The Time Bubble Box Set 2

by Jason Ayres

  He pocketed the money and headed back down to the living room. The telly was still on but the morning programmes had finished. All that was on the screen now was a page from Ceefax, another blast from the past. Daytime TV shows about antiques and buying houses were far in the future and he was very glad about that. Debs seemed to spend all the days she wasn’t at the bakery watching them.

  “You’d better put your big coat on,” said his mother. “It’s freezing out there today. The weatherman on breakfast TV said that it might snow later.”

  She handed him his coat, a familiar old blue parka with a furry rim around the hood, and he started to put it on. Instinctively, she reached down to do his zip up for him. It was great being a kid, thought Kent. Everyone did everything for you.

  “Now, you look after him, Annie,” said his mother. “And make sure he crosses the road safely. Remember the Green Cross Code.”

  “Don’t worry, Mum, we’ll be OK,” replied Annie.

  Kent’s childhood home was on the main road leading into town, just a couple of hundred yards from the start of the town centre. As they walked towards the town, he marvelled at how much things had changed.

  For a start, there were the cars, a never-ending stream passing in both directions on the busy road. This was before the ring road had been built and long before the M40 was finished. Back then, the town got a lot of through traffic. This road still formed part of the main north/south route through the county.

  It was like being at some sort of classic car rally for crap cars. Austin Maxis and Allegros rumbled past in a variety of revolting colours, sporting varying degrees of rust. There were Mini Metros, Morris Travellers and even a bright orange Ford Capri. Inside the Capri were two young men with the windows down, slicked-back hair, huge mirror shades and the unmistakeable voice of Simon Bates on Radio 1 blaring out. Presumably they thought they looked cool but to Kent they looked ridiculous. It was a freezing cold February day with leaden grey skies for a start – hardly sunglasses weather.

  They passed by a couple of pubs on the way, old favourites of Kent’s that were long gone. One had been turned into a Thai restaurant, much to his disgust. Being an old school meat and potatoes sort of man, he hated Thai food. Why couldn’t they have made it into something he would have liked? Most of his life he had lived in this town and still no one had ever opened a steakhouse. It was all Thai this and Italian that.

  The other pub had been turned into a nail bar, another modern abomination. It was fantastic to see them back in their original form, The Rose and Crown in all its spit and sawdust glory, and The Railway Arms, where he used to sneak in underage for a half of cider and a chip butty on Saturday lunchtimes. Those were the days, racing on a portable telly on the bar and a couple of quid in the £6 jackpot fruit machines. Happy days they had been, too. They were easy times to live in – before he had joined the police and before he had got married.

  He quite fancied popping in right now for a pint, but then remembered that he couldn’t. He was only seven years old. Although The Railway Arms had a huge reputation for underage drinking, located handily near the local comprehensive school as it was, even they had to draw the line somewhere. Perhaps he could come back later as a teenager and call in for a pint.

  It was interesting that he fancied a pint. He may have been in the body of a seven-year-old, but clearly his mind was still very much that of his older self. That contrasted with his experience at breakfast when it had definitely been his body telling him he was hungry. He knew he certainly wouldn’t have been interested in beer at the age of seven. He had a vague memory of an irresponsible older cousin giving him some bottled French lager behind the marquee at a family wedding when he was about nine. He had spat it out in disgust. It was a taste he would not acquire until his mid-teens.

  It seemed there was no clear-cut answer to whether he was his seven-year-old self or his forty-two-year-old self. It seemed as if he had become an amalgam of the two. He would just have to deal with his mind and body’s reactions to each situation as and when it arose. He definitely wouldn’t be drinking any beer, though. Even if he could obtain any and even if his mind was telling him he wanted it, he was pretty sure his seven-year-old body wouldn’t be able to handle it.

  Onwards they went into town, in the days before the High Street was pedestrianised. Back then, cars would crawl up and down looking for a parking space, beeping their horns in a cacophony of noise and leaded petrol fumes. It all contributed to a very busy and bustling town centre scene, far livelier than Kent could ever remember seeing it.

  The street was full of long gone shops. These included an ironmonger’s shop, a haberdashery store, three butchers, a greengrocer’s, two shoe shops, a bicycle shop and a toyshop. They passed by all of these as they headed towards their destination at the far end of the street – good old Woolies.

  There was also a modest Fine Fare supermarket, the only shop of its kind in town. The huge hypermarkets of Tesco and Sainsbury’s were yet to reach what back then was still very much an independent little town, full of family businesses and full of character.

  It was a far cry from the High Street that Kent was familiar with in 2018. The modern version was a mix of coffee shop chains, charity shops, nail bars and estate agents. A few of the old national chains like WHSmith and Boots were still around, but not many. All of the independent shops were long gone.

  Comparing the two, Kent had to conclude that he liked the 1984 version a lot better.

  “Stop here for a minute,” said Annie, pausing by the red postbox outside Boots, a familiar landmark still present in 2018. “I just want to post my letter.” She had been jabbering on about Jim’ll Fix It all the way into town but Kent had not been particularly responsive. He was too in awe of his surroundings, trying to take it all in.

