Touchstone Season One- Complete Box Set

by Andy Conway

She ran to him and almost knocked him back against Henry. “Oh Charlie! You’re back! I was so scared for you!”

  He unpeeled her from him, blushing, grinning, smoothing his hair down. It was wild and unruly without the Brylcreem.

  “Don’t I get a welcome hug, too?” said Henry.

  She laughed and kissed him on his rough cheek and he blushed too.

  “We were worried about you, Rachel,” said Charlie. “Anything might have happened.”

  “I was worried about you! You were arrested!”

  Henry slumped into the sofa, his bones creaking. “Ah! I ache everywhere.”

  Rachel filled the kettle with water and lit the stove.

  “Oh yes. Tea. Much needed.”

  Charlie fell into the armchair and yawned. They both looked like they’d not slept all night.

  “Well, that’s a hotel I’m definitely not patronising again,” said Henry.

  “Room service was awful,” said Charlie.

  “That man Davies, the concierge. He didn’t like us very much, Charlie. Did you notice?”

  “I think we can safely say he’s not a jazz fan.”

  “Perhaps we should have tipped him.”

  Rachel laughed to herself and thought of the irony. In six years’ time, Charlie would be a Lieutenant and get to order Davies, still a lowly Constable, around. She saw now the simmering envy that had always existed between them, the envy that would erupt in 1966 and lead to Davies trying to kill them both.

  Charlie looked suddenly sullen. “Do you think we were wrong to put the posters up in Moseley?”

  “We should put up more!”

  “The Blackshirts will only rip them down again.”

  Rachel turned from the hob. “Who was that horrible woman shouting at you?”

  Henry waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, that was an old school chum of mine. Julie Hickman.”

  “You know her?” said Charlie, aghast.

  “I don’t think she’s ever recovered from my rejecting her advances in the third year. Unrequited love is one of the prime causes of anti-Semitism. It’s a fact. I guarantee you there’s a beautiful Jewish girl somewhere in Germany who turned Adolf Hitler down, and look what it’s caused.”

  Charlie chewed his thumb and looked out across the village to where they’d been arrested last night. None of the posters were there.

  “So we just put some more posters up?”

  “Yes!”

  “And get arrested again?”

  Henry shrugged and the life seemed to go out of him.

  The kettle whistled. Rachel made the tea and set it on the table by the window. “Why don’t we print some flyers?” she said.

  They both looked at her. It was that look people gave you in the past when they didn’t know what you were talking about.

  “Little versions of the poster? To hand to people?”

  “Handbills!”

  “Yes, handbills. We could order thousands of them. Hand them out to everyone in Moseley.”

  Henry’s eyes lit up. “I could put some in Manny’s fish and chip shop. Give them out to every customer.”

  “We could hire some people to give them out,” said Charlie.

  “Could we get some people?”

  “There’s no shortage of people looking for work, Rachel.”

  “Then let’s do it,” she said. “Let’s flood Moseley with handbills. And town too. Why not?”

  Henry clapped his hands. “She’s right. It’s Benny Orphan. People will come from miles around.”

  “I don’t know,” said Charlie. “Thousands of handbills, people to distribute them. It’s a lot of money.”

  Rachel pulled out her purse again and held up the crispy notes. They didn’t even seem real. Toy banknotes from a children’s game. But she could see the almost dizzying effect they had on Charlie and Henry.

  “Is this enough?”

  “Rachel. That’s enough to pay everyone in Moseley to attend,” said Charlie.

  “And Kings Heath.”

  “Well how much do you need?”

  Charlie stepped up and took a single note from her. “That should do it. There’ll be change.”

  She shut her purse. There were a few more notes. There was a certain bet to place tomorrow and Charlie would need a stake for it. She would hand it to him later, when Henry wasn’t there.

  And that bet would mean even more money.

  She felt a sudden wave of euphoria. This was all going to happen. She was going to make it happen. She poured tea into two china cups and turned with them.

