The Archivist Read online

  ‘I like your tie,’ Max said. Noel rolled a jaundiced eye towards him.

  ‘Why, thank you,’ BS said. ‘It’s from my old alma mater, as a matter of fact. Always seems such a shame to cover it up,’ and to emphasise the point he flicked it towards Max between his first and second fingers. ‘However, my business today is with Noel.’

  ‘BS?’ Noel said.

  ‘I just want to know how things are getting along upstairs. I’ve been snowed under with work, I’m afraid – you know what it’s like. Take a week off, and you need a month to catch up. I haven’t had a moment to join you. Got everything you need, you and Sam?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘What stage are things at the moment?’

  ‘We’ve got about as far as we can without access to the sealed chamber. Sam’s up in London today, seeing contractors about the display cabinets. She couldn’t find the right people down here. She’ll be back this evening.’

  ‘Been through all those boxes yet?’

  ‘No. We won’t start that until the builders have finished upstairs.’

  ‘Looking good?’

  ‘Yes. Go up and see.’

  ‘I don’t like to get in the way of the workmen.’

  ‘You wouldn’t recognise the place. The wall’s down – it’s a great space – and the underfloor heating’s being laid. They’re plastering at the moment, putting lighting in next week. Sam’s kept them right on schedule and she’s got a good idea of what’s going into the exhibition.’

  ‘Without checking the boxes?’

  ‘From the inventory.’

  ‘Ah, yes. What a good thing it was I found that.’ BS gazed down at the floor. ‘Anything missing?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Excellent. Keep up the good work,’ and scooping his rucksack up on to his shoulder, BS swayed off down the statue corridor. Halfway down he came to a halt, then plodded back towards them. ‘Completely slipped my mind,’ he said. ‘The whole time we were chatting, I knew I had something to tell you – just couldn’t remember what it was. Patricia’s coming in this afternoon – we’ve got family in a few weeks’ time, and she wanted to get some staff tickets in case they want another look around the place. Show her down to the office, will you, then call me on the radio and let me know she’s here.’

  ‘We certainly will.’

  ‘So explain to me, Noel,’ Max said after BS had gone. ‘Why doesn’t the old boy go up and see for himself how the exhibition is going?’

  ‘The great archivist moves in mysterious ways,’ Noel said. ‘Basically, I think his nose has been put out of joint, but between you and me, Sam’s doing a much better job than he could ever do. She’s whip smart, that woman, if you’ll excuse the pun.’ Max felt a swell of proprietorial pride for which he admonished himself. ‘BS is out of touch with the modern world. He’s a charming fellow, but if I’ve heard his mantra about the quill pen once, I’ve heard it a hundred times.’

  ‘Quill pen?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard him? “Technology ended with the quill pen”?’ Max shook his head. ‘You surprise me, Max. He trots it out whenever you mention the internet, or emails, or Skype. There are much older men and women at the Hall who have come to grips with new technology in their twilight years, me included. BS has spent his professional life admired for his intellect. In order to learn a new skill, he would have to admit his ignorance – he would have to put himself in a position where he didn’t know what he was doing, he wasn’t best at something, he wasn’t superior. It’s much easier to affect an arrogant aloofness, as if it’s beneath him to get involved in something that’s a passing fad. If someone else used that same aloofness to cover their ignorance of, say, literature or the history of art, BS would berate them for their inflexible attitude and admonish them for robbing themselves of an educational opportunity.’

  ‘Would he?’

  ‘Course he would. He’s fallen into an age-old trap.’

  ‘Which is what?’

  ‘Staying safe. There are many excellent things about getting older and one of them is that we have control over our lives and can pretty much avoid putting ourselves in a situation where we might take a monumental pratfall. I took them all the time in my youth. The only time I’ve taken one recently was when I learned to ski.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Of course. It was terrible, but I did it, and I’m bloody glad I did. The French give us a free ski pass in a few years’ time.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘Free if you’re over a certain age. Absolute bargain. The French are clued up, you see. They’ve done the maths. Janet and I ski to eat, so we spent lots of money eating and drinking and put a very light load on the pistes and chair lifts.’

