Conscious Decisions of the Heart Read online

  “You mean you won’t be able to swear at me and rant at me for hours.”

  “Ah, that’s only what you thought I was saying. I mixed it up. So, come, we can’t stay here. I’m in Odense. A hotel.” He rose and held out his hand for Ben. Ben took it and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

  “I need to tell Ingrid I’ll be gone tonight.”

  Nikolas frowned. “Not just tonight. We’re leaving now.”

  Ben pouted, picked up his clothes and began to dress. He followed Nikolas out of the house and then led the way to where he’d parked the car. Nikolas stopped in his tracks then went up and ran his hands lovingly over the obsidian black. “You bought it!”

  Ben had forgotten Nikolas hadn’t seen the car. He grinned, cheered up now. It was at moments like these he couldn’t understand why every bloke didn’t sleep with other men. It was so convenient having everything tied up in one package, best mate and lover. Nikolas wanted to drive, and he knew where there’d most likely be some snow and ice, so they took a run up through the forest and tested the off-road ability of the vehicle. It was very, very good. Eventually, Nikolas pulled it to a halt. “It’ll be getting dark soon. We must collect your things and leave for Odense.”

  Ben picked at the seam of his jeans, glanced in the mirror for some moral support from Radulf and ventured, “I don’t want to leave yet, Nik. I like it here.”

  Nikolas frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I like Aeroe.” He switched to Danish, thinking it might help his cause. “I’ve made friends, Alan and Ingrid.” He grinned. “I’ve even got a girlfriend in the library. We’re getting married, apparently. I like Ingrid. I don’t want to just leave now the winter’s come. She’s planned some things for us…I mean, I can’t just up and leave her now.”

  Nikolas twisted in his seat, staring at him. Ben winced. “Don’t look like that. Of course if you say we go, then we go.”

  Nikolas looked down. “If I say we go?”

  Ben shrugged. “Nothing has changed, Nik. You still own me.”

  Nikolas put his hand to Ben’s cheek, rubbing his thumb over the stubble. “Everything has changed, Ben. Everything.” He pushed his fingers into Ben’s hair. “You learned to speak my language. I still can’t believe it. You understand me now, saying this?”

  Ben huffed. “Of course.”

  “That’s…incredible.” Nikolas pulled him in and kissed him. “Maybe you say what we do now. You own me for a while, yes?”

  Ben pulled away, giving him a wary look. Nikolas laughed at his expression. “Just for a few days more, while I’m still…overwhelmed by how much I missed you.” They kissed for a long time, parked up in the forest, the snow falling heavily. They’d have gone further, but it was unspoken between them that the leather was too cool to risk. Eventually, Nikolas pulled away and scrunched up his face. “I’m hungry.”

  Ben huffed, incredulous. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say that. Ingrid will have made enough for another…if…I mean…” Nikolas just tossed him the keys and climbed out to switch positions.

  Nikolas was uncharacteristically quiet on the drive to Ingrid’s. He sat rubbing Radulf’s head, which was poked between the front seats, staring out at the passing island scenery. Ben reckoned the spirit of place thing was catching up with him; he had a lot of memories invested on this small stretch of land. When they arrived, Ben apologised for being so long and then introduced Nikolas, calling him Aleksey to avoid confusion. She peered up at the six-foot-four figure for a while then nodded. “Good, you’ve come home at last.”

  Over the meal, Ben came to the conclusion his Danish wasn’t quite as good as he’d thought. He got most of what they were talking about, but if they forgot him for a moment, their speech sped up so fast he couldn’t keep up. He realised how slowly and carefully they both must have been speaking for him. Once Nikolas had overcome his natural reticence to delve too deeply into the sad events of his childhood, he seemed to realise Ingrid only remembered the good times, the times before Sergei and all the bad that came from him. Very quickly, they switched to English so they could include Ben, and Ingrid delighted in updating Nikolas on all the happenings on Aeroe since he’d been gone.

