Time Travel Omnibus, page 631
“But I’ve lived that, Larry. And died of it.”
He was up and pacing. He laughed shortly, without humour, and went to the refrigerator. He set two fresh beers on the chair and sat again.
“I’ve never tried to change anything before, Elaine. I guess I thought it couldn’t be done. Or I was too busy keeping cover to think of making waves. I don’t mean I followed any script; I didn’t have one. But I went along with how things were, and it all seemed to fit. Not now, though.” He gripped her shoulder and turned her to face him. “I don’t want you to die as you did.”
He was really too tired for sex, he thought. But he found he wasn’t.
They planned to stay until Monday, but Sunday came grey, cold with wind and rain. So for breakfast, about ten o’clock, Larry scrambled all the remaining eggs, enough for four people. They had more toast than they could manage, and gave the rest to a hungry brood of half-grown mallards.
In the cabin, luggage packed. “I hate to leave, Larry.”
“I know. Me too.” He grinned. “We could stop at a motel for seconds if you like.”
She shook her head. “No. It wouldn’t be the way it is here.” So they didn’t. Except for a mid-afternoon snack break, he drove non-stop, and pulled up to let her off at her apartment house.
“It can’t be as good, Elaine, but we’ve got to see each other anyway. I’m only here through November ninth.”
“I don’t know how long I am, of course. But, yes—I have to see you.”
After the kiss she walked inside without looking back. He drove home, trying to put his mind in gear for Judy.
But Judy wasn’t there, and neither were her possessions.
The letter was on the kitchen table.
I’m sorry Larry but I’m bugging out. I don’t know what’s wrong but I know something is, you aren’t the same. It’s not just you going off this weekend, I need people to be the same. I love you, you know that Larry, but you changed on me. The day you went to the bank you came up different. I need you to be the same to me, I need that. So I’m bugging out now. Don’t worry, I’ll call off all the wedding present stuff, you won’t be bothered with it. I do love you when you were the same and I’ll miss you a lot.
Judy
Well. She didn’t say where she was going; it could be anywhere. The hell with unpacking; get a beer, sit down and think it out.
Two cigarettes later, the memory came—the time she told him about this.
“Remember when I ran out on you, Larry? I was really spooked; I don’t know why, now. And I never knew how you found me. You didn’t even know I had a cousin Rena Purvis.” He laughed and memorised the name, as he did all things concerning his future in someone else’s past.
Rena Purvis’ number was in the book. He dialled the first three digits, then thought a moment and hung up. He dialled Elaine instead.
A man’s voice answered. “H’lo? Who’that?” Kemo Sahib had a good start.
How to play it? “Mr. Marshall? Mr. Garth here. I have the report Mrs. Marshall requested early last week.”
“S’okay. I’take it, fella.”
“I’m sorry—Mrs. Marshall’s instructions . . . would you put her on the line, please?”
“I said I’take it. Or leave it. Take it or leave it. Get it?”
“Perhaps Mrs. Marshall could call me back? Mr. Garth?”
The slurred voice harshened. “Saaay—you’ the bastard she was off with, right?”
The hell with it. “The very bastard, Joe; the very same. Your own stupid fault, Joe—waste not, want not. Now are you going to put Elaine on the phone, or am I going to come over there and show you just how much of a bastard I can be if I put my mind to it?”
It took Marshall three slams to get his phone safely on the hook; the crashes hurt Larry’s ears. That was dumb of me, he thought—or was it? Should he get over there in a hurry? No. Whatever else Elaine felt about her husband, she wasn’t afraid of him . . . and the slob had sounded completely ineffectual. So, give it a few minutes . . .
It took twenty; then his phone rang. “Hello. Elaine?”
“Yes, Larry. Joe . . .”
“Any trouble? I can be there fast.”
“Noise trouble, is all. As usual. He’s settled down; he’s telling his troubles to his glass teddy-bear. What in the world did you say to him?”
“Sorry. I tried to play it nice, but he wouldn’t. So I laid the truth on him. Maybe I shouldn’t have?”
