3. A Second Chance (26 page)

‘I wish we could begin it all again, Max.’

I touched his face and we kissed, very gently and sweetly. Such a lot was said but not spoken. A lifetime of memories with him kaleidoscoped through my head. I could feel his tears running down my face.

‘Max …’

‘Tim, my dearest friend …’

I held his face between my hands, we looked at each other for the last time, and then I was back in the little living room.

She gave me a minute while I blew my nose on my sleeve.

Finally, I was able to say, ‘Thank you.’

She inclined her head. ‘I shall leave you, now.’

‘Wait. You can’t go yet.’

‘You have a task to perform. I should let you get on with it.’

‘At least give me some information before you go. What is this task? What must I do? Should I go back to St Mary’s? How did I die? I can’t just come back to life, surely?’

She stood. ‘Events will play out. You will do whatever is required. Try not to fret too much about the future.’

‘Well, I don’t have to, do I? I’m dead.’

The familiar expression of exasperation crossed her face. ‘I keep telling you, Dr Maxwell, you are not dead. Why you have this persistent obsession with your own death is a mystery to me.’

‘But what do you want me to do?’

‘Your best.’

And she was gone, because God forbid she should ever make things easy for me.

I stood alone, in a strange room in a strange world, wondering what on earth to do next.

The sensible answer would be to change out of my bloodstained garments, have a shower, and tidy myself up a little.

I went out into the kitchen instead and stared at a tiny kitchen table laid for two, found the back door, and let myself out.

I knew where this was. I was in Rushford and this was one of those units down by the river. The derelict ones that the council had reclaimed. Living space over a downstairs workshop. Very popular with artists and such. A small courtyard held parking for two cars. To my right, a tiny garden. In the back left-hand corner stood a familiar, small, stone shack. He’d tied a clothesline to one corner and the clothes prop leaned against it. I swallowed a huge lump.

I made my way carefully down some stone steps into the courtyard. The workshop doors were open to let in the summer sunshine. From inside I could hear a radio playing quietly, some chinky tool noises, and someone talking.

I oozed quietly through the doors and stood on the threshold, looking around.

He stood with his back to me, moving around a work area he’d created by pushing three tables together in a U shape. The surfaces were littered with items that meant nothing to me.

The far end of the workshop had two big windows and between these, he’d made a corner with two tables and set up my easel. My paints were laid out neatly, my brushes in a jar and canvases stacked against the wall.

Mrs Partridge had been right. He’d made a shrine. I would not have thought my heart could break any more.

He was speaking. To himself.

‘So, one of us is going to have to speak to Mrs Foreman about the precise relationship between electricity and water. When the instructions say to clean with warm, soapy water, they really don’t mean her to shove the entire grill into the dishwasher. And since you yourself are even hazier about the precise relationship between electricity and water than she is, it’s going to have to be me again, isn’t it?’

He groped along the bench for some implement or other.

I stood perfectly still, while the blood thumped in my head. He was here. Not five paces away. It was Leon. Leon was here. Not dead. I could walk towards him. I could touch him. Feel his arms around me. Look into his amazing eyes. Feel his hands on me again. Hear his voice. Smell his smell. I tried to remember to breathe. I swear I never made a sound, but some instinct must have warned him.

He turned slowly.

I stood in the entrance, dark against the bright sunshine.

He put down whatever it was he was working on and took two steps forward.

I drew a deep breath.

He stopped.

He peered uncertainly.

His face cleared.

He smiled, stretched out a welcoming hand, and said, ‘Isabella?’

And everything inside me screamed.

Chapter Twenty-two

They say that should you ever be unfortunate enough to meet yourself, you won’t like what you see. That you won’t like yourself at all.

I’d never met myself – in my job that would be a bit of a catastrophe. The closest I’d ever come was meeting Isabella Barclay. Who looked very much like me. Bitchface Barclay. Former head of IT at St Mary’s. And I hadn’t liked her. Not one little bit. In fact, I’d hated her so much I’d killed her. Everyone needs to be clear about this – I deliberately killed Isabella Barclay.

And now, now I’d waded through blood and death – mine – to be here. I’d abandoned my old life and my best friend to be here. To be here with him. And for him. And what did he say?

Isabella?

Isabella fucking Barclay?

My recently damaged heart nearly erupted through my recently punctured chest as a massive wave of searing, red-hot, uncontrollable rage …

I’d died in this world. Mrs Partridge said I’d died in this world and here he was … 
Isabella? … Fucking Isabella Barclay?

My hand closed on something. I had no idea what it was, but at that moment I was so head-burstingly furious that I could have fashioned something lethal from a ball of wet cotton wool. He was dead in my world. Well, now he was about to bloody die in this one as well.

The radio played “Staying Alive”.

I stepped forward out of the sunlight to let him have a good look at me before I ended his life.

