As the day faded, the candles lit again and the air grew warm. They settled back in front of the fire, and by now Laurence found it easy to talk to Avery. He even, after he had mastered sipping from a wide wassail bowl enough to get quite merry, spilled out the story of the Colonsay’s sinking and what it had done to him.
“We had no idea the bastard was there until the first hit rocked us—I was doing inventory in the infirmary and went arse-over-teakettle myself. Picked myself up, as best as I could when we were listing so badly, and started the evacuation process. We were just off the Yorkshire coast, a troop ship coming out of Newcastle. Then they opened up on us again, scored a direct hit on my infirmary. Lost three orderlies right there, and a bit of hull tore right through the dividing wall into the corridor. Took the lower leg off my patient and ricocheted back to catch me in the back of the head before I could get a tourniquet on him.”
Avery had gone pale.
Laurence looked down at his empty cup, abashed. “Or so they tell me. I don’t remember much after the wall blew in on us. Woke up on land a week later, and I couldn’t walk. Nothing wrong with my legs, but my brain just couldn’t work out how to move them in the right direction. Ended up in Oxford—they had a special ward there for head-injury cases. They got me as close to functional as I’ll ever be. I can walk and talk again. Can’t tell what my hands are doing without looking. Can’t tell left from right. Can’t do even the simplest of sums, which puts me out of a job. Can’t have a doctor who can’t tell the difference between a day’s worth of pills and a month’s worth. And now it seems I might be having the odd hallucination as well.”
He wasn’t expecting Avery to touch him, but suddenly a warm, slightly shaky hand cupped his cheek. “I am no hallucination.”
“The mind is more cunning than that. One of my wardmates used to wake up every night screaming with the pain he felt in a leg that wasn’t there.”
“I am real,” Avery said firmly, though the gleam of gold in his eyes did little to assure Laurence about that.
He didn’t argue. Instead he just said, to calm the situation, “Of course.”
Avery frowned slightly but dropped his hand, looking troubled. “I am always glad when wars end, but I am particularly relieved to see this one done. Despite all the good I have seen over the years, there are always men who seem to live only to create newer and more powerful ways to kill.”
“We’re not a very likable species.”
“I disagree,” Avery said. “Most of us are more careless than deliberately cruel, and we are capable of great good too.”
Laurence thought of the reports he had read about the fate of Europe’s Jews, of a bomb with the power to wipe out an entire city, of the boys who had died beneath his hands however hard he’d tried to heal them. “I admire your optimism.”
Avery smiled, but this one was sad and more than a little lonely. “I have seen so many years pass by, so many generations struggle and yet rise and then fall again. I find I cannot judge any group of men too harshly. There is evil in some men’s hearts, no doubt, but there is redemption too. And each year the days start to grow long again. There is always hope. And on such a heavy note, I say we should pour ourselves another drink and put together a cold supper.”
Laurence was only too happy to change the subject, and they continued their evening on less depressing topics. Strangely enough, given he was spending it with a chance-met stranger, it was the best Christmas Day Laurence had spent since his godfather died.
It all felt so easy, hidden away from the world and all its dilemmas. He slept like a baby again that night, thinking of Avery’s pink cheeks and heartfelt smile as he slipped into sleep, and woke warm and comfortable again.
Boxing Day slid by just as easily. Avery talked more than Laurence did, but it never felt overbearing. They had enough differences to make conversation interesting, and enough in common to make it comfortable. Laurence was well aware that both of them were trying their best to get along, but he liked Avery more with every hour and thought that might be sincerely returned. He’d found this sort of easy friendship a few times before in his life—a school friend he still visited whenever he could get to Edinburgh, and a fellow medic who had gone down with the Lancastria. He’d slept with both of them, but Hilary was married now, and Denis, who might have been more, was sleeping forever off the coast of France.
But the war was over, and maybe he could have more—probably not with Avery, whom he barely knew and would likely never see again once he returned to London, but with someone.
What a strange thought to wake to. He had spent so much time worrying about his brain and his job that it hadn’t occurred to him to imagine anything good in his future.
The evening was just as pleasant, but he knew that the trains would be running again the next day and he should go. But when Avery said, “Stay one more day,” it didn’t take much persuasion.
If you were going to hide from the world, why not do it with a man who claimed to be a wizard? And Laurence’s skepticism was fading a little with each day packed full of otherwise inexplicable coincidence. He stayed for one more day, and then one after that, and then another two. No one was expecting him. No one would miss him if he never went back to his old life. Even his parents, still in India, were virtually strangers these days, and there was no one else, save a faraway friend who turned awkward whenever his wife and Laurence sat at the same table.
They left the house a few times, but Avery always steered them away from the village, out across the fields. Twice they saw someone in the distance, and Avery waved in greeting before hurrying them away. No one ever waved back.
The snow was beginning to melt, muddy ridges showing in the fields and the roads turning wet and black. The trains were running again, steaming past the foot of the hill. Avery always stopped to watch them and then peppered Laurence with fascinated questions that led to them both sitting over the kitchen table as Laurence tried to sketch a combustion engine with hands that still did not always obey him. He could explain it well enough, at least, and Avery was an apt pupil, soaking up knowledge eagerly.
And then there was the flirting. It was subtle at first—a smile that lasted too long, a compliment just beyond the limits of the appropriate, a steadying touch as they picked their way along a muddy path. Laurence knew this game, though—had played its subtle rounds before.
Avery clearly knew it too, though sometimes his smile was a little too delighted for discretion. It didn’t matter, though. There was no one here to watch and judge. There was something thrilling about being able to take their time with it, to linger on that edge of anticipation without fear of the world crashing in on them.
And so Laurence stayed, day after day, until a week had passed and the New Year was coming in with rain falling to wash the last of the snow away. There was a pleasure even in the rain, in staying inside by the fire while it drummed steadily against the windows, of endless pots of tea and buttered toast for supper and the way Avery reached out to brush a crumb away from Laurence’s mouth, his fingers lingering as Laurence smiled against them, looking up through his lashes but not speaking an invitation.
“You’ll see midnight in with me,” Avery murmured, his fingers trailing away. “See in the New Year?”
“I never thought I’d see 1947,” Laurence said.
Avery shook his head a little as if in disbelief. “Oh, Laurence,” he murmured and then his expression brightened again. “In my time, we gave our gifts at New Year. Should I offer you something, good friend? Some small token of my regard?”
Laurence swayed closer, warmth rising through him. “You wouldn’t embarrass me by offering something I couldn’t return, would you?”
“God forbid.”