by Chris Ryan
Immediately she was by his side, one arm around his shoulders.
‘How did it happen?’ she whispered.
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘I just . . .’
‘Look, forget it. He’s not fucking here. He died. Just like every other fucker that goes out there.’
Silence. Caitlin kept her arm around his shoulder for a few more seconds, then awkwardly withdrew it. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
Joe nodded.
‘I spoke to your adjutant,’ Caitlin whispered. ‘He said you were . . . he said maybe . . . they were sending a doctor to talk to you . . . this afternoon . . .’
‘Tell them not to bother.’ Ricky was the one who’d needed a fucking doctor.
‘But Joe, if something’s wrong . . .’
She raised her hand to his face and gently forced him to look at her. All he saw were mascara-smudged eyes.
‘I’m sorry I gave you a hard time, Joe. I’m so sorry. I just—’
‘I need to sleep,’ Joe interrupted. He stood up suddenly, walked around the bed and closed the curtains. They had thick blackout linings, and blocked most of the light from the room.
‘I’ll leave you then,’ Caitlin said, standing up.
‘Right,’ said Joe.
He knew he was being a bastard, but somehow he couldn’t stop it. And by the time he was under the duvet, she had left the room.
It was a sleep of sorts, but troubled, broken and disturbed by dreams that were both vivid and sickening. Joe saw himself in Abbottabad. From his hiding place under the rubble, he watched first one body bag emerge from the house, and then the second. They were halfway across the courtyard when the first bag mysteriously split open. A body sat up: a thin man with a grey beard, wearing a bloodstained smock. He had a gruesome gun wound to the head that had turned one eye socket into a crater of bloody pap. But the good eye was blinking and looking directly at Joe. The mouth was moving. Joe couldn’t understand the sinister Arabic intonation. He didn’t want to understand it. He tried to block his ears, but it only made the noise louder. He felt for his pistol. The only way to stop it was to shoot the bastard again. Joe steadied his shaking hand and took aim . . . he was ready to fire . . .
Only he wasn’t looking at a corpse any more. He was looking at Ricky, sitting up from the body bag and giving Joe a perplexed look.
And then he was sitting up in bed, sweating, trembling. The bedside clock showed 11.58.
Joe swore at himself, before lying down again and closing his eyes, determined to rest.
But his dreams took him somewhere else. He was on all fours, pressed against the dusty desert earth with the sun beating down on his back. He heard a child’s voice: ‘Amer-ee-can motherfucker . . . Amer-ee-can motherfucker . . .’ He looked over his shoulder to see who was speaking. It wasn’t a kid. It was the same figure from his previous dream, with the same crater-like wound in his eye socket.
And then another explosion.
And another . . .
And another . . .
Joe was back in his bedroom at home. 13.02. The sheets were soaked. His breath came in short gasps. But the explosions – they weren’t in his head any more. They were real.
He jumped out of bed. A pair of jeans and a fresh shirt had been laid out for him while he slept. He pulled on the jeans as the explosions continued. He stormed out of the bedroom and onto the landing. Gunfire, short bursts from an automatic weapon. And it was coming from the direction of his son’s bedroom.
Joe didn’t hesitate. He burst through the door, which swung on its hinges and bashed against the wall.
Conor’s room hadn’t changed since he’d been away. The cabin bed was still neatly made; the encyclopedias he loved were lined up on his bookcase. Conor himself was sitting on a spotty beanbag in the middle of the room. He was facing a small television, with an Xbox controller in his hand. Joe looked to the screen. His son was playing one of the war games that were so popular with the younger men back in the Stan. From the point of view of a player with an assault rifle, Joe could see a realistic desert landscape, with an animated Chinook hovering in the distance. Two Taliban fighters, their heads wrapped in keffiyehs, approached. Conor was ignoring the game now, looking up at his father with frightened eyes. The animated Taliban drew knives. Now they were at the front of the screen. An instant later there was the sickening sound of metal puncturing flesh and a rattling death groan from the device.
