Don't mind me, I'm just on a rewatch. Adam should have walked away after series six and I am *not* okay.
Title from Soldier by Fleurie. Don't hesitate to leave a review, they make my day :).
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listening for that angel choir
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Mum and Dad were in love.
It's not only a phrase that people say, it's a fact that Wes remembers. Like: the way that when Mum laughed at one of Dad's jokes, it resonated up the stairs and all the way into his bedroom, woke him up in the mornings before school. Like: that time when they had a leak under the kitchen sink and Dad took it upon himself to fix it; water spilt everywhere onto the dark red, quarry tiles of their flooring and he caught her just before she slipped. There was an eruption of loud giggles in his arms; she trailed a hand through his hair and dropped a quick peck against his lips. 'You're a spy, love,' she declared. 'Not a plumber.'
On Mother's Day, Dad would get up early to make breakfast. Eggs, fresh fruit, toasts. Wes would be allowed to 'help.' He would sit on the worktop, unscrewing miniature hotel pots of Bonne Maman, arranging bread onto a plate. Sometimes, if they had time, they would walk down to the coffee shop at the corner of the street to buy pastries.
One spring, after everything was ready, Dad smiled as they tiptoed up the stairs, carrying the overflowing tray. Wes was tasked with opening the doors. 'One piece of advice,' he said. 'Forget about music or good looks. You want the key to a woman's heart, make her food. Learn to cook. Remember that, yeah?'
So, now, Wes cooks.
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His parents loved each other, but they loved him too. It is also something that people say; that one he tries not to forget.
In the early days, it was mostly Dad who took care of him. Mum would go away, off on trips; she'd come back stressed and exhausted, and Wes could tell when her smiles were fake. Not fake like: a lie. Fake like: she'd been misplaced here, in the middle of their sitting room, working hard to remember what home was supposed to look like. When she stayed off work for a few weeks after her thirty-fourth birthday, Wes remembers he had to show her where the aluminium foil was, in the cupboard next to the fridge.
When Mum was home, her long, manicured fingernails would snake through Wes's hair. He remembers whispers: 'I love you, angel,' and lullabies before he fell asleep. On dark, winter afternoons, she would read Harry Potter to him. He would snuggle up against her on the sofa, feel her warmth, her heartbeat against his ear, and the smell of hot chocolate in the air. Wes would pretend that it hadn't been weeks since the last time they'd read together, pretend that he hadn't read on without her, under a flashlight in his bedroom. He'd always been good at sneaking around, going unnoticed - perhaps it was a genetic trait. With every twist and turn the book took, he feigned surprise and made predictions he knew weren't correct, just to keep her entertained.
He doesn't think Mum ever caught on. And, it felt good: spending time with her, there.
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Dad - well, he used to take Wes to rugby games. Messed with his hair instead of combing it. Said: 'I love you, mate.'
He taught Wes to make scrambled eggs, al dente spaghetti with hot tomato sauce. He wanted to buy a house, make a home for the three of them. Organised the viewings, enquired about his son's opinion on things. When he made an offer, it was for the three-bedroom house with a south-facing garden, because Wes had observed that the two trees in the back could make great goalposts.
He was always a bit impulsive in his decision-making, Dad.
They took Mum in to visit the house, a couple days later, after school. She said: 'Adam, I don't know.' Smiled. 'This is crazy.'
Dad answered: 'Come on, Fi. Look at him, he loves it.'
The man at the bank said that they considered government jobs very stable, that they could give them decent rates. Wes quietly played with his toy trucks on the floor next to Mum. The man smiled again and commented, almost to himself, that the Department of Agriculture surely paid very well. 'Perhaps, that's what I should have done. Instead of working here. Reviewed tractor loans,' he joked.
Wes sometimes wonders if, when they tell others about it, people who genuinely work for the Department of Agriculture follow it by: 'I mean, really. Livestock, the CAP, all that stuff. Normal stuff.'
Back then, Wes had no idea that his normal wasn't everybody else's normal.
.
Anyway, they didn't stay in that house very long.
.
