‘How do you know that?’
‘Saw it before, didn’t I? Lights from a village or something.’
‘You’re desperate, Monty my son. Fucking desperate. You’re just shitting yourself, aren’t you? You’re shitting yourself good and fucking proper.’
He stepped away from the van, trying to ignore the peals of laughter that rang out inside the vehicle. His face was burning. A primal fear that he had not experienced since childhood was coursing throughout his body, making him feel nauseous and enfeebled and humiliated.
Half walking, half running, he reached the barrier and struggled over. It was as his feet nested into the long grass on the other side, the mud giving way with gentle reluctance, that he looked up.
There, to his surprise, was Shauna, making her way laboriously up the hill. Monty took a deep, wavering breath and began to clamber up the groove she had trodden in the grass.
And she looked back, and saw him, and took a breath.
Monty and Shauna
Shauna was clearly struggling in the long grass; she wasn’t dressed for walking, and didn’t seem comfortable outdoors. The silhouette of the hill hunched darkly up against the sky, the faint glow behind making it look flat, like a stage prop. The place on Monty’s arm that had escaped a branding was tingling, as if something physical had actually occurred, rather than been avoided. As he trudged through the grass, he cradled his forearm as if its wholeness was the result of a recent healing, as if he suddenly appreciated how vulnerable this body can be. I’m not cut out for this, he thought.
The girl reached the summit; she turned, saw him, made an ambiguous gesture, and then appeared to diminish in height as she disappeared over the other side. Why wasn’t she waiting for him? Had he been misreading the signals all along? This was typical of his life, he thought. But he was determined to break the cycle.
When Monty bridged the peak of the hill, Shauna was leaning heavily on a fence. Trying to tame the turbulence of his emotions, he approached.
‘Jesus Christ,’ she said.
‘Have you been drinking?’
‘No. I mean, yes. Last night though. I’ve still got a raging hangover.’
A blonde female (though it was dark and there was not much in the way of colour to rely on); five feet six; rather underweight; professional; fairly well-off; functioning alcoholic, perhaps. Mental health problems, question mark? She was beautiful.
‘What are you trying to do?’ he said, hearing his accent change to match hers.
‘Get over this fucking fence. Who would put a fucking fence here? What’s the point? Who would even do that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Tell me about it.’ She stopped, rested against the fencepost more heavily, feet splayed, as if going into labour.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, fine, fine. Just feeling a bit queasy. It’ll pass.’
‘Just try to relax. Maybe you should go back to your car.’
‘Maybe. Fuck, I think I’m going to chunder.’
‘Do you want to sit down?’
‘Don’t worry, it’ll pass, it’ll pass.’
‘Take deep breaths.’
She did not answer this time, just continued puffing, slowly, rhythmically. She closed her eyes, looked faint. Monty stepped closer and put a hand gently on her shoulder.
‘Are you . . .’
‘I’ve told you, I’m all right,’ she snapped. ‘It’s the altitude.’
‘Altitude? We’re only on a little hill.’
‘Shut up.’
‘Look, you don’t seem well,’ Monty said. ‘If you’ve taken any illegal substances, you need to tell me now.’
‘It’s just a fucking hangover, Christ’s sake. Have you never had a fucking hangover?’
The exertion of this line proved to be the final straw. She just had time to turn away before the vomit came; she retched into the grass, holding her hair away from her face. Monty put his hand on her back, supporting her. It went on, great grey plumes splattering into the grass, until there was nothing left to come, and even then she continued to gag, making reptilian croaking sounds. The smell was fetid and sour. Finally, she sat down in the grass. Monty gave her a tissue.
‘I’m sorry,’ she gasped. ‘What an utter tit.’
‘Have you taken any drugs?’ he said.
‘I keep telling you. I haven’t taken drugs, I’m not drunk, I’m not suffering from AIDS or fucking myxomatosis. I’m just hung over. All right? Hungover.’
‘OK, sorry.’
‘What are you, anyway? Drugs squad or something?’
