The Reluctant Time Traveller (14 page)

“I heard about this place,” Frank said, looking around the black pool and pulling off his jacket and trousers and shirt till he stood, thin and pale, in greyish saggy underwear. I saw how wiry and muscly he was. I tore off my old clothes but kept my boxers on. Frank did a double take at Homer Simpson but didn’t say anything. Agnes flung her shawl onto the ground and started wriggling out of her maid’s outfit. Under that long dress and apron she still had on her cut-off shorts and T-shirt. Frank made a big deal of not looking at Agnes.

“Is she going to swim?” he asked me.

“Of course,” I said and poor Frank just shook his head in astonishment.

“Girls do all kinds of stuff in the future,” Agnes yelled and she was the first – show-off – to run and jump into the black pool. Then she was kicking about in the water and waving wildly for me and Frank to come on in.

“You ready?” I said to Frank. He was taking deep breaths and looking down nervously. It was quite a long drop. He nodded then held out his hand. I took it and we both stepped to the edge. “One,” we both yelled, “two… jump!”

And me from 2014 and Frank from 1914 jumped into the River Tweed together. Frank was right about swimming like a dog. He did the doggy paddle, with his hands clawing at the water and him not getting anywhere fast. But we had a great time, splashing and yelling and spraying each other
with water. I showed Frank how to do the front crawl and he picked it up no bother. “Frank,” Agnes cheered, “you swim like a fish.”

“I’m a free lad,” he yelled and threw up a fountain of sparkling water. He cheered like he just won a gold medal. “I’m free!”

The three of us walked back up the lane to Gaunt House; Agnes nudged me as we passed the log pile. Frank was a few steps ahead, happy, not noticing us.

“Have a look,” she whispered, “they might still be there.”

I tried like mad to remember which log I hid the trainers behind. One stuck out more than the rest. I slipped that one out and sure enough, there they were: my expensive, new, oh-so-comfy and very clean twenty-first-century trainers. “Yesssss!” I whispered, and hid them under my baggy jacket.

We were laughing and joking as we walked, especially Frank. “Whit’s black, white and red all over?” he asked us.

I was so stunned that that joke had been on the go for one hundred years, I forgot the answer.

“A newspaper, that’s whit!” he yelled.

“Knock-knock,” I said, wondering if that joke had also been around for a century.

“Come in,” said Frank, and me and Agnes creased ourselves laughing.

It was only when we approached the big house that the jokes dried up and we fell silent. “I hope she’s rested,” Frank said. His voice, that had been bawling and cheering was now all hushed. As we went through the gates and walked up the gravel driveway, the front door swung open and Mrs Buchan stepped out. She had her long brown coat on, a straw hat on her head, and she was holding a suitcase. She trotted down the steps, swinging the bag and looking well pleased with
herself.

“I’ll have you know,” she said, as she marched towards us, “the woman you see before you will no longer stoop to dust skirting boards, run when a bell summons her, nor instruct maids in carrying chamber pots to the midden. Oh no. Mrs Buchan here has received a favourable reply. Mrs Buchan, a servant no more, is off to take up a well-paid job, supervising in the munitions factory.” She strode past us, then a moment later called over her shoulder, “And do inform Mr Gaunt that he can find himself another housekeeper: one fool enough to work for pennies!” And with that she strode through the gates that Frank had left open, and marched off into the big wide world.

“We will enter through the front doors, for once in our lives,” Frank said, and that’s what we did. Gaunt House felt even stranger than usual. It was eerily quiet.

“Our American guest has gone,” Agnes whispered as we crossed the large empty entrance hall and gazed up the stairway.

“He wasn’t American,” I reminded her, “and he wasn’t a proper guest either.”

We passed the famous coat stand. Gaunt had left his precious cape behind. “The owner’s gone too,” Agnes whispered and before I could say anything she said, “who wasn’t even the proper owner.”

Frank called out, “Elsie! Elsie!”

We practically fell into the kitchen, panting and puffing, and there was Elsie up at the table wrapped in a tartan shawl, chopping onions. “Lord above!” she cried out, dropping her knife. “What took you? They’ll be crying out for hen broth I’m sure and you’ve all been gallivanting, leaving poor Elsie to all the chores. What’s Gaunt going to say, eh? When there is no broth made?” She sunk down onto a wooden chair with a
great sigh, as if the effort of speaking was all too much.

“We brought you oranges,” Agnes said, placing hers on the table. I set mine next to it.

“Lord above, it’s Christmas!” Elsie murmured, and burst into tears.

