Plan for the Worst

by Jodi Taylor

  I blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘You and him. It wouldn’t have worked and it would have broken both your hearts.’

  I didn’t know what to say. Or do. In times of doubt and indecision – turn to alcohol.

  ‘Let’s have a toast,’ I said, raising my glass. ‘To Flora. Long life and happiness to her.’

  He nodded and raised his glass.

  I don’t know what was in his drink but it must have packed a hell of a punch. He took a hefty glug, sucked in a breath, screwed up his eyes and somewhere a memory stirred. My world stopped. Because it couldn’t be. It was impossible. I stopped. Everything stopped. All thoughts and words failed me. There was a darkness behind my eyes. Ice ran through my veins and slowed my heart. The world faded . . .

  I became aware I was trying to put down my drink before I dropped it and all that was happening was my stupid arm was making strange ineffectual pawing gestures that were nowhere near the table.

  Someone took my glass from me, set it down and held my hands, saying quietly but urgently, ‘Max. Come back.’

  I blinked, blinked again and dragged my eyes from Markham holding my hands, across the room to Dr Bairstow, still sitting with Mrs Brown. His gaze drifted casually around the room, passed over me and then snapped back again. We both looked at each other for a long, long second. He said something to Mrs Brown, stood up and limped over to where we were sitting.

  Markham stood up, saying quietly, ‘Sir . . .’

  ‘So I see, Mr Markham.’ He looked at me. ‘My office, I think. Not here.’

  I have no memory of getting up the stairs. I must have done so because I remember passing through Mrs Partridge’s office. She took one look at us, said, ‘I shall see that we are not disturbed,’ and locked the outer door. And then I was in Dr Bairstow’s office and the three of us were looking at each other across his desk. Mrs Partridge came in quietly and seated herself behind Dr Bairstow. She didn’t look at him – she looked at me. They were all looking at me.

  ‘I am tempted,’ said Dr Bairstow, ‘to comment on your suddenly restored memory, but you never lost it, did you? You and I have been lying to each other for a long time now, Max. A reluctance to discuss certain matters has led to us not discussing them at all. We have both taken the easy way out and, sadly, for us, the easy way out has turned out to be not so easy in the end.’

  He was right. They say the truth is hard, but sometimes, lies are ten times harder.

  He sighed. ‘We – all three of us,’ he gestured to Markham and Mrs Partridge, ‘have been to extraordinary lengths to protect you, Max.’ He stopped and then said, ‘You were going to jump to Burgundy, were you not?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I knew you would,’ he said heavily. ‘You wanted to witness the arrival of a certain young prince. To see whether I had told the truth.’

  I nodded.

  ‘You made your way to the palace and while you were there, a young servant told you the prince had arrived safely. Just after dawn that morning.’

  He looked at me.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, slowly. ‘But how did you know? Were you there?’

  ‘In a way. Having received the information you wanted, instead of leaving quietly as we so hoped you would, you went to investigate, didn’t you? And in so doing, you underwent . . .’

  He stopped.

  ‘An experience,’ I said, and my voice wasn’t steady because the world was sliding away from me again.

  ‘It wasn’t an experience,’ he said, bluntly. ‘It was a warning. Carefully calculated to ensure you left well alone. Which you did.’

  ‘How?’ I said, hoarsely. ‘How do you know all this?’

  They all looked at each other.

  ‘You never left St Mary’s,’ said Mrs Partridge quietly. ‘In fact, you never left the Wardrobe Department.’

  I must have gaped like an idiot.

  ‘You went to collect your costume from Wardrobe. You felt tired. At my suggestion you sat down to rest. You closed your eyes. Just for a moment.’

  I stood up so quickly that my chair fell over. Markham slowly picked it up.

  ‘You drugged me?’ I remembered my aching arm. Not from the blow as I’d thought but from an injection.

  ‘Only lightly. You were still very tired.’

