‘What the f—? I mean, can’t you see I’m busy?’
‘So am I. Vital research. Strips in—’
‘Who does? What does it mean? Someone strips in school? It’s meaningless garbage.’
‘It’s quite easy really, when you think about it.’
‘What is it then?’
‘Ah, well…’
‘Give.’ Ben snatched the newspaper and turned it upside down, resisting his attempts to snatch it back. ‘Isthmi. Who the fuck is Isthmi and why did he take his clothes off in a lesson, and why am I supposed to know this?’
Aleksey had absolutely no idea either. ‘Do not swear at me. He was a Greek god. It’s a Greek myth.’ He sighed as if at Ben’s ignorance, and neatly penned in the word, making up the spelling. ‘Are you hungry?’
Ben suddenly furrowed his brow, clearly astonished by an uncharacteristic neglect of his stomach. ‘I am. Do you want to order in? I don’t think we’ve got anything.’
Aleksey laid his chin down on his hands, studying his empty tea mug gloomily.
Ben ruffled his hair. ‘Okay, I’ll ask you one.’
‘Oh, God.’
‘What is a VAR?’
Aleksey pursed his lips. ‘Something not good?’
Ben chuckled. ‘Volcanic Activity Reporting form.’
‘Hah, I was right then.’
‘Imagine that, first solo flight and you have to report a volcano erupting.’
They ordered some Chinese, something Aleksey had learnt to appreciate more since he’d widened his appreciation of food in general. He magnanimously broke his recent rule and allowed Ben to choose a movie, although he flatly refused to watch anything with sharks, zombies or torture in. He wasn’t that thrilled by cannibals either. Similarly, demonic possession. And now he added post-apocalyptic pandemics to his banned list. It was a challenging flick through the menu for Ben.
Finally settled, the dogs sitting patiently waiting for spare prawn crackers, he mentioned casually, ‘The moron is coming here early tomorrow. I want to go over the security team arrangements with him.’
‘I’m not sure he’ll remember what you’re talking about.’
‘Ack, he keeps a watching brief on it all.’
‘If you say so.’
Ben, nicely distracted by the movie and food, could not now claim, when he discovered his latest plan, that he’d done theunilateralthing. Again.
* * *
Squeezy was also helping him with Ben’s birthday present, so when he pulled up in front of the glass house the following morning, Aleksey went out to meet him.
‘Diesel here?’
‘No, he’s taking Molly to school and then going on with Enid to Derriford for her hospital appointment. He may not be back at all this month, therefore. Have you got it all?’
Squeezy nodded.
When they’d carried all the parts in and Squeezy had assembled them, which took a couple of hours, Aleksey told him he wanted to take a walk and show him something.
Again, to his astonishment, he didn’t receive a pile of profane inanity in response to this suggestion. He almost missed it. They clicked for the dogs and headed out. Aleksey took a shortcut across the lawns and then took a small path that led up the hill to the driveway. Once there he turned towards the gate.
