‘I saw him point down the wrong valley, Thursday.’
‘He would never have made that mistake!’
I felt an anger I hadn’t felt for ten years. Anton had been blamed for the charge, it was as simple as that. The military leaders managed to squirm out of their responsibilities once again and my brother’s name had entered the national memory and the history books as that of the man who lost the Light Armoured Brigade. The commanding officer and Anton had both died in the charge. It had been up to Landen to tell the story.
I got up.
‘Walking out again, Thursday?’ said Landen sardonically. ‘Is this how it will always be? I was hoping you would have mellowed, that we could have made something out of this mess, that there was still enough love in us to make it work.’
I shot a furious look at him.
‘What about loyalty, Landen? He was your greatest friend!’
‘And I still said what I said,’ sighed Landen. ‘One day you’ll have to come to terms with the fact that Anton fucked up. It happens, Thursday. It happens.’
I stared at him and he stared back.
‘Can we ever get over this, Thursday? I need to know as a matter of some urgency.’
‘Urgency? What urgency? No,’ I replied, ‘no, no, we can’t. I’m sorry to have wasted your fucking precious time!’
I ran out of the cafe, eyes streaming and angry with myself, angry with Landen and angry with Anton. I thought about Snood and Tamworth. We should all have waited for back-up; Tamworth and I fucked up by going in and Snood fucked up by taking on an enemy which he knew he was not physically or mentally prepared to face. We had all been flushed with excitement by the chase; it was the sort of impetuous action that Anton would have taken. I had felt it once before in the Crimea and I had hated myself for it then, too.
I got back to the Finis at about one in the morning. The John Milton weekend was ending with a disco. I took the lift up to my room, the distorted beat of the music softening to a dull thud as I was transported upwards. I leaned against the mirror in the lift and took solace in the coolness of the glass. I should never have come back to Swindon, that much was obvious. I would speak to Victor in the morning and transfer out as soon as possible.
I opened my room door and kicked off my shoes, lay on the bed and stared at the polystyrene ceiling tiles, trying to come to terms with what I had always suspected but never wanted to face. My brother had fucked up. Nobody had bothered to put it so simply before; the military tribunal spoke of ‘tactical errors in the heat of the battle’ and ‘gross incompetence’. Somehow ‘Fucked up’ made it seem more believable; we all make mistakes at some time in our lives, some more than others. It is only when the cost is counted in human lives that people really take notice. If Anton had been a baker and forgotten the yeast, nothing would have been made of it, but he would have fucked up just the same.
As I lay there thinking I slowly drifted into sleep and with sleep came troubled dreams. I was back at Styx’s apartment block, only this time I was standing outside the back entrance with the upturned car, Commander Flanker and the rest of the SO-1 interview panel. Snood was there too. He had an ugly hole in his wrinkled forehead and was standing, arms crossed and looking at me as if I had taken his football and he had sought out Flanker for some kind of redress.
‘Are you sure you didn’t tell Snood to go and cover the back?’ asked Flanker.
‘Positive,’ I said, looking at them both in turn.
‘She did, you know,’ said Acheron as he walked past. ‘I heard her.’
Flanker stopped him.
‘Did you? What exactly did she say?’
Acheron smiled at me and then nodded at Snood, who returned his greeting.
‘Wait!’ I interrupted. ‘How can you believe what he says? The man’s a liar!’
Acheron looked offended and Flanker turned to me with a steely gaze.
‘We only have your word for that, Next.’
I could feel myself boil with inner rage at the unfairness of it all. I was just about to cry out and wake up when I felt a tap on my arm. It was a man dressed in a dark coat. He had heavy black hair that fell over his dour, strong features. I knew immediately who he was.
‘Mr Rochester?’
He nodded in return. But now we were no longer outside the warehouses in the East End; we were in a well-furnished hall, lit by the dim glow of oil lamps and the flickering light from a fire in the large hearth.
‘Is your arm well, Miss Next?’ he asked.
‘Very well, thanks,’ I said, moving my hand and wrist to demonstrate.
‘I should not trouble yourself with them,’ he added, indicating Flanker, Acheron and Snood, who had started to argue in the corner of the room near the bookcase. ‘They are merely in your dream and thus, being illusory, are of no consequence.’
‘And what about you?’
Rochester smiled, a forced, gruff smile. He was leaning on the mantelpiece and looked into his glass, swirling his Madeira delicately.
‘I was never real to begin with.’
He placed the glass on the marble mantel and flipped out a large silver hunter, popped it open, read the time and returned it to his waistcoat pocket in one smooth, easy movement.
‘Things are becoming more urgent, I can feel it. I trust I can count on your fortitude when the time comes?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I can’t explain. I don’t know how I managed to get here or even how you managed to get to me. You remember when you were a little girl? When you chanced upon us both that chill winter’s evening?’
I thought about the incident at Haworth all those years ago when I entered the book of Jane Eyre and caused Rochester’s horse to slip.
‘It was a long time ago.’
‘Not to me. You remember?’
‘I remember.’
‘Your intervention improved the narrative.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Before, I simply bumped into my Jane and we spoke briefly. If you had read the book prior to your visit you would have noticed. When the horse slipped to avoid you it made the meeting more dramatic, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘But hadn’t that happened already?’
Rochester smiled.
‘Not at all. But you weren’t the first visitor we have had. And you won’t be the last, if I’m correct.’
‘What do you mean?’
He picked up his drink again.
‘You are about to rouse from your sleep, Miss Next, so I shall bid you adieu. Again: I can trust in your fortitude when the time comes?’
I didn’t have time to answer or question him further. I was woken by my early morning call. I was in my clothes from the previous evening, the light and the television still on.
19. The very Irrev. Joffy Next
‘Dearest Mum,
Life here in the Deleted by censors camp is great fun. The weather is good, the food average, the company AOK. Colonel Deleted by censors is our co; he is a cracking fellow. I see Thurs quite often & although you told me to look after her I think she can look after herself. She won the battalion ladies’ boxing tournament. We move up to Deleted by censors next week, i will write again when i have more news.
Your son, Anton’
Apart from one other person I had the breakfast room all to myself. As fate would have it, that one other person was Colonel Phelps.
‘Good morning, Corporal!’ he said cheerfully as he spotted me trying to hide behind a copy of The Owl.
‘Colonel.’
He sat down opposite me without asking.
‘Good response to my presence here so far, y’know,’ he said genially, taking some toast and waving a spoon at the waiter. ‘You there, sir, more coffee. We’re having the talk next Sunday; you are still coming, I trust?’