by Helen Fisher
‘I will,’ I called back, and I heard her footsteps retreat.
The thing is, I wanted to buy the roller skates for little Faye. If I didn’t buy them for her, who would? I could leave it to chance, but that made no sense. I was here now, and I was thinking about getting the skates. So, ipso facto, I had to get them. Otherwise who would? No one.
Perhaps my whole purpose – if there needed to be a purpose – in returning to the past was to buy roller skates for my younger self. I smiled to myself at the ridiculousness of that, and I smiled because I’d thought of the words ipso facto, which are words I love so much that whenever an occasion arises in which I can use them, I do. Same with Pyrrhic victory, although that opportunity arises less frequently.
Anyway, here I was, a woman in want of roller skates, in a shop that sold them. With no money, and nothing of value with which to barter. I was going to have to steal those roller skates, and I have to tell you, I didn’t feel good about it.
Apart from the fact that it was morally wrong, especially in a small shop like this, I didn’t want to get caught by the police. What if I went to jail! The main thing that cleared this up for me was that I knew this shop was thriving to this very day, by which I mean thirty years later. The loss of one pair of roller skates wasn’t going to ruin these people. Plus, I was pretty sure I could get away with it without being caught. I looked but saw no mirrors, and definitely no cameras.
I had a plan. I would ask the woman to come to the counter, and ask for something that she would need to go and look for out the back. Then I would just swiftly walk to the window display, pick them up and leave. If you did these things fast enough, you could get away with it.
I walked back to the counter and called out a happy, ‘Hello?’
The lady reappeared, wiping her hands on her apron and smiling.
‘Yes?’
‘I was wondering if you have any of those Russian dolls in a different colour.’
‘I might, out the back, I’ll go and look.’ She smiled again and disappeared.
That was easy enough. I walked straight over to the window and lifted the skates by their straps. I was careful, but as I extracted the skates from their shelf, I knocked a shiny, wooden toy policeman off his perch. He was painted with a whistle poised at his lips and had a rounded bottom that made him rock accusingly. I felt he wanted to blow that whistle for real and alert the shopkeeper. Well, let me tell you, he might as well have done, because as I put my hand on the handle of the door, I heard her voice.
‘Do you want to buy those?’ she asked, not unkindly, but not unknowingly either.
I deflated. The breath I’d been holding came out long and rushed, and I returned guiltily to the counter and placed the skates upon it.
‘I do. More than anything, I do,’ I said.
‘Would you like to pay for them?’ she asked.
‘I want to, if you’ll believe that. I have money, but not here, and I need these skates before I am able to give you the money for them.’
She frowned at me. ‘You’re not my usual shoplifter,’ she said.
‘I’m not. Not a shoplifter.’
‘But you were going to steal these.’ She pointed at the skates without taking her eyes off mine.
‘Yes I was,’ I said. ‘If I had anything to give you for them, I would. If I had anything I could swap them for, then I would do that, but I don’t.’
‘We don’t take that kind of payment here anyway, I’m afraid.’
Then I realised I did have something for this lady – whose name I knew as Elizabeth – something that might be more valuable to her than anything I could physically give her. I had information. I knew things about her. I suddenly felt elated and a bit breathless.
‘Do you believe in fortune tellers?’ I asked her.
Her eyes crinkled and she laughed. ‘What, those old ladies with the crystal balls at the seaside? Of course not.’
‘Okay, me neither,’ I said. ‘But if I could tell you about your life, your future, and you like what you hear, will you let me have these skates?’ She was curious, I could see that, but she was not taken in for a second. She thought I was a chancer, and she was no fool, but there was something in her eyes, and enough hesitation for me to have some hope. She walked past me, and turned the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’ on the door.
‘Come out the back,’ she said, and then turning to look at me cynically over her shoulder, she said, ‘I’m only doing this because you’re making a very quiet Tuesday morning more interesting than usual.’ She led me to the back of the shop, pointed at a stool, and sat on one herself. ‘You’ve got five minutes,’ she said.
And then I told her.