  Henry was snoring. Charlie’s eyes were at half mast.

  It could wait.

  She reached for her purse and took a basket from a hook. There was no food in the place and they would need breakfast when they woke up. She could go and see what the shops looked like in 1934.

  — 20 —

  DANNY TOOK A DEEP BREATH, opened his hotel room door and crept down the carpeted stairs to the chintz adorned reception.

  “Good morning, Mr Pearce,” sang the girl on reception.

  Every time he passed through, she looked him over with moo-cow eyes. A teenager who looked middle-aged thanks to the dowdy clothes she wore.

  He tipped his hat and nodded to her, and it was only then that he remembered walking in here looking for a room in 1966. They were booked up. A woman in reception with horn-rimmed glasses, who looked sixty but was probably thirty. It must be her.

  He stepped out into the morning sun, a chill blast hitting the film of sweat on his face, and took the same route as last night.

  Take two. It felt safer now. He should stop walking out at night altogether. He’d thought it would make it easier to avoid being seen but it was worse. The daylight definitely felt safer.

  He held onto the brim of his trilby as he walked, wind whipping around him. Felt the envelope in his pocket. Insurance.

  The arrests had spooked him.

  It seemed that every time he went back in time, he ended up in a police cell. First in 1912, dragged away by an Edwardian brute of a copper. Again in 1940, knowing the police station was going to be bombed that night. And the policeman who’d bumped into him last night had only been the same one who’d taken him in that time, and again in 1966. And after he’d escaped his cell that time, the same policeman had handed him over to a gangster to dispose of.

  The same face, only younger. Running at him. Hand reaching out. The jolt as his body hit him.

  The relief when he’d shoved him aside to arrest someone else.

  Walk slowly now, head down, do not draw attention to yourself.

  He felt more and more like a man on the run.

  Every time he travelled back in time, something bad always happened. And in 1959? What had happened there? He wasn’t sure. It was beyond his memory, like a dream just out of reach.

  Why did he bother going back in time?

  Amy Parker. That’s why. It was always because of Amy.

  He crossed over to the village green and didn’t even glance sideways up the alley to see the churchyard gate and the gravestones beyond it.

  Past the Fighting Cocks, where it had all happened. Just the human traffic of respectable shoppers. No police. No fighters.

  He was scared. He didn’t care who knew it.

  It felt safer to walk out in the day time. He would be fine as long as he avoided doing anything suspicious; as long as he avoided crowds or potential violent situations.

  He would surely be safe?

  He turned into Woodbridge Road and the impressive corner display of Shufflebotham’s Grocers caught his eye. He crossed over to peer at a window display of ham hocks.

  Overcoated women with hats like the Queen wore, wicker baskets hanging from the crooks of their arms, chatting in the store, pointing out this and that.

  He jumped when he recognized Rachel inside.

  She was chatting to a green-overalled gentleman and appeared quite at home. How come she never got arrested?

  He duck
ed away quickly before she could turn and see him staring at her. Up the street, past Lukers. The lovely fresh smell of bread. Onwards. The Trafalgar Inn. The entrance to Moseley station. He stopped and looked down the slope to the quaint huts either side of the train track.

  A feeling of déjà vu. Dread. Fear. Something that had happened in 1959. Something he couldn’t remember. Something very, very bad.

  He shuddered and walked on, head down.

  Do not be distracted. Do not stand and stare at anything. Suspicious people do that. People who get noticed.

  He turned down the steep slope of Church Road and followed it all the way down to the bottom, where it seemed strange not to smell spices from the Indian grocers, and the mouth watering scent of a score of Balti restaurants. It was still a quiet suburb where genteel Moseley frayed at the edges and became shabby Balsall Heath.

  Lower Moseley, he’d once heard someone jokingly call it.

  He turned into Newport Street. The familiar sense of it. He’d walked here in 1966. Midnight. Knocking her door. She’d answered the door looking just as he’d remembered her. And then it hadn’t been her. It had been her daughter, Maddy. Amy had been the old woman behind her, shouting venom at him.

