by Andy Conway
And he was going to take him to get his fifty quid off Wegs tonight too. It was turning out to be an all round great day.
They filed back down the stairs and spilled out into the warm midday air, standing in a circle of awkwardness.
“I’ll get you a booking sorted out,” she said, handing Glen a business card. She gave one to Martyn too.
He stared at it. Her name printed: Esther Parker. Arts Lab Committee. There was an office number and a home number. No one had ever given him a business card before.
They all thanked her. Glen indicated they should get back to the pub. Martyn nodded and hung back, wanting to talk to her some more. Glen and Paul stalked off. Mark didn’t get it and stayed there like a lemon.
The tickets were in his pocket. Two tickets for Ultravox. Maybe he could ask her to go with him.
“I’ve got to dash,” she said, sounding posh all of a sudden. “Supposed to be at my mum’s.” She checked her wristwatch and pointed to a yellow Spitfire parked up outside the Student Union building.
“That’s your car?” said Mark, his mouth falling open.
“Yes. She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”
Martyn stared, trying to look unruffled. A student, with her own car. A sports car.
“Anyway,” she said. “See you soon, boys.”
She looked at the business card in his hand and arched her eyebrows suggestively, and then she was trotting over to her yellow Spitfire.
She made to cross the access road, pointed at her temple as if she’d forgotten something, turned back to him, with sudden intent, her eyes blazing. Was she going to slap him?
She planted a wet kiss on his lips.
He stepped back, startled, and she ran to her car, giggling. In seconds she was hurtling away, the engine shattering the peace and quiet of the idyllic triangle. It roared away in the distance and Martyn just stared after it, still holding the business card. She’d kissed him. It felt good. And something about it felt wrong too. But mostly it felt good.
But this morning she’d screamed at him.
What the hell was happening?
“Parker,” said Mark. “I get it now.”
“What?”
“Her mum. I bet she was that one who won a fortune in the sixties. Some World Cup betting thingy. It was in the news. She was called Parker. Maddy Parker, I think.”
“She’s rich?”
“Filthy rich, mate. So, you gonna ask her out?”
Martyn gulped and thought of the half a pint he desperately wanted to be still sitting on their table when he got back. Suddenly a pair of tickets to a gig at the Cedar Club, which cost a fiver, didn’t seem so grand. He might have to shell out for an expensive meal or something, at the kind of restaurant that scared him.
The kind of restaurant that didn’t quite scare him as much as she did.
“I’m not sure,” he said.
— 16 —
RACHEL AND LORNA WALKED at funereal pace into town, losing sight of Martyn. They didn’t say much and by the time they reached Steelhouse Lane, where Lorna had planned to depart for Uni, a cloud of depression hung over them.
“I don’t really want to go to my lecture,” Lorna said.
Rachel raised a smile. “Then don’t.”
“What’ll we do?”
She wanted to stay with her. They were going to hang out some more. Rachel felt a thrill radiate through her.
“Go shopping?”
Lorna grinned. “Sounds good.”
“Let’s have some retail therapy.”
Lorna laughed. “You don’t half talk funny.”
She realized no one had ever used that phrase yet; something that would be an easy cliché by the end of the eighties.
“Where shall we go?”
“Oasis!” said Lorna, linking arms with her and marching her down the street.
The entire journey was taken underground. It seemed the whole city was a series of underpasses and concourses that were ringed by traffic. At some point after the war, the city planners had given the city over to the car, banishing people underground, and sometime in the nineties they’d changed their minds and levelled it all off, pedestrianized what they could, and forced the cars to share the roads.
Oasis hadn’t changed though. It was still the same entrance on Corporation street, its windows full of day-glo fashions, and inside a labyrinth of units on five floors, the stairs covered in posters for gigs. Magazine’s You Never Knew Me tinkled over the sound system on every level.
There was a unit for every single youth culture subset: punks, teds, skinheads, mods, rockers, ska, new wave and a few that had latched onto the New Romantic thing.
Lorna led her to one in the basement, manned by a sultry looking boy wearing mascara. They flicked through the racks of clothes and fussed over the cutting edge styles, but Lorna forgot them all when she saw the magazine the boy was reading.
“Is that i-D magazine?”
He lifted it up to show them. A landscape fanzine stapled together, a purple logo on the cover.
“I’ve heard about it. Are you selling it?”
He pulled a face. “I’ve got another copy, but I’ve promised it to someone.”
“Oh God,” said Lorna. “I really want it.”
“This is the first issue?” Rachel asked. “Of i-D magazine? How much is it?”
“Fifty pee,” said the boy. “But like I said, it’s not for sale.”
“I’ll give you a pound for it,” Rachel snapped.
The boy’s eyes opened wide. So did Lorna’s.
Rachel reached into her purse and pulled out a green pound note, held it out.
He stared at it, as if she was pointing a gun at him, not a portrait of Sir Isaac Newton.
“Okay then,” he said.
He left his stool and ducked under his counter, pulling out a fresh copy. She gave him the pound note and he put it into a cash box.
“Thanks,” she said.
They walked out, took a few steps down the purple painted corridor, turned a corner and huddled over it, flipping the pages excitedly.
