The Accidental Time Traveller (12 page)

We had turned down a narrow steep lane and at the bottom at the side of a stream was a derelict mill and a tiny cottage.

‘Oh isn’t that pretty!’ I exclaimed.

‘You wouldn’t think so if you had to live here,’ said Carol, and even she almost had to stoop to go in through the front door.

The rooms were small and dark, so much so that I could hardly see anything. Carol went through to a kitchen and then out into a back garden that spread up the hill. It was huge. And in the middle of it was Will.

All the time I’d been walking home with Carol, I had tried to put out of my mind the fact that Will would be here. He was, after all, her husband.

And here he was. And what’s more, gardening. Will gardening! This place got stranger and stranger. Will in baggy army trousers carrying an old window, with young Pete hanging on the other end. What if he dropped it? What if it smashed?

‘Careful now, Pete,’ Will was saying, ‘just bring it around to the side of the house, next to the other one.’ The two of them manoeuvred it carefully into place, looked at it admiringly and then Carol called out, ‘Dinner’s ready. Come and get your chips!’

Pete dragged his eyes away from the window frame and came running down the path. ‘Can we have them in the paper, Mum? Not on plates?’

‘Course you can,’ said Carol, ‘save on washing up. We’ll eat them out there, pretend we’re on holiday. Where’s Davy?’

‘Gone around Rob’s on his bike.
My
bike.’

‘I know dear, but it’s too small for you now, isn’t it!’ said Carol. ‘Come on, Libby.’

The small girl who’d been with her in the office was crouching intently over a small patch of earth. ‘I’m planting lettuces,’ she said.

‘And we’ve been building a cold frame,’ said Pete, jumping up onto the low wall and reaching for his chips. ‘Dad and I have built one half and we’ve got the framework and bricks ready for the second half. We just have to make them secure now. And put the hinges on.’

‘Good boy,’ said Carol. ‘Here you are, Billy.’

Will/Billy wiped his hands on his trousers and perched on the wall, looking out over his garden, as if he were still thinking about it, planning it.

I was suddenly shy with this Will, Billy, I hardly seemed to know him – a man who was competent and capable with practical things. ‘Big garden you’ve got,’ I said. The garden seemed to spread up the hillside. It was wonderfully neat and tidy, lots of rows, with small green shoots springing out.

‘I didn’t have you down as a gardener. I don’t know why,’ I said, though I did know why – because I couldn’t imagine Will gardening.

‘My dad always had an allotment. I kept it going during the war. Then the scouts had a couple of allotments too, so I had plenty of practice.’

‘You were in the scouts?’

‘Oh yes, we were always busy for the war effort – digging for victory, firewatching, collecting scrap metal. Though whether anyone’s garden railings ever did go to build Spitfires I have great doubts. But it kept us busy.’

Carol was giggling.

‘He was a good scout,’ she said, ‘but if he’d remembered to Be Prepared, we wouldn’t have had Pete, would we?’

So that’s why … Caz had been pregnant and that’s why Will had married her. That’s why they were married so young. Even as I worked it out, it hurt. Caz’s giggle and Will’s answering grin, their shared complicity – not to mention their shared lives and shared children – cut me out. They were the couple. I was the outsider. It suddenly felt very lonely.

Billy ruffled Peter’s hair affectionately. ‘Wouldn’t be without him. You’ve worked well this morning, son.’

I ate my fish and chips – growing cold and more batter than fish, to be honest – and tried to take in this new Billy. At the end of a long working week, he had spent a morning doing hard physical work and soon he was going off to work again. Yet he looked really happy.

‘Right,’ he said, screwing up the fish and chip paper. ‘We’ll just have time to get those hinges fixed before I have to go to the office. Come on, Pete.’

Pete gobbled the last of his chips And the two of them went back up the path. I could see Billy explaining the job to Pete as they fastened the old window frame to the framework on the wall beside the shed. Billy did one bit, then handed the tools to Pete who did the next while his father stood and watched approvingly, just making an occasional suggestion, or holding the boy’s hand steady, while taking the weight of the window with his other hand. Then they tested the frame, lifting it up and down and laughing, pleased with their work.

