‘Oh … oh—kay,’ he said.
We breathed as one.
‘Tie-mm,’ he said. ‘Tie-mm.’
‘Time.’
‘Mah … sheen … Mah … sheen.’
‘Machine?’
He nodded.
‘Time machine?’ I said.
He nodded and continued to breathe steadily, looking at me with eyes that were focused and scared. I didn’t know what he meant, but he was trying to tell me something about that day; the day when everything changed. I’d been waiting for this moment for so long, but I had imagined he would tell me in his own voice, his own words. He couldn’t do that yet, so he was trying to tell me the best way he could in theonlyway he could at that moment, in that museum on that Sunday afternoon.
‘Ronan,’ I said, ‘do you know what people are saying happened to you?’
He stared straight at me and didn’t reply.
‘They say you were in the middle of the field, they say you were by the stump of a fairy thorn tree when it happened. Is that true?’
He nodded gently.
‘Why were you there?’
His eyes went up to the clock face behind me.
‘Tie-mm … mah-sheen …’
‘Time machine?’
He nodded.
‘I don’t know what that means, Ronan; a time machine?’
He started to get agitated again.
‘It’s OK, Ronan, breathe with me.’
We breathed until we matched each other once more.
With slow strength he lifted his left hand to point in the direction we’d just come from.
‘Goh,’ he said.
I sprang to my feet once again. When we reached the end of the architecture display he lifted his right hand to point in the direction of the railway section.
‘Goh.’
I pushed him along until he stopped me at the picture of the wreckage. Both of us still breathing at exactly the same rate: fast.
‘Mee,’ Ronan said quietly, then in a whisper he said again, ‘me.’
I stayed behind Ronan looking at the picture of the wreckage. I didn’t go round to face him immediately because I felt I needed to be stronger before I did. I could hear that he was crying. I slowly walked round and knelt down in front of him and saw his face soaking wet with tears and sweat.
‘Dehs …’ he started to say through his tears, ‘dehs … troy … mee.’
