He got up the next morning, 22 April, and phoned to postpone the interview.
He told the boy on the other end of the line that he wasn't feeling well, and it wasn't quite a lie because there was something niggling at him. Something about Sorelli, and how tight she'd hugged him.
No matter what he did that morning, he couldn't settle himself. In the end, he rang her to say that he'd be able to visit after all, and he could hear her smiling on the line when she said, "be here by three, and bring a cake."
"What for?" He was quite used to her being mysterious, and didn't expect her to answer, but he asked anyway, and he could tell her smile had broadened when she answered, "We're having a little party for Christine. Today is the day she'll be born."
He never knew before then when Christine's birthday was, and the thought of he and Sorelli having a little party for her made him smile. "Do you think she'll appear from the future?"
"I don't know." A breath and then, "I have a feeling she might. The cake better be chocolate. You know she loves it."
And he snorted. "I haven't a chocolate digestive left to my name with her."
He went out, and spent a productive hour and a half searching for the perfect cake with which to celebrate Christine's birthday. He also invested in a bottle of chartreuse, though he was under orders to avoid alcohol, but he reasoned to himself that Christine being born, somewhere, was justification to have a drink.
If he couldn't drink to her name, what could he drink to?
And he thought of Alex Daaé, who only a year and a half before finished his undergraduate degree, and somewhere found time – between his own travelling through time – to fall in love and marry. And that boy, who couldn't be more than twenty-three, was about to become a father.
He tried to think of the Christines he had known, the ages she would have been at. The first one he met, officially, was twenty-four, as far as he could remember. He had known her, too, at twenty-three, though only once or twice. Mostly she was older when she came, mostly she was somewhere between his age and Sorelli's, and the last time she was, he thought, seventy-two. That that seventy-two-year-old woman, with grey hair and an impish look in her eye, was, at that moment, being born or about to be born, was enough to make his head spin.
He resolved not to think about it, but it sat strange in his mind to think one of his oldest and dearest friends was, right then, only a baby.
Resolution to forget about it or not, it was still there in his head as he pushed open his front door, the cake covered in the car, the chartreuse tucked away. No point bringing them in just for an hour or two. He would make tea, and wash his hair, and change into one of his finer suits before the drive down to Wicklow.
So he thought, and then he stepped into the living room, and heard the footsteps on the stairs, and looked up to find Christine herself, looking about forty, wrapped in his dressing gown.
"I won't be staying long," she said, "I can feel it. What's the date?"
The answer was on his tongue before she even asked, years of habit and practice. "22 April 1992, happy birthday."
But instead of grinning, like he expected, the colour drained from her face and she stumbled on the last stair. He was at her side in an instant, steadying her before she could fall. She gripped his arm tight, her arm trembling. "Say that again."
"Happy birth—"
"Not that, the first bit, say it again." The words were a rush, her eyes wide, her fingers digging in. "Say it, Raoul."
His mouth was dry with the force of her gaze. "22 April 1992."
She whimpered, shaking her head. "Oh fuck, oh fuck. You have to go to Sorelli. You have to go now."
A check in his heart, his head spinning. "What? Why? She said to be there by three."
"I don't care what she said, go know. You have to, you can't delay." And there were tears in her eyes, tears in her eyes and her voice thick and he brushed them away, his heart pounding, his breath caught in his throat and he didn't want to ask, he didn't want to know, didn't want to hear what she was about to say though he could feel it, he knew it, it was in her words and in her face and in that hug Sorelli gave him before he drove away, she couldn't say it, it couldn't be, it couldn't be—
"Why?" The question slipped out, and he could feel the tightness already in his chest, the black spots dancing at the edges of his vision.
"Today is the day—today—she—today is the day she's going to die, Raoul. Today is the day she dies."
The last he saw was Christine's face, pale, the last he felt was her hand grabbing for him, as the darkness rushed in.
He came back to himself on the floor, cold and weak, his feet propped on a cushion, Christine kneeling over him.
Brandy, sharp, stinging his lips, and he gasped, the room grey and spinning around him.
Darkness, again, and someone calling his name, someone shaking him. Sorelli? No.
Christine.
He groaned as the room swam, groaned and felt her fingers at his throat, her hand on his chest, the top buttons of his shirt opened. And then he was blinking her back into view, and there was colour this time, but all he could see was the red of her eyes, the tears damp on her cheeks.
