Rob studied the photo again before placing the card and the note on the mantelpiece. Mike was still wearing that cheap watch.
Christ, I'd love to be doing something useful again. But I need to be here for Tom.
Okay, he'd call Mike later, just to chat. He had to crack on with his routine: make a pan of chilli, leave it to simmer while he watched the news, then do half an hour with the weights before he had his dinner. A few decent kettlebells worked out cheaper than membership at the local gym. His day, week, and month were now mapped out more or less to the hour, his finances to the last penny.
It's like being in prison. Still, this was what we did back in Afghan. No fancy facilities like the big bases.
Rob started calculating how much difference a job with Esselby would make. He'd earn four times what he was making in the supermarket, but then there was tax, insurance, and other self
-employed expenses to pay. Maybe it wasn't as lucrative as it looked.
I'd have three months off a year, though, maybe more. And I'd be doing what I do best.
He could usually switch off while he trained and just concentrate on making his body do what he demanded of it, but it was hard to focus with numbers like that in his mind. He jerked the fifteen-kilo kettlebell over his head, feeling the sweat trickle down his back, and wondered what was getting to him most, the lack of cash or simply being nothing for the first time in his adult life.
He was lost in his thoughts when the doorbell rang. He went to the intercom, expecting it to be someone trying to sell him something he didn't want or need, because it wouldn't be a visitor. He made sure none of his mates ever came here.
The voice on the crackly speaker was the last one he expected to hear. "Dad, it's me."
"Christ. Tom? What are you doing here, kiddo? You're supposed to be in Newcastle."
"Well, now I'm here. Can I come in?
Rob held his finger on the button to unlock the hall door, disoriented for a moment, and waited at the top of the stairs. Tom trudged up the steps with a tight-packed holdall and stared at Rob with an expression that said he was trying hide his dismay at finding his father in a dismal place like this. Rob had never let him see the flat. Tom hadn't needed to know.
"It's the end of term, Dad. Remember? I came back a day early. Sorry I didn't call first."
"Oh. Seen your mum yet?" Rob showed him in and shut the door before giving him a hug. He'd been caught out and he wasn't sure where the conversation was heading. "What's wrong?"
Tom wasn't the sort of lad to forget to call ahead. He was eighteen going on fifty, a man who body-searched every word before he let it pass his lips. "Nothing's wrong," he said. "Not with me, anyway. I just didn't want to give you the chance to fob me off this time. I wanted to see this for myself."
They stood in the cramped hall for a few awkward, silent seconds. Tom looked around. Rob didn't have any excuses ready. He'd expected to show up at Bev's and be nice to her new bloke in exchange for having Christmas with Tom, and never let Tom see how he was actually living. That plan had all gone to rat shit now. All he could do was make his lad feel at home.
"I'd better get you a drink, hadn't I?"
"How about going for a curry? Come on, Dad. My treat."
"Star of Bengal or The Raj?"
"Raj," Tom said. "They do coconut naans."
"Yeuchh."
"Fibre."
"Fibre's the least of your worries after a vindaloo, son. Okay, give me five minutes to clean myself up and turn off the chilli."
Rob had never felt so ashamed in his life. He could feel Tom's distress radiating like sunburn, sorrow that his father lived in this grim, bare cell of a place. When he came out of the bathroom, Tom was studying the solitary Christmas card on the mantelpiece.
"I see Mike sent you a card."
"Yeah, look at all those teeth." Rob zipped up his jacket. "You could make a piano keyboard out of that lot. Put your shades on, son. You don't want any retina damage."
"Even the dog looks rich. You're the only person I know who could have the Brayne family in his debt and not take advantage of it. Didn't you ever see
Androcles and The Lion
?"
"Yeah. It could have done with some car chases."
"Come on.
Leo Brayne.
Technology, comms, mining, charitable foundations."
"I don't want charity."
"That's a load of crap. Mike's your friend." Tom frowned at the picture. "Look, he's still wearing that watch you gave him. His twelve Cartiers must be at the cleaner's."
"It's his lucky charm."
"Is it okay if I read the note?"
Rob nodded. Tom frowned while he read. Sometimes he looked just like his mum, that square tip to his nose and the way he pursed his lips when he was concentrating.
"You're mad," he said, looking up. "Mike keeps offering you work and you don't take it. He keeps inviting you over there. Do it, Dad. He's your mate. He really cares what happens to you."
"Too far." It had to be said. "And I spent too long away while you were growing up. It's time I stuck around."
"But Newcastle's a long way, too. You know they've got planes and the Internet in America, don't you? It's ever so modern. They might even have phones by now."
"I've already got a job," Rob said.
"Not quite what you told me, though, is it?" Tom beckoned and headed for the door. "Come and tell me the truth."
They walked to the Raj, a half-hour stroll that gave Rob time to change the subject and talk about how Tom's course was going. Rob realised it was one of those weird conversations where they were discussing one thing while a separate, unspoken argument was running in parallel beneath the surface. The Raj smelled comfortingly of frying onions and lemon air freshener, but the wailing music in the background suddenly reminded him too much of previous deployments. It was probably only Bollywood soundtracks.
"Do you still run?" Tom asked. They settled down to a pile of poppadums while they pored over the menu. "Why aren't you in touch with your old mates?"
"Who says I'm not?"
"Only one Christmas card."
Tom wasn't giving up, then. Rob braced for incoming. "Yes, I still do my phys every day." He stopped short of saying that he didn't want his old oppos to know where he'd ended up. He was ashamed. "But there's no point looking back. I would have had to leave sooner or later."
"Yeah, and we're all going to
die
eventually, too, but that doesn't mean you lie down in your coffin and wait." Tom started moving the plates to make room for sizzling platters inbound from the left. "You could have been extended to fifty-five. You just got shat on by the government."
