by Jodi Taylor
‘So tell me, my dear. What about you? What’s your lifelong ambition?’
‘Well, short-term, Professor, to return my department to their original colouring.’
‘Yes, Edward and I had a good chuckle over that.’
I tried – and failed – to imagine Dr Bairstow chuckling. Sometimes when he was pleased, he did display the satisfaction of an elderly vulture unexpectedly encountering a dead donkey. But chuckling …
Chief Farrell wandered past on his way back to Hawking Hangar, smiled just for me alone, and then said politely, ‘Good evening, Max. Good evening, Professor.’
Professor Penrose watched him go, then turned to me, his eyes twinkling. ‘Your young man?’
He didn’t miss much, for sure.
‘I’m not sure I’d call him young, Professor.’
He laughed. ‘At my age, my dear, everyone is young. Should we have asked him to join us?’
‘He won’t stop. He’s busy working on our pod. We’re in Number Eight.’
Pods are our centre of operations. They jump us back to whichever time period we’ve been assigned. They’re small, apparently built of stone, flat-roofed, and inconspicuous in any century you care to name. We eat, work, and sleep in them. They too, are shabby and battered. Especially my pod, Number Eight, which has seen more than its fair share of action over the years. Tim had given the professor an introductory tour so he’d already encountered the unique pod smell – overloaded electrics, wet carpet, hot historians, the backed-up toilet, and, for some reason, cabbage. Eau de pod.
‘And your long-term ambitions, Max?’
He was persistent as well.
I had a bit of a think.
‘Well, Troy has always been my ultimate goal, of course …’
‘Yes, so I understand, but what next?’
I fiddled with my fork.
‘Well, Agincourt would be nice …’
‘Yes?’
‘Well …’ I fiddled a bit more.
‘Goodness gracious. I suspect some disreputable secret. I should, of course, murmur politely and change the subject, but other people’s disreputable secrets are always so interesting.’
I laughed. ‘Well, it’s a secret, but not really disreputable, Professor. Sorry to disappoint you.’
He leaned forwards. ‘Tell me anyway.’
My mind went back to that particular evening, just a few short months ago.
After all the Mary Stuart dust had settled, we – Leon Farrell and I – had gone on a date. A real one, I mean, with posh frock, heels, make-up, everything. …
And it had been magical. Just for once, no one from St Mary’s was around. It didn’t rain. Nothing caught on fire. No one was chasing us. It was just a perfect evening.
I met him in the Hall.
He was studying a whiteboard with his head on one side.
‘Did Marie Antoinette really carry on speaking after she’d been beheaded?’
‘Well, the legend says her lips carried on moving for some time afterwards, if that counts as speaking. If the brain can function for three minutes without oxygen, I suppose it’s possible her last thoughts could be articulated for maybe part of that time. I'm not sure whether her voice box would work though. I’d have to ask Helen.’
I realised too late that it might have been more appropriate on a date just to have said just yes or no and changed the subject to something a little less death-related. I was very conscious of being completely out of my social depth.
We set off for the village pub, The Falconberg Arms. Our date had to be within walking distance because I’d recently driven his car into the lake. Long story.
The evening was lovely – warm and velvety, and we took our time.
The landlord, Joe Nelson, met us just inside the door. I’d known him since I arrived at St Mary’s. As a trainee, this place had been my second home. He was short, blocky, and his head of thick, dark hair could not disguise ears like satellite dishes. He had a sickle-shaped scar on one cheekbone. I knew he and Leon had been friends for years. Like obviously called to like, because here was another one who never said a lot.
‘Leon.’
‘Joe.’
The world’s two chattiest men stood for a while, possibly exhausted by the effort.
Eventually, he stirred. ‘I thought you might like some privacy, so I’ve arranged for you to be in here.’
He led us down a corridor to a door on the left.
‘The breakfast room,’ he announced and threw open the door with a flourish.
I stepped into Fairyland.
Only one of the three tables was laid. A crisp white cloth covered a small table near the fireplace. Gentle candlelight winked off crystal and cutlery. A low arrangement of golden roses in the centre of the table filled the room with their scent.
“The Moonlight Sonata” played quietly in the background.
‘This way, please,’ he said and led us to our table where a perfect Margarita awaited me. The years rolled back to a hotel in Rushford, when I’d worn this dress and he’d looked a sensation in that suit and we’d danced and taken the first steps towards a tentative understanding. Looking back over the last twelve months or so, we hadn’t made a lot of progress. But he was trying and I had promised my assistant, David, just before he died, that I would try too. I still missed him every day.
‘Leon, this is just perfect.’
‘Thank you. Drink this.’
‘What is it?’
‘Alcohol.’
‘Great. Why?’
‘Because I want to talk to you.’
‘In that case, alcohol might not be the way to go.’
‘I want you to drink this and then listen to what I have to say.’
‘You’re plying me with alcohol so I’ll say yes to something horrible?’
‘No, I’m plying you with alcohol so you’ll listen. I tried to talk to you about this after Jack the Ripper. And again after Nineveh, but there were more important things to be said then. I don’t want an answer from you now. I just want you to listen calmly and without panicking and alcohol seems the best way to go.’
