Acme Time Travel Incorporated - Volume 2

“Did you know that Vicky could be turned off?” Ginny asked.

Gabriel and Ginny were walking into the outskirts of Clacton. Gabriel had not known where she lived until five minutes earlier. As it turned out, she lived about half a mile from his mum’s flat. They walked along the pavement, avoiding the puddles left by the rain, which had now mercifully stopped.

“No, I didn’t know. Neither Vicky nor John mentioned it.”

“Do you think she needs to power down now and again?” said Ginny.

“I don’t think so,” said Gabriel. “I think she wanted to give us some time alone together.”

“I guess that maybe for a ... what did she call herself ... an artificial intelligence unit ... one designed to learn and develop from contact with clients, well, maybe if your usual client contact is ten days or so, but then you stay with somebody for seventy years, well, maybe you become sort of ...,” Gabriel said.

“Maybe they become more human,” finished Ginny.

A van came down the road, close to the kerb where they were standing. Gabriel tugged at Ginny’s arm to stop, seeing a puddle in the road ahead. They stopped, and the van’s tyres sent a small plume of water up onto the pavement where they would otherwise have been standing.

Ginny smiled to herself in the darkness.

They resumed walking.

“It’s just around the corner,” said Ginny.

“Oh, ok,” said Gabriel, somewhat disappointedly. “I thought it might be further than that.”

Ginny looked at Gabriel and laughed. “Do you want to come on up. It’s only a small flat, and I share it with another girl, but she’s away for a few days. You could come and have a cup of tea before you set off home.”

Gabriel looked at Ginny, unsure what to do.

“If it’s not too late for you,” she said, chuckling.

Gabriel looked at the time read-out on Vicky, but then suddenly perceived that checking the time might be the wrong thing to do.

“It’s quarter to midnight,” Ginny said, in a tone that Gabriel could not make sense of.

“For God’s sake, Gabriel,” Ginny said, in mock exasperation. “We might be travelling in space sometime very soon. If you are bold enough to do that, then you should be bold enough to go back to a girl’s flat.”

Gabriel laughed in a self-conscious way.

“Come on,” Ginny said, pulling Gabriel up a small flight of stairs up to her flat. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

Ginny pulled out a key and opened the door at the top of the flight of stairs. Gabriel noticed that the door had a yellow post-it note stuck on it that said

This flat belongs

To Ginny and Moth,

If you’re not a friend

Please bugger off

“Who is Moth?” Gabriel asked.

“It’s short for Mothwell-Barrett. Elizabeth Mothwell-Barrett. Apparently, she got called Moth at school, and it sort of stuck.”

Ginny pushed open the door to the flat and felt along the wall to her right. He heard a switch click and the room became dimly lit by the glow from a small table lamp and a set of fairy lights.

Ginny then proceeded to rush around, quickly picking up things and pushing them behind cushions on the sofa.

Gabriel stood mesmerised. He hadn’t been in a girl’s flat before. He hadn’t known what to expect but had guessed that it would be tidier than his mum’s flat.

Ginny turned to Gabriel and gave a shrug. She looked a bit embarrassed to have to tidy up a mess, but Gabriel couldn’t really see why she had been concerned.

“Sit yourself down,” Ginny called as she made her way into what Gabriel assumed would be the kitchen.

An old sofa took up most of the space in the small living room in which he was standing. It was very old, with stuffing poking out of the seams. It faced towards a charity-shop sideboard, on which were a small pottery horse and a relatively small flat-screen TV. The small table lamp sat on top of the sideboard, to one side of the TV. A string of what looked like Christmas fairy lights were taped to the picture beading. The tiny lights were slowly repeating a phase of brightening up and then slowly fading away.

Gabriel heard a tap being turned on, and water filling up what presumably was a kettle.

“I find those fairy lights a bit ...,” Gabriel said.

“I’ll adjust them,” Ginny said. “They get on my nerves as well. Moth likes them like that, but ... I think if I was here a lot, they would probably drive me mad after a while.”

Ginny came back into the room and bent down over the top of the sofa to adjust the fairy lights. Gabriel watched fascinated as Ginny scrambled and bent over the back of the old sofa.

The small bulbs brightened, and then settled down to a steady glimmer.

As she stood up, Ginny caught him watching her.

“Fancy some tea, then?” she asked.

. . . . . . . .

Gabriel and Ginny sat cuddled up on the sofa. She was nestled on his chest. They had drunk their tea, and then just sat and snuggled.

“I’m not working tomorrow,” Ginny said. “You can sleep over, if you want, and catch a bus to work from here.”

Gabriel felt his heart rattling in his chest. He wondered if Ginny could hear it as well.

“Anyway, time for bed, then,” Ginny said, struggling to get up from the sofa.

“I’ll get you a blanket ... will you be ok on the sofa?” she said, walking off into her bedroom.

“Yeah, that would be fine,” Gabriel said, smiling.

Ginny peered back from the bedroom doorway.

“You really would be pleased to just sleep on the sofa, wouldn’t you?” she said.

“Sofas are fine,” replied Gabriel. “They’re what I’m used to.”

“You’re a really nice, boy ... do you know that?”

“How do you mean?” said Gabriel.

“Well ... not everybody would ...”

“What do you mean?” said Gabriel again, not understanding where the conversation was going at all.

Ginny chuckled to herself.

“Look, Gabriel. I know that you’re good with sleeping on sofas and such, but I just thought that it might get cold in this room tonight.”

Gabriel stared at her in confusion.

“I think we’d be warmer if we both slept in here,” she said, pointing to her bedroom, “if that’s ok with you?”

Gabriel sat staring at Ginny. His body seemed to be incapable of movement.

Ginny skipped over to him, laughing, and pulled him up from the sofa, leading him into her bedroom.