The Accidental Time Traveller (22 page)

‘What’s this village called?’

‘Long Edge,’ said Phil.

I sipped my cider and looked at the view, relished the silence and peace of it. I thought of the narrow road overlaid by the six-lane motorway. This little pub is somewhere under the service station now, all flashing yellow-and-red neon signs and constant traffic and noise and people. It was a hard idea to get my head around.

‘Penny for them,’ said Phil, smiling.

‘What do you think this place will look like in fifty years?’ I asked him.

‘Probably much the same as it does now,’ said Phil. ‘It hasn’t changed much in the last thousand years, so can’t see fifty making much difference.’ He lit a cigarette as though that ended the matter.

‘I liked your story about the dog that caught the train,’ he said. I’d done a shaggy dog story about a dog that hopped on a train every day to meet his master coming from work. It was a bit daft.

‘Billy reckons you’ve got a really nice touch with light stories – as well as the big stuff like the Littlejohn piece. He thinks highly of you.’

I wanted to punch the air with glee. I was glad the light was fading so Phil couldn’t see me blush, or see the eagerness in my face. Trying to keep the conversation about Will going would be the next best thing to being with him. I wanted to talk about him, find out more of what he was like at work, what Phil knew about Carol and the family. I was trying to frame ways of asking questions without seeming unreasonably interested, but Phil was telling stories about stories, the way newspaper people always do when they get together.

We had another drink or two and talked in easy, friendly fashion about work. All the time I was thinking about Will.

Finally it was dark. We still sat there on the bench outside the pub, with the sound of the sheep, and the muffled buzz of conversation and clatter of dominoes from the few old men inside. Phil put his arm around me and then he kissed me. Not passionately, but nicely. I was a bit shocked. Not because it was Phil – but because it wasn’t Will. Surprised really.

And I kissed him back, a bit absent-mindedly, but quite nicely, politely. And we got on the bike and rode down the hill into the deep darkness, with just a few pinpoints of light from the occasional house. And I thought about all the lights and the gantries on the motorway and it was a bit odd really.

When we got back to the Browns’ house, I hopped off the bike and gave Phil a swift kiss on the cheek before he could get the bike propped up and get me into a clinch.

‘Thank you for a nice evening, Phil,’ I said, and went quickly into the house and upstairs to bed where I could devote myself to thinking about Will without any distractions.

Just before I drifted off to sleep I wondered briefly about Peggy’s big night with Lenny.

As I lay in bed on Sunday morning I could hear the Browns getting ready for their day out. The rattle as they cleared the fire. The back door banging and the stamping of feet as they took ashes out and brought coal and sticks in. Familiar morning sounds now. They were making an early start for their complicated journey. They seemed to be pottering on for ages until finally I heard the front door close and their footsteps receding along the quiet Sunday street.

Once they’d gone, I made a pot of tea and sat at the kitchen table reading Mr Brown’s
Sunday Pictorial,
a real scandal sheet, but still with a surprising amount of news in it. What bliss. No thought of church, or of peeling vast amounts of vegetables for lunch, or anything. Nothing to do at all. I finished reading the
Sunday Pictorial.
Had a second cup of tea. Sambo, for lack of anyone else, leapt up gracefully and settled down on my lap. I stroked him absently.

Now what?

I was restless and didn’t know what to do. I had no friends to meet, apart from Phil, and he’d be having a lazy day because he was back on night shift tonight. Anyway, I didn’t want the poor chap to get the wrong idea by appearing too keen. I liked him too much for that. It was Will, of course, I wanted. But …

I decided I’d go for a walk, use up some energy. I put on my little red jacket, scribbled a note for Peggy and set out. I meandered through the town and found the path alongside the river. It was a pleasant walk, with that scent of spring in the air, still chilly but suddenly warm in the sun. I was enjoying walking. I noticed that I had much more energy than I had in my normal life. Getting more sleep helped, I suppose. And not drinking so much. There had to be some benefits.

