Time and Time Again (5 page)

‘Could we then see round corners?’ Bentley enquired, unable to conceal a smile.

‘We might, sir, we might. And then there is something else again.’

‘What else?’

‘Chronos.’

‘Time?’

‘Yes, time, Master Bentley. What if gravity can bend time?’

Newton could not have known that the extraordinary idea that occurred to him in 1691 and which was to cause his mental breakdown the following year would lead directly to Hugh Stanton, a man born in 1989, saving the lives of a Muslim mother and her children in 1914. But what he could see, and see very clearly, was that there was nothing fixed or ordered about the future.

‘Tell me, Mr Bentley,’ Newton asked, staring at the dregs in his wine glass, which was empty once more, ‘if God gave you the chance to change
one thing
in history, would you do it? And if so,
what would you change
?’

THE PROGRESS OF
the day had done nothing to lighten the skies over Trinity College. If anything, the storm raging above Great Court was gathering force. A rare warm thermal current, lost and directionless in the climatic chaos that had torn it from its ancient course, had brought rain among the snow and hail. The icicles hanging from the fountain in the middle of the quad had turned to silvery waterfalls, a grey and grimacing stone overbite of drooling needle teeth.

In the Master’s Lodge Professor McCluskey had been occupying her preferred position of hogging the fire while she told her story. Now she stumped across the room to the window and rubbed a spy hole in the condensation to look out.

‘Blimey,’ she muttered, peering into the violent and sodden gloom. ‘Now
that
is blooming weather.’

‘Never mind about the weather,’ Stanton replied. ‘Are you seriously telling me that Isaac Newton wrote you a letter?’

‘Yes, he did,’ McCluskey answered, throwing a triumphant fist into the air. ‘Not me
personally
, of course. The letter he left with Richard Bentley was addressed to the Master of Trinity, New Year’s Day, 2024. It was a sacred trust, to be handed down, unopened, from Master to Master until the appointed date. Imagine how surprised Bentley and old Isaac would have been if they’d known that three hundred years hence the recipient of the letter would be a woman! Now that
would
have shocked the crusty old buggers. Newton saw plenty standing on the shoulders of those giants he talked about but I doubt he foresaw that the Master of Trinity would be a smokin’ hot babe.’

McCluskey drew a pair of pendulous breasts in the film of water on the window, adding the curves of an hourglass figure on either side. ‘Good story, eh?’ she remarked, turning back towards the room. ‘Perfect for Christmas, don’t you think?’

‘Yeah, and I think “story” is probably the operative word here. Are you seriously telling me that the Masters of Trinity have held in their possession a letter and a box of papers from
Isaac Newton
for three hundred years and kept it secret?’

‘Of course,’ McCluskey said with genuine surprise, ‘just as I did after I took up my position, waiting for the appointed time. We are all Trinity men, even when we’re women. We had been given a trust.’

‘And not one of them, out of all those masters, even read it?’

McCluskey began clearing up the remains of the breakfast.

‘It’s possible, I suppose; took a peek and resealed it. But they would never have made what they saw public because to do so they’d also have to make public their betrayal. And since the information Newton left us is
extremely
time specific, there was nothing in it for them anyway. Finished?’

Stanton grabbed the last bit of bacon from his plate before handing it to her.

‘Nothing in it for them beyond a document of incalculable historical value,’ he said.

‘This is Cambridge, Hugh. Documents of incalculable historical value are pretty common here; we don’t get as excited about them as most people do. Newton sent lots of letters, many considerably pottier-sounding than the one I’m telling you about and most of them are gathering dust in the College library. People only ever want to see the
Principia
anyway. Just like they go to Rome and spend their entire holiday queuing to stand in a crowd and stare at the roof of the Sistine Chapel while the whole Ancient Empire lies scattered at their feet. Anyway, the point is the letter is genuine. I had it carbon-dated and the handwriting checked against known sources.’

‘OK then, I’ll buy it, professor,’ Stanton said. ‘So what did Newton say in his letter?’

‘I’ll read it if you like.’

