The Quiet Man

It's All Right

I’m fine. I’m all right, I wasn’t there. Mary’s fine. We’re both fine.

It’s the wrong time, isn’t it, to tell people that we broke up. I just keep sending variations on the same text to everyone I know. No one asks why Mary’s flat, and only Mary’s flat, exploded; everyone believes the story about the gas line, it seems. No questions about it at all. Not one.

I thought humans had a built-in sense that’s triggered when things aren’t quite right, some sort of brain stem prey-animal holdover that gives us gooseflesh if a story doesn’t quite make sense. But we don’t. We like to think we do, but we’re wrong. Our collective intuition is faulty. We’re too afraid of appearing paranoid or delusional, we don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea and think ill of us. It’s all about what the neighbours think, isn’t it. Take out the tinfoil hats, boys, we’ve got a live one. If everyone else thinks something makes sense, we don’t even stop to question it.

We like to think in probabilities. How probable is it that a ring of criminals set explosives into the walls from the flats next door to ours, above and below; how probable is it that those explosives had been sitting there, ticking away, waiting, for longer than I care to consider? Chances are, it’s just the gas line. Of course it is. More probable. And everyone believes it.

So that’s it, then.

I’m fine. I’m all right. No, I wasn’t there, thank god. I know, terrible, isn’t it.

I’m not telling anyone about you. You didn’t say I shouldn’t. Moran knows; what does it matter if it’s a secret or not, at this point? You didn’t say anything about it at all. But I don’t tell anyone all the same. It doesn’t feel like public information yet. I wouldn’t even know how to explain.

I’m at 221b, you know. Yes, back home! Sitting here with Sherlock, watching him stare blankly at his computer just now. I know, a real treat, it’s just like the old days. Well, the boring parts of the old days. Yeah, he’s not so dead after all, as it turns out. Only Sherlock! I know! He’s quite an actor, isn’t he! He sure had me fooled! No, I’m not sure how he did it. Don’t really want to ask, it seems rude, somehow. See you later, mate, have a good night!

No. No, I can’t say that. I don’t know how to approach that one. Maybe I’m just not ready to share you. Not quite yet.

God, I’m exhausted. You’ve been staring at that computer screen a little too long without blinking. You need some sleep. We should go to bed.

We. As if that’s a thing we do together now. Well: we did. Sleep. Together. That’s probably the furthest thing from your mind right now. Sleeping, or sleeping with me. Winning, losing, death, life, all of it, that’s all hanging in the balance now, not whether or not I can rest my forehead against the back of your neck again. Or rest my hand against your stomach and feel you breathing. Sleeping is what you do in between other, more important things. It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it.

“Well?” I think you might have forgotten that I’m here. You look up at me, startled. I know you’re working. You’re planning and plotting, you’re watching dots on maps, it’s all very complicated.

“Well what?”

“Have they found him?” That was the upside, wasn’t it? Trace the detonator, right? I can already guess the answer is no. You would have said something, surely. You’d be in a more celebratory mood. Maybe we’d go out for chinese, or something. Late night dessert at Angelo’s, champagne, a fitting return to the land of the living. But I don’t know anymore. You’re quieter than I remember. You were always talking in my head. I’d forgotten about your stony silences.

“No.” You look back at the screen. “No, they found another of his playthings instead. Eighteen years old, already known to police for drugs and theft. Barely finished Year Seven. His father is in prison for murdering his mother, so he’s effectively an orphan. That’s the sort of person Moran attracts. The most desperate. That’s the level we’ve reached, John. Arresting lost children.” A lost child who nearly blew up my ex-girlfriend, let’s remember. But yeah. Yeah, I see what you mean. The dregs. He’s reached the dregs, now. So it’s almost over.