The Digger's Rest (10 page)

As Mitch watched him go with only one eye
open, he noticed that Simon’s limp seemed much more pronounced and
realized that it was the first time he’d ever seen him walk without
his brace. Simon returned a moment later holding a glass of water
in one hand and the pills in the other.

Mitch sat up, groaning with the effort at
first, then even louder as whatever was left of the blood rushed
from his head. He took the glass and the pills. Only slightly more
alert from sitting upright, he noticed that Simon wasn’t wearing
any shoes or socks and took the opportunity to observe Simon’s feet
to try and get a better take on what kind of problem he was dealing
with.

At first glance they looked perfectly normal,
well formed and tended. Then as his eyes cleared, he noticed that
Simon’s right foot was slightly turned inward, and when taken in
view with the left, he saw that the left foot was flat on the floor
while the right was arched giving the impression that he was almost
standing on his toes. It was hardly noticeable when he stood still,
but when he walked Mitch realized that the turn in his ankle and
the shortness of his leg, which could have been as much as an inch,
must have made him the butt of cruel jokes from the time he was old
enough to understand that he was different from other children.
“Did you take yours yet?” Mitch asked.

“
No, sir, I was waiting for you,” Simon
answered.

“
Here, take these then,” Mitch said to
him and sat up on the edge of the bed, handing the pills and glass
back. “I’ll get more. I have to take a leak anyway.” But the truth
of the matter was that he didn’t think he could bear to watch the
kid struggle to walk back to the bathroom. “Go ahead, sit down and
take ‘em. Then just lie down right there and cover up your head for
a while. I’m gonna take a shower and order up some breakfast from
room service.” Simon did as he was told, taking the pills and lying
down. He even covered up his head.

“
So ya feel like a traditional English
breakfast there, Simon? Grilled kidneys to go with your eggs maybe,
or how about some smoked herring?” Mitch asked, deciding to
mischievously give the kid’s first hangover a real
welcome.

Simon groaned with disgust from under the
blanket, “Blaaaahhhh.”

Mitch laughed out loud, realizing in that
instant that he’d outsmarted himself when his head began ringing
like the bells of Notre Dame from his own hangover.

When Mitch came back out of the shower,
he could hear Simon snoring from across the room.
Good,
he thought to himself. Jet lag
and a hangover were a bit much for the kid on his first day.
Let him sleep it off for a while
, and
he sat down at the desk by the window, called downstairs for coffee
to be sent up, then breakfast an hour later as he worked on his
laptop to get a start on some background research for the project,
maps, timelines.

Just after he’d taken in the breakfast cart
and sat back down at his computer, he heard a voice come from
behind him. “I’m sorry about last night, Dr. Bramson. Please don’t
be angry with me.” It was Simon standing behind him. Mitch turned
to face him and noticed the two little gold earrings for the first
time. It set him back a stretch, but he recovered quickly. “Why
would I be angry at you?”

“
I guess I got a little out of hand
last night, and…I’m sorry,” Simon said, looking down,
ashamed.

“
Stop! There’s nothing to be sorry
about, and since when have I ever been angry with you? We got drunk
and had a great time. At least now you know what I go through every
morning after I’ve been out the night before. You play, you pay,”
Mitch said and smiled. “Now go and get showered up. We have a big
day ahead of us. They’ll be expecting us at the British Museum
soon. We can do whatever we like after that, maybe take in a show
and then go out for more drinks afterwards.” Simon’s normally pale
complexion turned green with the thought as he headed back to his
room. Mitch couldn’t help but turn to watch him go. Seeing him
struggle to touch the floor with his right foot as he went made his
conscience nag at him,
Do something! Say
something!

“
Oh, and by the way. Once your ears
have healed we’ll getcha some really nice ear cuffs. How about
something in Renaissance gold, or maybe Egyptian if you like?” was
the best he could come up with on such short notice. Simon stopped
in his tracks and touched his left ear. Mitch could see the color
come through his straggly curls, blushing again, because whenever
Simon blushed, his ears blushed along with him, turning bright pink
right to the tips as he closed his door behind him.

