Past Imperfect

by Graham Debenham

part 7 of 10

A chance encounter whilst commuting to work gives Nigel the opportunity to go back and change his past for the better or the worse.

They sat looking at each other through the glass for what seemed like ages. Nigel felt an ache in his chest that he had not felt for a long time. Not since he first set eyes on Cynthia Hopgood on their first day of school.

Back then she had been a gawky five-year old with blonde hair, skinny legs, National Health glasses and lots and lots of potential. When Nigel saw her last night, in his own existence, she had achieved her full potential. She had grown up exactly the way he imagined she would.

This morning, when she stood in the doorway of his parents’ kitchen, she had matured somewhat from the five-year old who had first stirred his heart strings. She had begun to shed the fluffy brown feathers of the ugly duckling. Now, in her early twenties, sitting here before him, she had become a beautiful swan.

It’s strange how one never sees the changes in a person when one sees them every day of one’s life. The changes are still there, but so gradual that they go unnoticed.

Thus it was with Cynthia. Seeing her in three different stages of her life within a matter of hours brought home to Nigel how really beautiful she had become and how fortunate he was to have met her.

Then he realized where they both were. Whilst he may have been fortunate in his own existence, he seemed to be making an almighty mess of this one.

It was Cynthia who spoke first. “How have you been keeping?”

Nigel really had no idea how he had been keeping, since he only arrived here a short time ago. “Well, you know. Bearing up. What about you?”

“Quite well. I went to see your parents yesterday. They wanted me to keep them up to date on your parole hearing.”

Nigel looked puzzled. “Why would they ask you to do that? Why wouldn’t they come and see me themselves?”

She glared at him. “After the little performance that you put on the last time they came to visit you, I’m surprised that they even care.”

Nigel’s face dropped. “I... I don’t know what you mean.”

“Really,” she snapped. “You don’t recall shouting and swearing at them, just because they wouldn’t smuggle your cigarettes in for you?”

“But I don’t...”

“You don’t remember reducing your mother to tears?”

“...smoke.”

“You have no recollection of threatening your father with violence?”

“No... I mean... I wouldn’t...”

“Oh... Perhaps you were still in a drug-induced haze when you attempted to punch your way through the glass partition?”

He leaned forward. “Cynthia, I don’t smoke or take drugs.”

She looked into his eyes for a second, a pitying look, before dropping her gaze to his outstretched arm. He looked down. There, in the crook of his left elbow, were several dark blue discolourations, surrounding a small cluster of punctures.

Oh my God. I’m an addict!

“But I don’t understand... How could I... Where would I get drugs from?”

“Please don’t try to make excuses Nigel. I really don’t care where you get them from. I gave up caring a long time ago.”

“Then why are you here?” He snapped defensively.

“For your parents,” she replied icily. “Why else would I have persuaded one of the country’s top barristers to represent you pro bono?”

“But I thought...”

“Do you really think that Wallace Binghampton has nothing better to do than defend a loser like you?”

“Well no, but...”

“He agreed to do it because I told him that you were worth redemption. He agreed to do it because your parents can’t afford a decent barrister. But most of all, he did it because he thinks a lot of me.”

“Oh really...?”

“Shut up, Nigel. He’s been really good to me since I joined the chambers. Not many men in his position would give the time of day to an Oxford post-grad student, let alone train them.”

Nigel was stunned. He couldn’t believe the vehemence in Cynthia’s voice. Was it hatred or merely frustration? He hoped the latter, but deep down inside he sensed that there was a good deal of the former.

It seemed that this second chance that he had been given wasn’t working out as he had hoped it would. Who would have thought that one small act of aggression more than a decade ago would lead to a life of violence and drug addiction? But then he supposed that most really bad things in life start with something trivial.

After all, if Mrs. O’Leary’s cow hadn’t accidentally kicked over an oil lamp in 1871, the Great Chicago Fire would never have happened. And what about Mr. and Mrs. Hitler? If they’d practiced safe sex back in 1888, who knows how different the world might have been?

“I’m sorry Cynthia. I’ve been a big disappointment to everyone.”

“It’s a bit late for apologies, Nigel. What’s happened is in the past. It’s time for you to move on and make something of your life.”

“And what about you?” he asked, hopefully.

“I’ve already moved on,” she replied. “Now it’s time for you to do the same.”

Her briefcase sat on the shelf on her side of the glass. She opened it using her free left hand and withdrew a typed letter with a business card attached to the top. She held it up for Nigel to see.

“I’ll have one of the prison officers pass this on to you,” she said. “It’s a letter of introduction to an insurance company in Westminster. Thanks to Mr. Binghampton, you have an interview there on Monday.”

“Why Mr. Binghampton?”

“He pulled a few strings as a favour to me, just as he did with your defence. With any luck at all you should be out of here by the weekend. That gives you time to get yourself smartened up for Monday.”

She placed the letter back in the briefcase. As she did so, Nigel noticed, for the first time, the ring on her left hand. His heart fell.

“You’re engaged then?” he enquired, trying to keep his voice from cracking.

“Yes,” she answered. “Last year.”

“Anybody I know?” he asked, trying to sound cheerful.

“I doubt it,” she replied. “I met him at university.”

“What’s his name?” he asked, knowing the answer already.

“Rod,” she replied. “Rod Millington.”

