Aleksey suddenly looked around. He’d just realised there was no car.
Harry was sipping his tea, staring out over the moors once more and mused, almost to himself, ‘It’s good to see a bit of happiness—know that something beyond it all can exist.’
Aleksey hesitated then asked, ‘Why do you think it doesn’t?’ Hearing his voice, Harry turned. Aleksey held his gaze and the other man seemed to sense that he was asking a genuine question—that he was interested.
‘Do you get out and about much, Mr—?’
‘Please, call me Aleksey.’
‘Aleksey then. Do you have a sense of things? Talk to people?’
Aleksey thought about this. He wasn’t going to give this man glib answers as he did to so many people. ‘No, not really. The people I meet are very…they are either intimates in my family, or people who are perhaps shielded from ordinary life too. Why?’
‘Yes, there are so many people like that. They don’t hear and they don’t see.’
‘I have…’ He genuinely couldn’t think of a way to finish what it was he wanted to convey, and so concluded almost shyly, ‘Morbid thoughts, too. About darkness. I think something bad is coming, because it always seems to. But…’ He had a sudden memory of Ben throwing himself through the air, fielding the ball the day before. ‘I have promised someone to try and improve my thought processes.’
‘It’s hard though, isn’t it? When you feel death stalking you and his breath is the roar of the waves, the pounding surf behind you. When the gulls cry out to you, yet to heed their call would be your ruination.’
Well, he wasn’t quite that bad. He wondered briefly if this old man was on something. To meet someone more paranoid than he usually felt was actually worrying. But in a spirit of caring and sharing, he asked hesitantly, ‘Do you…see dead people?’
Harry jerked his head back. ‘Son, you’ve got a strange sense of humour.’ He leaned forwards in his chair a little. ‘Go out and about and speak to those who see everything.’ With that prophetic but incomprehensible advice, he rose and clicked his fingers to the hybrid scrap of nothing beneath his chair, indicated with a nod towards the gate that he was leaving, and did just that.
Aleksey watched them walk away. He had the strangest feeling he’d be seeing them both again. Then he had an even odder thought that maybe he hadn’t actually seen them at all.
* * *
Chapter Ten
‘How was the walk?’
‘Good. Your meeting?’
‘Yeah. We’re holding an event to raise awareness. A sleep out.’
Aleksey pondered this, translating as ever. He was fairly sure this preposition was wrong, but couldn’t see how the right version applied either. ‘Good idea.’
‘Squeezy’s organising it, and he—’
‘Those are three words I would advise anyone not to use.’
‘—suggested people could pay to sleep out in Cathedral Yard, or even, if we can get the permission of the bishop, in the cathedral itself. If we can, will you come too? It’s in a really good cause.’
‘I won’t dignify that with a response. But I give you my full permission to attend. I will even think of you when I am stretched out in the middle of our big, comfortable, warm bed.’
‘Thanks.’
They both went back to their respective activities until, when enough time had passed to appear entirely off the cuff, Aleksey asked, ‘Do you know many of the moron’s friends?’
Ben looked up once more from his flight manuals. ‘Does he have any except us?’
‘You. Singular please.’
‘Yeah, you really aren’t that convincing.’
‘Someone called Harry, maybe?’
Ben thought about this, frowning. ‘Lots of Harrys in the Regiment. Mostly officers though…’
