And now had come the second junction. It hadn’t occurred on the morning he arrived in 1914, massive in its significance though that moment had been. Significant to the world, but not to him. He had been the same person who had struggled with Professor McCluskey and the Turkish party girl moments earlier in another century. He had brought his grief and his emptiness with him across time and Cassie’s absence had continued to define him every bit as much as her presence had done. But not now. Now quite suddenly he felt he could let go.
‘Can I have one of those cigarettes?’ he said.
Bernadette had just lit one for herself and so took it from her lips and put it between his. As she leant forward her breasts presented themselves inches before his face and he wanted more than anything to kiss them. So he took but one puff on the cigarette before leaving it smoking in the ashtray and once more they made love.
And afterwards they drank the bottle of strawberry schnapps that Stanton had opened on the night of the Kaiser’s death. And they finished it and made drunken love, which fortunately didn’t open Stanton’s wound because it was now almost completely healed. Then afterwards Bernadette found that she had some brandy in her bag and they began on that and got very drunk and smoked more cigarettes and laughed and teased each other.
And Stanton realized that he wanted more than anything on earth to tell her who he was.
What he was.
He’d been so very alone with his secret and he was still alone. More so in a way because how could he pretend he shared a love if the person he loved knew nothing about him? How could they be as one if their relationship was so fatally imbalanced by deceit?
She’d know in the end. Not his secret, of course; it would take a wizard to guess that. But that he had a secret. A huge secret and one he was keeping from her. She’d know – girls always knew – and it would poison whatever love they had.
Then Bernadette spoke and he knew he was right.
She had been thinking the same thing.
‘But if we do love each other,’ she said, ‘and we do love each other – I know you love me by the way you love me – but if we’re to keep on loving each other, then –’ she paused to take a sip of her brandy – ‘you’ll have to tell me.’
‘Tell you what?’ Stanton asked, although he knew the answer.
‘The same question I asked you in Vienna. Who are you, Hugh? How is it that you’ve left no trace? You’re a big, handsome, muscular, capable man. An exceptional man. I’m pretty sure most men would like you and I’m damn certain most women would want you. And yet you’ve left no trace at all. Your name and description were in all the papers appealing for relatives or friends and nobody but me came forward and you met me only weeks ago.’
‘Anyone can assume a false name,’ Stanton said.
‘But the description? And the photos? All published in England, as I’m quite sure they were in Australia. And yet no one came forward. Not one good old honest gold-miner from the Australian outback ran to the local cops and said, “He’s our mate! Telegraph Berlin!” Nobody, Hugh. You very nearly died, you lay in hospital for two weeks at death’s door all alone, and nobody cared but me. Your wife may be dead and I believe that from the bottom of my heart. I’ve seen the pain on your face. But did your parents die too? Did hers? Did your whole family? School pals? Friends at work? Army comrades? Members of the local cricket club? Landlords? Old girlfriends? The chap who sold you your morning paper? The next-door neighbour? Are they all dead? Is everyone you have ever met in your life dead? Am I truly the only person on earth who knows you, Hugh?’
What could he tell her? What possible explanation could he offer for the question she was asking, which was, after all, so very fair?
That he’d been brought up by wolves?
There was no explanation but the truth.
Perhaps it was the booze. He’d had more of it than her and his tolerance would have been lowered through his recent abstinence.
Maybe there were still traces in his system of the drugs he’d been given at the hospital, making him a little delirious.
Perhaps it was simply the exhilaration of finally being able to love again.
Or maybe he was just sick to death of being the only person who knew.
Whatever it was, at that moment Stanton felt he had no choice. If he tried to lie, she’d know in an instant, and in that same instant their love would be destroyed. If he wanted to keep Bernadette Burdette, he would have to give her an answer. And since any lie that could possibly cover the situation would sound every bit as fantastical as the truth, there seemed to him to be no debate.
‘Yes, Bernie,’ he said, ‘you are truly the only person on earth who knows me. And that’s because … I have come from the future.’
She was silent for a minute.
‘Darling,’ she said finally, and it was the first time she’d ever called him that, ‘that was very slightly funny. But only very slightly. And anyway it wouldn’t matter how funny it was because I wouldn’t laugh because this isn’t a joke. I mean it. You have to tell me who you are or else who am I to imagine it is that says he loves me?’
‘Bernie, it’s true. I come from the future. From a different version of history. I came to change history.’
And he told her. The whole story. Beginning with the Christmas Eve on which he’d joined the Companions. He told her about his own century, or at least a little, a world of revolutions and genocide, of telephones in people’s pockets and bubble-gum and environmental destruction. He told her about the history he’d come to change. About the death of the Archduke and the catastrophe of global war that followed. He told her about Isaac Newton’s legacy and he told her about the plan that had been laid to change history.
She tried to stop him. She tried to shut him up, threatening that she’d leave him that very night if he insisted on such lies. But he begged her to listen. He poured more brandy and he drank his down in one and poured another. He locked the door and held tight to the key. He told her he loved her and that she had to understand.
And he told her that it was he who had assassinated the Kaiser.
And seeing her eyes go wide in horror he told her about the Great War and the carnage it wrought and how it had been the Kaiser’s war and that he had to be stopped and that millions of lives had been saved. He told her how he was horrified at the way things were turning out in Berlin but he still believed from the bottom of his heart that he had done the right thing.
‘I’ll show you,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you with the technology of the future. I’ll show you pictures of what I’ve prevented. I’ll read you heart-breaking poems that will never now need to be written.’