The
last thing he ever said to Alison Topping was, ‘I love you’.
It
wasn’t much of a comfort; but in light of the chain of events that followed, he
took any comforts he could get.
There
had been a pause on the end of the line, and for a moment he panicked. Thinking
that somehow she knew what he was about to do, and hated him for it.
“I
love you too, Rick.”
Of
course, she was just a little surprised. Because as a rule he didn’t call her at
work, ‘just to say hi’, let alone declare his feelings in such a blatant,
public way.
He’d
hung up at that point; there were no other words he could have said. ‘See you
later’ would have been too cruel and ironic, and a literal ‘good bye’ stuck in
his throat.
They
were waiting. He couldn’t see them but he could sense their presence looming -
this team of agents who were poised for his signal.
So he stood on the steps of the World
Government Police headquarters in Chicago, at 18:00 hours precisely, fumbled
with his car keys, that was the cue. And as the shot rang out, he had imagined
that the pain searing through his skin and muscle was not from the bullet, but
his own heart breaking.
When
he regained consciousness he had been spirited away to a new life; a new job,
new appearance, new name. Richard Fraser didn’t die that day; but perhaps a
part of him did. It made him frantic, and claustrophobic, to be in this
alternative reality. A part of him wanted it to be a dream.
Then
he saw them in the Officers’ lounge, the eclectic band of men who had been
chosen to lead the charge of this freshly minted Spectrum organisation; the
ones who would become as close as brothers - and the one who would betray them.
They
glanced around; surprised, openly curious, fumbling to craft a response.
So
he screwed on a smile and decided to seal the deal.
“Rumours
of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.”
If
they wanted him to have a new life, as Captain Ochre of Spectrum, then he was
going to fully embrace it. Take every chance to play the Shakespearian fool.
The careful mask of a man so filled with anguished burden he felt sure it would
spill out of him like a ripped bag of flour. People only see what they want to
see, so he’d let them be fooled.
Perhaps
one day it wouldn’t be an act any more.
He
didn’t known at that point that Alie was carrying their child, that spark of a
whole new life within her. In the years which followed her funeral he wondered
what would have happened if he had known.
If it would have changed the course of fate.
That
six years later he wouldn’t be sitting within arm’s-reach of his son, feeling a
chasm far greater than the physical miles which had separated them.
It
wasn’t supposed to be like this.
And
he couldn’t see that it would ever be right again.
Seamus
Donaghue woke to the sound of the doorknocker clattering. Groggily, he rose
from the plush comfortable armchair, which he had commandeered on his arrival
for the duration of his stay, and ambled out to the front door.
“Patrick,”
he exclaimed with delighted surprise.
“We were in the neighbourhood.” Magenta
smiled. “So we figured we’d stop by for some of Mam’s cooking.”
Ochre
waited for a moment, watching the reunion from inside the saloon, which they
had used to drive from the airport. He
felt it would be wrong to intrude, and also needed the time to compose
himself.
He
understood exactly why Magenta had brought him there; to show him he wasn’t
alone, that they could make it. That there was a chance that one day he and
Ricky could have this bond; a simple honest closeness, which could weather the
years of struggles and miles between them. It was a bittersweet moment though.
As Magenta embraced his father, their height perfectly matched, Ochre couldn’t
help realising that one day Ricky would be a grown man, after decades had
passed seemingly in the blink of an eye. All the potential of Ricky’s life, and
their life together, wrapped up in those years, hit him. Along with the
realisation of how much he had missed already, and of what he would miss if he
left now.
He
glanced over his shoulder with a smile. Ricky dozed on the backseat, wrapped up
in Ochre’s Spectrum-issue winter jacket. His sweet, perfect, little boy.
“Don’t
ever grow up,” he thought. “Let’s just stay in this moment, forever.”
For Ochre seeing Seamus Donaghue was uncannily like
looking at his friend’s future. From
within a web of laughter lines, Seamus’s warm brown eyes sparkled with life,
and although his hair, which had once been as black as his son’s, may have
faded to grey, yet it retained its sleek thickness. The old man was still
supple and trim, although he stooped a little, and had probably been taller
than his son when he was in his prime. Still,
you might well be looking into a crystal ball at Patrick in thirty years’
time. Ochre had complained at the
unfairness of it all once, explaining that his father had ended up with a beer
gut and receding hairline at forty.
“Good to see you again, son,” Seamus
said, as Ochre stepped from the car. Ochre offered his hand but instead found
himself enfolded in a paternal embrace.
Much
like his own parents, Seamus and Marie had lacked material wealth as they
raised their children. But the family had an open warmth and rapport, which he
had never known anywhere else. They had welcomed him without any question or
reservation; as if he, like Patrick, was a wayward son returning to the fold of
the family.
“We’re
just borrowing him for the holidays,” Ochre explained, nodding toward Ricky. He
sounded casual, but deep down was terrified that an innocent question would
bring their relative calm and acceptance crashing down. “He normally lives with
his aunt, in Chicago, but she’s in hospital.”
“Who’s
there?” Marie Donaghue called from the doorstep, her face flushed and content.
Then she recognised the captains, and had she not been barefoot there was no
doubt she would have run over to them. As it was Magenta went to her, holding
her tight to his heart and lifting her clean off the ground. The way she had
for him as a child.
“You’ll
catch your deaths out there.” Marie beckoned them inside. Ochre opened the side
door to reach for Ricky, but hesitated. So instead Seamus took him.
The years almost seemed to fall away, and
again he was a young father cradling his precious child.
~oo0oo~
“This is a really nice house,” Ochre
said, once they were inside the wide hallway. Not that he had any knowledge or
interest in interior design, but the house was light, airy and decorated in a
timeless, elegant style. It seemed far too large and impractical for Magenta’s
sister as a single woman living alone, but Caitlin had loved the house since
the moment she had first viewed it. And the place was frequently filled by
visiting friends and family, so it was ultimately quite practical.
“Bit
too fancy though, like it’s out of a magazine,” Seamus grumbled gently. “You
can’t go living in a magazine.”
Ochre
followed him up the oak stairs, managing not to trip over the spoilt
tortoiseshell cat lounging on the penultimate step, along the oatmeal-coloured
sisal carpet, past identical white painted doors, with handles that looked like
antique bronze. The only break in the uniformity was the second door on the
right, which had inch-high wooden letters, ‘F A E’, painted three shades of
purple and mounted at eye level.
Obviously
that was the bedroom of Magenta’s niece when she stayed there; a remainder of
her childhood. She was in college now, Ochre couldn’t remember if it was Yale
or Harvard.
“Fae’s
at her friend’s for lunch,” Seamus noted, with a nod toward the door. “Seems
like only last week she was a little girl, getting all hyped up that Santa was
coming to town. She’ll be back later tonight, if you’ve got the time to stick
around.”
Ochre
considered it. How much of their 72 hours of leave was left, the journey
between Chicago and New York in the high speed Spectrum Passenger jet.
He
nodded. “We do, I know she’ll want to see Pat.”
Ochre
opened the door which Seamus had stopped in front of to reveal the smallest of
the bedrooms. It contained only a single bed, dresser and chair, with a couple
of pine shelves on the wall; there was no space for anything else. The colour
scheme was of sunny yellows and gentle blues; nothing matched, but everything
fitted together effortlessly. What really made an impression on Ochre was the
scent, of fresh linen and a lingering aroma of unidentifiable pot pourri; it
felt like coming home.
“He’s
your lad, isn’t he?”
Ochre
nodded, pulling back the covers; no sense in denying it.
Between
them they took off Ricky’s outer clothing, laid him down and tucked him in.
“You’re
not going to ask?” Ochre began. “I mean if I was in your position I’d have a
whole heap of questions … why I never said anything before, who his mom is, how
this happened.”
“I
know how it happened.” Seamus raised an eyebrow. “Unless they totally changed
the method in the last thirty odd years.”
Ochre
didn’t especially want that mental image, so considered it best to derail that
train of thought.
“Aren’t
you curious about where Ricky’s mom is?”
Seamus
pondered that point for a moment, then said simply;
“Well,
if you were in my position, then you’d know that I’d tell you everything that
needed telling when the time was right. I’m quite happy to wait until whenever
you want to talk.”
With
that Seamus went back downstairs.
Ochre
had always had ambitions which, achieved or otherwise, had given shape to his life.
Since joining Spectrum he had been slightly adrift, so caught up in his new
career that he hadn’t really thought any further than his next furlough, at
best. But here he was with a kid, and he couldn’t think of anything more
permanent and long term than that.
After
a few moments of contemplation, Ochre knew what he was going to do. Once again
he had something to aim for, and an unexpected peace fell over him.
~oo0oo~
Ricky
had the same dream he often did: of seeing his mother again, in a crowd. He would
call out to her but she would never hear him, and keep walking away. So he
would run to catch up with her, but the gap between them would get even wider,
with obstacles in his way.
By
the time he woke he was frantic, drenched in sweat, his throat tight from
yelling in his sleep.
“It
was just a dream,” Ochre said gently. “Your mom would never leave you, not if
she had a choice.”
“But
you did,” Ricky retorted. “You left me and mommy. So you could have your job.”
Those
words cut like a dagger. They both looked at each other, equally unsettled.
“I
know, and, if I could go back, I would do things differently,” Ochre said. Then
he thought of Pat, his life on Cloudbase, the good that Spectrum had done for
the world. Deep down he didn’t regret his choice, just that it had caused so
much pain and hardship. He was sure that made him a terribly selfish person.
“But we can’t change what happened in the past. We just have to try and make
the best of now, and the future.”
“I
don’t want you to be my daddy,” Ricky said, ripping Ochre’s heart in two.
“Well,
it’s a shame you feel that way,” Ochre replied, attempting to be calm and
reasonable, though he had no idea how that was possible. “I hope one day you’ll
change your mind.”
“I
liked it better before, when you weren’t around, when it was just me and Aunt
Ellie, and stuff made sense.”
Ochre
had to admit he had a point, a final knife twist to the gut. A nagging inner voice of doubt made him feel
he should have stayed away, that it was all a mistake. Until now Ochre had been
able to ignore it, but now it came roaring back.
Self-doubt
aside, they had a more immediate problem.
“Is
Mrs Donaghue going to be mad at me?” Ricky bit his lip against the threat of
tears.
“I
shouldn’t think so,” Ochre reassured him, because in all the time he had known
her, he couldn’t recall Marie losing her temper.
He
stripped the bed, bundling up the sodden bed linen in a pile on the floor. He
glanced at Ricky; the little boy’s helplessness made his chest ache. “I can’t
remember where Pat put the clean clothes we picked up for you, you’ll have to
ask him.”
“I
don’t want to,” Ricky said firmly. “Then he’ll know what I did … only babies
wet the bed.”
“You’re
not a baby, it happens to lots of people. Even me, when I was a kid,” Ochre
said gently. “It’s just a reaction to stress and stuff. Anyway, don’t worry
about Pat, he won’t tell. He’s seen me do way more embarrassing things.”
“Like
what?”
Ochre
smiled, realising most of those stories involved booze or women, or some combination
thereof. Really not the best example to be setting.
“I’ll
tell you sometime,” he said, hearing Marie come up the stairs.
Marie
looked over the room, deduced the situation and picked up the bed linen without
a word.
“I’ll
go and run you a bath,” she said, with a smile. “Then you’ll be all freshened
up before lunch.”
Relieved,
Ricky smiled back at her, then followed her to the bathroom on the other side
of the hallway.
“It’s fine, I’ll sort out the bath,”
Ochre insisted. Feeling he should do something proactive in the situation.
After all he was the parent, and supposed to be taking care of his own kid. He
could at least get that part of it right.
Marie
nodded, then headed on downstairs.
~oo0oo~
The
bath taps were shaped like swans, so it was a bit morbid that you had to wring
their necks for the water to come out. Ochre tried not to think about it too
much, as he rooted through the cabinet and storage, trying to find a suitable
bubble bath. Not an easy task, as Caitlin’s bathroom was chockfull of all
manner of ‘girly gunk and junk’. It was
a world apart from his own, which housed one of everything from the limited
list of toiletries a man would require, and had barely enough storage space in
the cramped spartan facilities to store even that. He had no idea how the
Angels managed.
Eventually
he found a large bottle of ‘cleansing foam’ which claimed to be unscented and
designed for sensitive skins. He poured some in and swirled it around. When the
bath was ready, Ricky stripped off and clambered into the water without saying
a word.
“That
not too hot for you?” Ochre asked.
“No,
it’s OK.”
With
that they lapsed back into silence, Ochre feeling every inch of the chasm
between them and wondering how they would ever be able to mend it.
A
few minutes later Seamus came in with a bundle of folded clothes, towels and
bath toys. He placed those on the floor, handed a rubber duck and small plastic
frigate to Ricky, and then gestured for Ochre to step outside with him.
For
a moment Rick hesitated; all the potential dangers which could befall small
children, even in such an innocuous setting looming large in his mind. But then
Seamus must have done that before, and obviously Pat and Cait had survived to
adulthood.
“I
over-estimated my patience.” Seamus admitted, pulling the door ajar behind him.
“So you’ll have to give me a sit-rep now ... that is the right word? That you
boys use at work.”
“Yeah.”
Rick faltered a little, deliberating whether he wanted to tell. To deal with
the fallout of another confession when discussion of his circumstances was the
last thing he wanted to do. But then he looked at Seamus - this kindly father
who was the image of his best friend - and couldn’t imagine anyone better to
talk to.
“Well,
OK, where to begin ... For a couple of years before I joined Spectrum I was in
a relationship, a proper serious grown up relationship, with this amazing
woman. But at the same time I was growing more and more dissatisfied with my
job. I didn’t want to be a career cop, getting shunted into some cushy admin
job, I wanted something that made me feel like I was making a real difference.
So when I got head-hunted by Spectrum, you can guess what happened next ... I
had to end it. To sever all ties with my past to avoid reprisals.”
“Bad
break up?” Seamus sympathised.
“Doesn’t
even begin to cover it … I swear I didn’t know she was pregnant at the time.
Not until three years later; she was shot dead, outside the school she worked
at. So I went to the funeral, to make my peace, I guess. Then I saw her sister
there with this kid, with Ricky. Doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.”
“And
now here you are.”
“Yeah;
that’s your kid’s fault. He watches too many of those sappy ‘Christmas miracle
gift’ shows - y’know? - with the family reunions and sick kids going to Lapland
and stuff. So, he got it into his head that it would be a good idea to go down
to Chicago and met the kid. I was all for keeping the status quo, not messing
with the kid’s head until he was old enough to make a choice. But then hearing
about him from Pat made it hard to stay that way, and then, when his aunt got
injured and he needed someone to care for him. I just couldn’t turn away. I
don’t know if it was the right thing to do, but we’re in this situation now, so
we have to see it through.”
“And
he knows about you being his father?”
“Yeah,
I told him. Just before we got here. He’s not taking it too well.”
“Oh,
I don’t know. He’s holding up better than I did when I found out what my son
was.”
Ochre
frowned; “You’ve always known the kind of man Pat is. We both just lost sight
of that for a while.”
“And
I’m sure Ricky will understand and come around to accepting you, once he’s got
to know you.”
“I
keep wanting to talk to my dad,” Rick admitted. “Apologise for all the crap I
gave him and mom over the years. Ask him how the hell I do this, and when it
stops being so scary.”
“Would
it make you feel better if I admitted that even after thirty odd years’
practice, I haven’t a clue what those answers would be?”
“Nah,
think I’d rather keep muddling along and deluding myself that it’ll get
better.”
“It
does … every now and then, in some small way, they do something wonderful. And
you know that you wouldn’t trade it for anything.” Seamus pondered that. “I
think it’s an evolutionary thing, to put you off eating them or something,” he
added, pleased to see the amusement flare up in Ochre’s dark eyes.
~oo0oo~
Lunch
was perfect, the great variety of food prepared to perfection. Initially, Rick
had been concerned that having three extra mouths to feed would stretch the
portions too thinly, but as Pat had rightly predicted, there were still
leftovers. After they had eaten, Caitlin went off to take a call from someone
named Riley; the mere mention of the name illuminated her like the twinkling
lights on the Christmas tree. Seamus and Marie returned to their respective
chairs with the comfortable routine born of a long, happy marriage, and settled
down to watch a movie with Ricky. Ochre felt such gratitude that the child, who
had lost so much in his short life, was being welcomed so easily into the
family.
For
his part, Ochre insisted on clearing up after lunch, but by the time he got to
the kitchen Caitlin had already set to it. Her cell phone seemingly welded to
her ear to transmit her half of a sales pitch.
“Ugh, tell me about it!” She rolled her
eyes theatrically. “We both know memoirs are hot, and gangsters are going to be
even hotter … yeah, I know, goddamn gold mine! But he won’t bite …”
So
Rick used his initiative, found a towel and began to dry up. Then he remembered
Caitlin worked in publishing. They do say everyone has a novel in them, and it
seemed she was making great efforts to prise that from her brother.
Magenta
came to stand in the doorway, clearly intent on saying something. Then he
entered the kitchen and took over Caitlin’s task. So she left and went
upstairs, still talking away.
“What’s
up?” Rick asked, initiating the conversation.
“Grainne’s
broken up with me.” Pat continued to wash a serving dish, aware of his friend’s
intense stare. “… Why are you looking
at me like you’re expecting me to have a nervous breakdown any minute now?”
Rick
shook his head gently.
“And
you’re OK?” he asked. “Properly OK with that? It being over?”
“Yeah.”
Pat shrugged. “It’s kinda disappointing, after all these weeks, but no I’m not
heart-broken or anything.”
“Good,
I’d hate for you to be sad.”
Pat
briefly rested a hand on his shoulder, then returned to washing the dishes.
“I
would have given you the satisfaction of figuring it out for yourself,” Pat
said, propping up a saucepan on the draining board. “But Green already knows;
he overheard her telling Flaxen about it, so, when I called in he gave his
commiserations and did the supportive friend thing … all things considered I
thought it would be better for you to hear it from me first, rather than him.”
Rick
looked away, all the comments and subtle hints of the problems in his best
friend’s relationship coming into focus like a slideshow. He should have been
there, done something, but he’d been so engrossed in his own crisis.
“I
should have seen it coming really,” Pat said. “You meet a nice girl, you like
her, she likes you, you get together, things are peachy, then it goes sour, you
have some fights and it’s over. That’s the way it always goes.”
“Why
did you fight anyway, what was she so mad about?”
“Whole
lot of complicated things. Like, apparently, I’m too obsessed with work.”
“But
you’ve always been ‘obsessed’ with work.” Rick frowned. “It’s not like she
never knew what she was letting herself in for on that score.”
“I
know.” Pat shrugged. “But sometimes women don’t love who you really are. They
love who they think you could be, if you had the love of a good woman.”
Rick
couldn’t help thinking he’d had that once, in Alie. She hadn’t just been
wonderful in herself, but that goodness seemed contagious. When they were
together he was sure he’d been kinder, happier, more interested and
interesting, and he’d felt that he could achieve so much because someone
believed in him.
He
often wondered what kind of a person he’d have become if he’d stayed.
Pat
levelled a familiar look of amusement, mingled with faint curiosity, at his
friend.
“Isn’t
this the point where you start beating yourself up for not seeing it coming?
About how it would never have happened if you’d done X, Y, Z? Because you,
Richard Fraser, have to carry the burden of the universe on your shoulders.”
“No
I don’t. I wasn’t thinking that,” Rick insisted, although he felt himself
colouring under Pat’s knowing gaze.
“Yes,
you do, and yes you were,” Pat said with equal conviction. “Anyway, in this
case, you’d be partly right. Because instead of getting leave and bringing her
to meet my parents, like we’d planned. I ended up here anyway backing up my
field partner.” He shrugged. “So, congratulations, you killed my love life.”
“You
can’t lay that on me!” Rick retorted. “There was no way I knew how it was going
to turn out. It’s not like I made you do all that stuff to help me.”
“I
know, but … I wanted to.”
“You
said you couldn’t get leave,” Rick began, after a few moments’ silence. “But
you did … then cancelled it.”
“It
didn’t seem right to go off and play happy families when you were having a
crisis with yours.”
“You
didn’t need to do that. I can take care of myself.”
“You’re
welcome, Rick.” Pat rolled his eyes. “Any time.”
“Yeah,
well, you don’t have to carry the
burden of the universe on your shoulders either, Patrick Murphy Donaghue.”
It
made Rick smile, to let that name trip off the tongue. And, for someone who
claimed to loathe his middle name, Pat didn’t seem bothered by it.
“Whatever,
it’s done,” Pat stated. “So now we have to just get on with our lives.”
Rick
stepped forward, intent on hugging him, then stopped short, embarrassed.
“I
don’t deserve a friend like you,” he said.
“Damn
right,” Magenta concurred.
“So
why’d you do it?”
Pat
stepped back, and looked Rick in the eye with an incredulous expression.
“What
the hell did you think I was going to do?” he began. “We’re partners, stuck
with each other, potentially for the rest of our working lives, unless I get
fired, or put out a hit on you or something. But, y’know, spending the rest of
my days in De Witts doesn’t exactly sound a thrilling prospect … anyway, that’s
not the point. Even considering your ...”
“Tendency
to be an asshole?”
“I
was going to say ‘foibles’, but, yeah, it’s the same difference. Anyway, you’re
a good and loyal friend, and those aren’t exactly a dime-a-dozen. We’ve been
through a lot in the last few years. It’d be stupid to throw that away. I mean
you’ve never put a woman before me, so why would I do that to you?”
“But
you love her, and I’m not going to let you ruin a perfectly good relationship
on my account.”
“If
it was that great we wouldn’t be in this situation. She’d have understood and
let me go.”
“Yeah,
but this is just because of what’s going on with Ricky. It’s a temporary thing.
It doesn’t change how you feel about her. It’s a different kind of
relationship; friends and girlfriends.”
“I
know that, it’s just that she can’t get her head around it. To be honest, I
think sometimes she’s a bit jealous of you, that we spend so much time
together, I mean, and have all these insider jokes and whatever.”
“No
girl I’ve dated has complained.”
“You
never let them get close enough, always keep it light and casual, then no one
gets hurt, right? They know they’ll never be the most important thing in your
life, so didn’t expect it, and don’t get so bent out of shape realising you
have other priorities.”
“You
have to call her.” Rick strode across the kitchen to the phone. “To sort this
out.”
“It’s
never going to get sorted,” Pat said, almost as if talking to Ricky. “Not
unless she totally changes her attitude to my job, or I cut down on that and
put her above everything all the time. Neither of which are likely scenarios.
Maybe there’s something wrong with me, that I actually have some character flaw
and am incapable of relationships.”
“That’s
total crap; I can’t believe you’re just giving up.”
“I’m
tired of fighting with her, and she deserves someone who can give her
everything she needs. If you love someone, let them go.” Pat took the telephone
receiver from him, and put it back in the cradle. “Maybe we should just forget
about women and hook up with each other?” he suggested, more than a little
flippant. “I mean we are practically married anyway.”
Rick’s
eyes widened in surprise and a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth as he
said, innocently, “I thought that sort of thing was against your religion?”
“So’s
stealing.” Pat shrugged.
Rick
considered it for a moment.
“You’d
make a terrible wife.” He smirked. “What with you being so obsessed with work.”
At
that Pat gave a hearty laugh. “Only you
would tell such an inappropriate joke, at such an inappropriate time.”
“But
that’s why you love me, right?”
~oo0oo~
He’d
never admit it, because that would be insensitive even by his standards, but Ochre
was quite relieved that Magenta had a drama of his own to deflect attention
from him and Ricky.
“We
heard about you and Grainne,” Marie said gently, with concern for her son.
“Really? You must have been eavesdropping outside the
door then.”
“Don’t
talk to your mom like that,” Rick told him firmly, out of new-found parental
solidarity. “She’s only trying to be kind.”
