The Great St Mary's Day Out

by Jodi Taylor

  The Great St. Mary's Day Out

  A short story from the Chronicles of St. Mary's Series

  By Jodi Taylor

  Published by Accent Press Ltd 2016

  ISBN 9781682994535

  Copyright © Jodi Taylor 2016

  The right of Jodi Taylor to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, Ty Cynon House, Navigation Park, Abercynon, CF45 4SN

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  The Great St Mary's Day Out (The Chronicles of St Mary's)

  The Great St Mary’s Day Out – a short story

  Jodi Taylor

  Everyone deserves to get away for a bit. Even the miscreants at St Mary’s.

  Astonishingly, Dr Bairstow has declared a holiday. Even more astonishingly – he’s paying for it.

  Needless to say, there are strings attached. The trip is to record the 1601 performance of Hamlet, with Shakespeare himself in the role of the Ghost.

  It doesn’t go well, of course. With Dr Bairstow and Mrs Mack turning a simple visit to a street market into a public brawl, Professor Rapson inadvertently stowing away on a vessel bound for the New World, and Shakespeare himself going up in flames, it would seem that Max, of all people, is the only one actually completing the assignment.

  Dramatis Thingummy

  Matthew Farrell - Small human.

  Max - Head of History Department. Wife. Mother. Bemused.

  Leon Farrell - Husband and hero.

  Dr Tim Peterson - Deputy Director. Would-be husband.

  Mr Markham - Unlikely Shakespeare enthusiast. Even more unlikely Ghost. Husband status still unknown.

  Miss Lingoss - Multi-coloured member of R&D. A steady hand with a recorder. No husband.

  Dr Bairstow - Director of St Mary’s. Definitely not a husband.

  Major Guthrie - Recipient of an unfortunate blow to the head early on in the story. Possible future husband.

  Mrs Mack - Deadly with a skillet and not just in the kitchen. Husband lost in tragic circumstances.

  Mrs Enderby - Head of Wardrobe Department. Husband status unknown.

  Professor Rapson - Head of R&D. Trainee stowaway. Not a husband.

  Dr Dowson - Librarian and Archivist. Not a husband either.

  Mr Evans - Security Guard. Unaware of the true meaning of nursery rhymes. Not a husband.

  Mr Keller - Security Guard. Not a husband.

  Miss North - Historian. Doesn’t need a husband. Can probably self-reproduce.

  Miss Sykes - Historian. Trainee Apocalypse. No husband yet, but Bashford should watch his back.

  Mr Atherton - Historian. Was a husband. Prefers being an historian. Less stress.

  Rosie Lee - PA to Max. Doesn’t have a husband and doesn’t want one thank you very much.

  Dr Helen Foster - About to acquire a husband. To the general astonishment of all.

  William Shakespeare - Husband, and playwright.

  The cast of Hamlet. Rogues, vagabonds, cutpurses, prostitutes, sailors, market policemen, stinkards, an abandoned wife and seventeen children.

  The Great St Mary’s Day Out – a short story

  ––––––––

  I walked Matthew around St Mary’s because a few things needed to be made clear.

  ‘All right, people. This is a baby. A small human. His name is Matthew and he is not to be floated across the lake in a Moses basket just to see if it could have happened. Nor is he to be stuffed into a warming pan and smuggled into someone’s bed. He is not to be dangled off a balcony and presented to the Welsh people as a non-English-speaking Prince of Wales. Permission to include him in any of the imaginative events currently being planned by the History Department is to be sought from his father, Chief Farrell, and good luck to anyone trying that. He is not to be used as a paperweight. Or ballast. Or a draught excluder. Everyone clear?’

  You have to tell people these things. Especially at St Mary’s.

  It was a golden time for me. In every sense of the word. Autumn wasn’t giving in to winter without a fight. The trees glowed in the late sunshine – gold, russet, red and orange. In a week, the leaves would begin to fall and Mr Strong, our caretaker, would gather them up for burning, bringing the sharp smell of bonfires on the breeze.

