Chapter 57: 'Big Deep Breaths, Please, ...

… Johnny Depp. I’m not here to hurt anyone,’ said Rollo, lowering the point of his knife towards the floor, keeping his eyes fixed on Johnny’s. The music had stopped next door. ‘How could I do anything? Look around, there’s only one of me.’

‘Assassins don’t care what happens afterwards.’

‘If I wanted that, Johnny, then I’ve had plenty of chances.’

‘None of us knows anything about you, mate,’ said Johnny. ‘Pardon us for being careful. Pardon us for trying to protect her.’ I was pushing through the others towards them, and Johnny said, ‘Get back Mary Sue. No risks.’

‘I trust him,’ I said. You will think that some piece of me must surely have been thinking, ‘Please, oh please, let me be right about what I saw in Rollo’s eyes. Let me not have been bamboozled by them, because trustworthy eyes are hardly something I can take to the bank, so how can they possibly be something I will risk the world on?’ You will think that, but you will be wrong. I walked to Rollo, took his knife, then his hand, and then I pulled him over to a seat in the corner of the bar. Everyone was staring but I didn’t react to that. If Rollo was here, I reasoned, where he would know what kind of reaction he would get, it must be important. ‘What is it?’

He smiled, and squeezed my hand. His palms were dry, ever so slightly rough and completely comforting. Rollo looked like an ex-public school rugby player, with shiny brown shoes, neat jeans and crisp-collared short poking out from a blue and white round-neck sweater. This is not something I would usually find appealing, but it made Rollo look – it’s hard to put this in a way that doesn’t seem like faint praise, but you have to remember what a nightmare these two weeks had been in terms of trust and upheaval, and how this meant that certain things were unusually important to me – it made him look reliable. And then he said, ‘I’m here to say goodbye, Mary Sue.’

‘But…’

‘I’m sorry it has to be like this.’

‘But you said you were going to protect me.’

‘I will do everything I can, but we both know what’s happening tomorrow, and…’

‘How do you know? We only planned it today. Who are you?’

‘I’m someone you can trust,’ he said.

‘So,’ I said. ‘You think I won’t be coming back?’

‘I’m sure you will.’

‘But…’

‘We don’t have to go on about this conversation. I am not, well, I do not normally talk about these things, but I love you Mary Sue. I have to say it, in case I never get the chance again. I want you to remember that whatever happens, or however you come to think of me in the future, if, well. Just if. We will see each other again before the end, but the circumstances will be difficult, and when that happens, you have to know that I have always loved you as well as I could, after my fashion, and everything I have done in all this has been because you are incredibly important to me. Does that make sense to you?’

‘Not much.’

‘No, I suppose it wouldn’t.’ The music had started again, but there was still a critical mass of people watching us intently. The mood of the room was changed. ‘When that moment comes, very soon, when you see me, you may have some choices to make. At that point, you must remember that I love you, and would do anything for you, and if I tell you to do something, you have to do it, even if it seems, well, whatever it seems might be the result. Do you think you will be able to do that?’

‘Yes,’ I said, and I knew I would, and I didn’t know why. Again, I know, I know, if I were reading this, alarm bells would be going off in my head. Don’t think I don’t realise it now. Don’t think I didn’t realise it then, on some very deep level. Rollo smiled at me, stood up, kissed me gently on the cheek, said goodbye and walked away without looking back. Sir Conn hurried over to replace him, Johnny Depp and Freddie Flintoff at his shoulder, and asked if I was alright, and what Rollo had said, and whether anyone needed to go after and detain him. Sir Conn was holding a gin and tonic. I took it from him, drained it and said, ‘He was saying goodbye, Sir Conn. Let’s go home. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day.’
***

Johnny Depp muttered something in the taxi home that came back to me later with particular vividness. He said, intending me to hear, I’m sure, ‘When that bastard broke in, and pulled the knife, where was David Tennant then? If he’s supposed to care about you so much?’