Past Imperfect

by Graham Debenham

part 3 of 10

He came out of a peaceful sleep with morning sunlight shining on his closed eyelids. He lay there for a while waiting for the alarm to ring. After thirty years of waking at the same time five days a week, Nigel found that his body clock was more finely tuned than his alarm clock. He invariably managed to wake just before the 6:30 news.

He lay there trying to remember what he had been dreaming about, but as usual, the details of his dream were lurking in his subconscious, just out of reach. Strangely enough, his thoughts drifted back to his strange conversation on the train yesterday. He had an idea that his dream had in some way featured the old man, but he couldn’t quite remember how.

He opened his eyes, concerned that the news had not yet started. It was possible that he had forgotten to reset the alarm yesterday morning.

Possible, but highly unlikely.

As he blinked the sleep out of his eyes, he began to get the distinct feeling that all was not as he had left it last night. For one thing, he was in a single bed. For another, he was in somebody else’s bedroom. Lying on his right side, not daring to move his head, he moved his eyes from left to right, taking in his surroundings.

The one window in the room was behind the bed, and he could see by the light streaming through that the room was much smaller than his bedroom at East Croydon. There was a dark, oak-stained wardrobe next to the door, and a small desk next to the bed. It all looked vaguely familiar. The wallpaper was anaglypta painted in a soft cream colour. Several plastic model aeroplanes hung from the ceiling on lengths of cotton.

Nigel felt a shiver run down his spine. He didn’t want to look over at the wall behind him; he had a strange feeling he knew what was there.

No wonder this room looked familiar. It was his bedroom.

The bedroom he had when he was eleven years old.

He rolled over in bed. Sure enough, there were the Beatles, smiling down at him just as they had done back in 1965.

“Oh, I get it,” he said to himself softly. “This is a dream. I’m having a dream about what it would be like to go back and change things, just as Wally said.”

He pulled back the sheets and sat up in bed. The wardrobe had a full-length mirror in the door. He caught a glimpse of his reflection. Not too much of a surprise there, he thought, although it was somewhat of a shock looking at yourself as you used to be forty odd years ago.

He stood up and walked over to the wardrobe. It was like looking at an old photograph. He poked out his tongue and smiled. “Well, if this is a dream, I might as well make the most of it.”

He looked around the room. Everything his gaze rested upon brought back vivid memories, like the record player, sitting on a small table under the Beatles poster. His mother and father bought it for him on his eleventh birthday. He remembered how he had pestered them for weeks to buy it for him, just so he could listen to his favourite pop group. They had eventually capitulated and bought it for him. They said it was a reward for doing so well at school, but he knew it was just because he was an only child.

He turned back to the wardrobe and opened the door. Inside, neatly stored on wooden hangers were the clothes he remembered wearing as a boy; several pairs of Lee Cooper jeans, a handful of brightly coloured shirts, and a couple of tank tops. And right in the middle of the rail, still covered in plastic was the thing that brought the nightmares flooding back.

Reaching up, he unhooked the hanger from the rail. Laying it on the bed, he carefully peeled off the plastic wrapping. Inside, in pristine condition, was a maroon blazer with a crest on the breast pocket. The blazer was enough of a shock, but the crest on the pocket made him cringe.

Taplow Street Comprehensive School.

He looked at the motto under the crest: Durum Patientia Frango. The translation had been explained to him in the playground on his first day: I overcome difficulty through patience.

Nigel had been patient for the past forty years and he was still finding things a bit difficult; so much for the wisdom of the ancients.

He opened the jacket. Inside, on the crossbar of the hanger was a pair of charcoal grey trousers. He stroked them fondly. These were his first pair of long trousers. They represented his rite of passage. With the wearing of these trousers, he went from being a young boy, to being... well, a slightly older boy.

He was interrupted in his reverie by a knock on the door. “Nigel! Are you up yet?”

“Yes mum.” He replied, without thinking.

Mum?!

“Well hurry up then. Your breakfast is on the table. You don’t want to be late on your first day, do you?”

First day. Nigel felt his chest tighten. He looked down at the school uniform. No wonder it looked new. It hadn’t been worn yet.

This was bad. This was very bad. Even for a dream. He didn’t mind dreaming about any other day in his life, but not this one. This was the one day when things should have begun to go right for him, but it turned out to be the day when things started to go wrong.

His mind was racing. What was he to do? How could he avoid the inevitable?

He had an idea. Maybe if he tried to hurt himself, the pain would wake him up. Of course it wouldn’t be real pain, just the concept. But it might be enough to jar him back to consciousness.

He looked around the room. In the corner, leaning against the wall was his old cricket bat. It wasn’t quite so old yet, of course, but, well you get the picture. He walked across and picked up the bat, hefting it in his hand. It seemed lighter than he remembered, but then this was a dream, after all.

He held it upright with both hands, in front of his face, the flat side of the blade facing him. He hesitated for a second or two, and then brought the blade sharply backwards, at the same time lowering his head. There was a sharp crack, and he saw stars as the room started to spin.

The sensation lasted for several seconds. When it subsided, he was still standing there holding the cricket bat, only now he had a headache.