  ‘I hate skiing,’ Max said with feeling. ‘My ex-wife took me down a black run on my first day out. She was a good skier, of course. I had one morning of lessons, and she took me out and promised me there was a green run from the top, but when we got there it was closed and the black run was the only way down. I made one agonising plough turn at the top, and went the rest of the way down like a Catherine wheel thinking – I’m sure these skis are meant to come off – as they scythed past my head. It was humiliating. I took my skis back the next day.’

  ‘But that’s exactly the point I’m making. You were too wet to face up to a monumental pratfall.‘

  ‘Really, Noel, you do say the most extraordinary things.’

  ‘You should have persevered. Janet and I had to spend two seasons being scoffed at by adolescents, but we soldiered on. You couldn’t face it. And in his own way, neither can BS. He would much rather belittle an interest in new technology than go through the humiliation of trying and failing, then trying again and again until he succeeded. Hence his side-lining of the exhibition. Sam arrives, she knows her job, she’s really good at it. He could see humiliation looming and down he goes, spluttering and writhing on the floor in the undercroft.’

  ‘Come on, Noel. He didn’t put that on.’

  ‘Didn’t he?’

  ‘He had a coronary.’

  ‘Did he? Then he’s made a remarkable recovery.’

  ‘You’re talking bollocks.’

  ‘Well, if that man had a coronary, my cock’s a kipper. Anyway, enough of this, I’m taking a tea break while Weenie’s out on tour. Can’t bear getting stuck up there with her. Happy to manage the door on your own?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The morning rush of booked groups had abated. Max checked the tickets of a handful of visitors as they came in, but the stream was slow enough for him to wander away from the door and look out across the courtyard from the window where he could rest the front of his legs against the pedestal radiator. It was too hot to lean on for more than a few seconds, but he adopted a gentle rhythm of rocking forwards on to the heat and away from it to maintain a constant temperature. The sky was washed with dramatic greys and blues against which the lime green of the early trees zinged with an acid contrast. As usual, his thoughts moved on to Sam Westbrook.

  His early adventure in the snow had not accelerated their relationship as he had hoped. He had thought she might phone him the following evening using the pretext of thanking him for helping her. He even lifted his telephone receiver a few times during the evening to make sure it was not out of order. He wondered if he could ring her to see if she had made it back to the Hall without further mishap, but he didn’t want to come across as desperate. He discussed his dilemma with Monty whose lack of interest in the subject gave him the impression that a cool approach was the one most likely to succeed. The following morning he was soothed to see Sam’s car, still dirty from its adventures, standing in the staff car park, and when he heard about BS Moreton’s collapse, he consoled himself with the thought that this was the reason Sam’s attention had been hijacked. She probably had every intention of ringing him, but was too busy picking up the pieces after this apparent catastrophe.

  The next few days at work
had been similarly frustrating, particularly as his friend Noel had been propelled into the enviable position of Sam’s assistant. Max sighed heavily. It was another piece of incredible bad luck that it was Noel, and not himself, who had been picked to help Sam with the erotic collection. He accepted that Noel was more qualified, but even so. He had never been a lucky man. He saw luck as a line running through life, the people on the right of the line enjoying more luck than anyone else while those on the left were crushed by the bad breaks. He, however, was so far over to the left of the line he was out in the stratosphere, the cold icy edges of the dark side of the luck universe.

  He often wondered if this was the reason he had become such a successful day trader after he retired. His belief in his own poor luck was so strong that he had never gambled, never played roulette or blackjack. He had never placed a bet on a horse, definitely not a dog, and had never bought a lottery ticket. He accepted that despite his experience from years as a stockbroker, day trading was gambling, but his belief in his own bad luck meant he applied stringent physical stops on his trades and had managed to make a comfortable living, even with the huge handicap of having the most atrocious luck imaginable. In fact he was convinced that had he enjoyed even normal luck over the years, he might well have become reckless and his day trading would have bankrupted him.

