The Tidefort Rose

- 1 -

Standing next to the Norman church and overlooking Tidefort’s perfect village green, The Cricketer Inn really was in a most pleasant location and Roger McClusky had always enjoyed his stays here. A fellow of large stature even in his younger, fitter years, Roger was now drastically out of condition, to put it politely.  He liked his cigars, he liked his beer and most of all he liked his food, but he’d still played in the match that afternoon, managed to bowl a couple of overs and even taken a wicket through some fluke or other.  This put him in a most cheerful mood as he headed back to his rooms to bath and dress before the main business of the weekend – an evening of steady and dedicated drinking at the bar.

 

This weekend, for reasons not clearly explained by the management, he had been given a suite right at the top of the building, up two steep flights of stairs.  Needs must, and he eventually managed the climb them, panting and wheezing, and stumbled into the bedroom to lay down for a few minutes to catch his breath.  He finally felt well enough to light a cigar and puffed away for a few minutes before hauling himself to his feet and opening the window.  He leaned his head out to enjoy the tranquil view in the early evening light and the faint haze of floating seeds and drifting insects.  Roger sighed with pleasure and nostalgia, then made his way into the sitting room, pulling the bedroom door closed behind him so it wouldn’t slam in the soft breeze.  He sat down at the desk in the corner, his back to the bedroom door, selected a piece of writing paper and took up his pen.  He wrote his home address at the top, then the date, 19 July 1937, and the words “My Dearest Marty,  I do hope that…”

 

There was a bang and a thud from the bedroom.  Roger leapt up from his chair and spun round gasping.  Good Lord!  What the Hell was that?  It occurred to him that something must have blown off the dressing table onto the floor in there, though he really couldn’t think of anything which would make such a noise.  He went to take a step forward, only to gasp again as a man’s muffled voice came from the bedroom.

 

“Enough.  No more!”

 

A woman’s voice.  “All is lost!”

 

Roger was unable to move.  He stood, mouth open in shock.

 

The male voice came again.  “Take it!”

 

“No!  I cannot leave thee!”

 

“You do not!  You do not leave me.  Now take it!” shouted the man.

 

There was a loud thump against the bedroom door and Roger flinched with shock. And now a pale, thin hand started to appear through the solid wooden panels, clawing its way into the sitting room.

 

“I cannot leave thee!” the woman’s voice implored.

 

A face pushed through the door, faint and pale and wide eyed with fear.  The whole head and upper torso and now the other hand, clutching what looked like a bundle of sticks and twigs.  A woman, dressed in a simple way, a plain dress, dishevelled.  She reached out towards Roger, still rooted to his spot by the desk.  Her foot appeared to be stuck on the bedroom side of the door.  She looked back down at it, puzzled for a moment and then she screamed, “No!  No!”  And the apparition flickered and faded away and Roger was left alone and gasping.  He had been holding his breath without realising it, his heart beating painfully.  But the ghost was now gone.

 

He felt he should flee, jump down the stairs four at a time and rush to the bar for the largest glass of whisky and…

 

But now the bedroom door handle was turning.

 

- 2 -

"You got the top room!”

 

“Top room, yes.”  Nathan Tearn rolled his eyes.  What sod had set him up with this nutter?  He looked around the bar but, crowded as it was, not one of his team mates seemed to be looking, or even facing, in his direction.  Ha!  As if he needed more evidence of a set up.

 

“1937!  Two men died in that room!” shouted the old man.

 

“Really?” said Nathan in a pained and sarcastic voice.  “Two men, eh?”

 

“One of suicide, one of fright!  On the same evening.”  The man’s teeth were moving independently of his gums and lips.  He looked completely insane.  Nathan avoided his gaze, but the man continued in his high pitched voice.  “Fright!  Terror!  Pure terror!  Can you believe?  They only open that room during the cricket weekend.  Only time they need it.  Every four year.  And it goes to the youngest player, coz he’ll have the strongest heart!”  He shouted the last word at maximum volume and was so excited that he looked about to choke.  “But you’ll not have the strongest heart if you eat chip butties like that!”  He nodded at the half eaten bar meal in front of Nathan.  It wasn’t a chip buttie at all, it was a chicken salad, but that point somehow didn’t seem worth arguing.  Oh, God help us, the man was off again.  “That’s what Roger McClusky did.  Ate chip butties.  His heart didn’t last.  Nor did mine near on, when I seen him, and I was only ten year old then.  It made Davey Siddon’s hair turn white!”

