Rewind

I picked up the remote control in the lounge. At that time I believed I still needed it to effect whatever unknown influence I discovered I had on the passage of time. I thought about going back to a couple of hours earlier this morning to when Mum got up first, while I had still been in bed asleep. It started to get a little darker and I noticed the clock was running back to seven o'clock when I clicked on the play button.

I was still standing in the lounge when I heard Mum come down as quietly as she could on the creaky stairs. I went out into the hallway to meet her. She was still in curlers and wearing a dressing gown. I made her jump!

She wondered why I was already up and dressed, as she hadn't heard the shower and besides I rarely got up before mid-morning nowadays and I hadn't shaved for days at a time, until now. She was impressed. I felt my chin, I had shaved, of course I had, but that was in my timeline, about half-past eight in the morning. In this new timeline that I had somehow shifted to, it was only five past seven. I had some thinking and figuring out to do to get my head around this weird rewind stuff.

I told Mum I had just had a quick flannel wash and shave and that this morning I had decided to turn over a new leaf and try and get my life back together. She hugged me and cried with joy, admitting that she had been very worried about me, and Dad got up to see what the commotion was about and he hugged me too. I declined breakfast, how could I explain that I had already eaten? I explained my lack of appetite away, saying that I was watching my waistline. More thumbs up from a relieved Dad, although Mum tut-tutted that I was too thin.

I waved them both off to work at their normal time and then sat down to look at my past and my future. Things were looking up, for the first time in several months I felt positive about my future.

Also, after being apart from my wife for two months I felt optimistic about starting to get Terry back into my life. I wondered if I could arrange a meeting with her and, if it all started to go badly, maybe I could rewind it a couple of sentences or so and by trial and error manage to steer my way through and say all the right things, like in Groundhog Day, and win back the heroine's heart. Was it worth a try? Well, what did I have to lose?

I played around with rewinding time on that magic Monday and, through trial and error at an employment agency, managed to get an interview for a job on Wednesday. I found I didn't actually need the remote, I just allowed myself to relax and focus my mind on rewinding my life.

That interview on Wednesday afternoon, at a commercial medical research facility, went like a dream. I played the interviewer like a violin, rewinding every time his body language looked unpromising, a couple of minutes here, half a sentence there, telling him everything he wanted to hear, half of which he had hinted at after I had given him wrong answers. I simply rewound and put every mistake right. He was impressed, I was everything he was looking for in a laboratory technician. Of course I was!

We shook hands in the reception at the end of the interview, after he assured me that, if I accepted the job that he was prepared to offer me right there and then, I could start Monday morning.

I left it with him that I would consider it for one day. I lied that I had other offers to consider and he immediately offered a significant signing on bonus, as well as expenses as an incentive. Apparently he regarded me as perfect for the job, so it was no surprise to him that I would be in demand by rival companies. Of course I was perfect for the job, I knew that I would never make a mistake that I couldn't put right, I was going to be the best damn research lab technician he'd ever had. So I accepted on a handshake and he filled out a petty cash slip for my expenses and bonus there and then.

The pretty receptionist looked at me differently to how she had when I had first turned up. In her eyes I was no longer a no-hope loser, as she handed me the petty cash I was claiming. As I returned the visitor pass, she smiled very sweetly, saying she was quite impressed, their Mr Johnston was usually quite severe with candidates, apparently.

She fluttered her eyelids as she looked forward to the pleasure of seeing me sign in every morning and evening in the near future. She then noticed with a frown of disappointment that I had a wedding band on the hand that offered her back the visitors pass. I held my hand up and said we had been separated for two months and had had no contact since, so my marriage looked pretty terminal. She brightened, and told that a bunch of my new colleagues went for drinks after work on Mondays, perhaps she would see me there next week? I cheerfully grinned, perhaps, I said.

That evening, glowing in the praise of my parents' congratulations for getting a job so quickly, came the call out of the blue from Theresa. My Mum took it in the hallway and frantically waved me through while she regaled Terry with my job hunting success. Both my parents love Terry, and she looks upon then as the parents she never had. When I picked up the phone Terry said she was pleased about the job and said she was delighted that I sounded cheerful, confident and positive, like I used to be. She told me she was happy for me. Finally Terry informed me of the purpose for her call, the dinner party and that she wanted us both to go, together.

