The Bruise_Black Sky

by John Wiltshire

  Nikolas was even better at the no-speaking thing than he was, because he didn’t actually not say anything at all. He chatted incredibly kindly and nicely and politely, thus letting Ben know that he wasn’t being spoken to, whilst giving the impression to anyone listening that Ben was lucky to have him. He was considerate in all things, but turned his back to him in bed.

  Nikolas was genuinely hurting, but there was nothing Ben could do about it.

  He was a little preoccupied. It was all very well agreeing to something because you wanted to escape from your boyfriend. But then came the realisation exactly what he’d agreed to. Although everyone told Ben how good he was on the TV, he knew what he’d done—narrate a few documentaries—was vastly different to what he was going to have to do now. He was utterly dismayed by what he’d taken on. The responsibility of what he was doing terrified him.

  It had been announced in the press the day before. He didn’t read the papers but even he’d seen it. It was on the six o’clock news, the BBC, the internet, and in Nikolas’s broadsheets. Oliver Whitestone’s whole life was revisited and then Ben Rider’s. Peter Cameron’s media empire had been hard at work. Ben’s new press office said only what was already known—ex-Special Forces, recruited for a charity, ANGEL, was English—no mention was made of Nikolas. Which was how Nikolas liked it, Ben knew, but still…

  Peter was most insistent that Ben’s relationships with anyone not be mentioned anywhere. There had been enough speculation about Oliver’s life when he was alive. After his death, it would be…tasteless.

  As far as the press was told, Peter Cameron had found his new Oliver—the same age, identical in looks and physique, both single…It was miraculous, and Peter was playing on the wave of interest.

  Ben kept getting things in the post, which was always nice, except when they were stressful and daunting and he wanted to consult Nikolas about everything. Nikolas would know what it all meant…contracts, scripts, indemnities, withholding tax, insurance, travel details…Nikolas would have taken it off his hands and then presented it all to him as a done deal, sorted, and probably thrown in a few presents as well…

  For the first time in a long while, Ben was beginning to wonder if he’d always done Nikolas a disservice in his mind. It was a bit like begrudging the ground you walked upon for being a little too rough, too challenging. Resentment was all very well until the ground up and disappeared and you were left hanging. Then you appreciated the solidity you’d derided.

  He was so close to asking Nikolas to come with him.

  But would Nikolas now?

  They hadn’t spoken, other than the icy politeness Nikolas kept up like a mask, for two weeks now. Maybe, if he asked Nikolas to come with him, Nikolas might, out of a fit of pique, or spite, refuse. Say, “Fuck off, Ben, you wanted to be on your own, well see how you like it…on your own…working for once…”

  For this was another thing that had occurred to Ben. At the moment, his idea of a stressful day was going for a run and working out afterward.

  He’d been reading some of the things Peter Cameron had sent him…like schedules. He couldn’t work out how you would fit most of it into two years let alone two weeks. They appeared to be starting every morning at four o’clock! He was usually just going to bed at four…He was going to be totally at the mercy and timing and whims of other people.

  So, if he did break down and beg Nikolas to come with him, he was very afraid Nikolas would use his expression and tell him to…poke off.

  He could try it and see…maybe?

  §§§

  Babushka and Emilia left.

  A chauffeured car came to collect them.

  Nikolas spoke to Lucya’s mother for some time, in Russian, which excluded Ben, of course. He watched them drive off, and then it was just the two of them.

  Nikolas went riding.

  Ben went to the gym.

  He was leaving in four days’ time.

  Four days.

  What should he do with the house? His vast property, which, in reality, was Nikolas’s of course. Ben didn’t even know who the electrical company was, who provided their broadband, how to contact the cleaning company…all these things that needed to be done if the house was going to be empty while he was away.

  Apparently it wasn’t.

  Nikolas was staying on in Devon.

  Alone.

  Did Ben mind?

  Fuck, Nikolas could do icy politeness until you wanted to just…kill or hug him, Ben didn’t know which.

  Three days, and he didn’t know what to pack.

