by Andy Conway
“And while you’re picking up your winnings,” she said. “I’ll go and get your suitcase.”
He looked up with surprise.
“You should call them, actually. Tell them to bring it to me at Gigi’s Café. Eleven. Do you owe any rent?”
“No. I paid in advance.”
“It should all be fine then.”
She spread her toast with jam from a jar that had a golliwog on it.
— 22 —
“MAKE YOURSELF COMFORTABLE. This is my office, I suppose.”
Charlie swept his hand to present to her the drab back room of the bookmakers’.
Rachel looked it over and thought of the 2012 trend for colourful, vibrant, creative workspaces and just how far the whole notion of office space had come.
She walked through to the back and found a window and a door that led to a neglected back yard that was a perfect suntrap.
Charlie had a worried look when she walked back in. “What is it?”
“Charlie Eckersley. If I was one of your employees I’d go on strike.”
“Why?”
“This is a terrible working environment. Not just for your staff but for you too.”
Charlie looked around him and pointed at the Dansette. “But there’s a nice record player there. Everyone likes that.”
She smiled. She liked it too. “It’s lovely, Charlie, but it will take a lot more than that to brighten this place up.”
“No one’s ever complained, Rachel.”
“They shouldn’t have to,” she said. “First thing we need to do is keep that back door open and let some air inside, and a bit of sunshine. Once you’ve painted the walls white and put up some nice bright coloured pictures, we can do something with the furniture.”
He looked around at his collection of Utility desks and grey filing cabinets.
“Get some modern stuff in, with colours, and textures, and curves. And plants too. Plants are important. They oxygenate a room. Then we can sort that back yard out. Put some garden furniture out there, plants, brighten it up, make it a nice place to sit for a break in the summer.”
“What’s garden furniture?”
“Trust me,” she said. “You need to do this.”
The door opened and Rachel found herself staring at Amy Parker with her daughter at her side. It was almost exactly as it had been in 1940, except that Amy Parker looked younger, with a blonde beehive hairdo, and the child, Maddy, didn’t have a rag doll under her arm.
“Hello, Mr Eckersley.”
“Maddy!” cried Charlie. “How’s your mother?”
“I’ve just come from the hospital. She’s resting but... well, it’s not good.”
Rachel stared, mouth open, realizing this was Maddy, the girl whose hand she’d held in 1940.
“I just thought I’d tell you I’ll be back, after I’ve dropped Esther here at school.”
Charlie went over and put his hands on her shoulders, at which Maddy slumped for a moment before disguising her weakness by clutching the girl closer to her side.
“There’s absolutely no need for you to be here,” said Charlie. “In fact, I insist you go home right now, or back to the hospital. Wherever you need to be.”
She looked up to his face with a frown. “Really?”
“This place will get along fine without you for a while. Family’s more important. Don’t even think about coming in. And you’re on full pay of course, so don’t you worry about that.”
She reached into her handbag and pulled out a linen handkerchief and dabbed her eyes.
“Oh, thank you, Mr Eckersley.”
“It’s quite all right. And if there’s anything I can do for your mother, or anything I can get you, don’t you hesitate to ask.”
She nodded and forced back tears, her girl gazing up at her with a frown.
Charlie remembered Rachel behind him and turned to introduce her.
“Oh, this is... Rachel, my... Well, she’s a relative. From a distant branch of the family... very distant.”
Rachel walked forward and shook her hand. “I’m here to help Charlie give the place a makeover,” she said, then seeing that neither of them knew what she was talking about, added, “A re-design. I’m an interior designer... In London.”
Maddy nodded. “Oh, that’s nice.”
“I’m really sorry to hear about your mother being taken ill,” said Rachel. “If there’s anything I can do to help. Anything at all...”
“You’re very kind,” said Maddy, and frowned, as if remembering.
Rachel looked at Charlie. Could she possibly remember her from 1940?
“I’ll drive over later,” said Charlie. “If you need a lift to the hospital.”
“Thank you, thank you,” said Maddy, and ushered the girl out. Charlie followed, through to the front shop and saw her out of the door. When he came back, Rachel was sitting at his desk, rocking back on the legs.
“She doesn’t remember me.”
“She was too young.”
“Her daughter...”
“Esther, yes.”
“I think she’s going to marry my father.”
— 23 —
AFTER DANNY HAD WALKED out, Kath Bright went to the safe and filled out another entry in the Winston envelope, then made her way to Gigi’s where she read the papers over a couple of espressos.
There was a risk that Danny might leave and not come back, but she felt that arranging to pick up his suitcase for him would surely secure a further chance at making a connection with him.
Olive Piplatch walked in and viewed the surroundings with distaste. Gigi’s was very much a café for young people and, for someone in her early thirties and with a snobbish streak it might as well have been a pub.
Kath realized she should have suggested they meet in Drucker’s a few doors down.
Olive marched over with the suitcase and the look of a woman who’d discovered a fish in her coffee. She wore a green Jackie Kennedy suit, white silk gloves and a cloud of expensive perfume. Her brunette bouffant was lacquered stiff like a helmet.
