magic trick performed for a single onlooker. Mesmerised, Andrew watched it spin until his cousin’s shoe halted its delicate movement.
‘All right, we can go now,’ said Charles, waving his hat triumphantly, like a hunter showing off a bloodstained duck.
Inside the cab, he raised an eyebrow, surprised at the dreamy smile on his cousin’s face. ‘Are you feeling all right, Andrew?’
Andrew gazed at his cousin fondly. Charles had moved heaven and earth to help him save Marie Kelly, and he was going to repay him in the best way he could: by staying alive, at least until his moment arrived. He would pay Charles back three-fold for all the affection he had shown him over these past years, years he now felt ashamed to have wasted out of apathy and indifference. He would embrace life – yes, embrace it as he would a wondrous gift, and devote himself to living it to the best of his ability, the way everyone else did, the way Charles did. He would transform life into a long, peaceful Sunday afternoon in which he would wile away the time until nightfall. It could not be that difficult: he might even learn to enjoy the simple miracle of being alive.
‘Better than ever, Charles,’ he replied, perking up. ‘So good, in fact, that I would gladly accept an invitation to dine at your house, provided your charming wife also invites her equally charming sister.’
Chapter XVII
This part of the story could end here, and for Andrew it does, except that this is not only Andrew’s story. If it were, there would be no need for my involvement: he could have told his own story, as each man recounts the tale of his own life to himself on his deathbed. Yet that tale is always incomplete, for only a man shipwrecked on a desert island from birth, growing up and dying there with no more than a few monkeys for company, can claim without a shadow of doubt that his life is exactly what he thinks it has been – provided, of course, that the macaques have not stashed away in some cave his trunk of books, clothes and photographs, washed up by the tide.
However – with the exception of shipwrecked babies and other extreme cases – each man’s life forms part of a vast tapestry, woven together with those of countless other souls keen to judge his actions not only to his face but behind his back. Only if he considers the world around him a backdrop, with puppets that stop moving when he goes to sleep, can he accept that his life has been exactly as he tells it. Otherwise, moments before he breathes his last, he will have to accept that the idea he has of his own life must of necessity be vague, fanciful and uncertain, that there were things that affected him, for good or bad, that he will never know about. They may range from his wife having had an affair with the pastry cook, to his neighbours’ dog urinating on his azaleas every time he went out.
So, just as Charles did not witness the charming dance the leaf performed on the puddle, Andrew did not witness what happened when Charles got his beloved hat back. He could have pictured him entering Wells’s house, apologising for the fresh intrusion, joking about not being armed this time, and the three of them crawling about on their hands and knees hunting for the elusive hat, except that we know he had no time to wonder about what his cousin was doing because he was too busy with his heart-warming deliberations about other worlds and magicians’ boxes.
I, on the other hand, see and hear everything whether I want to or not, and it is my task to separate the seed from the chaff, to decide which events I consider most important in the tale I have chosen to tell. I must therefore go back to the point at which Charles realises he has forgotten his hat and returns to the author’s house. You may be wondering what bearing such an insignificant act as the fetching of a hat could possibly have on this story. None whatsoever, I would say, if Charles really had forgotten his hat by accident. But things are not always as they seem, which saves me the trouble of burdening you with a list of examples you could easily find by rummaging around a little in your own life, regardless of whether you live near a pastry shop or have a garden full of azaleas. Let us return to Charles without further ado.
‘Blast, I’ve forgotten my hat,’ said Charles, after Andrew had clambered into the cab. ‘I’ll be back in a jiffy, cousin.’
Charles strode hurriedly across the tiny front garden, and entered the author’s house, looking for the tiny sitting room where they had taken Andrew. There was his hat, waiting for him on a peg on the coat-stand exactly where he had left it. He seized it, smiling, and went out into the passageway, but instead of going back the way he had come, as would appear logical, he turned round and mounted the stairs to the attic. There he found the author and his wife hovering around the time machine in the dim glow of a candle placed on the floor. Charles made his presence known, clearing his throat loudly before declaring triumphantly: ‘Everything turned out perfectly. My cousin was completely taken in!’
Wells and Jane were collecting the Ruhmkorff coils they had hidden earlier among the shelves of knick-knacks. Charles took care to avoid treading on the switch that activated them from the door, setting off the series of deafening electrical charges that had so terrified his cousin. After asking for Wells’s help and telling him about his plan, Charles had been sceptical when the author had come up with the idea of using those diabolical coils; he had confessed rather sheepishly to being one of the many spectators who had fled like frightened rabbits from the museum where their inventor, a pale, lanky Croat named Nikola Tesla, had introduced to the public his devilish device and the hair-raising blue flashes that caused the air in the room to quiver.
However, Wells had assured him that these harmless contraptions would be the least of his worries. Besides, he ought to start getting used to the invention that would revolutionise the world. He went on to tell him, with a tremor of respect in his voice, how Tesla had set up a hydroelectric power station at Niagara Falls, which had bathed the town of Buffalo in electric light. It was the first step in a project that signalled the end of night on Earth, Wells had affirmed. Evidently, the author considered the Croat a genius, and was eager for him to invent a voice- activated typewriter that would free him from the burden of tapping the keys with his fingers while his imagination raced ahead.
In view of the plan’s success, Charles had to agree in hindsight that Wells had been brilliant: the journey back in time would never have been as believable without the lightning flashes, which in the end had provided the perfect build-up, before the magnesium powder concealed behind the false control panel blinded whoever pulled the lever.
‘Magnificently’ Wells rejoiced, getting rid of the coils he was holding and going to greet Charles. ‘I confess I had my doubts: there were too many things that might have gone wrong.’
‘True,’ admitted Charles, ‘but we had nothing to lose and much to gain. I already told you that if we succeeded my cousin might give up the idea of killing himself He looked at Wells with genuine admiration. ‘And I must say that your theory about parallel universes to explain why the Ripper’s death did not change anything in the present was so convincing even I believed it.’
Tm so glad. But I don’t deserve all the credit. You had the most difficult task of hiring the actors, replacing the bullets with blanks, and most of all getting this thing built,’ said Wells, pointing to the time machine.
The two men gazed at it fondly for a few moments.
