This is the 'Bonus Chapter'

Once you have finished reading "Doesn't time fly when you are enjoying yourself?" read this bonus chapter.

‘Eleven minutes’

"Now we've come into all this money, we won't be slumming it in our local, eating pub-grub, will we?” I said to Caroline.

“Course we will,” my wife replied tucking into her vegetable lasagne, “we are not snobs. Never have been, never will be. Besides this is a really nice pub, hardly slumming it.”

“True, I’ll always be a rump steak and chips sort of bloke.”

“That gets peppercorn sauce all over his clean shirt.”

“What? Oh bugger,” I said looking down at the light brown spots all down my front.

“Never mind, it will wash out.”

“Wash out? Buy a new one…hundreds of new shirts, we’re millionaires!”

“John, ssshhhh. Not quite millionaires dear.”

“Near enough.” I was just wiping corn-on-the-cob juice off my face that I had managed to squirt in my eye…again, when a man wearing dark glasses, which I thought was an odd thing to wear indoors during winter, and a baseball cap pulled down at the front, passed our table. As he did so he furtively dropped a serviette on the table in front of us. “Oi, I don’t want your old rubbish, thank you," I said turning my head just in time to see the stranger limping badly out of the door. “What a cheek.”

“There is something written on it,” Caroline said.

“I am the local limping litter-bug, probably.”

“No look.” Caroline unfolded the serviette and held it up for me to read. Written on it in blue ink were the words, ‘GET OUT NOW!’

“Nut-case. As I said we won’t be slumming it for much longer.” With that came an almighty gut-wrenching explosion. The noise was deafening. The brightest red, blue and yellow flash filled the room, then total darkness. As my ears cleared I could hear screaming, people shouting, alarm bells ringing. I was lying on the wet floor with a chair on top of me. “Caroline! Caroline!” I pushed the chair off of me and went to stand up. “Aaargh shit!” The pain in my leg was excruciating. “Caroline!” I dragged myself to where my wife was trapped under the table, the table that we had only moments ago been eating at. “Caroline! Are you okay?” I managed to push the table over to free her. “Wake up, wake up, Caroline, wake up, Caroline!”

***

“Caroline!”

“I’m coming,” she replied.

“Come on, we will be late,” I said, struggling to get my arm successfully into my coat sleeve.

“No we won’t, we never are.”

“That’s true.” That was true, we are never late for anything, and in fact, we are both always early. Wherever we go, we get there with loads of time to spare, and we get annoyed at people who are late if we have made arrangements. With me, it’s a family thing, my mum is always early, and her mum before her. When I was a kid, my nan would be sitting in her hat and coat, hours before the time we said we would pick her up to come to us for, say, Christmas or some other occasion. I say it’s a family thing, but my sister is the exact opposite, late for everything. She will be late for her own funeral that one.

“There you go, I’m ready, let’s go,” she said putting her scarf and coat on.

“Good. Who’s driving?”

“You can, I need to phone my mum, and I can do it on the way.”

“Right-o.” We were off to look at a new house. We had recently inherited a small fortune from a great uncle that I never knew I had, Arthur Derbyshire. It turned out, after some research by his solicitors, that I was the only living relative and so sole heir to his estate. Today we were off to spend some of Great Uncle Arthur’s money on a new house in the country.

“…okay mum, I’ll ring you when we get back, ‘bye.” Caroline finished the call to her mum. “How far have we got left to go?” she said putting her mobile phone into her handbag, where if it was to ring she wouldn’t be able to get to it in time.

“Not far now, we are nearly there,” I replied.

“Good, I’m really excited.”

“Me too.” It wasn’t long before we reached the house. We couldn’t see it from the road; it wasn’t until we went up the drive that the whole house came into view.

“Wow, it looks lovely, just the kind of house I’ve always wanted,” Caroline said. That statement went for both of us. We were looking at an eighteenth century, six bedroom country cottage with, and this is the best bit, with a massive workshop and double garage! It also had enough lawn for me to have a long sought-after sit-on mower. What more could a man want…other than his own brewery? As we parked up at the end of the drive we were met at the door by the estate agent, a young man wearing a light grey suit. He was probably wishing he had put on an overcoat as he was ever so slightly shivering in the cold.