  I stared at them. This was rubbish. This couldn’t possibly be true. ‘But I . . . I remember the light on the wet cobbles. The way the rain ran down the roof. The drops of water on the leaves. The smell of the lavender. I was there.’

  ‘You were dreaming.’

  I could feel my anger rising. ‘Oh my God – what did you do to me? This is memory implantation. You implanted memories in my mind.’

  The chair didn’t topple this time. I picked it up and threw it across the room. It bounced very satisfactorily. Markham went to pick it up again.

  ‘I’d leave it if I were you,’ I said nastily. ‘Otherwise you could be at it all day.’

  Dr Bairstow said quietly, ‘Max, I promise you . . .’

  ‘You messed with my mind.’

  I struggled with the thought of these people getting into my mind, rummaging through my memories, manipulating my thoughts . . .

  I wheeled on Mrs Partridge. ‘You did this. Didn’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Of course you did. That’s just the sort of thing you do. Problems with this reality? Never mind that – we’ll just pick her up and dump her in another one. She won’t mind. And who cares if she does.’ I paused. ‘Well, go on – tell me you did it for my own good. That’s the usual story, isn’t it? That’s how you usually justify your actions.’

  ‘Dr Maxwell, I assure you . . .’

  ‘You’re lying. On top of everything else – you’re lying.’

  ‘No one is lying,’ said Dr Bairstow. ‘In the same way that traumatic memories can be manipulated or removed to relieve distress and suffering, so can memories be inserted. It’s actually slightly easier than the other way around. Memories were introduced that would, we hoped, reconcile you to recent unfortunate events.’

  Unfortunate events? I looked at the two of them. The Muse of History. The Director of St Mary’s. Fine representatives of the authority I’d always despised. And for good reason. Authority always has its own agenda. Authority sells its schemes with the promise it will benefit everyone and what they mean is that it will benefit themselves and their friends. Bugger the little people. Our only function is to pay for everything – including their very expensive mistakes – and then quietly die as quickly and inexpensively as possible. Bastards, every one of them. And they’d kidded me it was all so very different here and it was nothing of the kind. St Mary’s was just like everywhere else. I was so sick of being used. Everyone exploited me for their own particular schemes and no one ever told me anything.

  The Time Police had deceived me over Clive Ronan. Because it suited them. Mrs Partridge had once dropped me from one universe into another. Because it had suited her. Dr Bairstow might carry on about how he’d done me a favour by not telling me anything, but the truth was I simply wasn’t important enough to know. I was just here to be used. Just like all the other little people. And they’d done it so well. They’d led me to believe I mattered. That I had a voice. That my actions counted for something. And none of it was true. I was simply here to be manipulated, controlled . . . used. The betrayal was almost too much to contemplate. I could barely speak. ‘Why? Why would you do that to me?’

  ‘To try to keep you from the truth.’

  ‘Again – why? And do not tell me it was for my benefit.’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap. You mean it was for your benefit.’

  He made no response. None of them did. Red hot fury boiled inside me. I wheeled on Markham. ‘Get up.’

  Warily, he got to his feet.


  I picked up his chair and that followed its fellow down the room.

  No one said anything. Oddly, that made me angrier than ever.

  I turned back to Dr Bairstow. ‘You drugged me.’

  ‘It wasn’t really necessary,’ he said, quietly. ‘You were still exhausted from the after-effects of your immersion in the River Thames.’

  Well, he’d brought it up. ‘Oh,’ I said grimly. ‘Yes. I remember that. When you left me to die.’

  His old sick look was back. He said quietly, ‘I wanted so much to believe you had no memory of that night, but you do, don’t you? I’m sorry, Max, but I had no choice. No choice at all. Believe me, it was the most difficult moment of my life and I’m truly sorry for what I had to do.’