Joe felt an unstoppable rage. He stepped into the centre of the room, grabbed the controller from Conor’s tiny hands and yanked the cords that connected them to the console. The Xbox flew forward, but the game played on. The virtual soldier was on the ground, virtual blood spilling onto the virtual sand. Joe stormed up to the TV and before he knew it he had yanked the screen off its little stand and sent it crashing to the ground.
At last there was silence.
Joe looked down at the smashed television, and then at Conor, whose lip was wobbling as he tried to hold back his tears. He tried to think of something to say. But he couldn’t. The explosions and gunfire were still in his head, like distant echoes, distracting his attention.
Footsteps up the stairs. Caitlin appeared in the doorway, taking in the scene with a single glance. She had swapped the halterneck for an altogether less glamorous black T-shirt. The three of them remained very still, in a triangle of silence, Conor and Caitlin staring at Joe like he was a stranger.
Ten seconds passed before Joe stormed out of the room, pushing past Caitlin and heading downstairs. ‘He shouldn’t be playing that shit all day anyway,’ he muttered. ‘Can’t he play fucking football?’
He could hear their voices through the thin ceiling as he walked into the front room, though he couldn’t make out what they were saying. He was angry with himself. What the hell had he been thinking? He stood at the bay window, looking out at the street. Some kid was sitting on the front garden wall of the house opposite. Almost as a reflex action, Joe found himself recording his features: dark skin; greasy black hair; yellow, rotten teeth; late teens, early twenties. He was twirling an empty bottle of Coke in his right hand. For an instant he thought the kid was looking straight through the window at him.
‘Tell me what’s wrong?’
Caitlin had entered the room without Joe hearing.
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he said.
‘Try me.’
Silence.
Caitlin approached him. Her face had softened, and for the first time in days he felt his defences lower. ‘I heard the noises from that fucking game,’ he said. ‘I thought they were real.’
He stared at Caitlin, as though daring her to laugh. ‘You’re home now,’ she whispered. ‘With us.’
From the corner of his eye he saw movement on the street. Another kid had approached his mate with the rotten teeth. They shared a few words and walked off down the street.
‘Go and talk to him,’ she said. ‘Properly, Joe. He’s been aching to see you.’
Conor was still in his room, but had moved from the beanbag to the raised bed, where he had wrapped himself in his duvet and had a sketch pad open in front of him, and next to that the small grey elephant that had been his since he was a baby. Joe could never work out how one minute he could be playing war games, the next running his finger over the worn fabric of a soft toy. He had his mother’s colouring: copper hair and pale freckles on his nose and cheeks. In fact, he was as unlike Joe in looks as he was in personality. Joe approached the bed and glanced down. Conor’s gaze was fixed on the drawing he was making, two figures, scrappy and childlike. He refused to look up at his dad.
‘Hey, champ,’ Joe said quietly.
‘Hey.’ Conor didn’t look up as he spoke.
‘School OK?’
Conor shrugged, treating the question with the lack of interest it deserved.
‘What you drawing?’
‘Nothing.’ He looked embarrassed.
‘Mind if I keep that?’ It sounded to Joe like the
sort of thing a good dad should say.
Conor shook his head and ripped the sheet from his pad, before handing it to his father.
‘Got a bit carried away there, I guess,’ Joe said, pocketing the picture without really looking at it.
Conor looked like he was pretending it didn’t matter, but Joe could see salt marks on his cheeks where the tears had dried. He put one hand on his boy’s bony shoulder; when, after ten seconds, it became clear that neither of them knew what else to say, he turned and headed for the door.
‘Why were you sitting in the shower like that, Dad?’ He sounded frightened.
‘Don’t worry about it, champ,’ Joe replied. He winked at Conor, wanting to change the subject quickly but not knowing how. Conor smiled thinly back. ‘Hey,’ said Joe, ‘it’s great to see you.’
‘You too.’
An awkward silence. ‘I’m going to talk to your mum, OK?’
‘OK.’
Joe left the room, closed the door and stood with his back to it.
Why were you sitting in the shower like that, Dad?
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he breathed to himself.
He went downstairs.
