Touchstone Season One- Complete Box Set

by Andy Conway

  Various officials and civilian volunteers were rushing here and there, coping with the influx, and she felt a surge of relief when she saw Charlie walking through it all, a cluster of men in uniform around him. She felt safe when Charlie was close, she realized.

  “I see,” said Charlie to the 40-year old policeman who tailed him. “They’re obviously targeting the BSA plant. We have to look at what intelligence they have. It’s unlikely there’s a spy on the ground here, but we can’t be sure.”

  He stopped because he saw Rachel and his expression changed. Something warm and tender flooded his face.

  “Give me your report by four, Sergeant Webster.”

  “Sir.”

  Charlie walked over to Rachel and she realized for the first time that she was alone again. Winnie had gone straight to a table at the far end of the hall where a few women were working. The girl stared back, never taking her eyes off Rachel.

  “And how are you feeling, Sleeping Beauty?”

  “I’m much better, thanks,” she said. “This is horrible.”

  He looked around, almost as if surprised she’d make such an observation.

  “Yes, it is,” he said. “It’s surprising how quickly you get used to it.”

  “I never knew it was this bad. I’ve seen it in films, but this...”

  Charlie looked puzzled. “Why would anyone want to watch films about this?”

  She didn’t answer, feeling guilty that she’d watched many films about this, curled up on the sofa with a mug of tea. A Sunday afternoon treat. Entertainment. She looked at her shoes. “I like the clothes. Thank you.”

  “Really?” he said with relief.

  “They’re lovely. And they fit me perfectly.”

  “You gave me your sizes.”

  “Ah. I must remember to do that.”

  They smiled at the absurdity of it. He looked around him and touched her elbow, moving in to whisper.

  “I’m really sorry for not briefing you properly last night, I was going to do it but you were asleep when I got back. I should have written a report, but I didn’t want it lying around. If someone saw it... well, who knows what they might think?”

  She remembered the silk nightgown with sudden alarm. “Did you put me to bed?”

  Charlie’s eyes went wide and his cheeks flushed crimson. “’No, not at all. When I came back from the recce, you were in bed. I didn’t disturb you.”

  “I don’t remember going to bed. I must have been very tired.”

  “Shock, I expect.”

  “Yes, it was an unbelievable day.”

  “I can’t even imagine,” he said, patting her arm. “But there are things we need to establish, things like your cover story. Intelligence is important and, having prepared for this so far in advance, I can’t believe I’ve had no time to tell you what’s going on.”

  “Tell me now,” she said.

  He shook his head. “There are too many people around. We have to find somewhere private. Walls have ears. We’ll find some time today where I can properly brief you. There are things you need to know, if you’re going to survive here more than a day.”

  “I’m in your hands, Charlie. I have nothing else.”

  What did he mean, if she was going to survive more than a day?

  He leaned in closer, lowering his voice. “But I really should have told you about Winnie.”

  “Winnie? She’s nice.”

  “I should have told you who she is.”

  “Who?”

  “You don’t recognize her?”

  “Should I?”

  “Not even Olive?”

  Rachel looked again at the girl across the room, still eyeing her from the station where the women were handing out blankets and pillows.

  She saw it now: her Nan, as a girl.

  She dug in her coat pocket for the wad of old photographs, unwrapping them, edging against the wall so no one could see them. Charlie looked over her shoulder.

  Shuffling through them, the photographs glowed and took on life, the frozen grey faces melding into the real, full colour, animated humans she could see before her. Olive as a girl, the grandmother who no longer knew her back in the present because she, Rachel, had never been born. Winnie, a stranger standing with her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, a curious plate of a straw hat on her head with some kind of feather, eyes averted, looking down, as if a sudden dark thought had come over her just as the photograph had been taken. This was the woman who’d brought her breakfast this morning. Winnie was her great-grandmother.

  “Lovely photographs,” said Charlie. “Perhaps keep them hidden.”

  She wrapped them back in the red handkerchief and shoved them in her pocket.

  “I thought it might be good for you to get to know them,” he said. “Winnie’s been my housekeeper for two years now, waiting for you to arrive.”

  “This is too weird.”

  He put a gloved hand to her elbow and led her away, walking towards a table to the side where a woman was pouring mugs of tea from a great urn.

  “I’m going to ask Winnie to look after you for the day while I work. She’ll have you helping out here. As far as she knows, you’re my cousin visiting from London. If anyone asks you anything, be as vague as possible about details.”

  “Yes, I’ll do anything to help.”

  “There’s someone else you should meet first.”

  They reached the tea stand, where a blonde woman was handing out tin mugs to the relief workers.

  “Rachel,” said Charlie. “This is Amy Parker.”

  — 10 —

  SHE HADN’T SEEN AMY Parker in the flesh, except for that dreadful moment 28 years ago, yesterday afternoon, when Danny had saved her life. That moment had been such a blur of confusion that she wouldn’t have recognized her as this 43-year old woman before her. But she’d seen her photograph: the studio portrait with her insane father, and the still Danny had taken on his phone and blown up to pin over his desk. So she could trace the features of the teenage girl against this woman before her and the years of tragedy etched into her complexion. She was still pretty, but a middle-aged woman now whose polite smile couldn’t hide three decades of sadness.

