Conscious Decisions of the Heart

by John Wiltshire

  Tim appeared quite buoyed by his interesting afternoon but his face fell a little when he saw Ben and Nikolas entwined and clearly so complete in each other’s company. He turned away suddenly like a man who’d just realised what he’d lost. Perhaps he and John had spent many cold, wet January evenings doing just what Ben and Nikolas were now. It was clearly a bit of a downer after an invigorating, if probably profane, afternoon.

  “You guys eaten yet?”

  When Ben said they hadn’t, Tim volunteered to order something in. Nikolas didn’t object—but then he had his eyes closed and didn’t appear to be bothered what anyone else did as long as they left him alone. Before the food arrived, however, he excused himself and went up to bed.

  Ben couldn’t manage much of his meal after that; Radulf had to bravely take up the slack. Tim told him Chinese probably wasn’t good for him, but Radulf disagreed. Tim, toying with a prawn cracker, finally asked, “Is it me being here?”

  Ben shook his head swiftly. “God, no. I’ve never seen him like this.”

  “Go up to him, Ben. Just be there. It may not seem like he wants you to, but he does.”

  “You don’t know him.”

  “Maybe it’s best not to know someone so well to see the truth. I think you saw John better than I did, and we’d been together twelve years. Nikolas is afrai—No, Ben, listen. I know you don’t want to think it, but he is—he’s scared. He’s sick—maybe for the first time in his life, facing something he can’t fight. Oh, hell, what am I saying? Ignore me. What do I know? Look at me…” He pushed his plate away, staring morosely out at the dark beyond the brightly lit kitchen. “I wonder what John and the bastard baby are doing now.”

  “Each other, probably. How did it go with Squeezy?”

  “Who?”

  Ben frowned. No one usually forgot Squeezy.

  “You mean Michael?”

  “Michael. Seriously?” Ben chuckled. “Michael. So?”

  Tim smirked. “Go upstairs, Ben. You’re needed.”

  Ben took his advice. He used the spare bathroom and then slid very quietly into bed so as not to wake Nikolas. He smiled when a hand snaked out and pulled him close. Nikolas breathed deeply into Ben’s short hair. “Hello, Benjamin.”

  Ben could have cried at the familiar and so welcome greeting. He pulled him closer and breathed into Nikolas’s ear, “Hello, baby.”

  Nikolas stilled for a moment in Ben’s arms. “That’s twice you’ve used that ridiculous term.”

  “Mmm, I know. It suits you.”

  Ben heard a deep sigh. “You’re the stupidest person I know, Benjamin Rider.” And then Nikolas was asleep in his arms. He kissed the shorn, scarred head and thought to himself if stupidity led to being in this bed, holding this man, then he wouldn’t swap dumbness for all of Nikolas’s smarts.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The appointment with the doctor was in the afternoon. Ben announced he’d take Radulf to the park early, get some shopping in and be back in time so he could drive.

  They couldn’t park outside the smart Harley Street address, so Ben double-parked and Nikolas climbed out. “Text me when you’re done, and I’ll swing by again.” Nikolas shook his head. “I’ll get a taxi back.” He adjusted his immaculate suit, which didn’t need any adjustment at all, and breezed into the imposing building as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  When he was called in, Nikolas and the doctor eyed each other openly for a moment, judging and assessing. Dr Andrea Gillian’s slightly patronising smirk told Nikolas that she was well aware she didn’t fit most people’s expectations of a trauma specialist. He eyed her petite femininity with alarm. He didn’t like women particularly, and his recent experiences had done nothing to endear them to him. This doctor was disconcerting, and he wasn’t at his best to start with. Summoning his aloof air of cool disinterest, he sat obediently to her gesture of welcome and faced her, masks in place.

  “So, what appears to be the problem, Mr Mikkelsen? You look as if you’ve been in the wars.”

  “Yes.”

  “You have a head injury? Do you mind…?” She rose and came out from behind her desk, all four foot nothing and heels. Nikolas tipped his head to one side obediently as she felt around his scarring. He closed his eyes. This close, the intimacy of being touched by a stranger, a woman, was overpowering. “You told my nurse this happened recently in Denmark, I believe?”

  “Yes. An ice hockey game.”

  “It’s healing very well indeed.” She moved over to the other side, probing where Gabby had originally hit him with one of Ben’s pine logs, they’d concluded, then she returned to her dominant position behind the desk. “So, what brings you here today?”

  Nikolas pursed his lips. He wanted to claim something dramatic and manly…an amputation, possibly?—gunshot?—but eventually he reluctantly admitted, “I have headaches.”

  She sat up a little higher and began to take notes. “Have you ever suffered from headaches in the past?”

  “No.”

  “Previous head injury? Particularly in that area?”

  “Possibly. I don’t recall.”

  “All right. Tell me, when did the headaches start?”

