Afterwards, he drove for a long time. He could not pretend he hadn’t been affected by what he’d done. To take any man’s life was no easy decision, except for psychotic animals like Warren Evans to whom the life of another human being meant nothing – demonstrated in the lack of grief for his brother, Josh, and the thirst for revenge which he thought was a proper reaction to it. And, of course, in the cold blooded way he had wreaked that revenge.
Jimmy agonised over whether this was also a reflection of himself: grief leading to retribution and death.
‘Am I any fucking better?’ he demanded of himself.
As he swerved into the side of the road, he found himself breathless.
He pulled his left hand from the steering wheel and saw it was shaking and he had to clench his fist to stop it.
He held it up in front of his eyes, looking at it, then spread his fingers wide, his wedding ring glinting under the street lights.
***
The mug was hot. Jimmy wrapped his hands around it, comforted by the heat – as had happened on many occasions in Afghanistan, when returning from missions, a mug of hot tea was just as welcome as a pint of lager. He took a sip. It tasted good, warming his chest.
Of course in the desert, there would be the debrief, official and unofficial.
That would not be happening here tonight. Tonight, it would all be bottled up within himself.
He was in Morgan’s big kitchen, sitting at the table next to the patio doors, overlooking the small, but perfectly formed rear garden of which Morgan was intensely proud.
She brought her mug and sat down opposite, pulling her house coat tight around herself. She pushed her mussed up hair back from her eyes and looked knowingly at Jimmy.
‘Not sleeping, are you?’
He shook his head, stared into the mug at the tea which was the colour of bronze.
‘Caffeine not a good idea, then?’
‘Sun’ll be up soon.’
Both looked automatically through the patio doors and the eastern sky was starting to lighten gradually as dawn tried to break through the November day.
‘How have you been, anyway?’ Jimmy asked her.
She nodded, pouted. ‘Yeah, not bad. They moved the vets … bigger building, nicer … still studying finance.’ She paused, blinking, her turn to look down at her tea, then, ‘I’m really sorry for what happened.’ Jimmy acknowledged this with a slight dip of his head and pained smile. ‘You think it was retaliation for what your dad did?’
Another nod – but this time Morgan saw something behind Jimmy’s expression which made her stomach tighten. That ability to read Jimmy who, to anyone else, maybe with the exception of Griff or Colonel Leach, was an impregnable, steel-plated shutter.
It was as if Morgan had X-ray vision into his soul.
‘Promise me you won’t do anything silly,’ she said.
Jimmy didn’t come back at her. ‘Can I use your bathroom?’ he asked, instead.
‘Course.’
He took another warming sip of tea, then stood up. His coat flapped open to reveal his T-shirt underneath and the blood that had seeped into the material from the knife-slash wound.
Morgan saw it. ‘What happened there?’
‘Nothing.’ Jimmy tried to cover it, but Morgan was up in front of him, holding his coat open.
‘You’re bleeding.’
‘It’s nothing,’ he insisted weakly.
‘Jesus, Jimmy. Sit down, take your coat off,’ she insisted back – and her insistence won.
Like a reluctant child, he did as he was told, taking off his jacket and slinging it over a chair back. Morgan made him turn to face her and she bent down in front of him and delicately raised the hem of his T-shirt to reveal the wound which lay open, the blood coagulating around it. It wasn’t a deep cut, but it needed to be treated, cleaned properly and stitched.
***
Jimmy sat back, arching his bare torso so that Morgan could easily deal with the wound. She pulled up a chair and sat in front of Jimmy. She swabbed the cut with an antiseptic wipe, then squeezed a line of cream onto it before starting to stitch it together.
Jimmy winced as the fine needle was inserted.
Their voices were soft as Morgan carried out this incredibly intimate procedure, her face close up to Jimmy’s body as she worked, and Jimmy could feel her hot breath on his skin, almost feel the beat of her heart. He watched her concentrating on the task, the pulse throbbing in her neck, her skin so smooth and unblemished, her lips wide and full. She was the only woman he had kissed for a long, long time. He even once recalled telling her, during the lust of early courtship, that she had lips that needed to be kissed every day, many times a day – by him. He wondered why he had allowed it all to go so wrong,
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘Just some lads at the pub,’ he answered, thinking she was referring to the cut. ‘Me just being an arse.’
‘In Afghanistan,’ she corrected him.
Jimmy went tight lipped, brought down the veil. She glanced up, her eyes sparkling, then she grinned wickedly and pricked him with the needle.
‘Alright, alright,’ he submitted.
‘I can think of worse way of getting you to talk.’
He composed his thoughts. ‘It’s complicated out there.’
She gave him a wry grin. ‘Someone once told me that complication is a problem derived from the person, not the situation.’
Jimmy raised his eyebrows. ‘Who? Was that me? I must’ve been pissed. I’m no philosopher.’
Morgan sniggered. ‘Clown, more like.’
The silence between them returned as Morgan began to stitch. Jimmy glanced around and saw something on a chair nearby. He stiffened. Morgan sensed the change, glanced up and followed his line of sight.
A large brown envelope, on top of which was fanned out a sheaf of official looking, County Court letter headed papers that Jimmy recognised; after all, he had a copies of them, too.
Divorce papers. James Vickers v Morgan Vickers (nee Maxwell).
‘I’ll get round to signing those,’ he promised.
‘No rush,’ she whispered.
Jimmy swallowed. ‘Yeah, yeah, of course.’ Suddenly a very dithery feeling jittered through him – the fear of losing the only woman he had ever loved in his life hit him like a sledgehammer. But he stayed composed. It was what she wanted and he understood. He would not be contesting anything.
Morgan finished the repair and snapped off the thread. ‘Done,’ she said with finality.
Jimmy looked down at the neat line. She moved away and glimpsed his back, an area covered in silvery burn marks, bullet weals and raised, ugly-looking scars, all of which told the story of Jimmy Vickers. A man who had seen the dark side of many battle fields and – incredibly – come out the other end, more or less in one piece. Morgan blinked back a tear.
Jimmy reached for his T-shirt.
‘Wait – I need to put a dressing on it.’ She took some white gauze from a first aid kit and taped it over the stitches. ‘I usually do cats and dogs, but it’ll do.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Pleasure.’ She smiled reservedly and Jimmy eased himself painfully back into his T-shirt and jacket. ‘It’ll be a good scar. Hope you like ’em.’
‘Used to ’em. How’s yours looking?’
Morgan stuck out her left hand, revealing a white, five inch scar running across the base of her thumb onto the back of her hand and wrist.
‘I saved your life that day,’ Jimmy said, taking her hand with his left hand and inspecting the old wound, blinking at the memory.
‘Pur-leese, I was hardly going to bleed to death.’
‘Hey – we were twenty miles from a hospital in the middle of the Brecon Beacons,’ he said, remembering her tumble. ‘Anything could have happened.’
He rotated her hand and saw the pale band on her ring finger where her wedding and engagement rings had been. Morgan saw he was still wearing his.
Jimmy quickly let go and gestured he was about to leave.
‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘for the tea and the surgery,’ but both of them knew it was thanks for much, much more than that. He went out, Morgan watching him. He had reached the 4x4, was just about to climb in – determined not to look back over his shoulder, force himself to leave and never return, despite the beating of his heart.
In her bare feet, Morgan came up silently behind him. He spun and then she was in his arms, kissing him hard.
Within moments they were back in the house, then in her bedroom, kissing, devouring each other greedily, their clothing thrown aside. Then they were on the bed and the kissing became more thoughtful and less rushed as she moved under him, and Jimmy was deep inside her, knowing that he had arrived home.
++++