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

by Nick Jones

  Utter despair fills me but I carry on like this, up to the surface and down again until I can no longer feel my body. I’m weak and finally accept that if Amy’s dead and I drown too, that would be okay, but something stops me. What if she isn’t dead? What if I’m busy drowning here and she’s on the bank calling out for me. The water is deafening on the surface, I would never hear her. I tread water, exhausted, water lapping against my mouth, making me cough and gag. The undertow is strong but I realise this isn’t the sea. The water is earthy, like a dirty river. I’m in a lake and I can see the edge, not far, maybe as close as twenty feet. To my right is a large storm drain, circular and open like the mouth of a huge whale, drawing me towards its iron teeth. I fight and manage to swim away but it takes every ounce of strength I have to reach the bank. Not just because of fatigue but because I still believe Amy might be down there and I’m leaving her. I’m abandoning her.

  I crawl and drag myself out of the water, heavy with thick brown mud. Eventually I collapse onto my back, panting and crying, the rain pelting me as thunder and lightning continue to unleash their power on the world, tearing at the sky like swords in battle.

  Ten minutes since she went down. She’s dead, Joe. She drowned. You pulled her back here – wherever here is – and you killed her.

  ‘Amy!’ I cry, lifting myself up, scanning the bank for any signs of movement. The water surges and moves like the scales of some restless beast. A fork of lightning cracks overhead but this one is a brilliant and electric blue. Suddenly the whole place turns blue and I realise with something akin to pure terror that I’m about to travel again. Brain freeze descends, here to claim me and, with what feels like raw lightning coursing through me, I’m gone again.

  7.

  I cough, ejecting gritty, earthy water and then lift myself up onto all fours and puke. It’s mainly bile, yellow and bitter. When I’m done, I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and sit, taking in my new surroundings. I’m back in Cox’s Meadow and – by the look of it – back in 2015. The early morning sun is announcing itself, breaking gently through the layer of thin mist that currently sits over the park. I’m disorientated and still a little nauseous but my mind – almost in spite of itself – begins to piece together how I got here.

  There was a second jump. Two jumps here, two jumps back, makes sense I suppose, but man, it seems to have spun my brain sideways. It’s probably why it’s taken a while for the pain to arrive. Not physical pain, not barbed wire or brain freeze but emotional; the kind that hits you right in the gut.

  I look up to the sky and shout, ‘Is there anything else?’ Challenging some unseen force to tell me if it’s going to get any worse. But the sky doesn’t answer. It’s grey and cold and, compared to the storm I just left, utterly featureless. I look around, half expecting to see someone watching but instead see something that makes my heart skip a beat. The storm drain, the one from my last stop; the mouth of the whale.

  And that’s when it clicks. Years ago – back in the early noughties – Cox’s Meadow was excavated to create a flood defence. Somehow, Amy and I time-travelled back to the night of a terrible storm. I stare down at my hands and study the nail marks that have drawn blood on my wrists and forearms. I grimace and can do nothing to fight the tears now. They come and I let them. I sob, shuddering, cold and alone, guilt wringing fresh grief out of me. Amy was petrified and I dragged her through time and drowned her.

  I’m not sure how long I stay like this, but when I finally stop crying I do feel a little better. All the frustration and fear and panic that built up needed to come out I guess, but it doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t save her. All I did was change the way she died. I shake my head and exhale slowly. There’s only one person I want to see now so I walk, cold and damp towards the exit of the park. It’s a gradual incline, not steep at all really, to reach the path that winds its way around Cox’s Meadow. I walk like a zombie but stop at a bright yellow sign, which reads, ‘Danger: Flood Storage Area. Water Levels Can Rise Rapidly.’

  Yes they can, I think. They sure can.

  I have a choice to make. Accept what happened, or go back in time and try again. I’m a time-traveller after all and have more knowledge about that night than ever. But it isn’t going to work like that and I know it. I can feel it. Time is like the ocean. The deeper you go, the higher the pressure and the harder it is to see. I only just made it that last time. If I manage it again, it will be a miracle and I can’t perform those on my own.

