by Jason Ayres
We may all have been through it, but none of us can remember it. Our minds are simply too undeveloped to lay down long-term memories of the event at such a tender age. It’s not a topic that comes up in conversation that regularly because it’s not something that anyone else has ever had to worry about. But I did, and I was approaching the event with more than a degree of trepidation.
What will it be like to be confined in a womb, in the last few hours before birth? I can’t imagine anything more claustrophobic. Will I even be aware by then of what is happening? Will the physical changes happening to me mean that I won’t be able to remember who I am by then?
It’s certainly a possibility. Even now, the day before my seventh birthday I am struggling to hold onto the person I once was. Although the memories of everything I’ve been through are still there, I can’t help but be affected by the changes in my body.
The way I think, the way I feel and the way I behave are all being influenced by my physical state.
I lost interest in boys as I grew younger, seeing them as dirty, smelly creatures, just as I had when I had been a ten-year-old growing up. There were other changes, too. I no longer had any desire to drink alcohol, and when I sneaked a cup of coffee at the age of nine, I spat out the vile, bitter-tasting liquid in disgust.
I remembered an old quote from the bible that my R.E. teacher once made us all write out twice as a punishment for our unruly behaviour. It began something along these lines:
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
We must have been about fourteen at the time. I think the message the teacher was trying to get across was that we should stop acting like immature brats and grow up. We didn’t take much notice of him at the time because we were too busy having a laugh, but ultimately of course, we did grow up.
Now I was going through the process in reverse. Much as I might try to hold onto my adulthood, I could not fight nature, despite the memories of the grown-up I had once been. The environment around me was also becoming more that of a child and with every passing year, more toys and games from the past reappeared in my bedroom. Far from dismissing these toys as childish relics, I seized upon them with delight.
When I became a man, I put away childish things.
OK, I was a woman, not a man, but gender aside, I was now living this quote in reverse. I was getting out my childish things out again and loving every minute of it.
Things changed the most dramatically at the age of eleven. That was the first year I found myself back in Liverpool, in our old house in West Derby where I had spent my formative years. In the space of one year, my living space changed dramatically.
No longer did I find myself in the room of a teenager. Gone were the pop posters from the walls, replaced by wallpaper from my adored film, The Lion King.
The room was full of new/old toys, and I had seized upon the Tamagotchi I found next to my bed with delight, playing with it for the whole of that day. This was all the proof I needed that I was regressing to a childlike state. It simply wasn’t something that would have held any interest for me had I discovered it as an adult, other than a few seconds curiosity about this ancient toy.
My parents had bought this for me after the death of my beloved cat, to help ease the pain. I had wanted another cat, but they had said it was too dangerous because of the road we lived on.
The room was littered with other toys, from Barbie to Sylvanian Families, all of which I found myself increasingly drawn to as the years passed.
I went back another year in time and my cat reappeared. He was a beautiful ginger and white tabby we had got from a rescue centre when I was just seven years old. I had absolutely doted on him, and insisted on naming him after a character from The Lion King which I had just seen for the first time.
I was heartbroken when he met a sticky end under the wheels of a souped-up Vauxhall Nova. We lived on Coachmans Drive, close to where they used to film the old Brookside series. There was a big problem with boy racers on our road at that time, and I am sure it was one of them who killed him.
There was nothing I could do to prevent my pet’s fate. No tsunami style warning was going to mean anything to a cat. Trying not to think about it, I just got on with enjoying the short time I had with him while I could.
My best friend from primary school, Siobhan, came around that birthday, keen to play with my extensive collection of Sylvanian Families toys, including a lot of new stuff I got given for my birthday that year.
I had no objection to this, again finding myself warming to these childhood activities. It was simple, easy fun, uncomplicated with the worries of adulthood. I was starting to approach the world with a renewed childlike wonder in my eyes. Memories of the person I had once been were becoming hazy. Was this similar to the experience of old people who got Alzheimer’s?
Every year I jumped back now, things seemed to change more and more compared to the year before. The world was getting bigger as I got smaller. By the age of eight, my parents had become giants, my bed seemed enormous, and I had to start climbing on chairs to get things out of cupboards.
Despite these massive changes, I didn’t have to worry about my parents noticing any odd behaviour in me. I didn’t have to try and act young, finding myself naturally slipping into the persona of my physical age with each passing year.
As I got smaller, I also got weaker. There was one less candle on my birthday cake each year, but they got harder to blow out. It wasn’t just people that were getting bigger either. Simple, everyday things like cutlery suddenly became unwieldily large and heavy.
My freedom became increasingly curtailed. There was no more seeing the New Year in. I was sent up to bed long before midnight so my parents could either drink in peace or go out, leaving us with a babysitter. Far from protesting against this, I was happy to go to bed early, succumbing to my young body’s need for more sleep.
Despite falling back into my childlike state, I hadn’t lost my grip on the reality of what was happening to me. Although I was resigned to my fate, it didn’t stop the fear from persisting.
