War Torn (31 page)

Her face turned dutifully to the others as they talked but she did not join in and Jenny could see she was not listening. She was daydreaming. Jenny remembered the broken photo frame. Her father’s damaged photo and the wedding picture were now lying flat on the shelf instead of on display the way they should be. She felt doubly resentful.

At that moment, a mobile rang. It made everyone jump. Agnieszka dug rapidly in her shorts pockets. When she found the phone she held it close to her. She tapped a few keys and then turned away to read it.

She’s anxious, Jenny thought. In case someone sees it. Because it’s from him.

When her phone rang, Agnieszka caught herself hoping it was Darrel. She turned away from the stares of the other mothers, just in case it was.

Her long fingernails made tiny clattering noises on the keys as she unlocked the phone. For a couple of weeks it had buzzed with Darrel’s short, funny messages. Or sometimes he spoke to her, telling her he’d found some part for the broken dishwasher, and then, if Luke was asleep, they would talk about other things, too. On a few occasions they had talked for more than an hour. If Luke was angry or having a fit or hungry, then Darrel didn’t try to distract Agnieszka. But he always called her back later. He seemed to understand how hard it was to manage a child like Luke by yourself without another adult to speak to.

Contact with Darrel had stopped abruptly after their last meeting. She missed him. She sometimes rewrote their final conversation in her head. In this version, Darrel didn’t leave. He sat down on the edge of the sofa and talked to her sweetly and softly about how he felt. He explained how he respected the fact that she was married and then he said he hoped they could be friends. He took her hand and smiled at her.

Agnieszka knew this daydream was dangerous. Because she loved Jamie. So why did she like to pretend another man was sitting on the edge of the sofa talking about his feelings for her?

Turning now so that no one could see the phone or her face, she read the message. It wasn’t from Darrel. It was from Jamie. These days, when the phone at home rang, it was almost always Jamie. She knew he made strenuous efforts to call her and that most wives did not hear so often from their men. But sometimes it was hard to know what to say. He couldn’t talk much about what he was doing. And when he asked about her, she usually said: ‘All just the same. Nothing ever happen.’

But Jamie also texted her in secret.

The men had handed in their mobiles at Bastion on their arrival in Afghanistan. Jamie had done so, but he had kept a second, secret phone. It was an old one of Agnieszka’s and she had given it to him the night before he left. He had watched her slip it into his Bergen.

At first he’d fished it straight out.

‘Niez, if I’m found with it I’ll be in big trouble.’

Agnieszka had thought about this and then said: ‘Listen, darling, just hide it. And if they find you say your wife leave it in kit and you don’t even know it there.’

‘But mobiles are banned for a reason. The Taliban can pick up the signal. And they can use it in all sorts of ways. It could compromise everyone’s safety.’

‘Huh!’ said Agnieszka, wrinkling her nose. ‘When you are in base, just text to tell wife you love her. Taliban cannot read English and they not interested in love. So, no compromise, everyone happy.’

He had frowned but he hadn’t removed the phone. She’d thought he wouldn’t use it, but he had. Just the occasional little message, like the one about becoming acting section 2 i/c. Well even
Agnieszka couldn’t understand that, so she doubted the Taliban would. Or he texted to tell her how much he loved her and missed her and was thinking of her. And why would the Taliban care about that?

While the other women talked and the children splashed and Luke slept, Agnieszka read the message.

At the first sentence she almost let out a small shriek. She composed herself. She glanced up. No one was looking. They were too busy with their children and their chatter. She read the message again and again. She tried to remember exactly what he meant by a high-calibre round. Was it a huge bullet? She wondered if she could somehow slip the question into the conversation without anyone guessing it was related to the text message. It was vital no one guessed Jamie had a secret mobile.

She looked up once more and this time she realized someone was watching her. Jenny, making tea in the kitchen. The last person who should know about the text was the sergeant’s wife. Agnieszka put the phone back into her pocket.

When she brought the tea out, Jenny said pleasantly: ‘Everything all right, Agnieszka?’

‘Everything good. I just hope Luke don’t wake up because he often wake up very angry.’

Jenny smiled.

‘We’ll help you if he does.’

Jenny’s smile was thin and tired, Agnieszka thought. She looked as though she was ready to have the baby tomorrow. Agnieszka decided that Jenny had a lot on her mind and was certainly not interested in texts and probably hadn’t even been watching her after all.

Leanne was talking about Steve. He was still at Selly Oak. She had stayed a week and was due to visit him again after surgeons had carried out a small operation on his stump. Then he would go to Headley Court for a new leg and rehabilitation.

‘He might even come home for the weekend between hospital and Headley Court!’ She looked pleased.

‘That’s great, Leanne!’ said the other women brightly.

‘There was a welfare officer from BLESMA who had a long talk with me and told me all the things he’ll be able to do when he’s got his new leg. It’s amazing, the technology now . . .’

‘Yeah, some blokes have even gone back to frontline fighting,’ said Rosie.

‘That’ll be Steve!’ Jenny said.

Leanne pulled a face. ‘Not if I can help it.’

Tiff leaned forward and said quietly: ‘It’s been a terrible time for you, Leanne. We’ve all been thinking about you a lot.’

Leanne hesitated. ‘The worst was when he was at Bastion so long and they wouldn’t let me speak to him. Thank heavens for Dave.’

Jenny, swooping to remove someone’s mug of tea from a child’s reach, was surprised.

