by Jason Ayres
The team had arranged to meet at 7.30pm at a delightful little Italian restaurant in a small village a couple of miles out of town. Mario’s had survived more or less in its current guise for almost sixty years, resilient even after the ravages of the Black Winter. Hannah liked it for the same reason she felt nostalgic about showers that didn’t tell her what temperature the water was. It was reassuringly old-fashioned and she had a developed a notable taste for such things as middle age approached.
Was this something that happened to all people in their forties? Probably, she could remember her parents going on about the golden era of 1980s pop music and how the old songs were so much better. It must just be a generational thing.
Hannah had suggested this particular date for the meal, July 12th, for a very good reason. They were here in part to celebrate Peter’s 70th birthday – except he wasn’t really that age at all. True, it was the 70th anniversary of his birth on July 12th 1970, but since he had spent so many years frozen in time, he was, in reality, much younger. His actual biological age hadn’t changed so physically he and Hannah would now be around the same age. She had caught him up while he had been away.
As they entered the restaurant, Hannah was pleased to see that it was still exactly as it had been on all previous visits. The large, rectangular room had a rustic feel about it, with uneven wooden tables covered in traditional red and white chequered tablecloths and conservatory-style wicker chairs.
Statues of various Italian landmarks were placed at random intervals in front of a faded mural along the right-hand wall. It depicted a traditional scene of a family enjoying a meal al fresco somewhere in rural Italy that always reminded Hannah of an old Bertolli advert.
An impressive wine collection took up much of the wall on the opposite side of the restaurant. The eponymously named manager, Mario, was very proud of his collection. There must have been as many as a thousand bottles there.
The open kitchen at the back of the room was already busy, and Hannah savoured the unmistakeable smell and sizzle of fillet steaks searing on the griddle which wafted temptingly in her direction as soon as she stepped through the door.
There was a refreshing lack of technology in the restaurant. This included the staff who were all human. The robot revolution had invaded the restaurant trade, too, despite opposition from a number of high-profile celebrity chefs. One in particular had ranted and sworn on TV about how no robot would ever be able to replicate the skills and nuances of a fully trained human chef.
It wasn’t just chefs who were becoming automated. Robot waiters were becoming ubiquitous now in many large chains. Hannah had not been impressed on a recent work trip to London when one of them had had the cheek to ask her for a tip. It was one thing tipping poorly paid staff to help top up their wages – she was fine with that, but she drew the line at tipping a robot. It was just adding pure profit for the restaurant chain.
Thankfully, there were no robots in this place and hopefully never would be. Here time had stood as still as it had for Peter while he remained in the time bubble. Looking around, Hannah decided that one of the first things she would do on his return would be to bring him here for dinner. In a world full of technological advances, a place familiar and unchanged such as this might help ease him through the culture shock that being thrust into the future was sure to bring.
At the front of the restaurant they were greeted enthusiastically by Mario. Not only was he the owner, but he seemed to do pretty much everything else as well, bar the cooking. He was maître d’, head waiter, barman and wine expert, seamlessly multitasking them all.
Mario was of indeterminate age and seemed to have been there as long as the restaurant had. If Hannah had to guess his age she would have put him around mid-sixties, but he could easily have been much older. Other than a little greying around the edge of his impressively cultivated handlebar moustache, he seemed to be holding the years at bay remarkably well.
“D.I. Benson,” he said, in his impeccable Italian accent, which was as strong as ever, despite him having lived in England most of his life. “It is wonderful to see you again. I have your table ready for you, over here.”
He led them over to a long, wooden table on the right-hand side of the restaurant, in front of a six-foot-high statue of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Ever the gentleman, he pulled their chairs out for both her and Jess, seeking assurances that they were comfortable, before heading off to get them some bread rolls and the wine list.
Hannah wasn’t comfortable at all. She had a wobbly chair with a wonky leg, but she didn’t let on. She didn’t even mind, really. It was all part of the charm of the place.
Next to arrive were Charlie, Kaylee and Lauren. About ten years younger than Hannah, they had all met her after the police became involved during the initial discovery of the time bubble. Lauren didn’t have a car so had begged a lift off the others with the promise she would buy the first round of drinks. It would likely be the first of many.
Charlie and Kaylee had been teenage sweethearts, marrying in their twenties and completely devoted to each other. They had achieved that rare thing that few found in the modern world – they had found their soulmate at the first attempt.
The two of them had busy lives, combining bringing up two young children with careers in meteorology (her) and marketing (him). Their home was only a few miles away, a lovely 19th-century cottage in a nearby village that they had bought a couple of years before.
Kaylee was stunning, tall, blonde and beautiful, her body in great shape for a woman who had given birth to two children. Charlie was starting to show some early signs of approaching middle age, his jet black hair starting to thin and a paunch beginning to develop around his middle. He liked to blame this on his job, but a devotion to fine food and wine had also played its part.
Working as a buyer at the head office of a big company in Oxford, he spent more time than he would like chained to his desk or in the car travelling to meet suppliers. These meetings invariably involved large lunches and business dinners which he never seemed to find the time to work off.