  The three of us, Leon, Matthew and I, were back at St Mary’s. Without ever having left, actually. Dr Bairstow had requested we remain here while the vexing question of Clive Ronan was resolved. For our own safety. I wasn’t bothered and Leon was in full ‘Anyone Messing With My Family Will Regret It’ mode, and we lived happily in a small suite of rooms up in the attic, so no one could be disturbed by a crying baby.

  In fact, he rarely cried – which, as Leon said, just went to show our son was a born historian and already completely failing to live up to popular expectations. He was a happy baby, placidly accepting being passed from person to person, smiling up at whoever happened to have custody of him at the time. He had his favourites, of course. He adored Mrs Enderby, Head of the Wardrobe Department. It was mutual: she was always running him up dinky little clothes to wear. Peterson claimed Matthew was easily the best-dressed person in the place, but since that place also contained Bashford, Markham and Professor Rapson – who frequently had to be sartorially checked over before he ventured out in public – this wasn’t the achievement it seemed.

  Matthew’s second favourite, astonishingly, was the multi-hued Miss Lingoss from R&D. He would gaze, big-eyed, at whatever hair colour and style she had adopted that particular day, and she, black-leather clad and embellished with chains and safety pins, would beam back at him.

  Leon went back to work shortly after Matthew was born, and I wafted around the place for three or four months, playing with Matthew, painting, and generally getting on people’s nerves. The usual maternity-leave activities. I was determined to make the most of things before I went back to work.

  My return happened a little more quickly than I had expected. But in a good way.

  Occasionally, very occasionally, the Boss finds some money tucked away somewhere and gives us a bit of a treat. Rumour has it that he deposited a penny in an obscure foreign bank some ten centuries ago, and is quietly reaping the benefits today. Unlikely, but in our job, we’ve learned never to rule anything out.

  However he found the money, find it he did, and suddenly he was calling an all-staff briefing in the Great Hall, and announcing a forthcoming assignment, which would be open to anyone who cared to avail themselves of the opportunity.

  Standing on the half-landing, with shafts of sunlight highlighting the last defiant remains of his hair, he began to bring up a series of images on the screen.

  ‘June, 1601.’ He paused, surveying the rows of upturned faces before him.

  Silence greeted his remark. If he has a weakness, it’s that he’s a bit of a showman, and he does tend to dole out information in tiny dollops. We’ve learned not to play along.

  ‘London,’ he said, piling on the narrative tension.

  He began to flick through various images, inching painfully along the information highway before finally arriving at his destination.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen – the Globe Thea
tre.’

  Oh, wow! A chance to see the Globe Theatre. The real Globe Theatre, I mean. Not the very excellent replica we see today, but the actual Globe itself. Shakespeare’s Globe. Performing Shakespeare’s plays. In a contemporary setting. By contemporary actors. Watched by a contemporary audience. You get the drift.

  But which play? 1601? I racked my brains – but not for long.

  ‘We shall, I hope, be attending a performance of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, with...’

  Sensing he was building up to his big finish, a stir ran around the Great Hall.

  ‘...with William Shakespeare himself taking the role of the Ghost.’

  An even more stunned silence greeted this remark. He paused, leaning on his stick, well pleased with the sensation he had created. And rightly so. We would be seeing Hamlet – the famous production starring Richard Burbage as the dithering Dane ... and with Shakespeare himself as the Ghost. This was just ... I groped for a word more amazing than amazing, failed to find one, and resurfaced to find Markham and Peterson gabbling with excitement. And they weren’t the only ones.

  ‘Participation is voluntary,’ continued Dr Bairstow, cutting across us, because we’re a bit of a gobby bunch sometimes, and if he waited for the noise to die down then we’d all be there forever. ‘So, if those wishing to participate in this treat could give their names to Dr Maxwell by close of play today, please. Report to Mrs Enderby for costume fittings, collect your background research tapes from Dr Dowson, read up on the play itself, and report to Hawking Hangar at 11:00 two weeks from today. Any questions?’

