And then he, Manning, spotted another flea bite, this time on my mother, near her belly button, like a little red moon above a planet.
‘The same mark as on the boy.’
My mother trembled. Robbed of her clothes she could no longer speak.
‘It’s a flea!’ I said, my voice pained and desperate and cracked. ‘An ordinary flea bite.’
And I pressed my hands into the stone of the floor, to stand back up. But there came another stamp against the back of the skull.
And after that, everything went dark.
I sometimes repeat this in a dream. If I fall asleep on the sofa I remember that day. I remember the bulbs of blood on my mother’s skin. I remember the people at the doorway. And I remember Manning and his foot, stamping down, jolting me awake through the distance of centuries.
You see, everything changed after that. I am not saying my childhood had been perfect before this point but now I often want to climb back into that time before. Before I knew Rose, before I knew what would happen to my mother, before, before, before . . . To cling to who I was, right at the beginning when I was just a small boy with a long name who responded to time and grew older like everybody else. But there is never a way into the before. All you can do with the past is carry it around, feeling its weight slowly increase, praying it never crushes you completely.
London, now
At lunch break I nip to the supermarket down the street and buy myself a pastrami sandwich, some salt and vinegar crisps and a small bottle of cherry juice.
There is a queue for the checkout assistant so I do what I normally resist and use the self-service checkout.
Like the rest of the day so far, it does not go well.
The disembodied female voice keeps telling me of an ‘unidentified item in bagging area’, even though the only items in the bagging area are the items I had just scanned.
‘Please ask a member of staff to assist you,’ she – the robot future of civilisation – adds. ‘Unidentified item in bagging area. Please ask a member of staff to assist you. Unidentified item in bagging . . .’
I look around.
‘Hello? Excuse me?’
There are no members of staff. Of course there aren’t. There is, however, a group of teenage boys all wearing variations of the Oakfield uniform (white shirts, and a few green and yellow ties) all in the queue, holding drink cans and packets of food and looking in my direction. They say something, identifying me as a new teacher. And then there is some laughter. I feel the most familiar feeling of all: that I am living in the wrong time. And I stand there, just staring at the screen and listening to the voice, my head aching, and my soul slowly wondering if Hendrich was right. Maybe I shouldn’t have come back to London.
*
As I walk along the corridor to the staff room I pass the woman with glasses. The one who I had seen in the park, reading. The French teacher Daphne had told me about. The one who had stared at me in that disconcerting way. She is wearing red cotton trousers and a black polo-neck and shiny patent flat shoes. Her hair is pulled back. A confident, civilised look. She smiles.
‘It’s you. From the park.’
‘Oh yes,’ I say, as if I was only just remembering at that moment. ‘That was you. I’m the new history teacher.’
‘How funny.’
‘Yes.’
Her smile is also a frown, as though I confuse her. I have lived long enough to know this look. And fear it.
‘Hello,’ I say.
‘Hello there,’ she says, with a slight French accent. I think of the forest. My mother singing. I close my eyes and see a sycamore seed spiralling beneath a hard blue sky.
I feel a familiar sense of claustrophobia. Confinement. As if this world is never big enough to hide in.
And that is it.
I have to keep walking, as if I can also walk away from what she might be thinking.
After my first day teaching, I sit at home next to Abraham with his head on my lap. He is asleep, lost in dog dreams. He flinches and twitches, like a stuttering image, stuck between two moments. He whimpers a little. I wonder what memories he is reliving. I put my hand on him, stroking to soothe him. Slowly, the movement stops. He makes no sound but that of his breath.
‘It’s all right,’ I whisper. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right . . .’
I close my eyes and I see the towering form of William Manning as clear as if he is in the room.
