by Jodi Taylor
My baby was gone.
There are fairy stories about this sort of thing. About babies being stolen by fairies or by elves, about ugly substitutes left in their place while the human child is spirited away to the hollow hills and never seen again. Except that this ugly boy was my child. This was Matthew. This stranger was my son. I would now never see his first steps, or hear his first words, or…
Someone was pushing their way through the hanging branches. I looked around, seeking a way out. I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t want to have to talk about this nightmare. I didn’t want to have to force myself to come to terms with what had happened. To force myself to care for that ugly changeling…
I kept very quiet, hoping they would push their way past and miss me altogether. That I could have a few quiet moments just to think.
The nearest branches parted and Peterson appeared.
I braced myself. If he was going to have a go at me again then this time I was ready for him. And this time he might find he’d bitten off more than he could chew. This time I was in no mood to stand quietly while he vented his anger. I became aware I was sucking in great lungfuls of air. The world spun around me.
He caught my arm. ‘Sit down. Quickly.’
I slid down the trunk, closed my eyes, and laid my head back against the tree. I don’t know for how long I sat there before the dizziness passed.
‘Max.’
I kept my eyes closed, waiting for him to go away, but he didn’t.
‘What do you want?’
‘You have to go back.’
‘It’s not him.’
‘Yes, it is. You know it is. He has your eyes.’
I opened my eyes. ‘Why should I believe you?’
There was a very long silence and then he said, very simply, ‘I’m so very sorry.’
I felt the tears prick. I couldn’t speak for the lump in my throat.
I think he mistook my silence. ‘Please, if you can, forget what I said before. I wasn’t thinking properly. I’d just lost Helen. I forgot you’d lost Matthew as well. Of course he was your first priority. Of course he was your first concern. I understand. Now. So please, listen to me just this once. You can go back to hating me tomorrow if you want to – but listen to me today, because I’m giving you good advice.’
I could hear the intensity in his voice.
‘You should be overjoyed. You have Matthew back. What does it matter if he’s older than when he left? It’s still the same Matthew. Do you think I wouldn’t give anything to have Helen back again – at any age? But she’s gone for ever and nothing can ever bring her back. Max, Leon has brought you back your son. And nearly killed himself doing it, by the look of him. You won’t wake every morning to face each day alone. You won’t have to think about how to spend the rest of your life without him. So stop pissing about, get back in there, and sort it out before it’s too late.’
We contemplated each other for a while. There was no doubting his sincerity. Even in the short time since I had last see him, he looked older. His face was thin and white and he was regarding me through pain-filled eyes.
I looked away. ‘I don’t hate you.’
‘Then I’m luckier than I deserve to be.’
‘I’m sorry, too. You were right. I should have done something. Anything.’
‘No, you couldn’t. He would have killed you too, and about the only good thing in all of this is that you’re still alive. Come on.’ He stood up and reached out his hand. ‘They’re in Sick Bay. I’ll walk you there.’
I thought about what that would mean for him. ‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘I have to do it sometime and I might as well combine it with my good deed for the day. Up you get.’
He pulled me to my feet and we stood for a moment, hands clasped.
He looked at me. ‘All right?’ and I knew he wasn’t asking me how I felt.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Always.’
We pushed through the Sick Bay doors to the sound of screaming. Ear-splitting, glass-shattering screaming.
I flagged down a hot and flustered Nurse Fortunata. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘Your son is having a bath and he’s not happy.’
‘I’ll be off then,’ said Tim, hastily. ‘Happy parenting.’
Just for a moment, a glimmer of the old Tim shone through, and then he was walking away.
The screaming stopped.
‘A mild sedative, probably,’ said Fortunata. ‘Before the windows shattered and our ear drums burst.’
‘Is Leon with him?’
She nodded. ‘Do you want to go in?’
‘I think I’ll wait. This strikes me as an excellent opportunity for father-son bonding.’
She grinned. ‘Take a seat. The doctor wants to see you anyway.’
‘Oh? Do we know why?’
‘Morbid curiosity, I think. He’s been reading your file.’
Ten minutes later, Hunter appeared. Another one shocked and grieving. She and Helen had worked together for years. She was carrying a medical-waste bag – at arm’s length – which she handed to Fortunata.
‘For immediate incineration.’
‘Was this his blanket?’
‘Yes. He only had it on an hour or so and already it contains a variety of wildlife that even Markham could never achieve.’
Fortunata took the bag, nodded towards me, and disappeared.
Hunter came over.
‘Hey, Max.’
‘Hi. How is he?
‘They’re both exhausted and struggling to keep their eyes open. Our new doctor is here and he wants a quick word with you.’
I nodded. ‘Will you tell Leon I’m here if he needs me?’
‘Will do. Did I see you with Peterson?’
I didn’t want to talk about that. ‘Yes.’
‘I know he turned on you, but he’s suffering, Max.’
‘I know. How about you?’
‘Oh, I’m fine. I think Markham is planning to contract something appalling just so I can yell at him. He thinks it will make me feel better.’
