My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time (16 page)

But (time-traveller that I am) I once again leap ahead.

So to get back to the present, if I may speak of the future thus: together, Professor Krak & I spent many an hour laying meticulous
plans for the journey back to Copenhagen – a voyage he insisted we undertake with the excruciating Fru Schleswig at our side, for we would need her assistance ‘in an emergency'.

‘But she herself is an emergency! A veritable human calamity!' I protested, for as you can well imagine, dear one, I was more than keen to leave the old swine behind me for ever, & dumping her in another era entirely, where she need never trouble me more, seemed like an excellent notion. ‘She will once again do something typically galumphing & foolish, & wreck –'

‘A risk we must take,' the Professor interrupted, ‘for my wife will want to know her whereabouts if our plan is to work. And
remember, your mother has the strength of an ox, which can come in handy if one finds oneself in a tight spot. Franz will
also accompany us, as he wishes to return to his parents. He will remain in Copenhagen as Liaison Officer, & will be available
for further reinforcement, should you need it. I, too, will be on hand, of course, masterminding proceedings – though, unlike
you, I shall need to keep my profile very low. Fru Jakobsen is knitting me a new balaclava as we speak.'

And so, once I had corrected him for the umpteenth time on the erroneousness of the genealogical link between me and Fru S
which he so annoyingly and persistently harked on about, we continued to choreograph the possibilities, drawing what Professor
Krak called ‘flow-charts' to decide in advance what path to take should this-or-that happen instead of such-and-such, & if
so … ad infinitum. But O, how I laugh now, when I look back at all that careful plotting we did of all the ‘variables',
for was it not what the English call ‘Sod's Law' indeed that the one very thing we could never have foreseen was the very
thing that would transpire, & that before we even set off?

In the afternoons, Professor Krak would don a tie & disappear on what he called ‘business' (I later discovered he ran quite
a brisk trade in the Danish antiques smuggled across time) & I would listen to the increasingly lecherous Dogger spout more
absurdities about modern life, which I would then compare to the evidence before me, & add much salt before assimilating.
It was on one of these afternoons, while Dogger & I were taking a half-hour break from the irritating intensity of one another's
company, that I took a stroll down to the local gardens & met with what I think of as my great accident. The gardens, a short
distance from the Halfway Club, contained a pond, dotted with mauve and white lily-flowers, & it was to this small oasis of
calm that I was wont to direct my steps, while puzzling over whatever new phenomenon of the modern age Herr Dogger had presented
me with, whilst he stared at my breasts or fiddled with his pipe, or both. More often than not, however, I would find myself
making plans for Hotel Charlotte – where the advantages of the future could, I soon realized, prove lucrative in my own era.
As I approached the pond, I pondered the new possibilities that had opened up after I took Rigmor Schwarb into my confidence.
Catching my drift at once (for it quickly emerged that she too had been a harlot back home), she had enthusiastically shown
me an object called the ‘ribbed & flavoured condom', & indicated how I might purchase ‘sex gadgets' in bulk on the ‘World
Wide Web', not to mention erotic magazines & other paraphernalia of the trade. I became much excited at the prospect of using
such equipment at Hotel Charlotte, but to buy them, we agreed, I would need funds, & for funds, I would need clients. How
much could a girl charge in London? Rigmor Schwarb said she did not know, really, but could investigate. ‘At least fifty British
pounds a go,' she guessed. ‘If you include aromatherapy.' That sounded a fortune to me, but I immediately thought of doubling – it easily enough done, if one avoided the small fry & headed straight for the rich pickings in the higher echelons, for time
was of the essence. But how to identify a gentleman, when modern garb was so hard to decipher? Or should I simply return to
Canary Wharf, where a suit might (I hazarded) be construed as a sign of money?