I told her the name of the man she would marry and the names of the children they would have. I told her that her shop would be successful and loved by many for more than thirty years. I told her that she would win some money when she was older and her family would go on a foreign holiday for two weeks, and while they are away, their shop will be burgled, but not to worry, because everything will be all right anyway. And then I told her the thing I thought would make all the difference. One day, I said, her son would go missing, and he would be missing for three days. But he would be found safe and well, and so when it happened, she must not worry too much, she must know that all will be well.
Her cynical face didn’t change during all of this. She looked amused, as opposed to amazed. After a minute or so I stopped talking and leaned back. ‘So, what do you think?’ I said.
‘I think this is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.’
‘Oh,’ I said, deflated. I knew it was all true, and although I knew she had no reason to believe me, her disbelief was disappointing.
‘Andrew Keel?’ she said.
‘Yes, you’re going to marry him and be very happy. He’s a lovely man.’
‘I don’t know anyone called Andrew Keel,’ she said, pausing and looking at me with frank dismay, as though I were a magician who hadn’t done a very good trick.
‘You haven’t met him yet, but you will.’
‘Elizabeth Keel,’ she said under her breath, whispering her future married name, even though she didn’t believe it would ever be true.
‘Elizabeth and Andrew Keel, and your children, Adam, Connie and Zara.’
‘I do like those names, she said, ponderously; but the distrust in her eyes only increased.
‘Well, you would,’ I said. ‘You will choose them for your children.’
‘Well, maybe I won’t now that you’ve told me I will,’ she said. ‘And you say that my son Adam will go missing?’ She leaned forward, elbows on knees.
‘Yes,’ I said, more keenly than ever, because she was showing an interest. ‘And I can’t remember the circumstances exactly, but he turns up, unhurt.’
‘What do you mean you can’t remember? I thought this was stuff from the future.’
‘Well, it feels like remembering, the way I do it,’ I said. ‘But as a mother, I know that it would kill me if one of my children went missing. I want to save you some future anguish. Adam will be fine, so try not to worry. Elizabeth, you are going to have a long and lovely life, with a good husband, three happy, successful children and a thriving business.’
Elizabeth pushed against her knees and stood up. ‘Well, it’s been fun, but your five minutes are up,’ she said, her voice as sunny as her clothes. ‘Time to reopen the shop and time for you to go.’
‘Can I have the skates?’ I asked, coyly.
‘No,’ she said, guiding me out of the storeroom.
‘I really need them,’ I said.
‘I like your ingenuity,’ she said. ‘I like the lovely tale you told. Imagine if it were true,’ she said, wistfully. ‘Imagine if I could actually believe in it.’ She laughed, and it sounded just like the bell when the shop door opened.
‘You can live your life without any fear. Elizabeth,’ I said, turning to her, imploring. ‘You don’t need to worry about your health, or your children. You’re
free to enjoy your life, knowing that all will be well. I guarantee it.’
‘All this for a pair of roller skates,’ she said. ‘Listen, I like you. I can’t help it. But you’re crazy. In a nice… unusual way.’ We were at the front of the shop again, and she was ushering me towards the exit. ‘But there’s no way I can give you those skates in exchange for a bit of fairground whimsy.’
I started to protest, but she showed me the palm of her hand, as though she were stopping traffic, so I shut up.
‘However, I did notice you’re wearing rings,’ she said. I offered my hand to her, and she took it, gently running her thumb over my wedding and engagement rings.
‘If you’re desperate, give me one of your rings and you can take the skates today. When you come back with the money I’ll give it back to you.’
I looked at her. She looked so young, she was so young, and pretty and practical, and she was doing this out of kindness, and that kindness was perfectly balanced with an astute sense of business. No wonder she had done so well.
‘I have to be honest with you,’ I said. ‘It could be a very long time before I come back for it.’
‘Well, according to you, in a very long time I’ll still be right here, so that’s okay isn’t it?’
‘You have to promise me you’ll keep it safe,’ I said, feeling nauseous even as I twisted the engagement ring from my finger.
