Barbara commented later that she had no idea what she said to me that evening. I couldn’t remember much of it, either. But it worked. Somehow, I began to grope my way back towards life. Perhaps it was her concern that did it, more than the words; I felt her reaching out to me, and I responded.

Barbara’s gone now – hopefully not from my life, but from the house. Strange – the place never seemed big before now.

She gave me a present before she left. It must have taken her quite a while. She came to me the morning she was moving out, and stood in the doorway, holding it out – a complete record of everything that happened to her during the time she was with the Doctor. Bound, and neatly hand-written. I wish Caro had been able to read it.

She topped and tailed it with a Foreword and an Afterword, as if it was a real book, addressed to an unknown reader. In these two more personal pieces of writing I found echoes of some of the things she said to me. But what struck me the first time I read the whole work was a passage near the end – her homecoming. I quote it here because I think she has now, finally, come home.

It was not what I had imagined.

Something was wrong and I could not define what it was. Everything around me was familiar and welcome – and at the same time alien and subtly terrifying. It was my world, my home – and it was not.

I had not imagined it was possible for a place to change so much in such a short time. I had expected superficial developments, and I had quickly found them; Churchill and Nehru were dead – Kennedy too, to judge from the snippets of news I had caught – the Beatles had become an international phenomenon, something rather disturbing was happening in Vietnam, and London was now the centre of what seemed to be a kind of cultural revolution.

And the day before Ian and I had returned, a man had walked in space. That had made me smile, but at the same time something cold had clutched at my heart. I had seen the earth in the future, desolate and overrun by Daleks. Had we drawn attention to themselves by our attempts to conquer space?

Thinking about that had made me realise what had changed. It was not really the planet itself; it was something in me, the way I saw my home. It no longer seemed safe. Two years ago my imagination had been earthbound, limited to this one world, the past I knew and the future that had seemed to promise steady progress and improvement of the human lot. Now nothing seemed certain. Earth was one of so many planets, humankind one of an uncountable number of races. The unfolding story of history, once a source of wonder and inspiration to me, now seemed a fragile thread in the weave of the universe, in danger of being snapped by violent extra-terrestrial invasion or cosmic disaster. Who could tell what the future would bring? Humanity was not the favoured child of the universe, the sole source of intelligence and invention. To the Daleks and Mechanoids humans were potential slaves or nuisances to be crushed; to races like the Moroks we were simply a curiosity, museum exhibits.

And where did I fit into this picture? Who was Barbara Wright? What was I to do, knowing what I knew? After all that I had seen and experienced, the dangers I had faced, the obstacles and terrors I had overcome, could I slip quietly back into the life that I had been living? How was that possible? How could I simply forget?

As far as I could tell, Ian was untroubled by such thoughts. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the sights and sounds of London – as I had when we had first returned. Now I felt isolated, unable to express my fears and doubts even to the one person I had thought would understand. Ian was sitting back in the upholstered seat, staring around the pub with a kind of quiet joy.

He felt my eyes on him and inclined his head, his eyes sparkling and the familiar, easy smile coming to his lips. ‘What a sombre face!’

‘Sorry.’ I took refuge behind my glass, gulping the bitter liquid almost frantically. When I put the glass down with a thump, Ian was still watching me.

‘What is it?’

‘It...nothing.’ I tried to smile, but my lips felt tight and awkward.

‘Come on.’ He slid closer, his arm curving around my shoulders. ‘If you can't tell me, who can you tell?’

My back stiffened at his touch; I was not certain why. Perhaps it was the slightly patronising note in his voice. He felt me tense, and almost drew back. Then his arm settled and his free hand came to rest on mine as I gripped my glass. ‘What's wrong?’

‘I...I don't know. I'm not sure.’

‘Well...’ He struggled for a moment, trying to find something to say. ‘We're home, Barbara. Earth. After so long, after all those dangers, all that yearning and hoping...we're back.’

I bit back a sarcastic reply. I felt his eyes on my face, but I could not look at him.

‘Are you missing the Doctor and Vicki?’

That was not it at all. ‘Yes. A bit.’

‘That's only natural. I do, too, of course. But we made a decision, the only decision we could possibly make. You're not regretting it?’

