Step Back in Time

by Ali McNamara

  ‘I haven’t heard of them, have you, Richard?’

  His son nods. ‘I have actually, and I’d love a record by them. What do you have, sir?’ he asks, looking keenly at George.

  George grins and pulls a couple of 45 records from a display.

  I sit back down on my chair. Apparently I know as much about sixties music as I do about living in the sixties, and that isn’t a lot.

  The father and his son eventually find something they’re happy with and pay for their purchases. George has managed to sell them a few other bits while they’re here, too, and Richard is looking more than a bit pleased with his collection of birthday gifts. George shuts his till happy with his latest sale, and bids them farewell.

  ‘Goodbye, Richard,’ he waves as they open the door to leave the shop.

  ‘Thanks, sir,’ Richard says happily. ‘You know, one day I think I’d like to own a record shop just like this one.’

  ‘That’s a fine ambition to have,’ George smiles, ‘and I hope you achieve it, young man. Goodbye, Mr Branson,’ he says to Richard’s father. ‘Do call again, won’t you?’

  I stare with disbelief at the departing figures. Then I shake my head. Hold on just one minute, have we just sold records to a young Richard Branson – the future multi-millionaire and owner of the Virgin group?

  ‘Do you know who that was, George?’ I ask, still staring at the closed door.

  ‘Of course, Mr Branson and his son Richard – he left me his card.’

  I turn and look at George. He returns my look with one of complete innocence.

  ‘I’ll get that tea now, shall I?’ he asks.

  George returns with our tea and sits down next to me.

  ‘I’m sorry about before,’ I say apologetically, ‘with the bands. I obviously know nothing about music.’

  George grins. ‘Actually both those groups you suggested would have been great recommendations for the young boy, but you’re about a year too early, Jo-Jo, they were both formed in 1964.’

  ‘Ah! Bit difficult for you to sell their records then, eh?’ I grin. ‘Seems like I’m ahead of my time, George! Unlike now…’ Then my smile fades. ‘Wait, how do you know about those bands if they’re not together yet? In fact, how come you seem to know so much about what’s happening to me?’

  ‘I don’t know that much. Not really. I just know that for you to return to your time you need to find the one thing that links you back to the future.’

  ‘Like the movie?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ George looks at me with a puzzled expression.

  Argh! George is so infuriating. One minute he seems to know so much about what is going on, and the next he appears to know nothing.

  ‘Never mind that now. What sort of a link?’

  ‘A link that will help you find what it is you need to know,’ George replies even more cryptically. ‘We know that part of your link to the future is the zebra crossing because that’s where you arrived from the first time it happened, but we don’t know why or when your link might appear again.’

  ‘Can’t I just step out on to the crossing again in front of a car?’ I suggest hopefully.

  ‘Unless you want to die a very painful death here in 1963, I wouldn’t recommend it, no.’

  I somehow knew it wouldn’t be that easy. ‘So what do I have to do, then?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. It’s always very vague. Different for everyone that comes.’

  ‘What do you mean, everyone? Do you mean there are more people like me wandering about here?’

  ‘Not here necessarily; most go back.’

  ‘Most?’

  George takes a sip of his tea. ‘Like I say, it depends on whether they figure it all out.’

  ‘Yes, but figure what out?’

  ‘The reason they’re here.’

  I shake my head. This is all just madness. And George seems to be the only person who knows anything about it. And that doesn’t appear to be much.

  I open my mouth to question him further, but another customer enters the shop.

  ‘Hadn’t you better be getting back to your office?’ George asks as he stands up to greet the lady. ‘You’ve been here for half an hour – you’re going to be very late back.’

  I glance at the clock on the wall. ‘Damn, you’re right! I’ll be back again soon, George, I promise.’

  ‘I know you will, Jo-Jo,’ George nods, as I dash out of the door and up the King’s Road, the shop’s bell still ringing in my ears. ‘Of that I have no doubt.’

  Six

  I throw myself out of the doors of the train at my tube stop, and I’m so glad I’m wearing flat black boots, not high heels, with my pink and black Jackie Kennedy-inspired suit, as I run back towards the office, glancing at my watch every few paces. I haven’t lost my hatred of tardiness during time travel, and arriving back at work fifteen minutes late from lunch – an extended lunch too – simply isn’t acceptable for me.

