by Paul Torday
Hardrigg Manor sat in a steep-sided valley at the western edge of the Pennines. Dark fir woods clung to the slopes and grey stone walls divided the hillside into small compartments filled with the white dots of grazing sheep. The grey walls were covered with lichen, and the winter grass was an exhausted brown. Above where the walls ended was a wilderness of fell and rushes, where fell ponies and sometimes red deer could be seen.
The house itself was a jumble of Elizabethan, Jacobean and Victorian Gothic: an extraordinary confection of turrets and gabled roofs and false crenellations. Leaded and mullioned windows looked out across the valley. My mother had made a water garden, using slates to create little cascades and rills, so that if you were walking near by, the music of the water was always with you.
It had been a wonderful place to grow up. I had scrambled among those hills as a child, had lain on the floor in the book-filled space that my parents had used as a drawing room, reading every book they would let me get my hands on. It had been a very happy childhood and now, coming back home after all this time, I anticipated the warmth, the feeling of security and comfort that would course through me as soon as I walked through the front door. I felt I could almost smell the woodsmoke from the fires even though I was still half a mile from the house.
My parents and Katie were waiting for me in the hall. At first our meeting was wordless. We hugged one another, and then my father stammered out a few phrases in which ‘old chap’ and ‘good to see you’ were the only distinct words I could hear. My mother had tears in her eyes. My sister Katie, my little sister, now in her twenties, smiled her crooked smile at me. For many years that smile had carried a message: ‘They may love you more, but I’m the one who looks after them.’ Now I saw only that she was pleased to have me back home. I wished that Emma had been there as well, the girl I had been engaged to since my mid-twenties and whom I had known since I was fifteen. It had long been understood that Emma was the girl I would one day marry. But that meeting was for another day; tonight was just for family.
Greetings over, I was allowed some time to myself, and went up to the bedroom that used to be mine. It was warm and welcoming. The curtains had been drawn against the darkening evening, clean towels had been set out for me on the bed, the lamp had been switched on, and at one corner the sheets had been pulled back. The thought of climbing straight into that bed and sleeping for a week was almost overwhelming.
Instead, I had a bath, and then changed into ‘home’ clothes: jeans, a pullover, loafers. When I went downstairs the three of them were waiting for me, their faces happy and smiling. A bottle of champagne had been opened, too. I didn’t really mind whether I drank the stuff or not, but I knew it would make them happy if I did, so we all raised our glasses and my father said, ‘Here’s to your safe return, dear boy. We’re so glad to see you.’
Over dinner my mother, fortified by a large gin and tonic on top of the wine, recovered the power of speech.
‘Was it very hot in Afghanistan, dear?’ she asked.
‘Very hot by day, and very cold by night.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘What a wonderful climate. So much easier to get a good night’s sleep if it’s cold, don’t you think? Did you get the silk underwear I sent you?’
‘I’m sorry, Mummy,’ I told her. ‘I don’t think I did.’
My father cut in. ‘I know you must have been busy and probably didn’t have time – but did you manage to follow the cricket while you were out there?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ I replied. An image came into my mind of myself trying to pick up the cricket scores on Radio Five Live against the background noise of small-arms fire and incoming RPGs as we drove towards Musa Qala.
‘I’m surprised,’ said my father. ‘You used to be so fond of the game. As it happens you didn’t miss much. The whole series was a disgrace from start to finish.’
I supposed my parents wanted to keep the conversation light; I supposed they wanted to help me forget what I had been through. But I didn’t want to forget.
The three of them – my beloved family – couldn’t have been nicer to me, or more careful of my comforts, or more concerned. They made sure that I was not too tired, not too hungry, not too full, not too hot, not too cold. They gave me the best cuts of the leg of lamb we ate for dinner; my father kept topping up my glass of wine, telling me that this was Château so-and-so, and the best vintage, nineteen something or other. I smiled, and nodded my thanks, and ate the lamb, and sipped the wine.
To me, the lamb tasted like cloth. The wine tasted of mud. The temperature in the room seemed at one moment to be oppressively hot and stifling, so that I could scarcely bear it; at another, I was freezing and wished I could be nearer the fire that blazed at one end of the room. We ate by candlelight, and in the gloom I thought my father’s face had become red and pompous; my mother’s dull and stupid; my sister’s narrow and scheming. I couldn’t breathe properly. I couldn’t think of anything to say when someone spoke to me. The conversation, lively enough at first, began to falter.
‘Won’t you tell us a little bit about what you have been doing, Dicky?’ asked my mother. ‘We haven’t seen you for so long and we haven’t the least idea of what your life has been like. It’s been so hard for us, not knowing where you were or how your days have been.’
No, you haven’t the least idea of what my life’s been like, I thought. Aloud I said, ‘This lamb is delicious.’
‘He can’t talk about it. Disclosure policy,’ said my father. ‘I was in the army. I know what it’s like, coming home after a long tour.’
No you don’t, I thought. You served for three years in Germany and the most exciting thing you did was drive your Golf into a tree near Bielefeld. You were invalided out and you never heard a shot fired in anger.
‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘I can’t talk about it.’
