Which is maybe why I tried harder, the next time he took me running. It still felt like having my lungs clasped in some great iron clamp, and I told him I thought I might be having a heart attack. He told me I would do, too soon, if I spent my life sitting on my arse. He said he needed me to be alive longer than he was because he wouldn’t be able to live without me, so I kept going – he romanced me into trying. I followed him doggedly, praying for the moment to come when he would let me stop.
One time after that it rained and I got soaked through to the skin, mud all over me, turning my girly trainers black. When we got home, he peeled my wet clothes off me, pulling me into the shower with him. I’d stood there, too exhausted to feel sexy, while he washed me down, kneeling in front of me, the water cascading over his shoulders, massaging my aching thighs, kissing the places in between. I decided then, I didn’t care how far I ran or how much it hurt. It was worth it because I knew then I’d follow him everywhere; I’d never leave him.
Then one day, just a few days before he was due to go back overseas, I was following him along the canal towpath, with the spring blossom pouring down from the trees, the sun warm on my back, and I felt joyful. It stopped being his thing and my torture, and started being our thing. The thing we did together. Oh, what a smug couple we were, out running together every morning he was home on leave. If I even mentioned it to our friends, they’d stuff their fingers down their throats and pretend to vomit. Our friends: we had a lot of friends then; people circled around us. We don’t have the same friends now; we moved when he came out of the army, and he never wanted to keep in touch with any of the old crew, not my friends, anyway. His relationship with his unit is different – they are the family that he never really had.
Now, Vincent has a lot of wonderful people who are around him all the time, pulling him forward, giving him the purpose, focus and dedication that he displays every day to the world outside our front door. But somehow I don’t have him any more, and he doesn’t seem to want me. And I am not really sure how that happened, except that after the injury everything changed, including him and me. I changed because he did, because when he didn’t want me any more, I discovered I didn’t want to be me.
And from the outside, everything looks if not good then OK. It’s eighteen months since a rocket launch attack killed one and injured three in his unit. Eighteen months since Vincent escaped death, and now he is fully rehabilitated, at least physically.
I remember when the news came.
I was working, part of a team in A&E, trying to save the life of a little girl who’d walked out in front of a car, while her mother had stood by screaming as her daughter had been flung into the air. She had head injuries, massive internal injuries – the broken bones were almost incidental – and we were working, just like we always did, to reverse death, to defeat it and send it away again. We knew what we were doing, the trauma team. We were gladiators, experts: fearless, brave, perhaps a little bit cocky; each of us was certain that if we played our part, followed the rules, we had a very good chance of sending Death away empty-handed. And that day, the day that I heard the news about the love of my life, we knew we were on the road to saving that little girl. It would be hard, but we could do it.
And then I was called away, and they told me Vincent had been badly injured, that he was being airlifted first to Camp Bastion to be stabilised, and then to Birmingham. And the first thing I thought was that I couldn’t go back to working on the little girl. I couldn’t because, if there was only one life that was allowed to be retrieved that day, I didn’t want it to be hers.
It was a dark thought, a terrible, irrational, selfish thought, but I had it. And sometimes now I have to think about it; I make myself think about it – about the strange cosmic choices that we think we have, the vows we will make, the prayers we will send out to a god in which we don’t even believe. Take her, not him. Please, God, don’t take him.
They sent me home, of course. Another nurse stepped in and took over my role, and the little girl was saved. I remember it seemed like years for the call to come through that Vincent was stable enough to be brought back to the UK, that the doctors felt that he was going to make it. I got in my purple car and drove up to Birmingham right away. I wanted to be at his side the moment he arrived.
Things were touch and go for a while, but at the hospital everything was taken care of with military precision, even though it wasn’t a military hospital. The nurses took me under their wing, looking after me especially well as I was one of their own. They told me they ran the wards with the servicemen on as if they were in the army. Having people in uniform, having a routine, comrades in arms, it all helped the men and women they treated get better. When Vincent had healed enough, he was transferred to Headley Court to be fitted with a prosthetic leg and to learn how to walk again. I didn’t see him so much then, in those four months; he didn’t want me to come. He said he didn’t want to see me again until he could be standing on his own two feet.
