The '86 Fix: A 1980s Time Travel Novel

by Keith A Pearson

  “There might be. I still play golf with two of them, and as luck would have it, we’ve got a game booked this weekend.”

  “I’m sorry to ask you, Brian, but I have to do something and you’re my best, well, only hope — and you understand it’s not just my job at stake? There's a decent bunch of people working here who don’t deserve to lose their jobs.”

  “I’ve always had a soft-spot for your branch, Craig, and you’re a good lad. I can’t promise anything, other than to get your points across to people who might listen. Fair enough?”

  “Can’t ask any more than that, Brian. I appreciate it.”

  With an assurance he’d call me in a few days’ time, Brian ends the call.

  Feeling slightly more optimistic about our chances, I gulp the cold dregs of my coffee and head down to the shop floor. While it’s far from busy, there are a few dozen customers browsing the aisles. I amble across the shop floor and take up position behind the customer services desk. Geoff is sat at the other end of the desk, staring intently at his phone while jabbing the screen. Judging by his eye-rolling and occasional slaps to the forehead, I assume he’s not watching videos of playful kittens. Just as his cheeks turn an interesting shade of mauve, he slams the phone down on the desk.

  “Bollocking hell,” he mutters under his breath.

  He sits and stares at the phone, shaking his head. Strictly speaking, the staff aren’t supposed to use their mobile phones on the shop floor, but I don’t think Geoff is in the mood for a lecture so I let it pass.

  “You okay, Geoff?” I ask.

  “No, I’m not,” he grunts.

  “Anything I can help you with?”

  “Not unless you’ve got a time machine,” he mumbles.

  “Afraid not. Do you want to elaborate a bit?”

  He lets out a deep sigh.

  “I was checking the value of some shares I own. Just when I think they can’t fall in value any further, they do.”

  “I thought you were skint?”

  “Well I wasn’t, but I sure as hell am now. I bought the shares years ago after I received an inheritance. I thought it would be a safe investment to buy shares in a bank. Banks never go bust, do they? Anyway, I accidentally forgot about them when the receivers were liquidating everything I owned, after the company went down. I was hoping they might be a nest-egg for my retirement, but they’re almost bloody worthless now.”

  Before I can offer any hollow words of comfort, Geoff snatches his phone from the desk and storms off towards the far side of the store. I wonder just how much more bad news he can take. All I can do is offer a silent prayer that Brian comes through.

  As I check the security monitor to ensure Geoff isn’t venting his rage at a helpless customer somewhere, I’m distracted by a middle-aged couple as they approach the desk.

  “We’re looking for some help to choose a vacuum cleaner.”

  It’s going to be a long day.

  Lunchtime eventually arrives, and notwithstanding my ever-expanding waistline, I decide that the only way to cure my hangover is by consuming a couple of bacon rolls with lashings of brown sauce. I stroll to the burger van, which is always pitched on the edge of a trading estate, a few hundred yards from the store. The owner of the van is a ratty-looking man called Vince, and he greets me with a toothless grin. Both the freshness of the fare and Vince’s personal hygiene are questionable, but when you fancy a bacon roll, even the threat of listeria isn’t a sufficient deterrent. With bacon rolls acquired, I head back to the store.

  I sneak up to my office so I can consume them in secret and avoid a sermon about my eating habits from Lucy. I devour the first bacon roll, but just as I’m about to make a start on the second one, my mobile phone rings. I swipe the screen with a greasy finger to accept the call from my dad.

  “Hi Dad.”

  My dad has never been a man to fill a phone call with idle chit-chat. He’s from a generation that used to pay for their phone calls by the minute, usually in a public phone box. There was no time to waste on pleasantries.

  “Can you come over after work? I need to talk to you,” he says stoically.

  “Sure, why? Is Mum okay?” I ask apprehensively.

  “She’s fine. Just come over and we’ll talk then.”

  “Are you not going to give me a clue?”

  “For crying out loud, just do as I ask, will you,” he snaps, then hangs up.

  His rudeness no longer surprises me. My dad is only capable of displaying three emotions: anger, frustration, or apathy. I’ve long-since stopped trying to understand what goes on in his head. Whatever he needs to see me about, I’ll find out later.