In hindsight, Mum and Dad went to the airport, that day, and neither of them ever came back. Mum was gone but Dad stayed there as well, in the heat of the sun hitting the tarmac, hard uneven ground under his knees. There were his nightmares, and his gunshots, and the promises that he couldn't make. 'Keep Wes safe,' she'd said, and: 'No.' No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hot tears, trembling hands that helplessly tried to patch up the gaping hole in her jumper. He could never save her.
Afterwards, Wes remembers that some nights, Dad would sit on the sofa with his elbows digging into his thighs, staring at his hands like her blood was still on them. Sometimes, he would be away like Mum used to be, torn between wanting to go home and wanting to fill with noise the silence that she'd left in her wake. Wes was small and unlike his father, he couldn't run away.
Instead, he learnt to deal with the empty flat. With the sitters and with his grandparents, with professions of love that would never be hers. Sometimes, Dad would call from wherever he was and his voice would crack like ice cubes in hot tea, words spilling from his lips. 'I love you, mate,' he'd say. 'I'll be home soon, I promise.'
On those nights, Wes would close his eyes after bedtime and remember how Dad used to tug at Mum's wrist before she left for work. She would be about to walk out the door, hair and make-up done, and his thumb would trace slow patterns at her pulse point, trying to pull her back down on the sofa with them. Perhaps, that's why later, when Wes tried to run away to Vienna, Dad was worried, but never mad. Perhaps, Dad understood what it was like to hold onto someone.
'Stay, Fi,' he'd whisper. 'We need you.'
And, perhaps, he was her anchor, too. Perhaps, that's the one detail that explains it all because when you think about it, what's an anchor, buried deep into the depths of the sea, without a boat to haul it up eventually?
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At eight years old, Wes asked: 'Where's my Mummy?'
And: Dad sighed, closed his eyes. He looked like he was about to shatter. A thousand pieces, right there in their sitting room.
'Do you remember Pimple?' he asked. Pimple had been their cat. 'Had been' being the operative verb tense, here. Wes nodded. 'Well, Mum's the same,' Dad added. 'She's gone, she -' another crack in the ice. Dad swallowed, set his jaw. 'She's dead. She's not coming back. So, it's just you and me now.'
Wes remembers thinking it didn't answer the question as to her whereabouts.
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His grandparents later said that she'd gone on to a 'better place.'
They hired a choir for the service; it sang songs that Wes didn't know. He'd never been to church before (Dad had always said that if there'd ever been a God, he'd clearly fucked off a long time ago) and it was dark, scary - a foreign place. Dad sighed, held his son's hand and he didn't have the strength to fight them. Didn't have the strength to tell them that Fiona had requested a small ceremony in a funeral home, and a stupid song by the Backstreet Boys as a send-off. Grandma was crying all the time, now, and Dad just looked at Wes and said: 'Let's just do this for them and get out of here. We can go and get ice cream in the park, afterwards, mourn her our own way, yeah?'
It was the first time Wes put on a brave face.
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Behind closed doors, his grandparents had always whispered about Dad. It didn't get any better, after Mum died. They'd tolerated - especially in light of the company she used to keep - but never approved. After he failed to bring her home, they blamed him for her death. 'He recruited her, didn't he?' they asked, quiet after dark. 'These people -'
And sure, Wes understood - he was angry, too. When Dad would call, he'd refuse to get to the phone. When he was home, he would go to bed early just so that he wouldn't see him. But Wes had always felt like whatever irritation existed between them was private, a strain in their relationship that he never wanted others to meddle with. Facing his grandparents, he felt the urge to defend his father for all the faults that they attributed to him which weren't his. In Wes's eyes, Dad was trying his best. He was angry because he wanted to see more of him, not more of them.
He loved Dad. He'd loved Mum. He liked Uncle Harry, too. To him, the people who his grandparents criticised weren't strangers, they were his world, and they didn't lie with excuses of better places filled with angels that didn't exist. They were flesh and blood, and beating hearts, and at the very least, Dad had never pretended that he could wave a magic wand that would fix everything.
'I don't want to see them. They hate you,' Wes blurted out, once. Dad sighed, lowered himself down on one knee to level with him. He didn't try to deny it.
'They're your grandparents, Wes. They love you as much as I do. They loved your Mum, too.'
