As he’d thought, Ben was in the woods, adjusting something on the bottom of the ladder that probably didn’t need any work doing to it at all. Aleksey handed him his t-shirt and Ben took it without speaking and continued with his task. Aleksey sat at the base of the tree, tipping his head back and closing his eyes to the sun.
They had not had a genuine argument for many, many months. In fact, he could not recall a single serious one since their disastrous falling out the previous year. Minor skirmishes, sure, a constant level of spiky annoyance with each other—these were only to be expected. Enjoyed. But this was different. Ben didn’t stop talking to him very often and it was extremely unpleasant.
Aleksey pursed his lips and began to pull up blades of grass.
Then he picked up a twig and started digging a hole. He was good at digging himself into holes.
‘When is she coming?’
Aleksey was well aware that even on the island Ben could make himself scarce if he was really of a mind to, so he didn’t want to be too specific about her arrival time and give him the opportunity of doing just that—absconding to the light house and shutting them out. That’s what he would do in Ben’s place, after all.
‘This afternoon. It depends on how long she stays with this other person.’
Ben was testing the strength of the ladder by pulling himself up on the top rung.
‘I didn’t tell you because I know you don’t want to see her. But I want you two to be friends again, and I don’t know how else to make it happen.’ He rose swiftly to his feet and put a hand on Ben’s arm. ‘Stop doing that.’ Ben shook him off and continued with his pull ups. ‘Why are you being so stubborn about this? This isn’t like you.’
Ben did stop at that. He dropped lightly to the ground. ‘Seriously? I don’t think you’re in any fucking position to lecture me on what is characteristic or uncharacteristic, do you? You know I don’t want to see her and yet you fucking trap me here and bring her over—what would you do if I did that to you?’
‘There isn’t anyone I don’t want to see.’
That only got him a furious look. Ben climbed up into the house, leaving him standing on his own in the glade. Before Ben could raise the ladder, something Aleksey wouldn’t put past him, he climbed up too.
Ben was sitting with his back to the trunk, whittling something with one of the tools he’d left in a box for future use. Aleksey perched gingerly on the guard rail, watching him.
‘You don’t have the right to just run roughshod over my entire life.’
Aleksey didn’t know what this meant as it didn’t translate at all, but he got the gist of the sentiment. ‘Is that what you feel I’m doing?’
‘Duh.’ Ben gave a particularly savage dig at whatever he was making and added bitterly, ‘Nothing ever really fucking changes between us, does it?’
Aleksey came over and sat down next to him, although he was slightly wary of the chisel in Ben’s hand. ‘No, it does. I think things have changed a great deal this year. But, Ben, just because I’ve fucked up so many times in the past, and you’re the one I have to thank for everything now, doesn’t mean I’m wrong about this.’ He let that sink in for a while, and then added, ‘I still see Phillipa. We’re still friends. I don’t need to do this for me, but I don’t want to have anything in my life I don’t, or can’t, share with you. I’d feel the same if you had a friend I didn’t like.’
‘You’d make me give them up.’
This was too true to refute. He sighed and leaned back against the trunk, pondering the unfortunate situation. Finally he muttered, ‘Well, stay up here then, and I’ll tell her you’ve gone to St Mary’s for the day. Gone to flag wave her beloved. She’d appreciate that.’
Ben looked up at him defiantly, clearly sensing some tactic being used on him, but possibly not able to actually define it.
Aleksey capitalised on the moment. ‘She’s never really accepted us as a couple anyway—which is understandable, I suppose. She probably won’t even think anything of me being here on my own—I spent most of our marriage entirely alone.’
Ben shook his head in disbelief at the now blatant manipulation, but Aleksey reckoned there was a glimmer of fondness in the gesture if you looked hard enough for it.
‘You sided with her.’
Ah, that hadn’t been said with any affection whatsoever. This argument, conversation, wasn’t going as well as he’d hoped. He knew what Ben was referring to. Not only did he recall doing this, he knew it contrasted particularly badly with Ben’s recent declaration to the moron—I’m on his side whatever.
He picked up a spare chisel and began on the floor until he was told to stop. He wrinkled his nose. ‘You’re right. I think—’ He put his hand tentatively on Ben’s leg. ‘I think I’m trying to show her how much things have changed since then, too. Fuck—I want her to see us as a couple, Ben. I want her to see that, yes, she got what she wanted, but that I got more than she can ever imagine. What are palaces and titles to what I have with you? Yes, I betrayed you. I know I did. I treated you in the way she expected me to. But I’m trying to show you, as much as her, that I would never do that again. Please.’
Maybe it was that final appeal. He never said please about anything if he could help it. He’d said it a lot when he was younger, but no one had ever once heeded the desperation in that appeal and consequently stopped doing whatever it was they were doing to him.
Ben turned his head away and said stonily, ‘Then I guess I’ve got no choice, as usual.’
Aleksey had been given more enthusiastic responses from Radulf on being told he was being taken to the vet, but it was better than he possibly deserved.As usual, he supposed.
***
Chapter Three
