The Map of Time (37 page)

Wells folded the letter, put it back in its envelope, and laid it on the table, where he stared at it for a long time. Then he stood up, walked round the kitchen in circles, sat down, stood up again, and walked round in circles some more, before finally leaving for Woking station to hire a cab. “I’m going to London to settle some business,” he told Jane, who was working in the garden. During the journey, he tried to calm his wildly beating heart.

At that hour of the afternoon, St James’s Street seemed lulled by a peaceful silence. Wells ordered the cabdriver to stop at the entrance to the street and asked him to wait for him there. He straightened his hat and adjusted his bow tie, then greedily sniffed the air, like a bloodhound. He concluded from his inhalations that the faint, slightly heady odor reminiscent of jasmine, which he detected through the smell of horse dung, must be narcissi. The flower added a symbolic touch to the scene which pleased Wells, for he had read that, contrary to popular belief, the name narcissus derived not from the beautiful Greek god but from the plant’s narcotic properties. The narcissus bulb contained hallucinogenic opiates, and this oddity struck Wells as terribly appropriate: were not all three of them (the girl, Tom, and himself) caught up in a hallucination? He studied the long, shady street and set off down the pavement with the leisurely air of one out for a stroll, although as he approached the apparent source of the aroma, he began to notice his mouth becoming dry. Why had he come there, what did he hope to gain? He was not sure exactly.

All he knew was that he needed to see the girl, to give the recipient of his passionate letters a face, or, failing that, to glimpse the house where she penned her beautiful letters. Perhaps that would be enough.

Before he knew it, Wells found himself standing in front of an undeniably well-tended garden with a tiny fountain on one side, and enclosed by a railing at the foot of which lay a carpet of pale yellow flowers with large petals. Since the street boasted no other garden that could rival its beauty, Wells deduced that the narcissi before him, and the elegant town house beyond, must be those of Claire Haggerty, the unknown woman he was pretending to love with a fervor he did not show the woman he truly loved.

Not wishing to give too much thought to this paradox, which was nonetheless in keeping with his contradictory nature, Wells approached the railings, almost thrusting his nose through the bars in an attempt to glimpse something behind the leaded windowpanes that made sense of his urgent presence there.

It was then he noticed the girl looking at him slightly perplexed from a corner of the garden itself. Realizing he had been caught red-handed, Wells tried to act naturally, although his response was anything but natural, especially since he realized straightaway that the girl staring at him could be none other than Claire Haggerty. He tried to gather himself even as he gave her a docile, absurdly affable grin. “Magnificent narcissi, miss,” he declared in a reedy voice. “One can smell their aroma from the end of the street.” She smiled and came a little closer, enough for the author to see her beautiful face and delicate frame. Here she was at last, before his eyes, albeit fully clothed. And she was indeed a vision of loveliness, despite her slightly upturned nose that marred her serene beauty reminiscent of a Greek sculpture, or perhaps because of it. This girl was the recipient of his letters, his make-believe lover. “Thank you, sir, you’re very kind,” she said, returning the compliment. Wells opened his mouth as if to speak but hurriedly closed it again. Everything he wanted to tell her went against the rules of the game he had consented to play. He could not say that although he might appear an insignificant little man, he was the author of those words without which she claimed she could not live. Nor could he tell her he knew in precise detail her experience of sexual pleasure. Still less could he reveal that it was all a sham, urge her not to sacrifice herself to a love that only existed in her imagination, for there was no such thing as time travel, no Captain Shackleton waging war on the automatons in the year 2000. Telling her it was all an elaborate lie which she would pay for with her life would be tantamount to handing her a gun to shoot herself through the heart.

Then he noticed she had begun giving him quizzical looks, as if his face seemed familiar. Afraid she might recognize him, Wells hurriedly doffed his hat, bowed politely, and continued on his way, trying not to quicken his pace. Intrigued, Claire watched for a few moments as he vanished into the distance, then finally shrugged and went back inside the house.