Kath laid the newspaper down on the table and stood up to meet her, offering her hand. “Hello, I’m Kath.”
Olive put the suitcase on the chair, tugged at her gloved fingers and ignored the handshake.
“Here’s his suitcase,” she said. “And I’d like you to give me your address so I can inform our solicitor.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s totally outrageous that you’re poaching our business. We had an agreement with Mr Moore to provide him with lodging until the end of the month and you have stolen our business. It’s not the done thing and we’re not going to sit still for it.”
Kath wrinkled her nose and blushed. “I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick.”
“My husband is a very well connected man on the city council and I think you’re going to find it very difficult to run a boarding house in Birmingham after this little stunt.”
Kath sat back in her seat. “Your husband hasn’t told you, obviously.”
Olive faltered. “Told me what?”
“I haven’t stolen your lodger. I’m not running a boarding house. I offered Danny shelter after your husband threw him out on the streets last night.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
There was an undercoat of Brummie street girl in Olive’s voice now, pushing through the flaky top coat of fake poshness.
“Your husband got into a drunken fight with Danny last night. Well, not so much a fight... more he punched him and left him stranded in town.”
Olive’s mouth opened but nothing came out. She wanted to protest, but it was clear that she knew there could be some truth to this.
“I believe it had something to do with Danny winning a bet, but who knows. All I know is that I found Danny in here at midnight with a thick lip and nowhere to go. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
She picked up the suitcase and marched out, leaving Olive glaring aft
er her, mouth still open.
Kath rushed back across the road to her flat where she dumped the suitcase and skipped back down to the street to catch the next bus into the city.
She had just enough time to call on the Evening Mail offices before she met Danny.
— 24 —
CHARLIE HAD BEGUN TO notice that he was avoiding the city centre these days and staying in Moseley. Every time he went into the city he realized everyone around him was too young, too brash, too bright: their energy scared him. He realized he was getting old; slowing down. A younger generation was overtaking him now, jostling for dominance, pushing him aside.
So why on earth had he taken Rachel to an Indian restaurant in the city centre, he wondered? To impress her. Because she too was one of those youngsters.
He could sense the evening was heading for an iceberg. She had at first seemed delighted at the idea of going out for a meal in town and had dolled herself up, singing along to The Supremes’ I Hear a Symphony as she put the finishing touches to her hair. But it had seemed to turn sour the moment he’d taken her downstairs to his brand new Iris blue MGB Roadster, sitting gleaming in the car park behind the flat. She hadn’t looked impressed as he’d expected, only stared at it and said, “Oh,” and looked embarrassed and sad.
When he’d bought it a month ago, knowing she was due to visit, he’d imagined her cooing with delight. Perhaps in her time there were much classier cars. Of course there were. What a fool he was to think he could impress her. She knew so much more than him. She lived forty years in the future. She quite possibly drove a hover car. This must look like a coal truck to her.
She was silent the whole way into town and stared out of the window and they didn’t really talk until he’d ushered her through the door of the restaurant. He’d explained that Indian restaurants were a new thing, very exotic, and not to everyone’s taste and was it not too off the beaten track for her? But she had simply smiled and said it was fine, she’d manage, if he told her what was best to order, and he wondered if she’d ever been in a restaurant before, let alone an Indian restaurant.
He ordered Blue Nun wine instead of beer, to keep things more sophisticated, and this must have been a good move because she began to talk more and relax into the evening. The food didn’t seem to faze her either, although he tried to ignore it when she got confused and started scooping up the curry with her chapatti instead of using her knife and fork.
“Would you like to visit your family?” he asked eventually.
She didn’t seem certain.
“Winnie would recognize you,” he added. “But Olive wouldn’t.”
“I’d like to see my Nan,” she said. “Things haven’t ended up very well for her in this timeline.”
“I could arrange it,” he said. “I still keep in touch with them, of course. Olive’s married now. The man’s a total buffoon, but she seems happy.”
She shuffled her curry around her plate with her chapatti.
“It would be weird seeing my dad as a little boy. Shall we leave it? The World Cup party is coming up soon. Let’s leave it till then. He’s going to meet my mum then and I want to make sure it happens.”
“I wonder if Esther is going to be there,” he said, and immediately regretted it.
Rachel mulled it over and then a light came on in her eyes.
“Of course she will! That must be how it happens. We have to stop him from meeting Esther! Make sure he meets my mum, Lorna.”
She brightened up so much that he was glad he’d mentioned it. She had a mission now, a purpose, and he warmed himself on the glow of her optimism.
He had wanted to tell her how he’d overseen the two families all these years – subtly trying to keep Rachel’s relatives away from Amy Parker and her daughter – and wondering all the time if he were in fact providing a link to bring them together.
There had been a time when Olive and Maddy had became friendly, ten years ago, but Winnie had put a stop to it, which had been a relief, because he wasn’t so sure he wanted to do it himself. They’d seemed to get on so well. Thankfully, Winnie’s snobbishness, inherited from her battleaxe mother, had saved him the trouble.
