“Any time, any time at all,” replied Tom casually, as though he were fed up of traveling across the centuries and the creation and destruction of civilizations bored him to tears.
He reached for a bun and munched on it cheerfully, as if to show her that despite all he had seen, he could still enjoy the simplest pleasures of life, such as English baking.
Claire asked: “Do you have it with you? Can you show it to me?” “Show you what?” “The time machine you used to travel here.” Tom almost choked on his bun.
“No, no,” he declared hastily, “that’s out of the question, entirely out of the question.” She responded in a manner that took Tom by surprise, pouting rather childishly and folding her arms stiffly.
“I can’t show it to you because … it’s not something you can see,” he improvised, trying to mollify her anger before it set in.
“You mean it’s invisible?” the girl looked at him suspiciously.
“I mean, it’s not a carriage with wings that flies through time,” he explained.
“What is it then?” Tom stifled a sigh of despair. What was it, indeed, and why could he not show it to her? “It’s an object that doesn’t move physically through the time continuum. It’s fixed in the future and from there it, well … it makes holes we can travel through to other eras. Like a drill, only instead of making holes in rocks … it digs tunnels through the fabric of time. That’s why I can’t show it to you, although I’d like nothing better.” The girl was silent.
“A machine that makes holes in the fabric of time,” she finally murmured, intrigued by the idea. “And you went through one of those tunnels and came out today?” “Yes, that’s right,” replied Tom, halfheartedly.
“And how will you get back to the future?” “Through the same hole.” “Are you telling me that at this very moment somewhere in London there’s a tunnel leading to the year 2000?” Tom took a sip of tea before replying. He was beginning to tire of this conversation.
“Opening it in the city would have been too obvious, as I’m sure you understand,” he said cautiously. “The tunnel always opens outside London, at Harrow-on-the-Hill, a tiny knoll with an old oak surrounded by headstones. But the machine can’t keep it open for very long. It will close in a few hours” time, and I have to go back through it before that happens.” With these words, he looked at her solemnly, hoping she would stop plying him with questions if she knew they had so little time together.
“You may think me reckless for asking, Captain,” he heard her say after a few moments” reflection, “but would you take me back with you to the year 2000?” “I’m afraid that’s impossible, Miss Haggerty,” Tom sighed.
“Why not? I promise I—” “Because I can’t go ferrying people back and forth through time.” “But what’s the point of inventing a time machine if you don’t use it for—” “Because it was invented for a specific purpose!” Tom cut across her, exasperated by her stubbornness. Was she really that interested in time travel? He instantly regretted his abruptness, but the harm was done.
She looked at him, shocked by his irate tone.
“And what purpose might that be, if you don’t mind me asking?” she retorted, echoing his angry voice.
Tom sighed. He sat back in his seat and watched the girl struggling to suppress her mounting irritation. There was no point in carrying on with this. The way the conversation was headed, he would never be able to coax her over to the boardinghouse. In fact, he would be lucky if she did not walk out on him there and then, tired of his filibustering. What had he expected? He was no Gilliam Murray. He was a miserable wretch with no imagination. He was out of his depth in the role of time traveler. He might as well give up, forget the whole thing, take his leave of the girl graciously while he still could and go back to his life as a nobody: unless of course Murray’s thugs had other ideas.
“Miss Haggerty,” he began, resolved to end the meeting politely on some pretext, but just then she placed her hand on his.
Taken aback by her gesture, Tom forgot what he had been going to say. He gazed at her slender hand resting gently on his among the cups and saucers, like a sculpture the meaning of which he was unable to fathom. When he raised his eyes, he found her gazing back at him with infinite sweetness.
“Forgive my awkward questions, which no doubt you are not allowed to answer,” the girl apologized, leaning delightfully towards him across the table. “It was a very rude way of thanking you for bringing back my parasol. In any case, you needn’t tell me what the machine is for, as I already know.” “You do?” said Tom, flabbergasted.
“Yes,” she assured him with an enchantingly conceited grin.
“And are you going to tell me?” Claire looked first to one side then to the other, before replying in hushed tones: “It’s for assassinating Mr. Ferguson.” Tom raised his eyebrows. Mr. Ferguson? Who the devil was Mr. Ferguson, and why did he have to be assassinated? “Don’t try to pretend, Captain,” Claire chuckled. “There really is no need. Not with me.” Tom began laughing heartily with her, letting out a few loud guffaws to release the tension accumulated during her interrogation. He had no idea who Mr. Ferguson was, but he sensed that his best bet was to pretend he knew everything about the man down to his shoe size and the type of shaving lotion he used, and pray she would not ask anything about him.
“I can’t hide anything from you, Miss Haggerty,” he cajoled, “you’re far too intelligent.” Claire’s face glowed with pleasure.
“Thank you, Captain. But it really wasn’t that difficult to guess that your scientists invented the machine in order to travel back to this point in time in order to assassinate the inventor of the automatons before he could create them, thus preventing the destruction of London and the death of so many people.” Was it really possible to travel back in time in order to change events? Tom wondered.
