The Time Traveller and the Tiger Read online

  AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS

  www.headofzeus.com

  First published in the UK in 2020 by Zephyr, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd

  Text copyright © Tania Unsworth, 2020

  Jacket art copyright © Helen Crawford-White, 2020

  Part opener artwork © Laura Brett, 2020

  The rights of Tania Unsworth to be identified as the author of this work and of Helen Crawford-White and Laura Brett to be identified as the artist have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 9781788541695

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  For David Emile Thaler,

  always and forever.

  Contents

  Also by Tania Unsworth

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part 1: The Tiger in the Spare Room

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Part 2: The Flower that Catches Time

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Thirty-four

  Thirty-five

  Thirty-six

  Thirty-seven

  Thirty-eight

  Thirty-nine

  Forty

  Forty-one

  Forty-two

  Forty-three

  Forty-four

  Forty-five

  Forty-six

  Forty-seven

  Forty-eight

  Forty-nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-one

  Fifty-two

  Fifty-three

  Fifty-four

  Fifty-five

  Part 3: What Happened Instead

  Fifty-six

  Fifty-seven

  Fifty-eight

  Fifty-nine

  A Tiger for All Time

  Acknowledgements

  Join the Fight

  Preview

  About Zephyr

  PART 1:

  The Tiger in the Spare Room

  1946. CENTRAL INDIA.

  It was so still, John was sure it was dead.

  He didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, rigid with shock and disbelief. The birds had risen shrieking from the trees and answering cries of alarm had filled the forest. Now a hush had fallen over the clearing. John stepped forward, still holding the gun in both hands, his eyes locked on the body in the grass. It lay with its back to him, its colour even more improbable in the hard, open glare of the midday sun. He took a few more steps and stopped, his heart thudding. Insects pulsed steadily in the undergrowth and an invisible woodpecker tapped, paused, and tapped again.

  John leaned closer, craning his neck.

  The tiger snarled and twisted with shocking ferocity, striking too fast for John to see. He felt his feet leave the ground; a confusion of sky, muscled fur and burning breath. Then pain tore through his body, and the world went out.

  It was dark when he opened his eyes. He was half on his back, half on his side. There were stars in the sky, and in the corner of his vision, the black shapes of trees. His gun lay nearby, moonlight glinting on the barrel, although he couldn’t reach it. Something hot and vastly heavy was preventing him from moving his legs. He raised his head.

  His heart staggered and seemed to stop.

  The tiger was lying on top of him, pinning him from the waist down. John could smell the sharp, musky, overpowering scent of its skin, could see the slope of its back, ten shades darker than the night sky. As he stared, the slope rose a fraction and he felt a shudder run through the tiger’s body.

  It was still alive!

  Every atom in John’s body froze. Then his heart bounded into frenzy, and the stars above him trembled, as if the sky itself was being shaken. Any second now, the tiger would turn and kill him. John wished he was already dead, just to have it over and done with, just to stop the awful pounding in his chest. With a great effort, he managed to raise his right hand. He clutched the front of his shirt and waited.

  Nothing moved. Only the cold night breeze in the grass, and the slope of the tiger’s back as it breathed.

  No tiger lay out in the open, especially one that was wounded. John didn’t need Mandeep to tell him that. It would drag itself to cover if it could. He felt another breath fill the tiger’s body and pass slowly away.

  The animal was too hurt to seek refuge. It couldn’t move, any more than he could. They were in the same boat, the tiger and him. For a second, John had an image of a fishing vessel with narrow hull and snug canopy, the tiger steering with a long oar at the stern, while John kept watch at the bow. The image was so clear and so bizarre, he felt a spark of hope. Perhaps he was dreaming. Fast asleep under a mosquito net in his bedroom at home. Safe.

  Then the pain came back. It came suddenly, as if – like the tiger – it had been waiting to strike, spreading from his right leg in a knife-sharpened wave. He heard himself groan, and as if in answer, the distant whoop-whoop of langur monkeys. The sky blurred.

  Time passed. He couldn’t tell if it was a minute or an hour. He found the pain was slightly less if he twisted his shoulder to one side. He grabbed a clump of grass to hold himself in place and clenched his teeth.

  His leg must be broken, he thought. It was a miracle he wasn’t dead. The tiger could have killed him easily. Mandeep said…

  His head swam, his hold on the grass slippery with sweat.

  Mandeep said that a tiger’s forepaw was powerful enough to knock a full-grown bull off its feet, and deft enough to catch a passing fly. Once, during a hunt, a tiger had sprung from the bushes and leaped over the head of one of the beaters. It had barely brushed the man as it passed. Yet when the others went to help the beater to his feet, they found him dead. The tiger had snapped his neck as if it were a twig.

