Broken Hero

by Jonathan Wood

  Who retires from MI37? Nobody. This job kills us. We don’t get houses and fences and thatched roofs. We get tombstones.

  “—do you think?”

  I come back to the world and Felicity has just stopped talking. She is still staring straight ahead, then her gaze snaps to me, holds for a few seconds. She searches me, eyes questioning.

  My mouth is still noiselessly open. I try to force out a sound, a word. Nothing comes. I am trapped in that moment. The word locked behind the thunder of my pulse.

  Felicity looks away.

  Oh God…

  “Sure,” I croak, forcing it out. And I want this. I want this, damnit. “Yes,” I repeat, going for something more forceful, and failing to achieve it.

  Felicity looks at me, eyes narrow, suspicious. I barf up the smile again.

  And then she smiles too.

  “Excellent!” She claps her hands. Two of the business men look up from their newspapers, wearing vaguely irritated expressions. Felicity leans forward and kisses me on my lips.

  I close my eyes, kiss her back. I wish it was a romantic moment, but mostly I’m just focusing on trying to ensure the snakes stay in my stomach and don’t rise to the surface.

  Felicity pulls back, squeezes my hand. “This is great,” she says. Then she checks my face, concern crossing her brow. “You’re sure?” she asks. “I don’t want to feel like I’m pushing you into anything.”

  “Of course,” I squeak.

  She smiles again, though there is a slightly puzzled look on her face. I wish I could respond the way this moment deserves. I wish I could throw my arms around her and tell her she’s a genius. I wish I could be myself, but… Jesus. I need to change the subject, to get out of here, so I can get my head straight and be myself again.

  “You’re all set for tonight?” I ask, grasping for a conversational straw.

  Felicity blinks, shudders slightly. “Yes. I suppose.” She regards her torn suit. “Change of clothes, and… well, how scary can the leader of our country really be?”

  It’s a rhetorical question but I answer anyway. “He’s not going to shut MI37 down.” I find an element of certainty in reassuring her. Concentrating on her worries instead of mine. “We’ve been over this,” I tell her. “We’ve done good this year.”

  And it’s true. We saved the world from imminent destruction three times last October alone. And it’s not got anywhere near that close to disaster since. Felicity has been politicking like a mad woman. We’re in a good place.

  “It’s going to be a pat on the back,” I tell her. “And it’ll be nice enough even if you do have to laugh at his rather ridiculous jokes.”

  Felicity sighs. “Yes. I know. You’re right.” The mantra of a woman reassuring herself. “But it’s been a year, and our budget still blows. We’re still understaffed. I can’t move Tabitha up into a full-time field role until we find a replacement researcher, and it’s not like we couldn’t use an extra hand in the field. Hell, it’s not like we couldn’t use an extra fifteen hands in the field.”

  It’s a familiar litany of complaints. And perhaps if we were at home, and the TV was rumbling in the background, I would groan a little inside, but it’s nice here and now. Familiar territory. It’s safe to look back, to live just in the here and now. I lean my head against Felicity’s shoulder, letting the fug of fading adrenaline take over.

  If nothing could change—that would be perfect. Yes, that’s what I want. For everything to just stay the same forever.

  6

  BACK AMONG THE DREAMING SPIRES

  Evening has set in by the time we step off the train in Oxford. The autumn chills the air, but compared to the bite of the Highlands, it’s positively balmy.

  Kayla still looks like someone took a piss in her Bovril. Tabitha and Clyde still have their heads bent together. Felicity stretches, shoulders cracking, then glances at her watch.

  “OK,” she says turning to me, “I’ve got a few hours to get to Downing Street. Which means I had to go and straighten up about twenty minutes ago.” She turns and looks at Tabitha. “Any chance you can start the search on what the hell that robot was? We must have something in the paper archives.”

  Tabitha grimaces. “Analog data. Fuck.”

  I think she means yes. Felicity nods as if she does. “The rest of you…” She shrugs.

  “Pub?” I suggest. I think I’ve earned it.

  “Feck yes.” I think that’s the most vehemently Kayla has ever agreed with me.

  “That sounds lovely,” Clyde adds.

