The Time Bubble Box Set 2

by Jason Ayres

  Tonight was no exception, and the pub was extremely crowded and noisy. It wasn’t appalling music that was the problem this time, though. This chain of pubs had a strict no music policy. Instead it was the chatter of hundreds of voices echoing in the cavernous room that Josh found uncomfortable. It reminded him of the background noise at the local swimming baths when they were crowded.

  It took forever to get served. The bar was packed six deep and it was a serious challenge to pick the right spot and attract the attention of a server. This was a skill that the somewhat timid Ryan was yet to acquire. He may have been tall, but he didn’t have the confidence to go with it, and the bar staff in this pub were not renowned for serving people in turn.

  If Josh had hoped the delay would help sober him up a little he was mistaken. The noise and crowds all around him just made him feel claustrophobic, and he again began to question why he was putting himself through this ordeal. The middle-aged mindset inside him wished he was at home with Alice having a cup of tea and watching the telly.

  He checked his old school Casio watch to see that it was nearly 10pm, so he only had another couple of hours to endure.

  While he was waiting for the pint he didn’t want, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and pulled it out to reveal a message from Lauren.

  Fancy a shag later?

  This was all he needed, a horny Lauren to contend with, especially after what Alice had said before he left. Thankfully, according to Kaylee, she was safely out of the way in Oxford, so he could afford to text back in the affirmative. He would be long gone by the time she got back.

  Sure, come round when you get back.

  He quickly had cause to regret this reply as Lauren’s reply pinged back seconds later.

  We’ll be back sooner than you think! Oxford’s boring so we’re getting the 11 o’clock train back. Hope you’ve done your shopping!

  Bloody hell, why was it everywhere he went in the multiverse there was always a version of Lauren trying to pounce on him? This hadn’t been part of the agenda at all. He was sure Lauren and Kaylee hadn’t come back this early the first time around. Then again, it was forty years ago and he had been drunk, so he couldn’t really be expected to remember all the details.

  Catching the train at 11pm meant they would be back in town well before midnight. He also knew exactly what Lauren had meant by her shopping remark. It was a little private joke between them which basically meant had he bought any condoms? Lauren might have had extremely loose morals, but she was extremely strict when it came to safe sex.

  He hadn’t done his shopping, despite telling Dan otherwise in The Marlborough Arms. Why would he? The last thing he needed was another sexual encounter with Lauren in the past. He’d never be able to look Alice in the eye again.

  Eventually Ryan did manage to order the beers and began passing them back through the crowd. This was a strategy fraught with danger as the lively Saturday crowd was heaving and the possibility of a drink being knocked out of someone’s hand was high. This would lead to a smashed glass on the floor and the traditional moronic cheer from all within earshot.

  Josh decided to take advantage of the situation and deliberately bumped into a couple of people, sending an inch or so out of the top of his glass and all over the carpet both times. It wouldn’t make much difference to the carpet which was distinctly sticky underfoot from years of spillage.

  He got separated from the others in the crowd, but fighting his way away from the melee around the bar, he spotted them on the far side of the room where they had gathered around one of the fruit machines.

  Ben was eagerly feeding the machine which was based on the old Deal or No Deal TV show, egged on by Dan and a couple of the others. While they were distracted, Josh seized his chance to pull Charlie away to speak to him in private.

  “Have you heard from Kaylee?” he asked.

  “Yes – they’re coming back,” said Charlie. “I told them to meet us later.”

  “Can’t you put them off, or say we’re going home early? I don’t want to see Lauren tonight.”

  “Why not?” asked Charlie.

  “Because I don’t want her to see me in this state,” said Josh, which wasn’t particularly convincing but he couldn’t think of anything better.

  “I doubt whether she’ll notice, mate,” replied Charlie. “You know what she’s like. She’ll probably be in a worse state than you are!”

  “Do I seem drunk to you?” asked Josh.

  “Very,” said Charlie. “You know, I think we’ve finally found something I’m better than you at!”

