To Marcus' intense relief, Tony was not lurking somewhere in his flat when he arrived back at it, and putting the kettle on, he made a mental note to confiscate the key he'd had cut.
The interview had once again been a morning affair, their meeting so early allowing Marcus to bask in the comfortable and solitary surroundings of the cafe. Presumably Heidi thought it to be cosmopolitan, fulfilling some facet of the romanticised view of journalistic life that she probably still possessed. It was after all her who'd suggested the time originally. He wondered about her. She always seemed to leave briskly after meetings, and remained businesslike throughout. Why was that? Was she merely an exceedingly busy and highly professional woman? Something about her chain-smoking, foul mouthed, cynical personality suggested otherwise. Maybe they'd deliberately sent a particularly beautiful but uncouth reporter, reasoning that she'd be the best person to engage with an ex-soldier. He decided to put the matter on hold and drink a cup of tea.
He leaned on the kitchen worktop and supped. It was too hot.
Was it the right thing for him to be doing, reliving all these old experiences? He didn't know. Maybe it would help him to move on with his life. Then again maybe it'd just make him feel weird and emotionally drained, like it'd done today. Besides, a newspaper reporter hardly seemed the best person to be talking to about this... maybe a therapist or a-
He stopped himself, and imagined the pretentious bullshit that he knew anyone from any of the professions he had just contemplated would inevitably spew at him should he visit one of them. It would most probably feature the phrases 'mental trauma', 'closure' and 'emotional stress' heavily, and improve nothing but the therapists bank balance. At least his time with Heidi was amicable, not to mention her being interesting and attractive in her own right. He resolved to push on and see where it took him. He then realised that this was exactly what Tony had told him to do, and immediately began to have doubts again. He countered this by supping his tea once more. It didn't scald his mouth quite as badly this time.
Maybe he should get a second opinion; tell someone who wasn't, like Tony, essentially a blithering but jolly schoolboy staggering haphazardly through the world of adulthood. He knew the person he'd ask before he'd even reached into his pocket for his phone. Flicking through his contacts, he found 'Nadira'.
Hey, long time no speak! Wondering if you wanted to meet up for a drink at all? :)
Marcus xx
He then remembered that Nadira was Muslim, and changed the 'drink' to 'coffee', before sending it.
Christ, had he really not spoken to people for so long that he forgot essential details about them? He tried to push it from his mind, although this was particularly hard considering he'd known Nadira since university. She was one of the few people he had kept properly in touch with. They'd become fantastic friends at Uni, acting as mutual confidantes and soundboards for each other, joking that that they helped each other 'deal with life'. Nothing much had changed really since then; after Marcus had dropped out they'd stayed in touch, and had kept on 'dealing with life' in their own way. Marcus realised that if there was one person right now he needed, it was her. His phone buzzed:
I'd love that! When and where?
Dira xx
Marcus smiled and text back.
You decide. You're the one with the successful career :p Didn't I always tell you I'd end up living in a squalid flat and you'd a successful businesswoman? :D
Marcus xx
It was true. As far back as fresher's week they'd joked with each other that his natural habitat was a dismal room filled with waste and detritus, whereas hers was the lecture hall, and would eventually become the office. Considering that Nadira was now one of the most successful financial advisers in the country, and that he was currently leaning on a yoghurt that he'd initially taken for a tub of cress, it occurred to him that they'd been remarkably accurate. He was looking forward to seeing her. She knew him better than anyone, even Tony. Although admittedly, beating Tony at anything wasn't a difficult feat to achieve. She text and said she had a meeting, but they'd talk later and fix something.
He leaned back once more and sipped his tea. It was perfect drinking temperature. He reached blindly through a tangle of unopened post and paperwork on the worktop to find the remote to the radio. His finger caught a button and a 'plip' sounded in the adjacent room. The stereo system was one of the few extravagances he'd afforded himself: surround sound, LW, MW, SW, AM, FM and DAB radio, not to mention CD, Cassette and record players, and a USB dock. His cack-handedness had started the LP left inside the thing playing. It was The Smiths 'Hatful of Hollow'. The record had been left with the needle at the start, and began oozing from every corner of the room at a deliciously low but perfectly perceptible volume. He grinned and reached into the bookcase that the stereo sat atop. Orwell. Definitely some Orwell.
Knowing that he was going to talk to Nadira soon was the most reassuring thought he'd had in quite some time, and he managed to while away a couple of hours, nestled into a chair with a copy 'The Road to Wigan Pier'. By about midday, he was growing weary. Early mornings didn't agree with him, especially when he's spent so long becoming accustomed to getting up whenever he wanted. His phone buzzed:
Starbucks. Covent Garden. 4. Be there or I'll bully you senseless.
