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Back then, he’d been only too glad to get away. Still, something about this wedding is making Jakes wish they’d had their own here, him and Hope, instead of fleeing the country and tying the knot in America.
Boy, that was a day. He’d never been to a wedding like it: strange people, strange food, could hardly believe it was his own. And at the time he’d thought, Good. Bury it all, get away, make a new life. Start again. Go West. Now he’s not so sure. The way Joan looks in white, he could almost love the light in this city again; might’ve been nice to see Hope that way. Which is a pleasant thing to think, like maybe it’s all one life, his life, and not just splintered bits and pieces: the days he lives through, and the ones he can’t bear to remember, shut up in a box.
Joan’s waving as they get into the car. Her in the driver’s seat, obviously, and Strange, of all people, in the passenger’s – who saw that coming? But he looks so happy he’s drunk with it, like he can’t believe his luck, and so he should. Lovely girl, Joan. Woman. For somebody else. (Jakes is a different man these days. Trying to be.) And then he thinks: where’s Morse?
Because he was here, wasn’t he, before? Jakes is pretty sure he saw Morse tip up, late and pale-looking, and draw Joan into conversation - though Jakes left them well alone. Somehow, he never noticed when he lived here (too caught up in himself, his own miseries) but it’s been obvious the last few days, whenever Morse talked about Joan or the wedding, that there’s a torch held there. Not that it’s any of Jakes’s business, obviously. He knows when to leave well alone.
Jakes scans the crowd of well-wishers huddled round, waving, throwing rice as the bride and groom drive away. Then he slips out and heads back towards the building, looking for Morse.
He’s not sure what he’s after, really. Just a conversation. Find out how Morse is, let him know it all went as it should, that Jakes did everything he had to, the best man’s best man. It’s not like he wants a pat on the head, but still, he does want something, Morse’s attention, or, who knows. These last few days, staying in that house, late night heart-to-hearts, it’s been – well, it’s been funny. Like picking up something they left off years ago, except there wasn’t much to pick up, because they were never that close in the first place. Although they had their moments.
Anyway, he’s liked it, the unexpected intimacy, the feeling there’s still something in this city for him to come back to. Jakes only wants to talk to him. But when he gets to the front of the building, he hears somebody screaming. So he does what he was trained to do and runs towards it.
He runs because that’s what you do when you hear screaming, although to be honest he’s half-pissed and not immediately worried. Some part of him thinks that this is how it always is with Morse: he attracts these Agatha Christie B-plots. Jakes is half-expecting to see a country vicar lying poisoned in the middle of the dancefloor. Only, when he gets to the edge of the steadily forming crowd, waiters and DJs and old relatives too infirm to go down to the road, it’s Morse’s jacket he sees, the shape of him rumpled like something dropped from a height.
There’s a girl standing over Morse’s body, a waitress, making the noise that follows screaming: a dull, awful rattle in her throat. Blood on her hands.
‘What happened?’ Jakes manages, pushing past the dazed and anxious people to reach them, Morse and the girl. The rest of the guests are somewhere behind him, about to come in at the doors, and for a moment it’s on his lips to start giving orders, shut this place up, keep them all out, talk to me, I’m a copper, except of course he isn’t, not anymore.
The waitress is still making that terrible noise. Jakes drops to his knees beside Morse, takes him by the shoulders and rolls him onto his back. Morse is totally unconscious, but light enough to move. He’s very still, and very pale. Jakes realises his own heart is thumping in his chest. Scared. But he keeps his voice steady when he says, ‘Morse? Morse, can you hear me?’
No answer. Jakes checks his pulse: faint but steady. People are watching now. The waitress kneels at Morse’s other side, crying great shuddering breaths and holding her blood-stained hands towards him. ‘He just fell,’ she manages to say. ‘I thought he was drunk. He just fell on the ground.’
‘Where did you touch him? Where’s the blood coming from?’
She looks hysterical, but she meets his eyes. ‘I – his – back, I think. I touched his back.’
Jakes puts Morse on his side, lifts the back of his jacket. Suddenly it’s obvious. Blood on his shirt. Did somebody stab him at this wedding reception? What the fuck is going on? The copper’s instinct is to work out who’s responsible, if somebody’s getting away even now, but the stronger instinct is to save his friend’s life. ‘Can you – I need a – a teatowel, or a dishcloth or something?’