I fought him on that, of course. Even if he didn’t want to see me, I wanted to see him. To know what he was going through, to know that I could be near him, to see him, touch him, while he went through what was almost unbearable. But he was insistent, cool to my pleadings. I thought it was his way of coping, of maintaining dignity. I thought, what’s a few months out of a lifetime if it makes him feel better? We talked every day. We emailed, we skyped, and it was like we let ourselves believe that nothing had changed, that everything was the same, because, after all, ours was a romance that had always been lived down the wire.
And then on the day I went to pick him up, he greeted me at the top of the steps, standing tall, and I ran into his arms. And as I ran I thought, this is it, the proper beginning of our real life together as man and wife. We’ve been granted a miracle: he lived when others died. He’d survived and healed, and he could go on to do anything he wanted. The few months of pain, and worry, and uncertainty, were over; this was the minute that everything was back to how it should be.
It was in the car on the way home that he told me he was leaving the army.
‘But you don’t have to?’ I’d been shocked. ‘They haven’t … I mean, have they said you have to?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I could stay on. They’ve plenty of roles I could take. They don’t even rule out you going back to active service, these days.’
‘Yes, when I was in Birmingham with you, during those first bad weeks, I found out about what could be next for you. Liaison officer is one thing. Working with other veterans, support roles – you can even go back to your unit, with the right support …’
‘I know.’ His tone was terse. ‘I thought you’d be pleased. To have me home, out of harm’s way. I … I don’t want to go back. I’m not …’ He paused and I thought he was going to say something more, to tell me what it was that had changed in him, but he finished the sentence making it clear the decision was already made. ‘I’m not going back.’
‘Of course I’m pleased.’ I reached over to touch his knee, remembering just a little too late that one of them wasn’t there any more, and stupidly withdrew my hand. ‘Of course I am, it’s just … what will you do?’
‘Well, I can do anything I want to,’ Vincent said, turning his gaze out of the window. ‘Everybody says so.’
‘So what do you want to do?’ I asked him.
‘The first thing I want to do is have a beer,’ he’d said. ‘And then after that, have another one.’
THE THIRD NIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHT
HUGH
I’m not big into winter: I don’t like the dark afternoons or the cold walks home from work. I like a proper hot summer: shades on, girls in summer dresses, glimpses of brown skin and cleavage. But not my mum. Winter was the season she always loved best when I was a kid. She used to say she loved drawing the curtains and turning on the lights. She’d put the gas fire on and lay out a blanket, and we’d have tea together before Dad got in from work – crumpets or toast
in front of the fire, its plastic coals glowing orange and red. Sitting cross-legged, her long blonde hair still tangled from an afternoon that she had slept away, Mum would tell me stories while I watched kids’ TV.
Her stories came straight out of her head, and were probably far more scary and bloody than a boy of my age should have been listening to, but also they were magical, fantastical, epic and far-ranging and full of wonder. My dad was the finest man that I know – the best person – but I think that my curious mind, and what academic brains I have, came from Mum. It was just that she never had the kind of life where she could explore her potential. And anyway it didn’t matter if she was telling me stories of knights lopping off heads, or witches chewing on the bones of children, somehow it didn’t matter, because my mum had this way, this warmth, this enthusiasm, that made everything seem OK.
I was never afraid of monsters under my bed, or demons lurking in the wardrobe, because I assumed that nothing scary would ever be so stupid as to try and come face to face with my mum and her stubborn determination to laugh in the face of any kind of danger. Her fierce brightness would obliterate any shadow – that was how I thought of her: she was like a night light personified.
After crumpets and stories, she might fall asleep on the sofa, and I’d play, happy to be solitary, until Dad got in from work and made proper dinner. I remember it would take him some effort to wake her up for supper; he had to shake her and call her name, a little louder each of the many times. But eventually Mum would wake up, her pretty hair messed up and her eyes sleepy, and she would come to the table – the same table I still sit at. She would smile at me all through dinner, barely eating a bite before going to bed, while Dad talked at length about his day and would ask me about mine. I don’t think I realised that he rarely spoke to Mum directly during those times. I don’t think I realised it until quite recently.
