Second Chances Box Set

by Jason Ayres

  Using the name of one’s pet isn’t necessarily a good idea either, but I gave that cat a pretty unusual name which I doubt many would be able to guess. So I don’t have to worry about anyone guessing it. It’s been good enough up until now because I’ve not been defrauded of anything, at least not that I know of.

  Having managed to get past my own security, I realised quite quickly that it wasn’t just the missing thumbprint scan that was up with my phone. The background picture was also wrong. I’d changed it to a picture of me and the girls on a night out before Christmas a couple of weeks ago. Now it had changed back to a picture of my old cat, Tommy.

  I know what you’re thinking – that’s not an unusual name for a cat, but before anyone starts trying to empty my bank account, I should point out I am not talking about the same cat. Tommy was my most recent pet whom I miss terribly.

  I had to have him rehomed because the new flats don’t allow pets and my selfish ex-fiancé didn’t want him. The only pussy he was interested in was the one belonging to Emma next door. That’s a lame pun, I know, and it makes me sound bitter, but somehow making light of it crudely like this seems to help.

  I hadn’t used this picture of Tommy for ages, not since I’d changed phones. It had been the wallpaper on my old phone. Come to think of it, now I looked more closely, this was my old phone.

  This was a Samsung S12, not an S13. Why did I have this old phone? I’d upgraded a couple of months ago and kept this one as a backup. As soon as my new one was up and running, the S12 had been chucked unceremoniously into the same drawer where I put all my old phones, destined never to see the light of day again. I had quite a collection, going all the way back to my first Nokia. I had meant to chuck them all out when I moved here, but for whatever reason could not part with them.

  But now here it was, the S12, in my hand. Had I lost my new one while I was out doing whatever I had been doing and started using this one again? And if so, why couldn’t I remember anything about it? Was this down to my suspected blackout or was it something more?

  My memories were scrambled and I couldn’t retrieve them. It was like sitting in front of a laptop waiting for it to respond while that bloody annoying hourglass thing spins hopelessly round and round in circles.

  This wouldn’t do at all. My memories refused to come. I still felt groggy and half-asleep which wasn’t helping matters. What had I done yesterday to make me feel like this?

  I got up and felt my way across the floor in the semi-darkness, taking care not to trip over any discarded clothes or shoes on the floordrobe. Reaching the window I pulled aside the curtains to let the weak winter sunlight flood into the room.

  If I had hoped that this might shed some light on my situation, I was mistaken. The same question kept repeating over and over in my head.

  What the hell was I doing last night?

  I tried again to piece it together, but my memory was still eluding me. I was sure I had been at work, so how did I end up getting drunk? Could I really have gone on a bender afterwards? I had never done that while working nights and I had been doing them for many years.

  Vivid memories from the dream that had seemed so lifelike earlier began to spill into my head again – multiple images of a man holding a futuristic TV aerial and a dead body on a bed, all spinning round in circles but now they were laughing at me, mocking me as I was sucked into – well, whatever it was I had been sucked into.

  It was just a dream – wasn’t it? If so, it had been unlike any other one I had ever had and it was also disturbing that it was not fading away into my subconscious after a few minutes awake. If anything, my recollections were getting stronger.

  I sat back down on the bed which took up a good two-thirds of the floor space in the room. The new flats may have been super eco-friendly but the bedrooms were also what an estate agent might generously describe as bijou. Space was at a premium and it didn’t help that I’d opted to buy a king-size bed for my room.

  In hindsight, that had been pretty optimistic. I hadn’t been a complete nun since I’d split up with Rob, but Phoebe and Lily got a lot more use out of their double beds than I got out of my king-size.

  Between the end of the bed and the wardrobe was barely three feet of floor space. As I sat on the end of the bed, I looked up at my close-up reflection on the wardrobe door mirror. Now there was something else that caught my eye.

