Lost in a Good Book

9. The More Things Stay the Same…

Landen’s absence made me feel unsettled. All sorts of reasons as to why he wasn’t waiting for me ran through my head as I pushed open the gate and walked up to our front door. He could have lost track of time, gone to pick up his running leg from the menders or dropped in to see his mum. But I was fooling myself. Landen said he would be there and he wasn’t. And that wasn’t like him. Not at all.

I stopped abruptly halfway up the garden path. For some reason Landen had taken the opportunity to change all the curtains. I walked on more slowly, a feeling of unease rising within me. I stopped at the front door. The boot-scraper had gone. But it hadn’t been taken recently—the hole had been concreted over long ago. There were other changes, too. A tub of withered Tickia orologica had appeared in the porch next to a rusty pogo stick and a broken bicycle. The dustbins were all plastic rather than steel, and a copy of Landen’s least favourite paper, The Mole, was resting in the newspaper holder. I felt a hot flush rise in my cheeks as I fumbled in vain to find my door key. Not that it would have mattered if I had found it—the lock I used that morning had been painted over years ago.

I must have been making a fair amount of noise because all of a sudden the door opened to reveal an elderly version of Landen complete with paunch, bifocals and a shiny bald pate.

‘Yes?’ he enquired in a slow Parke-Laine sort of baritone.

Filbert Snood’s time aggregation sprang instantly—and unpleasantly—to mind.

‘Oh my God. Landen? Is that you?’

The elderly man seemed almost as stunned as I was.

‘Me? Good heavens, no!’ he snapped, and started to close the door. ‘No one of that name lives here!’

I jammed my foot against the closing door. I’d seen it done in cop movies but the reality is somewhat different. I had forgotten I was wearing trainers and the weatherboard squashed my big toe. I yelped in pain, withdrew my foot and the door slammed shut.

‘Buggeration!’ I yelled as I hopped up and down. I pressed the doorbell long and hard but received only a muffled ‘Clear off!’ for my troubles. I was just about to bang on the door when I heard a familiar voice ring out behind. I turned to find Landen’s mum staring at me.

‘Houson!’ I cried. ‘Thank goodness! There’s someone in our house and they won’t answer… and… Houson?’

She was looking at me without a flicker of recognition.

‘Houson?’ I said again, taking a step towards her. ‘It’s me, Thursday!’

She hurriedly took a pace back and corrected me sharply:

‘That’s Mrs Parke-Laine to you. What do you want?’

I heard the door open behind me. The elderly Landen-that-wasn’t had returned.

‘She’s been ringing the doorbell,’ explained the man to Landen’s mother. ‘She won’t go away.’ He thought for a moment and then added in a quieter voice, ‘She’s been asking about Landen.’

‘Landen?’ replied Houson sharply, her glare becoming more baleful by the second. ‘How is Landen any business of yours?

‘He’s my husband.’

There was a pause as she mulled this over.

‘Your sense of humour is severely lacking, Miss whoever-you-are,’ she retorted angrily, pointing towards the garden gate. ‘The way out is the same as the way in—only reversed.’

‘Wait a minute!’ I exclaimed, almost wanting to laugh at the situation. ‘If I didn’t marry Landen, then who gave me this wedding ring?’

I held up my left hand for them to see but it didn’t seem to have much effect. A quick glance told me why. I didn’t have a wedding ring.

‘Shit!’ I mumbled, looking around in a perplexed manner. ‘I must have dropped it somewhere—’

‘You’re very confused,’ said Houson, more in pity than anger. She could see I wasn’t dangerous—just positively, and irretrievably, insane. ‘Is there anyone we can call?’

‘I’m not crazy,’ I declared, trying to get a grip on the situation. ‘This morning—no, less than two hours ago—Landen and I lived in this very house—’

I stopped. Houson had moved to the side of the man at the door. As they stood together in a manner bred of long association, I knew exactly who he was; it was Landen’s father. Landen’s dead father.

‘You’re Billden,’ I murmured. ‘You died when you tried to rescue…’

My voice trailed off. Landen had never known his father. Billden Parke-Laine had died saving the two-year-old Landen from a submerged car thirty-eight years ago. My heart froze as the true meaning of this bizarre confrontation began to dawn. Someone had eradicated Landen.

I put out a hand to steady myself, then sat quickly on the garden wall and closed my eyes as a dull thumping started up in my head. Not Landen, not now of all times.

‘Billden,’ announced Houson, ‘you had better call the police—’

‘No!’ I shouted, opening my eyes and glaring at him.

‘You didn’t go back, did you?’ I said slowly, my voice cracking. ‘You didn’t rescue him that night. You lived, and he—’

I braced myself for his anger but it never came. Instead, Billden just stared at me with a mixture of pity and confusion on his face.

‘I wanted to,’ he said in a quiet voice.

I swallowed my emotion.

‘Where’s Landen now?’

‘If we tell you,’ said Houson in a slow and patronising tone, ‘will you promise to go away and never come back?’

She took my silence for assent and continued:

‘Swindon Municipal Cemetery—and you’re right, our son drowned thirty-eight years ago.’

‘Shit!’ I cried, my mind racing as I tried to figure out who might be responsible. Houson and Billden took a fearful step back. ‘Not you,’ I added hastily. ‘Goddammit, I’m being blackmailed.’

‘You should report that to SpecOps.’

‘They wouldn’t believe me any more than you—’

I paused and thought for a moment.

‘Houson, I know you have a good memory because when Landen did exist you and I were the best of pals. Someone has taken your son and my husband and, believe me, I’ll get him back. But listen to me, I’m not crazy, and here’s how I can prove it. He’s allergic to bananas, has a mole on his neck—and a birthmark the shape of a lobster on his bum. How could I know that unless—?’

