The Accidental Time Traveller (10 page)

I have to say this was a completely different view of Peggy from the one I saw. But then I remembered how nice she was with smelly little Janice, and I didn’t say anything. Young George clearly had a bit of a crush on Peggy, and who was I to disillusion him? Anyway, maybe it was just me she didn’t like.

‘Do you like it on
The News
?’

‘It’s good, yes. And I like driving the van. I’m going to get a car of my own one day. I’ll have a proper wage soon when I’m twenty-one. Then I can take my mum on outings.’

‘Do you still live with your mum then?’

‘Yes. Just me and her. Dad copped it at Dunkirk, so it’s been just me and Mum ever since.’

‘That must have been hard.’

‘No harder than for lots of folk.’ He paused, took a long drink and glanced up and out of the window across at the Rising Sun.

‘Looks like Henfield’s popped out for his lunch-time drink. That must be his car. There aren’t that many two-tone Hillman Minxes around here. Maybe he’s meeting one of his floozies.’

Floozy, what a wonderful word. I thought my grandad was the only one to use it.

‘Goes in for floozies, does he?’

‘One or two. Another drink?’

‘George, you’ve had two. You’ll be over the limit.’

‘What limit?’

‘You’re not meant to have more than two pints. You won’t be able to concentrate properly.’

‘Rubbish. I drive better after a drink or two. One for the road.’

As he was getting the drinks – and that cider was good –I was still gazing out of the window. A bus pulled up on the other side of the green, a real old-fashioned country bus. A young woman got out and hurried across the green to the Rising Sun. There was something familiar about her …

I sat up straight and had a proper look. Yes, no doubt about it. It was Peggy – who should have been in work – rushing into the pub, the pub outside which Richard Henfield’s car was parked. She vanished through the door just as George came back with the drinks.

So Henfield liked his floozies, did he? And he and his secretary just happened to be in an out-of-the-way country pub at the same time. Interesting. Very interesting.

If that’s where I am. I’m not sure any more. I’m not sure of anything.

If this is the 1950s house, why wasn’t I briefed about it? Interviewed, insured, had explanations, and introduced to it?

It’s more than just a house and a newspaper office. It’s a whole town, not to mention the countryside around it, and villages like Middleton Parva. That was no film set. And so many people! No TV company would pay for so many extras. It’s all so real. It doesn’t feel like a film set. I haven’t seen any cameras. No one’s mentioned a video room.

None of the other people seem to be competitors. Mrs Brown was expecting me. My trunk was here. Everyone seems to think I’m here for a few weeks. But where’s ‘here’?

Will and Caz. Ah. This is the really tricky one. Are they Will and Caz? If so, they wouldn’t play such a trick on me, not for so long. Not pretending to be married, with children. They’re my two best friends in the world. They wouldn’t play a trick like that, not even for a minute. They certainly wouldn’t do it for a poxy reality TV show. They just wouldn’t. No. Not even for a ‘psychological test’. They wouldn’t play those sort of sick games.

Because if they
would,
then how could I trust anyone ever again? And who? Billy and Carol are identical to Will and Caz. But they’re different too. They both look older for a start. What about Caz’s teeth? The wrinkles? Will’s hands? That’s not make-up. But if they’re not Will and Caz, who are they? Why is it all different? What the hell is going on?

When Lucy went through that bloody wardrobe into Narnia she knew straightaway where she was. I don’t. I don’t know where I am or why I’m here.

It’s not really the 1950s is it? That’s impossible. Isn’t it?

But what else is it?

After I’d written that, I seized up. My whole body froze and I couldn’t get air in and out of my lungs. There was just a pain, the pain of panic. I didn’t know where I was. In time or space. I couldn’t trust any of my senses. Nothing was what it seemed.

As I tried to breathe, in great panicking gulps, I tried to get my brain to work, tried to think logically, calmly. Ha!

