by Jason Ayres
“Who’s Richard?” replied Craig, turning back towards her, vodka and Coke in hand. It was the second time today she had received that response. Was she the only person in the world who knew his first name? Why did people only ever refer to him by his surname? She thought it was rather rude. He deserved better.
“Sorry, I mean Kent,” said Kay.
“He hasn’t been in yet,” said Craig. “Listen, why don’t you put your name down for the karaoke? Even this idiot here is having a go.” He gesticulated towards Andy.
“Less of the idiot, if you don’t mind,” replied Andy.
“You are an idiot,” said Craig, but then added, almost affectionately, “but you’re our idiot.”
He really was in a good mood. She couldn’t remember him ever saying anything nice about Andy before. But that was down to the generally happy atmosphere in the pub tonight. Andy seemed happy with Craig’s response and turned back round to continue his conversation with Nobby.
“Yeah, I’ll give it a go,” said Kay to Craig.
“Go over and see Jason, the DJ, and put your name down ASAP, then,” said Craig. “There’s quite a waiting list by the looks of things.”
Kay took her drink and wandered over to the stage area by the DJ booth where The Three Drunken Twats had just finished their song to great acclaim from the crowd. She waited patiently while the DJ blathered on in a lame attempt at a stand-up comedy routine prior to calling up the next singer.
It was a young girl next whom she recognised as Lauren, a short, dark-haired girl with a cheeky grin and jet black hair styled in a bob. She was wearing an extremely low-cut, black top that left very little to the imagination.
Kay observed the crowd’s reaction with amusement as the lively young girl began to sing. The assembled group of lads watching had eyes on stalks as Lauren launched into the old Katy Perry number, “I Kissed a Girl”. She played up very suggestively to the crowd, boobs practically spilling out of her top, and even pulled over a girl friend at one point and gave her a kiss squarely on the lips, sending the boys into a frenzy.
She knows how to get male attention, thought Kay, wistfully remembering how it had once been like that for her. She hoped Lauren would have more luck with men in the long run than she had.
Kay managed to get the DJ’s attention and gave him her song choice, then turned back to the bar where she was thrilled to see that Kent had now arrived and was standing with the others.
She rushed straight back over to the bar to see him, a move that wasn’t unnoticed by Andy.
“Here comes your girlfriend,” remarked Andy to Kent. “I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes when your missus finds out.”
“Shut up, Andy,” said Kent. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Taking his freshly poured pint of bitter, he said to Kay, “Come on, let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
“Another cosy chat in the corner, is it?” called Andy after them. “This is getting to be a bit of a habit.”
They ignored him and moved to the table at the front of the pub where they had sat the previous evening, far enough away from the karaoke to be able to hear each other speak without shouting.
“I don’t want to be too long,” said Kent. “Debs wasn’t too happy about me coming out tonight, but I had to find out how it went. Tell me all about it.”
Kay described in detail the events of the previous day. Kent listened, smiling, chuckling and commenting at certain points.
“I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when you told Glen where to get off,” he said. “Has he really only got a four-inch cock? That’s hilarious!”
“I’m afraid so,” she replied. “No wonder he used to show off so much: it was probably his way of compensating for his inadequacies down there.”
“That’s made my day, that has,” said Kent.
“I thought it would,” said Kay, resisting the temptation to say, “Yours was much bigger.” That might have been interpreted as flirting which she was trying to cut out.
Later he exclaimed, “I loved Old Orleans!” as Kay described their day out in Oxford. “I really miss that place. They used to do amazing cocktails.”
At the end of her story, she didn’t hold anything back. As she described what had happened when they had gone back to his room, she held his gaze, looking into his eyes just as she had with her younger self in his bed.
But this was an older Kent, and a different Kent. He broke her gaze, looking nervously down into his drink.
“What’s the matter?” she said. “Didn’t the same happen when you went back to relive that day?”
“Yes,” he admitted, almost furtively. “But it’s different for you. You’re single now. I’m married. It’s still sort of cheating, in a way.”
“But that didn’t bother you when you went back before, did it?” she questioned.
“No, but it was different then. I was going back in my own timeline, to my own youth. I never thought in a million years I’d be sitting here having this conversation with you in the present day. Now that you’ve had the same experience, it somehow makes it more real.”
She could see that she needed to reassure him. “Look, it’s OK,” she said. “You know I fancy you like crazy, always have done, but I respect the fact that you’re married. I’m not a threat to you.”
“You say that now,” replied Kent. “But what about later when you’ve had a few drinks? How many times have you drunkenly tried to lure me back to your flat?”
Kay couldn’t blame him for thinking that based on her past behaviour. What sort of woman had she turned into? She would not have dreamt of messing around with a married man in her youth. She must have acquired a terrible reputation around town.
She knew she had, because the woman who had knocked her teeth out had seen to that. She had named and shamed Kay all over Facebook on the town chat page. Admin had swiftly deleted it, but the damage had been done.