‘OK. Hit me.’
I sipped, felt the familiar warmth spread through my limbs, and sucked the salt off my bottom lip.
He peered at me. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Pretty damned good.’
‘OK. I have a proposal for you.’
No, no, no. Not marriage. I really thought I’d made my feelings on marriage perfectly clear. Asked once what was the ideal quality in a husband, I’d replied: ‘Absence.’ No one ever asked again.
‘No,’ he said, hastily topping up my glass. ‘Calm down. Drink this.’
I sipped again and felt my panic dissolve in the tequila.
‘Get on with it, then.’
‘What?’
‘Well, this is me. One drink and I’m happy. Two drinks and I’m unconscious. You have a window of about eight seconds. Get on with it.’
‘All right, here goes. I’d like you to leave St Mary’s.’
I stared at him in dismay. ‘What? Why? What have I done? Are you breaking up with me? Why should I be the one to leave? If you’re uncomfortable having me around then that’s your problem, not mine. I’m not giving up my job just because we’re over. You leave.’
‘Yes,’ he said, removing my glass. ‘Something tells me I may have missed the window.’
‘What window?’
He sighed heavily.
‘I have no sympathy,’ I said. ‘You gave me alcohol.’
‘Yes, I brought this on myself. Let’s just give it a moment, shall we? And then I’ll have another go.’
The first course arrived – seafood platter.
I concentrated on my food. Something that comes easily to me. ‘These prawns are delicious. Do you want yours?’
‘Yes. You look very pretty tonight.’
‘Thank you, that’s very kind. I wore this dress to that hotel in Rushford. Do you remember?’
‘I do. I think that was quite a night for both of us.’
‘And at the end of it, you walked away.’
‘I had to,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘You have no idea of the effect you have on me, do you?’
I swallowed. ‘Or you on me.’
He took my hand. The room swayed a little. My heart rate kicked up.
The door opened and they brought in the next course. ‘Everything all right in here?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ said Leon.
I nodded, speech being beyond me just at that moment.
We ate in silence for a while. The food was delicious. The setting perfect. Nothing even remotely like this had ever happened to me before. That he could go to such trouble, just for me … I looked around at the candles, the roses, the man sitting opposite me …
He caught me looking. Nothing was said. In fact, nothing was said for quite a long time. I broke his gaze and fumbled for my glass. I must be ill. My appetite had completely disappeared. My breathing was all over the place and I was suddenly hot. Very hot indeed.
Looking at his plate, he said softly, ‘We’ve had a rough year and I wanted this night to be special.’
I took his hand and, looking him firmly in the eye, stepped out over a yawning chasm and said, ‘It will be.’
He caught his breath, pushed back his chair and reached for me …
Joe Nelson stuck his head around the door. ‘Ready for dessert?’
I said, ‘Yes,’ and Leon sighed. Again.
We settled down, but the moment was gone. He was wise enough not to push it.
‘Perhaps, instead of thinking so much about the past, we could take some time to talk about our future.’
I made myself smile politely and clutched my glass in a death-grip.
‘I’m just going to say this straight out. All I ask is that you don’t say no without giving it some thought.’
‘What’s this all about?’
‘Well,’ he said slowly. ‘Have you given any thought at all to what you’re going to do after Troy?’
‘I’m an historian. We don’t do planning ahead.’
I was avoiding the issue because, actually, I had. The downside to achieving your life’s ambition is – where do you go from there? What do you do afterwards? Where’s the challenge? I must admit, the thought had been troubling me. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘I have a proposal for you.’
He saw my panic.
‘No, no, calm down. Poor choice of words. I should have said proposition. I have an idea.’
I breathed a little easier.
‘Go on.’
He eyed me. ‘It might not be easy. In fact, I know it won’t be. It might be the most difficult assignment you’ve ever had. You may not survive. I almost certainly won’t. And even if you do, things will certainly never be the same again.’
Now he had my attention.
‘I know you’ve made no plans for a future you never expect to have. I know you love your job and you’re good at it. I know you don’t pay a lot of attention to what goes on outside St Mary’s, but I’d like to make a suggestion.
‘No,’ he said, as I opened my mouth to panic again. ‘Please hear me out. Sometime in the future – when we both want to – I’d like us to leave St Mary’s and start another life. No – please, let me finish. One day this job will kill you. It might be years in the future, it might be tomorrow, but one day you won’t come back. Or one day I’ll open the pod door and you’ll be dead and I won’t want to go on living in a world that doesn’t have you in it somewhere. So what I’m saying is – before that happens – we both leave and start a new life. Together. I’m an engineer. We get a place with a work area and I can take time to work on some ideas I’ve had. And you, Max, you could paint to your heart’s content. You can have half the workshop – or your own space if you want – and spend some time doing the other thing you’re really good at. You can take the time to produce a body of work, build a reputation … We could walk together, hold hands, feed the ducks, go to the cinema, learn to cook, make new friends, watch TV; there are so many things we could do together. I’m sorry if it sounds corny and dull, but I don’t think it would be unexciting. And we’ll certainly never be bored because I’ve seen you cook. I just want to spend my life with you. Now, more than ever. Please don’t say no straight away. Promise me you’ll think about it.’
