by Carrie Elks
“He flew back to Iraq, but by that time it was clear that things were calming down. A few weeks before he was due to come back he was travelling in a convoy, heading towards Kuwait. They drove over a land mine.”
I can't breathe, I can barely think.
“They managed to pull him from the wreckage, said it was a miracle he survived. Nearly everybody else was killed, including his best friend.”
“He was injured?” I ask. I barely recognise my own voice.
“They rushed him to an army hospital. His ribs were broken as well as both his legs, and there was a piece of shrapnel embedded in the side of his face. He had five operations before they were able to stabilise him, and it wasn't until two months after that he was well enough to be flown home.”
“I remember you going to see him,” Alex says. “You took Amy with you.”
“He was in a bad way. It wasn't just the physical injuries, though they were bad enough. He was closed off emotionally. He barely looked at you, and didn't talk for the three hours we were there. That was the first time he really scared me.”
“Why?”
She winces. “Because when you started crying he shouted at you to shut up.”
The way she says it sends a shiver down my spine. “What happened next?”
“Eventually he was discharged, and with his legs it was clear his career in the army was over. He had no job, no home, and no family to speak of. So...”
“He moved in with us.”
She nods. “But he was different, you know. Intolerant. He'd shout at Alex for kicking a ball too loudly against the garden wall, and tell Andie she was stupid when she asked for help with her homework. I suppose now they’d diagnose him with PTSD, but he refused to get any help. And I thought...” She falters. “I thought I could heal him.”
It's the story of her life. She thinks a man will change just for her. Sometimes they do, but the transformation is only ever superficial. She's perpetually disappointed in love.
“It got to the point where Alex and Andie were scared to come home from school. I lost my job because I didn't like leaving you all alone with him, and that made things worse because we had no money at all. Then one night I went to Andie's parents evening. It was only for half an hour, and I put you to bed before I left, so I didn't think there'd be any trouble. But you'd started teething, and you got all grizzly, enough to wind him up.”
It feels like my skin is burning all over. I don't want to hear the next part of her story, yet I'm helpless to stop it.
“I could hear you screaming from halfway up the road. Andie and I started to run, and we met Alex on our way to the house. He was crying and his cheek was puffy and red as if he'd been slapped, but he wouldn't tell me what happened. Just begged me to come and save you.”
“What did happen?” I turn to Alex. He's turned pale, his eyes flashing with tears. I picture him as a frightened seven-year-old, terrorised by his mum's fiancé. Trying and failing to protect his baby sister.
“He broke your arm.” Alex's voice is flat. “Snapped it in two when he couldn't stop you crying. I tried to stop him, Amy, I swear I did, but the bastard was too strong for me.”
The bile that's been lingering in my stomach rises without warning. Covering my mouth, I run to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before I vomit. I bend over the bowl, retching until my stomach is empty, muscles spasming in an attempt to purge.
It's Lara who comes in, her voice soft, and her touch softer. She helps me clean up then leads me back to the living room with an arm around my shoulder. She holds me while I cry, stroking my hair and murmuring sweet words, telling me it's okay, that I'm so brave.
Except I don't feel brave. I feel sick and guilty and angry all at the same time.
“What did you do?” I ask Mum. “What did you do when you went back into the house?”
“I picked you up and we all ran into the bathroom. There was a bolt on the inside and I slid it shut, and we sat down on the floor. You were still screaming, and Alex and Andie were crying, and the only thing I could think of was I had to protect you. I had some hairdressing scissors in the bathroom cabinet, so I got them out and held them in my hand. If he broke through that door I was ready to stab him in the eye.”
“He didn't break in,” I say. “I've seen him, he has both eyes.”
“One of the neighbours called the police. About an hour later they got inside the house. Digger had drunk himself into oblivion, but they arrested him anyway and took him down to the station. The rest of us went to the hospital, and we stayed there until the morning.”
“They put a cast on me.” I've seen photos of me as a baby, a white plaster cast encasing my wrist. Mum told me I'd broken it falling down the stairs.
