Page 90 of Right Place, Right Time
I stare at Ben for a moment in disbelief. ‘I … I just can’t believe that,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘Luca is my friend. How can he have kept this hidden from me all this time?’
‘He had no choice,’ Ben says. ‘Remember, we can trust no one with this secret until we know they can be trusted.’
‘But hold on a minute,’ Adam says, interrupting. ‘Ben, you said that you’d aged from the moment you arrived here at ten years old. If Harriet and Luca arrived in 1980 and 1972, they’d be much older now than they currently are.’
Ben nods. ‘It does seem like a bit of an anomaly. But we have a theory on that, don’t we, Orla.’
‘Yes, we think that when you come through the portal, you possibly age to the point when you would originally have passed away if you’d stayed in your own time. So Ben, for instance, would have lived a long life. Even though he was originally living in poverty in 1904, we think he must have changed his life around at some stage to enable him to live many years.’
‘But Harriet and Luca wouldn’t have lived such long lives?’ I ask.
‘We don’t know this, but because Luca hasn’t aged too much at all since he arrived, it’s possible he might have been detained by the Nazis. Many gay people were sadly imprisoned in detention camps and of course, as we know, died there too.’
‘Oh, God, that’s awful,’ I say, clapping my hands over my mouth. ‘Poor Luca.’
‘I must stress we don’t know this for certain, but, since that’s what Luca was escaping from, we can only guess that’s what might have been his fate had he stayed in France.’
‘And Harriet?’ I ask.
‘Harriet has aged a few years since she’s been here, but we think she may have died at the hands of her abusive husband had she not escaped from him and come here.’
‘So they both only survived because they came through the tunnel?’
Orla nods. ‘The portal, yes.’
‘How many more are there, other than Ben, Luca and Harriet?’
‘Not many we’ve been able to keep track of,’ Ben says, glancing at Orla. ‘Most of the people who came through before George finally sealed up the tunnel in 1981 didn’t want to stick around and hear our explanations –they simply ran. Just glad to have escaped from whatever they needed to.’
‘So which of them want help to go back?’ I ask. I don’t know how Adam and I are supposed to achieve this. But if my friends want to go home to their families and I can help them in some way, I’m going to do everything I can to be of assistance to them.
‘Harriet definitely doesn’t,’ Ben says, smiling. ‘She’s adamant she’s staying right here.’
‘What about Luca?’ I ask, hoping he says the same. I don’t want to lose my friend.
‘He comes and goes between desperately wanting to stay here, and going back to find out what happened to his friends and family during the war. He’s tried to trace some of his family and got answers, but not all of them.’
‘What about you, Ben?’ I ask. ‘What do you want?’
‘I want to go back,’ Ben says without hesitation. ‘I’ve had a happy life here in Clockmaker Court – I’m not going to complain. But if I could just see my mother one more time, even if she doesn’t know who I am, and check she was all right without me, then I’d die a happy man.’
I nod. More determined than ever to figure this out, if only for Ben.
‘The portal would be a wonderful tool to help those in peril, if only someone knew how to get them back when their particular danger has passed,’ Orla says. ‘But that’s the problem – nobody does. That’s why they end up stuck here.’
‘I wish we did have some answers for you,’ I hear Adam say while I’m deep in thought. ‘But neither Eve nor I have any ideas of how to control this so-called portal. Do we, Eve?’
I shake my head. ‘Sadly, no. Not at the moment. But if I could help you, Ben, you know I would.’
‘I’m in no doubt about that,’ Ben says knowingly. ‘You’re a Sinclair woman.’
‘You guys might not have any brilliant suggestions,’ Barney says cryptically. ‘But I might have a few ideas we could try …’
30
‘Are you sure about this, Barney?’ I ask the next day when we’re back down in the office. We’ve attached the two carved wooden doors to the cupboard – checking first whether they too have the same dates engraved on them as the tree, which of course they do – and now we’re trying Barney’s various ideas about how we might pinpoint specific years to travel to.
‘No, but we have to try everything. Time travel is an incredibly complicated process. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.’