“No, that’s all right. I’d already told him, and that he and I are through. We were talking about changing things, Larry? I’m doing it. I don’t know if it will work; I lived through four years with him after this, so probably I get stupid and relent. But for now, I’ve had it.” She paused. “But you’re the one who called. What is it?”
He told her, reading Judy’s letter aloud. “. . . and then I didn’t call her. And maybe I shouldn’t go bring her back, even though I did. Because I think I made her a lush, not being the same, not being able to be the same. What do you think?”
“I think you’re not through talking yet, and I’m not done listening.”
It wasn’t easy, but he had to laugh. “Yes, Elaine. Will you come live here?”
“Where else?”
“Tomorrow?”
“I haven’t unpacked my suitcase.”
“Shall I come get you?”
“No. I’ll take a cab.”
“All right. You have the address?”
“Yes. And number 204, right?”
“I’ll leave the door unlocked. Hell, I’ll leave it open!”
Time, stolen from a programmed future, was sweet. Despite everything, he felt occasional guilt about Judy. But she didn’t call, and neither did he. Joe Marshall called several times, more or less coherently. Larry always answered, gently, “Forget it, Joe.” Elaine simply hung up at first recognition.
All too soon, like Judgement Day, came November ninth. They made a ceremony of it, with dinner in the apartment from none other than Colonel Sanders. Larry did not lick his fingers. Later, in bed, they did everything slowly, to make it last until . . . whenever.
He woke. Elaine’s face was close above his; her smile was wistful. “Hello, Larry. Do you know?”
To see, he had to push her soft hair aside; the ceiling was grey-green. “I know. But what’s the date?”
“November tenth, 1970.” Her voice was level, cautious.
He whooped. He kissed her with fierce joy, with elation; he kissed her out of breath. “Elaine! We changed it! I didn’t skip!” Tears flowed down her cheeks, around her laughing mouth.
For the second part of their celebration he scrambled eggs in wine; it was messy, he thought, but festive.
“How much can we count on, Larry?”
“I don’t know; we can’t know.” He held up the envelope with its carefully detailed records. “But this is useless now.”
“Yes. Don’t throw it away yet. I want to see where you’ve been, and talk about it together.”
“All right. We can sort it out later.”
It was a new life; he set out to live as though it would be endless. They couldn’t marry, but Elaine filed for divorce. Joe Marshall filed a countersuit. It didn’t matter; no law could force her to live away from Larry Garth.
New Year’s Eve they drove to Chicago for dinner and night’s lodging at the Blackhawk. The occasion was a thorough success.
The ceiling was silver, with fleeting iridescent sparkles. He came awake slowly, feeling minor aches one by one. Whatever this was, it was no part of college. For one thing, he hadn’t often slept double there, and now a warm body pressed against him.
He turned to see. Only a brief spill of hair, salt-and-pepper, closely cut, showed between covers and pillows. He drew the cover away.
She would age well, he thought. Then Elaine opened her grey eyes.
He had to say it fast. “I’m new here, Elaine. Straight from 1970. Nothing in between.”
“Nothing? Oh, Larry, there’s so much. And I’ve had only a little of it myself. Back and forth—and it’s all so different.”
“From . . . before, you mean?” His fingers ruffled her hair, then smoothed it.
“Yes.” Her eyes widened. “Why, you don’t know yet, do you? Of course not; you can’t.”
“Know what, Elaine?”
“How much have you had after 1970? How many years?”
“How much have I used up? I don’t know—twelve years? Fifteen, maybe? Why?”
“Because it’s not used up; it’s all new!” Her hand gripped his wrist tightly, to the edge of pain. “Larry, I came here from ‘75—from a time I’d had before, married to Joe. But this time I was with you. This time we’re together all the way.”
He couldn’t speak and his laugh was shaky, but his mind flashed. I’ll have to die again, he thought—or will I? And then: We’ve gained ten years together; could we make it twenty? I’ve never had the actual wedding to Darlene! What if . . .