Dad would tuck me in, and read me a story, and brush the hair off my forehead before planting a kiss on my cheek. And sometimes I asked him why Mummy never put me to bed, and he said, ‘Mummy is just very tired, son. She needs her sleep.’
I suppose that’s why during the summer I always think of Dad. Of long, hot afternoons on the canal bank, the sunlight dappling the water, midges flitting over its still surface. Waiting in quiet content companionship for that thrill of movement in the water: a sharp tug on the line, knowing that one of you had caught a fish. But in the winter, at times like this, it’s her I think of – the way that she could reel you into her world and make you feel so special and wonderful and wanted. How sometimes she’d wake me up and take me out into the garden, gone midnight on a crisp, frosty night, and lay me down on the brittle grass, and we’d paint pictures in the constellations in the sky. And then, after she went, it’s always felt like that part of my childhood was never real – that it was just one of the fairy stories she made up. And then I have to remind myself that I am a grown-up now, that I have a great job and a nice house, and only really pathetic men dwell on the holes that their mother left in their life twenty-five years ago.
Maybe I should have gone for a drink with that girl from the British Museum tonight after all. She has an ability to talk non-stop without breathing. It’s not exactly beguiling, but it works very effectively as an anaesthetic of the mind; plus she is extremely pretty. Still, I’m nearly home now, so a quick spag bol with Jake – if he’s got room in his diary between his daytime roaming and night-time adventures – and then maybe a pint in the pub down the road before bed.
I always forget to leave the lights on when I leave for work, so the house is dark when I get home, with the lights in other neighbouring houses burning so brightly either side of it, lit up with a welcome.
As I approach home, I stop at the gate, noticing that tonight next door’s house is in darkness too. And there’s something else. A boy, next door’s boy, is sitting on the doorstep, huddled up in what looks like a tracksuit top. Whatever it is, it’s not enough of a defence against the chill in the air. More of a hoody, if anything. I think about pretending I don’t see him, but oddly he reminds me a bit of Jake when he comes in from the rain: half his normal size and shivering; it’s the one time he’ll let me make a fuss of him, wrap him in a towel and rub him down, huddling close to me for warmth.
They haven’t been in there long, the new neighbours. The house was bought by a housing association a couple of years back and seems to be fitted with revolving doors: there’s a new face every few months, and this kid is another one of them.
‘Er, hello?’ I say. ‘You all right?’
He does not look up from his phone, which floods his face with artificial light, throwing the shadows of his eyelashes in upward spikes.
‘OK?’ I ask again, not because I really want to know, except that he looks vulnerable sitting there – about ten or eleven years old, I’d say.
‘Why do you want to know?’ he asks me. His voice is sharp, managing to sound nervous and angry at the same time. He is suspicious, and I don’t blame him.
‘Well, it’s dark and cold, and you’re sitting on your doorstep on your own. Isn’t your mum in?’
‘If she was, I wouldn’t be out here, would I?’
‘I suppose not. Will she be back soon?’ While he doesn’t appear to be in any imminent danger, and I’m starving for microwaved pasta and a beer, I don’t feel like I can just ignore him; my dad would never have ignored him, and he is the benchmark I strive for.
‘I forgot my keys, didn’t I?’ he says, unconcerned, but he shudders despite himself.
‘How long have you been there?’ It’s gone seven. School will have finished hours ago.
‘I dunno, couple of hours,’ he says. ‘I’m flipping freezing.’ Somehow the phrase sounds comical in his high childish voice.
‘Did you call your mum?’ I ask him.
‘Yeah, but she works shifts, and if she comes home she doesn’t get paid, and it’s like, oh I dunno, you have to go every day to keep your job, or something, or they give it to the next person. So I said I’d be fine. I told her I’d go round a mate’s house, but there wasn’t anyone about. When she gets in, I’ll just say I was here for a minute or two.’
‘So that she doesn’t worry?’ I ask him, touched by his concern for his mum.
