Felix Palma - The Map of Time

That period lasted two or three years, until the pain finally disappeared, giving way to something far worse: emptiness, lethargy, numbness. Marie Kelly’s murder had obliterated his will to live, severed his unique communication with the world, leaving him deaf and dumb, manoeuvring him into a corner of the universe where nothing happened. He had turned into an automaton, a gloomy creature that lived out of habit, without hope, simply because life, real life, had no link to the way he spent his days, but occurred quietly inside him, like a silent miracle, whether he liked it or not. In short, he became a lost soul, shutting himself in his room by day and roaming Hyde Park by night. Even the action of a flower coming into bud seemed rash, futile and pointless.

In the meantime, his cousin Charles had married one of the Keller sisters – Victoria or Madeleine, Andrew could not remember which – and had purchased an elegant house in Elystan Street. This did not stop him visiting Andrew nearly every day, and occasionally dragging him to his favourite brothels on the off-chance that one of the new girls might have the fire between her legs to rekindle his cousin’s dulled spirit. But to no avail: Andrew refused to be pulled out of the hole into which he had dug himself.

To Charles – whose point of view I shall adopt at this juncture, if you will consent to this rather obvious switch of perspective within a paragraph – this showed the resignation of someone who has embraced the role of victim. After all, the world needed martyrs as evidence of the Creator’s cruelly. It was even conceivable that his cousin had come to view what had happened to him as an opportunity to search his soul, to venture into its darkest, most inhospitable regions.

How many people go through life without experiencing pure pain? Andrew had known complete happiness and utter torment; he had used up his soul, so to speak, exhausted it completely. And now, comfortably installed with his pain, like a fakir on a bed of nails, he seemed to await who knew what: perhaps the applause signalling the end of the performance. Charles was certain that if his cousin was still alive it was because he felt compelled to experience that pain to the hilt. It was irrelevant whether this was a practical study of suffering or to atone for his guilt. Once Andrew felt he had achieved this, he would take a last bow and leave the stage for good.

Thus, each time Charles visited the Harrington mansion and found his cousin prone but still breathing, he heaved a sigh of relief. And when he arrived home empty-handed, convinced that anything he could do for Andrew was useless, he reflected on how strange life could be, how flimsy and unpredictable it was if it could be altered so drastically by the mere purchase of a painting. Was it within his power to change his cousin’s life again? Could he alter the path it would take before it was too late? He did not know. The only thing he was certain of was that, given everyone else’s indifference, he had to try.

In the little room on Dorset Street, Andrew opened the cutting and read for the last time, as though it were a prayer, the account of Marie Kelly’s mutilations. Then he folded it and replaced it in his coat pocket. He contemplated the bed, which bore no trace of what had happened there eight years before. But that was the only thing that was different: everything else remained unchanged – the grimy mirror, in which the crime had been immortalised, Marie Kelly’s little perfume bottles, the cupboard where her clothes still hung, even the ashes in the hearth left from the fire the Ripper had lit to make slitting her open cosier. He could think of no better place to take his own life.

He placed the barrel of the revolver under his jaw and crooked his finger around the trigger. Those walls would be splattered with blood once more, and far away, on the distant moon, his soul would at last take up its place in the little hollow awaiting him in Marie Kelly’s bed.

Chapter VI

With the revolver barrel digging into the flesh beneath his jaw, and his finger poised on the trigger, Andrew thought how strange it was for him to have come to this. He had chosen to bring about his own death even though most of his life he had, like everyone else, been content merely to fear it, imagine it in every illness, see it lurking treacherously all around him in a world of precipices, sharp objects, thin ice and jumpy horses, mocking the fragility of those who claimed to be kings of Creation. All that worrying about death, he thought, only to embrace it now. But that was how things were: it was enough to find life a sterile, unrewarding exercise to want to end it, and there was only one way to do that. And he had to confess that the vague unease he felt was in no way existential. Dying itself did not worry him in the least, because fear of death, whether it was a bridge to a biblical universe or a plank artfully suspended above the void, always derived from the certainly that the world went on without us, like a dog after its ticks have been removed.

Broadly speaking, then, pulling the trigger meant pulling out of the game, relinquishing any possibility of being dealt a better hand in the next round. Andrew doubted this could happen. He had lost all faith. He did not believe fate had any reward in store for him that would make up for the pain he had suffered. He did not believe such recompense existed. He was afraid of something far more mundane: the pain he would doubtless feel when the bullet shattered his jaw. Naturally, it would not be pleasant, but it was part of his plan, and therefore something he must accept. He felt his finger grow heavy as it rested on the trigger, gritted his teeth and prepared to put an end to his tragic life.

Just then, a knock came on the door. Startled, Andrew opened his eyes. Who could this be? Had McCarthy seen him arrive and come to ask for money to fix the window? The knocking became more insistent. That accursed money-grubber! If the man had the gall to stick his snout through the hole in the window, Andrew would not hesitate to shoot him. What did it matter now if he broke the absurd commandment about not killing your fellow man, especially if that man happened to be McCarthy?

‘Andrew, I know you’re in there. Open the door.’

With a bitter grimace, Andrew recognised his cousin Charles’s voice. Charles, Charles – always following him everywhere, looking out for him. He would have preferred it to be McCarthy. He could not shoot Charles. How had his cousin found him? And why did he go on trying when Andrew himself had long since given up?

‘Go away, Charles, I’m busy’ he cried.

‘Don’t do it, Andrew! I’ve found a way of saving Marie!’

‘Saving Marie?’ Andrew laughed grimly. He had to admit his cousin had imagination, although this was verging on bad taste. ‘Perhaps I should remind you Marie is dead,’ he shouted. ‘She was murdered in this miserable room eight years ago. When I could have saved her I didn’t. How can we save her now, Charles? By travelling through time?’

‘Exactly’ his cousin replied, slipping something beneath the door.

Andrew glanced at it with vague curiosity. It looked like a leaflet.

‘Read it, Andrew,’ his cousin implored, through the broken window. ‘Please read it.’

Andrew felt rather ashamed that his cousin should see him with the revolver pressed ridiculously against his jaw – perhaps not the most suitable place if you wanted to blow your head off. Knowing his cousin would not go away, he lowered the gun with an exasperated sigh, placed it on the bed and rose to fetch the piece of paper.

‘All right, Charles, you win,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s see what this is about’

He picked up the sheet of paper and examined it. It was a faded sky-blue handbill. He read it, unable to believe that what it said could be true. Amazing though it seemed, he was holding the advertisement for a company called Murray’s Time Travel, which offered journeys through time. This was what it said: