Love is a Stranger

by John Wiltshire

  Gradually, Ben grew warm and stopped shivering. He relaxed back into Nikolas’s arms, which tightened almost automatically around him. As the minutes passed, the atmosphere of the old house began to work its strange magic on Ben. He felt compelled to think about his mother. Perhaps being wet and cold from a moorland run was reminiscent of his time as a boy in Yorkshire. He almost felt as if she were in the room with him. He could picture her there, sure enough, humming something tuneful as she rolled pastry. Had she ever rolled pastry? He couldn’t remember. He felt Nikolas shift position a little behind him. He wondered how many times he had sat with this man, or lain with him after sex, when Nikolas had been thinking about his past, his mother perhaps, stirred to sad memories by something he, Ben, had said or done unconscious of the effect this would have on the other. How had Nikolas stayed silent about his mother during their trip to Saddleworth? “It is your mother’s grave, Benjamin. Even you are allowed to cry here.” It saddened and infuriated Ben in equal measure that Nikolas was so unable or unwilling to unburden himself. He hadn’t even had a body to morn. Ten years old, swimming out in a frozen ocean, seeking her…It made him shiver to think about it.

  “Are you still cold?”

  Ben bit his lip and shook his head slightly. “Tell me about your mother. What do you remember about her?”

  Nikolas sighed. “More questions. You should have been employed by the Inquisition, Benjamin.”

  “I want to know.” I want you to talk about it.

  “That’s something I don’t like to talk about.”

  Ben shook his head despairingly but amused by the exact repetition of his internal dialogue. “You don’t like talking about anything.”

  “The other things I don’t like because they don’t paint me in a good light, and as you know, I like to be the perfect, shining hero of all your imaginings. Stop laughing, you are hurting my leg. This I do not like to talk about because it’s painful.”

  “You do remember her then?”

  “Of course, foolish child. I was ten. Two years older than you when your mother died.”

  “Was she—? I mean, did you suspect she would ever…?”

  “What? Just say it. Did we think she would kill herself? Of course not. We were ten. We had never known another mother, so we thought she was quite normal.”

  “She was very beautiful.”

  “How do—? Ah, Kate again. Yes, she was. Very.”

  “You look like her.”

  “So they said.”

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “God, Ben, you test my patience.” It was said in an annoyed voice, but the arms around him and the way Nikolas breathed in the scent of him as he spoke told Ben a different story. Eventually, by saying nothing, he made Nikolas fill the void. “She had been on the telephone all morning. For some reason I remember that. I had cut myself and wanted her to look at the wound, but she was on the telephone. She tucked the receiver under her ear—to hold it? Do you even remember telephones that could be tucked under the ear? I forget that you’re only a baby sometimes. Anyway, she held my finger as she was listening, to stop the blood.” He stopped and Ben felt he could have actually reached out and plucked these memories as real and tangible things from the air so vivid was this little scene. “She was…” When Nikolas didn’t continue, Ben twisted around in his arms to look at him. Nikolas was staring up at the ceiling, biting his lip. He swallowed. “She was crying. Someone was shouting on the other end of the line, but I didn’t understand what he was saying. I think it was something to do with school. With me. I had forgot to go that week. I was busy, you know, with other more interesting things. I was making weapons for my invasion plans, but I had cut myself…So, I think it was the school telling her I hadn’t gone and she was crying. She said she was going for a walk on the beach. It was the middle of winter and even the edge of the sea was frozen. Her clothes were there, neatly folded, but her body was never found.”

  Ben was utterly silenced by the weight of unspoken guilt in Nikolas’s recitation, but he pushed past his intense desire not to speak. “You didn’t understand what the voice was saying? Could it have been maybe not Danish?”

  There was silence for a while then Nikolas replied hesitantly, “Maybe. She didn’t speak in Danish when she hung up.”

  “So, maybe it wasn’t anything to do with school? Anything to do with you?” Or everything to do with you. “Nik, can I say something without you biting my head off?”

  “Oh, like you’re repressed and not allowed to ask questions. That would be the day.”

  “I don’t want you to sulk and be angry with me. Promise?”

  “Are you ten? Okay, okay, ask your questions. I am skinned to the bone and eviscerated by you already.”

  “Had your father made any moves to get you both to Russia before she died? Moves that she was maybe resisting? Could she have been talking to him? In Russian?”

  Nikolas’s hold tightened unconsciously around Ben as if even thinking this made him anxious. “It could’ve been Russian. Why?”

  “The timing of her death was very convenient…”

  There was a long silence. Ben could almost hear the wheels turning. “No. That’s not possible. She killed herself because I…” He didn’t sound all that certain now, however.

  Ben didn’t say anymore, and Nikolas was silent for the rest of the day. Whatever complex reassessment of thirty-year-old events he was making, Ben felt he should have time and space to make without further contribution from him.

