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Paddy is drunk in a way that’s unusual for him. There’s no roaring in his blood, no fight under his fingernails. He’s drunk and comfortable, tucked into an armchair in some nice old biddy’s empty home on a remote Scottish island, drinking rum with David Stirling and Jock Lewes.
He is, in point of fact, the sort of drunk that he only lets himself get when he’s at rest. Which means, really, the sort of drunk he’s only ever been in his own home or when visiting the McGonigals.
He won’t be telling David and Jock that he’s that comfortable around them. They haven’t done near enough to earn that level of a compliment from him.
Jock, as he’s wont to do, has been prattling on about his girl for the last wee while. Paddy doesn’t need to listen to know what he’s been saying; it’s the same things as always: she’s the most beautiful, the most intelligent, probably something about how she has the nicest tits.
It would be sickening, if Paddy weren’t a romantic at heart and if Jock wasn’t so clearly arse over cock in love with her.
“What about you, David?” Jock asks, apparently now remembering that people other than Mirren Barford exist.
“Me?” David has reached a swaying in his seat level of drunk. “Oh, a girl in every port, me. I don’t really think I’m the settling down kind.”
Paddy wants to tell him that he’s the youngest one here. Ask him what the hell he even knows about himself, yet. But that would involve showing a level of interest in this conversation that he’s not really sure he wants to admit to.
Instead, he just says, “Aye, David intends to keep fucking his way around the world until his cock falls off.”
David salutes him with his glass. “Not much point asking you the same question, is there, Paddy?” he says.
It’s not said with any particular malice in the tone. If anything, it sounds fond. But Paddy still feels a very familiar lick of danger travel up his spine. “Why’s that,” he asks, flat.
David looks to Jock then shrugs and spreads his hands. “Well. You know.”
“In fact, I do not know,” Paddy says. And then, the devil taking hold of his tongue, he lies, “In fact there is a girl for me, back home.”
The corners of David’s lips turn up. “Paddy,” he says, condescendingly.
“No, no.” Jock pats David’s arm then Paddy’s. “No, I want to hear about his girl.”
He sounds sincere. Jock, apparently, has not noticed the vast expanse of Paddy’s homosexuality that David seems to think is so obvious.
Fuck. Well. In for a penny. “She’s not my girl,” he says, because that’s a lie too far, and unfair besides on the boy he has in his mind, when he tries to picture the girl who would tempt Paddy Mayne. “She’s a friend only, but fuck, what I wouldn’t give for it to be more.”
David leans back in his seat, watching. Jock leans forward. “Go on.”
“She’s too young for me. She’s barely nineteen and I’m friends with her brother, besides. He’d rightly beat my arse, if I went sniffing around her.” Ambrose McGonigal would shoot Paddy in the balls, if Paddy tried it on with any of his siblings. Because he knows Paddy and he knows Paddy would be no good for them.
“Mirren’s nineteen,” says Jock.
Paddy raises his eyebrows. “Hasn’t got a brother you’ve beaten half to death on the rugby fields before though, has she?”
Jock nods to concede that point.
“But this… girl,” says David, who is an arsehole. “Is she beautiful?”
“She is something straight out of Troy.” Paddy means Patroclus, but they can assume Helen, if that’s what they wish. “Tall and lithe, dark hair, dark eyes.”
David smiles. “Rhymes.”
“I am a poet,” Paddy says.
“Does she write to you?” Jock asks.
More often than Paddy had ever thought to expect, truth be told. “She does. I wish she wouldn’t, because it makes my heart ache. But all the same, I’m glad she does, because if she ever stopped, I think my heart would break.” He blinks, sets down his glass. That was a step of honesty beyond what he’s comfortable sharing. He clears his throat. “Anyway, she’s Catholic, so it’s good I have no hopes, or my mother and father would keel over dead.”
Jock blinks glassy, rum-blurred eyes at him. “That’s sad. David, isn’t that sad? Fetch the man another drink.”
“Thank you, no, I’ve had enough,” says Paddy, and leaves the table, stumbling up to his bed, where he keeps a dozen letters from Eoin McGonigal safe inside his pillowcase.