***

When Simon was finally alone and had
come to terms with the fact that Dr. Bramson wasn’t going to be
offended or angry with him for saying those things or getting
earrings like his, he broke out into a cold sweat over what was
still ahead. It was all so new to him—life, living. He only really
knew life from books, not from actually experiencing it. He didn’t
know what to do or how to behave. Now Dr. Bramson wanted to take
him to the theater in London’s famous West End. What would they
see? How should he act?…and what should he wear? He had no idea and
he just wouldn’t be able to stand it if he did something wrong and
embarrassed Dr. Bramson. What to do? What to do? Then he got an
idea. He remembered what Madame Duvalier had called him when they
first arrived,
ma jeune Monsieur Yeux Bleu,
my young Mr. Blue Eyes
. That meant she liked him,
didn’t it? Maybe she would help him if he asked her nicely and
politely. He sat down at his desk, took out some paper and a pen
and wrote,

Dear Madame Duvalier, It’s Simon Holly. Dr.
Bramson wants to take me to the theater tonight, but I’ve never
been to the theater before so I don’t know what to wear. He’s much
too kind to ever say anything and I don’t want to embarrass him.
You are so worldly and I don’t know who else to ask. Can you help
me? Very truly yours, Simon Holly.”

Then he folded the letter neatly, tucked into
a hotel envelope, addressed it simply, For Madame Duvalier, and
left it discretely on the counter in front of Robert at the
Concierge Desk before they left for the day.

The British Museum had been old stomping
grounds for Mitch, just as it had been for Jack before him. Now it
was Simon’s turn, and Mitch was going to make sure he had his
chance. While he visited with old colleagues and did his archives
research into the area around Exeter, he got his old friend, Mike
Therax, to assign a tour guide to give Simon a private tour of the
Museum.

Simon was more like Jack in that sense. He
seemed to tend toward the more ancient civilizations where Mitch
always found his meat and potatoes to be 500 A.D. to 1500 A.D.,
specializing, of course in the five centuries surrounding the
millennium mark and the 10th century in particular. The British
Museum with its worldwide reputation for having the finest ancient
art collection in the world, including the Rosetta Stone and the
Elgin Marbles, would keep Simon agog for hours, and the fact that
they were just in time for the opening of a very rare Ancient
Assyrian collection, with their winged lions adorning highly
sophisticated bas reliefs depicting their god structure and
mythology, battles and victories, would without a doubt make
Simon’s decade.

When Mitch went to retrieve him late in
the afternoon, Simon was so excited he just rattled on, “Dr.
Bramson, did you know? Did you see? Can you believe it? I actually
saw the Rosetta Stone!” while thinking to himself,
Me, Simon Holly. Limping, lame Simon Holly from
Holy Family’s Grand Street Foster Home was actually in the same
room with the Rosetta Stone. I could just die! Thank you, Dr.
Bramson, for so much.
But he had yet another surprise
coming.

By the time they got back to the hotel, Simon
was still so excited by the eye-popping, jaw-dropping display of
ancient art he’d seen, he forgot all his anxiety about going out in
public, to the theater. Just as he approached his door, it hit him
in the face like an iron skillet. He wasn’t ready. He had no idea
of what to do or what to wear, and less than an hour before dinner
to figure it out.

He broke out in a cold sweat again as
he closed the door behind him thinking,
I
can’t go. I’ll tell him I’m sick.
Then he saw the suit
bag on the bed, walked over slowly, not knowing what to expect, and
saw a note attached to it.

“
My young Mr. Blue Eyes. I got these
from my

grandson. He’s just about your size.

M. D.”

Simon unzipped the bag to find a sky
blue cashmere V-neck sweater and a navy blue tweed sport coat with
navy suede patches on the elbows and a navy shooting patch on the
left shoulder.
Wow!
Simon
thought as he took them out of the bag, but he had to hurry if he
was going to be ready in time and he still had to
shower.