Monty flushed. ‘Me?’ he said. ‘God, no.’ He turned towards the fence and contemplated scaling it. Not a difficult task, he thought. About five feet high, obvious footholds, almost as if it had been designed to be climbed. Moisture-soaked wood. No barbed wire or rusty nails that he could see. And beyond it, unmistakably, the few late-night lights of a village. He turned back to Shauna. ‘You came all the way up here just to be sick?’
‘Jesus,’ she said, scrambling to her feet. ‘I’m trying to get down to the village, get some water, some paracetamol, you know. This has been a really shitty weekend, and an even more shitty night. I should be tucked up in bed right now. I had the evening all planned out. A nice bath, soaking in essential oils with a glass of Bordeaux . . . aren’t you heading there too?’
‘To the village?’
‘No, to Bordeaux. Yes, to the village.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Well, then.’
‘Are you feeling better now?’
‘Yes. Throwing up usually does that, don’t you find? God, what a total tit. I’m sorry, Monty.’
‘Don’t worry. Seen it all before.’
‘Yeah, but it’s not exactly dignified, is it?’
He smiled. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t got any water.’
‘If you wouldn’t mind giving me a hand over the fence, that would be fab,’ she replied.
He linked his fingers to form a stirrup. She pushed her foot into it and he tried to boost her up, but her leg did not have sufficient strength, and she did not have sufficient coordination, and she almost lost her balance.
‘Christ,’ she said, ‘this is hopeless.’
‘It’s probably better if you just climb over by yourself,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you where to put your feet. Look, sort of stick your foot here . . .’
Slowly, falteringly, without elegance or panache, Shauna dragged herself up the fence, rolled over the top, and dropped heavily to the other side, where she lay sprawling in the grass. One of her shoes had come off.
‘You haven’t sprained anything?’ said Monty.
‘No, I’m fine. I’m fine. Just having a breather.’
He climbed the fence in one fluid movement, brushed himself down and helped her to her feet.
‘Look,’ said Shauna, ‘shall we walk down together? If you don’t want to, just say. I haven’t exactly made a fabulous impression.’
‘No, no, not at all. I know how it is. I’ve been there.’
‘How I’m going to get back up that fence I don’t know. I think I’m losing it.’
‘Maybe there’s some way you could go round.’
‘You’re not a crazy guy, are you?’
‘What? No. I’m not a crazy guy.’
‘Good. Because I just couldn’t deal with that right now.’
‘No. And why should you?’
‘Though if you were a crazy guy, would you tell me?’
‘Of course I would.’
‘That proves you’re not.’
They began to scramble slowly, side-by-side, down the steep, bumpy hill toward the village.
As it turned out, they could have simply accessed the village by following a half-hidden path that carved a shallow groove around the hill and led directly to the High Street. When they got there, they could see it signposted. The shops were closed and a timeless slumber lay across everything. The place was deserted. A he
licopter passed overhead, its bulbous nose tilted towards the earth; they speculated as to whether that meant that the traffic would soon be moving. They both worried about what would become of them if that happened before they got back, she to her Smart car, he to his van, with his two passengers in it; but they had been sitting in traffic for so long, and both, for their different reasons, felt so alienated from their vehicles, from their lives, from themselves, that they preferred to suffer the worry than return to the queue of traffic, in Shauna’s case, without water, food and paracetamol; in Monty’s case, without protection from Rhys. But a garage, thankfully, was open. Can’t do much business, Monty thought, considering it’s not a service station, considering it’s not signposted from the road. The man behind the counter was nonplussed. Shauna bought a packet of paracetamol and a large bottle of cold water; Monty bought a large packet of Doritos and some Maltesers, knotting himself with anxiety over whether or not to pay for Shauna’s purchases. Either way, she wouldn’t have it. They took their booty to a small bench on a patch of drab-looking grass opposite the garage and shared their spoils. Both felt dreamlike; their evenings had taken such strange turns. They began to talk in a way that was both abstract and personal about their lives. Shauna described in a rather abridged fashion how she had humiliated herself at the wedding of an ex, and talked obliquely about her fears for her future. The conversation steadied her nerves, made it easier to accommodate the stress of not knowing when the traffic would move, whether her car would end up marooned in the middle of the motorway. Monty described in general terms how he was in a bad place, in over his head, in a situation he had never signed up to; how he felt trapped; how he just wanted to go back to having a normal life again, like any other normal person. Shauna said she knew what he meant. Then she asked him what exactly he meant, and he shook his head and said sorry, I can’t really tell you. Which should have made her feel rejected, but in the event far from it, as she could tell that he was being more open with her than he would ever normally be with anybody. She could tell, somehow, that he wanted to tell her everything. And so strangers became friends, in the space of half an hour.