Suffolk, England, 1599
William Manning stared at the darkening sky, his expression severe. There was something theatrical about him, as if this was just a show. This was very much the nature of the times – this era of Marlowe and Jonson and Shakespeare – everything was theatre. Even justice. Even death. Especially that. We were nearly ten miles from Edwardstone but the whole village was there. You might imagine that in the sixteenth century witch trials were a regular occurrence. They were not, not really. They were a rare entertainment, and people came from miles around to watch and jeer and feel safe in a world where evil could be explained and found and killed.
Manning spoke to me, but also the crowd. He was an actor. He could have been one of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
‘Your fate will be decided by your mother. If she drowns, her innocence shall be shown, and you shall live. If she lives, and survives the stool, then you – as the progeny of a witch – will be sent to the gallows alongside your mother and dealt with there. Do you understand?’
I stood by my mother, on the grassy bank of the River Lark, with my legs and wrists in irons, just as hers were. She – dressed again – was shaking and shivering like a wet cat despite the warm day. I wanted to talk to her, to comfort her, but knew any communication between us would be seen as a plot or a plan to conjure malevolent forces.
Only when they pulled her closer to the riverbank, closer to the stool, did words burst out of my mouth.
‘I’m sorry, Mother.’
‘It’s not your fault, Estienne. It’s not your fault. I am sorry. It is mine. We should never have come here. We should never have come to this place.’
‘Mother, I love you.’
‘I love you too, Estienne,’ she said, a sudden defiance bursting fast out of her, even as she cried. ‘I love you too. You must be strong. You are strong, as your father was. I want you to promise: you must stay alive. Whatever happens. You must stay alive. Do you understand me? You are special. God made you this way for a purpose. You must find your purpose. Do you promise to live?’
‘I promise, Mother. I promise, I promise, I promise . . .’
I watched as they fastened her into the wooden chair. She pressed her legs together, not wanting to part her knees, as a last futile defence. So two men took a leg each and pulled her into position, pressing her back against the seat. She wriggled and screamed as the metal strap was fixed across the seat.
I didn’t watch as they raised her in the air. But when she reached the highest point Manning told the wild-haired man holding the rope to halt.
‘Wait, wait there . . .’
And it was then I looked and saw my mother against that hard blue sky. Her head dropped and she looked down at me, and I can still see those terrified eyes all these centuries later.
‘Start the ordeal,’ said Manning, who had walked to the edge of the riverbank.
‘No!’
I closed my eyes and heard the noise of the chair touching the water. And then I reopened my eyes. I watched her disappear, become a blur of green and brown, and then nothing at all. A rush of air bubbles rose to the river’s surface. William Manning held his hand up and open, the whole time, telling the man who held that horribly slack rope to keep her under.
I looked at that large meaty red hand, a brute’s hand, praying for the fingers to close. Of course, whatever happened, she would die. And yet still – even as my own life hung in the balance – I wanted her to emerge from the water alive. I wanted her to speak again. I couldn’t imagine a world without h
er voice.
When they hoisted the chair and her dripping dead body out of the water there was an answer left as a secret in the river. Had she pushed the air out of her in panic or deliberately? Had she sacrificed her life for mine? I didn’t know. I wouldn’t ever know.
But she had died, because of me. And I stayed alive, because of her. And for years I regretted the promise I had made.
PART TWO
The Man Who Was America
London, now
Here I am.
I am in the car park. I have finished my second day at Oakfield School and am now in the process of unlocking my bicycle, which is attached to a metal fence next to the staff car park. I ride a bike because I have never trusted cars. I’ve ridden a bike now for a hundred years and I think they are one of the truly great human inventions.
Sometimes change is for the better, and sometimes change isn’t for the better. Modern toilets with a flush are definitely a change for the better. Self-service checkouts are definitely not. Sometimes things are a change for the better and the worse at the same time, like the internet. Or the electric keyboard. Or pre-chopped garlic. Or the theory of relativity.
And a life is like that. There’s no need to fear change, or necessarily welcome it, not when you don’t have anything to lose. Change is just what life is. It is the only constant I know.
