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

by Nick Jones

  No sounds for a while. I’m vaguely aware of being carried, like a dead body in the night, and then of warmth. Dry, clean sheets and then a different kind of darkness. I’m falling. A little voice (the one tuned to Bad News FM), tells me I’m dying, that I failed and this is all just a dream, but I ignore it for once. I tell it to shut the hell up. This is isn’t a dream. This is real and Amy is here and I fucking did it man, I fucking did it.

  16.

  I sit bolt upright with a gasp, eyes adjusting to the brightness of morning. I’ve slept, at least a few hours anyway, and although I still feel like crap it’s a vast improvement. Initially I have no idea where I am and panic but, slowly, the events that carried me here unfold in my mind, like layers of wrapping paper on a parcel and I relax. Amy is alive.

  ‘Amy?’ I call, my voice hoarse but audible.

  I hear movement and then footsteps and then Amy enters the room and I get my first proper look at her. She’s wearing a blue and white striped shirt and dark blue jeans and her hair – bobbed as a child – is now long; shining and golden brown. She smiles and, as if on cue, the sun burns long shafts of light across the bedroom. I feel a surge of happiness rush up from my feet and explode over me. This is the moment I’ve dreamed of for so long and here she is, my sister, alive and well.

  Amy walks towards me and with each step my mind shifts between the girl I knew and the woman before me. I can still see her, aged seven, at the fair, but somehow I manage to merge the two of them together into the thirty-year-old woman stood before me. Tears are burning at the back of my eyes but I fight them. I want to see this moment, to be present and alert. I pull myself up in the bed, giving Amy room to sit. She does and asks me, ‘How did you sleep?’

  ‘Well,’ I reply, rubbing my face. ‘How long was I out?’

  ‘We found you on Thursday night,’ Amy replies. ‘It’s Saturday morning now.’

  ‘Wow, I guess I needed it.’ I sigh, remembering how out of it I was when they found me. ‘Who was the man with you?’

  ‘That’s Ollie.’ Amy pauses, narrowing her eyes slightly. ‘You don’t recognise him do you?’

  I blink, frowning, ‘No, should I?’

  ‘No,’ Amy replies, offering me a gentle smile. ‘It’s exactly as expected, and that’s fine.’

  ‘Amy,’ I begin, tentatively, ‘you understand I don’t remember anything about this time, don’t you?’

  Amy nods and takes my hand, ‘I know, but don’t worry, I’ve got it all planned out.’

  She always had a gift for making those around her feel better and I’m glad to see she hasn’t lost it. In fact, I would say Amy has now mastered it. My brain feels fried, struggling to grasp onto this alternative version of my life but, somehow, a few words from Amy is enough to calm me, for now. I draw in a breath and glance around the room. ‘I need to understand what’s happened,’ I say slowly, ‘I just left you in 2005 and now I’m here, and you’re here. It’s a lot to take in.’

  Amy looks straight at me, and nods with empathy. ‘I’m sure it is, but trust me, it will be fine.’ She gives my hand a good squeeze and then leans in and kisses me on the cheek. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes. Okay?’

  I nod and she’s gone. I hear activity downstairs. The clattering of pans and the unmistakable sounds and smells of freshly ground coffee and frying bacon. My stomach groans and gurgles loudly. I’ve been snacking on rubbish for weeks and can’t recall the last time I ate a decent meal. Multiply that with my double jumping, demented yo-yo time-travelling antics, and it explains why I felt so broken.

  I take in the room again, more information this time. There are pictures of Amy. One with her dog, I guess, and one of me and her together. I don’t remember it being taken of course, but that’s something I’m going to have to get used to. I close my eyes and, unexpectedly, I doze off again.

  Amy wakes me, a coffee in one hand and a bacon and egg sandwich in the other. ‘I made it just how you like it.’ She grins, and oh my goodness, she’s right. The bacon is crispy, the egg just the right side of runny. The bread is white and soft with plenty of butter and ketchup. And the coffee is a strong, flat white and absolutely wonderful. I wanted to be polite and eat slowly as we talked, but that was before I took my first bite. I eat quickly and as I rub the last bit of bread over the now clean plate Amy laughs, ‘Is that better?’