 

“I’m going for a pint,” said Nathan.

 

“Oh, bless you, yes.  Branlett’s Best for me, thank you.”  Cheeky bastard!  “And you’ll be wanting plenty yourself.  Pass out, eh? Only way.”  The old man suddenly held out his hand and there was a ten pound note in it and the village idiot look disappeared from his face.  “Buy whisky, man.  I saw them.  I saw them.”

 

Nathan felt almost uneasy for the first time, but he was still convinced this was a wind up.  It was one of those sodding traditions of the Tideforts wasn’t it, and now it was his turn to be the youngest player on the travelling team and put up with the practical jokes, some of which were legendary.  He’d heard the one about the haunted room before, of course.  Having been brought up in the other Tidefort Nathan had heard every story there was to hear. 

 

The twin villages of Tidefort in Lancashire and Tidefort in Kent had played their famous cricket match every two years since 1905, times of war excepted.  They competed for the honorary title of Greater Tidefort, and they competed even harder to avoid the feared badge of dishonour: Lesser Tidefort.  The titles changed hands regularly.  The match venue itself also alternated between the two villages. 

 

In 1919, in honour of their war dead and the friendship between the two communities, a new and striking variety of flower was unveiled by a gardener from the Lancashire Tidefort.  The flower was to be known as the Tidefort Rose, although it clearly wasn’t a rose.  But if a rose is still a rose by any other name then the Tidefort Rose could be another flower entirely, and who was to complain.  Stranger still, the Tidefort Rose wasn’t exactly a flower; it was a fruit which just happened to have a pretty blossom.  Those who tasted the uncooked fruit suggested a possible gooseberry influence.  They were also violently ill shortly afterwards. Others persevered and at least two popular recipes were produced, with no sickness reported.

 

Sad to say, a mere five years after its introduction it was noticed that the Tidefort Roses growing in both villages were not thriving as they once had.  One by one the plants withered and died, and the last specimens disappeared in 1924.  The cricket competition continued to thrive and prosper, however, and by the year of 1937 had became firmly established as the most important event on both village calendars.

 

But then this Roger McWotsit hadn’t come down to the bar and his team mates had gone looking for him and, yes, he was up in the top room.  The story had been embellished and enhanced even during the times Nathan had heard it repeated, so God only knew what had really happened, but it was agreed that Roger was dead and that he looked very, very frightened when they found him. 

 

The spice which added real flavour to the legend was that another man was found in the room, hanging by the neck from a beam using two pairs of Roger’s shoelaces for a noose.  The trick in telling the story was to pause and say, “and one of the pair of laces was from Roger’s cricket boots”.  There could, apparently, be no greater tragedy than being hanged using the laces from a pair of cricket boots.

 

Of course, no one knew who the other man was.  He had no identification, was just wearing an old pair of trousers and a jumper and slip on boots, and no one had been  reported missing.  And they couldn’t put out a photo of him, because the man had no face.  No face that anyone wanted to look at, anyway, let alone attempt to photograph.  He was mutilated, eaten away.  Some said like a leper, but when they read up about leprosy and saw pictures of real lepers they said, no.  No, it was far, far worse than that, they said.  They buried the man in the churchyard and kept his grave clean and flowers watered, and that kept the tale alive.

 

Nathan snorted at the blatant horror story set up.  The only reason they got the youngest player to sleep in that room was because he was going to be the most bloody gullible.  There had actually been one fellow back in the Fifties who had bottled out and crept downstairs to sleep in the bar, but there was a group of old hands still drinking down there after hours and they made sure that everyone heard about the lad’s cowardice.  Even people that didn’t come from a village named Tidefort got to hear about it.

 

Still, Nathan wanted to get drunk and a tenner is handy to anyone, especially one still young and with little income.  He took the money.

 

“Branlett’s Best!  And whisky for you!” said the old loony.

