CHAPTER NINETEEN – FAMILY HISTORY
Tom Walked back to his home and stood outside it. The fire had happened before he was born – so at least twelve years before – and yet it appeared that no attempt to knock the ruins down or rebuild a house there had been made. That was certainly puzzling.
But this was the odd thing about changing history. From his point of view, none of that had ever occurred: the fire never happened. His parents had lived on in the house and one day he and then his sister were brought home from the hospital where they had been born. But apparently no longer was this the case.
He continued to stare at the ruins: his mind struggling to accept it all. Perhaps it was a trick and maybe his parents still lived, but somewhere else instead. Maybe his sister was, at this very moment, at school. Tom strained to remember what class his sister had on – what day was it, a Friday? Let’s see; he often bumped into her in the main corridor on the way into his chemistry lesson. Ah, that was it – she had General Science with Mr Beaufin. Right then, thought Tom, that’s it then: I’m going to find Emma in Boffin’s class.
The school was about a mile down the road and as Tom ran most of the way he was soon standing outside the tall gates, which were thrown open. He had only gone thirty yards when he heard a familiar terrifying voice shouting out at him.
“You boy: stop where you are and come here!” It was the Headmaster, Mr Patel, walking towards Tom across the school playing fields from where he had been watching a Rugby match. Tom hesitated, then, bolted towards the front door into the school.
“Hey you – stop. You boy, stop at once!” screamed the Headmaster.
Ignoring him, Tom clattered through the doors and turned right along the main corridor. As he did, he collided with a group of lads, knocking one of them to the ground who was then helped back onto his feet by his friends.
“Watch it, mate,” the boy said. Tom stared at the familiar face of his best pal.
“Sorry, Andy!” Tom apologised, “Patel is after me and he’ll kill me if he catches up.”
“How do you know my name?” Andy asked. Tom felt his heart sink: so Andy did not recognise him.
“Andy it’s me – Tom. It’s Tom!”
“Who the heck is this guy?” Andy asked looking at the boys standing by him. They all shrugged, apart from James who peered at him and then replied.
“Apparently, his name is Tom.”
“James, Andy, all of you: surely you remember me?”
“Look man, all I remember is you knocking me over. Oh, that and the fact that Patel is about to ‘ave you!” Andy said with a nasty grin whilst pointing over Tom’s shoulder towards the doors. There, the Headmaster was now emerging, searching up and down the corridor: his face so red with fury that it reminded Tom of a beetroot.
As Tom staggered away, he could hear Mr Patel thundering after him along with the echoing sounds of Andy and his friends laughing.
Tom ran on to the end of the corridor. There, next to the fire exit, was the Boffin’s classroom. He looked through the window in the door and saw Emma’s best friend Lucy, along with the rest of her class: but of Emma, there was no sign.
“Can I help you?” said a stern voice from behind. Tom spun round and saw that Beaufin was there, dressed in the black scholars’ robes from Oxford University that he always wore. He scowled at Tom from under bristling eyebrows.
“Erm ... sorry, sir. I mean yes, you can help me – I’m looking for my sister, Emma Oakley. Can you tell her I’m here?” Tom said.
“I am afraid you are mistaken, young sir. I have no such girl in my class…,” the teacher replied, but just then Mr Patel arrived.
“Ah, Mr Beaufin, I see you have apprehended our intruder. I want a word with him,” Mr Patel said with a touch of menace in his voice.
“Intruder? I think you had better come along with us, boy, to the Headmaster’s office,” Beaufin said.
“I am not an intruder. It’s me, Tom Oakley,” Tom said, desperately.
“I don’t know you, boy, but why are you not at school? I think we had better call the truancy officer. Which school do you go to?” Mr Patel asked.
“This one, sir – don’t you remember me, Mr Patel? Mr Beaufin: you gave me detention three weeks ago for kicking a stone and smashing the biology class window,” Tom insisted.
Mr Beaufin seemed to pause at that and think about it. “The window ... I remember it was broken and it was a pupil who did it,” the teacher said and peered intently at Tom, as if seeing him for the first time. Then, he shook his head.
“Don’t lie to me boy – I remember every pupil I ever had at this school – and certainly those I gave detention to,” he said and reached out to grab hold of Tom’s arm. Tom kicked him hard in the shin and leapt back. Spinning round, he pushed the nearby fire exit bar down hard and as the door swung open, jumped through and slammed it behind him. He then took off as if he was a fox with all the hounds in England chasing him.
Tom ran for as long as he could. His sides hurt and his throat burned, like it had once when he drank hot chocolate too quickly, but he did not stop running until he had left his school and the pursuers far behind.
So it was true. The school had never heard of him or his sister. The fire had killed his parents before he was born and so neither he nor his sister existed. He had to find out the date of the fire and try to stop it: but how?
