Gregorys game, p.2
Gregory's Game, page 2
This place was familiar, comforting, small and stress-free – and Naomi felt that in their present circumstances, that was just as well.
Alec was recovering from the car crash of a few weeks before, albeit slowly. Twice a day they walked with Napoleon, Naomi’s big black guide dog, down to the promenade, released him from his working harness and allowed him to run on the beach. Usually, Alec sat on the sea wall or on a wooden bench close to the concrete steps that led down on to the strand. Naomi allowed the big dog to guide her down towards the water. She’d remove the harness and then spend twenty minutes or so throwing whatever toy he had chosen to bring that day – frisbee, ball, stick. She would stand and throw, relishing the cold sea breeze on her skin, the sound of the waves breaking close to her feet, and Napoleon would fetch until the time came for him to return to duty. Harness on, he would guide her back to Alec.
Back at home Naomi and Alec would cook, watch TV, relax and not talk. At least, not talk about anything that mattered. The rest of it was fine, but Naomi was starting to find the not-talking part something of a bind.
‘He’s depressed,’ Harry said when she finally spoke of her anxiety. ‘Get him to see a doctor.’
‘It’s a hard enough job persuading him to keep his hospital appointments. I don’t think I’m going to be able to add the GP to the list.’
‘Is there no one at the hospital you can talk to?’
She shook her head. Whenever she accompanied him to appointments he went into the consulting room alone, leaving Naomi and Napoleon parked outside in the corridor.
‘He seems to be pushing me away,’ she told Harry.
Her old friend hugged her. ‘He’ll get over it,’ Harry said. ‘Alec loves you. I think he’s just still in shock. He nearly died.’
‘Harry, it’s been weeks. Months, actually. Soon it’s going to be too damned cold for him to just sit and wait on that blasted bench. What then? Will he even stop going out with us altogether? Harry, I think I’m losing him.’
Time was, she knew, when Harry would almost have rejoiced in that. Naomi knew how her oldest friend had always felt about her, but she also knew, when he hugged her again and told her that everything would be OK and Alec would soon be himself again, that Harry was utterly sincere.
THREE
Mrs Meehan had lived at number six Church Lane for forty years. She had seen residents of number five come and go, marry, have children, move on. She’d been quite sorry to see the last owner leave with his wife and little girl. They had been quiet neighbours. She had sometimes heard the mother and daughter playing in the garden, but the toddler chuckles and motherly cajoling had been pleasant enough and the size of their two gardens was enough to make it a distant sound anyway. Chiefly, she had been bothered that when they left they had told Mrs Meehan that they planned to rent the place out.
Tenants, Mrs Meehan had thought. That could mean just anyone. You heard such dreadful things about people who rented.
The man who moved in had been single. No sign of a family. He had come to say hello and introduce himself and had told her that he would be out all day, working. Mrs Meehan, satisfied by his respectability, had settled back into her quiet routine once more. She had even gone so far as to take in the odd parcel that came for him. The postman always left a card and Mr Palmer was always prompt in collecting and grateful in manner. It was odd, therefore, that he’d not been round to collect this one. Odder still as, going round to knock on his door, she spotted his car parked by the side of the house.
The second time she went round, she’d been a little concerned. The car was still there, and she couldn’t recall the house lights being on the previous evening. By her third visit, she was thoroughly concerned and decided she should do more than just knock on her neighbour’s door.
Number five Church Lane was an ample cottage, front door set not quite in the middle, windows to both sides allowing a view into two comfortable and substantial rooms. Mrs Meehan let the front gate clang loudly and then hammered with the cast-iron knocker on the wooden door. ‘Yoohoo. Mr Palmer, I’ve got a parcel for you. It’s Mrs Meehan from next door.’
Tutting quietly to herself, she went to peer in through the left-hand window. Nothing. No one. Same when she looked through the right-hand glass. Finally, she opened the letter box and looked down the length of the hall, getting ready to call his name once more.