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It never occurred to Wes to ask why he didn't know the other set of grandparents he must have had on his father's side. At first, it sounded like Dad didn't have parents. Like: he'd been dropped onto the Earth just the way he was, in jeans and an ironed shirt, the first couple of buttons undone. Then, when Wes understood that this reality wasn't technically possible, he supposed that they were dead. And, because talking about Mum hurt, back then, he reckoned he shouldn't ask Dad. He probably felt the same.
It wasn't until years later that he heard his father quietly chat in the living room with a girl who'd started popping 'round the house over the past few weeks, always showing up late, and leaving later. It was a few months before that November.
'I need to think about something else, Adam,' she said. She had short, pixie blonde hair and dark make-up around her eyes. 'Tell me about Wes.'
And, for a while, Wes sat down on the floor in the corridor where no one could see him, listening to Dad talk until he almost fell asleep. The sound of his father's voice was soothing, softened the sharp corners in the room. 'He's clever,' Dad said. 'Curious. Got Fi's sense of humour.' His words sounded like a smile had weaved its way into them. That was rare enough to be remarked on. 'He's good in school, clearly has her brains, too.'
The girl let out a short chuckle through a breath. 'How old is he?'
Somewhat surprisingly, Dad answered correctly. 'Eleven,' he said. Then: 'My parents shipped me off to boarding school at that age, so we're heading into uncharted territory.' The girl laughed. He added that he'd hated boarding school. 'I mean, with work, sending him off would certainly make my life easier but I just -' he trailed off. Wes could tell that he took a sip of something because his voice was wet when he spoke again. 'Kids need a home, you know?'
The girl hummed, asked: 'Is that why you don't talk to your parents?'
There was a beat of silence between them. Wes chanced a quick glance into the mirror to spy into the living room, saw Dad's beer bottle swirl in his hand at an angle; he didn't take it to his lips. Just looked at it and set it back down on the coffee table. 'Maybe,' he shrugged. 'Amongst other things. Always felt like they wouldn't care if I wound up dead. I don't want Wes to ever feel like that. I want him to know I love him. That his Mum loved him.'
The girl cocked her head to the side a bit, the top of her hair momentarily appeared into the frame. 'You're a good dad, Adam,' she said.
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And, later: 'They shot her in the back, Jo.' he told her. 'I was there. What am I meant to -'
'It wasn't your fault. It -'
'It's been over two years,' he sighed. 'I'm never home. Every day, I wake up and I draft a resignation letter inside my head, but I never hand it in. Half the time, I can't even find the words for him.' He paused. 'She would have been so much better at this. It should have been me.'
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Years later, a therapist that Wes's grandparents insist he sees, one that has been cleared by whoever clears these people, tells him that Dad probably had PTSD. 'What you're describing, Wes,' she starts, her voice soft and poised, and for all the words that Dad never found, she seems to think she has all of them. There is a fish tank in her office, with their amber-coloured scales and fake plants; Wes can't help but stare during the sessions, can't help but think of how cruel it is to lock fish in a tank. He's read online that they sometimes go mad, bouncing off the glass walls. 'The nightmares, the panic attacks, his guilt, how did those make you feel?'
There is a filter in the tank, blowing out oxygen. It creates ripples in the surface of the water and it reminds Wes of how much Mum loved the ocean, how she carried a seashell in her handbag at all times. They had painted it with his name on the back, the year before he'd started Reception.
Scared is how Wes felt, whenever Dad fought to keep his head above water. Anxious. Helpless. Half the time, his father would come home with his face smashed, or someone else's blood on his shirt. Whenever you pointed it out to him, he'd look down at the stains with a genuine air of surprise, like he hadn't even noticed. In two years, Dad got shot, almost drowned, was sick with the fucking pneumonic plague, of all things. The woman in her office calls it PTSD, that day, or a passive death wish, or an addiction to adrenaline, but whatever it was, even at the time, Wes could tell that Dad had started dangerously skirting a line, after Mum died.
'I don't know what I'm doing,' he whispered to Jen, once. 'With Wes, with everything, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.'
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In the hospital, after Dad got shot, Wes asked if it hurt. Dad hesitated before he answered. 'It feels cold, that's all.'
