Joseph Bridgeman and the Silver Hunter

by Nick Jones

  I turn over the card and read the number:

  LOST - AND - FOUND

  5 6 7 8 - 2 6 3 - 3 6 8 6 3

  Your relocation is our Number 1 priority.

  ‘It’s important, Joe,’ he says again. ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes. Lost and found. Got it,’ I reply obediently. I just need to play along with him now till he leaves, which by my calculations should be any minute now.

  ‘Excellent,’ smiles Bill. ‘Orientation Part 1 complete.’ He checks his watch again and shakes his head. ‘We have a little time to spare. Most unusual. I keep thinking I’ve forgotten something… What was it?… Ah, yes!’ He clears his throat and takes a small notepad out of his jacket pocket.

  ‘New protocol, still getting used to it,’ he says apologetically. ‘Question 1: How likely would you be to recommend me as a mentor to other time travellers?’

  I scan his face for evidence that he’s messing with me, but I don’t detect a trace of irony. Bill misreads my silence as disapproval.

  ‘I know, rather embarrassing to ask, it’s a new thing... It’s on a scale of one to five, five being the most likely.’

  He’s serious. ‘Er… well, five I guess.’

  He flashes me a brief smile. ‘Thank you. And, how well did you feel that I explained –’ His watch beeps again. Flickering shapes dance across him, and a soft aura settles around the space his body is currently occupying. He waves his hand dismissively.

  ‘No time… Don’t worry, it’s pointless anyway. Oh! – And Joe, watch those landings, they can be tricky until you calibrate.’

  ‘What do you mean, calibrate –’ I begin, but it’s too late. Bill shimmers before my eyes, colours like oil and red silk in the rain. For perhaps a second, I can see straight through him. Then, with a sharp sound, like a giant clapping his hands, he pops neatly into nothingness.

  It’s instant, exhilarating and terrifying.

  I drop my shoulders and rub my eyes, staring at the empty space.

  Wowzers.

  I saw Amy time travel once and the image of her disappearing in the rain, shattering like crystal into a million pieces, will stay with me forever. It doesn’t matter how many times you watch someone flicker out, time travel is not something you ever get used to.

  I decide to close the shop. I get up and walk to the front door, automatically scanning the street outside for anything odd. As I set the deadlocks, I put Bill’s remark that time travel hasn’t finished with me into a little box inside my head, close the lid good and tight and shove it right to the back, behind the one labelled “Everything in my old life that I’m trying to forget”.

  Time travel is the last thing on my mind, the last thing I should be doing. Right now, I have my work cut out.

  I’ve got twenty years of Previous Joe’s life to catch up on.

  Chapter Four

  Amy was seven years old when she went missing at the fair. It was my job to look after her and I failed. She was never seen again. Her disappearance haunted me, and my family, for years. It’s fair to say my life was pretty sad. I spent most of my time alone, ran a failing online antiques business and rattled around like a ghost in my parents’ old house. It was properly lame. But then something happened, an unexpected gift. I discovered, through a series of hypnotic events, that I could time-travel. Initially just short jumps, an hour then a day. But with effort, practice and some help those jumps turned into weeks and then years. Eventually, with some tricky double-jumping antics, I managed to get all the way back to 1992 and save Amy. I solved the riddle of the disappearing girl.

  Looking back, I feel sorry for all the people who gave their time and energy trying to find her. They never stood a chance. I was the only one who could.

  I just didn’t know it yet.

  Amy was a time traveller, just like me.

  When they’re trying to make you feel better, people often say, ‘It’s all in the past’. But it isn’t, not really. It’s gone. When I went back and saved her, I changed everything for the better. And now I’m back, three days into my new, improved life with a hell of a lot to catch up on.

  I need to prepare for the present, one I know very little about.

  The thought conjures up a TV show called Faking It. Some idiot, desperate to be on telly, is given two weeks to transform themselves – just enough – to fool people into believing they belong. In other words, they fake it. Can I do that? I wonder, star in my own episode of Joseph Bridgeman: Faking It, LIVE?

