The Map of Time

‘Our outlook,’ Murray told him. ‘You are a conformist and I am not. You are content to deceive your readers, with their agreement, by writing about things that might happen in the hope that they will believe them. But you never lose sight of the fact that what you are writing is a novel and therefore pure make-believe. I, however, am not content with that, Mr Wells. The fact that my speculations took the form of a novel is purely circumstantial, because all it requires is a stack of paper and a strong wrist. And to be honest, it matters very little to me whether my book is published or not, because I suspect I would not be satisfied with a handful of readers who enjoy debating whether the future I describe is plausible or not, because they will always consider it an invention of mine. No, I aspire to much more than being recognised as an imaginative writer. I want people to believe in my invention without realising it’s an invention, to believe the year 2000 will be exactly as I have described it. And I will prove to you I can make them believe it, however implausible it might seem to you. Only I shan’t present it to them in a novel, Mr Wells. I shall leave such childish things to you. You carry on writing your fantasies in books. I will make mine a reality.’

‘A reality?’ asked Wells, not quite grasping what his guest was driving at. ‘What do you mean?’

You’ll see, Mr Wells. And when you do, if you are a true gentleman, you will perhaps offer me an apology.’

With that, Murray rose from his chair and smoothed down his jacket with one of the graceful gestures that startled everyone in such a bulky man.

‘Good day to you, Mr Wells. Don’t forget me, or Captain Shackleton. You’ll be hearing from us soon,’ he said, as he picked up his hat from the table and placed it nimbly on his head. ‘There’s no need to see me to the door. I can find my own way out.’

His departure was so sudden that Wells was left sitting in his chair, at a loss, unable to stand up even after Murray’s footsteps had died away and he had heard him shut the front gate. He remained seated for a long time, pondering Murray’s words, until he told himself that this egomaniac did not deserve another moment of consideration. And the fact that he heard nothing from him in the ensuing months made him forget the disagreeable encounter. Until the day he received the leaflet from Murray’s Time Travel. Then Wells realised what he had meant by ‘I will make mine a reality’. And, apart from a few scientists and doctors who kicked up a fuss in the newspapers, the whole of England had fallen for his ‘implausible’ invention, thanks in part to Wells himself having raised people’s expectations with The Time Machine, an added irony that irritated him all the more.

From then on, every week without fail he received a leaflet inviting him to take part in one of the bogus expeditions to the year 2000. That crook would have liked nothing more than to have the very man who had unleashed the current obsession for time travel to endorse his company by sanctioning the elaborate hoax, which, naturally, Wells had not the slightest intention of doing.

The worst of it, though, was the message underlying the polite invitations. Wells knew Murray was certain he would never accept, and this turned the invitations into a mockery, a taunt on paper that was also a threat: the leaflets were delivered by hand, which suggested Murray himself, or one of his men, placed them in Wells’s letterbox. In any event, it made no difference, since the objective was the same: to show Wells how easy it was to loiter around his house unseen, to make sure he knew he had not been forgotten, to remind him he was being watched.

But what most infuriated Wells in this whole affair was that, however much he wanted to, he could not denounce Murray, as Tom had suggested, for the simple reason that the man had won. Yes, he had proved that his future was plausible and, rather than sweep the pieces off the board in a fit of rage, Wells must sportingly accept defeat. His integrity prevented him doing anything while Murray made a fortune. And the situation appeared to amuse Murray enormously, for by placing the leaflets religiously in his letterbox, not only was he reminding Wells of his victory, he was also defying the author to unmask him.

‘I will make it a reality’ he had said. And, to Wells’s astonishment, he had done so.

Chapter XXXI

That afternoon Wells went for a longer bicycle ride than usual, and without Jane. He needed to think while he pedalled, he told her. Dressed in his favourite Norfolk jacket, he rode slowly along the Surrey byways while his mind, oblivious to the action of his legs, reflected on how to reply to the letter penned by Claire Haggerty. According to the imaginative tale Tom had concocted in the tea room, their correspondence would consist of seven letters, of which he would write three and Claire four. In the last she would ask him to travel through time to return her parasol. Otherwise, Wells was free to write whatever he liked, provided it did not contradict Tom’s story. He had to admit, the more he thought about it, the more intriguing he found the lad’s tale. It was evocative, beautiful, but above all plausible – assuming, of course, the existence of a machine capable of digging holes through the fabric of time and linking eras, and also, of course, if Murray’s view of the future were true.

This was the part Wells liked least: that Gilliam Murray was somehow mixed up in this, as he had been in saving the wretched Andrew Harrington’s soul. Were their lives destined to carry on entwining, like creeping ivy? Wells felt distinctly odd now he was stepping into the role of Captain Derek Shackleton, the character his adversary had invented. Would he be the one responsible for breathing life into that empty shell, like the God of the Old Testament?

Wells arrived home after his ride pleasantly exhausted, and with a rough idea of what he was going to write. He scrupulously set out his pen, an inkwell and a sheaf of paper on the kitchen table, and asked Jane not to disturb him for the next hour. He sat at the table, drew a deep breath, and began penning his first ever love letter.

Dear Claire,

I, too, have been obliged to compose this letter several times over before realising that, however strange it might seem to me, I can only start by declaring my love to you, exactly as you requested – although I have to confess that to begin with I did not believe myself capable, and I used up several sheets trying to explain that what you were asking me to do in your letter was to make a leap of faith. I even wrote: How can 1 fall in love with you if I have never even seen you, Miss Haggerty? Yet, despite my understandable wariness, I had to face the facts: you insisted I had fallen in love with you. And why should I doubt you, since I did indeed discover your letter beside the big oak tree when I came out of the time tunnel from the year 2000. I need no further evidence, as you rightly say, to see that in seven months we will meet and love will blossom between us. And if my future self- which is still me -falls in love with you as soon as he sets eyes on you, why shouldn’t I? Otherwise I would be doubting my own judgement. Why waste time postponing feelings I am inevitably going to experience?

Then again, you are only asking me to make the same leap of faith you yourself made. During our meeting in the tea room you were obliged to have faith in me: you were obliged to believe you would fall in love with the man sitting opposite you. And you did. My future self is grateful to you for that, Claire. And the self who is writing these lines, who has yet to savour the softness of your skin, can only reciprocate that trust, believe that everything you say is true, that everything you say in your letter will happen because in some way it has already happened. That is why I can only begin by telling you, Claire Haggerty, whoever you are, that I love you. I love you from this very moment until the end of time.

Tom’s hand trembled as he read the author’s words. Wells had thrown himself wholeheartedly into the enterprise: not only had he respected Tom’s improvised tale and the history of the character he was playing but, to judge from his words, he seemed as much in love with the girl as she was with him – with Tom, that was, or, more precisely, with the brave Captain Shackleton.