Ahead of his Time Adrian Cousins (most recommended books TXT) 📖

back to my place, but Jen and I are trying to work through some stuff at the moment, as I’m sure you can understand.”

“How’s that going? Is she any closer to believing?”

“Oh, Martin, I don’t know. Although the bomb was terrible, I think it has shifted her thinking to maybe believe we are from the future. I tried to think about what I’d do in her shoes. To be honest, I really don’t think I’d believe it.”

“I still can’t, and we’re bloody here. Right, do you reckon they sell veggie burgers in that Chippy?”

“Oh, Martin, for fuck sake!”

He grinned. “There … got you! Only joking, mate. I know, nothing veggie in this era.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m sure they’ll do a battered Mars-Bar, though.”

22

23rd January 1977

Hot Wheels

Sunday was our first opportunity for Jenny and I to properly talk. Stephen and Christopher entertained themselves with a Hot Wheels racing car track that they’d rigged up from Christopher's headboard, which supplied enough gravity to send their cars through two loop the loops. After pleading for my assistance to connect the track, I was surplus to requirement, and the boys were enjoying themselves by the sounds of their cheerful shouts.

Beth slept soundly in her pram. She looked contented after her feed, and I wondered what she was dreaming about – perhaps a new pair of Jimmy Choo shoes or a Prada handbag – if she was still the same Beth.

The weather had improved, although still a dreary January. All the snow had vanished apart from Christopher’s snowman, which had now shrunk, with its head listing to the right. Its carrot nose now lying on the ground and appeared to have been nibbled at by some passing rodent. I stood by the open back door holding a mug of coffee and smoking a cigarette. Jenny joined me at the door and lit a cigarette, both of us gazing out into the garden.

“Martin said you were his boss at that steel company, and all of your team hated you, is that right?” She looked up at me but didn’t touch me. Since that bloody doorbell chimed last Sunday, the point at which my perfect life started swirling down the plughole into the sewers, we hadn’t enjoyed any physical contact.

I nodded as I blew the smoke out into the garden. It hung in the air for a brief moment before wisping away in the gentle breeze. “I wasn’t aware they all hated me. But I do know I was miserable back then, so I guess it’s not surprising.” I turned and stared at her, scanning those beautiful green eyes, so desperate to know what was happening in her head.

“You said in this kitchen when you were talking to George that Elvis Presley dies this year … is that true?”

“Yes. Yeah, he does. Heart attack whilst sitting on the loo if I remember.”

“You can't remember when exactly?”

“No. I have absolutely no idea.”

“When you were talking to Beth, you said something about dealing with her abuser. What was that about? I’d forgotten it until today, but now it’s worrying me.”

“You’re talking like you’ve come around to the idea, and you might believe my story that Martin and I have time-travelled. Do you believe me now?” I turned away to gaze back into the garden for fear of seeing the mistrust in her face.

Jenny laid her left hand on my chest and looked up at me. “I want to … but it’s … it’s so hard to believe it.”

I leant around her, stubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray then pulled her close to me. She rested her head on my chest. “Beth was abused as a child by a guy called David Colney. David was a sixteen-year-old boy at my school last year, and he’s the boy that fell to his death up at the Broxworth Estate last September.”

Jenny pulled her head away from my chest and looked up. “And you killed him?”

“No. But I could’ve saved him, and I chose not to because I knew his future. Not only did he abuse Beth in the ’80s … he also murdered women in the next century.”

Jenny rested her head on my chest again. I closed the back door, but we stayed where we were and held each other close.

“I want you to tell me everything. I’m going to try and believe you. But I want you to tell me everything about your previous life, plus everything George said this week.”

I babbled on for ages with a run-through of my first forty-two years and then in much more detail about the last five months. I left out two reasonably significant bits of information. Firstly, the Jess bit, and I don’t know why. Something in my head told me to avoid that particular part of my ridiculous adventure. Secondly, the belief that one of the Colney Brothers was Martin’s father, as I needed to keep the lid down on that one for the moment.

Christopher and Stephen were contented with their toy cars, Beth slept soundly, and Jenny stayed quiet as I talked. Jenny looked up at me a minute after I had fallen silent, with tears filling her eyes.

God, I hated what I was putting her through. Why did Martin have to follow me back to 1977? Everything would have been perfect if he’d just bloody well stayed where he was.

“What d’you think happened to Jason? The one who was here in your life before you? You know the other Jason as you call him.”

“Jen, I don’t know.”

“But, Jason, people just don’t disappear.”

“People don’t time-travel either.”

“No, they don’t. But you believe you have.”

“And you don’t? Do you still think this is some elaborate story?”

Jen pulled away and grabbed her handbag from the kitchen table. She rummaged through it, tutting to herself as she searched what seemed to me to be a bottomless pit. The bag’s contents were now being flung out onto the table, producing a heap of stuff that seemed too large to be