The Accidental Time Traveller

‘You all right, love?’

The taxi driver was looking at me oddly as I scrabbled in my bag. Mobile … iPod … notebook … Dictaphone … everything but my purse. Ah. There it was, right at the bottom, of course. I pulled a tenner out – I think it was a tenner – and pushed it through the window. Just peering in at the driver really hurt my neck.

‘Here, thanks. Keep the change.’

‘Are you
sure
you’re all right?’ he asked, swiftly folding the note into his wallet. Maybe it had been a twenty.

‘Yes. Fine. Fine.’

But I wasn’t. Not really. And it got worse.

As the taxi roared off – no one likes to hang around The Meadows longer than they have to – I stood swaying slightly on the pavement. My head was thumping, my eyes were hurting and I couldn’t stop shivering. It was one of those Mondays when I swore I would never drink again. Or have a row with Will …

Right. No time to think about that at the moment. I tried to get myself together. I was here to do an interview for
The News
. Mrs Margaret Turnbull had been one of the first people to move in to The Meadows when it was built fifty years ago in the days when it was the Promised Land. Bit different now. You’re lucky to come back and find your car still there. Even luckier if it’s still got its wheels.

But
The News
was doing a special supplement to mark its fiftieth birthday. One of the big TV stations was apparently planning a reality programme where people have to pretend to live in the past – the 1950s house – and rumour had it that was going to be in The Meadows too. So I had spent the morning in the dusty little library at the top of
The News
building, reading through the bound files of yellowing newspapers from the 1950s – stories of new roads, new houses, flower festivals, pageants, mysterious deaths, and adverts for cigarettes and washing machines, and lots of housewives prancing around in pinnies. A different world.

Meanwhile, back in the present I leant for a moment on the gatepost as my head swam. Tidy gatepost. Neat path and pretty garden with tulips, primroses and violets. This was one of the nicer bits of the estate and a very posh front door showed quite clearly that Mrs Turnbull had bought her council house. Through the window, I could see a grey-haired lady in trousers and sweatshirt, looking up from some knitting, watching out for me.

But as I walked up that path I realised something was wrong, very wrong. My eyesight had gone haywire. The flagstones seemed somehow a long way away. It was hard to find them with my feet. Everything was at odd angles. My head was swirling. I wanted to shake it to clear it, but my neck wouldn’t work properly. There was a pain in my eyes. This wasn’t a hangover, this was something else. I was ill, really ill. I began to panic. I felt as if I was going to fall over. I got to the front door and pushed my hands out in front of me. Somehow, I rang the bell.

I suddenly wished – oh so strongly – that Will and I hadn’t argued, that we’d said goodbye that morning with a kiss instead of sitting in the car in strained and sulky silence. I wished …

Then everything went black …

Things had started to go wrong on Sunday. As well as living together, Will and I work together too – he’s the paper’s Deputy News Editor – and so a weekend when neither of us is working is a bit of a treat. After a good Saturday night out with Caz and Jamie we had a nice – very nice thank you – lie-in, and then Will had gone to play football and I’d pottered around the flat having a bit of a pamper session and sorting out the washing. Just my washing – Will does his own. And his own ironing. You won’t catch me starting down that route. Bad enough doing my own, so hooray for the tumble dryer.

Caz and I got to the pub at the same time. She was wearing a jacket I hadn’t seen before, black and fitted, with fancy frogged buttons. Very romantic. ‘Love it!’ I said, as we made our way to the bar. ‘New?’

‘Don’t be daft,’ she laughed, doing a twirl so I could admire it. ‘This was a coat from the charity shop reject box, because it had a stain on the bottom. So I chopped that off and found the buttons on eBay.’ Clever girl, Caz. A real eye for what looks good.

With that, Jamie’s car pulled up outside. Just that glimpse of Will through the pub’s small window made me smile. After all this time together, I got so excited to see him. He and Jamie breezed in, smelling of fresh air and full of the joy of victory. We managed to persuade them that no, they didn’t really want to play table football, got our drinks, ordered some food and bagged the last table.

So, everything was fine until Leo and Jake came over.

But it wasn’t their fault. Not their fault at all.

‘It’s OK. We’re not stopping. We’ve just called in for some Dutch courage,’ said Jake. ‘We’re off to lunch with Leo’s parents. We have some news for them.’