  Tabitha shoots Clyde a look. “Help? Waiting for your offer here.”

  Clyde shrugs uncomfortably five or six times. “Well, you see, the thing is—and I do apologize for this—but I sort of, rather had a question that I wanted to ask Arthur. And you know, if it was a multiple choice issue, just pick a, b, or c, then I’d just ask him here, get it all done with and—as I’m sure you can appreciate—be more than happy to go off with you and get really stuck in to some obscure texts. But this is more of a discussion question, show your working kind of deal, and actually a public house offers an excellent forum for the topic, and so, therefore, hitherto, whatever, I was sort of carpe-ing the diem. If that makes sense.”

  Tabitha grunts, though whether it’s acknowledgment or dismissal, I can’t really tell.

  “All right then,” Felicity says. She leans forward and pecks me on the cheek. “Try not to get in a fight with any robots this time,” she says, and turns to go before she has a chance to see me blanch.

  LATER, WITH PINTS UPON THE TABLE

  The Turf is a bit of a trek from the station, and usually clogged with students, but it’s still got the best atmosphere anywhere in the city, and it’s not too hard to drag Clyde and Kayla over there. We order, grab a recently vacated table, and set our pints down.

  “So,” Clyde says, with a surprising lack of preamble, “as mentioned in my earlier discussion with Tabby—”

  I cut him off by picking my pint back up, pointing it to the ceiling’s wooden beams, and downing half its contents.

  “All feckin’ right,” says Kayla. “Felicity’s away and we can do this feckin’ properly.” Her pint vanishes down her throat.

  “Oh,” says Clyde, contemplating his glass. “I, erm…” This, it seems, is not his kind of party.

  I wave him to keep talking. “No, I say. I just needed… Near-death experience today and everything.”

  Kayla scoffs. “Feckin’ pussy.”

  Clyde seems unsure how to proceed after this particular piece of color commentary. I try to smile encouragingly. Around us the press of students negotiating the narrow aisles between tables adds a sort of anonymity to the discussion.

  “OK.” Clyde licks his lips, takes a small sip, and looks at us both. “So. Rather glad Tabby isn’t here actually. That was really the diem I was carpe-ing earlier actually. Bit of a white lie to her about that, but I don’t think any harm done. At least, well, only minor twangs of the conscience. Not that this is anything nefarious, or, you know, underhand. Quite the opposite really. Just seeking some advice from knowledgeable parties, really. And, well—”

  Kayla cuts him off. “Feck her.”

  Clyde blinks then fires off three quick shrugs. “I’m sorry?”

  Kayla rolls her eyes. “You’re going to ask if we think you should start dipping your wee magic wand in her bubbling cauldron again, or some feckin’ variant of the same, and I’m saying feckin’ go for it, and feck her.”

  I always knew dating advice from Kayla would be horrible, but I never realized it would be so vile as to contain the phrase, “bubbling cauldron.”

  “Oh God,” Clyde says, burying his face in his hands. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Well—” I start.

  “Yes,” says Kayla, for whom tact is more of a foreign concept.

  “Look,” I start again, “what seems obvious to an outsider can seem far from obvious to someone stuck in the middle of a situation.”

&nbs
p; Clyde peers up from his fingertips. “It’s just there’s so much… stuff. I mean, we weren’t together, then we got together, but I was really an alien. Then I was resurrected as a wooden mask, and we were together. Then she thought I died, but actually I’d turned into a super-villain. And then there were copies of me that she hated. And then she killed super-villain me while working with one of the copies of me. And then you put me back in a proper body, and we were just… God, here. And it’s been good, you know, rediscovering trust, friendship, all that stuff, but there’s also, well, it’s difficult for a man to use the word ‘frisson’ and to be taken seriously, but that’s the word I’m going to use, and I wouldn’t say sexual tension exactly, but maybe I’ll say ‘frisson of sexual tension,’ just for the lack of a superior thesaurus, and I think that gets the rough basics of the idea across. At least, I hope it does. But maybe, and this really is the rub, to paraphrase the old suicidal Danish prince, maybe it’s just me, and not her at all, and I’m a colossal fool.” He shrugs once more, and takes a more substantial gulp of his pint. “That’s sort of the problem I have,” he says.

