The Accidental Time Traveller (26 page)

‘Oh, right. OK then.’ George looked awkward. ‘Well I only wanted to see that you were better, so I’ll be going now. Goodbye.’ And he fled.

‘Well you might have offered the lad a drink,’ said Mrs Brown.

‘Drink?’ said her husband. ‘He doesn’t look old enough.’

Later, when Peggy was going up to bed, her mother suddenly reached out her hand and put it on Peggy’s arm, and with eyes full of tears she looked at her and said fiercely, ‘Don’t you ever do anything that stupid again.’

Whether she meant a suicide bid or an unwanted pregnancy, I didn’t know.

* * *

‘Do you like it?’

Carol was in the reception area at
The News,
taking off her coat to show me her new outfit.

‘It’s a bit thin for now, but I just wanted to show you.’

It was the material she’d bought on the market, which she’d made into a skirt. Now it was made up I could see that the picture was of a Paris street scene, pavement cafés and people walking poodles. Odd but effective. With the skirt Carol wore a wide black patent-leather belt and a fitted white blouse. She looked stunning.

‘Did you make that yourself?’

‘Yes, of course. It’s not as full as I’d like because there wasn’t really enough material, but it’s all right isn’t?’

‘Great,’ I said. ‘What a clever mummy you have,’ I said to Libby who was waiting patiently by the full shopping bag, ‘smoking’ a sweet cigarette and blowing imaginary smoke rings.

‘And what about the blouse?’

‘Fine, absolutely fine.’

‘It’s an old shirt of Billy’s that I altered.’

‘It’s great, perfect.’ What wouldn’t I give to have an old shirt of Will’s around me? ‘It makes a brilliant outfit. Time for a coffee?’

Smiling, she shrugged back into her shabby brown coat, picked up her shopping bag, took Libby’s hand, and we went over to Silvino’s.

As soon as we got there Libby wanted the loo. So while Carol took her I ordered the coffees and sat doodling in my notebook. ‘What’s that?’ asked Carol as she came back.

‘It was my favourite outfit when I was a student,’ I said.

I’d sketched a girl – a very long-legged slim girl, not at all like me – in my favourite denim mini, a strappy vest, and my lovely, lovely cowboy boots. I quickly drew in the last tiny detail and showed it to Carol.

‘What’s that?’ she asked, peering at the paper.

‘My belly button stud,’ I said. ‘It was a little fake diamond.’

‘In your belly button? You never!’ She looked genuinely shocked. ‘Didn’t it hurt?’

I shook my head, smiling.

‘And what did you wear on top?’

‘I had a lovely little denim jacket.’

‘No, I mean on top of this?’ asked Carol astonished. ‘You couldn’t go out in the streets in this.’

‘Yes I did.’

‘But … It looks just like your underpinnings!’ she said, and it was my turn to laugh.

She looked so worried that I decided to draw her something a bit less revealing.

‘Here’s the outfit I wore to my cousin’s wedding last summer,’ I said, and quickly drew the knee-length flippy silk skirt and boxy jacket. ‘That’s a sort of bright peacock blue and the edging and lining,’ I scribbled swiftly, ‘are a jade green, and my shoes, ah my shoes …’ I tried to draw them, but didn’t do a very good job. ‘They had really high heels, I could only just walk in them and kept sinking in the grass, and they were the same jadey colour as the edging on my jacket and across the middle …’ I jabbed some bits in. ‘They had little tiny jewels. Well, bits of coloured glass, really, but the effect was good.’

Carol gawped at my sketch and then looked at me, sheer envy all over her face. ‘They are wonderful. Magic,’ she said. ‘I would love to have shoes like that.’

‘You’d be a princess,’ said Libby.

‘Yes, my love, I would. A real princess.’

She looked hungrily at my rough sketch and I thought of all the shoes that Caz and I had between us, and I just wished that somehow there could have been a way of getting a pair to Carol.

* * *

That day Mr Brown went to see Henfield. Gosh I wish I’d been a fly on the wall.