“If
you must know,” Marie began, unfazed. “I called her. To say ‘Happy Christmas’
and invite her to visit another time. Then she told me what had happened … such
a shame.”
“Right.”
Pat nodded. “Sorry.”
“I
always thought she wasn’t right for you,” Seamus said, from behind the
freshly-minted hardback crime novel he was reading, which was, no doubt, a
Christmas gift from Caitlin.
“Really?”
Pat said. “Well you sure picked your moment to say so. It would have been good
to have been told before now.”
“Too
high maintenance,” Seamus continued. “Bit clingy too, over-eager to settle
down. Honestly, what’s the rush?”
“Interesting,”
Pat said. “I got the impression you wanted me to settle down. Seeing as we’re
not getting any younger.”
“Maybe
so, but you don’t have to settle with the first girl who makes the moves on
you. If I’d have done that you wouldn’t even exist; so there.”
Marie
seemed to flinch at that reference to his past, but made no comment.
“What’s
meant to be will find a way,” she did say, with conviction.
“What
if I’m meant to be alone?” Pat said, so quietly that only Rick, who sat beside
him on the couch, heard.
“You’ll
never be alone,” Rick insisted. “You’ve got your family, friends, and me; and
you’re stuck with me.” He smiled. “We can be alone together ... OK, that
sounded less weird in my head.” He gave
an embarrassed grin at the Donaghues.
“Compared
to what else is in there, it probably was.” Pat’s mood lifted.
Thankfully,
Ricky seemed to be oblivious to the crisis.
“Rick,
look!” He beamed. “There’s this really cool plane on TV.”
It
took a moment for Rick to realise he was being addressed; no matter how
irrational a reaction he knew it to be, a part of him stung a little that Ricky
knew the truth, but wouldn’t acknowledge it by calling him ‘Dad’.
“Yeah,
it is,” he agreed. “I’ve got a model of it.”
“I
know, I sawed it.”
“I’m
going to get a drink. Do you want anything?” Rick asked.
“Can
I have some cola, please?”
“Uh,
does Aunt Ellie let you have pop?” he said, in response to Ricky’s request.
“That
doesn’t matter,” Ricky said earnestly. “She’s not here. You’re looking after me.
So you can make up the rules and let me have pop, if you want to.”
Marie
shook her head, but Rick had already made up his mind. If this was what it took
to make Ricky happy and put him in his son’s good books then so be it.
“Just
a bit then,” Rick conceded. “As it’s a special occasion.”
Rick
kept glancing over at Pat, a subconscious gesture, to check how his partner was
bearing up, but Pat seemed to be in good spirits, involved in a heated debate
with his father about some obscure fact in the distant history of Irish sport.
So, Rick focused his attention on Ricky, who was never one to pass up having a
captive audience.
“Oh,
don’t you look sweet together.” Marie smiled, with a hint of wistful nostalgia.
“We should have a picture.”
Rick
hated getting his photograph taken. Growing up he had had crooked teeth, and
his parents had never been able to afford an orthodontist. So, in every
pre-Spectrum photo he emanated a sense of being ill at ease, which went beyond
his self-conscious half-smile. Then, when he was recruited to Spectrum, there
was a whole team who had endeavoured to alter his appearance, and they had
given him a smile fit for a movie star, yet the awkwardness remained.
He
was about to protest; but by then Marie had found the digital camera, and was
fiddling around with it, insisting the fault was with the machine and it had
been fine earlier. And Ricky, who it seemed hadn’t inherited any inhibitions,
settled himself to sit comfortably on Rick’s lap.
“Yeah,
guess that would be good,” Rick said, resigning himself to it. “We haven’t had
our picture taken together yet.”
“Did it take?” Marie demanded. “I mean the
flash went, but, oh, I don’t know … I thought you said this would be easier to
use? I couldn’t see what was wrong the
old one myself. It’s like you just get sorted with using one thing, then they
bring out one with new doo-dahs to confuse you all over again …”
Well,
that explained why Pat had such unwavering patience when it came to teaching to
his colleagues how to use new technology.
Rick
noticed a photo album lying open at the foot of Marie’s chair. He glanced down
at it, and one particular image caught his eye. It was of a man in his late
twenties, stood posed in the small front yard of a terrace house, a bedraggled
hydrangea at his left knee, and a sash window glinting in the sun to his right.
He cradled a bundle of lemon, woollen blanket, as if it were the most precious
thing in the world, and seemed in mid-speech, responding with amusement to what
someone outside the frame had said.
The
caption helpfully said; Welcome Home.
With no further hint as to the where or when, or who the man was. At first glance he was sure it was Pat; but
more careful study revealed the man’s facial features to be slightly different,
and the clothing was of an outdated style.
“Oh,
here we go.” Marie handed Rick the camera. “I got the viewer thingy to work.”
He
had to admit it was a pretty good picture.
Then
he realised the photo in the album was indeed of Pat; though all you could
really see of him was a tuft of black hair, poking out of the blanket, and tiny
fist gripping the man’s fourth finger.
So
the man was Seamus; had to be.
Our first father-son
portrait.
Rick
looked between the two images, and noticed they had the same expressions.
~oo0oo~
Something
had got into him, a proverbial bee in the bonnet; it didn’t take years of
working together to notice the signs. Magenta knew it was best to just let
Ochre be, for the whole thing to run its course; but he stuck around, out of morbid
curiosity as to what would come of this. Knowing it would take a while, he
stretched out on the couch in the den, mindlessly flicking through the TV
channels, until he came to a scantily-clad woman karate-kicking at a zombie.
Rick
paced the floor, deep in one-sided conversation.
“I
have to go back to Chicago,” Rick stated, hanging up his cell phone.
“And
what would this epic pilgrimage be in aid of?”
“To
prove I’m not dead.” Rick glared at the phone, as if it was at fault for
relaying the bad news. “When I moved to Chicago, I took my parents’ stuff, the
things I’d inherited, with me.” Rick slumped down on the couch, where Pat had
had the foresight to make space for him. “I just put it all in a storage place
and pretty much forgot about it. But, of course, now I go to get it I can’t,
because the storage company have got on their records that Richard Fraser is
deceased. So they won’t give my stuff
back to me.”
“You
do realise I know people, who know people, who could get in there and retrieve whatever
you asked for, without leaving a fingerprint?”
Rick
glared.
“Just,
you know.” Pat shrugged. “Putting that out there.”
“Apparently
they have to talk to my next of kin or something. I mean, do you even have a
next of kin?”
Pat
frowned; “presumably, but I have no idea who that’d be. Considering your
parents have died, and nobody’s been insane enough to marry you.”
“People
in glass houses, Paddy …” Rick extended his arm to make a grab for the remote;
then another woman, wearing an even shorter dress, appeared on TV, so he
decided not to bother changing the channel.
“I
always just figured Spectrum would take care of that stuff when I finally do
snuff it,” Rick added. “I mean I’ll be dead, it’s all the freaking same to me …
It won’t be the kid though, right? Even if they did know about him, he’s too
little to deal with it all.”
Pat
nodded, and gave the ominous signs of having an idea.
He
turned off the TV, picked up his own cell phone, tapped a few buttons, then
dialled the same number Rick had.
“Good
afternoon,” he said with smooth, effortless, self-assurance. “My name is
Patrick St.Thomas. I’m calling on behalf of Richard Fraser Junior, in an effort
to retrieve his father’s personal effects ...”
“Saint Thomas is the patron of lawyers,” Pat said, by way of
explanation, once he had hung up. “Mam was right, all those years of Sunday
school have done me the world of good … what?”
“You have no idea how many laws and codes of conduct you’ve
just broken,” Rick said.
“Oh, do tell.” Pat grinned. “It’ll make me all warm inside.”
“I’m not gonna give you the satisfaction.”
“See, you know what I love about almost everyone thinking
you’re dead?” Pat teased. “At times like this, when you are powerless to stop me
from doing things for your own good … You should really quit complaining
though, as I’ve got your stuff back.”
“Not quite, I want to see it with my own eyes first.” Rick
frowned. “What exactly did you agree to anyway, something about expenses?”
“There’s some back-payments on the storage space. It’s very
reasonable; I’m impressed you got such a good deal.”
“It’s the Scottish in me, tight as two coats of paint.”
“Well,
anyway, I’ll wire them the money once we’ve got everything out, and then you’ll
never have to deal with them again.”
“From
your account?”
“Well,
it can’t be yours; they don’t think you exist. Way more trouble than it’s worth
to explain that one. Anyway I got an account registered as ‘St.Thomas, attorney
in law’, or something like that.”
“Leftover
from your syndicate days, no doubt. I am not paying my debts with mob money!”
“It’s
not mob money, it’d be mine. From the freelance computer stuff I’ve been doing,
those government commissions and whatever. It’s all legit; I’m just going to
put it through the lawyer account so it’ll tie up with our story and look
kosher. We don’t want anyone getting suspicious.”
“Yeah,
well if you come unstuck don’t come crying to me.” Rick remained disgruntled.
“They had a spate of that kinda thing in New Jersey. Mobs stealing stuff from
storage facilities; same method you’re using.” He gave a slight smile. “Without
paying for the privilege.”
“Oh,
I don’t mind.” And it was true; Pat was euphoric, yet focused, in the way he
usually was when embarking on a new project. “Keeps me in the game, in a
roundabout way. Have to keep my skills all limbered up, because you just never
know what tomorrow will bring.”
“But
you wouldn’t go back?” Rick asked. “To the Syndicate stuff, not for real?”
He
needed to know. Not for some world security related reason, but his own peace
of mind. There had been times when Pat had been suspected of illegal
activities, and Rick had instantly defended him. But how could he be so sure?
They basically only had a glorified ‘scouts’ honour’ that he wouldn’t revert.
The appeal must still be there; the money, the desirable rebelliousness, that
it was a freer and more luxurious lifestyle than Spectrum offered.
And
what if he did? What would Rick do? Could he really put aside their years of
friendship; go back to cop and mobster? Things seemed so much simpler then, no
complications and dilemmas of long-standing principles against hard-won
partnership.
“No,”
Pat said with simple, solid conviction. “I mean, maybe sometimes I do miss the
perks of the Syndicate. But that was a lifetime ago. Now I have my family’s
respect, can make a positive difference in the world, and just feel settled, I
guess.” He looked Rick in the eye,
rested a hand on his. “So, no, I’m not going to bail on you.”
“Anyway, it’s funny you should mention New
Jersey,” Pat began after a moment,
unconsciously slipping into his particular ‘story time with Uncle Pat’
voice, which meant Rick never knew for sure if it was genuine anecdote or just
plain blarney. “I knew the guy who kicked off that whole craze. It was about
the only good idea he ever had. You wouldn’t believe what people keep in those
places, antiques and stuff …”
A
part of Rick felt it was so bizarre and unsettling to hear organised crime
discussed like it was a bake sale or something. But he couldn’t imagine any
better way to phrase it.
“Then
what happened?” he prompted, because a story teller is only as good as their
audience.
“Anyway,
he got too greedy, mistimed the biggest operation, and got two in the back from
the cops for his trouble. So there’s your almost instant karma.”
“I
don’t remember that being in the news.”
“Well
it was a covert operation,” Pat explained. “And the cops never admitted to
killing anyone, if they could help it; PR nightmare. As you know all too well.”
“I
never killed anyone on the job,” Rick said. “Shot them, but not dead. Not until
I joined Spectrum, obviously.”
“Y’know,
neither did I. Trade one commandment in for another.” Pat sighed. “I miss being
Ricky’s age. When it was so clear who the heroes and villains were, and that
the good guys would always win.”
~oo0oo~
“You’re
going already?” Marie watched them pack up their things the next day.
“Unfortunately,
yes,” Pat said. “We’ve only got another 48 hours’ leave, and have a lot of stuff
we need to do in that time. So it’ll have to be a flying visit; but we’ll be
back in the New Year.”
Marie
hugged him tight.
“We
never see enough of you,” she said. “You hardly ever get time off, and then,
when you do it’s only a few days at most. We miss you.”
“I
know; I miss you too.”
“You’re
just saying that. Once you get back at work you’ll be so stuck into messing
about with them computers you’ll not give anything else a second thought. And
don’t you go arguing, I’m your mother, I know these things.”
“Yeah.”
Pat rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “How about this time I don’t promise to
call more often, because I never end up following it through?”
“Good
idea, it would be nice if you did though. With everything you get up to and we
see on the news, I do worry about you, so it’s good to know you’re all right.
Even though I have to keep getting told so by Rick.”
“He
gave you his number?”
“Yes,
we end up talking sometimes when you’re too busy doing whatever you’re up to,”
Marie said, as if this was obvious. “You don’t know what it’s like; sitting
watching the news and thinking the worst. I know we have to call Spectrum
Dublin for that, but it’s not the same ... but other times it’s nice just to
chat; he’s a lovely lad.”
Pat
didn’t suppose there were many people in the world who would refer to Ochre in
such terms, but then it was understandable that Marie would. Anyone of her
son’s generation seemed impossibly young to her.
But
seriously, since when had Rick been a beacon of empathy and consideration? It
made Pat feel a bit put out, to have all this going on without his knowledge.
The implication being that he was insensitive and unaware of his parents’
feelings, they were his parents after all.
That
was probably it.
Now,
knowing Ochre had a son, they’d probably thought he did have some extra
understanding, being in their position, to a certain extent. And that made Pat
feel even more out in the cold, to see this alliance form a basis he doubted
he’d ever relate to.
“Pat,
look at my new shirt.” Ricky stopped in front of him, chest puffed out with
pride, ready to be admired.
Last
time he had seen it, the t-shirt was plain navy blue; but it now sported a
simple motif of an airplane appliquéd to the front, and a R in the bottom
right-hand corner, no doubt made from off-cuts of fabric from his mother’s
‘it’ll-come-in-useful-one-day’ box of sewing supplies.
“It
looks great.” Pat smiled.
“Fae
made it for me,” Ricky added.
From
the moment they’d met, Ricky had fallen hard and fast into an infatuation with Fae
Donaghue. It was an affection happily reciprocated, because having heard of her
uncle’s latest heartbreak, Fae suspected Ricky might be the closest thing she
would get to the little cousins she hoped for, so she’d decided not to pass on
the chance.
She
came down the stairs, humming an old country song Pat vaguely recognised.
“Hey,
kid,” she said, making the impersonal term affectionate. “When’s your
birthday?”
“February
26th,” Ricky answered. “I was supposed to be born on my daddy’s birthday,
but it would be silly us having the same name and birthday too.”
“That
makes good sense.” Fae nodded. “Well, I can sure make you another shirt for
then, and if any of your friends want one, then holler; it’d be fun to get some
more orders.”
“That’s
all well and good, but you shouldn’t let it interfere with your schoolwork,”
Marie stated.
“It
won’t,” Fae said dismissively. “I’m doing website design in college, so I might
even end up combining the two, do it as a business.” She grinned at Ricky. “Seriously,
we’re going places, me and you, I can tell.”
“I
wanna go to New York City,” Ricky said.
“You
all set?” Ochre asked, having made his goodbyes.
Ricky
nodded, took his hand and trotted out to the car.
“Hey,
Ricky,” Fae called after him.
He
turned round, curious.
“Meet
me under the clock at Grand Central Station, at noon on your birthday. And
we’ll go dancing.”
“There,
that was painless, wasn’t it?” Magenta asked gleefully, clambering into the
passenger side of the van they had rented for the day, once they had loaded the
last of Ochre’s possessions from the warehouse into the back. “So, are we all
set for our road trip?”
“Anyone
ever tell you that you’re incorrigible?” Ochre said.
“It’s
my middle name.”
“Am
I incorrigible?” Ricky, perched between them on the bench seat of the cab,
asked.
“You
might end up that way, if you stick with us.” Ochre turned the ignition key.
Deciding
that was a good thing, Ricky sat back ready to enjoy the ride. Now that he was
settled into it he was greatly enjoying his time with the captains. It seemed
like every day was a new adventure.
As
they drove Ricky fiddled with the radio, eventually found a station playing The
Beatles, and Ochre was very proud to note he was singing along word-perfect.
“Aunt
Ellie likes the Beatles,” Ricky said. “And they’re from England, like she is. I
like them too of course; they’re the best band ever.”
“Good
for you.” Ochre knew it was horribly shallow, but he’d have been a bit
disappointed to have fathered a kid whose great musical influences were from
some kiddie TV show, or manufactured bands who thought strumming the heck out
of three chords qualified as ‘playing your own instruments’.
“What
about U2?” Magenta felt compelled to champion his homeland. “They were very
talented, and influential too for more contemporary bands.”
So
they passed a pleasant time discussing the relative merits of various twentieth
century bands, including an impromptu duet of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, during which
the captains realised they didn’t know many of the words after all.
Until
Lieutenant Green called.
Magenta
took the call, and Ochre could tell from his expression and responses it wasn’t
good news.
“Another
threat?”
“Yeah.”
Magenta took the road atlas from the glove compartment. “A high ranking member
of the Universal Secret Service. But on the bright side, he’s in Chicago right
now. I did say we were in the neighbourhood and would be there ASAP.”
With
that Ochre pulled into a side road, and turned the van around in a breathless
three point turn.
“Cool!
Can you do that again?” Ricky beamed. “And, and drive really fast, like the
cops on TV.”
The
look of utter innocent trust and adoration Ricky gave his father made a lump
rise in Magenta’s throat; but, he realised, that could equally have been his
own reflexive reaction to Ochre’s driving.
Ochre
had to admit, unprofessional as it was, that one of his favourite things about
his job was that it gave a certain license to drive really fast. It fulfilled
some innate boyish lust; manifest ever since he and his father had lovingly
restored the vintage Harley Davidson, which his mother had insisted would be
the death of him. Then in the police corps, he had taken every available
training course to learn methods of driving safely at speed (which reminded
him, he needed to sort out with Colonel White about organising a refresher
course). He really couldn’t understand why his partner would get so
melodramatic about it. He’d never crashed a vehicle, Spectrum or otherwise;
which was more than could be said for some people, and you never heard a peep
from Pat when they were behind the wheel.
Of
course, it would be better driving in a saloon, with its greater speed and
manoeuvrability, but this would do.
“You
need a siren or something,” Ricky decided. Between Ochre’s driving and becoming
aware of the threat Magenta had almost forgotten he was there. “So that people
will get out of the way ... but then, they don’t have them in ‘Captain
Starlight’. Do the regular Spectrum cars have sirens?”
“I
don’t think so,” Magenta answered. “I guess people just see us coming and know
to keep clear.”
“Especially
if they’ve seen Scarlet drive.” Ochre grinned.
‘Oh
yeah, you’re really one to talk,’ Magenta
thought traitorously, but kept it to himself. Now wasn’t the time; there was no
sense upsetting Ricky, and whatever their differences the captains were both
capable of putting them aside to work as a team. There would be ample chance
later to take any issues up with his partner in private.
“Is
Paul going to be there then?” Ricky asked hopefully. During his stay on
Cloudbase he had become quite taken with the English captain; and for his part
Scarlet had tolerated the boy’s barrage of questions and running commentary.
Magenta
nodded; “Cloudbase is pretty much right over the city, and obviously being on
base they heard the good news first. So Scarlet is already on the scene, with
nothing to report so far.”
“Good,”
Ochre replied. “I mean, don’t you just hate it when they get the party started
without us?”
~oo0oo~
“Och,
I know this will be a vicious insult to your masculinity,” Magenta began,
catching his breath when they stopped at a junction. “But you do know the way,
right?”
“Yes,
dear,” came Ochre’s unruffled answer, as they turned right. “Though would you
like me to stop and ask for directions anyway, to ‘that huge building three
blocks away with the massive sign outside’?”
“Uh no, I think you got it … it’s just I
recognise this part of town, but I don’t recall seeing a USS building round
here.”
“We’re
making a slight detour” Ochre pulled into the parking lot of North Western
Memorial Hospital. “Somebody’s gotta watch the kid.”
“I
don’t want to go,” Ricky stated firmly, his tone and expression, oh, so
familiar.
‘Oh,
no, you don’t’, Magenta thought. ‘I didn’t give up the running biggest
syndicate in New York to end up getting shown up by a little kid throwing a
hissy fit.’
He’d
sure picked his moment too; right when time was of the essence and they needed
to keep it together.
“Is
there a problem?” Ochre asked, returning from having retrieved Ricky’s rucksack
from the back of the van.
“Pat
won’t let me stay here with you.” Ricky made that sound the height of
unreasonable. “He says Aunt Ellie has to watch me, but that’s no fun.”
“I
know that’s very disappointing ...” Ochre empathised, crouching down to his
level.
“But
why can’t I stay? I want to help. It’ll be like on ‘Captain Starlight’. I watch
that. I know what to do.”
“Yeah,
I know, Baby, but thing is …”
“I
am not a baby,” Ricky insisted indignantly.
“Of
course not.” Ochre smiled. “But you’re my baby. I don’t want you to get hurt,
like Ellie did, which is what might happen if you stick around.”
“It
might not.”
“True,
but that’s not a risk we can take. You wouldn’t believe the trouble I’d be in
if I didn’t get you back home safe and sound.”
“I
wanna help.”
“Sure
you do, and that’s great, and when you’ve got through school and done the
training you can be a captain too.”
“But
that’s forever away,” Ricky complained. “I don’t get to do anything, it’s not
fair.”
“Well,
maybe we can find something,” Ochre ad-libbed. “But it’d be a top secret
mission, you can’t tell anyone ...”
Intrigued
by this, Ricky accepted Ochre’s proffered hand, and they walked together into
the building.
“How
did you manage that, getting him to come along quietly?” Magenta demanded. Not that ‘quietly’ was a word generally
associated with either Ricky or Ochre. “Though I imagine it has something to do
with you two operating at about the same level of maturity.”
“If
you insist.” Ochre got back into the driving seat. “And now it’s time to what
we do every week, Pinkie … try to save the world.”
~oo0oo~
They
pulled up at a road block manned by two men in WGPC uniforms, with expressions
which reminded Magenta of Dorothy’s when she touched down in Oz.
“Don’t
pick on them,” he said, as the blond one noticed the van and strode over,
gesturing for them to wind down the window. “This might be their first big
assignment, you’ll probably traumatise them.”
As
it was, any insult and patronisation was unlikely to break though the cops’
inflated sense of their own importance.
“No
unauthorised vehicles,” the blond cop told them. “You’ll have to follow the
diversions. They are very clearly
sign-posted.”
Ochre
took out his Spectrum ID and showed it to them.
Blondie
scrutinised the ID; looking between it, Ochre, and the van. While Magenta
offered up his own ID for inspection by the other cop.
“Hmm,
looks legit,” was the collective verdict.
“That’s
because it is,” Magenta interrupted, managing not to sound as irritable or
patronising as he felt like being.
“But
you’re not in uniform,” Blondie’s sidekick noted. “Or a Spectrum vehicle.”
“We
know,” Ochre put in, cutting off any potential sarcasm from his partner. “We’ve
been off duty in the city, but we’re here now, and would very much like to get
on and do our jobs.”
“Well,
we have to do ours too.” Blondie was starting to get snippy. “And we can’t just
let anyone though.”
“But
we’re shown our ID and our uniforms are in the back, what the hell more can we
do?”
Ochre
gave his partner a firm glare, as if to say ‘just let me handle this’.
“Look,
Officer,” Ochre began, with a winning smile. “I completely understand what you
mean; I used to be in the Corps myself. But the thing is …”
Grateful
to see a familiar flash of colour in the distance, Magenta turned away from the
window and grinned at the cops.
“See,
there’s another Spectrum officer already here, he’ll vouch for us.”
Blondie
was about to protest, but by then Magenta had got out of the van and was
sprinting toward the barrier.
