Time's Echo (6 page)

He put a steadying hand at the nape of my neck. I could feel it resting there, warm, safe. ‘You’re not going to throw up on me, are you?’

I managed to shake my head.

‘When was the last time you ate?’

I tried to think. They had served breakfast on the plane, but I’d been too tired to eat after I landed. ‘Somewhere over Turkey, I think.’

‘No wonder you’re ready to pass out.’ He took his hand away. ‘Stay there.’

I didn’t have much choice. My mind was reeling still, and my legs felt boneless, while my heart galloped with disbelief, but I managed to sit up at last and close my eyes.

‘Here.’ I opened them as Drew set down a cup of frothy coffee in front of me. ‘I didn’t know what you would like, but I got you a cappuccino. Eat the brownie too. You
need the sugar.’

I hadn’t realized until then how hungry I was. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You’re very kind.’ Shakily I reached out and broke off a piece of the brownie.

I love food. I hoard memories of wonderful meals I’ve eaten: duck liver with fried apple on a little square of toast in France; prawn curry by the beach in Goa; a bacon-and-egg sandwich,
warm and fatty and oozing yolk on the train to Brighton;
nasi goreng
served on a chipped plate at a
warung
in Sumatra.

But none of them tasted as good as that brownie did. When I put it in my mouth, the sugar burst on my tongue in an explosion of sweetness and chocolate, and I chewed slowly, astounded by the
lightness of texture, the density and complexity of taste.

‘God, what’s in this?’ I mumbled. ‘It’s
fantastic
!’

Drew raised his brows. ‘Well, you’re a cheap date,’ he said, and the creases around his eyes deepened in amusement. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone enjoy
a plastic-wrapped brownie quite so much before.’

‘It’s just . . . it’s as if I’ve never tasted chocolate before,’ I tried to explain. ‘It’s incredible.’ I took a sip of the cappuccino. It was
rich and smooth and creamy, and the froth left a moustache on my upper lip. ‘This is too.’

I was licking it off when my eye caught Drew’s, and I saw myself as he must have seen me, running my tongue round my mouth as if I were auditioning for a porn flick. I snapped my tongue
back in my mouth and my colour rose. ‘Sorry! I get a bit carried away.’

‘Don’t apologize. My ex-wife spends her whole time counting calories, so it’s a nice change to see someone really enjoying her food. Are you like this with everything, or is it
just chocolate and coffee?’

‘Do you know, I’d have said it was everything
except
chocolate,’ I said. ‘I don’t normally have much of a sweet tooth.’

I took another piece of the brownie. The second bite was just as miraculous as the first. I tried to look cool, but judging by the smile tugging at the corner of Drew’s mouth, I
didn’t do very well.

‘Feeling better?’ he asked when I had finished.

‘Much.’

It was true. I could feel the sugar rushing along my bloodstream, steadying me. I picked up my cappuccino again and cradled the cup between my hands. Was it possible? Could those two vivid
experiences, as Hawise, simply be the result of forgetting to eat?

Drew had been stirring his own coffee. He tapped the spoon against his cup and set it carefully in the saucer before looking up at me. Behind his glasses, I saw that his eyes were the
bluish-grey of the English Channel and very astute. He might have enjoyed the play of sensation across my face, but he hadn’t forgotten that I had almost passed out as I reeled between one
reality and another.

‘Why don’t you tell me what happened?’ he said.

Not many people look at you with that kind of attention, as if they are really seeing you. I shifted under his unwavering focus, aware all at once of the tiny spot on the side of my nose, of my
hair escaping from its clip. My eyes slid away from his.

‘I don’t really know, to tell you the truth. I think you’re right. I was tired and hungry and my blood-sugar levels must have been very low. I just had this overwhelming sense
of déjà vu . . . ’ I laughed nervously, embarrassed. ‘I was ready to swear I’d been here before, although I’m certain I haven’t.’

‘York’s a popular place for tourists,’ Drew said. ‘Most visitors have seen so many photos of Stonegate and the Shambles, or whatever, before they arrive that it all looks
familiar when they actually get here.’

‘Maybe.’ I wanted to believe it, but I couldn’t. I’d seen iconic sights before. I’d been to the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal and Sydney Harbour Bridge, and not once
had I felt like this. Besides, I was sure that no tourist brochure, no website about York would have pictures of two maids with a three-legged dog or the gutter choked with filth outside Mr
Maltby’s door.

Pressing chocolate crumbs from the plate with my finger, I eyed Drew Dyer under my lashes and wondered if I should tell him exactly what had happened to me on the way into the city.

