‘Here Janice, you try it on for a second,’ said Peggy, and popped it over Janice’s scraggy gymslip and threadbare cardigan, where it hung like a clown’s coat. Janice looked at herself in the mirror and her eyes widened. Her hands, I noticed, were spotlessly clean and her nails looked pink and cared for. She’d soon have her nail varnish from Peggy.
‘It would be lovely to have clothes like this all the time. It would be like a fairy tale, wouldn’t it?’ said Janice. After another long look, she solemnly handed the jacket back to Peggy, who was nearly in tears.
‘Oh Rosie, I’ve never had anything as posh as this. It must have cost a fortune. Thank you.’
‘It’s your wedding day. You deserve to have something new. It’s a special day.’
‘Yes it is, isn’t it?’ she said, looking determined. ‘It’s the start of my new life. With George. It will be a good life, Rosie. I promise I’ll do my best. It will be worth celebrating.’
Mr Brown obviously thought so too. He came home later and said he’d booked a table at The Fleece for us all after the ceremony.
‘But I was just going to do something for us here,’ said Mrs Brown.
‘It’s our only daughter’s wedding. We’ll do it properly, or at least as properly as we can,’ he said firmly.
We could have walked to the register office, but Mr Brown insisted on a car to take us. When Peggy came downstairs in the altered dress and the new jacket, he walked towards her and wrapped her in his arms. ‘My little girl,’ he said, ‘you look lovely.’
She did too. Very smart. Though I say it myself, the jacket was a triumph. I was so pleased. Best of all – from Mrs Brown’s point of view – was that you couldn’t really see that Peggy was pregnant, especially when she held her bouquet in front of her.
‘Something old, something new – that’s the dress and jacket,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘Something borrowed. Something borrowed! Quick, Peg, borrow something.’
‘Here,’ I said quickly, ‘borrow my hanky!’ It was one of the little lace ones I’d found in the trunk the day I arrived.
‘Thanks, Rosie. Now I’ve got everything I need to bring me luck.’ She tucked it into her pocket.
‘And the something blue is my dress and jacket again. And,’ she whispered, almost giggling, ‘my new slip.’
With that the car arrived and we all bundled into it quickly, while the neighbours peered out of their windows or stood on the doorsteps waving, ‘Good luck, girl!’
The register office wasn’t really a register office, it was just part of a solicitor’s office, with a big old-fashioned desk and chairs and rows of leather-bound books. But they’d done their best with it. It smelt of polish and there were vases of flowers on the windowsills. George had a new suit, one which fitted, unlike the one he wore to work. He looked nervous, but when Peggy walked in his face lit up.
And so began the ceremony to unite Margaret Elizabeth Brown and George Arthur Turnbull. I realised I hadn’t known what George’s surname was. Turnbull. George Turn-bull. So officially, Peggy would now be Margaret Turnbull.
Margaret Turnbull … Margaret Turnbull … The name niggled away in my brain. It meant something. There was something about that name that I should recognise …
The ceremony was brief. With a bit of handshaking and congratulations, it was all over and we were out in the street again.
‘Come on then, Mr and Mrs Turnbull,’ said Derek, the best man, a pleasant-faced young man with slicked-back hair and a cheerful grin. ‘Time for the first drink of your married life!’ and he led the way the fifty yards or so to The Fleece. It was as we were walking into the lounge that I remembered.
Margaret Turnbull.
She was the woman I’d been on my way to interview when I’d fainted and had landed in the Browns’ house. That had been the start of these weird weeks, the start of my trip back in time. I looked at Peggy, smiling now, looking happy, young and glowing. I remembered that brief impression I had of an old lady getting up from her chair to come and answer the front door.
‘I say! Are you all right?’
Derek was looking at me anxiously.
‘Sit down!’ Mrs Brown commanded. I sank into one of the armchairs by the fire. ‘You’ve gone as white as a sheet. Frank! Get Rosie a brandy!’
The brandy hit my system and I could feel its warmth spreading through me. Margaret Turnbull. Peggy. It was too much of a coincidence. My head filled with fog and cotton wool as I tried to work it out. Whatever it was, this wasn’t the time and place to think about it.
