Sharon Griffiths - Time of My Life

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 3 d 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.

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?’