‘I…I usually see my mates on a Saturday night.’ Vinko glanced down at his pocket. ‘I was just texting to tell them I won’t be there.’ Jay nodded, relieved it had only been a phone he’d seen. ‘So they don’t hang around waiting for no reason, you know?’
‘There’s no need to spoil your Saturday night on my account. Go and join them if you want. I can sort myself out.’
Vinko shook his head and rolled a cigarette. There were no spare seats; Jay passed him his drink and took a draught of his own before leaning against the wall and lighting his pipe. When Vinko finally looked up, his expression was hostile.
‘You blame him, don’t you?’
‘Blame who?’
‘My dad.’
‘I never said—’
‘You don’t have to say. You hate the fact that you had anything to do with that war and you blame my dad that you were there.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Vinko!’ His voice echoed round the alleyway and he expected the other drinkers to fall silent, though in fact not a single person turned to look. ‘If I blame anyone, it’s myself.’
‘So why won’t you tell me more?’
‘It’s not a question of blaming anyone.’
‘There’s always blame.’
Jay stared hard at a crack in the render over Vinko’s shoulder. He imagined the wall as a cliff face, the crack his escape route.
‘How did my dad die?’
The accusation had faded; it was as simple as it was possible for such a question to be.
‘I wasn’t there by then. He was shot in action during Operation Storm.’
‘You weren’t there.’ Vinko was glaring, angry again. ‘Why weren’t you there?’
He inhaled deeply. ‘I got injured,’ he said slowly. ‘I came back here before the war ended.’
True. Except for the missing parts.
‘What happened?’
‘What I said.’
‘But—’
‘Please stop going on about it!’ His voice was harsh, as defence turned to anger. Like it usually did. He wasn’t being fair to Vinko but he didn’t feel fair. Life wasn’t fair. ‘I’ll tell you when I’m ready. If I’m ever ready. Can’t you understand? It’s in the past. Our lives – mine and yours – have moved on. Understood?’
‘You—’
‘Understood?’
Vinko glowered at him.
‘I want to be your friend. Help you. Now. Nothing to do with then. Stop going on about the past, stop… Stop seeing me as anything other than a…a concerned mate, or I’m out. On the road. Off into the sunset. Leave you to as many shady deals as you want to get involved in!’
‘I told you I don’t!’
‘I’m sorry, I…I shouldn’t have said that.’
Vinko stared at his hands, one curled round his glass, the other drumming in front of him on the table. ‘I’m sorry, too.’
Jay suppressed an impulse to move over and put a fatherly arm round his shoulders. Vinko stubbed out his cigarette and drained his pint. Jay realised his own was empty.
‘Want another?’
‘Yes.’ He glanced down the alley towards the street. ‘No, it’s late. We ought to go back.’
Jay had no idea of the time, but it didn’t feel late. Not for a Saturday night.
‘You sure?’
‘Did you mean it when you said you’d help me?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then perhaps it’s better to talk at home, Šojka.’
‘Jay. We’ll get on a whole lot better if you start using my proper name.’
He grinned and was relieved when Vinko smiled back, much of his anger and disappointment dissipated.
On the way Vinko called at a mini-market to buy tobacco. As he came out, hunched against the drizzle, Jay looked at the bulge in his pocket.
‘What’s that?’
‘Whisky. Only a half-bottle. I thought—’
‘Half bottle or not, how can you afford that, on top of fags and all we’ve just spent? You told me what you earned hardly covered rent and food.’
‘You told me not to ask questions.’
He began to walk away. Jay stopped him.
‘Not while you’re with me, you don’t,’ he said. ‘You want your life to be worth something, remember? Value yourself.’
He handed him a ten-pound note and sent him back in, watching through the window to make sure he paid this time.
They filled the neat, strangely homely room with smoke and the whisky bottle fuelled their plans. Any doubts Jay still had were dispelled as he rose from arranging a makeshift bed of blanket and cushions on the floor and saw Vinko watching him.
‘I’m sorry, Jay. For earlier. I’m glad you’re here.’
Vinko put a tentative hand on his shoulder then clung to him as if he were Ivan himself come back to life.
