The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [69]
“—on SpecOps.”
The coffee arrived at that point and I smiled brightly.
“So, how have you been?”
“I’ve been good,” he said, then added in a lower tone, “I’ve been lonely too. Very lonely. I’m not getting any younger, either. How have you been?”
I wanted to tell him that I’d been lonely too, but some things can’t easily be said. I wanted him to know that I still wasn’t happy with what he had done. Forgive and forget is all very well, but no one was going to forgive and forget my brother. Anton’s dead name was mud and that was solely down to Landen.
“I’ve been fine.” I thought about it. “I haven’t, actually.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m having a shitty time right now. I lost two colleagues in London. I’m chasing after a lunatic who most people think is dead, Mycroft and Polly have been kidnapped, Goliath is breathing down my neck and the regional commander at SpecOps might just have my badge. As you can see, things are just peachy.”
“Compared to the Crimea, this is small beer, Thursday. You’re stronger than all this crap.”
Landen stirred three sugars into his coffee and I looked at him again.
“Are you hoping for us to get back together?”
He was taken aback by the directness of my question. He shrugged.
“I don’t think we were ever truly apart.”
I knew exactly what he meant. Spiritually, we never were.
“I can’t apologize anymore, Thursday. You lost a brother, I lost some good friends, my whole platoon and a leg. I know what Anton means to you but I saw him pointing up the wrong valley to Colonel Frobisher just before the armored column moved off. It was a crazy day and crazy circumstances, but it happened and I had to say what I saw!—”
I looked him squarely in the eye.
“Before going to the Crimea I thought that death was the worst thing that could happen to anyone. I soon realized it was only for starters. Anton died; I can accept that. People get killed in war; it’s inevitable. Okay, so it was a military debacle of staggering proportions. They also happen from time to time. It’s happened many times before in the Crimea.”
“Thursday!” implored Landen. “What I said. It was the truth!”
I rounded on him angrily.
“Who can say what the truth was? The truth is whatever we are most comfortable with. The dust, the heat, the noise! Whatever happened that day, the truth is now what everyone reads in the history books. What you told the military inquiry! Anton may have made a mistake, but he wasn’t the only one that day.”
“I saw him point down the wrong valley, Thursday.”
“He would never have made that mistake!”
I felt an anger I hadn’t felt for ten years. Anton had been blamed for the charge, it was as simple as that. The military leaders managed to squirm out of their responsibilities once again and my brother’s name had entered the national memory and the history books as that of the man who lost the Light Armored Brigade. The commanding officer and Anton had both died in the charge. It had been up to Landen to tell the story.
I got up.
“Walking out again, Thursday?” said Landen sardonically. “Is this how it will always be? I was hoping you would have mellowed, that we could have made something out of this mess, that there was still enough love in us to make it work.”
I shot a furious look at him.
“What about loyalty, Landen? He was your greatest friend!”
“And I still said what I said,” sighed Landen. “One day you’ll have to come to terms with the fact that Anton fucked up. It happens, Thursday. It happens.”
I stared at him and he stared back.
“Can we ever get over this, Thursday? I need to know as a matter of some urgency.”
“Urgency? What urgency? No,” I replied, “no, no, we can’t. I’m sorry to have wasted your fucking precious time!”
I ran out of the café, eyes streaming and angry with myself, angry with Landen and angry with Anton. I thought about Snood and Tamworth. We should all have waited for backup; Tamworth and I fucked up by going in and Snood fucked up by taking on an enemy which he knew he was not physically or mentally prepared to face. We had all been flushed with excitement