Despite everything, I was shocked. He looked both younger and older. Younger, because he wore casual clothes – old jeans and a baggy black sweater with holes in the elbows – and older, because he was suffering. His pallor accentuated the browny-purple shadows around his eyes. His lips were thin and bloodless. Even as we stared at each other, colour surged across his face and then receded, leaving him even paler than before.

He reeled. Literally reeled – falling back against his workbench and knocking equipment to the floor.

A battered old sofa was set against one wall. I helped him across the workshop, a small spark of resentment adding itself to the bonfire of my fury. I was the one who was dead. Well, nearly dead. So why was he the one wobbling about like a fainting schoolgirl? On the other hand, I could see he’d been suffering for a very long time. At least I’d only been dead for an afternoon. He sat for a while with his eyes closed, breathing heavily.

I sat down myself. It had been another long day.

He opened his eyes.

I know he said, ‘Max,’ because his lips moved, but no sound came out. I nodded. Not in encouragement, but so that he would know who was about to splatter him all over his own workshop.

‘Yes,’ I said, tightly. ‘Max.
Not
Isabella.’

He closed his eyes again.

‘That won’t save you. Open your eyes.’

He did. Still dazed, he ran his eyes over my face. His lips moved and again, he said, ‘Max?’

I said nothing this time.

‘I … How? …’ I think it was all too much for him. He closed his eyes again.

I poked him. ‘Don’t go to sleep.’

That jolted his eyes open. He blinked a little, made a huge effort to pull himself together, and said, because in a crisis, the mind tends to fix on trivia, ‘What are you holding?’

I discovered I had been about to gut him from groin to gizzard with an old plastic dustpan. Blue.

‘Never mind that.
Isabella
?’

‘What?’

‘You said, “Isabella”.’

He was still confused.

‘Did I?’

I couldn’t keep it in any longer. ‘You couldn’t wait, could you? “Oh, my redhead’s dead. Never mind, I know where I can lay my hands on another. All cats look the same at night.” ’

He slapped me.

I hit him with the dustpan.

This was going well.

He sat up. ‘How could you think …? How could you think even for one minute that I …? What is the matter with you?’

‘The matter with me? I’m not the one shouting my current girlfriend’s name at my ex.’

‘She’s not my girlfriend. How could you think that? And who are you, anyway? What do you want?’

I was reaching boiling point.

‘You’re pretending you don’t know who I am? Well, I’m not bloody Isabella.’

‘Yes, I think we’ve established that. Do you want to continue through a list of people you’re not?’

‘Don’t you know me? Or don’t you want to know me?’

‘I know who you look like, but she’s dead. So just tell me. Who are you? What do you want?’

I suddenly saw things through his eyes. A stranger in his workshop. Actually, a blood-drenched madwoman clutching a blue dustpan.

The radio broke into “Things Can Only Get Better.”

I struggled, discarding words, phrases, explanations.

‘In my world, you died.’

It was the best I could do.

He said again, ‘Who are you?’ But this time in a completely different voice.

‘My name is Max.’

He seized both my arms and dragged me round to face him.

‘No. No, it’s not. She’s dead. Who are you?’

‘My name is Madeleine Maxwell. I work for St Mary’s. I was on assignment at Agincourt with Peterson. Everything went tits-up. I was stabbed. With a sword. I fell down. When I opened my eyes, I was in your flat upstairs. I’m sorry but I’ve made an awful mess on your carpet. If the blood doesn’t come out then you’re going to lose your deposit.’

He dragged his eyes away from my face and finally took in the fifteenth-century costume, which managed to be both stiff and soggy with blood.

‘That looks bad. Should I get an ambulance? Ring St Mary’s?’

I shook my head. ‘The wound is closed. I just need a bit of peace to recover.’

He dropped my arms and now moved to the far end of the sofa, distancing himself from me. I hadn’t expected jubilation, but horror, shock, disbelief, and fear were written all over his face. He didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do. My temper was subsiding. This really hadn’t been a good day and its events were beginning to catch up with me. I didn’t know what to do next. It had never occurred to me he might not be as pleased to see me as I was to see him. Once again, I was lost in an unfamiliar emotional maelstrom.

However, there’s a St Mary’s ritual for dealing with this sort of thing.

‘Any chance of a cup of tea?’

He got up, switched on the kettle, and pulled two mugs off a shelf.

I don’t like milk much. If I can, I always have lemon in my tea. He had a little saucer with slices of lemon already prepared. I had a throat-closing vision of him carefully slicing a fresh lemon every morning. For someone who was dead. Who would never …

He really was in a bad way.

I remembered again what Mrs Partridge had said. Remembered the books, the snake, and my picture – all my stuff carefully placed and dusted. Laying the table for two. The slices of lemon. There was no way he was with Izzie Barclay. I’m an idiot.

I felt suddenly cold and tired.

He came and perched on the edge of the sofa and looked at me.

I said again, ‘In my world, you died.’

He seemed calm, so I continued. ‘I was in my office, laying out next year’s schedule.’

No need to tell him we were estranged. Not now, anyway. And definitely no need to tell him why. There might be a Joe Nelson in this world who would need protecting, too.

