The Time Bubble Box Set 2

by Jason Ayres

  I had recalled during my taxi ride that two or three years ago, Phoebe and I had come Christmas shopping together. We had walked through the market looking at all the seasonal displays from the many and varied retailers inside, mostly goods we couldn’t afford.

  Christmas shopping wasn’t really something I did much of these days – with most of my family dead I had very few people to buy for. But Phoebe insisted I come with her, as Lily had been working, so off to town we went – on the bus, naturally.

  On that day we had been wandering along one of the narrow passages that made up this historic rabbit warren of a market, when I had spotted an absolutely gorgeous dress in the window of a recently opened boutique. When I pointed it out to Phoebe she encouraged me to try it on, which I did – and even I was stunned at the outcome.

  Generally I am pretty terrible when it comes to clothes shopping. Everything that looks amazing on a shop window dummy looks like it’s just been draped over the branches of a tree when it’s put on me. Or that’s what I think, anyway.

  Shop assistants tend to be more enthusiastic, but since most of them are on commission I take all that “it looks lovely on you” stuff with a pinch of salt. At least with Phoebe in tow I was able to get an unbiased second opinion.

  Early in our relationship, I managed to get Rob to come with me clothes shopping a few times, but he had been no help. It was quite clear from all the eye-rolling and grumbling that he would far rather be elsewhere.

  Perhaps I should have taken that as a warning sign of what was to come. Doubtless he felt the same on the rare occasions we were having sex once he had Emma next door. He had probably been fantasising about her while we were doing it.

  I certainly couldn’t trust him to give me an unbiased opinion on any clothes I tried on. Usually he would say anything looked good to get me to buy it so we could get out of the shop and go to the pub. I could have draped a bin liner over myself and he would have said it looked good. In the end I stopped asking him to accompany me.

  Shopping with girlfriends was different: they never seemed to get bored. Their reactions were genuine and I knew from the way Phoebe had enthused about this slinky little red number that I’d found the perfect dress.

  It doesn’t happen very often, especially if you are as fussy as me. Such moments come along once or twice a lifetime at best. I knew right then that I had to have it.

  That was before I looked at the price tag and discovered that I couldn’t have it. £499.99 was out of my price range by at least £400 so I reluctantly gave the dress back to the assistant and left, feeling pretty crestfallen. I was so downhearted that it took three pints with Phoebe in The Chequers over the road to quell the disappointment.

  I hadn’t forgotten about that dress and it had come up in conversation a few times since.

  “Remember that gorgeous dress you found in the market that time?” Phoebe would say.

  “Don’t remind me,” I’d reply, wishing just once that I could have one of the finer things in life for myself.

  Now here I was, back in the past and keeping my fingers crossed that this was that same year Phoebe and I had gone Christmas shopping and that if it was, the dress was still there. That shopping trip had been a week before Christmas and it was two weeks later now, so even if it was the right year, someone else might have grabbed it by now.

  Fortunately, I was right on both counts. It was the right year and it was still there, sitting in the window just as I remembered. As a bonus, it was now reduced in the New Year sale to £249.99, not that that made one iota of a difference. Nothing was going to stop me from buying it this time and I would have paid double the original price if I’d had to.

  I went in and tried it on again, just to be sure. It was a red satin skater dress which hugged my hips perfectly before billowing out in an A shape to just above my knees. It was also very flattering for my boobs – with this on I would have a bust to almost rival Phoebe’s, and that was saying something.

  I paid the £250 using my credit card, a twinge of naughtiness seeping through me as I typed in my PIN. It felt like I was doing something I shouldn’t be, almost akin to stealing. But who was I stealing from – the credit card company? My future self? It was a rather grey area.

  I was half-expecting the card to be declined, as if someone somewhere knew what I was up to, but my fears were unfounded. The transaction went through perfectly and I finally owned my dream dress. Now all I needed was a pair of shoes to go with it.