He lay staring at the orange glow penetrating the thin curtains that billowed against the open window. The waves of light made the pictures on the walls appear even more surreal. He tried to shut out Vinko’s stifled sobs. Twice he had asked if he was all right.
‘I am OK. Thank you, Jay. I sleep now.’
He wondered what caused Vinko’s tears. Was it the reminder of the father he’d never known? Eventually the lad fell silent, the deepening and slowing of his breathing revealing that he had found sleep at last. Jay felt guilty at not telling him more. But he’d never been able to talk about it. Never. He hadn’t even been able to say much to Polly. His heart tightened as he thought of her. He wished he was back at Stoneleigh and could talk to her now. No – perhaps it was a good thing he missed that bus; perhaps he needed time away. It wouldn’t do to get too involved. And he never talked to anyone; not in that way. There was never anyone to talk to. Which was good – with two people in as many weeks now he’d proved he wasn’t up to the job of talking. A man of action, then. He wasn’t too good at that either. There he was, about to leave Polly’s barn unfinished – only for a couple of days, and he’d do his best to let her know, but even so – and who knew how far he’d get with sorting Vinko out. But he was determined to try.
Vinko had almost pleaded with him to set off on their planned trip first thing the next morning, and despite Jay’s protests that now wasn’t a particularly good time for him, something – guilt, or a sense of responsibility – had made him agree. He tried not to ask himself why, but the question crept in regardless. Of course it wasn’t purely altruism. If at all. Helping Vinko was about his own freedom. He’d thought he was free after giving Zora’s inheritance back, but now he knew he had not been. His peace of mind, his life, couldn’t be bought back that cheaply. Perhaps he still wouldn’t be free after seeing Vinko right. But he had to hope, or he might as well give up now. The alcohol blurred his thoughts and he turned over and tried to sleep.
A beeping announced the appearance of a glow in a corner of the room. He knew he shouldn’t, but fighting off guilt was something he’d got good at. He only stared at the screen of Vinko’s phone for a second before checking the inbox. There were two new texts waiting, both from sender MN. Knowing he’d be found out, already preparing his excuses – ‘I’m new to this mobile business, thought it was mine’ – he looked.
What’s your problem? Get in touch said the latest arrival in Croatian.
The previous one was also unopened but received earlier in the evening, at around the time he’d found Vinko outside the pub.
Good work. Where is he now?
Glad he’d interrupted him, Jay hoped they’d be able to talk about whatever it was Vinko seemed to have got mixed up in. It could wait until morning – the peaceful breathing from the narrow bed was not something to be disturbed. The phone revealed nothing else; as far as he could discover with his limited knowledge, the other folders – Outbox, Sent – were empty. Vinko was obviously a good housekeeper. He wished he knew how to mark the incoming messages unread. Vinko would probably be annoyed, and justifiably so; disturbing their fragile peace with an argument first t
hing in the morning was not something he relished. He quickly deleted the messages into oblivion, put the phone back in its corner and went back to his attempt to lull himself to sleep to the steady waves of the lad’s peaceful breathing.
He opens his eyes again as he senses a familiar presence. The boy is sitting on the end of Vinko’s bed looking down at him.
‘You’ve found me here too, have you?’
The boy says nothing, merely turns his head to look at Ivan’s son. Vinko turns over noisily in his sleep.
‘Leave his dreams alone,’ Jay says under his breath. ‘He had nothing to do with any of it, you hear?’
The boy turns his attention back to Jay.
The truck driver stops and leaves him to walk the last couple of miles to the place he has come to think of as home. He wonders if he will ever feel that as well as thinking it, and is shocked by the realisation that he doesn’t already. The truck rattles away down the damaged road and it feels good to be free of the merciless jolting. The engine noise fades and he becomes momentarily aware of the sporadic sound of distant shelling in the hills behind them, before shutting it out like an ordinary town dweller ignores the constant hum of traffic. It is hard to imagine there is anything left worth attacking and he wonders when they will come this way, hungrily looking for more. Zora is confident the house is safe now, and the extended family of refugees seem to share her optimism – they have stayed, after all – but he is not too sure he does.
