by Jason Ayres
“Sounds like a plan,” said Charlie. “Where and when?”
“Is that little French restaurant down George Street still there? You know, where we went to celebrate you and Kaylee getting engaged? I used to love that place.”
“It certainly is,” replied Charlie, picking his phone up from the table to look it up.
“There, it’s booked,” he said, a couple of taps on the screen later.
“Fantastic,” said Josh.
After the feeling of despair that had engulfed him the previous evening, Josh was now starting to feel a lot better. Whatever his next trip held, at least he was safe among friends for the moment.
Chapter Twelve
December 2024
The following morning, Josh returned to his usual spot in Christ Church Meadow feeling optimistic about his next jump back in time. It was the 22nd of December, so if the pattern continued as expected, he ought to arrive on the morning of Friday 6th December.
Although things hadn’t worked out on this jump, he had really enjoyed the previous evening with Charlie and Kaylee. She had been delighted to see him again, eagerly lapping up his stories of time travel and other universes.
They weren’t technically the same Charlie and Kaylee he had grown up with, but that didn’t make any difference. Quintessentially, they were still the same people and they got on just as well as they ever had.
Discussing the differences between their home universes was one of the main topics of conversation. Between them, they attempted to trace the timeline back to the point of divergence. It seemed that the whole of history was identical up until the early 21st century. The earliest event they could find that differed was Andy’s talent show win. In Josh’s universe, Andy had drunkenly fallen off the stage, becoming a laughing stock. That hadn’t happened here.
Quite how that seemingly minor event had led to Labour returning to power in 2015 wasn’t clear. Ed Miliband had claimed to have been inspired by Andy’s music. It was hard to see how that could affect the result of a general election, but somehow it had. Something seemingly as trivial as who did or didn’t win a TV talent show in the early noughties had produced enough ripples to create that change.
Josh found it absolutely intriguing. There was a mystery here to be figured out that doubtless he could solve, given time. In other circumstances he would have hung around to play detective, but he had more important things to worry about at the moment. It was time to move on.
Checking there was no one around, he stepped behind his favourite tree, and held out the tachyometer. The light was growing green again, which meant he was good to go. It had once again taken just over twelve hours to recharge this time which seemed to be pretty consistent with before.
He didn’t experience any sudden changes in the weather this time. It had been sunny when he left and it was still sunny now, but he knew the jump had taken place because there were puddles on the gravel path beside the tree where there were none before.
To make sure he was where he expected to be, he once again headed into town to check the date on the newspapers in the Covered Market. It was exactly as expected, so there could be no doubt now. His jumps back in time were definitely doubling in length.
He bought a copy of The Times and headed for his favourite café in the market. Scanning every column inch over his coffee, he was relieved to find that every story seemed consistent with what he remembered from his original universe, including the identity of the prime minister.
Could it be that he had made it home? It might not be the right time, but if it was the right universe, he was halfway there. All he needed to do now was track down his younger self and enlist his help.
Young Josh shouldn’t be too difficult to find. The university would not have finished for Christmas yet, so the college would be the best place to start. He would make for Professor Hamilton’s lab first and look for him there. Even if he wasn’t, the Professor almost certainly would be. Apart from around four hours of lectures a week, he rarely went anywhere else. It would be good to see his former mentor again.
Leaving the café, he headed north into St Giles’ and towards the college. Since he had no official status in this time, he resorted to buying a ticket to enter the grounds, along with all the other tourists.
Once inside, slipping into the building and making his way to the lab was easy. It had not changed at all in the last thirty years. Opening the door he was pleased to see his aging former tutor at his bench, just as he had expected.
“Professor Hamilton!” he exclaimed. “It’s so good to see you again.”
The Professor looked up from where he was sitting at the bench, poring over his tachyonics equipment. He was a small, thin man with wire-framed glasses and a head that was almost completely bald apart from a few wisps of hair behind the ears. Josh knew he was in his sixties by this time, but he could see from his eyes that he was still lively and full of the energy which drove him on in his research.
“I’ve never seen you before,” he said in his light Scottish accent, tempered by four decades of living in Oxford.
“Don’t you recognise me, Professor? It’s me, Josh – your student!”
“Josh?” replied the Professor, peering at him through his glasses. “I don’t think I have a Josh.”
He’s just being absent-minded, thought Josh. He hadn’t recognised him, but neither had his own father, so it was nothing to worry about. He would just have to explain further.
“Yes, you do. Look closely – I was one of your students – Josh Gardner, and I used to help you with your time travel experiments. You must remember?”
The Professor just looked back at him with a blank look on his face. Josh kept going, hoping the penny would drop.
“The truth is, I’ve come here from thirty years in the future to tell you that we’ve cracked it! Or I have, anyway. You really want to move on from that tachyonics stuff, you know, that is so last century.”
The Professor looked him up and down closely, but there was no sign of recognition.