  To say I got carried away with my shopping would be somewhat of an understatement. It was already dark when I got back to the flat, via a taxi, naturally, with almost a grand’s worth of goods in tow. Phoebe and Lily were both in the flat watching TV, but I managed to sneak past them into my room without them seeing just how many bags I had. I wanted to surprise them.

  I jumped in the shower while I had the chance, came back into the kitchen in my dressing gown to grab a bite to eat and then retired to my room to get ready. At 7pm, I emerged, excitedly wearing my dream dress.

  Lily and Phoebe were in the kitchen. They were both in their party outfits by now and making serious inroads into a bottle of white wine.

  “Oh my God, you look amazing,” said Lily.

  “Wow – the dress from the market! I can’t believe you got it!” exclaimed Phoebe. “How did you afford it?”

  “New Year’s sale,” I said. “Let’s just say it’s an early birthday present,” I added.

  “I didn’t know your birthday was coming up,” said Lily. “When is it?”

  Of course, they didn’t know. That made sense as it was our first year together and I probably hadn’t told them yet for all the usual reasons. But now seemed as good a time as any to let them know.

  “Actually, it’s tomorrow,” I said.

  “Oh my days!” exclaimed Phoebe. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us! Big party tonight, then! Even bigger than it was already going to be!”

  She reached into the cupboard and pulled out a whisky tumbler.

  “Here – have a glass of wine,” she said, emptying the remainder of the Chardonnay into it.

  It was the wrong sort of glass, but we only had two wine glasses. Our kitchen was a complete mishmash of odd plates, cups and other bits of pieces we had all brought with us when we moved in. The same could be said of the whole flat, really. Any interior designer would have recoiled at it, but we liked it that way, random, haphazard and homely.

  As I drank my wine, joining in the banter going on between us girlies, I realised I was really enjoying myself. Perhaps I was going to have to rethink my previous Scrooge-like attitude to New Year. Why had I been such a killjoy in the past?

  I think I can answer my own question. Before it had been just humdrum real life, drifting along from one year to the next, but now I was had a time limit. I had to live like there was no tomorrow, because in my case, there literally wasn’t. It was time to party hard.

  Full of enthusiasm for the night ahead, the three of us grabbed a taxi – my treat – and headed out for the club, three excited young things off for a night of adventure. And in what was now my thirty-four-year-old body, I really did feel like a young person again and I was only going to get younger.

  Despite starting with what might have been unrealistically high hopes, the night didn’t disappoint. I took full advantage of my situation to make it one of the best ever. With all inhibitions cast aside, some twelve hours after we’d left for town, I found myself waking up with a simply gorgeous man by my side.

  His name was Carl and he reminded me of a young Kiefer Sutherland from the early years of 24. Fortunately this man did not have such a dangerous lifestyle as Jack Bauer. He had some high-paid research post at the university. That’s what he had told me anyway, as he was sweeping me off my feet at the bar shortly before midnight the previous evening.

  A New Year’s kiss inevitably followed, and three hours after that we were at it like rabbits, not once, but twice. Now he was sleeping, but as I wr
iggled down the bed to wake him up in the most pleasant of ways, I was determined to go for the hat-trick.

  It wasn’t like me to jump into bed with someone on the night I met them – that was more Phoebe’s thing, but if I hadn’t done it last night, when would I do it? I could hardly ask him to meet me for a date a year in the past, could I? I had to grab him while I could so there was no way I was going to pass up an opportunity like this.

  He was quite probably the most gorgeous man ever to show an interest in me. Just talking to him at the bar had given me what Phoebe rather crudely referred to as “the fanny gallops”. I knew right there and then that I had to have him, but the night was still young at that point.

  After a couple of hours more drinking and dancing, I naughtily suggested in his ear that he might like to come back for “coffee”, meaning of course more than coffee. From the grin on his face, he certainly knew what I meant.

