Time of My Life

‘He can’t help it,’ she said, gathering up her bag and scarf. ‘It’s them bloody Japs. They worked him almost to death in that prison camp. Before the war he was the loveliest, kindest man you could imagine. Now he gets these rages.’

‘Isn’t there some treatment he could have? Therapy? Counselling? Compensation? How on earth does his wife cope?’

I’d read all the articles on domestic violence, and written a fair few too. I knew the score and the helpline numbers.

Mrs Brown looked at me pityingly. ‘She’s just glad she’s got him back at all. And it’s not as bad as it was. It was fearful at first, like looking after a wounded animal. Now he’s much better, most of the time. But then something will start him off, something will remind him, and she has to sit with him and hold him and talk to him and keep him out of the children’s way. So I’ll just pop round to give her a hand and at least I’ll make sure the kids get a decent meal. You two can fend for yourselves. There’s some ham in the pantry and some cheese and I’ll pop a couple of potatoes in the oven for you so they should be baked when you get home. And there’s some of that treacle tart left.’

‘Right-o, Mum,’ said Peggy, ‘but I might be going out anyway.’

‘That’s nice, dear. In by ten o’clock, mind. You’ve got work tomorrow,’ said Mrs Brown, but she was already halfway out of the door before Peggy could say anything in reply.

I expected her to sound off. In by ten o’clock! Peggy was twenty-six, not sixteen for heaven’s sake. But she didn’t say anything. Staggering. On the other hand, if Peggy’s another competitor then maybe it was a test for her and she’s better at not overreacting than I am.

We arrived at The News offices still in silence, and as we got to the front door, both of us sort of stopped and took a deep breath before we went into the building. I glanced across at Peggy. There was a hint of a smile, a glimmer of recognition and fellow feeling, but not enough for me to ask.

I wasn’t sure about all this at all. If this was a reality TV programme then I should have had some rules, some instructions, some guidelines, some clue about what was going on. And if it was Narnia, then where was a helpful faun or a Mrs Beaver with buttered toast? Or an Aslan to make everything right?

I took a deep breath and went into the reporters’ room, bracing myself for seeing Will. I could cope. Of course I could cope. This was only a TV programme, for goodness’ sake. It wasn’t real life. As I hung my coat up, I took a quick look around, oh so casually, and when I came to his desk, I prepared myself, controlled my expression … but he wasn’t there. I let out a huge sigh. I didn’t know whether from relief or disappointment, but I’d been holding my breath so hard that my chest hurt.

Gordon was talking to the other reporters, Alan, Tony and Derek, allocating jobs.

‘Billy’s over in the district office today, chasing something up, so you can do his jobs,’ he was saying to Alan.

‘Anything for me?’ I asked, keeping a desk between me and Gordon. I was careful not to stand too near to him. Already he had a habit of getting even closer and ‘accidentally’ brushing against my bum or breasts. He didn’t smell too sweet either. Personal hygiene doesn’t seem to have been a big thing in the 1950s. I felt like hitting him, hard, but remembering I had to be all teeth and smiles, I had, so far, restrained myself.

He looked up at me as if wondering who the hell I was.

‘If she does all the shorts today, why doesn’t she do the Prettiest Village feature tomorrow?’ asked Marje quickly, lighting a cigarette. You only ever saw this woman through a cloud of cigarette smoke. ‘I’ve booked a photographer but I’ve got a lot on.’

Gordon looked at me again. ‘I suppose so,’ he said grudgingly. ‘If you’ve got other things to do, Marje. I suppose if she makes a mess of it, you can do it on Friday.’

The condescension of the man!

‘Right,’ I said, all brisk and businesslike. ‘What does this involve?’

‘You tell her, Marje,’ said Gordon and went back to his desk.

‘Well, now it’s spring,’ said Marje with a wry glance through the tiny grubby window to the rain outside, ‘it’s time to start our village feature. Simple idea, you know the sort of thing. Go along to one of the prettier villages, lots of lovely pictures and then maybe a few words with the oldest resident, squire, lady of the manor, vicar, that sort of thing. Anything newsworthy or interesting. Gets people buying The News and we might dig up a few stories for the rest of the paper while we’re at it. We’ll make a few contacts at least. You should be all right. The postman reckons it’s going to fair up tomorrow. I was going to start with Middle-ton Parva. You all right with that?’

