The Time Bubble Box Set 2

by Jason Ayres

  “Looks like she’s using all the hot water as well,” I remarked.

  “Will you go and tell her, pet, because last time I went in there I caught her masturbating with the shower head and it’s not something I want to see again,” said Lily, with a disgusted look on her face.

  “Don’t you ever…umm, you know?” I asked.

  “Maybe I do, but if so it’s in the privacy of my own room when everyone’s out,” she replied.

  As she spoke, the sound of the shower shut off, sparing either of us having to walk in on whatever Phoebe had been up to. Instead, Lily returned to our earlier topic of conversation.

  “How are you going to get this ticket, then?” she asked.

  “Piece of cake,” I said as I headed back to the bedroom, coffee in hand. I had already figured out what I was going to do and wanted to get started.

  Pulling out my phone, I got straight on to the Oxford For Sale/Wanted page on Facebook where I posted this.

  WANTED: New Year’s Eve ticket for Fever in Oxford tonight. Willing to pay £100 cash. PM me for details.

  There is no way I would normally have paid that sort of money just to get into a nightclub, but the old restrictions no longer applied. If I was only going to be here for forty-eight hours, then money no longer had any meaning for me. I could spend to my heart’s content. The sky was the limit. Well, five grand was about the actual limit, which was what I could run up on my credit card.

  That was a lot of spending money for two days and the beauty of it was, I’d never have to pay any of it off. As soon as I jumped back in time, the slate would be wiped clean and I could start spending all over again. Just like when I was fantasising about murdering Rob: there were no consequences.

  While I was waiting for the replies to flood in, I rang in sick to work, hoping it wouldn’t be Sister Mary who answered. She would give me a right rollicking for calling in sick at New Year, even if I was dying. Technically I was, but not in a way I could explain to her.

  Fortunately I got Tessa instead, so I put on my best sick person voice and bleated pathetically into the phone as I pretended to have flu.

  She seemed to believe me, advising me to wrap up warm and go back to bed, so I thanked her and hung up. Then I turned my attention back to Facebook to discover three people had already messaged me with offers of tickets.

  Two of the respondents were male and I didn’t like the look of either of them from their profile pictures. I don’t know exactly what it was, but they just looked dodgy, more like police mugshots than social media-friendly portraits.

  Trusting my gut feel, I ignored them because as soon as I saw the third thumbnail, my eyes were drawn instinctively towards it. It was of a girl called Kacey who looked vaguely familiar. I felt as if I knew her, but I couldn’t remember where from to begin with.

  I read through her message which described a seemingly genuine enough reason for not going out – she had been let down by her babysitter. She lived close by, just two streets away which was a bonus. I wouldn’t have to go far out of my way to acquire the ticket.

  I looked closely at her picture again. Where did I know that girl from? It was bugging me so I went to have a snoop around her profile. As soon as I enlarged her profile picture to full size, it clicked.

  She was the single mother I had comforted in hospital after taking an overdose when her kid had been taken into care. Or rather, she would be. All of that was three years from now and there was no indication in this happy, healthy photo of the traumas that lay ahead.

  That settled it – I would definitely be buying the ticket from her, and she would be getting more than just money for it. I needed to have a serious talk with her. Other than fantasising about murdering my ex-boyfriend I had been wondering what else I could do with my spontaneous trips back through time. Now it seemed I had been handed a cast-iron opportunity to be a Good Samaritan.

  I messaged Kacey back and arranged to call round to her place. She sounded thrilled in her reply – and who wouldn’t be in her position? A hundred pounds would go a long way for a single mother.

  Dressing quickly, I headed back into the main part of the flat.

  “Nailed it,” I said triumphantly to Lily, who was still moping around in the kitchen, coffee cup in hand.

  “How much did you pay for it?” she asked.

  “Oh, enough,” I replied vaguely. I didn’t want to tell her exactly how much. She would have thought I was crazy and would want to know why.

  Skipping breakfast for the moment, I stopped briefly in the bathroom, thankfully now Phoebe-free, to clean my teeth and put the shower head back on its holder. I tried not to think about the likely reason it had been left dangling over the taps. Then I headed out, a girl on a mission.

  My first stop was the cashpoint where I drew out the maximum allowed on my debit card – £500. From a financial perspective, the timing of my trips back in time couldn’t be better. Not only had I just been paid, as it was the end of the month, but also my rent didn’t go out until the 3rd January. By that time I’d be long gone. And of course, I had the credit card, too. This all added up to make me a woman of significant means.

  I walked through Headington, along a street that had a famous house with a shark sticking out of its roof, heading for Kacey’s flat. As I strolled along I tried to work out what I was going to say to her. I couldn’t think of any way of putting it that wouldn’t sound weird, so I would just have to go for it and hope that my message would sink in.

  Her flat was on the ground floor of a recently built social housing block. Despite only being a couple of years old, it already looked grubby. There was no shortage of litter blowing around the communal bins outside. A rough-looking character in a red hoodie was sitting on an expensive-looking mountain bike next to the bins, blatantly talking into his phone about a pick-up which could mean only one thing. Fortunately he ignored me, so I pressed the button for her flat and she buzzed me in.

