JOAN DAVIES COULD not recall when she had spent a happier Christmas. Not only had Lechaim been at home to celebrate it with her, but Carlos and Eva Rega, and their two children, were there as well. Their boys, Eduardo and Jose, who were eight and six years old respectively, had won Joan’s heart and so had their parents. The Regas lived up to everything Lechaim had previously said about them. Eva was a delight and obviously adored Lechaim. As Eva put it when they arrived on the doorstep, “Lechaim is our dearest friend! Don't you worry about us. We’ll all manage fine!” and they did despite the fact that the house was rather small. How pleasant their stay had been and she would certainly miss them when they left. The Regas somehow gave the house that lived in feel that she had missed since her husband had passed away and Lechaim's army career had taken him from her. Soon, she realized, the house would be empty again but she tried to put such thoughts to the back of her mind.
Eva, who had been standing at the window watching the two men walk away down to the seafront, turned and spoke in that pleasantly modulated voice of hers with a distinct accent that marked her as a foreigner.
“When does Lechaim have to be back in Ireland?”
Joan, who never ceased to be amazed at Carlos and Eva's fluent command of English, a second language to them, replied with a grimace on her face. “In two weeks!”
Eva thought for a moment, “It's very odd about his eyes! What do the doctors say?”
“Nothing much. I don't think his doctor in Ireland quite believed me when I mentioned that his eyes had changed colour. Thank goodness, you agree with me. I thought I was going mad there for a while!”
“Both Carlos and I noticed it at once. He had brown eyes before, from what I remember! They are so blue now!” She pondered the problem for some seconds and then spoke again. “I've never seen anyone with eyes quite that blue before. Still, they are such beautiful eyes. They seem to give him an entirely different look somehow. Don't you think?”
“Oh, I agree!” Joan conceded. “I tried to explain that to his doctor, but he would have none of it.” She gave a short low laugh. “Sometimes, when I'm speaking to him, it's almost as if there is someone else behind the eyes looking back! It's very strange.”
“Oh, it's Lechaim, all right!” Eva exclaimed. “He's still as wonderful as ever and the children love him.”
I love him too if the truth is known, Eva thought, but did not say, as she turned back to look out the window once again. She now loved three men, Carlos, her father, and Lechaim. It wasn’t a physical thing although Lechaim was the sort of man that would appeal to most women. No, it was more an affinity, a bond of friendship and mutual respect that had been born out of gratitude and had then evolved into a deep affection. Certainly, Lechaim was the big, strong, handsome, wonderful man that had saved her husband's life on Islas Malvinas years before, but to her and Carlos he was much more than that. She had met Lechaim for the first time at her wedding in Argentina and had got to know him in the years since. When Lechaim's mother had first phoned them in Manila three months ago with the news that Lechaim had been critically injured, both she and Carlos were crushed. It was only at Joan’s insistence that they had not immediately flown to Ireland to be at his bedside.
“There's nothing you can do. When's he out of danger, I'll let you know!” his mother had said. Then, when Lechaim was on the road to recovery, Carlos had fallen ill with some strain of tropical disease, which delayed their trip even further. In the end, though it had worked out quite well because they had all now been able to spend Christmas together.
Apart from the cold, which Eva found unremitting after the tropics, the holiday had been most enjoyable. Lechaim was well again, they had spent much of their time touring around southern England with Lechaim and his mother by car, and their friendship with their dear friend, and now his mother was even closer. Tomorrow, they would be returning to the Philippines and Saltdean and the English winter would be just a memory. The climate apart, Eva would be sorry to leave these halcyon days behind although their own home in the sun was a far from unpleasant place to return to. Joan's voice intruded on her thoughts.
“I expect you'll be glad to return home!”
Eva turned to face her again. “Oh no! I've loved it here! And it was so good to see Lechaim again!” Then she added, not wishing to offend, “and, of course, to meet you at long last!”
“We've loved having you here. I know that Lechaim has enjoyed your stay immensely. I haven't seen him this happy for a long time!”
Eva gave a low laugh. “I think that Carlos and I cannot take all the credit. He never seems to stop talking about this girl, Sinead!”
“Hmm! Sinead” Joan answered uncertainly. “I haven't met her myself. Apparently, she's the daughter of the man that helped Lechaim the night he was injured.”
“Really! The way Lechaim speaks of her, it sounds serious?”
“Lechaim's always been reluctant to tie himself down. He was engaged some three years ago but nothing came of it. But, this time, it might be different.”
