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When Richard finally fell asleep Pat sat by the bed a while watching his chest rise and fall. So many days and nights worrying about whether it would stop, whether it had stopped, and now he wasn’t sure he’d ever properly trust life again.
He closed his eyes and tried to relax, but found himself beset by memories of the disastrous afternoon.
Every single damned thing had gone wrong. He’d been so thrown by the performance for the bank clerk, so cut to the heart by Richard’s casual dismissal of him as a “good man” rather than a friend, that to his shame he’d done his best to make sure that Richard was uncomfortable from that moment on: refusing to say any words of welcome, deliberately avoiding falling into step with him as they walked together on the way here, staying at a distance behind him so they couldn’t talk. He’d told himself that he hated Richard, that Richard deserved to be uncomfortable, but he’d known all along it was himself he hated, for being petty and cruel to the man who mattered to him above everything.
Then Sally hadn’t been here to greet them, which had thrown him again, and he’d drunk too much beer far too fast - he’d heard the server mention it to her as soon as she came in, as was his job - leaving himself completely unprepared for introducing her to Richard. Still, she had been more than polite, and Richard had played a good game of pretending to be embarrassed by her deference, while Pat had simply sat there like a stuffed pudding watching them, not a coherent thought in his head.
And when he’d finally got Richard upstairs he’d been too nervous to make any sense, to say what he wanted. He’d never realised before how the bed dominated this room and he’d completely forgotten to take Richard next door to the little sitting room he shared with the other rooms on this floor, where they could sit comfortably as they drank their tea.
After all that the only thing left from his delicious imaginings of this reunion would have been to wipe Richard’s face gently clean of the travel dust, and as he’d been travelling inside as befitted a bloody colonel, there was little enough of that and he’d been too fuddled with the drink to mention it anyway.
He knew he’d upset Richard with his awkward response to his request for a hug and a kiss. It wasn’t that he’d expected them to simply fall into bed together and start going at it without further ado - though he’d given the idea an airing in his dreams last night - but with all that had gone wrong so far, he’d simply frozen like a fool. He couldn’t even tell Richard what he was nervous of, because for all his imaginings, sex between them had never once been mentioned. He didn’t even know if Richard had been with a man before. How to have a conversation about when and which way round with the man you’d dreamed about for years when you hadn’t even covered if?
Pat sat for a few more minutes watching Richard’s thin distinguished face relax into deeper sleep, then decided to go back down to the taproom. He suspected Sally would be wanting him in her bed tonight, would be expecting him in fact, and he didn’t quite know how to get out of that. Clearly, telling her he was now committed to Richard wasn’t possible, so he’d have to think of something else. Perhaps another few beers would set the ideas flowing.
By the time he’d admitted that no amount of beer would set the ideas flowing tonight, Sally had made it clear that he needn’t expect anything else to be flowing in her direction either.
“Don’t even bother asking, Patrick Harper. If I wanted to be uncomfortable and surrounded by beer stink all night, I’d sleep on the floor in here.” She peered at him closely. “What’s the matter with you, anyway? You’re not frightened of him, are you?”
Pat made an attempt at laughing off the suggestion, but he couldn’t even convince himself. He wasn’t frightened of Richard, of course he wasn’t, though he could see how Sal might think that. But there was no denying he was frightened of what might - or might not - happen between them, now that all obstacles, including Sally, were removed. He had intended to be a bit more subtle about avoiding Sally’s bed, but it was done for tonight, and perhaps they’d be moving on somewhere else tomorrow.
“No, of ... coursh not,” he said, cursing his stupidity in drinking so much. The words were clear enough in his head but he couldn’t seem to make his mouth work properly. “Never. ’s a fine soldier, good man, not fuh... fr...” He tried again. “Not scared, ’s a good man, only he’s... I mean, I...” Somewhere deep in his brain Richard’s voice said “Shut up right now, Sergeant Harper, before you say something really stupid,” and he staggered to his feet. “Need a...” and he hurried out into the yard where he pissed and pissed like he’d never stop, which, strangely, seemed to sober him up quite a lot. Only then did he realise he’d eaten nothing all day in his excitement at Richard’s arrival, and went back inside to negotiate with Sally for a bit of bread and beef, with more of the same on a separate plate for Richard in case he woke up hungry.
When he got back up to the room, he was surprised to find Richard sitting propped up against the headboard with his old campaign blanket wrapped round his shoulders. He looked asleep and Pat almost rushed forward to make sure he didn’t fall out of bed, then he realised that Richard was looking down, reading a letter.