 

^{~ * ~}

His mates had to carry Nathan upstairs in the end, which was a disappointment to all the spectators who usually relished sending the top room resident upstairs, fearful tales ringing in his ears and a look of horror bulging in his eyes.  They bumped him up the stairs as carelessly as possible, but he was out for the night.  It was that old bugger that had done it they all agreed; got him completely tanked up, silly sod.  Surely he knew the traditions better than anyone.  He must do by that age.  They felt cheated. 

 

One of them suggested a bucket of water over Nathan’s head would do the trick, but someone else spoiled that with a slurred lecture about their place as honoured guests in Tidefort.  Lesser Tidefort someone reminded him and there was a roar of approval.  The Kent lads had won the match that afternoon for the first time in a decade.  They chattered about this for a few minutes, then remembered they should be toasting such victories in the bar.  So they left Nathan fully clothed on his bed and clattered away downstairs.

 

And that’s where he lay until a very loud thud woke him with a start at 03:37 the next morning.    His eyes opened wide and he tried to remember where he was. 

 

There was something in the room.  He was in the top room of The Cricketer Inn and there was something else in the room with him.  Silence, but something there.  Very, very soft breathing, but it couldn’t be hidden in the noiseless night.  A person then.  His mouth felt swollen and his breath must be toxic, surely.  His eyes swivelled to the knackered old hotel clock radio by the bed.  It changed from 03:37 to 03:38 just as he looked at it.  The soft breathing was even fainter now.  They must have climbed the stairs and been a bit out of breath.  Oh, for God’s sake, that was it.  More bloody jokes!  They’d been planning on scaring him, but they made a noise and he woke up and they were caught.  Go for it!

 

“A’right lads!”  He sat up straight and was about to throw a pillow at whatever twit was standing there, but there came a throttled yell of surprise and the visitor pushed back further into the corner where she’d been hiding.

 

“Who the Hell are you?” he said.  He felt damned groggy now, and just a little bit daft, and his head hurt.  But why was there a girl in his room?  He leaned back on the bed and looked at her.  She seemed almost to fade away in the pale moonlight, and he rubbed his eyes and looked again.  Nope, she was definitely there.  She stared at him.

 

“You made me jump then!”  she said finally, with forced jollity.  “Phew.  Eh?”  God, that was fake.

 

“Who are you?”  he asked again, still sleepy and fuzzy headed.  He could see her fairly clearly, even though she was trying to wedge herself into the corner.  The curtains had been left wide open and it was a clear night.  She wore a scruffy white dress, plain shoes.  She was pale, but she looked fit and strong.  Very nice, he thought.  If the lads have arranged this then I’ll forgive them the rest, no problem.

 

She stayed quiet.  He turned the bedside lamp on and they both squinted.  Ow, ow, ow.  Head.  Nathan sat on the edge of the bed rubbing his eyes in pain.

 

The girl seemed to flicker around the room from one spot to the next, like a jumpy film.  She was holding out a glass of water to him.  Who knew where that came from, but it was ideal.  What an angel.  He gulped it down, eyes following her round the room as she moved away from him, still moving in that odd jerky way.  His eyes must be completely malfunctioning.  She jabbed the telly power switch, then snatched up the remote control and found an all night news channel.  She stared for a moment, eyes darting round the screen, looking for something.  Then she swiftly pressed more buttons on the remote.  View Settings > View Time Settings.  Then back to the telly.

 

“What are you looking for?” Nathan asked.

 

“Eh?  Quarter to four in the morning nearly.  Gosh.”  It was as fake as ever.

 

“You wanted to know the time?  There’s a clock there with the time in bright red.”  He pointed vaguely at the bedside table.

 

“Silly me,” she said.

 

“And it’s in the corner on the telly screen.  What’s your name?” he asked.

 

“Anna.”  Her eyes quickly scanned the room, through the window.  “Green.  Anna Green.”  Like fuck it is, she might well have added.

 

Then she walked over to the bed and sat down next to Nathan.  She held his face in her cool hands and looked him in the eyes.  Close up, he noted again how pale she was, and how tired she looked.  Exhausted, red eyes.

 

“Do you know how long since last I slept?” she said.  Nathan stared at her.  She looked into his eyes again.  “Safe.”

 

“Uh, yeah man, safe,” he said with a slightly confused smile.  Why did she keep using such cheesy slang?

