Tudor Pavanne: Changing Tracks
Hannah raised her eyebrows high, challenging him with a smile. "Ready for more?"
Fresh from exploring the fantastical kitchen, John was game. "Lead on!"
Scooping up the shopping bag with his new clothes, she led him across the living room and through the arch into the bedroom, then paused by a closed door, turning to face him. "Remember those horrible, hideous garderobes? And the rushes in the back halls?"
"Ye-es..." he answered dubiously. He remembered quite well the fit she'd thrown about them.
In answer, she reached a hand and pushed open the door, flicking on the lights inside and revealing for the first time to the sixteenth-century gentleman... a modern bathroom.
Jaw dropping once again, he stepped inside the room and gaped around. She followed him in – it was quite roomy; one of the flat's major attractions when she'd selected it – and demonstrated the sink, and then, to his everlasting wonder, the toilet. After he'd flushed it a couple of times himself, he shook his head in amazement, and then turned to the big walk-in shower. "And what is that, then?"
She leaned back against the counter. "One of the things I haven't told you about yet is medicine. They've made incredible discoveries the past century or so – amazing ones. John, the doctors now really do know what they're doing – most of the time," she added wryly. "And their techniques have completely changed. No bleeding people. No humors. They really do know what causes disease in general, and can actually heal many or most of them. And one of the things they learned is how important cleanliness is. John... everybody in this time period washes their whole body, every day. It's important. And it helps keep you healthy. And no, the water itself isn't dangerous. They treat it so that it's completely safe and clean. You can drink it without fear, straight out of the tap." She gestured to their other side, to the big sweetheart tub. "You can either take a bath, or a stand-up shower." Leaning in, she showed him how the taps were the same as on the sink, then identified the soap and shampoo on the ledge.
He peered at her, checking again. "It's safe?" She nodded. "And expected." That wasn't really a question, but she nodded anyway. "Does that mean you'd like me to start now?" he put on a disingenuous air.
She smiled sweetly, neither confirming nor denying, but then said, "And when you're clean, you can put on your new clothes!" and, handing him the bag and a towel, let herself out, closing the door on his bemused face.
She leaned against the wall next to the door for a moment, grinning, till she heard the water start in the shower. Glancing around, she spied the clock on the bedside table: getting on towards four in the afternoon. "Oh, shit!"
She dashed for the couch and snatched up her laptop from the coffee table, grimacing briefly at how she had no trouble at all remembering how to turn it on – or her password, even after eighteen technology-free months. She called up her schedule: no appointment for that night, thank god, but several over the coming days. She sent a message to each one to cancel, claiming the flu. Then she called up her own website, found the right admin tool, and clicked the button that took it offline, heaving a sigh of relief. Next stop: the phone company, where she calmly canceled her business phone number, and "Belle du Jour" vanished without a trace.
Next she went to her bank's website to check her balances. Looking them over carefully, she decided she had enough in her savings to carry them for several weeks, if they didn't get carried away with gourmet restaurants and such.
Sighing again, Hannah closed her laptop and leaned back on the cushions, deep in thought. Belle was done. She wasn't going to return to being a call girl again, not with John in her life! She wasn't even sure how she was going to tell him about that – or if she was going to at all. She bit her lip. Cross that bridge when we come to it.
So how are we going to live, then? Well, there was one obvious answer, the same one as always, but she just wasn't sure she wanted to go back to it yet. We have some time. I don't have to make a decision right this minute.
Turning her head to gaze out the window, she tried coming up with some ideas for how to ease John into modern life. His formal education was unknown, but probably only at the most basic level by modern standards. And he had no personal, documentable history in the modern world, and no identification. She had an idea, though, from her own past on how to find people who could fake all that.
She'd been aware of the shower shutting off several minutes before. The bathroom door at last opened and John wandered out, barefoot, his hair still damp, obviously a feeling a bit awkward at how his new jeans and Tshirt fit and felt. (She'd guessed right on his size, though, from the looks of it. Rawr.) He was also clean-shaven again, and she grinned at him as he sat down beside her.
"I see you found my razor." At his quizzical look, she rubbed her own cheek with the back of an index finger, and he caught on.
"I hope you don't mind?"
She shook her head. "No. You look better without the beard."
He smiled. "Thank you, Madame."
Just as she was about to propose some food, however, a loud thump came from directly above their heads – then another, then several more in quick succession. And then a woman screamed.
