Step Back in Time

by Ali McNamara

  ‘Fine with me, Harry,’ a voice calls back. ‘One less mouth to feed!’

  Harry glances back inside the house for a brief second, and even at this distance I can see hurt flicker across his eyes. Then he shrugs and slams the door hard.

  ‘What are you two gawping at?’ he calls, looking up at us peering out of our windows. ‘Shouldn’t you be drooling over a pop star or something equally useful?’

  Ellie tosses her hair back. ‘I’m not the one making a scene of myself in the street, am I?’

  Harry ignores her and looks across at me. ‘Nothing to add, Jo-Jo?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Good. Then I’m going for a fag,’ he announces, strutting off down the street.

  ‘Idiot,’ Ellie says, looking across at me again. ‘No wonder his mam wants shot of him. Look, I gotta go, Jo-Jo, cos I said I’d help me mam with the tea tonight. But I’ll see you later at this meeting, yeah?’

  ‘Yes,’ I reply, but I’m half watching which direction Harry is heading in. ‘Yes, I’ll see you later.’

  I pull myself in from the window, and hurry back downstairs again.

  ‘Mum, I’m just going out, OK?’ I say, popping my head around the living room door. ‘I’ll be back for tea, though.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, Jo-Jo,’ Penny mumbles, as engrossed in little plasticine Morph’s adventures on Take Hart as the children are. ‘Can you get some milk, please, while you’re out? Take some money from my purse, it’s on the table in the hall next to the phone.’

  ‘Sure.’ I’d hoped to slip out immediately, but I run into the hall and pick up a red purse that sits next to a purple Trimphone on a small hall table. I pull out a few coins… how much was milk in 1977 anyway? I have no idea. As I’m trying to do the purse up again, a card jams in the zip, so I have to pull it out to get it back in the purse evenly. I glance at the wording on the front: Lambeth College Evening School. So Penny goes to evening classes, does she? That’s good, I think as I ram the card back in the purse, then dash down the hall and out of the front door. I vaguely hear Penny calling something about tea, and being back in time for the Jubilee meeting, as I slam the door closed behind me.

  Now which way did Harry go?

  I hurry down the road and find that Harry hasn’t gone too far. He’s leaning up against a wall at the end of the street, smoking his cigarette.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asks as I approach.

  ‘To see if you’re OK.’

  He looks at me suspiciously. ‘Why?’

  ‘Probably for the same reason you came over to see if I was all right this afternoon after my accident.’

  He surveys me for a moment through narrowed eyes surrounded by black eyeliner. Then he shrugs. ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Are you OK then? I heard what your mother said.’

  ‘Old bag,’ Harry states, taking a long drag of his cigarette. ‘She’s said it before. She’ll say it again no doubt. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been thrown out.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Don’t fit in here, do I, Jo-Jo? You know me. Always the outcast.’

  ‘I’m hardly the archetypal teenager myself dressed like this, am I?’ I gesture at my white smock top.

  Harry looks me up and down. ‘Sixties reject!’ he says, grinning at me.

  If only you knew…

  ‘At least you don’t dress like a packet of shortbread, like that lunatic friend of yours,’ he adds, waiting for my reaction.

  ‘Ellie? She’s OK. Nothing wrong with the Bay City Rollers, is there?’

  Harry drops his cigarette on the ground and stubs it out with his foot. ‘Nothing wrong with the Bay City Rollers?’ he exclaims. ‘You’re asking someone with hair like mine that question?’

  We both look at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing.

  ‘Come on,’ Harry says. ‘Let’s get out of here for a bit.’

  We walk together along the road towards a park where a few boys are playing on some swings and a slide. As we approach they glance across at us, take one look at Harry, and immediately mount their Chopper bikes and scarper.

  ‘Don’t you mind having that effect on people?’ I ask him as we sit companionably next to each other on the deserted swings.

  ‘How do you mean?’ Harry asks, lighting up another cigarette.

  ‘Scaring them away like you just did, those kids?’

  Harry shrugs. ‘Not really. Part of the image, ain’t it?’

  ‘Is putting yourself in an early grave part of it too?’ I nod at the cigarette.

