‘So what are you saying?’
‘I’m saying you can tell me things, if you want . . . the way you used to. I want us to be friends again.’ She lifts her hand to my cheek and brushes her fingertips over the scars on my cheek, brows drawing together.
I turn toward her. ‘Just friends?’
‘Are you offering more?’
My shoulders rise and fall. ‘I’m an emotional car wreck. You don’t need that in your life just now, and neither does this wee one.’ I place my hand on her belly.
She takes my hand and brings it to her lips, kisses it. ‘You won’t always be.’
An unexpected laugh escapes me. ‘Aye. I’m glad you have faith.’
Paula’s chin tips upward, her jaw set stubbornly. ‘I do. Absolutely. I know you, and I know you’re tough as old boots. Are you listening to me?’
‘I am, Paula, it’s just . . .’
‘It’s just what?’
‘Forget it. Aye . . . you’re right. Meantime, can we be friends again? I’d like that.’
‘Me too.’
She stiffens and glances over her shoulder at some sound that I’ve missed. ‘Crap.’
‘What is it?’
‘That’s Janet back.’
‘I’m a big boy, I’m allowed girls over.’
Paula moves away from me, runs her fingers through her hair and straightens her top as well as she can over her bump. ‘I should maybe go. She’ll get the wrong idea.’
I want to tell her to stay and that it doesn’t matter, but I can see she doesn’t want to have to make strained conversation with my sister. So I head for the kitchen and find Janet brewing tea for herself and washing the cups we’ve left in the sink.
‘Hey.’
Janet turns, reaching for the tea towel to dry her hands, obviously struggling to suppress her instinctive reaction. ‘Hey. Oh . . . hiya, Paula. You’re fair comin’ on now, eh? How long now?’
Paula’s cheeks are a brilliant shade of scarlet. ‘Two weeks, give or take.’
‘Keeping well?’
‘Aye, grand.’
‘How’s yer ma?’
‘Same as ever.’ There’s a terse, silent moment as my sister stands there, glancing between the two of us as if trying to find an explanation for what we might have been doing in her absence.
I clear my throat and back out of the kitchen.
‘See you later, Janet, eh?’ Paula says.
‘Oh . . . aye . . . okay then. Cheerio, hen.’
‘I’ll see you soon,’ Paula says, squeezing past me in the cramped corridor and moving toward the front door. She grabs my hand. ‘I’ll call you.’
‘Have you got someone to go in with you when the baby comes?’ I blurt, before I have a chance to change my mind.
She turns, her back against the door. ‘My pal Claire wants to come, but . . .’ her voice trails off, and she stares at her feet for a moment, ‘I’ll call you.’
I swallow disappointment. ‘You’d better.’
She raises her chin. ‘I will.’
I lean in and kiss her cheek. ‘Okay.’
‘Okay.’ She nods, then opens the door and steps out into the night. ‘Bye.’
‘Bye.’ I watch her go, leaning in the doorway until she turns the corner and disappears.
‘So . . . what’s going on?’ Janet asks from behind me.
I hear her clearly, but to buy time I reply with my usual, ‘Sorry, what?’
‘Are you two . . .’
‘Are we . . . what?’
She cocks her head and lifts an eyebrow.
I mimic the expression. ‘I don’t know what this means.’
‘Sean.’ An exasperated snarl.
‘I’m knackered. Away to my bed.’ I about face sharply and march up the stairs, run a brush over my teeth, then strip and flop onto the bed. Paula’s smell is still in my nose, and I lie there in the colourless little room, breathing it in. For the first time in longer than I can remember, I allow my thoughts to venture, cautiously as a foot patrol through the poppy fields, to a future beyond the next twenty-four hours.
XI
Billy doesn’t turn up for work the next day, so I’m in the van on my own. Harry has been on the phone three times flapping about health and safety and insisting that we postpone deliveries, but I’m buggered if we’re going to lose a day’s business because that mucky little twat can’t be bothered getting out of his pit. Promising not to sue if I put my back out, I carry on humphing dining tables and beds as well as I can alone.
