Linksfield

3. Fight

It's funny in life how we'll do anything to not be ourselves. Even if we've come to appreciate our own personality and quirks, there's always that nagging feeling in the back of the mind that you've been doing it wrong all these years and that really perhaps nobody likes you in the way you thought they did. Wishing you were someone else on occasion was normal but wanting to become someone else was quite different.

If there was one person who clearly hated his own existence it was Clement Montgomery. We'd been back to the pub several times since that first evening and each time I could see him becoming more attached to 'Monty' and less attached to Clement. He said he felt free there, that nobody knew him or bothered him, but the more he ventured to that small inn on dark nights, the more I was convinced he was beginning to lose sight of who he was.

"Another trip to the pub tonight?" he said with a chirpier tone than usual as I dusted down his jacket. I turned away so he wouldn't see the disappointment on my face.

And speaking of faces. The master's face was now partly obscured by a beard that he'd recently decided to grow. It didn't suit him in my opinion, made him look older and scruffier but he wanted to keep up the charade, pretend he was 'Monty' and not Clement, act as though the beard somehow changed his personality.

"Well, the pub?" he repeated.

"I suppose so, Sir," I said, muttering.

"You don't want me to go?"

"It's not quite like that."

"Then what is it quite like, Boys?"

There he went, calling me Boys whenever I dared to disagree.

"Well, we've been there so often recently, that's all. And I mean, your sister is coming to stay for several weeks. Is it the best time?"

"You're infuriating, Boys." He shook me away from straightening his jacket. "I am well aware that old Rosie is staying with us but she'll be kept in the dark about my other life just as my mother is."

"So, we're still going?"

"We shall see. We'll settle Rosie and the children in first and then...well...do you wish to go to the pub tonight?"

I hesitated.

"You don't then?"

"It's not that exactly. I enjoy going, I always did on my day off but now..."

"Go on. What, you're now jolly well bored of it? Hate my disguise, wish I'd disappear?"

"To be honest, Sir, I don't get to be alone."

He seemed irritated then, huffed something and then slumped onto the bed. "You're embarrassed by me? I cramp your style as it were."

"No, I was more thinking that you're my master and it's hard to relax. I mean you're my work-life, Sir, and when I go to the pub, that's my other side, the non-Boys servant stuff. That's me, Jack."

"I never order you about. I'm trying to be one of the blokes. But if I ruin your good time then I am sorry." His tone did not sound apologetic rather childish and irritable but I think deep down I'd hurt his feelings. He was so sensitive.

I suppose he wasn't used to being spoken to in the way I was speaking to him and in some ways I had no right to question his decisions, I worked for him, he paid my salary, he'd kept me employed after he'd discovered my criminal past. Oh hell, he really did hold that over me whether he intended to or not.

I softened my tone then. "Let's settle your sister in and then go there in a few days. I think that would be the wisest course of action."

I'm not sure if I was imagining it but I saw a twinkle in his eyes and a then a smile formed on his lips. He smiled so infrequently that it was somehow a treat to see it.