The Unexpected Gift of Joseph Bridgeman (The Downstream Diaries Book 1)

by Nick Jones

  ‘I can understand that,’ I say.

  ‘Plus, something he said,’ Vinny snorts, ‘I mean, you said.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Just before you disappeared, you were telling me that when I saw you, I had to pretend.’

  I finish the sentence for him and he nods. ‘Yeah,’ Vinny sighs, ‘not to know you, I guessed it was that.’

  ‘Thanks Vinny, for keeping it a secret all these years.’

  ‘Time-travel’ Vinny whispers, almost to himself, ‘No fucking way, man.’

  ‘I know.’ I agree, but my words feel lacking, not big enough for the concept. There’s a question too, one that’s burning away inside me. ‘I need to ask you something Vinny,’

  ‘Huh?’ He snaps out of his daze. ‘What?’

  ‘Did you do the numbers?’

  His head drops and he takes a long drag on his roll up. ‘I couldn’t remember the year you said, not for sure, so I put those numbers on every week, every bloody week, since you disappeared!’

  ‘But then you stopped.’ I suggest, trying my best to shield my disappointment.

  ‘Yeah,’ he sighs, ‘I stopped and decided I needed to forget the whole thing. Even when you turned up again, you know, the second time, the normal time, I just kind of buried it in my mind, it was too weird.’

  For me, handing Vinny those numbers seems so recent that I can’t believe he wouldn’t do as I asked. But, the reason people say time is a healer is because the past loses its power as the years roll by. Vinny may have believed the ‘mad naked guy’ back then, but I can understand how time could have blurred those edges, removing their intensity. I can’t blame him, but it’s my turn to stare at the floor. Eventually I look up and realise Vinny is smiling, his eyes sparkling with a mischievous intensity.

  ‘What?’ I ask, hoping I know the answer.

  ‘Breakfast in the park,’ Vinny says, beaming now. ‘When you mentioned the Lottery this morning, it kicked me in the butt. I mean, like a flash of lighting up my arse.’

  ‘Right?’ My voice is high and trembling. ‘And?’

  Vinny rummages aggressively through the biggest and messiest drawer in his desk and when he turns, he’s holding two Lottery tickets. One is mine from 2002, frayed, a little faded and useless now, the other is brand, spanking new. This Saturday’s draw; a genuine, six number, jackpot winner.

  His expression is like a baby, eyes welling up, his smile impossibly wide. I want to cry and hug him and jump up and down. So I do exactly that. We bounce like teenagers at their first gig and we scream and whoop like the millionaires we are.

  12.

  We don’t call anyone, or claim our prize; we couldn’t, even if we wanted to. It’s gone three o’clock and we’re blind drunk. All we can do is stare at the winning ticket every few minutes in utter amazement.

  18 - 30 - 33 - 34 - 38 - 48

  ‘I love those numbers,’ I say. ‘I mean I actually love them.’

  Vinny nods, ‘And I loved that pink raincoat.’ He giggles. ‘You looked so funny.’

  ‘That bloody raincoat.’ I laugh with him, eyes trying to focus on the room, which has begun ticking over like a projector on the blink. Vinny doesn’t seem to be as affected by the booze as me, his size absorbs it, I guess. He picks up the ticket and asks, ‘So, what we going to do with it?’

  ‘Not lose it.’ I suggest, wryly.

  ‘No, I mean, the money Cash, the money.’

  ‘We do exactly what you said we would,’ I assure him. ‘We don’t let it change us.’

  Vinny curls his lip, ‘I said that?’

  ‘Yes,’ I insist but then wonder. He said it this morning, in the park but that was then, that was before I went back and arrived in 2002, naked in his shop. Things might be different now. How can I be sure our conversation was the same? ‘Listen to me,’ I say, with a sincerity that comes easily in my drunken state, ‘the last thing I need right now is publishity.’I stop, reset, and try again. ‘Pub-liss-ity,’ I say carefully. ‘You are going to have to do it all, and then just chuck me some, okay?’

  ‘What?’ Vinny’s mouth is open, eyes wide. ‘This is yours,’ he protests. ‘You did this, you knew the numbers.’

