by Jason Ayres
He wandered up the street towards a large hotel on the corner, a stone, whitewashed building which was also a hotel in his own universe. Engrossed in his thoughts about what to do next, he didn’t notice the woman in the pink, frilly dress leaning against the wall until he was almost at the corner. She certainly noticed him, though, and accosted him in a voice that was vaguely familiar.
“Hey, stranger,” said the woman. “You new in town?”
He looked up at the woman, a sense that he knew her washing over him. She was tarted up with way too much make-up and smelling of strong perfume. It was blatantly obvious what trade she was plying. She was selling her wares, her outfit reminiscent of a good-time girl in a Texan whorehouse.
He was initially surprised by this. Hadn’t people been a lot more puritanical in Victorian times? He couldn’t imagine prostitutes being allowed to conduct their business in broad daylight in his town in those days.
But then, these weren’t Victorian times, he reminded himself. There was not even a Queen Victoria, and probably never had been. Perhaps moral values were a lot more relaxed in this world and prostitutes hanging around on street corners were just a normal part of the everyday scene.
“You want to have some fun?” she asked. “I’ve got a room just upstairs here.”
Suddenly he realised who she was. The tone of her voice was unmistakeable, even masked as it was in the strong, rural accent her counterpart in the other universe lacked. Her clothes and hair were completely different, as befitted her trade, but even under the layers of make-up, he knew that chubby, cheeky little face anywhere.
“Lauren?” he asked.
“No, dearie, my name’s Annie. That’s Annie Watson, at your service. Now, what’s it to be?”
He looked closely at her face again. It was undoubtedly Lauren, or someone who looked incredibly like her. The surname was right, too: it was only her first name that was different, but why?
“Very pleased to meet you, Annie,” he said. “Tell me, how did you get your first name?”
“After the princess of course,” she said. “Princess Annie of Cornwall.”
“There’s a Princess of Cornwall now?” he asked.
Like every world he visited, curiosity was getting the better of him, and he knew now he wouldn’t be able to leave until he had found out more about this so very different world.
“There always has been! Now come on, time is money,” stressed Lauren/Annie impatiently. “What’s your pleasure? Come upstairs with me, and you can stick it anywhere – and I mean anywhere.”
This may not have been the same Lauren as the one he had grown up with, but she was every bit as filthy. He imagined that this version of her probably enjoyed her profession immensely. Recalling their past sexual adventures, he was almost tempted for a moment, but then remembered that he was a married man, even if it wasn’t in this universe. He also didn’t have any money, so couldn’t have done the business even if he wanted to.
“I’m really sorry, Annie, I’d love to stay and play, but I’m a little financially embarrassed at the moment. You don’t know if there’s any work going around here, do you?”
“Try up at the station,” she said. “They’re putting in a new railway line and are always looking for men. There’s plenty of work going – most of the farm labourers have been working up there since the harvest came in.”
“Thanks,” replied Josh. “I’ll check it out.”
“Don’t do your back in,” said Lauren. “I’ll still be here later if you want to come back and spend your wages in me.”
She winked at him theatrically. She really was every bit as incorrigible as the original. He bid her farewell, heading out of the town centre in the direction he had heard the train toot from earlier. Hopefully the station would be in the same location it was in his world.
Getting a day’s work was remarkably easy. Despite his strange appearance and late arrival, the foreman seemed only too happy to have another pair of hands on the job. He offered him a few hours’ work on the spot, which he was delighted to discover was paid daily in cash.
Annie hadn’t been joking when she had mentioned his back. It was exhausting work, laying railway sleepers along a track that would soon connect the town to Buckingham. Chatting to his fellow workers, he got the impression that Buckingham was a much larger and more important town in this universe than in his. Milton Keynes, however, didn’t exist, as he discovered when he asked if the tracks would continue on to there.
He found the men a friendly bunch to work with, surprisingly tolerant of having a stranger in their midst. It seemed there were more jobs going than there were people to fill them, and they were only too glad for the help.
After his Milton Keynes question, he was a little guarded in what else he asked his fellow workers. He didn’t want to ask questions about things that everyone ought to already know. A question such as, ‘Is London the capital of England?’ would make him look seriously strange.
What he did glean from the general conversation was that the lack of workers was down to repeated outbreaks of the Black Death, a scourge that was still killing millions, even in the 21st century. Fortunately, it had been over five years since it had last struck. It would be a sorry end indeed to Josh’s travels if he was to die of bubonic plague.
He had been forced to leave his backpack in the care of the foreman when he had gone out to work, breaking his golden rule not to let the tachyometer out of his sight. Thankfully it had not been tampered with when he returned at the end of the day’s work, with fading light calling a halt to proceedings by late-afternoon.
The foreman doubled as a wages clerk, handing out the pay packets to each man in turn. There didn’t seem to be any paperwork involved: this appeared to be a completely cash-in-hand culture. That suited Josh no end – it made the passing through nature of his existence a lot easier with no PAYE codes or National Insurance numbers to worry about.