  For the first time, Ben sat at a table and watched Nikolas eat almost like a normal person. It was quite a revelation. He didn’t eat as much as Ben, but he ate more than Ingrid. He looked up once to find Ben staring at him and deliberately took a mouthful of food, chewing it, his eyebrow lifting provocatively.

  Finally, Ingrid asked the question Ben wanted to but hadn’t dared. “So, what’re your plans now, Aleksey? You can’t leave us again, you know. Aeroe wants her sons home and safe.”

  Nikolas leant back in his seat and regarded Ben. Answering her, but still staring at Ben, he said in Danish slowly, “I’m thinking of restoring my family’s summerhouse. Living back on Aeroe has suddenly become more attractive.”

  “Ah, poor Agna. But for us that’s excellent news. And Ben, what will you do now?”

  Staring right back at Nikolas, Ben replied, “I think my Danish needs some more work. I think I might stay on Aeroe as well. Maybe Mr Mikkelsen will invite me to stay with him. I think I would like him to broaden my vocabulary.”

  She clapped. “Then it’s all decided.”

  They just smiled at each other. Apparently, it was.

  PART II

  CHAPTER NINE

  Ben never regretted their sudden decision to stay in Denmark, despite what was to come, what was nearly the end of this tentative beginning, or—perhaps—the beginning of the end. He’d had no idea just how cold Aeroe could be. It didn’t help that for the first few days, they camped in Nikolas’s family summerhouse, a house designed for warm weather, which hadn’t been lived in for over thirty years. Hans, Nikolas’s caretaker, seemed distraught that the place wasn’t up to his employer’s standards. It was fortunate, he said, that his wife was still away, or she’d have been furious with him. Ben thought it was more likely the woman would be furious to see Nikolas return to “her” house, but only shared this thought with Ingrid.

  Nikolas did his best to reassure Hans that he’d looked after the place as well as anyone could expect, but acknowledged to Ben that they couldn’t stay there. It was impossible, and by the end of the first week, they’d abandoned the idea and decided to rent somewhere more suitable for the winter months. Ingrid had made it clear Aleksey was welcome to stay with Ben, but he didn’t want to put her in an awkward situation, given what his favourite hobby was when Nikolas was around.

  Renting during the winter on Aeroe proved ridiculously easy, as all the summer lodges were empty during the winter months. They chose a lodge on a lake in one of the island’s forests. It had been designed as a romantic retreat for a wealthy doctor in Copenhagen who’d entertained a succession of mistresses on Aeroe until ill health and old age had made him appreciate his wife more. It suited them perfectly, and they abandoned any pretence of being stoic soldiers, and opted instead to be what they were, lovers who’d been separated for some months and who wanted and needed to be alone together. The lodge had one large bedroom with a vast bed, one room downstairs, a hot tub on the deck, and was fitted throughout to an extremely high standard. It was totally private. From the tub on the deck, they could only see lake and trees. The cabin was heated by a sophisticated wood-chip furnace and under-floor heating, but also had open fires in both the living area and the bedroom. Ben could indulge his new passion for chopping wood and stacking it in Scandinavian-perfect woodpiles without having to actually rely on his fires for heat. They stocked up on food and alcohol, and after a few days, Ben couldn’t think of a single thing he would change about his life. It was a rather unique feeling, given what life had been like for both of them over the years.

  One afternoon, perhaps also inspired by this sense of beginnings, lounging in the tub, flicking water out onto Radulf’s coat to make little freezing balls of ice hang off him, Nikolas muttered, “There’s some
thing I have to tell you.” He took a large mouthful of wine and eyed Ben somewhat warily.

  Ben pursed his lips. “You’re pregnant.”

  Nikolas laughed but quickly sobered. “That might be easier to admit.”

  Ben sat up. “You’re not sick?”

  Nikolas waved off the suggestion. “Do I look sick?”