The brandy and the fire did the trick. Well, they didn’t really, but enough to bring some colour back to my cheeks and enable me to join in with what was going on. The last thing I wanted to do was ruin George and Peggy’s wedding day.
‘That’s better!’ said Mrs Brown approvingly.
Peggy was laughing. ‘You all right, Rosie? Not going to have to plan another wedding are we …’
Everyone laughed with her. And somehow the day turned into a party. We were in an alcove off the big dining room so had a certain amount of privacy from the business men and old ladies enjoying their lunch. Just as well. George’s mum got quite tiddly on a couple of glasses of sherry. She was a nice old dear. Confided in me that she was very worried about George marrying so suddenly, but she could see that Peggy came from a decent family.
There was a small heap of cards and telegrams and after the pudding, Derek stood up and read these out. The lads from work had sent a card saying, ‘We never knew you had it in you!’ and Stephen from Cyprus had telegrammed, ‘May all your troubles be little ones!’ Both of which caused huge hilarity.
I remembered Peggy slumped in the wet grass down by Friars’ Mill, remembered the deadly atmosphere in the house afterwards and couldn’t really see the joke. But the others did, so that was all right.
There was a collection of cards from friends of George and Peggy’s, including a very nice one that said ‘Wishing you both every happiness, with best wishes, Lenny’, which made everyone go ‘Aah’ and Mrs Brown to say, ‘You know I thought he was going to be the one.’ Mr Brown and George just exchanged glances and Mr Brown made a funny face, which meant that he exactly got the measure of Lenny.
There were cards from the girls at work, from Peggy’s friends and from Janice’s mother.
‘Oh that’s nice,’ said Peggy, ‘very thoughtful.’
The last card looked big and fat and expensive. ‘This looks a posh one,’ said Derek cheerfully, tugging it open.
A shower of notes cascaded onto the linen tablecloth, drifting onto the uncleared plates and bowls, piling up against the glasses. Mrs Brown gathered them up.
‘There’s a hundred pounds here! A hundred pounds! I’ve never seen so much money.’ Her eyes were wide with shock.
‘Who’s it from?’ asked George’s mum, though the rest of us knew.
‘With all good wishes, Richard Henfield.’
There was a small silence.
‘I don’t want his money,’ said Peggy quietly.
‘Oh yes you do, my girl,’ said her mother. ‘You can buy a lot of baby things with a hundred pounds.’
‘Or it can go towards the university fees,’ I said merrily.
‘University fees?’ George’s mum was gawping at me.
‘Why not?’ asked George cheerfully, putting his arm around Peggy. ‘Our baby will go to university if he wants. Or she … A student with a briefcase and a gown and one of those long stripy scarves.’
Everyone laughed and the party mood was restored.
‘That Mr Henfield must have thought a lot of Peggy,’ whispered George’s mum to me.
‘Oh yes,’ I whispered back. ‘She was such a good secretary. He’s going to be lost without her.’
If still suspicious, George’s mum at least looked mollified.
‘Twenty-six,’ she said, looking at Peggy. ‘That’s how old I was when I was widowed.’ She was in danger of getting maudlin.
‘Well don’t say that t
oo loudly!’
‘No love, I won’t. But it will be nice to have a baby in the house. I’m looking forward to that. I’m glad they decided to come and live with me. I wouldn’t like to be on my own. Be better when we move, mind.’
I remembered that George’s house was in the line of the new bypass. They too had been offered a house at The Meadows. Sometimes it seems as if the whole town was moving up there. I was also doing my sums. If George’s dad died at Dunkirk when his mum was twenty-six, then she’d be, gosh only about forty-two. And I’d thought she was about sixty …
The head waiter was bustling towards us with a stand, which he placed alongside the table. Next, he came with a bucket full of ice and a bottle.
‘Your wine, sir,’ he said to Mr Brown.
‘Champagne!’
‘Well near enough,’ said Mr Brown. ‘It’s fizzy anyway.’
‘Oh, I never thought I’d drink champagne,’ said Peggy, already giggly. ‘Aren’t we grand!’
George’s mum just kept saying ‘Champagne, well I never.’
