Tears in the Fabric of Time

Three

ThreeAna Ridgeway stood with her back pressed flat against a wall, trying to make herself sink into the brickwork and become invisible to the people milling around the nearby open drain cover. She knew if she stared too hard they would sense her presence, so she looked beyond them and wondered what she should do. If she made a dash for it, they'd notice her, run her down, but if she stayed, the outcome might be the same. Indecision petrified her limbs and all she could hope for was to stay as quiet as possible and wait until the strangers melted away. For they were strangers, all of them, dressed nothing like anyone she knew. And the noises and shapes of the curious wagons they drove. If she didn't believe what she saw, she would swear she had drifted into a dream. She could not recall how long she had been away, and when she had attempted to return home nothing but confusion greeted her. She closed her eyes and tried to make it all go away.

Something like two or three days ago she'd been trying to sell matches on the Portobello when the militiaman had spotted her through the crowd and the recognition shone from his steely eyes. She threw down the matches and dashed off, and the militiaman took up the chase. Within a few strides her full white skirt, with the black printed design hand-stitched from heavy, gathered fabric, proved a hindrance. She gathered up the traces in one hand, put her head down and forced her way through the swarms of people. Her knee-high boots clattered on the cobbles and passersby stopped and stared. Some laughed, others pointed and gasped, most turned away. Nobody wanted to be a witness to the pursuit, nor did they care. Why should they? Life was already full enough with anxieties and fears, no sense in adding to them by answering questions from the militia. So Ana ran and nobody did anything. Except for the young boy. Their eyes locked for a moment as she pounded on, and in that fleeting pass she recognised him. He worked the crowds, relieving them of their pocket watches, wallets and kerchiefs. A pick-pocket, and a damned good one, but more than that. She'd seen him with men, men unlike most. Agitators, hardened by their resolve and dedication to the cause. It had been her hope to become acquainted with the boy, infiltrate, learn. However, today the damned militiaman brought a halt to that, so there was no time to talk to him, no time for anything except to run.

Ana looked around fifteen, her finely chiselled elfin face and light brown ringlets hanging down to her shoulders belying her true age. Her eyes, if anyone chose to look into them, told the real story of her nineteen years, but people tended to shy away from her hard expression. She'd experienced a lot. Six months ago her father, whilst working in his factory, got his sleeve caught in one of the machines. By the time they'd disentangled him from the cogwheels, he'd bled to death through the mangled remains of his arm. The mill owners put the body in a coarse sack and threw it into a communal pit. She had heard the news by pure chance; one of the machinists lived close by and came knocking, told her straight out, “Your dad's dead.” Ana shut the door and went back to the kitchen table, sat on a chair and picked at the uneven wooden surface with her thumbnail. The previous year, smallpox had taken her mother, leaving Ana to care for her twelve-year-old brother Leroy alone. Leroy helped a wheelwright in his workshop and Ana did what she could, including stealing almost anything and selling the ill-gotten gains on the street. With her father's death, she would have to do a lot more.

The police knew her well, arrested her many times. “You seem like a bright girl,” said Sergeant Maidley the fourth time he'd frog-marched her into the local station and thrown her down into the corner of the interview room. “Why can't you get yourself a proper job?”

She stared at him, trying to keep her patience. Maidley wasn't one of the horrible men, the tall silent ones. He had a vague understanding of what went on in the streets, but he knew nothing of the simmering hatred ordinary people felt for the authorities, or perhaps he chose to ignore it. Either way, the man appeared a simpleton. How could a man like him ask such a ridiculous question? “There are no jobs,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “What else am I supposed to do, starve?”

“I heard about your father. I'm sorry, Ana.”

“No you're not.” She stood up, dusting the dirt from her skirt. “You want to be kind to me in the hopes of getting something in return.” She smirked at him. “I might consider it, for a price.”

Maidley had her in the corner and it didn't take him long to grunt through his ejaculation, for which she was grateful. He hitched up his trousers and pressed a few grubby banknotes into her hand. “I'll let you off with a verbal warning this time,” he said, and Ana wondered why. Maybe he'd developed a soft spot for her, who knows. “Perhaps I could pull you in again, for something minor?”

“Make it a regular thing, you mean?”

“Something like that.”

“As long as you pay, I don't really care.” She reached over and flicked his tie. “Let's hope your wife doesn't find out, eh?” She saw his face turn green and she left, chuckling at the absurdity of it all.

She knew she needed to be careful. If she became involved in anything serious and the militia took her in, Maidley would be unable to protect her. There were other considerations, too. After her father's death, the silent ones had called to talk to her in private. Faceless men, eyes hidden behind blackened spectacles, cold and uncaring. Her brother Leroy would find accommodation with the wheelwright, but another ending lay in store for her. They gave her a choice, and she listened, unable to tear her eyes from their white, thin faces. Either a workhouse, to die alone, consumed by diphtheria, or work for them. Sent to a lonely and soulless place, far out of the city, they would teach her things, and, Ana being Ana, she learned fast. Sent back to the streets, her task was to find so-called agitators, infiltrate, betray. However, to become fully immersed, to be accepted, she would have to play her part well. So well that she could end up getting arrested and, patience at an end, Maidley would lose his temper, send her down for a couple of months. That would have been disastrous, for the whole creaking plan. Therefore, she had to appear lawless without actually being so.

