As soon as Angharad completed her probationary period, she travelled from 1969 to 1973, where a health crisis was under way at the Conclave. The time machines were nuclear powered, and this meant radiation-resistant bacteria thrived and proliferated in the fuel core whenever the machines were used. One strain of bacteria, named macromonas, was pathogenic. Ordinarily it posed very little threat to the time travellers, because the fuel core was sealed. But in 1973 a time machine combusted. The seal was damaged, and the machine’s components flew through the air, causing injury to a large number of staff. Many of the resulting wounds were infected with macromonas. Angharad arrived the following day to help with the aftermath. They needed all the medical expertise they could get. Over the next week she devised a treatment programme of antibiotics and, for the minority with radiation syndrome, the drug TP508. She also strengthened hygiene protocols to limit the spread of germs.
Once all the time travellers were in a stable condition, she decided to visit her future self, who was on maternity leave in 1973. Angharad was still awed by the novelty of visiting other time periods and ventured from the Conclave with some trepidation. Since 1969, the governing party had changed from Labour to Conservative, and the IRA would begin their attacks on mainland Britain. But the appreciable differences, from Angharad’s perspective, were at street level. She noticed prices had gone up quite a bit, considering less than a decade had passed; and there had been a small uptick in the earth tones of clothing and cars. The world hadn’t changed so much it was unrecognisable. It had altered just enough to seem uncanny to her. She was both at home, and a stranger.
She took a bus, and then a train, to her home town. The way to the maternity hospital was still familiar. Her siblings and their children had all been born there. Angharad was grateful for any continuity. The building was a single storey block, partitioned from the road by privet hedges. Inside, the corridors echoed with newborns crying. Angharad followed the sound into a long ward that smelt of sterilising fluid and milk. Iron beds alternated with cots. She passed the series of new mothers – all of them with the same drained pallors; all of them wearing prairie nightgowns, in embroidered muslin and floral lawns. At the very end of the room Angharad came to a woman she recognised, who cradled a child wrapped in pink wool.
‘Hey,’ Angharad called gently.
The woman looked up, her eyes widening slightly, then she smiled.
‘Hello, you!’ she said. ‘Come and see our girl. This is Julie.’
She tilted the bundle towards Angharad. The sleeping baby’s mouth, pale and soft as rose petals, had pursed to suckle at a dream breast. Angharad’s heart ached.
‘Labour was fucking horrible,’ her older self said cheerfully. ‘Thirty-six hours and eighteen stitches. But it helped to know for definite we’d both make it.’
‘Well done you.’
‘Do you want to hold her?’
Angharad nodded. She took the baby in her arms, and sat in the easy chair by the bed. Julie stirred, but didn’t waken. Her fists were as red as radishes. Close to, Angharad recognised the blanket; her mother had knitted it when Angharad was still small. She had always hoped she’d wrest it from her siblings when her time came to have children. The baby gripped the shawl’s silken corner.
When you’re born I’ll already know you, Angharad thought. And then I’ll know you for ever. It was a queer kind of bliss, mingled with terror. Angharad was glad she wouldn’t have responsibility for someone so utterly dependent on her just yet. She had four years to prepare. But she wished she could revisit and revisit this moment. How sad that she wouldn’t. She knew she wouldn’t come back, because only one of her future selves was present. A single reliving would have to do. The two women exchanged smiles.
‘Have you had many visitors?’ Angharad asked.
‘Just family. Margaret sent a present, hot off the factory line.’
Three dolls, bearing a resemblance to the pioneers, stood on the bedside cabinet. Two of the dolls’ torsos were just visible through the V-neck of their boiler suits, and Angharad could see that their upper bodies were decorated with a raised pattern. They were action figurines suited to a much older child than Julie – as if they’d been bought by someone unfamiliar, or unconcerned, with the capabilities of newborn babies.
‘A little replica of Margaret,’ Angharad said. ‘I’m not sure I like that idea.’