 

“I’m going to sleep.”  She said,  then lay down on the bed beside him and closed her eyes and went to sleep.  Quite a party animal, he thought.  He wasn’t sure how the joke was supposed to be working here;  they send a weird girl to his room and then she goes to sleep?  Cutting edge stuff there, guys.  He couldn’t think straight anyway, or do anything else for that matter, should it have been on offer.  He wanted to change out of his grotty clothes, but what if she misunderstood?  He went into the tiny bathroom and splashed his face.  He took off his shoes and then felt dizzy and decided to crash out for a bit and worry about cleanliness and personal hygiene later.  He went back in and switched off the light and lay down.

 

The girl said, “I cannot leave thee.”

 

“You what?” said Nathan.

 

But she was asleep and, within a few seconds, so was he.

 

^{~ * ~}

When he woke, she was in the bathroom.  He could hear water running in the sink.  He turned to look at the clock and it said exactly 09:00.  He glanced at the bathroom door, standing slightly ajar, and caught a jammy glimpse of her naked body as she moved around.  Naked except for a metal ankle bracelet.  He’d always liked those.  Excellent.

 

There was a hammering on the main door to his rooms.  The sink taps were immediately tuned off. 

 

“Oi-oi, Tearny-boy!  You made it through the night, son?” 

 

“No thanks to you bastards!” he shouted back.

 

“Come on, mate.  Breakfast.”

 

“Be down in a bit.”  He sat up, smiling, rubbing his eyes groggily.  “I need a shower, ‘Anna Green’.  You going to be long?”

 

“No.”  He jumped.  My God, she was right next to him.  Scary cow.  She held the little hotel complementary sewing kit in her hand, then dropped it into the bedside drawer.  She looked amazing.  What a transformation.  The old peasant-look dress was now a knee length skirt, slim and sharp, and she had helped herself to one of Nathan’s t-shirts which she had tied at the waist so that there was a little flash of bare tummy, smooth and flat.  She smelled clean and fresh, making Nathan feel even worse.

 

“What did your friends call you, mate?” she asked in that strangely wooden and fake way.

 

“Call me?  What, like ‘son’ you mean?  ‘Mate’?  ‘Tearny-boy’?  ‘Oi-oi’?”

 

“‘Tearny-boy’!  Tearn.  Your name is Tearn?”

 

“Of course it’s Tearn.  Nathan will do though, won’t it?  Didn’t they even tell you my name when they sent you up here?”

 

She ignored the question, staring into his eyes.  Deep into his eyes.  She looked and looked and he couldn’t look away.  And then a tear trickled down her cheek and Nathan didn’t know what to do.

 

He swallowed dryly, a sort of gulp of air.

 

“You’re a bit weird, you are!” he managed to say.  “And if you want breakfast you need to let me have a shower.  I’m bloody rank.”

 

“Go on Nathan Tearn.”

 

“And stop looking at me like that.”

 

He went into the bathroom and finally got out of his stinking clothes from the night before.  He started showering and five minutes later, finally, some sort of feeling appeared to return.  And a raging appetite.  He stepped out and wrapped a towel round his waist.  He’d forgotten to bring his clean clothes in to the bathroom.  He wrapped another towel over his shoulders and walked quickly over to the wardrobe and grabbed jeans and a cotton shirt, underpants and socks.

 

“How about room service?” asked the girl.

 

“Room service?  This is a bloody pub.  They only get more than one guest at a time when the cricket comes round.  Anyway, you’re coming downstairs to face the piss-taking same as me!”

 

“I cannot leave this room.  You go, and bring something for me.”

 

“Listen, ‘Anna’, I don’t know what your game is.  It’s been nice meeting you and I’ll tell the lads whatever you want, but I’m checking out this morning and I’ve got a long trip back down South.  Come on, let’s go.”

 

“I’m not hungry.”

 

“Well I can’t leave you up here.  They’ll want to know what I’ve done with you.”  He went back into the bathroom and started dressing, tummy rumbling at the thought of a massive pub fried breakfast.  He ruffled his hair in the mirror and thought it looked alright, then went back in to the bedroom.  She was still sitting on the bed, looking at him.

