War Wounds
It looked as gloomy as a winter afternoon but I felt as if I was wearing eighteen robes in a sauna. I had managed to acquire a sweatshirt, feeling a little self-consious about exposing my arms in public, but it was melting me from within.
No-legged Jim was talking me through our journey to the train station as if he was a driving instructor with a particularly troublesome student at the wheel. Except for one thing, he kept encouraging me to be more reckless.
I can be reckless I thought to myself. I've run out of a hospital in the middle of the night and gone into hiding from my loved ones without really understanding why I've done it. I've faced one of the darkest wizards in history; that felt pretty reckless. One time I took a pee in one of the spare caldrons in Snape's dungeon because Moaning Myrtle was stalking me through all the bathrooms for her own amusement. Surely that was anarchy, alright not anarchy but pretty disgusting when you think about it. Disgusting people must be reckless mustn't they?
I will not, however, be reckless while responsible for a legless elderly gentleman's safety no matter how much the demonic sod encourages me.
On the steam train I left him and the Summer Wine crew to themselves and pulled down a window to take in the breeze. I looked up at the miserable sky and wished that it looked as sweltering as it felt. What was I doing? I still had no plan, no aim, and no end in sight. When the Summer Wine crew went home and stopped covering my board I'd probably move on; where to, who knows; and I still wouldn't have a clue what I was doing.
I couldn't write to Harry and Hermione or any of my family and give them any kind of reassurance when that owl had come. I wouldn't be able to do it if another owl came again. The first thing they'd all want to know was what I was doing, what was I planning and when I'd be back. I hadn't had my wand since I portkeyed out of the Riddle house and I didn't even miss it. Something about being unreachable, untraceable, made me feel safe. I couldn't be found unless I wanted to be and I still didn't feel like communicating with anybody who might be missing me.
There was still that unrealistic demon in my head who made me hope that nobody had noticed anything was up and that I could come home whenever I wanted without a single person batting an eyelid or expecting an explanation.
Ridiculous isn't it?
Maybe I thought that, coming from a big family, my absence would go unnoticed. In fact, it's worse. You end up with loads of people wondering where you are, trying to get hold of you, and increasing their degree of concern by talking amongst themselves about it.
No-legged Jim walked his unnatural walk over to me, something I thought very unwise on a moving train, and gave me a nudge in the ribs.
"You look like my daughter used to when she was potty-training and had just pooped in her knickers."
How do you not laugh at that?
"Oh thanks!"
No-legged Jim cackled in his mischievous little way before nudging me in the side once more.
"So what's up then?"
I chewed my lip for half a second before I answered.
"I'm just worried that my family might have put a bounty on my head."
Jim looked at the top of my head.
"You'd have noticed by now, especially in this weather, it'd melt."
I gave him a gentle dig back. He over-dramatically faked losing his balance before deliberately dropping himself onto a seat.
"If there is a price on your head you don't have to worry about any of us turning you in."
I raised my eyebrows.
"No?"
"Nah," no-legged Jim sighed as he gazed through the window, "it's not worth splitting two quid between us is it?"
Fred and George would love this bloke.
After the train ride we got a ferry over to Dartmouth; where no-legged Jim emptied three fruit machines of their jackpots and loaded me up with twenty-five pounds worth of change; then we found a place for lunch.
No-legged Jim had tried to teach me the trick of winning of the big machines but I have a head like a sieve for useful information. It involved something to do with not holding when you had two in a row and your next spin always producing the same two and their matching third. I was too busy concentrating on hitching my jeans back up over my hips, the weight of all the coins in my pockets dragging them down as I walked, as I was not only carrying my Summer Wine wages but also my own winnings. Though the jackpot I had hit was on the two pence roulette wheel and I had ended up with thirty-two pence in coppers. The truly sad thing was that when my number came up I actually punched the air and whooped while Dolly and Rosie applauded. Meanwhile thirty pound coins were pumping out of no-legged Jim's machine and he didn't make a sound, you can tell I don't win at a hell of a lot can't you?
As we sat in the cafe having lunch; Jim and the Summer Wine crew seemingly eating exactly the same thing they'd had for breakfast and me ripping into a jacket spud; I noticed an elderly couple from our group, who were staying at the other bed and breakfast, sitting down at a nearby table. I also noticed the filthy look that no-legged Jim threw their way as they did.
"What's up Jim?" I asked, never yet having seen him be unpleasant to anybody since we met.
"Those two..." he jerked his head in the couple's direction, "...I'm glad they're away from us this time."
Rosie explained.
"The last outing we had was at a self-catering place. Marie and a couple of people from the centre would buy the food and prepare it for us all, some of us would offer to wash-up afterwards, it was like a little community wasn't it Dolly?"
Dolly nodded.
"Anyway," Rosie went on, "no-legged Jim is very particular about his bacon, he doesn't like that cheap stuff from the supermarket so he went out to the butcher and bought his own. Real good quality stuff wasn't it Jim?"
"I wouldn't know," Jim answered gruffly and purposefully loud enough to get the old couple's attention.
Rosie went on.
"Well everybody had access to the fridge there, if you brought anything as a special treat for yourself you could put it in there and nobody would touch it."
"If you hadn't put it in the fridge," Dolly added, "you knew it wasn't yours to take out."
"Exactly," Rosie nodded, "So no-legged Jim put his bacon in the fridge to have at breakfast and those two over there had bought some cheapie-rubbish from the supermarket and put that in the fridge too."
No-legged Jim scowled over to their table again and grumbled something under his breath. Dolly shushed him and Rosie revealed the couple's heinous crime.