Just as he was drying off, he heard a light
tapping. He threw on his bathrobe and limped to the door. When he
opened it, Madame Duvalier was standing there with a small, brown
leather bag in her hand. “Viet!” she said smiling, her eyes
shining. “Assiez vous!” she said as she swept into the room,
pointing to the chair which he took to mean he should sit down
there, so he did.

She opened her bag and took out two brushes,
three combs, a spray can and a large white tube. Simon was too
stunned to speak as she went to work, combing his hair through, at
first with the big comb, then again with the smaller one. Before he
knew it, she had her hand full of whatever was in the large white
tube and was running her fingers through his hair, pulling at it to
straighten out his curls.

Next she took the smallest of the combs and
drew it through his hair from front to back, slicking it back so it
stayed away from his forehead and face. Once she was pleased that
the curls were gone and his hair would stay where she put it, she
grabbed the spray can, and shielding his face with her left hand,
sprayed his whole head from top to bottom and side to side with the
can in her right. When she finally stopped, she said with a flip of
her hand, “Voila!” and pointed for him to look in the mirror.

He hardly recognized himself. The curls he’d
worn all his life that always made him look boyish and immature
were gone, and now he looked…grown up, like a man…and not a bad
looking man at that.

Before he’d even had the chance to absorb the
change in his hair, Madame Duvalier was at it again. “Get dressed,”
she said, “I want to see how it all looks.” He obeyed her command
without hesitation, taking the clothes into the bathroom along with
a new pair of unwashed blue jeans he’d gotten just before they
left.

When he came out, Madame Duvalier looked at
him discerningly and clapped her hands, “Oui, yes. Very handsome.
Perfect, your eyes have never looked more blue,” she said, looking
sincerely into his eyes and nodding her approval. “You are now
ready for your public, ma jeune Monsieur Yeux Bleu…and no one will
be embarrassed,” she said waving her finger back and forth, “You
trust your Madame. You go and have a good time…and keep the
clothes. My grandson does not have such eyes as yours. They don’t
look so good on him. I will get him others,” she said with another
flip of her hand, kissing him on both cheeks and handing him a
small tin can.

“
And don’t forget to put a shine on
your shoes before you go,” she said smiling with satisfaction as
she rushed out the door.

A few minutes later there was a knock on a
second door, the adjoining door, and a voice calling through it,
“Hey are you ready in there? We still have to see what kind of
tickets we can get and grab a bite before the show.” Simon was very
ready as he opened the door, anxious to know what Mitch thought of
his new nighttime look. When he saw the expression on Mitch’s face,
he knew it would be alright.

“
Wow!” Mitch said, looking Simon up and
down and nodding, then jokingly, “Is my Simon in there
somewhere?”

He loved it when Dr. Bramson called him my
Simon, and as was his nature Simon blushed, replying shyly, “Yes,
he’s still in here… somewhere.”

“
Simon, your hair looks great,” Mitch
said, nodding his approval again, the similarity to his own slicked
hair combined with the earrings not passing his notice.

“
Thanks, I wasn’t sure what to wear.
I’ve never been to the theater before,” Simon said, thinking to
himself,
Thank you so much,
Madame.

“
Well, come on, we gotta get
going.”

When they got downstairs, Mitch went out and
hailed a cab telling the driver to take them to Leicester Square.
He pulled out the theater section of the London Times. “So what
would you like to see?” Mitch asked and started to rattle off the
names of the shows playing, “Phantom of the Opera? Guys and Dolls?”
He’d already decided that, in the absence of something classical,
Simon’s first theater experience should be a big, splashy musical.
“Blood Brothers? Les Miserables?”

“
That one…please!” Simon blurted
out.

“
What one?”

“
The last one, Les Miz. It seems
everyone’s seen it but me. Can we see that one?”

Mitch had already seen it twice, but since it
was the first time Simon had expressed an interest in anything
outside of school and work, he decided to try and make a go of
it.

“
Sure, I think we can arrange that,” he
said as the cabbie pulled up to the curb outside of the alley where
all the ticket booths were lined up. “Stay here and hold the
cab.”