“You’re quite right, Claire. I was sent to kill Ferguson and save the world from destruction.” The girl thought for a few moments before adding: “Only you didn’t succeed, because we witnessed the war of the future with our own eyes.” “Right again, Claire,” Tom acknowledged.
“Your mission was a failure,” she whispered with a hint of dismay. Then she fixed her eyes on him and murmured: “But why? Because the tunnels don’t stay open long enough?” Tom spread his arms, pretending he was bowled over by the girl’s astuteness.
“That’s right,” he confessed, and with a sudden flash of inspiration, he added: “I made several exploratory journeys in order to try to find Ferguson, but I failed. There wasn’t enough time. That’s why you might bump into me again in the future, only if you do, you mustn’t come up to me because I won’t know you yet.” She blinked, trying to grasp his meaning.
“I understand,” she said finally. “You made those journeys prior to this one, even though you showed up here days afterwards.” “Exactly,” he exclaimed, and encouraged by how much sense this gibberish was apparently making to her, he added: “although from your point of view this would seem to be my first visit, actually it isn’t. I’ve made at least half a dozen other forays into your time before this one. What’s more, this journey, which for you is my first, is also my last, because use of the machine has been prohibited.” “Prohibited?” asked Claire, her fascination growing.
Tom cleared his throat with a gulp of tea, and, emboldened by the mesmerizing effect his words were having on the girl, went on: “Yes, Claire. The machine was built halfway through the war, but when the mission failed, the inventors forgot about their utopian idea of preventing the war before it broke out and concentrated their efforts instead on trying to win it, and invented weapons that could cut through the automatons” reinforced armor,” the girl nodded, probably recalling the soldiers” impressive guns. “The machine was left to rot, though it was placed under guard to prevent anyone traveling illegally into the past and tampering with anything they felt like. Still, I was able to use it secretly, but I only managed to open the tunnel for ten hours, and I have th
ree hours left before it closes. That’s all the time I have, Claire. After that I have to go back to my own world. If I stay here, hero or no hero, they’ll find me and execute me for traveling illegally in time. That means, in three hours from now … I’ll be gone forever.” With these words, he pressed Claire’s hand very tenderly, while inwardly applauding his own performance. To his amazement, not only had he solved the problem of possible chance meetings in the future, but had managed to tell her they only had three hours left together before saying good-bye forever. Only three. No more.
“You risked your life to bring me my parasol,” she said slowly, as though summing up, as though suddenly she had understood the real dangers Tom had braved.
“Well, the parasol was only an excuse,” he replied, leaning over the table and gazing passionately into her eyes.
The moment had come, he said to himself. It was now or never.
“I risked my life to see you again because I love you, Claire,” he lied in the softest voice he could muster.
He had said it. Now she must say the same thing to him. Now she must confess she loved him, too, that is, that she loved the brave Captain Shackleton.
“How can you love me, you don’t even know me,” the girl teased, smiling sweetly.
This was not the response Tom had been hoping for. He disguised his dismay with another gulp of tea. Did she not realize they had no time for anything except giving themselves to one another? He only had three blasted hours! Had he not been clear enough? He replaced the cup in its saucer and glanced out of the window at the boardinghouse opposite, its beds waiting with their clean sheets, ever further out of reach. The girl was right, he did not know her, and she did not know him. And as long as they remained strangers, there was no possibility of them ever ending up in bed. He was fighting a losing battle. But what if they did know each other, he suddenly thought? Did he not come from the future? What was there to stop him claiming that from his point of view they already knew each other? Between this meeting and their encounter in the year 2000, he could make up any number of events it would be impossible for her to refute, he told himself, believing he had finally discovered the perfect strategy for leading her to the boardinghouse, meek as a lamb.
“This time you’re wrong, Claire. I know you far better than you think,” he confessed solemnly, clasping her hand in both of his, as though it were a wounded sparrow. “I know who you are, your dreams, your desires, the way you see the world. I know everything about you, and you know everything about me. And I love you, Claire. I fell in love with you in a time that doesn’t exist yet.” She looked at him, astonished.
“But if we’re never to meet again,” she mused, “how will we get to know each other? How will you fall in love with me?” Breaking out in a sudden sweat, Tom realized he had fallen into his own trap. He stifled a curse and, playing for time, gazed at the street outside. What could he say to her now? He watched the carriages go by, indifferent to his distress, making their way through the vendors” barrows. Then his eye fell on the red pillar box on the corner, solid and steadfast, sporting the insignia Victoria Regina on the front.
“I fell in love with you through your letters,” he blurted out.
“What letters? What are you talking about?” exclaimed the girl, startled.
“The love letters we’ve been sending one another all these years.” The young girl stared at him, aghast. And Tom understood that what he said next had to be credible, for it would determine whether the girl surrendered to him forever or slapped him angrily in the face. He closed his eyes and smiled weakly, pretending he was evoking some memory, while he desperately tried to think.
“It happened during my first exploratory journey to your time,” he said finally. “I came out on the hill I told you about.