Dira xx
Now safely with plans for the rest of the day, he settled back into the chair. Maybe he should read some more. No. He'd been up all morning; he deserved a rest. Maybe he should go to bed. No. Going to bed in the middle of the day was for slobs like Tony. He'd just shut his eyes for a moment.
...
A long while later Marcus Burns' eyes fluttered open. Working on the proviso that his flat didn't usually resemble text describing living conditions in 1930s Lancashire, he peeled the book from his face, and sat up. He'd always hated falling asleep during the day, it made him feel sluggish and lethargic until he went to bed proper. Ah well, at least he wasn't going to be la-
He looked at the clock. A Quarter To Four. He had fifteen minutes to get into the centre of London. Fuck. And he needed to change his clothes. Double Fuck. And comb his hair. Triple Fuck. And brush his teeth. Quadruple Fuck. And learn what the one after quadruple was. Fuck.
The Tube journey was not enjoyable. The only seat available was between a teen listening to invasive dance music, and a buck toothed office worker who smelled of biscuits. He smiled at a baby perched in a pushchair opposite, only to have it grimace waspishly back. That'd never happened to him before. Maybe babies were becoming increasingly cynical and disdainful along with the rest of the world.
His phone buzzed.
Whereabouts are you?
Dira xx
He tried not to feel guilty as he typed back.
Just passing Cally Road station. Sorta slept this afternoon :/ xx
This was bad. It was already four o' clock. They hadn't actually seen each other in person for a while now. What a fantastic re-introduction; making her wait for him. God, he was so rude. He was a terrible person. His thigh vibrated.
Luckily for you I didn't think you'd be on time. I'll be there in about fifteen minutes.
Dira xx
He sighed with relief. This whole going out and seeing people thing was far more stressful than he'd remembered it to be. The blackness outside of the windows began to roll past more quickly as if to reassure him that he'd get there on time. He smiled at the baby again. It smiled back.
By the time light sliced messianically into the carriage for a fourth time, he'd arrived into the beautiful white and orange tiling of Covent Garden station with a few minutes to spare. He'd always liked this station, it was one of the older on the network; the 110 year old art deco interior preserved in impeccable condition. The place had an air of grandeur from a bygone era about it, and was steeped in fable and folklore, although he was intensely relieved that his mind only wandered onto those which pertained to haunting as he was stepping off the escalators to within sight of the street.
Although he didn't come here often, Starbucks wasn't hard to find; a large globalised boil growing up through the pavement, as they seemingly did on any street one could think of nowadays; the smell of roasting coffee beans and heavy branding blinding people to the fact that despite a slightly stylised interior and some silly drink names, this coffee shop was just the same as any other.
Marcus entered, ordered the one thing on the menu he understood, and then retreated outside onto one of the metal tables clinging to the edge of the street under a parasol. He supped at the foamy coffee. There was too much cream and sugar in it. And coffee for that matter, and not enough tea, or milk. He laughed at his own abject ineptitude and cynicism, picked up a stirrer, and began drawing idiotic patterns in the foam. When a passing mother scowled at his childish behaviour, he gave up and began looking up and down the street instead. Then his face split into a huge grin. If the Starbucks stood out, it was nothing to the woman he'd just spied walking up the street towards him.
The thing with Nadira was, everything about her colouring was striking. Jet black hair, and turquoise eyes complimented by her sub-continental skin-tone made an instant impression, and ever since he'd first met her at university she'd exacerbated this by pulling off a dark red lipstick that was so flagrant it went full circle and looked classy. Marcus stood up as she approached.
"Hey you!" She beamed
"Hey."
They hugged. After he'd let go she stepped back and looked him up and down.
"You've put on weight!"
"You've lost it."
"It suits you!"
"Right back 'atcha."
Marcus always used this as an opening line, even when she didn't look like she'd lost any weight. Despite being blessed with curves most women would kill for, Nadira was one of those women who insisted in genuinely believing that her figure was undesirable. Eventually he'd given up and left her to it. Judging from her current figure, and the subsequent looks she was getting from every male in the immediate vicinity, he inferred that at the moment she was maintaining a sensible stance on the issue.
She procured a coffee suspiciously faster than he had, and sat down opposite, peeling off a fashionable leather jacket to reveal a perfect business suit beneath. He smiled.
"How've you been?"
"Good. Really good. Ridiculously good actually."
"Oh, finally got a gentleman have we?"
"No, not as of the moment." She said, before adding "It's... Work stuff" shrugging and jerking her head unconcernedly.
"Ah, so you're still doing the whole financial adviser gig?"
She looked down almost abashed. "Yeah."
"Doing well?
"You bloody know I am! I just told you! You're just trying to embarrass me."
Marcus was grinning now. He raised an eyebrow. "Now why would I do that? I was only going to try and engage you in conversation about your numerous cars and houses and other equitable investments." He leaned back and laughed. "So you still won't lend me the DB5?"
