One of his expansively waving arms caught a beaker of something murky that could easily have been embalming fluid, the Elixir of Life, or Socrates’ hemlock and knocked it off the workbench to shatter on the floor. Everyone stepped back. The liquid bubbled, hissed, and looked as if it was eating through the floor. I could see many other such damp patches.
‘Oh, my goodness! Jamie! Jamie! Jamie, my boy, just nip downstairs, will you? My compliments to Dr Dowson and tell him it’s coming through his ceiling again!’
A young lad nodded amiably, got up from his workbench, and threaded his way through the tangle of half-completed models, unidentifiable equipment, tottering piles of books, and smudged whiteboards. He grinned at me as he passed. In fact, they all seemed very friendly. The only slightly odd thing was Mrs De Winter preceding every introduction with the warning that I hadn’t had the interview yet. People smiled and shook hands but nowhere did I get to venture beyond the doorway.
I met Mrs Mack who presided over the kitchens. Meals, she informed me, were available twenty-four hours a day. I tried to think why an historical establishment would keep such hours but failed. Not that I was complaining. I can eat twenty-four hours a day, no problem.
The bar and lounge next door were nearly the same size as the dining room, showing an interesting grasp of priorities. Everything was shabby from heavy use and lack of money, but the bar was particularly so.
Further down the same corridor, a small shop sold paperbacks, chocolate, toiletries, and other essential items.
I fell in love with the Library, which, together with the Hall, obviously constituted the heart of the building. High ceilings made it feel spacious and a huge fireplace made it cosy. Comfortable chairs were scattered around and tall windows all along one wall let the sunshine flood in. As well as bays of books they had all the latest electronic information retrieval systems, study areas, and data tables and, through an archway, I glimpsed a huge archive.
‘You name it, we’ve got it somewhere,’ said Doctor Dowson, the Librarian and Archivist who appeared to be wearing a kind of sou’wester. ‘At least until that old fool upstairs blows us all sky high. Do you know we sometimes have to wear hard hats? I keep telling Edward he should house him and his entire team of madmen on the other side of Hawking if we’re to have any chance of survival at all!’
‘Dr Maxwell hasn’t had the interview yet,’ interrupted Mrs De Winter and he subsided into vague muttering. In Latin. I stared somewhat anxiously at the ceiling, which did indeed appear to be blotched and stained, but at least nothing seemed to be eating its way through the fabric of this probably listed building.
‘Did they tell you?’ he demanded. ‘Last year his research team attempted to reproduce the Russian guns at the Charge of the Light Brigade, miscalculated the range, and demolished the Clock Tower?’
‘No,’ I said, answering what I suspected was a rhetorical question. ‘I’m sorry I missed that.’
I was moved firmly along.
We stopped at the entrance to a long corridor, which seemed to lead to a separate, more modern part of the campus. ‘What’s down there?’
‘That’s the hangar where we store our technical plant and equipment. There’s no time to see it at the moment; we should be heading to Dr Bairstow’s office.’
I was still thinking about the Crimean War and the disasters of the Battle of Balaclava when I realised someone was speaking to me. He was a man of medium height, with dark hair and an ordinary face made remarkable by brilliant, light blue-grey eyes. He wore an orange jump suit.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I was thinking about the Crimea.’
He smiled. ‘You should fit right in here.’
‘Chief, this is Dr Maxwell.’
‘I haven’t had the interview yet,’ I said, just to let them know I’d been paying attention.
His mouth twitched at one corner.
‘Dr Maxwell, this is our Chief Technical Officer, Leon Farrell.’
I stuck out my hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Farrell.’
‘Most people just call me Chief, Doctor.’ He reached out slowly and we shook hands. His hand felt warm, dry, and hard with calluses. Working man’s hands.
‘Welcome to St Mary’s.’
Mrs De Winter tapped her watch. ‘Dr Bairstow will be waiting.’