“Yes. You hated it, too. It was so heavy you could barely lift your arm.” Though Lara's still holding me, Mum reaches for my hand. “They charged your dad and he pleaded guilty. He ended up in jail for a year. When he got out I applied for a restraining order, and told him never to come near us again.”
“Why's he come back now?”
“After he left prison, he ended up in psychiatric care. He was diagnosed with PTSD. I think he was in some kind of treatment for more than three years before they finally discharged him. That's when he moved to Australia.”
“He moved away?” I don't know why that surprises me.
“He ended up in Melbourne. Got married eventually to a local girl.”
“Did he have kids?”
She shakes her head. “No. And that's why I think he's back. He came to see me, told me he'd changed, that he’s devastated over the way he treated us. He asked to meet you so he could apologise himself.”
“But you told him to take a running jump,” Alex interjects.
“I told him to leave you alone, that you thought he was dead. I expected him to get angry about that, but he didn't. I thought he'd got the message but then he turned up at the house and, well, you know the rest.”
“He wants to see me?” I ask. I'm like an over-stimulated child, darting this way and that. The confusion hurts my head.
“You don't need to,” Alex says, and for a moment he looks like that scared little boy again. “You don't need to talk to him at all. I'll make sure he stays away.”
I lean back, exhausted.
“I'm tired.”
“I should let you sleep.” Mum sounds hesitant. “Do you want to come home?
“She can stay here for the weekend,” Alex interjects. “I'll take her to work on Monday.”
“You'll be late for your own job.” I raise my eyebrows at him. “I'll be fine.” I wonder if I sound more certain than I feel.
“I'll take you,” he says, and his certainty is enough for both of us.
An hour later, I lay awake on the sofa bed, white cotton sheets draped around my hips as I stare up at the shadowed ceiling. Though my body aches, my mind is much too busy to give in to sleep. I think back twenty three years ago, to a time when there was no Internet, when people phoned each other instead of messaging, when a young ex-soldier thought it was okay to break his baby's arm.
Just before 5:00 a.m. Max wakes up, his sobs loud and heavy as Lara attempts to hush him. I imagine somebody hurting him, snapping his bones until he screams, and tears roll down my cheeks.
I lie there wide awake, and the bleak light of morning finds me long before sleep does.
14
As promised, Alex takes the tube with me to work on Monday morning. Though I moan loudly about him treating me like a kid, I’m grateful for his protection. We stand on the train, clutching the rail that hangs over our heads, and he does his best to make me smile.
“How's the job going?” he asks. “Managed to burn anybody yet?” It's a standing joke in our family: when I was fourteen I got a Saturday job in our local cafe. It lasted exactly 32 minutes, the time it took to pour a cup of tea over my first customer.
“Not yet,” I say dryly. “But I’m not ruling it out.”
&nbs
p; He walks me to the office block, an arm protectively slung around my shoulders. And though the circumstances could be so much better, I'm glad we at least get to spend some minutes together.
We part outside the electronic doors, after Alex gives me a short, sharp hug. I feel his hands curl into fists, digging into my back.
“If he turns up, you call me, okay?” His voice is gritty. “I'm working over in Tower Hamlets, I can be here in a few minutes.”
I wrap my hand around his still-tight fist. “I'll be fine.” I'm not scared of a man who broke a three-month-old baby's bone. Disgusted, maybe, but not frightened.
The more I think about him, the harder it is to categorise my emotions. They swing back and forth like a pendulum, from shocked to angry, sad to disbelieving. When I lay in bed that night, my mind flitted from my mum's lies to my father's violence and at one point I wanted no more to do with either of them. But there's a difference between telling falsehoods to protect the one you love and deliberately harming a child.
“What time do you finish?” Alex interrupts my thoughts. I squint at him, the morning sun making me blink before it slides between two clouds.
“I'm not sure. I'll be fine, Al. I promise I'll be careful.”