‘Tea’s made,’ called Carol.

Billy strode down the path with his arm around Pete’s shoulders and then turned off down another path into what looked like a guardsman’s sentry box. What a funny shed, I thought, and then realised, as he came out, adjusting his trousers, that it was the loo. And with no water plumbed to it. It didn’t bear thinking about.

‘I’ll just get a wash before I have that tea,’ said Billy, going into the house.

I could hear the sound of water running in the kitchen behind me. He was having a wash at the kitchen sink? And he came out, changed into his work trousers and tweedy jacket and tying his tie.

‘Right, see you later,’ he said, drinking his tea quickly. ‘Pete – make sure you put all the tools back in the shed please – in their proper place. And I’ll go and earn my corn. Or maybe enough for a new bike for somebody,’ and he grinned at Pete, whose face lit up.

‘Really? A new bike?’

‘Well, if there’s anyone with a birthday coming up, whose bike is too small for them …’

‘Yippee!’ yelled Pete.

Billy put down his teacup and picked up Libby. ‘And soon we’ll have the most delicious lettuce in the world for our tea,’ he said, kissing the top of her head. ‘But now Daddy’s got to go to work. See you later everybody.’

He nodded towards me, ‘Nice to see you, Rosie.’ He ducked back into the dark kitchen and in a few minutes I could see him striding easily up the hill. The very picture of a family man. Will as a family man … It took some getting used to.

‘He seems very grown up,’ I said, staring after him.

‘Yes, he’s a good help around the house and he loves helping his dad,’ said Carol, looking fondly at Peter.

‘Oh I didn’t mean Pete. I meant Wi— Billy.’

‘Billy? Well of course he’s grown up, you daft ha’p’orth. He’s twenty-nine years old and if that’s not grown up I don’t know what is.’

I thought of Will and Jamie playing table football, of them drooling over the motor racing. Twenty-nine? Grown up? Not always.

As instructed, Peter was carefully putting all the tools back in the shed. Libby had abandoned her lettuce planting and was busy with a battered dolls’ pram, tucking her charges in under many layers of blankets.

‘Tell you what, while they’re busy, let’s make a fresh pot of tea,’ said Carol.

I followed her into the kitchen and, once my eyes had adjusted to the gloom, took a good look around. It was quite a big room but low ceilinged, very crowded and smelt of earth and damp despite the fire burning in the range. Above it was a clothes rack covered in folded ironing, just as at the Browns’. There were two battered armchairs on either side of the fire, and an alcove full of books.

There was a table covered with a cloth, and a cheap metal cupboard with plates and cups and a few packets of food – I could see a tin of peas and a packet of Puffed Wheat, and on a drop-down shelf, a loaf of bread, and a dish of butter. Against one wall was a big stone sink with a wooden draining board, scrubbed white, with a mirror above it. And on a shelf alongside were a couple of mugs. One held a family of toothbrushes and another held a shaving brush. So this is where Billy shaved in the morning. I thought of Will and our power shower and his whole shelf full of gels and foams and aftershaves and skin care. The big tin bath I’d seen on the wall outside, I realised suddenly, that was their bath …

Beneath the sink was a gingham curtain, hiding pots and pans I presumed. And on top of the stove was a big covered pan.

‘Something nice cooking for supper?’ I asked.

‘No! Billy’s underpants boiling.’

Oh God, definitely too much information.

‘When we move I’m going to have a proper electric wash boiler, maybe even a washing machine. You can get one on the never never. It’ll be grand. No more pans of towels. No more standing at the sink scrubbing.’ She looked wistful.

‘Tell me about America, Rosie. Tell me about the things you have.’

‘I’ll tell you about my friend Caz,’ I said, ‘the one who’s just like you.’

‘OK,’ and she settled down happily, with her cup of tea, like a child having a story. Just like Caz in fact, when I have a juicy bit of gossip for her.

I told her about Caz.

