Soldier Boy

by Alam, Donna

  ‘I’m paying for it this morning,’ Mel says, wrapping a hand around her throat. ‘I hope you tipped the driver well.’ Sober Mel has no Beyoncé delusions.

  ‘Let’s get ready for brunch!’ I interject, clapping my hands . . . without any real expectation of this happening. I hope.

  ‘Ah. Did we make plans?’ Melody ask blandly. ‘And why did I spend all night on the couch?’

  ‘We didn’t make plans. You did. You promised to take us to brunch this morning; your shout. Didn’t she, Ben?’ I ask, turning to him.

  He doesn’t so much answer as grunt.

  It’s been a long while since I’ve seen sullen Ben. Actually, Ben wasn’t even sullen when he was younger, as I recall. A pain in my ass, but not moody or crabby. I wonder what’s going on?

  ‘Raincheck?’ Melody asks tentatively. ‘Only, Tim just rang. He apologised for being a monumental douche last night, and he wants to make it up to me.’

  ‘I see how it is. He’s taking you to brunch. We’re not invited.’

  ‘You’re welcome to come,’ she answers brightly, but we both know that’s not going to happen. I’d rather watch paint dry than spend an afternoon in Tim’s company while he talks stocks and bonds. The only bond I’ll ever be able to afford is glue. ‘And what about this?’ she asks, pulling my phone from the back pocket of her jeans.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well, the battery has gone flat for a start.’

  I shrug. I’m not due back to work until tomorrow. This is my first day off in three weeks, and I intent to spend the whole day at home. Hopefully, sitting on Ben’s knee. Or his cock. And he did once mention sitting on his face.

  ‘As I recall, from the depths of my vodka hazy mind, you signed up for Tinder,’ she says, spotting my charger hanging from the outlet set into an unplastered wall.

  ‘You signed Nell up for it,’ Ben snaps quite suddenly.

  ‘Nell?’ Melody’s expression twists. ‘Since when is she Nell? She’s not a tavern wench in the seventeenth century, even if she does have the boobs for the gig.’

  ‘Is there a compliment in there?’ I ask, watching the siblings wage a silent battle of minds. Or something.

  ‘You’re acting weird again,’ Mel retorts, plugging my phone in to charge. ‘I hope you’re being a good guest for Nell.’ With the kind of superior look only a big sister can cultivate, she turns away huffily.

  ‘We should set some time aside to have a look at the potentials,’ she says.

  ‘Potentials?’ I repeat, wondering what the hell she means.

  ‘Your swipe rights. You know, potential dates?’

  ‘Ah, that,’ I respond in exactly the same tone as, ah, kale. ‘Yeah. Sure. Let’s look at them sometime.’ Never.

  ‘She should at least look, shouldn’t she?’ She turns to Ben as though they weren’t just exchanging daggers at twenty paces. Okay, five. My kitchen isn’t that big.

  ‘If she wants to, I’m sure she will.’

  ‘It’s a good place to start,’ she responds with a pinched brow. ‘You used it often enough.’

  ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but yes. You know I did.’

  ‘And you would again,’ she presses.

  ‘What do you want me to say, Mel? That I fuck around? There. I said it. Do you feel better airing my dirty laundry in front of your friend?’ Was the latter part of his sentence meant to hurt?

  ‘What crawled up his arse and died?’ Mel mumbles, turning away. ‘I’m going to hop into the shower. Is my overnight bag here from last time?’

  ‘Yep.’ I point at the ceiling. ‘In the room of death where you left it.’ No one died in that room. Not that I know of, at least. It’s just the junk room and filled to overflowing. Liam used to joke that entering the room of death was like entering Jumanji. Pity he hadn’t been whisked away to another dimension when he went to retrieve his suitcase from there the day he left. It wouldn’t have made any difference to me. He wasn’t contributing to the mortgage anyway.

  I wait for Mel’s footsteps to sound on the stairs before I ask Ben what’s wrong.

  I get the man answer.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I’m not buying it,’ I reply, folding my arms across my chest. ‘Something is up. You haven’t once looked at my boobs. Or teased me about my taste in nightwear. I mean, look.’ Pulling on my pyjama top, I invite him to read the wording.

