Ahead of his Time

by Adrian Cousins

  She delivered that tight smile again. “Okay, thanks.”

  I now felt like poo as I left Jess on her own in the flat, but I had to get off home. I’d offered to contact a friend to see if someone could keep her company, but she declined. For sure, I needed to get back tomorrow and check she was okay. Well, okay-ish under the circumstances.

  I fished out my car key and was about to ram it in the lock when I noticed my car aerial was missing. I moved back to look at the damage, annoyed that I hadn’t retracted it and locked it in position. Glancing around, I could see a few silhouettes standing near Dublin house, momentarily giving away their positions as they dragged on their cigarettes. However, I wouldn’t be able to identify the culprit. Kids, I suspected, who were long gone.

  God, I hated this estate.

  26

  Orinoco

  Paul leant up against the concrete support at the front of the stairwell to Dublin house. From this vantage point, he had a good view of the central square but was reasonably well hidden from view. He’d watched the Apple bloke come from the Belfast block and climb into a Triumph Stag – nice motor, he thought. But he was intrigued to know why he’d been here on the estate. He’d last seen him at court last Monday. But he had no reason to be here. The Hall girl was dead, which made him smirk, and the old git next door had moved out before Christmas. So why was he visiting Belfast House? He would have to put the word out and find out. However, that wasn’t important. He needed to get some information on the driver of a yellow Cortina, although there were probably hundreds of them about.

  Paul lit another cigarette and scrunched up the empty packet of Piccadilly. He lobbed it at the can of TopDeck shandy that sat on the stairwell, its position almost inviting the pot-shot. He checked his watch as he waited for Andy, his little brother.

  Now David was gone, he was going to have to get Andy trained, and trained fast. David had been a handy errand boy. Although Andy was only eleven, he needed to grow up, and grow up quickly; start pulling his weight and pick up some of the slack that David used to. Paul could then focus on growing the family business, like extending their extortion racket, which was just as lucrative and less risky than supplying drugs to the low life junkies who caused more hassle than they were worth.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” Paul hissed, as Andy appeared from the back of the stairwell.

  Andy finished his Cadburys Wombles chocolate bar and let the paper and foil wrappers drop to the floor.

  Paul watched the wrapper float down.

  Andy shrugged. “The Wombles can pick it up.”

  “The Wombles?”

  Andy stared up at his brother as he swirled the chocolate around his mouth and licked his lips. “Yeah, you know … Orinoco and that lot.”

  Paul shook his head. “It’s not Wimbledon Common, you know. You need to do some growing up, and fast, kiddo.”

  Although Paul was almost twice his size, Andy wasn’t intimidated by him. He knew Ma would kill Paul if he turned violent with him. Now David was gone, Andy knew Ma was his ‘ace up his sleeve’ to protect himself from Paul.

  Paul reached inside his jacket and had a quick glance around to ensure no prying eyes. He grabbed hold of Andy’s hand and slapped the small brick-shaped package into it. “Cal Gower is waiting for it … you know where to go. Don’t fuck it up; otherwise, I’ll rip your throat out.”

  Andy just stared at him but didn’t move.

  Paul slapped him around the head. “Go on shit-head, fuck off.”

  Andy sneered, but begrudgingly left to deliver the package as instructed.

  Paul flicked his cigarette butt into the air as he made his way over to the community centre. A couple of low-life snoops should be there and, if they wanted to keep their front teeth, they’d better have come up with some information for him.

  Although the community centre was a shit hole, he liked the respect he commanded in there. If no Gower was in the bar, he, as a Colney, was the top of the food-chain. The way everyone averted their eyes and stepped a few feet further away when he reached the bar was real power.

  Steve, the bar manager, pulled his pint. He was close friends with his old man, so not intimidated by Paul, but he still played it carefully. He knew how to keep his position secure, which was a delicate balance when dealing with Gowers and Colneys. Paul pulled out a handful of change from his jeans pocket, but Steve shook his head, making it clear no payment was required – the power. Paul leant on the bar as two blokes on bar stools discreetly vacated their position and moved to a table at the bottom end of the room – the power. Sandy, one of the local slappers, made a point of coming up to him, flirting as she seductively licked the straw sticking out the top of her drink.

