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.But Pasha’s smiles each time he tripped—shy and slow to spread instead of quick and cocky—set off completely different sirens.Had Pasha really meant what he’d said?Or was this just another strategy?The last time Ed had gotten badly fooled by someone, he’d been a finger-squeeze away from firing his SA80.But fighting was the last thing on his mind whenever Pasha sneaked another glance over his shoulder and smiled like he couldn’t help it.Surely that wasn’t acting?The farther they walked along meandering paths flanked by herbaceous borders, the more he wished his mum had stayed in her studio a little longer.He’d push Pasha off the path and do a completely different kind of stop and search right now if she had.Push him until the sun-warmed redbrick wall bordering this section pressed into his back.Shove into him and pin him there, where spires of blue delphinium and stands of red-hot pokers bloomed during high summer, so he could search Pasha’s mouth with his tongue until he sought out the truth.His response to a kiss without any cameras running would be very telling.While Ed trailed behind his mother, and Pasha touched each plant he passed as if the texture of their leaves was a lure beyond resisting, Ed stifled that urge.Watching would have to do for now.If the studio cameras had been here, they wouldn’t have focused on the way Pasha paid attention to everything Ed’s mum said, bending so he could smell sheltered late blooms she cupped in the bowl of her palms.Ed saw the careful curve of Pasha’s hands around hers, and the way his lashes lay so dark against his cheek when she urged him to smell them.He was gentle with her and compliant, drawing in a deeper breath at her request that made him sneeze three times in quick succession.No way would they show him apologizing for the petals he’d scattered or being so quietly content to gather them from the pathway for her.No way.Conflict was what management wanted.Conflict until they both left.The separation they’d tried to enforce was just another means to make it happen.Ed pulled out the handheld camera and used it to capture sunlight dappling the two people he watched over.The production team wouldn’t see the same thing he did when Pasha asked his mum constant questions or actively listened as she answered.They would only ever choose to show the joker who laughed at other’s stumbles rather than this version of the same man, who had traveled all the way across the country just to check that Ed was okay.Management had packaged both of them from the first day.The clown versus the serious soldier.The true Brit against the half-Afghani.No wonder they’d wanted both of them gone.Backtracking from the way they’d been portrayed would take some fancy footwork.No way would they allow the kind of evidence Ed recorded right now, domestic and deeply personal, to be seen by the public.Ed stowed the camera away.Acting or not, he’d be fucked if he’d surrender this part of Pasha to management without a fight.They’d destroy it rather than share it with the public.“So this land is all yours?” Pasha stood at the top of a short flight of stone steps leading to another level of the walled garden.A lifetime of artwork made by Ed’s parents interspersed terraces falling gently seaward.“Yes,” his mum acknowledged.“Well, it was my husband’s first.He grew up here.”Ed nodded when Pasha caught his eye, giving permission for the questions he guessed would follow.“Your husband?”Ed’s mum led Pasha by the hand to an alcove housing a life-size sculpture.A young woman wore a garland of wild flowers in her hair that looked so real, he lifted a hand to touch their petals.“This was me when we met.My husband was a lot older—my tutor during my final year at art college.Can you imagine the gossip? They said it wouldn’t last—that he’d regret having to stop teaching because of me, or that I’d get bored stuck here so far from London.” The look she shared with Pasha was the same sea shade as her son’s.“Don’t ever listen to stupid people, Pasha.And don’t think that some rules aren’t made to be broken.We made art together for years.We started to rebuild where these old garden walls had started to crumble, and we were very happy, right up until….” She absently patted Pasha’s back as if he needed comfort.“I’ve been his widow for longer than I was his wife, but I’ve never regretted doing what people said I shouldn’t.We made this [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]