Chapter 52 #2
Anna laughed. “Well. Who said anything about happily ever after? You and Father—you loved each other so intensely, so completely, but I’m not going to pretend there weren’t arguments and difficult times.
I’m not going to tell you there wasn’t heartache and suffering.
Of course there was. There had to be. But still.
All I know is that I would like, one day, to meet a woman who looks at me the way you two looked at each other.
I’ll chase after a love like that.” She straightened her shoulders.
“Now. This next part has nothing to do with us. Perhaps we’ll see you again.
Perhaps we won’t. And, Mum, please don’t torture yourself later when you think of this meeting and what you would have liked to say to us.
We already know.” She pulled a postcard from her pocket and handed it to Eve.
There was a photo of the White Octopus Hotel on the front.
“For you to write a message to Dad,” she said, “asking him to come and help you at the hotel. When the time is right, give it to me—the younger me, I mean—and tell me to post it for you on the seventeenth of November in 1935. For now, though, it’s goodbye. ”
Eve watched the three of them head out the door and climb into the last sleigh, waiting at the entrance. Then there was the swish of blades on snow, and they were gone, over the frozen lake, leaving Max and Eve alone in the lobby.
“You know,” Max said, rummaging in his pockets for a cigarette, “I categorically did not sign up for this, but…if it’s being handed to me on a silver platter, then I’d be a damned fool not to take it.”
“What?” Eve asked incredulously, thrusting the postcard into her bag. “Go back in time like she said? Make a life together like she said?”
“Why not? You love me, don’t you?”
“I…What makes you think that? I never said that.”
He took a draw on his cigarette, exhaled smoke. “You did, actually. To Anna, just now.”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, look, you can deny it all you like, but I won’t believe you. You’re a damn poor liar.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.”
Eve could feel herself getting angry. “Look, even if I did love you—and I’m not saying that I do—but even if I did…it’s not worth the risk.”
“Do you truly believe that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a pity, because I would risk everything.”
“I don’t want any entanglements. I don’t want any more heartbreak.”
“Love is hard,” Max agreed. “The hardest thing there is.”
“We would hurt each other.”
“We would. Sometimes, I think, it would be wonderful. Other times it would be unbearable. There’s no denying that.”
“There you have it, then.”
“There you have it. You know, even after all those years, you still bear a remarkable resemblance to that little girl we met a few minutes ago in Room Seven. Still hiding, still scared, still daring anyone to try to love you. You think you’re pretty terrifying, don’t you, but I’ve already seen your tentacles, remember, and I served in a war, after all, so you’ll have to do a hell of a lot better than that to frighten me, Eve Shaw. ”
Max walked over to the reception desk to stub his cigarette out in the ashtray, before heading towards the corridor.
“Where are you going?” Eve demanded.
“It’s still cocktail hour, as far as I’m concerned,” Max threw over his shoulder. “Wind the clock or don’t wind it. Either way, I’ll be in the bar.”
He left and Eve was alone, listening to the grandfather clock ticking and tocking away the moments. Soon it would be midnight and they would cross over into another day. Unless she wound the clock—which would, of course, be madness, absolute madness, and not something that Eve would ever consider.
—
It was five minutes later and forty years earlier when Eve walked into the polished wooden interior of the Nook. She pulled up a stool next to Max.
“What’s that?” she asked, nodding at his drink.
“Neat whiskey,” Max replied, pointing at the bottle on the bar. “I was going to have a Last Word, but I couldn’t remember how to mix one and…well, there’s no bartender here anymore. I’ll have to learn.”
Eve reached around for a glass and poured a measure.
She wondered how many years would pass before she saw the velvet upholstery and golden fronds of the Palm Bar once again.
For now, though, she quite liked the quiet cosiness of their own private bar.
Even the Eavesdropper wasn’t here yet, right at the very beginning, and the spot on the wall where his curtain would later hang was currently bare. Eve knocked back her drink.
She set the empty glass down. “You called me a coward once.”
“I did not.”
“Yes, you—”
“I said I wouldn’t have had you pegged for a coward,” Max said. “That’s not the same thing.”
“Well, I rewound the clock.” Eve poured herself another drink. “So I hope you realise what you’ve signed up for.”
“I hope you do too,” he replied, glancing at her. “You know, I don’t have as many dark days as I used to, but I’m still scared of my own thoughts sometimes and the way they can turn on me. I don’t think I’ll ever be completely…fixed.”
“That’s all right,” Eve replied. “I won’t be either.”
Max’s fingers brushed against hers. “Shall we give it a try then? The greatest adventure so far?”
“The good times don’t last,” she whispered, entwining her fingers with his, squeezing them tight. “They shoot by fast and fleeting. The only hope is to enjoy it while you can.”
Max nodded. “And let it all go once it’s finished.”
Eve thought of all that lay ahead for her in this new life in the past. At some point she would need to return to 2016, to meet Friede at the shores of the lake and to have that impossible conversation with her mother.
Back at the White Octopus there would be a hotel to organise, and later, the war would inevitably come, and she hated to think of Max fighting over there where she couldn’t reach him.
She could send the parcels, though. They might not be much in the grand scheme of things, but after all, a single candle could make all the difference in the dark.
“I think we’ll be all right,” Max said. “You and me and the octopus.”
“I think so too,” Eve said, pouring them both another measure. “I’m never having children, though.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
Max raised his glass to hers and the tumblers met with a soft clink.