The Bermuda Triangle

Chapter 3

“Rise and shine!”

Rose was awakened sharply by her mother’s voice. She stirred, and groaned as she heard the sound of the curtains being yanked open. Dull sunlight flooded the room, and Rose squinted, giving her eyes time to adjust.

“What time is it?” she asked blearily.

“Half-past ten. You looked so peaceful, I thought I’d let you sleep.”

There was something different about her mother’s voice… a little higher in pitch.

“Mum…?” she began.

“Mum?” Jackie laughed. “Don’t be daft! Remember where you are? Oh, you’re not expected back home, are you?”

Rose suddenly remembered why she was on the couch, and realised that this was indeed her mother, but a version of her from this time period. Boy, this was certainly a Back to the Future moment.

“Um, no. No, I’m not. They’re expecting me any time, really.”

“Oh good. Wouldn’t want them wondering where you are.”

No chance of that, Rose thought. Aloud she said, “No, they won’t be.”

“Good. Look, I can’t thank you enough for last night…”

“Oh, hey, don’t worry about it…”

“No, seriously, I don’t know what I would’ve done without you. You’re a lifesaver. I think if you hadn’t shown up, I’d have had the police banging on the door telling me to shut my kid up.”

“Oh, don’t let that Arthur Utterson get to you,” Rose advised.

“Oh, he usually doesn’t,” Jackie said quickly. “I guess I was just low last night. Damn, I promised myself I’d never let anyone see me like that. I mean, I try to do a good job with Rose but…”

Rose gave Jackie a look of support. “I’m sure you are. I know it can be difficult sometimes, especially when they’re that age.”

“That’s good of you to say,” Jackie said, clearly touched by Rose’s words. “D’you know what? I barely know anything about you and yet I feel completely at ease around you. It’s like I’ve known you all my life.”

Boy, this was getting strange, Rose considered. It was a bizarre thing to say, considering that Jackie had really only known her for a few minutes in all, and they’d actually exchanged very few words. She mustered a smile and a weak, “thanks.”

“No, I mean it. Do you fancy going for a coffee somewhere, once I drop Rose off at nursery?”

There was sweetness about the way Jackie spoke that betrayed her loneliness, and against her better judgement Rose somehow felt compelled to accept the invitation.

“Yeah, sounds good,” she replied with another smile.

“Great. Well, the bathroom’s yours, feel free to have a bath or a shower while I’m gone.”

“Thanks, I will.” She had nothing but the clothes she was wearing, and would have to change back into them afterwards, but having slept in them she was grateful for the chance to freshen up.

“Right, well I've got a couple of things to do, so I’ll be half-an-hour or so then we’ll grab a coffee and you can get some breakfast.”

“Alright.”

“Right, well, see you later. Ta-ra!”

With that, Jackie collected her young daughter from her room and left. Rose quickly made eye-contact with her younger self, as little Rose was carried over her mother’s shoulder out of the front door. She gave the child a wide smile, and a shiver passed through her as the girl returned it. The front door shut firmly, and Rose was left to ponder whether her mother’s unwavering hospitality to a complete stranger was down to her youthful naiveté in this time period, or if it was somehow linked to the inexplicable connection that the woman felt towards her.

It was useless to speculate, she mused. The simple fact was that Jackie had already grown attached to her, and that could be a problem if her mother were to remember her as ‘Rachel’ and make the connection at some point in the future. Not that it would really matter, of course, if the realisation were to hit Jackie after Rose’s departure with the Doctor in 2005. After all, it couldn’t do any harm given that Jackie was destined to learn the truth about Rose’s exploits with the Time Lord.

Damn it, where the hell is he?

She sighed, and returned to thinking about Jackie’s reaction to her. It had been in stark contrast to the way she had treated her upon their meeting in 1987, when Rose had arrived at the church with Pete. Jackie had taken her to be some dumb blonde that her husband had been playing around with and unleashed her bolshy side. What a difference it had made for Jackie to now meet her under different circumstances.