  I look up to the sky, thanking the heavens and then her. ‘I can’t tell you. My stomach felt like a bottomless pit but you filled it.’ I breathe in slowly, ‘Thank you.’

  It’s strange. As the food hits my stomach it feels like my mind is re-booted and slowly its systems are coming back on-line. The smell of coffee reminded me of Liv and that avenue of thought leads me to Alexia and Mark and Vinny. Are they okay?

  Amy is waiting patiently, her expression, I suspect, a mirror of my own concern. ‘This is real Joe,’ she says, taking my right hand in hers again. ‘This isn’t a dream.’

  She read my mind. ‘I know, but it’s almost too good to be true,’ I reply. ‘I can’t believe I’m here, but it’s hard.’ I’m hit with the painful realisation that although I have Amy back, our life together starts here, for me anyway. I’m Marty McFly.

  Amy tips her head and fixes me with a determined stare. ‘I’ve been preparing for this day for a long time,’ she says, her tone serious. ‘I’m going to fill you in on everything you’ve missed.’ She pauses. ‘And we start now.’

  I nod. She seems so confident and that’s infectious, but questions are lurking in every corner of my mind. I’ve saved Amy and that victory feels good, but it’s hard to accept when there is so much still unknown. I may as well have been in a coma for the last twenty-three years. ‘Amy?’ I ask, voice tentative. I look down, sigh and then manage to meet her eyes again. ‘What about Dad?’

  Amy frowns, but I can’t tell if it’s confusion or if the question is difficult for her to answer. Those three words seem to echo through time, back to that terrible day when I found my Father, dead behind the wheel of his car. Amy’s answer will either open the world up a little more or close it again on that part of my life, like a bear trap. I suspect it has only been a second since I asked her, but it feels like a minute has passed between us. Finally she answers, and with an innocence that makes my heart bloom, ‘He’s okay Joe, he’s at home.’ And then with a frown, ‘It was different for you wasn’t it?’

  ‘And Mum?’ I ask, ignoring her question.

  ‘At home too, she’s starting to forget things but she’s not too bad.’ She leans in. ‘But why Joe, what happened to them?’

  She means, what happened to them, once, in a world she only glimpsed as a child. My family were ghosts and they haunted me – even my Mother in her own tragic way – but now they’re real again. An image forms, very clear in my mind, of my parents; happy, retired and together. It all makes sense. The pain and suffering that crashed through my family never happened. Amy never went missing. Dad never killed himself. Mum didn’t become depressed and therefore, perhaps the onset of dementia hasn’t hit her so hard, or so soon. Tears burn and even though I try to fight them they fall. I wipe them away. Amy is frowning, shaking her head. ‘They weren’t okay were they?’ She asks carefully. ‘I saw it once.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ I say, voice just above a whisper. ‘None of it matters now.’

  We sit in silence for a while, just the sounds of distant cars and life, the ticking of a clock, our breath. Peace at last, I think, imagining our family together. After a while Amy says, ‘When I found you, in the field, you called out a name.’

  I nod. ‘Alexia.’

  ‘Yes, that was it.’ Amy replies, but then pauses, blinking, and I see the shadow of a frown appear. ‘Who is she?’

  I lean my head back and shrug. ‘Alexia is…’ But then I pause, trying to understand why Amy wouldn’t know Alexia and then the answer knocks me sideways, and in that moment the weight of time-travel bears down on my heart.

  ‘The domino effect,’ I whisper,
a much better analogy in my case than butterflies. ‘She doesn’t know me anymore,’ I mumble. ‘Not here, anyway, not in this timeline. Why would she?’

  After my family fell, Martin pushed me towards Alexia, but that was then and this is now. He never gave me the business card of a talented, brilliant and gorgeous hypnotherapist. He never introduced me to the woman I now love.

  ‘Was it someone special?’ Amy asks, carefully.

  ‘Yes.’ I stare back at her, but then, because Amy doesn’t deserve to feel anything close to guilt, I add, ‘But it’s okay, it will be alright.’

