by Jodi Taylor
To sit in the cold and the dark and stare, dry-eyed, at the wall.
He began the Monday briefing well. Treadwell, I mean. For a start, he didn’t make the mistake of standing in Dr Bairstow’s place on the half-landing. He stood at the foot of the stairs, which oddly brought him closer but made him seem further away at the same time. He still wore his dark pin-striped suit and grey tie. In fact, I don’t think I ever saw him out of it.
‘Good morning. For those of you who haven’t met me, my name is John Treadwell. I don’t know many of you yet but I hope to become better acquainted over the coming weeks. As you will know by now, I’m here as your new Director and I’d like to begin this briefing with a minute’s silence in memory of Dr Bairstow.’
We stood, heads bowed.
‘Thank you,’ he said eventually, and we sat again.
‘I think firstly I need to clear up a small misunderstanding. I believe some of you were under the impression that Dr Peterson was Dr Bairstow’s designated successor.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I was with Dr Bairstow on Crete when he thought he wouldn’t survive and he specifically designated Dr Peterson.’
‘I’m not arguing, Dr Maxwell. I’m sure that did happen; however, it is felt the appointment of his successor was not Dr Bairstow’s prerogative and so I am here today to introduce myself.
‘I can understand the anxiety you all feel and I want to assure you – as I have repeatedly assured Dr Maxwell – that I have no intention of introducing sweeping changes to this organisation. But please understand – I am not Dr Bairstow. My way of doing things will be different to his. Obviously, I shall try to be as uncontroversial as possible – it’s in no one’s interests for us to be at each other’s throats – but please be aware – I am the Director of St Mary’s now. In the same way that Dr Bairstow’s word was law – so will mine be.’
I don’t know if he was expecting a reaction to that but everyone continued to sit, still and silent.
He continued. ‘As I have explained to Dr Maxwell, changes will be wrought gradually. You will be consulted and informed at every stage. Without going into massive detail, my brief is as follows:
‘To modernise St Mary’s. As part of this, I shall be looking at the staff structure and functions. Please do not be alarmed. Any jobs lost will be through natural wastage.’
Atherton, who leads the Pathfinders and once worked in the real world – at a bank, actually – raised his hand. ‘Is that where you make life so unpleasant that people want to leave and then you can call it natural wastage?’
Not a muscle moved. ‘No,’ Treadwell said, pleasantly. ‘In fact, initially I think I might be recruiting. Your . . . our . . . Security Section, is, in my opinion, very understaffed.
‘Secondly, I want to make St Mary’s more productive and we will do this together. Together, we will look at new ways to do what we do. Or whether we need to do it at all. Or whether we should move into new areas. Any ideas you might have on this subject will be warmly received.
‘Thirdly, to generate additional income streams. I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you to learn that St Mary’s is the world’s biggest money pit. Please be reassured I’m not about to traffic you –’ he paused for a laugh he didn’t get – ‘but there must be ways of earning money. Even a small contribution from St Mary’s to offset its massive expenditure would be greatly welcomed by our employers.
‘Which brings me to my next point. We are all employed by the government. You know this. I know this. I know the nature of your jobs here has compelled you to surrender your political rights. That you have, in fact, disenfranchised yourselves. That you stand apart. This is no small sacrifice on your part and one which is recognised by the government. However, the government does feel it is time St Mary’s was brought more firmly under their umbrella and it will be one of my tasks to make it so. This will not affect us in the day-to-day workings of St Mary’s but I do anticipate the government will expect to have an input in future policy and direction.
‘That, broadly, is what I will be looking at over the coming weeks. There will be other areas, too, but these will be my priorities.’
He paused and looked around. ‘I am not a fool. I can quite understand your resistance, but I’m not here to wreck St Mary’s. Far from it – I’m here to make it work better. I know what you must be thinking, but there really is no need for alarm or despondency. For most of you, life will continue very much as it did before. As Dr Maxwell so firmly pointed out to me on Friday, change is worthless unless it includes improvements, which is how I am hoping you will regard what could be a bright new future for all of us.’
He took a moment for effect and then said, ‘Thank you.’
I thought he would return upstairs to his office but to my surprise, he made his way through the still stunned ranks to stand in front of me.
‘If you’re not busy, Dr Maxwell, I would very much appreciate a tour of your department.’
I nodded. We might as well get it over with and no one knew better than me how to present my shambolic department in a favourable light.
I nodded. ‘Ten minutes?’
‘Of course,’ he said, while we both pretended he didn’t know this was so I could send Mr Roberts on ahead to give people a chance to hide the bodies. Every organisation has bodies. They may not be actual cadavers but everyone has something they don’t want the boss to see.
I met Treadwell outside his office and we headed downstairs together.
‘Before we begin, Dr Maxwell, have I, on several occasions, glimpsed a chicken in the corridors?’
‘Yes.’
Well, what else could I have said?
There was a bit of a silence, possibly while he waited for me to flesh my answer out a little, and then when it became apparent that wasn’t going to happen, he said, ‘Surely, Dr Maxwell, simple hygiene demands it should be removed as soon as possible.’
