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That got a painful rib poke, so Aleksey began to think about extricating himself from this particular version of heaven.
Ben groaned as they began to part, but muttered resigned, ‘I’ll go over get the dogs before I wash the car.’
* * *
Chapter Sixteen
Ben sang along to the radio as the Merc bounced over the cattle grid and exploded from the shady lane onto the bright moorland track. His mind was flitting with thoughts, like Enid’s birds: a constant, light darting of movement to no particular pattern, unless you studied it and its meaning became clearer.
It made a very nice change from roil and churn.
He laughed quietly and stretched his arm out into the passing breeze, making sail-like shapes of his hand, testing wind direction, playing with drag.
He pulled into the cobbled courtyard and, as usual, Tim came out to greet him, the dogs gambolling like puppies around their feet, unrestrained and frisking on the scents and spirit of May on Dartmoor.
They gave each other an arm-punch of greeting and Ben stooped to enter the cottage. Squeezy was in the kitchen, doodling on some paper. When he saw Ben come in, he made a big show of pretending to write, intoning at the same time, ‘Op Wounded Wassock Debrief, Day One hundred and Sixty-Two.’
Ben spun and straddled a chair. ‘It’s Op Wounded Warrior.’
Squeezy huffed. ‘It was gonna be Op Broken Bastard, so count yourself lucky.’
Tim sat down, passing around tea and biscuits. ‘Well, I call this meeting to order then. What! What did I say?’
Squeezy ruffled his hair. ‘It’s anoperational debrief, Matey, not ameeting.’
‘What’s the difference?’
Squeezy spoke in his helping-the-defective voice. ‘I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you.’
Tim nodded to this assessment, as if it wasn’t the first time he’d been offered that kind of logic, and took a sip of his tea. ‘So?’
Ben studied the two of them for a moment before he spoke, and in chorus they muttered, ‘Oh. Not good then.’
Squeezy, clearly annoyed at being caught having anything in common with his boyfriend, leaned back in his chair and shook his head despairingly. Before he could speak, though, Ben laughed. ‘I was just wondering if thisdebriefwas the first time I’ve sat with you two to talk about Nikolas and absolutely nothing is wrong. That I’m not coming in and dumping shit on your heads in the middle of the night.’
Squeezy pointed the pencil at him. ‘You, me old mucker, are just a man clearly well fucked.’
Ben scratched his belly under his T-shirt. ‘Yeah, well, I didn’t have time to shower.’
‘What!’ Squeezy shot theatrically outraged from his chair, brushing himself down as if contaminated. ‘You’ve fucking been fuckingjust now! You’ve brought his…’ He slumped dejectedly back to sitting and began to make a note under his first heading, slowly murmuring as if only to himself, ‘Remember to disinfect third chair from left upon conclusion of meet—briefing.’
Tim, idly stirring his tea, as if patience had been forced to become his middle name over the preceding few years, repeated, ‘So? How about the eating thing, how is that going for a starter?’
Ben just smiled again and took another biscuit. ‘It seems to be working. I tell him he’s getting fat, so he curbs the weirdness a bit. I mean, I’ve always wanted him to eat more! Jesus, when we first met he lived on alcohol and—’
‘Spunk?’
‘Cigarettes. But I didn’t want him to exist entirely on cake and biscuits! Seriously, when he did eat something in the old days, it was pretty healthy: fish and fruit, the occasional green thing if I sneaked it into something. Now there’s not a thing in the house for Mol Mol that’s safe to be left unlocked. Even Radulf has taken to hiding his treats.’
‘Did you know the average load of cum contains up to twenty-five calories?’
‘But one mention of the dreaded f-word and he sort of rebalances again. Stops trawling the cupboards for chocolate. Eats something healthy. Although I think he’s got other sources he’s not telling me about.’
‘Don’t over do it though, Ben; he’s still very thin. Too thin.’
Squeezy glanced at his other half and muttered, ‘Less of him the better I thought was your motto.’
Tim entirely ignored him and offered to make another round, and rising went on, ‘So, food okay. What about the turning fifty issue?’