  Two days. Radulf would miss him. He didn’t want Radulf to miss him.

  One day. He woke up and decided to call Peter Cameron and tell him it was all off.

  He was flying at four o’clock the following afternoon. Eleven hours to Changi and then another twelve hours to Christchurch and a final hour to Dunedin. Fucking hell. Shit! Ben realised he’d forgotten it was July—winter in New Zealand. What a fucking disaster he was. He ripped out of bed and dumped all his clothes onto the floor from the bag he’d stuffed them in.

  Where had SAS Ben Rider gone?

  He’d allowed himself to become Ben Rider-Mikkelsen.

  Ben straightened and took a breath.

  The SAS. The department. Life before Nikolas.

  That had been the man Nikolas Mikkelsen had fallen in love with.

  He turned slowly.

  Nikolas was sitting up in bed, enjoying a cigarette, studying him through the cloud of smoke. He held out his hand and Ben came to him. Nikolas kissed him, the taste of addiction between them. They didn’t need words. Not really. But this quiet wasn’t the silence they’d been inflicting on each other. It was the intensely loving peacefulness of two people who didn’t need anything else but one another.

  Nikolas eased his mouth away from Ben’s and said very softly, “I cannot go back and make my past go away, but I will promise you this now—I will do nothing while you are away that I cannot or will not tell you when you come home. If you come home…”

  Ben savaged him with a kiss and a hug so fierce they made Nikolas laugh, which was a good sound to hear. “You fucking moron,” was all Ben could think to say to such a level of stupidity. They were well matched.

  Of course, he was coming home.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ben had flown this exact same flight before. With Nikolas. With a very fragile Nikolas who’d spent most of the flight either vomiting or silent in his seat concentrating on not being sick. It had been a very long flight. At Changi airport, they’d found the first class lounge, and Nikolas had sat rigid in his seat, watching his hallucinations until he had wanted to weep with the fear that Nik was dying.

  If his past self could come forward and see him now—travelling without Nik when he could so easily have him there—what would past-self say? Ben suspected the comment would contain a lot of cursing. He was swearing at himself, loudly.

  This time, with six hours to kill, he took the opportunity to go for a swim. The rooftop pool was small, but cool, and as the air temperature was over 40 degrees, that was very welcome. He soon discovered that no one liked a single man on his own these days. Life, apparently, wasn’t like fiction. He got sent daggers from mothers who shielded their offspring from him, as if he were about to pounce. It was disconcerting. Nikolas would have said—damn, he had now conjured the image of Nikolas alongside him in a swimsuit.

  That first trip they’d taken to Singapore and on to the Philippines had been the first time he’d seen Nikolas in swim shorts. He saw him in them a lot these days, as Nikolas did laps twice a day. For, of course, in reality, Nik didn’t keep his physique as superb as it was by stretching out an arm—he had the discipline of a warrior when he ate, and he swam religiously twice a day—usually a mile or so each time, at a pace Ben couldn’t keep up for more than one length.

  And for the first time, thinking about Nikolas in clinging, wet fabric and the effect it always had on him watching, it hit Ben that he�
�d just signed up to either cheating on Nikolas or going without relief for some considerable number of months. The first was unthinkable, so that was it—no sex. To give himself his due, this was genuinely the first time this awful realisation hit him. He’d worried about everything else not being with Nikolas would entail, but not the most obvious. That had been the last thing on his list of things he’d miss. He loved Nikolas. It wasn’t about fucking anymore. But still…bugger. This train of thought didn’t help with the looks the yummy-mummies were giving him. He discretely pulled his towel over his lap. Fuck.

  The last time they’d left Changi they’d taken a plane bound for the Philippines. Now, he boarded one to Christchurch. Another twelve hours. It was horrendous, and he was in first class. He couldn’t even imagine what it must be like for the poor…well, just the poor, he supposed.

  He accepted another drink from the steward. Yes, he was, awesome, but tragic, of course.

  He guessed he had to get used to being recognised even more now.

  It was a somewhat depressing thought.

  §§§

  Christchurch was deep in snow.

