by Jason Ayres
“Very good, sir,” said the barman wearily. He was clearly used to eccentric customers, which wasn’t surprising in the heartland of the city’s academic district. He handed Josh his change, then grabbed a tea towel from behind the bar and began to dry some glasses from the dishwasher. His body language suggested in no uncertain terms that the conversation was over.
Now he had his beer, Josh attempted to make his way past the two men who were eagerly exchanging anecdotes about real ales.
“Are you a member of CAMRA?” one of them asked him as he passed.
“I’m afraid not,” replied Josh.
“Pity,” said the man. “You should join. The more members we get, the better.”
“Yes, this lager nonsense is all a flash in the pan, isn’t it, Benedict?” said the other man. It was hard to tell them apart: they could almost be twins judged on their appearance. They were wearing almost matching waistcoats, the only difference being that the one who he now knew to be called Benedict had an old-fashioned pocket watch hanging from his breast pocket.
“You’re not wrong there, Kenneth,” replied Benedict. “Now they’ve scrapped the beer orders, real ale’s making a comeback.”
“Well, if you’ll excuse me,” replied Josh, politely squeezing past the portly gentlemen. Josh had no idea what they meant by beer orders, and could see himself getting drawn into a long, irrelevant and convoluted conversation, if he wasn’t careful.
Moving to a table over by the window, he sat down and admired the large collection of ties in the pub. They were all mounted like butterflies in glass cases and had been a feature of the pub as long as he could remember.
He wrapped his hands around the old-fashioned-style beer glass, which was short with glass panels and a handle. He was trying to take some of the heat out of his sore hands, but they were still hurting. Perhaps he should have had a lager after all – the glass would have been that much colder. But then he would have had to face the wrath of Benedict and Kenneth who didn’t look as if they suffered lager drinkers lightly.
He looked at his palms closely. Whilst they were red, the skin hadn’t blistered – at least not yet – but there was a noticeable red mark running across his right palm where he had gripped the tachyometer through his jumper.
He hadn’t had much use out of that jumper, having only just restocked his limited wardrobe prior to this latest jump back in time. Buying clothes regularly came with the territory as he had left a lot behind on his journey. Busy time travellers generally didn’t have time to seek out launderettes and there was only so much he could fit in his backpack.
He had planned to buy a whole new wardrobe once he was settled in 1992, expecting money to be no object. But, now in his altered circumstances, he was going to have to seriously downgrade his plans.
Right now all he needed was a bed for the night, and he was reasonably confident he knew where to get one. On his recent travels in the first quarter of the twenty-first century he had taken to staying regularly at a B&B down the Abingdon Road. It had been run, seemingly forever, by old Mrs Simmonds who always gave him a warm welcome no matter what year or universe he showed up in.
In all likelihood, even in this time period, she should still be there. He remembered her telling him that she had been running it for fifty years which to Josh seemed a ridiculous amount of time to be doing something so mundane, but each to their own.
Hopefully a night there wouldn’t be too pricey in this time period. If a pint was only £1.30 it couldn’t be that much. Last time he had stayed there it had been about £45 a night and this was over twenty years in the future. He could surely afford to stay there for a few nights until he got himself sorted.
Exactly how he was going to get himself sorted he hadn’t worked out yet. His little joke with the barman about being minus nine wasn’t all that funny when he thought about it. He wouldn’t even be born for another decade so it wasn’t as if he had any friends and family to lean on. Technically, in this time, he didn’t exist.
Obviously there would be some family in this time. He was actively counting on it. He had come back to this time specifically to attend a family gathering – one that he had attended before on earlier time travels. In June, his parents would be getting married and he had already been back to see the wedding once before. All of his hopes were pinned on being able to meet that other self who had come back before on the day of the wedding.
Technically it wouldn’t be the same him, just one of millions of copies. That was all due to the nature of the multiverse. Likewise this would be one of only millions of versions of the wedding, but that didn’t matter. As long as this universe hadn’t deviated from his own to any significant extent then the future Josh from this universe should show up.
This was something he needed to take into account when interacting with his family and the world in general. He knew all too well the consequences of contaminating the timeline from past adventures.
Not only did he have to ensure he didn’t do anything that might inadvertently prevent this wedding taking place, but he also needed to keep the timeline on track for at least another sixty years after that. He needed to ensure his future self would still do everything he needed to do to end up becoming a time traveller and returning in the first place.
The best course of action to safeguard the timeline was to stay out of the way of his family until the actual day of the wedding. It wasn’t as if he needed to get to know them to get an invite to the wedding. He would just gatecrash it, claiming to be some long-lost uncle, a tactic he had used before.
So calling on his relatives for help in his weakened financial position was a definite no. Even if he didn’t have the timeline to worry about there would be little likelihood of them taking him seriously. Most likely they would think he was some sort of conman or madman and that wouldn’t help him if they recognised him in June when he turned up at the wedding. No, it was best he stayed incognito.
