Wish You Were Here

by Graham Swift

  Now the World is Yours.

  The first letter from Jack had been after two weeks or so, and was just a line hoping he was okay and saying that everything at Jebb was fine—which was surely Jack being a well-meaning liar. And then, since he hadn’t replied to that, there was a long, long gap. It looked like that was that. They’d really said goodbye to each other and known it, that December afternoon in the milking parlour. Meanwhile, he’d been moved around a bit anyway.

  Then those two letters had come, soon after each other, the first looking like Jack might have spent a whole week writing it and torn up several versions along the way. But the main item was perfectly clear. That Jack was all by himself now, not counting Ellie (assuming Ellie was still a feature, and how might she not be?). The old man had cleared off too, so it seemed, in a manner of speaking. And then the second letter had come soon afterwards, about the funeral, since that had to be delayed. And that had included that other item of news: that Michael had left the whole farm—though Jack had seemed to want to emphasise that there was a whole heap of debt to go with it—to Jack and Jack only. Well that was no surprise. That had even been the deal.

  And he hadn’t replied to either letter. He hadn’t got on the phone to Jebb Farm. He hadn’t done a single thing about either letter, though he’d stared at them both long and hard enough. Those letters reached him, as it happened, in Germany. Before Bosnia. It would have been difficult, but, with that delay for the funeral, not impossible. And there was such a thing as compassionate leave. And he’d felt compassion, definitely. For his brother.

  But he hadn’t done a thing. He hadn’t applied to the CO. He imagined the CO’s face. My old man has shot himself.

  He hadn’t lifted a finger. It was a bastard thing to do to Jack, but then, maybe, it had been a bastard thing he’d done in the first place, that night in December.

  All yours, Jack. Now it really was, and Ellie’s too, if Jack had any sense. And good luck to them. But it wasn’t his ticket or what he was made for, he knew that too now.

  He was a private in B Company, earmarked for the sniper section, currently stationed in Germany, occasionally on active duty with a Helga from Hanover, when he might have been the owner of fifty per cent of Jebb Farm, of a hundred and sixty acres of England. So be it. He couldn’t go back on the deal, and he couldn’t go back anyway to the place itself, compassionately or otherwise. Couldn’t have gone back to that churchyard to stand by the grave, even for his brother’s sake, and look down and think: it was a fine line, it was a fine bloody line. And Jack maybe thinking it too. And maybe if he didn’t show up and didn’t even send a message it would be like a clear enough last signal. All yours, Jack. Forget about me.

  He’d stared at each letter in turn. So his father had done what no one else, now, would have to have the decency to do for him. He’d done the decent thing himself. He’d stared at both letters together. Reading them was a little like reading Jack’s face, but he’d never have to do that any more. He put the letters away, and he never did speak to the CO. Later, he found an opportunity privately to burn them. The barrack room had an old-style stove with a lid. Simple. A small fire, compared with piles of cattle going up in flames. And a small matter, he’d come to think, compared with some of the things that come a soldier’s way. Bosnia. He’d watched those cattle burning on the telly six years later, in the spring of 2001. And it wasn’t so long afterwards that a couple of planes had flown into a couple of big towers—another TV picture to remember—giving a whole new meaning to the act of suicide and having a range of consequences, including ones for British soldiers, which would make a spot of cow disease seem piddling.

  And all he’d wanted was the get-out, the complete alternative package. No finer reasons. He’d never once said to anyone that he’d had a great-uncle who’d got the DCM. (Posthumous.) When he’d walked, that icy night, with his backpack, past the war memorial, he’d never turned his head. He hadn’t felt brave, or even that he was doing something that really took so much initiative.

  He’d started life as a soldier by running away. Which was a common enough story. It was what half of B Company had done in their different ways. What were the alternatives? They’d handed over the problem to the army. Take me in, please, sort me out please, the whole package. With some of them you could see, clearly enough, that if it hadn’t been that, it might have been prison eventually, one way or another. You could picture their faces sometimes (and now he was a corporal, he’d sometimes tell them) behind bars.