"Well when he went to the fridge to get his bacon, it was gone. Their 'orrible bacon was still there but his was all gone. He went out to the breakfast room to ask after what had happened to it and that old bat..." Rosie pointed right at the elderly woman sitting across the room and looking very uncomfortable at how loudly this story was being told, "...said she'd had it for them because she'd mistaken it for their bacon."
Rosie sat back in her chair and folded her arms, a look on her face that reminded me of Mad-Eye Moody after telling us a long-winded story about how he foiled a murderous Death Eater and brought him to justice, and the shape her gummy mouth formed upon her face reminded me of Umbridge when she wasn't getting her own way. In fact that's a great way to describe Rosie to you, Umbridge doing a Mad-Eye Moody impersonation!
Realising that Rosie was looking for a reaction to the scandal from me I tried to look suitably outraged.
"How can you mistake bacon freshly carved at the butcher shop and wrapped by hand for that plastic stuff from the supermarket?" Jim said, "Thought it was theirs my legless arse!"
On the journey back to Paignton I asked no-legged Jim how he came to be no legged. He told me that he'd lost both legs at the knee from a combination of bad circulation diabetes and gangrene during the war.
"So did you meet Dolly with legs or without legs?" I asked, not realising until much later on just how blunt a question it was.
"I've only known Dolly for a couple of years," Jim said with a confused look on his face, "since I started going to the community centre."
"Oh I'm sorry, I thought she was your missus!" I said before turning to Rosie, "So you..."
"NO!" both no-legged Jim and Rosie barked as one.
"My wife didn't come. She doesn't like socialising or going to different places or meeting new people or anything stimulating in general."
No-legged Jim read my expression of confusion and addressed what I was clearly thinking.
"She didn't used to be like that, she just grew old before her time, once the kids left home she started acting like one of those miserable old bats you see on the bus all the time. I think she likes it when I go away on these outings; it gives her a break from me. Cheerful people annoy her."
I laughed at this. He had just described Argus Filch, the Hogwarts caretaker.
"And young people, noisy people, different-looking people..." Jim added.
This was definitely a relation of the Filch family.
"She'd hate you," Rosie said to me.
"Rosie, don't say that!" Dolly gasped.
"It's true, you look like one of those scary young people who rob us old ladies in the street, what with your 'hoodie' and everything," Rosie said, without any malice at all, as if it was a fact of my life that I'd always been aware of.
"I do not!"
"You do, all that messy hair..." Rosie didn't feel any more needed to be said.
"Messy hair doesn't make you a granny-basher," I said in my defence.
"Oh I know that but when we see the likes of you with your scruffy hair and baggy clothes, metal in your faces..."
"I don't have metal in my face!"
"...and your gang of hooligans..."
"I'm on my own!"
"...and your tattoos..."
Rosie had paused for me to protest again. I didn't.
"You've got tattoos?" no-legged Jim yelled, "Show us."
"No!" I snapped, "They're not tattoos anyway they're..." I knew Dolly had spotted my arms the day before and not said anything about them and I didn't want to have to come up with a lie to explain how I got the snake-like marks all the way up both arms, "...decorative scars and I'm not flashing them to a group of old people."
No-legged Jim raised his eyebrows.
"Why where are they?"
I gave him a gentle punch in the arm.
"Nowhere dirty. I just don't want to expose them that's all."
"Yes Jim," Dolly said firmly, "you leave him be."
I gave Dolly a grateful smile and she leaned in to whisper into my ear.
"Although I don't know why a handsome young lad like you would do that to such beautiful skin. When I first saw them I thought you'd had some dreadful accident."
She moved away from me without meeting my eyes and I stared at her before lowering my head and staring at the tiny scar still visible around my right wrist. I tugged at my sleeve and saw that Jim and Rosie had noticed my change in demeanour. I tried to give them a cheerful smile.
"War wounds are funny things aren't they red?" he smiled as he patted his own thighs.
"Sorry?" I blinked as I looked up at him again.
"Do we let them define us or do we just shrug them off and go on living as if they are of no consequence at all? I know I don't want to stop dancing and walking and when death comes for me I plan to go out kicking and screaming." Jim was looking me hard in the eye now, "Just 'cause I ain't got any legs doesn't mean I intend to stop kicking."
I stared at the old man and swallowed before Rosie took one of my hands and patted it gently.
"It's a humid old day today isn't it young'un?" she smiled as she got up from the table and manoeuvred no-legged Jim's wheelchair over to his seat so he could shuffle into it, "You might want to take that sweatshirt off and cool down. You've a bit of a hill to get ol' Jim up to get us back to the coach after all haven't you?"
I felt Jim's false leg kick me under the table and let out a laugh before getting up from the table myself.
"Yeah, I am a bit hot as it goes," I nodded before pulling the sweatshirt over my head and tying it around my waist while feeling a lot more comfortable in just the t shirt I had on now.
Dolly drew a silent gasp as she saw my arms in all their scarred glory for a second time and Rosie beamed at me and went to pay the bill while I moved to help Jim into his chair and push him back outside. As I was leaning over him he tugged at my elbow and pulled me down so my ear was at the same level as his mouth.
"Don't you be ashamed of them son," he mumbled so only I could hear him, "Scars don't make the man y'know? It's how the man bears the scars."
I tried to speak but my voice wavered and I had to stop and clear my throat before trying again.
"I must remember to tell my brother Bill that when I see him next," I said hoarsely, "I think he'll like it."
A/N For those who didn't get the Bounty joke... it is the name of a chocolate bar in Britain. It's desiccated coconut covered with either milk or dark chocolate...and now I want one!