  “Or’right, Paul? You on your own tonight then?” she asked, as she continued to suggestively swirl her tongue around the straw and gazed up into his eyes.

  Paul just looked at her with disdain.

  “You fancy a bit of company tonight … y’know … comfort you like, after hearing the sad news about Patrick today?”

  Paul looked past her as Barry Holland entered the bar and nodded at him. He pushed past Sandy and headed in Barry’s direction. “Piss off, Sandy,” he muttered.

  “Fucking charming,” she threw back, but only in a whisper. She knew getting on the wrong side of Paul would be a huge mistake.

  Paul grabbed Barry by the arm and led him to a free table near the window overlooking the car park. “What you got?” he hissed, still holding his arm tightly.

  “You gonna get me a drink?” asked Barry, as he looked at Paul’s hand, which gripped his elbow. He realised he might be pushing his luck as Paul appeared not to be in the friendliest of moods tonight – not that he often was.

  Paul leant towards his face and tightened his grip on his arm, digging his fingers into Barry’s skin. Barry winced.

  “You can have your face rearranged if you want?”

  Barry pulled his face away. “You’re hurting my arm.”

  Paul yanked him back close. “What you got?”

  Barry retrieved a folded sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his black leather biker jacket and held it between his middle and index fingers as he offered it to Paul. Paul looked at the paper between his fingers and then back at Barry, arching his eyebrows.

  “Couple of the guys have pulled a list together of owners of yellow MK3 Cortina’s in and around Fairfield. They’ve also narrowed it down to male owners between the ages of eighteen and sixty.”

  Paul took the paper without taking his eyes off Barry and slipped it into his pocket. “Good, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” He pulled a ‘twenty’ out of his wallet and shoved it in the top zip pocket of Barry’s jacket. “Get me a pint while you’re at it and set them up.”

  Barry moved off towards the bar, stopping only to tell two blokes to leave the pool table. The blokes told him to fuck off but, when Barry pointed in Paul’s direction, they calmly put their pool cues back in the rack and left the table with their game half-finished.

  Paul grinned as he watched the two blokes move away from the pool table, then reviewed the piece of paper that detailed the addresses of twenty-eight yellow Cortina’s in Fairfield. “For fuck sake,” he muttered. Why did it have to be a popular car? This would have to be a scouting job for Andy. He’d have to miss school for a couple of days to scoot around this lot and check them out.

  He made his way over to the pool table, feeling buoyed that he was making progress on the hunt for David’s killer. If he could pinpoint the bloke who did it, he would then become Ma’s favourite son.

  “Sandy, don’t leave until I’m ready … it’s your lucky night, girl,” he called out to the table where Sandy was sitting with three other girls. All the girls looked up then giggled.

  He picked up a queue off the rack and plucked up one of the blue chalks that were dotted around the edge of the table. He carefully chalked the end of the cue whilst Barry reset the balls. Sending the cue ball hurtling into the pac
k of balls, they scattered, and two spots and one stripe dropped into the pockets. The eight-ball bounced off two cushions and slowly made its way to one of the middle pockets. It teetered on the edge then dropped.

  Paul booted the table, causing it to nudge a few inches. No one looked around as Paul took his frustration out as he smashed the cue into an empty pint glass. Everyone knew making eye contact with Paul at that precise moment would be an unhealthy mistake.

  27

  Uber

  27th January 1977

  As the week wore on, it panned out to be a vast improvement on the previous week. Martin had blown my world apart on that Sunday. Now I seemed to have reached the start of the rebuilding stage of my life after clearing away the debris of the fall-out of his arrival. My life was following a similar sequence of the events of the Bell Pub. The site had been cleared and made safe following the bombing, and now plans were in place to rebuild an even better one.

  For most of my life, I’d followed the black and white rule, nothing in the middle, no grey areas. As far as I was concerned, everything had to have a slot to fit into, just like the school's office pigeon holes. Jenny had a clearer vision than me. I thought that perhaps she had some sixth sense which John claimed Frances possessed, and if she did, something was telling her to believe my stories of time-travel.

