Who Are You? (14 page)

Alex couldn’t have been more attentive, despite the fact he hadn’t found his way into her bed. On the way home he told her how much he’d loved having her with him. He even apologized for the fact that he guessed the company wasn’t entirely to her liking, to which of course she demurred. And some of it had been quite fun. Not that playing sardines would have been her game of choice after dinner. She was treated rather like some exotic specimen, viewed with curiosity by the men and suspicion by the girls, especially when she suggested that instead of playing brag for money they should play for their clothes. Oddly enough it was Alex who’d said no.

OK, so she did
quite
like him. He seemed kind, and he was charming and attentive. But she was surprised that there had been no tongue wrestling, no groping, no slimy insinuations – especially after that incident at the wedding. And she’d stopped herself from demanding her knickers back. And she did want to see him again. But as for his life, his friends, the things that made Alex Alex, it was a bit like visiting the Natural History Museum – educationally diverting but of no relevance to her own life. There couldn’t possibly be any future in it.

He played her like a fish, reeling her in a little, and then letting her run. So many days had gone by after their weekend away without hearing from him that she began to assume that was it. She’d told herself it was probably just as well; the best thing about him had been the sex, and if that wasn’t on offer then it was all a bit of a waste of time. She was working as a so-called hostess at a nightclub on the King’s Road. Hostessing meant getting the right people in, making sure the best people got the best tables and ensuring that they poured enough expensive champagne down their necks to float the City of London. It didn’t mean lap dancing, pole dancing or letting anyone get anywhere near her hidden parts – no matter how much money was offered. When Alex pitched up with a crowd of mates it was impossible to know whether he just ‘happened’ to be there, or whether it was a set-up. Juliet behaved with both professionalism and distance. As did Alex. He introduced her politely to his companions as ‘a good friend’ and then he offered her a drink, which she declined, and with that she carried on with her hostessing duties. When it got to around three a.m. Alex’s party departed with a wave and a hailing of taxis. So that was that, she told herself. Weird, definitely, but she’d had so many weird experiences that this was relatively minor on the Juliet scale. But still there was that little niggling feeling of disappointment and confusion.

He called the next day. ‘Sorry, I’d forgotten that was your club. I didn’t want to inflict their company on you. These Army chaps – you know what they can be like. A bit over-excited at hitting the bright city lights. Listen, I don’t suppose you’d have dinner with me tonight, would you?’

‘Sorry, busy tonight.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Can’t do tomorrow either.’

‘OK, when can you do?’

‘The day after?’

‘I’ll pick you up at 8.’

They made it through the main course in the quiet little brasserie not far from Juliet’s flat, but by pudding the only thing either of them wanted was each other. A quick dash back to Juliet’s, a thorough ripping off of clothes and a tempestuous fuck followed by a few long slow and equally satisfying screws, and after that they just slipped into being an item.

Alex would call her every morning, just as soon as she was awake, and ask her what she was doing with her day, and then he’d call her again in the evening and they’d chat for an hour about nothing in particular, just enjoying the bliss of hearing each other’s voices. As soon as Alex had any time off work he would whizz up to London and see her. Sometimes she’d cook for him, which nearly always made him laugh. So then she started taking her cooking more seriously, following recipes and finding that she actually cared whether her food tasted all right. Yes – she, Juliet, who had never been remotely interested in food.

She told him some bits, but not all, about her childhood, and then school. And the rather liberal culture. She told him that she’d wanted to go to art school, that she’d been told she was good enough, but then her anorexia and the drugs had got in the way. She just didn’t make the grades. Stupidly she’d thought that she could get away with just being Juliet. That she could waltz into St Martin’s having presented her portfolio – which they would swoon over – and she’d be given a scholarship at the very least. Princess Juliet who thought she was a gift to the world. Ha! What a fucking joke.

And he listened. He sympathized. He would take her hand and hold it while he gazed into her eyes as if he understood every shredded piece of her, and she began to think that he might be the person who could put her back together again. Strong, brave and protective. Gradually she started to believe that no harm could ever come to her while she was with Alex. For the first time in her life there would be someone to look after her.

