Pausing, I arranged and edited my thoughts. I was eight. It had been a bad Christmas. I sat in the bottom of my wardrobe. Something unfamiliar dug into my bottom. I wriggled about and pulled out a small book – Henry V and the Battle of Agincourt. I read and re-read it until it nearly fell apart. I never found out where it came from. That little book awoke my love of history and started a train of events that changed my life. I still had it. The one thing I saved from my childhood. Studying history opened doors to other worlds and other times and this became my escape and my passion. I pruned that lot down to three short, impersonal sentences.
From there we moved on to St Mary’s. He outlined the functions and set-up, giving the impression of a large, lively, and unconventional organisation. I found myself becoming more and more interested. There wasn’t any particular moment I could identify, but as he talked on, I began to feel I was missing something. This was a big campus. They had a security section and twenty-four-hour meals and plant and equipment and a technical department. He paused for a moment, shuffled a few papers, and asked me if I had any questions.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What’s Hawking?’
He didn’t answer for a while, then pushed himself back slightly from his desk and looked across at Mrs Partridge. She put down her scratchpad and left the room. I watched her go and then looked back at him. Something had changed.
He said, ‘How do you know about Hawking?’
‘Well,’ I said, slowly. ‘It’s not common knowledge of course, but …’ and let the sentence die away. Nine times out of ten that works, but sadly, not this time. He stared at me and the silence lengthened. ‘It just seems strange that a hangar in an historical establishment is named after the famous physicist.’
Still no response, but now I wasn’t going to say anything either. Silence holds no fears for me. I never feel the urge to fill it as so many other people do. We gazed at each other for a while and it could have been interesting, but at this moment, Mrs Partridge re-entered, clutching a file, which she put in front of Dr Bairstow. He opened it and spread the papers across his desk.
‘Dr Maxwell, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but perhaps you could tell me what you do know.’
He’d called my bluff.
‘Absolutely nothing,’ I said. ‘I heard the name mentioned and wondered. I’m also curious about the large numbers of staff here. Why do you need security or technicians? And why do people need to know I haven’t had “the interview”? What’s going on here?’
‘I’m quite prepared to tell you everything you want to know, but first I must inform you that unless you sign these papers, I shall be unable to do so. Please be aware these documents are legally binding. The wording seems to be obscure legalese, but, make no mistake, if you ever divulge one word of what I am about to tell you now, then you will spend the next fifteen years, at least, in an establishment the existence of which no civil liberties organisation is even aware. Please take a minute to think very carefully before proceeding.’
Thinking carefully is something that happens to other people. ‘Do you have a pen?’
The obliging Mrs Partridge produced one and I signed and initialled an enormous number of documents. She took the pen back off me, which just about summed up our relationship.
‘And now,’ he said, ‘we will have some tea.’
By now, afternoon had become early evening. This was taking far longer than a simple researching job warranted. It was becoming apparent this was not a simple researching job. I felt a surge of anticipation. Something exciting was about to happen.
He cleared his throat. ‘Since you have not had the sense to run for the hills, you will now have the “other” tour.’
‘And this is the “other” interview?’
He smiled and stirred his tea.
‘Don’t you ever think that instead of research and archaeology and, let’s face it, guesswork, how much better it would be if we could actually return to any historical event and witness it for ourselves? To be able to say with authority, “Yes, the Princes in the Tower were alive at the end of Richard’s reign. And this I know because I saw them with my own eyes.”’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘It would; although I can think of a few examples where such certainty would not be welcomed.’
He looked up sharply.
‘Such as?’
‘Well, a certain stable in Bethlehem for instance. Imagine if you pitched up with your Polaroid and the innkeeper flung open the door and said, “Come in. You’re my only guests and there’s plenty of room at the inn!” That would put the cat amongst the pigeons.’
‘An understatement. But you have nevertheless grasped the situation very clearly.’
‘So,’ I said, eyeing him closely, ‘maybe it’s good there’s no such thing as time travel.’
He raised his eyebrows slightly.
‘Or to qualify further, no such thing as public-access time travel.’
‘Exactly. Although the phrase “time travel” is so sci-fi. We don’t do that. Here at St Mary’s we investigate major historical events in contemporary time.’
Put like that, of course, it all made perfect sense.