by Andy Conway
The priest had opened his book and was droning out a final prayer when they sidled up to the small group that surrounded the grave.
Rachel looked at the headstone and saw the name of Robert Parker on pink granite with a large space beneath it where his daughter’s would be inscribed.
Maddy was given a scoop of earth and took a pinch to scatter on the coffin as the brawny gravediggers lowered it into the hole, straining at their ropes. The priest gave a final flourish and the ceremony was over; he was mingling with the mourners saying a last few words and thanking them for coming like the host of a party that was over.
Maddy walked away, dabbing her eyes, her other hand still clutching Esther’s, and Rachel took a long look at the girl who would grow up to marry her father. Today was the day she could prevent that. Today was the day she could change it all and get her life back.
Before the rest of the mourners had ambled away from the graveside, the diggers began shovelling soil into the hole with a sudden energy and a cheerful disposition, their week’s work nearly over.
Charlie walked over and stared into the hole for a few moments but Danny stood back, as if afraid.
As the cars pulled away and crept across the cemetery, they walked back to the chapel to find the taxi waiting. They climbed inside and were driving back to Moseley. Charlie leaned forward and told the driver to drop them on the other side of the road, by St Mary’s church and as they reached Moseley they could see that the street party on the green was already in full swing. They passed it and pulled up outside the church and he paid the driver and took the suitcase from the front passenger seat. They walked through the lychgate and round to the rear of the church, following one of the paths to the far end where the touchstone sat.
Danny turned and went to say something but there was nothing to say, so he just said, “Thank you.”
Rachel felt sorry for him for a fleeting second.
Charlie nodded and stood as if on guard, as if ready to manhandle him back to 2012 if he changed his mind, and she realized his staying up all night with a revolver in his hand wasn’t only to make sure Powell and his thugs didn’t come back for them.
Danny reached out and touched the gravestone in the same spot they’d always touched it and giggled suddenly. He said something, and before she could ask what was so funny he was gone.
“What did he say?”
“Sounded like Dorian Gray,” said Charlie.
“Why would he say that?”
Charlie frowned. “It’s odd. That was Amy’s favourite film, I remember.”
She shrugged and they faced the moment they had together.
“Are you going home yourself now?” Charlie said.
He looked so sad and she wanted to kiss him.
“I hear there’s going to be a party?” she said.
— 47 —
“HOLD ON,” SAID RACHEL, stopping half way down the dark alley that would bring them out onto the village green. “I can’t go.”
“Why not?”
“What if Winnie’s there? She’d recognize me from 1940, wouldn’t she?”
Charlie smiled and she realized he hadn’t done that for a very long time. “I took the liberty of calling Olive to ask her about the party and to tentatively mention the funeral today. She knows all about it and said her mother won’t be coming today as she’s got much more important things to do than be at a party for a silly football match.”
“So I’m safe then?”
“You certainly are.”
She walked forward on his arm and the sun hit them and she caught her breath at the riot of red, white and blue.
The small triangular island had been transformed into what looked more like a beer garden. Cars and buses still passed by on the main road but the slip road had been blocked off and the tables were across it and on the pavement too.
Here it was, the street party on World Cup Final day: the place where her mother and father had met. Both of them were here somewhere. She scanned the tables for the boy and girl she might recognize from her photograph, but couldn’t see either present.
She dug into the small leather black handbag Charlie had bought for her and took out her stack of family photos. It was on top: her mother and father posing for a shot, the girl beaming a bright smile, the boy frowning.
Charlie led her to a table that had a few spare places where a mother was wiping her boy’s face of jam. It wasn’t Martyn, her father.
“Maddy will be here soon. She’s decided that the best thing is to combine the wake with the street party. Ah, there’s Olive.”
Over the other side of the island, close to the eastern tip that pointed up St Mary’s Row, Olive sat looking stylish and above it all.
Martyn was trying to eat jelly with one hand while he hugged a football to his chest with the other. He was wearing the exact same clothes as in her photograph: grey shorts, a white shirt with a sky blue and maroon striped tank top.
Olive didn’t see the group of people walking down St Mary’s Row behind her: Maddy and her friends, all in their black. By the time she noticed them, they were a few yards past her. Rachel silently cheered, but then watched in despair as Olive stood and rushed over and grabbed Maddy’s arm. The two former friends who’d been torn apart by their families, stared at each other for a moment. Olive said a few words and Maddy’s head bowed and she reached out and stroked Olive’s arm in thanks.
“Oh no,” said Rachel. “I think they’re making up.”
Maddy’s girl, Esther, clung to her mother shyly, rocking on her heels, and stared over at Martyn.
Rachel saw what was going to happen.
“I’d best go over,” said Charlie.
She didn’t know why. There was nothing he could do. It was inevitable now: Martyn would meet young Esther Parker at this street party instead of a young girl called Lorna Foster who was supposed to be Rachel’s mother.
