by Jodi Taylor
They were face-to-face and about to come to blows. People were looking. I should intervene. Markham and I got between them before we were all arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Well, disorderly, anyway.
‘Enough,’ I said, sharply. ‘For God’s sake, don’t we have enough trouble with things that could normally go wrong on assignment without starting on ourselves as well? Back to the pod all of you and behave yourselves.’
It was interesting though, to see that emotions could run so high even one thousand years after the events at Bayeux took place. What passions must they have raised at the time?
Dr Bairstow lost no time informing me that he’d told me so.
‘I’m sorry sir?’
‘I did wonder whether not varying the composition of the teams was a good idea. I was a little concerned that each team might become too involved with their own particular protagonist and lose the detachment necessary for effective observation and documentation.’
I nodded gloomily. He was right. On the other hand …
‘I take your point, sir, but I do think that in our job we do require certain amount of passion. We’re not accountants, sir, studying rows of figures and drawing conclusions. These are people we’re observing. Real people, whose actions then are still impacting upon us today. The events at Bayeux were hotly disputed at the time and in many academic environments today, they still are. I think a little loss of professional detachment might be forgiven.’
‘You misunderstand me, Dr Maxwell. It’s not the loss of detachment I deplore, but the location of that loss of detachment. I have, over the years, grown perfectly accustomed to witnessing brawling in the corridors as historians seek to impose their points of view upon one another, but not when you are all … on the job … so to speak. I trust the venerable and picturesque town of Bayeux is undamaged?’
‘Not a scratch, sir. It was all sound and fury, but you’re right. I apologise and I’ll speak to them about it.’
I thought he looked at me rather keenly. ‘Oh, I think you’ll find there’s no need for that.’ He began to rummage in his in-tray. I braced myself.
‘Two things this morning, Dr Maxwell. Dr Stone has requested me to request you to present yourself for an eye test. Consider yourself requested.’
Dr Stone had grassed me up. The bastard.
‘And Professor Rapson has presented me with an invoice for…’ he peered artistically and I braced myself for fresh horrors. ‘… seven former dogs of mixed breeds, eleven former cats all designated DSH…’ He frowned.
‘Domestic short-haired, sir,’ I said, glad of the opportunity to prove I wasn’t completely useless.
‘And a … Gavialis gangeticus.’
I know when to keep quiet.
‘You are very quiet, Dr Maxwell.’
I refused to be tempted into unwise speech.
He frowned at me. ‘Might I enquire…?’
I have an automatic response to this sort of thing. ‘I believe Professor Rapson is in the early stages of a valuable and relevant experiment, sir, the details of which, unfortunately, cannot be revealed at this time. To avoid possible outside contamination. Sir.’
This was St Mary speak for – I haven’t got a clue what’s going on there and even if I did, I don’t want to tell you because you’ll probably put a stop to it, and anyway you’ll need plausible deniability with the Chief Constable when the Professor blows up most of south Rushfordshire. Although surely even Professor Rapson couldn’t do anything incendiary with twenty or so small mammals and a Gangly Thingummy. Could he?
I made my way back to my office, dropped my files on my desk, and stared in amazement at a large bouquet of yellow roses, stuffed into what appeared some kind of container designed to collect body fluids for medical analysis. Provided, no doubt by Miss Lee, to whom that sort of thing would be funny. There was more. Square in the middle of my blotter was an enormous box of the world’s most expensive chocolate biscuits.
The accompanying note read, ‘Sorry, Max. Promise to do better next time,’ and was signed by Sykes, North, Bashford, and Clerk.
I read it again. There was definitely something wrong with my eyes after all, because the writing had gone all blurry.
Miss Lee was staring at me, so I bent hastily and rummaged for something in my bottom drawer until I was able to face the world again.
‘You know you’ll have to divvy them up at the Stamford Bridge briefing, don’t you,’ she said, referring, I hoped, to the biscuits.
