Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next 2)

Landen stood up.

'C'mon, Thurs. Let's leave this clown to our scones. Do you remember when we first kissed?'

The tea room was suddenly gone and in its place was a warm night in the Crimea. We were back at Camp Aardvark watching the shelling of Sevastopol on the horizon, the finest fireworks show on the planet if only you could forget what it was doing. The sound of the barrage was softened almost into a lullaby by the distance. We were both in battledress and standing together but not touching – and by God, how much we wanted to.

'Where's this?' asked Landen.

'It's where we kissed for the first time,' I replied.

'No!' replied Landen. 'I remember watching the shelling with you but we only talked that evening. I didn't actually kiss you until the night you drove me out to forward CP and we got stuck in the minefield.'

I laughed out loud.

'Men have such crap memories when it comes to things like this! We were standing apart like this and desperately wanting to just touch one another. You put your hand on my shoulder to pretend to point something out and I slid my hand into the small of your back like … so. We didn't say anything but when we held each other it was like … like electricity!'

We did. It was. The shivers went all the way to my feet, bounced back, returned in a spiral up my body and exited my neck as a light sweat.

'Well,' replied Landen in a quiet voice a few minutes later, 'I think I prefer your version. So if we kissed here then the night in the minefield was—'

'Yes,' I told him, 'yes, yes, it was.'

And there we were, sitting outside an armoured personnel carrier in the dead of night two weeks later, marooned in the middle of probably the best-signposted minefield in the area.

'People will think you did this on purpose,' I told him as unseen bombers droned overhead, off on a mission to bomb someone to pulp.

'I got away only with a reprimand as I recall,' he replied. 'And anyway, who's to say that I didn't?'

'You drove deliberately into a minefield just for a leg-over?' I asked, laughing.

'Not any old leg-over,' he replied. 'Besides, there was no risk involved.'

He pulled a hastily drawn map out of his battledress pocket.

'Captain Bird drew this for me.'

'You scheming little shitbag!' I told him, throwing an empty K-ration tin at him. 'I was terrified!'

'Ah!' replied Landen with a grin. 'So it was terror and not passion that drove you into my arms?'

I shrugged. 'Well, maybe a bit of both.'

Landen leaned forward, but I had a thought and pressed a fingertip to his mouth.

'But this wasn't the best, was it?'

He stopped, smiled and whispered in my ear:

'At the furniture store?'

'In your dreams, Land. I'll give you a clue. You still had a leg and we both had a week's leave – by lucky coincidence at the same time.'

'No coincidence,' said Landen with a smile.

'Captain Bird again?'

'Two hundred bars of chocolate but worth every one.'

'You're a bit of a rake, y'know, Land – but in the nicest kind of way. Anyhow,' I continued, 'we elected to go cycling in the Republic of Wales.'