  8.

  Making a reverse charge call at 4 a.m. is embarrassing enough, but doing it naked takes the grand prize. I enter a nearby phone box and call Alexia to the rescue, doing my best to cover myself with an old newspaper. The phone box stinks of piss and cigarette butts but at least I’m out of the January air.

  Two rings and she picks up. ‘Joe?’ She asks, quick and nervous.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘it’s me.’ And to my surprise I almost cry again. Just hearing the worry in her voice. I swallow, shivering and weak but manage not to lose it.

  ‘Did you do it?’ She asks.

  My mouth opens and five things try to come out all at once. I try again but how do I tell her that I failed? How do I explain, after losing Amy once, that I did it again? That time is against me, on some kind of endless loop. ‘I lost her,’ I whisper, the words causing physical pain, tightening my chest so I can hardly breathe.

  ‘Where are you?’ Alexia asks.

  I explain and twenty minutes later my therapist in shining armour pulls up next to the phone box. I peer at her through the glass. She gets out, grabs a bag and walks to the door. ‘I picked these up from your place.’ She hands me a bag of clothes and turns her back.

  I pull them on and although my body is tired, dirty and cold, I feel better instantly. ‘Thank you,’ I murmur, stepping out of my temporary changing room.

  Alexia looks tired – I’ve clearly just woken her up and she’s thrown some clothes on – but she’s a welcome sight for my very sore eyes. She takes my arm, offering me a gentle, kind smile. I do my best to smile back but it’s lame and she gives my arm a squeeze. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Let’s get you home.’

  Her car is a Toyota Prius; a hybrid. Smart, futuristic and immaculately clean. I’ve always thought they were pretty boring but the way Alexia drives is anything but. I would ask her to slow down but I’m so glad to feel warmth returning to my body – particularly my feet – that I just sink back in the seat and keep quiet. The roads are quiet too and Alexia is making the most of it. She zips through Cheltenham, eyes fixed ahead.

  ‘So, what happened?’ She asks, running an amber light.

  ‘I was close,’ I begin, my voice weak but at least audible. ‘Everything we did worked. I got all the way back to 1992 and I found Amy, I talked to her and…’ I clench my hands, remembering the jump into the icy water and Amy’s face, my new nightmare.

  ‘Go on Joe,’ Alexia says. ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘I lost her again, I managed to grab her but we time-travelled, I dragged her back to Cox’s Meadow and straight into a flood.’ I sigh, my breath leaving me in deep, shuddering gasps. ‘She drowned, Alexia, and it’s all my fault.’

  We pull up at another set of lights, which stay red for a while. Alexia turns to me, ‘You couldn’t have known Joe, it isn’t your fault.’

  I nod. But I don’t agree. It is my fault. All of it.

  * * *

  Things are bad but if you’ve ever been to a festival then you will know what a difference being clean and warm can make. I take a long, hot shower, shave, put on fresh, clean clothes and join Alexia in the kitchen. She’s made tea and toast and by the time I’ve finished munching my way through my third round, I’m a different person. Everything remains well and truly fucked and I still blame myself for everything, but at least now I feel able to face it again. I grabbed my Father’s Rado watch from my study, and fiddle with it nervously. One firm shake and the automatic action kicks in and the second hand begi
ns to tick.

  Alexia pulls a number of pages from a cardboard wallet and spreads them out onto the kitchen table. She’s clearly decided that asking me to re-play events isn’t going to do me any good and I’m relieved. She taps one of the pictures, ‘Cox’s Meadow was excavated in 2001. In 2005 we had the worst storm in 100 years. Bad flooding, the lot.’

  ‘I remember,’ I say, meaning the first time but also more recently, first hand.

