An Argumentation of Historians

by Jodi Taylor

  I clambered to my feet, wrung half a lakeful of smelly water from my dressing gown, raging and furious. ‘What the hell?’

  She shrugged. ‘See – you do want to live after all.’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing. I’ve just swallowed half the bloody lake. Thanks to you, I’ll be lucky to make it to lunchtime.’

  She looked at her watch. ‘Sorry, kiddo, can’t stick around that long. Meeting Dieter for a meal, prior to rogering him senseless.’

  I stormed off, squelching my way back to Sick Bay, ignoring everyone who stared at me.

  Dr Stone was waiting for me.

  He looked me up and down and said, ‘This Kalinda Black – I haven’t met her before, have I?’

  I shrugged off my sodden dressing gown, let it fall to the floor with a splat and wiped my face. ‘Do you still have a full set of working testicles?’

  ‘Er … mostly, yes.’

  ‘Then no.’

  The downside of Kal’s visit – apart from my near-death experience – was that I was now open to visitors.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere for a few days yet,’ said Dr Stone, ‘but I have quite a long list of people who, inexplicably, would like to visit you. Do you perhaps owe them money?’

  I’d been scowling at the wall and hoped – really hoped – he hadn’t caught my sudden flash of panic.

  ‘One of whom is your husband.’

  Now was the moment when I should say something. Tell him I needed a few more days to acclimatise myself. Just a few more days before facing the world. But what could I say? I opened my mouth. Nothing came out and, once again, I took refuge in silence.

  He sighed and sat on my bed, squashing my feet and, accidentally or otherwise, preventing my escape.

  ‘The fact is, and I may as well tell you, Max, I’m considering leaving St Mary’s.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Don’t think it’s not hard for me to admit this, because I thought I was a fine fellow when I first came here. I was flattered that Dr Bairstow sought me out. And it all sounded so exciting but, well … I think you’ll be the first to agree, I’m not Helen Foster, am I?’

  I was overcome with guilt and took refuge in indignation. ‘Who said that?’

  ‘No one. But they don’t have to, do they? It’s what everyone’s thinking and, let’s face it, although you haven’t said anything, I rather think that’s what you’ve been thinking too.’

  I shook my head, suddenly feeling terrible. ‘You mustn’t go. Not just because of me.’

  ‘Well, not just because of you, of course.’

  ‘I’m sorry …’

  ‘Look,’ he said kindly, ‘don’t worry about it. If you don’t want to talk about anything then that’s fine with me. If you like, we’ll give it another day or so to see if anything unpleasant crawls out from behind your eyeballs and if it doesn’t then I’ll discharge you and you can pick up your old life as if nothing had happened. But, Max, I really wish you could find it in your heart to trust me.’

  So did I. I knew that I needed help now more than ever before in my life and all I had to do was ask for it. I groped for words, forming and dismissing phrases and sentences, trying to fish coherency out of the logjam of emotions inside me and, as usual, despaired and gave up – and while I was thinking about how useless I was, I caught the sharp and unmistakeable tang of cigarette smoke. As if, somewhere far away, a door had opened. Just for one second. One very brief second.

  I don’t know why, but, unbelievably, after everything that had happened to me, that was the moment when my train came off the rails. Tears ran down my face. Without looking at him, I reached out my hand and grasped his sleeve.

  He put his warm hand over mine. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Understood. To quote someone not a million miles from here – I’ve just had a brilliant idea.’

  I never before realised how irritating that phrase is.

  ‘You need to talk to a doctor.’

  He hadn’t understood after all. I tried to pull my hand away. There was no chance. His ears might have the wingspan of an albatross but he was very strong.

  ‘So, how about Dr Dowson?’

  I stared some more.

  ‘Of course, if you have him then you’ll have to have Professor Rapson, too. I might as well tell you, Max, the pair of them have been camped outside your door since you arrived back, clamouring for a debrief. So that’s what you’ll give them. Look at it as not so much a girlie psychiatric session, but more in the nature of a professional debrief. They’ve even offered to bring their own crumpets.’

