‘You know I can’t. Won’t.’
‘Yes, you can—will. Things have changed, Nik, for both of us now. I know you won’t want to, but it’s what youhaveto do. It’s the ultimate proof of the new you.’
‘Well fuck the new me then. I am liking the old me more and more.’
‘Promise me.’
He shrugged as if it was no big deal. ‘All right. I promise.’
Ben eyed him. ‘Is that ahe’ll never know because he’ll be deadtone of voice?’
He sighed deeply. ‘No, it’s ait won’t ever happentone of voice.’
‘But if it does?’
‘Fucking hell. Yes. I promise.’ Ben allowed him to stand at last. Aleksey toyed with something on the plate. ‘You have to swear the same then. If something happens to me one day. You must be both of us—for them.’ He raised his eyes to meet Ben’s green ones. Ben nodded, as if very aware that he’d trapped himself into promising something that might be impossible for him also. Be both of them? The absence of one of them would be a void; it would create a vacuum so powerful that all the stars would be pulled into it and be extinguished.
Then Ben snagged him closer for a hug. From against the soft, warm skin on Ben’s neck, he murmured, ‘I don’t suppose you’d stop this flying thing if I asked? Live a slightly less dangerous life?’
Ben took a while to reply and instead of speaking when he finally did, he only began to laugh.
Aleksey let his mind wander back over their previous years together and pushed him off, mussing up his hair and then getting him in a headlock. Ben released himself easily. ‘Drink your tea before it goes cold.’ And with that, he sauntered out. Aleksey was fairly sure Ben realised only too well that a promise made did not mean that the desired thing would actually follow. Aleksey had experienced losing Ben twice already. Life had not gone on the same, because he had not been the same. Perhaps Ben knew this, and it waswhyhe’d extracted the promise. Life now meant more than just existing physically and continuing to run the family—Ben meant emotionally present, mentally still alive.
Aleksey was not sure this was something hecouldpromise. But mulling over the situation prompted him to start some research on something that suddenly seemed important. This strange, unexpected snowfall had brought many deep-seated feelings to the fore, and it was time to recognise them fully for what they were.
* * *
Chapter Fourteen
The end of term and subsequent decamp of the Rider-Mikkelsen clan to Scilly was chaotic. Owning an island was all very well, but islands required boats, and Sticky Wicket could not be collected from Falmouth until Light Island’s boatshed had been enlarged. Losing hired boats to storms and other mishaps was all very well, but losing your own was unthinkable. In addition to all these other handicaps, Molly could not now travel on a plane, for various reasons no one was currently challenging her on, and so she had to be driven. Consequently, they either flew, or drove and took the ferry to St Mary’s, and then hired a suitable boat to use over the planned holiday. Once Squeezy and Tim had escaped from their snowy imprisonment, which fortunately had only lasted the one day and so no cannibalism had been resorted to (although as Tim had privately pointed out to Aleksey and Ben: who needed threats of murder or consumption to drive you stir crazy when you had to be trapped for forty-eight hours in the snow withhim), they had gone ahead of the main family party to get the house ready and take secret things for the festivities that Ben and Aleksey didn’t want younger members of the group investigating.
There were only four bedrooms in Guillemot and so the attics had been set up as well, and the three youngest members of the family were sleeping up there. Even so, Aleksey did not see how they were all going to comfortably fit into the old house. Enid had her own room, as did Babushka, Tim and Squeezy shared the third, which, as far as he could see, left Jennifer and Reginald sleeping in with him and Ben, something which occasionally made him smirk with various evil possibilities, but more often led him to attempt to explain to Ben that he’d rather move out to the shed with Harry than share a bedroom with Molly’s grandparents. (Obviously, this actually meant that Tim and Squeezy should sleep in the shed, and he and Ben would therefore be able to have their usual room).
Although the Atkinsons were not arriving until the following day, it was all extremely tiresome, mainly because Ben wasn’t listening to him. To be fair to Ben, he was a little preoccupied, dashing here and there and never being where Aleksey wanted him to point out this impending problem. They’d arrived at lunchtime, and the first order of the day had been to bring Billy from the lighthouse so he could join in all the activities. Harry was already there, as he’d assisted Tim and Squeezy’s preparations that morning by directing as they cut down a fifteen-foot Douglas fir and dragged it back to the living room. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a tree stand, and when the rest of the family had arrived, they’d discovered the three men pondering this deficiency. When greetings had been made and Billy fetched, Ben pointed out that they were now very skilled at making cement, and with a grin, he and Squeezy disappeared to fetch what they needed. Commandeering a large chest from the storage attic, and the supplies from the coal cellar, the tree was duly raised and encased. Probably forever. It didn’t wobble, anyway, so that was the main thing.