My silence had nothing to do with the disclosure policy. We had all signed it when we left the army. We weren’t meant to talk about what we had done but most of us didn’t want to, anyway. I certainly couldn’t talk about the last few months. I couldn’t talk because someone had imprisoned me behind a wall of glass. I could see people around me, I could see their mouths opening and shutting, but the words never reached my brain. And I couldn’t answer questions. I could hardly bring myself to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ or ‘Two lumps of sugar, please’ or ‘Thank you.’
Nobody who hadn’t been there could understand what it had been like: the adrenalin rush, the fear, the occasional random, sudden moments of horror; the excitement. I was alive then. Now I felt as if I were in a trance, or as if I were half-dead.
When I came back to Britain after finishing my brief tour in Helmand I decided to apply for Premature Voluntary Release. The next move for me would have been to spend two years behind a desk. But I had never been interested in promotion or passing exams. I felt that I wasn’t capable of sitting behind a desk. I longed to be back in the action; and I dreaded going back to it at the same time. The truth was that I’d done enough; I’d seen enough; I wasn’t sure I could take much more. So I put in my papers.
Before I left I was sent to see the Regimental Medical Officer at headquarters. He had a file on his desk and he interviewed me for five minutes without showing much interest. Then he said:
‘People who have experienced the sort of things I see in your file sometimes suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Do you know what that is?’
‘I’ve heard of it, obviously,’ I said.
‘We do have some limited facilities for treatment of particularly severe cases. It’s up to you to seek help if you feel you need it.’
‘OK.’
‘You can’t claim on your insurance, you know. It’s not recognised as an insurable illness.’
I didn’t know, but I nodded my understanding. The medical officer scribbled something on a piece of paper and then looked up at me.
‘Plenty of sleep, that’s the ticket. Have a good rest. They say art therapy can h
elp. Painting pictures, that sort of thing. Sounds like a lot of nonsense to me. You’re a fit young man. You may experience flashbacks and perhaps have some difficulties adjusting to civilian life, but no doubt you will manage very well.’
The interview was soon over. He had many other people to see that day – and every other day. Some of them were a lot more damaged than I was.
So that was it. I was out; and nobody would look after me except myself.
As I sat at dinner with my family that evening I began to wonder whether there was something wrong with me after all. I hardly spoke again before I went upstairs to bed and at breakfast I didn’t speak either, except to say good morning. After a while the silence I imposed on myself fell like a wave of cold air on the rest of the household. They thought I didn’t care for their company, that I was bored, that I was not grateful for everything they were doing to make me feel welcome, that I found their lives meaningless, that I wasn’t interested in anything but myself. Affection was replaced by puzzlement; puzzlement by dismay; dismay by irritation; irritation by anger. And there was nothing I could do about it. I could see their hurt, but I couldn’t ask for help. There was my pride; and besides, how could they help? How could anyone help, if they hadn’t been where I had been and done what I had done? Most of the people who had shared those experiences with me were dead, or far away from England.
Even while this estrangement was creeping in, one part of me still remembered fondly the kindness and support I had been offered as I grew up. I was the golden boy: nothing was too good for me. My mother and Katie adored me. I grew up in a simple, straightforward world where I expected everything to work out for the best, and everyone expected the best for me. That wasn’t how things were now.
My visit lasted three days. At the end of that time I couldn’t stand being there any longer. The house had become totally silent. No one spoke to anyone else, at least not when I was there, and I felt as if I had brought a curse upon the place. So I left and went back to London. I hadn’t been home since.
I looked out of the carriage window and saw we were just pulling out of Reading. Two noisy youths arrived, carrying a six-pack of lager. They opened a couple of tins, spattering me slightly with foam, and seemed to have every intention of necking down not just the two cans in front of them, but the rest as well. I got up and managed to find another seat.
I was in an odd frame of mind when I returned to my flat in Camden. Perhaps getting married and separated from one’s new wife on the same day would do that to you. And I wondered whether Mr Khan and his friends might have followed me here. They’d had enough time. I approached the street where my flat was with caution, but I saw nothing to alarm me.
I unlocked the door, and saw that all my post had been picked up, opened, and left in a pile on the kitchen table. It must have been Amir who had done that, when he visited the flat a couple of days earlier. I somehow felt violated, even though most of the post was just unpaid bills and bank statements.
There was a letter from my landlord about unpaid rent. I put it aside to read later. There was a card from my regimental association acknowledging my acceptance of the invitation to Lancaster House to be presented to the president of Afghanistan on his forthcoming state visit. A note from my commanding officer was enclosed. It said, ‘The invitation is for you and Mrs Gaunt – I presume you have married by now, although I didn’t see the announcement.’ On the card it said: ‘Please bring this card with you and show it to Security.’
There was a letter in my sister’s handwriting, and the usual junk mail. I threw the letter and the rest of the unwanted post into the bin. I had given up reading Katie’s letters: they always contained the same mixture of reproach and lecturing.
