The Woman in Silk

by R. J. Gadney

Aboard the Chinook, the Medical Emergency Response Team was ready to do its best. Eight soldiers were assisting a consultant anesthetist, an accident and emergency specialist and two medical orderlies.

  They were about an hour away from the Camp Bastion field hospital. Someone said Apache Longbow helicopter gunships were circling overhead on the kay-vee.

  A medic struggled to take his pulse; another tried to get a cannula into him to deliver an intravenous drip of saline fluid. If he was about to die the odds were on his doing so within the next thirty to forty minutes.

  “Blink if you can hear me?” a voice shouted.

  He blinked.

  “Full name, rank and regiment … Captain Hal Stirling … 101 Engineer Regiment, Explosive Ordnance Disposal. Counter-IED Task Force. Since we departed Nahr-e Saraj you’ve bloody died twice.”

  He didn’t think so. They were nowhere near Nahr-e Saraj. “We won’t let you die a third time.”

  And for the third time you rose from the dead

  Ascended into heaven

  And sitteth on the right hand of the Father

  Whence he cometh to judge the living and the dead.

  Did you pack this case yourself? In case of your death, will your insurance company pay for the return of your body to the United Kingdom?

  He must have lost consciousness—

  the next thing he knew

  the ambulance crew was stretchering him out of the Chinook.

  He was being ferried to the emergency department. He remembered the rising Chinook’s rotors howling. Whooshing clouds of dust.

  The helicopter rose skywards like some airborne beast: And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

  And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying—come and see.

  Fuck-Fuck-Fuck.

  Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;

  Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.

  Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;

  In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

  4

  Apart from St. John the Divine and Fuck-Fuck in his head he heard other friendly and familiar voices, sometimes his mother’s calling to him, echoing across the moors beyond The Towers; or his lover whispering on his pillow.

  He thought he saw faces cut from blood oranges in the crimson mist before his eyes. Inches in front of him: the veined faces turned rubbery and the toothless mouths opened and screamed.

  “Headley Court will set his head straight,” a voice said.

  “There’s nothing wrong,” he said—without a sound—“with my fucking head.”

  “That’s what you think,” another voice said.

  Except that’s what he thought he heard.

  That was Helmand then

  —the Desert of Death

  —where your brain gets paresthesia

  —said to be where God comes to cry

  TWO

  You wonder what I am doing? Well, so do I, in truth. Days seem to dawn, suns to shine, evenings to follow, and then I sleep. What I have done, what I am doing, what I am going to do, puzzle and bewilder me. Have you ever been a leaf and fallen from your tree in autumn and been really puzzled about it? That’s the feeling.

  FROM HAL TO SUMIKO, FROM THE LETTER BY

  T. E. LAWRENCE TO ERIC KENNINGTON

  (MAY 6, 1935)

  5

  Headley Court, the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre, is a ten-minute drive from Epsom through the Surrey countryside.

  The agreed arrangement for his treatment was that he could rest and convalesce at home and make the longish journeys to see the doctors at Headley Court.

  Home was The Towers, the family house near Carlisle.

  When he arrived at Headley Court he had a variety of minor shrapnel wounds and a mid-shaft tibia and fibula fracture. There were other servicemen at Headley Court in far worse physical and mental states. Thanks to treatment with antivenom the effects of the Levantine viper’s hit had been neutralized. The physical damage could be repaired.

  Still showing symptoms of trauma, he was referred to a civilian psychological counselor attached to the Defence Medical Services.

  The counselor must have realized it would require a small miracle to return Hal to active service as an effective Army bomb disposal expert. The counselor didn’t say as much; he said he wanted to help Hal heal his wounds himself. He entertained “a genuine conviction, given time and care, the most serious scars, the scars of trauma” would mend.

  He congratulated Hal for showing “an acute and intelligent interest” in his problems and in what might be their origins. Hal said he knew about the origins. They didn’t warrant medical attention. It was normal to be drawn to fear and its attendant pain: the pain of fear.

  When he wondered vaguely why fear induced euphoria, the counselor gabbled on about “the power of endorphins, the body’s painkiller or analgesic, the opioid like morphine produced in the brain and spinal cord and elsewhere …”

  Hal dismissed the idea he might be a victim of Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI, one of those catch-all phrases employed to describe “signature injuries” of the conflict in Afghanistan; particularly injuries caused by IEDs. The viper might have accentuated his latent phobia for such creatures. Other than that he maintained there was nothing wrong in his head.

  The counselor treated him with professional gentleness. Hal was “facing a difficult time. What with the approach of Christmas, the darkness falling in the early afternoons and the threat of severe cold and snows, Christmas frequently induces a melancholy frame of mind.”

  More than his own condition, Hal said it was his mother’s that was giving him cause for concern. She was suffering from a combination of heart disease, rheumatic arthritis, respiratory problems and the onset of dementia.

  “What will you feel when she dies?” the counselor asked.

  “What d’you think I’ll feel?”

  “In practical terms, what will the future hold for you?”

