The Accidental Time Traveller Read online

  ‘If you like, I’ll trim the fringe a bit for you,’ said Peggy and went to get her mother’s sewing scissors. She snipped away, looked at her handiwork a bit, turned Janice’s head this way and that and snipped a bit more. ‘There, see what that’s like when it dries.’

  It was already starting to fluff up in the warmth of the range. It looked so much better, shinier. There was even a hint of red in the mousy strands.

  ‘Now now, Janice, Peggy, time to pack up.’ Mrs Brown had come into the kitchen and was getting a cloth out of the dresser drawer. ‘This is a kitchen not a hairdressers. I need that table for the breakfast things and it’s time you were at home and in bed. Here,’ she took a scarf out of a drawer and gave it to the girl, ‘put that over you. You don’t want to be walking the streets with wet hair, you’ll catch your death.’

  ‘Right-o, Mrs Brown,’ said Janice, taking one last look in the mirror before gathering up her satchel. She smiled hugely at Peggy. ‘It’s lovely, Peggy, really lovely. Thank you. See you tomorrow.’ She slid out of the back door, small and scruffy and still smelly too.

  ‘She can’t help it,’ said Mrs Brown, noticing my expression. ‘Terrible family. Father’s out of work half the time. Mother’s a willing little woman but has no idea really. All they seem able to do is make babies. There are seven boys and Janice, and two of the boys are simple. Still, Janice is bright and got into the grammar school, so let’s hope it helps get her somewhere. She deserves a chance, poor scrap. Right. Tea or cocoa?’

  I had cocoa – for the first time since a Brownie sleep-over when I was about seven – said my goodnights and took it up to bed with me. There were too many things I wanted to think about. I undressed, put on the great big dressing gown, scuttled to the bathroom, scuttled back, popped the dressing gown back over the wardrobe mirror and got into bed. Icy sheets. I reached for my notebook.

  DAY ONE IN THE 1950s HOUSE

  Very cold but headache better and at least I realise what’s going on. Clearly, our reactions to a new situation must be part of The Test. Initial disorientation all part of this.

  Must find out how long I’m going to be here for. What about work? My life? Maybe all will be explained soon.

  Find video diary room.

  What’s the prize?

  Find cameras. Smile at them. A lot.

  Be nice to everyone.

  Peggy – a test?

  Have noticed that all Big Brother, It’s a Celebrity, etc TV shows are never won by the loudmouths, but by the quiet pleasant ones who win admiration and respect from all concerned, doing hard work, solving quarrels, being calm voice of reason all round. This is what I shall do. Practise being calm voice of reason.

  I tried to ring Will again, but the phone was still dead. That made me feel really alone and a bit down. But then there was a knock on the door.

  ‘I thought you might like a hot-water bottle,’ said Mrs Brown, handing one over and giving a strange glance at the dressing gown spread out over the front of the wardrobe. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Yes fine thank you!’ I said brightly.

  The hot-water bottle was wonderful, warm and squidgy. I shoved it down between the sheets, which smelled of soap powder and sunshine and, as I wriggled down between them, with my feet nice and warm, I clutched my phone, the way I used to clutch my woolly cuddly cat when I was little. Even though my head was spinning, I was asleep in minutes.

  I wished I’d been able to talk to Will, but if this was a challenge, then bring it on!

  Chapter Three

  Challenge? I’ll tell them what to do with their nasty, manipulative, heartbreaking challenges. Today has been a nightmare. A glimpse into an alternative universe. I hated it. If I didn’t think it was all a TV show I don’t know what I’d do.

  I never even asked to be in this. They cant just dump me here without asking, without any preparation or briefing. Shouldn’t they have had my written permission? Contracts with lawyers? Big fat fees? Get-out clauses? Insurance? Maybe I could sue them for stress and anxiety. What happens if I break my neck on the stairs at The News? Or die of pneumonia from the damp and cold?

  Or from a broken heart?

  Today was my first day on The News 1950s style. It had started badly. My clothes, my proper clothes, had vanished. Someone must have taken them while I was in the bathroom. Even my own handbag. All I had left was the handbag from the trunk, a dead phone and the notebook and pen from my bedside table. I thought of going down to demand my things from Mrs Brown, but then I remembered the Golden Rule of Reality TV which is Be Nice, Smile, Don’t Make A Fuss. So after a wash – no shower, and I couldn’t even have a bath because there’s only one loo and that’s in the bathroom and people kept banging on the door – I got dressed in my 1950s clothes.