I noticed that the bin was full, which set me thinking about the state the flat was in. I wandered into the bedroom and saw the unmade bed, sheets unchanged for a couple of weeks; clothes all over the floor, almost everywhere, in fact, except the wardrobe. The bathroom was a mess, the bath stained with scale. The so-called ‘spare bedroom’, which was nothing more than a box room, was the same dismal jumble of dusty suitcases and the little pile of photographs that had followed me round from one place to another. Among them was a photograph from school, all the boys in my house sitting in rows behind a depressed-looking master.
There I was in the back row, a tall, fair-haired eighteen-year-old wearing a sunny smile. My hair was short, my tie was properly knotted. I looked clean, tidy and organised. That was how my parents had thought of me: head of house, in the eleven, no great academic, but a thoroughly decent ordinary schoolboy. Another picture in a similar vein showed me on the day of my passing-out parade at Sandhurst: I looked like an advertisement for a recruitment campaign – cheerful, optimistic, ready for anything. I could do no wrong back then. My parents worshipped me and poor Katie was quite in my shadow. On top of the pile of photographs were the leather cases containing my campaign medals. These had been opened: another trace of Amir’s visit.
Nothing else had been disturbed although the place was so untidy it was hard to tell. The sitting room was covered in old newspapers and unwashed mugs, some with coffee still in them going mouldy. A couple of empty bottles of Chilean Sauvignon had rolled across the carpet. It was a depressing scene.
Suddenly, I couldn’t stand the sight of the flat any longer. I felt a wave of disgust at the life I lived, the person I had now become. Although it was past six o’clock there were still a couple of supermarkets open. I left, slamming the door behind me, and went shopping. I bought a mop, washing-up liquid, dusters and polish. I bought food for the store cupboard; and butter and milk for the fridge, which was empty except for a few murky jars whose ‘best before’ dates were at least a year old. I bought bin liners and air freshener and a bottle of what looked like hydrochloric acid, which it was claimed would remove stains from anything. I bought so much I had to get a taxi back home.
Once inside, I began cleaning the flat. I opened all the windows that would open, to let in some air. I scrubbed out the bath. I poured cleaning fluid down the loo until it began to erupt in a violent-looking chemical reaction. I found the vacuum cleaner in a cupboard, and cleaned every square inch of the carpets. I mopped the kitchen floor and used the bottle of faux hydrochloric acid on every stained surface. It worked frighteningly well. Then I changed the sheets on my bed, remade it, hung up all my clothes and had a shower. I washed my hair and I scrubbed myself. I scrubbed until my skin was quite sore, standing so long under the hot water that it started to run cold.
When I had finished drying myself and had dressed in clean clothes, I took six bin liners full of rubbish along the street to a builder’s skip I had spotted outside someone’s house. Then I went back to the flat and flung myself on the sofa and looked about me. It was a completely different place to the one I had returned to a few hours ago. Not cheerful, but definitely clean and tidy. I wondered whether it would make me feel better about myself. I didn’t really feel any cleaner, as if the events of the last few days had stained me in some way that soap and water could not remove.
I sat there for a few more minutes, recovering from my exertions. Then a thought struck me. I went to the window and checked the street. No black Range Rover; no sign of anything untoward. All the same I kept the gun stuck in my waistband. After a while I decided that they would either come or they wouldn’t. The thing was to have a drink and relax.
Drink. That was the one thing I had neglected to buy. I looked at my watch. There was a newsagents-cum-deli run by a cheerful Bangladeshi family a few hundred yards away. I might just be able to buy something there. I went out again. Mohan was just closing up, but I managed to get him to sell me a bottle of white wine straight from the fridge. I thought I would allow myself a couple of glasses, and then go to sleep between clean sheets. In the morning, I would go out and look for a job.
The entrance to my flat is up some steps and through a side door. The door opens into a lane that runs into a larger road. I occupy a p
art of the house that is separate from the main building, a sort of annexe with a generous-sized sitting room. The other flats are entered via a front door that leads on to the main road and I had almost no contact with the other occupants of the building. So when I saw someone standing beside my door, I wondered for a dreadful moment whether I had got it wrong and Mr Khan and his mates had caught up with me. But it wasn’t a man. As I approached, my visitor moved slightly out of the shadows and the light from the streetlamp fell on her face. I stood quite still. I knew that face: not well, but I knew it.
It was the face of the girl from Afghanistan: Adeena. It was my new wife, standing there, waiting to be let in to my flat.
Seven
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘What are you doing here?’ It was not the traditional way to greet one’s new wife on her wedding day.
Adeena stared at me, as if she did not speak any English. I stared back. Then I realised I couldn’t just leave her standing there. I motioned to her to follow me inside, with a wave of my hand, as if I were inviting her to enter a palace and not a poky little flat, then I locked the door behind us. I switched on the lights and we stood looking at each other in my small kitchen.
‘Come into the sitting room,’ I said, ‘it’s more comfortable there.’ I remembered I was still holding a bottle of white wine in one hand. ‘Would you like a glass of wine? Can I take your coat?’
She shrugged off her coat and gave it to me. It was a brown tweed and far too big for her: it looked like a man’s coat. Underneath she was wearing the same dark blue suit she had been wearing for our marriage ceremony.