He went to Camilla’s house, but she’d already heard the news. Someone who knew someone involved in the rescue had called. She’d been sedated and was in bed, not seeing anyone. Natasha didn’t turn up for hours. She’d been at a party. She was her usual dishevelled self, badly dressed for the weather, shivering before Ben even told her the news. She collapsed in his arms, and he had to carry her into the house. He wrapped her in a throw and sat with her on the couch as she cried. She only recovered enough to fetch two drinks. She handed one to Ben and then curled up next to him. He sipped his drink and put his arm around her. She began to cry again. He wanted to join her. It was such a pointless bloody death. And he’d been so young. Ben didn’t think about dying very often, which was odd given his lifestyle and many opportunities to do so, but knowing someone now who had, who was so like him, was sobering. Or a reason to get very drunk. He felt the alcohol taking almost immediate effect on his exhausted, strung-out body. Natasha curled closer, warm and soft and vulnerable at his side. He felt very mortal and tired and scared.
Camilla was still out of it the next day. They continued the search, but, sedated, she was spared the constant, almost agonising hope the phone would ring with good news. In the end, neither Ben nor Natasha could stand it and they decided to return to the beach and watch developments from there. But when they arrived there were too many sightseers and local reporters to risk being seen.
They returned dispirited to Camilla’s. She was out of bed, sitting in the living room in front of the fire. Natasha went to her and sat alongside her, but when the old lady saw Ben she rose and came to him. Very carefully, as if he were a precious baby, she enfolded him in her arms. He’d expected her to hate him, to blame him, to scream and shout. The embrace broke him, and he sobbed, trying to explain yet again what had happened. She shushed him and rocked him then stood back a little. She gave him a brave smile. “You’re the last now, Ben. My last precious Redvers boy.” She embraced him again, and they stood for a long time, aunt and nephew, united as one in their grief.
§ § §
They couldn’t find him. The sea appeared to have taken John Redvers and his special new board without a qualm. It wasn’t forgiving and didn’t give him back. And still Ben hadn’t told Nikolas. He was totally wrapped up with Natasha and Camilla, and London and his life there seemed a very long way away. His life now was all pain and confusion. But on the third day, he knew he had to call. Arrangements were being made for the funeral. He knew it was time. He took himself into the garden. It was bitterly cold. He could see Camilla on the phone in the living room, ramrod straight, not a hair out of place. He desperately admired her. Nikolas picked up. “Hello, stranger.”
That was all it took. Ben couldn’t speak. He’d missed Nikolas so much when he tried to speak his throat sort of collapsed on him. “Ben? What’s wrong?”
He clenched his jaw, looked up at the sky and managed to get out the basic details. Nikolas was silent, listening without asking irrelevant questions. All he eventually declared was, “I’ll be there in three hours, Ben.”
Ben switched the phone to his other ear, slightly more in control. “Nik? Can you…wait until the funeral? A few days, I think.”
Nikolas was silent, and Ben continued with difficulty, “I need to do this myself.”
“Ben, I…”
“I don’t want you to see me like this. Please!”
“Ben, I’ve seen you in every way imaginable. I want to be there with you.”
“I know. And that’s the problem. I want you here too much, Nik. I need to focus on them. Not on me. I killed him! He’d never been to that damn beach before. He didn’t know the sea conditions. I should’ve said no. I knew better, yeah? I killed…” He couldn’t get the rest out and cursed himself for crying, knowing he was not helping his cause with Nikolas. Finally, he just begged, “Please,” and it came out in such dumb, hopeless, little-boy voice he was surprised when Nikolas relented, “All right. You’re doing the right thing.”
Ben nodded, although he knew Nikolas couldn’t see this. He was about to click off when Nikolas ventured, “Ben?”
“Yeah, I’m still here.”
“I love you.”
That totally finished Ben off. He walked further down into the garden and sat on a low wall to punish himself some more.
