Cards on the Table - Part One

Heathrow had smartened itself up in the years he had been away and Bodie was not sure he liked it There had been a defiantly British shabbiness about the old terminals and he rather regretted it had gone; just another sign that things had changed. He looked at the fast food joints and duty free signs and he might have been anywhere in the world. He was, he realised with some internal amusement, disappointed there was no one there to meet him.

It was not until he climbed into the black cab that he began to feel as though he had come home. There was something about the hiss and smack of the tyres on the wet roads that sounded different from all the roads he had driven down over the previous 10 years, something about the way the headlights reflected off the road-surface, something about the smell of the seats. The sound of the cabbie's radio reminded him of the old r/ts and he sat back and closed his eyes. It was only 21.30 but he lain awake most of the previous night and he was beginning to tire. The four hours of solid paperwork he had put in during the flight to avoid thinking about his destination had not helped.

He shifted uneasily inside his suit. It had seemed the right thing to wear when he had got dressed that morning, not obviously trying to attract but attractive nonetheless. Now he felt stiff and unnatural, the slight bagging under one arm of his jacket, added by his tailor to disguise his shoulder-holster, felt huge and ungainly now it was empty. He shook his head angrily; fucking marvellous, 46 years old and he was worrying about his appearance like a teenager on his first date.

He knew he ought to go to a hotel, get himself settled for the night and call round in the morning. He knew what he ought to do and knew that he would not do it. He had waited too long for that. He remembered Gary, leaving message after message on his answering machine, unable to understand what he had done wrong, writing letters he should never have written, making phone calls that must have ground his pride into dust; all for a chance at love he must have known by then was no chance at all. He hadnot understood Gary back then, he did now.

He tried not to think about his journey's end, concentrating fiercely on the landmarks he could see from the cab. Hammersmith Odeon was still there then. Those houses used to be derelict, probably worth a sheikh's ransom now, but his heart was beating painfully and he felt sick and hot and unwell. This was a mistake, a huge monstrous, embarrassing mistake. He ought to get the driver to take him back to Heathrow and he'd catch the next plane out to any damn place and forget the whole stupid idea. Trouble was, he knew himself too well for that. If he left now, he would only be back later. He wiped his sweating palms on his overcoat and breathed deeply, reaching for calm inthe way that Sensei had taught him all those years ago. It felt vaguely indecent using the old techniques for this. It should not be necessary to use them at all. It took a long time to find the peace within and he had to reach deep, only to feel that peace scatter the moment the cab drew up at the kerb.

A tall Victorian house with great bay windows and steps leading up to the front door. The area looked prosperous enough, judging by the cars and the burglar alarms, although he could remember a time when the streets round here had been the haunt of squatters and petty criminals.

He picked up his bags and climbed the stairs, the winter rain if anything refreshing after the stuffiness of the plane and cab. There were three bells, the house was obviously divided into flats, and none of the bells had names. He had not expected them to, terrorist targets usually had more sense than to advertise their whereabouts. He noticed the video camera lens discreetly positioned high in the door frame and stood back to give it a good picture, then pressed the bell for the top floor.

The door was either the original Victorian one, or a good copy. There were two frosted-glass panels and in the dim light he could just make out a long hallway and the staircase leading upwards.

Suddenly the lights brightened and a door slammed somewhere. His heart was hammering again and he realised to his horror that he had an erection. He stepped back hurriedly as the brighter light showed him someone coming down the stairs three at a time.

The door flew open: a split second's hesitation and they were embracing, laughing and rocking and thumping each other on the back.

Abruptly Bodie felt more alive that he had in years, a sudden physical shock, like feeling your hearing clear at altitude, showing you how deaf you had become without noticing it. He hugged back, feeling the well-remembered bones beneath the skin, the well-remembered strength.

"You might have written, you rotten bastard. I wrote to you often enough." Doyle's voice in his ear, Doyle's breath on his cheek.

"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry." Oh God, the relief of that laughing comment. Why had he feared this for so long? They stepped back and looked at one another, assessing the changes and the similarities. "Am I invited in, or are we going to give the neighbours another treat?"

Doyle grinned and bent down to take one of Bodie's bags, remembered and straightened up without it. He gestured towards the stairs. "Shall we?" Bodie rolled his eyes and picked up his bags, and they started up the stairs, Bodie falling automatically into step, four steps below Doyle.

"Are you staying long?"

