Someone Else's Conflict

by Alison Layland

  ‘And before long Lek had us trained up and ready to fight. I still can’t believe how we got swept into it. No, I shouldn’t keep saying “we”. When I was telling Vinko he accused me of blaming his father. I don’t – I’ve got no one to blame but myself. I mean, I believed in their cause, but war…?’

  He fell silent, staring into the fire. She noticed he was biting his lower lip with a slight shake of his head, like he always did when she asked him something he wouldn’t – or couldn’t – talk about. Like the couple of times she’d ventured to ask him about his nightmares, or when he’d dismissed the scar on his belly as a routine operation that had gone wrong.

  ‘You fought with them?’

  He nodded. ‘I fought,’ he said slowly, ‘and killed. The Homeland War, they call it. I’d gone with Ivan, chosen to live there, even if only for a while.’ The fire reflected tiny pinpricks of flame in his eyes. ‘The fight for their homeland, their independence, was mine, too.’

  She wanted to ask more. But there was part of her didn’t want to know. She couldn’t help feeling that the Jay she felt close to had been snatched away from her. By whom, by what? His own past? Hadn’t that always been there? Think of the me you allowed into your life…

  She said his name as if to anchor herself. He looked round at her.

  ‘I know, I know. It’s hard. I’ve spent all these years trying to put it behind me. But…I started telling Vinko – it’s about his dad, after all – though I only got so far.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s also about me and you. I realised I wasn’t being fair. I…I feel a lot for you and… Well, it’s wrong to let us get too close to one another if I’m not being honest with you. Though you don’t know how difficult it is to make myself talk about it.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  He stood, moved to stand in front of the fire, looking at her. She felt the cold as he blocked out the heat.

  ‘Thanks for trying,’ he said. He ran his hand through his hair again and left it there half-covering his face. She wanted to stand, too, to reach out and touch him, but something in his manner stopped her.

  ‘I’m getting round to Vinko, honestly, Polly.’

  He broke the mood suddenly with a rueful smile, rubbing his arms through the sleeves of his jumper. ‘But…can we get a hot drink first?’

  She nodded and he went through to the kitchen. As she listened to the homely sound of him filling the kettle and rattling crockery, she imagined the courage it must be taking him to tell her the truth – assuming this was the truth. She’d known he was haunted by something, reassured herself that whatever it was didn’t matter because he’d put it behind him. But now it wasn’t behind him; it was here, between them. He’d killed people and destroyed their homes in a war. She told herself lots of people did, and got on with their lives and loves afterwards.

  She followed him into the kitchen. As they waited for the kettle to boil he came over to her and put a hand hesitantly on her arm. She touched his cheek, thinking how awkward they’d become with one another, and as if she’d given him some tacit consent he took her in his arms and held her in silence. She returned his embrace, overwhelmed by the depth of emotion she sensed in him but still knew so little about. There was still a vague possibility that all this was in his imagination, a story woven from the reminiscences of people he’d met on the streets. She no longer knew whether she wanted stories or the truth.

  Back in the living room, with two mugs of coffee, wisps of smoke from Jay’s newly lit pipe escaped to explore the room as the main stream was drawn to the chimney.

  ‘So are you going to tell me what that’s got to do with now? Vinko?’ she prompted, to stop him from closing off.

  He looked round and his expression lit up as if pleasantly surprised she was in the room with him.

  ‘I wanted you to know why he matters to me. Ivan saved my life. Seriously. Though at the time I hated him for it. Also seriously. And he was killed before I could make it up to him. So…Vinko’s his son and my chance.’

  He told her about his meeting with Vinko, their visit to the Pranjićs. She bit her lip but hoped she was keeping her expression impassive as Jay talked, confirming the extent of their involvement with people she’d only heard of as murder victims.

  ‘So this money you’re talking about – that was Zora’s?’

  ‘You got it. Remember I told you she’d got someone to bring it away? That was me.’

