by Jason Ayres
I knew buses ran to Heathrow and Gatwick from Oxford pretty much 24/7, conveniently passing right through St Clement’s. By 5.00am I was already on the M40 and heading for the airport. I had decided to go for Heathrow, as I felt that it would offer me a wider choice of destinations.
How easy would it be to get a flight at this time of the morning and without pre-booking? It was bound to be expensive, but that was irrelevant. I didn’t need to shop around to try and get the best deal. I just needed to get on a plane and get somewhere hot, even if it cost thousands. Perhaps I could even upgrade myself to business or first class. I had never had that luxury before.
My main worry was that they wouldn’t take a booking on the spot for the next flight somewhere. With everyone booking everything online these days, was it even still possible to turn up at an airport and book a flight at the desk? Fortunately, even though I arrived early, I was able to find a counter open with one of the big national airlines.
Amazingly, less than four hours after leaving Oxford, I was on a flight to, of all places, Florida. I couldn’t believe how easy it had been. The only worrying moment was at airport security where they had given me a good checking-over.
I was slightly worried at that point that I might be in trouble, bearing in mind my recent spell as a fugitive from the police, but again that was all paranoia. No one could possibly be looking for me now.
Perhaps it was just standard procedure to check anyone booking last-minute flights. Security at airports was very tight during this period after a number of terrorist incidents in the early years of the century.
Despite the flight taking nine hours, it was still only early afternoon when I arrived in Orlando, local time. I still had the best part of two days to enjoy this place, somewhere I had always wanted to go. When I was little, my dad had always promised he would bring me here one day, but he fell on hard times after my parents divorced, and it remained a dream – until now.
I hired a car at the airport and drove straight to Walt Disney World resort where I spent the rest of the afternoon. I didn’t have anywhere to stay for the night booked, but what did that matter? This was America. When I left the park, I drove until, to my delight, I found an old-fashioned motel, which looked exactly like the ones I had seen in the movies.
Just along from the motel was a similarly nostalgic diner, all decked out with a 1950s theme. I ate there, a huge hamburger with fries and a shake before moving on to the bar next door to celebrate the New Year, American-style.
I could barely keep my eyes open until midnight, bearing in mind the time difference between Florida and the UK, and as soon as the hour had passed I went straight back to the motel and crashed out. I had enjoyed a wonderful evening, fully living the American Dream.
The following day I was up very early, again thanks to the time difference, and was away from the motel before 9am. I spent that day at Universal Studios, where even with the full day at my disposal I didn’t have time to do everything the park had to offer. I would have liked to have done more, but I just ran out of time.
I didn’t bother booking myself into a motel that night because I knew that I would be leaving before the end of the evening. Sure enough, at just 10pm local time, I was whisked away, back to the UK and the early hours of New Year’s Eve 2017.
I was in bed this time, as I discovered when I woke up at 5.15am needing to go to the toilet. Although I felt tired, I wasn’t going to waste any time sleeping, so I got myself up and dressed, packing my bag just as I had before. In less than an hour I was once again on the bus, Heathrow-bound.
Rather than trust to luck what might be available at the airport, I decided to try and plan ahead a little this time. With phone in hand, I got online while I was on the bus, managing to secure a last-minute flight and hotel deal in Dubai departing that morning. I had wanted winter sunshine and I was certainly going to the right place.
Dubai was fantastic, what little I saw of it. I never left the hotel the two days I was there. I spent the first evening eating, drinking and checking out the fabulous entertainment the hotel had to offer. Then the next day, I spent the entire day by the pool just revelling in the sensation of the hot Middle Eastern sun on my skin.
I did absolutely nothing that day but was it wasted? Not in my opinion – I was enjoying some much-needed recuperation.
The following year I decided to stay in the UK and go down to London for the fireworks. It was something else on my bucket list that I had never got round to doing but had the opportunity to do now with all the extra New Years at my disposal.
Police were advising people not to travel without a ticket but I soon sorted that out the same way I had got the ticket for Fever. I offered to pay four times face value on Facebook, and the offers came flooding in.
Seeing 2017 in by the banks of the Thames was an awesome experience, so much so that I decided to up my game even further the following year. London celebrations were great but I had something even bigger in mind.
Thus, on New Year’s Eve 2015 I made my way to New York for what turned out to be one of the most amazing nights of my whole life. Packed into Times Square with hundreds of thousands of others, I partied like never before. Probably even more than Prince had when he sang about partying like it was 1999. It was freezing but I didn’t care.
The celebrations went on all evening, to a backdrop of music from some of American’s finest DJs. Just before midnight, Jessie J came on to perform a cover of John Lennon’s “Imagine”, then with just a minute to go, a large, glowing ball descended onto the top of the Times Tower, which is to America at New Year what Big Ben is to the UK.
The accompanying light show was dazzling, with the tower itself lit up like a Christmas tree. The atmosphere was indescribable, like nothing I had experienced before. All those years of hating New Year’s Eve were washed away that night. London and Big Ben were great, but nothing could compare to New York.