‘Oh yes?’ said Houson slowly, staring at me with growing interest. ‘This birthmark. Which cheek?’.’

‘The left.’

‘Looking from the front, or looking from the back?’

‘Looking from the back,’ I said without hesitating.

There was silence for a moment. They looked at each other, then at me, and in that instant, they knew. When Houson spoke it was in a quiet voice, her temper replaced by a sadness all her own.

‘How… how would he have turned out?’

She started to cry, large tears that rolled uninhibited down her cheeks, tears of loss, tears for what might have been.

‘He was wonderful!’ I returned gratefully. ‘Witty and generous and tall and clever—you would have been so proud!’

‘What did he become?’

‘A novelist,’ I explained. ‘Last year he won the Armitage Shanks Fiction Award for Bad Sofa. He lost a leg in the Crimea. We were married two months ago.’

‘Were we there?’

I looked at them both and said nothing Houson had been there, of course, shedding tears of joy for us both—but Billden… well, Billden had swapped his life for Landen’s when he returned to the submerged car and ended up in the Swindon Municipal Cemetery instead. We stood for a moment or two, the three of us lamenting the loss of Landen Houson broke the silence.

‘I think it would really be better for all concerned if you left now,’ she said quietly, ‘and please don’t come back.’

‘Wait!’ I said. ‘Was there someone there, someone who stopped you from rescuing him?’

‘More than one,’ replied Billden. ‘Five or six—one woman; I was sat upon—’

‘Was one a Frenchman? Tall, distinguished looking? Named Lavoisier, perhaps?’

‘I don’t know,’ answered Billden sadly, ‘it was a long time ago.’

‘You really have to leave now,’ repeated Houson in a forthright tone.

I sighed, thanked them, and they shuffled back inside and closed the door.

I walked out through the garden gate and sat in my car, trying to contain the emotion within me so I could think straight. I was breathing heavily and my hands were clenched so tightly on the steering wheel my knuckles showed white. How could SpecOps do this to me? Was this Flanker’s way of compelling me to talk about my father? I shook my head. Futzing with the timestream was a crime punishable by almost unimaginable brutality. I couldn’t imagine Flanker would have risked his career—and his life—on a move so rash.

I took a deep breath and leaned forward to press the starter button.

As I did so I glanced into my wing mirror and saw a Packard parked on the other side of the road. There was a well-dressed figure leaning on the wing, nonchalantly smoking a cigarette and looking in my direction. It was Schitt-Hawse. He appeared to be smiling. Suddenly, the whole plan came into sharp focus. Jack Schitt. What had Schitt-Hawse threatened me with? Corporate impatience? My anger re-established itself.

Muttering ‘Bastard!’ under my breath. I jumped out of the car and walked briskly and purposefully towards Schitt-Hawse, who stiffened slightly as I approached. I ignored a car that screeched to a halt inches from me, and as Schitt-Hawse took a pace forward I put out both hands and pushed him hard against the car. He lost his footing and fell heavily to the ground; I was quickly upon him, grabbed his shirt lapels and raised a fist to punch him. But the blow never fell. In my blind anger I had failed to see that his associates Chalk and Cheese were close by, and they did their job admirably, efficiently and, yes, painfully too. I fought like hell and was gratified that in the confusion I managed to kick Schitt-Hawse hard on the kneecap—he yelped in pain. But my victory, such as it was, was short lived. I must have been a tenth of their combined weight and my struggles were soon in vain. They held me tightly, and Schitt-Hawse approached with an unpleasant smile etched upon his pinched features.

I did the first thing I could think of. I spat in his face. I’d never tried it before but it turned out delightfully, I got him right in the eye.

He raised the back of his hand to strike me but I didn’t flinch—I just stared at him, anger burning in my eyes. He stopped, lowered his hand and wiped his face with a crisply laundered pocket handkerchief.

‘You are going to have to control that temper of yours, Next.’

‘That’s Mrs Parke-Laine to you.’

‘Not any more. If you’d stop struggling perhaps we could talk sensibly, like adults. You and I need to come to an arrangement.’

I gave up squirming and the two men relaxed their grip. I straightened my clothes and glared at Schitt-Hawse, who rubbed his knee.

‘What sort of arrangement?’ I demanded.

‘A trade,’ he answered. ‘Jack Schitt for Landen.’

‘Oh yes?’ I retorted ‘And how do I know I can trust you?’

‘You don’t and you can’t,’ replied Schitt-Hawse simply, ‘but it’s the best offer you’re going to get.’

‘My father will help me.’

Schitt-Hawse laughed.

‘Your father is a washed-out clock jockey. I think you overestimate his chances—and his talents. Besides, we’ve got the summer of 1947 locked down so tight not even a trans-temporal gnat could get back there without us knowing about it. Retrieve Jack from The Raven and you can have your own dear hubby back.’

‘And how do you propose I do that?’

‘You’re a resourceful and intelligent woman—I’m sure you’ll think of something. Do we have a deal?’

I stared hard at him, shaking with fury. Then, almost without thinking, I had my automatic pressed against Schitt-Hawse’s forehead. I heard two safety catches click off behind me. Associates Chalk and Cheese were fast, too.

Schitt-Hawse seemed unperturbed; he smiled at me in a supercilious manner and ignored the weapon.

‘You won’t kill me, Next,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s not the way you do things. It might make you feel better but believe me it won’t get your Landen back and Mr Chalk and Mr Cheese would make quite sure you were dead long before you hit the asphalt.’

Schitt-Hawse was good. He’d done his homework and he hadn’t underestimated me one little bit. I’d do all I could to get Landen back and he knew it. I reholstered my pistol.

‘Splendid!’ he enthused. ‘We’ll be hearing from you in due course, I trust, hmm?’