He walked over to the mirror and looked, as best he could, at the lump starting to grow, just above his hairline.

This was not a good sign. He felt the bat hit his head. He could see the haematoma under his hair; he could feel it with his fingers.

This was not a dream!

He sat down on the bed. How could this be happening? When he went to bed last night, he was a middle aged man. Now he was a small boy again. But how could this have happened? And, more to the point, why?

He recalled his conversation with Wally on the train. But wouldn’t it be marvellous if we could actually get to find out.

“Good Lord!” Nigel said softly, noticing for the first time the high pitch of his voice. “I’m about to find out.”

“Come on Nigel. We’ll be late.” His mother’s voice drifted up the stairs.

“Coming, mum.” He called back, looking down at the school uniform.

He got dressed and made his way downstairs. His parents looked up as he entered the kitchen.

Both their faces lit up as they saw him in his brand new uniform. Nigel, on the other hand, felt an acute sadness, standing there looking at his parents.

Roy, his father, had died in 1993 from coronary artery disease. His mother Doreen was in a nursing home in Carshalton, suffering from Alzheimer’s. Yet here they both were, young and healthy.

“Well now, don’t you look quite the grown-up young man?” Doreen said, grinning from ear to ear.

Even Roy looked impressed. “You look smart, son, very smart.”

Nigel couldn’t remember his parents being so proud of him all those years ago, but then his memories, those that he chose to keep, were very vague. He rather supposed that this time around, things would be slightly different. Even if he actively chose not to change his past (which would somewhat defeat the purpose of coming back in the first place), he would nevertheless be changing small details without even realizing it.

He walked over and sat down at the table. Doreen took a clean tea towel and draped it around his neck, so that he wouldn’t spill his breakfast on his shirt or blazer.

“Really mum, do you think this is absolutely necessary?”

Doreen looked shocked. “Well yes, I do think that it’s ‘absolutely necessary’, mister smarty-pants. Those clothes were expensive.”

Nigel blushed. Note to self. Remember to talk like an eleven-year old in front of adults.

He found his predicament very interesting. He was basically a fifty-two year old in an eleven-year old body. He had all his memories, past present and future. And, judging from the way his head was throbbing, he still had his adult strength.

He didn’t quite know how what he was going to do differently, but he knew that even the smallest change could have a dramatic effect on his future. And that was another thing. Was he suddenly going to return to his own time once he had made sufficient changes, or would he have to relive the next forty years in real time? As daunting as the latter sounded, he could see certain advantages. A few wise investments in a couple of years could see him become a wealthy man the second time around.

He decided not to bother about that for the time being. After all, Bill Gates would not form Microsoft for at least another ten years.

The sound of the doorbell brought him back to reality.

“I’ll get it.” Doreen said. “It’s probably Cynthia.”

Nigel tried to look calm. Back in 1965 he saw Cynthia every day. They were inseparable. But that was then. This was... well, this was also then. The point was, he had grown accustomed to seeing Cynthia the way she was now. Not this now but... Oh, this was just getting confusing.

Voices and footsteps sounded in the hall. “Oh, Cynthia, don’t you look lovely?”

He turned around in his seat and, there she was. The vague shifting memories faded into oblivion. The reality was here and now, wearing pigtails and pink National Health glasses. The maroon blazer and grey pleated skirt did nothing for her slight frame and pencil thin legs, but this was Cynthia.

His Cynthia.

Nigel was almost lost for words. Here he was, a fifty-two year old man, still in love with an eleven-year old girl. It might have sounded perverse, if not for the fact that he himself was in an eleven-year old body.

“Don’t you think Cynthia looks lovely, Nigel?” Doreen said, almost proudly.

Nigel nodded. “Yes, you look really.... cool?” He couldn’t really remember if ‘cool’ was part of 1960s vernacular or not. It was one of those words that tended to crop up from generation to generation and always seemed to mean the same thing.

Judging from the way that Cynthia blushed and looked demurely downwards, it still had the same meaning.

Roy pushed his breakfast plate away. “Yes, Cynthia,” he said with a fatherly smile. “You look really nice.”

“Well then.” Doreen said, looking from Nigel to Cynthia and back again. “Ready for the big day?”

Nigel pulled the tea towel from around his neck and stood up. “I’m ready.”

“Me too,” Cynthia said.

“Right, then,” Roy said, jiggling the car keys in his hand. “Next stop, Taplow Street.”

They all trooped outside to where the Comptons’ Ford Anglia stood at the kerbside. “Hang on a minute,” Doreen said, rummaging in her voluminous handbag. She pulled out the family camera, a Kodak Brownie. “Right, let’s have you in front of the car. You too, Roy.”

Roy rolled his eyes. “Do we really have to, love?”

Doreen pursed her lips and inclined her head. “Yes, Roy Compton, we really do.”

“Fair enough then.” He sighed, and walked over to where Nigel and Cynthia were standing awkwardly.

The three of them struck an even more awkward pose, and Doreen aimed and clicked the shutter. “There,” she said cheerfully. “That’s one for posterity.”

“Right, then, you two, in the back seat,” Roy said.

“And you behave yourselves,” Doreen added with a giggle.

* * *

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