It was a fanzine, with typewritten text and hand drawn and stencilled headers, most of the pages taken up with black-and-white photos of young kids posing in the street, their clothes listed under them.
“Wow,” said Lorna. “It’s brilliant. Street fashion.”
Rachel tried not to laugh. It was only a cheap fanzine that would soon become a full colour glossy fashion magazine, but it was the very first issue.
“You paid a lot for this,” said Lorna, in awe.
“You think so?” Rachel giggled.
She had no conception that this £1 magazine would fetch £1,000 if she returned to 2014 and placed it on eBay.
They dashed out through the basement exit and crossed the Priory Square market, which looked no different, emerging on Bull Street. They veered around the back of Marks & Spencer and took the slope down to a row of shops that faced a subway entrance leading to Moor Street station across the road. She tried to get her bearings. In 2014, the subway had been filled in, but the slope was still there and the shop units. One was a Subway sandwich shop, and there was the entrance to the Pavilions shopping mall. She knew all that. But here it was a downbeat huddle of units. Two of them were Reddingtons Rare Records. The other was a chippy.
There were a few groups of kids hanging around outside, sitting on or lounging against the concrete plinths leading to the dank subway mouth. Three mods, a couple of punks, some denim-clad rockers. They stared at the girls as they entered the shop.
Lorna sifted through the stacks of Bowie records, cooing at picture discs and coloured vinyl versions. Careering blared out of the speakers, throbbing and wailing.
“God, I love this,” Lorna squealed. “PiL are so cool.”
“Why does everyone stare at us,” Rachel asked.
Lorna seemed surprised. “Do they?”
“Yeah. Everywhere we go.”
Lorna shrugged. “They don’t
like alternative people.”
“But there’s punks and mods and everything out there. Even they’re staring at us.”
“Punk’s old now. Alternative people like us are different.”
Rachel mulled it over. She talked like they were some weird avant-garde. Perhaps they were. But she knew that in another year or two it would be the mainstream.
They bought nothing, got bored, wandered out, ignored the boys staring at them, walked round to New Street.
She was shocked to find it a busy traffic thoroughfare, cars and buses winding around the base of the Rotunda. They crossed and headed for the Odeon, which was still there, as it must have always been, and Lorna suddenly gripped her.
“It’s him,” she said.
Standing outside the Odeon, in a greatcoat, gazing across the road, was Martyn. Another member of the band with him. The drummer. They seemed to be more interested in the giant Boots store across the road than the music venue behind them.
It was fate, Rachel thought. The gods kept throwing him across their path. The universe was trying to correct itself. She had to make this happen.
“Let’s pretend we haven’t seen him,” said Lorna.
“No way. You need to take the mick out of him.”
“What?”
“Trust me on this. Men like a woman who challenges them. Hello again!”
The boys turned. Martyn squinted at them and then smiled.
“Are you following us?” Rachel joked.
He blushed and stammered, “What? No.”
“I’m only joking, fool.”
His friend laughed.
“You’re the drummer, aren’t you?” said Rachel.
He looked surprised.
“We have here,” said Martyn, “that rarest of breeds: actual fans of our band.”
“Blimey,” said Mark.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Lorna. “I mean, you’re all right and that, but don’t get carried away.”
This was good. She’d ditched her shyness and adopted Rachel’s cutting wit. She’d been worried that she’d come across as the interesting one with Lorna her shy mate. Martyn would never take any interest in Lorna unless there were some sparks.
“Thanks,” said Martyn. “The legend grows.”
“So, what are you waiting here for?” Rachel asked Mark. If she targeted him, she thought, it would leave Lorna free to chat to Martyn.
Mark blushed and squirmed and muttered something she couldn’t hear, something about Boots.
She looked over the road.
“What about Boots?”
He looked at Martyn. They both looked shifty.
“What is it? Come on.”
“Lipstick,” said Martyn.
Mark went bright red.
“Black lipstick.”
Rachel looked at Lorna. What the hell?
But Lorna beamed with delight. “And you were too scared to go in and ask for it?”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Martyn. “It’s for the band. Honest.”
“You’ll look great in black lipstick,” said Lorna. She linked her arm in his. “Come on. We’ll sort you out.”
Rachel tried to compute what was happening. Her dad? Buying lipstick?
But Lorna was already crossing the road, weaving through traffic. Rachel could only tug at Mark’s sleeve and pull him with her.
They pushed through the doors into the giant Boots store and were hit by rows of cosmetics. Lorna and Martyn had already found the black lipstick.
“I get it. You’re doing the gender bender thing.”
They all laughed.
“Gender bender. I like it,” said Martyn.
“She says some right funny stuff,” said Lorna. “What was it you said earlier? Oh yeah, retail therapy.”
The boys wouldn’t try the lipstick themselves, so the girls painted their own lips for them and waited for their discreet nods of approval.
“You’ll need mascara and eye shadow too,” said Rachel. “Don’t worry. We’ll get a cheap compact.”
She scanned the shelves and found what they needed. Martyn slipped her a couple of pound notes and they stood back while the girls paid for them.