And: Wes remembers the white walls and the smell of bleach, the beeping of the monitors around them. 'I'm alright, mate,' Dad forced a smile and pulled him into an awkward hug over the bed, ruffled his hair. 'Don't worry. I'll live.'
Wes thought: please.
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But: instead of explaining all of that, he asks the shrink if her fish prefer cold or warm water. She claims he's deflecting.
He agrees.
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But: if Mum was shot and so was Dad, why was Mum dead and Dad alive? Wes had nightmares, back then, ones from which he emerged in cold sweats, about Dad being gone to a place he couldn't come back from. Life had already gotten darker, grimmer and quieter since Mum had gone and her little boy had grown afraid of the silence.
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It was deafening. Like an explosion.
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And: with Mum, Wes asked Dad. He raged and he questioned, and he wanted to know everything: what happened? Why? Where did she go? How did she die?
Dad said: 'She was trying to make the world a safer place,' and left it at that. Sometimes, Wes thought it was infuriating, having to piece the puzzle together, like the people figuring clues out in Scooby-Doo. There were: the whispers, the quotes, the memories, his father's nightmares, the glimpses of what others said to him that gave hints as to what might have gone on. He wanted details, all of the details, but to Wes, Dad never said much more than: 'Look, she died in service. I was there, she wasn't alone. Her last words were for you. She loved you.'
To the people he talked to on the phone late at night, though, Dad added: 'I don't want him to know she died to protect him. I don't want him to ever think it's his fault.'
He never knew Wes had built a pretty bad habit, by then, spying on him like he spied on other people.
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And, with Dad: there was no mystery to be uncovered. It was in the news. A bomb in central London was harder to hide.
On the rugby pitch, that November, Harry wore his poppy pin and looked like bad news. Wes accepted the hug, said nothing. There was nothing to say, anyway.
He didn't ask where Dad was, or what had happened. There was no good answer to be given.
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When his childhood ends, it does so with a bang and no whimpers.
The tale finishes and his story shifts to present tense.
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Dad's parents are a no-show at the funeral, so Wes supposes that he was right about that. That day, there are no angels, no choirs. Just: Wes, his Mum's parents, a few of Dad's mates from uni, and an army of dark suits. They all line up on a bench in the middle rows, quiet and stern; Grandma frowns, sitting next to Wes, and when he comes up to them, she refuses to shake Harry's hand.
The suits, they don't cry. They just sit there, a straight beam cold as steel and leave as soon as the service's finished. Yet, if he'd been given a choice, Wes feels that out of everyone around him, they're the only ones he'd actually would have liked to spend time with. There is a peculiar sort of warmth that emanates from the ice-cold fury that Harry radiates that day and Wes basks in it. He imagines hot blood under his fingertips, imagines gunshots and for once, they hit the people who deserve it.
Later, Harry visits Wes's grandparents' suburban house, stands on the doorstep and declares: 'We got them.' Nothing else. Grandma doesn't let the man in but Wes finds himself letting out a sigh of relief. Revenge's not much, but it's something.
.
There is no grand custody battle over him. Mum's parents take him in for a few years, until Grandpa gets prostate cancer and Wes goes on to live with Mum's sister and his cousins before he's old enough to move out on his own. Dad left a trust in his name with the funds from the house flip, enough to survive on for a good few years.
He grows up. Not the way most people do, not assuming that life can't be blown apart with every second that passes, but he does so nonetheless. Like in the books his mother used to read, the boy who lived lives. He is fed, housed, hugged and kissed, loved. His grandparents tell him about the woman they raised, about her kindness and her sense of humour, about how she enjoyed acting in plays when she was younger. They say Dad was a 'good man' who had 'problems,' and should have 'walked out when he could.' Whatever their words are, though, their resentment never transfers onto Wes. They're intelligent people who love him, who can make the difference and who do their best with the cards they've been dealt. Wes has his own bedroom, anything he wants, and his family takes good care of him.
They're the loneliest years he's ever been in.
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Like: a grain of sand in one of Stephen Hawking's black holes. Like: when his mates complain about their parents restricting their screen time, they look back at Wes afterwards, bite their lip and apologise. Everyone tiptoes around him like his grief is a physical thing, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. When Harry phoned his grandparents that November, they picked him up from the match and his grandmother held Wes but sternly declared: 'Why am I not even surprised?'
