About nine that evening, after Nick had finally fallen asleep, Hope sat beside Hugh on the sofa in the living room and turned over the pages of one of her art books. Hugh was watching the television – like her, he preferred the implied sharing of the screen to glasses, even if they weren’t both watching, and even if, as now, the sound was going to the ears of only one of them. A BBC Horizon programme: the latest pictures of the latest Earth-like extrasolar planet to be imaged, the fourth with visible signs of life. For Hope the fascination of this had worn off since the global excitement over the first, though every so often she’d find herself pulled up short by the thought of life lit by the rays of another star. The strangeness of it, the sense of plurality, of possibility, of decentring… she imagined that this was how it must have felt for the first generation after Copernicus. Of course by now the clamour was for signs of intelligent life. There was even, in the tones of some of the regular news anchors and commentators and columnists, and for that matter people in the queue at Tesco, a feeling that the astronomers had somehow let everyone down by not having spotted the lights of cities and the jets of starships: they promised us little green men, and all they have to show us is little green patches!
Hope had no longing to meet aliens. She had a dark suspicion that it would not be a welcome encounter. But now and then, when the thought drifted through her mind like the clouds did in scenes from the space telescopes, she found an odd consolation in the now-certain knowledge that, altogether elsewhere, life, of whatever kind, went on.
She closed the book and walked quietly into the kitchen. She returned bearing a tray with the bottle of Glenmorangie, a small jug of tap water, and two heavy glasses. She set the tray down on the long low table in front of the sofa, and sat back, looking at the screen. White whorls swirled above jigsaw-piece shapes, some blue and some of other colours, pixels of vermilion and verdigris. A Chinese woman in a white coat talked. An American man with white hair gesticulated. A classroom full of black-haired students nodded and made a note. Back to the planet, this time a view of the night side, sharper in focus but more enigmatic in interpretation. The saccade of Hugh’s gaze suddenly snagged on the bottle. He sat upright and flicked at his ears, turning the sound off.
‘What’s that for?’ he said.
‘That’s what I was going to ask you,’ Hope said.
She reached for the whisky bottle and picked with her thumbnail at the notch in the dotted double line of the seal. Slowly she peeled the strip of soft heavy metal away, and then pulled off the entire seal.
‘Nasty stuff,’ she said, looking at the shard of painted alloy. ‘You could cut yourself. Surely it’s not made of lead?’ She folded it into a tiny parcel and dropped it on the tray. ‘You know, like bullets? Or airgun pellets?’
Hugh’s face reddened.
‘Speaking of bullets,’ Hope went on, ‘I’ve always thought this looked like one.’
She set the bottle back on the tray and tugged from her side pocket the carton containing the fix, opened it and tapped out the plastic and foil bubble. She turned it this way and that, letting the dull glint catch Hugh’s eye. ‘The fix. A magic bullet.’
She tossed it and the flowery-lettered carton on to the tray, then wiggled her monitor ring off her finger and dropped it there too. It bounced and rang to a stop. She picked up the bottle again and twisted the cork, easing it out.
‘Something to wash it down,’ she said. She placed the open bottle and the cork on the table.
‘Now wait a minute,’ said Hugh.
Hope sat back. ‘I’m waiting,’ she said. ‘You know where I found that bottle, and what I found it with. I’m waiting for an explanation.’
‘Oh fuck,’ said Hugh. He shifted on the sofa, leaning back into the corner. ‘I didn’t mean for you to find that.’
‘I appreciate that,’ said Hope. ‘In both senses of the word, you know?’
Hugh gave her an aw-shucks grin and open-handed shrug. ‘I feel very protective towards you and Nick,’ he said.
‘That’s not why,’ she said. ‘Or it would be in a more convenient place. Like under the bed.’
‘It has to be somewhere the boy can’t reach.’
‘You still haven’t said why.’
Hugh licked his lips. ‘My father gave it to me, when I was thirteen or so.’
‘You could have left it with him,’ she said. ‘Come on.’
‘Well, you know how it is.’
‘No, I fucking don’t know how it is!’ She put her hand across her mouth, with the vague idea that no one who looked at the camera recording could use it to lip-read. ‘It’s illegal! You could get us both arrested!’
Hugh shifted again on the couch. He sighed and stretched out a hand to the whisky bottle, and looked at her.
‘Do you mind?’ he said.
‘Go right ahead,’ said Hope, with a flourish of her hand like a waiter showing someone to a table. ‘I was thinking of having a dram myself.’
His hand jerked back. ‘No, sorry.’
‘Only joking,’ said Hope. ‘Have a dram. I don’t mind.’
Hugh poured himself a costly measure and added a splash of water. He leaned forward, hand wrapped around the glass. He took a sip and closed his eyes, inhaling.
‘Ah, that’s good,’ he said.
‘Don’t rub it in,’ said Hope.
Hugh scratched the back of his head. ‘All right. Think of it as medicinal. Or as a truth drug.’
‘OK,’ said Hope, leaning back with her arms folded. ‘Talk.’
‘All right,’ said Hugh. ‘Um, why. Well.’ He took a longer sip. ‘I thought I might need it, some day, if…’ He twisted his lower lip against the edges of his upper teeth. Sniffed. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
Oh fuck, thought Hope, fearing the worst and unable to imagine what it could be.
When he finally got it out, and when she finally understood what he was getting at, it was such a relief that she had trouble not laughing.
‘You thought… you might find yourself… in the past?’
‘Yes,’ said Hugh, nodding vigorously. ‘Or that someone might come for me, out of the past, and… you know, I might need some…’
His voice trailed off, as if he found what he was saying ridiculous.
Hope closed her eyes. ‘Oh, Jesus.’ She opened them again. ‘But you said yourself, it’s just sight.’
‘No,’ said Hugh, his voice heavy. ‘Some of it is, the people. But no – it’s smell too. And that land I saw, I felt I could have climbed through to it. I felt the wind on my face. I could smell the smoke. And I heard the footsteps behind me.’
Hope felt the tiny hairs on her cheeks and the back of her neck prickle.
‘Smells and sounds can be hallucinations too,’ she pointed out.
‘I know that! Don’t I know that! But I’m telling you, that was what made it seem more real. I was terrified. I had nightmares. That’s why I asked my dad for the… for the thing.’
‘And you’re telling me you still have that fear you had then?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Hugh. ‘It’s just that… it’s like superstition. Like you might come to think of something as lucky, because it seemed to work once or twice, and, you know, better safe than sorry. So I keep it like a… a talisman. And anyway, like I said, I still see them sometimes. The barbarians. And hear and smell them, for that matter.’
‘But they’ve never threatened you at all?’
‘Just that one in the culvert. He… I suppose it was he… really did seem to be coming after me.’
‘But apart from that?’
Hugh shook his head. ‘No, no, never.’ He smiled, as if clouds had broken for a moment. ‘And the first was Voxy, and she seemed to grow into you.’