This Other Country (34 page)

Ben knew where he stood at last.

Nikolas had always known it of course.

His wealth, his power, his rank, his history, his intelligence, his cunning, and yet, despite it all, Ben was the centre of everything. The hub of their relationship.

Ben was its
heart
.

Nikolas grinned evilly. God had made a big mistake that day if he’d thought watching soldiers being tortured would bring on some kind of epiphany in the Morningstar, a road to Damascus moment of confession and contrition.

He’d just gone and stolen one of God’s finest creations, his perfect warrior angel.

And he was keeping him.

§ § §

Nikolas suspected Ulyana Ivanovna had never experienced what it must be like to be royalty before. She’d flown first class to Heathrow and he’d met her in arrivals, needing to hear his language for a few hours as desperately as she’d required his help to negotiate the confusions of the vast airport. Whisked to Devon on a dark December night, she hadn’t seen much of the English countryside, but as they crested the ridge of the valley, she’d caught her breath as though in pain.

Although the house was as familiar to Nikolas now as the smaller one in London, he knew exactly how it would strike her, this visitor from the Motherland. A glass palace lay in the bowl of darkness, totally illuminated like a castle from her girlhood folktales. It was wreathed in coloured lights, and, as it was snowing, even the fake snow spread around a large fake snowman on the lawns in front didn’t seem incongruous. As they crunched up on the gravel she exclaimed softly at the enormous tree surrounded by brightly wrapped presents in a room that glowed softly with a log fire that stretched into another room, and then another and then beyond. She began to chide him about the waste of electricity and the terrible insulator glass made but her Siberian wisdom was lost to a whirlwind of scarlet flying at her from the warmth. Emilia’s Russian was woeful still, but Nikolas could see they understood each other well enough.

Ulyana Ivanovna had only known Nikolas and Ben for a few months, but those months had been exceptional and had bonded them in a way people who hadn’t gone through such trials could never really know. Welcoming her into the house, which was so beyond her experiences as a simple midwife from a logging camp two thousand miles from the nearest town, Nikolas felt he was greeting family.

He couldn’t help a stab of gratitude in his heart when Ben greeted and embraced her as warmly as her granddaughter had.

§ § §

If Emilia was disappointed that Nikolas hadn’t bought her a present for Christmas, she didn’t show it. He argued he didn’t do Christmas, and she believed him. She continued to accept this claim all morning after the presents had been opened and enjoyed, and he suggested they go riding. She became suspicious when everyone accompanied them to the stables.

Everyone, of course, wanted to see her face when she saw her new horse. It was worth seeing. Of course, she couldn’t have the animal at school with her, but by buying her a horse to be kept for her here in Devon, Nikolas was saying something he hadn’t yet articulated to her or to Babushka. As with the rest of their undefined relationship, the possibilities were out there to be explored at a later date.

He was very curious now to see what she’d got for him, because when she hadn’t seen a present forthcoming from him, she had, with the grace and tact of someone far older, quietly put her gift under some torn wrapping paper. Now, returned to the house after no more thanks and superlatives could be offered about the horse, she gave it to him. She snatched it back and confessed she’d conspired with Ben—in a way. Ben raised his brows in denial. He hadn’t even known she was buying Nikolas a present—he’d had other things on his mind recently. Or not.

She smiled shyly and admitted she’d sort of tricked Ben.

She’d sent him a selfie, knowing, like Nikolas, he’d send one back. He had—a simple picture of himself snapped whilst sitting at the kitchen table in the house in London. She’d printed it out and put it in a frame, which she’d made in manual—as she’d promised Nikolas many weeks ago—out of brushed steel. To get a top grade, she’d had to choose a material suitable for the recipient of the gift. Brushed steel had been the most resistant material on the list.

For the first time ever, therefore, Nikolas had a photograph of Ben Rider-Mikkelsen. It was a particularly good one everyone declared, but then Nikolas knew everyone privately thought it would be difficult to take a bad picture of Ben. But this one was particularly good because Ben had thought he was just sending a simple picture to a thirteen-year-old girl. If he’d known it was for Nikolas, his confusion would have shown and he’d have tried harder.

