As I threw my first dart of the evening, Sean came through from the back. I looked over as my dart hit the board and nodded. He did the same and continued wiping his hands on a tea-towel. I tossed another dart and heard him say:

“Might have to close early at this rate.”

“Not on your life,” Eric shouted from the table by the doors. Roger was next to him. “Do you think I’m going home after just a pint? Good God, Sean.”

“Perhaps not,” Sean said and collected the few glasses that dotted the bar. As he placed them by the sink, the wind pushed along the street, brushing hard on the windows. Cold air rushed down the chimney and the fire below the dartboard flared. I felt the heat against my legs and stomach.

“Bloody hell,” Roger said as if the windows were open. “Cold night.”

My next two darts bounced off the board and hit the floor. I gave up before I embarrassed myself any further. Sean took the darts when I returned to the bar and pointed to my almost empty pint.

“Another?” he said.

“Why not?”

We talked for a time; Sean telling us Alice was due back the day after from a week with her mother; Eric telling Sean snow was coming, and Roger telling me I still owed him a pound from a domino game a month before. We talked of the little things, but they were and still are the most important things.

An hour or so passed. Nobody came or went. Although the night was bitter, I expected a few others to join us, but none did. The pub is small and on a backstreet. It’s always been a pub for regulars, partly because it isn’t in the place to get passing trade. On a weeknight with snow coming and a gusting north wind, I suppose it wasn’t surprising we were the only ones in.

Eric was telling us a woman was looking like the next leader of the Conservatives, and Roger was saying it would be a bad day for Britain if a woman was in charge. Then the door opened and Roger stopped talking.

A man entered. I put him at around twenty. He was six foot and thin and wore glasses. He had a goatee and although he was dressed in nothing out of the ordinary, he did stand out. I suppose the others and I were used to younger men who wore flared trousers and the like. This man wore a normal-fitting pair of jeans, a large black jumper and a long dark coat. He glanced at me and I could think of nothing to say.

He came forward, reaching to his pocket as Sean stepped from his place.

“Yes, sir,” Sean said, and John and I watched from the corner of our eyes as the young man surveyed the taps.

“Any recommendations?” he asked.

I was suddenly aware of how loud the sound of the fire seemed. That, and the ticking of the clock behind Sean, seemed to fill the little pub, pushing us all out the way.

It felt as if we had no business here.

“Well,” Sean replied. “These two are our guests for the week.” He tapped two taps and I drank my beer, wanting to feel as if I wasn’t listening when it was far too clear we all were.

“Although they’re a little strong,” Sean said. “Maybe a Magnet?”

I glanced at John as a tiny smile brushed his face. It took me a moment to realise the undercurrent of Sean’s words. The man at my side was barely old enough to drink and although I heard no ill will in Sean’s suggestion, I recognised it as more than a suggestion for a pint.

“Sounds good,” the young man replied. “A pint, please.”

Sean poured and the man pointed to the chair beside me.

“May I?” he said.

“Of course,” I said.

He sat and took his wallet from his coat. Aware it was rude to do so, I looked as he opened it and took a few coins from a small pocket. As he closed it, I had a quick look at what looked to be a large red note. The man looked at me and I looked away, wondering what amount of money looked like that.

Sean placed the man’s pint down and watched him sift through coins. Light flashed on his palm and I saw something gold-coloured in his hand. He handed Sean a few coins and moved to pocket the rest.

“What’s that?” Sean asked. Although I should have looked to the man’s hand, I looked to his face and saw it as clear as you like: he thought of a lie in a breath.

“I’ve been carrying some of that chocolate money,” he said and slid the coins to his pocket. “That stuff wrapped in gold paper. For my sister’s children.”

The fire hissed and rolled.

“With Christmas coming,” the man went on, and to give him his due, his words sounded as if they were true. “Her children like it.”

“I see,” Sean said and nodded. He lifted his pint and tilted it to the new man. “Cheers.”

The man echoed it and sipped his beer. We let seconds pass, knowing this was down to Sean to welcome the stranger as he had welcomed me a few years before.

“Not seen you before,” he said eventually.

“My first time here. Just passing. Thought I’d pop in.”

Sean held out a hand and the man shook it.

“Sean.”

“Alan.”

Sean pointed to me, then John.

“Bill and John. And over there taking up space, Eric and Roger.”

Alan turned to the men at the door and said he was pleased to meet them. They nodded and raised their glasses. He looked to me. I nodded. He looked at John and was looking away in a second.

“How do you do?” he said in a rush.

“Fine,” John replied, sounding amused. “Nice to meet you.”

No it isn’t. Get out. Go now.

I shivered. The thought had come and gone before I could focus upon it. I told myself I would go after another pint so as not to look rude. Of course, I had no idea I would not get home until late. We would need a drink very soon.

