smallhobbit

“Reaction to his time in Russia, I presume,” Malcolm replied.

Lucas helped himself to another doughnut from the bag by his elbow.  It was true he’d been hungry in jail, but that wasn’t the only reason.  As a child he’d been hungry, not as much as in Russia, but there’d often been times when he’d wanted more to eat.  He recalled reaching out for another biscuit and being told, “You don’t need any more,” or “You’ll spoil your tea.”  And even as a growing teenager the biggest portion was inevitably given to his father, because that had always been the rule.  It made sense for a manual labourer in Victorian England to need more food when his wages were supporting the family, but, for Lucas, this was no longer the case, since his father was not employed in a physical job.

No, it wasn’t just the physical need for food, but as a reaction to something else he was hungry for.  Eight years in Russian prison had seen him hungry to return home, but what had he come back to?  He continued working his way methodically through the reports on his screen, but at the same time part of his mind began to gnaw at the question.

Was he hungry for love?  Perhaps, but it wasn’t simply romantic love.  He wanted to belong, to not have people look at him with doubt, or downright distrust.  For a few years, in London, when he’d first started at Section D, he’d believed that to be the case.  He thought he’d escaped from a household where his mother lived by a set of rules which she imposed on him, regardless of his own thoughts and dreams; and where his father treated him as an incumbrance, tolerated simply as proof that Revd North was ‘a family man’. 

But now he was back to being the elephant in the room.  He reached out his trunk and took another doughnut.