Exclusion Zone

by Exclusion Zone (retail) (epub)

  ‘Sean’s not a soldier.’ Her tone was impatient. She turned back to me. ‘Is there someone special? Your friend at George and Agnes’s party?’

  ‘We’re good mates, that’s all.’

  Bernard was watching me intently. ‘So how are you going to fill your time?’ The edge was back in his voice.

  ‘I want to visit the battlefields and walk some of the ground that my brother crossed.’

  He was silent for a moment. ‘You’re both the same, you and Rose,’ he said. ‘You live too much in the past. You’re prisoners of it. And memory is a dangerous thing. It tells lies. We look back on something and remember it as we want it to be, not as it was.’ He gestured towards the darkened window. ‘What’s out there now is what’s important, not what happened sixteen years ago. You should let it go. Live in the present, not the past, and not in some dream future that’ll never happen.’ He had not even glanced at Rose, but it was clear that he was talking to her through me.

  There was a long silence. He looked at the clock, pushed his glass away and yawned.

  I took my cue. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll turn in. I’m really tired and I have to be away early in the morning.’

  ‘I’ll give you a knock then,’ he said. ‘Six o’clock too soon for you?’

  ‘It’s practically a lie-in. That’s one thing aircrew and farmers do have in common.’

  Rose showed me to my room. One of the old farmhouse windows had been opened out into a short passageway built from scrap timber which connected it to the Portakabin.

  She hesitated in the doorway. Over her shoulder I saw Bernard’s dark figure staring at us. I called out, ‘Goodnight, Bernard.’

  She looked back, then gave me a fleeting smile and said ‘Goodnight’ in a voice so low it was almost lost in the noise of the wind. As she went back down the hall, he turned and walked away. A few moments later the generator stopped, plunging the house into darkness.

  The room smelt faintly of damp and the bedding was cold to the touch. I huddled under the blankets and fell asleep listening to the sound of the wind keening over the hillside.

  The familiar nightmare was waiting for me. I stood on a windswept hilltop, watching as the same faceless, malevolent figures moved over the black ground towards me. I looked down and saw Mike, Geoff, Rose and Jane, climbing the hillside below me, oblivious of the danger at their backs.

  They looked up, smiled and waved. I tried to scream a warning, but my words were carried away on the wind. Then the firing began. Mike pitched forward into the dirt, then Geoff too fell and lay still. Rose looked up towards me, her hands outstretched, pleading with me. I began to run down the hillside.

  * * *

  Bernard’s knock did not wake me. I’d been lying there, watching the grey dawn light creeping through the window. I got up at once, but by the time I reached the kitchen he had already gone outside. I watched his stocky figure striding up the moor towards his sheep.

  Rose’s face was pale and the circles underneath her eyes were even darker, as if she too had slept little, but she greeted me warmly and gave me some breakfast. She offered to drive me down to Goose Green or even back to Mount Pleasant, but I shook my head. ‘It’s all right, my navigator’s coming to pick me up.’

  I helped her clear away the breakfast things and we talked as she busied herself around the farmyard, feeding a few scrawny chickens and milking their solitary cow. Just after eight I heard the sound of an engine and saw an Air Force Land Rover bucketing up the track towards us. Jane’s long blonde hair was clearly visible through the windscreen.

  Rose turned to me in surprise. ‘She’s your navigator?’

  I nodded. ‘She’s a pretty good one too, but don’t let on, she’s too full of herself already.’

  The Land Rover ploughed to a halt, sending the chickens that had been scratching around the yard squawking for cover. Jane jumped out, shook hands with Rose and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I saw Rose’s questioning glance.

  ‘Like I told you, we’re just good friends,’ I said, wondering why I felt the need to explain. ‘Jane goes out with my best mate back in England.’

  They stood for a moment, looking each other over in a way that would have been insulting from a man. ‘You don’t look like a farmer’s wife,’ Jane said, ‘and I mean that as a compliment.’

  ‘Thanks. You don’t look like a navigator.’

  I hid a smile. There was a definite edge to the exchange.

  ‘We’d better go,’ Jane said. ‘I promised to have the Land Rover back by ten and it took me over an hour to get here.’