  But I’m not sure it will. Things may have balanced out – and of course, I cannot and will not ever complain – but it’s clearer to me now than ever before. Time-travel can give with one hand but take with the other. There is always a consequence. There is always a deal. Nothing in life is free and it never was.

  17.

  Most of Saturday was a blur, just the occasional, brief conversation with Amy followed by long and uneventful bouts of sleep. In true jet-lag fashion, I wake early on Sunday and find Amy waiting by the door, dressed up warm, my coat in hand.

  ‘Let’s go and explore,’ she says, beaming, and we’re out of the house by seven a.m.

  It’s a beautiful winter’s morning; cold, dry and fresh. The occasional glimmer of Sun manages to peek through grey clouds as we walk slowly and quietly through the back streets of Cheltenham. Amy is giving me some time and space, I guess, and the silence is strangely golden. I can’t help but glance at her every few steps though, soaking in my sister, trying not to stare.

  Eventually we stop outside a shop on Montpellier Road, a beautiful regency style building. It’s big, roughly the size of a large house; the majority of its frontage taken up by two huge windows, displaying a multitude of delights. My eyes move over the contents of the shop, feeding on the details. I spot ornate furniture, oddities and rarities and antiques from all walks of life and corners of the U.K. All demand attention, all fascinating in their own right. I’m drawn, helpless, like a magnet towards them. My wide gaze settles on the entrance, a wooden door, painted royal blue, with a brass handle. Above it, and spanning almost the entire width of the shop, is a sign – one that looks as though it were made fifty years ago. It has hand painted, flamboyant type, dark grey text with pale gold edges. It reads: ‘Bridgeman Antiques’.

  ‘This is yours Joe,’ Amy says, with a tentative smile.

  I try to speak but pause, uncertain. In my previous life I let my small antiques business die, another victim of losing Amy I guess. I’ve often looked back and wondered if I could have made something of it. But that was a long time ago and those dreams belong to a different man; so much so that I find it hard to comprehend what I’m looking at. ‘I can’t believe it,’ I manage finally, ‘Amy, this can’t all be mine, it’s too much.’

  She pulls out a set of keys, opens the front door and steps inside. I try to follow but my legs don’t work, in fact they would much prefer to buckle and be jelly. ‘I don’t deserve it…’ I frown, looking away.

  Amy walks back to me, takes my hand and waits. Eventually I face her and she says, ‘Listen to me Joseph and you listen good.’ She takes my other hand, speaks slowly and clearly, all the while looking at me. ‘There is no one on earth who deserves this more than you. You’ve worked for this, believe me, and you’re good at this job. You were born to help people find what they’re looking for.’ She smiles, clearly remembering things I don’t.

  ‘You love it here and you’re very happy and you often joke about your morning commute.’

  ‘My morning commute?’ I mumble.

  ‘Yes,’ Amy laughs. It’s a very good sound. ‘You live up there.’ She points to the first floor. ‘Now, come on big brother, let’s go and have a look inside shall we?’

  As we enter, a tiny bell rings above the door and I know, actually feel, like I’m home. The smell of the place, aged and musty with a hint of brass and polish, laced with history. Just about the most perfect smell I can imagine. Old things, antiques, each one waiting for someone to come along and claim them. I remember how I described this link once to Alexia, referring to a set of opera glasses. ‘They call to people,’ I told her. Perhaps people are like that too. I hope so.

  Amy walks ahead, towards a desk in the centre of what feels like the world’s biggest and best sweet shop. ‘You open at 10 a.m. and close when you feel like it,’ she says. I stare at the desk, which is clearly mine, the way it’s laid out neatly (I know, who would have thought it?), right down to the choice of lamp and pen. It’s as though I’ve found the ultimate personal shopper. One who knows exactly what I want and need in every aspect of my life. Amy opens her handbag and gives me a bunch of keys, ‘I labelled these for you. It’s straightforward and the alarm code is my birthday.’ She frowns. ‘That was your idea, not mine.’

  ‘Amy,’ I murmur.

  ‘You don’t open on Sundays unless you get one of your feelings, in which case sometimes you –’

  ‘Amy,’ I say again and she stops. ‘We need to take it slowly, okay?’

