‘Yes,’ I said, admitting it to myself for the first time. ‘Yes, I do.’
We strolled slowly down the path. As always, the place was very quiet. Only the crows cawing in the tall chestnut trees disturbed the peace.
He said suddenly, ‘What will happen to me when I die?’
‘As far as I’m concerned, Joe, nothing.’
‘You’re not going to tell anyone who I am?’
‘No.’
He swallowed. ‘Thank you.’
‘Do you miss him?’
‘Yes. He was like a father to me. I owe him everything. And now he’s gone and I miss him.’
Poor Joe. Uprooted from Troy and then again from the future. And now Leon was gone. And someone else knew his secret. How lonely and afraid must he feel at the moment.
I saw Miss Lee approaching and braced myself to intercept her. Joe Nelson was in no fit shape to encounter the laser-focused hostility and random evil that packaged itself as Rosie Lee.
I got The Look. The one that indicates she’s had to perform above and beyond the call of duty. Such as delivering a message to someone who’s not at her desk, for example.
She launched into a litany of complaint.
‘Why are you all the way out here?’
I opened my mouth to point out that ‘out here’ was only about two hundred yards from the main building, but there was no chance.
‘I am busy this morning, you know.’
This was news to me.
‘Sorry to drag you out into the fresh air. I forgot you crumble into dust when sunlight touches you.’
She ignored this.
‘And now I’ve got to go all the way back to Wardrobe because Mrs Enderby wants some files, and you still haven’t signed off on next month’s duty roster, or approved Mr Clerk’s application for leave, or even looked at the pod servicing schedule, or –’
This could go on all morning.
‘Why exactly are you here? Is it possible – and I know this is a bit of a new concept for you, but work with me here – is it possible that you have some useful function to perform?’
‘Dr Bairstow would like to see your report when you have a moment and there are some urgent –’
I waited for her to finish the sentence, but that seemed to be it. I was quite accustomed to being told there was an urgent message for me and having to go off and get the details for myself, because she always considered that simply telling me about it completed the job. The actual contents of the message and whom it was from were usually for me to ascertain.
I cleared my throat compellingly and fixed her with the stern eye of an unhappy supervisor. A complete waste of time. She was staring at Joe Nelson. He was staring at her. And both of them were looking as if Stonehenge had dropped on them. Even as I looked, she blushed and dropped her eyes.
What?
A considerable amount of silence passed.
I stared at the pair of them, frozen in time like a pair of mismatched bookends. Surely not …
It dawned on me that something was expected from me. With considerable misgivings, I said, ‘Joe, may I introduce Rosie Lee. Miss Lee, this is Joe Nelson.’
‘Yes,’ they both said together. ‘I know,’ and fell silent again.
He stared at his feet.
She stared at his feet.
I began to feel as wanted as cholera.
‘Well,’ I said, backing off down the path. ‘I have to go. Perhaps, Miss Lee, you would be kind enough to escort Mr Nelson to the gate. Please don’t forget to sign him out.’
I’m not sure why I bothered. She wasn’t listening to me. No one was listening to me. Nothing new there. In some confusion, I left them to it.
I took my report to Dr Bairstow in person.
Mrs Partridge nodded me through.
He sat behind his desk, writing steadily. I sat on the other side of his desk and waited for him to finish. Silence doesn’t bother me. I was quite happy to sit there all day.
Newton says that Time is like an arrow, and can never deviate from its path. Einstein says Time is like a river and meanders, running fast and slow. Maxwell – when she’s been up all night thinking too much, says Time is like a circle and ripples in a pool spread out in all directions. Including back into the past.
Leon had appeared at the very time and place I needed him to be. He’d been given the coordinates. Who had told him when and where to go?
I had.
And who had sent him back, alone and broken, to a very uncertain future?
I had.
And who was going to fix that? Right here? Right now?
I was.
For me, he was dead and gone, but I could still save his life.
Eventually, Dr Bairstow capped his pen and looked up.
‘May I see my file, please, sir?’
He raised his eyebrows, but pulled open a filing cabinet, rummaged, and produced the battered document that was the story of my life so far.
I flipped it open and took out the photograph again.
I laid it on the desk in front of me and looked at it. Had I ever been that young?