Someone hands him a bar-rag, which doesn’t feel very sensible, what about infections? But the towel is dry and Morse is bleeding, so he puts it where he thinks the wound is and pushes. Morse makes a sound, a low sort of ah in the back of his throat. Probably a good sign. Jakes keeps pressure there, trying to remember what the hell you’re meant to do next. Then somebody kneels beside him. ‘Morse? Is he okay? What’s happened?’
It’s Thursday. Thank God, Jakes thinks, a grown-up arriving to take over. He wants to give up, give in to panic, wants to move aside and show Thursday where to put his hands. But he doesn’t. Technically, of course, he’s an adult too. He stays put and says, low enough for no-one else to hear, ‘Waitress says he just dropped.’
And of course, his mind is working now that the first shock is over, well enough to know how stubborn Morse is, to imagine him meeting whoever, missing the ceremony for whatever was important enough to miss it for, which means work, obviously. Imagines him getting hurt and coming here anyway. Jakes meets Thursday’s eyes and he knows they’re both thinking the same thing: there’s nobody to chase, not yet. Nothing to do but sit here and watch Morse bleed.
‘Ambulance on its way,’ says one of the staff. Thank God somebody’s had the good sense to use a phone.
‘I’ll go with him,’ says Thursday. He’s grey. ‘I’ll take him.’
‘No,’ says Jakes. ‘It’s your daughter’s wedding, I should go.’
Thursday looks at him, like he’s going to say something. There was a time Jakes knew this man better than most people. For years, he looked up to Thursday, could even read him pretty well, or so he thought. Now he’s not sure whether Thursday’s expression is disappointed or relieved. Either way, he nods. Then he climbs to his feet and starts clearing people back.
‘Lad’ll be all right, he just needs space,’ he says, playing the whole thing down. ‘That’s it, everyone head back outside.’ Jakes hopes he’s right.
By the time the ambulance comes, Thursday has cleared the room, and they’re almost alone, the two of them, in the middle of the dancefloor, under the flashing lights. Morse still unconscious. His body’s warm where Jakes’s palms are pressed against his back, holding him together.
Then the professionals take over. ‘You can let go now,’ one of them says, and Jakes does. His hands feel empty, strangely light.
+
It’s not deep, the nurse tells him: minor surgery. She says Jakes can wait, or just come back tomorrow, for visiting hours, and implies as she says it that coming back tomorrow is the obvious thing to do. But the thought of going back to Morse’s empty home without him is too much, too strange. Jakes says he’d rather wait, if it’s all the same. She shrugs and shows him where the café is.
He had a bit more than he meant to at the wedding, although he hadn’t expected it to matter, obviously. He gets a coffee from the counter and then sits at one of the formica tables to drink it, smoke a cigarette, and sober up.
He'd forgotten how bad the coffee is this side of the ocean. So many things he takes for granted. Good coffee. Big skies. He’s looking forward to going home.
Lighting his cigarette, Jakes notices the blood caught in the beds of his fingernails. Obviously, Morse is fine, or will be, but for a moment he allows himself to find it awful. The day. The moment of finding him there. And Morse’s carelessness with himself more generally; his carelessness with his body, his health, his happiness. Men like that don’t make old bones. It’s like a calling, he should have been a missionary or a priest instead of a copper, but here they are, so.
Jakes stands, chair scraping, and goes into the toilets. He stands at the basin washing his hands for a long time. The water runs copper but he can’t quite get it all out. Lady Macbeth. And it’s not like they were so close when he lived here, but still, he wonders who’s keeping an eye on Morse now that he’s gone.
There was a time, years ago, after Blenheim. After it all came back; Thursday with a bullet in his lung, and Morse inside. Jakes had gone visiting, for reasons he couldn’t entirely explain to himself, and then kept going. It had been complex – weird and tense and grudging – but strangely intimate. Later, when Morse got out, Jakes had found out that in all the time he was in prison, Jakes was the only visitor he had.
Obviously, Thursday wasn’t well, then; obviously things would have been different otherwise, would be different now. Except there’s something knotted up between the two of them, Morse and Thursday, that doesn’t smell right. Jakes might not be a copper anymore, but he has his instincts, he can tell these things. And yes, he knows it made sense for Thursday to stay there, with all his friends and relations, and Jakes to come here – but even as he was suggesting it, he’d expected to be shouted down, had thought Thursday would bluster and Mrs Thursday would understand and Jakes would end up packing them both into an ambulance, watching it leave. Once upon a time that would’ve been the case. Not anymore, apparently.
