Time and Time Again Read online

  Professor McCluskey had been firmly in the romantics’ camp.

  ‘Men and women make history! Not balance sheets!’ she’d shout at some cowering Dialectical Materialist. ‘The great and the flawed. The evil and the honourable. Josephine married Bonaparte because her previous lover was threatening to throw her on the street! She despised the little Corsican corporal. Is it therefore any wonder that two days into their honeymoon he buggered off to conquer Italy, thus sealing Europe’s fate for a generation? If that old town bike had put as much effort into servicing Boney’s boner as she put into pleasuring her numerous other lovers he might have hung around screwing her instead of prancing off to screw an entire continent!’

  In Stanton’s view, Professor Sally McCluskey had really known how to teach history.

  He’d kept in touch with her after graduating, maintaining a sporadic email correspondence from the various parts of the world in which he’d found himself, and when her note had arrived asking that he spend Christmas with her at his old college, he’d accepted. Since Cassie and the children’s deaths he had cut himself off entirely from what few old friends he had, but he couldn’t help being intrigued by the urgency of the professor’s tone.

  I beg you to come, she’d written. We have matters to discuss of the utmost importance.

  He was skirting through the edges of the town now. Early workers were shivering at the bus stops, hunch-backed figures bent in supplication over their phones, each face an ash-grey ghost illuminated by the screen.

  It had been fifteen years since Stanton had graduated and Cambridge, like all towns, had become a wind-blown shadow of its former self. Faded signs promised books, toys, pharmacists’ and fresh market produce but the only things for sale behind those broken boarded windows were drugs and semiconscious girls. Shops were history, just like horse troughs and suits of armour. Nobody bought their stuff in the physical world any more.

  Dawn was breaking as he approached the College. A pale monochrome light gently stirred the frost-crisp sleeping-bag cocoons pupating in the alcoves of the old familiar walls. Venerable stone edifices that had stood since the Tudors. Graffiti-covered now but still deeply stirring to a man like Stanton, who loved the past. Those stones held within them the sonic echo of every footfall and every cry that had ever disturbed the racing molecules at their core. If Stanton had had an instrument sensitive enough he could have listened to the hammer blows on the very cold chisel that had shaped them.

  There was a porter at the Great Gate just as there had been when Stanton first arrived in 2006 as an eighteen-year-old undergraduate. There, however, the similarity ended. Gone was the avuncular, strawberry-nosed Mr Pickwick figure in a bowler hat emerging from his cosy lodge. The porter who welcomed visitors to College in 2024 sat behind a thick screen of glass and wore a fluorescent yellow high-vis jacket, despite there being scant possibility of anybody bumping into him.

  ‘Look at the camera,’ the porter instructed, scarcely glancing up from the game he was playing. ‘No fucking way, bro! That is fucked. That is fucking mental.’

  Stanton didn’t take offence at the tirade; the porter was just communicating with some third party on the phone on which he was playing his game. Undivided attention was a thing of the past; if you got annoyed about people talking to their phones while also dealing with you, your head would explode before lunch. Besides, if you were slightly famous, as Stanton was, it was a sort of blessing. If a person didn’t look at you then they wouldn’t ask to have a photo with you either.

  The iris machine beeped, flashing up Stanton’s identity, a barrier opened and he tried to hurry through.

  He wasn’t quick enough. His fierce blue eyes, lean, weathered, handsome features and close-cropped, sun-bleached hair were unmistakable, particularly to the sort of young man who stared all day at his phone.

  ‘Oh my God, it’s you, innit?’ the porter said. ‘It’s Guts.’

  ‘No,’ Stanton replied. ‘Not any more. Just Hugh.’

  ‘Fuckin’ hell! It is. It’s Guts,’ the porter insisted. ‘Eh, man,’ he went on, now speaking once more to the third party on his phone. ‘You won’t believe who’s standing here. It’s only Guts! Guts Stanton. Yeah! I know! Fucking mental!’ The porter addressed himself once more to Stanton. ‘I love your stuff, man. I can’t believe it’s you. This is amazing. Can I get a photo?’

