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“I think he might have turned a corner, but it’s slow going I'm afraid.”
MacTavish pulled the quilt tighter around himself and snivelled despondently. He burrowed down further into the warm folds, hoping that he could at least take the edge of the intruding noise as Ghost’s voice reverberated up the stairs.
“Oh, I know! And he was really looking forward to coming as well.”
Usually he tolerated Ghost’s eccentric habits, including his choice to perch on the third stair from the bottom in order to engage in anything but the briefest of phone calls, but today, as his head ached and his face felt like it had been slammed into a wall, he wanted to strangle him.
“Definitely just flu, though. Yeah. The GP done a swab.”
He would be sitting there, MacTavish knew, picking at the pilling cotton on the bottom of his socks, leaving discarded piles of black fluff for MacTavish to mistake for mouse droppings. It had become a sort of irregular ritual, and usually, once the initial rodent infestation panic had been put aside, he simply sighed and attacked the offending fluff with the vacuum cleaner. It didn’t usually rank in the top ten of annoying habits that he put up with, but as MacTavish stuffed the quilt into his ears in a vain attempt to block out the conversation, he felt it was rising fast.
“Well that’s what I said. I got mine, but you know what he’s like with money.”
MacTavish ground his teeth and growled into the bunched quilt.
“Exactly. False economy, innit? You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it get a jab.”
MacTavish heard Ghost laugh. He drove his head under the pillow, and yanked it down over his ears. It didn’t help.
“Of course. Yes, I will, mate, and happy birthday. I'll see you about eight. Bye.”
He heard footsteps receding and relaxed. Peace at last. He pushed off the pillow, snuggled down and had just reached out for his book when he heard Ghost’s familiar footsteps thumping up the stairs.
“Just spoke to Price.” said Ghost as he kicked open the door and cheerfully bustled in.
MacTavish hunched further down into his nest of bedding and glared at him as he pushed the contents of the dresser aside with a clatter and slammed down a tray.
“Apparently it's going to be rather a swish do over there tonight.” he said, brightly “Just as well I got that good suit cleaned.” He turned to MacTavish, tutted and began to gather up the discarded, soggy tissues and other rubbish that littered the floor.
“I made you some soup, that always makes me feel better.” he announced, as he grabbed the edge of the quilt and yanked it up, out of MacTavish’s grip and sending it sailing into the air, the warm cocoon he’d been constructing vanishing as it unfurled and spread across the bed. Too weak to protest, MacTavish gritted his teeth, pulled up the mental list of post-military career suggestions he’d slowly been drip feeding Ghost, and crossed “nurse” firmly off the list.
“Now…” Ghost dropped to his knees and began to violently tuck the quilt edges under the mattress as if it had done something to offend him. “What else?” he muttered, as he crawled around the bed, pinning MacTavish into place with his efforts. He snatched MacTavish’s phone from the pillow beside him, and dropped it onto the charging mat before gathering the empty mugs and glasses from the bedside table into his hands, sawing through MacTavish’s final few threads of patience with every clink and clatter.
“That's the most important thing!” said Ghost. “You need to rest.” He stood up with a grunt and stretched, the joints of his back cracking in a way that made MacTavish’s skin crawl.
“You're sure there's not too much noise coming through this window for you?” Ghost asked, shaking out the curtains, scraping the metal rings over the pole in what MacTavish considered to be the most irritating and prolonged manner possible. He winced as daylight flooded the room.
“It's fine, ” MacTavish replied, through gritted teeth.
“Because there's nothing worse than that.” Ghost continued, as if he hadn’t heard. “Trying to get off to sleep with some mindless racket going on outside.” He picked up the tray from the dresser and slid it across the bed. MacTavish glowered at him, the fabric of his sanity fraying further with every new word.
