In the present, in my real life, I sometimes dallied with another fiction: that I was her lover, that it was for me she was waiting. This thought excited me, arousing responses of a physical kind that I did not fully understand.
I went to the Park repeatedly, gladly suffering the punishments at school for my frequent, and badly excused, truancies. So often did I leap across to that future that I soon grew accustomed to seeing other versions of myself, and realized that I had sometimes seen other young men before, who looked suspiciously like me, and who skulked near the trees and bushes beside the Channel and gazed across as wistfully as I. There was one day in particular—a lovely, sunny day, at the height of the holiday season—that I often lighted on, and here there were more than a dozen versions of myself, dispersed among the crowd.
One day, not long before my sixteenth birthday, I took one of my now customary leaps into the future, and found a cold and windy day, almost deserted. As I walked along the path I saw a child, a small boy, plodding along with his head down against the wind and scuffing at the turf with the toes of his shoes. The sight of him, with his muddy legs and tear-streaked face, reminded me of that very first time I had jumped accidentally to the future, and I stared at him as we approached each other. He looked back at me, and for an instant a shock of recognition went through me like a bolt of electricity. He turned his eyes aside at once, and stumped on by, heading towards the bridges behind me. I stared at him, recalling in vivid detail how I had felt that day, and how I had been fomenting a desperate plan to return to the day I had left, and as I did so I realized—at long last—the identity of the friend I had made that day.
My head whirling with the recognition, I called after him, hardly believing what was happening.
“Mykle!” I said, the sound of my own name tasting strange in my mouth. The boy turned to look at me and I said a little uncertainly: “It is Mykle, isn’t it?”
“How do you know my name?” His stance was truculent and he seemed unwilling to be spoken to.
“I…was looking for you,” I said, inventing a reason for why I should have recognized him. “You’ve jumped forward in time, and don’t know how to get back.”
“Yes, but—”
“I’ll show you how. It’s easy.”
As we were speaking, a distracting thought came to me: so far I had, quite accidentally, duplicated the conversation of that day. But what if I were to change it consciously? Suppose I said something that my “friend” had not; suppose young Mykle were not to respond in the way I had? The consequences seemed enormous, and I could imagine this boy’s life—my own life—going in a direction entirely different. I saw the dangers of that, and I knew I had to make an effort to repeat the dialogue, and my actions, precisely.
But just as it had when I tried to speak to Estyll, my mind went blank.
“…it’s all right, thank you, sir,” the boy was saying. “I can find my own way.”
“By running across the bridges?” I wasn’t sure if that was what had been said to me before, but I knew that had been my intention.
“How did you know?”
I found I could not depend on that distant memory, and so, trusting to the inevitable sweep of destiny, I stopped trying to remember. I said whatever came to mind.
It was appalling to see myself through my own eyes. I had not imagined that I had been quite such a pathetic-looking child. I had every appearance of being a sullen and difficult boy; there was a stubbornness and a belligerence that I both recognized and disliked. And I knew there was a deeper weakness too: I could remember how I had seen myself, my older self, that is. I recalled my “friend” from this day as callow and immature, and mannered with a loftiness that did not suit his years. That I (as child) had seen myself (as young man) in this light was condemnation of my then lack of percipience. I had learned a lot about myself since going to school, and I was more adult in my outlook than the other boys at school; what is more, since falling in love with Estyll I had taken great care over my appearance and clothes, and whenever I made one of these trips to the future I looked my best.
However, in spite of the shortcomings I saw in myself-as-boy, I felt sorry for young Mykle, and there was certainly a feeling of great spirit between us. I showed him what I had noticed of the changes in the Park, and then we walked together towards the Tomorrow Bridge. Estyll was there on the other side of the Channel, and I told him what I knew of her. I could not convey what was in my heart, but knowing how important she was to become to him, I wanted him to see her and love her.
After she had left, I showed him the mark I had made in the surface of the bridge, and after I had persuaded him to make the leap—with several sympathetic thoughts about his imminent reception—I wandered alone in the blustery evening, wondering if Estyll would return. There was no sign of her.
I waited almost until nightfall, resolving that the years of admiring her from afar had been long enough. Something that young Mykle had said deeply affected me. Allowing him a glimpse of my fiction, I had told him: “She is waiting for her lover.” My younger self had replied: “I think you are her lover, and won’t admit it.”
I had forgotten saying that. I would not admit it, for it was not strictly true, but I would admit to the wish that it were so.
Staring across the darkening Channel, I wondered if there were a way of making it come true. The Park was an eerie place in that light, and the temporal stresses of the flux-field seemed to take on a tangible presence. Who knew what tricks could be played by Time? I had already met myself—once, twice, and seen myself many times over—and who was to say that Estyll’s lover could not be me?
In my younger self I had seen something about my older self that I could not see on my own. Mykle had said it, and I wanted it to be true. I would make myself Estyll’s lover, and I would do it on my next visit to the Park.
