Step Back in Time (32 page)

Wrapped in Harry’s arms I watch in shock as the white sports car continues on its way and disappears into the busy Liverpool traffic.

I didn’t get hit.

I didn’t go cold as the white sports car smashed into me.

Harry saved me.

‘They don’t always get us,’ Harry says, smiling down at me. He kisses me gently on my forehead. ‘It’s not always our time to move on.’

‘You know, don’t you?’ I say slowly, as the realisation of what just happened fully sinks in. ‘You know what’s been going on.’

Harry nods.

‘How long?’ I ask.

‘Long enough,’ he says, stroking my hair now.

‘But why didn’t you
say
?’

‘I nearly did a couple of times, but you needed to find your own way through it. Just like I did. Just like we all do. That’s why we do it. That’s why they make us do it.’

I take hold of Harry’s hand and turn it over so I can see the palm, and there it is, his lifeline – strong and solid, but suddenly branching off into lots of new, finer lines. I turn my own palm over and hold it next to his.

‘It’s the same,’ I whisper.

‘No, Jo-Jo,
we’re
the same,’ Harry says, putting our palms together and linking the fingers. ‘And now you’ve completed your journey, we need never be parted again.’

As the same warm, comforting feeling that I’ve felt time and time again upon waking up in the past begins to spread right through me, I know now that I’ll never be alone, whatever happens to me in the future.

‘Harry?’ I ask him as I stand on the side of the zebra crossing wrapped in his arms.

‘Yes?’ he whispers, his deep blue eyes gazing back down into mine.

‘You don’t fancy buying a record shop on the King’s Road, do you? I know a Groovy little one that’s going to be up for sale soon.’

Harry grins down at me. ‘Now, how might you know that?’

‘Let’s just say I’m very good at seeing into the future…’

Now you’ve Stepped Back in Time with Jo-Jo, you’ll have hopefully enjoyed the story and picked up many of the Beatles references and links that run through the book.

But how many of those clues did you notice as you read?

As you know now, the main characters all have names inspired by the Beatles in some way: Jo-Jo’s comes from the song ‘Get Back’, Harry and George from George Harrison, and Ellie from the song ‘Eleanor Rigby’.

But here’s a guide to all the Beatles links throughout the book:

(All characters are of course purely fictional. Their names do not have any link to a person living or dead whose name they may share.)

How many songs did you recognise in the Beatles conversation Harry has with Jo-Jo in the World’s End pub?

Harry suddenly thrusts his head into his hands. ‘I hate my life! Hate it!’ He turns his face towards me. ‘
Ask me why?
’

‘Why?’ I ask, doing as I’m told for once.

‘
I’m a loser
, Jo-Jo, a
nowhere man
.’

‘No, you’re not,’ I reply, wondering if Harry has been drinking before he even got to the pub tonight.

‘I am. I’ll still be working
eight days a week when I’m sixty-four
, marking homework and thinking up lesson plans.’

‘No you won’t, not if you don’t want to be doing that.’

Harry doesn’t look very convinced. ‘
Do you want to know a secret?
’

‘What?’ I ask, wondering where all this is heading. Although Harry is making sense, he’s talking very oddly, as if he’s talking in code.

‘They say
all you need is love
, but everybody’s got something to hide, Jo-Jo. Everyone. That’s what screws everything up. I bet even you’ve got a secret?’

‘Well…’

‘Do you want to know mine?’ Harry has emptied his glass and is holding it up to be refilled again. ‘
Hey Jude
,’ he calls across the bar, ‘another when you’re ready, please.’

I stare hard at Harry. The code he’s talking in. It’s only bloody Beatles songs! I may not be their greatest fan, but their songs constantly being played during my childhood means I know every one.

‘Tell me your secret, Harry,’ I urge him, sensing there’s more to this than simply a bit of marital discord. ‘What is it?’

‘
I want to tell you
, Jo-Jo, I want to tell you so much, but I can’t.’

‘Yes, Harry, yes you can.’

Jude brings Harry’s whisky over.

‘I’ll take one of those, Jude,’ I tell him. ‘Quick as you can, please, and make it a double.’

Jude raises his dark eyebrows, but immediately lifts a glass and turns towards the optics.