‘Angus was extremely fond of Dr Bairstow and her invariable reaction to any trauma is to spot-weld herself to Bashford. So yes, you have glimpsed a chicken in the corridors but only attached to Bashford, so no hygiene issues there.’
‘I find the knowledge that a chicken actually lives inside the building to be extremely concerning.’
An efficient and effective leader is always on the alert for possible areas of contention and, anticipating this conversation, I’d already had a word with Bashford yesterday, enquiring where Angus was living these days.
‘Mr Strong has her in the stable during the day and she’s with me at night,’ he’d said.
‘On your wardrobe?’
‘She likes it up there,’ Bashford said defensively.
It never seemed to occur to him that this was a potential face-saving moment for him. He could legitimately have consigned Angus to the only slightly less luxurious stables – which doesn’t say much for St Mary’s accommodation but what can you do? – and considerably increased his chances of saving his relationship with Sykes.
‘Oh no,’ he said when I mentioned this. ‘She was quite adamant about the wardrobe. Sykes, I mean. About Angus. On the wardrobe.’
And then obviously considering he’d explained the matter sufficiently, he’d wandered off – paused – appeared to reconsider his destination and then wandered off in the opposite direction. He really wasn’t getting any better.
But back to the present. Before Treadwell could further explore the subject of Angus’s living arrangements, I said brightly, ‘And here we are.’
We’d arrived at Wardrobe, which was always a hive of activity. Racks of costumes were neatly arranged, firstly in chronological order and then alphabetically, depending on for whom they had been made. Tailor’s dummies stood around with various bits and pieces draped all over them.
Through a door was the fitting room – where Rosie Lee had once memorably slapped a Time Police officer and
I’d thought we were all going to die. One wall was given over to rows and rows of shelves where rested various accessories – hats, shoes, swords, fans and so on. Another wall was plastered with photos of us historians, together with our measurements. I should say, having your vital statistics on display for everyone to see is a great incentive for everyone to stay slim. Except me. I live with public shame and chocolate. Rumour had it that one or two of the blokes wandered in occasionally and adjusted someone’s inside-leg measurement but I wouldn’t know anything about that.
I introduced Treadwell to Mrs Enderby, who, in turn, introduced him individually to her people.
He greeted everyone by name and then gazed around. ‘This is very impressive.’
‘In addition to kitting us out for all our jumps,’ I said, not hesitating to gild the lily, ‘Mrs Enderby wins awards for her work in the film, TV and holo industry.’ I gestured to the various certificates and awards displayed behind her desk.
‘Yes, indeed,’ he said, peering at them. ‘Some of these are very prestigious. Well done.’
I watched him suspiciously, looking for condescension, but apparently, he was serious.
‘I see you did the one about Leonardo,’ he said, squinting at a small trophy. ‘I actually thought the costumes were the best bit. The history was quite inaccurate.’
Her bosom swelled. Mrs Enderby is one of the sweetest persons on the planet but everyone has their bête noire.
‘One of Calvin Cutter’s,’ she said tightly and I had to intervene before she rendered us liable to an action for slander.
I gestured to a group of gorgeous dresses currently displayed on mannequins. ‘This is what Wardrobe is working on now. We’ve been asked to provide designs for Mr Cutter’s Catherine the Great.’
We all paused for him to make the remark about the horse but he didn’t, earning himself not inconsiderable brownie points. Instead, he turned his attention to the rows and rows of costumes accumulated over the years. I wondered whether to tell him there were more upstairs and decided against it. It’s never a good idea to burden senior managers with too much information. Always leave them plenty of room to think about what to have for lunch.
He smiled at Mrs Enderby. ‘Please do not remove my head from my shoulders, but why don’t you sell some of these off?’
‘Because,’ said Mrs Enderby, ‘we reuse them all many times. Like this one, for instance.’ She pulled out a plain brown woollen dress that had, to my certain knowledge, been a maid’s outfit in the Middle Ages, Female Citizen Number Two in Tudor times and Female Citizen Number One at the storming of the Bastille; the addition of a fichu had rendered it suitable for the late Georgian era. It was nicely worn in with shiny patches at the knees and elbows.
‘And when they’re completely worn out,’ she continued, ‘we cut them down to make other costumes. We have already incurred the expense of making them but by reusing them many times, lending them – even hiring them out to third parties – we recoup a lot of that expenditure.’
Treadwell said nothing but I could hear his brain working.
From there we crossed the Hall to the Library where Dr Dowson waited, arms folded in a particularly hostile manner.
Our new leader leaned across to me, whispering, ‘Why is there a hard hat on his desk?’
I whispered back, ‘Because his locker is too far away.’
‘From what?’
‘From here. There’s no point in keeping your safety gear on the other side of the building, is there?’
‘I think the point I am trying to make is that this is a library. He is a librarian. Why does he need a hard hat at all?’
‘For protection.’
‘From . . . ?’
Easy to see he hadn’t been here during rapid-chicken-firing-gun trauma.
‘From whatever is occurring at the time.’
‘Again, this is a library. What sort of things could possibly occur here?’