  And that might have been his case too, and it might not have been petty crime either. But that was all taken care of now. He stared at those letters.

  But he’d still think about cattle. They haunted him and helped him, gave him a sort of measure. If he wanted, now, to get bad stuff out of his head, bad human pictures, it helped to replace them with cattle. He could still remember the wet jostle of the milking parlour, the smell of iodine and udder. He could still remember that daily treadmill of extracting milk from cows, and the thought that would sometimes come to him while doing it, that it was only the same essential process (so hardly a man’s job) by which human babies were nursed and eased into the world, by which he himself had once been nursed and eased—late and (apparently) tough arrival though he was. And it was a wonder how the grown-up world still needed, by the churn-load, by the tanker-load, this white, soft, pappy baby-juice.

  He’d had that thought, especially, after Vera died, and wondered if Jack, in the next stall, was having it too. Their mum had died, but these damn cows still had to calve and be milked. But, at that time, the milking parlour was the best place to be.

  What kind of thoughts were they for a future soldier? What kind of training was milking? But it was a cattle-existence often enough, a cowshed existence. They were mostly hard-nut townie boys and liked to think of him as a softie country boy, a bumpkin. But there were those who were hard outside and all mush inside, you could do without them. And there were those who might look soft on the outside (though not so much of that these days) but were hard underneath, and he knew now he was the second kind. Now and then they’d get a glimpse of it, too, and knew they shouldn’t argue—one reason he’d made corporal, and would make sergeant pretty soon.

  By the time they were out here, most of them had that hard and soft stuff sorted out. They knew they didn’t have their mums around any more. They’d better be their own mums to themselves, and that wasn’t a joke. He could do that too. Set them an example. Sew on a button for them just like his own mum had done. Bite off the cotton. ‘There you are, Pickering. Now say thank you.’ Another reason he’d make sergeant. But he could also shoot people dead cleanly. Not like that useless cunt who’d shot Willis.

  Another big advantage of being the country boy. Crows, pigeons, bunny rabbits. He’d been put on the sniper’s course and passed, flying colours. He had a skill to bring to the army.

  Though no one had noticed that what he’d brought with him too was his anger. Sniping was supposed to be icy-cool, precise and careful, it was the opposite of blazing away. Yet it was anger that had driven him, that cold night, up that frozen track. Two years’ worth of simmering anger and of keeping a lid on it. He might have just done a bunk after he left school. He might have just legged it—and nearly had—that night after Luke got buried. Would Dad really have got him back? This is my boy and he belongs on my farm, he doesn’t belong in the army. Or would he have spat and said, ‘Good riddance’? Either way, he wanted it to be certain and clear. So he’d arrived on the army’s doorstep with at least two years’ worth of anger.

  And was that, too, so unusual? The army welcomed anger. Was happy to channel and redirect it, even, maybe, cure it. If you were lucky and patient, it might even find you a real enemy to take it out on. And Tom didn’t mind who that was. A war on terror? That sounded like an open day for enemies, that sounded like a perfect opportunity for firing off lots of cool, disciplined, single rounds of anger. The first time he’d fired for real and s
een his man drop, he’d felt anger fly out of him, he’d felt a great whoosh of sanity and calmness. Now he’d done it. He’d even thought he might never need to do it again, but of course it was required of him, it was what he was there for. As for the man he’d popped, he didn’t think about him. And he’d never known about it. It was clean killing. Not every soldier could do it, or wanted to.

  But he was a corporal now and less of a sniper. He’d been credited with that other skill the army needed: leadership. And he liked it. Sniping was a solo business and he was a sniper these days only by occasional solo detachment. Otherwise, he had eight men to look after—seven, after Willis. When he’d been made corporal he’d felt for the first time like a big brother. Now he had some little brothers. And he no longer felt angry. He’d sniped it away, maybe.

