1

Have you ever dreamt that you lived in another time? I did, just a night or two before my life changed. I dreamt I rescued a woman from the Fire of London. She looked a little like Ginette, I mean Ginette when I first knew her, but she definitely wasn’t French nor did she have brown hair. She was called Eliza Frink and was a favourite of the King. Although it’s true I shared a bath with her, a very sexy bath because she said she wanted to reward her saviour, in every other way the dream appeared authentic.

It’s not important, though, and I mention it only because a couple of days later, on March 28^th 1992, I was taking a Saturday morning stroll through a nearby cemetery, not in London but in Nottingham, and happened to pass a grave which bore Eliza Frink’s name. I must have done so before, of course, without my knowing. She hadn’t been a Restoration beauty. She may have been an early Victorian one but by the time she’d lost four infants in as many years I doubt she had retained much sign of it. As always at such moments I wondered how I could ever dare to feel self-pity.

“Excuse me, sir, you’ve dropped your watch!”

The shout had come from a young man not far behind. He was tall and well-built, unusually handsome, and made me think of a current Levi’s commercial. He also made me think of my son. By now Philip, too, would have been in his mid-twenties.

“Obviously my lucky day,” I said. “Thanks.” The watch had fallen onto grass. It was a good one but for some time I’d been aware its strap needed replacing. Since there was no one else in sight I wondered what the odds were against my being spared my proper punishment. Wasn’t sloth a member of the seven deadly sins, which all led to damnation?

I expected him to continue on his way. But he saw the gravestone I’d been looking at.

“Some people’s lives!” he exclaimed. “How did they ever stand it?”

“I’d say they had no choice.”

“Yes, sir, that’s true. Whatever may be wrong with the present, at least we do have choices.”

I wasn’t sure I appreciated the sir. And I thought fleetingly of Somalia and Bosnia, even of our own inner cities. I thought about the situation I myself was in. Ginette, as well. I’d have said that, in some way or another, most of us were still trapped.

“I’m sorry,” he amended, “I talk as if we’re all much freer than we really are.” I found I was impressed.

But I answered only lightly. (Is it always the case that someone who’s outstandingly attractive, whether they’re male or female, can so quickly stir you from your apathy?) “Certainly the resourceful young have choices. Now more than ever.”

“You mean, more so than when you yourself…?”

“Yes, definitely. For one thing, it wasn’t the norm in the fifties to go travelling round the world with a back pack.”

“But that’s something you’d like to have done?”

I hesitated.

“I know that the person I am now would like to have done it, yes.”

“What else would he like to have done, the person you are now? Differently?”

“Oh, what, in a nutshell? Just about everything.”

He grinned. “No, that was a serious question.”

“And I gave it a serious answer.”

“So are you honestly saying that, if you could live your life again, knowing everything you now know, you would seek to alter…so much?”

“Undoubtedly I would.”

He considered this a moment. Then suddenly he held out his hand. “Zack Cornelius,” he said.

“Ethan Hart.”

He was one of the few who didn’t comment on the rareness of my name. I suppose his own was pretty seldom encountered. I remembered Zachary Scott, an American film star from my boyhood.

“Ethan?” he said. “Doesn’t that mean ‘perennial’?”

“But I believe you’re the first person I’ve ever met who’s known that.”

And I felt touched by his courtesy. By his willingness to linger. We left Eliza Frink’s grave (it was also her children’s but there wasn’t evidence of any husband) and followed a path meandering up the hill. On either side of it the grass was full of dandelions, which in the distance made big blurry clumps, decorative among the tombstones. We rounded a bend and saw a row of almshouses, surmounted in the middle by a clock tower. At this point there was an exit from the cemetery. “Canning Circus,” said the young man, “the crossroads where the suicides were buried. Could you fancy a beer?”

We went to the Sir John Borlase Warren (“An admiral at the time of Nelson,” replied my knowledgeable informant) and carried our pints through to its back yard, where I took off my sports jacket and we sat at a picnic table under a cherry tree. I offered him a cigarette.

But he didn’t smoke.

“I wish I didn’t. Yet my work is so dull I probably couldn’t survive without.”

He asked the anticipated question.

“Advertising. Nowadays I’m astonished I ever thought it interesting. Though I suppose we all change. What about you?”

“Psychology.”

“Ah, then. That explains it. Why I’ve been unburdening myself so shamelessly to a stranger.”

“I think it’s more a case of our operating on the same wavelength. Very rarely do you meet someone with whom you click immediately.”

If I’d been a girl, I could easily imagine falling in love with him. It wasn’t just his blue eyes and his blond hair, his infectious grin. He had strength—charisma. You wanted to confide in him.

“But, Ethan, do you really feel so trapped?”

I gave a slow nod.

“By what, then?”

“Well…” I blew out smoke, deliberately. “A job I don’t enjoy. A heavy mortgage. A stupid sense of resentment.” I didn’t add a sterile marriage—at least I was capable of holding something back. “Will any of that do? Just for starters?”

But I hadn’t reckoned on the note of hysteria. I’d kidded myself I could keep it casual. I reached for my glass and discovered my hand wasn’t any steadier than my voice. “I think we’d better talk about something else.”

“Of course.” He momentarily touched my shirtsleeve, gave a reassuring smile. “So how about the weather? Or…well, let me see, now…what about euthanasia? Or time travel?”

“A broad choice,” I said. “But on a day like this I feel we ought to pick the weather.”

“It’s glorious, isn’t it?”

“Do you suppose it’s going to last?”

I’d been waiting for him to finish his drink. It was he who’d bought the first round.

“Perhaps we can deal with euthanasia,” I suggested, “on my return?”

But he must have felt impatient. “Do you approve of it?” he asked. I was slightly bewildered.

“Well, yes, I suppose so. If the person’s desperate and there’s honestly no other way.”

I spoke for a moment about safeguards. As a form of small talk it seemed a little inappropriate.

“Forgive me,” he smiled. “Yes, you’re right. It isn’t something one should joke about.”

Not that we’d actually been joking.

I came back from the bar. “We appear to be running out of options,” I said. “I think we’re only left with time travel.” I loosened my tie and undid the button at my throat. “So what period would you choose to return to?” I’d forgotten that time travel, for some, meant the future even more than the past.

“Oh, it’s not so easy for me. I’d have to think about it.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“But I assumed you’d already decided. To live your life again with memory intact.”

A ladybird landed on my grey trousers.

“Just put the clock back? Okay. I feel I could settle for that. If youth only knew; if age only could!”

“Yes—right,” he agreed.

I drew on my cigarette. “Next time round I shan’t smoke!”

And next time round I’d be more sportive. Swimming, skiing, tennis. I’d have liked to be a great dancer. Also, of course, I’d be a traveller. A bon viveur. (Why not a Don Juan? That’s something I’d definitely missed out on.) The possibilities were endless. I’d only been considering them a moment.

I stopped myself. Felt foolish. I wasn’t the sort who got carried away. Not any more.

He raised his glass. “Cheers!”

“Cheers! I find this subject fascinating. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

“Indeed there are. Consult Dr Einstein.”

“Or consult Dr Faustus.” I watched the ladybird walk across a corner of the table. “But no, on second thoughts, not him. Don’t really want to jeopardize my soul.”

Zachary laughed.

“Ethan, it wouldn’t be required of you. I give you my solemn word on that.”