  The shared hallway stank of dope. From what little I had seen of this area already, it didn’t surprise me at all that she had fallen into the clutches of this Aaron character. Maybe that had even been him outside.

  I knocked on the door, and she answered, baby girl clutched to breast.

  “Hi – Kacey?” I said, in that questioning way people do just to reassure themselves that they’ve got the right person. “I’ve come for the ticket.”

  “Come in,” she said. “I’m just finishing feeding the baby – you don’t mind, do you?”

  “Of course not,” I said, and I followed her into the kitchen area of the tiny flat. She put the baby over her shoulder, patted her back and put her down into a small playpen where she lay, smiling and gurgling, on her back. I guessed she must have been about three or four months old.

  “I couldn’t believe it when I saw your post,” said Kacey. “I was gutted when Mum said she couldn’t babysit, but her new boyfriend’s taking her out.”

  As she spoke, I was struck by how different this girl was from the train wreck I was to encounter at the hospital three years in the future.

  She was bubbly, bright and clean. Not only that, the flat, despite her having a baby, was also clean and tidy. I always felt you could tell a lot from a person’s home. If they kept that in good order, it was likely their lives would be, too.

  I found it disturbing, having the foreknowledge of how far she would fall in such a short time. Seeing her like this made me ever more determined to make her listen. If ever there was a case of prevention being better than cure, surely this was it.

  She was still talking as these thoughts were going through my head.

  “David – that’s my mum’s boyfriend – he said this was a con and no one would pay a hundred pounds for a ticket,” she continued.

  “Don’t worry, it’s not a con,” I reassured her. “I’ve got the money right here.” I pulled out my purse and patted it. “But a cup of coffee and a chat would be nice if you can stretch to that?”

  “I’d love th
at,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe how bored and lonely I get stuck at home on my own all the time. Yes, I get to go out to mother and baby groups and stuff, but it’s all baby talk there, you know?”

  I didn’t know, but I could imagine. In the interests of winning her trust, I nodded my agreement.

  “The evenings are the worst. Once Maddie goes down for the evening it’s just me and the TV.” She paused and then added. “Do you have kids?”

  Should I lie? No – I might get tripped up by it. Best to be honest.

  “No,” I replied. “I’ve never quite got round to it.”

  “Not found the right man, yet, eh?” she asked.

  “Something like that,” I replied, not really wanting to get into the whole Rob thing.

  “I thought I had,” she said. “My ex – Steven. At least until I got pregnant. Then it all started to go wrong. He dumped me about two weeks before the baby was due. Said he wasn’t ready to be a dad and I haven’t seen him since.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, which is pretty much my default response to being told anything like this. I can never think of anything else to say.

  “Don’t be,” she said. “He was a waste of space. Just after I told him I was pregnant he gave up his job because he said he was going to become an artist. When that didn’t happen, he said he couldn’t support a child and that was the end of it. Next time I’m going to get myself a man with a bit more about him.”

  Which I knew was going to be very bad news and the very thing I had come here to warn her about. Her last sentence had given me the perfect lead in for what I had come here to say.

  “Yeah, about that,” I replied. “I’ll come clean with you – I did have an ulterior motive for coming here today.”

  “I knew it,” she said, her face falling. “David said this was too good to be true. Did Steven send you? Because if he did, then you can tell him it’s too late. I don’t want anything more to do with him.”

  “Relax,” I said. Keen to reassure her, I opened my purse, counted out five twenty-pound notes and handed them to her.

  “There,” I said. “It’s not a scam and don’t worry. I’ve never met Steven.”

  She passed the ticket over to me, and I tucked it back in my wallet. Business concluded, it was now time for the tricky bit.

  “Thank you,” she said. “This money is going to come in very handy. You wouldn’t believe how many things you need for a baby.”

  “So, I guess you’re wondering why else I’m here,” I said. “I do need to give you a message, but it’s not from Steven.”

  “Who from, then?” she said, looking intrigued.

  Here goes, I thought. It’s now or never.

  “From the future,” I declared, possibly slightly overdramatically.

  “Really?” she said, raising her eyebrows. It was clear she wasn’t taking this seriously, but had I really expected her to?

  “Look, just hear me out,” I said. Whatever I was going to say, I had to get it across quickly before she dismissed me as some madwoman. There was no time for any long-winded explanation. I just had to spit it out.

  “I’ve come here from three years in the future where you’re lying in a hospital bed. You’re a junkie who has taken an overdose.”

  “I’ve never taken drugs in my life,” she protested, a look of disbelief, not to mention a little anger, on her face.

  “And I hope you never will,” I said. Pressing on, I added, “It all depends on what you do this year.”

  She opened her mouth as if to protest further but I cut her off.

  “Just listen. Later on this year you are going to meet a guy called Aaron. You’re going to think he’s the bee’s knees and fall hook, line and sinker for him. You won’t see what he’s really like until it’s too late. The reality is, whatever charm he spins you, he’s a drug dealer, a bully and he’ll abuse you so badly you’ll be driven to try to take your own life.”

  She looked at me, a look of horror on her face, still tinged with disbelief, but there was no doubt I had her attention.