  The crumpets might not have been such a good idea because the professor brought his own patented two-storey six-seater toaster with him. His thinking was that there were three of us and no would want to have to wait for their crumpets, would they? Nothing is worse than watching others tucking into their own butter-sodden taste explosions while having to wait for your own to finish browning, he said. Therefore, he said, dumping his enormous machine onto my bedside table after first having swept aside my few personal possessions, he’d knocked up a little something to solve the problem and what did I think?

  I knew exactly what I thought, but what the hell.

  The first six crumpets were fine. We should have stopped there. The second batch obviously placed an unreasonable strain on the professor’s precarious circuits – and those of the toaster, as well – and the bloody thing emitted a noise like a dying donkey, fired six charred crumpets in eight different directions, burst into flames and toppled over onto my bed which also began to burn. I attempted to put beat out the flames with the pillow from the next bed and that went up too. I tried to remember a time when I wasn’t setting fire to something. I was still in isolation and the door doesn’t open from the inside so I was trapped in a room with two idiots, a blazing toaster, crumpet-peppered walls, a burning bed and a smouldering pillow. Or, as the two idiots later attempted to explain to Dr Stone, they were trapped in a room with a compulsive arsonist.

  Somewhat to everyone’s surprise, the alarms went off which at least meant we couldn’t hear each other screaming. The door was kicked open by Nurse Hunter bearing a fire extinguisher. She dealt ruthlessly with the fire while we cowered at the far end of the ward. Dear God, did she ever shout. Anyone would think it wasn’t an accident.

  Dr Stone came to see what all the noise was about, watched through the window for a few minutes and then abandoned us to our fate. So much for prioritising the welfare of his patients. Hunter’s voice was stripping paint of the walls and she was waving the extinguisher around like a Scud missile.

  Flames out, she turned and kicked her way back out again, colliding with Markham and his team, also in full fire-fighting gear, and disappointed at not being granted the opportunity to showcase their skills; closely followed by Leon, torn between concern for his wife – he said – and astonishment that the fire alarm contained a working battery; and Major Guthrie who limped out of the men’s ward to see what all the noise was about, took one look at me, rolled his eyes and said of course, who else would it be, which I thought was a little unfair since none of this was actually my fault; and Mikey, whom I’d forgotten all about, emerging from the female ward, still a little white and wobbly and worried the Time Police had found her.

  Obviously, everyone talked at once, the isolation ward was smoky and uninhabitable and, since, inexplicably, nothing medically horrible had emerged from any of my orifices, they decided I could be released into the custody of my husband. I didn’t have a lot of choice and so Leon took me away while everyone else was engaging in the blame game.

  I turned at the door to look back at the confusion and was almost certain I saw Dr Stone and Leon exchange a glance. I glowered suspiciously, but Leon put a gentle hand under my elbow and my eyes were still smarting from the pillow smoke, so probably not.

  Actually, the debrief idea – sans crumpets – was genius. Neither Professor Rapson nor Dr Dowson gave a rat’s arse about any personal issues I might have. We m
oved into the library and every morning, after breakfast with Leon, I wandered in to find them, datastacks open and ready to get stuck in.

  They were, as usual, single-mindedly insatiable. I can’t believe people actually fall for their, ‘Oh, I’m just an absent-minded academic, don’t mind me,’ routine. I’d once seen the two of them put together a lethal flame-thrower in about thirty seconds flat, using nothing more dangerous than a vacuum cleaner and a stirrup pump. And rumour had it that, at their first meeting, the professor had nearly blown up Dr Bairstow with just a bottle of urine and a toadstool.