She must stick to the vow she had made a couple of days ago. There must be no more married men, and that included Kent. Despite the way the flame inside her for him was burning as strongly as ever, she knew deep down it could never be. She finally felt that she was able to accept that now. Perhaps the trip to the past had got it out of her system.
They were friends now and that was the next-best thing in a world which had by and large turned against her. She could not risk losing that friendship, especially now, when she could benefit greatly from his help and advice. He had more experience than her of travelling back through time, and she wanted to bounce some more ideas off him.
“You don’t need to worry about that anymore,” she said. “I’ve got it out of my system now, honestly. I just want to be friends.” It hurt having to say these words, but it was the only way if she was to get him to trust her.
He seemed to relax after that and open up a bit, offering some observations on their unusual situation.
“You know, we’ve had a relationship that is probably quite unique in the whole history of the world,” he said.
“How do you mean?” she asked.
“It’s really strange when you think about it,” he said. “We’ve both slept with each other, but we both haven’t, if you get what I mean. I’ve slept with another version of you. You’ve slept with another version of me. But us two here talking right now haven’t slept with each other.”
“Weird, isn’t it?” replied Kay. “But I like it. All these billions of people in the world, and as far as we know, no one else has ever had the same experience.”
“So, now that’s out of the way, what’s next?” asked Kent, clearly keen to hear what she had planned for tomorrow.
“Well, that’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about,” said Kay.
She filled him on the backstory of her break-up with Alan and how he was dragging his heels over the divorce proceedings. She also explained how she believed he had been hiding funds from her and how she planned to use one of her trips to investigate.
&
nbsp; “That’s an inspired idea,” said Kent. “After I realised I couldn’t change history, I never really explored the possibility of solving mysteries within my own past. I had enough difficulty doing detective work in the present, to be honest. That’s probably why I am now unemployed.”
“So what’s the legality of me poking around in his past affairs?” she asked.
“I’m not sure of the exact legal position of it all, that’s more for lawyers than policemen. I do know that opening other people’s emails etc. can be considered an invasion of privacy, but that normally revolves around corporate spying or identity theft. As far as domestic cases go, in all my years in the force, no one ever came into the station and accused their husband or wife of such a thing. Besides, you’ll be in the other universe, so it doesn’t matter even if you do get caught snooping around somewhere you shouldn’t.”
“Sounds like there’s nothing to worry about, then,” said Kay. “I can concentrate on the most important thing, which is to find the evidence in the first place.”
“That’s another thing I meant to bring up – the question of evidence,” replied Kent.
“Go on,” said Kay.
“Well, even if you did find any evidence in the past, as I am sure you must know by now, you can’t bring it back to the present to use against him. It’s difficult to see what you can effectively do.”
“What if I buried it or hid it somewhere, ready for me to dig up when I return?” she asked.
“That wouldn’t work either,” he said. “You go back into Universe 2.0, remember? It wouldn’t be there for you to dig up in Universe 1.0.”
“Of course it wouldn’t,” she said, mentally kicking herself for making such an obvious mistake. “You must think I’m a right numpty for that suggestion.”
“Of course not,” said Kent. “You’re still learning and there’s a lot to get your head around. Time travel is a complicated business. It wasn’t until at least my third trip that I really got to grips with it all. I didn’t even realise you couldn’t change history until after the second. The angel didn’t bother to tell me that and I wasted a whole trip on a fruitless gambling spree thinking I could make myself rich.”
“So it looks like I’m going to be relying on my memory,” said Kay. “That’s if I can even find anything.”
“Your memory is all you’ve got. It’s the one thing you can take with you through time. What you need to do is to go back to a time when he won’t suspect that you know anything,” said Kent. “Pick a date before you broke up: that way you’ll be still living in your house and will have free rein to investigate.”
“That makes sense,” replied Kay. “I can’t go round there now, he’s changed the locks. He did it the day after I moved out. That makes me even more suspicious that he’s got something to hide. He clearly didn’t want me going back there and poking around in his secret office. He pretty much locked me out of there even before we split up.”
“You also don’t want him around while you are doing your snooping,” added Kent. “Make sure you pick a day when he won’t be there.”
“That shouldn’t be too difficult,” replied Kay. “He was always off on his business trips. That’s if they even were business trips. Half the time I suspect he was holed up in some hotel somewhere with that tart, Lucy. I’m convinced he was having an affair with her for months, if not years, before he kicked me out. That’s something else I can probably find proof of, now I think about it.”
“It sounds like you have got the makings of a decent plan there, then,” said Kent. “Part of me wishes I was coming with you. I miss travelling to the past now it’s over.”
“Well, I will tell you all about it when I get back,” said Kay, happy with the way the conversation had gone. “Shall we go back to the bar now?”
“Well, I really ought to be getting home,” replied Kent. “I told Debs I was only going out for one. But then, when have I ever done that? It hardly seems worth coming out just for one, does it? And it is Christmas, after all.”
“Agreed,” said Kay. “I can only afford one more, though, that’s if I’m going to eat tomorrow.”