‘Oh
great, it’s so reassuring to know efficiency has greatly improved in my
absence,’ Ochre thought with a grin, as neither policeman managed to prevent
Magenta from getting past the barrier - not that they even tried much, to be
honest.
“I
do apologise for my partner,” he said, hoping there was at least an iota of
sincerity in his tone. “What can I say; he, uh, has some issues with
authority.”
After
a few minutes an exuberant Magenta reappeared, with a considerably less than
high-spirited Scarlet in tow.
“This
had better be important,” Scarlet told Blondie, leading his colleagues to
believe this was not their first ‘difference of opinion’.
“We,
uh, just wanted to be sure, that they are who they say they are.” Blondie
faltered slightly under scrutiny. “After all, they don’t exactly look the
part.”
“You’ve
never heard of undercover work?” Scarlet raised an eyebrow.
“Obviously
… but I mean, this is a restricted area, you can’t be too careful.”
“Indeed,
and your superiors will be duly informed of your vigilance,” Scarlet replied
pointedly. “Now, if you would be so kind as to let my colleagues past.”
Knowing
he was beaten, Blondie promptly raised the barrier.
“Nice
wheels,” Scarlet said, watching as Ochre parked the van.
“Shut
up,” Magenta hissed. “I’ve just had a fecking near-death experience at the
hands of Richard Earnhardt Fraser and been interrogated by Inspector Clueless, not to mention getting
stuck playing Mary Poppins all weekend. And I seriously need coffee ... I am so
not paid enough for this.”
Scarlet
just about managed to keep from laughing.
“You’re
got Ricky with you?” he asked, suddenly regaining his composure at the
thought.
“Course
not … If we’d have known about the threat in advance we’d have left him with my
folks; but the Mysterons aren’t exactly considerate like that. So we swung by
Western Memorial and dropped Ricky off there; his aunt is out of ICU, so she’ll
keep an eye on him, apparently she was quite happy to.”
Scarlet nodded; “that’s good, I suppose. Now
about the situation …”
“Yeah,
I know I’m not gonna win any parenting awards,” Ochre said defensively, joining
them. “But it’s the best that could be done at short notice.”
“Yes,
it is much appreciated that you could make suitable childcare arrangements,”
Scarlet noted “but that’s really not relevant …”
Scarlet
stopped talking, realising he’d overstepped some previously undrawn line.
“You
were saying?” Ochre glared at him.
“That
we need to focus on the mission”
“You
think I’m a bad parent. For being in a job like this, something so ‘high risk’,
with a kid in tow. That he might get completely orphaned for real … Or do you
just think having a kid will make me soft, that I won’t be dedicated to the job
because I’ve got him to consider?”
Before
Scarlet could form an answer his epaulettes flashed green.
His
anger dissipating, Ochre changed into his uniform, preparing to give this
assignment his complete focus.
~oo0oo~
Ricky
had been dozing on the futon set up for him in the hospital room but he snapped
awake as the door opened.
“Daddy.”
He beamed, running over to hug Ochre.
“I
should call you Daddy, shouldn’t I?” Ricky stopped and looked up at Ochre,
acknowledging his uncertainty. “As you are my dad. And I’ve been doing some
thinking, and I like that … I’d like for you to be my daddy.”
At
that moment Ochre knew he would have laid down his life for his child; his
heart was thumping fit to burst, and he felt light headed with an overpowering
sense of euphoria. He became aware that
his eyes were filling and he fought against the urge to cry. He had never known such an unconditional
feeling of love - of the urge to protect and cherish – in fact his vocabulary
was inadequate to describe that surge of emotion.
“Yeah,
that sounds good to me,” he agreed, holding Ricky close. “But you have to keep
your voice down, we don’t wanna wake Ellie.”
“It’s
OK, with all these meds and being here I’ve not really been sleeping,” Ellie
said. Weariness had settled on her face like a blanket. Ochre watched her
carefully, but couldn’t divine her thoughts on his conversation with Ricky.
“So, I’ve been watching the 24 hour news channel. I saw the report about what
you’ve been up to today. It must be a relief, knowing that guy is safe.”
“Yeah,
it is.”
Ochre
knew Ellie was still a long way from forgiving him, but she seemed to look at
him differently, with a glimmer of new-found respect.
“I’m
sorry about your colleague,” she added. “The one who was injured.”
“Oh,
yeah.” Ochre tried to blot out the memory of Scarlet’s bloodied body at his
feet, wondering how Blue always seemed able to keep it together, and at what point
you got used to it. “It was only a superficial wound though, really. You know
what reporters are like, sensationalising things.”
“Where’s
Pat?” Ricky demanded. “Is he OK?”
“Pat’s
doing great, Bud. He’s just getting us sorted out for a place to stay tonight.”
“Who
got hurt then?”
“Paul
… but honestly he’ll be fine before we know it.”
Ricky
took something from the bedside cabinet, and handed it to Ochre.
“I
made a ‘get well’ card,” he announced. “And now I know who it’s for I can write
his name on it.”
“That’s
real good of you,” Ochre said.
He
knew Scarlet would be in perfect health by the time they saw him next. But, of
course, Ricky wasn’t to know that, and it was a sentiment that always applied.
Even after his countless deaths they all still desperately hoped and waited for
Scarlet to show signs of returning to them, wondering if perhaps this time he
had pushed himself too far to come back.
So
Ochre took the card and formed the letters with dotted pencil lines for Ricky
to trace over, the way he remembered his brother had done for his own
step-children. As he did do, an unanticipated pang of loss cut through him like
a knife.
“I
used to do that, as a kid,” Ochre quietly told Ellie, as they watched Ricky
poke his tongue slightly out of the corner of his mouth, in deep concentration,
as he scribed the letters.
“He’s
probably more like you than you’d think,” Ellie replied. “More than anyone else
would know, without having you around to compare.”
“You
say that like it’s a good thing.”
“It
is,” Ellie said. “Alie always thought so; it gave her a lot of comfort.”
~oo0oo~
Magenta
had booked them into a family suite at a mid-price-range chain of hotels. Which
was fine by Ochre, he just wanted somewhere comfortable to sleep, though
couldn’t help casing the joint and despairing at the lack of security. Then he
berated himself for being so overly paranoid. He watched Ricky running down the
corridor, his artwork trailing from his hand like a flag, and hoped he would be
spared whatever had happened in the last three decades to make Ochre lose that
innocent happiness.
Ricky
stopped at the door, waiting for him.
“Three,
six, two,” he said. “I know my numbers, we learnt them at school, and Aunt
Ellie helps me practise at home.”
“They
make you do homework in kindergarten?” Ochre was appalled. “That’s crazy; you
should be spending your time doing fun stuff.”
“But
I like doing my workbooks.” Ricky frowned. “It’s important to learn stuff, Aunt
Ellie says, then I can get good grades and go to college. I need to do that, so
I can be a cop like you did.”
“Well,
that’s good, but actually I never went to college,” Ochre said, feeling he
should be honest. And what if Ricky didn’t end up furthering his studies, for
whatever reason? He wasn’t going to pass on the disappointment and stigma too.
“School is important, but it’s not the only way to learn what you need in life.
What matters is you do your best, and that you’re happy.”
“You coming in or what?” Magenta said, coming
to stand in the doorway.
“Pat,
did you go to college?” Ricky asked, passing him into the room.
“Yes,
Yale.” Magenta thrust a thick, messy wad of takeout menus at Ochre. “You choose
something. I just picked these up from the foyer rack; but obviously I have no
idea which places are any good. And after looking at so many I don’t even know
what I want to eat any more.”
“Daddy
says I don’t need to go to college,” Ricky added.
“Well,
technically he’s right,” Magenta answered. “But really you should work hard at
school. It wouldn’t hurt to, and then you’ll have more options for the future.”
He
turned back to Ochre; “Brad even gave some unprompted recommendations. I wasn’t
going to ask, I mean, he’s up to his butt in the aftermath of the incident, so
my dilemma seemed a little trivial.”
“There’s
nothing trivial about getting fed,” Ochre insisted, sifting through the
pamphlets as he went inside and sat down on the corner of the bed.
“But
it was dinnertime ages ago,” Ricky noted. “It’s probably nearly bedtime.”
“We
were still working when you had dinner,” Magenta explained. “So we just have
food when we can … Is there anything you’d like to eat?”
“We’re
getting pizza,” Ochre said firmly. “You can’t be in Chicago and not have
authentic Chicago pizza.”
“That’s
pretty much what Brad said,” Magenta admitted. “Though he was considerably more
impassioned about the subject.”
“But
I want spring rolls; can’t I have some instead, please?” Ricky asked.
“Uh,
sure.” Ochre frowned, with amusement. “I have a kid who likes vegetables.”
“Genetics
is a law unto itself.” Magenta shrugged. “I’m guessing, having witnessed your
attempts at cooking, that you know plenty of pizza places and Chinese
take-outs.”
“Sure
do.” Ochre went to the phone, poised to dial the number from memory. “I had a
favourite, when I lived here; they make the best meat feast pizza. So that’s
what I’ll have … what do you want?”
“My
usual.”
“You
don’t have a usual ... unless ‘the most expensive thing on the menu’
counts.”
“I
like to stay in the lifestyle I’ve become accustomed to.” Magenta smiled. “As
far as you can on what Spectrum pay us … I’ll get a seafood one; is theirs any
good?”
“Got
to keep up your good Catholic image,” Ochre teased.
“Actually,
I’d totally forgotten it was Friday.”
“Forgetting
what day it is, poor you, isn’t that an early sign of dementia?” Ochre
commented as he began to dial, and then felt the firm thud of a pillow against
the back of his head. “Hey, you have to be nice to me, or I might accidentally
on purpose forget the garlic cheese bread.”
~oo0oo~
After
making the calls Ochre took a shower in the poky ensuite bathroom, dried off
then redressed in the sweatpants and t-shirt he had packed. It amused him that
Magenta had left the clothes out, folded and waiting for him on the chair, like
a dutiful wife. He’d never been entirely sure if Pat’s random acts of
domestication were a simple expression of friendship, or a passive-aggressive
hint that Ochre needed to shape up and become more domesticated himself.
Probably
both, he reasoned.
He
came out of the bathroom to find Ricky sat on the bed, reading aloud from the
book in his lap, with the impassioned certainty of a priest delivering a
sermon;
“Too
wet to go out, and too cold to play ball. So we sat in the house. We did
nothing at all.” Ricky turned the page. “So all we could do was to sit, sit,
sit, sit ...”
“And
we did not like it. Not one little bit,” Ochre quoted with a smile. “See, it’s
all coming back to me, ‘The Cat In The Hat’, and all those other warm fuzzy
memories of first grade. Before they set homework and I got all jaded ... I
didn’t think you were old enough for first grade though.”
“No,
but I can read at a first grade level.” Ricky beamed. “Even though I’m still in
kindergarten. So at reading time, me and Ashton get to bring in our own books,
because we can read better than the other kids.”
Ochre
felt such a rush of pride, even though that academic ability and discipline
evidentially didn’t come from him. Alie had been a high school English teacher,
and it was inevitable for her to have passed on that love of learning and
literature. Even if they had only got as far as Dr. Seuss.
“You’d
have never known, would you?” Magenta laughed.
“Well,
sorry for not being up to the minute on child development.” Ochre rolled his
eyes. “It’s not like either of us has had vast experience of kids to draw on.
Anyway, they always say kids develop at their own pace, so what’s the point of
all these development charts and stuff anyway?”
Magenta
shrugged, and seemed about to give a more eloquent response, but there was a
knock on the door.
“Our
food, I guess,” he said, going to the door.
~oo0oo~
From
that point they had no further conversation of note, just settling down to eat
and savouring a moment of quiet and easy companionship.
Ricky
had only managed to eat one spring roll, and half of the other, before
weariness had crept up on him. So much that he didn’t make his usual protests
or haggle for extra time during his bedtime routine. Ochre didn’t blame him;
it’d been a long day. He missed having that ability to just crash out so easily
when it all got too much.
Watching
him sleep, curled like a cashew in the child-sized bed, so trusting and
content, wavy hair endearing tousled, Ochre knew exactly what Ellie had meant;
because when he looked at Ricky, he always saw the best of Alie.
So
now the captains were stretched out on either side of the queen size bed. The
sleeping arrangements were a slight lack of foresight on Magenta’s part, he had
to admit, but they’d survived worse things and been in such close quarters
before. That was just the nature of the job, and they were close enough to be
comfortable with it. Magenta liked to think it would be much the same as having
a brother, not that he did, so couldn’t honestly compare. Privately, he had
wanted a brother while growing up, sure it would be better than a sister, but
he’d come to realise that was more about Caitlin than anything.
He’d
expected that Ochre would get all principled and insist he’d sleep on the
couch, and been proved right. Which Magenta couldn’t be bothered to argue over
any more, if Rick wanted an uncomfortable night sleeping scrunched up, then let
him. If you learnt anything from working with Ochre, it was to pick your
battles wisely.
“That
was probably the best pizza I’ve ever had,” Magenta declared. “Outside of Italy
anyway … I should take you there some day, it’s a rich, fascinating culture.
It’d be fun.”
“Your
definition or mine?” Ochre asked sceptically. He could totally get behind
eating good food, but drew a line at modern art museums, hours of
excruciatingly detailed tour guides, watching movies with subtitles, or
whatever else Pat would inevitably somehow convince him to go along with.
“Both,
we can compromise.”
Ochre
scoffed at that, and keen for the mood to stay amicable, Magenta changed the
subject.
“What does your cookie say?”
Ochre
snapped his fortune cookie in half, then extracted the paper strip.
“A
gift from your past will bring great joy,” he read.
“Yeah,
I think that one might be fitting.” Magenta read his. “Mine says; ‘No one can
make you feel inferior without your consent’ … Also true, though maybe less
topical.”
“That’s
a stupid saying anyway, it’s not like you really do ask for people to make you
feel bad.”
“It’s
more that you let it get to you. I mean there will always be people who are
wealthier, more attractive, better educated than you, but …”
“This
isn’t all about me,” Ochre said firmly.
“Y’know,
anyone would think you were making a concerted effort to be obnoxious as hell
and systematically drive all your friends away. You’ve already had a fight with
Brad and snapped at Adam before we left. Then got pissy with Paul today and now
you’re picking a fight with me.”
“I
pick fights with you all the time,” Ochre noted. “It’s quite satisfying really,
in a weird way, fighting with you. You give as good as you get, but don’t take
it personally.”
“I’m
not here as your verbal punch bag.”
Ochre
shrugged; “anyway I didn’t ‘get pissy’ with Paul.”
“Right,
so when we got there and you yelled at him because he said something which you
took personally, something about commitment to the job, was that just my
imagination?”
“He’s
been weird around me too … anyway, it’s all right for him. He can be 120%
committed, doing his superman thing, at the end of the day he doesn’t have to
think about anyone else. Seeing as he’s not going to die, permanently, or
anything.”
“That
is so absurd I have no idea where to start.” Magenta blew out a sigh. “You
should cut him some slack though ... I can imagine how hard it must be for him
to see you with Ricky, when he knows he can’t ever have kids of his own.”
“What,
because of his retrometabolism?”
“Probably;
he and Di have made random comments, and it doesn’t take a genius to join the
dots.”
“I
hadn’t realised,” Ochre admitted.
“Course
not; I guess you’ve been too preoccupied with your persecution complex ... he’s
a good friend and you can use all the ones you’ve got right now.”
“I
know; I’ll apologise when he wakes up ... don’t look at me like that, there’s
no point doing it until then. He won’t hear me.”
Magenta shook his head in affectionate
exasperation.
“Maybe
he has got a point,” Ochre continued, after a moment of contemplation. “I mean,
when I was on the mission. I did keep thinking about the kid, if he was doing
OK. I even ended up asking the USS guy if he has kids. And knowing he did, it
played on my mind thinking what if anything happened to their dad. It got
personal, I let it get personal, and I shouldn’t have.”
“So,
what are you going to do, just switch off your emotions?” Magenta rolled his
eyes. “You’re human, it’s inevitable. How it is for any parent in any job where
you have to care about people. So, no, you’re not losing your edge. If anything
it’s a gain, having that empathy. You want to work harder to make your boy
proud and so those kids can still have their father around.”
Ochre
looked unconvinced.
“See,
this is why you should talk to Paul,” Pat added. “His dad was in the WAAF,
still is actually, I think, so, yeah, that’s a high-risk career. He’s been
there, in Ricky’s place, and ended up pretty well adjusted.”
“I
didn’t think of that.”
“Never
mind, that’s why I’m here. To be the brains of this outfit. While you … you’re
the eye candy, or something.”
Ochre
threw a pillow at his head, prompting a choice insult from Magenta.
“I
am far more than a pretty face, y’know,” Ochre insisted. “And no yelling,
you’ll wake the kid up. Not to mention that’s a terrible example you’re
setting, using such language.”
“You’re
not doing too badly at this parenting thing after all.”
Ochre
took off his sweatpants, and got into the makeshift bed he had made on the
couch.
“You
don’t mind an early start tomorrow, do you?” he asked.
Magenta
stared at his partner, slightly incredulous.
“Wait,
that isn’t a rhetorical question?”
Ochre
rolled his eyes, and shook his head.
“Hmm,
OK.” Magenta shrugged. “It’s all the same to me; what have you got in mind?”
“There’s
something I want to do tomorrow. It’s kinda personal, and, hey, don’t want to
spoil the surprise.”
“OK,
I’ll look forward to it. I guess.”
~oo0oo~
Ochre
had always been a light sleeper, and he’d hated that, but had to admit in this
job it could be an asset.
The
sound gnawed at the edge of his consciousness, compelling him into reluctant
wakefulness. So, he opened his eyes against the grainy darkness. Instinctively,
he searched for Ricky. But the boy was sleeping soundly, the crisp cotton sheet
under his blankets rustling as he rolled over. So Ochre made his way to the bathroom.
“Pat,”
he said, opening the door, squinting against the light.
Then
he stopped short, not knowing what to say. ‘Are you OK?’ … well no, otherwise
he wouldn’t be like this; sitting on the bathroom floor in the middle of the
night, clearly unsettled. Equally ‘it’s OK’ wouldn’t do, for the same reason.
So he settled with ‘what’s wrong?’, though he knew the answer to that already.
Of course it was too good to be true that Magenta seemed to be taking the break
up so well, his usual enthusiasm for getting the job done had been able to keep
his mind occupied.
“I
couldn’t sleep.” Magenta tossed aside the book he had been unable to
concentrate on reading. “But otherwise it’s nothing, I’m fine.”
“Don’t
go there,” Ochre scolded gently, crouching down beside him. “You might be able
to fool the rest of the world, but I know you too well. It’s something of an
occupational hazard ... c’mon, don’t make me start trying to cheer you up by
telling really bad Irishman jokes.”
No
response.
“There’s
this is priest,” Ochre began. “And it’s his first day on the job, so he goes
into the booth thingy ready to hear confession …”
He
delivered the joke and the punch line, and got a faint chuckle in response.
“I
actually hadn’t heard that one before,” Magenta admitted. “You should send it
to my Pa, he collects them.”
“You
miss Grainne?”
“Not
really,” Magenta admitted, standing up, and blowing his nose with a handful of
toilet paper. “We haven’t really been making each other happy for a long time.”
“Oh,
sure.” Ochre smirked. “It totally sounded like it when we had our sleepover on
Christmas Eve ... if that’s her idea of being quiet I’m surprised you haven’t
gone deaf yet.”
“Yeah,
well you won’t have to worry about that any more.” Magenta sat back down on the
edge of the bathtub. “Anyway it’s not so much that I really miss her
personally, I do, but it’s more than that. I’m just feeling sorry for myself
really, over being alone again. That I’m probably set to stay that way,
forever.”
“I
already told you; for as long as you’ve got family and good friends you aren’t
alone. You don’t need a woman to ‘complete you’, or whatever crap they have in
movies ... And, hey, if you want someone to wine and dine on your money then I
wouldn’t say no to that. I’ll even take etiquette lessons from Ads and Di, so I
don’t embarrass you in the fancy restaurants.”
Magenta
smiled; “you are so cute sometimes.”
Ochre
frowned, establishing whether that was a compliment. He was pretty sure it was.
“I’m
too old for this,” Magenta said. “I keep getting emails, calls from my mam,
about how some friend from back home is getting married or just had yet another
kid. And I know she’d never admit it, but there’s always this undertone of ‘why
isn’t it you?’. I’m coming up thirty seven, that’s practically forty, that’s
half my life. And for all that the most meaningful relationship I’ve had in the
last five years is with some socially inept skirt-chaser, with Stockholm
Syndrome. It’s … whatever’s beyond pathetic.”
“Yeah,
Pat, that’s a great attitude to take. And you accuse me of alienating people.
What am I supposed to say? That, yeah, you are so right; your life is such a
hollow waste, just because you’re not living the ‘wife, 2.4 kids, nice house in
the suburbs’, American dream crap.”
“Don’t
know why you’re getting so het up, it’s my pity party.”
“Maybe
‘cause I’m always VIP at them,” Ochre suggested. “And you’re not that much
older than me, so it hits home sometimes.”
“Even
though you don’t want to get married.”
“Marriage
is overrated,” Ochre stated. “If you love someone, and you’re going to be with
them for the long haul, then I don’t see how some bit of paper, or lack
thereof, is going to make much difference ... Anyway, you deserve so much
better than this. I mean, I’m in my mess through my own stupidity and being a
commitment-phobic loser. But you’re a decent guy, looking to settle down and do
right by them. Women are supposed to like that. They keep saying they do, then
end up with some jerk like me.
Seriously, what is up with that?”
“Female
logic will always be a mystery to me.”
Magenta shrugged. “But I don’t hear you complaining too much.”
“Nah,
it’s not a bad lot in life really.”
“See,
you’re not the only one with baggage.”
“I
know.” Ochre gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “You going back to
bed?”
“Yeah.”
“I
will too, even though that couch is crap.”
“Figured
it might be.”
“Pat,”
Ochre rolled over, propping himself up with an elbow.
“What.”
“I’m
not going to patronise you with all the break-up clichés ... but, you know I’ve
always got your back.”
“Sure,
much appreciated ... now shut up, I’m going to sleep.”
Colonel
White finished unpacking, made himself a mug of strong coffee, and then went straight
to the control room.
He
trusted his team, probably more than they gave him credit for. White had
personally cherry-picked them from various government agencies for their unique
skills. He demanded the best from them, because they were the best. And
ultimately they hadn’t let him down; as he trusted would be the case. But he
still felt a certain trepidation about taking leave, and returning afterward to
discover how his crew and base had fared in his absence.
He
arrived to find Lieutenants Green and Sienna chatting at the comms desk, about
a film White had heard of, but had no interest in seeing. It was moments like
that which made him feel so out of touch with his staff, and rather old as a
result. Not that he would ever admit that.
“At
ease, gentlemen,” White said, in response to their salutes.
“I
was just leaving. Good night sir, Lieutenant,” Sienna said, giving another
salute for good measure.
“Did
you have a good vacation, sir?” Green asked.
He
was possibly the only one of the lieutenants to ask anything akin to personal
questions of the colonel. White often suspected he was seen by his staff as
some kind of ogre, which wasn’t entirely accurate, but he could see an
advantage to keeping a certain professional distance. Privately though, he appreciated
Green’s efforts toward a friendship, such as it was; it made work more
pleasant.
“Yes,
very relaxing ... I trust things have been in order, during my absence.”
“Well,
umm, Captain Ochre had a bit of a family crisis; he’s currently on leave
regarding that. Captain Magenta’s with him, but he was due furlough anyway.”
White
frowned, as far as he knew Ochre had no family to speak of, but he was sure
there would be a valid explanation.
“Otherwise
everything has been completely ship-shape,” Green said. “Naturally all the
paperwork is up together; as I’m sure you would like to review that.”
“Indeed.”
