It was nearly 11pm when I got back to the car, so I dialled999 and asked to be put through to the police. It took some time to get all thedetails through, at which point I got chastised for calling the emergencynumber rather than 101.
“But this is an emergency,” I exclaimed. “This bloke in thepub is extremely drunk and aggressive, and he told me himself he was going todrive home, boasting that he’d never been caught. His exact words were“Bollocks to the pigs”, if I recall correctly.”
OK, so I had made the last bit up for dramatic effect, but Istill wasn’t getting the response I wanted. Eventually, the lady on the otherend of the line agreed to send someone out, but I wasn’t convinced, and theconversation had taken so long, there wasn’t much time to spare. I should havephoned earlier.
I sat back in the car and waited. As expected, at a quarterpast eleven he came staggering out through the back gate towards his car. Hewas clearly angry, shouting and swearing.
“Fucking wankers!” he shouted, looking back towards the pub,before tripping over an empty yellow beer crate that had been left just outsidethe gate.
Just managing to stay on his feet, he crossed over to hiscar, fumbled in his jacket pocket for his keys and promptly dropped them on theground. Frustratingly there was no sign whatsoever of the police.
He got into his car, switched on the ignition and began topull out of the space, seemingly unaware that he had a flat. There was nothingelse for it. I was going to have to resort to plan C.
I turned on the ignition, engaged first gear and slammeddown the accelerator. Holding my breath and praying the air bag would deploy, Iclosed my eyes and braced for the impact.
It was far more of a shock than I had expected. Our two carshad been parked barely ten yards apart, but the crash was significant. Thesound of breaking glass was everywhere. My air bag did indeed go off in my facewhich wasn’t particularly pleasant but that, along with the seat belt, almostcertainly saved me from any serious injury.
In fact, other than a slight pain in the back of my neckwhich I attributed to whiplash, I felt OK physically. Emotionally, I was awreck, heart thumping away at such a rate of knots I feared for a moment I wasgoing to have a heart attack.
The sound of the crash had brought drinkers running from thepub garden. “Call an ambulance,” I heard a girl’s voice shout. “And get thepolice,” called another. “It’s that twat who started the fight over the pooltable. There’s no way he should have been driving, he’s had a right skinful.”
“Are you alright, mate?” said a young man, no older than hisearly twenties, as he opened my driver’s side door.
“I’m OK,” I said, “just a little bit of whiplash,” I said,as he helped me out of the car.
“He wasn’t so lucky,” replied the young man, gesturing atthe other car. I looked to see that Tompkins had hit his head on thewindscreen. Not only did his old car not have an air bag, he also hadn’t beenwearing his seat belt. Serves the arsehole right, I thought.
“Is he dead?” I asked, half-hoping that he was. That wouldbe poetic justice. And with him drunk, and me sober, there would be no doubtwho would be blamed.
“I don’t think so,” said the man. “You weren’t going fastenough. He’s in a pretty bad way, though. That’s what happens when you drinkand drive.”
A minute or two later, I heard the sirens of the approachingambulance and police cars. It was a shame that an accident had to have takenplace before they’d come out; had they heeded my earlier warnings, none of thisneeded to have happened.
Tompkins was indeed not dead, but unconscious and prettybadly smashed up. I didn’t feel any remorse. I hadn’t intended to injure him sobadly, just prevent him from hurting anybody else.
I was confident that once the police had investigated fully,they would conclude that I was blameless. I hadn’t touched a drop of alcoholthat day as they soon discovered, breathalysing me at the scene as a matter ofroutine.
Once they’d heard from others in the pub about Tompkins’drunken behaviour, they were sure to get his blood tested at the hospital. He’dwake up to discover himself with a smashed up face and severely in the shitwith the police.
All in all, it was a job well done.
The police wanted to interview me at the scene, but first Ineeded to make sure that Sarah was OK. Although I’d had plenty of experience ofaltering the future before, there remained a nagging doubt in my mind.
I feared that somehow something else might happen to her to“protect the timeline”, as I’d recently seen happen in an old movie about someteenagers cheating death.
It was nearly a quarter to twelve by now, and I wasincredibly relieved when she answered the phone to reveal that she was in ataxi on the way home.
I explained to her that I’d been in a car accident and thatI was perfectly alright, but she insisted on getting the taxi to turn aroundand bring her directly to me. I wasn’t going to complain. Until I couldphysically see she was safe, I wouldn’t be happy.
I was talking to the police ten minutes later when shearrived in the taxi and flung her arms around me. I felt hugely reassured bythis and knew that, for now at least, the world had been put to rights.
Stacey
August 2017
Sarah’s arrival in my life had changed it beyond allrecognition. Whatever sparkle had initially brought us together was still there,and I swiftly found myself falling in love with her.
We were soulmates, best friends and constant companions. Mypast debauched behaviour was soon forgotten as I slipped quickly and easilyinto the relationship. There never seemed to be any shortage of things to talkabout, we simply gelled and that was all there was to it.
Throughout 2018