X
There were larger forces at work than those of romantic destiny, because soon after I made this resolution my life was shaken out of its pleasant intrigues by the sudden death of my father.
I was shocked by this more profoundly than I could ever have imagined. In the last two or three years I had seen very little of him, and thought about him even less. And yet, from the moment the maid ran into the drawing-room, shrilling that my father had collapsed across the desk in his study, I was stricken with the most awful guilt. It was I who had caused the death! I had been obsessed with myself, with Estyll…if only I had thought more of him, he would not be dead!
Of course, much of this was hysteria, but in the sad days before the funeral, it seemed less than wholly illogical. My father knew as much about the workings of the flux-field as any man alive, and after my childhood adventure he must have had some inkling that I had not left matters there. The school must have advised him of my frequent absences, and yet he said nothing. It was almost as if he had been deliberately standing by, hoping something might come of it all.
In the days following his death, a period of emotional transition, it seemed to me that Estyll was inextricably bound up with the tragedy. However much it flew in the face of reason, I could not help feeling that if I had spoken to Estyll, if I had acted rather than hidden, then my father would still be alive.
I did not have long to dwell on this. When the first shock and grief had barely passed, it became clear that nothing would ever be quite the same again for me. My father had made a will, in which he bequeathed me the responsibility for his family, his work and his fortune.
I was still legally a child, and one of my uncles took over the administration of the affairs until I reached my majority. This uncle, deeply resentful that none of the fortune had passed to him, made the most of his temporary control over our lives. I was removed from school, and started in my father’s work. The family house was sold, the governor and the other servants were discharged, and my mother was moved to a smaller household in the country. Salleen was quickly married off, and Therese was sent to boarding-school. It was made plain
that I should take a wife as soon as possible.
My love for Estyll—my deepest secret—was thrust away from me by forces I could not resist.
Until the day my father died, I did not have much conception of what his work involved, except to know that he was one of the most powerful and influential men in the Neuropean Union. This was because he controlled the power-stations which tapped energy from the temporal stresses of the flux-field. On the day I inherited his position I assumed this meant he was fabulously wealthy, but I was soon relieved of this misapprehension; the power-stations were state-controlled, and the so-called fortune comprised a large number of debentures in the enterprise. In real terms these could not be cashed, thus explaining many of the extreme decisions taken by my uncle. Death-duties were considerable, and in fact I was in debt because of them for many years afterwards.
The work was entirely foreign to me, and I was psychologically and academically unready for it, but because the family was now my responsibility, I applied myself as best I could. For a long time, shaken and confused by the abrupt change in our fortunes, I could do nothing but cope.
My adolescent adventures in Flux Channel Park became memories as elusive as dreams; it was as if I had become another person.
(But I had lived with the image of Estyll for so long that nothing could make me forget her. The flame of romanticism that had lighted my youth faded away, but it was never entirely extinguished. In time I lost my obsessive love for Estyll, but I could never forget her wan beauty, her tireless waiting.)
By the time I was twenty-two I was in command of myself. I had mastered my father’s job; although the position was hereditary, as most employment was hereditary, I discharged my duties well and conscientiously. The electricity generated by the flux-field provided roughly nine-tenths of all the energy consumed in the Neuropean Union, and much of my time was spent in dealing with the multitude of political demands for energy. I travelled widely, to every state in Federal Neurop, and further abroad.
Of the family: my mother was settling into her long years of widowhood, and the social esteem that naturally followed; both my sisters were married. Of course I too married in the end, succumbing to the social pressures that every man of standing has to endure. When I was twenty-one I was introduced to Dorynne, a cousin of Salleen’s husband, and within a few months we were wed. Dorynne, an intelligent and attractive young woman, proved to be a good wife, and I loved her. When I was twenty-five, she bore our first child: a girl. I needed an heir, for that was the custom of my country, but we rejoiced at her birth. We named her…well, we named her Therese, after my sister, but Dorynne had wanted to call her Estyll, a girl’s name then very popular, and I had to argue against her. I never explained why.
Two years later my son Carl was born, and my position in society was secure.
XI
The years passed, and the glow of adolescent longing for Estyll dimmed still further. Because I was happy with my growing family, and fulfilled by the demands of my work, those strange experiences in Flux Channel Park seemed to be a minor aberration from a life that was solid, conventional and unadventurous. I was no longer romantic in outlook; I saw those noble sentiments as the product of immaturity and inexperience, and such was the change in me that Dorynne sometimes complained I was unimaginative.
But if the romance of Estyll faded with time, a certain residual curiosity about her did not. I wanted to know: what had become of her? Who was she? Was she as beautiful as I remembered her?
Setting out these questions has lent them an urgency they did not possess. They were the questions of idle moments, or when something happened to remind me of her. Sometimes, for instance, my work took me along the Flux Channel, and then I would think briefly of her; for a short time a young woman worked in my office, and she had the same name. As I grew older, a year or more would sometimes pass without a thought of Estyll.