With family ruled out, who else did he know in this time period? What about Thomas Scott, the dead man from the hospital living his life backwards through time? Was it worth looking him up again? Probably not – the nature of Thomas’s existence meant that even if he met him and explained everything to him, he would forget it all again the next day.
Then there was Amy but there seemed little point looking her up again. She was just a little girl. Even if he tracked her down, what was it going to look like, a middle-aged man turning up on the doorstep asking to speak to her? It was out of the question.
Things were not looking too good. His hands still hurt. He was dirty. He had a backpack that was falling to pieces that he seriously needed to sort through but he was still nursing his hands on his glass. It was time to get out of the pub. He was in no mood for more small talk with the barman or the CAMRA squad, so he didn’t bother returning his glass to the bar, hoping he could slip out unnoticed.
This proved relatively easy, as the barman had been drawn into conversation with Benedict and Kenneth who were giving their opinions on their latest pints.
“Ah, yes, this is very familiar,” Kenneth was saying. “It reminds me of a pint of Old Fuggle’s Firkin that I had at the Rutland Beer Festival in 1983. Let me just consult my notebook.”
As the man fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, Josh slipped out of the door and up the street. When he reached the corner where Oddbins, a long-defunct off-licence chain, stood, he turned left up the High Street, noticing as he had on his previous visit to the 1990s how polluted the air seemed in this time period.
It was about to get a lot worse. As he was walking up to Carfax, a big, red double-decker bus that had been held up in the traffic queue rumbled into life, belching a great, big cloud of black smoke right into Josh’s face.
He retched at the smell, recalling how many vehicles were still using leaded petrol at this time. Hurrying on, he reached the corner at Carfax, which was hardly any different to how it had been in his time. One notable addition, and a nod to his time-trav
elling exploits, was an old blue police post, which looked like a miniature TARDIS.
“Oh if only you were,” said Josh out loud, now struggling with the heavy bag under his arm. He desperately needed to buy a replacement so, instead of turning left down St Aldates towards the B&B, he turned right into Cornmarket Street. While the overall shape was the same as it ever was, the shops were much changed from his day.
Some familiar names such as McDonald’s were still where they had always been, but the majority of the street was very different.
Just along from McDonald’s was a shop Josh had never heard of called Our Price, the name prominently displayed across the top on a bold red sign.
There was a brash, yellow, star-shaped sticker on the window screaming out, “Chart CDs – just £9.99 each” and beneath it a display of the big hit albums of the day. Josh paused to take a look.
He recognised a few of them from his parents’ collection which he had perused while he was growing up. Stars by Simply Red was a favourite of his mother’s, he recalled, while Queen’s Greatest Hits, #1 and #2 which his dad liked were both on display. There were also albums from other luminaries of the day, long passed away in his time, such as Michael Jackson and Prince.
The highlight was the iconic album cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind. It may have come out years before he was born but this album had been a huge influence on Josh in his teenage years. He was tempted to buy a copy, but then he remembered he had to watch his pennies and besides, he had nothing to play it on.
£9.99 seemed a lot for a CD when he compared it to a pint at £1.30. It was interesting how some things got more expensive over the years while other things got cheaper. By the time he had come of age, a pint was getting on for a fiver, but CDs were bargain-basement stuff.
By that time not that many places still sold them then. Poundland had plenty, costing, as the name suggested, a quid, and the supermarkets stocked a few but that was about it. But 1992 was long before downloads and Spotify, so the music buying public didn’t have any alternative but to pay the going rate.
There was no music coming from inside Our Price because it was closed, which seemed odd as it was still daylight. As he looked around, he noticed that most of the other shops were closed, too. Of course, it was New Year’s Day. He remembered that most shops used to close on bank holidays in the old days.
So much for getting the things he needed today. He was just going to have to make do with whatever he could salvage from his bag, hoping he could get it to the B&B before it fell to pieces. It was time he sought out that sanctuary.
He turned around and headed down St Aldates, keeping as far away from the edge of the pavement as possible. He didn’t want any more blasts of toxic fumes from the never-ending procession of buses, half of which seemed empty. If this was what it was like on a bank holiday, what would it be like on a normal day?
Reliable as ever, old Mrs Simmonds’s guest house was still standing, with a welcome sign saying “Vacancies” hanging in the front window. Hopefully she wouldn’t be closed for the bank holiday like most of the shops.
He rang the bell, which gave out the same high-pitched shrill as it had on his visits in later decades. He was pretty sure it was still the original bell that had come when the property had been built, many decades ago. It was amazing that it had survived so long, but then he remembered his father, a builder by trade, remarking many times that “they built things to last in the old days.”
Old Mrs Simmonds turned out to be quite a young Mrs Simmonds when she opened the door, but that was to be expected. Josh didn’t get surprised by this sort of thing anymore. It was all part and parcel of the time-travel experience.
Her grey, thinning locks had been replaced by a thick head of black hair in a large perm. He had seen a few such hairstyles on the streets today, which he had always been led to believe was an 80s thing. Still it was only the start of 1992 so perhaps the trend had lingered on into the new decade.