A very familiar-looking letter.
“Got you some food, Richard, if you’re hungry?” Pat said tentatively. There was no pretending he hadn’t been an unkind miserable bastard from the moment Richard had got off the coach, but he could indicate he was ready to start again and hope Richard felt the same.
Richard looked up and half smiled. “Would be nice, Pat, just give us a minute, eh?” He went back to the letter while Pat, unsure how to react to the fact that Richard was reading Pat’s letter as if he’d never seen it before, set about making some tea. Richard carried on reading.
“Richard?”
“Mmm?”
“Tea. And there’s some mustard for the beef if you want it.”
“Grand, thanks Pat.” Richard took the plate and mug then looked around for somewhere to put them.
“Sorry, Richard, let me...” He took them both back and said hesitantly, “There’s a little sitting room next door, there won’t be anyone else in there at this hour. We could...”
Richard was already clambering out of bed, his bare feet pale against the floorboards. He shrugged off the blanket to put his shirt on and his chest was thin and sunken and Pat choked back a sob at how weakened he still was. But his voice was firm enough as he said,
“We could... talk, is that what you mean?”
“Yes, if...”
“Food first, Pat, if that’s all right. Haven’t had much the past day or two. Have you eaten?”
“I’ve had a bite, yes. Bit too full of beer to want much right now.” He smiled sheepishly, hoping Richard would understand his apology.
Pat stirred up the fire and chatted lightly of nothing much while Richard ate hungrily and drank several cups of tea.
“I hate going by coach,” he said, raising his cup. “Never dare drink nothing in case it’s a long way to the next stop. Takes three days to catch up with myself after.”
When he’d cleared the plate and drained his cup again he sat back, and pulled the letter out of his jacket.
“Where do you want to start, then, Pat?” He looked straight at Pat and his face seemed to soften as Pat stammered, unsure how to answer.
“With this?” He laid the letter carefully on the table. “Or, my vote would be for this afternoon first, the way you were all the way from the coach to when we came upstairs and you told me you were nervous.”
“I’m sorry, Richard, I’m ashamed of how I treated you this afternoon. I was...” He stopped, trying to think how to explain it.
“Angry. Upset.” Richard seemed to hesitate. “Disappointed?”
“All of those.”
“But you knew why I was worried about people knowing I was coming to you. Seems I’m going to have to say it again - I honestly cannot think it would do us any good to have it in the newspapers that I...”
“There, you see!”
Richard looked confused. “See what?”
“In the newspapers!” Pat finally got into his stride and all the terror and bitterness and inadequacy came pouring out.
“Do you think I’ve ever once been in the newspapers, Richard? Do you really think that people in...”
“One word, Pat. Talavera.”
“That doesn’t count, and don’t interrupt, I need to get this out.”
Richard raised his eyebrows and sat back, propping one foot up on a spare chair. Pat averted his eyes from the fine line of his leg leading up to... He shook his head determinedly and ploughed on.
“Do you really think that people of my station in life ever worry about what people are going to read in the newspapers about them? Well, we don’t, Colonel Sharpe, we just don’t.” He held a hand up as Richard opened his mouth. “I said don’t interrupt.”
“We don’t, and do you know why? Because no-one cares. Nobody who can afford to buy a newspaper gives a single solitary shite for people like me and what we do with our lives. So when you get off the coach and you introduce me to - he put on a parody of what Richard laughingly called his ‘proper officer’s voice’ - ‘Mr Portingale from my bank in Horton Waverley’ and you don’t introduce... I mean... and you’re still worrying about the newspapers, and you’ve travelled inside even though it costs twice as much and you said you haven’t any money, and you call me ‘good man’ and take it for granted I’ll carry your bags for you while you stroll along without a care in the world, then...”
He took a deep breath as the flow of angry words dried up. Richard waited.
“Then... then I have to wonder if we’re in any way at all suited to even be friends, never mind anything else,” he finished in a rush.
“Ah. This is about me being a Colonel.”
Pat said nothing, and Richard continued. “Well, I am a Colonel, and I’m proud of that, very proud, that a misbegotten little bastard from the gutter who nobody ever wanted...”
“I wa...”
Richard held up his hand. “My turn.”
“...who only joined the army to escape the noose, could make it up to a rank that posh twats pay thousands of pounds for, and Wellington gave it to me. And the fact that you never got a commission for Talavera when you were a far better soldier than most of those bastards isn’t right, but it doesn’t change how I feel, my personal pride, if you like, about what I managed to achieve.” He sat up with the air of someone about to play a winning card. “And besides, it’s never worried you before.”