What she didn’t realize at the time was that they were the same; two bad halves of an imperfect whole. When they were on honeymoon, sitting on a beach in the West Indies, watching the sun go down, they finally shared their secrets. They explored together the damage that made them who they were, and for a long time after it seemed the confession of their wounds and their weaknesses forged them together. Later those same wounds and weaknesses would be forged into weapons. It’s a funny thing, how the mind can shut off the uncomfortable things, the frightening things that are just too difficult to deal with. She can understand Alex’s reticence at admitting there’s something very wrong with himself, because to do so will be facing up to the fact that he is weak when he has lived his life trying to prove how very strong he is. That little boy who got bullied by his father and who knew that in order to survive he had to stay strong, to rely on himself, determined to prove to himself that he was
not
the person his father saw – the pathetic, useless, good-for-nothing son, the boy who was unable to protect his own mother. So if he now has to face himself and admit that he’s lost control – that everything he thinks he knows about himself is false – how could he face the shame and the humiliation of having to admit that he’s fallible and weak?

For Juliet, too, it’s the shame that keeps her tied to her inner gaoler. Like Alex she can’t admit to anyone that she’s fucked up, that she’s a helpless victim, that the perfect life that she has built to show the world just how successful she is – she and Alex and Ben, the perfect family unit – is just a sham. If anyone had told her that she could become this person, she would have laughed in their face. Me? Never! I’d never be some sad, battered wife, oh no, if my husband laid a finger on me I’d pack my bags, you wouldn’t see me for dust. But she knows now that this is how it works. Because she is still here, pretending, just like Alex.

But the problem is that you can’t really pretend forever. You can’t do it because all the stuff, all the crap, all the memories, all the trauma is still there, superglued to your mind. When the busyness stops, when the jobs are finished, and you get to spend time alone with yourself, it’s all you think about.

CHAPTER

9

Alex closes the lid on his laptop. He’s afraid he’s losing his grip on everything now. His wife, his child, his work, his entire life is becoming something over there, something he’s completely detached from, and unable to either influence or control. He hasn’t talked to Juliet – what would be the point? – but his position at work is tenuous at best. He’s been pulled up for having too short a fuse; for being overbearing – rude, even – with clients. His absences – the time he needs to take himself off somewhere quiet just to try and claw back some control – have been noticed. Yes, it’s true, he’s certainly demotivated, but then he was never interested in the first place. It’s all for her. Everything he’s done, he’s done for Juliet. And he’s done it because he loves her. Maybe it was inevitable that he’d end up in some security role in a company with Middle Eastern interests. Security Advisor to an oil company who found his fluency in Arabic indispensable, his M.Phil. in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies impressive. Inevitable but intolerable. He doesn’t know how much longer he can go on with it. He feels that he is sinking under an unbearable weight of loss. Juliet is intent on being at war with him; instead of providing solace, support and understanding, she seems to relish tormenting him. He’s simply lost the ability to reach her, to make her see how hard he is trying to hold everything together, for
them.
He knows that she uses Ben in her games. The gun and the uniform are just a couple of the many little ruses she’s come up with to push him a little closer to the edge. Loud bangs from DVDs, a sudden interest in recording any programme to do with Afghanistan and it ‘happening’ to be on when he got in from work, the leaving of spilled ketchup on dish cloths, pork joints left sitting on a plate, fireworks for Ben’s birthday. OK, so he’s done things he shouldn’t have done, things which he’s ashamed of and which he chooses not to think about, but Christ, if she’d seen what he’d seen, lived through the unending days and nights of hell, perhaps she might understand – or even if she can’t understand, show a little bit of sympathy, instead of making his miserable existence completely unbearable. It was scary the way she could be so emotionally withdrawn, even with Ben. He thinks, actually he knows, that she has a major problem with empathy. She doesn’t seem to realize the effects her behaviour, her volatility, will have on Ben in the long term. Alex thinks Ben’s becoming introverted, and sometimes he has noticed that Ben seems afraid of Juliet. A child needs to feel safe and secure, otherwise the foundation is laid for all sorts of shit in the future. Alex can’t afford to lose control, for everyone’s sake. It’s vital that he holds on to himself, that he stays one jump ahead of Juliet, that he watches what she’s up to so that he can protect Ben.