Mrs Meehan opened her mouth, but what emerged was not a neighbourly greeting. Freda Meehan began to scream. She screamed until she was breathless; screamed until she had regained the safety of her own house and locked the door. Screamed as the phone operator tried to ascertain what was wrong. Freda Meehan felt she’d never be able to stop screaming.
‘He hanged himself,’ she managed finally. ‘Must have done. I saw his feet, just dangling there, and blood on the floor. Blood all over the floor.’
FOUR
Gregory knew that Patrick had seen him even though the boy had barely looked his way. Gregory perched on a low wall outside the university, enjoying the autumn sunshine and watching the stream of students emerge through the heavy glass doors.
Patrick was with a group of others, also obviously art students, portfolios slung across their backs and assorted boxes and bags of materials clutched in their hands.
Patrick was, Gregory noted, the most conservatively dressed of them all. Jeans, dark sweater, black jacket. Pale face and heavy dark curls falling forward on to his forehead, the Umbrian quality broken only by red Converse trainers and a brightly coloured scarf slung loosely around his neck.
He’d have gloves in his pocket, Gregory thought. Still only late October but autumn was already developing a winter bite and Patrick’s hands were always cold.
Gregory watched as he chatted to his friends, the young crowd thinning and then dispersing until Patrick and his little group were the last ones standing outside the entrance. Eventually, they too departed. Hugging, waving, Patrick watched for a moment as they went, then turned and walked over to where Gregory sat.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Fancy a coffee?’
Gregory smiled. ‘Sounds good to me.’ The casual welcome amused and pleased him. Few people greeted Gregory casually; actually, very few viewed his presence with any kind of enthusiasm, even those who had at various times employed him. At best, most people viewed him as a necessary evil; at worst they disregarded the ‘necessary’ part.
Patrick led the way to a cafe in the next street. It was above a bookshop and had a row of small tables flanked by comfortable chairs beside the window. Gregory ordered while the boy nabbed a table and propped his portfolio against the wall. Gregory watched him thoughtfully. Patrick was eighteen but still looked younger – except when you looked into his eyes. Patrick’s eyes reminded Gregory of another dark-haired young man, the difference being that Nathan was dangerous. Gregory didn’t imagine anyone could accuse Patrick of that.
‘So,’ he said, setting the coffee down. ‘How’s it going? The university thing?’
Patrick grimaced. ‘OK, I guess. It isn’t what I expected, I suppose.’
‘Oh? So what’s different?’
Patrick leaned back in his seat and regarded the older man thoughtfully for a moment as though re-familiarizing himself with Gregory’s features. He noticed the boy’s hand move, twitching as though he imagined a pencil held there and marks being made on an invisible page. Patrick drew obsessively. Harry, his father, reckoned it was the way he made sense of the world and Gregory was inclined to agree.
‘Different?’ he prompted and Patrick laughed self-consciously.
‘I suppose I had this daft idea that it would all be painting, or drawing or making or something. You know, it being an art degree.’
‘And isn’t it?’
Patrick shook his head. ‘No, not really. I mean, I know it’s only been a couple of weeks but so far it’s all been about analysing our process and mapping our route to uni using sticky tape and toilet paper.’
Gregory laughed. ‘I can see how that might be annoying,’ he said. ‘But it might be a good thing. Make you think about things in a new way?’
Patrick’s eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out if Gregory was serious. He shook his head. ‘I guess,’ he said. ‘But what if you know why you paint? If you know why you make drawings? If you figured that out a long time ago?’ He shook his head again. ‘It’s like, if someone wanted you to analyse your process, what would you tell them?’
Gregory considered. ‘I’d probably tell them they really didn’t want to know,’ he said. ‘Either that or show them how to field strip an AK 47.’
Patrick laughed, then swallowed about half of his coffee. ‘The cookies are good here. You want one?’ He got up and crossed to the counter, feeling in his jacket pocket for change.
He really isn’t happy, Gregory thought. And maybe he was right. Some people were just meant to get on with doing what it was they were born to do. For some, their path was clear, always had been. It had been for Gregory.