Ghost didn’t seem to notice. “That twat bird was back again this morning. Sun wasn’t even up and it had already bloody started! Sounded like Delia Derbyshire composing for the devil himself. I think I’m going to record it for Kate, see if the CIA’s enhanced interrogation suite is looking for something new. I mean I know-”
“ Will you shut the f-” MacTavish trailed off at the sight of Ghost’s startled expression “-ront door when you go out tonight. I don’t want a repeat of last week.”
Ghost stared at him, blinking owlishly for a few moments before he seemed to notice MacTavish’s lack of enthusiasm for his presence for the first time.
“Yeah…” he replied, his cheerful expression melting away as he spoke, “Of course. I-”
A chime interrupted him.
“Oh, that'll be Gaz with the dry-cleaning. Well…” He glanced uncomfortably around the room for the final time, and picked up the tray of dirty mugs “I’ll… I’ll just let him in.”
MacTavish listened to his retreating footsteps and let out a snort of disgusted fury.
Plenty of rest? I’d get more peace being nursed by the bloody Gallagher brothers!
He moved to pull the quilt back up around him and remembered the tray Ghost had left there. Propping himself up on his elbows, he peered down at it. He looked over the fat bowl brimming with home-made chicken soup, heavy with hand-rolled pasta twists, and a freshly made Lemsip in his favourite mug. Sulkily, he snatched up the post-it note affixed to the tumbler in which a small bouquet of lavender, freshly picked from the back garden he suspected, had been ham-fistedly shoved. In Ghost’s crabby hand, the words ‘Get well soon’ had been written and with a final flourish, a curved blob that MacTavish suspected was meant to represent a heart.
He sighed, and flopped back into the pillows.
It’s not like you didn’t realise he had the social graces of an onion bhaji when you agreed to marry him , he thought, as he turned the paper in the light. He’s doing his best.
His sinuses felt like they were trying to punch their way out of his face, his head hurt, his body appeared to have been wrung through a mangle whilst he slept and his nose had been rubbed raw, and now on top of it all guilt niggled in his chest. He had just decided that the moment he felt well enough, to do something nice to make it up to Ghost when he heard the shouting start.
“How did it go?” asked Ghost, as he hurried down the stairs, “Did you manage to get them both?”
“Yeah. No problem, mate!” Gaz called back.
Ghost dumped the tray of dirty crockery by the kitchen sink and doubled back through the dining room into the lounge.
“I don't think they're all that well-organised in that place, if you ask me.” said Gaz as he hung MacTavish’s kilt and jacket from the door. “Took a bit of a while to find Mac’s kilt. Shame he won't be needing it now.” He swept his hand over the plastic cover and smoothed it out before stepping back to admire his handiwork.
Ghost stopped in the doorway, aghast.
“What the bloody hell is this?” He demanded.
A human-shaped mass of mismatched green fabric scraps lay draped across the back of the sofa.
“Oh, yes, she said they got almost all the blood out if you didn't look too closely.” Gaz picked up the arm and splayed the ribbons of mossy fabric out between his fingers “Myself, I can hardly see a thing”
“This!” Ghost gestured angrily towards him, and then pointed at the ghillie suit between them emphatically “This isn't my suit!”
Gaz looked at him with a puzzled frown, “Isn't it?”
“Of course it isn’t!” Ghost snapped.
Gaz’s smile vanished. He brought his hands to his face and let out an exasperated sigh “Oh, don't tell me they mixed up the tickets again.”
“Mixed up the-” Ghost stared at him in disbelief “You must have seen it was a mistake when they got it out!”
“Well,” Gaz retorted peevishly “I don't know what your suit looks like, do I?”
“Well, it doesn't bloody well look like this! It’s Price’s birthday party, not Strictly Come Sniping!”
“Actually,” said Gaz “I thought you were going to do a piece for tonight. Like, you know, one of those comedy revues or something.”
“Comedy revue?” Ghost picked up the ghillie suit and flapped it out in front of him and splayed it across his body. It reached to his knees “It's not even my size!”