He no longer thinks too hard. Since his injury and fevered weeks of recovery he has felt different. Though the wound was not directly life-threatening, the infection was serious and left him feeling as if he did die and someone else is now acting through him, as unreal as the stories Zora would tell him and he would then continue in his head to while away the agonising hours of his lucid periods. His feelings and reactions, including the sense of comradeship and family, are more intense, but he is sometimes conscious of being on the outside, aware of himself experiencing them.
He hears a heavy vehicle approaching and instinctively ducks into the scrubby undergrowth before it comes into view. His gun has been an added burden in the heat, but he feels safer with it. The armoured truck turns out to be one of theirs, but is past by the time the adrenalin rush of fear subsides. He hears others approaching and waits, concealed, for them to pass. Nothing is certain here. Even walking down a road. There were no road blocks in this area last time he was here, but it has been a while. His senses send feelers out around every bend. It is a relief of sorts to turn up the stony track and know that anyone who passes is likely to be friendly.
One more hillock to go and he is relieved not to see a pall of smoke. Relieved, too, as he crests the rise in the land and does not see an empty, blackened shell. The fields of a working farm are a rare sight in a place where most have done the sensible thing and fled for safety. Or stayed and been killed.
The newly reopened wound in his side nags, the hastily-rebound bandage chafing. His weakness, which eventually got the better of him so he could no longer hide the pain, means he has been allowed some time to rest and recuperate here before it is back, back to the constant fear of being hurt, seeing others being hurt. The fear of his own actions inflicting that on someone else. He never voices that last one, doubting it is a fear the others share or would understand. It stays inside, eating at him like the infection in his side had. He’s getting over that, isn’t he?
Zora isn’t expecting him. Her surprise makes the homecoming even sweeter. She embraces him and her touch makes his dusty, war-weary world seem momentarily brighter. He leans his head on her shoulder, wondering if he will ever be able to leave again.
She dispels his guilt with a kiss and a few words.
‘You did well. I’ve heard things are going well. Don’t be ashamed you’ve had to come back. They weren’t sure you should go at all, you know.’ For all he feels different now, her smile can still melt him. ‘But you showed them.’
She means ‘us’ – he knows she’d shared the opinion. He went back before he should, not only because he couldn’t watch Ivan leaving another time without him. He’d gone to prove himself. To her, as they both know. He smiles, telling her even Lek might be beginning to respect him – he’s allowed him back now after all. But none of it is making him feel as good as it should. Not even when she says he must be fearless.
He shakes his head. ‘No. You don’t stop feeling fear. You just get used to it.’
Despite the absence of Lek and the others, he is surprised when she invites him to her that night. He can’t refuse. He shouldn’t be there but it’s where he wants to be.
Fear isn’t the only thing you get used to.
Chapter 17
Marilyn woke to an empty bed. As she realised that the space beside her was cold and empty, she wondered if he’d been suffering his night terrors again and crept out of their bed to his sleeping bag in the spare room. But as she came fully awake she recalled the growing foreboding of the previous evening’s endless wait. On her way downstairs she glanced into the spare room, still vainly hoping to see the huddled shape of his sleeping bag. There was certainly more space after her clearout, but no one had been there. The armchair downstairs that had become his was also untouched. She’d told herself throughout not to get attached, but the hollow emptiness of absence hurt nevertheless.
Over breakfast she listened to the showers pattering occasionally against the windows as she relived the previous evening’s drive to the end of the lane to meet him off the bus, recalling the way her heart leapt as the wide-spaced headlights rounded the corner, the bright rectangles of the steamy windows brash and out of place in the dark countryside. Eagerly anticipating his pleasure and surprise as he saw her and realised he didn’t have to face the long walk to the cottage, she’d felt an intense wave of disappointment as the bus didn’t even slow. She’d driven to Holdwick, searched the emptying, orange-lit market square and scanned the road on the way back for the eerie movement of the reflective strip on his jacket in her headlights.
