There was this game that I used to play with Grandpa Byron. Well, I say ‘used to’ but it was probably only once or twice. He called it ‘Kim’s Game’, although who Kim was I’ve no idea. Perhaps a friend of his. Anyway, what he’d do was put a few random objects on a tray, like a spoon, a teabag, a pepperpot, a pen, a ring … anything that was lying around. I’d then have a minute to look at them, and after that I had to look away while he removed two or three, and I had to tell him which objects were missing.

Obviously, Grandpa Byron was brilliant at it. He could do it even if you didn’t remove any objects, but just swapped the positions of a couple.

And the reason I’m telling you this now is that Kim’s Game comes to mind when, after a minute or so of crouching, and not looking up, I lift my head and the policeman is not there.

Has he driven off? The police car isn’t there either. I didn’t hear it drive away. I look around for signs that anything has changed.

The first thing I notice is that the garden tub has gone, along with its contents. All that’s left are a smouldering black box, and the laptop with its screen black and burnt out. The cables have been severed (melted?) at the point they entered the tub, and that is the sorry end of my dad’s time machine.

So something has happened. I’m just not sure whether to be pleased or not. If anything, it just makes me more nervous than I was before. But, like a bad player of Kim’s Game (me), I hadn’t really paid much attention to my surroundings in the first place, so it’s hard for me to tell what – if anything – has changed.

Slowly, I walk over the road to number 40, our old house. There is a car in the driveway, which I don’t recognise. It’s not Graham and Bella’s Skoda. The front door is dark blue, like it was when I lived there before, but … so what? What colour had it been when Graham and Bella lived there? I can’t remember.

Now my heart is beating fast. Or hard. Or loud. Or all three, I can’t tell, because I know for sure that in the next few moments I will have the answer to whether my experiment has worked. I push the doorbell.

Who will answer?

Graham? Bella? Somebody else?

And the door opens, but before I can see who it is, she turns away and stalks briskly back down the hallway.

“For heaven’s sake, Al, how many times? Take your key!”

I know the voice and my heart feels like it’s racing, and my throat is still dry so I can just about croak:

“Mum? Mum!!”

She stops. She turns.

It’s Mum. In our old house. Not Steve’s house.

“Well, what are you stand— Al? What on earth are you wearing? Oof! Hey!”

I have rushed into the house and thrown my arms around her with such force that we almost overbalance, but we don’t. Instead I just stand there squeezing her and kind of making sure that it’s really her, and all the while she’s saying, “Are you OK, Al? Is something wrong?” because I’m sort of half sobbing, half laughing.

In hindsight, that must have been pretty weird for her.

So we’re like that in the hallway and by now Mum is hugging me back because (she tells me later) for a mum, a hug from your son is always welcome, and while I’m hugging her, I’m checking over every inch of her – her head, her hair, her hands – and I’m just grinning because eveything’s how it should be. Then she kisses the top of my head. “All right, Wonder Boy. Let me go.”

From the front room is the sound of the television, and another familiar voice.

“Lithuania! Oliver Cromwell! Sodium Chloride!” and then a chuckle. “Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!”

And then Grandpa Byron’s in the hallway too and everything looks right there, as well. I hug him too, and he smells right, and his right arm is twisted and even that seems right.

Everything is right.

Mum says, “Supper in ten minutes, boys.”

“What’s for supper?” I ask, a little warily – because probably for the first time in my life I want it to be one of mum’s experiments.

“Chicken korma,” says Mum, and I get the beginnings of an uneasy feeling. “Only, there was no chicken in the freezer so I’ve done it with pig’s kidneys. It’ll be a bit of an experiment. And, eeh, Al – where did you get those clothes? You been down the Sue Ryder?”

Behind her back, Grandpa Byron wobbles his head in amusement.

Everything is right. Everything. Apart from the one thing that I need to know.

It’s the one thing that I cannot bring myself to ask.

I try telling myself that just staying like this forever would be good enough for me, and if I don’t ask then I won’t get the answer that I’m dreading. But it isn’t.

I have to ask.

“Where’s Dad?”

Mum looks at me like I’m crazy and I can hardly breathe. “Your dad?” she says, frowning. “Where do you think?”