The stationmaster was a large, middle-aged man, who was somewhat reminiscent of Barry from the hospital but, unlike Annie/Lauren, this was definitely a different man.
“Let’s see now,” said the foreman. “It’s ten shillings a day but since you didn’t turn up until 11am, you get six shillings. Try getting out of bed a little earlier tomorrow.”
He may not have been Barry, but he had a similar attitude.
“Can I have my backpack?” asked Josh hopefully.
“Ah yes, the mysterious backpack,” said the foreman, lifting it up from behind his desk. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. Tell me, what’s it made out of?”
“It’s a special kind of cotton,” replied Josh, thinking on his feet. “They grow it in America.”
“Where’s America?” asked the man.
“You’ve never heard of America?” queried Josh. This place really was behind the times if they hadn’t discovered America yet.
“Is it near China?” asked the man.
“Yes, that’s right,” said Josh, knowing he was on safe ground with this blatant lie. He made a mental note that he must find out why this man was unaware of the existence of America. How could he go about doing that? What would people have done in the old days, when they didn’t have Google or Wikipedia to help them? Then the answer came to him.
“Tell me, is there a decent library anywhere around here?” he asked, hoping that these people weren’t so primitive that they were all illiterate. They had newspapers, so surely they must have books.
“We don’t have anything like that here,” replied the man. “But you could try the Bodleian in Oxford.”
Thank goodness, thought Josh. The good old Bodleian exists. There was intelligent life on the planet after all. He would have to go tomorrow, though. It was too late for tonight.
“Are there any trains running to Oxford tomorrow?” he asked. He wasn’t particularly hopeful, given the current state of the tracks.
“We’re not reopening until next week,” replied the man. “I thought as much, you�
�re one of those academic types, aren’t you? I knew you weren’t one of us, with your fancy coat and special cotton backpack. What do you need a day’s work on the train tracks for, then?”
“Oh, it’s just a bit of research,” replied Josh airily. “It’s for a book I’m writing about the railways.”
“Can I be in it?” asked the foreman.
“Of course,” said Josh. “So tell me, what’s the best way to get into Oxford tomorrow if there are no trains?”
“Try the stagecoach,” replied the man. “Or you could walk. People do, you know.”
“Thanks, you’ve been very helpful,” replied Josh, before turning and heading back towards town. There was no way he was walking all the way to Oxford. He would have to take the stagecoach. He just hoped he had enough money to cover the fare, bearing in mind he also needed to pay for a bed for the night.
He managed to get a room at The King’s Head, where he had encountered Annie earlier, but it cost him four of his precious six shillings. That seemed pretty reasonable in relative terms. You certainly wouldn’t have got a bed for the night for four hours’ work in his universe, not in a hotel this good anyway.
Perhaps that was a consequence of the population depletion. Wages were high, and accommodation costs were low. This world may be primitive compared to the one he came from, but basic market forces were still at work.
Much as he would have liked to have spent the evening in the bar downstairs with the locals, supping the local beer and finding out more about this mysterious world where everything was so different, he forced himself to have an early night. To reach Oxford tomorrow he would definitely need the stagecoach which would use up his remaining funds.
He couldn’t even afford any food, but rummaging around in his backpack, he found a Twix and a packet of Roast Beef Monster Munch. It wasn’t much of a dinner, but it would have to do. At least there was some running water in the hotel, even if it wasn’t en suite. He had to go down the corridor to a primitive shared bathroom to get it.
It was quiet outside and there were no signs of any fireworks, despite it being November the 5th. That was almost certainly down to changes in the timeline which clearly stretched back hundreds of years.
It was not so quiet inside the hotel, though, where he was forced to endure the sound of Annie’s orgasmic screams as she entertained a succession of clients in the room next door to his.
His trip to Oxford the following morning proved to be quite an experience. His perception of stagecoaches was of landed gentry being held up by highwaymen. The real thing was far less glamorous. The wooden coach was designed to seat eight people, pulled by four horses, but considerably more passengers than that wanted to get on.
The concept of a limit on numbers and health and safety regulations in general seemed non-existent here. Josh had been fortunate to be early enough to get a seat – others were sitting on the roof and hanging off the back. There must have been at least fourteen people aboard.
Progress on the main road, if you could call it that, was painfully slow. It was single carriageway, and followed the route of what would have been the A34 in Josh’s time. There were frequent stops to negotiate farm animals and even at top speed, the coach didn’t go much more than about six or seven miles an hour. Even so, it was still faster than some of Josh’s journeys on the A34, where he had been trapped in some horrendous traffic jams over the years.
The journey was also extremely uncomfortable. Suspension was another thing that they didn’t seem to have heard of in this world and every pothole sent jolts through the coach that almost threw Josh out of his seat. How the people on the roof were staying on was beyond him. They must be well practised at riding this mobile bucking bronco.