She stretched out her arms and yawned, rubbed her eyes then stood up and made her way to the bathroom. Locking the door out of habit despite being alone in the flat, she undressed and draped her clothes over a metal towel rail (that had long since fallen off the wall by her time) before stepping into the bath. She spent a couple of minutes trying in vain to get the water to the right temperature, before settling for a lukewarm shower.

Stepping out of the bath she wrapped a clean towel around herself, crossed to the sink, above which was a cabinet mounted on the wall, and studied her reflection in the mirrored doors. This is too surreal, she thought. Out of nosy curiosity she opened the cabinet and took a look inside. Something towards the back of the space caught her eye, a small bottle of pills, obviously prescription drugs of some kind. She picked it up and read the label. "Fluoxetine", she read aloud. It wasn't a name she recognised, but a shiver passed through her as she recognised the trade name on the opposite side of the label; Prozac.

She's on antidepressants... Rose realised, and she sighed as it occurred to her that she shouldn't really be surprised. She put the bottle back where she had found it - clearly far out of reach of her younger self - and closed the cabinet.

Putting the thought out of her mind, she went to Jackie's bedroom and used her hair-dryer. She decided that there wouldn't be any harm in borrowing some underwear from Jackie's top drawer. She would of course chuck them in the wash pile for the next spin. She suddenly wondered why she had almost subconsciously assumed that she would be staying here for a while.

When Jackie returned at around 11:15, Rose mentioned the shower problem to her.

“Oh, sorry darling,” she replied with a slightly embarrassed look on her face, “it’s been like that for a while. I keep banging on to the council…”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Rose said quickly, cutting her off, “it wasn’t cold, cold. It’s fine. Cheers for letting me use it.”

“Oh, anytime,” she replied, sounding a little relieved that Rose had spared her the indignity.

Rose had changed back into the clothes she had been wearing upon her arrival, which now felt a little uncomfortable against her refreshed skin, and looked creased to oblivion.

“Oh, it’s too bad I didn’t get back sooner, I could’ve lent you a fresh pair of knickers!” Jackie said with a hearty laugh.

Rose laughed weakly and cleared her throat. “How was Rose this morning?”

“Oh, she was fine,” Jackie replied, not entirely convincingly. “Got a bit tearful again when I had to leave her but she soon calmed down.”

Rose nodded.

“Right, come on then,” said Jackie, “there’s a little café on the corner. They do great little Apple Pies. I’ll take you there and you can tell me all about yourself!”

Jackie’s enthusiasm would have been infectious if Rose hadn’t been feeling so nervous about where the situation was heading. She mustered up a smile and replied wryly; “Sounds like fun…”
* * * *

“I was just passing. That was, like, really good luck.”

As they walked, Rose had been telling Jackie how she had come to pass her doorstep last night. This was testing her improvisational skills to the limit, especially considering that she had none. Jackie had pointed out that the Costellos lived two floors down from number 48.

“Um, yeah,” she had said, “I was on my way to get a taxi home, and… I realised, um… that I’d left my… lipstick at Shareen’s, I mean Mina’s.”

“Isn’t Shareen her little girl’s name?”

“Yeah… silly me! Um… yeah, so anyway I got back in the lift and I… pressed the wrong button, and ended up on your floor when I heard you and Mr. Utterson arguing.”

Jackie seemed to buy her explanation. “Wasn’t much of an argument,” she said. “You did most of the arguing for me.”

Rose didn’t really know what to say. After a moment she managed, “You’ll give him a good bollocking one of these days.”

“The only thing I’d like to give him is a black eye.”

Rose giggled.

“Here we are,” Jackie said as they entered the café. “Take a seat, I’ll get them in. What do you want?”

Having no money, Rose couldn’t argue. Besides, she knew how stubborn her mother could be. She likely wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer anyway. “Cheers,” she said, “just a coffee please.”

“You need to eat too, darling. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Sorry, I should've thought to offer you some cereal or something. Try one of their pies.”

Rose sighed. She had been trying to save her mum a couple of quid. “Okay, go on then. Thanks.”

Rose watched as Jackie ordered the food and drinks, fumbled about in her purse for the right money, and started to panic about not being able to scrounge even a fiver. The woman behind the counter gave her a withering look, suggesting that she had encountered Jackie, and this situation, before. Rose was about to intervene and tell her to forget the pie when Jackie finally found enough change to cover the cost.