And if he wasn’t here in Oxford, would it have been different? Or would Morse just be alone in this place?
Jakes shoulders his way out of the men’s room, back to his still-warm cup of bad coffee. The last of the summer light is dying at the windows and the hospital café is mostly empty. A woman with a baby, an old man looking out of the window, people here for relatives, for husbands and wives and fathers and sisters, for duty and for love. And him. What is he here for, exactly?
For Morse, he thinks. For him not to be alone when he wakes up. He sits down to wait.
+
Hours later, Jakes wakes stiff and aching in a hospital chair. The clock on the wall says it’s three in the morning. In the bed across from him, Morse is still asleep; getting a better night’s rest than he is, that’s for sure.
Again and again, these last few hours, Jakes has asked himself if he ought to leave, come back tomorrow. It’s occurred to him that Morse might even take the piss if he finds Jakes here like this, having waited all night, dozed here, even. Years ago, Jakes wouldn’t have done it, would have been scared to show his hand. He’s older now. One night in a bad chair, it’s not that big a deal, is it?
Jakes stands, needing to stretch his back. Despite leaving the wedding so early he feels, unreasonably, a little hungover. He wanders over to the window and pushes at the blinds. A car park in orange. Should he get another coffee? Then he hears a noise behind him, faint, and turns. Morse’s eyelids are fluttering.
Jakes has had a long time to wonder what will happen when Morse wakes. Mainly he’s wondered, and tried not to wonder, how disappointed Morse will be to finds Jakes here instead of Thursday. He crosses the room. ‘Morse?’
‘Peter?’ Hoarse, but still possible to make out. Something in Jakes’s chest contracts.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’m here.’
Morse’s eyes open. He looks disorientated, tired, sore, but yes, he’s awake. Jakes eases back down into his chair, slowly, like Morse is a wild animal, and Morse’s eyes follow him all the way.
‘You okay? How do you feel?’
Morse clears his throat. ‘Bad,’ he manages, but there’s something like his old self in his eyes, some quality of irony, that makes this funny, and Jakes laughs.
‘Okay,’ he says. Stupid, stupid, the relief, even though he’s known for hours that Morse would be fine, would wake up, but still. Mainly he just feels pleased to see him. It’s been a strange, long, tiring day, and he’s glad not to be alone anymore.
Morse wets his lower lip with his tongue, eyes flicking about him, taking in the room, the late hour, Jakes still in his wedding suit. Then he tries to move, and makes a pained sound low in his throat.
‘Wait,’ says Jakes. ‘Stitches in your side. Don’t pull them.’
‘I want to sit up.’
‘Let me help, then.’
Morse looks at him, some old instinct to resist clearly working on him, but says nothing. He nods.
Jakes bends over him, lying in the bed. He can feel Morse’s eyes on him the whole time, like something backed into a corner. He remembers how easy it had been to move him, back at the wedding: too thin, underfed, not taking care of himself. Other than that, it’s been a long time, years, since he was this close to Morse. It only happened once. Late night. His place. Morse had just turned up. And then, not long after, things got serious with Hope. He’s thought about it since. Tried not to, but he has. All those years ago. Was Morse this thin back then? Jakes supposes he must have been.
He slips his hands under Morse’s shoulders, and pulls him up the bed, not much, but enough. The smell of Morse’s soap strangely familiar, underneath the hospital smells, disinfectant, starched sheets. Then it’s done. Jakes lets go of him, steps back. ‘Better?’ he says.
Morse nods. ‘Thank you.’
Jakes moves towards the doorway. ‘Better get the nurse. Let them know you’re awake.’
He isn’t running. Just like before, that wasn’t running either. Still, he turns and leaves Morse lying there.
+
The nurse comes first, and then a doctor. Morse answers all their questions, voice growing less hoarse but more tired with use. Jakes hovers in the corner and watches, feeling he’s outstayed his welcome. What’s he waiting for now, exactly? Morse is awake. That’s what he’d been waiting for, and it’s happened. But still he stays, through the parade of conversations and exams, and every now and then Morse’s eyes flick over to him, like he’s checking Jakes is still there. Well, he is.