It was on this subject, as I walked in the park, that I was applying my concentration when a smatter of rain set up, the kind
of shower that is the hallmark of England, just as it is of my own land. Having borrowed a most intriguingly designed telescopic
umbrella from Fru Helle Jakobsen in anticipation of such an event, I was struggling with the mechanism by which one opened
it when I saw them before me by the pond: a man & a boy feeding the ducks & swans with chunks of bread from a bag. Unusual
that it should have been the child I noticed first, rather than its father, for I could not abide children, or rather did
not know any, & classified them as belonging to a separate species which it was best to avoid, but it was surely the oddity
of the lad's brightly coloured outfit that first drew my attention: a screaming red & blue suit with a flowing cape, & a mask
that covered his whole head, & featured staring insect-like eyes. The child seemed about nine years of age, but I later learned
it was younger, for they make them two sizes larger in the future: girls are bleeding by ten in that world, yet they are still
just babes, despite all the grown-up knowledge they have, & all the speedy texting they do. As I walked past, the child continued
flinging bread-crusts while the man – his father – looked on. He had the air of a gentleman, with his dark hair & a handsome
face that rested easy on the eye, but as I pondered the value & significance of his somewhat neutral trousers & jacket it
slowly struck me that perhaps –
perhaps
– it was odd that he be here at all. What man looks after his own child in the middle of the day, when surely most breadwinners are out at work?
Might he be a Man of
Leisure?
The idea made me feel most perky, for it is a truth universally acknowledged that any man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a mistress.

What instinct told me to experiment with him, as I observed him lovingly supervising his little son? His pirate-dark features, so different from the fuzzy paleness of my native folk? My suspicion that he was an extremely rich man, & that I might have some fun along the way?

Yes, beloved one. Put your hand to my brow at this point, & feel the click of my mental abacus. But the path of aspiration
never runs smooth. And nor did it with me & my new client. For first of all, in order that our financial relationship might
be initiated, my sudden enthusiasm must be reciprocated, & for that to happen (& how could it not, once he had seen me?) I
realized that I must attract his attention, pronto, or lose him for ever. But by what means to go about it? He & his oddly
clad child seemed in another world, all of their own, that was of just the right dimension to contain but the two of them,
& I saw no chink by which I might enter & be part of it. I circled the large pond thrice, in the expectation that my new-found
object of desire – whose close-cropped dark hair, & determined & manly jaw, I used the circumnavigation to scrutinize, linger
over & appreciate – would glance at me, for I was clad in my green short-skirted finery & high heels, but glance he did not,
being busy with the duck-feeding of fatherhood, & all my sorry flip-flap seemed for naught, & I was ready to explode with
the frustration of it, until I hatched the ruse of accidentally-on-purpose chucking my opened umbrella into the drink with
a small & feminine cry of OOH!

At which sound the child set about laughing & pointing, not at my upside-down umbrella floating there amid the pecking swans
like a giant tea-saucer, but at me. (Later I learned I had seemingly hurled my umbrella into the water ‘like a cavewoman with
a parachute', but I knew none of this as I watched the child speak excitedly to its father, who then looked across at me in
a puzzled fashion, & smiled questioningly)

‘Ooh,' I said again, & indicated the pond, where my umbrella floated sadly. ‘Oh
pokkers også
!' & then, for lack of any other means of expressing myself, I explained to him in my own tongue that I had accidentally dropped
my dear departed grandmother's favourite umbrella, a family heirloom & object of great sentimental value, & might he help
me to retrieve it?

The man's brown eyes sparkled with amusement – though what he found so hilarious about my plight I could not fathom – & the
more animatedly I spoke, the more he grinned at me (& he must be rich indeed to afford such beautiful teeth!) as though it
were all a huge & preposterous joke that I had suffered such a mishap & might need to call on his kindness for assistance.
And all the while his child jumped up & down, repeating something over & over again the way children do, making the man laugh
even more. Then he shook his head, & addressed me kindly in English & gestured towards the water, where my ‘family heirloom'
had now tipped to one side, its hemispheric hull slowly pooling with pond-water & chickweed. O calamity!

‘Quick,' I urged in Danish, ‘before it sinks!'

