Step Back in Time (10 page)

‘Sure, love, whatever you like. I’ll give you a shout later and I’ve got your favourite in for tea tonight!’

‘You have?’

‘Yes, that new pot noodly stuff! I know how you love them, and since we’re gonna be in a hurry tonight, what with the Jubilee meeting ’n’ all, I thought we’d have something quick. I’ll do fish fingers for the kids though – I think Pot Noodle is a bit adventurous for them!’

‘Yes, that’s… great, Mum, thanks.’ First Babycham, now Pot Noodle; time travel is sure turning into a culinary experience – of sorts – if nothing else.

In the kitchen I pour myself a glass of water, and then I head back through the hall and up the narrow staircase. I pause as I reach the top of the stairs. Now which room might be mine?

I open one door and know immediately it’s the twins’ room. There are Sindy dolls and Action Men abandoned on the beds in mid play, a space hopper over in the corner of the room, and a half-finished game of Mousetrap lies in the middle of the floor.

I close the door quietly and open the one next to it, assuming I’ll probably find Bonnie’s nursery, or Penny’s room, but I don’t, it’s my room.

I know this must be mine, because the dressing table is covered in make-up and jewellery and there are clothes left all over the bed where I obviously had many changes of mind as well as outfit before I left the house this morning. More importantly, covering every inch of my walls are posters; posters of boys. Actually, on closer inspection I realise they’re posters of pop, film and television stars.

Staring back at me I recognise TV cops Starsky and Hutch, film star Sylvester Stallone, pop star Donny Osmond, the
Six Million Dollar
Man
Lee Majors, and the original cast of
Charlie’s Angels
.

Great, this will make it easy to drop off at night with all these eyes staring down at me! I had posters up on my wall as a teen in my own time, of course, but somehow Boyzone and Take That seemed much more innocent than these testosterone-filled, hairy men – the ‘Angels’ and Donny Osmond being the exception.

I push some of the clothes out of the way and sit down on the bed.

So I’m a teenage girl in 1977 this time, with a mother who serves Pot Noodle and fish fingers for dinner, TV addict twins for siblings, and a baby sister who – well, Bonnie doesn’t seem too much trouble, right now, but I don’t want to rule her out just yet. There’s obviously not a father around; the woman outside the school said Penny was a single mum. So maybe I’m being a bit harsh criticising. Penny’s doing well to keep us all together with a roof over our heads and food in our mouths. I’m not too sure about the benefit system in 1977, but I bet it isn’t great.

Once I can get over to see George on the King’s Road maybe he’ll be able to shed some light on why I’m here this time. I’ll definitely go tomorrow.

Right then, I sigh to myself, I’m just going to have to make the best of it. Now what did teenagers do in the seventies? I look around the room. Jo-Jo from 1977 doesn’t seem to do much apart from try on clothes and put on make-up. I get up and wander over to the half-open window.

‘Yo, Jo-Jo!’ a voice calls, and I see Ellie waving at me from the bedroom window opposite. ‘Check it out!’ She points down the street and I see Harry walking along casually with his hands in his pockets.

Ellie puts her finger to her lips in a shushing fashion as we watch him go into a house a few doors down from mine.

Then Ellie cups her hand to her ear. ‘Wait for it,’ she mouths from her window.

Suddenly shrieked from the house we hear: ‘Harry! What the bloody hell have you done to your hair? You look like one of your grandad’s parakeets!’

Ellie laughs. ‘Serves him right for mocking us,’ she calls across the gap. ‘I knew his mam would go mental when she saw him.’

I continue to listen at the window. But it all goes quiet. Then the front door opens again and Harry comes storming out.

‘Shove it then, you old bag,’ he shouts back through the open doorway. ‘I ain’t changing me hair back and that’s final. You either like me the way I am or I go!’

‘Fine with me, Harry,’ a voice calls back. ‘One less mouth to feed!’

Harry glances back inside the house for a brief second, and even at this distance I can see hurt flicker across his eyes. Then he shrugs and slams the door hard.

‘What are you two gawping at?’ he calls, looking up at us peering out of our windows. ‘Shouldn’t you be drooling over a pop star or something equally useful?’

Ellie tosses her hair back. ‘I’m not the one making a scene of myself in the street, am I?’

Harry ignores her and looks across at me. ‘Nothing to add, Jo-Jo?’

I shake my head.

‘Good. Then I’m going for a fag,’ he announces, strutting off down the street.