“Mr and Mrs Haverhill?” he said offering his cold, red hand to us when we reached the door. “I’m James.”

“Call me John,” shaking James’s hand, “and this is Caroline.”

"Pleased to meet you, James, I'm really excited about seeing this house," Caroline said.

“Good, good. Let’s get straight to it then shall we? Let’s get inside, it’s a bit parky out today,” James said directing us through the front door. We then spent the next few hours eagerly looking around the house and grounds. Caroline spent her time decorating and arranging every room we came to in her head, except the workshop, that was all mine.

"Will you come out of that workshop and stop wasting time daydreaming?!" Caroline called across the garden.

“How come when you do it it’s called creative designing, or something posh like that, but when I am ‘designing’ my workshop in my head, it's wasting time daydreaming?" I asked.

“It just is,” she said walking away, “and stop doing that thing behind my back, I can see you.” How does she know that every time?

***

We both loved the cottage and decided to buy it, and it wasn't too long before we had moved into our new country home, and Caroline had set about arranging the furniture in every room…then rearranging it all until she was happy…for now. I was more than happy in my new workshop fitting new benches, hanging tools on the wall and putting my various machines into place. The previous owner of the house had left a few bits and bobs behind and I was busying myself rummaging through boxes and drawers looking for anything interesting. “Em? What’s this?” I said to myself. I had come across, what looked like some kind of timer. “Odd looking thing, I wonder how it works.” I started fiddling about with it. It only had one knob, or button that was all, one button and a small digital screen showing the number 11. I couldn’t get it to do anything, it looked to be stuck at number eleven, but I wasn’t going to give up. I put it in my pocket to try again later. Talking of timers, my tummy-clock was about to ring its gurgling alarm, so I came out of the workshop, locked the door and headed up to the house.

“Don’t tell me,” Caroline said as I strolled into the kitchen where she was rearranging cupboards and drawers, “your feed me now alarm has gone off.”

“Maybe,” I said in my innocent voice.

"Well it's tough, I haven't had a chance to even think about dinner yet."

“Chinese?”

“No, I don’t fancy Chinese. How about I quickly get ready and we try that pub in the village?”

“Okay, sounds good to me.”

“It would do…food…pub…what wouldn’t sound good to you.”

“Not a lot. I’ll go and wash and change, won’t be a tick.” I went off upstairs to get ready. It wasn't long before we were heading to the village in the car. Our house was not that far from the village and in the summer we will probably walk to it more, but on a cold winter's evening, we both felt the car was the better choice.

***

“What are you having?” I asked as we were looking at the menu with our first drink sitting at a table in the ‘Rose and Crown’.

“Not sure. What about you, Steak?”

“I’m not sure either.”

“What do you mean you are not sure? You always have steak. Rump steak and chips with corn-on-the-cob and peppercorn sauce.”

“Not always,” I said indignantly, “I also have…”

“Mixed grill and chips with corn-on-the-cob and peppercorn sauce.”

“I was going to say gammon steak actually, Miss know it all.”

“With chips, corn-on-the-cob and p…….”

"Eggs, fried eggs, I have two fried eggs, not peppercorn sauce."

“What have you decided on then Jean-Pierre, the Michelin inspector?”

“Um, let me think…rump steak and chips…”

“…with corn-on-the-cob and peppercorn sauce by any chance?”

“Yes, funny you should say that. Does it come with peas and mushrooms?” I said re-reading the menu.

Having finished our meals, neither of us hang about when it comes to eating, we moved to a comfortable leather sofa in front of an open fire to have our second drink. “Look what I found today,” I said showing Caroline the ‘timer’ from my workshop.

“What is it?”

“I don’t exactly know, I think it is some kind of timer, but I’m not sure.”

“Odd one. It only has the number 11 on it. What sort of timer only goes to 11? Is it broken?”

“No idea, maybe it’s stuck. I haven’t worked out how to use it yet, I’m still fiddling with it.”

“You like a good fiddle, don’t you dear?” I blew her my best raspberry.