‘Of course not.’ But the words, as I said them, were flat and meaningless.

‘Then what is it?’

I desperately wished he would let me go. Something about his physical proximity made me feel like screaming. He did not understand, and there was no evidence he ever would. I needed space to think, to breathe; I needed to feel free.

‘Barbara...’

I suppressed a whimper of desperation. ‘Can we go?’ I said. ‘I want to walk.’

He drew back. ‘Okay. Um...how about St James's Park?’

‘Yes. Fine.’ I stood up quickly, snatching up my cheap jacket and almost pushing past Ian in my haste to get out into the open.

Once outside I paused and pulled on the jacket, turning up the collar against the lightly spitting rain. Ian came through the doors with a degree of caution, watching me carefully.

‘Are you ill or something? Did you feel sick?’

‘A bit.’ I began to walk, not waiting for him to come up beside me. He hurried to catch up. We walked for some moments in silence. It was early evening; the sun was still spraying light over the London skyline, and the traffic was quite heavy. We stopped at the kerb and Ian put a hand on my arm.

‘Tell me what's wrong.’

I closed my eyes for a moment, wondering if I had the strength to make him understand. ‘It's... everything.’

He gestured helplessly. ‘What do you mean, "everything"?’

We were clear to cross, and I darted away, swallowing as my throat swelled with a sob. He came after me, catching me at the other side. He spun me to face him.

‘Barbara! Talk to me. What is it?’

I looked into his uncomprehending eyes for a few moments. Then my own eyes dropped. ‘What are we going to do, Ian?’

‘I don't know what you mean.’ He shook me. ‘Look! Look around you! We made it! Home! Where we wanted to be!’

‘Are we?’

‘What do you mean? Barbara, I can't—’

‘We're two years late! I know, I know we said it didn't matter, but have you thought about what it means? We've used almost all the money the Doctor gave us just eating and finding a place to stay. We can't just walk into our old jobs – can you see any education authority letting either of us teach after an unexplained absence like this? And what are we going to tell our families? Surely not the truth!’

My voice had risen; several passers-by glanced in our direction. Ian looked around and then drew me quickly to a bench. He pushed me gently into a sitting position and then sat facing me. His expression was completely serious for the first time since we had returned.

‘I have thought about it. We knew it wouldn't all be plain sailing. But...surely the important thing is that we're here. We made it. And after all we've been through, are we really going to be daunted by education authorities and a few awkward family conversations?’

‘But what are we going to tell them?’

There was a tiny smile on his lips. ‘I wonder if the most plausible story might be that we eloped.’

‘No.’ The word escaped before I could stop it.

He appeared slightly startled, but not hurt. ‘Then we'll have to come up with something else. But it won't be easy.’

‘We could pretend our disappearances were unconnected—’

‘No. Gone the same night, back at the same time? Our families are bound to have been in touch with each other – and, if we didn't disappear together, we'll have no reason to see each other now we're back.’ He paused. ‘Unless that's what you want.’

‘No. Of course not.’ I had no idea what I wanted. I looked away from him, squeezing my eyes shut against the tears that came from nowhere.

‘Hey...’ His hand came to rest against my shoulder. ‘It'll be all right.’

I nodded briefly, drawing in a deep breath. ‘As you say, after all we've been through, it does seem ridiculous to be defeated by the resumption of our normal lives.’

‘That's right.’ He patted my shoulder and stood up. ‘I think the rain's getting heavier. We should give the park a miss – get back to the room.’

‘All right.’ I got to my feet, and allowed him to link his arm through mine. The rain fell, the traffic roared, the sky darkened slowly - and none of it seemed real to me as we walked through the familiar streets of what had once been home.

She ended her account here, saying nothing about how they overcame their difficulties or what they did decide to tell their families. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever asked her about it. Somehow, it didn’t seem too important any more.

As soon as she could see I was going to be all right she stepped up her efforts to find somewhere else to live. I thought this meant she had changed her mind about Ian until she told me that he had asked her to look for a place they could share. I gathered that he felt they had already wasted too much time apart; and I think she felt she had no more reasons to hold him at arm’s length. She accepted money from Blackman to put a deposit on the place, which surprised me, but she told me it was the very least he was prepared to do for her – she had to talk him out of far greater extravagances.

