The Colour of Spring

“You know you’re supposed to run away from danger, right?”

Her voice is like an echo in my head. I prise my eyes open and blink a few times in the semi-darkness. The room is small, unfamiliar, the bed I’m lying in almost filling it, yet somehow she seems indescribably far way, curled up in an armchair in the shadows in the corner, her face an ethereal glow, blurred in the periphery.

“Hmmm? What?” I slur, struggling to get the words out. “Where… where am I?” My mouth feels like it’s filled with cottonwool, my tongue sticking to my pallet, dry as sand.

She smiles, shaking her head in disdain, and I sense a certain sadness in her tone. “Hospital. ‘Cos you did it again – ran into a fight without thinking about the consequences. Been a while though, to be fair.”

“Oh.” Hospital. That explains the board-like bedsheets and the sound of machines hissing and beeping somewhere behind me. And now I’m confused. And a little panicked. I raise my head a fraction, to get a better look at her, but struggle to focus, my vision fading in and out, eyelids leaden. “I… I can’t seem to keep my eyes open.”

“Yeah, well, you’re in a pretty bad way.”

“Ah.” I slump back into the pillows, contemplating this news about the gravity of my situation. “Right.” I nod. Then frown. Something doesn’t make sense, but I can’t hold onto the thought for long enough to figure out what it is. Never mind. More pressing things to worry about right now. “Exactly how bad?”

“Not sure, really. Bunch of very concerned doctors running around earlier, but it’s been quiet for a while now. Lots of wires and tubes coming out of you… looks like they’ve got you on some serious pain meds too. Can you remember what happened?”

I take a mental pause before attempting to piece the events together through the dull pain and drug-addled haze. I remember running – no, actually, sprinting – chasing someone across a carpark. Toward the Tube station. But it’s above the ground here… wherever ‘here’ is. Richmond? Late at night, a distinct chill in the air. Noise and music and laughter as people stagger out of the pub that backs onto the platform, a handful of them turning to see what the excitement’s all about, some wanker yelling, “Oi-oi!” as I fly past. Over this din of normal life and normal people doing normal things I can hear the staccato thud-thud-thud-thud of my footfall, the rasping of my breath. I reach the top of a stairway that leads into a subway and look down to see him ahead of me. A small man, but stocky. And quite a bit younger than me. Perhaps early 20’s. And fast. I only catch a glimpse of him before he darts into the gloom at the mouth of the tunnel. I bound down the steps, three, four at a time, reach the bottom and turn in after him. The air is instantly heavy with the scent of battle: Chardonnay-infused Vindaloo vomit ganging up with day-old piss to beat a sprinkling of Pine disinfectant into hopeless submission. Filthy white tiles on the walls reflect flickering fluorescent lights and echo the beat of my heels on the hard concrete floor, distorting the sound to produce an eerie metallic pinging tone. The man is already at the far end now, hurdling up the first flight of stairs toward freedom. I try to find more speed, widening my stride, pounding onward. I’m gaining ground, but lose sight of him again as he rounds the corner to the second flight. The sweat is streaming down my face, my chest burning from the exertion…. heart, lungs, legs, all aching. Not as fit as I used to be. Can’t go on much longer. I get to the top of the first flight and grab the handrail to swing myself around the corner and... Shit! He’s right there, in front of me, a callous grin on his face. Can’t stop. Legs like jelly. I crash straight into him, but he hardly moves under the impact. He’s solid. Like a brick wall. I become aware again of the pain in my chest, but it’s different now. Curious. We’re face-to-face, inches apart. His breath reeks of beer and fags and tooth decay. He’s still smiling. And then my legs give way and I kneel before him. Something is in his hand. I hear the dull clunk-clunk, clunk-clunk of a train coming into the station above us. It’s drowning out the sound of my heartbeat, and that makes me panic. I need to hear that heartbeat. If I can’t hear it, I won’t know if it stops.

“Why would it stop?” she asks, her voice clear, yet still distant.

I look down. My hand is clasped to my chest. I pull it away. It’s covered in treacle. Dark, sticky, warm, wet. I raise my gaze. My head is level with the man’s waist. The odour of iron and BO makes me want to retch. Iron? I’m struggling to focus now, to make out the object in his hand, though it’s right there in front of my eyes. Familiar. Shiny metal, but also stained with the same dark treacle.

Iron.

“Bastard stabbed me,” I hear myself say, with more than a touch of indignance.

“Yup. ‘fraid so.”

“Fuck! It hurt.”

She smiles again, over in the darkness. “I’m sure it did. But do you know why you were chasing him?”

“I… I remember someone shouting. A woman. ‘Robber, robber!’ That was weird. Why say ‘robber’? Seems like something a child would use?”

“Apparently she was Downs. Mild, but still. Anyway, so what did you do?”

“Well, then I saw the guy running. I slid my jacket off…”

“Why?”

“It was the thick brown leather one – you remember it? Heavy. I figured it would slow me down.”