Patrick returned with plates and cookies. Gregory eyed the confection. It was studded with chocolate and little flecks of green that closer inspection revealed to be pistachio nuts. ‘I don’t know if I eat cookies,’ he said. ‘I think I might be a biscuit sort of guy’
‘Try it and see.’
Obediently, Gregory picked up the brown disc and broke it into pieces. It was good, he conceded, though a little too sweet for his taste. He was very aware of Patrick watching him, a smile tweaking at the boy’s lips.
‘Think you’ll stick it out?’ Gregory asked. ‘University, I mean.’
Patrick shrugged. ‘I promised Dad I’d give it until Christmas. He says I’m bound to find it strange and a lot of people drop out in the first term. I’m making friends and so on, so I suppose that’s something. Dad doesn’t want me to close any doors till I’ve given things a fair chance.’
‘Your dad is a sensible man,’ Gregory said.
Patrick nodded. ‘I know. So,’ he went on, ‘what are you really here for? I mean it is good to see you, but I’m guessing you must have another reason.’
Gregory stirred what was left of his coffee and ate another piece of chocolate cookie. Patrick watched. Now he was here, Gregory wasn’t really sure he actually did have a valid reason. It had been impulse as much as anything – another first for Gregory. He was not reckoned to be a man given to whim. He decided that the truth was the best approach.
‘I’m not sure why I came,’ he said. ‘I genuinely wanted to know how you were all getting along. I wondered how Alec was doing. I wondered, I don’t know … I wondered if you were all OK.’
Patrick nodded as if that was all completely understandable.
‘You know,’ Gregory went on suddenly, ‘at risk of sounding foolish and, believe me, I hate to sound foolish, but it’s like all of you are the last links in a very long chain. I broke most of the chain, and what I didn’t break is mostly either dead, retired of strategically disappeared. Or people I’m not sure I want to get involved with right now. So I guess you and your dad and Alec and Naomi, you’re like the only people I know that aren’t in any of those categories. So I wanted to know if you were all OK. Considering.’
‘Wow,’ Patrick said. ‘I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say.’ He laughed. ‘You want more coffee?’
‘Maybe in a minute.’
‘You want to see if the conversation is going to go on long enough to last for another cup,’ Patrick said. ‘Hey, look, I hate awkward silences too. I’m no good at – what’s it called – small talk, either.’
‘Does anyone call it that any more? Small talk?’
‘My dad does.’
Gregory chuckled. ‘I suppose Harry would,’ he said. ‘So?’
‘So I think we risk another coffee. Actually, if you don’t mind, I could do with some advice. Or, rather, I think Naomi could. So …’
‘I’m not sure I’m that good on advice.’
‘Trust me.’ Patrick handed his cup to Gregory. ‘I think you’ll do just fine.’
Gregory obediently went and bought more coffee. He had surprised himself with what he had said to Patrick and surprised himself even more that it was true. He felt cast adrift, purposeless and never in his life had Gregory encountered such a feeling. Life had been structured, organized. He received his orders and he followed them. Later, when he had left the army and become another kind of soldier, he had been given an assignment and followed it through to its conclusion. True, that usually had a negative consequence for someone else, but Gregory had always been thorough, conscientious, excellent and now …
He took the coffee back to the table and sat down. Patrick had taken a sketch book from his bag and was drawing. Gregory resisted the temptation to ask what he was doing. Instead, he said, ‘So, this advice you wanted. About Alec?’
Patrick’s hand stopped moving. He sat forward and laid the sketchbook down on the windowsill. It was a view from the cafe window, Gregory noted, but changed, transformed into something new and strange. The reflections in the window across the street seemed to be moving forward, out of plane and the little carvings that decorated the mock Tudor mouldings had come alive, writhing with personality.
‘I like that,’ he said. ‘What are you going to do with it?’
Patrick shrugged. ‘I’m doing studies for a painting,’ he said. ‘It’s at home; I work on it at weekends mostly.’
