Meant I was by myself in the interim (8)

I believe the answer is:

meantime

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'the interim' is the definition.
(meantime is a kind of interim)

'meant i was by' is the wordplay.
'was by' becomes 'me' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'meant'+'i'+'me'='MEANTIME'

'myself in' acts as a link.
This may not be correct. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for meantime that I've seen before include "interim?" , "For the moment" , "Intervening period" , "interval" .)

I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.

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