My fourth delivery of the day is a beast of a wardrobe, but thankfully the boy who meets me at the door is of equally monumental proportions: taller than me and built like the proverbial brick shitter. He easily hoists the front end and helps me manoeuvre the thing up the stairs to a grim, greasy-smelling flat above the bookies in the High Street.
‘I ken you,’ he says, straightening up after we place the wardrobe into the desired position against his bedroom wall. ‘Sean McNicol, I mind you fae the rugby club.’
Being recognised always makes me cringe; mostly people remember me for the wrong reasons. Sean McNicol, I mind you. You were the yin who never had a jaicket in the winter. But he holds out his hand. ‘Jack Wilson.’
‘Oh aye,’ I say slowly, shaking his hand, casting back to a dim memory of a chubby ginger-headed kid who ran in tries by the dozen through sheer, unwieldy bulk. He’s almost completely bald now but the face is the same. ‘How you doing?’
He shrugs. ‘Ach, ye know. Me and the wife just split up, so . . .’ he waves his hand around the cold, boxy bedroom. ‘I’m a joiner and there’s no much work goin’ either. So I’m skint and pissed off, but hangin’ in. A few wee jobs here and there, plenty of time for training.’ He steps across the dark hallway into a kitchen with a sticky vinyl floor, nodding for me to follow. He opens the fridge door, revealing bottles of lager, a dried up lump of orange cheese, a packet of corned beef and a carton of milk. He pulls out a Stella. ‘Fancy a beer, man?’
‘Nah, thanks.’
‘A cuppa then. Tea?’ He laughs nervously. ‘Kindae early for drinkin, I guess.’
I glance at my watch – it’s just coming up for lunchtime – then back at him. He’s sucking on his bottle like a kid goat at its mother’s teat. ‘A quick brew, if you’re offering.’
‘Nae bother,’ he replies, grinning as though it’s the best news he’s had in days. He switches on the kettle and whacks a teabag enthusiastically into a stained white mug. ‘You play any rugby lately?’
‘Nah. You?’
‘Aye, I’m still at the club, in the second team, like. Cannae get a game for the firsts anymair, it’s all younger lads now.’ He pauses to make the tea, sliding the mug and the milk across the bunker toward me. ‘I heard you got hurt out in Helmand. All the guys at the club were talking about it.’
‘You mean they actually remember me down there?’
‘Aye, they do. Jesus, man, they were talking about a fundraiser for the local hero and all sorts. Charity run or something.’
‘Christ, dinnae start all that bullshit. I’ve been out more than a year now. I’m working and I’m fine.’
‘What’s it like being back, then? I think I’d prefer fucking Afghanistan, like. At least the sun shines.’
‘Ha,’ I manage, mostly to fend off any potential commentary from Mitch. ‘It was a bit of a shock to the system for a while, right enough, but I’m getting used to it.’ I gulp my tea to avoid having to say more.
Jack’s eyes crawl over my face like little blue ants. ‘Fancy coming along to the club? We’re toiling for numbers, especially big rangy runners like you. Training tonight, seven o’clock.’
‘Ach, I don’t know.’
‘Go on, you know you want to. The lads would love to have you back.’
‘I’ll think about it.’ I knock back the rest of the tea and leave the mug in the basin. ‘Better make tracks. Ta for the brew, I needed that.’ I head for the door and he follows me.
‘Good tae see ye, Sean. Get yersel’ doon the night.’
‘Maybe. I’ll see. I’ve got a lot going on just now.’
‘I ken,’ Jack says, and there’s something like dejection in his voice, ‘you’ll be busy, eh? Anyway, good tae see ye.’
I trot down the stairs, and Mitch ambushes me on the urine-scented landing.
Fucking liar. You’ve got bugger all going on tonight except sitting on your arse waiting for a woman who probably won’t phone.
I ignore this and carry on to my next job: a bed and a couple of armchairs to an address up in Mayfield. It’s one of those weird back-to-front sixties era council houses where you have to go through the back garden to get to the front door. A snarling brindled bull terrier meets me at the gate, followed by a lassie with a couple of missing teeth and skin so pale she might have spent her whole life in a cave. She barks at the dog. It cowers and settles into a pathetic whine.