  What I did know – even though Martin had those tattoos along with the bombing knowledge – it still wasn’t enough for most right-minded people to believe the unbelievable. I settled on that she did, in fact, have that sixth sense which told her to believe. Anyway, whatever it was, I could have kissed it, as my perfect life started to return to me.

  The one issue that wasn’t improving was the situation with Jess. However, although she wasn’t my daughter, I would treat her as if she was and help her as much as I possibly could. I did venture into the Broxworth Estate on Tuesday evening. Jess said she’d seen the doctor, and they advised her the baby was fine but to be more careful and ensure she didn’t fall on the stairs again. Clearly, she was sticking to her decision not to tell anyone she’d been raped and had created a fall-on-the-stairs story. She was much brighter that evening, and although I wasn’t happy that she’d decided not to report the rape, I had to respect it. Knowing how the police viewed the Broxworth Estate’s residence, I could easily see she wouldn’t be taken seriously if she chose to report the attack.

  This era’s lack of diversity and inclusion had initially shocked me when I landed five months ago. Domestic violence appeared to be treated as a domestic incident rather than a criminal act. The ‘Rule of Thumb’ was very much still relevant in this era. I’d struggled over the past few months with constantly hearing racist, sexist and homophobic comments.

  I often challenged my pupils on their unacceptable language. However, I knew it was just a matter of education. I alone couldn’t change society, especially when there were programmes like ‘Till Death Us Do Part’ with millions of viewers each week, even though Alf was a happy hammer – no, an unhappy hammer. I knew the program makers were not racist, and the program was poking fun at society and its attitudes. However, so many in this era agreed with the characters views and found it funny – I didn’t.

  Every evening after performing the kids-to-bed routine, which now included my recital of the book ‘George the Talking Rabbit’ to Christopher, Jen and I settled down to our evening of memory capture as we called it. This involved Jenny capturing my memories in our new ‘Year Book’, a yellow school exercise book, where Jenny recorded all my memories under each year heading. What was clear was my knowledge of world events from the age of twenty-two to thirty-two was poor, and the pages with headings from 2000 to 2010 were very lean of content. I could only assume that my youthful interest in politics and world events had disappeared, favouring partying and drinking at that time.

  There were lots of ‘No Way!’ moments from Jen during these sessions, like when I talked about the break-up of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin wall, Chernobyl, the HIV epidemic, Barack Obama, and John Lennon’s death. The last on this list she found particularly upsetting considering her love of The Beatles. She pushed me on the details of his murder. However, all I could come up with was it happened in 1980 in New York, but as for the actual date and further details, I had no idea. This revelation led us back down the route of Peter Sutcliffe and Tom Pryce. As the meeting with the police at school on Monday proved, bending time to alter events you are not directly involved with was very difficult to do.

  Jenny played ‘Let It Be’ on our retro turntable to soothe her upset. She was now starting to realise the weight of responsibility and the difficulty that having future knowledge presented. As a die-hard Beatles nut, she started her mourning for John Lennon three years before anyone else.

  Martin had settled into the caretaker routine, and from what I could see, was not causing any time-travel disasters. A couple of my colleagues asked how I knew him as they thought he was a little odd and used strange words. Jayne asked why Martin kept saying, lol. Although smitten and clearly affected by his male magnetism, Miss Colman didn’t understand why, when Martin described things, he prefixed it with the word Uber. Apart from that, he seemed to be behaving himself.

  On Thursday evening, we took the kids up to see Don. It was becoming a weekly ritual we all looked forward to. Don was their paternal grandfather they didn’t have, as both were already dead. Arthur Apsley died in 1968, other Jason’s father, who I assume was a fine fellow. And Neil Apsley died twice, 1984 and 1976, who was definitely a super splendid fellow.