“Right. So, you dropped it on the ground and shouted to your mates to look after it.”

“Yeah.” Odd. Did I already say that?

“And then you just took off after that bloke. No idea whether he was armed or how dangerous he was. Or even what had led up to that ‘robber, robber’ scream?

I shrug. “Yeah.”

Silence.

Beep.

Hiss.

I try sitting up again. The effort is enormous, but I feel an overwhelming, inexplicable need to see her properly. She’s dressed in her ‘dark’ mode, just like the night we first met. Black Levi’s, black Docs, black ringneck sweater. Raven hair framing her Pixie-like, pale white face, long-lashes, doe eyes gently mocking. And she looks just as beautiful… and as dangerous, as the very last time I saw her, staring at me now with an expression I remember so well.

“You’re judging me,” I rasp, lying back and closing my eyes.

“What makes you say that?”

“Oh, I know that look – the withering one. You had a way of using it to incredible effect. On anyone you felt was beneath you – or anyone you wanted to belittle. Which was pretty much everyone.”

“Ooh, look at you,” she laughs… no, she cackles derisively. “Mister ‘I’m so hard done by’.”

I grimace, but I can feel that same old sense of self-doubt creeping in – an emotion she always managed to conjure up in me through deft manipulation. Were my actions foolish, careless? Her jibes about my having a saviour complex never failed to wind me up all those years ago, and evidently still did. And now I’m angry. With myself and with her.

“Whatever. Look, Em, why are you here?”

“Ah, thought you’d never ask.”

“Well, I’m asking now.”

“Uh-huh. Yes, you are. I’m here because…” she pauses. For a brief moment she seems to be unsure of herself, of what she wants to say, but that would be too unlike her, so I decide she’s choosing her words carefully as she lays out some tortuous logic trap for me to blunder my way into. “Well, because I need you to do something for me, and this seemed like the best opportunity…” she frowns, as if questioning her own thoughts, “…um, the last opportunity I’d get to ask you - captive audience that you are right now.”

“Yeah?” I say, cautiously, while mulling over synonyms for ‘captive audience’. Cornered prey. Caged animal. “What is it you need me to do?”

“Hmmm. We’ll get to that. No rush. There’re a few things you need to talk about first.”

I sigh heavily. This – all of it - was not how I’d seen my evening going, and this was the last person I’d want to have a deep and meaningful conversation with right now. Still, maybe I could get a few old gripes off my chest. “Okay, fine. What is it you want to talk about?”

She uncurls herself from the chair, puts her feet flat on the floor, leans forward, elbows on knees, and clasps her hands together tightly in front of her. “No. You misheard me. I said, ‘a few things you need to talk about’. You. Not me.”

“Seriously? A confessional? You know it’s been…” How long has it been? “…a lifetime, right? So, what dark secret do you think I’d still want - or be prepared - to unload on you?”

“How you were finally defeated.”

“Huh? I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I really don’t!” I’m getting angrier now, and the hastened beeping of medical machines seems to be confirming this, while also, I suspect, trying to hint that it’s probably not a good idea.

“Oh, for goodness sakes! Fine, I’ll start you off. In all the time we were together you never shied away from a fight.”

“What, fisticuffs?” I smile. One of our little jokes from back when we were together.

I can almost hear her rolling her eyes. “No. Well, yeah, that too, but I’m talking about life in general. You were always hellbent on fixing everyone, on doing the right thing… wading in to help someone or save someone or some shit like that. And then one day you just stopped. Changed completely. Turned your back. Refused to get involved. Until now, anyway. Tonight was the first time in years that you ran into trouble again. Towards it.”

I knew it. She was going down that same old path. Me playing the hero. “Yeah. So what?” I sneer.

“Well, that’s what you need to talk about. The thing that finally made you stop running into danger, stop trying to save people, stop doing battle with the bad shit, and decide to run away from it all instead. The thing that made you stop caring. That defeated you. That defeated us.”

This confounds me, and my muddled mind seems dead set against even beginning to try to figure out what she’s talking about. I suspect I know, but refuse to make it easy for her. “Nope. No idea what you mean.”

“Seriously?” she says testily. “Alright, fine. Bosnia!”

“Eh?” That wasn’t the reply I was expecting. “What about it?”

“Stop being so disingenuous! You know what I mean - it destroyed you!”

Now I’m just plain livid. She had long ago lost the right to dredge this emotional swamp of mine. This was no longer any of her business. “No, it didn’t.”

“Yes, it did. You were a fucking mess when you got back. I had never seen anyone as broken… as miserable as you were. It was like you’d surrendered. Walked away. From that fight and every other fight after that too. And…” She stops. Abruptly. Her head, her shoulders droop.

This surprises me. There’s a vulnerability to her I’d never have expected to see in a situation like this. Mid-fight. “And what?” I ask, in as soothing a voice as I can muster.

“And…” She hesitates, then nods. “And more importantly… you avoided me. Wouldn’t have anything to do with me after that.” She sighs. “And I’d like to know why.”