‘Funny, isn’t it?’ she said, taking the ring in her palm and holding it tightly. She looked at me with a most serene and amused expression. ‘You tried to steal my roller skates, and now you’re asking me to make the promises.’
‘Please,’ I said.
‘I promise,’ she replied, closing her eyes and nodding once.
16
When I visit people I’m accustomed to bringing a gift, a bottle of wine or something. But I couldn’t buy anything for my mother, obviously. Even if I’d brought some with me, my money was no good here; the future was as foreign as Mars when it came to currency, and I was finished with trying to steal. Anyway, my mother didn’t seem to mind. She loved having me around, and that was a wonderful feeling.
We spent the day hanging out at her house and in the garden. After we got back from town, I took my brown paper bag, with the skates inside, up to little Faye’s room, and put it under the bed. When I came downstairs, my mother was standing in the kitchen, thumbing through her recipe book; she looked up and threw me an apron.
‘Put this on, we’re making sticky toffee pudding,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why I’m looking at this,’ she said, holding the little book aloft. ‘I should know the recipe off by heart by now, after all, I helped my mum make the same thing, just as you’re helping me now. It pleases me to know I’m still using something she used.’ She paused and looked wistful for a moment, then put the book face down on the kitchen table.
I picked it up and turned it over, smiling at this little book in which I’d found the photograph of myself under the Christmas tree; a book that linked me to my mother, and her to her mother, like a private joke.
‘Come on, put it down, it might be full of magic but I can do it without looking. The brown sugar is in that cupboard, can you find it for me?’
Of course I could find it, and we worked together, laughing and weighing out ingredients, getting flour all over the place. I chopped the dates, and when one of them shot across the counter and onto the floor like an escaped cockroach we giggled like drunkards. While the pudding was in the oven, we sat in the back garden with cold lemonade, ice clinking in the glasses.
‘It’s too hot for sticky toffee pudding,’ she said, leaning back, her eyes closed to the sun. ‘I’ve got ice cream to go with it, though.’
‘Sticky toffee pudding is perfect whatever the weather,’ I said, copying my mother, and shutting my eyes.
‘It’s Faye’s favourite,’ she said.
‘Mine too,’ I said.
‘Well, it would be,’ she murmured.
I stopped breathing for a moment. I didn’t say anything and the silence wasn’t uncomfortable, but for me it was full of the echo of her words. Why had she said that? What did she mean well it would be? I turned my head to the side and opened one eye to look at her. Her eyes were still closed, her lids soaking up the sunshine.
I suppose the best way to describe the feeling is like this; you know when you like a boy, or you like a girl, and you know they like you, and you want to ask them out, take it to the next level? The thing is, you know that if you read the signals wrong and ask them out, you will ruin everything. They might not even want to be your friend anymore. So your friendship remains in limbo for months, maybe years, maybe for ever, because the risk of losing them, by admitting how you feel, is too high. That’s how I felt. It was enough for me to be with my mother, loving her, and spending time with her. And learning about her: not just the facts, but the way she was as a person, her kindnesses and her flaws, her values, her perspectives, her love of Faye, of me. It was enough for me to have this time that I never should have had, that nobody else who loses a loved one gets. This was the very best Christmas present I could possibly have: being with the mother I lost as a child.
To want more would be greedy.
‘More’ would mean telling her who I really was, at the risk of her kicking me out.
The thing is, it didn’t feel like it was me who was fishing for more. It wasn’t me who was trying to give out little clues to indicate that there was something otherworldly about what was going on here. It felt like my mother was doing it. She was the one fishing. She was the one who wanted to say, ‘I know this is crazy, but are you my future daughter, come back in time to meet me?’
At least, that’s how it seemed.
I may have been projecting, but she had been asking all the questions I would expect her to ask if she knew who I was, about what life was like for me, about my children, and my husband, my friends, my hopes and aspirations. She asked what life had been like growing up and I did my best not to give myself away, without lying too much.
And then she said, ‘Everyone loves sticky toffee pudding, only the diehards eat it in summer.’