* * *
So, this was Dr Edward Bairstow. His back was to the window as I entered. I saw a tall, bony man, whose fringe of grey hair around his head rather reminded me of the ring of feathers around a vulture’s neck. Away off to the side with a scratchpad in front of her sat a formidable-looking woman in a smartly tailored suit. She looked elegant, dignified, and judgmental. Dr Bairstow leaned heavily on a stick and extended a hand as cold as my own.
‘Dr Maxwell, welcome. Thank you for coming.’ His quiet, clear voice carried immense authority. Clearly he was not a man who had to raise his voice for attention. His sharp eyes assessed me. He gave no clue as to his conclusions. I’m not usually that good with authority, but this was definitely an occasion on which to tread carefully.
‘Thank you for inviting me, Dr Bairstow.’
‘This is my PA, Mrs Partridge. Shall we sit down?’
We settled ourselves and it began. For the first hour, we talked about me. I got the impression that having no acknowledged next of kin and a lack of personal ties constituted a point in my favour. He already had details of my qualifications and we talked for a while about the post-grad stuff in archaeology and anthropology and my work experience and travels. He was particularly interested in how I found living in other countries and amongst other cultures. How easy was it for me to pick up languages and make myself understood? Did I ever feel isolated amongst other communities? How did I get around? How long did I take to become assimilated?
‘Why did you choose history, Dr Maxwell? With all the exciting developments in the space programme over the last ten years and the Mars Project in its final stages, what made you choose to look backwards instead of forwards?’
Pausing, I arranged and edited my thoughts. I was nine. It had been a bad Christmas. I sat in the bottom of my wardrobe. Something unfamiliar dug into my bottom. I wriggled about and pulled out a small book – Henry V and the Battle of Agincourt. I read and re-read it until it nearly fell apart. I never found out where it came from. That little book awoke my love of history. I still had it: the one thing I had saved from my childhood. Studying history opened doors to other worlds and other times and this became my escape and my passion. I don’t ever talk about my past so I replied with three short, impersonal sentences.
From there we moved on to St Mary’s. Dr Bairstow gave the impression of a large, lively, and unconventional organisation. I found myself becoming more and more interested. There wasn’t any particular moment I could identify, but as he talked on, I began to feel I was missing something. This was a big campus. They had a Security Section and twenty-four-hour meals and plant and equipment and a Technical Department. He paused for a moment, shuffled a few papers, and asked me if I had any questions.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What’s Hawking?’
He didn’t answer but pushed himself back slightly from his desk and looked across at Mrs Partridge. She put down her scratchpad and left the room. I watched her go and then looked back at him. The atmosphere had changed.
He said, ‘How do you know about Hawking?’
‘Well,’ I said, slowly. ‘It’s not common knowledge of course, but ...’ and let the sentence die away. He stared at me and the silence lengthened. ‘It just seems strange that a hangar in an historical research centre is named after the famous physicist.’
Still no response, but now I wasn’t going to say anything either. Silence holds no fears for me. I never feel the urge to fill it as so many other people do. We gazed at each other for a while and it could have been interesting, but at this moment, Mrs Partridge re-entered, clutching a file, which she put in front of Dr Bairstow. He opened it and spread the papers across his de
sk.
‘Dr Maxwell, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but perhaps you could tell me what you do know.’
He’d called my bluff.
‘Absolutely nothing,’ I said. ‘I heard the name mentioned and wondered. I’m also curious about the large numbers of staff here. Why do you need security or technicians? And why do people need to know I haven’t had “the interview”? What’s going on here?’
‘I’m quite prepared to tell you everything you want to know, but first I must inform you that unless you sign these papers, I shall be unable to do so. Please be aware these documents are legally binding. The legal jargon may seem obscure, but, make no mistake, if you ever divulge one word of what I am about to tell you now, then you will spend the next fifteen years, at least, in an establishment the existence of which no civil liberties organisation is even aware. Please take a minute to think very carefully before proceeding.’
Thinking carefully is something that happens to other people. ‘Do you have a pen?’