  He didn’t, but Ben’s heart took a while to come back to its normal rate. Suddenly, he climbed out of the tub, grabbed a towel and went back into the lodge, shutting Nikolas and his news outside. He didn’t want to hear it. He had a feeling he knew what he was going to confess.

  Nikolas came in after him. He’d dressed back into some jeans and a T-shirt and squatted by the fire, poking it. He glanced every so often at Ben. He started to speak. Ben shook his head. “No, I don’t want to hear it. Don’t say it.”

  Nikolas frowned. “You don’t know what I’m going to say.”

  “Yeah, I do. I knew, I guess. I just didn’t want to know, you know?” He sighed. “You don’t look like you do, Nik, and then spend four months being celibate. Just tell me, yeah? How many and who were they?”

  Nikolas switched to English because he was better in this language than Ben was yet in Danish. “What’re you babbling about, you stupid child?” He threw himself onto the sofa next to Ben and prevented him rising. “I want to tell you about Nikolas…how he died. It’s the last thing I’ve kept from you, and I don’t want to have anything between us now. No secrets. Bring me some more wine, yes? I think I’ll need it.”

  When Ben had passed him a large glass of red wine, Nikolas took a long drink. “I was there…when he died. It wasn’t an accident, the fall. I pushed him. I killed him. There. I’ve told you. It wasn’t so hard.” Suddenly, the hand holding the wineglass wobbled, and he swore, then pouted; his face scrunched up, and he swore again, staring at the ceiling to try and regain control. “All these fucking years later, and I still can’t talk about this.”

  Ben took the glass from him and set it down. He snagged his fingers into Nikolas’s hair and pulled the blond head down onto his shoulder, letting him recover without the need for words until he sensed Nikolas was ready to talk. “Just tell me, yeah? From the beginning?”

  “The beginning? That wouldn’t be so good an idea.” He was quiet for a while then sat up and retrieved his glass. “All right. Perhaps I must, to make the end understandable. The beginning for me was Sergei. When he took us back to his house in Moscow, he told us we couldn’t sleep together anymore, we were now too big for that. He gave us separate bedrooms. That night, naturally, I defied him and went to find Nika; we’d slept in the same bed since we were born, and this stranger who didn’t speak our language wasn’t going to tell me what I could and couldn’t do. I found him in bed with Sergei.”

  Ben made a small sound of shock, and Nikolas flashed him a quick look. “I’ve never told anyone that before.” He shrugged. “Nikolas’s pyjamas were on the floor. He was crying. Sergei began to shout at me. Oh, I forgot to say I was biting him. I had his hand in my teeth, here, and wouldn’t let go.” He stopped for a minute, staring down at the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger. “He eventually beat me off, and he left, possibly because he was bleeding very badly. He’d not got very far with Nika. He’d undressed him and said things to him, but as his Danish was so very bad, Nika hadn’t understood it. He’d touched him, but then I’d come in, so not so much harm done. The next night, we just switched beds. It was very easy.”

  “You switched―?”

  “I was Nikolas for many nights until he realised, and, by then, I think he liked me well enough.”

  “He didn’t know? He thought you were Nikolas?”

  “Two crying ten-year-olds were much the same, I suppose.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Nik…”

  “Don’t. I didn’t tell you this to make you sad, but to make you understand. Nikolas started at the academy. When I came out of hospital, I joined―”

  “Hospital?”

  Nikolas just looked at him. “I was ten, Ben. And very small for my age. Anyway, as I was saying, at school everything was good, but we had to decide what to do when the holidays came. I told Nika we’d run away together. I’d steal a car—I was quite good at stealing cars—and we’d drive ourselves back to Denmark. Nikolas argued Sergei would just come and take us again, and he was probably right.” He paused, thinking about this for some time. “Anyway, we agreed he’d go, and I’d stay.”

  “We agreed? He wanted you to stay…? Even though he knew…?”

  Nikolas held his gaze. “He was scared. He was only ten, Benjamin, you have to remember that. One of us had to stay.”

