by Jason Ayres
Looking back at her from the mirror was not the tired, tear-stained face of despair that she could barely bring herself to look at these days. Instead she saw a vision of youth and beauty that she instantly recognised as her own. Only a few moments ago she had been lying in bed thinking all about that pretty girl she used to be, and now here she was, looking right back at her.
Before she had a chance to ponder as to why she might be seeing the image of her younger self in the mirror, she had something else to think about. A split second after she had first set eyes on the reflection, it spoke.
“So you recognise me, then?” said her younger self in clear, unbroken tones.
“What? How?” croaked Kay, incredulously, her voice dry and rough from last night’s smoking and drinking. She couldn’t even begin to contemplate how this could possibly be happening or why. Before she could even begin to try and make sense of the situation, the image from long ago spoke again.
“Let me put your mind at rest and save us the routine of going through the usual questions,” replied her youthful reflection. “You’re not dreaming, hallucinating or mad. I’m not your younger self, just a projection of her, to remind you who you used to be. There is nothing to be afraid of. I’ve come here to help you.”
“How?” asked Kay again, so gobsmacked by this strange turn of events that she was unable to muster any more than this monosyllabic response.
“Well, I suggest you think of me as your guardian angel,” replied her reflection. “That was the moniker another lost soul I helped recently gave me and I rather like it. I have been given a lot of different names in my time. Another I visited long ago dubbed me ‘The Ghost of Christmas Past’. I think that’s quite appropriate, given the time of year, don’t you think?”
Kay couldn’t even fashion a single-word response this time, as her hung-over mind wrestled with making sense of this bizarre situation.
“I can see you’re confused,” said the angel. “So let’s make this easy. I’ve come to help you, like I said before. I can see life’s gone very wrong for you and I want to give you the chance to confront your inner demons. I know all about what happened in your past – about your failed marriage and how your life didn’t turn out as you had hoped.”
Finding her voice, Kay replied, “How do you know?”
“I can see inside your mind,” replied the angel. “I was reading your thoughts as you lay in bed this morning. And I saw what happened downstairs last night. I can pretty much see everything. I have the ability to travel to any and every point in time and space simultaneously and see the potential result of every decision ever made. Though in practice, that gets a bit tiring even for me. It’s a case of serious information overload if I try and do too much at once.”
“How?” asked Kay once again.
“That seems to be your favourite word this morning,” replied the angel. “Don’t worry about the how because it’s beyond your comprehension. Just accept what I’m telling you and then we can move on.”
Kay quickly decided that she may as well accept it, even though the whole thing was preposterous. Maybe she was going crazy, but things could not get any worse than they already were, so why not go along with it?
Perhaps going crazy would be a relief. If she was so fucked up now that she was losing her grip on the car crash that was her life, perhaps it would be a blessed relief. At least if she got carted off by the men in white coats there would be someone to look after her then.
But in the seemingly unlikely event that this really was some sort of miraculous visitation, she may as well grab firm hold of whatever it had to offer. This angel had said she had come to help her, after all, and what did she have to lose? There wasn’t a lot left to lose in her life: she had lost it all already.
“OK, I accept it,” she said. “So what happens next?”
“It’s pretty simple, really. I’m going to let you live six days of your life over again. Any six days you like but I must clarify, they need to be in the past.”
The angel specified that because another lost soul she had recently visited had unexpectedly asked to see his own future, which had annoyed her no end. Even despite her all-knowing, all-powerful presence, she took her eye off the ball occasionally and hadn’t seen that one coming. Being caught out by a mere mortal was humiliating.
“That’s it?” replied Kay, feeling somewhat underwhelmed. “How’s that going to help me?”
“Think about,” replied the angel. “It will give you the chance to revisit some of those pivotal moments in your life and perhaps do them differently.”
“OK, I get it,” said Kay, her mind opening up to the possibilities. “So I could go back in time to the day my ex-husband first asked me out and tell him to get lost?”
“You could do that,” replied the angel. “But it would be a bit of a waste of a day, wouldn’t it?”
“No, I don’t think so. Because then my whole life would change,” said Kay excitedly. “Without that sod I could live the life I always wanted to.”
“Actually, no, you can’t,” replied the angel. “I’m glad you brought this up as it saves any misunderstandings later on. I’m afraid I can’t allow you to change anything in the past. When you travel back to the past, the day you will visit will be a temporary copy, nothing more. When you return to the present, that copy will cease to exist.”
“What’s the bloody point of that?” protested Kay. “That’s no use to me whatsoever. When I get back here, I’ll just be back to square one.”
“That’s what most people think to begin with,” replied the angel. “But it’s all in the application. You can do a lot in a day if you put your mind to it. There are all sorts of possibilities. Maybe you cannot change history but you can resolve some of the burning issues that have been eating away at your soul. Generally people find when it’s all over they are in a much better place to take their lives forward.”
“Everyone?” asked Kay.
