Chapter 6: Heritage and History

Monday, July 22, 1985

According to what I’d heard from a few Brits, British Rail wasn’t the best-run organization, at least in the 1980s. Today’s train outdid Amtrak, anyway. Most likely, that’s damning them with faint praise, but our train was almost on time and was reasonably clean, comfortable, and had friendly staff.

We’d had fairly good luck with Amtrak this go-round, though. Perhaps we just caught this one on a good day. Or, of course, perhaps both were better in this universe. It was possible.

As was fairly common in many coach cars, we were able to get four seats that faced each other two-by-two. We agreed to swap who rode facing backward about halfway through.

We got our first view of Edinburgh fairly late in the day. After a bit of looking, Angie said, “I’m glad I thought of this!”

Paige pretended to elbow her, but then hugged her instead.

“I’m glad you did, too, honey,” she said. “This is ... it’s really cool. It’s not like ... I mean ... hell, not that long ago I wouldn’t have even thought about touring the UK during college, and here we are. And, I mean ... this is really cool stuff, too.”

Jas and I snuggled up, too, and watched as we pulled into the train station. I’d never seriously thought of going here during my first life. Here we were, though, and it was pretty amazing.

We took a taxi from the train station to our hotel, a Holiday Inn. It wasn’t a long trip — perhaps five miles — but we saw plenty of what looked like historic buildings. The city was beautiful, at least to tourist eyes. I’m sure, if you lived here, it just felt like any other place.

The hotel wasn’t close enough to downtown for us to walk, so we would continue to rely on taxis. If we’d really been ‘starving students,’ we’d be in a hostel and taking the bus, but we’d decided we were pretty much giving up even the pretense of doing so.

We did figure out where some hostels were, though. We could always hint at having stayed at one.

Once our bags were in our rooms, we went to the hotel’s restaurant, which felt at least plausibly Scottish. It certainly didn’t feel American, anyway. I think we all would have hated that.

We made a plan for tomorrow. Up at eight, breakfast at the hotel, and then a cab downtown, where we would hit the libraries (the Central Library was right across from the National Library) and learn more about the Johnstones. After that, lunch downtown, sightseeing, and at least one Edinburgh pub before heading back to the hotel.

Jas and I wore ourselves out a bit before getting to sleep. Seemed like a good idea. It might not be another country, but it was, at least, almost another country.

Tuesday, July 23, 1985

We stuck to the plan. Breakfast was tasty, though again threw us a curve. We were all starting to get into the ‘English Breakfast’ thing a bit. Angie and Jas both even claimed to be converts to baked beans for breakfast. I was still dragging my feet a bit on that, but they weren’t bad, anyway.

However, this was Scotland, and ‘English’ wasn’t going to fly (for likely obvious historical reasons). Instead, we had ‘Scottish Breakfast’, which included (infamously, to Americans) haggis, as well as several unusual sorts of sausage. We all dared the haggis and surprised ourselves by enjoying it. It wasn’t going to be a favorite, but when in Scotland...

No one was willing to try the blood sausage, though. It might have been delicious, but it was a step too far, at least for now. On the other hand, ‘tattie scones’ turned out to be an interesting sort of potato pancake, one we all liked.

After heading downtown and sightseeing just a bit, we found ourselves at the Central Library. There, we enlisted a helpful librarian. He pointed us to the proper books to figure out the Johnstones, or at least as much as we were going to.

It turned out the current branch of the family was largely in the Annandale area, southwest of Edinburgh. It was a lucky thing we’d made the car reservation for tomorrow!

The Johnstone family was the hereditary keeper of Lochmaben Castle. Sadly, it was a ruined castle, but we could visit it, and we would.

We had hopes of finding a tartan shop in Annan. If we didn’t, though, there were plenty of places to buy tartans in Edinburgh (and likely in Glasgow, too).

All three girls ganged up on me, wanting me to buy a kilt. I reminded them I was not, in fact, a true Scotsman, and therefore would not need to live up to the requirements placed on one.

After some discussion, we agreed: perhaps, on special occasions. It’s not as if each of the girls hadn’t worn dresses or skirts sans panties at least once, after all!

I wasn’t really sure when I would wear a kilt. There was some discussion of AggieCon. Honestly, I could see that. It made sense. If we ever went to see Brigadoon again (which seemed extremely likely!), that would be another obvious opportunity.

Mom would flip (in a good way, I was pretty sure) seeing me in a kilt.

It was really too bad we hadn’t had this idea long ago. Nationals finals wearing a kilt? Hell, yes!

While kilts per se are for men, there were pleated skirts which would be much the same for the girls. All three wanted a Johnstone-tartan skirt. After all, we would (at least nominally) be inviting Jas and Paige into the Johnstone clan, albeit a branch of the clan the official Johnstones might never recognize.

There was a sad undertone to doing the research, and I pointed it out to Angie with a tap of my finger on our map. Lochmaben Castle was only a short distance from the town of Lockerbie, and we would inevitably drive through there.

Later, when Paige and Jas went to the restroom, we discussed it quickly.

I didn’t know when the Pan Am bombing would happen, but I knew it was very late in President Reagan’s second term. That put it, most likely, in the late fall or early winter of 1988. If any of our friends were traveling to or from the UK (neither of us could remember which direction the plane was traveling, though we remembered the flight number — 103), we would move heaven and earth to make sure they weren’t on Pan Am 103. Any day might be the day.