  If a tiger wants to kill you, Mandeep had once told John, there is no power on earth that can stop it.

  It didn’t want to kill me, John thought. It was only defending itself.

  His mind wandered. Back at home they would have missed him by nightfall, although it would have been pointless to send a search party. They would be waiting for first light before setting out to look for him. By then it might be too late. John wondered how his parents would feel if he died. Sad, of course. But mostly disappointed at how badly he had let them down.

  The pain had grown
distant. In its place was a creeping chill, as if his bones were turning to ice.

  He stared at the tiger’s dark bulk. Its breath seemed slower than before, and he found himself counting each rise and fall.

  One… two…

  Perhaps if he tried, he could count them in to morning, he and the tiger, together in the same boat.

  Eight… nine…

  The boat had a blue canopy; water droplets flew, sparkling as the long oar dipped. All he had to do was concentrate, and he could count them in to shore, across the teeming, earth-brown river.

  John had loosened his grip on the clump of grass some time ago. Now, barely knowing what he was doing, he lifted his hand and placed it on the tiger’s back, palm flat against the warm, silky hide.

  Thirty-seven… thirty…

  The sky grew pearly and the low mist of dawn gathered above the tall grasses, turning their tips to silver. The sound of birds filled the air with a hundred different trills and babbles and whistling calls. But John was hardly aware of any of it. Somewhere, between one number and the next, he had hesitated. He had lost count. And now there was no point starting again.

  The tiger lay still beneath his hand.

  Far above, a vulture circled on broad, unhurried wings. John followed it with his eyes, feeling his mind drift from his body. He was with the vulture, looking down on himself. He saw his own face turned to the sky, saw the motionless body of the tiger. It looked far smaller than he remembered, already turning pale. The living flame of its skin fading to the colour of grass at the end of summer.

  A terrible grief filled John’s heart. A sense of wrongness that could never be put right. Tears rose in his eyes and ran unchecked down the side of his face. He heard a cry, the thump of running feet. The men in the search party were here. Mandeep was leaning over him, touching his hand.

  John tried to speak but no words came.

  ‘Be still,’ Mandeep said.

  He was carried home, one of the servants running ahead to fetch the doctor from town. His broken leg would never fully heal. He would always walk with a limp, although in time he would get used to it. In time, he would get used to many things. A new home, a new country, a different way of thinking about the world.

  But all his life – even when he was an old man – he would carry the sense of wrongness he’d felt that morning when the tiger died. As if something had happened which wasn’t meant to happen. As if a mistake had been made in the universe. And because of it, he would live his life the same way he walked.

  Always just a little out of step.

  THE PRESENT. ENGLAND.

  There was a tiger in Great-Uncle John Lassiter’s other spare room.

  Elsie nearly screamed when she opened the door. Then she saw it wasn’t a tiger. It was just something that had once been one. Now it lay with its empty legs spread out, as flat and as dry as a great, striped flower pressed between the pages of a book. Only its head had been left intact, its jaws frozen in a roar.

  There wasn’t anything else in the room, apart from a glass cabinet full of what looked like a hundred identical cups and saucers. Elsie walked all the way around the tiger, gazing at it. Then, holding her breath, she bent and touched its head with the tip of her finger.

  The tiger’s eyes were made of glass, fixed in a dull stare.

  Elsie went back into the corridor. She could hear her great-uncle in the kitchen, clattering pans as he made breakfast. Any minute now, he would call her, and she would have to go and make conversation. With a perfect stranger. Who had a dead tiger in his spare room.

  If only her mother hadn’t forgotten Elsie was meant to be on holiday.

  ‘I don’t know how I got the dates wrong,’ her mother had said for the twentieth time, on the long drive to Great-Uncle John’s house the day before. ‘I thought your holidays started next week.’

  Elsie didn’t say anything. She was used to people forgetting about her. It happened quite a lot. Just last week, after the school trip to the wildlife centre, the coach taking them back had left without her. It was seventeen whole minutes before anyone noticed. She had spent the time sitting on a bench by the centre’s entrance, trying to think cheerful thoughts. It’s funny, really, she had decided. It’s an adventure!

  Elsie supposed she must be easy to overlook because she was so small. And also because, apart from that, there wasn’t a single thing about her that stood out. She was neither at the top of the class, nor the bottom. She wasn’t great at sports, and she wasn’t hopeless. She wasn’t popular or unpopular, bold or timid, pretty or plain.

  If she was in a film, Elsie thought, she would be an extra; one of those people who wandered around in the background, while the main character was having a fascinating conversation, or fighting villains, or just walking down the street in the way that main characters did. As if their outline was twice as clear as everyone else’s.