‘Me neither. But it’s entirely typical, isn’t it? Do you know anyone else who’d give a model of themselves as a gift? I mean, Margaret’s not vain, but she’s…’
‘An individualist?’ Angharad supplied.
They both laughed. And beneath the new mother’s embroidered collar, a red speck enlarged like an ink blot, staining the white cotton.
‘You’re bleeding,’ Angharad said.
‘Damn… The dressing’s leaked.’ She dabbed at the mark.
For reasons she couldn’t explain, Angharad didn’t want to know how she’d cut herself. She was almost frightened of the prospect. The oddness of seeing her own future may have caught up with her. I’m being irrational, she thought, and she forced herself to ask: ‘How’d you get that cut?’
‘When the time machine broke, of course.’
‘You were there? But you were on maternity leave.’
‘No; it was my last day. I left straight after the accident. Everyone was wailing and screaming and I was desperate to get away. By the time you arrived I was already on the train out of London. Don’t worry, the wound’s quite clean – there’s no infection.’
That strange feeling, of fear and oddness, grew more intense.
‘Can you explain something to me?’ Angharad whispered. ‘You all knew the accident was going to happen. Why on earth did you get into the machine?’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’ Her older self smiled. ‘You’re still very green.’
The answer was cryptic – and condescending. Angharad wondered if she came across that way a lot. Many people disliked their own personal traits, she knew, but it was disconcerting to experience her flaws as a separate party. She let the question drop, and looked again at the baby. Julie provided their common ground.
‘I’d do anything for her,’ Angharad said softly. ‘I’d die for her. I’d kill for her.’
‘I know,’ said the older Angharad. ‘We both would.’
14
JULY 2017
Ruby
On the final Saturday of July, Ruby gathered her post and saw that among the usual bills was an unmarked brown envelope – presumably hand delivered. She tore it open to find a solitaire ring. The gold band was engraved with a chain of numbers: 1939201519392018.
‘What have you got there?’ Bee was on her way to the kitchen in her pyjamas. She had arrived the night before, with Breno, the Candybox, and lab equipment in tow.
‘Mystery gift.’ Ruby assumed it was from Grace. Another little puzzle to work out. But Ruby couldn’t mention that. As far as Bee was concerned, Grace didn’t know who Ruby was.
Ruby tried the gift on each of her fingers. The only one it fitted comfortably was the ring finger of her left hand. Bee watched with amusement.
‘Spill the beans,’ she said. ‘Who’s sending you engagement rings?’
‘You think it’s an engagement ring?’
‘That’s what it looks like. You must know someone who’d send this to you?’
‘I hope not.’ It couldn’t be Ginger, with her evasiveness and her alcoholism and her probable wife. No keeper she. Ruby suppressed a snort of laughter, and followed Bee into the kitchen.
*
After breakfast, Bee and Ruby sat at the kitchen table with the Candybox. Ruby turned it on. Bee took a white paper bag from her pocket, and tipped a cobble beach of sugared almonds onto the table.
‘I bought them yesterday. I like to have something sweet to eat on the train. Now… let’s see… to send this into the future, I suppose I just put the sweet in here?’
‘That’s how I remember it,’ said Ruby.
Bee dropped one of the almonds into the box. They watched it disappear.
‘Why can’t we adjust how long it takes to reappear?’ Ruby asked.
‘Because this technology is as simple as time travel gets, and in fairness it’s well suited to children. They don’t want to wait longer than a minute. Now, with the right modifications, and the right fuel, you could use the Candybox to send objects months into the future. But you’d need an arms’ dealer’s budget to pay for it.’
‘What makes the fuel so expensive?’
‘Sourcing costs. The main constituent is atroposium which has to be harvested from garnet rock. It’s rarer and harder to mine than coal, or uranium. Fuel was by far our biggest expenditure in the early days. Margaret funded us until the military money came through.’
The Candybox’s beep sounded.
‘Aha!’ Bee said, looking inside the box.