“ There is an east wind coming, Watson, ” he’d told me that fateful evening, four years ago, exactly. With the ghost of our past behind us and the doom-laden skies of our future before us. We were standing upon a terrace together, in the August of 1914. We were 60 years of age and had seen more of life’s horror than cared to recount, and yet neither of us could predict in a million years what the next four would entail, not just for our own fractured nation but for the world at large.
“ It will be cold and bitter, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. ”
And so they did, and so we saw our country bleed. Our children orphaned, our women widowed. And yet, in spite of everything, England had carried on, and so had Holmes and I.
During those four years, I had provided my services as an army Doctor in France, while Holmes did intelligence work in London with his brother. It is with contrition that I admit it did not cost me much to part from my wife at the beginning, even knowing I might not see her for years. The goodbye I shared with Holmes proved much harder, but unfortunately there lay the crux of the matter, for Holmes and I had only just reconnected after a decade of silence, and there existed the possibility we might never see each other again.
“So you did come to see me off,” I had said with no small amount of irony, despite how much I cared for the man. The train station had been full of crying children and desolate lovers, as well as other fools rejoicing at the spectre of a great War.
“Of course,” he’d scowled. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
In all truth, the thought did cross my mind. But I could hardly be blamed after how little I’d heard from my friend in ten years, though admittedly the fault did not lay exclusively at his hands.
I looked away, not really wanting to answer that question, and just in time to see the figure of my wife disappearing into the crowd. The sight hurt but not for the reasons it should have. It reminded me of my inadequacies, my failures as a husband, my past mistakes, the time wasted…
When I looked back at him, Holmes’ gaze was turned in the same direction, though he seemed to be lost in his own introspections.
When he looked back at me, it struck me that the years had not mellowed that keen, penetrating gaze that betrayed the depth of the mind behind it.
“Watson. You must promise me something.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise and a pleasant ripple travelled down my spine at receiving instructions from him again.
“What is it, old fellow?”
“You must return.”
My face fell.
“Holmes… Of course I don’t intend to die on the battlefield. I’m going to serve as a Senior Medical Officer. But even then, I don’t… you and I both know this War is unlike any other war. I can’t make a promise to you like that with the experience I’ve had and the fact that England doesn’t even know what is up against.”
Holmes’ eyes did not let on.
“I don’t care. Promise me, Watson. You’ve never defaulted on a promise to me.”
Suddenly, I understood what he was doing, and why he needed it. Holmes’ mind was cynical at best, frightfully depressive at worst, and me going into the heart of the conflict was probably affecting him more than he let on. If our positions were reversed, I would be agonising with any news I received about the War, but he, with his rapid-fire mind, could see a thousand gruesome scenarios all at once by just a few lines on the papers.
If I promised him, his faith in my word would at least push him through the torment of uncertainty, irrational as such faith may be under the circ*mstances.
My heart went out to him. There was really only one thing I could say in response.
“I promise you.”
I am infinitely glad that even now, at my 65 years of age, I can safely say, he can always rely on my word.
-°-°-°-°-°-°-°-°-°-°-
“Isn’t it breathtaking, Watson?” Holmes said as we sat on top of a cliff overlooking the sea. Dusk had settled on the horizon, and it was indeed offering a view that would inspire the dourest of men. Reds and purples danced on the sky as the King Star continued its descent to slumber, but the only sight holding me enraptured was sitting next to me, light silver curls swaying in the breeze, grey eyes to match more at peace than I had seen them in years, if not the entire time I had known him.
Oh, how long I had been misinterpreting him.
It had been two days since I turned up at Holmes’ house in Sussex after the War. Shortly after my arrival in England, Jean and I had parted ways. She left for France with a handsome school teacher she had met during my absence and I had once again found myself adrift in the city of London after witnessing horrors beyond comprehension. It had not been complete abandonment on her part, she told me to just go where I wanted to be.
I did not announce myself this time. Holmes and I had seen each other once again at the station upon my return, but only briefly. He’d met with me at the transfer between trains, reminiscing of the old days where he’d surprise me at the most unexpected places. He’d thanked me for keeping my promise but declined to stay for my reunion with friends and family in London. I wanted to be angry. Some part of me was furious, but mostly I just felt what I had been feeling for more than a decade now: that I had done something horribly wrong.
After three days with Holmes at the Downs that feeling had been dissipating.
“Holmes… I fear I owe you an apology,” I said after a rather long silence, where only the sun’s golden crest remained upon the horizon.
He looked at me as if I’d never said anything more baffling in our whole lives, so I hastened to explain.
“When you moved here… when you decided one day that you’d had enough of the cases–I didn’t believe you. I was so sure you would come back, that you’d…come to your senses and realise this life wasn’t what you wanted. That it was only in London, at the centre of 7 million people, with their mysteries and misdeeds, that you thrived. Mostly, I realise now, I was disheartened by the fact that you didn’t need me anymore…”
It had been deeply embarrassing to admit it, especially to someone like Holmes, emotionally guarded as he’d always been, but he was listening to me attentively, and so I carried on. There were things that needed to be said. A friendship like ours didn’t just fizzle away by distance.
“It didn’t help that you left without a word, Holmes. Sure, there was your announcement at dinner with Mrs. Hudson but then you just…vanished.” I couldn’t look at him anymore, so I turned to the darkened sea once more. “When you finally invited me over, it seemed to me that the message was clear: You would let me know when you wished to see me, and I was to respect your privacy. I kept clinging onto the fantasy that the next time you would call for me, it would be to make a second triumphant return. Time kept marching forward and the years went on and it seems I was just stuck…”
I didn’t expect it, but it felt good to confess these thoughts, difficult as it was. Like the heaviness in my heart was finally wafting away. I was so old and tired, and I was with the person who’d had the most lasting meaning in my life out of all, finally telling him what had weighed on my shoulders for 14 years. It wasn’t out of anger or resentment that I did it, or at least that’s not how I saw it. It was, perhaps, the opening page I wanted to write for a new chapter in my life.