“You think so?” Eva asked.
“Yes! I've never seen Lechaim this way before about a woman and he's only met her once!”
“Only once?”
“Yes, when he went to visit her family just before returning to England. Now she writes to him almost every day and you've heard them on the phone so you can judge for yourself.”
“I'm glad,” Eva said. “He's a wonderful man and he'll make a wonderful husband. Carlos and I would like to see him settle down.”
“Settle down!” Joan exclaimed. “That'll be the day when he settles down! Still, the Cronins sound like a nice family from what Lechaim has told me. She seems rather young though.”
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-one!”
“Well, I was younger when Carlos and I got married!”
“Really?” Joan said. “Well I guess it can work out if people love one another!”
Before Eva could respond, her two boys came bounding into the room.
“Look mummy, look!” Eduardo exclaimed excitedly holding up a plastic model aeroplane in one of his small hands.
“Mine! Mine!” Jose shouted trying to grab it off his brother.
Eva was angry. “Have you been into Uncle Lechaim's room again?” she demanded and the two boys looked sheepishly at one another. “He did! He did!” little Jose confessed pointing at Eduardo who was looking guiltily away.
“It's all right!” Joan responded. “It's just one of Lechaim's toys that he played with as a child. I keep them in a chest in his room.
Eva directed herself still at her sons. “I've told you a hundred times. Do not touch other people's things! Now, haven't I?”
Joan placed her hand on Eva's arm. “Don't worry. Lechaim has no further use for those sorts of things. I'm sure Lechaim wouldn't mind the boys helping themselves.”
The two rascals eyed each other gleefully. They had already seen the wonders that abounded inside the big wooden box.
“Well, if it's okay with Lechaim,” Eva said. Turning to the two culprits, she decreed, “You make certain you ask Uncle Lechaim nicely whether you can have two toys! No more, mind you!”
“Only two?” Eduardo questioned.
“Yes, I've told you before about being greedy, haven't I?”
Happy in their own mind, the two of them charged out of the room and back up the stairs to seize the most appealing toys they could find.
“Walk, don't run!” Eva shouted after them. Then turning to Joan, she protested, “They can be little devils at times!”
How lucky she was to have such a pair of devils, Joan thought. She remembered back to the time when her husband was alive and Lechaim was just a boy; the wonderful times they had then, the three of them content to exist in their small house by the sea. Joan knew only too well that the sands of time move quickly and nothing remains as it was. She could only hope that Eva and her family would be as happy as Ted and she were way back then. Somehow, she suspected that the Regas would be for their love was evident for all to see.
Some half-mile away, Lechaim and Carlos were ambling along the seafront. The promenade on which they were sauntering fronted steep cliffs that the pair had descended a short while before by way of a flight of concrete steps.
Winter storms constantly battered the chalk cliffs that skirted this stretch of coast but the sea only rolled angrily today, although it occasionally became petulant, making its presence felt by hammering against the sea wall. When this occurred, both men would laughingly run to avoid the fountain of spay that shot into the air.
They were wrapped up well against the biting wind. Carlos wore a pair of beige slacks, a dark green shirt, a brown pullover, a heavy overcoat of blue which clashed considerably with his other garments, a red scarf wound tightly around his neck and heavy-duty shoes. A cloth cap was pulled down over his head giving him a rather incongruous appearance.
“Carlos, my friend. What do you look like?” Lechaim said, grinning at him as they strolled along.
Carlos flashed a smile back. “I don't know about you but I'm bloody cold! At this particular moment, I don't care what I look like!”
For his part, Lechaim was not exactly a fashion statement either. Like Carlos, he was dressed for comfort, not show, having on an expensive brown sheepskin jacket, a pair of blue jeans, brown hiker boots and a red polar neck jumper.
The two men walked side by side with their hands thrust deep into their pockets, the smaller man walking with a pronounced limp.
Carlos, was not by any stretch of the imagination a good-looking man with his long nose, stout face, slightly protruding ears and swarthy complexion. His artificial leg, which was the cause of his limp, did nothing to enhance his physical attributes but he had the one commodity that was vital in humankind - a gentle heart. Since that night in the Falklands, he and Lechaim had formed a close friendship based on mutual respect and kinship of soul. Lechaim towered above his friend by nearly eight inches and was also five years younger. Good living had filled out Carlos' waistline and his dark curly hair was beginning to thin on top making him look older than his thirty-five years. None of this mattered to either man, however, as they soaked up each other's company.