‘Of course. Although if you put the kettle on, I can have one now.’
‘And what about me?’
‘I’ll let you look at the picture on the front.’
With Bayeux safely achieved, I had a week or so to take off my historian hat, and replace it with my hitherto little used and very unfamiliar mother’s hat. I went off to find my family. Another phrase to get used to. Still, I had managed to get my head around ‘my husband’, so ‘my family’ shouldn’t cause me any trouble at all. I hoped.
According to Dr Stone, it was important to establish a routine. To give Matthew a framework for his day and make him feel secure. So we did.
The three of us would always breakfast together. Matthew was, at first, perfectly bewildered by the choice offered – he thought he had to eat everything– a challenge he appeared more than capable of rising to. Much of it was completely unfamiliar to him, so we always had the same. Scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, marmalade, and as much tea as I thought I needed to get me through the morning.
From there, Leon would take him to Mr Strong where he would spend the first part of the morning taking care of the horses. He was good with horses and they liked him. When he’d finished there, he went on to Dr Dowson in the library. Initially the books were read aloud to him as he looked at the pictures, and then he progressed to picking out letters and words.
At lunch, Leon would try to get him to talk about his day so far. He seemed to have a very small vocabulary. If he wanted something, he would just point, or if pushed, say, ‘Want.’ Leon and I would chat away together, epitomising – we hoped – familial bliss and harmony, and hoping he was picking up words along the way.
He spent his afternoons with Professor Rapson, ostensibly learning maths and science. In reality, the two of them would trot around the place, putting things together and then blowing them up again and, incidentally, getting unbelievably dirty. When the weather permitted, they would potter about outside. The professor was showing him how to excavate one of Mr Strong’s many compost heaps.
At the end of most afternoons, the Security Section – who would stop work at the drop of a hat if there was a ball involved somewhere – would call on him for a kick-about around the back of Hawking Hangar – into which he was not allowed under any circumstances – then back for tea and a much-needed hose-down before bed.
We kept him busy and, I hoped, happily occupied, while he learned to cope with this strange new world in which he found himself.
He and I were outside one day, hidden away in the little sheltered area behind Hawking. The Security Section had kicked football into touch today – pun intended – and were having a game of cricket instead. Someone had made Matthew a small cricket bat, which he was wielding with an expression of immense concentration but very little success.
I was leaning against the wall with my mug of tea and rather enjoying this happy and peaceful scene, when Dr Bairstow walked around the corner.
He stopped dead. Everything stopped dead. The Security Section shuffled its feet. Evans paused in mid-run up. Matthew looked around to see why.
They’d met, of course. Dr Bairstow had formally shaken his hand and welcomed him to the unit. They’d stared at each other in mutual incomprehension and then Dr Bairstow had moved on, heroically refraining from wiping his hand as he did so.
Anyway, here we all were, deserting our duties. And not for the first time, either.
On the other hand, Dr Bairstow likes cricket. I have no idea why. If asked, I
would have said nothing could be more boring than football, but I was wrong. In what other game, I had once demanded, could two teams play for five days – five long days! – and not have a result at the end of it? Incidentally, there is no satisfactory answer to that question.
Once, long ago, during a particularly tedious assignment to Sogdiana, before Kalinda began her reign of terror at Thirsk, she and I had sat down and re-jigged the game a little. To make it a little more spectator friendly, we said. To rid it of its coma-inducing qualities. We’d called it Cage Cricket.
Picture the scene, if you will. One of those gladiator-style wire cages, bathed in a harsh light. A thick layer of sand on the floor to mop up the blood and guts. Flashing lights. Heavy-metal music blasting from speakers each the size of a bungalow. The huge crowd, unseen in the darkness, laying bets and baying for blood. The booming announcement, ‘One batsman. One bowler. To … the … death.’
Enter the players – although we’d decided combatants would be a better word. There would be a bowler, a young man in his mid-twenties, we thought, with good musculature development, wearing rather a lot of baby oil and a small loincloth.