I had thought this was a reality TV show, yet nothing, absolutely nothing backed that up. This wasn’t a single house, or even a single film set. This was more. This was an entirely different world, a world locked in the past of fifty years ago. I ran to the window and beat my hands on it as if it were the bars of a cage, because it might just as well have been.

I couldn’t have gone back in time, not really back in the 1950s. But where was I?

All I knew for certain, the one sure thing, was that I wanted Will. I wanted his arms around me and his mouth whispering in my ear the way he did when I had nightmares, because this was turning into a real nightmare. I wanted to be home. It was only eight o’clock – on a Saturday morning off, for goodness’ sake, and I’d already been awake for hours. I was still leaning with my head against the cool of the window, taking deep breaths, trying to control my fear and panic, when Peggy came in.

‘You all right?’ she asked, not unkindly.

‘Yes, no … oh I don’t know.’ But then I had a thought.

‘Peggy, you know you asked your mum if I could come and stay here?’

‘Ye-es.’

‘Well who arranged for me to come and work on
The News
? You’re the editor’s secretary. It must have been arranged through you.’

‘Yes, it was.’

‘Well how?’

This was it, I thought, I’m getting close to the truth now. If I knew who’d organised my trip, the clothes and everything, then I’d know just what was going on. There’d be correspondence, letters about it. If I could see those, I’d have cracked it.

‘We had a phone call from Lord Uzmaston’s office.’

‘Lord Uzmaston?’

‘Yes, you know – the proprietor. I’ve never met him, but Mr Henfield has. He’s been to lunch at Uzmaston Hall.’ She said this with a sort of pride. ‘He owns
The News
and quite a lot of other papers.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Oh it wasn’t
him
. He wouldn’t ring himself, would he? It was a man, a young man, I think. Just said that they had a reporter who needed a temporary job and that we were to fit her in. I can tell you Mr Henfield wasn’t happy, not with the idea of a woman reporter. But you’ve got to obey orders, haven’t you? Especially when it’s the owner, and Lord Uzmaston does have some funny ways.’

‘Was there any correspondence? Any confirmation in writing? Anything like that?’

‘No. Nothing at all. It was all very strange. Most irregular. That’s why I was glad I’d asked about the rent.’

‘Rent?’

‘Oh yes. They asked if we could find her – you – accommodation. And I thought of our Stephen’s room, it being empty. But before I said that, I asked how much they would pay. And the man said “Whatever is usual. It would be easier if you pay it direct from your office.”’

‘Oh and do you?’

I realised, to my shame, I hadn’t actually given a thought about whether I should be paying rent out of my £8. 12
s
.
6d
.

‘Yes, I take it out of the petty cash, and Mr Henfield signs a chitty.’

‘And no one’s come back to you? Asked anything about it?’

‘No, which was a bit worrying really. But everything seems to be fine. Why? Who were you dealing with?’

‘Tricky to explain,’ I said, which was the understatement of the year really, or maybe even fifty years. One more thought occurred to me.

‘Peggy, why did you suggest I should stay here? Was it to get your mum a bit of extra cash?’

‘No, not really – though I suppose that was part of it.’ Peggy looked embarrassed. ‘No, I thought it would be fun.’

And that really surprised me. If Peggy thought it would be fun to have me here, why has she barely said a word to me ever since I arrived? That was probably the strangest thing of all. She was still standing in the doorway with an armful of laundry. For a moment she looked almost concerned. Not surprising really, she probably thought all my questions where completely off the wall.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked again.

‘Yes, yes, fine really. Fine,’ I said, too baffled to say otherwise. But at least I had an idea now, something to do. Once I was back in the office on Monday, I could talk to the person Peggy had spoken to, and see who had arranged it. That was somewhere to start. I had a plan. I already felt I was doing something.

‘Here,’ said Peggy, ‘I’ve brought you a clean sheet and some pillow cases. We change the beds on Saturdays.’

‘Only one sheet?’