‘Fine,’ I said. It wasn’t exactly cutting edge, but it was a lot more fun than Princess Margaret’s planned visit to the local regiment. There are worse assignments. ‘But how do I get there?’

‘You can team up with George and take the van. But Charlie’s out with it for most of today. So if you can just sort out some of those short pieces while you’re waiting. Or check in the files on Middleton Parva.’

‘No problem,’ I said, quite looking forward to a day out of the office. With that the door opened and an oldish woman came in carrying a long narrow wooden box full of brown envelopes. Everyone stood around her as she gave them out.

‘Rose Harford?’ she said, looking at me.

‘That’s me.’ And I went up to her, like a child going to Santa.

My present was a brown envelope full of money. I was getting paid for this, what a bonus. £8. 12s. 6d. to be precise. In my normal life that would buy a couple of coffees and a sandwich. Here it was meant to provide for a whole week. But judging by what I’d seen of prices, it would buy quite a lot. I put the money carefully away in my purse.

I’d just started my list of NIBs (News In Brief – mainly jumble sales, meetings and talks in the Literary and Philosophical societies), when one of the young messengers poked his head around the door.

‘Billy in?’ he asked.

‘No. He’s over in the district office. Why?’

‘Oh his missus is downstairs wanting him. Probably wanting his money more like. I’ll go and tell her she’ll have to get the shopping on tick.’

Will’s wife downstairs? An opportunity too good to miss.

‘No, it’s all right,’ I replied, before I realised what I was saying, getting up quickly and abandoning the Gilbert and Sullivan Society’s performance of Yeoman of the Guard in mid sentence, ‘I’ll pop down and tell her.’

‘Suit yourself,’ said the lad and walked off whistling.

My heart was banging as I clattered down the narrow crowded stairs. I stopped on the turn and hung on to the rickety banister to try and get my breathing under control. IN twothreefourfivesix OUT twothreefourfivesix. Will’s wife. Will’s wife. What would she be like? What sort of girl would make Will give up his freedom? What would she look like, sound like? IN twothreefourfivesix OUT twothreefourfivesix. It was no good. I hadn’t got time to breathe properly. I strode on down.

But, closer to the front office, I slowed down, my steps heavier. Did I really want to meet Will’s wife? Did I want to see who he’d chosen, who he had children – three children! – with? What would I say to her? How painful would it be? What sort of trick was this? How was I expected to play it? Too late, despite myself, I was pushing through the battered door. Whatever she was like, I had to know.

There were only two people in the scruffy reception area, with its old-fashioned heavy wooden counters and scuffed tiled floor – a woman and a small child. The woman was wearing a workaday brown coat. She had her back to me, leaning down to talk to the child, yet there was something very familiar about her. Something I recognised, something I knew almost as well as I knew myself. The hair was the wrong colour, the wrong style but … She turned around.

‘Caz!’

This time, I didn’t get the blank look I had had from Will. Instead there was a moment’s puzzlement and then Caz’s face lit up.‘Hello!’ she said. ‘Are you the American? I’ve heard about you. I’m Carol, Billy’s wife.’

Caz? Married to Will? Somewhere in the universe, someone was playing a very sick joke on me. And it couldn’t be Caz and Will, could it? The two people closest to me in the world wouldn’t do this to me, would they, not even as a joke, not even for a reality TV programme?

‘You? You’re really married to Will?’ As I asked it, I heard the catch in my voice. Were Will and Caz really in league against me?

‘Married to Billy. Yes ’fraid so. For eleven years and counting. Is he in?’

‘No, sorry. He’s had to go out to one of the other offices.’ How did I manage to answer so calmly and politely?

Eleven years? Eleven years? Will was still in school eleven years ago. Why was he married to Caz? Caz of all people. This had to be a wind-up. And if it was, it was a pretty sick one.

‘Oh well, never mind. It’s not important.’ She smiled and turned to leave.

‘Can I give him a message?’

I didn’t want her to go. I needed to keep her there, to talk to her. I needed to know more.

‘No, it’s all right.’ She hesitated. ‘Well yes, go on then. Tell him I’ve got a job. Next term, when this one,’ she indicated the little girl who was staring up at me with a shy smile and Caz’s bright inquisitive eyes, ‘starts school, I do too. I’m going to be a school cook. They told me today. Isn’t that grand?’