After our second drink, we left the pub and were on our way home in the car. I was gazing at the moon out of the side window, watching it keep level with us, when suddenly there was a terrific screeching of brakes, and I felt myself going forward until my seatbelt locked and held me hard against the seat. “Bloody hell!” screamed Caroline “What the hell is he playing at?” I looked up to see a black car cutting right across our front and speeding off to our right.

“What was that?” I said.

“Some bloody idiot shot straight out of that turning. I only just missed him,” Caroline said shaking, “Nearly bloody killed us both.”

“That was close.”

“Too bloody damned close for my liking.”

***

The next day Caroline was still moving things around the house, trying to decide the best place for everything. It's funny, we have doubled the size of our living space and there still doesn't seem to be enough room for all our stuff. I was surveying the garden, deciding on how to landscape it, or in other words, I was lazing about on a garden bench, with a mug of hot tea, daydreaming, as my nearest and dearest would more accurately describe my activity. It was one of those bright, but chilly winter days. I couldn’t wait for the summer to arrive so I could get the smoker fired up and start barbequing. I really quite fancy the idea of making my own sausages this year to put on the old barbeque, I will have to get myself a sausage maker and have a go. More than likely end up being a complete mess, but it will be fun. I finished my tea, put the mug down and got out the ‘timer’ that I had found in the workshop the day before. I started ‘fiddling’ with it, as that is what I like to do, apparently. As it only had one button, there wasn’t really too much to fiddle with.

“John!” Caroline called from the house. “John, have you got a minute?!”

“Coming!” I shouted back. I got up and started walking back to the house, still playing with the timer. For a second I thought I saw something moving by one of the trees. “Probably a bird,” I said to myself. Just as I reached the back door the display, showing the number 11, suddenly lit up and I found myself again walking up the garden towards the house. I stopped dead in my tracks. “What just happened?” I said to no one. I looked at the timer in my hand; it looked to be counting down. -5-4-3-2- “Caroline!”

“Ah there you are,” said Caroline. I was somehow back in the house. “Are you okay? You look white. Did you just call me?”

“Yes, I called you from the garden just now…I think. Something really weird just happened. I was playing around with that timer thing and as I got toward the back door I was suddenly back where I started in the garden.”

“What do you mean; you were suddenly back in the garden?” Caroline said, screwing her face up in that puzzled look way she has.

“I don’t know. One second I had walked up the garden and was going through the back door, then the next I was back where I started. It was as if I had gone back in time, but only by a few seconds.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure…maybe...I don’t know, it was just…weird.”

“Do you think that timer had anything to do with it?”

“That’s a funny thing too, it was counting down, I assume from eleven.”

"So you could have gone back in time eleven seconds," Caroline spoke as if this sort of thing happens all the time and is quite normal.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Try it again,” She eagerly said.

“You do it,” I said indignantly.

"I'm not doing it. You do it. It didn't do you any harm the first time, did it? Besides, it’s only eleven seconds.”

“Okay, I’ll give it another go. The first time I wasn’t expecting it, this time I’m pooping myself.”

“Go on.”

"Okay, okay. Wait a minute I have just had a thought. If I go back eleven seconds, surely I will appear in the same spot as I'm standing now, and I am already in that spot so I will be in the same space as myself but at a different time. Won't I explode or something? Won't I and the eleven seconds ago me just not be anymore?"

“Eh?”

“You know, like on those time travel movies where you mustn’t meet the future you or you both disintegrate or something weird and spooky.”

"Umm, I see what you mean." Caroline was giving it some thought. "I know, stand by the back door, then run outside and down the garden as far as you can before you activate the timer. That way in eleven seconds you will be somewhere between there and here, and not in the same place…I think.”

"You think? I hope. Okay, I will try it." I positioned myself by the back door. "Here goes…I love you."

“I love you too.” I heard Caroline say as I ran down the garden as fast as I could, which was not that fast, I am after all an overweight middle-aged man with a dodgy knee. I pressed the button on the timer. 10-9-8- I was back by the house running down the garden. I stopped and turned -7-6-5- I could see myself by the front door, “God, I am overweight!” -4-3-2-1- I was in the house again.

“That was bloody horrible.”

“Why what happened?”