He was eleven and his father had just died; he wanted to cry a hot river of tears but these were the coldest words he'd ever heard.
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Later, when people ask, he tells them his parents died in a car accident. It's not even a lie that MI:5 requests, Wes makes it up himself, gets the idea from Petunia Dursley. Car accidents are like being employed by the Department of Agriculture or working as an accountant: no one asks you questions about them. They're normal and tragic, and people say they're sorry before moving on to the next thing. Wes finds it easier, living with what happened, when he doesn't have to fend off awkward questions afterwards.
Also, in the alternate universe he builds, Mum and Dad died together. Perhaps that is the way it should have happened.
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At the funeral, one of Dad's uni friends plays the cello. There are no angels and no choirs but the soft tune of I Will Follow You Into The Dark and the church echo of string instruments. It helps.
'Can you teach me?' Wes asks.
He learns to play music. He cooks. It's almost easier now that Dad is gone because at least, he doesn't need to put a brave face on anymore. He can just be sad, for a while.
With his first iPhone, he stays up at night in his bedroom, his grandparents' snores echoing from down the hall. They don't understand technology, only vaguely gossip to their friends. 'Young people, they're always on these things, these days.'
In the dark, Wes plugs his £10 earphones in, the late-seventies rock that Dad used to listen to blasting out through the jack lead. The blue light flashes in his face when his fingers hit the screen. He googles: bomb blast dead do you feel it.
Dad probably lied about what it felt like to get shot but at least, it was something. Now, Wes's issue is that people who've died in explosions never come back to tell the tale, so he can't get answers, even from the internet.
He loves them. Misses them. They weren't perfect, but they were his parents.
He moves on. Is pretty sure it's what they would have wanted after they were gone.
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As a teenager, when girls become a thing, he wonders about Jenny. He recalls: the way Dad laid a hand on her shoulder, once, and slipped it off the moment Wes caught a glimpse of it. To his knowledge, Dad never brought anyone else home after Mum, or at least, never let him see them.
At the time, it made sense. Wes would have accused him of trying to replace Mum. Now, though, he wonders what would have happened if Dad had kissed Jenny in public. If he had had relationships that weren't doomed from the start, if he'dbrought another woman home, just the once. If Dad had relented and moved on, too, committed to something other than living on the edge...
Perhaps, Wes would have felt betrayed. He would have run away again, or started petty, adolescent rows in which he'd have shouted at Dad for forgetting Mum, but maybe -
Wes wonders: if Dad had let himself be happy again, would he have lived?
And: once, he asks Harry about the blonde woman with the cold, emerald eyes at Dad's funeral. The man sighs. 'I think they were involved but I never got the specifics. She's gone, now, too. Anyway, It wasn't any of my business.'
Wes feels like banging a door in his face, but they're outside and there is little to do with his hands other than to shove them deep in his pockets. 'And, clearly you never thought that one day I'd want it to be mine,' he just says.
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Truth be told: his relationship with Harry, it's complicated that way. Up and downs from the moment Dad dies, it goes in and out like the ocean tide. On the one hand, the man never misses a birthday. For years, there are: cards, toys, video games. Later: cash and a note that tells Wes to buy whatever he wants for himself. Initially, he reckons that someone must be reminding Harry - an assistant (Ruth, maybe?) - but the years pass and maybe not. Maybe, guilt's as powerful a drive as any.
There are more dog races, sometimes walks along the Thames. Harry clearly has no idea what type of activity would appeal to a teenage boy. 'Do you want to go to the fair?' he asks, once, and Wes can't help but laugh. There are braces on his teeth and his voice sounds like it is the one going on rollercoaster rides.
'The fair?'
Harry's got kids, Wes knows. Obviously, he's not the one who raised them.
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On the other hand, when Wes gets older, there aren't many people to rebel against. Harry seems to be the bloke who holds the world's fate between his hands, the globe slowly rotating at the touch of his fingertips, so Wes directs his anger at him. It is like being faced with the mosaic of the life he could have had but didn't, like during those blissful few weeks when Mum was home before she died and everything went to shit. He remembers that she picked him up from school one evening and he told her and Dad that his friend James was having a little sister.