  “What’s that?” asked Josh, who was feeling more unsteady on his feet by the minute.

  “Drinking,” replied Charlie. “I’m sailing through this. In fact, I reckon I could go around again, but you look in a bad way, mate. Are you even going to make it to Mario’s?”

  “Yes, but you’ve got to help me – especially in The Red Lion. I’m feeling a bit wobbly so don’t let me fall over or anything. Dan’s just longing for me to screw this up and there’s no way I’m giving him the satisfaction.”

  “I’ll prop you up if I think you’re about to topple over,” said Charlie, helpfully. “Come on, you can make it, it’s not like we’ve got that much further to go. Once we leave here, we’ll be turning the corner where the Go to Jail square is. That means we’ll be on the home stretch.”

  Josh tried to look over Charlie’s shoulder to see what the others were doing but it was a struggle, as he was hemmed in by people on either side.

  “It’s absolutely rammed in here. Don’t they have some sort of safety limit? Can you see the others? Are they looking over?”

  Charlie managed to swivel round to see what the others were doing.

  “No, they’re all still engrossed in the machine. Ben’s just got the Deal or No Deal feature.”

  “Good,” replied Josh, and he raised his glass and poured about a quarter of a pint into Charlie’s.

  “Hey, that’s cheating,” protested Charlie. “And it means I’ve got to drink more now.”

  “That’s alright. You’re better than me at it, remember? You said you could go round again just now.”

  “You owe me for this,” replied Charlie.

  “I’ll get the kebabs later – how about that?” said Josh, knowing he’d be gone by then, so it was an empty promise.

  “You’ve got a deal,” replied Charlie. “That’s if I get the chance to have one. Kaylee’s been going on about becoming a vegan recently, and she doesn’t approve of the kebab van.”

  “In that case you’ve got just as good a reason for not seeing her tonight as I’ve got for avoiding Lauren. Then you can have a nice, juicy donor from Kebabylon and no one will be any the wiser.”

  “I’m not going to bin off my girlfriend just for the sake of a kebab,” said Charlie. “I want to see her, and anyway, I’ve already told them we’re going to Mario’s.”

  “Ah, yeah, I forgot how loved up you two are,” replied Josh. He would just have to find another way to resist Lauren’s advances.

  “Anyway, sup up,” he added. “You’ve still got loads left.”

  “Half of which is yours!” replied Charlie.

  There was a loud cheer from behind them and they turned around to see the fruit machine noisily paying out the jackpot.

  “Next round’s on you, Ben,” said Dan. “It’s time we were moving on.”

  Charlie downed the remainder of his pint, including the extra that Josh had added to it and they rejoined the others to begin the battle through the crowd to the front door.

  Heading down the street, in various states of intoxication, they found themselves steering a rather erratic, zigzag course. They weren’t the only ones by any means. This wasn’t unusual for a Saturday night in the town and it was amazing how some of the women tottering around in high heels were staying upright at all.

  “Show us your tits, darling,” leered Dan at one scantily clad young lady. It was something he hardly neede
d to ask because she was practically falling out of her undersized top already.

  Unfortunately, he had picked on the wrong woman.

  “Get lost you sad, fat twat,” she retorted. “Bet you’ve never seen a decent pair in your life – except when you’re knocking one out to Pornhub!”

  The woman’s friends laughed, as did the lads, much to Dan’s annoyance. He didn’t take kindly to being humiliated, especially by a woman. Dan was misogynistic to the extent that he considered women inferior to him, which was probably why he was still a virgin with no prospect of that changing anytime soon.

  But he didn’t retaliate. The woman was covered in tattoos which Dan interpreted as meaning she was hard as nails. Although he would never admit it, he was scared.

  Josh had been absolutely delighted to see Dan getting his just deserts. The evening may not have lived up to his expectations, but it had been worth coming back for that moment alone.