  “I take responsibility for the family home and all that entails.”

  “What do you feel about that?”

  “What anyone would.”

  “What, in a word, does The Towers conjure up for you?”

  “Silence.”

  “When you think of it, what do you see?”

  “Bleak moorland near Carlisle shrouded in darkness. The façade of blackened stone.”

  “What does it embody?”

  “A presence. Presences.”

  “What presences?”

  “Brooding spirits. Spirits that my mother sees that persuaded her to recognize her gifts of mediumship.”

  “Do they trouble you?”

  “The spirits? I don’t know. I can’t say they are pleasant.”

  “Unpleasant?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “What physical form do they take?”

  “God knows. They’re intangible. My mother maintains they speak to her during séances; as well as to one or two women similarly possessed of the powers of mediumship. She established contact with the other world when I was small soon after my father died. She held regular séances to listen to what my father had to say from the great beyond. She even established contact with the first owner of The Towers, Sir Glendower Stirling. Like my father before her, Mother has more friends and acquaintances on the other side in the spirit world than in the real one.”

  “You feel your mother is imprisoned by the spirits?”

  “No idea. Could be. You’d have to ask her. Mind you, if any of the spirits, my father’s among them, have advised my mother to sell off the family land to increase the finances required for the upkeep of the house, well, she hasn’t done much about it.”

  “You want to pr
eserve the house?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No matter that it harbors spirits?”

  “We all have our burdens. If you were to tell me the house is insane, I’d agree.”

  “Houses,” the counselor declared, “are neither sane nor insane.”

  Hal was about to say: “You should listen to what it has to say. Perhaps you could help it heal itself—” then thought better of it. The counselor was doing his best to help. Yet there was a curious sense of disengagement about their conversations. The two men talked at each other rather than to each other. The counselor didn’t seem to get to the heart of Hal’s problem.

  During their final session before Christmas, Hal said: “I don’t want to give you the impression there’s something wrong with my mind.”

  The counselor affected to ignore the comment. “Perhaps,” he said, “you’d like to stay here for a while—stay away from home a bit? I can recommend you be given a room.”

  “No thanks.”

  “The idea doesn’t appeal to you?”

  “Not much. Quite honestly, I can’t take the sight of the officers and men walking around with legs and hands missing. The amputees staring at the walls. The barracks humor. The mucky sex jokes. The relentless kindness of the orderlies and nurses. The bloody wheel-chairs humming and careering about in all directions. The padre and the visitors telling me I’m a hero. Hero? You get a bang on the head and you’re a goddamn hero. The doctors asking: ‘How are you?’ How do they think I am? Can’t they bloody see how I am? They’re paid to tell me how I am. I hate the dependency. I want my freedom back. Anyway, I have my mother to think of.”

  The counselor suggested he should head for home.

  “You’re through with me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hal said. “I didn’t mean to lose my cool. These days it seems to be the norm.”

  “I understand what you’re going through.” The counselor’s tone was saccharine. “I think home will be the place for you to spend Christmas. It’ll do you good. Your mother will want you there. I hope she improves. Go home before the weather gets any worse. Safe journey.”

  Take your problems with you, he might as well have added.

  Hal left Headley Court downcast.

  Mother wasn’t going to improve and the weather had already got worse.

  On the spur of the moment, he decided to break his journey home and call on Sumiko to raise his spirits.

  6

  He found a crowded afternoon train at King’s Cross bound for Cambridge. There he hired a car and drove the fifteen miles to Sumiko’s cottage in the Hertfordshire village of Ashwell.

  A previous customer had left a homemade tape in the cassette player. Over and over it played Elton John’s duet with Aretha Franklin, “Through The Storm.”

  It was dark by the time he arrived in Ashwell.

  By way of an immediate welcome, she said: “You must go.” Judging from previous visits when she answered her door in her kimono with her hair still wet from a bath, he could tell she wanted him to stay.

  She reached past him and dropped the door’s lock and as she did so she kissed him. She kissed his lower lip; he her upper lip, and then he slowly kissed her ears and neck. Lowering her face, she took his hand and led him to the bedroom.

  Omedetou Christmas

  Omedetou Christmas

  Omedetou Christmas

  Oiwaishimashou

  She untangled herself from his arms and threw off the duvet. She hurriedly dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans.

  “Yukio’s village friends,” she said. “I must give them something …”

  Minnashite asobi mashou

  Omadetou Christmas

  Oiwaishimashou

  —followed by the carol singers’ happy shouts. “We wish you a Merry Christmas.”

  He heard the front door open and “Happy Christmas.” Then: “Arigatou gozaimasu.”

  “Thank you. Merry Christmas,” Sumiko said. “Meerii Kurisumasu.”

  He heard the door close and the light tread of her footsteps coming up the stairs.

  She glanced at the bedside clock, its greenish digital numbers flickering like a warning. “Yukio’s coming back soon,” she said. “Her father’s bringing her home. You have to leave before they get here.”

  “They won’t get far in the snow.”

  “You managed.”

  “Only just.”