This was the final humiliation. This trip back down memory lane was supposed to be changing his life for the better. So far he had befriended one of his old enemies, gained a prison record, alienated himself from his parents and lost his girlfriend to another of his old enemies, all in a matter of a few hours.

“Try to make the most of this opportunity Nigel. It could be the last one you get.”

“I... I’ll try. I promise.”

They sat and looked at each other in silence for a long time. Eventually Cynthia spoke. “And try to lose the earring.”

She replaced the handset, stood and picked up the briefcase. With one final look, she turned and walked away.

Nigel sat there for a few moments as she disappeared from view. If he stayed in this existence, he would probably never see her again. He didn’t know what to do. He sat looking at his reflection in the darkened glass.

This was the first time he had seen his reflection since arriving in prison, and it was quite a shock: long black hair down to his shoulders; a two-day growth of beard. And look at the size of that earring. He was amazed that his head didn’t tilt permanently to the left.

The voice from behind interrupted his critique. “Come on, Compton. I haven’t got all day.”

He stood and walked out of the visitor’s area ahead of the prison officer. Walking into the anteroom he passed the seated officer, who didn’t even look up. Opening the outer door he was met by the officer who had escorted him down.

The walk back to the wing was as silent as the walk down to the visitor area. Nigel wondered why it was that the only time prison officers seemed to speak was when they were giving orders. Perhaps it was an ‘us and them’ thing. It obviously didn’t pay to become too involved with the inmates.

They arrived back at his cell and Nigel stood obediently to one side as the officer unlocked the door. He stepped inside and the door clanged shut behind him. It was possibly one of the loneliest sounds he had ever heard.

He looked around at the cell that had been his home for the past eighteen months. There was a double bunk on one side of the small room and a single cot on the other. Tommy was lying on the top bunk reading a rather tasteless magazine.

“Well, how’d it go?” he asked expectantly.

Nigel shrugged and sat down on the empty cot. “Not too bad, I suppose.”

“Did ya get a letter of introduction then?”

“Yes I did, as a matter of fact.”

Tommy nodded. “Load of old toffee, eh?”

Nigel wasn’t so sure. If he and Tommy were released on parole, he had to make a concerted effort to stay out of trouble. He didn’t know how long he was going to be trapped in this particular period of his past. He figured that he would be here as long as his past remained as it was. The last time he jumped forward was right after he changed things. Everything had been normal until the incident in the toilets at Taplow Street.

That had shot him forward, but still in the past. Only this was an alternate past. Unless he did something to change events, he was destined to be stuck in this particular past for the next thirty years, and he didn’t want to spend them in ‘D’ wing.

“I reckon we should stick with that plan you came up with a couple of weeks ago,” Tommy said.

“What plan was that?” Nigel asked.

“You know. The one about giving the parole board a load of old bullshit about goin’ straight and gettin’ proper jobs an’ everythin’.”

“And then what?”

“And then puttin’ that job together over the north side.”

“What job?”

“Bloody hell, Speed, what’s the matter with your memory? The Highgate bank job. You know, the one that those boys on ‘E’ wing are plannin’.”

So that was it. Tommy had it all worked out for them. Bluff their way out of prison, plan another robbery, bigger and better than the last, get caught and wind up back in here, only for a longer sentence. The last time he watched a police show on TV the usual prison term for armed robbery — he assumed that as it was a bank they would be armed — was fifteen years.

Fifteen years.

“I’m not sure I want to end up back here again, Tommy,” he said eventually.

“Well, let’s not get caught then,” Tommy replied.

“Yes, but it’s not that easy is it? Or we wouldn’t be here now talking about it.”

“That was just a bit o’ bad luck, that’s all.”

“I know, but I don’t really need any more bad luck right now.”

Tommy sat up in the bed. “You’re jokin’, right?”

“No, I’m not. The letter of introduction is to an insurance firm. They’re prepared to take me on.”

“Yeah, doin’ what? Makin’ the tea, or deliverin’ the mail?”

“It doesn’t really matter, does it? At least it’s honest work.”

“Honest work?” Tommy snorted, jumping down from the top bunk. “That’s a mug’s game. Come on, Speed, we’ve been bent since we left school. So, we might ’ave ended up in ’ere a coupla times. So what? The good times are worth a bit of time in stir.”

The sound of a key in the lock stopped Tommy dead. The door opened and one of the prison officers stood in the doorway holding an A4 brown envelope. “This is for you, Compton.”

Tommy walked across and took the envelope. The officer stepped back out and the door clanged shut again. Tommy stood there looking at the envelope.

“It’s my letter of introduction.” Nigel said.

Tommy looked at it. “Yeah, I got one from my brief too.”

“Where is it?”

“I filed it.”

“Filed it? Where?”

Tommy grinned and nodded toward the stainless steel toilet bowl in the corner. He walked across and stood next to it. “Want me to file this as well?”

Nigel looked at the envelope.

This was it.

In this alternate past, he would have let Tommy flush the envelope away. They would have got their parole and carried out the bank job. They would have ended up back inside and that would have been it.

This was where it all changed.

He stood up and walked over to Tommy. He looked him in the eye and held out his hand. Tommy looked down at the envelope and shook his head in amazement. He held out the envelope and Nigel took it.

Just as before, everything became blurred and indistinct. Waves of nausea swept over him and he thought he was going to collapse. He closed his eyes and the white pinpoints of light danced across his eyelids.

Here we go again.

* * *

Proceed to part 8...