12. Carl
12. Carl
The storm that had rolled in was so bad I couldn’t see anything in front of me, but I had to get away from the launderette. In my haste to escape, I walked straight into Assami. Dust ricocheted off us both.
‘Whoa there,’ he chuckled. ‘Who are you in such a rush to get to? Or is it get away from?’
He was right. I was running away from Sarah. From how much I’d just realized I felt for her. Sitting next to her, I’d so wanted to reach forward and kiss her. But how could I even think of doing that, knowing that she was with Danny? What sort of man was I?
I’d wanted to talk to her about Fridge, too, about how much I missed him. My grief and guilt at not being able to save him were eating me up inside, but I didn’t know how to express it, where to start.
Mine wasn’t the sort of family that encouraged us to discuss our feelings. ‘Don’t let’s go opening up a whole new can of worms,’ Mum used to say whenever I tried to talk to her about something that was upsetting either of us.
I wanted to tell her how much I missed my brothers. I needed her to tell me it wasn’t my fault they’d been taken away.
‘Best not to think about it,’ she would add, closing the conversation down.
It was why she drank. So she didn’t have to think about her life – specifically about being abandoned by her husband and having two of her three sons, my two kid brothers, taken into care.
‘Carl?’ Assami pressed me. ‘Are you okay?’
When I didn’t respond, he put his arm around my shoulder. ‘Let’s get out of this dust.’
He led me to the canteen – which was mercifully quiet – and sat patiently while I went to get us a couple of coffees.
‘Peace be upon you,’ he said, placing his right hand over his heart, when I came back to join him. ‘Now talk to me, Carl. Tell me what is troubling you.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You are my brother,’ he continued. ‘You can tell me anything.’
I looked up from my coffee, took in his wild, thick black hair and grizzled beard. His lined face. His dark, sympathetic eyes.
He reached forward and put his hand on my shoulder. Something in the way he did it was so reassuring, like the way Michael used to comfort me when I was a kid. I can’t explain it, but I found myself opening up to him.
‘I miss Fridge,’ I told him.
He nodded. ‘He was like a brother to you.’
‘He was. He and his mum and dad were like my family.’
Assami looked at me quizzically. ‘But what about your own family?’
‘I never really knew my dad. It’s always been just Mum and me – and my two younger brothers, Adam and Scott.’
‘So your brothers, you can talk to them?’ Assami asked.
I shook my head. ‘I lost touch with them a long time ago. They were taken into care. My mum drank, so the authorities took them away from her. Me, too, in the beginning. Adam and Scott were placed with a foster family, good people, who adopted them. I was too much of a handful.’
At this Assami smiled.
‘Nobody wanted me, so when Mum got her act together, I was allowed to leave my foster family and go home. She was still drinking, but I learned to look after myself. Looked after her as best I could.
‘And then I met Fridge. His mum and dad were amazing, they became everything to me. Let me stay at theirs when Mum was too drunk to pick me up. Took me to footie training. Fed me. Washed my clothes. All the things parents should do.’
My whole life I’d avoided telling people the truth about my mother, my time in care. I felt ashamed. I didn’t want people judging her, judging me. Fridge and Squadron knew, but I never once felt judged by them, and I didn’t feel judged by Assami now.
‘It must have been hard for you. For your mother too,’ he said kindly.
‘It was tough on Mum,’ I agreed. ‘She never forgave herself for losing Scott and Adam. She has a new boyfriend now, but she still drinks too much. They both do.’
Assami made a sympathetic noise and rubbed his hand up and down his beard, the way he always did when he was considering something. ‘I understand now why you miss Fridge so much,’ he said.
The pain of losing him hit me like a wave all over again. Being in Afghanistan without him, going on patrol, constantly looking over my shoulder, only to remember he wasn’t there.
It felt good talking to Assami. Talking about Fridge made him come alive again, if only briefly.
Sharing the truth about who I was felt strange, but liberating. I didn’t tell him the truth about everything though.
‘And is there a woman in your life?’ Assami asked finally.
How could I tell him? Tell him that the only woman in my life I’d ever been seriously interested in was Danny’s girlfriend.
Sarah.
Even thinking about her made me burn with guilt.