  I take a bite of my second bacon roll, but my appetite has gone. I put the remaining roll back into the greasy paper bag and drop it into the bin under my desk. Typical of my dad to steal even the smallest pleasure from my life. I often wonder why he took on the responsibility of parenthood, such was his indifference to my presence growing up. I struggle to recall even a single situation where he showed me any warmth or affection. He wasn't and still isn't much of a father.

  I head to the toilets to wash the grease from my hands. It’s a shame I can’t cleanse the guilt for indulging in Vince’s coronary-blocking food so easily. As I scrub my hands in the sink, my mind wanders to Saturday and the reunion. I feel a slight flutter of excitement at seeing Tessa again. And while Marcus will undoubtedly be there too, I can at least take comfort that his plan to close our store might not pan-out the way he hopes. I dry my hands and contemplate skiving off for a few hours tomorrow, to go clothes shopping. While I can’t do much about my plump, middle-aged physique, I can at least make an effort with what I wear.

  I decide to hole up in my office for the afternoon and complete the staff rotas for next month. It’s a tedious task, but preferable to proffering the benefits of dull kitchen appliances to dull customers. A few hours into my task, Lucy brings me a coffee. She sniffs the air and immediately detects the lingering smell of bacon from the roll in my bin. I then receive a ten-minute lecture about why I shouldn’t be eating processed, fatty foods. She has a point, so I sit quietly like a naughty schoolboy, listening to her lecture before I end it with a promise I’ll start a diet next week. With a sceptical frown, she heads back to the shop floor. I retrieve the roll from the bin and finish it off. I am a weak man.

  Closing time arrives and once everyone has left the store, I go through the locking up procedure and jump in the Mazda. It’s usually only a ten-minute drive to my parents’ house, but the rush hour traffic is a nightmare so I pull up outside their house almost half-an-hour later. I lock the car and stand for a moment to survey the street where I grew up.

  A fair few of the properties are now owned by landlords and rented to tenants who patently don’t have the same sense of pride as the homeowners in the street. Nothing much else has changed, apart from the amount of cars abandoned along the kerb side. I assume the planners failed to predict the long-term parking needs on the street, so each home only has a single parking space at the front. Back then it was rare for any family to have more than one car, but now every home appears to have three or four. The only house that doesn’t have a car on its driveway is the one I’m standing in front of — my childhood home.

  I ring the bell and hear my dad cussing as he struggles to move his arthritic body from the sitting room to the front door. I can only imagine the welcome a caller would receive if they were selling double glazing, or offering to share their love of Jesus with the homeowner. Seconds pass before I hear the lock being undone, and my dad opens the door. The brawny father I grew up with is now a near-skeletal wisp of a man. His hair is gone, and he now shuffles through life on legs that are barely fit for purpose. He squints at me through ice-blue eyes, sunk in darkened sockets.

  “Expected you twenty minutes ago,” he grunts.

  The body may be shot, but his mind and manner are as brusque as they’ve ever been.

  “Sorry, traffic,” I reply.

&n
bsp; Dad doesn’t acknowledge my excuse and hobbles back to the sitting room. I close the door and follow him in. Mum is sat in a wing-backed armchair near the window and looks up as I enter, a smile breaking on her lined face.

  “Hello sweetheart.”

  I lean over and give her a kiss on the forehead.

  “Hello Mum.”

  Throughout her life, Mum always had a figure you might describe as ‘cuddly’. She was once an avid baker, and our kitchen was never short of a freshly baked cake, pie or pudding, many of which Mum would sample to perfect her recipes. Unfortunately, her long-term fondness for baked goods gradually nudged her body further along the obesity scale. By the time she hit her sixties, the scales tipped and a diagnosis of type-2 diabetes followed. Coupled with a series of other weight-related health issues, Mum’s mobility is now limited to shuffling around the house.

  I sit down on a chintzy two-seater sofa that was last fashionable decades ago. The old man plants himself in a matching wing-backed armchair in the opposite corner of the room. A carriage clock ticks loudly in the background as I wait for Dad to tell me why I’m here. He sits upright and clears his throat, perhaps savouring his position as head of the house once more.

  “Your mother and I have been talking, and we’ve decided to move home. The house goes on the market next week.”