We visited him together, just once – he sent a car for us and we sat with him in that huge hall, just the three of us at that same table. It was painful, but I was glad to have gone. Blackman was clearly still suffering, but fragility that had lain beneath his urbane exterior had been replaced by something stronger, more durable. He asked Barbara a great many questions about Advaita, and she repeated the account of her meeting with Bhagavan. Blackman was obviously not a convert – many of his objections were the same as mine – but I was impressed at the amount of serious reading he had done in a comparatively short time. I was reserving judgement for the time being; I listened to their conversation but took little part in it.

We spent a little while in the television room – there was something on the news that he had to see – and it reminded me, oddly, of our disappointment with Magical Mystery Tour a few weeks earlier. I mentioned it to Barbara.

‘Everything disappoints,’ she smiled, ‘unless you let it be what it is. You obviously had expectations the Beatles failed to meet.’

‘But you have to have some kind of artistic yardstick…’

‘Of course. But that wasn’t the problem with that film. The trouble was your high hopes, your anticipation. We look to these things for something we feel we can’t get anywhere else – like…like Sally did with Dennis, perhaps. She was dissatisfied with Mike, and she tried to find something better. But the only place she could really have found it was in herself. It’s no good looking to anything external to make you happy.’

‘I’ll give up watching films, then, shall I?’

‘That’s up to you. Just try to watch them when they’re in front of you, not in your mind before or after.’

‘And don’t try to make a cold cup of tea hot by wishing?’

She smiled at me. I could still feel the absence of Caro, like an empty space on the seat next to me, but in that moment I knew the first tiny flash of happiness I’d had since that short phone call. Don’t ask me why – perhaps it was the triviality of what we were talking about, and the seriousness she invested it with, beneath all the light-heartedness. That was so like her. She never could stop playing the teacher. And if she’d been mine I would have paid more attention at school.

This all has a feeling of finality, as if she’s dead or something. I suppose I can’t help feeling that she’s out of my life. We’ve promised to keep in touch, and I know she keeps her promises, but she’ll have an entirely new life now. She really has let go of the past. I’m not sure she even has a copy of the manuscript she gave me. I don’t know what to do with that book; it’s an incredible document, written with far more verve and style than she gives herself credit for and dotted with meditations on her reactions to places and situations. And filled with one name. Ian.

She wanted me to meet him. I felt it was the wrong time. I agreed to go with her to the station the day he came back, but I knew he would be expecting to see her alone and I felt I couldn’t intrude on that moment. I didn’t tell her that – she would have only accused me of being kind.

We had the last of our many, many cups of tea in a little café not far from the station. We said very little; there was nothing to talk about. She did ask me what I was going to do – what would I write? I had no answer. I have to admit it didn’t seem important at that moment – all I could think about was her. Stupidly, I found I was crying again.

Her immediate reaction was to scribble something on the corner of a napkin. She gave it to me. ‘That’s the number of our new flat. Call any time you want to talk.’

I took the paper and stared at it, hardly knowing what it was.

‘Cheer up,’ she said. ‘I’m not going very far. And Wiltrud would never forgive me if I didn’t come back at least once a month.’

I wiped my eyes. ‘So I can look forward to being baffled by theology again.’

‘I think Christian theology would baffle Jesus,’ she smiled, ‘so you’ll be in good company.’

Here is the foreword she wrote to the manuscript:

It was a struggle to write this book. The experiences described in these pages do not translate easily into everyday language; I have a feeling that even a naturally gifted writer (which I am not) would have been defeated by much of the material contained herein. Many of the passages have been rewritten a number of times; I became aware that on numerous occasions I was holding back from telling the full truth, distorting or obscuring the reality of the situation. To have done so would have defeated the purpose of this account, so I made myself adhere to the truth.

In having done so I run the risk of not being believed, or being thought insane. I accept this. It is easy for me to place myself in the position of the potential reader, and ask myself what my reaction would have been, five years ago, to the sort of passages encountered in this book. With that in mind, let me invite the reader to assume for a moment that I am rational and then ask him- or herself what possible reason I could have for inventing the tales I tell here, knowing what the inevitable reaction must be. I do not wish to be thought unbalanced, or mendacious. I wish to let people know that the universe is not quite what we thought it was, that is all.