“You never told me my belly was that fat.”

“I have…many times my darling…many times. Why else do you black-out when you tie your shoelaces?”

“Thanks.”

“Well? What was it like?”

“Seeing my fat belly? I told you, horrible.”

“No you twit, time travelling?”

"Weird. It was the strangest feeling being in two places at the same time and seeing myself. What use it is I don't know. Eleven seconds is hardly time to alter the existing timeline, or change the world is it?"

“No, I suppose not. Is that all the timer will do then, eleven seconds?”

“I don’t know. Let’s have a look.” I started to play around with the button on the front of the timer. It clicked to another position to the right, but the display screen still said 11.

“What is it doing?” Caroline asked.

“Not sure. The knob moved, but it still says eleven.” I pressed the button. Once again I found myself in the garden. There I was walking back to the house…not me as I am now, but the first me. I ducked behind a tree in case I saw myself…this is beyond weird, I am actually hiding from myself in my own garden.

“Probably a bird,” the other me said looking in my direction as he walked past. I didn’t realise that I talked to myself. I’m fat and I talk to myself, this is turning out to be a fun and informative day. Suddenly I saw myself again, yet another me walking back towards the house then stop dead. “What just happened?” The latest me said to no one as he looked at the timer in his…my hand. "Caroline!" he…I called and was then gone. I had just been witness to the last eleven minutes of my life and…

“Well, what happened,” My wife asked me. I was back in the room, as they say.

“I talk to myself as well!”

“I know. What happened?”

“I went back in time eleven minutes this time.”

“Oh wow.”

“Yeah, clicking this knob over it went from eleven seconds to eleven minutes.”

“What if you do it again? Do you think it could go to eleven hours?”

“Or eleven days, or eleven months, or even years!”

“What about eleven decades, or eleven centuries?”

“Christ, that doesn’t bear thinking about, how would I get back?”

“What do you mean?”

“How could I get back from, say, eleven years ago? The first time I went back eleven seconds and the time just ran out. The same the second time, after eleven minutes I was back where I should have been. What would happen if I went back eleven years, would I have to wait all those years to get back?”

“See what you mean. Is there no control to come back immediately?”

“I don’t know. Maybe turning the knob back will do it, I don’t really know.”

“Try it.”

“What?”

"Try it. Set eleven minutes on the timer, go back, then turn the knob and see if you come back any quicker. If it doesn't work then you will be back to the normal time in eleven minutes, and we then know not to touch the eleven-century setting."

“Umm okay,” I said fairly dubiously. "Time travel doesn't mess you up, does it? You know, screw your head up or something."

“I doubt it.”

“But we don’t know that for sure, do we?”

“Well, I can honestly say, that I have never met a time traveller who has had his mind messed up yet.”

“Ha bloody ha, very funny…I don’t think.”

“Look, all we can do is try it and see what happens.”

“We?”

“You.”

“Great, thanks. Okay here goes then; it’s been nice knowing you.” I turned the knob on the timer to the right so that it clicked twice; hopefully indicating that it was set for eleven minutes. “See you soon…I hope.” I pushed the button and immediately found myself in the garden again, where I was eleven minutes ago. Straight away I turned the knob back two clicks and everything went black.

"John, John! Wake up. Are you okay? John!" I felt strange as if coming round after an operation. I opened my eyes, things were blurry, but I could just make out Caroline leaning over me. “Thank goodness, you’re alive.”

“Alive? I hope so. What happened there?” I had now woken up completely and started to sit up.

“You set the timer, pressed the button and collapsed to the floor.”

“I went back in time to the garden, very briefly, but I definitely went back. I immediately turned the knob back and everything went black and I found myself here again. It was like I had ‘shorted’ something out, confused it.”

“At least you are here, and we know that you can get back before the timer ends.”

"Not a very pleasant feeling, though, like being drunk.”

“That’s not such a bad thing is it?”

“Try telling that to a glass of water.” I’d heard that on ‘Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy’ once and have been waiting to use that line for years.

***

Over the next few days, we gave some thought about the timer, and what we could do with it. It was obvious that it would only send us back in time in multiples of eleven, eleven seconds, eleven minutes, eleven hours or possibly more. There was no other choice, always exactly eleven.

