A Second Chance

by Jodi Taylor

  I was wandering around the tables, muttering and moving things around, when the phone rang. Without taking my eyes off twelfth-century France, I groped for the handset.

  ‘Max?’

  What did he want?

  The line was terrible. He was obviously in Hawking and they were running some piece of equipment that made him sound as if he was on the other side of the universe.

  ‘Chief Farrell?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  A burst of static hurt my ears.

  ‘In my office.’

  ‘You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?’

  ‘Apparently, yes.’

  ‘Lunch?’

  ‘What? What did you say? I can’t hear you.’

  ‘I’m waiting.’

  The line went dead.

  Well, that was odd.

  I set off down the stairs, wondering what was going on. The Hall was deserted. Half a dozen historians had obviously decided to be somewhere else.

  The dining-room was similarly deserted. Mrs Mack gave me a palms-up where is everyone? shrug and I responded with my palms-up Search me.

  A morning of oddities. We’re St Mary’s. It was lunchtime. I should be up to my withers in people clamouring for sustenance. It was Wednesday, too. Toad in the hole day.

  The corridor to Hawking was deserted. I met no one. There should have been an advancing orange tsunami of famished technicians who hadn’t touched food for anything up to forty-five minutes. And yet, nothing.

  I let myself quietly through the hangar doors and knew at once that something was wrong.

  Silence.

  Complete silence.

  Hawking was never quiet. There was always the hum of electronic equipment, techies shouting to each other across the vast space, the tinkle of dropped tools, and, over everything, a tinny radio playing housewives’ favourites.

  There was none of that. Just sound-sucking, heavy silence.

  At least I’d found everyone. What seemed like the entire unit was standing around in twos and threes, all facing towards Number Eight.

  No one spoke.

  Without thinking, I let the door slip from my grasp and it banged behind me.

  Heads turned.

  Someone said, ‘Here she is now.’

  Peterson weaved his way through the crowd.

  He stood directly in front of me, masking whatever it was from my sight. And me from them.

  His eyes were red and wet. He said, very gently, ‘Chin up, Max.’

  I nodded.

  He took my hand and threaded it through his arm.

  We walked slowly towards Number Eight.

  People fell back on either side.

  No one spoke.

  I saw Dieter sitting on the Number Seven plinth.

  He was crying. Dieter was crying. His face was red and blotchy.

  Polly Perkins had her hand on his shoulder. She was crying too.

  I stepped carefully up onto Number Eight plinth.

  Peterson ushered me into the pod.

  Dr Bairstow stood in the back corner, his hands crossed on his stick.

  I couldn’t see his face.

  Helen was kneeling on the floor, packing up her kit.

  My world did not end. It exploded. Exploded soundlessly into a million tiny fragments, spinning silently through space. And I suddenly realised I didn’t hate him. Had never hated him. And that it was now far, far too late.

  He lay on his back, arms outflung. I could see his tool roll nearby. The console panel was off, exposing the innards.

  Helen finished stowing her kit and began to speak. I heard only the words ‘sudden,’ and ‘massive’.

  After she had finished speaking, the silence dragged on.

  I felt nothing.

  Dr Bairstow lifted his head.

  I couldn’t look at his face.

  ‘I know that you and he were not … but I thought, perhaps, you might like a moment …’

  How does he know these things?

  They left, taking Peterson with them. I was alone. In every sense of the word.

  Stiffly, I knelt beside him.

  His eyes were closed. He looked asleep.

  I took his hands and gently placed them on his chest. For the first time in living memory his hands were colder than mine.

  I straightened his clothes and smoothed his hair.

  I leaned forward and laid my head on his chest. There was no strong, steady heartbeat.

  I don’t know for how long I sat beside him, holding his hand while he made his final journey. While he finally went somewhere I couldn’t follow. To some place from which I couldn’t bring him back.

  Time disappeared.

  Either a few minutes or a hundred years later, Tim touched my shoulder.

