by Andy Conway
“Now go to your room. No food for you tonight.”
She walked to the foot of the stairs, faint with pain and hunger, each step burning agony. Clutching the banister, she inched up the steps, one at a time, a mountain to climb, praying that she might not faint before she reached her bed.
As she reached the top of the first flight and heard the chink of cutlery, she wondered what lifeboat might possibly save her.
— 10 —
DANNY WALKED NORTH up Alcester Road, taking a detour so he could look at the house where Amy Parker said she lived, a hundred years ago.
He wished he’d arranged to meet Rachel earlier. They could have sacked off Uni for the afternoon and gone straight back to the... touchstone, he’d decided to call it. It would be pitch black in the graveyard when they...
He stopped himself even thinking it. The whole thing was ridiculous. Which was probably why he was late and dawdling, reluctant to set out, and had circled round the opposite direction. It must have been the hangover this morning. He’d imagined it all, suffered an elaborate hallucination. It could all be explained scientifically. He’d probably caught something that had messed with his mind. He should go to the doctor. He’d been burning the candle at both ends since starting Uni. Perhaps that was it.
Except he knew that wasn’t it. He’d felt it and seen it, and touched it and smelled it. He could still almost taste it. It had been all too real. Hyperreal.
He wondered why he’d even agreed to involve Rachel. It was nothing to do with her. It wasn’t their secret, it was his. Only, he’d told her about it, and somehow he felt that she was involved. She was a part of it. He just didn’t know why.
He stopped and looked across the road at the reason for his detour.
Number 12.
Right about now, Amy Parker was there, a hundred years ago. Somehow, those two times were happening at the same time, and he had found a bridge between the two.
A large terraced house, probably split into student rooms now. A small garden at the front. It looked unspectacular, and a little shabby now, but you could imagine that once it would have been impressive. A family of means would have lived here. Further up the road, there was a row of houses with uniform railings that had been restored to their former glory. He could easily imagine it was just the kind of place where gentlemen in top hats would return after a day at the bank.
To the north was the Moseley Dance Centre and the old tram depot, which was now a skate park, its crumbling façade covered in graffiti.
Amy Parker was there now... a hundred years ago.
He rushed on up the hill back to Moseley village, hoping he’d be able to see for himself soon.
— 11 —
RACHEL WALKED DOWN St Mary’s Row and turned into the churchyard under the lychgate. No winos there tonight huddled under the wooden awning as they were most evenings. She walked up the winding path, glancing back to see if anyone had noticed her entering the churchyard alone at night. She stepped carefully over the buckled paving where they’d all stood this morning listening to Mr Fenwick and wondered if he did that thing every year with each new class, relishing the shock as they realized they were standing on old gravestones.
Arabella Palmer, who departed this life August 16th 1876.
Aged 8 years or 38 years. A girl just like her who had lived and died right here. She wondered what kind of life she’d lived, what she’d seen, and how different it had been from Rachel’s life.
Then she wondered if she could go back and find out.
Of course, she thought. This was the person they should research for their project. It didn’t matter that the grave was now a paving slab; it was still a name on a gravestone in that churchyard.
She walked round the church and took the path down to the gate. Floodlights that lit up the church meant that it wasn’t so dark. No one seemed to be hanging around in there.
She reached the gravestone where they’d sat this morning. No Danny. She looked all around, hands thrust in her coat pockets, trying to act nonchalant. What if he’d already... gone through? Should she try it herself? If she reached out and touched it where he’d touched it, would they all leap out from behind trees and bushes and laugh at her? Stacy, Jessica, Tyrone and Danny.
She looked around again, trying to peer through the murk. She stopped breathing and listened for any slight sound of shuffling or stifled giggles. There was nothing but the drone of traffic and the faint hubbub of talk from the village: people gathering for the bars.
She took her hands from her pockets and edged closer to the gravestone, casting one more furtive glance around the graveyard. She reached out, her fingers groping for the spot where he’d touched it this morning, where she’d almost touched it herself before Mr Fenwick had interrupted.
Her fingertips stroked the rough stone surface, cold to the touch.
A candle burned her finger, an angel breathed in her ear, the light changed, her ears rang and she was staring into a bearded face, choking on a hot blast of whiskey breath. Her hand was on the stone and the man’s thighs were either side of it. She yelped.
He snarled, dropped his bottle, jumped up and snatched her hair. She screamed, tried to twist away, head burning.
“Hey! What’s going on!” he spluttered.
She reeled backwards, crying out, eyes clenching shut as he raised his dirty fist to hit her.
— 12 —
THE MAN SHOUTED AGAIN and there was a slapping sound, just once. He grabbed her arm and yanked her away.
She opened her eyes to find it was Danny pulling her towards the gate. She looked back to see the drunk scrambling in the soft grass for his peaked cap.
“Come on!” said Danny.