I had no idea where I was going and I was trying to superimpose my route on the mental map of the modern town I knew, but I couldn’t marry the two. I walked on, glad to have an outlet for my restlessness. And then I laughed. Instinct was an amazing thing.

Somehow I had walked around the town until I was on the opposite side of the river from Billy’s house. There it was, at the bottom of that narrow lane, perched on the river bank, with the long garden stretching up behind it. I walked up some steps to a bench in the shelter of the old town wall where I could sit and look across. From here the neat rows of vegetables just beginning to come through had all the organisation and formality of a medieval garden. There was an intricate pattern of paths and squares. It reminded me of those Victorian samplers, neat, ordered.

Two small figures were running around the lower part of the garden. Peter and Davy, I guessed, chasing a ball. Then I saw Billy. He was coming down the path, carrying some sort of rake or hoe or something. He propped it up by the shed, then, wiping his hands on the seat of his trousers, he intercepted the ball. The two boys’ delighted yells of mock indignation floated across the river. I wasn’t the only one watching them. Another figure carrying a tray was coming up the steps. It was Carol who stood watching them all, while a tiny figure, Libby, clung to her skirts. One of the boys mis-kicked the ball and it headed straight for their mother. I waited, tensed for the tray to crash, but no, Carol had sidestepped neatly and then kicked the ball back towards the boys. She put the tray down somewhere just out of sight and they all gathered around her as she seemed to be dishing out drinks and biscuits.

It was a tiny snippet of family life. The sort of thing happening in hundreds of back gardens all over Britain. Nothing special at all. And it broke my heart.

They were a family, enclosed, happy together. And I was on the outside. I had no place with them. Watching them I was like a voyeur, watching people who had something I wanted so badly, something I couldn’t manage on my own.

I stayed there, watching and immobile, while they finished their elevenses. I saw Billy put a cup back on the tray and walk back up the garden to carry on with his work. I watched him as he picked up a spade and dug a small patch. It must have been hard work, but he worked quickly and easily in a smooth steady rhythm. I just stared at the sheer physi-cality of him.

This was an aspect of Will I had never seen. I had never, I realised, seen him do any physical work. Sport, yes, but not work. Billy seemed to spend much of his time doing practical useful things for his family. Will just seemed to amuse himself.

Then the two boys were having a pretend fight. Billy called something to them. He must have sent them on an errand because they came back with a bundle of long sticks and a ball of string. Billy stopped what he was doing and came over. He divided the sticks into smaller bundles, cut up the string and tied the sticks together. He was doing it slowly, obviously explaining to the boys what he was doing. They stood and watched, then they too tried the trick and Billy guided them, helped them. Then with great triumph, they put the bundles of sticks upright and spread them out and I saw that they had made two perfect sort of tent frames, tepee-shaped, which they set up in the vegetable patch. Presumably they were a framework for some vegetable to grow up. They boys looked pleased with what they had done and Davy ran back down the path, dragging Carol back up to see.

As they admired the boys’ handiwork Billy and Carol stood close together. He casually put an arm around her shoulder and she looked up at him. I couldn’t see their expressions, but I knew they must be smiling at the newly found skills of their children. I couldn’t watch any more.

My hands had gone numb while I’d been watching, trying to get as close as I could to that little family scene.

My fingers were white and bloodless and scratched from the splintered wood of the bench. I liked the chilly numbness. It seemed right and fitting. It was how I wanted my mind to be, my emotions too.

How could I still want Will when he so clearly was happy with someone else? Will and I could never be together in this bloody awful place at this bloody awful time.

I hated myself and I hated what was happening to me. This challenge was too real, too painful. I remembered dimly the time when I had thought that it was meant to be a television programme. But that seemed like a dream now. All my other life did. I had to concentrate hard to remember it. Reality was here and now. Caz and Will, Carol and Billy. My two best friends, leaving me out and alone.

