“I’ll invite her for a tarot card reading. Your mum has an open mind on these things and with all the details you’ve given me, I’m sure I can convince her I’ve seen what will happen to your grandparents.”
Clearly still shaken, she repeats her offer of herbal tea but doesn’t wait for a reply. She disappears from the room and returns five minutes later with two white mugs which she places on a small coffee table. Her eyes look puffy and the colour still hasn’t returned to her cheeks. I just want to get out of here but it seems unfair to drop this bombshell and casually walk away from the carnage. I pick up one of the mugs and take a sip of the tea which has a peculiar green hue. It tastes every bit as bad as it looks. Aunt Judy sits back down on the sofa with her elbows resting on her thighs, holding her mug in both hands and staring blankly into space. The silence in the room is excruciating.
She seems almost oblivious to my presence as I sit and wonder what horrors I’ve disturbed in her already fragile mind. Or maybe her mind is fragile because of those horrors. Either way, I really didn’t think through the full implications of this plan.
“Are you okay, Aunt Judy?”
She nods with a weak smile. She clearly isn’t okay, I need to do some damage limitation.
“The man in my dream, you know who it is?”
She stares back into nothing.
“Aunt Judy?”
“Yes,” she murmurs.
“There might be something else, something I’ve just remembered about him in my dream.”
She stares at me with a look somewhere between curiosity and panic.
“It must have been one of the last things I dreamt before I woke up but the man, he wasn’t chasing you. He was the one in the dark room and he was much older. He looked broken, pathetic, all hunched up like he was in constant pain.”
Duffy would be in his early eighties by now and even if there was any substance to his threats, I seriously doubt he’s in any fit state to follow through on them. I need her to forget the man who abused her and concentrate on the feeble octogenarian enjoying his liberty somewhere.
“And you were stood outside the room with a group of girls. You all seemed to be happy, smiling. I remember that too.”
A flash of hope crosses Aunt Judy’s face.
“What was the room like? Can you describe it?”
“It’s difficult; it was dark so I couldn’t make out much detail. I guess it was a bit like a prison cell.”
She sits back in the chair and seems to process my revelation. I need her to make the connection, to realise that Duffy is no longer a threat and there is still time for him to face justice before he dies. Whatever he did to her and those other poor girls, now is the time to let her voice be heard. I know for sure that in ten years’ time when she finds the resolve to tell the police about her abuse, Duffy will be dead, along with her final chance of closure.
“You said the man looked really old?”
“Yeah, really old, and his overalls had changed colour too. They were a light grey colour.”
“And there were other girls outside the room?”
“Lots of them.”
She lifts her hand and strokes her chin for a moment, deep in thought.
“His name is Harold Duffy, the man in your dream.”
I feign surprise.
“Really? So who is he?”
“Let’s just say he’s a man I’d rather have forgotten about. He’s a bad person, Craig.”
“I got that impression when I first saw his face. But at the end of the dream he didn’t look that bad, he looked old and scared, properly terrified. Is he old like that now, like in my dream?”
“I guess he would be. I’m not sure how old but your description could be about right, I suppose.”
“And do you think that room could be a prison cell?”
The slightest upward movement of her left eyebrow suggests that she is considering my vision as a possible reality. For decades she's been running scared from the middle-aged version of Harold Duffy, but that man is long gone.
“Maybe it could be, darling, maybe.”
I can only hope I’ve done enough to push her over the line.
Much to my relief, the change in Aunt Judy’s demeanour from when I first shared my prophecy is obvious. Maybe I have inadvertently helped her to deal with her past and finally seek solace. Or more likely, maybe I’m just trying to justify my actions so I can cleanse my conscience of guilt. I don’t know if I’ve done her any favours but I guess it could have turned out much worse, such is her unpredictable personality. Even if all I’ve done is sewn a few seeds of hope, surely Aunt Judy is in a better place now than when I arrived? Most importantly though, there is now some hope that my grandparents won’t be meeting the front end of John Williamson’s truck in eight years’ time. Whatever dormant fears I may have released in Aunt Judy’s mind, I have to weigh that up against the premature death of my grandparents and the anguish that awaits my family, and my future self. I have to believe I’ve done the right thing.
We sit for a few more minutes and I politely sip my herbal tea, hoping the slight grimace on my face isn’t obvious. I get the distinct feeling Aunt Judy wants to be on her own so I oblige and she sees me to the front door.
“Thank you for coming by, and for trusting me with this. I won’t let you down.”
“Thanks Aunt Judy. Are you okay though? I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m fine, just a few things on my mind I’ve been putting off for far too long.”
“Can I ask one other thing?”
She nods hesitantly. Her face bears a look that suggests she doesn’t want to hear any more of my revelations or questions.
“I was thinking that maybe it’s better if we don’t discuss this ever again. Obviously it’s painful for you, and to be honest, the dream scared the hell out of me so the sooner I forget about it, the better.”
She smiles, perhaps relieved.
“I think that would be very sensible indeed, darling. You have my word I’ll never mention it again, not to you, not to anyone.”
“But you’ll definitely tell Mum about my grandparents?”