‘And will it?’
‘No, but it’s the thought that counts. We’re all pretending these days.’
I heard a door open behind me and turned for my first glimpse of our new doctor.
He looked even younger than in his photograph. His ears stuck out even further than in his photograph. His eyebrows were even more wayward than in his photograph. He was taller and thinner than in his photograph. And in the photograph, he hadn’t been wearing the traditional expression of one encountering St Mary’s for the first time and wondering what he’s got himself into. Apart from all that though, the photo was spot on.
‘Your husband’s having a shower,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you come into my office?’
Said the spider to the fly.
‘I’ll bring you some tea,’ said Hunter.
‘Thank you.’
‘For the patient.’
‘Ah. Right you are.’
I shook my head. To eat or drink anything would make me sick.
‘No thanks.’
She left and he fussed around with some paperwork.
‘She scares me.’
‘She scares everyone,’ I said. ‘Don’t take it personally.’
We stared at each other over his desk.
I couldn’t help myself. ‘How old are you?’ and waited for him to say twelve.
He blinked. ‘I’m twenty-eight. Is that a problem?’
‘Are you sure? You don’t look it. Did you lie about your age?’
‘No, of course not. Why does everyone keep asking me that? I never had this problem in the Army. They laughed at how old I was there. Called me granddad.’
‘What did you do in the Army?’
‘I’m a doctor. Didn’t you know?’
‘Yes, but what’s your experience?’
‘Gunshot wounds. Shrapnel. Explosives trauma. Burns. Exposure. Oh – and radiation. Which I can’t
talk about because it’s Top Secret.’
‘Seriously? There’s something out there that’s more secret than us?’ I think I was slightly miffed. No one likes to come second.
‘You’d be surprised what’s going on out there.’
‘No, I wouldn’t. I know all about the underground aliens in Saffron Walden.’
‘Everyone knows about the underground aliens in Saffron Walden. Do you know about the tunnel to the centre of the earth? Starts under Shepton Mallet.’
‘No.’
‘True as I’m sitting here.’
‘Well, for God’s sake don’t tell Professor Rapson.’
‘Who do you think told me? Is he for real, by the way?’
I said with the smoothness of long practice, ‘Professor Rapson is a valued and highly regarded member of this establishment.’
‘Dear God, whatever must the others be like?’
I was a little annoyed by this unwarranted criticism of my unit. And by a complete stranger, too.
‘You surely didn’t take this job without checking us out first?’
‘Well, I did several times mention the possibility of a preliminary visit before I committed myself, but I don’t think Dr Bairstow heard me.’
‘And that wasn’t your first clue?’
He was frowning at his scratchpad. ‘According to this, your records show you’re down for an eye test. And have been for quite some time.’
I closed my eyes. So that I wouldn’t wear them out, presumably.
‘Not … now.’
‘Of course not now. Whenever you have a moment.’
I nodded. That moment was never going to come. I’d see to that.
‘So, how are you feeling?’
I stared at him, bewildered.
He became aware of the silence and looked up. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I’m confused by the question.’
‘Didn’t you understand it?’
‘Yes, but I’ve never actually heard it asked in this room before.’
He looked around. ‘This is the medical section?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, but the previous incumbent … Helen…’ I stumbled. ‘Dr Foster’s policy was to tell us how we felt, hold us entirely to blame for whatever had befallen us, outline the treatment we were to receive in gruesome detail, and describe the consequences should we fail to respond.’
My words seemed to drop into some sort of dark hole, because that was the moment I realised I’d never see her again. Never hear her voice again. Never watch her puffing her cigarette smoke out of the window. She was gone for ever.
My voice failed me. My eyes filled up with tears. I struggled.
He pushed a box of tissues across the desk.
I pushed it back again.
He smiled. ‘It’s all right to let go, you know.’
I shook my head. ‘Not in front of a member of the medical profession. They can smell fear.’
‘Very wise. Let me make you some cocoa.’
‘What?’
‘Cocoa. Magic stuff. Heals all wounds.’
‘I thought that was time.’
‘No, it’s cocoa.’
He passed me a mug of frothy brown stuff and I sipped suspiciously. It was gorgeous.
He sat back with his own mug. ‘When I was a med student’ – last Wednesday, presumably – ‘it was part of my seduction routine. I have a theory that you can overcome resistance and induce feelings of goodwill and cooperation in the opposite sex by feeding them hot sweet drinks. I scored my highest success rate with cocoa.’
‘How high?’
‘Oh. Um…’ He looked like a shifty twelve-year-old caught shoplifting.
‘How often did it work?’
‘Once.’
Out of how many attempts?
‘Several hundred. I think.’
‘Perhaps you could favour me with your definition of the words “success rate”.’
He sagged with dejection. Or possibly rejection. Whatever it was, his shoulders dropped. Even his sticky-out ears drooped.
I hardened my heart. ‘I hate to add to your catalogue of failures, but I don’t want to sleep with you either. Cocoa or no cocoa.’
