Step Back in Time

by Ali McNamara

  Ellie flutters her false eyelashes at me. ‘Come on, Jo-Jo, he’s been after you for ages. Just a bit slow off the mark is our Harry.’

  How can that be? I wonder – I’ve only just arrived here. Have I jumped into someone else’s life and body? Like that guy on that TV show, Quantum Leap, used to do. No, not like that. He got into a time machine he’d built, didn’t he? A bit like Dr Who and his Tardis. But Dr Who just arrives in the place as a new extra person; he doesn’t have a life going on when he gets there, like I seem to have here in 1963.

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ I say, choosing my words carefully.

  ‘And I’m sure it is!’ Ellie says, her green eyes sparkling. ‘Let’s just see who’s right tonight, shall we? Me or you.’

  Four

  The World’s End Distillery in the sixties isn’t really what I’d call a club, even with my limited knowledge of such establishments. It looks to me just like a pub with a stage area waiting for some bands to appear and play music on it.

  But as Ellie and I arrive and manage to find Harry and a few of his pals waiting for us in amongst the crowd, there’s a sense of eager excitement amongst my fellow party-goers.

  So far I’d coped quite well, I thought. We’d left the offices after we’d given out all Ellie’s letters and made our way back to our little flat in Fulham by bus. There we’d quickly grabbed a bite to eat – white bread sandwiches filled with cheese and pickle, which to begin with I’d turned my nose up at – I’m wholewheat all the way in 2013 – but I’d actually quite enjoyed them. We’d then spent the next couple of hours getting ready to come out tonight. And boy was that a complicated process! My hair had to be back-combed to within an inch of its life then the perfect outfit had to be chosen, and rejected, then re-chosen all over again when nothing better could be found. And then we’d spent an absolute age applying eye make-up so that we looked like Hollywood’s idea of Cleopatra. I felt like a right idiot when it was all done and we were ready to leave the flat – but my look was quite tame in comparison to Ellie’s golden yellow cowl-neck dress with matching gold sandals.

  ‘Why does all this matter so much?’ I’d asked her as I was trying on my fourth change of outfit.

  ‘Why does it matter, Jo-Jo?’ she’d asked, aghast. ‘Because we’re going out to a club where bands play, that’s why! You never know who you might bump into. Anyone who’s anyone hangs around down there, don’t they?’ Ellie had sighed with disappointment at my lack of enthusiasm and shaken her head.

  I still didn’t understand what was going on, but I kind of decided that I was having some sort of very vivid dream right now, and the best way to get through it was not to fight it, but to just go with the flow until I woke up and came to my senses once again.

  ‘Hi,’ Harry says, as we arrive at the bar beside him and his friends, ‘glad you could make it, girls, what would you like to drink?’

  ‘A glass of Pinot Grigio would go down a treat right now, thanks,’ I say, without thinking.

  ‘A Pinocchio what?’ Harry asks, his forehead wrinkling. ‘I don’t think I’ve heard of that.’

  Some of the others in our party turn to look too.

  ‘Pinot Grigio,’ I repeat. ‘It’s a white wine.’

  ‘I don’t think they do white wine here,’ Harry says, looking anxiously behind the bar. ‘Just beers and spirits. Maybe if we were in a restaurant?’

  ‘She’s joking with you, aren’t you, Jo-Jo?’ Ellie says happily, springing on to a bar stool that’s just become free next to us. ‘Don’t mind her, Harry; she’s been in a funny mood all day. Between you and me,’ she says, leaning in towards him and whispering, ‘I think she might have bumped her head a bit harder than you thought.’

  I’d told her about the accident and Harry being there while we were getting ready.

  ‘I can hear you, you know?’ I say, putting my hands on my hips. ‘I may have been knocked down by a car but I’m not deaf.’

  ‘Easy, babe,’ Ellie says, shushing me. ‘She’ll have a Babycham like she always does, Harry, and I’ll have the same, thank you.’

  I have to drink Babycham! This gets even worse.

  I’ve heard of Babycham; it was this retro drink from the sixties that was marketed to look like mini bottles of champagne but was actually pear cider. Someone brought some as a joke to the office party last Christmas – apparently it was making a comeback again. But I didn’t taste it then and I really didn’t want to taste the original now.

