The Time Bubble Box Set 2, стр. 22
He went over and picked it up but recoiled when he saw whatwas growing inside, a furry, green mould in what presumably had once been a cupof tea. He was so disgusted that he involuntarily let go of it, dropping itonto the laminated bedroom floor. It smashed into several pieces, spreadingvile green liquid across the floor.
“Great start,” he muttered. He had lovingly looked after hisVilla mug for over three decades and had now broken it less than three minutesafter arriving back in the past. Thank goodness this was another universe andthe original would still be waiting for him when he returned to the 2050s.
As for the rest of the room, had he really been this much ofa slob as a teenager? He supposed he must have been.
“Bloody hell!” came a shout from downstairs, in the familiarand much-missed voice of his father. Josh knew exactly what he would be doingdown there – the same thing he did every Saturday afternoon.
Geoff Gardner loved his sport and would be watching theracing on ITV followed later by the live football scores on Sky Sports. He betheavily on both these sports and it was almost certain that the utterance Joshhad just heard was related to some sort of gambling mishap.
His father was dead by 2057 but Josh had encountered himseveral times in the past, most notably when attending his wedding in 1992. Hehadn’t been able to reveal his identity then because no one would have believedhim, but there were no such worries today. There was no way any externalobserver could know that he was occupying his younger self. It was an oddfeeling – in a way he almost felt like an imposter in his own body.
Speaking of which, he looked down at himself, marvelling atthe smoothness of his skin and how much slimmer he was. It was hard to believehe had ever been like this, but here he was.
His backache from the previous day was gone, and he feltamazingly awake and full of energy. This fountain of youth that he and theothers had created had an awful lot going for it. No wonder Vanessa saw it as ahuge money-spinning opportunity. Who wouldn’t spend a fortune to experiencethis?
He was keen to go downstairs and see his dad, but beforethat he needed to establish exactly what the agenda was for the evening, as thedetails had long gone from his memory.
Reaching into the pocket of the incredibly skinny jeans hewas wearing, he pulled out an iPhone. This particular version was an antique inhis time but the latest state-of-the-art gadget in 2020.
Unlocking it wasn’t a problem as it asked him for athumbprint, but then it took him a minute or so to track down the text icon andreacquaint himself with the delights of SMS text messaging, long defunct by histime when few people still typed messages. Slowly, he managed to tap out ashort message to a teenage version of Charlie which read:
What time are we meeting up, mate? I forgot.
The response was swift.
I told you this morning! 6pm at The White Swan – don’t belate!
That gave him a couple of hours to kill which suited himjust fine. He would start by going down to see what his dad was up to, eventhough he knew already what to expect.
Sure enough, on arriving in the living room, he was greetedby the same scene he had witnessed almost every Saturday afternoon while he wasgrowing up. His father, a burly, middle-aged builder with a growing pot belly,was sitting on the black leather sofa, leaning forward excitedly as he watchedthe TV.
Unusually for Geoff, he was also sporting a rather bushy anduntidy beard, something Josh recalled he had experimented with for a shortperiod during an ill-considered attempt to look like a hipster.
It was during a period when, for some inexplicable reason,facial hair had become fashionable again. Thankfully the trend didn’t last muchbeyond the early 2020s. By Josh’s time, beardy images of men of the era werenow held up to ridicule along with other fashion disasters of the past such asflares and shell suits.
His father was clutching a can of Stella in one hand and aselection of betting slips in the other. Most people had bet on the internet bythis time but Geoff was strictly old school. He still enjoyed going down to thebetting shop every Saturday morning where he placed the classic mug punter betsof Yankees and football accumulators.
Josh looked at the TV where the familiar face of JeffStelling, who as far as Josh knew had been presiding over the football scoresforever, was eagerly relating the afternoon’s happenings. Things didn’t seem tobe going well on the betting front judging by the several discarded slips whichhad already been screwed up and thrown onto the coffee table in disgust.
“Alright, son! What you up to?” asked Geoff, looking upbriefly. He didn’t wait for an answer, instantly focusing back on the screen.“Oh for Christ’s sake look at that!” he exclaimed. “What’s wrong with thisdamned team?”
Josh looked across to see that Burton Albion had just takenthe lead against Oxford United, their local team, who had spent recent seasonsmired in mid-table mediocrity in one of the lower divisions.
“Third game of the season and this is going to be threedefeats on the trot,” lamented his dad. “The sooner they get rid of that bloodymanager, the better.”
Josh couldn’t even remember who Oxford’s manager was at thetime: there had been so many. He decided to change the subject.
“How did your horses get on today, Dad?”
“Terribly,” replied Geoff.
Nothing new there, thought Josh. He remembered that his dadalways made himself out to be an expert on their occasional forays to the racesbut his results told a different story.
“Well, I had better go and get ready,” he said. “I’m outwith the lads tonight.”
“Have a good time, son,” replied his dad. “Here, have a beeron me. I may have had a bad day on the horses, but I can still buy