The Time Bubble Box Set 2

by Jason Ayres

  I took them in and opened up the bag to get a decent look at them. In the side pocket I found a half-eaten, mouldy sandwich and a half-drunk bottle of orange juice which I threw away in disgust. Goodness knows how long they had been in there.

  Then I started cleaning up the clubs before realising there was no point. They would only be dirty again tomorrow. I still made such mistakes occasionally.

  I then remembered the emails and texts I had seen about the golf event and went to check them out.

  It seemed I had been invited to some sort of charity event organised by someone called Nick. The emails very handily had both the name of the golf course and the tee times on it.

  I also had a few texts from Nick from some weeks beforehand. The first one read as follows:

  Hey, mate, long time no see. Just wondered if you’d be up for the charity golf do this year. Would be great to see you.

  I then looked at my reply. This was something else I was finding weird, reading my own emails and texts. It seemed I’d agreed to go before, so I decided that I may as well go with the flow and go again. It would get me out of the house for the day and give me the opportunity to meet new people.

  A few days before the big day, I decided I had better go for a bit of practice just to check that I could actually do this, so I drove up to a course just outside Oxford, got a basket of 100 balls out of the machine, and took them up to the driving range.

  When I got there, I discovered that the sandwich, not looking quite as decomposed as the last time I had seen it, was still in there. I disposed of it and the bottle of juice once again, this time in a bin behind the driving booths.

  My attempts at driving were a dismal failure. Whilst I seemed able to grip the club OK, the balls went all over the place. One went so far to the right, almost 90 degrees from where I was standing, that I heard a distinct “Oi!” shouted from a booth further along the range.

  Could it be that the ability to play golf was something that I had not retained from my former life? Perhaps the ‘riding the bike’ rule didn’t apply to golf. Either that, or was I just a bit rusty? In fact, it was neither, as I was about to discover.

  I had a late tee time on the Sunday, 4pm, making me part of the last group to set out. There were over 32 teams taking part in fourballs, so it was clearly a major event.

  The late tee time gave me plenty of time to clean the clubs up properly. I thought I might get peckish on the way round, so I made myself a sandwich and put it in the bag along with a bottle of orange juice.

  As I was putting them in, I remembered finding the mouldy remains twice already, and made a mental note to myself either to finish them or to throw them away this time.

  The clubhouse was packed when I got there, but I managed to fight my way through to what looked like some sort of committee table where three men, all a similar age to me, were sitting.

  The one on the right, a white-haired, rotund-looking bloke, spotted my approach and sarcastically remarked, “Hey, look who’s here! It’s Rory Mcllroy!”

  The man in the centre, slimmer, with glasses and a small, neatly trimmed beard, looked up, saw me and said, “Hey, Tom, glad you could make it. Don’t take any notice of Steve: he’s been taking the piss out of everyone.”

  This was Nick. I had done my homework on social media beforehand to avoid any awkward cases of mistaken identity.

  “Having said that,” continued Nick, “I thought it might be safest if I put you on with me and we went out last.” Steve chuckled at this comment and said, “Make sure you stand well behind him when he tees off.”

  The schedule was running behind and it was nearly 5pm by the time we got to tee off. I was playing with Nick and two younger guys in their late-twenties.

  Thankfully the piss-taking Steve, to whom I had taken an instant dislike, was not with us. Apparently he had already completed his round and was now in charge of collecting the scores from the other groups as they came in, freeing Nick up so could play his round.

  The first hole was a 389 yard-long par 4. Nick teed off first and hit a lovely long drive dead centre of the fairway. It must have gone about 200 yards.

  The two younger guys, who were smartly dressed and oozing confidence, hit similarly respectable shots. This didn’t help me very much. I had been hoping that at least one of them would have fucked up to take the heat off me.

  I stepped up to the tee, full of foreboding and lined up my shot. It was a disaster. The ball went off to the right at an angle of 45 degrees, straight into a thicket of bushes lining the side of the first fairway.

  The two youngsters laughed. Nick was a little more sympathetic, commenting, “Not getting any better with age, then, Tom. Still it’s the taking part that counts.”

  So that was that, then. I was officially crap. I hadn’t forgotten how to swing a golf club. I had never been able to do it.

  “You’d better take another tee shot,” said Nick. “Just in case you can’t find that one,” he added.

  I managed a half-decent shot the second time, hitting it roughly in the right direction, but it still came to rest in the rough on the edge of the fairway, somewhere short of where the others had hit theirs.

  A fruitless root around in the bushes confirmed that my first ball was gone forever, and on we trudged, up the fairway.

  At the end of the first hole, Nick had managed a par 4, the youngsters had both done a bogey 5, and I recorded a 9. At least it hadn’t been double figures. Unfortunately, I managed that on the very next hole which was a par 5, clocking in a pretty desperate 12.

  One of the reasons I had come along was that I wanted to find out more about some other areas of my life, and I could tell from Nick’s email address that he worked for the same company that I had.