I caught sight of the label. Not champagne, Asti spumante. Oh well. The waiter brought those saucer-shaped champagne glasses and opened the bottle with a huge pop! We stood and drank a toast to the long health and happiness of Mr and Mrs Turnbull.
‘It’s bubbly!’ laughed Peggy. ‘They go up your nose! Oh isn’t this special!’
As we sipped the fizz – one bottle between seven of us – I reached across the table and picked up the cards and the telegrams and idly looked through them. Many of them featured intertwined hearts, pink and pretty and satiny, as if love were simple and straightforward, clean and uncomplicated.
I thought of Peggy and Henfield, the scene at Friars’ Mill, Amy who had killed herself, and Peggy who’d wanted to. I thought of Will, whom I loved, and of Billy who loved his children, and sort of loved Carol but who also wanted me.
Love hearts weren’t neat and pretty like a sugared sweet. No, they were like those hearts I’d seen soaking in the bowl at Carol’s – messy and bloody, staining the waters all around them.
Soon it was time for the newlyweds to rush and get their train. They were off to stay with Aunty Emily in London and do the sights. A bit different from the trip there that had been planned for Peggy just a few weeks ago.
Peggy and I were in the Ladies, washing our hands side by side. I looked at her reflection in the mirror. She looked pretty and pink. I wondered how much was due to happiness and how much to sherry and sparkling wine. She dried her hands on a slightly damp roller towel behind the door. With her back to me and avoiding the small mirror so she couldn’t even see my reflection, she said, ‘Thank you Rosie. Thank you for all you’ve done. For, well you know. And for the jacket. And everything really.’
I was standing there, hands in the air, waiting to dry them. ‘It’s been a nice day,’ I said. ‘Have you enjoyed it?’
‘Yes, I have. I really have. To think I’m in The Fleece drinking champagne with my husband! And to think … Well, to think it might have been different. Anyway, I just …’
‘Peggy!’ Mrs Brown was pushing her way through the outer door. ‘Get a move on, girl, or you’ll miss that blessed train!’
Peggy gave me a quick smile and leapt to do her mother’s bidding.
We saw them off at the station. George already had the confidence of a married man, dealing with tickets and luggage. Derek had tied a ‘Just Married’ sign to George’s suitcase and try as he might, George couldn’t undo all the many knots that Derek had tied so devilishly.
‘Give you something to do at bedtime!’ yelled Derek as the guard blew his whistle and the train started to pull out.
George and Peggy leant out of the window of their compartment and we all waved until they vanished in a cloud of steam.
‘Well,’ said Mrs Brown with the air of a job well done. ‘Let’s go home and have a proper cup of tea then, shall we?’
Chapter Twenty
I was standing in Boots looking glumly at the shelves waiting for super strength conditioning extra volume mousse to be invented … and lemon cuticle cream … and high definition lip liner … and summer glow body moisturiser … and lustrous length waterproof mascara … and smoky grey eyeshadow … and skin serum … and whitening toothpaste … and long-lasting luxury lipstick, and gloss, and concealer, and … oh … everything really.
‘Hi Rosie!’
I turned around to see Carol standing there clutching a package. ‘Home perm,’ she said. ‘Going round to do my mum’s for her.’
‘Oh right.’
‘How are you then, Rosie? Still enjoying The News?’
What do I say? Do I say, ‘Hello Carol I’m in love with your husband and I think he might fancy me’? or, ‘I’d really love it there, Carol, if I could just work with your husband all day, gaze into his eyes and get a bit too close to him as he explains something in the diary to me?’
No, you’re right, I didn’t.
‘Fine, fine.’
‘I heard Peggy got married to George.’
‘Yes, just a few days ago.’
‘Well, she’s a dark horse, isn’t she? They kept that quiet. Did you go to the wedding?’
‘Yes. It was low-key, you know, but very nice.’
I was torn. I longed to have a coffee with Carol, sit and gossip, tell her all the details, the way I would with Caz. And I wanted her take on it all too. Not that I would tell her the Henfield involvement. I couldn’t believe everyone would have been as po-faced about it as the Browns. Carol was good company, kind and funny … I wanted her as a friend.
