The video cut to a later interview, after Fay had taken her first few trips, and been reunited with her father. She spoke rapidly, half laughing.
It was so good. I thought I was starting to forget what he looked like. But as soon as I saw him I realised the memories were inside me, waiting to come back. I talked till I went hoarse and the best thing was how happy he was to hear it all. We planed wood. In the garden, listening to Radio 4. He was a furniture restorer, did I tell you that? No? When I got home I burst into tears. My hands kept trembling. I’ve been back to see him a couple of times, and I’ll stay whenever I’m in his timeline. The funny thing is, the other time travellers – I’m thinking of Teddy Avedon in particular, he’s been showing me the ropes – they keep telling me that it’s green to be so excited. They mean I’m being gauche. Teddy says I’ll get used to seeing dead people. But I think he’s wrong. Whenever I visit my father, the trees in his garden are young again, and so is he. I will never take that for granted.
The screen cut to black. Grace spoke through the darkness, pointing out that Fay may have an interesting perspective on death. As a specialist in time travel law, over which the Conclave had sole jurisdiction, Fay would be defending clients against the death penalty. Fay reappeared, in the same chair.
In the twenty-first century, where I come from, the English legal and judicial systems value fairness. But Conclave justice is different. It has more in common with medieval Europe, or colonial America, or twenty-fourth century Britain – because it values divine judgement more than fairness. They implement something called trial of ordeal. This is a very ancient, religious ritual, where the accused has to take a painful or difficult test. If they pass, the judge takes it as a sign from a higher power that the accused person is innocent. But if they fail, then that’s a sign they are guilty. For time travellers, the higher power is fate. All time travellers have experienced trying, and failing, to change a course of events at some point in their career. So their faith in fate is very strong.
I don’t present any evidence as part of the trial. But if the defendant is found guilty, I’ll use both the evidence from the initial investigation and the defendant’s own testimony to negotiate their sentence. The judge doesn’t award any custodial sentences. The guilty party pays a fine to the injured party, or if the victim’s dead, the family can dispense a corporal punishment. Anything from head shaving up to execution. Most time travel legislation derives from the twenty-fourth century, which is pretty bloodthirsty, I can tell you. That’s why the Conclave thinks blood revenge is a mitigating factor in sentencing for murder.
The film then jumped forward to an older Fay, recently returned from maternity leave. Her eyes were ringed. Through yawns she said she was happy to be back at work.
Being a lawyer sounds like a desk job, but my caseload covers a full three centuries, so I have to skip about from decade to decade to get everything done. During my maternity leave I really missed travelling. I suppose it’s like having wanderlust? Time lust. It feels weird now if I don’t have that flexibility of where and when I go. I have friends and family in other timelines that I don’t have here, so… yeah. While I was with the baby I couldn’t see those people. (Grace asks a question, inaudible to the viewer.) No, I never doubted they still existed. It was more like we were in separate lives. With the next baby my partner’s going to take leave instead. I don’t want to be away from my job that long again.
Grace cut to another Fay, with pepper and salt hair, and lines bracketing her mouth. She spoke animatedly of collecting thistles during her last field trip into the past.
The petals were golden, like lions’ manes. And they grew on every English lawn, but I picked them less than a mile from my mother’s primary school. She was probably in lessons. I really felt I was gathering something precious. As soon as I got back to my timeline, I took them to the Conclave garden. My mother had died of a stroke while I was away, so I’d said I’d visit my sister at some point to talk through funeral arrangements, but I started chatting with one of the horticulturists about a trip he’d just made to Japan, and I lost track of time. It was quite late when I arrived at my sister’s. She kept going on about how we’re orphans now. (Long pause.) It’s not that I don’t know how she feels. I know she believes Mum’s gone for ever. But I don’t want to be reminded of feeling upset in that way. It doesn’t seem very… relevant… any more. Not to my life. I hate admitting this, but I wished my sister would shut the hell up.
The fourth Fay was thinner – almost gaunt – and subdued. Ruby could see, on the timeline along the base of the video, that several minutes of footage remained.
When you’re a time traveller, the people you love die, and you carry on seeing them, so their death stops making a difference to you. The only death that will ever change things is your own.
Ruby hit the pause symbol. She let the phone go dark, wishing she’d never started down this particular rabbit hole. Until the meeting with Grace, the last thing she should be doing was dwelling on death. She really should be trying to distract herself.
One distraction was a woman named Ginger Hayes, who worked in a nearby brain injury unit. Technically, Ruby was single. But Ginger made an appearance at her flat once a month or so, for sex, and to drain Ruby’s reserves of red wine. Ruby had never been to Ginger’s house – which was apparently in Tring – and this exclusion from her everyday life made Ruby suspect she was married.
Later that same week, Ginger lay naked on Ruby’s bed, with flakes of mascara haloing her eyes. While Ruby was in Cornwall visiting Bee, Ginger had been in Brittany. Her skin was dense with freckles: a gift from the Breton sunshine. Ruby traced the constellations that adorned Ginger’s chest. Cassiopeia. The Seven Sisters. Had Ruby believed in astrology, she would have read their future from the patterns on Ginger’s body.
‘I assessed a new client this afternoon,’ Ginger said. ‘She was injured on her bike. A motorist opened his car door in her path, and she was thrown into the road. Now she’s aphasic. When she tries to talk, nothing comes out but a stream of swear words.’
Romantic pillow talk, by any measure.
‘Can you do anything for aphasics?’ Ruby asked.
‘This woman will probably benefit from speech therapy. She’s still young, which is in her favour. But her family want her to be the way she was before, and she won’t be.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Twenty-seven. Mother to a toddler.’
Ginger’s comments were downbeat, but Ruby appreciated the importance of Ginger’s job. They shared stressful working lives. Rarely did they discuss anything other than their clients.
Ruby’s arms circled Ginger’s waist and they kissed. Ginger’s lips were tannic. All week Ruby had fretted over the origami rabbit, how the body might be connected to Barbara, and what Grace could possibly be playing at. It felt so comforting, now, to be held. The closeness tricked her into an admission.
‘I’m sleeping badly,’ she said. ‘I keep worrying about my grandmother.’
‘Oh.’ Ginger fell back on her pillow. ‘Is she ill, then?’
‘No,’ Ruby said. ‘I mean – yes; she has bipolar disorder.’