“How do you think we can use this timer?” Caroline asked putting down her newspaper.

“Well we could watch the lottery programme and write down the numbers, then go back in time and get a winning ticket,” I said eagerly.

“Trust you, aren’t we rich enough with your inheritance? Greedy.”

“No, you can never be rich enough.”

“I meant, what can we do with this timer to help people and things like that?”

“What? Be a superhero you mean?... TIMEMAN!” I said standing up with my legs apart and my fists on my hips, posing like a comic book superhero. “TIMEMAN, here to save the day, citizens of planet Earth.”

“TWATMAN more like. As long as you don’t start wearing your pants on the outside…like you did when we first met.”

“Eh?”

“No, there must be something we can do with the timer for good. I know you; you will use it like a toy.”

“No I won’t, don’t be silly." With that, I picked up the timer, set it for eleven seconds, walked into the kitchen and pressed the button. I was now standing with Caroline in the living room and in the kitchen at the same time. I ran in from the kitchen, shouted boo! and then ran back before the timer counted back down to zero.

“You knob, you bloody scared me half to death. I said that you would use it like a toy.”

“I was only joking. It was funny, though, wasn't it?"

“No….knob.”

***

Later that day we were driving to get groceries from out of town. The village has a few small shops, but we needed to do a ‘big’ shop, so were off to one of the superstores a few miles away. “Any more thoughts on our time machine?” I asked.

"No, not really. You?" Caroline replied.

"No. I wonder why the previous owner left it behind? A time machine, not something you come across every day is it? If he didn't want it he could have made a fortune if he had sold it."

“What on eBay? Time machine, one careful owner…”

I laughed, “…buyer to collect, yesterday." I said laughing some more. Looking in the rearview mirror I could see a black car coming up from behind. "That car is coming up a bit fast behind us." Caroline turned around to look out of the back window.

"It is. He is going too fast, especially on these narrow roads." All of a sudden he was on us; my mirror was filled with the black car. “Bloody hell! What's the matter with drivers around here?" With that, the black car pulled out. He drove alongside us for a second before overtaking and clipping the front of my car.

“What the hell!” I slammed on the brakes trying desperately to keep the car under control. The black car sped off into the distance. We came to a grinding halt just inches from rolling over into the ditch running the length of the road. "What on Earth was that all about?"

“That looked like the same car from the other night, the one that cut in front of us when we were coming back from the pub,” Caroline said. “Did you see the driver?”

“No, it all happened too quickly. I didn’t even get the registration number.”

“I managed to get the last bit. TME.”

“That’s better than nothing.”

“We should tell the police when we have finished shopping.”

“Why do the police want to know when we have finished shopping?”

“Knob.”

“Don’t talk about yourself like that dear…and stop hitting me.”

***

It felt like hours before help came, it was only really a few minutes, but it felt like a lifetime that I was lying on the soaked pub carpet, holding my wife, willing for the paramedics to hurry to us. I was trying to keep her warm, her hands were frozen. I covered her in our coats and held her close. She was freezing. "Over here! Quick!" I shouted as I saw the bright green uniforms of the paramedics clambering over the burnt and broken tables and chairs. "Over here!" I shouted, "It’s my wife, she’s not moving.” She hadn’t moved for some time.

"Okay, sir, can you let me take a look?" The paramedic said as he bent down laying his kit on the wet floor. "You need to get that leg seen to. My colleague will take a look for you."

“Don’t worry about my leg, what about my wife? Is she okay?”

***

“I wonder who the owner of that black car is. Why did they try and run us off the road?” Caroline said as we were unpacking the shopping.

“I’ve no idea, perhaps the police will come up with something.” We had called into the police station on the way back from shopping and given them the partial number from the black car. “Why would anyone want to hurt us?”

“Perhaps they are jealous. We have just moved into the area, we obviously have some money. Who knows how certain people think,” Caroline said.

"It's weird. I didn't tell you before, but the other night I dreamt that we were coming back from the solicitors, you know when we first got that inheritance,"

“Yes.”

