Siobhan considered. ‘No. I can assure you of that.’
‘Thank God.’ The relief in his voice was tangible. ‘She would guess it was me. She doesn’t understand the situation she’s put me in. She thinks that I’m trying to stand in her way. I just want her to be safe.’
‘Rest assured,’ Siobhan said. ‘You’ve come through to exactly the right person.’
‘Thank you.’ The man sighed before hanging up.
Siobhan replaced the receiver and looked at her laptop again. Bangkok was cheap at the moment. Maybe she’d go when the rainy season was over.
37
AUGUST 2017
Ginger
Ginger Hayes was in Euston Station, buying coffee on the concourse. Her commuter train to Tring was due shortly, and her thoughts were half mired in the problems of her outpatients. Gurpreet, who no longer perceived words at their normal volume, and begged strangers in the street to ‘please, please stop shouting’. Sally, who had been deaf since birth but forgot how to sign when her brain was injured. Chloe, who confidently used neologisms in the expectation they would be understood. ‘Mulmul’ for garden, ‘shwister’ for tea, ‘copterbop’ for pencil.
The working day had finished late, because a team meeting overran. Ginger had argued at length with the neuropsychiatrist’s assessment of a client. While the barista frothed milk Ginger was still arguing in her head, subvocalising the new points that occurred to her. Mixed in amongst this was the list of household obligations to be completed that evening. She’d forgotten to defrost the chicken before work, so she’d need to go to the supermarket, and then to the pharmacy, to pick up a prescription for her daughter Fay’s eczema, and by then it would be time to collect Fay herself from Brownies…
Ginger took her coffee, and had just lifted the lid when she saw Ruby weaving through the crowds. At Ruby’s side was a woman dressed like Megan Draper. They were laughing. In fact Ruby looked entirely different from her usual frowning, over-serious self; as though she’d received the best kind of news.
Did Ruby laugh like that with Ginger?
No. Ginger and Ruby were always brought together through a mutual sense of fatigue. Sex with Ruby was an escape, and yet it was the same kind of escape as drinking a bottle of wine alone in a darkened room. They didn’t bring each other joy – or share anything of themselves. And Ginger had thought this was how she wanted their relationship to be. An impersonal release, easily segmented from her real life. Only now did she realise that she would be jealous of someone making Ruby laugh.
Ginger didn’t lack self-awareness. She realised it was gross hypocrisy to want Ruby to herself. And yet when the service to Tring was announced, Ginger sleepwalked in the opposite direction, after the laughing women. They took the escalators down into the Underground station. Ginger kept her eye all the time on Ruby’s shining hair, anxious that she would lose them among the tourists and the tired office workers. She followed them through the barriers and down again; they were taking the Northern line. Southbound.
When the next train arrived Ginger entered the same carriage as them, a couple of doors down. Between passengers’ shoulders and upraised arms, Ginger could still see Ruby at the centre of the carriage. She was standing next to that other woman. Their heads were close to each other.
How else could they stand? Ginger scolded herself. It’s a busy train. Friends would stand as close. My head is as close to a stranger’s.
But Ginger knew sometimes we want proximity and a crowd gives us the excuse.
At every station she was poised to disembark, because she didn’t know her marks’ destination. The train passed through Angel, and Bank, and Borough. Ruby and her companion got out at Eligius. Ginger pushed her way to the open door, with more recklessness than before. Ruby would have questions if she realised Ginger was following her, but Ginger feared that she’d escaped detection not because she was a good spy, but because Ruby’s attention was fixed so completely on Ginger’s rival.
People funnelled from the platform. Ginger lost Ruby at the lifts. She rose to street level and ran through the parting doors, trying to catch another sight of Ruby’s red flannel dress, but she was nowhere to be seen by the barrier, nor at the exit. Ginger rushed outside and looked up and down the street with rising panic. There, there she was! Turning a corner up ahead.
Will you follow her all night? that scolding voice asked. What will you do when she comes to a stop?
I’ll tell her I want her, Ginger said back. All of her, not just snatched sex in the blue hour before I climb back to bed with Seamus. I’ll tell him about her. Then I can know her.
Her conviction grew while she tracked the pair down roads of white stone buildings. She could catch up with them. She started to run, and was gaining. They were at the gates of the Time Travel Conclave. Ruby’s companion was speaking into an intercom. If they went inside, Ginger’s opportunity would be gone, for she couldn’t follow them in.
‘Ruby!’ she shouted. ‘Ruby!’
The traffic drowned out her calls. She watched Ruby disappear into the Conclave, and the gate swung shut.
Ginger slowed her pace, now her quarry had gone. She walked to the gate and peered through the bars, to see if Ruby was still in view, but saw only a young woman in shades, coming down the path.
‘Excuse me,’ Ginger called. ‘Is any part of the Conclave open to the public?’
The woman stopped in her tracks and cocked her head.
‘It’s me,’ the woman said, and came closer. She took off her glasses. Her eyes, incongruously, reminded Ginger of Seamus. Guilt was making her imagine things. She pushed the thought away. The woman smiled at Ginger, and this too was familiar.
‘It’s me,’ she said again. ‘Mum? It’s Fay.’
Ginger moaned. The woman’s face was right, but it was upsetting to see one’s daughter the wrong age.
‘How can you be Fay?’ Ginger whispered.
The woman laughed. ‘I became a time traveller.’
Ginger looked for differences from the Fay she knew. This woman’s hair was strawberry-blonde, and cut into a pageboy.
‘Your hair’s the wrong colour. My daughter’s hair is red. Like mine.’
‘We do still have dye in the future.’
‘I have to go.’
The woman named Fay reached through the bars. ‘Please wait. This is new to me too. I’ve just started.’
‘How old… how old are you?’
‘Twenty-four.’ Fay beamed, proud.
‘You’re at Brownies,’ Ginger said faintly. ‘You’re doing your Gardening badge.’
‘I was going to come and visit you. Can I?’
‘What? Yes.’ This was Fay, then. And Fay could always come home. ‘Do you mean now?’
‘Well, actually I was on my way to a meeting—’
‘That’s fine. That might be better.’
‘I’m sorry. I shocked you.’
‘Don’t be sorry. It’s a surprise, a surprise rather than a shock. I can tell your father, and he’ll be ready for when you come.’
Fay’s eyes were shining. ‘I can’t wait to talk to him.’
‘But if you’re not coming to ours tonight, where will you get dinner?’
‘Mum, I get all my meals here.’
‘Oh, I see. And are you… are you happy?’
‘Very!’
‘Good.’
‘So you had no idea I was here?’ Fay asked.
‘No. How would I?’
Fay frowned. ‘What are you doing here then?’
Shit, thought Ginger. She was still flushed with the jealousy that fuelled her sprint to here from Euston. But she had meant to voice that jealousy to Ruby, not Fay. Ginger’s cheeks flamed, and she knew she must answer Fay’s question before the silence seemed too long.
‘I was passing – and I thought I saw a colleague, here, by the intercom. It doesn’t matter.’ She brought her hands to her mouth. How dreadful if she’d stopped Ruby and told her she’d break their secrecy, only for Fay to arrive seconds later. What a way to hear her parents’ marriage was over.
Except – it dawned upon Ginger – Fay would know already.