The Map of Time (Trilogía Victoriana #1)(106)

Gilliam Murray had to repress another access of rage. He twisted in his seat, as though he were suffering from convulsions, but in a matter of seconds he managed to recover his relaxed, almost blasé demeanor. He studied Wells with amused curiosity for a few moments, as though he were a strange species of insect he had never seen before, then let out a thunderous guffaw.

“Do you know what the difference is between you and me, Mr. Wells?” The author saw no reason to reply and simply shrugged.

“Our outlook,” Gilliam went on. “Our outlook on things.

You are a conformist and I am not. You are content to deceive your readers, with their agreement, by writing about things that might happen in the hope that they will believe them. But you never lose sight of the fact that what you are writing is a novel and therefore pure make-believe. I, however, am not content with that, Mr. Wells. The fact that my speculations took the form of a novel is purely circumstantial, because all it requires is a stack of paper and a strong wrist. And to be honest, it matters very little to me whether my book is published or not, because I suspect I would not be satisfied with a handful of readers who enjoy it, debating about whether the future I describe is plausible or not, because they will always consider it an invention of mine. No, I aspire to much more than being recognized as an imaginative writer. I want people to believe in my invention without realizing it’s an invention, to believe the year 2000 will be exactly as I have described it. And I will prove to you I can make them believe it, however implausible it might seem to you. Only I shan’t present it to them in a novel, Mr. Wells; I shall leave those childish things to you. You carry on writing your fantasies in books. I will make mine a reality.” “A reality?” asked Wells, not quite grasping what his guest was driving at. “What do you mean?” “You’ll see, Mr. Wells. And when you do, if you are a true gentleman, you will perhaps offer me an apology.” With that, Gilliam rose from his chair and smoothed down his jacket with one of those graceful gestures that startled everyone in such a bulky man.

“Good day to you, Mr. Wells. Don’t forget me, or Captain Shackleton. You’ll be hearing from us soon,” he said as he picked his hat from the table and placed it nimbly on his head. “There’s no need to see me to the door. I can find my own way out.” His departure was so sudden that Wells was left sitting in his chair, at a loss, unable to stand up even after Murray’s footsteps had died away and he heard him shut the front gate. He remained seated for a long time in the sitting room pondering Murray’s words, until he told himself that this egomaniac did not deserve another moment of consideration. And the fact that he heard nothing from him in the ensuing months finally made him forget the disagreeable encounter. Until the day when he received the leaflet from Murray’s Time Travel. Then Wells realized what Gilliam had meant by “I will make mine a reality.” And, apart from a few scientists and doctors who kicked up a fuss in the newspapers, the whole of England had fallen for his “implausible” invention, thanks in part to Wells himself having raised people’s expectations with his novel The Time Machine, an added irony that irritated him all the more.

From then on, every week without fail he received a leaflet inviting him to take part in one of the bogus expeditions to the year 2000. That crook would have liked nothing more than to have the very man who had unleashed the current obsession for time travel to endorse his company by sanctioning the elaborate hoax, which, naturally, Wells had not the slightest intention of doing. The worst of it, though, was the message underlying the polite invitations. Wells knew Gilliam was certain he would never accept, and this turned the invitations into a mockery, a taunt on paper that was also a threat, for the fact that the leaflets were delivered by hand suggested Murray himself, or one of his men, placed them in Wells’s letter box. In any event, it made no difference, since the objective was the same: to show Wells how easy it was to loiter around his house unseen, to make sure he knew he had not been forgotten, to remind him he was being watched.

But what most infuriated Wells in this whole affair was that, however much he wanted to, he could not denounce him, as Tom had suggested, for the simple reason that Gilliam had won. Yes, he had proved that his future was plausible, and, rather than sweep the pieces off the board in a fit of rage, Wells must sportingly accept defeat. His integrity prevented him from doing anything except stand by while Murray made a fortune. And the situation appeared to amuse Murray enormously, for by placing the leaflets religiously in his letter box, not only was he reminding Wells of his victory, he was also defying the author to unmask him.

“I will make it a reality,” he had said. And, to Wells’s astonishment, he had done so.





31


That afternoon Wells went for a longer bicycle ride than usual, and without Jane.

He needed to think while he pedaled, he told her. Dressed in his favorite Norfolk jacket, he rode slowly and silently along the Surrey byways while his mind, oblivious to the action of his legs, reflected on how to reply to the letter penned by the na?ve girl named Claire Haggerty. According to the imaginative tale Tom had concocted in the tearoom, their correspondence would consist of seven letters, of which he would write three and Claire, four, and in the last she would ask him to travel through time to return her parasol. Otherwise, Wells was free to write whatever he liked, provided it did not contradict Tom’s story. And he had to admit, the more he thought about it the more intriguing he found the semiliterate young lad’s tale. It was evocative, beautiful, but above all plausible—assuming of course the existence of a machine capable of digging holes through the fabric of time and linking eras, and also of course, if Murray’s view of the future were true. This was the part Wells liked least: Gilliam Murray being somehow mixed up in this, as he had been in saving the wretched Andrew Harrington’s soul. Were their lives destined to carry on being entwined, like creeping ivy? Wells felt distinctly odd now that he was stepping into the role of Captain Derek Shackleton, the character his adversary had invented. Would he be the one responsible for breathing the gift of life into that empty shell, like the God of the Old Testament? Wells arrived home after his ride pleasantly exhausted and with a rough idea of what he was going to write. He scrupulously set out his pen, an inkwell, and a sheaf of paper on the kitchen table, and asked Jane not to disturb him for the next hour. He sat at the table, drew a deep breath, and began penning his first ever love letter: Dear Claire, I, too, have been obliged to begin this letter several times over before realizing that, however strange it might seem to me, I can only begin by declaring my love to you, exactly as you requested. Although I have to confess to begin with I did not believe myself capable, and I used up several sheets trying to explain that what you were asking me to do in your letter was to make a leap of faith. I even wrote: How can I fall in love with you if I have never even seen you, Miss Haggerty? Yet, despite my understandable wariness, I had to face the facts: you insisted I had fallen in love with you.