The obliging Mrs Partridge produced one and I signed and initialled an enormous number of documents. She took the pen back off me, which just about summed up our relationship.
‘And now,’ he said, ‘we will have some tea.’
By now, afternoon had become early evening. The interview was taking far longer than a simple research job warranted. Clearly it was not a simple research job. I felt a surge of anticipation. Something exciting was about to happen.
He cleared his throat. ‘Since you have not had the sense to run for the hills, you will now have the “other” tour.’
‘And this is the “other” interview?’
He smiled and stirred his tea.
‘Have you ever thought, instead of relying on archaeology, unreliable accounts and, let’s face it, guesswork, how much better it would be if we could actually return to any historical event and witness it for ourselves? To be able to say with authority, “Yes, the Princes in the Tower were alive at the end of Richard’s reign. I know because I saw them with my own eyes.”’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘It would; although I can think of a few examples where such certainty would not be welcomed.’
He looked up sharply.
‘Such as?’
‘Well, a certain stable in Bethlehem for instance. Imagine if you pitched up with your Polaroid and the innkeeper flung open the door and said, “Come in. You’re my only guests and there’s plenty of room at the inn!” That would put the cat amongst the pigeons.’
‘An understatement. But you have nevertheless grasped the situation very clearly.’
‘So,’ I said, eyeing him closely, ‘maybe it’s good there’s no such thing as time travel.’
He raised his eyebrows slightly.
‘Or to qualify further, no such thing as public-access time travel.’
‘Exactly. Although the phrase “time travel” is so sci-fi. We don’t do that. Here at St Mary’s we investigate major historical events in contemporary time.’
Put like that, of course, it all made perfect sense.
‘So tell me, Dr Maxwell, if the whole of history lay before you like a shining ribbon, where would you go? What would you like to witness?’
‘The Trojan War,’ I said, words tumbling over each other. ‘Or the Spartans’ stand at Thermopylae. Or Henry at Agincourt. Or Stonehenge. Or the pyramids being built. Or see Persepolis before it burned. Or Hannibal getting his elephants over the Alps. Or go to Ur and find Abraham, the father of everything.’ I paused for breath. ‘I could do you a wish list.’
He smiled thinly. ‘Perhaps one day I shall ask you for one.’
He set down his cup. With hindsight, I can see how he was feeling his way through the interview, summing me up, drip-feeding information, watching my reactions. I must have done something right, because he said, ‘As a matter of interest, if you were offered the opportunity to visit one of the exciting events listed, would you take it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Just like that? Some people feel it incumbent to enquire about safe returns. Some people laugh. Some people express disbelief.’
‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘I don’t disbelieve. I think it’s perfectly possible. I just didn’t know it was possible right now.’
He smiled, but said nothing, so I soldiered on. ‘What happens if you can’t get back?’
He looked at me pityingly. ‘Actually, that’s the least of the problems.’
‘Oh?’
‘The technology has been around for some time. The biggest problem now is History itself.’
Yes, that made everything clear. But as Lisa Simpson once said, ‘It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.’ So I remained silent.
‘Think of History as a living organism, with its own defence mechanisms. History will not permit anything to change events that have already taken place. If History thinks, even for one moment, that that is about to occur, then it will, without hesitation, eliminate the threatening virus. Or historian, as we like to call them.
‘And it’s easy. How difficult is it to cause a ten-ton block of stone to fall on a potentially threatening historian observing the construction of Stonehenge? Another cup?’
‘Yes, please,’ I said, impressed with his sangfroid and equally determined not to be outdone.
‘So,’ he said, handing me a cup. ‘Let me ask you again. Suppose you were offered the opportunity to visit sixteenth-century London to witness, say, the coronation parade of Elizabeth I –it’s not all battlefields and blood – would you still want to go?’
‘Yes.’
‘You understand very clearly that this would be on an observation and documentation basis only? Interaction of any kind is not only extremely unwise, it is usually strictly forbidden.’
‘If I was to be offered any such opportunity, I would understand that very clearly.’