‘News?’ Caz and I immediately sat up straight and took notice.

‘We’re getting married!’ said Jake. ‘Or civil partner shipped anyway. Midsummer’s Day. Old Shire Hall. Marquee in the rose garden. Lots and lots of champagne. Lovely music. Lovely people too, if you’ll come.’

Caz and I jumped up and hugged and kissed them both. Will and Jamie stood up and shook their hands in a manly sort of way, clapped them around the shoulders and said, ‘Well done’, ‘Great news’, and that sort of thing.

‘Can I get you a drink to celebrate?’ asked Will.

But no, Leo’s parents were waiting. They didn’t want to be late, and didn’t want to be too drunk when they told them. It was an important day.

‘Good luck!’ we yelled as they went out, all pleased and excited.

‘Well,’ said Jamie, after they’d gone, ‘what’s the form for a woofter wedding then? Do we have to wear pink?’

‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Caz. ‘And patronising. It will be good fun. And it’s good they can do it. Makes sense with tax and money and all that sort of thing.’

‘But that’s not just why they’re doing it,’ I said. ‘I think it’s lovely. Public declaration and all that.’

‘Do you really?’ asked Will, and the sharpness of his tone surprised me.

‘Well, yes,’ I said, ‘I mean they’re obviously devoted to each other and it’s great that now they can tell the world.’

‘Yeah, guess so,’ said Will, but he looked as though he wanted to carry on grumbling. Then our food arrived and we got stuck into eating. Drinking too. Afterwards we walked around to Caz and Jamie’s place.

‘Yes!’ went Will as soon as we walked in. ‘Oh that is just beautiful!’

Jamie laughed, ‘Pretty neat, isn’t it?’

I was behind them, pulling my boots off so couldn’t see at first what all the fuss was about. Then I padded into the sitting room and saw it was a TV set, one of those huge plasma jobs. It was hanging on the wall like a picture. Caz raised her eyebrows in a ‘Don’t blame me, it’s one of his toys’, sort of expression.

‘That is just mint!’ said Will, standing in front of the set with his tongue practically hanging out. Jamie switched on some motor racing. It looked as though the cars were racing from one end of the room to the other. Impressive, but too much. Much too much. I went through to the kitchen to help Caz dig out some ice cream she’d got from the farmers’ market. More wine too.

‘It’s his latest toy,’ she said.

‘Don’t you mind?’

Caz shrugged. ‘It’s his money.’

‘Gerrrin there!’ Will was yelling at the TV like a kid, he was so excited.

We took the wine and the ice cream back into the sitting room and I curled up on the sofa. My throat was a bit scratchy so I could kid myself the soothing ice cream was medicinal. Then Will said, ‘I think we should get one of these TVs, Rosie.’

‘In your dreams. We haven’t got that sort of money. If we had, we’d be living in a bigger flat.’

This was a sore point. Our flat was actually mine, and it was tiny, which is why I had been able to buy it. When Will – and all his stuff – moved in a few months ago the plan had been we’d try and save to buy a bigger flat together. But you know what it’s like, prices just keep going up and up … Money comes in. Money goes out.

I’m not quite sure on what. But we needed more space. We didn’t need a couple of thousand pounds’ worth of television.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ I said crossly.

Suddenly a row was in the air. Will had that slightly sulky expression that he has when he doesn’t get his own way. But then Caz came downstairs, holding a photo and giggling.

‘I was sorting out some stuff at my mum’s, Will,’ she said, ‘and I found this.’

‘Oh my God!’ said Will. ‘The outdoor activities week in Year Eleven!’

Oh yes. Will and Caz were in school together. They even had a bit of a fling at one time. About the time that picture was taken, long before I knew either of them.

Actually it was quite a funny photo. They must have been sixteen years old and on an outdoor week in the Yorkshire Dales – all climbing, canoeing and gorge walking. Caz was wearing one of those enormous geek-like cagoules. But she had the full make-up on – three different shades of eye shadow, blusher and lip gloss. Never a girl to let her standards slip is Caz.

In the picture she was gazing adoringly up at Will. Jamie snatched the photo from him. ‘I bet you were hell for the teachers,’ he said – and he should know, he teaches in the local comp – ‘sneaking off to the canoe store for a quick snog. They all do.’