Apparently Terry had just been pestered about accepting the dinner invite and wanted to check if I was available. This was not really an olive branch, she said, we had been invited as a couple several weeks before and she had stalled accepting. She hadn't told anyone in the faculty yet that we were living apart. Although academia is rife with rumours of indiscretions and worse, on the surface a genteel veneer is generally maintained. Terry said that although she didn't want a divorce at least for the moment, she wasn't ready for us to get back together until we had talked frankly about our issues and cleared the air, perhaps through some professional counselling.

It was difficult to talk to Terry frankly in Mum's hallway and I had given up my mobile phone months before, so I couldn't talk to her outside the confines of the house. I made a mental note to buy a top of the range phone with my signing on bonus.

I asked Terry if I could meet her for a coffee on Thursday lunchtime or evening to discuss our marriage. I had already decided on Monday morning that I would give up alcohol for good. No, she was busy all day apparently and had a lecture in the evening, so would be too exhausted afterwards. We could meet on Saturday lunchtime, but that would be after the dinner party. I agreed to both dates and said I would see her Friday night at what she called "my flat", which pissed me off a little. From there we would walk around to the party venue which was just ten minutes away. Everything in Oxford is just ten minutes' walk away.

I thought about rewinding and getting in first with something like "pick you up at our place", but decided against it. At least seeing her again, spending time in her company, even though it was shared with a dry bunch of her college lecturer and professor friends, was a starting point to us getting back together.

***

That brings us to the point where I rang our apartment's door bell that Friday night, and she chucked the flowers on the hall table. I wasn't going to stand for that, not now!

I rewound five minutes, composed myself outside the door, and rang the bell again.

As soon as she answered the door and, before she could say anything, I boldly said "hi".

I held up the flowers and asked, "These are for you, Terry, have you got a vase for them?"

Taken aback as she was with my taking charge of the situation, she allowed me to enter, march to the kitchen and run the cold tap while she automatically dug out a vase from under the sink. She unknowingly rewarded me with a very nice view of those twin assets I discovered I had missed so much. As soon as she was upright I hugged her briefly and kissed her lightly on both cheeks, not giving her an opportunity to object, complimenting her quite truthfully on her attractive appearance.

I unwrapped the fragrant blooms and arranged them tastefully in the vase. I suggested, as she didn't want to alarm her hosts about our current marital difficulties, that we should hold hands when we got there and therefore ought to start off holding hands as soon as we started to walk, so we would be more comfortable touching one another after such a long period apart.

Terry conceded hesitantly, "That makes sense, I suppose."

"Good girl," I said confidently and kissed her lightly on the lips, this time.

She bit her lip uncertainly, regarding me as some alien who had body snatched her former recalcitrant mate.

"Come on," I said to her, "grab your coat, or we'll be late!"

I was enjoying this and felt supremely confident of success this evening. Terry remarked on how upbeat I was, I think she was rather unnerved and uncomfortable, unbalanced, which at the time I was totally happy about.

When we arrived and was greeted at the door by Gwendoline, a feisty grey-haired history professor I had met a dozen times before, I began to slip off Terry's coat and lightly kissed the point where her bare neck and shoulder met, before removing the coat and handing it to our host.

I then proceeded to clutch Gwendoline to me and kissed her two cheeks confidently, much to her surprise. We walked into the lounge to meet and be introduced to the already assembled guests, apparently we were the last pair to arrive. We were then herded by Gwendoline's partner Charles into the dining room where the rest of the guests stood around chattering, we were individually cut out of the herd and sat at our assigned places.

To my chagrin, the couples which had stood together for the original quick intro, were separated into singles at the table, an oft-experienced phenomenon of dinner parties, which I had hoped would be otherwise on this occasion.

I found myself sat between host Gwendoline on one side and some fat tart who had come with this flash American math professor on exchange from Yale. He was positioned opposite us next to Terry, with a ginger-haired long-faced Doctor of Divinity on her other side. The other participants, Charles, the good Doctor's horse-faced wife, a buck-toothed microbiologist and his man-friend, Manuel, who seemed to be a house husband, completed the tableau extraordinaire.