 

“You’re from the other Tidefort?”

 

“Yes, of course I’m from the other Tidefort.  Greater Tidefort.”  He smiled but she didn’t respond.  “Why, what about it?”

 

“It’s a nice place.”

 

“It’s alright.”

 

Then she pulled her hand out from behind her back and held out a bunch of flowers.  He glanced down at them, walked forward to look closer.

 

“Where did you get those?  They can’t be, can they?”  Then, suspiciously, “Is this another set up then?  I don’t get the jokes this weekend.  Those look like Tidefort Roses, but the Rose died out years ago.  I’ve only seen a couple of drawings from the ‘Twenties.  Where did they come from?”

 

“I just needed to show them to you!”  She laughed nervously.  “Go and eat, Nathan Tearn.”

 

He lifted her hand and looked closer at the twigs and flowers.  They were real.  This was incredibly exciting.  Nathan knew every plant and flower within miles of his home.  His life was dedicated to their study, it was all he wanted to do with his life, and now this girl had appeared with a plant he knew for a fact was extinct.  Famously extinct, in the Tidefort world at least.   His stomach rumbled.

 

“Go and eat!”

 

He dropped her hand.  “Don’t move!  Don’t go anywhere.  I’ll be back in ten minutes.  Less.”  He stood up and wobbled a bit, still fuzzy headed, then set off downstairs.

 

^{~ * ~}

 “What does she look like then?” asked Mike Farran, as he crammed his face with eggs and fried bread.

 

Nathan struggled for words, as usual.  “Nice,” he said.

 

“Nice?  Nice arse?”

 

“Nice everything.  She looks like…”  His eyes wandered around the room as he struggled for descriptive words.  He saw photographs on the pub walls.  Photo’s of cricket teams and village greens, of groups of people in all the fashions of the last hundred years while the setting around them never changed: Tidefort village.  Nathan stopped.  He scanned back along the pictures. 

 

“She looks like… that!”

 

One of the photographs.  The 1920s,  men in blazers lined up for a snapshot, a bicycle leaning against a fence, two children slightly blurred for not standing still, a woman in the background, holding a sprig of flowers and twigs and wearing a white country dress, looking sideways at the camera, shyly.  “Anna Green,” he whispered.

 

“That’s the bird that’s been in your room all night, mate?  She must be getting on a bit by now!”  There was laughter and more jokes.  Nathan just stared at the picture.  It was her.  It was Anna Green.

 

“Seen ‘er too then?  There’s been many that have.”  The old man from the night before.  Nathan felt a little queasy at the thought of the whisky this bloke had forced him to drink.  “I thought you’d see ‘er.  Feeling in the bones and that.”  He’d been sitting in an alcove next to the bar, ignored by the boisterous breakfast table group.

 

“Seen her?” said Nathan.  “She’s in my room.  She’s up there now; wouldn’t come down.  Who is she?”

 

“Aye, good question.  Like I says, plenty of folk have seen her.  And she’s always dressed like that picture there, aye.  But did you say you spoke with her, lad?  She spoke to you?”

 

“She spoke to me.”  Nathan’s throat was dry again.  He’d abandoned all thoughts of a wind up now.  “I know what she had in her hand in that photograph. I touched it.  The Rose.” He looked around the table.  “She’s in my room.”

 

“Let’s go!”  Mike and Will Dibsen were up and heading for the stairs already.  Jim Holt grabbed Nathan’s arm.

 

“Come on, Tearny.  Got to see this!”

 

But the girl was gone, and the Rose was gone.

 

 

 

- 3 -

 

“Professor Tearn?”

 

A soft voice, almost whispering, broke into his dream.  The dream disappeared, frustratingly.  He liked dreams.  What had he been dreaming about?

 

“Professor Tearn?”

 

The voice was distant somehow, coming through a tunnel or something.  Nathan opened his eyes a fraction.  White, clean walls.  White, clean sheets.  Like in a hospital.

 

“You are in a hospital, Professor.  You are alive.”

 

You are alive. Why would they say that?  Oh God.  Oh God!  He tried to sit up but the bed sheet was so tight that it restrained him like a leather strap.  Oh God!  Lisette!

 

“My wife?” he said.  “Where is my wife?”