  I really don’t know why he bothers with that last bit. He was already halfway up the stairs and picking up speed. Popular opinion has it that once every couple of years Thirsk University compels him to attend a series of seminars on Modern Management, through which he sits, unspeaking and rigid with disapproval, until their nerve fails them and they return him to us, possibly even less modern than he was before he set out. However, since he can’t bear to waste the money, he forces himself to implement one or two very minor changes every year, such as remembering to command us to sit down – especially if we’ve been wounded – or asking if anyone has any questions. It is always clearly understood that no one ever will. Have any questions, I mean. He did once utter the memorable phrase, ‘Please remember my door is always open,’ and it would be hard to say who had been most traumatised by this remarkable statement.

  However, as usual, there were no questions and we were left to discuss what amounted to a works outing amongst ourselves.

  ‘I’m not going,’ said Bashford, firmly. ‘I suffered enough at school. Long boring afternoons reading endless verse. Even the flies on the ceiling died in self-defence.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Clerk. ‘Couldn’t stand it at school; hated it on TV; see no reason why it should be any better in the rain, sitting on seats designed to numb your bum in seconds. Not my idea of a holiday.’

  ‘Philistines,’ I said, turning to Markham. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Are you serious?’ he said, his eyes shining and his hair even spikier with excitement. ‘Course I’m going. Who wouldn’t?’

  Peterson stared at him. ‘You like Shakespeare?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ he said with enthusiasm. ‘Hamlet’s not my favourite, of course. I prefer A Midsummer Night’s Dream or The Tempest, but that bit where he stabs Polonius in the arras...’

  He mimed stabbing Polonius in the arras.

  ‘When did you ever read Hamlet?’ demanded Peterson.

  ‘At school. Didn’t you? And I’ve seen several versions of the play. Not live, of course. Can’t afford it on my wages.’ We all looked nervously over our shoulders, but Dr Bairstow really had gone. ‘Olivier, Tennant, Branagh, all the greats, and now I’ll get to see Burbage. And Shakespeare himself. Although as the Ghost he’ll probably be all muffled up so I won’t be able to see his face at all, but even so ... I must see if Hunter wants to go as well,’ and he disappeared.

  ‘He never fails to astound me,’ said Leon, watching him elbow his way through crowds of chattering people.

  ‘Nor me,’ I said. I pulled Leon to one side and lowered my voice. ‘Did you ever discover his marital status?’

  Not so long ago, we – Leon, Markham and me – had been having a perfectly normal conversation about whether Peterson would survive his proposal of marriage to Dr Foster, or whether the worryingly long silence from her office was due to her having murdered and possibly eaten him, when Markham had suddenly let slip that he himself was married. To Nurse Hunter. They’d been married for years. He said. We didn’t know whether it was true or whether he was just winding us up and, so far, all our efforts to pin him to the wall and beat the truth out of him had been unsuccessful.

  Leon shook his head. ‘These are deep waters in which I’m not prepared to swim. He said he was married so he probably is. Even he couldn’t get that wrong. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?’

  I smiled in what I thought was a winning manner. ‘You could ask Hunter.’

  He remained unmoved. ‘Or you could ask Hunter.’

  ‘Or we could get Peterson to ask Hunter.’

  He grinned. ‘These days, I’d be astonished if Peterson even knows what day of the week it is.’

  ‘I know. Who’d have thought she would say yes?’

  ‘Do you think people are following our good example?’

  ‘I’m surprised they don’t regard us as a horrible warning.’

  He looked down at me. ‘I thought you quite liked being married.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, considering. ‘Some days it’s not too bad.’

  He folded his arms. ‘That’s it? That’s all you’ve got? “Some days it’s not too bad”?’

  ‘I thought you would prefer that to “Some days it’s really not good at all.” Anyway, can we please stop talking about matrimony? Will you be taking part in this cultural jaunt?’