‘Idiot,’ Ellie says, looking across at me again. ‘No wonder his mam wants shot of him. Look, I gotta go, Jo-Jo, cos I said I’d help me mam with the tea tonight. But I’ll see you later at this meeting, yeah?’

‘Yes,’ I reply, but I’m half watching which direction Harry is heading in. ‘Yes, I’ll see you later.’

I pull myself in from the window, and hurry back downstairs again.

‘Mum, I’m just going out, OK?’ I say, popping my head around the living room door. ‘I’ll be back for tea, though.’

‘Yeah, sure, Jo-Jo,’ Penny mumbles, as engrossed in little plasticine Morph’s adventures on
Take Hart
as the children are. ‘Can you get some milk, please, while you’re out? Take some money from my purse, it’s on the table in the hall next to the phone.’

‘Sure.’ I’d hoped to slip out immediately, but I run into the hall and pick up a red purse that sits next to a purple Trimphone on a small hall table. I pull out a few coins… how much was milk in 1977 anyway? I have no idea. As I’m trying to do the purse up again, a card jams in the zip, so I have to pull it out to get it back in the purse evenly. I glance at the wording on the front:
Lambeth College Evening School
. So Penny goes to evening classes, does she? That’s good, I think as I ram the card back in the purse, then dash down the hall and out of the front door. I vaguely hear Penny calling something about tea, and being back in time for the Jubilee meeting, as I slam the door closed behind me.

Now which way did Harry go?

I hurry down the road and find that Harry hasn’t gone too far. He’s leaning up against a wall at the end of the street, smoking his cigarette.

‘What do you want?’ he asks as I approach.

‘To see if you’re OK.’

He looks at me suspiciously. ‘Why?’

‘Probably for the same reason you came over to see if I was all right this afternoon after my accident.’

He surveys me for a moment through narrowed eyes surrounded by black eyeliner. Then he shrugs. ‘Fair enough.’

‘Are you OK then? I heard what your mother said.’

‘Old bag,’ Harry states, taking a long drag of his cigarette. ‘She’s said it before. She’ll say it again no doubt. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been thrown out.’

‘But why?’

‘Don’t fit in here, do I, Jo-Jo? You know me. Always the outcast.’

‘I’m hardly the archetypal teenager myself dressed like this, am I?’ I gesture at my white smock top.

Harry looks me up and down. ‘Sixties reject!’ he says, grinning at me.

If only you knew
…

‘At least you don’t dress like a packet of shortbread, like that lunatic friend of yours,’ he adds, waiting for my reaction.

‘Ellie? She’s OK. Nothing wrong with the Bay City Rollers, is there?’

Harry drops his cigarette on the ground and stubs it out with his foot. ‘Nothing wrong with the Bay City Rollers?’ he exclaims. ‘You’re asking someone with hair like mine that question?’

We both look at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing.

‘Come on,’ Harry says. ‘Let’s get out of here for a bit.’

We walk together along the road towards a park where a few boys are playing on some swings and a slide. As we approach they glance across at us, take one look at Harry, and immediately mount their Chopper bikes and scarper.

‘Don’t you mind having that effect on people?’ I ask him as we sit companionably next to each other on the deserted swings.

‘How do you mean?’ Harry asks, lighting up another cigarette.

‘Scaring them away like you just did, those kids?’

Harry shrugs. ‘Not really. Part of the image, ain’t it?’

‘Is putting yourself in an early grave part of it too?’ I nod at the cigarette.

‘What’s with you tonight, Jo-Jo? You’re normally a bit goody two shoes, but you’re even more weird today.’

‘Nothing wrong with me. I just don’t see you as a punk, that’s all.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’re too nice.’

Harry laughs. ‘Punks can be nice too. We’re just different, that’s all. Anti-establishment.’

‘Anti most things, aren’t you?’

‘I won’t be going to this Jubilee meeting tonight, that’s for sure.’

‘I guess it’s not really your thing. Although it would be pretty funny to see the reactions to you turning up in a Sex Pistols God Save the Queen T-shirt.’ I wink at him.

Harry fakes astonishment. ‘Jo-Jo, that’s not like you! You’ll be throwing away your incense sticks and piercing your nose next!’

‘I hardly think so. But you don’t have to dress like you to be brave and daring. There are other ways of doing it.’

‘Like attending Peace rallies and Love-ins?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘I suppose you think them guys on those American cop shows like
Starsky and Hutch
are all brave with their fast cars and big muscles?’