His father had been a keen genealogist – or family historian: he had traced his family line back to the seventeenth century and found out that they were descended from Welsh coal miners. Tom used to snigger about how his gran had been convinced they had descended from nobility or royalty and been disappointed to learn the truth. Not that it bothered his dad. He was as proud of the coal mining great–grandfathers as he might have been finding Henry the Eighth was an ancestor.
Tom recalled being taken along to the Central Library and Records Office in the city centre. He concentrated, reached out for the Flow of Time and Walked the few miles there.
It was now after lunch time. Tom had been flicking through the newspaper archives for what seemed like hours and was getting tired. Perhaps it was time to give up and ask for help. Then, suddenly, he saw it. There was a picture of a burnt out house on the front page above an article with the headline: YOUNG COUPLE DIE IN MYSTERY FIRE and a subheading: Fire brigade baffled as to the cause. Seeing it all there in print was a shock and Tom let out an involuntary gasp. An elderly lady on the next table frowned at the noise and pointed sternly at a sign that read Silence Please. Tom nodded, mouthed the word ‘Sorry’ to her and looked back at the picture on the page.
The article reported that Robert and Laura Oakley were non–smokers and that their house had been rewired only the previous year. He looked again at the photo: it was his house, no doubt about it. Even blackened and with no roof the shape was familiar. He glanced at the top of the page, where he could read the date: the 22nd August, 1997. That, then, was the date of the fire. The article stated that it had started at about 2.00 a.m. that day. So, now he knew, what should he now do? Go back and warn his parents? Yes, that was his plan. He had a date and a time, which he scribbled down on a notepad and leaving the library, walked home the normal way, using his feet and legs rather than his powers. He wanted to preserve those for later: he needed them to save his mum and dad.
As he turned into his own road he almost walked into Andy, who was coming out of the street, walking his bike. Andy jumped to the side to avoid the collision, dropped his bike and, tripping over a low stone wall, ended up in a flowerbed.
“Sorry, Andy, I didn’t see you.”
Andy stared up at him, a look of indignation on his face. “You again! You seem to be making a habit of walking into me! Who are you, anyway?”
“I already told you who I am – your best mate, Tom Oakley.”
Andy picked himself up and swept the dirt of his trousers. “I’m sorry, but you are loopy, man. I never knew a Tom Oakley.”
“But we founded the D
esperados together, Andy. We swore to be together whatever came along.”
Again, as with Mr Beaufin that afternoon at school, Andy leaned forward and stared at Tom as if trying to recall some long lost memory. Then he shook his head. “Loopy!” he muttered, getting on his bike and riding away. At the corner of the street he stopped and glanced back for a few moments: his head wrinkling into a frown. Then he was gone.
Tom grimaced. It seemed that if really pressed, some people did remember him, albeit very briefly. Or was that just wishful thinking? In any event they soon forgot. At best he was an echo – a whisper of a memory. Feeling dejected, Tom turned and walked up the street. He then stopped dead in his tracks as he saw Kyle Rogers and his gang cross the road and walk towards him. Great – he thought – this is all I need.
Kyle stopped in front of him. “Heh, you a new kid?” he asked.
“Kyle, don’t bother me,” Tom said.
“I’m only going to ask you to join my gang. Hang on how you know my name?”
“I er.....” Tom stammered.
“Ah, everyone knows you Kyle – you’re da man round here,” said one of the gang in a toadying voice. Tom nodded.
Kyle beamed at that then stopped and squinted at Tom. “You sure you’re new? Could ‘ave sworn I knew you.”
Tom shook his head.
“Anyway,” Kyle continued, “You look the right sort to join my gang. I’m the boss and we are called the Bandidos. Our sworn blood enemies are the Desperados. We are following that Andy guy. If we catch him, we are going to teach him a lesson. Haven’t seen him have you?”
Tom shrugged noncommittally.
“Let’s try the park. You coming along, new kid?”
“Later, Kyle. Got something I have to do,” Tom replied.
As Kyle and his gang moved off down the road, Tom let out a long breath that ended in a whistle. Then he walked across the road.
Again he stood outside the ruined house and again wondered why it had not been rebuilt in the more than a decade since the fire. His mother worked – had worked when she had been alive, Tom added sadly to himself – in an estate agents and he remembered her telling his dad only last week that any land fit to build houses on rarely stood vacant for long. Yet this house still stood here as if nothing had happened in fifteen odd years. There was not even a ‘For Sale’ sign or anything.
Tom dismissed his musings; he had a job to do. August 22nd 1997 at 2.00 a.m. was the date. He recalled the image of his grandparents’ grandfather clock. Then he paused and wondered if they still lived in the same house. How had they coped with their daughter’s death? They were only four streets away. Maybe he could go there and tell them he was still alive. Then he realised they would have no idea who he was. He had never been born.
It was a moment of utter desolation for Tom: nobody knew he existed, not even the people he loved.
‘Focus, Tom, get a grip. Mind on the job man!’ the voice inside his head screamed.