  There had been some debate about them not being able to land at all and having to divert to Auckland. But the runway had been cleared by the time they descended. Ben had been awake most of the trip and had seen with an almost disbelieving awe the vast snow-covered mountains they’d flown in over. Nikolas would have loved it.

  Seeing the size of the airport, Nik would have made a joke about a sheep being on the runway. Which there almost was—grazing alongside, anyway. Perhaps they’d not spotted him in the snow…

  He had a couple of hours to wait until the flight to Dunedin. It was amusing being first class and whisked through the horrors of flying with kid gloves, only to arrive eventually in the same holding pen as everyone else, waiting for a plane which you apparently had to walk out to, and was so small that when the wind was in the wrong direction it took a few hours extra to reach its destination. It was like being squeezed down an ever increasingly tight pipe.

  He sat down next to a man wearing shorts. Which wasn’t that unusual, he supposed, except that it was mid-winter. And the man had no shoes on. He glanced around. He was the only one wearing a suit. He was the only man wearing long trousers. Had he missed the memo? Most people had shoes on…but a considerable number didn’t. Their flight was announced, and everyone got up, chatting. The steps wobbled. They were offered a plastic cup of water and a biscuit. Ben was off carbs…but still! He was starving.

  Everyone seemed to know everyone else. He wondered if he’d got mixed up somehow with a family group. No one spoke to him. He wished he’d worn shorts.

  By the time he got to Dunedin International Airport, he was too tired even to hear Nikolas’s derision at the potholed runway and one-man-and-a-dog outfit that greeted him.

  He was very glad to see a man standing in the tiny arrivals hall, holding up a sign saying: Rider. Too fatigued to make small talk, he followed the man to a waiting minibus.

  Unfortunately, the driver wasn’t tired, and within the first hour had probed Ben mercilessly about who he was, where he came from, what he did, and how much land he had. Ben suspected he’d dreamt this last question as he fell asleep on the bus into a deep but uneasy jetlagged sleep only those experiencing winter in July can know.

  He woke up to deep snow and was told they were somewhere called Alexandra. Would he like a ligstritch? A what? A ligstritch. Ben didn’t get it the second time either, but got out to stretch his legs. Which was welcome. It was bitterly cold. Absolutely fucking freezing, and he was only dressed in his suit. But how could you complain when your driver was in shorts and a T-shirt? He had shoes on, which was a relief.

  They got back in. Another two hours and they were in Queenstown, the most beautiful place Ben had ever seen. He couldn’t deny that.

  Oliver Whitestone had been born in a little settlement called Paradise. It didn’t get much better than that. But they were still an hour from Paradise, ironically. As far as Ben was concerned he was half a world away, for paradise was currently back in Devon, probably in bed, probably…he dug out his phone and sent a text. Arrive safe. Where r u and what doing? If put to torture, literal pincers and rack, he couldn’t have worked out what time it was in Devon. Jetlag was a wonderful thing. They left Queenstown and took the road alongside the lake towards Paradise.

  Ben felt as if he were hovering somewhere between life and death. The scenery was so out of this world that it seemed literally as if it belonged in another dimension, and he was bewildered enough by what he was doing to wonder if he might just have died. There was a kernel of sadness in his heart as powerful as the grief of death. His phone buzzed, and he tapped it on.

  It 3am what you fucking think I do?

  Sorry. Not sure time. Not sure anything. How you wake then?

  Took phone to bed. Felt vibrate. Was hopeful something else.

  How dog?

  He miss you. Whine a lot. I kick him and he shut up.

  The driver told him they were there.

  Have to go. “Love you” not enough to say what I feel.

  He stowed his phone as they rounded the corner to the small settlement and headed into chaos. There were trucks and vans everywhere. Peter Cameron wasn’t with his circus yet—he was flying in the next day—but Ben was given an assistant and she showed him to his home for the next few weeks. He had a large trailer to himself. It had a little kitchen, a living area, and a bed big enough for two. The irony defeated him. He pleaded exhaustion and tumbled, fully dressed, onto it and crashed for twelve hours.