  Check Me-Owt.

  ‘You don’t have a bra on.’

  ‘Fifty points to Slytherin.’

  ‘Why would I be in Slytherin?’

  ‘You’re really off your game today.’ Drawing closer, it looks for a moment like he’ll step away. Looks like it but doesn’t. I press the back of my hand against his head. It’s not quite a scientific investigation, but I always find it comforting. ‘Slytherin because you slither . . . in. It’s a dick joke. Get it?’

  His smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

  ‘Ben, please. What’s up?’

  ‘I think you should listen to what Mel says.’

  ‘What? That the name Nell doesn’t suit me? It’s better than Penelope. Besides, I like how you’re the only one to call me that.’

  ‘I meant about seeing—about going on a couple of dates.’

  ‘Oh.’ Like a balloon without air, I sag against the countertop. ‘And you’ve come to this conclusion why?’

  ‘I got my orders today. I’ve got two more weeks.’

  ‘That’s . . . that’s what you expected, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Placing his untouched mug down, he leans his butt against the sink as he folds his arms once again. ‘You were the one thing I didn’t expect.’

  Internally, I light up like a Christmas tree. At least, until I pay attention to his expression. ‘And that’s an issue why?’

  ‘I can’t have a girlfriend, Nell. There’s just no space in my life for love.’

  Love. Hate. Anger.

  ‘That’s total bullshit. Just say what you mean to say. I had no expectations.’ Hope but not expectations. ‘And you made no promises.’ Not verbally, at least. Just in his kisses. ‘It was only supposed to be one night. The rest was . . . ’ Everything. ‘Let’s call it bonus material.’ I end my dishonest statement with a strangled laugh—one I’ve never used before.

  ‘I want to explain—’

  ‘Really, there’s no need to,’ I answer briskly, turning away and beginning to busy myself. I grab a towel and begin rubbing the bench as I wonder when Ben put the fruit I’d bought in a bowl. Then I wonder where the bananas came from because I didn’t buy them. Anything—I fill my head with anything, rather than listen to him.

  ‘I don’t date, Nell.’

  ‘Apart from someone called Samantha.’ The words are out of my mouth without thought. ‘Forget it—it has nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Actually, it has everything to do with you.’ I freeze in my actions from wiping the countertop. ‘Samantha . . . looks a little like you.’ I have no right to be jealous, but the flare is there all the same. ‘Not as beautiful, of course. Fuck, Nell,’ he says, dragging his hands through his hair, ‘they all do a little bit. Dark hair, cute, and petite—I have a type.’ I’m not sure what to make of this so slot the information away for later examination. ‘Want to know why? You were the pinnacle, the untouched summit. I wanted the nearest thing I could get to my fantasy.’ I bring my hand to my mouth a more than a little stunned. ‘We didn’t date,’ he continues. ‘Not exactly. I was blunt with her from the start. I told her I wasn’t interested in anything serious. And, well. She agreed. She was in the Armed Forces, too.’

  ‘How cozy for you. She sounds like such an amiable girl.’

  So. Much. Asperity. But what right to I have? Me, who has done the exact same.

  ‘I was deployed a month after meeting her, and she was okay when I left. She was upset, but I thought she’d get over it. Move on with her life. Only she didn’t. She plagued me. Sent me images I didn’t want to see, photographs deb
asing herself. I ignored the emails and the texts but when I came back on leave and she just . . . appeared. Everywhere I went, she was there. I thought it was a coincidence at first. But then not. She turned up at the barracks, my parents’ house. The gym—everywhere. I just told her—I’m not interested. We were nothing more than a casual fuck. Then the threats started.’

  I turn to face him. ‘What kind of threats?’

  ‘She was going to hurt herself.’

  ‘She was suicidal?’

  Ben shrugs as though his skin is too tight, then shakes his head. ‘I felt responsible.’ I watch as the expression drains from his face. ‘I was responsible.’

  ‘No, Ben. People who commit suicide aren’t in the rational frame of mind. There was probably nothing you could’ve done.’