"A couple of weeks for now, maybe longer later. We're looking into setting up a London office." No point in admitting that the thought had crossed no one's mind until he had decided to come home. God only knew what Jim and the rest of his partners thought: the way he had pressed for it, demanding an immediate decision, then turned his current cases over to someone else and left, all within a couple of days.

Two flights of stairs and then a dark wood door. Doyle turned on the doorstep and for the first time Bodie saw him in full light. His first though, "My God, he's changed" was followed immediately by, "My God, he hasn't changed at all." The face was different, thinner, more finely drawn, the broken cheekbone more prominent; the hair was shorter and peppered with grey all over, not just at the temples, and in some ways this man bore no relationship to the man he had last seen 10 years ago. But the smile was the same; the eyes were the same; the stance, easy, graceful, attractive, was the same; and if Doyle had been a good-looking man at 37, at 47 he was devastating.

"Welcome to my humble abode." Heavy duty locks and a heavier door gave way to a narrow hall and then to a main room. It had potential, high ceilings, high windows (with anti-blast curtains) and a glimpse of a balcony beyond. An attractive room certainly but Bodie was struck by how bare it was, none of the pictures and plants and bits and bobs that had been such a feature of Doyle's flats in the old days; just the books and the (obviously new) stereo in the corner and, on the dining table, an open laptop and papers. In the two months he' d been living there, Doyle had had less impact on the place than he would once have had in two hours.

Bodie nodded towards the table, remembering a long ago letter. "I thought you didn't believe in taking work home."

Doyle shrugged. "Beats the crap out of sitting here thinking." Then, visibly shaking the thought away, he busied himself with the hospitable courtesies. They finally settled on tea and a bacon sandwich, and Bodie's complaints about the abominations available in America by those names swept away any remaining awkwardness.

Bodie stood in the doorway of the narrow kitchen, watching Doyle cook and let the warmth of it all mingle with his memories. This, as much as anything, was what he had missed; the conversation about nothing in particular, the sense of humour that needed no punch lines, the deft hands at work. Even his own growing exhaustion seemed part of a well-worn pattern; and underneath it all he could feel the tug of attraction, familiar but never recognised for what it was until it was too late.

Then into the big room again, eating while Doyle sprawled in the armchair opposite asking the occasional question. This wasn't the time for digging deep, Bodie could see that, so he kept it light, the broad outline of what he had been doing and as many funny stories as he could remember or invent. He mentioned Maddy once or twice but nothing about Gary, oh no, nothing about Gary; nothing either about the time he got knifed in Abilene or the three days he spent in jail in Los Angeles, just prat falls and idiots and the high times. Keeping it light for both of them, because neither of them was ready for more.

The room was warm and the lights were gentle to eyes that felt gritty with travel. Bodie talked and while he talked, he summoned up long disused skills. He could see Doyle was desperately glad to see him and, what was more, he could see that Doyle had been shocked by the strength of his own reaction. Beside that shock, Bodie's own emotional turmoil, let alone his desire, could not be allowed to count for anything. He worked hard at the conversation and was eventually rewarded by that greatly-missed filthy laugh and a couple of stories in return, the back chat only interrupted by the telephone.

The news it brought was obviously not what Doyle had wanted to hear, and Bodie was treated to the spectacle of his friend tearing a long, and no doubt exquisitely painful, strip off the luckless caller, who had apparently managed to lose the man he was supposed to have had under surveillance.

"Only thing missing from that was a Scots accent," he said as Doyle put down the receiver.

Doyle grinned and spread his hands. "If you're going to learn from anyone, might as well make it the master." There was a sound behind him and he turned sharply.

A little girl, Amita, her head bent against the light, her knuckles in her eyes. She was wearing pyjamas covered in cartoon characters Bodie did not recognise, the bottoms obviously wet through.

"I heard a noise..."

Doyle got to his feet. "Just me and Bodie talking, Lammie. Nothing to worry about. "

She shifted uneasily, the pyjamas sticking to her thin little legs, her lower lip beginning to tremble. "I'm sorry, Daddy."

Doyle picked her up, cradling the damp little figure unhesitatingly against his chest, his voice gentle. "Doesn't matter, Lammie. It was an accident. It doesn't matter." Hekissed the top of her head. "Come on, let's find you some clean 'jamas."

He carried her off, and Bodie heard a cupboard door and then the sound of running water, and over it all the sound of Doyle's voice, hushed, soothing. Then back through the room, the child three parts asleep on his shoulder, a clean sheet folded neatly over his arm like a waiter's cloth.