  The group was now on the verge of reaching The Red Lion, the pub where it had all gone horribly wrong last time. Despite his various tactics to reduce his alcohol consumption, Josh was still feeling extremely drunk. But Charlie was right. They were on the home straight and he could still finish this.

  Chapter Nine

  August 2020

  Dan had quietened down considerably after his verbal mauling at the hands of the tattooed woman. This was probably just as well with The Red Lion as Josh already knew from experience that Kent wouldn’t need much excuse to throw them out. Even so, Josh felt he needed to warn him.

  “Listen, Dan, don’t go mouthing it off in here,” said Josh, just as they reached the door. “That includes no slagging off the bar staff, the beer or the music. And most importantly of all, don’t make any offensive comments about women. You don’t want to get us chucked out.”

  “Ha, I’m not the one who’s out of my skull, mate. I can handle my beer. I’m not going to do anything to jeopardise completing the course, but the state you’re in, they might not even serve you. Then you’ll be out of the game. Go to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect £200.”

  “Not this time, mate,” said Josh, with more confidence than he actually felt. Holding back as Dan walked in first with Ryan, he turned to Charlie.

  “He’s right, though, I am hammered,” he admitted. “I may have to take you up on your offer of leaning on you to stop myself falling over.”

  The pub was pretty busy, but thankfully not as heaving as Ye Olde Chapel had been. Josh was not pleased to see the dreaded Kent holding court behind the bar where he was busy regaling some of the regulars with his exaggerated tales of derring-do in his former life as a police officer and picked up on the conversation as he approached.

  “Hatton Garden robbery? Piece of cake! If I’d still been in the Met, we’d have had that cleared up in a couple of days. Back in my day we used to foil villains like that every day of the week.”

  “Bollocks, did you,” said a scruffy, denim-clad, middle-aged man at the bar, who Josh recognised as Andy Green, a local drunk who was always hanging around the pubs in the old days. “You were crap, that’s why they shipped you up here where nothing ever happens.”

  “What about those murders the Christmas before last?” asked Kent. “I’d hardly call those nothing.”

  “Yeah, but they’d kicked you out by then,” retorted Andy. “That stuck-up cow who replaced you got all the credit for that. You couldn’t solve a crossword puzzle.”

  “Excuse me,” said Ryan, timidly, attempting to get Kent’s attention. “Could I have eight pints of lager, please?”

  He couldn’t have looked or sounded more like an underage drinker without donning his school uniform, which Kent picked up on immediately.

  “That rather depends, sonny. Got any ID, have you? That goes for all of you, come to that.” Kent eyed the youthful drinkers suspiciously, noticing Charlie for the first time.

  “As for you, lad, you’ve got a cheek coming in here after all the trouble you’ve caused me in the past.”

  “What trouble was that exactly?” asked Charlie. “Do you mean when you wrongfully arrested me and then accused me of murdering someone who wasn’t even dead?”

  “Ha ha, was that one of them murders you solved, then?” interjected Andy, swaying slightly on his bar stool.

  “Quiet, you,” snapped Kent, ignoring Charlie’s rather awkward question. “As for you lot, I want ID and proper stuff, too – driving licences or passports, none of these fake student cards.”

  The lads were quite used to this routine, and produced the necessary documents, which Kent made a big show of perusing ridiculously carefully, even producing a magnifying glass from behind the bar to examine the small print.

  “Is that to help you find your cock?” asked Andy.

  “I won’t tell you again,” said Kent. “One more remark like that and you’re out.” Finally satisfied with the boys’ documents, he handed them back and began pouring their pints.

  Much as Charlie disliked being anywhere near Kent, he had been thoroughly amused by the banter he had just witnessed. Although Andy himself was an annoying pain in the arse, watching him winding up Kent had been comedy gold.

  “Do you think he ever was any good at policing, or was he always useless?” he asked Josh.

  “I’ve no idea,” said Josh. “But it would be interesting to find out, wouldn’t it? I guess everyone’s got a backstory.”

  “I suppose we’ll never know,” replied Charlie, as he took delivery of two pints being passed back from the bar.