  Everything itched, scratched and dug in. There was no Lycra, of course. Dressed in the skirt suit I felt trussed up like a turkey. My suspender belt (when did I ever think they were sexy?) threatened to ping at any minute and my capacious cotton knickers kept disappearing up the crack of my bum. No wonder people in old photos look miserable.

  And I still couldn’t get anything on my phone … When I woke up it was on the pillow beside me, and I just grabbed it automatically. Nothing. Just a blank screen. The blank-ness of it just hit me and made me feel so dreadfully alone. Even if they were blocking the signal, you’d think they’d let me look at the stored pictures and messages on it, wouldn’t you? It was a link to my world, my proper world, and Will.

  And my hair! No shower, no dryer, no mousse, no straighteners. All I could do was comb it. Great.

  After that grim start, the day got no better.

  My usual breakfast was yoghurt and banana. Here it was porridge and boiled eggs. Compulsory. By the time I’d eaten it I felt so weighed down I thought I’d never lift myself off the chair. And the coffee … the coffee came from a bottle that looked like gravy browning and tasted like it too.

  To make it worse, because Mrs Brown worked mornings in a post office, Peggy and I, who apparently didn’t have to be in work until half an hour later, had to do the washing up.

  ‘You can wash,’ said Peggy, handing me the porridge pan, with its burnt-on bits. ‘It makes sense for me to wipe up and put away because you don’t know where anything lives.’

  ‘You could show me,’ I said, but knew as I said it, there wasn’t much point.

  Do you want to know what I think of the 1950s so far? Well porridge pans really piss me off. Non-stick hasn’t been invented yet. Neither has washing-up liquid, just disgusting green soap. You have to scrape the congealed porridge off with a knife and then, the real horror is when you have to scoop great blobs of it out of the plughole. That is so disgusting.

  And Peggy. Peggy is a pain. Pisses me off even more than porridge pans. I am trying really hard to be nice to her and smile a lot (for the cameras, which I haven’t found yet) but it’s really tricky.

  ‘Are these clothes all right for work, Peggy?’ I asked.

  ‘Very suitable,’ she said.

  ‘Do your clothes make you itch?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said, but with such a filthy expression that I’m sure her knicks were stuck up the crack of her bum too. ‘Come on. Time to get a move on.’

  She handed me an Oxo tin. An Oxo tin? What was I meant to do with that? I must have looked blank because she said, ‘It’s your sandwiches, for your dinner.’

  Off we went. I don’t know how they’re doing it, but it’s very clever. Of course, Peggy led the way. (The more I think about it, the more she must be part of the team setting the challenge.) We went through some narrow streets and across a market square. (It’s clearly a film set.) There was very little traffic, just a few old cars. ( The sort they always have in period films.) And a delivery boy on a bike. (They always have that as well.) And there was a milkman with a horse and cart. (Which I thought was taking it a bit far really, but that might have been the one with the camera in it, so I gave the horse an extra n
ice smile.) The shops were small with crowded little windows, a bit drab, but the streets were very clean. No pizza boxes or burger trays. (Shows that it must have been all pretend.)

  ‘Is it far to The News?’ I asked, wondering how we’d get to the industrial estate.

  ‘No,’ she said. And that was it. No chatty girly conversation. In fact, nothing. Right, thank you, Peggy. But I remembered my winning ways and smiled and tried again. Tricky, because she was walking quite fast and I was struggling to keep up, and not just because of the shoes.

  ‘Have you worked there long?’

  ‘Five years.’

  ‘So what’s the editor like then?’

  At this she went a bit pink and turned around to face me. ‘He’s a wonderful man,’ she said vehemently. ‘Wonderful!’

  Bit of a giveaway wouldn’t you say?

  But now we were at The News. Not just off the ring road. It was right in the centre of town. And the funny thing was that it looked just like the old pictures we have hanging at reception in the industrial estate. A really old timbered building, with leaded windows. There were some big gates at the side, leading into a yard where I could see old-fashioned delivery vans. I don’t know how they did it, but it was very clever.

