tried to remember what sort of clothes they wore in the 1950s. I thought of Grace Kelly in High Society … Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face. Or even Olivia Newton John in Grease. Oh yes. In my mind’s eye I was already jiving with John Travolta, his hand on my nipped-in waist while my skirt swished and swayed beguilingly …
To my deep disappointment, these clothes were not at all beguiling. In fact, they all reminded me of my old geography teacher. And I mean old geography teacher. There were a couple of heavy wool skirts, one of which had a matching jacket. Some cotton blouses, and cardigans, hand-knitted by the look of them. And a pair of trousers, Capri pants in heavy navy cotton.
There was a dressing gown that looked like my grandad’s. Oh and the underwear! The bras were made of white cotton and looked as though they were designed for nuns. I bet Grace Kelly never wore anything like those. Knickers too -white cotton. I don’t think I’d worn pants like those since I was about three years old. In fact, even at that age my underwear had more style. These were dreadful.
There was a serviceable, very serviceable, raincoat and a bright red jacket like a duffel coat. I quite liked that. It had a matching beret too. I tried them on and did a twirl in front of the rather blotchy wardrobe mirror. Then I hung the dressing gown in front of it. Just in case of cameras.
A very functional wash bag contained a toothbrush, a round tin of bright pink toothpaste, a face cloth, a bottle of White Rain shampoo for ‘normal’ hair, and some cold cream. And at the bottom was a handbag, nice leather but brown and boring. I opened it to find a funny little purse containing money. But not money I knew. There were some notes, orange ones that said ten shillings and green ones that said one pound. One pound notes – I thought they only had those in Scotland – also lots of coins, not like Euros, but big and heavy.
I kept the jacket on. It was so cold in there. Out of the window I could hear the sound of rushing water. There must be a river. I looked out, but the streetlights were so dim I could only see the faint outline of some trees and a bridge. The view could wait till morning. I presumed I would still be here in the morning. I wished I knew exactly what was going on. I felt very unsettled and a bit, quite a bit actually, lost.
I missed Will. I tried my phone again. I have a video on it of Will just walking down the street towards me. It’s wonderful because you can see he’s thinking of something else and then suddenly he sees me and then he has a great big grin. I play it a lot, especially when I miss him. And never missed him as much as in this strange place where I didn’t know what’s happening. But the phone was absolutely dead. Nothing.
There was a knock on the door. Mrs Brown. ‘Rosie, I’ve made a cup of tea. Or you can have cocoa if you like. Come downstairs and get warmed up.’
Cocoa! Such excitement, I thought as I went down into the kitchen. In the dim light, Mr Brown was sitting in the rocking chair, reading a copy of The News – the old broadsheet version, of course, very authentic. But there was someone else in there.
A small girl was sitting at the table. She was surrounded by exercise books. Judging by the dirty dishes near her, she’d also polished off the remains of the casserole and the rice pudding. She was wearing one of those old-fashioned pinafore dress things they had in the St Trinian’s films – a gymslip? – a very grubby school blouse and a stringy tie. Her mousy, greasy hair looked as though it had been hacked rather than cut. And she had specs, the ugliest specs I’ve ever seen and so cruel to give to a child.
But as she looked up at me, I realised she was older than I had first thought – probably about eleven or twelve, and that behind those horrid specs she had a measuring, challenging expression that was a bit disconcerting.
‘Are you the American?’ she asked.
‘I’m not American,’ I said, already weary with that assumption.
‘This is Janice,’ said Mr Brown. ‘She’s very clever, doing well at the grammar school and she comes here to do her homework.’
I must have looked a bit puzzled by this because Janice said simply, ‘I’ve got seven brothers. Two of them howl all the time.’
‘Her mum cleans the post office where Doreen works,’ said Mr Brown, ‘so she always comes here when she’s got homework to do. I used to be able to help her but I think she’s cleverer than me now, aren’t you, girl?’
With that Peggy came into the kitchen and to my surprise, gave the grubby little girl a big smile. Peggy looked really pretty when she smiled.
‘Hiya kid!’ she said. ‘How’s the French? Mrs Stace still giving you hell?’
‘Of course. We’ve got a test tomorrow.’ Janice looked worried. ‘Will you test me, Peggy, please? Perfect tense?’
‘I have given.’
‘ J’ai donné.’
‘He has finished.’
‘Il a fini.’
‘They have gone.’
‘Aha, that takes être! Ils sont allés.’
‘Well done,’ said Peggy.
‘Do you speak French, Rosie?’ asked Janice.
‘A bit,’ I said. ‘I did it for GCSE, but not like that.’
‘Janice is smashing at it,’ said Peggy amiably, almost proudly. ‘One day she’s going to go to France and she’ll need to know how to talk to them all, order her snails and frogs’ legs and wine.’
‘It would be wonderful to go to France,’ said Janice wistfully, ‘wonderful to hear people talking differently.’
‘Tell you what,’ said Peggy – she really seemed quite nice when she wasn’t talking to me – ‘you don’t need to do any more French, you know enough for today. Shall I wash your hair for you? You can use some of my new shampoo.’
‘Oh yes please, Peggy!’ said the little scruff, bundling her books into her satchel.
Soon she was on a stool, kneeling over the big white stone sink in the scullery, while Peggy shampooed her hair and rinsed it using a big enamel jug. She wrapped it in a rough kitchen towel and then combed it out for her quite gently and carefully, easing the comb through the tangles.
‘If you like, I’ll trim the fringe a bit for you,’ said Peggy and went to get her mother’s sewing scissors. She snipped away, looked at her handiwork a bit, turned Janice’s head this way and that and snipped a bit more. ‘There, see what that’s like when it dries.’
It was already starting to fluff up in the warmth of the range. It looked so much better, shinier. There was even a hint of red in the mousy strands.
‘Now now, Janice, Peggy, time to pack up.’ Mrs Brown had come into the kitchen and was getting a cloth out of the dresser drawer. ‘This is a kitchen not a hairdressers. I need that table for the breakfast things and it’s time you were at home and in bed. Here,’ she took a scarf out of a drawer and gave it to the girl, ‘put that over you. You don’t want to be walking the streets with wet hair, you’ll catch your death.’
‘Right-o, Mrs Brown,’ said Janice, taking one last look in the mirror before gathering up her satchel. She smiled hugely at Peggy. ‘It’s lovely, Peggy, really lovely. Thank you. See you tomorrow.’ She slid out of the back door, small and scruffy and still smelly too.
‘She can’t help it,’ said Mrs Brown, noticing my expression. ‘Terrible family. Father’s out of work half the time. Mother’s a willing little woman but has no idea really. All they seem able to do is make babies. There are seven boys and Janice, and two of the boys are simple. Still, Janice is bright and got into the grammar school, so let’s hope it helps get her somewhere. She deserves a chance, poor scrap. Right. Tea or cocoa?’
I had cocoa – for the first time since a Brownie sleep-over when I was about seven – said my goodnights and took it up to bed with me. There were too