Frozen in Time

by Ali Sparkes

Polly shrugged and followed him into the brightly lit chamber. Ben and Rachel looked at each other. ‘Should we get Uncle J?’ breathed Rachel. ‘Shall I get him?’ She gulped.

  ‘If you like,’ said Ben, ‘but I’m going in.’ He stepped into the room behind Freddy and Polly. It was small. About the size of a garden shed, with grey walls and more of the green swirly carpet. There was hardly any dust in it. Set into one of the walls was a small rectangular screen—perhaps fifteen centimetres across and rounded at the edges. It was dark green; showing nothing. Beneath it was a monstrous machine of grey metal. It was the size of a piano, but bulkier and had large buttons and stubby black sliders on it. On the top of the machine, on a black spindle, sat a large reel of what Ben recognized as old oxide tape in a metal wheel—the kind of thing early reel-to-reel tape machines used; much bigger than the little reels in the recording machine which had greeted them in the other room. At the front of the machine the proud letters AMPEX stood out. Beneath them more letters read: Mark IV VTR.

  Ben peered at it, fascinated. He thought he might have seen something like it at the London Science Museum. ‘Is this … is it a … video recorder?’

  Freddy looked round, his hands resting with excited reverence on the buttons and faders. ‘Yes! It is! Isn’t that amazing?’

  ‘It certainly is,’ came a voice from the door, and Uncle Jerome drifted in, yet more amazement on his face (a look which threatened to burn into his features for ever after today, thought Ben). ‘How on earth did your father get hold of this? These weren’t even commercially available until the autumn of 1956! And they cost an absolute fortune!’

  ‘Oh well, Father had a lot of connections,’ said Freddy, breezily. ‘He was a good friend of Lodge—the man who helped develop this for CBS. This was a prototype. He only got it last month …’ Freddy turned his attention to the many ducts and wires that fed into the back of the huge machine. ‘I think it’s still connected up—I wonder if the camera still works. Probably not.’

  ‘Do you mean to tell me that your father set up a video surveillance system?’ gulped Uncle Jerome. ‘His own CCTV?’

  Freddy blinked. ‘CCTV?’

  ‘Closed circuit television! His own camera— recording something around here?’

  ‘Well—yes. That was what it was for,’ said Freddy.

  ‘It was a spy camera!’ said Polly, widening her eyes theatrically. ‘Like in spy films! He said we had to know who was lurking around outside the house, in case they were spies!’

  ‘Did he really?’ asked Rachel, who had come in now, behind Uncle Jerome.

  ‘Well, not exactly,’ admitted Polly. ‘But it was jolly close to that! He thought the meat man spent too long peering down the driveway and started to wonder if he was a Soviet. Father was a bit funny that way.’

  Uncle Jerome had now joined Freddy in running his hands over the mammoth video recorder. ‘The very first Ampex!’ he was murmuring. ‘Just astounding!’ He looked at Freddy and, quite oddly for Uncle Jerome, asked: ‘Can I?’

  Freddy grinned and shrugged. ‘Go ahead. I don’t really know how it works. Father never let me have a go. I just watched a couple of times.’

  Uncle Jerome beamed at him and then turned back to the machine. After a brief pause his fingers moved to the grey metal reel of oxide tape and picked up one end of the wide brown ribbon which ran off it. He swiftly threaded it up and down through all sorts of metal rollers and pulley wheels which bobbed smoothly in their settings, as if they were a few weeks rather than half a century old. Uncle Jerome fed the end of the tape into another—empty—grey metal reel and moved the spool around a couple of times until the tape caught and began to pull against the reel next to it. Now the tape tightened and with a single balletic bob of all the rollers and pulleys, the reels turned together. Uncle Jerome pressed a button on the machine—everything clunked and bobbed again and both tape reels wound faster and faster.

  ‘Got to rewind the tape first,’ he said. ‘It must have rolled on and then come off the spool when time ran out. Must have flicked around a few times and then the power probably cut out automatically.’

  The huge plate of reddish grey tape grew smaller and smaller on one side and larger and larger on the other, and Uncle Jerome stopped it just as one side shrank to the size of a saucer. Then he looked up at the screen above and reached over to it to turn a button. A discreet click was followed by a pinprick of light in the centre of the green screen.

  They waited in silence. After a few seconds Rachel said, ‘Is that it?’

  Polly gave her a pitying look. ‘It’s got to warm up, silly!’ she said.