White nodded. “Who is on duty now?”
“Captain
Grey, but Captains Blue and Scarlet have also done shifts.”
“No
talks on monkeys this time?” White commented mildly, recalling the grumblings
of discontent he had returned to after the Mysteron threat against himself,
during which Blue had acted as commander and been slightly more autocratic than
necessary.
“Thankfully,
no, sir.” Green smiled. “He did organise a game of Trivial Pursuit at the
Christmas party, which went down rather well. So there may be hope for him
yet.”
“We
shall have to see, thank you, Green.”
White
strode to his desk and cleared his throat loudly. Which prompted Grey to glance
up startled, and then quickly pull the headphones from his ears and come to
attention. The personal music player still emitting its tinny cadence.
“Sorry,
sir. Things have been rather quiet,” he offered by way of explanation, firmly
pressing the off button, and then stuffing the player deep into his tunic
pocket. It was typical really, the others always played music and never got
caught out, but the one time he did ... busted.
“That
is no reason to be complacent.”
Grey
agreed emphatically.
“I
have the reports, from the missions, ready for you here.” He tapped a few
buttons on the keyboard, accessing the relevant files. “There are also a few
other small matters; such as Lieutenant Beryl’s invoice for the base library
stock, and duty rosters. Which have been attended to, but we thought you’d
appreciate giving them a check over.”
“Thank
you, Captain.” White sat down in his chair.
He
knew that Grey would be diligent and do a good job, but he appreciated the show
of his opinion being valued. Though White would never say anything at this
stage, due to the potential accusations of favouritism, he was giving serious
consideration to championing Grey as his successor when he eventually retired.
White
began to skim read the reports, and, yes, everything did seem in order.
Every
report was obviously signed, as per protocol, but after all this time White
could identify each officer by their writing style. Grey’s attention to detail,
Magenta’s idiosyncratic phrasing, Scarlet’s ‘distinctive’ grammar, Blue’s
lengthy discourses, peppered with words that, White would never admit, often
made him reach for a dictionary. Then at the other end of the spectrum - no pun
intended - was Ochre: the utter model of plain-speaking conciseness.
Which reminded him …
“I hear Captain Ochre is on compassionate
leave?” White said to his subordinate.
“Yes,
Captain Blue authorised that,” Grey explained. “It’s in his report. Ochre and
Magenta are due back in 48 hours; it would have been tomorrow, but we had that
Mysteron threat yesterday, so it seemed unfair to cut their furlough short.”
“Reasonable
enough.” White took the pen of his choice from his tunic pocket and began to
sign the paper copies of the reports to acknowledge he had read them. “On what
grounds?”
“Sir?
… Oh, it was a family matter.” Grey took a deep breath; he knew he’d have to
elaborate. Colonel White was like Santa, he’d find everything out, especially
if you’d been naughty. “Uh, it seems that Captain Ochre has a young son.”
White
looked up sharply.
“How
in blue blazes did that happen?”
Grey
simultaneously looked like a rabbit caught in headlights, and someone really
hoping the floor would swallow them whole.
“I,
umm, imagine, they, uh, utilised the conventional method. Sir.”
White
nodded curtly. “And he’s here; you let
this child onto Cloudbase?”
“He
was - with Captain Blue’s authorisation - but not any longer. Or at least, not
at this moment in time.”
Grey
braced himself for it, and sure enough …
“You
are aware this is a Spectrum base, not a nursery?”
“You’re
right, of course, sir,” Grey conceded. “But his aunt, his legal guardian, is in
hospital. We did search, but the boy has no other known relatives, or people
who could assume responsibility. And after the earlier mysteron attack in
Chicago the child welfare services were swamped. So, with all due respect, sir,
what were we supposed to do?”
White
gave a discontented sigh; “your duty, Captain, as always.”
“Indeed,
sir … and I think, well actually, I know that Captain Ochre felt it was his
duty to assume responsibility for the boy’s welfare. And to his credit he’s
done a good job. Without it impacting on his duties for Spectrum.”
Grey
wondered why he was defending his colleague’s actions; wasn’t he the one who’d
argued and been so sure it was a bad idea? But equally he knew that if the
situation was reversed, Ochre and the other captains would back him to the
hilt.
“Medical
report,” White read aloud. “Twenty second of December. Casualties admitted,
one. Male, aged five years. Bruising to the head and lacerations to the right
ankle. Sustained whilst at the pool.” White’s gaze seemed to bore right through
his field agent.
“That
… that was my fault,” Grey admitted. “I, Ochre had duty, so I volunteered to
watch the kid. It was an accident.”
“I
don’t care whose fault it was,” White began, with ominous, icy calm. “The fact
remains that an unauthorised civilian, a minor no less, was on my base, roaming
around, and managed to sustain an injury in the process. As you can imagine,
this incident doesn’t represent this base, or its staff, in a positive or
professional light.”
“You
are absolutely right, sir,” Grey concurred. “And we are making every effort to
ensure such an incident is not repeated, and that the boy is reunited with his aunt
at the earliest opportunity.”
“Good,
and, naturally, I shall discuss the matter with Captain Ochre when he returns.”
“Yes,
sir.”
“That
will be all, dismissed.”
~oo0oo~
“I’m gonna
kill Ochre,” Grey grumbled, more to his coffee than his co-workers, once he’d
reached the Amber Room and told them of the conversation he had just had.
“He told
Colonel White about Ricky,” Symphony explained, as Scarlet joined them, “and
then the colonel basically asked him where babies came from.”
Naturally,
Scarlet sniggered like a schoolboy at this.
“If you
weren’t indestructible you’d be next on my list,” Grey warned him. “Seriously;
Ochre, sex, and the Old Man. Those are three things that should never, ever be
in the same conversation.”
“It was
probably better coming from you,” Blue consoled him. “I mean, if it’d been Rick
himself, he’d probably have answered it literally.”
“I honestly
would pay good money to see the colonel’s face if he did." Rhapsody
giggled.
“Maybe he
doesn’t know,” Scarlet thought aloud. “I mean, really, who’d want to get cosy
with the Old Man? He’s so grumpy all
the time.”
“I know
there’s one person out there who would.” Symphony wrinkled her nose.
“Colonel
White is actually quite a gentleman, once you get to know him,” Rhapsody pointed
out. “And he did used to be married, but his wife died. So really I wouldn’t
blame him for getting so tetchy sometimes, I can’t imagine how that must be for
him, especially seeing us all in our prime and in love. We should be more
understanding, don’t you think?”
She
deliberately looked to Grey, afraid she had overstepped the mark, but he
couldn’t meet her eye.
“Anything I
missed?” Melody asked, arriving promptly for her standby shift.
“Yeah, I’ll
tell you all about it, in a bit,” Symphony promised. “Once Brad’s gone, so he’s
spared reliving the trauma.”
“I can wait.”
Melody went and poured herself a mug of coffee.
The doors to
the lift between Angel One and the Amber Room opened, and it was impossible not
to notice the look of relief and affection which fell across Grey’s face.
~oo0oo~
“Captain,”
Destiny exclaimed, surprised to find herself so eagerly enfolded in his arms,
when they had only just left the Amber Room.
“Ah,
come on.” He pulled back enough to kiss her again. “What’s the point having really
a hot girlfriend if you don’t show some appreciation?”
“There
is a time and place,” she insisted. “You were the one who did not want gossip
about us.”
“They’re
gonna talk anyway,” Grey noted. “It doesn’t take anything much to get the
rumours going around here. So what difference does it make?”
She
shrugged. “You had a bad day,” she said, a statement not a question.
“Babe,
you wouldn’t believe the unmitigated disaster of a day I’ve had.” Grey led her
to her quarters. “Which I may tell you about sometime.” He smiled softly. “But
you’re far too beautiful right now.”
“I
will still look the same later.”
“Well,
then I’ll just have to love you all over again.”
Destiny
smiled, feeling his gaze warm her like the sun; “that sounds a very good plan.”
~oo0oo~
With
the paperwork finally completed for the day, and Scarlet’s arrival to take over
his post, Colonel White returned to his quarters.
He
fired up his personal computer and made a few edits to his latest crime novel
in progress. He felt rather disappointed to see the word count drop slightly,
but reassured himself that it was quality not quantity which counted.
Reflecting
on his conversation with Grey, White did suspect he had been overly harsh.
After all Grey was merely the messenger; it had been Blue who made the relevant
authorisations. He would have to speak to him too, and Ochre, of course.
White
didn’t want to think about it, and generally he was able to push the thoughts
aside, but this situation was hitting close to home. His own son, Alexander,
had he not been lost before he had even fully arrived, soon to be followed by
his mother, would have been the same age as some of the newer recruits to
Spectrum, and White knew it was wrong to go down that train of thought, but he
couldn’t help imagining his son may have followed him into the organisation.
He
forcibly shook himself from his reverie. Nothing good came of dwelling on the
past; remembering the sacrifices he had made to pursue his career at the
expense of close relationships, the possibility of a family. Another family,
he’d already had a family, almost.
One
had to keep moving forward.
The
telephone seemed to ring for an age.
“Hi,
Wainwright residence.”
“Evie,
hello,” White responded, “it’s Charles.”
The
girl, Eve, sixteen and blooming with life, gave a giggle.
“I
know,” she said, “it’s a video phone, I can see you. And anyway, you’ve just
been here for a week. It’d be worrying if I didn’t recognise you.”
“Yes,
I suppose you’re right.”
“Who
is it, honey?” A voice in the background, one that made his heart lift.
Eve
tucked a lock of blonde hair behind her ear, leant away from the phone, and
announced him.
Amanda
Wainwright came into view of the screen.
“I,
umm, just called to say I got back safely,” White explained, “As you asked me
to.”
“So
I see.” Amanda settled into a chair with feline grace. “It’s good to hear from
you, I’m missing you already.”
“I,
yes I miss you too,” White said, suddenly embarrassed. But it was true; the
sudden lack of her presence seemed to leave an aching void in his heart. He
wondered how he would get through each day until his next visit, the hours
stretching before him like a vast chasm. He had expected the companionship of
love to fulfil him, but sometimes it left him lonelier than he could imagine.
“So,
did the base fall out of the sky without you?” Amanda teased.
“Surprisingly,
no,” White answered. “Everyone seems to have coped rather well in my absence,
perhaps a little too well; maybe they’re trying to tell me something?”
“Yes,
that you need to take more vacation time. Seriously, Charles, it’ll do you the
world of good, and give the boys good practise for when you retire.”
“I
am not that old,” White insisted. “So rest assured retirement is a long way off
… anyway, as it is, I should hopefully be able to see you again in the New
Year.”
“That
would be wonderful.” Amanda smiled. “The paperwork should be through by then,
we could have a proper celebration.”
“Ask
him to bring some of the guys along,” Eve called to her. “Karen says they are
sooo cute.”
“And
far too old for you,” Amanda said evenly.
White
chuckled, recalling the huge understatement of her warning that Evie was ‘a
little boy-crazy’.
“Her
parents, one of them anyway, was a cousin of Harry’s,” Amanda had explained,
sitting on the back porch, broaching the subject of this whirlwind of a girl
who had sprung into her life a few months previous. “They lived up in Boston,
but we saw them a fair bit, through the years, made an effort to get along.
Even though we didn’t have much in common; they were really religious, nearly
fainted on finding out we hadn’t had Karen christened.”
“But
they named you as guardians?”
“I
guess they wanted Eve to stay with family, and Harry was the only relative they
had.” Amanda sighed. White had thought he would be unsettled by the casual
reference to Amanda’s late husband, but he was growing more accustomed to it.
“You never imagine it’ll happen, this is your baby, and she needs you. But you
really never know ... it was a car wreck, I know the junction, used to drive
past it taking Karen to high school, always thought it was an accident waiting
to happen … just never thought …”
For
a moment she fell silent, listening to the bursts of laughter from inside the
house. Blue and Symphony had come to visit for the day, and with their names,
and easy, almost instant, rapport, Amanda had teasingly suggested Adam was
marrying the wrong girl. Karen had been horrified and sulked; Evie however
didn’t seem entirely averse to the idea.
“How
has it been, the adjustment, for you, both of you?” White prompted.
“We’ve
had some bad days. I forgot how much hard work teenage girls can be, especially
without someone to back you up, and of course Evie’s still grieving. But really
she’s a good girl, and I really like having someone to come home to, to be
needed.” She smiled. “Guess I’m not cut out for this independent woman thing”
“We
all need someone,” White said.
“Even
you?”
He
kissed her, by way of an answer.
With
the phone call concluded White got into bed and turned out the lights, and lay
on his back listening to the gentle soothing hum of the base which contained
him. He recalled the photograph, taken by Symphony, of Amanda, White, with Evie
between them, all with such carefree smiles. At a glance they seemed simply to
be a family, established, familiar and content; without the private pain and
burdens which had brought them to that point. And the words came to him, vivid
as if they had been spoken aloud.
‘Everyone
deserves a second chance.’
Detroit, Michigan
After
instigating their impromptu detour on the first day of their visit Magenta
decided it was only fair to allow Ochre to take the helm when they set off the
next morning. They managed to avoid the rush hour traffic in Chicago, making it
to the Spectrum airfield in good time to fly to Michigan.
Apparently
it was going too well though, and their peace began to unravel when they
touched down and the rental truck’s navigation system gave out.
“That’s
stupid,” Ochre grumbled, giving the navigation device a ‘death stare’. “How
come you can’t fix it? I mean that is basically what they pay you to do, last I
checked.”
“I’m
not that familiar with the software,” Magenta explained with what was left of
his patience. “So, much as I’d like to, I can’t just magically fix it with the
snap of a finger.”
Wrapped
up tightly in a blanket, as he lay across the seat dozing, Ricky looked like a
human hotdog.
“What’s
Daddy so mad about?” he asked, waking up in time to watch as Ochre stomped into
the garage they had stopped at.
“It’s
OK, he just gets like that sometimes, when he’s all determined to get things
done. The best thing to do is just go back to sleep.”
Ochre
returned in a considerably better mood.
“Hey,
Munchkin.” He climbed into the driver’s seat, gently set Ricky upright and
strapped them both in. “You ready for our road trip?”
“I
guess so.” Ricky shrugged, still sleepy.
“Right,
and the lack of GPS is now magically not a problem,” Magenta said, as he got
into the passenger seat.
“Nah.”
Ochre unfurled the pamphlet in his hand. “We’re gonna go old school and use a
map. I mean Columbus didn’t have GPS when he found America.”
“He
was looking for China,” Magenta pointed out.
“Well,
it’s a good thing I’m familiar with this neck of the woods then, isn’t it?”
Ochre grinned. “Well, sort of, it seems like every time I come here they block
off roads, or build new ones, or whatever else they can to confuse me. So it’s
always sensible to have backup.”
‘Since
when have you done the sensible thing?’ Magenta thought.
He
knew there was no point trying to get any sense out of him. Most of the time he
appreciated having a field partner, but sometimes he envied Grey for being able
to work and generally do through life without needing to depend and be depended
on by someone else. Especially one as stubborn and hard work as Ochre could get
on a bad day.
And
to think he had been cut up about being single. A partner was bad enough, even
without a girlfriend in the mix too, how had he spent months with both of them
without going crazy?
“We
can’t go yet,” Ricky insisted. “We haven’t had breakfast. It’s the most
important thing to eat, Aunt Ellie says so.”
“I’m
sure she does, but thing is we really do need to get going,” Ochre answered, a
little peeved that at every turn Ellie was held as a fountain of all knowledge
and good judgement, but he couldn’t exactly blame her. “So how about we drive
for a bit, then we’ll go to a drive-thru or something. How about egg muffins
from Sonic, you like Sonic?”
“No,
I hate it.” Ricky said, with an expression of disgust and annoyance.
“Really?”
Ochre admittedly hadn’t hung out with many little kids, not since he was one,
but he’d been fairly sure none would turn down fast food. And in the face of
such honest bemusement Magenta couldn’t help but smile.
“I
always have cereals for breakfast,”
Ricky added, getting more irritable. “So I want cereals. No other food.”
“Fine,
you can get a cereal bar,” Ochre compromised. “That’s still cereals, but not
all messy with the milk.”
“I
want cereals,” Ricky stated slowly and loudly. “Proper ones, in a bowl.”
Magenta
knew it was a bad move, and he felt disloyal for it, but he could feel laughter
brewing in his chest. The indignation was so familiar he was becoming convinced
this outburst served as karmic retribution for all the times Ochre had been
such a pain in the butt.
Ricky’s
outrage continued to brew. And still tired and hungry himself Ochre was sure
that, if he didn’t get away for a minute to compose himself, he was liable to
do something he’d regret. Until then things had been great, he could handle it,
but how the hell did kids manage to figure out exactly how to push your
buttons?
He
pulled the keys from the ignition, opened the driver’s door, and stepped from
the vehicle.
“I
am going to step outside, until you’ve calmed down.” He managed to utter
through gritted teeth, then slammed the door behind him.
And
Ochre couldn’t deny that it was a relief, to take a step back, but he couldn’t
help second-guessing himself. Though frankly he was starting to get used to the
doubts.
“You
gonna yell at me?” he said, as Magenta approached. “Wouldn’t be surprised. I
mean seriously, what kind of parent walks off and leaves their kid in a car?”
“For
five minutes and still never takes their eyes off them for a second.” Magenta
shrugged. “A human one, who is smart enough to know their limits.”
Ochre
nodded; remembering when his own father had got so wound up, yelling at them
and lashing out with a swat on the butt. That he had sworn he would never be
that kind of person.
“It’s
good Brad isn’t here,” Ochre began. “He’d have a field day with it. He’s
forever glaring and grumbling about any bad parenting we see on assignments. I
mean sometimes he’s got a point, but other times I can’t help thinking maybe
he’s just too uptight. Besides, it isn’t always the parents’ fault; sometimes
they can do everything possible and the kid still won’t be quiet in a
restaurant, knuckle down at school, or turn out right. After all, look at how
we ended up ... It’s a good thing he doesn’t want any of his own.”
“He’d
probably be soft as anything if he did. You know what he’s like with his nieces
and nephews.”
“I
know, it’s not doing his image much good ... anyway, I guess we should head
back.”
Ricky
was waiting for them, his frustration having evolved into apprehension.
“Daddy,
I’m sorry.” He sobbed, throwing his arms around Ochre’s neck. “I won’t be bad
ever again, I promise.”
“Sure,
I accept your apology.” Ochre said, “but it’s normal to get mad about stuff, so
you can’t really say it’ll never happen again.”
“I’m
gonna be good, I promise I’ll be good. Don’t go away again, Daddy, please.”
For
a moment all Ochre could do was hold him tight.
“Do
you really think I’d do that?” he said gently, his own emotions threatening to
overwhelm him. “Now that I know you, after everything that’s happened? There’s
nothing that would ever make me leave you.”
“Honest
injun?”
“Yup,
totally.” Ochre reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a pack of
tissues. He held one out for Ricky to blow his nose.
“I
like pancakes.”
“You
what, darlin’?” Ochre balled the tissue and stuffed it into his pocket.
“And
waffles too.” Ricky gave a watery smile “I forgot we have those sometimes, on
special days like birthdays and stuff. So I could have them; that would be
good. I don’t really mind not having cereals.”
“Well,
why didn’t you say so? We’ll go to a diner then.” Ochre smiled. “See, I should
apologise to you really. I’m still new to this being a dad thing, having to
take care of someone else. I can’t promise I won’t mess it up again, but
between us we’ll probably do all right.”
“Yeah.”
Magenta rolled his eyes “It’s not like you’ve had any practise by giving a crap
about me.”
“You
shouldn’t say crap,” Ricky chided him. “It’s a naughty word.”
“Quite
right,” Ochre agreed. “But you see that’s the thing about Auntie Pat, you
shouldn’t rely on him to set a good example.”
“Auntie?”
Magenta raised an eyebrow.
“Oh,
did I say that?” Ochre looked embarrassed. “I had an Auntie Pat when I was a
kid. Not a real aunt, a friend of the family. So, yeah.” He smirked. “It kinda
suits you though.”
Magenta
didn’t deign to comment; so, content to have the last word, Ochre set off.
~oo0oo~
Ochre
made a point of stopping at the next diner en
route for breakfast, and if the old fashioned décor and homely atmosphere
was anything to go by it was a good choice. Having come around to the idea of
their change in schedule, Ricky was quite content to go on inside and choose a
booth for them by the window.
“He’s
just gone to get something from the car,” Magenta said, by way of excusing his
partner, ordering two mugs of coffee and a plastic cup of apple juice from the
waitress as she stood at the counter. Aside from a family of Italian tourists
loudly attempting to comprehend the menu, and a businessman virtually inhaling
his fried breakfast, they were the only customers.
During
the drive Ricky had seemed his usual self, but Magenta could tell by the way he
made every effort to keep Ochre in sight that the earlier incident had rattled
him. And really who could blame the kid, he’d been through more loss in a few
short years than most people did in an entirely lifetime.
Ochre
entered, clocking the waitress’s perky derriere as she gave the businessman a
refill of strong black coffee, then slumped down into the booth, dumping the
item he’d been carrying onto the table.
“What
the hell’s up with them?” He nodded toward the tourists.
“I
think their English is about as good as your Italian,” Magenta commented.
“But
the menu’s got pictures, can’t they just point and look hopeless. That normally
works.”
“Says
the man with thirty-odd years’ experience … not that you don’t have enough
trouble with English.”
“Did
you know that technically the official language of Illinois isn’t English? It’s
American.”
“No,
Rick, can’t say I did.” Magenta didn’t look up from the menu.
“I
know what you mean,” Ricky said. “Because English people do say some different
words. Like we say eggplant, but grandma calls it an oversheen.”
“Aubergine,”
Magenta gently corrected.
“Yeah.”
Ricky nodded. “Different names for lots of things, it gets a bit confusing
sometimes. But I try to know them, because I’m half English, so I should do
really.”
“Well,
good luck with that,” Ochre said genially. “If you figure it all out let me
know, then you can translate when Paul goes off on one. Like when he was
getting all cranky because he wanted Marmite on toast, whatever that is.”
“Marmite
is that black sticky sandwich spread stuff Di let you try,” Magenta explained.
“You freaked out and said words to the effect that it was the most disgusting
thing you’ve ever had, remember.”
“Yeah,
Pat, thanks for bringing up painful memories.”
“Well,
you did ask.”
“I
like Marmite,” Ricky said. “Aunt Ellie gets it from the special shop that sells
food from other countries.”
“And
you’re welcome to it.” Ochre took a swig of coffee.
“Are
you ready to order?”
“We
sure are.” Ochre answered the waitress with a winning smile, and Magenta was
sure if Ochre made some comment about whether she was on the menu he’d punch
him. He couldn’t really complain about flirting in general, but flirting with
almost every pretty girl in sight was getting really old. It didn’t exactly set
a good example for Ricky either.
As
it was, Ochre managed to restrain himself, and once the waitress had departed
with their order, he opened the book he had brought with him.
“The
family album, how sweet.” Magenta craned around, hopeful that there may be some
embarrassing baby pictures. After all, fair’s fair. He was still smarting that
his mother had been so easily talked into revealing the photos from Magenta’s
early years. Including the one of him aged four playing dress-up in his mother’s
clothes. He didn’t foresee Ochre letting him live that one down any time before
the twenty-third century.
“I
wanna see.” Ricky shuffled along the booth seat for a better look. “Is that one
you, Daddy?”
Ochre
nodded.
“Much
as it galls me to admit,” Magenta conceded, “you were actually quite a handsome
baby.”
“I
looked like Winston Churchill with sunburn,” Ochre insisted.
“Maybe
a little.” Magenta laughed. “But cute with it.”
Ricky
frowned. “Who’s Winston Churchill?”