  We began with the village. They produced large-scale Ordnance Survey maps and I drew in the village – the houses, the church, the barns, the smithy, the ovens, everything. From there, I listed the occupants of each house, described them and their relationships to those around them. I listed occupations and livestock. I described the fields and the crops, the agricultural year, who did what and for whom. I sketched what I could remember, each page being ripped from my pad before I’d barely finished.

  Moving on to St Mary’s, I took a deep breath and began. I drew a floor plan. I labelled and described each room and its function. I described the kitchens, the food we ate, Fat Piers and his team. I talked about Margery and Little Alice, and about Walter of Shrewsbury. I drew very good sketches of Tam the Welshman, Owen, and all the others.

  I described the siege – if you could call it that – of St Mary’s, the dead cat down the well, the taking of Guy of Rushford’s castle and Sir Hugh Armstrong. I described Rushford itself, the main buildings, the position of the market, its prominent citizens. They were particularly excited to know the medieval bridge had not yet been built and that the bulk of Rushford was still on the other side of the river.

  Yes, I managed to describe nearly everything without once mentioning my relationship with William Hendred. Make of that what you will.

  At the end of three days, we were finished. I had talked myself out. The library was littered with files, papers, whiteboards and maps. Datastacks twisted gently in the sunlight. We sat back, exhausted. They would pull it all together and put it into coherent form, but my part was done. I felt a hundred years younger, but now I had to deal with Leon. I couldn’t put it off any longer. I shouldn’t put it off any longer. None of this was his fault. None of it was mine, either, but that didn’t stop the guilt.

  First, however, was Dr Bairstow. He’d been to see me on my first day, staring in through the observation window and we’d had a brief conversation.

  ‘I am pleased to see you have returned, Dr Maxwell. I am becoming very bored with organising your funeral.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘Never mind. Mrs Partridge tells me she has filed the paperwork away for easy access in the future.’

  ‘Very sensible, sir.’

  ‘The Time Police have removed your … captors? Rescuers? Travelling companions?’ He consulted a note. ‘Messrs Rigby and Lorris.’

  ‘Can you request they be treated fairly, sir? They saved me. Twice, in fact.’

  He nodded his head. ‘Noted.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  He shifted his weight and prepared to depart. ‘Come and see me on your discharge, Max.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  And here I was, returning the visit, sitting in his office, watching the sun make patterns on his faded carpet. Mrs Partridge brought tea. I stared at it.

  ‘Welcome home, Dr Maxwell.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Partridge. It’s nice to be back.’

  She handed me my tea. ‘Is it?’

  I had no words. I stared at her.

  ‘Drink your tea, Dr Maxwell.’

  ‘I … um … I’m sorry but don’t think I like tea any longer.’

  ‘I understand, but I have made this just the way you like it only with less sugar. I think you will like it.’

  I had no thought of refusing. I sipped it gently. She was right. She was always right. I nodded my thanks.

  She took up her usual position behind Dr Bairstow and took out her scratchpad.

  He cleared his throat.

  ‘Max, have you never wondered why we don’t permit solo jumps?’

  ‘I always assumed it was so there would be at least one person to bring the bodies home, sir.’

  ‘Well yes, obviously, but there’s slightly more to it than that. There’s a reason, Max, why we don’t send people out alone. Or why we break long assignments into shorter periods. If you remember, even at Troy, there were frequent breaks and you had your colleagues around you at all times because, as you have discovered, it is very easy to become lost, mentally, as well as physically. The problem manifests itself in several ways – some people report they see one world superimposed on top of another – I believe you have made several attempts to walk through doors that no longer exist. Others are disoriented – experiencing something akin to jet lag, I believe. Dr Stone tells me the most common complaint is that the patient is convinced there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her and that the problem lies not with her but with the real world. It is the real world which is out of step.’

  I nodded.

  ‘In your case, Max – although time is the problem, time is also the solution. Make an effort to re-enter this world and I assure you, everything will pass.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Now,’ he said, briskly, ‘I believe young Matthew will be joining us for a visit very soon.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Excellent. It will be good for all three of you to spend some time together again.’ He smiled slightly. ‘I know both you and Leon have had a lot on your plates recently, but have you given any more thought to his future?’