But he said only, “There’s a lot to tell, isn’t there?” And so much he wanted to ask, when there was time for that.
“Yes.” She turned her face upward, wriggled her head and neck hard into the pillow, then smiled. “I saw Judy once, in ‘74. She married a lawyer and had twins. And she wasn’t a lush.”
“I’m glad.”
“I know. You were there when I told you then too.”
He laughed. “What lives we lead, Elaine. What lives . . .”
Then he remembered. “But you. Are you—?” The bulky comforter hid her contours. Two breasts, one, or none? He told himself it didn’t matter. She was alive, wasn’t she?
“Oh, I’m fine, really,” she said. “It worked. Of course the scar was horrid at first. To me—you never seemed to mind. But it’s faded now; you can hardly see it.”
“How long—?”
“It’s been five years.” She must have seen the question in his face; she shook her head. “No; I don’t know how long I live—or you. This is the oldest I’ve been. And I haven’t known a you who’s been older.”
“Elaine? How old are we now?”
She smiled, and then her mouth went soft and full. She pushed the cover back and turned to face him squarely. He looked and saw that she had lost nothing of herself, save for the tribute to the years. Part of him that had been prepared to comfort and reassure her took a deep breath and relaxed.
“How old?” she said. “Old enough to know better, I suppose, but I hope we don’t.”
“Does it matter? We’ll have time enough to be young.”
One of them reached out, and the other responded.
PALE ROSES
Michael Moorcock
Short summer-time and then, my heart’s desire,
The winter and the darkness: one by one
The roses fall, the pale roses expire
Beneath the slow decadence of the sun.
Ernest Dowson, “Transition”
I. IN WHICH WERTHER IS INCONSOLABLE
“You can still amuse people, Werther, and that’s the main thing,” said Mistress Christia, lifting her skirts to reveal her surprise.
It was rare enough for Werther de Goethe to put on an entertainment (though this one was typical—it was called “Rain”) and rare, too, for the Everlasting Concubine to think in individual terms to please her lover of the day.
“Do you like it?” she asked as he peered into her thighs.
Werther’s voice in reply was faintly, unusually animated. “Yes.” His pale fingers traced the tattoos, which were primarily on the theme of Death and the Maiden, but corpses also coupled, skeletons entwined in a variety of extravagant carnal embraces—and at the centre, in bone-white, her pubic hair had been fashioned in the outline of an elegant and somehow quintessentially feminine skull. “You alone know me, Mistress Christia.”
She had heard the phrase so often, from so many, and it always delighted her. “Cadaverous Werther!”
He bent to kiss the skull’s somewhat elongated lips.
His rain rushed through dark air, each drop a different gloomy shade of green, purple or red. And it was actually wet so that when it fell upon the small audience (the Duke of Queens, Bishop Castle, My Lady Charlotina, and one or two recently arrived, absolutely bemused, time travellers from the remote past) it soaked their clothes and made them shiver as they stood on the shelf of glassy rock overlooking Werther’s Romantic Precipice (below, a waterfall foamed through fierce, black rock).
“Nature,” exclaimed Werther. “The only verity!”
The Duke of Queens sneezed. He looked about him with a delighted smile, but nobody else had noticed. He coughed to draw their attention, tried to sneeze again, but failed. He looked up into the ghastly sky; fresh waves of black cloud boiled in: there was lightning now, and thunder. The rain became hail. My Lady Charlotina, in a globular dress of pink veined in soft blue, giggled as the little stones fell upon her gilded features with an almost inaudible ringing sound.
But Bishop Castle, in his nodding, crenellated tete (from which he derived the latter half of his name and which was twice his own height), turned away, saturnine and bored, plainly noting a comparison between all this and his own entertainment of the previous year, which had also involved rain, but with each drop turning into a perfect mannikin as it touched the ground. There was nothing in his temperament to respond to Werther’s rather innocent re-creation of a Nature long since departed from a planet which could be wholly re-modelled at the whim of any one of its inhabitants.