  Leaving Phoebe and Lily still enjoying the party, I took him home in my third taxi of the day. Back at the flat he proved to be an accomplished lover.

  How had I managed to pull such a gorgeous man? I have no idea. Maybe it was the dress, or perhaps it was just my newfound devil-may-care persona. Either way, I wasn’t complaining. What had I been missing out on all these years spending my New Years doing night shifts at the hospital?

  After I’d had my wicked way with him a third time and we started to get dressed, he asked the question that under any other circumstances I’d have been delighted to hear.

  “I think you’re awesome,” he said. “Can I see you again?”

  “Of course,” I replied. “Give me a ring in a couple of days and maybe we could go out at the weekend.” It was a hollow promise about a weekend I would never see. I’d never see this man again either, and that really cut me up. Finally I had met a decent one but in less than twenty-four hours I’d be spirited back into the past and that would be the end of it.

  It would be the end of it for me, anyway, but what about him? My mind might be heading back through time, but what about the body that was here – the “me” that was here before? Would I/she carry on as if nothing had happened? Would she remember any of this? It wasn’t the first time I had asked myself this question and it intrigued me.

  It could be that this other self of mine might be able to start a relationship with this man. Had I made life different and better for that other me by doing what I had done? I don’t know, but if it was a possibility, then by agreeing to see him again I was giving her every chance. Whether or not she’d be so pleased when the credit card bill arrived was another matter, but still, if she got the man of her dreams out of it, then it was all a solid investment, wasn’t it?

  I was hypothesising. I didn’t really know how all this worked. Maybe I never would, so perhaps I ought to tread carefully. I had been pretty sure that I wouldn’t have the guts to do anything really bad like killing Rob, which was probably a good thing. With the punishment of an alternate version of me a possibility, I couldn’t risk it. I didn’t want to condemn that possible other self to a lifetime in prison.

  As far as this man went, if there was to be a relationship in this timeline, then it had started very promisingly, judging by his reply to my response suggesting meeting up at the weekend.

  “I’d love that,” he said, adding, “By the way, I really love your Liverpool accent.” He sounded like he genuinely meant it, which I appreciated. This man was so amazing it almost made up for all those times being teased about my Scouse origins at school.

  I was almost tempted to ask him for another date tonight while I had the chance but I held back. I could quite easily fall head over heels for Carl and that would only bring me heartbreak when we were forced to part and then that would be another New Year of woe. I needed to quit while I was ahead and besides, I had other plans.

  After I showed him out, enjoying a final snog at the door, I went back into the flat and thought about what was to come. Lily and Phoebe were still in bed and I continued to mull over things as I put the coffee pot on.

  It was my final day here. Not only would I not see Carl again, but also I wouldn’t see this flat or Phoebe and Lily again. That made me sad. The fun I had just enjoyed was well and truly tinged with a melancholy edge.

  Tomorrow I would be back in my old house with Rob. It wasn’t something I was looking forward to, but I was going to make the most of the opportunity to make him pay for what he had done – hopefully in a way that wouldn’t land me in trouble with the police. He had no idea what was coming his way.

  In the meantime it was high time I did something about trying to find a way out of my situation, in the unlikely event that a way out existed. If it did, I had to give myself every chance to find it.

  I turned on my phone, noting that there were several missed calls from the hospital. I don’t know what that was all about. Tessa should have told them that I had phoned in sick, unless she was so busy scoffing mince pies she had forgotten.

  Ignoring the calls, I went to Google and tried looking up Doctor Gardner and time travel. No luck there. Then I tried time travel and John Radcliffe Hospital which came up similarly fruitless.

  I played around with a few more search terms until finally “Time Travel Oxford” produced an interesting result. It threw up the following magazine article.

  Time travel is possible, claims Oxford Professor.

  I went on to read about Professor Antony Hamilton and his experiments into time travel at Oxford University. The article was dated three years previously, so I had plenty of time to track him down. I decided to make his college my first port of call on my next trip back through time.