He pushed through the wrought-iron gate and closed it behind them. They watched the drunk climb back to his feet and dust himself down. He shouted something and shook his fist but he was more interested in finding his bottle. Once he’d found it and picked it up, he shuffled off. She breathed again. They were safe.
“He scared me to death. I came through and had my hand between his legs.”
“It’s okay,” said Danny. “We’re safe. I think.”
They turned and looked down the alley and gaped in wonder. It wasn’t the same alley they’d walked down this morning. In the darkness, she could make out a wide triangle of waste ground, not an alley. Further down was a slit of light. A man walked past in a bowler hat. The space down there was screened off by a giant billboard.
“Come on,” he said.
They pinheaded towards the door of dim light. She held her hand out in front of her, wishing she’d brought a torch.
“Wait.” She took out her phone and pressed the torchlight app. Blue light lit the way. To the side were rows of giant barrels. The Bull’s Head pub was the building to the left, she realized.
“There’s no Barclays bank,” she said.
The building with its Ionic columns that had looked over the village green all her life wasn’t there, which was why it wasn’t really an alley.
Danny still had hold of her hand and seemed to realize for the first time. He mumbled something, looked down at the floor and let go of her.
She followed him towards the strip of light at the end, and peered out, gasping aloud at what they saw.
The village green lit by gaslamps – a busy crossroads hub of horse-drawn coaches, electric trams and promenading Edwardians. It was like turning a corner and walking into a film set. They stood there frozen, mouths agape in wonder.
“Oh my God,” she managed to say.
“It’s true,” he said.
“This is really...’ She floundered for the word, but nothing came. There was no word for it.
“Yeah,” he said.
“When are we?”
“I don’t know.”
On the village green were a couple of wooden huts. The larger one stood roughly where the bus stop was, a row of horses and carriages waited. A cabman’s shelter. The smaller hut stood in th
e middle of the green and seemed to be a newsstand, manned by a shabby old man in a peaked cap, a muffler wrapped round his face.
An electric tram deposited a stream of bowler-hatted gentlemen and women in long dresses and large hats.
“There,” said Danny. “Come on.”
He stepped out of cover and walked across the sliproad to the green. Rachel watched him go, cringing inside, feeling that if they stepped foot in this world something awful would happen. If they stood and stared from the safety of the alley’s mouth, maybe no one would see them.
She didn’t want to be alone so she scurried after him to the newsstand, where several people who’d got off the tram were buying the evening edition.
Danny grabbed a newspaper from the stand and looked at the front page. It was called The Birmingham Gazette & Express.
“Hey! That’s a penny.”
“I’m just looking,” said Danny.
“I’ll give you just looking, you cheeky...”
The shabby old newsstand man stopped and stared at Danny.
“Hang on,” he said.
“Danny,” said Rachel, pulling on his arm.
“Sorry,” said Danny, dropping the newspaper.
“Here, wait!” the newsstand man cried.
Rachel pulled Danny away, turning to notice the billboard that stood in place of Barclays Bank was a giant advertisement for Oxo. They crossed the narrow slip road and stopped at the alley’s dark mouth.
“It’s today,” he hissed.
“What?”
She frog-marched him back into the darkness. Glancing back, she saw the newsstand man staring after them. There was something about his look that wasn’t right.
“It’s today’s date,” said Danny.
“Today? That doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s the 22nd of November. But in 1912.”
He pulled her up the dark alley, heading for the gate to the churchyard.
“Why are we going back?” she asked.
He suddenly seemed terrified. The whole thing had spooked him and he wanted to run back to the present, to safety. But with a coldness she only noted later, he said, “We need clothes and we need money.”
— 13 —
DANNY PEEKED THROUGH the church gate. The drunk was still there, sitting at another stone, talking to himself.
“Quick.”
He pulled the gate open. The hinges whined. Too loud. They ran for it and reached the stone. Rachel touched it first.
Danny looked at the drunk, who staggered to his feet and growled something incoherent. Rachel wasn’t there anymore. Danny grinned as the drunk lunged for him.
“See ya. Wouldn’t wanna be ya.”
He touched the stone and there was a flash of confusion, like he’d been punched and hadn’t seen it coming. He found himself staring at the same spot. The drunk had disappeared. The buzz of traffic was in his ears again.
“Are you all right?” said Rachel.
“I think we’re back.”
The floodlights in the graveyard. It was much brighter.
“I can hear the traffic,” she said. “I feel sick.”
“We’ve just travelled a hundred years in a split second.”
“1912!” Rachel screamed.
They laughed hysterically. This was crazy.
“1912!”
They hugged each other and danced around, then broke away and collected themselves.
“I don’t believe this,” she squealed. “It’s actually true!”
“It can’t be,” he said. “But we saw it.”
She ran over to another gravestone and stroked her hands along it.
“What are you doing?”
“Maybe they all work,” she said. “Maybe this one takes you to a different year.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said.
But why wouldn’t others do it? He tried one himself, running his fingers across the stone. They skipped from stone to stone, trying every one, but nothing happened.