  That night, for the first time, Ben moved his mat over to Nikolas’s and arranged it so both sleeping bags were open and spread above them creating a double bed; albeit not a luxury one they usually enjoyed.

  Ben spooned Nikolas to him, Nikolas’s cold back against his chest, both soon warming to the naked bodily contact. After a long time, when Ben felt sure Nikolas must be asleep, he heard Nikolas’s uncharacteristically tentative voice. “How likely is it that we both had fathers who murdered our mothers? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Yeah. I guess. But neither of us knew it.”

  “I don’t see your logic in that.” There was another long pause, and then Nikolas added, “I hated her. After what she did. Within a week, we were taken from our house and the life we knew, the freedom, and from our language, and to…well, I blamed her for it all. I thought she was weak. That all women were weak. I have never liked women very much because of her. I saw some of this anger in you and wanted you to know that your mother didn’t abandon you, but I never thought…”

  “Now you know maybe.”

  “Yes. But it doesn’t help. Now I know that all the things my father told me, to encourage this view I had of her weakness and her lack of love for me, were lies. That he was only telling me this to enable—” He stopped and Ben could not help but feel the tenseness creep into the body pressed tightly against him. “He said what we did together was true love and that it proved he loved me when she had not.”

  “Jesus, Nik. I’m so sorry.”

  “I wish now it had been me to pull the trigger.”

  After a while, Ben said lightly, “At least look on the bright side; you may start liking women now. You know, get into the whole girlfriend scene: dating, flowers, and chocolates, having to be nice, gentle, do the romance thing, all that puss—”

  “Stop!” Nikolas was laughing, which is what Ben had wanted, so he didn’t complete his suggestions for Nikolas’s new sex life. With some care, Nikolas turned so he was facing Ben in the dark. They couldn’t see each other, even this close up, but Ben could feel warm breath on his face and honed in on it to kiss. They kissed for a long time, lazily enjoying tongue and taste, and knowing that they were hard but not desperately so and quite enjoying the feeling without the great desire or need to do anything about it. When Nikolas eased his mouth away, he said simply, “I hated myself, Ben. I thought I’d killed her by not being a good son. I let Sergei do what he did because I didn’t care about anything.” He put a finge
r to Ben’s lips to avoid any response for he did not seem to need one and added, “Have you thought about my suggestion for the Gregory problem?”

  Ben allowed him the reprieve from his sad past and replied, “The Gregory problem. Yeah, I have. I guess we can try it your way. I was thinking that if he agrees and does come to work with us, it would be easier to kill him, one of those advantages of keeping your enemies close.”

  Nikolas made a small choked noise in the back of his throat then rolled onto his back. “We think too much alike, Benjamin. That thought had occurred to me as well. The trouble is—”

  “He’ll have thought of it, too.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The next day was wet as well, the heavy rain continuing, making the house feel damp and cold. They kept the fire going downstairs and stayed the whole day in the small room. Ben produced a pack of cards and Nikolas a bottle of vodka, and they amused themselves teaching each other the various games they’d learnt during their different but, occasionally, very similar lives. Ben had learnt Special Forces games; so had Nikolas. Nikolas had learnt games in prison, which Ben hadn’t. He’d also played cards with royalty, including a queen, which gave him a whole new (and far less pornographic) set of games to teach Ben. They both knew how to drink equally well, and the neat vodka added spice to the whole day. By the time darkness fell, which was hardly that noticeable as it had been dark all day, they’d made love five times in various ways, drunk the entire bottle, and owed each other many millions of pounds, which Ben had more chance of collecting than Nikolas ever would. They’d also run out of food, having now eaten all the dried rations as well as the fresh food they’d polished off the day before. Nikolas wasn’t particularly concerned and almost seemed to relish the idea of a few days without having to eat at all. Ben said he could put up with it—he’d done so many times in his life before—but claimed it was the dog he was concerned about. Nikolas pretended to believe him, and they both agreed Ben would make a trip to the nearest village the next day and, with cash, stock them up again. There seemed to be no risk in this plan, as far as they could see.

  By the light of the fire, they studied the map and discovered a village with a pub and post office about fifteen miles away. They reckoned it would have a shop. Ben calculated it would take him all day to get there and back, and he was concerned about leaving Nikolas on his own, but when he voiced this thought he got a suitable response and decided perhaps the Zaslon operative could survive without him for a few hours. He decided to leave the dog with him, too. He could cope with his own imminent death from starvation but not Radulf’s as well.

  He set off before first light with his empty pack and a few hundred pounds in cash. The moors were sodden from two days of rain, and, even now, a light drizzle was falling. In some places, he went in over the top of his boots, and so had to walk most of the fifteen miles with wet feet. He began to revise his fond memories of the army and to stop blaming Nikolas so much for his new life. He’d warmed up by the time the sun came up. He consulted his map to make sure he was headed in the right direction and carried on. Hunger alone would have ensured he made it to the village.