It was true: talking comfortably to strangers was familiar to them both. Shauna did it all the time when she was out, and at work quite a lot, albeit not usually with somebody like Monty. And Monty, for his part, had become accustomed to making connections with people he had only recently met, bringing them into his confidence, insinuating himself into theirs. But this, now, for both of them, was different. They each felt as if they already knew the other very well. There was something uncontrived about the way Monty was communicating with Shauna. And something uncontrived about the way she was communicating with him.
Skybirds
Popper paused with his hand on the handle of his car, looking up at the sky. The longer he stared, the more stars appeared. As a child, he used to imagine that they were tiny windows into heaven. He took a drag on his cigarette, opened the door of his car, folded himself into the front seat.
He reclined the driver’s seat of his Golf and angled the rear-view mirror downwards. Now he could see himself, this man he used to know, half hooded in shadow. Were others able to discern the change in him? Had the person he used to be gone forever? These were questions he had never seriously needed to ask himself before. He had always known exactly who he was, where he was going. There had been a sense of inevitability about his course through life, the one stage following the next, the one achievement after the other, building alongside his contemporaries towards a peak of stability, accomplishment, wealth and a family of his own. But now it was falling apart.
Who was this man that he used to be? He used to listen to Kings of Leon, that was one thing, that was definite. He reached forward and turned on the car stereo: there they were now, an echo of a lost world. He used to like Cheese, too, to dance to, but would never have had it playing in his car. So far so good. What else?
He used to wear Asics trainers. In the dark footwell, there they were still, two pale fish. Asics trainers, jeans, a body warmer; a North Face body warmer, a little American but top quality. He used to understand the value of good gear. Gore-Tex.
What else? His parents lived in Oxfordshire and he himself lived in London. Pimlico, near St James’ Barracks. His father had worked as a private banker for Lazard, and had married his mother before they both went out to Hong Kong; they had returned to the UK when he was starting prep school. Now his father was retired, but still did the occasional bit of private consulting for trusted clients. He was a compassionate Tory, Popper’s father, concerned by Britain’s reduced standing on the world stage. They used to enjoy long, boozy lunches at White’s, during which they would discuss Europe at length, and after which, if sufficiently sober, or perhaps sufficiently drunk, they would leaf through the leather-bound book to find prospective Members, and add their signature to the ones of whom they approved. Popper’s father was anxious about his son’s choice of career, the danger of it, yet he was proud of him all the same. He could never say so, of course, being a man of his generation. Nonetheless he was confident that his son knew of his pride. Mother and father would come and see him from time to time in London. They wanted him above all to find a good girl to marry.
He used to love skiing, walking, cycling, not surfing. The occasional game of touch rugby. He had been a decent flanker at school, but not the star player – always there clearing up, always a quiet authority, offering the team a sense of equilibrium when the others were losing their heads. He used to harbour bitter memories of losing to Harrow having outplayed them man to man. If truth be told, latterly he used to play touch rugby mainly to show he could still do it. Come to think of it, he had been a ringer for the City Sevens.
He had had one long-term relationship at university, and no others since. He had been no womaniser. Though at the same time, he wouldn’t have resisted if the opportunity had presented itself. He had gained a reputation as a very good usher. A solid bloke. A good lad. His friends had worked in hedge funds, in private equity. From the King’s Road it used to be only a short way home, by taxi, by bus. He used to like ales, he could hold his drink. He was tall – not ripped as such, but wiry and muscular. He had always been good with his hands.
