'It was a joke!' Jimmy called out pathetically, attempting to laugh. 'No harm done, eh? I just wanted you to have a last drink with me…'
Dillon kept going.
'I've signed on the dotted line, Frank, I'm going to… Frank!'
Dillon entered the stairwell and started to climb.
'Stuff you – stuff the security crap!' Jimmy shouted. 'This time next week I'll be in Colombia,' his voice bouncing and echoing round the brick tenements and concrete landings. '… Frank?' Then raising both fists to heaven, he shouted with all his might, 'FRAAAAANK!'
The echo boomed and died away. Jimmy let his arms flop down. 'I love your kids, Frank,' he said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
On the second floor landing Dillon stood with his back to the wall, head resting against the concrete, listening to the jeep revving up in the courtyard below. It set off with a squeal of tyres and screeched round and round, like a lone dodgem car in a deserted funfair, headlights flashing against the buildings opposite, flashing this way as it turned, making a swirl of patterns on the underside of the walkways.
Flashing lights of ambulances and fire engines on the ceiling of the upstairs room in Hennessey's Bar. Smoke seeping through the floorboards. Downstairs an inferno. Taffy, Jimmy, Steve, Harry, Dillon's lads, crawling through the smoke and flames, searching for the injured. Taffy lifting a beam to let Steve get through with Billy Newman. Harry holding up a table while Jimmy dived underneath to get the girl clear. All of them risking their necks, laying their lives on the line, not because of duty, not because of Queen and Country, but because that's the kind of blokes they were. While the Malones of this world shat their pants and scarpered, this breed of men put their bollocks in a vice and got the job done. It was a privilege to know them, an honour to have served with them, a matter of pride that he was one of them, his mates, his lads. Nothing could ever break the bond, whatever the crap Civvy Street threw at you. Nothing was worth breaking it for.
Dillon was running. He leapt down the stairs three, four, at a time. He cleared the last flight in a single flying jump and came charging into the courtyard as the jeep rocked on its springs in a last crazy turn and shot off into the street and vanished into the night.
Dillon heard it screeching far, far away in the distance. Jimmy Hammond. His Bad Left Hand. But he would sooner have cut off his own right hand than lose him.
'Jimmy… ah! Jimmy,' Dillon said, staring into the darkness, his face wet. 'I didn't mean it.'
Dillon waited in the hope Jimmy would make one last trip back, wanting, needing to tell him, he didn't mean it. The jeep never came back, and Dillon sat on the wall and looked at all the graffiti. He lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply, letting the smoke slowly drift out of his lungs. He wondered if Jimmy would just forget it, waltz in the next day, give him that wink of his… Dillon knew that telling him not to see his kids would have cut into Jimmy's heart, he did love them, half the postcards on their board were from Uncle Jimmy. Every Christmas the gifts came, he never forgot one of their birthdays. Jimmy truly loved Frank's boys, maybe because he knew he'd never have any himself.
Dillon pulled on his cigarette and wondered if he should call Jimmy until it dawned: he didn't even know where he was shacked up, but that was Jimmy, his private life was always kept well out of access. It has been a strange sort of agreement they had made, even though it had been years ago.
'What you do in the privacy of your own time Hammond, is your business, but, I don't know about it, I don't want to know about it, and no one else is gonna know – well not from me!'
Jimmy had stood with head bowed, his thick thatch of blonde hair as always immaculate, he stood as if expecting Dillon to say more, but when nothing else was said he slowly raised his head, looking directly at Dillon. There was no shame in his eyes, almost an arrogance. 'I am what I am, Frank.'
'I know, but don't let the blokes get so much as a whiff or your career's out the fuckin' window.'
'Yeah, I know.'
Jimmy, the bloke with no fear, the first man to volunteer to defuse a bomb, the bigger, the more dangerous the better, as if he liked the adrenalin, needed it. Jimmy, the soldier all the blokes reckoned was gonna roar through the ranks, Jimmy Hammond earmarked for officer material, if it leaked he was a queer, he would be out, and Dillon was the only man who had sussed him. It hadn't been so much as sussed, he'd had a complaint from a recruit who never even made it through the training. Lucky for Jimmy, but it had been Dillon's job to call it… At first Jimmy had denied it, called the young bloke a wanker, but then when told if he didn't shut the fuck up and listen, it would go further, he had stood head bowed.