  Harry orders two bottles of the stuff, then pours them into two cocktail-style glasses and passes them to Ellie and I. I take a sip of mine and prepare to pretend to look like I’m enjoying it, but actually I find it isn’t half as bad as I expected it to be, and while I continue to sip on the fizzy concoction I let my eyes wander around the pub.

  It’s not too different from how I would expect a London pub to look in 2013, except its clientele are dressed in the height of early sixties’ fashion. It’s a bit like being at a costume party where everyone has tried really hard, but the décor is really dated – well, it’s not to everyone else drinking in the World’s End pub tonight, but to me it looks very old-fashioned. But if it wasn’t for the clothes and the outdated wallpaper, I really could be in any London bar right now.

  ‘So, what do you reckon to the competition?’ Harry asks me, taking a gulp from his pint of beer.

  ‘What competition?’ I ask.

  ‘The Beatles one you and Ellie were handing out letters about earlier, of course.’

  ‘That competition! Of course, yes, very exciting.’

  ‘You don’t sound very excited,’ Harry says, watching me closely with his big blue eyes. ‘It’s all everyone from EMI is talking about tonight. What they’re going to do to be picked as employee of the month.’

  I’m not excited because I’m hoping I’m not going to be here long enough to ever find out who wins, let alone have a chance of winning it myself.

  ‘Meeting the Beatles would be exciting, I suppose,’ I say, choosing my words carefully. ‘Perhaps I just don’t expect to be picked, so I can’t see any point in getting myself wound up about it?’

  Harry shrugs. ‘That’s one way to look at it. Prevents disappointment.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I’m going to do some home baking,’ Ellie pipes up.

  ‘Baking?’ Harry exclaims. ‘You?’

  ‘Yes, me, Harry Rigby, and what of it? I can bake, me mam showed me how when I was back in Liverpool.’

  ‘Who are you going to bake for?’ I ask, sipping on my Babycham again. I’m actually starting to enjoy it now.

  ‘The bosses,’ Ellie states matter-of-factly.

  ‘Wouldn’t that count as bribery, though?’ I suggest gently.

  Ellie huffs and folds her arms. ‘Jo-Jo, why do you have to be so bloody sensible all the time?’

  ‘She’s right, though, Ellie,’ Harry says. ‘It might seem a bit odd if you suddenly start making cakes for those in charge of choosing the employee of the month.’

  Ellie sighs. ‘I know, I know – but she’s always right,’ she pulls a face, ‘that’s what’s so bloody annoying about her!’ Ellie looks across at me with a sour face, then she winks. ‘But I still say you need to loosen up a bit. I mean, Harry, look at what she’s wearing tonight, it hardly screams wild and sexy music fan when the bands come on now, does it?’

  Harry looks like the proverbial rabbit caught in headlights. Except the headlights he’s caught between are me and Ellie, as he examines my figure-hugging pale blue sleeveless turtleneck sweater, and matching capri pants.

  ‘Well…’ he attempts, clearing his throat first. ‘It’s not exactly Ursula Andress. However,’ he hurriedly continues when Ellie smirks, ‘it’s not exactly Doris Day, either.’

  I grin at Ellie.

  ‘But I think you look very nice this evening, Jo-Jo,’ he mumbles, before hurriedly examining the inside of his pint glass.

  ‘Thank you, Harry,’ I reply, trying not to blus
h like some silly schoolgirl. ‘That’s kind of you to say.’

  Ellie nods at me in a knowing fashion.

  ‘The bands,’ she suddenly shrieks, throwing herself off her bar stool and hurtling across the floor in the direction of the small wooden stage.

  Harry and I turn our heads to where she’s darted off to, and sure enough a band is just setting their instruments up on the stage in preparation for their set.

  ‘Shall we join her?’ Harry asks, offering his hand to help me down off my stool.

  ‘Why not?’ I reply, taking it. What very gentlemanly behaviour, I think, maybe going back in time does have some benefits after all.