From there I walked to London, where I was able to verify that the machine was completely reliable when it came to opening the hole at the specified date: I had traveled from the year 2000 to November 8, 1896.” “November 8?” “Yes, Claire, November 8, that’s to say, the day after tomorrow,” Tom confirmed. “That was my first foray into your century. But I scarcely had time to do anything else, because I had to get back to the hill before the hole closed up again. So I hurried as fast as I could, and I was about to enter the tunnel that would return me to the year 2000, when I saw something I hadn’t noticed before.” “What?” she asked, burning with curiosity.
“Under a stone next to the grave marked John Peachey, I found a letter. I picked it up and discovered to my amazement it was addressed to me. I stuffed it in the pocket of my disguise and opened it in the year 2000. It was a letter from a woman I’d never met living in the nineteenth century.” Tom paused for dramatic effect, before adding: “Her name was Claire Haggerty, and she said she loved me.” The girl breathed in abruptly, as though gasping for air. Tom watched, a tender smile on his face, as she gulped, attempting to digest what she was hearing, struggling to understand that she was responsible for this whole situation, or would be responsible for it in the future. For if he loved her now it was because she had loved him in the past. Claire stared into her cup, as though she were able to see him in the tea leaves in the year 2000 reading with bewilderment the letter in which a strange woman from another century, a woman who was already dead, declared her undying love for him. A letter she had written. Tom persisted, like the lumberjack who sees the tree he has been hacking away at for hours begin to teeter and despite his exhaustion swings his axe even harder.
“In your letter, you told me we would meet in the future, or more precisely I would meet you, because you had already met me,” he said. “You implored me to write back, insisting you needed to hear from me. Although it all seemed very strange to me, I replied to your letter, and on my next visit to the nineteenth century two days later, I left it beside the same tombstone. On my third visit I found your reply, and that’s how our correspondence through time began.” “Good God,” the girl gasped.
“I had no idea who you were,” Tom continued, not wanting to give her any respite, “but I fell in love with you all the same, with the woman who wrote those letters. I imagined your face when I closed my eyes. I whispered your name in my sleep, amid the ruins of my devastated world.” Claire fidgeted in her seat and gave another long, bitter sigh.
“How many letters did we write to each other?” she managed to ask.
“Seven, in all,” Tom replied randomly, because it sounded like a good number; not too many and not too few. “We hadn’t time to write more before they prohibited the use of the machine, but believe me it was enough, my love.” Upon hearing the captain utter those words, Claire heaved another sigh.
“In your last letter, you named the day we would finally meet. May 20 in the year 2000, the day I defeated Salomon and ended the war. That day I did as you instructed in your letter, and after the duel I looked for a secluded spot among the ruins.
Then I saw you, and, as you had described, you dropped the parasol, which I was to return to you using the time machine.
Once I reached your era I was to go to Covent Garden Market, where we would meet, and then I was supposed to invite you to tea and tell you everything,” Tom paused, before adding wistfully: “and now I understand why. It was so these events would take place in the future. Do you see, Claire? You will write those letters to me in the future because I am telling you now that you will.” “Good God,” the woman repeated, almost out of breath.
“But there’s something else you need to know,” announced Tom, determined to fell the tree with one final blow. “In one of your letters you spoke of how we would love one another this afternoon.” “What?” the girl was scarcely able to stammer in an inaudible voice.
“Yes, Claire, this afternoon we will love one another in the boardinghouse over the road, and in your own words, it will be the most magical experience of your life.” Claire stared at him in disbelief, her cheeks flushing bright pink.
“I can understand why you’re surprised, but imag
ine how I felt. I was astonished when I read the letter in which you described our lovemaking, because for you it was something we’d already done, but as far as I was concerned it hadn’t happened yet.” Tom paused and smiled sweetly at her: “I’ve come from the future to fulfill my destiny, Claire, which is to love you.” “But, I—” she tried to protest.
“You still don’t understand, do you? We’ve got to make love, Claire,” said Tom, “because in reality we already have.” It was the final axe blow. And, like the oak, Claire teetered on her chair and crashed to the floor.
27
If she had wanted to draw everyone’s attention, thought Tom, she couldn’t have found a better way. Claire’s sudden fainting fit, and the din of the shattering teapot and teacups, dragged with the tablecloth onto the floor, had brought to an abrupt standstill the conversations floating through the air of the tearoom, plunging it into complete, stunned silence. From the back of the room, where he had been relegated during the ensuing commotion, Tom watched the bevy of ladies rallying round the girl. Like a rescue team with years of practice, they stretched her out on a couch, placed a pile of cushions under her feet, loosened her corset (that diabolical item of clothing entirely to blame for her fainting fit as it had prevented her from breathing in the amount of air necessary for such charged conversations), and went to fetch smelling salts in order to bring her round. Tom watched her come to with a loud gasp.
The female staff and customers had formed a sort of matriarchal screen around the girl to prevent the gentlemen in the room from glimpsing more of her flesh than was seemly. A few minutes later he saw Claire stumble through the human wall, pale as a ghost, and peer confusedly around her. He waved at her awkwardly with the parasol. After a few moments” hesitation, the girl staggered towards him through the crowd of onlookers. At least she seemed to recognize him as the person whom she had been taking tea with before she had passed out.