I see Camille head to her car. The woman who I had seen in the park. And the corridor, yesterday, where we hadn’t said much. When I had felt claustrophobic and needed to walk away.
But now, there is no escape. She reaches her car. Puts the key in her lock as I struggle with mine. Our eyes meet.
‘Hi there.’
‘Oh, hi.’
‘The history guy.’
The history guy.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Just having a bit of trouble with the key.’
‘You can have a lift if you want.’
‘No,’ I say, a bit too quickly. ‘I’m . . . it’s . . .’
(It doesn’t matter how long you live. Small talk remains equally complex.)
‘Nice to meet you again. I’m Camille. Camille Guerin. I’m French. I mean, that’s my subject. Was also my nationality, too, though who lets nationality define them? Apart from idiots.’
I don’t know why, but I say, recklessly, ‘I was born in France.’ This goes against my CV, and Daphne is mere metres away. What am I doing? Why do I want her to know this?
Another teacher – someone I hadn’t been introduced to yet – walks out and Camille says ‘See you tomorrow’ to them and they return it.
‘So,’ she asks me, ‘do you speak French?’
‘Oui. But my French is a bit outdated . . . un peu vieillot.’
She tilts her head, frowns. I know this look. It is recognition. ‘C’est drôle. J’ai l’impression de vous reconnaître. Where have I seen you? I mean, the park, but before then, I feel sure of it now.’
‘It’s probably a doppelgänger. I have the sort of face people confuse easily with other faces.’
I smile, still polite, but distant. This conversation can’t really go anywhere but trouble. It isn’t making my head feel any better either.
‘I’m short-sighted. Hence the glasses. But I did a test once,’ she says, now adamant. ‘I came out as a “super-recogniser”. It’s a gift I have. The way my temporal lobe is wired. I was in the top one per cent, in terms of visual recognition. Strange brain.’
I want her to stop talking. I want to be invisible. I want to be a normal person with nothing to hide. I look away. ‘That’s wonderful.’
‘When were you last in France?’
‘A long time ago,’ I say, doubting she is old enough to remember me from the 1920s. My bike is free now. ‘See you tomorrow.’
‘I will solve it,’ she says, laughing, as she gets into her little Nissan. ‘I will solve you.’
‘Ha!’ I say. Then, when her car door closes, I say, ‘Shit.’
She beeps me as she passes, giving a fast wave. I wave back and I bike away and I think how easy it would be to just not turn up tomorrow. To talk to Hendrich and disappear again. But there is a part of me – a small but dangerous part – that is keen to know where she knew me from. Or, maybe, a small part that simply wants to be solved.
Later, at home, Hendrich calls.
‘So, how is London?’ he asks.
I am sitting at the little IKEA desk, staring at the Elizabethan penny I have been carrying around for centuries. I normally just keep it in the wallet, in its little sealed polythene bag, but now I have it out on the desk. I stare at the fading coat of arms, and remember Marion’s fist tight around it. ‘It’s fine.’
‘And the job? Are you . . . settling in?’
There is something about his tone that’s annoying. Patronising. The way he said ‘settling in’ in a vaguely amused way. ‘Listen, Hendrich, forgive me, but I have a headache. I know it’s only brunch-time with you, but it’s getting late here and I have to be up early preparing lessons tomorrow. I really would like to go to bed now if that’s—’
‘You’re still getting the headaches?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘They’re par for the course. We all get them towards our middle years. It’s memory pain. You just need to be careful. Modern life doesn’t help. Cut down on your screen time. Our eyes weren’t made for artificial light. No one’s eyes were made for that. It’s all the blue wavelengths. Disturbs our circadian rhythms.’
‘Right. Yes. Exactly. Our circadian rhythms. Anyway, I better go.’
Barely a second later: ‘It could be seen as ungrateful, you know?’
‘What could?’
‘Your recent attitude.’
I place the coin back in the bag and seal it. ‘It’s not an attitude. There’s no attitude.’