  He stroked her hair. “Then let’s at least have dinner at the hotel—you and me?”

  “I have to be here for Yukio.”

  “She can come to dinner too.”

  “She can’t. She’s only eight. You must leave.”

  “I’ll call the hotel and get a room for the night.”

  “For you. For one. A single room, Hal.”

  “Let’s wait and see.”

  They dressed and went downstairs.

  He reserved a table for dinner in half an hour. He was about to book a room in the hotel when the telephone rang. Sumiko spoke curtly in Japanese. “Hai—ii esa-yōnara—Yes. No. Goodbye.”

  “What was that about?” he asked.

  “My husband. The snow. Too dangerous to drive. Yukio’s staying over with her father tonight.”

  “So we can have dinner.”

  In spite of the snow, he insisted on driving her to the hotel.

  “You have no suitcase,” she said, delighted at the patterns of the snow falling across the windscreen.

  “I have everything I need at The Towers. Everything, that is—except you. I planned to get home tonight. I’ll try tomorrow.”

  It was only half true. He’d planned the visit. He longed to stay the night with her. The Towers would still be there waiting for him.

  There were two Range Rovers parked outside the hotel. He noticed each had large Hertfordshire Farmers Federation stickers in the rear window.

  They were the only people in the dining room except for four large men the worse for wear from drink, young farmers hooting about rugby football.

  “How’s your mother?” she asked.

  “Very weak, I’m afraid. Not long for this earth. It’ll be a merciful release when she goes.”

  “Is she in a lot of pain?”

  “She’s drugged to the eyeballs.”

  “And still has those nurses looking after her?”

  “Teresa and Francesca. Thank God for the sainted mother and her daughter. More governesses than nurses. Otherwise she’d be in hospital. Except, as you can imagine, she refused to be admitted.”

  They toyed with a shared salad and plates of roast chicken. He ordered a bottle of claret and drank most of it.

  “And you, Hal-san … how are you—how are you really?”

  “Much better for seeing you.”

  She reached across the table for his hand. It seemed a good sign. But the intimacy was interrupted by raucous laughter from the drunken gang of four. One of them had the tips of his forefingers to the sides of his eyelids and was drawing his eyes sideways. Hal could tell the men were taunting Sumiko.

  “Would you mind lowering your voices?” he asked.

  The men continued talking in theatrical whispers.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “If I were black they wouldn’t make those remarks. But you British have an open season as far as we’re concerned. Don’t get involved, Hal. Horei—keep cool. Tell me about yourself. How are you—really?”

  “Fine. Believe me.”

  “Is that what the doctors say?”

  “More or less. I’ll be back in harness soon.”

  “And then … you’ll go back to Afghanistan?”

  “If you allow me to.”

  “I allow you to do anything you want,” she said.

  “But you wouldn’t allow me to have my heart broken, would you?”

  “It’s your heart, Hal. And …”

  “And … what?”

  She smiled. “I too have a heart.” She took her cell phone from her sh
oulder bag. “Here. I want to take a photo of you.”

  “Good idea,” said Hal. “Me too.”

  They took photographs of each other.

  “No flash photography,” came the shout from the far table.

  The waiter asked if they’d enjoyed the food. Was there anything else they wanted? Sumiko ordered mint tea. Hal a glass of brandy.

  Across the room the four men were quarreling with the waiter about their bill. Finally, one of them slammed a wad of bills onto the table. A glass toppled to the floor and smashed.

  “You look tired, Hal,” Sumiko said softly. “You must get some sleep. I’m going to pay for dinner.”

  “No, you’re not—no, Sumiko. Please. Let me—”

  “You’re my guest.” She called for the bill.

  “I’ll drive you home,” he offered.

  “You’ve had too much to drink.”

  Once she’d settled the bill he took her hand and led her to the doorway. He asked the hotel receptionist where the men’s room was and told Sumiko to wait for him.

  He was washing his hands when two of the men barged past him toward the urinals. Hal noticed one of them urinating across the floor. The other man laughed and shouted: “Look who’s here. Hey, c’mon—c’mon …” He made an obscene gesture with his fingers. “C’mon. What’s Madam Butterfly like in bed—eh?”

  Hal dried his hands. His fury rising, he made for the door. He felt his hands began to shake, his mouth dry.

  The thug blocked his exit. “Hey—I ask a gentleman a question he answers it, right? I asked you a question—yes?”

  “Excuse me,” Hal said quietly.

  The other drunk was throwing up over the floor.

  “If you want to leave this pisshole alive you fucking answer my fucking question.”

  Hal reached out to open the exit door. The man barred his way. He leaned so close to Hal’s face his malodorous spit fell against Hal’s cheek. “Tell you what, matey. You’ve her smell on your dick.”

  The man being sick had crawled through his vomit into one of the cubicles and was coughing with such violence that he never saw what happened when Hal struck the man blocking his way. He delivered two very sharp blows, one with his knee, straight up into the big man’s genitals. As the man’s mouth opened to howl, Hal thwacked his jaw with his fist.