  Alexia slides another picture towards me, this one a wider shot, showing the scale of the flooding and also the lip of the storm drain, its shiny blue paint at odds with the environment. It makes me shudder to see it again and I look away, frowning.

  ‘You can’t blame yourself, Joe,’ Alexia says, ‘we could never have planned for this.’ She reaches over and places her hand on my forearm. I look back and meet her eyes, which are fired up and confident. ‘Now we know what might happen we can plan. Right?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I say, staring at the table.

  She nods as if we’re in total agreement, ‘And what about the suspect, did you see him?’

  I consider the question but it doesn’t make sense, on any level. ‘Sorry, what?’ I ask, shifting in my seat and engaging with her properly now.

  ‘The suspect,’ Alexia repeats, curling her lip. She begins fanning out more photographs and clippings from the wallet. ‘Did you manage to stop him? Find out what he wanted?’

  As I stare at the multitude of new information I shake my head in disbelief. ‘If you’ve ever wondered if my actions in the past affect the future then you can stop now.’

  ‘So, you saw him?’ Alexia asks, excitedly.

  ‘No.’ I shrug. ‘I am him.’

  9.

  Alexia fans out even more news articles, reports, witness statements and photographs across the table. Most feature the familiar picture of Amy running towards the wood with the band in the foreground, except now, there is a new addition. A man, running after her. Me.

  ‘What are you saying?’ Alexia asks.

  ‘I’m saying that I’m the suspect.’ I pick up one of the news reports and read the headline, ‘MYSTERY MAN INVOLVED IN GIRL’S DISAPPEARANCE.’ And then study the image below. A man, dressed up in my weirdo gear running after Amy. If I didn’t know it was me it would make a chilling and very suspicious image. I glance up at Alexia. ‘When I left the present, this photograph showed only Amy running towards the woods, now it shows me too. I remember it being taken, remember the flash behind me, but didn’t think how it might change things.’ I reach for another article, this one a full page print. ‘You and I went to Vinny’s, we found the original picture in his loft. It had been hidden there for years.’

  ‘Vinny?’ Alexia says quietly. ‘The record shop owner?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, realising that we might never have needed to go there together, not in her timeline anyway. I’m guessing, that after I was spotted in ’92, Thinny Vinny must have handed the photograph in. It’s all different.

  ‘But Joe, we’ve had this picture all along,’ Alexia gasps. ‘You’re the one who gave it to me!’ She picks up one of the wordier pieces of evidence, ‘This is a witness statement from one the parents who followed the suspect…’ She pauses a beat, ‘I mean, you into the wood.’

  We have different memories. My changes have affected everything and everyone except me. I think of an angle that might help Alexia. ‘Remember when you went back and changed things?’ I ask. ‘When you came back I had – and still have – no memory of the police interviewing me. You do, because in that instance you were the traveller. The time-traveller is the only one who remembers what it was like before.’

  I’m still processing, marvelling at the inner machinations of it all, when Marty McFly suddenly pops into my mind. At the end of Back to the Future he’s stunned to discover his family have changed beyond all recognition. His parents are just back from a game of tennis (Mom, you look so… so thin!) and his brother is wearing a suit, which apparently he ‘always wears to the office’. All of this is new to Marty. I always loved that scene but it has more layers now, more weight than I realised at the time. Marty has an entire lifetime of family memories that he is supposed to know, but never will. It’s actually pretty dark when you think about it. How long before Poor ole Marty is exposed? How long before people spot that he doesn’t know anything, about anything?

  Alexia sighs. I can see she’s going through what I did, trying to imagine how her experiences could be so different to mine. She blinks. ‘It’s strange,’ she says, staring blankly at the table. ‘Finding this man was like an obsession for you. You and I talked for hours about who it could be.’ She pauses and exhales loudly, ‘And it was you.’