And so not understanding my words, but sensing the desperation they conveyed, my Man of Leisure proved himself most resourceful
by locating a small branch, which he then stripped to make a stick with which to hook the telescopic umbrella from the watery
grave that would otherwise be its destiny. Meanwhile, as luck would have it, four sizeable swans haddecided Fru Jakobsen's
umbrella was their rightful property, & amid much hissing, they made to intercept & colonize theever-sinking apparatus. Seeing
this, my new-found saviour stepped boldly & agilely on to a rock that stood in the water,in order to reach closer, but the
aggressive birds merely hissed more, causing the child to cry out in terror. Hesitantly, Ipatted the young thing on its masked
head: I have seen others so doing with children, which apparently much resemble dogsin this way. The gesture seemed to calm
the child, & together we watched its father as, with a triumphant flourish, he caught the handle of the umbrella with his
stick, & raised it high in the air, to the great anger of the swans, which flapped their wings & stretched their snaky hissing
necks just as he lost hisfooting on the stone, causing the umbrella to tip sideways & release a torrent of water on to the
birds, spattering them with muddy chickweed. Knowing the swan to be a proud creature, easily humiliated, I gestured to the
boy to throw more breadto distract them from their shame, which he duly did while I hurried to join Moneybags on his stone,
where I assumed hewould look deep into my eyes, recognize his future mistress when he saw her, & kiss me passionately. But
I had misjudgedthis element of the proceedings, for my alighting on the stone caused him to sway, at which the umbrella tipped
further, &to stop us both falling I clung to him. The result of this, which you may well have predicted, you clever one, though
I didnot, was to send us both crashing headlong into the freezing deep, whence we emerged a moment later gulping filthy brine.

O calamity!

Did he finally fall for me headlong, reader, as we faced death by drowning? You would have expected so, but the fact was that
he was not as speedy as I had hoped in that department & indeed at the time seemed merely disconcerted & more eager to get
us both out of the water (what a mercy one of us could swim!) & reassure his son that all was well, & that they would soon
be home & dry, than to pronounce undying financial devotion to his new-found object of desire. Or so at least did I glean
from the conversation between the two of them, which appeared not to include me. He eventually glanced at me nonetheless and
I shrugged my shivering helplessness. ‘Sorry: I no speak English,' I said dejectedly, for by now I was beginning to feel foolish
about my misjudge ment of his intentions. ‘I from Croatia.' At which he hesitated for a moment, then pointed to himself and
said, ‘Fergus McCrombie,' and then at the boy & said, ‘Josie McCrombie' (as if the lad should figure in my equation!), and
I pointed to my prettily heaving cleavage & said, ‘Frøken Charlotte Dagmar Marie of Østerbro,' & thus were the introductions made, after which both father & son nodded happily, which cheered me a little, & then my spirits
rose once more, for next Herr McCrombie gestured me to follow him to a place where (I surmised) we could dry off, pass the
child over to a servant, & get down to business. And I would not content myself with a single encounter; O no. Here was a
goose who would lay me a golden egg, I was sure of it. And another & another! No one-off client he, but a single provider!

Not looking my dazzling best, I felt a little wary of a chance encounter with his wife, lest my bedraggled state should lead
the woman grandiosely to consider herself more worthy of his financial favours than I, but when we arrived at his house (disappointingly
smaller than Fru Krak's but of the same era), & he had shown me to his bedroom where I might change into the clothes that
he offered (which were clearly his – how quaint! Did he like mannish women, I wondered?), I spotted no signs of another woman's
presence: no lace-frilled undergarments in the chest of drawers (and yes, reader, you can be most sure I made a thorough inspection,
just as you would have done in my circumstances), nor hand-picked roses in vases, nor smell of apple and cinnamon a-bubble
wafting from the hearth, nor intimate feminine objects in the bathroom, & I was right pleased about that, but did not then
have the language to ask him where the temporary usurper of my rightful economic status might be & when we might expect her
to return.