  ‘TVs in the 1950s took several minutes to warm up,’ explained Uncle Jerome, not taking his eyes from the little screen. ‘The cathode ray tube would heat slowly and gradually radiate across the screen. You had to be patient. Something you children of today are not used to at all.’

  At last something was happening on the screen. The dot had become a column and the column was widening out into a speckly white and grey rectangle. A couple of minutes later the whole screen was lit. Uncle Jerome took a breath and then pressed a button on the Ampex. There was a heavy clunk and a gentle hum and the tape spools began to move again, in the reverse direction. Up on the screen a grainy image began to gather.

  ‘Yes!’ said Freddy. ‘It still works! That’s the gate!’

  Ben squinted at the screen, not sure what he was seeing at first but gradually beginning to recognize the view. It was the road outside Darkwood House. Darkwood Lane with the hedgerows on either side, June blossom, bright in black and white, blowing in a gentle breeze. Exactly the same view that you would get if you climbed the chestnut tree by the gate— except that the road was rough shingle, rutted and unmade up, whereas today it was smooth grey tarmac. Everyone stared, rapt, at the view. It was the least dramatic thing they were ever likely to watch on TV and yet quite thrilling.

  ‘Could this be the same day?’ asked Rachel. ‘The same day you went to sleep?’

  ‘It looks like yesterday,’ agreed Polly. ‘It was bright and sunny and a bit breezy and there was blossom out in the lane.’

  ‘Did your father run this camera continuously?’ asked Uncle Jerome.

  ‘I think so,’ said Freddy. ‘Well, during the day at any rate. It was all a bit new. I don’t know if he’d totally got the hang of it. He would come in to change the reels every couple of hours, so I don’t suppose he could have run it all through the night. It was more of an experiment than anything else.’

  ‘Look! Look!’ cried Polly. ‘The meat man! This must be about half past eleven—he always used to come before lunch.’

  On the small screen an old-fashioned van rolled into view and a young man wearing a peaked cap and an apron got out. He disappeared around the back of the small vehicle and then reappeared, carrying a large covered basket.

  ‘He used to bring our chops and lamb and pigs’ hearts every week,’ said Polly.

  ‘Pigs’ hearts? Oh, yuck!’ said Rachel.

  Polly frowned. ‘What’s wrong with that? Everyone knows pigs’ hearts make your brain grow. Mrs M poaches them with onions. Oh, look—there he goes.’

  The meat man had walked towards the screen and then on into the driveway, out of view. For several minutes they stared at the van and then the back of the meat man’s head went past and they saw him return his basket to the rear of the van, walk around, get back in and go.

  ‘It’ll be you next, Freddy,’ said Polly. ‘You came back from youth club right after the meat man came, I remember.’

  She was not wrong. Uncle Jerome sped up the reels and two minutes later Freddy suddenly shot across their view on a large, old-fashioned black bicycle with a basket on the front. Uncle Jerome wound it back— Freddy zooming backwards this time—and then played it at normal speed. Ben felt a shiver run through him. The tape showed a time so obviously fifty-three years old, with the unmade-up road and the 1950s delivery van. But Freddy, jumping off the saddle and wheeling the big bl
ack bike in past the gate, looked exactly the same as he did now, standing right here next to them. He was wearing the same clothes. In his basket on the front of the bike was a striped paper bag and a comic of some kind. Ben squinted and made out Eagle on the top of it, in bold, angular letters.

  ‘Blast it! I never did get to read that!’ muttered Freddy. ‘I suppose it’s long gone now. Never got to eat those bull’s eyes either. Rotten luck!’

  ‘Oh no—don’t tell me you ate bull’s eyes too!’ grimaced Rachel.

  ‘They’re sweets, you goose!’ laughed Polly.

  After Freddy had gone in, nothing else happened. After a while Uncle Jerome wound the tape forward at high speed. ‘What time was it when your father put you into stasis?’ he asked, eyes still on the screen and hands poised above the buttons.

  ‘Just after lunch,’ said Polly. ‘We had chops. I cooked them! Mrs M was off that week.’

  ‘So … about now then.’ Uncle Jerome was watching a dial of numbers. ‘This is the time code,’ he said. ‘We’ve been watching for about ninety minutes-worth now and if your meat man and Freddy here came in just before lunch, I believe you would have eaten by now.’