  ‘Yes.’ I nod, imagining how this photo – not clear enough to be obviously me – would have driven me mad. I would have needed to find this man, to know who he was and what he was doing there that night. A chill runs through me as I recall another mystery man, the one who intervened at the fair, the one who cost me precious minutes. There was something about him, something familiar. I can feel it, embedded like a piece of silver in my mind; the light catching it occasionally, offering an angle from which to pull, but then it’s gone again. I almost tell Alexia but decide it’s a complication we don’t need, not at the moment.

  She sighs, ‘Well, picture or no picture, we need to do it again.’ Her voice is firm, her eyes bright with confidence. ‘We know more now. We can send you back prepared.’

  I draw in a shallow breath and frown, ‘I don’t know Alexia, it was…’ My hand covers my mouth, ‘It was horrible, I don’t know if I can do it again, knowing how it might end.’

  She nods, her caring smile warming me. ‘Listen to me. We’ve come this far and you nearly saved her. Everything that happened can be undone.’ She says the last word with such commitment that it sends a ripple of gooseflesh over me. She leans in, ‘And, there’s a positive angle to this you know.’

  ‘And what’s that?’ I ask, failing to see a single one.

  She smiles and, with a nod, says, ‘It’s proof that if you change things, you alter the outcome.’ She takes my hand and gives it a good, firm squeeze, ‘Save her and Amy will be here, waiting when you get back.’

  10.

  We’re back in my study. Alexia pulls the album Revolver from the shelf, flips it over, scans the back and then glances at me, smiling, ‘Same again, but with a little twist.’

  Having Alexia has made this bearable. I explained to her earlier that all I could see was Amy drowning and she’s been working tirelessly at lifting my spirits and taking my mind elsewhere. We sit cross legged opposite each other, déjà vu burning the seconds between us and I hear the wonderful crackle of the stylus hitting the road as, ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’ begins to play. I snort air from my nostrils and smile, ‘Good choice.’

  Alexia returns my smile and nods along with Paul as he sings of taking a ride and not knowing what he’s going to find there.

  ‘You’re a time-traveller Joe,’ Alexia speaks slowly and clearly, enunciating the words between the beat and the lyrics somehow. In her own hypnotic way she’s harmonising again, ‘And you’ve been given this second chance for a reason.’

  Maybe I have, I think as Paul sings of wanting to hold someone, how he knew, in time, they would meet again.

  ‘You’re falling into a deep sleep, Joe,’ Alexia commands me, voice like warm milk. ‘Completely calm and totally under my control.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I reply, feeling her hands reach for mine. 2005 feels so clear to me now and for the first time since coming back to the present I feel like I might just reach there again.

  ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’ reaches its grainy chorus and I smile as Alexia and I tumble back to Leckhampton Hill together.

  * * *

  We arrive in 2005, calmly and gently, just as before, and spend some time talking under the moonlight. We walk and I tell her that I have good memories here – I think I might have already told her that – but
it’s obvious I’m more nervous this time. We reach the edge of the Hill and look out over Cheltenham, our attention on Cox’s Meadow.

  Alexia takes my hand, ‘It will be okay Joe, and remember, when you come back this time, Amy and I will be waiting.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes,’ she says with absolute conviction, ‘I really do.’

  I inhale but don’t say anything. I had faith the first time but that was before I let Amy drown, before I messed it all up and delivered a fate potentially worse than the version time had planned for her.

  ‘Let go of all of those worries,’ Alexia whispers, as if reading my mind. ‘Don’t forget, it’s fear that will hold you back and it’s testing you now, that’s for sure.’

  I close my eyes and I see Amy, underwater, and suspect I would never have banished it from my mind if Alexia hadn’t kissed me again. My eyes remain closed as our lips join together. There’s no awkward build up this time, no stupid one-liners or embarrassing gestures. Our kiss deepens, her tongue finds mine and we explore each other and it’s wonderful. My innermost fears seem to fade in importance as I connect my heart to Alexia’s and charge it up on her kiss. The moment is passionate and filled with love. I move my arm around her back, pulling her close to me and I can, finally, imagine us together, how it might be.