  I was interrupted by my phone ringing. It was the hospital again. Really, this was getting irksome. What was so important it couldn’t wait? Well, it would have to. I rejected the call and went back into the flat where Phoebe and Lily were now up and about.

  “Ooh, here she is,” cooed Phoebe. “We were wondering when you were going to surface, you mucky cow.”

  “Sounds like you enjoyed yourself last night,” said Lily knowingly.

  I blushed, replying, “Sorry, did you hear me?”

  “I think the whole building did, pet,” she replied. “I’m not used to hearing it through that wall. It’s normally coming from the other side.”

  She nodded towards Phoebe as she spoke.

  “Not last night,” said Phoebe. “I can’t believe you pulled and I didn’t.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Am I that hideous, then?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “I didn’t mean it like that.” She looked worried that she might have offended me.

  “It’s cool, I’m just kidding,” I replied, to set her mind at rest.

  “I don’t want to worry you,” said Lily. “But Sister Mary’s been trying to get hold of you. Something about pictures of you on the internet partying last night while you were supposed to be off sick. She’s been sending me messages asking me where you are.”

  “Oh shit,” I said, “I forgot about that.”

  We had been posting selfies all night on Facebook which was probably not the smartest thing to do when pulling a sickie. Never mind – it wasn’t going to be my problem.

  Sorry, other Amy, I thought to myself. But at least you got a new boyfriend out of it.

  “Don’t worry about it now, Amy, it’s your birthday,” said Phoebe. “Close your eyes and count to thirty. We’ve got something for you.”

  I complied, and when I opened them I was presented with another cake, thankfully not in the shape of a penis this time.

  “Sorry it’s only a Peppa Pig one,” said Phoebe, “but you didn’t tell us it was your birthday until yesterday so I didn’t have time to make one. This was all they had left in the shop.”

  “It’s lovely,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “Make a wish,” said Lily, as I blew out the single candle on my cake. In a few weeks’ time, would I be trying pathetically to blow out a single candle with my one-year-
old lungs? I don’t mind admitting I was scared.

  Cake devoured, we all went out and got drunk again. These last few days with Phoebe and Lily had been simply amazing.

  I was so going to miss them.

  Chapter Seven

  2020

  For the first time since all of this started, I arrived in my next time zone with some proper plans. Despite my drunken state on my last night with the girls, I had lain awake for the last hour or so of my time in 2022 figuring it all out.

  I wasn’t quite an old hand at this yet, but I knew how the mechanics of it worked now. If this is how I was going out of this world, then I was going to go with a bang, not a whimper.

  So when I woke up on 31st December 2020, I already knew where I was going to be and what I was going to do. I had two goals in mind. Firstly I was going to get my revenge on Rob. And secondly, I was going to try and make contact with Professor Hamilton.

  Revenge is a dish best served cold, so the saying goes. The position I now found myself in was a strange variation on that theme. From my perspective it had been four years ago that the bastard had screwed me over, so I’d had plenty of time to reflect on it.

  But as I lie here now, next to the snoring, cheating lump beside me, I realised that for him, the dish was going to be served steaming hot – right here and now.

  Get your retaliation in first might have been a more apt saying for what I had in mind.

  I turned to look at him now – the man I had loved and later detested in equal measure. He was lying with his back to me, snoring away, all sixteen stone of him. He had gained at least three stone during his nine years with me.

  He jokingly referred to it as contentment, but he can’t have been that happy. Contented couples don’t shag the neighbour unless it’s in a ‘car keys in the fruit bowl’ kind of way. I most certainly wasn’t.

  His idea of contentment meant sitting around watching Sky Sports whilst simultaneously demolishing whole packets of crisps in one go. By whole packets, I don’t just mean a standard bag of Walkers, I mean those big 150g bags of Doritos that you are meant to have with dips. And, yes, he used to have those, too – one of those multipack trays with four different flavours to dip in.