The Firebird

‘I’ll make a note of that.’

We passed a stall hung thickly with assorted cuddly toys including two huge purple unicorns, and looking up I thought of Anna’s father’s grave and of the dancing unicorns that graced his stone memorial within the convent’s church. The showman in the stall, misunderstanding my interest, called a challenge out to Rob that needed no translation.

Pausing, hands in pockets, Rob looked down at me and grinned. ‘Are you wishing for one of the unicorns, then? Shall I win you one?’

It wasn’t a ball-in-the-bucket or hoopla game, but a full-sized shooting gallery with tethered air rifles set in a row, watched by large mural paintings of James Bond and Wild West gunslingers.

Doubtful, I asked, ‘Could you win me one?’

‘Aye, I’m a decent shot.’

Of course, he would be, I thought, given his profession. Policemen might not go around shooting their guns all the time, but they had to be trained how to use them.

He handed his coins to the showman and shouldered a rifle and started to pick off the targets.

‘You’re showing off,’ I said.

‘I might be. Why?’ he asked me, sighting down the barrel of the gun. ‘Are ye concerned?’

He said it lightly, but I knew then that this wasn’t about winning me a prize, because my brother did the same thing, sometimes, when he felt the need to prove himself. He went all manly and competitive.

I must have stung Rob’s pride, I thought, implying that the day had taken more from him than he could handle, so in penance I stood by and let him demonstrate how wrong I’d been. He did it so decisively that in the end the showman finally stopped him, made a gesture of defeat, and with a long pole hooked one giant purple unicorn down from the ceiling.

Rob handed it on to me, looking decidedly pleased with himself. ‘There you go, that’ll mind ye of Scotland.’

It would remind me of much more than that, I knew. ‘Thanks,’ I told him. ‘But what on earth am I supposed to do with it?’

‘Anything you want to. That’s the point,’ he said, ‘of having one.’

It proved, if nothing else, to be a brilliant conversation starter. On our way back down towards Sint Jacobsstraat we met half a dozen strangers who felt moved to stop and chat and comment on my unicorn, and it drew a lot of interest from the knot of men who’d spilt out from the Old Bill Pub across from our hotel, to stand and drink their pints there on the pavement near a little chalkboard sign that read: ‘Live Football’.

Rob got talking with them, friendly as he was, and learnt they’d come from Belfast just this morning, and done duty as the honour guard this evening at the last post ceremony at the Menin Gate. And so of course he bought them all another round, but when they tried to urge him to stay longer, have a drink with them, he shook his head and told them thanks, but no.

‘You’ve better things to do, eh?’ one man joked as we were leaving.

‘Aye.’ Rob smiled in reply, but there was nothing in his tone or face to match their own suggestive laughter as we started off again along the pavement, and he didn’t sling his arm around my shoulders as he’d done when we were dating. Both his hands stayed in his pockets as he matched his steps to mine. It was like walking with my brother.

The hotel’s front façade was a bright blaze of light, the glass doors sliding open as we neared them, but instead of heading through them Rob walked on and led me further down to where the car sat parked along the quiet square of green before the looming shadow of the church.

The street was darker here, although the sulphur-yellow street lamps fixed along the gabled rooflines of the huddled houses made the rain-washed cobbles glitter gold in places.

Rob said, ‘Let’s put your wee friend, there, in the boot.’

He travelled well prepared. I watched him shift a first-aid kit, a toolbox and a duffle bag to make room for my unicorn, and then from underneath a folded tarp he took a heavy woollen tartan blanket. And another.

‘What are those for?’

‘Well, it’s like I said.’ He slammed the boot securely closed and locked it, turning back to me, his eyebrow lifting. ‘I have better things to do.’

The covered passageway of brick beneath the houses where we’d stood that afternoon was now closed up, great wooden garage doors securely locked against intruders, but there still remained the sheltered spot beneath the trees where we’d sat first this morning. The narrow street here, with the banks and trees all down the one side and the few dark shuttered houses on the other, was so quiet I could hear the murmur of the moat that ran unseen behind us.

As Rob spread one of the blankets down I said, ‘You’re mad. We’ll freeze to death out here.’

We wouldn’t, I knew. It was only that sitting with Rob in the daylight was different to sitting with him in the dark.

‘Have ye no faith at all?’ He was waiting for me to sit down, so I did, with reluctance. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘we’ll be off back to London, and Anna’s still well stuck in Ypres.’

‘She could be here awhile,’ I said.

‘Aye, so she could.’ He sat too, close beside me but giving me space. ‘But we won’t be.’ The heavy warm weight of the second wool blanket shut out the night’s chill as Rob tucked it around me. ‘We’ve only the one night left.’ Holding his hand out, he looked at me. ‘Let’s make it count.’