Her face was alight with happiness. This was Caz pretending to be delighted about being a school cook? Caz whose idea of sophisticated cooking was putting a bit of parsley on a ready meal? We needed to talk, away from the office, away from any cameras.

‘That’s brilliant!’ I said, entering into the game, for it had to be a game. ‘Why don’t we celebrate? Look, I’ve got half an hour to spare. Why don’t we go to Silvino’s? My treat? I’ve just been paid.’

This world might be pretend, but at least the coffee would be real. And I guessed Gordon wouldn’t miss me from the office for half an hour. Caz – in true Caz fashion – hesitated for less than a split second.

‘Oh yes, if you’ve got time,’ she said and turned to the little girl. ‘Well Libby, isn’t this turning out to be a good day?’

She sounded so like Caz, my Caz, that my heart sang. With Libby holding firmly on to Caz’s hand, we went across the Market Place to Silvino’s, squeezing past the women in their damp macs with bags of shopping and dripping umbrellas. The menu was strong on teacakes and buns and buttered toast, but the smell and the steam was of coffee, proper Italian coffee. And in among the noise of the steam, and the black-and-white-clad waitresses bustling back and forth between the crowded tables, was Silvino himself, I guessed, a tiny round beaming Italian in a long apron and a wide smile. Part of me just wanted to sit back and savour the normality of it, but there was something far more important to deal with …

‘Right,’ I said, once we’d ordered, and Caz was undoing Libby’s coat buttons for her. ‘Come on Caz, tell me what this is all about.’

‘What? The job? Well, it—’

‘No, not the job, you daft bat, this reality TV thing. Where are the cameras? What are the rules? Who else is in it? Who’s running it? Were you just dropped in it too? How do we get out when we want to?’

The smile faltered on Caz’s face for a moment. She sat back from the table, put a hand on Libby’s arm as if to protect her and looked at me, baffled and wary.

Then I noticed that just as Will didn’t look exactly the same as Will in this place, that Caz, or Carol, didn’t look quite like Caz either. Her hair was a different colour. Well that’s no surprise. Caz has been colouring hers for so long that not even she can remember what colour it was originally. But Caz’s hair is always glossy and shiny, this Carol’s hair looked a bit dull. To be honest, it looked as though it needed washing. Caz’s never looked like that. Even when she was ill, the first thing she did was wash her hair because she said it made her feel better.

Then her teeth. Caz has neat, straight, white teeth. This Carol had slightly crooked teeth. And this Carol had lines … the beginning of wrinkles around her eyes and on her forehead. And now she too was looking at me as if I were a stranger – and a slightly mad stranger at that.

Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure …

I put my head down. I felt utterly defeated.

‘I’m sorry. It’s just that you and Will, Billy, look exactly like my closest friends back home. And it’s such a shock to discover that maybe you’re not them after all.’

‘Oh you poor thing!’ said Carol, in such a Caz-like way that I was sure it must be her. ‘How awful, especially if you’re feeling homesick. It’s such a long way from America. Are they nice, these friends?’

‘The best, the absolute best.’

‘Well, let’s just hope Billy and I will do instead,’ she said in a wonderfully cheering, normal sort of a way. ‘Now come on, drink your coffee and have a bit of this teacake.’

She was treating me as though I were the same age as Libby, and for some reason, I suddenly began to feel better, especially when I noticed her eyeing my jacket. Very Caz that. Always keen on clothes. Whether she was Caz or Carol, I needed her company, a friend. I began to relax a little, though I wanted to ply her with a hundred questions – like Why are you married to Will? What’s he like as a husband? Do you really love him? Weren’t you young to have children? And please move along now, because I’m here and he’s mine …

The thought of Caz being married to Will was too huge and horrible to consider. They were good friends, of course they were, had been since they were in school. But married! If the two people closest to me in the whole world were married to each other, then where did that leave me? Squeezed out in the cold and very much alone.

Even if this were pretend, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit. At the very least the pair of them must have ganged up to play this trick on me. Thinking that about your two best friends is not a cheering thought.

Yet here was Caz, sipping her coffee, her eyes huge over the rim of the cup, looking just like she had so many times I’d sat with her before. No longer looking worried, she now seemed only concerned for me. Just as if it were me and Caz as we had always been. Maybe there were cameras in here too, and she knew. Maybe this time it was she who was waiting for a quiet opportunity to talk to me and hatch a plot. In the meantime, we would just enjoy the coffee.