Even I didn’t dare say from things you need a hard hat to protect your head from so I said, ‘We’re directly underneath R&D here. It’s a bit of a hazardous location sometimes.’
He glanced upwards and nodded but said no more.
‘Commander Treadwell, this is Dr Dowson, our Head Librarian.’
I took very good care to stand between the two of them, all ready to tell Treadwell how the Library earned its keep by providing research to anyone who wanted it, but it seemed he’d found something else to complain about. Wandering slowly in and out of the bays, he said suddenly, ‘Some of these books are almost falling apart. Why are they still on the shelves?’
‘They’re scruffy because they’re used. Heavily. The better-looking books are more specialist and not consulted so frequently.’
‘Why isn’t it all digitised?’
‘Most of it is,’ I said, beginning to get the hang of this. ‘When these eventually fall apart, then they will be too. It’s a waste of money to duplicate copies needlessly, don’t you think?’
‘You could sell them off.’
‘We do. We send books to prisons, to other countries, to specialist libraries, to charities and so forth.’
Dr Dowson stood quietly by his desk, making no move to join us. I was terrified Commander Treadwell would ask why such a small library would need such a highly qualified librarian. The answer, of course, was to manage our Archive – previously housed behind the door in the corner – which I really didn’t want to get into at the moment because it wasn’t there – so I shunted him gently out of the door, back into the Great Hall and the History Department, which I was hoping would be the Big Finish and R&D could be quietly overlooked in the excitement.
Clean, conscious and reasonably presentable historians lined up to be introduced. Everyone was very polite. Never a good sign. A polite historian is an historian looking for a fight.
‘Before you submerge yourself in our money-making potential,’ I said, ‘Dr Bairstow traffics . . . trafficked out the History Department on a regular basis. We lecture at schools and colleges, private events and so forth, and occasionally assist in arranging tableaux for museums and exhibitions.’
He blinked. ‘They let you near children?’
‘Actually, I’m quite popular.’
‘What do you lecture on?’
‘Riots, revolutions, battlefields, bloody murders, executions, torture, plague, pus . . .’
‘Ah. Mystery solved. What are you working on at the moment?’ he asked, surveying the productive chaos around him.
‘We’re just finishing a major assignment to Crete,’ I said. ‘The eruption of Thera. Destruction of the Minoan civilisation. The rise of mainland Greece. Climate change around the world.’
He nodded. ‘Did you bring anything back?’
‘We don’t bring things back,’ I said quickly. ‘We can’t.’
‘Why not? My understanding was that . . .’
‘Pod safety protocols will not allow us to remove historical items from their own time. We couldn’t, for example, jump to 1503 and bring back the Mona Lisa.’
He frowned. I don’t know why some people worry about bringing their boss bad news. I quite enjoy it. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it has a near six-hundred-year History. If we jumped back and stole it when the paint was barely dry, it would have none of that. Events, lives, many things would be changed.’
I could see this argument wasn’t having the desired impact and tried another tack.
‘Without that History, its value would be considerably less. More importantly, because neither the paint nor the canvas would be six hundred years old, it would be judged a fake. Even though it wasn’t. And once that happened, our reputation – and that of Thirsk – would be shot and everything subsequently recovered – and possibly already recovered – would be similarly tainted. So – as I’m sure you are well aware – we re
scue items about to be destroyed because they have no further part to play in History. Having done that, we then hide them somewhere temporally and geographically appropriate so they can be recovered by perfectly legitimate archaeologists in a perfectly legitimate manner. Such as, for example, a small part of the contents of the Library at Alexandria.’
‘It seems unnecessarily long-winded.’
‘We have to do it that way,’ I said patiently, although I thought we’d covered this. ‘We have to make sure the retrieved object – say, a wooden carving – has aged correctly Otherwise we’d be in a position of handing over a perfectly genuine artefact but all the experts would say, “Yes, it looks genuine, but it can’t be because it’s obviously brand-new.” So we bury it somewhere safe, leave it to age naturally and then Thirsk discovers it to international acclaim.’
‘You bury it here?’
‘No, we bury it somewhere appropriate. To bolster its authenticity.’
‘At Thirsk then?’
‘No,’ I said, patience oozing from every orifice because everyone was listening and I had an example to set. ‘It’s a rule we have. Everything is buried and rediscovered in the country in which it was lost. Because it belongs to that country.’
‘So there’s no financial return on the discovery.’
‘Well, yes, of course there is. Massive acclaim for Thirsk for yet another brilliant archaeological find, which almost certainly leads to increased funding for them and, in the fullness of time, us. Plus massive excitement in the country in which it’s discovered. Publicity, cultural pride, renewed interest in History – it’s all good.’
‘But ours was the initial outlay.’
‘Seriously?’ I said. ‘Let us say for one moment that a possible Chinese equivalent of St Mary’s discovers Lady Shrewsbury’s garter – the one that inspires Edward III to found the Order of the Garter. They find it here in England but they cart it off to China and bury it there. At the appropriate time it’s uncovered just outside Beijing and put in a museum there. A major piece of English History. How happy would you be about that? How happy would anyone feel about that? Was there not enough grief over the Elgin Marbles?’
