The Time Bubble Box Set 2, стр. 279
In the end I agreed, saying I wanted to spend a little timeexploring Evesham and that I would be back later. Of course, the car wasnon-existent, so I had no intention of returning.
More lies, I thought. Once you started telling a few, itseemed you couldn’t get out of it. One naturally led to another. That was allgoing to stop tomorrow. I was going to wipe the slate clean and start again.
Since I had time to kill I decided I may as well have a lookaround Evesham, as I had only seen it in darkness the previous evening. It wasone of those rare things you get in midwinter – a sunny and relatively mildmorning which was a welcome relief from the endless cold weather I was usuallystuck with.
Across the road from the pub were some very pretty oldmedieval buildings with exposed timber beams. I walked towards stopping to readthe plaques on the walls about their history. Then I walked through achurchyard and into a pretty little park which led down towards the River Avonwhich passed through Evesham.
Alongside the river was a lovely tree-lined avenue whichreminded me of walking down to the river in Christ Church Meadow in Oxford. Thetrees were bare now but I imagined they must look very pretty in full leafduring the summer.
It was quiet and calm down here which was exactly what Ineeded to calm my nerves and give me time to think. I sat down on a bench andwatched as a couple of rowers went by, dressed in all the proper gear, clearlytraining for some sort of event. Maybe they had races here, like in Henley.
I knew that I had wasted my time pursuing revenge over Rob.From now on I needed to do something more constructive with my time. As I satsoaking up the weak, winter sunlight, I realised that what I longed for morethan anything was to feel the heat of the sun on my face again in a warm partof the world. My life expectancy was short and I didn’t want to spend it allstuck in the middle of an English winter.
I knew that there were a couple of years I would be abroadat New Year, but they were a long way off and I didn’t want to wait. Tomorrow Iwould have 48 hours to play with. I could almost fly to the other side of theworld and back in that time.
It was time to make a positive decision. Starting tomorrow,I would jet off and see the world. I had nothing else planned for the next fewyears, so why not?
Obviously I couldn’t book any flights or make any advancearrangements, but that could all be sorted on the day. As long as I had mypassport and credit card, the world was my oyster. Well, at least the worldthat I could reach in a reasonable flight time was my oyster. I didn’t want tospend half my life in airports or on planes.
That was the next few trips sorted, but what of today? I wasat a serious loose end, with only the clothes I was dressed in and the cash Iwas carrying. Having left in such a hurry, I hadn’t brought so much as atoothbrush with me and I was also still dressed in what I had travelled inyesterday. Although I had had a shower at the pub, I still felt like a totalskank.
I walked back into town. Most of the shops were shut but Ifound a convenience store that was open where I bought a toothbrush, toothpasteand a can of deodorant. Then I walked back to some public toilets I had seen inthe park so that I could at least attend to my basic hygiene needs.
That it should come to this – brushing my teeth in a publictoilet like some sort of vagrant and on my birthday as well. This really was alow. Recriminations and regrets began to flood through my mind again. Maybesome decent food would take my mind off things. Despite the bacon and eggs Ihad consumed at the pub, I already felt hungry again.
I walked back to the High Street, looking for somewhere toeat that was open on New Year’s Day, eventually finding a small café which wasserving. There I ordered myself a plate of good old English fish and chips.This was something that always made me feel better, reminding me as it did ofmy childhood.
When I was a kid and we lived in Liverpool, my mum worked onSaturdays, leaving Dad to look after me and Rachel. He was under instructionsto cook us something healthy for lunch but instead always took us to thiswonderful chippy in West Derby. It had place mats with snakes and ladders onthem which Rachel and I used to play with while we waited for our chips. I’venever tasted any as good anywhere else since.
Having said that, the chips in this place were awesome,certainly the best I’d had in years. I started to relax, the comforting foodhelping to take the edge off my guilt and worry over recent events. But it wasnot to last long. Halfway through devouring my chips, along with a succulentpiece of cod, I saw something that almost made me shake with fear.
I was sitting opposite a large-screen TV on the wall at theend of the café which was broadcasting rolling news from the BBC. The volumewas muted but the subtitles were on. I had been idly watching the lead storywhich predictably was about the New Year celebrations. In my life, that wasalways the lead story. As I watched the usual shots of fireworks explodingoutside Big Ben, they cut to a new story, including a shot of a veryfamiliar-looking street.
It took only a split second for the realisation to kick inthat this was Jeune