  This time it would be different, he told himself.

  It was 32 years before that. She had no reason to be bitter. She only knew him as the man who’d rescued her from her insane father.

  She had been scared yesterday morning when she’d seen him in the street, but that was only natural.

  He was a ghost from a bad moment. The worst moment of her life.

  But if he had time to talk to her, he might explain it all to her.

  How was he going to do that?

  He thought of the words. How to break it to her gently? The thing is, Amy. I’m a time traveller. Would she faint? Would she drop down and actually die?

  He thumbed the envelope in his jacket pocket.

  Here it was. The yellow gate, next to the blue one. He pushed it open and let it click after him gently, quietly.

  There was a doorbell. He pressed it and heard it rattle faintly inside. Footsteps plodding down the hall, the latch clicking.

  Amy Parker staring at him.

  Just like in 1966, he thought, when it was her daughter, Maddy, not her.

  Recognition in her eyes, then alarm. She looked pale and her eyes were swollen. Had she been crying?

  “Amy,” he said. “It’s me.”

  “No,” she cried. She slammed the door shut.

  “Amy! Please!” he called.

  Do not shout. Do not make a scene. Do not attract attention.

  He knocked at the door and called through gritted teeth, knowing she was still on the other side. “Please, Amy. It’s all right. Let me in.”

  He bent down and pushed the letterbox flap open. A coffee-brown hall. Amy was sitting against a mahogany hat stand, hugging herself.

  “Amy. It’s me, Danny. Please don’t be afraid.”

  She was shaking her head.

  “Go away! You’re not real!”

  What was wrong with her? Wasn’t it obvious he was real? Why was she being so dramatic?”Of course I’m real, Amy. I’m here. I’ve come such a long way to see you.”

  She turned and looked fearfully at his eyes framed by the letterbox.

  “Just let me in and I’ll explain everything.”

  She was crying now, shaking her head. “I can’t.” She pushed herself up from the floor and stumbled down the hallway, bouncing off the walls. The door at the end of the hall slammed.

  “What’s your game, mister?”

  A man was standing over him. Next door. A knee-high wooden fence between them.

  Danny stood up and was surprised to recognize the man from the fight last night. The ferret-faced teenager who’d kicked up the fuss with the Blackshirts. Harold, they’d called him.

  Do not get noticed. Do not get arrested.

  “Recorded delivery,” he stammered, pushing the envelope through the letterbox.

  He backed down the path and marched down the street, feeling Harold’s cold stare on his back and a cold wind on his face.

  The concert, he thought. If she wouldn’t respond to his letter he would have to talk to her at the concert.

  — 21 —

  WHEN CHARLIE AND HENRY woke up, they were pleased to see the food she’d bought. They had quite a buffet and she got the feeling neither men ate much as a rule.

  Charlie had to rush to the Prince to work the lunch-time shift, and Rachel stayed with Henry and worked on the design for the flyers. It looked rather boring, just text, and she suggested it might look better with a photograph.

  Henry looked at her like she was mad. How could he take a photograph of Benny Orphan when he was in London?

  But she’d seen vintage posters for concerts in the 1930s, admittedly all American, and a cut-out of the band leader or singer’s head seemed to be a common feature.

  She asked if they had any magazines with Benny Orphan in them. They could cut out his photograph.

  Henry thought about it, and then a light bulb lit his face. “Sheet music!” he shouted.

  They ran out to a music store that sold sheet music the way a modern store would sell CDs, and Henry triumphantly pulled out a few songs that bore photographs of Benny Orphan.

  They paid for them, took them back to Charlie’s flat and cut them out.

  Charlie came back, saying Mr Hollis at the Prince had let him take the afternoon off, but he had to be back for the evening. He was impressed with Rachel’s re-design and looked at her with a strange sense of awe, as if she’d told a particularly delightful joke.