  ‘What’s with you tonight, Jo-Jo? You’re normally a bit goody two shoes, but you’re even more weird today.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with me. I just don’t see you as a punk, that’s all.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’re too nice.’

  Harry laughs. ‘Punks can be nice too. We’re just different, that’s all. Anti-establishment.’

  ‘Anti most things, aren’t you?’

  ‘I won’t be going to this Jubilee meeting tonight, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I guess it’s not really your thing. Although it would be pretty funny to see the reactions to you turning up in a Sex Pistols God Save the Queen T-shirt.’ I wink at him.

  Harry fakes astonishment. ‘Jo-Jo, that’s not like you! You’ll be throwing away your incense sticks and piercing your nose next!’

  ‘I hardly think so. But you don’t have to dress like you to be brave and daring. There are other ways of doing it.’

  ‘Like attending Peace rallies and Love-ins?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘I suppose you think them guys on those American cop shows like Starsky and Hutch are all brave with their fast cars and big muscles?’

  ‘Hardly,’ I say, stifling a giggle as I think of my poster boys up on my wall.

  ‘What do you like, then?’ Harry asks, pushing himself back on the swings and allowing his boots to scuff along the ground as he moves back and forth.

  ‘Do you mean in a man?’ I ask, forgetting for a moment I’m only a sixteen-year-old teenager.

  ‘Oh, so it’s men you go for,’ Harry says, studying the pattern the toe of his boot is now making on the dust below him.

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that, I meant…’ Oh, what did I mean! ‘I meant I like someone who’s prepared to be themselves, to stand up for what they believe in, who’s punctual – and, most importantly, who can make me laugh.’

  Harry looks up at me now. ‘Laugh? Really?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, nodding, surprised at myself for listing this. It isn’t something I would have thought would have been a high priority for me.

  ‘Interesting,’ Harry says. ‘I’m not too good with jokes, so does that count against me?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I hope I might be better at this…’ Harry leans across the space between the two swings and I suddenly realise he’s about to kiss me. I recoil in surprise and Harry, not having anywhere to rest his lips, tips off balance, and lands on his knees on the ground below.

  ‘Oi, oi, Harry!’ a voice calls across the park. ‘What you up to?’

  We both look up to see the gang of punks that Harry was hanging out with before making their way across the park towards us.

  ‘Harry, I’m sorry,’ I whisper as the boys get closer. ‘I didn’t realise what you were about to do.’

  ‘I wasn’t doing nuffin’,’ Harry says, red-faced. ‘Was only trying to make you laugh. Looks like I failed at that too,’ he mumbles as he stands up and brushes himself down.

  ‘Trying it on with Miss Flower Power here, were ya?’ one of the gang, who has green spikes covering his shaven head and just as many metal piercings to match, continues. ‘If ya gonna go for that type, she ain’t a bad choice, I suppose.’ He looks me up and down. ‘Wouldn’t mind havin’ a crack meself.’

  I regard him with derision. ‘I hardly think so.’

  ‘Ooh, hark at you, ya snotty cow – who d’you think you are? Roya
lty?’

  ‘Leave it, Stu,’ Harry says quietly. ‘Jo-Jo’s OK.’

  I smile at Harry.

  ‘Harry Rigby, you wouldn’t be picking one of them sort over us, would ya?’ Stu snarls, his top lip beginning to curl. ‘Cos that might prove to be a very costly decision.’ He punches his fist into his hand and some of the other boys begin to form a threatening semi-circle behind him.

  ‘I ain’t picking no one over nobody,’ Harry says, ‘Just let it be, Stu.’

  ‘Shit, Harry!’ Stu almost explodes. ‘You’re even quoting namby-pamby peace-lovin’ Lennon now! She’s really got to you, hasn’t she?’

  I don’t like the look of this at all. It may just be an exchange of bravado, big words from little boys right now, but it’s likely to deteriorate into something more physical. So I step in.