He was leaning forward, contemplating his coffee, a tiny furrow between his brows and his fingers splayed around his cup. He had nice hands. Strong and square with clean nails. There was
something solid and reassuring about him. I remembered that from the night before, when I had followed him up the stairs.

I tried to imagine telling him about Hawise, about how I thought she was in my head, and how in a blink of time I had seemed to slip back to the past. And then I remembered how my jaw had
dropped when I had misunderstood Drew’s absorption in his old records. Drew hadn’t said anything, but I knew he’d thought I was ridiculous for even thinking he might have meant
time-travelling.

Just as he would think I was ridiculous now. I didn’t blame him. If anyone had told me that story, I thought, I would be rolling my eyes and twirling my finger against my temple while I
looked for the quickest way to end the conversation.

And I didn’t want to end it. I wanted to sit there, safe – that word again! – in the coffee shop with Drew Dyer, calm and sensible, beside me. Fiddling with the chain around my
neck, I searched for a topic that would keep us sitting there a while longer.

‘Do you teach at the university here when you’re not on research leave?’

‘I used to,’ said Drew. ‘That’s why we came to York in the first place. I got my first lectureship here.’ He looked up at me and I was struck again by how acute his
eyes were. ‘I got a job in London a couple of years ago, but I only teach three days a week and it was worth keeping the house here, so that I could see Sophie more regularly after the
divorce. She took the separation badly.

‘Maybe there isn’t a good way to take it, when your parents decide they can’t live together any more,’ he went on, hunching forward over his coffee once more.
‘Karen lives in a village outside York with her new husband now. I thought it would be good for Sophie if she and I could spend more time together. I had this idea that she would be happy if
she had a bit more continuity.’ His mouth twisted as he put his cup back in its saucer. ‘It hasn’t really worked out like that. Sophie has never settled at a school, and
“happy” seems to be the last thing she’s feeling at the moment.’

‘I don’t think many teenagers do happy,’ I said, but I was remembering the two girls laughing in the grass outside Monk Bar, and a pang twisted like a cord deep inside me.

‘You don’t have any children?’

I shook my head. ‘Nope. No kids.’ For a moment my mind flickered to Lucas on the beach, and then away. Lucas wasn’t anything to do with me. ‘I don’t do
commitment,’ I said to Drew, making my voice cheerful. ‘I like to keep moving. Never look back: that’s my motto.’

‘We’ll never make an historian of you then,’ he said lightly.

‘I’m afraid not.’ I chased the last brownie crumbs around the plate. ‘I’ve never seen the point of thinking about the past. I mean, you can’t change it, can
you?’

‘No, but you can try and understand it. How can you make sense of the present unless you understand what has made it the way it is?’

‘I’m not sure I want to understand it,’ I said. ‘I just want to live it.’

‘You’re not planning on staying in York then?’

‘No. As soon as I’ve sorted out Lucy’s estate, I’m off—’ I broke off as my neck prickled, but when I swung round to look behind me, there was no one there,
just a couple of women in an exhaustive discussion about some work crisis.

Drew didn’t seem to have noticed. ‘Back to Indonesia – oh, no – you never go back, do you?’

‘I’m thinking Mexico next. I’ve never been there.’ I pushed aside the conviction that someone was eavesdropping. ‘But I’ve got to sell Lucy’s house
before I can pay the various legacies, and I’m not sure how long that will take. I’ll have to get myself a job to see me through, but York looks like the kind of place that would have
some language schools, so I should be okay. I suppose I’ll have to sort out something about a funeral for Lucy too. I’ve no idea what she would have wanted.’

I hesitated, fingering the top of my pendant. ‘Sophie said that Lucy was a witch. Is it true?’

Drew blew out a long breath. ‘I don’t know what she was. All I know is that she filled Sophie’s head with a lot of nonsense, and I wish to God she hadn’t. Sophie’s
always been . . . ’ He searched for the right word. ‘ . . . intense,’ he decided at last. ‘And she’s struggled to fit in. Lucy encouraged her to “explore her
spiritual side”,’ he said, hooking his fingers in the air for emphasis, ‘and now she’s joined some cult set up by one of my ex-students. I didn’t trust the little
toerag when I taught him, but he’s clever. He’ll make sure he always stays on the right side of the law.’

Drew sighed. ‘Karen and I have both tried telling Sophie how dangerous it is, but the more we try and discourage her, the more committed she is.’