It was so what I wanted – to pretend it was just me and Caz having a coffee, like normal. I wanted to forget all this strange stuff that was happening, if only for a moment. So I relaxed and pretended. It was surprisingly easy.

‘Oh look,’ I said, with a mouthful of teacake, ‘they’ve got music here tomorrow night.’

‘Music?’

On the wall was a handwritten notice. ‘Saturday night at Silvino’s. The Skiffle Cats!’

‘I’d heard he was opening up in the evenings to give it a go.’

‘Give what a go?’

‘The skiffle groups. Have you been in the back room?’

‘No, what back room?’

‘There’s another room that you get to from the side alley. Silvino’s got a juke box in there. All the kids go in there to listen to records in the evenings at weekends.’

‘Will you go and see The Skiffle Cats?’

Carol laughed.

‘No, that’s for kids, not people like me. They haven’t even got proper instruments. Just a washboard and a bit of string on a broom handle. No, I tell a lie, I think one of them might have a guitar. I spend enough time with my washboard as it is, without going out at night to watch someone else scrubbing away. But I like to hear a bit of decent music sometimes.’ She looked wistful. ‘I like the juke box. Tell you what’ – and again she sounded just like Caz – ‘I’ll be in town for the market on Saturday. Will you be in town too? I could meet you, say at the cross at eleven-ish and we could get what we want and then go in the back with the kids for a coffee and some music. What do you say?’

‘Yes, great. Why not?’

‘Well that’s settled!’ said Caz/Carol, then she turned to Libby and said, ‘Now we’d better go and do some shopping, otherwise none of us will eat tonight. See you Saturday, Rosie.’

She did up Libby’s coat buttons again, took her hand and manoeuvred through the crowded tables. As they went, Libby turned around and gave a quick smile. She was the image of her mother.

I paid the bill (leaving 3d tip, how confident is that?) and dashed back to the office, teetering between utter gloom and a strange almost-happiness. The thought of shopping with Caz/Carol made me feel more cheerful than I’d done ever since I’d got here. The thought that she was married to Will just seemed so bizarre that I could hardly accept it. It had to be a joke or a trick. Hadn’t it? Maybe I’d find out more on Saturday. That was obviously what she was thinking. And even though she was making out that she didn’t know me, she was still like my friend Caz. At least she was friendly and chatty, not like Will. But I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. Maybe she was trying to lull me into a false sense of security. Maybe this was even more devious …

Will/Billy didn’t come back to the office at the end of the day. Every time the door opened and anyone came into the office, I geared myself up to see him, preparing my calm face while the blood raced around my system and pounded behind my eyes. Then every time it wasn’t him, I slumped again. God knows what all this was doing to my stress levels.

In the end, when it was clear he wasn’t going to be coming back, I went home early for my ham and baked potato. Janice was there again later. I couldn’t help her with her homework – physics – but she asked lots of questions about newspapers.

I still couldn’t believe that Caz was married to Will. That was such a sadistic trick by the organisers. I couldn’t believe that they would have agreed to that. I remembered the silly feeling I had occasionally when I was a bit jealous of their shared past, but they wouldn’t do this. Surely not.

But if I took it at face value, at least Caz was here too and prepared to be friendly. That was something. Not much, admittedly. But right now it was all I had.

Chapter Six

Middleton Parva was a separate village. Amazing. I just thought of it as the bit by the ring road where the new B&Q and Tesco were. But we went out of town, past fields and off the main road and down a country lane to get to it. George’s driving was erratic to say the least.

‘Hey hang on. You nearly had us in the ditch there! You’re on the wrong side of the road!’

‘Sorry!’ yelled George. ‘Habit. Think I’m in Germany still.’

‘Germany?’

‘Yes. That’s where I learnt to drive, when I was doing my national service in the army. On tanks, so the van took some getting used to.’

‘You were in the army?’

Honestly, he didn’t look old enough.

‘How old are you, George?’

‘Twenty.’

‘Did you break any of the Fräuleins’ hearts?’

‘No,’ grinned George – and bless him, he blushed – ‘we didn’t do much of that sort of fraternising. Plenty of drinking though! Those Germans know how to drink.’

