‘And tonight you’re gonna meet a few of Ry’s closest friends.’
He helped me with the wig and once again we left the hotel incognito. We drove downtown to a car park close to the water. Although it was early evening, the air was still hot and stuffy.
As we walked across the car park, Peg put an arm around my shoulder. It was a friendly, non-threatening gesture, but I felt my body stiffen. ‘Let me pay for everything tonight,’ he said. ‘If you use your flexi-card, everyone will know who you are.’
The car park opened on to a narrow alleyway with bags of rubbish piled up beside overflowing bins, and posters stapled to telegraph poles and doorways.
‘Short cut,’ said Peg. ‘It will save us five minutes.’
We stopped for a moment by a machine at the end of the alley, so that Peg could top up the credits on his port-com. He slid the port-com into the machine and tapped a code on to the screen. Although the alley was deserted, it was just the sort of place I always avoided, the sort of place you were warned about as a child.
‘Is Lakeborough a safe city?’ I asked.
‘It’s one of the wealthiest cities in the Federation,’ he said. ‘Crime is low. But like any city, there are parts best avoided.’
The credit machine beeped and pushed the port-com back out through its mouth.
‘Let’s go,’ said Peg, thrusting the port-com into his pocket.
With every step that brought me closer to the door of the inn, my heart squeezed harder. I was going to meet Ryan’s friends. I knew nothing about them. Apart from Peg, he’d never told me anything about them. They would all be older than me. What if they didn’t like me? What if one of them was Ryan’s ex, the girl he’d dated before me?
‘Hey, Albert,’ said Peg to the bouncer at the door.
The bouncer nodded at him.
‘They’ll all be out the back,’ said Peg.
Once inside, Peg dropped my arm. In single file we squeezed through the crowded bar. Music – an eerie, hypnotic combination of heavy drums and violins – blared from two huge speakers over by a raised stage. At the back of the bar was a sliding glass door that opened on to a large deck that extended over the lake. All sorts of boats, from small sailing boats to large ferries, floated across the water. Peg looked around, spotting his friends at a table right by the water’s edge.
‘Hey, everyone,’ he said when we reached the table. ‘This is Eden.’
There were three of them: two girls and a boy. The boy and one of the girls were pale-skinned and strawberry blonde. They were obviously brother and sister; later, I found out they were twins. The other girl was olive-skinned with long dark hair. All three of them stared up at me. And then the boy, who had a long thin cigar hanging out of his mouth, stood up to shake my hand.
‘Antoine,’ he said. ‘Delighted to meet you.’
The fair girl stood then and held a pale hand out for me to shake. ‘Isabelle,’ she said. ‘My friends call me Belle.’
The other girl was stunning. She had high, pronounced cheekbones and large, green eyes that reminded me of a cat.
‘Hello, Eden,’ she said, remaining seated. ‘I’m Lyra.’
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you all,’ I said stiffly. ‘Thanks for letting me join you tonight.’
‘You can all stop staring at her now,’ said Peg.
He pulled out a chair for me and took the one right next to it.
‘Is beer OK?’ asked Antoine. ‘I ordered a bucket of them. Dad said that was the popular drink back in your day?’
‘Beer is great,’ I said.
Antoine passed me a bottle from a bucket in the centre of the table. I gulped it quickly, glad for something cold. When I looked up, they were all still staring at me.
‘I thought you had red hair,’ said Lyra.
Automatically, I reached up and touched the soft fake hair on my head. ‘It’s a wig,’ I said.
‘We had to disguise her to get away from all those journos outside her hotel,’ Peg explained.
‘How’s Orion?’ asked Antoine. ‘I can’t believe he didn’t get bail.’
‘I don’t really know how he is,’ I said. ‘I haven’t been able to see him since we landed.’
‘Have they set a date for the trial?’ he asked.
‘According to his father, it should be in the next few days.’
There was a pause.
‘How did he get caught?’ asked Lyra. ‘When he said goodbye, he seemed pretty confident he knew how to cover his tracks.’
‘I’m not sure how the cleaner found us,’ I said, reddening.
‘Are the stories true then?’ Lyra asked, arching her eyebrows. ‘Are you and Ry a modern day Romeo and Juliet?’
‘Stop interrogating the girl,’ said Antoine, nudging Lyra.
‘It’s so romantic,’ said Belle. ‘The two of you travelling through time to be together.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Lyra, with a half smile.
‘So what’s life like back in the twenty-first century?’ Antoine asked, a little too loudly. ‘What do people do on a Saturday night? Do they sit around the pianoforte and sing songs?’
I laughed. ‘They go out drinking and dancing and to parties. Saturday night where I’m from looks a lot like this.’
‘Really?’ said Antoine. ‘I thought you all wore corsets and had chaperones.’
Belle smacked Antoine’s arm playfully. ‘That’s the nineteenth century, dumbbell.’
‘I’m disappointed. I imagined that people from your time were different from us.’
For a second I considered telling them about Connor and me playing endless games of chess and Scrabble, but the thought made me so nostalgic that I decided against it.
‘What do you think of Lakeborough?’ asked Antoine.
‘It seems cool. I haven’t seen much yet. Although it was beautiful up in the mountains yesterday.’
‘Which mountains?’ asked Lyra.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know what they’re called. Peg took me there.’
‘I took her to Twin Falls,’ said Peg.
‘Really, Pegasus?’ said Lyra. ‘You took Orion’s girlfriend to Twin Falls.’
Peg drained his beer and slammed the bottle on the table. ‘Yes. I wanted to take her out of the city, away from the reporters. And Twin Falls is one of Orion’s favourite places.’
‘Sure,’ said Lyra with a smirk. ‘That’s why you took her there.’
‘I love the way you always assume the basest motives in everyone,’ said Peg. He stood up abruptly, tipping his chair back towards the floor. He pushed it up with the toe of his shoe. ‘Looks like we’re getting low on drinks. Beers again?’
He didn’t wait for an answer.
‘I’ll give him a hand,’ said Belle, standing up. ‘I’m not letting him pay for beer.’
A shadow fell across my face as someone approached the table from behind me. He leant over and plucked the last bottle of beer from the bucket.
‘Beer, huh? So, what’s the occasion?’
I turned and saw a tall boy with light blonde hair. He untwisted the top with his hand, tilted his head back and poured half the bottle into his mouth.
‘Hey, Clarence,’ said Antoine.
Clarence nodded at Antoine. ‘You gonna dance with me tonight, Lyra?’
‘I don’t dance any more.’
‘I would hold you.’ He turned to me. ‘I don’t believe we’ve met.’ He passed the beer to his left hand and held out his right hand to shake.
I accepted. He shook my hand vigorously and then sat in Peg’s chair. He leant close. ‘Clarence Wolfe. And you are?’
I hesitated. Was he a friend? He seemed to know the others, though Lyra hadn’t been especially warm to him. ‘Eden Anfield.’
He smiled. ‘Do I detect an accent?’
‘British.’
‘Are you vacationing in Lakeborough?’
‘Something like that.’
His eyes lit up. ‘You’re that Eden. I didn’t recognise you. Your hair is different.’