A Slip in Time by Maggie Pearson

it?’
    â€˜The goose,’ said Grandad, without turning round.
    â€˜Whatever. The thief hid it inside the goose.’
    â€˜The goose swallowed it.’
    â€˜Oh, right. Grandad?’
    â€˜What?’ Grandad punched the pause button. ‘You got something to say, then say it.’
    â€˜Sherlock Holmes. You said there was no such person.’
    â€˜That’s right.’
    â€˜What about Dr Watson, though? I mean, it’s quite an ordinary sort of name. What if there really was a Dr Watson?’
    â€˜Bound to have been. Lots of them.’
    â€˜That’s what I thought. And who wrote the stories?’
    â€˜Arthur Conan Doyle.’
    â€˜Dr Arthur Conan Doyle?’
    â€˜Yes! He was a doctor. Started off with a practice in – where was it?’
    â€˜Southsea?’
    â€˜That’s right. Why all these questions?’
    â€˜Just making sure I remembered it right.’
    As Jack climbed the stairs to the attic, he heard the programme getting underway again. Dr Watson’s voice sounding gruff and kind of elderly, not very bright. Nothing like the Dr Watson he’d met.
    He sank down onto a moth-eaten tapestry foot stool, beside an old tin trunk painted an unlovely shade of green. For want of anything better to do, he flipped open the lid of the trunk. Inside were stacks of yellowing paper. Old account books. Letters tied up in bundles. Postcards and brown photographs. Theatre programmes. Pages of old newspapers. As he rifled through, a single photo fluttered out from among the rest and lay upside-down on the floor at his feet, waiting for him to pick it up.
    The back was printed like a postcard. No writing. No stamp. Jack turned it over. There was a picture on the front. A picture of a boy about his own age. Underneath, it said: Master Jack Farthing, as ‘Jo, the CrossingSweeper’ in
Bleak House
. Looking sternly up at him was Fadge.
    Jack grabbed the photo and went tumbling down the stairs again. ‘Grandad! Grandad!’
    Grandad sighed and pressed the pause button again, ‘What is it now?’
    â€˜Grandad, were you ever on the stage?’
    â€˜No.’
    Jack thrust the photo under his nose, ‘Is this you?’
    The old man shook his head, disgusted. ‘I’m not that old. That’s my grandad.’
    â€˜You never told me about him.’
    â€˜It was a long time ago. Anyway, you never asked.’
    â€˜I’m asking now. Everything you can remember.’
    â€˜That’s not much.’ Grandad took the photo. ‘He was just a little feller. Smaller than you when he was full-grown, so he never got to play the hero, just what they call character parts.’ He thought for a bit, chewing on nothing. ‘I saw him in a play once.’ Another pause for thought. ‘He made me laugh and he made me cry, I remember that. Oh, yes! What was that play called?’
    Jack said, ‘There’s a load of programmes and stuff upstairs. Shall I bring them down?’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Grandad, still half lost in memories. ‘You do that.’
    From the kitchen, Mum heard a rumbling like thunder down the stairs, but nobody yelled, so she didn’t go out. After that, a long silence. No telly. That was worrying.
    When she eased open the front-room door, she saw Grandad still in his chair, with Jack sitting on the floor at his feet, the two of them marooned on a little island in a sea of paper.
    Grandad was saying, ‘Jack Farthing – that’s my grandad – he had three children, Young Jack, Bella and George.’
    George, thought Jack: after the Prince George Theatre, where he had his first acting job? Bella. After Mrs Bella Bailey?
    Grandad went on, ‘George was my dad. Young Jack – who would have been my uncle – he was killed in the First World War. A place they called Wipers. He was just turned twenty.’
    Poor Fadge. After all the knocks he’d taken. Picked himself up,