I should probably have gone for the rest of my life with these questions unanswered if it had not been for an event of major world importance. When the news of it came out, it seemed for a time to be the most exciting event of the century, as in some ways it was: the starship that had been launched a hundred years before was returning.
This news affected every aspect of my work, and at once I was involved in strategic and political planning at the highest level. What it meant was this: the starship could only return to Earth by the same means as it had left. The Flux Channel would have to be reconverted, if only temporarily, to its proper use. The houses in its vicinity would have to be evacuated, the power-tapping stations would have to be disconnected, and the Park and its time-bridges would have to be destroyed.
For me, the disconnection of the power-stations—with the inevitable result of depriving the Neuropean Union of most of its electricity—created immense problems. Permission had to be sought from other countries to generate electricity from fossil deposits for the months the flux-stations were inoperable, and permission of that sort could only be obtained after intricate political negotiation and bargaining. We had less than a year in which to achieve this.
But the coming destruction of the Park struck a deeper note in me, as it did in many people. The Park was a much-loved playground, familiar to everyone, and, for many people, ineradicably linked with memories of childhood. For me, it was strongly associated with the idealism of my youth, and with a girl I had loved for a time. If the Park and its bridges were closed, I knew that my questions about Estyll would never be answered.
I had leapt into a future where the Park was still a playground, where the houses beyond the trees were still occupied. Through all my life I had thought of that future as an imaginary or ideal world, one unattainable except by a dangerous leap from a bridge. But that future was no longer imaginary. I was now forty-two years old. It was thirty-two years since I, as a ten-year-old boy, had leapt thirty-two years into the future.
Today and Tomorrow co-existed once more in Flux Channel Park.
If I did not act in the next few weeks, before the Park was closed, I should never see Estyll again. The memory of her flared into flame again, and I felt a deep sense of frustration. I was much too busy to go in search of a boyhood dream.
I delegated. I relieved two subordinates from work in which they would have been better employed, and told them what I wanted to discover. They were to locate a young woman or girl who lived, possibly alone, possibly not, in one of the houses that bordered the Park.
The estate consisted of some two hundred houses; in time, my subordinates gave me a list of over a hundred and fifty possible names, and I scanned it anxiously. There were twenty-seven women living on the estate who were called Estyll; it was a popular name.
I returned one employee to his proper work, but retained the other, a woman named Robyn. I took her partially into my confidence; I said that the girl was a distant relative and that I was anxious to locate her, but for family reasons I had to be discreet. I believed she was frequently to be found in the Park. Within a few days, Robyn confirmed that there was one such girl. She and her mother lived together in one of the houses. The mother was confined to the house by the conventions of mourning (her husband had died within the last two years), and the daughter, Estyll, spent almost every day alone in the Park. Robyn said she had been unable to discover why she went there.
The date had been fixed when Flux Channel Park would be closed to the public, and it was some eight and a half months ahead. I knew that I would soon be signing the order that would authorize the closure. One day between now and then, if for no other reason, Estyll’s patient waiting would have to end.
I took Robyn further into my confidence. I instructed her to go to the Park and, by repeated use of the Tomorrow Bridge, go into the future. All she was to report back to me was the date on which Estyll’s vigil ended. Whether Robyn wondered at the glimpses of my obsession she was seeing, I cannot say, but she went without demur and did my work for me. When she returned, she had the date: it was just over six weeks a
way. That interview with Robyn was fraught with undertones that neither side understood. I did not want to know too much, because with the return of my interest in Estyll had come something of that sense of romantic mystery; Robyn, for her part, clearly had seen something that intrigued her. I found it all most unsettling.
I rewarded Robyn with a handsome cash bonus, and returned her to her duties. I marked the date in my private diary, then gave my full attention to the demands of my proper work.
XII
As the date approached I knew I could not be at the Park. On that day there was to be an energy conference in Geneva, and there was no possibility of my missing it. I made a futile attempt to change the date, but who was I against fifty heads of state? Once more I was tempted to let the great preoccupation of my youth stay forever unresolved, but again I succumbed to it. I could not miss this one last chance.
I made my travel-arrangements to Geneva with care, and instructed my secretarial staff to reserve me a compartment on the one overnight train which would get me there in time.
It meant that I should have to visit the Park on the day before the vigil was to end, but by using the Tomorrow Bridge I could still be there to see it.
At last the day came. I had no one to answer to but myself, and shortly after midday I left my office and had my driver take me to the Park. I left him and the carriage in the yard beyond the gate, and with one glance towards the estate of houses, where I knew Estyll and her mother lived, I went into the Park.
I had not been in the Park itself since my last visit just before my father died, and knowing that one’s childhood haunts often seem greatly changed when revisited years later I had been expecting to find the place smaller, less grand than I remembered it. But as I walked slowly down the gently sloping sward towards the toll-booths, it seemed that the magnificent trees, and the herbaceous borders, the fountains, the pathways, and all the various kinds of landscaping in the Park gardens were just as I recalled them.