And I wanted her husband. And if I felt that so strongly, how could I be friendly with Carol? She was standing smiling at me. She might have mousy hair and crooked teeth, but that was still Caz’s cheeky grin, and I missed her.
‘Got time for a coffee? Look – no kids!’
Well, why not?
I abandoned any hope of buying anything I wanted and followed Carol out of Boots. We slid into a booth at Silvino’s.
‘Come on then,’ said Carol, ‘tell me about the wedding. I didn’t even know Peggy was going out with George. She must be six or seven years older than him.’
‘Six.’
‘Well,’ she grinned, ‘he obviously knows what it’s all about then. Never had Peggy down as a cradle snatcher, still he’ll have plenty of energy for her. So tell me all about it. Did they have a do?’
‘Yes, at The Fleece.’
‘Oh very grand.’
So I told her about Peggy’s dress and jacket, and about the meal and the ‘champagne’.
‘Ooh,’ said Carol, hungrily. ‘There’s posh. When Billy and I got wed we just had sandwiches and cake at my mum’s, while Billy’s gran sat and looked as if there was a bad smell under her nose.’
‘Didn’t she approve?’
‘No, thought it was all my fault. But, as my dad said, it takes two to tango … Still it’s worked out OK and even Billy’s gran thinks I’m all right now, and she worships Libby, really spoils her.’
She spooned some of the froth from her coffee in its shallow Pyrex cup. ‘Have they gone on a honeymoon then?’
‘Yes, a few days in London. Peggy has an aunt who lives there, so they’ll see the sights, but they’re back tomorrow. George is in work on Monday.’
‘Where are they going to live?’
‘With George’s mum. I’m not sure where she lives now, but I know it’s in the line of the bypass, so they’ll all be moving up to The Meadows. It looks as if everyone will be up there.’
‘That’s good. I like Peggy. It’ll be nice having her near. Anyway … tada! I’ve finished the dress!’
The dress. The dress she was making to go to the mayor’s ball with Billy.
‘Oh great. Does it look good?’
‘Yes I’m pleased with it. In the end I had to take it up to my mum’s to finish it, I just couldn’t get the light in our house.’
The little dark house with no electricity and a s
mell of earth and damp.
‘Does Billy like it?’
‘He hasn’t seen it yet. I’ve decided he’s not going to see it until we go out. I’ve got it all worked out. My mum’s coming down to ours to babysit, but we’re going to go up there at teatime, so we can have baths and I can wash my hair and dry it properly, not like in our house with the tin tub in front of the fire. I’ll take Billy’s suit up there so he can come in from football and have a bath too and we can go out from my mum’s. See, all organised. I’m really looking forward to it.’
‘It should be a good evening.’
‘It’s a shame you can’t come, Rosie. They’ve got a proper dance orchestra and everything.’
‘Haven’t been invited. Don’t know the right people.’
‘And at the end apparently they have a great net of balloons that come down from the ceiling. It’s going to be lovely.’ Her eyes were shining. I thought of Caz. Caz would hate going to a mayor’s ball. Wild horses wouldn’t drag her there. But for Carol it was the height of sophistication, the social event of the year. I wanted her to enjoy it. I tried to forget that she was going with Billy and just hoped she would have a good time.
‘Oooh, it will be lovely when we’re up at The Meadows and can have our own bathroom. I shall have a bath every night, with lots of bubbles like a film star.’
I laughed.
‘What’s funny?’ asked Carol.
‘My friend Caz – the one who’s so like you. She loves relaxing in the bath, and the funny thing is, she switches the lights off and just lights scented candles around the edge of the bath.’
‘What’s the point of that if she’s got electric light?’
‘It’s more romantic.’
Carol snorted. ‘She should try it in the tub in front of the fire with a draught howling under the back door and mice scurrying past. That would be romance for her. Anyway, this won’t get the baby bathed, time I wasn’t here.’
She picked up her shopping bag.
‘Maybe Phil could get you an invite to the ball and you could both come with me and Billy? That would be good, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes, maybe,’ I said, but dismissed the thought instantly. In any case, I wanted to keep Phil at arm’s length, as a friend. I think he was beginning to get ideas.
The Accidental Time Traveller Page 23