‘So what’s happening?’ I asked Peggy. I’d been in my bedroom putting some ironing away. (By the way, did you know that steam irons hadn’t been invented in the 1950s? And everything was cotton, which creased horrendously? So you had to iron everything through a wet tea towel? Brilliant.) Peggy knocked and came in. I think she just wanted to get away from the atmosphere downstairs.

‘He denied it. Said there was no proof the baby was his.’

‘He can’t do that! Anyway, you can get DNA testing and …’ No you probably couldn’t actually. Not yet. ‘What did your father do? What did he say? What happened?’

‘There wasn’t much he could do. Threaten to tell Henfield’s wife, I suppose, but that would just make things worse. I don’t know. He said he’s going back, but for the moment, nothing. Honestly, I can’t believe how stupid I was to get involved with him.’

‘Easy to be wise with hindsight. And what will you do? Are you going to keep the baby?’

‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. Don’t care really.’

Her blouse was already straining at the buttons. She looked down on the small but noticeable bump and pressed her hands on it. ‘I still can’t believe it’s happening. I keep hoping it’s all a nasty dream and I’ll wake up and everything will be just as it was. It’s hateful!’ she suddenly spat out. ‘Nothing fits any more and I still keep feeling sick.

‘I just want it all to be over so I can start again. But I don’t know if I can. Oh Rosie, it was awful when my dad came to see me in hospital, he was so upset. He just kept calling me his little girl and I just felt, oh, I just felt I’d really let him down.

‘And as for Mum. She’s so ashamed of me I think she’d have preferred it if I’d, if well, if you hadn’t found me.’

‘Rubbish! Don’t you dare think that! If you’d seen them on Monday night, they were beside themselves. They didn’t sleep all night, for worry and waiting to phone the hospital. And when you came home yesterday she did your favourite food.’

Actually I couldn’t understand it. I could see how much they cared, and I thought that they’d be so relieved Peggy was safe that they would be happy about the baby. But it wasn’t that simple. It was clear that Mrs Brown especially was having trouble getting used to the idea. It was only a baby after all. As Marje said, she wasn’t the first, and she wouldn’t be the last.

‘Mum’s written to my Aunty Emily.’

‘Well, she’ll want to tell her about the baby.’

‘No. Well, yes, she’ll tell her about the baby. That’s the point. My Aunty Emily lives in London. Mum thinks I should go and stay with her, until … until the baby’s born.’

‘But why?’

‘Then I can just have the baby and have it adopted. And no one will know. I can come back home and everything will be just the way it was. But it won’t be, will it? Nothing will ever be the same again. There’ll be a baby. Wherever it is, there’ll be a baby.

‘Oh I wish I could put the clock back. I would never ever have gone near Richard Henfield. I wish I could go back.’ She sank onto my bed looking wretched.

‘Peggy!’ Mrs Brown was shouting from downstairs. ‘Peggy! Are you up there?’

‘Yes Mum, just talking to Rosie.’

‘Well come down here.’

‘What does she want?’ I asked.

‘Nothing. She just doesn’t want me out of her sight, I suppose.’ She went downstairs.

This was a grown woman of twenty-six, skulking in her parents’ house like a naughty schoolgirl.

Nothing was actually said about the baby. It was as if by not mentioning it, it didn’t exist. But occasionally Mrs Brown would refer to it very obliquely. She would give Peggy an extra helping at meal times and say, ‘You’ve got to keep your strength up.’

There was no question of Peggy going back to work. Instead she gradually took over the housekeeping. She did the washing and ironing and cooked the evening meal. She would then collapse on the sofa while her mother or I did the washing up. Nothing was said, not in my hearing anyway, but the threat of Aunty Emily still hung over the house. Whether Mrs Brown had had a reply yet I didn’t know, but we were all walking on eggshells.

The atmosphere in the house had been so heavy that even Janice had kept away, but one day she crept back into the kitchen.

‘I really miss the boys,’ she said simply, bleakly.

‘Oh Janice,’ said Peggy immediately giving her a hug. ‘It’s for the best you know. They’re safe at Parkfields. And it must be easier for you at home.’

