7. Carl
7. Carl
Yorkshire
Stepping out of the shower on a sunny September morning, I catch sight of the vivid red scar that criss-crosses my stomach. The ugly souvenir I brought home from Afghanistan that reminds me every day of all I’ve lost.
Normally I pull a T-shirt over it as quickly as possible, but today I have to put a fresh dressing on the tattoo, so I wrap a towel across my midriff to cover it instead. Then, twisting my head over my shoulder, I stare in the mirror at the new image on my back and smile. My tribute to Fridge.
Awkwardly I reach over my shoulder and think of Sarah changing my dressing that Christmas morning. In my mind’s eye I see her face so clearly, her brow furrowed in concentration, her cool fingers as they moved quickly and efficiently over my skin. She was so gentle, so kind.
I’m ashamed to say I don’t think I was a very gracious patient. I was too angry, in too much pain. I didn’t want to be nursed back to health. I wanted to be with Fridge. For the longest time that’s all I wanted.
Suddenly, there’s an almighty crash downstairs and Elsa leaps up from the bed, barking. Her paws skid and clatter on the bare wooden floorboards as she bolts through the bedroom and hurtles downstairs.
Maggie must be here.
I smile as I listen to Maggie greet Elsa.
‘Did you miss me? Did you? Did you? Yes, you did. Of course you did. What’s not to miss? I’m wonderful. Yes, I am. Yes, I am.’
Maggie is the object of Elsa’s undying adoration and my assistant in a flourishing dog walking and dog sitting business. She is skinny as a whippet, with a pale, spectral face, dyed black hair cut brutally short, and big grey-blue eyes that are always ringed in heavy black eyeliner.
Her clothes are black – skinny jeans held up by a black belt studded with silver bullets, and T-shirts with pictures of bands on the front I’ve never heard of. Even the nails on her silver-skull-beringed hands are black.
It’s funny – she’s the most frightening-looking person I’ve ever known, and yet the least threatening. She is gentle and big-hearted and lovely and, much as I hate to admit it, I couldn’t run my business without her. The last three months have been crazily busy, with a bunch of new dogs to walk and look after. I’d never manage it on my own.
The business itself is down to Fridge’s dad, Michael. I can’t remember a time when that man hasn’t been there for me. If anything, he’s been even more of a rock since Fridge died.
He lent me the money to buy the van I needed to get the business going. He took me to the dealership, negotiated a discount. They were happy to do him a favour; he’s one of those men everyone wants to do a favour for. Fridge was the same.
Michael had bought vans off the local dealer for decades, for his carpentry business. Vans with seats that were always covered in a smattering of sawdust, and crumbs from opened packets of shortbread.
Vans in which Michael drove me and Fridge to our endless football games, dropping me back home at the end of the day. He always insisted I wait in the van while he knocked on the door. I realize now he was checking to see how drunk Mum was. Nine times out of ten he’d climb back into the passenger seat and drive me to their house again.
‘Your mum’s not feeling too good,’ he’d say, offering me a packet of shortbread.
Back at Fridge’s home, his mum, Kathleen, would hand me a pair of pyjamas that smelled just like their sheets did – of summer. Laundry definitely didn’t smell like that in our house. Everything in our house smelled of ashtrays or the stale odour of minced beef and onion pancakes.
Not being at home was a relief, because it meant I didn’t have to think about the dishes stacked up in the sink. About the empty bottles by the bin. About the empty bedroom Scott and Adam had shared before they were taken into care. And I didn’t have to worry about looking after Mum.
On those nights I spent at Fridge’s house I got to be a kid. We would lie awake in bunk beds that Michael had made himself, talking about everything – football, music, girls – until his dad opened the bedroom door and told us both to belt up.
‘Or at least keep it down a bit,’ he’d say, with a wink.
After Fridge died, when I was well enough to go back to camp, I would lie awake in my bunk and curse myself for not protecting him like he and his dad had always protected me.
Nothing assuaged the loneliness, and nothing purged the guilt. Nothing. I thought his mum and dad would blame me too, but they never did. I often thought it would have been easier if they had.
All the time I was still in Afghanistan, and Fridge wasn’t, they carried on sending me letters. Cuttings from The Yorkshire Post about Leeds United, pictures of Billy and his new baby sister, Lottie, and updates on all our mates back home.
Kathleen talked about her vegetable patch and the weather, and Michael talked about his building projects and the footie. They talked about Fridge and how proud they were of him. And they told me how proud they were of me.
For months, I couldn’t bring myself to answer those letters. Their kindness was too much to bear.
Before heading downstairs now, I glance at the picture I keep in a frame by my bed – the one Sarge took of us all on the morning of the camp run, just a couple of weeks after Sarah arrived at camp. For a brief moment I imagine myself back there. Before Fridge died, and everything changed.
It’s the same every morning. That one fleeting second where I take in Fridge’s reassuring presence by my side, Sarah’s smile, Squadron’s ridiculous too-tight T shirt, Assami’s unfailing grin, Danny’s anxious frown, and the two loved-up couples. Cherub and Jenni. Jobbo and Caroline.
And then I remember. All of it.
My eyes wander back to Squadron.
I should get a move on. I can’t be late. Not for him.
Downstairs Maggie is filling the house with noise. She tops up the kettle, flicks on the radio and triggers another round of jubilant barking from Elsa as she opens the cupboard to take out her food.
I smile as I pull on my clothes.
Noise.
Noise is good.
It drowns out the sound of my loneliness.