Her hair wasn’t the only thing that was different. She seemed distinctly frosty compared to her usual friendly demeanour. Perhaps she had mellowed with age.
“Yes?” she barked at him, looking him up and down disapprovingly.
“Hi, I’m looking for a room for the night.”
“Hmmm… Well, I am not sure we have anything,” she began, still eyeing him with suspicion.
Then he realised why she was being so unforthcoming. It was the same thing the barman had noticed.
“Look,” began Josh. “I realise I look scruffy and muddy but I’ve had a long journey and I slipped over in the park, that’s why I’m so muddy.”
“What happened to your bag?” she enquired.
“Long story,” replied Josh. “It’s been a difficult day. We all have them. All I want to do now is have a shower and get my head down. I’m not a vagrant and can pay cash upfront – see?”
He pulled a wad of notes out of his trouser pocket and began to leaf through them. As soon as she saw the money, she relented.
“The room will be twenty-five pounds a night,” she said. “But I don’t have any rooms with showers. You can have a bath, but mind you lock the door. It’s a shared bathroom.”
This wasn’t something Josh was used to, but perhaps it was another thing he had to make allowances for in this century. What was next? Would she be telling him they only had an outside toilet? He peeled off the money and handed it to her.
“Thank-you for letting me have the room,” he said.
“This way, then,” she said, briskly turning and heading towards the stairs, beckoning to him to follow behind her.
The years she had lost had done wonders for her and he couldn’t help admiring her rather pert bottom as she practically bounded up the stairs. Last time he had been here she had been using a stick to help get about. He guessed she must have been in her late-forties or early fifties at this time.
Sharply he reprimanded himself for admiring her rear. This is old Mrs Simmonds we’re talking about here! He was so used to knowing her as a frail septuagenarian, admiring her bottom somehow seemed wrong.
The interior layout of the house hadn’t changed much since his last visit, but the décor certainly had. As he climbed the creaky wooden staircase, he couldn’t help but be dazzled by the extremely floral wallpaper, where various orange, yellow and brown flowers competed for space on the wall as if they were fighting for space in a meadow to show their faces to the sun.
Was this what people had on their walls in the twentieth century? The wallpaper was peeling in places and had seemingly been up there for some time. Some redecoration was clearly long overdue. He much preferred the neutral off-white walls that would replace this gaudy monstrosity at some point during the next twenty years.
The room he was shown to was the same one he had stayed in the last time he had been there, but significantly altered. It was larger for a start, which he quickly realised was down to the missing en suite bathroom that hadn’t been built yet.
It was also notably devoid of mod cons and didn’t even have a telly, which was disappointing. He had been unable to find a shop open to buy a newspaper and had been hoping to catch up on the TV news, just for the reassurance that the universe was as safe and familiar as it seemed.
The bedroom walls were mercifully free of wallpaper but the curtains were a variation on the floral theme from the stairs. They were bursting with bunches of faded yellow roses, their colour dulled by years of sunshine coming through the old-fashioned bay windows.
It wasn’t glamorous but it would do until he figured out how he was going to survive the next few weeks.
Before she went Mrs Simmonds directed him to the bathroom. He desperately needed a bath, but he couldn’t have one just yet. First he needed to have a proper sort through his ruined backpack to see if there were any clothes he could salvage. It wouldn’t be much benefit to have a bath and then change back into the same dirty clothes.
At least half of his clothes were ruined, either charred or c
overed with sticky lumps of molten plastic. All he could find that was wearable was a pair of jeans (with one kneecap slightly charred) and a Keep Calm and Carry On T-shirt he had bought in 2013 when everyone seemed to be wearing them. It would have to do for now.
He was hungry but really didn’t want to go out again tonight. Instead, he raided the tray of cheap biscuits on the tray on the bedside table. His uninspiring tea consisted of custard creams for the main course and bourbon creams (which he didn’t even like) for dessert.
By the time he made it to the bathroom, it was dark outside. Lying in the bath gave him time to think things through and try and come up with some sort of plan.
He needed help, but who did he know in 1992? He had already ruled out contacting family so who else was there in this time period? What about his old mentor, Professor Hamilton? He had been at the university nearly as long as Mrs Simmonds had been at the guest house. He must have been around in 1992.
But contacting Hamilton could seriously contaminate the timeline. He was as obsessed as Josh was about time travel but had never found the secrets himself. He needed Hamilton to still be at the university and struggling with his experiments in the 2020s so Josh could come along and get involved.
Then the answer came to him. There was someone here in 1992 that could help him. In fact, he was the perfect person as he had been involved in all of this from the start, loved anything to do with time travel, and might actually believe all this. All he had to do was track him down and find a way of convincing him.
He needed to find Peter.
Chapter Four
Wednesday 1st January 1992
“Looks like we’ve got another one,” said PC Dan Bradley, wearily, to his colleague, WPC Rebecca Osakwe. “Can you deal with her, Becky?”
Dan had just walked into the back office of Oxford’s main police station on St. Aldate’s, having been manning the front desk for the past couple of hours. He was a young sergeant in his early twenties, not long out of Hendon Police College.