They now had the rest of the day for the great tree decoration. Molly was clutching the packets of coloured strips he had bought her to make paper chains. He had never envisioned when he’d first seen Guillemot House that it would be decorated so. The word desecration might have crossed his mind then, but watching Ben settle down at the dining-room table with his daughter and begin making these simple decorations, he was hit by a totally unexpected wave of nostalgia for his own childhood, something that almost never happened. Nikolas’s presence was palpable at his side, kneeling up on his chair, eager to begin licking and sticking. He switched back into the moment when he heard tension in Ben’s voice. For various reasons, Ben had been extremely stressed with his daughter since the end of term, but this latest exasperation was entirely unrelated to that more obvious elephant in the room. Now, Molly wanted to make her chain all one colour, and Ben was attempting to rationalise with her that they were meant to be alternating. She wasn’t having it, and Aleksey could tell tears were imminent. Molly wasn’t looking too happy either.
He sighed and was about to intervene, when Miles, who had been working quietly on his laptop at the other end of the table, looked up at his almost-sister and asked complacently, ‘Did you know that when paper chains were invented, they used the colours as a code? It’s really very clever. Blue is for O, red for Y, white for M and green is usually for L. If you can think of anything that would spell, it would be a secret message only you knew. Do you see?’
Apparently Molly did see. She became very furtive with her colours, and the pattern she chose was repeated down the chain. She did not appear to realise that he and Ben were capable of working her cypher out. Smirking at her industry, Ben turned to thank the boy, but Miles was staring intently at the girl, frowning deeply. He didn’t appear to hear Ben and, quite uncharacteristically, for he was not a boy taken to sudden bursts of physical activity, he shot from his chair and left the room. Ben put his chin down on folded hands and muttered to no one in particular, although clearly addressed to him for he said it in his unique Danish, ‘Do you think time travel could be invented if you had enough money? Like, maybe, billions?’
Aleksey chuckled at the woeful lack of fluency and mirrored his position, stretching out one finger to touch Ben’s and replied in the same language, ‘You would not change a thing, and neither would I. Come, I want to watch you make pretty decorations.’
Ben grunted, returning the pressure of the finger. ‘I’m thinking I’d rather be doing something else.’
‘Oh, trust me, so am I. But both involve…licking.’
Ben frowned. Aleksey leaned back and laughed out loud. ‘Your Danish is woeful. I will teach you that word later tonight.’ Thinking about this, envisioning the slow instruction that would be needed, Miles and his odd behaviour were forgotten.
* * *
As it was now officially the Christmas holidays, many rules went by the wayside, and once Emilia put on some carols, the first of many bottles of wine made an appearance. Molly, delighted with her secret code chains, threw them gaily on the tree to join all the other more sparkly ornaments it already held.
By the time they realised they should have put the star on before the fir had been planted into quick-drying cement, quite a few more bottles had been consumed. No one had any useful suggestions, although Ben did volunteer to attempt bringing K9 into play again. Unfortunately, no one could work out how to get the star released from the drone once it was in place, not even Miles. Ben also volunteered to climb the tree, as did Squeezy and Jenna. Impressively, Jenna demonstrated her superior skills for this activity by appearing fifteen feet up, clinging to the topmost branch.
Aleksey decided to leave them all to it, liberated a bottle and took it out to the patio, where he could smoke in peace. It was extremely pleasant sitting beyond the soft light spilling from the windows. The tree had been erected in one of the bays, the architectural roundness seeming to invite such an addition. With the coloured lights and the faint sounds of the carols, he was taken back once more to the cathedral in Russia where he had inadvertently joined a group of evening worshipers. He wondered if Babushka was missing the Motherland as much as he occasionally did. Sometimes, even he could not trace the unlikely path that had taken him from that life to this.
He heard the soft sounds of scuffling on the patio and smiled when Radulf padded out of the darkness. Although he suspected the old dog was merely escaping the threat of being decorated, as once Molly had finished with Shadowfax and the tree she’d begun choosing tinsel forRaddybum, he nevertheless offered him a cigarette and some of the wine. When these were dismissed with disdain, he produced a couple of mince pies. He wasn’t entirely sure these were good for dogs either, but Radulf was adamant they weren’t at all suitable for humans, and so the old dog got both.
