22. Mrs Glump’s Gin

THROUGH THE GATES OF TIME Part 22

THROUGH THE GATES OF TIME

22. Mrs Glump’s Gin

Oliver looked suddenly distraught as the tattily dressed urchin on the television asked for more.

He leapt to his feet and dashed around the room, frantically looking for a way out.

“What is it, Oliver?” asked an alarmed Roger.

“I must get out, mister, mus’ get out,” gabbled the boy, and as if guided by something other than his eyes he ran straight into the closed closet door.

Instead of falling unconscious to the floor he did the most remarkable thing imaginable: he seemed to be absorbed by it, vanishing as if some unknown force was sucking him through the actual wood of the door until all that was left of him was a pile of grubby clothes next to the back door, where May had put them waiting for morning before she dropped them in the waste bin outside.

They sat there for a long minute, gazing at the door, willing the boy to either find his own space in time, or come back to them. But nothing happened. There was no sign that Oliver Twist was any longer anywhen near them that Christmas day.

“He’s only gone and gone,” muttered Frodo when that long minute was over.

“I seem to be distributing our old clothing all over, what would you call it, Roger?”

“Time,” he replied, “you’ve provided any archaeologist who chances to come upon a pair of modern jeans in Victorian England with a few questions, and a headache.”

“They weren’t that modern,” Apple told him, “after all, I’d grown out of them.”

“The odd thing,” murmured Roger, “is we were watching an old film version of Oliver Twist on the telly when our Oliver Twist upped and ran away.”

“And it was in black and white,” pointed out May, “I wonder if that’s what his part of the world seemed to be like, all monochrome and dismal?”

“No matter,” said Roger decidedly, “I’m going to oil that lock until the key turns and then we’ll be safe from weird intrusions from the past for ever more.”

He disappeared into the kitchen and reappeared with an oil can. “Good job I keep this handy,” he remarked, “I wouldn’t be able to see it in the shed at this time of night.”

He jabbed the oil-can pipe into the keyhole on the door and squeezed its trigger, forcing a spray of oil into the lock.

“Will somebody hold this for me?” he asked, because the door had started to open, and as it opened into the room whilst his body weight was pressing it the other way, he might have thought that something odd was happening. Somebody or something was on the other side, pushing.

May added her weight to his, and still the door slid open inch by inch until it was definitely open more than just a crack.

“What’s going on here?” asked Roger, knowing that none of them was equipped to answer.

“You get out of ‘ere,” screeched Mrs Glump as she sat by a smoking open kitchen fire with a glass of something that looked suspiciously like gin in her hand.

“’Eaven an’ the good Lord ‘elp me,” she added when it was obvious that a man, a woman and two extremely smartly dressed children had materialised into her kitchen.

“Where are we, dad?” asked Frodo, looking around, “it’s a bit dirty in here.”

“Hey! Whose best kitchen are you callin’ dirty, you little tyke?” asked Mrs Glump, trying to pull herself into the standing position in order to challenge them, but the influence of more than the one glass of gin was getting in the way.

“Frodo!” hissed Apple “my teacher says you should never criticise people and their homes like that! She said that even the grubbiest, most filthy, people need at least some respect!”

“If Mr Glump weren’t dead and buried in the churchyard this twelve months he’d come in here with ‘is stick, yes he would, and couldn’t he wield that walkin’ stick! He’s given me bruises enough with it, the Lord forgive ‘im, an’ that’s no lie!” shouted Mrs Glump, “now be orf with you afore I do summat about you!”

“Mrs Glump is it?” asked Roger, picking the name out of the woman’s tirade, “we’re mighty sorry, we really are, imposing ourselves on you in your, er, lovely cosy kitchen. The trouble is, something’s happened and there we were watching the telly when we sort of found ourselves here, not knowing how. We’ll go away as soon as I can work out how!”

“Don’t you know, dad?” asked Apple, “you mean you’ve brought us here and can’t take us back home? I want to watch the rest of that film!”

“What fancy posh talk is that?” demanded Mrs Glump, “our Oliver was sayin’ as ‘e met posh fancy folk on his travels last week.”

“Your Oliver?” asked May, “the boy? Oliver Twist?”

“That’s ‘im! Mighty clean ‘e was when he got back from ‘is wanderings, I can tell you. If ‘is mother had been alive she’d have had a fit! An’ fancy blue pants, he ‘ad, never seen owt like ‘em before, not then an’ not since.”

“Oliver? Where is he, misses?” asked Apple, “he’s a sort of nice kid.”

“Where is ‘e now?” murmured Mrs Glump, I’ll tell you where ‘e is now, li’l lady. ‘E’s in the graveyard, that’s where ‘e is, watchin’ an’ waitin’ for ‘is ma to return. That’s what the silly sod’s doin’. Reckons she’ll be back afore Michaelmas, even though I tells ‘im she’s as dead as old meat and will never return this side o’ the last trumpet blasting us to pieces!”

“You mean, he’s here?” asked May.

“Not ‘ere, misses, are you deaf? I mean down by the graveyard, watchin’ an’ waitin’, an’ if I knows stuff ‘e’ll be waitin’ there till ‘e’s dust ‘isself. That’s it! Dust ‘isself. If my sister, ‘is ma, could see ‘im she’d be might proud o’ the daft little sod!”

“Where’s this graveyard?” asked May, “the poor little mite… he’ll be cold out there, dressed in rags.”

“You watch what you’re saying, you posh bint!” snapped Mrs Glump angrily, “I knows how to dress the kid! An’ it’s out there, through the door an’ you can’t miss it, cause it’s next to the church!”

“Come on, Roger,” hissed May.

“Hey! We need to think about getting home, not looking for a grieving kid in a Victorian graveyard!” he replied, but she gave him a look that he understood, and he shook his head.

“All right, but remember where we are because coming to this very spot has just got to be the way home,” he nodded, reluctantly, “The last thing I want is being trapped in Victorian England and ending up in a workhouse. We’ve seen enough of them from films on the telly.”

The he looked at Mrs Glump, who was pouring a refill into her glass from an enormous bottle she kept by her side whilst failing to stand up no matter how hard she tried.

“Come on, then,” he grumbled, “and by the look of it, it’s getting late.”

It was easy to open Mrs Glump’s door and easy to see the church with its stunted spire.

“Come on!” he hissed, “of all the daft things this is the daftest!”

“My teacher says,” began Apple, but thought better of finishing her sentence even though what he teacher said might have been really important in the scheme of things, because her teacher actually said that it’s best not to lose your way if you’re crossing a mighty desert. It was in a history lesson and concerned the discovery of a lonely skeleton once the wind had blown it free of sand.

© Peter Rogerson, 13.12.20