***
One day, Paddy will learn how to balance his need to say everything on his mind with the secrets inside that he must keep.
Today is probably not that day, and it certainly wasn't that day a year or so ago when he invented a tragic love story to hide his real one.
And now he is standing in a camp at Kabrit, while David Stirling looks Eoin McGonigal up and down and says, “You're very young.”
Eoin's smile turns fixed in that way it does when he's deciding whether to take offence. “I suppose so, sir. I'm coming up on twenty-one.”
Paddy thinks that five months away is a very generous definition of coming up on, but he keeps that to himself.
“So you'd have been nineteen, when Paddy and I first met.” David nods to himself. “And you have a brother who plays rugby, don't you?”
Eoin glances at Paddy. Paddy just rolls his eyes.
“Two,” says Eoin, sounding less and less certain that his new captain is right in the head.
“Fascinating,” says David. He looks at Paddy and smirks. “I have heard so much about you, Eoin McGonigal. It’s a pleasure to officially meet you.”
Paddy hates him. He really and truly hates him. How dare he remember that conversation in so much detail. How dare he know Paddy so well that it only takes one look at Eoin to see the key to all his secrets.
A breeze is whipping up, black clouds rolling in from nowhere the way they do in this desert.
“It’s a pleasure to officially meet you too, sir,” says Eoin. The reason he will go far and Paddy will not is that he seems to mean it.
“Go on with you,” Paddy tells him. “Find us the best tent. I’ve got some things to say to the Captain, here.”
Eoin’s hand twitches like it wants to salute, before he remembers they don’t do that here. “All right, I’ll see what I can do,” he says. He reaches out and squeezes Paddy’s arm, says, “Sir,” to David and ambles away.
“Whatever it is you're thinking,” Paddy tells David firmly, as soon as he's confident that Eoin is out of earshot, “that boy is innocent of my indiscretions.”
“I wasn’t thinking anything in particular,” says David, lies David. “He seems like a good friend.”
Paddy feels the first fat spots of rain splash his arm. As one, he and David take a few steps back until they’re under the shelter of the awning around the tents.
“There is nothing - ” Paddy hisses.
David holds up both hands. “Did you know he broke into my office to demand I rescue you from that awful prison? I mean it literally. The door was locked but by the time I arrived, he was sitting in my visitor’s chair, waiting for me.”
Paddy bites down on a smile. “Ah, yes, he does have some breaking and entering proclivities. But those are his only proclivities. He doesn’t… he’s not…”
Fuck but Paddy never talks about this, even though David has known from the start and he thinks Jock has caught on by now, if a very confusing conversation about different fuses suiting different bombs was anything to go by.
Paddy clears his throat, lifts his chin. “He’s normal.”
“Normal?” David chuckles. “Well that’s a shame in this regiment.” He looks over Paddy’s shoulder and something resigned crosses his face. “Fuck. Tell me, is he actually just as mad as you are?”
“Probably, yes,” Paddy says, even as he’s turning to find out what Eoin is doing to provoke that question.
He finds him standing out in the rain storm, head tipped back towards the sky. He’s soaked already, shirt turning transparent and curls unravelling flat and long on either side of his cap.
Paddy cups a hand around his mouth. “Hey, lad! What’re you doing?”
Eoin looks towards him, eyes lighting up. “Paddy Mayne!” he yells, as if it’s an unexpected treat to find that Paddy is exactly where he left him, not five minutes ago. “Come and stand in the rain with me.”
Paddy takes off his jacket and hands it to David.
“You’re not really going to... Oh, I see that you are,” says David.
Paddy jogs out into the rain, and across the handful of feet to where Eoin is standing. The rain is so strong that the first bite of it against his skin takes his breath away; it gets his blood pumping, makes him pant.
“Lovely weather,” he says, coming to stand in front of Eoin.
There’s rain water cascading down Eoin’s face, licking his cheekbones and bouncing against his lips in a way that makes Paddy inclined to feel jealous.
“Feels like home,” Eoin says, tipping his head back again. Now the long line of his throat is glistening, the bump of his adam’s apple and the skin exposed by the open V of his shirt.