  My smile broadened.

  ‘And no, I didn’t get lost, smart-arse. That track isn’t built for either comfort or speed, and a landslip’s wiped out part of it. You can drive back if you like. See if you can do any better.’

  I took Rose’s hand. ‘Thanks a lot, for everything. I’m really glad we met.’

  ‘I’m glad you came. You will come back, won’t you?’

  ‘I want to do some walking in the hills on Saturday before we get stuck on Quick Reaction Duty. I could call in then, if it’s all right.’

  ‘Till Saturday then,’ she said. We stood awkwardly under Jane’s steady gaze. Rose made as if to shake my hand, then leaned forward and brushed my cheek with her lips.

  She ran back to the house, but as I drove off, I turned to look back and saw her watching from the window, her hand pressed against the glass. As I swung back, I saw that Bernard too was watching me from the moor above the farm. I put my hand out of the window and waved. He half-raised an arm in response, then let it fall back to his side and turned away, busying himself with his sheep.

  ‘I’d say you made quite an impression there, Sean.’

  I glanced across at her, then stared through the windscreen, trying to steer the Land Rover around the worst of the ruts and potholes in the track.

  ‘She’s lonely.’

  ‘You’ve got to watch out for the married ones; they’re danger.’ A faint smile was playing around her lips.

  ‘Thanks for the grandmotherly advice, but it’s really not necessary.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure. I saw the way she looked at you.’

  ‘She’s just grateful for some conversation that isn’t about sheep.’

  ‘Get off the grass. She’s got big eyes for you. It sticks out like the balls on a dingo.’

  ‘Look, she knew my brother, that’s all. He helped to rescue her and her family when the Paras were advancing through here.’ I related the story that Rose had told me.

  ‘He was a brave man,’ Jane said.

  I nodded. ‘Mike was always helping people. He used to take me down to the playground in the park. I’d be sitting on the swing waiting for him to give me a push, or going down the slide shouting, “Watch me, Mike, watch me,” but he’d be off rescuing some little girl who’d got stuck on the climbing frame or comforting a kid who’d fallen over and skinned his knees.’

  Jane sat in silence for a moment. ‘Was rescuing Rose’s family what he won his medal for?’

  ‘No, that was later, when he died.’ I changed gear. ‘So what’s new? Anything happened back at base?’

  ‘Puh-lease. This is the Falklands, you know.’

  ‘You’re beginning to sound like Shark.’

  ‘Shark’s all right when you get to know him a bit.’

  It was my turn to smile. ‘You’ve got to watch out for the unmarried ones; they’re danger.’

  I drove on in silence, dividing my attention between the rutted track and the clouds of wildfowl and seabirds rising from the sodden plain below us. Their wings sparkled as they climbed from the still-shadowed ground into the low light of the morning sun.

  I glanced across at Jane. She was still watching me. ‘You’re not getting off the hook that easily, Sean, I know you too well. You’re a sucker for that waif-in-distress routine. You’ve got the hots for her, haven’t you?’

  I snapped back, ‘For Christ’s sake, Jane, change the record
, will you? Even if you were right, which you aren’t.’ As I spoke, I felt a stab of guilt at the realisation that what she said might well be true. ‘Anyway, its none of your business. What the hell does it matter to you?’

  ‘I’m just interested in why you find her so attractive. Is it that she looks like a victim or is it because you can pretend to be your brother when you’re around her?’

  ‘Go fuck yourself.’

  ‘You too.’

  We both relapsed into silence, staring fixedly ahead through the windscreen. I was shocked and a little ashamed of the way the row had boiled up from nothing, but there was more to it than that. I realised I had no defences with Jane; she could see right into my soul.

  I braked to a sudden halt as I rounded the next bend. The landslip had carried away a section of the road, leaving a black scar down the hillside. I put the Land Rover into four-wheel drive, then pulled off the road, following a line of wavering tyre tracks around the head of it.

  I gunned the accelerator, sending the vehicle bouncing and jolting up the hill. It leaned at a perilous angle as we rounded the top and as it righted itself the wheels slid sideways and sank into a morass of peat.