I wasn’t even with anyone but that didn’t matter as I enjoyed the company of the revellers all around me, bound together by our shared experience. The party continued long into the night and I found myself chatting to anyone and everyone. I even got a snog off a handsome stranger next to me in the crowd just before we did “Auld Lang Syne”.
All in all, it was a pretty cool way to celebrate my 30th birthday.
I smiled as I lie now on my sunbed in my latest destination, an all-inclusive resort in Playa del Inglés, thinking back over the memories of that night, just two days ago. I had turned thirty that day, but now it seemed I would never be that age again.
I looked down at my body, stretched out on the sunbed, clad in just a skimpy bikini. It was a noticeably younger body now. My skin had grown smoother and suppler, my tummy was flatter and my boobs were firmer.
My own personal fountain of youth was making me look better and better but this double-edged sword was going to come back and bite me soon. Now aged twenty-nine, and losing a year every two days, I knew I had less than two months left.
If only this could stop now. I would be happy to stay at this age. I’d have another decade of life, my whole thirties, in front of me, and could do so much more with those ten years than I had.
It was no good thinking like that. There was nothing I could do to stop what was happening. I had tried with the letter to Professor Hamilton but unsurprisingly, that had gone unanswered. Had I ever really expected a reply? Not really. I just had to make the best of what I had.
In reality, I didn’t even have two full months left. In terms of my adult life it was less than a month. Once I became a child, I wouldn’t be able to go off jet-setting like I had. I would be a minor, with no money, no passport, and under the jurisdiction of my parents.
My parents – how much was I looking forward to seeing them again? It wouldn’t be long now.
Chapter Twelve
2011
A day that I had been in two minds about had arrived.
I had mulled long and hard over how I should handle New
Year’s Eve 2011. That had been the date of that fateful first meeting with Rob and Gary, the outcome of which was to shape my entire future.
At the time I was living alone in a rented council house off the Iffley Road. It had been my family home for over fifteen years, ever since my mother had become a single parent and sought help from the local authority.
For the last seven years I had lived there on and off, but had been in permanent residence for the past year. I would not be there much longer. My mother had died during 2011 and I had no desire to stay in the house alone. The austerity-obsessed government of the time was talking about all sorts of penalties for underoccupancy of council properties, including a so-called bedroom tax.
Quite how that would affect me, I wasn’t sure, but it seemed morally wrong to stay in a large house if a family could use it. But where was I going to go? Buying a place on my nurse’s salary was out of the question in Oxford and private rent was equally unaffordable.
Thankfully, meeting Rob solved that problem when he asked me to move in with him. I hadn’t considered the possibility at the time that I might end up in exactly the same boat nine years down the line, but who does? No matter how badly a relationship breaks down, most of us idealistically believe it will last forever at the start when we are in the first flush of love. Otherwise why would we bother?
So here I was, waking up at twenty-five years old in the room where I had spent my teenage years. Any casual observer might be under the impression a teenager still lived in the room, as I hadn’t done anything to update it for years. There was a reason for this. I hadn’t seen it as a permanent home, more of a bolt-hole which I came back to from time to time due to circumstances. In an ideal world, I would have been settled elsewhere by now.
The paint was faded and peeling in the places where it could be seen. Most of the walls were covered up with rock posters, from Nirvana to Oasis. My room was almost like a shrine to the 1990s music scene.
As for my bed, that was only a single. I had thought about buying a double, but somehow that didn’t seem quite right in my mother’s house and didn’t fit in with my “temporary residence” status. There was a double bed in my mother’s room, which she had died in and I couldn’t face moving in there.
The single bed meant my sexual encounters in this room had been very few and far between, most confined to my teenage years. That didn’t mean I’d had a non-existent sex life, merely that most of it had taken place elsewhere.
Although I was living here now, I had come and gone a lot between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. As well as time at university doing my nursing degree, I had also spent a great deal of time abroad, both travelling and working.
I had moved back in with my mother full-time just under a year ago to nurse her through the illness that eventually killed her. Fifty-nine had been no age to die, though my father had been even younger.
Now I was alone and contemplating what to do with the day ahead of me. Was I going to relive that first meeting with Rob and Gary or avoid it? I knew that I couldn’t resist it – out of fascination more than anything.
As if on cue, my phone beeped, and I picked it up to find a text from Kelly.
Can’t wait for tonight, it’s going to be awesome. Bet I pull before you x
Her bubbly, fun, text reminded me of what a laugh going out with her used to be. I wondered if she remembered in the years to come, when she became so utterly domesticated and boring, how different she had once been.
Well, she wasn’t going to pull first this time. My mind was made up. I still had no idea if anything I did here changed the future but if it did, then I was going to do my utmost to make it happen. I wasn’t doing it purely for selfish reasons either. There was Gary to think about. Changing things now would very probably save his life several years from now. Here was a chance to clean up the mess I had made that day.
It was difficult for me to remember the precise details of everything that had happened on that night because from my starting point, it was now thirteen years ago. Every year I went back in time, the memories grew more and more hazy.
