The Time Engine
Lindsay Galvin
Illustrated by Kristina Kister
Chapter 1 March 1938
The evening sun streaked through the tall windows of our top-floor Cambridge university apartment, landing on the two identical letters resting against a clock on the mantelpiece.
I ate my cottage pie quickly as my father read aloud from the newspaper and Mum listened.
“The Germans have marched into Austria,” he said. “This likely means war, as I predicted.”
Mum and I had already heard the news, as we’d had the wireless on since I got home from school. My father was young enough to be called up to the army, but as he was a professor, Mum said there might be other work for him to do on the
home front.
I tucked my swede under my spoon and gave Mum a longing look. She narrowed her eyes at me, then whisked my plate away before Father could see me wasting food.
My eyes flicked back to those two letters.
Mrs Norah Finch
Mr Herbert Finch
Father hadn’t seen them yet.
They couldn’t be bills, as those were always typed. These envelopes were handwritten and had been hand delivered. If someone wanted to write to both of my parents about the same thing, then why not address one letter to both of them?
My father sometimes received correspondence
from past students and colleagues from the university, but it was never hand delivered. Mum only ever received letters from her sister or two university friends, and I would recognise their handwriting. I would have opened a letter like that right away. I didn’t know how she could manage not to. But of course, she had waited for my father to come home. Mum always deferred to Father.
When Father’s spoon clanked in his pudding bowl, I could bear it no longer.
“Look, Father. Some letters came this morning for you and Mum,” I said, and placed the letter stand in front of him.
He sliced open the envelope with his name on it.
“Aren’t you going to open yours?” I said to my mother.
Mum raised a hand to her forehead and stared at the table, not answering me. This was how she acted if her nerves were bothering her. It usually happened on the rare occasions we were about to leave the house. I knew Mum didn’t like to go out, but I didn’t see why opening a simple letter would upset her.
“‘That’s enough, Eric,” said Father, and then fixed me in a long stare.
“Sorry, Mum,” I said, not sure what I was sorry for.
Father leaned back in his chair. “I was expecting this,” he said. “A couple of my colleagues have been called to meetings, all very secretive.”
He directed a smug smile at me. “The War Office will need the foremost minds for the war effort, on the hush-hush.” He winked, and I forced a smile. With my father I often felt like I was acting a part in a play, following through with the lines
and actions expected of me. I suspected Mum felt the same.
Father now covered her hand with his.
“They made a mistake, dear. We can’t expect everyone to know about your … troubles,” he said, tapping his head.
Mum said nothing.
“Even if you had kept up your studies, you’re needed here with Eric,” Father continued.
“You’re quite right,” she said finally, her face flat, expressionless.
“I’ve memorised my meeting date, so you can put both of those in the hearth. That’s what the letter directs, my pet,” he said.
I watched the letters burn. Mum hadn’t even opened hers.
Chapter 2
The next day, I ran nearly all the way home despite the midday sun, the bully’s taunts ringing in my ears.
Loony, barmy, mad.
If the words had been aimed at me, I probably could have kept my temper. But the boy was talking about Mum, so I wasn’t sorry I’d thumped him. I was sorry I had a ruddy sore hand from the five strikes of the headmaster’s cane. I was even more sorry that I’d been sent home at midday in disgrace, as I would have to lie to Mum about the reason for that.
I stopped outside the quad where we lived to check my palm where the headmaster had caned me. There was a criss-cross of raised
welts, red thin lines on the inside, white on the outside. I squeezed my hand open and closed, wincing, eyes watering. The pained look on my face might help persuade Mum I was sick, but it still didn’t guarantee she’d believe me. Despite what everyone seemed to think of her, my mother was the smartest person I knew.
I had always been told Mum struggled with her nerves. My parents had met at Cambridge University. Both had achieved first-class honours in Maths and were working on their PhDs when they married.
A couple of months ago, I had found a cut-out newspaper article in the bottom of a drawer. It was my mum looking very young, smiling shyly. She was holding a certificate. The headline read: “Lady honours student top of her class.”
My father must have been in the same class, and I wondered how he had felt about Mum being more successful. His certificates were proudly on display in our lounge, but the only evidence of Mum’s achievement was in the drawer. Before Mum could finish her PhD, I had come along. This was apparently when her “troubles” started, as I had been sent to live with my aunt as a baby. Mum couldn’t look after me due to her nerves, which must have been even worse then, I supposed. Father went on to become a professor, and I had come back to live with them when I was two years old.
I was eleven now and had started at the grammar school. Mum could take her studies up again if she wanted to, as I was in school for longer days and didn’t come home for my lunch. Every day, she finished three crosswords quicker than you could imagine, and only a few weeks ago I’d found the back of a till receipt
filled with mathematical formulas written in her small sloping handwriting.
But I didn’t know how to talk about any of this with her. What I did know was that my father wouldn’t approve of me bringing it up, that he would say I was making her ill.
I walked across the quad and entered our tall red-brick block, then took the stairs, drew in a deep breath and let myself into the flat.
As I stood in the hallway, I expected Mum to appear at the sound of the front door at an unusual time of day. I plonked my school bag on the floor and walked to the kitchen.
She wasn’t there either. The crossword on the back page of the newspaper sat complete as usual.
“Mum?” I called out. No answer. I called again, louder.
I blinked and felt a surge of joy. She had gone out! She’d gone out of the house without Father. This was the first time in ages I could remember her doing that.
I then turned to check the hallway and was disappointed to see her handbag on the bureau, her hat and coat hanging on the coat peg. Well … it was a hot day, maybe she’d gone without them.
But her two pairs of shoes were on the rack. She might have gone out in a simple headscarf and no coat. She might have used a different handbag I didn’t know about. But she definitely would not go out in her slippers.
I checked the clock in the hall as if it might explain where my mother was.
Quarter past one. It told me nothing.
“Mum?” I called again. There was no answer, but a sudden tremendous thump above my head released dust that spun in sunlit motes.
The only thing above the ceiling was the attic.