Janice nodded, unconvinced.

‘And there are still plenty of you to keep your mum busy, aren’t there?’

Janice nodded again. Then she looked up fiercely. ‘Sometimes I really wanted them to be gone. They break things and scream and they ruin everything. Sometimes I
hate
them. But other times … other times they’re just like the little ones. They’ll play with Dennis and the baby.’

‘Ah yes, but then what happens?’ asked Mrs Brown, who had come into the kitchen. ‘What happened to Dennis’s little truck that your dad made him?’

Janice said nothing.

‘They threw it at Dennis, didn’t they? Cut his head badly. Could have blinded him. No love, Parkfields is the best place for them. Best for all of you. Now come and have a cup of tea and some cake.’ And she led the child towards a chair, her arms protectively around her thin shoulders, as if she could be kind to Janice when she couldn’t be kind to her own daughter. And Janice started creeping back into the kitchen with her enormous satchel full of books.

A few days later, Janice was at the table doing her homework – I can’t remember whether it was the life cycle of the amoeba or Latin verbs – when she started chewing her pencil and looking at Peggy quizzically.

‘Peggy, are you having a baby?’

Peggy went bright red and nearly dropped the kettle.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Well, you look as though you are.’

I remembered she had seven brothers, most of them younger than she was.

‘Well actually Janice, yes I am, but it’s a secret and you’re not supposed to tell anyone yet.’

‘Well, it won’t be a secret for long, will it?’ said Janice and calmly went back to the amoeba or Latin, whatever it was.

Mrs Brown must have thought so too. She started producing strange clothes for Peggy to wear, clothes she’d dug out of the attic and altered. Maybe even her own old pregnancy clothes. I’m no expert on 1950s maternity wear but even by the standards of the day they looked pretty bleak. But that evening they inspired Janice to put her pen down for a while.

‘Rosie, will you tell me more about the clothes your editor back home wears?’ she asked, pushing a lock of lank hair back behind her ears. ‘What makes them special?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘they are always beautifully cut, stylish without being gimmicky and absolutely immaculate.’ Janice listened attentively, as if she had to memorise the details for yet another test, as if she were saving up the information for future use.

Peggy watched her for a moment then disappeared upstairs and came down again holding what looked like a tiny leather purse.

‘A present for you,’ she said to Janice. ‘It’s a manicure set. Look, there are some nail scissors, some emery boards, and some little sticks to push your cuticles down nice and tidily. See?’

Janice looked, her bright little eyes lighting up her face. ‘For me?’

‘Yes,’ said Peggy. ‘Now go and give your hands a really good wash and I’ll show you how to use everything. And if you look after your nails properly then next week I’ll let you have some of my nail varnish.’

Janice scuttled off to the scullery to wash her hands and then the two of them sat by the range, heads bent down over Janice’s hands, absorbed in the manicure. I thought how kind Peggy could be, and how a manicure – however unlikely – seemed the perfect distraction for them both.

‘Job for you,’ said Billy, his eyes dancing with laughter as he looked up from the papers on his desk.

I grinned back, relishing the warmth of his smile, the feeling that he and I were about to share a secret joke. ‘Just let me get sorted.’ I dumped my bag, including my Oxo tin of sandwiches, on my desk. I was glad to be in the office, away from the heavy atmosphere at the Browns’, glad to be in the office with Billy, especially glad to be with Billy in this open, laughing mood.

‘Sir Howard Castleton,’ said Billy, ‘is a junior government minister.’

‘Isn’t he the one who talked such rubbish about women drivers?’ I interrupted indignantly. ‘The one who said women weren’t safe driving cars because they would be too busy looking in the mirror to check their lipstick?’ My blood boiled at the stupidity and ignorance of the man.

‘The very same,’ said Billy, his huge smile making him look young and happy, and also making me long to rush forward and kiss him. Kiss him? I could have ravished him there and then on the desk. Instead, I had to content myself with gazing into his big brown eyes. ‘And he’s coming here today. In fact, he’s here to open the new driving test centre.’