  ‘No Vinny,’ I say, as firmly as I can. ‘This is ours mate, fifty-fifty.’

  Vinny looks as though he’s going to cry again (we’ve done a bit of that this evening), but swallows it down like one of his jumbo baguettes. ‘Cash,’ he says, lips trembling, ‘you are the best bloke I’ve ever met.’ Vinny stands bolt upright like a toy soldier that has some marching to do. He strides off and returns with a Rolling Stones album, Sticky Fingers, the one I used to cover my arse with in 2002. On the back, I realise now, is a close-up, life-size photo of an arse in jeans. I bet that looked good pressed against mine with my pink raincoat wrapped around me. He laughs and I join in, and we go on like that until our giddiness finally runs out of steam. ‘What are you going to do with your share?’ I ask.

  He looks around the shop and raises his eyebrows. ‘Oh, you know, pay this place off I guess, put Michelle through college, take a few holidays probably.’ He gives me a playful nudge, ‘Eat great food!’ He drifts off for a while, no doubt considering the culinary delights awaiting him on an all ‘you can eat’ cruise, ‘What about you?’ he asks.

  ‘Oh, I’ve got a few trips planned myself.’

  ‘I bet you have.’ He smirks, eyes narrowing. ‘Hey, have you been to the future?’ He looks hopeful.

  I shake my head, ‘No, it’s linked to my viewing I think, which means I can only go back, and I’m shit at that to be honest.’

  ‘What?’ Vinny laughs, waving the Lottery ticket at me, ‘I think you did okay, in fact I think you’re fucking brilliant at time-travelling!’

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t have control.’ I sigh, the weight of it finally hitting me. ‘If I’m going to get back far enough, I need control.’

  Vinny places his hand on my shoulder, ‘Your sister, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Amy?’

  I nod. Amy.

  Vinny is off again, out of the office and into the shop. I can’t see him but hear the sudden pop of speakers and the vibrant hum of volume gain. The familiar sound of a needle hitting vinyl is followed by a song that fills the shop and also my heart. I smile and when I see Vinny, I laugh, hard and true and it feels good. He’s dancing, his considerable frame moving surprisingly well. His movements are a stylistic mix of jive, the twist and break dancing.

  ‘You don’t need control!’ Vinny shouts over the music, ‘You need to let go, man!’

  ‘Get Back’ blasts out and Paul McCartney sings to me, only me and I can’t help it. I’m up too and Vinny and I dance like we’re seventeen again. He sings the words as if in pain and when the chorus hits I realise I’m the one Paul is singing about. I have to get back to where I once belonged. I am Joe, Joe.

  13.

  My Lottery winning hangover lasted nearly two days. It was a bitch, but when it receded I kind of missed it. At least it took my mind off the lyrics to Get Back. Of course, most Beatles’ songs are ear-worms, but this one got stuck in the grooves of my brain like a broken needle. I’m trying to get back, but on current form I have a lot of work to do. Winning the Lottery was a box-tick, a way of removing money from the equation. Once that was done my thoughts, unsurprisingly, turned to Amy.

  If I can travel to 2002 then perhaps I can go further. Back to Amy, back to 1992. If I could get there then maybe, just maybe, I could save her, and if I do that, I might be able to save my Father too.

  These ideas rolled in my head like those tiny silver balls in a handheld game, but wouldn’t settle, or find peace, they just rolled and bounced constantly in my mind. That’s when I decided, that locked away in the safety of my own home I would practice. This would be my experimental phase. The Beatles had theirs, I would have mine. Since winning the Lottery and beginning my studies I’ve been all over the place. Back in time, pinging around, and during all of this, do
you know what I learned?

  Well, turns out, I was right, I am really, really bad at time-travelling and also, Vinny is full of shit. Let go, he advised me, laughing and dancing, relax Joe, float downstream, he cried. Well, that’s easy for him to say. I’ve travelled back to random dates and locations and stayed for random amounts of time. For what it’s worth, I kept a brief log of my travels. It kind of proves my point really.

  _ _ _

  Monday: Dropped in on 2005. Bought clothes and a watch. Apart from the shop staff I managed to interact with no one. I timed my stay. Around ten hours for the clothes I brought with me to disappear. Brain Freeze kicked in around the eighteen hour mark. I got pinged back to the present shortly after that, fully awake. Day became the middle of the night. That was weird.

