The Witches of Chiswick

23

Where Kew Bridge meets the Brentford High Road, Will brought the hansom to a halt once more and climbed down from it.

He opened the passenger door and beckoned to his other self.

“Would you please come out?” he asked him.

Will’s other self seemed in a state of shock. His face was deathly white and his eyes had the thousand-yard stare.

“Please,” said Will. “There’s another horse trough here. You must clean yourself up, wash away that blood, make yourself look halfway respectable.”

His other self said, “What?”

“It’s definitely you, chief. Same stupid ‘what’.”

“Shut it, Barry.”

Will’s other self flinched.

“Please,” said Will. “I mean you no harm. I’m trying to help you.”

His other self stepped down like a sleepwalker, took himself over to the horse trough and proceeded to splash himself with water.

“He’s well out of it, chief,” said Barry. “Perhaps you should just leave him here.”

“To fend for himself? I think not.”

“Only trying to think about what’s best for you.”

“Yeah, right,” said Will. “But he is me. Look at him. Look at his clothes. Those aren’t the clothes of this day and age. He’s from the future.”

“I’m trying to figure out how this happened,” said Barry. “And I hate like damn to admit it, but I’m baffled.”

At a length, which will remain forever unquantified, Will’s other self completed his ablutions and returned to the cab. Will ushered him gently inside at stick’s length and then drove on.

There was no denying the beauty of the Borough of Brentford. But then, until the twenty-second century, there never had been. Brentford, the jewel in London’s crown, slumbered in the early winter sunlight.

The hansom passed the gasworks and Will turned right into the Ealing road. Will let the horse wander where it wished. And soon it wished to stop. So Will let it.

The hansom drew up outside a hostelry, a public drinking house built of London Stock, with hanging baskets of Babylon, which flowered unseasonably and perfumed the air all around.

The public house was named The Flying Swan.

“Ideal,” said Will. “A drink would not be out of the question.”

And thus, having said this, he leapt down from the cab and secured the horse’s reins to an iron bollard.

“Come,” he told his other self. “If anyone needs a drink, that anyone is you.”

The other Will looked upon The Flying Swan. “Here,” he said. “It would have to be here.”

“What?” asked Will.

The other Will hung his head and said nothing more.

The saloon bar of The Flying Swan looked exactly as it had when Will had taken Tim into it many chapters before and some three hundred years into the future. But, of course, as this was the first time that Will had entered the bar, he was not aware that it was exactly the same. But it was.

Well, not exactly, perhaps. The decor was the same, the fixtures and fitting were the same, but they were newer, because this was three hundred years before. The carpet, for instance, that was brand spanking new, although no spanking had actually been performed upon it as yet. And the dartboard was new and the etched glass of the windows was still relatively unstained by tobacco smoke. The Britannia pub tables looked exactly the same though, as did the eight beer-pulls upon the bar counter, and the jukebox in the corner, and the part-time barman, called Neville.

“Gentlemen,” the part-time barman smiled across his polished bar counter. “Mercy me, two identical gentlemen. Well, gentlemen both, how might I serve you?”

Will glanced along the row of beer-pump handles. Their buffed enamel shone, their silver tips twinkled.

“We have eight hand-drawn ales on tap,” said the part-time barman, proudly. “More than any other alehouse in the district. Our selection, which exceeds the Wart and Canker by two, the Bleeding Stump by three, the Weeping Gusset by five, the Suppurating—”

“That one,” said Will, pointing. “Two pints of that one, please.”

“Large,” said the part-time barman. “A fine choice. None finer in fact.”

And then, with a keen and practised hand, the barlord drew off two pints of the very very best.

“Four pence,” said he and was paid four pence.

Will urged his other self towards the seat in a cosy corner, motioned to him to sit, placed the two pints upon the table and sat himself down.

“Drink,” he told his other self.

And his other self took up his pint glass and supped upon its contents.

“You are safe now,” Will told him. And Will sipped the pint that was his own. “This is extremely good ale,” he said.

Will’s other self said nothing, but he did drink further ale.

“Listen,” said Will. “I know you’re confused. Very confused. But I’m not going to hurt you. You’re me, I know that. And I’m you. I came here from the future. You did that too, didn’t you? This place, Brentford. This is your home in the future, isn’t it?”

“You’re not me.” The other Will fairly spat the words out. “You’re one of them. Possessed by demons.”

“Nothing possesses me,” said Will. “I can assure you of that.”

“Damn right, chief,” said Barry. “You tell him.”

“And yet you dress as they do. And you speak to the demon that you alone can hear.”

“Ah,” said Will. “That’s not what you think. That’s Barry.”

“Balbereth, more like.”

“Barry for short,” said Barry.

“Balbereth!” said the other Will. “You think to taunt me by assuming my form.”