McCluskey reached for the mantelpiece and took a creased and yellowing parchment from inside a Toby jug of William Gladstone. Then she dug a pair of thick, plastic reading glasses from the pocket of her greatcoat, blew a few strands of tobacco from the lenses and holding them before her face like
pince-nez
began to read.

‘
To Whomsoever be Master of Trinity on New Year’s Day 2024
… That’s me!’ she said, interrupting herself gleefully. ‘Pretty cool, you have to admit. Newton wrote to me!’

‘Yes, I get it, prof.’

‘Just saying,’ McCluskey replied sniffily before turning once more to the letter … ‘
Greetings! From three hundred years ago!
’

‘Wow,’ Stanton observed.

‘Wow indeed,’ McCluskey agreed. ‘But it gets wowsier.
Sir, be you old? Be you with few earthly ties? If so, then the contents of this box belong to you. Otherwise I charge you find another who is without dependants and pass this box to him for it is his business and not yours
…’ McCluskey paused to refresh herself with tea and cognac. ‘Bit of luck I fitted the bill, eh? If I had a hubby and thirteen grandkids, I suppose I’d have been honourbound to pass it on.’

‘And would you have done?’

‘Don’t know. Fortunately I wasn’t put to the test. I think Newton knew he was on pretty safe ground there. Most of us Oxbridge Death Eaters are married to the gig … anyway, he goes on.
Then, let you, or your designate, search about within the University for Professors and Fellows who are also with few ties. Find ye patriots and men of conscience. Find Classics scholars and those who have studied history, also mathematicians and Natural Philosophers. Men who have spent their lives in consideration of the Universe and its workings. And let them be old, their time remaining among earthly cares short. Find ye these companions even if you must include men of Oxford to do so
. Oxford, Hugh! Imagine that? From a Trinity man! You can see how seriously he was taking it.’

Hugh shrugged. He’d always found the supposed rivalry between the two ‘elite’ universities a boring and unconvincing affectation. As far as he was concerned, they were just two halves of the same grimly pleased-with-itself institution. The way they went on about hating each other was really just a way of reminding the rest of the world that no one else mattered.

McCluskey continued: ‘
When once assembled, ye band of venerable brothers shall, with due solemnity, convene a secret Order. And that Order shall ye name Chronos after he who was God of Time. Let ye Companions assemble in attire befitting your academic standing and the solemnity of the occasion. Feast you well so that you may be in good cheer. Open then the packages of papers which I do bequeath you and in the order I command.

‘Act then according to your conscience as all good men of Trinity have ever done and I hope ever shall.

‘Your servant
,

‘Isaac Newton.’

McCluskey folded the parchment and put it back in the Toby jug. ‘Interesting stuff, eh?’

‘Well, if it’s true it’s bloody amazing,’ Stanton replied. ‘So what was in the papers?’

McCluskey smiled. ‘You wish to join the Order of Chronos?’

Stanton shrugged. ‘I presume you
want
me to join since you’ve brought me here and told me this much, and since I am a single man without dependants and therefore have clearly been picked to fit Isaac Newton’s requirements.’

Picked to fit Isaac Newton’s requirements?

He could hardly believe he was saying such a thing.

‘Well,’ McCluskey said, ‘let me tell you. Last January I did as Isaac told me, I chose my companions. All donnish, dust-covered sad acts like me, with no life but College. And I convened the dinner. Did it just as Newton said, with “due solemnity”: candles and prayers and some nice music and an excellent meal, and when we’d finished eating we opened his papers.’

‘Quite a moment,’ Stanton said.

‘Yes. Quite a moment.’

McCluskey put down her glass and fetched from a corner of the room a wooden box about the size of a piece of cabin luggage, dark oak and bound with steel bands. She placed it on the footstool between herself and Stanton.

‘The package of papers was in that?’

‘Yes, it was. Newton’s box, kept safe in the attic of this lodge for three hundred years.’

‘A lot of papers then?’

‘When you’ve heard what they describe I think you’ll agree he was astonishingly concise.’

Setting her pipe once more between her teeth and reaching down over her vast bosom, Professor McCluskey lifted the lid and drew out a second yellowing parchment.

‘The first thing we found was a question,’ McCluskey said, handing the parchment to Stanton. ‘A historical question, accompanied by a stern warning not to delve further into the papers until we’d answered it.’