  As soon as we walked in through the door, Peggy changed character and was as nice as you like. Smiles and ‘Good mornings’. She led the way upstairs.

  Well, it was a newspaper office, but not as I knew it.

  The place was chaos. A warren of small rooms, each one crowded with heavy wooden desks piled high with papers. The windows were small and grubby, and almost obscured by heaps of papers and files. There were papers everywhere. Piles of yellowing newspapers, on the floor, in corners, on windowsills, blocking doorways. Health and safety would have had hysterics. Especially as there was also a thick cloud of smoke. Everyone seemed to be smoking.

  One stray fag end in that lot …

  Peggy was leading the way along a narrow corridor of bare and battered floorboards. Then she led me into an outer office, hung up her coat and knocked reverentially on an inner door. ‘Good morning Mr Henfield.’ She was almost simpering. ‘I’ve brought Rosie Harford.’

  Richard Henfield looked exactly like his photograph. That was a nice touch, I thought, well researched. Middle-aged, specs, moustache and pipe. Nice eyes, weak chin. ‘Ah yes, you’re with us for a few weeks.’

  ‘Apparently,’ I said with a winning smile. There must be a camera in here.

  ‘So tell me what you’ve done.’ He leant back in his chair and stared at me. It wasn’t a particularly nice stare.

  ‘Well, after my degree, I did a post-graduate diploma in journalism and worked on a weekly paper for a while. For the last few years I’ve been a general reporter, then on the business desk, and now I’m a features writer, specialising in social and consumer issues.’ Smile again.

  ‘Well, aren’t you a clever little girl,’ he said, gazing at my boobs.

  Really! My fingers itched to slap his pompous, patronising, sexist face. But smile, Rosie, smile. I smiled.

  ‘Better see what you can do then,’ he said, standing up to put his arm around my shoulders – not nice, he smelt of stale tobacco and sweat and half-digested meat. Didn’t the man shower? – and led me back along the corridor and into one of the crowded smoky rooms, where an oldish man in a trailing overcoat was sitting with his feet on the desk reading a paper, while a woman talked on the tele-phone. Two other men were picking up their coats as if on their way out.

  I ostentatiously removed myself from Henfield’s arm. That smell was taking reality TV a bit too far.

  ‘Is Billy about?’ asked Henfield.

  ‘Assizes,’ said the man, hardly lifting his eyes from the paper. Seeing me, his beady eyes lit up too and he gave me and Henfield his attention.

  ‘OK Gordon,’ Henfield said. ‘This is Rosie. She has a degree and a diploma and knows all about business and social issues.’ He said it in a sarcastic, mocking tone.

  ‘Very fancy,’ muttered the woman behind him, putting the phone down and lighting a cigarette.

  ‘She’ll be here for a few weeks and no doubt she has many talents to reveal,’ he leered. ‘And a lot to show us.’ He and Gordon gave each other knowing glances and then both looked me up and down, when, thank God, Peggy came along simpering, ‘There’s a phone call for you Mr Henfield,’ and off he went.

  ‘Smarmy bugger,’ muttered the woman. Promising. Then looking at me, she added, ‘I’m Marje, by the way. Well, let’s see what you can do then.’

  ‘Anything,’ I said, all keen and eager and desperate to get stuck into a decent story.

  ‘Kettle’s over there,’ said Marje. ‘No sugar for me, two for him’ – pointing at Gordon who’d gone back to reading the newspaper – ‘and the cups need washing. Down the corridor at the very end and don’t wait for the hot water, because there isn’t any.’

  Did I have a sign saying ‘skivvy’ stuck to my forehead?

  Gordon was the News Editor. When he’d stopped eyeing me up and down he had decided I was barely worth considering. ‘You’d better follow Marje around for now,’ he said as he took his tea without a thank-you. ‘She can show you the ropes. There’s a couple of golden weddings in the book. You should be able to manage those between you.’

  Golden weddings! I hadn’t done those since my early days on the weekly. But off I went dutifully with Marje. We had to walk to the old people’s houses. There seemed to be only one van for the staff, and the photographers used it all the time. Reporters had to walk.

