Free The Boy I Love by Marion Husband Page A

told the officer who broke the news, “I’m an orphan.” I laughed – we both laughed. It was bloody ironic.’
    Mick picked up the photograph and frowned at it. He looked at him. ‘You laughed, eh?’
    â€˜Didn’t you?’ He felt drunk, more drunk than he’d ever been in his life. He thought of Paul walking towards the church with that unknown runt of a man and jealousy swept over him. Because he was drunk he said thickly, ‘Paul Harris got married yesterday.’
    â€˜So?’
    â€˜So nothing, I’m just telling you.’
    â€˜I knew his brother, Rob.’ Mick gazed at him. After a while he said, ‘Paul was the very pretty one, wasn’t he? I mean, Rob was handsome, but Paul … it’s a wonder he got past the recruitment sergeant. Crying out to be gang raped, that one.’ He smiled slowly. ‘You wear your heart on your sleeve, Patty. So, I’m listening, tell me about Paul. How you met, his first words to you, everything.’
    â€˜Fuck off.’
    Mick held his hands out to the fire. ‘It’s cold in here, isn’t it? I’m always freezing cold.’
    â€˜Have a brandy, that’ll warm you.’
    â€˜I’ve had enough. How did you know he got married?’
    â€˜It was in the paper.’ Patrick hesitated. Sullenly he added, ‘I went to the church. I watched him as he went in and waited until he came out again.’
    â€˜Did he see you?’
    â€˜No. I don’t think so.’
    Mick turned back to the fire. ‘Be careful.’
    â€˜I’m so fucking careful he’s forgotten I exist.’
    â€˜Are you going to remind him?’
    Patrick stared down at his drink. He thought about the letter he’d written and hadn’t sent, a stiff, formal letter as though he was still playing sergeant to his officer. It wouldn’t do at all. He had to be bolder. Remembering Paul asleep beneath the lilac tree he said, ‘Yes, I’m going to remind him.’
    Not wanting to disturb the pain expanding inside his head Patrick lay stiff and still in bed. He could hear Mick snoring and he opened his eyes only to close them again against the winter sunlight. He was still dressed, stinking of yesterday’s cooking and cigar smoke. Reaching out, his hand covered Mick’s. He had put him to bed only to fall asleep beside him.
    Mick stirred, crying out soft, unintelligible commands and flinging out his arm so it rested on Patrick’s chest. Patrick lifted it aside and sat on the edge of the bed, holding his hangover carefully in both hands. Slowly, more and more of last night’s conversation came back to him and he groaned. Mick always had to know everything – everything had to be told, discussed, resolved; there’d never been a single thing he could keep to himself.
    For a while he watched his brother sleeping, making sure dreams no longer disturbed him. At last he stood up gingerly, going to close the curtains so that he’d sleep on.

Chapter Seven
    T HE HEADMASTER HIMSELF SHOWED Paul around the school.
    â€˜Of course you realise you’ll be teaching only the most junior boys.’
    â€˜Of course, sir.’
    The school smelt as his own school had, of sweaty plimsolls and damp gabardine and Paul wished he could smoke as he struggled to keep up with the headmaster’s impatient quickness. A cigarette would at least be a distraction, something to keep the memories at bay. He remembered Jenkins lying in wait at the end of long school corridors and the bowel-loosening fear of what he might have in store for him. The memory made him feel ashamed but he willed himself forward, even as he imagined himself running back the way they had come, the startled headmaster staring after him.
    Adam had arranged this interview with the headmaster. The man had opened the school especially for him, taking a day from what he called “the wasteland” between Boxing Day and New