  I was trying so hard to be calm and rational. To be completely on top of the situation, but that didn’t work at all. Suddenly it all came pouring out. ‘Why? How could you just leave me like that? Why would you leave me like that? And then you lie to me. And then you mess with my mind to stop me finding out. Why would you do this to me?’ My voice cracked.

  He took a long, slow breath and said, ‘Because, as I reached out to save you, I saw that young boy’s face clearly for the first time and I realised who he was.’

  In my mind I relived the scene. The dark Thames slapping at my face. The flickering sky. The tug of the current. That little face, eyes tightly screwed up against the water . . . Eyes squeezed tightly shut . . .

  My lips wouldn’t work properly. I both knew the answer and didn’t know the answer. Two trains of thought battled inside me. It took a long time but finally I was able to say, ‘So who was he then? Who could he possibly be that was so important . . . so . . . ?’

  ‘He was me,’ said Markham, simply.

  42

  Well, thank God for Mrs Partridge is all I can say. I opened my eyes to find myself stretched out on the carpet with two worried men not really being a lot of help and Mrs Partridge holding a glass of water to my lips.

  ‘Just lift your head and sip slowly, Max.’

  ‘I fainted?’ I said, in disbelief and disgust at doing anything so girlie.

  ‘You are still very tired after your long assignment,’ she said tactfully.

  They helped me up. I suspected Dr Bairstow was none too thrilled with me sprawling all over his carpet. He had two virtually unused armchairs on the other side of the room and that was about as informal as he was ever likely to be.

  Markham had retrieved the chairs again. I sat down with a bump and tried to think what to do next. What to say. We sat in silence. No one else seemed anxious to speak. They were all watching me. Presumably in case I ended up on the carpet again.

  I turned to Markham. ‘You were the prince in the river?’

  He nodded. Strangely, it never occurred to me to disbelieve him. His face was so white I could see the freckles on his cheeks. Those purple shadows under his eyes were back. He must have run through every emotion known to man in the last few hours and he looked terrible. Really ill. Actually, I think we all did. I felt myself standing on the brink of something . . . not unknowable . . . but something that would change my world. Possibly forever. Did I want to know any more? Well, of course I did.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Richard.’

  ‘You’re Richard? That young boy we saw in the Tower?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Richard Plantagenet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Richard, Duke of York?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Son of Edward IV?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Brother to Edward V?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The Princes in the Tower?’

  ‘One of them.’

  My mind took refuge in familiar trivia. ‘So – Perkin Warbeck was a fraud, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You never went to Burgundy?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did Edward?’

  ‘I don’t know. He wasn’t well. He might not have lived long enough.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. No one does.’

  I sat back and tried to take control of the spinning plates that were my thoughts.

  ‘No, you’re not Richard.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘You can’t be. You were with me at Bosworth Field. You watched King Richard die without . . . without a trace of emotion. He was your uncle.’

  ‘Well, several points to make about that. Young Hoyle was being difficult and I was concentrating on him. You were hell-bent on some hare-brained scheme to keep History on track and I was concentrating on you. Plus, there’s at least a fifty-fifty chance that good old Uncle Richard had issued instructions for my murder. And it’s not as if I didn’t know how Bosworth was going to end. And, not least, it happened a very long time ago. I’m not that person any longer.’

  ‘But he was your uncle.’

  ‘He died bravely. As he would have wanted. His death ended the war. New king. New era. To be honest, I was more concerned about the business in the car park afterwards. About which, of course, we know nothing.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘I was concentrating on you, Max. I was keeping you alive.’

  ‘So I could go on to save your own life,’ I said, bitterly. ‘That’s what it’s always been about, isn’t it? All these years you’ve been keeping me alive so I could keep you alive.’

  He swallowed. ‘A little, but mostly because, despite all your best efforts, you’re quite likeable, you know. I can’t tell you how shit-scared I was you wouldn’t make it back from 1483 safely. That you’d drown because of me. That my life was saved at the expense of one of my best friends. I sat in Sick Bay and I waited and waited for you to come back and there was nothing I could do. And then Dr Bairstow came in with Mrs Brown and I could see by his face that he knew who I was. We had a long, long talk and all the time we were waiting for news of you and whether you were still alive.’

