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“Hide!” whispered Lucas, but I’d already reacted, diving under the desk just before the door opened and Lady Arista came in. I could only see her feet and the hem of her bathrobe, but her voice was unmistakable.
“What are you doing down here in the middle of the night? And are those by any chance tuna sandwiches? You know what Dr. White said.” She dropped, sighing, into the chair I had warmed for her. Now she was in view up to the shoulders, which were ramrod straight as usual. I wondered if she’d see part of me, too, if she turned her head.
She clicked her tongue, sounding annoyed. “Charles just came to see me. He says Glenda’s been threatening to hit him.”
“Oh, dear,” said Lucas. He sounded remarkably relaxed about it. “Poor lad. What did you do?”
“Gave him a whisky,” replied my grandmother, and she giggled.
I held my breath. My grandmother, giggling? I’d never heard her do such a thing. We were always surprised when she even laughed, and giggling was in an entirely different league. Rather as if you were hearing an opera by Wagner played on the descant recorder. “And then he started crying!” said my grandmother scornfully. That sounded more like Lady Arista. “So after that I needed a whisky.”
“That’s my girl!” I could tell from his voice that my grandfather was smiling, and suddenly I had a warm sensation around my heart. The two of them looked really happy together. (Well, from the neck down, anyway.) Only now did I realize that I’d had no real idea what their marriage was like.
“High time for Glenda and Charles to move out of this house at long last,” said Lady Arista. “I don’t think our children are especially good at choosing partners, do you? Harry’s Jane is such a bore, Charles is a weakling, and Grace’s Nicholas is as poor as a church mouse.”
“But he makes her happy, and that’s what matters.”
Lady Arista stood up. “Yes, I like Nicholas best of them all. It would be much worse if Grace had stayed fixated on that impossible de Villiers boy, the ambitious one.” I could see her giving herself a little shake. “The de Villiers men are all shockingly arrogant. I hope Lucy will soon see reason.”
“I think Paul is rather different from the rest of them.” Grandpa was grinning. “He’s a nice boy.”
“I doubt it—there’s little to choose between them in that family. Coming upstairs with me?”
“I was going to read for a little longer—”
Yes, and you’re also going to talk to your granddaughter from the future, please. Because my time was running out. I couldn’t see the clock from here, but I could hear it ticking. And I was beginning to get that damn roller-coaster sensation in the pit of my stomach.
“Anna Karenina. Rather a melancholy book, don’t you think, my dear?” I saw my grandmother’s slender hands pick up the book and open it at random. Presumably Lucas was holding his breath—I know I was holding mine. “Can one ever explain to someone else exactly how one feels? Maybe I ought to reread it sometime. But I’d need my glasses.”
“I’m rereading it first,” said Lucas firmly.
“Yes, but no more reading tonight.” She put the book back on the table and bent down to Lucas. I couldn’t see for sure, but it looked as if the two of them were kissing.
“I’ll come straight up in a couple of minutes, honeybunch,” said Lucas, which was a mistake on his part, because at the word honeybunch—Good heavens! He meant Lady Arista!—I jumped so violently that my head banged against the desktop.
“What was that?” asked my grandmother sternly.
“What do you mean?” I saw Lucas’s hand sweeping Anna Karenina off the table.
“That noise!”
“I didn’t hear anything,” said Lucas, but he couldn’t prevent Lady Arista from turning my way. I could almost feel her eyes sparkling suspiciously above her Roman nose.
Now what?
Lucas cleared his throat and gave the book a good kick. It slid over the parquet floorboards in my direction and came to rest eighteen inches from the desk. My stomach cramped as Lady Arista took a step toward me.
“But that’s…,” she was murmuring to herself.
“Now or never,” said Lucas, and I assumed that he meant it for me. With a sudden gesture I put out my arm, snatched the book, and clutched it to my breast. My grandmother let out a little scream of surprise. But before she could bend down to look under the desk, her embroidered slippers blurred before my eyes.
Back in 2011, I crawled out from under the desk with my heart thudding and thanked my stars that no one had moved it an inch since 1993. Poor Lady Arista—after seeing the desk grow an arm and gobble up a book, she’d probably needed another whisky.
As for me, all I needed was my bed. When Charlotte barred my way up on the second floor, I wasn’t even startled anymore, as if my heart had had quite enough excitement for one day.
“I heard you were very sick and had to stay in bed.” She switched on a flashlight, dazzling me with its bright LED beam. That reminded me that I’d left Nick’s flashlight behind somewhere in 1993. Presumably in the wardrobe.
“That’s right. Obviously I caught your bug,” I said. “Seems to be a bug that keeps us from sleeping at night. I went to find something to read. And what are you doing? A little fitness training?”
