Free The Two Timers by Bob Shaw Page A

because

you would prefer to go on living with me. What could be easier?"

"You seem to be trying to make it difficult," Kate said slowly. "Are you

doing it deliberately?"

"Very good, Kate," John commented, abruptly recovering his composure.

"I like the way you turned that one around. Very neat."

Kate's lips moved soundlessly as she raised a bottle-green coffee cup

to her mouth, shooting him one of her exaggerated, schoolgirl looks of

scorn over the rim. What an unlikely emotion, Jack thought, to cause

rejuvenation.

John Breton pushed his food away and got to his feet. "Sorry to break

this up, but somebody around here has to work."

"You aren't going to the office!" Kate sounded shocked.

"I've got to -- besides, you two will have lots to talk about."

Jack concealed his amazement at the other man's seeming indifference to

how near he was to losing Kate. "Do you have to go? Why not let Hetty

handle things for a few days?"

John frowned. "Hetty? Hetty who?"

"Hetty Calder, of course." Cool vapors of unease swirled momentarily

in Jack's chest as he saw the perplexed look on John's face. This was

supposed to be a duplicate world, perfect in every detail. How could

John Breton have any difficulty in placing Hetty Calder?

"Oh, Hetty! It's been so long, I'd almost forgotten. She's been dead

for seven or eight years."

"How . . .?"

"Lung cancer, I think it was."

"But I saw her just a week or so ago. She was all right -- and still

smoking two packs a day."

"Perhaps she changed her brand in your world." John shrugged casually,

and in that instant Jack hated him.

"Isn't that strange?" Kate spoke in a child's wondering voice. "To think

that funny little woman's alive, somewhere, going about her business

and not knowing we've already attended her funeral, not knowing she's

really dead."

Jack Breton experienced an urge to correct Kate, but was unable to find

any suitable grounds. If Kate was really alive, then Hetty was really

dead -- it was all part of the deal. He sipped hot coffee, surprised at

the strength of the regrets conjured up by the memory of Hetty's homely,

capable face breathing through its centrally-mounted cigarette.

"I'm going to get dressed." John Breton hesitated at the door as if about

to say something further, then went out of the kitchen, leaving Jack alone

with Kate for the first time. The air was warm, and prisms of pale sunlight

slanted from the curtained windows. A pulsing silence filled the room

as Kate toyed desperately with her food, looking slightly distraught

and out-of-place against the background of cozy domesticity. She took a

cigarette and lit it. Breton's awareness of her was so intense that he

could hear the tobacco and rice paper burning as she drew on the smoke.

"I think I arrived at just the right time," he said finally.

"Why's that?" She avoided looking at him.

"You and . . . John are about ready to split up, aren't you?"

"That's putting it a little strongly."

"Come on, Kate," be urged. "I've seen the two of you. It was never like

this with us."

Kate looked fully at him and he saw the uncertainty in her eyes.

"No? I don't understand this Time A and Time B thing very well, Jack, but

up until that night in the park you and John were the same person. Right?"

"Right."

"Well, we had fights and arguments then, too. I mean, it was you --

as well as John -- who refused to give me taxi fare and -- "

"Don't, Kate!" Breton struggled to make his mind encompass what she was

saying. She was right, of course, but during the last nine years he had

avoided some avenues of memory, and he was strangely reluctant to be

forced to explore them now. The dream could not sustain the dichotomy.

"I'm sorry -- perhaps that wasn't fair." Kate tried to smile. "None of

us seem to be able to shake off that particular episode. And there's

Lieutenant Convery . . ."

"Convery! Where does he come in?" Breton's senses were alerted.

"The man who attacked me was called Spiedel.