  ‘We have to let him go now, Max.’

  Maybe he was expecting me to protest.

  I said nothing.

  He helped me to my feet.

  They’d cleared the hangar.

  Helen and her team waited at one end.

  Tim took me through the doors.

  I turned towards my office, but he stopped me. ‘Not today.’

  He took me upstairs to my room.

  I said my first words in this new life without Leon.

  ‘I’m fine, Tim.’

  ‘If you could see what I could see, you wouldn’t say that.’

  The tea tasted odd. Very odd.

  I closed my eyes.

  I could see nothing.

  I slept.

  I did not dream.

  Whenever it was that I awoke, Tim was still there.

  He handed me a mug of tea.

  ‘Drink this. Then you need to tidy yourself up a bit. The Boss wants you. And Kal is on her way.’

  ‘Kal?’

  ‘Burning up the motorways as we speak.’

  ‘She should see Dieter. He’s not going to deal well with this.’

  ‘She’ll want to see you first.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  And I was.

  No huge red rose of grief bloomed inside me.

  No aching sense of loss.

  No bitter regret for lost opportunities.

  No guilt.

  No self-recrimination.

  No – nothing.

  Tim said, ‘Max,’ and looked more distressed than I could ever remember seeing him.

  It occurred to me that I should say something to help him.

  I said, ‘Tim,’ and put my hand on his.

  Tears slid down his face.

  ‘Tim, my dear old friend. Don’t cry. He wouldn’t want that.’

  ‘I’m not crying for him, stupid.’

  I’m shallow. I’ve always been shallow. Whether naturally or because of my up-bringing, I don’t know and it’s not really important. When Bad Things happen, I just shut down. Other people don’t like this. He didn’t like it. Hadn’t liked it. But it’s a godsend. It keeps my head clear. It allows me to function. Somewhere inside me is a locked room where the Bad Things lie deeply buried. My childhood, the child I carried and lost, Sussman’s treachery, the murder of Isabella Barclay – it’s all there, safely locked away. No trouble to anyone, least of all me. This was just another Bad Thing to be locked away and forgotten.

  All things pass.

  ‘Max, I don’t know what to do for you.’

  ‘You don’t have to do anything for me, Tim. I’m fine. Let me make you some tea.’

  He tried to protest, but I overruled him. He looked dreadful. Of the two of us, I was in far better condition.

  He didn’t finish his tea, getting up to go after just one sip.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I can’t bear it any longer. Maybe Kal will know what to do.’

  Then he was gone.

  I finished his tea as well, showered, and was about to leave my room when Dr Bairstow turned up.

  ‘Sir, am I late? I was on my way.’
<
br />   ‘No, no. I thought I would come to you.’

  ‘Please, come in.’

  He limped straight to the window and drew the curtains. But not before I had glimpsed movement in the room across the roof.

  They were clearing out Leon’s belongings.

  I appreciated the thought, but it was unnecessary. I was absolutely fine.

  ‘Would you like to sit down, sir?’

  He sat heavily, placing a bottle of wine, two large brown envelopes, and my personal file on the scarred coffee table in front of him.

  I put two glasses on the table, sat down beside him and waited for him to begin.

  He didn’t ask how I was, which I really appreciated.

  Like an echo from the past, he said again, ‘Am I going to lose you, too?’

  I responded cautiously. ‘Not as far as I know, sir.’

  He picked up the first envelope.

  ‘I ask because I found this amongst L – Chief Farrell’s personal effects.’

  I opened the envelope. Property details. Small flats in Rushford with workspace. For the two of us. To live together. His dream. The one I’d trampled over with all the brutality of someone stamping a fluffy kitten into a field of daffodils.

  ‘Would you like to have these, Max?’

  No. I wasn’t going to torture myself with what might have been.

  ‘No, thank you, sir.’