“I don't know...” He looks torn. “I'll come and pick you up.”
“Alex,” I say gently. “I'll be okay. You can't spend your life taking me back and forth to work. You've got a family of your own, a job... you can't be responsible for me as well.” When he hesitates, I attempt to reassure him. “I'll get somebody to walk me to the station after work.”
It won't be difficult, there are so many co-workers leaving the office at the same time as me.
He breathes out, rubbing his head. “All right.”
Stepping inside One Canada Square lends me strength I didn’t know I needed. It makes me feel normal, like everybody else who waits impatiently for the lift, feet tapping and chests huffing. I'm so busy soaking it in that it takes me a moment to realise somebody's talking.
“Can you drop by my office at ten? There's something I need to discuss with you,” Diana Joseph asks. She flicks her hair out of her eyes and I look at them, trying to read the rationale behind her request. I may have only been working here for a matter of weeks, but I've already learned that a meeting with HR usually means one of two things. Either you're out of a job, or you've got a promotion. She definitely isn't there to hand out tea and sympathy.
“What for?” An image from Friday night flashes through my mind. Callum holding me, his mouth millimetres away from mine, his warm breath bathing my face.
He said he'd go to HR and confess what we did. I wonder if he has.
“There's something I want to tell you.” Diana purses her lips like an old woman and it's clear I'm going to get nothing out of her here. At times like this I'm not sure if she's a stickler for confidentiality or on a power trip.
She says nothing more until we both step out of the elevator on the tenth floor, and even then it's just a terse reminder of our meeting time. I stand in the corridor, watching her stalk her way towards the HR office, and come to the conclusion that I don't like her very much.
I suspect the feeling is mutual.
When I walk into the office, Callum's door is open. He glances up from his computer and my body lights up. His expression is unreadable as he tilts his head to the side, making me wonder what’s going on in his mind.
“Good weekend?” he asks. I hear a ping as an email arrives on his computer but he doesn’t look down.
“It was...” I screw up my face, trying to find the right word to encapsulate a weekend full of revelations and recriminations. “It was interesting.”
I can cope with this, I tell myself. Callum behind his desk, me behind mine. I can fight off the urge to touch him, to feel his skin touching mine.
Then he stands up and walks out from his office into mine, and he's all muscle and presence. I want to tell him to go away and I want to tell him to come closer. Everything about him is confusing.
And lovely.
It only takes two strides of his long legs to reach my desk, where he leans on the corner. “Did that guy show his face again?”
I shake my head.
“Have you been to security?”
I shake once more and a look of exasperation crosses his face. “You need to go and see them, Amy. What if he turns up again?”
“He's my father,” I blurt out. Then I immediately regret it. After the events of this weekend I'd been determined to make a new start—another one. My cool and professional persona lasted for all of ten minutes.
“I'm sorry,” Callum replies, his brow creasing into a frown. “Have I just stepped onto the set of a soap opera?”
His levity bursts the tension. A shocked laugh escapes my lips and I clamp my hand over my mouth.
“Or is it Star Wars?” he asks. “Luke, I am your father.”
“Stop it,” I reprimand him, grinning. “This isn't a laughing situation.” It is though—at least for now. “I'm not even kidding.”
“You need to fill me in, the suspense is killing me.”
Callum plays with my pen pot as I tell him about the weekend’s events, sorting my biros into a colour-coded bundle. Every now and then he interrupts to ask a question, listening carefully when I respond, craning forward as if to catch every word. It isn't melodramatic or clichéd or anything like an episode of Eastenders, it's just the story of my life. The story I didn't know until now.
“So he wants to see you,” he murmurs, rolling a red pen on my desk. “Do you want to see him?”
“I don't know,” I admit. “I still can't get my head around everything. I know Mum doesn't want me to see him, and my brother just wants to kick his head in.” I shrug. “I don't want to upset them.”
“But this isn't about them is it? It's about you and what you want.”
I look at him, rolling my lip between my teeth. “You're not an only child by any chance are you?”