‘Put the top one on the bottom and the clean one on the top,’ she said with exaggerated patience. ‘This isn’t America you know. And if you bring the dirty sheet down and any white cotton things – knicks, hankies, I’ll put them in the washing machine.’

After she’d gone, I made the bed. Tricky job with sheets and blankets. Hard to get it nice and smooth and neat. But it calmed me down. I straightened those sheets so there wasn’t a crease or a wrinkle to be seen. If only my life could be as neat and tidy.

I gathered up the laundry and took it down to the scullery and put it into the funny little washing machine. Peggy looked scornful at the thought of my stockings and suspender belt going in there too, so I stood at the sink and washed them by hand with something called Oxydol. Like being on holidays. Funny sort of holiday.

In the background, the radio – a huge thing the size of a fridge – played children’s songs, ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’, ‘There once was an ugly duckling’ … and something about pink and blue toothbrushes. It made
Top of the Pop
. seem edgy.

The washing machine didn’t rinse. Well, it did, but first you had to empty the sudsy water out and put clean in. Peggy took the dirty hot water and threw it across the back yard and then scrubbed the yard with a big brush. This was meant to be a lazy Saturday morning …

All the time we were doing this, I wanted to ask her about her visit to the Rising Sun, but she was looking pretty grim-faced so I thought I’d better leave it for now. Anyway, I had too many other things on my mind.

Then we had to get the clothes out of the washing machine (at which point the radio was playing something of demented jollity and good cheer called ‘I love to go a wandering’, which somehow made me think of the Hitler Youth), and put them through the mangle thing at the top. I remembered books I’d had when I was little,
Mrs Lather’s Laundry
or
Mrs Tiggywinkle
. I was a real washerwoman. I thought fondly of my 1400 spin automatic washer-dryer. It was hard work turning that handle as it squeezed the water out.

‘Careful,’ said Peggy, ‘a girl from school went to work in the laundry and she put her hand in the mangle. Got all broken and crushed.’

‘Horrid!’ I said. ‘I hope she got some compensation.’

Peggy looked at me blankly.

‘You know, a pay-out for her injury,’ I explained.

‘Course not. She should have been more careful, shouldn’t she?’

Peggy took the washing down the small steep back garden to hang on the line, while I used the last of the water to mop the scullery and kitchen floor.

Then I had to dash as I was meeting Caz …

Town was busy. I looked around at the crowds and thought uneasily that they couldn’t all be extras. So many women, mostly dressed in coats, clutching baskets and shopping bags. Men seemed to be conspicuous by their absence. There were a few young men and one or two very bent old men on sticks, slowly making their way between the stalls, but otherwise it was a world of women. And children! There were children everywhere, many as young as seven, on their own and equally laden down with shopping bags. Little girls of not much more than ten years old were expertly managing not just the bags, but sometimes also a battered pram with a well wrapped-up baby inside, with a toddler trailing alongside as well. They stood in the queues at the market stalls and seemed to cast a keen eye over the limited number of vegetables available, confidently pocketing the change.

Was it safe for these children to be out on their own? Shouldn’t someone be looking after them? I was still wondering about it when I spotted Carol standing on the steps of the market cross.

Carol or Caz? Which was she? My steps slowed. I stopped, needing to think about this. Was she my friend from my real twenty-first-century life, playing a very nasty trick, a conspiracy against me? Or was she Carol, a young mother of three, whose life and background was half a century different from mine?

She was talking to a young boy and handing over a couple of bags of shopping to him. He was about ten or eleven years old, and the image of Will, the same blond hair and big brown eyes. He was wearing short trousers, long socks and a big hand-knitted jumper, and he glowed with health and energy. Will’s son. So that’s what Will’s son would look like. Just like the boy I’d imagined in my daydreams. He looked exactly like a picture of Will his mum has on her mantelpiece. I felt I already knew him. He gave me a quick grin as Caz greeted me.