  “Oh, and there’s one final thing. You see that beautiful baby over there?” I gestured over to where the baby was now asleep in her pen. “You’re going to lose her, too.”

  “Who the hell are you?” she reacted angrily, eyes blazing, but with a hint of tears behind them. “What do you think you’re doing, coming here scaring me like this?”

  “Look, just trust me. I know your future and you don’t have one worth living if you get together with this Aaron.”

  “I don’t even know anyone called Aaron,” she insisted. “You’d better leave, right now.”

  She got up and began to usher me towards the door.

  “Look, you don’t have to believe me right now, but just remember what I’ve said. If someone called Aaron comes into your life, keep away from him. Or at least do your homework – find out about him before you get involved. Seriously, your whole future depends on it.”

  “You’re insane! Just get out!” she yelled, pushing me through the door, and slamming it behind me. From the other side, I could hear the sound of sobbing.

  Had I done the right thing? Would she remember what I’d said? Had I achieved anything here today at all, other than to upset a vulnerable young woman? I had no way of finding out the answers to any of these questions. All I could hope was that by being cruel, I had ultimately been kind.

  When I went back outside, the dodgy geezer I’d seen before was still out there, dialling a number on his phone. As I passed him, I caught the start of the conversation.

  “Dale, it’s Aaron. I’m in the new flat, mate, just moved in last night. The coast’s clear if you wanna bring the stuff over.”

  It had to be him: it couldn’t just be a coincidence. Sure, there was more than one Aaron in the world, but somehow I just knew this was the guy. It all fitted.

  He glanced at me briefly as I passed with a look of distaste on his face. He really did look like a nasty piece of work, but I could see why Kacey could be taken in by him. He was a bad boy, but a good-looking bad boy, and they were the most dangerous ones of all.

  Seeing him had given me an idea. Maybe there was something else I could do. I headed round the corner, well out of earshot, and then dialled 101 on my mobile. When I got through, I gave the police a good description of Aaron, and told them I’d just seen him dealing drugs outside the flats.

  They said they would send someone down to investigate. I had my doubts whether it would do any good because the likes of Aaron seemed to have a knack of staying one step ahead of the police.

  Perhaps they would get lucky, catch him in possession and then Kacey might be spared the misfortune of ever meeting him. Failing that, hopefully she would take heed of my warning and make a different choice when the time came.

  Would she? I wasn’t sure. I had seen so many friends over the years make unsuitable choices because they kept their brains in their knickers when it came to men. And if I was totally honest, I had been guilty of it myself on more than one occasion. Fortunately the worst that had happened to me was being cheated on – I hadn’t been abused or bullied like Kacey would be if she didn’t give this guy a wide berth.

  I had done all I possibly could. It was out of my hands now and time to get on with the rest of my plans for the day.

  I was done here.

  Chapter Six

  2021

  With my newly acquired Fever ticket safely stowed away in my bag, I walked into the centre of Headington towards the bus stop.

  There were at least a dozen people waiting, including three young mothers with pushchairs, all jockeying for pole position at the front. They knew the buses only had room for two pushchairs and one was going to have to fold theirs up and have their baby on their lap. That was assuming, of course, that when the bus came, the spots weren’t already taken.

  I watched as the mothers eyeballed each other, determined not to be the one to cede territory. The longer it took for the bus to come, the mo
re full it was likely to be. When it would come was another matter.

  I looked up at the electronic board inside the bus shelter. It was displaying the information that bus number nine was due which wasn’t very helpful as there was no sign of it – not in this direction I wanted to go anyway. On the other side of the road, two number nines swept past in convoy, bound for Barton. I had never had much luck with the buses in Oxford.

  Then a thought struck me – why waste my now precious time hanging around for a bus? There was a taxi rank just up from the bus stop, so I went and hopped in the back of the one at the front of the queue, a white Toyota Prius.

  The interior had a sickly sweet smell coming from a collection of dangling Christmas tree-shaped air fresheners in the front. It wasn’t quite enough to hide the stench of stale cigar smoke coming from the driver, a fat, middle-aged man who looked like he probably needed to be winched in and out of the cab.

  I sank back on the soft, black leather seats, buckled up and said, “Town please.”

  I got a grunt of acknowledgement and that amounted to the sum total of our conversation all the way into the city centre. So much for taxi drivers being talkative and friendly – this one certainly wasn’t getting a tip even if I was now a woman of considerable means.

  Travelling by taxi was a rarity for me. I am of a frugal nature, brought on by years of being a poor student followed by years more of trying to make ends meet on a nurse’s salary in Oxford. I considered taxis to be an unnecessary luxury. If there was a bus available, I took it, even if that bus happened to be the last one home at 2am, full of annoying drunks and people eating stinky takeaways.

  With my newfound spending power it was quite exhilarating being able to cast off the shackles of austerity. This taxi was the second thing I had splashed out on today, and I wasn’t finished yet. The purse strings had been slashed wide open and I already had my next purchase in mind.

  The taxi dropped me opposite the entrance to the Covered Market on the High Street. I paid the driver, eliciting another barely audible grunt in response, and headed across the road, hoping that what I had come for was still here.