He gasped around the pain in his chest, but it wasn't his heart, not this time.
Sorelli, dying. Sorelli—
He scrambled to his feet, and Christine tried to insist he wait, insist he drink a glass of water instead of driving so soon after passing out, but all he knew was that he had to go, now, had to go and see Sorelli, had to keep her alive, had to—
He felt the shift in the air almost before he knew it, saw his dressing gown lying empty on the floor (Christine, gone, again), and then he was racing out the door and jumping into the car.
He remembers nothing of that drive to Wicklow.
What he remembers is the crunch of the gravel beneath his wheels, as he pulled into Sorelli's driveway. What he remembers is the engine still running as he threw the door open and jumped out. What he remembers is Christine, an older one than the one who had brought him the news, opening the door in time for him to rush through it.
His whole mind blanked the second he saw her, and her mouth twisted, the tears welling in her eyes.
"She's gone," she whispered.
It was the second time that day that his strength failed him.
She had already called the doctor, to confirm it, though there was nothing to be done. And when his legs were still weak beneath him she helped him into the sitting room, where Sorelli—where she was sitting in her armchair, just as if she were asleep.
As if she were asleep.
Christine's voice, soft. "She dozed off when we were talking, and before I knew—"
He couldn't speak, could hardly nod, just brushed his lips against Sorelli's forehead.
She didn't stir, didn't stir, and he knew she wouldn't but—
She was still warm. Still warm.
It was that, more than anything, that made his eyes prickle, and he couldn't blink away the tears. They slipped into her hair, and he gasped, and closed his eyes, and lay his head against hers.
The day was a haze, after that.
The doctor, and Christine insisted he look at him, too, after his two collapses, never mind that the reason was clear enough.
He couldn't bear to be there as they took Sorelli away. He stayed out in the garden, and kept his eyes closed, and held himself still.
The phone calls. Harry, and he doesn't remember what he said but he remembers Harry's shaking breath and, "I'll be there just as soon as I can."
(A long drive, down from Belfast, and he was there first thing the next morning, pulling him tight into his arms.)
("I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.")
Noël, the long silence on the line, and then, "Do you want me to bring my accordion?"
His accordion. Music, for the funeral. She'd like that.
(Oh, God, the funeral.)
A shaking breath, "Do."
Do.
Her heart. Failing in her sleep, after seventy-eight years. Quick, and painless.
It was Christine who wrote the statement, to release to the press. He watched her, hardly able to think of words after his phone calls, just watched her and the firm set of her jaw, and knew that she must have known about this for years, maybe decades, and been powerless to stop it, powerless to change it.
Powerless to save the woman she loved.
How many times must she have grieved Sorelli, in all those decades?
There was nothing they could do that night, nothing, except exist. He half-expected time to pull Christine away, and what would he do then? But it didn't, and she stayed, and they lay down together in Sorelli's guest room, and held each other through the night, neither of them sleeping, neither wanting to be alone.
(Her tears warm on his neck. Her fingertips soft, brushing the dampness from his cheek.)
"How long have you known?" he whispered, somewhere close to dawn.
"Since I was twelve." Her voice so soft he could hardly hear.
He held her tighter, and kissed her hair. "I'm sorry."
The dates in their lives that were be the same.
22 April 1952, the day he met Jack.
22 April 1992, the day Christine was born.
22 April 1992, the day Sorelli died.
Bound, intertwined, and why? How?
Time. Time dictating. Time ruling their lives.
The last funeral he'd been in charge of arranging was Philippe's, and he didn't even arrange it. Two of his cousins did it for him, and he couldn't even remember which ones. Sarah and George? Or Marianne and Anthony? Or some others instead? He was never close to them, to any of them. The funeral was the first time he met most of his relations.
But Sorelli's—
He hated not knowing what to do.
It was Christine that did most of it, her slight smile more a grimace. "I've had practice," she whispered, when he confessed his inability. And he should have done it, shouldn't have put that burden on her, but he was helpless, and she squeezed his hand as if to say she understood, and whispered, "I've been ready for this my whole life."
All he could do was let her.
He thinks it was a comfort for her, doing it.