  We ground to a halt. ‘Shit.’ I revved the engine angrily but that only dug us in deeper. The wheels spun and sent flurries of mud behind us. I glared at Jane. ‘You drive, I’ll dig.’

  She avoided my gaze, her jaw still set, but she nodded and slid across to the driver’s seat as I got out.

  It took me forty minutes’ hard digging to get us free. I used the steel tracks carried in the back for just such a contingency, but I also needed the rubber mats from the footwells and all the small rocks I could scavenge from the surrounding moorland to give the wheels enough grip. I heaved and strained, pushing from the back as Jane inched the Land Rover out of the bog. By the time it was free I was black with peat and soaked to the skin.

  We drove most of the rest of the way back to the base in silence, and when either of us did speak the conversation was strained and terse. Jane got out without a word and banged the door shut behind her.

  I went back to my room, stripped off my sodden clothes and showered myself clean. Feeling both stupid and sheepish, I went down to the Mess and bought a bottle of wine as a peace offering. I was about to take it up to her room when I saw her sitting at a corner table, staring out of the window. She looked up as I walked over and hid something behind her back.

  ‘I’m—’ We both began speaking together, then fell silent, and then began again simultaneously.

  She laughed. ‘You first then and make it good.’

  ‘I’m sorry. What you said touched a nerve.’ I held up a hand as she began to interrupt. ‘But that’s because it was at least partly true, and even if it wasn’t, I shouldn’t have reacted like that.’ I handed her the bottle. ‘A peace offering; I even bought Australian.’

  She smiled and produced an identical bottle from behind her back. ‘Here. I couldn’t find any Irish Chardonnay.’ She paused. ‘And I’m sorry too. You were right, it’s none of my business and I shouldn’t have said what I did about your brother. Friends?’

  ‘Always.’ I leaned over and kissed her cheek.

  ‘It’s practically lunchtime,’ she said, ‘and we’re not on duty today. What the hell, we might as well get a corkscrew and seal the deal.’

  I opened one of the bottles, poured us both a glass and toasted her. ‘Here’s to us, more laughs—’

  ‘And fewer bloody stupid rows,’ she finished for me. ‘I couldn’t believe how angry I was with you.’ She gave a guilty smile. ‘Nor how happy I was when you got the Land Rover stuck. I was practically punching the air with delight.’

  ‘And I was so furious I could have picked it up bodily and thrown it out of that bog.’

  She laughed. ‘I wish you had. It would have been a bloody sight quicker.’ She drank some of her wine, watching me over the rim of the glass. ‘I don’t know what’s up with us, Sean. We can’t be stir-crazy already, can we? We’ve only been here four days, God knows what we’ll be like at the end of four months.’

  ‘It’s tough living in each other’s pockets as well.’

  ‘But we’re not. It’ll be different when we’re on QRA duty, but at the moment I hardly see you. You’re off all over the countryside whenever you’ve got half a chance.’ She paused. ‘Perhaps that’s part of the problem, maybe I’m a bit jealous.’ She met my gaze for a second, then looked away.

  I was the first to break the silence. ‘It’s surprised me how much being here has affected me, but I feel I can’t stop. I have to try and understand why he did what he did.’ I shrugged helplessly.

  This time she held my gaze. ‘Don’t let it become an obsession, will you? It was over sixteen years ago. I know your brother was a hero, but you’ve nothing to prove or live up to, to me or anyone else. And you don’t have to apologise to anyone for being alive when your brother is dead. Okay, he was clever and brave, and witty and wise, and everybody loved him, but to be honest I’m getting a bit sick of him. I don’t want to hear about him any more, I just want to hear about you.’ She hesitated and looked anxious. ‘I’ve not said the wrong thing again, have I? We’re not going to have another row?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, but I may be forced to buy you another bottle of wine, just in case.’

  She smiled, but her expression was still troubled. ‘That’s it, really. So just do what you feel you have to do, but then put it all behind you and move on.’ She worried her lower lip with her teeth. ‘Although it’s hard to look to the future here, isn’t it? The past seems to cast such a long shadow.’