On the mantelpiece in the front room was a tinny little carriage clock. It chimed 4 p.m. As the fourth chime disappeared, the only sound in the room was the continued ticking of the clock. Joe shifted uncomfortably on the chintzy sofa that faced the window looking out onto the street. There was a matching armchair in the bay; sitting in the armchair, holding a red clipboard and a pencil, was a pretty young woman whose hair was tied back with a ribbon and who was patiently waiting for Joe to answer her.
Thirty seconds passed. The young woman repeated her question. Her voice dripped sympathy and it set Joe’s teeth on edge. He didn’t want sympathy.
‘How have you been sleeping?’
‘Like a baby.’
‘I see a lot of soldiers who have trouble with it.’
‘You ever tried sleeping in a war zone, Dr McGill?’
‘Are you telling me you haven’t been sleeping?’
‘I’m telling you I could do without the stupid questions.’
Dr McGill ticked a box on the paper clipped to her board.
‘Do you suffer from blackouts?’
‘Blackouts?’
‘Short periods when you can’t account for your movements. Temporary amnesia . . .’
‘I know what a blackout is.’
‘So do you?’
‘No.’
‘Your wife—’
‘Partner.’
‘Your partner told me she found you this morning sitting in the—’
‘I’m not suffering from blackouts, Dr McGill.’
The doctor inclined her head. ‘Anxiety attacks? Breathlessness? Hallucinations? Paranoia?’ she asked.
‘Is this going to take much longer?’
‘That depends on you.’
‘No, no, no and no.’
She didn’t look like she believed him. Maybe it was the way he refused to catch her eye.
‘I have to ask you this question, Joe,’ she continued. ‘Have you, at any point in the past six months, had any thoughts of hurting yourself in any way? Or worse?’
Joe couldn’t help himself looking scornful. Images flashed in his mind of operations out on the ground in Afghanistan. He saw himself creeping by moonlight through villages known to be overrun with insurgents; he saw himself cutting the throat of a seventeen-year-old Taliban recruit who he knew had laid an IED that had killed three British soldiers; he saw himself stuck inside the compound at Abbottabad, praying that the Americans wouldn’t see him. Thoughts of hurting himself?? His every thought over those six months had been about keeping himself safe. Hurting other people, maybe – but this earnest young doctor hadn’t asked about that.
‘No,’ he said. That, at least, he could answer honestly.
‘Are you sure? I understand that these things can be difficult to talk about.’
‘Look, love,’ Joe replied. ‘If I’d wanted to get myself hurt, I’d have had plenty of opportunity, believe me. Why don’t you fill in the rest of your boxes and get the hell—?’
He stopped.
Through the bay window, he could see something. The kid with the rotten teeth. He was sitting on the wall opposite again. His bottle of Coke was full now, and as he took a swig he kept his eyes on Joe’s house.
Joe stood up. ‘Wait there,’ he murmured.
He found Caitlin standing in the hallway, looking anxious. She opened her mouth to speak as Joe came out of the front room, but he hushed her sharply and edged towards the front door. There was a spyhole in the door – Caitlin had insisted on having it for when Joe was on tour. He peered through it. The street appeared distorted, like he was looking out from inside a goldfish bowl. He couldn’t spot the kid, but there was a flicker of movement on the edge of his vision.
‘Joe, what . . . ’
‘Stay where you are.’ Joe ran back to the kitchen, where he rummaged quickly in the drawer by the oven for a blade. He found a five-inch chopping knife and ran with it to the front door. He opened up and strode outside, the knife hidden behind his back.
But the kid had gone.
He looked up and down the road. Nothing.
Caitlin was standing by the front door now, and he could see the doctor a couple of metres behind her. Neither woman spoke but Joe could almost hear their thoughts as their eyes flickered between his face and the knife in his hand. ‘I thought I saw someone,’ he said, and when that didn’t appear satisfactorily to explain his actions to Caitlin or Dr McGill, he pushed past them and into the living room, where he dropped back down onto the sofa and distractedly examined the blade. He could hear the women talking in the hallway, but their voices were just a blur.
Two minutes passed. Caitlin and Dr McGill returned.