A note on the style. I have chosen to dramatise portions of my experience. This was an attempt, as I noted above, to convey the reality of the situations I encountered. I do not claim to have perfect recall, so my memory of some past conversations may differ from the memories of others who were present. [This was clearly a nod to Ian, in case he ever read it] For this I apologise; but the essentials are correct, I believe. For the fragmented chronology of the narrative I make no apology: there is a danger that anyone reading this book will divide it into the real and the fantastic, and I wanted to make that as difficult as possible. Everything described here is real.

Everything is real, she said to me. I know that I believe in her stories, completely – and I suspect by now that she has another convert in Robert Blackman. I know she continues to see him; I wonder if her adventures have made him look anew at his beloved Wells and Stapledon. I suppose, in a world that is just a projection of the Self, their tales are every bit as real as hers. Or as unreal.

The Advaita is something I still have trouble with. It nags at my mind, and by my bedside I still have a slightly warped copy of the Bhagavad Gita. But the book is rapidly becoming part of the furniture, and I forget, all the time, to still my mind and let the moment be what it is. At least if she’s correct about the teaching I’ll have other lives to get it right.

And this life? Whatever rationalisations I may have given myself, it was only fear that stopped me getting on that plane to the Middle East. And I still can’t help wondering if things might not have been different if I had been there. I can’t accept the idea that we have no power over what happens, that the future is fixed in stone – I wish I could believe it, because then I wouldn’t have to face the possibility that my stupid unwillingness to spread my wings cost me – and the world – at least two very special people. Caro wasn’t afraid of living. I didn’t know I was until I met her. Or at least I wouldn’t admit it to myself. If I learned anything from her it was not to hang back when it’s time to go forward.

Barbara’s influence was probably more complicated. Hopefully, it will continue. But if we should drift apart, I think I’ll keep going back to the end of her manuscript, to the Afterword, which seemed to sum up her approach to people and to life:

As I write these final words the world looks forward to witnessing the first human steps taken on an alien surface. By the end of this decade, if all goes well, men will have walked on the moon. It is an amazing achievement, but it fills me with foreboding. I have seen worlds that would laugh at our pride in this. And I have seen humans who barely remember that it happened. We will be out there, someday.

Or will we? The Doctor always told us that we could not interfere with history, but we changed the pattern of life on many other planets. Is it only the history of which we are a direct product that we cannot – or should not – change? We still know so little about the nature of time – about the nature of the universe. Even the Doctor, with all his experience, had never uncovered the ultimate secrets of creation. The large questions remain unanswered: Why are we here? Who – or what – put us here? What should we do with our brief lives?

There have been dreams of time and space travel throughout this century. I have seen the reality. And it has not answered my questions. Somehow, I am not surprised. All technological progress is cosmetic, superficial. It only changes the shape of the material world; it is not an answer to the real problems that we must overcome.

Those problems can only be conquered from within. A lot has been said, and sung, about ‘Love’ in the last year. People are already dismissing that heady summer of ‘67 as a passing phase. But something important raised its head then.

I am uncertain about the nature of time, about its eventual susceptibility to our influence or its possible subjection to our technology. I do know that all of us have only a very limited time in which to make our influence felt. More limited than we generally realise; for that time is now, this very instant, this fleeting moment that is the only moment that we have ever lived or ever shall live. If we do not act now, when will we ever?

If all we need is love, then it is needed now – and there is no better time to give it. There is no other time to give it. For the sake of ourselves, for the planet – and for the universe we will help to make.

London, 1968

She once put it to me that I created the universe. If I was in charge of this universe I would probably have stopped her from leaving. She left me her copy of Religion and The Rebel although she hadn’t read it herself – a typically generous gesture. The book sits next to my bed, on top of several sheets of Caro’s poems.

Just two days ago I stood with Barbara in the rain at the station entrance. I knew I had to get away before he arrived, but I couldn’t make myself say goodbye. In the end I did see him; an upright, energetic figure with a serious, handsome face. He waved, and she returned it; she had taken several steps towards him before she remembered me. She looked back; I just lifted my hand and shooed her onwards. She stared at me for a moment, then she pulled her open coat closed with one hand and hurried to meet him.