Two minutes later, Jackie joined her at a table. “So, Rachel…?” Jackie said, as if fishing for a last name.

“Um… Green,” Rose replied, remembering Jennifer Aniston’s character in Friends, which wouldn’t begin for another five years.

“Rachel Green,” Jackie repeated, “that’s pretty.”

“Thanks.”

“So what do you do, Rachel?”

“I’m a student.”

“Oh yeah? Where’s that then? Cardiff?”

“Er, yeah, Cardif Uni. I’m studying Science and History,” she said, deciding to pre-empt the obvious next question.

“Oh right!”

“Yeah. Charles Dickens, the Blitz, Queen Victoria… all the great periods.”

Jackie looked slightly confused by Rose’s odd combination of examples, but just nodded and gave a slight chuckle.

“Where did you go to school?”

“Oak Park, and before that Jericho Street Juniors,” Rose replied truthfully. There was no point in lying about that, after all.

“Oh, Jericho Street, that’s where I’m hoping to send Rose!”

“Good choice, well done,” Rose said with a big smile.

“I was never any good at school,” she said with genuine regret. “Never applied myself, never paid attention.”

“What do you do?” Rose asked. She knew the answer, of course, but hoped to shift the focus away from her.

“I’m a hairdresser,” she said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, from home. I also work a couple of shifts a week at Burton's, the corner shop. It’s not much but it pays the bills. Just.”

Rose knew that Jackie had taken a variety of odd jobs to make ends meet when she herself had been very young, including taking part in a psychology study into dreaming at King's College, which involved her simply sleeping for £10 an hour! 'Money for old rope', Jackie had called it. Nice work if you can get it... Rose had always thought.

“I’ve got a client coming later,” Jackie continued. “That’s why I’ve dropped Rose at nursery. Well, that and because it gives me a couple of hours peace. God, I can’t wait ‘til she starts school.”

Jackie’s words stung Rose, and she visibly flinched.

“Oh, I’m sure she’s not that much of a handful…?”

Jackie laughed. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love her to death, but… sometimes it’s just a little difficult to cope, you know?”

“I can only imagine,” she said after a moment. “Well, I think you’re doing a great job.”

“Huh!” Jackie huffed. “What makes you say that? You seem to be able to control her better than I can.”

“I just got lucky, that’s all. She’d probably just tired herself out. She was bound to have calmed down eventually.”

“By about 6am, yeah!”

Rose smiled. “Is she like that a lot?”

Jackie’s expression grew more serious. She nodded. “Yes. Sometimes, she just won’t stop screaming. She chucks her toys across her room, throws her dummy away when I give it to her…”

Rose remembered that Jackie would continue to fob her off with a dummy until she was about four, which had resulted in her developing a slight overbite – something for which she had never quite forgiven her mother. She felt a pang of guilt for putting her mother through such a terrible time, but then reminded herself that it had not been her fault. She was not accountable for the actions of the two-year-old girl that she had once been.

“D’you think she misses her dad?”

Jackie seemed to pause for thought, and tears began to form in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Rose said quickly, “I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s alright,” Jackie said quietly, with her head down. “I think you’re right. She can’t remember him of course, but I think she senses that he should be here, you know…? Senses my…”

“Your grief.”

Jackie looked up at her then. “Yeah.”

Rose shook her head. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

“But I can’t help it!” The force of her statement surprised even Jackie. “I’m just so tired…”

A single tear rolled down Jackie’s cheek, and Rose placed a reassuring hand on hers and whispered, “Shh, it’s alright.”

Jackie wiped away the tear. “Oh God, look at me,” she said. “I’m a wreck. I mean, I don’t even know you and already I’m pouring out all this, dumping it on you ‘cause you’re the first person to come along in ages that’ll actually listen. I mean, who else wants to hear some stupid single mother whine about her dead husband and how she can’t handle her child properly?”

“Don’t say that,” Rose said quickly. “You’re not stupid, and you’re doing the best job you know how to do. Rose is gonna grow up feeling loved and she is gonna be so grateful to you, her mum, for sticking by her no matter what and making her feel special. She may not have her dad, but she’ll know that her mum’ll always be there.”