‘The phone rang. I was heavily into twelfth-century France. It was you. You were in Hawking but you sounded miles away. I thought at the time …’ I stopped.

I thought at the time that he had sounded as if he was on the other side of the universe. Suddenly, for the first time it struck me – I’d spoken to him not ten minutes before I saw his body, but his hands were cold. He’d been dead a long time. And I’d spoken to him on the telephone …

He said, hoarsely, ‘I called you. You were late for lunch. Again. I said …’

‘You said, “Where are you?” and I said, “In my office…”’

‘And I said, “Lunch?” And you said, “What?” And I said, “I’m waiting …” And you never came.’

I shivered.                                                                        

‘I should get a doctor. Take you to St Mary’s.’

‘No. I’m fine. The wound is closed.’ I swallowed. ‘They found you in Hawking. In Number Eight. The Boss sent you back. In your pod. There’s a memorial stone in the churchyard.’

He said, hoarsely. ‘They found you in your office. You still had an assignment in your hand. Julius Caesar. The Boss had to shut down St Mary’s for two days. People were in a state. Peterson was just … Markham too. And Izzie. Kal had to be driven over from Thirsk. She was in no condition to bring herself.’

He stopped.

‘Tell me, Leon. What happened next? What did you do?’ Where was Bitchface Barclay in all this?’

‘I buried you.’

I tried not to catch my breath.

‘And then …?’

‘I tried. I tried to carry on. People tried to help. But you weren’t there. Ian was amazing. So was Izzie. I don’t know why you said what you did. She was one of your best friends. You surely don’t think … She drops by, sometimes, just to talk. That’s what I thought when I saw you. Everyone tried so hard, but you weren’t there. You just weren’t there, Max. Everywhere I looked, you weren’t there. So in the end, I left. I couldn’t handle it. We’d been going to leave; to set up home together. So that’s what I did. I left and started a new life.’

No, he hadn’t. He’d built himself a false construct – a fantasy world in which nothing was real.

‘And Dr Bairstow let you go?’

‘Not willingly. Not willingly at all. He made me serve a six-month notice, hoping all the time, I think, that I would change my mind. He still visits once or twice a month, although there’s no need. Sometimes Ian comes too.’

‘Why didn’t you go back to your own time?’

‘You would have been even further away …’

I nodded, taking all this in.

‘What about you, Max? What did you …? I mean, how did you …?’

‘I stayed at St Mary’s. You were there. You were everywhere. Everywhere I looked, there was some place where we’d had a conversation, or sat together, or kissed. Every time I looked up and saw a door closing, it was as if you’d just left the room. The whole place was permeated with memories and I couldn’t leave them.’

Silence.

‘Why are you here? How did you get here?

‘The answer to both those questions is that I don’t know. As I said, I was stabbed. It hurt. I fell forwards onto a pile of leaves and found myself on your carpet. As to why I’m here, I have no idea. Only half an hour ago, I was dead. Or as good as. I’m struggling a little with the events of today.’

He sat still, staring at his hands, nodding.

‘So, what’s next, Leon?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, do you want me to leave? In which case, can you ring St Mary’s and see if they’ll take me in? I can’t go to hospital. I’m dead in this world. I don’t know how I’m going to get around that. I don’t really know anything at the moment.’

‘I think you should stay here. I’d like you to stay here. At least for a little while. But …’

This had to be said and it had to be said now.

‘Leon, you must get your head around this. I’m Max, but I’m not your Max. We might look alike but be very different in character. Your Max might have been quiet, calm, patient, and able to cook and didn’t stuff herself on chocolate and …’

‘No, my Max wasn’t any of that, but I take your point. And I’m not your Leon, either.’

‘In fact, we’re complete strangers. We’re strangers with familiar faces. We don’t know each other at all.’

‘Yes. I understand that. Even so, I would like to extend an invitation for you to stay for a while. If this really isn’t your world then you have a lot of catching up to do. Decisions to make. But all that’s for the future. For the time being, until you’re better, I think you should stay. I really would like you to stay.’

I took a breath. ‘Thank you. I really would like to stay.’

He put out a hand. ‘Hello. My name’s Leon.’

The years rolled back. I was standing on the staircase at St Mary’s, meeting a man in an orange jumpsuit … and the whole incredible adventure was about to begin, all over again.

I held it tightly. ‘Hello, Leon. Nice to meet you.’

The silence lengthened.

I gently pulled my hand free before the tears started to fall. This was no time to get all soppy and sentimental.

I staggered to my feet and went to investigate my painting area. It was all very neat and tidy. I’d soon put a stop to that.

I bent painfully, placed a canvas on the easel, and stroked it gently, while I waited for it to tell me what it wanted to be.

The silence was overwhelming.

I reached up and began to twist my hair back into its bun. That done, I pulled my brushes towards me, looked at him over my shoulder, threw him a bit of a wobbly smile, and said, ‘Where’s that tea, then?’