Gerald Seymour - Home Run

She had known there was a target, and he had told her that the target was not to be arrested. She didn't know any more than that. And, small mercies, not a squeak about Colombia.

He was still in bed.

They had a sort of routine in bed. She went to bed earlier than him, and she'd pretend that she was asleep when he came in. And he pretended that he acknowledged that she was asleep. The pretence worked until he was asleep, and he wasn't ever long going. She thought that she had never seen him so deeply exhausted. When he was asleep she'd lie half the night on her back with her eyes open, and she could have screamed…

He was still in bed and she was dressing in front of the wardrobe. She hadn't shown it to him yet. The dress had cost her what she earned in a week. It was black, full skirt, bare back, a halter at the neck. The dress was as bold as anything she had bought since they had been married.

It was an impulse.

She took the dress from the wardrobe. She held it against her body. She saw that he was watching her.

"For the dance, David… Is it O K? "

He said, "It's super."

"You mean that, really mean it?"

A quiet voice, as if the strength had been taken from him.

"It's a terrific dress, I really mean that."

"I hoped you'd like it."

"You'll look wonderful."

"We are going, aren't we?"

"Sure, we're going."

"You want to go, don't you?"

"I want to go, I've joined their club."

"David, I'm trying, no riddles, what club?"

He struggled to sit upright in the bed. "The club all the others are in. The club that's worrying about the pension scheme. The club that's ratty about annual leave and days in lieu of Bank Holidays. The club that's serving out time. The club that's given up. I've joined their club, Ann. Entry to the club is when you don't fucking care that a heroin trafficker is running round Central London like he owns the fucking place… Yes, we're going. We're going to have a hell of an evening… Ann, that dress, it's really brilliant."

She went on with her dressing. "Things will get better. You'll see." And she blew him a kiss as she hurried to be at work.

Mattie had walked until he could not put one leg in front of the other.

He had crawled until he no longer knew where he was going, where he was. The sun beat down on him. He had no food and he had no water. The track was of hot, sharp rock, and he had no more strength and he could not walk on rock and the plimsolls were ripped from his feet. He lay on the path.

Don't panic, Major, just getting the old head down. Just leave me in peace. I'll be better when it's cooler.

For a moment Harriet had forgotten her husband. She put down the telephone. He was a sweet man who lived out on the Cirencester road from Bibury, and one of the few people that she knew who lived in the community for seven days in each week, didn't just commute down at weekends. He had some pull, and he could get things done. He had rung to say that the farmer was bending, and was going to agree to roll a strip across the middle of the ploughed field so that the right of way was intact. It was a little triumph for all of them who had contested the ploughing up of the track. Actually there was no good reason why the old route should not have been re-drawn round the outside of the field, but that would have surrendered the principle. The principle said that the footpath ran across the middle of the field, and it had run there for more than a century, and the principle said that if only one person wanted to walk that path a year then the route should stay unploughed. She revelled in her small triumph. Mattie would have enjoyed…

If Mattie had been there, then he would have enjoyed her moment.

So many times they had been separated, and she had never felt such loneliness.

She seemed to shake herself. It was a gesture that was all her own, as if she were shrugging away dust from her shoulders, as if she were hardening her resolve.

She hadn't even told the girls.

The phone rang. The bell was in the hall, recessed into a rafter, and the ringing burst throughout the whole cottage. It was a loud bell so that it could be heard if she and Mattie were out in the garden.

Each time the telephone rang, she expected the worst.

There was a couple in Bibury who had lost an only son, a paratrooper, at Goose Green five years ago and in the final push on the Argentine machine-gun nests. They'd sent an officer down from the depot to break the news. She didn't think they'd send anyone down from Century immediately, but she had supposed that the Director General would at least speak to her on the telephone.

She had shaken herself. She was prepared.

"Mrs Furniss?"

She recognized the voice. "It is…"

"Flossie Duggan, Mrs Furniss, from Mr Furniss' office

… I've only a moment. Have you heard anything?"

"I have not."

"Dreadful, they are… Mrs Furniss, there's some wonderful news. Well, it's nearly wonderful. Old Carter, that idiot, he told me. He's escaped. Mr Furniss, I mean. He'd been night watch in the Committee's room, and he was so up in the air that he went into the DG's office without his shoes on.

Apparently he doesn't wear his shoes at night when he's on duty "

"How extraordinary."

"Indeed, that's rather the tenor of things here nowadays.

Oh dear… sorry, sorry… what'll you be thinking of me.

What I meant to say was, yes, that he's escaped, Mrs Furniss.

He's on the run, that's what Carter went to tell the DG. It's been picked up by the monitoring people abroad, they listen to everything, they've heard the messages on the radios inside Iran. Mr Furniss has escaped. They're all searching for him of course but the main thing is, he's free."

"But he's still inside?"

"But he's not in his prison, Mrs Furniss. That's wonderful news, isn't it?"

"Miss Duggan, you are very kind to call. I am so grateful.

What would we do without you?"

Harriet put down the telephone.

She closed the front door behind her. She didn't remember to lock the front door, nor to take with her a raincoat.

She walked down to the church, old and lichen-coated stone.

He came out of his stupor because a boot was in his rib cage and was pushing him over from his stomach to his back. The boot was in his ribs as if he were a dog, dead in the road.

Mattie saw the gallery of faces above him. They were all young faces, except for one. The one face was cold, without sympathy. A tribesman's face, heavily bearded, and the man wore the loose shirt and the all embracing leather waistcoat and the baggy trousers of the Kurdish mountain people. There was an ancient Lee Enfield on his shoulder. The look on his face seemed to say that if the body had not been on the path, in the way, it would have been ignored. Eight young faces.

They were all boys, early twenties, late teenagers. They gazed down on him. They carried packs on their back, or there were sports bags in their hands. He lay on his back, then struggled to push himself upright. He understood. Mattie knew who had found him. A young smooth hand ducked down and pulled the pistol from his waist. He did not try to stop it.

Because he knew who had found him he had no fear of them, not even of the tribesman who would have been their guide on the last stage towards the frontier.

Mattie spoke in Farsi.

Would they have the kindness, in the name of humanity, to take him with them?

Would they help him because he had no footwear?

Would they share food with him, because it was more than two days since he had last eaten?

They were nice enough, the boys, they were tense as if it were an adventure, but they welcomed Mattie amongst them, and the guide just spat and grunted in the Kurdish patois that Mattie had never mastered. The guide now had the pistol.