“Pretty much,” said the angel. “Most are sceptical to begin with and unsure of what to do, but no one’s ever turned down the offer. There are no strings attached, no consequences, just a once-in-a-million-lifetimes, six-day trip back through your own past. It’s an experience very few will ever have and something money can’t buy. It’s not something you can book down at Thomas Cook.”
“Why six days?” asked Kay. “Why not five or seven?”
“I’ve found six to be the optimum number for people. It’s enough for them to do the things they need to do, but not so many that they waste days. So six days it is – use them wisely.”
“But where to begin?” asked Kay, beginning to warm to the idea. “The possibilities are endless.”
“Most people struggle with their first choice so I normally give them a little helping hand to get started,” replied the angel.
“I could certainly use one,” replied Kay, feeling like a kid in a sweet shop not knowing where to start.
“How about this?” suggested the angel. “Do you remember what you were thinking about just before I arrived? Not the part about freezing your tits off in the shower and hurting your foot, but what you were thinking about before you got out of bed?”
“Yes,” replied Kay. “I was thinking about the day Alan talked me out of flying to Finland.”
“Well, there you go, then,” said the angel. “That’s your first port of call. Go and see the midnight sun. You’ve always regretted not going, so now’s your chance.”
“That’s an awesome idea,” replied Kay. “You’re right: I always regretted not taking that trip. The only thing is, I can’t remember the exact date. All I know is it was June 1995, just before the solstice.”
“Don’t worry about the details,” said the angel. “You don’t have to programme the date into a computer or anything. I already checked back to the date of your flight. It was Saturday 17th June 1995. I also took the liberty of checking the weather forecast and I’m pleased to report that it was clear and sunny that night in Rov
aniemi. All you’ve got to do is make it there in one day. It’s going to be quite a challenge but it’s definitely achievable and will be all the more fun for it. As for your other five trips, well, you’ll have plenty of time when you are travelling to think about what you want to do with them.”
Kay was very excited at the prospect ahead. She could leave her current woes behind her, if only for a day, and contemplate the voyage of self-discovery that lay before her. She had better get herself ready.
“Shouldn’t I put some clothes on first?” she asked. She had suddenly noticed that she was shivering. She had become oblivious to the cold, so distracted had she been by the bizarre conversation of the last few minutes.
“No need,” replied the angel, “You’re going back into your old body and your old clothes. You can’t take anything from here back with you. So, are you ready?”
“No time like the present,” said Kay, and then quipped, “Or do I mean the past?” It was the first time she had felt in good humour for weeks. If all this was for real, she was about to go on an unprecedented adventure and she couldn’t wait to get started.
“How does it work?” she added.
“Like this,” said the angel. She winked at Kay from the mirror and the room around her dissolved into nothingness.
Chapter Four
June 1995
The next thing Kay was aware of was that she was back in bed, waking sharply as if from a vivid dream, just as she had when waking in the flat an hour or so earlier.
For the first second or two, that was what she thought had happened. She had dreamt all this as well. She might have known it was too good to be true.
A second or two after that, as consciousness took proper hold, she realised that things were not as they should be. For a start, she was warm and the bed was incredibly comfortable, not at all like the horrible, stained and flea-bitten mattress she had to make do with in the flat. Not only that, there was someone snoring beside her.
She had been drunk last night, just like every other night, but not so drunk that she wouldn’t have remembered taking someone home with her. It was such a rare event of late that there was no way she would have forgotten it. But there was definitely somebody beside her. She couldn’t see who, as it was extremely dark in the room.
But this wasn’t the night after last night, she reminded herself. If the angel had come true on her promise, it was over twenty-three years ago. This wasn’t her bedroom in the flat, of that she was certain. It was never this warm, even when the heating was working. If it really was Saturday 17th June 1995 then she was pretty sure she knew where she was, but it was too dark for her to be absolutely certain.
She got up out of bed and headed over towards a tiny glimmer of light, high up in the room where she could see the join of the curtains. As she made her way across the room she realised that not only did she not have a hangover, but she also felt extremely light on her feet.
She pulled the curtains apart and was greeted by glorious early morning sunshine, bathing the front of an airport terminal. There was no doubting where she was now – she was in the hotel at Heathrow where she had spent the night before she had been due to fly to Helsinki.
The shafts of sunlight penetrated across the room to the sleeping figure on the bed. She already knew who it would be before she even turned to make the confirmation. There he was, the man she loathed, back in the days when she thought the sun shone out of his arse.
Now it was shining on his arse which was sticking out of the side of the bed. She was pleased to see that opening the curtains hadn’t woken him up. It gave her time to think about what she was going to do.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror on the front of the wardrobe. Again she saw the youthful image of herself that the angel had appeared as in her flat. But this time it was a true reflection of her as she was at this moment. She stood for a while and gazed upon her young, perfect body.
“What fantastic tits I used to have,” she murmured out loud. She cupped them both in her hands, revelling in how full and firm they were. She felt herself starting to get horny and quickly let go, trying to suppress a succession of erotic thoughts that suddenly crept into her mind.