Again, he reached out for the clock and he saw it as plain as day in his mind. He sent the hands spiralling backwards, but kept a firm grip on this spot, this place. Off he went. He Walked backwards to the day his parents died. All seemed normal until, abruptly, he felt the sensation change. It felt oddly different from what he usually felt when Walking and he could not quite place why, although the sensation was vaguely familiar as if he had experienced it before.
Then he was there.
He actually appeared a little before 2.00 a.m. and in the deepest part of the night. There was no moon, but a streetlight fifty feet away illuminated the front of the building in its yellow glow. The house was there: intact and unharmed and looking almost identical to how it appeared in the present day, although Tom noticed that the windows were different. Then he remembered that his parents had them replaced by double glazing when he was six. There were no lights on or any sign of life at this hour, but they would be fast asleep and not ready for the horror to come.
‘Ok’, Tom thought, ‘what now?’
He stood for a few minutes pondering his options, then he shrugged and walked up to the door and grabbing the knocker, started hammering on it and yelling at the top of his voice.
“Fire! Fire! Get up, get up!” he shouted over and over again. All along the street, lights started coming on in upstairs rooms. Tom heard a noise behind him, spun round. The front door of the house opposite opened and an elderly lady peeked out and stared at Tom severely whilst clutching her dressing gown around her. Distracted, Tom heard the door of his own house open.
“What the hell is going on, boy!”
Tom turned and stood open–mouthed. There, in front of him, was his father. But, he looked so young. What age would he be, twenty–three or twenty–four? What struck him most was how thin he was. The father he knew, who was thirty–six, had just joined a gym to try to lose a few stone. “Dad, it’s me,” he whispered uselessly.
“Well, what are you shouting about, lad?” This question was not from his father but from one of two policemen who had just arrived and were standing beside him.
“I ... I” Tom stammered. The policemen glared at him.
“My mum and dad, I need to tell them something,” Tom said at last.
“Is this your house?” the policeman asked. Tom nodded at just the same moment as his father shook his head.
“This boy is nothing to do with us. Maybe you should find his parents, Officer.”
The policeman turned back to Tom, “I think, perhaps, you should come with us – oi stop!!”
By now, however, Tom had already made off down the street. The policemen set off after him, but they were much slower and Tom was able to lose them as he turned the corner, leapt into an alleyway and finally hid behind some wheelie bins. He heard pounding footsteps as the policemen came round the corner. The sound came closer and closer and Tom was certain they knew where he was hiding. Panicking, he started to rise from his hiding place, tensing himself to flee again. He saw the police hurtle straight past the end of the alley: and then they were gone, running on down the street.
Tom looked about him and decided the alley was a good place to hide. No streetlight penetrated the gloom here and the wheelie bins were in the darkest part. Crouching back down, he let the world about him go back to sleep and the policemen carry on with their beat. He waited well over two hours in the alley, his eyelids pricking as he fought against sleep. For a while a scrawny black cat came to keep him company, rubbing its arched back against his leg. It was strangely comforting and Tom was sorry to see it slink away.
Slowly the sun rose and daylight came early on this summer’s morning. Looking along the alleyway that ran behind the row of houses, Tom could see his own house now. As far as he could make out, there was no sign of fire. Hardly daring to breathe lest someone hear, Tom emerged stiffly from the alley and tiptoed back past the front of his house. It was now almost 5.00 a.m. and the building looked safe; no flames nor any smoke were visible. Puzzled, he checked his link to the Flow of Time and made certain that he was here on the right day. He was.
Ah well, he thought. Everything seems quiet. Maybe, just by being here, enough had been done to stop the fire. Perhaps, the distraction he caused had prevented someone dropping a match or pouring petrol through the letterbox. Whatever the explanation, it was time to go home. Walking forward in time, he again felt that odd sensation as he moved through the years. Something different to the normal sensation of Walking – yet he could not be sure what it was, nor could he pin down the vague feeling that it had happened before.
Tom materialised outside his house in the present day. Eagerly, he looked up at his home and then, in an instant, his heart sank when he saw the burnt–out house in front of him. The disappointment felt like a punch to his stomach and he stood open–mouthed, staring at the charred ruins. How could this be? He had returned to that fateful night over twelve years before and had seen that the fire had not happened. Yet he could not deny the evidence of his own eyes. He
re was the scorched skeleton of his house. Had he got the date wrong or was there some other explanation? What on earth was going on?
He walked through the wreckage and went into the back garden, past the weeds and bracken that had overgrown the interior of the building. There, he felt the gloom come down upon him like black clouds gathering in a stormy sky. He had failed. He could never revisit that same night, so he wouldn’t be able to save his family and he and his sister would never be born. He would be left as a schoolboy who never existed. Tom felt despair well up inside him and he slumped down on the scorched remains of a wall. His eyes moistened and – having no idea what to do – he put his head into his hands and started to cry.