What about us? (10 page)

Everything was fiddly though
and not easy to do up or undo in a hurry.  The corset was clearly straight from
a torture chamber, not from a fashion house and as for the knickers... well,
they went down to my knees and had no gusset! Then there were all the
underskirts and petticoats, some made from rough wool, some from cotton, not to
mention the thick woolly stockings.  I was well trussed up and felt twice my
normal size, despite the corset from hell.

“Flippin’ ’eck! Perhaps we
ought to choose a time when the clothes are more flattering and easier to
breathe in.” I said, looking at him admiringly.  He looked much more ‘right’
than I felt, even down to the pocket watch tucked into his waistcoat.

“Nice touch.” I told him,
pointing to the watch.

He smiled at me and I realised
it didn’t matter to him what I was dressed like.  His look burnt me in the
nicest way.

“This is how we do it.” he
said, patting the watch.  “This is our time machine.  Look...”

He opened the watch and then
pressed the button on the side, which flipped open the face and revealed a
screen.  As his fingers passed over it, different coloured lights flickered on
and off.

“As you’ve seen, we don’t only
move in time, we can change location too.  We choose the year, the month and
the general locality, then the watch automatically defaults to the nearest safe
house.  We maintain these places so that we can change clothes and prepare
ourselves accordingly for the era.”

I looked up at him in amazement. 
“It’s such a tiny thing.” I said, smiling.

He nodded in agreement.  “There
is always one in the safe house that suits the period, so we just exchange it. 
That way it never looks out of place and the one we leave behind is destroyed
with everything else in the fire.  Clever piece of kit really,” he explained
proudly.  “It looks like metal, but it’s actually similar to what you know as
plastic, with an organic electronic core”

I thought about the one he’d
had on before and remembered that it looked like a divers watch.  I had to
agree, it was very clever.  I had no chance of understanding it technically,
but it didn’t matter.

“What happens in the periods
before watches were invented, I mean it would look odd wouldn’t it?” I asked
uncertainly, a bit out of my depth.

“Yes, it most certainly would
look odd.  And not only that, you’d be showing the world a piece of the future,
which we mustn’t do.  For those periods it becomes a piece of jewellery or something
else that can be easily carried without it looking out of place.  However, in
those cases there is only the return setting, to the place and time you left
from.  Normally that would be my time, but we will return to whenever we set
out from.”

He looked a bit uncomfortable. 
Maybe he’d said too much, but anyway, I got the general idea and that was
enough.

He reached for my hand and we
went downstairs to the hallway, where I put my bonnet on and took a short cape
and a thick shawl from the stand.  He wrapped himself up in something more
substantial and then with a flourish, put a bowler hat on his head.  He’d also packed
a small bag.  At the time I didn’t know what was in it, but later he told me he
had taken things from the house that we could sell, if and when we needed to,
along with the stash of money.  We opened the front door, took a deep breath
and stepped out to start our life on the run in the winter of 1888.

The weekend had been good
training for me, because we walked.  In fact we walked flippin’ miles.  The
safe house was in Lewisham, not a place I knew and we walked all the way to
London Bridge, so I was glad the boots I was wearing were sturdy.  The weather
was dry but cold and the sights and smells, mainly stinks I have to say, were
incredible.

It’s funny; I’ve always thought
of the past as being in black and white and in some ways, that day it was.  Of
course there was colour, but the trees were bare, the sky was grey and most of
the people we saw were dressed in dark colours.  The carriages were all black
and the horses were mainly brown or grey, all covered in dark leather straps
and stuff.

Given that Christmas was only a
few days away, there wasn’t much to make me think of it.  Some of the houses
had holly wreaths outside, but there were no street decorations.  Some of the
windows of the shops we passed had made an effort, but most of them just gave
Christmas a nod, nothing more.  Very different from my time, when Christmas
seemed to start soon after my birthday, at least as far as most shops were
concerned, or Halloween at the latest.

Mind you, it’s never been my
favourite time of year.  The only good memories I have of Christmas time are
the ones with Jack and maybe one or two with Nan.  In our house it really was
the season to be jolly, or in Mum’s case, blind drunk for three weeks and she
was only home if I was very unlucky.

At lunchtime we bought some
pies from a street seller.  They weren’t bad and he seemed popular, because we
had to queue, but I couldn’t have told you what meat it was supposed to be.  Later,
I paid a terrible price for that pie, but at the time it was kind of exciting. 
One of the things I couldn’t help noticing was that absolutely everyone was
wearing a hat of some description.  Another thing, apart from the general bad smell,
was how grubby everything was; soot just clung to everything.  Jack told me it
was to do with the dirty coal burnt in the fireplaces, factories, trains and so
on.  He also told me that the smell was nothing compared to what it had been
thirty years earlier, before the sewer system was built.

The noise was another surprise
for me.  In my mind the past was quieter, more peaceful if you like, but it was
not the case.  There was so much shouting and the traffic made such a racket.  Jack
explained that it was because of the cobbles and the horse’s hooves.  The many
wheels rattling past were made of wood and metal and any rubber tyres
were solid
. 
There
seemed to be few rules of the road from what I could see and although there had
never been any need, not to mention the money for me to learn how to drive, I
knew all about the Highway Code.  Nothing I saw made me think it had been
invented yet.

We were extra careful whenever
we needed to cross the road or when there was no pavement.  There were dogs
everywhere and so many things being sold from barrows.  Everyone was shouting
at the top of their voices, so as to be heard by any potential customers and I
was surprised that people didn’t stare at us much.  But there was so much to
take in, so really I was the one doing all the staring.