  As on most nights when I was on my own, I had slept in just knickers and an old T-shirt. But this one was exceptionally old. In fact it was so old that I was pretty sure I had thrown it out about six months ago.

  It was an ancient Angry Birds T-shirt that I’d bought more than a decade ago when the game had been huge. By the time I reluctantly parted with it, it was pretty much falling apart. The only good thing I could say about it during its final days was that the holes under the armpits were very handy for applying deodorant.

  I thought again. Had I really thrown it out? I was sure I had. It certainly wasn’t in any fit state to be reused so I wouldn’t have taken it to a charity shop. They would undoubtedly have refused it, which would have been plain embarrassing. So how come I was wearing it now?

  First the mystery over the phone and now this. I needed answers so I headed for the bedroom door and out into the main part of the flat. As I opened the door I was greeted by the unmistakeably gorgeous smell of freshly cooked bacon.

  I loved the design of our flat. It was neatly split in two, with all the bedrooms plus the bathroom on one side, and the living space on the other. When you walked in through the front door, the left-hand side was almost like walking down a corridor in a hotel, with four doors, one after another. In order, these went bathroom, Lily’s room, Phoebe’s room, my room.

  Lily felt she had the best room, as it was nearest the bathroom, but I liked mine, because being on the end it had the bigger window and a better view. I could see the park from my room, but all they could see were the flats opposite.

  The right-hand side of the flat was all open-plan, with just a small breakfast bar as a divider between the kitchen and the rest of the living space. The kitchen was closest to the front of the flat, opposite the bathroom and Lily’s room, followed by a small dining area, and then the living area which in estate agent terminology was positively spacious compared to the bedrooms.

  That living room was the hub of our little home, and it was there that I now found Phoebe and Lily camped out in front of the television, sitting with the curtains closed watching some old Disney film, a staple of the Christmas and New Year TV schedules. A familiar battered, old, fake Christmas tree stood next to the TV, fairy lights twinkling on and off in a preordained sequence. It was refreshingly normal after my dream and the other odd things I had noticed this morning.

  “Oh, look, it stirs,” said Lily, catching sight of me as I padded, barefoot, into the living space. “You look a bit rough, pet.”

  We had an orange, L-shaped sofa in one corner of the room and Lily was slumped at one end of it, blanket over her, sipping a mug of coffee. I had never known anyone drink as much coffee as Lily. She seemed to live on the stuff. In three plus years I had rarely seen her eat. I had also never heard her address anyone by their real name. Phoebe and I were both addressed as “pet” as was the postman and pretty much anyone else we ever came into contact with.

  At the other end of the sofa, leaning over the coffee table, wolfing down a toasted bacon sandwich, was Phoebe. It wasn’t difficult to see how she maintained her full figure.

  “Is there any of that left?” I asked, knowing what the answer would be before the words were even out of my mouth.

  “Sorry,” said Phoebe, in her strong, West Country dialect. “There were only five rashers left and I always have at least three so I thought I may as well finish it off. No point leaving two, is there?”

  “I’d have been happy with two,” I said. “Most people would.”

  “I can go to the shops and get you some more if you like?” she suggested, looking a litt
le crestfallen. To her credit, Phoebe was good like that. She might eat all the food in the flat, including your own, but she always replaced it.

  “No, you’re OK,” I said. “I’ll just have some toast.”

  “Ah…” began Phoebe. “I kind of…”

  “…finished the bread, too?” I suggested.

  “Yeah, I’m really sorry, Amy. Look. I’m planning on going out and doing a big shop today. It’s New Year tomorrow so most of the shops will be closed and we want to make sure we’ve got plenty in for your birthday.”

  “That’s right,” piped up Lily, turning to face me properly for the first time. “We’re feeling really bad about forgetting last year and we really want to make this one special for you.”

  After I had come into the room, which had initially seemed to be a picture of normality, my earlier confusion had temporarily abated. Now in the space of a few seconds, I had been hit with a double whammy that set off alarm bells in my head that screamed out Something’s wrong here.