Peterson, listening in horror, had been moved to protest at this point, but we’d overruled him.
Anyway, the bowler hurls his ball with maximum force at the batsman – who would be similarly dressed. Or undressed, depending from which direction you were approaching.
What about his box? had demanded Peterson, and been told to stop making difficulties. The batsman’s job would be to whack the ball straight back at the bowler. Between the eyes if possible. They carry on like that, bowling and batting around the cage, scoring a four for a body hit and a six if they manage to render their opponent unconscious – at which point the body is dragged away, Coliseum-style, fresh sand put down, and replaced by another player – sorry, combatant – until both teams are dead, exhausted, hospitalised, or any combination thereof. Meanwhile, outside the cage, the music blares, the lights strobe, and the invisible frenzied mob screams for blood in the darkness.
It’ll be great, we’d said to a speechless Peterson. Two contestants, stalking each other across the bloody sand. The crack of ball on willow. Or bone, possibly. Two men enter – only one will leave. And then at 3.30 everyone breaks for tea and fairy cakes.
Peterson, regaining the power of speech, had vetoed the whole thing as ridiculous, not least because, apparently, the MCC has a very strict dress code that, inexplicably, does not include either baby oil or loincloths. We replied that he might have put his finger on the very reason for cricket’s lack of popularity with the thinking gender, and he had sulked for the rest of the assignment.
Anyway, here we were, and here was the Boss, limping unexpectedly around the building and catching his entire Security Section doing something they shouldn’t. And, as I’ve already said – not for the first time.
He watched in silence, leaning on his stick. Evans, apparently emboldened by the lack of thunderbolts raining down from above, resumed his run up, arms windmilling, and delivered a neat little ball. Matthew swung wildly and missed.
No one spoke. I stepped into the breach. ‘Good afternoon, sir. Matthew, you remember Dr Bairstow, who is in charge of us all.’
They regarded each other in silence and then Matthew made a quaint little bow from the waist. I’d never seen him do that before and I don’t think it did him any harm at all. I think it’s safe to say no one had ever bowed to Dr Bairstow before. I hoped it didn’t catch on.
Markham beamed encouragingly at Matthew and said, ‘Come on, mate, have another go. I think you’ve nearly got it.’
Matthew stumped his bat on the ground, squared his shoulders, and waited for the next ball.
Dr Bairstow spoke. ‘Chin down, young man and watch the ball.’
He hit the next one straight through the toilet window. The tinkle of falling glass gradually died away. No one caught anyone’s eye. I think Markham was already envisaging the latest Deduction from Wages to Pay for Damages Incurred form, neatly stapled to his next pay slip.
Matthew stared, first at the window, and then, discarding the rest of us as unimportant and irrelevant, at Dr Bairstow. He had gone very pale, his eyes huge with fear. He was ready to drop the bat and run. Anywhere. Away from whatever punishment he thought was coming his way. None of us moved. In just one second, all our good work had been completely undone.
I was about to go to him – for all the good that would do – when Dr Bairstow said calmly, ‘A good shot, Matthew, but you should watch those elbows. Try again.’
Another ball was produced. Evans bowled him an easy one and he hit it straight into Markham’s waiting hands. Markham fumbled artistically, dropped it, and then fell over for good measure.
There was a torrent of good-natured abuse.
Dr Bairstow shook his head and moved on. No Deductions form was ever received.
In the evenings, we would watch a little TV. In my role as bad cop, I wouldn’t let him watch much because I didn’t want to overload him. He did like doing jigsaw puzzles, though. We would all sit together at the table while he frowned over the pieces. He never smiled much, but I suspected he hadn’t had much to smile about. He liked books and stories as well, and every night Leon would disappear for a tactful hour while I read to him in bed. I kept the stories simple, because his knowledge of our world wasn’t great, and we would look at the pictures together.
We introduced women into his life very slowly.