“So, Alan,” John said. “Do you have a local or will this become yours? We could do with some new blood.”

Alan was looking to the bar and I noted his face had paled.

“I don’t really have a local,” he said. The silence after that was just a second too long to be normal. I watched Alan staring ahead to the row of bottles lining the glass shelves behind Sean.

“Just passing by, were you, Alan?” John asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Fancied a quick pint.”

And his reply would have been perfectly acceptable had he been able to look at John or Sean or even me. His reply would have been normal but for the shaking that was making its way down his arms to both hands which were gripping his pint.

“Are you all right?” Sean said.

We watched Alan lift the glass and swallow a large mouthful of his beer. Slowly, he set the glass down and his next words came to me and the other men in that night, came and changed the world for all of us.

“Margaret Thatcher will be the next Prime Minister.”

I looked at the landlord. He pursed his lips and I looked at John whose face was set carefully still as if the slightest movement would be too much. Eric and Roger were also still; Roger with one big hand frozen in the movement to his pint. Again, the wind pushed along the black street and an abrupt throbbing flowed around my skull. I squeezed my eyes closed and the sensation eased.

When I opened my eyes, Alan hadn’t moved. He had been with us for just seconds and managed to change our worlds even if we did not know it. We looked at him; the December night touched gently against the pub and the windows for a moment while the wind was still, and the fire muttered in the corner.

Sean spoke first.

“Is that a guess, Alan, or are you a political man?”

“Neither, really,” he muttered. “I... know.”

“Know what?”

“What will happen.”

Silence again as Sean thought of a reply and we waited for our landlord to speak. Seconds passed. Very slowly, Alan sipped his beer. I found it comforting that his shaking had stopped.

“Been anywhere else tonight, Alan?” Sean said.

Alan looked at Sean. “Another pub?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes.”

Neither man spoke. From the corner of my eye, I saw Roger finish moving to his glass. He drank and I did the same. I think we froze at the same instant when Alan said:

“Do you want to know what else I know?”

His words were soft and frightened. He sounded as if he did not want to speak but had no choice.

“No, not really,” Sean said and pointed to Alan’s beer. “Finish that, come back tomorrow and I’ll buy you a drink. Think you’ve had enough for now, mate.”

“You all know Punk?”

His words were still soft, and yet I was scared. I had time to wish I had not come out.

“Punk is going to be huge for a few years. Then there will be a load of groups and singers, the New Romantics. They’ll be a bunch of blokes wearing make-up, lace and stuff like that, with music that’s built around keyboards and drum machines and–”

“That’s enough,” Sean said.

“And that will last for most of the early eighties so you don’t have to worry about it just yet.” He laughed and stood, looking from Sean to me, then to the men by the door.

“Thatcher will be the next PM and she’ll last until 1990, if you can believe that.” He laughed a second time. “A lot of people still can’t. But either way, she’ll be around for a long time. So will Regan. Those two will be synonymous with the eighties, and Regan will survive an assassination attempt in a couple of years, about the same time as the Pope.”

That was too much for Sean, a Catholic his entire life.

“That is enough,” Sean shouted. “Piss off out my pub.”

Alan didn’t move.

“Thatcher will take us to war against Argentina in 1982 for the Falkland Islands; we win after all of about ten minutes and she wins her second election soon after and again in eighty–seven even though the country is going to be up the creek unless you’re rich.” He was speaking faster and my fear was rising with his speeding voice.

“Big storm comes in October eighty–seven and make sure you watch the BBC, watch for a bloke called Michael Fish to tell everyone there isn’t a hurricane coming. Watch for an American TV programme to come here called Cheers. You’ll like that, set in a pub. And get ready to throw out all your records because you’ll have to buy compact discs, although wait about fifteen years after they come out and you can download your music off the net so that’s up to you, either way. And you can take the day off on the twenty-ninth of July in 1981 for a Royal Wedding when Prince Charles marries a woman called Diana even though he’s already seeing another woman, which won’t really come out for a long time. Then wait for Diana to die in a car crash and Charles to remarry a few years after that.”

“Good God,” Eric said.

“Things change over the next few years,” Alan said, glancing at him.

Silence, then. We looked at each other, all unsure if Alan was having a strange joke or was just not right in the head. We had to wait for Sean to speak before we could know how to react.

“And what happens here?” he asked quietly. His arms were folded over his chest and I wondered if that was to stop them shaking or if he simply thought Alan was joking. My hands were trembling. It wasn’t the man’s voice or words, you understand. It was the belief. It was the surety.

It was the fact.

“Here?” he said. “In this town?” He breathed slowly. “The centre of town will be changed completely in about six years. A shopping centre will be built, taking over most of the streets and buildings right in the centre of town and although a lot of people won’t like it, it still gets built, creates jobs, brings in money and all that, but I personally don’t like it.”