The colours were so different here from those in the tropics, Carlos thought as he tried to keep up with his friend. In the Philippines, where he now lived and worked, colours took on a brilliant hue, but here in this grey place there always seemed to be a dull edge to everything, an imperceptible patina as it were. Mind you, it would help if the sun made an appearance now and again to brighten things up, he concluded. He was about to make a joke about the English weather when his companion spoke.
“Well! What do you think about those dreams I've been having and my mother's letter?”
Carlos was at a loss as to how to answer his friend.
“It all sounds very peculiar to me!” he finally replied. Carlos’ mind went back to their previous conversation the night before when Lechaim had first broached the subject. He had no reason to doubt Lechaim's sincerity, but the mystical implications were something else again. Both he and Eva were devout Catholics, so they had been conditioned to treat anything that was paranormal with both caution and trepidation.
“These dreams of yours! You say they're tied in somehow with your real mother and the dreams she use to have?”
“You read her letter! What do you make of it?”
“To be honest, I don't know what to make of it. You haven't had the dream since you returned to England?”
“No, not for some four weeks now!” In fact, Lechaim had not had the dream since the night he had spent at the Cronins’.
Carlos wanted to say something to reassure his friend but what? As he sought for the words to put his friend's mind at rest, Lechaim continued, “There's one other thing!”
“Oh! What's that?” Carlos inquired curiously.
“Until now I’ve had no memory of that night in the Malvinas when we were in that mine field.” He always called the Falklands 'the Malvinas' in deference to Carlos' nationality. “It was only when you arrived that I remembered, and I mean everything about that night!”
“Well, one thing’s for certain. I’ll never forget that night!” Carlos remarked.
Lechaim hesitated before he committed himself and then plunged in, “Someone else was out there!”
“Someone else?” Carlos was not certain whether he had heard him correctly. “Did you say someone else?”
“Yes, someone else!”
The men stopped and sat down on a wooden bench that had presented itself on the promenade. Carlos lit a cigarette and pulled deeply on it. Finally, he asked, “Who did you see out there?”
“You remember that it was quite misty that night?”
“Vaguely!” Carlos said.
“A short while before I found you, I saw someone ahead of me, fifty feet or so away, in the mist, and then he disappeared.
“What do you mean, disappeared?”
“Just that! One minute, he was there, the next he was gone!”
“A soldier, you mean?” Carlos inquired. “If he was one of ours, you probably scared the shit out of him! You're enough to scare anyone on a dark night, believe me!” Lechaim laughed as his friend went on, “Anyway, what's the big mystery? There must have been quite a few soldiers scattered around that hill?”
“Soldiers! Yes!” Lechaim remarked, “but he was no soldier!”
Carlos was now quite intrigued. “Who was he then?”
“As I said, it was misty so I couldn't be sure.”
“Sure of what?”
Lechaim paused and laughed self-consciously. “No, forget it! You will really think I'm crazy if I tell you what I think I saw!”
“No, tell me!” Carlos insisted impatiently, his curiosity really aroused now. “If you tell me, you saw someone out there, I’ll believe you. You know that!”
“Yes, but it's really a question of who I saw that you may find hard to believe!”
“Oh! And who did you see?” Carlos inquired.
“I think I saw the warrior I have been dreaming about!”
Carlos couldn’t control himself and he burst out laughing.
“Sorry! Sorry!” he spluttered. “ I shouldn't be laughing but I can't help it.” Carlos' mood was infectious and Lechaim at once saw the humour in it. He began to laugh himself more in relief than anything else.
“I know, I know!” Lechaim gasped when they were all laughed out. “It's the hole in the head! It gives me an excuse to rave now and again, right!”
Carlos then realized that Lechaim had not been pulling his leg. “You really think you saw the man in your dream, this so-called warrior?” Carlos said, searching his friend's face and finding only sincerity there.
“Frankly, my friend, I’m not sure of anything any more!”
Lechaim didn’t really have to think hard about the events of that night. His memory now of the incident was as clear as if it had just happened.
“One thing is for sure though! If he hadn’t been there, I would never have found you!”
“How so?”
“You see, he was standing there pointing! When I looked again, he was gone. I walked in the direction he indicated and there you were!”
“But you've always maintained that you followed my footprints that night.”
“Yes, I'm sorry about that but if I had told you the truth, would you have believed me?”