  Eight—seven—men. All townies, and him the only bumpkin, the one in charge. It was the accent of course that did it, the broad buttery burr he couldn’t get rid of, any more than he could get rid of the memory of milking. But no milksops among them now, especially after Willis. They were okay and would be okay, if he had anything to do with it. Some of them even found his voice soothing now, when he wasn’t barking at them. It wasn’t the obvious voice of a corporal, it was the voice of a cowman. It made them think of green English fields, perhaps, out here in the dust and crap. Well, they’d better forget all that. He could tell them about green English fields,

  More the leader, less the sniper, but he still had the same, secret equal-vote of a wish they all had: that if his moment had to come (and if they had to do without him) it would just be clean and he wouldn’t know about it. Death by sniper would do, and in his case might even be called fair. But not, please, like Willis. Wheelchair Willis.

  So when the IED—and it must have been a whopping IED—blew up under them, the whole section riding home, dog-tired, to beddy-byes, he thought it was unfair, but there was nothing he could do about it. He could see that Pickering and Fuller were out of it and he didn’t know who else might be okay or not, behind. He couldn’t move to look. It was all madness, but he was clear and calm and strangely comforted, not by his own burry voice, which didn’t seem to be working, but by the fact that he couldn’t hear anything. There must be a lot of racket, screaming, yelling, gunfire even, but he couldn’t hear any of it and he had no sense, either, of how much time was passing, if time was passing at all. He could smell fuel. He knew he was trapped under mangled metal, by his legs, but he couldn’t feel or move his legs, couldn’t move anything, even a hand, even, it seemed, his lips. Well, it would be all down to Lance-Corporal Meeks now, Dodger Meeks, if Meeks was still up and dodging.

  Was this terror? The thing they were fighting? He saw the ball of flame bloom out, and he knew he wasn’t going to die by nice clean sniper fire, but was going to be burnt to death, but there was nothing he could do about it, and it seemed he had plenty of time to think about other things and the peace and quiet to do it in. He could think about not being in a blown-up armoured vehicle in Iraq, but being in the back of the school bus with Kathy Hawkes. He could move his hand then, all right, every fingertip. And he could think about being in a caravan, a caravan with just Jack and Mum. He could even think about Marilyn Monroe. He knew now that he should have written to Jack, at least answered one of those letters that he’d dropped in a stove in Germany. He could see the red, round opening of that stove. He’d write now, if he had a piece of paper and a pen and could move his hand. He’d explain that when Dad had thrust the gun at him he hadn’t taken it, for the simple reason that he’d known he’d have used it on Dad first, then on Luke. Or on Luke first, then on Dad. A tricky question, but same difference. There were two barrels. And he’d known, from the look in his eyes, that Dad was half expecting it, even wanting it, and that’s why he’d said that thing about decency. He’d known, anyway, when Dad had turned away with the gun, that he, Tom Luxton, had the killer instinct in him. And he’d have to put a lid on it.

  So I joined the army, Jack. Now here I am in sunny Basra. Wish you were here. No, not really. Remember me to Ellie.

  But he wasn’t here either. He was there. He was back there in Barton Field. There was the big oak, its leaves brushing a big blue sky. But there was no Dad, no Luke, no gun. And no Jack. But he was lying in Barton Field more or less where Luke had been shot and had known all along it was coming. It was summer, it was warm and the grass was full of buzzing insects. And then he could hear something else, getting closer. He hadn’t heard that sound for a long time now, but he knew straight away what it was, and if he could lift his head he might just be able to see them. It was the unmistakable, steady ‘tchch … tchch … tchch’ of browsing cattle, the slow, soft rip-rip of cows’ mouths tearing up grass. It was the most soothing sound in the world and it was utterly indifferent.

  24

  ELLIE SITS BY Holn Cliffs, looking at the vanished postcard view. The occasional white, whizzing missile of a wind-hurled seagull is almost the only sign that there’s anything out there.

  Their seaside life, vanished too now, toppled over a cliff. Their Isle of Wight life. She’d come here once, all alone, to see for herself, when it was still her secret, her gift in store, like some unborn child. Twenty-seven years old. Fine spring weather. The view had been glorious then. Her dad was in a hospital bed, knowing no more about this excursion of hers than he’d known about that spin she’d taken when she was sixteen. And thank God it wasn’t the same Land Rover. She’d taken the ferry to Fishbourne, gone up on the sun deck, as if she were on a pleasure cruise.