I didn’t have to think about it. I had a sudden blinding flash of clarity and from way back I heard Kal say “One day this won’t be enough”. At the time, I never thought it would apply to me, but now I realised exactly what she’d been talking about. On the other hand, this was scary stuff. This was about relationships, sharing, domesticity, and all the things I really regarded as the inventions of the devil. I took a very deep breath.
‘No.’
I hope never to see that look again.
‘Can’t you take some time to think about it?’
‘No.’
‘It doesn’t have to be now. It could be years away.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to wait for years. After Troy – however long that takes – you and I give in our notice, move away, and make a new life. Doing those things you said. And God help you, because if we don’t live in perfect peace and happiness, I’ll make your life a living hell.’
He took both my hands, glass and all. ‘I can wait.’
‘It might be some time. Troy could be a two-year assignment, at least.’
‘I can wait.’
I took a huge breath for a huge step. ‘OK then, is that a deal?’
He couldn’t look at me. He swallowed and nodded.
‘It’s a deal.’
I relayed some of this to Eddie who nodded thoughtfully and, surprisingly, changed the subject.
‘Compared with Troy – and Agincourt – tomorrow’s jump must seem very tame to you.’
‘Not at all, Professor. Dr Bairstow once said “It’s not always battlefields and blood.” and he was right. For instance, I’ve seen the Hanging Gardens and they are stupendous.’
No need to tell him how that one ended. Or the Whitechapel jump. Or the Cretaceous assignment.
This is the bit we never really discuss. Not even amongst ourselves. These days, the attrition rate is nowhere near as high as it used to be. Almost as if an uneasy truce has been worked out between us historians, who really do our best to behave ourselves as we jink up and down the timeline, and History, who, these days, seems slightly less inclined to slaughter us wholesale for any minor infractions.
This is really not something you want to explain to a civilian who is accompanying you to the seventeenth century in less than twenty-four hours.
I consulted with Doctor Foster the next morning, just on the off-chance Eddie had contracted something serious overnight. She sat on the windowsill and puffed her cigarette smoke out of the window.
I looked pointedly at the smoke alarm. She looked pointedly at the battery, which was lying on the table. Where it always was. I sighed. Leon, fighting the good fight over batteries and losing on all fronts, would not be happy.
‘Professor Penrose. Is he fit?’
‘Fitter than you, Max. On the other hand, of course, I’ve seen 10-day-old corpses fitter than you. That knee of yours is going to let you down one day.’
‘No time before Troy.’
‘We’ll get it fixed immediately afterwards. Before it gets really serious.
It didn’t really matter, although I couldn’t tell her that. I hadn’t told anyone, apart from Eddie. I couldn’t even bring myself to think about what Ian, or Tim would say.
‘To return to Professor Penrose …’
‘Yes, fit as a fiddle for his age. This is not to be construed as permission for you to bounce him around Cambridge. We all still remember what you did to Mr Dieter.’
Dieter and I, escaping from a landslide in the Cretaceous period, had once had a bit of a bumpy landing. They’d practically had to demolish the
pod to get us out. But after a couple of days in Sick Bay each and a major refit for Number Eight, everything was fine, so I really don’t know why people can’t let that go.
Chapter Two
We were off.
‘Right then, Professor. If you’d like to take a seat. No, not that one – the right-hand seat. That’s it. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be with you in a minute.’
He seated himself, wriggling a little in the lumpy seat, staring around, taking it all in. And possibly trying not to breathe in the smell.
We were inside Number Eight. The console was to the right of the door in this pod and two uncomfortable seats were bolted to the floor in front of it. Above the console, the screen showed an external view of orange techies, scurrying around the hangar outside, doing last-minute techie things. Around the pod, lockers held equipment for long-term assignments and our own personal effects. Thick bunches of cables looped around the walls and disappeared up into the ceiling A partitioned corner contained the toilet and shower. A small chiller held life’s essentials and on a shelf, by the enormous first aid cabinet, stood a kettle and two mugs. We’re St Mary’s. We run on tea.
The locker doors were dented. The console was scratched in some places and shiny in others. Some of the stains on the floor could have told an interesting story. The toilet rarely worked properly and often not at all. I think I’ve already mentioned the smell. But they’re our pods and we love them.
Leon winked at me. ‘It’s all set up, Max. Co-ordinates are laid in. I believe you’re straight in and straight back out again.’
‘That’s the idea.’
He pulled his scratchpad from his knee-pocket and leaned over the console, bashed in a few figures, and straightened up. ‘I’m done. Have a good trip. Good luck, Professor.’
The professor bounced again, speechless with excitement.
‘Take care,’ said Leon, looking at me. As he always did.
‘We’ll be fine,’ I said, inaccurately.
The door closed behind him.
I checked the console one last time.
‘Not too late to change your mind, Eddie.’
He laughed.
I said, ‘Computer, initiate jump.’