§ § §

Ben suspected Nikolas liked Emilia’s gift more than she liked the horse, which was saying something, as the whole rest of Christmas Day was devoted to the horse: talking about the horse, photographing the horse, or, eventually, when she’d had some slow practice around the paddock, taking the horse out onto the moors with Nikolas.

Ben also knew Nikolas would never admit to liking the photo and it would never be seen again. It was just the way they were together. He was at something of a loss for words, therefore, when they sat down that evening to watch a film Emilia had chosen, to see it on the bookshelf. In the main living room of their house.

Nikolas saw him notice and just shrugged it off. “In case you forget who you are again.” Ben thought it was funny. It was just the way they were together.

Nikolas didn’t get his present from Ben until they went to bed that night. Ben insisted it was hidden and that Nikolas had to hunt for it. As Nikolas was horny and only willing to search one thing, he found it fairly quickly.

Ben had a tattoo on the small of his back. After eight years, he’d done what Nikolas had always wanted him to do. He’d labelled himself as belonging. He hadn’t been able to do it until it wasn’t true—until it didn’t define what they were any more.

Nikolas ran his thumb over it, tracing the lines and angles. It was a sharp letter M and out of this had been formed an N at the beginning, and with the addition of a horizontal line, an A at the end. M, N, A. All the contradictions of Nikolas’s life contained in angular letters on Ben’s back. A trinity of identities captured in simplicity. “When did you have this done?”

Sprawled naked upon the covers, Ben had to admit it was, at the moment, as with the N he’d worn upon his neck, only temporary—that he’d had Tim draw it on for him that day—or Nikolas would obviously have seen it. “If you like it, I’ll get it done permanently. What do you think?”

§ § §

Nikolas eased down alongside Ben, looking up at their naked reflection in the glass, trailing one finger around the shapes.

“I think I don’t deserve you, Ben Rider-Mikkelsen.” Nikolas occasionally expressed this sentiment at special moments and occasionally he actually meant it. He usually said it because it got a very satisfactory response from Ben. Ben worrying he wasn’t actually good at all; that it was he, Ben, who was lucky to have Nikolas, and other most reassuring things. This time, however, Ben just laughed and agreed with him—he wasn’t worthy of him at all. In fact, he’d better work a bit harder at earning him…and…“Where’s
my
present?”

Which is something no one who claims not to do Christmas ever wants to hear.

Nikolas pouted, watching this with interest in the glass. “You know I don’t do Christmas, Ben.”

Ben propped himself up on his elbows so he could see Nikolas’s face. “You’re not
doing
Christmas. You’re having Christmas with me in my house.
I’m
doing Christmas, and therefore you have to do a present.”

“This is a little unfair as I haven’t bought you anything.”

“Seriously?” Ben’s face fell a little.

Nikolas tried another expression, and that one was interesting to watch, too.

“This is where you’re about to tell me you have a tendency to lie, isn’t it?”

“Ben! Seriously, I’m not joking or lying. I haven’t bought you a present! I couldn’t think of anything left to buy you that I don’t just buy you all throughout the year…”

This was obviously too true for Ben refute, and Nikolas knew he’d be at something of a loss. But surreptitiously, out of the corner of his eye, he studied the scrunched up disappointment. He therefore saw the distinct moment when Ben shook off the man he had been—premorbid tendency Ben—and embraced
new
Ben. Old Ben would have apologised, made a joke of it—accepted Nikolas just didn’t do Christmas. That’s what he’d done for the last eight years. Not a single present.

But the other Ben, the Ben he now was, clearly thought
fuck this
, and said with a laugh, “Find something,
now
!”

“What?” Nope, not the wide eyes of horror necessary for that. Nikolas tried again, studying the result.
Much better.
“I can’t just find something to give you now! Here, would you like a cigarette?”
Oh, I’m good at this
.

Ben began to climb off the bed, this furious gesture completely undermined by the smirk he was trying to hide

Nikolas caught his arm. “Go look in the study. On my desk.”

Ben crowed in triumph.

Nikolas continued to ponder his reflection in the glass, impressed he appeared so calm, poised as he was on the edge of such a great precipice.