  Instead of heading straight to the small supermarket he saw near the green, he went into the pub and ordered himself a huge pasty with extra chips, and sticky toffee pudding and custard to follow. He wolfed the lot, feeling slightly guilty thinking about Nikolas and Radulf hungry and cold back at the house. He sat close to the roaring log fire, took off his boots to dry them, and allowed himself an hour to relax with three pints of beer before thinking about the shopping and the return trip. When he went up to the bar to order his last beer, the landlord had appeared for it was now close to lunchtime and that would bring a consequent increase in customers. He began to take Ben’s order then he frowned, narrowing his eyes. Ben lifted one eyebrow questioningly but the man only grunted and continued pouring. “Sorry, thought we’d met before.”

  Ben’s blood ran cold, but he shook off his instant fear for Nikolas as ridiculous. The man was wrong. He was well into his sixties, so not an army contemporary, and Ben didn’t recognise him at all. He slipped into his Yorkshire accent, which he could still put on very easily, and replied, “Not from around here, mate. Just up at the camp with the boys.”

  The man nodded. “You’re not that easy to mix up with anyone though. Sorry, fella. No offence.”

  “None taken. Thanks for the beer.”

  §§§

  The supermarket was a typical small Devon village shop with a mixture of expensive items for London weekenders and more traditional, cheap items for locals. Living in London with a millionaire, or he supposed he’d now have to revise that to billionaire, Ben had grown too accustomed to very high-quality food. Seeing tins of SPAM and corned beef made him smile fondly, so on a whim he put some in his trolley. He and Radulf would eat them even if Nikolas wouldn’t. He stocked up lavishly on fresh food such as eggs and steak and sausages (for Radulf) and bread and milk. Now the temperatures had dropped, he reckoned they could eat it all before it spoiled. He bought a couple of quality newspapers for Nik, a paperback for himself, and then he went back around getting some more fun things like alcohol and chocolate. Then he added some dog food, because no Special Forces canine operative should be allowed to live on sausages—as much as he might like them. On a complete whim he put a tennis ball in the trolley, too. If they got too bored with cards or reading, they could throw the ball for the dog. They’d have to be very bored, of course. He couldn’t think of anything else. He debated buying some bottled water because filtering and boiling the stream water took forever and was an almost constant, ongoing task, but then he thought about the weight of carrying it the fifteen miles he had to go and put the six-pack back. Much more important to add some more alcohol—so he did. Nikolas was fun when he was drinking.

  Ben was smiling to himself, thinking about the ways in which drunk Nikolas became fun Nikolas, when he rounded the end of the drink aisle and bumped his trolley with a woman who was studying the label of a jar of cook-in-sauce, her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. She turned with a frown of annoyance and saw Ben. “John? Excellent, be a dear, what does this say? Can you read it? I think I’ll have to get these bloody glasses changed. I do wish they wouldn’t write the…”

  Ben didn’t take the jar. She took off her glasses, and then took a step back. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I thought you were someone else. How silly of me.”

  Ben didn’t want to linger or draw attention to himself, so despite finding this coincidence of twice being recognised in the space of half an hour extremely unsettling, he nodded politely and pushed up to the till to pay for his purchases. He only just got them in the pack, and when he swung it up onto his shoulders, he felt as if he were carrying the weight of the world on his back. He took a deep breath, put all discomfort to one side, and headed back through the village to the stile that led to the open moors. As he climbed up away from the buildings, he couldn’t help the occasional glance back. He could feel eyes on him, and it was unnerving. The sense of otherworldliness engendered by the house increased. It was like being in an episode of the Twilight Zone. By the time he’d done ten miles, though, he’d put the creepy village behind him and was thinking only of the very welcome reception he’d get when he turned up with the supplies.

  He was relieved to see the dry stonewall that marked the edge of the grounds, very relived to find the path back to the house, even more relived to see the house still existed, and utterly delighted to be welcomed by a bark from the dog and a kiss from the human. It was nice to be the returning hero, and the newspaper and excellent bottle of wine put Nikolas in such a good mood that he was even willing to eat another steak. He’d been bored all day, something Ben knew he’d never admit. He hadn’t, however, Ben noticed, actually done anything useful like prepare some more water or do any washing. He had, it appeared, stripped down and cleaned all his weapons and done some knife-throwing practice against a target he’d made of an o
ld T-shirt. The hits around the heart were predictably accurate.

  After they’d eaten, Ben examined Nikolas’s wounds and applied some antiseptic lotion he’d bought in the shop. He knew it was probably a waste of time, but it was pleasurable for both of them, brought on some amusing fun as his hand kept slipping to one side, and gave him an excuse to see how well things were healing. Nikolas put his hand to Ben’s head and stroked through his hair. “When this food is all gone, we must go, too. It will be time.”

  “Then you’d better eat slowly.”

  “You cannot escape fate. Better to face it head on.”