“Of course. Don’t worry about her, I’ve got that covered.”
She gives me a pat on the arm and stands at the door while I walk away. After twenty yards I turn around but she’s gone back inside. She still has over thirty years left on this planet so maybe there is time for her to heal her wounds and move forward. I assume that she’ll still have passed away when I return to my timeline, but I hope I discover that Aunt Judy and her fellow victims finally managed to bring Duffy to account. Selfishly though, my greater hope is that I find my grandparents were never killed in a horrific road accident. I’ve done my part — it’s now all down to Aunt Judy.
6
In around ten months from now, a man from Radio Rentals will deliver and install a video cassette recorder in our home. A silver box the size of a small suitcase and more complicated to program than the Hubble Space Telescope. Still, it revolutionised the way we watched films and TV. I remember the day with such excitement, not least because it meant I could bring home films to watch from my job at Video City. Joining the revolution in home entertainment came at a price though. I was too young to sign a rental agreement so the old man had reluctantly agreed to sign it on the strict understanding I paid the monthly rental every month, or I faced eviction from the family home. However, when I think back to how many films I watched for free, it was a small price to pay.
As I stroll along Eton Drive towards my destination, I have yet to take delivery of that video player or start my job at Video City. With the tampering of my timeline over the course of this weekend, it should be a certainty I never will work at Video City. That doesn’t mean I can’t do a favour for one of my former, or is that future employers? Either way, it’s a man who gave me a lifeline when I was at absolute rock-bottom. As terrible as my life might have seemed post-Tessa, it would have been a lot worse if Malcolm
Franklin hadn’t offered me a job. I owe him one.
I have to admit that I’ve only given this part of my day the minimum of thought. In the big scheme of things it doesn’t make one jot of difference to me. There isn’t anything to be lost if my makeshift plan doesn’t work. The encounters I’ve had with Tessa, my dad, Marcus, my grandparents and Aunt Judy have taken their toll and I don’t think I can handle any more conflict or emotional turmoil. My work here is done so whatever happens from this point onwards is inconsequential; at least I assume it is.
I reach Video City a little before six o’clock and stand outside for a moment. This was my place of work for over four years and as jobs go, it was pretty cushy with little pressure, no ambitious colleagues and no career-driven boss overseeing my every move. Perhaps I spent too long working at Video City for my own good. Did I really do everything I could to find a better job? Possibly, but I’m not sure.
I push the door open, step into the store and do a quick scan of my surroundings. A guy in his early twenties is browsing the videos in the sci-fi section off to my left and a woman with a young child is stood waiting impatiently at the counter. Little ever changed in all the time I worked here and the only obvious sign that this is the version of Video City before my employment is the lack of a computer on the counter. There’s no sign of Malcolm so I assume he’s out the back trying to locate a video with the aid of his antiquated card system.
I need to catch Malcolm on his own so I saunter over to the left side of the store and peruse the videos in the comedy section while I wait for both the customers to leave. Within a minute, the guy browsing the sci-fi section huffs a sigh, and seemingly disappointed with the videos on offer, leaves the store empty-handed. I continue to browse the meagre pickings in the comedy section when I hear Malcolm’s wheezy voice as he returns from the back of the store to deal with the woman at the counter. It’s a voice I haven’t heard in a long, long time.
After he sold the store, Malcolm became a lost soul. While he had money in the bank from the sale of the store, he’d lost the two things that provided any purpose to his life. He apparently had no appetite to start his Star Wars collection again, and with little chance of employment, he fell into an apathetic malaise. Then one day, eighteen months after he sold Video City, he met Mali Surat at a car boot sale.
She was thirty years his junior and a Thai national in desperate need of a British husband, or more accurately, a British passport. It was obvious to Megan and me that Mari was playing Malcolm to secure citizenship but he was smitten and wouldn’t listen to our warnings. They married within four months but then to everyone’s surprise, the Home Office declined Mali’s application for a visa. We suspected it was because of something dodgy in her past but again, our concerns fell upon deaf ears. She was given a few weeks to leave the country, at which point Malcolm announced he was selling his flat and moving to Pattaya in Thailand where they intended to buy a bar together. It was one of those situations where everyone looking on could see that Malcolm was being taken for a ride, but he was so happy, so in love, that logic and common sense never came into the equation.
True to his word, Malcolm left the UK within three weeks, having sold his flat for significantly less than it was worth to secure a quick sale. With a healthy bank balance and Mali on his arm, Malcolm waved goodbye to Megan and me as we stood outside the terminal at Heathrow airport. We would never see him again.
For the first few months, Malcolm would write to us every week but as the months went by, the letters became less frequent and the content strangely curt. It was almost as if the words on the page were being dictated by somebody whose first language wasn’t English. Just beyond the first anniversary of his move, the letters stopped altogether. As our concerns grew, we discussed what we could do to establish if Malcolm was okay. Those discussions came to an abrupt halt the day we received a visit from Megan’s parents. They solemnly informed Megan that her Uncle Malcolm had died of a suspected heart attack.