Now she laughed too. "You know perfectly well that that car is an investment. I'm waiting for someone prepared to pay me what it's worth."
"Well as long as your annual salary's still firmly in six figures."
"Closer to seven now that we're doing well over in Germany."
There was a pause. They both looked at each other for a few moments; the hustle and bustle of one of the world's busiest shopping precincts swirling around them. Nadira laughed.
"Look at us!" She giggled. "We're both still here, doing this."
"What, aimlessly consuming caffeine and masking our friendship with a veil of condescension and sarcasm?"
She nodded and laughed even harder. "You're one of the most elite soldiers in the world, and I'm working for a big company, but here we are still going on the same way we did ten years ago. It makes me feel... grown up."
"WAS a soldier." Marcus corrected. "And you're not WORKING for a big company. You ARE a big company." He'd always adored the ridiculous degree of Nadira's modesty. "Are you trying to convince me while you popped out for lunch someone else set up a 'Nadira Idrisi Financial Trading Ltd.' that you just happened to become the head of?"
"Okay... WAS a soldier" she winked, skirting his jape. "Point is, it's fucking brilliant how we're still doing this even after so long. I was so excited when you said you wanted to have a catch up"
"I was excited you still had the time to spend with a washed-up ex serviceman like me."
"Of course I did! For more reasons than one."
Marcus, who'd been raising his coffee to his mouth, stopped short. "What do you mean?"
"Oh come on!" Nadira exclaimed. "You never invite anyone anywhere. You always wait to be asked. You've always been the same. There must be something you really want to talk about to invite me out here."
"Yeah. I suppose there is."
She leant forward and looked at him concernedly, the way a mother might do to an ill child. Now that the time had come to talk, Marcus really didn't know what to say. She'd been right when she said that he always waited to be invited, rather than organising anything himself. It caused him intense discomfort to do so, stemming from his hatred of the feeling that people were there just for him. This was a feeling he was experiencing right now; the onus was on him. He'd asked her to come here, and the only reasons she had was so he could talk about his problems, and although he hadn't said this explicitly, Dira knew him far too well not to figure out that there was something wrong, and the reason they were here was so they could talk about it.
"I..." he began. "I've been thinking over like... all of the stuff I... from when I was in the army" He finished deflatedly.
Nadira's eyebrows wiggled as they always had when she was perturbed. "You don't dwell on things unless you have to. You and I both know that. What's brought it on?"
Marcus sighed. "Remember after the war, everyone wanted a piece of me? The offers for interviews wouldn't stop pouring in."
"Yeah?"
"I got another offer not long ago, so I took it up. I've been talking to a journo about it."
Dira pursed her lips. "Why? Usually you go all Basil Fawlty around that sort of stuff."
"I don't know..." Marcus started, his voice trailing off. "I'd been thinking like maybe I should actually do something with myself, and then the offer arrived so I took it." He deliberately left out the part about Tony being the one who talked him into it. Dira looked pensive.
"Hmmm. So what specifically have you been talking about?"
"So far? Just like my early life and stuff, and then my first actual action with the regiment."
"Your first action? Was that the stuff down in London during the Olympics?"
"Yeah."
Again the conversation broke, and Marcus began ferreting around in his pocket for a lighter before flicking open a packet of Marlboro.
"What the hell are you doing? You gave up years ago!"
Marcus raised his eyebrows and shrugged "Yeah, I've sorta started again."
"Those things can kill you."
He lit it and blew the smoke out through his nose. "Bullets can kill you, didn't stop me doing what I did."
She narrowed her eyes playfully. "You stubborn bastard."
He laughed. "Well, I have my moments."
Another pause. Marcus smoked as gregariously as possible, smiling vacantly at Dira as he did so. He flicked away some ash and steeled himself.
"The thing is" He began "At first, I thought I'd just tell her like, you know... the stuff that was actually important, the stuff that she'd need to know, the sorta stuff she'd want to hear." He stopped and took a drag from his cigarette. "But then as it progressed I got into it, and started telling her about everything pretty much entirely in detail."
Dira leaned forwards, her perfectly manicured eyebrows again dancing around concernedly. He leaned in too, on the pretext of stubbing out his cigarette, but really wanting to stress the importance of what he was saying.
"It felt quite sort of... cathartic saying all the stuff I did, and now I feel like I've committed myself to being completely open. No, I want to be. But the problem arises with the stuff I can't talk about, the sort of, 'all or nothing approach' that I'm feeling here doesn't apply when there's a lot of it I can't talk about. What do you think?"
Dira stared at him for a moment. Then her mouth slowly broke into a smile. "So you're finally doing this?"
"Doing what?"