“What’s your plan for being out here?” Paddy asks. “Or did you just want to make sure I was as wet as you?”
Eoin shrugs, grins at him. “I hadn’t thought that far.”
“Ah well, you’re an eejit,” Paddy tells him, fondly. He reaches up, takes hold of Eoin’s soaked tam o'shanter and drags it down his face.
Eoin splutters, shoves Paddy away with his right arm and grabs for Paddy’s own tam o’shanter with his left. He tries to shove it down the back of Paddy’s shirt, the wet wool against the back of Paddy’s neck unpleasant enough to make his fingers and toes curl.
Paddy kicks him behind the knees and they both go down into the wet sand.
Paddy pushes up onto his elbows immediately, expecting a counterstrike, but Eoin just rolls over onto his back and starfishes out, laughing up at the sky.
There’s muddy sand soaking into Paddy’s clothes, but he lets himself flop backwards too, never mind how much of it he’s going to have to shake out of his hair, later.
Turning his head, he watches Eoin laugh. If he looks past him, he can see a clump of their men watching them from the tents, probably coming to the conclusion that two of their new officers are insane. Unfortunately for them, they’ll soon find out that all of their new officers are insane.
“What’s Burma got on this, hey?” Paddy asks, ignoring them and the still-falling rain.
Eoin looks toward him, mouth already open with what will undoubtedly be a list of wry remarks. He must see on Paddy’s face that Paddy’s being serious, because he closes his mouth on his cleverness and smiles instead. “Nothing,” he says. “Not one thing.”
***
Turns out that before taking a shower in a rainstorm, Eoin did send someone to bag a good tent for him and Paddy. Which is lucky, because they’re disgusting right now. The rain has stopped and the sand is starting to set on their clothes and bodies like clay drying in a kiln.
“I blame you,” Paddy says, starting to shed his clothes as they walk into the tent.
“That's fair,” says Eoin with a nod. He kicks off his trousers, picking them up to make a face at them, before shrugging and putting them back down onto the ground, presumably to deal with later. His shirt goes next, which Paddy is usually permitted to watch happening, and then he starts to brush down his arms.
They’re very nice arms. He’s always been strong, but he’s muscled in brand new ways since he started his commando training.
Paddy looks away, focuses on divesting himself of the rest of his uniform. The worst part is all the sand in his hair, which falls out in little showers of grit, every time he moves.
“I’m washing my hair,” he declares, scooping up the jug that they’re probably supposed to use for morning ablutions and marching back out of the tent, towards the well.
This being the army, no one looks twice at a man in his undershorts and vest. Well, they do, they point and they stare, but Paddy’s pretty sure that’s more to do with the fact of himself than the state of his attire.
“Hope you brought enough for two,” says Eoin, when Paddy gets back. He’s standing in the middle of the tent now, fingers up in his curls and staring sadly down at a pile of sand surrounding his bare feet.
Paddy offers him the jug. “You want to go first?”
Eoin shakes his head. “You first.”
It would be weird to insist, so Paddy pours water into the little ceramic bowl on the stand that they’re supposed to pretend is a wash basin, and tries to scrub the worst of the sand out of his hair. It’s a gritty, thankless task, but by the time he stands up and shakes his head, he thinks he’s got the worst of it out.
He takes the bowl off the stand and tips the sandy water away outside, before refilling it for Eoin.
“Godspeed,” he says, looking at the state of Eoin’s hair.
Eoin groans then dunks his head. He stays down there a while and when he stands up, there’s no discernible difference, sand still clinging to the corkscrews of his curls.
Paddy tries not to laugh, he really does, but he fails miserably. “Come here,” he says. “Put your head back down.”
Eoin doesn’t argue, just does as he told, stooping so that Paddy can pour more water into his hair, try to finger comb it clean.
It’s intimate, but Eoin doesn’t react, so Paddy doesn’t let himself either, just loses himself in methodically taking Eoin’s hair section by section.
“What was Captain Stirling talking about?” Eoin asks, when Paddy is only half done, and so can’t run away. “About my brothers?”
Paddy draws in a long sigh. “He was just being clever, that’s all.”