Ben returned to the bed with a box—a locked file box and commented ironically, “Nice wrapping.”

Nikolas grunted and handed him the key he’d held heavy and secret in his fist as he’d teased Ben.

§ § §

Ben couldn’t think of anything he wanted for Christmas that would be contained in a file box, but he dutifully opened it. Nikolas sat up, cross-legged in front of him.

Ben began to pull out some folders, but then immediately found more interesting things and laid them carefully to one side. Medals. Rows and rows of medals. He frowned at these for a moment as comprehension dawned, and then reverently emptied the rest of the box, revealing photographs. Dozens of pictures of Nikolas, possibly a hundred, as a tiny boy on a beach with an identical boy alongside him in each photo, a teenager, many again with his brother, and then in uniform, serious, older, some with people, most on his own, some posed, some casual taken by friends, perhaps. Skiing, swimming, riding, fencing, boxing. A lifetime of photos of the man he loved. He opened one of the envelopes and looked inside. The papers were all in Russian.

“I’ll have them translated for you. That one is the transcript of my trial, but the others are my military service records. And these…” Nikolas shifted a few from a lower bundle. “Are my school report cards. You might want a stiff whisky before you read those. Sergei always did.”

Ben raised his eyes very slowly to Nikolas’s face. Nikolas just shrugged and took a long drag on his cigarette, blowing some obscuring smoke between them. “It was all in another house I own in London. I thought you might like to have it. The medals particularly. Did you notice how many there were?”

Ben had. He didn’t know where to start. He picked up the photos again, wanting to study each one, to absorb every tiny detail, as if that would make this snapshot of Nikolas’s life—one which hadn’t included him—now part of their shared life. He laughed suddenly. All this history before they’d met…all these memories…

Now his history.

His memories.

§ § §

The Christmases Nikolas had spent passed around
being
the present for his father’s drunken friends had soured the holiday for him. He’d never woken on Boxing Day since then with anything other than relief it was over for another year.

This Boxing Day, he woke with a sense of lightness and anticipation he’d not experienced before. The bed was empty, but when he went into the kitchen, led by the sound of voices, he had to stop for moment and wonder if sometime in the night he’d been drugged and had now woken up in a slightly parallel life to the one they usually lived.

Their guests were sitting around the large kitchen table, one space left for him, and Ben and Emilia were cooking, passing heaped plates of sausages, bacon, and eggs to the others. Emilia’s grandmother was knitting and chatting to Radulf in Russian. There was mess everywhere, the wrapping paper detritus of the day before, outdoor clothes slung carelessly on the backs of chairs, wet boots hastily kicked off, a toboggan melting icy clumps of snow onto the floor. Someone had given Radulf a new toy for Christmas, and he’d apparently mistaken it for a librarian overnight, for it was ripped and shredded around his basket, bits still sticking to his muzzle.

Ben saw him and came over, the pan with sizzling sausages in hand. “Morning. We’ve been out tobogganing already.” He kissed him with knowing amusement in his eyes, a challenge for him to complain, a statement as clear as if he’d said it out loud: “
I love you and I want everyone to know it. Don’t like it? Well, you can walk anytime you want.”

Nikolas quirked a small, complicit smile in return, and kissed him back—just a quick brush of lips, but it was more than that to Ben, and Nikolas knew it. He took his seat at the table and started to light a cigarette but almost cringed at the chorus of complaints. He ate a sausage instead, slowly, relishing it, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on Ben.

He was busy the rest of the day, as was everyone else again, with the new horse. Who knew such an easy present could be so successful? He made a note to thank Philipa’s cousin for helping him select such a beautiful creature from her own stables. A queen’s horse for a princess. It was fitting.

When he wasn’t admiring the horse and making unhelpful suggestions to Emilia for names, he watched Ben. It was Christmas. Why shouldn’t he indulge his favourite hobby?

They’d still not talked about the mill, and Nikolas reckoned they probably never would. Someday he knew the video would appear on a news programme, perhaps a documentary, and then that might be the time to lay it to rest for good. Until then, he was happy to let it lie, for he genuinely believed Ben when he said he wasn’t troubled.