“What's that got to do with it?” He tries to hide the grin that's pulling at his mouth.
“You are, aren't you?” I laugh. “Well, I'm not. I'm the youngest of three. Nothing's ever just about me.”
He blinks slowly, eyes heavy lidded. “Something should be.”
The moment twists, the humour dissolving in the frisson that grows between us. I feel it crackling and buzzing against my skin, and all I can think about is that kiss.
Soft, sure. A brief moment of everything.
“Something?” I ask, a little breathlessly.
He catches my gaze, holding it without trying. In that instant I know for sure that whatever I'm feeling for him isn't one-sided. It weaves between us, soft as silk, unbreakable as iron. It makes me feel delighted and downright scared. I can cope with a crush, enjoy it even. Treat him like the eye-candy he is, a piece of deliciousness to look forward to when I enter the office. But mutual attraction? That's dangerous. It's a lingering force that threatens everything; my job, my degree, my hopes for the future.
Here be dragons, but rather than run away from the flames, I'm letting them consume me.
* * *
“Amy, please take a seat.” Diana Joseph’s office is exactly how I imagined it. Impersonal, neat, everything locked away. She takes a sip of sparkling water, lip gloss barely even smudging the glass. “How are you getting on?”
For a sliver of a second I'm tempted to unleash the truth on her, purely to see her reaction. A returned-from-the-dead father and a brief entanglement with my boss, they must be the things that fuel her black HR heart. But I keep my counsel, shrugging, muttering something non-committal, and she nods rapidly, ignoring every word.
“Good, good. I've been speaking with your tutor this morning, giving her an update. She insisted you need to be put on a project as soon as possible.”
I stifle a smile. Good old Professor DiMarco. She might be gruff but she's always on her students’ sides. “Okay,” I say.
“Luckily I'd
already identified a project. It wasn't easy to persuade the manager you're suitable for the job, and it will be a long slog to see the first phase through to completion.” She looks self-satisfied, and I wonder if I'm supposed to congratulate her for doing her job. Finally.
I don't give her the satisfaction. Instead I sit there, patiently, waiting for her to continue. It takes a few moments, but finally she gets frustrated enough to speak.
“Technology Integration have just been awarded the Grant project. They need somebody to project manage the requirements capture phase, and I suggested you.”
A grin breaks over my face. All that work, all that schmoozing. Callum won the contract and he didn't even let on. Part of me wants to run back to our office and throw my arms around him.
Bad idea, Amy. Very bad idea.
“I thought you'd be pleased,” Diana says smugly.
Pleased is an understatement. I'm absolutely delighted. Not just for Callum, although that's fantastic enough, I know what a juicy project this is. The project manager is the glue that holds something like this together; who develops the schedules, coordinates the work packages, makes sure everybody is doing what they need to.
Okay, so it's just the requirements phase. I won't be around to see the project come to completion, but if I do well at this it will be like getting the keys to the city.
A guaranteed job.
“It sounds good.” I manage to keep my voice smooth in spite of the adrenaline bubbling inside me. I want to jump up right away and start making lists.
“You'll be under the close supervision of Jonathan Cooper,” she says, referring to Callum’s friend. You'll also need to make weekly reports into the Head of Technology Integration.”
“I can do that.”
The smile she flashes is brief. “Good. Now I just need to identify a new PA for Mr Ferguson. It's not going to be easy.”
I think of the piles of receipts, his strange requests when booking hotels. His gas-guzzling monster of a car.
The way he kisses.
“No it won't,” I agree. “But I've left things shipshape and I'll be around if they have any questions.” I feel a flash of sympathy for the new PA. Having been there myself I know what a mess Callum can be. The way he's flippant yet exacting, a curious mixture of arrogant and nice that makes my pulse beat a little strangely. I'm a little envious, too. For weeks I've been able to spend most of my day with him, listening to him talk on the phone, watching him pace his office like a panther on the prowl. I'm going to miss that. Too much, probably.