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Amy.

  “Amy, this is my cousin, Rachel.”

  Rachel could only stammer. “Pleased to meet you, Amy.”

  “She’s visiting from London for a few days.”

  “You’ve picked an interesting time for it,” said Amy. “Thought you’d escaped it and you walk right into our own little Blitz.”

  Charlie coughed and Amy covered her mouth.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean that like it sounded. I imagine it’s worse down there?”

  “It’s bad all over,” said Rachel.

  This is the woman who took my life, Rachel thought. She is alive and now I am dead. If she were dead, would that mean I could find my life again – could it be that simple? It seemed such a forlorn hope now that she was face to face with her.

  Amy Parker glanced around with panic. “Where’s that girl got to again? Have you seen Maddy anywhere?”

  “I’m afraid not, Amy,” said Charlie.

  “Drat that girl. She can never stay in one place. I’ll have to go and get her. Could you?”

  “Send one of the others over,” said Charlie. “Go on. She can’t have gone far.”

  Amy rushed off, and Rachel watched her go, numb horror searing her flesh. Killing Amy Parker wouldn’t change anything.

  Amy Parker had a child.

  If Rachel wanted to ensure her own timeline, get her life back, she would have to...

  She choked back a rising swell of bile in her mouth, coughed and swallowed it, grimacing, her face as ugly as the thought that had invaded her.

  “She’s got a daughter?”

  “Yes. Maddy. Bit of a local scandal.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, she was 38 when she had her.”

  “Is that so bad?”

 
; “It is when there’s no father.”

  Rachel hugged herself and shivered, trying to rub away the feeling of a crawling mass of ants all over her body. “That’s not much of a scandal in my time.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “It’s practically normal.”

  They watched Amy approach the table where Winnie and the others were working. She pointed back to her station. Winnie nodded impatiently and started to walk over.

  “Oh,” said Charlie. “Well, there are certain people here who wouldn’t give her the time of day because of it.”

  “That’s cruel.”

  “I suppose it didn’t help about her father either. Trying to kill her, dying in an asylum from, you know...”

  “Syphilis.”

  “We don’t mention that word in polite company, Rachel.”

  She turned away from him, a sudden feeling of annoyance. Charlie had befriended her family to keep them at close quarters, and he had done the same with Amy Parker. Had he brought them together and caused the very rift she was trying to fix?

  “Does Amy Parker know my family?”

  “Luckily for you, your family are terrible snobs and they disapprove of her.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Is that what my family are like?”

  “It’s a good thing. For your sake. I think most of it comes from Winnie’s mum, Mary.”

  Winnie arrived, pulling a face, and started to sort out the scores of tin cups to prepare. “Don’t know why she bothers coming in. Spends most of her time chasing after that girl of hers.”

  Her accent had slipped again. It was a curious thing. Was she putting on airs and graces or was this the polite way to talk to a stranger? Might it be something more? Rachel remembered the rumours of her family being rich. Was Winnie the last link to the posh old house – the last one to think themselves middle class?

  “Winnie, would you look after Rachel for me this afternoon? Show her the ropes. She’s keen to help out, aren’t you, Rachel?”

  “Totally. Just show me what to do.”

  “Gosh, miss. You do talk quite funny.” Winnie giggled, then stopped herself, wondering if she’d said something inappropriate, but Rachel’s smile put her at ease.

  “I’ll be back later,” said Charlie.

  “She’ll be safe with me, sir. Take your coat off, dear, you’ll get terribly sweaty if you don’t.”

  Rachel peeled off her overcoat and watched Charlie march out. Although he was the one leaving, it was she who felt adrift, cut off, an unanchored boat sailing away from shore, lost in a storm.

  — 11 —

  WINNIE SHOWED HER HOW to keep the urn brewing.

  “Just keep a steady supply of tea going. It isn’t much, but it cheers people up. There’s nothing like a nice, warm cup of tea, even when you’ve just lost everything you’ve ever had.”

  It was an eight-gallon urn with the word Multipot emblazoned on it. Winnie showed her how to spoon out the tealeaves from a wooden caddy box into an enamel dish.

  “Fill this dish up. That’s about the right measurement.”

  The tealeaves then went into the infuser – a metal cylinder that looked like a bombshell – which was placed inside the giant urn, already full of boiling water. After that, she made up a syrup with sugar and liquid tea in an enamel jug, and poured it into the urn. It took fifteen minutes to brew, and then they added milk to dozens of tin mugs before pouring tea into each from the Multipot’s tap.

  “I swear they should put one of these on every street,” said Winnie. “It would win the war on its own.”

  They carried trays of steaming tea around the pews and clusters of bombed out survivors, some of them still being bandaged up by auxiliary nurses. Each person took their mug with a smile and a thank you, as if this were a tea dance in a church hall.

  One man thanked them even as he wept. Another shook, as if he were operating an invisible pneumatic drill, stuttering his words out.

  “They’re alive, at least,” said Winnie. “And you don’t feel so isolated in a community shelter like this.”