‘She lives with a teacher called Jamie.’

‘What, just lives with? Over the brush? They’re not married?’

‘No.’

‘And he’s still allowed to be a teacher?’

‘Well yes.’

‘Didn’t think the parents would like that. Not a good example.’

‘Half the parents aren’t married either.’

‘Oh well. Funny place America. So what’s their house like?’

‘It’s a Victorian terraced house.’

‘What, an old-fashioned thing, not a nice new one?’

‘With four bedrooms, two bathrooms.’

Two
bathrooms? Blimey, I’d be happy just to have one!’

‘And it’s all decorated in neutral colours.’

‘Neutral?’

‘Yes, you know, whites and creams and beiges.’

‘Sounds boring.’

‘Not really because Caz has made great cushions and they have wonderful paintings on the walls.’

‘Paintings? They must be rich these friends.’

‘No, as I said, Jamie’s a teacher and Caz works with me on the paper.’

‘Have they got a telly?’

‘Oh yes, Jamie’s just bought a big one, about four-foot long. The colours are really sharp.’

‘Colours? You’ve got TV in colour?’

‘Yes, almost all our TVs are in colour. And we can have over a hundred different channels to watch.’

Carol just gawped at me. I told her about Caz and Jamie having a car each, how they went skiing at Christmas and were planning to go to Thailand in the summer, but I don’t think Carol believed me. She certainly seemed unable to take it all in.

‘Have they got any kiddies?’

‘No. No. They don’t want any, not yet anyway. And I’m not sure if they ever want any.’

‘Well you get what you’re given,’ laughed Carol, ‘even if the timing’s not quite right. But I wouldn’t be without them.’

Libby had come in, sucking her thumb and carrying a doll in her other hand. She snuggled into Carol, who put her arm around her. ‘Wouldn’t be without you, would I my precious? Nor your big brothers.’

‘And what about Billy?’ I asked, my heart thumping and my voice suddenly shaking.

‘He’s a good dad,’ said Carol. ‘Works hard, brings his pay home, does the garden. No complaints.’

‘And you’re happy?’ I hesitated but had to ask. ‘You still love him?’

‘Love him?’ Carol laughed. ‘Don’t know what love’s got to do with it. But we’ve rubbed along for a long time now and he’s a good man, a decent man. Never hesitated about getting wed and been a good provider ever since. Could do worse.

‘He earns the money and looks after the garden. And I look after him and the kids and the house. And when we get our new house, we’ll all be made up won’t we?’

‘Where is your new house going to be?’

‘Up at The Meadows.’

‘The Meadows?’

I thought of that vast estate, the few good areas and the stretches of bad parts, where joyriders terrorised the streets and then made bonfires of the cars they’d stolen. The wrecks sat in the streets for weeks, blending in with the other rubbish dumped in front gardens of houses with boarded-up windows sprayed with graffiti. Litter blew in the wind and aggressive young girls, all sulky expressions, bare midriffs, cheap thongs and tattoos, sat on walls, chain-smoking, throwing insults at passersby while their babies sat ignored in buggies.

‘Yes, it’s going to be great up there. The houses are lovely, really lovely. They’ve got big windows so they’re all light and airy and we’ll have a bathroom and three bedrooms and there’s a kitchen, with a proper cooker and a sitting room with a back boiler and a little dining room as well. We’ll be so posh, won’t we Libby? And you can have a bedroom all on your own. Won’t that be lovely?’

There was a crash outside the door. A small boy came bursting through. He too looked just like Carol but with Will’s big brown eyes. ‘Hi Mum. Is there anything to eat? I’m starving!’

‘Then you should have been home for your dinner. We ate all your chips. But if you’re good I’ll get you some bread and jam – and will you look at the state of your clothes! What have you been doing?’

‘Building a den, but then Rob had to go and see his gran.’

‘Right, get out of those clothes and I think we’ll get you in the sink and wash you down.’

Time for me to leave. ‘I’d better be going and leave you to it. It’s been great really. Thanks for the chips and the tea, and everything.’