  The two youngsters were clearly mates and more or less kept themselves to themselves, giving me plenty of time to talk with Nick. I had become quite adept by now at steering the conversation the way I wanted it to go without revealing the huge gaps in my knowledge.

  “So, what’s happening at the old place these days?” I asked.

  “Oh, it’s pretty much the same as ever,” replied Nick. “Sales targets, meetings, constant pressure. They’ve moved me over to dairy now to sort out the milk crisis.”

  “What’s that all about, then?” I asked, hoping it wouldn’t appear too dumb a question.

  “Well, I’m sure you remember the constant price wars we used to have over milk. The chairman said that keeping the price of four pints below £1 was crucial to our long-term success. Well, we’re reaping what we’ve sown on that front now.”

  “How come?” I asked. I was actually feeling genuinely interested. The world of retail was a fairly closed book to me, but since it seemed my entire career had been spent within it, now was as good a time as ever to start learning.

  “Quite simply,” continued Nick, “so many dairy farmers have gone out of business that there’s no longer enough milk to feed the UK population. Ironic isn’t it, that in this green and pleasant land, we now have to import milk from Eastern Europe just to make sure the kids have got something to put on their Coco Pops in the morning? You know, I think you did the right thing getting out when you did. I wish I could join you, but since the divorce, I’ve had to start all over again, especially after that stock market debacle.”

  I had no idea what he was referring to with either comment, and knowing nothing about the stock market, decided to ask him about his divorce.

  By the time we had completed the front nine, I had a grand total of 70 on my card, compared to Nick’s 43. The golf may have been proving fruitless, but Nick had been an invaluable mine of information.

  I found out that we had been friends for over 25 years since we had both started work at one of Britain’s leading supermarket chains. In fact, we had been such good friends that we’d been on holiday together when we were in our twenties, and Nick had been best man at my wedding to Sarah.

  It was clear that I needed to cultivate this friendship
further, as Nick was going to be a very important person in my life as it progressed.

  We were standing on the tenth tee now, a par 3, which to my horror I could see involved crossing a small lake. The others had all confidently teed off and made it across, but I lined up my shot with some trepidation.

  I wasn’t the only one as the ducks circling around in the centre of the lake looked distinctly nervous. Perhaps they had learnt from past experience to be on the lookout for golfers like me.

  They were right to be nervous. My errant tee shot went high up into the air before plopping down right in the middle of the ducks, sending them flying and quacking in all directions.

  When my fellow golfers had finished laughing, I had another attempt: this time it landed on the slope of the far bank, staying agonisingly still for a second or two before rolling back into the water.

  Despite having started the day with a six pack of balls, I now had none left, so I borrowed one from Nick as I prepared to take my third shot, which would in fact count as my fifth. Each shot into the water had cost me a penalty stroke.

  Thankfully it was third time lucky and miraculously it landed on the green only about twelve feet away from the hole. It still took me an additional three putts to get it in, though.

  Just as I was vowing in anger never to lift a golf club again, an amazing change of fortune came my way at the sixteenth, another par 3. Somehow I lined it all up just right and my tee shot ended up about six feet from the pin. I then holed it for a birdie.

  Despite all the earlier piss-taking, my fellow players were full of congratulations, with plenty of backslapping and cheering. What an incredible buzz that gave me: perhaps golf wasn’t such a bad game after all.

  My euphoria lasted all of three minutes. Due to winning the hole, for the first time that evening I had the honour of teeing off first for the next hole. Predictably the ball went straight into a tree, and my delusions of competence were shattered.

  This time it was the squirrels who scattered in all directions, more innocent victims of my golfing ineptitude.

  A round of golf was supposed to take four hours, apparently, but due to all the cocking about looking for my lost balls, it was nearly a quarter to ten by the time we got to the last tee and the light was rapidly fading.

  In semi-darkness we hacked our way down the fairway, eventually reaching the clubhouse for a well-deserved drink just after 10pm.

  I handed in my card with its dismal score of 136 on it and nine Stableford points (whatever they were) and waited for the results to be announced. Not surprisingly, our team did not win, but I was pleased to discover that I wasn’t the worst player there, as they gave out an award for that.

  This went to a seriously fat bloke who looked more like a darts player than a golfer. He had apparently managed only one Stableford point. So I wasn’t the worst golfer in the world after all.

  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to put myself through it all again, though, and resolved to try and avoid any further involvement with the game if at all possible

  After a couple of beers with Nick and the others, I headed home for a much-needed night’s sleep. Just as I was drifting off I remembered that I’d left the sandwich in the golf bag.

  Well, it would have to stay there. I wasn’t going all the way back down to the garage now.

  Lauren

  August 2022

  One of the peculiarities of my life was that things tended to appear or disappear unexpectedly.

  One day I would be squeezing toothpaste from a pristine new tube, the next I’d find myself rolling up the end of an old one, desperately trying to eke out enough for one last clean.

  Another oddity was that I never needed to cut my nails or have a haircut. My hair got shorter, rather than longer, until one morning I’d wake up and it would be long again.

  Some days there would be consequences from happenings on the previous day that I was yet to experience.