  ‘I know you’re going to like your great-uncle,’ Elsie’s mother said.

  ‘But I’ve never even met him,’ Elsie said.

  ‘Well, of course you have! Your father and I were staying with him when you were born. He chose your name. His mother – your great-great-aunt – was called Elsie. We visited him a lot when you were tiny, before we went to live in Boston.’

  Elsie didn’t remember. She had spent most of her life in America. Her parents had decided to move back to England only last year.

  ‘I don’t see why I can’t go with you to your conference.’

  ‘We’ve been through this already,’ her mother said. ‘You’d have nothing to do and I can’t cancel any of my meetings. Plus, your dad won’t be back from his business trip until the middle of next week… it’s awful timing…’

  Elsie sighed and bent her head to her notebook again, her pen moving rapidly over the page as her mother talked.

  The Incredible Adventures of Kelsie Corvette

  When Kelsie Corvette was born her parents were so happy they wished every day of the year could be her birthday and they always planned fantastic summer holidays for her even though they werent very afloo aflew

  ‘How do you spell “affluent”?’ Elsie said.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’ her mother said. ‘I was telling you about Great-Uncle John. He’s such a kind man, I’ve always wondered why he never married. My mother told me there was a girl he liked, years and years ago, but for some reason it didn’t work out, and he never fell in love with anyone else. But that’s John for you. He can be very stubborn once he gets an idea in his head…’

  Elsie stared out of the car window, biting the top of her pen.

  We have a lovely surprise for you Kelsie her mum said one day. How would you like to spend the summer on a ranch in Texas? Kelsie had never ridden a horse before but as she rose in the saddle she instinktivly knew what to do. I’ve never seen anything like it said the owner of the ranch she’s a natural. One of my men was bitten by a rattelsnake can you take his place in the rodeo next week?

  Not a problem! said Kelsie Corvette.

  ‘I don’t know how I got the dates wrong,’ Elsie’s mother said for the twenty-first time. ‘I’m really, really sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Elsie told her. ‘It’s only for a week. Maybe it’ll be interesting.’

  Her mother gave her a grateful look. ‘You’re so good at making the best of things, Elsie,’ she said.

  Elsie went to her room and got dressed. Her jeans were too long for her. She’d had to fold the bottoms to make them fit. The extra rolls of denim gave her legs a cut-off look, as if she was wading up to her ankles.

  On the plus side, it was surprising how many things you could store in the turn-ups. They were almost as good as pockets, Elsie thought.

  Great-Uncle John had made eggs and bacon and baked beans and fried tomatoes and toast for breakfast.

  ‘I got extra bacon,’ he said. ‘I thought, everyone likes bacon, don’t they?’

  Elsie nodded, staring at the table. There was so much food that she could hardly
see her plate.

  ‘You can’t go wrong with bacon,’ Great-Uncle John said.

  ‘I guess not,’ Elsie said, trying to load her fork without sending an egg sliding on to the tablecloth. The table had been set with napkins, a vase of flowers, a butter dish in the shape of a cow, and a pair of salt and pepper shakers that looked as if they were made of solid silver. Great-Uncle John had gone to a lot of trouble just for breakfast, she thought.

  She gave him a quick glance as he went to fetch milk from the fridge. He was thin, with quite a lot of hair left, and although he walked with a limp, he didn’t hobble or take ages to get from one side of the kitchen to the other. For someone so old, he looked fairly normal, she decided.

  He sat down at the table and cleared his throat. Elsie wondered if he was going to say something about bacon again. She had the feeling he was finding it as difficult to make conversation as she was.

  ‘This is delicious,’ she said, to be helpful. ‘Thank you, Great-Uncle John.’

  ‘That’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Maybe you could just call me…’ He paused. ‘Perhaps “Uncle John” would be easier,’ he suggested, after deep thought.

  ‘Okay.’

  Another silence fell. ‘I hope you won’t find it too dull, staying here,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose it’s quite how you imagined spending the summer holidays. The village is rather small, but of course there’s always the woods, and the river, and so on…’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘It sounds really nice,’ Elsie said. ‘I like exploring.’

  ‘After breakfast, I’ll give you a tour of the house. So you’ll know where everything is.’

  ‘I’ve already looked upstairs,’ Elsie admitted. She hesitated. ‘Did that… tiger come from India?’

  Elsie’s mother had told her that John had lived in India when he was a boy, when the country was still ruled by the British, so she thought it was probably a good guess.

  He nodded. ‘It did, yes.’

  Elsie thought of the tiger’s roaring mouth. It was meant to be frightening, yet it just looked strange and sad.

  ‘Why do you keep it in that room?’