‘Hardly,’ I say, stifling a giggle as I think of my poster boys up on my wall.

‘What
do
you like, then?’ Harry asks, pushing himself back on the swings and allowing his boots to scuff along the ground as he moves back and forth.

‘Do you mean in a man?’ I ask, forgetting for a moment I’m only a sixteen-year-old teenager.

‘Oh, so it’s
men
you go for,’ Harry says, studying the pattern the toe of his boot is now making on the dust below him.

‘No, I didn’t mean that, I meant…’
Oh, what did I mean!
‘I meant I like someone who’s prepared to be themselves, to stand up for what they believe in, who’s punctual – and, most importantly, who can make me laugh.’

Harry looks up at me now. ‘Laugh? Really?’

‘Yeah,’ I say, nodding, surprised at myself for listing this. It isn’t something I would have thought would have been a high priority for me.

‘Interesting,’ Harry says. ‘I’m not too good with jokes, so does that count against me?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I hope I might be better at this…’ Harry leans across the space between the two swings and I suddenly realise he’s about to kiss me. I recoil in surprise and Harry, not having anywhere to rest his lips, tips off balance, and lands on his knees on the ground below.

‘Oi, oi, Harry!’ a voice calls across the park. ‘What you up to?’

We both look up to see the gang of punks that Harry was hanging out with before making their way across the park towards us.

‘Harry, I’m sorry,’ I whisper as the boys get closer. ‘I didn’t realise what you were about to do.’

‘I wasn’t doing nuffin’,’ Harry says, red-faced. ‘Was only trying to make you laugh. Looks like I failed at that too,’ he mumbles as he stands up and brushes himself down.

‘Trying it on with Miss Flower Power here, were ya?’ one of the gang, who has green spikes covering his shaven head and just as many metal piercings to match, continues. ‘If ya gonna go for that type, she ain’t a bad choice, I suppose.’ He looks me up and down. ‘Wouldn’t mind havin’ a crack meself.’

I regard him with derision. ‘I hardly think so.’

‘Ooh, hark at you, ya snotty cow – who d’you think you are? Royalty?’

‘Leave it, Stu,’ Harry says quietly. ‘Jo-Jo’s OK.’

I smile at Harry.

‘Harry Rigby, you wouldn’t be picking one of them sort over us, would ya?’ Stu snarls, his top lip beginning to curl. ‘Cos that might prove to be a very costly decision.’ He punches his fist into his hand and some of the other boys begin to form a threatening semi-circle behind him.

‘I ain’t picking no one over nobody,’ Harry says, ‘Just let it be, Stu.’

‘Shit, Harry!’ Stu almost explodes. ‘You’re even quoting namby-pamby peace-lovin’ Lennon now! She’s really got to you, hasn’t she?’

I don’t like the look of this at all. It may just be an exchange of bravado, big words from little boys right now, but it’s likely to deteriorate into something more physical. So I step in.

‘Nobody has got to anyone. If you must know, Harry was smoking here alone on the swings when I came along and sat down next to him. So if anything it was
me
bothering
him
. But,’ I sniff and pretend to look upset, ‘Harry has made it quite clear he’s not interested, haven’t you, Harry?’ I turn towards him with my back to the others. ‘I should have known you wouldn’t be interested in someone like me. I guess we’re just too different. So I’m going to make it very easy for you now, and leave.’ I try and wink at him, so the others don’t see. ‘He’s all yours,’ I announce to the rest of the gang as I turn around. ‘You’re welcome to him.’ Then I march off across the park, to jeers and shouts. But I don’t look back; I just hope I’ve done enough to let Harry off the hook with his mates.

Everyone’s watching
Blue Peter
in front of the TV when I get back to the house, eating their dinner off trays balanced precariously on their laps.

‘Jo-Jo, the kettle’s not long boiled if you want to do your Pot Noodle,’ Penny says, barely taking her eyes away from the screen. ‘I’ll have to nip upstairs in a minute and get ready for this meeting. Damn it, I’ll miss
The Good Life
tonight.’

‘Can’t you record it?’ I say without thinking.

‘What, love?’ my mother says, distracted by John Noakes sticking two washing-up liquid bottles together on the screen.

‘I was just thinking it would be handy if you could record TV programmes on tape, like you can songs from the radio. Then you could watch them whenever you wanted to.’ I wait for their reactions.

‘That would be brilliant!’ Sally says, shovelling a large forkful of fish finger into her mouth.