It was like stepping off the roller-coaster at first, that feeling of nausea, and of senses overloaded. It took a few seconds for the white noise and for the light behind his eyelids to go away, and for him to realise that he was on his hands and knees, and that the ground beneath him was hard, and cold, and wet.
Then there was the noise.
He couldn't say that he had never heard it before, because he had, but many years ago. Like thunder, only it was worse than thunder. It was louder than thunder as if somebody was slamming a colossal door, and every time the door slammed the ground beneath him shook.
Above that slamming sound there was the drone, that unmistakable drone, like a million angry hornets. The Heinkel bombers. After five months, they had all learnt the difference between the sounds of the British and German planes.
Michael got to his feet and looked around. He was in the lane,
The bombers hadn't been aiming for the houses, of course, they were going for the train tracks and the depot. It just happened that the houses were built around both.
He stepped out into Neville Street and saw the night sky lit up like Hell. He remembered somebody telling him that the only reason the bombers got this far was that the antiaircraft guns on Ely Racecourse had malfunctioned, only that wasn't many years ago. It was now.
It was 2 January 1941, and Michael Bellini was walking down the street where he had grown up as a child, a street he hadn't revisited in more than a decade. There, on both sides of the street, were houses that neither he, nor anyone else for that matter, had seen in all those years, and yet they were still standing. There, running out of their front door, were Mr and Mrs Davies, with Mrs Davies holding her pet Yorkshire terrier under her arm. There, in the middle of the street, was Mr Harris, the ARP warden, self-important in his tin helmet, barking orders at them to get to shelter, and quickly.
Michael was wondering whether anyone could see him, when his question was answered by Mr Harris.
'Oi, you… Lad! Get inside, quick. This isn't a walk along the bloody promenade. It's an air raid!'
He had heard him say those words before; it wasn't deja vu. Michael had heard Mr Harris say those exact words, with that exact voice. Looking further down the street, past Mr Harris, he saw three figures outside the open door of number 26; a boy no older than eleven, an older girl, and a woman, her hair still in curlers.
Michael thought for a moment that his heart might stop, or that he would finally, thankfully wake up, but he didn't. Running from their house and out into Neville Street, he saw his mother, his sister Maria, and himself.
Mr Harris did an about-turn, and starting yelling at the three of them and, though Michael couldn't hear what he was saying over the drone of the planes and the slam and the roar of the explosions, he could remember. Mr Harris was asking them where they were going, and Michael's mother was telling him that they were going to her sister's house on Clare Road, because they had an Anderson shelter there. Mr Harris told them to hurry up while they were at it, and so they started running.
Michael knew what happened next.
They were halfway down Neville Street when Michael's mother stopped in her tracks. She had told him and his sister to carry on running until they reached Aunty Megan's, and then she had run back to the house. Maybe she had forgotten something.
As he watched himself and his sister running to the end of the street, Michael suddenly realised that this was his chance. Maybe this was why he was here. Maybe this time it could be different. He started running towards the house he had grown up in, heedless of the sound of bombs and the drone of the planes. He ran towards it knowing what was going to happen, and he cried out: 'Mum!'
The bomb didn't hit their house directly; it landed somewhere in the gardens behind their street. Michael and his sister had been on Clare Road at the time, crying and scared, not knowing what had happened.
Facing it for the first time, Michael saw the explosion almost a split second before he could hear it; a blinding flash of white light and then a fireball that erupted upwards and outwards, destroying a whole row of houses as if they were made of nothing more than sand and matchsticks.
The sound and the Shockwave knocked him off his feet, and suddenly everything was dark, and all he could hear was the roar of the fire and the sound of bricks, and wood, and glass raining down upon the cold, damp street.
He struggled to his feet, and saw the gaping crater filled with fire where their house had been, the neighbouring houses now hollowed out like dead teeth, the street itself shoulder-deep in debris.
He wiped the tears now streaming from his eyes away from his face and saw that they had been turned to ink by soot and ash. He put one hand to his chest and felt a sliver of wood sticking out of his shirt. Just touching it sent a hot bolt of pain through his chest.
The Traveller…'
Somebody was calling him, only they weren't calling him. They weren't even raising their voice. It was like a whisper that he could somehow hear over the din of the fire and the bombers and the sound of people screaming.
'The Traveller…'
He turned and saw a man walking through the flames. A man dressed smartly in a black suit and bowler hat, and carrying an umbrella.
That was when he blacked out.
THREE
'I couldn't stop it from happening,' Michael said, his head in his hands. 'I thought maybe I could, but it still happened. Everything happens.'
Gwen felt herself shudder, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention, though she still couldn't quite fathom why. Owen had left the Boardroom, saying he had to 'go check something', so it was just three of them, now, with Michael.
Gwen didn't want to believe a word he had said; she wanted to think it was some elaborate fantasy, and a younger, less experienced Gwen might have believed that, but she knew better. She liked to think she was a good judge of honesty, that she knew when people were lying; it came with the job. She knew Michael was telling the truth.
'OK,' she said. 'Then you came here? After the explosion? That's when you woke up here?'
'No… I don't know,' said Michael. 'I don't think so.'
'And what about before…' Gwen paused. She had to word this carefully. 'Before 1941. Where were you before you found yourself in 1941? What happened in 1953?'
He hadn't yet dared to open his eyes. At first, the voices were little more than a vague mumbling that seemed to echo, as if they were speaking inside a cavern or a cathedral, but eventually he could hear and recognise words.
He heard a man's voice.
'Well, Margaret, quite frankly if he's the one playing hard to get I'd drop him like a hot brick. Men like that aren't worth it.'
'I know.' A woman's voice, now. 'But I was really looking forward to the dance. He's a pig.'
'He's worse than a pig, Margaret, he's a swine. The silly bugger. There's half the men in this hospital would give their right arm to go on a date with a girl like you.'
'Half the men?'
'Well, half the men who aren't acquainted with musical theatre, if you know what I mean… But you know what I mean.'
Both voices laughed, but stopped abruptly when Michael groaned. He was aware of pain. Pain across his chest, in his head, his neck — in fact, he couldn't find a part of his body that didn't hurt. On top of that, he was
