The Accidental Time Traveller (9 page)

Then her teeth. Caz has neat, straight, white teeth. This Carol had slightly crooked teeth. And this Carol had lines … the beginning of wrinkles around her eyes and on her forehead. And now she too was looking at me as if I were a stranger – and a slightly mad stranger at that.

Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure …

I put my head down. I felt utterly defeated.

‘I’m sorry. It’s just that you and Will, Billy, look exactly like my closest friends back home. And it’s such a shock to discover that maybe you’re not them after all.’

‘Oh you poor thing!’ said Carol, in such a Caz-like way that I was sure it
must
be her. ‘How awful, especially if you’re feeling homesick. It’s such a long way from America. Are they nice, these friends?’

‘The best, the absolute best.’

‘Well, let’s just hope Billy and I will do instead,’ she said in a wonderfully cheering, normal sort of a way. ‘Now come on, drink your coffee and have a bit of this teacake.’

She was treating me as though I were the same age as Libby, and for some reason, I suddenly began to feel better, especially when I noticed her eyeing my jacket. Very Caz that. Always keen on clothes. Whether she was Caz or Carol, I needed her company, a friend. I began to relax a little, though I wanted to ply her with a hundred questions – like Why are you married to Will? What’s he like as a husband? Do you really love him? Weren’t you young to have children? And please move along now, because I’m here and he’s mine …

The thought of Caz being married to Will was too huge and horrible to consider. They were good friends, of course they were, had been since they were in school. But married! If the two people closest to me in the whole world were married to each other, then where did that leave me? Squeezed out in the cold and very much alone.

Even if this were pretend, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit. At the very least the pair of them must have ganged up to play this trick on me. Thinking that about your two best friends is not a cheering thought.

Yet here was Caz, sipping her coffee, her eyes huge over the rim of the cup, looking just like she had so many times I’d sat with her before. No longer looking worried, she now seemed only concerned for me. Just as if it were me and Caz as we had always been. Maybe there were cameras in here too, and she knew. Maybe this time it was she who was waiting for a quiet opportunity to talk to me and hatch a plot. In the meantime, we would just enjoy the coffee.

It was so what I wanted – to pretend it was just me and Caz having a coffee, like normal. I wanted to forget all this strange stuff that was happening, if only for a moment. So I relaxed and pretended. It was surprisingly easy.

‘Oh look,’ I said, with a mouthful of teacake, ‘they’ve got music here tomorrow night.’

‘Music?’

On the wall was a handwritten notice. ‘Saturday night at Silvino’s. The Skiffle Cats!’

‘I’d heard he was opening up in the evenings to give it a go.’

‘Give what a go?’

‘The skiffle groups. Have you been in the back room?’

‘No, what back room?’

‘There’s another room that you get to from the side alley. Silvino’s got a juke box in there. All the kids go in there to listen to records in the evenings at weekends.’

‘Will you go and see The Skiffle Cats?’

Carol laughed.

‘No, that’s for kids, not people like me. They haven’t even got proper instruments. Just a washboard and a bit of string on a broom handle. No, I tell a lie, I think one of them might have a guitar. I spend enough time with my washboard as it is, without going out at night to watch someone else scrubbing away. But I like to hear a bit of decent music sometimes.’ She looked wistful. ‘I like the juke box. Tell you what’ – and again she sounded just like Caz – ‘I’ll be in town for the market on Saturday. Will you be in town too? I could meet you, say at the cross at eleven-ish and we could get what we want and then go in the back with the kids for a coffee and some music. What do you say?’

‘Yes, great. Why not?’

‘Well that’s settled!’ said Caz/Carol, then she turned to Libby and said, ‘Now we’d better go and do some shopping, otherwise none of us will eat tonight. See you Saturday, Rosie.’

She did up Libby’s coat buttons again, took her hand and manoeuvred through the crowded tables. As they went, Libby turned around and gave a quick smile. She was the image of her mother.

I paid the bill (leaving 3
d
tip, how confident is that?) and dashed back to the office, teetering between utter gloom and a strange almost-happiness. The thought of shopping with Caz/Carol made me feel more cheerful than I’d done ever since I’d got here. The thought that she was married to Will just seemed so bizarre that I could hardly accept it. It had to be a joke or a trick. Hadn’t it? Maybe I’d find out more on Saturday. That was obviously what she was thinking. And even though she was making out that she didn’t know me, she was still like my friend Caz. At least she was friendly and chatty, not like Will. But I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. Maybe she was trying to lull me into a false sense of security. Maybe this was even more devious …

Will/Billy didn’t come back to the office at the end of the day. Every time the door opened and anyone came into the office, I geared myself up to see him, preparing my calm face while the blood raced around my system and pounded behind my eyes. Then every time it wasn’t him, I slumped again. God knows what all this was doing to my stress levels.

In the end, when it was clear he wasn’t going to be coming back, I went home early for my ham and baked potato. Janice was there again later. I couldn’t help her with her homework – physics – but she asked lots of questions about newspapers.

I still couldn’t believe that Caz was married to Will. That was such a sadistic trick by the organisers. I couldn’t believe that they would have agreed to that. I remembered the silly feeling I had occasionally when I was a bit jealous of their shared past, but they wouldn’t do this. Surely not.

But if I took it at face value, at least Caz was here too and prepared to be friendly. That was something. Not much, admittedly. But right now it was all I had.

Middleton Parva was a separate village. Amazing. I just thought of it as the bit by the ring road where the new B&Q and Tesco were. But we went out of town, past fields and off the main road and down a country lane to get to it. George’s driving was erratic to say the least.

‘Hey hang on. You nearly had us in the ditch there! You’re on the wrong side of the road!’

‘Sorry!’ yelled George. ‘Habit. Think I’m in Germany still.’