Dad was in the kitchen, bum resting against the worktop, potatoes roasting in the oven, There was a playful smirk on his lips. 'I don't know, Wes. Do you want a little sister?'
Mum burst out a laugh from the sofa, glittering sparkles in her eyes. 'God, please, don't give him ideas.'
And, after Wes's bedtime, Dad dropped a kiss in the crook of her neck, whispers and quiet love songs. 'Go on, Fi, think about it.'
She hesitated; a short breath escaped her lips. 'We'd have to quit, Adam.'
'Yeah. So?' he smiled.
She shook her head. 'Later, maybe?'
Wes is sixteen when he yells at Harry: 'You only care because it's your fault!'
'Wes -'
It's not fair. None of it is fucking fair.
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In college, he gets arrested, once. It's stupid, nothing serious: he's seventeen and has had a bit too much to drink with a few mates in a public park - cheap beers and Smirnoff Ice. When the cops show up, they tell them to be on their way and with the alcohol, things quickly escalate. Matt loudly complains that they've confiscated their booze, Amir tries to calm him down and gets asked for ID. 'Bit racist,' he throws back. 'Just asking me?'
The coppers start shouting, Wes intervenes, and -
Well, anyway.
At the station, his fingerprints in the system set off all kinds of alarm bells. He sits in holding for a few hours, nursing a growing hangover and a black eye, knees pulled up half-bent and back against the wall. The other guy in his cell smells like piss and mumbles unintelligible pleas. He hears a jingle of keys, steps coming up the corridor towards him.
'Thanks for doing this,' a voice says. Wes recognises it and sighs.
The response's sarcastic. 'Anything to help our friends over at Thames House.'
Harry looks a mixture of tired and annoyed when his face appears through the bars; the policeman pushes the key into the lock and Wes's cellmate barely stirs. 'Go on, Wes,' Harry says. 'Get up.'
'No.'
'Wes -'
'I'm not moving unless Amir gets out, too. Isn't that how pulling strings works?'
And: behind the stern look, there is a slight twitch in Harry's eyes. An amused gaze that studies the mess of Wes's short blond hair, the purple bruise forming over his cheekbone, the ocean of his eyes and the smudged, dried blood under his nose. Wes knows that look; it always makes his chest swell with pride.
The ghost of a smile forms across Harry's lips. He nods. 'Bloody thorn in my thigh. You really are your father's son, aren't you?'
.
Following, his record disappears and so does Amir's. Wes takes his A-levels, gets into uni. Oxford, like Dad. The service pays for his fees and living expenses. 'It's the least we can do,' Harry says. They are talking again.
'Yeah, it is,' Wes agrees. From the tragedy of his parents' death, he'll take what he can get.
Life goes on.
.
He meets a girl, his last year of uni. They run into each other at a hipster-vegan-granola-bar sort of farmer's market, the kind of place where posh kids go to buy themselves a conscience. She has dark, long wavy hair that falls past her shoulders and when she sees him hand over a tenner for a handful of bananas she whispers in his ear: 'You know they have the same ones in Tesco, right?'
He laughs. That's that, really.
.
On their first date, she asks: 'So, what about your parents? What do they do?'
And, Wes sighs because telling people is always awkward. They feel compelled to give him sweet words of condolences but he's never particularly craved the sympathy of strangers. 'They died when I was young,' he settles. 'I was raised by my grandparents.'
The girl gasps. Not a big, loud, showy thing - something more discreet, hand moving over her mouth. It is quick, spontaneous - in a world of people who tiptoe around him, it's almost a relief. 'Gosh, what happened?' she asks. He is about to tell her about the infamous car accident but she immediately shakes her head, blushes. 'Sorry, it's none of my business.'
He likes her, he thinks.
.
When they move in together, Wes cooks; she does the dishes. At night, when the noise from the street filters up to their apartment, drunk kids and police sirens, he kisses her and says: 'I'm happy when I'm with you.' It's true.
He's been told that grief is like a marble in a big box that you carry with you everywhere you go. In the early days, the marble bounces off the sides with each step that you take, and it's the only thing you can hear.