Jackie sat for a moment, stunned into silence by the feeling behind Rose’s words.

“You know all the right things to say,” she said eventually.

“No, I really mean it.”

“You’re so kind, sweetheart.”

Rose had heard Jackie use that term of endearment a thousand times before, but it seemed strange to hear her direct it toward her now, without knowing who she was, for it was a term usually reserved only for Rose herself.

Almost instinctively, Rose leaned over and gave the woman a warm hug, which Jackie returned without hesitation.

After about half-an-hour, the two women left the café and returned to Jackie’s flat.

When Jackie’s client, a woman named Julie, arrived for a perm and blow-dry Jackie introduced her to ‘Rachel’. Rose sat on Jackie’s sofa while Jackie tended to Julie’s hair, all the while the two women nattering away, 'setting the world to right' as Jackie always used to say.

Rose sat and read the newspaper that Jackie had stopped off at a JCR to buy on the way back. She had to laugh at the way Jackie had made a point of buying a copy of The Guardian, a different paper from her usual reads, The Sun or The Daily Mirror, obviously in an effort to seem more ‘upmarket’ to the ‘university student’. The paper was discussing the fallout from the previous day’s abolition by the East German government of the constitutional provision granting the Communist-dominated Socialist Unity Party of Germany its monopoly on power.

Whatever the hell that all meant.

She heard Julie mention the very recent fall of the Berlin Wall at one point, and she hoped to God that Jackie wouldn’t ask her for her opinion on the subject, as a ‘history student’, for she wouldn’t have a clue what to say.

She turned to the television page instead, and searched for something worth watching. There was no ‘vintage’ EastEnders on tonight, to her disappointment. She began to think about the possibilities that being in this time period for a while afforded her. She had been thinking about maybe doing some sightseeing, to see how much - or how little - things had changed in two decades, or maybe going to see a 'new' film at the cinema that she had only previously been able to enjoy on video or DVD. Those trivial thoughts soon gave way to more serious considerations. For instance, she knew that Jackie's dad, Ron - Granddad Prentice - was still alive now, and it occurred to her that she might be able to see him. She quickly nixed the idea, remembering the pain that she had felt on meeting her own father properly. Granddad couldn't know who she was, of course, and in any case she didn't want to go through that again.

When Julie was ready to leave, Jackie bade her goodbye after noting another appointment in her diary, and then re-entered the living room.

“Gawd, that woman could talk for England, I don’t know how she does it!”

Rose had to smile at the hypocrisy of Jackie’s statement.

“I’ve got to go and collect Rose in a minute. What are your plans for tonight?”

“Ooh, um…” Rose faltered, the question having caught her off-guard.

“’Cause, I was thinking, you’re welcome to stay another night if you want. That is, if you don’t mind the couch again. Only if you want to, mind.”

Rose didn’t know what to say. A part of her wanted to accept. She was aware of the possible risk to the timeline if she made too much of an impact on Jackie’s life, and indeed she might have done a lot of damage already. But she had found that she was enjoying getting to know the person her mother had been at roughly her age. She was beginning to see this younger Jackie not as her mother, but as a friend. And the simple fact was that she had nowhere else to stay.

“I don’t think I can get away with wearing these clothes for another day!” she found herself saying.

“Well, you’re welcome to borrow some of mine.”

The thought of having to don a Shell Suit filled her with dread, but this was outweighed by the realisation that the Doctor may not be back for her anytime soon.

She supposed that he had performed an emergency dematerialisation when he had realised that their earlier selves were about to arrive, and in ordinary circumstances he would return for her immediately. But the TARDIS wasn’t exactly the most reliable machine. If he wasn’t to show up soon, she would have to have somewhere to sleep, and would maybe even have to get a job.

Perfect, she thought, he had promised her the universe and she now found herself having to survive in a world that both was and was not her own. Her world, but not her time. But for now, this would have to do.

“Okay,” she replied. “Thanks, that’d be great.”

“Perfect!” Jackie beamed. “That’s settled then.”

I’m gonna regret this, she thought.