  He woke to paradise, literal and metaphorical, because this little settlement on the edge of the world was, even above Queenstown, the most awe-inspiring place he’d ever been—despite the toll making a movie had taken on its peace and quiet. He strolled down to the edge of the lake, humbled by the splendour of the snow-capped peaks, their great height, their steepness. They were new formations, untouched by geological time, vast and raw in a way northern hemisphere mountains, the kind Ben was used to, weren’t. They called to him.

  It was cold. July, but there was snow on a lakeshore. It was crazy. He laughed. The air was…intoxicating? Perhaps he was just still jetlagged.

  Peter Cameron’s helicopter came skimming over the serene water. Ben watched it land just outside the tiny township.

  Time to go to work.

  §§§

  Oliver Whitestone had been born in Paradise thirty-three years ago. His parents no longer lived there, as he’d moved them to the States when he’d started to make it in the industry. The whole family was still remembered, of course. Oliver had never lived in the settlement as a grown man, but he had visited just a few weeks before his death, and this is where Peter wanted to start telling his story. He wanted to show a man torn by doubt, conflicted, watching his younger self carefree and still many years away from being burdened by whatever dark thoughts Ollie had. They had cast a young boy to play Oliver aged eight. He was very cute and lively, and Peter suggested he and Ben get to know one another, get comfortable with each other, as they had long days ahead, when being able to relax on set was important for everyone.

  Ben discovered very quickly that little Hayden liked doing all the things he did (given he was eight), which included anything on snow. They went to Queenstown for the day, hired what they needed and went up Coronet Peak. Hayden’s mother accompanied them, but she opted to stay in the hut, drinking hot chocolate. She seemed oddly willing to allow a complete stranger to take her very active young son up on the slopes for the day.

  Ben enjoyed himself immensely, as long as he didn’t think how much Nikolas would have loved the skiing. How he’d have been unable to resist commenting on Ben’s inferior technique and completely taking over Hayden’s instruction. It was very quiet without him.

  By lunchtime, the sun was so strong they’d stripped off their jackets and were both in T-shirts, famished, but extremely pleased with themselves when someone
told Ben his “son” was awesome, and that Hayden could almost ski as well as his “dad”. Success.

  They did look alike. Ben didn’t have many pictures from his childhood once he’d left Devon and went with his mother to live in Yorkshire. But he thought Hayden was a good likeness for him at eight—and would therefore make a very good little Oliver.

  Hayden was also useful for Ben to start picking up the accent he needed. It was difficult for an Englishman, because the main sound used in English was entirely missing in Kiwi. It just didn’t exist. Ben practised saying in his mind not ten beds in the shed but tin bids in the shid—which is how Hayden sounded to him.

  And then the obvious hit him. When Nikolas next texted him and asked him where he was, Ben could text back. Sitting on a deck. Nikolas wouldn’t get it, but he would. He’d never grow tired of that little joke.

  What’s NZ like? Full of decks.

  The possibilities were endless.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Ben walked slowly into the tiny schoolyard in Paradise amongst the children playing during morning tea in their shorts and T-shirts, despite the snow covering the ground. He stood for a long time, studying a little boy hanging upside down on the monkey bars. Someone shouted, “Cut.” The children carried on running around and screaming, but someone came up to him, dabbing at him, fidgeting with him.

  It was the first thing he’d discovered about being a movie star. You didn’t own your own body. They’d cut his hair yesterday. Gladiatorial short. He’d shaved it a couple of times before, so it wasn’t a complete shock, but it was unnerving, nevertheless, to see just how much it now made him resemble Oliver Whitestone.

  Peter wanted an unusual scene to grip the audience at the start of the movie. Oliver, returning to Paradise, is ostensibly watching children playing in a schoolyard. He has a conversation with one little boy who says he’s too busy to talk for long…that he has things to do. When Oliver straightens, everyone would realise there was no little boy—that Oliver was talking to his younger self, imagining himself at eight, with everything ahead yet to come, desperate to leave Paradise and make something of his life.