Picking my way around piles of bull terrier crap – the bloody garden is more treacherous than your average Helmand cornfield – I shoulder the bed inside and deposit it in a downstairs bedroom according to the girl’s instruction. The house reeks of fags and stale chip fat. Passing the living room, I notice the TV flickering and a guy staring at it, mouth half open and eyes half shut, cigarette drooping between his fingers.
It’s only as I carry in a brown upholstered chair and dump it next to him that I notice that both of his legs end just below the knees. He’s young, lucky if he’s in his early twenties, and there are scars on his neck and face. It’s the unmistakeable signature of my old friend, the improvised explosive device; I look at those same scars in the mirror far too often to confuse them for anything else. A knot ties up in my stomach and rises into my throat.
I straighten up slowly and offer a casual, ‘Alright?’
‘Alright,’ he grunts, glancing at me only briefly, before his eyes move back to the telly and his fingers bring the cigarette to his mouth.
‘You ex-army, mate?’
‘Uh. How’d ye guess, like? Something to do wi’ the missing legs, like?’
I smile. ‘I came out of the Marines a wee while ago.’
He grunts. ‘You wanting a medal, like?’
‘Just showing a bit of solidarity, pal. Nae offence intended, eh? That’s your bed in as well. You got some decent bargains, there.’
‘Second hand shite. I get to sleep on someone else’s cum stains.’
‘The mattress is brand new.’
He sniffs, uninterested. ‘So fuckin’ what, eh? It’s still shite.’
I shrug. Any words of support I might have been prepared to offer have dried up on my tongue. Coarse little army wanker. ‘You want me to take it back to the shop, I will. You’ll have to pay the return delivery though.’
He turns pale, needle-ish eyes on me; little fucker would knife you as soon as look at you, if he had legs to run away on. ‘Nuh.’
‘Fair enough. Cheerio, then.’
He sniffs and juts his chin at me. I leave him to his fag and his eighties American cop show and let myself out. The girlfriend is sitting on the back step, cigarette in one hand and phone pressed to her ear with the other, grunting in hoarse tones. The dog stalks me up the path. I half wish it would take a lunge at me so I could knock it into orbit with a size eleven steel toecap, but it stands stiff legged as I squeeze out the gate. Neither the dog nor the girl barks a goodbye.
I’m shaky as I get back into the van, my hands sweating so much that they are slippery on the steering wheel. There’s a pressure on my chest as bad as any I used to get on operations. My arms and legs are heavy with it. I drive the van round the corner to get away from the house, then stop again in a parking bay and sit there, staring down at the view below me. All of Edinburgh and Midlothian are spread below me like a crumpled, grubby quilt; the little huddled towns, a dirty sky and the battleship grey water of the Forth, the Pentlands still in their winter browns with a few patches of leftover snow.
I turn off the engine and lean my head back against the seat, close my eyes and fade into another place. Dry, scrubby land, the scarred earth around the Kajaki Dam, cold thin early morning air. The noises we make as we move: the careful thunk of our boots in the dust, the little creaks and rustles of our equipment. The smells of dust and sweaty men. Then a shout from behind me, Mitch’s voice breaking with panic, his bulk colliding into my side.
The memory of that day is like the monster of your childhood, breathing heavily under the bed as you lie on top, wrapped in your armour of quilts and blankets. It can’t hurt you if you just stay wrapped up on the bed – not a single toe or a hand dangling naked over the side to be snapped off – but something makes you want to look. You’re compelled by some irresistible force to lean over the edge and face it.
I finger the flack scars on my cheek.
I wasn’t aware of them at the time. I was hardly even aware that my eardrum had blown out and that blood was pouring down the side of my face. I might have lost consciousness for a short time, I’m not sure, but what I remember is becoming aware of Mitch’s weight on top of me and the hot moisture of blood seeping through my trousers, not knowing whether it was his or mine or both.
I pushed myself halfway up and he made a little cry, then a wet, drowning cough. There was only one pair of legs sticking out beneath him, and they were mine; peppered with superficial flack wounds but otherwise unharmed. I could see shapes moving around us, men running toward us, but I couldn’t hear them. They stopped a short distance away, seemed to linger in suspended animation. They couldn’t help and they knew it. It was as though a glass dome had descended over Mitch and me. I held him and sobbed into his hair, and there was only the faintest rattling breath in his body to tell me he was still alive. One heaving gulp, then a weak one, then nothing.