‘She’ll grow out of it,’ I said. ‘If it’s any comfort, I did everything that would most make my father’s life a misery when I was Sophie’s age, but I
got over it. Poor Dad,’ I remembered, shaking my head. ‘I gave him a really hard time.’

‘At least you weren’t messing around with the occult,’ said Drew gloomily.

‘Sophie’s just picked what will wind you up most. If you’d been a druid, she’d probably have joined the Young Conservatives.’

He smiled reluctantly at that. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. I saw him look at his watch. ‘I’d better get on. Are you sure you’re going to be
okay?’

‘Absolutely.’ Doing my best to disguise my disappointment, I got to my feet too and thanked him again for the coffee and the brownie. ‘I feel like a new woman,’ I said as
I left.

It was true. By the time I came out of John Burnand’s office, tucking the envelope with Lucy’s few effects into my bag, I was back to my old self, and able to scoff at my earlier
conviction that someone called Hawise (
Hawise
! Where had my subconscious come up with a name like that?) was in my head. Clearly the brownie had done the trick. Now all I needed was a
square meal and a good night’s sleep, I decided.

I set off back to Lucy’s house, mentally compiling a list of everything that needed to be done before I could sell it, not really noticing where I was going until I found myself on the
edge of a square.

I looked around, puzzled. I saw a hot-dog stall, a cycle rack jammed with bikes. It was still cool, but people were enjoying coffee at the tables and chairs set out in the spring sunshine. The
shop on the corner was selling televisions, their brightly coloured pictures flickering at the edge of my vision.

I frowned. Where was the market cross? Where was the toll-booth? Where were the stalls and the peddlers, and the good-wives tutting over the vegetables and the countrywomen squatting by their
baskets of eggs and butter? Thursday Market should be packed with traders and beggars and servants, and all the folk who come to gossip and to bargain and to buy.

‘Hawise!’ The hand on my arm makes me jump and I swing round, my hand at the ruff of my linen smock.

‘Oh, it’s you, Alice!’

‘I’ve been calling your name for an age,’ Alice complains. She is plump and pretty –
and knows it
, Elizabeth would have said – and beneath her cap she has
very blue, slightly protuberant eyes, with long, fair lashes that she flutters against her milk-and-roses complexion. ‘Didn’t you hear me?’

‘No, I—’ I glance back at the market, but everything is as it should be. I can’t remember why I thought it wasn’t, and I shiver suddenly.

A goose walking over my grave.

‘Daydreaming again, I suppose,’ says Alice dismissively. She isn’t the kind of girl who wastes time on things that aren’t real.

She is distracted by Hap, sniffing at her gown, and she draws her skirts away with a shudder, pursing her rosebud mouth in disgust. ‘Get it away from me!’ she says and crosses
herself furtively.

‘He’s not doing any harm,’ I say, but I click my fingers and Hap returns reluctantly to my side and sits, his withered paw tucked into his chest. I can’t understand why
everyone can’t see how clever he is, but if they could, they would probably be even more afraid of him. Being black and only having three legs is bad enough. If they thought he was clever,
too . . . well, I have noticed that cleverness is not much admired.

‘You shouldn’t take it around with you, Hawise,’ Alice says, eyeing Hap with dislike. ‘People talk.’

People don’t like it.
I remember Elizabeth saying that. She said I had to be careful of my reputation, and I have been trying. I keep my eyes downcast and I walk slowly, and I
don’t think about what it would be like to fly any more. I don’t wonder about the lands where cloves and peppers grow any longer – or not out loud. Instead I talk about the
neighbours and wonder where I will find a husband. I have changed. I am just like everyone else, the way Elizabeth said I should be. But I cannot change how I feel about Hap. I don’t care
what folk say; he is a good dog.

‘Did you want something?’ I ask Alice coolly.

‘I’ve got something to tell you.’ Ignoring my tone, she tucks a hand into my arm, taking care to stay on the other side of me from Hap, and we head into the market
together.

‘Oh?’ It’s not like Alice to be so friendly. I know she thinks I’m odd. Dick overheard her saying so once, but she would never say it to my face. In spite of their
peculiar choice of a servant like me, the Beckwiths have a good reputation in the city. My master, William Beckwith, is an alderman, and warden of the ward. He is a prosperous draper, a warm man,
as they say, and owns tenements all over York, as well as a fine house in Goodramgate. Alice is servant to a hatter. The Swinbanks are well enough, but they can’t compare with the Beckwiths.
Alice may not envy me my looks or my dog or my father, but she envies me my place in the Beckwith household, and she is always careful to be polite to my face.