The Seeds of Time

She had told the police as little as she well could - simply that she had been pursued by three oddly dressed men and had appealed to me for help. She had refused their offer of a lift to Plyton in the police car, so here she still was.

‘Well, now,’ I suggested, ‘perhaps you’d like to explain to me just what seems to be going on?’

She sat quite still facing me with a long level look which had a tinge of-sadness?-disappointment?-well, unsatisfactoriness of some kind. For a moment I wondered if she were going to cry, but in a small voice she said: ‘I had your letter-and now I’ve burned my boats.’ I sat down opposite to her. After fumbling a bit I found my cigarettes and lit one.

‘You-er-had my letter, and now you’ve-er-burnt your boats?’ I repeated.

‘Yes,’ she said. Her eyes left mine and strayed round the room, not seeing much.

‘And now you don’t even know me,’ she said. Whereupon the tears came, fast.

I sat there helplessly for a half-minute. Then I decided to go into the kitchen and put on the kettle while she had it out. All my female relatives have always regarded tea as the prime panacea, so I brought the pot and cups back with me when I returned.

I found her recovered, sitting staring pensively at the unlit fire. I put a match to it. She watched it take light and burn, with the expression of a child who has just received a present.

‘Lovely,’ she said, as though a fire were something completely novel. She looked all round the room again. ‘Lovely,’ she repeated.

‘Would you like to pour?’ I suggested, but she shook her head, and watched me do it.

Tea,’ she said. ‘By a fireside!’

Which was true enough, but scarcely remarkable.

‘I think it is about time we introduced ourselves,’ I suggested. ‘I am Gerald Lattery.’

‘Of course,’ she said, nodding. It was not to my mind an altogether appropriate reply, but she followed it up by: ‘I am Octavia Lattery-they usually call me Tavia.’

Tavia?-Something clinked in my mind, but did not quite chime.

‘We are related in some way?’ I asked her.

‘Yes-very distantly,’ she said, looking at me oddly. ‘Oh, dear,’ she added, ‘this is difficult,’ and looked as if she were about to cry again. ‘Tavia…?’ I repeated, trying to remember. ‘There’s something…’ Then I had a sudden vision of an embarrassed elderly gentleman. ‘Why, of course; now what was the name? Doctor-Doctor Bogey, or something?’

She suddenly sat quite still.

‘Not-not Doctor Gobie?’ she suggested.

‘Yes, that’s it. He asked me about somebody called Tavia. That would be you?’

‘He isn’t here?’ she said, looking round as if he might be hiding in a corner.

I told her it would be about two years ago now. She relaxed.

‘Silly old Uncle Donald. How like him! And naturally you’d have no idea what he was talking about?’

‘I’ve very little more now,’ I pointed out, ‘though I can understand how even an uncle might be agitated at losing you.’

‘Yes. I’m afraid he will be-very,’ she said.

‘Was: this was two years ago,’ I reminded her.

‘Oh, of course you don’t really understand yet, do you?’

‘Look,’ I told her. ‘One after another, people keep on telling me that I don’t understand. I know that already-it is about the only thing I do understand.’

‘Yes. I’d better explain. Oh dear, where shall I begin?’ I let her ponder that, uninterrupted. Presently she said: ‘Do you believe in predestination?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I told her.

‘Oh-no, well perhaps it isn’t quite that, after all-more like a sort of affinity. You see, ever since I was quite tiny I remember thinking this was the most thrilling and wonderful age-and then, of course, it was the time in which the only famous person in our family lived. So I thought it was marvelous. Romantic, I suppose you’d call it.’

‘It depends whether you mean the thought or the age …’ I began, but she took no notice.

‘I used to picture the great fleets of funny little aircraft during the wars, and think how they were like David going out to hit Goliath, so tiny and brave. And there were the huge clumsy ships, wallowing slowly along, but getting there somehow in the end, and nobody minding how slow they were. And quaint black and white films; and horses in the streets; and shaky old internal combustion engines; and coal fires; and exciting bombings; and trains running on rails; and telephones with wires; and, oh, lots of things. And the things one could do! Fancy being at the first night of a new Shaw play, or a new Coward play, in a real theatre! Or getting a brand-new T. S. Eliot, on publishing day. Or seeing the Queen drive by to open Parliament. A wonderful, thrilling time!’

‘Well, it’s nice to hear somebody think so,’ I said. ‘My own view of the age doesn’t quite ‘

‘Ah, but that’s only to be expected. You haven’t any perspective on it, so you can’t appreciate it. It’d do you good to live in ours for a bit, and see how flat and stale and uniform everything is-so deadly, deadly dull.’