  ‘You said it was someone else.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I had to make it sound unreal, had to distance myself. Though it feels like it was someone else. But it happened, more or less like I said. I couldn’t believe she’d trust me with something like that, but she did. I’d got so’s I couldn’t handle it. Everything I’d got myself involved in. It all felt so wrong. Things we did. I did. I couldn’t go on.’ He ran a hand though his hair. ‘But deserting them would have been even worse. Zora knew how I was feeling – she always knew – and gave me a job to do, an excuse to leave. At great risk to herself, as I’ve learned recently. And so I did leave. I don’t know much about finance, I was scared of the contacts she gave me and I daresay someone else could’ve done it better, but in the end I had a tidy amount in an account over here. It’s also true that she told me if anything happened to her, and if…if Ivan died too, I was to keep it. And they were killed, and here I was, out of the way, safe… On my own. Feeling like I couldn’t do anything for the blood on my hands.’

  He held a hand up and stared at it as if expecting to see real dried-on blood clogging the lines in his skin. He drew on his pipe like an anaesthetic.

  ‘So…I had this money and no one to give it back to. As I’ve told you before, I eventually borrowed it, put it down on the house I’d been renting since I got back to England. Zora had given me a letter. A kind of will. But I always intended to pay it off – the money and everything else – and I did. A bit at a time. Literally, and, when I’d failed once too many times to hold down a decent job, with this penance of a lifestyle.’

  Her face must have betrayed her surprise; he laughed.

  ‘You think it’s romantic, don’t you? Happy-go-lucky, raggle-taggle gypsies and all that. I won’t deny it has its good points. But…’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway. A few years ago I finally satisfied myself I’d got it all paid back from the rents and whatever else, with what any impartial observer might call reasonable interest. And it sat there burning a hole in the bank account. The only person who could possibly be entitled to it, apart from me and I couldn’t accept that, was Anja, Ivan’s mum. Zora had said she wasn’t to see a penny of it – there was enough hatred in that family to fuel a war, all right – but I spent ages trying and failing to think of alternatives and in the end, after a ton of soul-searching, rightly or wrongly, off I went to see Anja and Boris. Wrongly, as it turned out. A few months later – last weekend, in fact – I discovered that Ivan had a son.’

  ‘You didn’t know?’

  ‘When I came back to this country I was in a right state. My best friend despised me. I hated myself, too. I drank him, all of them, out of mind. I don’t remember much about that time so I guess it worked. I met some surprisingly kind people who one way or another stopped me from going too far down the road to self-destruction. I should have gone back, to find Ivan, or to make my peace with my father and sister, but I couldn’t. I was scared of facing them, and I hated myself for that, too. I’m not proud of any of it. It was a couple of years at least before I got my act together enough to do anything sensible. I did go back to Croatia, after the war had ended. Didn’t stay. Hardly anyone I knew was still around. There’d been an attack on Zora’s place; she died soon after and Ivan was killed in action towards the end of the war. That was all I needed or wanted to know. I couldn’t believe my friend was dead. Dead without me having a chance to make my peace with him.’

  He turned from the fire to look at her, his face half lit by the warm glow of the flames.

  ‘But I was supposed to be talking about Vinko, wasn’t I?
I didn’t know about him until last week. And I gave his inheritance away.’ He shook his head. ‘And then, like an idiot, I went and told him I’d done so.’

  ‘He must be pretty upset about it.’

  Marilyn felt strangely detached, piecing it together as if it had nothing to do with her, or even Jay.

  ‘I’m sure he is, though he doesn’t show it. I think he trusts me. I suppose I should take comfort from that. God knows why he does, though – I can’t pretend I know how to help him. I’m trying, but in truth I haven’t a clue what to do next. Especially not now. I was going to meet him this coming weekend, go back to see his family, apologise and beg them to take him in. But now… They’re dead. Murdered? Tell me I was dreaming when you told me that; hallucinating, anything?’

  ‘I wish I could.’

  ‘Oh, to hell with it all!’ He stood abruptly, walked through to the kitchen, came back with a whisky bottle and two glasses.

  ‘Jay…’

  ‘OK, so I just told you about boozing myself to destruction. Don’t fret – that was years of it; this is a couple of drinks.’

  He poured two glasses and handed her one. He downed half of his in one gulp.