  ‘She didn’t kill herself,’ he spits bitterly. ‘But I’m still responsible. I spent so much time worrying and obsessing from the other side of the world, wondering what I could do. I was twenty-two. Just a fucking crow—not much more than a new recruit—but I was responsible for men. My men. But my head? It was fucked. And all over this girl.’

  I begin to wonder where this is going—how this can have any bearing on me, on us.

  ‘We were, well, it doesn’t matter where we were. It may as well be the other side of the moon for all the bearing it has over here. The bottom line is, I took my eye off the ball. It doesn’t matter if she was screwing with my head. My head wasn’t on the job, and I let my guys down and got one of them killed.’

  Chapter 17

  BEN

  My statement reverberates through the kitchen. As shocking as the words still sound, they’re true. It doesn’t matter which way you cut it, I killed him. I might not have pulled the trigger, but my negligence still puts me at fault. My inattention. If I’d been less distracted—if my head hadn’t been up my arse—if I’d never met Sam. Any of those things would save me from how I feel. Save me from hating myself. But what’s the point? I can’t turn back the clock. I can only go on.

  I drop my chin to my chest, blowing out a long breath.

  ‘What happened?’ Nell asks softly. When a chance a look at her, I hate what I see. Sympathy, but wearing a professional mask. I’ve seen the ordered medics, the shrinks, and everyone prescribed in between. This is war, I’m told. These things happen. You get up, you dust yourself off, you get revenge for your mate. And not once do you blame yourself. Tell that to his wife and family. Tell them I’m the reason he’s dead. See if they feel the same—tell it to Tom as he lies cold in his grave. I know he fucking blames me. I saw it in his dead eyes, and I see it still in my nightmares.

  When I don’t answer, Nell doesn’t push. I suppose I could shrug her off. Change the subject. Put on the front. Be Ben Monroe, the dude with a ready quip and a quick grope.

  Or I could tell her the truth.

  ‘I joined the special forces, Nell.’

  ‘I thought you were a Paratrooper? Isn’t that your regiment?’

  ‘It was. But eighteen months ago I joined the SAS. He who dares and all that macho shit. I met Tom during training. What we had going for us in the beginning was a not so friendly kind of rivalry. Not many get through the first round—it’s not even training,’ I add with a derisory snort. ‘More like breaking you down.’ I sigh, leaning back against the sink, crossing my left ankle over my right. ‘Dog eat dog. Every man for himself. Trekking through the Brecon Beacons at the arse end of Wales. Then, onto Belize for six weeks in the fucking jungle where we ended up in the same four-man crew. Man, I hated it, but that’s the whole point. Endurance. Fortitude. A will to be there at the end. That’s what we had in common, Tom and me. Out of 300 blokes at the start of training, there were only 12 of us at the end.’

  ‘That’s an amazing achievement,’ Nell says softly.

  ‘Amazing was surviving TQ training.’ Endless interrogation, sleep and food deprivation, sensory and physical punishments. Big fuckers messing with your head. And what for? To become a member of the elite. To gain a little autonomy. To learn more than I ever thought possible about myself. ‘Later, Tom and me, we found ourselves Iraq bound.’

  ‘To train the Iraqi army?’

  ‘Hearts and minds? No, I was there in the shadows, stirring things up and tidying loose ends.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  For a beat, I consider lying to her. It’s what I should do. It’s what I can’t bring myself to. Have I always been honest with her? If I haven’t, I now want more than anything else to be so.

  ‘Prevent those UK citizens who’d joined the terrorists from slinking back home.’

  ‘To capture them.’ It’s a statement, not a question. It’s a statement that’s wrong.

  I shrug, but in my quest for honesty, I answer, ‘Mostly, we just killed them.’ As a doctor, I suppose I’d expected her reaction to be worse but there’s barely a ripple of recognition in her expression. ‘It’s not like we could rock up to their bases, knock on the front door and politely request they hand themselves over to the authorities, is it? Or even ask them nicely never to return to Blighty.’

  ‘No, of course. But hard for you to do, Ben. There’s no need to be cavalier on my account.’