The smell of baking drifted into the garden and she left me for a few minutes while she got the pudding out and plated it and covered it to protect it from flies. I could really smell the sweet, thick warmth of it and it made my mouth water, but we’d wait til little Faye got home before we ate it.
When she returned, she brought a tray of cheese and crackers and we ate, and drank cold Panda Pops. I was conscious of time tapping like an impatient foot somewhere far away in the back of my mind, and yet I found that simultaneously I was enjoying the time indulgently, like honey oozing over the edge of a spoon.
When my mother left to go and get Faye from school, I pondered this duel speed of time: the years that sometimes seem to stretch impossibly ahead of us, especially when we’re young. When we’re children, the time for us to learn to drive, get a job, marry and have children seems unfathomably far away. And yet inevitably comes the time when we say we may as well have clicked our fingers, it happened that fast. The feeling that things are over, when they haven’t even started yet, was the one I couldn’t shake, and I had never been able to.
And I thought about this: if time in the past with my mother was roughly four times that experienced in the present, then it was possible for me to stay here for a couple of years and only be away from home for about six months.
It would mean I could see my mother through her illness, but I would have to sacrifice that time with my daughters. And what if something happened to them because I wasn’t there? There was no way I could explain an absence of six months (with no contact, no telephone) to Eddie. I pushed the idea to one side, as I heard the happy voices of Jeanie and Faye returning to the house. The little girl dropped her school bag on the grass and carried on walking towards me, flopping down at my feet like a puppet whose strings had just been cut. She had the biggest grin on her face, and I mirrored it.
‘Good day?’ I asked.
‘School’s not the best, I’m hoping my day will improve,’ she said, plucking a daisy out of the ground.
‘I guarantee it will,’ I said.
‘I guarantee it too,’ she said, mimicking me.
‘No, but I really guarantee it,’ I said. ‘Go and look under your bed and bring down the bag that’s there. But don’t look inside, just bring it back here.’ She jumped up and ran towards the house. ‘Promise you won’t look,’ I shouted.
‘I promise,’ she shouted back, not turning to look at me.
* * *
My mother and I sat on the garden chairs and little Faye was back on the grass in front of us, with the big brown bag clutched on her lap.
‘What is it?’ Faye asked.
‘Open it,’ I said, and she carefully unrolled the top of the bag, which was scrunched over. She looked inside and gasped, looking at me in shock and then at our mother. Jeanie looked at me, a little crease of anticipation between her eyebrows.
‘What is it, darling, show me,’ Jeanie said, leaning forward.
Faye lifted the roller skates out of the bag as though they were made of something fragile and Jeanie cried out in surprise and clapped her hands.
‘Oh you lucky girl,’ she said, kneeling on the grass beside Faye and hugging her. ‘Let me help you put them on.’ Faye was awestruck and didn’t move at first, then Jeanie coaxed her legs out from under her and started to align the skates with Faye’s T-bar shoes, carefully pulling the straps over the tops of her shoes, making sure they didn’t twist, and securing them in place. She looked up at me as she worked and held my gaze.
‘You know how to make someone happy, don’t you?’ she said, tipping her head towards Faye who was touching the skates and spinning the wheels.
‘Well, you said she always admired them in the shop window. And you’ve been so kind, it’s just my way of saying thank you.’
Jeanie stood and held out her hands to help Faye to her feet. She couldn’t skate on the grass, and Jeanie helped her walk awkwardly over it, until she got to the concrete path that led along the side of the house. She wobbled in that way only people on skates or ice do, like a poorly coordinated marionette, righting herself with her arms, and clinging to everything within reach: the wall, the fence, a thin branch on a tree that bent with her weight and made her double over. But gradually she started to get the hang of it, and my mother and I talked as the sound of metal wheels on concrete faded in and out of earshot as little Faye skated down the path and along the pavement in front of the house and back again, for what seemed hours, only stopping – reluctantly – for dinner. She said she would rather skate than have a second helping of sticky toffee pudding, to which we adults feigned shock and pretended to have heart attacks. My mother brought out a bottle of crème de menthe and two little glasses.
