‘Of course,’ he said, as if chatting with a honey-covered expat from the Bronze Age was the most natural thing in the world, which, of course, at St Mary’s, it was.
‘I understand that in addition to a successful assignment, you have managed to prevent Mr Markham contracting cholera.’
‘My talents are limitless, sir. Something I was planning to bring up at my next performance appraisal.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘Well, it wouldn’t be appropriate to bring it up at someone else’s, would it?’
‘Since I feel certain that by then, any credits you may have earned will be more than outweighed by corresponding debits for damages incurred, I remain unalarmed by this threat.’
‘I’ll leave you to enjoy your false sense of security, sir.’
As I was oozing out of the door, he said, ‘Very satisfactory work, Dr Maxwell.’
Beneath my outer layer of honey and dust, I glowed. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Twelve hours.’
‘Sorry, sir?’
‘The usual recovery period. Twelve hours to sleep it off and then complete recovery. Please convey suitable reassurances to Dr Dowson.’
I gaped. How does he know these things?
I dithered outside the Boss’s office. I could smell sausages. And fish and chips. And all the other favourites so carefully chosen to welcome us home. There would be chocolate mousse. And pancakes. And Mrs Mack’s chicken tikka masala. The noise from the dining room was as tempting as the smell. Oh God, I really wanted a sausage. And no, that’s not a metaphor.
But …
Heroically, I made my way to my own room, where, with luck, something nearly as good would be waiting for me.
Everyone has their fantasies. Some of them quite wide-ranging and varied.
Comprehensive.
Imaginative.
Detailed.
I was looking at about eight of mine all at once.
The room was dim. Somewhere in the background I could hear Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. That was for me. In private moments, he always called me Lucy. The girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
He’d pulled my old table to the foot of the bed and laid it with a cloth I could barely see, the table was so stacked with good things.
Not one, not two, but three boxes of my favourite chocolates sat invitingly open. Behind them, two (because one is never enough) tall sundae glasses of chocolate mousse. Plates of smoked salmon, pink and curling. A plate of sushi. A jug of margaritas stood next to two frosted glasses. And in the centre, the second star of the show, a colossal plate of crisply roasted sausages, done just the way I like them, with all the scrummy black bits still attached.
I say second, because the real star of the show lay stark naked on the bed, grinning like the naughty boy he intended to be, and monumentally, magnificently pleased to see me.
He linked his hands behind his head and leaned back on the pillows.
‘Well, Lucy, what shall we do now?’
Later – much later, actually – when I could finally string two words together, I asked, ‘Who’s Elspeth?’
He was silent for a little while and then said, ‘You must know the name. Elspeth Grey?’
I did know the name. Elspeth Grey was the very first name on our Board of Honour. The names of those who have died in the service of St Mary’s. She’d gone off to 12th-century Jerusalem and never come back. That bastard Ronan had got her.
I nodded, unsure whether to say any more. This was Leon’s nightmare – that one day I wouldn’t come back, either. This why he wanted me out of here. I thought of the quiet and contained Ian Guthrie. All those years and I’d never guessed. I heard again the pain in his voice.
‘Elspeth?’
And I shivered.
Like the Windmill in WWII, St Mary’s never closed – always humming with activity and, occasionally, strife. Well, now it didn’t so much hum as roar. Historians raced from the Hall to the library and back again, dragging printouts or clutching data-sticks, reviewing and organising our data, identifying areas for further study. Trying to pull the whole shapeless mass of information into something useable was a bit like eleven bickering historians stuffing a duvet into its cover while wearing boxing gloves. In the dark.
Tired-looking techies swarmed all over the pods, complaining their typical techie complaints because we’d actually used the things instead of leaving them pristine and virginal on their plinths. (The pods, I mean, not the techies.) I reported daily progress to the Boss, as did Leon.
Apart from the first twenty-four hours when we hadn’t left my room (and why would we?) we didn’t have a lot of time together. It didn’t seem important at the time. We had a whole future ahead of us.
We did talk occasionally of our new life together. Since he’d already borne the revelation that I couldn’t cook with equanimity, I gave him the rest of the bad news.
‘Not that keen on housework, either.’
‘We’ll get someone in.’