War Torn

Chapter Eighteen

THE SUN GREW STRONGER DAILY. IN WILTSHIRE THE WOMEN changed into their summer clothes and lay in their back gardens whenever they could, soaking up the light and heat as though it was a rare commodity they had to hoard. In Afghanistan temperatures soared up to 50 degrees and men sheltered from it.‘Is it that much hotter?’ the lads asked. ‘It’s always been hot.’‘It’s bloody hot but you’re used to it now,’ Dave told them.He’d watched his men grow leaner and stronger as they muscled up carrying heavy kit in blinding heat day after day. Some even seemed to grow taller. And they were more proficient. Dave had to impose fewer and fewer of his on-the-spot penalties, like shit duties or press-ups, for lapses at kit inspection.Everyone was falling into the routine of base life and their thoughts of England were fading like old snapshots. Their feelings of longing, loss and love still welled up at unexpected moments then mysteriously subsided. Every man experienced this. No one spoke about it. The new arrivals were no longer getting a hard time just because they were new. And the casualties they had replaced, Buckle and Nelson, were seldom talked about now. Until word came through that Steve Buckle was flying back to the UK at last.Dave phoned Leanne as soon as he heard.‘Remember,’ he warned her, ‘they’ll have dosed him up with extra morphine for the flight so he won’t be himself.’‘But why haven’t they let me speak to him yet?’ Leanne demanded. ‘They keep saying soon, soon.’He was relieved at her anger. It was more like the old Leanne than the anxious, tearful woman he’d been hearing lately. He had one of those sudden and unexpected bursts of homesickness. He was remembering Leanne, plump, loud and funny, sitting in the garden with Steve one summer’s day. They’d been pretending to argue and after a few beers the argument had turned into a comedy act. No aspect of married life was too private to escape their slick one-liners. Dave hoped it wouldn’t be long before they were concocting some good jokes about prosthetic limbs.‘Can’t he talk, Dave? I mean, has he lost the power of speech?’ Leanne asked, her voice cracking and a sob breaking through. The good jokes began to seem a long way off.‘I’ve already told you, Leanne, he can talk but he doesn’t always make sense. Probably because of the morphine.’‘Probably! Dave, is my Steve brain-damaged? Are they sending me back some sort of fucking vegetable?’‘No. But he took the full force of a big blast. He has to recover from the shock.’He tried to distract her by asking about the arrangements that had been made for her in Birmingham.‘We’ve been given an army flat for a week. My mum’s meeting me there. She’ll take care of the boys for me and I’ll mostly go in by myself.’Dave could tell that inside her head she had walked into Selly Oak hospital and experienced her reunion with Steve at his bedside many times. He wondered what it would be like when it finally happened.

Leanne and Jenny stood by the car in front of Leanne’s house. Everything was loaded for the trip to Birmingham. The car was so full of high chairs, travel cots, toys, a pair of sit-on scooters, packs of nappies and suitcases that there was hardly room for the driver. The two small passengers peered from their seats at the back, still and quiet as though they knew something important was happening.Leanne seemed reluctant to drive away.‘I’m scared,’ she said.Jenny was learning not to be surprised by the new Leanne. If the old Leanne knew what fear was, she never would have admitted to it.‘What sort of scared?’ Jenny asked. ‘First date scared? Walking down a dark street and someone’s following you scared?’Leanne drew on her cigarette. She had started smoking again. She did not want the twins to see her so she leaned out of windows or rushed into the garden or hid in the car to smoke. Now, she was leaning against the bonnet with her back to them, as though they wouldn’t notice the smoke if they couldn’t see the cigarette.‘Horror movie scared. Like, when someone goes up the creaky stairs and opens a door and you don’t know what’s behind it? But you know it’s something awful?’Jenny looked at Leanne’s large, unhappy face. Leanne had put on weight. Since Steve’s accident, she could not stop eating. She reported how her sleepless nights were punctuated by frequent trips downstairs to the fridge. She had always been large but the new Leanne did not joke about it or constantly announce to the world that she would be starting a new diet tomorrow.‘Is your mum meeting you at the hospital?’‘At the flat. If she can find it. God knows how she’ll manage to drive through Birmingham, she even gets lost in camp.’There was almost no cigarette left but Leanne seemed to want to smoke it anyway.‘I’d better get going.’ She did not move. ‘Before the boys start yelling.’Jenny put her arms around Leanne. There felt like an ocean of belly between them both.‘Wish I was big for the same reason you are,’ said Leanne.Jenny pulled back in surprise.‘Do you want another one? You always said the twins were more than enough!’Tears were gleaming at the edges of Leanne’s eyes. She sniffed.‘’Course I want one. Now I know I can’t have one.’‘Why not?’ Jenny asked.Leanne sniffed again. ‘How much of him got blown away, Jen? Did it stop at his leg?’Jenny shook her head. ‘Oh, c’mon. If he’d lost his private parts they would have told you!’‘It might all be there, but will any of it work? Now they’ve cut his nerves and blood vessels and things? And what sort of a marriage are we going to have if he can’t . . .? And even if he can, I’m not sure I’ll want to. With a bloke who’s got a stump for a leg.’‘You’ll want to because he’s your Steve and you love him and he’s gorgeous, leg or no leg.’ Jenny’s voice was firm.Leanne looked at her doubtfully.‘Know what you’re doing, Leanne? You’re in the horror movie, walking up the creaky stairs and trying to imagine all the things behind the door. That’s how horror movies work. You scare yourself imagining things that aren’t even there.’‘Yeah.’ Leanne had turned to face the car, its outsize load and the waiting twins. ‘Yeah, well by tonight I’ll know, won’t I?’‘Ring me,’ said Jenny. ‘Just ring me and tell me. I’ll listen.’Leanne sniffed again. She squeezed Jenny’s arm but did not look at her. Jenny knew she was trying not to cry. Leanne climbed in and slammed the door. Her face, behind the wheel, was pale and puffy.She wound down the window.‘I’ve waited to see him so long . . . and now I don’t want to go,’ she said, her voice turning squeaky at the end.‘Go,’ Jenny commanded her. ‘You’ll feel better once you’re on your way.’Vicky, who had been occupied picking daisies from a strip of lawn outside Leanne’s house, came and took her mother’s hand. The pair of them waved as the car drove slowly down the road towards the entrance of the camp.