Running Behind Time (The Cotswolds time-slip series Book 1) by Jan Turk Petrie

Author:Jan Turk Petrie [Petrie, Jan Turk]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Pintail Press
Published: 2021-03-03T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Beth

From the window she watches the car pull away, glad he’s gone, thankful to have some time alone. Rachel’s sandals are pinching her toes; it’s such a relief to take them off and pad along the cold floor in her bare feet. Chances are she’ll never get to play Lexi in any case. In the welcome cool of the snug, she drops into the nearest chair, drops the act, drops her head down onto her folded arms. She would weep if she had the energy.

The thick tick of the hallway grandfather clock fills the otherwise silent house like a repeated declaration that there is no future, no past, only this moment; then this one; and this one … Every second the present tense reasserts itself over and over. There ought to be no way to interfere with such certainty.

As a child she used to do that thing of expanding her address until she got to the universe and there was nothing else beyond. At this precise moment in time she’s sitting in Pathways Cottage, in Stoatsfield-Under-Ridge, in Gloucestershire, in England, in Europe, in the world, in the year 2020. Everything that was about to happen in August 1982 – the time she was happily living in only yesterday – has already occurred. The same is true for the year 1983 and all the years between then and now. Events will have been written down in the history books and can apparently now be read from a device small enough to fit into the palm of one hand.

Until Tom planted the seed, it would never have occurred to her to use such foreknowledge in order to get rich. He wants to exploit this opportunity to make money; as if that was the only reason, the only point of her going through this awful ordeal.

If she were to walk into any library – the one in Cheltenham for example – and locate the relevant history section, she could look up almost anything that’s happened over the last thirty and more years. If that is true – and it’s undeniable – how is it possible she can ever regain a future that’s still to be lived; still to be decided?

Besides the relentless baritone tick of the clock, another noise intrudes. She tries to ignore the whimpering and scratching at the back door, until the dog’s cries become so pitiful it’s impossible and she gets up to let her in.

Delighted with this victory, Poppy follows her into the snug. The doggy smell that soon fills the small room is neither pleasant nor unpleasant – it’s both. Beth sits down. Instead of curling up on the floor, the dog comes over to nudge her knee with a snout that’s flecked grey with age. The dog’s insistent, won’t let her be until she lifts her head again.

Those two red-rimmed eyes look straight into hers. ‘What do you want?’ Beth asks out loud. In a world that no longer obeys logic, she half expects the dog to answer her in perfect English.

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