Dread gripped her and she looked around in panic. Where was the girl from her photograph? If she were here, she would go and grab her and march her over to little Martyn Hines herself and say, “Here. This is the boy you’re going to marry. Remember this above everything else.”
She turned to the woman at the end of their table, still wiping jam from her son’s face.
“Excuse me, I don’t suppose you know a little girl called Lorna Foster? She’s supposed to be here today.”
The woman frowned. “That’s not a name I know, bab. What’s her mum’s name?”
“Deirdre. Deirdre Foster.”
The woman’s eyes ballooned and her mouth fell open. “But that’s...”
Rachel stared, confused. What was going on? The woman gathered herself and got up, yanking her boy with her.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered, and dragged the boy over to where some children were playing in the middle of the green. A ring of mothers were around them and they all turned to look at her, whispering. Something wasn’t right. Rachel knew now that something else had happened – something really bad – to make sure that Lorna Foster, her mum, wasn’t here. She had no time to think about it as Maddy and her party joined them and Maddy was hugging her.
“I didn’t get to thank you earlier,” she said. “You’ve been such a good friend to me this week.”
Rachel thought guiltily about the case full of Amy Parker’s clothes that were sitting in her room up there overlooking the green, which she was going to take back to 2012 with her.
“And this is Esther?” said Rachel.
“Yes, you’ve not seen her yet.”
Rachel looked down at the little girl, the imposter who would usurp her mother, and held out her hand as if she were an adult. “Very pleased to meet you, Esther,” she said.
Everyone laughed at the formality of the greeting and they all sat down. Sandwiches were brought, and pork pies, sausage rolls, lemonade for the kids and beer for the men and ladies. No one drank wine, and she thought how strange that was.
Maddy looked over at Olive a few t
imes and each time she did, Rachel tried to distract her with meaningless chatter. It was a sort of sick joke: that her life should be wiped out and here she was, given a ringside seat to witness the very moment when it would happen, with no power to stop it.
The mood was lifting around the table, everyone relieved to have the funeral over and to be able to smile again and drink and laugh, even Maddy, who seemed giddy and carefree.
Was it always like this after a funeral? Rachel wondered. She knew it sometimes was, but there was something else in Maddy’s demeanour; something that seemed oddly inappropriate, as if a great weight had been lifted from her. Perhaps she hadn’t really got on so well with her mother.
Someone had hooked up a big television set to the electricity supply from a lamppost and after fiddling with the aerial for a while, a murky grey picture began to show the World Cup Final live from Wembley.
The children and the men crowded round. Rachel noticed that most of the women busied themselves clearing up food and crockery or sat chatting and didn’t seem interested in the football. The kids watched for a while before going off to play, then came back in relays.
The Queen was there on TV wearing what looked like a sea urchin on her head. She looked young and thin and Rachel thought how amazing it was that she was still the Queen and celebrating fifty years on the throne under a constant summer deluge back in 2012. Did any of them here imagine she would reign so long?
She felt tired suddenly and remembered the long night and the near death experience. She yawned and covered her mouth and wondered if it would look very unpatriotic to go and have a lie down back at the flat. She only realized just in time that Germany were in the white shirts, not England. She’d been about to cheer but one of the blokes shouted, “No!” as they had a shot on goal.
The game had been going only about ten minutes when the Germans did score. The group of chain-smoking men clustered around the telly all cursed while dumbfounded children blinked up at them.
“Bloody typical!”
“I told you!”
“All this way and they go and mess it up!”
“Ramsey knows bugger all! He’s dropped Greavesie and now this! Clueless, he is!”
She found herself remembering the shelter during the Blitz and the vicious complaining of those huddled down there under the barrage, moaning that all was lost. Just like then she had the certainty that it would all be fine and England would end up triumphing over the Germans. It didn’t feel like it just now, but it was going to happen.
The commentator offered up some hope, pointing out that in the previous three World Cup finals, the team that had scored first had gone on to lose.
As if on cue with her thoughts, England snatched an equalizer. Bobby Moore took a free-kick quickly, launched it at the German goal and Geoff Hurst rose to head it in. No one was around him. Was he offside?
“That’s more like it!”
“Come on, England!”
“Greavesie wouldn’t have scored that, eh!”
“Lucky goal, that. He won’t do anything more this game. Mark my words.”
Although she knew the result, and something about a disputed goal that was ruled over the line, and that it went to extra-time, she really didn’t know much more about the game so it was pretty much all new to her. She watched the rest, sometimes drifting off in the sunshine, closing her eyes.
The first half finished and Rachel watched helplessly as her own personal tragedy unfolded: Maddy got up from the table and walked over to talk to Olive.
The two mothers chatted for a long time, their children at their sides, and Martyn glared at Esther, and Esther stared at Martyn, and Martyn shuffled off to play with his football and crossed over to where the alley beckoned and kicked his football into it. Olive looked over her shoulder, just checking, making sure he was safe, while they continued chatting. Esther whispered in Maddy’s ear and her mother nodded and let her go. She skipped over to the mouth of the alley and followed Martyn.