  We make our way across to the stage area where everyone else is starting to gather now to wait for the first band to begin playing.

  ‘Jo-Jo! Harry!’ I hear someone call. I turn around to see George weaving his way through the crowd towards us.

  ‘George, what are you doing here?’ I ask him as he squeezes into a space next to us. I’m so glad to see George again I almost hug him. There’d been no chance of getting away earlier to go back to the shop to see him and, to be honest, I felt extremely nervous of venturing out anywhere on my own in this strange new world I found myself in, without a chaperone. But now he was here in the pub with us, perhaps he’d be able to answer some of my questions.

  ‘I always try and pop in when they’ve got some local bands on,’ George says, smiling. ‘You never know when I might be playing their songs in my shop one day.’

  ‘That’s very true.’ I look at the band setting up on the stage right now. But they don’t look at all familiar, especially with my limited musical knowledge.

  ‘Pint, George?’ Harry enquires, holding up his now empty glass.

  ‘That’s very good of you, Harry – yes please, bitter.’

  ‘Same again for you, Jo-Jo?’

  I nod. ‘Yes, please.’

  Harry makes his way over to the bar, which is now starting to get very busy as the promise of live music about to begin swells the numbers in the pub.

  ‘So how are you getting on?’ George asks me, as a few people begin to push in front of us in their eagerness to get to the stage.

  ‘How am I getting on? You make it sound like I’ve just started a new job. I’m stuck in the sixties, for goodness’ sake. Wearing strange tight clothes, drinking a fizzy concoction that, for no apparent reason, is advertised by Bambi. And my hair,’ I touch the crusty helmet that is currently masquerading as my hair, ‘has been back-combed and sprayed to within an inch of its life and seems to be defying gravity at this very moment! Just what’s going on, George? And more importantly, how do I make it stop?’

  ‘Whoah, calm down,’ George says. ‘Let’s take this one step at a time.’

  ‘One step at a time! It’s all ridiculous, and none of it makes any sense. For instance, how can I be here in 1963 with you – the same you I know from 2013, but looking so much younger? And then there’s Harry, too. He looks virtually the same as he did before, but he’s kind of different at the same time, and then, to make things even more complicated, Ellie is here as well!’

  ‘Ellie?’ George asks.

  ‘Ellie – she was my PA at my accounts firm back in 2013, but she’s my flatmate here in 1963. Well, a version very much like the original Ellie. What’s happening to me, am I going mad, dreaming, what is it?’

  George shakes his head. ‘No, you’re not going mad, it’s difficult to explain exactly why this often happens. It just does. And usually for very good reason. It’s not strange at all that Harry and Ellie are here with you again. If these people were a part of your life in 2013, there’s no reason versions of them shouldn’t be a similar part of your life here in 1963 too, is there?’

  I try and take a step back from George as best I can on the now extremely crowded pub floor. ‘I’m not sure I’m quite following you, George. You mean this really isn’t a dream, that I’m not hallucinating, I just have to accept I really am living this new life in the sixties?’

  ‘Yes, Jo-Jo, I’m afraid for now you do.’

  I take another look around the pub. The band is just starting to play a medley of songs I don’t know, but the sound is familiar to me from the many programmes I’ve caught bits of over the years, revisiting music and fashion from the fifties and sixties. In fact, suddenly it’s like hopping inside one of those black and white episodes of Top of the Pops as the crowd begin to bob about to the music in front of me.

  ‘But if I’m stuck here in 1963 what about my business back in 2013? I’ve worked too hard to let that crumble. If I’m away from it for long how will everyone cope?’

  ‘Admirably, I expect,’ George says, watching the band. ‘They’ve had you to guide them for long enough. I’m sure you do them a disservice if you think they’ll run your business into the ground in a few weeks.’

  ‘A few weeks? So there is a chance I could return home again?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ George says, nodding, partly at me, partly in time to the music.

  ‘Only possible!’

  ‘It depends.’

  ‘On?’

  ‘Two pints and a Babycham,’ Harry says, arriving back beside us again. ‘Now what have you two been talking about while I’ve been gone?’