  She looks at the floor and frowns. ‘Oh, right, yeah, sorry.’

  ‘It’s alright,’ I assure her. ‘It’s just a lot to take in and I still have so many questions.’

  She nods and hands me a black moleskin book, similar to my Dad’s diary. ‘I made this for you,’ she says. ‘Over the years, each time something important happened I noted the date and wrote a brief description for you, I thought it would help you catch up, to understand the chronology of things.’

  I take it and leaf though the pages. ‘Thank you,’ I say, knowing how woefully inadequate that is as I stare at the pages of my secret life.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about this since I was seven,’ Amy says proudly, ‘I so badly want it to go well, but it’s hard for me too, you know.’

  I nod, considering this. ‘I’m sure it is.’

  Amy manages a smile but it bends my brain to think how much has changed. A million questions fight and brawl in my mind. I draw in a breath, and ask one at random, ‘How did you know I would arrive in that field, at exactly the time I did?’

  Amy sighs and her smile breaks a little, she looks almost sad. ‘When you came back and saved me at the fair I asked you what year you had come from.’

  ‘I remember,’ I say, ‘I told you 2015, but I’m surprised you remember that, all things considered.’

  ‘I remember everything from that night,’ Amy replies seriously, her face shifting for a fraction of a second into the girl I remember. ‘I’ve been watching you closely since January 1st and I was with you that morning – the old you I mean – and that’s when it happened. You disappeared, right in front of me. I knew it meant you would return soon and I knew exactly where you would be.’

  I exhale loudly. ‘That must have been scary for you and him.’

  Amy shakes her head and takes a step towards me. ‘Joe, in this timeline you never got past the point of viewing, you never discovered you could time-travel and I never talked about it. The old you had no idea what was about to happen, he just vanished, making space for you.’

  ‘I guess the loop had to close,’ I ponder. ‘Time puts things right in the end.’

  ‘Yes and I didn’t tell him because there didn’t seem any point, and also I was worried I might break something.’ Amy shrugs. ‘You know, change things again.’

  ‘You did the right thing,’ I say, the words coming easily. Perhaps because I’m me now, and this version knows all about time-travelling. I’ve saved Amy. Mission well and truly accomplished, yet, something inside me, something deep down, isn’t sure I’m ready to give this time-travelling thing up. Not just yet.

  Amy hands me a set of keys and nods towards an open doorway and stairs that I’m guessing lead up to my home. ‘Why don’t you go and get familiar with Casa Bridgeman?’ she suggests.

  ‘Okay,’ I reply, nervously. ‘But what about you, where are you going?’

  ‘Joe,’ Amy say
s, softly. ‘You did your job all those years ago. I’m thirty now and I’ve managed all this time.’ She winks and gives my arm a squeeze. ‘You don’t need to worry about me.’

  ‘Amy,’ I reply, looking down my nose at her, eyebrows raised, ‘I will worry about you as long as I live.’

  She smiles. ‘Likewise Joe, but listen, I thought you should have some time to yourself. You know, to get used to this place.’ She pauses a beat. ’Maybe you can read some of your book too?’

  The moleskin is in my right hand, a lifetime of memories waiting to be discovered. ‘Yes,’ I agree, nodding to myself and looking around the shop, realising that actually some time alone might be a good idea. ‘Okay but when will I see you again?’

  ‘It’s Sunday, you can keep the shop closed and no one will bother you. We usually see Mum and Dad on a Sunday, Mum cooks, but I’ve told them you’re away, you do that quite often. So, just don’t answer the phone. Hole up here for a while and…’ She pauses, searching for the word.

  ‘Decompress,’ I finish for her with a wry smile.

  ‘Exactly.’ Amy smiles and I see understanding. Perhaps she’s had her own version of this during her formative years; a need to be alone after travelling, a need to reconnect with time and place. Like a needle, I think, we need to drop slowly and find our groove again.

  Amy leans in and kisses my cheek. ‘I’ll pop in tomorrow and check you’re okay, there’s always food in your fridge and freezer, but call me if you need anything. My number is on speed dial, just press one.’