“I’m telling you I’ve never clapped eyes on you before in my life,” he said. “This isn’t some sort of wind-up, is it? I wouldn’t put it past Garfunkel to send one of his cronies over to try and wheedle my secrets out of me. Is that it?”
“Of course not,” replied Josh, remembering the Professor’s arch rivalry with his equivalent number from Cambridge. “This is nothing to do with Garfunkel, and before you say it, this is not a student prank either, just to get that question out of the way, too.”
“So, who are you then?”
“I told you I’m Josh. Josh Gardner. Here, I’ll prove it to you. Take a look at this.”
He pulled the tachyometer out of the bag and presented it to Hamilton.
“This,” he said reverently, “is the tachyometer. It’s how I got here, through time. I am actually from the year 2055.”
Although the Professor still looked sceptical, Josh had clearly grabbed his attention.
“The tachyometer, you say? So tachyonics does work?”
“Actually, no, it doesn’t,” said Josh. “We sort of named it that as a joke.”
“At my expense no doubt,” said the Professor grumpily.
“Of course not,” replied Josh, remembering how irascible the Professor could be at times. “It was more of a tribute, really.”
“Why, am I dead in 2055?” asked Hamilton.
“No man should know his own future,” replied Josh. He wasn’t actually sure if Hamilton was dead or not. He hadn’t seen him since he had retired back to Scotland.
“Well, I bloody hope I am,” said the Professor. “I’ll be almost a hundred by then and I really don’t fancy ending up as some gibbering old wreck in a nursing home. My lungs are bad enough now.”
Almost on cue, the older man began coughing. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out some tablets. “As you’re here, you may as well make yourself useful. Pass me a glass of water, will you?”
Josh obliged a
nd watched as he knocked back a pill. Turning his attention to the tachyometer, the Professor looked it up and down, examining it in detail.
“How exactly does this work, then?”
“It doesn’t at the moment,” replied Josh glumly, “at least not properly. That’s why I’m here. I need your help.”
He then explained everything that had happened up to this point, just as he had with Charlie before. By the time he had finished, Hamilton had relaxed his guard, seemingly accepting Josh’s story and taking a keen interest in the tachyometer.
“Have you attempted to repair it?” asked the Professor.
“Quite honestly, I don’t think I would be able to in this time period. I don’t have access to the technology that I used to build it in the first place. What I need is right in this very room, in my universe, but thirty years in the future – which is a trifle inconvenient to say the least.”
“Are you sure it’s not just something simple – a loose connection or something?” asked the Professor, attempting to be helpful. “I’ve got a soldering iron over there. We could open it up and take a look?”
“A soldering iron?” asked Josh in disbelief. “What is this, the 20th century? There’s no way we can go hacking about at it like that. At the moment I’ve got it just barely working. I can’t control where it takes me anymore, but even at this low level of functionality, I’ve got a remote chance of getting home. Hacking about at it with primitive tools isn’t going to do it any good.”
“Alright, I was only trying to help,” said the Professor. “You did say that was why you had come here. But clearly there is not a lot I can do with my prehistoric equipment.”
“Just do what you did before. Take the young Josh under your wing, support him in his time travel experiments and help him develop the technology needed to come and rescue me.”
“That’s all very well, but I’ve already told you, I don’t know your younger self,” he replied. “There is no one called Josh in any of my classes and he certainly doesn’t hang out here in the lab. None of my students do. If he does exist, you’re far more likely to find him in The Lamb and Flag with the others.”
“But you must know him,” protested Josh, getting seriously concerned by Hamilton’s denial of his existence.
“I can assure you I don’t,” replied Hamilton. “Look, this is easily settled, we’ll look him up. What did you say your surname was again?”
“Gardner,” replied Josh.
The Professor turned to a touch screen set into the wall and called up a list of the students registered at the university. Scrolling to the letter G, he started to read down the list of names.
“Let’s see now. Gale, Gascoigne, Geary. Hmm. It seems we don’t have a Gardner.”
Josh was getting a disturbing sense of déjà vu. This was just like before. Why couldn’t his other selves stick to what they should be doing? Why wasn’t he here?
“Clearly I’m not a student here in this timeline, then,” said Josh. “So where am I?”
“At another university?” suggested the Professor. “You had better not be at Cambridge working with Garfunkel. It wouldn’t be the first time that scoundrel has poached the cream of the crop from under my nose.”
Ignoring the Professor’s paranoia, Josh knew that, whatever the reason, this was a serious setback. If he wasn’t at Oxford, then he wouldn’t be inventing the tachyometer in this room or possibly anywhere else.
“Well, wherever he is, I’m going to have to try and track him down,” replied Josh. “Thanks for your time, Professor. It’s been good to see you again.”
“Come back and see me and let me know how it all goes, won’t you?” asked the Professor.
“I’ll try,” said Josh.
“It’s been a pleasure to meet you,” added Hamilton. “Not least because I now know for certain that time travel truly is possible. I’m only sorry your younger self isn’t here. From what you’ve told me, I’m sure I would have loved working with him.”
