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Authors: Ali McNamara
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years.’
‘Have they?’ Ellie asks absentmindedly, as she pores over the pages again. ‘Maybe this is the book me mam uses, too. Can’t say I remember.’
We arrive back home, quickly get changed out of our work gear and make sandwiches again. Ellie is keen to get on with her evening’s baking, and doesn’t want the tiny kitchen in our little flat to be congested with mundane stuff like pots and pans and plates from making a proper dinner. I don’t actually think Ellie and I ever really cook that much for ourselves anyway, which is why this idea of hers is a bit worrying.
While Ellie gets busy with her cakes, I go into the little lounge and flick between the two channels we have on our black and white TV. Not with a remote control, though – I have to press buttons on the TV itself! Ellie’s right; there isn’t much on, and the picture quality is pretty dire. I try and watch a news report about the Beatlemania that’s sweeping the nation, and I smile as I watch the screaming, hysterical girls, going mad for the Fab Four. What have you guys started? I ask them through the screen, as I think about all the boy bands that will be screamed at in the future by young girls at concerts and at airports: they have you to thank for this. Then I switch the TV off and take a look through the pile of records that sit next to a suitcase on the sideboard.
Golly, what a choice! Cliff Richard, the Beach Boys, Elvis Presley – there’s even a Doris Day LP. I sigh. It’s a toss up between Elvis and the Beatles, but I plump for the Fab Four – really they’re the only thing worth listening to in this collection. And for me that’s really saying something. Ellie has quite a few Beatles records to choose from; lots of singles, but only the one album,
Please Please Me
. I wonder why this is, then suddenly realise it’s because we’re in November 1963, and they’ve only released one album up until now.
‘Ellie,’ I call through to the kitchen, ‘where has the record player gone?’
‘What do you mean?’ Ellie asks, sounding flustered as she pokes her head around the door. There’s flour on her nose and cheek. ‘It’s right where it always is, on the sideboard next to the records. Stop messing around with me, Jo-Jo, I haven’t got time for this tonight.’
She disappears back into the kitchen, while I look at the thing that looks like a small suitcase sitting next to the records. Is this the record player? I wonder, gently lifting up the lid – and sure enough, inside the case there is a fully functioning record player with a turntable, needle and arm.
This is actually quite a cool little gadget, I think as I attempt to load a record on to the turntable; in a way it could actually be the prototype for the first iPod – it’s portable music!
I smile to myself as the arm of the record player drops into the groove of the record and a song begins to play. If only you knew what’s to come for you all, I think, as familiar Beatles’ songs such as ‘Love Me Do’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and ‘Do You Want to Know a Secret?’ fill the room. I find myself humming and then singing along to each one as they remind me of my parents and all the times spent listening to the Beatles with them, either recently or as a child.
The Ellie of 2013 had told me on the phone the day I got hit by the car that I should speak to my mother, and I’d foolishly said there was plenty of time. But what if I never got a chance to speak to my parents again? What if I’m stuck here in 1963 for ever, except it won’t be for ever, will it? My life will continue from this point onwards, because I’m now living in a different timeline. That’s what this must be, an alternative lifetime running parallel to my own back in 2013. How else can I explain what’s going on right now if this isn’t a dream? I wonder what’s happened to the other me back in 2013. Am I lying injured in a hospital somewhere, or am I missing altogether
‘Have they?’ Ellie asks absentmindedly, as she pores over the pages again. ‘Maybe this is the book me mam uses, too. Can’t say I remember.’
We arrive back home, quickly get changed out of our work gear and make sandwiches again. Ellie is keen to get on with her evening’s baking, and doesn’t want the tiny kitchen in our little flat to be congested with mundane stuff like pots and pans and plates from making a proper dinner. I don’t actually think Ellie and I ever really cook that much for ourselves anyway, which is why this idea of hers is a bit worrying.
While Ellie gets busy with her cakes, I go into the little lounge and flick between the two channels we have on our black and white TV. Not with a remote control, though – I have to press buttons on the TV itself! Ellie’s right; there isn’t much on, and the picture quality is pretty dire. I try and watch a news report about the Beatlemania that’s sweeping the nation, and I smile as I watch the screaming, hysterical girls, going mad for the Fab Four. What have you guys started? I ask them through the screen, as I think about all the boy bands that will be screamed at in the future by young girls at concerts and at airports: they have you to thank for this. Then I switch the TV off and take a look through the pile of records that sit next to a suitcase on the sideboard.
Golly, what a choice! Cliff Richard, the Beach Boys, Elvis Presley – there’s even a Doris Day LP. I sigh. It’s a toss up between Elvis and the Beatles, but I plump for the Fab Four – really they’re the only thing worth listening to in this collection. And for me that’s really saying something. Ellie has quite a few Beatles records to choose from; lots of singles, but only the one album,
Please Please Me
. I wonder why this is, then suddenly realise it’s because we’re in November 1963, and they’ve only released one album up until now.
‘Ellie,’ I call through to the kitchen, ‘where has the record player gone?’
‘What do you mean?’ Ellie asks, sounding flustered as she pokes her head around the door. There’s flour on her nose and cheek. ‘It’s right where it always is, on the sideboard next to the records. Stop messing around with me, Jo-Jo, I haven’t got time for this tonight.’
She disappears back into the kitchen, while I look at the thing that looks like a small suitcase sitting next to the records. Is this the record player? I wonder, gently lifting up the lid – and sure enough, inside the case there is a fully functioning record player with a turntable, needle and arm.
This is actually quite a cool little gadget, I think as I attempt to load a record on to the turntable; in a way it could actually be the prototype for the first iPod – it’s portable music!
I smile to myself as the arm of the record player drops into the groove of the record and a song begins to play. If only you knew what’s to come for you all, I think, as familiar Beatles’ songs such as ‘Love Me Do’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and ‘Do You Want to Know a Secret?’ fill the room. I find myself humming and then singing along to each one as they remind me of my parents and all the times spent listening to the Beatles with them, either recently or as a child.
The Ellie of 2013 had told me on the phone the day I got hit by the car that I should speak to my mother, and I’d foolishly said there was plenty of time. But what if I never got a chance to speak to my parents again? What if I’m stuck here in 1963 for ever, except it won’t be for ever, will it? My life will continue from this point onwards, because I’m now living in a different timeline. That’s what this must be, an alternative lifetime running parallel to my own back in 2013. How else can I explain what’s going on right now if this isn’t a dream? I wonder what’s happened to the other me back in 2013. Am I lying injured in a hospital somewhere, or am I missing altogether
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