  Tuesday: Tried to travel again but felt drained like a dead battery. Thought a lot about Amy. I need to be careful, I mustn’t think about her too much or I will start a fresh batch of viewing. It’s hard though, because I probably need to focus on that time if I’m going to get back to her.

  Wednesday: Same as yesterday. No Juice. No Travelling. Plenty of moping about. Found a tenner under the sofa. Bought better coffee.

  Thursday: Vinny called. Bloke from the Lottery came to see him. Confirmed it all. They arranged a new bank account for him. They are paying up. All good.

  More good news. I time-travelled in the evening (you know, as you do) but I only reached 2010 this time, 18th April. I know this because the newspapers were plastered with a volcano that had popped its top in Iceland. Airport mayhem. For me, the same deal. I bought clothes, checked into a Bed and Breakfast and twiddled my thumbs if I’m honest. I’m trying to be careful and not ‘change’ anything, but it does make my time in the past feel kind of wasted. I eat, walk in the park, avoid contact with people, so it isn’t that much different to the present. Makes me realise that I just waste time generally, whenever I am. Brain Freeze took longer this time, just over two days, or fifty-five hours to be precise. So long in fact that I began to believe I might manage a double jump. Perhaps this is how I’m going to get all the way back to Amy? On the morning of my second day I hypnotised myself and tried it. Jumping back in time from a location in the past.

  Wishful thinking, there was no way. I had that weird empty feeling again, hollow and lacking, like a battery on its last push. Brain Freeze intensified, blah, blah, blah. Ping, ping pong.

  Friday: Nothing. No chance. My flux capacitor isn’t working. No plutonium. I need a Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor.

  Shit.

  _ _ _

  Beneath my weekly journal I write, RULES OF TIME-TRAVEL.

  1. I can’t pick a specific date (seems utterly random - there’s that bloody word again!).

  2. The location of my arrival seems to have become variable.

  3. The location of my return however, is always the same as my exit point (so far, anyway).

  4. Anything I take with me, goes back before I do. Clothes, watch.

  5. Brain Freeze kicks in shortly before I return.

  6. Time spent in the past exists in the present (i.e. if I’m gone five hours, it’s five hours later when I return).

  7. The further I go, the less time I seem to be able to stay.

  _ _ _

  Rules of time-travel. I laugh. The start of my memoir perhaps? I read them back. I didn’t include ‘It’s a good job I’ve won the Lottery because I’m going to spend a fortune on clothes I can’t keep’ because it isn’t really a rule. It’s just a pisser. Number six is kind of weird – five hours in the past means I arrive back in the present five hours later – but seems to be true. It makes sense, I guess. Also, ties in with my very first jump, why I eventually skipped forward a day. I went back a whole day and nothing is free. Nothing. It all catches up with you in the end.

  I stare at my last rule and frown. The further I go, the less time I can stay. Is that right? I wrote it without really thinking, but it seems to be true. I consider all of my jumps so far and it adds up. If I go back years, Brain Freeze happens much quicker than if I go back days. I’m allergic to maths, I mean actually allergic, but there is something in this.

  I look out of my window at the world going about its business, and sigh. I often miss having Mark as a friend, but now more than ever. He would help, he would make sense of all this. Well, he would have helped, before I wrecked his marriage. I shake my head and whisper ‘It was wrecked already’ but the world doesn’t seem to be listening.

  Vinny bought me a box of red wine. Twelve bottles that he assured me were worth more than an average family’s monthly income. I found that a little gross, but the wine itself, my goodness. Half a bottle in and my previous hangover is forgotten. I look at my rules again. Perhaps they aren’t as random as I first thought. There is a pattern, I just don’t understand it, or see how it will help me yet. I sink into my favourite chair and stick ‘Please, Please Me’ on the turntable.

  The Beatles’ debut. Back to the start, I think, back to the beginning. That’s where I need to go, all the way back to 1992, before Amy was taken, before the world turned to shit and my life caved in on itself. To do that though, I clearly need help, professional help. I can time-travel, but if I’m going to get that far back, I need to learn control. I was right after all. It’s all about control.