§ § §
The funeral was scheduled for three days time. It was an awful thing to do without a body. There was nothing to focus on except the idea of an empty box. It became surreal, all the arrangements, the people to invite, the catering—all to put an empty box in the ground. Camilla wanted John buried in the old chapel in the grounds of the house. It was the Redvers’s tomb. The three of them went one day to see it. Beneath the slab in the aisle was a vault. All the Redvers, she boasted, back to the Conquest were buried here. Ben privately doubted this, but there was no doubt it made a very good setting for the grim task ahead of them. He was in awe now of the power of fate. He’d stood in this chapel with Nikolas and read out the Redvers’s names from that slab. His chapel, his name, and now here he was, burying his cousin…brother. It did nothing to help his sanity or sense of utter dislocation from reality.
He sat in a pew while Camilla and Natasha discussed flowers, and thought back to that day he and Nikolas had found the chapel. Nikolas had been shot and was limping badly; he remembered that. It seemed like another lifetime. He turned and pictured Nikolas sitting there now. Nikolas would take everything off his shoulders. It would all be done for him. For the first time, Ben truly saw their relationship and exactly where each of them stood in it. He understood for the first time what he’d been trying to do by coming to this house, by thinking of taking the Redvers’s name and identity. He realised by not having Nikolas here, just how much of a shadow Nikolas cast over his life. It was as if Nikolas’s shadow—the one he’d hidden in all these years—hadn’t dissipated as he’d emerged into the light but shifted over to Ben, obscuring him.
He lived entirely in the shadow cast by that extraordinary man.
It was time to go. They returned to Camilla’s house to continue the never-ending, sad arrangements.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The day of the funeral arrived very cold and very crisp. It was like being in a movie. Everyone seemed to be playing a role assigned rather than being real. Ben moved where he was meant to move dressed in a perfect Armani black suit with a black cashmere overcoat, the star of the movie in his costume. He expected any minute someone would shout action, and he’d sweep out in slightly slow motion to the funeral car with the elderly lead actress on his arm and the beautiful new star waiting in the backseat. No one called anything, but other than that it was pretty much exactly what happened. While they were driving to the chapel, Ben sitting between Natasha and Camilla, his aunt turned to him, her eyes veiled behind a little net draped over her black hat. “You must let Natasha move into the house with you, Ben, when this dreadful business is finished today. I don’t want you alone there. You need each other. She needs you, don’t you, darling?”
Natasha turned to stare out of the side window, pulling a handkerchief out of her little black bag. Ben frowned and looked down at his black leather gloves. “I don’t think I’ll be staying, Camilla. I’m sorry.”
“Hush, darling. No more of that silly talk. You’re Benjamin Redvers now. John would have wanted that more than anything. You and Natasha must bring the house back to life for him. Perhaps one day you’ll fill it with new little Redvers boys. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? But let’s get through this today. Oh, God, I’ve been to so many funerals in my life. Too many. Promise me you’ll think about it, Ben?”
Ben heard the words he should say. “That will never happen.” They stayed in his head, though. They didn’t belong in this sombre moment. Was he taking the coward’s way out? Putting off the inevitable disappointment he must give them? Perhaps. But somewhere, very deep down, a tiny voice was whispering seductively about a little boy and his bike…
Ben nodded, and the little voice approved. Natasha turned to him and hugged his arm, giving it a little squeeze. He was enveloped in their love. He tipped his head back to try to breathe a little, but it didn’t help.
§ § §
He was sitting at the front of the chapel on the family side, flanked yet again by the women, waiting for the service to begin when he heard the doors at the back open. He, like everyone else in the place, turned. Six people swept into the building. They were all dressed head to foot in black cashmere overcoats and leather gloves. They were all, every single one of them, surreally beautiful. Ben rose shakily to his feet and watched as Nikolas led his ANGEL team down the aisle. Tim, Michael, Jackson, Andrea and Kate. The moment did nothing for Ben’s sense of utter unreality. Nikolas was so stunning in his funeral black Ben almost broke there and then, but they greeted each other gravely with just a brief arm squeeze, as any employer might give a faithful employee. Tim gave Ben a hug, as did Michael and Kate. Ben missed Kate’s hugs. He’d once lived a life where they were frequent and the norm. Normal. A normal life. Now with his mind so fractured, his emotions scattered, this allowable embrace made him think of a little tricycle once more, the tick, tick of the playing cards in its wheels echoing around the stone chapel, mocking him.
