We sprawled on the ground, trying to catch up with events. For me it all happened so fast that I was more puzzled than scared.
I could hear people approaching and several men ran round the pile, shouting anxiously. They pulled up short at the sight of me on the ground, still tangled up with Peterson. And him with his todger out, too. They drew the wrong conclusions, subjected us to several builders’ witticisms, which although in Old English were perfectly understandable and wandered off again. It seemed no one was going to file a Health and Safety report.
Inside my head, I heard Dr Bairstow say, ‘How difficult is it to cause a ten-ton block to drop on a potentially threatening historian …?’
I unwound my stupid skirts and struggled to my feet.
‘You peed on me,’ I said indignantly, to hide the sickness sweeping over me.
‘Get over it. I peed on me as well,’ said England’s first mannequin pis, climbing to his feet. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. Fine.’
‘Are you sure?’
There was an underlying anxiety in his voice and I remembered Kevin Grant had been killed on his watch.
‘Well, I’m all wet if that’s what you mean.’ I shook out my skirts. ‘Oh, yuk!’
He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘What was that all about?’
‘Don’t know. Maybe it was just an accident. They do happen. Maybe not everything is about us.’
He thought.
‘Where were you going?’
I remembered. ‘Two men, following another man. I didn’t like the look of them.’
‘Maxwell!’
‘I wasn’t going to do anything. I just wanted to see better.’ I took a deep breath and said in a small voice, ‘Do you really think …?’
Now I was aware of my thumping heart. It had been a close call. One minute everything was fine and the next minute, bloody great rocks were dropping out of the sky.
‘Where did it come from?’ said Peterson, looking up. There was no scaffolding or A-frames; just a cat’s cradle of rope outlined against the grey sky. He peered thoughtfully across the site.
‘I wonder …’
‘What?’
‘Well, I wonder if whatever was going to happen to that man – had to happen. Some key historical event. Minor, but essential. And if you were about to interfere, young Maxwell, then we got off very lightly. Very lightly indeed.’
‘What sort of key event?’
‘I don’t know; it could be anything. Suppose he’s attacked and someone saves him and he goes on to father children whose descendants are important? Or he’s attacked and killed. He might have gone on to do something unspeakably evil and now he won’t because he’s dead. We’ll never know.’
My heart had picked up speed as the implications were becoming clear to me.
‘I’m amazed we’re not dead.’
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘Maybe History’s in a good mood today.’
‘Maybe we’re the good guys,’ I said jokingly and there was a strange little pause.
‘Doubt it,’ said Peterson. ‘We’d better take the hint, however, and clear off.’
‘Yes, Mr Peterson.’
He grinned. ‘The name’s Tim. Now, shall we go?’
‘Good idea.’
We edged our way past the block and out of the lumber.
‘A nice cup of tea, I think,’ he said, striding out.
‘Um … Tim …’ I said, trotting beside him.
‘Yes?’
‘You might want to put yourself away first.’
On returning to the pod, Peterson apparently fell asleep. I wrote up the logs, did the FOD plod outside and the POD plod inside, tidied up, made a cup of tea, and gently woke my captain.
He yawned, stretched, smiled, checked around without seeming to and accepted the tea. ‘Nicely done, young Maxwell.’ We were the same age, but I let it go. ‘Return jump set up?’
‘Yes, ready to go any time you are.’
‘Well, there’s no rush, is there?’ and he settled back in his seat, apparently exhausted by his afternoon exertions and smiled at me again. His hair, as always, stuck out in all directions. Female historians have yards of hair – it’s in the rules and regs; all male historians wear a kind of shaggy-sheep look appropriate to any age. Peterson’s made him look like an unkempt hearthrug, but his eyes were gentle. I rarely heard him raise his voice and, a welcome relief amongst volatile historians, he always appeared bombproof. He harboured a passion for Doctor Foster (or death wish possibly) and accepted her complete lack of people skills with good-humoured equanimity. I could have felt sorry for him, Helen Foster on one side and Kalinda Black on the other, but when I mentioned it to him once, he just said, ‘Yeah,’ in a dreamy sort of voice, leaned back, put his hands behind his head, and smiled happily. ‘It’s a great life.’