Fortress

14

Mary Buckingham brushed a few crumbs off the ancient oak table as she put his coffee in front of him, black, no sugar. Tom had appeared at the door without any warning. She hadn’t even known he was back in the country. Usually she got a call to say that he was on his way. She touched his shoulder, felt the tension in it, then sat down and tried not to make it too obvious that she was watching him intently.

‘Thanks, Mum.’ He smiled at her, then let his gaze drift back to a vacant space on the kitchen wall.

She was torn. Every homecoming was a cause for celebration, a huge wave of relief that brought the knowledge he was safe and in one piece. But she had learned to keep her joy to herself, just as she hid her tears whenever he left. She used to think that it would get easier, that the heart-aching wrench of seeing her son, so recently a child to her, going off to dangerous places — he could never say where — would diminish over time. In fact, it was the opposite, as if a malign calculator in the back of her mind was totting up the probability that the longer he stayed in the Regiment the more likely it was that the worst would happen. She had accepted that she couldn’t know where he was going or what he was doing, knew that it was probably better that way. But she still tensed when the news came on, or if Hugh paused when answering the phone, even held her breath. So the relief when he reappeared usually made her almost light-headed with joy.

But not today. Something was wrong.

‘How was the flight?’

There were a million other questions she lacked the courage to ask.

‘Fine. Flew back with a young lad from Brum.’

‘Oh, yes? Was that nice?’

Tom said nothing.

She couldn’t remember a time when he had been so distant. When Delphine had lost the baby, he had been full of sorrow, but he’d handled it, talked about it. He wasn’t one to push things down. But something had sucked the energy out of him.

Of course he had grown out of overt displays of emotion at a young age. Seared into her memory was the first time they’d left him at school, aged just seven, trussed up in his stiff new uniform. In the car on the way and again when they’d arrived, he had given her strict orders: Just a quick hug, okay, Mum, and NO TEARS. And the same had applied to school holidays. After a few days he would let his guard down — but then, as if he was preparing her for what was to come, he would terrify the life out of her by climbing the tallest trees and crossing the lake when it froze. Once he’d come back drenched and half frozen, almost hysterical with delight after the ice had cracked. Nothing had fazed him even then. He simply had no sense of fear.

But now that he was sitting at the table with the untouched coffee in front of him, that was what she was seeing in his face: fear.

He scanned the familiar kitchen landscape, the timeless Welsh dresser with the blue and white ‘Old Luxembourg’ Villeroy & Boch dinner service, passed on by his grandmother and, miraculously, still complete, though one of the soup bowls displayed multiple joins from its surgery when, aged four, he used it as a soldier’s helmet. He looked at the clock, a rectangular Dutch antique with a twisted barley-sugar pole on either side of its face, and a soft chime that measured out life at home in reassuring quarter-hours, the parquet floor, pleasantly worn but good for another century, and the black retriever resting its chin on his thigh: Horace, one of a long line of more or less identical animals that had graced the Buckingham kitchen since he’d been in a high chair. Thank God some things never changed. Except that everything just had.

He looked at her. ‘I’m done — it’s over.’ There was something cold in his gaze that Mary didn’t recognize. She was bewildered — she had no idea what he was talking about. ‘The Regiment — I’m out.’

As she took this in, two opposing emotions went into battle inside her. This was the day she had secretly prayed for, that one day he would just outgrow it and there would be life beyond all the anxiety. She had hoped at one point that Delphine would bring it about, but the relationship hadn’t changed anything.

So she was happy — for herself. She knew the Army was his whole world. He’d always made it clear that was where he was headed, that nothing else would do — so if he was quitting, something completely unprecedented must have happened. Unless it was quitting him — in which case he would be devastated.

‘Well, that’s…’ now she had started she had to finish ‘… it’s — I’m sure you know when the right time—’

His face darkened. He brought the mug down hard, sending some of the coffee splashing over the table. The dog yelped, equally confused. ‘There’s nothing right about it.’

Now she was scared. On the few occasions she had ever seen him angry he had been truly alarming — when a neighbour had run over a previous Horace, and when he had surprised some burglars to whom he gave such a beating that the police nearly charged him with GBH. Only Hugh’s measured intervention, and the fact that he and the policeman were both on the board of the football club, had saved him.

She opened her mouth to speak, still not sure what she was going to say. But he put up his hand. ‘Let’s talk about something else — anything.’

She went into conversation autopilot: the neighbours’ flood; the campaign to save the row of poplars that lined the main road, beyond the pheasant woods; the youth club his father had championed, but the locals were opposed to. None of it required him to do anything other than listen — if he was hearing any of it. She couldn’t tell. ‘But all we seem to be talking about at the moment is what’s happening in the cities. Your father says he can’t remember a time like it. Even the miners’ strike wasn’t anything like this, he says. He thinks they might declare a state of emergency.’

‘Where is he, anyway?’

‘Up in town, staying at the club.’

If only Hugh was here, he and Tom could have gone off to the pub and Tom could have unloaded. But she was alone and that made the atmosphere more intense. Maybe she could get him to come back on some pretext.

‘I’m going to get cleaned up, then go and see Delphine.’

She put a hand on his. He flinched slightly but she left it there. He frowned at her.

‘Haven’t you spoken to her?’

‘Her phone was off so — no. Why?’

His voice trailed away: he could see his mother had something to say.

‘Darling, she’s gone home — to France. She came by to tell us. She said she thought she needed a bit of time at home. All the trouble here — and everything else.’

They both knew what ‘everything else’ meant.

‘She didn’t want to just disappear without saying goodbye.’

‘To you! I need to see her.’

‘Darling, I think you should let her be — for now. Just let her know you’re safe. I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear that.’

He got up, his jaw set. Was he even listening?

‘She’s had so much to deal with. Losing the baby — it’s something a woman doesn’t really get over. I’m not saying it doesn’t affect men too. But it can be devastating.’

He stared at her vacantly. No Regiment and now no Delphine. His whole life had just ground to a shuddering stop.