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we walked home, I
changed the subject and asked Niki how her parents were. She gave
me an incredulous look.
    “ Parents?”
    “ Mum and
dad.”
    “ If this is
sick joke Joe, it’s really not funny…”
    “ I don’t
understand,” I said. She stopped and looked at me, staring intently
at my face.
    “ You really
don’t know, do you?”
    “ Know
what?”
    “ That Mama
died in 2005.”
    When we got home, I
listened with a mixture of horror and amazement whilst Niki told me
how her mother had been shopping in the City in July 2005 when
terrorist bombs were detonated on buses and underground trains. The
July bombings were part of the history I knew. But by changing a
leader, you can change other things – including responses to
terrorist threats. One of the bombs detected and immobilized by the
Special Branch under the government I had known, was missed by the
British authorities in the new history version, and it was that
particular bomb that had killed Niki’s mother Gloria.
    “ Niki, I know
this will sound completely crazy,” I said, “but I think there’s a way we can
bring Gloria back.”
     
    ***

Three
     
    That night I reflected on
what had been an unbelievable day. I still had no real idea of how
I’d been able to go back in time and impact World events; yet the
undeniable truth was that I’d done exactly that. The twin towers of
the World Trade Center in New York City stood as concrete proof of
my intervention, and the three thousand or so lives that had been
saved indicated to me that my actions had been completely
justified.
    On the other
hand, I had just killed one US President, a British Prime Minister,
Niki’s mother Gloria – and god knows who else. Then there was an
Iraq with Saddam Hussein still in power. Was that for the best? If
this extraordinary experience was not just a one–off, and I could
travel back in time and alter history at will, I must consider all
the possible consequences before playing god in
future .
    My first
priority now, though, was to undo the death of Gloria – and that of
the fifty other people who died on 7 th July, 2005 in London. I
suppose I should also try to stop the assassination of Bush and
Blair in 2002… but there was no rush for that.
    The fact that Niki was
blissfully unaware of the World changes I’d engineered made me
realize that I could continually change the course of history, and
no–one would be any the wiser. In fact, if someone other than me
travelled back in time and changed the past, I’d also be totally
unaware of anything amiss. It was as if there were many alternate
versions of reality, and each one was as valid as the next.
Mindboggling.
    The next question was how
to explain all this to Niki. However hard it was, I just had to try
to tell her what had happened at the airport – and what was
possible.
    *
    Niki was born
in Shanghai and moved to England with her parents when her father
landed a job at the Chinese Embassy in London. She was just seven
years old when they emigrated and consequently grew up with both
British and Chinese cultures. She attended British schools in
London, and was soon fluent in both Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese) and
English. Early on, she developed an avid interest in Western
literature, and devoured books written by the likes of Kafka,
Somerset Maugham, TS Eliot, and Milan Kundera. She is far wider
read than I am – and will ever be. It was through an interest in
books that we met one February evening in 2007 – at the Institute
Francais in South Kensington. We were both attending the launch of
a French Psychologist’s book ‘ Talking of
Love on the Edge of a Precipice. ’ Niki was
there because of her love of words, and I was there because of my
love of free French wine.
    When I spotted
her in the front row, the wine suddenly took a back seat. What was
an attractive Chinese twenty–something doing at a French book
launch, I wondered? A few dates later, I knew exactly why she was
there – for passion. Ling