The marble never disappears. The box just gets filled with more. There are good marbles, better marbles, and bad marbles, too. Just life, the way it carries on without being told. When the box is full and the marbles bounce around each other, they become more of an indistinct jiggle - a reminder, but not a pounding, relentless one.
Amelia's a good marble. A big one. She tunes out the others.
.
He never gets the irony of her name because of information that no one ever gave.
.
She enrolls in a Masters at the LSE. They come back to London and it is a relief. Wes hadn't realised how much he'd missed it until now: the crowded streets, the tube. His grandparents had retired to Surrey, but to him, the city's home. He walks around, watches people, goes back to their old house, the apartment building where Dad had rented the flat. Sometimes, he considers looking for a proper job but there is something rather appealing about stretching her Majesty's Secret Service's money for as long as he possibly can.
If this was a novel, he thinks, this would be the point where dramatically, someone at five or six would try to recruit him or the girl he loves. He has fantasies about it sometimes, about some clean-shaven, slick lad crashing a student party one time, trying to suss people out. Wes wonders how he'd react. He wonders if he'd punch the bloke in the face, to hell with consequences, or if Harry would simply invite him to lunch and say: 'I had to ask, Wes.'
'No, you didn't.'
He doesn't. The truth is that perhaps, they're not of interest. Or, perhaps, Harry knows for a fact that Mum and Dad would come back to haunt his every waking moment if he tried. Their lives given to the country was a high enough price to pay, so he and his people stay away.
.
Wes remembers that after Dad died, MI:5 visited their flat. They never admitted to it but when he came with Grandma to pick up his things, the whole apartment felt out of place. The stock painting from IKEA in the hall was slightly askew, and the alarm clock by Dad's bed had been moved. He'd put the stuff from the house - the furniture and Mum's things - in storage and they went and checked that out, too.
Wes visits the unit shortly after he and Amelia move to the city. His grandmother mentions it when the both of them explain that they're looking for new bedside tables. 'Well, there's always your parents' things, love,' she says. 'Might be better than buying something new? Your mother always had good taste, you know?'
And: the place is a time machine. Wes spends hours in there, just combing through their old stuff. It doesn't hurt anymore, thinking about them, not as much as it used to. On the contrary, it feels somewhat comforting to take the time out of his day to remember them. He opens boxes, unpacks vintage clothes. Sits under Mum's old school desk like he and Dad used to when the three of them played hide and seek at the weekends. They were MI:5, both with an overly competitive streak, took the game pretty, fucking seriously. Dad had taught Wes how to tell when she was coming by looking for her reflection in the black gloss of their bookshelf. You had to be careful not to hit your head, hiding in there, because the screws for the wooden board under the desk were loose.
Funny, how the service never figured that out.
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Under the top of the desk, between the board and the drawers, Wes finds: classified files, foreign passports for all three of them, about ten thousand pounds in cash, a mix of GBP, euros and dollars. A couple of USB memory sticks, a video tape.
His heart hammers against his chest. There's stuff about a bomb in Iran. About a black op' that Mum was involved in, in Lithuania. State sanctioned interrogations, most of it from their time at six. Wes reads and reads, and reads, and none of it seems connected until suddenly -
It's Amelia's sister who lends him the old VHS player. He plugs it in, sits down in front of the telly one afternoon while his girlfriend's in class. Given the rest of the material he's found, he's almost afraid to watch, certainly doesn't want her to see it. There were always the strange scars on Dad's chest, and -
But, it's not what he feared, not a gruesome torture scene. The tape is only ten minutes but he watches it over and over that afternoon until the sky gets dark. Amelia finds him that night, staring at the screen. There are papers scattered all over their coffee table, the most gorey details of his parents' work and her voice is cautious, almost scared.
'Wes?'
He rewinds, plays the tape. It's his Mum and Dad but they're not in the office, they're in the pub. They're sitting at a wooden table, her legs are crossed under it, showing a few inches of her right thigh and the top of her knee. They're not looking at whoever is filming them. Instead, Dad whispers something in her ear, smiles so wide his cheeks could split. She is in a short, white, bodycon dress; he's in jeans and t-shirt. The sound quality is too poor for Wes to make out what they're saying but eventually, he sees Dad lay down his beer on the table. He stands up, extends his hand, offers her a dance. She laughs, again, and twirls in his arms, giggles at the world around them.
