” he asked.
Molly’s golden ears pricked up. She had been lying in front of the Aga and now sat up expectantly.
“Is that okay, Kate?”
“Molly never says no to a walk!”
Dr. Pirretti sat smiling in Peter’s direction, delighted to see that, contrary to all expectations, everything had turned out well in the end.
“My mind is reeling,” she said. “How can we be living in a universe where Peter reached adulthood, lived, and, presumably, died in the eighteenth century, and yet here Peter is today, sitting in our midst, a child once more! The more I try to figure it out the more my brain hurts….”
“My dear lady,” said Montfaron in his lilting accent, “whatever is the truth, is the truth, and our inability to comprehend it alters nothing.”
“I feel I owe it to you to tell you,” said Dr. Pirretti, “that my instinct is that we should attempt to return you and the Tar Man to your own times as soon as possible.”
“Alas, I agree with you, dear lady, but not just yet. I hope that I might be allowed to stay awhile….”
Montfaron put his head on one side and smiled so winningly at Dr. Pirretti, his clear brown eyes twinkling, that the entire table started to laugh. His charms were difficult to resist.
Kate’s attention was caught by Dr. Pirretti, and she kicked Peter’s legs under the table and nodded in her direction. She was passing her hand over her forehead and frowning a little as if she was trying to focus on something in the middle distance. She opened and closed her mouth as if she were about to say something but kept deciding against it. Others saw Peter and Kate looking at her, and soon the entire table grew quiet and turned to her expectantly.
“Is anything the matter, Anita?” asked Mrs. Schock, solicitously.
Dr. Pirretti’s gaze swept around the table, and when her eyes met those of Dr. Dyer she said: “I’m sorry, Andrew…. On such a lovely occasion as this …I am aware of your doubts…. It’s just that I am experiencing a quite overwhelming feeling that I’ve passed this way before.”
The silence around the table deepened. Montfaron blinked at her like an owl and the Inspector cleared his throat.
Finally Dr. Dyer said: “Could you tell us what’s on your mind, Anita?”
But to everyone’s astonishment Dr. Pirretti mouthed his exact words at the very instant he uttered them. Shivers went up and down Kate’s spine and she exchanged glances with Peter.
“What’s going on?” asked Dr. Dyer and Dr. Pirretti in unison.
Now everyone looked alarmed. Dr. Pirretti did not seem herself. It was as though she were speaking through a wall to people that she could not see.
Dr. Pirretti continued: “And then you say . . .”
She paused, as if waiting for a prompt.
“Why are you doing this?” they both said together.
“Because,” said Dr. Pirretti, “I need to prove to you that I have already lived through this moment. You are witnessing the splintering of time.”
“The splintering of time?”
“Yes. You cannot destroy something which has already existed. If you travel to a different time, you can alter the course of events—but, as a consequence, the universe will make a copy of itself rather than allow what has already happened to be wiped away. We now live in a universe where worlds and times overlap, duplicate themselves….”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying!” said Inspector Wheeler. “Are you seriously suggesting there are duplicate worlds out there?”
“I mean that there is now a parallel world where Peter and Kate found Molly in the antigravity lab and all returned safely home to the farmhouse for lunch—but there is also this world, in which Peter and Kate were catapulted back in time and in which many other things have now occurred as a consequence.”
“But … how could that continue? There could be an infinite number of worlds, of duplicates….”
“Precisely—as long as people continue to travel through time …and not just in your world.”
Mrs. Dyer clutched her husband’s hand.
“This isn’t the Anita I know,” she whispered.
Peter saw the expression of horror on Kate’s face and felt it too. It wasn’t over, was it? His friend looked desperate.
“Why do you say your world, not our world?” asked the Inspector.
“Surely that is clear?” said Dr. Pirretti. “I mean what I say.”
No one spoke. Everyone stared at Dr. Pirretti. She had seemed calm but was now beginning to look strained. She started to speak again, but this time her words came out in short bursts, as if she were out of breath.
“So, if you believe the evidence of your own ears …I am proof that parallel worlds do exist…. Haven’t you ever said: It’s like someone just walked over my grave; or, I knew what he was going to say before he even opened his mouth; or, it’s fate, it was meant to happen….”
“Déjà vu,” Mrs. Schock whispered to her husband. He nodded.
“It’s as if, for a few moments, you coincide with an alternative existence and you make a fleeting connection…. This past I share with you, though we do not share the same future….”
“And what prompted you to try so hard to contact us?” asked Dr. Dyer.
“To warn you,” she said. “You can change time. I can’t …”
These last words came out as a gasp. And all at once everyone could see by the expression on Dr. Pirretti’s face that it was over. She slumped forward for a moment and, like coming out of a trance, when she pushed herself up she was herself again.
“Oh my,” she said, taking the glass of wine which Montfaron was offering her and taking a sip. “I’m sorry. My first public performance. Not good timing …”
“On the contrary, Madame, your timing was impeccable,” he said. “I suspect we were all called on to be witnesses.”
“Anita,” said Mrs. Dyer. “Are you all right?”
Dr. Pirretti nodded. “I felt such a strong sense of urgency. I sense that she fears that something awful is about to happen. If only I could understand what she wants me to do.”
“Is it possible that you have it in your power to do something which she cannot?” asked Montfaron.
“But if she wants me to do something, why can’t she do it herself in her world? She certainly seems to know more than I do….” Dr. Pirretti sighed, but all at once her face lit up. ?
??Unless she’s in a duplicate world and we are in—for want a better word—the master, and it’s possible to alter history in our world but not in hers…. Does that make sense? Could that be what she meant?”
Kate gasped. “Can’t you all see? It’s obvious! She wants us to put things right. She wants us to go back in time to the beginning of the Christmas holidays and stop Peter and I going back to 1763 and everything that happened as a result! She wants us to prevent the first time event!”
Everyone looked at one another.
“I can understand Kate’s reasoning,” said Montfaron. “You do not fell a great tree by snipping off its leaves one by one. You take an axe to its trunk.”
“And what do you think might happen if we don’t?” asked Peter.
“I don’t think I want to find out,” said Kate.
Exhausted and overwrought, Dr. Pirretti excused herself and escaped upstairs to her room for a while. The celebratory dinner was over.
“So much for our plans to destroy the machines,” said Dr. Dyer.
“I’m not letting Kate go back in time again!” exclaimed his wife.
“Nor Peter!” said Mr. Schock.
Dr. Dyer leaned over the table and put his head in his hands. “I have to admit that I remain highly skeptical about Anita’s ‘funny turns.’ Convincing as she was, I don’t want to base vital decisions on what could be the ravings of someone who’s been under too much pressure for too long….”
“If you will permit me to say so,” commented Montfaron, “he who lives without madness is not as wise as he thinks….”
“If only none of this had ever happened,” exclaimed Dr. Dyer angrily. “If only we could turn the clock back!”
“Exactement, my dear sir,” said Montfaron. “It appears that you can….”
Mrs. Schock turned to her husband and spoke quietly, too unsure of her ground to want to address the whole company. “When I’m working on a script, I keep a master version and then, every time I make an important change—kill somebody off or create a new character—I make a backup. Like a snapshot in time of the story immediately before the point at which the change occurs.”