“But about what?” Eoin presses. “Does he want more recruits? Because I specifically told Ambrose this was our thing and he wasn’t allowed to volunteer.”
Paddy hadn’t known that. It makes him feel warm inside.
“Nothing like that, you’re the only McGonigal this unit needs.” He rubs his fingertips in a circle, just once, against Eoin’s scalp, because he can and when will he get another chance? “I… A long time ago, when we were training, I told him about my friends back home, that’s all. He’s smug because he’s made the connection between them and you.”
Eoin half turns his head, blinking up at Paddy. “You told him about me?”
“Of course.” Paddy puts his hand on the back of Eoin’s head and makes him look down again. He clears his throat. “Ambrose too, of course. Probably something about your sisters and their terrible tastes in English husbands.”
“That’s nice, I like that.” Eoin sounds as if he’s smiling. “Not the husbands, they’re fine. I like that you talked about us.”
You, just you, Paddy wants to say. “Can’t be talking about my own family,” he says instead. “Then they’d think they know me.”
Eoin laughs. “Can’t be having that.”
“All right.” Paddy pats him on the shoulder. “I think you’re as free from sand as you’re going to get.” He finds a towel in his pack and hands it over.
“Thanks.” Eoin scrubs his hair down, emerging with it sticking up in all directions, a far cry from the careful way he always styles it. Paddy must be smirking a little too hard, because Eoin looks at him and sticks his tongue out. “Oh fuck off.”
He digs in his own pack, bringing out a jar of the Brylcreem he’s so obsessed with.
“It’s just that Stirling seemed sort of smug,” he says, sitting down on his bed.
“That’s his default expression,” Paddy says. He starts unpacking his own things, hoping that will be the end of the conversation.
“Mmhmm,” says Eoin, just that.
Paddy sighs. He sits down on his own bed, watching as Eoin starts to slick his hair back into place. One way or another, Eoin is going to find out what Paddy said and it is probably best if it comes from Paddy.
“I made up a lie. When Stirling and Lewes and I were training. I told them I had an inclination, a romantic inclination, towards a Catholic girl of my acquaintance. Stirling has deduced that she must be your sister.”
There. That’s not the truth, but it’s close to the truth. For a man like Paddy, sometimes that’s all that he can give.
“Oh.” Eoin is quiet for a moment. Then, “Is it Ina?”
Paddy stares at him. “The fuck?”
Eoin glances away, seems suddenly very focused on smoothing his curls into the exact correct position. “The other three are all married, so hopefully it’s Ina.”
“It’s not Ina,” Paddy snaps, then realises how that sounds. “Not that she’s not a fine girl, but she’s not… I just said I was making it up. And anyway, you know… you know why it’s not Ina. Don’t you?” He hates that the question comes out small, but he was sure that Eoin knew everything about him and didn’t care.
Eoin’s fingers slow then pause. He wipes his hands on his bare legs. “I know why it’s not. And I was never going to ask this, but I don't think you'll ever give me a better chance.” He looks Paddy straight in the eye, but his voice still shakes. “Is it, is it me? Or is it Ambrose?”
Paddy’s ears ring.
“Say that again?” he manages.
Eoin gives him an uneven smile. “I worried, I’ve always worried that it’s Ambrose you like, and you put up with me because I’m a poor imitation, bothering you with letters, following you around.”
“Ambrose?” Paddy asks, incensed. “Fucking Ambrose? Who would look at fucking Ambrose, when they could - ” He cuts himself off. He’s sure that somehow he has still misunderstood this conversation.
Now Eoin looks down. His cheeks are pink but he’s smiling. “In that case, will you get a drink with me, then? Next time we’re in Cairo?”
Paddy has no idea what’s happening. “Are you asking me on a date?”
He still expects Eoin to laugh at him. To say that of course he isn’t and Paddy is fucking mad to think he ever would be.
Instead, Eoin nods. “I am.”
“Oh.” Paddy nods too, still stunned. “Well. Okay then. Yes.”
“Yes?” asks Eoin. One of his dimples peeks out.
Ambrose is going to shoot him in the balls, but Paddy will risk it for love of that dimple. “Yes,” he says. “Don’t be an idiot. Of course my answer’s yes.”