I feel as if my brain is desperately trying to tell me that something is wrong with this picture - her version of the events. Something doesn’t add up, but I’m still not able to form a cohesive thought as to why. “I’m not sure you’ve got that right, Em,” I say. I’m trying to avoid sounding argumentative, to avoid winding her up, and decide that some self-mockery might do the trick. “I think maybe you’re mixing things up a bit. I mean, I was hardly in a state of rapture when we first met either – was ready to chuck it all in then, too.”

She leans back in the chair, sits silently for a few seconds, and the smile returns. “True.” And then the confidence too. “You were a bit pissed off with the world and all its people back then.”

“Exactly,” I nod, relieved that the tactic worked. Now to add a touch of levity and change the subject, and we should be home-free. “The Steppenwolf, you called me, and numbnuts here thought it was a pretty cool nickname until he got around to reading the book.”

She chuckles. “Well, you were just about as fucked up as Haller. You sad-ass.”

I chuckle too, relieved that the bomb’s been diffused. Relieved to be back on familiar ground. Or at least less confusing ground. “Maybe, but weren’t we both?”

“Aye, mebbe so. It was all a bit of a circus.”

“Hmmm. For madmen only.”

Happiness is Easy | September 1989

“Isn’t your mate a bit old to be hanging about in here?”

“I’m sorry, what?” I leaned forward across the bar to hear what you were saying over the din of blaring music and wailing revellers.

You finished pulling a pint, flashed a smile and jerked your head toward Renton, who was – as usual – making a fool of himself on the dancefloor while belting out The Cure’s ‘Why Can’t I Be You’ along with the rest of the crowd. “Your mate. Bit old for a party in a student union, no?”

I turned to look at him, bemused. “Ah, yeah, but somehow he never seems to come away empty handed.”

“Oh, you envy him, then?” You smirked, your eyes fixed on me, evidently to gauge my reaction.

“Nah. No, I think he’s a bit of a dick, actually. Not that I’d ever tell him to his face, obviously.” I smiled, holding your stare confidently, pleased with myself at how deftly I’d deflected your jibe, but then immediately started feeling a bit self-conscious. Your gaze was not to be trifled with, it seemed. So, I swirled my beer and pretended instead to be preoccupied with something concerning floating on the foamy surface.

“Obviously,” you nodded, though I wasn’t sure whether the nod was in affirmation of my quip or some other question you’d been mulling over in your head. You topped off the pint and grabbed another glass. “He does look like he can handle himself.”

It was beginning to feel like you wanted to have a conversation, rather than this just being disinterested small talk to amuse yourself while pulling pints. I wasn’t sure I was feeling up to it – a conversation, that is. Didn’t come here to make new friends, anyway. And yet, why not. Something about you… I cocked my head, not bothering to mask my intrigue. “Uh-huh. Six-four and just as tall - and Scots Guards to boot. So yeah, he can definitely handle himself. Keeping himself under control, now that’s an entirely different story.”

“Seriously? He’s an army bloke?” You looked genuinely surprised, then gasped, eyes wide, your free hand flying up to cover your mouth. “Oh, God - wait, you’re not one too, are you? Can’t be – you look too… I don’t know – not army, anyways.”

I was a bit disappointed by your reaction - the shock, the dismay - even though it was pretty much form whenever I answered the ‘so, what do you do for a living?’ question. Oh, well. Whatever. I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. “Yeah. I am, actually. On special leave though.”

“Really?” Now it was your turn to look intrigued. “Why?”

And there was the inevitable question. The one I should have known would come. The good reason to avoid being out in the wild. The good reason to avoid conversations with strangers. With anyone. Being reminded of my sins and asked to confess. “Um. I got into a misunderstanding with some Irish chaps… and my commanding officer. We had a, uh, difference of opinion as to why we were in Ulster.”

You flicked the beer tap closed, stopping the flow, and stepped back, focussing on me as the pint settled, dirty white foam transforming magically into amber elixir. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” I said dismissively, also stepping back, hoping this would signal the closing of the topic. “Forget it. ‘nother time, p’raps. Just means I won’t be doing much soldiering for a while.”

“Ah,” you nodded, opening the tap again. “And this soldiering lark – how’d you get into that? Did you have to go to Uni first?”

I paused before answering. Your use of the word ‘lark’ and the way you pronounced it has me curious about your heritage. I decide on Welsh. “You can, but I didn’t want to – seemed a bit bourgeois to me.”

“Ooh, no Uni and you’re using words like ‘bourgeois’.” Your tone was mocking, yet still friendly. “So, what, you think us Uni types spend all our time waxing eloquent about Marx while partying up a storm, do you?”

My response to this was a broad gesture to the drunken rave-up going on behind me with a smug grin on my face.

You chuckled. “Fair enough. So, you went from school to the army?”

“Well, via Sandhurst for almost a year - Officer Training.”

“A year, huh? And that got you a job killing people then?”

“Ha-hah.” This was getting interesting. And kinda fun.