35. Carl
35. Carl
Maggie points at her dad’s black suit lying on the dinner table.
‘Go and try it on,’ she orders. ‘You can’t go to the wedding in jeans.’
She’s right. I grab the suit, carefully pick my way out of the kitchen without stepping on Mr Jones, who has taken to falling asleep in the most inconvenient locations – he is currently lying on his back in the middle of the doorway – and head upstairs to try it on.
The suit has been sitting there for nearly a week, but I’ve always hated shopping and trying on clothes.
The only time I ever bought anything was if I was tagging along on one of Fridge’s shopping trips. He’d be posing in front of the changing-room mirror, batting away compliments from a gaggle of assistants, while I’d be praying for a hole to open up and swallow me.
Squadron hated shopping for clothes, too, but only because he was so tall he could never find anything to fit. I smile at the memory of him emerging from a changing room on Fridge’s stag weekend in a pair of comically short trousers.
‘You look like the Incredible Hulk,’ Fridge had laughed.
‘You mean buff and muscular with the abs of a God?’ Squadron had retorted. ‘Anyway, who cares what you think? You’re on your stag weekend, and you want to go shopping when right now we could all be in the pub.’
‘I don’t want to go shopping. But you two will never get into a club tonight in what you’re wearing now. You dress like a couple of teenage tech-bro nerds. A look which, incidentally, neither of you are remotely handsome enough to pull off.’
Squadron had looked at his sad pile of scruffy clothes on the changing-room floor, and growled, ‘Well, don’t just stand there, go and find me some trousers that fit.’
God, I miss those two. I ache for their company, their gentle and not so gentle teasing. I long to tell them about everything that has happened. Ask their advice.
I wish they were coming to the wedding too. This is the first party I’ll ever have been to without Fridge to back me up. He loved to party. He was always the first person to the bar, the first person on the dance floor. The last person to leave.
Sighing, I look down at myself in the suit. It seems to fit, but I have no idea how it looks. Clothes are strictly functional as far as I’m concerned – one of the great advantages of being in the army was never having to waste a moment’s thought on what you were wearing. The welcome anonymity that came with being kitted out, head to toe, in camouflage.
My wardrobe now consists solely of sturdy boots, jeans, a couple of chunky, warm navy sweaters that have seen better days, and a bunch of checked shirts. One uniform swapped for another.
The thought of going shopping without Fridge or Squadron makes me feel indescribably sad. With luck, I won’t have too – the suit looks okay to me – but for once I want to look more than okay. I want to do Jenni and Cherub proud.
There aren’t any long mirrors to look at myself in, so I go downstairs to see what Maggie thinks.
She looks up from the kitchen table and bursts out laughing.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘You look like a bouncer.’
I pick my Leeds United bobble hat up off the table and pull it down over her face. ‘What would you know? You have no class.’
She pulls off the hat and looks me up and down.
‘Does it at least fit?’ I ask.
‘It fits.’
I head back upstairs and change quickly, feeling relieved to be back in my normal clothes. Then I set off for the farm with the dogs, to chop some wood. My head is bursting with thoughts of Fridge and Squadron.
And Sarah.
Thanks to Maggie, I’m now worrying about looking like a knuckleheaded bodyguard the next time I see her.
Chopping wood. Honest labour. That will calm me down.
Elsa skitters obediently along the frosty lane beside me. Poor Mr Jones, with only three legs, skates along as best he can behind her. He has never seen frost before, and he’s struggling to stay upright on the slippery cobbles. I’ve only just put him down and I’m already desperate to pick him up again, but I’m mindful of the vet’s advice to let him make his own way, not to be overprotective.
I still find it hard to look at where his fourth leg should be. It’s a good job I’ll never know the bastard who did that to him.
‘All right, Jonesy,’ I say, encouragingly. ‘You’ve got this.’
Mungo, every bit the ex-military dog, marches dutifully behind them both. He’s very grand, Mungo, and very serious. It’s hard to believe we took him in because the army said he was too skittish to be reliable. I haven’t seen a murmur of skittish behaviour.
They were about to have him put down – I read about it in the local paper shortly after I got back from the dance rehearsal. I rang them up just in time and drove straight over to pick him up as soon as Sarah left hospital.
I’ve been grateful for his silent companionship ever since. Two worn old soldiers together.
Now we’ve reached the farm, Mungo sits obediently on command.
‘Good boy,’ I tell him, patting him on the head. ‘Look after the rest of the patrol for me.’
Knowing they’re in safe hands, I wander into the shed. I grab the axe and a heavy log, and carry them back outside. I place the log in the centre of the old tree stump and adjust my grip until it’s just right.
Then I stand up straight, like I’m on parade, and swing the axe high into the air above me. I love this bit. The moment when I bring the blade down and the log easily splits in two.
Swing. Cut. Swing. Cut.
It’s such a simple act, yet so satisfying, because for those few minutes my mind is completely clear of anything else. Not suits or Sarah or Danny or any of the others. I’m entirely focused on my grip, on feeling the arc of the axe as it curves behind me, and keeping my eyes on the exact spot where I want the blade to land.
When I’m done, my back aches like it used to when I’d got back from an exercise, and my mind is in a good place again. I feel tired and content.
I drop off some freshly cut logs at the farm. The farmer is long since dead, and it’s just his wife, Ettie, on her own. I know she gets lonely, because she always thinks of another story to tell me about him, or something she needs help with, when I say I need to get going.
Today I stay and chat for as long as I can. I gratefully accept the eggs and freshly made bread she always insists on giving me in exchange for the basket of logs.
‘Go on with you now, pet,’ Ettie says. ‘And mind how you go, it’s icy out there.’
Darkness is edging in as I wander down the lane to the cottage. Maggie will have gone home by the time I get back, and I think of Ettie, like me, alone in her remote house.
I’ve got so good at telling myself that’s fine, more than fine, because I have Maggie and Roz and the dogs. And if that’s all that’s written for me, then I’ll make my peace with that.
But I’m done pretending it’s what I want. I want a house that’s a home. Where, when I open the door, Sarah is inside waiting for me.