She returned breathless to theirs. “So it’s just this one. And we’re the only people who know about it.”
“Maybe.”
“It’s our secret, right? No one else?”
He thought about it. What was it about Rachel being so desperate to keep it between the two of them? As if he’d want to tell idiots like Stacy, Jessica and Tyrone.
“Okay,” he said. “Just us.”
She smiled and he realized he didn’t actually like his ‘friends’ any more than she did. He didn’t trust them at all. He didn’t really trust anyone. He only regretted he’d discovered this in the company of Rachel. If not, he’d have it all to himself now.
“We need to research this,” he said. “Find out what 1912 is all about. We can get clothes and old money in the morning. There’s that junk shop up the road and the fancy dress hire place opposite.”
“We can’t do it in the morning,” she said. “Field trip to the library.”
“Okay, straight after, then.”
They walked up the path and he looked back, thinking how strange it was that the drunk wasn’t still there in the churchyard behind them — he was a hundred years ago.
— 14 —
RACHEL RAN HOME AND rushed to her room, where she paced around, burning with excitement. She’d seen it: her own neighbourhood, exactly as it was a century ago. She threw herself on her bed and thought of all the things she could do.
Would it always be exactly 100 years ago on the other side? If she went through again tomorrow, would the drunk still be there, just as he was when she’d left him, or maybe even earlier? Could she meet herself back there? What if she went back and it were 1940? Or 1936? Or 1966? Or the eighties?
Maybe she could go back and see her mum.
The thought of it brought tears to her eyes. She fantasized about going back to see her before she’d died, when Rachel was too young to remember anything but a Christmas morning blur; an impression of tinsel, glittering presents under a tree, the scent of pine, a woman in a beige sweater, smiling. It was like a half-developed Polaroid in her mind, maddeningly out of focus; like a familiar melody she couldn’t quite place, always out of reach.
She went downstairs to the dining table to write up her coursework, but she couldn’t concentrate on it. Martyn and Olive were watching TV across the room. She had an idea suddenly and went to one of the sideboard cupboards and rummaged around.
“What you looking for, Rache?” said Martyn.
“The old photos.”
“They’re in the Black Magic box,” said Olive.
“I know, but I can’t see it.”
Olive was already at her side, looking for something to do. You could never do anything without her appearing at your side to help you. “They’re on the other side, love.”
She looked in the other cupboard and pulled it out: an old Black Magic chocolate box from the 1960s. She placed it reverently on the dining table and took off the lid. It was crammed full of old snapshots, faded photos of distant relatives, all jumbled up in no particular order.
“We should really get a photo album for these,” said Olive.
She’d been saying that Rachel’s entire life and it had never happened. Rachel quietly noted the idea of buying some albums and those little mounting stickers for Nan’s birthday. It would be a nice project for her.
She emptied the photos out, scattering them all over the table.
“That’s the old house,” said Olive, picking up a creased black and white snap. It showed Olive as a girl posing with her parents outside the old house. “That was during the war, that was.”
Rachel flipped the photo over and read the pencilled inscription on the back.
“1940.” She picked up another. “Who’s this, Nan?”
A woman standing in the same spot on a different day, a baby in her arms. The baby was mostly a white over-exposed blur and you could only tell it was a baby by the way she was carrying it. The woman was plump and frowning.
“That’s my grandma. Grandma Lewis.”
Rachel looked at the back. “Mary Lewis, with baby Winnie. 1913. Winnie was your mum?”
“Yes.”
“And the family used to own that big house?”
“Oh yes, we were very posh.”
Rachel gazed at the photo of Mary Lewis, matching her great-great-grandmother’s frown.
She went through the photos with Olive, listening to the stories about her relatives who’d lived in Moseley the last 100 years or more, and chose a small stack of a dozen or more to take with her.
She knew exactly what she was going to do back in 1912 now.
— 15 —
JOE REES CUT THE MASTHEADS off the newspapers that hadn’t been sold and added them to the pile that would be returned at the end of the week. He stacked the orphaned newspapers, tied them into a bundle and left them on the floor of the hut. Normally he would take them home, but tonight he needed a strong one.
He pulled the shutter in and hooked the clasp, stepped out of the cabin and locked it. A tram pulled in, sparks raining off the power line, and unloaded a phalanx of commuters from the city. Might have sold the last of the papers there. One or two gentlemen walked straight into the Bulls Head and the Fighting Cocks.
A ghost.
He had walked right up and picked up a paper in daylight as broad as Broad Street. A ghost. As real as that woman walking home with her basket tucked under her arm.
Except, if it was his ghost, he was younger, much younger than when Joe had last seen him.
I’m just looking.
It had even sounded like him.
Joe marched across the green, looked left, let a hansom clatter past heading up St. Mary’s, crossed and walked straight into the saloon of the Bull’s Head.
Warm fog of tobacco smoke, sawdust and beer. Behind the bar a boy done up in a stiff collar and waistcoat, so young looking he wouldn’t get served.