  Maybe we will, thought Josh. It would be rather interesting to dig into some of these people’s pasts, and he had the means to do it.

  “Try not to spill any, Josh,” remarked Dan, already supping from his pint. “I want to see you drink it all.”

  “Let’s go and find a table,” suggested Josh, thinking he might manage better if he sat down. He led the others towards two large tables by the windows at the front of the pub. One was free, full of empty glasses from a crowd that had just left, but the other was jam-packed with a group of girls.

  Josh got a brief flash of déjà vu, a feeling he was more than accustomed to as a time traveller. This was where he had fallen over before. He had tripped and blundered into the girls’ table, sending drinks everywhere, including all over the girls’ clothes. Kent had seen it and kicked him out.

  Mindful of the situation, he slowed right down, making his footsteps steady and deliberate. He looked around quickly to see where Charlie was, hoping to get him to take the lead, but instead he found Dan right behind him, leg outstretched, which would have tripped him up if he had taken another step.

  “So, it was you all along,” exclaimed Josh, realising the truth. “You were about to trip me up.”

  “Prove it,” challenged Dan.

  “Saying prove it is proof enough,” said Josh. “That’s exactly what a guilty person would say. You would have denied it otherwise.”

  Josh was so annoyed, both at Dan’s subterfuge and at his own stupidity at having fallen for it all those years before, that he could have quite happily landed one on him there and then. But that would achieve nothing other than to get him thrown out of the pub which would lead to the same result. He wouldn’t complete the crawl.

  “Cool it, guys,” said Charlie, who had witnessed this little exchange. He now pushed forward past both of them, heading for the spare table. “Come and sit down.”

  Josh made it safely to the table without mishap, but he would have to try and keep his lager-sodden wits about him for the rest of the night in case Dan tried anything else.

  Seated around the large, round table, he was safe for the time being. He just hoped he would be able to get back up again.

  Thankfully, the rest of their time in The Red Lion passed without incident which left just one pub to go – the slightly seedy Mario’s bar at the end of the street that also doubled as the town’s only nightclub.

  Mario’s had a distinctly sordid reputation, and rightly so.
It had hosted everything from cage dancers to strippers over the years, and even when there wasn’t adult entertainment on offer there was no shortage of desperate locals attempting to secure some of their own.

  It was one of a chain of about half a dozen similar clubs in towns across the area, all owned and named after Mario himself. He was an Italian businessman who was rumoured to have connections to the mafia, though this was almost certainly just an urban myth based purely on him being from Sicily.

  The real reason Mario had so much money wasn’t anything shady. He had simply given people in small towns what they wanted, which was somewhere to have a late drink after all the other pubs had closed. It was also somewhere where desperadoes who had failed to pull yet that evening could go, earning it the nickname of “the last chance saloon”.

  The décor was shabby with faded, nicotine-stained wallpaper that had been there since before the smoking ban over a decade earlier. The choice of beers was small and expensive, and you had to pay £2 just to get in. None of that stopped the dubious clientele flooding in there after midnight every Friday and Saturday when it was open until 3am.

  Amazingly, despite the slump in the pub trade in the early twenty-first century and other pubs getting late licences, it had survived right until the end of the 2020s when the Black Winter came. After that, Mario disappeared and was never heard of again.

  By the time the group had reached Mario’s, the field had been reduced from eight to five runners. One had gone to the toilet in The Red Lion and never come back, while another was last seen vomiting in an estate agent’s shop doorway.

  The third absentee had announced that he’d had enough and joined the queue for the kebab van, much to the disgust of Dan who shouted abuse at him all the way past the taxi rank.

  This left just Dan, Ryan, Ben, Charlie and Josh to tackle the final hurdle.

  “This is it!” exclaimed Charlie, as they stood in line to pay their £2 to a bored and grumpy, middle-aged woman with dyed purple hair. She was sitting on a stool outside the front door smoking a cigarette. “We’ve made it to Mayfair.”