I thought about rewinding at that point, especially when Clinton, from Yale, who was about 40 to 45 and tall, dark, thin, with a world-weary face, sneered at me as he moved his chair round about 45 degrees to virtually face Terry and engage her in conversation. His fat girlfriend spilled over her chair to similarly invade my space and, having heard I was about to start working in a medical research laboratory, she began to jabber away at me about chemical experimentation, particularly where the resultant precipitates could be taken orally.

Something didn't smell right, it might have been Blubber-Hips' body odour, but the whole contrived scenario in front of me had my nasal hairs twitching. However, of anyone here, I could afford to be patient and see how things developed. Intervention, even after the event, was now always an option for me. I couldn't lose, could I? Who was holding all the cards? Who was in control over my, and Terry's, bright future, hopefully reunited as a loving couple? Moi, naturellement.

Gwendoline and Charles served the starters, some chilli-flavoured seafood and tuna mush on toast and the first round of thin, dry wine splashed into the outer of four different cut glass goblets at each place setting. I declined the wine, thank you, wanting a clear head, after all my evening might be several times longer than theirs, depending on the number and extent of replays I was forced to induce. I settled for the jug of iced water as I announced to all my recent elevation onto the wagon of sobriety, as Theresa glared at my boorish manners in the exalted level of present company.

"It is alright," I assured Gwendoline, "I'd also given up chewing baccy and spitting, as well as sniffing glue for Lent and would, just this once, refrain from lighting my farts this evening."

Clinton guffawed, I appear to have hit his funny bone, well, I thought at least one guest appreciated my presence. I thought the Doctor of Divinity was going to choke on his fish slush butty. In response to my vulgarity, Terry moved her chair 45 degrees towards Clinton who took the opportunity to laugh in my face. Rewind time, I thought.

As I played the scene back to where we were all standing, immediately before sitting precisely where Charles had dictated, a shocking thing happened. It was completely unexpected. All but one of the other players acted normally, if you call acting out actions in reverse, normal. The exception was Clinton, who sat in his seat staring at me, his eyebrows lifted and a look of amazement on his face, which was mirrored on my own face. At the point where all the guests were standing by the doorway, except the pair of us, I got up quickly, grabbed Terry and sat us down where Bubble Buttocks and I had sat earlier.

I looked defiantly at Clinton, who grinned back at me, and muttered, "Nice one, Bob", in his American accent, and shuffled round to sit the other side of Terry.

Charles and Gwendoline were a little confused, as was Terry, who tried to get up after sitting and before Clinton reseated himself.

That was when I smelled the rat. The seating arrangements were clearly known by Terry, perhaps even organised by her with Charles and Gwendoline's connivance. This was a bloody set up and I got a really bad feeling about it, not helped by the phenomenon of Clinton not rewinding as expected like everyone else. What was going on? Something wasn't right and I started to feel uncertain of the positive outcome this evening had once promised.

The toasted tuna titbits did the rounds, again, in my new rewound version of the world and I suspected Clinton's world also and once more I eschewed the offered wine and filled my glass with iced water. Clinton joined me on the wagon this time, I think we both realised this could be a long old night. I wished I'd brought a change of underwear and shaving kit.

I wondered what Terry and Clinton's agendas were and suspected to my dismay that they were one and the same.

The second course was a monkfish fillet smothered in white sauce. Gwendoline kept me engrossed in conversation during the course and I turned back to see Terry accepting a forked morsel from Clinton like they were old lovers. That definitely wasn't right. Rewind time? You betcha!

But that didn't go right either, I wanted to rewind a minute, but I immediately lost control of the 'remote' (what else could a layman call it?) to Clinton.

Time slowed to virtually a stop. A slice of fish clearly too big for the implement fell off Miss Piggy's fork and was suspended in mid-air, a gobbet of saliva expelled in agony at the one that got away was frozen millimetres from her open maw. Clinton and I were still active in our own shared timeline, each wrestling for control of the 'remote control' and Clinton was winning hands down. Damn, it was no contest, I was toast.

Clinton sneered again, it was definitely a look that he had made his own.

"Give it up, Bobby, you haven't a hope in hell of beating me, I can tell by your grip on the timeline that you're a rank beginner. I am a master and you'll never beat me. I've been the master of my timeline for over thirty-five years. How long have you been rewinding, a coupla months I guess?"

"So?" I retorted truculently, "This is about my wife and I, not you and me, I need to get my life together and my life consists of me and Terry together. No other scenario is remotely acceptable. So get out of my timeline!"