It was late afternoon when we
got to The Borough.  We spotted a corner shop and went in to enquire if there
were any rooms to be had in the neighbourhood.  I was starting to feel light
headed and despite the cold wind, I was sweating.  I thought it was just all
the excitement and overtiredness, but as Jack and the shopkeeper’s wife, Winnie
Blunt as I was to find out later were talking, I suddenly came over really
queer and started to faint.

She was a lovely lady, Winnie
was.  She made me sit down and brought me a drink of something.  It was vile,
but I managed to swallow it.  She sent Jack to see someone in nearby Napier
Street and when he came back it was all arranged; we had our first home.  It
wasn’t far, but I didn’t take much notice as we made our way there.  It was
furnished, which was just as well, because we had nothing except what we stood
up in.  We went up the stairs to the small bedroom overlooking the street,
where Jack helped me get out of my clothes and passed me a bucket just in time.

It was only much later that I
could fully appreciate what I’d put him through and how well he’d coped.  I’ve
never been so ill or so sick, never mind the rest, as I was that night.  I
truly thought I was dying and at times I would almost have been happy to go; that’s
how bad real food poisoning is.

When the vomiting and
everything was finally over, I gratefully slipped into unconsciousness and
slept for twenty four hours straight.  When I woke up I felt really empty and
weak.  Jack had been so worried, he’d sat by my side the whole time, but now I
was awake he was babbling about how foolish he’d been, how he hadn’t thought it
through and how I could have died and all that sort of nonsense.  Then he stood
up with an air of intention about him, took the watch out of his pocket and
opened it.

“And just where and when do you
think you’re going?” I asked.

“Just to get you some things
from a pharmacy in your time.  I’m not taking any more chances.”

I tried to throw the heavy
covers off, but failed miserably.

“Oh no you don’t,” I shouted at
him.  I was really quite angry.  “If we are going to do this thing, we are
going to do it properly; no shimmering back and forth when the going gets tough. 
I promise I’ll be careful.  There won’t be any more meat pies, that’s for sure. 
I just need to build up some defences, that’s all and I want nothing more than
a nice hot cup of tea and maybe a bit of dry toast.”

We glared at each other.  It
was our first row.

“Let’s not make it easier for
them to find us Jack.  What if they see you? What happens to me then?” I
pleaded with him, which was perhaps a little underhand of me as it put him in a
bit of a fix, but it did the trick.  I was in no fit state to shimmer anywhere,
but I could see he was undecided.  He was weighing up the risks of leaving me,
against not getting the medicine he seemed to think I needed.

“Anyway, why didn’t the pie
affect you?” I asked, not that I wanted him to suffer one single moment of what
I’d been through.

“Um... inoculations...” he
answered absentmindedly, obviously still trying to make his mind up.  “Just tea
and toast, are you sure?”

I knew I’d won.  “It’ll be just
what the doctor ordered, honestly Jack.  I feel weak, but fine.  I’m sure we
can get everything we need for the moment from the corner shop.”

I crawled back under the covers
and felt the roughness of the blankets against my skin.  “Urgh, my god, no
sheets!” I said crossly.  “Tomorrow mister, we are going shopping!”

Someone clever once said that
the past is another country.  Well, whoever he was, he must have been a time
traveller.  Mum and I never went on holiday and I’d never been out of England,
not even to Scotland or Wales, let alone across the sea.  But I’d listened to
other people’s stories about their travels.

Some of the staff at the home
came from an agency and there had been this girl who’d travelled all summer
long around the Greek Islands.  She told us that despite the weather, the
language and the traditions being different, a lot was the same but with little
twists.  She said that the food changed a little bit from island to island.  Sometimes
there was more of one ingredient, or one was missing, a bit more or less of a
particular herb, or it was served slightly differently.   But once you’d been
there a while, in a funny way it was always familiar.

There were laundrettes, but you
didn’t do your own washing.  You left it there and someone did it for you, then
you collected it the next day, all neatly folded and parcelled up.  Shops were
shops, wherever you went and language didn’t matter; they still wanted you to
buy their stuff, even if you didn’t know what things were called.  She also
said that by the end of the week the people in Athens looked just as tired as
the people in London.

In some ways, being in 1888 was
like being in another country; one where they spoke English, but not quite the
same as at home.  It was a place where some things were instantly recognisable
and others were a complete mystery until I got the hang of what was what.  Then
of course, it just became ordinary.

Jack told me that he’d picked
this part of London because it was close to the docks and was full of people
from other places, some hoping to stay and others who were just passing through. 
I wouldn’t look out of place and he was sure that no one would pay much
attention to us.  We’d also concocted a story for me.  Nothing too wild, but
one that would explain away any mistakes I might make.  I’d spent most of my
life in the Americas and had only been in London for a few months.  I’d arrived
with Jack, who I’d met on the way over and as most people didn’t travel that
much, it was unlikely that I’d say anything that would give myself away.

Jack didn’t need a story, as I
realised on our first shopping trip.  When he spoke to anyone, he sounded just
like them.  In the same way that I understood everything he said to me, they
seemed to as well.  When I pointed this out to him over a cup of tea in a tea
room, he grinned.

“Implants connected to synapses
in my brain.” he said, tapping the side of his head.  “They automatically
adjust the language to the location and time.  Actually, they do much more than
that; I don’t have to translate what’s being said, I’m completely fluent in the
language of whatever place and time period I’m in.  Yet another good piece of
kit!”

Unsurprisingly, he always had
the advantage and to me at least, he sounded just a little bit smug.

“Explain please.” I demanded a
bit crossly. 

“The first travellers were
linguists.  Their job was to study all languages and the way they changed over
time.” he said, slurping his tea from the saucer, as some other people were
doing.