By the time Kent lost his first life, only ‘Lampard’ and ‘Terry’were left. They had been taking it ridiculously seriously, sparking memories inKent of their behaviour throughout the holiday.
Every night they had been up onstage collecting prizes andcertificates for one activity or another. You would have thought they had wonthe World Cup the way they showed off and were not happy when they lost. Thathad happened on the night of the pop quiz when Kent put his extensive knowledgeof pop music to good use, beating them into second place.
And now he was about to do so again. He hadn’t played inthis pool match or any of the other activities first time around, so doubtlessthey had won them before. This time, the prize was to be his, as ‘Terry’ cursedas he missed an easy pot to lose his final life.
Kent couldn’t believe how easy it had been, he was neverthis lucky. When he had told the angel to pick the perfect day, perhaps it hadknown that things would fall his way. Maybe it had even lent a helping hand. Winninga meaningless pool competition on holiday wasn’t the biggest deal in the world,but he had enjoyed playing and it had made him feel happy.
The two Chelsea fans went off grumbling towards the lunchtimebarbecue that was now being served on the other side of the pool. Kent couldsee the terrible twins in the distance getting their daily Quad Burgers anddecided to wait a while. With the two big blue blobs joining the two smallerred blobs, there was unlikely to be much food available for a while.
After lunch, Luke and Jack both wanted to go to the kids’club which ran from 2.30 to 4.30. With them out of the way, Kent settled downon the sun lounger next to Debs but he wasn’t to be there long. She turned overon her sunbed and said:
“Fancy a siesta?” and winked at him. It seemed he wasn’t goingto have to wait until the night after all. They went up to their room to enjoya very sweaty and enjoyable hour or so together, in which Kent was amazed tofind he was able to perform twice. He had forgotten how much energy and staminahe used to have: that was definitely something that had declined with age. Butthere wasn’t any point stressing about it.
The way he saw it, no matter how healthily or unhealthilypeople lived their lives, they could not fight the passage of time. A tennisplayer could win a Grand Slam at thirty, or a footballer could score the winnerin an FA Cup Final. By forty, both would be finished. So he shouldn’t feel dispiritedany longer about his lost youth and aging body. It was a purely naturalprocess.
Yes, there were things he could do to lessen the blow, andhe was going to make a real effort to live more healthily in the future, butthe bare facts were simple. His chronological age in 2018 was forty-two and thetime had come to accept that.
He had taken five trips back through time now, visiting fourdifferent decades. He had seen life through his eyes again at the age of seven,seventeen, thirty and thirty-five. Those snapshots had put everything into perspective.He knew now that he was happy with the person he was, and he was ready to moveon with the rest of his life.
He had just one more trip to make and an idea was forming inhis mind as to how to best make use of it. Unless the angel was reading hismind right now, this was going to come as a surprise.
For now, he was going to enjoy the rest of his day.Returning to the pool later in the afternoon, he eagerly joined in the waterpolo and excelled himself, making the most of his thirty-year-old vigour toscore three goals. He didn’t have the Chelsea boys to worry about this time. Waterpolo was far too strenuous an activity for them. They just watched on fromtheir seats at the bar, well onto their sixth pints of the day.
After dinner, he delighted in seeing his boys taking part inthe mini-disco that always began the evening entertainment. He had often foundthis sort of thing tedious in the past, but not this time. It was the lastchance he was going to get to see his boys doing this sort of thing. In a fewshort years, a combination of increasing self-awareness and peer pressure wouldput an end to it. But right now, seeing the two of them doing all the actionsto “I am the Music Man”, “Hokey Cokey” and “Cha Cha Slide” made his day.
The whole time they were up there, they kept looking over tohim for reassurance and to check that he was watching. He made sure he caught theireyes and clapped enthusiastically at every opportunity. When Luke came backover he jumped up onto Kent’s lap and said, “I love you, Dad.”
“You can’t buy that,” said another father sitting at thenext table.
No, you certainly can’t, thought Kent. And to think, when hehad started this whole travelling back into time thing, all he had thoughtabout was money. What he had here was worth a million times more than any ofthat. Yes, he had to go back to his own time when they were teenagers but itwas by no means over. Jack and Luke would grow up to have families of their ownand when that happened he vowed that he would become the best grandfather inthe world.
There was one final highlight to the evening, the dailyawarding of the certificates for the various activities. Kent felt very proudas Luke was called up onto the stage for being the best artist at the kids’club,