One thing I could remember with certainty about this night was that we had met the boys in O’Neill’s on George Street. I knew that hadn’t been the pub we had started in or anywhere else we had been, so I needed to text Kelly back to find out.
Remind me, when & where are we meeting again?
The reply came back swiftly:
In The Crown, 6.30! Don’t be late!
That’s right: we were meeting in one of my old stomping ground. It had always been a favourite, a good, traditional pub down the alley next to McDonald’s, where crowds of foreign tourists always seemed to gather. Fighting my way through them was always worth it because The Crown was a great little hideaway, right in the centre of town.
Dutifully, I was there at 6.30pm, looking my best, which by my 2025 standards was a million dollars. My body was getting better every day and now, at the age of 25, I was at my absolute peak – fully developed with not a hint of aging.
I am pretty confident I also looked better than I had the first time around on this night out. I had spent the day shopping for clothes, coming back this time with a £300 dress from Debenhams, plus new shoes and a bag.
I had also spent a further £90 getting my hair and nails done in a swanky salon down the High Street. I would not have been able to afford any of that last time.
If I was expecting compliments from Kelly on meeting up, I was to be disappointed. Unlike Phoebe and Lily who had been thrilled to see me in the dress from the Covered Market, Kelly’s reaction was the complete opposite. She was one of those who wanted to be queen bee, and I could see right away her disapproval at me upstaging her.
“Nice dress,” she said begrudgingly as we met outside the pub, which was her sole comment on my outfit. She was heavily tarted up for a night on the pull. She had pouting red lips where she had gone overboard with the lipstick and way too much make-up.
She was wearing the same short, all red outfit I remembered she always referred to as her pulling gear. The tight, red cotton hugged her slender behind, accentuating its shape whilst her curly, flame-red hair, which matched her dress, flowed down around her shoulders.
Kelly had a great figure. She had always been a good few pounds lighter than me, and didn’t let me forget it, slipping in the odd reference every now and again.
Seeing her again and remembering all that had subsequently happened made me question how good a friend she ever really was. Her barely veiled displeasure at seeing how good I looked was typical of her. She was determined to be the prettiest, slimmest and sexiest. That way she would always get first pick of the men.
It was strange that this hadn’t bothered me so much at the time anywhere near as much as it bothered me now. Perhaps I hadn’t noticed so much in these youthful, more naïve times. Well, I was noticing now, and she wasn’t going to get the upper hand over me tonight.
“Come on, let’s get to the bar,” I said impatiently. I needed to be bold tonight and a little Dutch courage could only help.
“Cocktails?” I suggested.
“Go for it,” she replied.
A couple of Tequila Sunrises later, we headed down Cornmarket Street and into George Street. We had tickets for a club which I had no recollection of attending, but that didn’t open until 10pm. It was only 8.30pm now, and not wanting to pre-empt anything, I asked Kelly where we should go, curious to see if she would steer us towards our destiny.
“A lot of the places are ticket-only tonight,” she replied, “but I am pretty sure O’Neill’s isn’t.”
“Let’s try there, then,” I replied, allowing things to proceed along their natural course.
The place was rammed, largely with groups of single men and women and there were a lot more men than women. It was prime pulling potential. Of course, I already knew what was to come – Kelly didn’t.
“There’s some talent in here tonight,” remarked Kelly, “and a good male
-to-female ratio! I’m definitely getting some tonight.”
She was such a tart in this era. It was strange seeing how different she was, knowing how much she would change. It would be just a few short years before she would put all of this behind her, settle down, and become incredibly dull, ultimately disowning me over my casual ADHD joke on Facebook.
I wonder if settling down had been what she had really wanted, or whether it was just something that happened to her. What changes would she make if she had her chance over again? Would she choose the same path?
I scanned the room, trying to spot Rob and Gary, but it was extremely crowded. All I could remember for certain is that we had first met them at the bar.
“My round,” proclaimed Kelly. “What are you having?”
“Tell you what, why don’t I get these?” I suggested. “You see if you can find us a table.”
I needed to take any opportunity to try and engineer things in my favour, and it was therefore essential I got to the bar before she did.
“Not much chance of getting a seat in here,” she replied. “And who wants to sit down anyway? Come on, let’s get some drinks.” And grabbing my hand to drag me through the crowd, she made a beeline for the bar.
This wasn’t ideal. If I let her find Rob and Gary before I did, my plans could go up in smoke. I had just one advantage – I knew who I was looking for and she didn’t. I needed to make that edge count.
Fighting our way through to the bar wasn’t easy. The throng of people jostling for drinks was three-deep and manoeuvring our way to the front line was a challenge. When we did, we found that getting there was half the battle – getting served in turn was quite another.
A lot of the tradition British etiquette about queue-jumping seemed to go out of the window when it came to getting drinks in crowded pubs. We just had to hope they had experienced staff on tonight who knew what the pecking order was when it came to serving people. That wasn’t the case in all pubs.