  ‘Nobody has got to anyone. If you must know, Harry was smoking here alone on the swings when I came along and sat down next to him. So if anything it was me bothering him. But,’ I sniff and pretend to look upset, ‘Harry has made it quite clear he’s not interested, haven’t you, Harry?’ I turn towards him with my back to the others. ‘I should have known you wouldn’t be interested in someone like me. I guess we’re just too different. So I’m going to make it very easy for you now, and leave.’ I try and wink at him, so the others don’t see. ‘He’s all yours,’ I announce to the rest of the gang as I turn around. ‘You’re welcome to him.’ Then I march off across the park, to jeers and shouts. But I don’t look back; I just hope I’ve done enough to let Harry off the hook with his mates.

  Everyone’s watching Blue Peter in front of the TV when I get back to the house, eating their dinner off trays balanced precariously on their laps.

  ‘Jo-Jo, the kettle’s not long boiled if you want to do your Pot Noodle,’ Penny says, barely taking her eyes away from the screen. ‘I’ll have to nip upstairs in a minute and get ready for this meeting. Damn it, I’ll miss The Good Life tonight.’

  ‘Can’t you record it?’ I say without thinking.

  ‘What, love?’ my mother says, distracted by John Noakes sticking two washing-up liquid bottles together on the screen.

  ‘I was just thinking it would be handy if you could record TV programmes on tape, like you can songs from the radio. Then you could watch them whenever you wanted to.’ I wait for their reactions.

  ‘That would be brilliant!’ Sally says, shovelling a large forkful of fish finger into her mouth.

  ‘Ah, that’ll never happen,’ Sean says. ‘How would you record pictures and sound together?’

  ‘They do at the cinema,’ Sally mumbles while chewing. ‘How do they do that?’

  ‘What would be really cool,’ I say, thinking I’ll play with them a bit more, ‘would be if you could pause live TV and rewind it in case you missed something, or if your phone rang in the middle of a programme.’

  They all turn to look at me now.

  ‘I think you’ve been spending too much time breathing in all the incense they burn in that shop of yours, Jo-Jo,’ Penny says, raising one of her pencilled-on eyebrows. ‘Next thing you’ll be telling me we’ll have hundreds of channels instead of just the three to choose from. There was some lunatic babbling on about that happening in the future in a magazine I was reading in the hairdresser’s one day.’

  Penny seemed to read a lot in magazines at the hairdresser’s… I open my mouth to respond, but decide to leave it. ‘Yeah, it’ll never happen. Bit like us having a female prime minister,’ I grin as I leave the room, and go and re-boil the kettle for my gourmet dinner.

  Thirteen

  The next morning I wake up to Starsky and Hutch’s David Soul smirking down at me from the wall next to my bed.

  ‘Aargh!’ I cry, covering my face with the sheet again. ‘Stop staring at me!’

  But seeing him reminds me of Harry, and our few minutes together on the swings yesterday.

  I wonder if he was OK after I left the park? I didn’t see him again last night because we were kept busy all evening with the neighbourhood meeting for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. An eclectic mix of the many residents of the street had all packed into the small church hall to finalise preparations for our own celebrations. We were having a street party – like so many communities had done in 1977, and the majority of the evening seemed to have been taken up deciding who was bringing what type of sandwich, and which type of cake. The residents were also trying to get a band to play some music during the festivities “to keep the younger ones amused”, but weren’t having much luck in persuading anyone to come along and play on what little budget they could muster.

  I felt genuine empathy for the younger members of the audience – obviously forced to attend by well-meaning parents, they all looked thoroughly fed up during the evening; not only due to the fact that they were spending their night in a drab church hall discussing cakes and bunting, but at the thought of the actual Silver Jubilee festivities themselves. My own mother was a very active and keen member of the Women’s Institute, and in my younger days, when my older sisters weren’t available to babysit me, I’d been dragged along to many a church hall meeting, where I’d been forced into selling jumble or partaking in some random craft activity. So I could genuinely feel their pain at being forced to sit through this.

  I peel back the sheet while at the same time trying to avert my eyes from Sylvester Stallone’s exposed chest. Rocky was a fine figure of a man back here in 1977, but I really didn’t need to see this much of him first thing in the morning!

  I go over to my window and pull my curtains back. Right, let’s see what today brings forth. And whatever else happens I must get over to George’s shop.

