4
He was reminded very much of the H. G. Wells’ novel, The Time Machine; the very beginning of things when the time traveller invites his learned friends around to his house so he can reveal the secret of his experiments. Recall the exciting and bizarre tale of his adventures. Gain their confidence.
The difference for Charles Rayne was that this was the first time he would have met his two friends and colleagues in the flesh. They had communicated animatedly for a number of years by letter and phone. All three of them young and fervently ambitious historians, each in their own way determined to make their mark on their profession and the world. Each taking joy that there were other similar minds to share their passions, their theories and the lust for life that lay ahead. Together they would explore new horizons, shatter conventional belief, to find their own place in history.
They called themselves The Lunar Club.
Charles had suggested the name after the Lunar Society of Birmingham, formed in the 1760s by a group of similarly ambitious, inventive and imaginative young men who would together transform the future — Matthew Boulton and James Watt, Erasmus Darwin, Josiah Wedgwood and Joseph Priestly. Together they not only oiled the wheels of the Industrial Revolution but made them.
Given that Charles could only go outside at night the name appeared doubly fitting. Together they would shine a bright light on the dark past. But tonight the direction of the Lunar Club would take a new and exciting turn. Tonight Charles would lay down a theory that in time would make them notorious, make them legends. But he needed their help, and, like the time traveller, he needed their complete confidence. For what he was about to reveal, the results of many years of study carried out beneath the conventional historical research that had already started to make his name, was an idea so important, so far-reaching, that it would create a tidal wave of attention that would overthrow many entrenched beliefs, and have incalculable ramifications for both the present and the future. It would change everything for all of them.
But first he had to meet them, and Charles Rayne was nervous. They knew of his condition, of course. But the first sight of his disfigured face most people found disturbing. He didn’t want his illness to overshadow events. So he had warned them not to be appalled or upset, and they returned jokingly that they were appalled and upset that he would think such a thing.
He was alone now. Following his parents’ death the house belonged to him. It had become his prison and his sanctuary. His published works were reaching many thousands of people the world over, but he felt he could not travel beyond this small village. He did not wish people to see him. He had to be under cover before daylight. In the end he avoided invitations to conventions, to speak at lectures. No image of him appeared in any of his books. He existed on his reputation, making just enough money to keep his head above choppy financial waters. But he had gathered admirers, fellow historians, who became close friends. Friends that had never met him. But tonight that would change and he grew ever more excited and nervous as the time for their arrival grew near.
When they both finally turned up at his door, the full moon raining down its silvery light on them (it was only appropriate they timed the inaugural meeting of the Lunar Club to coincide with a full moon), to his joy they did not flinch once at his appearance, and they both immediately launched into a flurry of anecdotes small and large; who was doing what, who was getting what wrong, a shocking treatise on Benjamin Franklin, an inspiring lecture at Greenwich on Milton, and what God-awful tea they served up on British Rail.
Charles fussed over them, prepared tea, and afterwards they sat by the fire drinking wine before moving onto whiskey and cigarettes. He was so happy and they looked positively energised to be all together.
He’d seen photographs of them, naturally, but in real life they looked far different. Howard Baxter, tall, spindly, swept back dark hair, a firecracker of a man whose passion exploded at the slightest spark to his passion’s blue touch-paper. He’d taken a slight career detour and had become an archivist. And Carl Wood; quieter, smaller than he’d expected, who lit up cigarette after cigarette in nervous succession and left the greater amount of the talking to the other two, except to make a remark every now and again that was as sharp as a knife.
Then Charles rose from his seat and said he had something to show them. Would they follow him to his study? The boyish frivolity of earlier gave way to serious contemplation as he lifted out his carefully prepared notes and laid them on the table in front of them, peeling back his findings a layer at a time, to demonstrate how he reached his conclusions, so there could be no mistake, so they were clear about what they were seeing. He watched them as their faces grew solemn with disbelief and disappointment, expressions that said that they would have to let their friend down carefully when this was all over; watched them as they were gradually infused with excitement, as over the hours he drew them deeper into his research, pointed out the proof, tabled copies of mediaeval documents, books, more notes. They discussed the implications, tested the facts, argued and discussed it all over again.
Finally Charles Rayne sat back, breathless, completely exhausted with the effort, and then silence descended on the room.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said at length, ‘there you have it. I need your help. Are you with me?’
And the members of the Lunar Club, in grave silence, nodded and shook hands.
5
‘How is she tonight?’ she asked.
He came to her side, nuzzled up to her rather too closely, she thought. His arm brushed against hers and she moved away and folded her arms against the barely disguised suggestion. ‘She’s having one of her strops,’ he said. He looked across at the woman lying on the narrow hospital bed, her wrists and ankles firmly strapped down with thick leather belts. Bare arms and legs poked out of a thin, unflattering, green cotton nightgown. ‘We are, aren’t we?’ he said to her, his neck craning forward, his chin thrust out almost contemptuously. He lifted the clipboard that hung at the foot of the bed, the woman staring cold and hard at him. She jerked her legs and caused him to react fractionally. ‘It’s no use fighting against it,’ he said, his grin a whisker away from a sneer. ‘You’d think you’d have learned after all this time that you’re not going anywhere in a hurry.’ He flipped a page or two. ‘She’s due her usual sedative.’ A glance at his watch. ‘Looking at her I’d shove double into her. Take the sting out of her attitude.’
‘We don’t want to harm the babies,’ she reminded him. ‘She’s stressed as it is.’ She nodded to the grey metal box bleeping by the side of the bed.
‘She’s refusing to eat again,’ he remarked casually. ‘We’ll give you a little more time to change your mind, young lady, and if you don’t, well, you know what’s coming.’ He indicated down his throat with his index finger. ‘And remember, you’re eating for three now!’
She yanked hard and furiously at her restraints. The bed shook a little but she gave up, her eyes squeezing shut, tears being pressed from them.
‘Don’t be cruel to her,’ she said to him. ‘Why do you insist on treating her like that?’
She knew why, of course; because he could. Because the woman didn’t even possess a name. She had a number. She
‘She doesn’t know any better. How can she? She isn’t normal. She’s a freak,’ he said. It didn’t carry any