Yes, he had liked school. It had been a privilege, and he had appreciated it as much as it is possible for a boy of that age, in that circumstance. He had excelled in physics and mathematics, had shown flair for building things. He had been a House Prefect. He had been a House Captain. He had been everyone’s mate. Five years living in a school with a whole range of different people had taught him, like the others, to be always charming. And he had been presidential, able to take command without being dictatorial. Leadership, that was it.
He had graduated from Sheffield with a 2:1 in engineering, then gone straight to Sandhurst. His parents had come to visit one year, just before Christmas, for dinner with the officers; they both had got rather drunk but neither had been in any way embarrassing. Although his friends didn’t understand it – they all signed up for the Infantry, the Cavalry – he had joined the Engineers. Not as sexy, not as glorious, but he loved building things, and without the Engineers the Army would be sunk.
Why don’t you join the Scots Guards? They fought in the Falklands. Or the Queens Royal Lancers? Coldstream Guards? As an Engineer you’ll be commanding chicks, you know. Spending your time digging holes. Yes, he had doubted his decision, but had never wavered. He used to be good at his job. He had been well loved by his men, who felt they could go to him with anything: marriage problems, financial problems, emotional problems. His first tour, of Iraq, had been effective and, in a strange way, the happiest time of his life. After that he had worked in Afghanistan.
Popper reached over and turned the music up, as if this would silence his mind. He found himself thinking about that woman. What was her name? Shauna. She was attractive, undeniably; he could see she had a hot body even under that jumper. And she was funny too, in an odd sort of
way. Yet she had made him feel so tired. He knew her sort, had met countless women like her in his time. It was inevitable they would share a mutual friend; inevitable, in a way, that it would be Hodgy, ladies’ man that he was. He wouldn’t be surprised if Hodgy had tried it on with her at that wedding.
Formerly, he would have enjoyed having a laugh with a random girl, flirting a little, talking about this and that. There was nothing else to do, after all. But he couldn’t take people seriously any more. Especially not people like her. His energy had gone.
For he was a man who had been forced face-to-face with death, and this was a concern of his, this dying. Nothing but a shroud-scrap lay between a man and the darkness; he had been awakened to that fact, and in the process the person he used to be had died. What was left? Nothing. Numbness.
He reclined his seat as far as it would go and tried to make himself comfortable. He heard the sound of sirens, the whup of a helicopter overhead. The image that came into his mind was a thing of transcendent beauty and purity. It was towards the end of May, in the early morning. The sun had just risen above the slouching silhouettes of the Hesco blast barriers – massive, sand-filled, soft-edged canvas cuboids – that rimmed the Shawqat Forward Operating Base. Or rather what would later become the Shawqat Forward Operating Base if he and his platoon managed to complete it without getting killed. They had been at it for several weeks already, and they still felt no closer to completion; there were twenty of them there, only twenty, and they lived every moment with the knowledge that if the Taliban saw through their illusion of strength and mounted a coordinated attack, the Engineers would be overrun. They would have their genitals cut off, the women would be raped; they would be beheaded with religious relish.
The sun was a borehole in the blue. Dust swirled in great plumes across the wasteland, coming close to taking form but each time refusing. He was standing in the lookout station at the westernmost corner of the FOB, his radio crackling in his hand, looking up at the sky. Two American A-10s swooped across the face of the sun. These were no F-18s; they were balletic, graceful visions of poise and elegance as they cut through the sky laden with enough armaments to end the world. They released a volley of crescent flares, a show of force. His eye was drawn vertically downwards, following the perpendicular line of smoke that seemed, for an instant, to connect the jets to the earth. There, almost hidden by the landscape, lay the smoking remains of the Viking that had been carrying two of his men, on his orders, to Bastion for some R&R. The jets made another pass. Then they banked and flew away, skybirds returning to the sky.
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