Andrea Gillian was eyeing Kate’s display of affection coolly and only nodded at him. Her presence sent a painful stab of alarm into Ben’s heart. He released Kate and sat abruptly. Andrea Gillian always reminded Ben of losing Nikolas. The memory of Nik being so sick came rushing back into his mind, a sour vomit of fear. But this time, still feeling Kate’s hug, desperate for the hug he really wanted, he was gripped by an insidious realisation that there was more than one way to lose someone…Death was, in fact, the easiest way of all. So final, so clear cut…
Nikolas turned to the nonfamily side and sat down. His team followed suit, flanking him.
Camilla, on the family side with Ben, tucked her hand into his arm. She was shaking slightly as the music swelled. Natasha was crying already. Ben swallowed and risked a glance at Nikolas. He had his face tilted to the stained-glass window, and was studying it with great concentration, as if its colours had piqued his interest. He’d never looked more like the fallen angel Ben was sometimes convinced he was. He exuded superiority and power. Ben could feel his pull from all the way over in his seat. He wasn’t sure why Nikolas had summoned his team and come in force like this. He knew Nikolas would have his reasons. As if sensing the scrutiny, Nikolas slowly turned his head and stared at Ben. His eyes were feral amber, bright with a message Ben couldn’t read. The service began, Nikolas cast his eyes down to his book, and the moment was lost.
They didn’t actually lift the stone in the floor and try to lower the empty coffin in, much to Ben’s relief. The long box was brought in and placed on trestles and would be interred later that evening, apparently. It was a beautiful coffin in a way, Ben thought. It was tasteful, ancient. It appeared to have been made from the very wood of the house. Perhaps it had, perhaps many Redvers’s coffins had been made of the same English oak, waiting year after year for their owners to claim them.
Perhaps there was one waiting for him.
He shivered at his own morbid thoughts.
The funeral was terribly sad, as it always would be for someone so young and so beautiful with so much promise ahead of him. But it was got through as funerals always are. As they all do, it had its own momentum and really only needed humans there as spectators. When it was done, they all repaired to Camilla’s large farmhouse for the usual food and drinks. For the first time, Ben had a chance to speak with his friends. They’d kept together, surrounding their boss. Nikolas was standing, staring out into the garden when Ben came over, but he sensed Ben’s approach. He gave him a brief touch on his arm. “Hello, Benjamin.”
The familiar greeting, which was a sort of private message between them that usually meant so much more than they could ever say in public, made Ben’s throat seize up again, so he just took a drink and nodded. He’d hardly had a chance to say anything when Natasha came over to be introduced. She gave very scant notice to either Kate or Andrea but seemed fascinated by Squeezy. He was, Ben had to admit, looking particularly good in the clothes Nikolas had obviously chosen and dressed him in—not personally, Ben hoped, of course. Natasha took Squeezy’s arm and insisted she wanted to introduce him to some of her friends. Kate, Andrea and Jackson went to pay their respects to Camilla, which left him alone with Tim and Nikolas. Tim gave him another hug, which was allowable between friends. It seemed to be from the both of them, so Ben hugged a little harder than he’d normally have done in public. “Where are you staying?”
“At the same hotel as you.”
Ben nodded. “Are you driving back up tonight?”
Nikolas answered this before Tim could reply. “We haven’t decided yet.”
