One night, however, I had a bit of a brilliant idea. Before Matthew had been born, Leon had made a holo of the Time Map and rigged it to project around his bedroom. Every night, Matthew had lain in his cot and watched, wide eyed, as a mosaic of silver lines and coloured points swirled around him until he finally fell asleep. When he was taken, I’d put it away and forgotten all about it. Now I firkled around in a drawer until I found the plug-in that Leon had made.
The Time Map is mesmerisingly beautiful. Two shining, iridescent cones of light and swirling colour. There’s a vertical axis – the Timeline – and a horizontal axis which represents Space. The constantly changing point where they intersect is Here and Now. Everything above Now is the future, and below Now is the past. Lines radiate outwards from Now and these delineate the boundaries inside which we must work. This is how we plot historical events, their coordinates and their relationship with each other. Because, as I’ve already said, nothing happens in isolation. It was the prospect of working with the Time Map that had seduced Miss Lingoss away from the stern purpose of the History Department and straight into the clutches of those irresponsible catastrophe causers, Professor Rapson’s R&D section. Now I hoped it would make enough of an impression on Matthew to distract him from his nightmares.
He was sitting, as usual, bolt upright in bed, clutching his mug to his chest, his eyes scanning the room for whatever it was that had woken him up. He would never talk about his dreams.
I said, ‘Here, have a look at this,’ and switched it on.
Immediately, the bed was enveloped in a swirling vortex of light, shot through with a network of silver lines. He stared in amazement. I gently took his mug off him before he dropped it.
‘It’s the Time Map,’ I said casually, turning away. ‘You used to look at it for hours when you were a baby. Of course, I can switch it off if you’re too old for it now,’ and bent over to do so.
He made a faint sound of protest and I smiled to myself.
‘Shall I leave the door open in case you want me?’
I was talking to myself. He lay back on his pillows, quiet and still, all eyes.
I headed for the door, well pleased. Perhaps I wasn’t such a bad mother after all.
From that day onwards, things got a little better. Slowly, the nightmares became less frequent. I thought that eventually I would show him a few basic moves so he could learn how to manipulate the Time Map for himself.
So much for my simple plans. When I went in one morning, the Time Map was whizzing around the room like an hysterical elephant on greased roller skates. Huge lumps of it were out of place, or rearranged, or just not there any longer. It wasn’t a problem, this was only an old copy that Leon had put together to give our baby something to look at, but I hadn’t taught him to do this. He’d worked it out for himself.
I watched the conglomeration of silver lines and red blobs that had been our Troy assignment disassemble and reappear somewhere else. Surely he shouldn’t be able to do that? This was amazing. This was a Good Thing. Wasn’t it?
I felt some qualms at leaving him for our next assignment. Stamford Bridge. I know that if I’d gone to the Boss and asked to be excused boots for this one he would certainly have said yes, but Matthew had to get used to me disappearing at regular intervals. And, with luck, reappearing again.
I wasn’t too sure about leaving him in Sick Bay – the place held no good memories – but Auntie Lingoss stepped into the breach.
‘Auntie Lingoss?’ I said, disbelieving. She just laughed at me. Today’s hair was blue again. Apparently it was Matthew’s favourite colour. I pushed aside the worry that she knew that and I hadn’t.
‘Yes, I’ll keep an eye on him,’ she said cheerfully. ‘He’s got his normal sessions with everyone else. All I’ll have to do is make sure he eats his lunch.’
‘That’s not usually a problem.’
‘No, the problem is when he wants to eat everyone else’s. And all the furniture around him.’
‘Are you sure about this?’
‘Quite sure. If you’re not back by the end of the day, then he can help me with the research on 17th-century animal sporting events I’m doing for the professor, so it will be educational as well.’
‘Thank you for not saying it really doesn’t matter whether I’m here or not.’
‘Oh no, he does talk about you sometimes.’
‘Really? What does he say?’
‘Well, you gained huge Brownie points with the Time Map.’
I tried not to smirk.
‘Oh, and he says you have good chimneys here.’
‘Is that good or bad?’
‘No idea.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Can I just ask – how’s Peterson?’
‘Not too bad, I think. Keeping busy. Why do you ask?’
‘Dottle wanted to know.’
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
As Leon had suggested, every night, after Matthew had gone to bed, at what was ten o’clock for me, I would switch off the light and the TV and sit on the windowsill to look out over the moonlit gardens and think of Leon. I would weave memories and plans together, making a tapestry of our life – what had been and what was to come. Escaping, for a short while, from the darkness of the here and now to make a bright new future that I hoped one day would come to pass. Although I wasn’t optimistic.
And then I would take a deep breath and drag myself back into this world again.
Two days before the Stamford Bridge assignment, I had an appointment with Dr Bairstow in his office, to take him through the schedule and discuss the mission parameters. It was an intensive session. I think it was all part of his ‘Let’s work Maxwell as hard as possible so she doesn’t notice her life is falling apart’ strategy. Anyway, I was bashing away at my scratchpad and completely immersed in what I was doing, so I don’t know what made me look up.
Dr Bairstow’s office is on the first floor. We were about twenty feet up. I mention that because the view through the window generally consists of a rectangle of sky – sometimes blue but usually grey, because this is England after all – together with a few clouds and the occasional passing bird.
A small dachshund cartwheeled past. For a moment, I sat rigid with surprise, then I shot a glance at Dr Bairstow, mercifully absorbed in a topographical representation of Stamford Bridge and the disposition of Hardrada’s Viking forces.
Back at the window, another dog – breed unknown this time – sailed gracefully skywards, legs uppermost, and then disappeared again.
I just had time to thank the god of historians for ensuring Dr Bairstow usually sits with his back to the window when, with startling suddenness, a small Yorkshire terrier sailed through the open window, thudded onto his briefing table, bounced once and came to rest about two feet in front of him.
The two of them stared at each other, equally speechless. In Doctor Bairstow’s case, justifiable surprise rendered him thunderstruck – in the Yorkie’s case, I think death was the main contributing factor. It was very dead – its glassy eyes staring at Dr Bairstow in mute reproach.
Even Mrs Partridge seemed taken aback. Actually I was glad she was here because, traditionally, this sort of thing turns out to be my fault and, just for once, she could see I was absolutely blameless.
It takes a lot to shake Dr Bairstow. I think that being Director of St Mary’s for all these years has caused his awareness of shock, horror, surprise and disbelief to shut down in self-defence. Although looking at his face now, they might simply have been in hibernation, and were emerging, blinking, into the sunlight, rather in the manner of an irritable and very hungry bear after a long winter’s sleep. Seeking what they might devour, so to speak.
He turned to look at the window, just in time to see a small poodle describe a gentle parabola before disappearing from view.
Dr Bairstow and Mrs Partridge swivelled back in their chairs and fixed me with identical stares only slightly less reproachful than that of the dead dog lying on the briefing table in front of us.
I know my duty.
I sighed, stood up, and trudged towards the door.
Mrs Partridge cleared her throat, conveying a wordless world of menace.
I sighed again, trudged back and picked up the Yorkie, noticing, as I did so, that it had a tiny tartan collar with a sad little name disc attached. Colin. I tucked Colin under one arm, and went to investigate.