“If it’s any consolation, I certainly enjoyed working with your alter ego,” replied Josh. “Without your help, I probably wouldn’t be standing here right now.”
Leaving the college, Josh headed for a quiet restaurant down Little Clarendon Street that he used to frequent in this era. It was exactly as he remembered it. This universe seemed identical in every respect to his own, so why wasn’t Josh where he was supposed to be?
Settling down at a table, he pulled out his tablet and hooked up to the Wi-Fi. The next step in finding his elusive other self was to track him down on social media.
He hadn’t realised how much Facebook had changed over the years, but he soon managed to find his way around it. By the time the waiter came to take his order, he was looking at his old profile page. As he looked through it, his heart sank. It was looking as if this Josh wasn’t going to be able to help him at all.
His occupation was listed as builder at Gardner & Sons. The subtle change from Son to Sons didn’t go unnoticed. His relationship status was even more startling. It seemed he was married in this timeline, not to Alice, but to Lauren. The cover picture on his profile page showed the two of them standing outside his home town’s registry office. To top it all, in the picture Lauren was clearly heavily pregnant. It was a classic shotgun wedding pose.
He sat for a while and mulled it over while he waited for his food to come. So, he was a father here, something he had never achieved in his own timeline. But married to Lauren? How had that happened? Sure, he had gone out with her for a few months when they were teenagers, but she wasn’t the settling down type. She had been rather too flirty with other men for his liking, and he hadn’t been in any rush to settle down either. His sights had been firmly set on getting to Oxford – but not here, apparently.
Even though help from this Josh seemed unlikely, he couldn’t just move on. He had to find out why he was living such a different life in a world that was seemingly otherwise identical.
Finding his address wasn’t difficult. All he had to do was look at the electoral roll, which was freely available online via his tablet. By 2pm, with a solid lunch inside him, he was once again on the train bound for his home town.
The address was somewhere he had never lived in his own life, but he knew where it was. It was in a 1980s estate to the north of the town where all the streets were named after types of trees. As he approached the house on Sycamore Drive, he could see that it was tiny, just a one-bedroomed starter home. It was also looking seriously run-down.
The window frames were grimy and rotting. There were cobwebs around the front door, upon which the faded yellow paint was peeling. It looked like it was the only house in the street that still had its original front door from forty years ago. It didn’t look as if any work had been done on the whole house since it was built.
As he pressed the doorbell, he wondered whether his younger self would be in. If he was, how would he be likely to react to Josh’s arrival? Would he be as amenable as the Professor had been once he had explained everything?
After a few seconds with no signs of life, he wondered if the doorbell was working. He hadn’t heard it chime when he had pressed it. Was it broken, or was it one of those that couldn’t be heard from outside? There was a panel of clear glass in the top half of the front door, but he couldn’t see a lot, as the sun was reflecting directly back from the pane.
He moved closer, using his body to shield the window from the sun, and peered through the glass, trying to see more of what was inside.
What he saw was a mess. The house was open-plan with a kitchen at the front and he could see piles of crockery on the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. There were toys scattered around on the floor and he could see that it all looked in need of a good hoovering, even from where he was standing.
Deciding that the doorbell was probably in the same state of repair as the rest of the house, he banged on the door. That caused a baby to start crying followed swiftly by a woman shou
ting out, “For fuck’s sake, who’s that?” It was unmistakeably Lauren’s voice.
Thirty seconds later, she appeared, wearing a grubby-looking, white dressing gown and clasping her baby to her chest. The child, who couldn’t have been more than about six months old, was screaming its head off.
She flung open the door aggressively, immediately assailing him with, “Who are you and what do you want? You’ve just woken my baby up, banging on the door like that.”
Josh had never seen Lauren looking like this before. Motherhood didn’t seem to be suiting her at all. She looked worn out and it was impossible not to notice how big she was – at least four dress sizes larger than he had ever seen her.
He could tell that the baby was a boy. He looked at the child, still crying uncontrollably, a strange and melancholy feeling washing over him as he met the son he had never had.
There was no sign of his younger self, so he would have to try and see what he could find out from Lauren. He didn’t imagine he was going to get long before she closed the door on him, so there was no point skirting around the issue. He would just have to come right out with it.
“Don’t you recognise me?” he asked.
She looked closely at him. “No,” she replied. “Should I?”
“It’s me, Josh,” he said, “your husband.” It felt weird saying it, but not nearly as weird as it probably sounded to her.
“My husband?” she said incredulously. “I don’t think so. My husband’s out at work, earning the money to keep this roof over our heads. Are you some sort of weirdo?”
“Look closely at me,” said Josh. “I am him, just older.”
She examined his face closely. “OK, I’ll admit, you do look a little bit like him. But get real, will you. My husband is twenty-three years old. You’re an old man!”
He was getting fed up with people telling him how old he looked. He guessed that was something he was going to have to get used to.