  I’m slightly taken aback. I always assumed my parents would live out their days in this house.

  “Why now?” I ask.

  “This damn arthritis is getting worse, and we’re both struggling to get up and down the stairs. Then there’s the garden. I resent paying that so-called gardener to come round every few weeks. He’s bloody useless, isn’t he Janet?”

  My mum nods.

  “Yes dear.”

  Their garden has always been Dad’s pride and joy, but he can’t even mow the lawn now. Somewhat reluctantly, he hired a local gardener although it appears the poor bloke is failing to meet Dad’s stringent horticultural standards.

  “Where are you going to live?” I ask.

  For one fleeting second, I fear he’s going to suggest they move in with us.

  “We’ve put a deposit down on one of those new retirement flats in the town centre. It’s on the ground floor, so there are no stairs, plus it’s handy for the shops and the doctor’s surgery. It should be ready in a month or two. The estate agent reckons we’ll sell this place by then.”

  “That sounds perfect,” I smile, hoping my outward relief isn’t too obvious.

  “It’ll do us. Anyway, we’ve got to get the house cleared as there’s far too much stuff to put in the flat. I’ve spoken to a house clearance company, and they’ll be taking away the stuff we don’t need in a few weeks’ time. You need to sort through your bedroom before they arrive and take anything you want to keep.”

  Such was the precarious nature of my relationship with Megan, Mum half-expected me to return home one day. She’s consequently kept my bedroom exactly the same way it was the day I moved out. I say ‘expected’, but I suspect there was a lot more hope than expectation. Even after all these years, my former bedroom remains a time capsule of my teenage years. Apart from my clothes and a few other odds-and-ends I took when I moved in with Megan, everything I owned as a teenager is still upstairs.

  “Okay. I’ve got the day off next Thursday, so I’ll come by in the afternoon and sort it out.”

  The old man nods, and we sit in an uncomfortable silence before Mum suggests a cup of tea might be in order.

  2

  I drive into town hoping this shopping expedition will be more successful than my last. I made two mistakes that day. The first was purchasing a shirt from a store that was totally age-inappropriate. The second was not trying it on while in the store. I thought the shirt in question looked fantastic on the mannequin, but when I tried it on at home, it was like trying to squeeze a kingsize duvet into a pillowcase. I took it back the following day and complained to the prepubescent manager that the size label was patently wrong. With almost perceptible glee, he pointed out that the shirt wasn't designed for men with my frame. I will not be returning to that store.

  I enter the multistorey car park, located adjacent to our shiny new shopping centre that only opened last month. My first reaction to this new shopping experience is to balk at the exorbitant cost of leaving my car on a patch of tarmac for a few hours. I then spend several frustrating minutes driving around aimlessly before finding a space to park the Mazda. After squeezing out of the inadequate space between my open door and the adjacent car, the next challenge is to find the lifts down to the shops. Several hundred yards of increasingly angry stomping ensue before I spot a sign for the lifts and make my escape.

  By the time the lift descends and the doors open to the bright shopping centre, I’ve already forgotten which floor I parked on. With no clue where the shops I need might be located, I wander along the concourse, and up several escalators to get my bearings. More by luck than judgement, I stumble across a clothes store on my list to visit. The menswear section is on the first floor, so I head up the stairs and into the harshly lit space.

  The wall on the left is covered with dozens of rails containing a myriad of shirts and tops, while the wall on the right is equally well stocked with jeans and trousers. I decide to choose the jeans first, so I head over to the right-hand side of the store and scour the rails.

  On closer inspection, the choice of jeans won't be as straightforward as I hoped. There was once a time when purchasing jeans required you to decide upon three basic options: waist size, leg length and a few different colours. However, what I’m now faced with is a bewildering range of styles including: skinny, slim, classic, relaxed, low-rise, boot-cut, and straight. Through a process of deduction, I immediately discount styles which include the words ‘slim’ or ‘skinny’. I can only assume low-rise means they’ll hang off my arse. As I don’t even possess a pair of boots, I also discount boot-cut. Down to three options. I decide my best bet is either relaxed or classic, so I search both rails, and choose a dark blue pair of each style, in my size.