He shrugged, seemingly calmer.

“A couple of new housing areas are developed in the next couple of years. Hargate to the east, and Middleton in the north of town. There’s another one in about twenty years which will be called West Wood.” He smiled and it looked gentle. “Guess where that’s built.”

He reached for his drink, touched it and looked at Sean.

“May I?”

Sean gave no reply. He later told us he couldn’t speak, and not in a melodramatic way. The man lost the ability to speak. Alan’s words and the truth we all heard took speech away. We could only listen.

Alan swallowed beer and stood with the glass against his chest.

“Anything else you would like to know?” he asked.

John spoke first.

“Who are you, son?”

I barely heard his mutter and although I wanted to look to his face, I couldn’t look from the young man not two feet from me.

“Nobody important,” Alan replied.

“Sounds like you’re a man with a good imagination,” John said, and Alan looked at him squarely.

“Do you know the name Osama Bin Laden?”

“Who the hell is that?” Sean said.

“Watch for him in a few years. He’s important. And another couple of men. Bush and Blair. Watch for them in the nineties.”

“Tell you what, Al,” Sean said, and he walked towards the little door of the bar. “Go home and come back tomorrow. I’ll be happy to buy you a pint and listen to your stories tomorrow, but for now, it’s kicking out time, mate.”

Alan swallowed beer again.

“I can prove it,” he said and reached to his pocket. As Sean reached him and I took a step closer, Alan took coins from his pocket and held them to us. The light hit them and they shone.

“So?” I said, wanting to take charge of myself.

“Look at the dates,” Alan said, again quietly.

I looked, as did Sean. Slowly, John slid from his chair and looked. As I gazed down at the coins, Eric and Roger came to us.

“You’re having a laugh,” Sean said.

Nobody was laughing.

“Check any of them,” Alan offered. Slowly, Sean took one of the chunky gold coins I had noticed a few moments before. He ran a finger around it and spoke in a whisper.

“A pound coin? It can’t be.”

“It is,” Alan said.

Sean studied the coin.

“1996,” he murmured and gave the coin back as if it was dirty.

John took another; this one a thin silver coin with edges.

“Fifty pence,” Alan told him.

“1999,” John said loudly as if in argument.

Not wanting to move, I took a third coin. It was a dirty silver circle.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“A ten pence piece.” A strange smile crossed his face. “Not even enough to use a public phone, these days.” He laughed a little madly. “Well, in my days, it isn’t. Probably get change from it if you used it here.” He laughed again and his lower eyelid twitched.

“2006,” I said after studying the coin.

The three of us placed the coins back in Alan’s hands.

“You can check any of the others,” he said. None of us moved; we didn’t need to. Although the coins were slightly different to the money in our pockets, all of them looked real. They had felt real and solid and I never wanted to touch them again.

Alan pocketed the coins and produced his wallet. We watched him withdraw a handful of notes.

“This is about six hundred quid,” he said and I snorted. I couldn’t help myself. Everything he had said was buried under this outrageous claim. After all, why would a man of his young age have such a fortune in his hand as if it was almost worthless?

“I’m not joking,” he said, looking at the cash. “You can check it for watermarks and anything else you like.”

He proffered the same red note I had seen earlier and Sean’s fingers brushed it.

“Fifty quid,” Alan said.

Sean’s fingers jerked back.

“I have credit cards with start dates and expiry dates. I think the oldest one started in September or October 2007 so it should last a little longer. National Insurance card, driving licence, library card and pretty soon, I’ll have an identity card.”

“Identity card?” Roger said. “There isn’t a war on.”

“There is... in a way,” Alan said.

“Jesus Christ,” I said.

The pub was quiet for a moment. I had time to feel the building pressing down around me as if wanting to ensure this night would be buried in me, held down by the bricks and windows; shoved there by the sound of the fire and the promise of the cold walk home. And if the other men felt the same, I could not say. And I could not say if Sean’s next words came from a desire to not be frightened or from disbelief.

“OK, mate. Is this one of those stupid bloody jokes? Are we on the telly?”

“No,” Alan said and sighed. “I’m sorry to say.”

“Why?” Eric asked and I suddenly wished he hadn’t.

“Because this is real and because that means you men are all I have to rely on.”

“For what?”

“To save my dad’s life.”

“And who is your dad?” Sean asked.

“James Jarvis.”

We glanced at each other and saw no recognition on any man’s face.

“Never heard of him, I’m afraid,” Sean said.

“You won’t. Not ‘til the mid eighties.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Sean shouted. “This is getting stupid.” He moved to take Alan’s arm, clearly about to throw someone out for the first time I knew, and then Alan was speaking fast.