  Ben didn’t point out the obvious. “What about when he was seventeen? Was he scared then, as well, when he shot Sergei?”

  He paused, deep in his bad memories. “Yes. We agreed again.”

  “That he would just go and leave you to take the blame?”

  “We didn’t realise I would go to prison. It’s why I allowed my grandfather’s defence team to say all they did, things I’d rather have kept secret. If we’d known they’d still send me―”

  “We! You keep saying we. What you mean is him. He decided everything, Nik. He fucking betrayed you every time.”

  “Well, there we are. The beginning brings us to the end, and what I wanted to tell you. He came to Moscow. Some minor post in the embassy. But Moscow was my city, Benjamin. I didn’t want him there. He insisted he needed to see me. Our grandfather had died, there was a lot of money to settle and decisions on the estates and investments to be made which needed my agreement. He wanted all the money to remain in Denmark. With him, I suppose. We were having him followed, of course, so one night I found out where he was and went there. It wasn’t my style to be summoned at someone else’s convenience. I wish now I’d waited for an invitation. He was with a boy.” He stopped at Ben’s small sound, composed himself and continued. “The boy was blond, and he was very small for his age. His clothes were on the floor. Not pyjamas, you understand, but it reminded me. I was…upset. I didn’t have a degree as Nikolas did, but I understood irony quite well. He said it was an accident, the death, which didn’t seem the point, given the boy was where he shouldn’t be and not in his clothes which he should. I went out onto the balcony to calm down and think. He followed me out. He was naked. He hadn’t even thought to cover himself. Anyway…” He stopped and emptied his wineglass and held it out for a refill. “He argued I should say I’d brought the boy there and I’d raped and killed him. That this would ruin his career but not mine—given what I already was.”

  “My God.”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought, too. For the first time, I thought, no. Why should I? I told him. Actually, I told him in Russian to fuck off, which I enjoyed, and then he started to remind―Well, I won’t tell you all of what he said about me, because I don’t now believe it to be true. But I believed it more then—before I’d met you and been given the benefit of your seemingly unshakable faith in my lovability. But I wanted him to shut up, so I pushed him. I didn’t realise how very slow and unused to such things he was. He just fell backward. His legs hit the—fuck, what’s the word for the thing that runs around a balcony? Anyway, he hit it, and that was that, I was a twin no longer. Just me. I went back into the room and was very sick. I sat with the dead boy for a long time until the sun came up and didn’t know what to do. I thought about all the things he’d said to me. All my life wasted for him. And then I saw his clothes and his passport, and suddenly it was easy. I thought I was owed.”

  “You were.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. We make our own destinies, as I’ve told you, but I stole his. Whatever he was or wasn’t, that wasn’t right.” He closed his eyes and leant his head back on the sofa. “There, I’ve told you everything. You know all there is to know. Perhaps you would’ve preferred a recitation of all the men I slept with while I was away.” He opened his eyes and added quickly, “But there were none, you understand.”

>   Ben just smiled wanly and folded his legs up onto the sofa, running his fingers along the stubble of hair at the back of Nikolas’s neck.

  “How did you do it? Becoming him? It can’t have been easy.”

  Nikolas laughed a bitter sort of sound. “Actually, it was. I just thought what would Nikolas do?” He looked to Ben.

  “Run away. Let someone else sort it all out?”

  “Exactly. I called his embassy—as he’d have done. I invoked diplomatic immunity—as he’d have done. I blamed it all on my brother, Aleksey—as he’d have done. I left everyone else to sort the mess. Yes, as he’d have done. I actually drank a glass of champagne to Aleksey on the plane home to Denmark.”

  “As he’d have done.”

  “So, that’s the story of Nikolas. Which now brings me to the next thing I want to tell you. Ask you.”

  “Fucking hell, more?”

  “I think, maybe, I’m now Aleksey again. What do you think? I don’t need to live Nikolas’s life. I don’t want his life, and I don’t want his name.”