Stanton looked down at the parchment. ‘The same question you asked me.’

‘Exactly. If we could revisit one moment from the past and change something, what would it be? Right up my street, eh? It’s almost like the old boy knew I’d be the one to get his letter.’

‘And did you come up with an answer?’

‘Yes, we did. Pretty quickly, as a matter of fact.’

‘And?’

McCluskey sucked her teeth for a minute. Stanton could see that she was absolutely revelling in the moment.

‘Well, it has to be a date of
European
significance, doesn’t it?’ she said eventually. ‘Or possibly American. Let’s face it, for better or worse the last half dozen centuries on earth have been shaped by what we like to call Western civilization. Do you agree?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘Of course you do. I gave you a First, didn’t I?’

‘Two one.’

‘At any rate you’re not a complete idiot.’ McCluskey reached under the tails of her greatcoat and rubbed at her huge buttocks, which were no doubt getting extremely hot, positioned as they were right in front of the fire. ‘So tell me, Hugh. When did it all go wrong? When did Europe lose its way? When did its worst ideals triumph over its best? When did its wilful vanity and stupidity conspire together to destroy its beauty and its grace? When did it exchange its power and influence for decadence and decay? When, in short, did the most influential continent on the planet wilfully and without duress screw up on a scale unequalled in all history and in one insane moment go from hero to zero, from top dog to underdog? From undisputed heavyweight champion of the world to washed-up, penniless has-been, collapsed, bloodied and brain-dead in the middle of the ring having punched
itself
to death?’

The freezing rain outside was turning once more to hail. It came smacking at the windows in great flapping sheets, squall after dirty squall. There was lightning too, periodically illuminating the deep and gloomy clouds. Without a clock it would have been impossible to know what time it was. Or what season. Not that there were seasons any more.

‘You’re clearly talking about 1914,’ Stanton answered quietly.

‘I can’t hear you, Hugh, the storm’s too noisy.’

Hugh raised his voice, staring McCluskey in the face and giving his answer as if it was a challenge.

‘1914 is the year Europe screwed up.’

‘
Exactly
,’ McCluskey exclaimed. ‘History’s greatest single mistake and the one that could most easily have been avoided was the Great War.’

Stanton took his dirty teacup back from where McCluskey had stacked it and having rinsed it out with a soda siphon helped himself to another shot of cognac. It was Christmas after all.

‘We-ell,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Clearly it was an unprecedented world catastrophe, no arguing with that. But I’m not sure you can give it
exclusive
number-one status. There have been even worse bloodbaths since.’

‘Exactly!’ McCluskey cried out, doing a little dance on the rug. ‘And every one of them
without exception
was made inevitable by what happened in 1914. That was the watershed, the fork in the road. The Great War bequeathed us the terrible twentieth century. Prior to that point the world was an increasingly peaceful place in which science and society were developing towards the common good.’

‘You might feel differently about that if you were a Native American,’ Stanton suggested, ‘or an indigenous Australian. Or an African in the Belgian Congo—’

McCluskey actually stamped her foot in frustration.

‘Oh come ON, Hugh! I’m not saying anything was or ever could be remotely
perfect
. Nor am I suggesting that historical readjustment could ever change human nature. Men will always take what isn’t theirs, the strong will always exploit the weak – no amount of historical tinkering could ever stop that. What I am saying is that in the summer of 1914 the
general
tide of human brutishness appeared to be ebbing and an age of peace and international cooperation beginning. For goodness’ sake, they were having so many International Exhibitions they were running out of cities to host them! In 1913 they’d had one in
Ghent
, for God’s sake. A city that by 1915 would be pulverized into oblivion. This was the point at which European civilization, which had caused so much misery to itself and others, was just starting to
get things right
. Social Democracy was dawning; even the Tsar had his Duma. The vote was coming. Education, health, standards of living were all improving in leaps and bounds. The subject races of the great empires were setting up congresses and preparing themselves for self-determination. The flowering of arts and sciences in the capitals of Europe was more vibrant than at any time since the Renaissance. It was …
beautiful
.’