‘You need to understand, Joe,’ the doctor said, sitting down beside him and giving him a kind look that made him want to throttle her, ‘that sometimes, when people have experienced extreme stress, they can be traumatized in ways that they find difficult to control.’ She sounded like she was talking to a child. ‘I’m prescribing you some tablets. They might help you. Some people experience side effects . . . they can make you feel worse before you feel better . . . but it’s very important that you take them every day.’ She started writing out a prescription. ‘And I’m going to recommend that you see someone. Talking therapies can be very useful in situations like this.’
She held out the prescription, but Joe didn’t take it, so she placed it on the sofa next to him.
‘You’ll get that prescription as soon as you can? Today, if possible?’
No answer.
‘I’ll explain everything to your wi— your partner.’
No answer.
‘It’s very important that you take this medication, Joe.’
No answer.
‘I’ll show myself out.’
‘You do that.’
More voices in the corridor. The sound of the front door opening and closing. Joe saw the doctor walking briskly past the front window. And then Caitlin was there again, standing over him with a worried frown.
Joe took the prescription, but didn’t even look at it before ripping it in two, scrunching up the pieces and throwing them into the centre of the room.
‘Joe . . .’ Caitlin started to say, but she fell silent as he stood up.
‘I’m going out,’ he said.
There were the pubs of Hereford, and then there were the places people went to drink. The Three Barrels was one of the latter. Frosted-glass windows. Sticky tables. Sticky floor. Slippery customers. A faint, lingering smell from the urinals. An old TV set hanging in one corner, the volume muted, which nobody watched.
Joe had been dry for six months. There was plenty of hooch knocking around Bagram, of course, and it would have to be a fucking stupid officer who didn’t let his men relax after several days of repeated contact. But for the Regiment lads i
t had been a no-no, and that was nothing to do with the ruperts. When your fitness and a clear head are all that’s between you and an enemy round, you do everything you can to take care of them.
Now Joe drank like he was watering the desert. Pints of strong, cold lager – Kronenberg – he wasn’t even counting how many, though he had the impression that the Aussie barmaid, with her nose stud, low-cut top and the edge of a tattoo peeking above her cleavage, was. The winos came and went; it grew dark outside. Joe maintained his position at the bar, carefully avoiding eye contact with anyone, doing everything he could to drink himself into forgetfulness. It didn’t seem to be working. When the TV screen showed what he immediately recognized as the compound in Abbottabad, swarming with journalists, he turned and looked the other way before downing what was left of his pint and ordering another.
He only left because the barmaid told him three times that she was closing up. He certainly had no idea what time it was, or how long he’d been in there; it was only as he staggered to the door, finally drunk, that he realized he was the last punter. Out on the pavement he swayed as he looked up and down the street, trying to get his bearings. A line of people snaked out of the door of a kebab shop on the other side of the road. The yellow and red signs became momentarily blurred, tracing neon lines in the air as he moved his head from left to right; the headlights of cars travelling in either direction, one every three or four seconds, did the same. Ten metres to his left he saw a little mob of six townies starting the opening salvoes of what would clearly end up as a fist fight; he saw a couple snogging in the bus stop opposite; he saw people walking up and down both sides of this busy Hereford street, even though it was late.
He saw a kid with dark skin and yellow teeth leaning against the window of the kebab shop, a bottle of Coke in his right hand.
The alcohol in his system made everything spin. He staggered back against the door of the Three Barrels, his head suddenly filled with the shouts of the little mob. He tried to shake off a wave of nausea.
Then he looked up again. The kid with the Coke bottle was gone.
The mob’s disagreement had shifted to the area of the pavement bang in front of Joe. He burst through them – they fell silent for a couple of seconds – then strode into the road. He heard the screeching of brakes and saw the line of people outside the kebab shop turn to look at him. He stepped among them, moving along the line, checking their faces, grabbing those who had their backs to him by the shoulders and yanking them round. Angry mutters quickly became more forceful. A squat guy with balding scalp and a rugby player’s physique pushed Joe in the chest. ‘Get out of it, sunshine. You’re fucking steaming . . .’ Joe fell backwards, regained his balance and scanned the line once more. No, the kid with the Coke wasn’t there, and as he looked beyond the queue and over his shoulder, there was no sign of him.