Not only was there the unknown horror of childbirth to endure, but also all sorts of worries about other things that were going to happen before that. Would I lose all my memories by the time I reached infancy, or retain some inkling of what was going on?
What about my body? Would I find at two years old that I was now incontinent and back in nappies? The thought of that disgusted me. What about my language and vocabulary? Would I be able to hold a conversation at a year old, or would those abilities go, too?
Whatever happened, it was certainly going to be weird experiencing life as a baby, looking out into the adult world which I had once been a part of. Would I have any understanding by then of what I had been through, or would I have been reduced to a babbling, incomprehensible infant?
I found it difficult to sleep on the night before my seventh birthday, as I was beset by vivid dreams that haunted me with snapshots of the adult life I had left behind, interspersed with visions of what was still to come.
I dreamt of Lily and Phoebe, and the obscene cake they had baked me, the three of us falling about laughing together.
Then, the dream changed as the two of them metamorphosed into my parents, the cake also changing into a cute teddy bear. I was tiny in the dream and sitting in a high chair as my parents stood over me, urging me to blow out the single candle on it with my puny, year-old lungs.
Then I felt a hot and wet feeling between my legs. Looking down, I saw that I was wearing a nappy which I had just filled with urine. It was then that I woke up with a start to discover I hadn’t just lost control of my bladder in the dream.
I was seven years old and I had just wet the bed.
I cried then, huge sobs of despair and desperation at the hopelessness of my situation. It was early morning and still dark, but my mother heard me from her room and came in to comfort
me.
“It’s OK, Amy, it was just a bad dream,” she said, in an attempt to soothe me, putting her arms around me as she did so, and not scolding me for wetting the bed.
I wish I could have opened up then and told her everything. This was a much kinder and more loving mother than the alcoholic, wretched mess she would eventually turn into.
Despite my desperation, I did find comfort in her words, even though I knew that it wasn’t simply a bad dream. Lily and Phoebe were real, and maybe the memory of my one-year-old self was real, too, dredged up from some long-forgotten archive somewhere in the back of my mind.
Of course, it would be pointless attempting to explain the truth. It was hard enough trying to convince people about time-travelling as an adult. At this age, it would simply be humoured or dismissed as the overactive imagination of a seven-year-old girl. All I could do was meekly accept the comfort on offer as she ran a bath for me and stripped the sodden sheets from my bed.
Despite my unpleasant night, I did my utmost to banish negative thoughts from my mind and enjoy the day, for my family’s sake if nothing else. Mum took me, Rachel and Siobhan to the cinema to see Home Alone 2. Afterwards we went to McDonald’s for a special birthday tea.
Realising that this might well be the last Happy Meal I would ever have, I made sure I savoured every mouthful. It was just another milestone in a long series of “lasts”.
This had been a good birthday and I went to bed feeling more settled than on the previous evening. I knew the next day, I would be back in 1991 as a five-year-old, but there was no point stressing over it. Just as I always had, I would have to take each year as it came.
Then something happened which changed everything.
Chapter Nineteen
1991
When I woke up on New Year’s Eve, 1991, I wasn’t where I expected to be.
Instead of my Liverpool home, surrounded by my toys and Disney wallpaper, I was in a room that was briefly unfamiliar. It was dark in the room, with just a tiny gap in the curtains letting in a single ray of morning sunlight. It made the dust in the gap sparkle, but it didn’t shine much light as to my location.
The unexpected nature of my surroundings gave me a brief flash of hope that I might have broken out of the time loop, but a quick glance down at my body dashed those. I was another year younger, and smaller than ever.
I leapt out of bed with all the energy of a five-year-old and ran over to the door in search of a light switch, fumbling around until I remembered that I was so small now that I had to reach up for light switches.
Once the room was illuminated, I quickly realised where I was. This was not a child’s room, but a large room in an old house. The walls were decorated with yellow, floral wallpaper, which even back in 1991 was probably a good decade or two out of date.
The whole of the front of the room was dominated by a bay window, in front of which stood a large dressing table. The main feature of the table was an old-fashioned, ornate, three-panel mirror, ordained with a brass frame. Scattered around in front were various colourful boxes.
As my memories flooded back I recalled that these contained various trinkets of jewellery, sewing equipment and make-up items. I used to play with all this when I stayed in this room as a child. This was my grandmother’s parlour room, as she liked to call it.
We must have been staying over for New Year. I couldn’t recall this particular visit, but did remember the regular visits here as a child when we lived in Liverpool. I had stayed in the room a number of times over the years but it was the first time I had found myself here since I had started time-travelling.
I suppose I should have got used to waking up in different beds by now, having been in so many during my travels, but it was still a surprise, albeit a pleasant one. It meant I would get to see Oxford one last time.
It also meant I would be spoiled rotten by my grandparents who always bought me loads of treats. My recent return to childhood had rekindled my sweet tooth. I no longer have had any interest in alcohol or coffee, instead craving a big bag of Pick’n’Mix from Woolworths in Cowley Centre.