  After breakfast, which I’m pleased to find doesn’t consist of re-hydrated noodles, but Cornflakes, Rice Krispies and toast, Penny takes the twins to school while I head off to work.

  During the course of breakfast I managed to find out, with a few carefully worded questions, exactly where the holistic shop I worked in was situated – on the King’s Road, not that far, luckily, from George’s record shop. So as soon as I got a chance today I knew exactly where I’d be headed.

  Ellie and I get off the bus at the top of the King’s Road. Today Ellie is dressed more soberly than her Bay City Rollers tartan of yesterday, but she’s still sporting high fashion – a purple catsuit and black platform boots – to work in the boutique where she has a part-time job.

  Apparently we both left school without really knowing what we wanted to do, and while we await the fate of our O-levels, we’ve both managed to find part-time jobs for the summer. It’s amazing what information you can discover in the course of conversation without actually asking direct questions. I’m starting to become quite good at it.

  ‘See ya later, then,’ Ellie says, opening the door of the boutique she works in. ‘Dunno what time me lunch will be, but I can meet ya if ya like?’

  ‘No!’ I reply a bit too sharply. ‘I mean, I know I’m on a late lunch today, so there’s not much point in you trying.’ I just have to see George alone.

  ‘Ah, OK then,’ Ellie says, not appearing to notice anything strange in my behaviour. ‘See ya at home time then. Have a good day!’

  I leave Ellie and walk down the road towards the shop I’m supposed to work in. I know it’s called Tranquillity, and I don’t have to go too far before I stumble across it, more by accident than expert detective work. It’s a funny little place, quite hidden away amongst all the other shops lining this side of the street. Its tiny window display has Buddha statues, dreamcatchers, crystals and meditation tools crammed into it. I’m used to seeing odd little shops like this scattered about back in 2013 – holistic healing and alternative health is quite the norm by then, but I’m guessing that back here in 1977 it’s still looked on as a quirky oddity.

  ‘Hi,’ I call as I push the door open and a bell rings – just like in George’s shop.

  ‘Good morning, Jo-Jo,’ floats a voice from the back of the shop. ‘How are you today?’r />
  ‘Fine, thank you,’ I reply, following the voice to its owner.

  ‘Good, I’m pleased to hear it.’ An elderly lady wearing a kaftan, several strings of beads and a peace symbol around her neck is sitting at the back of the shop. ‘Put the kettle on, love, will you?’ she asks. ‘Old Rita here is parched.’

  ‘Sure.’ I look around for the kettle and see it standing in a tiny kitchen just behind where the woman sits, sorting some coloured candles.

  I fill the kettle while I watch her surreptitiously from behind. She must be about seventy, I guess, but she has a thick lustrous mane of long grey hair tied loosely in a plait that hangs down the length of her back.

  Aware I’m watching her, she turns around.

  ‘Are you OK, Jo-Jo, love?’ she asks. ‘You seem a bit jumpy this morning.’

  ‘Yes… yes, I’m fine,’ I try and reassure her. ‘Just too much caffeine, probably. Shouldn’t have stopped for that venti cappuccino on the way here!’ Damn! I chide myself, turning my head away, I must be more careful!

  Hesitantly I look back at her to see if she’s noticed. Her deep blue eyes flicker momentarily, but she makes no comment and carries on with what she’s doing, carefully sorting the coloured candles into individual boxes.

  ‘So,’ I say, hurriedly changing the subject. ‘What should I do today?’

  ‘We’ll just do what we normally do, shall we, sweetie? Muddle along and see where the day takes us,’ she says, looking up and smiling at me. ‘That’s the best way, I’ve always found.’

  ‘Sure,’ I agree, to be amiable. Really, running a successful company takes organisation and planning, not simply ‘muddling along’. I should know. But who am I to argue. I’m not even supposed to be here.

  Surprisingly, the morning goes incredibly quickly, and there’s a steady stream of customers into Rita’s little shop. They range from aging hippies looking a bit like Rita with long grey hair either tied back in plaits or wildly cascading around their frail bodies, to young free spirits looking to find spiritual enlightenment in the products Rita keeps in her shop. But when Rita finally says it’s time for my lunch break, I can’t get out of there fast enough.