  I remembered how haunted he’d looked when I came round in Sick Bay. How he’d looked after me when I was so ill. How I’d thought it had been a good job he was there. And then I started thinking properly. ‘There was nothing wrong with you, was there? When you were in Sick Bay. You made yourself ill.’

  ‘Well, of course I did. I had to. I couldn’t go on that jump and I couldn’t let anyone else go because they’d keep you out of the river.’

  ‘You were spectacularly ill,’ I said suspiciously.

  ‘Ipecac.’

  I blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘Ipecac. I dosed myself with ipecac. Every time I started getting better, I dosed myself again. And filthy stuff it was. It was no fun, I can tell you.’

  ‘How did you get hold of . . . ?’ I stopped, guessing the answer and not wanting to get her into trouble. Too late.

  ‘Hunter,’ he said briefly.

  ‘But why didn’t you just tell . . . ?’ I glanced at Dr Bairstow.

  ‘I couldn’t take the chance. My memories of that night are very jumbled. I couldn’t do anything that might jeopardise the three of you being in the right place at the right time.’

  No, no, he couldn’t, could he? It occurred to me for the first time that somehow it had all been meant. The coordinates had been perfect but we’d landed in the wrong place at the wrong time. If we hadn’t been outside the gates, we’d never have been able to follow them out of the Tower. We’d never have been able to rescue that little boy.

  I looked over at Dr Bairstow. ‘And you knew? When we jumped to the Tower, you knew?’

  ‘No, no, I assure you, Max, I had no idea. None at all. I’ve been completely ignorant all these years. It was only when I was about to pull you out of the water and he surfaced right in front of me.’

  ‘And you recognised him?�
��

  ‘I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It just didn’t seem possible.’ He seemed to brace himself. ‘I could only pull one of you out and I had only a split second in which to make that decision.’ He stopped and said with some difficulty, ‘I chose Markham. I had to.’

  I was back in the river again. The cold water slapping at my face. The weight pulling me under. The water burning my throat. Unable to breathe . . . going under . . . I looked at him and said, ‘Yes . . . you did, didn’t you?’

  ‘I can assure you, Max, it was the most difficult choice I’ve ever . . .’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  He seemed to flinch.

  I said, heavily, ‘There was no choice to make. None at all. You couldn’t possibly have acted in any other way than you did without bringing disaster down upon us all. Markham’s life is woven into the very fabric of St Mary’s. You had no choice but to save him. This is the very thing the Time Police were banging on about with Ronan. We say it ourselves. Nothing ever happens in isolation. Everyone’s life thread is interwoven with everyone else’s. Change one thread and you change many. I might have died in the Thames but I would definitely have died if you hadn’t pulled him out. He’s saved me on many occasions. And not just me. You might not have liked it – and I’m certainly not happy – but I don’t believe you had a choice.’

  For a moment he stared out of the window and then turned back and said, ‘That is very generous of you. I am more relieved to hear you say that than you can imagine. These last months have not been comfortable. Perhaps I should have told you everything and we should have discussed what happened. What I did. Perhaps it would have helped.’

  It would. I could see why he’d kept it from me – he’d done it for Markham’s sake. And mine. Because if this ever got out . . . But he should have told me. I looked over the desk at him. He still looked old and ill. He’d been carrying a massive burden. And I hadn’t helped. Well, I could lie a little, as well. Let’s face it, I’ve been lying to authority for years. Time to show him how it should be done.

  I said cheerfully, ‘I have to disagree, sir. It wouldn’t have helped at all. I’d have lamped you with a chair – this one, probably – and then you’d have had to sack me. If you ever regained consciousness, of course.’ I thought for a moment. ‘It was you who sent the Time Police for me, wasn’t it?’