Red, White and Blue (Book Two of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Nineteen: A Thought Experiment

The worst thing about being a soldier in Oxford was how unnecessary you were. It didn't look as though a war had ever touched this place. The only weapons you saw were in glass cases, and labelled with mysterious words like: 'Dual-edged Jian, Ninth Dynasty.' 

You didn't see scuffles or skirmishes on the streets of Oxford; instead, there were lectures and regattas and garden parties – everything bathed in sunlight or gaslight or, worst of all, the new electric lights, which stripped everything bare of shadows and hiding-places and enticing little mysteries. There was no darkness, no exhilaration, no need to use your body at all, unless you were rowing in one of those bloody regattas. 

This world was the exact opposite of everything Jack had loved in India.

And for the first few months, he'd been so homesick that only regular supplies of whisky and laudanum had been able to convince him he wasn't drowning. 

He told himself it wasn't that he missed Ellini – and, as a statement, this was probably true, so far as it went. He had never really spent enough time with her for her company to become habit. No, what he missed about her was having something to hope for – something to look forward to. 

The letters were the first, worst sign that his attitude towards her was softening. Before Delhi, he had sewn them up in the lining of his coat – together with the black arrow which was supposedly the weapon destined to destroy him – because... well, because they were both vulnerabilities, and Jack liked to keep his vulnerabilities close. He wanted the power to destroy himself to be solely in his own hands – but, in the case of Ellini's letters, these were entirely the wrong hands.

It hadn't taken many drunken, lonely nights in Oxford before he'd had to rip the coat open and read her letters again. They almost had as dramatic an effect on him as the first time he'd read them. They made him lie sleepless all night in a fever of longing, which was extremely painful, but nevertheless – because it contained her, and nothing else did – sort of addictive.

The next morning, he would sew the letters back into his coat, swearing to leave them where they were – if only because the lining was starting to shrink from the sheer number of times it had been torn open and sewn up again. The threads were like nasty wads of scar tissue. He would sometimes find himself reaching into his coat and running his finger down the scar of stitching, as though it was an old wound that ached in the damp Oxford evenings.

It was hard to blame her really, when you thought about it. Of course, he was extremely angry with her, but mostly, the anger focused on Robin, who had poured poison into her ears – who had brought her so low that she thought she belonged with the abusive bastard who'd killed her family.

That had been it, he was sure. She had gone with him because she hated herself. He couldn't think about her wanting Robin – preferring Robin. That belonged to the whole gallery of things he couldn't picture.

What he was obliged to picture – at least five times a day – were the good moments. He couldn't stop, even though it was like driving an arrow deeper and deeper into his chest every time. He recreated her in fervid detail – the little line at the centre of her ribcage, the gorgeous, all-enveloping darkness of her hair.

It wasn't so bad really – in fact, most of the time, it was treacherously good. But you couldn't give into it too often, or you'd turn into a complete automaton – a memory machine.

So, whenever he couldn't get hold of the best distractions – opiates – he used his interest in people and his restless intelligence to drive the images from his mind. Sometimes, he would sit on the edge of his seat in the early mornings, while sobriety crept inexorably back and sharpened the edges of every object in his vision, quizzing Danvers or Sergei about their lives – about parents, past lovers – anything that could distract him from the endless, endless wanting.