“He
was like the president of England,” Ochre explained, flicking through the
album. “About a hundred years ago, when they had World War Two. And England was
on the winning side, so I guess he must have been good at his job ... but not
really someone you’d want to look like.”
He
found the page he was searching for. “Hey, wanna see something scary?”
The
photograph was captioned; Billy and
Richard, at Lake Superior, July 2040.
Magenta
focused on the younger boy, with his goofy grin, wearing rubber slip-on shoes, hand
clamped around the pole of a child’s fishing net. Then he looked back at Ricky,
the resemblance was truly uncanny.
“Could
have been twins,” he said. “You’re right, we’re doomed.”
Then
he noticed the photograph of the opposite page.
“So,
does that mean you’ll end up looking like your dad?” Magenta asked innocently.
“Better
not,” Ochre grumbled. “It’s all right for you. Your dad still looks good for
his age. Mine was only about forty in that photo, and you can see what kinda shape
he was in. It’s tragic.”
“I imagine it was due to the stress of taking care of two
kids, and not having time to go to the gym.” Magenta shrugged.
“Neither of which apply to you, so you’ll probably get off lightly.”
“Good.”
Ochre smiled. “Otherwise it’d really mess up my midlife crisis plans.”
“People
don’t plan a midlife crisis,” Magenta told him. “It just happens.”
But
then it probably wasn’t so much a plan, Ochre didn’t really need an incentive
to buy a motorbike and date some girl who really was way too young for him. So
ultimately it was more a case of waiting for the right moment so he could get
away with pulling it off.
“Who’s
that?” Ricky pointed to the elder boy in the picture.
“Your
Uncle Bill.”
“So
I have an uncle?”
“He
died before you were born,” Ochre said. “So it’s not quite the same.”
“Have
I got any other uncles?”
“No,
well, not like related ones, anyway. But Pat can be your uncle, and Adam,
Griff, Paul, and, hmm, we might have to negotiate with Brad.”
“What
was he like, my uncle?”
So
Ochre took a deep breath, and began to describe the person he had always had in
his life, known almost as well as himself, who he imagined would always been
there. The memories which swirled up were so potent; he’d known that would be
the case. Until then it would have been unimaginable for him to revisit them,
the loss was too great. But as he talked, between mouthfuls of the food
discreetly delivered to the table, he found a weight lifting. To be surrounded
once again by his family.
~oo0oo~
“This
is where I meant for us to go yesterday, before our change of itinerary.”
“They
keep this place up together really nicely,” Magenta commented, surveying the
brilliant white expanse of snow which lay like a blanket over the cemetery, punctuated
by a kaleidoscope of neatly positioned marble headstones and gnarled naked
trees.
“Damn
well should be, you have to pay enough for the privilege.”
Magenta
was aware of that issue. If you didn’t live close enough to upkeep the graves of
your departed relatives yourself, then you paid a fee to toward employing a
groundskeeper who would do it for you. His own parents did so for their late
parents, but at least had several siblings between them to spread the cost.
Off
in the distance Ricky jogged through the snow, waving a stick almost the length
and breadth of his arm, scaring up any birds that dared to settle on the
headstones. They flew away in a mess of feathers and screeching. Beyond that,
the cemetery was eerily quiet and peaceful, the air so cold it felt almost
tangible.
“When
was the last time you were here?”
“Too
long,” Ochre answered, his voice edged with guilt. “You know how work is.”
“I
guess they’d understand.”
“Ricky,
quit it,” Ochre called out. Odds were he wasn’t going to see the other people
in the cemetery again, but either way he didn’t want to be remembered as the
guy who let his kid run wild and ruin a peaceful moment for other people.
At
that point Ricky stopped and came back over to them.
“That’s
your Grandma,” Ochre explained to him, nodding toward the pink marble stone
before him. “And your Grandpa is on the right side, and your uncle in the
middle.”
‘Amy,
James, Bill … and Rick, of course.’ Magenta thought, imagining the Fraser
family’s names as they must have been written on countless greetings cards
during their lifetime. They sounded good together, a friendly unpretentious
American suburban family.
‘See
that’s what really matters,’ Ochre thought, stood before his mother’s grave
‘Not the education or lack thereof, the work you do, where you travel, what you
buy … when you’re gone all that counts is who you loved and who loved you.’
“I
think I want to be with Mommy,” Ricky said. “When I die.”
“Well,
it won’t be any time soon,” Ochre reassured him. “So you’ve got a good while to
decide.”
“Are
you going to come here when you die?” Ricky asked innocently.
“Y’know,
I’ve never really thought about it,” Ochre admitted. “But it doesn’t matter
much right now … C’mon, let’s go back to the car. It’s literally freezing.”
“I
probably should get some kind of plan together though,” Ochre said, as he
walked beside Magenta, while Ricky ran ahead. “Obviously I never got a say in
with my fake funeral.”
“It
was a nice service,” Magenta commented. “Far as you could tell from watching it
on TV.”
“It
was a church service,” Ochre
exclaimed. “I never set foot in the damn place, or believed in all that stuff
while I was living there, so why the hell did they think I’d want to be dragged
in when I was dead? … No offence, Pat.”
“None
taken,” Magenta said. “I’m not sure any of us have really planned it out.
Except Brad, as he made us promise we’d bury him at sea.”
“He
would.” Ochre smiled. “The colonel might want to as well, but he’s never said,
and we can’t exactly ask. He might get the wrong idea, that perhaps we’d ensure
his demise would come sooner than anticipated. … Maybe it will, though not in
that sense. It’s a stressful job bossing us around, and he so rarely has
furlough or a good night’s sleep. So I guess this time off is doing him the
world of good. When’s he back anyway?”
“Uh,
Griff said he’s already back,” Magenta answered. “And yes, he knows about our
guest.”
“Oh
joy,” Ochre sighed. “I guess we better get back then. To face the music.”
Cloudbase
Looking slightly relieved, or at least less
intimidated, than when had arrived Ochre stepped out in the control room,
having concluded his interview with Colonel White.
“So,
how’d it go?” Magenta prompted. He been helping Green with some computer
upgrades, and had partly wanted to stay for moral support anyway.
“It
went … quite well, I guess,” Ochre answered. “Can’t say he’s planning on
throwing me a parade, but he didn’t hit the roof the way I kinda thought he
might.”
“Maybe
the combination of age, true love, and going on vacation is mellowing him,”
Magenta suggested. “We should make him go away more often.”
“It’d
never happen, he doesn’t trust us,” Ochre said. “And I don’t blame him with our
track record of being left unsupervised. Still can’t believe Blue made us all
sit through a talk on monkeys! I seriously thought we were going to die of
boredom. Or end up with an orgy on our hands, a whole load of the lieutenants
started making out with their girlfriends or whatever just for something to
do.”
“Y’know,
I’m so disappointed to have missed it,” Green smirked. “Not that being on duty
here was any more scintillating.”
“Thing
I don’t get is why White left Blue in charge again this time,” Ochre grumbled.
“Simple
really,” Magenta said. “Scarlet was dead, Grey was off base, and, yeah, like
he’d trust us. So, had to be done, I guess.”
“No
it doesn’t, it’s not fair. We are totally capable and have proved our
leadership skills. OK you didn’t exactly choose the best avenue, but still.”
“Well,
go take it up with Colonel White, it’s not like I can do anything about it
right now.”
By
this point, Ochre had paced the length of the walk-way. He was riled up now,
and nothing would deter him from making his point.
“You
know the worst thing,” he began. “I heard from Flaxen that Blue ordered for
them to go through our files checking up on everyone to make sure there isn’t a
chance of us having any more mini-mes lurking around. I mean, can he really do
that?”
“I’d
like to see him try,” Magenta said. “No one can get through the encryption
except me. Just because I’ve got nothing to hide doesn’t mean just anyone can
hack into confidential information. He should know better than that.”
“Yeah.”
Green nodded. “He’s so obviously going to believe you have nothing to hide.”
“I
don’t care; it’s just a point of principle. If he wants in he’s only got to
ask.”
“Seems
reasonable enough to me.” Ochre shrugged. “If indeed what you’ve told me about
your ‘social life’ in the Syndicate’s heyday is even half true.”
“Truth,
whole truth, and nothing but.” Magenta put a hand over his heart.
“In
that case I’ll have to get you drunk more often.” Ochre laughed.
Green
glanced between them. “Uh, do I really want to be in on this conversation?”
“Probably
not,” Ochre admitted. “Anyway it’s been fun; but I gotta go rescue Scarlet from
my kid, or vice versa. Apparently them hanging out is giving Di chronic
baby-fever. I did offer my services there, but apparently she’s not that
desperate.”
“Her
loss,” Magenta sympathised.
Over
their heads the Cloudbase speakers crackled into life, and they flinched,
expecting the booming ominous voice of their nemesis. Then relaxed on hearing
Scarlet’s voice, with a barely detectable hint of being as joyful as a kid in a
sweet shop.
“Could
all captains please report to the firing range?”
~oo0oo~
“Is that a gun?” Magenta winked. “Or are you
just pleased to see us?”
Grey
gave a sigh of resignation and put down the sub-automatic.
“I
really should have seen that one coming,” he grumbled.
Ochre
scanned the room, then turned to Scarlet with an expression of concern;
“Where’s the kid?”
“You
didn’t honestly think I would bring him here,” Scarlet answered. “That would be
very unprofessional and dangerous … So the girls are babysitting him, in the
amber room.”
“Thanks,
Paul. It’s so good of you to volunteer that information. I just knew you’d be
so understanding of the fact that I have a vested interest in his well
being.”
“Um,
yes quite,” Scarlet faltered slightly. He knew that tone; outwardly amiable and
understanding, but seething underneath. There was still a way to go to get
comfortably back into Ochre’s good books. “Of course he’s in safe hands; you
don’t need to worry so much.”
At
that Ochre could do nothing more than raise an eyebrow, as if to say ‘are you
freaking serious?’.
“I
thought you were getting a visit from our dear friend Mr Conners,” Magenta said
to defuse the situation. “We were expecting him to be here, tied up, with an
apple on his head.”
“I
wish, but it can’t be Christmas every day.” Blue took a generous swig of coffee
from an oversized paper cup. “He was here this morning to go over the books,
but actually he didn’t stop all that long. As everything was up together, and
he mentioned something about needing to get back because his wife had a
hospital appointment or something.”
“There’s
a Mrs Ferret-features?” Ochre was incredulous, not missing a beat. “Poor woman
… she must actually like him, but even so can you imagine having to put up with
him until death do you part.” He
shuddered.
“Well
there’s no accounting for taste,” Scarlet muttered, catching Magenta’s eye,
then turned to the task at hand.
In
addition to their duties in the field, each of the captains was responsible for
overseeing a department of Cloudbase. And in light of his military background,
Scarlet had naturally been selected, probably volunteered, to be custodian of
the armoury. To that end he kept up to date with the innovations of research
and development, organised their stock, and imparted such information to his
colleagues. Then there was the best part, finally getting the shipments of new
weaponry to try out.
By
contrast, Magenta, the only true civilian of the senior staff, had never been able
to comprehend how anyone could get so enthused about being better able to kill
people. In the past he had tried to put voice to his thoughts, but he might as
well have been speaking a foreign language. Ochre had listened, but didn’t
really get it, and inevitably made efforts to jolly his friend out of it, until
Magenta got frustrated and changed the subject. So he kept his thoughts to
himself as Scarlet told them about these new sub-automatic rifles and pistols.
Something about dramatically reduced recoil. Not that Magenta really understood
a word of it, any more than his friends did when he went rambling on about the
latest software.
“So,
let’s have a try then,” Scarlet concluded, beaming with enthusiasm.
“Have
a try? … Paul, this isn’t a wine tasting,” Magenta couldn’t help noting.
He
looked to his colleagues, but they seemed too transfixed by their ‘shiny new
toys’ to comment.
‘Typical
boys’, Magenta thought, with slight amusement.
Then
he realised Ochre, in the booth next to him, had gone quiet; and that never
boded well.
“You
OK?” Magenta asked him, putting a hand on his shoulder to bring him from his
reverie.
“I’m
fine.” Ochre rewarded his partner with a smile. One that anyone else would
accept at face value, but Magenta knew covered a multitude of agitations and
awkwardness. He would have pressed the point, had there not been anyone else
around, or Scarlet not unwittingly intervened by announcing;
“Gentlemen,
take your mark.”
~oo0oo~
For
all his natural discomfort around the issue, Magenta couldn’t deny that in the
heat of the moment he enjoyed the feel of the gun in his hand, the power of
pulling the trigger, the satisfaction of hitting the target.
He
got into position, ear protection headphones on, rolled his shoulders, aimed the
gun, safety catch off, waited for the signal.
They
fired off every bullet in their barrels, then paused to inspect their fate of
their paper targets. After which Scarlet began a demonstration of the reloading
process, as apparently that had been altered.
And
it was then they noticed Ochre’s sheet. His target had a single hole, dead
centre; but the rest had clustered around it. An exceptional effort that made
Magenta’s appear amateur by comparison.
“You’re making me look bad. What happened to
our old time Celtic alliance?” Magenta grumbled; recalling the solidarity they
had fallen into in the face of written assessments. When Magenta was always out
of step with protocol and technical detail, and Ochre could never quite
translate his knowledge to written words. “Well what do you expect for only
ever putting in the minimum hours in on the range?” Ochre set the paper on the
ledge and didn’t react as it drifted to the floor. “There’s more important
things that our pride to worry about.”
“I
know, it was, don’t worry about it.”
Magenta
wasn’t one to shrug it off and settle for falling short of the standards he set
himself, and this proof of anything less smarted. He also knew it was
irrational to try to match up to a partner who had been handling guns his entire
career and made a point of practising being able to shoot with either hand;
because Ochre wasn’t prepared to let an impediment like his dominant arm being
broken get in the way of his ability to do the job.
“Scarlet
did say these would be a little different, take some getting used to,” Ochre
offered as consolation.
Scarlet
ambled over to them, looked over the targets and frowned slightly at Magenta’s.
He looked up, as if the paper had offered an explanation for such lack of
finesse, and made some suggestions. And by way of demonstrating reached out, to
place his hands over his colleague’s, to show what he meant.
“I’m
sure he gets it,” Ochre said gruffly. He’d never quite been able to figure out
why, but Scarlet’s way of teaching would almost always rub Pat up the wrong
way. And as dutiful best friend he was familiar with the ‘condescending British
jerk’ monologue which followed each ‘lesson’ once Scarlet or anyone else was
well out ear shot.
“Good,”
Scarlet replied; put out by his colleagues’ reactions. “Well, obviously R and D
are still working on the final design, which must mean there are glitches
somewhere, so I wouldn’t worry too much. We only really needed to do an intro
session so they can get feedback.”
“Which yes for once I will write up all by
myself.” Scarlet added with a smile. As a rule he hated paperwork, so normally
Blue ended up doing it because Adam didn’t mind, at least not half as much as
the thought that his partner might get court martialed; either for his terrible
grammar or not turning in a report on time.
“So,
do you need us all to stay?” Ochre asked “Or is it OK if I get going?”
“This
isn’t like you.” Grey voiced their collective thought. “You’re normally last
off the range.”
“Yeah
well that was the old me. The new me has a kid, and y’know I figured it’d help
my cause to actually do some parenting while he’s here. Unless you really need
me, because I’m not about to get accused of slacking off work either.”
“Uh
yes I suppose you’re right,” Scarlet said mildly. “Go on then, we’re done
here.”
~oo0oo~
“Thanks,
for getting us away from Scarlet.”
Ochre
accepted the can of coke, fresh from the vending machine, by way of thanks;
“you can’t possibly have been as grateful as Brad, he practically left dust
high tailing out of there.” Ochre shrugged “Good thing I wasn’t too polite to
wait for Scarlet, we’d have been there hours. Not that Brad said anything, but
it must have been a very pressing engagement ... a date with Destiny, perhaps,
if you had a penchant for puns.”
“You
know I do ... anyway, having given it some thought, while it’s real good of you
sparing me from potentially punching Scarlet in the face, eventually they’ll
realise the fault lies with me, not the stupid gun. So it looks like I’m going
to have to put in more practise. Even though I hate guns and it’s boring
standing there blasting the crap out of bits of paper wondering if now’s a good
time to pack a suitcase for Di Witts.”
“You
are not going to jail,” Ochre said firmly. “Not if I get any say, and I figure
I probably do.”
After
a moment of no response Ochre looked around.
“I’m
pausing to reflect on the irony,” Magenta said with a smile.
“Yeah,
the kid’s making me go soft. How could I ever tell him his most favourite uncle
Auntie Pat was in the slammer? It’d break his little heart.”
“And
yours.”
“This
conversation never leaves the corridor.”
“I
was thinking about Alie,” Ochre began. “Kinda hard not to, with the kid being
around, and knowing that she got shot. So yeah that’s why I was a bit
distracted. I didn’t mean to be.”
“You
snapped out of it when it mattered.”
“Not
really. It was vaguely cathartic though, imagining hunting down and killing
whoever did that to her. I should have done, should have stopped it even
happening in the first place. Not that I can do anything about it now.”
~oo0oo~
By
that time they had reached the amber room. Which Ochre had headed for
deliberately and Magenta hadn’t minded tagging along. As he opened the door any
concerns about Ricky’s well being disappeared.
“So
that’s what it sounds like when you laugh,” Ochre said, realising the source of
the loud girlish giggle.
Harmony
blushed, and busied herself to collecting up the paper planes which were
scattered across the floor. Slightly hampered in her efforts by Ricky running
across the room to give Ochre a bear hug, be picked up, and asked ‘how’s my
best guy huh?’.
“We
had a contest,” Ricky explained, slightly breathless and nestling against his
father. “Karen won.”
“Yes,
apparently Adam’s given her lessons in the exact art of making the optimum
aerodynamic paper dart,” Rhapsody added.
“That’s
an hour of my life I’ll never get back,” Symphony grumbled. “Seriously, I love
him, but when he gets going on some random topic …but anyway, this afternoon
has been so much fun.” Then added with
a mischievous smirk. “Ricky brought along his family album of us to see, some
real sweet stuff in there.”
“Sweet
for blackmailing me with?” Ochre said with mounting trepidation. He sat down
with Ricky still in his arms; realising the boy was getting heavy, but
unwilling to put him down.
“You
just never know … But really how come we never got to see any photos of you
before?”
“You
haven’t already figured that out?”
“Admittedly
your parents must have had an interesting sense of humour to have dressed you
up and taking pictures in some of those situations. But still you were such a
cute little kid!” Symphony insisted. “Which yeah we kinda knew anyway, because
how else could you have such a completely perfect boy yourself.”
“Yeah,
he’s not so bad,” Ochre said with a grin that belied any modesty. “Gets it from
his mom.”
“Nah,
pretty sure that’s you,” Magenta said, setting his can of drink on the table.
“I mean look at him, he’s not even six years old and already has a fan club of
sappy doting women.”
“Ah
yes, it is the Fraser charm offensive,” Harmony agreed.
“Ricky,
baby,” Symphony began, smoothing his hair. “Why don’t you go show your daddy
what else we made today?”
“Oh
yeah.” Ricky beamed, climbing off the couch and dragging Ochre along as he
crossed the room to the kitchenette. “We went down to the galley, and made some
cookies and stuff. I got to be the official taster, so I tried everything so
that Karen won’t get fat. And they were real good cookies too. So I saved you
some …”
“You’re
doing that gooey look again Kay,” Rhapsody noted. “And that never ends well, at
least not for Adam’s bank account.”
“It’s
not about his money. I mean just look at them. Isn’t Ricky the cutest little
kid you’ve ever seen? And Rick’s so good with him, probably because he has the
maturity of a small child but whatever. It’s just, haven’t you ever kinda
thought what it’d be like, having a child of your own.”
“Not
really,” Rhapsody answered a little too quickly. Her expression brittle and
hesitant.
“Yeah,
I’m with Di,” Magenta said, with easy quick camaraderie. “It’s far better being
an aunt or uncle; all the fun and shopping opportunities, but pretty much none
of the responsibility. But you go ahead; you and Adam would make cute babies.”
“I
know,” Symphony gave a dreamy smile. And her friends couldn’t tell if that was
prompted by her thoughts of practising ‘baby making’, or fitting out a nursery.
Magenta felt that maybe he should say something, to steer her from this
idealised vision of doting on an angelic miniature of Blue. But there didn’t
see much point; Symphony never listened to unsolicited good advice (even
solicited was a bit hit and miss); and it was all entirely hypothetical at this
point, so there was no harm leaving her to her daydreaming.
“I
don’t think she meant to be that blindingly tactless,” Magenta said gently, as
Symphony cross the room for yet another sugar cookie.
“No,
I know, it’s just … some people don’t think. And to be fair we’re both
perfectly healthy, so it’s not that obvious that we would have troubles … But
then there’s so much about retrometabolism we don’t know yet, so you never
know, there could be chance. I try to be cautiously optimistic. If it’s meant
to be it’ll happen, and if not, well then so be it.”
“That’s
what I try to tell myself,” Magenta said ruefully. “But it’s not always so
consoling when every time I think a relationship might get serious between me
and Rick we manage to scare them off. It’s not even so much that I want kids,
but y’know it would be nice to spend my retirement having someone to talk to
other than my seventeen cats.”
At
that Rhapsody couldn’t help laughing; “well that would be rather drastic, as
you claim not to be a cat person.”
“I’m
honestly not, but desperate times and whatever …”
“I
think that’s the most restrained they’ve been since we got here,” Ochre noted,
nodding toward the coffee machine which Blue had gone straight to as he arrived
and was now being handed a cookie by Symphony. “Guess we’ll all have to think
of the children from now on.”
“But
I already saw them kissing,” Ricky said, wrinkling his nose. “It was like at
the end of a movie, when it gets all mushy.”
“There’s
nothing wrong with a bit of mushy sometimes, even your dad has his moments, but
yes you don’t need to have a girlfriend yet.”
“I
got a girlfriend,” Ricky told her. “Well she’s my friend that’s a girl, we
don’t do kissing stuff. You might get cooties or something.”
“Very
sensible.”
Ricky
nodded, then turned to Ochre; “Did you see the picture I drawed for you?”
“Nope,
can’t say I did.”
Ricky
reached over and rifled through the papers on the coffee table, where he had
been colouring earlier. Rhapsody had found it so endearing that he lined up all
his crayons neatly by colour. Perhaps it hinted of great organisational skills.
But then Rick did that with his model paints and he had one of the greatest
tendencies to clutter she had ever seen.
“I
did this one today,” he explained, holding it up. “I was looking through the
photos, and there’s none of you and mommy and me all together. And I thought
that was sad so I decided to draw one of us.”
Ochre
studied the drawing; it was helpfully captioned in Ricky’s endearingly wobbly
penmanship, but he understood the details clearly without it. He had been drawn
as he was now, sans beard and in casual clothes, stood beside a slightly
lopsided tree. Alie’s image was the other side, next to a house which had been
modelled on the one Ricky currently lived in. While Ricky stood between them,
both of them holding his hand. And naturally the sun was shining, the sky was
cloudless blue with a plane overhead, and they were all smiling.
“Good
job,” he said, somehow managing to work the words out from around the lump in
his throat.
“You
can put it on your wall if you want to,” Ricky added. “I did see you don’t have
pictures up, not of people and stuff anyway.”
“Sure
I will,” Ochre insisted. “I’ll get pride of place.”
~oo0oo~
The
next day there was a knock on their door, which Ochre casually answered.
Between taking care of Ricky and all the work-related activities he’d been up
to his butt in, his latest prank, and any possible repercussions, was the last thing
on his mind.
“OK,
I don’t know what the hell you geniuses have done this time,” Blue began, “but
yours and Pat’s uniform shirts just came back from the laundry with itching
powder inside; which incidentally contaminated mine.” He scowled at the memory
of the unpleasant sensation. “Philly intercepted them, and she’s hand-washing
them all for us.”