First up was Mrs Mack. She let him help make jam tarts for us to eat in the evening as we read together. He never greeted her with wild enthusiasm, but he tolerated her – I think he’d worked out that she was the source of all food. He politely avoided Mrs Enderby because of her tendency to cuddle, but the real breakthrough was Miss Lingoss.
He took one look at her blue-tipped hair and was her devoted slave. He trotted after her whenever she would allow him to. She was very good-natured about it all, promising faithfully not to engage in anything too hazardous when he was around. I was always catching glimpses of the pair of them disappearing around a corner somewhere, laden with dubious-looking equipment that could, in the wrong hands – i.e. Miss Lingoss’s – lay waste to most of the surrounding countryside for miles around, cause near-earth satellites to drop from the sky, and possibly start a small pandemic as well. As a caring and concerned mother, I should probably investigate their activities. As a short and harassed historian, I would pretend I’d seen nothing.
With everyone else cherry-picking the good stuff, I seemed to be stuck with hair-washing, ear-cleaning and badgering him to eat broccoli. The three things he disliked most in the world. A mother’s lot is not a happy one.
He didn’t talk much but he wasn’t unfriendly. Not even distrustful. He was just watchful.
I forced myself be patient and tried not to think about the little baby holding out his arms for me to save him. It was slow, but we were making progress and it was possible, said Dr Stone, that given a little time and patience, everything might be all right after all. And how about that eye test while I was here?
‘I’m very busy,’ I said, backing away. ‘Some other time, perhaps.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I quite understand. You’ve a lot on at the moment. Tell you what – how about a quick preliminary, and if you get through that then there’s no need for the full test. It’ll only take a few minutes and we could get it out of the way now.’
I indicated that this might be acceptable. It was beginning to dawn on me that this eye test thing wasn’t going to go away.
‘Won’t take long,’ he said cheerfully, sitting me at a table. Not a lightbox in sight. This might go well.
He handed me a sheet of paper and a pencil. ‘Let’s see how well you do at this easy test, shall we. Draw me a house.’
I drew a tiny house.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘No problems there. Now, draw me a garden.’
I did a few scrappy flowers and a lollipop tree i
n front of the house.
‘Yes, that seems OK. Last one – draw me a snake.’
I rather went to town on the snake. I drew a giant python, all curled around the outside of the picture, rather like a reptilian picture frame. I drew a dramatic diamond pattern on his body and coloured it in. I gave him a flickering, forked tongue, big eyes with huge curling eyelashes and a wicked expression, and a giant rattle on his tale. When I was satisfied, I handed the paper back.
He looked at it for some time.
I got up to go.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Well, I’ve passed, haven’t I? Look at the detail on that snake. Nothing wrong with my eyes.’
‘Yes,’ he said, shifting in his chair. ‘I might have ever so slightly misled you about the true purpose of the test.’
‘In what way,’ I said, moving ever so slightly into fighting stance.
‘Well, let me show you. Firstly, the house represents your nesting instinct which, as we can see here, barely exists. The garden represents your desire for gentleness and peace which, as we can see, is no greater than your stunted nesting instinct.
I sighed. ‘What has this to do with…’
‘The snake, on the other hand – this easily three-hundred-feet-long, beautifully drawn, exquisitely detailed, all-encompassing snake, represents your sexual urges which, apparently, appear to be quite massive.’
I snatched up the paper, demanding to know what this had to do with an eye test.
‘Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. But failure to make an appointment will almost certainly result in my posting the results of this test all over St Mary’s. For people’s own safety, of course.’
I crumpled the paper and threw it in the bin. ‘What time do you want me?’
‘I’ve already pencilled you in for 14:30 this afternoon. Don’t be late.’
I began to see why Dr Bairstow had hired him.
I did turn up for the eye test. Something told me it wasn’t wise to cross someone with an access all areas pass to my more private parts, together with a diploma in advanced deviousness.