“It is like Christmas,” Agnes said, putting an arm around her shoulder. “Dear Elsie, you must pack your bags because as soon as you and Frank have your things ready, we can go. Jean is waiting for you. She’ll give you a good home and make you better. Don’t cry, Elsie.”

While Frank comforted his sister and set about packing up their few belongings, Agnes and I slipped outside. It was time to have a good look at the yew tree.

We circled the yew tree, trying to see where the grass might have been dug, or maybe stones loosened, or some kind of marking to show where the deeds might be hidden. There was a small patch where the grass was a slightly lighter green. This would turn mossy a hundred years from now.

Agnes sunk to her knees and patted the hard ground. Gnarled roots from the tree bumped up round the trunk.

“The grass is different here,” I said, sinking to my knees and patting the spot. ‘The roots of the yew hold fast’ the newspaper article had said. I stroked the knotted roots, pretty certain that the deeds of this land were hidden just below. Agnes patted them too.

We looked at each other.

“Uh huh,” said Agnes. “I think we’ve found everything we needed to find in 1914.”

Then she winked at me, whipped the key from her pocket and scaled the tree like an acrobat. Moments later she was back, panting and flushed-looking. “So my great-great-great grandfather hid the deeds under the tree. I’ve hidden the key in the branches.” We left the tree and ran together back up to the house. “You never know,” she said, laughing, “but it just might come in handy!”

Frank and Elsie didn’t have much to pack. We said we’d walk them down to the gates.

“I won’t miss this big gloomy house one bit,” Elsie said as we stepped through the front door. “I won’t even look back.”

“Quite right,” Frank said. Elsie was wearing a long brown dress – her Sunday best, she told us and Frank was in a black jacket. Elsie hadn’t coughed once. Maybe the two days in bed had done her some good.

“I don’t care if the house crumbles to the ground,” Frank said and just to help it along he slammed the huge wooden door. I heard something inside fall – the coat stand! Then I imagined how wallpaper would peel. Damp would eat into everything. Oak beams would crack and, stone by stone, this mansion house would fall to the ground.

“Right then,” Frank said, beaming at us, and he marched off down the drive. “I said my farewells,” he called over his shoulder, “to the gardener and Trickster. The gardener says how he’s going to stay on, living in his hut, tending the garden, so long as no one throws him out. He’ll take care of Trickster too.”

“I don’t think anyone will throw him out. No one can,” Agnes said.

“I heard from the farmer who brings the milk that the police are looking for Gaunt. I don’t think he’ll be back, and if he’s stupid enough to come creeping around, they’ll be ready for him. He’s been harbouring a German spy. I told you, didn’t I? I said he’d get his comeuppance. Come on, Saul and Agnes, keep up!”

We had stopped to look back. All those clean windows and no one watching us go. “Shame, isn’t it?” Agnes said, “That Yew Tree House is going to crumble and fall.”

“But lucky for us,” I said, “the hut will stay, and so will the yew tree.”

Frank and Elsie were waiting at the gates. “Reckon they’ll smelt this lot down into rifles,” Frank said, tapping one of the
iron bars.

“I reckon you’re right, Frank,” I said, “because I can tell you, the gates didn’t make it into the future.”

Elsie gazed up at me, wide-eyed. “Gosh, Frank told me. All I can say is… it’s a miracle.”

“You’re right,” Agnes said, stepping across to an oak tree by the wall. “Time travel is a miracle.” She climbed up that tree and was down a minute later with her trusty rucksack. “And soon,” she announced, “the time travellers are going home.” She hoisted the rucksack onto her back.

Everything was beginning to feel like a dream. It was as if things were already fading, like when you see people leave on a boat, and they get smaller and smaller. That was how it felt. Frank was talking about going past the railway station on their way to Jean’s, so they could see all the soldiers in brown uniforms and women waving hankies, and they could join in the cheering. He was marching back and forth with their old suitcase: left-right, left-right. Stopping to salute and marching again.

Agnes put an arm around Elsie’s shoulder. “You can take it easy, Elsie. Jean will care for you.” Then Agnes called out to Frank, “You don’t have to march, Frank. Come and say goodbye.”

He stopped and swung round. “You dinnae understand, Agnes. If it’s true whit you say, and you really do come from the future, there are some things you just dinnae understand. I do have to march.” He practised again, swinging his arms, holding his head up high. As I watched him, left-right, left-right, marching towards us, I knew he was right. There were things about really living in 1914 that we just didn’t understand.

Agnes gave Elsie a hug. Frank and me glanced across at each other and it struck me how this was goodbye, and how I
would miss him. He nodded, like he was thinking the same. “Yea’ve been a great friend, Saul,” he said. “Brave and good fun. We worked well together, you and me. I want tae thank yea for whit yea’ve done for us.”