  ‘Yes, we ate around one, I should say,’ said Freddy, glancing over Uncle Jerome’s shoulder at the spinning time code numbers. ‘So I reckon we’d be down in the chamber about now. Maybe … maybe we’ll see Father going off somewhere … do you think?’

  Ben eyed the spool on the side that was getting smaller and smaller as the tape wound on. There wasn’t much of it left. He really hoped they would see something else before the tape ran out completely, but as it went on shrinking, there was nothing else but the lane and the blossom blowing in the wind and the occasional bird flitting in and out of the hedgerows.

  ‘Not much more now,’ sighed Uncle Jerome. ‘Sorry.’ But even as he said this a shadow was thrown across the lane at the top right corner of the screen. A young man walked into view. He was wearing a jacket and tie and a trilby hat. He paused at the gate, leaning on it while he did something with his shoe— pulled a stone out of it, Ben thought—and then glanced down the driveway before walking on up the hill. Something tugged at Ben’s memory, but this was clearly just his imagination. He didn’t know the man. This was forty years before he was born!

  Now the tape was clicking and whirring on the spool, filling up to almost full. Uncle Jerome prepared to stop it.

  ‘Wait!’ said Rachel, just as he went to stop the tape. ‘Look!’

  As soon as she said this the tape ran out, flicking madly like a whippet’s tail as the spools spun on at speed and then began to gradually slow. ‘There was something else! Something dark came in. Look—you have to look again!’

  Uncle Jerome stopped the spools, re-threaded the tape and wound it back slowly. Just as the tape began to flicker, where it was a little squashed from being threaded at one end, something dark did come in. The bonnet of a car. A black car, gliding up to the gate. Only the first glimpse of windscreen rolled into view before the tape ended.

  Freddy and Polly looked at each other wide-eyed. ‘A car!’ gasped Polly. Freddy nodded.

  ‘So? A car! Whose car? Could be anyone’s,’ said Ben, exasperated and disappointed. ‘What does that tell us?’

  ‘You don’t understand, Benedict,’ said Uncle Jerome. ‘Cars were not that common an occurrence in 1956. Even on through roads, and Darkwood Lane only goes up to the woods and downs. Anything other than the delivery van was very rare. Someone came along that day—almost certainly for a reason.’

  ‘But who?’ said Polly. ‘Who drove up to us? Can’t we see something?’

  Uncle Jerome held the image of the car steady on the screen. It had a high black bonnet and a metal grille like long teeth between two round headlights. The number plate was only partially in view, obscured by part of the five-bar gate.

  ‘The man before,’ said Polly. ‘He would have seen it, wouldn’t he? He can’t have been that far on—just seconds on from it, don’t you think? He would know!’

  ‘Yes—brilliant, old girl!’ snapped Freddy. ‘All we need to do is put a notice in the local newspaper asking for anyone who might remember seeing a black car while he was passing in 1956! Easy!’

  Polly gave him a furious look and turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

  ‘Come on,’ said Ben. ‘It’s really late. You need to get some sleep. We all do.’

  ‘Quite right,’ muttered Uncle Jerome. ‘Off you go now. Early to bed! Off to sleep!’ Ben knew he was desperate to get rid of them so he could examine the Ampex undisturbed.

  ‘We’ve slept a lifetime!’ grumbled Freddy, but he was looking very tired.

  Ben patted his shoulder. ‘Come on, mate. Honestly—it’ll all seem a lot better in the morning.’

  He steered Freddy and Rachel out and Uncle Jerome stared up at the screen for a long time. He wound back the tape a little way and squinted at the man with something in his shoe. Then he looked at the car again. Then the man again.

  Then his mouth fell open and his hand went to his temple. ‘No,’ he breathed. ‘No … it can’t be.’

  The next day began sunny. With screaming.

  Rachel was hurtled out of sleep by the sound of Polly waking up and realizing that yesterday hadn’t been a dream after all.

  ‘It’s OK—it’s OK!’ She grabbed Polly’s arm, still dealing with her own sense of unreality. ‘You’re all right! You’re safe!’

  Polly stared at her and then shut her eyes. When she opened them again she looked more composed. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Oh gosh—I’m really sorry! Bess has wet the bed. And—oh no—she’s eaten a bit of Ritzy!’

  Rachel winced. Her Chatz doll was still pouting and smirking despite having her left leg gnawed off at the knee. And being covered in puppy drool. Bess thumped her tail and looked very proud.