  As they worked among the wounded, she innocently pumped Winnie for information about her life. They lived in the big old house on Anderton Park Road. They didn’t have to work at all, you understand, but she liked to keep herself busy and doing a little housework for Lieutenant Eckersley was almost like charity, really, him being a bachelor and all, and quite unable to look after himself. The volunteer work was just doing their bit, like everyone else, but they only did it in the daytime. At night, you had to have your own life, even if you sometimes spent it in a bomb shelter with everyone else, where there was a real risk of getting scabies, although you generally got a better class of people in the Moseley shelter. There was a limit to how much time you could give to the war, after all. If you gave up all your time, then Hitler had won, really.

  At one o’clock a mobile catering van parked up at the lychgate on St Mary’s Row and hot meals were wheeled inside along the crooked paving slabs.

  They sat and ate along rows of trestle tables and Rachel was surprised to find the meal was fish and chips with gravy, served with hunks of brown bread. The portions weren’t all that big, about half the size of the fish and chips her dad would have as a Friday night treat. Rachel and Olive had always shared one, and even that was bigger than this. Was it the war or did they just eat much less in this time?

  “Isn’t fish rationed?” she asked.

  “Not yet, dear, not out here,” said Winnie. “I did hear talk of the chef at the Spitfire factory trying to put on an adventurous menu, but the workers almost went on strike. This is all they want, every day. Fish, chips and gravy.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “It’s not the best, is it? But there’s a war on, I suppose.”

  Olive sat between them on the bench and they took turns helping her eat. My grandma, she thought, who once fed me at the table. In seventy years’ time we’ll eat this same meal together, without the gravy, of course. No one in Birmingham had gravy with fish and chips, but she’d heard they did it in places up north, like Manchester.

  “The bread is the worst,” said Winnie, slapping a chunk of it on Olive’s plate. “Ugh. The National Loaf. All brown and grainy. You want a nice, white loaf, not this muck.”

  “Really?” Rachel laughed. It was the kind of rustic bread people paid a fortune for in her time, where white bread was synonymous with poverty.

  “And this fare will be the height of luxury once Hitler invades. Lord knows what we’ll be eating then, if anything. It doesn’t bear thinking about. I remember being so bored of the Phoney War, longing for something to happen. I’d have those days back now for anything.”

  Rachel chewed on her brown bread and looked around the room at the wounded men, women and children slumped over their plates. It seemed bizarre that they all thought the Germans were going to invade Britain any day now. They had resigned themselves to it.

  But Rachel knew they weren’t coming. She fished in her memory for the details of history she’d read. The Battle of Britain had already happened – Spitfire pilots in the south of England had fought all summer and won. And now came the Blitz. Aerial bombardment and the fear that this was the beginning of an invasion. But Hitler would never come across the English Channel. Something held him back – a characteristic paralysis of indecision. Most historians agreed that, despite losing air superiority in the Battle of Britain, an invasion would have been successful, because Britain was on its knees. But Hitler would turn away and invade Russia instead.

  Amy Parker walked in and made for the mess table, pulling a blonde girl along. The girl wore a thick blue cardigan and clutched a rag doll to her side. Her daughter, Maddy. The daughter that, somewhere in the next 70 years, would do something to wipe out Rachel’s existence.

  Rachel watched squeeze into a space further down the trestle table row. There was only one meal left, so Amy shared it with her daughter.

  “Don’t know why she’s expecting a m
eal,” Winnie spat. “She’s done no blooming work for it.”

  Again, Winnie’s accent had slipped from Mayfair to Midlands.

  Amy quietly spooned sodden battered fish into Maddy’s mouth, taking only a few gravy smeared chips for herself. A mother’s unthinking self-sacrifice. She denied herself and fed her child so the girl might survive all this.

  This was why Rachel no longer had a life. This was the obstacle she had to remove. It had seemed so simple that afternoon she’d run back to the touchstone – was it only yesterday? – intending to slip back to 1912 and kill Amy Parker, like her father should have killed her. She didn’t know if she could have done it, even in that rush of panic and horror. Now it seemed so complicated. How could you take a life in order to save your own? Even where life was cheap and people were dying every night as bombs dropped on their houses. How could you murder a mother and child?

  — 12 —

  SHE HAD ZONED OUT. Winnie was still talking.

  “Like last August, when all those parachutes came down over the Midlands. The German radio said they were agents and they were all being harboured by Fifth Columnists. And they’ve got electro-magnetic death rays too. They’re right here among us. Could be your neighbour. Could be sitting right next to you in that air raid shelter. One of them could be sitting right here eating fish and chips with us. I guess we’ll only know who once the invasion begins.”

  “You think they’re coming?”

  “Oh, yes. Everyone says it. Only a matter of days now. They kicked us out of France and they’re coming over the channel for us.”

  Down the far end of the table, Amy Parker jumped awake. She had dozed off right there with her girl on her lap. She looked around to see who’d noticed, her eyes meeting Rachel’s for a moment, then she tore a chunk of National Loaf and chewed on it lazily. Maddy happily played with the plate, her mouth smeared with gravy, still clutching the rag doll.

  “Winnie, can I ask you a question?”