  We don’t both go on the same jumps – that was the deal. We’d shaken hands on it. Because if anything horrible ever happened – and it usually does – then our baby son would be an orphan.

  He shook his head. ‘Not if you want to go.’

  ‘Do you want to toss for it?’

  ‘No. You take this one. I’ll have first refusal on the next.’

  ‘Deal.’

  We shook on this too.

  People were in and out of my office all day. I got no work done at all.

  ‘Nothing new there then,’ said my assistant, Rosie Lee.

  I regarded her coldly. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I work here.’

  ‘Really? When did that happen?’

  ‘If you were ever here, you’d be able to answer that question yourself.’

  I decided to ignore this. ‘Could you get me the King Alfred file, please?’

  She regarded me with some hostility. I hastened to make things easier for her.

  ‘A file is a collection of documents. In a blue folder. Blue for the History Department.’ I plucked at my blue jumpsuit to make my point.

  The hostile stare did not waver.

  ‘And it will have Alfred the Great and the file reference in the top right hand...’

  ‘Just like that one on your desk there?’

  ‘...corner, just like this one on my desk here.’

  I picked up the file and opened it.

  She stood up. ‘Comfort break.’

  ‘Make my tea first. You know the rules.’

  She sighed loudly. ‘If we had union representation here then I wouldn’t have to do this.’

  ‘If we had union representation here then you’d never have been employed in the first place.’

  She banged the kettle down. ‘I should be paid what I’m worth.’

  ‘You’d better hope you never are. Where’s my tea?’

  She changed the subject. ‘So who’s going then?’

  I scrabbled through my bits of paper. ‘A mixed bunch. Dr Bairstow, of course, which is nice becau
se he doesn’t get out much. Peterson, Markham, Guthrie, North, Sykes, Atherton, Mrs Enderby – costume research, she says – Mrs Mack, because she wants to check out what people are eating, Evans, Keller, Professor Rapson and Dr Dowson – obviously because the 17thcentury isn’t a time in which they’ve blown something up yet and they want to rectify that situation as soon as possible – and Lingoss.’

  She stared at me. ‘Aren’t you going? I was hoping to be rid of you for a whole day.’

  ‘And me. I shall be leaving you a list of tasks to accomplish during my absence, although I don’t know why – it’s not as if you accomplish any tasks during my presence. And I shall be locking up the chocolate biscuits, of course.’

  My mug of tea was banged down in front of me with quite unnecessary force.

  Since Clerk wasn’t going on this one, I was the designated driver. Or mission controller if you want to give me my correct title. Which no one ever did. I had to endure many enquiries as to whether I could remember what to do.

  We assembled outside TB2 – our big transport pod. I’d calculated that we’d need at least four smaller pods to fit all of us in and that many would make us conspicuous. Besides, with so many inexperienced people on the assignment, I preferred us to jump together. I didn’t want anyone being left behind if we had to leave in a hurry, and all the evidence to date suggested that we would.

  I ran my eye over the group. We were dressed as lower middle-class citizens. Unimportant but relatively prosperous. Our clothing was dark and respectable, but the material was as good as the Sumptuary Laws allowed. This was an age where clothing defined social status – and vice versa. Peterson had suggested Markham wear a small sack.

  I wore a linen chemise, high at the neck, with a dark brown woollen dress over the top, belted at the memory of my waist. My bum roll gave me that authentic wide-hipped Tudor look, although strictly speaking, the bum roll might not have been necessary. I’d covered my hair with a coif and looked every inch the respectable Tudor matron. All the women wore variations on the same theme in shades of brown and russet. The men wore linen shirts and doublets with leather or woollen sleeveless jerkins over the top, trousers to their knees and shoes and stockings. And beards. Well, as much beard as they’d managed to assemble in a little under a fortnight. Which in some cases wasn’t very much at all. There had been general mocking and ridicule.