Twin Earth

Chapter 60

"You okay?" James asked, eyeing me with a concerned look as he placed a pint of local ale down in front of me. "You were pretty quiet on the way up here. I guess this has all been quite a journey eh?"

Raising a slight smile I nodded. It was true that I was struggling to come to terms with the idea that I had missed twelve years of my life on Earth. The journey up from Swindon had only highlighted that fact. The towns and cities we had passed through on the train were still the same places I knew, but interjected between the familiar buildings were larger, taller, blatantly more futuristic structures. Even the people were different, their clothes, their hair, how they carried themselves.

'How could so much have changed in just twelve years,' I had wondered to myself as a young girl had plonked herself down opposite us on the train. Her hair had been neat, cut sharply into a short bob that was held back by a million clips. Her clothes were virtually skin-tight, like a wet suit, but in a softer more feminine fabric that didn't give too much away. Her coat too had been made from a similar material and I had noticed how the water from the rain she had been caught in only moments before hadn't soaked into the fabric, instead it had evaporated on the skin of the fabric, leaving her perfectly dry and comfortable. You could have argued that this girl had been an exception, but the train had been full of people dressed in a similar way, all with perfectly formed hair and neat, crisp clothes. I had pointed it out to James, but he had simply shrugged and stated that times had changed.

"You going to call your Dad?" James continued, sitting down.

It was around nine in the evening and even though we had arrived at the tiny country pub we were now sat in earlier that morning, I had slept most of the day in my room upstairs.

"Does he not know I'm back?" I asked surprised. "I just assumed Yuki would have told him."

"Well yeah, she did, but I'm confused why you seem to be avoiding him?" James replied, taking a long sip from his own pint of ale as the open fire next to us crackled.

"The whole situation is just weird that's all. I mean, for him I've been dead for twelve years! How do you come back from that?"

"No pun intended I presume?" James joked, trying to lighten the mood and regretting it quickly after noticing my scowl.

"Seriously though, what do I say to him?" I asked.

"What about your mum? Doesn't she live here, in Scotland I mean?"

"I doubt she had even noticed I'd gone. Maybe I'm just better off on my own."

"Now come on old buddy. You and your Dad have always been a team and... well, you may not have a choice in the matter."

"What does that mean? What have you done?" I asked nervously.

"Yuki kind of asked your Dad to join us tomorrow, up at Callanish. He's on a flight here as we speak."

Sighing heavily, I took a large swig from my pint and stared into the fire. The tiny local pub was only a few miles from the small village of Callanish, alone and remote like most of the places on the island. We'd arrived on a very cold day and the bleakness of the place had taken me by surprise. I had become so use to the array of bizarre futuristic alien locations on my travels that to arrive in something not only from my own time, but from a time that hadn't changed in decades, it was kind of comforting. At least the locals were dressed in normal clothes with happily dishevelled hair and unkempt beards.

"Is it Rachel? Is that what's really bothering you?" James continued. "What really happened up there?"

"She and I we... Oh I don't know," I shrugged, avoiding James' gaze.

"You can't blame yourself Tom, not again. This isn't like before."

"Isn't it?" I asked.

"No, to think that way is ridiculous. You didn't have a choice. I mean, you saved us all. If you hadn't done what you did then who knows if we would even be here now talking. Rachel would have understood that."

"Even if she did survive the devastation there, she's been stuck on that planet for twelve years! Twelve bloody years James. No family, no friends..."

"She has that Apo guy doesn't she?" James interrupted.

"Yeah, but they're not her people. We're her people. I don't know if I could handle it if that was me."

"But she's not you Tom, she's a tough young woman. You should give her more credit. Come on, drink up. I'm getting in another round. Oi Hayden, what's your poison?" James shouted over to Hayden and a couple of other scientists that had joined us on the trip.

Gazing back into the fire as James went to the bar, a part of me was excited to see my father again. I wasn't sure why I hadn't called him either. Maybe it was the worry about seeing him so much older, possibly frailer or maybe it was just I couldn't imagine what affect my disappearance would have had after so long.

'How do you even start that kind of conversation?' I thought. 'Hi, it's me, your dead son, back from the grave after over a decade.'

When my mother had left him when I was still a teenager, I didn't hear from my father for over three years because he couldn't handle not seeing me. The irony of that situation wasn't lost on me and it wasn't until I was at university that I finally got in contact with him myself and asked why I never saw him. He blamed it on a form of depression that meant he could only focus his attention on work rather than family matters. Being so British I couldn't relate to this Japanese attitude of emotional withdrawal and it took a long time for us to regain the bond we'd once had. I guess a part of me was afraid he would resort to his old ways. That he wouldn't be open to the relationship we'd had before. I wasn't sure I could go through all that pain again. As for my mother, like I'd told James, she probably hadn't even noticed I had even disappeared and I knew my Dad wouldn't have told her. For the first time since leaving Mochuvia I really missed Rachel.