Tom didn't meet Rob's eyes. He dug into the chicken vindaloo as if the comment had been a throwaway observation, which it definitely wasn't. So it was gut-spill time, then. Okay, Rob would give in. He needed to. There had to be one person in the world that he didn't have to present with a stiff upper lip.
"Tom, I'm lucky," he said. "I came back with all my limbs and I don't wake up screaming at night. I've got a job. I'm not living on the streets. I've just got to get used to not
mattering.
"
"Christ, Dad, don't say that. Every second of your life matters. That's why I can't stand to see you wasting it. Forget me for a minute. What do you
really
want to do now?"
Wasting it.
Rob had rationalized about missing the Corps and not having those really tight relationships you only had with blokes you served with, but it wasn't his job that didn't matter; it was his life. He hadn't even returned to the real world. He was back in an
un
real existence with make-believe rules and imagined safety, while actual reality – life-or-death decisions,
real
risks, pushing himself to his limits because he had to – was out there in some combat zone. It was one of the few places left where humans lived the way they'd been designed to, and it wasn't as simple or as juvenile as missing the excitement. What he missed was having to push himself every day. Running marathons didn't cut it. He could always stop running and sit down for a rest, but in combat nobody waited while you got your breath back. There was no safety net. It was life at the limits of human capacity and beyond.
"Okay, so I wish I was a Bootneck again," he said. "And I wish I had the stamina I had at twenty, and the looks, and that I healed as fast, but I don't. Things pass."
"You can't go on like this."
"Like what?"
"You thought I wouldn't realise, didn't you?" Tom gestured at him with his fork. "I knew damn well you'd try to pretend everything was fine. That's why you made sure you always met me at Mum's. So I wouldn't see the state you were in. You let her keep everything."
Rob didn't have a good answer. Suddenly the sound of his own chewing deafened him. "Yeah, well, so I did."
"Dad, I can't take any more money from you. I won't have you living like this to subsidize me."
"You can keep me in my old age. Deal?"
"I mean it. I'm going to pay back what you've sent me this term."
"No. You won't."
"
Yes.
I will."
"Tom, I'm your dad. You think I want to see you trying to study and hold down a job too?"
"Americans do it all the time. Ask Mike."
"You're eighteen. You should be enjoying yourself."
"How can I, when I know you have to live like this?" That was Tom all over, always the little man of the house when Rob was away, sensible and responsible. "I'm serious, Dad. You're not making a fortune and you're not having a good time. Stop lying to me."
"I'd never lie to you. You know that."
"Look, I never needed to know what you did in the Marines, but I
do
have a right to know when you're in the shit. You deserve better." Tom went quiet and carried on eating, but he was just changing tack. Rob didn't have an answer. "I always expected you to go into private security work. Counter-piracy, close protection, that kind of thing. The MoD paid for you to do a CP course and all the other stuff before you left."
Tom knew all the correct words. Rob had to choose his own carefully. "Only so they could bin us and still get the job done on the cheap by rehiring us working for PSCs."
"So you wouldn't notice the difference, would you? Except for better conditions."
"Yeah, but I need to be home for a few years."
"Because of me?"
"I'm your
father
. You put your kids first, although fuck knows that's not fashionable these days." The vindaloo was hotter than Rob remembered. He was starting to sweat and a headache was forming like a storm front. He gulped down some raita as an antidote, but it wasn't working. "I was away too often when you were growing up."
"I was really proud of you being a Marine."
"But not a security guard, eh?"
"That's not what I mean and you know it. I'll always be proud of you, whatever you do. But you should call Mike and see what's on offer."
Sometimes talking to Tom was like role reversal. The kid was going to make a great dad one day. He was doing a pretty good job of it right now. "What if I did?"
"I could brag that my dad was a mercenary. Offend the wannabe Che Guevaras on my course and impress women. Okay, I know mercenary isn't accurate. But you know what I mean."
"I don't think Esselby does the full-on dogs of war rent-a-coup shit."
"Yeah, but I don't have to tell women that." Tom forced a smile. "Just come to my graduation ceremony with two days' stubble and a bandolier."
"It's all polo shirts and baseball caps now. How about a gold-plated AK-forty-seven and a sweaty Bruce Willis vest?"
Tom laughed. "Yeah, you could carry that off. Look, Dad, it's more or less the same work. You'll still be yourself."
Rob felt something prick at his eyes. It wasn't the curry. Tom was giving him permission to do what he'd really wanted, trying to make the decision easy for him. It should have been the other way around. If anyone had asked Rob what he was, his instant answer had always been
Royal Marine
, but there was another identity that defined him just as much: he was Tom's dad, and he was even more proud of that.
"Okay. I'll talk to Mike."
He had no illusions. A dead Rob in a Royal Marines uniform would have had a nice funeral with some media coverage of roses being thrown onto his hearse, but a dead Rob on the payroll of Mercs-R-Us would be completely invisible, with no poppies, no Legion standard-bearers, and no angry voters complaining about Our Boys dying for nothing. He knew that. He wasn't stupid. Neither was the government. This was their plan, the chinless lying fuckers, one of the very few they seemed to actually have.
"I wouldn't see any less of you, would I?" Tom said. "I just want a happy dad again."
Rob felt like he'd been recharged after months on fading batteries. Back at the flat, while Tom was out buying groceries from the all-night supermarket, he stared at the phone and felt almost excited, not
whoopee
excited, but the things-might-go-horribly-wrong variety, that fear of having to swim out of his depth but doing it anyway. It was the challenge he needed.
That, and having the money to do right by Tom.
It was an honest job. He wasn't leeching off Mike's generosity.