“He’s a nutter, chief. You’ll get nothing here. It’s a waste of time.”

“Deja vu?” said Will. “I recall you saying the same about Mr Wells.”

“There,” said the other Will. “Converse with your demon. I am weak now, but if I had my strength I’d—” And the other Will raised a fist, rose feebly, then sank back into his chair.

“Feisty, ain’t he, chief?”

Will did not reply.

“I’ll kill you too,” said the other Will. “You’ll die. You’ll all die. I’ll kill you all.”

“You really don’t want to kill me.” Will drank further Large.

“I really do.” His other self did likewise.

“Ask me anything,” said Will. “Anything that only you know. That I couldn’t possibly know if I wasn’t you.”

“I won’t play your evil games.”

Will shook his head. “I don’t know what to say to convince you. But you and I are the same person. We’re both here from the future. How did you get here; will you tell me that?”

“I need to go to the toilet.”

“All right,” said Will. And, “Barlord,” he called to the part-time barman, “where is your gentlemen’s toilet?”

“Door to the left there,” the part-time barman pointed.

“Go on, then,” said Will.

“Chief, he’ll be out of a window in a shot. It’s what you’d do, isn’t it?”

“I thought you wanted to be rid of him.”

“Again.” The other Will pointed a feeble hand. “Again you converse with your familiar.”

“It isn’t what you think. I’ll accompany you to the toilet.”

“I’ll stay here then. I was only hoping to escape through a window.”

“You’re me,” said Will. “And I’m you, somehow, and I don’t understand how. Please tell me. I’ll let you go if you do. I promise.”

“And why should I believe your promises?”

“What have you got to lose? If I’d wanted to kill you, I could have done it by now. And if I’d wanted to torture some information out of you, I would have hardly brought you into a public bar.”

“Your evil trickery knows no bounds.”

“Oh, I give up,” said Will. “Things are complicated enough for me already. I really don’t need this. Drink your beer and go your way. I have pressing matters to attend to. My mentor was murdered and I mean to bring his assassin to justice. If you’re me then you’ll survive. I have no idea what you’ve been through, but it seems pretty bad. But I’d survive it somehow. Drink up and go. I won’t try to stop you.”

The other Will considered his pint, then took it up in a trembly hand and drained it to its very dregs, not that there were any dregs, this being the finest ale that there was.

“I can leave?” he said.

“Go on,” said Will. “But please take care. I have no idea how this works. But it might be that if you were to die, I might also. So please be very careful.”

“And I can just leave?”

“I’ve told you that you can. Go on.”

The other Will put his hands on the tabletop and eased himself up. “Really leave?” he said.

“Just go,” said Will. “Here, take some money.” And he fished into his pocket.

The other Will sat back down again. “Silver,” said he, “give me silver.”

“As you please.” Will fished out a handful of silver coins and dumped them on the table.

“Yes,” said the other Will. “All right. Yes.”

“You like silver?” said Will.

“You crossed the river,” said the other Will. “And now you handle silver. You’re not one of them.”

“The lad knows his stuff,” said Barry.

Will didn’t answer him.

“I’m not a witch,” said Will. “If that’s what you’re thinking. I’m you. I’m really you.”

“Thank God.” The other Will put his hands to his face and began to weep.

He sobbed and he sobbed, and Will looked on and didn’t know what to say. He’d have liked to have hugged his other self, for after all it was him, but he knew that he didn’t dare.

“Don’t forget about what happened to David Warner in Time Cop,” Barry kept saying.

When the other Will had finally sobbed himself dry, he wiped the last tears from his eyes, looked across at Will and said, “Fetch me another drink.”

“Are you all right now?” Will asked.

“I’ll be fine,” said his other self. “And I’ll be a lot finer with another glass or two of this Large inside me. Take the silver and purchase further pints. Go to it, then.”

“Right,” said Will and he took himself off to the bar.

“Your brother seems somewhat distressed,” said the part-time barman, as he pulled two more perfect pints.

“A family matter,” said Will. “Do you have any pork scratchings?”

“Certainly do,” said the part-time barman. “Two packets?”

“Yes please.”

Will returned to his table with two pints and two packets. He placed all down and took his seat once more.

“You really don’t know, do you?” said his other self as he tucked greedily into the pork scratchings. “About what happened to me?”

“No,” said Will.

“So you’ve never met the witches? Somehow you got into this time too, but you’ve never met the witches?”

“No,” Will shook his head. “But the women who came to the police station, they were witches, weren’t they?”

“They were.”

“So, will you tell me your story?”

“I will,” said the other Will. “And when I’m done, you’ll really know what kind of trouble the both of us are in.”

“Oh good,” said Will. “I’ll really look forward to that.”