Chapter Twenty-Nine

Present

The paperwork was definitely the dull bit. Seeing the wedding dress had been the exciting part, but Tegan knew that along with the fun stuff there was the work stuff and at least she’d been trusted enough to do this.

She couldn’t help but imagine the exhibition in all its glory, with that wonderful dress in the middle of the frozen lake and all the mirrors and things reflecting around the room. Should she, though, have it spinning around, like a musical box, or just somewhere people could walk around it . . . just somewhere it could be walked around, she decided, or it would end up more Chitty Chitty Bang Bang than The Snow Queen — too much like the bit where Truly Scrumptious did a ballet dance in front of the Baron and the Baroness. Then she remembered the Child Catcher was in that scene as well, and shuddered. It probably wasn’t the best thing to put in a family-friendly display.

‘Okay, so that’s us done,’ said Ianthe, bringing her attention back to the present. ‘I’ll get that sash tidied up and, like we said, I’ll get it sent down to you tomorrow.’

‘Fantastic. Thanks — we can get it set up in good time at Pencradoc.’

‘Send me some photos,’ said Ianthe with a smile. ‘I like to see my girls in situ , if you like.’

‘Most definitely.’

They shook hands and headed back into the studio where Ryan was lurking beside the dummy, staring at the dress again. He seemed a million miles away though, and he was certainly scowling.

‘Ryan — that’s us done,’ said Tegan.

‘Hmm?’ he asked, without looking at her.

‘I said, that’s us done.’

‘Oh! Great.’ Ryan turned and quickly smiled at them both. Tegan got a little shockwave of something — she hesitated to call it “desire” — but, heck, when he wasn’t scowling and smiled a genuine smile, he was pretty good-looking. ‘Um. Thanks for your help, Ianthe.’

‘Any time. Give my best to Sybill.’

‘Will do,’ he replied.

Then, after a final few words, Ianthe walked them to the door and they found themselves on the pavement again, the sharp scent of winter in her nostrils. Unsurprisingly, as, in the time they’d been indoors, the skies had turned grey and promised rain, sleet, snow or a combination of them all.

‘What now?’ asked Ryan, when the door had closed on them. He looked up at the sky and pulled a face. He was right to pull a face — a gentle drizzle had started. It then became heavier and the clouds seemed to lower and glower at them, taunting them to stay out of doors.

‘Elsie’s house?’ Tegan suggested. ‘Or Hyde Park?’

‘I think I’d quite like to see where Elsie lived. And it’s a bit closer than Hyde Park.’ Ryan held up his phone. ‘Thank goodness this is waterproof. I was doing some checking when you were with Ianthe. Um. Emails and stuff. And . . . well, directions. We’re just under half an hour to Elsie’s. Just a bit longer to Hyde Park. On foot, that is.’

‘Elsie’s, then. I think it would be a nice walk. I love this part of London,’ said Tegan. ‘I worked at a hotel here one summer. It’s a bit vile in the rain, though.’

‘We could maybe grab a coffee on the way? We’re bound to pass somewhere. This is London, after all.’

‘Sounds good.’ She was a little surprised at how easily she’d agreed. ‘Let’s see how far we can get before we drown.’

‘Challenge accepted.’

They started off along the path and, despite the rain, chatted remarkably easily about jobs they’d had, and things they’d experienced in them. She found herself telling Ryan about Angelo and how she was expecting him after New Year, but they just needed to confirm the details . . .

Oh.

Guiltily, she realised she hadn’t thought about Angelo much over the last couple of days. She wondered if she’d deliberately parked those thoughts in the excitement and horror of the Ballroom Incident, as she’d privately named it. Which, actually, reminded her . . .

‘You haven’t accepted my friend request yet!’

‘Oh, so we’re friends now, are we?’ Ryan looked down at her and grinned, the drizzly drops of rain sticking to his hair and his black overcoat.

She knew he was teasing and she shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Maybe. Maybe that truce is working.’

‘It’s certainly easier not to fight all the time,’ said Ryan. ‘I mean, look at us—’ he extracted his hand from his pocket and waved it around expansively, ‘— walking happily around London, not fighting, not sniping and actually communicating with words and things.’

Tegan hunched her shoulders up and wriggled her chin into her scarf. ‘It’s like we’re adulting. It’s weird .’

‘Definitely weird.’ Ryan laughed. ‘Oh! Look. What’s going on over there?’

Tegan followed his nod. They were approaching Russell Square, and, through the haze of mizzle that was rapidly turning London damp and grey, it looked as if there was some activity going on, some sort of Christmas fair, no less.