 

The voice came back, from a small loudspeaker on the wall.

 

“I’m sorry, Professor.  Mrs Tearn did not live.  No one lived.”

 

“No one lived?  In the college you mean?”  What did they mean, no one lived?

 

“Four hundred and seventy thousand people in Tan Cho and the surrounding area.”

 

He fought with the sheet and managed to loosen it enough to push up on his elbows.  He felt dizzy and nauseous.  He squinted in the clean, white light.  There was an observation window to his right.  A man was watching him and there was a nurse too, but she looked away.

 

“Four hundred and what…?” said Nathan.

 

The man’s lips moved on the other side of the glass and his voice came through the speaker a split second later.  “Four hundred and seventy thousand.  And that is by no means the worst incident in the East.  It’s only a matter of time before this virus spreads.  It only stops when it has no more human contacts to infect.”

 

Nathan slumped back onto the pillow.

 

“Professor Tearn, I am sorry about your wife, and your colleagues. Your personal effects are on the table beside you.”

 

What a pointless remark; tactless too.  He turned to look at the table, eyes blurred with tears.  His belongings were laid out neatly; antique watch, computer headset fixed onto his trademark hat… he sat up again.  There was a notebook on the table.  A book he hadn’t seen since the day more than forty years ago when he’d filled it with rough pencil drawings and scribbled notes.  He snatched it up and turned to the man behind the glass.  He opened his mouth to speak, but the man got in first.

 

“You actually saw a Tidefort Rose, Professor?”

 

“Yes.  I did!  How did you know that?”

 

“I didn’t.  But thank you for confirming my guess.”

 

“Why is my notebook here?  I’m confused.  What’s going on?”

 

“Another man survived one of the virus outbreaks; in Malaysia this time.  Another Englishman.  We thought for a moment that Englishmen were immune.”  He smiled briefly behind the glass.  “But there were many other English citizens among the dead.  We looked for other connections between you, did blood tests, took X-Rays, everything the medical types do.  I’m not a medical type, but I do find connections, that’s my job.  Your birth certificates showed nothing of interest.  Barry Wilson was born in Lancaster, you were born in Maidstone.  We decided to track your lives backward to see where you had worked, where you had lived, where you had met perhaps.  You and Mr Wilson were both raised in the village of Tidefort.  To be more accurate, you were both raised in a village of Tidefort.”  He paused, then stood up and walked to the door of Nathan’s room and opened it.  Nathan must have shown his surprise.

 

“Oh, you’re not in isolation.  Just under observation.  Your body is completely free of the virus.  Your body killed it.”

 

“Why am I immune?  Why is Barry Wilson immune?”

 

“I’d never heard of the villages of Tidefort, but you have some magnificent traditions, makes me quite proud to read of them.  Your villages still play their cricket match?”

 

“I’ve not been back for many years, but I do believe the cricket fixture continues, yes.”  Nathan leaned back on his pillow as the man stood over him.

 

“Greater and Lesser Tidefort!  Wonderful.  Eccentric and English.”  The man took the notebook.  “The Tidefort Rose.  It only existed, according to records, for five years – from 1919 to 1924.  You were born in 1991, Professor.”

 

Why was the man making him feel guilty?  Nathan swallowed as he always did when he was nervous or frightened.  He closed his eyes and thought back.  “I don’t know what happened.  I never understood it.  I was staying in a room at the Cricketer…”

 

“I am aware of the story.  One of your team mates, Mike Farran, told me.  And his wife gave me your notebook.  Sally.  Do you remember Sally, Professor?  It seems you gave the book to her when you were dating?”

 

“Yes, of course!  Do you know I couldn’t think where it could have gone, or how you could have found it.  Sally Holt!  Jim’s sister.  I…”

 

“It’s OK.  It’s all part of the job, and the important thing is that we made the right connection.  Several right connections, in fact.  For such a short lived plant, the Tidefort Rose had an amazing effect on anyone who consumed its fruit.  Not only on them, but on their descendants.  The Tidefort Rose has provided the citizens of your villages with immunity against a virus which first appeared more than a century after the Rose became extinct.  Strange thing nature, but I suspect you will know that far better than I.  You are a very respected man in your field, Professor Tearn.  I have heard only only the highest praise.  You are also a man we can trust.”