Other than the Millennium party, I hadn’t had any opportunities to see my grandparents again, as both had died early in the new century. I had always enjoyed my childhood times with them.
My grandfather, like most men of his generation who lived in this area, had worked all his life at one of the car factories that characterised this part of Oxford. I remembered him proudly telling me once how he had been part of the production line that had produced the very first Mini, way back in 1959.
Keen to see him, I raced down the stairs as fast as my five-year-old legs would carry me, slamming into him with delight as he stood pouring out his tea in the kitchen. Such was my exuberance that I almost knocked the tea strainer out of his hand.
“Whoa there, young Amy,” he said, looking down at me with his friendly eyes, beneath a smooth, bald head decorated with just a few wisps of remaining grey hair.
As he placed the tea strainer in the sink, I recalled how back in this century, many more people used to make real tea that you had to pour out and strain. My grandmother would have been horrified at the thought of allowing a tea bag in the house. She swore blind that tea bags were not as good. Not being a tea aficionado, I took their word for it.
“Sorry, Gramps,” I said. “I’m just pleased to see you!”
“Would you like some Frosties?” he asked.
I certainly did. Rachel was already sitting at the kitchen table eating hers. We weren’t allowed Frosties at home – or any sugar-coated cereal, come to that. But I always got what I wanted at my grandparents. I was pretty sure there would also be fish fingers and home-made chips to look forward to for tea, washed down with jelly and ice cream.
The rest of the day passed very much as expected. Gran took Rachel and me into what we had always called Cowley Centre, despite it now having been rebranded as Templars Square.
I got my Pick’n’Mix, in a cup which I filled up with Cola Bottles, Refresher Chews and Dummies. To finish it off, I went for the Smarties, shaking the cup to ensure they all fell down to fill in the gaps. It all tasted impossibly good. I’m not sure if that was down to my youthful sweet tooth, or if it was that sweets had more sugar and E numbers in them in those days.
Whilst I was gorging myself on the sweets, I had a sudden shock when one of my front teeth came clean out, embedding itself in the half-chewed sweet. I showed my gran who smiled and said.
“It looks like the tooth fairy is due a visit tonight.”
Of course – I had forgotten all about losing my milk teeth. This was all perfectly normal at my current age. There was something else to worry about. Was I going to have to go through teething trouble as a baby, too?
Back at the house we had tea and then Rachel and I sat down to watch TV for the evening. My parents were not staying with us over New Year. They had remained up in Liverpool. My grandparents weren’t strict on bedtimes which meant we could stay up. However, I realised fairly early on in the evening as I began yawning that there was no way my little body was going to stay awake until midnight.
Throughout my life I’ve heard people going on about how much better TV was in the old days, but the evening’s viewing was pretty tedious by any era’s standards, especially considering that it was New Year’s Eve.
First there was some dire showbiz programme, featuring mostly long-dead celebrities I had never heard of. After that it was EastEnders, which had a little nostalgia value as it featured long-departed characters like Pauline and Arthur Fowler.
EastEnders was followed by A Question of Sport, something else of little interest to me, though my grandfather loved it and got nearly all the answers right. Then there was some American movie I had never heard of called Back to School. By the time that started I was getting tired and the film was barely ten minutes old before I felt my eyelids drooping.
“Do you want me to take you up, Amy?” asked my grandmother. “Big day, tomorrow
, remember? It’s your birthday! I can’t believe you are going to be six. You look so big!”
I didn’t feel big and every other day was my birthday these days but I was happy to agree. I was exhausted. She took me up and bathed me which was another odd experience, after so many years of looking after myself. The younger I got, the more things people did for me. I never appreciated it during my childhood first time around, but now I realised just how much effort went into raising a child.
I was pretty much asleep as soon as I hit the proverbial pillow that night, my youthful body needing increasing amounts of shut-eye with each passing year.
Before I knew it, I was waking to yet another birthday and yet another New Year. But today was going to be different. I didn’t know it yet, but I was about to encounter someone I had never expected to see again.
After all the usual present opening and birthday congratulations, Gran took us into the centre of Oxford on the bus. It was mild for early January, nice enough in fact for us to spend plenty of time outside as long as we were wrapped up warm.
Dressed in brightly coloured woolly hats and scarves, we headed down towards the River Thames, close to a pub called The Head of the River. I remember getting drunk there many years later one summer night with Phoebe and Lily. It all seemed like another world now, almost unreal as if it were a fantasy world that I had invented for myself.
I willed myself to keep strong and hold onto those memories. Phoebe and Lily were real, as was the adult life I had once led. I must not allow the person I once was to become lost in this increasingly undeveloped mind and body.
Gran had made us sandwiches, as she always did. She didn’t believe in buying them pre-packed from shops. “A waste of money,” she used to proclaim. She had lived through times of austerity and by that I mean real post-war austerity, not the relatively tame 21st-century version.