  At that moment he saw Sam Westbrook enter the courtyard through the arch to his right, making her way, he assumed, across to her flat on the opposite side. He couldn’t believe his luck. There he was thinking about her, and as if conjured up by the force of his thoughts, she had appeared. He accepted that nowadays he spent most of his idle hours thinking about Sam, but surely it was a good sign – a sign that this was the right moment to follow Noel’s advice, risk a pratfall, take his courage in both hands and ask her out for a drink.

  He left the window and walked briskly over to the front door. As he opened it and stepped out into the wind, the door was whisked away from his hand, banging back against the marble radiator cover. Sam must have heard the report from the door and turned, halfway across the courtyard. He raised his hand and beckoned. Come over, he mouthed. Come over. And she waved back, and she smiled, and she kept on walking in a straight line towards her flat. And he waved again. Come here. Here! And she laughed and waved again, and then looked away towards her flat.

  Max glanced around. There were no visitors, no one needed to have their tickets checked, and he was down the first three steps away from the Hall to intercept her when he heard a voice behind him. ‘Max! Where on earth are you going?’ He spun round. Bunty was standing on the top step in the double teapot position, a hand on each hip, full square.

  ‘I had to give Sam Westbrook a message,’ he said. ‘She’s just down there.’

  ‘You can’t leave the door unmanned,’ Bunty said.

  ‘She’s there. Just there. I won’t be minute.’

  ‘Back to your post. It’ll have to wait.’ With leaden feet, Max retraced his steps. ‘What were you thinking?’ Bunty said. ‘Good job the earl didn’t see you. Or Rosemary. Still, you’re new. They may have cut you some slack.’

  Just my luck, he thought. My usual stinking bad luck.

  - 18 -

  The phone rang and BS picked up the receiver. ‘BS Moreton speaking,’ he said. ‘Archivist to The Right Honourable The Earl of Duntisbourne.’

  ‘It’s Sam here.’ His heart sank. Why was she ringing him at the weekend? ‘I got an anonymous letter this morning,’ she continued. That was not the problem he was expecting.

  Still holding the phone to his ear, he peered down the dark passage towards the kitchen. He could see Patricia in the room beyond, silhouetted against the spring sun coming into the conservatory. His wife was watering the plants. He moved the phone nearer to his mouth and said, ‘I’ll ring you back in a minute. On my mobile.’

  He hung up before Sam could answer, unhooked his stick from the edge of the hall table and, swaying heavily on to it with each step, started to make his way down the passage. Passing through the kitchen, he leaned a hand on the architrave of the door into the conservatory and said, ‘Just getting something from the car, dear.’ Patricia straightened up and pushed a strand of white hair away from her eyes.

  ‘Was that the phone?’ she asked.

  ‘Not even a real person – a recording trying to sell me something.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Irritating, aren’t they?’ she said.

  BS smiled at his wife before leaving the room and shut the door behind him only after he saw her bend to resume her task. He made his way out through the utility room and into the garage where the car was parked. The cold made him shiver. Before he climbed into the front seat, he patted the right-hand pocket of his trousers to make sure he had his mobile phone with him. He did. He took a moment to position himself for the drop into the driving seat and carefully closed the car door to prevent it from clunking shut. After fumbling to put on his spectacles, he began to poke the rubber keys on the mobile phone. He couldn’t find that confounded bit which had a list of phone numbers on it.

  ‘Oh blow!’ he muttered as the phone began to launch something inexplicable. He tried again and a message came up: ‘You can make your own notes.’ ‘Oh blow me down to the ruddy ground,’ he said, pressed another key and was told he had saved a message. He sighed heavily and shifted his weight to take the pressure off his back. He had another go. ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘At last,’ as he chanced upon the list of contacts and found Sam’s number right at the top under the title he had given her of Assistant Archivist.