“Writing the stories helped, a little bit. Though Jean would say I was caught up in the past… I suppose she was right, and I suppose that eventually took a toll on our relationship. But I wanted to apologise for not believing you when you said you were done. For not honouring your retirement as I should have done.”
Everything was silent for a moment, the bleat of a sheep in the distance, the only sound breaking the stillness of the evening, when all of a sudden, he let out a strident laugh.
I turned to look at him, disconcerted.
“Oh, Watson!” He’d begun with no small sense of irony. “You have written 30 stories about me since my departure and you’re apologising for not honouring my retirement? You truly do remain the one fixed point— your generous and chivalrous ways do not change, my dear chap…” He chuckled to himself some more while I frowned at the waves, unsure of how true that statement was. When his laughter ebbed, his voice took on an unexpectedly wistful tone. “I am the one who hasn’t been entirely honest for too long. And I am sorry, old boy. You are right in being miffed by my disappearance. It was rather cowardly when I look back at it… And while it was true and I stand by my view that I had reached the zenith of my career, that wasn’t the whole reason I felt like I needed to leave London.”
My breath caught in my throat as I turned to look at him. So there was something else, something he had not been telling me for all these years. I sat there with eager ears waiting for him to elaborate, but as was usual with my friend, he could never just point blank tell me what was on his mind without adding flourish to his big reveal. I bore with it, as I’d often down, knowing, as I knew my own self, that I wouldn’t have to wait for long.
“It has gotten rather cold, hasn’t it? Come now old chap, two senior citizens like us can’t be having evening excursions in the open air for hours on end.”
We both helped each other up and walked arm in arm along the trail back to his home.
The conversation, as we made ourselves comfortable, turned to other matters. Not light-hearted, as seldom conversations could ever be during those times, but we discussed the armistice, the outlandish technological changes we had witnessed, Holmes’s neighbours, our health, until finally we were sitting face to face by a fireplace, and as we grinned at each other unprompted, I could tell we were both transported to the days of our youth, sitting in that exact same position, in a much-beloved living room forty miles away.
The air felt more charged all of a sudden, and a change in his features told me I was about to get the explanation I desired. Again, I waited patiently until he appeared to have found the right words.
“I have never been a conventional man, Watson.”
Such a statement was so ridiculously obvious that I only raised an eyebrow in acknowledgment and let him continue.
“You have often questioned me on my reluctance to take up a wife, on my preference for being alone, or my dispassion for beautiful women—”
“Holmes, that was several years ago, I hardly—”
“Let me finish. You have questioned me because you believed you had my best interest at heart. That a solitary life wouldn’t befit any man, that I was bound to need companionship…domesticity, and all the supposed perks that come with marriage. You believed that because it was what you wanted, for yourself.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, unsure of where he was going with this line of thought. He wasn’t looking at me any longer, instead choosing to stare at a fixed point on the carpet.
“You weren’t entirely wrong…” Was what he said finally, voice as gentle as the flicker of the fire in the hearth.
“Holmes…?”
“This is not an easy topic for me, Watson. Please bear with me. You were gallant enough to favour me with a confession of your own and I shall return the kindness. I left London not just because I felt my brain could no longer keep at a rhythm I found acceptable, but also because I couldn’t bear you witnessing that decline when the cases were all we had left together. I couldn’t stay at a house filled with our memories while you made a life for yourself somewhere else. I couldn’t bear the loneliness. I couldn’t bear your absence. And I, of course, wouldn’t indulge the need to… bring myself to stupor. So I left.”
The confession had left me dry. My hands felt cold and my heart was beating a mile a minute. I realised in that moment that my reaction to his confession had less to do with genuine surprise, and more with a confirmation of deep-buried fears that it had somehow been me who had driven Holmes away. That it was my fault.
“Please understand,” At this, Holmes leaned over, and his eyes glittered the same colour as the fire. “I am not blaming you. That’s the last thing I want to do. You were, of course, allowed to seek the kind of companionship you wanted. And I needed to find something else to occupy my time. The thing is, Watson, I could never want something different than the easy camaraderie we had in Baker Street. No matter how many ways it was presented to me. No matter how much you or others insisted on stirring me in that direction, that is not something I can offer.”
“Holmes… I’m really…”
“I am not finished. I am only telling you all this because you intend to ask me if you can stay, permanently, and from the way you have behaved the past two days, you seem to harbour the idea that I no longer want you in my life. I’m telling you, then: That can never be the case. Some years ago I acknowledged to you that there was more to life than solitary pursuits. My impression has not changed, although it has grown to encompass more than I had considered in the past. I have friendship, always close at hand, my trusty pipe, the sunsets in Sussex and my diligent bees–All I’m missing is my Watson.”
I couldn’t help it. My eyes swelled and the glass of Bordeaux I held trembled in my hands. So there it was: the truth behind the long silence, the reason for our profound misunderstanding. I saw Holmes more clearly than I ever had before, and through that clarity I glimpsed a truer understanding of myself. We had certainly endured an absurd amount of upheaval for me to finally realise that Holmes loved me, in his own special way, and that neither of us ever really needed to be alone.
I wanted to embrace him. I wanted to do something ridiculous like sink to my knees and thank him. I wanted to shout at him for keeping this to himself for more than a decade, and I wanted to shout at myself for my own inaction. I wanted to kiss him, I wanted to go gaze at the stars.
In the end I grinned at him, with all the love and relief I felt, and I raised my glass.
“Well, then,” I breathed. “To you, my dear Holmes, and to an true happy ending.”