  There’s no one in reception as I enter the building, so I quickly hang my jacket behind my chair, shove my bag in one of the deep drawers in my desk, and flatten down my wayward hair while I assume my position on my swivel chair, ready to begin receiving visitors again.

  ‘Long lunch, Miss McKenzie?’ a voice enquires through the double doors.

  ‘Mr Maxwell!’ I jump. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘You can tell me why you were away from your desk for so long, that’s what you can do.’

  ‘I thought Vera was covering my lunch break.’ I’m trying to speak normally but I’m still out of breath.

  ‘She was for your allotted hour and a half that Miss Field gave you. But then she had work of her own to attend to, so I sent her back to her desk.’

  ‘I’m very sorry I’m late back, Mr Maxwell, but I had to go all the way over to the King’s Road, and… there was a hold-up on the way back on the tube.’

  Mr Maxwell eyes me suspiciously. ‘What sort of a hold-up? Whenever I travel by tube train, which, thank heaven, isn’t too often, they always run frequently and on time.’

  ‘Leaves on the line!’ I improvise.

  ‘How can there be leaves on an underground line?’

  ‘I’m not too sure myself, but that’s what the announcement said. Maybe there was a strong wind and it blew them down the tunnel?’

  Mr Maxwell’s face contorts, and I wonder if he’s about to have a fit or something. But I suddenly realise he’s trying to smile.

  ‘Young lady, that has to be the best excuse for being late I’ve come across since I’ve been working here.’ His smile fades with much more ease than it appeared. ‘Don’t let it happen again, though.’

  ‘I won’t, Mr Maxwell. Thank you, Mr Maxwell.’

  He turns around and is about to head through the glass doors again, when he turns back. ‘Out of interest, what took you all the way over to the King’s Road in your lunch break?’

  ‘I have a friend who owns a record shop over there. I – I needed to go and see him about something.’

  ‘Would that be George’s shop you’re talking about?’ Mr Maxwell asks.

  ‘Yes, it is, Groovy Records. Do you know George, then?’

  Mr Maxwell nods. ‘Yes, we’ve met once or twice.’

  I’m about to ask when and how, but he backs towards the doors again. ‘No more chit-chat. Back to work immediately, young lady, before I have to dock your wages.’

  That sounds more like the usual Mr Maxwell. I pull my headphones on and put all thoughts of George and his shop aside for now.

  The afternoon is a quiet one, thank goodness, and I manage to cope fairly easily with the demands of being a 1963 receptionist.

  In a way it’s actually quite nice being on this side of things for a change, without all the hassles of being the boss. I could never have imagined taking a step back down the career ladder would be so enjoyable back in 2013 – the thought of such a thing would have horrified me – but it’s really good fun to be in contact with the many interesting and
diverse people that pass through the reception of EMI House on a daily basis, and I’m quite enjoying it.

  When I leave the office at the end of my second day there, at an incredibly early time of day for me to finish work, I head home with Ellie. I thought about trying to dash back over to George’s shop, but decided he’d probably be closed for the day now, and Ellie had seemed in a bit of a flap when we left the office, and I wanted to find out why.

  ‘So,’ I ask her as we travel on the bus together. ‘What are we up to tonight?’ Finishing work so early gives me much more spare time in the evenings than I’m used to; I never had this luxury back in 2013. I’m not too sure what sort of things I’m supposed to get up to in the sixties, but I’m eager to find out.

  ‘I don’t know about you, Jo-Jo, but I’m baking tonight.’

  ‘Baking? For us?’

  ‘Nooo, for the bosses – I said I was going to, didn’t I?’

  ‘You’re still going to do that?’

  ‘Yep, I’m going to bake them lots of cakes and take them in tomorrow – I bought all the stuff at lunchtime in Marylebone High Street.’ She holds up a bag stuffed full of groceries. ‘I haven’t got much time, have I, if I want to win this competition. The fancy lunch is next Monday.’