  History. Yes. Tabitha and Clyde have history. Except really, it’s not a question about the past. It’s one about the future. About the best path to chart, to… to what?

  My hands are getting sweaty again. I take another gulp of my pint and hope no one notices I’ve finished three-quarters of it in two sips.

  “Just feck her already,” Kayla suggests.

  “I was,” Clyde says, shrugging furiously, “sort of, and I don’t mean this to come across as dismissive, or as unappreciative in anyway, because I really do value your input, but I was sort of hoping for something a little more nuanced, perhaps.”

  I look at my pint, try to ground myself. Clyde and Tabitha. Tabitha and Clyde. Their future.

  —a club descending—

  “Look,” I say, staring into the depths of my remaining beer, “you said it yourself, things are good right now. Why mess with that? Just, you know, steady hand on the tiller, sustain the now.”

  Kayla looks at me like I just told Clyde to get naked and start dancing for twenties on the table. “Sustain the now? The feck? What morning-TV, pop-psych, bollocks, propaganda feck-shite is that?” She turns to Clyde, stabs a finger at him like a sword. “Feck her or I’ll feck you up, you feckin’ got that?”

  Clyde swallows. “Well, that is a fairly convincing line of reasoning, yes. I will concede that.”

  I am abruptly, unreasonably angry with Clyde. It feels like something from outside of me momentarily grabbing control. Maybe it’s the beer, but I don’t think it’s had time. But there’s not time to figure out what the impulse is, because suddenly I’m leaning across the table at him. “You’re bloody mad,” I tell him. “Don’t listen to her. Nothing is certain, everything is up in the air. What you have now is all you have. Hold onto it. Keep it right. That’s all you can count on.”

  My hand is shaking so hard, I’m spilling my drink, which is quite the achievement considering how empty the glass is. I force my hand back down to still it, but it just seems like I’m trying to emphasize my point by slamming my glass down.

  There is a moment of silence. Clyde and Tabitha are both staring at me. I think if I could stare at myself, I might do it too.

  “The feck is wrong with you, you weird feck?” Kayla asks with her usual level of diplomacy.

  “Are you all right?” Clyde looks genuinely concerned.

  I shake my head, try to work out where that came from. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t…” What I don’t have is an explanation. The sentence withers and dies. They keep on staring at me. I need to say something.

  “Felicity asked me to move in with her today.”

  Why the bloody hell did I say that? That doesn’t even make sense.

  Clyde and Kayla go from staring at me to staring at each other. Clyde looks back to me first. “That’s a good thing, right?” He looks uncertain.

  “Yes,” I say. It comes out sounding reedy and thin.

  “’Cos you feckin’ love the shit out of her, right?” Kayla adds.

  While my actual attitude to Felicity’s fecal matter is possibly a little more ambiguous than that, I go with nodding.

  “So,” Kayla double checks, “your relationship is going really feckin’ well, so Clyde should not have his own one? That’s your feckin’ point?”

  Which I suppose it is. Why the hell did I tell them that? Moving in isn’t even that big a change in the existing situation. Though I suppose then the next step will be, well I guess, I mean, Felicity’s over forty…

  “Moving in,” I say, “it’s sort of a big step, though, right? I mean, it’s sort of making a pretty major commitment to what is, let’s face it, a fairly uncertain future.”

  Kayla leans forward. “If you say ‘sustain the now’ again, I will feckin’ glass you.”

  “No,” I shake my head. “I want to move in. I do.” I try to convince myself that that’s true. It should be true. I am, to correct Kayla a little bit, more fond of Felicity’s shit than I am of anybody else’s in the world. It’s just… I don’t know what it is.

  —a club descending—

  Goddamn it. I need to get that out of my head. I grab the pint off the table and finish it off. I need to get blisteringly, blindingly drunk. That seems as good a reset button as any.

  “Sod it,” I say. “Let’s get another round in.”

  “All feckin’ right.”

