War Torn

Chapter Thirty-two

THERE WAS A SMALL CLUSTER OF PEOPLE OUTSIDE LEANNE’S HOUSE. Across the door was a banner saying WELCOME HOME HERO! Several children carried signs: OUR HERO STEVE. The twins wore outsize badges saying: YES HE’S OUR DAD! The welfare officer and a group of uniformed men from the rear party stood talking in quiet voices separately from the women and children.Leanne clicked shut her mobile. ‘He’s coming!’Her voice had gone squeaky again. Adi Kasanita was standing closest to her.‘He’s coming, he’s coming!’ she boomed, so that everyone could hear. People stopped talking and straightened, the signs were held aloft and, as a small army car drove slowly up the road, there was cheering.Leanne’s heart beat so loudly that she could hardly hear the cheers. A twin was wrapped around each leg, waiting, and all she could think for one stupid moment as Steve’s face became visible through the windscreen was: what happens if one of the kids tries to grab his leg? And finds it’s not there? Because she had tried to explain but they were just too young to understand. They were too young to understand what was happening right now. They were too young to understand that the man who had just arrived was their dad.When he got out of the car Steve’s face was white but he was smiling. The driver ran around and tried to help him. The small crowd stayed back and Leanne went to help too.Steve’s smile slipped.‘I can fucking do it myself,’ he growled.She felt something inside her curl up as though it had been singed by a hot fire. She fixed her smile and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Sweetheart, welcome back.’She would have liked him to take her in his arms and kiss her passionately the way he did after a long time away. Right here in front of everyone. But he was reaching for his crutch.He moved unsteadily down the path to renewed cheering, Leanne behind him, the driver hovering close by. Everyone smiled and spoke to him as he passed. He grinned back without focusing on anyone. Rosie McKinley started singing ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow!’ Everyone joined in.‘He wouldn’t use the wheelchair,’ the driver was explaining. ‘Wouldn’t even let me put it in the car.’Jenny was holding the boys’ hands now, as well as Vicky’s. They made no attempt to run to their father but looked up at him with big eyes. Leanne grabbed them.‘Don’t you dare cry,’ she muttered to Jenny, who was biting her lip. She began to drag the twins reluctantly along behind. A glance around at Agnieszka and Adi and Rosie and Sharon and all the other women whose husbands were in Afghanistan told Leanne that every one of them was close to tears. They all wanted their men home too. But not like this.Steve entered the house under the banner and made his way to the living room where Leanne had laid out some food. There were balloons in all the corners, huge bunches of them, and red, white and blue paper bunting around the wall which a group of mothers had made at playgroup.Leanne could see that Steve was relieved to sit down in a chair. His face was twisted with pain. She hadn’t been sure the big welcome was a good idea but her friends had wanted to do it. Now that she saw his strained smile she knew it had been a mistake.The boys were sneaking closer to their father. One of them grabbed his good leg. Then . . . oh no! He had swiped at his father’s other trouser leg, found it empty, and was now examining it with disbelief. Steve laughed, a deep belly laugh, a Steve laugh, and the tension in the room suddenly dissolved.‘You won’t find a lot in there, mate!’Everyone laughed at this and the boys ran around giggling wildly, picking up their father’s empty trouser leg, hooting and putting it down again.The adults clustered around Steve with questions. The room became noisy. Leanne buzzed about with sandwiches and crisps and drinks. She watched Steve out of the corner of her eye. He had always liked being the centre of attention. You could often hear his voice above everyone else’s at a party. She listened now. He was talking to Jenny Henley.‘Dave had a stoppage and he went down to sort it out and I got on top and that’s when it happened . . .’Leanne saw Jenny’s face turn white.‘Yeah,’ Steve continued loudly, ‘a few seconds’ difference would have meant it was him and not me. Dave must be one of the few blokes in the British Army to be saved by equipment malfunction . . .’Jenny said something and Steve shrugged.‘He certainly owes me a bloody drink . . .’Leanne knew that Steve had replaced Dave on top of the vehicle just fifteen seconds before the bomb blast. Because of those fifteen seconds, Jenny had been comforting her for weeks instead of the other way round. She had struggled with this knowledge quietly in the night and sometimes, for a few minutes, she’d even hated Jenny. But not enough to tell her. And now Steve had not hesitated to blurt it out.His voice was booming across the room again.‘When I get to Headley Court on Monday morning they’ll start fitting me up for a leg socket. As soon as that’s right I can try out some new legs. Then I just have to pass a fitness test and I can get straight back out there!’And in answer to another question: ‘Yes, there’s a chance I can make it back out to the FOB before this tour ends . . .’Leanne didn’t take time to think. She found herself striding across the room.‘You’re kidding!’ she said, smiling broadly as though he had just cracked a very funny joke.‘No, darling, I’ve already told you.’‘I thought you must be kidding!’‘Leanne. I’ve trained to fight. I’ve lived to fight. There’s nothing else I can do.’‘The army’s full of interesting jobs, you don’t have to serve in the frontline . . .’ She heard herself. She sounded aggressive. This wasn’t the time and it wasn’t the place but she couldn’t stop.‘What do you want me to do? Go and work for the quartermaster handing equipment out to other blokes?’The party noise was dampening a little now. People were stopping their conversations to listen.‘Well, that’s better than going back out to get the other leg blown off so we have to go through it all again!’ she replied loudly. There were two Leannes in the room, the Leanne who was so tense and angry she couldn’t stop herself shouting. And a small, calm, quiet Leanne who knew the welcome party was on the brink of disaster and could do nothing to save the situation.‘You can do anything, Steve!’ said a warm voice behind her. ‘If you say you can get back out to that frontline, then I believe you will!’Steve looked past his hurt wife to the smiling face of Adi Kasanita.‘Thanks, Ads. I’m glad someone believes in me.’‘Honey, everyone believes in you,’ she said sweetly. ‘Leanne too. She’s so sure you’ll do it that she’s scared to death, poor girl!’Adi put an arm around Leanne and some people laughed and joined in and one of the officers said there was a para who had gone straight back out to Afghanistan with a new leg. After a while the voices and the children and the balloons made it seem like a normal party again.Leanne didn’t want it to end. Whenever anyone said they had to go she persuaded them to stay a little longer. The officers were the first to drift off, then all the other men in uniform said they had to get back to their offices, and finally the mothers said: ‘You two need some quiet time alone together.’Leanne wanted to shout: ‘No, we don’t!’But Jenny and Adi took the boys and suddenly the house was still, more still than it had been for months. Even at night when Leanne lay sleepless in her bed, it wasn’t this still.Steve sat with his head back in the chair and his eyes closed. Leanne busied herself with the clearing up. Finally he spoke.‘That was a load of shit.’She froze, a stack of dirty cups in her hand.‘You could say thank you.’‘What have I got to thank you for? Signs saying I’m a hero? Well, I didn’t even get to the fucking base. I was only in Afghanistan five minutes. I’m no fucking hero. My mates are out there fighting, they’re the heroes.’‘So that’s why you want to go back,’ she said bitterly.‘Yeah. I want to go back. Get over it. I want to go back.’His crutch was leaning against the chair and he reached for it. He was going to stand up. She moved forward to help and was still moving when she realized that he had picked up the crutch to throw it at her. It hurtled with force across the room. She dodged. It hit the side of her body and bounced off onto the buffet table. With a crash it landed on a pile of plates.She stared at the mess of food, broken crockery and crutch and then turned to Steve, her hip throbbing with pain.‘Why did you do that, Steve?’But he had closed his eyes and did not reply.