A mere moment after the three of them had got out of their car, Josh and Alice pulled into the car park. They had come from further afield, driving up from Oxford, about twenty miles away.
They were scientists based at the university. She was an astrophysicist, he a physics professor and lecturer. Both spent every spare moment on their researches into time travel, a subject on which Josh considered himself to be the world’s leading expert. It hadn’t made him famous, though, in the same way that the likes of Stephen Hawking had been. In Josh’s case, he had to curb his natural streak to boast about his achievements.
Because of all the time-travelling events he had already experienced since discovering the original time bubble at the tender age of seventeen, he and the others had decided that everything they knew must remain a secret just between them.
Apart from Jess, who had not even been born at that time, Alice was the only member of the team who had not been around in those heady days of 2018. Not long after Josh had begun a relationship with her, he had quickly realised that her knowledge would be an asset to the team.
At one of their regular meet-ups he had asked the others if they minded bringing her into the circle. They were happy to oblige, which was just as well, as the two of them were married now. Her help had been invaluable and he would not have got anywhere near as far in his research without her.
The five of them headed inside, where Mario dutifully ushered them through to join Hannah and Jess.
Within a couple of minutes, all seven were seated at the table, excitedly exchanging greetings, and eagerly ordering drinks.
“The wine rack is looking as impressive as ever, Mario,” remarked Charlie, casting his eye over the display of bottles lined up on the wall directly opposite him. “I think we had better have a couple of bottles.”
“Red or white?” enquired Mario. “I remember you like your red wine, Mr Adams. I have some very
nice Chianti right now. It’s a ’28, which I am sure you will know is an excellent year.”
“It certainly is,” remarked Charlie, who knew his wines. Anything from the 2020s was infinitely preferable to the more recent vintages. Although Italy may not have been as heavily hit as Northern Europe by the Black Winter, generally poorer weather in the 2030s meant that most of the wines produced during that period were nothing to write home about.
The older wines were definitely worth getting hold of, and Charlie had been busy on that front of late. Their recently acquired cottage had its own cellar, and he hoped one day to have a collection to rival Mario’s.
“We’ll definitely have a bottle of that,” said Charlie. “And we’d better have some white, too.” He didn’t drink white wine, but he knew that it was Kaylee and Hannah’s preferred choice. “Whatever you recommend,” he added.
“One bottle of each, sir?” asked Mario.
“That’s not nearly enough,” piped up Josh. “Better make it two of each. That should do for starters.”
“Make mine a vodka and lemonade,” chipped in Lauren who wasn’t a wine drinker. “Better make it a double. You joining me, Jess?” She knew the young girl liked her vodka.
“Why not?” replied Jess. “This is a special occasion, after all.”
As the others chipped in with more drink orders, it was soon clear that this was going to be a boozy night. It always was when the old team got together. Although Hannah, Lauren and Kaylee saw each other regularly, Josh and Alice didn’t see the others so often, being down in Oxford and wrapped up in their work most of the time. Tonight would be an excellent opportunity to let off steam.
When the drinks arrived, Josh and Charlie were talking about motor racing, something they were both huge fans of.
“Do you fancy going to Silverstone this year for the Robo Grand Prix?” asked Charlie. “We’re doing the marketing for one of the teams and we’ve got free hospitality and tickets. I can get you into the pits and everything.”
“No offence, mate, but I just can’t get excited about Roboracing,” replied Josh. “I know it might look very spectacular, but for me, it’s just a glorified Scalextric. Racing should be done by proper men in proper cars.”
“That’s so sexist!” protested Jess, who was also keen on racing and had done some karting herself. “What about women? Don’t forget Bethan Bradley.”
Bethan Bradley was a rising young British star in Grand Prix racing. She had finally made the long-overdue breakthrough for women in the sport the previous year. On rain-soaked streets, she had scored a sensational victory in Monaco driving an underpowered car from one of the unfancied teams.
“So you don’t want to come, then?” asked Charlie.
“Haven’t you got any tickets for the British Grand Prix?” asked Josh, hopefully.
“Don’t be so ungrateful,” chipped in Alice. “He’s offering you a day out, you should go. You spend way too much time holed up in the lab than is good for you.”
“OK, I’ll go,” said Josh, relenting. “Speaking of cars, that’s a smart new BMW you’ve got out there, Charlie,” remarked Josh.
“It’s my latest company car,” explained his friend. “I’m out on the road a lot so they’ve given me the latest executive in-car office edition.”
“You must be doing well at work, then?” asked Alice.
“Well, yes and no. It depends how you look at it,” said Charlie. “I can’t deny they pay me well, but quite honestly, my heart is not in it anymore. I have to work long hours and the kids are often in bed by the time I get home. I feel like I’m missing out on their childhood.”
“But you’re providing for their future, aren’t you?” asked Josh. “Earning plenty of money?”
“That’s not the be-all and end-all of it,” replied Charlie. “No amount of money can replace those precious childhood moments, like being there to read to them at bedtime. You’ll understand this when you become a parent.”