“It’s not about you being a Colonel.”
Richard was staring at him. “Then for fuck’s sake what is it about, Pat? Because I’m buggered if I can understand what your problem is.”
Pat fumbled for the words. How to explain it was about Richard somehow having turned into a man who was comfortable in high society, who moved confidently among people with money and influence? Who couldn’t possibly still be interested in a common soldier who’d never be allowed inside the Assembly Rooms unless it was to sweep the floor?
“It’s like this, Richard. I’m a plain and simple sort of man, so I am,”
“Of course you are, Pat.”
Pat ignored that. “And so did you used to be, even after you became a Colonel. Back in India, now, you were a Colonel there, but we all mucked in together, you had your responsibilities of course, but you were still the same Richard I’d known and fought beside for years.”
“You saying I’m not the same now?”
“! am saying that, yes. And it’s since you met that Gisela woman.”
Richard was very still. “Go on.”
“Well, that’s it really. Since you met her you’re not the same.”
He couldn’t interpret the look on Richard’s face. There was an uncomfortable silence as Richard appeared to be pondering his words, and when he eventually spoke his voice was cool, almost detached.
“Going to need a bit more detail than that, Pat. If you’re saying I’ve changed too much for us even to be friends any more, when I’ve just broken off a betrothal so we can be a lot more than friends, then I think I have a right to know what it is about me you don’t like any more.”
Pat hardened his heart against the desire to beg for Richard’s understanding, and he spoke flatly.
“It’s not that I don’t like you any more, of course it isn’t. But you just said it yourself. You were betrothed. To a beautiful society woman with influence and pots of money.” Richard seemed to stir in his seat slightly, but said nothing. “To a woman who was seen weekly at the Assembly Rooms in the company of her lover, the renowned Colonel Sharpe, dancing till dawn.”
“I were never her lover.”
“You expect me to believe that? Dashing, handsome Colonel Sharpe and...”
“...and a woman very careful of her reputation. She had a lot to lose if we... Well, never mind all that, whether you believe it or not is up to you, I don’t care right now. Besides, when did dancing till dawn become a shooting offence?”
“Richard. You never dance. Harvest Supper, Mess Nights, Governor’s Ball - you name it, you’re famous for not dancing at it.” It was like he was a completely different man now, why couldn’t Richard see that?
Richard’s face was twisted in what looked like disbelief. “That’s what all this is about? Gisela insisted I learnt to dance and I got quite good at it - and that’s your problem?”
Pat felt foolish and wished he could explain it more clearly.
“No, well, it’s just... it’s a life I don’t know, and never will know, and you seem to fit into it very well, and it makes me feel - well, I just don’t know what kind of a life I can offer you that’s anything like that.”
Richard sighed deeply and looked as if he was having difficulty being patient. “Pat, first - consider, will you, where I’m sitting right now. And where you are, and where Gisela is. I’ve made my choice. Least, I thought I had, seems like now you’re throwing it back in my face.”
“No, I...”
“No, wait, I’m not done. And second, if you really think I’m taking you out fucking dancing to prove something, you’d best think again right now.”
They looked at each other and now Richard seemed to be biting his lip to avoid smiling, and suddenly Pat was having the same problem as he allowed himself to picture the two of them in some grand ballroom with all the world staring as they held each other reverently, and then finally he understood what Richard was telling him. The air in the room seemed to become very hot and still. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from Richard’s eyes as he stood, knocking the chair over in his hurry and Richard did the same and then at last they were holding each other as if they would never let go.
Pat had his hands on Richard’s face, thumbs tracing those marvellous cheekbones and Richard had burrowed his hands under Pat’s shirt and around his back, flattening himself against Pat’s chest. Then Pat wrapped his arms around Richard and pulled him even closer, and try as he might to restrain himself he knew Richard would feel his hardness but he stayed where he was and Pat dropped a kiss on his head, allowing himself at last to feel hope. They stood breathing softly together for a while then Richard pulled away and looked up at Pat.
“I’m... not ready for anything else yet, Pat. Tried the other night, took a bloody age and barely nothing happened.”
Pat knew the disappointment was probably clear on his face but he did his best to hide it anyway. He smiled and kissed Richard gently, and made the best of it.
“Sure and we’ve all the time in the world, Richard, we’re just beginning. I can wait.” He took a deep breath. “But could I... how would you feel about me holding you while you sleep?”
Richard smiled his tired smile and allowed his head to rest against Pat’s chest again.
“I think that’s why I’m here, Pat. For you to hold me while I sleep.”
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