  If I’m to make it back in one jump, then I need to learn how to stay there longer. Alternatively I need to figure out how to ‘tiddlywink’ through time, arriving and then jumping again. Either way, if I’m to become a sister saving, Jedi Master of time-travel then I need Alexia Finch. I believe she is the key to me gaining that control. I am Luke, she is Yoda, I’m convinced of it. Not literally of course. She’s much better looking than Yoda and I could never be Luke. I would have happily stayed on the farm and not gotten involved. Although thinking about it, I guess I would have ended up barbecued with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Sometimes you just can’t win.

  14.

  ‘Ms Finch isn’t available I’m afraid,’ the squeaky girl says.

  I quite liked her to start with, thought she was friendly, but her voice is like a grater on my eardrums now. ‘Could you please explain that I need to speak with her?’ I pause and try something new, ‘It’s an emergency.’

  There’s a long pause. She puts on her best business voice, slow and condescending, ‘Mr Bridgeman, I appreciate you have been trying to get hold of her – this being your sixth call today – but Ms Finch is fully booked. All I can do is give her your message. I’m sure she’ll get back to you.’ I’m not so sure. I suspect Alexia Finch is glad to see the back of me, having seen more than enough of the front. The girl coughs, deliberately, ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’

  Actually, yeah, when I time-travel I can’t seem to control where or when I land, oh, and I don’t seem to be able to stay there very long. Any ideas?

  ‘No,’ I mumble, my resolve fading. ‘Just please ask her to –’

  ‘Have a nice day,’ the girl sings.

  Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

  I hang up. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but Alexia Finch is clearly avoiding me. She’s probably recommending to Martin right now that I need a psycho-wotsit instead of her and I can’t blame her. As far as she’s concerned I’m a flasher, a weirdo, an obsessive, compulsive stripper.

  Ideally, we need to meet face to face, so I can convince her that my sudden nakedness has a perfectly reasonable explanation. A plan begins to form in my mind, like one of those ink blot tests, it seeps from nowhere to create a formed shape. I run to the kitchen and check the date. Friday, 19th December. I smile.

  Do or do not, my imaginary Yoda says, there is no try.

  15.

  Friday, 19th December, 6:29 p.m.

  Tonight is the evening of Martin’s party. I’m not planning to attend, and suspect – if all goes according to plan – Finch won’t either. I’m outside her house – a small, semi-detached property – and feeling every bit like the pervert she fears. I check my
watch. Okay, okay, okay (Joe Pesci, Lethal Weapon?). All I can hope now is that my plan works and that Martin was right about her single status; this plan of mine will be buggered if her boyfriend shows up.

  As I wait, I reassure myself that what I’m doing is the right thing, that Finch is the right choice. I guess I could find another ‘Hypno-mind-bender’ to help me, but I would hit the same problems soon enough; the naked, pinging around, random time-travelling stuff. Like with Vinny, I figure the only way to do this is all or nothing. If Alexia Finch is going to be my teacher then she has to know the subject completely, and everything that entails. She needs to be fully on-board my Magical Mystery Tour. And also, for reasons I don’t fully understand yet, I trust her and that’s a rare thing. She is the one who unlocked all of this, she’s the reason I started travelling in the first place.

  My throat dries up as I spot her leaving the house. She walks the path towards her car. I tell myself that my pounding heart is down to fear, but admit that it may also be the unexpected vision I see before me. Alexia Finch has been transformed from a plain-Jane into, well, into some kind of magnificent creature.

  I appreciate, now is not the time to get caught up in her ‘Sandra Dee’ transformation, but it’s not easy to ignore. Her hair is down, and shinier than before, straighter too and it moves like the sea at night as she walks. Her dress is black and fits her well, tempered by a silvery fur coat (fake fur obviously, she may look different by she’s still a hippy yoga-bunny). The sound of heels isn’t something I associate with her, but she walks with a gliding confidence, like she was born to wear them. She’s mesmerising and, honestly, I nearly miss my bloody cue. I step out from behind my cover; a parked car. I was crouched there, mugger style, which I appreciate isn’t the best of looks.