‘He rang me a few times to make sure I was OK. He was really kind. He spoke to Steve once and then he phoned me straightaway.’

Leanne had not mentioned this before. Neither had Dave. Jenny smiled and tried to look as if she knew.

‘He was trying to explain that Steve was on so much morphine he didn’t know what time of day it was and I’d be really upset hearing him like that.’ She swallowed. ‘He made me feel a lot better. It was so good of you, Jen, to let him use your minutes on me.’

Jenny straightened up, an empty mug in her hand, her smile rigid.

‘So how was he, Leanne, when you saw him in the hospital?’ someone else asked.

‘Well . . .’ Leanne’s face creased a little and she swallowed again. ‘Just to see him alive . . .’ Her voice cracked, suddenly and without warning. ‘They didn’t let me speak to him before I saw him . . . and if you can’t see them or hear them or touch them, you don’t really believe it, do you?’

The others watched as her face folded in on itself and tears ran down her cheeks. Her body shook with sobs. Sharon Kirk put a hand over hers.

‘Oh, Leanne, we know how you must feel,’ Rosie McKinley said.

The children fell quiet. They watched soberly with big eyes as sobs shook Leanne’s generous frame. Tiff Curtis’s daughter sucked
her thumb with renewed passion. A few of the mothers felt hot, wet tears running down their own cheeks. Children who were old enough ran to push the tears away.

‘Why are you crying?’ they demanded with a mixture of curiosity and fear.

‘Because Leanne’s sad and we’re feeling sad for her,’ Sharon Kirk explained.

Jenny stooped awkwardly to put an arm around Leanne. Gravity and the weight of her belly pulled her to the ground. She settled at Leanne’s side and held her friend as she cried.

‘Oh, God, sorry, everyone, sorry . . .’ Leanne dabbed at her eyes. She looked down at Jenny’s belly, protruding absurdly between them both. ‘Sorry, Bump,’ she added and some people laughed too loudly because it was a relief to laugh.

Rosie passed Leanne a tissue and she slapped it against her face as though she was scolding herself.

‘You don’t have to say sorry.’ Adi had been hands-on at the paddling pool and was now, as usual, drawn to the emotional centre of the gathering. ‘We all understand, honey, we’re all feeling what you’re feeling.’

‘You lot understand better than anyone. But you can’t really understand until it happens to you and I hope to God it doesn’t.’

There was a silence. Leanne had voiced what everyone was thinking. Don’t let it happen to us.

‘See,’ Leanne said, ‘he’s not really the Steve who went away. He’s only just beginning to understand that he’s lost a leg. For a long time he wouldn’t believe it, Dave said. And there was the shock from the blast . . . his brain sort of came unwired . . .’

‘But what happened at the hospital?’ Tiff asked.

‘Well, he recognized me in the end. But at first he wasn’t sure who I was and that was awful. Then after a day or two of just sitting there and chatting, he remembered and then he was almost normal. Except there was this . . . sadness. He was all turned in on himself. He wasn’t really interested in us . . .’ Her voice almost failed her and she whispered the rest. ‘It was ages before they let me take the kids in. He was pleased to see them. Sort of. But before that he didn’t ask about them at all . . .’

Tears spilled down her cheeks. Her big round face was wet now. Her mouth twisted itself into strange shapes.

She whispered: ‘He’s alive . . . but it’s like a bit of him really did die out there . . .’

Jenny wanted to cry but she swallowed, trying to strengthen herself deep inside and all the way up her throat, so that her voice came out sounding calm. ‘Oh, Leanne, it’s all a question of time. He’s been traumatized.’

‘And,’ Rosie said, ‘seeing you and the boys was probably very emotional for him.’

‘He didn’t seem very emotional about us!’ Leanne was wailing now.

‘But you know how our lads don’t let themselves show it,’ Adi said. ‘When they get emotional, they don’t know what to do with it. Not like us, we can have a good cry.’

‘He didn’t seem emotional,’ Leanne sobbed. ‘He seemed as if he didn’t care a lot.’

There was a silence on the blanket, broken only by Leanne’s lunges for breath. In the paddling pool, children shrieked and splashed. Mothers eyed them without hearing them.

‘Did he tell you he love you?’ Agnieszka asked. Everyone turned to her in surprise. She’d been silent until now.

Leanne looked as though someone had hit her in the face. She winced in pain and her voice, when it emerged, was a high-pitched wail. ‘Noooooooo! He didn’t say that! He acted like I wasn’t part of his life! Like his life was out there fighting with the lads and now it was over.’

And she broke down again.

Jenny cried too this time. Vicky came over and cuddled up close to Jenny and Leanne and the big, big bump, and she cried as well.

‘How am I going to manage?’ Leanne cried. ‘What’s going to happen? He’s not Steve any more. He’s this stranger with one leg!’

All the mothers cried and then the babies started and a few more of the toddlers. Only Agnieszka sat watching them all, biting her lip, dry-eyed.

1
SECTION HAD FINISHED EATING BUT REMAINED GLUED TO THEIR
table watching a TV news item about Afghanistan. Since the Taliban were stepping up their use of IEDs, or roadside bombs as the reporter called them, politicians were calling on the Prime Minister to send the troops more helicopters.

Angus McCall gave the screen two thumbs-up. ‘That’s it, that’s what we need for IEDs. We need to fly over the fuckers.’

Finn said: ‘Yeah, but we’ve still got to get out there on foot patrol. We need wagons the bastards can’t blow up.’