  Jenny cooked supper whilst Don and I entertained Christopher. Beth, as usual, slept through the whole affair. Beth rarely woke during the night or had screaming fits. She was a calm, contented little girl. It was difficult to see that baby growing up to be the Beth I knew, who could be brash, wild, loud, and often the centre of attention. Perhaps it was the nature over nurture argument kicking into play. Both of us, especially Jenny, poured vast amounts of love on that girl, something she didn’t have in her previous life. Was nurture changing her personality even from this young age?

  Don was clearly delighted to see his surrogate family back in a harmonious state. Jenny and I went overboard on delivering this non-verbal impression so he stopped asking awkward questions about you-know-who next door. Although we loved Don and felt guilty leaving him out of the time-travellers-believer-club, we knew that the initiation he’d have to go through to join would be too much for him to believe.

  Don said earlier that day he’d told a couple of young lads to move on as they were loitering outside his house. He’d recognised one of them as the youngest Colney lad and thought that was very strange, especially as the Bowthorpe Estate was the other side of town from the Broxworth. Uncharacteristically Don seemed concerned about it, but I said he was probably just playing with a friend from school who lived this way.

  Jen produced an enormous toad-in-the-hole; Don's favourite. She ensured he got the biggest helping and, as he tucked into his supper, he looked like the cat that got the cream. After we’d cleaned up the kitchen, Jen and Don played cribbage, a game I didn’t understand. Although I remember my grandmother playing it with Stephen. Don allowed Christopher to move the matchsticks on the Cribbage board, which he found extremely exciting as he carefully counted along the holes.

  Leaving them to it, I nipped next door to say hello to Martin. Although we did see each other every day, I was acutely aware of how lonely he must be feeling. He’d gone from having a plethora of friends – and many female ones I was discovering – to nothing. Now he didn’t even have Facebook or Pornhub to amuse himself with.

  The back door was unlocked. I let myself in and nipped through the hall towards the lounge where I expected to find Martin watching TV with a barrel of Watney Party Seven which he’d discovered and said was quite drinkable. As I opened the lounge door and poked my head in, the TV wasn’t on. There was the aforementioned large tin of Watney’s on the table. However, I received my second
unpleasant sighting of his hairy arse as it bobbed up and down, ploughing his way between two slim female legs that were tightly wrapped around his back. A complete set of red varnished nails were digging into his back as the lady beneath him repeatedly moaned, “Yes … yes … yes … yes.”

  “Oh,” I blurted, as I stood there transfixed for a moment. That didn’t stop the rhythm, as he grunted and arched his back with pleasure. At that point, I quickly removed myself and headed back to the kitchen.

  A few moments later, just before I thought I’d shoot back to Don’s house, Martin came scooting through to the kitchen in his underpants and slightly red in the face from his exertions. He was closely followed by a young woman dressed in platform knee-length black boots and a pair of white knickers.

  “Oh Hi, Jason … err this is, this is umm—”

  “Mandy,” the young lady replied, as she stood there half-naked and lit up a cigarette.

  I stood there gawping. Martin turned and also gawped, probably as surprised as I was that she wandered around in just boots and knickers. She smirked, blew out some smoke and looked me up and down whilst I continued to catch flies.

  “You’re not ’alf bad either; maybe a bit old. You wanna threesome?”

  Martin looked at me, clearly embarrassed. I shot him a quizzical look whilst Mandy rested her free arm under her chest. She continued to puff at her cigarette with that smirk across her face.

  “Both the strong silent type … I’m alright with that.” She jolted her arm up and down, which caused her breasts to wobble. “I’ve got nice tits, don’t you think?”

  Martin turned, outstretching his arms as if to corral her from the kitchen. “Mandy, you’d better go … I’ll see you later in the week.”

  Mandy stubbed out her cigarette in a mug on the countertop and peered over Martin’s shoulder. “Seeya,” she said, as they both left the kitchen.

  There was I thinking he would be lonely and have no friends! He’d moved quickly with her and, as I stood there, I wondered where the hell he’d met her. One thing for sure, she was very young. I stayed in the kitchen, waiting for Martin to return so I could interrogate him and ensure he hadn’t blabbed his mouth off on the taboo subject. When he returned, he thankfully had thrown some clothes on. I hoped Mandy had too after I’d heard Martin close the front door.