‘Maybe I should just
let it be
,’ Harry says, as he drinks from his own glass. ‘It’s a
long and winding road
we both travel along, Jo-Jo, and I’ll get by
with a little help from my friends
.’ He lifts his head and looks meaningfully at me. ‘We both will.’

Ali McNamara 2013

The mysterious zebra crossing that Jo-Jo always steps onto before she travels in time is situated on the King’s Road in London. This famous street in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea derives its name from its use by Charles II as his private road to travel to Kew. It has been known throughout the world for five decades for its quirky, eccentric shops and links to the world of fashion and music.

It first became well known in the ‘swinging sixties’, when shops such as Mary Quant’s Bazaar boutique, and the wonderfully named Granny Takes a Trip lined the street, and pop stars such as the Beatles and Eric Clapton would mingle with trendy shoppers, hoping to grab the latest individually tailored piece of clothing to distinguish them from their peers.

In the seventies, these shops were joined by the (at the time) outrageously named boutique, SEX – run by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren – and in the eighties, bands and artists such as Madness, The Specials and George Michael visited La Rocka, to be kitted out before their live Thursday night appearances on
Top of the Pops
.

In the story, George’s shop, Groovy Records, and the crossing where Jo-Jo always travels back in time are set in an area of the King’s Road called World’s End. In the sixties and seventies this was
the
area for the trendy bohemian set to hang out, with its mix of hippy boutiques and shops selling crafts and spiritual merchandise.

Today, just as in the story, the World’s End Distillery stands proudly in the middle of all this, slightly separated from the rest of the King’s Road, like a great ship floating in a sea of history. And I wondered when I went to visit the area and discovered for myself this perfect setting for my mystical story, just how many interesting tales it would have to tell us of events and people that had drunk inside its four walls over the decades.

The King’s Road’s past is a rich, vibrant record of popular culture, and I hope my novel of a mysterious traveller moving through its five decades of alternative bohemian thinking is a welcome addition to its magnificent history.

Ali McNamara, 2013

I’ve always been fascinated with time-travel stories from a young age, whether it be in the form of books, TV shows or films. I’m not sure if it’s the chance to see for myself just what living in those decades might have been like, or, as is the theme of so many time-travel stories, getting a chance to put right things that went wrong the first time around…

One of my favourite time-travel movies is
Back to the Future
. I remember as a teenager being absolutely enthralled with the adventures of Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, and Dr Emmett Brown, played by Christopher Lloyd. Their comic quest to return Marty back to his own time of 1985, when he accidentally travels back thirty years to 1955 in a DeLorean car that Doc Brown has fashioned into a time machine, was a huge hit in the eighties; it spawned two sequels, and a hit single for Huey Lewis and the News with the song ‘The Power of Love’.

Television has been a huge source for fuelling my love of time travel over the years too. A US show from the nineties called
Quantum Leap
was a massive hit on both sides of the Atlantic, and won both Emmys and Golden Globes. It followed the adventures of Dr Sam Beckett, who invented his own time-travel machine, the quantum leap accelerator, but due to a malfunction (isn’t there always one!) Sam was stuck leaping through time, putting right the wrongs of the world with only a wisecracking hologram, Al, to help him. I particularly liked this show as it always featured a ‘kiss with history’ where Sam would interact in some way with a genuine historical event, and I’ve added a few of these in
Step Back in Time
for Jo-Jo.

Two other favourites of mine were the British TV series
Life on Mars
and
Ashes to Ashes
, featuring TV cops DI Sam Tyler, and subsequently his counterpart DI Alex Drake, who travelled back to the seventies and the eighties. Even though they were both marketed as BBC dramas, they featured much dry humour – mainly from the lips of DCI Gene Hunt, played by Philip Glenister – and attracted a huge cult following. They used an original music soundtrack from the year that they were portraying, which added to viewers’ enjoyment and the authenticity of the show.

So the enduring appeal of going back to a time that’s now lost, and experiencing what we can only read about, and in some cases only watch on old newsreels, is one I’ve always wanted to write about – and one I’d quite like to experience for myself if I ever get the chance.

Just as long as I can always find that elusive way to get back home…

Ali McNamara, 2013