Crouched behind a wall on the opposite pavement, Tom Blunt watched her go back in. Then he emerged from his hiding place and shook his head. Seeing Wells appear had surprised him, although not excessively. The author would likewise not have been surprised to find him there. Apparently, neither of them had been able to resist the temptation to look for the girl’s house, the location of which she had subtly revealed in the hope that if Shackleton came back he could find her.

Tom returned to his lair in Buckeridge Street unsure what to think of Wells. Had the author fallen in love with her? He did not think so. Maybe he had gone there out of simple curiosity. If he were in Wells’s shoes, would he not also have wanted put a face to the girl whom he addressed using words he would probably never utter to his own wife? Tom fell back on the bed feeling completely exhausted, but his anxiety and permanent state of tension prevented him from sleeping more than a couple of hours, and before dawn, he set off once more on the long journey to the writer’s house. These walks were keeping him more fit than the training sessions they were put through by Murray, whose hired assassin had not shown up again to punish his flagrant breaking of the rules. Even so, Tom had no intention of lowering his guard.

Wells was waiting for him on the doorstep. He did not look rested either. His face was crumpled, and his eyes had dark shadows under them, although they were twinkling mysteriously.

Doubtless he had been awake all night writing the letter he now had in his hand. When he saw Tom, he greeted him with a slow nod and held out the missive, avoiding looking him in the eye.

Tom took it from him, and, similarly unwilling to break the silence charged with tacit understanding, turned to go back the way he had come. Then he heard Wells say: “Will you bring her last letter even though it needs no reply?” Tom turned and looked at the author with a profound sense of pity, although he did not know whether he felt sorry for Wells or himself, or possibly for Claire. At length he nodded glumly and left the house. Only when he was at a comfortable distance did he open the envelope and begin to read.

My love, There are no narcissi in my world, nor the least trace of any flower, and yet I swear that when I read your letter I can almost smell their fragrance. Yes, I can envisage myself standing beside you in the garden you speak of, which I imagine carefully tended by your lily-white hands and perhaps lulled by a babbling fountain. In some way, my love, thanks to you, I can smell them from here, from time’s distant shore.

Tom hung his head, imagining how moved the girl would be by these words, and he felt pity for her again, and in the final analysis, an overwhelming sense of self-disgust. The girl did not deserve to be deceived like this. The letters might save her life, but in the end they were only repairing the harm he had so selfishly caused, merely to quench the fire between his legs. He felt unable simply to congratulate himself for preventing her suicide and forget the whole thing, while Claire was ruining her life because of a lie, burying herself alive due to an illusion. The long walk to Harrow helped him gather his thoughts, and he concluded that the only reparation he could make that would ease his conscience would be actually to love her, to make into a reality the love for which she was willing to sacrifice herself, to bring Shackleton back from the year 2000, to make him risk life and limb for her, exactly as Claire was hoping. That was the only thing that would completely atone for his wrongdoing. But it was also the one thing he was powerless to do.

He was reflecting about this when, to his astonishment, he caught sight of the girl under the oak tree. Despite the distance, he recognized her at once. He stopped in his tracks, stunned. Incredible as it seemed, Claire was there, at the foot of the tree, shielding herself from the sun with the parasol he had traveled through time to bring her. He also glimpsed the coach at the bottom of the hill, and coachman nodding off on his perch. He quickly hid behind some bushes before one or other of them sensed his presence. He wondered what was Claire doing there, but the answer was obvious. Yes, she was waiting for him or rather she was waiting for Shackleton to step through a hole in the air from the year 2000. Unable to resign herself to living without him, the girl had decided to act, to defy fate, and what simpler way of doing so than by going to the place where the captain emerged to collect her letters. Desperation had compelled Claire to make a move that infringed the rules of the game. And, watching her from behind the bushes, Tom kicked himself for not having foreseen this possibility, especially as the girl had given him ample proof of her courage and intelligence He remained in hiding almost the entire morning, watching gloomily as she circled the oak tree, until finally she grew tired, climbed into her carriage, and went back to London. Then Tom finally emerged from his hiding place, left the letter under the stone, and made his own way back to the city. As he walked, he remembered the tormented words Wells had used to end his final letter: A terrible sorrow overwhelms me when I realize this is the last letter I am going to write you, my love.