Malcolm Franklin was buried in Thailand in an unmarked grave; the only mourner being Mali Surat, with her new status as a comparatively rich widow and bar owner. She robbed us of any potential inheritance and even a chance of saying a final goodbye to Malcolm. The post-mortem stated that Malcolm had died of a heart attack, and that his excessive weight was a contributory factor. He was far from a healthy weight when he left the UK but according to the post-mortem report, Malcolm had added another eighty pounds of bulk in the year leading up to his death. I’m fairly sure Mali Surat fed Malcolm to death.
It was a tragically sad end to the life of a decent man.
My reason for being here this afternoon is not to tell Malcolm to avoid Thai women, or Thai food for that matter, but to steer him along a path where neither will be the death of him.
From the corner of my eye I watch the woman grab her child by the hand and leave the store. Now it’s just Malcolm and me, time to go to work. I approach the counter where Malcolm is frowning at a messy heap of index cards laid out before him. He finally looks up.
“Yes young man.”
When you’ve known somebody for so long, it’s a disconcerting feeling to look them in the eye without the lights of recognition shining back at you. The only time I’ve experienced such a feeling was in the last few months of Aunt Judy’s life when I visited her in the care home, by which time Alzheimer’s disease had stolen her memories of me. Now Malcolm is staring at me with the same vacant expression. It takes a monumental effort to maintain my composure as I stand before my old, long-since deceased, friend.
“Are you the owner?” I gulp.
“Yes I am, unless you’ve got a complaint,” he chuckles.
“No, it’s something else. I think your store is going to be burgled.”
Malcolm drops the cards to the counter and folds his chubby arms. He looks at me with a doubtful expression.
“Oh really?”
“Yes, in a few weeks’ time,” I lied.
It will be a few years before Malcolm needs to worry about his unwanted guests but my claim will have absolutely no credibility if I tell him that.
“And how do you know?”
“I heard two blokes talking in a pub,” I reply sheepishly.
This isn’t sounding plausible.
“Well, all of our videos are embossed with a security seal with the store name and a message which states they are for rental only, so I doubt they’d have much value to anyone thinking of stealing them. I can honestly say I’ve never heard of a video store being burgled because there isn’t much point.”
Malcolm unfolds his arms and returns his attention to the pile of index cards.
“I don’t think they’re after your videos, they mentioned something about a ‘collection’.”
He eyes me suspiciously.
“I don’t know what you’re on about, son, and I’m a busy man.”
“Look, I could only pick up a few words from their conversation as the pub was noisy, but I definitely heard two blokes planning to burgle this place and steal some sort of collection. But if you’re a busy man, I won’t waste any more of your time.”
I turn to leave and manage a few steps towards the door before Malcolm calls me back.
“One second, young man.”
I turn back to him and give my best impression of a teenager not giving a shit.
“I thought I was doing you a favour but if you don’t believe me, I’ve got better things to do with my time.”
We reach a stand-off before Malcolm relents.
“I’m sorry if you thought I wasn’t taking you seriously. Tell me everything you heard and I promise I’ll keep an open mind.”
I wander back to the counter and tell Malcolm how I was sat in a pub waiting for a mate when two middle-aged men, whose improvised description might have been based upon the Chuckle Brothers, sat at the table next to me. I give him the basics of what I supposedly overheard, careful not to mention anything specific about his Star Wars memorabilia. I need t
o give him just enough information to realise the threat is real without saying so much I might undermine my story.
“So why come here and not go straight to the police with this?” Malcolm asks.
“Because I’m only sixteen and I was drinking illegally with a fake ID.”
Malcolm nods and seems to be pondering what he can do with this information.
“You say they mentioned the lack of an alarm system here?”
“Yes. Again, I only heard bits and pieces but they seemed confident that there was no alarm system or much in the way of security.”
“And they definitely mentioned a collection?”
This is becoming painstaking.
“Yes, and something about signatures if that means anything?”
It appears the penny has dropped with Malcolm finally realising that the target for the break-in is his beloved Star Wars collection and not the videos. He assumes that nobody knows about his valuable memorabilia but clearly somebody at some point will find out.
“Right, thank you. I appreciate you telling me about this. I think it might be time for me to install some security measures.”
He holds out a pudgy hand and we shake, his palms as clammy as I remember.
“Just to say thank you, how about I give you ten free video rentals?”
“Thanks, but we don’t have a video machine,” I reply.
“Ah, okay. Let me give you something to show my gratitude though.”
Before I can answer, Malcolm turns and disappears through the archway towards his office. I take the opportunity to gaze around the store for one final time. Of all the uncertainties surrounding my new future, one thing is for sure; video stores like this one will still become obsolete and eventually disappear altogether. I hope Malcolm retires before that happens.
“Are you being looked after?”
A voice so recognisable, but so unexpected, rips me from my thoughts. I spin around and stare straight into the eyes of a sixteen year-old version of my wife, although in this moment she isn’t my wife, she isn’t even my girlfriend. I was sure she only worked on Saturdays, and if I’d known she was here, there’s no way I’d have dropped in. I didn’t want to see her, let alone have any kind of interaction with her.
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