He glared at Gaz “Great!” he growled “Bloody brilliant! Now I’ve got to take this back on top of everything else.” He stuffed the suit into a bundle under his arm, snatched up his wallet and keys from the sideboard and stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind him.
“Morning, Mr Riley! Are you well?”
Ghost opened his mouth to snap at the offending speaker, and caught himself just in time.
“Morning Vicar!” he replied, plastering the weakest of fake smiles to his sour face as he did so.
The plump woman astride the bicycle smiled back from where she’d pulled up by the garden wall.
She leant forward and rested her elbows on the handlebars. “How’s that husband of yours?” she asked.
“Oh.” Ghost thought about Soap glaring at him from the bed. “Getting there, I guess?” He said, trying to sound a lot more cheerful than he felt. “I can't stop, I’m afraid.” He paused, and for lack of a better excuse told her the truth, “I've got to take a ghillie suit back to the cleaners.”
"A ghillie suit?” She raised her eyebrows “My goodness. ”
“Yes, can you believe it? I put my best suit in ready for a party tonight and I get that .” And they call themselves a bloody dry-cleaning service. They close early on a Saturday, too.” He sighed, despondently.
When he’d finished, he had no idea why he’d spoken, but the frustrated rage that had been building up, pulsating behind his eyeballs, had lessened a fraction.
The vicar looked back at him, a soft expression on her face as she nodded understanding. He wondered if this was some sort of skill that they taught them in vicar school, interrogation techniques for quiche-eating, bleeding heart softies who shied away from the bloody methods the Credenhill College of Enhanced Information Extraction favoured. He began to wonder if the approach might have some merit.
Her face broke out into a wide smile. “Oh, well, if you get stuck, I've actually got one you can borrow. Owen Norrit put it in for the jumble on Saturday, and I don’t think he’d mind if you had a borrow.”
“Well, no, I don't think that'll be-”
“Be just about your size, too.” She looked him up and down, her mouth twisting in a way that Ghost felt was scandalously lascivious for a woman of the cloth. “He was quite shaped as a young man too. I believe.”
“Oh.” he started to back away nervously towards the car.
“I'll pop it round later. You can always see what you think.” She winked at him.
“Well, er… just as a backup.” He smiled weakly at her “Thanks very much” he said, and fled.
“One minute! One bloody minute!”
Ghost slammed the front door behind him and stomped down the hall.
“The whole lot of them should be executed by firing squad!” he spat, throwing down the bundled up ghillie suit by the sideboard. “Bloody girl just stood behind the closed sign pointing at me and laughing.” He marched into the kitchen and picked up the kettle.
He noticed the silence for the first time.
“Johnny?” he called.
There was no answer.
Still holding the kettle, he returned to the hall and called up the stairs, but no response came. He sighed, and turned back to the sink when movement through the kitchen window caught his eye.
He yanked the back door open.
“What the bloody hell happened here?”
MacTavish, fifteen feet above the remains of the patio, shifted his grip on the branch he clung to and peered down at Ghost through the leaves.
“Oh,” he said meekly, his voice flat and nasal with unrelieved congestion. “You’re back.” He gave Ghost a weak smile “Well… it’s a long story.”
“ A long story?” exclaimed Ghost. “I leave you resting in bed, and come back to find you’re stuck up a tree and there’s a crater in the patio!” he pointed to a hole that had appeared between several cracked slabs. Scattered concrete littered the ground by his feet “What the hell have you been doing?”
MacTavish snivelled “Can you just get me down?” he pleaded.
“How did you even get up there?” demanded Ghost, and then he spotted a warped tangle of metal at the base of the trunk. He pointed to it incredulously “What happened to the ladder?”
MacTavish coughed weakly. “Okay. Look. You know that bird that’s been driving you up the wall?”
Ghost gestured at the crater by his feet “What the bloody hell were you trying to do? Laser its nest for a mortar strike?”
He glanced around, and his eyes landed on the miraculously unscathed bistro set just at the edge of the patio. Atop the wrought iron table he spotted a familiar looking green, plastic case.
