The Accidental Time Traveller (34 page)

‘Are you all right there, love?’ asked Billy.

‘Been a bloody sight better,’ muttered the woman, so we knew she was all right really.

The little red boat was not designed for an adult lying across its middle seat. It meant Billy and I were forced to either end. The boat wasn’t very deep and was filling quickly with water.

‘Come on!’ yelled Billy, passing me an oar and untying the rope. ‘Let’s paddle.’

Once loose, the boat swirled out into the water and, with Billy kneeling at the front and me perched on the little seat at the back, we paddled through the streets, our oars working together in perfect rhythm as we raced for dry land. Under the heavy clouds, it was already getting dark, and it was wet, cold and a bit frightening, but it was also exhilarating. There I was with Billy, working together as a real team. I paddled faster, Billy adjusted his rhythm to match mine, and our heavily laden little pleasure craft seemed to sing over the water.

The raggedy woman stopped whimpering and looked up warily at us.

‘Blimey,’ she said, ‘I’ve been rescued by a pair of blooming Red Indians.’

Billy and I laughed out loud in shared pleasure.

Soon we came to higher ground and the boat started bumping along the pavement. There was a lorry with a couple of civil defence volunteers in it.

‘Where are you taking people to?’ Billy yelled across to them.

‘Church hall,’ one of them shouted back. ‘They’re doing soup and sandwiches for them.’

‘Ooh,’ said our raggedy woman sitting up, and looking quite bright, ‘I could just do with a drop of soup.’

‘Hop aboard then!’ shouted the civil defence man. The woman bundled up her raggedy clothes around her knees and waded out towards him.

‘Thanks for the lift,’ she said to us and then turned conspiratorially to me.

‘You hang on to him, love. He’s a bit of all right. Wouldn’t mind jumping into his arms again.’

And off she went while Billy and I laughed, with only a little embarrassment. Then we splashed along the road, pulling the little red boat behind us.

‘Well kid,’ said Billy, ‘we certainly have some adventures, you and me, don’t we?’

My heart did somersaults. ‘We certainly do. And it’s a lot more interesting than writing Meal Ideas for Busy Housewives. Thinking of which, we’d better get back to the office. I’ve got a lot of stuff to write up.’

‘What time is it?’

I pushed my soggy sleeve back up to see my watch.

‘Five to six.’

‘In that case, I’ve got a better idea. I’ll just make a phone call first.’

He disappeared into a phone box while I stood outside hanging on to the rope of the little red boat. I couldn’t hear what Billy was saying but he was obviously telling someone how to do something, his hands and arms talked for him. Just like Will. Caz always said that if Will broke his arms he’d be speechless.

‘Right,’ he said, emerging from the phone box and taking the boat rope from my hand. ‘Follow me.’

We splashed along for a little way until we came to the steep steps that led up to the old town wall. There was a tapas bar up there in my day, I remembered. Will and I had been there once or twice. But right now on this stormy rainy night, it was a pub. Billy tied the boat to a lamppost.

‘Don’t let me forget it. I did promise to take it back. Come on, up the steps.’

The steps were narrow and crumbling. There was no light anywhere, just a dim glow from the window of the pub. With the town wall stretching out in the gloom, it was almost medieval.

‘Jolly good, Bert has got the fire lit,’ said Billy.

The tiny bar was lit by candles and the glow of a coal fire. I went straight towards it and within seconds there was steam coming up from my soggy coat.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ said a voice from somewhere in the gloom behind the bar. ‘I might have known it would have to be some daft beggar out in weather like this. Even the dog’s got more sense.’

As if to prove it, a small terrier uncurled itself from a chair and came to sniff at my wellies.

‘And a good evening to you too, Bert,’ said Billy. ‘A pint and a half of bitter please. And can we take a couple of these candles over to the table? We’ve got work to do.’

‘Help yourself,’ said Bert. ‘Give us a shout when you want another drink or if any more daft beggars come in. I’ll be out the back.’