And then the dome lifted and the chaos resumed. I clung to him, heard myself screaming at him to hang on and then Nate Finlay, the medic, shouting at me to let him go. He sounded like he was at the other end of a tunnel.
Let me go, Sean. Fuck me if I’m going to live as a tree-stump on a chair. Look at the state of you, man, crying like a big girl’s blouse. You’re okay. You’re alive.
Mitch’s voice in my head, clear as though the body in my arms had just spoken. I collapsed back into the dirt and lay there staring at a perfect blue sky as they lifted what was left of Gareth Mitchell off of me. Except that he’s still here, blethering in an ear that is completely useless for anything else.
I open my eyes and focus in again on the quiet, weary street, feeling strangely like I’ve just washed up here after being lost at sea. It’s no tropical island, that’s certain, but it’s where I am, and as Mitch said, I’m alive.
****
After work I appease the clamour of a hungry belly with some toast and a banana, then change into my running gear and head out into a blue dusky evening. I run my usual route up to the railway line, but once I reach it I turn left and head in a loop back toward town rather than right toward the glen. The floodlights are on at the rugby club and from a distance I can see the big forms moving around the pitch, passing and catching. Barely breathing hard, I push myself on, intending to run past and do another couple of miles before heading home.
But I make the mistake of watching the guys as I run past the pitch, and Jackie Wilson raises his hand and shouts my name. Some of the others look up at his shout.
‘Shite,’ I mutter, and drop to a walk, shaking my head as I step onto the spongy turf. Immediately a bunch of guys I used to know jog over to me and greet me with handshakes and slaps on the back. In my head I struggle to pin names on the faces around me. Lean, clean-cut, banker’s son, Paul Jacobsen; I’m surprised he’s still here and not in more select company at one of the Edinburgh clubs. Yellow haired and red-cheeked farmer, always laughing, Calum Gregg. Davie Blair, resolute tighthead prop, five- foot seven, bulging at every seam, eyes lost above puffy cheeks. Alan Noble is six-foot six at least, with shoulder-length black hair a
nd a beard. A few others whose names I can’t bring to mind, and one or two I don’t know.
They’re all just bigger, uglier versions of the boys I knew years ago. Most of them have cauliflower ears or noses that have been bashed into unnatural shapes, some have lost teeth, some have bandaged knees, there are a few stitches and scars around the eyebrows. Steam rises off their damp shoulders. Jack Wilson goes over to an oversized kit bag at the side of the pitch and starts rummaging inside.
Their voices all swirl into mud and I laugh. ‘Lads, I just popped by to say hiya. I’m not playin’.’
‘How no? The RMC turned you into a fuckin’ girl or something?’ This is from Davie Blair, who stands with the ball in his hands, squinty eyes laughing at me. Trust Davie; at least he won’t treat me like I’m made of glass.
‘I’ve got a bad ear, Davie, I won’t be able to hear you shouting. That’s probably a blessing, mind.’
He laughs heartily, then points at his right eye. On closer view, the pupil looks strangely hollow. If he can see out if it at all, I’ll be surprised. ‘And I’ve got a bad eye. Long as ye’ve still got yin that works, ye’ll be alright. But onyway,’ he rubs his lower back and inflates his impressive chest, ‘suit yersel.’
‘Sean.’ A hand lands on my back, and I turn. Jack is standing there with a pair of knackered old boots. He looks like an overgrown puppy with a pair of chewed-up slippers. ‘Size eleven do you?’
‘I said I wasn’t playing.’
We stand there head to head for a minute, a pair of mud-caked studs hanging by their laces between us, and as the circle of bodies closes around me, I feel my resolve disintegrating. Mitch isn’t saying anything, so I take his silence for approval and take the boots from Jackie.
‘Bastard. These fuckin’ boots look like someone’s been sick over them.’
‘Those were mines, they’re good boots. But you can get yer ain for the game on Saturday if you’re above wearin’ hand me downs. Come on, put ‘em on.’
Inevitably, I crack. ‘All bloody right. Go easy on me, yeah?’
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