20. Carl
20. Carl
Caroline and I were on one of the early morning walks we took together, exercising the dogs from the kennel where she worked.
It had become our routine after Fridge died. Caroline insisted she needed my help with the dogs, but we both knew she was only doing it for me.
At first, we’d walked together in companionable silence. Mercifully, she didn’t offer meaningless platitudes about Fridge dying doing what he loved, or say how heroic he was, or how brave and honourable.
But as time went on we’d begun to talk about all sorts of things together. In fact, I’d started to enjoy her company so much that sometimes I’d go to the kennels just to hang out with her. Something about watching her with the dogs as they followed her every move, obeyed her every command, made me feel calm. Caroline was gradually teaching me how to be around dogs.
This particular morning she was busy feeding the dogs some treats. Out of the blue, she suddenly asked me, ‘Do you think people like us can be good parents?’ She stared at me.
I knew that by ‘people like us’ she meant people who have been in care. We’d talked about it in the past. Talked about being mixed-up kids who grow into mixed-up adults who do their best to pretend they’re not. But we’d never talked about having families of our own. I didn’t say anything.
‘Jobbo’s been talking about children,’ Caroline went on. ‘I know how much he wants them, and I do too, I really do. But, Carl, I’m scared. What if I’m no better than my own mum? What if I have a kid who’s as good and decent and wonderful as Jobbo, and I mess them up.’
It was something that had crossed my own mind from time to time. I’d always felt like I’d let my brothers down, not fought hard enough for them. Who was to say I wouldn’t do the same with my own children?
But listening now to Caroline say those words out loud, I suddenly knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if someday I was lucky enough to have children, I would never let any harm come to them. I would be there for them in a way that neither of my parents had ever been there for me.
I knew that with an absolute certainty because, like Caroline, I knew how rubbish it felt when they weren’t.
I looked at Caroline. ‘Yes,’ I told her. ‘Yes, I believe we’ll be there for our kids. We’ll know how to be good parents when it’s our turn.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, unconvinced. ‘I always thought my mum loved me but then when my stepdad came along everything was about him. The first time I told her he’d hit me, she didn’t believe me. The second time, she said it was my fault, that I must have provoked him. That I should show more understanding for how much pressure he was under at work. After that, I stopped telling her.
She stopped walking then and looked at me, with tears in her eyes.
‘What if it’s in my DNA, Carl? What if I’m like my mum?’
Behind her I could see a camel train passing the camp’s eastern entrance. The moment Caroline saw it, I knew she would squeal with delight. She always did – even though, every time, I told her they were almost certainly transporting harvested opium.
I put my hands on her shoulders. ‘Caroline, you’ll be an incredible mum.’
‘Do you really think so?’ She looked doubtful.
‘I know so. Look at how you are with the dogs, with all your friends, with me. You’re the most patient, kind, protective, loving person I’ve ever met. You even love camels.’
‘Camels? Where?’ She spun her head around to look at them. ‘Did you know that camels can completely shut their nostrils during sandstorms.’
‘You’re so weird,’ I said, and we both laughed.
Assami waved to us in the distance.
‘What are you two laughing at?’ he asked as he got closer to us.
‘How weird she is,’ I told him.
‘Don’t you listen to him, Miss Caroline,’ he said. ‘He is very bad mannered, and not at all gentlemanly.’
‘That’s true,’ I admitted.
Caroline hugged Assami hello, then reached into her rucksack. ‘For your children,’ she said, holding out three bags of Haribo she’d bought that morning in the camp shop.
Assami placed his right hand over his heart and nodded gently. ‘Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.’
Assami and I hugged Caroline goodbye and left to get ready for our patrol.
I wish I’d known it was the last time I’d see her. I would have hugged her for longer. I would have held on to her for dear life.