  He carefully replaced the contents and laid the envelope back on the table, saying, with difficulty, because he really didn’t do this sort of thing well, ‘If you think it would help, I can easily arrange a temporary transfer to Thirsk. If you think a change of scenery would be beneficial.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Thank you, sir, but unless you object, I’d prefer to stay here. We have a lot on at the moment.’

  ‘I understand.’

  And actually he did.

  He began again.

  ‘I’ve sent him back. In his pod.’

  I didn’t get it to begin with. Then I did.

  He was from the future. He couldn’t stay here. Nor could his pod. It wasn’t of this time. So the Boss had sent them back.

  I’d lost him twice.

  Again, he seemed to read my thoughts.

  ‘It’s his home. They’ll put him with his family.’

  Yes, his mother and his sons, who had died in some dreadful future epidemic. A loss from which he never quite recovered. Finally, they would all be together.

  And I would be alone again.

  He continued. ‘There will be a service, of course. Tomorrow. We’ll put up a stone to remember him by. And his name will go up on the Boards of Honour.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I have his will here.’

  We all made out wills. With our lifestyle, it was only prudent. They were all lodged with Dr Bairstow. He and Thirsk were our executors.

  ‘He left everything to you.’

  He passed me a piece of paper and pointed to a total.

  ‘Sir, you do know we weren’t …?’ I stopped, unable to think of the right word.

  ‘Yes, I know. It makes no difference. He never changed his will.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem right, somehow.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you are his beneficiary.’

  I looked at him. How much did he know?

  ‘It will take a while, of course, but you will be quite well off, Max. Independent, perhaps. So, I ask again. Am I going to lose you too?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘You should be so lucky, sir.’

  He smiled, slightly, and put the second envelope away.

  ‘I was rather hoping you might be able to solve a small mystery for me. Would you like to hear a short story?’

  I nodded, mystified.

  ‘A long time ago, in the future, shortly after we had qualified, L – Leon was summoned to the Director’s office. We both knew we were being groomed for something different. With his engineering background, Leon’s training had been technical, and mine was administrative. I’d been shadowing the Director for six months.

  ‘Anyway, we thought that we were finally going to get some answers, but it turned out to be something completely different. A couple of small jumps.

  ‘Firstly, to a set of co-ordinates that no one knew anything about. Apparently, there was a Standing Order, which had been handed down from Director to Director over the years. On this date, send this historian to these co-ordinates and render whatever assistance is required. That was it. That was all we had to work with.

  ‘The second was even more ambiguous. Another set of co-ordinates and an object to be delivered. Again, that was it. No further information.

  ‘I should perhaps say that Leon, in those days, was a most unhappy man. Still grieving, sullen, and resentful. I don’t know if he ever spoke to you about his early days at St Mary’s, but the wounds of his family’s death were still very raw. Every day, every moment, I think, was painful for him. He certainly gave me the impression he was only there because he had nowhere else to be. Anyway, he was very unimpressed with these assignments. Apparently, he was still muttering as he climbed into the pod.

  ‘I don’t know what happened on that jump. Nobody knows what happened on that jump and he’s never spoken of it. He’d been damaged before, but when he came back he was defeated. Finished. You could see it in his eyes.

  ‘I attended his de-briefing with the Director. Using the fewest possible words, he described how he’d gone, done what was needed and come back again. That, as far as he was concerned was that. He had reached the end. He was looking for an opportunity to leave. Not just the room, but St Mary’s as a whole. And possibly life itself.

  ‘I think that must have been what prompted our Director to move the schedule up a little and start the initial briefing for the mission to send us back to this time. Leon reached for the first file, which just happened to be yours, Max, and opened it up.’

  He opened my file as he spoke. In a clear pocket on the inside cover was my official photo – a larger copy of the one on my ID card. He pulled it out and looked at it thoughtfully.