And now here they were, years later, desperately trying to keep apart the next generation: a boy and a girl who were going to meet at a party and wipe out Rachel’s life.
He held his tongue and smiled at her sudden delight and the fire of enthusiasm in her eyes.
“I feel such relief,” she said. “For the first time I feel one step ahead of it all. I know how to stop it!” She laughed and broke into song. “We have aaaaall the tiiiiiime in the world...”
He frowned and shook his head, not recognising it.
“Charlie! It’s Louis Armstrong! Your favourite. You know, from the James Bond film. It was my Dad’s favourite Bond theme.”
She looked down at the tablecloth suddenly, feeling immeasurable loss.
“I don’t think Louis Armstrong has ever done a Bond theme tune,” said Charlie.
She looked up into his eyes and saw the realisation there: she was talking about something that hadn’t happened yet. Again. An ocean of time between them.
“Sorry,” she said.
“It’s perfectly all right.”
“You must get sick of me doing that.”
“Not at all. I find it all very fascinating. Truly.”
“It’s a lovely song. You’re going to love it.”
“Sing it to me,” he said.
She looked up again and laughed, the shadow that had passed between them chased away by their smiles.
“Don’t be daft,” she said. “My voice is horrible.”
“I’m sure it’s lovely.”
“Ooh, you won’t be saying that if you ever hear me. It’ll curdle your curry.”
“I’d love to hear it,” he said, and thought he sounded a little too forlorn.
She took a deep breath and sang to him, her voice faltering, trying to sing the words without anyone else hearing.
“We have aaaaaall... the tiiiiiiiiime... in the world...”
She coughed and laughed. “I really shouldn’t try to do his voice.”
“Best not.”
She continued in her own voice and hummed the violin lines, feeling her cheeks grow hot. “It sort of has a lovely string section on it.” She shrugged and looked at the tablecloth again.
“Thank you, Rachel,” he said. “That sounded very nice. I can’t wait to hear it. You have a very charming voice.”
“Pfft,” she said. “Cat’s chorus.”
She blushed and covered her face and he thought about the words to the song and wished they were true, because he knew that in nine days’ time she would leave him and he might never see her again because this was the very last visitation date she’d written down for him.
A figure hovered over them and he thought it was the waiter till he looked up into Bernie Powell’s face. He was a short man but he carried an air of menace, which wasn’t entirely due to the two heavies who were sitting at a table next to Bernie’s wife.
“Charlie. How convenient.”
He offered a bony hand fattened by gold rings and gave him his best bonecrusher shake.
Charlie wondered if anyone had ever been brave enough to tell him that his palms were always so clammy. It was like holding a fish.
Bernie bowed to Rachel and sat between them. “Please forgive the intrusion. I won’t be a moment. Just a business matter to discuss.”
Rachel shrugged and tried to read Charlie’s eyes but he avoided her gaze, as if to prevent her becoming involved.
“How can I help, Bernie?”
“I wondered if you’d had a visit from a certain young gentleman who’s done very well on the Group Two games. A few of my shops seem to have all suffered the same misfortune.” Bernie tapped his cigar in their ashtray. “Seems a number of us have been targeted with the same wager.”
Charlie made a show of trying to remember. “I did have a kid in. Wanted to
predict the outcome of every Group Two game. Smartly dressed. I declined to take the bet. Seemed too risky to me.”
Bernie Powell suppressed a sneer. “Now why am I not surprised that you’re the only bookie who wouldn’t fall for it?”
“I try not to expose myself to too much risk, Bernie. You know that.”
“And you have this uncanny knack of choosing exactly which risk that is.”
Charlie laughed modestly. “I take it you haven’t been hit too hard if you’re here celebrating?”
“Unfortunately, his Group Two bet isn’t the end of the affair. Several of my idiot managers also took another bet on the tournament winners that will lose us a hell of a lot of money.”
“If it works out.”
“If it does or not, I’m not going to take it lying down.” He nodded to Rachel. “Excuse the expression.”
She frowned, wondering what was so rude about it.
“Might be bad for business,” said Charlie. “Not paying out on a big winner. What if it gets out?”
“He strikes me as the secretive type, like a certain young man who made a lot of money in a similar fashion some time ago.”
Charlie smiled modestly again and Bernie smiled too. It was the smile of old adversaries acknowledging a battle that had been won and lost a long time ago. Charlie knew they all thought he had won fair and square, this gang of bookies who turned violent when they thought they were being diddled by someone with Lady Luck on their side; his move into the bookmaking industry was testament to his honesty – his innate talent as an odds compiler – but it was an industry that had always been run by criminals and now that it was legalised most of them were still running it.
“And yet again,” said Bernie, “you strike it lucky. But I’m glad you’re not involved.” He rose and bowed to Rachel again.
“So are you going to tell me who he’s got to win it?”
Bernie paused and puffed on his cigar, without turning back. “Something tells me you already know, Charlie.”
He walked back to his wife, just the two heavies glaring at them. Charlie shuddered, as if someone had walked over his grave, then dug up his corpse and played a Milt Jackson vibes solo on his bones.