  Well, there’s no time like the present. I need to continue reading the book Amy gave me. I head to my huge desk, near the back of the shop. It’s polished oak and has one of those gold lamps with a green shade. I click on the lamp, lean back in my captain’s chair and am about to open the book when I see a little red light blinking.

  A retro answering machine. I’m tempted to leave it but I guess I do need to start engaging with life here. I draw in a breath and press the play button.

  < Beep >

  ‘You have two messages,’ a robo-woman tells me. ‘Please review your answerphone greeting.’

  I hear my own voice first, which is mind-warping.

  ‘Hi,’ my alter ego says, ‘thank you for calling Bridgeman Antiques. I’m afraid I’m away on business at the moment, but please do leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Thank you for calling.’ This is followed by another beep.

  It’s so weird to hear him. He sounds confident and well-spoken like he’s had a public school education. The one that was robbed from me after my family fell apart. I press the hash key as instructed to keep the current greeting – no need to change it; let’s keep things nice and steady – and the answerphone plays me my messages.

  Message one is a mechanic from a garage. The car needs a service, apparently. Don’t know what it is and, for the record, I can’t drive.

  Message two is my mum.

  ‘Joe,’ she says, ‘are you there?’ Long silence. ‘Your father and I are having a wonderful time… Are you there?…’ Another pause. ‘I meant to ask you before we left if you wouldn’t mind popping round to the house and just checking things over. Hope everything is okay. Oh, and don’t forget to water the plants. Your father and I are having a great time... Are you actually there? Are you there?’ She waits for around 20 seconds. ‘I guess not,’ she concedes. ‘Bye, love.’ She hangs up.

  I smile, eyes stinging. Last time I saw her, she was in a bad way, suffering from dementia. It’s quite something to hear her now, chirpy and vibrant.

  My mum is okay. Dad too.

  I sit in silence for a while, processing, something I suspect I will be doing for years to come. Eventually, I grab the book and open it.

  It’s handwritten by Amy. Neat and concise, simple and factual. The highlights of Previous Joe’s life, seen through her lens. Initially, it made interesting reading, but it wears thin after a while. It must have been hard for Amy, preparing for her brother to be replaced. She did an incredible job, amazing actually, considering that I sort of killed her brother a few days ago.

  Each page has moments in a life that’s oddly familiar, but I don’t remember. It’s like the ingredients are similar but the menu is new. The main difference is that Previous Joe’s life has all the hardship, loneliness and crap taken out. None of the awful stuff happened in his timeline, this timeline.

  Good for him.

  A challenge for me.

  Reading about my University life is weird. PJ was similar but way more successful. He won awards for sport. Sport! I was crap at sport... Seems Mark D’Stellar and I were still friends, still played in a band together. Although there are definite gaps (I guess Amy focused on the main things), every year Previous Joe seems to have a new woman. It’s sad. Not just because he never seemed to find love, but also because I don’t remember any of it.

  Twenty-five years.

  Without the memories.

  The movies don’t really go into that.

  When you time travel, if you go b
ack far enough and alter your own history, when you return, only you will remember how it was. Oh, and you will vaporise your previous self and won’t magically know everything they knew.

  Think about the end of the best film ever made. Marty gets home, his family are awesome, but he doesn’t know anything. Now, play that through, for just a few days.

  A family has shared memories, traditions and ways of doing things, often subtle but incredibly powerful.

  How long would it be before the McFly family got seriously worried about clueless Marty?

  Yeah, that’s why they didn’t go into that.

  It would scare the kids.

  I stare at the book of my life and finally turn to ‘PJ the Recent Years’.

  He was, therefore I am:

  Successful and financially solid (er, quite loaded)

  A landlord (!)

  The owner of multiple properties (WTF!!)

  Allowing Martin to run the property portfolio (!!!!!!)

  Wait, what? Martin!

  Jeez...

  In my previous life, Martin was my annoying accountant and a royal thorn in my arse. I haven’t seen him since I got back. I don’t know what our relationship is like now but I can imagine it will be similar. In fact, I can imagine him playing different characters on multiple timelines, bollocking me across time forever and ever, Amen.