‘Right,’ said Billy. ‘They’re managing fine at the office. Phil’s in with Alan and the others are back. So I thought we might as well write our stuff up here and then we can phone it through. Much nicer, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I would. I most definitely would.’

So we sat on either side of the table, working by the fire in the glow of the flames and the candlelight. Just us in this strange little world at the end of a strange little day. It twisted my heart to watch Billy working because, of course it was Will’s way. He flipped through his notebook, marking something here, underlining something there. I just wanted to watch him, that little frown of concentration as he thought, the way his eyes lit up when he spotted something worth using, the quick, confident notes.

‘Right, that’s me done,’ he said.

‘But you haven’t written anything!’

‘Yes I have. Well, I’ve got the intro and a few bits. The rest I’ll just do on the phone.’

‘Oh.’

I really admired the way some people could just write a story off the top of their heads, especially dictating it to someone else. I was carefully – but quickly – writing out my whole story. I wanted to be sure I’d got what I wanted, where I wanted it. When Billy disappeared outside to the phone, I concentrated harder. There were so many different stories, all good. In the end I wrote them up as separate pieces, ready to slot anywhere on the page. I scribbled quickly.

‘OK, your turn with the phone. The copytaker’s waiting for you,’ said Billy, clearly not even considering the possibility that I couldn’t be ready. Which was a sort of compliment I suppose.

‘Don’t forget this.’

I looked. It was a torch, well a bike lamp really.

‘You’ve got to be able to read what you’ve written.’

Now that’s what I call being prepared …

I wriggled back into my sodden mac and out into the rain and to the phone box at the bottom of the steps, and started the long process of dictating the stories to the girl at the end of the line.

‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘It’s all really exciting, isn’t it?’

When I walked back into the pub, Billy was getting us some drinks.

‘I don’t suppose there’s any food, is there?’ I asked. ‘I’m starving.’

‘Can do you crisps,’ said Bert.

‘Oh right, um, anything else?’

‘Pickled eggs.’

‘Pickled eggs? Well thank you, but I think I’ll pass on that.’

‘Go on,’ said Billy, ‘local delicacy you can’t miss out on. Two bags of crisps and two eggs please, Bert. My treat.’

‘Thank you. I think,’ I said.

Bert took two packets of crisps and opened them. Then he unscrewed an evil-looking jar on the counter. Using his fingers – his fingers! – he reached in and pulled out an egg and placed it on top of the crisps in the open bag.

‘There you are, kid,’ said Billy, handing the crisps and egg to me.
‘Bon appetit,
as they say in France. Or, get stuck in, as we say here.’

I have to say that a pickled egg is not my idea of a delicacy. In fact it was pretty gross,
and
it made the crisps soggy. I wasn’t a great fan of beer either, but it seemed the right thing to drink somehow. I ate and drank and steamed gently by the fire and just counted my blessings for being here alone with Billy.

I remembered in those first days how I’d been desperate to be alone with him, convinced this was all a reality game that we had to win. But now I knew that this was no TV show. Today’s rain, for instance, couldn’t have been a studio stunt. Not even Cecil B. DeMille could have organised that lot.

When you eliminate everything else, what’s left must be the truth … Dwellers all in time and space …

Somehow I wasn’t so bothered about it any more. Well, maybe at three o’clock in the morning I was, but the rest of the time I was getting used to the 1950s. Take each day as it comes and enjoy the moment, Phil had said. He was right. And I was certainly enjoying being alone in this snug little room with Will …

‘You’ve done a good job today,’ he said, ‘as good as many of the men could have done.’

He meant it as a compliment. I tried not to feel patronised. Or want to hit him. He was laughing now. ‘That old dear was right. You were paddling like a Red Indian. A very wet Red Indian.’

‘Was that old woman living there?’

‘Yes, there’s all sorts of people living in there. It’s a warren, and probably not safe really. But it’s a roof, so I suppose it’s better than nothing.’