As they walked out and headed up to Bull Street for the Virgin store, she asked, “Do you even know how to put that stuff on?”
“Haven’t got a clue,” said Martyn.
“We’re so gonna get beaten up by gay bashers,” said Mark.
“We’ll show you,” said Rachel.
Lorna frowned at her.
“They’ll need a make-up lesson! They’ll botch it up otherwise.”
“Okay then,” said Martyn. “We’d be grateful. Not here, though. Back to yours?”
Mark nodded. “Moseley?”
“That’s where I live!” said Rachel. “Perfect.”
“Cool. All back to Mark’s then,” said Martyn.
He and Lorna entered the Virgin store, which was on the corner where Temple Row met Bull Street. Some kind of camping store there now, Rachel thought.
They pushed into the dim interior, and were met by the stink of plastic and the blare of Killing Joke’s Requiem. She heard Lorna shriek how much she loved this song and Martyn agree wildly.
“Good,” she murmured.
She was buzzing with excitement, not only at her plan coming together, but also this, all of it: shopping with her mother, being her best mate. She could stay here with her forever and never be born.
How would that work? If Lorna and Martyn got together, got married, and had a child as they were supposed to do, and she stayed here, stayed Lorna’s best friend, would that child that was born still be her?
Could she be in the same place twice? Could two versions of her exist in the same moment? Was it possible that she could travel back in time to see herself?
Why not?
She could stay here and be her mother’s best friend, and even watch herself grow up.
Lorna and Martyn took the black carpeted stairs to the dingy basement where they sold the singles and she followed, next to Mark, wondering how distant she could afford to be with him. She didn’t want to give him any ideas, but it was crucial that they ended up back at his place this afternoon. She’d have to give him just enough attention to allow Martyn and Lorna to spend time together. There was no way she was going to snog him, though.
Lorna bought David Bowie’s new single, Ashes to Ashes, and they slipped it into an orange plastic bag for her. It had a hideous illustration on it: a snake coiling in a skull. They rushed out to catch the 50 back to Moseley, scooting up to the top deck, where everyone was smoking. She made sure Lorna sat with Martyn, and she on the seat in front of them, with Mark.
The bus trundled out of the brutal concrete city centre and through the broken wasteland of Highgate, where there were still one or two factory units in operation, desperately clinging on to Britain’s last industrial breath.
There was a risk to all of this, she realized.
Martyn knew her now. In thirty years’ time would he recognize his own daughter as that girl who spent a few days in their life, round about the time he got together with his wife? Surely not. Even as a twenty-year-old girl going to uni she knew he still saw her as the little girl she’d been. And he would forget her face. Thirty years from now he’d have forgotten that random girl; would never make the connection. Her face would have blurred into someone else’s along the way.
Behind her, Lorna was reminding Martyn about her family: how the Fosters and the Hines had vaguely known each other in Moseley in the sixties.
“And what about you, Rachel,” Martyn said. “Were you about then too?”
She shook her head, twisting in her seat. “Not sure we ever met.”
“What’s your surname?”
She panicked, knowing she couldn’t say Hines. The only names that would come to her were all connected to her family; his family. “Eckersley,” she said.
Charlie’s name. It had fallen out of her
mouth.
Martyn frowned with surprise. “I’ve got an uncle called that. Well, not an uncle uncle. Friend of the family.”
She cringed. Of course. Charlie had befriended Martyn’s family on Rachel’s behalf, so he’d grown up with Charlie as an ‘uncle’.
“Oh really?” said Rachel. “Is it my Great Uncle Charlie?”
“Charlie. Yes!”
“You know him?”
“Known him all my life. Got a great old sports car. MGB Roadster. Iris blue. Beautiful.”
Lorna was grinning with pride, pleased they had a connection.
Rachel gulped down her embarrassment and ventured a question.
“And... how is he?”
Please don’t say he’s dead. Please don’t say he’s dead. Please don’t say he’s dead.
“Oh, I haven’t seen him in years,” said Martyn. “Still lives in the same place, I think. Above the car showroom. In the village.”
Rachel nodded. Charlie would be 65 now. Retiring from whatever job he might have, facing retirement and imminent death. An old man. She wondered if she could face him. She wanted to remember him young. But he was here, in Moseley. He was right here now and she could just go right up and ring the bell to the flat above the car showroom and say, “Hello, Charlie, it’s me.”
The bus pulled into the village and she considered leaving them and running to Charlie’s door. But she fell into line behind the others and followed as they walked along Woodbridge road to Mark’s flat, the upstairs of an old Victorian town house.
Martyn took Lorna’s single and put it on the record player. They played it three times in a row and then moved onto other albums, spreading them out on the bed in the corner of the room.
She saw it now. The quilt, the records splayed out, Lorna and Martyn sitting on the bed, leaning back against the brown flock wallpaper.
“We should take a photo,” she said.
Martyn dug out an instamatic camera and snapped her before she could say no.
“That was rubbish. You didn’t smile!”
She covered her face and held her other hand out for the camera.
A picture of her that would be kept by him. One day he’d dig it out of the old box of photos and think But that’s Rachel.
She’d never seen that picture. Perhaps it hadn’t come out properly. But was that a different future?