“I’ll get you one,” he said. “That’s what friends are for.”
Gratefully she accepted and they went to the bar. His comment about them being friends had given her a warm feeling inside because she knew he had really meant it. Real friends had been sorely lacking from her life for a long time, but now she knew for sure that she had at least one. Perhaps one was all you needed if they stood by you. She truly felt that in his case, he would.
It was worth their while staying, purely for the entertainment value of seeing Andy’s botched attempt at resurrecting his rockstar past. He was actually doing quite well with his rendition of “Born to be Wild” until he got to the second chorus, tripped over the microphone stand and fell flat on his face, bringing an inevitable cheer from the crowd.
“Look out for that one on YouTube tomorrow!” announced the DJ. “It’s not the first time he’s done that and it won’t be the last. Andy Green – we salute you – what a star!”
Kay downed the remainder of her drink and got ready to leave. She went home feeling full of the joys of the season, looking forward to the challenge that lay ahead the next day.
Chapter Thirteen
February 2018
By the time the angel appeared in the mirror the following morning, Kay was all prepared with the exact date she needed to go back to.
Compared to her previous trips, this would be just a short hop in temporal terms. Her destination was February 14th 2018, a day she remembered well.
It had been a Wednesday and she had been looking forward to going out for a meal with Alan, something they had done every Valentine’s Day since they had got together.
Date nights such as these had become increasingly rare in recent years. Other than Valentine’s Day, about the only other time they went out for a meal was for their wedding anniversary. It was all a far cry from the wining and dining he had done to impress her in the early days.
This year, the meal had not happened at all. A couple of days beforehand, he had announced that some major problem had come up with a wine supplier at work and he was going to have to fly to Paris the following day to sort it out.
When she had suggested going with him, Alan had not looked happy. He had said that he would love to have her accompany him, but the company was having financial difficulties and he wouldn’t be able to justify a ticket for her on expenses. Besides, he would be spending all day in crisis meetings trying to resolve the problems, followed by dinner with the suppliers in the evenings. He wouldn’t be able to spend any time with her, so there was no point in her going.
This had unsurprisingly turned out to be complete bullshit. By this time, Kay had already suspected him of having an affair, so disappearing off on Valentine’s Day set all sorts of alarm bells ringing in her head.
A few weeks later he had told her he didn’t think the marriage was working out and had ordered her to move out. She was barely out of the door before he installed the hated Lucy in her place. It didn’t take a genius to work out it was her that he had been with in Paris that week.
As for Kay, she stayed at home and spent Valentine’s Day watching old Bridget Jones movies on DVD. She didn’t hear a peep from Alan all day, and as for any sort of Valentine’s present, that was a joke. She didn’t even get a card.
His absence that day was just what she needed to carry out her detective work. He would be nicely out of the way in Paris with that red-headed tart, enabling her to snoop at her leisure.
As for Maddie, she would also be out of the way, spending half-term visiting some friends in London. At eighteen, she had inherited Kay’s adventurous streak, also expressing a desire to go travelling after her A levels. Kay just hoped she wouldn’t fall prey to another Glen, or even worse, another Alan.
With the house to herself she could take her time and leave no stone unturned. It wasn’t going to be
one of the most exciting days of her life, but this time she was putting business before pleasure. This was about looking to the future, not reliving the past. If she found what she was looking for, then her unsuspecting victim would have his revenge served up cold just in time for Christmas.
Kay didn’t bother with any preamble with the angel, telling her where she wanted to go straightaway. She soon found herself waking up in the past for the third time, in a third different bed. She was exactly where she had expected to be – in the house that had been her home until just a few months ago.
How she missed this room. She hadn’t seen the inside of it since the day she had left. Her former home was a four-bedroom town house on one of the town’s new estates. Compared to the flat above McVie’s, it was a mansion. They had bought it three years before as a new build. After reserving the plot, they had the opportunity to have a say in all of the final specifications. That had allowed her to really put her stamp on it.
Her bedroom, which on the plans had been described as the master bedroom, was an impressive size by modern standards, a spacious room where there was plenty of floor space, even with the king-size bed against the back wall.
Every bit of furnishing in the room had been chosen and bought by her. Alan was not interested in those sorts of cosmetic details and had left her to get on with it. She had decorated and furnished it to what she felt was perfection. All of the furniture was made of pine, from the bed frame to the bedside tables. It was good, solid stuff, not like the cheap, flimsy rubbish they sold in some stores.
The walls of the room were a pale lemon colour, with curtains to match. It was a similar shade to the dress she had recently worn in 1994. Yellow had always been her favourite colour.
The massive windows along the left-hand side of the room made it wonderfully light, even on this winter morning. The whole of the opposite side of the room was taken up by a large, walk-in wardrobe, full of clothes. Most of these she hadn’t been able to take with her when she left. Alan had allowed her to pack just one suitcase before he escorted her off the premises the day she had left. When she tried to get back in a few days later, she discovered that he had changed the locks.