And this was the bit that had Jim hooked. Just half an hour away. What, if you knew it half an hour before it happened, would benefit you very much indeed?
It hadn’t taken Jim half an hour to figure it out.
The result of the National Lottery.
And so Jim sat in the sun, his eyes closed and his face contorted by the anguish of his concentration.
It was a pity that the last page of the pamphlet, the page with the actual instructions for the mental exercises, had been torn off. Somebody else had got that round their cod and chips, but Jim had been unable to find out who. Still, he gritted his teeth none the less and thought forward.
Had Jim been able to foresee the eventual outcome of these mental exercises, he would have abandoned them there and then. In fact, he would probably have abandoned gambling there and then, along with drinking and all other things that he held dear, and retired at once to a monastery.
Because Jim’s time travelling, added to John’s imminent discovery of a certain sensational disclosure and multiplied by the abominable doings of Dr Steven Malone, would equal an apocalyptic total.
And it would all begin with A Most Exciting Tale.
5
Prelude to the Most Eventful Day
Jack was scraping at his face with a razor, which, like his wit, had lost its edge a good many years before.
“It was a close shave getting out of that little scrape,” said Jack, as he all but finished the messy chore. “As smooth as a baby’s bum-tiddly-um-bum-bum,” he continued, as he applied shreds of Kleenex to the profusion of nicks and cuts that now speckled the shaven area beneath his nose. “Pretty sharp,” he went on, as he examined his sagging features in the bathroom mirror. “And You’ll knock ’em dead,” he concluded, straightening his tie.
Jack’s wife, a beauty in her late forties, sliced bread in the kitchenette and worried quietly to herself. Worrying was good for her; it kept her mind off her problems.
Jack came down the stairs two at a time. “Good morning, wife,” he said, limping painfully into the breakfast area.
“Good morning, Jack,” said Jack’s wife. “And how would you like your eggs this morning?”
“I would like them many, speckled and various,” said Jack. “Ranging – free ranging, in fact – from those of the mythical Roc to those of the pygmy heron of Upper Sumatra.”
“They are on your plate,” said Jack’s wife. “Make of them what you will.”
It was going to be the most eventful day in Jack’s long and uneventful life, but he did not as yet know this.
The Excitement Hots Up
“How would you like your tea, dear?” asked Jack’s wife.
Jack worried a lot about her. Almost as much, in his own special way, as she did about him. Why does she say these things? he worried. Does she do it simply to annoy me? Or does she, perchance, believe that I am a different person every morning? Or possibly she is being unfaithful. Jack worried a lot about this.
“Sugar, dear?” asked Jack’s wife.
“Twelve lumps please,” said Jack.
Jack’s wife popped the usual two into his cup and stirred them with the usual spoon. And then she returned to her slicing and worrying.
Jack buttered up a slice of toast. “You’re a lovely bit of toast,” he told it. “Would you like to come to the pictures on Friday night?”
In Jack’s front garden a postman clung to the roof of Jack’s porch. “Treed by a bleeding lurcher,” he complained. “Or was it a Dane?”
And Grows Hotter Still
“I must be off to work now,” said Jack.
“Don’t forget your sandwiches, dear.”
Jack thrust the brown paper packet into his briefcase. “The price of butter is scandalous,” he told his wife. “But not to worry, eh?” And he kissed her lightly on the cheek, hoisted his trilby hat onto his head, shrugged on his camelhair coat, tucked his case beneath his arm, picked up his umbrella and departed.
“Morning, postie,” said Jack to the figure cowering on the roof of his porch. “I didn’t know it was raining.”
“Raining?”
“Well, as they say, any porch in a storm.”
“Most amusing,” said the postman, who considered it anything but. “I thought you told me your dog didn’t bite.”
“It doesn’t,” said Jack.
“But it nearly had my leg off.”
“This isn’t my dog,” said Jack. “It belongs to the wife.”
Tension Mounts on the Bus
The 8.15 bus was crowded with 8.15 passengers.
“Morning, conductor,” said Jack.
“Morning, Jack,” said the conductor. “Your mate Bill’s up the front.”
Jack craned his neck and bulldozered his eye-brows. “Morning, my mate Bill,” he cried.
“Morning, Jack,” Bill shouted back. “And how are you today?”
“Fair to middling,” called Jack. “Fair to middle-diddle-diddling.”
“I’m very pleased to hear it.” Bill returned to his study of the Daily Sketch. GIANT SPIDER CARRIES OFF WIDOW, ran the banner headline. She was probably asking for it anyway, thought Bill as his gaze left the tabloid and moved slowly up the legs of a particularly well-designed teenage schoolgirl. Shouldn’t be allowed, his thought continued.
And meanwhile at Jack’s house the postman was giving it to Jack’s wife doggy style upon the kitchen floor. This lino needs a dose of Flash, worried the wife of Jack.
Two stops on Jack got a seat. “We’re running thirty-five seconds late this morning,” he informed a fellow traveller.
“Thirty-five seconds late for what?” asked the traveller, whose name was John Omally.
“For work.”
“But I’m not going to work.”
“Where then?”
“I’m going home.”
“But this is the 8.15 bus.”
“It was the 7.30 bus when I got onto it.”
“Ah, I see.” The conversation was interrupted by the sound of a thirteen-year-old fist striking Bill in the face.
“I never touched her,” cried Bill as the bus conductor fought his way through the standing passengers to grasp him by the collar. “A man is innocent until proved guilty,” he complained as the conductor flung him off at the next set of traffic lights.
“It’s the same thing every day,” said Jack to his fellow traveller.
“Not for me it isn’t,” said John. “For I live the kind of life that most men only dream about. A riotous succession of society get-togethers, country weekends, operatic first nights and charity functions.”