“If he becomes a parent,” said Alice, a resigned and disappointed look on her face. She and Josh hadn’t told the others but they had been trying for a baby for five years with no success.
Steering the conversation away from this rather sensitive subject, Josh added, “So what sort of speed do you get out of it? I’ve heard the latest Beamers can do 150 easily.”
“Not mine,” said Charlie. “I’m not allowed to drive it. It’s driverless only. HR said that was for insurance purposes, but we all know the real reason. They don’t want us wasting our time on the road driving; they want us to work on the way.”
“I’m surprised you even have to spend that much time on the road now. I thought holographic conferencing was supposed to be putting paid to all that,” said Alice. “That’s why HS2 is doing so badly, apparently. No one needs to get from London to Manchester anymore: they can do it all remotely.”
“Not in our case,” said Charlie. “The company’s got this big ethos thing going on about face-to-face interaction. They sell themselves on the personal touch which means I end up having to be in London one day and Manchester the next. Hence the executive office edition car – with no slacking off allowed. We’re not even allowed to have the radio on anymore.”
“Seriously?” asked Josh. “Sounds like some sort of police state – no offence, Hannah.”
“Yes, seriously,” continued Charlie. “We have to be permanently connected to the office the whole time we are on the road. I tell you, it’s getting bloody ridiculous. They are on about giving us these virtual reality implants now so we can interact with the office wherever we are. I tell you, they are tracking our every move these days. I can’t even go for a dump without someone knowing about it.”
“Wow,” said Josh. “That was a pretty impressive rant for you. Whatever happened to our mild-mannered Charlie?”
“He just needs a career change, that’s all,” said Kaylee, ever supportive of her husband.
“To do what?” asked Josh.
“Well, I’ve always fancied doing something artistic,” said Charlie, “Writing, probably, as I can’t paint or draw to save my life. All our adventures with the time bubble have given me plenty of story ideas. I was thinking of trying to write a film script, or maybe a novel. I’m reasonably confident that it’s a robot-proof job, too – at least for the foreseeable future. Artificial intelligence may be advancing at a lightning pace, but when it comes to the arts, nothing can surpass the creativity of a human mind – yet.”
“Why don’t you give it a go, then?” suggested Alice.
“I already am,” said Charlie. “I’ve got a work in progress right now. I’ll tell you more about it if it goes anywhere. For now, though, it looks like I’m stuck with sitting in the car on the M40 and M6.”
“Still, there is one good thing about driverless cars,” said Josh, as he grabbed the nearest red wine bottle and replenished his already empty glass.
“What’s that, then?” asked Charlie.
“No more worrying about getting taxis or who’s going to have to stay sober to drive,” said Josh. “We can get as pissed as we want and roll into our cars and they’ll take us straight home.”
“Bearing in mind how much we always seem to drink when we get together, that’s probably just as well,” remarked Kaylee. “I bet these driverless cars have made your life easier, Hannah. No more drink-drivers to worry about.”
“You would think that,” said Hannah. “But you still get the occasional pissed-up idiot who fancies a joyride in an older car. We had one the other day: he completely wrote off an ancient Ford Focus down by the canal at Shipton-on-Cherwell. He went right through the barrier and into the water. The joyriders always look for the old cars now, as all the modern ones can detect alcohol on the breath and automatically lock the steering.”
“Well, the good news is, there are no alcohol detectors in here,” said Josh. “So as we’re all being taxied home, I think we’d better order another couple of bottles. These are going down rather too well.”
He reached over for the one remaining bottle that wasn’t yet empty and poured the remainder into his glass, just as Mario returned with their starters.
“Another couple of bottles of that Chianti, if you please, Mario,” he added.
“And another double vodka over here for me,” piped up Lauren who had been quietly knocking down her double while all the boring talk about cars had been going on. “Perhaps it’ll knock me out enough to get a decent night’s sleep tonight.”
“You turning into an insomniac, Lauren?” asked Kaylee.
“She’s normally too busy with other things in bed to find time to sleep,” joked Josh.
This generated a dirty look from Alice towards him. Quips of this nature were generally acceptable among the group. They had all been friends long enough to push the boundaries and remarks about Lauren’s colourful sex life were considered fair game.
For Alice, a relative newcomer to the party, it was slightly different. She knew Josh and Lauren had history before she had come on the scene and still felt a little pang of jealousy around her, as well as feelings of inadequacy.
Lauren and Alice were poles apart in their views on many things, including sex. The way Lauren was so free and easy about her sex life had convinced Alice that Lauren was probably much better at it than she was. That led on to her deciding that Josh had probably enjoyed sex better with her, too.
Her repeated failure to conceive in years of trying with Josh didn’t help matters. She often wondered if Josh still had feelings for his ex and still irrationally saw her as a threat, even though Lauren clearly had no interest in him anymore.
“Hardly that,” said Lauren. “Believe it or not, I’ve been quite well behaved on that front recently.”
This drew a few snorts and guffaws from the group.