Mistress Christia, ever quick to notice such responses, eager for her present lover not to lose prestige, cried: “But there is more, is there not, Werther? A finale?”
“I had thought to leave it a little longer . . .”
“No! No! Give us your finale now, my dear!”
“Well, Mistress Christia, if it is for you.” He turned one of his power rings, disseminating the sky, the lightning, the thunder, replacing them with pearly clouds, radiated with golden light through which silvery rain still fell.
“And now,” he murmured, “I give you Tranquillity, and in Tranquillity—Hope . . .”
A further twist of the ring and a rainbow appeared, bridging the chasm, touching the clouds.
Bishop Castle was impressed by what was an example of elegance rather than spectacle, but he could not resist a minor criticism. “Is black exactly the shade, do you think? I should have supposed it expressed your Idea, well, perhaps not perfectly . . .”
“It is perfect for me,” answered Werther a little gracelessly.
“Of course,” said Bishop Castle, regretting his impulse. He drew his bushy red brows together and made a great show of studying the rainbow. “It stands out so well against the background.”
Emphatically (causing a brief, ironic glint in the eye of the Duke of Queens) Mistress Christia clapped her hands. “It is a beautiful rainbow, Werther. I am sure it is much more as they used to look.”
“It takes a particularly original kind of imagination to invent such—simplicity.” The Duke of Queens, well known for a penchant in the direction of vulgarity, fell in with her mood.
“I hope it does more than merely represent.” Satisfied both with his creation and with their responses, Werther could not resist indulging his nature, allowing a tinge of hurt resentment in his tone.
All were tolerant. All responded, even Bishop Castle. There came a chorus of consolation. Mistress Christia reached out and took his thin, white hand, inadvertently touching a power ring.
The rainbow began to topple. It leaned in the sky for a few seconds while Werther watched, his disbelief gradually turning to miserable reconciliation; then, slowly, it fell, shattering against the top of the cliff, showering them with shards of jet.
Mistress Christia’s tiny hand fled to the rosebud of her mouth; her round, blue eyes expressed horror already becoming laughter (checked when she noted the look in Werther’s dark and tragic orbs). She still gripped his hand; but he slowly withdrew it, kicking moodily at the fragments of the rainbow. The sky was suddenly a clear, soft grey, actually lit, one might have guessed, by the tired rays of the fading star about which the planet continued to circle, and the only clouds were those on Werther’s noble brow. He pulled at the peak of his bottle-green cap, he stroked at his long, auburn hair, as if to comfort himself. He sulked.
“Perfect!” praised My Lady Charlotina, refusing to see error.
“You have the knack of making the most of a single symbol, Werther.” The Duke of Queens waved a brocaded arm in the general direction of the now disseminated scene. “I envy you your talent, my friend.”
“It takes the product of panting lust, of pulsing sperm and eager ovaries, to offer us such brutal originality!” said Bishop Castle, in reference to Werther’s birth (he was the product of sexual union, born of a womb, knowing childhood—a rarity, indeed). “Bravo!”
“Ah,” sighed Werther, “how cheerfully you refer to my doom: to be such a creature, when all others came into this world as mature, uncomplicated adults!”
“There was also Jherek Carnelian,” said My Lady Charlotina. Her globular dress bounced as she turned to leave.
“At least he was not born malformed,” said Werther.
“It was the work of a moment to re-form you properly, Werther,” the Duke of Queens reminded him. “The six arms (was it?) removed, two perfectly fine ones replacing them. After all, it was an unusual exercise on the part of your mother. She did very well, considering it was her first attempt.”
“And her last,” said My Lady Charlotina, managing to have her back to Werther by the time the grin escaped. She snapped her fingers for her air car. It floated towards her, a great, yellow rocking horse. Its shadow fell across them all.
“It left a scar,” said Werther, “nonetheless.”
“It would,” said Mistress Christia, kissing him upon his black velvet shoulder.