  The first cue to unsettle me was what they had just said, but that was overshadowed by Lily’s appearance. When I first came into the room I had only briefly clocked her, sitting in the semi-darkness, but now she was facing me I noticed her hair. Her hair was all wrong.

  Leaving that aside for a moment, what they had both just said about my birthday had completely thrown me.

  “Whoa, hold on a minute,” I replied. “What are you talking about? My birthday was yesterday.”

  “Ha ha – that’s a good one, Amy,” said Phoebe. “Is this your way of trying to get out of it? You said your birthday was always rubbish, so we’ve decided that this year we are going to change that.”

  “But my birthday is 1st January,” I protested. “It’s 2nd January today.”

  “Umm, I don’t think it is,” replied Phoebe. “Didn’t you hear what I said before? I told you I was going shopping for New Year food and drink today. Honestly, Amy, you never seem to listen to a word I say.”

  “Look, what’s going on here?” I asked, perplexed. “Is this some sort of wind-up?”

  If my head had been whirling gently before like that hourglass on a laptop, it had now accelerated to the proportions of an F5 tornado. Could this really be some sort of elaborate wind-up, or was I going to have to face the possibility that something seriously weird had happened to me?

  Would they really have gone to the lengths of swapping my phone, dug my old T-shirt out of the bin, and then pretended the date was different? And what would be the point anyway? We weren’t averse to playing pranks on each other. These ranged from the small ones, such as substituting Lily’s beloved coffee with a decaffeinated blend to see if she noticed (she did), to the more elaborate ones.

  For example, there was the stunt Lily and I pulled on Phoebe on Bonfire Night a couple of years ago. We spent all day creating our very own stuffed guy, complete with strap-on dildo and put it on Phoebe’s bed, ready for when she got home from work.

  She called our bluff on that occasion and when we dared her to actually ride it, she went and did it. Not with us in the room, obviously – that would have been seriously weird, but she still did it. That was Phoebe all over – always up for anything.

  “OK, guys, you got me,” I said. “What’s this supposed to be – some sort of weird time travel thing?”

  Then I remembered what it was that had struck me about Lily’s appearance a few moments before.

  “You didn’t have to go to that extent of putting the dreadlocks back in your hair, though, Lily. That must have taken hours.”

  She had worn dreads the past year or two but had decided to dispense with them last summer.

  “What are you on about, pet?” said Lily. “I’ve had these for a couple of years. Though I am thinking of getting rid of them – I fancy a new look. What do you think?”

  Neither of them looked like they were playing a prank, especially Phoebe who could never keep a straight face for long when mischief was afoot.

  My eyes were drawn to the TV in the corner, where the film had finished and the BBC News had come on. A reporter was standing outside Big Ben talking about preparations for the New Year fireworks.

  For the first time I began to suspect this wasn’t a wind-up. It couldn’t be. Surely they wouldn’t have gone to the effort of recording that and then playing it back just to confuse me. It went way beyond anything we had done before. It seemed that I had to contemplate the possibility that unless something had seriously gone wrong with my mind somehow I really had travelled back two days in time.

  But that didn’t explain Lily’s hair – it was months since she had disposed of the dreads.

  Then I caught sight of the calendar on the wall, and there it was, staring at me in a big, black, bold font: confirmation that I really had gone back in time.

  The month showing on the calendar was December 2023 which was consistent with Lily’s appearance.

  I hadn’t gone back two days in time.

  I had gone back more than a year.

  Chapter Four

  2023

  “I need to go back to my room,” I said, flustered. “I’m feeling a bit sick.”

  I wasn’t lying. The enormity of what might really be happening was making me feel quite nauseous. I needed some time to try to make sense of it all.

  “Do you want me to get you anything from the pharmacy when I go to Sainsbury’s?” asked Phoebe.

  Good old Phoebe. Despite being the youngest, she often mothered me and Lily.