  ‘This is the photo that Leon saw. The Director was speaking, but he wasn’t listening. He took this out, looked closely, turned it over, and read something on the back. And from that moment on, he was a changed man. Something lifted. He couldn’t wait to start on the assignment.’

  He turned it over. Nothing was written there.

  ‘Do you have any ideas?’

  I was mystified. ‘None, sir.’

  ‘Ah well.’ He tucked the picture back in its pocket. ‘I just wondered. I daresay we shall never know now.’

  He paused. ‘And finally …’

  I stiffened. And finally … what …?

  ‘I have a proposition for you to think about. I do not require an answer at this stage. You may take your time and consider your options.’

  He sighed. ‘I shall not be here for ever. It is time I started to give thought to my successor. Please do not be alarmed.’

  ‘Too late, sir, I am alarmed. I can’t imagine St Mary’s without you. I certainly can’t imagine working at St Mary’s under another Director.’

  ‘Let me reassure you on both counts. I do not intend to leave St Mary’s for some time yet and you will have no difficulty working with my successor. It would have been Leon, of course, but that’s not possible now. I have in mind, when the time comes, to appoint Dr Peterson.’

  ‘An excellent choice, sir.’

  ‘You could work with him?’

  ‘I could indeed. So could everyone.’

  They could, too. Peterson was a brilliant choice. His management style was far enough from Dr Bairstow’s for him to have his own identity. Everyone liked him but he still commanded respect. He would be perfect.

  ‘As for you, Max – I would like you to consider accepting the post of Deputy Director. Now. Or at least in the very near future. You would, in effect, be responsible for the day-to-day running of the unit, while I, and
then my successor, can concentrate on bigger issues. You would act as a bridge between the old regime and the new. Dr Peterson will supply the leadership required, but you, you will provide the continuity.’

  I sat stunned. Deputy Director? Me? And Peterson? The new Director one day? Did he know? Was this imminent?

  ‘Not for a few years yet,’ he said, reminding me yet again that I don’t have a poker face. ‘Please, take some time to think about what I have said.’

  I shivered. Suddenly, it was all too much. Leon’s recent death. This sudden revelation. In less than twenty-four hours, everything was up in the air. The chill wind of change was blowing through St Mary’s.

  ‘I’m sure I know the answer to this one, Dr Maxwell, but do you have a corkscrew?’

  Does the pope shit in the woods?

  He held up his glass. ‘To absent friends.’

  ‘To absent friends.’

  It was good stuff. Leon would have approved.

  I sipped carefully. Something was required of me and I wasn’t sure what.

  And then I was.

  He wanted to talk. He wanted to talk to the only other person in this time who knew who and what Leon Farrell was. Someone who could comprehend the depth of his own loss. I imagined Peterson and me, on a long-term assignment, just the two of us, out of our own time for possibly the rest of our lives. How it would be if one of us died and the other had to carry on? Alone …

  I said carefully, ‘So tell me, sir, what was he like when you met him? He once told me you knocked seven shades of shit out of him. Did you really?’

  He barked something that wasn’t quite a laugh and topped up my glass. ‘You don’t know the half of it.’

  I listened. The bottle slowly emptied.

  Two hours later, he looked exhausted, but better. He’d talked almost non-stop, his memories, brought out for my inspection, drifting insubstantially around my room before dissolving away in affectionate silence.

  I saw him to the door.

  He paused and put out his hand. ‘Max.’

  I took it. ‘Dr Bairstow.’

  Nothing more was needed.

  The next day was Leon’s service, which I attended, along with everyone else in the unit. The Boss spoke. I can’t remember what he said. I remember only the rainbow light streaming through the Chapel’s stained-glass windows, falling in multi-coloured pools on the stone floor and the tears on Dieter’s cheeks. He’d asked for Leon’s tool roll – partly because he’d always coveted it and partly to remember him by. Kal sat on one side of him, Helen on the other, then Tim, then me on the end. The sense of loss filled the tiny Chapel. Tears were shed. But not by me.