Bodie took his cup and plate into the kitchen and put them in the sink. He had never bothered to imagine Doyle as a father; husband yes, lover yes, but never father, and this tender, gentle, loving Doyle made him ache in ways that had nothing to do with desire. There was crockery in the sink, a child's plate and mug amongst them, so he washed them and left them to drain. Whatever he had imagined their reunion would be like, it had been nothing like this.

He started as the other man came into the kitchen and had to move out of the way so that Doyle could shove the wet sheet and discarded pyjamas into the washing machine, followed by his own shirt. Then he leaned against the machine, his back to Bodie, his face hidden. "She never used to wet the bed," he said eventually. "We've done that to her, Deera and me."

Bodie could not speak, the calm of their earlier conversation blown away by the sight of Doyle half-naked, the familiar chest hair now flecked with grey, but the shoulders still broad, the arms still unexpectedly big with muscle. Oh God, it shouldn't be like this! He wasn't a kid any more; but his heart was pounding and his chest was tight. The need to hold him, just hold him, was like a physical pain and he couldn't tell whether it was for Doyle's comfort or his own.

"The day they're born you swear you'll do anything to protect them," said Doyle softly. "And in the end you can't even protect them from yourself." He swung back to face Bodie. "And you know what the worst of it is?" He paused. Then, in a movement Bodie must have seen half a hundred times and had forgotten until now, he looked away, his lips compressed and then forced himself to look back, letting Bodie see everything in his face. "The worst of it is, the poor little kid's worried about me. She's five years old and every time she goes back to her mother, she feels guilty leaving me here on my own."

No bloody wonder Doyle was glad to see him. All this going on and who the hell did he have to talk to? The people he worked with these days were either subordinates or rivals, the friends he'd made in CI5 scattered to the four winds, his own family notoriously glad to see the back of him. Without his wife and her family, Doyle had no one and for a few brief, selfish seconds, Bodie was exultant.

He still knew Doyle, knew him better than any one, knew things that no one else knew. He looked across the kitchen and saw a familiar pattern, anger hiding a deeper grief. He had always known how to deal with Doyle in this state. All it took was the right trigger.

"But you're doing okay, aren't you?"

It still worked. "No, I'm not doing okay. I'm nowhere near fucking okay. My life's a mess. I hate this place. I hate coming home to an empty house. I hate having no one to talk to. I hate sleeping alone. I hate the quiet and the tidiness. Six months ago I had a wife and a family and a life I loved and what the hell have I got now?" He waved his arm at the poky little kitchen. "All this, no wife and a kid I see alternate weekends." He was crying now, not even trying to suppress it, the words falling over each other. "I love them Bodie, I bloody love them. Why wasn't it enough?"

Bodie crossed the room in two strides and took him in his arms. For a moment Doyle tensed against him, and then the pressure inside was too much to resist and he collapsed against his friend, arms limply by his side, head down, forehead pressed against Bodie's shoulder.

"I want my life back back, Bodie. I want Deera and Ammy, I want my family, it's the only one I've ever had and I want it back. I want to go home, Bodie, I just want to go home..."

There was nothing Bodie could say. Nothing he could do but hang on, and let Doyle spill what had been close-held for too long, doing his best to take comfort from the knowledge that this was something he could offer.

By the time it was over, it was late and they were both exhausted. He let Doyle badger him into taking his bed, knowing Doyle needed to do something in return, wishing he had the courage to suggest they share it.

Long after the light in the other room had gone out, he lay awake despising himself. He had told himself not to hope, he had thought that he had managed not to; but he could see now how badly had lied to himself. Somewhere deep inside he had imagined another Ann Holly, deeply but briefly mourned, leaving Doyle essentially unscathed and available. Not only self-serving but stupid too, a couple of hours in the man's presence enough to blow that cosy little illusion out of the water.

Somewhere a church clock chimed for midnight. He remembered how it had felt to hold Doyle, the weight of him in his arms, the way his breath felt against his neck, the feel of all that still-beautiful skin beneath his hands. He wondered if he would ever feel it again; he wondered if he would ever have the courage to ask for what he wanted; he wondered if the day would ever come when he could ask, when Doyle would be able to answer. Doyle who was grieving like a man bereaved, Doyle who was still wearing his wedding ring.

He buried his face in a pillow which smelt faintly of Doyle beneath the unfamiliar soap powder and it was a long time before he slept.

THE END

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