I jumped up from the bench and down the steps, landed awkwardly on the river path below. I sat there for a moment, just wanting to cry. I’d grazed my hands and knees and twisted my ankle. But I didn’t care. That wasn’t important.

I had thought that as soon as Will saw me again, he would want me and just come to me. It had seemed so simple, so obvious. Will and I loved each other. Surely we were meant to be together. So how could he not want me here as he did in our own time?

Yet maybe he did. I remembered the way he looked at me sometimes, the way our eyes met, the way he had held me after the evening at Littlejohn’s … Oh yes, Billy was attracted to me.

But he wasn’t going to do anything about it, was he? Will might have no one else in his life but me, Will and I might be free to wonder whether we wanted to be together. But Billy and I didn’t have that choice. Billy had already chosen, chosen Carol. Now he had a wife and family, and there was no way I could fit into his plans.

I hobbled home, almost glad of the pain in my ankle.

By the time I got back to the house I was in a dreadful state and close to tears. There was blood streaming from my hand and my trousers were ripped. I headed straight up to the bathroom. I needed to bathe my cuts, find some other clothes and just sort myself out. I went upstairs, hanging on to the banister and hauling myself up as my ankle was quite painful now.

I paused, frozen, at the top of the stairs. There was someone in my bedroom.

It sounded as if someone was opening all the dressing-table drawers. I could hear a drawer being opened and someone going through my things. Then another drawer opened …

Burglars. It had to be. Well, there wasn’t much for them to steal from my room. But what should I do?

There was a phone downstairs in the hall below me. If I could get down quietly, I might be able to dial 999. But what if the burglar heard me?

I started inching quietly back down the stairs, wincing as I put weight on my rapidly swelling ankle. Then I heard another noise. It was a sort of whimper and a sob. And a familiar voice said, ‘Oh where are they?’ in a voice reeking of tears and desperation.

‘Peggy?’ I asked tentatively, hauling myself back up on to the landing. ‘Peggy, is that you?’

The noise in my room stopped completely. I knew that on the other side of the door Peggy had frozen at the sound of my voice.

I limped along and pushed the bedroom door open.

There was devastation. All the drawers and the wardrobe were half open with a lot of stuff obviously just taken out and flung to one side. I didn’t think I had much, but when I saw it scattered like that, I realised there was quite a lot really. And my handbag had been emptied out on the shiny, slippery green eiderdown.

Peggy was sitting on the bed now. Her face was swollen and blotchy, her eyes red. She looked dreadful.

‘Peggy? What on earth are you doing?’ I limped towards her.

‘Where are they?’ she demanded. ‘Where do you keep them?’ Honestly, she seemed mad.

I answered warily. ‘Keep what?’ I had absolutely no idea of what she was on about, but she was clearly in such a state I didn’t dare upset her any more.

‘The pills. Those tablets you told me you had to stop you having babies.’

‘Tablets? Babies?’

I remembered our conversation at the kitchen table, the one that her mother had cut so vehemently short.

‘Oh Peggy, I haven’t got them with me. Anyway, you have to take them to
prevent
you getting pregnant. Though, of course, there’s always the Morning After pill …’

Ah. Suddenly it all became clear. ‘Peggy, do you think you might be pregnant?’

And with that she howled. A dreadful, stomach-chilling howl of misery and desperation. ‘Don’t say it!’ she shrieked at me. ‘Don’t say it!’

‘Hey,’ I said, as gently as I could. ‘It’s not that bad. It’s not the end of the world …’

‘What do you know about it?’ she screamed at me. ‘It’s not you, is it?’

She flung herself face down on the bed, sobbing hysterically. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do.’

Gingerly, I put out a hand and stroked her shoulder as she snivelled into my eiderdown. The sobs continued. I handed her one of my little lace-edged handkerchiefs that she had flung out of the drawer and onto the floor.