“You mean you haven’t.” Ben didn’t mean anything particularly by this. He’d been trying to lighten the atmosphere, prove to them he was okay, but it fell completely flat as soon as he said it. He might as well have told Nikolas to his face that he dominated everyone and all decisions had to be his. He bit his lip and turned to watch Kate and Andrea with Camilla. “She’s taken this very hard.”
Tim squeezed his arm in sympathy for a man he’d never met and a woman he didn’t care about. His friend was good at this, Ben reflected with a sad smile. Ben couldn’t believe how familiar this all seemed to him now. His family. He rubbed his face. “I need a drink.” He knew Nikolas was watching him, so he only took an orange juice. Then he got mad at himself for being so bloody pathetic and swapped it for a whisky. Tim wandered off to save Michael, and Ben was finally left alone with Nikolas. They didn’t say anything. For the first time since meeting Nikolas almost seven years ago, Ben felt a sliver of awkwardness between them, a sense something was happening neither could control, which seemed ironic to Ben, given the things they’d gone through and survived together. Ben refused to let his mind dwell on the terrible thoughts that had come to him in the chapel and downed his drink in one.
Nikolas pursed his lips, staring down at the orange juice in his glass. Finally, he muttered, “I need a proper drink.” He left Ben’s side and went toward the bar. Ben couldn’t bear to watch whether he took one or not.
§ § §
Finally it was over, and people realised it was time to go and leave the family to their grief. Ben was in the garden with Natasha, as she’d had another small meltdown, and he didn’t even see Nikolas leaving.
It was a terrible evening. What do you do after a funeral? Do you watch television, seeing other people carrying on with their lives, trying to laugh, trying to be normal? Do you make food? As if you could ever be hungry again. Camilla sat at her desk, deciding to work through the cards, and Natasha curled up on the sofa with Ben, watching the flames.
Finally, Camilla joined them, sitting rigid in an armchair next to them. “You must open up the house tomorrow, Ben.”
Ben nodded, deep in thought. “I have something I must do in Exeter first.” She’d turned to him with an expectant, delighted look on her face, but she didn’t say anything. They sat in companionable silence until driven to bed exhausted by grief.
§ § §
Ben made his visit to Exeter the next day. It was surprisingly easy, he discovered, to change your name. It wasn’t a legal change. Apparently he could call himself anything he wanted. But he wanted it in writing, so he was glad he’d gone to the court and had it done as officially as possible.
He drove back to the house at Horse Tor, occasionally glancing at the paperwork alongside him. He wondered if he’d done the right thing. What would Nikolas think? It was irrevocable in so many ways. He was making a huge statement, and he knew Nikolas would know this. He felt sick with tension.
When he arrived at the house, he saw Nikolas’s car. He climbed out and went toward the door and heard a strange sound. He paused on the threshold, listening. It was a piano. For a moment, he thought
someone had turned on the sound system John had set up, but then he remembered there was no electricity at the house now. It was the grand piano in the hallway. Melancholy music was echoing throughout the house. He slid quietly through the door and saw Nikolas sitting at the piano, playing with deep concentration, a frown etching his brow. Clearly, he’d not forgotten how to play at all. It was the saddest sound Ben had ever heard. He made a small noise, and Nikolas stopped playing immediately. He stood up. They stared at each other across the space.
“You claimed you’d forgotten how.” It seemed a stupid thing to say, but for the life of him, Ben couldn’t have come up with anything more intelligent.
Nikolas nodded. “I have a tendency to lie. You may have noticed.” He seemed to be saying something profound in this, but Ben was too strung out to hear it. “Where have you been? I expected you here first thing.”
“I went into Exeter. To the court.”
“Ah. I wondered.” He sat down again at the piano and stared at the keys. “I can’t play as I once did. But I’m too old to learn again now.”
Ben swallowed and came closer. Even he could hear the intent behind those words. He sat down next to Nikolas on the stool. He played a note. Nikolas laughed a little, and the sound was more forlorn than the music. Ben took a deep breath. “I went to the court, Nik, to have my name changed.”
The Bridge of Silver Wings Page 23