  She posted her letter, turned to him and said, “Right, let’s get down to Woolworths, then. This is a big day for you, buying your first single. Are you still going to buy the Nena one?”

  Kent winced at the thought. He remembered now, he had bought “99 Red Balloons”. This had led him to tell a blatant lie a decade or so later. The topic of “what was the first record you ever bought?” had come up in conversation with his mates. They had all claimed to have bought really cool tracks by bands like Motörhead or The Stranglers. He didn’t dare mention “99 Red Balloons”, so he had claimed a track from The Clash instead.

  No one had questioned it at the time, even though the song had actually come out two years earlier when he would have been only five, which was suspiciously young to have been buying a first single. Over the years he had stuck to this story. Eventually he had even convinced himself, implanting the false memory that he really had bought “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” as his first single. He had forgotten all about Nena, until now, so Annie’s question had come as a shock.

  Now he came to ponder the subject, he wondered about all the cool first singles his mates had claimed they had bought and whether they had been lying as well. You couldn’t equate how you felt about music at eighteen with how you felt about it at seven. He couldn’t remember why he’d bought Nena’s single. He could only assume that in his innocent, young mind, not yet swayed by peer pressure, he’d liked it.

  He realised once he was into his twenties and the peer pressure had eased off that it was OK to like stuff that wasn’t cool. He had more than a few guilty little pleasures hidden away in his record collection. If he liked something, he liked it; he wasn’t going to be elitist about it like some were.

  Nena was a different matter, though. He couldn’t stand the song now and had no intention of buying it. So here was a first opportunity to correct an early mistake from his past. He was going to make sure this first purchase really meant something.

  They pushed through the swing-doors and into the familiar and reassuring ambience of the Woolworths store that he had spent so much time in during his youth. He never imagined he might set eyes on it again, yet here he was.

  D
irectly in front of him was the most amazing selection of pick ’n’ mix he had seen for years. It was all laid out on a long, oval counter that you could walk all the way around.

  There must have been a hundred different types of sweets there, many that Kent had not set eyes on since his childhood. He was tempted to blow his pocket money there and then to feast on Fruit Salads and Refresher chews, but he resisted the temptation. He was here on a mission and he had a record to buy.

  “Come on, Richie, we’re not here to buy sweets,” said Annie. “Let’s see if they’ve updated the chart. Nena’s gone from 31 to 11.”

  Kent was not surprised that Annie was encouraging him to buy Nena’s record. She had never been particularly cool when it came to music, though he hadn’t really noticed that until he’d reached his teenage years. Perhaps that had been because he had looked up to her back then. He was certainly enjoying her company today, much preferring this Annie to the adult version.

  “Are you buying a record today, Annie?” asked Kent.

  “Well, I was going to buy the Frankie Goes to Hollywood one but Mum says I can’t because the BBC has banned it because it’s too rude. So I think I’ll get the new one by the Thompson Twins instead.”

  How times had changed, thought Kent. It was only another fifteen years or so until kids everywhere would be listening to the filth coming out of Eminem’s mouth, with parents barely batting an eyelid. As for his own kids, by the time they were not much older than Kent was now, they were listening to the likes of N-Dubz, and not just the radio edits, either.

  Kent felt almost gratified that his sister was buying a Thompson Twins record. It was further evidence that she wasn’t as cool as he was, or rather who he was to become. There was nothing wrong with the Thompson Twins, per se, but it was hardly cutting-edge stuff. He had to concede they were still significantly higher in the coolness rankings than Nena was, though.

  They rounded the corner to where the chart singles were displayed on wire racks, neatly arranged from 1 to 40 according to the current chart positions. Kent was quite impressed. This didn’t tally with his memory of Woolworths in later years when the music section had resembled some sort of jumble sale. Whoever was responsible for looking after this department at this point in history clearly took pride in what they were doing. It must have gone downhill later.

  He looked down to the second row, and there it was, in the correct place, at No. 11: Nena’s “99 Red Balloons”. But it was the single directly next to it on the shelf to which his eyes were excitedly drawn. At No. 12 in the chart that week was a song he absolutely adored, “What Difference Does It Make?” by The Smiths.

  Kent’s interest in The Smiths had come too late for him to appreciate them while they were at the height of their fame. He discovered them a couple of years after they broke up when he was in his early teens. For a while, they were all he listened to.

  Aged around fifteen, he had been going through a period of early teenage angst and insecurity about girls. Morrissey’s maudlin lyrics seemed to reach out to him in a way that no other singer’s ever had. Kent even felt at the time as if he was speaking to him personally.

  The first Smiths album, bought by Kent in the early 1990s, barely left his CD player for the first few weeks after he got it. It had been the first CD he had bought after he had upgraded from records and was still one of his favourite albums of all time. He had rarely had a chance to listen to it in recent years. Debs had dismissed it as “depressing crap,” on the one attempt he’d made to get her to listen to it.

  Kent felt this was rather hypocritical coming from someone who watched The X Factor week in, week out, but it was easier to just give in and admit defeat rather than argue the toss about it.

  Now he was here in 1984 with a chance to right a wrong of the past and banish Nena forever from his record collection. In the grand scheme of things it was a somewhat minor wrong compared to some of the other ills that had beset him over the years, but it was a change that was going to make him feel a whole lot better.