  He gave her a look and waved at his scar vaguely. She gave him a pained smile. “What I meant is, was there a delay of a few days, or did you notice the headaches immediately?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “Okay.” She tapped her pen against her mouth, regarding him for a moment. “Are you married?”

  He frowned. “No.”

  “In a relationship?”

  “Why is that relevant?”

  “I need to know if there’s anyone who sees you regularly enough to notice changes in behaviour patterns. Is there someone like that, Mr Mikkelsen?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. So, headaches…what else?”

  “I get…confused sometimes.”

  Again with the sitting up. It was really annoying him. She’d be crap at poker. “In what way?”

  “I misinterpret things.”

  “You’re seeing things?”

  “No. Yes.”

  “Things you know in reality can’t actually be there?”

  “I sincerely hope not.”

  “Okay. Anything else?”

  “I’m…behaving uncharacteristically.”

  “Okay. Do you smoke, Mr Mikkelsen?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever smoked?”

  “No.”

  “Drink? More than, say, a social glass of wine at the weekends?”

  “No.”

  “Good. That’s extremely important in these situations. Critical. Do you eat a healthy diet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. And your lifestyle in general? Would you say it was relatively stress free? As much as any of us can be these days?”

  He stared at her for a moment. “Yes.”

  “And what about exercise? Do you keep fit? Running perhaps, or cycling—being Danish.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, well. Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

  “There’s bad news?”

  She smiled, he thought, rather patronisingly. “The bad news is you’ll have to give up ice hockey.”

  Oh, she was very funny. He didn’t smile. She did and continued, “The good news is I believe there’s nothing wrong with you that time and a healthy lifestyle won’t cure. I’ll schedule an MRI just to be certain, however. What you’ve experienced is extremely common in cases of head injuries—even minor ones. It’s very good you don’t drink or smoke and that you lead such a healthy lifestyle. That will aid your recovery exponentially.”

  “Yes. That’s good then.”

  “Keep up your fitness regime. Nothing you do now, other than taking another blow to the head, will be harmful. Be as active as you can. I’d recommend staying as stress free as possible…people who suffer from post-injury conditions such as yours often report having undergone an addition
al stressful period just after the original injury. Studies indicate stress increases the likelihood of someone experiencing these sorts of episodes.”

  “Episodes?”

  “Hallucinations, physical weakness, headaches, loss of vision, occasional loss of motor skills. Have you noticed any problems recently in the bedroom?”

  “Lack of a decent laundry service?”

  She smiled. Faintly. “So, it’s all good news, really. Eat, sleep, rest, no alcohol, no smoking. I assume, given your healthy lifestyle, you don’t do recreational drugs?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, good then. I’d like to see you back in a month. In the meantime, it can be helpful to keep a record—a journal if you like—of any incidents. I can give you something to help with the headaches and calm the hallucinations, but this will only be a short-term solution. Both will go once the stress of the accident reduces. But remember, focus on the things you can do and you enjoy. Indulge them as much as possible.”

  Nikolas smiled for the first time since entering the office. “Yes.”

  “So, I’ll have my receptionist inform you about the MRI.” He nodded and rose.

  “Oh, Mr Mikkelsen?” He turned, his hand on the doorknob. “Word to the wise? Don’t treat a doctor’s examination like a police interrogation next time. I’m not going to arrest you for drinking, smoking, doing recreational drugs, not eating or taking any exercise at all—or judge you for being beaten up by an elderly, female librarian.” She smiled and shuffled her papers. “You’re very lucky in Mr Benjamin Rider. If I were you, I’d indulge a little more in him and a little less in some of your other hedonistic activities. Good day.”

  He decided not to play her at poker after all.

  It was raining when he stepped out into the rapidly darkening day. He pulled the lapels of his overcoat higher then plunged his hands into his pockets. He stared at the wet pavement for a while, until he felt the rain dripping off his hair. He slicked the wayward strands back and felt the rough scarring on his fingers. For one moment, he felt utterly disassociated from the body he was occupying as if he’d merely borrowed it for a while. Or stolen it. As if he, Aleksey, hadn’t taken his twin’s identity, but his body, swapping into it and leaving his more familiar one on a pavement in Russia, smashed and broken and dead. Whosever’s it was, he hadn’t taken very good care of it.

  He’d thought he was dying.

  He’d thought she would put her deft fingers to his head and find Gabby had killed him after all; except this death wouldn’t be sharp and obvious and something he could fight. He was a soldier. He was Aleksey Primakov. He’d thought there was nothing in this world he couldn’t fight and defeat, but he’d let fear of sickness take him down as effectively as her tyre iron would’ve done had she not encountered a force fiercer than her psychosis. Fear had stalked him back from Aeroe, watched him and discovered his weaknesses and his secrets.