“You too, Frank,” I said, and we shook hands, then laughed. Then he picked up his bag, waved to me, took Elsie’s arm and they walked on across the field. Somehow, because of all the work, I’d always thought of Elsie and Frank as small grown-ups, but now, walking away to their new life, they looked like us. Agnes and me watched them go.

“Good luck,” I shouted.

“Good luck to you too,” Frank and Elsie turned round and waved to us. Me and Agnes waved back, until finally they stopped waving and walked on. Then they were gone, into a Peebles just at the beginning of the First World War.

“Well, Agnes,” I turned to look at her, “are you ready?”

She wiped a tear from her cheek and smiled. “I’m ready, gang leader.” As we walked along the road she patted her rucksack and winked at me, “And we’ve got everything time travellers need, right in here.”

As a parting gesture, like an actor hanging up his costume when the play’s over, I left my patched-up 1914 suit at the back door of Yew Tree House, and hung the cap on the doorknob. I put my trainers on over my filthy feet. Agnes had stuffed her brown dress into the rucksack and was now busy at the tree setting up the elements. She had tucked the wilted white rose Jean had given her behind her hair. “For luck,” she said, winking, though I was pretty sure we couldn’t bring things into the future.

Because I was a bit of an expert now, I made the fire, and Agnes set her wee pan of water on the flames for the steam. I looked about for the gardener but couldn’t see him. Looking dirty but more like our usual selves, we pressed our hands one over
the other against the bark of the yew tree. “Double gold, double power,” I said, and both rings glinted in the sun. The glass globe spun. Steam turned the rainbows into swirling, coloured mist. I looked down, hoping like mad that we really were standing on the buried deeds, and that no one would find them, not for a hundred years.

“So, who’s going to sing the antique song then,” Agnes whispered.

“You start”, I said, “and I’ll join in.”

She did and the ring felt hot on my little finger and pretty soon I started to feel dizzy. In the distance I thought I could hear the horse whinny. I imagined it all alone in the stable, and the gardener all alone in the big garden. The house was empty. But the den wasn’t. My head started to spin. The wind moaned. The gardener was going to have the horse. Tricksie, or Trickstar, or whatever it was called. Maybe the army would take the horse? Maybe… The ground under my feet seemed to sway and I tried to sing but my voice sounded like it was far away. The needles of the yew swished in the strong wind. The song turned into a ringing in my ears. Everything went black and I felt like I was falling.

And I kept on falling.

Like I was jumping off the river bank into the black pool but the jump was going on for ever and there was ash puffing up into the air and flames flickering and a rod coming loose on a bike brake and fruit spilling all over the street and a scratchy blanket and porridge and potatoes and Frank saluting and Elsie frowning and a horse neighing in the stable and Agnes singing on the street then a scuffle and swimming in the river and Agnes splashing and shouting, “Don’t go to war, Frank!”, and him yelling he was free…

“What happened to your T-shirt?”

“Jeez Louise, did you ever see such a manky face?”

“I think they fainted. Maybe we should chuck a bucket of water over them.”

“Your theory is rubbish, Will. Like, they’ve been gone 23 minutes. A minute you said. Saul! Saul, can you hear me?”

I could, but I couldn’t move. I tried to open my eyes but it felt like they were glued. I wanted to speak but I couldn’t. Part of me was still falling… and Jean was waving, and she had a flower in her hair, and the soldiers were smiling, and the women were waving hankies, they were saying they’d be home for Christmas… but they’d be gassed, and lame, and blind…

“Agnes! What happened to your flip-flops?”

She groaned. Then I heard her mumble, “I think… I lost them in the field.” Then I managed to open my eyes and the
first thing I saw was Robbie’s face but it was going round and round, like it was in a washing machine and I felt Agnes shake me. “You ok?”

I hoisted myself up onto my elbows and looked at her. Slowly the world stopped spinning. She was sitting beside me on the grass under the tree, looking dazed. The white rose had gone. “If I have a good scout around,” she was muttering, “then maybe the flip-flops will be under the grass, somewhere…”

And I remembered what else was buried under the grass. “You know that old rusty garden spade?” I mumbled to Robbie and Will. My voice had caught up with me. I was all in one piece.

“Saul! We were seriously worried. Like, more than twenty minutes you’ve been gone. I was going to get the police, or your mum,” Robbie was saying. “Will ate all the crisps by the way. We waited in the den, but you didn’t turn up. So we ran down to the tree. The glass globe was still swinging and the fire was still alight. It freaked me out. I mean, where were you?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I said, “but right now, do you think you could go and get that spade?” I would have run to the den and got it myself, except my knees were shaking and my feet had pins and needles.

