Time travel

We wait outside Winchester railway station until our ride pulls up. A man gets out of the driver’s side. He’s medium height, broad-shouldered and deeply tanned courtesy of a trip back home to Algiers.

It’s J. In the future. By thirty or forty years. I dive into the back seat and find a book forgotten in a crevice – Hubble: Window on the Universe.

Future J’s house is a monument to the days before house sharing. Rooms smell of recently sprayed furniture polish. Sunlight glides in at impossible angles, kissing photographs of J’s younger brothers, and settling on top of a counter-top dusted with grains of couscous.

A walk beside the river leads us into a market selling handmade jewellery, British strawberries, and Moroccan take-away. The remainder of a Roman wall stands beside a Scribbler. J orbits his father like a toddler and doesn’t stop grinning. Future J walks ahead of us, his cane upright.

In the pub, I return from the bathroom to hear snatches of French and laughter. Future J insists on paying for the drinks because I paid for lunch. He’s gone a while. When he returns, he clasps his lower back discretely.

Later, J and I sneak out of the house for a smoke. He throws an arm around my shoulders and points upwards. ‘You can see Orion’s belt better, down here.’

We close the front door carefully. Future J must have waited up for us. A box of nicotine patches sit on the bottom step.