“Aww,
she’s a sweetheart, your steward.”
“She
told me scuttlebutt says it was Captain Grey’s steward who did it,” Blue added.
“And
he accuses me of not doing my own dirty work,” Ochre scoffed.
Blue
raised an eyebrow; “You know, I wouldn’t have expected a former cop to be so
forthcoming with an admission of guilt.”
“It
wasn’t,” Ochre clarified. “Brad just came breaking down my door yesterday, to
read me the riot act over a prank on him, and I’m guessing this is the
fallout.”
Seeing
them gathered at the door, Scarlet came over, clearly not in the best of moods.
“Retrometabolism
doesn’t give you immunity to itching powder, does it?” Magenta asked him
sympathetically, as he happened to be passing by.
“Funnily
enough no,” Scarlet grumbled.
“Paul,
before you get stuck into your bawling out,” Blue mediated. “I think it’s only
fair to state Rick didn’t do it, the itching powder that is. It was collateral
from a prank against him and Pat.”
“Oh
yes, that makes me feel so much better about the whole situation.” Scarlet
rolled his eyes. “So go on then, what awe-inspiringly moronic thing have Pinkie
and Perky inflicted to prompt this latest joyful event?”
“You
want to try that again, Paul?” Magenta said, unruffled. “I think you might have
been able to cram a little more sarcasm and contempt in there.”
Scarlet
merely scowled in response.
“Brad
thinks we made his hair go grey,” Ochre clarified.
“Frankly
I think you’ve been doing that to all of us since we signed up for this job,”
Scarlet noted.
“No
comment,” Ochre said, “but in this case someone doctored his shampoo, and now
his hair matches his tunic.”
“I
bet he’s thrilled about that.” Blue couldn’t help but smile.
“Daddy
… dad!” Ricky tugged at Ochre’s sleeve.
“Not
now, bud, we’re having a meeting.”
“But
it’s important,” Ricky insisted, all attention turned to him. “I just had an
idea what we can do to get Brad back.”
“Damn,
why did nobody tell me having a kid was so awesome?” Ochre grinned. “I would
have got in on the act sooner.”
Magenta
watched father and son in hushed conference.
“And
that, mi caras,” he announced, “is
how the great clan war between the Holdens and Frasers began.”
~oo0oo~
They
talked most days, Ochre and Ellie, over the phone. In some way, that made it
easier to deal with. For there to literally be distance between them, knowing
they could end it at any time with the push of a button, walk away any time.
To
begin with they made small talk, but couldn’t keep it up; being so cordial when
there was so much between them. They needed to talk, to face the crushing
weight of history and what lay beyond pleasantries.
Often
they spoke of Alie, pooling their memories, keeping her as a touchstone because
she was the person who had brought them together, and her legacy remained
binding.
The
past was comfortable territory, already traversed.
The
present seemed irrelevant, as ultimately both their lives were disrupted,
suspended between past and future.
The future was a
bizarre, intangible thing. They made
efforts to plan, but those plans seemed insincere, not really convincing either
of them that there would be a ‘tomorrow’ to plan for.
Sometimes
they would shout, scream, hurl abuse, allowing the pent-up anger and injustice
to fly. On other occasions they would
cry, together or alone; the other remaining neutral, allowing dignity. Other conversations would prompt laughter,
trading jokes and recollections.
For
the most part though, they would just talk.
And
each time they hung up, they could feel their wounds were a little closer to
healing.
~oo0oo~
If
he listened carefully he could just about hear the New Year’s Eve party in full
swing. The music was being piped through the whole base. And occasionally
people, heady with lust and whatever else the party spirit encompassed, would
walk by. He caught snatches of their conversations, and a part of him wished he
was out there with them.
But
he had his duty, and it wasn’t so bad really.
With
a half-hearted glance toward the radar screen, Ochre turned the page of his
model-making magazine and continued reading the article. It was about some guy
in Australia who had an even bigger collection than Ochre himself, spent almost
every waking moment on it, and could recall every significant detail of every
model. So Ochre intended to show it to his colleagues; by way of proving they
were exaggerating, that his hobby wasn’t completely obsessive and
all-consuming.
Anyway
it wasn’t like they didn’t get equally single-minded about their own pursuits,
they just kidded themselves it wasn’t the same; because miniaturised aqualungs
or advanced software systems were ‘useful’, rather than simply made for the
sheer enjoyment of creation.
There
was a distinct blipping sound, and an icon in the bottom corner of the screen
flashing, to signal that the base-wide internal messenger system was demanding
his attention. So Ochre clicked it, vaguely curious as to who would want to
talk. He’d expected everyone to be busy working or at the party.
‘Enjoying your last hour
of this year?’ came the message, in an obnoxious shade of pink which was
the closest thing Magenta could get to his colour code.
Ochre
smiled; obviously there truly was nothing which could interfere with the lure
technology had on his partner.
‘Haha, at least I’m on
duty, what’s your excuse for being a loser?’ he replied.
‘Paul just got
disqualified, by Ads, over ‘Gone With The Wind’ … it’s too depressing to watch
grown men bicker like toddlers about the rules of charades.’
At
that Ochre couldn’t help laughing.
‘What would you rather
be doing?’ he asked.
‘Watching the ball drop
in Times Square, getting slowly comfortably drunk. You?’
‘I’ll settle for getting
wasted. Then it wouldn’t matter where we were.’
‘Genius,’ Magenta
stated. ‘I miss you.’
Ochre
frowned, he hadn’t really expected that. It wasn’t unlike Magenta to tease and
casually say things that anyone else would completely misread; it was just his
open happy-go-lucky way of showing friendship. But even after so many months
working together, Ochre still couldn’t shake the feeling that actually it was
him who was reading Pat all wrong.
‘I miss you too,’ he replied;
the simple literal truth. It did suck being stuck on his own while everyone
else was partying, or making some other entertainment.
~oo0oo~
“Umm,
Captain Ochre, sir.”
He
turned, noticing a lieutenant standing hesitantly in the doorway of the radar
room.
“I’m
here to cover for you,” the lieutenant elaborated. “Captain Magenta sent me.”
Ochre
vaguely recognised the guy - Claret, that was his name - as one who had
recently been on the receiving end of Magenta’s temper over not following
instructions properly and badly messing up a software program as a result.
Magenta had decided to deal with the matter himself, rather than take it to
their commanding officer, and this was probably part of the punishment.
“I
see.” Ochre signed himself off of the system, gathered his belongings together,
then stepped down from his post.
With
all the enthusiasm of a condemned man, Claret took up his task.
Ochre
returned his salute with a slight smile, feeling very grateful that he wasn’t
liable to venture into Magenta’s bad books any time soon. He knew better than
most that fundamentally Pat was a decent guy, but what kind of idiot let
themselves get totally taken in by that? You didn’t work your way up to running
New York’s biggest crime syndicate by being a teddy bear.
Ochre
promptly went back to his quarters, realised he didn’t have time to shower, so
instead just stripped off ready to change into something suitable for the
party. He gave it a little thought and decided not to both wearing anything
fancy, there wasn’t going to be anyone he needed to impress.
So
he got dressed in his most presentable pair of jeans, and the new t-shirt he
had been given as a Christmas gift. It was black, printed with the chemical
symbol for irritant; apparently his colleagues had seen that and thought of
him. He stuffed his feet into some suitable shoes and rounded it all off with a
splash of cologne. Not that he normally bothered with cologne, it was more
Pat’s thing; but that was a gift too and he didn’t want to be accused of being
an ungrateful slob.
Walking
to the Officers’ Lounge he tried not to think how quiet and empty his quarters
had felt without Ricky there.
~oo0oo~
“Hi,
Flax, you look great.”
She
really did, in a sea-green satin dress. He had a vague suspicious this may have
been the first time he had ever seen her showing off even the slightest hint of
leg. Or wearing heels; she hadn’t quite mastered that yet.
Audrey
Geffen, Lieutenant Flaxen, blushed, mumbled a ‘thank you’, and was really glad
those stuck-up cows who served as stewards for the Angels got to hear her being
complimented by a colour captain. Not because she fancied him; well obviously
he was quite attractive, completely gorgeous even in a certain light, funny,
clever in his own way, and a good friend. OK maybe she had a bit of a crush.
But that didn’t mean she was going to throw herself at him like the other girls
on base would. There wouldn’t be much point anyway, he probably just though
they were mates, that she was like a kid sister to him. But seeing as blind,
limbless, monkeys could count on one hand how many cute guys had ever
complimented her, she wasn’t going to get choosy.
“You
don’t look so bad yourself,” she said; then heard someone, who sounded rather
like herself, ask him if he wanted a drink.
“Y’know,
that’s probably the oldest line in the book, maybe because it works so well.”
He grinned, accepting her offer.
So
they wove their way across the floor, passing by Captain Blue as he danced with
his cabin steward, Philippa Daniel. As Flaxen was her best friend, she knew all
about Philly’s crush on Blue, and sure enough, Philly looked about ready to
faint with happiness at being in such close proximity to him. There was no
obvious sign of Symphony, who, at functions like this, would normally swoop in
and see off anyone she saw as making advances toward Blue. Then Flaxen looked
again and noticed her in a corner, talking to Melody while she danced a little
with Ricky, feigning an air of nonchalance whilst no doubt seething with
jealous possessiveness.
When
the song finished, Ochre found himself promptly ambushed by Symphony, who
handed over Ricky, then stalked off to reclaim her fiancé for the next dance.
Not
missing a beat, Ricky immediately turned his attentions to Flaxen. They had met
a few days previously; Flaxen had found some simple computer games and
downloaded them onto Ochre’s computer for Ricky to play with. She’d never
thought of herself as being any good with children, and still felt awkward
around him, but he was a sweet kid, so it was fun to spend time with him.
“Aren’t
you meant to be in bed?” Ochre asked him.
“I
was,” Ricky explained. “but then I woke up, because I needed a drink, but then
I couldn’t get back to sleep. So Karen said it was stupid us staying there, so
we came here to the party. I think she’s a bit mad with Adam, but I don’t know
why.”
“She’s
always a bit mad at Adam,” Ochre noted, “and nobody knows why, especially not
him, the poor shmuck.”
“Do
you want to dance with me, Audrey?” Ricky grinned hopefully.
“Umm,
OK.” Flaxen smiled, noticing the height difference and thinking it was quite
sweet.
“You
go ahead,” Ochre said. “I’m going for a drink.”
“You
made it then.” Magenta approached them, holding two glasses of champagne. He
was in his element, being sociable and seeing the appreciated end result of his
rigging up the sound system.
“I
think Claret’s scared of you,” Ochre said, accepting the proffered drink. He
decided not to bother wondering if it had originally been intended for someone
else, or who that someone might be.
“So
he should be.” Magenta grinned. “Then maybe he’ll learn for next time. I’m not really as sweet as I look.”
“Nah,
course not ... I know deep down you’re a softie really.”
At
that Magenta laughed.
“Just
don’t tell Claret,” he insisted, then adopted a curious, amused, expression.
“Why are you just standing there?”
It
hadn’t really occurred to him until then, but Ochre fully realised how out of
place he felt. Sure, he was amongst friends, but they had their own agendas: to
be single, carefree and look after number one, or the established couples who
happily let themselves become units of two. And he wasn’t really in either
camp. He could think of so many places he’d rather be than here, pretending he
was still the same old, incorrigible, mischief-maker.
He
shrugged, downed the non-alcoholic champagne, set the glass on the empties
tray, and felt a little better. Maybe he just wasn’t in the mood, but Magenta
wouldn’t let that go as an excuse.
“I’m
sensing you’re not your usual cheerful self,” Magenta told him.
“You
know I’ve never liked New Year parties much,” Ochre said. “They’re so
anticlimactic and overrated. And seriously, we can’t get drunk on base, so
what’s the point?”
Magenta
rolled his eyes; “just because you’re a dad now, doesn’t mean you have to act
like my dad. Next you’ll be telling
me to turn that racket down. Then have a whinge about how modern music is total
shite, even though this is by Aerosmith and was released in 1977. But there’s no point me arguing. And so on.”
“I
take great offence at that.” Ochre made a show of moping; then heard the next
song start up. “Pat, you have seriously got to quit sucking up to Karen all the
time and putting her stupid redneck country songs on the party playlists. It’s getting embarrassing. I mean, it
should be obvious by now that she won’t be getting in your pants out of
gratitude.”
“I
don’t care, I’m over her.” Magenta shrugged.
‘Is
that one of those mantras, that if you say them often enough it’ll become
true?’ Ochre couldn’t help thinking.
“Anyway,”
Magenta added, “it was this or that really annoying French love song only Mag
and Juliette like. Which would you have chosen?”
Ochre
nodded; “put like that, you made a good call ... you want some punch?”
“No
way.” Magenta peered into the bowl sceptically. “I don’t know how they got it
that colour, and probably don’t want to.”
“It’s
your colour.” Ochre grinned.
“Then
it’s practically cannibalism.”
“Now
you mention it, yes, eating does sound a good idea,” Ochre decided, making his
way to the buffet.
~oo0oo~
Flaxen
was dancing away quite happily. So what
if she wasn’t doing it very well? She
hadn’t tripped up, crashed into anyone, or anything humiliating like that. So,
overall it was an improvement on her usual performance.
She
felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around.
“Green. Hi,” she smiled.
“My
friends call me Griff,” he said casually.
“So
I hear. All right then, Griff, what can I do for you?” Flaxen decided she
really needed to lay off the champagne. As per Spectrum regulations it was
non-alcoholic, but it was clearly having a placebo effect on her. She was never
normally this brazen.
“Would
you mind if I cut in?”
Flaxen
was sure she imaged that Green’s smile had wavered slightly, a hint of
nervousness showing through.
“Umm,
well, you see,” she began hesitantly, “I’m supposed to look after Ricky. I
mean, Captain Ochre didn’t exactly give me an order to, but, uh, I don’t think
he’d be very pleased if I suddenly stopped looking after Ricky. Which is not to
say that ...” She stopped short, realising she was rambling.
With
practised ease Green hoisted Ricky up, and settled him against his hip, so they
were both able to put an arm around Flaxen.
“I
used to do this all the time when my brothers and sisters were young,” he told
her.
And
if there had, in Flaxen’s mind and heart, been any doubts about her feelings
toward Green, they completely evaporated in that moment.
~oo0oo~
“Aww,
don’t they make such a cute couple?” Melody said, nodding towards Green and
Flaxen.
“Yeah,
it’s so sweet I can feel my teeth rotting just watching them.”
“Actually
that may just be the cake,” she suggested.
Ochre
shrugged, licked the last traces of electric-blue icing from his fingers, and
then put down his paper plate.
“I
didn’t think cute couples were really your scene,” he noted, trying to keep his
tone light.
“Well,
it’s not really,” she said, “but I dunno, sometimes it’s just nice for people
to be happy.”
He’d
always thought it seemed really childish to have best friends, considering their
ages and careers, but being in such close environment did make for strong
friendships with the particular people you got on well with. He’d never said
anything to Melody, she’d probably just laugh at how clichéd it was, but that
didn’t change the fact he had come to think of her as a best friend. After all
there weren’t many people who readily laughed at his jokes, showed interest in
his creative projects, or he would call straight away, on the off-chance he did
end up murdering Pat and needed someone to help drag the body across the floor.
His
feelings may run deep, and hers might too, but their conversation generally
didn’t stray into the territory of emotional matters. So he couldn’t really
blame her for not saying anything about the shift he had noticed in her; her
demeanour had become lighter, she smiled more, appreciated his company but had
less time for him, seemed to like things she had previously shunned. It didn’t
take being one of the WGPC’s finest to work out what was going on there. And it
hurt him a little that she had a side of her life that she didn’t want to
share. Maybe it was him, maybe he seemed unapproachable, or maybe he wouldn’t
understand.
And
of course he wanted to tell her he knew, that he was happy for her. It was just
that she hadn’t said anything, and he didn’t know how to broach the subject.
“Yeah,
you’re right there,” he replied, then added without thinking, “So go on then,
what’s her name?”
Melody
looked at him, slightly unnerved, and floundered a little in her response. “Catherine,” she said softly, with
hesitation.
“You
sure?” he said automatically, because he honestly wasn’t expecting an outright
admission. He’d certainly suspected it, but there had always been some doubts,
and he never really thought she would say anything either way.
“Of
course I am,” she snapped, immediately going on the defensive. “So there, now
you know. And at the party too. I’m sure you could have a real field day with
that. What are you waiting for? Go announce it over the speaker system.”
“You
really think I’d do that?”
“The
hell if I’d know. Nobody’s got a clue about half the stuff that goes on in your
head.”
Ochre
shrugged; she probably did have a point there.
“Well,
for the record;” he said, “I wasn’t thinking anything along those lines. In
fact I’m happy for you, and totally respect your privacy.”
“Oh.”
She
looked down at her plate, rearranging the food on it for want of something to
do, while he desperately tried to think of a way to change the subject, to end
this awkwardness.
“How
about we go dancing?”
“I
don’t wanna dance with you,” she said, still prickly. But he’d seen the way she
had softened as she noticed a petite blonde on the other side of the room. The
woman he recognised as her racquet ball partner, though he now wondered how
much sport they actually played.
“Who
said anything about dancing with me?”
He smirked. “Figured you might have a better offer.”
Before
she could say another word he took her arm and dragged her across the floor.
By
the time they got there, the blonde, Catherine, was deep in conversation with
Magenta about some aspect of computers incomprehensible to anyone else.
“Aren’t
they adorable when they get all geeky?” Ochre winked at Melody. And for her
part she smiled, in acknowledgement of his solidarity and understanding.
“Hi,
Catherine.” He greeted her, because he remembered they had met before. She
smiled at him in recognition, then Melody interrupted to presumably save her
from any teasing or faux pas she supposed Ochre might have been about to make.
So
he turned to Magenta. “Y’know what
Cloudbase needs,” Ochre began, “a sex scandal, preferably with lesbians or
something of that nature.”
“You
volunteering yourself?” Magenta raised an eyebrow. “I have to say it’s not
every day I get propositioned by a cute guy.”
“No,
it’s not your birthday yet.” Ochre said, trying to keep a straight face. “But
until then you can make do with a dance. I’ll even let you lead.”
“How
very gracious of you.”
Melody
smiled, taking the hint, and suggested a dance to Catherine. As a rule
Catherine rarely danced, as it made her feel too self conscious, but she too
had succumbed to the party spirit and appreciated a chance to let her hair
down.
“Have
fun, kids,” Ochre called over his shoulder. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”
Melody
couldn’t help wondering whether that actually left them with anything they
should consider prohibited….
~oo0oo~
As
midnight drew closer they found themselves drifting toward each other again.
Melody
and Catherine danced together in perfect time, blissfully happy and soon
forgetting there was anyone else in the room.
Ochre
hadn’t quite kept his word; he’d managed for a while, but soon found himself
instinctively dragging Magenta around the floor. It evolved into something of a
battle of wills. He felt like he should stop and explain he wasn’t being
deliberately obnoxious, but doubted Magenta would believe it.
Ricky
broke away and somehow managed to charm one of the Angels’ stewards into dancing
with him, getting a big shadenfreude-fuelled
laugh when she ended up toppling from her high heels. Rumours soon circulated,
by way of explaining her prompt departure, that she had sprained her ankle.
On
Flaxen’s part, it was rather good timing, because then she was alone with Green
when her favourite slow song came on. They danced close together, and at times
Green would gently sing snatches of the lyrics, and then look at her with
apologetic embarrassment. But of course she didn’t mind. He had a wonderful
voice which made her feel like the Caribbean sun was shining on her alone. Not
that she had ever been to the Caribbean, but she’d looked at so many travel
brochures she could imagine it perfectly. It would certainly be a world away
from her usual holidays, sitting in a caravan in some rainy, wuthering, spot of
the British Isles listening to her mum complain about everything.
They
always had adverts on telly in January for exotic holidays; maybe for once in
her life she’d be impetuous and book one to Trinidad. And to hell with what
everyone else thought.
Yes,
her New Year’s resolution was to start living her life for her. And if Lieu …
Griff, if Griff wanted to be a part
of it then she wasn’t going to say no.
She
looked up sharply as the music stopped, to be replaced by Rhapsody’s crisp
accented voice;
“Ready
everyone … Five, four, three, two, one … happy New Year.”
Green
had meant to kiss her cheek, but she’d turned her head at that moment, and
she’d ended up getting him full on the lips.
After
a moment Flaxen broke away, mortified, but heady with it. Feeling like her
blood had turned to champagne; then she quickly turned back to the others,
hoping they’d seen it, just to prove it wasn’t a very realistic, pleasant
daydream.
“Aww,
our little girl is all grown up.” Ochre gave a fake sniffle.
Only
then did she dare to look back at Green, noticing that he too had that dazed,
delighted look in his eye, and knew she was on to a good thing.
Ochre
had heard somewhere that what you’re doing as one year turns to the next, is
what you’re destined to be doing all that year.
And
here he was; happy, healthy, surrounded by friends, with his son at his side
giggling.
He
really hoped it was true.
~oo0oo~
It
looked like the scene of some major catastrophe: pieces of computer hardware
strewn around the room, total silence but for the echoes of noise outside, and
the only sign of life being a pair of limbs clad in vibrant-hued boots jutting
out from under the largest piece of electronic equipment.
Lieutenant
Green, with a sense of trepidation born of previous disturbances of ‘genius at
work’, cleared his throat.
“Speak,
my loyal minion,” commanded a male voice, from the approximate direction of the
limbs.
“How
did you know it was one of us?” Green said. “You’d have got in trouble for
saying that to the colonel.”
“Anyone
else would come right in and start talking,” Magenta reasoned. “With words to
the effect of, ‘what the hell are you doing?’ ... apparently rumours that I was
going to be spending the whole morning working on my back needed to be seen to
be believed.”
Green
chuckled.
“Put
like that it did sound an intriguing prospect,” he said. “A little smutty too,
perhaps.”
“I
can do smutty. You have to really, working with Rick; embrace the innuendo or
die striving for gravitas. I mean, we can’t all be as uptight as Blue, it
wouldn’t be healthy.”
“True,” Green concurred, “not that he sounded
especially inhibited staggering down the corridor singing a drunken rendition
of ‘Sexyback’ at three a.m.”
It
had become as much of a tradition as the New Year party, between Green and
Magenta, that at the earliest opportunity on the first of January they would
get together to discuss and dissect the events of the previous night.
“Forgive
me for not believing you.”
“Seriously,”
Green insisted, “go ask Scarlet, he was there. It was his Scotch Blue had been
at.”
“That’s
fairly credible,” Magenta declared. “Well, I for one am impressed he knew the
words. I had the impression Blue’s musical tastes were more staid. Certainly
not encompassing anything with rude words.”
Green
shrugged; “apparently Symphony wasn’t very impressed about getting serenaded by
it.”
“Yeah,
I saw her eating breakfast alone this morning. While Blue was the other side of
the canteen looking worse for wear. Figured something was up, but, wow.” He
laughed, “That’s a pretty original way to see in the year.”
“You
know, I’m not entirely convinced that champagne was non-alcoholic,” Green
admitted after a moment. “I mean, of course people do go a bit wild, but it
seemed even more crazy this year.”
“It’s
been a very stressful time lately,” Magenta noted. “With there finally being a
let up in the action, and leave cancelled so they had nowhere else to go, people
really wanted to let their hair down ... and I do recall you having a fun time
of it, with a certain Ms. Geffen.”
Green
blushed slightly, and began to toy with the wrapper of the item he had carried
into the room. On hearing the noise Magenta shuffled from his crawlspace.
“You
brought food.” He grinned.
“I’m
just the delivery boy,” Green explained. “Apparently your ‘husband’ was rather
concerned you’d get so engrossed in work that you’d not end up having a healthy
lunch.”