  ‘Ah, BS. Finally.’ Sam said. ‘Why all this cloak-and-dagger stuff?’

  BS looked across to the door back into the utility room, then checked the garage door behind him in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Well,’ he began slowly, ‘the thing you have to understand, I’m afraid, is ...’ He paused. What could he say to make sure this went no further? Sam’s tenacity was one of the reasons she was good at her job and he knew she would need careful handling. He believed that the gravitas and charm he had cultivated so carefully for sixty-odd years was hard to resist, but not over the phone. And certainly not on a mobile phone in the front seat of a car in a freezing cold garage. ‘I think under the circumstances,’ he said, ‘it would be better if I came over and talked to you about this.’

  ‘But it’s Saturday.’ Although the appearance of Sam Westbrook at the Hall had caused him a great deal of trouble, he couldn’t help imagining her relaxing on a Saturday morning. Was she still in her nightwear, her skin clear of make-up, her hair loose across her shoulders? Was she having breakfast in bed reading the weekend newspapers?

  ‘If I set off now, I could be with you in about fifteen minutes,’ he said. There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. BS felt compelled to explain further. ‘You see, when all this unpleasant business developed ...’

  ‘What unpleasant business?’

  ‘I can explain that when I see you. But it caused Patricia a great deal of discomfort and unhappiness.’

  ‘Patricia?’

  ‘My wife.’

  ‘I know who Patricia is,’ Sam said, ‘but why should she be upset by a letter to me?’

  ‘Well, the thing is that the boys are planning a big family get-together for our fortieth wedding anniversary ...’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘... and she’s got a lot to do getting the house ready for the grandchildren, et cetera et cetera, and I am extremely reluctant to cause her any more stress or upset.’ Sam was silent, but he soldiered on. ‘We both thought this painful episode was over ...’

  ‘What painful episode?’

  ‘I’ll explain all that,’ he said. ‘I just want her to enjoy next weekend and not be reminded of all that nastiness coming on top of my horrid health scare.’

  He heard Sam sigh. ‘Honestly BS, I don’t want to sound rude –’ but you’re going to, he thought – ‘but I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking abou
t.’ BS looked anxiously over towards the door into the utility room. How long had he been? Would Patricia be looking for him?

  ‘Are you still there?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, yes. I’m still here.’

  ‘It really would be more satisfactory if I could come over.’

  He heard her sigh. ‘Well, if you really must. But give it a good hour. I’m not completely up and doing just yet.’ The line went dead.

  He was over the first hurdle. He leaned back against the headrest, puffed out his cheeks and closed his eyes. He snapped them open the moment he heard the latch of the door into the utility room. He let the mobile phone slither down from his lap and into the footwell.

  Patricia tapped on his window. ‘BS! What are you doing?’

  He rolled the window down. ‘Still looking, dear.’

  ‘Looking for what?’ Patricia frowned and twitched her head to the side as if she was trying to catch a noise, and BS realised she was waiting for him to speak and got the impression that she had been waiting for him to speak for some moments. Then a thought struck him.

  ‘It’s a secret, dear.’

  ‘Secret?’ she said. ‘It’s nothing to do with your health, is it?’

  ‘No, no. I wouldn’t keep that a secret from you. No, it’s a nice secret. I really can’t tell you any more about it but suffice it to say all will be revealed very soon when the boys and the grandchildren are here.’

  Patricia smiled through the window at him. ‘I see,’ she said.

  ‘But because I couldn’t find something ...’

  ‘What? Oh, sorry. Secret.’

  ‘... I’m going to have to go out this morning for a bit.’

  Patricia pulled her head back from the window and stood up. He knew he had her on the horns of a dilemma. He was bad at presents and surprises – she wouldn’t risk thwarting a genuine attempt on his part to treat her. He allowed himself a moment of self-congratulation until he saw disappointment in her face. He also knew she expected their weekends to be sacrosanct, particularly now that he had promised to take things easy and spend less time at the Hall. He quashed a flutter of regret. It couldn’t be helped – needs must and all that.