  ‘Well, nothing has really changed, has it, sir? We failed again with Clive Ronan and, as things stand, neither Leon nor I are in a position to protect Matthew should any further threats be made against him. We both agreed – or we did the last time we were together – that he’s probably better off where he is for the time being. As long as we can see him regularly we’re both … not happy, but content, for things to continue as they are, short-term.’

  He nodded. ‘A wise decision.’ He closed the file. ‘Welcome back, Max.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  He hesitated. ‘I have to ask this and forgive my bluntness, but what are your feelings about getting back into a pod.’

  I understood the question. We’d experienced this before with Elspeth Grey. Her reluctance to re-enter a pod had never been overcome. We’d given her time but we couldn’t give her the confidence. Dr Bairstow was now enquiring whether that was the case with me. How reluctant was I to get back on the horse?

  I didn’t make the mistake of airily assuring him that everything was absolutely fine. I took a moment to think seriously, staring at my hands clasped in my lap. How did I feel about getting back into a pod?

  I opted for the truth. Always a wise move with Dr Bairstow. ‘A little apprehensive, sir.’

  ‘Good. I would not have believed you if you had said otherwise. A little apprehension is perfectly normal and I am pleased to discover you do have at least a tiny drop of self-preservation left. So, your return to the active list, Max – sooner or later? Your choice.’

  I took a deep breath and met it head-on. ‘Sooner, sir, if you please,’

  He made no comment, merely making a note on his scratchpad.

  ‘Very well, Dr Maxwell. That will be all.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Back in her office, Mrs Partridge turned to me. ‘I understand you have a few days leave due to you.’

  ‘Yes. I return to work on Monday.’

  She looked at me. ‘Use the time wisely, Max,’ and pulled her keyboard towards her.

  I waited, but she seemed to have forgotten me. ‘Um … yes, Mrs Partridge.’

  Leon was waiting for me on the gallery. ‘Fancy a walk?’

  I stopped dead and said darkly, ‘I’m not going anywhere near that bloody lake.’

  He
laughed, suddenly looking so much like his old self. ‘I don’t have her balls. Besides, I can’t run fast enough.’

  We settled ourselves in the sunken rock garden. The afternoon was warm and drowsy. I was tempted to sit back and close my eyes and just enjoy the afternoon with Leon. It was so long since we’d had the chance to do anything like this. Just be together. By ourselves. It seemed such a pity to spoil it, but the longer I left it, the more difficult it would be. I’d talked to Dr Stone. I’d talked to the professor and Dr Dowson. Surely, I should be able to talk to my own husband.

  ‘Leon, I have something I must tell you.’

  ‘Yes, I rather thought you might.’

  ‘I …’

  ‘Lucy, you can say anything to me. You know that.’

  I swallowed the urge to rest my head on his shoulder and cry.

  ‘I do know that. It’s just … I don’t … I don’t want you to be disappointed in me.’

  He didn’t make the mistake of rushing to assure me that could never happen. We’d both knocked around too long and seen too much to make rash promises to each other.

  ‘You and I used to be able to say anything to each other, Max. What’s happened to us? I don’t understand what’s happened to us.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say. I haven’t done anything wrong and yet I feel as if I have.’

  ‘Well, why not tell me and then we can see.’

  ‘All right. Except I don’t know where to start. I think you’re going to be unhappy which will make me unhappy. And if you say it doesn’t matter then I won’t believe you, and if you say you forgive me then I will never forgive you.’

  ‘I don’t seem to have a lot of options, do I?’

  ‘Well, we could always walk away from this conversation.’

  ‘Or we can face things as we always do. Together.’

  ‘Leon …’ I couldn’t go on.

  ‘I think I already know,’ he said, heavily. ‘There’s someone else, isn’t there?’