‘Please be honest, Dr Maxwell, is this admirable calm because deep down, very deep down, you think I’m clearly insane and this is going to be one to tell in the pub tonight?’
‘Actually, Dr Bairstow, deep down, very deep down, I’m having a shit-hot party.’
He laughed.
Waiting in Mrs Partridge’s office sat the quiet, dark man with the startling eyes I’d met on the stairs.
‘I’ll leave you with the Chief,’ Dr Bairstow said, gathering up some papers and data cubes. ‘You’re in for an interesting evening, Dr Maxwell. Enjoy.’
We left the office and headed down the long corridor I’d noticed before. I experienced the oddest sensation of entering into another world. The windows, set at regular intervals along one side, cast pools of sunlight along the floor and we passed from light to dark, from warm to cool, from this world into another. At the end of the corridor was a key-coded door.
We entered a large foyer area with another set of big doors opposite.
‘Blast doors,’ he said, casually.
Of course, what was I thinking? Every historical research centre needs blast doors. On my right, a flight of stairs led upwards with a large, hospital-sized lift alongside. ‘To Sick Bay,’ he said. On the left, a corridor with a few unlabelled doors disappeared into the gloom.
‘This way,’ he said. Did the man never say more than two or three words together?
The big doors opened into a huge, echoing, hangar-style space. I could see two glassed-in areas at the far end.
‘Those are offices. One for IT,’ he gestured at the left room. ‘And one for us technicians.’ He gestured right. An overhead gantry ran down one side with three or four blue jump-suited figures leaning on the rail. They appeared to be waiting for something.
‘Historians,’ he said, following my stare. ‘They wear blue. Technicians wear orange, IT is in black, and Security wears green. Number Three is due back soon. This is the welcoming committee.’
‘That’s ... nice,’ I said.
He frowned. ‘It’s a dangerous and difficult job. There’s no suppor
t structure for what we do. We have to look after each other, hence the welcoming committee; to show support and to talk them down.’
‘Down from what?’
‘From whatever happened to the crew on this assignment.’
‘How do you know something happened?’
He sighed. ‘They’re historians. Something always happens.’
Ranged down each side of the hangar stood two rows of raised plinths. Huge, thick, black cables snaked around them and coiled off into dim recesses. Some plinths were empty; others had small hut-like structures squatting on them. Each was slightly different in size or shape and each one looked like a small, dingy shack, stone-built, flat-roofed with no windows; the sort of structure that could be at home anywhere from Mesopotamian Ur to a modern urban allotment. Prop a rickety, hand-made ladder against a wall and with a broken wheel by the door and a couple of chickens pecking around, they would be invisible.
‘And these are?’ I asked, gesturing.
He smiled for the first time. ‘These are our base of operations. We call them pods. When on assignment, our historians live and work in these. Numbers One and Two.’ He pointed. ‘We usually use them as simulators and for training purposes, because they’re small and basic. Pod Three is due back anytime now. Pod Five is being prepped to go out. Pod Six is out. Pod Eight is also out.’
‘Where are Pods Four and Seven?’
He said quietly, ‘Lost.’ In the silence, I could almost hear the dust motes dancing in the shafts of sunlight.
‘When you say “lost,” do you mean you don’t know where they are, or they never came back for some reason?’
‘Either. Or both. Four went to twelfth-century Jerusalem as part of an assignment to document the Crusades. They never reported back and all subsequent rescue attempts failed. Seven jumped to early Roman Britain, St Albans, and we never found them either.’
‘But you looked?’
‘Oh yes, for weeks afterwards. We never leave our people behind. But we never found them, or their pods.’
‘How many people did you lose?’
‘In those two incidents, five historians altogether. Their names are on the Boards in the chapel.’ He saw my look of confusion. ‘They’re our Roll of Honour for those who don’t come back, or die, or both. Our attrition rate is high. Did Dr Bairstow not mention this?’
The Things We Learn When We're Dead Page 42