  She drank the rest of her glass in one gulp, then gave me an apologetic smile. ‘I shouldn’t be so maudlin, should I? But everything about this place gets to me. The cold, the damp and that endless bloody wind.’ She broke off and stared out of the window.

  ‘It’s more than that, though,’ I said, ‘isn’t it? There’s something else.’

  She turned to face me, trying to read my expression. ‘Perhaps I’m just getting disenchanted with the Air Force.’

  ‘Which one? Yours or mine?’

  ‘Both.’ She gestured at the worn carpet and the walls lined with near identical squadron photographs and badges. ‘It’s like the Common Room at my college. The cleaners never moved the chairs from one year to the next, they just vacuumed around them because they knew nobody would notice, and even if they did, no one would care.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Sometimes I love this life. I love flying and sharing the jet with you, and all the things that go with it, but sometimes I feel like I’m trapped in a perpetual time warp, re-living my student years over and over, getting off my face drunk nearly every night, playing stupid pranks, insulated from the real world. Wherever you go, every crew room’s the same, all those petty arguments about whose turn it is to make the coffee or do the washing-up.

  ‘Sometimes I get stalled with all the blokeish stuff too – the drinking games, the knob jokes, the fatuous ideas some forty-year-old boss has for improving squadron morale.’ She frowned. ‘It sounds like I hate all of it, doesn’t it? I don’t, but—’ She looked past me, watching Shark, Jimmy and Rees standing near the bar, playing darts.

  ‘I’m the only woman on this squadron, Sean. To be accepted in a fast jet crew room I’ve got to be more of a bloke than all the others. If I can swear like a trooper, drink all the blokes under the table and join in all the juvenile banter about sex and penis-size, then I get the ultimate accolade: “For a woman, you’re okay – just another bloke.” But I am a woman, and I want to keep being one.’ She sighed. ‘I guess I just mean that I’m not sure I want to do this forever, that’s all.’

  ‘But you won’t. You and Geoff will want to get married one day and—’

  ‘I doubt it. I can’t really see myself as an Air Force wife; twinset and pearls isn’t really my style.’

  ‘Come on, Jane, it’s not like that any more.’

  She fingered the pendant around he
r neck. ‘Maybe I’m not too sure how much of a future Geoff and I have together.’

  ‘Don’t say that. You guys are great together. You’re not going to toss all that away just because of a touch of the Falklands blues. It’ll all seem different when you get back to the UK.’

  She gave a sad smile. ‘Ironic, isn’t it? I start off trying to talk you out of your depression and two minutes later you’re trying to rescue me from mine.’ She reached for the bottle, refilled our glasses and then took a swig from hers. ‘Right, that’s enough introspection for one day. Let’s get ourselves outside the rest of this wine and then go and play a couple of videos. Anything will do just as long as it’s nothing like the view from this window.’

  Chapter Six

  The briefing next morning was largely routine. There had still been no signal from the Trident, and the searching helicopters had found no trace of the sub. The search would continue, but each passing day increased our pessimism about the outcome.

  My mind wandered as Noel ran through the orders for the day, but I pricked up my ears at the last item. ‘The last cruise ship of the season is docking in Stanley this morning. There’s a battlefield tour organised for them; anyone who wants to join it is welcome. There won’t be another one till spring, so this is your last chance on this tour.’

  ‘What time does it leave?’ I asked.

  As Noel riffled through his sheets of paper, searching for the answer, Jane cocked an eyebrow at me. ‘Another trip up the mountains?’

  ‘The last one.’

  She smiled. ‘Apart from tomorrow, you mean. I distinctly heard you tell Rose you’d be wandering the hills before you call in on her for your heavy date.’

  ‘The next-to-the-last one, then.’

  A sceptical look crossed her face.

  ‘Honestly. You were right. I’ve got to draw a line under it. I’m going to go on this battlefield tour, make one more trip to the cemetery tomorrow, and then that’s it.’

  ‘I’ll go with you, then. Don’t make that face, I don’t mean on the tour, but I’ll drive you down to Stanley. I’m desperate for a bit of serious excitement and some heavy-duty shopping.’