He drooped even further. I began to feel like a bit of a monster. ‘Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just not very good at handling sympathy.’
He sat back. ‘Well, not handling sympathy is nothing to be proud of, is it? It’s like proudly announcing you bite your fingernails. You know – a bad habit. Harmless but not pleasant.’
‘But something to be proud of if you’ve just weaned yourself off heroin.’
Now he stared at me. ‘What?’
‘Well, if your previous bad habit was drugs and you’ve downsized to fingernail biting, then don’t you think that’s something to be proud of?’
‘Tell me,’ he said carefully. ‘Are you a glass half full or a glass half empty person?’
I said, ‘Well, it depends where you are at the time. The Technical Section will say never mind whether it’s half empty or half full, the glass was obviously too big in the first place. Dr Dowson will tell you it’s not contemporary to the time period and you should be using a goblet. The History Department will enquire what bloody glass? The Security Section will be gloomily surveying the broken shards on the floor, and Mrs Mack will just tell you to get out of her kitchen.
He blinked, but at that moment, Hunter stuck her head around the door to tell me Leon was asking for me.
They’d put the sleeping Matthew in the isolation ward. I stared through the window at the skinny form under the bedclothes.
‘The plan is that the three of you spend the next few days here,’ said Dr Stone. ‘To give you an opportunity to get to know each other again. Tonight, however, I suggest you and Chief Farrell take some time together. Have a talk. Get some rest. The next few days aren’t going to be easy for any of you.’
The two of us walked silently back to our room. Leon closed the door behind us. We stood and looked at each other. What now?
Foremost in my mind was the thought that I had run away. I couldn’t look at him.
‘Leon, I’m sorry I ran away.’
He put his arms around me. ‘It was a shock. I know. It was a shock when I first saw him and I knew what to expect.’
‘Tell me. It is him, isn’t it. There’s no possibility of a mistake.’
My little baby holding out his arms to me…
‘None. The Time Police tested his DNA. It’s him.’
I was very, very careful to prevent any hint of criticism creeping into my voice. ‘How did this happen?’
He sat on the sofa and pulled me down beside him.
‘It was hard, Max. Even with all their technical equipment, we just couldn’t get close. Every time we landed, we had to spend hours searching the entire area because there was always the fear that he’d just abandoned Matthew somewhere. We had to be thorough so, of course, it meant we were getting further and further behind with each jump. Nobody actually said it, but there was a real feeling we were never going to get him back. And our power reserves were way down and the pod was beginning to drift. You know, the way they do.’
I nodded. Pods need regular servicing otherwise they begin to drift. A decade in one direction – one hundred miles in another. Four or five jumps are usually about the limit before they need some care and attention. That’s not usually a problem, because after four or five consecutive jumps, the pod is not in half such bad condition as the historians inside, who by this time are generally in need of care and attention themselves. To say nothing of a couple of stiff drinks.
‘Anyway, one day, we had no choice but to stop and recharge the batteries. The pod’s and ours. We made ourselves a decent meal, took the time to shower and shave and, in sheer desperation, we sat down and brainstormed. Nothing was discounted, because we had to think of some other way than just blindly trying to pursue Ronan up and down the timeline and only ever getting further behind. Ell
is suggested we return to Time Police HQ and throw the problem at them and no one could come up with anything better, so we did. They have all sorts of resources there – most of which I’m not even allowed to think about, let alone tell you – but it seems they have a few whizz kids whose main purpose is just tinkering with the Time Map, and one of them had a bright idea. I don’t know what she did – she did try to explain it to me but I lost her half way through the second sentence, which was embarrassing. Anyway, the upshot was that they modified the Time Map to show traffic, rather than actual historical events. They eliminated everything except pod movements. It took them a couple of days, and what they were left with was a tangled network of coloured lines. It was then just a case of filtering out all St Mary’s jumps – they’re blue, by the way, and there are a lot of them.’
He paused and chugged back more beer.
‘The next step was to fade out their own traffic – their jumps are purple. That left a mish-mash of tiny jumps; mostly illegal – homemade pods trailing radiation, amateur catastrophes – all that sort of thing. All in varying shades of red and brown. They took all that out and that just left a tangled maze of green stuff. They matched it with the radiation signature I’d given them and said most of it was probably Ronan’s pod. It should have taken weeks, but apparently the whizz kids put their phones away, plugged in their personal soundtracks and got stuck in. I’ve no idea how they were able to disentangle things, but they did. They took a close look at the patterns and…’ He stopped.
I felt myself grow cold. ‘And what?’
‘They superimposed our jumps over the top and confirmed we were slipping further and further behind. We were never going to catch them. Commander Hay held a conference, and they said they’d identified what they were convinced was Ronan’s latest jump. To 19th-century London. They concluded that either Ronan was still there – or…’ He very put his beer down very carefully and spent some time turning it around and around, not looking at me, ‘… or that both of them had remained there for some reason.’