His hand starts to shake like an alcoholic in withdrawal. He stares at it, as if by doing so he might force it to stop by sheer power of will. It refuses. Then his knee starts, slowly at first, and then faster, more frantically, as if he’s doing some weird seat dance at a silent rock concert. The chair legs beneath him begin to vibrate and so he slaps his hand onto his leg and presses it down into the seat as hard as he can. The muscles feel hard and unyielding, yet still his leg trembles, so he punches it and at last it settles, but only for a moment before starting up again. He feels like crying. Alex, a hardened soldier, reduced to fighting back the tears because he can’t control his own body any more. He squeezes his fist so hard that his short nails dig into the cushion of his palm, but his pain receptors are so numbed that he can barely feel them. He can’t go to bed like this. He’s got to settle himself down. He closes his eyes and tries to shut out the pictures, the replays that refuse to leave him alone. He knows they’re called flashbacks. He knows they’re a symptom of something he doesn’t want to put a name to. He’s stronger than that. He can deal with it himself. He is strong. Not weak. A whisky. He gets up and feels dizzy, short of breath, so he has to stand still for a moment, hand resting on the back of the chair for support. He knows it will pass. But the images will stay. He makes it to the drinks table and splashes whisky both into the glass and onto the polished wooden surface. Never mind. His hand is still shaking so much that it’s a struggle to get it to his mouth. It’s jerking, as if someone else is operating it. He drinks the whisky neat and it burns his throat, but it’s a good feeling. Two more swigs and it’s finished. Inside he feels the warmth, while outside he feels clammy and shivery.

He doesn’t want Juliet to see him like this. Maybe she’d take some kind of perverse enjoyment from it, seeing him suffer. But as long as he watches what she’s up to he knows he can handle her. If she thinks she can wear him down with her stupid ruses, then she’s a fool. Does she really think she can win against him? Someone who’s studied tactics, studied everything to do with soldiering? When he came out he was recognized as one of the best, the elite. He’s been involved in things that are never going to appear on any records. Off the radar, and off the map. He knows about the military: weapons, intelligence-gathering equipment, the latest military technology that very few people know exist. He has contacts – not friends, but people who can be useful in all sorts of non-conventional ways. People who operate on the periphery of society. Support people who are discreet and
almost
invisible. God help anyone who’d want to take on Alex. Not with his expertise and back-up. If he can stand it, it is almost tempting to let Juliet get on with her supposedly covert psy-ops just for the hell of it, for a bit of fun, to see where and how far she takes it. Except he isn’t finding it fun. His mind is becoming a giant screen with a film programmed on repeat. There is no off switch.

Sleep is an elusive luxury. At least the sort of sleep that isn’t filled with nightmarish replays of scenes Alex yearns to forget. He fantasizes about cutting out the bits in his head that hold the memories. If there was some kind of electronic zapper, a laser, that could be targeted on those cells that serve for nothing except mental torment. What the Taliban were capable of was beyond human. If they caught you they’d likely skin you alive, maybe cut off your balls and stuff them in your mouth, and then string you into a tree to leave you to die. Another favourite of theirs was hanging body parts from the branches of trees, body parts of guys you served alongside, ate alongside, pissed and shat alongside. Yeah, they were barely fucking human. And the way they didn’t give a toss about the women and children. The way they used them. Boys aged not much more than Ben bribed to be dickers, watching from the roadsides, reporting ISAF movements to the bastards with their fingers on the triggers and the initiation switches. Mostly, the children didn’t die at ISAF hands, but through the sadistic ploys of the Taliban. Perhaps they salved their consciences – if they had any – through thinking these children would be sent off to some better place. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine a better place than these godforsaken mounds of rubble, the ruins of thriving villages and towns, now nothing more than bullet- and bomb-raddled targets surrounded by opium crops nurtured to bring more misery and death. What a headfuck of a country. And yet the people – the real people, not the fucking insurgents – were proud, generous-spirited. Sometimes even hospitable. But exhausted. Young men turned old by the age of twenty-five, their faces riddled with lines etched by anguish. How many years of war had they lived through? And as for the women – scuttling around in whatever shadows they could find, keeping out of sight, covered in black from head to foot – all that marked them as female were the screams, shrill and bone-piercing. Something else to fill the nightmares. And sometimes the Taliban made the women carry the RPGs to hide them or deliver them. They did that because they believed the Western forces had sensibilities about blowing up women. Collateral damage; there was a cover-all phrase for you.