By the time they’re alone again, the sky’s beginning to lighten at the windows. Jakes pulls the chair up to Morse’s bedside, and drops into it. ‘I’m done in,’ he says. His voice sounds hoarse. ‘You must be worse, obviously, but still. Mind if I?’ He has a cigarette at his lips. Morse lifts his fingers on the bedspread, meaning go ahead, so Jakes lights it.
Morse still isn’t saying anything. ‘Well,’ Jakes goes on. ‘You certainly gave us all a fright.’ His voice sounds false in his ears, false and cheerful and useless. Morse doesn’t look at him when he mutters some reply.
‘What’s that?’
‘I was double crossed.’
Ah. ‘Want to talk about it?’
Morse shakes his head. ‘I don’t want to involve you any more than…’ he trails off. Than I have to? Than I already have? No – than you already are. Blenheim. For a moment Jakes wants to shake him, say: tell me everything, everything you know. But Morse is staring at a fixed point on the wall, breathing hard, and Jakes realises abruptly that he’s trying not to cry.
‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Morse.’ Then, easy as breathing, he slips his hand into Morse’s, lying curled on top of the bedsheets. That makes Morse look at him at last, eyes wide with something like fear and something like hunger. He says nothing, but grips back with surprising force.
There was a moment, years ago, the first time Jakes visited him in prison, looking down the line of people holding hands, and Morse had been – was he upset about something? A rare moment of showing it. Not that Jakes was any better, not then anyway. And he’d wanted to do just this. Thought about it at the time. But there had been no way. Now, years and distance, and anyway what’s this compared to – compared to asking Morse to come back with him, to America?
Not for the first time, he wonders on earth what he’d been thinking. He’d been pissed, yes, but still, where would they have put him if he’d said yes? It had been insane, spur of the moment, and yet Jakes knows he’d sort of meant it, actually. In that second, he would have done anything at all to chisel Morse out of this place, this life – not that he’d ever really believed, even for a moment, that Morse would say yes. But he’d wanted him to. He had. And it had been just the same feeling as those visiting hours, those late-December dog days half a decade ago. Thinking: I don’t want to leave you here. I don’t want to leave you behind. A bad feeling. A sense of foreboding.
Anyway, Morse said no, as Jakes knew he would, of course. But he’s gripping Jakes’s hand hard enough that Jakes thinks, well, it wasn’t insane to ask, anyway. Despite everything, a part of Morse does want to be helped. Not to be left here. And at least he knows somebody cared enough to ask. Jakes hopes that will be enough to help him in the coming years.
Morse covers his mouth with his other hand. ‘There are things,’ he says, voice catching. ‘I want to tell you. I have to talk to someone, or I – but – I can’t.’ Another shaking breath. ‘I need to talk to him first.’ Him. Thursday?
Jakes doesn’t know the half of what Morse is on about, but that’s okay. He’s hurt and tired, on quite a lot of pain medication, perhaps even he doesn’t really know what he’s saying. So Jakes just mutters, ‘Sure. Of course.’ One hand holding a cigarette burning down, the other hot in Morse’s grip. ‘I’ve appreciated your letters. You can write to me anytime.’
The letters have all been brief, unexpected, few and far between, but somehow, through the years, they’ve kept coming, once or twice a year. A note about this, about that. Comings and goings from the station. Jakes kept them all. It was how he knew where to find Morse this week, how he knew where he lived.
‘Do you want me to leave?’ Jakes says.
‘No. Not yet. If that’s all right.’ Closest he’ll get, probably. Jakes nods.
‘That’s all right,’ he says.
Morse shuts his eyes, looking exhausted, but he doesn’t move his hand away. Neither of them do. Jakes thinks that in an hour or two it will be morning, real morning, blue skies, milkmen coming down the houses. He’ll take the bus to Morse’s house, pack his things, drop the key. And then he will go home: back to the sunlight and the smell of horses and the big, open fields. Back to Hope. He thinks about it, sitting there, imagines how far away all this will feel when he’s on that airplane, speeding through the sky. And Morse will still be here. Maybe not in this hospital, God willing, but in this country where it is always raining, in this city that has disappointed both of them, he will be here. Jakes only hopes that he won’t be alone.