  But he wasn’t dying. As far as he could make out, he’d been told there was nothing wrong with him that more sex with Ben Rider wouldn’t cure. Private medicine was a wonderful thing. He felt like a cigarette to celebrate but toed the ground once more, thinking about this. He decided to walk home. It was still raining, but he lifted his face to its coolness as he walked along. He had a lot to think about.

  § § §

  Ben went out for a run while Nikolas was at the doctor. He desperately needed the pain and effort to take his mind off what was happening at home. He pushed himself, fighting the cold. Naturally very fit, it never took him long if he’d had a break from running to get back up to his natural peak. He’d lost his edge on Aeroe, but he’d been extremely fit just before—He didn’t think about that and what’d happened in a bathroom one night.

  Running in London was too flat and easy. He preferred the steep excesses of Wales or the Lake District where a man could lose his identity in pain.

  It was in the back of his mind as he ran that Nikolas would by now have discovered his pre-emptive visit to the doctor this morning. He’d gone on impulse but on the sure and certain belief that when Nikolas went he’d reveal nothing personal to the doctor at all; he would choose a mask and wear it until it suffocated him. Sometimes Ben wondered if there actually was one real personality left behind all the masks Nikolas chose to wear, or whether the masks were now just revolving facets of a fractured man. He was not looking forward to Nikolas’s reaction to his visit. He felt confusion again over the extent of this…relationship thing. Although Nikolas was making an effort—had made a supreme effort since the events on Aeroe—Ben never really felt he knew where the limits lay between what was Nikolas’s personal business and what were their shared concerns.

  Was Nikolas’s health legitimately something he should be involved with? Where were the rules for these things laid down? He wished there was a handbook he could to refer to: “Haynes Manual—Nikolas Mikkelsen Mk II.” Nikolas seemed to think anything in Ben’s life was his concern as well. He appeared lately to have taken over his bank account; he was dealing with the executors of John Redvers’s will; he decided pretty much everything Ben did or thought. Despite their recent advances, it was still very much a one-way relationship. And where did that leave you when it all went wrong? It left you back at your mum and dad’s or squatting with friends if you were lucky. It got you replaced by an eighteen-year-old. When would Nikolas decide he’d had enough of this version of Ben and trade him in for someone who didn’t try to manage his life, to have a proper relationship, to be an equal? Benjamin Rider Mk II. Sure, Nikolas had lain in his arms and allowed himself to be babied the previous evening, but that was once in their entire relationship, and he was probably dying of a tumour, or brain swelling or—Ben clenched his jaw on these thoughts and pushed harder, finding a set of steps to sprint up and down until that thought was squeezed out by pain. He ran on.

  He was soaked now with sweat and freezing rain. His knee was aching and would be swollen and stiff tomorrow. But he didn’t care much for thinking about tomorrow. Tomorrow, they’d both know how much longer Nikolas had. Or would they? Would Nikolas actually tell him anything of what the doctor discovered today? The doctor wouldn’t. Sure, she’d listened to him—he hadn’t actually given her much choice—but she wouldn’t, out of professional confidentially, tell him about Nikolas’s condition unless Nikolas wanted her to. And knowing Nikolas, he wouldn’t want anything discussed. Ben ran into a park and jumped for the bar over a set of children’s swings and did some pull-ups for a while until his arms were as painful as his legs. Just picturing Nikolas’s silent, stubborn decline made him so angry he was having shouting matches in his head with the stubborn Danish bastard. He lost those as well.

  Finally, he could run no further and punish himself no more. He slowed to a jog and headed for home.

  Tim had returned to Devon for the day to start on the depressing job of looking for somewhere new to live, so Ben was expecting the house to be empty when he returned. There was a light on in the kitchen, however. He frowned. He entered slowly and saw Nikolas still in his suit, sitting at the table with a bottle of vodka and a pack of cigarettes. Nikolas immediately rose. “What’s happened to you? You’re soaked! Why are you limping?”

  “What? Did you—? What did she—? What the hell is this?” He picked up the vodka then sat heavily in the chair opposite Nikolas, clutching the bottle. He was shivering, but it was only from the cold.

  Nikolas sighed deeply then flicked the cigarette pack across the table at him as well. “You’re not a very good minder, Ben. I had these hidden, too. So, take them, take the vodka. I’m done.”

  “You’re done! What the fuck do you mean you’re done? Oh, God, what did she say?”

  Nikolas rose swiftly and pulled Ben to his feet. “Upstairs. Shower. All is well. I’ll tell you while you shower.” Ben limped up and stripped off his soaking running clothes. Nik handed him a towel, and Ben sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Tell me now.”

  Nik sat next to him and ru
mmaged in his pocket. He handed the bottles of pills he’d been given to Ben. “One of each, every twelve hours. One for the headaches and one for the hallucin—other things.” He clenched his jaw, as if even admitting that word would weaken him and concluded, “That was it. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “What! No, that can’t be. Did you tell her everything…? I knew you—”