“He starts coming here in 1986, probably late in the year and his wife is Susan, OK? He starts coming here with Sammy Cairns because they’ve been mates for years and my parents move here in 1986.”

Sean relaxed his grip slightly; Alan took a breath and continued to speak quickly.

“He becomes good mates with you lot and a few other blokes like John Parr and Bob Bracken and Jim Bosworth and Rod Webber.”

Sean’s arm dropped to his side and the obvious question hung over us, all grouped by the fire in December.

“It’s a Saturday,” Alan murmurs. “In May. The twentieth.” He closed his eyes. “2010.”

I wanted to do something. Laugh or shout or walk away, but there was nothing there. The man’s whisper held truth and nothing but.

“There’s a fire here. The building is gutted, some injuries.” He raised one hand and extended one trembling finger. “One death.”

Again, the wind shoved past outside and I was suddenly cold.

“You can save my dad’s life by any way you want to. Save your pub or don’t. Nobody else is killed. Up to you but... save him.”

“Who the hell are you, son?” Sean said kindly and I could see he was seconds away from telling us to hold the lad down while he called the police.

“Who I said,” Alan replied. He looked around. “I don’t come here as much as I should. I work away a lot but... this is a good pub. You’re good people and good mates with my dad.”

I swallowed.

“OK, let’s say you’re telling the truth for a moment, how did you get here?”

My answer didn’t come from Alan.

It came from outside.

There was no sound. There was a movement as something massive took a step forward; the wind raced along the road in a shouting gust and then silence. None of us breathed.

Then the bang at the door came. Once.

We all heard the door rattle and I could see it in my head, see the door shaking, the letter box rattling and the peeking darkness sliding through as the metal rose and fell.

Sean took a step towards the door and the hallway. Alan grabbed his arm.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “Please.”

I looked to the curtains, desperate to go to them, pull them back and look to the street, look to see what was at the door, demanding an answer. I didn’t move, of course. My mind would not let my body do anything but breathe.

I was terrified.

“What is it?” John asked.

“Something,” Alan said, struggling. “I made a deal with it. It brought me here to talk to you, and you do what you can in time. While that time comes, I go with it and wait for you to change everything.”

“You wait?” I said. “For over thirty years? With... that?”

I didn’t want to name it. I didn’t want to think of it. There was something awful at the door.

“That’s the deal I made,” Alan murmured, looking at his boots.

“What happens if we can’t change things?” Roger asked, and a bitter smile came and went on Alan’s face.

“Then I stay with it. And... well, it gets its side of the deal. If you do change everything, then I go home, my dad lives and none of this happened.”

We were silent. I looked to the door and strained to hear anything. Whatever was at the door, it was silent and yet I could sense a growing need coming from outside. It said the thing would wait, but it would not wait for long.

And what happens then? It comes in?

My skin seemed to move all over my body and I was bitterly cold at that horror of a thought.

“Where do you go for thirty–odd years?” Sean whispered.

“Wherever it wants me to,” Alan replied. “And I stay there if you can’t change things.”

I closed my eyes for long seconds, unable to not think of where Alan would be for over thirty years, unable to not hear the screams that would come from him for that long time.

Alan raised his glass and managed to drink the rest of his pint although his hand was shaking badly.

He handed the glass to Sean and nodded.

“I’ll have another on the seventeenth of July, 1996.”

He smiled at all of us.

“My eighteenth birthday.”

He stepped towards the door and the sense of need coming from outside grew. While I wanted to help and protect that good young man, I wanted him far away from us; far away with the nightmare at the door.

He stopped at the door, back to us.

“Do you believe me?” he asked.

None of us answered.

“Give it a couple of years. Watch Thatcher become PM. That happens. Everything I told you happens.”

He reached for the door and Sean shouted his name. Alan stopped, waiting, and the thing outside waited.

“Mate,” Sean said, desperate. “Look.”

“It’s OK,” Alan said and didn’t turn. “Just do what you have to do. Meet him, be friends and save him. That’s it.”

He opened the door and vanished into the hall. We heard two steps, a pause, and then a third. He was at the door. We waited, straining to hear anything, to be able to name the thing waiting outside. While it still made no sound, we could sense it readying itself to move, to bang on the door again.

A sound came from the hall: Alan stepping forward. Then the door opening.

Then a grunt.

It was terrifying. Something not twenty feet from where we stood had spoken a language from time before anything we could imagine. It was the language of the ground and the dark. It said everything was over and all the good of the world had gone with it.

Then slowly, the squeak as the door began to swing closed. And as it moved, a sliding sound came to us.

A laugh.

Eric’s pint dropped to the ground; glass exploded and the door banged shut. The wind gave one last gust against the building and the strange horrible magic that had filled our little pub was gone.

* * * * *