Time After Time

Part 3

1984

“Time is a game played beautifully by children.”

- Heraclitus, Fragments.

Freezing rain lashed Tom as he sprinted through the gates. He was running full pelt when he crashed into someone in the darkness. Tom’s momentum kept him moving forward. There was a horrible cracking sound under his boot. He leant over to apologise.

“You idiot. You’ve broken my nose.”

The voice was familiar.

Someone else walked towards them laughing. It was Gaz Reid.

“Nobody makes a fool out of me,” Barry McLaughlin shouted. He picked himself up from the floor, hand over his face and glared at Tom. “What the hell are you wearing you freak? You’re that idiot from school.”

Tom did not have time for this. He kicked McLaughlin in the shins as hard as he could and ran across the road into a side street. He could worry about McLaughlin another time, but he had to stop the others before they got home.

Five minutes later Tom arrived at a large detached house, feet crunching on the gravel of the drive. He ducked behind a tree. It could be disastrous if the wrong Pete spotted him. A moment later, the front door opened and Mr. Diabrowski stepped out, taking the dog for a walk. Sam, an excitable golden retriever, rushed to the tree where Tom was hiding and licked his hand.

“Come on boy!” Mr. Diabrowski shouted. Sam barked at Tom a couple of times, unsure what to do. Pete’s dad strolled over, pulling a lead out of his pocket. He was just yards away from Tom.

Tom tried to push the dog away with his foot, Sam barked and grabbed Tom’s boot in his teeth.

“What’s the matter Sam?” asked Mr. Diabrowski.

“Hi dad,” said Pete, staggering along the drive.

“Piotrek! If you’ve been drinking again, your mother will string you up. What on earth are you wearing?”

“What? Oh. It’s for a school play. Edward II by Marlowe, you’ll love it. I’m Third Peasant. Can I say while I’ve got you to myself...?” Pete steadied himself with his hands on his dad’s shoulders. “You’re the best dad in the whole world.”

“That’s gratifying son but you’d better get sober before your mum sees you. I’m not sure about the tights by the way. You haven’t got the legs for them.”

Laughing to himself, Mr. Diabrowski opened the gate and disappeared down the street. The dog followed him stopping to check whether Tom and Pete were coming too. Pete went to the door and pulled out his keys.

“Pete,” whispered Tom as loud as he could. “Pete!”

Pete span around. “Who’s there?”

Tom stepped out from the bushes,

Tom grabbed Pete by the arm and pulled him into the darkness. They heard the door opening. Pete’s mum peered out into the night.

“Hello…?”

Pete tried to call back to his mum but Tom put his hand over Pete’s mouth. After a few seconds, Mrs. Diabrowski closed the door. They heard bolts sliding. Pete released Tom who grabbed him and shoved him backwards into a hedge.

“Why did you do that? She looked scared.”

“She’d be more scared if her son’s double walked through the door.” Tom struggled to his feet and brushed himself off.

“Double?”

“After you left I went to look for Sophie again. I got to the clearing where I practice my archery and who do you think I saw?”

“Sophie?” replied Pete. “You saw Sophie?”

Tom shook his head.

“Lord Lucan? George Formby? Shergar? I don’t know. Look, my head hurts. It’s like I’ve spent three hours at the Maxime’s Rock Night being force fed Newcastle Brown. I need my bed.”

“I saw myself,” said Tom. “The day before we left, I was in the clearing and someone was watching me. It was me. Pete, we came back a day early! Right now, you are upstairs in that bedroom playing Manic Miner or whatever you do with a ZX81. You need to get yourself a Commodore 64 by the way. I don’t know how you can stand those tiny rubber keys. You were about to walk in on yourself.”

“We’ve got to stop Kate.”

Tom and Pete headed towards Kate’s block of flats. They reached the entrance panting for breath.

“So what do we do now Einstein?” asked Pete. “Ring the buzzer and ask if she’s in?”

“I don’t know,” replied Tom. “She might not be back yet. She might have gone to her gran’s or she could already be home.”

“Or she might be hiding behind the bins waiting for her slow-witted friends. Hoping they don’t do anything too stupid,” said Kate as stepped out from behind a huge steel container. She dragged them both into the dark corner.

“I was almost home when I noticed the streets were swarming with rugby fans. There was a big match the night before we went through the portal. My brothers went to the game and come home in a bad mood because Wigan lost to St. Helens. I knew I had no chance of catching you two in time, so I hid here, hoping you’d figure it out and come looking for me.”

Tom told her what he had seen in the woods.

“Everything is resolving itself,” said Kate. Her foot caught something on the floor in the darkness. There was a metallic rolling sound. She leant over and picked up the object. “Oh...”

Kate looked shocked.

“What is it?” Pete asked.

Kate held an aerosol can. “There’s something I need to do. Watch the doorway and shout if anyone comes.”

She rushed to the building, buzzed herself in and sprayed something on the door of the lifts. The others watched through the glass doors.

The door of the pub, which occupied most of the ground floor of the building, opened and an old man stepped out. The sound of Neil Diamond’s Coming to America spilled out behind him, sung with too much confidence with too broad an accent. The door slammed shut. The old man coughed much of his lungs onto the car park, and shuffled towards the entrance to the flats. He fumbled for his keys, muttering to himself.

“Coo,” Pete shouted.

Tom joined in. “Coo... Coo!”

As their cooing grew louder and more urgent, the old man paused for a moment and peered at the bins.

“Get out of there or I’ll call the bobbies. Bloody drug addicts, I don’t know what this place is coming to. Hey, what are you doing? I know your gran, young lady.”

Kate rushed past him and disappeared into the shadows. The old man slammed the door closed.

Kate stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at the boys. “Coo? What the bloody hell is that supposed to be? It sounded like you were strangling pigeons back here.”

“What were you doing anyway?” Tom asked.

“Leaving myself a message. Listen, none of us can go home tonight. We need to hide out until tomorrow evening and we need some advice. We have to go and see Hermes.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Yes. The cottage from 700 years ago is still standing. It’s not in the middle of woods anymore though. It’s in the middle of a council estate. Nobody mentions it, even though it should stand out like a sore thumb. I suppose when something has always been there you don’t notice it, however weird it may be. My aunt lives around the corner. Hermes is one of the local characters, hangs out in this grotty old pub.”

As she spoke, Kate heard the lift inside the block descending. It stopped at the ground floor, with a resounding clunk. She stared at the entrance.

“What’s the matter?” Pete asked.

Kate waved for him to be quiet.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway. The door swung open and an old woman stepped out. The woman pulled a headscarf over her neat grey hair and hurried across the car park.

“I don’t understand.”

“Who was it?” Tom asked.

“The person who left me the newspaper clipping,” said Kate. “It was Evelyn Fairclough.”

The stranger parked outside the Town Hall and watched three teenagers slip into an alley. They were the only people wearing medieval costumes in the town centre that Sunday evening. The stranger slipped his gun into the shoulder holster and climbed out of the car. He walked around to the rear, unlocked the boot and took out his briefcase.

“Keep quiet,” he said to the man tied up in the back. “I’ll let you go soon Professor Collins. It’s almost over.”