“You
say that like Ochre would know ‘nutritious’, if it bit him.” Magenta set the
napkin and cutlery in place on the tray, and arranged the foods around them by
food group. He knew if Ochre was there he’d tease, wondering aloud ‘have you
finished OCDing yet, Pat?’.
“So,”
Magenta began, carefully opening the plastic pot of couscous salad. “Out with
it. I want the full gory Ochre-calibre details.”
“There’s
nothing to tell.”
“Bullshit.”
Magenta wielded the fork to punctuate his point. “Come on, you know I’m not going
to run around blabbing your secrets. But we’re friends; friends share their
trials and tribulations, romantic or otherwise.”
Green
blew out a long sigh; which prompted Magenta to hand him the triple chocolate
muffin, knowing his companion’s need was greater than his own.
“Ah
hell, I don’t know,” Green said. “Things were going so well last night.”
“Home
run?” Magenta asked. For someone who wasn’t especially interested in the sport,
he had a penchant for baseball analogies when discussing sex.
“We
didn’t have sex, if that’s what you mean. We both agreed to take it slow, that
there was no need to rush into anything. I mean, I don’t think Audrey is all
that experienced, and I don’t want to unwittingly pressure her.” Green shrugged
“So I didn’t even stay over. And that was fine, like I say, things were great
last night.”
“Then
what happened?”
“I
knew she had duty early this morning, so I took her some breakfast. Kinda
expected to pick up where we left off.” Green laughed nervously. “Umm, well not
literally, but y’know … and it was like, she had a total personality
transplant. She said all the usual, the usual crap, about how it had been fun and everything, but it wasn’t the
right time, and she didn’t want to hurt me. And then, get this, that she’s
going on vacation next month. To find herself!”
“You
really think she’s making it up? That doesn’t sound like her style.”
Green
gave a bitter laugh; “Come on, that’s the kind of line Ochre would spin. Hell,
he probably put her up to it.”
“So,
what the hell am I supposed to do about it?” Magenta said evenly. “I’m not my
partner’s keeper.”
“Obviously.”
Green threw his hands up. “Oh, I don’t know. Something’s not quite right about
the whole thing. Maybe it’s me, maybe
she doesn’t like me so much in the cold light of day.”
“I
doubt that.”
“Can’t
you talk to her, figure out what’s going on?”
“No,”
Magenta said simply. “It’s your relationship, you deal.”
“Yeah,
I know that.” Green said gently, realising how bad his words had sounded. “It’s
just, I wasn’t expecting this. And when you like someone, then you want to be
with them, and expect them to want to be with you.”
“I’m
sure she does want to be with you; but I guess there’s something she feels that
she needs to do before then. I can understand that you’re pissed and confused,
but go take it up with her.”
“You’re
right; obviously, I mean she did say that she wouldn’t be going tomorrow. It
was more advanced warning really. I’m probably overreacting. It’s just, I think
I love her.”
“You
think?” Magenta laughed. “I always figured love was one of those things you had
to get totally behind.”
“It’s
early days,” Green countered.
“True,
anyway for the purposes of this exercise it doesn’t much matter. For whatever
reason she needs this, you have to let her go … then when she comes back, you
both will have had time to think and figure out where this is going.”
“That’s
very good advice, thanks.”
“I’m
good at giving advice, it’s the taking it that doesn’t always work out.”
“That’s
probably true for everyone,” Green admitted. “Anyway, I better get back to
work.”
“Me
too, thanks for the food.”
~oo0oo~
“I
thought you might need extra napkins.” Ochre said, holding out the wad of
coloured paper as he arrived.
“Thank
you.” Magenta said softly. “For everything.”
“Uh,
you’re welcome.” Ochre patted his shoulder, hoping it would be a suitable
gesture.
“I
know I bitch at you all the time for being a pain in the ass, and so stubborn,
and never listening to anyone. But you do know I wouldn’t ever change you?”
“Wait.”
Ochre frowned. “I’ve totally missed the context of this, haven’t I?”
So
Magenta outlined his conversation with Green.
“Good
for her.” Ochre beamed. “Always knew the girl had spunk.”
“I
know,” Magenta said. “I nearly freaked out at Griff though. Thinking he’d talk
her out of it. I know he’s not going to be an abusive jerk like the
ex-boyfriend my sister had, but I couldn’t help thinking of that. Flax needs
someone who will help build her confidence, and Griff being gracious about her
going is sure to help toward that end.”
“Now
it makes more sense.” Ochre nodded. “So yes, I think you made the right call.
Even if Griff isn’t an abusive, controlling, asshole he should still be
watching his step.”
“If he isn’t?” Magenta laughed. “It’s
sweet how you have so much faith in humanity, and always see the best in
people.”
“I’m
not that bad. I’m just saying: you never know what people are capable of. It
doesn’t pay to be blindly trusting.”
“I
know that. But they’re capable of good things too, and changing for the better,
you should know that.”
Ochre
rolled his eyes; “You’re such a bleeding heart, I don’t know why I put up with
you.”
“My
dashing good looks,” Magenta suggested. “Or perhaps my charming wit.”
“Hmm,
that or the fact you owe me money.”
“I’ll
get lunch next week, to keep our regular date, then we’ll be quits.”
Ochre
gave a slight smile; “I’m gonna have to take a rain check on that. The hospital
called, and that’s when Ellie will get discharged. So I’m taking the boy back
to their place then, so they’ll have time to get settled before school starts
up again the week after.”
“You
OK, about that?”
“Do
I really have a choice?” Ochre shrugged. “It’s that cliché again; if you love
someone let them go.”
Chicago
He
knew the day would come eventually, made efforts to prepare himself for it, but
when it did roll around he realised nothing could have fully equipped him for
it.
“I
know this place,” Ricky said. Watching the landscape; of pastel painted
clapboarded bungalows, set back from the road, surrounded by neat yards, as it
rolled by outside the car windows.
“Should
hope so, it’s your neighbourhood.”
Ochre
said nothing as he continued driving, focusing only on what was ahead.
He
had privately hoped Magenta would be there, for the moral support, but the work
needed on the base computers had run into unexpected problems, which had meant
he needed to stay behind. As it was Grey had been granted furlough at short
notice at the same time, and was using it for a long overdue visit to his
sister, who it transpired lived two blocks from Eleanor Topping’s home. Ochre
wasn’t really complaining, Brad was a good friend, but it wasn’t quite the
same.
“So,
this is your older sister?” he asked Grey, to make conversation and remove the
awkward silence which settled around them. “The one with all the kids?”
“Yeah,”
Grey answered. “Apparently Jennifer and her husband are trying for a fourth, if
you can believe that. And to think she was so sensible until she had her
first.”
“Well,
I can’t really comment there, Ochre noted, pulling up by the house.
~oo0oo~
Eleanor
Topping stood at the threshold waiting for them, a smile of welcome and relief
playing across her face. She still wasn’t in perfect health, but recovering
well and getting stronger every day. She crouched slightly to let Ricky hug
her, then straightened up as the captains approached.
“This
is Brad,” Ricky said, gesturing toward Grey.
Grey
and Ellie exchanged pleasantries, then followed him into the house.
“He
helped take care of me too,” Ricky added. “For some of the time anyway. One
time we went swimming, because I remembered to pick up my swim bag, it was
really fun; they have a swimming pool that’s like the biggest in the world.”
“It’s
a standard Olympic-sized pool,” Grey clarified. He could understand why it
would seem huge to a child, but for someone who had spent so much of his life
on, in, and beside the sea, it felt a poor substitute for open water.
“Brad,”
Ricky called to him. “You should come see my room.”
“We’ll
be there in a minute,” Ellie said with a smile.
In
fact, her smile hadn’t let up for a split second since their arrival. It really
did feel good to be home, getting back to normal. Having her nephew return,
with his cheerful nature and enthusiasm for life, rounded it off perfectly. She
had missed him during their separation, the longest time they had been apart
since he had been born. She had worried that he wouldn’t be coping well, which
seemed absurd now, there probably wasn’t anything that Ricky couldn’t adapt to
or which would dampen his spirit for long. If there was going to be a nervous
wreck, it would be her.
~oo0oo~
“Good
God,” Grey exclaimed, standing at the threshold of the bedroom and staring around.
“He really is a mini-you, Rick. I don’t think the world is ready for this.”
“It’ll
cope,” Ochre said mildly, continuing to examine the model plane he was holding.
“Aunt
Ellie says that when I’m older I can make models using proper kits and glues and
stuff,” Ricky said.
“Kits
are for amateurs,” Ochre said dismissively. “I’ll teach you how to make them
from scratch.”
“Cool,”
Ricky beamed with delighted admiration.
“Ricky’s
always been fascinated by planes,” Ellie told Grey. “Then he got into making
the models fairly recently. We did encourage him a bit with that. It’s nice,
really, for him to have the connection with his father and carrying on the
legacy of sorts.”
“Oh
sure, it’s cute now.” Grey rolled his eyes. “But in years to come, when he graduates
to the noxious glues and paints, then it’ll get old real fast.”
“At
least my hobby doesn’t come with a risk of drowning,” Ochre said sweetly. “And
y’know, chlorine isn’t exactly my favourite scent either.”
“That’s
still a long way off though,” Ellie noted, hoping to avoid an argument. “I’m
sure we can psych ourselves up ... anyway, how about lunch?”
“Yes
please!” Ricky literally bounced along the length of his bed. “I’d like some
tomato soup, and grilled cheese. Daddy can make grilled cheese.”
“Since
when?” Ellie laughed, then stopped, embarrassed.
Her
memories of Rick Fraser were of a total avoidance of cooking anything at all,
punctuated with a few culinary disasters. But then she was aware that the man
who sat in front of her was not the man she had known years ago. An indefinable
emotion prickled at her when she thought about how he had carved out a life for
himself without the Toppings, that changes like that must have been inevitable,
in what other ways he was a stranger.
Ochre
seemed oblivious to her perceived faux pas.
“Oh
yeah, I’m building quite a repertoire,” he said “All kinds of stuff to do with
toast, and eggs, though my over easy still isn’t quite to Pat’s liking, and
spaghetti pesto.” He shrugged. “So yeah, I’m not exactly a ‘restaurant of the
year’ candidate, but it’s progress.”
“Auntie
Pat has been teaching him,” Ricky interrupted. “And me and Pat made cookies
together; actually we made them two times, so I could bring you some too.”
“That’s
very kind. You’ll have to thank her for me.”
At
that Ricky giggled, so much that Ellie felt self-conscious and was about to ask
him to explain the joke.
“Pat
is a boy,” Ricky clarified. “He works with Daddy. You met him before,
remember.”
“You’re
right, I did.”
That
prickly emotion once again flared in Ellie. She could understand Rick having
his own life, was able to accept that. But the thought that Ricky, for whom she
had been the centre of his world, could so easily have a part of his life to
which she would never be entirely privy, set her off kilter. As soon as those
feelings came she crushed them down. It was absurd to feel that way; she was
going to have to get over herself. What was the alternative, after all that had
happened she couldn’t turn around at this stage and keep Rick out of their
lives.
~oo0oo~
“It’s
a long story," Ochre began, catching up with her as she went to the
kitchen, “about the auntie thing. We’ve been trying to change it, say ‘uncle’
instead if he must. But I guess until now he’s been used to anyone who cares for
him being an aunt. So it’s not really sticking.”
Ellie
nodded, not really caring.
“You
are OK with all this?” he said gently.
“Does
it really matter what I think?” Ellie retorted, with more feeling than she had
intended; then instantly made efforts to soften her tone. “I mean, the
important thing is that Ricky is happy and that we’re doing the best for him.”
“I
guess that’s true; but obviously we’re in this together. So ultimately we have
to make this work for everyone involved.”
She
knew that, obviously she did. It was just difficult sometimes to get her head
around it all, having someone else so invested in Ricky’s life. Of course it
was hard to raise a child alone, but she had come to appreciate that her word
was final and nobody else would contradict her or make her second-guess her
decisions.
“And
I’ll send money, of course,” Ochre added.
“You
don’t need to do that.” Ellie bristled. There was no reason for him to make a
charity case of them.
“But
I want to. Obviously it wouldn’t make up for what I’ve missed, or me not being
around 24/7 now, but … he’s my kid, I should be contributing something.”
“That’s
very noble,” Ellie said firmly. “But Ricky doesn’t want for anything.”
“College
doesn’t come cheap,” Ochre noted. “Or driving lessons, school supplies, or the
clothes he’ll grow out of in the blink of an eye. I know you’ve got your pride,
but I’ve got mine too.”
“Fair
enough,” Ellie conceded. “I suppose Ricky would appreciate it.”
~oo0oo~
So
as he left the room, Ochre took the wallet from his pocket, as Ellie followed
him back to the bedroom.
“Here
you go, bud,” he said, handing Ricky a note. “You can put that in your money
box and spend it on whatever you want.”
“Fifty
dollars,” Ricky read. “That’s lots of money, thank you, Daddy.”
“That’s
OK, least I can do really.”
“I’m
gonna get you a present,” Ricky stated. “For your birthday. I know when that
is. It’s three days before mine. I was supposed to be born then, but nobody
told me.”
“That’s
all right; you don’t have to get me a gift.”
“But
I want to. You got me loads of stuff when I stayed with you.”
“Yes,
very generous.” Ellie emptied the holdall onto Ricky’s bed and found several
garments she didn’t recognise.
“He
ran out of clothes,” Ochre said simply.
“You
didn’t think to wash them,” Ellie said, amused by his ‘problem solving’.
“Yeah,
but we were in the city,” Ochre explained. “Plenty of shops, not a whole heap
of public laundry facilities or time to use them. It made sense at the time.”
“These
ones are my favourite.” Ricky said, holding up in turn his appliquéd t-shirt, a
sweater with different shades of green in horizontal bands, and a pair of jeans
from a store Ellie had heard good things about but always thought too
expensive. “I picked them out myself.”
“It’s
good to know fashion sense isn’t hereditary,” Ochre added quickly, before
anyone else could make a dig. “All the clothes are clean, Ellie, our laundry
department saw to that, saves you having to try and get soy sauce out of them.”
“I
only got a little bit down my cords,” Ricky retorted, offended.
Ellie
found them, impressed that the stain had been completely removed. She took a
certain comfort in the repetitive mindless task of folding the clothes and
putting them away, while Ricky took the captains on a tour around the rest of
the house.
~oo0oo~
“I
guess we better get going,” Ochre said, putting his head round the door of the
bedroom. “The Old Man hates it when we stay out past curfew.”
Ricky,
who had been standing beside him, looked up in anguish and disappointment.
“I
don’t want you to go,” he said. “Aunt Ellie, please don’t make him go away.”
“We
don’t get to choose,” Ellie said gently. “Your daddy has his job to do.”
“But
I want you to stay here and be my daddy.” Tears welled in Ricky’s eyes. “That’s
your job too.”
Ochre
crouched beside him; feeling like his heart would shatter.
“I
know, kid,” he began, “it’s the best job in the world, being your dad. But I
made a promise a long time ago that I would do my other job at Spectrum, to
make the world safer for everyone. And it’s not right to go breaking promises …
So that’s going to mean I won’t get to see you every day like other people’s
dads, but I’ll still care about you and all the stuff parents do. And we can
talk every day on the phone, that’s better than nothing.”
“Aunt
Ellie says I’m not allowed to use the phone,” Ricky pointed out.
“Well,
that’s normally true,” Ellie agreed, “but we can make this an exception.”
So
Ochre tore a sheet of paper from the notepad in his pocket, and scrawled a
number onto it. “This is my cell phone number, you keep that safe, then
whenever you want to talk you can call that and I’ll be there, or call you back
soon as I can.”
Ricky
nodded, holding the paper reverently.
“I
could write you too,” Ricky suggested. “My letters aren’t that good, but
that’ll help me practise.”
“That’d
be a good idea.” Ochre took back the paper, wrote his post box address on the
back. “And of course when I do get vacations we can hang out, wherever you want
to go.”
“Fae
said we were going to New York, on my birthday.” Ricky said. “Can we still do
that?”
“Don’t
see why not.”
Not
that Ochre was entirely sure he could get leave then, but that seemed a trivial
concern. He had weeks before then to work something out, and he was prepared to
do almost anything. He figured that was just what you did, to make your kid
happy.
“I’ll
make all the arrangements,” he added, to Ellie, as an afterthought. “You won’t
have to worry about that ... you can come along too, if you like.”
“That
might be nice, yes.” Ellie smiled. “A proper family outing, I can’t remember
the last time we had one of those.”
“Me
neither.” Ochre shrugged. “It’ll be a new adventure for all of us.”
“Touching
as this is, we really do need to be going.” Grey interrupted. He had always
been in favour of a brief goodbye; it was like ripping off a band-aid, less
painful for all concerned to get it over with quickly.
“Yeah,
sure, I know,” Ochre said.
A
car drew up outside the house. As the engine stopped a chatter of a childlike
voice began and drew closer.
As
he was closest to the front door Ochre opened it; to reveal a dark haired
little girl with an impatience beyond her years.
“Uncle
Brad, you left your cell phone at our house,” She announced a young yet
authoritive voice, and marched past Ochre holding the offending device. “And
it’s been ringing the whole time. I
don’t know who this Juliette person is, but she really needs to talk to you.”
“Uh,
right, thanks, Abby.” Grey blushed slightly, and excused himself to take the
call.
“I
am really sorry to disturb you like this …” the woman accompanying the girl
began.
At
the sound of the long forgotten, yet suddenly familiar voice, Ochre turned
sharply.
“Lauren
Holden.” He smiled. “I’d know you anywhere. It’s been way too long.”
“Nearly
seven years,” she said. “I didn’t make the connection for a while, hearing all
about you from Brad, but here you are. And now I know.”
Ochre
studied the girl carefully; she was probably about seven years old, and he and
Lauren had dated ... A heavy ominous feeling crept over him.
“I’m Abby,” the girl said, walking over to
him. “And this is my Aunt Lulu.”
“That’s
good to know.” Ochre grinned.
Lauren
laughed; “Oh God, you didn’t think I’d gone to the dark side? No way, I just
got roped into doing the fairy godmother thing while my sister takes the boys
to the dentist ... your face though, priceless. What’s that all about?”
“Long
story, which I might tell you sometime. But short version is I did go to the
dark side, and mini-me is going to be six next month.”
“It’s
a nice age; they’re not fun until you can have a proper conversation.”
“Again
I can’t apologise enough for disturbing you,” Lauren said, smiling at Ellie.
“But, I guess it must have been a pretty important call.”
“Oh
don’t worry about it,” Ellie said. “So, you’re Brad’s sister … it’s good to
meet you. It seems quite silly that we have this connection already and live so
close by but never met before.”
“Yeah,
small world, huh?” Lauren smiled.
“Abby,
do you want to come play on my climbing frame?” Ricky asked her. “If it’s OK
with Aunt Ellie, and your auntie too.”
“All
right,” Ellie agreed. “You might as well stay for lunch then, unless there’s
somewhere you need to be.”
“Well,
the twins get back from their appointment at three,” Lauren said. “But
otherwise we’re totally free of obligations.”
Grey
emerged from the living room, punching a number into his cell phone and looking
like a man condemned.
“Girl
trouble?” Lauren asked mildly. “Don’t
worry; you can email me all about it.”
“Ooh,
that’s cruel.” Ochre winced, with a grin. “I remembered why I like you ... but
it looks like we’re gonna need to make a prompt exit.”
“We’ll
see each other again,” Lauren said casually. “So long, bro.”
Grey
made his farewells, then went out to the car, making hasty urgent conversation
with a florist.
“I
still don’t want you to go,” Ricky told Ochre. “But I get it.”
“The
time will fly by,” Ochre reassured him. “We’ll be together again before you
know.”
Ricky
nodded, reaching out to hug him.
Ochre
felt like this was one of those defining ‘Hallmark’ moments; that he should say
or do something grand and memorable. But life wasn’t a movie; you didn’t get a
script, soft lighting, or miraculous make up.
“You
be good, OK,” Ochre said, his voice crackling with emotion. “Have fun with your
friend, and everything.”
“I
will, I’ll try not to miss you too much.”
“Same
here.”
In
Ricky’s room, at the front of the house, was a blanket box with an upholstered
seat. And as the captains pulled away from the house they watched as Ricky and
Abby, framed by the window, knelt side by side and waved until they were out of
sight.
~oo0oo~
“Rick,”
Grey began, as they flew back to base.
“Yeah?”
Ochre
“You
know, in all the time Ricky has been here I can’t recall you actually calling
him by his given name.”
“I
might have done.” Ochre tried to remember. “But it’s my name too, pretty much,
so it’s weird. Like you’re referring to yourself in the third person or
something.”
He
wasn’t prepared to admit the other reason. That for him Ricky’s name served as
a constant reminder of the vast discrepancy between the official story of
Ochre’s departure from his previous life, and what had really occurred.
Naturally Alie had, out of love, named her baby in honour of his late father.
But of course that had been a lie. For all his rationalisation of his choice to
join Spectrum, Ochre knew that a man who could leave his pregnant girlfriend,
regardless of the circumstances, didn’t deserve such an honouring.
Not
that he had any right to have a say in the matter; Alie had birthed the kid
alone so was entitled to make any subsequent decisions alone. It was just that
he’d had this half-formed notion of how things should have been, that he’d
wanted to name his first son after his brother, and it was disappointing for
that not to work out.
But
then when he looked at his son, he realised the boy could have been given the
worst name in the world (and there had been a time when he’d been sure that was
Richard) and it wouldn’t make any difference. All the matter was that now,
finally, Ricky could call him Dad.
If
this time with Ricky had taught him anything, it was that it wasn’t always a bad
thing when your plans got changed.
Epilogue
Lieutenant
Green was beginning to regret sticking around for this, but he knew he couldn’t
high-tail it now.
With the elegant, probably antique,
letter opener he reserved for such occasions; Colonel White carefully slit open
the envelope and extracted the item from inside.
‘Congratulations
on your new daughter’ the card proclaimed in swirling pink script, surrounded
by bows and a pair of baby’s shoes by way of decoration.
“They
don’t really make them with older kids in mind,” Green noted apologetically.
“It’s
the sentiment that counts, thank you.” White said, in a tone Green couldn’t
read. “How did you know?”
“Symphony
said, about the adoption being finalised,” Green answered. “Some other things too,
and then I put it all together.”
White
set the card on his desk. It seemed rather absurd, as he had already had the
papers through in the post a few days before, but this gesture really made it
all seem official, a true acknowledgement of this massive change in his life.
“How
old is she anyway, your daughter?”
White
looked up, a little surprised at hearing that term, then smiled slightly.
“Sixteen,”
he answered.
Green
made sympathetic noises in response.
“My
youngest sister, Dolly, turned sixteen last month,” he explained. “It’s a
difficult age that. Between the high school dramas, getting crazy over guys,
them wanting to be all independent but not having the maturity or know-how to
handle it.” He stopped, aware of his
audience and began to back-pedal. “But obviously every teenager is an
individual, sometimes you expect it to be tough but they end up surprising
you.”
“Yes,
I was made aware of what I was letting myself in for,” White said gently. “I’m
sure between us we’ll be able to manage whatever Evie may throw at us. It is
very commendable that you took on the care of your younger siblings by
yourself, I can’t imagine how difficult it would be.”
“You
do what you have to do, sir,” Green said simply. “I have to admit though; I’m
not planning on having my own kids. Not now we’re at the stage where my
brothers and sisters can all pretty much take care of themselves and pay their
way. I’m getting to enjoy this having my own life thing, and don’t really fancy
going back to square one with a baby again. Which isn’t to say I won’t change
my mind one day, but I doubt it’ll happen any time soon. Having a family
wouldn’t work so well with this job anyway.”