  “What’s taking you so long?” asked Annie, who had already grabbed her Thompson Twins single and was hopping about impatiently.

  “Actually, I think I’m going to buy this one, instead,” remarked Kent, and he casually and coolly picked The Smiths single off the shelf.

  “The Smiths? Really?” asked Annie, incredulously. “They’re rubbish.”

  “Well, you never did have any decent taste in music,” replied Kent, rather cruelly. Immediately he regretted it. It was out of character for the seven-year-old him, and the sort of thing he would have said to the adult Annie, not the nicer younger one.

  “That’s a horrible thing to say,” replied Annie with a crestfallen look on her face. “I’m telling Mum when we get home.”

  “Sorry, Annie,” said Kent, and he genuinely meant it. “I didn’t mean it. I just heard this on the radio the other day and I liked it.”

  Annie didn’t say any more. She was too keen to get to the counter to pay for her single but it looked as if she’d accepted his apology. Kent followed, scarcely able to believe that he was holding this legendary 7” piece of vinyl in his hands.

  “What Difference Does It Make?” How very apt that title was, thought Kent. What difference would it make? Up until now the thought of changing history had barely occurred to him, but he was certainly thinking about it now.

  Would it make a difference? He couldn’t imagine that one little change of purchase in a small-town Woolworths store was going to set in process a cataclysmic chain of events which would drastically alter the entire future of the planet. Time travel movies he had seen often portrayed this scenario, but what possible impact could his actions today have?

  The loss of one measly sale of the Nena record was not going to prevent it storming to number one any more than buying The Smiths single would make any difference to their fortunes. But in his personal world it would make all the difference.

  When that conversation with his teenage pals rolled round years later, he’d be able to stand up with pride and honesty to tell them what he’d bought. OK, admittedly The Smiths were not everyone’s cup of tea, but in terms of credibility, Nena couldn’t compare. He could even show them the single as evidence and challenge them to show theirs. Then they would see who had been telling the truth and who hadn’t.

  After they left Woolworths they went home for lunch. Kent got to play his new single on the family record player, part of a Pioneer stack system that his father had recently bought. His mother didn’t like the single any more than his sister did or Debs would in the future, but none of that mattered to him.

  The rest of the day was uneventful and that was fine by Kent. He just got on and enjoyed the day. It was amazing how easy he had found it to slip back into his childhood self. In the afternoon Annie took him to the park and Kent braved the rusty old slide that was the main attraction back in those days. He had been in his seven-year-old body for quite a few hours now and was beginning to adjust to his new stature. Accordingly, the slide looked huge.

  Up at the top he felt quite nervous for a moment before he launched himself down. He was well aware that the surface below the slide wasn’t the foamy stuff you got in parks these days that looked like tarmac. It really was rock-hard tarmac. It was a wonder no one had ever been killed. People moaned about Health and Safety ruining things, but Kent had to admit that the modern facilities that had long replaced the junk in this old park were a massive improvement. So, not everything was better in the old days.

  He couldn’t have a go on the swings as they were both broken. The seat on one had been replaced by an old tyre, but that was hanging off only one chain. There was also an ancient roundabout but they couldn’t get it to move. It had completely seized up with rust.

  Tea was a delicious helping of fish fingers, beans and his mother’s home-made crinkle-cut chips cooked in a traditional chip pan. Afterwards they settled down to watch Top of the Pops. It was wonderful seeing the beaming faces of Simo
n Bates and Peter Powell again after all these years: to Kent they felt like old friends. Sadly The Smiths were not on but it didn’t matter. He enjoyed seeing every act, even Nena, now that he’d freed himself from her first single curse.

  It was halfway through the show when his dad came in from work. Kent’s delight at seeing him didn’t go unnoticed. He ran up to give him a hug, just as he had with his mother that morning. His father was quite taken aback, seeming almost embarrassed at the wanton show of emotion. It was rare for the fathers of his generation to display much affection towards their offspring.

  Glancing at the telly, his father made a comment, one Kent could remember him making almost every week during his youth. The remark was directed at The Style Council, performing their new single which had been the highest new entry on the chart that week.

  “Look at this lot, what do they think they look like? I don’t know what modern music is coming to. They don’t make songs these days like they did back in the sixties.”

  There was nothing particularly odd about Paul Weller’s appearance, thought Kent, not compared to some of the others that came on. But then he thought back to how he’d felt when he had been thinking about music the previous day. Maybe it wasn’t just him, but purely a generational thing. His dad had been more or less the same age in 1984 as Kent was in 2018. He was saying exactly the same things Kent was thinking now about the current state of popular music.

  Perhaps that was the lesson to be learnt from this, that he needed to accept the passing of time, enjoy the music he had grown up with, and then accept with good grace when the time came to pass the baton on to the next generation.

  He was tired after Top of the Pops finished. A David Attenborough documentary came on and he wanted to stay up longer because he didn’t want the day to end. When his mother suggested that he should go up and get into his pyjamas he resisted at first. Ultimately he couldn’t fight the feeling of tiredness washing over him.