“Oh yeah,” Agnes yelled, “the deeds! And the key!”

“The what?” Now it was Will and Robbie yelling their heads off. “Did you find them? Can you save the den?”

Shakily I got to my feet. I had to lean against the yew tree to steady myself. Robbie was right: the glass globe was still swinging and the bonfire was still glowing. I helped Agnes up. “Maybe we did,” I muttered. Maybe we didn’t, I thought. “Get the spade and we’ll find out.”

“You look like you just ran a marathon or something,” Will said. “Saul, are you ok? I mean, do you want a coke, or sweets,
or a macaroni pie or something?”

“Look, Will, if you could just get that spade…”

“I mean, I’m pretty sure this kind of time travel is dangerous,” Robbie said. “Like, amazingly risky. I know you’ve got this formula and all that, but… me and Will were seriously worried. It felt like hours.”

“I appreciate you were worried,” I said. “But are you gonna get that spade? Because then we’ll dig for treasure.”

“Sure,” they both said and raced each other up the garden to the den.

“I hope they’re here,” I said, gazing at the mossy patch under the tree.

Agnes dropped to her knees and started patting the ground. “Looks pretty much like it did a hundred years ago,” she said. “Undisturbed. So if John Hogg buried them here, I reckon they’re still here.”

When Will and Robbie came running back up the garden, Robbie with the old spade in his hands, and Will with what looked like a huge bag of popcorn, I asked Agnes what her dad would do with the land. “Oh, nothing,” she said, breezily, “he likes living in the caravan. Says the simple life is a happy life. And he says he likes wild places, like this.” She looked around at the ruined house and the overgrown garden. It felt weird to see it back to its old ruined mess. “Don’t worry, Saul,” she said, smiling up at me. “He’ll leave it just the way it is.”

Agnes pointed to the mossy patch under the yew tree. Robbie and Will stood by. As gang leader, I was the one to do the digging. I wedged the heel of my foot – safe in my trainers – against the edge of the spade. I had this sudden fear that there was going to be nothing there. I glanced at Agnes. By the way she chewed her lip and pulled at her hair I guessed she had the same fear. “Even if it turns out there’s nothing there,”
she said, “it was still worth it.”

She was right about that. I thought about Frank and Elsie and the German spy and I pushed the spade down through the mossy earth. Deeds or no deeds, the time travel had been worth it. The ground was soft and it cut in easily, though I didn’t hear it hit against any treasure chest. “It’s probably really deep,” Will said, upbeat. “I mean, if it’s been there for over a hundred years, it would have sunk.” I didn’t know if Will’s theory was right but I dug deeper. I felt strong – probably after carting all that coal.

“Keep going, Saul,” Agnes said. She wasn’t twisting her hair round her finger now. She was peering down into the hole I was making. I pushed the spade deeper, and deeper, and then it hit something.

I yelled.

“That’s it!” Agnes cried.

“Could be a stone,” I panted.

“It doesn’t look like a stone.” Agnes flashed her torch down the hole. I pulled back the spade and peered in. Agnes fell to her knees, training her torch on some light-coloured thing. “I think… it looks like… a tin,” she called up, her voice shaking. She peered closer. “A biscuit tin! Saul – do you want to bring it up?”

I leant on the spade, my heart racing. “You bring it up, if you want,” I said.

She looked up at me, her eyes shining. “Yes, I do want to.” Then she lay right down on the ground and stretched her arms down the hole. Robbie and Will were jumping up and down like frogs and I was gripping the spade so tight my knuckles went white. I watched Agnes bring up a rusty, cream-coloured tin box covered in earth. I watched her place the box carefully on the grass and brush some of the soil off it. I watched her dig her nails under the lid and try to pull it
open. Her face was turning red with the effort. “It won’t… budge,” she cried.

“It’s got a keyhole!” I cried out. “There, under the handle. Where’s the key from the secret passage?”

Agnes leapt up and, looking less dazed and more determined, scrambled up into the yew, disappearing up into its thick dark branches. Above us, the branches shook. A minute later she was back down again with John Hogg’s key, her eyes shining.

“It’s rusted, Saul, but it was still there,” she said.

Rubbing it down, she worked it into the keyhole, and turned it. It clicked.

Then Will knelt down to help. So did Robbie. I let the spade fall and sunk to my knees beside them. “One,” we all yelled, feeling the lid give slightly, “two…” It moved a tiny bit more. “Three!”