“…and, do you remember that lorry with the scaffold poles on?” Caroline nodded. “We had an accident involving it. The poles came off and hit our car. I saw them coming towards us in slow motion.”

“Great. What happened to us? Were we killed?”

“I don’t know, I woke up at that point, sweating, it was a horrible dream. Since then I have had this feeling that…I don’t know, just not a good feeling.”

“Do you think the driver of the black car is trying to kill us then?”

“Who knows? It just doesn’t feel right.”

“So, our mini time machine,” said Caroline quickly trying to change the subject, “our little Tardis, what are we going to do with it?”

“I thought we’d decided that I would wear my pants on the outside and be Twatman.”

“Then what? How do you intend to save the universe?” She said putting several packets of microwave rice into one of the cupboards. “I love having all this cupboard space, not like our old kitchen.”

“Well, we can’t really, I mean travelling back in time, it’s a bit…well, dangerous isn’t it?”

“What do you mean dangerous?”

“Well, you know…dangerous. Everybody knows about the Grandfather Paradox don’t they?”

“You can hardly kill your grandad if you only travel back in time eleven minutes can you? Besides, he’s been dead for years.”

“We don’t know how far back this thing goes, eleven minutes, eleven decades, who knows?”

“Even so you are not going to kill your grandad are you now?”

“No, not on purpose, but I could upset any timeline. What if, for instance, I went back and saw a kid about to be run over…”

“By that stupid black car I bet,” interrupted Caroline.

“More than likely. No, he was about to be killed and I saved him,” I said taking more stuff out of the millions of shopping bags I had just carted from the car.

“That’s a good thing surely?”

“Not necessarily, what if that kid grew up to become a mass murderer or something. I’d be responsible for his victims’ deaths wouldn’t I?”

“If you look at it like that, yeah I suppose so.”

“What about those people who say, ‘If I could travel back in time I would kill Adolf Hitler and save all those lives.’? Great, but what if one of those people saved went on to do worse things than Hitler and…I don’t know…wiped out the entire planet. Who knows? All I am saying is we shouldn’t mess with time.”

“Would you not go back in time to save me if something happened?”

“Of course I would, that’s different. You are not going to destroy the planet are you?”

“I might,” Caroline said putting chicken breasts into the fridge.

“What, with your cooking?” I jokingly said.

“Oi! Watch it.” I dodged a packet of frozen garden peas flying towards my head.

***

We decided to go to the local pub again for our dinner that evening and I ordered my usual steak and chips with corn on the cob, which had become a running joke as I never vary that much from my favourite pub meal. I had managed to get peppercorn sauce down the front of my shirt and was just wiping corn-on-the-cob juice off my face that I had managed to squirt in my eye…again, when a man wearing dark glasses, passed our table. As he did so he furtively dropped a serviette on the table in front of us. “Oi, I don’t want your old rubbish, thank you," I said turning my head just in time to see the stranger limping badly out of the door. “What a cheek.”

“There is something written on,” Caroline said.

“I am the local limping litter-bug, probably.”

“No look.” Caroline unfolded the serviette and held it up for me to read. Written on it in blue ink were the words, ‘GET OUT NOW!’

***

It was the early hours of the morning when the hospital gave me the news. Not that I needed telling, I had been holding Caroline’s hand ever since she came back from surgery. After what seemed a lifetime I forced myself to leave to get some much-needed air. “What’s the time?” I said out loud. It was like a lightning bolt had shot through my head “The time!” I looked at my watch for the first time since before the explosion. It had stopped. “Shit! What’s the time?” I look around desperately trying to find a clock. I had lost my phone at the pub after the explosion. I went back into the hospital to look for a clock. 3:45 read the digital display at the reception desk. “Quarter to four. When were we eating?”

“Are you alright sir, can I help you?” said a nurse walking past.

“No, I’m fine, sorry.” Realising I was again talking out loud. The nurse carried on in the direction she was originally heading; probably thinking I had escaped from the psychiatric ward. What time was the explosion? I need to get back to before the explosion. I was thinking about our conversation earlier. "Would you not go back in time to save me if something happened?" Caroline had said. Of course, I bloody would, if it was the last thing I ever did, I would save my wife.

