I opened the drawer of my desk and pulled out a small mirror. A woman with somewhat ordinary features stared back at me. Her hair was a plain mousy color and of medium length, tied up rather hastily in a ponytail at the back. She had no cheekbones to speak of and her face, I noticed, had just started to show some rather obvious lines. I thought of my mother, who had looked as wrinkled as a walnut by the time she was forty-five. I shuddered, placed the mirror back in the drawer and took out a faded and slightly dog-eared photograph. It was a photo of myself with a group of friends taken in the Crimea when I had been simply Corporal T. E. Next, 33550336, Driver: APC, Light Armored Brigade. I had served my country diligently, been involved in a military disaster and then honorably discharged with a gong to prove it. They had expected me to give talks about recruitment and valor but I had disappointed them. I attended one regimental reunion but that was it; I had found myself looking for the faces that I knew weren’t there.
In the photo Landen was standing on my left, his arm around me and another soldier, my brother, his best mate. Landen lost a leg, but he came home. My brother was still out there.
“Who’s that?” asked Paige, who had been looking over my shoulder.
“Whoa!” I yelped. “You just scared the crap out of me!”
“Sorry! Crimea?”
I handed her the photo and she looked at it intently.
“That must be your brother—you have the same nose.”
“I know, we used to share it on a rota. I had it Mondays, Wednesd—”
“—then the other man must be Landen.”
I frowned and turned to face her. I never mentioned Landen to anyone. It was personal. I felt kind of betrayed that she might have been prying behind my back.
“How do you know about Landen?”
She sensed the anger in my voice, smiled and rai
sed an eyebrow.
“You told me about him.”
“I did?”
“Sure. The speech was slurred and for the most part it was garbage, but he was certainly on your mind.”
I winced.
“Last year’s Christmas bash?”
“Or the year before. You weren’t the only one talking garbage with slurred speech.”
I looked at the photo again.
“We were engaged.”
Paige suddenly looked uneasy. Crimean fiancés could be seriously bad conversation topics.
“Did he . . . ah . . . come back?”
“Most of him. He left a leg behind. We don’t speak too much these days.”
“What’s his full name?” asked Paige, interested in finally getting something out of my past.
“It’s Parke-Laine. Landen Parke-Laine.” It was the first time I had said his name out loud for almost longer than I could remember.
“Parke-Laine the writer?”
I nodded.
“Good-looking bloke.”
“Thank you,” I replied, not quite knowing what I was thanking her for. I put the photograph back in my drawer and Paige clicked her fingers.