  ‘No, I suppose you haven’t.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Ellie asks as she pulls a cookery book from her bag. As she opens it, I notice it’s a library edition.

  ‘I don’t know, just chill out, I guess.’

  Ellie pulls a face. ‘Chill out? It’s November, aren’t you cold enough already?’

  ‘I mean relax, watch a bit of TV, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Oh, I see. What are you going to watch, Coronation Street or that dreadful Hancock man? Oh, hey, isn’t it a Dr Kildare night tonight? I might join you for a spot of Richard Chamberlain if I get my baking done in time – if he was my doctor I’d be ill all the time, I reckon!’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll just read a book, then,’ I say, thinking this doesn’t sound all that enthralling. ‘Did you go to the library to get that out at lunchtime?’ I ask, looking down at her book.

  ‘Yes, I don’t have any cookbooks, but this,’ she holds up a blue Good Housekeeping cookery book, ‘this will help me turn out perfect cakes. The woman in the library says she swears by it.’

  ‘Must be good then. Good Housekeeping is a household name, so I’m sure they’ll see you right – they’ve been going for years.’

  ‘Have they?’ Ellie asks absentmindedly, as she pores over the pages again. ‘Maybe this is the book me mam uses, too. Can’t say I remember.’

  We arrive back home, quickly get changed out of our work gear and make sandwiches again. Ellie is keen to get on with her evening’s baking, and doesn’t want the tiny kitchen in our little flat to be congested with mundane stuff like pots and pans and plates from making a proper dinner. I don’t actually think Ellie and I ever really cook that much for ourselves anyway, which is why this idea of hers is a bit worrying.

  While Ellie gets busy with her cakes, I go into the little lounge and flick between the two channels we have on our black and white TV. Not with a remote control, though – I have to press buttons on the TV itself! Ellie’s right; there isn’t much on, and the picture quality is pretty dire. I try and watch a news report about the Beatlemania that’s sweeping the nation, and I smile as I watch the screaming, hysterical girls, going mad for the Fab Four. What have you guys started? I ask them through the screen, as I think about all the boy bands that will be screamed at in the future by young girls at concerts and at airports: they have you to thank for this. Then I switch the TV off and take a look through the pile of records that sit next to a suitcase on the sideboard.

  Golly, what a choice! Cliff Richard, the Beach Boys, Elvis Presley – there’s even a Doris Day LP. I sigh. It’s a toss up between Elvis and the Beatles, but I plump for the Fab Four – really they’re the only thing worth listening to in this collection. And for me that’s really saying something. Ellie has quite a few Beatles records to choose from; lots of singles, but only the one album, Please Please Me. I wonder why this is, then suddenly realise it’s because we’re in November 1963, and they’ve only released one album up until now.

  ‘Ellie,’ I call through to the kitchen, ‘where has the record player gone?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ellie asks, sounding flustered as she pokes her head around the door. There’s flour on her nose and cheek. ‘It’s right where it always is, on the sideboard next to the records. Stop messing around with me, Jo-Jo, I haven’t got time for this tonight.’

  She disappears back into the kitchen, while I look at the thing that looks like a small suitcase sitting next to the records. Is this the record player? I wonder, gently lifting up the lid – and sure enough, inside the case there is a fully functioning record player with a turntable, needle and arm.

  This is actually quite a cool little gadget, I think as I attempt to load a record on to the turntable; in a way it could actually be the prototype for the first iPod – it’s portable music!

  I smile to myself as the arm of the record player drops into the groove of the record and a song begins to play. If only you knew what’s to come for you all, I think, as familiar Beatles’ songs such as ‘Love Me Do’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and ‘Do You Want to Know a Secret?’ fill the room. I find myself humming and then singing along to each one as they remind me of my parents and all the times spent listening to the Beatles with them, either recently or as a child.