We leant back on the bench, cherished the warmth of the fire and talked about the day’s work – and the hope our hard-won words would get a decent show in the next day’s paper. And I watched the way the firelight showed up his cheekbones and the hollows and shadows of his face.

He told me what he knew about the floods elsewhere in the region – bad everywhere, but we had had by far the worst. And I looked at his hands curling around his beer glass. Working hands, callused hands, but with neat and tidy nails. Billy might not have the same shelf full of beauty products that Will had, but he had the same pride in keeping himself well groomed.

We talked of the rain and whether it would last, of the tidying-up operation, of the people in the church hall. And I watched the way his hair went into small curls at the nape of his neck as it dried.

We had another beer. And possibly another.

We talked of Gordon and when he might be back, of Alan and what a decent bloke he was. And even in the candlelight I could still see his long eyelashes and his deep brown eyes.

We talked of the plans for tomorrow, the way the story would develop. And I gazed at the outline of his broad shoulders reflected in shadows on the opposite wall. And I wanted to bury myself in his arms, and I wondered what would happen if I did. Just the two of us in this strange small room with the warm smell of beer and the glow of the fire and the candlelight. Just me and Will, his eyes never leaving mine, his body getting closer …

‘Right you two! Ain’t you got no homes to go to?’ Bert was doing things to the fire, closing down at the end of the night sort of things. He took our empty glasses and one of the candles back to the bar.

‘OK Bert, we can take a hint,’ said Billy. ‘I’ve left a boat tied up at the bottom of your steps. I’ll be back for it later.’

‘Boats on my steps. What next?’ muttered Bert, wiping down the bar.

We went out by the light of the bike lamp. I went to go back down the steps, but Billy stopped me. ‘Let’s walk along the walls for a way. It’s probably quicker, and certainly a drier way home for you.’

The rain had stopped and the wind had died down. It was actually a mild spring night.

‘But doesn’t everything look weird?’

Being up on the town walls was a bit like being in the middle of a lake. Vast stretches of water now reflected back the moonlight. There was a fire engine at the edge of the water, and far below us a few uniformed men gathered in a little group, but there was no real activity. Everywhere was very still but for the sound of water lapping halfway up shop doorways, across roads and over windowsills.

‘This is the highest flood since 1888,’ said Billy. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever see it like this again. If you could forget about the damage it caused, it’s beautiful in its way. Careful …’ He grabbed my arm as a pothole suddenly appeared in the path along the walls. In my day it was all smoothed and tarmacked, with a safety rail, but now it was uneven and rubbly with weeds growing in sudden holes and a sheer drop to the water below.

He didn’t let go of my arm. Instead he pulled me around to face him.

‘You were a lovely little Red Indian today,’ he said. ‘I’ll never forget you. You were so wet, rain was streaming down your hair but you were paddling away. You looked so determined. So …’ he hesitated, ‘ … so beautiful.’

I knew what was coming next and I did nothing to stop it. He took me in his arms, brought his head down to mine and kissed me, a long lingering kiss that tasted slightly of beer and crisps and rain, and was utterly wonderful.

Oh the joy of it! To be wrapped in Will’s arms again, to feel his arms around me, to put my head on his chest and be cocooned in that little world.

We kissed again. And again. Each kiss fiercer than the last. It was strange, the clothes were unfamiliar, the scent of his skin was not what I knew, but yet it was still Will, still the man I loved, the man I’d missed so dreadfully. And now here I was wrapped up in him again. I was in Will’s arms. I was home. I wanted to burrow inside his soggy mac and jacket, feel his skin against mine …

We disentangled ourselves and I looked up at him. He was smiling down at me and his eyes were Will’s eyes, laughing and loving. He started to say something and stopped.

‘I—’ I started, but he put his finger gently on my lips to silence me and I fitted myself back under the curve of his shoulder with his arm around me, holding me tightly against him. We ambled along the top of the town wall, with just an old bike lamp against the dark and the only sound was the lapping of the flood water and the flump flump flump of our wellies.