‘Ah! Christmas stuff!’ she said. ‘Shall we go and have a look? It’s not quite Hyde Park, but it looks pretty. We can cut through and then Brunswick Square is just to the left, if I remember correctly.’

They stepped through the gate into the square and Tegan drew up short. It was decorated exactly like a Victorian Christmas or something. Fake snow was piled up and people were milling around dressed in old-fashioned clothing.

A choir was singing and children were running around, weaving in and out of roast-chestnut sellers and mulled-wine carts, the earthy, spiced scent drifting tantalisingly around the stalls.

‘Wow.’ She stared at it. ‘This is amazing!’

Ryan looked up and held his hand out. ‘The rain’s turned to snow. I’m not sure they’ll need the fake stuff for much longer. It’ll get covered in the proper stuff before long.’

Tegan stuck the toe of her boot into a snowdrift. ‘It’s good, though. I wonder where they got it from. It would be good for our wedding exhibition.’ She realised immediately that she’d said “our”, but decided not to correct herself. Ryan had helped out a lot, she knew that.

Ryan seemed to let it go too. ‘It’s very effective.’ He bent down and picked up a handful of the stuff, experimentally crushing it into a snowball. Then he tossed the snowball towards the edge of the path, where it exploded in a cloud of very realistic snow. ‘Bloody good snow indeed.’

They walked further into the square, stepping aside as people walked purposefully towards them, and the carollers sang about the bleak midwinter. Nobody seemed to pay them one iota of attention.

As they got further into the crowd, though, Tegan began to feel a little odd. She couldn’t explain it, but it was as if she was invisible. Not really there, not really inhabiting that space. Almost as if she’d stumbled into a dream. If she looked away from someone or something, for example, then looked back, it was all slow motion and jerky, like the reels on a very old spool of film coming back into focus.

She stopped in the middle of the path, looking at a child in a red coat running towards them. The girl had dark curly hair flying loose and made no attempt to avoid her. She didn’t even seem to see her.

What would happen , she thought, if I just stayed here and didn’t move . . . ?

It was a risk she was willing to take and, for some reason, she was prepared to do so. And not because she wanted to hurt the child or see her fall over, or force the little girl to move instead of her, Tegan . . .

Instead, she felt Ryan’s hand take hers and tug her out of the way.

‘Careful,’ he said. ‘Nobody wants to end up sitting on their bums in the snow today.’

‘Ryan,’ she said, carefully. ‘I don’t think she saw me.’

‘Kids are like that,’ he said. ‘Never take notice of anyone but themselves.’ He was smiling as he said it. ‘Look at her — she’s got a purpose and she knows exactly where she’s headed.’

They both turned and watched the girl. She’d slowed to a purposeful trudge.

‘Unca Laurie! Viola!’ she cried. Two people swung around, obviously hearing the child shout. She began to wave at them, her hand muff hanging at an angle across her body. ‘It’s fun here! Look at the snow!’

* * *

Ryan’s hand was still in Tegan’s and he felt her stiffen as much as he did when the child yelled out those names.

Watching the scene unfold, his heart pounding and his stomach churning as he tried to make sense of it all, he saw the little girl storm ahead of a woman dressed in a formal sort of uniform. The child stooped to pick up a pile of snow, just as he’d done. She also made it into a snowball, threw it, then clapped her hands and laughed.

‘Marigold Ashby,’ said the man she’d approached. He hunkered down and the child ran at him and almost knocked him over as he closed his arms around her. Then he stood up and swung her around before placing her back on the ground. ‘Good afternoon.’

The woman with him, with “Unca Laurie”, was standing slightly to the side. Small, with fair hair under a warm-looking hat, and her hands encased in a muff, she blinked and looked at the man as if she was seeing him for the very first time.

Then her gaze travelled around the square briefly, a slight look of confusion on her face, and Ryan got a good look at her as she scanned the park past him.

Viola.

It was her. It was definitely her. And Ryan knew that this wasn’t the first time he’d seen her, or the first time he’d been in Viola’s company — the real Viola, that was. Not the ethereal version that seemed to be hanging around him and Tegan in Cornwall.

In that moment, it was as if all the pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle had fallen into place. He found himself hanging on to Tegan’s hand as if he was scared to let it go. He could feel her fingers digging into his, too.

‘They’re not real,’ he heard her whisper. ‘This Christmas fair. It’s not — real. Is it?’

Ryan shook his head slowly. ‘No. I think it was real. For them. But it’s not real for us .’