When the video ends, Amelia silently sits down on the sofa next to Wes. 'My grandparents always said that there were no pictures, that they'd had a quick, sort of shotgun wedding,' he explains. 'Just had drinks in the pub afterwards.'
Amelia sighs. Wes's voice cracks, like Dad's used to. The tears run down his cheeks and he doesn't stop them.
'They look so happy, don't they?'
.
That night is when he finally tells her everything. The whole lot of it, all the shit that Harry made him promise not to tell. He even shows her the files. 'I think it was their insurance policy,' he observes, later. She's made tea. 'If they ever had to leave in an emergency. An envelope with everything they needed to take.'
She sighs, corrects: 'It's what they wanted to take, Wes. Clearly, they didn't need that tape. It's just a souvenir.' She catches his gaze. 'So, what happened to them?'
It is the first time - the first time in over ten years - that the words actually flow out of his mouth unfiltered. Wes shrugs, shakes his head. 'Mum, I'm not sure. Once, they went on a trip, left me at my grandparents' for the week. When Dad came back, he said that she was dead, that she wouldn't be coming back.' He pauses, looks down to his hand before finding her glance again. 'Couple years passed, then Harry - Dad's boss - he showed up to my rugby game on Remembrance Day. Stood there. Dad never came home either.'
Eyes closed, he feels Amelia's fingers softly cupping his face.
'Mum was shot,' he adds, after a beat. 'I think she was trying to protect us from something in her past, but I'm not sure what it was. Dad, he - he was trying to prevent a terrorist attack. Drove a bomb out of central London, it exploded in an empty park. He saved hundreds of lives,' Wes adds. 'In the cover story they fed to the press, MI:5 said he was the bomber.'
And, again, in a John Le Carré novel, this wouldn't end very well. Perhaps, Amelia would turn out to be some sort of foreign agent, or perhaps, she'd sell his secrets to the press. She'd slit his throat when he wasn't looking and leave with the files.
This is the reality of the world that Wes has been taught to evolve in but actually, there are good people in the world. His parents had found each other, and he's found her. The fear that pools at the pit of his stomach is dried out by her soft touch, and she traces her thumb down the line of his jaw before pulling him against her. That night, when they go to bed, the duvet covers them up to their chins, like if they ran off, no one would ever find them.
'Sometimes, I think he just loved her more than he loved me,' Wes confesses, in the dark.
She shakes her head. 'Wes -'
And: sure, it's an uncharitable thought that he has on his most uncharitable days, when he can't help but wonder why Dad tried to quit but didn't, why he chased death every step of the way even though he knew he was everything that Wes had left. On those days, Wes tries to remember that as he missed Mum more than words could tell, as he self-destructed, Dad didn't turn to alcohol, or drugs - he saved lives. Made something useful out of his grief, even for a little while. That night, Wes explains: 'No, it's okay.' Feels her weave her fingers through his hair. 'I mean, they loved each other so much that he couldn't carry on without her. It's shit for me, but I think there's beauty in that, too.'
Amelia nods, so close he can feel her breath against his nose. 'I love you,' she tells him.
.
They decide to never tell Harry about the files or the money.
Keep them safe, just in case.
.
A couple of years later, they tie the knot. It's a small ceremony, just their families and a few friends - as a nod to his parents, Amelia has the venue pub-themed. It makes Wes laugh and at the very last minute, he decides to invite Harry.
'I would like them to be there,' he explains. They are walking along the Thames and Wes can't help but wonder what his parents would have thought of all of this. 'But, they're not.' A matter-of-fact statement. 'So, you're the next best thing. I would just like someone who knew them to be there, you know?'
Harry nods. It's been years but Wes knows the man is ageless. There is a light smirk that plays across his features, a reminder of the old days and of his infamous, blink-and-you'll-miss-it one-liners. Wes understands why Dad liked him so much. 'Your grandparents knew them,' he observes.
Wes scoffs. 'I mean, someone who really knew them.'
There is a beat of silence, muddy waters flowing under their feet. 'Okay. I'll be there,' Harry says.
And, against all odds, he is.
.
.
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!