Chapter Twenty-Nine

Sunday 30th June

'And you haven't?'

Harry was on his feet and at the door before Nikki had even left the table. He could see the outline of a tall man through the glass. She'd denied it, but he'd suspected it and he'd been proved right. Why else would she want to talk to him this weekend when she hadn't for any of the week's previously and then act so strangely? She'd told him there wasn't someone else, but it was definitely a man on the other side of the door.

Maybe that was a good thing, she'd got him so worked up, he was ready for a fight and one of her unsuitables would be as good a punching bag as any.

He opened the door and was surprised to see that the tall man was holding a bag of frozen peas to his forehead with grazed hands, with old bloodstains on his shirt and fresh blood dripping down his face, from a wound hidden under the bag of peas. His other obviously swollen hand gripped the neck of a half empty bottle of vodka. Someone had already given this man a beating far better than Harry could ever manage.

The man certainly wanted Nikki, but not in the way that Harry had been dreading. Perhaps he had been wrong. Maybe she'd been telling the truth.

"Who the F*;# are you?" The hospital case on the doorstep asked. "Nikki!" he called into the house.

"Hello?" Harry said to the man.

"Nikki, I need your help!" the man called out and this time Harry registered the accent. He'd not recognised him from the picture he'd seen but in that one he wasn't covered in blood and bruises. There was only one person who was likely to turn up at Nikki's door on a Sunday afternoon with contusions and an open head wound.

"You must be Jack," Harry stated, he didn't hold out his hand, between the peas and the vodka bottle, Jack didn't have a spare one to shake with.

"Just let me in," Jack insisted and pushed passed Harry and into the house.

Harry closed the door and for a moment felt nostalgic for the insincere American 'hi how're you?' greeting. They might not mean it but at least it was a greeting. This was the second person in under an hour who hadn't even said hello to him. He was beginning to appreciate the gruff hello from the immigration official at the airport.

"So is this a regular event?" Harry asked. "You get your face smashed in and you turn up here expecting Nikki to help you?" Harry hissed as Jack walked past him.

"What and you haven't?"

Harry was left in the hall wondering if Jack had meant that Harry had often got his face smashed in, or if he turned up on a Sunday afternoon needing her help. Maybe the two of them had more in common than he first thought.

"Jack?" Nikki called, finally having moved from the kitchen. "What have you done now?" The sight of blood spurred her into action and she immediately busied herself, collecting cloths and towels and began to mop up the blood, to try and clean and see the extent of the wound.

"Jack, this looks like a knife wound, what were you doing?"

"You know what I was doing," he stared at her then, "And you know why, now can you patch me up or not?"

"Jack, this is a deep wound, you should be at the hospital."

"I was at the hospital most of the night, now can you help or not? I spent hours in A&E, but they won't do anything until the plastics man comes in on Monday, they've given me antibiotics, but I wasn't going to sit and wait until Monday. I couldn't think of what else to do."

"It's half past one on a Sunday afternoon? What have you been doing in between?" Harry asked.

"I took the Circle Line here."

"How many times? You must have been riding round for hours."

"I might have done a complete circuit…"

"Are you concussed? Is that why they wanted to keep you at the hospital?" Nikki asked.

"Drunk or concussed, maybe they'd have figured out which if I'd stayed longer," he took another swig from his bottle.

"What do you want Jack?"

"I need you to stitch me up, Nikki. I can't face waiting til Monday to get this fixed. You can do it can't you?"

Nikki stepped back and stared at him. With the old blood washed off his face it didn't look quite so bad, but it wasn't pretty. "The hospital is right Jack, it's your face, the plastics man or woman would do a better job."

Harry peered over Nikki's shoulder. "You've opened up a previously stitched cut I think, it must hurt." Jack shrugged and offered his vodka bottle to Harry.

"S'not that bad at the moment,"

"Stitching it is going to hurt like…" Harry continued.

"I know, she's done it before," Jack replied nonchalantly and rolled up his sleeve to show off Nikki's handiwork on his upper arm.

"That was your arm Jack and at the time we didn't have a choice; this is your face, it's right above your eye. It's going to leave a scar." Nikki insisted.

"Ah, it adds character," Jack said dismissively, "Now are you going to do it or not?"

Nikki looked back at Harry and then to Jack.

"Put the ice back on it and keep drinking," she said and went to fetch her kit.

"Does it make you feel better?" Harry asked when the two men were alone.

"What?"

"The boxing, fighting, whatever it is you do?"

"It's a pure moment," Jack said with sudden clarity. "There is nothing else in your mind at the time; it's peaceful in a way."

Harry coughed to cover a guffaw. How could getting beaten to a pulp be peaceful he wondered. But he did understand about being lost in the moment. There were times when he had been singing with Jorge and Beto and by concentrating on the song, on the music all the worries and burdens in his life did disappear in that moment. Singing seemed a lot less dangerous than boxing, but it was hardly the macho option. He wondered what Nikki thought about it all.

Harry watched her sterilise her equipment. He could see her chewing her lower lip.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Harry asked as he noticed her hands trembling. He knew she would do anything to help a friend, he knew how she worked but he'd also seen that crushing exhaustion that had consumed and debilitated her; the one that had been the cause of most of their argument. Their conversation before Jack had arrived had made it clear that she was not, however much she wanted to be, in total control.

"Do you want me to stitch him?" Harry asked.

Nikki's eyes snapped up to his wondering if he really would or if he was just being polite.

"What's taking so long?" moaned Jack. "It'll start dripping all over my face again, if you're not quick."

"Keep drinking," Harry shouted back and Jack did as he was told.

"It's been a while but my stitching has always been good."

"It's true," Nikki affirmed. "You did always have the neatest stitching. Even Leo used to comment on it."

He noticed her lip tremble as soon as she had said Leo's name. They hadn't even got that far in their conversation.

"Please," he said. "Let me do it." He took the needle from her hand, brushing the back of it as he did so. This time she didn't look down at the floor, and she didn't pull her hand away from him. For the first time since walking through her front door Harry felt the tiniest hope that he was doing the right thing.

"Jack, Harry's stitching's better than mine, do you mind if he does it?"

"Just as long as someone stops the rest of my blood from pouring out of my head and does it soon I don't give it a F*#;" Jack called back.

"You realise this is going to hurt!"

"Bring it on," laughed Jack.


No more for a week or so, but you've had extra this week my lovelies. Thanks for reading.