The Time-Traveller's Choice

my disobedient heart

My disobedient heart lifted into my throat as I turned around.

"Hello, Charlie," I said.

"How's yourself today?" he said.

"I'm all right. What's down there?"

"Folks as wish to be left alone," said Charlie. He leaned against the china stall.

"I see."

"Some parts of Mile End ain't strickly respectable."

I looked at the children sitting on their doorstep. The little girl was rolling a cane hoop towards the wall opposite and catching it as it bounced back.

"I suppose you're right," I said. I hadn't really been tempted to venture down there; I knew all about alleyways and stranger danger.

"Here, let me walk you back to mum's."

"Aren't you busy?"

"Between deliveries. What've you been up to?"

"Buying knickers," I said, darting a look up to see how he'd react.

He looked down at me, part amused, part scandalised. "Have you now, odd 'un?"

"Mmhmm. And then I spoke to the woman at the Receiving Home about a job. I don't want to impose on your mother's generosity more than I already have."

"Pish," said Charlie, disregarding that sentiment. "Why is it that place interests you so much? Most try to think about it as little as possible."

"No reason," I said, tucking my hands into the long sleeves of the jumper. "Listen, do you know of a good place for me to stay?"

"What's wrong with where you are?" said Charlie.

I bit my lip.

"Once you're working, you can pay mum a little bit of rent. To be frank she'll be glad of the company with Herb in Ireland and Enid getting ready to be a mum herself."

"I'll ask Mrs. Lawrence about it this afternoon," I said, "but if she says no, you have to help me find somewhere else. Tonight."

"Cross my heart, I will, odd 'un." He reached out and clasped my upper arm. "See you at tea."

When I got back to Maplin Road and told Mrs. Lawrence about the Receiving Home, her response closely echoed Charlie's: "Now what are you wanting with that place?" she said.

For a moment I considered telling her I was from the future and I'd seen a baby who I was pretty sure would one day be my grandmother being given up to the orphanage and I was convinced that tracking down that baby's mother was the only way I could get back to my own time.

Instead, I said, "I thought they might have a job for me."

"If you say so, dearie," said Mrs. Lawrence.

"I also asked around the shops on Mile End Road." Lie. "I bumped into Charlie..."

"Did you, now?"

"He suggested that you might want to take a lodger. To help with the rent and expenses, and the like."

"Hark at him looking after his old mum." Mrs. Lawrence was engaged in wringing out bedding linens, but she managed to imbue the action with a certain meaningfulness.

"I told him that you wouldn't want that," I rushed on, "and that he should help me find somewhere else to live as soon as possible. You've already been so kind to me, Mrs. Lawrence. I couldn't bear to impose on you."

"Nonsense." She lifted up the sheet, then pegged it onto a clothesline strung across the kitchen. "If Charlie says it's so, it's so."

"That doesn't seem right," I said. "It's your house."