The Time-Traveller's Choice

we found a different world

The train rattled into the station at South Kensington and we jumped up and got out. I stood on the platform, enchanted. "It looks almost the same," I murmured, because the brick arches set into the walls and the green ironwork holding up the shelters was familiar to me from childhood trips to the Natural History Museum.

"Same as what?" said Charlie, leaning over my shoulder.

"Nothing," I said.

Up a few stairs through the ticket hall, and into a long shopping arcade and out onto the street. I looked around, then began to navigate us towards Brompton Road, which I recalled led towards Harrods.

"Sure you ain't been here before, odd' un?" said Charlie. "You seem mighty sure of where you is going."

"This way's good as any, ain't it?" I replied, grinning. The spectre of my mother reached backwards through the years and whispered in a pained tone in my ear: Isn't it, Emma. Ain't isn't a word.

We walked past the Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert museum. It was strange to see the familiar red brick and limestone, but unworn by ninety years of London pollution. A policeman stood on the intersection directing traffic.

A little while later, we were standing looking up at Harrods. Everything was bigger on this side of town. Mile End was still mostly rickety two-storey brown brick terraces. Knightsbridge towered over us, and crowded in around us. Hoardings proclaimed "Bargains here!". I kept close to Charlie's side.

In the East End, the road was full of pedestrians, men pushing barrows, trams, and rickety old lorries. Here, shiny black motorcars sparred with open-topped omnibuses to familiar locations: "Putney Bridge" and "Tottenham Court Road".

Men in light-coloured, pin striped suits mixed with beautifully dressed women wearing silk dresses that showed underneath their beautiful coats, gloves and hats. A group of them came towards us, and I sidled out of their way. They passed without acknowledgement.

"Here," Charlie said, "give me your arm."

I tucked my hand into his elbow.

"These folk ain't better'n us," he said, his cockney becoming pronounced.

I nodded, but in my bones I didn't believe it, because I could feel my shoes pinching and my underwear scratching, and my hand was bare of the one valuable thing I had owned: the bracelet that was now in the custody of Isaac Belifante. And even though I didn't come from this era, I could feel that my clothing was at least five years out of date and my hat not just cheap but gauche.

"Come on," I said, tugging Charlie with me, "let's go back."

"Already?" he said, trailing behind. "But we came all this way."

"I know, but I want to leave." There was a rock in my stomach threatening to climb into my throat. Somehow, in Knightsbridge, standing outside Harrods, I felt more lost and out of place than I ever had dodging trams and costermongers in Mile End.

Charlie hooked his hand in mine and swung me around. "This family of yourn in Durham," said Charlie, "are they rich, or what?"

"No," I said, then, "does it matter?"

"You don't talk or dress like any northerner I've ever seen come into London," he said, "and it bothers you, don't it, that you ain't done up like those fancy ladies we saw."

I shrugged. "Doesn't it bother you?"

"Naw, I'm used to it," said Charlie, releasing my hand and sticking his deep in his pockets. "They dress fine and have nice manners, but God judges us all the same in the end."