‘I’ve been thinking a lot lately.’
‘About what?’
‘The beginning.’
‘The beginning of what?’
‘Of us. When I heard about the doctor. When I telegrammed Agnes. When she came to collect you. When I first met you. Eighteen ninety-one. Tchaikovsky. Harlem. Hot dogs. Champagne. Ragtime. All of that. I made every day your birthday. I still make every day your birthday. Or could do, if you weren’t so obsessed with living the most mundane kind of life on offer. If you could get over your obsession with finding Marion.’
‘She’s my daughter.’
‘And it’s understandable. But look at what you’ve had. Look at the lives I have given you . . .’
I am in the kitchen now. I have the phone on speaker and am getting a glass of water. I drink the water down, taking big, continuous gulps, thinking of my mother, under the water, exhaling her last breath. Then, as Hendrich keeps talking I go and open up my laptop.
‘I’ve basically been your fairy godmother, haven’t I? You were Cinderella, shoeing horses or whatever you were doing, and now look at you. You can have the coach, the glass slippers, whatever you want.’
I log on to Facebook. I have set up a page for myself. It draws more suspicion not having a Facebook page than having one, so Hendrich was okay with the idea (even he, or the retired plastic surgeon he was currently playing, has one).
Obviously, the profile information is fiction. There isn’t even an option to put 1581 as your year of birth, anyway.
‘Are you listening to me?’
‘Yes, Hendrich, I’m listening. I’m listening. You are my fairy godmother.’
‘I’m just worried about you. Really worried, Tom. I’ve been thinking, ever since you came out here, there was something in your eyes. Something that worried me. A kind of yearning.’
I laugh a tired laugh. ‘A yearning?’
And then I notice something.
I have a friend request on Facebook. It is her. Camille Guerin. I accept the request. Then – as Hendrich keeps talking – I find myself looking at her wall.
She updates in a mixture of French and English and emoji. She quotes Maya Angelou and Françoise Sagan
and Michelle Obama and JFK and Michel Foucault. She has a friend in France who is raising money for Alzheimer’s and she links to his donation page. She has written a few little poems. I read one called ‘Skyscrapers’ and another called ‘Forest’. I like them. Then, hardly thinking, I click through her photos. I want to find out more about her, and how she might have known me. Maybe she was an alba. Maybe I had met her a long time ago. But no. A quick look through her pictures shows that in 2008, when she joined Facebook, she looked, well, a decade younger. She had looked in her twenties. She was also with a man. Erik Vincent. A frustratingly good-looking man. In one photo he is swimming in a river. In another he is wearing a running vest with a number on it. He is tagged in the pictures. In almost every profile pic up till 2011, and then there is nothing at all until 2014. I wonder what happened to Erik. I look back at the poem ‘Forest’ and realise it is dedicated to him. His profile page is no longer there.
I feel like I am not the only mystery to solve.
‘You can’t lay down an anchor, Tom. You remember the first rule, don’t you, Tom? You remember what I told you, in the Dakota, you remember the first rule?’
In one photo, from 2015, Camille is just staring, sadly, out at the camera. She is out on a pavement café in Paris somewhere, a glass of red wine in front of her. This is the first photo of her in glasses. She is wearing a bright red cardigan, which she is tucking in close around her. A colder evening than she imagined. Her mouth is a smile, but a forced one.
‘The first rule,’ I say wearily, ‘is that you don’t fall in love.’
‘That’s right, Tom. You don’t. It would be a very foolish thing to do.’
‘I don’t mean to be rude but why are you calling? You know it helps, to get into the role.’
‘Of a mayfly?’
‘Yeah.’
He sighs. Makes a little throat-clearing growl sound. ‘I once knew a tightrope walker. A mayfly. He was called Cedar. Like the tree. Strange name. Strange man. Used to work at the funfair on Coney Island. He was very good at tightrope walking. Do you know the way you can tell if a tightrope walker is any good?’