  The Ellie of 2013 had told me on the phone the day I got hit by the car that I should speak to my mother, and I’d foolishly said there was plenty of time. But what if I never got a chance to speak to my parents again? What if I’m stuck here in 1963 for ever, except it won’t be for ever, will it? My life will continue from this point onwards, because I’m now living in a different timeline. That’s what this must be, an alternative lifetime running parallel to my own back in 2013. How else can I explain what’s going on right now if this isn’t a dream? I wonder what’s happened to the other me back in 2013. Am I lying injured in a hospital somewhere, or am I missing altogether because I’m now living here in the sixties? There’s so many things I don’t understand, so many questions I need answering. And all I know for definite at the moment is I have to get back, and to do that I have to find the – what had George called it? The link that will help me learn what I need to know. Even that was cryptic.

  Deciding I’ve heard enough music for now, I lift the needle on the record player, replace the Beatles record in its sleeve, and head into the kitchen to see how Ellie is getting on.

  The scene that greets me is somewhat chaotic.

  There are mixing bowls, wooden spoons and empty packets everywhere. Lying on the kitchen counter, there’s an upturned set of kitchen scales that Ellie borrowed from one of our neighbours before she began, and a cloud of white dust floats over the whole kitchen, which could either be flour or icing sugar.

  ‘How’s it going?’ I ask casually, leaning against the doorframe.

  ‘Bloody awful,’ Ellie moans, turning to face me. ‘Look.’ She waves her hand in the direction of two trays of fairy cakes. At least, I think that’s what they are. The contents of one tray are so black it looks as if Ellie has commanded a dragon to breathe fire across it in order to bake the cakes. On the second tray, the cakes are a much more edible golden brown colour, but there appear to be large craters in the centre of every one.

  ‘Oh,’ I say, pulling a face.

  ‘It’s a disaster, Jo-Jo, a 100 per cent, no-holds-barred disaster!’

  ‘It can’t be that bad,’ I try to reassure her, moving into the kitchen to fully inspect the cakes. ‘Oh,’ I repeat, as I view the full extent of the catastrophe in front of me. ‘Apparently it can.’

  ‘Aw,’ Ellie wails, ‘what am I gonna do? This was me only chance of impressing the bosses. It’s not like anyone notices me at work, is it? I’m just a typist; I’m like all the ot
her typists in the pool, I’m never goin’ to stand out. And I want to win that prize. I want to meet the Beatles! It’s me one chance to do something exciting!’

  ‘Right,’ I say, taking charge. ‘For one thing, don’t let me ever hear you say that again. You, Ellie, are an individual. You’re unique. No one else is like you, and don’t you ever forget it. You can do anything you want to if you put your mind to it, just you wait and see.’

  Ellie’s big green eyes open wide in her flour-covered face.

  ‘And secondly,’ I continue, as I reach for a flowery apron hanging on a hook in the kitchen, ‘you happen to be sharing your flat with the best cake maker since Jane Asher!’

  ‘Jane Asher?’ Ellie wrinkles her nose. ‘Do you mean Paul McCartney’s girlfriend? Does she cook, then?’

  ‘I don’t know about now,’ I say hastily, as I reach for a clean mixing bowl and a new packet of flour, ‘but I’m pretty sure she’ll be very good at it in the future.’

  We spend the rest of the evening creating perfect-looking cupcakes, although Ellie insists on calling them mahoosive fairy cakes. Luckily our neighbour, Martha, is a keen cook, and lends us a few more items than just her scales, after we visit her begging for supplies. Martha, who I find to be an enchanting little old lady, delights in finding us the perfect items for our baking session. She confesses she doesn’t bake as often as she used to since her husband’s death, and she’s more than happy for her equipment to be put to good use. So we return to our flat with piping bags, cake decorations, food colouring – the lot, with a promise to let Martha taste some of our first batch when we’ve finished baking for the evening.

  I wonder if Martha might be a bit lonely, living on her own next door, and it seems such a shame she never gets to use any of her baking equipment any more. So while I’m working away, I decide I’ll ask her to bake Ellie and I one of her own favourite cakes if she’d like to, when we return with our own efforts, and we’ll pop in and have tea with her one day.

  In our own kitchen we quickly get a routine going between the two of us, and soon we are producing dozens of beautifully browned and perfectly risen cupcakes. But it’s when I start to decorate them with various types of coloured icing that Ellie gets really excited.