She had forgotten how high her libido had been when she had been young. She looked across at Alan, remembering how they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other in those early days of their relationship.
Later, when she had grown to despise him, she couldn’t bear to have him anywhere near her, not that it was ever a problem. He had long since embarked on a string of affairs by that time and no longer had any desire for her.
Looking at him now, her head was filled with conflicting emotions. This Alan in front of her wasn’t the bastard she had grown to hate, he was the younger one she had adored and lusted after. With hormones surging through her youthful body, she felt long-forgotten desires resurfacing within her. Could she blame this younger Alan for his sins of later years?
“Get a grip,” she said to her reflection, even though this version couldn’t talk back. “Come on, Kay, think with the contents of your brains, not your knickers.”
She swiftly reminded herself that Alan was a bastard and always had been. Any glorious honeymoon period she may have enjoyed with him had been based on his deception and lies. She had allowed her lust for him and her inexperience with adult relationships to blind her to his true nature. If she touched him now, she would be betraying herself all over again.
He stirred, rolling over and opening his eyes.
“Morning, gorgeous,” he said. “What time is it?”
She glanced at the clock on the bedside table. “Nearly twenty to six,” she replied.
“Come back to bed,” he said, pulling back the covers to leave her in no doubt as to his intentions. “There’s plenty of time before you check in.”
“I can’t,” she replied. “I’ve just come on.” It was an easy lie and one she had used plenty of times before. He always accepted it.
“Can you sort me out, then?” he asked hopefully.
“I think you had more than enough last night,” she replied, based on vague memories from nearly a quarter of a century ago. She tried to make it sound light-hearted. She didn’t want him to have any reason to suspect she was not who she appeared to be. Later he was going to try and stop her getting on the plane. She didn’t want to say anything now that might make him want to bring those plans forward.
The memories of that morning were flooding back to her now. Quickly, she formed a rough plan of what she needed to do. All she had to do was act normally until she got into the airport. Once they were surrounded by people, there was no way he would be able to stop her. Here, where they were in private, he could.
He looked disappointed at the lack of sex, but didn’t push the issue and went into the bathroom. It gave Kay time to familiarise herself with her surroundings, paying particular attention to her luggage.
There was a large, red rucksack in the room, stuffed full with everything she needed for the next three months. There was also a smaller, denim handbag, which she immediately went for.
It contained her purse, a notebook, pen, and various make-up and sanitary items. Her flight tickets were also there, together with her passport, the old-fashioned, black, pre-EU edition. She quickly double-checked the flight and check-in times. She could check in from ten past six, so there wouldn’t be long to wait. The sooner she was shot of Alan, the better.
She felt like there was something missing from the bag as she rummaged through, and then she realised what it was. There was no mobile phone. Of course, there wouldn’t be. She didn’t have one. Very few people in 1995 did. How strange it was going to seem, living in a world where there was no internet, no Facebook, no way at all with communicating with the wider world. How on earth had people managed to stay in touch with each other?
Then again, maybe it was a good thing. She liked the idea of nobody knowing where she was or being able to get hold o
f her. It seemed bold, even dangerous, by modern standards.
She knew she had a camera in her rucksack and lots of rolls of films, ready to photograph anything and everything on her trip. It would be odd not uploading them straight to Facebook. In this time period it would be a case of keeping the films until she got back to the UK and then taking them down to Boots to be developed.
Ruefully she reflected that there would be no point taking any photos of the midnight sun, as she wouldn’t get the chance to show them to anyone. If she had interpreted what the angel had told her correctly, by tomorrow she would be back in 2018 and it would be as if none of this had ever happened. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t find a twenty-three-year-old Kodak film case in her pocket when she got home.
After Alan had finished in the bathroom she took a long, hot shower and luxuriated in the fast, powerful streams of water. It was way better than the pathetic excuse she had for a shower in the flat, which was more like a garden sprinkler than a power shower, which was what McVie had laughably called it. Even when she did have hot water, it was difficult to get enough of it onto her to keep warm.
She worried that Alan might try and come and molest her in the shower, but her fears were unfounded. He generally kept his distance from her when she was on her period. Thankfully she wasn’t, but he wasn’t to know that. She really didn’t want that inconvenience to deal with if she was going to be travelling all day.
When she was finished in the shower, she wrapped a towel around herself and made her way back to the bedroom. She tried not to make it too obvious that she felt uneasy at him looking at her naked body and made sure she dressed quickly. The sooner she got out of this hotel room and into the terminal building, the better.
She indulged in a little small talk as they crossed the road to the terminal, anxious to get this over with as quickly as possible. He was rambling on about some big golf tournament going on in America, something she had not the remotest interest in, but she feigned interest just to pass the time. She hadn’t remembered him being this boring. Perhaps she had just been too busy enjoying all the sex at the time to notice. Well, she was certainly noticing now.