“Where is the timer?” I searched my pockets, I didn’t have it on me. “It must be at home.” I had to get home, time was running out. Eleven hours ago was nearly six o’clock, I think we were eating around seven to half-past seven when the explosion happened, I didn’t take much notice. I needed to get a taxi home as I had come to the hospital in an ambulance. I remembered seeing a free-phone for taxis in the hospital entrance lobby. I went to it and picked up the receiver. “I need a taxi quick.” I rudely shouted down the phone. “Sorry, sorry, can I have a taxi at the hospital as quickly as you can please?” The taxi operator confirmed that a cab would be with me in five minutes. I went outside to wait what felt like the longest five minutes of my life. As the taxi cab pulled up I jumped in and gave the driver my address and added: "As quick as you can, it's a matter of life and death." I ignored the driver's small talk as we drove out of town and through the country roads that led to Caroline’s and my new house. “Thank you, keep the change," I said as I stuffed several notes into the driver's hand as I nearly fell out of the taxi in my haste to get into the house and find the timer.

It was just gone ten minutes to five. Where did I leave the timer? “The kitchen!” I went as quickly as I could to the kitchen. “Where is it?” I was looking on all the worktops, nothing. I pulled opened all the drawers, nothing. Five o’clock. I ran into the hall, nothing. “Where is it? Where is it?” I went from room to room, searching every drawer, every cupboard. “Why did we buy such a big house?” The timer was nowhere to be seen. “The workshop, it must be still in the workshop!” I went as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast, down the garden and into the workshop. Again, I wrenched out every drawer and every cupboard door looking for the timer. Five-forty. I was never going to find it. Did I have it at the pub? Did I lose it like my mobile phone? I just cannot remember if it was in my pocket or not. I walked back up the garden to the house. Five-fifty. I went into the living room and sat down on the sofa. I was never going to…“What’s this?” There on the sofa right where I was sitting I felt something between the seat cushions. Putting my hand down to retrieve whatever it was I felt a small hard object. I grabbed it and yanked it out from between the cushions; I was expecting to see one of the remote controls that have this knack of getting trapped in the sofa. The timer! I had found the timer! Quick, what’s the time? Six o’clock exactly. I got up and tried to run to the hall, my knee was killing me still from the explosion; the painkillers I was given in the hospital had long worn off. I needed to find some kind of disguise; I mustn’t be seen by the ‘past’ Caroline, she mustn’t know what was about to happen to her. I found an old pair of sunglasses and a tatty old baseball cap and put them on, I must have looked a right sight, but I didn’t care. I turned the control on the timer from eleven seconds, to eleven minutes, to eleven hours. I had no idea if this was going to work or not, eleven hours is more than I had ever tried before. I looked at the hall clock, eleven minutes past six. “Here goes, hold tight.” I pushed the centre of the control button. Eleven minutes past seven. “It worked!” I had to get to the Rose and Crown as fast as I could. My car was at the pub so I had to use Caroline’s. Grabbing her keys from the hall table I went out the front door. I jumped into the car, turned the key, slammed it into gear and wheel-span out of the drive and onto the road. I reached the pub in no time at all. I parked Caroline's car out of site at the back of the pub, I didn't want her to see it. I entered the pub through the back door and walked into the restaurant area. I could see them, I mean us, sitting at the table eating. There was me stuffing my face with corn-on-the-cob and managing to squirt juice all over the place as usual. Caroline was looking more beautiful than I remember her looking eleven hours ago. I swiped a serviette from the nearest table and finding a pen in my pocket I wrote on it, ‘GET OUT NOW!’ I walked towards us with my head down so that I wouldn’t be recognised and dropped the serviette on the table in front them, us.

“Oi, I don’t want your old rubbish, thank you," The original me said turning his head towards me as I limped out of the front door. I started down the road to get back to Caroline’s car, wondering if I had enough time to return it before they left the pub. I stopped and turned to make sure that they got out of the pub before it exploded…KERBOOM!!! A bright blue, red and yellow flash lit up the night sky. Flames were billowing from the Rose and Crown roof. Lumps of masonry and burnt timber were crashing back down to earth. The fire was roaring and crackling, alarms were ringing, people were screaming, dogs were barking. "Where are they? Why haven't they come out? The bloody idiot…me, I'm a bloody idiot, why didn't I take notice of my warning?"