  MANY ROUNDS LATER

  Oxford has become oddly blurry as we stumble out of the Turf. I have to lean against a building as we make our way back toward the city center and cabs that may direct us to our various abodes.

  “I’m jus’… I’m jus’… feckin’ saying,” Kayla mumbles. “Kids, right?”

  “Not kids!” I try to put my hands over my ears but miss somehow.

  “Shut up or I’ll stab you.” Kayla’s words carry conviction. “I’m saying, kids. If I could do it all over again, I’d do it different.” She wheels on me, jabs me with a finger almost hard enough to snap a rib. I grunt. “When you and Felicity finally do it, man. When you…” She proceeds to describe the entire process of making and birthing a baby with a few fairly graphic movements of her fingers. “Don’t do it like I did it with feckin’ Ephie, and shit.”

  “Now,” says Clyde, who is somehow a lot less worse for wear than Kayla and I, “look here. I don’t think you should beat yourself up about that at all. You did a fine job with Ephie.”

  Then he stops talking. Which is staggeringly blunt and direct for Clyde. So in retrospect, maybe he’s the one who’s really blasted. Also he is trying to use his wallet as a phone to call a cab right now. The jury’s out on this one.

  “You know,” says Kayla, “I should do it all again. Do it right. I like being a mum. I’d be a feckin’ great mum now. Now I know how to do shit. Feckin’ hindsight and all that bullshit. Just find someone, make him put a baby in my belly.” She nods to herself and falls over the curb.

  She lies sprawled in the gutter. I look down at her.

  “That’s a shit idea,” I tell her. “Genuinely and utterly shit.”

  “You know,” Clyde adds, “I do actually agree with Arthur on that one. You have a teenage daughter who needs your love and support.”

  I don’t think I can handle drunk Clyde. It’s too much. Then I lose focus on the street for a moment. When I get it back, I look down at Kayla. “Sustain the now,” I tell her, and then I have to sit down in the street myself because I’m laughing so hard.

  When I recover Clyde is standing over us. “So,” he says, “just to recap. Tabby. I should…”

  “Stick your dick in her before I stick my sword in you,” Kayla says.

  “Don’t do it!” I shout as loud as I can. “Everything is good! Everything is perfect! Hold onto it! Don’t throw it away! You’re a fool to yourself!”

  Kayla reaches up from where she lies in the street and pushes me over. “Shut up, Arthur,”
she says. “You’re feckin’ drunk.”

  She’s right. I am. And it’s glorious.

  7

  MORNING

  Oh God. Being drunk is awful.

  At some point I thought there was a certain entertaining irony in programming my cell to ring like a horrible office phone. The sort of electronic bleating that would emerge were an electronic sheep being brutally murdered in an electronic slaughterhouse. In retrospect, I probably should have given more thought to how it would sound when I was epically hungover.

  My phone slices through sleep and violently kicks me into consciousness. A moment’s disorientation. Eventually I realize I am in my apartment, face down on my bed, and still wearing my clothes from the night before. My tongue appears to have doubled in size.

  My phone lets loose another barrage of electronic murder. I try to grab the thing from my bedside table, fail. After two more attempts, I realize my phone is still in my pocket. I fumble it out, try to focus on the name there, fail, and just accept the call.

  “Urghn?”

  “Hello?” It’s Felicity’s voice. She sounds concerned. “Arthur?”

  “Urnugh,” I confirm.

  “What?” There’s silence. Then, “I think this is a bad connection.”

  The morning light is dim and heavy in the room, tumbling in around the edges of dark green curtains. Stacks of vinyl records propped on a bookshelf at the foot of my bed cast reassuringly familiar shadows. I attempt to rally a little. Enough to at least master the basics of the English language.

  “Sno-kay,” is the best I can come up with. “Just woke up. Head… ouch.”

  “Head ouch?”

  I nod gently, then remember how telephones work. “Close enough,” I mumble.

  There is silence on the end of the phone. Then, “I rather expected you to be home when I got in last night.”

  It’s not exactly an accusation. Not yet anyway. We’re still at the statement-of-fact stage. I attempt to dredge up my decision-making process from the previous evening. It is like putting my arm in sewage up to the elbow.