The sound seared through Hannah's brain, and she reacted instantly and automatically. Without even thinking about it, she grabbed her personal mobile phone off the coffee table, punching the preprogrammed emergency shortcut without looking as she raced through her door and up the stairs. She yelled at the dispatcher, "Domestic assault in progress!" and gave him the address of the flat above hers, then thumbed the phone off before he could reply and dropped it in a pocket as she reached the floor above.
The door was open a crack, and she kicked it wide in fury, stepping into a flat filled with run-down furniture and smelling strongly of cleanser. At the far side of the room was a slim man, towering over a woman huddled, twisted where she'd fallen, between an overstuffed chair and the wall, her arms curved over her head in self-protection. The man had his fist swung back over his own head, about to pound her again, but swung towards the door in startled fury when it banged open.
"STOP IT RIGHT THERE, ASSHOLE!" His fury was nothing compared to the incandescent rage coursing through Hannah. I'm not back two hours, and this has to happen. She stalked across the room, ready to get between him and his victim. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the couple's young son peeking out through the cracked-open bedroom door, his face a white slice of fear. "GET AWAY FROM HER, RIGHT NOW!" she went on.
"Who the hell are YOU, coming barging into my place and ordering me around?" He didn't move an inch.
"The one who's stopping you, moron. I said, GET AWAY!"
She'd made the mistake, in retrospect, of getting within arm's reach, and he simply used the same fist to backhand her, hard, across her face. She stumbled sideways – and right into John's arms. She'd completely forgotten him, but he'd apparently charged up the stairs right behind her. Now he bellowed his own rage at seeing this stranger strike his wife, and began to (gently) push her aside to charge.
Hannah whirled and physically held John back, while she startled all of them into freezing and staring at her with a loud shout of gleeful laughter. When she was sure John had stopped, she turned back and grinned maliciously at the man.
"That... was your biggest mistake, asshole." She touched her cheek and the corner of her mouth, and her fingers came away with a spotting of blood from a split lip. Her grin got bigger.
"What the fuck are you blibbering on about?" The stranger sneered.
Hannah pointed at the woman, still huddled on the floor, peeking out from behind her arms like her son. "She may be too cowed to press charges, but I'm not. And I've got a witness." She leaned back against John, almost casually, but her voice was pure triumphant. "You're going to jail, asshole."
"Like hell I am," he began to bluster, but then was cut off by a new voice, sounding laconically from the still-open door.
"Oh, I think you are." All of them whirled around to see a policeman standing there, large as life, his partner looming behind him.
One of the few times in my life I've ever been glad to see a cop, thought Hannah. "It's OK," she whispered to John. "They're the good guys." He glanced at her, puzzled, but then took her strange turn of phrase for what it sounded like, and stepped to one side to let the guardsmen (as he took them) by, wrapping his arms around Hannah to hold her close.
The lead policeman stepped past them, glancing at Hannah – and she turned her face to show him her bruising cheek – then peering down at the cowering woman. "Right. Smith, take our jolly boy here into custody. Come along, man, we're going down to the station for a little chat." He stood back and watched carefully as his partner cuffed the man, patted him briefly down, then led him out the door.
Immediately the tension in the room melted by several degrees. The policeman took a step towards the woman on the floor, but she huddled down even further, fear in every line of her body.
"Officer, let me," Hannah said. She stepped to the woman's side, and while she didn't exactly come up for air, she didn't flinch away from Hannah, either. Hannah turned back to the cop. "I'll take her to the women's shelter. You can come by later to get her statement. All right?"
He nodded agreement.
"How'd you get here so fast, anyway?" Hannah wanted to know.
"Oh, we were on our way already. There was a dead line call to emergency from this address." The policeman caught sight of the boy and smiled, stepped lightly closer to the bedroom door and squatted just out of arm's reach, unthreatening. "Would that have been you, brave lad?" he asked, his voice gentle. "Were you calling to protect your mum?"
His eyes huge in his white face, the boy nodded silently.
"Good lad. You did a very good and very brave thing. Thank you very much." He held out a hand. "Can you come out?"
This time the boy shook his head, hard, and the officer sighed. He got up slowly, so as not to startle the boy, and turned back to Hannah. "You'll be OK with the both of them, Miss?"
She nodded, but then he peered suddenly closer, only then getting a good look at her face. She only had a second's warning. "Miss Tyler, isn't it?"
Startled to hear "Tyler" rather than her professional name, it took her a second to react, but then she returned the close look and smiled. "Sergeant Barkley! It's been a while."
He nodded. "Yes, it has. Well, I'll leave this in your capable hands, then." And with that cryptic remark, he turned and left.