Sharon Griffiths - Time of My Life

‘Do I?’

The Browns all had quite strong local accents. I didn’t think I had much of any sort of accent really. I wished they didn’t keep thinking I was American.

I offered to help with the washing up, but Mrs Brown was adamant.

‘No, Frank will help me tonight, for a change. You two girls go and watch the television.’ That sounded like a good idea. A bit of goofing out in front of the box was just what I needed. Some chance. The TV was a huge box affair with a tiny little screen showing a programme about ballroom dancing. It was nothing like Strictly Come Dancing . Somewhere there were a lot of tiny grey figures in grey dresses and grey suits waltzing across a grey ballroom.

Of course, they didn’t have colour TV in the 1950s.

‘Anything on any of the other channels?’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Peggy.

Of course, they wouldn’t have Sky. But ITV, Channel 4?

‘This is television. There’s only this one.’

‘Haven’t you got ITV yet?’

‘The one with adverts?’

‘Yes, the one with adverts.’

‘They’ve got it in London, but we haven’t.’

Right.

I looked around the room, trying to spot where the cameras were. There were a couple of pictures on the wall, and they looked innocent enough, but the mirror above the fireplace – that could definitely be a two-way job with a camera on the other side. I looked straight at it and smiled – winningly, I hoped. Mrs Brown came in and picked up a big bag from behind the armchair and took out some knitting. This was clearly going to be a riveting evening.

‘If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to sort myself out,’ I said.

‘Of course, dear. What was I thinking of?’ said Mrs Brown. ‘Peggy, take Rosie up to her room, will you please, pet?’

Peggy clearly didn’t want to be dragged away from the grey delights of television, but, sighing heavily, she led me up the narrow dark stairs, along a narrow dark landing, up a few more steps, to a small, icy cold room. It had been quite nice in front of the fire in the sitting room, toasting my toes, but once you went out of that room, the temperature plummeted.

‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘It’s really my brother Stephen’s room, but he’s in Cyprus at the moment.’

‘Oh, lucky him,’ I said, thinking of bars and beaches and all that clubbing.

She stared at me as if I were mad. ‘Two soldiers were killed there last week.’

‘Is he a soldier then?’

‘Doing his national service, isn’t he?’ she said and left me to it.

It was a bleak little room. Lino on the floor and a rug at the side of a narrow bed with a shiny green quilt, a chair, wardrobe, a bookcase with lots of Biggles books and football annuals, and a pile of football programmes. There was a trophy of a cricketer and some model planes, and that was about it. The only clothes in the wardrobe were a school blazer and a few old jumpers. Our Stephen was hardly a style icon, unless he’d taken all his possessions with him.

I looked around for cameras. Nothing obvious. Would they give us privacy in our bedrooms? Surely they would. But they didn’t in the Big Brother house, did they? I looked around again. If there was a camera here, it had to be in the cricket trophy, I decided. Too obvious. Or maybe the model planes … I picked them up and put them in the wardrobe and shut the door. Then I picked up the Biggles books and put those in there too. That felt a bit safer. Now I could look in that trunk beneath the window.

A proper old-fashioned trunk, and on it were my initials RJH – Rose Jane Harford. I lifted up the lid. Clothes! So this is what I was to wear. I rummaged through them excitedly. Oh I do love clothes.

I 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.