This was the moment: the moment of Rachel’s death.
She rose from the table and walked over to the mouth of the alley.
Martyn was kicking his football against the wall while Esther watched silently. The ball ricocheted behind him and rolled down the slope of the alley and Rachel stopped it with her black court shoe. Both children looked at her, squinting into the sunlight. She saw her shadow stretched out before her and knew she was a black silhouette to them. Her life was disappearing already. She was only a shadow now.
She picked up the ball and walked to where Martyn stood, looking up at her shyly. She smiled down at him but couldn’t hide her fascination. This was her father. No matter what happened now, no matter how time diverged and destinies collided; this was her father and could still be so.
She squatted down, her face to his, and he smiled uncertainly.
“Hello Martyn.”
“Hello, miss,” he said.
“I know your mother. I’m Rachel.”
She held the ball out to him and he took it and blinked at her, uncomprehending. She looked over her shoulder.
Esther still stood there, frowning, uncertain.
Rachel leaned closer to Martyn and whispered, “You see that girl there?”
He nodded.
“Her name’s Esther. Your mum’s going to make you be her friend. Do you want to be her friend?”
Martyn looked at Esther and shrugged.
“You shouldn’t,” whispered Rachel. “She smells and she wets the bed and she’s really a witch. Her hair is made of worms and if she ever tries to kiss you, a big spider will come out of her mouth and go into yours and it will crawl into your head and lay loads of spider eggs that will hatch and a million spiders will eat your brain and your eyeballs from the inside. You don’t want that, do you?”
Martyn cringed and shook his head.
“That’s why you should never be friends with her.”
She kissed his cheek and walked away, and as she passed Esther she smiled and said, “Hello, pretty girl.”
She didn’t look behind. She knew that Martyn Hines would not be playing football with Esther Parker.
She found Charlie chatting to an old friend on the green and went to his side, linking arms with him and leaning against him. The men talked for a while about the game and England’s chances.
As soon as she was alone with Charlie again, she said, “Have I spoiled it for you?”
“Kind of,” he laughed.
She liked to see him laugh. They were friends again. Joy surged inside her. “I should make it up to you,” she said.
“Oh really?”
“Yes. We should go for a picnic.”
“That’s a nice idea,” he said. “We could be in the Lickey Hills in twenty minutes.”
She nodded. “Let’s drive over at full time.”
He grinned and whispered, “You mean after extra time.”
“Shhh,” she said.
When the game resumed, it didn’t look like improving. The teams seemed to be cancelling each other out and you could see that the pitch was breaking up badly, big clumps sticking up all over the place whenever the cameras went in close.
Then there was a bit of a scramble in the German box and someone stabbed at the ball and it was in the back of the net. The kids, the men and some of the women erupted. She noticed Martyn jumping up and down like he was trying to dig a well with his feet.
“Yes!”
“It’s in!”
“We’ve done it!”
“Who was it?”
“Martin Peters. Lucky that. Mishit it.”
“Oh shurrup, Stan, you’re a bloomin’ cloud of doom, you are!”
Charlie beamed at her, as if she were responsible, even though he knew the lead wouldn’t last.
The ref kept giving free kicks to Germany. There were a disturbing amount of them. You could see what was going to happen even if you hadn’t come from the future: Germany were going to equalize.
Th
ere were two minutes left. Everyone was biting nails or clenching their fists to avoid biting their nails. She couldn’t help feeling nervous herself even though she knew it wasn’t going to happen just yet. Was it going to happen? She was certain the game went to extra-time but it was about to end with England winning. Some of the kids were jumping around now and a few of the adults were already celebrating the win. Had this result changed in this timeline? Could the changes that Danny had created somehow have influenced the result of this World Cup Final?
The Germans got another free kick. How many was that now? The ball was fired in, there was a scramble and the Germans scored. It was going to extra-time. She almost felt relief. In contrast, everyone around her was gutted. All was lost now. They had contrived to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
“I bloody told you!” said Stan. “Ramsey ain’t got a clue!”
Extra-time began and England looked stronger. The German players were cramping up and large open spaces were appearing on the pitch with England players roaming freely in them.
England broke away yet again, swiftly, a quick cross went in, Hurst got it, swivelled, rifled it at the crossbar, it bounced down in the goal and out again.
“Yesssss!”
“Goal!”
“It’s in!”
The commentator said it was a goal, then he said no, the linesman had ruled it out. Everyone was frozen. The referee went over to the linesman, who was nodding and pointing.
“It’s a goal!” cried the commentator.
They were all jumping around again, the England players celebrating, the Germans crowding the linesman.
“Course it’s a goal!”
“It was over by a bloomin’ mile!”
A replay showed it again and it was harder to tell this time as the keeper was in the way. This was the controversial goal she’d heard so much about. It had looked well over when she’d seen it live, but now she wasn’t sure. This was why they were still arguing about it nearly fifty years later.
They had a short break and the England players threw water on themselves from a bucket, then the second half seemed to start before all the England players were back on the pitch.