  ‘I think we’ll have to get her a basket and lay down some newspapers in the kitchen or something,’ suggested Polly, looking very guilty.

  ‘Yes—we can do that today. Don’t worry about it,’ said Rachel. She lay back in bed and felt her brain stretching and flipping like a mad gymnast as she tried, all over again, to believe that she was sharing a bedroom with a girl—and a puppy—from 1956.

  A second later the door burst open, with only a hint at a knock beforehand, and Freddy and Ben spilled in. ‘The sun’s out again!’ said Ben. ‘And I think we might be able to go out on bikes—all of us!’

  ‘We’ve only got two bikes!’ pointed out Rachel. She couldn’t imagine Polly doing a doubler, somehow.

  ‘No! We’ve got four!’ beamed Ben. ‘Freddy and I have been right through to the back of the old garage and guess what? Their bikes are still there!’

  ‘Really? After fifty-three years? Aren’t they just a heap of rust?’

  ‘No,’ said Freddy. ‘They’ve been under a heap of old sacking, so they’ve stayed quite dry. Just need a bit of oil and a pump up! Come on, you two lazybones! Stir your stumps! We’ve already had breakfast.’

  Half an hour later, after eating boiled eggs and toast, with cups of tea (which Polly had insisted on neatly laying out on the table once more), and feeding Bess with some food scraps, the girls were outside by the garage, helping Ben and Freddy work on the old bikes. It was utterly weird, thought Rachel, seeing the very same bike that Freddy had ridden across the old video screen before their eyes only hours before—still here fifty-three years later. The bike had not worn as well as its rider. In spite of the sacking over it there was a fair bit of rust on its wheels and the basket was mouldy. Rachel poked at it with a revolted finger. ‘We’ll have to chuck this away.’

  Polly looked appalled. ‘Why on earth would we throw it away? All it needs is a good clean.’

  ‘It’s mouldy!’ protested Rachel.

  ‘It’ll be perfectly all right after we’ve given it a wipe down with carbolic,’ maintained Polly. ‘You do have carbolic these days, I suppose?’

  ‘What’s carbolic?’ asked Ben.
>
  ‘Soap, you dolt!’ laughed Freddy, pistoning the old black bicycle pump with vigour.

  ‘Well—we’ve got antibacterial cleaning sprays,’ said Rachel. ‘I’ll go and get one from under the sink— and some hot water and cloths.’

  She expected Polly to be unimpressed, but in fact, as soon as she’d got the hang of it, she was quite pleased with the spray. ‘It really cleans ninety-five per cent of all known bacteria … dead?’ she marvelled. ‘That’s jolly good!’ And she was right; the mould on the basket was only a thin layer and after they’d sprayed and scrubbed at it for a few minutes it looked fine. ‘See,’ said Polly. ‘Good as new! Waste not, want not! Oh, Bessie! Don’t try to drink the dirty water, you silly goose!’

  Polly’s bike was smaller than Freddy’s but very similar in shape, also with a basket on the front. It creaked and groaned as they wheeled it out from under all the junk at the back of the garage, but after they’d all set to work again, pumping up the tyres, oiling and cleaning, it too was in good working order.

  ‘I’m amazed the tyres haven’t crumbled away,’ said Ben. ‘But they seem OK. We’ll probably need to replace them soon, though.’

  Their own bikes didn’t need so much attention. Just a quick wipe down and pump up. Polly and Freddy stood back in awe as Ben wheeled out his black and red Volcano mountain bike, with its twenty-one gears, shock absorbers, and chunky all-terrain tyres. Rachel’s was a bright green Lizard with eighteen gears, shock absorbers, and glistening discs set into the spokes of each wheel, which glittered and spun wildly as she pedalled.

  ‘Oh heck,’ said Freddy, glancing at his own bike with less appreciation now. ‘We are going to look so … so terribly old-fashioned.’

  ‘No—no—it’s kind of … cool,’ said Ben, although he had no idea what any other kids in the small town would make of it.

  ‘Right then,’ said Freddy. ‘Where to?’

  Ben considered. He needed to protect these strangers to the twenty-first century. Like Uncle Jerome said, they had to be introduced to it all gradually. ‘I know,’ he said to Rachel. ‘The farm shop. We could go out there and definitely get what we need for Bess— and it’s a nice ride on country lanes. We go up the hill, across a track and onto a really quiet road. We don’t have to go into town just yet.’