Ben crowed in triumph.
Nikolas continued to ponder his reflection in the glass, impressed he appeared so calm, poised as he was on the edge of such a great precipice.
Ben returned to the bed with a box—a locked file box and commented ironically, “Nice wrapping.”
Nikolas grunted and handed him the key he’d held heavy and secret in his fist as he’d teased Ben.
* * *
Ben couldn’t think of anything he wanted for Christmas that would be contained in a file box, but he dutifully opened it.Nikolas sat up, cross-legged in front of him.
Ben began to pull out some folders, but then immediately found more interesting things and laid them carefully to one side.Medals.Rows and rows of medals.He frowned at these for a moment as comprehension dawned, and then reverently emptied the rest of the box, revealing photographs.Dozens of pictures of Nikolas, possibly a hundred, as a tiny boy on a beach with an identical boy alongside him in each photo, a teenager, many again with his brother, and then in uniform, serious, older, some with people, most on his own, some posed, some casual taken by friends, perhaps.Skiing, swimming, riding, fencing, boxing.A lifetime of photos of the man he loved.He opened one of the envelopes and looked inside.The papers were all in Russian.
“I’ll have them translated for you.That one is the transcript of my trial, but the others are my military service records.And these…” Nikolas shifted a few from a lower bundle.“Are my school report cards.You might want a stiff whisky before you read those.Sergei always did.”
Ben raised his eyes very slowly to Nikolas’s face.Nikolas just shrugged and took a long drag on his cigarette, blowing some obscuring smoke between them.“It was all in another house I own in London.I thought you might like to have it.The medals particularly.Did you notice how many there were?”
Ben had.He didn’t know where to start.He picked up the photos again, wanting to study each one, to absorb every tiny detail, as if that would make this snapshot of Nikolas’s life—one which hadn’t included him—now part of their shared life.He laughed suddenly.All this history before they’d met…all these memories…
Now his history.
His memories.
* * *
The Christmases Nikolas had spent passed aroundbeingthe present for his father’s drunken friends had soured the holiday for him.He’d never woken on Boxing Day since then with anything other than relief it was over for another year.
This Boxing Day, he woke with a sense of lightness and anticipation he’d not experienced before.The bed was empty, but when he went into the kitchen, led by the sound of voices, he had to stop for a moment and wonder if sometime in the night he’d been drugged and had now woken up in a slightly parallel life to the one they usually lived.
Their guests were sitting around the large kitchen table, one space left for him, and Ben and Emilia were cooking, passing heaped plates of sausages, bacon, and eggs to the others.Emilia’s grandmother was knitting and chatting to Radulf in Russian.There was mess everywhere, the wrapping paper detritus of the day before, outdoor clothes slung carelessly on the backs of chairs, wet boots hastily kicked off, a toboggan melting icy clumps of snow onto the floor.Someone had given Radulf a new toy for Christmas, and he’d apparently mistaken it for a librarian overnight, for it was ripped and shredded around his basket, bits still sticking to his muzzle.
Ben saw him and came over, the pan with sizzling sausages in hand.“Morning.We’ve been out tobogganing already.”He kissed him with knowing amusement in his eyes, a challenge for him to complain, a statement as clear as if he’d said it out loud: “I love you and I want everyone to know it; don’t like it?Well, you can walk anytime you want.”
Nikolas quirked him a small, complicit smile in return, and kissed him back—just a quick brush of lips, but it was more than that to Ben, and Nikolas knew it.He took his seat at the table and started to light a cigarette but almost cringed at the chorus of complaints.He ate a sausage instead, slowly, relishing it, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on Ben.
He was busy the rest of the day, as was everyone else again, with the new horse.Who knew such an easy present could be so successful?He made a note to thank Philipa’s cousin for helping him select such a beautiful creature from her own stables.A queen’s horse for a princess.It was fitting.
When he wasn’t admiring the horse and making helpful suggestions to Emilia for names, he watched Ben.It was Christmas.Why shouldn’t he indulge his favourite hobby?
They’d still not talked about the mill, and Nikolas reckoned they probably never would.Someday he knew the video would appear on a news programme, perhaps a documentary, and then that might be the time to lay it to rest for good.Until then, he was happy to let it lie, for he genuinely believed Ben when he said he wasn’t troubled.
Ben had a lightness of spirit about him once more that couldn’t be faked, couldn’t be there if such dark memories were weighing him down.And this, of course, meant other bad events of his life had been reconciled too.
Nikolas knew things had changed.For the first time, anyone looking at them wouldn’t immediately assume all of this belonged to him—that he controlled everything and was the centre of all things.
In coming back to a memory of his life so suddenly, realising what was truly important in the life he’d forgotten, Ben had finally seen for himself how things were—that Nikolas only orbited around him, andhe, in fact, held all the power.He always had.
Watching Ben as he and Squeezy took turns dragging Emilia and Radulf around on the toboggan, as Ben prepared a meal for everyone that night, pretending he’d cooked it from scratch and not just opened a number of boxes from the freezer, as he sat with Ulyana Ivanovna practising his Russian, and, of course, later that night as they made long and sensuous love in the hot tub, Nikolas reckoned Ben had indeed left all his darkness behind him.
Nikolas then had to admit to himself that perhaps he’d been wrong about something—a rare event, but apparently possible.
He wondered briefly, as he gripped Ben’s slick, naked back, marked now with the trinity of his names, whether there wasn’t more to this therapy business than he’d ever given it credit.
* * *