  “No, don’t worry. I’ll be alright later. I just need a bit of a lie down,” I said. “I didn’t sleep very well last night.”

  “Well, make sure you’re fighting fit for tonight,” said Lily. “Double celebrations, remember?”

  “I’m so glad we’re not working this year,” added Phoebe. “Not after Tessa getting assaulted on the ward on Christmas Eve. It’s not safe at this time of year.”

  I might not remember much about my own last few hours, but if this really was a year ago, then what they were saying made sense. This year had been that rarest of things, a New Year that I had genuinely enjoyed. The girls had persuaded me not to sign up for work and to go out with them instead.

  It had been pretty decent, all things considered. They had even remembered to wish me Happy Birthday at midnight despite their intoxication, a rarity indeed.

  As for Tessa, she had been the nurse attacked on the wards by a drunken punter, the very incident that had led to the panic buttons being put in. Phoebe mentioning this was just one more piece of evidence that I really had travelled back to 2023.

  “I’m looking forward to it,” I said, recalling a few vague details of that night out, which for me was a year ago. I was probably looking forward to it more than I had been the first time around when I had approached it with apprehension. This time, I had no such qualms. I knew it would turn out fine because it already had.

  How strange was this going to be, living the same night out over again? Perhaps I could even improve on it now I had a second bite at the cherry. That’s if I could remember all of it. It’s surprising how much you forget in a year, and it didn’t help that this had been one of those occasions when alcohol had also blurred the details.

  I made my way back into my room, lay down on the bed and tried to get my dizzy, confused head in order.

  Everything I had seen pointed to me being transported back in time by just over a year. The calendar and the conversation made me pretty certain it was 31st December 2023. I reached over for my phone for confirmation.

  Yep, there it was, crystal-clear on the 4k display. It seemed beyond doubt now that I had gone back in time.

  I had no idea of the actual mechanics that had caused this unlikely event but I wasn’t unfamiliar with the whole concept of time travel. From The Time Traveler’s Wife to About Time, I had seen and enjoyed all the movies. I had always thought of them as pure fantasy and never in my wildest imagination had I ever believed I might find myself in such a situa
tion myself. But here I was.

  My presence here in the past was almost certainly something to do with the mysterious “Doctor Gardner”, as he had called himself. Whatever he had done in that room back at the hospital hadn’t been a dream at all – it really had happened and it had brought me back here.

  So what had happened to him? Had he been transported back in time, too? And if so, where was he? Not here, that was for sure. Might he be at the hospital still? Was it worth going to look?

  What about me? Where was my younger self? If my body had been transported back here, shouldn’t there also have been a younger version of myself sleeping in this very bed when I woke up? The questions were being fired at me faster than Bradley Walsh on The Chase, and I couldn’t answer any of them.

  Clearly there wasn’t another me here so maybe there was another explanation. I sat up and looked closely at myself in the mirror. Had all of me been transported back, or was it just my mind? Did my soul now inhabit the body of my younger self?

  It was impossible to tell just by looking in the mirror. I looked exactly the same as I expected to, but then people don’t age that much in a year. Unlike Lily, I didn’t radically alter my hair, get new tattoos, or make any other radical changes in my appearance on a regular basis, so there were no clues there. I didn’t feel any different either.

  Funny, isn’t it, how as people we barely change from one year to the next, yet over time small changes imperceptibly mount up? Put two photographs of any adult taken a year apart next to each another and you’d struggle to pick which one was older. Try the same thing with two pictures separated by a decade and it would be quite a different story.

  What little evidence I had to go on led me to conclude that I was in my younger body. I based that primarily on the lack of a counterpart and that I was wearing my old T-shirt. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  The more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that there wasn’t anything bad about this at all. Yes, it was unsettling and disorientating, but it seemed I had been given a whole year of my life to live over again and who wouldn’t take that if it were offered? The richest person in the world couldn’t buy that.