 

“Trust?” Nathan’s head was hurting.  He tried to rub his eye but there was a bandage across his cheek and he flinched as he touched it.

 

“We need the Tidefort Rose.  You are the only person alive who has seen it, and who could identify it for certain if you saw it again.  If someone brought a Tidefort Rose to you, you could confirm that it was the right plant, the plant we need to defeat this virus?”

 

“Of course, yes.  I mean, I could confirm it was the plant I saw in 2007 at the Cricketer…”

 

“Yes, that would be quite sufficient.”

 

“Where is it then?”  Nathan looked at the man, expecting him to summon someone from the next room.  But the man just stared over his head, deep in thought.  Finally, he turned to the door.

 

“We must go to Lancashire.”  He called the nurse and asked for a porter and a wheelchair.  Nathan was helped into the chair, his belongings in a small bag on his lap.  The notebook seemed to have disappeared again.  They transferred to a vehicle at the hospital entrance and drove in silence, the electric car one of only a few powered vehicles on the road.  Horse drawn carts were back in use nowadays, and bicycles were everywhere.  Nathan hadn’t been in England for many years now, his research in the Far East keeping him away, but now he found his heart beating as he recognised the old roads.  The hospital must have been somewhere near Manchester, he thought.  An hour or so to Tidefort.

 

“Who has the plant?”  asked Nathan, breaking the silence at last.

 

“No one has the plant, Professor Tearn.”

 

“You what?  Why are we going to Tidefort then?”

 

“It is hard for me to explain.  I’m not a technical type.  But, as I understand things, you will be accompanied to where we know the Rose is, you will confirm that it is the right plant, and you will bring it back.”

 

Nathan’s heart skipped a little as they drove into the village, around the green and up to the front door of the inn.  It had been renovated, windows replaced and solar panels on the roof as normal these days, but somehow the character remained – it still looked like an English village pub.  His happy thoughts were broken as a man came bursting out of the front door of the bar, his coat tail gripped by another man who was clearly trying to stop him from leaving.  The escaper dragged them both to the car and started shouting at Nathan’s companion.

 

“Gardner!  We’re nowhere near ready with this!  You can’t send them yet.  We’ve had failure after failure whenever we’ve tried it…”

 

“You’ve had two successes, Marton,” said the man next to Nathan as he climbed from the car.  “That’s good enough.  James has agreed to take Professor Tearn. I trust James and I trust Professor Tearn.  To find two people I trust in England  these days is more than I could normally dream of.  They go.”  The security guard had finally got control of Marton and pulled him back.  Nathan was lifted back into the chair, but he felt uncomfortable being wheeled around.  He stood up, wobbled a little and breathed deeply.  Tidefort!  Yes.  He took a few steps and felt better already.  They walked to the door and Nathan caught his reflection for the first time.  He had a huge plaster stuck to one side of his face.  He paused.

 

“Is my face badly hurt?” he asked.

 

“A flesh wound.  We can repair it when you return, but this trip must take priority.  Professor Tearn, meet Rachel James.”

 

He sat straight down on the floor.  His legs simply folded beneath him.  Kneeling next to him, a concerned look on her face, was Anna Green.  Rachel James.  His face drained of all colour.  A glass of water appeared in her hand and he opened his eyes wide in surprise.  How did she do that trick?  He faintly smiled at the memory and took the drink with shaking hand.

 

He looked at Gardner, and at Rachel James. 

 

“This trip,” He said.  “It’s Time isn’t it?  I know now.”

 

Gardner spoke.  “You go back with James.  She has done this successfully before and she has volunteered to take you.  She is an expert in 20^th Century life and language.  She will leave the room while you wait and bring you samples.  You will return together.”

 

Nathan stared at them both for a moment, then said quietly and calmly, “Can I have a few minutes to myself please?”

 

“Of course, Professor.”

 

He stood shakily and stepped outside.  A Summer’s evening, just as he remembered from all that time ago.  Silence.  Flowers were blooming in baskets outside the pub.  He carefully picked a handful of the sweeter blossoms.  Nathan Tearn walked into the churchyard next door and gently laid the flowers on his own grave.

 

Dan Smith 2004