  The day after my birthday in October I woke up with the most agonising stomach cramps, requiring me to rush to the toilet before I shat myself. The ensuing volcanic eruption from my arse was of Vesuvian proportions, ultimately leaving me with a ring of fire that Johnny Cash would have been proud of.

  Further investigation revealed that the previous evening, David and Stacey had taken me out for a meal to celebrate my birthday at a Mexican restaurant that had recently opened in town.

  It was too late to do anything about it now, but I still suggested we went for a Chinese instead when the previous day rolled round, and vowed to avoid all Mexican food from now on.

  I still wasn’t doing a lot with my days. Although all signs of the cancer were long gone, I still felt tired and demotivated a lot of the time.

  Attempting to form new friendships was pointless, and I didn’t have a lot of energy in my 50-something body which was pretty worn out from years of drinking, smoking and unhealthy living.

  I consoled myself with the thought that my best years lay ahead of me, and just took things easy.

  On warmer days, I walked up to Cutteslowe Park and sat in the sunshine, reading ebooks and listening to my iPod.

  On days when the weather was not so clement, I had taken to spending my time watching a sparkly new holographic television that adorned one side of my living room wall. That was until I came down one morning to discover it had vanished.

  Most people would have thought they had been burgled, but I knew otherwise. I had become used to such occurrences and realised at once when I saw the vastly inferior old 3D TV in the corner that the day I’d bought the new one had arrived.

  This was to become an ongoing and unwelcome feature of my life. Technology would not advance for me the way it did for others, it would regress.

  In terms of mobile phones, it meant a downgrade was due approximately every couple of years. I’d already noticed that the text messages on my phone did not seem to go back any further than August 2022 which led me to conclude that that was when my upgrade must have taken place.

  Finding the instruction booklet for my phone, I discovered that it ought to have been a relatively simple task to port my old messages over to the new phone but, for whatever reason, I hadn’t done so.

  So it came as no surprise to me one morning in August when I woke up to discover an older, slightly battle-scarred phone sitting on my bedside table. I’d never seen it before, so presumably I must have got rid of it as soon as I’d got the new one.

  Eager to see what secrets this older phone might be hiding, I switched it on to be confronted by the familiar PIN code unlock screen. Hoping that I’d had the sense to use the same PIN as on the other phone, I tried it, and thankfully it worked.

  I’d had no end of trouble with PIN codes and passwords already over the past couple of years, so it was a relief not to have to go through all of that again. I’d only recently begun to be able to use the cashpoint.

  A thorough search through some piles of untidy receipts in an old briefcase had revealed a small scrap of paper with my PIN number written on it. It also said, “Please memorise and destroy this strip” beneath it. It was a good job I hadn’t.

  This phone was packed with far more information than the other one had been. My contacts list had expanded dramatically, and the text messages now went back years. Excited at this fresh new source of information, I quickly began to scroll through them.

  A few pages up from all of the usual crap was a message that stood out like a sore thumb: it was from someone called Lauren. I could only see the first few words which read Hey, you, sorry I’ve not been in touch for a couple of days, but…

  Eagerly I clicked on it to read the full message:

  Hey, you, sorry I’ve not been in touch for a couple of days, but I’ve kind of met someone else. Thanks for everything, it’s been fun, Lauren xx

  This was the last in a string of messages, but it was the one just above it, sent three days previously which really got me excited:

  I am gonna totally fuck your brains out t
onight.

  I scrolled through the messages. There were dozens of them, all sent over a brief period of a few days in January. My own replies were there, too, and I was quite shocked at the filth I had written back in response.

  And it wasn’t just text messages. She had sent me several pictures of herself, from her pretty cheeky face to intimate shots of her private parts. I felt myself getting incredibly turned on as I looked at the pictures and also a little bit like a dirty old man. This girl couldn’t have been any older than Stacey. How on earth had I managed to pull her?

  I wasn’t going to worry about that. I was well and truly on a promise and if a girl in her twenties wanted to give herself on a plate to a man my age, who was I to question it? There was nothing illegal about it.

  I needed to relieve my excitement but I also desperately needed the toilet, so I headed for the bathroom first. So engrossed was I in reading her messages, that I carried on as I went for a wee, unzipping my flies with my right hand while I carried on reading, holding the phone in my left.

  Unfortunately in my growing state of excitement I completely failed to take aim correctly and in my haste to correct the problem lost my grip on the phone which fell straight into the toilet.

  To say this put a dampener on my excitement would have been an understatement, particularly when I fished the phone out to discover it no longer worked. Good job I was getting a new one, really.

  In fact, maybe that was why I’d got a new one: had something similar happened in my previous timeline? It would certainly explain the lack of contacts and messages on the new phone.

  Annoyed at having lost the phone just as I’d discovered that I was about to embark on a sexual adventure with a hot, young girl, I tried to put it out of my mind for the rest of the day, but I couldn’t. My one experience with the escort in Milton Keynes seemed an awful long time ago now, and the fact that someone now wanted to have consensual sex with me with no money changing hands was thrilling.