  I place the book down. There’s only so much you can take in one sitting. Read too much in one go, you’re going to puke, like Neo in The Matrix.

  And by you, I mean me.

  Chapter Five

  Is that the muffled tones of Billy Idol I hear? ‘Hey, little sister, what have you done?’ I quickly trace the source of the sound to the desk drawer. Pulling it open, I find Previous Joe’s mobile phone. I grab it with the intention of turning off this nerve-jangling racket, but I notice the person calling has the nickname ‘Little Sis’, so I decide to pick up.

  ‘Hello?’ I say cautiously.

  ‘Hi, Joe,’ she says brightly. ‘It’s me, Amy.’

  For so many years, Amy was a ghost to me. Her timeline came to an end when she was a child; mine continued and I took her memory with me. But I always thought of her as I’d last known her, as a little girl.

  Now, as I hear Amy’s adult voice, the voice of this 30-year-old woman, I find myself working hard to adjust. You have to remember that only a week ago I was persuading my baby sister to be careful as she travelled through time. Now she’s here, grown up, with a life. She drives, she has a job, she’s a woman. I will never get used to having Amy back. And I will never take it for granted.

  ‘How are you settling in?’ she asks. She waits for a beat. ‘Are you there, Joe?’

  I take a deep breath and reconnect myself with the present. ‘Yep, sorry, I’m here. I’m fine. There’s lots to get my head around, but I’m okay. Are you still coming over?’

  ‘That’s why I was calling,’ she replies. ‘I’m going to be a bit delayed. I should still be there by seven, I hope… Maybe we could get some food?’

  Dinner with my sister. ‘That sounds good.’

  ‘How’s it going with your book? Have you been reading it?’ she asks.

  ‘Er, yeah, I have…’ I pause, searching for the right words.

  ‘What’s up?’ she says, clearly sensing my lack of enthusiasm.

  I clear my throat. Amy spent years writing this book. While she was living her life and building memories with Previous Joe, she knew that one day he’d be gone, and she’d be sharing them with me instead. She must have lived a kind of grieving in advance. She must have felt unbelievably guilty: his life in exchange for hers. I need to be gentle.

  ‘The thing is… I’m not sure this is going to work. I’m sorry,’ I end up saying in a flurry.

  ‘Why not?’ she asks. She still sounds calm. Good.

  ‘We’re so different, him and me,’ I try again.

  ‘In what way?’

  Where do I begin?

  ‘The house, the shop, friends… How I, I mean, he lived… I have property! I’m a bloody landlord! I’m still me, Amy, but I’m definitely not him.’ Hearing myself say it out loud, the enormity of the situation hits me hard.

  Amy takes a long breath. ‘I totally understand. Look, the book was just meant to be a starting point. I realise there are going to be some differences between you, but you’re basically the same person, so there must be loads of things that are the same.’

  Well, sure. It makes sense. But I’m living proof that it’s not so simple; that the things which happen to you have a massive impact on who you become. We may have had the same genes, but we couldn’t be more different. Nurture wins every time. I suppose, when you think about it, Amy grew up with Previous Joe, and she doesn’t know me that well yet. She’s going to have to trust me.

  I’ve been formulating a plan since I got back a few days ago. It links with the whole Marty McFly brain-damage problem I mentioned earlier. I’m nervous about even suggesting it, but honestly? I don’t think I have much choice.

  ‘I have an idea,’ I say.

  ‘Okay...’ she answers slowly.

  ‘I need to tell everyone I’ve got amnesia. You know, fake a head injury. That way, people will cut me some slack and they won’t worry when I don’t have a bloody clue what’s going on.’

  ‘I thought of that too,’ she concedes. ‘You need to be careful though, Joe. You have customers, dealers, tenancy contracts going through. People might take advantage of you.’

  ‘I don’t think we have much choice,’ I counter. ‘We’re just going to have to cross our fingers and hope for the best.’

  ‘And we don’t want to scare Mum and Dad, either. They’ll be worried if they think you’ve had a serious accident,’ Amy presses on.