  They went to the printers on Silver Street and ordered a mighty consignment of handbills. The printer huffed and puffed and said he’d never be able to get so many ready for the next day, so Henry suggested he do it in batches each day.

  Later on, it came time for Charlie to head back to work and the closer the time came, the more he fidgeted. Rachel wondered what was the matter with him. Henry was heading to Hurst Street in town to a Jewish social club to talk to Manny Singer about security.

  “I can’t leave you here alone, Rachel,” said Charlie.

  “I got plenty of practice last night,” she joked.

  “She can come with me,” said Henry. “I’ll take her to Little Israel. Show her a good time.”

  Charlie could see that Rachel was excited by the prospect so he shrugged and gave in. She could tell he didn’t want to leave her. He shuffled off to work like a reluctant boy to school.

  Henry and Rachel caught the 112 tram into the city. Henry was chattering away, telling her all about the Jewish quarter that comprised a handful of streets down town — Holloway Head, Hurst Street, Sherlock Street, Ashley Street and Benacre Street — and had been a Jewish ghetto for 200 years.

  “And they still say we’re newcomers,” he laughed.

  She was distracted, watching the city passing, a city she barely recognized but for a few buildings. The city centre loomed ahead, but not the skyline she recognized. It seemed absurd, to be riding into a Birmingham city centre that didn’t have a Rotunda and a post office tower.

  They hopped off at the top of Digbeth by St Martin’s church, its soot-black façade imposing, railed off. She gazed around in wonder at the empty market square and the imposing old market hall and tried to equate it with what stood there now. How could she ever describe something as space-age as the Selfridges building to Henry? He really would think she lived in a sci-fi future world and expect the cars to fly.

  “You’re from New York, you say?” laughed Henry.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “You look like you’ve never seen a city before.”

  She laughed and shrugged. “It’s just so very quaint.”

  They skirted through back streets she didn’t recognize and eventually came to Hurst Street, where every third shop seemed to have a Jewish name above the door: grocery stores, delicatessens, tailoring workshops, tick
et writers, tripe dressers.

  She wondered what he’d say if she told him that in 80 years all of this would be Chinese supermarkets and gay bars.

  Henry led her to a fish-and-chip shop that branded itself a Fried Fish Dealer and laughed. “There’s nothing more British than fish and chips. You ever tried it?”

  “Of course I have, Henry. Everyone tries fish and chips when they come to England.”

  “A totally Jewish dish, of course,” he laughed.

  He pointed to the rooms above the shop and rang the bell of a blue side door, which creaked open for them.

  A man stood in the doorway who looked like two men rolled into one. He wasn’t fat. He was about six and a half feet of muscle, and very handsome, she noticed. His stern face cracked into a smile.

  “Henry! My word, send for a lamb to slaughter.”

  They hugged in the doorway and the big man ushered them inside. A handful of other men were playing cards at a table behind the door.

  “Manny, this is Rachel. Visiting us from America. Good friend of mine, helping us with our concert. Rachel: Manny Singer.”

  Manny bowed and took her hand, planted a kiss on it. “I’m honoured,” he said.

  “Any chance you could take some time to talk?” said Henry. “Upstairs?”

  Manny expressed surprise and nodded. He told the card players he was heading upstairs for a while. They waved but didn’t look up from their game.

  Upstairs were a couple of rooms with a makeshift bar and kitchen. Tables were dotted all around and Jewish men of all ages talked, argued, played chess and drank. Jazz crackled from a gramophone in the corner. A couple of older men playing chess were complaining, teasing, and demanding some Schubert instead. At another table a huddle of young men were shouting, waving their arms, stabbing their fingers at each other, debating the merits of Trotsky versus Stalin.

  “Stalin has betrayed the workers of the world!” shouted one young man. “Germany has fallen to the fascists and the rest of Europe will follow. You will see. And the only man in the world who warned us this was coming, and told us how to stop it, is exiled on some island off the coast of Turkey!”

  “Ach! Always harping on about Trotsky!”