“Why would you Mr Haverhill? Why would you take a blind bit of notice of a limping stranger wearing sunglasses at night in winter? Mr Haverhill?” I turned to see Mr Wood, the solicitor, standing there.

“You? What on earth are you doing here?” At the same time as seeing Mr Wood, I saw the black car behind him with the registration number M12 TME. “Is that your car? You’re the one who’s been trying to run us off the road. Why have you been trying to kill us? What are you doing here?” The last time I had knowingly seen Mr Wood was in his office in Preston when he told us about the last will and testament of Arthur Derbyshire.

“Mr Haverhill, you do not have time to discuss the reason behind my appearance. The lovely Mrs Haverhill is still in need of your intervention to ensure her future.”

“I don’t understand. How do you know this? How do you know about the timer?”

“We have had, shall we say, dealings on more than one occasion. I know a great deal about you Mr Haverhill, and your family, past, present and, dare I say, future.” He was not making any sense to me whatsoever. “Mr Haverhill, your wife is still in desperate need of you, I suggest that you hurry before time runs out.”

“How? How can I save her? I have already come back in time once to save her, but the ‘now me’ was too stupid to get out of the pub in time.”

“As I said, Mr Haverhill, why would you take a blind bit of notice of a limping stranger wearing sunglasses at night in winter? You obviously need a different approach Mr Haverhill. Reset the timer for eleven minutes.”

“…but.”

“It’s up to you Mr Haverhill, play the game or it will all be over for the both of you…again.”

"What game? What do you mean by the game?"

“Mr Haverhill, it is all just a game…a mere pastime. Time is running out Mr Haverhill, it’s up to you how the game ends.” I took the timer from my pocket it was still counting down. I turned the dial until it once more said eleven and was about to press the button.

“Are you sure this will work,” I said looking up. Mr Wood had gone. The black car had gone, but I didn’t hear the engine start or the car drive off. They had gone; Mr Wood and the black car, both gone…disappeared into thin air, vanished in the smoke from the blazing pub. There was no time to lose I tightly closed my eyes and hesitantly press the button to send me back in time by eleven minutes.

I opened my eyes. “I’ve done it!” There in front of me was The Rose and Crown fully intact; there was no sign of any damage from the explosion as it was yet to happen. “Yes, I’ve done it!” I rushed into the pub, this time I used the front door. I hastily heaved the door open and stopped immediately dead in my tracks. I physically felt my heart skip a beat. “What the hell?” The inside of the bar was different from only a few minutes earlier, the interior had completely changed; I didn’t recognise it at all. There was no one there; the place appeared to be deserted. Where was Caroline? Where was my wife? I turned and looked back the way I had come. Where were the cars? For the first time, I noticed the lack of vehicles and the lack of street lights, or anything remotely recognisable. "Where is everyone?" I said out loud.

“They’ll all be down the village hall I reckon, at that there suffragettes meeting no doubt,” said a voice from back inside the pub.

“What?” I turned sharply back.

“Down the village hall. I take it you be Mr Haverhill?” said a man standing behind the bar wiping tankards with a grubby yellow cloth.

“Yes, how…?”

"I was told a man wearing funny clothes, a funny hat and black eyeglasses, called Mr Haverhill would walk in here tonight. As you are wearing funny clothes I guessed that had to be you.” He put down the tankard he was wiping and threw the cloth across his shoulder. He put his hand into his apron pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “A tall fair-haired man dressed all in black gave me this note to pass on to you.” He came out from behind the bar, walked over to where I was standing at the door and handed me the note. I took the paper; it was on brown paper, reminiscent of the paper used when Caroline and I were ‘treasure hunting’ some time ago. I opened it up and read the words that were typed on it.

Welcome to the year 1907 Mr Haverhill. It is time for the next chapter of the game. Please refrain from any further use of the timer for the time being, as it may have dire consequences on you and your wife’s future.

Good luck and as a famous fictitious Victorian detective often exclaimed, "The game's afoot."

Mr Wood.

The End