Somehow, we got to Middleton Parva. And as we did, so the sun came out, just as Marje’s postman had said it would. It was really pretty. There was a proper village green with trees, a couple of little shops, a very attractive church, which I’d never noticed before, probably because it’s hidden behind B&Q. This couldn’t be a film set, could it? This was something else. Something much bigger. But quite what, I didn’t want to think about just yet. Too scary. Much too scary. My skin went cold and clammy as I tried to think about it. No. Easier to get on with work.

While George went off to scout for pictures, I went to the post office and struck gold straightaway. The postmistress’s family had been running the place since the days when mail came with the stagecoach, so that was a nice easy story to write up. Then I found the vicar, and we did pretty pictures of the church and talked about its history and looked at a few interesting graves.

‘What now?’ asked George.

‘The lady from the post office said the pub was run by a cockney, a chap who came here as an evacuee during the war. He must have liked it to stay. No doubt he’ll have a tale to tell. Shall we?’

‘A pub will do me fine. We’ll get a drink while we’re there. But which one?’

There were two pubs on either side of the green. One, the Royal Oak, was low and squat and old-fashioned. It had small windows, and beams that made it look as though it had grown up out of the ground and would return to it given half a chance. The other, the Rising Sun, was a big flash newer sort of place with a car park. It had beams too, but you could tell they weren’t very old. There was a sign in the window. I went closer to read it.

‘No Gypsies! No Irish!’ it said.

I stepped back, shocked.

‘Can they really say that?’

‘Yes, of course. The fair’s been here recently, that’s what that’s all about. They don’t want gyppos upsetting their posh customers. Is this the pub we want?’

‘No, thank heavens. We want the Royal Oak.’

We went across the green and in through the tiny low door of the pub. It had no signs in its window. Inside there were flagged floors and a small log fire. Two old men, smoking pipes, were playing dominoes. They looked up when we went in, ‘Afternoon,’ they said, and went back to their game.

Since we’d walked in through the door, I’d been holding my breath. I was waiting for someone to shout at me, or say they couldn’t serve me, accuse me of being a tart. Instead, the cheerful young landlord was saying, ‘Right sir, and what can I get you?’

‘Pint of bitter for me please,’ said George.

‘And for the lady?’

I hesitated. I could hardly believe I was actually going to get a drink at last. But I didn’t know what to ask for, what to choose. Apart from the beer pumps, the stock on the shelves looked pretty limited. I could see gin and whisky and lots of bottles of Mackeson and Guinness. An advert on the wall showed flying toucans, watched by some RAF types. ‘Lovely day for a Guinness’ said the slogan. But perhaps not.

‘No vodka, I suppose?’ I laughed, as if I were making a joke.

‘No, this is Middleton not Moscow, miss.’

‘Sorry, I don’t know what to have.’

‘She’s American,’ said George in explanation.

‘Right darling. Why not have a shandy, a lot of ladies like that. Or a drop of local cider?’

‘Cider. That sounds fine. Yes please.’

He disappeared for a moment and came back with a large enamel jug. He placed a half-pint glass on the counter about a yard away and lifted the jug. Cider poured from it in a long arc and fell, perfectly on target, into the glass. It was neatly done.

I took a sip. ‘Cheers!’ I said and nearly choked. ‘God this is strong! What’s in it?’

‘Apples, mostly,’ said the landlord, ‘and a few dead rats of course.’

I trusted he was joking, but boy was that cider good. It hit the spot wonderfully. I remembered I’d left my Oxo tin at the office.

‘Any food on? Sandwiches?’

‘The missus can make you a sandwich if you like. Ham or cheese?’

We both chose ham and while the missus was making them, I told the landlord why we’d come. He was happy to talk, a good utterer, and he spoke in quotes. Easy peasy George did a nice picture of him leaning on the bar, and by the time the sandwiches came, we’d just about finished, leaving Ray, the landlord, to serve his other customers.

George and I took our sandwiches – and a second drink – over to a table by the tiny window. The sandwiches were brilliant. Proper thick bread with black crusts, masses of butter (Diet? What diet?) and chunks of delicious home-cooked ham. Real food. But now we were just sitting down and not actually working or talking about work, I noticed George looked a bit uneasy. It took a while to dawn on me that sitting in a bar alone with an older woman was clearly something he wasn’t used to.