  Stanton wanted to say that he was in a bit of a hurry but he knew it would be more trouble than it was worth. The young man was already struggling out of his tiny cubicle and Stanton had plenty of experience of ‘fans’ whose adoration turned instantly to outrage and vociferous offence when they considered themselves dissed.

  ‘Yeah. Fine. No worries. Happy to.’

  The porter tried to throw an arm round Stanton’s shoulder but Stanton was well over six feet tall and the porter’s high-vis jacket made it hard for him to raise his arm. He had to settle for grasping Stanton round the waist, which was slightly uncomfortable for both of them. Then he reached out with his other hand and took the selfie.

  ‘Nice one. Fucking mental,’ the porter said, already thumbing at his phone to post the picture online. ‘What’re you going to have for breakfast then, Guts? Gonna dig up some worms on the quad? That’d do you for the day, wouldn’t it? Plenty of protein to keep your core temperature up.’

  ‘Yeah, probably,’ Stanton replied.

  He hated being famous. He hadn’t asked to be a celebrity, although he knew very well that it had been his own fault nonetheless. And it had been fun for a while – and important in its own small way. Those little survival videos he’d begun posting on the net in an effort to kindle the spirit of adventure in disaffected young people were something he’d enjoyed doing and been proud of. Why should only posh kids get to experience the exhilaration of testing yourself in the wild? He’d wanted to lure a few gangstas out of the ghettos and on to the hills. But then he’d done some cross-promotion with some city charities and youth groups and it had got out of hand. He’d become an internet celebrity and been chucked out of the Regiment for blowing his anonymity. Like they weren’t all scrabbling for publishing deals themselves.

  Stanton walked through the arches of the magnificent old gate and into Great Court. That certainly hadn’t changed. It was still ‘great’ by any standards: the chapel on his right and the fountain to his left. The same gravelled paths that had been trod by centuries of undergraduates. A non-stop stream of bright, optimistic young spirits that stretched back for five hundred years. Spirits for whom even sadness and sorrow were living, vibrant things, the stuff of poetry and song. Burning passion, impatient ambition, unrequited love. Not like the sorrows that come later.

  Failure. Disillusionment. Regret.

  He passed the entrance to the chapel and thought about the names on the memorial to the Great War inside. Sometimes, as a young student, he had sat alone in the darkening evening and read them. All those young men, cut down at their beginning. He’d felt so sad for them then. Now he envied them; they died at the high tide of life. When the sun was rising.

  They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

  Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

  Lucky bastards.

  3

  ‘I WAS SO very sorry to hear about your terrible loss, Hugh,’ Professor McCluskey said, pouring tea from the same china pot she had used during Stanton’s student days, ‘and I thought since neither of us has anyone to spend Christmas Eve with, we might as well spend it together.’

  Stanton accepted the proffered steaming cup but declined to return the warm smile that accompanied it.

  ‘I’m not really interested in Christmas, professor,’ he replied. ‘Christmas doesn’t mean anything to me any more.’

  ‘Christmas means the birth of our Saviour,’ McCluskey remarked. ‘That means something, surely.’

  ‘The bastard never saved me.’

  ‘Perhaps he hasn’t finished with you yet.’

  Stanton looked at
his old professor long and hard. There were few people he respected more but there were limits.

  ‘I really hope you didn’t get me here to suggest I take comfort in religion,’ he growled.

  ‘Not in the slightest,’ McCluskey replied. ‘I don’t think religion should be comfortable. That’s where it all went wrong for the Anglicans, trying to be comfortable. Deep down people want fire and brimstone. They want a violent vengeful God who tells them what to do and smites them if they don’t do it. That’s why the Prophet Mohammed’s doing so well these days. I’ve occasionally thought about switching myself. At least Allah’s got a bit of fire in his belly. But you see I could never give up the turps. Speaking of which, drop of brandy? You’ve had a chilly ride.’