  Their Isle of Wight life. The beauty of it: a whole separate land, with only a short sea to cross, but happily cut off from the land of their past. Not exactly their ‘isle of joy’. It wasn’t Tahiti. Look at it now. Or St Lucia (that would come later). But nonetheless it was a fact, and it had become their purpose, that they were in the business of pleasure. And it had become theirs, not just ‘The Lookout’, but ‘Ellie’s and Jack’s’. Once it had been Alice’s and Tony’s—Allie-and-Tony’s. Now it was Ellie-and-Jack’s.

  She’d stood beside him, in a straw-coloured dress, in that registry office in Newport and not minded at all that she was changing her name. It seemed a good name. Luckston. Later, outside their front door—it was a mild October afternoon and the caravans below even looked like something spread out for a wedding—she’d said, ‘Well, come on, you won’t get another chance.’ And he’d done it as if he’d been planning it all along. My God, he’d scooped her up as if she’d been as light as straw herself.

  He’d come out of his mourning for Jebb, and not so slowly, and actually started to look happy. Farmer Jack. She’d even thought she might settle for there not being any other kind of birth, for the sake of this remarkable rebirth in him. And hadn’t she caused it to happen? And, anyway, was it so out of the question that there still might be both kinds of birth?

  So was it any wonder that she’d been both flattened and glad—glad—when that letter came?

  ‘Leave me out of this, Jack.’

  She should have gone with him, back into the wretched past. For a moment she sees before her not the November rain of the Isle of Wight but the soft flaps and veils of midsummer rain over the Devon hills as she drove into Barnstaple the morning after her father had died. She’d called Jack from a pay-phone in the hospital to give him the news without any tearfulness and with hardly a tremble in her voice. She’d wanted to convey to him that she was being practical and steady—and he was still in the grip of his own father’s death. It was over, it had been expected (and, yes, all those years, since she was sixteen, were over too). In a little while they might start to think of their own lives.

  ‘No, it’s okay, I don’t need you with me.’

  And he’d done two lots of milking.

  And he’d needed her with him two days ago.

  She should have gone too, been at his side, even wept a little. She was weeping now. But she just couldn’t do it. Stand on some grim piece of tarmac, while it a
ll came back, in a flag-wrapped parcel, by way of Iraq, their old, left-behind life. Then stand, again, in that churchyard. By Tom’s grave. By her father’s.

  She just couldn’t do it—any more, apparently, than she could go and stand by her mother’s. She just couldn’t do it, even if Jack had to. She could see there was no way round it for him.

  She’d listened to him leave, two mornings ago. It seems already like two weeks. Heard him moving downstairs in the kitchen, heard the front door, his feet on the road outside. The car starting. She’d actually thought: Poor man, poor man, to have to be going on such a journey. None of his noises had sounded angry, there was no slamming. It was almost as if he’d been trying not to wake her.

  How could she have let him do it without even seeing him off, without standing in the doorway, without so much as a kiss or a hug or even an ‘I’ll be thinking of you’? My poor Jack, my poor one-and-only Luxton left. But how could she have said or done any of those things when, in the first place, she might simply have gone with him?

  It was still dark. She hadn’t moved. She’d even pulled the duvet tighter up round her. There was a brief brightness at the curtains as he put on his headlights before slipping down the hill. Even as he’d left she’d wondered: would he come back? Was this the sort of journey and the sort of starting out on it from which he might never come back?

  The fear had taken hold of her that he might not come back. How absurd. When she might have gone with him. She’d left all those messages on his mobile, none of which had been answered. Well, she’d asked for it. I’m thinking of you. I love you. Forgive me.

  Strangely, in all the time he was gone, she’d hardly thought of Tom, returning, in his own way—being returned—to where he’d come from. Or put herself in the terrible position of some mother or wife receiving back, but not receiving back, a soldier-husband, a soldier-son. She’d thought of her own mother, of going to be with her, and failed to do even that. Failed twice now. All she’d wanted was for Jack to come back.