“That
sounds really very sensible,” White agreed. “You’ve certainly done enough
childrearing to last a lifetime.”
An
insistent bleeping from the comms desk interrupted them.
“That’ll
probably be Captain Magenta checking in,” Green said, making his way over
there.
White
nodded, by way of a dismissal.
He
returned his attention to the card, tucking it out of the way under the files
he was attending to. He tried to pay attention to the reports in front of him;
but kept thinking back to the adoption finalisation papers in the safe in his
quarters, with his other personal documents. Of Evie’s easy cheerful greeting
of ‘hi dad’ when he had called to reassure Amanda the documents had reached him
safely. The day when Symphony, despite her earlier reservations, about which
she had naturally been rather vocal, had given her blessing.
They
were a family now; Amanda, Karen, himself, and Eve Charlotte Wainwright-Gray.
He
hadn’t felt this settled, content and hopeful in years.
~oo0oo~
It
was the cool air across his exposed shoulder blades which finally brought Ochre
to semi consciousness. Reluctant to fully awaken he reached for the duvet,
pulled it up to fully cover himself, ignoring the solitary dull clunk of china
onto cork, barely an arms’-length from his head. Then he settled back to sleep,
only to be entirely woken by the barrage of garments tossed onto his prone
form.
He’d
suspected that he would end up regretting humouring Pat when he decided Ochre
needed to upgrade his wardrobe, though he hadn’t imagined it playing out like
this.
Only
then did Ochre grudgingly open his eyes; to find Magenta, selecting clothes
from the various carrier bags around the dresser ready for another onslaught.
Ochre
grumbled something not especially complimentary, and reburied himself in the
duvet.
“And
a bon anniversaire to you,” Magenta
teased. “Aww, poor baby, did all the excitement wear you out?”
Ochre
couldn’t remember the last time he had gone off base for his birthday. Sure
he’d booked leave, but it usually got cancelled in light of the latest threat.
As if the Mysterons had a vendetta against him personally. So he wasn’t going
to bother this year, but he had made the promise to Ricky, so Magenta talked
him into a 72 hour pass to New York, and sure enough there they were. Twenty
four hours in, having a grand time of it. And as birthday boy Ochre got to call
the shots; so he didn’t end up bored witless, getting dragged round some art
gallery or museum, which was ordinarily a given when on leave with Pat.
“It’s
good to see you’ve got your groove back,” Ochre said, and he did mean it. He
hadn’t seen Magenta this motivated and truly happy for a long time.
“Glad
you appreciate it,” Magenta said grinning. “Because this is the start of a new
and improved me.”
“You
can’t technically be new and improved at the same time,” Ochre stated, eyeing
his mug of coffee.
“True
… go on, drink up. After all the whole concept of coffee is to consume it while
it’s hot. Not to mention it’ll help you wake up.”
“I
take it you had fun then,” Ochre sat up, reached for his drink. “Mr
I-don’t-put-out-on-the-first-date.”
“A
gentleman never tells …” Magenta noted, “technically it wasn’t a first date
anyway. That implies there are to be further dates, which is very presumptuous
of you.”
“You
have the effect on me. The good old cop’s gut instinct.”
“There’s
nothing old about you,” Magenta insisted. “Relative to the fact I’m a year
older than you.”
“Anything
good?”
“Honestly,
if you have to ask …” Magenta let it hang, as he strolled leisurely from the
room drinking his coffee.
Ochre
shoved the clothes aside, the weight and warmth of them starting to irritate
him. Through the window to his left he could see the sun was already high in
the sky. So with slight trepidation he checked the time on the travel alarm
beside his bed.
“Pat,”
he hollered, indignant. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yeah,
sure.”
“Then
why didn’t you tell me!” Ochre scrambled out of bed.
“What
do you think the coffee, and the other stuff, was in aid of?”
Ochre
went to the doorway, glaring as he noticed Magenta nonchalantly reading the
newspaper.
“If
we’re late, this is all your fault, Ochre stated through gritted teeth. His
mood soured all the more in the face of Magenta’s smirk of amusement and
appraisal. Then the memory of the previous night, shrugging off every last
stitch of clothing before gratefully clambering between the cool bed sheets,
flooded back to him.
“You
don’t need to be all modest,” Magenta said casually. “It’s nothing I haven’t
seen before.”
“Anyone
would think you get a kick of humiliating me,” Ochre muttered bitterly.
“You,
embarrassed?” Magenta feigned surprise. “Hmm, I suppose stranger things have
happened.”
“Whatever,
I’m going to get dressed.”
“Genius
idea, wouldn’t want you to catch a chill.”
Magenta
couldn’t help laughing as the door slammed, and Ochre stomped off in a huff.
Sometimes he really, really, liked his job.
~oo0oo~
On
the Caribbean island of Antigua, a young woman at an exclusive beach bar gazed
miserably at her reflection, and with a soft sigh smeared some more after-sun
lotion onto her nose. It was typical really, that something like this would
happen. She hoped it would clear up before she got back to base, otherwise
everyone would probably be humming Rudolph
The Red Nose Reindeer to her for weeks.
Audrey
Geffen thanked the bartender, as he set a glass of Planter’s Punch in front of
her. Then she took a long grateful sip through the yellow plastic straw,
feeling her spirits lift. You couldn’t be miserable in a place like this; with
the warm sunshine, gentle lapping waves of vivid azure ocean, vibrant colours
all around, and pale golden sand like caster sugar between your toes. It
defined idyllic …
Unless
of course there was a hurricane.
She
stamped down that thought; it wasn’t going to be hurricane season for
months.
“Hi,
you want a hat?”
Audrey
looked around, noticing the vendor had finally approached her. She had indeed
been casually watching him work his way up and down the beach selling his wares
of handmade fedora hats woven from palm leaves. So she decided now was a good
time to show off her new-found haggling skills.
“Yes,
I think my friend might like one,” she said. “I’ll give you ten for it.”
“Twenty.”
“Fifteen
then.”
The
vendor beamed, held out his wares for her closer inspection. She chose one with
a palm hummingbird perched on the end of a leaf strand woven into the side of
the hat. Then she decided to try it on. It was comfortable, and gave her face
much needed shade. She foraged in her wallet; to find she only had twenty
dollar bills.
“Actually,
I’ll take two for twenty dollars,” she amended, and content with this deal the
vendor placed another hat of the same design beside her on the bar.
Audrey
hadn’t meant to buy souvenirs; but on the first excursion she’d been in a shop
and there had been a shirt of the truest shade of ochre she’d ever seen, so
she’d had to get that for Rick. Then she’d haggled and got a brilliant deal on
a set of shell jewellery for Philly. And now the fedora for Pat. She’d set
aside enough money to buy Griff some of his favourite cologne in the duty free
on the way home. Then that was it for presents. The whole point of this trip
was to be selfish and indulgent, and for once she was going to stick to that,
sort of.
Audrey
rummaged in her beach bag, and pulled out a thin stack of postcards which she
set on the bar. The first on the stack was of a hummingbird feeding from a
magenta-hued hibiscus. So she clicked the nib of her Spectrum ballpoint pen
down, and began to compose her missive.
My favourite captains,
I’m having the most wonderful
time on my cruise; the week is flying by like a dream.
I almost don’t want to
come home, but then I can see you and tell you all about it, so that won’t be
too bad.
Everything is as lovely
as you said it would be, Pat; do thank your parents for me for recommending
this ship.
Rick; I took you advice
to ‘let my hair down’ and woke up with a massive hangover. I recovered fine,
but forgive me not listening to your tips any more.
I hope you both aren’t
up to too much mischief, compared to usual anyway.
See you soon
Love,
Flax
xx
With
all the cards written Audrey stamped and addressed them, then strolled up the
beach to drop them into the post-box. She wasn’t sure the postcards would get
to the base before she did, but it was the thought that counted.
With
a smile she headed back to the bar, feeling an ice tea was in order.
~oo0oo~
Grand
Central Station always reminded him of the movies. It was one of those places which
somehow didn’t feel like it really existed; build up as a legend on the big
screen. He half expected to round a corner and walk into a sepia tinted moment,
of Humphrey Bogart making a touching hello or goodbye to his leading lady. Not
that he had the first idea if there was indeed any touching reunions, meetings
or farewells at Grand Central in any of Bogart’s movies. Pat would know, and no
doubt discuss it at length with minimal prompting. The way he’d decided having
a field partner named Rick was a viable reason to make Casablanca references at
every opportunity. Ochre of course was oblivious, and eventually after giving
enough blank looks he had been forced to watch the movie; and he admitted it
was pretty good, but he wasn’t exactly compelled to pour over Bogart’s entire
life works.
Something
soft but oddly shaped in his jeans pocket was rubbing against his leg through
the lining and irritating him. So with one eye still trained on Pat, as it
didn’t seem a good idea to lose him in the crowd, Ochre dug around in his
pocket and pulled out the offending item.
It
was a paper napkin, from a bar they had visited the previous night, though
after the third drink everything blurred into one. He frowned, wondering why he
had kept it. It was Pat who did that sort of thing, picking up random things
from random places, a tendency born either of sentimentality or as a healthy
outlet for his assumed kleptomania. Then Ochre unfolded the napkin, and
discovered a number, no doubt a phone number, was scrawled through the middle
with eye liner pencil.
He
tried to remember her name, this woman who had liked him enough to make such a
spontaneous gesture. But his mind went blank. And he realised it was because he
hadn’t bothered to commit it to memory in the first place. With some thought, a
dream-like image of a brunette with bright red lipstick swam up into his memory
but he couldn’t be sure that was the woman who gave out her number.
That
was no way to live, to conduct relationships, surely.
As
they passed by a trash can he crumpled the napkin and tossed it inside.
“What
was that?” Magenta asked, ever curious.
“Nothing.”
Ochre shrugged, deciding his partner wasn’t going to claim a monopoly on ‘new
and improved’.
~oo0oo~
“Are we there yet, Aunt Ellie?”
She
wasn’t entirely sure. It had been a long time since she had last visited New
York, years probably. Seeing all the famous sights with Alie, and getting them
hopelessly lost down side streets. She’d hated that, felt panicked in the
unfamiliar city with its bad reputation, though with hindsight they probably
had an equal chance of getting mugged in Chicago. Alie hadn’t minded, or at
least she hadn’t shown it. Eventually after what seemed an age they had found a
bar and gratefully sipped lattes while waiting for the cab which had taken them
back to the hotel.
Rick
had been there, she remembered now. Not literally with them, but dating Alie.
That was why they were in New York; he’d had a WGPC conference. When they got
back to the hotel he was waiting, clearly concerned about what had kept them.
So Alie told him about it, making the whole thing sound like a great fun
adventure. And the next day Alie had found a map and city guide of New York on
her bedside table; wrapped up in pretty paper with a bow on, as a joke.
“Wouldn’t
want to lose you again,” Rick had said; his voice light, but holding her tight.
The
memory, the irony of it, brought a lump to her throat.
“I,
I think so,” she said. “It shouldn’t be too long now.”
The train came to a stop at the
platform. Then suddenly everyone seemed to move as one, surging toward the
exits.
“Keep
hold of my hand, Ricky,” Ellie told him. She realised after a moment she was
gripping him far too tightly; but he didn’t protest as he usually would, equally
overwhelmed and in want of the comfortingly familiar.
She
collected their luggage together and waited for a gap in the people so that
they could get off the train; then soon enough burst into the bright lights and
bustle of the station.
Ricky
looked around, wide-eyed; and Ellie had to admit she was also in awe of the
place, having never been there before. As it seemed the only way to go was
toward the end of the platform they allowed themselves to be moved along by the
crowd like driftwood on the sea.
Ellie
noticed the girl’s coat first; it was hard not to as it was such a bright
emerald green. Then she saw them, looked up smiling, and said something to her
companion. In that moment Ricky dropped Ellie’s hand and ran over. So she
quickly went after him.
“Richard,
you should not go running off like that,” she scolded.
“But
…” Ricky began to protest then thought better of it. “Sorry.”
“Y’know,
my folks said they often regret giving me such a short name,” the girl noted,
“then they couldn’t do the full name treatment when I was in really big trouble
... it’s Fae, my name by the way. I’m Pat’s niece. And I guess you’re Ellie.”
“Yes,
that’s right; it’s good to meet you.” Ellie proffered her hand, feeling her
anger dissipate. “It’s a pretty name either way, not something you hear often.”
“It’s
after Faye Wray, or Dunaway, one of the two.” Fae shrugged. “My uncle has a slight lifelong obsession with old
movies.”
“Are
you Fae’s boyfriend?” Ricky demanded of her companion.
“Uh,
I’m a friend of hers, and yes, I am a guy, if that counts?” he said, with a
noticeable New England accent.
“You
shouldn’t be rude,” Ellie muttered to her nephew. “It’s not any of our business
if people are dating or not.”
“He’s
a friend, finest kind,” Fae answered casually. “And he answers to Cal.”
“I
must say, this place is far bigger than I thought it would be,” Ellie admitted,
once their introductions had been made.
“There
were a lot of renovations and additions a few years back,” Cal explained. “I
wouldn’t ordinarily know, but my father’s company was involved in the funding.”
“Oh
yes, I do remember reading about that.” Ellie searched her memory. “Svencorp,
wasn’t it, the company? What does your father do there?”
“Uh,
my dad pretty much owns the company,” Cal admitted. “So, yeah, if you ever want
a sugar daddy I could probably find you someone who still has all their natural
hair.”
“It
must very difficult,” Ellie said, after laughing at his last comment. “Moving
in those circles and having those expectations put on you.”
Cal
shrugged. “It’s not like I’ve ever known any different. It’s not so bad really.
I’m the grey sheep of the family; finance bores me witless, but I’ve got an
older brother in the company, so nobody minds that I won’t be stepping up to
the plate.”
They
began to walk a little faster, to keep up with Fae and Ricky who were deep in
conversation.
“When
are we going to dance then?” Ricky asked.
“You
did remember.” Fae smiled. “I thought you might. But I have to be honest; I
hadn’t really thought that one through. So I don’t quite know yet, but we will,
somewhere. I mean, this is New York, if you can’t make it here it won’t happen
anywhere.”
“I
dance at home,” Ricky said. “In my room, or sometimes we put music on when Aunt
Ellie cooks so we dance in the kitchen.”
“Yeah,
I dance in my kitchen too. But my house is all the way in Massachusetts,
because I go to college there.”
“I
wanna see your house.”
“Maybe
next trip; but we’ve got an even bigger, better treat for this one.”
~oo0oo~
“You
look nervous,” Magenta noted. “At least, I think you do. Can’t honestly
remember the last time you were, but it seems a logical conclusion.”
“They
should be here by now.” Ochre checked his watch again.
“If
you say so ... Maybe there was a delay, or they got a little lost, or
something. Any number of things, perfectly innocent things, could have
happened; seriously you have got to stop thinking the worst all the time.”
They
weren’t the only ones standing under the clock. This should have been taken as
a given; it being such an obvious place to meet, built up through movie legend.
So it was quite amusing watching people arrive and look so surprised to find a
crowd had formed.
“Do
they know they’re supposed to meet us here?”
Ochre
didn’t voice his darkest thought, that they wouldn’t be there to meet them at
all. That Ellie, who had never been adventurous or much of a traveller, would
have chickened out of making the long journey. Or that she was prepared to,
just not if he was there. That fundamentally she didn’t trust him, see him as
worthy, that they would never be able to work through this.
He
felt Magenta rest a comforting hand on his shoulder, and Ochre turned to face
him. There was no need for words, Pat’s expression was clear, telling him that
everything was going to be all right.
So
he gave a half smile; and tried to trust that whatever will be, will be.
It
seemed an impossibly agonising wait, as the last of his coffee cooled in the
paper cup. But it could only have been another five minutes before the rush
died down and the crowds disappeared quickly as they had manifested. Even the
other people waiting under the clock had found whoever they were waiting for,
or decided it wasn’t worth standing around any longer and gone. Their places
soon taken by others.
He
wasn’t going to give up. Not now they had come this far.
A
clot of Japanese tourists, cameras at the ready and chattering excitably, were
shepherded toward a landmark of some sort which was out of his line of view.
Then he saw them.
A
part of Ricky had almost not believed it would be true. Making the leap from
being so sure he had no father at all, to knowing with equal conviction he did,
and that his daddy would be waiting for him - it seemed too surreal.
Yet
the crowds parted, and there he was. Right where he said he’d be. With a wide
smile, crouching and holding his arms out in welcome.
“Daddy.”
Ricky beamed, took off towards him; knowing that for once no one would hold him
back.
The
sudden stop, as Ricky threw his arms around his neck, almost bowled him over;
but Ochre managed to stay on his feet.
“It’s
good to see you too,” he said, hugging him back.
“I
had to go pee,” Ricky said. “That’s why we’re late.”
‘Way
to kill the Hallmark moment, kid,’ Ochre thought with a smile.
He
stood up, still holding Ricky as neither was prepared to let go.
“Glad
you could make it,” he addressed Ellie. “You look well.”
“I
feel well.” She smiled. “Properly well, for the first time in a long time. So
we wouldn’t have missed this. It was all Ricky wanted for his birthday, to see
you.”
“And
a new bike,” Ricky added. “I got that too, so this has been my best birthday
ever that I can remember.”
Ochre
kissed his forehead, feeling so privileged to be a part of this unrivalled
happiness. Life should be that simple and joyful.
“Oh,
well if all I needed to do was show up then you should have said.” He grinned.
“Then we wouldn’t have bothered hunting around finding you presents.”
“I’ll
still have those,” Ricky quickly added, “it would be rude to say no. And I do
like presents.”
“Yeah,
I know. Pat got you a present too, that one you need first.”
Magenta
pulled the envelope from his pocket, and handed it to Ricky.
“We’re
all going to go up the Statue of Liberty,” he explained, “Right to the very
top. How about that?”
“You’ve
never taken me,” Fae said, making a show of being indignant. “Seriously, I’ve
lived here my whole life and never done the most iconic landmark of the city.
It’s embarrassing to admit to having such a deprived childhood.”
“I’m
making up for it now,” Magenta said casually, slipping an arm around her.
“Do
you remember when we went?” Ellie asked Ochre. “We didn’t realise you had to
book so we only got up to the first platform, and it was so foggy anyway there
was no point.”
“Yes,
I do remember it.” Ochre shrugged. “Good thing we didn’t waste our money then.”
“I
don’t remember,” Ricky stated.
“You
wouldn’t, it was before you were born,” Ellie explained, then thought it best
to change the subject. “So, I wonder what your other present could be.”
“I
don’t know either,” Ochre admitted. “It’s so hard to know what would be best.
So I figured we’d go along to FAO Schwartz and let Ricky pick something out
himself.”
Ricky
looked up at him, wide-eyed.
“Seriously,”
he clarified. “Anything in the whole store?”
“Within
reason anyway. After all, you’ll have to get it home at the end of the day.”
He
could live with that; it didn’t really matter much anyway. It was the dream of
almost every child in the country to have a chance to visit the toy emporium,
let alone free rein to shop there.
~oo0oo~
“Come
on people,” Cal called to them. “Our magical mystery tour awaits.”
So
as a procession they left the station and followed him out into the sunshine and
unseasonably warm weather for late February; rounding a corner and finding a
huge metallic silver SUV in the only occupied executive parking space. Cal took
a key fob from his pocket and clicked the button to automatically unlock the
doors.
“That’s
our ride?” Fae said. “You honestly expect me to be seen dead in that
gas-guzzling monstrosity?”
“Sorry
to offend your delicate hippy sensibilities.” Cal shrugged. “But it was the
only vehicle the company could loan out that had enough seats. You could always
walk, all the same to me.”
“I’ll
cope for one day,” Fae said grudgingly, climbing into the back of the vehicle
then helping Ricky up.
“You’re
going to drive that, through the city, by yourself?” Ellie queried gently.
“No,”
Cal admitted. “I would in Boston. But I’m not that familiar with the streets.
And you need a damn strong constitution to drive in this city even then. So Pat
has graciously offered.”
“You’ll
be fine,” Magenta reassured her. “The population of the world puts their lives
in Spectrum’s hands all the time. So, hey, approximately six billion people
can’t be wrong.”
“Much
as it galls me to admit, he is actually a good driver,” Ochre concurred,
“Possibly even better than me, at times.”
“All
right then, I’m prepared to live a little dangerously.” Ellie laughed, leaning
in to fasten Ricky into the booster seat.
“Daddy,
you sit next to me,” Ricky insisted. “And Fae is going to sit the other side.”
“What
can I say, the boy likes older women,” Ochre told Cal. “So it looks like you’ve
got some competition.”
Cal
just laughed, then climbed into the passenger seat.
“You
can open my present now,” Fae said, offering Ricky the squashy wrapped package.
He
tore into the paper, to reveal an appliquéd t-shirt.
“It’s
a monkey.” Ricky grinned. “I like that. Thank you.”
“It
is very nice,” Ellie agreed, “when we get out you can put it on over the shirt
you’re wearing.”
“Daddy,
what did Fae get you for your birthday?” Ricky asked.
“Magazines,”
Ochre answered, “Like I always get.”
His
gift from Fae hadn’t been a surprise at all, a renewed subscription to his
model-making magazine of choice. And a set of ‘days of the week’ socks.
Apparently now he was the wrong side of thirty they would come in handy when
the senile memory loss struck. Magenta admitted he’d received a set for his
last birthday too, and between them they decided to continue the tradition for
Blue and Scarlet.
In
previous years it had been Magenta who had purchased the subscription without
fail. So Ochre had innocently queried it, then soon realised Pat had something
to give he sure hadn’t been expecting, but it had been equally perfect.
“Good
morning ladies and gentlemen,” Magenta began, affecting a suitable ‘tour guide’
voice for the occasion. “And we welcome you to our inaugural Spectrum city
tour. If you look to your right, as we leave the parking lot, you will see the
entrance to Grand Central station …”
With
their journey underway, Ochre sat back in his seat, savouring the company and
anticipation of their adventure. Attempting to commit every detail to memory;
the sights, sounds, and especially the way his son’s hand felt as it slipped
inside his. He knew for sure that he would remember this day for the rest of
his life.
It
wouldn’t be the whole story, because life was never so benevolent, but for the
moment, for many moments to come it would be true …
They
all lived happily ever after.
The End
Author’s notes, credits, acknowledgements
I never
intended to write this story. Its prequel, ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ was supposed
to end tidily at some suitable point with a scene along the line of this
story’s ending; but several thousand words later it became clear the characters
weren’t going to stop talking, and others had decided to join the fun. So, with
the Christmas challenge deadline looming, it was necessary to split the story
to preserve the sanity of all concerned.
No doubt the
characters will have more adventures, but this saga has finally been laid to
rest.
Captain
Starlight is taken from ‘More Important Than Substance’ – by Marion Woods.
The idea for
Ochre’s prank was partly inspired by ‘Eavesdropping’ – by Caroline Smith.
The details
of Magenta’s past are from Sue Stanhope’s stories.
Alison
‘Alie’, Eleanor and Ricky Topping first appeared in ‘Tears of a Clown’, all of
which are Marion’s creations, as is Lieutenant Flaxen.
Amanda
Wainwright is courtesy of Chris Bishop.
Lieutenant
Copper (Grainne O’Brien) is from ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ by Caroline Smith
Magenta’s
family are mine, back by popular demand of my muses after their debut in ‘Kith
& Kin’.
The other
characters are courtesy of the original series.
My beta readers;
Chris, Hazel and Marion; anyone who can suffer through my unbetaed fic deserves
great kudos.
Also to
Chris for all she does for this website and the fandom itself.
My fellow
fans, who have been so encouraging.
This one is
for my brother, Richard; for many years he was the only other true Anderson fan
I knew, and so was subjected to my very earliest fanfiction and theories. Even
now we still watch and love the shows together; and hopefully my fanfiction has
improved.