  ‘There’s nothing careless about killing, but it’s the job. It’s what I was trained to do. To think. To kill. I’m not mindless about it or gung-ho but what it boils down to is a question of them or us. Killing the enemy in the desert or letting them sneak back to the UK to kill little girls at their first pop concert, or families as they shop at the mall.

  ‘Out there, it’s different, Nell. It’s not real, and yet it’s so fucking real. It’s a dull orange haze on the horizon, dust coating every crease in your skin. It’s sweat that dries before it leaves your pores and its men who are more than family, and it’s those you kill but don’t hate because they don’t even register on your scale of humanity.’

  The sights I’ve seen. The smell of decay and burning flesh. The sensation of an explosion beneath your boots, knowing the destruction is happening miles away, and there’s fuck all you can do. It’s craters in roads strewn with twisted metal and ancient cities that look like a scene from the Book of Revelation. It’s fucking hell.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ I tell her, looking away. ‘I don’t need pitying. I just need you to understand I can’t risk any more friends.’

  ‘I’m not crying,’ she replies, striking the tears from her face. ‘I’m sad for you. I’m sad for myself. But, Ben, do you think you’re the only one who has seen death? I’ve delivered full-term babies that had long since passed to mothers who weep through their labour knowing the blessing at the end of their pain was to be denied to them. I get it. No amount of training prepares you for a role in someone else’s tragedy.’

  ‘He died, Nell. It wasn’t nature that killed him. It was me.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  My heart sinks. ‘A sniper. One I should’ve seen.’

  ‘Have you . . . have you talked to someone about this?’

  ‘What does it matter? It’s not going to change what happened. I can only look to the future. And Nell, you’ve been a dream. You were never real. Just a fantasy.’

  ‘But now I’m a liability in your eyes?’

  ‘You’ve got it wrong.’ I push off from the sink, making my way over to her. Her dark eyes are sad, but at least they aren’t repulsed. I should’ve known she’d get it. If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in the fantasy, I might’ve noticed that she’d suffered, too. ‘I’m accountable,’ I whisper, taking her head in my hands as I swallow the words I long to say but can’t. ‘I’m safeguarding my men.’ And I’m protecting my heart.

  As Mel’s footsteps sound on the stairs, Nell pulls at my hands, moving swiftly away. My jaw clenches as my hands ball into fists. Just because I can’t have her doesn’t mean I no longer want her. Why does it make me feel so bitter that she’d refuse to acknowledge what she means to me? Because you didn’t tell her, you fuckwit.

  ‘Okay,’ Mel
ody announces, stomping into the room and heading for Nell’s phone charger. ‘Now that the battery has some juice let’s look at the damage.’

  Damage. I want to cause some damage. Why does my sister have no tact? Can’t she see there are people here trying very hard to execute a non-break up?

  ‘Maybe you should leave Nell to look herself,’ I gripe. ‘Unless you’re just keeping your eye on what the dating market has to offer? You know, just in case.’

  ‘Dating market?’ Nell belatedly.

  Look at me, Nell. Fucking look at me.

  ‘The meat market that is Tinder,’ I add bitterly as her eyes touch mine only briefly. Next to me, Mel snorts, her gaze glued to the phone in her hand.

  ‘Well, you would know,’ she mutters

  ‘That smacks of double standards,’ I announce, turning to Mel. ‘It’s okay for you to sign Nell up to Tinder but I’m a whore for using the same app?’

  ‘There’s a difference,’ she snaps. ‘Penny doesn’t screw around,’ she says pointedly, looking up from the phone. Her gaze slides to Nell but rather than warmth, what I see in that look is more like an examination. ‘And the sooner she finds someone, the better for her,’ she mutters.

  So that’s what this is. Unlike my first assumption, this isn’t double standards. This is a moment of clarity for my sister and a moment of disappointment for me.

  ‘That’s just fucking perfect,’ I say with a sharp bark of something I think might be laughter. Though I’m feeling very fucking unamused. From the other side of the kitchen, Nell almost jumps. I want to storm out—want to snatch the phone from Mel’s hand and stamp on it. Then, for good measure, grind it with the heel of my combat boot. And all this because I know what’s coming. I know what she’s doing, and why. And I hate every minute of it. Even though I can see it for what it is. My sister is trying o protect her friend.