  ‘Mum left me a message the other day. Where are they?’

  ‘They’re on a cruise, back in a couple of weeks, so we have time to prepare,’ she says.

  Wow. A cruise. In this version of my life, the Bridgeman Empire thrives and my parents are obviously doing well. My brain stutters at the thought of seeing Mum and Dad again, bronzed and relaxed after their holiday. Family reunion is another thing I decide to park until later.

  Therapists have a word for that.

  Oh yeah, income.

  Amy continues, ‘And you know, you might be surprised how much you can get away with if you don’t say much.’

  I’m certainly good at hiding away and avoiding contact with people. At least, I used to be. I don’t think it’s going to be quite so easy in this life though. Here, I’m practically famous. ‘Amy, it won’t take long for people to suspect something’s wrong. There will always be questions I can’t answer, like the holiday I don’t remember, the big birthday bash that I’m supposed to recall with the correct emotions. And it’s all the little things, too, things you didn’t even know about, that won’t be in the book. Not to mention the business stuff…’ I rub my forehead.

  Amy sighs. ‘You’re right, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise quite how hard this would be.’

  How could she? How could she have known what a broken version of her brother would be like?

  I don’t want her to feel like her book was a waste of time, but I need to close this. ‘Amy, you’ve done an amazing job with the book and everything. We just need to buy me a bit of time.’

  ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘What are we going to tell people?’

  ‘Er… we’ll say I fell off a stepladder while I was changing a lightbulb and banged the back of my head. That’ll explain why there’s no visible bruise.’ I nod, impressed with my ingenuity. ‘I’ll tell people I can remember some things, but I need help piecing it all together.’

  ‘Alright,’ she replies. I hear voices in the background. ‘Joe, sorry, I have to go,’ she says. ‘Hole up there and we’ll make a proper plan later, okay?’

  ‘Alright,’ I reassure her.

  ‘Just be careful,’ she says. ‘Bye.’

  I stare at my new iPhone. In my old life, I didn�
�t own a mobile. I touch the home screen and it glows into life, displaying a selfie of Previous Joe grinning on a tropical beach, somewhere exciting like the Maldives. Obviously, I don’t recall the holiday. Looks like it was expensive. The screen asks me to PRESS HOME TO UNLOCK.

  Thumbprint ID.

  I smile. At least Previous Joe and I have that in common. My thumb hovers over the home button, but I decide – like Facebook – this box of tricks can wait.

  I stretch and look around the shop. Three hours till Amy gets here. I know I said I’d hole up here, and I suppose I could…. I generally don’t like going out, unless it’s two o’clock in the morning and there’s no one around, but I think I might go a bit mad if I keep reading that bloody book.

  I’m desperately craving something familiar. I decide to venture out for a coffee and perhaps pay a visit to Vinny’s Vinyl. He’s the local record shop owner and a friend. At least he was. I hope time has left that alone. I pop on a hat and some sunglasses just to be sure no one will recognise me, and grab the keys to the shop.

  If I bump into someone, I’ve got a plan now.

  Joseph Bridgeman: Faking It, LIVE!

  How bad could it be?

  Chapter Six

  Out on the street I take a moment to admire the shop. I glance up at the sign above the door, “Bridgeman Antiques” written in a dark grey serif font with gold edges. The frontage looks smart, a dark blue door flanked by stone pillars. It’s inviting, with large windows displaying an enticing range of genuine antiques. I’ve lost count of the number of times I was told, within the close-knit community of dealers in Cheltenham, that a shop like this would never work. Too hard to turn a profit, too many tourists and bargain hunters, they would cry. You can thank all those cash-up-your-arse TV shows for killing the industry one genuine antique at a time.

  Yet somehow, Previous Joe made it work.

  I cross the street and head towards Vinny’s, taking a shortcut across Imperial Gardens. In the summer this park would be in full bloom and be teeming with people: office workers, mums with prams, kids playing. Today, it’s quiet. Just me and a couple of others, shoulders hunched against the cold. The flowerbeds are bare patches of soil, the trees barren.