  ‘I knew he was in trouble – he told me – but this makes it ten times worse! And I haven’t a fucking clue what to do about it!’ He downed the rest of his whisky. She watched him in silence, fingers tightening around her own glass. ‘I’m sorry, Polly,’ he said more calmly. ‘None of this is your fault. I shouldn’t be shouting. I’m not shouting at you, love.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. She found his sudden apology reassuring despite herself. Dreading the reply, she asked, ‘What trouble?’

  He poured himself another whisky, took a more measured sip.

  ‘Where to start? At first I just wanted to help him get his money, help him get his life together. That’s where we went, to Winchester, to pick up Zora’s papers, some kind of proof. But then I found out he’s got no legal identity. His mother was a refugee at Zora’s, that’s how she met Ivan; after the war she left the country for Germany with nothing. She never even registered his birth because she was afraid they’d take him away, terrified of losing him. Can you imagine? That poor girl. I can’t imagine the life she must have led, not only what she went through herself, but having to bring a little kid up like that, the only chance of medical care some backstreet quack, getting dragged down into a mire of prostitution and drugs… Anyway. Vinko seems…accepting. But what else can he do? What can I, what can anyone do? She’s dead now. Gone. It’s one more tragedy. So…’ he sighed. ‘So there I am, thinking we can go and find an immigration lawyer or whatever, but he won’t. He’s terrified. I eventually managed to coax out why.

  ‘There’s this guy, Novak; Vinko calls him his uncle. He’s never explained how he’s related, but there was a limit to the number of questions I could ask and there were more important ones. Novak found them, too late for his mother, as Vinko puts it. Offered to bring them away, but she was seriously ill – terminally ill, as it turned out – and Vinko had a job. So they stayed put. It turns out this “job” was with some kind of forger, and shortly after his mother died, the place got busted. Vinko was lucky he wasn’t in work at the time, but it left him high and dry – and scared. He got back in touch with Novak who smuggled him over here. Not an ideal situation to be taking to the immigration authorities.

  ‘So he’s got a crappy bedsit and a no-questions-asked sweatshop job. Oh, and a paper round to add to the fun. No surprise, then, that he wants to put the past behind him and make something of himself. He’s artistic, too – got talent as far as I can see. You’ll relate to that. Well, it seems this Novak disappeared for a while, but he’s back on the scene now. Vinko was getting messages while I was there. He’s being dragged into something he doesn’t want to do. Some deal, he says. He wouldn’t tell me what but he swears he’s told Novak to get stuffed. I just hope… Polly, why did you say the police had linked him with Anja and Boris?’

  ‘The fingerprints – presumably from your visit. And he turned up at their old house looking for them.’

  ‘Nothing more?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not at this stage.’

  ‘Thank goodness. He says he’d decided to go and find them on impulse – I swear I believe him – after hearing me play. Makes sense – I learned some of those tunes from Zora and I daresay his mother would have done the same. You know, the day you…saw him.’

  He looked at her warily. All he’d said made her deeply uneasy, but she remembered Vinko’s brief smile and found she could empathise.

  ‘I can see now why you were defensive earlier,’ she said. ‘There I was joking about getting his life story. I didn’t know I was about to. I hope we can find a way to help him.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Why not?’

  He smiled, for what felt like the first time that evening.

  ‘So what are you going to tell them?’ she asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The police wanted you to get in touch, remember.’

  ‘Oh no. No chance. All I’d have to tell them is that I didn’t even notice the guy you described in the crowd. And that I’ve never heard of Anja or Boris Pranjić.’

  ‘Won’t they trace you to them anyway?’ She tried to keep the exasperation from her voice. ‘If you gave them the money?’

  He looked at her steadily. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m confident they won’t.’

  ‘But you can’t lie! It’s a serious case.’

  ‘If I don’t speak to them I won’t lie.’

  ‘And what am I supposed to say?’

  ‘All right, I’ll leave for a while. Disappear. Till it’s over. You haven’t seen me. They can solve the sodding case without me or Vinko because I swear neither of us has anything to do with it.’

  ‘But you’ve only just got back. You can’t leave!’

  He got up and shoved the poker into the fire, sending up a shower of sparks, before adding another log.