  ‘Not much,’ George says, his foot tapping in time to the music. ‘Bit difficult to have a decent conversation now the bands have started playing, isn’t it, Jo-Jo? Why don’t you pop in and see me at the shop tomorrow in your lunch break? Maybe I’ll have what you’re looking for then?’ He gives me a knowing look.

  Is he kidding me? I need answers now. ‘Sure, George,’ I sigh, knowing I have little choice. ‘I’ll do that. I really hope you do have what I want, though.’

  A way for me to get back home. And fast.

  Five

  This morning I asked Miss Fields if I could take an extra half-hour for lunch, promising that I’ll make it up tomorrow, and luckily she agreed. So right now I’m hurrying over to George’s shop as fast as I can in my extended lunch break.

  Today as I’m travelling along the King’s Road I’m taking in everything and everyone as I walk along. It’s weird, when you see old photos or footage of people and places from the past, they’re either in black and white, or shot on old cine film where the colours are worn and faded over time. But actually being here like this, living and breathing the era, I can experience just how vividly real everything is. The colours, the designs, and especially the people; they may look odd to me with their unusual clothes and peculiar hairstyles, but they’re living, breathing human beings, simply going about their day-to-day business, just like I am this lunchtime on my way to see George.

  Watching the bands last night had been quite good fun in the end, and I was really starting to enjoy some of their music by the end of the night. Harry and his friend Derek had walked Ellie and I to our bus stop after we left the pub, which I found very quaint, though very chivalrous of them, but I was secretly quite pleased when that’s as far as it went. So as we leapt up on to the back of the bright red London bus that was going to take us home, and held on to the conductor’s pole, I’d waved happily to Harry as the bus disappeared along the King’s Road. Much as I liked him, I had more important things to deal with right now than a blossoming romance between a version of myself and a Harry that I wasn’t really even sure existed.

  This lunchtime as I arrive at George’s shop and push open the door, the little bell rings above my head, just as it always does.

  ‘Jo-Jo,’ George says, looking up from the counter where he’s browsing a music catalogue. ‘You managed to survive to see another day, then?’

  ‘Just,’ I say, flopping down on to the wooden chair where I sat yesterday. ‘It’s so hard keeping up this pretence, though. I keep sticking my foot in it by mentioning things that no one even knows about yet.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Like when Ellie and I were getting ready for work this morning I asked if she had any hair straighteners
I could borrow. When I explained what they were, she suggested I used the iron.’

  George laughs.

  ‘And just now, before I came away from work, someone was moaning about a file that they’d lost in the office, so I asked them if they’d backed it up on a flash stick. They looked at me like I was some sort of pervert!’

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ George says. ‘I’ve just put the kettle on. Tea?’

  ‘Yes, please. But I don’t want to get used to it,’ I call to him as he disappears out the back. ‘I want to go back home.’

  ‘And you will do,’ George says, sticking his head back around the door, ‘just as soon as we find out what the best route is to get you there. Excuse me a moment,’ he apologises, as a phone rings out the back and he disappears again.

  A man comes into the shop with a young boy. He nods at me, so I smile at him.

  ‘I’m looking for a birthday present for my son,’ he says, mistaking me for an assistant. ‘He loves his music, and so I thought I’d bring him down here to the King’s Road to buy him a gift, something a bit different. Can you recommend anything he might like?’

  I stand up slowly, desperately trawling my brain for bands from the sixties, but only the obvious springs to mind. ‘The Beatles?’

  ‘Nah, he has everything they’ve done, don’t you, son?’

  The boy nods.

  ‘I think he’d like something a bit different.’

  I look desperately to the back of the shop; the sound of the ticking clock, usually so calming, suddenly becomes painfully loud. Oh, please hurry up, George! ‘Let’s see now…’ I say, stalling for time. ‘Erm, how about The Kinks, perhaps… Or maybe The Who? They’re great sixties bands, aren’t they?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the man says, looking at me oddly, ‘you’re supposed to be the expert!’

  ‘How about the Rolling Stones?’ I hear a knowledgeable voice behind me say. ‘They’re a new band, but very popular with those in the know.’ He comes up beside me and taps the side of his nose, then he winks at the young boy.