‘Is it . . . Laurie and Viola?’

‘I think so. And Marigold.’

‘Then where the hell are we?’ Tegan sounded scared.

Ryan swallowed back some panic. ‘1911,’ he replied. ‘Or thereabouts.’

‘Fuck this for a game of soldiers.’ Tegan began to pull him back the way they’d come. ‘Not surprised the snow’s so bloody real!’

Ryan wasn’t going to disagree with any of those sentiments. With some difficulty, he tore his gaze away from the group of people whose lives they had somehow gate-crashed and hurried out of the gate they’d come in. All thoughts of his shortlisting and upcoming interview fled from his mind — all he was concerned about was getting out of Russell Square, circa 1911.

Once they were outside and walking really, really quickly away from the place, towards a warm coffee shop and the twenty-first century, he took the chance of looking behind him.

Russell Square was looking just like itself. Slightly grey and soggy, damp benches scattered around it, people walking dogs there, people carrying shopping bags through it . . . just the way it should look today in modern-day Bloomsbury.

Not a scrap of snow anywhere, just a huge Christmas tree in the middle of it, right next to the fountain, decorated with modern fairy lights.

‘In here.’ Tegan pulled him into a coffee shop — one of the popular chains which was, quite possibly, the best grounding experience he could have hoped for at that particular point in time.

‘Good call.’

‘I’ll get them,’ said Tegan. ‘I want to do something — normal!’

Ryan didn’t argue. He was still half in that life he’d just witnessed and didn’t think he’d be able to formulate a sensible request to the smiling barista.

Within a few minutes, Tegan was back with two large coffees — some sort of festive spice version, piled high with whipped cream and marshmallows.

‘Don’t judge me,’ she muttered. ‘If I hadn’t have given up smoking a few years back, I’d be bloody lighting up right now. This is my vice. Whipped cream and Christmas coffees.’

‘Worse ones to have,’ he replied. ‘Do you want another marshmallow?’

Tegan nodded and he spooned the confection off his drink and plopped it on hers.

‘The more sugar the better,’ she said. ‘I’m not wrong, am I? That really happened there.’ She pointed her spoon in the general direction of Russell Square. ‘We were at some Christmas fair in the past?’

‘It’s just weird we both saw it. Having said that, I’m kind of glad you were there. I’m not sure anyone else would believe me.’

Tegan shook her head. ‘I can kind of understand it happening at Pencradoc. I mean, I’ve sort of accepted it now. Viola and Laurie were obviously an item and want us to know about it.’

‘We know they were an item — they got married for God’s sake!’

‘Yes. But . . .’ Tegan blushed. ‘What if it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. Right from the beginning, I mean. Didn’t it say somewhere that Elsie wanted them to call a truce before her wedding?’

Ryan nodded slowly. ‘Yes. In the letter she sent to Laurie about going to see the dress.’

‘And that story you found — didn’t he try to rewrite the story of the ball? So they actually enjoyed themselves? Like he’d regretted whatever had happened that night?’

‘I guess he did. Tegan, you’re quite good at this.’

‘Shut up.’ He knew she didn’t mean it in a bad way, but the comments had relaxed them a bit. ‘But if it was them we saw just now—’

‘It definitely was,’ he said drily. ‘Looked a bit like us in a period drama, but whatever.’ Because, dear God, it had looked like them. He felt a bit sick again and it wasn’t the mountain of cream causing it.

‘Okay. Whatever.’ She waved her spoon around and showered the table with globs of melting whipped cream. ‘If it was them, it looked to me as if they’d called that truce when they visited Russell Square. For whatever reason they were there.’ Her cheeks were pink and she was tumbling over her words. ‘I mean, just consider for a moment,’ she said, ‘that they were trying to tell us something. They chose to tell us when we were together, at the same time they were together. Kind of.’

‘Only we were at the same place, like, over a century later.’

‘Stop splitting hairs. You know what I mean.’

‘Do I?’ asked Ryan. But he thought he did and his heart began to pound. He was looking in her eyes, and, he realised, they were leaning across the table, very close to one another. ‘Do you — want to explain what I think you mean.’

‘Not really.’

‘Are we supposed to be calling a truce?’

‘I thought we’d done that.’

‘So what do we do next?’ Ryan couldn’t understand the feelings she was stirring up in him. This was Tegan! His nemesis, the girl he’d disliked so intently at Glasgow that they could barely tolerate the other person breathing the same air.

‘Do we — wait and see what happens?’

‘That’s one way to approach it.’

