The results are in!

Today is the weekly Pensioners Coffee Morning at the Community Centre. Except I'm not going. I've told Rita it's due to a bad cold, and instead, I intend to try out my time machine for the first time.

I've been tinkering with it for months, ever since Harold died. And for years before that. Harold hated it. He never understood why I couldn't be happy baking his favourite apple pies rather than inventing stuff.

It's nearing ten thirty when I climb the creaking stairs of my Victorian semi. I get the prickly sensation I'm being watched. I've lived here for forty-five years, so I'm certain there's no resident ghost. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a flash of crimson. Odd, but I can't dwell on that now, I've got a date with a time machine. I shiver with excitement and skip, as best I can with my arthritic knees, up the last few steps.

I've read extensively about time travel and concluded two things:

1. The secret to travelling time lies in quantum mechanics.
2. 2. It's inadvisable to meet yourself in the past – hence why I am travelling to when I know I shall be out for at least one hour.

In the middle of the dusty attic stands my life's work, cobbled together from old pots and pans and bits I'd half-inched from the garage when Harold wasn't looking. I'm extremely proud of it. I jump in and set the dials. Four weeks ago exactly. That should be good enough for a test run.

*

Fifteen minutes later I arrive in the past, make my way downstairs to the hall table, and deposit my note explaining everything, along with last week's winning lottery numbers. Through the window, I notice my ancient Ford Focus parked in front of the garage. The first thing I'll do is upgrade that old banger. Then I catch a glimpse of red just beyond the car. I soon realise it's a bobble hat, attached to a person, and that person is me! I rush back up the stairs, can't be bumping into myself.

It takes longer to return. The contraption rattles and billows black smoke. It's a relief to finally arrive back.

Once downstairs, the hallway clock shows it's almost eleven thirty. I'm surprised to see my old car on the driveway and the note on the hall table. Next to it is a scarlet woolly bobble hat. I unfold the note and read unfamiliar words in my own handwriting.

You IDIOT!

You have NOT invented a time machine. You've been gallivanting around the multiverse.

Wear this hat so every you in every dimension knows not to approach you. There may be hundreds of us flitting around by now.

You will NEVER know which dimension you have landed in.

Be Careful. Things Change!

The stairs creak behind me. Stunned, I turn and see Harold, smiling at me from the second step.

“Hello Maureen,” Harold says, “have you been somewhere nice?”

Between my gaping bedroom curtains, I spy a spectacle of falling flakes rippling towards the ground and I know that Billy is missing. Again.

The house is silent as I step onto the landing and a blast of cold air greets me as I head towards Billy’s room. When I lift his pyjamas from the bed there’s a warmth to them, but the tiny printed red-nosed reindeers stare grimly. How could you have let him go?

Billy is my snowflake. Utterly unique. Eight years ago the midwife avoided my eyes as she announced his arrival before placing the wriggling bundle in my arms. As he grew, he defied the disparaging connotations of a snowflake. He’s brave, funny, curious and simply happy to be Billy. A child with Down Syndrome.

Billy loves Christmas. He loves the giving, the receiving, the twinkling and the making. He loves the weather too. While we moan, Billy piles on layer after layer, until his glasses steam and we all roll about laughing.

I need to find him, quickly.

Back in our bedroom, Adam’s body rises and falls in blissful sleep, oblivious. I pull on my thick purple polo, no need to wake him. In an hour or so, we’ll be sitting round the breakfast table guzzling pancakes with syrup and sipping hot chocolate.

*

Outside, despite my padded coat and bobble hat, the cold catches my breath. No tyre tracks have sullied the glistening layer of snow. The woman across the road, who Billy helps to feed the birds, waves.

I wave back, but in order to avoid small talk, I let her know Billy has gone again. She nods, then quickly returns inside as a black cat, stark against the white, slinks into her garden.

I hasten onwards towards the farmyard and Billy.

‘Morning, Ella,’ a rasping voice says. It’s Joe, the farmer, rubbing his hands together. 

‘Looking for Billy?’

‘Have you seen him?’

‘Come inside,’ he says, ‘the wife’s making breakfast. You look as if you could do with something warm.’

The cold is making my eyes water and my body is shivering. ‘Not hungry, Joe. But when I’ve fetched Billy, I’ll be making pancakes, his favourite.’

The farmer doesn’t speak, instead he looks beyond my shoulder as he wipes snowflakes from his nose.

‘He’ll be down by the river, we’ll pop by before we head off home,’ I say.

Then, as I step away from him, I sense a presence behind me. It’s Adam.

‘You didn’t wake me.’

‘There was no time, Billy has…’ I say, but then I close my eyes.

It’s two years to the day since our son fell into the freezing water.

‘We’ll go down there together, love.’ Adam wraps his arm around me. As we walk to the very spot, snow tumbles and Adam’s arm tightens.

‘Oh, Billy,’ I say to break the silence and then we both reach to catch as many flakes as we can before they reach the ground.

Smoke billowed on the eastern horizon, a filthy grey smudge in a sulphurous yellow sky. Plymouth was burning. Mavis dropped the curtain back across the only window she hadn’t sealed against nuclear fallout. The television had stopped broadcasting pictures of missiles and destruction days ago. Then the electric was cut off. She hadn’t left the house for sixteen days. It wasn’t for the lack of trying, twice she’d stepped outside but the toxic stench sent her scurrying back indoors. Now she needed food. And toilet paper.

In the garage, she found Arthur’s old spray mask and goggles. They stank of stale sweat and aerosol paint so she gave them a good squirt of Lemon Pledge. She donned them, along with her raincoat, a woolly hat, wellingtons and marigold gloves. Trailing her trusty wicker shopping trolley, she set off for the village store. There were no cars, no people, no birdsong. Mavis had the nagging feeling that it was all her fault.

It had been less than four weeks ago when she’d met up with Edith, her friend from Newton Abbot. They were having a cream tea at a little café overlooking the Tamar. Edith had spread cream on her scone adding a dollop of strawberry jam. Mavis was appalled.

“Edith!” she said. “Jam first, cream after. You’re in Cornwall now.”

“What tosh, I’ll take my scones the proper way – cream first.”

A passing waitress heard.

“Disgusting,” she said, snatching Edith’s plate away. “We don’t allow that sort of thing in here.”

“This is outrageous.” Edith shouted, swiping back her scone and stuffing it in her mouth. The waitress called the chef who promptly frog-marched Edith to the door. He was stopped by a customer with a strong Devon accent. The ensuing fight spilled into the street. A crowd formed, posting videos on Instagram. The police arrived and weighed in with batons. It made all the newspapers.

The next day the MP for Plymouth demanded an apology in the House of Commons. The MP for Truro called him an idiot. A hockey team from Warrington were assaulted in Ilfracombe, their mini-bus set on fire, their assailants mistaking them for gig rowers from St Austell. The Northerners blamed the Southerners, the Far Right blamed immigrants. Everyone blamed the French. China used the distraction to invade Taiwan, an American aircraft carrier was sunk in the melee. North Korea launched the first nuclear missile, others retaliated.

*

The village store had been ransacked, the little café, set on fire. There was ‘Jam First’ graffiti everywhere. Down by the river, a man sat on a bench eating a pasty from a paper bag. He was the first person Mavis had seen for weeks.

“Hello,” she said, “I thought I might be the last person alive.” She eyed his pasty with envy.

“Would you like some?” He held out half a pasty. “I’m afraid it’s more carrot than beef but it tastes alright.”

Mavis was appalled.

“Carrot?” she said, “in a Cornish Pasty?”