  It was scarcely eight thirty in the morning and Stanton was about to refuse but McCluskey didn’t wait for a reply before reaching down for the bottle of cognac that was standing on the floor between her swollen ankles. She snorted at the large picture of a diseased liver that government statute required the bottle to display, then slopped a substantial shot into each teacup. ‘Quite frankly, when it comes to comfort I’ll take booze over faith every time.’

  ‘I don’t need booze. I’ve had plenty of booze. It doesn’t help.’

  ‘Still, since it’s Christmas. Cheers!’ The professor chinked her teacup against Stanton’s and, having blown loudly on the surface of its contents, drank deep, sighing with satisfaction.

  ‘All right, prof,’ Stanton said, ‘what’s all this about? Your email said you needed to see me urgently. Why?’

  ‘You’ve been in Scotland, haven’t you?’ McCluskey asked, ignoring Stanton’s question. ‘I spoke to your colonel.’

  ‘How the hell does he know where I am? He chucked me out.’

  ‘They keep tabs on you. Still think you might go blabbing about all your thrilling clandestine missions. You could make a lot of money.’

  ‘I don’t want to make a lot of money. I never did. They ought to know that. And anyway, even if the bastard does know where I am, what’s he doing telling you? I thought the Regiment was supposed to be discreet.’

  ‘Your colonel was a Trinity man. That sort of thing still counts for something even now.’

  Hugh nodded. Of course it did. Even now. With the country torn apart by every kind of division society could produce, sectarian, religious, racial, sexual and financial, those ancient ties still bound. You had to be born to it to get it, and Stanton’s mother had driven a bus. Cambridge on an army sponsorship had been the first time he’d become aware of the shadowy workings of the Old Boy network and it still took him by surprise.

  ‘All right then, what do you want?’ he asked. ‘Why did you go looking for me?’

  ‘Getting there, Hugh, getting there,’ McCluskey replied with that touch of steel in the soft tone that had cowed so many generations of undergraduates. ‘But I’d prefer to come at it in my own way and my own time.’

  Stanton bit his lip. Some things never changed. McCluskey was still the professor and he was still the student. You never grew out of that relationship, no matter what happened in later life. McCluskey had taught students who went on to become cabinet ministers, ambassadors and in his case a decorated soldier and celebrity adventurer. But they’d all be eighteen again sitting on that ancient Queen Anne chair with those wild, bloodshot eyes drilling into them from beneath the great tangled eyebrows. McCluskey’s Hedges they were called, now painted a quite ridiculous jet black. Stanton wondered why if she could be bothered to paint them she didn’t also trim them a bit. He took a sip of his tea. Even through the taste of cognac he recognized the leaf McCluskey always served. English Breakfast infused with strawberry. He hadn’t tasted it in fifteen years.

  ‘I’ve been in the Highlands,’ he conceded. ‘Up in the remote north-west. In a tent on the hills above Loch Maree.’

  ‘Chilly.’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Scourging and purging, eh?’

  ‘I just thought some serious physical discomfort might be a distraction.’

  ‘Which of course it wasn’t.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bloody stupid idea.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘If you’re going to mope about, you might as well do it with the heating on.’

  ‘I suppose I was kind of hoping I might die of hunger or exposure.’

  ‘Goodness gracious! Really? Then why don’t you just shoot yourself?’

  ‘I don’t believe in suicide.’

  ‘Ahh. In case there’s an afterlife. I understand. So you thought if you pitted yourself against the elements, Mother Nature might do the job for you and dispatch you to oblivion without a stain on your conscience?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose that’s what I had in mind.’

  ‘But unfortunately you’re “Guts” Stanton. The man nothing can kill. Too much edible lichen on the rocks. Still some sea trout beneath the ice for you to impale with a sharpened biro. Enough twigs and heather to weave a life-preserving windbreak. We all loved your shows here at College, Hugh. Terribly proud. Undergrads are always asking about you. I tell them you used to catch rats with your bare hands during lectures and eat them raw.’

  ‘I caught one rat,’ Stanton replied, ‘and I certainly didn’t eat it. That probably would have killed me.’

  ‘Well, you can’t help your legend growing. Guts Versus Guts. Brilliant show. I downloaded all of it. Even paid for it. Well, it was for charity.’