Now, in the clear light of morning, the recollection reawakened her growing concern, which she fended off with indignation and practicalities. If he didn’t come back she’d have to find someone to continue the building work. A good job it was a Sunday, allowing her to postpone the difficult decisions until a more reasonable time to be phoning round. She glanced frequently towards the kitchen window over her breakfast toast and coffee. A sudden rattle sparked a hope of his hand on the latch, until she realised it was the cat flap. Genghis made a noisy entrance, his demands for food like a strident reproach.
‘You know there’ll be a good reason for it,’ she told the cat, trying to convince herself of it as she rose to feed him and go about her morning routine.
As she crossed the living room she paused in front of the pictures. Two matching frames she’d found during the big clearout yesterday. She’d returned the souvenirs of a holiday in Tuscany with Matt to the album, so she could use the frames for the pictures Jay had brought. The Rock Sequence, he’d called them with a laugh. A couple of days ago they’d allowed themselves a break and set off to explore the moors. She could still feel the freshness of the wind, the earthy peat beneath their feet, the expanse of blue-grey sky keeping guard. The rocky outcrop showed no signs of habitation despite its fort-like appearance, but they drank in its atmosphere all the same, taking photos of one another. Textures, shapes, light, shadow, skyline. He’d surprised her on Friday by having the Sequence developed while he was out and presenting the pictures to her before she even realised the film had gone from her camera. Matt had bought her a digital camera and sulked when she continued using her old one. She took Jay’s lack of comment as tacit agreement – a roll of film concentrated your mind and imagination, as did the black-and-white. Whatever the reason – perhaps it was simply the remembered magic of the moment – these pictures were special and she’d enjoyed picking out her favourites, one of each of them, and fitting them in the frames. Carefully po
sitioning them on top of the bookcase, where they’d felt right. Yesterday. And today? What if he didn’t come back? Then they’d be there as a memory of the fleeting time they’d enjoyed together.
Reminding herself to be careful how together she thought of them, she tried to convince herself there’d be a perfectly rational explanation for his absence. Anyway, if he’d gone for good he’d have taken his rucksack. She went upstairs and checked, as if it might have grown feet and tiptoed out to join him in the night. It was lying open, still occupying the corner of her bedroom that it had claimed as if it had always belonged there. Like its owner. Without thinking she knelt down and lifted up the canvas skin that held together the viscera of a life on the road. She had a moment of doubt, imagining him appearing in the door behind her demanding what did she think she was doing – she almost hoped – but smiled as she saw the cover of a book. Whenever she went to someone’s house she loved browsing the shelves, comparing, recognition alternating with curiosity and unasked questions. Jay had done the same in her house and that was all she was doing now. It looked like there was little else in the rucksack anyway; his washbag was in her bathroom and his clothes were in a pile on the nearby chair. She distracted herself by taking Matt’s jumper and jeans from the pile ready to return, but was drawn inevitably back to Jay’s backpack. She convinced herself she simply wanted to feel closer to him; in any case, he’d left the bag open and she had no doubt that anything truly private would be with him, in his pockets.
The novel, Crime and Punishment, was well-thumbed. She frowned slightly as she noted the pencilled price from a charity shop and read the blurb, wondering how much it meant to him before savouring the memory of the night she’d first seen him reading it. The bookmark was a dog-eared photo of an attractive terraced house. Old mellow brick, but otherwise impossible to locate. On the back, in Jay’s handwriting, the simple word Home? Probably the house he’d mentioned. The question mark seemed poignant. She tucked it back in its place. The clip-on reading light was there, half a dozen CDs with a portable player and ear buds, and a Landranger map of the area. A small fold-away gas stove lodged in a lightweight pan, a plastic mug and plate, a container of instant coffee and a couple of packs of dried food, a compact first-aid kit and a water bottle. Beneath that was a pair of open-toed sandals; she wondered if he noticed the difference in summer when it came to wearing the sandals and carrying the heavier boots. Practical, and comfortingly ordinary if she disregarded the fact that this was his life. She took out one of the CDs, attracted by the cover, a medieval-looking woodcut of a fairytale town, and filled the house with strange and mysterious but somehow familiar music, at once ancient and modern, as she washed up and got ready for the day.
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