  ‘What I can’t do,’ he told the flames, ‘is go to the police. There’s no way I could just rake up all that I’ve told you to…to strangers. And I’d lose Vinko. He’d never trust me again.’

  He remained crouched before the hearth, head hanging. His back was like a wall. She moved to kneel beside him and put an arm round his shoulder. He collapsed into her embrace, burying his head on her shoulder. ‘Can you understand that?’

  ‘Of course,’ she murmured. ‘So what are you going to do?’

  There was a long silence. He heaved a sigh. When it came there was a catch in his voice.

  ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’

  There is victory in the air as they hurry towards the rendezvous point by the barn. Shots fired into the air. Whooping and shouting. He feels on the outside. Lek’s vengeful violence has left him cold. Ivan, walking ahead of him, turns and beckons through the slowly clearing smoke. He nods; increases his pace only slightly. A shot whines dangerously close to his head. Then another. Driven by terror, he is crouched tense and alert by a pile of rubble before he even realises. It shouldn’t be happening. This village is won, isn’t it? Through unnaturally clear air he sees an injured man across the street, lying almost motionless in a darkening pool of blood. Lost in his agony; there is no way…and he has no gun. Šojka looks up. Backing into the shadows behind the slumped figure, trainers stained by the man’s blood, is a boy he recognises. The one he spared, sent running to safety, only a few moments ago. Nothing is fair.

  The weapon looks too big for the boy and he seems scared of it. Probably not; they grow up with hunting rifles round here. His own gun ready but not raised, he holds the boy’s gaze, unsure if he recognises him.

  ‘Sjećaš li se me?’

  The words come out wrong, but it’s the contact that matters. The gun in the boy’s grasp wavers. Or is it an echo of his own previous gesture? Escape while you can.

  He stands slowly and takes a hesitant step forward.

&nb
sp; ‘Give me that. I take you to find your family.’ Understand me. Please understand me.

  ‘You killed my father.’

  The boy gestures with his head towards the small square.

  ‘Not me.’ It wasn’t me. ‘We can find your mother. Someone. Safety. Put that down and come to me.’

  The boy continues to stare at him over the gun.

  ‘Please.’

  Recklessly, he relaxes his grip on his own weapon to hold out a hand. The boy’s eyes are wary. He moves the muzzle of his gun imperceptibly – lowering it? A sign of trust?

  A thunderous shot fills the air and the boy jerks sideways. He falls against the wall, blood running from the hole in his head, still clutching the stolen rifle.

  Šojka stares, the aftershock holding him rigid.

  Ivan runs up, grabs him in a manic embrace.

  ‘Thank God you’re all right!’

  He continues to look, sickened, at the raw mess that was the boy he’d tried to save.

  ‘I’m sorry, mate.’ Ivan’s voice is calmer now, deferential. ‘Gets to me every time, too. But you can’t dwell on it or you’d be a dead man yourself.’

  Chapter 22

  Hands shoved deep in his pockets, Vinko walked past the bus stop. Saving the fare wouldn’t make much difference; he simply needed to keep moving. As soon as the hated building was out of sight he broke into a run. He sprinted blindly, simply to relieve the tension and feel the wind on his face, some instinct keeping him safe at road junctions and preventing him from mowing down passers-by.

  He reached a small park and let himself go fully, charging across the grass. At a deserted children’s play area he slowed and stopped, chest heaving. His head playing images of neat, well cared-for little kids filing into classrooms, their toddler brothers and sisters waiting impatiently for mothers to bring them here, he threw himself onto the flaking roundabout, kicked the ground violently hard and lay back watching the sky spin. His hands gripped the rails on either side, fighting the force that wanted to fling him outwards, dash him to the ground. The roundabout slowed and he struggled to kick the ground again, keep himself moving. Seeing as there was no one else to do it for him. One day he’d have his own, big enough to lie comfortably across, with a motor to keep it spinning. Yes, if ever he had a garden to put it in, he’d do that. As it was, the awkward shuffling and shoving soon outweighed the buzz. He heaved himself up and lit a cigarette, getting no pleasure or comfort beyond the satisfaction of a need.