  Stanton winced. Guts Versus Guts had been a good enough idea for a title. None of this Man against the Wild stuff, that was just bullshit. In Stanton’s experience Man was never against the Wild because the Wild didn’t care if you lived or died. When man tested himself against Nature that was exactly what he was doing, testing himself. Which was why Stanton had given his little video hobby the title that he had. But it had been stupid to use his old army nickname. It was all very well for your mates to say you were one crazy, fearless motherfucker and name you ‘Guts’, but it was just showing off to use the name in the title of a webcast.

  ‘Anyway,’ McCluskey went on in something slightly less than her usual booming volume, ‘just to say sorry and all that. About the accident. Commiserations … meant to write when I heard about it. Dreadful business.’

  McCluskey was stirring extra sugar into her tea and looking very uncomfortable.

  ‘Accident? I don’t see it as an accident,’ Stanton replied. ‘It was murder.’

  McCluskey looked up from her cup. ‘Murder, Hugh? Really?’

  ‘Well, what else would you call a mum and two kids getting wiped out in a hit and run? On a zebra crossing?’

  ‘Well, yes, put like that—’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned it was murder, and if I could I’d give each of them the death sentence and carry it out myself.’

  ‘And I’d hold your coat,’ McCluskey replied. ‘But they never found them? All four got clean away?’

  ‘Yeah. Back to whatever crack house or meth lab they came from.’

  Stanton held out his mug. McCluskey splashed more brandy into it.

  ‘So you’ve just cut yourself off then,’ McCluskey asked, ‘from your previous life?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘What about friends?’

  ‘I never had a lot of friends. In my job it was easier.’

  ‘Family then?’

  Stanton eyed McCluskey with a hint of suspicion.

  ‘Is there a point to this?’

  ‘Just making conversation, Hugh.’

  ‘I don’t think you are. I think you want to know.’

  ‘In that case,’ McCluskey replied sternly, ‘you might do me the courtesy of giving me an answer.’

  Amazing, she’d turned the tables and put him on the back foot in half a second. He’d faced down bears in the wild but he couldn’t face down McCluskey over a cup of tea. You didn’t get to be the first female Master of Trinity without knowing how to run a conversation.

  ‘I know your
mother’s dead,’ she went on. ‘Ciggies, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Lung cancer, yes.’

  ‘Good for her. If you’re going to get killed might as well get killed by something you love. And you’re an only child, of course. Father still around?’

  ‘Don’t know. Don’t care. Never knew him. Now come on, professor, what is—’

  ‘And your wife’s family?’ McCluskey ploughed on, refusing to be drawn. ‘Surely they’d be your family too now. United in grief and all that.’

  Stanton shrugged, no point fighting it.

  ‘Tact never was your strong point was it, professor? All right. Since you insist. No, I’m not close to Cassie’s mum and dad. They’re New Agers, hippies really. They never came to terms with their daughter marrying a soldier, particularly one from Special Forces, who they think are just terrorists in uniform. And the webcast thing pissed them off even more; thought I was encouraging yobbos to kill endangered species. They never liked me, and Cassie dying didn’t change that. I haven’t seen them since the funeral.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘Excellent? Why excellent? Where’s this going, prof?’

  ‘All in good time, Hugh,’ McCluskey replied. ‘The weather’s dreadful and we’ve got all day. So where have you been living in general? I know you haven’t been home and you can’t have spent three months on Loch Maree. Even you couldn’t have survived the deep freeze we had last November.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve been here and there,’ Stanton replied. ‘Guest houses, travel lodges. Bit of sleeping rough. I find moving on passes the time.’

  ‘Passes the time until what?’

  ‘Till I die, I suppose.’

  ‘So you’re just giving up?’

  ‘What’s to give up? The world’s a mess, I’ve got no interest in it and I’ve got no interest in myself either.’

  ‘And what would Cassie think about that?’

  ‘Cassie isn’t thinking about anything. She’s dead.’

  ‘You’re a soldier, Hugh. Even if they did chuck you out. Good soldiers don’t give up.’