‘I’ve ruined dinner. Look, I’ll call you in the week, OK?’
Dinah gave a small nod. Ruby placed her napkin beside her plate and left her mother sitting at the dinner table. Once she was outside she arranged an Uber, and began mentally rehearsing a phone call to her grandmother. She needed to say Bee should slow down: that her plan to time travel again might be unwise. Just as the car pulled up, Ruby dialled her grandmother’s number.
‘Granny Bee?’ she said, as she got into the back seat.
‘Is that you, Ruby, my love?’
‘I’ve been thinking, about your plan to rejoin the pioneers…’
‘Yes?’
‘You could so easily reopen old wounds.’ Ruby’s voice was as high as a child’s. ‘If you keep on this path I’m worried you’ll get ill and hurt yourself.’
‘Dear heart.’ Bee’s voice was kind. ‘You must stop worrying about me. I’ve had this illness since before you were born or thought of. You can’t use it as an excuse to wrap me in cotton wool. Besides… I’ve already started limbering up. I’ve done some experiments and I’ll be back working alongside the pioneers in no time.’
‘You’ve done what?’ Ruby asked in consternation.
‘I bought a second-hand Candybox! Did you read about those collectors who adapt them? They try to extend their reach into the future. Oh, the science is pretty basic, but I want to give it a go. To break my duck, so to speak.’
‘You’re impossible,’ Ruby groaned.
‘Good grief. I’ll be fine. A schoolgirl could adjust one of those boxes. If a schoolgirl’s physics experiment is too much for me, you might as well bump me off now.’
‘OK, OK,’ Ruby relented. ‘Experiment if you must. On one condition. You come and stay with me in London. I want to be able to keep a close eye on you.’
Ruby said goodbye. She still had nearly an hour’s journey. Her head fell back against the seat and she closed her eyes, desperate to shut out her anxieties about Granny Bee.
12
JULY 2018
Odette
Under Dr Rebello’s guidance, Odette’s symptoms improved. The flashbacks and nightmares dwindled, then finally stopped. She could now remember the day she found the corpse without feeling she was slipping back, bodily, to the basement.
‘But the questions still bother me,’ Odette told Dr Rebello.
‘Questions?’
‘Who was the dead woman? Who killed her? Why?’
‘How would knowing the answers change your life?’
‘The world would make sense again.’
‘Are you sure? Whys tend to lead to more whys.’
This, Odette had to admit, was true to her experience.
‘Maybe,’ Dr Rebello said, ‘we’re better off accepting the past is what it is. If it can’t be changed, does the why matter?’
‘The why always matters.’ Odette started to laugh.
Dr Rebello smiled. ‘What’s funny?’
‘I was just thinking. When I was a little girl, my nickname was Midge. Because I was always buzzing about, asking questions, and my mother had to swat them aside like flies. One question after another.’
‘Tell me more about that.’
‘In Seychelles everybody knows your auntie and her dog. You have no private business. And the tourists who swan in and out aren’t immune, either. My aunt had a guest house so we knew the secrets of the holidaymakers too. When I asked questions my parents thought I was gossiping.’
‘Were you?’
‘No. Gossip’s about getting a thrill, isn’t it? A vicarious thrill. I wanted to understand people. To solve their mysteries.’
‘Give me an example.’
‘OK… I remember something from when I was six years old. One morning seven women from Scotland came to the hotel. They looked related. All of them had green eyes, and their noses looked the same to me; sharp and pointy. They were fair, very fair. The Kreol phrase for them was bla rose – that means people with white-pink skin. My Kreol’s rusty but I remember that.
‘I wasn’t sure how old they were. The youngest-looking one was probably twenty-something – about the same age as my sister. And I thought the eldest was a great-grandmother at the very least. They were all named Dr Niven, except the oldest lady, who was a professor.
‘All week I watched them. These women barely spoke to each other, but they were inseparable. At mealtimes I remember laughing because they raised their spoons to their mouths in synchrony. After a few days, I was very used to them coming and going as a single block. So I was really amazed when Professor Niven came into the lobby alone. She must have crept away without the others’ knowledge. She must have had a secret. I was pretending to be a detective, you know.
‘I followed Professor Niven outside. She took the path from the hotel, as far as a place called Trois Frères. I lost her for a bit, so I looked for millipedes – they’re very fat in Seychelles, you should see them. The next time I saw the old woman she was under a cinnamon tree, with one shoe off. She was rubbing her heel. It was too late for me to hide so I ran towards her.
‘I asked her, in English: “Why did you go out for a walk all alone?”
‘And she told me: “The others are preparing for my wedding. It’s today, at noon.”
‘This seemed hilarious because she was much too old to be getting married. I asked her why she wasn’t there too, and she said, “I’m not going. I’ve been seven times already. Do you know about time travel?”’
Dr Rebello dropped her pen. Odette waited for her to pick it up.
‘Are you all right? Am I… not making sense?’ Odette asked, because Dr Rebello was frowning.
‘You’re making perfect sense.’ This time Dr Rebello’s smile looked strained.
‘OK. Professor Niven explained that the other guests weren’t her relatives. They were all her – the same person, at different times, having travelled to the same point to meet. I asked her whether all time travellers go back to their wedding day.
‘She said: “A few. When they’re trying to understand something.”
‘And I didn’t say anything but I thought, this woman is like me. She wants to understand why things happen too.’
‘Did the conversation end there?’ Dr Rebello asked.
‘She asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I told her: solve mysteries.’
The psychologist was looking into the middle distance.
‘Dr Rebello?’ Odette asked. ‘What are you thinking about?’
‘I was reflecting on my advice to accept what can’t be changed.’ Dr Rebello closed her notebook. She stood up. ‘It’s in your nature to ask questions, Odette. Perhaps we can’t change that either. The session’s over for today.’
13
JULY 1969
Angharad