'The kid's useless Jimmy, he's out of here, that's why I am giving you this opportunity to come clean with me, to admit, admit whatever your kink is – and to keep it out of the barracks. Out… understand?'
Jimmy had given his odd smile, as if he still felt it was all a load of bull, but Dillon wasn't going to let him bullshit him as he was able to do everyone else. 'He was telling the truth Jimmy, he wanted to go over to medics, you beat the shit out of him, so don't fuck around with me…'
Jimmy crossed to the window, again showing not a sign of what he was feeling, no body language gave him away, he was seemingly relaxed and almost joking. 'Yeah, yeah, I'm an iron… what you want me to do, go to the CO, tell him, get chucked out?'
'You're not hearing me right Jimmy, I reckon you're one of the best men I've ever worked alongside, I don't want to lose you, this is just a warning, one between you and me, won't go any further. I'm just telling you to keep your private life private… that's all, nothing else.'
Jimmy remained standing with his back to Dillon. 'Na! I'll quit, I'm not having that bunch start screaming woofter at me!'
Dillon wanted to hit him. 'I'm not gonna spill the beans, like I said this is just between you and me, understand you great thick-headed bastard?'
Jimmy turned to Dillon then, there was a strange expression on his face, as if he was surprised, almost stunned. 'You'd do that for me?'
'You're one of the best, Jimmy, I'd go out on a limb for you, that's what I'm saying.'
'Well thanks, Frank
Dillon nodded, and was about to leave, when Jimmy laughed. 'I suppose a fuck's out of the question.'
Dillon turned, couldn't help but laugh, he gave Jimmy a light punch, then clasped him in his arms. 'Watch yourself eh?… This is just between you and me?'
They shook hands, and in all the years the subject had never been brought up again between them. Nobody ever did suss that Jimmy 'Fearless' Hammond, was an iron, nobody would have believed it and Jimmy took Dillon's confab to heart, he never at any time referred to or discussed his private life. It remained his secret, and after he returned from any leave, he was the one with all the stories about how many women he had laid, only occasionally would he cast a hooded look at Dillon, but even that was a little furtive, as if he knew not to take it any further.
Dillon had nicked Jimmy's CV from headquarters, read that he had been brought up in a children's home, but that was about all the background anyone ever really knew about Jimmy Hammond. What the file did contain was his recommendations, his qualities as a soldier always written up in glowing terms. Hammond was very much earmarked for officer material, although he was aggressive and was often in brawls with his superiors, but his ability in combat, especially in the Falklands, had been noted. There was even a special recommendation from Frank Dillon.
Dillon tossed the cigarette down and ground it out, walking slowly up to his flat, up the stone steps, past the graffiti, and on to his own flat's corridor. He leaned on the railings, staring into the darkness. He would probably never understand the Jimmys of this world, or their sexual predilections, they were an alien species. Dillon could never even contemplate the fact that Jimmy Hammond was obsessed with him, loved him deeply, and wanted him to himself. All Dillon knew was that he had hurt Jimmy, said something he knew would hurt, and that he was sorry for that, but it had to be said. Jimmy was dragging them into Newman's world, and it was a world Dillon knew would be destructive. He went back into the flat, more at ease with himself, sure he had done the right thing, but deep down he sort of suspected Jimmy might not come back. He had in the end overstepped their rules, even though they were now in Civvy Street. Jimmy's pitiful attempt at an embrace had broken the agreement; in a way it was a relief, a sad one, but nevertheless Dillon was relieved and, unlike Steve, Jimmy was a winner, he wouldn't do anything crazy like top himself, he was too cool for that. Jimmy'd land somewhere, someplace on his feet, probably with a machine-gun in his hands, needing the rush of adrenalin, loving the edge of danger that cloaked in fury the small, abused, loveless child, who constantly searched for the father figure he never had. Not the mother, because it was his mother who had abused and beaten him, his mother who left him starving in a squalid bedsit for two weeks. Jimmy had been in care since the age of four in eight different institutions. His army records simply stated that he had been brought up in children's homes.