He couldn't watch the news coverage. He's seen it since, because a younger Christine found it online and wanted to watch it but didn't want to be alone so he sat with her and held her hand, and it was the first time he'd seen it. The montage of clips of Sorelli through the years, from films and interviews, on the stage, awards, the film reel with Philippe. Sorelli laughing into the camera, Sorelli defiant, Sorelli insisting on talking about AIDS or the violence in the North or contraception or divorce or abortion or the need to decriminalize homosexuality. Sorelli talking about Philippe, her eyes soft, and a little sad, through all the years.
These pieces of her, and as he watched them, holding Christine's hand, twenty years after Sorelli had died, after Christine was born, the tears came then, just as fresh as the day that it happened.
"I can turn it off," Christine whispered, squeezing his fingers, and his heart ached for that dear sweet girl and all she'd been through, and still she was more worried for him.
"Leave it," he breathed. "Leave it."
She had left instructions, and he was so endlessly grateful that she had.
No church service. Burial in the small local graveyard, not in Glasnevin. No prayers, and while he agreed with her about the institution of the Church, their argument was never with the religion itself, more with the use of it, so he and Christine agreed on one 'Our Father', and a single 'Sé do Bheatha a Mhuire.' For him to recite Auden, if he was up to it, and he decided to follow it with Dylan Thomas. Roses, lilies, and irises. And wildflowers, if there were any to be found (Harry and Sheila assigned themselves to collecting those, when they arrived). To be laid out in her own house, with candles. Private. No huge crowd, no onlookers. A short piece of footage, of the procession to the graveyard, for the news, on the agreement that there be no other cameras. The pallbearers to carry her from the hearse to the grave she left up to him to decide.
Himself, of course. Harry. Noël would have but he was too frail, so he got one of his grandsons to take his place, a young man as tall as him in his youth with that dark hair just a little long, and for a moment Raoul was reminded forcibly of 1948. Harry's son, too, John, named after Jack, and so very like how Harry himself had been, as a younger man. Foster, the farmer next door, who sold Sorelli the cottage in the first place, and kept her in milk and eggs, and checked in on her when the snow came, and Raoul was caught in Dublin.
They were a man short, and Christine would have joined them, but she was too short beside them.
"It's fine," she said, and leaned into him. "It's fine."
Darius.
He turned up at the door the morning before the funeral, grey and tired, with a suit in a tailor's case.
"I got the first flight I could," he said. "Oh, Raoul…"
Raoul pulled him in for a hug before he could say another word.
("I'm not sure she'd be happy with me carrying it." "She would, because I asked you." "Even after—" "She forgave you for leaving when she knew I had.")
He sat beside her all night, the last night, Christine at her other side, each of them holding her cold hands, neither of them speaking. And what he thought of in those long hours he doesn't know, really, only that he was mostly remembering, remembering her admonishing him for not being more careful with himself, remembering her happy, remembering her that first time he saw her in Steevens' Hospital all the way back in 1939 when he told her that Philippe was dead, and how Philippe had hugged him and wept, when he heard the news that she had TB in her bones. Remembering the first time they saw each other after the war ended, and when she introduced him to Christine and how he didn't believe her that Christine could be a time traveller. Remembering how, when he woke after his lung haemorrhage, after Jack died, she was right there beside him, holding his hand, and how he hated the daily walks she made him take, when he was recovering. How she lay down beside him and held him as he wept after Darius. How she laughed at each election night when it went their way. How every time he wavered, she was there to squeeze his hand. All the times they went to Philippe's grave, and didn't speak. How she hugged him, the last time they saw each other, before he drove away.
So many little pieces, all coming back to him, that night.
Her fingers so still, lying between his.
He took a snip of her hair, and divided it. One small lock, wrapped in pink tissue paper and tied with a ribbon, kept in his desk. A memento mori, and she would have appreciated it, the sentiment behind it. The other small lock the same, wrapped in tissue paper and tied with ribbon, and buried beneath the gravel on top of Philippe's grave.
A breezy afternoon, the drizzle just starting, as they lowered her into the ground, Noël's accordion soft, and mournful. Harry's fingers warm squeezing his wrist, Darius brushing his back, Christine leaning into him, and he twined his fingers with hers. She brushed her thumb over his knuckles, and held on tight.
Sorelli would have liked it, liked all of it.
It was all he could do to remember the words for Auden, unable to read them, his breath heavy in his lungs.
The drizzle hid his tears.