She'd seen the boy and recognized his involvement. She'd been watching him for a long time, working the crowd, but then the militiaman had swooped in, forcing her to run.

It was the usual sort of day, the sun unable to penetrate the thick clouds, rain threatening to burst at any moment. For this reason, people shuffled by, huddled in coats and scarves, hats crammed down over their heads, eyes averted, and Ana was grateful. She pushed and squeezed, turned down an alley and splashed through the puddles to the far end.

A hansom cab clattered past as she emerged at the far end, and she pulled up within arm's reach of going under the wheels. Heart pounding, she glanced back and spotted him, as tall as tree, black uniform and peaked cap making him as obvious as if he had a beacon on his head.

She took her chance and darted into the main street, dodging the trolley-buses and the horses, the mid-afternoon filled with the noise and stench of the city, fit to bursting. She gained the far pavement, breathless, and gave herself a moment to suck in the thick, fetid air. Sweat rolled down her face, more from terror than exhaustion, for there he was, striding over the cobbles. Ana swung round, hitched up her dress and sprinted farther down the street, turning into a side street and stopping.

In the road, an iron cover, gaping open with workers, sat around a burning brazier, their tiny oasis of calm cut off from the rest of the seething metropolis by a coarse rope barrier. She ran to them and ducked underneath.

“Here, you can't be doing that! There's a leak down there.”

She ignored the outraged voices and sat down, dangled her legs into the black tunnel and searched for the scaling ladder. She found it, gave the workers a wink and slipped down into the dark, never believing the militiaman would follow.

He did.

As she hit the bottom and began to slosh through the stinking sludge of the main sewer system, she heard him. His voice echoed down the passageways. “Come on, Ana, there's no way out of here.”

But there had to be. Careless now, she strode through the liquid filth, pumping her arms, determined to get away. Thoughts of a prison cell, of Maidley shunting into her, teeth clenched, face screwed up as if in pain…it turned her stomach. So she drove herself forward, muscles and lungs screaming with the exertion.

From the corner of her eye she spotted the rats slipping down into the depths. Huge black things, fat with rich pickings, their eyes regarding her with malevolent interest. If the militia didn't overcome her, the rats would and the knowledge caused her to whimper.

Then she saw it as she turned the bend: a tiny sliver of light in the gloom. Another cover. She yelped with relief and dragged up a new dose of energy, surged forward, curled her hands around the crude, rusted ladders and clambered to the top. Pushing open the heavy lid, she eased herself out and squinted into the daylight.

At that moment, something happened, something she couldn't explain. Her head began to spin, confused spiralling lights of green and blue danced before her eyes and a curious, sharp, tangy smell invaded her nostrils. Her surroundings blurred, as if someone had over-extended the focus bellows on a camera lens, and she teetered forward, dizzy, disorientated. As if she had been spun in a hurdy-gurdy, she struggled to maintain her senses, tried to focus but failed. She hit the ground, groaning as her knees cracked against the unforgiving road. None of this was right. The road, the air, the lack of noise. She tried to centre in on the road surface, grey and smooth. Where were the cobbles, where was she?

She fought down the rising panic and pushed herself upright. The fresh air, so clean as if it were from the unsullied mountains, brought clarity to her thoughts. She took in her surroundings and realised she was in a totally strange, almost alien part of the city. To her right stood a harbour wall and beyond, the grey streak of a river with a city far across the other side. Impossible. She couldn't have come this far; the sewers were a labyrinth of stinking, twisting tunnels, but surely she could not have run such a distance?

Ana shook her head, forced herself to sprint across the road to the side of a grim, black-bricked building and stopped. She took a moment, gathered her strength, waited for the last vestiges of spinning to cease.

She peered towards the manhole cover and gasped.

The militiaman emerged from the depths of the sewer, eyes rolling, mouth open, disoriented, exactly as she had been. He stood, shoulders sagging, put his hands on his hips and blew out an enormous breath. When an approaching klaxon's blast broke the preternatural stillness, he spun to his right and froze. Ana looked on in disbelief and horror. A great beast of a vehicle erupted out of nowhere, a monster of old, roaring around the far bend, horns blaring. The driver must have seen the militiaman standing there so close to the drain, but there was no attempt to avoid a collision. The heavy vehicle, loaded up with a mountain of bales and boxes, was travelling too fast. Too late, the brakes screamed, but nothing could prevent what happened next. The militiaman, clearly still affected by whatever it was which had confused them both, tried to return to the sewer entrance and managed to get a leg into the abyss. But it made no difference. Ana's mouth dropped and she held her breath; the scene before her played out in slow motion. The militiaman raised his hand as if to ward off the advancing juggernaut. Pathetic, really. It hit him with tremendous force, cutting him almost in two. He didn't even scream.

The stench of burning rubber invaded Ana's nostrils as the brakes locked and the tyres squealed like stuck pigs across the road surface, sending up a swirling mass of black, stinking smoke. When at last the vehicle came to a halt, there were a few moments of total silence before the cab door swung open and the driver clambered out. He dropped down to the ground, staggered on his shaking legs and ran over to where the militiaman had been. Ana saw the driver turn white and bend double to throw up on the road surface. She thought she should talk to him, but something wasn't right. None of it was. The vehicle, the man's clothes, none of it. Nothing like anything she had ever known.