  With jeans in hand, I wander over to the other side of the store and browse through the range of shirts. Unlike the jeans, the shirts are all the same cut, so my choice will really boil down to colour. I avoid any lighter colours that will accentuate my flabby midriff, and I don’t want anything with a garish pattern that Megan might choose. I finally decide upon a black shirt which looks stylish, but suitably understated.

  I locate the dressing rooms and step into a vacant booth. Thankfully, the booth has a proper door with a lock rather than just an ill-fitting curtain to protect my modesty. I strip down to my pants and socks so I can see the full impact of my new ensemble. It’s a decision I immediately regret as I turn and face the mirrored wall in front of me. The harsh spotlights cast damning shadows from every ripple of fat on my body. If that wasn’t bad enough, the booth also has mirrored walls on both sides, so a slight turn to the left offers me a rarely seen view of my lardy back and sagging arse, repeated to infinity. Like a rubbernecker who can’t help staring at a car crash, I inspect my multiple reflections for a few depressing minutes.

  Disgusted enough, I turn away from my chubby reflection and grab the first pair of jeans from the peg on the door. I try on the classic style jeans first. It doesn’t go well. I manage to pull the jeans over my backside and up to my waist, but it’s obvious the top button will never stretch across to the opposing flap. I peel myself out of the jeans and throw them in the corner. I remove the relaxed style jeans from the hanger, and with some trepidation, slide my left leg in. I pull the left leg over my foot and switch my balance before sliding my right leg in. So far, so good. I pull them up, expecting to meet resistance from either my chubby thighs, or chubbier backside, but they eventually reach my waist. I tug the two flaps together, and after sucking-in a little, I manage to fasten the top button. Relief.

  With my upper body still exposed, I daren’t turn around and face the mirrors just yet. I unbutto
n the black shirt, pull it from the hanger, and slip it on. I fasten the buttons from the top, and all is well, until I reach the buttons nearer my stomach. These take some effort to fasten, but I force them into place.

  Now fully dressed, I turn to face the mirror. The jeans look okay, albeit they’re a tad snug around the groin. A larger size would remedy that issue, but that would take me into a realm of sizing I vowed never to reach, so I’ll live with it. However, what I can’t live with is the shirt. The material is stretched to bursting point across my gut, and the buttons look like they could detach at any second. With the arms already a tad too long, going up a size is not an option. Back to the drawing board.

  I try on a few more shirts but none of them fit, so I’m forced to continue my search elsewhere. I pay for my jeans and wander around the shopping centre looking for other options. Three shops and seven failed shirt-fittings later, I’m losing the will to live. I don’t understand how people find any enjoyment in clothes shopping.

  With my initial enthusiasm spent, I eventually stumble across a department store. I know that they only stock branded shirts that cost a small fortune, but I’m past caring now, so I begrudgingly enter the store.

  I discover a section with shirts that appear to have a more generous cut. I select a black one, similar to the first one I tried on, and head to the changing rooms with my fingers crossed. Five minutes later, I triumphantly emerge with a shirt that fits. My triumph is tempered when I look at the price tag, but if I’m going to impress Tessa it’s a price worth paying.

  I take the shirt to the nearest till where a woman is in a heated discussion with the shop assistant. I wait patiently and my eyes drift around the store, looking at nothing in particular. It’s then I spot somebody familiar, examining a rail of clothes about twenty-five yards away. It’s bloody Marcus. Shit.

  I stand like a rabbit caught in headlights. There is nowhere for me to hide, so all I can do is watch him, and hope he doesn’t look my way. Thankfully, his attention remains fixed on the clothes rail in front of him. I keep my head lowered, but my eyes fixed on Marcus as he pulls a jacket off the rail and turns to show it to a young guy stood beside him. The guy smiles back at Marcus, his sharp jawline shaded with dark stubble. The two men appear to discuss the jacket for a moment, but they’re too far away to be heard. Marcus then takes the jacket off the hanger and holds it out like a valet as the young man slips it over his white t-shirt. Marcus stands back and inspects his companion who, judging by his broad smile, seems happy with the jacket. The guy takes the jacket off, hands it back to Marcus before planting a kiss on his cheek. I assume the young guy must be Marcus’s son, out on a shopping trip with his dad. For his sake, I hope Marcus is a better father than he is a sales director.