‘Are you a pervert?’ He looks me suddenly, sharply, as if he’s just remembered he isn’t supposed to talk to strangers.
‘No … I’m your neighbour. I live here – next door.’ I jangle my door keys.
‘That doesn’t mean you’re not a perv,’ he says, standing up, defensive now. ‘Pervs are everywhere. They even look normal. You’re wearing a bow tie; perverts wear bow ties.’
‘I …’ My hand travels involuntarily to my neck, protectively covering the offending article. ‘I am a professor of history,’ I tell him. ‘My bow tie is ironic.’
‘Er, no it isn’t,’ he says scathingly. ‘If you weren’t a professor, then it would be ironic, which doesn’t make it un-pervy.’
‘Well, I’m not a perv,’ I say, feeling frankly ridiculous. ‘I’m not. I’m Hugh.’ I offer him a hand to shake, and then realise how ridiculous that is, inviting him to come all the way down the path to shake my hand, out of the shelter of his doorstep, so I tuck my hand back in my pocket. ‘I was just worried about you sitting there, freezing. I could make you a cup of coffee if you like, bring it out?’
‘Coffee? I’m only ten!’ he says, affronted by the suggestion, and I can’t help but grin.
‘Er, hot chocolate? I think I might have some left over from this girl … this woman, adult woman, I used to date.’ He looks like he is considering the offer, when we are interrupted.
‘Can I help you?’ I turn and find his mother, home at last. Small, short and petite are words that might describe her; she’s barely five foot, with a tiny build, huge dark eyes and long, straight black hair. Her heart-shaped face is almost dwarfed by a thick woolly hat pulled down to her eyebrows, which are drawn together fiercely. I sense she’s used to
defending her small family with quite some vehemence.
‘No, I was trying to help your son. I’m Hugh. I live next door? I came home from work and found him sitting on the doorstep. He looked freezing.’
‘I’ve been here for two minutes,’ the boy says, staring hard at me. ‘He wanted to make me a cup of coffee!’
He makes it sound as if I tried to entice him inside my lair with a packet of sweets, and suddenly I wish more than ever that I were in my dark empty house enjoying the prospect of an evening with my beer and my microwave.
‘He’s fine. He lost his key, he’s been round a mate’s,’ she says, defensively, bustling past me on her side of the fence, fumbling for her keys. ‘You don’t need to worry about us. We’re fine. We do really well, actually.’
‘I wasn’t questioning whether or not you are a good mother …’ As soon as I say the words out loud, I can see I’ve touched a nerve, frightened her somehow, and I don’t blame her. What a stupid thing to say. Why didn’t I just take him at his word and go inside ten minutes ago? This is what happens when you engage with the world at random – it starts engaging back.
‘He’s fine, we’re fine. Mind your own.’ She fumbles with the keys and drops them. I am making her nervous, and I feel sorry. The best thing I can do is simply get indoors and we can all pretend we never had this conversation.
‘Well, you’re home now,’ I say. ‘I’ll let you go. Goodnight.’
‘Is he a pervert?’ I hear the boy asking just before she slams her front door shut.
Jake is there sitting on the bottom stair, mercifully speechless.
‘How was your day?’ I ask him. ‘Sex, drugs, sleeping on the radiator?’
He looks like all three were entirely possible and follows me begrudgingly into the kitchen. I stop without thinking and check the answerphone, but there is no light blinking – just a dusty, empty faux-wooden box, not the portal to mysteries that I don’t understand at all. I don’t know what I was expecting, or hoping for, from that missed message last night. Or who I thought might have stood in a public call box trying to reach me. But it had given me something I didn’t expect: a sense of hope, of something different. Although what I think I might be missing escapes me. I have everything I want. A great job, my freedom, no financial or emotional tangles – everything is exactly how I like it. And that stupid silent-but-not-quite phone message makes me feel like I do when I’ve left the house and I can’t remember if I left the shower running. Some important piece of missing information that is just out of my reach. But it’s ridiculous. I’m being ridiculous. I’m thinking like a girl.
We Are All Made of Stars Page 6