You yourself told me it was, and I believe you are right about that, too. I would love nothing more than for us to go on writing to one another until we meet next May.

However, if there is one thing I have learned from all this, it is that the future is predestined, and you have already experienced it. And so I can only suppose something will happen to stop me from sending you more letters; possibly use of the machine will be banned and my hitherto unsuccessful mission called off. I feel torn, as I am sure you can imagine: On the one hand, I am happy to know that for me this is not a last farewell, for I shall see you again very soon. On the other, my heart breaks when I think that you will never hear from me again. But this does not mean my love for you will die. It will live, Claire, I promise you, for one thing I am sure of is my love for you. I shall carry on loving you from my flowerless world. D.

The tears rolling down her cheeks, Claire sat at her desk, took a deep breath, and dipped her pen into the inkwell.

This, too, is my last letter, my love, and although I would like to begin by telling you how much I love you, I must be honest with myself and confess to you shamefacedly that a few days ago I did a reckless thing.

Yes, Derek, apparently I am not as strong as I thought, and I went to the oak tree to wait for you to appear.

Living without you is too painful. I needed to see you, even if it altered the fabric of time. I waited all morning, but you did not come, and I could not escape my mother’s watchful eye any longer. It is difficult enough not to arouse Peter the coachman’s suspicions. He already looks at me strangely each time I ask him to bring me here, but has so far kept my secret from my mother. How do you suppose he would have reacted if he had seen you step out of the oak tree as if by magic? I expect they would have discovered everything and it would have caused some sort of disaster in time. I realize now it was foolish and irresponsible of me. Yes, for even if Peter had seen nothing, our impromptu meeting would still have changed the fabric of time. You would not see me for the first time on May 20 in the year 2000, and everything would instantly turn upside down, and nothing would happen as it is meant to.

But luckily, although I would have liked nothing more, you did not appear, and so there is nothing to regret. I imagine you arrived in the afternoon, for the next day your beautiful, final letter was there. I hope you can forgive my foolishness, Derek, which I am confessing to you because I do not wish to hide any of my faults from you. And in the hope of moving you to forgive me still further, I am sending you a gift from the bottom of my heart, so that you will know what a flower is.

After writing this, she stood up, took her copy of The Time Machine from the bookshelf, opened it, and removed the narcissus she had pressed between its pages. When she had finished the letter, she touched the delicate petals to her lips and carefully slid the flower into the envelope.

Peter asked no questions this time either. Without waiting for her to tell him, he set off for Harrow-on-the-Hill. When they arrived, Claire walked up to the oak tree and discreetly hid the letter under the stone. Then she glanced around at the landscape, aware of saying good-bye to the place that had been the setting for her happiness those past few days, to those peaceful meadows, vibrantly green in the morning sun, to the distant cornfields, a streak of gold marking the horizon. She gazed at John Peachey’s headstone and wondered what sort of life this stranger had lived, whether he had known true love or died without ever experiencing it. She gulped a mouthful of air and almost thought she could perceive her beloved Derek’s odor, as though his numerous appearances had left a trace behind in that sacred place. It was all in her imagination, she said to herself, the result of her desperate longing to see him. And yet she must accept reality. She must prepare to spend the rest of her life without him, to be content to listen out for the echo of his love resonating from the other side of time, for possibly she would never see him again. That afternoon, or tomorrow, or the next day, an invisible hand would seize her last letter, and after that there would be no others, only solitude unfurling at her feet like a carpet stretching to infinity.

She returned to the carriage and climbed in without giving Peter any orders. With a resigned look, the coachman set off for London as soon as she was comfortably seated. Once the coach had vanished into the distance, Tom lowered himself from the branch he had clambered onto and dropped to the ground. From there he had been able to see her for the last time; he could even have touched her just by stretching out his hand, but he had not allowed himself to. And now, having indulged his whim, he must never go near her again. He took the letter from under the stone, leant against the tree, and began reading, a pained expression on his face.