“Oh no.” he cried “Oh, Johnny! Not the grenades! ”
MacTavish’s lips pursed, and then he sighed. “It was up here for ages,” he said. “I thought it might have a nest.” He coughed, and then continued “I was trying to set a trap, but after I pulled the pin I sneezed and dropped it.” He snivelled despondently, “Took the ladder out and now I’m stuck.”
Ghost stared at him incredulously.
“You-” he gawped wordlessly for a moment, like a drowning fish “You what?”
“Can you just get me down?” MacTavish snapped.
Ghost sighed, “I’ll… I’ll see if I can borrow a ladder.”
“How those grenades got mixed up in the moving boxes I will never know.” said Ghost, as he slid a mug of tea across the table towards MacTavish and sat down heavily in the chair beside him.
MacTavish snivelled and pulled the blanket Ghost had wrapped around his shoulders tighter. He reached out and cupped the mug in both hands.
Ghost fixed him with a steely glare, stabbing his index finger into the table as he said “First thing tomorrow I’m getting Gaz to pick them up and take them back!”
MacTavish sniffed and groaned “I’ll call him-”
“That’s what you said when we found them!” Ghost interrupted, “And now look what’s happened! I’ll do it myself.”
He sighed, pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and let out a frustrated growl.
“I mean, what were you thinking?” he demanded, gesturing exasperatedly at MacTavish “We didn’t take early retirement so you could blow yourself up in the back garden chasing some bastard bird for God’s sake!”
“I wasn’t trying to blow myself up!” snapped MacTavish.
“Johnny!” Ghost exclaimed, his expression anguished as if he was in pain “You could have got yourself killed!”
MacTavish pursed his lips, bristling defensively, then he sighed, sagging into the chair. He stared at the mug between his hands, unable to look Ghost in the eye. “Look.” he said “I know I’ve not been the easiest man to look after these last few days, and I’ve not exactly been grateful for your efforts.” He snivelled and rubbed his sore nose. “I thought I’d try to do something nice, you know: make it up to you?” he sighed “Look where it’s got me!”
“Oh, Johnny! ” Ghost’s shoulders slumped. He reached out and took MacTavish’s hand in his own, interlaced their fingers and gripped it tight. “You bloody idiot!” He shook his head “In sickness and in health. You remember? For better and for worse?” He squeezed MacTavish’s hand “I meant it.” He leant forward across the table, forcing himself into the edge of MacTavish’s vision “I know you’re not yourself right now.” he continued, “But, I don’t mind .”
MacTavish closed his eyes “I’m sorry.” he said, softly.
Ghost let go of MacTavish's hand and wrapped his arm around his shoulders, pulling him close, pressing the fluffy brush of his shaven temples into his lips, gripping him tight as if he feared him being snatched away at any moment. MacTavish flopped limply against him, and coughed weakly.
They sat in silence for a long moment in each other’s arms, until Ghost shifted to rest his chin atop MacTavish’s head to look wistfully towards the kitchen window, and the back garden beyond. He sighed. “God knows what the neighbours think.”
“Oh.” said MacTavish, frowning, eager to change the subject. He pushed himself upright and turned to Ghost “That reminds me, the vicar came round earlier after Gaz left. I didn’t want to come down and give her what I’ve got, but she mentioned something about a suit?”
“Oh!” Ghost jumped up “Brilliant!”
“She said it's quite new? Something about some bloke’s hardly ever worn it?”
Ghost hurried back towards the lounge, hardly daring to hope that something might finally be going his way, then he stopped dead in the doorway.
“She said you should complain about them not cleaning the other one properly.”
I don't believe it!” said Ghost, softly, staring incredulously at the mound of stitched together fabric scraps lying like discarded garden rubbish over the back of the sofa. “I do not believe it!” he groaned. “Why don’t people ever listen?”
The vicar had come through as promised, and deposited in the living room, another, perfectly sized, barely worn ghillie suit.