It didn’t smell very pleasant in the coach either, largely because of the other people. There were no landed gentry in here. Most of the other passengers, all male, looked in need of a decent wash. Deodorant clearly hadn’t caught on here. Thank goodness it was November – he would have hated to have been trapped with these people during a heatwave.
It took nearly three hours to reach Oxford, but despite his discomfort, Josh had found himself enjoying the journey. The slow speed had given him time to get a really good look at the landscape around him and make comparisons to his own.
As he approached Oxford, it was clear that it was also a great deal smaller here. This wasn’t any great surprise, given what he already knew about the depleted population. The outskirts didn’t even begin until he reached roughly a mile from the city centre, about where Summertown was in his world.
He couldn’t be completely sure exactly where he was, as the roads and buildings were so different, but he could make a reasonable estimate of his location based on the gleaming spires in the distance. They were more or less as they should be.
Thankfully this also applied to the Bodleian which was not only where it was supposed to be, but also almost identical to the building he knew. It seemed that the older things were, the more likely they were to be unchanged. Hopefully he would be able to do all the research he wanted.
Over the next few hours, he devoured as many history books as he possibly could, putting together the pieces of the mystery. Finding the source of the change had been easy. He had already been given a huge clue with the news of a new King Harold being on the throne. It all stemmed back to one of the most important events in the history of England – the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
In this universe, William the Conqueror had been vanquished, leaving Harold as the victor bringing a whole new line of succession. William’s death didn’t therefore support the theory that everyone in Britain was descended from him. If that was true, how did that explain Annie the prostitute? She was so similar to Lauren that it had to be the same person. Clearly some bloodlines must have persevered into this century, whether William was present or not.
After Hastings, history had deviated considerably. With the Normans not established in Britain, centuries of warfare continued to rage between England, France and other countries in Europe. The concept of parliament had never been properly established, leaving England and many other countries in Europe still ruled by absolute monarchies. No wonder there had been no fireworks the previous evening. Guy Fawkes, if he had even existed, would have had nothing to blow up.
With resources continually required to fight the wars in Europe, exploration of the world had taken a back seat. America had not been discovered until the 19th century, and was not even called America. The whole of the North American continent was now referred to the West Indies, and remained under the control of the native population who had managed to resist colonisation. The same was true of Australia, now called Kamerra, according to the world map. In fact, the map of the world looked very different to the one Josh was familiar with. The shapes of the continents were the same, but many of the names on it differed.
He was not surprised to discover that the world’s population was estimated at only around 700 million, less than one tenth of what he was used to. Of these, only around eight million lived in England, the population kept down by the wars, the plagues and the complete lack of modern medicines.
Josh could have quite happily stayed in the library all night, but was ushered out at closing time into the early evening darkness. With no money left, and feeling incredibly hungry, not having eaten all day, he knew he couldn’t stay in Oxford another night.
The tachyometer was charged up and ready to go, so he headed for Christ Church Meadow. Despite the very different nature of most of this world, this area was remarkably similar. Even his faithful old tree was there, in the same location it had always been. Hopefully, next time he would find himself somewhere a little more like home.
Chapter Fourteen
September 2024
He emerged, blinking as his eyes reacted to the bright sunshine that suddenly illuminated the world around him. The time of day hadn’t changed, but he had jumped more than two months back this time, straight into the lighter e
venings.
After several trips arriving in the long, dark November and December days, it made a welcome change to arrive in late summer. Pleasant as the warmth of the sun on his skin was, it also served as a wake-up call. It was a reminder that the duration of his trips back in time were increasing exponentially. He was going to have to find a way out of this predicament soon. He had already jumped five times and was no nearer finding salvation than when he started.
Scanning the Oxford skyline, he was encouraged to see that everything seemed to be back where it should be. There were lots of people in the park, all wearing clothes appropriate to the era, and he could hear the distant hum of traffic on the High Street in the distance.
Everything around him was screaming out as reassuringly normal. Now he just had to hope that applied to the Josh here as well. He just had to hope he wasn’t missing, or dead, and that he hadn’t screwed up his life in some way or other.
It had just gone 7pm, too late to go hunting for his counterpart tonight, and besides, he was absolutely starving after two days with hardly any food. He was also extremely tired. He needed food and rest. Thankfully his money was once again legal tender so he headed straight for an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant on Magdalen Street. There he pigged out to his heart’s content.
“Got my money’s-worth there,” he quipped to the young girl on the till, patting his stomach. He was quickly learning that when he got the chance to eat, he needed to take full advantage. His last trip had demonstrated all too well that during this journey he could never be sure where the next square meal was coming from.
After he had finished, he went straight back to what was becoming his regular hotel on Abingdon Road. He booked himself in and went straight to bed, stuffed and exhausted. He didn’t even bother turning the TV on to check the news. It could all wait until morning. He wasn’t too worried about things in this world. He hadn’t noticed a single thing out of place here since he had arrived.