  Marje strode briskly along.

  ‘Have you been on The News long?’ I asked, with the little breath I had left. She was setting a cracking pace and I was struggling to keep up.

  ‘Since the war,’ she said. ‘I was on the switchboard and when all the men got called up there was only me and old Mr Henfield left, so I started doing everything.’

  The war again.

  ‘Young Mr Henfield, the one who’s editor now, was in the army. And Gordon and most of the others. John, the Chief Sub Editor, was in the RAF – got the DFC but he never talks about it. The younger ones weren’t, of course. Billy and Phil were just a bit too young, lucky for them. But they’ve done their call-up and their fifteen days since.’

  ‘Fifteen days?’

  ‘Yes, you know. Two years’ national service and then fifteen days every year for three years. Don’t they do that in America?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said vaguely, too fed up to argue about this American business. ‘Something very like.’

  I was really getting into this 1950s thing. It was almost as if I were really there. But it was a bit worrying that everyone else seemed to have done so much research. Maybe they’d had more notice than I had. That wouldn’t be hard. Ah well, I would just have to wing it. Tricky though. I was trying to get my head around the fact that the war had only finished ten or eleven years ago, because that was as if, well that was as if it had been finishing just when I was doing A levels. Weird.

  Walking along, I could see bits of the present town but not many. I had to say that the TV company had been very thorough. You could almost believe you really were back in the 1950s. There were so many more shops, for a start, lots of little ones. Lots of butchers, a couple of bakers. No candlestick-makers, but a fishmonger, two bookshops, lots of tobacconists, a wool shop, toy shop, baby clothes, another couple of chemists, a china shop, a couple of ironmongers. No supermarkets, but grocers’ shops like Home and Colonial, and Liptons … To be honest, it all looked a bit run-down.

  Then I could smell it … coffee. Proper coffee …

  ‘Oh Marje, can I really smell coffee?’

  ‘Probably Silvino’s is just around the corner.’

  ‘Silvino’s?’

  ‘Italian coffee bar.’

  ‘Oh glory be. We haven’t got time, have we? Just for a quick coffee. I’m longing for coffee …’

  ‘No time, sorry,’ said Marje and I had to ignore the tantali
sing smell as we hurried off to the first golden wedding. Nice couple. (Recipe for happy marriage – he always tipped up his pay packet on a Friday night and she always had a hot meal ready for him.)

  Luckily, George the photographer turned up to take their picture when we were there. He was only a young lad, in a baggy suit that looked far too big on him, but he seemed to know what he was doing. And he had the van, which meant that Marje and I could squash into the rickety front seat and get a lift to the next golden wedding couple. Eric and Bessie had met in the church choir, still sang in it. They said the secret of a happy marriage was never to let the sun go down on a quarrel. Bessie looked smug and Eric tried to pinch my bum. Randy old goat.

  I suppose they were all extras. There seemed to be an awful lot of them. I didn’t realise that the TV company had such a huge budget. Still, I suppose when they did the Castaway series they took over a whole island for a year, so a big film set for a few weeks would be comparatively cheap. Looked very real though, fair play.

  Afterwards, while George went off on another job, Marje and I walked back to the office and I remembered about my Oxo tin. I opened it carefully. Inside was a brown paper bag. It smelt of candles and polish and a musty under-the-stairs sort of smell. Inside that was a sandwich made with doorsteps of good white bread, filled with something that smelled a bit odd. I took a tentative bite and tried to work out what it was. It had a sort of fishy taste. Sort of. A bit like cat food.

  Then I remembered my gran’s kitchen cupboard, those funny little jars. Fish paste. I was eating a fish paste sandwich. I suppose it made a change from M & S’s poached Scottish salmon with dill mayonnaise and watercress on oatmeal bread. And the bread was nice.

  Then Marje had to show me how to type up a story.

  What a chew! There was this mucky black paper, carbon paper, that made a smudgy sort of copy. You had to put three pieces of paper together, with two bits of carbon between them, and roll them into a typewriter. The typewriter took for ever. It was so heavy. You really had to bash the keys. And I kept forgetting to push the thing that made it go to the next line, so I kept typing on the roller instead of the paper. And you couldn’t delete mistakes!