‘Germany?’

‘Yes. That’s where I learnt to drive, when I was doing my national service in the army. On tanks, so the van took some getting used to.’

‘You were in the army?’

Honestly, he didn’t look old enough.

‘How old are you, George?’

‘Twenty.’

‘Did you break any of the Fräuleins’ hearts?’

‘No,’ grinned George – and bless him, he blushed – ‘we didn’t do much of that sort of fraternising. Plenty of drinking though! Those Germans know how to drink.’

Somehow, we got to Middleton Parva. And as we did, so the sun came out, just as Marje’s postman had said it would. It was really pretty. There was a proper village green with trees, a couple of little shops, a very attractive church, which I’d never noticed before, probably because it’s hidden behind B&Q. This couldn’t be a film set, could it? This was something else. Something much bigger. But quite what, I didn’t want to think about just yet. Too scary. Much too scary. My skin went cold and clammy as I tried to think about it. No. Easier to get on with work.

While George went off to scout for pictures, I went to the post office and struck gold straightaway. The postmistress’s family had been running the place since the days when mail came with the stagecoach, so that was a nice easy story to write up. Then I found the vicar, and we did pretty pictures of the church and talked about its history and looked at a few interesting graves.

‘What now?’ asked George.

‘The lady from the post office said the pub was run by a cockney, a chap who came here as an evacuee during the war. He must have liked it to stay. No doubt he’ll have a tale to tell. Shall we?’

‘A pub will do me fine. We’ll get a drink while we’re there. But which one?’

There were two pubs on either side of the green. One, the Royal Oak, was low and squat and old-fashioned. It had small windows, and beams that made it look as though it had grown up out of the ground and would return to it given half a chance. The other, the Rising Sun, was a big flash newer sort of place with a car park. It had beams too, but you could tell they weren’t very old. There was a sign in the window. I went closer to read it.

‘No Gypsies! No Irish!’ it said.

I stepped back, shocked.

‘Can they really say that?’

‘Yes, of course. The fair’s been here recently, that’s what that’s all about. They don’t want gyppos upsetting their posh customers. Is this the pub we want?’

‘No, thank heavens. We want the Royal Oak.’

We went across the green and in through the tiny low door of the pub. It had no signs in its window. Inside there were flagged floors and a small log fire. Two old men, smoking pipes, were playing dominoes. They looked up when we went in, ‘Afternoon,’ they said, and went back to their game.

Since we’d walked in through the door, I’d been holding my breath. I was waiting for someone to shout at me, or say they couldn’t serve me, accuse me of being a tart. Instead, the cheerful young landlord was saying, ‘Right sir, and what can I get you?’

‘Pint of bitter for me please,’ said George.

‘And for the lady?’

I hesitated. I could hardly believe I was actually going to get a drink at last. But I didn’t know what to ask for, what to choose. Apart from the beer pumps, the stock on the shelves looked pretty limited. I could see gin and whisky and lots of bottles of Mackeson and Guinness. An advert on the wall showed flying toucans, watched by some RAF types. ‘Lovely day for a Guinness’ said the slogan. But perhaps not.

‘No vodka, I suppose?’ I laughed, as if I were making a joke.

‘No, this is Middleton not Moscow, miss.’

‘Sorry, I don’t know what to have.’

‘She’s American,’ said George in explanation.

‘Right darling. Why not have a shandy, a lot of ladies like that. Or a drop of local cider?’

‘Cider. That sounds fine. Yes please.’

He disappeared for a moment and came back with a large enamel jug. He placed a half-pint glass on the counter about a yard away and lifted the jug. Cider poured from it in a long arc and fell, perfectly on target, into the glass. It was neatly done.

I took a sip. ‘Cheers!’ I said and nearly choked. ‘God this is strong! What’s in it?’

‘Apples, mostly,’ said the landlord, ‘and a few dead rats of course.’

I trusted he was joking, but boy was that cider good. It hit the spot wonderfully. I remembered I’d left my Oxo tin at the office.

‘Any food on? Sandwiches?’

‘The missus can make you a sandwich if you like. Ham or cheese?’

We both chose ham and while the missus was making them, I told the landlord why we’d come. He was happy to talk, a good utterer, and he spoke in quotes. Easy peasy George did a nice picture of him leaning on the bar, and by the time the sandwiches came, we’d just about finished, leaving Ray, the landlord, to serve his other customers.

George and I took our sandwiches – and a second drink – over to a table by the tiny window. The sandwiches were brilliant. Proper thick bread with black crusts, masses of butter (Diet? What diet?) and chunks of delicious home-cooked ham. Real food. But now we were just sitting down and not actually working or talking about work, I noticed George looked a bit uneasy. It took a while to dawn on me that sitting in a bar alone with an older woman was clearly something he wasn’t used to.

‘It’s all right George, I won’t eat you.’

He smiled uneasily and moved a little further away from me.

‘Did you like the army, George?’

‘It was all right. Once you’d got basic training over. All that bloody, sorry Rose, all that drill and bullsh— all that stuff you had to do.’

‘Did you go straight from school?’

‘No. I was a messenger on
The News.
Then I used to help Charlie with the developing and printing and things. I told them that when I got called up and I got to work for the information unit. Which was spot on. I worked with the army photographers, so when I came back Mr Henfield took me on as a proper assistant for Charlie, so I was pretty chuffed really. I think Peggy put in a good word for me.’

‘Peggy?’

‘Yes, Henfield’s secretary. Oh you know, you’re lodging at her house, aren’t you? She’s nice, isn’t she? She was always nice to me when I was a messenger. Most people just take the mick all the time, but Peggy never did. She was always kind. She always said that there was no reason that I shouldn’t be a photographer. She always makes you think you can do things if you really want to. And she’s got a lovely smile.’