‘Not an art school project?’
The expression on Patrick’s face told him all he needed to know. ‘You have to plough your own furrow, you know. Be who you are.’
‘Is that what you did?’
From anyone else that might have been accusatory; from Patrick it seemed merely curious.
Gregory nodded. ‘I suppose I used what talents I had,’ he said.
‘To kill people?’
‘Kill some, protect others. Sometimes it was hard to tell.’
Patrick nodded thoughtfully. There was, Gregory noted, still no judgement in the boy’s eyes. No, not boy, he corrected himself. Patrick was the same age Gregory had been when he did his first tour of duty. He hadn’t thought of himself as a boy then and would have resented the idea coming from anyone else.
Patrick sipped his coffee and Gregory nibbled what was left of his cookie, struck by how surreal this whole conversation actually was. The truth was he barely knew Patrick. Their paths had crossed in the early summer when he and Gregory had both been drawn into the same game. At the time, Patrick and his father, Harry, had been set on protecting a friend. Gregory had been set on finding out who wanted him blamed for something he had not actually done – a rarity and novelty in Gregory’s life. Their paths had crossed obliquely since but this was the first time they had actually had a proper, face-to-face conversation.
‘I think Alec’s depressed,’ Patrick said. ‘Naomi doesn’t know what to do with him. He hardly speaks and he only goes out when she makes him. He won’t talk to her and he won’t talk to us and we’re all really worried.’ He looked expectantly at Gregory.
‘I’m not an agony aunt,’ Gregory said.
‘No, but you’re probably the only person I know, apart from Naomi, who’s almost died. Naomi seems to have found a way to cope with it. Alec can’t seem to.’
Gregory nodded slowly. ‘For some people, surviving can be almost harder than not,’ he said. ‘Sorry, that’s a stupid thing to say, but what I mean is, for some people it’s survivor guilt. They make it when their friends don’t.’
‘But that’s not Alec,’ Patrick said. ‘No one died. At least no one he knew. There was nothing he could stop. His aunt Molly was in the car with him and she’s fine.’
He had a point, Gregory thought. ‘Did you ever meet Molly Chambers?’
Patrick laughed. ‘She’s fun,’ he said. ‘She knew Salvador Dali and Picasso. She’s got this photo album—’
‘Fun? Not something many people say about Molly, I imagine.’
‘I like her.’ Patrick’s fingers twitched. He seized the sketch book again and the pencil moved swiftly across the page. ‘Have you ever been depressed?’
Gregory thought about it. Had he? ‘No, I don’t think so. I’ve been sad to lose friends. I’ve been angry. I don’t think I ever did depressed. It’s not a weakness, though,’ he added quickly. ‘I think it can happen to anyone and I don’t think the reasons always make sense. I think, maybe, it isn’t one of those things you can always find a reason for. I think sometimes it just happens; it creeps up on you and before you know it the world is dark and you can’t see your path.’
The drawing ceased and Patrick looked at him again. He nodded slowly, as though Gregory had said something important. ‘Maybe that’s it,’ he said. ‘I think Alec has always known exactly what he’s meant to be doing. I think maybe he just can’t see that any more.’
‘Some of us are defined by what we do,’ Gregory said softly. ‘For some of us, that is our identity.’
Patrick cocked his head to one side, considering. He nodded again, the pencil now twirling between his fingers, and Gregory realized that he could have been describing the young artist by what he’d just said. In his own way, Patrick was just as driven as Gregory – though, unless he chose to ram a pencil into someone’s ear, he was unlikely to do the sort of damage Gregory had spent his life inflicting.
On some level, Gregory realized he ought to have a conscience about that; it ought to bother him. He’d more than once been described as a sociopath – or worse – and he acknowledged that was probably true; not that he had given it a lot of thought over the years. Not that he planned to give it a lot of thought now.
‘Want to come home and eat with us?’ Patrick asked unexpectedly. ‘It’s Friday, so I’m cooking. Dad gets home later on Fridays.’