They stared at one another for a moment more. Then they both jumped as Tegan’s phone rang.

‘Shit.’ She looked at her bag and pulled her phone out. ‘Hello? Oh! Coren. Hi. Yeah, yeah. It’s gone well. Thanks for checking in — Ianthe sorted the invoice when I was there. Yeah, the evergreens — I agreed that. Is that okay? I know you said I had authority to do whatever was best . . . fantastic . . . thanks . . . oh, brilliant . . .’

Ryan sat back in his seat. The moment, whatever that moment had been or whatever it had been leading up to, was lost.

Ah, well.

He looked at the half-drunk coffee in front of him. There was one lone marshmallow wallowing in the murky liquid, bobbing and turning to and fro. Thank God she’d got that call, actually, because he was sure his next comment was going to be something stupid, like, “do you want another marshmallow?” Good grief, he was useless. He knew in his heart what he wanted to do — and, yes, what those ghosts were actually trying to tell him. But he wanted to choose his moment. And a knee-jerk reaction to a weird, freaky, old-fashioned-Christmas-fair experience was, he considered, not the best time to blurt it all out — to blurt out what he really wanted to say.

What exactly are you waiting for? came a stern, frustrated voice. What is it, man?

Christmas, he told the voice silently. I think I’m waiting for Christmas.

Tegan ended the call and tapped around on her phone for a moment. Ryan wondered whether she was playing for time and transferred his attention to the marshmallow, which was slowly sinking into the coffee. It was better than staring at her, and he absolutely knew he was staring at her . . .

‘Well now.’ She looked up at him and held her phone up. ‘Angelo messaged back.’ Her face was pale, but her eyes sparked a little with anger or frustration — he couldn’t really tell.

‘What? Boyfriend Angelo?’

He’d almost forgotten she had a boyfriend.

‘Yeah.’ She shrugged. ‘So — here it is. Remember I was saying we needed to confirm when he was coming over? I asked him again when he thought he could make it. Reckons he can’t get over here in January either. First he says he can’t make Christmas, then he says he’ll come after New Year. Now he thinks February or March might be more affordable.’

‘Ah.’ Ryan didn’t really know what to say. ‘Might it be possible for you to go over there? I’m sure you’ll get some holiday entitlement after we’ve finished the midwinter exhibition.’

‘Yeah.’ She stared at her phone again, then laid it down, perfectly square in front of her. ‘I could. I guess.’

Ryan didn’t answer. If she wanted to go, nobody was going to stop her.

‘But we could be busy after Christmas, couldn’t we? I mean — me and you.’ She held his gaze, with huge green eyes he could almost — almost — drown in, if he stared too long into them. ‘Easter. Stuff like that to plan. We’re sort of vital people. Like — a network.’

Ryan nodded, then opened his mouth. Then closed it again. Then scowled.

‘What?’ Tegan scowled back at him, then said in a quiet, clipped, snappy tone, ‘Has this been too horrendous for you? Don’t you think we’d be able to do it again?’

‘No! No, I mean, it’s been great. It’s just . . .’ His voice trailed off.

‘Just what?’

‘Just . . . I don’t know if I’ll be staying on, is all.’ He forced himself to look at her. ‘I applied for a job. At Glasgow. Working with Art Deco things and researching the Glasgow Boys in a new gallery that’s opening. And we’ll be including the Glasgow Girls of course. Don’t want to leave them out.’

‘What?’ She looked genuinely horrified. ‘You’re going? You’re leaving Cornwall?’

He nodded briefly. ‘Yes. I think so. I mean — if I get it.’

‘Have you been interviewed?’ Her voice was almost a whisper.

‘Not yet. But I’ve been shortlisted, so an interview is coming. I should know what’s happening soon with it all, anyway. Whether I’ve got it and stuff. Like, before Christmas.’

‘Oh,’ was all she said. ‘I see.’ Then she dropped her gaze, picked up her phone again and scrolled idly. ‘Oh.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, if you need any help for the interview, I’m happy to help. God knows I’ve had plenty of interviews myself over the years.’ Then she looked up at him and smiled, and it seemed genuine. ‘Not that I’m trying to get rid of you. But I know how much you loved it up there. I’m sure you know what you’re doing and it’s an amazing opportunity for you.’

‘Yeah. It is,’ he said. And smiled back at her. ‘I might take you up on that offer.’

‘Fab.’

‘Great.’

Silence.

There wasn’t really much else to say.

But, actually, he wasn’t really sure of anything anymore.

Not after today.