"Never gonna happen, I want Terry more than you and it's a given already, my friend, she's not just mine for the taking, she's already mine. Give it up or it'll end bad for you, and it'll be even worse for her, believe me," Clinton smiled evilly.

I wanted to get that smug bastard, I wanted it bad, but not as much as I wanted Terry. I knew I'd have to have my wits about me if we were to come out of this with some chance of a future.

"OK," Clinton spat, his ugly face cruel, vindictive, "we are going back to real-time again now. Behave yourself Bud, or you'll be screwed even more than you are already. Don't mess with me. I mean it!"

We were back in play, Jelly Tits' fish course hit the deck in a spray of bread sauce. Terry accepted the offered morsel from Clinton and held it in her teeth as she turned to me, smiling as she chewed it. They were lovers already, I realised, probably had been for months, long before she had picked the argument that drove me to storm out of her life, it now seemed forever. I had lost her long ago and she had set me up this evening to rub it in. I couldn't understand how 'my' Theresa had become so vindictive, it was completely out of character. I had that sinking feeling, without any lifeline within my reach.

"Hey, Bobby," Clinton's ugly thin face appeared in my field of vision from behind my ex-lover, smirking at me, mirroring my wife's self-satisfied smile. "Like the fish course, Bud? I love it, so does Terry here, don't you my sweet?"

"Love it, darling," Terry said, filling my nightmare with despair, she fluttered her eyelids downward, as did Clinton. I followed with my eyes to where their eyes focussed. There, she was sitting on his lap and between her legs I saw a sight which drew out the breath from my lungs like a solid punch to my solar plexus. Clint's hand was under the hem of her short dress, thrusting his finger or fingers furiously in and out of Terry's honey pot. He withdrew his hand and held up a glistening finger.

"Wanna lick, Bud?" Clinton laughed.

"I do!" Terry grabbed his wrist and ran her tongue along the length of his finger. "Mmmm! Nice!"

"Tell Bob here what's it tastes like, baby," Clinton said as he drew the finger completely into his own mouth and sucked.

"Like you and me, darling," said Terry, smiling beatifically, holding my gaze fearlessly, defiantly, daring any response from me.

"Oh, yes, it tastes like both you and me, baby!" Clinton added, "Looks like we've been makin' babies here and you, Buddy Bob, are outta the game for good!"

I had tears in my eyes, powerless to do anything about what was going on. I had gone to that dinner party thinking I could save her, perhaps a little selfishly for myself, but I had always felt that we were good for each other, that my efforts would be for the benefit of both of us. Now she seemed to be in the power of this monster and needed saving from herself.

Clinton wanted to rub in the advantage that he had over me. "Whatever you try to do, fast forward or wind back, you cannot change the outcome," he hissed at me.

I must've looked puzzled. Go forward? In my ignorance I had thought you could only rewind, go back. Forward was something I hadn't even considered.

Clinton picked up what I was thinking straight away. Stupid, I may be, but he wasn't.

"You've never been forward have you?" he sneered, it seemed to be his permanent look.

"No." I replied quietly, my heart broken. Terry's eyes were closed and she was out of it as Clinton resumed his finger's ministrations.

"Let me show you how it all pans out, Bobby boy."

Suddenly everyone in the room became super animated, moving around quickly, blurring head and hand movements, everyone except Clinton and myself, still in real time.

"I'm an expert at this time manipulation so you can never beat me, Bob. I've been winding back and forth for thirty years of my time. That's why I came across the pond to Cambridge a year or so back and then Oxford six months ago. I have to keep on the move because however much you play with time you only have the time you are allotted. My parents think I am only just 13! I was very conservative with these powers at first, just jumping forward to discover exam questions and back again to study and pass them. Everybody thought I was a boy genius and was admitted to Yale age 11, although body wise by then I was already a mid-teenager. I discovered beautiful babes and that I could use the winding back to guarantee having any babe I wanted, just by rewinding and getting my seduction perfectly right the second time around. No-one was out of my league! I bet that's what you was hoping to do tonight, wasn't it Bob Lad? I know because I've done the same thing. I need to tell you, Bob that I have lived 30 years of my timeline in the last two calendar years, and I am totally invincible at this game."