"Oh isn't it obvious? Since you left the regiment you've done nothing. Literally nothing. You've not progressed with your life. You didn't feel like you could move on."
"Amateur psychologist now are we?"
"It didn't take a bloody genius to see what was going on!" She softened her tone and put a hand on his shoulder. "Listen, keep seeing this journo, keep talking to her about the stuff that you can. The stuff that you can't, think over yourself, you don't need to be talking to someone to remember things."
Marcus thought. "Seeing as how this is like old times, have you got any deep psychological problems you need me to sort?"
She gave him a look.
"Okay, have you got any more advice for me?"
"Start going out again. The release you're feeling from doing all of this will mean you'll be able to enjoy doing all the stuff that you haven't done since you left the regiment."
"You know perfectly well I just used to drink. That was essentially my personal life."
"Oh yeah, because you didn't used to play Rugby or Cricket or be interested in music or anything like that."
"You do hold me in high opinion."
"You know what I mean. Oh, and when you feel like it start seeing women again won't you? Me being the only woman in your life isn't good for you."
Marcus attempted to adopt a caddish attitude. "But Dira, you're the only one I need!"
She hit him. They laughed.
...
Back at home he felt positive. Nadira had been a massive help. He was going to do exactly what she'd told him to, mostly because she almost always knew what was best for him more than he did. 'Think over the stuff you can't talk about'. He folded open his laptop and began surfing through old news articles:
Last night the usually bustling financial district of Hong Kong was instead filled with the angry voices and shouted slogans of political protest. Over 800,000 people took to the streets to call for greater freedom of speech, universal suffrage, and greater transparency on the part of central Chinese government. Although Hong Kong operates a different political agenda to mainland China under the 'one country, two systems' premise due to its status as a 'special administrative region' of China, increasing concern has been raised in recent years over Chinese institutional encroachment into Hong Kong and its affairs. For the first time internet censorship and constraints have been implemented, as have restrictions to both the press and television broadcasters. Hence why although 1 July is an annual date for protest in the region, with marches taking place for the past 11 years, this year has marked by far the most vocal, widespread and eloquent demonstration that, as this reporter wrote this article, was still taking place. A group of protestors I managed to speak with before being whisked away by a police officer carried huge placards with the tagline 'we will not be ruled by a police state' and demanded independence, or a return to British rule. Indeed from my hotel room a short while later I witnessed one protestor who had somehow gained entry to the HSBC building balancing precariously from several upper windows in turn in order to emblazon its glass frontage with a huge British Hong Kong flag. The protests have up to now remained peaceful; however their continuing nature and already arriving police and military reinforcements from the mainland mean that this may not remain the case. One thing that is for sure is that this situation will surely not go unnoticed; as has been pointed out to me by numerous protestors, Chinese political encroachment on the scale that has occurred in the past 12 months is almost certainly in breach of the Sino-British Declaration, although no response has yet been heard from Whitehall. For now, this remains a Chinese internal affair.
BBC News – 2 July 2014
...
The international community was today shocked after the continuing political unrest in Hong Kong took a horrifying and violent turn for the worse. Although details are at the moment unclear, reports indicate that shots were fired by government troops at protestors in Kowloon, with the death toll in at least the dozens. The UN secretary general said that an emergency meeting would be called in order to discuss the humanitarian situation within Hong Kong. More on this as it develops.
Reuters – 14 July 2014
...
Today's United Nations crisis meeting failed to reach any sort of resolution regarding the humanitarian crisis in Hong Kong. Chinese government representatives were not present at the summit and have deflected all pressure put on them by the international community thus far. Now passing the month mark, the unrest in Hong Kong has been characterised by defiant calls for either greater freedoms or a secession from China by protestors, and violent response by security forces, meeting demonstrators peaceful actions with tear gas and on now numerous occasions, live rounds. Although the number of dead remains unclear, even the most modest estimates now put it around least 500. With the British Hong Kong flag fast becoming the symbol of this ever bloodier protest movement, and the ineffectuality of today's talks in The Hague, the onus must surely now be on the United Kingdom, who apart from their attendance of the aforementioned summit, don't appear to have taken any significant action, despite numerous calls from within Hong Kong to do so.
Washington Post – 3 August 2014
...
6th August 2014 – 04:35:37
Sgt. Marcus Burns
22nd SAS Regiment
1.2 kilometres North-East of Green Island, Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong.
...
A/N: The Sino-British Declaration is an agreement signed in 1984 between China and the United Kingdom intended (at least in part) to ensure the social and political freedoms of the people of Hong Kong after the regions transfer of sovereignty from the UK to China that occurred in 1997. Also, it is entirely true that every year on 1 July Hong Kongers protest Chinese rule, and many do wave the British Hong Kong flag; around 400,000 people took part in the protest in 2012. All the best storylines are drawn from reality, right? :)