The Chronicles of Brendan Earle, Apprentice Mage.

Getting to Know You

Adam

So then it was Phoebe and me on our own. I wasn’t looking forward to this. There was no chance we’d sort things out faster by being here, so this was going to be a week of wasted time. I should’ve been overjoyed being back in Newcastle, but not in this time period. I couldn’t see me looking up old mates, and what else was I to do? A pint in the Cumberland Arms was out of the question.

And what to talk about with Phoebe for a week? There wasn’t a television or newspapers. I didn’t know the date closer than summer, 2007. Perhaps we could go into town and see if there was anything interesting at the cinema. Though probably she wouldn’t want to see anything I’d watch; she’d go for something more mainstream and teenager-y. I’d probably not be old enough to get in to anything serious. I could see me hanging out for a week in the library.

I had a mooch around the house and found a few dog-eared  paperbacks. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d read anything on paper and had a twinge of longing for my Slate. It had over a thousand books on it and enough of a charge left to let me read them all, but was very safe back in my hotel room. Anyway, Llewellyn seemed to be a great fan of Catherine Cookson, but I’m not, so I doubted I’d be getting reacquainted with paper books.

Mam’s two Mike Green desert photos were on the wall. ‘Dunes and Mist’ and ‘The Starting Line’. Simon had bought them back and given them as presents before Green became famous. The mist in the photo lay between the dunes like silk scarves on rumpled bedclothes, the foreground sharp and the background only vague outlines. Very much like my life now. In the bottom left corner was Green’s name, printed in pencil with the version number, 3/5. I found myself staring at it for a few seconds, then shook myself and went back to looking around.

There was also a huge collection of old-fashioned CDs. Granted, my mobile carried fifty times what was there, but it was attached to a belt on a body that I wasn’t in just now. The music reflected a wide variety of tastes – not all mine, oddly. There was everything from Sinatra to Butthole Surfers – couldn’t see that last being one of Llewellyn’s.  I found a CD player and was about to fire it up when I realised that Phoebe was still sitting in the kitchen, half asleep and staring at her tea cup.

“Why don’t you go and have a lie down. You look all in. Use the front bedroom, it’s the spare.”

“Uhm? How do you know?”

“Ah, well, this was our house before mam got remarried. I lived here till I was eight.”

She stared at me. “This is a real place?”

“It isn’t in the books?”

“No, well, I don’t think so. You see houses in the DIVs, but usually only the insides. I didn’t recognise anything coming.”

“Oh, well, I suppose I could give you a tour around, but after you’ve had a rest.”

“Yeah, I didn’t sleep very well last night and there was a lot of travelling to get here. I think I’m a bit jet-lagged.”

We went upstairs and found the house was as I remembered it. What had been my bedroom was just a plain room, which I was pleased about. Too many ghosts around already.  I remembered the days when dad was alive and we’d lived here. Then the two years after when he wasn’t. I’d hated living in the same house until the day we'd left it, and then I hadn't wanted to be torn away from the memories.

I dug out some bedding and Phoebe just crashed, asleep before her head touched the pillow. Back downstairs, I made coffee and had another look at the CD collection. Naturally enough, there was nothing contemporary. Shame, I wanted to listen to some Punks On Zimmerframes, or Random As 23 Tadpoles Wearing Sunglasses. Something I could shout along to. Nothing even slightly outside the time frame of the book – no Florence and the Machine, for example. Mind you, there were the Levellers, Pogues and AFI, all good melodious screaming. They’d do.