Beyond that? What could we do? Tell Pan Am flight 103 was targeted, but we had no idea when? Perhaps, but I wasn’t sure, and neither was Angie. The situation was very different from that with Challenger. We had no facts easily at hand with which to create credibility.

A decision for a later time. In the meantime, at least it was on our radar. Perhaps it never would have been if not for this chance trip through Lockerbie, Scotland.

When the girls came back, Jas said, “Okay, you two! Ang, you would usually go with us. Something’s up, right?”

Angie sighed and said, “Yeah, but ... let’s table it.”

“It’s a bad thing?” Paige said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Soon?”

We both shook our heads.

“Years off, right now,” I said.

“Tabling it is fine,” Jas said. “We know there are bad things you won’t share, and...”

She exchanged a glance with Paige, who nodded.

“We know sometimes that’s for the best. Our role is to be ‘from here.’ The more we know, the more we can’t do that. Still, we’re also here as sounding boards. Before you do anything...”

Angie and I both nodded.

“We’ll make sure to talk it to death,” Angie said, smiling.

“As you should!” Paige said, grinning. “That’s what we do, after all!”

After the central library, we looked around the National Library, then walked over to the University of Edinburgh.

That was a sudden and unexpected anachronism for me. It wasn’t the bad kind, but it set my teeth on edge a bit.

Jas noticed something was on my mind and said, “Is something up, Steve?”

“It’s ... well,” I said, waving my arm vaguely towards a few of the campus buildings. “One of my professors in graduate school...”

I stopped.

“Okay, that’s not putting it in proper context,” I said. “Grad school profs are sometimes just ‘professors.’ This guy wasn’t. He was the leader of the research team I was on. We were friends. Not equals — not at all — but friends. We — all of us on his project — went to his house sometimes. We played with his kids.”

“So,” Jas said, “this is someone you really knew.”

I nodded.

“Laura wouldn’t?” Angie said.

“Nah,” I said. “Not unless the universe is screwing with us. Dr. Stewart — Ross — was at Purdue, and this Laura was never at Purdue.”

Angie nodded.

“Go on,” Jas said.

“Well, the thing is, Ross went to university here and was a professor here for a while. He moved to Purdue in 1986 when they threw a bunch of money at him. So ... most likely there’s a Dr. Ross Stewart here somewhere. His kids — I can’t remember their names — are already born. I know the guy, and he will probably never know me. Here I am, in his old stomping ground, and I can’t look him up and say hello, and maybe ask him out to a pint, because he wouldn’t have a clue who this crazy American is.”

“Wacky!” Angie said, giggling. “It’s not that rare, though. I mean ... okay, fine, it is, with professors, maybe. But I bet there are a few guys at UH who I know ... well, a lot of incriminating things about, really, and they don’t know me.”

Paige giggled at that, too.

“Turn ‘em in?”

“Nah,” Angie said. “Heck, maybe somehow I made them worse in that world. This world is theirs. I’m steering clear.”

Paige hugged her, and said, “This world is ours! I know what you meant, but you are just as entitled to this world as anyone else is.”

“God or whatever put you here,” Jas said, nodding. “Definitely entitled.”

“Thanks!” Angie said, sniffling just once.

“From me, too,” I said.

We wound up in a big four-way hug. Probably a few of the students wondered just what the crazy Americans were up to.

We headed to a local pub, hanging out for a bit. While we were sipping our lager, something occurred to me, and I went over to Angie and whispered a bit.

A bit after that, I checked with Jas. All go, and it didn’t feel like Paige had picked up on the whispering. She probably had, but guessed it was some time-traveler weirdness.

We took a taxi back to the hotel. When we got there, I grinned a bit and offered my arm to Paige.

“It’s been quite a while,” I said, “and I wouldn’t want you to feel slighted.”

“I ... um...” she said, giggling, blushing, and giving Angie a quick look.

Whatever passed between her and Angie, she turned back to me after a few seconds and said, “Why, thank you! I would be delighted!”

Jas offered her arm to Angie, who accepted with a grin.

We walked back to our rooms, then separated long enough to hug and kiss each other. After our goodbyes, I led Paige into Jas’s and my room. I’d already checked, and she was fine with heading to Angie’s.

“So,” Paige said, once the door was closed, “What brought this on?”

I brought her into my arms and looked into her eyes.

“Pretty much, what I said,” I said. “Our relationship — the big one, I mean, between the four of us — is complicated, but the relationship between you and me is important, not an afterthought. I don’t want to treat it that way.”

She nodded and said, “Jas is your future wife, though, and Angie is your sister. Plus all the other unique stuff. ‘You and me’ kinda is the afterthought, comparatively.”

I shrugged. “I don’t think you’re an afterthought. You had a great point months ago: had we gone out at the start, I don’t think we could have worked, and it would’ve been a bad idea. Now, though, it’s ... you’re more important to Angie, and I’m more important to Jas, and that’s a good thing. But that doesn’t mean you’re not important to me. Probably — I think, anyway — just as important as you are to Jas, and heaven knows that’s happened.”

She giggled and blushed, nodding. “True! It has!”

“This wasn’t planned or anything, and ... if we, like, put things on a schedule, it’d just be silly. I wanted to have a chance to get together with you and this felt like a good night to do it.”

“Goodie, then!” she said, bouncing up a little and kissing me. It was a slow, warm kiss, one that just went on and on.

When we finally broke it, she said, “I ... it’s not how I love Ang, but I love you, too.”

“And it’s not how I love Jas, but I love you, Paige.”

She sighed and hugged me a little more tightly.

“This ... this really feels good,” she said, after a little bit. “Thank you!”