“Perhaps not!” Carlos agreed as he considered what Lechaim had told him. Then he had a thought, “Well, thank God you did find me! Otherwise, I wouldn't be around now and that's a fact.” Carlos contemplated this fact for a second or two and then exclaimed, “I wonder if it was my guardian angel?”
Lechaim looked at Carlos to see whether he was joking but this time it was Carlos who was deadly serious. Carlos did not believe in ancient warriors appearing at will, but angels were another thing. Being a Catholic, he could believe in those.
Carlos suddenly tapped himself on the head with his hand as an explanation presented itself. “But, don’t you get it?” he said. “It’s that head wound of yours! Didn’t that doctor in Ireland tell you that you might hallucinate? That’s what it is, a delusion”
Lechaim pondered Carlos’ words. Could it be that simple he wondered? Once again he recalled that night, the mist, the cold, the stark landscape and the warrior that had appeared and then disappeared in the mist. Could something that seemed so real just be a product of his imagination? Then again, why not?
“You're probably right!” Lechaim responded after deliberating for a while.
“Lechaim, my dear friend. Even your head's not hard enough to bounce pieces of metal off. Don't expect too much of yourself.”
“Carlos! You old so and so! I think you‘ve hit the nail on the head!” Lechaim exclaimed, giving his friend an affectionate slap on the back.
“Watch it, you big ox!” Carlos retorted shaping up to his friend in mock fashion. In reality, the smaller man would have stood no chance in a real contest, as he would have been the first to admit.
“We'd better get back!” Lechaim said as he looked at his watch. “No need to worry Eva with this, otherwise she'll think I've lost it!”
“Don't worry about her! She's quite convinced you never found it!” Carlos chuckled.
Lechaim gave him a friendly shove as they started back and said threateningly, “Watch it or you'll get nothing to eat!”
Carlos decided to change the subject altogether by making mention of the one topic that he knew his friend would find irresistible.
“Sinead! This girl you've met! Can you really be that sure after just one meeting?”
Lechaim stopped walking and his friend did likewise. Facing him, Lechaim said earnestly, “I can't believe it myself! Yet, I can't get her out of my mind! I go to bed thinking about her and I get up thinking about her! I'm constantly looking at my watch wondering what she's doing at that particular moment!” Lechaim saw understanding in Carlos' face. “It's not a sexual thing, you understand. Not like the others! No! With Sinead, it’s something else entirely!”
“Sound like you’re in love?!” Carlos said, the smile playing about his lips, as he looked up at his friend.
“Hmm! It does, doesn’t it,” Lechaim said, although it was more to himself than his companion that he acknowledged the fact.
Carlos knew exactly what Lechaim meant for he had felt that way about Eva years before and still did for that matter. At long last, it appeared that his friend had found love, and not before time Eva would remark later. They were always debating when Lechaim would settle down and get married and now, at long last, that day appeared to be dawning.
“Want a beer before we go back?” Lechaim asked suddenly as he started walking again.
“Sounds good to me!” Carlos responded as he tagged along beside him.
“Hey, that's snow falling!” Lechaim remarked as the two men made their way towards a pub in Saltdean.
“What a country! What a country!” Carlos exclaimed.
“Beats the bloody Malvinas though, hey?”
Carlos shivered as he remembered the biting cold of that winter campaign. “Just!” he answered. “Just!”
When they finally returned home that afternoon, the two of them went to Lechaim’s study. Rummaging through his desk drawers Lechaim found the photograph that had caused him so much consternation in Ireland. Before leaving the Cronin’s house after his overnight stay with them, he had asked Sinead if he could borrow it. Although she had been somewhat perplexed by his request, she knew that there had to be a good reason for him wanting the photograph, so she was happy enough to turn it over to him without pressing him too hard for an explanation.
Studying the print now, he laughed in sheer relief for he realised that Carlos had been right after all. His mind had been playing tricks on him because there were no superimposed numbers to be seen anywhere on it. He handed it to Carlos for confirmation.
From his conversation with Lechaim earlier that afternoon, Carlos knew that the priest in the photograph was Monsignor Michael Cronin, who had been snapped as he stood before St. Peters in Rome. The photograph was not a good one. The Monsignor’s face was out of focus although the face of his companion standing directly behind him was clear enough. Judging from the other man's garb, Carlos guessed that he was a bishop or cardinal.
“So, where are these numbers you were talking about?” Carlos asked as his eyes scoured the print for them.
Lechaim laughed once more as he replied. “Where indeed, my friend! Where indeed!”